Everyone see this week's "High Stakes Poker"? Just in case...
SPOILER ALERT...
So here's a hand that demonstrates why I and anyone who loves poker loves poker. It comes about 25 minutes into the show if you have it Tivo'd and want to see it for yourself.
The blinds are $400/800.
The twerpily Edward Nortonish but somehow still affable Daniel Negreanu gets 9-10 of spades in early position and raises to $3K (his standard 2.5xBB raise).
Grandfatherly old fart Doyle Brunson calls with Q's (hearts and clubs).
Cultured and refreshingly laid-back David Benyamine calls in the SB with 7-5 of spades.
According to my handy odds calculator (DD Poker, folks. It's the best...and it's free!), Doyle is about a 68% favorite at this point.
The flop: 8 of spades, 3 of spades, 9 of clubs.
According to the on-screen graphic, Negreanu (with top pair and the flush draw) is actually now the favorite over Doyle's over-pair, 45 to 43%. Benyamine is a mere 12%.
Negreanu bets $8,500 - about 3/4 of the pot.
Doyle calls instead of raising, which strikes me as kind of a dicey move with the flush draw on the board. Gabe Kaplan sounds surprised as well. (The "Kotter" nostalgia Kaplan's hokey patter provides is one of the main reasons I watch this show.)
Benyamine calls, surely not suspecting anyone else of being on the flush draw.
The turn...and here's where it REALLY gets good...is the Q of spades.
"Wow, what a card," remarks Kaplan, wildly understating the situation.
All three players now have strong reason to think they have the best hands, but Negreanu is the 78% favorite over Doyle, while Benyamine is drawing dead.
Drawing dead, I tell you. Name another game where a player could think they are winning when in fact they literally have no chance of winning. Not the old-fashioned way, anyhow.
Everyone checks.
Did this make sense for everyone?
On the one hand, Negreanu and Benyamine risk another spade coming out, which would leave them vulnerable to (and thus make them nervous about) anyone with a higher spade than them. On the other, they're successfully hiding their flushes from each other and Doyle.
Doyle is thinking, "If I bet and get check-raised, I have to assume at least one of them has the flush, and fold. If they both fold, then they didn't have the flush, and I probably could have made more money with my top set. If they call, I won't know where I stand. Whereas...If I don't bet, I might have a free chance at hitting a full house, and even if I don't hit it, if a non-spade comes, I'm probably good."
The river: Ace of hearts.
So NOW where are we?
Negreanu and Benyamine are feeling pretty good about their flushes, and Doyle LOVES that Ace. The checks on the turn indicated no flushes, but the Ace might have just given someone top pair or two pair. He has practically no reason to think he's not sitting pretty.
Benyamine, playing it safe with his medium-sized flush, checks.
Negreanu, now feeling pretty comfortable, bets $26,200, about 2/3 of the pot.
Doyle calls.
Why not raise? Same sort of problem, is my guess. If Benyamine or Negreanu RE-raises, he'll have to fold. Obviously, Benyamine has the opportunity to raise either way, but a raise by Benyamine (as we'll see) won't force him out, as it could mean a lot of things. A RE-raise would.
Over to Benyamine. Kaplan intones, "I believe David thinks he's got the best hand, that he's the only one with the flush...There's no way Doyle has the flush, and it doesn't look like Daniel has the flush."
Sure enough, Benyamine raises to $101,200. (I'll never get the logistics behind the weird bets on this show.)
Negreanu rubs his eyes, gives off a few bizarre shakes of the head, obviously perplexed. Benyamine is a sphinx.
40 seconds pass...before Negreanu reluctantly pushes his hand in.
Over to Doyle, who mutters in Benyamine's direction, "Checked that hand twice (unintelligible) with that hand...That's hard for me to believe." Pensively shuffles his chips for a few seconds...and calls.
"Flush," says Benyamine.
Doyle accepts defeat silently.
"How big?" asks Daniel.
"Small." says Benyamine, showing down.
"Damnit!" says Daniel, slamming his hand on the table. "Unbelievable!"
Wasn't it, though?
The 2nd-best hand wins by wrongly believing he had the best hand, the worst hand pays off a bundle for wrongly believing that he did, and the best hand, wrongly believing he was beaten, folded.
How cool is that?
We learn from Benyamine in an interview after the commercial break:
"If somebody bets into me (on the turn), I'm probably going to think I'm beat. I probably would have to call one time and then would lay down probably the second time..."
On his raise on the river:
"Now when Daniel bets, I was never going to raise him, but once Doyle calls, I believe that Daniel might be in the middle between Doyle and I. If I raise him and he's capable of laying down, and if he hasn't bet the turn, he doesn't have like a King-high flush or an Ace-high flush, so he can lay down a medium-sized flush..."
Not sure I follow all that, but the point is, checking the turn was both Negreanu's and Brunson's big mistake...and yet, it was arguably a perfectly reasonable move for both of them.
And that's why I love this goddamn game.
Any thoughts?
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Worst Beat Ever?
So this happened at my weekly sit-n-go, night before my birthday, a couple weeks ago, but I suspect the memory will linger well into the after-life.
The set-up:
a. I'd already re-bought, having lost my initial buy-in to the guy to my right hitting back-to-back spade flushes on me;
b. Everyone else...I mean, really, EVERYONE else...was scooping huge pots with Big Slick that night.
So to the hand: I had about $9K (out of a buy-in of $20K) (for the uninitiated - these are TOURNAMENT figures; each buy-in is $20). We were approaching the end of the rebuy period, so the villain across the table from me apparently decided he'd rather rebuy and begin the second half with $20K than the shaky $10K he had, so he went all-in with 7-3 off-suit, which - again, for the uninitiated - is probably the second or third worst possible pre-flop hand. Everyone folded except me, with my seemingly unbeatable A-K (arguably among the TOP five hands pre-flop, despite being a notorious loser. My favorite nickname for it is "Anna Kournikova", explained to me by an old gentleman at a Commerce table: "Looks pretty, but never wins.").
So I flip my gold, he flips his garbage, everyone chuckles heartily at the schmattering that was clearly about to ensue...and I'll let the photo take it from here, adding only that this is one of several photos taken, as the final card prompted practically the entire group to leap to their seats and whip out their camera-phones.
Yup. It's that bad.
Enjoy.
Coda:
After this massacre, partly because it was my birthday eve, and partly out of sheer, heartbreaking sympathy, my buds let me bend the rules and do a SECOND rebuy after this hand. Within minutes, my pocket K's were topped by pocket A's, and I was done.
Happy birthday!
So what's YOUR worst beat ever?
The set-up:
a. I'd already re-bought, having lost my initial buy-in to the guy to my right hitting back-to-back spade flushes on me;
b. Everyone else...I mean, really, EVERYONE else...was scooping huge pots with Big Slick that night.
So to the hand: I had about $9K (out of a buy-in of $20K) (for the uninitiated - these are TOURNAMENT figures; each buy-in is $20). We were approaching the end of the rebuy period, so the villain across the table from me apparently decided he'd rather rebuy and begin the second half with $20K than the shaky $10K he had, so he went all-in with 7-3 off-suit, which - again, for the uninitiated - is probably the second or third worst possible pre-flop hand. Everyone folded except me, with my seemingly unbeatable A-K (arguably among the TOP five hands pre-flop, despite being a notorious loser. My favorite nickname for it is "Anna Kournikova", explained to me by an old gentleman at a Commerce table: "Looks pretty, but never wins.").
So I flip my gold, he flips his garbage, everyone chuckles heartily at the schmattering that was clearly about to ensue...and I'll let the photo take it from here, adding only that this is one of several photos taken, as the final card prompted practically the entire group to leap to their seats and whip out their camera-phones.
Yup. It's that bad.
Enjoy.
Coda:
After this massacre, partly because it was my birthday eve, and partly out of sheer, heartbreaking sympathy, my buds let me bend the rules and do a SECOND rebuy after this hand. Within minutes, my pocket K's were topped by pocket A's, and I was done.
Happy birthday!
So what's YOUR worst beat ever?
Website's up!
Hey, everyone...
Held off on blog posts for the past couple weeks while the official Chip Chap website was being created...but the wait is over!
Check 'er out...
http://thechipchap.com/
Held off on blog posts for the past couple weeks while the official Chip Chap website was being created...but the wait is over!
Check 'er out...
http://thechipchap.com/
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Live-blogging "Rounders", Part 1
When I give introductory lessons at tournaments, I often begin by asking if anyone has played Texas Hold 'em before. Then I broaden it to if anyone has played any kind of poker before. Then even broader: Have any of you ever watched poker on TV? And finally: Has anyone here seen "Rounders"?
I like the movie, don't love it, but I recommend it to new players because it recreates the feel of an actual poker game better than any film I know of. "The Cincinnati Kid" and "A Big Hand for the Little Lady" are more entertaining and ultimately satisfying, but "Rounders", aside from featuring a great cast, fairly sharp dialogue, and the most hilariously tortured Russian accent you'll ever hear, does the best job of convincingly putting you at a poker table. Unfortunately, it also feature a horribly wrong-headed climax that nearly wrecks the movie (I'll address it when we get there), and it omits some pretty vital information about the game that makes it rough going, at times even incomprehensible, for the uninitiated.
Unless, of course, they have ME to live-blog in their ear the whole time, so without further ado...
1: 39 - Mike, played by the solidly affable Matt Damon, sums up his strategy in voice-over: "Your goal is to win one big bet an hour. That's it. Get your money in when you have the best of it, protect it when you don't." The advice Mike dispenses throughout the movie is, for the most part, reasonable. Actually, a lot of it is so reasonable that it borders on the bleedin' obvious.
3:46 - John Turturro as "Joey Knish" (this movie is crammed with good names), advising Michael to play a more moderately priced game rather than risk his entire $30,000 bankroll at the big table. You gotta like a movie where John Turturro is the voice of reason.
5:04 - Damon summarizes No-Limit Texas Hold 'em very briefly. TOO briefly, in fact. Would it have killed them to take an additional 30 seconds to run down the hand rankings for the poker illiterate? Imagine watching a baseball movie and not knowing what strikeouts, walks and home runs are. Anyone who knows nothing about poker just got left behind.
Damon goes on, "The key to the game is playing the man, not the cards." Which is NOT what the movie goes on to demonstrate, nor is it specific to Hold 'em...but okay.
"There's no other game in which fortunes can change so much from hand to hand." Um...Really?
As a side note, though, I quite like Malkovich's shirt in this scene.
6:26 - Speaking of Malkovich...Here's that aforementioned tortured Russian accent. He pronounces "Go ahead" as "Ga-chead", harshening the "ch" like it's Hebrew. Just priceless. It's also polarizing: You either love it or hate it, no in-between. I gotta admit, it's grown on me over the years.
Damon gets A-9 suited, and the flop comes A-9-8, two of them spades. Damon tells us, "Against your average guy, I'd set a bear trap, hardly bet at all, let him walk into it." Really? With two spades on the flop and a possible straight draw as well? Not to mention the possibility of him hitting a higher two-pair on the turn or river if he's got Ace-10 through King? Umm...Okay.
Also, apparently in this weird little underground club, they don't push their money in the pot after each betting round. Recipe for disaster, I'd say...especially with Malkovich gleefully splashing the pot now and then.
7:01 - So, as we learn later, when Malkovich has a hand, he "listens" to his Oreo cookie, opens it with a flourish, and eats it. When he's bluffing, he sets it aside. Seriously? The antagonist, the ultimate bully, the guy everyone is quaking in their boots around, has the most wildly obvious tell in the history of poker?
"Bur-run and tur-run," Malkovich purrs, turning three syllables into five. Those in the audience who don't know what "Burn and turn" means are frantically whispering to each other in mass confusion.
Damon hits full house, 9's over Aces, or 9's full of Aces, (in voice-over, he redundantly calls them "9's full over Aces") on the turn. 3 of spades comes on the river, and NOW he finally explains that a full house beats a flush (whatever a "flush" is, think the newbies). Better late than never, I guess.
I like the movie, don't love it, but I recommend it to new players because it recreates the feel of an actual poker game better than any film I know of. "The Cincinnati Kid" and "A Big Hand for the Little Lady" are more entertaining and ultimately satisfying, but "Rounders", aside from featuring a great cast, fairly sharp dialogue, and the most hilariously tortured Russian accent you'll ever hear, does the best job of convincingly putting you at a poker table. Unfortunately, it also feature a horribly wrong-headed climax that nearly wrecks the movie (I'll address it when we get there), and it omits some pretty vital information about the game that makes it rough going, at times even incomprehensible, for the uninitiated.
Unless, of course, they have ME to live-blog in their ear the whole time, so without further ado...
1: 39 - Mike, played by the solidly affable Matt Damon, sums up his strategy in voice-over: "Your goal is to win one big bet an hour. That's it. Get your money in when you have the best of it, protect it when you don't." The advice Mike dispenses throughout the movie is, for the most part, reasonable. Actually, a lot of it is so reasonable that it borders on the bleedin' obvious.
3:46 - John Turturro as "Joey Knish" (this movie is crammed with good names), advising Michael to play a more moderately priced game rather than risk his entire $30,000 bankroll at the big table. You gotta like a movie where John Turturro is the voice of reason.
5:04 - Damon summarizes No-Limit Texas Hold 'em very briefly. TOO briefly, in fact. Would it have killed them to take an additional 30 seconds to run down the hand rankings for the poker illiterate? Imagine watching a baseball movie and not knowing what strikeouts, walks and home runs are. Anyone who knows nothing about poker just got left behind.
Damon goes on, "The key to the game is playing the man, not the cards." Which is NOT what the movie goes on to demonstrate, nor is it specific to Hold 'em...but okay.
"There's no other game in which fortunes can change so much from hand to hand." Um...Really?
As a side note, though, I quite like Malkovich's shirt in this scene.
6:26 - Speaking of Malkovich...Here's that aforementioned tortured Russian accent. He pronounces "Go ahead" as "Ga-chead", harshening the "ch" like it's Hebrew. Just priceless. It's also polarizing: You either love it or hate it, no in-between. I gotta admit, it's grown on me over the years.
Damon gets A-9 suited, and the flop comes A-9-8, two of them spades. Damon tells us, "Against your average guy, I'd set a bear trap, hardly bet at all, let him walk into it." Really? With two spades on the flop and a possible straight draw as well? Not to mention the possibility of him hitting a higher two-pair on the turn or river if he's got Ace-10 through King? Umm...Okay.
Also, apparently in this weird little underground club, they don't push their money in the pot after each betting round. Recipe for disaster, I'd say...especially with Malkovich gleefully splashing the pot now and then.
7:01 - So, as we learn later, when Malkovich has a hand, he "listens" to his Oreo cookie, opens it with a flourish, and eats it. When he's bluffing, he sets it aside. Seriously? The antagonist, the ultimate bully, the guy everyone is quaking in their boots around, has the most wildly obvious tell in the history of poker?
"Bur-run and tur-run," Malkovich purrs, turning three syllables into five. Those in the audience who don't know what "Burn and turn" means are frantically whispering to each other in mass confusion.
Damon hits full house, 9's over Aces, or 9's full of Aces, (in voice-over, he redundantly calls them "9's full over Aces") on the turn. 3 of spades comes on the river, and NOW he finally explains that a full house beats a flush (whatever a "flush" is, think the newbies). Better late than never, I guess.
Live-blogging "Rounders", Part 2
11:16: - Damon is forced to get a day job that Turturro hands down "to rounders who forget the cardinal fucking rule: Always leave yourself outs." I have no idea what that means, and am pretty sure it's not the cardinal fucking rule (of...poker? Life?). "Outs" is the amount of cards you need to improve your hand. How exactly do you "leave yourself outs"?
15:00 - The judges are playing 7-card Stud. For a movie that touts No-Limit Hold 'em as "the Cadillac of poker", it has a bizarre amount of Stud in it. But Stud is the right game for this type of group (Read: Old people play this game.), so it makes sense here.
19:37 - We meet Edward Norton's character, Worm, playing cards in prison. I've always kind of been of the mindset that naming a character "Worm" when his main characteristic is worminess is kind of clumsy, but what do I know? Incidentally, they're not playing poker at all, they're playing Hearts. Not how I picture prison, but it's an arena I'm happy to remain ignorant about.
28:27 - Michael joins the preppy home game, feigning ignorance. They're playing Chicago, which as they explain, is a stud game in which the high spade in the hole (meaning one of your three face-down cards) wins half the pot. This seems to be a dealer's choice game, so yeah, weird-ass games like this tend to come up.
29:24 - Damon rationalizes cheating the college students: "Like they teach you in One L, caveat emptor, pal." You probably know this, but so we're clear: "One L" isn't a poker term, it means the first year of law school. Or maybe he means Scott Turow's book ABOUT the first year of law school.
29:33 - Damon marvels at Norton's mastery of "discard calls, pick-up calls, overhand run-offs, the double duke." I've never heard any of these terms. They sound cool, though, don't they?
30:01 - Norton feigns frustration with Damon: "Fuck you and your never-ending string of boats, okay?" Again, they omit explaining that "boats" are full houses. The uninformed might assume that Damon has been pretending to be some sort of shipping magnate.
37:55 - Seven-card stud with the Russians. MORE stud? Norton "slow-rolls" his two pair, meaning that he reveals his winning hand with deliberate, sadistic slowness. Maurice calls him a "Motherfucker" for doing this. Maurice is right. Don't slow-roll, kids.
48:44 - Damon advises the reliably paternal Martin Landau: "You want to play premium hands...If it's good enough to call, you gotta be in there raising, all right, I mean tight, but aggressive, and I do mean aggressive, that's your style, Professor, I mean you gotta... you gotta think of it as a war." Again, not really what the movie ultimately demonstrates (i.e. Damon wins by checking and calling repeatedly. More on this later.), but fairly sound advice.
51:22 - Landau summarizes his rather long story: "We can't run from who we are. Our destiny chooses us." Did Landau just tell Damon that he's destined to be a poker player? Umm...Okay.
57:29: - "If a fish acts strong, he's bluffing. If he acts meek, he's got a hand. It's that simple." Hasn't been my experience, but okay.
15:00 - The judges are playing 7-card Stud. For a movie that touts No-Limit Hold 'em as "the Cadillac of poker", it has a bizarre amount of Stud in it. But Stud is the right game for this type of group (Read: Old people play this game.), so it makes sense here.
19:37 - We meet Edward Norton's character, Worm, playing cards in prison. I've always kind of been of the mindset that naming a character "Worm" when his main characteristic is worminess is kind of clumsy, but what do I know? Incidentally, they're not playing poker at all, they're playing Hearts. Not how I picture prison, but it's an arena I'm happy to remain ignorant about.
28:27 - Michael joins the preppy home game, feigning ignorance. They're playing Chicago, which as they explain, is a stud game in which the high spade in the hole (meaning one of your three face-down cards) wins half the pot. This seems to be a dealer's choice game, so yeah, weird-ass games like this tend to come up.
29:24 - Damon rationalizes cheating the college students: "Like they teach you in One L, caveat emptor, pal." You probably know this, but so we're clear: "One L" isn't a poker term, it means the first year of law school. Or maybe he means Scott Turow's book ABOUT the first year of law school.
29:33 - Damon marvels at Norton's mastery of "discard calls, pick-up calls, overhand run-offs, the double duke." I've never heard any of these terms. They sound cool, though, don't they?
30:01 - Norton feigns frustration with Damon: "Fuck you and your never-ending string of boats, okay?" Again, they omit explaining that "boats" are full houses. The uninformed might assume that Damon has been pretending to be some sort of shipping magnate.
37:55 - Seven-card stud with the Russians. MORE stud? Norton "slow-rolls" his two pair, meaning that he reveals his winning hand with deliberate, sadistic slowness. Maurice calls him a "Motherfucker" for doing this. Maurice is right. Don't slow-roll, kids.
48:44 - Damon advises the reliably paternal Martin Landau: "You want to play premium hands...If it's good enough to call, you gotta be in there raising, all right, I mean tight, but aggressive, and I do mean aggressive, that's your style, Professor, I mean you gotta... you gotta think of it as a war." Again, not really what the movie ultimately demonstrates (i.e. Damon wins by checking and calling repeatedly. More on this later.), but fairly sound advice.
51:22 - Landau summarizes his rather long story: "We can't run from who we are. Our destiny chooses us." Did Landau just tell Damon that he's destined to be a poker player? Umm...Okay.
57:29: - "If a fish acts strong, he's bluffing. If he acts meek, he's got a hand. It's that simple." Hasn't been my experience, but okay.
Live-blogging "Rounders", Part 3
1:03:42 - Now we come to a really weird scene.
1. Damon is watching and re-watching Johnny Chan call Eric Seidel's all-in after flopping nut straight.
Seriously? He's replaying a shot of a man calling an all-in when he has the nut straight? Like it's the Willie Mays catch or the John Paxson buzzer shot in the '93 Finals? I could see him being fascinated by a brilliant bluff or a risky call or some hugely unexpected bad beat...but calling an all-in with the nuts? It's like replaying the final 10 seconds of a football game when the winning team has the ball. What's worth the scrutiny here?
2. The absurdly sexy Famke Janssen enters and instantly recognizes what Damon's watching: "Ah, the '88 Series." Like it's Casablanca or something. She remarks in awe: "Johnny Chan flops the nut straight and has the discipline to wait him out." I'm still not seeing the fascination here; what else WOULD Chan do?
3. Damon rebuffs her advances. For some reason. Even the filmmakers, on the commentary track, admit how nutzoid this is.
1:15:15 - They're playing a hi-lo game here, and according to IMDb, it's 7-card Stud. Again with the Stud? How did this movie turn Hold 'em into the national craze instead of Stud? Anyway, Damon shows down "The wheel", meaning a 5-high straight, which is the best "low" hand possible and a decent high hand, so he scoops the whole pot.
1:20:00 - The game with the cops. Stud AGAIN! This time, Worm gets caught cheating, and they both get beaten up. Wait, so a roomful of cops catches some guys cheating them at poker...and all they wind up with is some cuts on their faces? Not a single broken bone? Cracked rib? Bruise? These are apparently the gentlest cops in America.
1. Damon is watching and re-watching Johnny Chan call Eric Seidel's all-in after flopping nut straight.
Seriously? He's replaying a shot of a man calling an all-in when he has the nut straight? Like it's the Willie Mays catch or the John Paxson buzzer shot in the '93 Finals? I could see him being fascinated by a brilliant bluff or a risky call or some hugely unexpected bad beat...but calling an all-in with the nuts? It's like replaying the final 10 seconds of a football game when the winning team has the ball. What's worth the scrutiny here?
2. The absurdly sexy Famke Janssen enters and instantly recognizes what Damon's watching: "Ah, the '88 Series." Like it's Casablanca or something. She remarks in awe: "Johnny Chan flops the nut straight and has the discipline to wait him out." I'm still not seeing the fascination here; what else WOULD Chan do?
3. Damon rebuffs her advances. For some reason. Even the filmmakers, on the commentary track, admit how nutzoid this is.
1:15:15 - They're playing a hi-lo game here, and according to IMDb, it's 7-card Stud. Again with the Stud? How did this movie turn Hold 'em into the national craze instead of Stud? Anyway, Damon shows down "The wheel", meaning a 5-high straight, which is the best "low" hand possible and a decent high hand, so he scoops the whole pot.
1:20:00 - The game with the cops. Stud AGAIN! This time, Worm gets caught cheating, and they both get beaten up. Wait, so a roomful of cops catches some guys cheating them at poker...and all they wind up with is some cuts on their faces? Not a single broken bone? Cracked rib? Bruise? These are apparently the gentlest cops in America.
Live-blogging "Rounders", Part 4
1:33:07 - Damon's Johnny Chan story. I call bullshit on it, and not just because it ends with Chan asking "Did you have it?" like some high school twerp. Follow me on this:
So it's a 300/600 game. Damon sat down with $6000, so 10 Big Blinds, and he says he's been mostly folding for a while, so he's probably still got around that amount when the story starts, which is to say...he's short-stacked.
That in mind: He bets the flop. Now he's already got at least one BB in, and he'd have to be betting at least one more to stay in, so now he's got at most, 8 BB's left.
Chan raises him. Why wouldn't Chan just put the short stack all-in? Dunno, but okay, he doesn't. But he must have raised him MOST of his stack at least, right?
Except no, Damon apparently has enough left to RE-re-raise. Why not just go all-in? Dunno, but okay.
Chan now RE-re-re-raises. Wha? He's STILL not putting Damon all in? For God's sake, WHY? And HOW could Damon possibly have any money left on top of that?
Dunno, but guess what...Damon RE-re-re-re-raises! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
Dunno...but surely NOW Chan puts him all-in, like he should have in the first place, right? I mean, he's got so much money in already, and Damon HAS to be close to being all-in at this point, so it would make absolutely no sense to do anything but put Damon all...
Wha?!?
Chan folds!?!?!?!?
Ummm...Okay. But you left out the Monty Pythonesque subtitle, "THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN, NOR WAS IT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE." Total freakin' fish story, and Turturro completely bought it.
Whatever. Let's just move on.
1:39:00 - Malkovich warns Damon about the money being due: "Eef you don't haf eet all by then, then you are mine!" Which means...what, exactly? Malkovich will kill him? Enslave him? Sell him? Generally, as a moviegoer, I like to know what's at stake for the protagonist if he loses, but what do I know?
1:43:39 - Okay, HERE'S where my big problems with this movie really begin.
Damon wins the $5K he needs to pay his debt, and he starts to leave. But Malkovich taunts him into staying and letting it ride, reminding him that "I em payink you weeth your monney!" and pantomiming how he "stuck it in him" last time. In other words, Malkovich is acting like an infant.
Now presumably, what's happened to Damon over the course of this story is that he's learned his lesson, he's matured, he's put away childish things, he's immune to such puerility and has the good sense to walk away when he's got what he wants, right?
No! Damon can't resist such teasing, and sits back down.
So THIS is the lesson he learns? Don't walk away when someone's teasing you? Damon explains: "I told Worm you can't lose what you don't put in the middle...but you can't win much either." Dude, in the course of a few hours, you just won the debt you've spent half the movie running yourself ragged for! That's not winning much? You haven't put enough in the middle yet?
1:45:30 - It gets weirder. FINALLY, Damon spots Malkovich's Oreo tell, and then makes it deliberately obvious that he's spotted it. So a) It took THIS LONG for Damon, the poker genius who could read the judges' hands just by watching their eyes, to notice the most telling tell in the history of tells? B) It took Malkovich, the most fearsome, intimidating player in the movie, this many years of playing to realize that he has this tell? None of his goons ever pointed it out to him? C) Damon tells us that he pointed it out because he doesn't have time to let Malk munch those Oreos all night.
Wha? He doesn't have time? It's SLOWER to play a guy whose tell you've spotted? Or is Malkovich eating the Oreos that slowly? If he'd said "I wanted to beat Teddy fair and square" I might have bought it, but he does this because of TIME? Sorry, but this makes no sense at all.
1:47:58 - Damon flops a straight (JUST LIKE JOHNNY CHAN! GET IT NOW?). He checks each round, lets Malkovich bet, calls each time. Again: Who WOULDN'T play it this way? It doesn't take brilliant Chanesque discipline to check the nuts and let the opponent bet, just common friggin' sense.
But more to the point, the movie's notion of a character arc is completely out of whack. When you start out with a character losing everything because he did something stupid, what you're generally going for, arc-wise, is that at the crucial climactic moment, he demonstrates that he's learned from this mistake. So what was Damon's initial screw-up? Did he play badly at the beginning? No, he actually played that hand perfectly well; he went all-in with an extremely strong hand and had the incredibly bad luck of facing one of the few hands that could beat him.
If he did anything wrong, it was risking his entire bankroll on a game which, despite it requiring a great deal of skill, is also not insignificantly dependent on luck. As much as the pros hate to admit it, it's not a game where the best players always win.
So if anything, Damon's lesson should be: Don't put EVERYTHING on the line when luck is involved. (Maybe that's what he means by "Always leave yourself outs"?). But in fact, Damon DOES do this again, and this time it's even WORSE, because he's not just risking his own savings this time, he's risking money he OWES, to Grama and to the judge. And what happens as a result? He is rewarded for it, with a no-brainer hand that any newbie would clean up with!
Now don't get me wrong here. I'm okay with a protagonist not learning something over the course of a movie, and I'm okay with a protagonist being rewarded in the end despite not having learned his lesson. But you can't do that and then PLAY IT like the hero is being rewarded for having learned his lesson. Yet that's how it feels, and the writers confirm this on the commentary track, that the idea is that Damon has learned that you have to take risks sometimes if you want to win anything. Uh, guys...He risked HIS ENTIRE SAVINGS at the beginning and lost it! Where were you?
Anyway, beyond that...Why is Grama so upset? He gets his money. What was he hoping would happen if Damon can't pay him? He gets to kill Damon? Force Damon to be his butler? Sleep with Gretchen Mol? First, he was pissed because Norton didn't have his money, and now he's pissed that Damon DOES? There's no pleasing this guy!
1:53:48 - Damon, the guy who took all night just to spot that insane Oreo tell and then pointed it out for some baffling reason, and then went on to win the game by the pure luck of flopping the nut straight, is off to Vegas. His feeble closing line: "First prize at the WS is a million bucks. Does it have my name on it? I don't know. But I'm gonna find out."
Ummm...Lemme save you some time, Matt...
So it's a 300/600 game. Damon sat down with $6000, so 10 Big Blinds, and he says he's been mostly folding for a while, so he's probably still got around that amount when the story starts, which is to say...he's short-stacked.
That in mind: He bets the flop. Now he's already got at least one BB in, and he'd have to be betting at least one more to stay in, so now he's got at most, 8 BB's left.
Chan raises him. Why wouldn't Chan just put the short stack all-in? Dunno, but okay, he doesn't. But he must have raised him MOST of his stack at least, right?
Except no, Damon apparently has enough left to RE-re-raise. Why not just go all-in? Dunno, but okay.
Chan now RE-re-re-raises. Wha? He's STILL not putting Damon all in? For God's sake, WHY? And HOW could Damon possibly have any money left on top of that?
Dunno, but guess what...Damon RE-re-re-re-raises! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
Dunno...but surely NOW Chan puts him all-in, like he should have in the first place, right? I mean, he's got so much money in already, and Damon HAS to be close to being all-in at this point, so it would make absolutely no sense to do anything but put Damon all...
Wha?!?
Chan folds!?!?!?!?
Ummm...Okay. But you left out the Monty Pythonesque subtitle, "THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN, NOR WAS IT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE." Total freakin' fish story, and Turturro completely bought it.
Whatever. Let's just move on.
1:39:00 - Malkovich warns Damon about the money being due: "Eef you don't haf eet all by then, then you are mine!" Which means...what, exactly? Malkovich will kill him? Enslave him? Sell him? Generally, as a moviegoer, I like to know what's at stake for the protagonist if he loses, but what do I know?
1:43:39 - Okay, HERE'S where my big problems with this movie really begin.
Damon wins the $5K he needs to pay his debt, and he starts to leave. But Malkovich taunts him into staying and letting it ride, reminding him that "I em payink you weeth your monney!" and pantomiming how he "stuck it in him" last time. In other words, Malkovich is acting like an infant.
Now presumably, what's happened to Damon over the course of this story is that he's learned his lesson, he's matured, he's put away childish things, he's immune to such puerility and has the good sense to walk away when he's got what he wants, right?
No! Damon can't resist such teasing, and sits back down.
So THIS is the lesson he learns? Don't walk away when someone's teasing you? Damon explains: "I told Worm you can't lose what you don't put in the middle...but you can't win much either." Dude, in the course of a few hours, you just won the debt you've spent half the movie running yourself ragged for! That's not winning much? You haven't put enough in the middle yet?
1:45:30 - It gets weirder. FINALLY, Damon spots Malkovich's Oreo tell, and then makes it deliberately obvious that he's spotted it. So a) It took THIS LONG for Damon, the poker genius who could read the judges' hands just by watching their eyes, to notice the most telling tell in the history of tells? B) It took Malkovich, the most fearsome, intimidating player in the movie, this many years of playing to realize that he has this tell? None of his goons ever pointed it out to him? C) Damon tells us that he pointed it out because he doesn't have time to let Malk munch those Oreos all night.
Wha? He doesn't have time? It's SLOWER to play a guy whose tell you've spotted? Or is Malkovich eating the Oreos that slowly? If he'd said "I wanted to beat Teddy fair and square" I might have bought it, but he does this because of TIME? Sorry, but this makes no sense at all.
1:47:58 - Damon flops a straight (JUST LIKE JOHNNY CHAN! GET IT NOW?). He checks each round, lets Malkovich bet, calls each time. Again: Who WOULDN'T play it this way? It doesn't take brilliant Chanesque discipline to check the nuts and let the opponent bet, just common friggin' sense.
But more to the point, the movie's notion of a character arc is completely out of whack. When you start out with a character losing everything because he did something stupid, what you're generally going for, arc-wise, is that at the crucial climactic moment, he demonstrates that he's learned from this mistake. So what was Damon's initial screw-up? Did he play badly at the beginning? No, he actually played that hand perfectly well; he went all-in with an extremely strong hand and had the incredibly bad luck of facing one of the few hands that could beat him.
If he did anything wrong, it was risking his entire bankroll on a game which, despite it requiring a great deal of skill, is also not insignificantly dependent on luck. As much as the pros hate to admit it, it's not a game where the best players always win.
So if anything, Damon's lesson should be: Don't put EVERYTHING on the line when luck is involved. (Maybe that's what he means by "Always leave yourself outs"?). But in fact, Damon DOES do this again, and this time it's even WORSE, because he's not just risking his own savings this time, he's risking money he OWES, to Grama and to the judge. And what happens as a result? He is rewarded for it, with a no-brainer hand that any newbie would clean up with!
Now don't get me wrong here. I'm okay with a protagonist not learning something over the course of a movie, and I'm okay with a protagonist being rewarded in the end despite not having learned his lesson. But you can't do that and then PLAY IT like the hero is being rewarded for having learned his lesson. Yet that's how it feels, and the writers confirm this on the commentary track, that the idea is that Damon has learned that you have to take risks sometimes if you want to win anything. Uh, guys...He risked HIS ENTIRE SAVINGS at the beginning and lost it! Where were you?
Anyway, beyond that...Why is Grama so upset? He gets his money. What was he hoping would happen if Damon can't pay him? He gets to kill Damon? Force Damon to be his butler? Sleep with Gretchen Mol? First, he was pissed because Norton didn't have his money, and now he's pissed that Damon DOES? There's no pleasing this guy!
1:53:48 - Damon, the guy who took all night just to spot that insane Oreo tell and then pointed it out for some baffling reason, and then went on to win the game by the pure luck of flopping the nut straight, is off to Vegas. His feeble closing line: "First prize at the WS is a million bucks. Does it have my name on it? I don't know. But I'm gonna find out."
Ummm...Lemme save you some time, Matt...
Saturday, February 27, 2010
My First Celebrity Tournament
Dealing a celebrity tournament is a lot like dealing a non-celebrity tournament, except that a) Everywhere you look are the most beautiful-looking people you've ever seen; b) The game is slowed down a lot by these beautiful-looking people distracting the celebrity players by approaching them for chit-chat and the celebrities being unable to ignore them, due to their being so damn beautiful-looking. So some extra patience is required.
This was my takeaway from my first celeb tournament, "Get Lucky for Lupus", held earlier this month on the top floor of the swanky Andaz Hotel on the Sunset Strip. The event's website will presumably post some photos soon, at least some of which will contain a cameo by yours truly, but in the meantime, I managed to snap a few myself during my break.
Here's the table I'd just spent the first few rounds dealing:
The guy with his hand to his temple is Jesse Spencer, who plays Dr. Chase on "House", one of the few TV shows I actually watch with any regularity. On the far right, leaning back, is Peter Jacobson, who plays Dr. Taub, and - trivia note for your Chicagoans - is also the son of legendary CBS news anchor Walter Jacobson.
The guy giving the thumbs-up was probably the most popular guy at the table among the BP's (a few of which can be seen in the background). I had no idea who he was, but found out later that he was Bob "The Bachelor" Guiney. The photo doesn't really do justice to the lovely panoramic view of LA we had. Nice reflection of the flash in the window, though, innit?
I literally did not recognize any of the women there, not even women who I SHOULD have recognized, like Tia Carrere, of whom my "Wayne's World" memories still linger. The blonde in this photo is Torrie Wilson, who I believe has something to do with pro wrestling. The Asian guy on the far right is James Kyson Lee from "Heroes". Dealing, incidentally, is Mike Curley, one of my instructors at the casino school.
This was my takeaway from my first celeb tournament, "Get Lucky for Lupus", held earlier this month on the top floor of the swanky Andaz Hotel on the Sunset Strip. The event's website will presumably post some photos soon, at least some of which will contain a cameo by yours truly, but in the meantime, I managed to snap a few myself during my break.
Here's the table I'd just spent the first few rounds dealing:
The guy with his hand to his temple is Jesse Spencer, who plays Dr. Chase on "House", one of the few TV shows I actually watch with any regularity. On the far right, leaning back, is Peter Jacobson, who plays Dr. Taub, and - trivia note for your Chicagoans - is also the son of legendary CBS news anchor Walter Jacobson.
The guy giving the thumbs-up was probably the most popular guy at the table among the BP's (a few of which can be seen in the background). I had no idea who he was, but found out later that he was Bob "The Bachelor" Guiney. The photo doesn't really do justice to the lovely panoramic view of LA we had. Nice reflection of the flash in the window, though, innit?
I literally did not recognize any of the women there, not even women who I SHOULD have recognized, like Tia Carrere, of whom my "Wayne's World" memories still linger. The blonde in this photo is Torrie Wilson, who I believe has something to do with pro wrestling. The Asian guy on the far right is James Kyson Lee from "Heroes". Dealing, incidentally, is Mike Curley, one of my instructors at the casino school.
Casino School
This was my Q&A post about Casino School, which I graduated two months later. Feel free to ask any questions I didn't answer.
Hey, everyone...
So obviously I haven't posted in a while, largely due to being busy with a new script and going to poker dealer school, so I'm going to take advantage of this lull of a weekend and blather a bit starting with this handy FAQ on what the hell I'm doing in casino school.
Why casino school?
Part and parcel with being a screenwriter out here is finding alternative means of income during the inevitable dry spells. For me, that's been mostly office jobs, many of them temporary, which is to say, erratic, lacking in benefits, modestly salaried, and frequently just sort of awful, and in the last couple years, few things could cheer me up from the doldrums such jobs would cause more effectively than poker. So the fact that it took this long to occur to me to make poker my day job is really quite sad, but anyway, I had the belated epiphany back in March, just as my last, torturous office job was winding down, and here we are.
Also, it's a way to meet cocktail waitresses.
What do they teach at casino school?
There's a table games course (blackjack, baccarat, and pai gow) and the one I'm taking, the poker-dealer course, which covers Limit Hold 'em, Hi-Lo Omaha, Hi-Lo 7-card Stud, and Mexican Poker.
What in God's name is Mexican Poker?
Yeah, I hadn't heard of it either, but basically it's a 5-card stud game; the 8's, 9's and 10's aren't in the deck, you choose whether you want your card up or down on 3rd and 4th streets, there's a joker that's "wild" when dealt down and is either an Ace or completes a straight or flush when dealt up, a flush beats a full house--
Okay, stop, stop, stop, never mind. That sounds insane.
It is.
So how long is the course?
As long as it takes, which is to say that it's not really a "course" in the sense of there being "classes" to attend. Once you've learned the mechanics (shuffling, dealing, chip-cutting, etc.) and passed the written test, you're ready to start dealing Hold 'em (the students all take turns "shilling" for each other). Then when you're ready, they give you a "pre-audition", where basically you deal for 20 minutes and try not to screw up at all. Pass that, and you move on to the next game. Pass all four games, then you take the final, which is one hand of each game. Pass that, and you're ready to pound the pavement with your certificate.
Okay...So how long does all THAT take?
It varies, but if you're there every weekday and get in 3-4 "downs" (20 minute segments) per day, you're probably looking at 2-3 months, depending on how many times you screw up your tests.
So where are you now in the class?
I just passed Hold 'em and am on the verge of passing Stud, so I think I'm looking at another 4-6 weeks or so, provided that I don't botch the remaining tests as many times as I botched the Hold 'em.
How many--
Move on.
Does all this dealing make you a better poker player?
I'm hoping it will eventually, but I wouldn't say it has yet, because the "shilled" games we play at the school does not remotely resemble how real games go, since a) We're not playing for real money, and b) Most players stay all the way to the end whether they have a hand or not (sometimes they don't even look at their hands), so the dealer can practice reading hands.
What's the hardest thing about dealing?
Well, creating side pots and learning the half-bet rule both take some time, but once you get those down, the hardest part is remembering to "clear" one's hands (i.e., briefly turning the hand palm up, so the ceiling camera sees it) EVERY DAMN TIME you touch the chips. Seriously, that's an exhausting habit to form. But I suspect this will be child's play compared to dealing with actual casino patrons in varying degrees of inebriation.
Hey, why are so many dealers Asian?
I have no idea. The students at the school are an eclectic mix of races and ages (not genders, though...It's mostly guys.), but yeah, when I head down the block to Hawaiian Gardens after school, the dealers are almost entirely Asian. (So I figure I'll have the "token" thing going for me...)
How much do dealers make?
It's mostly tips, but getting tipped every hand adds up; I'm told a full-time casino dealer makes somewhere in the $50-70K range, which beats those horrendous temp jobs AND comes with benefits.
Cool. Well, good luck with it.
(takes tip, taps it on the table)
Thank you, sir!
Hey, everyone...
So obviously I haven't posted in a while, largely due to being busy with a new script and going to poker dealer school, so I'm going to take advantage of this lull of a weekend and blather a bit starting with this handy FAQ on what the hell I'm doing in casino school.
Why casino school?
Part and parcel with being a screenwriter out here is finding alternative means of income during the inevitable dry spells. For me, that's been mostly office jobs, many of them temporary, which is to say, erratic, lacking in benefits, modestly salaried, and frequently just sort of awful, and in the last couple years, few things could cheer me up from the doldrums such jobs would cause more effectively than poker. So the fact that it took this long to occur to me to make poker my day job is really quite sad, but anyway, I had the belated epiphany back in March, just as my last, torturous office job was winding down, and here we are.
Also, it's a way to meet cocktail waitresses.
What do they teach at casino school?
There's a table games course (blackjack, baccarat, and pai gow) and the one I'm taking, the poker-dealer course, which covers Limit Hold 'em, Hi-Lo Omaha, Hi-Lo 7-card Stud, and Mexican Poker.
What in God's name is Mexican Poker?
Yeah, I hadn't heard of it either, but basically it's a 5-card stud game; the 8's, 9's and 10's aren't in the deck, you choose whether you want your card up or down on 3rd and 4th streets, there's a joker that's "wild" when dealt down and is either an Ace or completes a straight or flush when dealt up, a flush beats a full house--
Okay, stop, stop, stop, never mind. That sounds insane.
It is.
So how long is the course?
As long as it takes, which is to say that it's not really a "course" in the sense of there being "classes" to attend. Once you've learned the mechanics (shuffling, dealing, chip-cutting, etc.) and passed the written test, you're ready to start dealing Hold 'em (the students all take turns "shilling" for each other). Then when you're ready, they give you a "pre-audition", where basically you deal for 20 minutes and try not to screw up at all. Pass that, and you move on to the next game. Pass all four games, then you take the final, which is one hand of each game. Pass that, and you're ready to pound the pavement with your certificate.
Okay...So how long does all THAT take?
It varies, but if you're there every weekday and get in 3-4 "downs" (20 minute segments) per day, you're probably looking at 2-3 months, depending on how many times you screw up your tests.
So where are you now in the class?
I just passed Hold 'em and am on the verge of passing Stud, so I think I'm looking at another 4-6 weeks or so, provided that I don't botch the remaining tests as many times as I botched the Hold 'em.
How many--
Move on.
Does all this dealing make you a better poker player?
I'm hoping it will eventually, but I wouldn't say it has yet, because the "shilled" games we play at the school does not remotely resemble how real games go, since a) We're not playing for real money, and b) Most players stay all the way to the end whether they have a hand or not (sometimes they don't even look at their hands), so the dealer can practice reading hands.
What's the hardest thing about dealing?
Well, creating side pots and learning the half-bet rule both take some time, but once you get those down, the hardest part is remembering to "clear" one's hands (i.e., briefly turning the hand palm up, so the ceiling camera sees it) EVERY DAMN TIME you touch the chips. Seriously, that's an exhausting habit to form. But I suspect this will be child's play compared to dealing with actual casino patrons in varying degrees of inebriation.
Hey, why are so many dealers Asian?
I have no idea. The students at the school are an eclectic mix of races and ages (not genders, though...It's mostly guys.), but yeah, when I head down the block to Hawaiian Gardens after school, the dealers are almost entirely Asian. (So I figure I'll have the "token" thing going for me...)
How much do dealers make?
It's mostly tips, but getting tipped every hand adds up; I'm told a full-time casino dealer makes somewhere in the $50-70K range, which beats those horrendous temp jobs AND comes with benefits.
Cool. Well, good luck with it.
(takes tip, taps it on the table)
Thank you, sir!
Pre-Flop Raises, continued
ME:
Okay, let's talk 6-3 suited (just to continue with your example).
According to my poker simulator, this is a hand that wins...
Against 9 opponents, 10% of the time;
Against 5 opponents, 13.5% of the time;
Against 2 opponents, 25% of the time.
For purposes of comparison, 7-2 offsuit, the worst hand of all, wins...
Against 9 opponents, 4% of the time;
Against 5 opponents, 7.5% of the time;
Against 2 opponents, 19% of the time.
So 6-3 suited is, depending on amount of opponents, somewhere between slightly stronger than and twice as strong as the worst hand you could have. This is not to criticize it, just to clarify where we are on the hand scale.
Okay. So to review, the arguments for PFR'ing with it are:
1. Everyone could fold, and you win the hand right there, pre-flop.
Well, obviously, that's an argument for PFR'ing with ANY hand. Question is, how often will this happen. Naturally, a lot depends on the amount of players and how tight they are, but by and large, my observation is that at the level of play we're at, a) there aren't a whole lot of pre-flop walks, and b) when they do happen, it's usually because someone made a monstrous raise like all-in because they have Jacks or something and don't want to take any chances of losing the hand.
But by and large, a 3-4x the BB PFR will get at least one caller, sometimes several. Let's face it, people like to see flops, especially when the stakes are as relatively low as our games are. And on top of that, not only are you going to get callers most of the time, but occasionally you'll even get a re-raiser. What then? Call (or re-raise) the re-raise? Pretty ballsy and not likely to work out. Fold? Probably the wisest move, and there go a few wasted BB's. So...a) doesn't do much for me. But let's look at...
b) The board hits your hand, and people don't expect it (because you PFR'd, so they assume you have something stronger than 6-3 suited).
Well, sure, we love that. But...
1. How often does that happen?
As said above, this is a winning hand (betting and everything else aside) 25% of the time (or in pessimist terms, a losing hand 75% of the time) against a mere two opponents. And that's IF you hang in there all the way to the river. How often does it SEEM like a potentially winning hand on the flop, i.e., how often would you like the flop enough to call a bet on it? Probably not too often.
And sure, if you don't hit it, you could continuation bet it, but that only works out if i) Everybody folds (so you don't win much) or ii) You hit your hand on the turn and/or river (which won't happen much).
So okay, I'll concede that when this hand DOES hit for you, it will probably pay off big...though again, certainly not necessarily. If I called your PFR with, say, A-Q, and a rag flop comes, I'm probably going to let you bet on it, and if you do, I probably fold. Done and done.
So now we're talking about a hand that a) Doesn't win much, b) The few times it does, it pays off big SOME of the time. Does that make it worth PFR'ing?
Well, that brings us to: What's the advantage of PFR'ing with it over just calling with it? Let's explore that option:
a) If you just call with it, you still have the mystery on your side. If you don't pre-flop raise much, no one will really know WHAT you have on any given hand. So not much advantage either way there.
b) Sure, if you PFR and get a caller or two and hit your hand, the pot will be bigger, but on the other hand, if you don't PFR, you're more likely to have MORE callers, so that's that many more people that you've got a great hand hidden from after the flop. One guy could have Jacks, one guy a flush draw, one guy top pair or even two pair, etc. So again, I'd call that a push.
c) The fact of the matter remains, it's a relatively weak hand, so what it boils down to: Most of the time, calling with it is a waste of a BB, and PFR'ing with it is a waste of a few BB's.
Again, not making the argument that you should NEVER pre-flop raise with it; clearly it's worked out for you enough for you to have some fondness for it. Point is, the arguments for calling with it don't really suffer in comparison, and the arguments AGAINST pfr'ing with it instead of calling have some weight. On balance, I'd say it's the sort of hand you PFR with once in a while, just to mix things up, and depending on the circumstances.
The arguments for PFR'ing with Jacks and Queens are a bit stronger; you PFR when you don't want to see a flop, but IF you do, you're still probably in pretty good shape.
DOUG EBOCH:
I would take issue with the assumption that if you PFR you have to make the continuation bet when you don't hit. One of the reasons to play low suited connectors and low pairs is they're supposed to be easy to get away from. If you play 3-3 and get nothing but over cards, why make the continuation? That to me is the pointless move... unless you've put an opponent on a specific hand (perhaps by reaction to PFR) that you think you can beat or push him off of.
Where I do like a simple call of the BB is in late position. That's because one of the problems is in most of the games I play you'll rarely get a chance to see a flop with a simple call of the BB. If you're on the button and nobody's raised you might have an opportunity. But if you're in early position and you don't raise, what do yo do when someone else raises 3xBB? If you have 9's do you re-raise? Call? What about low suited connectors or low pairs? If you fold you've just thrown away some money. So you've completely defeated your attempt to see the flop cheap. Sometimes making the raise yourself means others will only call and then you're the one in the driver's seat.
At which point, the topic morphed into continuation bets, which I'll start a new thread about soon.
Feel free to post your own thoughts below and continue this scintillating chat...
Okay, let's talk 6-3 suited (just to continue with your example).
According to my poker simulator, this is a hand that wins...
Against 9 opponents, 10% of the time;
Against 5 opponents, 13.5% of the time;
Against 2 opponents, 25% of the time.
For purposes of comparison, 7-2 offsuit, the worst hand of all, wins...
Against 9 opponents, 4% of the time;
Against 5 opponents, 7.5% of the time;
Against 2 opponents, 19% of the time.
So 6-3 suited is, depending on amount of opponents, somewhere between slightly stronger than and twice as strong as the worst hand you could have. This is not to criticize it, just to clarify where we are on the hand scale.
Okay. So to review, the arguments for PFR'ing with it are:
1. Everyone could fold, and you win the hand right there, pre-flop.
Well, obviously, that's an argument for PFR'ing with ANY hand. Question is, how often will this happen. Naturally, a lot depends on the amount of players and how tight they are, but by and large, my observation is that at the level of play we're at, a) there aren't a whole lot of pre-flop walks, and b) when they do happen, it's usually because someone made a monstrous raise like all-in because they have Jacks or something and don't want to take any chances of losing the hand.
But by and large, a 3-4x the BB PFR will get at least one caller, sometimes several. Let's face it, people like to see flops, especially when the stakes are as relatively low as our games are. And on top of that, not only are you going to get callers most of the time, but occasionally you'll even get a re-raiser. What then? Call (or re-raise) the re-raise? Pretty ballsy and not likely to work out. Fold? Probably the wisest move, and there go a few wasted BB's. So...a) doesn't do much for me. But let's look at...
b) The board hits your hand, and people don't expect it (because you PFR'd, so they assume you have something stronger than 6-3 suited).
Well, sure, we love that. But...
1. How often does that happen?
As said above, this is a winning hand (betting and everything else aside) 25% of the time (or in pessimist terms, a losing hand 75% of the time) against a mere two opponents. And that's IF you hang in there all the way to the river. How often does it SEEM like a potentially winning hand on the flop, i.e., how often would you like the flop enough to call a bet on it? Probably not too often.
And sure, if you don't hit it, you could continuation bet it, but that only works out if i) Everybody folds (so you don't win much) or ii) You hit your hand on the turn and/or river (which won't happen much).
So okay, I'll concede that when this hand DOES hit for you, it will probably pay off big...though again, certainly not necessarily. If I called your PFR with, say, A-Q, and a rag flop comes, I'm probably going to let you bet on it, and if you do, I probably fold. Done and done.
So now we're talking about a hand that a) Doesn't win much, b) The few times it does, it pays off big SOME of the time. Does that make it worth PFR'ing?
Well, that brings us to: What's the advantage of PFR'ing with it over just calling with it? Let's explore that option:
a) If you just call with it, you still have the mystery on your side. If you don't pre-flop raise much, no one will really know WHAT you have on any given hand. So not much advantage either way there.
b) Sure, if you PFR and get a caller or two and hit your hand, the pot will be bigger, but on the other hand, if you don't PFR, you're more likely to have MORE callers, so that's that many more people that you've got a great hand hidden from after the flop. One guy could have Jacks, one guy a flush draw, one guy top pair or even two pair, etc. So again, I'd call that a push.
c) The fact of the matter remains, it's a relatively weak hand, so what it boils down to: Most of the time, calling with it is a waste of a BB, and PFR'ing with it is a waste of a few BB's.
Again, not making the argument that you should NEVER pre-flop raise with it; clearly it's worked out for you enough for you to have some fondness for it. Point is, the arguments for calling with it don't really suffer in comparison, and the arguments AGAINST pfr'ing with it instead of calling have some weight. On balance, I'd say it's the sort of hand you PFR with once in a while, just to mix things up, and depending on the circumstances.
The arguments for PFR'ing with Jacks and Queens are a bit stronger; you PFR when you don't want to see a flop, but IF you do, you're still probably in pretty good shape.
DOUG EBOCH:
I would take issue with the assumption that if you PFR you have to make the continuation bet when you don't hit. One of the reasons to play low suited connectors and low pairs is they're supposed to be easy to get away from. If you play 3-3 and get nothing but over cards, why make the continuation? That to me is the pointless move... unless you've put an opponent on a specific hand (perhaps by reaction to PFR) that you think you can beat or push him off of.
Where I do like a simple call of the BB is in late position. That's because one of the problems is in most of the games I play you'll rarely get a chance to see a flop with a simple call of the BB. If you're on the button and nobody's raised you might have an opportunity. But if you're in early position and you don't raise, what do yo do when someone else raises 3xBB? If you have 9's do you re-raise? Call? What about low suited connectors or low pairs? If you fold you've just thrown away some money. So you've completely defeated your attempt to see the flop cheap. Sometimes making the raise yourself means others will only call and then you're the one in the driver's seat.
At which point, the topic morphed into continuation bets, which I'll start a new thread about soon.
Feel free to post your own thoughts below and continue this scintillating chat...
Pre-Flop Raises
Following are the highlights of a conversation from last summer about one of the more contentious issues in Hold 'em, the Pre-Flop Raise (PFR). WARNING: It gets kinda wonky.
Some good arguments in favor, but on the whole, I'm still against 'em.
ME:
When I first started playing, I rarely did them, did pretty well for a beginner.
Then: Read a bunch books, watched the videos, started following the pros' advice, raised pre-flop whenever the experts deemed appropriate, followed them up with continuation bets if need be...
Game went straight down the toilet.
All but cut the PFR's and am doing a lot better now (particularly in tourneys). The more I think about them, the less sense they make to me. I could expand on this and probably will in the near future, but for now I'll just put the question out there for my fellow poker players:
Do they work for you, or am I right in feeling like they kinda suck?
DOUG EBOCH:
I think they're needed when you have a big hand to get the riff raff out. I was in a tournament at Hollywood Park. I had 2-5 in the big blind. The player under the gun (who had just lost a big pot) called. Three other callers. So I of course checked my option.
Flop came A-3-4 giving me a straight nobody could have predicted. The player under the gun went all in. He had pocket aces. I knocked him out of the tournament and if he'd made even a moderate raise I would have folded pre-flop.
If you've got a big hand I don't think you want to allow a bunch of limpers in. Too easy to lose the nest egg!
MIKE BAUM:
I just don't think the 3x big blind is always effective in doing what it's meant to do -- and as Doug said, get the riff raff out. But generally speaking, the pre-flop raise is a good thing. But like anything else, it's all situational and position.
ME:
To be clear, I'm not saying it's NEVER a good thing to do, just that on balance, it probably loses more money than it wins. You're putting at least 3x the big blind in on a hand that could easily come up zilch on the flop, and then when it does, the onus will be on you to put in even MORE money (4 or 4 more BB's at least) for a continuation bet, just so it's not obvious that you didn't hit the flop...except lots of players will suspect it IS a continuation bet, so you very well might not scare anybody out, and now you've put in 7-8 Big Blinds on a completely shitty hand. And even if you DO hit the flop, you won't necessarily make much money (having pre-flop raised makes it a lot easier for the others to put you on a hand), and could even lose a big stack, depending how things go down.
The only three really strong scenarios for pre-flop raising (barring crazy-ass shit going down) are: a) Everyone folds to you pre-flop...So you won a few blinds at most; b) You get some callers, you miss the flop, you make a continuation bet, and everyone folds...so you won a few blinds at most; or c) You hit your hand really strongly on the flop, and someone else hits it slightly less strongly and doesn't put you on your hand. Which is i) infrequent, and ii) just as likely to win you a nice-sized pot even if you DIDN'T raise pre-flop.
Whereas...
If you generally call the BB (or call a raise, if your hand's good enough), a) Putting you on a hand is much harder, b) You've got a lot less on the line, and c) The onus is NOT on you to bet the flop. If you hit the flop, great: Let someone ELSE bet it, and you call or raise, and no one will be able to tell what you have. If you miss it, big deal, so you fold.
I guess my attitude toward hands have kind become like De Niro's in "Heat"; always be able to walk away. Much harder to do if you've PFR'd, and even harder if you've continued.
VAUGHAN:
First of all, I don't think you can talk about PFR's in one context, because there is position to consider, and quality of the hand itself. For example, PFRs with QQ and JJ is different than PFR with 6-3 suited, and the texture of each is different with position.
So, given all that, I'm going to use the latter here - and talk about 6-3 suited, which is one of my favorites, for purely random luck of draw reasons. I could easily be talking about 8-7, 5-2 or whatever - but this is essentially all small suited connectors - that have the advantage of probably being live cards, but the disadvantage of being of little equity if it comes to a high card showdown, or even pair v pair.
Now then, it's way different to do a PFR with these cards in first position than on the button, but for the moment, I'll ignore that, and we'll just talk about the PFR itself. The goal of the PFR in this case is misdirection. By raising with 8-7 suited, you are giving yourself 2 chances to win. a) everyone folds. b) you hit something people can't see. I think you've been arguing strongly against a), but neglecting how much money b) can net you over the long run. Your argument that you would get those big pots either way is not necessarily true. If you raise with 5-2, presumably the only callers you get are serious ones. If you limp with it, and hit your big flop, people may leave more often than not. With PFR, You'll crack Aces and get paid off big, or you'll lose 7x blinds and have to run away. Over the long run, the hidden stealth of your raise with low cards pays for all the run ins with big cards or misses.
And then there is texture to consider on the flop - this is key. This is everything. You don't have to continuation bet - you can play it however you need to. You can get away from 6-7. Or you can can raise big and represent. Now if the texture of the board is a single high card, like an A, then you can use that. If you get called by a pair of 9s in late position or a loose player playing Q10, and the flop comes with an Ace or a King - then your continuation bet looks solid. How can they call you? And if they do, can they really call your bullet fired on the turn? No. If the board comes all low cards, or suits not related to you, and they fire back - you can let go. The PFR is not the death of you at all - it is one aspect of the texture.
Now I have testing the PFR many times with 6-3 suited, trust me. I have played tourneys where I did and didn't do it. I have had most success by raising it - mostly choosing button late position so that, like I said, ppl fold or I can represent a big hand if I don't hit my suit or straight. However, every once and awhile, I have limped with it, mostly in the BB or SB, and I have hit big - and seen the side of the argument you are talking about. Wow - if I can hit big like that, why waste 3x all the time - just pay 1x and see where it gets me. Because, playing 1x calling all the time will get no one to fold, and then your wimpy hand must have equity to beat high card, which you know it does not. Then how much money do you have to spend to win that pot? Those 1x calls are throwing money away when we talk about PFR with small connectors.
If you raise 3x in late position with the small connectors, I guarantee you will make more, or lose less (both key in poker) than doing the 1x call all the time.
Continued in next post...
Some good arguments in favor, but on the whole, I'm still against 'em.
ME:
When I first started playing, I rarely did them, did pretty well for a beginner.
Then: Read a bunch books, watched the videos, started following the pros' advice, raised pre-flop whenever the experts deemed appropriate, followed them up with continuation bets if need be...
Game went straight down the toilet.
All but cut the PFR's and am doing a lot better now (particularly in tourneys). The more I think about them, the less sense they make to me. I could expand on this and probably will in the near future, but for now I'll just put the question out there for my fellow poker players:
Do they work for you, or am I right in feeling like they kinda suck?
DOUG EBOCH:
I think they're needed when you have a big hand to get the riff raff out. I was in a tournament at Hollywood Park. I had 2-5 in the big blind. The player under the gun (who had just lost a big pot) called. Three other callers. So I of course checked my option.
Flop came A-3-4 giving me a straight nobody could have predicted. The player under the gun went all in. He had pocket aces. I knocked him out of the tournament and if he'd made even a moderate raise I would have folded pre-flop.
If you've got a big hand I don't think you want to allow a bunch of limpers in. Too easy to lose the nest egg!
MIKE BAUM:
I just don't think the 3x big blind is always effective in doing what it's meant to do -- and as Doug said, get the riff raff out. But generally speaking, the pre-flop raise is a good thing. But like anything else, it's all situational and position.
ME:
To be clear, I'm not saying it's NEVER a good thing to do, just that on balance, it probably loses more money than it wins. You're putting at least 3x the big blind in on a hand that could easily come up zilch on the flop, and then when it does, the onus will be on you to put in even MORE money (4 or 4 more BB's at least) for a continuation bet, just so it's not obvious that you didn't hit the flop...except lots of players will suspect it IS a continuation bet, so you very well might not scare anybody out, and now you've put in 7-8 Big Blinds on a completely shitty hand. And even if you DO hit the flop, you won't necessarily make much money (having pre-flop raised makes it a lot easier for the others to put you on a hand), and could even lose a big stack, depending how things go down.
The only three really strong scenarios for pre-flop raising (barring crazy-ass shit going down) are: a) Everyone folds to you pre-flop...So you won a few blinds at most; b) You get some callers, you miss the flop, you make a continuation bet, and everyone folds...so you won a few blinds at most; or c) You hit your hand really strongly on the flop, and someone else hits it slightly less strongly and doesn't put you on your hand. Which is i) infrequent, and ii) just as likely to win you a nice-sized pot even if you DIDN'T raise pre-flop.
Whereas...
If you generally call the BB (or call a raise, if your hand's good enough), a) Putting you on a hand is much harder, b) You've got a lot less on the line, and c) The onus is NOT on you to bet the flop. If you hit the flop, great: Let someone ELSE bet it, and you call or raise, and no one will be able to tell what you have. If you miss it, big deal, so you fold.
I guess my attitude toward hands have kind become like De Niro's in "Heat"; always be able to walk away. Much harder to do if you've PFR'd, and even harder if you've continued.
VAUGHAN:
First of all, I don't think you can talk about PFR's in one context, because there is position to consider, and quality of the hand itself. For example, PFRs with QQ and JJ is different than PFR with 6-3 suited, and the texture of each is different with position.
So, given all that, I'm going to use the latter here - and talk about 6-3 suited, which is one of my favorites, for purely random luck of draw reasons. I could easily be talking about 8-7, 5-2 or whatever - but this is essentially all small suited connectors - that have the advantage of probably being live cards, but the disadvantage of being of little equity if it comes to a high card showdown, or even pair v pair.
Now then, it's way different to do a PFR with these cards in first position than on the button, but for the moment, I'll ignore that, and we'll just talk about the PFR itself. The goal of the PFR in this case is misdirection. By raising with 8-7 suited, you are giving yourself 2 chances to win. a) everyone folds. b) you hit something people can't see. I think you've been arguing strongly against a), but neglecting how much money b) can net you over the long run. Your argument that you would get those big pots either way is not necessarily true. If you raise with 5-2, presumably the only callers you get are serious ones. If you limp with it, and hit your big flop, people may leave more often than not. With PFR, You'll crack Aces and get paid off big, or you'll lose 7x blinds and have to run away. Over the long run, the hidden stealth of your raise with low cards pays for all the run ins with big cards or misses.
And then there is texture to consider on the flop - this is key. This is everything. You don't have to continuation bet - you can play it however you need to. You can get away from 6-7. Or you can can raise big and represent. Now if the texture of the board is a single high card, like an A, then you can use that. If you get called by a pair of 9s in late position or a loose player playing Q10, and the flop comes with an Ace or a King - then your continuation bet looks solid. How can they call you? And if they do, can they really call your bullet fired on the turn? No. If the board comes all low cards, or suits not related to you, and they fire back - you can let go. The PFR is not the death of you at all - it is one aspect of the texture.
Now I have testing the PFR many times with 6-3 suited, trust me. I have played tourneys where I did and didn't do it. I have had most success by raising it - mostly choosing button late position so that, like I said, ppl fold or I can represent a big hand if I don't hit my suit or straight. However, every once and awhile, I have limped with it, mostly in the BB or SB, and I have hit big - and seen the side of the argument you are talking about. Wow - if I can hit big like that, why waste 3x all the time - just pay 1x and see where it gets me. Because, playing 1x calling all the time will get no one to fold, and then your wimpy hand must have equity to beat high card, which you know it does not. Then how much money do you have to spend to win that pot? Those 1x calls are throwing money away when we talk about PFR with small connectors.
If you raise 3x in late position with the small connectors, I guarantee you will make more, or lose less (both key in poker) than doing the 1x call all the time.
Continued in next post...
Welcome!
Hey, everyone!
Welcome to The Chip Chap's blog!
I'm going to start with some poker-related material I posted on a now-defunct blog, just to get the ball rolling, and then start posting the new stuff.
Enjoy...
Welcome to The Chip Chap's blog!
I'm going to start with some poker-related material I posted on a now-defunct blog, just to get the ball rolling, and then start posting the new stuff.
Enjoy...
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