Archive for the ‘Rafe Furst’ Category
From Mike:
I have recently talked my parents into bankrolling me $500 a month here soon, and they are looking at it like a business investment to help me try and start a bankroll. I have been playing poker for 2 1/2 years. I am always trying to learn and improve my game, and am trying to follow the advice of using 5-10% of my bankroll. So to start, in a given month I will be playing 4 $55 MTT’s on PS and 10 $22 SNG’s. I will be setting aside certain %’s of my winnings towards attending the WSOP in 2009, college funds, and general pullout for other investments (stocks,bonds,investments) My parents don’t know the game but have discipline and will be helping me track the business aspect of it. I just opened my account on PS at the beginning of October. I have had pretty good success thus far. Any advice would be greatly appreciated so that I can attain my athletic, educational, and business goals. (more…)
I got the following email on MySpace, and even though it isn’t a question, I thought I’d share it since I think there are some common “leaks” that it illustrates:
I play a lot and mostly low level SnGs on FTP. I have had moderated success. I play to learn and to hopefully get better. I notice that I starting to put opponents on hands and having success with that however, my need to know if I right is costing me chips. really stupid stuff like I have a small pair and its heads up. I’m out of position (first problem) and raise a to pot size after the flop to find out where I am. he smooth calls (Second alert for me). so instead of checking I fire a second bullet this time pot size number 2. now he rasies all in and I know I beat. yet I call 80-90% of the time. I recognize my mistakes yet I donk them most times.
If I see this, is it because I can afford the mistakes a this low level and If I more at risk I would not be so damn curious it see his cards or is just been a stupid donkey!
My biggest leak in NL holdem is insisting on playing a style that the current table conditions either are not conducive too, or that is not optimal. Usually, this is playing too too many hands aggressively and allowing myself to get trapped, but sometimes it it’s just the opposite and I’m not playing aggressive enough pre-flop in a limp-fest game.
What are your biggest leaks?
A few weeks ago I posted a seeming paradox, but I had a math error in my example. Fellow Tiltboy, Lennie Augustine, chastised me and made me admit to the error by offering to take the “losing” side of the proposition for as much as I wanted to wager. The situation I was trying to describe was one in which you are ahead of two opponents on the flop who you know will both call no matter how how much you bet. Under certain circumstances, it is incorrect to bet in this spot, which seemingly violates the Fundamental Theorem of Poker. Of course, Sklansky is too smart not to caveat the FToP by saying that it does not apply universally to all multiway pots. Here are the examples Lennie came up with to illustrate the point:
As Jd (YOU)
Qh Th (OPPONENT 1)
6c 5c (OPPONENT 2)
with a board of Jc 9c 4h.
In a 3-way showdown, you have only 32% pot equity, so any bet that will be called by both opponents is a losing proposition.
If you could get heads-up with the straight draw, you’ve got 53% pot equity.
It’s even better if you can get heads-up with the flush draw: now you’ve got 58% of the pot equity.
Here’s a pre-flop example:
9s 9c (YOU)
As Kc (OPPONENT 1)
Jc Tc (OPPONENT 2)Three way you have 31% pot equity (and are actually in last place).
Heads up against AK you are now a 55% favorite.
Heads up against JT you are still a favorite, but less so.
In reality, you are never going to be in a situation where you “know for certain” that two or more players are going to call you no matter what. And since the equity you are losing by betting in these situations is only a couple percent at most, you shouldn’t really be considering not betting. On the contrary, the reward for getting one (or both) drawing opponents to fold is actually quite high. It’s telling to note that if you get JT to fold in the pre-flop example, you’ve all of a sudden taken AK from a favorite three-way to an underdog heads-up, and you’ve gone from last place into the lead. Yet another example of how aggression is rewarded in poker.
A reader, Mandy, writes:
there is a bit of debate on a poker forum i belong too about AA, i said that at the start of a deep stack tourney, if UTG went all in and i was next to act, that i would fold AA, people have called me weak and scared and many other things, but first hand in a big tourney with so many people to act behind me, AA doesn’t look so good against 5 people, not with online flops anyways lol i was just wondering if you have ever folded AA online or if u ever would????? thanx for your time Mandy
I never have folded AA pre-flop, and the only time I would is in a severe bubble situation, for instance, in a super satellite to the WSOP Main Event. Let’s say you have a short stack with AA and the next person eliminated gets nothing and the rest of you all get seats. Now let’s say that several big stacks go all-in in front of you. Here it may very well be correct to fold your AA because the amount of equity you gain by winning the hand isn’t enough to compensate for the equity you gain by folding and surviving the hand while you allow a larger stack to bust out and secure your seat for you. You should be fairly certain though that somebody is going to bust on that very hand and end the satellite, since it’s too easy for an all-in player to double up, in which case you’ve missed a golden opportunity to get out of the short-stack hot seat. Thus, I would have to see two players or more at risk of going broke against a third opponent with a larger stack before I would muck my AA. To be clear, if you were heads up against another player, you shouldn’t be folding your AA no matter what as the short stack.
If instead of being the short stack you had a huge stack, you might be better off folding every hand without looking, which includes folding AA. You are not trying to accumulate chips, just survive until someone busts and you get your seat. But you have to have such a big stack that there’s no way you can be blinded down before someone else busts. The reason you are folding without looking is you don’t want to be tempted to play any hands and needlessly double anyone up. Folding without looking will also make it clear to the others at the table that they are going to have to play a bit more aggressively since all your chips are out of play and there is effectively one fewer hand to compete with. The more aggressively your opponents play as you sit on the sidelines the better off you are because aggression leads to higher variance which leads to increased chance of someone busting sooner.
If I had a medium stack, rather than fold AA, I would simply smooth call assuming at least one person who was already all-in had a shorter stack than me. Here I would like to encourage as many players after me to to flat-call as possible and check it down so that we have the greatest chance of eliminating the short stack as possible. This is known as “implicit collusion”, and it’s legal as long as you don’t say anything indicating what you are doing. Simply by smooth calling and not trying to isolate an all-in player you are signaling to the other players what you are doing, and the astute ones will follow your lead. The reason I stipulated that a shorter stack had to be all-in is because if both of us bust on the hand, it’s the shorter stack that is considered to have busted first by tournament rules, and I still get my seat.
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Early on in a tournament, folding AA under any circumstances pre-flop is probably a mistake. Remember, AA is a 4-1 favorite or better over most hands you will be up against heads-up, and it’s very rare that you are going to end up with more than one or two opponents if you are able to get all your chips in pre-flop. Even if you do end up against 5 opponents, AA is 50% to win the hand against random hands, 36% against five different pairs, and 33% against a reasonable combination of pairs and suited connectors. If you and your five opponents are each all-in with $10K in chips, you are expected to win about one third of the $60K pot, or $20K. That’s even better than being all-in against a single opponent who has KK, in which case your EV is about $16K (80% of a $20K pot).
Theoretically, if you had a huge skill advantage over every opponent at your table (and in the field at large), you could make the argument that you are so good at picking up loose chips in small pots that you are better off mucking AA if someone goes all-in in front of you and has you covered. Phil Hellmuth has made this claim before and certainly his results are hard to argue with. Having played in a number of tournaments at his table, I can see his rationale. He is extremely good at picking on weak players, he’s very aggressive about getting involved in many hands, and he keeps the pots small and his bet size to a minimum to assure he’s rarely at risk for his whole stack. Other top pros have disagreed with Hellmuth’s assessment of his own skill advantage and think he’s fooling himself if he’s willing to lay down AA pre-flop. The other thing to consider is that most people (in my opinion) play better poker with a large stack than with an average or short stack. Thus, it’s worth it for them to take some chances early on in order to build a big stack; yes, they will go broke quicker and more often that way, but if you are trying to win the tournament or maximize your return, you shouldn’t care about how long you last. In fact, if you bust out quickly, there’s more time for you to enter another tournament. For a pro, the worst thing that can happen is that you bust short of the money while wasting a lot of time that could otherwise be used making money.
My personal belief is that there are very few, if any, players who have such an advantage over the field as to make laying down AA pre-flop a good play. And for you personally, unless your game resembles Phil Hellmuth’s in both style and skill, you shouldn’t even be thinking about it.
Rafe and Andy talk about a gaffe made by the floor staff during a routine color-up.
Rafe takes on another huge field in an event rather special to him: The $1500 Pot Limit event that he won the year before.
The fun and excitement of waiting in line to play for a WSOP event is fully chronicled by Rafe in today’s episode. Phil also talks through a charity event that he plays along with celebrities Dan Marino, Chris Doleman, and his wife Barb.
The opening episode of our 2007 WSOP Podcast. Phil and Rafe recount playing in the opening event, and discuss shifting gears when sitting with Phil Hellmuth.
At this point, everyone knows what pot odds and implied pot odds (aka implied odds) are and how to calculate them (if not, you’d better brush up on the Odds & Outs chapter of Final Table Poker). But often times I see people, especially online, making mistakes in using implied odds reasoning. Too often implied odds are invoked as a reason for a play when “wishful thinking” would be the more accurate term.
A perfect example came up in the Bad Beat on Cancer tourney the other night on Full Tilt Poker. The table was short-handed and playing rather loose pre-flop, but tight after the flop. Blinds were getting big, and a hand developed such that we got to see the showdown between a loose player and a player I will call “Impy”. Impy had no pair and only an inside straight draw on the flop, yet he called a pot-sized bet from Loosey. Impy hit the straight on the turn, but then was only able to extract a small amount from his opponent on the turn, and ended up checking down the river. Impy’s fuzzy logic on the flop was that, although he was behind, if he hit his hand he’d get paid off at greater odds than it required to chase a four-outer. As we saw in the hand, he got part of what he wanted (the straight), but failed to extract enough from his opponent to make the call on the flop reasonable. Furthermore, Loosey was short-stacked, had top-pair with a weak kicker, and was unlikely to have paid off much more than he did.
So, what can Impy do to improve his game? Here are some guidelines for using implied odds to greater advantage.
Only Play Against Big Stacks
When two players are contesting a pot, their maximum implied odds are exactly the same: the size of the shorter stack. The larger your opponents’ stacks relative to yours, the better your implied odds are going to be if you get involved in a pot with one or more of them. Also, consider the size of your opponents’ stacks relative to the blinds and antes. Players who are short-stacked tend to play tighter and thus are less likely to try to pick off your “bluff”; they don’t have any extra chips to spare, unlike a tall stack.
Don’t Play Short-Handed
The more opponents at your table, the more likelihood that one or more of them will pick up a good hand, be in on the flop, and ultimately pay you off when you hit your draw. In short-handed or heads-up situations you have to get very lucky: first you have to hit your hand, then you have to hope your opponent has a good enough hand to pay you off. My advice is, unless you have a really good read on your opponents in the hand, don’t even consider implied odds in your decision unless you are at a full 9- or 10-handed table.
Play Against Tight-Aggressive Players
Implied odds are greatest against tight-aggressive players. Why? Because these are the players who are likely to have strong hands after the flop, and are likely to commit a lot of chips to defend their good hands. T-A players are also going to be involved in smaller pots on the flop, and hence will check-raise more often than loose players when out of position. This gives you free-card opportunities which improve your implied odds. Psychologically, tight players, once involved in a pot, may have a harder time letting go of the hand. Loose players, on the other hand, are always in action and can often lay down a hand after the flop. And on a per-flop-seen basis, those loose players are going to have a harder time finding a reason to play with you after the flop.
The key to playing against T-A players after the flop is to keep the pot as small as possible until you hit your draw. And if they put a lot of pressure on you, you are better off just folding your draw and waiting for a better situation. Not every hand can be played profitably after the flop.
Incorporate Bluffs and Semi-Bluffs
If you are drawing on the flop, instead of passively checking and calling to hit your hand, you should be betting and raising to give you two ways to win: (1) either your opponents all fold, or (2) you hit your draw. This is called a semi-bluff. The only time you would play passively is if you thought a free card would help your situation more than getting your opponent to fold. But I would caution that in Holdem, it’s rarely wrong to win the pot without a showdown.
You are definitely going to miss your draws more often than not. In these cases, you should should sometimes be bluffing. How frequently? Let’s say the pot has $1 in it and you have $1 left and you are deciding whether to bluff on the river. You are giving your opponent 2-1 odds to call you, which is exactly how often you should bluff in that situation (two times for every one that you don’t).
How do you choose the right balance between keeping the pot small after the flop and playing aggressively as I am advocating here? That’s the art, and it requires lots of practice and a good read on your opponent(s). Also you may want to pick up Sklansky’s Theory of Poker to learn more about optimal bluffing frequency and semi-bluffs. By employing these techniques correctly, you can vastly increase your implied odds and positive expectation.
Help me man, lol, heres what just happened, my online bankroll is getting low, and i am playing good solid aggressive poker in a limit hold em tournament, we are 30 or so spots off the money, and me, i needed the money REALLY bad, i’ve had a bad last few weeks, so i get in this hand with top set and take a really bad beat… And i am tilting a bit, but i know i still got enough chips to cash and still be a small factor, and in my mind i knew to stop playing hands and wait out the bubble, but i didnt go with that, and played my k6 suited in BB, flopped top pair and was eliminated just 5 spots shy of the money! Now my question is, what is my mind doing? why dont i have the disapline to wait it out? what do you do in that situation.?.. any secret stratigys or anything? please if you got even a little 2 cents that could help let me know.
I think all tournament players struggle with this at some point. Ultimately you just need to have more experience at tournament end-games to know what the right level of patience vs aggression to use. Play lots in low stakes tourneys and really study the dynamics as you get close to the bubble. Also check out Harrington’s series as he has some good rules of thumb with his “zones”. Gordon’s Little Green/Blue Books are good for this too.
Generally speaking, you should not be worried about the bubble itself because all the real cash is in the top three spots. If you are “just hanging on” to make sure you cash, you are not only likely to bust before the bubble, but if you do make it, you are almost guaranteed to be short stacked. Plus, you are giving up opportunity to pick on others who are hoping just to cash. There are many reasons to be thinking about the win rather than just cashing. Your problem started when you said you really needed the money badly. That very fact meant that you were unlikely to make as much money as you could, and you were probably playing at negative EV. Yet another reason to step it down to a level where you can think clearly and not get distracted by the bubble.