Cards unsharp

A key skill in poker is judgement, particularly of your opponents. I think this is especially so in no limit. In limit, you can robotically make good plays (if you know what they are) and at the low levels I play, you will end up a winner.

But no limit does not permit textbook plays to the same extent. You have to read your opponents and understand them. I have learned two things in the past few days: one thing from Friday night, where I once more cashed but did not win (that is not a complaint, although of course I want to win, because money is how the score is kept in poker); one other from Sklansky and Miller's no limit book (I have learned lots from it but this thing in particular).

The first is that I am too prone to give my opponents too much credit. I assume that what is obvious to me must be obvious to them. I rarely suffer from this flaw in life in general. I am generally able to understand that people are different from me, think differently from me, know different things than I do.

In the key hand on Friday, with blinds at 75-150, I raised with 99 to 500. R, a poor player who calls too much, called. He was in EP and had limped, so I assumed he had to have something worth playing. The flop came T77 rainbow. No set for me but still a good flop. He bet 2000.

This was a massive overbet. I had seen him make this play before on this kind of flop and he had been bluffing. I went into the tank. If he had paired the ten, I was beaten, and could not hope to draw out on him. I would lose 2000 if I called. But if he had whiffed the flop with OCs and was now bluffing, I would take half his stack. I assumed that he put me on big OCs myself. He must know that I would not call a big bet if I had missed this flop.

Donkeys often bluff on a paired flop, or when the turn pairs the board. In limit, I call it the donkbluff/donktrips situation. The donkey almost always has trips or nothing. A good player will not do it because it's such an obvious bluff. R is not a good player, not even at our level.

I felt pressured by the crowd. I had been talking and laughing all night, holding up play for no reason, because it's fun and I'm unreadable if I'm always smiling. But they wanted me to decide. I need to think about this one, I said.

I have an image at the Friday night table as a tight, aggressive player. It's not the wrong image because that's how I try to play the game. But I had been playing fairly timidly. I arrived late and had a bad seat. All the more aggro players were sat to my left, along with L, a calling station of the worst kind (who, to my chagrin, won the night, which she would not have done had I been seated to her right). This meant I could not raise with poor cards because I had to fear the big reraise, and could not limp with trash because most pots were getting raised when I did. In this kind of game, unless you want to play low-percentage poker, you have to wait for decent cards to make your plays. So I had cards here, and needed to make the most of them. I didn't want to fold away a decent chance at a big score.

I called. He had QT. He hadn't even thought about what I might have. I had credited him with thinking about my cards but he hadn't. Not at all. He'd just made a terrible call PF and got lucky. If I'd raised with AT or a pair of tens, he'd have gone busto. Later that night, he made a heavy reraise with QJ, which I called with AJs. A textbook example of why you don't play rubbish like QJ too fast. S, an aggro player, one of the better in the game, had raised with 55 and called the raise (a loose call because he didn't have the odds for it, even if he took both our stacks with a set he would not have made enough). I whiffed the flop. R checked, I checked and so did S. I was immediately suspicious. This is a guy who will bet when he has the button, particularly if he feels he can steal it. Last time we played, he trapped me by making what looked like a probe bet, which I raised all in. He had a set that time and I was cooked. The turn was a blank. R checked, I checked. S bet, not heavily given the pot. R called, I folded. I knew what was going on this time. He showed a set at showdown. I was a bit annoyed that he'd made the loose call preflop. I had R beaten and the pot would have made up for the one I had lost with 99 earlier.

The other thing I learned, from S&M, is that playing no limit as though it was limit with bigger bets is the reason I am often getting to the money on Fridays without having a big enough stack to contend for the win. When you think it through, it's quite obvious. In limit, you chisel away at it. You go into hands with values and you beat players who have gone in with trash. You don't win big in a session, although many of the pots you win are big, but you are solid enough to win often enough. I don't play exactly the same on a Friday night, of course, but I have been playing in what you might call Harrington style. But I'm not sufficiently adapting my play to the table. These players are mostly loose and terrible. I should be limping with many more hands, calling raises if I have to, and using my superior skills to extract the chips when I have a hand.

L, who won the night, is a good example. There is no way decent players should let her win (although it was hardly S's fault that when she pushed after his raise when on the small stack and he called, she had QQ to his JJ). She is awesomely predictable. She ran quite hot, which suited her style, because she will only get into pots with good values. But on the flop, she wants to call, not bet. She will only bet if she really has something. Otherwise she'll check, fold if she has nothing, call if she has a decent pair. I couldn't get into a hand with her, so I had to sit and watch other players betting weak hands into her, which she called, called and called, taking down several big pots. Against this kind of player, your strategy is simple. If they check, you bet if you have top pair or better and check anything else. You don't allow the pot to become big unless you are sure you are ahead. If they bet, you fold if you have nothing. You don't hope that middle pair is good enough because it won't be. When you act after her and she limps, you limp in with anything. You know that if you hit, she'll pay you off, and if you miss, you will not have to pay a heavy price.

Head's up, S took leave of his senses. He tried to play her the way you would the normal passive internet player. He raised most pots and played aggressively on the flop. But L just called when she had it, folded when she didn't. He threw his stack at her, and she ate it up. This is almost the reverse of how he should have played! If you have the edge over another player in skill but not necessarily in cards, you want small pots, in which you outplay the opponent. You do not want to make the pots big because this favours the poorer player, and allows them the odds to call with poor holdings. You want them to make mistakes, not correctly call you down in huge pots, which they then suck out on you in.

So I have learned that I should not be raising with hands I don't want to play for big pots with. In limit you do, because you have an edge and can exploit it. In NL, you don't because the edge your hand would have if you could guarantee a showdown, as you can in limit, can be destroyed by the action. Miss a flop with AQ in limit and you might still win against a couple of players. Miss it in NL and chances are you are done. And I should be getting into more hands, even if I have to pay a bigger price than I'm happy with. I wasn't dissatisfied with Friday night. I only had five hands that I would even play in limit: 99 twice, 88, AJs and AK, very slim pickings, and I still made the money. My last hand was K8 and I pushed all in PF. S called, a bit loosely again (which doesn't upset me: I want players to make loose calls, of course), with J9. The flop came 9xx and, just one of those things, the turn and river were also 9s. I had earlier busted M senior with quad 8s, so I suppose poetic justice prevailed.

posted by Dr Zen @ 9:48 am