Damning the River

A good point came up in an email message from a reader. When do you decide that you need to push all-in given the constraints of stack size relative to the blinds?

In my last post, I noted how I went all in with 1040 in chips on Q9o from the cutoff, six players left, 100/200. My basic rule of thumb is to measure chip size relative to 4 times the combined size of the blinds. Too far beyond that point and a double through might be entirely meaningless. I adjust accordingly if the table is short-handed (because blinds come around faster and because hand values rise, so half decent hand become more push-worthy). Of course, I take into account the players I’m up against, their stack sizes, any reads I might have on them. But I start from this basic rule of thumb.

This is something I should look into more in reading the various online/blogger guides to SNGs, but, if you have any answers, shout em out. Do you have a rule of thumb in this regard? What do you base your decisions on?

Filed by at 9:28 am under dtrStories
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A good point came up in an email message from a reader.  When do you decide that you need to push all-in given the constraints of stack size relative to the blinds?

In my last post, I noted how I went all in with 1040 in chips on Q9o from the cutoff, six players left, 100/200.  My basic rule of thumb is to measure chip size relative to 4 times the combined size of the blinds.  Too far beyond that point and a double through might be entirely meaningless.  I adjust accordingly if the table is short-handed (because blinds come around faster and because hand values rise, so half decent hand become more push-worthy).  Of course, I take into account the players I’m up against, their stack sizes, any reads I might have on them.  But I start from this basic rule of thumb.

This is something I should look into more in reading the various online/blogger guides to SNGs, but, if you have any answers, shout em out. Do you have a rule of thumb in this regard?  What do you base your decisions on?

Filed by at 2:14 pm under dtrStories
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Decided to take a night off from going out and play some poker instead.  First, ring game was atrocious - probably my worst at .5/1 ever.  Sets of 10s and Aces cracked, missing basically every flop with other hands.

Then, played another SNG.  This time, I played fairly tight early on, not limping with crap, and not really getting much to limp with. Table had a fair bit of raising, so in mid-position it wasn’t profitable to try to limp a lot.  I made a raise with AQo against two players from the SB and took down a small pot early when a Q fell and I bet at the two-suit flop.  Aside from that, didn’t see much Had another AQ once from the blind, missed the flop and ended up splitting the pot when the board double paired.  I also came into a pot from a blind with A5o, and, on a rainbow flop, tried to make a play for it against two other players in an unraised pot.  My raise was re-raised and called, so I just got out of it.

There were enough other people pushing each other around that my hands with all cards under 10 really were not gonna cut it.  Finally, at 50/100, I have about 650 chips, in SB, with pocket 10s.  With one other person already in the pot, I decide to shove em all in, hoping to perhaps just pick it up there and gain some more chips but happy with a caller if I get one - just don’t want to go up against two people with this hand. I get called by the BB who has Q9 and double through. 

At this point, we get down to 6.  From the blind again, I get 33, but with a raise and a call already, I just chuck em away and let them fight it out.  Only hand I get into is from the BB at 100/200. I already have 200 committed, I have to put in 60 more to call an all-in heads-up.  Even with 75s, I figured this was worth it - I don’t have all my hot-or-cold numbers memorized, but I figure that 75s had the necessary odds against any random hand given 460 already in the pot.  Given that the all-in guy had only 160 left at that point (he was in the SB for this hand), I could safely consider his hand completely random.  Wouldn’t you know it, I hit a straight on the flop against his A6o, only to have running 4s come out to give him a full house.

Now down to 1040, I have to start thinking about a steal - I can’t wait for great cards forever and, at 100/200, it’s getting closer to a double through not making a huge amount of difference because the blinds are coming around faster.  In the cut-off, I get Q9o.  The one to my left has a medium stack bigger than mine. SB has a small stack, and BB has a medium stack equivalent to mine.  All had been willing to get ouf of the way of raises.  I figured this was the time to push forward.  I get called by BB who had 88s, and I don’t get anything.  I suppose that’s the best one could hope for - having overcards to the pair.

Through 5 levels, I got two pocket pairs (TT and 33), AQo twice, and KJo twice.  I didn’t even get any other hand with an Ace in it the whole night except for the time described above.  I don’t know if I should have been making more with less, or this is just the nature of the beast - really tough when the levels increase so fast.

Filed by at 9:54 pm under dtrStories
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Because I’ve had so much less time for poker lately, I feel like even my limit ring game play is way out of shape.  Maybe just sometimes I don’t sit down in a totally focused mindset, but I also think I just haven’t been practicing enough so I’ve forgotten how to play particularly important post-flop situations. I end up just scraping out a winning session rather than putting together substantial BB.

Random mistake of the day: with QJ on a board with KTX, I can’t just automatically assume that’s 8 outs to the straight.  Any time an A is involved in making a potential winning hand, I gotta look at how many players are involved in the pot, because it’s likely that an Ace is already out there in someone’s hand.  So long as we’re grinding and playing small long term advantages, even that has to be factored in.

Filed by at 9:09 pm under dtrStories
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Since I’ve confirmed that I have at least 5 readers now, I will finally write this post:

Several poker bloggers have written of their blogrolls being wholesale copied onto other sites and, much worse, having their actual content copied.  There are plenty of legitimate reasons for concern here, but I hope that those concerns don’t get taken too far.

First, it’s important to note that we often cut-and-paste content in the process of criticism and commentary.  Our writing relies on that freedom to copy the works of others.  Hopefully, we copy with attribution and in legal ways, though the lines are often difficult to draw.

Second, certainly in poker blogging, I assume most of us are writing about poker to share knowledge with each other.  Whether that be in the form of explicit tips or the general sharing of playing experiences or the reporting of other useful information (e.g., articles about poker, bulletin board posts), we’re generating this information with each other and for each other - otherwise, we’d just as soon write a private diary.

In the service of that goal, please, do not take the desire to protect your work too far.  If we so loosely equate copying with “stealing” or “piracy”, we risk losing the sort of copying that’s so crucial to blogging. If someone’s profiting from your work, or using it without attribution, I can more clearly see your complaint.  But let’s not use that to cripple all copying.

Also, consider making your permissions clear.  As you can see on the right side of my blog, I have put my blog under a Creative Commons license, and, in that way, I hope to create more breathing space for anyone who wants to copy my writing - to provide clear, legal ways to share the information I provide.  The license outlines the permissions I’ve granted for use of this site’s content - namely, you can copy and distribute the content so long as you do so with attribution and for non-commercial purposes, and you can make derivative works so long as they’re under the same license.

Take it from Wil Wheaton, whose site is also CC licensed.  I’m sure you know Wil Wheaton as a poker blogger.  Some of you may also think of him as the guy who beat up Barney in order to demonstrate the ills of intellectual property.  I know I do.

(Full disclosure: I was an intern for Creative Commons two summers ago.  I spend a lot of time writing about copyright.)

Filed by at 12:24 am under dtrStories
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Decided to treat myself to a 5-1 sit-n-go NL Hold’em on Party.  I haven’t played many sit-n-gos - mainly, I’ve worked with my simulator and played some live ones, watched my friend play the sit-n-gos on Party a bit, but never played them myself.

I try, early on, to limp with a variety of mediocre hands when I’m in middle-late or late position.  In early, I’ll only limp with some better hands - I take Sklansky’s advice that hands like AJo and 88 you shouldn’t really be raising with a lot of the time, because you’re going to “hate” a reraise.  As he says, you don’t want to turn those hands into 72 - perhaps raise with those worse hands to try to steal if you can.  However, from what I’ve seen of Party sit-n-gos, trying to raise for steals early on isn’t really effective.  Anyway, from this I manage to get my role up to about 850 or so after the first round or so.

Big trouble spot for me tonight: I limp with J7s suited from the button with 2 others in.  Flop comes JT7 rainbow.  It’s the 15/30 round and the big blind bets 275 into the 90 pot. I called here, then folded when an 8 hit on the turn and he bet 325.  He could have had anything from JT, to just a 9, and wasn’t really sure what to put him on. He could have just had AJo, but I wasn’t ready to basically put my tournament life on the line this early. Maybe I should have been, as I was down to about 525.

I didn’t really have many good limping opportunties after that, with raises behind me or just plain shit cards - maybe I should have tried to sneaking in more with those. Certainly didn’t have any strong raising hands, though I could have gone for steals, of course. 

In any case, it got to the point where I had just about 350 left from being blinded down, with about 2 hands left in the 25/50 round.  Once the blinds go up again, I will not be in good shape. I came in from the small blind with K8o to a pot of about 200.  Flop was KT6 with two of same suit, one heart.  I decided to push here, given that I’d been so quiet that people would give me credit for it - I would be perfectly content with that. But someone had limped with TT, and quickly called.  There goes my tournament, out in 8th.

Hardest thing for me about playing these is that I don’t get a good sense of how well I played - it’s even harder for me to get that long run sense here.  With .5/1 now, I see my mistakes much more readily - I can make fewer of them, and, when I make them, I notice them either in real time or definitely when reviewing my hand histories.  But I don’t know what I learned in particular from tonight.  The hand with J7 really took a hit out of my stack and I really feel like I didn’t have enough of a clue of what to do.  Even if I made the right decision (not saying I did, particularly given I didn’t have a good enough read on the guy), I don’t feel comfortable enough in the decision I made to feel good about how I played overall.

Anyway: tips are welcome - any especially notable poker blogger posts on playing sit-n-gos?  Send ‘em my way.

Filed by at 9:18 pm under dtrStories
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