The Time Between Christmas & New Years

...a holiday for many, but not for me :-(

I've been working since yesterday, after having Monday off. Got to play a little this morning, before I had to work tonight (where I'm blogging from now). I finally cleared that Interpoker bonus I had been working on, so I quick upped and withdrew my funds with the intent of re-depositing into PokerStars.

I figure I'll be playing solely on Stars and Full Tilt from now on, since I really like the sites, and I'd prefer not to have money spread so thinly. It's kinda hard to play the limits you want to play when your roll is spread over 5 sites.

Anyhoo, I'm kinda wandering around the poker landscape now, not doing a whole hell of a lot of anything. I was playing 5/10 and 10/20 on Stars before the great cold deck of fall '05, and now I haven't played on Stars in a month, and I've only got about $1200 online after some cashouts and Christmas.

It's a strange feeling. I won > $6000 as a part time player through October, cashed out more than $2000 for a gift for the wife, another $1200 to save, and during the aforementioned cold deck time, lost about $1600 over a month or so.

I felt in control when I was winning on Stars. I don't know what happened. The cards stopped coming, I started dropping $500 a day sometimes. It's not a lot of money in the grand scheme, but when you're used to winning far more than you lose, it's a bitch. I sought out the bonus trail, and realized that while bonuses were nice, they also brought out the fish, and unlike most successful players, all it brought to me was an endless streak of being drawn out on.

If I think about it, I'll do a year-in-review post later this week, and you all will get to see my ten biggest losses of the year and my ten biggest winners, too.

This is my question, a full year into my online poker quest--Am I actually a good player?

Three months ago, I would've answered that with a resounding "yes." In fact, I really thought that I was legitimately one of the best players in the Stars 5/10 game ANYWHERE. Pounding a game for ~ 4BB/100 over 5k hands will do that to you. Especially after you pound the 3/6 for the same, and the 2/4, and the 1/2, and even the micro-limit stuff.

Right now, however, my confidence is severely shaken. Why? I'm not making different plays. The same plays just aren't winning for me. I feel that I'm making solid plays continuously, and getting my money in with the best of it consistently. BUT I LOST MONEY AT INTERPOKER PLAYING 2/4 and 1/2!!!!

A typical hand there (and everywhere I've played limit lately) would go like this:
Me (tight/aggressive): AA
Fish (loose/passive): does it matter?
Flop: A-3-7 rainbow.
Bet-call.
Turn J.
Bet-call.
River 5
Bet-FISH RAISES-crying call to see him turn over 64o.

I really feel like I haven't been a winning poker player since early October. I'm playing WAITING to be drawn out on. EXPECTING it. That isn't a great way to be, folks. I also don't know how to correct it.

Good hands hold up occassionally, but even in my foray into NL, I've run into just the shittiest luck you can imagine:

Me: 88
Opponent: ??
Flop: 8-J-2
I lead out for 2x the pot. He calls.
Turn: A
I lead out for the pot, he calls.
River: K
I lead out again, he raises all-in, shows QT.

Or a hand that got all-in pre-flop with my AA vs. his 66.
Flop came A-K-T
Turn Q
River J.

This was a $30 pot at $25NL that was all-in pre-flop!

On in PLO when I flop the muscle end of an open-ended straight flush draw:

KhQhKsAs

flop: JhTh5s

Of course, I'm going to push the bejezzus out of it. Pot!

How many outs is this?
To second nut flush: 8 outs (any heart other than the Ace)
To nut flush: 1 out (Royal) (Ah)
To nut straight: 8 outs (any Ace except Ah-3, any Q-2, any 9-3)
To set: 2 outs (any K)

So what happens? I brick up turn and river. 19 outs--that's 26-19 odds or 1.37-to-1 odds against making a hand. In poker, though, that's just about the best odds you can possibly have without a made hand--never mind the fact that I already had top pair...

I know, I'm whining here, but I just need affirmation that I am in fact as good a player as I thought I was. I feel like I'm making the best plays, but they're just not being rewarded in the results.

I know it's bad luck, but it has to turn around some time, right?

Merry Christmas to all...and to all a Good Night!

Just taking the time to wish everyone out in the Blogosphere the happiest of holidays and a New Year filled with all the blessings in the world.

My message to you this year is simple.

Grab the ones you love, pull them in, and hug them just a little bit tighter than usual--be thankful for those you love.

Throughout the year, you piss each other off, you get mad at each other, hell, you may not even speak to some.

Get over it. The holidays are about family. Appreciate the ones you love, and even if Santa Claus doesn't bring you everything on your list this year, bask in the glory that is your family's love.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, whatever your holiday happens to be--make sure you share it with the people that mean the most to you. Share it with your biggest fans--your family.

AK in No-Limit Holdem to a Raise--What to do??

All this discussion got me to thinking. Is it in fact +EV to re-raise AK in No-Limit Holdem? So, what I'm going to do is basically take information from my post from a few months back about using VP$IP to figure out what your opponents might be holding, and use that information to calculate the EV of AK, suited or offsuit and see how much of an edge you really have.in the situation.

First, I want to define what I'm talking about here. I'm using excession (from BTP)'s criteria to show tight/loose, etc. He defines the traditional categories this way:

Tight: VP$IP < 22%
Semi-Loose: VP$IP 22-35%
Loose: VP$IP > 35%
Extra Loose: VP$IP > 55%

I'm not yet sure, but it may be profitable to look at these players either ths way or by their PFR numbers, or even perhaps by the percentage of hands they raise PF with (If your VP$IP is 20% and your PFR is 5%, your raising percentage is 25%). Either way, the assumption used here is that a player raises with their best hands, not just any random trash.

For the sake of argument, we'll also define the raising percentage statistic (PFR divided by VP$IP), and use these criteria:

Passive Pre-Flop: R% < 25% (VP$IP/PFR pairs like 20/4, 30/5, or 40/6)
Average Pre-Flop: R% 25-35% (VP$IP pairs like 20/7, 30/11, or 40/12)
Aggressive Pre-Flop: R% >35% (VP$IP pairs like 20/10, 30/14, or 40/18)


More assumptions:

1) A player will loosen up as position gets later. Therefore a player's raising percentage may be 25% overall. It may be 10% in EP, and as high as 40% in LP.
2) Regardless, you should always open-raise with AK, suited or not.
3) We're using Sklansky groups to simplify the discussion:

Group 1 Hands: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, and AKs. There are 28 ways to make these 5 hands, 2.11% of the possible hands.
Group 2 Hands: TT, AQs, AJs, KQs, and AK. There are 30 ways to make these 5 hands, 2.26% of the possible hands.
Group 3 Hands: 99, JTs, QJs, KJs, ATs, and AQ. There are 34 ways to make these 6 hands, 2.56% of the possible hands.
Group 4 Hands: T9s, KQ, 88, QTs, 98s, J9s, AJ, and KTs. There are 50 ways to make these 8 hands, 3.77% of the possible hands.
Group 5 Hands: 77, 87s, Q9s, T8s, KJ, QJ, JT, 76s, 97s, Axs, and 65s. There are 98 ways to make these 18 hands, 7.39% of the possible hands.
Group 6 Hands: 66, AT, 55, 86s, KT, QT, 54s, K9s, J8s, and 75s. There are 68 ways to make these 10 hands, 5.13% of the possible hands.
Group 7 Hands: 44, J9, 64s, T9, 53s, 33, 98, 43s, 22, Kxs, T7s, and Q8s. There are 106 ways to make these 20 hands, 7.99% of the possible hands.
Group 8 Hands: 87, A9, Q9, 76, 42s, 32s, 96s, 85s, J8, J7s, 65, 54, 74s, K9, and T8. There are 132 ways to make these 15 hands, 9.95% of possible hands.

---

Now, for the real stuff...
Situation 1: You're in LP, 3 off the button. A player in MP raises to 5 BB, an average raise for the table. You look down and see AKs. What do you do?
If the player is tight and aggressive, you have to think about the top 10% of hands. This includes all the Sklansky Group I and II hands, and the "better" Group III hands. Using Pokerstove, you get that AKs is about a 54-46 favorite over this grouping of hands. AKo, however, has a smaller edge, only 52-48. Poker, and specifically no limit holdem, is about exploiting any small edge you may have. However, is it enough of an edge to push more chips into the pot on what is essentially a coin flip?

Situation 2: Same as above, only the player is very LAGgy and likes to raise a lot of hands. Say he raises his pocket pairs, and his paint cards first in a pot...When the possibility of weaker holdings comes into the picture, your edge with AKs becomes larger--61-39. AKo is a 59-41 favorite here.

You knew there was a table coming, didn't you?

Raisor will Raise with Hands to Group #	PFR%	Edge for AKs	Edge for AKo
Group 1	2-3%	40-60 Underdog	36-64 Underdog
Group 2	3-7%	59-41 Favorite	56-44 Favorite
Group 3	7-11%	62-38 Favorite	60-40 Favorite
Group 4	11-13%	64-36 Favorite	62-38 Favorite
Group 5	13-20%	66-34 Favorite	64-36 Favorite
Group 6	20-25%	67-33 Favorite (2-to-1)	65-35 Favorite
Group 7	25-33%	63-34 Favorite	61-39 Favorite
Group 8	>33%	64-36 Favorite	62-38 Favorite

What does this tell you? It tells you that you are a significant favorite over most hands, but to be extremely wary against hands you may be dominated against. What is dominant over AK? AA or KK--the hands most likely to be raised and re-raised. If you raise first in with AK, and you get re-raised, it becomes decision time, especially if your re-raisor is a tight player. If you assume you are an underdog, or even a coin flip, you must be aware of the pot odds you have to call this re-raise, and you must also be ready to let go of this dangerous yet potent drawing hand. Also remember that as the number of players to a flop increases, the chances you will be able to win unimproved decreases. AK is a fantastic hand, but one you should play similarly to TT or JJ. If a flop comes Q-high and you're bet into, you're most likely beaten and need to muck it.

Meanwhile, if your raisor is anything but tight, re-raising with AK is a +EV move, especially if you don't believe they have AA or KK. You are no worse than a 55-45 underdog to any hand other than AA or KK. My advice again, however, is to know when to let go.

The Debate Over AK in No-Limit Hold'em

I wrote in a post about 7 months ago about the dangers in playing AK, and today over at Bet-the-Pot, I got quite the surprise in that quite a few experienced NL players prefer to either limp with AK, or to muck the hand pre-flop to a raise.

This stunned me.

I mean, yes, I'm a limit specialist, and the hand is far more valuable in limit than it is in NL (or is it?), but isn't this one of the Sklansky "raise and re-raise" hands? The hand in question had a player in the SB with 2 previous limpers (one of whom--EP--is considered to be a rock, and calling only 9% of PFRs, the other is the button). The poster completed his blind, then the BB raised to 5BB. The EP player called the raise, the button folded, and the SB, the poster, also folded. The flop was A-6-3, with the 6 and 3 being diamonds. It was checked around.

My response to him was as follows:

Let me get this straight...You folded AK from the SB to a 5x BB open raise from the BB?

WHY???

I would've re-raised him to isolate.

AK, even though it is not a made hand, is a true premium hand, one that should be raised and re-raised with pre-flop, pretty much regardless of position. Only time you let the hand go is if the opponent pushes full stack. Even then, you think about it, because against anything but AA or KK, you're no worse than a coin flip.

So, no, not weak tight, just weak. Sorry, chief, but it takes a lot for me to dump AK pre-flop.

I got an argument. Also a stunner. The original argument was:

In cash games AK is nowhere near as good as in tourneys. You simply don't make as much money with AK as for example 99 and there is a reason.

Again, stunned. I didn't know how to react, so I kinda dove into reading. I came across this article in CardPlayer:

What’s the best starting hand in no-limit hold’em? The quick and popular answer is pocket aces. The next most popular answers are pocket kings, pocket queens and A-K (aka “big slickâ€ï¿½). But I think it’s time to devalue A-K.

You make money with a hand when an opponent puts money in the pot when you are the favorite. Bluffing is not a factor in determining the value of a starting hand. You can bluff with any two cards. The way you play a hand determines the efficacy of the bluff (along with your image and the relative sizes of chip stacks). The value of a hand is a function of the number and power of the situations in which it is profitable.

Pocket aces are profitable because they are a big favorite over every other hand before the flop. The known danger is that most people can’t get away from them when they catch a bad flop. This is even more true of pocket kings, because too many people will call bets on the flop even with an ace out there.

But I am using this column to argue that A-K is the hand that has become much more dangerous and less profitable in the past few years. Years ago, it was much more common for people to play all sorts of ace-rag and Broadway hands, even for a raise. That situation massively favors the A-K, which is why big slick used to be correctly valued very highly. Back then, if you raised with A-K, you could count on regularly being called by A-Q, A-J, A-10, K-Q, K-J, and even A-9.

Even better, when you were lucky enough to flop an ace or king (about a third of the time), you had the best kicker and your opponent was drawing to only three outs (to hit his kicker). You could bet big on the flop and even get raised by someone you had dominated. You could get all of your money in on the flop as a substantial favorite. That’s even better than the popular wish of getting it all in preflop with aces over an opponent’s deuces. Years ago with A-K, even when you missed the flop, you often could make a continuation bet and take the pot. What a glorious time. Those were the “good old days.â€ï¿½ Don’t count on that now.

Sure, it still happens now, especially at the lower limits, but the competition changed as players became more educated. Sklansky, Caro, and the rest of the poker experts effectively warned the public about playing weak kickers, especially for a raise. Nowadays, if you raise with big slick preflop, get called by A-J, and then check-raise an ace-high flop, most players won’t pay you off. Big slick just doesn’t earn what it used to.

What is worse, players will call you with a medium pair preflop and raise you even when there’s an overcard on the flop. So, if the flop comes J-6-2, many opponents will put you on A-K and happily go all in with 9-9, knowing you can’t profitably call.

Another problem with A-K was caused by poker on television (I accept my share of the blame). Wacky hands played by tricky pros get a lot of airtime. More and more players are emulating that strategy, so they can flop stealth two pairs and straights. Consequently, if you’re really deep-stacked, A-K becomes tremendously precarious. Your A-K can get an apparently attractive flop of K-8-6, and you can go broke when an opponent shows you an 8-6.

As is the case with everything in poker, it depends on the situation and the players. But because the competition has changed strategy, it’s time to counter effectively. Don’t play A-K like it’s the nuts unless you’re short-stacked.

If you’re deep-stacked, you’ve got to be aware that the competition is increasingly playing for implied odds, and your big slick rarely flops the nuts inconspicuously. A-K is too often easily read, and simply doesn’t profit like it used to. It’s time to devalue A-K and make more money on other hands. Good luck.

More important than knowing most everything is knowing when you don’t. I don’t know everything. Tell me when I’m wrong.

...and I saw the argument for letting go of AK. Then, I saw this article:

A friend of mine recently wrote an article in "CardPlayer" about devaluing Ace/King. He asked me what I thought about it. If you have yet to read his article, check it out at Cardplayer.com
Either way, this is what I wrote to him.

"Good to hear from you Dan. I've read your article and it is well written. In a no-limit cash game, you are, in my humble opinion, 80% correct. A/J and A/Q are trouble hands in a no-limit game...but Ace/King can be profitable...you just have to play it right. It is only a drawing hand and too many people get married to it.

I've seen this scenario a million times...A/K limps in, flops an ace and loses their entire stack. Mama always said, "don't go broke in an unraised pot" - these same players go on to say how awful A/K is. Of course the next time they get it, they become even more passive and just limp. They allow their opponents to get free shots at them.

A/K is best played in a raised pot. And unless it is suited, you don't want many opponents. You must charge your opponent(the one with 8/6) a hefty price to try and outdraw you.

Yes...A/K is transparent, but is it really? Hmm, I raised pre-flop...flop is all rags and now I'm still betting. Do I have Ace/ King or do I have pocket jacks? How do you know? And more importantly, are you willing to risk a substantial portion of your stack to find out?

Out of position - A/K can be hard to play...but so is everything, except for the Nuts.

Most good players can get away from Ace/rag or Ace/jack even when an Ace falls....but how many times is the game filled with only good players? Just the other day, I had a guy call off his entire stack with ace/nine. In the end, good players get away from losing hands - Bad players don't. Is it hard to get away from A/K? of course it is, but if you've been paying attention to the players at your table and taking mental notes, you should have a "read" on what they might have in any difficult situation.
Not to pat myself on the back, but the other day I folded A/K on the flop. The board read A/K/Q. No big deal really - Any player who was remotely focused on his opponents had to know he was beat. ( my opponent had J/10).

Another play I like to do with Ace/King is to just call a raise in position...it sometimes conceals the strength of my hand. If I flop an ace or a king and my opponent has ace/queen or king/queen - I might get paid off. Just like any situation, you must always be aware of who you are playing against.

Yes, in no-limit hold'em, you will almost always make more money with small sets, suited connectors and the like. But if played well, A/K can be very profitable.

...and I saw the article for leaving it alone. I've always played AK with only slightly less enthusiasm pre-flop than AA and KK. Think about it: With you holding AK, you are clearly dominated against AA. You are reasonably dominated against KK. Against everything else, you are hardly worse than a coin flip against a random hand. That is a double-edged sword, mind you. That also means that you're also only slightly better than a coin flip against the majority of hands that people would be playing for a raise. However, I can't understand the idea of mucking the hand to a raise from an LP player or from the BB in what smells like a blatant steal.

Think about it. If in our original example, the player simply called, he has no more information than he had before. He has essentially wasted his call. He was getting > 4-to-1 odds on his call in the situation, which clearly shows that you must at least call unless you suspect AA or KK. How does one discover where one stands? Raise. Raise for information AND for value. In this case, RE-RAISE. If the poster comes over the top with a pot-sized raise (about 17BB) and the BB flat calls, he should be cautious. A raise here is an attempt to win the pot RIGHT NOW. Of course, if he flat calls and you outflop the caller, it becomes a value raise as well.

In this situation (as easy as it is to be results-oriented), the flop brought an ace (and a 6 and a 3), meaning that the only things that you're behind here are AA, A6, A3, 33, or 66. He could potentially have those hands, and if he does, good for him.

What a re-raise does here is either a) win you the pot here, not allowing you to risk not outflopping your opponent, or b) builds the pot in the event you do outflop your opponent and win you a larger pot. He's as likely to have AQ here as he is to have 66 or 33.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This brings me to another point. In an effort to avoid (or is it perpetuate) the dreaded affliction FPS--Fancy Play Syndrome--I've thought of an interesting theorem. Raise big with your premium hands. Your AA, KK, QQ, JJ, etc. Now here comes the tricky part: Raise BIGGER with your drawing and speculative hands.

It's just a thought, but if you're on the button with ATs, and 2 people limp from MP, and you crank out a garden-variety positional 4BB raise and get two callers, you've built the pot, granted, but when the flop comes K-8-6, with none of your suit, all you've done is give yourself reason to fold, especially if one of the limpers lead out.

If you have AA there, you want those limpers to call, but you have to raise here. Toss out the 4-5BB raise and watch them call. You've built a pot where you are a clear favorite. Nice, eh? However, in the first example, you really DON'T want callers. How do you avoid callers? Raise bigger. Chuck out a 6-7BB raise. You're making players who are limping with "limp-quality hands" pay a SIGNIFICANT premium to continue on. Of course, the bigger raise could be read as an overbet, but you're not raising with crap here, you're raising with quality cards--only quality cards that need a little help--AND you're giving yourself odds later on.

The important thing to remember if you foolishly take my advice is to vary your strategy regardless, because it makes you harder to read.

This is just something I'm posting out in the blogosphere--I don't believe it to be gospel or anything like that, and I don't personally play that way--but it is an interesting thought, no?

What? Playing No-Limit?

Yes, folks, that is in fact me you see playing NLHE at Full Tilt and Interpoker. Limit hasn't been very kind to me since the downswing. So, I figured I'd mix it up a little bit and start climbing the NL ladder the same way I climbed the limit ladder.

I think it's a simple, but very important lesson to learn. I have the bankroll for higher games, but I started at $25 NL. Why? It's not your skills alone, nor your bankroll alone that dictates where in the world of poker you belong. It's a combination of both. Poker's been extremely good to me over the last year (yep, it's almost a full year that I've been playing for real money), and I feel that I've learned a great deal. I've played limit (playing up to the 10/20 game on Stars, and having a cup of coffee at 15/30--not bad for a guy who started '05 playing in the 0.25/0.50 LHE games, eh?), no-limit (up to the $200 NL on UB), and other games, but for right now, I don't feel my NL skills are sufficient enough to handle playing higher than $25 NL. I want to win some bucks at these games, re-learn the differences between limit and NL poker, then move up. I think it's solid advice to start low and go slow. For me, it's not a money issue--it's an issue of pride, and playing the best game I can, and learning the game the best way I can. Hell, I want the tournament circuit. Experience is only going to help me, both near term, and in the long run.

Ramblings:

For the first time in a while, I'm seeing a few Tuesdays off in January--are you listening, Dom? AC trip time--long overdue.

I wonder how many players have final tabled NL and Limit tourneys (with > 300 players) in the same year? Don't embarrass me by telling me that thousands have, especially since it's one of the poker accomplishments I'm most proud of this year. Hey, it's my ramblings section, and I'll gloat if I want to.

I glanced over my NL database (open since 12/05--I somehow lost my UB database from the spring), and I saw that in the 10 hands I lost the most money with, I either ran JJ, QQ, KK, or AK into AA or got my money in the middle with the best of it. Can't ask for anything more than that, right?

Weird thing is that I'm playing as much poker now as I've played any time this year, but the money's coming slower. I guess that's the difference between playing 5/10 LHE for $200 pots and $25 NL for $10 pots...

That's both a good thing, and a bad thing. Some time around mid-October, I hit a wall in LHE, where I would lose with everything, and I endured some really pathetically bad beats. (November was the first losing month (albeit small) that I'd ever really had) Now, when some schmuck pushes in $25 NL with his TPTK and his $10, and I'm sitting there with a flush draw and call the bet, I'm thinking, "Yeah, like I'm laying down my nut flush draw for one bet?"

I lose more money that way...

The one thing that I thought that NL would teach me is discipline. It's common knowledge that I'm a fairly tight player (LHE VP$IP 17.5%). I looked over the NL DB, and what do I find? A VP$IP of 20.8%! What the hell? Am I taking the implied odds concept THAT far? Or am I really just a sLAG? I feel like I should be around 15%, and pushing the crap out of those hands. I think I'm a good enough player post-flop to be around 20, but I can't help but recall that I was a good limit player until I got my VP$IP below 18%--then I became a great limit player. Maybe that's the answer.

I think some time in the new year I'm going to make a triumphant return to the limit games--hopefully by then I'll be off the schneid I was on at Stars. The schneid coincided with a) the dissolution of the Party network, and b) my 'decision' to go semi-pro and take regular withdrawals. This means that either a) the fish were getting the best of me short term, or b) I need to go make my tinfoil hat and join the masses that say that online poker is rigged.

I'll take (a), especially since if online poker was rigged, it sure as hell was rigged in MY favor for a long time.

Quote of the year--from the loving and supportive (and very pregnant) Mrs. PokerShark, in response to me saying that I really don't have any vices, except my love of poker...

"Honey, as long as you keep winning, me and the baby don't care how much poker you play. And don't worry, if you spend too much time playing, your baby's first word won't be 'daddy,' it'll just be 'Tiffany's.'"

How screwed am I?

Don't forget to visit the linked blogs on the right, and play at Full Tilt Poker. HDub and the folks over there run a helluva good site. Patronize our friends over there, mmkay?

In case I don't get back to blogging before the holidays, I hope that the holidays bring you closer to those you love and that the new year brings you nothing but the realizations of all your dreams. Good health and good luck everybody!

Peeling One Off...

First, apologies to both my readers for my one month unwilling sabbatical. It's been crazy busy being the Shark, and hopefully, I'll be able to put more time into blogging now...

Anyhoo, a post by MecosKing over at BTP inspired me to write this post. The example he gave wasn't really as good as another I saw later the same day. Here's the setting: You're playing and you look down at a small pocket pair in LP or the BB. That could be a post in and of itself, but I digress. In LP, you limp in and see the flop, in the BB, it's raised to you and you call the raise from the blind. The situation matters less than the play:

Party Poker 5/10 6-max:

Preflop: Hero is BB with 3c, 3d. CO posts a blind of $5.
1 fold, MP raises, CO (poster) calls, Button calls, SB calls, Hero calls.

A blind defense, a profitable BB call with a pair, either way, you're in.

Flop: (10 SB): 9s, Qh, Ah (5 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, MP bets, CO calls, Button calls, SB calls, Hero calls.

The advantage of having relative position after a bet--you're now getting 14-to-1 on a call, and even though you KNOW you're beat here, think of the implied odds you get if you hit... Granted, you're drawing to 2 outs, with one possibly tainted, but for one SB...you peel one off.

Turn: (7.50 BB): 3s (5 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, MP bets, CO calls, Button calls, SB calls, Hero raises, MP calls, CO folds, Button calls, SB calls.

The gin card. This isn't my hand, and I'm not sure I like the check-raise here with 2 flush draws now out there, (not that a straight bet will help here either), but he drew to his 23.5-to-1 prop and hit. He spent a small bet to get a lot more and hit his perfect card. The flush draws can be scary here, but now he's building the pot with what likely is the very best hand.

River: (16.50 BB): 9c (4 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, MP calls, Button folds, SB folds.

Yahtzee. Only way I like this better is if the card that falls is the 9h (completing a heart draw). He extracts max value out of it and takes down a $185 pot.


Peeling one off isn't always a solid play. For example, in this situation, he has to figure he's way behind on the flop, maybe to 2 pair, and he's getting nowhere near the odds to call the flop bet. This is where the subtle differences in holdem between a small bet on the flop and a big bet on the turn and river come into play. Many players will use a peel off on the flop to see if their marginal hand will get good on the turn. The difference between good players and donks is that the good players re-evaluate their position after the turn, while the donk will just keep peeling. In this situation, if the 3s doesn't hit on the turn, our Hero can easily get away from this hand to a BB, and can live to fight another day.

He's looking at the implied odds here. I'm being results-oriented, but at the same time, you have to in this analysis of what on the surface looks like a poor play. He's calling 14-to-1 on a 23.5-to-1 shot. A bad play, right? What did hitting get him? 18.5 BB to 1 SB. Reduce it out--37-to-1 implied odds on the call. Granted, he could have hit his hand and still lost to a flush or even an oddly played straight, but a set to a full house on the river potentially gives you 9 outs, 37-to-9, or 4.1-to-1 odds of pairing the board.

Don't think I'm saying this is the end-all, be-all play, or even a solid one--just consider adding it to your arsenal in the right situation!

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As a post-script, not poker related, but of the utmost importance besides, the ultrasound showed that we're likely having a baby girl in April. I thought I couldn't love anything more than I love my wife. I was wrong, in a good way.