You Know, Dutch May Be On to Something...

A lot has been said in the poker world about Dutch Boyd, good, bad, and ugly, but I'm not one to really judge anyone based on things I wasn't involved with. Anyhoo, he posted something on his blog last week that is some truly great stuff about making money and beating this damn game:

A lot of people on this thread have looked at a few things I said in interviews and on the site and somehow came to the conclusion that I don't think poker is beatable. I've never said that. I know for a fact that poker is beatable. I've sustained myself just on poker for the last five years. I do think anybody trying to beat this game for a living, though, is doing themselves a huge disservice if they are playing small and medium stakes in live casinos.

Here are a couple interesting things to think about :

1) CardPlayer had a survey a few years ago where they asked readers whether they were up or down overall. If I remember right, only 20% of readers responded that they were down... 25% were beating the game and 55% were breaking even. Poker is a great game like that because it is SOOOO easy to trick yourself into thinking you're winning. A lot of times I'll catch myself after a losing session excusing the loss.

"Well, if those Kings had held up, I'd be winning for the session... so I'm not really down. Plus I got $50 in the mail for my birthday from my uncle... so really, I'm up for the day."

2) There was an anthropology book written about poker back in the 70s by a guy named David Hayano. He broke down four different types of "professional" poker players. These types were all players who were trying to make their money exclusively by poker. He found that most "pro" players drift back and forth between real jobs and poker because they would continue to go broke. That doesn't necessarily mean that most of these pros this guy studied were losing players... it does mean, though, that they weren't making enough at poker to sustain themselves.

3) A few people have talked about how the stakes effect the beatability of the game. I don't think there is any player out there who could consistently beat a 2/4 limit game in California for anything over minimum wage. In California, they take a drop instead of a rake... so the house takes $3 out of every hand regardless of how big the pot gets. The rake ends up being a lot higher than 10% of the pot. Then you add in the dealer tokes. Bottom line is when I was propping the games in San Jose, none of the props were beating the 2/4 game. The 3/6 game is where it started getting beatable for most of us... but not for a lot. Online, however a 2/4 game is quite beatable. The rake structure is different and you don't have to worry about dealer tokes. The percentage of players who beat the 2/4 limit games online, though, is lower than the percentage of players who beat the 20/40 limit games online. The reason for this is NOT because the players at the lower limit games play too fishy and your aces are more likely to get cracked. The reason is because the rake paid is a smaller percentage of each pot, of each big blind, and of each average buyin... which leaves more money on the table to be thrown around between the winning players.

4) After spending years making my money playing poker, I can say definitively that the best way to make money for a medium stakes player (anybody playing less than 100-200 limit) is multi-tabling the limit games online. There are hundreds of online players making six-figure a year incomes and a handful of players making seven. I personally have come to the conclusion that limit holdem games is the way to go... sit-n-gos, tournaments, nl games, non-holdem games... they are all beatable. But they aren't beatable for as much as the boring but trusty limit holdem game.

5) If you are a good limit holdem player, you'll win around 60% of your sessions. Let's suppose you're like me, though, and only win about 55% of your sessions. That means the chances of any one session being a losing session is 45%, the chances of any two sessions both being losers is .45 x .45. Stay with me now... this is going somewhere. The chances of any four sessions all being losing sessions is .45 x .45 x .45 x .45 = roughly 4%. What I take this to mean is that if you have four sessions in a row where you lose, it is much more likely that you are a playing with a negative ev than that you are just getting unlucky. Going even further with this... if you put in a solid week of online limit play and multitable, it's not that hard to get in 5 or 6 thousand hands a week. This is the equivilent of a month's worth of live play. Being positive after a 5000 hand week for a winning player is a lot more likely than being positive after a single session... I'd estimate somewhere in the 80 - 90 % range. If you have two weeks back to back that you're down even though you've gotten in > 5000 hands, the sad truth is it is statistically improbable that you are just on a bad run. You are much more likely a losing poker player.

Thanks, Dutch--great stuff...

A Follow Up to the Treatise on Aggression

It's obviously required reading to read my prior post to understand what I'm about to type. I got commentary on forums, and in my inbox about the last post varying from intense praise at capturing the nature of aggression in Limit Holdem to commentary saying that I was a chip-spewing maniac fool.

This may help those people understand why I play the way I do...

The example I used was that you have AK in MP. The player to your right limps, you raise, and the button, BB, and original limper all call. 4 players see the flop of J-7-3 rainbow. There are 8.5 SB in the pot. I bet or raised without hesitation in this hand. Why does this work for me?

I am a tight player, VP$IP around 16-17%, and a PFR around 9%. This goes a long way with players who understand table image. Regardless, this works for me because:

I play AK here the same way I play JJ.

I'll use a quote from a favorite movie of mine--

There's an important phrase that we use here, and think it's time that you all learned it. Act as if. You understand what that means? Act as if you are the fucking President of this firm. Act as if you got a 9" cock. Okay? Act as if.

This applies here because when you make this bet, you need to Act as if you have the stone cold nuts. Why? Because against non-calling station opponents, you DO have the stone cold nuts until something tells you otherwise. You will run into traps this way, but remember--most flops miss most hands. Over the long run, which is a damn long time, this play will yield you more pots than it will lose you.

I can't state this enough, however--do not try these moves against a player who will just call you down with middle or bottom pair or some other crap holding. If your read, either through observation or PokerAce HUD or GameTIme Plus, tells you that you are facing a guy who doesn't know where his fold button is, you need to be far more conservative. Aggressive, yet conservative. The farthest I would take this against a calling station or weak/tight player is to bet/raise the flop, bet the turn (and fold to most turn raises), and check-fold the river if you miss.

At first look, this looks weak/tight on my part, but remember, sometimes when you take this line you'll have AK, and other times you'll have JJ. It is important to this playing style that when you have a monster hand (like a set) and you take this direct line, that you show your hand down, even if your opponent folds. The next time, perhaps you'll have AK, and this monster you showed down will be in the opponent's mind, and he'll lay down a non-nut hand a little easier when he knows you straight play your monster hands. This also helps later on, as you decide to raise with T8s from UTG and everyone folds to you--remember, it's all about varying your play.

Maybe I made my last post more clear, maybe I made it more muddled. I just hope I made it useful for everyone.

Best of luck at the tables!

Limit Lessons--Aggression and Winning

A lot of people on Bet the Pot ask in the LHE Forum about how they can improve their game and win more consistently. Then they post their stats, and invariably, their aggresion stats look like this:

Flop 27.19 raise+bet / 15.44 call = 1.76
Turn 40.66 raise+bet / 21.64 call = 1.88
River 35.23 raise+bet/ 26.42 call = 1.33

When I did the research to put together my auto-rate rules for PT, I discovered that your pre-flop hand selection doesn't really have anything to do with your winrate. Pre-flop in LHE is much like swinging the driver in golf. Some players who are bombers off the tee (like myself) can't break 90, while other players who hit shorter, but consistently shoot in the 70's. In golf, you drive for show and putt for dough. In Holdem, you play pre-flop for show, but your money is made entirely on how well you play after the flop hits the table. That is where aggression comes into play.

My research found the following (from my 1.5 million+ observed hand database):

Rating Category................................................BB/100

Ultra Aggressor (AF-T>2.00).........................3.59
Tight Aggressive (AF-T 1.5-2).......................1.98
Semi-Loose Aggressive...........................................1.97
Loose Aggressive................................................0.72
Tight Neutral (AF-T 1.2-1.5)........................0.45
Semi-Loose Neutral..............................................1.79
Loose Neutral...................................................0.71
Tight Passive (AF-T<1.2)...........................-3.70
Semi-Loose Passive.............................................-11.42
Loose Passive...................................................-14.41

These numbers are not by coincidence. Your post-flop play is by far the primary dictating factor in your ability to beat this game. Without aggression, you simply will NOT WIN LONG TERM. I had made the following assertion in the forum:

As in my autorate rule discussion in another stickied thread, aggression is the key to winning poker. Plain and simple. No doubt about it. Pre-flop aggression factor is absolutely worthless. Ignore it. Your VP$IP and PFR aren't bad, but if you play passive post-flop, you will lose. Raise with your made hands, raise with your draws. Raise more than call, Fold more than raise.

I actually got some negative feedback:

...but this sounds more like blind aggression than selective aggression. I can't imagine what would happen to my standard deviation (15BB/100hands) if I jammed even harder.

Any thoughts on standard deviation and where it outght to be in online Limit games?

I almost fell on the floor. Jennifer Harman, one of the best LHE players in the world, in her section in SuperSystem 2, basically advocates ruthless aggression in exactly the way I mentioned--bet your strong hands, bet your strong draws. I play a tighter style, so when I'm in a pot, especially when I've raised pre-flop, I'm firing away, because to me, my hand is best until something tells me (board, another player's action) tells me it's not. In LHE, you can't bet someone out of a pot, so the only way you can protect a hand (see previous post) is to bet-bet-bet it until the other player folds or you win at showdown.

The research, and not just my own, either, states clearly that without aggression, you will not win! You have very little chance to actually protect a hand, so playing aggressively is the only way you can consistently win in this game.

Consider this example. You're in MP, looking at AK. The player to your right limps, you raise, and the button, BB, and the limper call your raise. The flop comes a Jack-high rainbow, and the limper checks. What do you do here? Bet. No doubt about it. You have overcards, and unless you think you're drawing behind 2 pair, a set, or a straight or flush draw (and your reads should give you an idea here), you need to bet. The only information you've given the opposition is that you have a strong hand pre-flop--you've raised. Maintain the strength. A bet tells them that you're not afraid of the Jack, or any other card on that flop. Many players will put you on QQ, KK, or AA and dump the hand. Others will call the bet and potentially give you a free card on the turn/river. This is clearly +EV.

Change the example slightly. The pre-flop action is the same, only the limper bets. What do you do now? You RAISE. Why? You will likely limit the field and make it a heads-up situation on the turn and river. Also, you are basically tossing in a feeler to see how serious he is about continuing with this hand. If he has Jack-rag, he's gotta think (if he's not a calling station) that he's beat here 8 ways to Sunday, and that the WORST you have is AJ, while you could have a set, QQ, KK, or AA. The only situations you're worrying about (and this is again where reads come into play) is if he has a hand like KJ, since that essentially nullifies 3 of your outs. If you're sure he doesn't have KJ, AJ, or a set or 2 pair (in which case you're screwed), this play works fantastically. You have a minimum of 6 good outs and you have him playing defense the rest of the way. He goes passive, and while remembering that you can't make him fold if you don't bet, you now have the mental edge in the hand to catch your outs, make him fold, or perhaps even win with your AK unimproved.

This is how aggression works in your favor. In the above example, if he has middle or bottom pair, your raise tells him that his middle/bottom pair just CAN'T be good. Most times, he'll check the turn, and your bet will many times force him to fold. The only issue is if he has a top pair hand or better. When combined with the fact that most flops miss most hands, it is fairly clear that this strategy has a positive expectation.

Here's the caveat--Don't ever try to semi-bluff/bluff the calling stations. You will lose if you don't catch. Frequently. This is where PokerTracker and PokerAce HUD come into play. If you're not playing with these tools on your side, you're losing money. Period. Much of poker is reading people, reading hands. Online, it's much harder to do this, so programs like PAHud and PT get you the information you'd have if you were playing live.

If you're still not believing that the above strategy has a positive expectation, consider this:

You have AK, the limper has JT. The flop is J-7-3 rainbow. There is no doubt that you're at least temporarily behind here, right? There are 13 SB in the pot on the flop, and the limper leads out for a bet. With 14 SB in the pot, you can call with 14-to-1 odds to see a turn card. If the turn card is a blank (or otherwise doesn't help you), you can dump it, right?

Wrong. Same idea. With 14 SB in the pot, you RAISE. Players downstream of you now have to call 2 bets to win 14 (7-to-1 odds). If they don't have a top pair hand or better, calling for them is a mistake. They can figure that they're behind at least one hand (the original limper/bettor), and most likely TWO hands, since the first bet didn't even faze you and you raised. They both fold, bringing the action back to the limper/bettor. He called a pre-flop raise, and he has just been raised by a strong hand (indicated by the PFR) after he led. He's getting 16-to-1 to call here with his top pair, mediocre kicker hand, and he's figuring that now, he's behind, perhaps severely behind. He calls, and the turn brings:

Example 1: A jack, ten, or the board pairs (7 or 3). He leads out for 1 BB, and you figure you have to be behind. If your read is that he's bluffing, you call and hope to hit on the river, or you can fold--net loss 4 SB.

Example 2: An ace or king. He checks, you bet, he folds. You win 9 BB.
Example 2a: An ace or king. He checks, you bet, he calls, river a blank. Check-bet-fold. You win 10 BB.
Example 2b: An ace or king. He checks, you bet, he calls, river a blank. Check-bet-call. You win 11 BB.

Example 3: Anything else. He checks, you bet. If he doesn't improve, he almost has to fold, unless he puts you on the unimproved hand you have in front of you.

See where this helps? Even checking behind on the turn has value in that it gives you a free river card and allows you another chance to catch up. An ace or king may fall on the river, he may actually bet into you and you can raise and win a nice pot, or another blank can fall and you can drop the hand for little loss.

I hope this helps explain the importance of aggression in LHE, and if you take nothing else from this, take these two things:

• Aggression is vital to success in Limit Hold'em. Without playing aggressively, you will almost certainly not be a long term winner.
• Never try to semi-bluff or bluff a calling station. Before you try the plays listed here, make sure your read on the opponent is that he can lay down a non-nut or other mediocre holding. If you feel he can't lay it down, play aggressively, but don't try to overplay him.

Good luck at the tables, all.

Haven't Blogged in a Bit...

And I feel guilty, really I do.

But I don't have a ton to say right now. I don't want to drop a strategy-type post when I'm in the middle of a downswing (currently not a big deal, but it still frustrates me) because I'm tending to hold on to missed draws too long, busted premium drawing hands (read: AK) too long. I don't think I have a lot of constructive advice to give at this point.

In the meantime, just as an FYI--Pokerstars is running a 20% deposit bonus for deposits up to $600--it's not a lot, I know, but considering that they're by far among the top two sites on the net, it's just more incentive to play there.

If you're not playing there, then go play at Full Tilt since between FTP and Stars, they're the only places you should be playing on the net. 100% deposit bonus up to $600, great software, great games, and don't forget--bonus code: Pokershark...

Enjoy...

Limit Lessons--Protecting Your Hand

In No-Limit Holdem (NLHE), you can protect a vulnerable hand by betting larger amounts. However, in Limit Holdem (LHE), since bets are limited by the table, you have to work a little harder and a little longer to protect your vulnerable made hands--a little luck doesn't hurt either.

Miller, in Small Stakes Holdem writes,

"The most costly error that you can make is to fold a hand that has a
strong chance to win a large pot..."
"...most small stakes players rarely make this error. In a large
pot, most people instinctively see their decent hands and draws through to the
end. Only players who believe that making 'big laydowns' is the hallmark
of expert play routinely make this mistake. They are doomed to wonder why
they keep losing when they play so expertly."

My feelings on this are fairly well known, but in case you don't know them, here they are...When you have a made hand (like a flopped straight, for example), and you bet-bet-bet, and your opponent just does the old call-call-call until the river when a fourth spade hits and he wakes up and raises, believe me, you're beaten here way more than 9-out-of-10 and you can make a laydown. However, as the pots in today's loose, crappy games get larger and larger with respect to numbers of big bets in them, it becomes more and more profitable in the end to make that crying call just to see if your opponent is bluffing at it.

Anyhoo-- he continues on about protecting your hand, especially in large, multiway pots. The concept is to make players with weak hands (weaker than you, anyway) or draws make a decision between folding their hand, or making a call that could be unprofitable. He also mentions that in some situations, a check-raise will protect your hand when a simple bet will not.

By protecting your hand, we mean to bet/raise/check-raise when you have a made, yet vulnerable hand (top pair, etc) on a board with potential draws on it (flush/straight draws). The major difference that I will explain is in protecting your hand when heads-up versus protecting your hand when in a multi-way pot.

Protecting a Hand Heads-Up
You have QhJh. It's folded around to you, and you raise. Only the BB calls you, and the flop comes Q-T-3 with 2 diamonds. Unless the BB has a stronger Q, you clearly have the best hand here, but your hand is very vulnerable. With a potential straight draw and flush draw on the board, you could be in some trouble. The question now is, do you bet or check-raise? Here, the answer is obvious because if you check and the BB checks behind, you've given the BB a free card to beat you. You need to bet out and hope for the best. If the BB raises you, he is at least on a draw, and may already have you beat. If he flat calls, he's getting 5.5-to-1 on his call, and while you've built a pot for him to lose if he misses, in this situation, it's very hard to protect your hand. You only really have the ability to price out a gutshot draw or a weaker Q or 3. This is the quandry of LHE because the very hands you can price out are the very hands you WANT to stick around.

Protecting a Hand In a Multi-Way Pot
This is the situation where I completely disagree with Sklansky/Miller/Malmuth. Their point makes mathematical sense, but the thing that we all need to remember is that in a 10-handed game, if 4 players at the table understand the idea of pot odds, know how to calculate them, and know how that affects how they play their hand, you've got a table you need to get the hell away from. Miller, et al, say:

"Sometimes a flop raise will not protect your hand. When these situations occur, you should often just call on the flop. If the turn card is safe (boldface added), you plan to protect your hand with a bet or raise. This is especially true when the pot is large, and a lot of fourth street cards might cripple your hand.

He then cites an example where you have Tc8c in the BB. Two people limp, an MP player raises, the button calls, the SB folds, and you call. The flop is QhTh8s. You have a well-disguised big hand, but the flop is treacherous. With 10.5SB in the pot, you check, and it is checked to the raiser who leads out. Miller says that you should flat call. I can understand his reasoning, that a player on a draw would just call anyway, leading to greater pot-odds later for players to call. Also, a ton of turn cards can really put the screws to your hand. A Q, J, or 9 can cripple you, and any heart is also bad. He continues to say that you should call here, and check-raise with any safe turn card, while you can check-fold a scare card. His reasoning, while sound, doesn't always apply to a lot of internet small stakes games. In many situations, a call is seen as weakness, or drawing, a bet or raise is seen as strength, and a check-raise is seen as significant strength. I think this can be worked to your advantage here. He also says that you should wait for the turn to protect your hand if the pot is large, or the bet comes from your left.

It is well known that I am a hyper-aggressive player and that plays like the one Miller suggests are symptomatic in my game of the affliction "Fancy Play Syndrome," or FPS. I'm not sure I could slam on the brakes with even bottom two pair there, especially if I'm first to act. While it might not be correct within the theory of poker to bet out there, I don't think I'm confident enough to hold off for the turn to spring my trap. My goal there would be to bet to lead out on the flop, then either bet (if it's just called) or check-raise (if my flop bet is raised) any non-scare card on the turn.

The other example in SSHE that I completely disagree with is his last one. You have KK in MP, and two EP players limp, and the player to your right raises. You 3-bet, the button cold calls 3-bets, the blinds fold, and the limpers cold-call two more bets. The initial raiser caps, and everyone calls, yielding a 21.5 SB pot to the flop. First of all, I'm not sure I've ever seen 5 players to a capped flop above 3/6 at Stars (though I may be wrong), and whenever someone I have a decent read on caps pre-flop, I immediately think AA or KK, or at worst AK. This is read-dependent, obviously, and if a player is a complete chip-spewing LAG, I'd think other hands, but for the most part, a cap pre-flop means a big pocket pair.

To return to the example, you have KK, there a 5 players to the capped flop, and the flop comes Td-9h-5d. It is checked to the pre-flop capper, who bets. You raise. Again, here, I'd be thinking AA, but with 5 players in a capped flop, it's hard to say, and likely your KK is good against at least 4 of them. If my read is that the capper has AA, I'd probably just call him down. In this game, the read is that the capper is totally LAG, and that he'd do this with just about any two cards. If that is my read, I'm jamming this flop down his throat. Here, everyone calls, and the turn brings the 2s. It is now checked to you, and while I'd fear a check-raise if I felt the capper had AA, I'd still be confident enough to fire another bet here. Again, everyone calls. The flop is the 8s, and it is checked to you again. You fire, and the button raises. Everyone folds to you and you make a crying call to see his J7 for a rivered gutshot straight. First off, Miller acknowledges this guy's terrible pre-flop play. No, he's a friggin' donkey. Point blank-awful. He then contends that the button played the hand correctly after his terrible pre-flop play. He got 12.25-to-1 odds to hit his 11-to-1 shot on the flop. He got 16-to-1 on the turn with an 11-to-1 shot, and he hit his hand on the river. His contention is that you, if you wait until the turn to check-raise, are foregoing a small advantage on the flop to get a larger advantage on the turn. While it is mathematically right, I honestly believe that the majority of games at the 3/6 level and higher on the internet (especially at Stars and Full Tilt Poker--bonus code Pokershark :-) are relatively tight enough that you'd never see 5 to a capped pre-flop pot and that this is a bad example.

To summarize my points, many players are more loath to call a BB on the turn than to call a SB on the flop. Miller's idea makes sense given that. However, to pass up a chance to price even one opponent out of the picture is a very risky proposition, and one that should rarely be done. To protect your hand, bet early and often, and force as many to pay the price to draw on you.