High On Poker

When I first started reading Anthony Holden’s Bigger Deal I didn’t know what to expect. I knew that Holden was the author of Big Deal, a seminal late-1980s look at the world of poker, but I didn’t know much else. Hell, I hadn’t even read Big Deal, but I received a free copy of Bigger Deal (that’s my disclosure, people), so I thought I’d at least give the book a chance.

In the world of poker books, there are two basic models: (1) How To Guides, like Super/System and Harrington on Holdem, and (2) narratives, like Stuey Ungar biography One of A Kind and McManus’ Positively Fifth Street. Between the two, I am a much bigger fan of the latter. How To guides are undoubtedly helpful, especially to newer players, but after a while, I’ve found them to be tedious. The narratives, however, are usually interesting. After all, its the life behind poker that I yearn to read about. The game is the game. There is only so many times you can read about playing AK.

That said, poker narratives often suffer from their own problems. First, there is usually always a chapter or more on the basics. I’ve read a good dozen poker narratives, and at least 8 of them went through the history of the WSOP (from the Binions Horseshoe promotion to its present form, complete with internal family and business strife). Bigger Deal had the chapter, and like most books, it was fairly early on, but once I was able to skim through it, I got to the book proper, and overall, I liked what there was to see.

Holden is a British mostly-freelance writer, and he’s been covering poker for years, long before some of the Johnny-Come-Latelies now writing. The book covers the period of time between the 2004 and 2005 WSOPs (Greg Raymer’s win and Joe Hachem’s win), by traveling to all sorts of places in Holden’s quest to re-enter the world of poker in earnest. As a result, the book comes off as a mix between a yearly recap/journal, and an interesting travel guide into some random poker places.

Holden’s writing probably excels in two topics: (1) the atmosphere of tournament poker and (2) the generational change, specifically in reference to online poker.

When Holden writes about his experiences in large field tournaments, he does it in a way that really captures the experience. Between his descriptions of the players around him and the hands he played, I was able to get a real feel for the environments. His self-introspection following tournaments especially hit home, at times making him feel dejected, and at others like he was king of the world. As someone with limited big tournament experience (but ample small tournament experience), I could relate to a lot of his introspections while I soaked in the atmospheres he recreates with words.

Surprisingly, Holden also excels when it comes to writing about online poker and more generally the generation gap between the old school poker world and the new school. Of course, Holden goes through the history of online poker and the resulting Moneymaker boom, which can be tedious, but he also offers an interesting perspective. After the history lesson (another staple for poker narratives), his editorialized view of the shift in the poker world is what really hits home. He touches upon the change in play, the change in personalities, and the effects on poker in general and big events like the WSOP specifically. He even does a great job of discussing UK v. US laws on online gambling, and the recent threats to US online poker.

Overall, I’m giving Holden’s book a top-pair, top-kicker in the lexicon of poker rankings. It’s a good book, but its a bit typical. That said, if you are looking for a new poker read, you can do a lot worse. Holden is a fine writer and his book offers a lot of interesting views of the poker world. You just might have to skim over some of the more standard fare (seeming required-chapters for any poker book) to get to the meat of it all.

Until next time, make mine poker!

I was going over my poker numbers for the year. In 2005, I made it my goal to win $1200 for the year. At the time, I was a nickle/dime player. I was into very low stakes, because I didn’t have money and I budgeted myself to $20/month. I would literally play 10 cent tournaments by the end of each month, when my bankroll was too small to play anything higher and it was too early to reload. Alas, it all worked out, and in the last weeks of December, I stumbled past my goal marker to a respectable $1255, thanks to a win in Atlantic City.

I initially decided to make my goal $1800 in 2006, preferring an attainable goal to something more lofty. After some suggestions from Joaquin, I changed my mind, raising my goal to $3000 (he suggested 3x my last goal, or $3600). As it turned out, I hit that mark almost on the nose, winning $3100+ or so for the year.

With this in mind, my goal for 2007 was to win $5000. It wasn’t quite as large of a jump, percentage-wise, as my last jump, but it made sense, considering that my bankroll was keeping at a steady amount. I was withdrawing early and often for things like my new TV or our new mattress, so I didn’t feel like I was going to make a jump in stakes akin to the move from .10 tournaments to $10 tournaments.

I’ve passed my goal. It’s been quick, too, with a big help from the $3k online win (the withdrawal went through smoothly, by the way). Now, I find myself on the beginning of a new precipice. It’s time for another move, and this time, the implications really scare me.

When I moved from penny games to dollar games, it was a big step, for sure. I felt for the first time that I was playing real poker. When I won, typically in the $20 range (online), it could actually mean something tangible. A $20 meal meant a meal. A $50 win was a videogame. I didn’t spend it as such, but I could quantify winning beyond, “Up $1.79″, which felt more like a videogame score more than anything.

Now, though, a $20 or $50 win is typical, and, if anything, more and more a small score compared to usual wins. I finally have the bankroll to take stabs at the $2/5 NL games, or play in the $10/20 Limit O8 games in underground clubs. I’m not super-well-rolled for these games, but before, they were impossibilities.

When I realized this, I had to take a mental step back. What did this mean? First, it means that I need to adjust my mentality once again. I’ll have to allow my tolerance for loss to increase, so I’m not playing scared. This is my biggest concern. If I move to the next level and I don’t feel ready, aren’t I destined to loose? Am I going to fall off of my usual game? The answer is largely, yes. IF I play scared, I WILL lose. Then how do I not play scared?

That brings us to implication number Two. I’m progressing. I feared after last year’s $0 profit online (the $3k was all live), that maybe I didn’t have everything I needed to be a success. I sincerely believe that a majority of poker skill is just innate. I suppose you can teach a lot of players to be profitable at the game, but I didn’t want to be profitable. I want to excel. I was to be great. That greatness is largely innate. A newbie may not be able to pick up the game and be great right away, but if he has the right stuff, he can reach greatness over time. Some players, however, will never be great. I daresay that’s the majority of players. For some, it might have to do with lack of work/practice, but for those enthusiasts who can’t get over the hump, the problem probably lies in something that predated their poker play. Maybe they are tilty or impulsive, stubborn or just plain stupid. Some people cannot get a grasp on this game, and every time the action gets to them, they ask, “What’s the bet?” as though they don’t know how to look at the action on the board, or they don’t understand the basics of LIMIT! poker. Most of you know the type. They might be smart or successful people in other arenas, but they just don’t get games in general, or they don’t get poker specifically.

This is all background of course. Now that I can comfortably consider some of the higher stakes limit games (I’m still not 100% sold on trying higher NL), poker is going to take on a different meaning. I near my greater, long-term goal, to make as much money playing poker as I do in my day job…while doing both at the same time. I’m not nearly there yet, but I can see it, even if it is 5 years away. Ask me a year ago, and I would have seen it 10 years away. Ask me two years ago, and it would’ve been 20.

I still have my doubts, of course. I’m not changing my yearly goal, because I could very well go on a dry run or losing streak. I don’t plan on rushing to the next level quite yet because I want to make sure that my bankroll is able to handle the swings, so I don’t have to drop down after a single bad session. And of course, I’m still wary of my own place in the poker pyramid.

But at least things are looking up. I hope as 2007 continues, I can look forward to other wins ending with a k, be them in cash games or tournaments. I still plan to keep my online play minimal, stakes-wise, although the live underground scene is drying up around me. It will be back, but the recent raids and robberies make me think twice about bringing $1k+ to a club. Before, I could only lose the $600 I brought to a possible raid/rob situation, and those situations seemed few and far between. Now, I hear about them weekly, and the increased dough I’d need for the larger games would mean I’m running an even greater risk.

Luckily, homegames are plentiful, including the Wall Street game, a new game I played in Queens, an upcoming game with a blogger, my Okie Vegas trip and lots of AC if I can swing it. I’m a lucky man in more ways than one.

I’m stepping up, damnit! And I couldn’t be more excited.

Until next time, make mine poker!

Yesterday, I asked the question of which is true:

Statement A:
There is no shame in going out late in a tournament on a near coin-toss.

Statement B:
You should not put your tournament life on the line on a mere coin-toss.

I received a decent amount of responses, with the general consensus epitomized by BSN‘s comment: “It depends.” But really, doesn’t it always “depend” in poker? The question wasn’t meant to elicit the final answer to the question, since “It depends” is invariably the answer in poker. However, there were some ideas that I thought shed some light on the conundrum that is these opposing statements.

WillWonka chimed in first with some interesting ideas. He voted for A, but only when he was late in a tournament. The logic it is “virtually impossible” to make it through an MTT without winning a cointoss. I’ve got to respectful disagree somewhat from this analysis. If anything, it suggests to me that you are better to get all-in on a cointoss early. Why wade through the masses if you are going to need a cointoss sooner or later. Just go for it sooner. I think the problem may be that Wonka’s analysis makes sense if you are NOT going all-in. Rather, if you are near the end of a tournament and may have to go for a cointoss for most (but not all) of your chips, it may be okay, since it will catapult you to contention for first. It doesn’t apply as readily to when you are all in because then, you’d be essentially saying that all of your work surviving is then negated by that end gamble.

Another way to address Wonka’s ideas is to look at stack sizes, generally, as suggested by F-Train and more thoroughly by Surflexus. F-Train merely mentioned that it depends on stack sizes, but when I suggested the different ways of addressing stack size, Surf offered a more extensive analysis. He said to look at (1) blinds relative to your stack and (2) chip counts of all other players [his (3) is really a derivative of (1)]. This makes perfect sense. If you are extremely shortstacked with only 3x the BB, then of course pushing for a cointoss is more warranted. This is even more so when everyone else has 30x the BB relative to your stack. You are in desperation mode, so 50/50 isn’t a bad gamble anymore. Undeniably, then, there are times that A is true, and you have no choice but to accept and embrace a cointoss due to a dwindling stack. (The “shame” however, may exist in how you got to be a shortstack, rather than in your acceptanced of a cointoss). On the flipside, if you have 30x the BB, one guy has 35x the BB, and everyone else has 5x, going all-in against the 35x guy on an obvious cointoss is clearly a poor play.

The other distinction which I thought particularly intelligent was whether you are the raiser or the caller. This was first mentioned by Bayne and also echoed by Hoy and PokerWolf. As Hoy explains, “As long as you honestly believe you can elicit a fold, I think this kind of an allin raise is justifiable early, middle or late in a tournament.” The equity you can make by getting your opponent to fold can add EV to the all-in on a cointoss situation. So, raising all-in with AK to push out a player who might be betting with a weak pocket pair is still a cointoss situation, but since it could elicit a fold, its a better play than if you were calling the small pocket pair’s all-in. By pushing, you can win the pot uncontested and rest assured that if he does call, you’ll still be almost 50% to win.

One final thought that was only mentioned by Hoy: pot odds. We discuss cointosses and I think everyone assumes its a two-player confrontation, so your pot odds are roughly 1:1. However, if the blinds are big, or there are significant antes, or there are other callers that you can knock out to get heads-up on a cointoss, the pot odds MIGHT dictate a call. I would expect that this is a dangerous analysis, since survival is key in MTTs, but if the odds you are getting are enormous, then it might be a proper play to call an all-in. For instance, you have AKs in LP with 2000 chips, with blinds of 100/200 and 25 antes, at a full table. Preflop, the pot is 550, and by the time the action is to you, one player in MP with 5000 has raised from 200 to 800. Assuming you know the opponent has a pocket pair, an all-in push might be smart here. With the MP raise, the pot has 1150 in it, and you have to push 1975 total to go all-in. MP will likely call you here and you’ll have roughly a 50/50 chance of winning. However, for your almost 2k investment, you have the chance of winning 4.5k, giving you better than the 1:1 odds you need to make this a correct move according to pot odds. Maybe I’m making it murky here, but I can see situations where pot odds are a relevant factor.

So, there you have it. As BSN says, “It depends”, and as the others have explained, things to consider are (i) your stack size compared to the blinds, (ii) your opponents’ stack sizes compared to the blinds and your stack, (iii) whether you are the raiser or caller, and to a lesser extent, (iv) pot odds.

Thanks for all of your comments. I’ll have you know that last night, I played the Hoy and went out 7th out of 23, but I made two decent comebacks after horrible suckouts against stacks that were only a tiny bit smaller than mine. In my last hand, I called Lucko’s push with 22, knowing that it was a cointoss, weighted in my favor. At the time, I was the small stack, and I needed the chips to get back into contention. I also knew that Lucko was pushing with any two cards, so I was confident it was a cointoss. Considering everything, I’m still not sure if it was a good play.

Until next time, make mine poker!

Several months ago, I made a post called “Which is True?” TripJax liked the idea and commented that he looked forward to future editions of the column. Well, I hope I didn’t make him wait too long. It’s a really simple concept. I’ll set forth two ideas that both appear true on their face but also appear to be in opposition. All you have to do is share your opinion. Let’s proceed:

Statement A:
There is no shame in going out late in a tournament on a near coin-toss.

Statement B:
You should not put your tournament life on the line on a mere coin-toss.

So, which is true, or if they are both true, how so? I believe that this may be a topic near and dear to the poker blogging community, and frankly, I don’t think the answer is very clearcut. There are days that I would profess A to be true and B to be false, and there are other days where I would say the opposite. So, I ask you, Which is True?