The title of this entry into the series must seem odd at first glance. Since when do weak players do all that much bluffing? You’re right to think that they don’t however amongst weak players (particularly live as there are fewer and fewer weak ones online) there is a tendency towards what I call ‘desperation bluffing’. These are bluffs where they’ve gotten to the river without any real plan for the hand, and now have a holding with zero showdown value so they attempt a bluff because they’re out of options. Although most of these players do tend to be weak and passive throughout the hand, they are often willing to attempt one street bluffs, especially if it’s the only way they can win the hand. Let’s take at a couple of forms of the desperation bluff:

1. The missed draw bluff: This is of course very common. You still see this one pretty frequently online and many players are aware of it. The action for this is mostly goes down; flop call, turn check/check, and a river bluff. It can happen when you’re both in position and out of position, but you can expect it a little more when you’re in position because if you have showdown value on the river out of position you’re sometimes value betting instead of checking to attempt to bluff catch (depending on the strength of your hand and how the board has run out.) So to give an example hand of this concept in use:

Your stack: 4000
MP1’s stack: 4000. Blinds 25/50. You hold 9s 9c on the button. MP1 seems on the weak/loose side and has open limped before.
Preflop: Folds to MP1, MP1 calls for 50, folds to you on the button, you raise to 200, folds back to MP1, MP1 calls.
Flop: Js 8s 5c (Pot 475)
MP1 checks, you bet 350, MP1 calls.
Turn: 5d
MP1 checks, you check behind for pot control (against certain opponents you could bet again her for value, but against many others a check is appropriate.)
River: 2c
MP1 fires out 800, you call.

While you won’t always be good here, it’s pretty obvious that you should call as numerous draws have missed (the flush draw, 67, and 9T.) Against a weak opponent you shouldn’t expect him to be value betting worse often, though his showing up with A8s wouldn’t be crazy.

When you’re out of position on the river whether you should value bet or check to bluff induce depends on a few factors and will partially rely on your hand and pattern reading. If he’s the kind of player who peels the flop with any pair and a huge station on the river you can lean towards value betting. If you aren’t really sure and don’t expect him to pay off multiple streets then check with the intention of snapping a bluff. Now let’s take a look at a second situation you can snap off frequent bluffs.

2. When a player is too weak at value betting to have it bluff: These are fun bluffs to call down because when you catch the player you look like a God damn genius when really the reasoning is quite straight forward. Many weak players are quite bad at value betting for fairly obvious reasons; they aren’t aggressive and their hand reading is very weak. As a result when they have a hand with showdown value that they’re not sure of they tend to check and hope to get to turn cards over. So when a scare card comes that they won’t likely have and you check on it, you sometimes see these players attempt to bluff this card and you know that their range is polarized to big hands and air. A good example hand is from a tournament I recently played at Crown Casino during the Poker News Cup.

The tournament was a $2500 AUD buy in event that wound up being more sitngo than proper tournament. The opponent was a local player who is a very nice guy but excessively loose and weak, and capable of occasional bluffs. He regards me as an aggressive thinking player and expects me to continuation bet a high percentage of the time on the flop.

My stack: ~13000, MP2’s stack: ~21000, BB: ~15000, blinds 100/200. I hold 7d 7c on the CO.
Preflop: Folds to MP2, MP2 calls for 200, HJ folds, I raise to 800, folds to the BB, BB calls, MP2 calls.
Flop: 8 4 3 rainbow (Pot 2500)
BB checks, MP2 checks, I bet 1500, BB folds, MP2 calls.
Turn: A
MP2 checks, I check behind.
River: T
MP2 bets 2500 and my chips are in the pot about a tenth of a second after his. MP2 has 54 and turned a hand with showdown value into a bluff and asks “How do you call?!” in befuddlement when he sees my hand.

The reason this hand is such an instant call is because I know this player isn’t the type to attempt to value bet an 8 against me on the river, especially once the A scare card comes off. I can feel comfortable saying that although it’s unlikely he has one; he’s also basically never value betting a 10 either. Although he could in fact have an ace because he’s so loose, for the most part he’s going to either raise himself pre flop or give up on the flop considering I fired into two players.

There are many situations like this, particularly in live play, where some players simply can’t value bet unless they are very confident in their hands strength. Against these kinds of players you should be willing to call down their river bets in situations where they often have polarized ranges as they simply can’t have huge hands that often.

So I did this thread quite some time ago and attempted to to accommodate a number of the requests. As of lately I'm running a bit low on ideas for how to continue the series and realized that really the best way to get an idea of how to go forward is to ask the readers what they want to see out of the series.

2+2 poster 'Bonsaltron' gave me a great idea to do an article on trends and plays in poker that come in and out or have become irrelevant which I think is a great idea that I'll get cracking on immediately, which was the inspiration to ask people what else they'd like to see covered.

Outside of that, what else do people want to see? Feel free to suggest things outside the medium of immediate strategy.

Thanks, Bond18

Last night is a blur. I know I told Cade and Kari I’d be taking things easy but it didn’t quite end up that way. At the point I ended up in a karaoke room full of military guys being told to please help chug their Saki (which I did, straight from the bottle) it was clear that the evening would not end well.

There is getting wasted in the fun sense of the word, where you act silly, do some shit you otherwise wouldn’t, and have a more or less harmless evening that you laugh about later with friends. And then there’s getting wasted to the point you’re sprawled out on the floor with the room spinning so fast you’re not sure it’ll ever be still again and begging your friends to make it stop. The nights you clutch the toilet bowl and think to yourself “There can’t possibly be anything left to vomit can there?” The nights that make you wonder how far gone you’ve let things go.

Last night was one of those nights, likely the most messed up I’ve been in my entire life. It was easily the most I’ve ever vomited. I haven’t had anything like it in nearly four years. Most of the time you wake up after one of those nights with a ripping headache, a pain in your stomach, and the mantra of “Ill never drink again.” Thanks to chugging a ton of water and vitamins I woke up at 4:30pm without any real trace of a hangover. I woke up knowing I’d one day drink again, but I can’t say I have any desire to do it again soon.

What I didn’t expect to wake up with was such an enormous sense of clarity. I can’t quite explain it, but somehow while going through the process of purging all the physical misery from my system; I seem to have purged my mental demons as well. I woke up feeling calm, settled, yet somehow motivated. I got a considerable amount of writing done today, including adding another entry to the ‘Things it took me a while to learn’ canon. The entry will appear on Pocketfives first and then be on the blog a couple of days after that. I even played quite a few poker tournaments today, and played patient and well.

I even somehow woke up with a greater sense of confidence (which seems as corny as it is nonsensical.) I used to be a guy so overwhelmingly sure of himself that it felt like I was on a perch I could never be knocked from. As Tucker Max once put it “Having confidence bordering on delusional hubris.” Not the most modest term, but you get the point. The last few weeks I haven’t been anything close to that, and I suppose what last night made clear for me is that pumping myself full of liquid courage isn’t the correct band aid for the mental bruise. Nothing about me has really changed the last few weeks, yet I’ve somehow felt the need to try to prop myself up with a constant stream of the sauce.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the end of my drunken misadventures. Not by a long shot. But I’ve lost my sense of urgency and necessity about them. I feel ready to get back to work, not only in poker but in life. I just proof read this entry, and fuck does it sound pretentious. But whatever, I’m going back to work.

Authors note: The following entry has been written while considerably inebriated. Enjoy bitches!

“Hey! Didn’t I see you over at Pearl?” I yell at the girl in the striped sweater on the table opposing us.
“Yea I saw you on the dancefloor!” she responds.
“Oh really, how’d I do? Sick moves ah?”
”You…looked like you were having fun.”
”Wow, what a polite way of saying I suck huh? You’re a real charmer.”
She laughs.
“No, if I knew you better I would have come over to ask you for a dance.”

I smile and return to the plate of Kalbi in front of me. Across the table Cade sits with his arm around Keri, laughing at me for my bluntness.

“The fuck are you laughing at Cade?” I half shout at him. He and Keri continue to laugh at me.

Prior to our ending up in the 24 hour Korean BBQ restaurant ‘Sorabol’ the three of us had attended the nightclub ‘Pearl’ at Honolulu’s largest shopping center. I’d pumped myself full of alcohol and made a pass at numerous women in between attempts at dancing with Keri, who was much too skillful for me on the dance floor. As a result I mostly stood in her proximity moving my hips awkwardly while she danced circles around me, occasionally grabbing her hand to spin her haphazardly. At some point a blonde girl molested me and my suit on the dance floor and I danced with her briefly before she brushed me off. I’m not sure why.

Now we find ourselves in the aforementioned Korean BBQ with my attempting to chat up the girl in the white and orange striped shirt on the table across from us. I doubt I’m making much sense.
“Yea well next time you see me around make sure to ask for a dance.”
She giggles and nods.

The cool and social middle aged waitress comes over and asks us what we got up to tonight. I inform her that the three of us were out clubbing.
She looks at Keri and Cade “You two are a couple yes?”
They laugh and nod
“Then where is your date Tony?” she asks me.
“She left me about a month ago” I answer with a smile and laugh.
“She think you were too perfect huh?
“Hahaha! Thanks. Yea, that was the problem. She knew I was too perfect.”
She laughs and pats me on the shoulder and walks off.

I keep rambling at Cade and Keri and at some point demand to know how long Cade thinks I could keep my hand in the large jug of ice water on the table.
“I put the over/under on about three minutes.”
“Done. Twenty then?”
”Okay, twenty.”

I stand up, rip my tan jacket off, roll up my sleeves, and cram my hand into the jug of ice water. If cold could burn, this is what it’d feel like. It burns worse than anything I can remember since getting tear gased.
“Ooooooooooh God it fucking hurts Cade! FUCK YOU!”
Cade and Keri laugh at my hysterically. After about 45 seconds I rip my hand out.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Why did I agree to that!? I was never gonna come close to three minutes!”

“Ship it!” yells Cade while he and Keri laugh at me.
“Man fuck all of you.”

’Iceman’ was a nickname Celina used to call me, more insult than anything for my lack of emotions no matter the circumstances. Just after a couple of days of knowing me, without any knowledge of the history, Cade gave me the same nickname. I’m not really the most expressive guy, and I tend to cover any discomfort or thoughtfulness with insulting sarcasm.

About 20 minutes later I start pestering Cade about adjusting the line as to how long I can keep my hand in the ice water.
“Two minutes” he quotes.
“Hell fucking no. No way I can keep it in there that long. I barely lasted 30 seconds last time.”
”You lasted like 45 seconds. A minute thirty.”
:”No. Hell no. One minute Cade.”
”A minute ten.”
”Man fuck you! One minute!”
”No.”
”Come on Cade! Come on! Coooooooooooooome on!”
“No Tony.”
”COME ON CADE! I bet the guy at the other table would take this action.”
“Why don’t you ask him then?”
”Fine.” *I turn to the other table* “Hey man, you wannna bet me I can’t keep my hand in this ice water?”
He looks at me suspiciously and answers
“Nah I don’t think so.”
The girl next to him in a black dress looks at me and says
”Why are your pants pulled up so high?”
“Man…why you gotta be such a hater?” I retort.
“I’m not hating, I’m trying to do you a favor.”

I stand up and push my pants down as low as possible.
“Okay fine! Just for you! Cade, come on man, a minute and five seconds. Let’s do this shit! Ten dollars! No matter what you’ll be up ten.”
”Alright fine, ten dollars Tony.”
”Yes! Boo yah! Let’s do this shit”

I leap up again, roll up my sleeves and demand Cade get ready.
“What are you doing Tony!?” asks the approaching waitress.
”Proving a point!”
I roll up a napkin and smash my right hand into the frozen water.
The other table and the waitress proceeds to laugh hysterically at me. The ice water burns my hand horribly. I do my best to play it cool and keep cracking wise throughout the process.
About 30 seconds into the bet I roll up the napkin, yell “This is what I look like when I have sex!” and cram it into my mouth and start laughing. The restaurant is in hysterics.

Forty-five seconds later I have destroyed the mark but keep my hand in the water.
“Come on Cade, let’s see how long I can go then!”
My hand isn’t properly frozen, but I still look like an iceman. A few seconds later I pull it out and laugh at Cade.
“I coulda kept going a long time.”

After paying the bill I stand up and start walking out the restaurant. A thought occurs to me and I turn around to face the table that was next to us.
“Hey! Black dress!”
I crank up my pants as far into my abdomen as they’ll go and walk out of the restaurant bow legged.

Authors 6 hour later post note: Ow, my fucking head.

I am an ambitious person. In many people that’s a quality, but I’ve seen what mines done to the point that I know it’s much closer to a fault. If I had to settle on anything, I’d call it a double edged sword. The problem is that my ambitions border on obsession. I become so single minded in accomplishing something (and only in a manner which I feel is best) that I neglect and eliminate anything around me that’ll get in my way. It can be as effective as it is self destructive. People sometimes tell me they wish they had my motivation and discipline, but those come with a price that’s harder to see.

A friend in the industry sent me a message today about my entry yesterday and the drawing attached to it which read:
” Hi Tony,

I'm a great supporter of yours, both personally and professionally, and I think you're one of the brightest guys I've met in the poker ecosystem. I'm sure with your bravado, charisma and intellect you could conquer any challenge you ever set for yourself inside our outside of the poker world. If you were ever looking for a job, it would be my pleasure to employ you; and I would always be up for having some or many drinks.

All that being said, I just want to share my concern with you about today's blog post. The cartoon at the end is pure highschool bull****. It's the type of thing that makes you look bad professionally (in ways you'll never find out about, but which will affect you if you ever want to be more than a player), and personally (I know you're not just an overgrown-frat-boy). You're now a high-profile public figure in the online poker player community and it's obvious you're trying to transcend that, and I think what you've done is a mistake.

If it's therapeutic for you to write about your breakup, then go for it - but be careful of invisible lines that you can cross without ever knowing it. If I were you I would try to republish that post without that cartoon.

That's it. I wish you well.”

I responded to him with:
” I really appreciate the message and any advice you have to offer on the situation. I wondered about what kind of message that drawing would send as I was creating it and have been wondering about my degree of visibility in the poker world in general. Most of what I've been wondering is whether any potential I have to go beyond being 'just a player' is something I'd even be interested in if it meant censoring myself or changing myself in the slightest degree.

When I got into this game I did it because I simply loved to play. At some point in the last year or so I think I lost sight in that. The conclusion I've come to is that I simply have no aspirations in this industry outside of being an excellent player and remembering who I am. What I loved most about this occupation is I always felt like I could do or say whatever I wanted (obviously outside the criminal degree) and there wouldn't be consequences when it came to my earning power. All that really mattered was that I played well and did so with integrity. Simply grinding online MTT's is easily worth in excess of $250,000 a year and it disgusts me that at some point I thought that wasn't enough for me, particularly for a job with as much freedom as this has. What I'm truly concerned about isn't my professional potential, but whether my greed and ambition has run amok.

When things fell through with Full Tilt they actually offered me a position to keep writing my blog for them for considerable pay, at least so for simply writing a blog. I declined because I realized I simply didn't give a damn about the money (among other reasons.) I wrote the blog because I enjoyed putting whatever I thought/felt into it and the idea of having to censor it just so I could take a paycheck doesn't jell with who I am. I sometimes wonder if the only reason I have a popular blog and some degree of notoriety is because I'm willing to put such ridiculous and absurd things in it, including admitadly immature and crude drawings. More importantly, I realize that being overly concerned about what my readers think is a fallacy to the whole reason I have the blog. I have the blog because I enjoy writing it. If nobody read it, I'd still write it.

If doing all this means no poker site would dare touch me than it's simply the price for being who I am. I'm happy with the money I make and my place in this world and industry and I'm not sure why I ever became interested in doing anything else. All I ever really wanted was to be a good player and make a living at this. If one day that becomes an impossibility than I imagine I'll go get a job where I feel like I'm doing something good with myself, like being a firefighter or something where I felt like I could be myself and do something honorable.

Lastly, I want to reiterate that none of this message was supposed to sound confrontational or arrogant, but upon rereading it I think it partially comes off that way. I have a huge amount of respect for you and what you do and have written so in the past and will continue doing so. I genuinely appreciate you're trying to offer a helping hand. It's also worth noting that this PM may appear in my blog as I think it clarifies a lot of my thoughts and feelings on the topic, but I will obviously edit out your name.

Cheers, Tony”

I had a long talk about Lee Nelson about not only this correspondence today, but professionalism vs. ambition in the poker industry in general. Of everyone in the poker industry, I’m not sure there’s anyone whose advice I have more respect for than Lee.

Lee realized the truth of the situation. I had a friend who recognized the ambition in me and tried to give me a helping hand, and my response was essentially “To hell with it, I do shit my way or not at all.” Don’t get me wrong, I feel like I did make a lot of valid points in my message back to him, but at the core of things I was lying. Not in the intentional ‘I think I can get away with this lie’ but the kind of lie where you know something and don’t really want to admit it to yourself. I know my ambition in poker goes beyond just playing. If all I ever wanted was to play the game and make a healthy living then why would I have ever wrote so many articles about the game? Was I just trying to make things harder on myself for amusements sake? Clearly I had an interest in teaching and discussing this game. I also think it’s pretty obvious from a number of things I’ve written that I also care about the games image. If what I really wanted was to make money and behave however I damn well chose I’d tear down my blog, delete the ‘things it took me a while to learn’ series, quit the poker seminars, and never post on 2+2 again.

I’ve never liked the idea of ‘professionalism’. I don’t like censoring myself just to please a more formal and rigid set of guidelines. That said my friends knew what I didn’t want to admit, you might be the smartest guy in the room but if you’re dressed as a clown nobody is going to listen to you (I’m not claiming to be the smartest guy in the room, I think the spelling in message will prove that.) I stand by my remarks that I wouldn’t edit my blog just to take a paycheck. But I would edit it if something in it damaged my ability to be credible.

In the end Lee thought the drawing was funny, but agreed that it was immature and unprofessional. He didn’t tell me to take it down, but made a recommendation. He didn’t want to see my being a wise ass hurt my ability to do the poker seminars we work on together (which I truly enjoy) and I’d hate to give them up too, particularly after putting in so many hours into crafting them. So the drawing is down.

There are too many examples of people who have tried to give me advice but my ambition and arrogance have prevented me from listening. I still remember arguing with my parents about playing poker instead of getting a job. Sure they were wrong that time, but it’s not like their hearts weren’t in the right place. There are more examples like that than I care to remember or rehash. So I apologize to everyone who offered me a hand and got the finger in return.