So, yeah, I'm on a bit of a downswing recently. As always, I dropped money at the Borgata, first by blowing $2k in a supersat, then by blowing $10k in the main event. The supersat was memorable because I had about an average stack with 75 left. 57 paid. A total donk (keep in mind, my total lack of self-confidence, which you'll certainly see evidenced in the rest of this epic-length post, causes me not to throw the "d-word" around lightly) opens and I shove KK. Barely having me covered, he calls with AJ and rivers the ace of spades (ALWAYS THE FUCKING ACE OF SPADES) to bust me. If I knew he was going to call with AJ, I probably should have folded there; obviously, I had no idea how deep his donkitude ran. It's tough to make calls that actually cost you 5k in equity when the most you can win in a tournament is 8k, but he did it and I was the victim. Oh well.

The main event was more frustrating, because I felt like I played pretty poorly throughout, and thus I feel like I can blame myself for my downfall. I ran super ridiculous silly bazilly hot Day 1, set-over-setting one person, then flopping a set vs. Jeff Madsen's AA in a huge pot, ending the day with a top 10 chip stack. I ended Day 2 with about the same stack; this was frustrating, because I really played kind of passively when people played back at me (and they did this with astounding frequency for a live event!). I busted Day 3 on what amounted to a coinflip, about 20 short of the money. But there were too many spots I missed where I could have picked up chips, and at least two spots where I could have saved tons of chips (I made two hero calls that turned out to be wrong; once with 4th pair against an aggro player and once with top set when every draw got there on the river and the oldest nittiest person ever bet 2/3 pot into me). Oh well. One of these days I'll run Jamie Gold good in a live event, right? Right!

Online, I also feel like I'm playing terribly. I'm also running kind of bad as well, but that's certainly no excuse for how much money I've been spewing. Basically, I've gone on a 15 buyin downswing at 5-10 on full tilt, and it's crushing my soul. I am now without a doubt the donkey in those games, and it feels awful. I can only imagine the regulars in those games laughing at me as I sit down and the game forms around me, 5 people waiting for me to spew off a stack and then reload and spew off some more. Or, in the case of heads-up games, one person doing that. I'm doing everything wrong. I'm playing like a passive bitch in and out of position; I'm not thinking at all when I act, just mashing buttons and hoping some chips go my way, living in total fear of pushing into a big hand, and then doing so anyway (or making a hero call against an obvious better hand). It's like I'm only making haphazard guesses at my opponents' hands. I'm easily trapped, effortlessly bluffed, endlessly fooled.

I used to think I was good at poker, I used to think I was a winner. But I am still a lifetime loser at 5-10. I suppose I should stop playing there until I learn how not to suck at poker again, or at least until I game-select there. Or, just accept that I am not going to be a winner in tough cash games without some serious learning, or fewer tables, or something. Or, most importantly, just take some time before I make each decision. No more auto checking/betting/raising/folding. Not only does that lead to timing tells, it causes me to make the WRONG decision with astounding frequency.

I know this may sound harsh, but it's hard to walk the fine line between being honest with oneself about one's mistakes in the game and full-blown self-loathing. Right now I've crossed into the latter category, and I'm kind of freaking out about it. The funny thing is, it's not even a whole lot of money compared to what I could lose by running bad in one session of 25-50, but I freak out nonetheless. What a bitch I am; I should, in fact, be thankful that I am making these mistakes at 5-10, where I am ridiculously overrolled, than at stakes where playing this atrociously would really hurt me.

It's a pretty nasty cycle. I lose money, tilt, lose more money, whine about it to people, then hate myself for whining, then stay on tilt and predictably, lose more money, etc. I should stop it. Deep down somewhere I know I am successful at poker, and can continue to be in the future. But right now, I'll just wallow in booze and self-pity. At least it'll prevent me from playing in this state of mind!

On a positive note, I luckboxed my way into a seat in the Aussie Millions in January, and I also got 2nd in the 100r, so maybe I'm doing something right in tournaments (read: occasionally I run good enough to overcome my own ineptitude). Those scores, along with sweet sweet Cake Poker 10-20, basically turned a losing month into a breakeven one. But I should really be sticking to winning months, or something.

OK, enough rambling and whining, I'm going to talk about some more "pros." I'll see you all fuckers in Aruba.


Humberto Brenes: I played with Humberto late in Day 2 of the WSOP ME. I heard Lon and Norm say that he "normally plays good cards." That's the understatement of the fucking century. He isn't just a nit, he's the nittiest nit that ever nitted. He may seem playful with his "chark" and yelling, but when he opens a pot it's AK-AJ, 88+ ALWAYS. I fail to understand how he gets giant stacks in these events. Are people that willing to pay him off? Oh wait, it's a live tournament, so the answer is "yes."

Nick Frangos: Actually, I can't really comment much on his game, seeing as he was pretty short-stacked when I sat to his left deep in some event. He seemed nice enough; he even bothered to talk to me in a later tournament when we both went deep. I include him because he reminds me of an incident that reminds me why I really fuckin' hate playing live. Nick and I had a seat right near the rail, so obviously a bunch of railbirds were right up near us. One of these railbirds, as is often the case in a casino, had monster body odor. Not just regular funk, but a cloud of noxious chemicals, an odor resembling rotting sun-baked garbage mixed with fresh vomit and not-so-fresh diapers engulfing our table. Nick, to his credit, politely asked the floor to move the rail away from the table. When this didn't really remedy the situation, I got the feeling that he was about to sit out in protest of this odor. Thankfully, the table broke. Anyway, shower next time you go to a casino, whoever is reading this.

OK I'm sick of writing this and it's becoming rambly anyway. Maybe my next entry will be shorter and less full of self-hate. But probably not.

Wow, I'm a pretty big slacker when it comes to updating the blog. Of course, I've been traveling, so that explains some of it. So, I'll recap what's happened recently.

EPT Barcelona: I got there, got drunk, stayed hung over for two days or so. Luckily, I started the main event on Day 1B so the hangover was only a nuisance rather than an all-out incapacitating "I feel like grim death please kill me now" deal. I doubled up the second hand when my opponent thought bet-shoving the river with a 9-hi flush was a good idea on a AJTTK board (I had KK). Then, I blasted off most my stack shoving top-top into a set (I situation where I could often fold, because the guy was kind of a nit), ground it back up to average, and finally lost a flip for a 2.5x average pot. Whatever, AK is the nuts preflop for 50 BBs (especially against a Scandinavian).

A few days later, I played an 1100 euro tournament and got 6-outered for a big pot early on. Standard. I was also nervous as hell because my boy Adam Junglen was at the final table of the Main Event. About every time I got utg+1 I'd go over to the Main Event area and check up on Adam (besides, who wants to play UTG or UTG+1 at a 9-handed table anyway?). Big congrats to him for getting 6th, and congrats to Funkii for 3rd.

Amsterdam: This is one cool-ass city. I probably don't need to elaborate. Big thanks to Hein for putting me up here and showing me around town. Good times. I also ground out 10k or so hands 6-tabling 5-10 on FTP, and actually showed some profit while here! Maybe I am finally becoming non-horrible at non-cake cash games!

London: I'm heading to London later tonight to play the WSOP Europe. I don't know if I'm really going to play it, because a couple things have to work out. Specifically, I have to sell around 35% more of myself, as I wouldn't take a shot at 100/200 NL without some backing (unless it was the best game ever), so I probably shouldn't take a shot at a 20k tournament with 100% of my action. I also have to find a way to get 10k GBP in cash, hopefully there will be people willing to trade for online money. But from what I hear, it will be the softest $20k tournament around, so I should try to play it.



So yeah, over the course of the WSOP I played with some pros and celebrities. Here are my impressions of them, in no particular order:

Jennifer Tilly: Wow, she played pretty weird/spewy at my table in the $3k event. Most noticeably, she donked (i.e. called preflop from a blind, then bet out the flop) into multiple people waaaaay too light. For instance, 33 into 4 (!!!) people on something like a 668 flop.


Chris Ferguson: Seemed like a very, very good tournament player, albeit a tight one. Seemed to pick up on things and make reads. For instance, he jammed over a J. Tilly flop donkbet with a weakish flush draw on a KJx flop. I mean, she folds there so often that jamming is perfect (even though she actually had KJ for top 2 that couldn't hold up).


Greg "FBT" Mueller: I had played with him in Vancouver, where he berated me for squeezing light and spite-called me with 87s. Here I got moved to his table in the 3k event, where we both had decent stacks. He played position pretty well, almost never letting me see a flop in position if I opened his button or cutoff. He made a pretty borderline shove into me later on in that tournament to bust. I opened and Greg shoved A8o for not many BBs; he had no FE, so it presumably could have been a value shove, but my stack was also kind of at an awkward size for opening the pot, so my range has to be pretty narrow there.


Hoyt Corkins: Seemed super aggro, though I didn't play many hands with him (then again, it's live, so I didn't play many hands with anyone). I fired two barrels into him as a semi-bluff in position with a 6-hi flush draw (and I think a gutshot on the turn, too), and rivered the flush. I bet again, and he called again. I dunno what he had, but I probably cracked his top pair or something.


Clonie Gowen: I still giggle when I think about that one FTP chat where some railbird addressed her as "Clownie." I had earlier played with her in some Borgata $1k event where she two-outered some dude like 3 hands in, then eventually busted my shortstack. She seemed ok, I guess; fairly straightforward, though in our conversation she seemed to imply that she thought your "tournament life" had some intrinsic value (she didn't seem to play that way, though). This summer, in some $1500 tournament in the WSOP, she showed up at my table (Nath was also at this table, so it was obviously a fun table). She proceeded to get 2/3 of her stack in by the flop and fold to a shove. Nath and I exchanged a knowing glance, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud. Clownie indeed!


Jamie Gold: I got moved to his table near the bubble of the $1000 rebuy. I had just won a flip to get near the average stack, and then I won a big pot with AA vs. KK all-in preflop to get above average. As an aside, there's nothing quite as fun as this sequence:

1) Sitting down just in time to play the small blind, watching as UTG raises, MP 3-bets, and the button 4-bet shoves.

2) Thinking "how sweet would it be to look down at my cards and see aces here?"

3) Looking down at my cards and seeing aces.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Jamie Gold. He was spewy for sure! Made a bunch of funky cold-calls preflop, and sure loved to bluff postflop! For instance, I open the cutoff with JJ, Jamie cold-calls in the SB. Flop is something like Q72. He checks and I check behind (not because I'm really scared of a c/r, but because he has at most four outs here and will probably fire the turn and river with a ton of hands that would fold to a c-bet). He (quickly and silently, hello live tells) fires a 2/3 pot bet on the turn. I call. He does the same thing on the river. I think for about 3 seconds and call. Before I can table my hand he angrily mucks his two cards, and the pot gets shipped to me. He then proceeds to loudly swear at (or perhaps with) some woman who was sweating him.

A few hands later, I open A8s from some too-early position (by this point I had a top-5-in-the-whole-tournament stack, so I was trying to pound people as the bubble approached) and Jamie thinks for a little while and shoves from late position. As the action gets to me, and I'm counting the pot trying to see if the pot was laying enough to get me to call, Jamie starts talking. "Hey, cmon buddy, double me up. I really want a call here, I really do." So, I fold. He shows AA. Hooray for live tells (even though I probably give off more than I perceive).



I'll probably add more of these player impressions later, when I don't have to pack up and catch a train to London. Anyway, I'll leave with some words of tournament poker wisdom from 2pac: "I'd rather die like a man than live like a coward. There's a ghetto up in heaven and it's ours, BLACK POWER!" The last sentence doesn't really have anything to do with poker, I just like the way the way it sounds. I guess the first one didn't really have much to do with poker either, but it's a pretty good thing to keep in mind when playing a tournament. Given the choice between "dying like a man" (i.e. doing something like 3- or 4- or 5- betting because you KNOW HE CANNOT CALL and potentially busting out) and "living like a coward" (i.e. folding at any point EVER in ANY TOURNAMENT because folding is for PUSSIES and you're not a PUSSY are you?) I'll take the former every time. Because sometimes they fold and sometimes you suck out. You don't accumulate chips by folding.

Yeah.

It's been a while since I've updated, but I've been busy running sick good. I've run super hot at tournaments (at least at the end of July) and at cash games. When I got back to Virginia, I really felt like putting in a lot of time playing; hell, there's not much else to do when all my friends around here have 9-5 jobs and can't do much 'til the weekends. I played a bunch of 10/20 to climb out of the 40k hole I dug myself at the beginning of July, and then had two great tournament scores on one day (final tabling the 'stars $1k buyin and winning their nightly 100k) to book a solid winning month. After that, I convinced myself that I had both the bankroll and confidence to play 25/50 again, and it's been working out so far this month. Suffice it to say, if I keep up this pace (wishful thinking, in all likelihood; I've just been running sooo hot that I know I'll have to cool down eventually), I'll have my biggest winning month ever by far. Anyway, on to the main point of this post: how not to play against good players in tournaments.


On some Sunday in June while I was in Vegas, I won a 'stars 100 rebuy tournament. This was on the same day that Matt won the biggest Sunday Million in history, so I had a great time celebrating his monumental win afterwards, as well as my own small victory. It actually meant a great deal to me to win this, and to do it while my friends in the house were sweating me and cheering me on made it all the more special. But, it was a way to prove to myself that I was capable of not only going deep in tournaments, but closing the deal against a tough field, as well. It also probably made my ROI in tournaments go above 0 for the first time all year, which was certainly nice.

But it almost wasn't to happen. Shortly after the rebuy period, I had gathered up a nice chip stack, and during the second hour of the tournament I continued to accumulate chips. I was playing well...but then I almost blew it all by playing a hand like a total moron. Here is that hand:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t800 (9 handed) pokerhand.org hand converter

MP3 (t18575)
CO (t17760)
Button (t29494)
SB (t21285)
Hero (t33320)
UTG (t16145)
UTG+1 (t22997)
MP1 (t29588)
MP2 (t24083)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9, 9.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls t800, 3 folds, CO calls t800, 1 fold, SB completes, Hero raises to t4800, UTG+1 calls t4000, CO folds, SB folds.

Flop: (t11200) 7, Q, 2 (2 players)
Hero bets t7200, UTG+1 raises to t18147, Hero calls t10947.


Well, the converter doesn't quite capture this, but I bet 7200 on the flop, then called UTG+1's shove. (Edit: now the converter DOES capture it!) I mean, you can figure out what he had; it's not difficult. Here's a hint, it made me want to barf and then punch myself in the face for being such a god damn idiot. Let's look at all the ways I fucked this hand up...

1) UTG+1, a player known for his aggressive style, limps in EP. He has a Scandinavian name, for fuck's sake, so he must be a complete lagtard who never open limps. Warning bells should be going off. This is probably not a good time to get frisky with 99 out of position, when a limp-rr is going to make me vomit. This may sound nitty, but I think I should be playing this for set value, as against 3 opponents, when I hit my set I will get at least one of them to stack off to me, most likely. And, I don't lose a ton when I'm behind either!

2) Noted aggressive player, UTG+1, simply calls my raise. The warning claxons should be screeching so loud in my head that my eardrums should burst, and the resulting ear pain should cause me to fold, or at least pass out in front of my laptop and time out. But, apparently, I don't hear them, because I am a moron and a spewmonkey and I just don't wanna hear them god damn it! He calls off 20% of his stack preflop. THIS IS NEVER NOT A BIG HAND! HE IS ALWAYS TRAPPING HERE! HE ALWAYS HAS AA OR AT WORST KK! (For what it's worth, I don't learn either, because I made a similar dumb play in a marginally similar spot in the WSOP main event, and got shown a huge hand again; at least that time I had 5 outs instead of 2). And, to make it easier, there's an overcard on the flop. Now I have an excuse to get away from the hand, you know, in case he decided to limp-call with AQ (which he never does). This is about the easiest check-fold I could ever ask for in my life. And yet...

3) I bet! WTF! How do I bet here? He never folds here! I'm never ahead here! Gah!

4) Then I call his shove! What the fuck was I thinking? Did I do something monumentally dumb like put him on AKss? I'm getting good odds, but they're not good enough when I'm going to be something like a 10:1 dog against his range!

The lesson to be learned here is: when a good, aggressive player makes a trappy play like limp-calling in EP for a big percentage of his chips preflop, HE HAS A HUGE HAND. SHUT DOWN UNLESS YOU ARE BEATING AA/KK ON THE FLOP. PERIOD. There are similar analogous situations, like when a good, aggressive player cold-calls your preflip 3-bet for a big percentage of his chips. Of course this lesson doesn't apply when you're playing against idiots. Idiots do stupid shit all the time for no reason, because they're idiots and don't realize that limp-calling 20% of their chips for no reason is a bad idea. But good players DO have a reason, and that reason is to trap. And, being the spewmonkey I am, I charged full-speed ahead into the trap.


Anyway, after I lost this hand I was really, really angry at myself. But somehow, I didn't steam. I probably have the presence of level-headed people like Thomas, Ben, Nate, and Nath (wait, did I really just call Nath level-headed? :P ) to keep me from going off the deep end and tilting off the rest of my chips. I went back to doing the usual tournament thing: restealing and winning flips. I guess that no matter how badly you fuck up, the only true way to screw yourself in a tournament is to give up. Even when you're the short stack in a tournament you're only a few coinflips and suckouts away from a final table, or even a win.

OK, I don't really feel like writing any more tonight, but I think in my next entry I'll try to rate some of the more famous players I played with during the WSOP. It sure will be fun courting controversey and burning bridges by insulting...er, critiquing so-called "poker pros" and celebrities. Oh, and I'll also share with you the secret of Chad "lilholdem954" Batista's success in tournaments. Hint: it has to do with the rap music.

So, I totally neglected the blog during my World Series of Poker trip. My bad. Many a time I would think of something marginally interesting to write, then just not do it for one reason or another. Well, I guess now I will begin to recap this most awesome 5 (or was it 6?) week experience.

First, I have to give congratulations to all the people who met with great success while I was in Vegas and neglecting the ol' blog...

-Matt "mlagoo" Lagarde for taking down the Sunday Million while in Vegas. Such a sick score, and such a sick time at the Rhino afterwards.
-Nath for taking down a rebuy and that nightly 100k we weren't even planning on playing. Yet another sick score and another sick time at the Rhino.
-Jason "JCarver" Somerville for winning the FTP 500k and breaking out of his hellacious downswing in style. He made one of the best calls I've seen at a final table, and pretty much owned at least two very good players.
-Steve "Mr. Tim Caum" O'Dwyer for winning a FTP nightly tournament and having a profitable WSOP overall.
-Adam Junglen for winning this week's Sunday Million; few people deserve it more than him, he's flat out sick at tournaments.
-Hevad "Rain" Khan for final tabling the main event and taking home almost a mil. Funny, when I ate dinner with him and some others, he expressed envy at us "cash game guys" for having a lot of money, unlike tournament/sng guys. Well, um, I guess he doesn't have that problem anymore (if he even had it before).
-Others I'm probably neglecting due to not remembering how deep they went in various tournaments...Ike, Scott, Alex, people in the goon house, and others.

Funny enough, Vegas was supposed to be a business trip. I was going to play a ton of poker, win a bunch of money in the super-soft live cash games (if not in the super-soft WSOP donkaments), play online with several good players around to learn from (and seriously, our house had a lot of good players with Nath, Nate, Ben, Thomas, Serge, Matt, and other people like Vivek, Alex and Jeff coming over from the other house to play donkaments), and I was going to have the best month of my poker career. Well, June was my winningest non-staking month ever, but I played very, very little poker while I was in Vegas. Well, less than I expected to. I played fewer WSOP events than I had planned, and only put in 3 cash game sessions, all at stakes lower than those I normally play online.

How could this happen? There are myriad reasons!

First, I'm lazy. Second, I'm really lazy. I treated this time in Vegas as an overall vacation. No poker, no worries, no stress. Sit around all day, drink at night, occasionally play a live tournament. Get sick, get better, sit around, turn off my mind. Or at least the part of it that plays poker at any sort of respectable level. There are probably other excuses, like the house being somewhat far away from the strip, or my fear of playing like a donkey in front of people whose opinions i respect. Whatever it was, I just didn't feel like playing poker all that often. Still, I had a great time with everyone, met a lot of great people, and somehow prevented myself from getting burned out on poker permanently.

Anyway, this is long and rambling, so here are a few topics that will grace future entries:
-Winning a 'stars 100r and the lessons I learned by donking off most of my stack then winning anyway.
-Cashing 3 WSOP events (and blasting off my stack in all of them).
-Playing with OMG POKER CELEBRITIES OMG (and even a couple real life celebs)
-Live cash games and why they piss me off
-Pit degeneracy
-The rungood bowl (three for three!)
-Being the undefeated world champion of credit card roulette
-More stuff I'm forgetting

Hopefully I'll update this sooner rather than later!

Please forgive the long/rambling nature of this post; I'm pretty new to posting about strategy, and I guess I'm just longwinded by nature. I hope you get something out of this.

It seems I've picked a less than fortuitous time to start a blog. I'm taking the LSAT in a week, so I have to devote some time every day to preparations. The whole LSAT studying process has actually stirred some thoughts about how studying (and other "academic" endeavors) relate to poker; hell, I may use that as fodder for a future blog entry. I also have some other writing to do, and I have to prepare for Vegas and WSOP. Oh, and I have to satisfy that several-hour-a-day goofing off addiction; perhaps spending dozens of hours playing live over the next couple months will help cure me of this. Or at least make me goof off more efficiently. Either way, it doesn't leave a lot of time for blog writing. Anyway, enough with the digressions, on with the poker.

I took a break from LSAT prep and writing yesterday to play a little poker, especially the Sunday tournaments. A couple marginally interesting hands came up during the 'stars Sunday Million and the 'stars 2nd chance that illustrate something that many new-to-moderately-experienced MTT players miss out on. That is, what to do preflop when you have a big hand in early position and there's a raise in front of you. It's a situation that happens pretty rarely, but it can gain you a lot of expectation if you play it properly. To wit, I almost never put in a third bet in this situation, and if you're playing against a table full of perceptive players, I don't think it's ever correct to reraise in this spot.

I had never thought much about this until few months ago. At that point, I would almost automatically three-bet big hands preflop, no matter the position. One night, I was playing a 'stars MTT and happened to be at the same table as a very good player with whom I occasionally discuss MTT strategy. It was fairly early so the stacks were deep by tournament standards. Someone opened UTG, and I made a moderately-sized three-bet with KK UTG+1. Everyone folded, including both the good player (who was in late position or one of the blinds, I forget) and the UTG raiser. I won a smallish pot, and didn't think much of it at the time.

After I busted out of the tournament, the aforementioned good player sent me a hand history over AIM. I skimmed it, and noticed that he folded QQ preflop. Strange. I looked closer, saw a UTG raise, and saw my screen name 3-betting UTG+1. He didn't just ask if his laydown was good. He knew it was good, he just wanted to know whether I had aces or kings. He also implied that, had I just called, he would have 3-bet himself. Not only did my raise prevent me from getting UTG's chips, it prevented me from getting a boatload of chips in as a 4:1 favorite against the good player behind me! I thought about this for a while, and decided that very little good can come from raising big hands in that spot.

The big problem, as you might have figured out, is that a raise there really telegraphs my hand as big. Nobody is restealing against a UTG raiser (whose hand is presumably much stronger than average) when there are 7 people left to act. So, that makes the range super-narrow. Even if you do get a call behind you, you're probably not going to get a ton of chips in as a favorite postflop, as it is so easy for people to put you on a huge hand. And, you can't really "mix it up" to disguise this; 3-betting speculative hands in early position is just asking for trouble; when someone wakes up with a real hand behind you, or the UTG raiser has a real hand, you'll simply be forced to throw your hand away too much to make it profitable.

So, the simple solution is never three-betting in this spot. This has a couple advantages:
1) You can play other hands here. This is really two advantages rolled into one. You allow yourself to play some speculative hands (lower pocket pairs, for instance), and you disguise your monsters, so that even if it ends up being you vs. UTG, you still likely have a large equity edge (and position) going into the flop. You mix up your play cheaply, instead of either mixing it up expensively or playing your hand face-up.
2) OK, this is really another consequence of advantage number 1, but you might induce a squeeze, or someone behind you might 3-bet a "real" hand that's slightly worse than your hand. Then you can play your hand accordingly; against some opponents call, see a flop, and hope to stack off. Against others, you can 4-bet and hope to get a lot of money in the pot when you know you're likely to have an edge. Oh, and when you call with those speculative hands (or hands like AK, QQ-JJ, and sometimes even KK if there is heavy action behind), you can fold without having sacrificed a large number of chips.

Sure, there are disadvantages to this, and perhaps some exceptions to this "rule" as well (a lot of which obviously depend on stack sizes; e.g. when somewhat shallower or waaaaay deeper, 3-betting is ok). The most notable disadvantage is that you may get an "avalanche" of callers behind you, and you'll have to play your AA against 5 people. A lot of times you'll have to give up on the flop or turn in this situation, at least if you don't want to have a dangerous "stack off with AA all the time no matter what" mentality. But it still beats playing your hand face-up, IMO.

Anyway, here are a couple hands where I used this "rule" in this week's Sunday Million.

In this first hand, it's early on in the tournament. I recognize UTG's name from twoplustwo as someone who doesn't seem to play a lot of higher buyin tournaments. So, he's not a donk, but he's probably not an insanely tricky player who will make my decisions tough when I have position on him.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (9 handed) pokerhand.org hand converter

UTG (t10075)
UTG+1 (t10050)
Hero (t9925)
MP2 (t10400)
MP3 (t9875)
CO (t9525)
Button (t9925)
SB (t10000)
BB (t10275)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with K, A.
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t150, Hero calls t150, 5 folds, BB calls t100.

Flop: (t475) A, 4, 5 (3 players)
BB checks, UTG+1 bets t300, Hero calls t300, BB calls t300.

Turn: (t1375) 8 (3 players)
BB checks, UTG+1 bets t1111, Hero calls t1111, BB folds.

River: (t3597) 6 (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets t2500, UTG+1 calls t2500.

Final Pot: t8597

Here, I get a bit lucky in that I flop TPTK (or, as Jamie Gold put it, OMG TOP-TOP OMG), the pot is only 3-handed, and I have position. Had I 3-bet preflop, I probably would have won the pot right there (or gotten 4-bet and have to fold). On the flop, I feel like I'm way ahead or way behind, and I don't want to blast my opponent off worse aces or pocket pairs; in fact, I'd rather just let him keep betting into me with 2-3 outs. Even though it's the Sunday Million, I think this particular opponent is knowledgeable enough to avoid stacking off for 200 BBs with AQ-AT on a dryish flop. Given his UTG raise, I think it's fair to assume his range is tight, and that I'm likely way ahead of those hands, or at worst letting two big spades bet into me. But, I'm obviously not going to lose a big pot if a third spade hits.

The turn changes nothing, so I continue to let him bet into me.

On the river, he checks. There aren't really any diamond draws he could have, and I really put him on a worse ace or maybe something like KK. So, I think it's a good spot for a value bet, as he might look me up with those hands. I get lucky and he calls with AJ. Some people said they'd check behind here, but I really think I have too much value to do so given his range.


In this next hand, I'm not exactly in early position, so I don't hate 3-betting here as much. I still think calling is better, due to many of the reasons I stated above. Especially the "inducing a squeeze" and "getting a ton of chips in preflop with for-sure the best of it" reasons. I was told this is standard, but, hell, I used to think reraising here was standard. I guess there' always more to learn, which is part of why I enjoy poker so much.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (9 handed) pokerhand.org hand converter

MP1 (t10325)
MP2 (t5989)
Hero (t14461)
CO (t10325)
Button (t9800)
SB (t8975)
BB (t9925)
UTG (t10450)
UTG+1 (t9800)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with A, A.
2 folds, MP1 raises to t150, 1 fold, Hero calls t150, 1 fold, Button raises to t550, 2 folds, MP1 calls t400, Hero raises to t2700, Button calls t2150, MP1 calls t2150.

Flop: (t8175) 3, 8, 2 (3 players)
MP1 bets t7625 (All-In), Hero raises to t11761, Button folds.

Turn: (t27561) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t27561) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: t27561

(the BB had QQ and I won a huge pot for this stage of the tournament; not like I really did anything with those chips later, but them's the breaks)


Here's a hand where someone doesn't follow my advice, and profits anyway. Unfortunately, at my expense. He not only reraises a UTG opener, he jams for 50 BBs. Had he merely raised to 13500, I'm confident I could have folded QQ in this spot, as that is almost always AA-KK in my experience. His push really made me discount AA-KK from his range, and made me put him on JJ, TT, or AK, with an outside possibility of KK. Unfortunately for me, he had KK. I still think my call was a good one given my read (he seemed pretty loose, and very aggro). But, sometimes even good spots to gamble have negative results, and you don't win tournaments by folding :P.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t1500 (8 handed) pokerhand.org hand converter

MP1 (t27275)
MP2 (t59512)
CO (t81673)
Button (t19544)
Hero (t59282)
BB (t32020)
UTG (t35707)
UTG+1 (t75044)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, Q.
UTG raises to t4500, UTG+1 raises to t74969, 4 folds, Hero calls t58457 (All-In), 1 fold, UTG folds.

Flop: (t138376) J, T, 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t138376) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t138376) A (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: t138376





Wheeeew, that was quite a long post. I guess I'll go back to LSAT practice, but not before I finish watching the season premiere of Hell's Kitchen. Damn, I love that show. Hope you enjoyed this post, and I hope to hear some arguments and thoughts in the comments. Also, I'd love to hear suggestions on what everyone would like to hear me write about in future blog posts, because I'm not all too good at coming up with writing ideas on my own.