In addition to sat strategy like the last post, over the years, I've made a couple of big satellite threads on 2+2. At one point, I promised I would update last year's thread and/or talk about how and where to qualify for the WSOP after I got a seat. Hopefully, I'm not done winning seats yet, but here's some things I'll throw out there:

-Just like last year, this year, winning on FTP or Stars gives you a bunch of bonuses if you make the final table or win the ME. The FT first place prize alone adds $1,000 in EV to the tournament if you have an exactly average shot of winning it with 10K entries, $2,000 if it only has 5K, and so on.

-This year, picking between FTP and Stars for qualifying is tricky. When you play an FTP sat, for example, you're basically just playing a regular tournament with a bunch of $12,000 payouts at the top. For a few reasons, this means a tougher field at FTP than normal; FTP also has 12 minute blind levels, where Stars has 30(!) minute blinds, and Stars throws in 1K (or a week's hotel stay) for the first package you win. That makes Stars the best place to win a package if you're only going for one, but the first Stars package is non-refundable or transferable (you must use the seat) and the second only pays out in W$, which are worth around .85 on the dollar. FTP also has the 'King of the WSOP' promo running - I probably won't be playing enough to get there, but clearly, if you're going for multiple seats, Full Tilt's the way to go. (I'm American so I have no idea what, if anything, Party and other non-US sites are doing.)

-Smaller sites remain a good option, but multiple seat satellites are such a huge advantage over winner take all sats that the latter are just about never worth it. The exception is sats with overlays, like the $250+20's at Bodog last year. This year, it looks like Bodog has some overlays again, but they're allowing people to win multiple packages if they're spaced > 30 days apart, which might eventually kill that. (Incidentally, this is a terrible rule.) There are a couple of other sites that might be good this year, too - I won't mention them in print, but you should be discreetly looking around a few out of the way tournament schedules.

Good luck in the WSOP.

Today, I'm going to take a break from posting in lesson format and just talk about satellites.

I love sats. They are my best game and almost everyone else's worst game. Many otherwise good, even great, tournament players completely blow up when faced with late game sat situations, are terrible at knowing when and how to pushbot, and add thousands of dollars to shortstacks' EV late in a sat. Cash game players are worse - I can think of at least one 25/50 NL winning regular who's close to dead money whenever he picks up a big stack in a satellite, solely through misplaced aggression. Last year, I picked up 2 WSOP seats in only four $650 events; this year, I won my first package on my fourth 'big event' try (3 Stars 650's and the FTP 1K event I qualified in) and, although I'll be traveling and probably playing for only half of May, hope to pick up 2-4 more packages before the ME starts. Thanks to the constant mistakes everyone else makes, playing a big sat awarding many seats is a little like playing during the good old days of 2004 Party.

Yesterday, I played a number of interesting hands that show how bad the play is. I'd rather not analyze them all today, but I'll throw one out there for now. Here's the hand that got me into the $1060 sat for a $109 investment:

Seat 2: the1captain (13,145)
Seat 3: DooshCom (19,800)
Seat 9: Adar (13,555)
the1captain antes 200
DooshCom antes 200
Adar antes 200
the1captain posts the small blind of 800
DooshCom posts the big blind of 1,600
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Adar [7s Ah]
Adar raises to 13,355, and is all in
the1captain calls 12,145, and is all in
DooshCom: okay I got crap..
DooshCom has 15 seconds left to act
DooshCom: but..I'm gonna call anyway
DooshCom calls 11,755
Adar shows [7s Ah]
the1captain shows [Ad Qh]
DooshCom shows [Ks 4s]
*** FLOP *** [Tc 6s 2d]
Adar: win pls
*** TURN *** [Tc 6s 2d] [2c]
*** RIVER *** [Tc 6s 2d 2c] [4d]
Adar shows a pair of Twos
DooshCom shows two pair, Fours and Twos
DooshCom wins the side pot (820) with two pair, Fours and Twos
DooshCom: lol
the1captain shows a pair of Twos
DooshCom wins the main pot (39,435) with two pair, Fours and Twos
DooshCom: I did
Adar: ty

Funny call, right? Now let's do some math. This sat paid several people but gave out only 2 $1060 seats; third place got something like 480. Overall, then, we were playing for 2 more $580 spots.

If DC had sat out, losing this hand would leave me with 410 chips; he'd have 18K and captain would have 24K. I would then have to win around 3 consecutive all ins with a random hand, probably against two people at least once, just to come back to the 5K mark - at which point I'd still be a dog. In other words, my equity in the tournament if he'd sat out might be 10-20 bucks or so (you can use ICM - Google for this - to find the exact number, but I'd be shocked if it was more) and the other two would essentially have 570 each. Of course, if I won, the tournament would be over. In short, if he left and got himself a sandwich, he would wind up ahead maybe $575 in Sklansky bucks.

But DC called, figuring it didn't much matter what would happen. As it happens, he had two live cards, his best case scenario, giving him 37% equity/AQ 43%/me 20%. Let's examine what happens in this 'best case':

-When I win, the tournament is over;
-When he wins, the tournament is also over;
-When captain wins, the tournament is over only if I also lose. I'm a 56% favorite in the 820 chip sidepot.

It's not totally exact because equity isn't really winning percentage, but as it happens, a little over 20% of the time, I wind up with 820 chips, he winds up with 6K and captain has a giant stack. At that point, because it's my BB and his SB next, I am exactly 2 all ins away from being a big favorite to take the second seat. My equity in that scenario is somewhere in the neighborhood of $100, all of it coming out of his equity. Since that happens 20% of the time, this cost him 20 bucks - and that was the absolute best case. If I actually have a real hand or captain dominates him, the worst case costs him upwards of 50.

Sounds small, right? Well, the buyin is $109. This random 'I'll just toss in my chips to end this faster' call is like giving away a quarter of your stack before you ever start the tourney.

And that's why satellites will always be +EV.

In my last blog entry, I wrote about a couple of basic online poker tells. Like I said in that entry, these tells shouldn't really be new to you if you are an experienced online player; they're meant to be representative of the several dozen other tells exactly like those two. In fact, except for the better HSNL regulars and the best tourney pros, almost everyone gives off tells via their timing and betting patterns in almost every hand they play. This time around, I want to give out some tips on how to take advantage of that.

First, let's talk for a bit about preflop tells. These are more important for tournaments, but do tend to show up vs. shortstackers in cash games, as well. The majority break down into two categories:

1)Oversized raises

2)The speed of the preflop action

Oversized raises are obviously the easiest ones to spot and are almost always accurate (that is, few people fake a 4x raise; even if they do, sooner or later, some short stack will reraise them anyway and their faking will be uncovered.) I'll make it simple: most of the time, a bigger than normal raise is AK, QQ-88. Sometimes, it's AA-KK, especially when a low stakes player makes it deep into a big tournament. Overbet pushes (when someone just shoves 20-30 BB, especially with no limpers) tend to be a shade weaker - something like AK-AJs, JJ-77. Keep in mind that a good player shoving 20 BB after several limpers will often have something worse, though, and a 10-12 BB late game shove is also quite different/depends on position.

The speed of the action - especially a preflop call - also sometimes means something. This is quite a bit trickier to spot, is not nearly as accurate as bet sizing, and needs experience to get it right, so I won't go too deeply into it. One thing you can take on faith, though: if a bad player autocalls (that is, checks the 'call a raise' button) a PF raise with medium or deep stacks, it is a hand that he will play no matter what, but not a monster or anything special. Look for small pairs, small to medium suited connectors, or two 'not so great' big cards like ATo/KJo. These same players will quickly call with any pair postflop, and will stack off with top pair, but they'll need to think when calling with overcards or a gutshot.

Taking advantage of these should be self-explanatory, so let's move on to postflop tells. Most of the time I see decent - but not great - players lose tons of chips or bust out of a tournament *early* is when they ignore an obvious tell coming from a horrible player. I'm not going to list individual tells - there are too many and I'd like to be able to play poker afterwards without having to adjust all over the place - but here are some things decent players should do far more than they do:

1)Raise blocking bets. When somebody bets 100 chips into a 1000 chip pot, a raise to 1000 - or even 800 - must work < 50% of the time to show a profit. Very few people betting 100 into 1000 know anything about poker, so that bet is almost always what it seems - scared money. (Even if you get called here, you should sometimes follow through on the turn for the same reason.) Once in a great while, you'll run into an exception, get minimum 3 bet, make a note of it and move on; next time, you can fold top 2 pair to his set.

2)Pay attention to the flop bet. When a decent, straightforward player raises, gets 5 calls, and then bets a decent amount into the field on an 8 3 2 flop, your nines are no good. Don't even bother to call the flop bet to 'see where you are' or any of that nonsense. Yes, you have an overpair, and yes, sometimes he will merely have a flush draw - but that doesn't mean anything. You're still a giant dog to his range and losing tons of money on the call, so just fold. (However, if you're deep stacked and have implied odds, sometimes you should take a card off with a hand like 43, even when you'd fold 99. See below.)

3)Pay attention to the flop bet, the flip side: When that same player bets big in a 6 way pot, you can assume he has at least an overpair or a big flush draw. If you have a set, calling is almost always a bad play. Why? Sometimes, an ace will hit the turn when the other guy has kings (and so on down the line); sometimes, the third flush card will hit and kill your action/hand; sometimes, you'll make a boat with the second 8 and freeze him up...and so on. Bottom line: in multiway pots, when somebody's hand is face up as a big pair, it is very rarely correct to slowplay your monster. There are only a few exceptions, such as when you're second to act and there's a couple of maniacs behind you, or when the guy is good enough to make a tough fold if you raise the flop but will commit himself on the turn.

3.5)When and how to try to crack that big pair: Mediocre players will often just raise every draw, including hands like J T, on the flop, thinking "flush draw + overcards + fold equity". Big mistake. His bet told you that he isn't folding and probably has an overpair, so why are you counting any fold equity *or* overcards as outs? More often, it's correct to just call and go for overcalls - reserving the right to semibluff raise on the turn, especially if a J or T hits. Conversely, if you have that 43 on the 832 flop I mentioned earlier and are closing the action, you should sometimes also call even when definitely behind, looking for a "brick" 3 on the turn. In HSNL against thinking opponents, you would also look for aces and fives and occasionally semibluff those cards, too. (But do *not* usually call with aces, such as A3 on an 832 flop, when facing a certain big pair - your implied odds simply don't exist.)

That generally covers "what to do if villain has what he thinks is the nuts." Next time, I'll write about a few ways to take advantage when the villain telegraphs a weaker hand.

Thus far, my posts have dealt with how and when to play a hand in an unorthodox way. Most of the time that I play a hand in a strange fashion - especially postflop - I base it on some kind of read or some idea of what I want to happen on a future street. This is, of course, heavily dependent on reading my opponents' hands, and in my last post, I wrote about an example of an extremely narrowed down hand range when given a lot of information. Today, I want to go back to basics and talk about a few of the more simple online tells.

I frequently read about and occasionally talk to B&M pros who insist that it's much harder to read someone online than live. This is true, but only for a good player. Bad to decent players - in other words, the satellite qualifiers and midstakes players who are the bread and butter of the online tournament scene - often have some very basic tells that make it extremely easy to get their money.

Because I want to go on beating tournaments for a nice profit, I won't list all of them :) However, we can certainly talk about a couple of the more well known ones:

1)The Stars 4x raise tell

For whatever reason, Stars (and to a far lesser extent, Bodog/FTP) is home to a breed of player that insists on telegraphing his hand at all stages of an MTT. When this player has a regular hand, he or she will raise the usual 3x the BB. However, when the player isn't folding - and usually, when they have a monster - they will make it 4x BB instead, in an attempt to avoid being drawn out on. In fact, through observation, I've become fairly sure that when these players don't have a monster, it's only because they overvalue their hand; such a player might raise 4x of his 20xBB stack with pocket fives and instacall an all in, since, after all, he has to be a coinflip at worst.

Given enough luck, these players routinely make it deep in the biggest Stars MTT's. I also routinely see people ignore this tell and reraise over the top of EP 4x raises with outright resteals or with hands like 99-66, AT, and KQ. I firmly believe that this is a huge mistake, and have previously folded some huge hands to a single 4x raise from guys whose PT stats are on the tight side. When someone behind me decides to reraise after all and the 4x PFR's hand is shown down, I have extremely rarely been wrong - especially since, for reasons having to do with stack sizes and pot odds, it's very rare for a thinking player to fake this tell late in an MTT.

2)The timing check/call on the flop tell

The 4x raise tell is very well known in MTT's and tends to be a staple in AIM conversations between pros playing at Stars ("lol, this guy's raising 4x again. Thanks for making sure I don't double you up, I kinda liked my hand before this.") This next tell, however, is not as well known, and many people discount it as they do all online timing tells. In my experience, this is a mistake.

The reason usually given for people discounting timing tells is that the Internet distorts them, some people are playing 8 tables and up and just happen to act late, and so on. But most of the 'bad to decent' group doesn't play 8 tables, and many of them - especially the bad LAGs whose play style forces them into this particular tell all the time - feel they have to closely observe a table to do well. In other words, they usually act quickly...except when they check/call the flop with a marginal hand.

I'll be a little more specific and give out the hand that made me think of this tell as an article topic. In level 3 of a recent tournament I played, I raised 88 UTG with around 50 BB and was called by one player, the small blind. The flop came down Q53 with two spades, the SB checked, I bet 2/3 of the pot, the SB thought for at least 15 seconds or so and finally called.

What does the SB typically have here? Once in a while, he'll have a set or AQ and be deciding whether to call or checkraise, but this is rare. He never has a straight draw or a flush draw - both of those act much quicker - and rarely has any other queen (because to a bad player, any queen is the nuts on this flop and they'll always do whatever they want to do as fast as they can with their eyes bugging out.) So, most of the time, this is a weak hand unsure of where it is, such as an underpair (but not JJ-TT - on this flop, they call faster), the occasional AK, second or third pair and so on. While I would usually be unhappy with this check/call after an SB coldcall of a UTG raise, here, I was pretty sure I was ahead.

We checked through the offsuit 7 on the turn - I often bet again here but took a calculated risk that this player would bluff on the river - and he bet half the pot into me when the river was a rainbow T. I called and was shown Ac2c for a flopped backdoor flush draw, an overcard and a gutshot.

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So far, whether you've seen these before or not, this shouldn't be anything really new - almost everyone who's put in substantial time online has to have seen similar tells come from somebody or other. Next time, however, I'll talk about how and when to use tells to set up advanced plays.

Last time, I wrote about an HSNL hand where putting your opponent on a very exact range made it mathematically possible to determine the best line. In this installment, we are going to expand on that by going back to HSNL to read this thread. Descriptively titled "fullhouse", it contains a 100/200 NL hand between Grimstarr (a well known LAG) and another good online pro, Jinksop. This particular hand has some great hand reading material leading to a very tough, but necessary decision on the river.

Let's take it street by street. Preflop, with 25K stacks, Grimstarr completes 63o and Jinksop checks. The flop comes down 7 6 3, Jinksop bets the pot (400), Grimstarr raises to 2000, and Jinksop calls. What can J have at this point? Clearly, a wide range (any seven and up), but with the aggression factor of these games, we can rule out any set or better* and any big draw (98, for example, would drool to be all in here). What does J think G has after his raise? It can really be almost anything (with Grimstarr, I doubt 86 is the bottom of his 'real hand' range, not counting all the bluffs), but let's conservatively assume something like "draw/pair + draw/decent seven or better" for this particular ugly looking limped pot board. However, J does know that G will almost never show up with a set here since G will probably be raising any small pair PF.

*This deserves an explanation. As you can see, there's some good debate in HSNL about whether people will check hands like 77-66 in the BB when the SB completes heads up. I don't have the nosebleed stakes experience to comment on this, but the combination of checking PF and then just calling the big raise on that board makes no sense. Given that people frequently 4 bet A7 in that spot, it's very very unlikely that J has a set. By the same token, we can also discount 54, although PF makes that more likely.

The turn is the T and both players check. What can J have now? The T itself (not the club) won't usually have improved him after bet/calling a big raise, but he can definitely have whiffed on a CR with a flush or a straight. Most hands that he could have bet/called with are usually going to check/something on the turn, as bet/call, bet is a comparatively rarer line and the board just got uglier. G's range, though, narrows down considerably for J; good LAGs will not check behind small flushes on boards like this, and most other 'really good' hands will also bet. The hands that will often check behind here are bluffs that have given up, one pair marginal hands that check this board because they might be good but would hate a fairly standardish semibluff CR (bottom 2 pair is pretty much in this category) and occasionally bigger hands like 76/54 that also hate a CR (although these will often bet anyway.)

The river is the 3. J leads 3000 into the 4400 pot; not counting bluffs, occasionally, he'll be in here with a big one pair (really 2 pair) hand like A7, or a T that wanted to bluff and caught. Usually, though, this is the top part of his range, because a lot of G's 'vulnerable made hand' range from the turn is autocalling when the board pairs the river. For example, J cannot fully discount AA-QQ from Grimstarr, and nobody folds those with that action.

Grimstarr raises to 8k with his bottom full house. We can instantly forget any marginal hand raising this river (I hope you see why**); it's a bluff or a straight+ (maybe a very thin raise with A3 if he raised the flop with it), much more often a flush. Keep in mind that, if G has a flush, his range is heavily weighed towards bigger flushes - 4 3 doesn't check behind on the turn very often.

**This is only the case vs. thinking opponents. If you're playing 25NL vs. a guy whose hand range by this point is any two cards, you can often go ahead and raise something like A7 for value.

Now Jinksop shoves for 25K. High stakes poker has its share of legendary hands, and a 3 bet bluff in this spot would certainly be legendary, but we can discount it down to 'just about never'. However, he knows Grimstarr's range is essentially...let's say 15% bluff, 25% "big hand < a big flush", 60% "a big flush or better" (we can play around with the percentages, but it won't make that much of a difference) - but never sevens or sixes full. It's a rare spot where villain knows not just the lower part of your range, but also the upper. He also knows that Grimstarr will never call a 3 bet with a medium flush or worse (again, this should be self explanatory), yet he shoves anyway. Therefore, J is saying he can beat a flush, and 63, much like A x, is a bluff catcher. In a very sick spot, G has a full house heads up in high stakes NL and should fold it.

In the actual hand, Grimstarr timed down, called and was shown 73 for the slightly bigger boat. In my opinion, in addition to that money, he lost a few thousand almost as precious Sklansky bucks.

The bad news: I haven't seen a hand on the topic worth posting in the last couple of days. The good news: 2+2 is back up and does have something interesting. So, for part 3 of this series (although it's more like part 2.5), let's talk about this thread.

A quick summary: We're playing 10/25 NL vs. a fish who made a big raise PF. We have JT on a flop of JT3 and got bet/min-3 bet. From a superfish, this does certainly mean exactly an overpair (or possibly a set, but we don't really care - if we get stacked, that's poker.) His third raise makes it 1K and we both started the hand with 5K. Do we shove [4 betting less than AI is bad here, IMO, since it all but bludgeons "I have the nuts" into the guy's head] or call? Think about the rationales for each for a few seconds before choosing and then scroll down.

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Most of HSNL so far is picking 'call'; the ones that picked shove aren't giving a reason. That's unfortunately par for the course for HSNL these days, but to be fair, it's not really an HSNL question.

The reason for that is that there is a definite right answer to it. Of course, I don't mean that literally in this case, but all you have to do to find it is ask "How often does this guy fold an overpair to a flop 4 bet all in?" Once you know that, it gets you half the equation - namely, the $EV of shoving now. The math would take a little while to do, but at the poker table, just tell yourself "if he never folds, I own 3/4 of that guy's stack in Sklansky bucks". (I realize it's not actually 3/4. Close enough :) ) Incidentally, he will rarely fold if you take a while to make your decision - fish that raise 6x PF, then min3bet overpairs don't tend to fold to 4 bet shoves from LAGs on JT3 flops, especially live.

We determine the other half by figuring out the EV of waiting for the turn. This is the tricky part, and the part that only one person has gotten on HSNL at 10:15 PM EST. Most people realize that just calling the 3 bet minimizes variance - now you can get away when the turn is a 3 - and many will also think about the fish freezing up when an ace hits the turn and he only has kings. (By the way, since he will likely check an ace on the turn no matter what he has, you will either have to let him see 11 free river outs or lose all future value/bet half your stack while drawing dead. The same goes for a king when he has queens.) But usually, people *don't* realize how unlucky you are when a jack hits the turn - that card sometimes kills your action more than an ace - and almost nobody counts a ten as a bad card when it will often freeze the fish up, too. In reality, any Broadway is a very bad turn card for you, and *that's* why you should be pushing flops here.

But let's say you called (understandable - this decision is relatively close, and calling would probably be correct on an 873 board when you can make a full house and not lose Sklansky bucks over it. In addition, people do make weird plays live, and occasionally you just know the guy will fold to a shove but happily assume you have QJ on a good turn.) The turn is a 9 and he leads 500 bucks into the pot of 2K and change with 3100 behind. Now what?

Again, this question has a clear answer, feeding back into the earlier explanation. He still has tons of outs with everything except AA, and plenty with aces. Any card from an 8 up is likely to be a bad one for either your hand or how much money you will get in on the river, any 3 is as well, and unlike the flop, your stacks are absolutely perfect for a shove on the turn. There's really zero good reasons to minimize variance here - any variance isn't even likely to be on the fish's side.

So here's another thought about slowplaying - make sure you don't slowplay yourself into the nuts and make $0.

Since 2+2 is down today, I want to post this today to get some writing practice in, heh.

In my last post, I talked about the importance of knowing when to take an unorthodox line. When the typical decent player thing to do with a set is to raise, it's typical for a reason - it probably makes the most money against a generic opponent with a generic range in that spot. Therefore, when you call instead of raising, you should have a hunch that something is different this time; perhaps he seems weak, raising will be too obvious, he's way ahead or way behind on a scary board...it doesn't particularly matter as long as you have a good read. When it becomes important to vary your play, you should always rely on your hand reading to tell you when to do so.

In today's session, I wound up playing only one truly big pot. After a few limpers in the previously mentioned 10/20 game, I limped in the cutoff with A 8 and a $2100 stack. Six of us saw a 4 3 2 flop with 120-ish in the pot. Three people checked, an MP limper with $2700 bet half the pot, and an LP shortstack with $600 total minraised his bet. MP and I have a fairly long history in this game; I feel he's too loose and makes a lot of mistakes with deep stacks, but outplays the generic bad LAG's/calling stations and is definitely a winner. I had no history with the shortstack, but assume(d) him to be terrible.

[My flop decision is not what I want to focus on, but it's tangentially interesting enough to spend a paragraph on. This is a fairly breakeven spot - although it looks like you might have 15 outs+, you probably have around 12-13 on average at this point, maybe a little more. The times you're against something a set+ are somewhat balanced out by the times the shortstack has a smaller flush draw, but when you wind up all in with him, on average, you're probably around a 40-45% dog, and shortstacks simply don't fold enough after raising for there to be a lot of dead money. In other words, in a vacuum, you could go ahead and fold here. However, this is the perfect spot to camouflage your play with the nuts - you are never going to be that large a dog, you're up against someone with only 30 BB, and when you show the hand down, people will be forced to give you action when you have monsters. So, if you ever need to play draws aggressively, this is the type of hand where you should do it.]

Obviously, after the last paragraph, I went ahead and raised. I could've bumped the shortstack's $120 raise to 300 or so, but decided I'd rather just put him all in (the same line I'd take with 44 there) and made it exactly 600. I gave no thought to MP because, frankly, he should fold 99% of the time...except he took 10 seconds, went ahead and called. The shortstack thought forever but finally folded, and the two of us saw the Q turn. MP took ten seconds again and checked to me...

Let's pause here. This is a line that is often posted on 2+2 MSNL - someone flops a monster OOP, there is significant action behind, and every party involved knows that the OOP player has a monster whether he calls or 4 bets. The standard reply, for a number of reasons, is to go ahead and shove on the flop. Should MP have done that? I think it's probably the best line for 33 or better, but in fairness, I would likely call with my big draw regardless, and if he knew what I held, he should have called and shoved a safe turn. The second line is unorthodox, but given my hand range to make that 3 bet, it makes a certain amount of sense. What *doesn't* work is the c/c, check line that he took, because it's so painfully obvious he has a monster that my threshold for betting (remember we both have just over a PSB left on the turn) is somewhere between 33 and A5. Therefore, he gives lots of free cards to a range of (big draw, set+), a very dangerous proposition.

I obviously checked behind (after tanking a bit to make sure he wouldn't automatically put me on a draw) and fortunately got my 9 on the river. MP now thought a bit and led 700, just over half of our effective stacks. I obviously shoved with the nuts and he called after thinking a little while.

Before I say what he had, can you think of a hand that it makes sense for him to bet that amount with vs. my range on the river? The answer is 'none'. If I had a big draw, either I missed with something like 54, or made the nuts. If I had a set, perhaps I would check behind when the heart hit, but I don't think many people are capable of folding 44 to a shove in that spot/nobody folds a straight in that spot to a ~PSB AI under any circumstances, and I can't really put him on a flush myself. Furthermore, he almost has to call a shove with everything except 22 and maybe 33...so this bet doesn't work as a blocking bet, and it's not a good value bet, either. It's an example of FPS - a reluctant admission that he should probably bet, but no real idea how to maximize value or minimize loss. In fact, vs the range he expects me to have, he's probably about equally well off checking or shoving.

When the cards were turned over, MP held 6 5, for the flopped nuts with a big redraw. This must have been a very tempting hand to slowplay with, but misjudging my range and my ability to read his hand made it a very costly idea.

In my first blog entry, I wrote about the common 'decent player' fallacy of playing hands 'the way you are supposed to' rather than thinking about the overall situation. Today, I'd like to follow up on that by comparing two hands - one unquestionably played badly and one that is defensible - and analyzing the thought process behind them.

In this month's 2+2 Magazine (the link will change soon so I'm not linking it yet), there is an article by David Sklansky that also attempts to talk about unorthodox approaches to no limit. In his example, with 80 BB behind in a 'straightforward' playing game, he holds 77 after 2 limpers in MP and overlimps in an eventual 6 way pot. He then checks a 732 flop (fourth of six to act) and makes the argument that, if a rainbow Q hits the turn, you should check one more time.

Obviously, I hate to be on the wrong side of David Sklansky. However, this is an example of a very badly played hand and a misguided thought process - one that's full of fancy play syndrome, and very light on thinking about your opponents' ranges and their thoughts about your hand.

Why? DS's thoughts about the flop check are that "[y]ou check because it is likely that no one has much, you want them to catch up if they don’t, and you expect they will bet if they do. Plus if you check, someone may bluff or semi-bluff with a hand that they would have folded had you bet." That's true to a point - if you check, one of the two players behind you might bet something like 66 or even A3 that would probably fold to a bet. But that pales in comparison to the range of hands that will (at least) call a bet now and possibly even on the turn and river, but will check behind on the turn if you follow his probable line of check/call, check - not just the obvious ones like 54 and 99, but any 7, some 'gutshot plus ace' hands like A4, and even random overcards from players who decide this is the perfect flop to float vs. a likely weak-ish made hand. (Remember, just because players are straightforward doesn't mean that they are robots or terrible poker players.) Just as importantly, on this flop, the hands that 'catch up' on the turn will very often catch up to the nuts and now have a good shot at stacking you.

So much for the flop check. Assuming we got to the turn this way, do we check again when a Q hits? Of course not! All of the same arguments still apply - except that now, in this small pot, if we knew someone behind us had a queen, we would much rather bet out (and hope KQ raises) than go for a very scary looking checkraise. Remember how weird this line looks to your straightforward opponents - you showed no real interest in the hand PF and on the flop, but now checkraise a card that probably hit somebody in a six way pot. While some people will call you down light, most will fold something like QJ right there, while happily calling you down on two streets (and probably even raising a jack on the river) if you just bet your hand.

This hand is a good lesson in how to avoid playing in an unorthodox way. Don't just do it because you have the effective nuts and decide now is a good time to slowplay; you must have a reason for it and a plan for the hand.

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With that hand in mind, I'd like to talk about a hand I played at full ring 10/20 NL the other day. This hand actually took place in a fairly passive PF, calling station-type bad postflop game of the type DS describes, with effective stacks of 100 BB. My image at the time was fairly tight, possibly even nitty; I did not have particularly good reads on my opponents, but thought they were the typical loose/bad players in that game.

In the actual hand, two or three people limped PF and I decided to limp 7 5 on the button. (There are some good arguments for raising here, too. DS's and Ed Miller's No Limit: Theory and Practice has some good analysis of preflop spots like this one.) The blinds completed/checked and five or six people saw the flop, which came J T 9. It was checked to the limper on my right (I believe in MP3), who bet half the pot, meaning he had 'something' but not particularly very much.

In theory, this meant I had a 12 out draw, and some people would raise here. The arguments for raising are that it cleans up the eights as outs, lets you take a free card on the turn, and inflates the pot for when you hit. In this game, however, QT might still call a bet/raise cold, and a jack would never fold (not now and possibly not on the turn), so I chose to call instead and hope for a diamond. One of the EP limpers overcalled, so 3 of us saw the Q hit on the turn; EP checked and the other limper quickly bet half the pot again.

Now, this hand suddenly became interesting. If I called, I wouldn't be protecting my hand. If I raised, with my image, most likely both players would fold, although a naked king might still call down. Additionally, a 3 bet would make me throw up, but I would likely have to call it.

So what should I have done? To some degree, the good thing here is not that you find the best line, but that you're thinking about it at all, because most mediocre to decent players simply raise their flush. However, the best line here varies with the situation, and, of course, my opponents' hand range.

Here, I thought that MP3's hand was clearly not a set - he would have frozen up when that very ugly turn hit, although he just might be bad enough to bet an 'improved' 2 pair. Instead, this was either a bluff, a straight (perhaps something like KT, who semibluffed the flop and 'hit' the turn) or a higher flush. In that case, I didn't have to worry about the board pairing unless the EP player had a huge hand, too (and he gave no indication of that with his PF limp/flop overcall on a JT9 board.) Most likely, then, I only had 6-7 diamonds to worry about, and perhaps not even that, in terms of protecting my hand, and any straight would have no choice but to pay off on a non-diamond river. Therefore, although I had to really think about the situation, I chose to just call again.

EP did something interesting - he overcalled - and all three of us went to the river. The river was a low black card, he checked, and MP now quickly bet the pot! Now what?

At this point, the pot was around 1250 (625 for me to call) and we had 1000 more behind. I thought about it for a few seconds and decided to just call again. My reasoning, which should be easy to see by now, was severalfold:
-If EP had a king, he might come along and overcall;
-MP's range was now very clearly 'bluff or straight +' and possibly shaded towards the high end;
-It was very unclear whether MP would pay off a river shove with just a king, especially with my image.

As it turns out, I think my reasoning on the river was wrong. EP thought a while, but folded, and MP turned over Ks8s for a turned straight that he was likely mistakenly 'value betting' (because, of course, he had a king and both of us showed no strength.) It's very possible that I got the most out of the hand, but in retrospect, if I had to play it over again, I would probably shove the river regardless and hope MP called; I underestimated how weak my hand looked, and it was very possible that a bad player would somehow find a call there.

However, this hand *is* a good example of when to 'think unorthodox' and why. It's not enough to simply play a hand differently because you feel like it, any more than it would be to check a 732 flop because 'you have top set and they have nothing'. Instead, you should always try to find the best line based on your range (this is where G-Bucks come in), your opponents' range, their perception of you, and how the hand has appeared to play out to them. Furthermore, the right result is sometimes not as important (although it sure does help your bank account) as the thought process you took to get there.

In my next column - always assuming I find a hand or two worth writing about - I'll try to expand on this concept and mix in some examples of the thought process that goes into good hand reading.

Hello, everyone. I am a new writer here at Tworags and would like to introduce myself. My online nickname is Adanthar; I am a high stakes online tournament player and also play 5/10 to 10/20 NL. In between my day job as a non-profit lawyer, I've more or less been playing for a living since 2005.

For my first column, I'd like to talk about what I plan to do at Tworags. I firmly believe that the best way to get better is to analyze hands, and that's exactly what I do - I probably think about poker and post about it more than I play (which says as much about my work ethic as it does about my analytical skills, but never mind that.) Most mediocre to decent, but not great players do think about their borderline hands and try to avoid basic mistakes, but a lot of them take certain more basic poker "tenets" for granted. For example, they will never fold KK preflop because "the times you get KK vs. AA and AA vs. KK even out", they'll often slowplay the nuts no matter what the board looks like (or, vice versa, never slowplay the nuts regardless), and so on. The bottom line for many of these players is that they make big calls and big folds because "it's what you're supposed to do" and never think about the other player's hand range, what the other player expects from them, or the overall situation. In midstakes and high stakes no limit against good, thinking opponents, these mistakes are often more damaging than 90% of the marginal hands usually posted in places such as 2+2.

In the near future, I will try to post many examples of such hands and attempt to explain why they are more critical to your development as a player than most people would expect. In the meantime, I'd like to point our readers towards a new Bluff Magazine column written by Phil Galfond. In this column, he introduces a concept known as 'G-bucks' - basically, Sklansky dollars, but taken for your entire hand range as opposed to just the hand you actually have at the moment. This is a crucial part of what I'll be talking about over the next few weeks, and I encourage everyone reading this to stop and read that column - it's a great read.

Thanks for reading - hope to see you back at Tworags soon.