Rambling On Gambling

I started betting on the NFL because I loved watching all the games and figured I would have an edge on the public picking winners. I started betting on poker for the same reason – it was fun and I assumed I could beat the game if I tried hard enough. Making money has never been serious motivation for me to do anything. In high school and college I got jobs for the sole purpose of getting my parents off my back, and worked as little as possible.

I want to have enough money to live a comfortable life. For me a “comfortable life” means eating whatever I want whenever I want, living in a cozy home in a nice place, not having to stress paying bills, traveling from time to time, and one day, having kids. I have little desire to own multiple homes, cars, yachts, planes, etc. I drive a ’99 Volkswagen Jetta that I hope to drive for the next ten years. I have few expensive possessions. Don’t get me wrong – I spend more money than most people. But I have no tolerance for excess. Things like bottle service and first-class airfare make me queasy.

So on Sunday, when we lost more money betting on the NFL than ever before, it didn’t bother me too much. The depressing, embarrassing part of it was how much time and effort I had put into it and the knowledge that I had failed to beat this thing. In fact, I have never put this much into anything and failed at it. Except for girls.

Sunday night, in the wake of the NFL gambling apocalypse, I went sledding with some friends. One of my friends had recently seen a long-term relationship come to a close, and she was distraught. Seeing her and thinking about some of my own relationships made such a clear juxtaposition: a busted relationship is so much more devastating than a busted bankroll. Gambling losses hardly affect my disposition anymore, but human interaction still gets my heart in cartwheels. And sledding down icy Tantra Hill was ten times as exhilarating as watching the Chiefs beat the Raiders, ten times as terrifying as watching Chris Simms blow 3% of the bankroll.

The NFL betting corporation has been dissolved and once again I am officially a professional poker player. So here are a couple of the key hands I played this weekend. The first is from the FTOPS $2500 event.

Full Tilt Poker Game #16027231543: FTOPS Event #22 (2-Day) (109223926), Table 58 - 80/160 Ante 20 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:06:26 ET - 2009/11/14
Seat 1: I101 (18,150)
Seat 2: Smokinokun (17,868)
Seat 3: MrTimCaum (6,499)
Seat 4: biig_piig (5,274)
Seat 5: gdluck (25,278)
Seat 6: GnightMoon (15,813)
Seat 7: SN8WMAN (16,778)
Seat 8: AKat11 (7,158)
Seat 9: ScoopAndStack (5,247)
I101 antes 20
Smokinokun antes 20
MrTimCaum antes 20
biig_piig antes 20
gdluck antes 20
GnightMoon antes 20
SN8WMAN antes 20
AKat11 antes 20
ScoopAndStack antes 20
biig_piig posts the small blind of 80
gdluck posts the big blind of 160
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to GnightMoon [Kc Kh]
GnightMoon raises to 367
SN8WMAN folds
AKat11 folds
ScoopAndStack folds
I101 folds
Smokinokun folds
MrTimCaum calls 367
biig_piig folds
gdluck calls 207
*** FLOP *** [Td 6s Qc]
gdluck checks
GnightMoon bets 849
MrTimCaum has 15 seconds left to act
MrTimCaum raises to 6,112, and is all in
gdluck folds
GnightMoon calls 5,263
MrTimCaum shows [As Ah]
GnightMoon shows [Kc Kh]
*** TURN *** [Td 6s Qc] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [Td 6s Qc 8c] [5s]
MrTimCaum shows a pair of Aces
GnightMoon shows a pair of Kings
MrTimCaum wins the pot (13,585) with a pair of Aces
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 13,585 | Rake 0
Board: [Td 6s Qc 8c 5s]
Seat 1: I101 folded before the Flop
Seat 2: Smokinokun folded before the Flop
Seat 3: MrTimCaum (button) showed [As Ah] and won (13,585) with a pair of Aces
Seat 4: biig_piig (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: gdluck (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 6: GnightMoon showed [Kc Kh] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 7: SN8WMAN folded before the Flop
Seat 8: AKat11 folded before the Flop
Seat 9: ScoopAndStack folded before the Flop

At first glance this appears to be a standard cooler hand and an automatic call with an overpair in such an aggressive tournament as the FTOPS $2500. I did call the bet quickly and without too much thought, but a closer examination reveals this flop call is closer to marginal than automatic.

The first thing we need to consider is the player. MrTimCaum is a young professional. His name is Steve O’Dwyer, and I probably know a lot more about him than he knows about me. It’s possible he has read my blog, but more likely he has no idea who GnightMoon is. Maybe he sharkscoped me and saw some impressive low-volume results on Full Tilt. We had not been playing at the same table for long and have not played together much in the past, so he may know next to nothing about me.

I have read a blog or two Steve wrote for Cardplayer, but my actual knowledge of his game is limited. I do have many assumptions, though, and assumptions are what this game is all about. I assume the following:

• MrTimCaum is a tourney donk. He plays tournaments for a living and probably doesn’t have a ton of cash game experience. This assumption could be way off.
• The assumption that he is a “tournament” player rather than a cash gamer narrows his range substantially. Again this is a generalization, but cash players will call an under the gun raise with a significantly larger range of hands than tournament players. Personally, with my cash background, I would call this raise with all sorts of hands. Tournament players are usually more wary, more tight/aggressive, and employ more of a raise or fold mentality.
• MrTimCaum had already reraised an early position open of mine from the big blind, and seemed to be raising or folding when he chose to play a hand. So him flat-calling my raise should raise the hairs on the back of my neck. It did, but I ignored it because of the strength of my hand.
• The other suspicious thing about his flat-call is stack size. MrTimCaum started the hand with forty big blinds, and tourney donks don’t usually speculate with stacks of this size. They are taught to conserve their chips at this point, that if they are going to play a pot, winning it is paramount.
  

Based on these assumptions, it follows that when MrTimCaum jams over my bet on the flop, he has a very limited range. There is no flush draw, and the only open-ended straight draws are king-jack and jack-nine. It’s unlikely he would make such a large jam on the flop with jack-nine, but he probably wouldn’t call my preflop raise with any sort of jack-nine. In fact, and again I could be wrong here, I don’t think he would call my under the gun raise with king-jack suited or king-queen.

So if I think it’s unlikely he can have KJ or KQ, there are really only five hands he will have: aces, queens, ace-queen, tens, and sixes. Previous rationale makes sixes a bit unlikely, and he might choose to slowplay a set (particularly queens, which he may have reraised preflop anyways). Tourney donks also like to reraise ace-queen a lot of the time, so maybe that limits the chances of that hand showing up. Aces and tens are his most likely hands and they both crush me. AQ is the only hand out of the bunch I have a fighting chance against. There is always the “5%” chance that he is spazzing out with nothing, the Dan Harrington Theory, which I think is usually about right. When we throw in the fact there was another caller in the big blind, the fact that slowplaying aces is more popular than marijuana in the tourney donk community right now, the size of his bet, and the damage losing the pot would do to me vs the reward winning it would have, I think it all adds up to a fold.

This next hand, from the $500 FTOPS Main Event, illustrates diametric concepts.

Full Tilt Poker Game #16051472944: FTOPS Main Event (109224352), Table 237 - 25/50 - No Limit Hold'em - 18:46:11 ET - 2009/11/15
Seat 1: GnightMoon (10,027)
Seat 3: LAGityTAGity (9,994)
Seat 4: arobinson11 (7,158)
Seat 5: HalcyonDays (6,564)
Seat 6: John Banks1313 (7,345)
Seat 7: The_Madcap (7,755)
Seat 8: TopFlite06 (9,130)
Seat 9: Bullets_Up23 (6,310)
Bullets_Up23 posts the small blind of 25
GnightMoon posts the big blind of 50
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to GnightMoon [9h Ts]
LAGityTAGity folds
arobinson11 folds
HalcyonDays folds
John Banks1313 folds
The_Madcap folds
TopFlite06 raises to 150
Bullets_Up23 folds
GnightMoon calls 100
*** FLOP *** [2d 5c Td]
GnightMoon checks
TopFlite06 has 15 seconds left to act
TopFlite06 bets 200
GnightMoon raises to 555
TopFlite06 has 15 seconds left to act
TopFlite06 has requested TIME
TopFlite06 raises to 1,795
GnightMoon calls 1,240
*** TURN *** [2d 5c Td] [5h]
GnightMoon checks
TopFlite06 has 15 seconds left to act
TopFlite06 has requested TIME
TopFlite06 bets 2,695
GnightMoon calls 2,695
*** RIVER *** [2d 5c Td 5h] [Jh]
GnightMoon checks
TopFlite06 has 15 seconds left to act
TopFlite06 has requested TIME
TopFlite06 bets 4,490, and is all in
GnightMoon calls 4,490
*** SHOW DOWN ***
TopFlite06 shows [Qs Js] two pair, Jacks and Fives
GnightMoon mucks
TopFlite06 wins the pot (18,285) with two pair, Jacks and Fives
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 18,285 | Rake 0
Board: [2d 5c Td 5h Jh]
Seat 1: GnightMoon (big blind) mucked [9h Ts] - two pair, Tens and Fives
Seat 3: LAGityTAGity didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: arobinson11 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: HalcyonDays didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: John Banks1313 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: The_Madcap didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: TopFlite06 (button) showed [Qs Js] and won (18,285) with two pair, Jacks and Fives
Seat 9: Bullets_Up23 (small blind) folded before the Flop

Here I defend my blind with a mediocre ten-nine offsuit against a button raiser. Although T9o is one of my most all-time losing hands, I feel comfortable defending the BB with it – especially in the early stages of a tournament like the FTOPS Main where the stacks are deep and I have a postflop edge against 99% of the players.

The flop gives me top pair on a dry board. The important thing here is that in this context, my hand is very powerful. Head up against a button raiser, I have his range crushed on the flop. There are plenty of hands that have me beat, but when you consider how many hands he will likely raise on the button and continuation bet when checked to, I am way ahead of the vast majority of them.

Now usually I am a pretty conservative player who likes to keep pots small. I generally prefer to call rather than raise with marginal hands. But in this spot, I have come to believe there is often more value in raising – to protect my hand but also to induce further bluffs and win even bigger pots. I have seen MasterJ play this situation many times, and so often he induces wild moves from opponents with nothing. Sometimes he stacks off way behind, but more often his opponents show up with air. MasterJ wears an FTOPS jersey and usually has a wild image, so he naturally induces moves more than a player like me.

In this situation my opponent probably didn’t know much about me, and I didn’t know anything about him – except for one little piece of information provided by the good people at Full Tilt Poker: this player was from Norway. I knew this before I got involved. Again generalizing, his nationality raises his likelihood of launching a massive three-barrel bluff.

The key to all this is that on a board of T53, you can’t have many hands either. So when you checkraise, it looks like you are full of crap. You should practically be expecting your opponent (if he is from Norway) to come right back over the top with nothing. If he actually had a big hand like an overpair or a set, it seems likely he might just call. After all, it looks like I might be bluffing – so why would he raise me if he had a hand?

I snapped the flop three-bet, and then snapped the turn. Everything about how it went down – the long pauses before he bet, the size of his bets, the button vs big blind pissing contest aspect of it, the Norwegian factor – made me think I had the best hand.

The river is where it gets a bit ugly. An overcard hit, but more importantly, he fires all-in on the river for less than half the pot. It’s hard for me to fold considering my read of the hand and how much money I have invested, but it’s also unusual for players to three-barrel bluff their entire stack in the early stages of a tournament – even if they are from Norway.