Classic Mistakes – 1 – Ignoring the commitment threshold

One of the classic mistakes we all make when we start playing is ignoring the relative stack sizes (your own as well as the villain’s) and the bets that could potentially commit either of you to the pot, sometimes regardless of any cards that might be dealt subsequently. This was one area that this book had helped me with. I am still trying to get to terms with differing commitment levels based on how good/bad the villain is, the type of hand you have, etc.

I don’t think I have understood the concept well enough to explain it as clearly as the authors of PNLHE, and strongly recommend that you get the book, but am going to use the hand below to try to walk thro’ the thought processes I am trying to develop to see if I, or the villain are committed during any hand.

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Full Tilt Poker, $0.15/$0.30 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

Hero (CO): $37

BTN: $64.05

SB: $30

BB: $82.45

UTG: $37.65

MP: $52.30

Pre-Flop: T T dealt to Hero (CO)

UTG folds, MP calls $0.30, Hero raises to $1.05, BTN calls $1.05, 2 folds, MP calls $0.75

Pocket 10s on the cutoff merit a raise, and with the one limper already in, I decide to raise to 3.5 BBs (I usually stick to a 2.5x + 1xBB per limper raise on 6-max tables)

Flop: ($3.60) 8 2 5 (3 Players)

MP checks, Hero bets $2, BTN calls $2, MP folds

This as a pretty decent flop for me, no obvious draws on the board, all lower cards to my pocket pair, so I bet just over 1/2 pot. Note – I started the pot with about $37. I have bet about $3, so I have about $34 after the flop bet. The villain had well over $60 when the pot started – for calculating pot-commitment thresholds, we should only worry about the lower stack (mine in this case).

Turn: ($7.60) 8 (2 Players)
Hero bets $6, BTN raises to $18.60, Hero calls $12.60

I had taken a couple of notes about the villain based on past hands that he’d showed down (mostly against other players) – he re-raised big a couple of times – once with the nut flush draw, and the second time with an inside straight draw. While it was quite possible that he’d hit the 8 and had trips, I didn’t think he’d re-raise it right here, rather, given the size of my bet (almost pot-sized), he might just have smooth-called and tried to extract more value on the river. I put him on either the flush draw or complete air (maybe an ace-high). When he raised the bet to $18, I had less than 16$ left on the river if I called, and that was just about 1/4th of what would be the pot size on the river. That effectively committed me to the pot. Whatever the river card, I would have to push all-in. In fact, I had made a mistake on the turn, if I was going to call that turn bet, I should just have pushed all-in, if I believed that I had a better hand, I should have tried to extract more value right then.

River: ($44.80) 7 (2 Players)
Hero bets $15.35 and is All-In, BTN folds

I did push all-in on the river, and villain folded! He just needed to be right once in 4 times to break even by calling this bet, and if he had thought that I might do this with something like an ace-high, he should have called this bet. This just makes it all the more probable that he was on a draw that didn’t fill. His mistake was – he must have realized that his raise on the turn pot-committed me; he should either have re-raised me all in, that move might have had some fold equity, or just smooth-called and raised on the river regardless of whether his draw filled up.

Results: $44.80 Pot ($2.20 Rake)
Hero mucked T T and WON $42.60 (+$20.95 NET)

Horrible Plays – 1

This is first in a series of hands that were horribly botched up – either by me or by the villain -

Full Tilt Poker, $0.15/$0.30 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

BTN: $31.15

SB: $58.95

BB: $50

UTG: $52.75

Hero (MP): $81.15

CO: $59.45

Pre-Flop: A 4 dealt to Hero (MP)

UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.90, CO calls $0.90, 3 folds

Not usually a good move to raise A-weak, but I prefer it to limping in..

Flop: ($2.25) 8 K K (2 Players)
Hero bets $1.40, CO calls $1.40

This was more of a probe bet to see if villain had a King that he liked. I also had the nut flush draw, so this was more like a semi-bluff. When villain didn’t re-raise, all I could think was that he had some hand he liked that he wanted to take to a showdown as cheaply as he could.

Turn: ($5.05) T (2 Players)

Hero checks, CO bets $1.50, Hero calls $1.50

A smallish bet by villain – less than 1/3rd the pot again made me think that he just wanted to get to a cheap showdown, I decided to call with plans of making a 1/2 pot bet on any river card.

River: ($8.05) 3 (2 Players)
Hero bets $6.30, CO calls $6.30

River filled my flush draw, decided to bet about 3/4th the pot hoping that villain would re-raise if he had anything at all, or would call if he had a lower pocket pair (than kings) which was what I had put him on by now.

Results: $20.65 Pot ($1 Rake)
Hero showed A 4 (a flush, Ace high) and WON $19.65 (+$9.55 NET)
CO mucked A K (three of a kind, Kings) and LOST (-$10.10 NET)

This was probably the worst possible way in which he could have played his hand – he had trip kings with an ace kicker on the flop, and played this so passively that he let me draw out on the river, and then to top it all, he pays me off after I get the flush!!
If I were him, I’d have re-raised pre-flop. Would probably had overbet the pot on this flop against an aggressive villain making it seem as if I was trying to buy the pot. Would have bet close to the pot on the turn if the flop bet was called denying proper odds to draw to the flush. Although I guess I would have paid off if the villain had drawn to his flush, hit it and bet less than the pot.

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This next hand is something that I botched up real bad.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.15/$0.30 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

CO: $26.85

BTN: $8.45

SB: $67.80

Hero (BB): $44.25

UTG: $25.35

Pre-Flop: 9 J dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG raises to $1.05, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.75

Not a smart call here – I am going to be out of position to the villain and I have a hand that could be easily dominated!

Flop: ($2.25) 2 J 4 (2 Players)
Instant reaction on seeing this flop was – Nice! Top pair and the flush draw. Check-raise and call a shove!
Hero checks, UTG bets $2.25, Hero raises to $8, UTG raises to $24.30 and is All-In, Hero calls $16.30

Okay, that worked, now what.

Turn: ($50.85) A (2 Players – 1 is All-In)

I didnt like this card, it was hitting a major part of my opponent’s range (if he didnt have a better Jack or an overpair already)

River: ($50.85) 9 (2 Players – 1 is All-In)

Miracle card on the river to give me a 2 pair.

Results: $50.85 Pot ($2.50 Rake)
Hero showed 9 J (two pair, Jacks and Nines) and WON $48.35 (+$23 NET)
UTG showed Q Q (a pair of Queens) and LOST (-$25.35 NET)

Ouch!! That was such a horrible play, overplayed top-pair no-kicker with a weak flush draw. I played this hand like a total fish and sucked out on villain who played it perfectly!

Ahh well.. thats the game.

Update : 4/20

Hold the press! I thought about this some more and ran pokerstove on this hand with a reasonably tight range for the villain to see how much equity I actually had in this hand, and the results were actually a bit surprising. I had undersestimated the equity I had in the hand -

Board: 2c 4c Js
Dead:

equity     win     tie           pots won     pots tied
Hand 0:     71.489% 71.29%     00.20%              67751           192.00   { Jc9c }
Hand 1:     28.511%      28.31%     00.20%              26905           192.00   { 88+, ATs+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, AJo+ }
I actually had a better than 70% equity in the hand, so my move, while it seemed donkish was not a bad percentage play. Live and learn I guess…

Weird lines

This was a weird line taken by the villain.

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $23.60

UTG: $25.70

MP: $32.35

CO: $12.85

BTN: $25.50

SB: $10.30

Pre-Flop: 4 4 dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG raises to $0.50, MP calls $0.50, CO raises to $1, BTN folds, SB calls $0.90, Hero calls $0.75, UTG calls $0.50, MP calls $0.50

Easy call – set value.

Flop: ($5) 9 7 6 (5 Players)

I dont like this flop that much. No plans of betting at it. With so many people in, its sure to have hit somebody.

SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, MP checks, CO checks

Turn: ($5) 2 (5 Players)

I was a bit surprised when everybody checked thro’ the flop. This 2 shouldnt have helped anybody that much. I thought this would be a good place to take a stab at the pot with a small-ish bet. In hindsight, I should have bet more, probably at least $3.

SB checks, Hero bets $1.25, 3 folds, SB raises to $4, Hero calls $2.75

The re-raise didnt seem that threatening, would definitely have folded to an all-in re-raise, decided to call and re-evaluate on the river.

River: ($13) 3 (2 Players)
SB bets $5.30 and is All-In, Hero calls $5.30

It seemed unlikely that the club helped him – I usually dont worry about backdoor draws played aggressively. It was also unlikely that he had 4,5 – given that I had 2 of the 4s. If he had something like 5,8 or 8,10 for a flopped straight, he should definitely have bet either the flop or the turn, or check-raised all-in on the turn. His line just didn’t make any sense, and it was less than 1/2 the pot to call, I needed to be good at least 1 out of 3 times for this to be profitable, and I thought I was okay.

Results: $23.60 Pot ($1.15 Rake)
Hero showed 4 4 (a pair of Fours) and WON $22.45 (+$12.15 NET)
SB showed Q T (high card Queen) and LOST (-$10.30 NET)

As it turns out, very very confusing betting line for a bluff!

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This next hand was with a different villain – again having a shorter stack and with a weird starting hand selection to open-raise and call re-raises and bets with!

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

MP: $10

CO: $53.60

BTN: $13.25

SB: $24.75

Hero (BB): $24

UTG: $25

Pre-Flop: A K dealt to Hero (BB)

UTG folds, MP raises to $1, CO folds, BTN calls $1, SB calls $0.90, Hero raises to $5.50, MP calls $4.50, 2 folds

I like to play my premium hands super-fast in these deep-stacked, 6-max games. I play so loosely (about 42/18 ) that I don’t get any respect on any of my re-raises, and hence get a lot of action when I really do have a strong hand.

Flop: ($13) 5 Q Q (2 Players)
Hero bets $5, MP calls $4.50 and is All-In

I had the betting lead because I had re-raised pre-flop, and would have called a shove for ~1/3 the pot anyways with two more cards to come and only a small % that villain has a queen. I decided to put him all-in – I could win the pot if he folded, if he had the queen, I was pretty much dead, and if he had a lower pocket pair, I had two chances to draw out.

Turn: ($22) 2 (2 Players – 1 is All-In)

River: ($22) 5 (2 Players – 1 is All-In)

Results: $22 Pot ($1.05 Rake)
MP mucked J T and LOST (-$10 NET)
Hero showed A K (two pair, Queens and Fives) and WON $20.95 (+$10.95 NET)

Why on earth did he call the all-in!! Wow! Just goes to show what kind of table-image I had.

A break helps..

When I started playing poker, I stuck to only tourneys – started at the micro-stake STTs, moved on to low-stakes STTs and MTTs, and have done reasonably well so far. But the attraction of making big money consistently from cash games always remained. Around early Dec, I started playing 10NL full-ring on FTP and Stars, was doing decently and by about mid-Jan moved to 25NL full ring even though I wasn’t really bankrolled for it – I had a pretty small bankroll, but I only had about 15-20 hours every week for poker, and didn’t want to grind it out forever at 10NL. I did okay in Jan and Feb, making about 6-7 big bets per 100 hands(obviously, the sample size is pretty small – less than 10K hands in total).

As you can see, nothing spectacular, but fairly steady. The stats for December and January were similar.


Then came March.

Then came March. A few suckouts early in the Month, and I was on monkey-tilt pretty much through the first two weeks. Towards mid-March, I just gave up, gave poker a break, and went back to my books. Got HOCG (Harrington on Cash games) and went through Professional No Limit Hold’em again. The 2nd volume of HOCG is pure gold, got some good tips on how to play weak cash games (Foxwoods!), how to play against LAGs, and also how to play deep-stacked. I guess the book really helped drive home some concepts that I had been reading about and thinking about for a while, but didn’t really know how to apply.

Fast forward to April -

I switched over to 6-max tables, and also to the 30NL “Deep” tables on FTP. I used to play at about a 21/11 on full ring, I am now playing 41/15 on the 6-max 30NL Deep tables and on the 25NL 6-max tables, and I am feeling so much more comfortable and in control. My hand reading seems to have improved considerably, and boy, do I get paid off when I hit!

The break helped in more ways than one – it obviously helped me get over the tilt, helped me stop worrying about the bad month, helped me figure out that I should try different things – play deepstacked tables where post-flop play is the nuts, play 6-max tables where aggression is the nuts, and just play a different style altogether. Obviously, its way too early to say if this is going to be a sustainable strategy, need a lot more hands at this level to figure out what I need to work on.

Will post specific hand histories, bankroll details and targets, this was just the first post to get the blog started.