broken sunglasses

A few days ago, I was playing 50 NL online, and bought in for $30. I had AQ of spades pre-flop, and decided to call a mid-position raise to $2 from the cutoff, as did the BB. Then the flop came down:

Ad Ks 8s

Bingo! Top pair plus the nut flush draw. After BB checked, MP bet $4, and I decided to go for the overcall by just flat calling the bet -- and the BB obliged. A blank 4c came on the turn, and the BB bet out, MP moved in, I moved in, BB called. River came a Qc. I have two pair, which should be good -- right?

Nope: MP had QQ. He hit his one-outer. At this point, I realized, we have quite a fish on our hands. So I re-bought. However, it did NOT go well. I then had another hand with this guy where we both limped, when I had 46 suited. The flop came:

3d 5s Tc

Villain checked, I bet $1.50 with my open-ended straight draw. Turn came a 2h. That's my gin card! However, oddly, he led into me, so I raised, he reraised, I raised again, and he called. Then the river came a 6h. At this point, he led again, I just ship the rest in, and he insta-calls, and flips over the inevitable 24 off-suit. At this point, he'd caught his 3-outer to chop a $90 pot. I was so mad that I snapped a pair of old sunglasses that I'd been playing with clean in half. LOL!

Thus my downswing started. I believe after that I started assuming most of my opponents in 25NL and 50 NL were like that idiot. However, that's probably not a good thing. I got stacked twice in 5 minutes on Sunday. First, I ran AK with a wheel draw plus a pair of kings (and top kicker) into AA on the turn. Then, I had JJ with a flush draw running into a set, shipped it all in on the turn -- he quadded up on the river of course haha. :-)

I guess the lesson is that there are ALL KINDS of opponents on PokerStars. In all likelihood, the safest strategy, which I've been employing lately, is to give people credit by default, until I see a couple of examples of egregious play and/or egregious stats which should be exploitable. Although you decrease the chances of having those guys stack off to you, you also protect yourself against good tight-aggressive players. In short, think twice before calling any big bets.

Here's how I'm trying to define a "bad player":

1. VPIP (voluntarily puts money into pot pre-flop) > 50% with 95% confidence. If you see someone play 10 out of 10 pots observed, you could be pretty sure they're way too loose. Best way to exploit: raise more with your strong hands, and hope they call. Sometimes these people are tight post-flop, so a different strategy may be necessary then.

2. Pre-flop raise > 30% with 95% confidence. If someone raises 6 out of 9 pots observed, they're raising too much. Best way to exploit: 3-bet pre-flop with a wider range of hands.

3. Aggression factor < 0.5 with 95% confidence. Aggression factor is the number of post-flop bets + raises over the number of post-flop calls. This can take longer to figure out if someone is tight pre-flop. However, if in the post-flop action, they call 10 times and raise only 2, that's an AF of 0.2, and WAY too passive against any but the most insanely aggressive opponents. That basically means they're calling stations, most of the time. Occasionally, it also means they won't bet without the nuts, but call with good hands / draws almost exclusively. You can tell the difference by observing how often they stick around for the turn and river. Obviously, someone who's loose-passive post-flop is generally a terrible player. Best adjustments: decrease c-betting frequency, especially when in position, but increase range of hands you bet for value. Consider betting as little as mid-pair on every street, sometimes such people will call down with pocket deuces unimproved and without any draws -- believe me, it happened the other day in 25NL.

Any comments?

semibluffing: try this at home?

I was playing someone's home game for the first time ever last Thursday. It was a NL hold 'em cash game with blind of $0.25 and $0.50. Most players bought in for only $20, but the host usually bought in for double that, so I followed suit. Our mutual friend characterized him as a hyper-aggressive player who nonetheless would fold to strong raises post-flop. With that as a background, let me tell you about the hand!

Pre-flop, it was folded around to the cutoff, who raised to $1.50. I called with 79 suited on the button, and the host called from the BB.

Then the flop came down:

6d 8h Ks

The action went: BB checks, CO bets $2, I raise to $6, BB re-raises to $12, CO folds, and then I pause to think. Based on what our mutual friend told me, if I put in another raise, I should have a ton of fold equity in this spot. That, plus the equity of my draw, should have made this a very +EV spot to reraise. Thus, I put in a reraise to $32 total. After thinking for a while, BB just calls. The turns comes a Tc, BB puts me all-in for another $17 -- I beat him into the pot. He flips over KK for top set! River came a 4c.

My feeling is that given the information that I had, as well as the way the hand played out, I played it reasonably well. I certainly also lucked out on that turn. But that also illustrates why semibluffs are so much better than a pure bluff.

why bad beat expert?

Hey Guys,

Welcome to my new blog -- The Bad Beat Expert! Just to be clear, I don't think I'm the world's greatest expert on poker by any means. I'm just using the title to convey the sense a lot of tight-aggressive players like me have that we've experienced every bad beat known to man. :-)

I intend to write about my experiences playing poker, both live and online (I play on PokerStars), talk about hands and hopefully get some good feedback from you guys. I mainly play no-limit hold 'em cash games, for buy-ins ranging from $5 to $50, though I prefer to play at the higher end when I can find a good game. I'm also hoping to move up to $100 NL soon, but will put that off until my bankroll at least hits the "magic" 20 buy-in threshold. Overall, I believe I play winning poker, but have certainly had days where I questioned that assumption, mainly due to either bad luck or tilt.

Anyway, if you have specific topics you'd like me to talk about, or comments on my strategies, please feel free to let me know!

--BBE