Uh Oh, Ma there goes the front wheel.

Posted: 8th October 2010 by Greg Wmson in Poker Articles
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Ok, listen up you donks, ya, you know who I’m talking to, the guy that gets more jacked up than Ricky Bobby’s kid on mountain dew when things don’t go right.

Well, I just had one of those nights myself, I’m playing 6 max, I’ve made up my mind, I’m gonna play solid, play tag out of position, lag in position, and see if I can make something happen, thus far my stats have been around 29/20 and I’ve been working on trying to get them down to more like 24/20 to keep my game a little more clear and less muddled on later streets, and so far its been working out ok, as I’m about a 6BB/100 winner or at least, was.

Tonight was one of those nights that hardly anything went right. I’d get medium pocket pairs, lets see 66, 88, 99, TT, JJ, and the flop would come AKX of course I raised preflop with this, so I make a nice continuation bet and get promptly raised or flat called, and then I’m check/folding the next street, and so my night goes.

I get AK, get a 3 bet pot, opps, was that a 4 bet? Ok, I’ll call in position. flop comes 942. And the guy leads into me for a pot size bet. Well crap. Whatever. here I fold, you win, I suck, and that went on probably 4-5 times with my AK hands, Bet big, 3 bet, ok. I’m making them, he’s making them, whatever I’m not folding AK at low stakes to people playing 44/25 ever. And WHIFFF. Nothing but a big ole fat air ball right down the strike zone, time after time after time. WTH?, Huh, what is that little burning thing going on deep inside? It’s making me sit upright on the edge of my chair, like a lion ready to pounce. I’m talking and muttering to myself now, wtf, I’m playing like a rock and these guys are not giving my raises or bets any respect? I’ll show you, you silly SOB. You know, talking like us poker junkies do when sitting at the pc, talking to the mouse, the monitor, that freaking donkey this is playing this game like its a final table and the blind are about to go up in the next min. You know these guys. You may be one yourself.

Despite all this bad luck, I’m actually managing to stay about even by just stealing blinds and picking up pots with Air. Hell I can’t hit a hand, I need to win somehow. Holy cow, did I just win a hand? Oh what a great river, card. I had a pair and position and was getting called every street for fat bets and then the river comes Super scary and both of these guys checked so fast it wasn’t funny aha, I lead for a pot size bet and won a nice hand. Fold a few hand and then “the hand” comes up. I’m up almost a full buyin and I get AK in the blinds. Aha! a raise from mp position, well ok, cool we got a caller, oh boy dead money, it gets back to me and I cant wait to hit the raise pot button, and before I do, I add an extra bet just because I’m in the blinds and out of position the rest of the hand for good measure. HUH? you re-raises me. I’m like ok, well crap, AK, I should have just called and seen a flop and then I remember that I’ve not hit a single flop with it all night, so I’m like ok, well, I gotta see all 5 cards, and I push. He thinks for about 1.32 secs and calls. JJ, wow, I was almost relieved, that it weren’t kings or aces, especially aces as that doesn’t even leave me a realistic out. My relief was short lived when the Jacks held. I’m sitting there with a sign that says “sitting out” need chips, it might as well been a flashing neon sign its glaring at me and I’m asking myself, wtf happened to your plan of slowing down with AK? and the more I thought about it, the more I got pissed off at myself. I tangled with the only guy at the table that could bust me and I gave him 2 buyins just that quick for his trouble. And from there it got worse, I started raising in 2nd position with A8 SOOoooted and then shoving when an A hits oh, the nit on the button behind me shows AQ, hell I knew that when he called preflop. Ok, theres the rest of that buy in. UH OH.. It’s on now, full freaking blown..

On table number three I’ve got AQ in the BB at a table that is now 3 handed. A guy raises me for like the 3rd time in a row, I 3 bet him, he 4 bets me, I’m like wtf this is 3 handed and I have a monster hand for 3 handed, so I shove. and he shows me what a monster hand looks like with 2 lovely ladies, or vicious bitches, which ever side of the fence you’re on.

And it all started with a wee bit of frustration with whiffing a few AK flops.

But good news Ma, I got my iron man points in, and it only cost us the price of that jacket we were looking to buy with our points. Tilt is the worst 4 letter word in the human language and still my biggest tax in poker, Tilt has probably cost me just as much money as the rake. another dirty 4 letter word.

I leave with this Tommy Angelo Quote.

Fluctuations causes Tilt
Tilt Causes Fluctuations

A vicious cycle.

WTH is Game Theory?

Posted: 26th September 2010 by Greg Wmson in Poker Articles
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Reading Sklansky’s “Getting the Best of it” and was looking for the online equivelent on the net so i could show Sklanksy 1-2 game, but instead I came across this interesting game theory example. This is not easy reading but well worth the effort to learn about how game theory works. btw Game Theory was how Chris Ferguson won the WSOP and has pretty much dominated the headsup poker tournament against the best players for the last 3 out of 4 years. One key thing I want to point out, playing an Optimal Strategy is a defensive posture and it will keep you from losing in the long run, but also keep you from realizing max profit too. The key thing to take from Game Theory, is that does not operate in a vacumn and its important to force your opponents to not play optimaly and be acutely aware and ready to exploit them when they already are playing less than optimal so you can benifit from it. Game Theory is a discrete form of mathmatics where you use imperfect information to try to maximize value in the long run and is perfectly applicable to poker, politics and economics where the 2 or more parties involved have selfish interests, i.e. One party gains at another partys expense.

Even if you don’t understand the math it’s ok, just read the examples of counter plays and trust the author that his math is correct. It’s a whopper of an article. But good stuff, So before you dismiss this as too tough to sink in or nonsense, I’m going to quote Sklansky, Quote: If there’s something I know about the game that the other person doesn’t, and if he’s not willing to learn or can’t understand, then I take his money.” Game Theory and Poker Jason Swanson April 3, 2005 Abstract An extremely simplified version of poker is completely solved from a game theoretic standpoint. The actual properties of the optimal solution are then compared to various common notions about game theory and bluffing in poker. No specialized mathematical knowledge is needed to understand this material.

1 Introduction Let us consider a simple card game which we will call “One Card Poker.” The game is played with two players and a 3-card deck. The deck consists of an ace, a deuce, and a trey. To begin the game, one of the players is chosen to be the dealer; the other will be called the opener. After the dealer is selected, each player antes $100, forming a $200 pot. Then, the dealer deals one card to each player. After the players look at their cards, the opener is the first to act. He may check or bet $100. If he bets, then the dealer may either call or fold. If the dealer folds, the opener takes the pot; if the dealer calls, there is a showdown and the high card takes the pot. The ace is considered the lowest card. If the opener begins the game with a check, then the dealer may either check or bet $100. If the dealer checks, there is a showdown; otherwise, the opener must either call or fold. Note that there is no raising in this game. With the rules of One Card Poker in place, let us consider the following situation: the dealer is dealt the deuce and the opener bets. The dealer’s “hand” can beat only a bluff. What is the game-theoretic optimal frequency with which the dealer should call in this situation? In The Theory of Poker, David Sklansky discusses using game theory to call a possible bluff. He writes, Usually when your hand can beat only a bluff, you use your experience and judgment to determine the chances your opponent is bluffing . . . However, against an opponent whose judgment is as good as yours or better than yours, or one who is capable of using game theory to bluff, you in your turn can use game theory to thwart that player or at least minimize his profits. He then gives the following example: 1 If your opponent bets $20 to win $100, he is getting 5-to-1 on a bluff. Therefore, you make the odds 5-to-1 against your folding. That is, you must call five times and fold once. Motivated by this, let us return to our example.

The dealer has the deuce and can beat only a bluff. The opener has bet $100 into a $200 pot, giving him 2-to-1 on a bluff. We might therefore think that the dealer should call twice and fold once. Or, in other words, the dealer should call with his deuce with probability 2/3 . As we will see, however, this is wrong. The game-theoretic optimal frequency with which the dealer should call with the deuce is 1/3 . Another interesting example is the following: the dealer is dealt the ace and the opener checks. Should the dealer bluff? If the opener holds the trey, then a bluff is futile, but if the opener holds the deuce, then a bluff might work. Suppose that the dealer knows that the opener will always come out betting when he holds the trey. Then since the opener checked here, the dealer can be certain that the opener holds the deuce. In this situation, what is the game-theoretic optimal frequency with which the dealer should bluff? Again, let us return to the examples in The Theory of Poker: when I bet my $100, creating a $300 pot, my opponent was getting 3-to-1 odds from the pot. Therefore my optimum strategy was . . . [to make] the odds against my bluffing 3-to-1. Since the dealer will always bet with the trey in this situation, he should bluff with the ace 1/3 of the time in order to make the odds 3-to-1 against a bluff. But the analysis in this example began with the supposition that the opener will always bet when he holds the trey. What if the opener is a tricky player who will sometimes check with the trey, trying to goad the dealer into bluffing? Or, for that matter, what if the opener has the peculiar habit of never betting when he holds the trey? If he also checks whenever he holds the deuce, then what can the dealer conclude? The dealer is holding the ace and the opener has checked. Half the time, the opener will have the trey and a bluff is futile. The other half of the time, the opener will hold the deuce, and 1/3 of those times, the dealer ought to bluff. So perhaps, against this opponent, the optimal frequency with which the dealer should bluff is 1/6 . But again, as we will see, this is wrong. The dealer’s game-theoretic optimal bluffing frequency is 1/3 , regardless of how often the opener checks with the trey. In fact, if the dealer tries bluffing only 1/6 of the time, there is a strategy that the opener can employ – a strategy which involves always checking with the trey – that capitalizes on this mistake.

Finally, let us consider one last example before solving One Card Poker and answering all our questions. Consider the situation in which the opener is dealt the deuce. He checks and the dealer bets. His hand can beat only a bluff. What is the optimal frequency with which he should call this bet? Should he call 2/3 of the time, as suggested by the excerpt from The Theory of Poker? Or should he call 1/3 of the time, as he would if faced with the same situation as the dealer? As we will see, there is no unambiguous answer to this question… For the rest of this article go to http://www.scribd.com/doc/2964380/Skill-Game-Theory-and-Poker-Jason-Swanson-040305 and read the entire text, he goes into a lot of equations proving his theory but unfortunately our forum does not handle these equations and formating well and it would basically be unreadable. It shows serveral ways to exploint our opponents and other ways to maximize your ev and well worth the effort to read it as many times as neccesary before the light comes on.

Ok, well if that was too tough for you to grasp, how about a real world scenario of game theory.


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A Marine Cadence

Posted: 25th September 2010 by GregWmson in Poker Articles
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My Newphew who is in the Marines wrote this to me and said it made a good cadence while drilling.
A Marine Cadence.
It’s the Aces to your Cowboys. 1 2 3 4
Tampa Poker it’s all fun,
Tampa Poker It beats the Sun,
When burned and tired and nothing to do,
Tampa Poker it’s good for you,
Sound off 1 2, Sound off 1 2 3 4
Tampa Poker Home Games Galore
With Poker to play and money to score
Tampa Poker it’s a blast
Don’t play stupid or your money won’t last
Sound off 1 2, Sound off 1 2,
So Tampa Poker Players Lets Not Fight, lets get together and play tonight!
Sound Off 1 2, Sound Off 3 4, Sound Off, 1 2 3 4.
Semper Fi!
With Special Thanks to
LCPL Stephen B. Brooks.
H&S Company
Camp Leather Neck.  Afghanistan.
I know, it sounded corny as hell, but I appreciated his enthusiasm and his sacrifice. Thanks Blake! Stay safe, God Speed.

Is it Ego or Confidence?

Posted: 25th September 2010 by Greg Wmson in Poker Articles
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Why is it that most players have this huge ego when it comes to playing abilities, and the need to defend/display it at every opportunity?

The book, “Inside the poker Mind“ addresses this and it usually boils down to low self esteem.  But it’s a problem in many other ways also, as a player with an inflated ego, probably stopped learning the moment they decided they were the greatest and all them other theories were crap and their way is best.  These are probably the same type of player who blames losses on bad luck, lucky opponents, crappy dealers, too much beer, or whatever.  Ego is a bad thing. I think we can all agree it has no place in poker or a player looking to be the best he can be.  But on the other hand, I think confidence is a requirement to play well. Show me a timid, unsure opponent, and I’ll show you a weak fish that will get walked on all night long. So there is a huge difference between competent and cocky. I’ve never seen a successful player that had low self esteem. Never. Even the greatest players that are humble, Harrington, Cunningham, Ted Forrest, TJ, Mike Sexton, and many others, are just better at the face game of not scaring off the fish, and by nature, just nicer guys. and more enjoyable to play with. They KNOW they are better than us, but they are smart enough to never show us, or flaunt it,  nor will they do anything to make us hate them because of it, even Doyle is low key. These are the “good guys“. The reality is, they really are just barracudas with a nice smile and better temperament at the poker table. Which makes them better at attracting and keeping weaker players and making a game more profitable.

Then you have the good players like Helmuth, Ariah, Matusow, (debatable if Matusow is really a very good player) Tony G, and many more, that come off like total pricks and do so intentionally at the table, Are they using it to just get in your head and throw you off your game? Tony G I think does so with that intent, I mean he’s just too colorful to not be doing some theatrics,  The rest are just hot heads with short fuses.  A big reason is it’s by nature a very competitive sport, it’s a challenge of wills.  In the long run, luck evens out, and the better players win. If good players can make another good player play bad by pressing a button, will they do it? Most will unless their is some alternative end game in mind.  One example would be the player is rich and although a good player, yet weaker than the field,  and they do not want him to stop attending the game)  They say Chip Reese was the absolute master of this, he could befriend a fish and blow in his ear for years explaining how people got lucky and how his play was great and they would come back over and over again.  Depositing his money like an ATM and happy to do so because he was accepted in the echelons of the best players in the world. never mind the fact he lost much more than he won.

Daniel N had a standing open challenge to play anybody for 50k in like 5 different games. Is this an ego thing? Dunno, but he got some offers and he won more than lost. The bottom line is, If you think your at a disadvantage, you are. To get your opponents to believe you are better than them, first you have to believe it yourself, then convince them by beating them. Talk is cheap, eventually, you have to step up and play. Yes, I think being a good sport is important. Nobody likes a gloating asshole or a whiny bitch.  Is it a weakness that is exploitable?  It’s a matter of figuring out their motivation for acting this way. Good luck, to most of the good players, its an angle anyway to get in to your game, or they may not even be aware of it or care about how they are perceived, as their ego is that bloated.  But the real problem is, if they really are good players, their holes are not that easy to exploit anyway.

But if they are players like Josh, Helmuth, Arieh,  you probably can provoke them by showing them no respect.

How to use it against the bad players is easy enough, you find one of their numerous holes and you exploit it. If they take it personal and tilt when you raise them, do it frequently, If they defend too much in the blinds, because they aren’t going to let anyone bully them, make bigger value bets with a slightly wider range of hands.  Don’t show their bets any respect, (or them in their mind) and they’ll dump the chips off to ya in no time with mid pair.