What If?

This particular hand goes under the category of “what if” or “it might have been” (see here).  Like the hand I just linked to, had I called the pre flop raise I would have had the winning hand. But this time I would've only chopped a nice pot in all probability, instead of winning a huge pot as in that post.  The other thing this post will illustrate Is the danger of waiting for a check-raise. 

One guy had already limped in when the next guy raised to $12. Another guy called but I didn't think it wise to call a raise (even on the button) with 10-9 offsuit, so I folded.  The big blind and the limper also called.

The flop was 6-7-8, two diamonds. So I would have flopped the nut straight. To my surprise, no one bet the flop. Nobody liked that flop, huh, I thought? Well I sure would have, had I stayed in. 

Turn was a 3 of diamonds, putting a flush out there.  Now things got interesting.  Player 1 bet and  Player 2 raised. Sorry I can't recall the amounts, I didn't put that on my notes since I wasn't in the hand. Player 3, the preflop raiser, folded. Player 4 re-raised, I think it was a little more than double the bet to him. Player 1 shoved. His shove was around double the amount Player 4 had made it.

Helluva lot of betting action considering no one seemed to have liked the flop very much. 

Player 2 went in the tank. Although Player 1 was all in, but he and Player 4 both had big stacks left (at least $150 each).  At this point he had to figure his entire stack was in play.  So, facing a raise and a re-raise, he eventually and very reluctantly folded. Player 4 took his time too, and Player 2 took to pointing out to him that there was both a straight and a flush out there.  Interesting.  But Player 4 did indeed call.

The river was a blank. Player 4 showed his pocket 3's for a set. Player 2 turned to Player 1, expecting him to show us a flush.   But instead, he mucked, and Player 2 turned a sickly shade of green.  He said he had folded the best hand and asked what the guy who mucked had. He said he had 2 pair as he took off, choosing not to rebuy.

Player 2 said he had 10-9 and had flopped the nut straight--10 high.  That got my interest and I told him I folded the same hand preflop. If he heard me, he didn't react. 

 

But he did respond to my question.  Because of my own hand, I remembered clearly that no one had bet the flop. So I asked him why he didn't bet his flopped straight, especially with two diamonds out there.

"I was waiting for one of those guys to bet," pointing to the side of the table where players 3 and 4 were sitting. 

I didn't think about his reasoning too much at first. I was too busy thinking that there were actually two players who folded the best hand—Player 2 and me.  But I at least didn't lose any money on the hand; he lost quite a bit.

Player 2 couldn't let it go.  He kept pissing and moaning about folding the best hand. And he kept saying over and over again that he had to assume that at least one of her other two guys had to have the flush based on the action.  I think he wanted affirmation from the other players that he made the right play at the time.  He did get some of that.

But his continual harping on it got me thinking about how differently the hand would have played out if I had called the $12 raise. With two players already in for $12, and two possible limpers who might call—and would be even more likely to call if I did—and having position, it wouldn't have been the worst possible play on my part.  Maybe it was even the right play?

So if I had called, presumably everything would have been the same as it was until the action came to me on the flop. Of course I would have bet it; it looked like no one liked the flop and a bet there might have taken down the pot right there. But having flopped the nut straight, that wouldn't exactly be a steal. And no way am I going to slow play a straight, especially with those two diamonds out there. 

OK, so I bet.  Player 1, who presumably was waiting for a check-raise, would have called or more likely raised (after all, in reality, he shoved on the turn when the board was even more dangerous to his two pair, which he must have flopped).  Player 2 isn’t going anywhere with the nuts, is he?  Unless he’s so scared of the potential flush that he would lay down the nuts at that point—not too likely—he raises himself (either me or Player 1 if he raised).

No reason to think Player 3, preflop raiser, doesn’t fold there, as he did on the turn.  But Player 4?  Well, he doesn’t have his set of 3’s yet.  He’s sitting there with a lousy pair of 3’s and a bunch of betting maniacs in front of him, so he insta-folds.

There’s probably at least one raise back to me and maybe two, so I raise back, most likely a shove.  I had the biggest stack of the three of us.  Player 1 calls if he hasn’t already shoved and Player 2 calls my shove if he can’t raise.  Thus the three of us are all in on the flop, and the last two cards won’t change anything.  Player 2 and I split the pot, which includes $60 preflop and whatever Player 1’s stack was.

The point of this is not for me to complain about missing the pot, it never struck me anything close to the situation in the quad 10’s hand I linked at the beginning of this post.  The point is that I thought it was an interesting hand to play out in the alternate universe, because it would have deeply affected two other players.

Player 3 loses $12 for set mining with a pair of three’s, no big deal.  Except he’ll never know that he would have won a huge pot if only I had folded preflop.  At showdown, he’ll see that the set of 3’s he would have turned would only have cost him a lot of money.  At least he’ll think that, never knowing that he would have gotten the hand that crushed his set to fold.

Now that I think about it, I regret not asking Player 3 for at least a share of his big pot.  I made that hand for him!

Meanwhile Player 2 chops a decent pot, instead of losing money.  More importantly, he never has the angst he had over folding the best hand.  And I think he would have valued that more than the actual difference in money.

But in reality, Player 2 has only himself to blame.  The mistake he made (assuming you don’t think his preflop call was a mistake) was going for the check-raise.  Post flop action at this table hadn’t been particularly wild (one reason the action on the turn was so notable).  He was assuming that Player 3, the preflop raiser, would make a continuation bet.  I hadn’t seen enough preflop raises from him to have judged his postflop play myself.  But the thing is, in a four handed pot, even players likely to c-bet with one or two others in the hand are usually more reserved.  Assuming he doesn’t have a big pocket pair, he’s likely to think at least one player liked the flop enough to call him (especially in this case, with the flush and straight draws there).  So it’s pretty easy for him to just check his Ace-King or Ace-Queen and not risk anything more than the twelve bucks he’s already put in.

So, in a four handed pot, hoping to pull the check-raise was high risk and it cost him.  If he bet there, Player 3 still folds and in all likelihood, Player 4, with just a pair of 3’s, folds as well.  If Player 1 comes over the top, it’s an easy call or shove for Player 2, seeing as how he has the nuts.  And he takes down the whole pot.  He cost himself big there going for the check-raise.

Oh, and my decision to fold preflop affected me as well.  If I had called, I would have chopped a decent pot.  But I wouldn’t have had this blog post.

(Note:  Just want to say that this post was composed via three different methods.  My chronic back problems have resurfaced and forced me lie flat on my back most of the past three days.  As such, I started composing this post on my celphone (or, my cell phone) and at first I tried using the talk-to-text feature that Google provides.  This proved way too frustrating.  Too many misinterpretations, plus it kept cutting me off just as I was getting started.  So I did the bulk of it just tapping it out on my virtual keyboard with my thumb.  Only slightly less frustrating.  Cleaned it up and finished it at the old desktop.  Hopefully I’ll be back to regular blogging soon.)

Hitting Quads on the Riviera

My April column for Ante Up led with a story about the Riviera poker room trying some new promotions to try to get their business up (see here).  They were teaming with a group called Team5poker  for this.  The main features of the promo were a series of tournaments and also a new spread limit cash game.  The initial promo ends this weekend with a freeroll.

Since I had written about it for my column, I thought it would be a good idea to check out the promo and the new spread limit game myself.  It was at least kinda/sorta my job, and I want to broaden my poker horizons anyway so I can do better columns for Ante Up.  I can’t give them the best possible coverage of the Vegas poker scene if I never play anything other than 1/2 at BSC.

My trip in March was the first chance I had to check it out, and it took me awhile to get there.  I know Mark, the manager at Riviera, professionally of course.  Also, I was pretty sure I had met him (or at least seen him) at the TBC tournament last summer (see here).  He is a good guy, and I wish him well trying to get the Riviera a bigger footprint on the Vegas poker landscape.

My workload was heavy and I had a lot of things on my plate, so I didn’t arrange anything with Mark. I assumed he was likely to be there if I showed up for the Team5 promo days, so I dropped in one evening unannounced.  A fire prevented me from showing up the day earlier.  The fire blocked the main access streets between where I was and the Riviera, so I had to wait a day and really only decided at the last minute to drop by the Riv.

It was a Friday night when I showed up, not long after the spread limit game was supposed to start.  Mark was there and I introduced myself to him and asked him how it was going.  He considered the promo a success—I’m going to call it a mild success.  My words, not his.  The spread limit game was not full and usually wasn’t, and the Saturday night tournament was usally getting two tables.  My column was just starting to hit the poker rooms when I dropped by, and I take it as a personal failing that once it hit, the room wasn’t doing overflow business.

My desire to check this out wasn’t solely due to my having written about it.  I wanted to check out the new game they were spreading as part of the promo.  It was $2-$20 spread limit, with a mandatory straddle (under the gun).  I don’t have much experience with spread limit games, having started with $2/4 limit and then having transitioned into NL.  I played spread limit a few times but nothing like this with such a big spread.  I wondered if it would play more like the low limit game I used to play or the NL games I was now regularly playing.

As Mark and I were chatting, I noticed one guy I had seen before playing in the spread game.  In fact, I was sure I’d seem numerous times in various poker rooms, I just had no idea who he was or what his name was.  Or where I’d run into previous (other than, generically, a poker room somewhere).  No big deal.  I constantly see familiar faces in Vegas poker rooms—people I’ve played with multiple times before but have never actually “met.”  Just then, Mark pointed him out to me and told me who he was.  It was Kat Martin, a frequent forum poster on All Vegas Poker.  I’m sure I’ve read at least a 1,000 of his posts there, never realizing that I had played with him before.

I made a mental note to be sure to introduce myself to him but I didn’t have to.  While I was talking to Mark he came over to introduce himself to me.  Now it isn’t clear to me if he knew who I was and realized that we had not formerly met, or if he just recognized me from poker rooms the same way I recognized him and wanted to meet a familiar face.  Either way, it was nice to finally meet him, officially.

Mark had to run off, but I was able to take advantage of one of the promos I had mentioned in my column.  By committing to playing for 2 hours, I was able to get $100 worth of chips for only $80.  Good deal.

The table was not full and never did fill up while I was playing.  In addition to Kat, I met Tony Capps and Rick Lucas who are the brains behind Team 5.  The three of them were all playing in the spread limit game.  Tony and Rick had seen my column and were very appreciative of the write-up I gave them.  Nice guys too.

It actually had the feel of a home game as it seemed like everyone in the game knew each other, at least at first.  One guy I didn’t meet had a rather unusual look.  He had long hair and a full beard.  But I only saw him in profile.  At one point he turned his head so I could see him full head on.  To my surprise the other side of head was completely shaved.  No beard, no hair.  Yes, that’s right.  Long hair and a full beard (and moustache) on the right side of his head.  Totally bald/clean shaven on the left side of his head.  Don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. It was an interesting fashion statement, to say the least.

I did enjoy the game, although I never got the full flavor of it because the table was never full.  As I said, there is a mandatory straddle, and ordinarily I absolute hate the straddle (especially the button straddle, see here).  But I had to admit, this game played better with it.  It is designed to be an “action” game and the straddle helps it get action.  When the straddle is on, chopping the blinds is not allowed.

The problem is that when the table is short-handed (6 or less, I believe), the mandatory straddle comes off.  As I said, this game kind of demands the straddle.  It never plays quite the same as a NL game, but it is a lot more fun than a pure low limit game.  Of course, one of the problems is that most of the raises are going to be the max, $20, because the players are used to NL and really want to bet more.  Still, an interesting variation and a nice change of pace.  I think if the table was full, it would be a very fun game indeed.

One negative for me was a real jerk came to the game.  He had no idea that it was a spread limit game at first, he wanted to play NL but that game was full.  It took him about 20-30 minutes of being told to finally realize he couldn’t raise more than $20.  And that he couldn’t raise “all in” ever.  He was loud and obnoxious.  When he first sat down, he was sitting immediately to my left and was crowding me, even tho the table wasn’t full.  So when I asked him to give me a little more room, he got annoyed and said there was no room on the other side, even tho there surely was.  I was happy when he changed seats to get away from me.

He liked to announce why he was raising and or calling.  Like, he’d say, “I have a draw, so I’m calling.” Or, “I have to protect my hand, why can’t I bet more?”  In a way, he sort of reminded me of Natalee, without the reference to how small his vagina was.

He also tried to smoke while playing, running outside the poker room to take a puff by the slots and then coming back in when it was his turn to act.  The floor had to tell him he had to leave the cigarette outside if he was gonna do that.  Very annoying.  He did somewhat ruin the game, which was unfortunate and no fault of the Riviera. 

Early in the session I had my two pair (Queen-3 in the big blind) beaten by Kat’s set of fours.  But I got him back a bit later.  I had to call $11 preflop with a pair of 6’s.  (Edited to add: thanks to Coach for pointing out my original error below, I obviously didn't have a "set" of 6's preflop)  Now that I think of it, that’s probably a bad call.  With a limit on the betting, I don’t think I was getting the right odds—actual or implied—to hit my set.  But I did indeed flop my set and bet out $20 (there was a flush draw on the flop) and Kat was the only caller.  I bet $20 again when the third flush card hit, but Kat just called.  The river was nice because it paired the board.  It paired the board with 6’s, giving me quads.

I bet another $20 and Kat just called.  “I just have quads,” I said as I turned over my hand.  “Just quads huh,” he said as he mucked without showing.  At first I thought that there would be a high hand bonus for the quads, as I knew that the Riv had high hand bonuses.  But no, not in this game.  Because of the reduced rake and the points toward the freeroll, there’s no high hand bonus on the spread game.  Just my luck, I finally get quads, finally get them in a room that has high hand bonuses, and I still don’t get paid for it.

I also beat a set of 6’s when I caught my flush against either Rick or Tony.  By the next day I couldn’t remember which one.  I had raised preflop ($10) with Ace King suited and made a $10 continuation bet on a flush draw.  Rick or Tony raised to $20—could have and probably should have raised to $30—with what I later found out was the set of 6’s.  I just called and hit my flush and kept betting and kept getting called.

That’s another hand where the spread limit aspect of the game changes the math, and I had spent zero time studying or even thinking about how the limits on the bets affect the math.  My thought there is the max raise on the flop ($20) might have gotten me to fold my flush draw because if I had thought it through, I would have reasoned that I couldn’t make enough money if I hit my flush to justify the call.  In a NL game, a $20 raise isn’t going to get me to fold a flush draw there.  But of course, the guy with the set doesn’t have to bet $20, he can bet more.  So the odds work both ways.  In NL, you see a big stack and wonder if you can get some if not all of it if you hit your hand.  In this game, you have to think you’re only like to get $20 if you hit your hand, so you really should be more cautious with calling your draws, not less so. 

I guess if I was gonna play a game like this regularly, I’d have to study up on spread limit strategy.

Anyway, I left after a couple of hours.  I had managed to win $90 not really having a clue as to how to play the spread limit game.  The Team5 promo ends this coming weekend, but I suspect the Riv will be doing something again with the Team5 crew soon.  That spread limit game definitely has possibilities if they could only keep the game full. 

I’m glad I checked it out.

Aces vs Kings.....vs Queens???

This hand will serve as a follow up to my Aces vs. Kings post from awhile back, see here.  This is another one of those titanic battles, but with a twist, as suggested by the title. 

The question, after you read about the hand is, did I get lucky or did I get unlucky?  Or perhaps a bit of each?

This took place over my last weekend in Vegas on my most recent trip.  I was having a good night at the tables, and it was a really fun night too.  This will definitely not be the last blog post about this particular session, but for now, I want to isolate one hand. (Edited to add: In fact, for more on this poker session, see here)  I had more than doubled my $200 buy in when this hand took place, so I was sitting behind a stack of about $420.

In middle position I woke up with pocket Aces.  The guy under the gun limped in and then the next guy made it $16.

Hmm.  This might be fun, I thought.  He was a solid player who had been there awhile and had not exhibited any wild aggro tendencies.  I knew his early position raise meant he had a pretty big hand.  He had about $100 less than me, and been up and down not around that amount for most of the time.

It folded to me.  Because I don’t three-bet a lot, I never really know how much to bet there.  But my gut reaction is 3X the bet in front of me.  That’s probably too much.  Ideally I want to be heads up, I don’t want multi-way action.  I guess that’s what I was thinking when I put out $50 (the nearest “round” number to the $48 that 3X his bet would have been).  I would love feedback as to what the right amount there is.  Remember, there were a number of people behind me yet to act, in addition to the blinds, the limper and the original raiser.

It folds to the big blind, who wasted no time in putting out his entire stack.  It was a short-stack, around $70-$80.  That was fine by me, I figured with his stack he could do that with a lot of hands and he obviously couldn’t be ahead of me.

This guy was a bit odd.  He was Asian but not at all the stereotypical loose-aggressive type that you might expect.  You know, that I talked about here.  I really couldn’t remember him or having formed an opinion of his game.  That’s probably because, in addition to not being aggressive, he did not say one word at the table the entire time he was there, and spent the entire time there with his face buried in his celphone.  Seriously, he had that celphone in front of him the entire time he sat at the table.  I dunno if he was playing a game or texting, or what, but he seemed to be paying absolutely no attention to the game until this hand.

My recollection is that he came to the table with a stack of chips, i.e., he didn’t have to buy chips) and it was probably a similar amount to what he had just shoved with.

The limper folded instantly and then the original raiser took just a few seconds to put out a new, nice neat stack of $100.  He did not pull back the $16 he had out there, making the bet $116.

Again, I could use some advice.  Considering the stacks, what should I have done?  I shoved, but was that too much?  Should I have just doubled his bet?  Should I have tried harder not to scare him away since he had to have a lesser hand than mine (or, perhaps, the other two aces)?

But without much hesitation I announced, “all in.”  Because pretty much every time in the past when it’s four-bet to me (or is that a five-bet, considering the Asian’s all in?) and I’ve got Aces, that’s what I do.  I guess my real issue is that I don’t experience this often enough to know how to play it, which is too bad.

Back to the raiser, and he tanked.  He thought long and hard.  So he didn’t have the other two Aces or that’s a snap call.  I figured he had the dreaded pocket Kings.  Eventually, almost regrettably, he said, “call.”

Then he looked at me and said, “You have Aces?”  I nodded and just went ahead and flipped over my cards.  I asked him, “You have Kings?”  He nodded yes but didn’t show his hand.  The Asian, as usual, said and did nothing, preferring to focus his attention on his celphone.

Because I’ve seen it so many times, that multiple people are dealt big pairs in a hand, I thought for sure the Asian had two Queens.  So when a Queen hit the flopped, I figured it wasn’t good for me.

Nothing else of note filled out the board.  No King, no Ace, no straight or flush draws,  The Asian—silently of course—turned over his hand at that point and did indeed have a couple of Queens.  The guy who said he had Kings just mucked without showing.  The guy to his left, who hadn’t seen him nod to my question, asked him what he had and he said “Kings.”

Now I suppose a case could be made that he didn’t really have Kings there, since he didn’t show.  Usually in those situations, the guy who lost is eager to show his hand to show how unlucky he had been and that he hadn’t played it badly.

But I really doubt that.  I’d bet everything I won on that hand that he really did have a couple of Kings there.  I don’t think that guy calls my shove with anything less.  I think he was just too sick to flip over his cards.  He didn’t re-buy, he just left silently while I said to him, “Tough hand.”  I figured I owed him the respect of not giving him a totally insincere, “Sorry.”  I was not sorry.  Well I was sorry.  I was sorry that the Asian hit his damn Queen, that’s what I was sorry about.

So the Asian put down his celphone long enough to swoop in the main pot, which was roughly $240.  But the side pot was much bigger and belonged to me—well over $400. 

So the question was, was I lucky or unlucky?  When the all the money was in, I had the best hand.  Against a single hand there—assuming a big pair—I’m around a 80/20 favorite.  But against two hands, if they’re both big pairs, I’m only supposed to win 2 out of 3 times.  Still nice odds, but not as overwhelming as heads up.

So for a good long while I had two distinct, alternating thoughts in my head.

One: damn, why did that guy who couldn’t take his face away from his damn celphone have to hit his Queen?  That entire pot should have been mine and then it would have been really huge (over $600).  I got all my money in good.  Bad luck.

Two: well, if one of them had to hit their set, I’m sure glad it was the short-stacked guy.  If the guy with the $300 stack hit his set instead, I’d have lost over $300 right there, instead of winning well over $200.  Good luck.

I mean, if you told me in advance one of us was going to hit our set and it wasn’t going to be me, I would have picked the anti-social Asian to hit his hand, that’s for damn sure.

So was I lucky or unlucky?