An Onside Kick for Poker

“Fortune favors the bold.”—Roman proverb

The day after another in a recent string of entertaining and memorable Super Bowls, the buzz in the sports world is all about New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton’s “gamble” to open the second half of the game with an unusual and daring onside kick. The Saints recovered the kick, and took advantage of the resulting great field position to score a touchdown and take the lead. Although the Indianapolis Colts would answer the Saints’ score with a touchdown drive of their own, the Saints had established the momentum that would carry them to the victory.

Of course, it wasn’t just that one play that carried the day. Several other key turning points in the game included:  unsuccessfully going for the touchdown on 4th and 1 late in the first half (but pinning the Colts deep, leading to a field goal and momentum to close the first half), successfully challenging an official’s ruling on a two point conversion play (risking a crucial timeout in the process), calling blitzes against Peyton Manning (who is one of the best QBs in the NFL against pressure), and a interception by Tracy Porter who jumped a receiver’s route as the Colts were driving for the tying touchdown late in the game (if he misses the pick, the Colts likely score and tie the game). Although many commentators refer to these critical plays as “gambles”, in fact they are better regarded as calculated aggression—high risk, high reward decisions that take the initiative and force their opponent to react to them.

Aggression, of course, is widely touted as a key to success in poker. In the past, I’ve been widely regarded as an aggressive player. As one of my poker buds put it, “It’s not the $15 preflop that I mind. It’s that I know it’s going to be another $50 on the flop.” But, after a string of bad sessions last summer and fall, I have to admit I started shying away from aggression. I dialed the c-bets way back, and started running scared from raises. I still generally played a marginally profitable game by relying on getting paid off on big hands, but I knew I was leaving a ton of money on the table. The nadir came in November when I lost a big pot in a 2/5 NLHE game at the Meadows ATM, failing to c-bet with AK on a whiffed flop and check-calling a bet, turning a pair and check-calling again because the turn completed a flush, then losing to a rivered runner-runner straight. As I shook my head at the weird conclusion to the hand, an older gent whose game I respect quietly said to me, “You never gave him a chance to fold.”

That short sentence was an onside kick to my poker ego. At some level, I knew I had been playing passive, scared poker. I knew I was folding way too often, giving up on hands to avoid big losses, and in the process giving away chips $15 to $50 at a time. But, I justified it to myself by thinking of my play as "tight", "cautious", or "prudent". Over the long haul, that is a recipe for losing a lot of money. So, after that old gent's gentle critique, I made it a point to begin dialing the aggression back up. Not necessarily to a maniac level—being overly aggressive can be devastating both in poker and in football. But I definitely wanted players to fear me again when they call a preflop raise.

Being aggressive is tough and risky, but it’s the difference between being a champion and finishing in the middle of the pack. Always give your opponent a chance to fold.

Finding Gold in the Dirt

Last night, I played a session at the Meadows ATM. My first hand, I post in late position and call a small raise with Js6s. I flop a pair with a flush draw, and hit the flush to crack QQ. A couple of hands later, I play 75s, and again call a small raise. I flop a flush draw with gutshot straight draw, and turn the straight to crack KK. Establish tight image—check. I complete the first orbit when my QQ holds up against Yaks on a junky board. One orbit, three hands, and I’ve already doubled up! Sometimes I play so good.

The next few hours are pretty much a wasteland. Either I get junk cards or I whiff the flop. I take down a few small pots, and give it back one preflop raise or bad c-bet at a time. I crack KK once again when my 54o flops two pair and rivers a boat. But, I give that back when I make a tough call with TPTK holding AT on a Ten-high board, only to have the Q6s flush draw spike a Queen. Eh.

I was thinking about leaving early and locking in the double up when a regular sits down—let’s call him “JT”. JT is a known action player, has pretty good game with a style ranging from LAG to maniac, depending on the table. JT promptly starts playing nearly every hand, raising many hands, which was a big change for the table. JT also made and showed several big bluffs, which helped get him paid when he flopped big with a weird hand. JT’s pièce de résistance, however, came when he cracked a tight young player’s KK with 32s, flopping trips and turning a boat. The kid storms away in disgust, fuming, “That’s just a dirt hand! All you play is dirt!”

Hardly three hands later, the tight old regular sitting next to Dirt Boy raises to $17 preflop. I call with 64o on the button. Flop is 6-5-6. Donkey Kong! Old Grump bets the pot, I raise $50 more. Old Grump points at JT and says, “I’m glad he’s not in the hand.” Old Guy then gives the going home speech and raises to $200. I pretend to think a bit, then push all-in for his last $125. Old Grump snap calls and proudly rolls over his AA (duh! never saw that hand coming). Old Grump looks at my hand and asks the dealer, “What does he have?” The dealer says “six four” and old guy says, “He called $17 with that?” Old Grump says “good hand” dripping with sarcasm, and wanders out of the room. Dirt Boy had returned by this point, and he and a few others at his end of the table continue to murmur amongst themselves, presumably about my “stupid” play. I stack my chips—slowly—then play another orbit, before heading home with a nice profit.

So yeah, you might wonder, why am I boring y’all with another day at the poker office? After all, it’s pretty standard fare for me to crack Aces or Kings. Well, the comments by Dirt Boy and Old Grump are fairly typical of the kinds of comments I often hear after cracking Aces or Kings—“You called me with that trash?” and “You called $X preflop with that crap?” Depending on my mood, I either ignore them or make a snarky comment. But what these crAAKKer victims fail to understand are some important principles of poker that explain why they are bitchy and broke, while I’m happily stacking their chips.

First and foremost, these players place far too much emphasis on preflop hand strength. For many of these players, if they get AA/KK preflop, they feel they are entitled to win the pot, and if they lose, it is only because of some horrendous bad play by their opponent or pure bad luck. I think a lot of this mentality comes from televised and online tournament poker, where players emphasize starting hand strength due to the relatively short stacks in play forcing frequent pushes preflop. But in deep-stacked cash games, starting hand strength, while still important, fades and becomes only one of many factors to consider. As two leading poker analysts put it:

“In deep stack no limit, preflop hands derive most of their value from how well they extract money after the flop from opponents. Comparing hands based on how often they win a showdown or on their poker ‘hand rank’ is worse than worthless.”

—David Sklansky & Ed Miller, “No Limit Hold ‘Em Theory and Practice” (1st Ed., p. 124)

One of my favorite dealers at the Meadows ATM is a bit more pithy—“There are no bad hands, just bad flops.”

Now even I won’t play the extreme “any two cards” style of some maniacs, but hands like connectors and one-gappers Ten-Nine/Eight and below have some useful traits. First, assuming I can put my victim on a premium hand, my hand will almost never be dominated. Thus, I will never be faced with a tough decision, as I will know to a high degree of certainty where I stand postflop. Conversely, my victim will be in the dark as to the relative strength of my hand postflop, and he will be the one facing the tough decision—does my check-raise mean I flopped two pair or trips, or am I on a draw, or am I bluffing? Second, these hands are relatively safe, in that I can get away from them relatively easily postflop, while my victim may feel married to his AA/KK. So, my victim is at much greater risk of stacking off or losing a big pot than I am. Third, these kinds of hands often flop draws, pairs with a draw, or combo draws, giving me great semi-bluffing opportunities. Finally, showing down a few of these hands often sets up good bluffing opportunities on junky boards against other players later in the session.

The second critical error my crAAKKer victims make is to assume no rational player would call their preflop raise without a hand recognized as having a certain showdown “strength”. My victims assume that I would never make the “mistake” of calling a big preflop raise with “just” 75 suited. But, I am a logically oriented person. Why would I make a play my victims regard as irrational? Because my victims are overlooking what may be the most basic principle of poker:

“The key to no limit hold ‘em success isn’t to play perfectly. It’s to swap mistakes with your opponents. You trade small mistakes to your opponents if they will trade back big ones.”

—David Sklansky & Ed Miller, “No Limit Hold ‘Em Theory and Practice” (1st Ed., p. 178)

I don’t play speculative or “dirt” hands against just any opponent. Ideally, my victim is tight preflop, so that a raise means a fairly narrow range of “premium” hands, and a big raise means AA-JJ or AK. This is important because if I can put a player on a hand, but they can’t do the same for me, I have an advantage. Also, the victim should be a player who has trouble laying down Aces or Kings, especially heads up and on a “junky” board. Finally, the victim should be fairly deep-stacked, both to give good implied odds for when I hit (helping my risk-reward ratio), but also for those cases where he gets away with some or all of his stack intact, he may still tilt over getting his AA/KK cracked and give me a second crack at crAAKKing him.

So, when I crack someone’s AA/KK, and they rant on about how I called their $15 preflop raise with “junk”, they are absolutely correct—I did make a small mistake by calling their raise when I knew I was behind their hand. But—and this is key—they made a huge mistake stacking off for $200, $300, or more with only one pair, no matter how big that pair might be. It’s funny how my crAAKKer victims always blame me for the $15 bad preflop call, but rarely acknowledge their bad $200+ play postflop. I’m more than happy to trade those kinds of mistakes all night, or until their ATM card is maxed out.

Finally, let’s be quite clear. I play poker to make money. Cracking AA/KK with “junk” hands is merely a method for getting chips away from tight players, often in large chunks at a time. Although hilarity often ensues, the amusing story is just a fun bonus and is not the point of crAAKKing. Unless of course, my victim is someone annoying; then crAAKKing them is a matter of public service.

Wine & Whine O' the Week (v. 1.4)

Last March, while in Vegas for our annual Ironman of Poker competition, I was playing at Bellagio early one morning. In keeping with the spirit of our IMOP group, I was wearing a t-shirt with paint splotches on it which read, "I Just Killed a Clown". I was also keeping up my drunk goofball image by making plenty of stupid jokes, keeping the table entertained, except for one intense middle-aged guy who was taking bad beat after cooler to gack off over $1,500. Knowing he was on tilt, I called his overly large preflop raise with 5-3 suited. Long story short, I flop the open-ended straight draw, and the turn Ace gave me the wheel—and gave intense dude a set. My hand holds up, and intense dude stands up, flings his Aces into the center of the table, looks at me and blurts out:

"You are a f#$%ing clown!"

Thanks for noticing!

This gent's angry outburst pairs well with a bold red wine, like the Crios de Susana Balbo Malbec 2007. The Crios Malbec is a beautiful dark red, with a ton of black cherry and raspberry fruit, and a hint of spice. This malbec is a little lighter in color and flavor profile than many of the inky purple monsters common from Argentina, so it pairs better with milder foods, like pork chops, burgers, pizza, and pastas. The Crios Malbec also is not as heavy as many malbecs, making it an easy-drinking sipping wine. The Crios Malbec is part of a line of value wines by Susana Balbo, one of Argentina's premier winewakers who also has a pricier line of specially crafted wines released under her personal label. The "Crios" line is a great value, usually around $10-$15/bottle retail, and also includes a rose’ of malbec, a torrontes (full-bodied Argentine white), a bonarda (soft Argentine red), and a cabernet sauvignon.

Bludgeoned by the Deck

Poker players notoriously love to whine about bad beats and losing streaks. There's almost a perverse enjoyment of the misery of losing.

I much prefer having fun at the poker table, like last night's session at the Meadows ATM. IMOP buddies Santa Claus and Mr. Chow were in town for business and talked me into playing a few hours, bless their hearts! When I arrived, the guys were playing in the 2/5 NLHE feeder game—rookie mistake. Thursday night is one of the two big NLHE tourneys, and the post-tourney 1/2 NLHE cash games are usually soft. I was soon seated in a new 1/2 NLHE game that was starting once a tourney table broke. I locked up my favorite seat—the 3 seat— which was easily the best decision I made all night.

The omens were auspicious—several young players I didn't know and a couple of regular tourney players (who suck at cash games) were at the table. Then, dealing for the button I hit the Ace of spades.  Excellent. That's when I proceeded to get bludgeoned by the deck:

• First hand, playing my rush, I have 92s, flop is A-2-2, and I take down decent pot from A-rag.
• My first BB, call small raise with 53o. Flop a pair of 3s with gutterball draw, hero call 3 barrels, river puts four diamonds on board, and my 5d is good to snap QQ.  Establish tight image—check.
• I get AA OTB, raise to $12, get 3 callers.  Flop is Ten-high with two diamonds.  I bet, get called in two spots.  Turn is a black Jack. There is a bet and a raise all-in, but it wasn't much considering pot size. I reluctantly call, only to have initial bettor push all-in!  Aaaiiiiyyyyaaahhh!   I tank, but finally call hoping I have a shot at the sizeable side pot.  River pairs the board (7s), and my opponents roll over ... KTo (no draw), and JdTd!  I rake a monster $750+ pot.  This was my only tough hand of the night.
• I get AA in the SB, raise, get a couple of callers.  Flop is 7-A-7.  Donkey Kong!  I end up stacking a guy who overplays A-rag.  Thank you, thank you very much.
• I get Yaks for the first time, raise in the CO, and smooth call after my raise gets repopped.  I flop top set and wind up cracking QQ.
• I get 44 OTB and wind up cracking and stacking AA when I flop a set.  Hmm, "crackin' and stackin' " has a cool "Ricky Bobby" sound. May have to use that one on IMOP.
• I get 22 in the BB and stack KK when I flop a set.
• Hand O' the Night—I stack Uber-Nit for ~$330 when I raise OTB with A6o and he limp-calls UTG.  Flop is 6-A-6.  Donkey Kong!  Uber-Nit checks, I bet, he pushes, I make the hero call.  He shows AK, and wonders why he lost.  Hilarity ensued.
• On back to back hands, my 32s in the SB turns a wheel, and my 87o OTB flops the nut straight.  Regrettably two rather smallish pots, as everyone was running scared from my SVB run.
• My buddy Mr. Chow picks the wrong hand to try to bully me when he bluffs off his $250 stack into my ... AA.  Thank you, come again!

Quite a rush, but I think I was blessed by the poker gods for observing the Deuce-Four high holiday.  Ironically, my three 2-4 hands all whiffed, but I think a set of 4s and a set of 2s—each stacking a supposedly "premium" hand—certainly qualifies as a successful holiday run (and it sounds like the Poker Grump ran quite well for the holiday as well).

Not only was it a profitable session, the table was as fun as I've seen outside of Vegas.  Early on I decided to play my "table clown" persona, and it worked to keep the table happy as they kept losing chips to my SVB run.  I even bought three rounds of drinks, making sure to joke that I was buying with someone else's chips.  There were a couple of young guys at the table from out of state, and I spent the night poking fun at them, and they loved it.  There were a ton of funny slams traded around the table, but I don't recall any now.  However, my buddy Santa Claus had the quote of the night.  After one of the female dealers was telling us about a party where the host had served Rocky Mountain Oysters as a poolside snack, Santa pipes up:

It's not a party until you're sucking down some testicles.

And he's supposedly the straight guy ...

I sensed my SVB rush had ended, so I locked up a tidy profit:

In a game where I'm happy to make $300 in a six hour session, I averaged $300 per hour.

Sometimes, I play so good.

POSTSCRIPT:  Santa Claus stayed and played a while longer.  As I was cashing out, he hit quad 5s and doubled though the table yahoo for a $700+ pot.  Later, he flopped the joint with A3s for another monster pot.  Add in $500 in profit from the 2/5 NLHE game, and Santa can pay his elves their unemployment benefits this month.

Although he gacked off a couple of buy-in this session, Mr. Chow was sitting on a nice $2500 score from the 2/5 NLHE game the prior night.  All in all, the IMOP crew made a nice withdrawal from the Meadows ATM.

Herding Yaks at Riverside

Work took me to eastern Iowa the past two days. Tuesday night was spent beating college buddy Santa Claus in a NLHE tourney at his place, along with enjoying some Chinese takeout, wine, and gin. I suppose I should also mention I lost in that tourney to Mrs. Claus, who called my flop bluff with A-high, which held up over my K-high. Rigged, I tell you!

Wednesday I mediated a case, and got done in time to make a short stop off at Riverside Casino, Insane Asylum, and ATM near Iowa City. It's a nice looking casino and golf resort, with a 14-table poker room. But, the poker room is quirky enough to qualify as the Mandalay Bay of the Midwest:

• No electronic devices can be used at the table at any time, in any manner, even if you are not in the hand.  One old guy admonished me for Twittering at the table, claiming I would void any high hand or badbeat jackpot, even if I'm not in the hand.  I felt like saying I didn't give a flying pig, but it looked like the fellows at my table took their jackpots very seriously, so I acquiesced.
• Dealer tips are not kept by the individual dealer.  Nor are the tips pooled with the other poker dealers.  Instead, poker dealer tips are pooled with all the other dealer tips from the pit games.  Not a lot of motivation for the dealers, and it shows.
• The tables seem slightly larger than regulation vegas tables, making it hard for a lot of people to see the board from the ends of the table.  One dealer had trouble reaching bets, so he would put the deck down on the table, half stand, lean forward to pull in bets two-handed, then sit back down and pick the deck back up.  Very odd.
• The chairs swivel, but are not on wheels, and are not adjustable for height.  Their fixed height is too short for the tables.
• They have HHJs for quads and straight flushes, but they are quite small.  There is also a bad beat jackpot and a "mini bad beat" jackpot.  Pick a promo already!

When I arrived late afternoon, there were two 2/5 NLHE games in progress, with a main game and a full must move game.  I got seated within minutes.  The action was pretty wild, with a lot of pots where 4-5 players called $20-$25 preflop, and postflop big bets were being called down by third or fourth pair, which often won the pot.  I saw one $1600 pot where five players called $25 preflop, and three players got it all-in on a flop of:  Js6s2s.  The hands:  KsTd, 9s3s, 8s4s.  Hand runs out blanks.  Within minutes, the winner and the loser of that hand both got called to the main game, taking a ton of chips with them.

Our game suddenly became uber-passive, with a lot of limped pots, and no 3-betting preflop.  I manage to turn out just over a double up by playing maybe 10 hands in two hours, and scoring medium sized pots with:  a flopped set of 8s filling up on a card that made the nut flush, a flopped set of treys knocking off flopped top two with AK, my own flopped top two with AK holding up against a pair with flush draw, and 3-betting out of the BB preflop with AQ to steal $100 in limp-calls of a $20 preflop raise.  That's it.  That's my session.  Exciting, eh?

There was plenty of excitement in the room, however.  The main game looked to be playing psychotically, with a ton of big pots.  The players all seemed to be regulars, and there sounded like a lot of bluffing, 3-betting, and big moves being made.  At one point, I tried to estimate the chips in play, and figured there had to be $11K to $13K on the table--two players had over $2000, two other players had over $1500, and the rest all had at least $800-$1000.  By contrast, at my table, I was one of the two big stacks with $600 when I left, and most stacks were in the $100-$250 range.  At the main game, pots of $500-$1000 were being pushed regularly.  At my table, the most exciting moment was when a debate broke out among the old farmers as to which Vegas casino had the best action--a couple backed the Riviera, and a couple backed the Orleans, and one guy threw out the Flamingo.  Actually, that conversation alone should tell you how the game at my table played.  Although both games were labeled "2/5 NLHE", it's pretty clear that those games had nothing in common but their limits.

Which brings us to the Yaks.  One guy was stacked twice in one orbit with Yaks, running a flopped set into a monster draw that got there (Q8s gutterballed Broadway), and a few hands later flopping top set with Yaks against a set of 9s.  Of course, the 9s river quads.  Hilarity ensued, which was aggravated by the "apology" of the guy with quad 9s.  A little later, two other guys get it all-in on a junky low flop, only to find it's Yaks vs. Yaks!   Of course, the board four-flushes.  Bonus hilarity ensued!  Altogether a very satisfying poker session.