A Big Hand for a Big Guy

"I'm not in the thinking business."

—Sam Rhine (James Berwick) in "A Big Hand for the Little Lady"

Sometimes, poker can be a grind. Premium starting hands few and far between, bad flops galore, and scads of missed draws. On those days, it can take every ounce of skill just to eke out a small win. In fact, the ubiquitous use of "grind" (and its cousins, "grinding" and "grinder") in the poker vernacular reflects the perceived need to manufacture profits out of small edges, thin value bets, and situational steals. In many ways, the modern aggressive grinding strategy is simply the logical fruition of Doyle Brunson's Super/System strategy of contesting even small pots on the theory that winning many small pots gave him an edge when big pots were contested.

Although grinding might be the most profitable—or at least most consistent—strategy at higher stakes games, I've found that low stakes no limit hold 'em games are profitable because of the big pots. In a typical $1/$2, $1/$3, or even $2/$5 game, the blinds are so insignificant that jousting over a limped pot offers poor risk-reward odds. Instead, the real money to be made is in the big hands that develop over the course of a session. Win a majority of the big hands—sets versus two pair, boats versus flushes, trips versus overpair, etc.—and you will usually walk away a big winner. Lose a majority of those big hands, and you'll likely wind up a loser regardless of how many small pots you drag.

Recently, I played a session at Riverside. I got up early by flopping a set of Queens, but busted and rebought when my Kings were cracked three times in two orbits. One cracking occurred when my button preflop 3-bet to $57 was called by QQ and QJs; naturally the case Queen flopped, and I paid off the extra $150 after both players pushed in front of me. I rallied and made a buy-in profit when my Queens twice held up after preflop all-ins, and after flopping trips against a player married to his Aces. Although I did steal one nice pot with a preflop squeeze play, the remainder of my session was mostly spent either folding or limping into pots against specific players, looking for opportunities to generate a big pot in an advantageous spot.

Last weekend, I played an afternoon session at Prairie Meadows Racetrack, Casino, & ATM. Typical for an afternoon game, the table was filled with nits and rocks, most nursing stacks under $200. There were a couple of deeper stacks, so I bought in for the maximum of $300. Also typical for this kind of game, players limping in almost invariably called any preflop raise, even a raise to $17-$22.

I settled in for a grinding session, praying an action player or two would show up early for the generally looser, wilder evening games. There was no need to wait. Barely five hands into my session, I was dealt JdTh in MP. I limped in after another limper. The player to my left raised to $12, and was called by two LP players, the BB, and the limper before me. So, I called and closed the action.

The flop came down: KdQd9s. Yahtzee! I barely had time to contemplate the best way to play my monster hand when all hell broke loose! The BB pushed for roughly $100 and the player after him pushed for roughly $150. I thought a bit, then made the only real play, pushing all-in myself for nearly $300. Imagine my surprise when the preflop raiser also pushed for over $300, and an LP player also pushed for almost $200. Holy action flop, Batman! 

I fully expected to see a range of hands like KQ, 99, AdXd, and maybe even another JT. I definitely didn't want to see AdTd, the one monster draw that could counterfeit my straight. Instead, I saw: BB with Ad3d, MP with K9o, preflop raiser with KTo, and LP with Td9d. Although I was fading the world—any King, Nine, or diamond beat me, along some runner-runner combos, while a Jack would chop—my opponents were drawing somewhat thinner than usual as they held some of each other's outs (and I also had the Jd). After the dealer, Chase, sorted out the man pot and four side pots (and skillfully so, I might add), he put out the turn and river—3h and 7s. Blank, blank. And just like that, Chase was pushing me a monsterpotten that took a few hands to stack:

One hand, one monster pot. Including $10 tips to the dealer and 

cocktail server, total pot was $1,252, with a net of roughly $950.

Although I played another five hours, that one hand was essentially my profit for the session. I did have several other big hands, including flopping four sets (once cracking both Aces and Kings with a set of 7s), but those pots were offset by my Kings and Queens being cracked twice each, and losing a trips versus trips battle when my opponent paired his kicker on the river. Still, walking out with a three buy-in profit was a rather satisfying conclusion to what had initially looked like a grinding session with little chance for a big score.

So why is small stakes no limit hold 'em such a big pot game while bigger stakes versions seem to be more conducive to grinding? I think the main reason is that small stakes players are more prone to making the true big money errors—calling preflop raises with dominated hands, playing raised pots out of position, being unable to lay down overpairs and top pair hands, and chasing non-nut draws. Big errors, big pots. Small stakes players are simply much more likely to stack off light than are players at bigger stakes games.

Gawd bless 'em!

My First Big Bluff

The recent closure of the Sahara had me reminiscing about my first trip to Vegas in 2006. At that time, I had been playing poker in Iowa casinos for a couple of years, though the standard game had only recently evolved from limit to no-limit hold 'em. The game played a lot differently then, as well, with lots of soft players who could be run over by my uber-maniac style. Ah yes, the good ol' days!

In any event, my vacation was mostly focused on hanging with college buds who weren't into poker, so I had only two days / one night left to myself at the end of the trip to devote to poker. I had booked a West Wing room at MGM, a mere minute's walk to the MGM poker room. At that point, the MGM room was easily the biggest and most impressive poker room I had ever played in. The marble ring around the tables was the most decadent thing I had ever seen in a poker room, and the crazy vibe from the Centrifuge bar nearby (with its bartenders and servers dancing on tables and the bar) was just too wild for my innocent Midwestern mind to comprehend. I had brought along $1,000 for gambling, so I should've stuck to $1/$2 NLHE. But the action was slow, limited by the max buy-in of $200. So, young arrogant me decided to jump into the $2/$5 NLHE game. Predictably, my stack suffered the wild fluctuations inherent in the LAG style (and the Stupid Style), and I quickly found myself putting my entire roll into play via rebuys and top offs.

Now, back in those days, there were plenty of soft spots at the $2/$5 level, and I managed to build my stack to nearly $2,000. But with several stacks twice that size in the game, I was always at risk of busting out. I played through the night, with a strange new sensation of tense anxiety clawing at my gut the entire time. Yup, for the first time in my poker career, I was actually scared money. As good poker players know, scared money might as well be dead money. But hubris wouldn't let me leave the game, whispering that there was tons of easy money to be made. Apparently God watches over drunks and poker newbies, and somehow I managed to dodge any big confrontations. Surprisingly soon, morning was rolling around, and I was thinking about cashing out to head to the room for a nap and shower before heading to the airport. Then, the hand happened.

I wish I could remember the details of the hand better, but all I can recall now is that I called a small raise on the button with a middle suited connector. I flopped a monster draw, which normally I would've played aggressively. But I was scared money, and with $2,500 behind at that point, I was looking to play cautiously. I called near-pot-sized bets on the flop and turn, figuring if I hit one of my draws, one of the two characters in the hand would pay me off for decent value on the river with an overpair. On the river, I missed my draws, but hit top pair no kicker on a raggedy board. Preflop raiser checked, so sensing weakness, I pushed all-in, getting the second yahoo to fold.

My remaining opponent was a young kid, one of those short, scrappy guys who liked to do a little good-natured trash-talking. He and his buddy at the table were fraternity brothers celebrating their recent graduations, and the three of us had grown friendly while playing together for nearly 20 hours, as other players cycled through the game. There was a sense of rapport between us, and we'd exchange knowing glances at yahoos and donkeys, while informally soft-playing each other, overbetting with big hands and checking it down with marginal hands.

My river shove on this hand was a major overbet of the pot, and was consistent with our practice of betting our big hands when playing each other. My opponent tanked. Then, he asked me, "Can you beat a set?" That fist of anxiety was clubbing me even harder in my gut. I was going to go home broke from my first Vegas trip.

My opponent rolled over a flopped top set. I threw up a little in my mouth. I casually said, "Wow, I didn't know you were that strong!" This was probably the first honest thing I had said in over twelve hours. My opponent said, "Why bet so much? Did you hit the straight?" I looked at the board. Yes, the river had made an open-ended straight draw get there. I said, "Do you think I'm crazy enough to call you with a draw?" and laughed. My opponent laughed, too. "Yeah, you love your draws!" Yes, yes I did.

I had one last card to play, literally. I casually rolled over my non-paired card, which was one of the cards needed to make the obvious straight. I leaned back, took a swig of my Captain & Coke, and said, "You'll have to call to see the other card." My opponent tanked, but finally said, "I have to believe you. You haven't lied to me all night." As he mucked, he asked to see my other card. I obliged as I raked the monster pot. My opponent came unglued. "How could you do that to me? After we've played together all night, you do that to me? That's bullshit!" Suddenly, his baseball cap went flying across the poker room, landing near the Centrifuge bar.

His buddy laughed.

Hilarity ensued.

I racked up and cashed out with a very fortunate profit.

And so began my love affair with poker in Sin City.

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Poker Peeping Toms—Angle Shooters or Felons?

Yesterday, I was reading Iowa gaming statutes and regulations for an upcoming post (yes, it's a task as thrilling as it sounds). I noticed two interesting provisions related to banned gaming-related activities:

4.  A person commits a class "D" felony and, in addition, shall be barred for life from excursion gambling boats and gambling structures under the jurisdiction of the commission, if the person does any of the following:
....
h.  Places a bet after acquiring knowledge, not available to all players, of the outcome of the gambling game which is the subject of the bet or to aid the person in acquiring the knowledge for the purpose of placing a bet contingent on that outcome.
....
j.  Knowingly entices or induces a person to go to any place where a gambling game is being conducted or operated in violation of the provisions of this chapter with the intent that the other person plays or participates in that gambling game.

—Iowa Code sec. 99F.15

Let's look at subsection h first. The obvious intent of this subsection is to prevent players from betting on games where the fix is in, or where a player has an unfair advantage in predicting the outcome of the game. But let's think about poker. Imagine a card is flashed during the deal but not replaced, or you see the bottom cut card or a flop card that other players do not see, or you see the cards another player is holding. Under a strict reading of subsection h, this knowledge gives you an unfair advantage over other players in the hand, and if you bet based on that knowledge, you are arguably committing a felony. Now, I'm not aware of any casino poker rooms enforcing this rule this strictly, but one has to wonder if or when an angle shot might become a felony.

Now let's look at subsection j. Despite the availability of casino poker rooms, there are still plenty of home poker games being spread in Iowa. I've been invited to quite a number of them, and it's possible I've invited people to play in games I may have hosted. Home games are illegal under Iowa law if any player puts more than $50 at risk. So, if someone merely invites me to a home game where the buy-in is over $50, are they committing a felony?

I don't have any quick answers to these questions. I just found these statutes to be interesting examples of the rather broad and elaborate statutory mechanisms which some states have enacted to prohibit non-licensed gambling. What do you think?

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D-Bag O' the Day (v.2.1)—'Til Tantrums Do Us Part

It's been a few months since our last D-Bag O' the Day, not because there's been any real shortage of D-Bags, but more because none of them seemed all that worthy of my attention. Sure, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (a Republican, natch) decided that gay couples didn't deserve even the limited right to visit or make health care decisions for their partners in the hospital. Minnesota legislators (again, Republicans) were hard at work addressing the state's infrastructure and economic issues by passing a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages. The Tennessee legislature and governor were working overtime to make sure schoolkids weren't exposed to the gay menace, and to strip away anti-discrimination protection from gays. The latter effort came with a shameful big assist from the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce whose members were shocked—shocked!—to discover Republicans were passing the law to target gays, who the Chamber members swear they really, really love. Still, given the impressive Republican achievements in bigotry and demagoguery the past couple of decades, this is all garden variety douchiness. To get my attention, you have to elevate your game.

Today, the anti-gay D-Bag gauntlet was thrown down from a rather unexpected source—a liberal gay man writing in the New York Times. Now liberals, gays, and Times writers are frequent contributors to the realm of political hyperbole and hypocrisy, but they generally have a good record on gay issues. Rich Benjamin—a gay man and blowhard of whom I have 'til now enjoyed the pleasure of blissful ignorance—makes a childish argument that, as long as it isn't legal for gays to get married, he will hold his breath until he turns blue while boycotting the weddings of his straight friends.

How utterly absurd to celebrate an institution that I am banned from in most of the country. It puzzles me, truth be told, that wedding invitations deluge me. Does a vegan frequent summer pig roasts? Do devout evangelicals crash couple-swapping parties? Do undocumented immigrants march in Minuteman rallies?

Benjamin's superficial analogies are particularly inapt. Gays aren't morally or politically opposed to straight marriage, they merely seek to be treated equally within that sacred institution. Why would Benjamin advocate the bizarre boycotting of straight marriages? Benjamin insists his reasons aren't political:

[My friend Zach] resents me for blowing off his special day, for putting political beliefs ahead of our friendship and for punishing him for others’ deeds. But screaming zealots aren’t the only obstacles to equal marriage rights; the passivity of good people like Zach who tacitly fortify the inequality of this institution are also to blame.

They’re proof of a double standard: Even well-meaning heterosexuals often describe their own nuptials in deeply personal terms, above and beyond politics, but tend to dismiss same-sex marriage as a political cause, and gay people’s desire to marry as political maneuvering.

What many straight people consistently forget is that same-sex couples aren’t demanding marriage to make a political statement or to accrue “special rights.” When I ask my gay friends why they wish to marry, they don’t mention tax benefits. They seek marriage for the same personal reasons that straight people do: to share life’s triumphs and trials with their beloved, to start a family, to have the ability to protect that family, and to celebrate their loving commitment with a wedding.

Benjamin misses the point on two fronts. First, my straight friends don't seem to regard marriage equality as primarily a "gay issue" or a "political issue". Certainly there is a political element to the issue, but the significant progress that has been made in advancing the cause of marriage equality is because straight folks have stopped thinking of the issue as a gay rights issue, and instead have reflected on the fundamental unfairness of depriving gay people the right to be in committed, loving relationships. Benjamin fails to give our straight supporters credit for understanding that the issue of marriage equality is fundamentally a moral, not a political, question.

Second, and more to the point, it is Benjamin himself who abuses his friendships by injecting politics into a meaningful personal celebration of love and commitment. It is Benjamin who is making a political statement at the expense of sharing in the joy his friends experience. I do not have kids, but I still get great pleasure from sharing in the births, baptisms, graduations, and weddings of my friends' children. Just because I and other gay folks may not be able to marry the person we love in most states isn't a valid reason to churlishly hold ourselves aloof from the weddings of our straight friends.

Benjamin ultimately betrays his truly childish motivation—if he can't play, then he's taking his ball and running home to pout:

In recent years, many straight people have admirably pledged not to get married until gay people have the right to do so nationwide. I can’t ask friends like Zach to cancel their weddings, but I expect them to at least understand why I won’t attend. Straight friends and family need to accept their wedding invitations as collateral damage to exclusionary marriage laws. They should feel the consequences of this discrimination as sharply as we do.

Looking back over the past decade, it's nothing short of astonishing what strides gay people have made in achieving equality: merely being gay is no longer criminal, gays are mere months away from finally being able to serve their country openly and with honor, and the idea of gay marriage has gone from being an alien concept to being legal in five states (with civil unions in several others). The future looks even brighter. Despite the occasional spasms of anti-gay rhetoric from the Republican social conservative machine, a majority of Americans now support marriage equality, and the head of the odious Focus on the Family group has admitted that, with overwhelming support from younger Americans, marriage equality is all but inevitable. The only real question is whether a lengthy state-by-state operation will be required to bring about equality, or whether the U.S. Supreme Court will deliver a speedier coup de grâce to anti-gay discrimination.

This remarkable progress toward gay equality has occurred because of the thoughtful support of our straight friends. In fact, without the support of straight folks, there would be no gay rights progress. When we ultimately achieve marriage equality, it will because of our many straight allies who rallied to our cause, even if only by rethinking their view of the essence of the bonds of marriage. Boycotting the weddings of straight friends is a childish temper tantrum. Instead, Benjamin should rejoice in the marriages of his friends, gay or straight, knowing they wish him the right to join in that joyous bond.

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Good Riddance, Sahara

During IMOP-VI in March, our intrepid crew heard some disturbing news—the venerable "old school" Sahara casino was closing its doors. Now the Sahara has long played a minor supporting role in my Vegas experience. During my first Vegas trip—only 2006, though it feels like it was two decades ago—I stayed two nights at a friend's timeshare at the Hilton (when it still had a poker room), and two nights at the MGM Grand in a then-new and swanky West Wing room (conveniently a minute's walk from the poker room). On that trip, I pretty much walked through every casino from MGM to the Wynn, and Sahara to Stratosphere (cutting out the wasteland between Wynn and Sahara was an easy call). The first meal I ate in Vegas was at some seedy cafe in Sahara, where we chewed third-rate steak and egg specials while playing cheap keno. Let's just say I was thrilled with my move out of the junkie-hooker-thug war zone of the Sahara-Stratosphere corridor to the relatively posh casinos on the main portion of the Strip. To put things in historical perspective, the Wynn was barely a year old, and the Venetian poker room was big, fancy, and mostly empty, still trying to find its niche after less than two months of operations. Strange how time flies.

During our IMOP outings, the Sahara late night tournament was a standard group outing for our crew. This tournament had a hideous structure, used chips whose denominations were worn off from use, and attracted every nit over the age of 50 within a 20 mile radius. The room would serve a six-foot (or more) long sub sandwich during a break, but I always passed, assuming the sandwich tasted as sketchy as it looked. Other than one cash game session where several regulars—how bad must your life suck to make the Sahara your home poker base?—donated over a grand to me as I waited for the other Ironmen to bust out, the Sahara poker room offered nothing of value or interest to me.

The rest of the Sahara was equally pointless. In a town where new, modern, and glitzy rules the day, the Sahara was a dirty, smelly, smoky dump filled with ancient slot junkies riding their rascals and sucking on oxygen tanks. While some "dive" casinos on the Strip revel in a certain "everyman slumming it up party" atmosphere—think Imperial Palace, O'Shea's, Bill's Gamblin' Hall, Casino Royale—the Sahara never seemed to embrace a sense of irony and refused to imbue a sense of fun into its squalor. Even the Sahara's restaurants found ways to pass along the corporate message of despair; on one IMOP pre-tournament dinner at "Paco's", our waiter morosely informed us that the Mexican restaurant was out of tortillas.

The only redeeming trait of the Sahara was how its repulsive character gave birth to the best nickname of all time. One of our IMOP crew happens to be a big shot attorney from Milwaukee who enjoys the finer things in life. After IMOP-II, this gentleman begged our crew to ditch the Sahara tournament with the first of many of his famed emails that all began, "I have only two requests ..." The first request was invariably a plea to ditch the Sahara as an official IMOP poker tournament venue. Of course, this whining only made the Sahara a required stop in future IMOP outings, and also led to us nicknaming this gent "Sahara". One of my favorite moments of IMOP history was when I walked into the Venetian poker room on IMOP-III, spotted our resident elitist, yelled out, "Yo, Sahara!" and actually had him turn around and shake his head like a good puppy.

Ah yes, good times, Sahara.