Sticky Fingers

   The basic principal that is at the heart of poker theory, the point at which all poker primers start, is the two types of poker hands: made hands and drawing hands. Pre-flop, any big pair is a made hand and I would also include any two big cards, although some might argue that these are only drawing hands. I include them because hands like AQ and AK are probably the best hand pre-flop and have the potential to make top pair on the flop. You should always raise hands like these for two reasons: for value and to isolate your opponents. So you are raising to get more chips in the pot while you are ahead and also to reduce the number of callers.
   The reason you want to reduce the number of callers is because these sorts of big pair hands are vulnerable to being drawn out on by players holding drawing hands. For example, if you have pocket aces and are up against one other player, the probability of having the winning hand on the river (against any random hand) is 85%. But against 8 other players, your aces have only a 35% chance of winning at showdown. This principal applies to any big hand and that is why it is vitally important to protect your big hands by raising pre-flop.
   Conversely, if you have a drawing hand (suited connectors, medium connectors, small pairs, small suited aces), you want to play in a  multi-way pot. This is because most of the time you are going to miss your straight, flush or 3 of a kind and end up folding. So when you do hit your monster hand you want a big pot with plenty of players involved so you can extract maximum value and recoup all those previous losses and then some. This is the basic strategy that is at the heart of every poker game. Players with big starting hands are trying to make it too expensive for others to chase their draws. And players with drawing hands are trying to get in as cheaply as possible so they can hit their monster hands.
     The live games that I play in are typically very very loose. Most players will call a pre-flop raise with a ridiculously wide range of hands and if they hit any kind of draw, or any part of the flop they will hang on like grim death and call all the way to the river. This makes it extremely difficult to protect big pair type hands, as many of these players will only be deterred from calling by an enormous raise. I'm now used to this kind of play and have resigned myself to the fact that I'll be sucked out on a lot. The thing is, the play at my Friday game seems to be getting even looser than usual. Maybe it's because some of the tighter players are no longer coming to the game, or maybe it's just my perception of the games, but those calling hands just seem to be getting more and more absurd. This has led me to take another look at my basic strategy to see if I can find a better way.
   I don't play ring games much these days but I have a basic pre-flop strategy for these games that is based on principals taught by Poker School Online. If I have a hand that's playable from early position I open raise to five times the big blind (5x BB). If I have a hand that I think is playable from middle position I raise 3x BB plus 1 BB for every player who has limped in to the pot. If I have a playable hand in late position I raise 2x BB plus 1 BB for every limper. This is a simple enough system that seems to work well enough in most situations, although it can always be modified to suit particular circumstances.
   In a ring game, if I was faced with a table full of  'no-foldem' players, I would adjust by increasing the size of my raises for premium hands. And in a situation like this, if I had top pair or an over-pair on the flop, I would bet half the pot or more to ensure that anyone with a draw didn't have the correct odds to call, even if that meant pushing most of my stack into the middle. The way I see it, in a cash game you make what you think is the correct move, even if it involves risking most or all of your stack. If you get drawn out on, then so be it; you either reload or go home in the knowledge that in the long term that was a profitable move and the next time, or the time after that, you will drag in all of some-ones chips. As long as you play the odds you will win in the long run, regardless of the results in one particular game.
   Maybe it's a mistake on my part, but I think of tournaments differently. To me, tournaments are all about survival. My strategy is to try and pick up enough chips in the early stages to keep ahead of the increasing blinds and then get more active and aggressive in the later stages to put myself in a position to make the money. Maybe this is the wrong approach, but it seems to work reasonably well so I'm sticking to it for now. The only time I'm willing to risk most or all of my chips is where I know I have a significant edge (for example pocket aces or kings pre-flop). I don't usually want to risk my tournament life on a move that has a  small positive expected value long term. In short, I'm much less inclined to risk my chips in a tournament than I would be in a ring game.
   In the early stages of a tournament, when the stacks are reasonably deep, I play a basic ring game strategy but with one exception; I don't  increase my bet sizing to compensate for the super-loose calling crew. So if I raise 5x BB in early position with KK and get 5 callers, then so be it. Or if 6 players limp in when I have AJ on the button, I raise to 8x BB and usually end up watching 3 or 4 people call. As a result, it's not unusual to see me raising pre-flop them checking or folding on the flop if my Ax misses or my medium pair is facing a flop full of big cards. And a continuation bet in a no-foldem game like this is just pointless; you're always going to get called, usually by multiple players.
   In the middle stages when the blinds are getting bigger I reduce the size of my pre-flop raises. I usually just bet a standard 3x BB regardless of position. As the blinds increase further I'll drop down to 2.5x BB raises or less. Even although this size raise is likely to be a significant proportion of a caller's stack at this point, I still find that there are multiple players who are apparently unable to let go of their hands. It's not until the final stages of the tournament when the blinds are really big and most of the players with sticky fingers have been eliminated that I start seeing folds to raises. However, there are usually a couple of 'loosies' who have amassed huge stacks and are happy to keep on calling with rags.

   The thing about playing in these super-loose tournaments is that one of the essential elements of the no limit game is diminished. The power of the pre-flop raise is severely compromised and post-flop play becomes much more important. The way that these games end up being played remind me of fixed limit games. I played in fixed limit ring games a few years back and found that I wasn't very good at them. It was virtually impossible to protect a big starting hand as it was so cheap to call a raise. These games were very much about what came on the flop and it took considerable skill to negotiate the intricacies of post-flop play where pushing an opponent off a hand was not an option.
   So why bother with pre-flop raises at all? There are a couple of players in the Friday game who are incredibly passive pre-flop and yet they have both done very well over-all, coming first and second on the yearly points table. In a game where pre-flop raises do not achieve the aim of isolating opponents, why bother with them? Well, the thing is, pre-flop raises still achieve the aim of getting chips in the middle. The way I see it, although all those callers greatly reduce my chances of winning the pot, big pairs still sometimes hold up against multiple callers, and they sometimes improve. And when they do, they win monster pots. So I still figure that all those times I end up raising pre-flop and then folding the flop are compensated for by the times when I rake in a huge pot that sets me up for the rest of the tournament.
   I guess you could say that the live tournaments I play in are hybrid games. Pre-flop play is much more like fixed limit than it is no limit; you just have to accept that you're going to have a lot of callers no matter what you do. However, you still have the ability to bet enough post-flop  to ensure that at least the first couple of players won't have the correct odds to call with their drawing cards. And when you reach the turn? Well, the pot will be so big that you'll probably end up all-in just to protect your hand. Then again, play is usually so passive that you could probably just check to the river and hope that no-one hits. But of course the problem with this is that you're probably already pot committed. At this point you have to just play the hand correctly and take your chances.
   One of the great things about poker is that there are so many different types of game and so many different playing styles within each game type. The most important thing is being able to adjust to these different styles. No-foldem games are no different. On balance, I think my strategy for these super-loose games makes some sort of sense.
   Playing no limit no-foldem is kind of like dancing your way through a minefield. On a roller coaster. Blindfolded. What fun.




  

Playing by the Rules, Part 2

   I play in two or three live poker tournaments every week. These games are played at pubs or clubs and all are run by amateurs who are usually also playing in the tournament themselves. In the last post I detailed how this situation can lead to controversies over the rules and the way that they are applied. And because these are amateur-run games there are often no actual written rules to refer to. In the end it comes down to common or accepted practice. And common practice in these situations can deviate a lot from what is considered to be standard practice in more formal games.
    The organisers of some of the games I regularly play in have recently adopted the Tournament Directors Association Rules as their standard, which is a step in the right direction. However, adopting these rules wholesale is not necessarily a good idea for relatively informal games, and there is a tendency to enforce some rules and not others. In other words, we are still essentially operating by the principal of: 'the rules are what the Tournament Director says they are'.
   In addition, because they are designed for use in tournaments that have professional dealers, the TDA rules don't cover the procedures for dealing or the responsibilities of dealers. For example, some of the clubs I play at have now introduced a 'no poking' rule. The normal procedure for player-dealt games is for the deck to be passed to the player on the dealer's right, and that person then cuts the cards, leaving  the cut card at the bottom. Up until recently what happened was that the dealer held out the deck, the other player then poked the cut card into the deck and the dealer then moved the top half to the bottom and proceeded to deal. Now we've been told that we have to place the deck and the cut card on the table and the 'cutter' then moves the top section of the deck onto the cut card, then the remainder of the deck, then passes the deck back to the dealer. Personally, I don't have a problem with poking, but if that's the way they want it done, that's okay. The only problem is, poking is standard practice at my Wednesday night game and if I place the deck on the table the cutter wonders what the hell I'm doing. I guess I just have to remember which game I'm at and whether it's okay to poke or not to poke.
   Another thing I occasionally come across that would never happen in a game with a professional dealer is the 'pot counter'. On my Wednesday night game there's a particular player who sometimes counts out the chips in the pot to see how much is in there. Presumably he does this to help him decide how much to bet. Now, the dealer (not the player) is actually allowed to do this in a pot limit game, but it's definitely not allowed in a no limit game. The most a dealer is allowed to do in no limit is to spread the chips out a bit so you can get a better view, but that's all. But the person who habitually does this also happens to be the game organiser, so there's not much point in complaining about it.
   Because of the informal nature of these games you tend to get a lot of hands in the pot. People usually take change out of the pot themselves, usually before the betting round is completed, which tends to lead to a certain amount of confusion when someone then raises. Then there's the 'pot tidier'; the player who just can't stand to see an untidy pile of chips and has to put them all into neat stacks. And of course, on the other end of the spectrum there's the 'pot splasher'; the player who, instead of placing his bet in front of him just chucks the chips in the general direction of the pot, leaving the other players to guess at how much has been bet.
   But the one thing that really gets to me in these types of games is the table talk. The rules of tournament poker are that you cannot say anything about a hand in progress, whether you are in the hand or not. You can't tell anyone what you folded, you can't suggest what the best hand might be, you can't make guesses about what another player is holding; you can't do anything that might influence the actions of another player. This rule is regularly and consistently flouted in the games I attend, and it can get pretty annoying. I have spoken up about it a few times when it's been particularly bad, but my complaints have fallen on deaf ears. Just last week I had a little hissy fit when someone insisted on pointing out that a player holding a 6 would have the nut straight. When I complained, the person involved couldn't understand why I should care about someone suggesting what I might be holding in my hand. So, the constant babble about the possibilities presented by the flop, or the hand someone would have had if they hadn't folded, goes on, and on, and on.
   Some of the irregular rules in these tournaments are the result of ignorance of the standard procedure that is followed elsewhere. For instance, in any professionally run tournament if a player has to be moved to a new table it is the player 'under the gun' (sitting to the left of the big blind) who is moved and they are then dealt in at the new table and take on whatever responsibilities their new seat carries, including paying the big blind. This is a very sensible system as it means that it is usually an advantage to be moved to another table and no-one has to sit out any hands.
   For some reason, all the local games run a different system. When someone needs to be moved, it is the player one position behind the dealer (or in some cases, two behind the dealer). But if they move into the blinds or the dealer position they have to sit out until the button passes them. So this sometimes means sitting out three hands. I ended up in this position once, coming into the big blind and having to sit out until the button passed. One of the other players was loudly complaining about how this gave me an unfair advantage. I was more of the opinion that sitting out a number of hands is a disadvantage. But either way, it's rather an odd way to do things. I suspect that this method originally comes from the National Pub Poker League games, as I know that they do things this way. But wherever it comes from, I'm going to try and get the Interclub competition to change to the 'under the gun' system and with a bit of luck it might spread to other games from there.
   Another example of ignorance of normal procedure is the raising rule. This is one that doesn't come up very often and when it does, it doesn't make an awful lot of difference to the game, but it illustrates how easy it is to end up following procedures that are not actually correct. All poker rules state that if you raise, it should be a minimum of twice the previous bet or raise. So if there is a bet of 200 and someone raises 200 to make it 400, then a re-raise would have to be to a minimum of 600; the previous player raised 200 on top of the original bet, so the new raise has to be 400 plus the original 200. Nobody does it this way in my local games. They always say that a raise has to be twice the total previous bet, so in this case it would be to 800. I've argued the point on this a couple of times but got no traction whatsoever, so now I just go with the flow and play by the 'double the last bet' rule.
   Another rule that I think comes from the NPPL is the forced check. If a player bets or raises out of turn, the players who had yet to act get their turn, then when the out of turn player's turn comes they cannot take aggressive action; they can only check or call. The standard rule is that the 'OOT' player's bet is binding unless the action has changed, in which case they can reconsider their original bet. This is completely different to the forced check rule. In one case the offending player cannot take the action they intended, in the other case they must take the action they intended. It's kind of like an instant penalty for acting out of turn, which seems unfair to me, especially in what is an otherwise pretty informal game structure.
   There are a couple of local rules that I've come across that I think are grossly unfair. One of these involves 'blinding out' an absent player. Normally if a player is not at the table their cards are folded and if they are in the blinds then those blinds are paid and go into the pot. But one of the clubs that I play at also rules that if a player is absent for one full circuit of the button, then they have to start paying the big blind  every hand. This seems very unfair to me. The absent player has paid the entry fee like everyone else and shouldn't be penalised any more than the normal payment of the blinds in turn. Even if someone leaves the tournament, then putting their big blind into the pot every hand gives that particular table an advantage over other tables. Even though it doesn't come into play that often, I really don't like seeing this rule being used.
   The worst of the lot is Bill's 'Big Blind Check' rule. This rule is only played at the Onehunga Workingmen's Club and although it only comes up rarely, it's just plain ridiculous. According to this rule, if a player in the big blind says, 'check' when there is a bet in front of them, it is ruled to be a call. So if you are in the big blind and you miss the fact that someone has raised and you check your option, you just called that raise. I cannot imagine any reasonable justification for having a rule like this. It just seems like a deliberate attempt to trap players into losing their chips.
   The creator of this rule, Bill, says that this very thing happened to him one night at the Auckland Casino, and that's why he uses it. All I can say is, if that did happen, then either the casino has a really stupid rule or one of the dealers made a stupid mistake. Either way, there's no good reason to adopt a game rule that is clearly unfair and could result in someone losing their entire stack because of a moment of inattention. Without exception, when visiting players are told about the BBC rule they are astonished. However, Bill refuses to give it up because 'they play it at the casino'.
   One of the most important things I've learned as a poker player is that you must be able to adapt. You have to adapt to the stack sizes, the number of players at the table, the betting limits, the type of players and a bunch of other thing. Adapting to the local rules is part of this process. You just have to check out what the local practices are and, like them or not, adapt your play to suit those conditions. So that's what I do. Occasionally I can get the locals to conform more to standard poker procedures but the rest of the time it's just a matter of being aware of what the unusual practices are and adapting to them.
   Just remember, if you ever play poker at the OWMC, pay attention when you're in the big blind.