At this point, I've got about $200 in my Full Tilt Poker (FTP) account. I generally play low-stakes turbo multi-table tournaments (MTTs) - low-stakes because of my relatively low bankroll ($200), and turbo because I tend not to have a lot of time. And before anyone points it out, I know that $200 is less than the amount of money I budget to lose on gambling in one trip to Nevada, but this is supposed to be a cheap hobby, and I'm determined not to reload on FTP until I've burnt through it all, and to always base my decisions on that bankroll (most of your monetary limits are based on the size of your bankroll, so I won't enroll in a very expensive tournament just because I could afford to top up my account if I wanted to). Anyway, one of my favorite tournaments is the $3.30 90-person KO SNG tournament - it just sells like hotcakes and I _never_ have to wait more than 5 minutes or so for the tournament to fill up, it's at the threshold for my bankroll (theoretically I ought to be capping out at about $3 for a MTT but I cheat since it's limited to 90 players), and it almost never lasts more than 2 hours, even if you take it to the bitter end.
For those unfamiliar with tournament types, a KO tournament is a tournament where you get a bonus for busting a player out of the tournament, typically something like 1/6 of the buying - in the case of the $3.30 tournament each KO gets you 50 cents. A SNG is a sit-n-go tournament, where you always have the tournament ready to run as soon as X number of people sign up for it - in the case of this particular tourney, that number is 90.
The problem with playing so many low-limit turbo MTTs is twofold; first, because it's a turbo tournament, the blinds go up really, really fast - hence the tourney almost never lasting more than 2 hours - by the time you've passed hour 2, you're dealing with huge blinds and antes and even just limping into a pot will probably cost you 5-10% of your stack. The problem with this is that a typical raise might be 2 or three times the BB, and with blinds so high you can easily get pot committed just playing a drawing hand. I mean, there's still some skill involved, but the luck/skill slide meter is way on the luck side towards the end of a turbo tournament.
The second problem is the low stakes - for the last few days I've been running bad from being impatient, and just when I get my shit together again, something happens that totally makes me lose my shit. Here's an example - you can watch it now, then I'll go over what was going through my mind:
This is how I busted out of a MTT - for some historical background, this was a KO tournament for FTP points (frequent player points, which you can use for swag or to enter promotional tournaments) - you put in 50 FTP points and you get 50 points for every player you knock out. I had been doing decently at my first table and was about 1000 dollars up (not actual money, but rather "tournament dollars"), although I hadn't knocked anyone out, and had gotten moved to this table about 2 orbits (18 rounds or so) before. "Player 5" had been using his big chip stack to bully the table for a few rounds at this point, frequently raising and following through with continuation bets that would put most folks all-in. At this point, he's got almost 8k in chips, and I'm a distant 2nd with about 4k. All the other poor bastards have just been caving in to his bullying (the idea is that he can raise with just about any two cards - for example, $400 is only about 5% of his chip stack, whereas it's about 25% of most folks' chip stacks, and if they put in 25% of their chips with anything less than a premium hand then their time in the tournament may very well come to a quick end). On my big blind (one player always has to put in the minimum bet before seeing his cards, and it was my turn) I was dealt two 9s, there was one limper (player 9) ("limping in" is the term for just putting in the minumum amount to be involved in a hand) and the bully raised it from 60 to 270 (a very large raise) when I had the big blind, which is basically his way of saying "give me your chips, unless you feel like risking your survival in this tournament". So, on my big blind, I decided that I would call with my 9s and see what happens (perhaps this is poor strategy on my part, but when I have two cards on the upper side of "marginal" in the BB and someone tries to steal, I tend to just call rather than raise and see what happens on the flop - this is probably because at lower limits folks will often respond to a re-raise with an all-in shove, and I do _not_ want to go all-in with 99 against a raiser - I mean, if he turns over some semi-bluff like queen-ten then it's still a coin-flip!).
After I've made this decision, player 6 decides to come along for the ride, and then player 9 (the original caller) calls as well.
Now, the basic premise with just about any kind of pocket pair is twofold:
1) If it's relatively low, you're hoping to hit three of a kind (aka a "set") on the flop - the odds of this are about 7 to one, and even then it's possible that you'll end up in a shit situation - for example, if I call with a pair of nines, and the flop comes out 7-8-9 of spades, then even though I've flopped my set, there are still plenty of ways I can get screwed. The more players you have coming along for the ride here, the more likely that one of them has got at least one spade or at least one card to complete a straight. So, sets can get you in trouble, but more often than not they're really, really good, because most people don't consider pocket pairs when wondering what you might have.
2) If it's a high pair (like, for example, QQ), you're looking for a flop that doesn't have overcards (i.e. no kings or aces) and isn't too flush-y or straight-y. If you hit that kind of flop, then you tend to press it hard.
99 is kinda in the middle between those two - it's definitely possible for three under-cards to appear on the flop, but really you're hoping to make a set.
Now, where things get really tricky with pocket pairs like 55 or 99 are concerned, is that you also need to consider what you'll do if it works out, and if it's worth it. Here's the simple version: your odds of making the set on the flop are about 7 to one. Let's call the odds of a "safe" set (i.e. something that you'll feel comfortable pressing with) at about 9 to 1. In that case, you need to feel like there's at least 9 times your investment available for the taking if you hit it. So, that means that if you're only going to be up against one other person, both you and him better have at least 9 times the amount of money you've got to call. In this case, in order to make a call of 210 extra chips, I need to have a potential windfall of at least 1700 or so to work with. In this case, everyone seems to fit the bill, so I call. Actually, I would have called anyway, since 99 is a pretty decent pocket pair, I wanted to stand up to the bully, and there were already two callers (which means that someone is likely to come along for the ride if I make my set).
So, before we even see the flop, the pot is up to $1100. This is definitely a dangerous situation and I'm probably bailing at my first opportunity if I don't hit my set (even if there are no overcards).
So, the flop comes out just the way I want it: 8d-Qd-9c. I've made my set, but there are two things to be aware of:
1) There's an overcard there - the queen. I'm not all that frightened of anyone having a pair of queens (giving them a set of queens) for a couple of reasons: the bully could have it, but he's been raising pre-flop constantly lately, and he really could have any two cards of ten or higher, or a pocket pair of his own - him happening to have QQ this one time would just be really shit luck. The other two players, seeing as they're getting a little low in chip stacks, would probably have re-raised with a hand like QQ to to increase their chance of a heads-up with the bully, or else force him to let it go right then and there. Much more likely, though, in the low-limit world, is that either one of these players would have just shoved all-in with QQ (which wouldn't have been a bad move considering the situation). At any rate, if someone (including the bully) shoves all-in on me then I'll revisit it, but for now I really don't think it's a possibility. Potential bad news for me, but in this case I think I'm OK.
2) There's an overcard there - the queen! This means that someone who called with a hand like AQ or KQ is now in deep shit against me, because he/she is going to have what's called "top pair, top kicker" or TPTQ. This is a hand that gets folks in trouble all the time, and can be really tough to walk away from when the board doesn't look dangerous. Good news for me.
3) There are two diamonds on the board. This, more than anything else, concerns me. There's a potential flush draw out there, and with three other players in the pot, one of them just might have A-x of diamonds or a suited connector (like 5d-6d). Flushes are the great set killers, since folks just love to draw to flushes, even when the odds can't justify it.
Since I'm in the BB and the SB folded, I'm first to act after the flop. Whether to bet your set or slow-play it (i.e. get cute, just check, and see if someone else wants to bet in order to extract some more chips out of your opponents) depends on the situation every time. At this point, we've built up a nice pot of about $1100, more than 1/4 of my current stack - I'd be happy to take it right here! Besides which, those diamonds scare me.
The trick with betting out against a potential flush draw is to not give your opponent incentive to draw, or at least to make it a bad idea mathematically. In this case, a bet of about $1000 ought to be enough to scare at least the short stacks away - since it's likely that they won't make their flush on the next card, it would be a bad idea for either one of them to pursue the draw with such a large percentage of their stacks, and even if they do then I'll be firing another bullet if the turn card isn't a diamond, and they know it. If we were all deep-stacked, or if the pot and bet sizes were ten times smaller, then it might be worth it, but that's another conversation.
So, I bet out $1000 with the intention of having everyone fold right there and then - at this point my stack is down to $2805 and the pot's up to $2100. Sure enough, the short stacks fold, but the bully calls.
The call doesn't give me a lot of information - if he had raised me all-in then I might have had to reconsider the QQ possibility (although I very likely would have called - I don't think he's got QQ for the reasons I described above). If he had raised me anything other than all-in then I probably would have put him on some kind of queen, but not a pair of them, and I can change my focus to extracting as many chips as possible from him. At this point, my guess is either he's on a flush draw or he's got either TPTK or two pair. I'm leaning toward the second scenario but I can't discount the first.
Just for reminder here - pot is now at $3100 and my chip stack is slightly less than $2800.
Turn comes, it's a beautiful and non-threating 4h. Now's the time to really fire the cannons - either he's got nothing (and he'll fold), the flush draw (and he'll fold), or some kind of two-pair that he can't let go and he'll call or push me all-in (which would be fine). What I don't want to do here is give him a free card for a flush draw and have him hit it on me. If he wants to see the river card, he'll have to pay for it.
I throw in a bet of $2000, taking my stack down to a dangerous $800. Why didn't I just throw the whole thing in? Well, I'm not really sure, except that generally I don't like pushing all-in - I tend to base stuff on the size of the pot, and I often like to give folks the idea that they're getting pot odds, even if they're not. In the case of a flush draw (which I'm becoming more and more sure is this guy's story), I like to make them think about it - now, having to call $2000 to win $7000 is _not_ good enough to call on a flush draw, _particularly_ when your opponent has only $800 left in his stack. Put it this way: if there are two diamonds in your hand and two diamonds on the board, then there are, as far as you know, 9 cards left in the deck that can give you the flush. With 9 diamonds left, the odds of the next card being a diamond are roughly 1 in 5 (or 4 to 1 if you prefer to think of it that way, which I actually don't but it makes for better storytelling). Therefore, if you're getting more than 4:1 odds on your money, then it's worth it to call. Of course, you always have to think about "what happens if I get it?" If you've got a nutjob who keeps betting, and you think you can extract even _more_ money out of him if you hit that flush, then maybe it's worth it to keep going, even if you're not getting 4:1 odds just from the bet. So, if the pot's $1000 and your opponent bets $500, then you need to call $500 to win an extra $1500, which is 1:3, which is not good enough. On the other hand, if you think that hitting the flush will enable you to extract an extra thousand in the final round of betting, then you're actually talking about betting $500 to win an extra $2500, which is right on the cusp of being worth it. These are known as "pot odds" and "implied pot odds", and nobody (including me) except maybe the pros ever gets it right all the time. At least, that's what I tell myself since I have trouble doing these on the fly while trying to pay attention to everything else.
So anyway, back to this hand: my throwing the $2k in there makes the pot $5110, so the villian needs to bet $2k to win $5k, so he needs roughly a 2:5 chance to win it for it to be mathmatically correct. The odds of getting a diamond on the river are about 1:4, and I've only got $800 left, so there aren't a lot of implied pot odds here. Even just a basic guesstimate will tell a person that it's not worth it to call this on a flush draw, and I expect him to either fold (most likely) or shove all-in. If he puts me all-in, then at this point I absolutely HAVE to call, even if I think he's been toying with me with QQ the whole time - the ratio of the amount of money in the pot ($7900 if he re-raises me all-in) to the amount of money I have left ($800) is simply too big to let go. This is what we call "pot committed" and it's a state that you want to avoid, but I seem to always end up in (hey I'm still an amateur and I don't think quite far ahead enough - I'm getting there).
Instead, he calls. I'm now totally flummoxed and can only imagine that he's chasing the flush draw, or maybe he's been really stupid and he's been calling with A-K this whole time (A-K leaves 6 cards that could potentially give you the winner, which makes you about a 7:1 underdog - definitely not the kind of hand you want to bet $2k to win $5k with). With anything concrete, it would make the most sense to put me all-in - I mean, at this point, what can possibly happen on the river that will make him decide not to bet $800 when the pot's already so huge?
The final card comes - Jc. If he was chasing the flush or the A-K draw, he missed on all counts. So, knowing I've got the best hand, I have two options: check or go all-in.
If I check: either he checks (most likely), sees my set of 9s, and I win, or else he bets my last $800 in a silly bluff attempt (very unlikely, since given the whole pot-committed thing I just described plus the fact that I've been the bet initiator the whole time, there's almost no situation in which I'd fold), I show him my set, and I win.
If I bet: he either folds and I win without showing him (and the rest of the table) what I've been working with (again, unlikely given the ratio of my remaining stack to the pot size, but it's always better to win without showing your cards), or most likely he calls and I take the whole thing.
Obviously betting is the better choice here. So, I bet my last $800, he calls, and shows me his KT of SPADES for a king-high straight.
Knowing what his cards were, let me just replay the action after the turn from his perspective. I called his big raise behind one other caller (so I knew I would be facing at least two opponents on this hand), I put out a healthy bet in first position after the flop, and I put out another bet that pretty much pot-commits me after the turn. I am definitely NOT betting with nothing here. The cards at this point give him King-high, in other words nothing. He has no flush draw, although there is one on the board. The ONLY cards that can give him a likely winning hand are the four jacks in the deck. Let's be generous and say he's put me on a single queen, maybe something like AQ. In that event the three remaining kings could give him a POTENTIALLY winning hand. So, being generous, let's say he's got 7 cards that he thinks could give him the winner (the four jacks plus the three kings). Even so, that translates to about a 15% chance of hitting one of those cards, which is about a 5.5:1 underdog. My chip stack is basically gone - if he calls this bet, he's not going to be able to to extract much more out of me to take advantage of his good fortune. Therefore, putting in $2000 to win $5100 is NOT worth it, not by a logshot. Heck, putting in just $1000 to win that same $5100 wouldn't be worth it, and again that's assuming that I just had the queen (and, of course, no king). And yet he called - and hit. And my time in the tournament was over.
This hand had me practically screaming at the computer. Suckouts happen all the time in FTP - you go all-in with AA vs. 95 offsuit and they beat you with a straight - it happens and you move on, secure in the knowledge that if you had it to do all over again, you would do it the same way. Some of them, like this one, just stick with you.
Of course, for every one of these losses, there's also two losses that I genuinely deserved, either because I made a mistake, I was bored and/or impatient, or someone simply played better than me. I've identified some key leaks in my game, although I've discovered that it's a lot easier to identify a leak in your game than it is to fix it, which is weird - I thought just finding them would be the problem. Maybe I'll get to that in another post, but this one has taken more time and energy than I planned, and even so I haven't written the post I meant to write in the first place when I started this one - that post will be next...
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