Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Bad Beats are Overhead;Chips, The Cost of Doing Business As Usual


Are You Experienced?
Probability and People=Poker P+P=P
Limit is about value betting and NLH is about trapping.You spell limit poker t.i.m.e. You can't spell anything in NLH! You gotta do the math---the heavy lifting of pot odds, implied odds, counting your outs.



In No Limit Holdem, things don't even out with time, they even out with the number of hands you play. Sometimes nothing can be a good hand. See my Post on Zero Gravity Thinking.


Holdem is a game of high cards, and kickers, In Limit Holdem, the number of players increases, so big cards must be played most of the time. NLH is like chess; Limit, like checkers: so don't play it like cheese! Find the holes and leaks in your limit game, and plug them up.



Hand selection is very important since almost all the time you are going to a showdown---the one with the best hand usually wins; and bluffing is a rather hard thing to pull off, since it only costs one small bet for Deputy Barney Fife to "keep you honest". Nevertheless,You can bet or raise with ATC, any two cards, but your call MUST have a positive matamatical expectation. Calling for value must outweigh the risks you are taking.


INS and OUTS


For the beginner, everything is even money, when you don't know any better. Replacing that with true odds is the goal. There is one goal and many pathways. There is the psycho path way, playing like a Kramer maniac.---the push and pray NLH way, hoping to hit the flop big. There is the rocky road, playing a tight-is-right, the Jerry game of counting your outs---the number of unseen cards that will give you the best hand---the NUTS!


There is wise and there is otherwise. Generally speaking if the FLOP gives you 10 or more outs---go all the way to the river, regardless of the number of opponents in the pot.

If your draws have less than 9 outs 2 handed, that will yield you a negative result more often than not.

A Multi-handed raised pot with six or more outs =profit.


LET THERE BE FLOP- Getting in touch with your inner George Costanza


If a guy has 20k behind him, and you are first to act and bet 6K. He is really betting 20K if he calls your 6K.(the implied turn and river bets) You bet 6K. he bets 20K That is the threat of NLH, the all-in threat. PUT THE COMMITMENT ON HIM.



The Poker Free Lunch



I can read minds. I know what players are thinking after they miss the flop--"Don't bet" Don't bet" They want a free card. I know both sides because I am both sides.



What is deeply personal in poker is universal. If I am capable of thinking it, so are my opponents. That's feeling the fear and doing it anyway---like The Opposite Episode in Seinfeld. "If I raise everyone will think I have an ACE. So you get 72 and raise with squadush. After all, you don't get a second chance to make a FALSE impression. You may win the pot outright, or take it away on the turn if there hand doesn't improve.


Your attitude will determine your altitude in NLH.


We are born broke, and we die broke, everything in the middle is fluctuation.
"Getting broke" and "Going Broke" are two different things. Getting broke is when you place burns down and you become houseless, you, the franchise can still go out and buy or build another house. Going broke is setting yourself on fire---you are homeless, a lifestyle of disenfranchisement. Have an attitude of gratitude because pokewr is 100% skil and 100% luck



SHIFT Happens

Knowledge isn't power---applied knowledge is. Luck isn't power either, but applied luck is the most powerful element in NLH: here's what I mean; Focus on decisions not consequences. Luck has consequences. Focus on decisions, not luck. What you think of me is none of my business, and what luck thinks of me at any particular time, is none of my business. Luck Positive (Winning) and Luck Negative (gad beats) are OVERHEAD; Chips, the cost of doing business!


Think about good decisions, not results. It's about the process not pots won---the chips will come. Do what you love and the money will follow--have a love affair with making sound decisions based on partial information. It is, after all, about excelling, not winning or losing a particular hand.

It is a poor workman who blames his tools--I don't have a big enough bankroll--A BR is your toolbox. Don't sell your tools. Poker happens in the mind--but it is played with money. I got $1,000 bucks worth of chips and $100,000 worth of courage.



Folding-the invisable way to win.


The best way to win more is to fold more! Hand selection is really something to consider; so is position. Playing too many starting hands is the How Not to Do It way..When it is raised in front of you-Your mantra should be "I'm looking for a way to fold this AJ offsuit.

LOOSE playing---you are looking for reasons to call; TIGHT, to fold---choose your posion.

CHIPS, they comes from weakness: exploit opponent weakness to play ATC, any two cards, who come here to gamble mentality.


CP, calling pattern, BP, betting patterns. Pay attention to these hints. Sit to the LEFT of loose players. When you have a monster let lefty bet out. Players who just sit down are easier to bluff and less likely to play weak hands.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Feel athletic, go to a sports bar; feel lucky, a casino

Poker Pros Chris Farrell and Ed Reif
Moneymaker Effect? What effect did it have on you?


Calling poker a sport is like calling bald a hair color. Yet this male pattern madness--- an 800 lb gorilla known as Texas No Limit Hold em (a.k.a. NLH)--- has replaced baseball not only as the national pastime, but also America’s bellybutton.
The real deal is that gambling is an addiction, and the Addictionary- is spelt with the letters WSOP, WPT, GSN and ESPN. The mess is the message---winjuries--- a cool revenue stream for the networks and promoters, OME, out of money experiences for everyone else connected to the "sport". Why? because NLH, no limit holdem is 100% skill and 100% luck, and luck lends but never gives.
ESPN’s WSOP (World Series of Poker) High Stakes Poker on GSN and the Travel Channel’s WPT (World Poker Tour) have done for poker what Jamba smoothies did for high fiber diets---it reinvented the often indigestible into an energizing and delicious (peak) experience that can no longer be ignored. This game has juice!
There's one guy to thank-Chris Moneymaker, and one event, the hockey strike!

The Hockey Strike was a negative sum event- NEGATIVE-SUM GAMES are games in which both sides lose. This represents the height of irrationality to positive-sum players, but it proves a surprisingly durable choice of game-players. Pull the grenade and blow us both up.
Smashmouth Poker is a less deadly version of combat, and therefore a good way to practice for it if you are out to have a good time and fully expect to lose all your money that you brought to the table that night.

While the Zambonis' sat idle, the strike created new programming slots for ESPN's niche "sports" like Poker-and fueled the Moneymaker Effect: and you know how that affected all our games---more AQ verses small pockets(races), more bad beats and suckouts by DONKS winning, not by what they knew, but what was absent from their game---like fear, experience and regret.Broke Back Poker-A Guaranteed income for life.Without the right game, however, the right people don't show up.

Raising with good hands, pairs. Calling with draws and throwing away junk. Yea, I wanna play with these guys because Karaoke Poker can solve any problem for which a solution is known to exist . Many still sing the patience, tight-is-right ABC by the book style of play--that's an even money scenerio-- You don’t play to break even, you play to break backs.
When weak players stay in the game, they use luck and because of the nature of NLH, can win buckets of money in the short run. Just remember they are only borrowing the chips from you.Feeling lucky and going into a casino is like feeling athletic and going to a sports bar---You can depend on the rabbit's foot for luck, but it didn't help the rabbit.

Whne playing people who feel lucky---Assume the worst, believe no one, and make your move when you are certain you have the stone cold nuts or at least, great odds. If you get drawn out on the river by this kind of player, be assured he will go broke chasing to the river the next few hands he plays. All players are equally good, it's their play that is bad: A little past playing good is playing badly. You beat bad players and bluff good ones. Bads call too often and rarely fold. The longer you have been playing, the "smarter" you get. Experience rich and technique poor players-smart players---are easier to bluff, because of this fact. They are usually paying attention to the action.