Student Hand Analysis: Hero Flops Nut Straight vs. Cutoff Limper

*Note: comments below have been paraphrased for ease of readability.

STUDENT COMMENTARY

"Opponent plays a 29/5/2, and bets flop in position 75%.

What are your thoughts about the turn bet? On the river I was choosing between a shove or a check/call. What do you suggest is the better play here?"

I love the hand as was played, but let's start from the beginning.

PREFLOP

Villain's stats are fairly fishy, but just as important, if not moreso, is the fact he open limped on the cutoff, which is the weakest spot to do so. Open shoving preflop is a profitable option, albeit marginally so with this specific hand, therefore completing the small blind is perfectly fine, while folding is clearly not an option.

THE FLOP

The flop play is good, but it is probably very close when compared against the other two options of donking out or checkraising. This flop hits very well against both limping and opening ranges, so unless he has a small pocket pair, he is usually catching a piece of this.  

Of the three options of check/calling, donking out, or checkraising, I like check raising the least, since there are a lot of ways that he can catch a piece of this flop, yet still be far from being committed to it. When playing with small stacks, any checkraise is putting him to an immediate commitment decision that he may not be thrilled about, such as when holding something like T8 or Q9, which he would love to see a turn card with. By letting him see the turn by donking out or check/calling, you giving him a chance to improve in a way that is much more likely to suck him in and stack him. Of course, if he is ready to commit now, then taking the lines of donking or check/calling aren't going to change his decision.

THE TURN

I like the line of choosing to lead out, because this is a spot where villain::

1) Will likely check back and pot control with good/decent hands that have been ruined, such as two pair or sets, and the potential of pocket aces, which, given the fact that his PFR is very low at 5%, makes it more likely to be in his limping range than a guy who is open raising 100% of his cutoff range.

2) Is unlikely to barrel behind on both streets unless he has now caught up with you holding a single Q, or in the rare case, beating you with exactly AJ.

3) Facing a checkraise is highly unlikely to get him to stack off in a way he wouldn't also do vs. both a turn and river bet.

Leading out in this spot is also how the good mid and high stakes players play, as this type of board texture allows them to make very effective float/bluff lines vs. other regulars*, such as if you had Kx with a backdoor flush draw and chose to turn your hand into a bluff. Since you are representing a very specific hand on this board with the implicit threat of a pot-sized river shove, he is therefore only left with two options: call or fold, but never raise.

*This would be a situation where you were defending the BB against an open raise from a regular, as it is extremely rare for them to open limp the cutoff.

THE RIVER

In my opinion, against all player types, a shove is the best play, even if there is now a reasonable chance you are beat, as the J is a very crappy card. Since you never intended to fold, and since he obviously had enough to call a potentially pot committing bet on the turn, he is either going to stack you with a boat or check behind a lot of hands he may have called with, like trip Jack's.

Furthermore, suppose he did have trip Jack's and thought it was worth a small thin value bet if you had checked to him. He would probably also make the same sized bet with a rivered full house, since the board has now gotten so bad that most players, both good and bad, should see that you have pretty much run out of hands that can reasonably call a larger bet.

The problem with this scenario is that if this situation had happened, you would be forced to only call with your one-card straight, since by checkraising you can only beat a bluff (which obviously won't call), or exactly trip Jack's. The logic, of course, is that if he were willing to bet and call a shove with trip Jack's then he certainly would have called the shove.

Well played, sir!

A Recreational Player's Perspective on Rake Changes at PokerStars

I've been spending a lot of time recently on something very...special for this blog, so I just wanted to keep everything moving along (posting) until it's ready.  Even though this wasn't at the top of my list to put here, as I have plenty of other articles basically ready for print, I realized that I had been burning up all my time with the other project, so they will be rolling out more or less on schedule.  I also plan on releasing some in depth strategy stuff as well...it's been way too long!

-Lorin

Not every fish fits the profile...

This was a notable post from a self-described recreational player, and even though he doesn't fit the profile of what we would consider to be a "fish", it was quite enlightening to see that they come in all shapes and sizes.

If you want to understand my reply in context, I suggest reading the full initial post and then the first few pages.  This is what I had to say on TwoPlusTwo:

Great read from OP. I only got to the third page, so pardon me if someone already pointed out this fact somewhere between pages 4 and 10:

I was thinking the same thing as many people here, that OP isn't really representative of the recs because he uses HEM, played 300k hands, etc., etc.

Perhaps the most important thing he pointed out was that he didn't realize how much rake he was paying to PokerStars until all this b.s. became such big news.

So in a sense, he still fits into a rec category, perhaps if nothing more than for the fact that he previously turned a blind eye to a very important factor in what determines a winning player.

However, this makes me wonder....

Does a player like this ultimately have more value than someone who loses 40bb/100? After all, the -40bb guy can dump it all in 50 hands and then everyone sits out. That means no more money for regs OR Stars. However, if a guy like this takes a seat, surely the game will run a lot longer, so now Stars gets the drop from all the regs as well, and maybe the game runs for 1,000 hands.

I mean, seriously...isn't this the ideal situation? After all, letting the fish hold on to their money longer to generate more rake is the reason the term "rigtard" exists :)

PokerStars Increases Rake in Attempt to Eliminate Concept of "Poker Pro"

The Rakeback Grinders Union (RGU) are not ones to fuck with.

This is just...sickening. In the interest of fairness and being as impartial as possible, I don't do their accounting and haven't looked at their books, so I have to ASSUME they have a good reason. Perhaps their business is tanking and they are implementing a desperate measure to stay afloat. If so, then good for them.

I had originally assumed that PokerStars targeting Pokertableratings with accusations of stealing their intellectual property (a charge no one believes, but a billion dollar company can basically "extort" smaller companies with highly paid lawyers and the threat of a long and drawn out legal battle that the defendant can't possibly afford) as a means of shielding their sponsored pros from public humiliation. Pokertableratings also had (and still has) a horrific commenting feature which only serves as graffiti wall for shame and schadenfreude motivated trolls. A friend of mine pointed out a much more plausible scenario, in which Stars didn't want the public at large to see how much rake people were paying.

The rake idea makes sense (and even more sense as of today's breaking news), yet another idea just struck me at this very moment as I was heading into a related point. Why didn't other big players in the industry, such as iPoker not use the same reasoning to go after Pokertableratings? It's all clear to me now. The obvious answer is that there is a solid base of active players who are putting up fantastic winrates at 6-max tables, often in excess of 4bb/100 over large samples. PokerStars, out of shame, don't want people to know that even most pros are putting up negative to breakeven winrates and only squeezing out a modest living by virtue of collecting bonuses. Bonuses and rakeback, lest we forget, are simply a rebate on the rake that WE, as players, pay. This means the house is still getting their cut of the action, even from the so-called "winners" who are somehow destroying the games. PokerStars' choice to extort Pokertableratings into "voluntarily" eliminating their players from searches no longer seems to be in the public's best interest, it is now bordering on simply being unethical.

In light of the new crushing rake changes, Hyper SNG's are almost certainly going to be unbeatable, as the current pool of regs seem to collectively agree that a 0% ROI is "boss". For those of you on the outside, this means that people who are playing thousands of these ridiculously high variance games are only "crushing" by reaching the highest tier of bonuses in the form of Supernova Elite status, while not making a single fucking dime at the tables. The players who move beyond "boss" status into the realm of the truly elite are earning an ROI of just 1-2%, but surely these new rake changes should drive at least the 1%ers into the breakeven range or negative, especially because many of the weaker regs will no longer be able to beat the game and depart of their own accord, leaving only stronger competition with even fewer fish to feed them. Oh yeah, there will be plenty of clingers who spend a few more months battling it out before being bled dry and broke from the rake. But hey, those guys are just ruining the games, right? Good riddance!!

Well played, PokerStars. With Amaya's purchase of Rational Group, the company that owns Stars and FTP, I am thinking that a name change is now in order, since there won't be any stars anymore. How about something like "PokerMoon" or "PokerClouds"? The idea of reaching for the stars is now no more than just false advertising.

The Truth About The Next Poker Boom

Remember when poker was this fun? Didn't think so...
you weren't old enough to gamble or have died of old age.

Sorry folks, but it ain't gonna happen. There are simply too many hurdles to overcome, but the most important one of all is the one that is probably the most difficult to measure scientifically: Americans just don't really give a shit anymore.

Those longing for a new Boom have either forgotten or never knew what the driving forces behind it were. Texas Holdem was a new cultural phenomenon.  Watching people play televised for hundreds of thousands of dollars in huge dramatic pots was exciting, and after rank amateur Chris Moneymaker parlayed a tiny satellite win into $2.5 million in the world's most prestigious poker tournament, it was poised as the latest and greatest get-rich-quick opportunity.

If the Boom were measured simply in terms of traffic and interest, the dollars generated by the industry would be scoffed at by today's standards. What made this time so magical was just how bad everyone played. I clearly remember the days when I was the only person sitting at a full ring $2/4 limit Hold'em table who knew it was possible to check raise. I also have the fond memory of reading a comment in one of the chat boxes back then saying, "this is a pretty good table- except for the PFR." It was explained to me that "PFR" meant "preflop raise", implying that my refusal to open limp was ruining an otherwise good game. It just now occurred to me that if the game was good *except for my raising, what exactly made for a better game?  An average of 8 players open limping instead of 6? Nowadays, your average competent player in a free pub tournament could have probably made a solid living during that tiny 2-3 year window.

More importantly, poker was fucking cool. In the early days, we had something to aspire to. Riches, fame, and perhaps even a ranking among the world's sexiest men, as was bestowed upon the somewhat-better-than-average -looking Gus "The Great Dane" Hansen, whose two early televised WPT titles apparently shrunk down his oversized ears and added about 4 inches of length and 2 inches of girth to his penis. We had out-sized personalities that made it fun for people to watch, even if those people had no idea what a kicker was.

We believed the fairy tales of the old poker road gamblers who spun great yarns of cheaters, robbers, and murderers in their autobiographies. They conducted themselves honorably- they never cheated anyone and always repaid their debts. That didn't even matter, though, as Rounders proved that even a slick and talented poker cheat pushing forward all his chips with pocket kings just to keep from having his legs broken was better than driving Joey Knish's delivery truck for an honest day's pay.

Yep, poker was cool...until we realized that it wasn't.

The Great Dane now holds the Great Debt, having the dubious distinction of being the first player on record to have documented losses that have crossed the $20 million mark, although to be fair, he still looks damn good in those jeans. Danny Robison, a longtime friend and gambling partner of the late Chip Reese, who was widely regarded as the world's best all around player, excitedly told postmortem tales of their past travails on the TwoPlusTwo podcast and made a passing comment on how they used to cheat. One of the podcasters said, "wait, you said you guys used to cheat?" Robison, seemingly blissfully unaware of how badly he was tarnishing the legacy of his dearly departed friend, said "yeah, we all used to back then!"

Though we haven't been able to connect any well known legend to a violent crime (as of this writing), we have since been struck with disillusionment on a worldwide scale on Black Friday, when a murderer's row of WSOP bracelet holders that included a gangly Main Event Champion bearing the reverent nickname of a religious figure bestowed us with a miracle of white collar crime of such magnitude that even Jesus himself couldn't undo.

One could probably fill an entire Bible just giving the Cliff's Notes to all the scandals that have happened before and since the Full Tilt Saga. America's confidence in the industry is never going to return to the days of the Neteller debit card cashouts, and even if we could be convinced of such, the notions of poker glory have faded as surely as that white line in the center of the road that the old timers speak of so fondly. Poker has been hijacked from American mythology by the pencil pushing geeks who found a way to make a living from subterranean dwellings who dare not step outside, lest their pasty skin get scorched on contact from a sun they haven't seen in the past three days.

Hyperbole aside, if you were hoping that American legalization of poker was going to rekindle the dying light of your poker career overseas, you are guilty of possessing an optimism so perverse as to be a delusion. A simple glance at PokerScout.com of the abysmal traffic of the current legalized sites is just all you need to see. Barring a spray tanned guido invasion on the Jersey shore by meatheads with more money than muscle mass, the only thing that has the potential change any of this for the better is if California decides to jump into the sausage fest. Even so, what are the chances that they will offer to share their liquidity with the rest of the nation, let alone give a piece of that pie to the rest of the world, which, given the current state of affairs, has nothing of value to give in return? California may be the largest blue state in the union and home to millions of illegal immigrants, but I would bet my life that there isn't a politician in that state interested in providing welfare for poker players overseas.

American online poker is fucked, so don't hold your breath. Learn to play the Spin & Goes or try the good old Work 4 Pay. Those are your two options, sad as it may sound.

Should Teachers Make as Much as Doctors?

"You really think you are worth as much as me? How about I just let you sit in your own piss for the next 48 hours?"

I probably could have ignored this stupidity had I heard it only once, but I must have heard it at least two more times since then.  Although I had originally set out to make this a poker/memoir/comedy blog, my interest in politics, gender, and inequality issues has taken over my thought processes and what I would like to blog about, but I like to look at these issues with the groomed mind of a poker veteran.

Perhaps the only issue to get unanimous support across the political spectrum in America is that teachers should be paid more.  I do not disagree with this and have never met anyone arguing to the contrary.  But how much?  Is a doctor's pay suitable?  There is absolutely no need to touch on the subject of whether or not they job they perform is just as valuable to society, because I can shoot down this horrifically idiotic statement instantly.

If teachers were making as much as doctors, they would be making more, in fact, much more than doctors!  In the US, you can teach as high as high school with an undergraduate degree and you can teach college with a master's degree.  However, in order to become a doctor, you need 8 years of education...and the financial cost of that education far exceeds that of a simple undergraduate degree.  This means that they are paying off much larger education loans and have fewer productive years of employment.  Therefore, even if the base rate of pay were equal, paying off that debt alone is a cost that is effectively reducing one's pay.  The teacher is also now getting a 2-4 year head start making money.

Next we have the issue of hours worked: doctors work significantly more hours than teachers and often put in time on weekends.  US teachers get the summers off due to a now archaic reason that simply no longer applies to the modern world.  This was because students used to get the summers off from school so they could help their families with the intensive farm work during the warm summer months.

In a nutshell, in the hypothetical scenario (which is never going to happen, nor should it) that teachers made the same money as doctors, we would need at least this much from them:

1) A PhD, or some level of equivalent education.
2) Longer hours, specifically in the form of research or devoting services to special needs students.
3) An ongoing certification program required to keep a "teaching license."
4) Zero ability to get tenure, as there is no such thing as a doctor who can't get fired, particularly with regards to malpractice.

Guy Asks: "How Can I Get Invites to Medium Stakes Cash Games in San Francisco?"

"Empty your pockets here and get some chips from the back."

That's kind of a double edged sword if you ask me :) Since you said medium stakes, it is safe to assume that the money involved  might matter a lot to some of players, so winning in these games is important to them. Therefore, if guys are begging you to join a game like this, they definitely view you as easy money.If you *aren't* easy money, exercise caution. You could be the victim of a cheating setup/collusion ring. One other thing I found out personally from playing with strangers in a new game is that you could still come under heat even if no one involved has any malicious intent. I played in a $1/2 game with a bunch of super deep stacked fellows who also happened to mostly be drug dealers. Easygoing and pot only, but lawbreakers nonetheless. Later on, after my friend and I left, there was a problem with the chip count and it came up short. Who gets the blame? The new guys, of course. Luckily the friend who brought us talked the guy down and turns out his stoner brain simply miscounted.Bottom line: you should never play in cash games with people you don't know. Maybe a .50/1 game is ok, but the dangers quickly escalate in direct correlation with the stakes involved.

The Lottery as a Voting Strategy?

Drop in your ballot, get a fortune cookie!

The Los Angeles Ethics Commission have proposed a lottery to increase the incredibly low voter turnout for municipal elections in Los Angeles, California. It's hard to imagine that L.A. officials could really view the lack of voting turnout as a "crisis". From a strategic political view, this is anything but... politicians, even when not being completely cynical, only care about bringing out new voters who would support their cause.  I don't consider myself cynical in this regard either, as I can't see any benefit to bringing in people who are are destined to vote against you. That being said, I believe the following article describes the sort of strategy that I would consider to be a rather under-handed (translation: scummy) tactic to bring out the kinds of voters who would elect those in favor of....legalized online poker/gambling. Just think about it for a second: if a lottery with poor odds of winning a rather paltry sum of a proposed $100,000 prize is supposed to be enough motivation to get losers with no interest in the democratic process off their broke asses and out to the polls, wouldn't it make sense to plaster the poor neighborhoods with posters saying something to the tune of 

Stand up for your right to use your money the way you see fit. Online gaming for real money is a victim-less crime. Vote Rich Chance for Mayor on November 15th at the polls.

If you really want to see some eye-opening political strategy in practice, I strongly suggest reading the excellent book Gaming the Vote by William Poundstone.  If politics isn't your thing, check out one of his works that is sure to interest you, Fortune's Formula, which details the origins of blackjack card-counting, the Federal Wire Act, and the Kelly Criterion. 

Quick Recap: Dan Colman's Placing in the Big One For One Drop Doesn't Matter

Please contain your excitement for never having to work again.

Obviously, it's old news about Colman's decision not to speak to the media or promote poker after binking the One Drop for $15 million, but I'm not going to rehash my opinion on such since it has already been echoed by many people before. I just want to address the idea of Colman as the so-called "petulant child" as labelled by the Las Vegas Sun immediately afterwards (translation: spoiled brat).

The fact is that whether you agree with or support his comments after winning it, he is the only one who could say that and hope to have it taken seriously- the winner of the tournament, that is.

Picture him coming in any place below fourth. What those guys have to say doesn't make the press. Quite frankly, no one gives a shit what they think because they weren't even close.

Placing Third: angry for not winning and striking out not due to being petulant, but just sore for not winning.

Runner-up: Read above except multiply that impression by a factor of 10.

Full Tilt Player Rakes $1 Billion Play Chip Pot

This bill and my sociology degree is just enough to buy you a cup of coffee at White Castle.

This has to be one of the cutest poker posts I had read in a very, very long time. It's not even the fact that these guys were wagering with $1 billion worth of play money with a "street value" of $2,000--it's the fact this this landmark play money pot was won with a king high flush....in Omaha. Given that the relative hold'em value of this hand is somewhere between top pair/top kicker and top and bottom pair, it really begs the question: WTF did the other guy have??? I suppose I could do a little searching and find out that he had something like top set with a redraw, but I find it much more satisfying to imagine that he was drawing to the jack high flush :)

-Lorin

On Tuesday, July 22, the first ever $1 billion play money chip pot was raked in by a player on Full Tilt Poker.

The 10-figure “for fun” payday occurred at a six max table in a 6-Card Omaha game.Although Rational Group poker sites Full Tilt and PokerStars award 1,000 play chip reloads on demand without any charge, the two sites also allow players to purchase the play chips using real money.

Cash purchase packages on Full Tilt begin at 200,000 chips for $1.99, with 100 million chips being the largest option currently available for a price of $199.99.

Based on these shop prices Full Tilt player 1shini1 earned the equivalent of approximately $2,000 real US dollars when he showed down his winning hand of a King-high Flush for 1,006,260,000 in play money.

Originally published on Pokerfuse.com

Jungleman12 vs. PokerSnowie Heads Up Challenge

The opportunity cost of making this short video is measured in the $1,000's.

I just saw this video on Pokerfuse.com and got really excited. My friend Bob seems to work this program into every conversation we have had the past four days, and even though my free trial bombed out several times a few months ago and caused me to move my attention elsewhere, I'm eager to try it again. Although I'm still unclear (although perhaps by reading the documentation I will understand more fully) how game theory optimal [GTO] ranges have been derived for a variety of different cash game formats, this new challenge that PokerSnowie is promoting shows an unprecedented amount of confidence in their program, which in my opinion is probably a -EV decision, but impressive nonetheless. 

As a quick aside, to show why I think this is -EV, a similar semi-public issue came up over a year ago in which a transcript of a chat box conversation between Daniel Negreanu and Matt Marafioti surfaced in which an obviously tilted or drunk Marafioti challenged Negreanu to a heads up $200/$400 match.  Rather than take the challenge, Negreanu just decided to needle him by saying stuff like "lol, you so baller!".  At the time i thought that Negreanu was just chickening out, but a day later I realized that this was a wise move on his part since the money he stood to gain was insignificant, but yet he would face an abundance of scrutiny for his decisions and face an undue amount of criticism for losing, which makes no sense because even if he had a 70/30 advantage on Marafioti (not possible IMO) he is still losing his fair share. The end result is that Marafioti was on a total freeroll- the masses expect him to lose so it's quickly forgotten, winning means an excess of unwarranted media attention.

"Take your best shot, Negreanu...you have everything to lose."

A Problem with Navy Yard Conspiracy Theories

After reading this article on Wired.com, I came to a realization that I am really surprised to not have seen written before. The usual fodder is present, and even though it certainly is plausible that the powers that be could be manipulating this event as a "false flag" to implement something like strict gun control, one thing is for sure: the shooter was NOT under mind control. Rahm Emmanuel made the famous public statement "never let a tragedy go to waste", no matter the event, it would be the optimal political strategy.

Again, I have no idea what technologies exist to accomplish this, let alone what could possibly be under development, but if the powers that be wanted to take this route, we would see many of these..a lot more. Maybe they would be strategically spaced apart so as not to attract too much attention, but there would never be events spaced 6 months apart or more. This isn't Sandy Hook, which will easily be recalled even a decade from now (reference Columbine shootings). Sure this happened at a navy base, but the random targets weren't children and the body count was low. I'm pretty sure that no one remembers the name of the Fort Hood shooter and most people have probably forgotten it altogether.

A Really Impressive Hand

A Kevmath tweet of the Bad Beat Jackpot hand at Mohegan Sun.  Drink it in, you probably will never see this again as long as you live....

Hold Me Closer Tiny Donker: A Ridiculous Yet Common Spot

 

Note:  The above hand was submitted from a student playing NL50 CAP.  It was altered slightly to make the donk bets tinier in order to fully illustrate the point.  The advice for this hand is geared to small stakes guys who may have a tendency to over-analyze certain hands. This hand is not really unusual and will probably seem shockingly mundane to a lot of people, but it is a great example of choosing whether or not to accept negative implied odds.

Advice:

Unless playing mid-high stakes where a certain amount of deception is necessary, I have found it to be a rather poor idea to float the flop with this kind of hand. It is NOT because it isn't profitable and it's not because you have a fear of him drawing out on you. Rather, it is combination of these factors:

1) Your hand isn't likely to improve, so for all intents and purposes we need to analyze it with consideration to the fact that it won't improve.

2) His hand is probably weak, but on future streets, he isn't likely to put in much money as a bluff (or else he would be doing so now), in addition to the fact that he will probably keep betting small unless he improves, as he did in the scenario.  His tiny donk bet is a foreshadowing of what we can expect from him in the future.

I would prefer to play the hand strong because of the fact that under the circumstances of the read, your hand has negative implied odds because when you are good, playing it this way will win the minimum, but when he catches it can be extremely difficult to figure out what he did or did not hit and you will be forced to pay a larger bet.

On this board, I would narrow his range down to:

1) Pure bluffs
2) Gut shot or open-ended straight draw
3) Any pair as well as Kx all the way up to KQ
4) Rarely better than a pair

As you can see, if he is only going to make tiny bluffs and/or value bets, we don't gain value by letting him bluff, so we don't care if he goes away right now. Same thing with his draws. He will bet tiny on the come and then probably just a tiny bluff if he misses, but then pot it when he hits, but unfortunately, enough strange things can happen that you will be (or at least feel) obligated to call a lot of river bets that you wish you didn't have to.

The same thing happens when he has any pair. The action will go tiny bet, tiny bet, then right up your sweet ass when he improves.

So what do we do? We are left with two options: shove or make a large overbet, like 5bb with the intention of shoving any turn, except perhaps a K. This will get max value from all his top pairs as well as his draws, with the occasional call from a real crappy pair.  In sum, this is a hand that can not be overplayed, and underplaying it is the only alternative.

Jumps in Logic: A Rare Glimpse Into the Mind of the Shepherd

Not all doctors are incompetent...

Maybe it’s not fair to label this as being “conspiracy minded”, but the subject in question is a member of that camp’s philosophy. I also should point out now that since my viewpoints so far has the seemed to be in complete opposition to Alex Jones that I am not in any way saying that these things are not occurring, as I do understand that I have no knowledge of what my neighbors are doing behind closed doors, let alone what happens in top-secret on the national stage. I guess that part of my problem with this is the conspiracy camp’s extremely condescending label of “sheep” for those people who are apparently “asleep” or “kowtowing to authority” or “locked into the system ”. Perhaps I just get a little bit of joy from picking apart their logical fallacies, as you shall see in this mind-boggling conundrum of logic that isn’t exactly what you could label as “conspiracy”, but it is certainly plucked from the same point of view as those expressed daily at Prison Planet.

With regards to what I’m going to say about wheat, I’m not contesting that. In fact, from the little bit that I’ve heard and all the hullabaloo surrounding gluten, I’m actually giving this the benefit of the doubt and it is not what this blog post is concerned with.

A friend of mine recently visited his doctor for a routine checkup and I believe was discussing his recent weight loss and had mentioned how reducing/eliminating wheat from his diet was credited as being the cause. He then told me how he expected his doctor to disagree with him and was surprised that the doctor agreed.

Did you spot the problem with that? While those two sentences make perfect sense grammatically and probably wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow if scanned over quickly, that is a confounding flip-flop in logic.

Let’s decode:

A layman is expressing hereto unknown medical knowledge to a medical professional with the expectation that said medical professional is either too stupid to understand it or is too indoctrinated into “the system” to comprehend it without dismissing or ridiculing it. This is only the first layer.

The second layer applies to the expectations of the layman, who said “I was surprised that he agreed with me.” Why should anyone be surprised that someone who has a minimum of 8 years of rigorous study just to get a PhD have the knowledge that a layman can get from a Google search? Admittedly, a layman does have a certain open-mindedness when peering into fields in which he has little to no knowledge, but that sort of open-mindedness is of the brand that gets you duped and conned. Any professional or semi professional poker player can attest to this, as they bear witness daily to what happens when outsiders stumble into their domain.

The part that is unclear is whether or not my friend was impressed with himself or the doctor, in which case neither scenario makes much sense. If he had to convince the doctor that his relative inexperience somehow trumped the doctor’s pseudo-scientific worldview, then by default, doctors aren’t nearly as stupid as they are believed to be by conspiracy enthusiasts. On the other hand, if he was happy that the doctor somehow validated his Internet knowledge, then by default, doctors actually aren’t so stupid or hopelessly entrenched in the system after all and you should vaccinate your children without fear of autism.

Letter to a Friend: The Sad State of Limit Hold'Em Circa 2013

Hieronymus Bosch's eerily prophetic "9 Levels of the Limit Hold'Em Abyss" (1539) 

A few days ago, a friend of mine asked me my opinion about whether or not it was a good idea to start adding some Limit Hold’em into his table load. He said that he was assuming it wasn’t much different from short stack poker and he figured that he could also get a 2bb/100 winrate.

He’s a sharp guy, so I have no idea how he came to these conclusions, but since I felt that it deserved a lengthy answer, I figured it would be best to share what I have to say, since apparently the answer wasn’t as obvious as I had previously thought.

A little background information:

Looking back on the game of Limit Hold’Em brings back some fond memories as well as some cringe worthy moments. It was where I first started my “career” (if you could even call it that back then). Like many people starting out, I thought that being a professional poker player was “cool” and that I would ride up the limits like a white Phil Ivey and be autographing my own version of Play Poker Like the Pros at Borders. Obviously, Phil Ivey is black, Phil Hellmuth’s ghost writer doesn’t know shit about poker, and Borders, much like limit hold ‘em, only exists in most people’s memories.

So, back to the question.  A few years back, I had a stellar rakeback deal on the Cake Network and since there wasn’t a whole lot on offer at the NLH stakes that I preferred playing, I figured I would take a shot at those “soft” limit tables and rock it out for that juicy 2bb/100 winrate. It took me about 2 days to wake up to the fact that I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. It seemed like every raise was getting 3-bet by both reg and fish and that as much as I tried to fight back, I still ended up getting my ass kicked at showdown. On the offensive end, I couldn’t push a guy off bottom pair, which might sound like a good thing to people accustomed to getting value in a game like NLH, but when coupled with the first statement, I was getting the worst of both worlds.

As most long term players can tell you, the fish will tend to mimic the regs both in open raise size and 3-bet tendencies. This doesn’t tend to be a good thing. Why not? As the game matured, the aggression employed by regulars has been ratcheted up in all games. The end result was that getting a cheap shot to hit our draws and then getting rewarded handsomely for doing so (how all of us “pros” made our money) no longer was a viable source of profit. All of a sudden, our attempts to isolate were thwarted and we found ourselves being the victims of said isolation plays.

In our efforts to beat fish, we still need to have the ability to play flops with them where they can be complicit to our will and bend over and take it as we command them to. In NLH, we still have the ability to punish such unruly behavior (albeit much less so in 2013 than in 2004), but unfortunately, in LHE this is no longer the case.

The horror story does not end there. A recent ongoing discussion has shed a lot of light on the profit killing rake in small stakes NLH games, but muffled are the screams of the souls crying out from LHE rake purgatory. They get hit the hardest, but quite frankly, since so few players play these games, nobody really gives a shit so they must carry on and suffer in silence.

The last, and perhaps worst, problem comes from the fact that since these games are the closest to being “solved”, the strategic champions of yesterday who failed to understand the nuances of game theory inevitably got pushed down into the lower limits. Now not only do you need to try and rip the stale money from the fish’s’ gills after it has been filtered through the dirty fingertips of the Mob, you also have to dodge the spears of the Spartans just to squeeze out your 000.1bb/100 winrate after rakeback. Good luck to you, fine sir!

Proof That Online Poker is Rigged!

Below is an old post from the Great Bill Rini but I have to smile every time that I think about it :)

One can hardly read any poker forum without running across individuals claiming that this or that site is rigged. Usually they are humiliated with the forum “experts” rudely telling them that the reason they’re losing is because they aren’t good poker players. I’m sad to say that I used to be one of those “experts.” I was one of the doubters until I actually caught one site cheating.

If you view the image below it looks like a normal hand being played (certain information has been dedacted to protect the innocent).

Normal Table

It looks normal unless you really examine the photo. Using some highly classified vector digital imaging software from the CIA I picked up on eBay for $50, I caught the dealer dealing off the bottom of the deck. I was as shocked as anyone but it all made sense once I thought about it. Notice in the picture above how they put that little box in front of the players sitting to the right and left of the dealer so as to obstruct their view. Players sitting that close would normally catch a dishonest dealer but “conveniently” the software blocks their view. Coincidence? Hardly!

Dealing from the bottom of the deck!

But that wasn’t the only cheating I caught. Notice the player to the right of the dealer in Seat 1. Notice anything out of place? Neither did I at first. But again, I used my imaging software to get a close up and guess what I see?

Cards up the sleeve

He’s got a card hidden up his sleeve! I guess it should have been obvious after his fourth pocket aces in a row.

Conclusion:  Online Poker is Rigged!

So now I have proof that online poker is rigged and if anybody tries to tell you differently, they’re in on it! If you feel you’ve been cheated then you may want to check out a tool developed by Bill’s Poker Blog called the RT Hand History Analyzer for Rigged Poker Games. It can tell you if there are any statistical abnormalities with any of the hands you feed it. Really a great tool to help you gather evidence about online poker being rigged.

Score a Point For the Paranoid: Protecting Yourself From NSA Snooping

Even a broken watch is right twice a day as was confirmed in last week's not-so-surprising reveal that major internet companies have been compliant with providing the NSA access to our private emails, file transfers, photos, videos, and chats via a program called "PRISM".  Here is Slate's breakdown of how the average law-abiding citizen can dodge the All Seeing Eyes of government spooks:

If you have followed the startling revelations about the scope of the U.S. government’s surveillance efforts in recent days, you may have thought you were reading about the end of privacy. But even when faced with the most ubiquitous of modern surveillance, there are ways to keep your communications away from prying eyes.

On Thursday, the Washington Post and the Guardian revealed a top-secret National Security Agency program called PRISM, which reportedly involves mining private data from the servers of companies including Google, Microsoft, Facebook, AOL, and Yahoo. The tech giants have denied participating in the program—but according to a leaked set of NSA slides, PRISM involves the monitoring of emails, file transfers, photos, videos, chats, and even live surveillance of search terms. Separate disclosures have revealed that the NSA is scooping up millions of phone records from at least three major phone networks in the United States, using the data as part of program the White House says is aimed at finding terrorists.

Read full article on Slate.com

Bilderbergers "Unjustly" Prepare Terrorist Alert at Annual Conference

Do you really want this guy spewing apocalyptic Bible verses on your front lawn?

The annual Bilderberg Conference is said to be a gathering of the most powerful people on earth that includes various heads of state both foreign and domestic, influential media personalities and high profile CEOs from billion-dollar companies such as Google.  Since there is a lot of secrecy surrounding this event including the location of the hotel where it is held, I would say that there is a good reason to feel at least somewhat wary of the motives of this elite group. I've also read (though admittedly will never bother to confirm) that American heads of state are forbidden by law to meet with foreign heads of state in secret. To his credit, Alex Jones has gone to great lengths to uncover the locations of the conference and bring national media attention to this event, as well as spearheading an organized protest outside the hotel where the event is held with his trademark megaphone in hand, blaring an impressive diatribe denouncing the evils of the New World Order.

As can be expected, he keeps his readers informed of all things Bilderberger via his two websites. The annual meeting of the Bilderberg Club is the Prison Planet equivalent of Christmas season and brings with it all sorts of news and non-news in a constantly updating feed of orgiastic paranoia. This year is different, however, and bears some actual news that is worth noting. Apparently, the Bilderbergers have gone the extra mile of putting their high-level security team on terrorist alert. With their ever vigilant itchy twitter fingers in full tilt mode, the Jonesians are in an uproar concerning this new development and feel that it is unjustly applied.

But is it really? I can certainly understand the anger at being lumped into what the US government would consider to be the ultimate enemies of the state. In my opinion, this is a perfectly reasonable and necessary precaution. The second claim by the Jonesians is that this should not be done since no specific threat has been made, to which I say, "do the specifics really matter?" Even if Alex Jones is right about everything he says, the Bilderbergers have every reason to potentially fear for their lives. From what I understand, these protests have been peaceful in the past, but that doesn’t negate the fact that many in the ranks of the conspiracy crowd are strong supporters of gun rights and can boast of the most impressive mental illness to health ratio of any group on earth found outside the perimeter of a psychiatric hospital.

A not insignificant number within their ranks believe that the Bilderbergers are not only untrustworthy on the political level, but rather, that they are agents of the Antichrist. Even stranger, the fringe of the group even believe they are a race of shape shifting reptilians who have traveled all the way from planet Nibiru to enslave humankind from the 4^th dimension, well outside of humanity’s reach of retaliation. So I ask: are these really the sorts of people you want picketing outside your event? If you were to ask me, the idea of people gathering in protest outside of my home in the belief that I’m hell-bent on the destruction of modern society would be positively terrifying, especially coupled with the fact that Alex Jones followers believe that it is perfectly logical to tote deadly weapons in public as some sort of “peaceful” protest against those they believe are out to permanently strip away their right to bear arms. The fact that these people are acting within their Constitutional rights would give me no comfort. Given the daily mishmash of Bible quotes in response to every news “event” on the Prison Planet website, it isn’t hard to picture a bold psycho who dropped his meds on the car floor on the way to Conspirapalooza attempting to fulfill biblical prophecy which says that the Antichrist will die of a lethal head wound. Sniper rifle, anyone?

How about this g- nevermind, that's just fucking cool...

The Bluff Catch Insta-Snap Off: A Universally Poor Strategy

Occasionally we find ourselves in the position of where we fully intend to hero call when OOP on the river with a weak hand in what appears to be a tough spot. Especially when facing off against regs, it can be almost irresistible to snap call as a glorious way of saying "fuck you, I just owned you pal!".

I know that I have done it, and anyone who has ever played a significant amount of volume has done the same thing. But is this really a good idea? It might give a quick hit of heroin to your ego, but it's a really poor idea. It's almost so simple that it needs no explanation, but I am going to give it anyway:

If you alert this player to the fact that you can not only read the board really well, have the guts to make and "easy" hero call in a really scary spot, and that you can predict his tendencies, then you are only going to make him play better. After all, don't you want him to try this again in the future? I'm not saying that you should do this in what I would consider to be average spots like pot controlling a pretty good hand when a flush hits, but you should definitely let the clock tick down a bit before making the call. Not that you should dramatize it every time, but I would recommend letting it tick down in proportion to how difficult the call is to make.

So for instance, if you plan on calling with ace high on a wet board, let the timer run all the way down. As a side benefit, you can expect that given a similar situation, your opponent should be at least somewhat emboldened to try the same play with the different that size, being that he "almost" got you the last time.

5 Tips for Self Marketing for Poker Sponsorship

By Stevie Clapton


Most that take their Poker playing very seriously one day aspire to be offered asponsorship. Players that receive sponsorships are actually paid to play poker, and are not required to rely upon their earnings in order to continue playing at a high level. Unfortunately, what most do not realize is that good play alone will not get you a sponsorship. You have to effectively market yourself to the sponsors and prove to them that an investment in you will provide them enough visibility to give them a positive return. No sponsor is going to continue to sponsor a player when it is not profitable for them or their business. This is usually why you see the "personalities" within the poker scene receiving the most lucrative sponsorships. They may not always be the "best" players in the world, but they draw viewers to the sport, which is in the favor of those that hold events, and therefore in the favor of the company that is providing the sponsorship. They will certainly forego the better player for a player that will give them a better return on their investment.

Increase Your Skill

Having a personality might help, but there is nothing better for your chances at receiving a sponsorship than just being downright good at the game. Make sure that you are constantly studying, and playing the game enough in your spare time to where playing well just becomes second nature. You know what you need to do with each and every hand. Try to keep a daily practice schedule to the best of your ability.

Participate In the Community

Participate in the community wherever you can. Go to events. Go to conventions. Try to play in private games with other experienced or semiprofessional players. Take part in all of the major forums and discussion boards about the game. Do anything and everything that you possibly can to get your name out there, and recognized by as many people within the industry as you possibly can.

Join Tournaments with Visibility

Is there an upcoming tournament that is going to be receiving coverage from a number of prominent media sources? These provide you with a perfect opportunity to begin making a name for yourself and marketing yourself for the purpose of securing a sponsorship. Get some wins under your belt. Get your name mentioned in a few newspapers, magazines, and websites. Look at it as building a career portfolio, and it is the only thing that most companies are going to have to judge you on.

Meet Those in Positions to Make It Happen

Did you hear about a new company that is looking to sponsor a player at around your skill level? Is there someone in the industry who might be able to connect you to potential sponsorship opportunities? Remember, no one is going to give you a sponsorship just because they like you, but it certainly does help to know people in positions that can help you to achieve sponsorship. Sometimes, the companies know nothing more than that poker provides them an opportunity to profit, and choose their sponsorships with a consultant in the industry.

Become an Expert

Do you feel like you know everything there is to know about poker? Using your knowledge of the game to promote yourself as a player can be an excellent way to attract attention to your career. Start a website and offer hints or industry incite. Publish a free downloadable eBook, that details the basics of becoming a
solid poker player. Write guest blogs for prominent poker blogs, and link to your own profiles or website as a way to build a following. Receiving a sponsorship can be difficult. It requires a personality that draws viewers, results that keep your relevant, and a marketing plan to get your noticed. But with a little due diligence, you can quickly become recognized as a top up and coming poker player, worthy of his first sponsorship.

Author Bio: Stevie Clapton is a part of BingoSites.com who provide poker articles and reviews.