Alternative Line #2: The Mega-Raise Pot Shove

Unlike the previous example, this one does not actually need to be AK per se, but rather any medium-strong hand with showdown value. Here is the criteria needed:

1. You are in one of the blind positions.
2. You have a medium strong hand that doesn't play particularly well post-flop out of position, preferably in this order:
AK, AQ, AJ, 99, ATs, 88, KQs, KQo, ATo, KJs
3. You have no more than two limpers in the pot and first limper must be very loose, with a VPIP of 30% or higher. The higher the VPIP, the looser on the above scale you can go.
4. You raise to approximately 1/3 of the effective smaller stack.
5. You shove all in on any flop when called.

The theory: You do this because the alternatives are to limp (which clearly sucks and will never show any real profit), make a normal raise, or move all in. Making a standard raise makes your stack size really awkward for post-flop betting and makes these hands very difficult to play since you will miss the flop about 2/3 of the time. Moving all in is a fine, though sub-optimal play. Even a fish realizes that he needs a showdown value hand to call a bet this size and it will scare away his business virtually every time.

So let's be straight here from the get-go: usually when you attempt this play, your opponent will fold. In that regard, it is no different than shoving over a raise with your premium hands. You don't expect to get called with those hands in every instance, though you are happy when you do. When he does call, take a look at what happens in the example above. By raising one third of the effective stack, you are facing your opponent with a pot-size bet on the flop and offering him odds of 2:1 to call. In other words, you are putting him in the position of making the largest mistake.

Surely, for a bet this size on the flop, your opponents will only be calling when you are beat, right? Wrong. Here is a list of common calls you will see in this spot:


1. Top pair or better
2. Any pair
3. All draws including gut shots
4. Overcards
5. Naked aces

In a nut shell, very few good hands and a whole lot of complete shit. Once again, this play in not done for any kind of deceptive purposes, but rather is a strong psychological lure for weak-minded opponents and gamblers. By targeting exclusively loose opponents who have pretty much already told you explicitly that their hand was not good enough to raise but they wanted to see a flop anyway, you are seducing them into making a bad play.

Of course, when you flop a relatively strong hand, you should either bet very small or check. Typical opponents who are bad enough to call a raise this large in the first place are primed to make a hopeless bluff at such a large pot. By relatively, I mean relative the the board and your opponents likely calling range. A hand like AK on an A-2-2 board is extremely strong and even weak opponents are not likely to stack away with QJs in this spot (though they sometimes will!), but of course he is not getting helped by any free cards, so give him a chance to piss his money away.

Why does this play work? Perhaps it is best not to ask such questions. Never in my career have I been bad enough to get lured by such an obvious ploy, so I can't even begin to imagine what is going through the mind of someone who does. Admittedly, this play was not created by myself, but rather snatched from the hands of a short stacker who is much better than me. When reviewing his hand histories, I was astonished by the horrible calls his opponents were making, including a K7 on an A-A-5 board when he was holding KQ! I began making this play indiscriminately only to soon find that it was never working when I wanted it to, and "working" when I didn't want it to. It has only been recently that I have found it to work astonishingly well against very loose opponents. Against typical opponents or unknowns, you are better off either limping or moving all in with these types of hands.

Who Are You, RIGHT NOW?

I am a regular listener to the 2+2 Pokercast with Mike and Adam. In my opinion, it is simply the most entertaining and thoughtful one running, with the most talented radio personalities. In their last one, they were reviewing a recent SCOOP event where former WSOP Champion Greg Raymer was complaining about his luck when he lost deep in an event to Christian Schlager when his quads lost to bigger quads in a game of PLO. He had mentioned that this did not surprise him as he had been running very bad lately. Schlager, ever the one to speak his mind in an apparently frank and obscene way had quipped that anyone who has won the World Series of Poker Main Event loses all rights to ever complain about running bad, ever again.

Is this true? Personally, I disagree with Mr. Schlager.

After all, Vanilla Ice had sold 11 million copies of his debut album, To the Extreme. Even still, I don't see anyone lining up to trade places with him. In fact, I would bet my entire bankroll that anyone reading this wouldn't even cross the street to piss on him if his head was on fire. So where is he now? Does anyone know? Do they even care?!

You see, Joe Hachem was fortunate enough to win the WPT championship the year after he claimed the title at the WSOP. In his own words, he felt like he was floating, that this was even better than his accomplishment the year before even though he had won less than a third of that this time around. It was instant validation, and everyone knew it. Raymer, on the other hand, has pursued a career in poker and has since had no titles to show for it and in a sense has gone the route of Chris Moneymaker. I certainly respect Raymer for his accomplishments and all that he has since done for the game of poker in America with his work for Poker Players' Alliance, but I can sympathize with him as well.

Look back on your own life. Should everything be OK just because you starred in your 5th grade play? Is life simply wonderful because you threw the touchdown pass in your homecoming football game? Will you die happy because you married the prom queen?

All jokes aside, this is a lesson that Platonic would be wise to learn. No ones cares if he was once a baller at the small stakes at William Hill. Today he is just another broke grinder begging for a stake. You are only as good as your last session and the relative size of your bankroll. Nothing else matters. Who are you today, in this very moment?

Beer Goggles and the Myth of Pot Odds

This is a couple of stories from my own personal experience. The poker hand happened just a few days ago. Afterward, while analyzing the hand, I had a sense of Deja VU. I put both stories side by side to show the similarities. I think we have all been at both of these places.

Dancing In the Rain

Well, here is my first Blog entry. I really planned on it being something funny, considering the intro the Lorin gave me. But I have been drinking all night after running a Promo at my Bar and I got home at 4 in the morning and called Lorin to check on him. After a 45 minute conversation, I realised that there was something I should touch on, and that is weathering the storm....

Every player....and I mean EVERY player will have downswings......some so severe that they question how you play this game and even if you WANT to play this game ever again. That is the cruel bitch that we have married ourselves to. Deal with it. Lorin, our own "Short Stack Hero" is worried that he is only on pace to make $4,000 this month. He is pissed, he is angry and he is worried. All I can say is ..

"ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS???!!!"


A $4,000 win in a month at $1-$2 is a dream for most players not named "Durrrr" It is only cataclysmic for Lorin because of his own escalating results over the last several months. Well let me be the Buzzkill and break the illusion. NOBODY WILL EVER BEAT THERE OWN FOR RESULTS FOREVER. PERIOD. All streaks are made to be broken and all streaks come to an end.....that is why they are called "streaks".


This game, and Life in general for that matter, is made up of swings. Call them standard deviations from the norm, call them luck, call them whatever. But they are what they are. Part of being a PRO is dealing with this. It will be rarer for you to run a month with no deviation than it will for you to run a month with deviations from either the positive or the negative.

The thing that separates those that can stick with it, and those who can't is simple. Can you handle it?


This is the only thing that I would say to keep in mind.


LIFE IS NOT ABOUT WEATHERING THE STORM (any single minded retard can do that)



LIFE IS ABOUT LEARNING TO DANCE IN THE RAIN........


If you can take $4,000 from people that have been studying, conniving and scheming to take your money, you are doing pretty well. Especially if that only happens 1 or 2 months out of the year and the other 10 months, you average $8,000. I WISH I could show a $4,000 PROFIT for my WORST month. Hell, as far as cash games go I wish I could show that for my best month.....


Nobody plays this game well when discouraged or downtrodden. You almost have to play this game with arrogance and ignorance. Not to the point where you won't examine your results, but to the point where the results don't matter as long as you are sure that what you are doing is right. As Davy Crockett once said " First be sure you are right, then go ahead....."


Basically, as far as advice from somebody that has been on almost every side of every fence in this game goes, never stop listening, never stop learning, never stop analyzing, but be careful when starting to doubt. Make your game plan, make your play, but don't look at the results too quickly. Make sure that it makes sense to you, then go ahead......


And when the inevitable storm comes, don't focus so much on surviving the storm, take a moment to learn how to appreciate that $4,000 (as bad as that may seem )and dance in the rain......

Tim Wakefield and the Knuckleball: A Metaphor

Enough right now of the frivolities, it's time to get back down to work. For this next entry, I am going to present a metaphor for understanding my short stacking mindset. I used to be a left handed pitcher up until my junior year of college at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. Being that this is the only sport I have played competitively, this is the one that I understand the best.

Tim Wakefield is a knuckleball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. He has had an illustrious career with them all this time and is arguably neither a pitcher in the true sense, nor even a “real athlete.” His “fastball” is known never to exceed 75 mph, but it doesn't need to. He doesn't have a devastating curveball, slider, or changeup. He basically has two pitches: a knuckleball and a straight pitch (described as being too slow to call a fastball). The key here is that is all he needs. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the term, a knuckleball is an extremely difficult pitch to throw that is designed to have no spin whatsoever, allowing the ball to drop and curve sharply at angles so severe and unpredictable that even the pitcher and catcher have no idea which way it is going. Picture it like throwing a beach ball into a headwind, except that the beach ball is the size of a baseball and is moving at 55-60 mph. Now try to hit that with a round bat after you have been practicing all week to hit a moving target at 93mph that is speeding in a straight line. Suppose even further that you are prepared to hit that tiny beach ball and you can guess one of three directions that it is going to move, but now all of a sudden a straight ball comes down the pike that is moving far faster, but you have already slowed down your motion in preparation for that beach ball, but by then it is too late and that ball has already slapped into the catcher's mitt. You are fully aware of the pitcher's game plan, but a slight variation in the strategy throws you off completely.

You see, Tim Wakefield was originally drafted to play professional baseball. He was a Double A first baseman with no exotic talents and very little hope of ever making the Big Leagues. One day he was fortunate that a scout was watching him during a pre-game warm up and mixing in a few vicious knuckleballs. The scout was so impressed that he had him throw some more and then it wasn't very long before he was owning batters left and right and had a permanent spot on a top billed Major League franchise. While he certainly has peers and opponents who don't consider him one of the guys or a true athlete, you simply can't deny that the man shows impressive results. He's not trying to be the next Nolan Ryan or Roger Clemens. He never can and he doesn't have to be. He simply found something that he was extraordinarily good at and worked it to perfection. Furthermore, his career is likely to out-perform all but the most genetically gifted and lucky players, due to the fraction of the strain that he puts on his muscles and tendons.

I consider the story of Tim Wakefield to be a great lesson in humility. While we all grew up with notions of the being the best at every facet of life, at some point in time we are either forced to accept our limitations or embrace them along with the strengths that we own. I believe it is fair for me to predict that no one who reads this will ever be a winning regular at Rail Heaven, ever win a gold bracelet at the World Series of Poker, or ever win a World Poker Tour title. But none of us need any of these things to be or feel successful at this game. Don't be afraid to try new or unpopular things and accept that you will not excel at everything you try. Challenge the conventional wisdom and re-define success as a personal venture. Take the unbeaten path.

How We Are Deceived by Our Own Miscalculations of the Future

While not made for poker directly, I believe that this discussion has some very important concepts for understanding other players and our own misconceptions about future probability. For those of you who may have already read the works of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, you will quickly be able to appreciate and enjoy this highly entertaining (at least for us dorks!) talk by Dan Gilbert.

For those who do not see how this applies to the game, I would like to add a disclaimer that I believe long-term success at the game requires melding different disciplines to understanding the game in all its facets. And to people like Microstakes Bankroll Builder, yes, this also includes understanding the mindset and goals of short stackers rather than quickly casting judgment.

A person who seeks long term profit from poker isn't really all that different than someone who pursues art or music for the same reasons. Being able to draw or write a great song does not in any way guarantee you success. You have to understand the rules and regulations of your industry, understand and interpret the impact of the conventional wisdom on your field, understand the desires and needs of your audience, etc.

I hope you all find this both entertaining and enlightening.

Introducing Travis "TheDirrty" Rose

Travis will be a contributing blogger on The Short Stack Hero from now on. Although he has nothing important to say, this will give him an outlet to spout some worthless, although some might say "humorous" material while filling in the gaps while I ponder more important issues. So without further ado, please welcome Travis to his new home!

Next Stop: Hollywood

Reflections on March Short Stacking Results and "Proper Play Theory"

Winnings: $6,564
Rakeback: $2,249
Bonus from RaketheRake: $600

Total: $9,413


This month has taught me several things. The first is that you can be surprised just how long you can run good, and like it or not, no graph or EV calculator can actually sum up how good you are running. The second is that it can be very easy to forget just how long you can run bad- including 30k hand stretches. The third is that the strategy I have created is not sufficient to beat the $2/4 FR games and up at Full Tilt. The reason being is that these games are incredibly nitty and require more pre-flop stealing and re-stealing for finer edges, as these games are populated by very wary regulars and a generally more skilled breed of short-stacker.

The good news in this category is two-fold, in that it presents a new challenge to overcome (which keeps my mind fresh and interested) and that I have a team of 3 other Short Stack Soldiers working to crack it. Code name: Jon XYZ is on the Delta Force Squad and he is currently penetrating the upper limits to clear the brush so that we can infiltrate its depths. The outlook is hopeful that by the end of the year we will have ventured out into mid-stakes NL 6-max games as well as pot limit omaha, as the future action at any one game type and format is not guaranteed.

And now for the introduction of Proper Play Theory.*

*Bear in mind that this is nothing groundbreaking here. In fact, many of you will simply chortle to yourselves and think this is retardedly obvious...which it is. It is no more obvious than 2 + 2 = 4, but as simple as that equation is, it is the foundation for algebra and other advanced math. So with no further ado...

Proper Play Theory is the assumption that you are playing against a sane opponent who is attempting to both 1) win money and 2) avoid losses. He has at least a basic knowledge of the game that includes the ability to identify the intrinsic and relative value of his own holding, identify the nuts, and has a working knowledge of pot odds, position, aggression, etc.


Notice that we make most of our money from players who fall outside these parameters, those of course being loose-passive fish and maniacs. Also notice that some of this information was not true 4 years ago when the poker boom was in its relative infancy. For the rest of the competition that falls within these guidelines we employ a different strategy, and the strategy that I personally use to beat such players is highly dependent upon the Range Map. Now that I have laid the foundation, I can then introduce the Range Map in my next post, and you will see how this "retardedly obvious" information suddenly becomes relevant.

Reflection on March Results and "Proper Play Theory"

Week 2 With No HUD....Another $3,000

There are two brand new things to note about this week's results. The first is that I had a brief and unsuccessful venture in $2/4 where everything possible went wrong. Surprisingly, not once did I get in pre-flop less than a coin flip. Being that I have been short stack crushing $1/2 so hard and getting comfortable doing so, I decided that making the instant jump was adding on a level of stress that was not necessary at this point, so I have decided to just sprinkle in a few good $2/4 games here and there until I make the total transition.

The second point is that you will notice that I have decided that I will not be covering up my pre-flop stats anymore, for two good reasons. The first is that I want to shock and appall everyone with how tight I am yet still able to win at the rate of a strong, successful full stacker. In fact, Poker Listings currently has me ranked as the 50th tightest player in the world, a badge that I wear with honor.

The second reason I do this is because I am no longer concerned that anyone can read these stats and steal my game plan. Great short stack play is not a pre-flop shoving contest. It is about staying ahead of your opponents' ranges, finding +EV spots and risking your buy-in to grab them, and making the optimal plays post-flop.

In my next post, I will be introducing a revolutionary concept called the "Range Map" and how that ties in with what I call "Proper Play Theory." The range map is a term I am coining that allows me to consistently beat completely unknown players without the use of any prior statistics or knowledge of them. This is a concept that applies to both live and online play and is adaptable to changes in the future flow of the game and will thus always be relevant.

The Triple Lindy Magic Insult Hand

By keeping the chat off, I entertain myself by imagining what they are thinking.

Pre-flop

"I'm ahead! Just don't throw that ace!"

The Flop

"Ah fuck! Well, I still have a shot here..."

The Turn

"Shit! I'm dead to a chop..."

The River

"Ah, come on now! Was that shit really necessary?!"

Implied Odds in a Short Stacker/Full Stacker Scenario

This next entry is something that I had written in response to a post about short stack theory that I was reading on another player's blog. Even though it may be the height of egotism to quote myself, I thought that this concept was far too important not to mention here.

I wrote the following response at Poker Anon where the blog author (as a part time short stacker, mind you) recommended making an overcall vs. a shortstacker early open raise and nitty full stacker flat call with 44. Here is my take on the matter:

This is kind of a conundrum. I like the way in which you analyze hands and play, but your short stack theories are wildly inaccurate. I think this mainly comes from a misunderstanding of implied odds and how this applies to full stack play. I consider the concept of implied odds to be the greatest con ever pulled on the poker community at large.

I noticed that you said if you buy in full and a SSer raises 4x and a tight big stack calls, you should call with 44 to bust the big stack. Where to begin here?

The SS range up front is very tight, typically TT+, AQ-AK, and sometimes tighter (like myself). The nitty full stack is almost always re-raising the hands you are likely to bust him with, namely QQ-AA. However, look even further here. He is only likely to stack off with QQ and KK IF no ace hits the board. And given the effects of card removal because of the short stack, he is more likely to contain hands like AQ, AJs, 77-TT. The only way that these hands are likely to stack away against another full stack acting behind him is when he either flops 2 pair (still has 4 outs), pair + nut draw, nut straights, and bigger sets.

And now back to the (very) optimistic scenario that this guy was actually smart enough to cold call with QQ-AA. These hands are just as likely to flop a set as you and if they are going to stack away every time here, guess what? You are right back to being a 4:1 dog with your 44. And that doesn’t even factor in when the board comes really bad and you happen to get bluffed off your set.

In addition, the concept of flopping big and stacking someone is simply the wrong way of looking at things. If you assume that you play your 44 perfectly, you still need to look at what your AVERAGE profit for this scenario is. In a $1/2 game, I would say it would be VERY optimistic to assume that this situation will even net you $3 on average, but the variance you will be taking on to win this $3 is enormous. And yet again, it also ignores the negative psychological effects of missing your set an inordinate amount of time, flopping it and getting nothing in return, flopping it and losing to a higher set, flopping it and getting little because of scary boards, and the worst of all, flopping it, building a large pot and then getting bluffed off it.



As a foot note to my response, given the negative scenarios that can result even after flopping your set, the potential ensuing tilt probably makes this play neutral EV at best. In a round about way, what I am really trying to say here is that set mining in general is a bad policy and goes against basic good play which requires that YOU be the aggressor.

A Quick Quiz...

What is wrong with this picture?

My First Week Without the HUD

Although I am not afraid to admit when I am running good, it is simply hard to imagine how my results could have been any better with some shitty device telling me that I can not trust my own observations....

My Case Aginst Using a HUD

As of this past Sunday, after much self-deliberation, I have decided to fully abandon my HUD permanently. Although I do not doubt that there are a few select players out there who can actually put these things to work, my final analysis is that they do far more harm than good for the vast majority of online grinders. Here is my case against it.

First of all, it is important to acknowledge why we actually use a HUD. Here is why: to inform us to make decisions by the use of past player statistics that we would not otherwise make were that information not available. In this regard, it is like a live tell. After all, a tell is only significant when it causes us to take an action that we were not otherwise going to do had we not seen it.

So now that I have defined what a HUD does, let's examine the underlying logic here. In the course of my career, I have played roughly 2,000,000 hands of online poker. Although the overall quality of play has certainly increased in this time frame, one major truth has emerged: most players generally adapt to each other and take on the same tendencies. In other words, if one player open raises by mashing the pot button with his decent hands in early position, most others will be doing the same thing. Likewise, if one player is min-raise opening his marginal hands in late position, I can expect that others who are opening for the minimum in late position are also doing it with marginal hands. And one more, if one person is limp-reraising only premium hands from early position, it is pretty safe to say that others are doing the same thing, a.k.a., they are NOT doing this with hands like 66.

While I could go on and on with a plethora of examples, I would say that the concept is clear here: I don't need stats on players in order to decipher these basic meanings, and reading stats to try and get deeper here could only accomplish one possible thing- to obscure what is already obvious. Be these extreme examples as they may be, most everything else follows suit to some degree or another. Observation is the key. A 6x open raise from early position is virtually always a premium hand, whether it is coming from a 9/6 or 30/20. Period.

So now that I have established that certain tendencies are visible through lone observation, we must now address the logic of using a device over our own observations. Exactly how does this make sense? We are using stats that are, at best, only 30 days old or less. These stats do not capture a person's mood or whether or not they are adjusting to current table conditions or following the meta-game. Ask yourself this: is a player with an “Attempt to Steal” stat of 60% who was just 3-bet off his hand three times in a row still just a 60% ATS guy this time around, or an angry or clever player holding QQ and now HOPING he will get 3-bet again?

By attempting to use these stats rather than our own good judgment, these little nuances are missed. Is the player who runs a 30/20 a real maniac, or is he just some min-betting fool looking to take the initiative in a lot of cheap flops? This information is not clear on its own, but with good observation and note taking skills should be readily apparent.

So I know what you must be thinking. “I am playing so many tables that I just don't have the chance to get this information on my own.” Here is my retort: how can it possibly be beneficial to be piling on more and more tables in exchange for lousy or non-existent information? And that is only assuming that the information that we are getting is accurate! I still have not even addressed the most dangerous aspect of using a HUD. When the information initially loads up, often times it is not correctly lined up with the appropriate player and you are looking at stats that could belong to another player. Further into your session, you will also find that sometimes a player leaves or goes busto and another player promptly sits down and “inherits” the first player's stats. Even though this can be avoided by making sure the names line up, a single slip up has a high price. And how much “good” information is necessary to make up for that single time you stacked away on one bad misread?

29 Days of Shortstack Madness

And the results have finally arrived! I decided to take it from the beginning of February until now because I was forced to take the first two days of last month off due to a vicious ice storm that terrorized all of Kentucky. However, I did get in 148 hours of play in since then and about 111,000 hands. The pictures from my data base can be found below.







In sum, in just under 148 hours of 12-tabling NL200 and a little NL400:

$4,932 in straight winnings
$2,353 in rakeback
$800 bonus for placing 14th in the raketherake rake race.

$56.60/hr

Total: $8,085.....$40 at a time!


So now to all the naysayers I simply ask, "how much did YOU make last month?" ;)