I have started blogging cash games here:

http://blackdog.blogs.exetel.com.au/

and there are some photos and other information on games at the Western Australian Poker Meetup Site.

These are some older notes on games and hands I have played that have taught me to be a better player.

Notes on Friday Night's Game

Home Game, Perth Aug 2007

Betting in the early rounds was a lot more aggressive than I anticipated, which lead to several players being short stacked (me included) by level four.  Even from level one pot sizes were quite large, with the right odds to call, my chips went in, and when no cards hit, stacks quickly became short.

Ian absolutely nailed the 'agression' aspect of successful betting.  His table presence reminded me of Todd Brunson.

Chris was unlucky not to hit on at least one of her hands where she had overcards to the board and was facing a smaller pair.  Three of those suckouts saw her stack pretty much crippled by the end of level 3. 

Anita's win was a prime example of 'tricky girl play' (see Give the Lady Credit below) by only calling with top pair and representing a much weaker hand as Phil bet out while drawing almost dead.


An Investment Pays Off

Excalibur Casino, Las Vegas, May 2007

Coincidently, there was an important conference I had to go to in Las Vegas.  Since I happened to be there anyway, I thought I would try my skills against the locals (actually, the other tourists since in the low limit games, only the casino staff are locals).

The game was $1/3 no limit with a $200 buy in.  The rake was only 5% of the pot to a maximum of $10 - better than any card room in Australia.  In Vegas however, you don't have to, but it is the right protocol, to tip the dealer if you win a pot.  $1 for a small pot, $5 for a big pot.  Still, the game was pretty good and I managed to play for over 10 hours for my initial buy in of $200.

I had been playing for a few hours and was up about $20.  Not great, but not bad considering I had given at least that much away to the rake and in tips.  Anyway, a new guy joins the table and immediately starts betting big and raising on most pots.

I fold some reasonable hands, that maybe would have won if he was bluffing as I suspected, but if I hadn't won, would have cost me a bunch of chips against his aggressive raises.  So I am happy to fold and wait until I can get a better read on him or get a nut hand.

He steals a couple of blinds from me with big raises, and I let them go uncontested, just biding my time.

A few hands later I am on the button and see A Q suited.  Mr Aggressive raises from early position and everyone folds around to me.  I don't think he has a pocket pair, but I am sure whatever he has he will re-raise again if I raise.  So I just call to see the flop.

The flop is very good for me, Q 8 2 rainbow.  I have top pair and top kicker.  He could have hit trip eights or trip twos but I don't put him on either of those hands.

He bets about half the pot, and I call.

The turn is another 2.  Now I am sure I am well ahead.  My opponent bets $20, about 1/3 of the pot now and I call.

The river is a blank, a 7 I think, and there is no flush possible.  My opponent checks, I bet another $20 into the pot, and he check raises me by calling all in.

Now his all in bet is considerable, he has me covered and it will cost me my remaining $110 or so to call him.  I think about the hands he could have - he could be on a bluff, quite possible given his aggressive play.  But he also could have pocket 7's, 8's, 2's, K's or A's, or hit two pair on the river, all which would fit his betting pattern and beat me.

I think it over for a while and figure the only hand I can beat is a bluff - 1 possible hand out of 7 he might hold.  I don't think the odds are good enough to call, even though I put his chance of bluffing quite high.

I take one last look across the table before I fold and to my amazement see him sitting there chin thrust froward, fist clenched, chest puffed out, giving me the big stare down.  He looks exactly like an example photo in Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells.

As Mr Caro explains, the key to poker tells is 'strong means weak and weak means strong'.  When someone is posturing aggressively towards you, it almost always means they have a weak hand.

Without further hesitation I announce 'Call' and shove all my chips in.  Mr Aggressive looks stunned "How could you call that raise?" he says

"Well.." I say slowly "I got a pair of queens, that's a good hand right?"

"hmmph" he snorts and turns his cards to show J 8 and I take down the pot of $410, happily tipping the dealer $10.

In the introduction to his book, Mike Caro says that if you win just one pot from a tell you learn from the book, it is a worthwhile investment.  And so it was.


Give the Lady Credit

Any poker game, anywhere

It is nice to see poker becoming more popular with women.  At Pub poker, the type I play the most, about one in ten players is female, and the ratio has been slowly increasing.

My experience is women will generally beat most of the men at the table in the early to mid game where finer skill and judgment is required, but then lose out in the latter rounds.  The much higher blinds and smaller relative chip stakes make aggression and risk taking much more important, and males, especially after a few beers, tend to fare better than their fairer counterparts.

I try to avoid going heads up against a female player.  For a start, they might indicate they have a particular type of hand, I automatically assume they have a different hand, but then find they were telling the truth!  Poker is a game of deception,  Misleading someone by telling the truth is just plain sneaky. 

But more often, it is impossible to tell what sort of a hand they have, because whether it is a low pair or a royal flush it will be played the same way - meekly calling every bet I make - until the river and then the question comes "How much do you have left?  Oh, only that much, well I put you all in".  It's terrible, I never know where I stand.

An absolute master of that play is poker professional Jennifer Harman.  In the 2004 WPT Aruba Classic she is playing against some of the toughest opponents in the world.  Because of the hole card cam, we can see she has the nut hand.  Phil Hellmuth opens the betting, Jen calls.  After the flop, Phil bets out again, Jen sits their thinking, looking like a little lost waif (with the nut hand mind you), and just calls.  On the turn, Phil bets again, now committing almost half his chip stack.  

Jen looks very sad, that big bully Phil picking on little Jennifer with his much better hand and much bigger chip stack.  So she just calls.  The river comes and Phil makes two pair.  Sure that he has the best hand he makes a value bet to get a few extra chips from poor Jen.  As quick as she can Jen shoves in all her chips and announces All In.  Phil looks surprised, very surprised, he tries to talk to Jen to get a read on what she might have.  Jen of course is back in 'sad little girl' mode again and just stares at the table.  Phil says "All right, I guess you want me to call you so I call".  Jen flips over the nut straight, which she had since the flop, and takes the pot.

The thing is you see, that a great player like Phil Hellmuth knew in the back of his mind exactly what Jennifer was doing, new he was being played for sucker, but was still powerless to stop his natural male aggression pushing more and more chips into the pot.  I think if more women played poker, not just Phil, but many of the top players would not have as many bracelets as they do.

I see that in pub poker all the time.  Guys betting hard to push a female out of the pot, she just calling every bet until the cards are turned and taking down the pot with a better hand. 

So here are my rules for that situation:

- When they are in a pot, they always have a hand
- When they call bet or a raise, credit them with a hand hand as if they had made a re-raise.  You are probably beat.
- When they call a second bet, you are almost certainly beat.  Check the hand down if you can
- Understand that they have a much better read on you than you have on them and you can never push them off a hand with a big raise, you will just lose even more chips
- Often, even with a monster hand they will not raise or if they do it will be a min raise.  Treat any raise as if it were ten times bigger before you call it.
- if you hear "how much do you have left" you are done.  Fold.


The Worst Bad Beat

Crown Casino, Melbourne, Jan 2007.

Every poker player can bore you with many bad beat stories, but here is one I think tops most of them.

The Crown Casino is Australia's 'Home of Poker'.  I was in Melbourne on business and by happy coincidence the Aussie Millions was on, with some of the worlds top players participating.  So I went along to have a look, of course.

The low limit games at the Crown are the best in Australia.  There was a $1/2 no limit game with a $60 buy in and a reasonable rake, so I decided to test my skills against the locals, of course.

There was lots of action on the table.  I folded the first ten or so hands.  There would usually be one or two raises before the flop, called by a lot of people, and four or five would see the flop.  I had just come through the blinds and folded both hands (which were not good hands) to six and eight dollar raises pre flop.  I was on the button and last to act and I looked down to see A A.

There was a raise early on to $6 and two calls and the rest folded to me, making the pot $21.  'Just fine' I thought 'I am happy to win the pot here' so I made a pot size re-raise of $20.

Without hesitation the guy right next to me in the small blind announces re-raise and makes it $40 to go.  I figure there are only two hands he can have that he would do that with - K K or A A.  If he has A A we will almost certainly split the pot, and if he has K K then he is a big underdog to my aces, and also there is a small chance he might fold to another re-raise if he thinks I have the pocket aces I have.

The other players all fold around to me.  It is a no-brainer and I push my chips forward calling all-in. of course.

My opponent doesn't think long either and calls my all in.  The pot is $140.

Sure enough, when we flip our cards, my opponent has K K, of course.

One of the other people at the table says "Sorry mate, I folded a king" and then another person says "I folded a king too".

'You beauty' I think 'He can't draw out on me by hitting trip kings, the pot is as good as mine'.

His kings are heart, diamond.  My aces are spade, club.

The flop comes heart diamond, diamond.

The turn is another diamond.

"Another diamond and you've got the flush" says a helpful player to my opponent.

The river is a sp... no a diamond, of course.

"King high flush wins" says the dealer pushing all the chips - my chips - to my opponent.

Well, that was it for me.  I knew I would be on tilt after that bad beat if I kept playing, so I left the table and went and watched Barry Greenstein take some bad beats from donkey calls by his opponents in the main event.

There is a poker saying about pocket aces 'you will either win a small pot or lose a large pot'.  It's not always true, but it often is.  Another saying is 'never go broke with a pocket pair'.  That is very good advice.

The main thing I gained from that game is experience in taking bad beats.  If you play poker for any amount of time, bad beats are going to happen.  It doesn't matter that you do everything right and never make a mistake, there will still be plenty of times when an opponent beats you against the odds.  I think it is important to take bad beats so you can learn how they affect your thinking and game, and with experience build up immunity to going on tilt because of them.