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Who the Heck is Al Alvarez?

I won't answer the question in my subject, but I wanted to share something I heard quoted by Mr. Alvarez:

All poker is a form of social Darwinism: the fit survive, the weak go broke.

This quote caught my ear as I have been watching/listening to some downloaded videos of the World Series of Poker Europe. I am not sure this was televized here "across the pond" from its original location, but I have enjoyed watching some of the action. I have watched as some of the current "greats" like Jamie Gold and Kenny Tran have played a lot of different starting hands and have either hit or have gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar. It has flashed me back to an article in the most recent Bluff magazine with Annette Obrestad where she explains how she played an entire tournament, except for heads up, without looking at her cards. She used a post it note to cover her hole cards and ended up winning the tournament. What the combination of the two has really shown me is why playing lower limits can be one of the hardest challenges in poker right now.

As newer players watch TV, which has to be the number one reason people are coming to the tables now, they are seeing raises and calls with hands like Q-4 suited (Jamie Gold) and making their flush. What they do not see is that the majority of the time, that hand is completely dominated (as it was here pre-flop) and a good majority of the truly great players fold this. But this brings about a new way of thinking in many ways. Well...not new, but it is something that Hellmuth has been preaching for years now. This method is "Small Pot Poker". There are two approaches that I have seen...I want to look at those now.

1. Loose Aggressive Small Pot Poker - LASPP is the majority of what you are seeing from the internet players and the newer players that show up on TV. They are willing to raise or call a raise with most hands in order to bluff later. It is calculated small pot poker in that they are using a "Kill Phil" philosophy and are not scared to lose all of their chips on any hand. The philosophy is toned down, thus the small pot distinction, but the problem with this approach is that small pot can turn into huge pot very quickly if the player is not controlling the action or is not a strong enough player to walk away and surrender a pot...and that is the key to small pot poker. You must walk away and surrender money often. If you are more interested in winning every pot, SPP is not the best method for you. But I digress...When you see a player like Jamie Gold, who plays agressively and wins, its hard not to be tempted to emulate that style of play. I can be honest and say I have no idea how Gold won the ME, but he did. It could be that Johnny Chan was coaching him. It could also be that it was his time to do so. The great thing about this method is that you can drag several pots and accumulate chips a bit faster than the 2nd method.



2. Tight Aggressive Small Pot Poker - TASPP is what is preached by Phil Hellmuth and he puts on a show on day 1 of the WSOPE playing nearly every hand they showed on the edit. I realize of course this doesn't mean he is playing every hand. Preflop raises are common, but the action is controlled and methodical. The idea is not to ever risk your entire chipstack and retreat as is necessary. Several bluffs and reraises are not usually in order, except when changing gears. What TASPP has in common with LASPP is that most starting hands are good to go with. The difference comes in post flop play and only players who are confident in their post flop play can execute this style. Newer players rarely tend to move into this style until they are more experienced because it requires something that newer and most of the "donkeys" you will play against at lower limits. This is why I believe this to be the better style to play at smaller levels. The problem is that you must be good with your post flop play and willing to fire bullets at an empty flop in order to just get a feel of where you are in the hand.

So what's best for a Tuesday night at a local bar? I can't tell you that. I can say that if/when I adopt one of these styles, I can almost guarantee that I will take flack from someone for playing too loosely. If you are a tight player, this is a great way to change speeds. The problem comes in that this doesn't exactly adapt to sit-n-go type tables or cash games. You can adapt certain portions of this to the sit-n-go, but it will take some adjustment to your normal style. In any case, good luck with whichever method you choose to use and I hope you decide to try it against me when I am reading well.

I'm Flooded With Rivulets of Thought

It's been two weeks since I posted. It's not that I don't have anything to talk about or haven't had things to post about, I have just been too busy, too tired or too apathetic. I am not sure, but without such an outlet, my mind gets clogged and that came to a head last night at the poker table. Sometimes you can have great hands and somehow just get beat, outplayed or outflopped. I went from flopping quad aces to dive bombing my chipstack in about 3 hands and eventually pushed at the wrong time with the magically alluring Q-J. I know Q-J is a horrible hand and is dominated by so many other hands, but I had less than 2 and a half big blinds left and made a move hoping to just pick up blinds. Small blind has 10s and big blind has aces. What can you do?

In the last 2 weeks I have discovered that somewhat careless flagrance with chip stacks is an amazing way to win a sit-n-go where the players are either tight or are too new to understand when someone is making a move. The good thing about playing at restaurants and bars is that most of the players fall into the 2nd category, about 10% of the players at most tables fall into the first category. The rest are just donkeys and fish that you have to have the patience and a bucket to wait and catch the chips they dump. Last night was not the night for me to do that, so I ended up being the dumper...not the dumpee in relation to the chips.

However, when you use well timed aggression, you can pick up blinds and antes often enough so that when you have a monster, you will get called and you will get more than just the blinds and limpers. It is something I should have seen a long long time ago, but my tight nature wouldn't allow me to use the "Kill Phil" method to win in such a way. There is also the issue that at certain tables you will get called with any naked ace or king that can be played. Cautious aggression may seem like an oxymoron to most, but it definitely applies in this case.

There is no fixed rule...that's where the challenge comes. Sometimes finding the rule of the game you are in leads you to walking away early...sometimes you are the last man standing. Its action...and isn't that what we do this for anyway?

I will be back soon with thoughts on politics, Brett Favre and the upcoming season of football...like the title says...Rivulets of Thought...

I Wouldn't Lie To You

Perhaps the best thing you can do for yourself today would be to go to this link:

Dr. Horrible's Sing A Long Blog - Act 1

UPDATE:  The site is www.drhorrible.com if you want to visit it again.  They just dropped Act II...so check it out as well!

WSOP: The Final 9

If you want to be surprised in a few months when ESPN shows the final table of the Main Event, please ignore this post.

With that said, it should be no surprise to anyone that poker fans will not recognize the names on the list of the final 9 players who will walk to the final table later this year. With over 6800 people in the Main Event, it was only a matter of about 7 days (more than that actually, but we are going by "tournament days") to weed the pros out and solidify what I would say is a completely unrecognizable table. The yearly donkey fest will give us another unknown to watch try and exist in the new prime time poker that we all love and enjoy since King of the Donks Chris Moneymaker turned $3 Canadian (or some amazing small amount of money as the story goes) into millions because he out-donked 1000 people. If anyone has ever seen the "amazing bluff" he pulled on Sammy Farha to solidify his win, you know that he was walking the very fine line between "Holy crap I can't believe that worked?!?!?" and "Holy crap what a horrible player!!!!" His results since winning show that he was a fluke.

My opinion of the last 5 ME winners isn't very high with a couple exceptions. Joe Hachem has went on to win a WPT event and Greg Raymer has had some good finishes elsewhere, but isn't exactly a solid winner. So with the exception of one and a half winners in the last 5 years, we have seen donkeys take home the once coveted bracelet. Noone can actually defend Jerry Yang or Jamie Gold as real, solid, challenging poker players. I look forward to reading their books so I can learn how to play online freeroll style poker and win millions of dollars. But I digress...I haven't seen the players who are left play, so perhaps the video when ESPN shows it will give me a better picture. The final 9 are:

Dennis Phillips
Ivan Demidov
Scott Montgomery
Peter Eastgate
Ylon Schwartz
Darus Suharto
David Rheem
Craig Marquis
Kelly Kim

So who is the Joe Hachem at the table and will the Jamie Gold or Jerry Yang sitting to his right just scoop his chips and move on to a huge win? Is it a good thing that anyone can win the ME? Do the pro's think it's as big of a challenge as they thought it was years ago OR are they just hoping to win to prove that the donkey boom is at an end?

So many questions...so many donkeys still winning huge tournaments.

A side note, Poker Stars looks to have sealed most of the final table up to endorsement deals. My hope for the delayed final table was that we would see the players actually take longer to make decisions on their endorsements. I semi-supported the move to a delayed final table because it might create situations where we could get behind people, but I have to say if Mike Matusow or Phil Hellmuth were at the final table, I would have an easier time. I guess time will tell and it will come down to the ESPN coverage as to how each person is portrayed on camera.

Roberts Rules of Poker

This is considered the general "manual" for running about any type of poker game you like.

A bit of information directly from the rules:
"“Robert's Rules Of Poker” is authored by Robert Ciaffone, better known in the poker world as Bob Ciaffone, a leading authority on cardroom rules. He is the person who has selected which rules to use, and formatted, organized, and worded the text. Nearly all these rules are substantively in common use for poker, but many improved ideas for wording and organization are employed throughout this work. A lot of the rules are similar to those used in the rulebook of cardrooms where he has acted as a rules consultant and rules drafter. Ciaffone authored the rulebook for the Poker Players Association (founded in 1984, now defunct), the first comprehensive set of poker rules for the general public. He has done extensive work on rules for the Las Vegas Hilton, The Mirage, and Hollywood Park Casino, and assisted many other cardrooms. Ciaffone is a regular columnist for Card Player magazine, and can be reached through that publication."

Here is a link to the information:
http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/poker/rules.php

And a handy link to my Google Docs version of it so you can get to it on a mobile device:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhdw7fmq_6f7jpb4f7

You never know when a situation may arise where this will come in handy!

How To Not Play King-Queen Suited

I have had a complaint about many of the players that I sit with on a weekly basis.  They will raise and call raises regardless of position with K-Q.  Many times suit doesn't even matter, but God help us all if they get it "sooted".  The problem, as I have outlined aloud every time I see it flipped over no matter what the result of the hand was, is that so many hands have this hand dominated!  A-K, A-Q, K-K, Q-Q, A-A at least have it beat outright with a few other pairs slightly better statistically.  I have a bigger problem with calling out of position, rather than raising, but 7-10 handed, I am not sure I see an instance where raising in a BFP setting is helpful seeing as how any A will follow along.  With that said, I decided to play K-Q of hearts a couple weeks ago and filed this hand away to share here. 

I am in early position.  I limp, as do a couple others.  My right raises 3 times the big blind.  We are 10 handed so I should fold.  Because I was testing out a BFP theory, I call.  As well, I had good pot odds at this point to play a suited face card hand.  The flop comes J high with 2 hearts.  The BB is first to act and was the previous raiser.  He throws in 3x the big.  Thinking he is continuation betting, I call.  Others fold and we are heads up for the turn.  Another blank...no heart, no face card.  He bets 3x and I call.  At this point I made my 3rd mistake.  The river comes K.  At this point the BB throws in 6x the big letting me know that the entire flop through turn missed him and he is sitting on A-K, thus proving my teachings on K-Q!

I tank for a minute or two, call his hand A-K suited and fold.  He shows me A-K of diamonds.  Here were my mistakes:

1. I should have folded preflop.  No doubt, no question!  The raise could have been a position raise or could have been a situation where he had me dominated.  I ignored the first option and called. 
2. On the flop I started chasing in an incorrect manner.  I believe if I bet my draw here and raise the BB, he might fold.  He admitted that me might have called depending on the bet. 
3. On the turn I again did not raise.  I am positive if I raise here I get the pot.  Instead I called and made myself have to think about the river. 
4. Here is the worst case scenario with a hand like K-Q.  I hit my K!  I have a good kicker.  Is he stealing?  I correctly called his hand and made the correct read, but if I had thought about each step as closely as I considered the river, I wouldn't have had to think about it at this point and would have saved myself chips.

So many people blog about how they dominated someone else or how they took the worst beat ever.  I wanted to break that trend and tell you how I messed up.  I make these mistakes often enough to bother me.  Hopefully, by giving you this situation, you can make that read earlier and save some chips and some face when you flip over a bad hand to show your idiocy.