Small Stakes Poker: The Virtual Freeroll

After an astoundingly hideous session of poker last night at a local bar, a different one than normally mentioned, I thought I would talk about the "virtual" freeroll. The "virtual" comes from the fact that you can see this type of behavior in any game, regardless of stakes. Want me to prove my point? Look at the World Series of Poker main event. The last 5 winners have been amateurs. 1 of which is a pretty good player, another a decent enough player who talks about the WSOP Boot Camp too much in his Bluff articles (Raymer) and 3 rank amateurs who shouldn't have been at the final table in the first place.

The WSOP has turned into amateur night at the Apollo. The idea that "anyone" can win has even had me dreaming from time to time about a multi-million dollar payout. The problem with this thought is that you have to get past 8000 other dreamers and some pros. The pros seem to despise the Main Event now. What you see are several thousand players who have read "Kill Phil" and have applied that basic "all-in" theory to their game. A pro NEVER wants to get all of their money in the pot. If all their money is in, they can lose ALL THEIR MONEY. Its a standard pro belief that you rarely want to use "all-in" unless the situation specifically calls for it.

Last night, I found myself using it a few times. We went to a local game we had never visited before. The dealer was very cordial and was actually a Sullivan North guy that Rich knew. The problem? He talked all the time. AND he played. AND he played horribly. I am hoping his terrible play was a ploy to dump chips to players as the game went along, however, when you are dumping to 1 or 2 people, it makes the game uneven. That aside, the dealer was very nice and made us very welcome. The game was the standard Tri-Cities rate of $6. I paid, sat down and got ready to play.

The first thing I always notice is quality of cards, chips and table. The table seemed homemade, but was good quality. I actually considered building one now that I have seen it can be done pretty easily. The chips were the same 7 gram set I have at home. They are pretty standard chips and while you don't get the "clink clink" when shuffling, I like them. I am biased. The cards were a marked set from a casino. You can get them for a quarter a deck online. He had one deck total with him, so few a hands in when I noticed the 8 of diamonds had a corner cut off, I pointed it out and went to my car to get a deck I had stashed away. (I forgot them, but no big loss.)

The new cards made no difference. I was getting cold decked by my own cards. The only valid hand I had in the first game was A-K off. I limp, I bet the flop (which I missed but would have rivered) and Rich comes over the top. I bail immediately and he shows me a flopped straight. Fine. No big. I end up going out something like 5th. Because of a short table (7 players) and the rebuys available because its normally a 10 person deal, I am not sure exactly when I went out. I stood up and made a phone call. Rich busted out soon after and we discussed. We agreed this was some of the loosest play we had ever seen. Any face card will do, regardless of kicker. At this point, I adjusted my strategy. This was a virtual freeroll. Regardless of buy-in, the naivity of the players, or ignorance if you prefer a harsher term, was shown in their play. They were simple people who just wanted to blow $25 and play poker to get that "tv table" feeling.

The problem here is that you can get absolutely angry with these people. They are "donkeys". They are "losers" who wouldn't make a dime in Vegas. They are idiots. Fine...all that may be true. But they also just wanna have fun, so I adjusted my game and got rid of the negative feelings towards the players. The next game started and I made a strategic mistake. I pushed chips in with the best hand against a freeroller. With A-Q suited, I push in enough to put someone all in. My thought was to just grab the blinds, play small pot poker and move on. He pushes his chips in with 7-8 suited. We had the same suit, so I hoped for a flush. No go. He rivers the straight and I am at half stack.

I played extremely tight. I tripled up with A-9 against 4 others with an all in. I had some chips, so I started winning some smaller pots. I was pushing all in with any good hand. It worked for a while, but then the guy to my left (my new freeroll nemesis) starts chatting and calling me with anything. I lose a couple smaller pots and am about to the starting stack size against 2 big stacks. I am sure my nemesis doesn't like me because he was there to have fun and gamble (? - gamble at free poker?) and I was just staying quiet. The talky dealer kept saying "He's like Maverick...he played with you for an hour and has you figured out now boys". I wasn't Maverick, but he was dead on about my reads. Finally, before the blinds increased yet again and half my stack was commited with a big blind hand, I decided to push with J-8 of clubs. My nemesis calls me with Q-4 off and the rest is history. He rivers a straight with the J that pairs me and I drive home.

The "virtual" freeroll doesn't depend on stakes at the table. You can play a free game on Poker Stars or you can go to the Main Even and buy in for $10k...sometimes the players are the same ones and they play what they like to play no matter what. You cannot change the way others play no matter how loud you yell, scream or laugh. The best thing to do is accept it and use it to better your game. I did last night and improved at least 2 spots on a table I didn't particularly care for. Will I go back? Probably. Its very close to my house and I can either go donk around or use their donkitude (new word) to improve my play against lose, aggresive, ignorant players. It could be the thing that helps me win the Main Event.

;)