The Ten Cent Solution

On Wednesday, you may recall that we left you with the following poser:
A bat and a ball set costs €1.10. The bat costs €1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?

Most people do not arrive at the correct answer straight away. I know I didn’t. I was with the majority of people who experience an immediate impulse to say ’ten cents.’

The question was taken from Dan Gardner’s book, ‘Risk – The Science and Politics of Fear’ and, as he mentions, the answer ten cents, ‘looks and feels right.’ However, it is clearly wrong. As soon as your brain engages and overrides the gut’s instinct, you will reach the correct answer. However, players do not always take the time to do that at the poker table.

I played the following hand this week:

I was in mid position and had 77. A tight player raised to four times the big blind. I called and so did the small blind. The flop was 7-8-K, rainbow. The small blind immediately bet the pot. The raiser folded and the action was on me.

Although it was a hand I was unlikely to release, the player was very solid and I knew he was winning on other tables. The bet was worthy of respect, particularly as it signalled that he wasn’t scared of AK. I simply called because I wanted to see how the action progressed.

The turn card was a Q. The small blind bet the pot again. By this stage, I was more than a little worried about a set of 8s. I called again. The river was a ten. He checked. At that point, I knew I had won. However, that is not the point. I went all in, he instantly called and showed 8-7, for middle two pair on the flop. That is the point.

It was the impulse to say ‘ten cents’ that provoked the call. His gut tells him, ‘I am playing Hold ‘em, I have two pair, that is a good hand, I call.’ I am presented with a problem, I have an instinctive solution.

If his head had taken a few moments to think things through, he may not have called. He may have realised that he could only beat a bluff or AK. Instead he pressed the button immediately and kissed goodbye to his stack. He was scared of a bluff and reacted too quickly. Partly, it was not his fault: as he was a slave to his wiring, as we all are. As cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker puts it,

‘People who are emotionally driven to retaliate against [others], even at a cost to themselves, are more creditable adversaries and less likely to be exploited.’

Admittedly, I also acted quickly on the river. However, I had taken a few moments on the flop to think about my opponent’s style and his range of holdings. I had tried to overrule my emotional reaction to flopping three of a kind. In the end, those brief moments paid off as I knew he wouldn’t check a set on the river. (For the purists, I am aware there was a runner-runner straight and he may have been scared of it, but we are frequent opponents so it was unlikely he would put me on that.)

I am far from immune from making the same mistake. I commit such howlers on a daily basis. One of the most exasperating aspects of poker is that often, just when you are trying to think rationally, you hear a voice that says, ‘He’s full of s*it! Call! Call!’, and you become a slave to your instincts. If you are reluctant to admit that it happens to you, think about this: how many times have you been able to predict the outcome of a hand that you were not playing?

I wager (and I can write this with the confidence of a man who knows the bet will not be taken) that it is a lot. Certainly, you probably make fewer mistakes than you do when you are involved in the pot. As soon as you placed under stress, the likelihood that your emotional reaction will override your rationality is huge.

Ideally, you reach the ‘optimal state’ that allows the perfect blend of mind and body. Recall how Doyle Brunson puts it, ‘I go with my feeling, which is really a rapid analysis of conscious and subconscious thoughts.’ Achieving such a state will be difficult and I am nowhere nearer knowing how to reach it, but taking a second before declaring ‘ten cents!’ definitely helps.

This Just In...

(News from other sources.)

A new Middle East crisis erupted last night as Dubai TV refused to broadcast The Flintstones. A spokesperson said that people in Dubai do not understand the humour but those in Abu Dhabi do.

On Fear

For today’s post, I’d like to continue to talk about stress and how it is vital to understand how it can affect a player’s decisions the poker table.
Consider this quotation from Samuel Johnson, English man of letters:

Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of the other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it.

As I take a moment to restore Sammy J to the bookshelf, try to contemplate just how it is possible to incorporate the wisdom from his eighteenth century scribbling at the twenty-first poker table.

It might also help to fill your head with the thoughts of Dave Grossmann, an ex army lieutenant colonel and author of ‘On Killing’, who has studied the effects of heart rate on performance. He discovered that there is an optimal range – from 115 to 145 beats per minute – that improves an individual’s performance. People’s senses are heightened; they have better powers of concentration and can disregard irrelevant information.

In a recent live poker tournament, my pocket nines made quads on the flop and I remember being conscious that not only had my heart rate increased, but that I was also less aware of the casino’s background noise. Obviously it was not a difficult hand to play, but I suspect that I was briefly in that optimal zone and, as a consequence, my poker skills were boosted.

It is a phenomenon supported by the words of basketball legend Larry Bird. He has said that at certain crucial stages during a match, he could not hear the roar of the crowd and the players would appear to be moving in slow motion. He was playing in the optimal range.

The problem is that few of can sustain that range and our bodies can become overstressed. If our heart beat reaches 175, we can go into shutdown: the mind perceives a threat and so begins to switch off bodily functions it doesn’t need. (At its most extreme, it is possible to lose control of one’s bowels.)The trick is to learn coping mechanisms.

When I flopped pocket nines, I was concerned that my heart beat would continue to soar so I mentally recited a song. It seemed to work but I suspect it would not suit everyone. We need a more universal scheme. One man that has developed the idea is Gavin de Becker, author of ‘The Gift of Fear’. He also runs a firm that provides security for high profile figures. As part of their training, he puts his bodyguards through a program of ‘stress inoculation’: he shoots them.

Obviously, not with a real gun.

However, they feel the force of the plastic marking capsule and it takes them by surprise. The stooge is allowed some recovery time and then, just at the point when they can function, they take one more to the chest. In total, the recruit is shot five times. As de Becker puts it, ‘By the fourth or fifth time you get shot, you’re okay’. At that point, the recruits are then asked to handle an angry dog.

On initial contact with the pooch, the recruit’s heart rate leaps to 175. ‘They can’t see straight. The second of third time, it’s 120 and they can function’. They can remain in their optimal range. (If this program causes you to think of the process of desensitisation, I would advise to you quash those thoughts, turn the TV on and return only when you are no longer so independently minded.)

I’m not convinced there are many people prepared to take five to the chest and attempt to handshake a hungry Rottweiler as part of a campaign to play better poker. However, if we could construct our own version of the ‘stress inoculation’ program, I’m sure we would become better players.
Here are my ideas so far:

1. Ask a friend to become a kind of urban sniper and attempt to ‘shoot’ you with a water jet at an unexpected moment, preferably when you are carrying a carton of OJ so you can feel like Don Corleone.

2. If that sounds severe, find someone who is happy to relate bad news to you on a constant basis. Soon the loss of a job/mortgage/limb will be bearable and you might take down a tournament.

As you can see, I won’t be contacting the poker publishers anytime soon.

However, there is a serious point here, one that illustrates why it is not possible to learn poker by playing for matchsticks. To become the best you can be at poker, you have to acknowledge your fear and then use it. It is wrong to say ‘No Fear!’ – it is an essential part of the game.

I will give some serious thought to how to manage stress at the table and will attempt to devise a proper inoculation program. I would also like to invite you to share any ideas on the topic and then between us we can swell the database of poker knowledge.

In the next post, I will discuss how, when you have managed to use your fear, you can begin to enjoy the perfect combination of intellect and intuition. Often, one is used at the expense of another.

Here is a quick example:

A bat and a ball set costs €1.10. The bat costs €1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?

Blink and You'll Lose it

I’d like to start the week’s posts by slapping down another chunk of poker goodness. It is part of an ongoing series of pieces that illustrate ways in which absorbing popular science and psychology can assist you at the poker table.

Regular readers may recall that a previous post suggested that recent WSOP main event winner, Peter Eastgate, is a good example of what author Malcolm Gladwell terms an ‘Outlier’ (Check out the posts dated from November 18th – particularly if you are suffering from insomnia). Anyway, I would now like to demonstrate the true breadth of my reading by bringing ‘Blink – The Power of Thinking without Thinking’, to your attention. Yep, you guessed it - the book is by Malcolm Gladwell.

Rumours that I am in bed with his publishers remain unsubstantiated.

‘Blink’ attempts to explain ‘those moments when we know something without knowing why’. It uses a handful of examples, such a car salesman with the best figures in America, relationship advisors who can predict the likelihood that a couple will divorce and art dealers who can instantly spot a forgery. (The latter two examples could conceivably overlap.)

However, the best example for poker players occurs in the introduction: not only is it based on cards, it spares us the hassle of reading the subsequent 250 pages.
Scientists at the University of Iowa conducted an experiment. They placed four decks of cards on the table – two red packs and two blue. Participants were invited to turn cards. Every card would either earn them some money or cost them some money. They were free to choose and were asked to develop the most profitable strategy.

They were not told that the red cards were a snake pit: they gave huge prizes but devastating penalties. By contrast, it was possible for the stooges to profit by only selecting blue cards: the rewards steady and the punishments slight. The scientists wanted to discover how long it would take for the guinea pigs to make the discovery. On average, participants developed a ‘hunch’ after fifty cards. After eighty, they were able to articulate why they preferred blue cards.

However, there was another part of the experiment: scientists monitored the participants’ sweat glands in the palm of their hand. Consequently, the scientists could monitor the gamblers’ stress levels. The discovery was illuminating.

On average, a participant had a stress reaction to the red pack by the tenth card – forty cards before they developed their hunches and seventy cards before they could explain the situation. Moreover, as soon as they began sweating, they opted for fewer cards from the red packs. In other words, in a time of stress their body opted for the optimum strategy before their mind knew what is going on.

The situation the scientists create is a decent comparison with a NL Hold ‘em game. Here is a section of Super System 2 by Doyle Brunson, considered by many to be the bible of poker, even by some who don’t have the surname Brunson.

‘Whenever I use the word ‘feel’ it is not some extra-sensory power. Many times I get a feeling that he’s bluffing or that I can make a play and get the pot. My subconscious mind is reasoning it all out. It is there, buried in your mind. When the time comes to use it, you won’t have to force it. The vibrations are definitely there. It is usually a stress situation. I don’t know exactly what I’d do until I’m faced with the problem. I go with my feeling, which is really a rapid analysis of conscious and subconscious thoughts.’

Although Super System 2 goes on to outline plenty of tips and strategies, by time he reaches the conclusion, he admits they are ‘white meat’ and only the foundations of success. He plays by ‘feel’, or what Gladwell deems ‘Blink’.

I am pretty sceptical about some aspects of popular science, but when I combine Gladwell’s thoughts with Brunson’s feelings, I think ‘Blink’ rings true, particularly when I contemplate my own experience at the table. There have been plenty of times when I have pressed the call button and watched my stack flee to the embrace of another. Annoyingly, I could have avoided those feelings of emptiness had I listened to my gut: I have ‘known’ my opponent’s cards before I press call – but my head insisted ‘It’s a bluff! It’s a bluff!’

I suspect that the top players, like Brunson, have developed a highly successful way of interpreting their body’s reaction to the game and then act accordingly. Maybe they understand the difference between the red and the blue cards after only ten tries. Take heart from that.

In the experiment, all of the participants registered for stress. Similarly, our bodies are reacting in the same way as Brunson’s when we play poker. Develop the art of listening to your physiological reaction and you too could reach the level when you ‘just know’ you can win the World Series with T-2.

Omaha Hi/Lo - Final

My fellow bloggers, I sit here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by the weaker players.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. We have travelled a long way and the end of our journey is near. We should now be ready to take our seat at an oval table and establish a more prosperous community of Omaha Hi/Lo players

You may remember that our campaign began many moons ago. We knew that many would stumble along the way but we prayed for guidance. It came in the form of three wise gems:

1. You must have stricter starting requirements than your opponents.
2. You must remember that the nut low hand will regularly tie.
3. If you decide to play for a drawing hand, it must be the nuts.

Now, the brave, the hard-working and the patient have made it to the threshold of enlightenment. They have proved worth of the following supplementary wisdom.

Firstly, it is vital to note that not many players will fold pre flop when they have already called a bet – some will but not many. Therefore it is essential that when you are contemplating a raise, you are doing so for the right reason. If you are planning to trim the field, pay attention to who is in the pot. If you have a hand that needs to improve, there are two callers and players behind you, a raise will not accomplish a great deal.

For example: you hold A-A-2-T, rainbow.

Two players have limped. You have two players behind you and the blinds. A raise will get you into trouble. It is only worth one bet as it is likely you will be facing four happy callers.

By contrast, in late position the same cards merit a raise, if you the first to enter the pot. You should knock out the hands behind as they are receiving poor value. Moreover, the aces should stand up against opponents who are aiming high.

It is always worth exercising a little caution when you are dealt two aces as it is not a hand that always has value, contrary to the actions of some players. Two suited aces are always worth playing but a hand like AA8J is fairly useless. It is certainly not worth calling a raise and if you limp in early position, it can quickly become a trap hand. A key skill is to recognise when the value of your hand takes a nose dive. It often happens to players holding two aces.

If you catch a player holding four high cards on a board that flopped three low cards, crack open the champagne, tell your helpmeet to hold your calls and prepare to fill your pockets. It is a fundamental mistake. If it is ever performed by a player who raised from the small blind, then rip out the 2009 calendar and prepare to retire on the year’s profits.

There are few hands that are worthy of a raise from the blinds. It is an act of folly akin to charging into No Man’s Land from the safety of the trench. The positional exposure is just too much of a handicap to overcome in most games of Omaha Hi/Lo. In the dream situation when you are dealt the killer hand of A-A-2-3 fire away, but in most cases checking or calling will limit the damage.

Although A-A-2-3 is the best starting hand, don’t expect it to come along too often. In fact, it is less likely you will see A-A-2-3 (two suits) than it is you well peek at four of a kind. (Twelve combinations make the former, thirteen the latter). However the reason it is the dream hand, is because it illustrates the value of having a second low card for back up.

A second low card offers protection in the scenario when the board duplicates one of your low cards. Here is an example:

You have A-2-K-J and the flop is K-6-5. When the turn brings a 7, you have made the nut low. However, the river card is a 2, thus rendering the two in your hand useless. Although your low is 7-6-5-2-A, now that there is a 2 on the board, the nut low hand is 6-5-3-2-A. It will be made by anyone holding A-3. It is a common occurrence and can be costly.

That happens roughly (on the turn or the river) 25% of the time. If you have a back up low card, you will only find yourself in that situation 3% of the time. The advantage should be clear.

In the situations when you have made the nut low, particularly when you have a second card safety net, and the nut flush draw, you should play the hand aggressively. Yes, you have to remember Rule Two, but too many players don’t make enough money with the nut low as they play too passively.

You want opponent to make poor decisions. If you bet your made hands strongly, other players have a far greater chance of making bad decisions. If you play the hand passively, it reduces the impact of their poor decision and, in some cases, awards them the odds to call.

Just like Hold em, effective betting on the flop and the turn is based on knowing when you need to eliminate undesirables and when you would quite like more people to join the party. Some of those decisions have to be made based on situational circumstances in the middle of battle but there are certain rules. If you are drawing to a nut hand (or, ideally, both) calling is usually best as you want plenty of people to make deposits. However, if you are in the position when you have already made a hand, it is time to present them with an expensive bill for sitting at the table.

One special scenario occurs when you flop a set. When Hold ‘em players flop sets they are frequently moved to write poetry. However, a flopped set in the game of Omaha Hi/Lo is more likely to inspire a verse beginning:

There was a young man with three kings

Who was keen to begin betting....

Far too often, flopped sets end with cursing.

Exercise caution, particularly when you have flopped bottom set. In most scenarios, the best result lands only half the pot. In other cases, your high hand will be trashed. If you do become seduced by a set, I would advise to play it slowly and see what happens when the turn card moseys into town.

Playing it slowly disguises the strength of your hand and you will be in a better position to predict the direction of the pot. If the board contains only high cards, you can happily accompany your set to the river, where the pair of you will stand a good chance of having a chip picnic.

Betting on the river is quite an art form and one that many do not understand. If you are first to act with either nut hand, bet! It seems obvious, but some forget and either try to check-raise, or just flat call. There is no logic. A check-raise will only be called by others with a nut hand (in most cases) and you risk losing bets.

A far trickier situation develops when you are stuck in the middle of two players, with a hand that is marginal in both directions. The only decision is whether to raise or fold. Calling has no merit: you let the player behind you make an easy decision – and he/she could have a marginal holding that would be dumped to a raise. If you frequently make the correct decision in these scenarios, I guarantee that you will make a profit.

Omaha Hi/Lo is quite a complicated game and few variants of poker require the player to make so many appraisals. However, once you have absorbed the game and its complexities, it becomes relatively easy to beat, as so many players are either seduced by marginal holdings, or they remain a little baffled by its intricacies.

If you follow these guidelines, remain patient and stay focussed, you will show a profit.

The Legacy of British Empire

According to Sir Richard Turnball, the penultimate Governor of Aden, it is 'two monuments: the game of Association Football, the other the expression 'Fuck off'.'

Omaha Hi/Lo - Part Three

Welcome back class, we hope you had a good weekend. Hopefully, you are now ready to knuckle down and continue with our deconstruction of Omaha Hi/Lo. If not, please feel free to pop to the tuck shop and order yourself a pastrami on rye, or do something that rocks your boat. We want you happy. We will not be home to Captain Sourpuss. When you return, we’ll still be here, immersed in probabilities and chewing the flop. In fact, while you are gone, we will again chalk up the three fundamental rules. They may help blow away some of the Monday cobwebs.

Remember, in Omaha Hi/Lo, a house of rising profits is built on the following foundations:
1. You must have stricter starting requirements than your opponents.
2. You must remember that the nut low hand will regularly tie.
3. If you decide to play for a drawing hand, it must be the nuts.

Today, we will cover Rule Three. In some ways, it is the most important point because if you frequently ignore it, you will definitely go broke.
In a game of Omaha Hi/Lo, it is not uncommon for five or six players to see the flop. In such a hand, if you decide to remain in the pot and you have a drawing hand, you have to make the nuts. Nothing else will do, because pots are frequently halved and the margin for error is smaller: playing for second best is a losing proposition.

Here is an example:

You are playing the big blind position and you are holding Kc-8c-Td-7h.

Five other players see a flop of: 2c-5c-Th.

You are first to act and it is an unraised pot. It can be very tempting to check and call, particularly because it is easy to believe that you might see the ace of clubs, thus making the nut flush. But listen up for sec. Put down that sandwich and wipe your mouth: A lot of the time, the ace will be out there.

Even in soft games of Omaha Hi/Lo, the players will understand the power of the ace. If a lot of your opponents see the flop, the stronger the likelihood that the aces are out of the deck. It is time for you to check and fold. Playing for the king high flush is just not profitable. Bad decisions like that occur all of the time at Omaha Hi/Lo and the simplest way of boosting your profits is to make fewer of them than your opponents.

To underline that point, let’s change your hole cards to Ac-8c-Td-7h. The flop stays the same.

This time, you should definitely check and call (in more advanced scenarios, you could consider a check-raise but that could cost you a lot of money, if you didn’t have a read on your opponents). If you develop your hand into the nut flush, there is a fair chance that you will be against someone who has not benefited from the wisdom of Sun Tzu and will pay you off. Moreover, if the third low card fails to land, you could scoop the whole pot.

At this point, I would like to remind you of Rule Two and our previous discussion: You must remember that the nut low hand will regularly tie.

In last week’s entry, we advised that it is essential that you are capable of putting down the nut low. For the exact same reason, there are times when it is not worth drawing to the nut low hand. The more players in the hand: the more likely that the low will be tied and it will be more expensive to make the draw.

To amend the example a final time: the hole cards are now As-3c-Kc-Th, but all of the other conditions are the same. It now becomes a hand that could easily cost your stack. For a lot of players, it will.

It is a home-wrecker because it has:
a) the second-best flush draw.
b) a draw to the nut low (although a three would cause problems).
c) plenty of opponents.
d) a big pot.

It is a very difficult fold, one that most of your opponents will not be capable of making. Most of the time, you have to fold. If you hit, you will likely make the second best high hand and quarter the low pot. They are terrible odds.

We hope you know understand why drawing to second best hands is not a great way to defeat the credit crunch. Hopefully, you are now well on your way to crushing the Omaha Hi/Lo games.

On Wednesday, we will post one final Omaha Hi/Low tutorial, which will cover some advanced moves and plays that were beyond the scope of the fundamental rules.

Well, that is the bell sounding and today’s lesson is over. Take care out there class and don’t let me catch you playing second-fiddle.

Omaha Hi/Lo - Part Two

Welcome back to our series of posts dealing with the complex beauty that is Omaha Hi/lo. The previous text covered the first of our fundamental rules for profit. Just as a quick reminder, here are those guidelines again:

1. You must have stricter starting requirements than your opponents.
2. You must remember that the nut low hand will regularly tie.
3. If you decide to play for a drawing hand, it must be the nuts.

Today, we will cover Rule Two.

If you are to consistently beat Omaha Hi/Lo games, you have to recognise when to fold your nut low. It can be quite difficult – after all, you have a holding that cannot (yet) be beaten – but it can be tied and subsequent cards can destroy it. Sometimes, you will only take a quarter of the pot and that can result in a net loss for the hand.

Here is an example. You are holding A-2-Q-T in a four-handed pot and the flop has brought 7-6-5 to the action. Two of the cards give a flush draw. You are last to act, but by the time all eyes are staring at you, there has been a festival of raising and re-raising, and there are signs that the fireworks may yet to continue. You have no chance to make a worthwhile high hand and the possibility that your low has tied is very strong, possibly by a player who has both sides of the pot covered.

You have to fold. It is going to cost a high proportion of your stack to win a quarter of the pot. So far, all you have paid is a single bet to see the flop, so the cost is small. There is also the possibility that one of the next two cards may bring an ace or a two (if not both) and if that happens, it will bust your hand because your hole cards are duplicated – someone could then take the low with 3-4 in the hole.

Reading this article, the logic of the decision should scream at you. Unfortunately, when you are in the middle of all the gunfire, it is often seductive to double-check your arsenal and then perform a combat roll into the action, possibly while bellowing ‘Don’t push me.’

I understand.

Believe me, I do.

In light of that tendency, it is now time for this instructional guide to poker to perform the obligatory nod to Sun Tzu. Please excuse me while I go to that special place on my shelf and perform the highly dextrous finger movement that causes my bedroom wall to spin and reveal my secret chamber. No, alas, it is not my gimp room. It is where I keep special books archived and where, today, we gently open the special dehumidifier to access The Art of War.

Roughly 2,300 years ago, the following words were written:

If it is not advantageous, do not act.
If it is not attainable, do not employ troops.
If it is not in danger, do not do battle.

Clearly, the Sun Tzu lineage had quartered the occasional pot.

In the previous example, it is not advantageous to stay with your hand. Your stack is not in danger and the whole pot is not attainable. It is one to let go.

There are plenty of times when you should not drop the nut low. Some will be self evident. Others will be difficult. The example above is easy.

If you are playing low stakes, the consideration becomes more difficult as there will be plenty of punters who ‘came to play’. In those scenarios, you should probably call more frequently as there is a greater chance someone has overrated their low hand. You can also give calling more consideration when you have a third low card in the hole, a three for example, as it helps to avoid the pain of the board duplicating one of your cards.

Knowing when to fold the nut low is essential if you plan to maintain your profit. If you are aware of the texture of the flop, the styles of your opponents and can maintain a level head, you will do it. Don’t feel too bad when you occasionally quarter a pot but learn from the experience and try to recognise when to fold.

Follow these guidelines, study the table and you’ll be well on your way. You’ll probably even take three quarters of the pot yourself.

Omaha High/Lo - Part One

It probably feels like we have been trailing it for years but now, at last, with no further ado, live and direct from a two bedroom house in London, comes the one, the only, guide to playing Omaha Hi/Lo! We promise that this series of articles will be so exciting, so full of profitable plays, that after reading it, you WILL believe in God.

It is a game that has broken many players’ faith in poker, usually because they use over elaborate plays. However, particularly at the lower levels, it is easy to beat, as so many players forget the basics. To be successful at Omaha Hi/Lo you need to become a fundamentalist. You need to remember the following rules:

1. You must have stricter starting requirements than your opponents.
2. You must remember that the nut low hand will regularly tie.
3. If you decide to play for a drawing hand, it must be the nuts.

Three simple rules that are enough to beat a high proportion of games and yet they are extremely difficult to follow. I can almost guarantee that at some stage over the course of a session, you will break at least one of them. I know I do. In fact, I don’t feel that I have done myself justice unless I play a few hands that break all three at once.

The problem stems from the fact that Omaha Hi/Lo is an action game. There is so much potential in every set of four hole cards that a lot of flops can be very seductive to those who ‘came to play some poker’, i.e., all of us.

Omaha Hi/Lo deals each player four hole cards and the pre-flop betting structure is identical to Hold ‘em. However, the pot is frequently spilt – the high hand and the low take half each. Some flops mean a low hand is impossible as the minimum is ‘eight or better’ – i.e. the player must make five cards that are eight or lower.

Here is an example of such a flop:

K-T-9.

As there are only two cards to come and players must use two hole cards, it is not possible to make ‘eight or better’: even if the turn is an ace and the river a two, the best anyone can have is four cards ‘eight or better’; or, if you prefer, ‘nine or better.’ When a low hand is impossible, the best high hand takes the whole pot.

Although players must use two cards combined with three from the board to make the best high and the best low hand, it is possible to use the same card in both directions.

Here is an example:

A player holds: Asp, 2c, Ksp, 5c.

The board is: 3sp 7sp Kd Jsp 4c.

The player uses Asp Ksp with 3sp-7sp-Jsp to make the high hand (the nut flush); but also has 7-4 for the low using Asp 2c with 3sp-7sp-4c. The hole card 5c is not used at all. It is this factor that makes the ace such a powerful card.

Note: for the low hand is not enough to state ‘seven-low.’ This is because there are quite a few hands that begin with ‘seven low’ and we must rank them. Therefore 7-6-5-4-3 is a worse low hand than 7-5-4-3-2, which is in turn beaten by 7-4-3-2-A. In principle, this is the same as the ‘kicker’ issue in Hold ‘em – the best five cards count.

This may seem confusing. It is, at first. When a low is possible, the key is to think about your hole cards.

Another example: the board has offered 8-6-4 and the game has five players. If your best low cards are 7-5, you are extremely unlikely to take the low half of the pot. It will be trashed by so many hands. In fact, you can almost guarantee that at least one person is holding A-2, for the nut low, and is about to pump the pot.

For that reason, and many, many others, Rule One is vital:
YOU MUST HAVE STRICTER STARTING REQUIREMENTS THAN YOUR OPPONENTS.

Ok, before we are inundated with sniffy emails informing us that this rule is not universally true, I will state that we are simply getting players started. As the stakes increase, play changes but, for the low-mid stake beginner, Rule One almost guarantees a profit, particularly in Pot Limit games, where there is no small blind. (As both blinds are ‘big’, more players see the flop and that boosts the action. For the following, please assume Pot Limit games. I think it is the only way to play.)

Many players will forget that the aim of the game is to scoop the whole pot and will become seduced by hole cards that can only win half. (In fact, if you played by the rule to never to see the flop without at least one ace in the hole, you would probably still show a profit, simply because it can go both ways.) The worst thing you can do pre-flop is to limp with a hand full of middle cards. Do you understand why?

It is because it is very likely that you will hit a seductive flop and, because the cards are neither high nor low, you will probably be massacred at both ends. If an opponent shows a mixture of 6,7,9, etc, you know you have a live one and you should lock and load. Even with a board that leaves no possibility for a low hand, they are the kind of cards that will make a straight, but lose to a higher one.

It is possible to play hands that can only go one way but you have to aim high, simply because there is not always a low hand. For that reason, there are situations when you can play K-Q-J-10 but you MUST hit the flop. If you miss, you have to muck. If you are invited into a family pot by plenty of action chasing opponents, then high hands can play well because, even if you only take half, you should still make a return on your investment.

However, it far better to see the flop armed with aces and suitable co-workers. A-2 and A-3 are great, particularly if the ace is suited, as they have reasonable chances of making the nuts. As the board will frequently pair the two or the three, it helps to have another card, five or lower, to improve your chances.

Some of the best openers are
A-A-2-3
A-A-4-5
A-2-3-x

See if you can work out some of the others.

In the next post, we’ll go through Rule Two and continue to confuse the hell out of you.

Poker Glossary

Welcome back gang. We hope your weekend was agreeable, sociable and profitable.

On Friday, I was a shattered individual when I left you. I had poker formulae swimming past my eyes and I pledged that I would endeavour to explain some of the game’s more technical terms. I’ve also decided to include some of the game’s slang as it should help offer colour to the piece.

(Incidentally, anyone looking for a general overview of Hold ‘em should check out our earlier articles that begin on the 17th October 2008)
A

Advertise: There is a lounge lizard character that occasionally pops up in The Simpsons that claims, ‘Disco Stu don’t need to advertise’. Most of the time, nor will you. However, if you ‘advertise’ in poker, you show your cards after making a bluff in an attempt to portray yourself as a major player.

Avatar: This can mean the incarnation of a god. For online poker, it means the graphical image of the player. For some online egos, it means both.

B

B&M: An old school ‘real’ poker room, as described by members of the online community; short for ‘bricks and mortar.’

Back Door: when a player hits a flush or a straight using both the turn and river cards. Usually causes the slamming of doors in the B&M world.

Belly Blow: to fill an inside straight (one with only four outs). Very apt.

Bicycle: the lowest possible straight - ace to five.

Big Slick: A-K

Blow Back: handing back all or most of your profits. The price of over confidence.

Bobtail: a straight that is possible to fill at both ends: open ended with eight outs.

C

Card Protector: used in a live game, it is usually either a disc or a lucky novelty placed on the player’s hole cards, primarily to prevent them being accidentally cleared by the dealer. Particularly useful in seats one and ten.

Coffee-Housing: psychological warfare. Essentially it means chatting about your hand whilst in play in attempt to unnerve your opponent(s). Has a sense of ironic politeness.

Come: usually, ‘to play on the come’ – trying to improve a trash hand by seeing one more card.

Cut-Off: the player before the button.

D

Dead Money: the stack in front of a less than gifted opponent.

Dog: underdog.

F

Family Pot: one in which most of the players see the flop.

Free Ride: to be allowed to say in the hand without being forced to pay.

G

Gutshot: See Belly Blow.

H

High-Low: both the high hand and low hand share the pot.

I

Inside Straight: four cards needing a middle one to make a straight; eg 9-T-Q-K

J

Juice: Rake.

L

Limp: to call rather than raise; mostly used pre-flop. Beloved of call stations.

Live Player: short term owner of Dead Money.

Lock: the nuts.

M

Mechanic: for obvious reasons, only used in live games – a cheat who can alter the pack.

N

Nuts: an unbeatable hand. However, the ‘nut flop’ is not necessarily the’ nuts’ after the turn or the river.

O

Omaha: Hold ‘em variant, often played High-Low, in which players receive four hole cards and must use two of them to combine with the flop. For example, unlike Hold ‘em, the board cannot win and players need two suited hole cards to complete a flush.

Over The Top: a reraise

P

Pip: on a non court, the symbol that denotes its rank.

Play Back: reraise

Poker Tracker: a piece of software that ‘tracks’ hands and provides statistics on plays

PTBB: Poker Tracker Big Blind. Has become the industry standard to measure profit/loss in online cash games. A PTBB is 2x the big blind/100 hands. EG a player is dealt 100 hands at a 1-2NL game and wins €40. He/she has a PTBB of 10. He/she has won 20 big blinds and so we halve it to get the PTBB.
If another player loses €40in the same game over 100 hands, the PTBB is -10. A PTBB above 5 denotes a steady, successful player.

R

Rabbit-Hunting: to discover ‘what would have happened’ in a hand that terminated at the flop. The dealer reveals the turn and the river cards.

Rags: worthless cards.

Railbird: spectator, often someone who has busted out and is supporting a friend.

Rainbow: flop of three suits.

Represent: a betting pattern that suggests a certain holding. EG, if some raises on JT pre-flop and sees a flop of A-9-6, they will often bet in a way that ‘represents’ AK or AQ.

Riffle: skilful manipulation of chips.

ROI: an acronym for Return On Investment. Used mainly for online tournaments, it is expressed as a positive or negative percentage of the money spent on entrance fees. E.g., if a €100+8 ‘Double or Nothing’ Tournament yields €200 and a player wins his/her first tournament, we say he/she a ROI of (approx) 92.6%

Runner-Runner: a hand that is helped by both the turn and the river. Often hit by the kind of player who promptly leaves the table.

S

Sand-Bagging: check-raising; or, sometimes, to be caught between two raisers.

Softplay: not to be confused with the widely known ‘Slowplay’; to go easy on an opponent.

Squeeze: to look at one’s hole cards in such a way that doesn’t lift them from the table.

Straddle: a blind raise made before the deal.

String Bet: an illegal, two motion bet: a player puts some chips into the pot and then attempts to bet more.

T

Tapped Out: broke.

U

Under The Gun: the first player to act after the blinds.

W

Whale: a loser with a big bank roll.

Whipsaw: a word for the action that catches a caller in the middle of two raisers.

Wired: two paired hole cards.

We hope this glossary helps but, in the days to come, if there are any other terms you would like us to explain, please drop us a line and we will do our best.

Broken Promises

I’m under pressure.

I read somewhere that the most depressing day of the year is the fourth Monday of January. It is official.

(UK only. If you are reading from other parts of the world, there may be different days that make you feel like you have stumbled onto the set of a Bergman movie. For further details, please consult your regional Eeyore. They are easy to find. Either search for a wet blanket, or find a ray of sunshine and walk as far away from it as possible.)

Cliff Arnall, an expert on depression, and presumably not likely to fill many chairs on the after-dinner speech circuit, used a mathematical formula to arrive at ‘Blue Monday’. He combined: the weather, debt, Christmas comedown, ebbing motivation, existential questioning and broken resolutions.

I read them again and thought, ‘When is he going to start his list?’

Disbelief entered my mind.

Some people’s resolutions last until the fourth Monday of January?

Time to reopen that bottle.....

You may recall that I made a resolution to play Pot Limit Omaha.

That didn’t last until the fourth Monday of January.

That lasted approximately three minutes.

I discovered I had opened a game of Omaha Hi/Low by mistake and a player snaffled half of my pot. OK, I thought, time to reassess my goals.

I have always been intrigued by Omaha Hi/Low. It is rare to see the pre-flop % dip lower than 45% as a lot of players like the action. That appeals to me too. Deep down, I’ve always seen myself as a bit of an action hero. However, I didn’t want to enter the battle field wearing the same Cape of Ignorance as some of my opponents, so I hit the books.

So, after spending the last four days nostril deep in flops, semis and implied odds, I thought it might be advantageous to offer a poker glossary. A deep immersion in the game’s manuals can leave the reader gasping for O2 and H20, as the books are laden with formulae and pseudo-scientific terminology.

Therefore, over the next few posts, I will provide a breakdown of some of the game’s more specific terms before beginning a tutorial on how easy it can be to beat Omaha Hi/Low. No need to thank me. I do it purely for selfish reasons.

I want to try to convince myself that if I channel my energies into Omaha Hi/Low, I need not feel like I have broken a resolution. I don’t want to feel under pressure or depressed. It is officially not acceptable this early in January.

Resolutions - Part 2

You may recall that on Monday, we were looking at a list of New Year’s resolutions. We had gone through three of the top five most common and made them appropriate to a poker player. In today’s post, I will deal with the final two resolutions and also offer some general advice about how to stay focussed on your poker goals. I will also end the post with details about how, in the months to come, you can become involved in the blog.

The fourth item on the list of most popular resolution is – Save More Money.

In poker terms, this is quite similar to the third resolution – Cut Down on Spending. For that, we looked at how a tournament player might want to improve his or her ROI. For ‘Save More Money’, we will switch to no limit cash game players and how they could improve their profits by concentrating on BB/100 hands.

Rather confusingly, the standard way of measuring BB/100 is a PTBB, the acronym formed from Poker Tracker, one of many pieces of software that can analyse your play. (To have any chance of forming an accurate appraisal of your BB/100, you will probably have to invest in some tracking software. The biggest two are Poker Tracker and Poker Office.) A PTBB is double the big blind so, if you are playing .50-1NL and you are making €2 per 100 hands, your PTBB is 1.

Obviously, a PTBB greater than zero gives a winning rate; but if it is between 1-2, it is painfully slow and you must be wasting money. (In a particularly grim period for me, my PTBB slipped to 1.8, partly because I was playing scared and had become passive.) If you are consistently winning and it doesn’t feel like a grind, you are probably averaging 5 PTBBs. According to the forums, a PTBB of 7 is considered good and 10 is excellent. Higher PTBBs are possible but be aware that it becomes a lot harder to boost your number after you have surpassed 10.

However, let’s say you have a PTBB of 5 and you have assessed about 35,000 hands. I would say that a reasonable goal for the first quarter of ’09 is to reach a PTBB of 6. The software should enable you to do that. It will highlight leaks in your game (one of mine was playing the blinds – I was either folding too often or becoming far too aggressive) and, in the same way that focussing on ROI can help tournament players, it will help remove emotional assessments of your play.

Let’s clarify how much difference it can make: if you were playing .50-1 for 10 hours a week (at average of 300 hands per hour), a PTBB of 5 would yield €300 a week; a PTBB of 6 gives €360. That is a 20% increase and it can usually be achieved by plugging one or two leaks – or, if you prefer, ‘By Saving Money’.

Although, I am playing tournaments a lot more, I will endeavour to increase my PTBB from 7.4 to 8.0 by the end of Jan.

The final goal in our list is to ‘Learn a New Skill.’ This is one I fully support and I intend to play thirty hours of Pot Limit Omaha by the end of January. Hopefully, I may even turn a profit. However, I accept that, at this stage, the experience is more important because I suspect it will improve my Hold ‘em game. Playing one game can quickly become stale and I have often found that a spell at another discipline reinvigorates my love of Hold ‘em.

We should all try new poker variants, particularly as the level of knowledge about their strategies is so low. I have been told, by semi-reliable sources, that the number of players who know what they are doing at PLO is minimal and there can be easy pickings. If that is the case, I hope PLO can become a secondary source of minerals when the Hold ‘em tables are full of rocks.

So that is the list of New Year’s Resolutions creatively re-interpreted in a way to make it relevant to a poker player. I have outlined the ways in which I will try to improve my poker game in 09 and I hope you will do the same. However, goal formation is only the initial stage. We also need reviews and assessment. To make sure I keep on track, I will post a progress report on the first Monday of every month and I will want your thoughts.

Any players that are currently inspired to improve their game will be able to post examples of their progress on our ‘Resolutions Update’ page. Those who do not set goals are also welcome as they may able to learn from (and laugh at) my endeavours.

Happy New Year!

To Raise; To Fold....and other New Year's Resolutions

Hello everyone and welcome to the first post of the New Year. I hope you all had a very profitable time over the holidays and have started 2009 with a pack of good intentions.
With that in mind, I thought we could add to the weight of material posted at this time of year and think about Resolutions for a Poker Player.

We’ll start with a list of the Top Five New Year's Resolutions, according to building society in the UK (although they could have spared their researchers some cold calls, as the list of resolutions in any Western country invariably has the same content each year, whereas for people unfortunate to live in one of the world’s hell-holes, it rarely progresses beyond ‘Please, God, keep me breathing’).

Anyway, without further ado:

1. Take regular exercise
2. Lose weight
3. Cut down on spending
4. Save more money
5. Learn a new skill

What we’ll do now is creatively re-interpret these goals so they suit the life of an online poker player. New Year’s Resolutions are examples of what is known as a ‘rolling forecast’: plans are made for the short/medium term and there is only a rough idea for the long run. They are therefore ideal for poker players who tend to have the attention span of a pig in a truffle field.

Today I will do the first three resolutions and then complete the article on Wednesday.

Take regular exercise: I am very keen to endorse this one. Although I incorporate a regular exercise routine into the non-poker parts of my life, as I walk for an hour a day and play badminton, I also need to boost the pulse rate during a long session. So, in 2009, I pledge that after approximately every ninety minutes at the online tables, I will punish the sit up bench in an effort to keep my in-game mental equilibrium stable. The surge of energy is invaluable: multi-tabling and dodging breaks is a recipe for disaster.

Lose weight – a tricky one to creatively interpret – i.e make highly tenuous connections to the world of poker – but, if you are conscious of excess Christmas padding, making an effort to flatten it out is likely to help you cream off the profits at the poker table. Although poker is not a physical sport, a weight loss regime that produces a healthy body will also help create a healthy mind. Consider top level chess professionals: they are rarely overweight. My weight is OK at the moment but, in 2009, I will endeavour to keep the same waist line.

Cut down on spending – now this one I can manage without having to consult the tomes of tenuous connections that line my bookshelves. In poker terms, we could equate this to boosting ROI. ROI is Return on Investment and is specific to tournaments. In short hand, if your ROI is falling, you are making too many bad calls – i.e. you are spending too much money.

Any of the shrinks that offer suggestions about how to successfully achieve resolutions will tell you that you need to set small achievable goals that will engender feelings of success. So, with that in mind, consider this example of what not to do: ‘Hapless’ has a BR of 500, and plays .25-.50 NL Hold ‘em for about ten hours a week. He takes out his little crayon and writes: This year, I will end the year with a 10k bank roll.

Please, do not do anything like that. It is not going to happen. It is a prediction that makes Nostradamus look like an actuary. Not only will you not get there, but you will feel tense and will not enjoy the minor sense of achievement that keeps you on track. Instead, and if you are a tournament player, try to achieve a higher ROI.

If your ROI is currently about 5%, you could set a goal to make it consistently 6% by the end of January – it may sound small, but that has just boosted your earnings by 20%. Focussing on ROI instead of BR is also far less likely to engender massive emotional mood swings – watching one’s bank balance become a roller coaster is not a good way to keep on track. Moreover, your ego can become so inflated after a good day that you play poorly because you are cocky; similarly a bad day can so heavily dent your confidence that you don’t display the necessary aggression. However, ROI can keep you consistent as one day’s play never causes a great deal of difference.

It is hard to become too excited about ROI because it is far less tied up with social status and perceived sexual desirability. Don’t believe me? Next time you are around the cider barrel sharing a chin-wag with your cronies, instead of saying ‘Hey, I won/lost 500 last night’, simply throw in ‘Hey month on month ROI has increased by three quarters of a percent’ and watch the difference in emotional reaction. You’ll probably end up face down in alcohol and hear the words ‘How do ya like them apples?’

If you want to keep to your poker goals, you’ll need a feeling of progress and to minimise the amount of emotional disturbance you feel after a day’s play. It is has to be ROI. Also, by concentrating on something that has absolutely no cachet in your social circle, you can be confident that you want to improve for the right reasons; to be a better player and make more money. So, if you achieve your goal of 6% ROI by the end of January, you will feel quietly confident and can set another achievable goal for February. I will leave you to work that one out.
At the moment, my sit-n-go ROI is 14% and so I will try to make 15% by February.

If you stop by David’s Corner again on Wednesday, I promise more ill-conceived plans for a better future and you may even get a return on your investment.