Skinning a Cat and a Chris

I’ve been on a dry spell about things to write about for a while. The Chasing Chris blog here is a godsend. It brings my thought back to tournament play at the modest levels I played and the freerolls. I also liked freerolls when there was some decent money ($1000) available from them over on PokerRoom.

This is what the Monte Carlo gives on a hand Linda nicely described in the Chris Blog:

Monte carlo simulation results from Poker Calculator 1.1.4.1

Texas Hold’em, 100000 combinations tested.

Board: Jd6d7h x x

Hand | 8c5c | Js9c | AsAc | xx |

——+————–+————–+————–+————–+

Win | 26623 | 9714 | 49938 | 12299 |

Draw | 974 | 396 | 56 | 1426 |

Lose | 72403 | 89890 | 50006 | 86275 |

——+————–+————–+————–+————–+

Win% | 27.11% | 9.91% | 49.97% | 13.01% |

——+————–+————–+————–+————–+

I made one of the J9 hands random to show the weakness of J9 which is subservient to a random hand.

There’s more detail over in the forum that I started for the hand.

That hand relates to my Monday blog addressed to Carmen but it could be to others there too. The idea in that blog is very ABC. It isn’t the way you go about winning the Sunday Million. But the hand above isn’t going to be a likely hand history from that tournament either.

Low buyin tournaments attract gambling. I admit I’ve succumbed to that allure more than once. People talk about them a lot in various forums around the net. Many complain about the gamble aspect leading to their being sucked out on by the dominated hand. There will be a lot of that; far more than bigger tournaments. People just don’t have the incentive to play an A game throughout one. Or, they just aren’t capable of the discipline required.

People always complain about being card dead. Well, in any tournament where you get well into the third hour, you’re going to have been card dead – maybe even more than expected. Some can maintain their stack with the judicious bluff while others will get far more loose than is advised. It is back to being the more disciplined player and that is hard to maintain – especially when you see idiots showing down lousy cards that may or may not have connected between flop and river. All of a sudden that second pair looks more attractive and you let yourself overplay them. Often, the hardest part of the table is maintaining respect for the cards if not the player.

Let’s analyze the hand Linda gives us. I made the one Jack high hand a random hand and that hand was actually J9s and ‘dominated’ the J9o. The betting was typical of the low limit tournament with non-abusive blinds. There isn’t a player in the hand that is there trying to work a short stack. Linda’s call is a marginal position call against the 4.5:1 pot odds but a cheap one with regards to her stack with an M = 24 using position. The button – who may be the best player at the table – attempts a steal or had decent cards that failed to connect on the flop now raises only to fold on the flop. That seems a good play – even not knowing what he held. He tried the move and got out of the hand when it whatever he held didn’t mature.

So, we’re almost ready to talk the flop but not yet. The biggest fool of the hand calls with his pocket rockets – accepting a multi-way pot. No! No! A thousand times NO!!!!! When you get big hands that dominate the preflop action, you do not accept multi-way pots. How you bet it is a function of your reads and your stack but you’ve a nice pot there and the best hand. You cannot just slow play here. I’d like to see a defining bet and that is up to all in preflop. You must defend big hands well. Well is disputable but allowing 4-5 callers is a fool’s act. The button is offering to save your backside and you don’t take advantage of it.

We get the flop and who hits it? The two that should have folded and still could. The idea with J9 or J9s isn’t to hit top pair. Hitting top pair sucks when you have those kickers is pure trouble. But, we’ve two D- players who are now in love with what they hold. OMG!

Here are the actual odds with the hands in question:

Calculation results from Poker Calculator 1.1.4.1

Texas Hold’em, 820 combinations tested.

Board: Jd6d7h x x

Hand | 8c5c | Js9c | AsAc | Jh9h |

——+————–+————–+————–+————–+

Win% | 26.71% | 3.29% | 61.34% | 8.66% |

——+————–+————–+————–+————–+

MR AA got lucky and is still way ahead. Our Jack-rag players are in love and give rough pot odds that offer Miss Linda a chance to hang around. Should she? She does have position which gives her the opportunity to decide. In late, blind punishing hands that becomes a no brainer. But, we’re at 25-50 and she can fold with a still decent M. The question is do you accept the race? If you lose the race, you are on the sideline; win the race and you’ve a very nice stack that will see you into the break without doing anything but fold. That is an attraction and a hard one to avoid. I’d fold the hand but I’m known as a wimp that likes to get to the late game where I can be something else. At least that’s the probable case unless I’m already bored – which is why I play very few tournaments these days.

I really hate doing these kinds of blogs. The text version of hands just doesn’t stick in my brain. Let me play the hand and I can review it without crib notes. Here I was flopping back and forth between her very decent review of play and still probably missed something.

I’ll conclude by saying all the hands you saw here – except the poorly played AA – are typical of hands that will get you in trouble in low blind action. You can see them cheaply at times but want to see the nuts close at hand to continue. In a raised pot, you’ll never be criticized for folding any of them. The worst possible outcome provides us with a great example of folding them early and often.

Come over to the forum thread and point out what I missed or throw in your two cents.

ADDENDUM:

The WTO dispute over the UIGEA and The Wire Act continues to foment. The details are here. The synopsis is that they are still seeking 200 Billion in damages which our administration is stonewalling. That isn’t as damaging as it seems. This thing will drag out until George is a fond memory. Like the Iranian sanctions we’ve sort of participated in with the support of the EU, nobody is in a hurry to resolve an international issue. And, passing the Frank’s bill will remove the big payout. We’ll just look like Fido’s backside getting there.

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Harrah’s Entertainment has released the official schedule of events for the 39th World Series of Poker® Presented by Milwaukee’s Best Light, which will again return to the Rio® All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The 2008 WSOP will run from May 30 – July 16, 2008, and as in 2007, will offer 55 different events. (Stolen from Poker News; don’t you just love all those ®’s?)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Tournaments. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.