Half-time Tunnel Syndrome

[peterbirks]

Now, as you know, I don't write about football much. This doesn't mean that I dislike it; it just doesn't hold the fascination for me that it seems to hold for many other people. Just about the only sport I can get halfway emotional about is cricket. And, anyway, many other bloggers write about it far better and at much greater length.

But even I was interested in the events of last night. First, we see Chelsea achieving the mastery of the technique that Arsenal managed for years — that being, whenever you drop a couple of points, your rivals drop three.

Secondly, we see West Ham beating Arsenal, at Highbury. I hadn't expected that to happen again in my lifetime.

Thirdly, we have the joy of an Arsenal reject scoring a hat-trick and, not just scoring a hat-trick, but doing so against Manchester United. If the irony of this was lost on anyone then, well, they must have been ironyless at heart.

But all of this, yes, all of this, was beaten by the supreme moment, when we saw a player, who, after being substituted, could have watched the second half of a match for free from a fine viewing position (one which fans would have paid many hundreds of pounds for), deciding instead that he wanted to go home. Yes, as far as Sol Campbell is concerned, he wouldn't watch Arsenal if you paid him (which, indeed, Arsenal do).

Apparently it was all part of a cunning plan. Sol had a dinner date and he got the days mixed up. So he cunningly played like a twat, got himself substituted at half-time, and just had time to change into the Hugo Boss and hot-foot it in his BMW 645CSi to Belitha Villas, Islington, in time for the first course of velouté of salmon in a lemon and rock salt jus.

++++


Still keeping the faith in not updating the pivot tables. So, I know roughly how well I am doing (and, to be frank, I played bloody brilliantly tonight to finish slightly ahead after a horrific first half-hour), but I can't spend happy hours starting at several different types of graph.

Here was one hand from that first half-hour. This is surely the kind of hand that gets people writing to customer support and saying that it's all rigged.

I'm on the button with 88. UTG+1 raises to $4. Passed round to me and I make it $6 to go. There are reasons for three-betting here -- the main one being that I'd rather have one opponent than two or three, so getting out the blinds is my main aim.

UTG+1 reraises me, which makes me think that I am behind to a strong hand (although I'm not ruling out AK just yet). I call.

$19 in the pot:

Flop comes 8d 4d Kd, giving me a set of eights.

Opponent bets. I flat call intending to raise the turn provided a diamond does not come.

$23 in pot.

Turn brings Kc, giving me the full house.

Opponent checks, I bet, he raises. Hmm, perhaps he does have AK. Fine by me. I three-bet, opponent caps it. I call.

$55 in pot.

River brings Qs.

Opponent bets. I call. Opponent shows Ks Kh for four kings. Opponent wins $60 with four kings.

I reckon that I just about lost the minimum that any sane person could have lost on that hand. And, and here's the good part, I didn't feel the slightest annoyance, despite the fact that this pushed me to about $140 down at $2-$4.

The more hands you play and the more tables you are playing at the same time, the less there is that can happen to annoy you. For a start, you don't have time to dwell on it.

About three hours in I hit a rush at all three tables and then, bang, I was up. I played another half-hour wihtout much happening, and left. Although three tables cuts your standard deviation per hour, it certainly doesn't cut your standard deviation per 10 minutes. Even at $2-$4 you can have $100 swings in a matter of minutes.

Comments

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

One of the things that keeps me away from limit (apart from HORSE tournaments, where it's an altogether different beast anyway) is hands like this. From my feeble viewpoint I don't see that you did anything wrong, but he certainly could plausibly have had KK from the action, could he not? I think KQ is probably out from the out-of-position reraise preflop, so KK has to be a possibility. The trouble is that AK is just as plausible unless he's any good, in which case he has to be putting you on strength and he's still happily jamming. And the capping on the turn is a megawatt warning light. But you have to go with it because you're getting odds, providing you stay for just the single final bet. I'd say on balance you probably saved a BB or two, which means you earned an hour's worth on that hand.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Sure he could have KK. What you do in limit is (instinctively) put together all the possibilities and go with it if the reward-to-risk ratio is right. If you lose, no big deal. If the situation were repeated 100 times, you'd be net ahead. If you start seeing demons everywhere (i.e., worst-case scenarios) then you fold too often or, even worse, fail to raise often enough.

His cap on the turn was poor, I'd say. If I'm any weaker than I am, I probably fold. If I'm as strong as I am, then he can afford to call the turn, bet the river and wait for me to hang myself by raising (which I most certainly would do).

There are eight lots of AK that he could have (four aces, two kings) and only one combination of KK. Add in a few other hands that he might plausibly hold (say, KQs,), plus the not insignificant possibility that he has gone mad, and I get to the point where this is the kind of hand I play for all its worth. His cap on the turn sends out warning signals, so I just call on the river. My call on the river is based on a percentage chance that I am winning (it needs to be greater than 8%), not whether I think that I am winning.

I find it strange that NL and PL players find it hard to get their head round this, since whenever you call a pot-sized bet on the river, the same principle applies. You don't need to think that you are winning. You need to think that there is a more than 33.3% chance that you are winning.

PJ

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

I find it strange that NL and PL players find it hard to get their head round this

From a purely personal perspective I think it's mostly lack of experience. I think I get the basic ideas, but my brain doesn't really assimilate them until I've been there and done it a few thousand times.

I don't think it's the concept itself, just the extreme to which limit takes it: the occurrence of the crying call of a minute bet in big bet games is, I'd suggest, more of a pot limit phenomenon, often arising from pot management failure.

But I must have logged about 10K hands of limit in other games by now - and most of my non-bonus profit came from it, come to think - so I can't claim the structure itself is foreign.

I'll get started later this year, once I've got 7SHL and PLO assimilated, which I currently have marked as the Q1 and 2 targets.

[(Anonymous)]

Ok so you lost the minimum amount, but does that mean you played it well? By specifically losing less, do you generally lose more? On first inspection I thought you played it bad, you shoulda lost 2 more bets - I would. But I think you comfortably play it right and I comfortably play it wrong. There are two key elements: he, Anon, doesn't cappuchino (ordinarily) with any nut flush, or naturally KQ, from that position. And of course you do,anon, potentially, 3-bet with AQd,AJd.

But the clincher, key ingredient are the 3 diamonds, he doesn't check AK on the turn with 3 diamonds, unless, perhaps he holds the A diamonds. Still he (anon) doesn' ordinarily do this with AdK, or KK for that matter. With this bit of Bayes Kings suddenly become very likely, but without the diamonds I reckon you should ordinarily lose 2 more bets. If only we could take 10 seconds over each decision.

chaos

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Chaos;

Yes, you make an excellent point. Losing the minimum amount as things turned out does not necessarily mean that I played the hand correctly. Indeed, I halaf-considered touching on some more points this morning after Mike's post, but I didn't really have time.

One point that I was going to make was that, if this had been 15-30, I would have raised on the river. This is because the cap on the turn at 15-30 "means" much less in terms of my opponent's strength. However, at 2-4 the default meaning is "very strong".

Now, as it also happens, I still seriously considered raising on the river, despite it being 2-4, because the only hand he could have that was consistent with his play that beat me was KK. However, his play said he was KK, and this was 2-4, so I erred on the side of caution. I was still marginal, however. If the river had been a low card, or a diamond, I would probably have raised.

I hadn't thought of the fact that he can't afford to check AK on the turn because this might give a free card, but your point is spot on.

So, by the end, I come down to two scenarios, both unlikely; one is that he has KK (and hasn't played it very well -- quite possible for a 2-4 player) and the other is that he has played whatever he has (say, AA with the Ace of diamonds) very badly indeed. Although I didn't have much info on this player, I had no evidence that he was a complete muppet.

These scenarios, where there are only two possibilities and both are "unlikely", are murder to play, and I tend to play cautiously when they crop up. Which, by definition, is not that often.

Thanks for the post chaos -- cleared up several things in my mind.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

Just to add I think there are 3 scenarios: KK; crazy play; AdK. By the time he leads on the river the AdK is much less likely than the KK.

It starts of less-likely dealt (x 2/3); Not always capped (x 2/3?); prlly equally likely to lead out on the flop; possibly both as likely to check the turn (which is generally the wrong play imo); KK more likely capped on the turn than AdK; & KK much more likely to lead out on the river than an AdK that misses. So this mittigates AdK considerably, and ramps the Kings, but AdK is 3 times as likely to find this flop as KK, so it recovers somewhat. Under analysis Kings feel more likely here though they won't I'm sure at the time. Also of course you have to be confident you're winning 2 in 3 to raise the river.

This level of classification is something to aspired to on the net i.e. identifying that most AK's don't check K K - 3 flush on the turn & incoorporate this into the decision-making,especially when you're thinking 'how much' not if you're gonna win. The game is just too fast, and the scenario too rare. Still we live in hope. I'd probably still misplay it, and there are plenty more urgent ones to get right than this!

chaos