Achievements

[peterbirks]

Sometimes I think that I would have enjoyed being a coder — for about a year or two, anyway. At work we are soon going to be launching our new portal, and my own esteemed work will be uploaded onto it. However, since I produce a daily newsletter, the normal uploading process for less time-sensitive productions woouldn't be any good. So we worked out something quicker.

This involved me adding tags to the stories, which will then be processed using a Python program and uploaded to the web site via something called, unimaginitively, xml uploader.

So far, so simple. A guy from IT came upstairs and installed Python and the xml and the processing batch files on my machine at work.

Except, of course, when it comes to things like this, things are never quite that simple. Paths need to be changed, things are missing (in this case an important part of Python, pywin32,build 2-09), DLLs that should be there, aren't. So, Mr IT man spent two hours on two separate afternoons, and, this morning, we finally dry-ran it, and it worked. Yowza.

But this wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that I had to install all this shit on my machine at home, the one connected to the office by a VPN, because the programs were running on the C Drive.

Now, lumping the machine into work can be done, but it isn't much fun. So, armed with my scrawled notes and having watched Mr IT man install all the shit and change the environmental variables and download things from three separate places, I set to work.

And, well, bugger me, it worked first time. I've never known that happen before. There's one final bit (actually running the upload program) that I can't test-run, but we'll find out about that on Friday.


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Here's a bit of a post that you may or may not have read, recounting a hand in the WSOP this week, on day one.

Next , again in the SB I had 88 , after 3 limpers I wanted to thin the field , so raised to 300 , they all called , flop was J 8 5 , I led out for 900 and seat one and two called , with a straight and a flush draw there I checked in the dark , turn was a 7 , seat 1 checked but seat 2 bet 2000 , pot was now 5900 and as seat one was already picking up 2000 to call I knew I was getting 4-1 to hit my full house , I called , river was a K , I decided to lead out for 1100 rather than check call seat two who if he was betting the turn with the blockers , ie 99 or TT to represent the straight he may bet more on the river than I want to call , also if seat one calls my bet and he now moves in he must have the straight , 9T of diamonds would have been a great hand for the flop . My bet was called by seat one and then seat two raised all in for 6500 , I had to assume he had the straight and passed as did seat one , I ended the level 6525 .


And, at the end of this (long) post, covering many many hands:

On reflection the only hand I could have played differently was the AA where I over raised to 1400 but I was playing the player.

Now, I know that I'm not the greatest tournament player in the world, and that my No Limit expertise OOP is, at best, laughable, but, well, wouldn't you be asking yourself some questions about this play of 88 in the SB?

I mean, you raise to 300 to thin the field (although I would have thought that 88 OOP is a classic "hope to hit a set" middle pair) and this fails to get anyone out. Conclusion? Either you should have raised more or you shouldn't have raised at all.


Then on a flop of J85 (great, you've hit your set) you lead out for 900, despite there being two of a suit and worrying straight draw possibilities. Unsurprisingly, you get two callers, and a goof chance that you will be worried by the turn card. So, at this point, you decide to check in the dark.

I dunno, the entire progression of the hand has me puzzled. Clearly this game is more complex than I thought. I would have check-raised the flop all-in.

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Peter,

Obviously this player has not got much of a clue. But if this is the worst played hand you've found in the Main Event you haven't been looking very far!

Regards

Rob

[(Anonymous)]

How big are the blinds? If we don't know that then it's possibly unfair to criticise the preflop raise. He might be raising three times the pot and just got unlucky that there were three loose callers to foil his plan. Also not sure why betting 3/4 of the pot on the flop is so terrible. The drawing hands are probably not getting good enough odds to call and it might look like a continuation bet and induce a raise from AJ or something. I'll stop defending him after the flop though!

Michael

How big were the blinds

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Michael:

Yes, I spotted after I posted this that I didn't mention the blind levels. However, I concluded that since the point was that he raised to thin the field, and got three callers, this was not that relevant. Kind of a "My raise was good, but they were idiots" argument, with which I hold no truck. If the raise fails in its objective, then it's the wrong-sized raise.

In fact the blinds were just 25/50 (level one) and so he was putting 300 into a 225 pot. You can take your own view on whether this was big enough to thin the field (a strategy that I have my doubts about from OOP with 88 in any case) but it could be said that as soon as the first player calls the raise, then the second and third callers are in for the implied odds.

Once you are in this horrible situation of a 1300 pot OOP with a set of eights, your major problem is that any diamond, any six, seven, nine, 10, or Queen and probably something I've missed, on the turn, cause you worries, or about 55% of the deck.

All we can really say is that everything that was done "might" have worked. perhaps "should" have worked, but all that you have to go on is what actually happened, which indicate that neither the "might have" or "should have" came home. The net result of it was building the wrong-sized pot that offered an opponent the chance for what might well have been a great steal on the river. It's that possibility that I would want to make sure doesn't arise. You can easily say "oh, he definitely had the straight" and I agree that from the quality of the play that I have seen reported, this was likely. But it was not certain. So, 25% of your stack lost on a set where you didn't even see the showdown, and yet the player remains happy with his play of the hand.

PJ

Re: How big were the blinds

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

I've seen this kind of preflop move quite a bit - it's a fairly typical low-blind LAG move. It's the multiple-ways-to-win thing: you have misrepresented your hand to some extent (unless the opposition are already awake & aware that your range my be broad, in which case they're not much better off) so you have a bluff opportunity from the representation and another possibility from flopping the set at least.

And of course with 10K stacks and 25-50 blinds there are implied odds absolutely all over the shop.

Deep stack big-bet tournament poker is tricky. I think Hellmuth has the right idea: don't turn up for a couple of levels.

Re: How big were the blinds

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

The trouble with the implied odds here is that, they might be all over the shop, but that, in this particular instance, it isn't your shop that they are all over; it's the shops of the other players.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

Raising 88 is very aggressive but not wrong. He probably has the best hand and raising like this often sets up a later steal. There's an argument for playing fast early on in big field tourneys as the dead money is going to donk off chips quickly and it might as well be to you.

You say you'd check-raise the flop allin ...first of all there's no guarantee anyone will bet. When an aggressive player raises from the blinds then checks the flop the possibility of a check-raise is always in the air. Certainly someone acting last with 9T isnt going to bet. Secondly if someone does bet, so now the pot is 2,000 or so, don't you think an allin of your 10,000 stack is a slight overbet? The only hands which are calling are JJ or maybe an open-ended straight+flush draw.

The flop bet seems perfect to me ... about 3/4 of the pot which will tempt flush draws etc into calling when they don't have the right odds. After two callers you know the turn is going to be problematic and you're first to act. Checking in the dark means that they can't deduce anything from your check whether a blank, turn card, or flush card falls.

On river you're worried about seat 2 more than seat 1. By making a reasonable bet you're making Seat 1 call which must inhibit greatly the chance of Seat 2 bluffing as Seat 1 may have the nuts even if he believes the blind has nothing.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I don't normally reply to anonymous posts, but I must comment on this line that "the dead money is going to donk off chips quickly and it might as well be to you."

I've long maintained that the dead money in tournaments often survives a lot longer than the live money, usually going out in the top third of the field but out of the money. Dead money certainly doesn't "donk off chips quickly".

My general interpretation here is that any combination of play that leaves you losing a significant lump of your stack, with a good hand, without seeing a showdown, must have you asking yourself questions about the sagacity of the various plays in the hand. I know that I would be asking myself some serious questions about whether what I did was right. That's a general point, not one specific to this hand.

I know that there is no guarantee that there will be a bet on the flop. That's OK too. If that happens, then I've kept the pot size small when OOP. I might still end up losing a quarter of my stack, but at least I'll see a showdown. I really think that the size of the flop bet is wrong, because it sets up the horrible situation later on.

If there is a bet on the flop, your check-raise all-in wins it there and then unless your original sentence is true, that the dead money will indeed donk off chips quickly. As you say, only JJ or some monster draw will call you, and, given the way the hand has gone, that's a small percentage of the possible range of hands. Your CR willnearly always win you 1,800 chips or thereabouts, a 20% increase in equity. That would be fine by me. Let's assume that there's an equal chance of a bad call and of a good call. You are as likely to beat the bad call as you are to lose to the good call. That all evens out, although it increases your volatility. Since the check-round doesn't really bother you either (because it gets rid of the horrible decision on the river), a check seems a much nicer play. Now, if I was on the button, I like the 3/4 pot bet much better.

PJ