Twenty Four Hours

[peterbirks]

And so, farewell Tony Wilson. He’s five years older than me, you know. Or, rather, was.

The “tributes” to him were rather strained, indicating that perhaps a man with such unshakable self-belief is unlikely to have made a great deal of close friends. In a way, he was a bit like a Branson with a different kind of obsession. Certainly his historical attitude to money meant that, when he needed it near the end of his life to pay for cancer drugs, he didn’t have it. Good credit to the Happy Mondays and (I hear) the guys in New Order for helping him out there.

I actually remembered Wilson from So It Goes, so it came as a some surprise when he re-emerged more than a decade later as the driving force behind Factory. Gawd bless him. He might have had no self-doubt and no business sense, but he kept the faith. The world needs more like him.




I’m becoming increasingly hesitant ever to post hand histories, because anyone who agrees with me (a world population of about three, I think) stays silent, while the normal response is “You’ve carved this”, which doesn’t really do a lot for my confidence when sitting down at the tables. I know that my thought processes are very different from the two main respondents to my posts (BDD and Matt). Since my confidence in my play (or, rather, the lack thereof) is one of my biggest problems, posting any hand histories at all reeks of masochism. But, well, it brings in the readers, and Full Tilt pays me $50 a month to bring in the readers. I guess that my results over the past four months have at least boosted my confidence to the level where I’m willing to believe that I must be doing something right.


This hand went completely according to plan.

Apart from the result.

$100 USD NL Texas Hold'em
Table Jackpot #1304238 (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: rev33n ( $100 USD )
Seat 2: wawun ( $90 USD )
Seat 3: kim_jansen ( $30.80 USD )
Seat 4: ruthsloan ( $115.18 USD )
Seat 5: DarkstarT ( $95.25 USD )
Seat 6: Niflerb1904 ( $15.50 USD )
Seat 7: Villain ( $104.02 USD )
Seat 8: Desperate Fish ( $25.15 USD )
Seat 9: Hero ( $117.08 USD )
Seat 10: jabatheflush ( $62 USD )
Niflerb1904 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Villain posts big blind [$1 USD].

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ A◊ A♡ ]
Desperate Fish calls [$1 USD]
Hero raises [$4 USD]
jabatheflush folds.
rev33n folds.
wawun folds.
kim_jansen folds.
ruthsloan folds.
DarkstarT folds.
Niflerb1904 folds.
Villain calls [$3 USD]
Desperate Fish calls [$3 USD]

Villain is laggy on a fairly small sample 40%/20%, quite aggressive (2.0) on flop and turn.

** Dealing Flop ** [ 3♠, 2♡, 9♠ ]

$12 in pot.

Villain bets [$6 USD]

This looks a bit like a pot control bet to me. These players tend to check their sets to a raiser. Possibly a vulnerable overpair (although I would expect a bigger bet from him in that case) and possibly/probably a draw of some kind.

Desperate Fish raises [$15 USD]

Desperate Fish has been 44/2 over 40 hands, and he’s been losing solidly. I think he’s reached the “fuck it, let’s bash it in” stage

Hero calls [$15 USD]

I have a choice here. I can either smash it all in and go for the pot “as is”, or I can tempt Villain into an isolation raise. Provided he raises a reasonable amount, I’ll reraise him all in. I can think of a range of hands where Villain is likely to try a raise that will get my apparently weak hand to fold. If by some perchance I lose the main pot, I might well win the (larger) side pot. I think that a call here will tempt villain, and I think that it’s worth the gamble. He might well put in a big raise here with only two outs. The danger with my flat call is that I’m giving him odds on a flush draw, if he has a flush draw.

Villain is all-In.
Desperate Fish is all-In.

Bingo. ALL I have to hope now is that my assessment of the hand is right and that nothing untoward happens on flop and turn.

Hero calls [$85.02 USD]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 8♡ ]

Hard to see any shadows from this card

** Dealing River ** [ K♠ ]

Now I’m in trouble if he has any two spades.

Desperate Fish shows [ J◊, 9♣ ]a pair of Nines.
Hero shows [ A◊, A♡ ]a pair of Aces.
Villain shows [ Q♠, A♠ ]a flush, Ace high.

Bollocks. Was there a bit of “winners’ tilt” at play here? Perhaps. I suspect that, if I hadn’t been running so well the past couple of weeks, I would have re-raised all in on that flop. But Pokerstoving it confirmed my view that I was in good shape when all the money went in – 2-1 favourite for the evens side pot and evens favourite for the 2-to-1 main pot. <.i>


Villain wins $157.74 USD from side pot #1 with a flush, Ace high.
Villain wins $72.45 USD from the main pot with a flush, Ace high.

Comments

[ribmeister.livejournal.com]

Flush draw = the nuts.
Same in omaha, show a person a flush draw, they will always find a way to justify shoving. Usually something about "range of hands" and figuring he has more outs than he actually does.

Of course in omaha people love their draws to 2 pair when they know you have aces. Often they forget that actually you get dealt 4 cards as well as their 4 cards and just sometimes, those other 2 cards makes the nuts on the flop and bust their rivered 2 pair.

[(Anonymous)]

Well at least I'm pretty consistent. Every week I recommend that you re-raise rather than call when you're going with a weak hand (like a pair). Every week you have a different reason for just calling raises.

matt

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Actually Matt, it's now getting to the stage where I'm deliberately looking for that kind of hand ... :-)

PJ

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

OK, call m stupid, call me naive, call me ignorant.

However, you lose this hand on a (more or less) 25% last river. As yousay, "hard to see any shadows from [the turn]".

I sort of vaguely agree with matt's general argument, but surely, three out of four ain't bad?

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

There's a common error made amongst poorer poker players, when all the money goes in pre-flop, say, with JJ (held by a young enthusiastic Swedish Internet uber whizz kid) v AK (held by, hmm, let's take a famous player at random - Mike Matusow) (suits will be irrelevant for this example). Let's also assume that it's on the World Series, where there are dramatic pauses after the flop and turn, even though all the money went in pre-flop.

The board then comes 5 - 7 - A (pause.....) putting the AK in front

The turn comes Q (longer pause .......)

and the river comes a Jack.

Cue much screaming and shouting from the audience, hollering from the Swedish kid, and a cream of epithets from Matusow. He then goes to an interview and moans how he was beaten by a two-outer.

Except, of course, he wasn't. He was a dog when all the money went in. and that is all that matters.If the board had come J - 6 - 5 - 3 - A, would he still say he got beaten by a two-outer?

Anyhoo, the point of this story is, it doesn't matter how big a favourite I was with one card to come. All that matters is how big a favourite I was when all the money went in. Here I was evens to win the main pot and 66% to win the side pot. I'd put in 33% of the money in the main pot and 50% of the money in the side pot.

My commentary on the hand was merely a la WSOP TV commentary -- an indication of my feelings, but irrelevant to the maths of the hand.

PJ

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. As I say, I'm ignorant. For that reason, I failed to watch where the money went in. Even "Villain's" betting makes more sense to me now.

[(Anonymous)]

You certainly got your chips in with a +EV situation, but look at it from the villain's point of view. The way you played it means that when he shoves he's putting in $80 or so to win the lot at roughly 2-1. His reasoning might well that he has fold equity and that an ace or queen might be outs. He's wrong here of course and his shove is marginally -EV but not by much, it's not a huge error. If you had a set then it would be terribly -EV of course so I'd like your line then. If you re-raise allin on the flop immediately and he calls then he's putting in the vast majority of his stack with zero fold equity and a 1/3 chance against effectively one opponent (the main pot being far smaller and less significant at this stage). If he calls then this is quite clearly -EV in a significant way. Since you want to play in such a way that your opponents play as badly as possible I would still argue that getting in first on the flop was therefore better although with a set I would like your call inducing him to shove. You don't make money from the random fall of cards, you make it from your opponents making -EV decisions.

matt

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Matt:

Yes, I like this line of thought. You are probably right in that I am effectively rating my Aces here as good as a set -- which they aren't.

This is quite a difficult concept as we are looking at two types of "equity". I happen to know that villain has zero fold equity, because I know that I am calling him. but he doesn't know that, and his opinion is reasonable, given that he does not know my intentions.

The point is, how minus EV does this make his shove? From his point of view, not much (if at all) because, as far as he knows, he has some fold equity.

Our difficulty here is that we know both sets of cards and what my intentions were, whereas in the situation as was at the time, I didn't know his, and he didn't know mine.

If I raise all-in, he has two choices - a fold (the correct play) and a call (a very minus EV play).

If I call the minor player's raise, the bigger stack has two choices, a call (the correct EV play) and a raise (a minus EV play, because I know that I am calling)

I think that looking at it from villain's point of view (although valid for a different question) is a bit of a red herring here. Part of my shove-inducing play would be on the grounds that he would think he had fold equity (which I know he hasn't got). In other words, I've induced an error.

If I raise, I might induce another kind of error - a call.

The point surely is, is he more likely to fold to my reraise all-in than he is to shove if I flat-call?

Both of our money has gone all-in - the relevance of whether he put it in first or I did is surely dubious - his EV is the same in either case. What is different is what he thinks his EV is. As you say "He's wrong" in this case.

I think that the argument against me calling here is not that he has less of a subjective minus EV if he raises -- all that does is shift the mistake from one part (a call with zero fold equity) to another (a raise where he thinks he has fold equity, but he doesn't). The argument is that if I flat call, he may not raise. If that is the case, then I have foregone the chance that he might call my shove.

If I go all-in on the turn (assuming that the turn is not a spade) then he will allmost certainly fold. To use a phrase that BDD used a while ago, I will have turned a 60% shot into an 80% shot, but I would have lost my action.

I've no objection to shoving here and, as the cards lie, I think that I would shove, because he is almost certainly calling. I just thought that my best chance of us both getting all our money in on the flop was if I called.

If I wanted to play in a way so that my opponents played "as badly as possible" then I would give him a chance to call all in on the turn, when he would be a much bigger dog. Unfortunately, there's a trade-off. By giving him the opportunity to play worse, you also make it more likely that he will not make any mistake at all.

I think that's a nice phrase, but it conceals some dangerous thoughts. What is opponent's "worst" play here? If I raise, his worst play is to call and his best play is to fold.

If I call, his worst play is to raise and his best play is to call, although this has a subset of the turn, where, if a spade does not fall, and I bet and he calls, he has turned his "better" play into a far worse play.

This is slightly garbled, because it's a complex area that covers a vast part of "what's the right play" and also contains what one might call a "general theorem" of "you want to play in such a way that your opponents play as badly as possible".

I would argue that my play here achieved that aim, whereas your line would appear to be that my line here did not.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

After you call there's 48 in the pot and he has to call 9 to see a turn with a flush draw to the nuts. I find it hard to believe that your call can therefore be correct.

If you know he's going to shove then OK, but you can't know that. And if you take the same calling line with any overpair then he is correct to shove. Against TT/JJ he's a fav, against QQ/KK he's a slight dog (but more than compensated for by the pot odds) and it's only against AA that he's slightly EV against. Against sets he's always struggling as he only has his flush outs and you may be able to beat the flush.

matt

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

On the second paragraph: You make two separate points in the first two sentences. Taking the second point first:

Para 2, sentence 2) I'm not taking the same calling line with any overpair.

I'm shoving with KK-JJ definitely.

I'm actually a bit lost with TT (inexperience), but I would probably have bet more on the flop - probably pot-sized. Not sure how the hand would then pan out. Thinking about it, I would probably have bet a higher proportion of the pot on the flop with JJ as well. That might have ultimate metagame exploitability consequences, but I'm just saying that that is what I would have done in this situation in the here and now.

Once again, I think that we are getting confused about what exactly we are talking about - his actual EV in this hand, the EV he thinks he has in this hand, or the EV that he would have against what he thinks is my possible range? It's dangerous to flit from one to the other. As you say "it's only against AA that he's slightly EV against".

But that's partly the point. I have AA, and it's this hand we are talking about, not a "universal set" of possible hands.

That's the reason for my play. If he takes this line of thought (looking at my "range"), then he will make an error.


Para 2, Sentence 1) Your key point is the first sentence of para 2 - which points out what I have already said - the flaw in my line is that I cannot know that he is going to shove. My hope is that he will think that against my range he is correct to shove (your second sentence). This he did. So, I turned out to be right.

However, I can't know this in advance. Saying that "he did it, so my play was right" has no more validity than saying "I hit my two-outer, so my call was correct". I know that he's laggy, but the sample is small, and even a laggy player would be tempted to call here rather than raise. What if he has a draw to the second nuts, for example?

Hard to work out exactly how the EV works here, but I reckon

(a) it is better EV to raise (assuming he folds correctly) than to call (assuming he calls correctly) (further assuming he folds to an all-in bet if no spade comes on the turn).

(b) It is also identical EV for me to raise (assuming he calls incorrectly) than to call (assuming he raises incorrectly).

(c) It is only better EV for me to call if I assume that he would raise incorrectly to my call and also that he would fold correctly to my raise. As
there are 2.5 scenarios where raising is better than calling and only 1.5 where calling is better than raising (see below), I have to accept that the raise is probably right.



Mathematically:

Along the lines of the various EVs of (F=Fold by opponent, R=Raise by opponent, C=Call by opponent, and r=raise by me and c=call by me)

P(F) given r, P(C) given r, P(R) given c and P(C) given c

To P(C) given c we have to add in the subsets on the turn of (not spade):
P(C) given r.

Assign the relative probabilities to the respective EVs, and you can actually come up with a definitive answer! Unfortunately, one could also then disagree about the probabilities assigned. But I'll back down anyway and say that, looking at it this way, I reckon the EV is better if I raise.

A separate further thought.

I think this hand illustrates the Sklansky theorem nicely. Suppose all the cards are face up. Would I play differently? And to that, I have to accept the answer is yes. So I have made a mistake.

Would he play differently? To that, I suspect, the answer is also yes. So he has made a mistake.

But whose mistake is bigger? Has my mistake induced a bigger mistake from opponent? Even given all of the above, I think that this is exceedingly marginal.

PJ

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

And to add to that final point, this illustrates Gary Carson's argument neatly (put forward many years ago on alt.rec.gambling). I have made a mistake now in the hope that it will make my opponent will make a mistake in the future, which is a fairly stupid strategy.

Since I am a fan of Carson, I can promise to raise if a similar situation arises again!

PJ