Just who is the five o'clock hero?

[peterbirks]

With the car going in for a service this afternoon and a media/insurance poker tournament tonight, it looks like a busy day ahead. Glad that I got a good night's sleep. The hallway ceiling continues to puzzle. I'll be glad when it's over.

+++

I threw away Ace-Jack off in MP1 last night, with no previous callers. Why?

Well, the previous hand (logically enough, in MP2), I had raised with King-Ten off. Live with my madness for a moment and consider these facts:

a) SB and BB were tight and willing to fold pre-flop
b) two players behind me were sitting out, so although my hand looked like a strong early position raise, I only had three players behind me.

Anyway, it was passed round to the big blind, who called.

Flop came rag rag rag with two clubs. He bets. I raise, he calls. I consider his bet an automatic with a pair and quite often with nothing. He is just assuming I have two high cards.

Turn is another raggy card. He checks, I bet (this often pushes a tight big blind off an Ace. He might even have something like KQ or KJ). He calls.

River is a King. He checks, I bet, he calls. I win. Unfortunately, I have to show the King-Ten. Not very good for my table image if I want to make most of my money by taking down uncontested pots (of course, it would be great for my table image in a loose game where I would be looking for callers).

Next hand, one of the players who had been sitting out came back in. I see the Ace-Jack. Ugh. If I raise here, I am quite likely to get three-bet by any pair eights or better, any A-Q, as well as the hands that would legitimately bet in normal circumstances. In other words, a lot of the power of the hand just went out of the window. So I threw it away.

Comments

[ribmeister.livejournal.com]

But on average AJ is the best hand, that's why you raise it...

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Ahh, but Ribbo, as a PLO player, surely you know that having the best hand "on average" is not enough if you are out of position. If I have a nice tight image, my raise will knock out the small pairs and, sometimes, AQ off -- hands which are favourite over the AJ.

If, however, I suddenly look like the guy who will raise with any old shit, I might get reraised with AT, A9. Everyone folds back to me. Do you say "ahh, on average I have the best hand, I shall reraise!"

No, of course you don't. You call.

If the flop comes anything but Jack-x-x or AJx or JJx, you are in deep shit because you are out of position. x-x-x, what do you do, check-raise the flop?

Say the flop is A-x-x. How do you play it?

The alternative scenario is that you raise with your AJ and get called immediately behind you, resulting in the leading of the flock. Now, have a look at AJ's equity against four opponents with hand rankings 2 to 5. It's horrible. AND you are stuck in the middle of a small blind, a big blind, and two or three opponents behind you.

AJ off's strength is seriously negated with (a) a lot of callers and (b) with a reraiser behind you.

Actually, even thinking of terms of "raise with the best hand, don't raise with not the best hand" is flawed in limit these days. I'll happily throw in a raise with Ace-seven off (or, as I showed a week or so ago, with T8s) in the right circumstances. So, even if on average it is the best hand, this is insufficient grounds, (by a long way) to raise with it.

Howver, raising with it is definitely better than limping...

PJ

[ribmeister.livejournal.com]

Sounds to me like someone has a case of the weak tight jitters.

If someone has my AJ beaten then big deal, it wont be the first time. However considering people saw me raise KT the previous hand, that's the perfect situation to be picking up a playable hand the very next deal. I love getting no respect when I raise, because over the long term I will be earning money with AJ from that position. It's more likely if you raise preflop the next hand it's more likely that someone will cold call you with a worse hand than reraise you with a better hand. This is because AJ likely is the best hand and if what you claim is true, you will get called by any suited ace, KQ KJ, plus obviously all the lower pocket pairs that you flip a coin with but because of the dead money in the blinds you're both correct to see a flop.
If we turn it around, players are more likely to fold the next hand since they will realise you know they don't respect you, so if you are raising you will have a big hand. And that's exactly what happened, you didn't play AJ because you feared it wasn't a big enough hand.
I've seen that play a lot of times before where a player gets lucky trying to steal, and the next hand gets a monster and takes down an even bigger pot from the players not respecting him. Yet he knew he needed a big hand from there on in since he would get called, so if he keeps betting it's probably not because he wants to steal another one...

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree that if I had AQ or better, any pair nines or better, then my raise is going in here with glee. But AJ, AT and A9s go into the muck. I can see why you think it is a case of weak-tight jitters, but I assure you that it isn't. The major problem is the lack of position and the reverse implied odds.

Suppose I had put in some kind of smeggy raise from the small blind (as is occasionally my wont), and it had been shown down. Then next hand on the button I get AJ and it passes round to the CO who raises. Now, in THIS position, I reraise immediately. I don't care that he might not respect my reraise. In fact, I don't want him to repsect my reraise. It was just in the situation I found myself in last night that I laid myself open to reverse implied odd dangers. If you say that position is worth between 0.5 of a bet to 0.75 of a bet (which is often why you raise to try to steal the button) then that value comes from somewhere. Maybe my AJ is best and will turn out to be best, but the pots I win will be smaller (perhaps significantly) than the pots I lose.

I should point out that if I had been playing 15-30 I would have raised in this point, because the opposition would be smart enough to think "hell, he knows that we saw the KT. He must want a caller this time. I'm out".

PJ

PJ

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing it so often just now that I'm getting mental pictures of Newman and Baddiel:

"You see that weak-tight?"
"I am aware of it's 2+2-inspired attributes"
"That's your playing style that is. And your Mum's"

Something like that.

[(Anonymous)]

Peter,

I think ribbo’s comments are on the money, this is an awful fold.

You use context to justify your fold, but it doesn’t, I believe, as Ribbo highlights. The context does provide a rather risk –averse reference point.

For one, you’ve just one a pot, so you’re ‘fed-up’ (in the falconry sense), and as you’ve highlighted yourself before, we are inclined to protect what we have & are short term risk-averse. I doubt if you’d done the same had you lost the pot, which should, in theory, strengthen you resolve to pass since they’d respect your raise less – but this strengthens the raise for me.

Also you are shifted further out of position than normal, intuitively you are expecting one less person behind you when you pick up the AJ, so you are ‘disappointed’ to find an extra person behind you – another unhelpful emotion – a disappointment you’d not have felt ordinarily.

I think BDD once commented there is a tendency for people to over-value they’re strengths. It took me a while to realise that I should underemphasize mine, and address my appalling weaknesses. There is, I believe, a subconscious tendency to engineer situations, or perhaps manipulate their appearance, to enable us to incorporate aspects of the game we understand, that others might not, so we can bring our strengths into the game, this inevitably results in overweigthing of said aspects. I’ve thought that of a number of hands you’ve described, and fully relate to it, but in different ways, in both passive and aggressive. A suitable analogy escapes me analogy, but one that a friend of mine used, which I find appropriate to describe my, initial ill-conceived tendency to focus on the maths side of the game, is ‘rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic’. Still, I think it has become undervalued now, because my poker-maths is crap.

chaos

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Actually chaos, you were the person whom I had in mind when I posted this. I KNEW what your response would be!

However, your points are well made. First of all, there is the hard-wired inclination to protect what we have and to become slightly more risk-averse. It's a fault I suffer from -- not as much as some people, but it's there.

Secondly, the "double shift out of position" perhaps weighed a bit too much on my mind.

BDD is a different kettle of fish when it comes to poker -- his line is more "typically American", hence is vulnerability to the famous winners' tilt.

You are right -- there is a subconscious tendency to engineer situations where you can bring your strengths into play. Another fault I have is occasionally giving opponents more credit than they deserve. This problem, happily, slides away as the stakes go up. I should focus more on things which bog-standard winners focus on.

At the moment, I'm concentrating too much on beating the winners, and this is definitely reducing my earn rate against the utter fish, where too much thinking is a dangerous thing.

In this particular instance, the simple question is "is a raise +EV?" When put that bluntly, it's hard for me to argue that it isn't (although there is a greater than 50% chance that I will lose money on any one particular hand). Unfortunately, if I DO raise, and get myself into some kind of multi-way equity-calculating out-of-position mess, (which you will accept is more likely, given the previous hand), then I am more likely to make a mistake, because that is the area of limit where I am weakest. I have written on that point before. My talent for making the wrong choice in such situations is unparalleled.

So, my fold was probably on the basis that I wanted to avoid a situation where I was likely to make a mistake on a later street.

Well, that's a crap attitude. In effect, I'm saying. "I know that a raise would be +EV if I played the hand correctly, but I probably won't, so I'm going to fold".

Although it's a crap attitude, it might be one which has served me well in the past, mainly because it was true (i.e., the raise would be plus EV for a good player, but not for me). But this has a reductio ad absurdum. The best EV for this kind of player would be to never sit down.

I had a nice hand last night multi-way against weak players. Out of position I flopped KQx rainbow. To cut a long story short, I bet the flop and turn and was called by three players each time. The river, as far as I could see, helped no-one. I suspect that I am against a worse King, a missed straight draw and, perhaps, another weak-passive AK. So I bet. I got three callers. I won. Three months ago in that situation, despite my gut instinct that I was in front, I would have checked here.

So, with that in mind, let's assume that I can make the AJ positive EV with quality play on later streets, rather than screw it up.

However, by way of defence, my own conservative attitude has kept me alive over the past five years. Look how many better players than me have suffered.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

Oh well, I took the bait. I suspect you fear that you are more likely to be played back at on the flop given the previous street and don't know what to do if you miss. It highlights perfectly the type of over-weighting I was talking about, like you, this additional calling-looseness would be in the forefront of my mind and cause me to massively overplay the hand, now I just overplay it.

The key point, for me, in this hand is there are no hands that would have passed ordinarily, but now call given the previous hand, as Ribbo suggests. KQ might be the exception, if I suddenly knew you had AJ, and then instantly forgot it, I'd likely call with KQ with position. The 'mistake thing' sounds like another soft issue, regret.
We'd probably rather take -2 % shot and turn it into a +1% by playing it well, then take turn a 6% into a 2% by playing it badly. You may be right, it may have turned loss making with your anticipated mistakes, but I reckon the above is def in-play.

The 'fed-up' analogy perfectly describes this short term loss-averseness (more apt than risk averseness, I suspect), that can lead us to turn down lots of edges because of this temporary 'full' state.
One remody, in my experience, is multi-tabling - you are seldom in one net-state long enough to try and preserve it, or value it - you bean count less and so our desensitised to the fluctuations.

BDD, American??

chaos

[andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com]

I know I'm not playing cash, but I have found that now I'm four-tabling I soon forget about things that might have bothered me otherwise, because there's another decision to make right away.

I still have some work to do to totally de-sensitize re: fluctuations though ...

Andy.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

The multi-tabling point is good. I was down to a single table at this point (I had quit a bad table and was waiting for a good one to appear). I'm only two-tabling at 3-6 and above at the moment.

I suspect that I should shift to three tables at this level sooner rather than later.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

so what did you mean by Dave's line being more typically american? Or indeed what is a 'typically american line'?

chaos

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I meant that Dave's observation that "there is a tendency for people to over-value they’re strengths" is a more typical American attitude, part of the belief in control over one's own destiny and that even the elements can be forced to submit to the individual's will, if that will is strong enough.

Why else would one shout at an inanimate deck of cards for an Ace, as if it could hear you?

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

'previous street' ~ 'previous hand'