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Gareth Chantler will be a familiar name if you’re a regular “What’s Your Play?” participant. He’s the guy whose comments always knock it out of the ballpark and make you feel like an ass for posting anything different. If that’s happened to you, don’t worry – he does it to me too! You might also recognize him from his cameo appearances in my 2012 WSOP Trip Report.
Gareth is a Zoom poker specialist who blogs and produces videos at CardRunners. He’s also an instructor at PokerStars’ Poker School Online and available for private coaching. Though he’s originally from Canada, poker gave Gareth the freedom to spend a year living in Peru, and he’s currently back in Canada grinding up a bankroll so that he can hit the road once again. You can follow his world travels and poker travails on Twitter.
Thanks to Bubblegum Octopus for providing this week’s music, including the outro song, “Betrayal is OK”. Bubblegum Octopus has a strong web presence, with tracks and more info available on Facebook, Myspace, or Bandcamp.
This is an extra long episode, and while Nate and I hope that you’ll want to hear it all, we’re going to give you a few timestamps in case you want to get all Reader’s Digest about it:
0:12 Introduction and congenial banter, including an amusing live poker story
7:02 Gareth on life, dropping out of college, and why he gets up in the morning
44:35 Gareth’s year in Peru and elsewhere
58:33 Our best strategy segment to date
1:31:35 Wrap-up
1:35:47 Email us! “Betrayal is OK” by Bubblegum Octopus.
What did you think of Gareth’s story? What did you think of the episode? Please comment here or e-mail us with your thoughts and questions.
Great interview!!!
I enjoyed very much.
Thanks, Andy, glad to hear it.
I very much enjoyed the interview with Gareth – now I can have his voice in my head when I read his comments on WYP.
Thanks for going over my hand. Loved the analysis and the feedback from Nate. I do think that’s an area of my game I can improve. One thing that wasn’t mentioned was that in the two orbits I had been at the table I had already raised pre-flop 3 hands, took down the first one with a CB, but then gave up post-flop on the 2nd two (the last one against the limper). That was part of my reasoning for worrying about a weak image (it wouldn’t even cross my mind if it was the first hand I played), but I don’t think that would change Nate’s comment to me much. Also, part of the reason I played this hand this way was in my reaction to myself saying to myself that I don’t want to seem weak and thinking about if there was an alternative to either check-give up or making a larger bet.
To clarify two things:
a) I did mean 1/2 pot between my turn and river bets (if turn called).
b) the main villain in this hand was probably in his mid 50’s and did turn out to be a tight straight-forward player (on a later hand with another older guy he seemed to know, he re-raised pre, which was called, and then they checked down an A high flop and called each other’s hands before showing: they both had pocket K’s).
Interesting use of bet-sizing by Dana. I like to think of this in high level terms:
rainbow flopped one over to his pair, with broadwayish straight draws, bet 2/3 pot
after turn, still has one over to his pair, and straight draws didn’t hit, bet 1/5 pot
after river, still has one over to his pair, and striaght draws didn’t hit, bit 1/7 pot
Interesting play with a hand that ranks like top pair, bottom kicker. Betting small actually does get worse hands to call. I think with good players, this is very transparent. If you do this a coupla times, a good player could always raise your small turn and river bets, so this seems overly exploitable to me. But maybe I’m paranoid. I would most likely have bet 2/3 pot again on the turn, then check river, or check turn and bet 2/3 pot on the river. Am I being just as exploitable by checking one or the other of the turn and river?
The way you play a single hand will rarely be exploitable in a vaccuum (the biggest exception to this being folding very strong hands). If you’re concerned about exploitability, the important thing to think about is what other hands you play the same way. If you’re never able to call a raise after betting 1/7 pot on the river, then you’re exploitable. If you do it with an appropriate number of strong hands, then you aren’t. This isn’t to say that it’s the best possible play, just that it’s not exploitable by a bluff-raise.