After a cross-country drive, Andrew has finally reunited with Nate in Las Vegas for the 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event! The two are joined by Carlos to talk about a few hands Nate played in a preliminary 10-game event, low-stakes tournaments in Vegas, and much, much more.
16 thoughts on “Episode 85: Finally in Las Vegas!”
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I liked this one for many reasons. Very good live, in-person dynamic with the three amigos. Still, the best part, for me, is the idea of you three as celebrities, with headsets on, in the main hall of the Rio, and all that fancy equipment.
I loved this episode.
Part of it is because I grew up on Stud games and it’s still my favorite branch of poker. So there’s a natural interest there. And the professional equipment does make a sound quality difference. But leave those things aside.
I think three things really worked well in this episode:
1. The three way dynamic between Andrew, Nate, and Carlos is fantastic. It’s some combination of the voices, manner, attitude, style, substantive comments/interests, and their interactions. But it just works. There are tons of radio shows (Mike and Mike on ESPN comes to mind) where when one of the partners is absent, regardless of who replaces them, it just doesn’t work well. And then when the partner comes back, you realize how valuable the synergy is. You guys have it as a threesome. I think Andrew and Nate have a good dynamic together as a as duo, but often you guys are in the same groove, as a matter of substance, style, and voice. Carlos totally rearranges that, and actually brings out the differences between you.
2. I think discussing mixed games shows off a lot of the strengths of the show. In some ways it literally shows off the point of the hand analysis side of the show, because you guys are actually and obviously thinking through general issues in real-time, rather than explaining things, as sometimes it tends to bend toward when you discuss a NLHE hand. And while it’s obvious Andrew is much more a NLHE specialist than a mixed game guy, and I’d wager that NLHE is Nate’s (and Carlos’) best game on an absolute scale, it’s pretty clear that you guys can effectively apply general poker and strategic-game principles to these discussions at a level that might actually be a bigger relative gap for your audience than you can in NLHE. That’s probably a comparative advantage.
The mixed games discussions also flip one of the main dynamics of your show on its head — Nate is the presumed #1 expert, and Andrew takes the role of smart-but-#2 guy. This is refreshing, because forces both of you to behave slightly differently as an interpersonal matter than you usually do. I’m not sure if there is a general upshot to this, but it can hardly be bad.
3. For me at least, discussing hands for their own sake is less interesting than discussing hands that illuminate general principles. Now, I know every hand — and definitely every hand you pick to discuss on the show — can illuminate a general principle. But it seems to me that, across all your shows/hands, the ones you guys bring in yourself to the show tend to be better springboards toward discussion of general concepts. Now maybe that’s random, and on this show maybe it was a function of the hands being mixed game hands. But I would encourage you to both pick hands more explicitly for thinking about bigger picture principles (as opposed to simply “this was a tough spot” or “I like this play”), and when you do select hands, to spend more time generally on the bigger picture. In this episode, I thought all of that went really well.
Good luck today, tomorrow, and over the weekend! We’re rooting for you.
Matt
Thanks for the kind words and excellent suggestions as always!
I think one of the reasons this worked so well is Carlos will press Andrew and Nate to explain their expertise in plain language. Carlos has improved a lot over the past year, but he still asks good questions for the purpose of the average listener.
One of the strengths of the show is the guys, through the mailbag questions, Andrew’s writings (see: What are you afraid of? The Hidden Cost of Slowplaying, etc), are well attuned to what less experienced/expert players need to improve on or misunderstand.
Carlos brings that strength even more to the fore, because he is a good listener and student, and he can restate his understanding well.
That is of course additional to the shared camaraderie, which is obvious, and enjoyable. I vote more for more of this format as well.
Andrew has some nice cashes in PLO H/L MTTs. I think he probably understand mix games more than one thinks. Hes just a humble guy.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, K (and sorry to miss you out here). I’d say
actual mix game players >>> Nate >>>>> me >>> your average NLHE specialist
Yep, as Matt says, this was a great episode and a really enjoyable listen.
I was thinking about your discussion about how, if you tank for a while before betting, it can look pretty obvious that you’re going for thin value (and Andrew thus decided against making such a bet on that basis).
Do you ever then think about tanking in this exact same way when you have the nuts? If you are afraid that tanking and then betting thinly is liable to lead to a check-raise bluff (or any of the other bad stuff that can happen when your opponent thinks he knows exactly what you are doing), then surely this is a great way to induce a check-raise bluff (or a thin call) at times when you’d welcome it?
And by doing it with the nuts from time to time, it means that on those occasions when you do legitimately need to think for a while about whether to go for thin value your tanking is less readable and thus less exploitable.
I can see that thinking for longer than ‘necessary’ and then showing down the nuts could be seen as bad etiquette by some players, especially if done too often – but, on the other hand, being able to balance your tanking seems like a decent weapon to add to one’s arsenal.
Thanks for the kind words. I do try to be consistent with my timing, including sometimes tanking a bit with strong hands (and sometimes that tank is genuine – even when I know I’m going to bet, deciding how much to bet can require some thought) and it’s very possible that I was just being paranoid. Sometimes, though, the circumstances make it such that I’m more likely to be thinking about a thin value bet than a nut hand, and this occurs because I didn’t really plan to tank, just all of a sudden I realize it’s been 90 seconds or something and I start to worry that I can’t convincingly represent strong hands anymore. I guess when I put it that way it really does sound like it’s mostly in my head.
I don’t play anything besides NLHE and PLO, so alot of that discussion was a bit beyond me, but the discussion of the hold ’em dead concept (and whether to raise or guarantee the pot) really stuck out. I think that’s something that I’ll remember if I ever do play those games. One general question – am I right that you can only make this play if you have position? (I’m guessing that you draw based on position but correct me if I’m wrong)
I listened to this podcast a couple times now and each time I find some gems. I think Mix games are the future. Nobody wants to be Phil Hellmuth even though he has all kinds of cred to his name and I give him all my respect. We all want to be Phil Ivey or Daniel Negraneau.
Or they do anyway. So this opens up new fields of exploitation. The last time I was in Vegas I learned that Limit O8 is just a total different beast than PLO and the nuances are so exciting and challenging.
The combo of Nate, AB, and Carlos is just damn perfect. Its clear and educational on many levels. Thank you my brothers.
Keone: thanks! I’m very glad you liked the show. It’s too bad we didn’t get a chance to meet in person, but I imagine we will some day.
As for mixed games being the future… that would be nice, but I’ve seen a decade of predictions that mixed games will be the future, and NLHE is still decidedly king. Perhaps you remember the year, mid-boom, when ESPN televised a whole bunch of bracelet events in non-HE games. It was a total failure.
I do agree that O8 is an interesting and challenging game, though, and I had a great time trying to learn some of the new popular games this year.
I mispoke about mixed games. Im not talking about popularity.What I mean is for those of us who have a knack and passion for mixed games can look to fertile fields as NLHE fanboys are trying to emulate bracelet winner Ivey and Negraneau who excel in those games. Ive just seen so many bad plays and misunderstanding of board texture and strategy. A NLHE approach just doesnt work with alternate games.
Agree emphatically with Matt Glassman’s assessment of this week’s show. With no guests, my expectations weren’t high. Y’all hit it out of the park, though! This was one of my favorite episodes. Keep up the great content and dynamic!
keone says:
‘The combo of Nate, AB, and Carlos is just damn perfect.’
Quoting for emphasis.
You guys are all awesome.
Im not afraid to ask the stupid questions. That’s the only way I’ve gotten as far as I have. Plus stupid questions seem to go well with my southern accent. I’d love to do this during more strategy sections.
After listening to the 75s hand again, I cant help but think that if the shoe was on the other foot and someone tried to bet the river after checking back the turn (which denies a monster hand), Andrew would snap raise them and maybe even all in.
I could be wrong, but I generally review him as the “you cant have a monster, I raise” guy.