Episode 144: Sam Grafton in the Shark Cage

10 thoughts on “Episode 144: Sam Grafton in the Shark Cage”

1. About explaining ICM to non-experts – this is a reprise of something I posted on 2p2:

   ….
   “I think when people (…) say ICM they often really just mean ‘motivation for laddering up the pay scale’

   Consider the following discussion between 2 poker players.
   – “I jammed because I knew it was an ICM fold for the fish.”
   – “Bad move, fish don’t know about ICM.”

   Consider the following discussion between 2 safari hunters.
   – “You made the lion run away by driving the jeep that fast, he was scared of your km/h”
   – “Nonsense, lions don’t know what km/h is.”

   Of course recreational players are (sometimes excessively) aware of the desirability of laddering up the pay scale and lions are aware of the concept of speed.
   ….

   Without knowing the exact spot, just saying “player X knows he might well have the best hand, but he doesn’t want to risk going out next when he could move up the money ladder by waiting for others to take risks first” pretty much encapsulates what’s going on and is also instinctive to non-experts. We should reserve the term “ICM” for when we are talking about the actual numbers spat out by that model, otherwise say “laddering” – same as we use “speed” and “km/h” depending on the situation.

   About Czech culture through books, I would recommend a look at Milan Kundera – the more Czech ones would be “Laughable Loves” and “The Joke”. Those two are somewhat easier going than Unbearable Lightness of Being, which is more famous (and also good).

   • I liked _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_, and haven’t read any other Kundera–thanks for the recommendations (and the comment)!

2. Loved the expanded discussion of the WCOOP hand. This is a surprisingly interesting spot considering how simple most of the decisions are.

   I’m still a ways away from y’all on the river ranges though. Looks like I have some work to do.

   • I played with this in Snowie a bit. It isn’t quite exactly right because Snowie has rake. That said,

     It has Villain opening 20%
     Hero calls 47% and raises 5%.

     On the flop Hero checks always, Villain c-bets 80%.
     Hero calls 37% and raises 6% — raising mostly two pair and QT.

     Hero always checks turn. Villain always bets — interesting. I assume this is because the A is good for his range.

     As played Hero bets the river small 20% of the time — busted gutshots, a few two pair, and stronger aces.

     I think Snowie’s sample size here is probably quite small for Villain — Villain was supposed to bet the turn all of the time so Snowie doesn’t often get to the river like this. Snowie shows Villain checking behind always, which probably can’t be right.

     After Villain bets Snowie has Hero:
     Call 57% of the time — mostly kings and a decent number of jacks, even down to J6.

     Raise 15% of the time with slow plays QT, AJ, A3. Bluffs are kings and some very weak aces.

     Because Snowie wouldn’t play the hand this way, and because of its possibly strange advice for Villain to always check back the river I’m not sure how good Snowie is doing here. BUT, the advice for Hero seems reasonable to me.

3. With Jc9c Snowie plays the same until the final decision where it calls 88% of the time, folds 8%, and bluff raises 4%.

   So, Jc9c is right on the border EV-wise of all three actions, call, fold, raise. Maybe that’s why this one feels interesting.

   I review a lot of my sessions afterwards with Snowie and it seems to happen often that the hands I’ve marked for review (hands where I wasn’t sure what to do) are very close EV-wise between two options.

   I make plenty of bigger mistakes but they are usually either in spots where I realize quickly that I was wrong or in spots where I had no idea I was making a big mistake.

4. Great episode – Sam’s always great value and this was no exception.

   Sam – it wasn’t entirely clear to me from listening whether you specifically wanted to get a stream of Land and Freedom rather than a DVD (although I know you did say you’d had difficulty tracking it down in any format), but if you would like a DVD copy then I have a copy that I’m unlikely to re-watch any time soon (circumstances rather than a comment on the film, which is great). I’d be happy to ship it to you in return for postage expenses paid by Stars transfer upon receipt of the parcel. Let me know if you’re interested (you can also hit me up on Twitter @chrisclough, if easier).

5. I’m ready to provide the struggling actor segment for a future “Thinking Film Podcast” series!

   Andrew, I didn’t like Casino either.

   Very entertaining episode overall, thanks guys!

   Sam, go read Game of Thrones, and then watch it. The books are such a fun ride.

6. Holdem Caulfield enjoyed this episode.

7. Another vote for the occasional discussions about books (particularly for me) and films. I read Love and Garbage by Ivan Klima (mentioned by Sam) about 15 years ago and thought it was great. Must reread it, as “1 is an overrated number of times to read a book” (Meyvis, 2015).

   Perhaps Nate will reread some Eggers and revise his opinion (not holding my breath!).

8. A bit late, but just listened to it — cool! Thanks so much for taking my comment from the last episode and delving so deeply into an analysis of the play. You guys are awesome.

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