Student Blogs

Two of my students have recently started poker blogs that may prove worth following:

Korako

RC Swanson

Neither has posted too much yet, but hey, they are learning from the master, so something insightful is bound to trickle down!… Read full post

River Bluff Raise

Here’s a tricky little play I made early in tonight’s session. I’m going to try using an embeddable replayer that one of my readers suggested to me, but if you have trouble watching it, please leave a comment to let me know. I won’t use it again if it causes … Read full post

Book Review: Harrington on Cash Volume II

My One Minute Recommendation: Harrington on Cash Games Volume II covers turn and river play as well as playing loose and aggressive, dealing with others who play that way, bankroll management, and other topics. Harrington explains complex poker theory well, but when it comes to putting it into practice, his … Read full post

March

Oooph. Man I feel like I just got brutalized all month, but the truth is that I was nearly even until about 10 days ago, and then things really hit the skids. It was some combination of running bad, getting frustrated, and once finding myself in an expensive game with … Read full post

Grand Canyon Pictures

Last month, my girlfriend and I spent a few days at the Grand Canyon. I know most of you probably don’t care, but for those of you who know me or who enjoy looking at pictures of other peoples’ vacations, here are some pictures:



Here I am standing on an … Read full post

Book Review: Harrington on Cash Games Volume I

My One Minute Recommendation: Harrington on Cash Games Volume One scores a 5/10. Players who are new to NLHE cash games will find it initially helpful, especially if they are interested in full ring play. Those who are already moderately successful at cash games will find little of use, especially … Read full post

Ship It

Two exciting deliveries arrived yesterday. The first was my new laptop. My old machine was going on five years and pathetic at handling all my poker applications. Also the screen was so lame compared to my dual monitor wide-screen desktop set-up. The new computer has a 17″ screen, which will … Read full post

RIUDL Banquet

I was in Providence Wednesday night for the Rhode Island Urban Debate League‘s end of the year banquet. It was a powerful event marked by three highlights: speeches from Providence mayor David Cicilline, Great Debaters star Nate Parker, and the graduating seniors of the RIUDL. Perhaps the biggest story, … Read full post

Poor Heads Up Ethics

I’ve mentioned from time to time how annoying it is when people “hit and run”, or win a big pot and quit immediately. Although it can occur at any table, it’s especially annoying when playing heads up because the game is more personal and because when they quit, there’s no … Read full post

Massachusetts Rally Update


On Tuesday, I posted about a rally I attended at the Massachusetts State House to protest a provision of Governor Patrick’s casino legislation that made playing poker online a felony punishable by up to $25,000 and/or two years in jail. I’m happy to report that the committee holding a hearing … Read full post

Can’t Argue With That Logic

I’d been playing this short stacker heads up at 10/20 NL. He was pretty bad, but I was going to need to make a hand to bust him. Finally, I got AKo and made my standard $60 raise. He shoved all in for about $400, I snap-called, and he turned … Read full post

Sorry for the Recent Downtime

It was brought to my attention that updates haven’t appeared on the blog since Thursday, though I’d been making them. Apparently my terrible hosting company, Ipower (I’m not giving them a link here, and I urge you never to use them), ‘updated’ me to some new hosting platform or something. … Read full post

A Deepish Sunday Run

I got up big stacks in both the $200 UB and the $500 FTP tournaments today. The UB went south when I called a tiny raise from the CO with 64s in my BB. He had been active, we were both kinda deep stacked, and there were antes, so I … Read full post

Tricky Tournament Float

We were down to the final five in last night’s $1000 WSOP satellite. We were all getting our entry fee back, but there was only one seat to be awarded (which was annoying as hell- just one or two more entrants, and there would have been two seats, which makes … Read full post

The Cinqfecta

I wonder if this is a record- I got and hit and run five times by the same guy tonight over the course of about three hours. On several occasions, he bought back within the same amount of money he had when he quit the last time, but I was … Read full post

Advertising

DJ Sensei had a good post a while back about advertising. The general idea is that early in a match, especially when heads up, you might make an extra aggressive play in the hopes of convincing your opponent you are a maniac for the rest of the match. These aren’t … Read full post

The Implied Odds Were There

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 0: Villain ($5899) – –
Seat 1: Hero ($6298) –

PRE-FLOP:

Villain posts small blind $25
Hero posts BIG blind $50
Dealt To: Hero

RAISE Villain ($150)
CALL Hero ($150)

FLOP:

Pot: $350

CHECK Hero
BET Villain ($225)
RAISE Hero ($650)… Read full post

Probably Too Thin

In general, I think it’s important, for meta-game reasons, to bet hands like this on the river (see my article Value Flows Downstream). If you aren’t betting the second nut full house here, then it will be very difficult for you to take advantage of your position on boards like … Read full post

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I distinctly recall telling one of my students in our most recent session, “Don’t try to bluff a guy off of top pair or an overpair. People just don’t like to fold them.” So of course I go and try it in the donkfest that is the Sunday Million:

Poker … Read full post

Turning a Made Hand Into a River Check-Raise Bluff

A lot of weakish players will broadcast their hand strength with their bet sizing especially when in position on the river. Thus, I sometimes like to check to them without a specific plan. Instead, I want to see what they do and then decide whether to raise for value, raise … Read full post

Review: The Poker World According to Cinch

Imagine that you are riding on the subway when a disheveled man wearing dirty clothes and a long, unkempt beard boards your car and begins to rant about how aliens got him and are coming for you too. He is crazy, you think to yourself, and probably you avoid … Read full post

Review: No Limit Hold ‘Em: Theory and Practice

I first read David Sklansky and Ed Miller’s No Limit Hold ‘Em: Theory and Practice over a year ago, when I was just starting to play cash games seriously. I recall thinking that it was good but not great and then reconciling it to my bookshelf as I spent the … Read full post

Casting a Line

As I move into higher stakes games, I’m constantly reminded of a poker principle that’s been important all along: you make most of your money from playing with bad players. When I sit in a 25/50 game, it’s because there’s someone at the table (or more than one someone, if … Read full post

Saw It Coming

You know you’re in for a rough time when the Sunday Majors haven’t even started yet and you’re already ready to tear your hair out. I was just thinking yesterday how lucky I was to experience so much positive variance in my first shots at the big games. I was … Read full post

February

Best month ever!

At that start of the year, I set some year-long poker goals for myself. So far I’ve played too many tournaments and not enough hours, but my hourly rate has been so good that I’m getting by anyhow.

I averaged 17 hours a week, only 2/3 of … Read full post

Back from the Grand Canyon

I’m just back from three wonderful days at the Grand Canyon with Emily. It really is an amazing place. I’d been once before, about fifteen years ago, but didn’t remember too much about it. We took a lot of pictures, some of which I’ll post here soon, but trite as … Read full post

Getting It In and Getting Out

An illustrative S/8 hand I played recently:

Hand #15452617704
7 Card Stud *High-Low* ($10/$20), Ante $1

*3rd Street* – (0.60 SB)

somebody: xx xx Ah___raises___calls
foucault82: 4d 4h 4s___raises
badabang: xx xx Jc___folds
luckymonkey9: xx xx 7c___folds
Jshorts7: xx xx 5d___calls
umhmm: xx xx 3h___folds

*4th Street* – (6.90 SB)… Read full post

Re-Raising in PLO

In Pot Limit Omaha, hand values tend to run close, which means that people often do not fold to re-raises. Consequently, a lot of players will never reraise without Aces, and any time you do re-raise, your thinking opponents will put you on Aces. By occasionally re-raising with other hands, … Read full post

In Vegas, For a Vacation From Gambling

I flew into Las Vegas last night for a hastily scheduled vacation. I may be the only person in the world who comes here in order to take a break from gambling. This afternoon, Emily and I are leaving for three nights at the Grand Canyon. That means I likely … Read full post

Jamming With the Best of It

On the night of the O/8 FTOPS, I decided to play some O/8 cash as well and came upon what seems to be a pretty common profitable spot in low limit O/8 ring games:

Poker Stars
Limit Omaha Ring game
Limit: $5/$10
9 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (9 players) … Read full post

Steven Levitt’s Daughter Learns to Cheat at Poker

This is a post from a few month’s ago from the blog of University of Chicago economist and author of Freakonomics Steven Levitt, but I just came across it and thought I would share. Levitt is a poker enthusiast currently working on the use of online poker statistics to resolve … Read full post

The One That Got Away

I was sitting in a 50/100 NL game on Ultimate Bet with a full-stacked player against whom I felt I had a pretty good edge when who should come and sit us than poker brat Phil Hellmuth. Unfortunately, he only sat with $3000. If it weren’t for the other guy … Read full post

Book Review: Sklansky on Poker

Sklansky on Poker has not aged well. This isn’t to say that any of its content has been proven wrong, only that more recent publications and the resurgent popularity of big bet games have rendered much of the material irrelevant.

The section “Sklansky on Razz” is certainly the best material … Read full post

Suspected Poker Cheats Murdered

The Gainesville Sun reports that

Jerome Anthony Henry, 48, of Seville, and Richard David Smith and Robert Erwin Ford, both 50 and from Palatka, were killed inside the structure, a former bar that officers said people had been using as the location for a “high-stakes” poker game.

All four men

… Read full post

FTOPS Main Event and the Rest of Sunday

The day started well enough. I began my Sunday earlier than usual to play the $240 knock-out FTPS event and the Poker Stars $2 Million Frequent Player Point tournament. I got up nice stacks in both, and did manage to cash for a few hundred in the FPP (though in … Read full post

FTOPS Event 17

AT $2500, this was one of the largest buy-in online tournaments I’d ever entered, and the first two-day event. It had a great structure, with gradual blind increases every half hour and deep starting stacks.

I got a pretty good starting table, with the only names I recognized being a … Read full post

Book Review: High-Low Split Poker for Advanced Players

Ray Zee’s book is rightly called, “For Advanced Players.” Players new to Stud/8 or O/8 will need to find another resource, as Zee largely glosses over basic material in favor of advanced thinking and plays. Though occasionally scattershot and disorganized, his book contains a wealth of information for those who … Read full post

FTOPS Event 15

$200 6-max NLHE. Same old, same old. I’ve already posted most of the key hands on 2+2, and I don’t feel like re-converting them, but you can check out that thread if you want to see them. Two were kind of big folds, one was a bad beat/questionable call. It … Read full post

FTOPS Event 14

If you haven’t picked up on the pattern yet, last night’s $300 Razz tournament involved me running terribly against a bunch of atrocious calling stations. I’ll try to include some discussion on a few interesting spots so that this isn’t a pure whine. Oh and these aren’t necessary in the … Read full post

FTOPS Event 13

This was a $200 PLHE/PLO mixed event. I was thinking it would be pretty juice because of how poorly even some of the better hold ’em players would do in the PLO portion, and boy was I right. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much chance to push my edge. I lost … Read full post

FTOPS Event 12

Last night was the $300 rebuy 6-max. I was in for “the minimum”, meaning a double rebuy initially and the add-on, but I use scare quotes because soooooooooo many people weren’t rebuying. I was the only one to double rebuy initially at my table of six. Thankfully the others were … Read full post

FTOPS Event 11

Tuesday night’s $200 O/8 event was the best I’ve done in this year’s FTOPS, which just means I got to play for five hours and leave empty-handed. The play was atrocious, but it’s tough to do much in O/8 if you aren’t hitting flops. Once we got shallow, the willingness … Read full post

Stars 1K

I’ve never played this tournament before, but since I was going to be playing the FTOPS anyway, I decided to give it a go. I’ve generally assumed it would attract a fairly strong field and be a high-variance, low-profit venture. But really even most good tournament players are people I … Read full post

FTOPS Event 10

This was a $1000 6 max, a great event for me, but it just didn’t come together. I was getting re-raised left and right, and I’m not sure if people were catching hands or just that stupidly aggressive but it made things tough. No particularly interesting hands, I lost a … Read full post

Book Review: The Mathematics of Poker

As the title suggests, Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman’s The Mathematics of Poker is by far the most mathematically rigorous poker book on the market. The mathematics to which the title refers is not the simple stuff, like calculating pot odds and counting outs; it’s the complex game theory that … Read full post

FTOPS Event 9

Edit: Mistitled, this was Event 9.

Been too busy for the kinda weak events of the last few days. Looking forward to this week’s lineup though, starting with the $1K tomorrow night. I was rocking it pretty good tonight, winning some flips, stacked bigegypt in a big pot:

Full Tilt … Read full post

I Prefer to Walk

I like to walk, and I liked it even more when I was in high school, so I didn’t think much of it when George (not his real name) told me he was late because he chose to walk. George was one of the students coming on a Boston Debate … Read full post