"nice hand, sir"

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“The object of poker is to make correct decisions” Mike Sexton

I’ve been unable to play much live poker lately, due to a freakish back injury where I am unable to walk long distances or even sit in a chair for more than a couple of hours. I cannot even get in my hours for the month for the freeroll they are offering over at The Venetian. To qualify you need to play either 50 hours/month (May-July) or 200 total over the three months. I guess I’ll have to shoot for the 200 total. I estimate the additional expectation this freeroll adds about $20/hour to my hurly expectation (with high variance), so I don’t want to miss out.

So with these back problems I’ve been relegated to playing more online poker than I would like. One thing I notice about online that is different is the way the bad players are often treated. Some players are unbelievably rude to them. Why? I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense. I guess they are using it as a way of getting their own frustrations out, but this is just another type of distraction that keeps us from consistently making the best decisions in a poker game.

Think about it. Bad players make mistakes in poker. It is because of these mistakes that the good players win. The beauty of poker is that when you make a bad mistake, sometimes you get lucky and win anyway, but over the long run repeated mistakes will always result in losing money. But the occasional wins keep the bad players coming back. If it were a game like tennis, the bad tennis player would never beat Andre Agassi and would quickly learn not to play him for money. But in poker, the bad player sometimes wins and his lack of skill becomes camouflaged by his occasional luck.

When a bad player wins online, there are players who will criticize and berate him and say rude things about his mother. I just don’t get the logic. You want him to continue playing and to make mistakes, don’t you? But yet these guys say things that either discourage the bad player from playing, or encourage him to get better.

When I started playing poker about 7 years ago, when a bad player won a hand we used to simply say “nice hand” or “nice hand, sir”. Somewhere along the line the meaning of the phrase was lost and today “nice hand” or “nh” is usually meant in more of a genuine nature by players who lose a pot to a better hand (I now use “well played” when I lose to a suckout). It used to be that after saying “nice hand” you’d look over to another winning player and he’d shoot you back a smile or a nod. It was accepted that you’d keep the bad players happy, being kind and courteous and engaging in conversation and making them feel at home. They’d eventually lose their money as an “entertainment expense” and we’d all go home happy; they were entertained and we were richer. Poker, by nature, is meant to be a social game, but online has changed that in many ways. It has become more about ego to many players.

Enjoy your day!

Selective memory and mindfulness (part 2)

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Quote of the day: "Before criticizing a man, always walk a mile in his shoes. This way, when you do criticize him, you are a mile away...and you have his shoes" unknown


Let’s finish up our scenario from the other day, when my buddy was frustrated about raising AK late in a S&G and questioning the profitability of it since he was always called by 44. I was suggesting that he was simply suffering from selective memory, since anyone who has played S&Gs accepts that this must be a profitable play.

While we can get good reads on our opponents in many forms and situations in poker by bets, actions, mannerisms, etc., the later stages of an online S&G lends itself to “one-move” poker. Because of the small stack/blind ratios, we cannot use probing bets or analyze actions of our opponents to narrow our range of his hand very much. Hopefully we are at least aware of opponents who may be capable of limping with a hand like AA or KK in these spots, but to differentiate with any certainty an opponent who limps with AJ late in a S&G from an opponent who limps with 44 is nearly impossible. But, in the same sense, they have no way to know if they should interpret our all-in push as AK or 88. They usually will justify themselves by putting you on the hand they have the best chance to beat. If they have 44 they assume you have AK, and if they have AJ they assume you are raising 88. So, if you simply push both of those hands against these players, you cannot go wrong, and they will be in a losing proposition by limping/calling with AJ and 44. If it is a losing strategy for them, then it is a winning strategy for us.

First of all, the player who limps with AJ and 44 will not always call the push. It is just that our selective memory remembers the times he calls and beats us, while disregarding the blinds/limps we steal when he folds. Even if he folds only rarely, we are at a significant advantage by picking up the blinds plus his limp. These are chips that we win without a fight, and this “fold-equity” is the first part of our profitable equation.

But even when he calls we make a sound profit. If our opponent calls with 44 he is about 54% to beat us when we have AK and about 20% when we have 88. When he calls with AJ, he is about 44% against our 88 or 25% against our AK. Overall, he will win an average of only 36% of the time when he calls and we will win 64% of the time. Adding our fold equity to our 64/36 edge when we are called, we have a huge advantage on this play.

Obviously, this scenario has been simplified, and you can take it to other levels by factoring in other hands to see how far down you can make this play and show a profit. The results with hands like AQ/AJ/lower pocket pairs etc. will differ depending on the calling tendencies of your opponents. The more fold equity you have (how often your opponent folds compared to how many chips are won when he folds) and the less likely he is trying to trap you with a high pocket pair, the looser your raising standards can be.

While I’m not breaking any new ground by suggesting making these raises when the blinds are large, the real lesson to take away here is that it is only because of our selective memory that we might question this play. It is just another distraction our mind gives us during the game of poker game. The more distractions you can ignore, the more “mindful” you can become, and the more you can use that mindfulness to make correct decisions at the poker table.

Late stage S&Gs, selective memories, and mindfulness

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Quote of the day: “some people would have trouble folding a napkin, let alone a poker hand” underdawg7 on Paradise Poker

A friend of mine who plays mostly 10-player Sit-and-Go tournaments (S&Gs) online sent me an email that he is having frustrations. He claims that late in tourneys with fairly large sized blinds, he is pushing with AK following a limper and getting called by 33 and 44. He was questioning the benefit of the raise, since they call him and he is slightly less than 50% to win. I asked what I felt was a logical question, whether he was making the same raise with 88, and he said that he was and that he always got called by AJ. So how could he possibly be winning in the long run by making these raises? Well, the answer is very simple, but his logic is distracted by selective memory. Selective memories are abundant in the poker world, because the negatives moments in poker produce far stronger emotions than the positives.

Before going on to an analysis of this all-in move with AK, I thought this was a good time to introduce a Zen concept which I will talk about more in later posts. Once you begin to have some good poker ideas (which you will continue to enhance by using learning tools), I feel this is the most important concept in all of poker. It is the concept of mindfulness. Mindfulness is being in the moment, totally and completely aware of our surroundings and situation. It may be easiest to understand this concept by looking at its antithesis, mindlessness. We refer to someone as being in a mindless state when they are doing several tasks at once or even just one task in a very automatic way. Meanwhile, their mind is never fully involved in any of the tasks they are performing. For instance, someone might pet her cat, watch a television show, talk on the phone, and cook dinner all at one time. Yet, she does not notice the pattern of the bubbles in the stew, she doesn’t actually feel all of the textures of her cat, she misses out on the subtlest joke on the TV show, and she misinterprets what her friend was trying to say on the phone. This is all because she is not truly mindful of any of the single things she is doing. This can also happen when doing only one task at a time yet not being mindful of that task, but rather being distracted with other thoughts. Distractions are anything that does not directly apply to the task at hand. Most of these distractions are either from our external surroundings or from our thoughts, thoughts of things that happened in the past or worries for the future. These past and future thoughts serve no purpose to enhance our present moment, and can only be distractions. The distractions serve no positive purpose to our task, and can only be negative. At the same time, while involved in our present task, we can do nothing to change the past or prepare for the future. So our task and our distractions are completely at odds with each other. The only way to reach a mindful state is to eliminate the distractions from our mind. This is not easy to do, and is part of the reason many people use meditation, to practice ridding themselves of distractions and focus on the moment.

In a poker game, distractions are all around us. Many of them are emotional distractions, from bad beats, disagreements with someone at the table, or downright frustration of not winning a hand or a tournament for an extended period of time. Many other distractions come from our surroundings, people talking at the table, people playing slowly, dealer distractions, cocktail waitresses; or on the internet any of the distractions at home, like other people at the house, television, telephone, etc. Still other distractions come from regrets of the past or worries of the future, whether a past poker hand,, a financial worry, time concern, or just the fear of losing another poker tournament and how your peers will view you.

One of the problems with S&Gs is that they are full of mindless plays. That is also what makes it so easy to play several of them at a time online, because they lend themselves to mindlessness better than any other form of poker. So, while we could just elect to push our AK because we are programmed to do so, let’s instead get into our mindful state and analyze this situation, with no distractions.

But let’s do it tomorrow, ‘cause I was out at a poker game all night and right now I am distracted by being very, very tired.

Getting more out of poker books and other learning tools

Quote of the day: "Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win" Bobby Knight

The new Sklansky/Miller book on No Limit Hold’em is ready for shipping, according to 2+2 Publishing. They were brought to Vegas bookstores yesterday and should be around the country shortly (not sure about Canada). This is the most anticipated poker book release I can remember. I’m interested to get my hands on it and read Sklansky’s theories, as they are always thought provoking and usually provide some good ideas for practical use to mid/low level games.

I think that poker books are a great learning tool, but should not be elevated to any status above “learning tool.” While there are a few fundamental “rules” that are stone-cold necessities to succeed in poker like playing less hands in early position than in late, most stuff that is written should be looked at simply as “ideas” and should enhance your thought process. The ones that are more rule-like in nature can and should be reinforced as often as possible regardless of experience. I’ve read a hundred or so articles that basically repeat the idea of playing tighter from early position and looser from late, and I’ll probably read a hundred more and continue to benefit from them. It is a practice well described in Edward Thorndike’s Laws of Learning under both the Law of Exercise and Law of Recency.

You should use all the leaning tools you can to get “ideas” about the game. Learning tools consist of books, articles, videos, software, discussions on hands, watching other players, and sometimes even mentoring or coaching from another player or professional. You get ideas and alternatives that you can take away and analyze and see if they fit for your particular style of game. Poker is a game that can only be learned in stages. You learn a little bit, and then get some experience playing. It is much more like learning art or creative writing in school than it is to learning something like history or math. You cannot absorb things like a sponge and spill out facts when needed. You must be able to analyze, interpret, and respond at the poker table.

All this takes time, and most people are impatient. Impatient people will continue to fail at poker. I see sponges all the time at in the 1-2 and 2-5 cash games and small buy-in tournaments. People are using plays they see on TV, but using them for the wrong reasons and at the wrong times. They don’t have the ability to recognize why what Gus Hansen does at a WPT final table doesn’t work in most other situations. And they get frustrated. They know you should be aggressive in Hold’em, but they don’t understand how to apply that aggression properly and when to take the foot off the gas. These players are basically trying to learn calculus without first mastering addition and subtraction.

There are games that lend themselves to more sponge-like play, games like full handed high-low Omaha and high-low stud. I’m not putting down anyone who succeeds at those games, because there is some creativity to them and they require an extreme amount of patience. In addition, most players that win in those games also have the skills to beat other games. Even limit Hold’em or no-limit full ring cash games at lower levels can lend itself to robotic play that can show a profit, even if it is not the most profitable way to play them.

I look at my game 2 years ago and see that I have improved significantly through incorporating ideas from others, and my game two years ago was a significant improvement over 2 years before that. Every month new ideas or new ways to look at situations come to my attention by speaking to other people or by reading or analyzing hands.

Books are full of ideas but there can be as many books as there are players in this world. If I wrote a book, it would the book that would help me to play best in my style and experience. If someone else read it, I would think they would get some good ideas to implement into their game, and also see some things that may not work well for them, but it certainly wouldn’t be the book that would give them all the answers for their game. One thing to realize as readers is that some ideas presented in books are too simple for our particular game, others are too advanced. Still others are not right for our style of game. Some are ideas we already know about but need to be reinforced, like the example about playing in position.

Ironically, I think that poker books are toughest on new players. This is partly shown by the Law of Primacy, which states that those things learned first are most often remembered, and many newer players fail because they get bad information in the beginning. This is not only from books, but also from watching bad players play and even watching the WPT final tables where the play is broadcast “out of context” and gives players very bad ideas on how to beat the games that they will actually be playing in. Because they read something in print or see a move in a game by someone who they feel is better than them, they think it is right, while it may not be right or may not be right for them and their game. I think newer players are better off getting a mentor and following some advice, including advice on a reading list and a list of what not to read. Experienced players should be good enough to read anything about poker and disregard the nonsense. I am yet to read a book where I didn’t learn something. There is always an idea that triggers to me, even if it is not exactly the idea the author intended, or if it is simply something that I think is wrong, but I learn that many other people think it is right and will be using it in their game—now that is useful information.

Poker books should teach us to think, not to simply absorb. Just as an example, I think the Harrington books are very good. But if I here the guy across the table talking about them as if they are the end-all to poker, then I know he will constantly make plays as presented in those books, sometimes at the wrong time, and while some plays may not have a good defense, the style as a whole has counter strategies if you know that is exactly how the person is playing. If you don’t recognize this, he will probably show a nice profit playing this style. But any good poker strategy has a profitable counter strategy; that’s the nature of the game. It’s just that the better players recognize counter strategies and come up with a counter-counter strategy to stay ahead. For example, Harrington reacts to situations; it wouldn’t take him long to recognize that someone is using these counter strategies and he would mix up his style to something more profitable in the situation. He tries to teach thinking in the books, not an exact system. Systems don’t work in poker. The Kill Phil book/system is interesting and well worth a read and has some ideas to take away from it, but even the authors admit it is a system that against good players, is just designed to lessen the good player’s advantage over you as an inferior opposition, given that the good player wants to play a lot of smaller pots post-flop. If sponge-like systems were flawless, computers and robotic strategies would already dominate the game. While I think you could build a computer program to beat low-limit games for a small rate, those computers would not be more profitable than the better players at those games.

So take the new Sklansky/Miller book and learn some new ideas from it, but don’t try to be a sponge and absorb everything at once to come up with a set of rules by which to play poker. In the long run, poker is far too an artistic game for that.

Barry Greenstein

Quote of the day: “There’s no substitute to having the best hand” Barry Greenstein

I really admire this guy, and I think he combines his own level of Zen and poker in a unique way.

From a poker standpoint, he just seems to be the consummate professional. He has amassed practically his entire fortune by playing cards. He gives off the impression of someone who has seen it all at a poker table. He seems to always be in tune with the moment, with what is going on at the table; he exemplifies a Zen nature in his game. He reads tables well and adjusts to them. He knows when to get away from a hand and recognizes when someone is getting out of line with their betting. When others want to constantly drive the action, he seems to play tight and conservative and wait for an opportunity to let them overplay their hand. When the table is tight and afraid, he raises pots relentlessly. He seems to be able to recognize and take advantage of what the table is offering at a given time; that is the mark of a great player.

From a humanitarian view, I admire his generosity to less fortunate children of this world. Many people who have made good money in life do not give back to others. But he is grounded enough to recognize that he has been fortunate in life, and has made the effort to share some of his fortune with others.

You can check out some stuff about Barry on his website. The site contains some very interesting analyses of other players as well as some great tunes. He also has an interesting book called Ace on the River, which is less of a strategy book on poker (although there is some very good strategy hands at the end of the book), and more of a series of essays about some of the various social aspects you will encounter if you become heavily involved in the live poker scene.

Overcoming bad beats

We all know about bad beats. But why exactly are they so difficult to endure? Perhaps the answer lies in our “expectation.”

The Zen-Buddhist will tell you that expectations produce a negative effect. For instance, he separates happiness from pleasure. He describes happiness as something that comes from within. And that if you rely on or expect pleasure in order for you to be happy during the day, then some days you will be happy and some days you will not be. If you look inside yourself for happiness, you will be happy each day. It doesn’t mean that you don’t still enjoy the pleasures on the days that are filled with them, but on the days when pleasurable things don’t happen, you are still happy. You are not expecting pleasure to come at all times to make you happy. Notice that while the pleasurable thing actually happening can produce a positive effect, the expectation of it can only produce a negative.

It seems to reason that in poker, if we can get rid of the expectation, even to some degree, then we can get rid of some of the frustrations and correlating “tilt” that is produced from bad beats. It will not stop the bad beats themselves, but it can stop you from emotionally calling a raise from the big blind with 48o on the hand that follows a bad beat, or stop you from pushing all your chips in with QT when it is not the correct play. It can stop you from breaking your mouse or berating a dealer who has done nothing wrong. And it can help you to feel less frustrated.

For example, you are at the final table of a multi table tournament; 8 players are left. Someone raises and you look down and see AK. You analyze the situation and decide to push all-in. Your opponent calls. More than half your stack is in the pot. If you win the hand, you will be chip leader. If you lose, you will be the smallest stack remaining. Do you expect to win this hand with your AK? If I told you that you lost the hand, would you lose your emotional control? Or would you be able to put it aside and move on to the next hand and make the best decision possible for that hand? Or would it depend on whether you considered it a bad beat or a bad call by your opponent? Is there anything positive to gain (aside from the knowledge of what your opponent may call with) by knowing your opponent’s hole cards, and whether or not you should have expected to win that hand?

Without knowing your opponent’s hole cards, you most likely you wouldn’t go crazy and although you may be somewhat disappointed, you would focus on the next hand and try to play it properly in order to give yourself the best chance to win the tournament. After all, why be upset, your opponent may have beaten you with AA or KK; you never saw the hand, so you don’t know. And AK is at best a coin flip against any pair. While you wouldn’t have been surprised if you had found out you won, you are also not surprised to find out you lost. You really didn’t have much expectation one way or the other when you got called.

But in the real world of poker, instead of simply finding out if you won or lost, there is always drama. Let’s say your opponent flips over AQ. Now your expectations are high. You see chips coming your way. You watch the board flop K44, a perfect flop, and your expectations soar to the potential first place prize money! Then the turn is a Ten, and the river a Jack, giving your opponent a straight. You are devastated, and your expectations of winning have caused this negative effect. Perhaps you are the type to break your mouse, or to berate the dealer in a live game or the other player. Or maybe you keep it inside you and later on start an argument with your girlfriend over something stupid. And more importantly in a poker-sense, you play the next few hands quite irrationally and blow any chance to get back into the tournament.

So how can we accomplish our goal of not expecting at the poker table? Surely there are things we can do to lower our expectation without spending years as a Buddhist monk. The first thought is to not look at our opponent’s cards or the cards on the board after the action is complete. This is easier to do on the internet than it is in live games by simply covering the screen. But there are problems associated with this. One negative is that we miss out on some information as to what our opponent is willing to call with. Another is that there is a certain expectation with a given hand even without seeing our opponent’s cards. Certainly, if we hold AA we are expecting to win. Thirdly, it is really just an artificial way to get around the problem and not very practical. Nonetheless, for people who are really struggling with tilt or frustration issues, I would suggest trying out this method next time you are all-in with a hand like AK. It can be sort of a training exercise that will help you to ease your expectations.

So what else can we do? We can start with education. Educate yourself on the odds. Look over some odds charts or play around with an odds calculator. Most of us overestimate our chances of winning a hand. Especially non-paired holdings. We tend to think that a non-paired favorite should lose only rarely, while the truth is that a non-paired favorite is never that big a favorite and we should feel fortunate if it does indeed win. As for a pair over pair or a pair over two under-cards, these are heavy favorites, but we also put unreasonable expectations on them. We expect them to win every time, and that’s far too great of an expectation.

Educate yourself on how to apply the odds to a reasonable expectation. Most people don’t realize that if we go in as a 70% favorite two hands in a row, we are going to lose one of those hands more than half the time. Compare the odds to something you are familiar with in the non-poker-world. For example, I often apply odds to baseball stats since I grew up with baseball. Let’s say a guy has been bullying the table near bubble time and goes all-in on my big blind. I have AK and decide to take a stand and call and hope to double up. He shows 97o. I’m happy I made the call, because the bubble money lost if I lose means little to me, and a double through puts me in good position to make a run at winning the tournament. Yet, I know he has about a 35% chance to beat me. I know that taking 65% the better of things will mean a lot of money to me in the long run, but his 35% chance to win this hand basically corresponds to the chances of a batting champion getting a base hit. And those guys get a lot of hits. So I don’t have unrealistic expectations at winning this pot. My decision time in the hand is over. Either I will win and be faced with a new situation next hand, or I will lose and find another game or something else to do.

That brings us to another point that can help; putting things in perspective. What does it really mean if you lose? What does it mean if the other guy sucks out on the river? Is your life going to change greatly whether you win or lose this pot? Aren’t you still going to get up in the morning and go to work either way? Win or lose the hand, not much is changing in our life because of it. This perspective helps to alleviate the fears that go along with over-expectation.

So the real question is, is there really any benefit at all to our expectation of winning a particular hand after all the action is complete? It seems that these “expectations” can only produce negative effects. Above and beyond the ideas discussed, there certainly are ways for you to lessen the negative effects of expectation, but perhaps each individual is best to figure out those ways for him/herself.

Well, those are my ideas on bad beats at the moment. If anybody reads this, all comments/questions are welcomed.

Enjoy your day!

First post

I’m pretty new to the whole blogging thing. It seems I’m always the last to know about what is trendy, and although I don’t go for trends for trends-sake, bloggers seem to have so much fun that I thought I might try to join in.

I’m not exactly sure of the direction I plan to go with this, but I intend that it will be directed toward poker with a bit of a Zen-like nature about it, hence the name Zen and Poker. I hope that it will bring me some pleasurable times and that a few people may read it and find something that will enhance their life and/or poker game.

Okay, so maybe there is a direction.