Malmo: poker question

XChamp wrote:

I used to play conservatively and wait for premium hands and good flops where I was a lock, but the same thing kept happening. Every tournament I would end up saying to my buddy "I just couldn't catch any cards and the blinds ate away at me."

I think you may be misunderstanding what I'm saying about starting hand selection. In fact, I'm not saying anything about SH selection - it's quite clear that the beauty of no-limit play is that "almost" any hand is worth a call. Almost. It's all due to the scalability of your betting. If the hand is cheap, call. If not, wait for a more "playable" hand. Let's face it, no-limit, especially tournaments is all about chips and table position, not cards.

I think you said it before, where do you play?

Carnivore 69 wrote:

Moneymaker: "Go all in when you are behind in the hand. Get extremely lucky and pull your out card on the river. Repeat 4-6 times. You can win $2.5 million like I did."

If you watched the tapes from last year (2003), and computed the probability of Moneymaker making all of those all-in hands he made just to get to the final table, you'd equate it quite succinctly "astronomical."

wannabekila wrote:

Disagree;

There are many instances when a bettor should and does want to drive off weaker hands. Some hands are good but hard to improve. If there are 2 cards to come, say, a bettor whch such a hand will want to drive off players who need to draw an out to win the pot.

I may (think i) have the best hand post-flop but know i only have a 10% chance of improving a hand. If I offer another 2 players each with a 30% of improving his hand good pot odds with my post-flop bet they will stay in. I am now odds-on to lose. My tactic is to bet enough so that they dont stay in.

You're making the mistake of getting involved with winning the hand, not getting good value on your hand. Bet your hand and hope that they call.

No matter what, you cannot get around this simple formula:

(prob.W)*(return.W) - (prob.L)*(return.L) = profit expectation

The only scenario I can think of that matches your cited example is an over-pair(2 outs) vs an open-ender(8 outs) or a flush draw(9 outs).

Still, you with the over pair are raising NOT to get your opponents out of the hand, you SHOULD BE raising because your want more money in the pot. You have a made hand. You are an overwhelming favorite to hold on to it. So what if callers decrease your win percentage? What matter is how much money you make, not winning percentage. The OE and the FD have a 31% and 35% chance of making their hands. If the pot odds justify them calling a raise you should be all for it - because what's good for a draw is GREAT for a made hand. The fact that you have only an 8% chance to improve is moot - YOU HAVE A MADE HAND. Bet it. Hope for callers. Focus on the game past the tip of your pointy nose. Poker is a big picture game. It's about money, not winning hands.

If you have top pair(with the board) and a decent kicker you now have a 5 card out to improve your (20%) and YOU STILL HAVE A MADE HAND. Bet it, and hope that the draws are calling you!!!! You'll be glad.

The best way to think of poker, is to think of it as a portfolio of bets. Some are going to win 85% of the time, some are going to win less than 10% of the time and the entire spectrum between. As long as you are continually putting on bets with a positive expectation of profit you don't care which bets come home on any given hour, or day, or even any given week. Just so you keep making good decisions and bets, the theory of big numbers will eventually come through and you'll be a steady winner. A good poker player will make money 65-70 percent of his 10 hour shifts with a very predicatable variance in daily P/L. I'M SURE OF IT. ONE HUNDRED POINT ZERO, ZERO, ZERO PERCENT.

Everyone really should learn how to play limit poker before attempting to play no-limit. However romaniticized poker legend has become, you're not going to learn poker without playing limit poker. The popularity of poker now is for beyond my wildest dreams, a perfect situation for making money - especially considering most of the new players' only experience with Hold'em comes from watching it on TV. It's the worst possible way to learn, the best thing possible thing to happen to experience players.

BTW, to the player in the earlier thread, they're called "card SHARPS." "Card sharks" is a malapropism popular with those who have ceruminus build-up.

malmo wrote:

No matter what, you cannot get around this simple formula:

(prob.W)*(return.W) - (prob.L)*(return.L) = profit expectation

Of course, that should read:

(prob.W)*(return.W) - (prob.L)*(risk.L) = profit

Malmo-- would that be your "pot odds" equation? If not, what is your formula for calculating pot odds and can you give an example?

Much appreciated!

can you guys recommend some legit online sites with low tournament buyins for us neophytes?

Malmo, I mostly agree, b/c your logic (AKA math) *cannot* be argued. The one area where it gets fuzzy is implied odds (e.g. not math, folks, but behavior). I find that I don't get any pre-flop action after winning a couple of showdowns. Thus, I become relegated to smaller, less aggressive betting in order to maximize the solution to your equation. This, of course, lets the drawing hands stay in *because there are so many people who don't understand pot odds and stay in*!! Becasue of this, I've even gone to a low-limit table and pretended to be a beginner in order to get action early on. Of course, a couple of well-played hands (or even a long stretch of not playing hands) is something that even fish will notice and they start bailing when you bet. That's ok if the blinds are worth stealing, but they bearly are worth the time you sit for in $2/4. One dealer told me that AA is only good one time in 7 at the low limits b/c of the drawing hands.

I mostly play on PartyPoker, but you can catch me at PokerStars or ParadisePoker occasionally. If I'm near a casino I'll sit down for a few hours, but usually I'm 4 or more hours away.

bump.

Can anyone give a good, simple pot odds equation?

thanks................

Doyle wrote:

bump.

Can anyone give a good, simple pot odds equation?

thanks................

pot odds are easy. 'out' odds trickier. PO's are basically the odds the pot is giving for you next bet. if the pot has $70 in it and the bet to you is $10 then the bot odds are 7/1. Compare this to 'odds of achieving best hand' with remaining 'outs'. If PO > 'Odds of best hand', call the bet, if not fold.

---- malmo ----EP can be maximised by driving players from the pot. This is very true especially considering a big bet bluff. In the example I gave I was assuming 'honest' play. There are also examples where 'honest' play still favours driving players out. Anyhow ...... though this is certainly pernickity i do have issues with the EP formuala or rather strict adherence to it. Isnt it wiser to also look at the 'variability' of returns? In investment theory it was long ago discovered that a better approach was to maximise the information ratio, or ExpectedProfit/ExpectedVolatility. I've never read any comparable in poker.As an extreme example, if you'r 51% favourite to win a hand against one opponent should you go all-in knowing he'll call? No, but a strict adherence to EP would suggestt that you should.

malmo wrote:

No matter what, you cannot get around this simple formula:

(prob.W)*(return.W) - (prob.L)*(return.L) = profit expectation

wannabekila wrote:

... though this is certainly persnickety i do have issues with the EP formula or rather strict adherence to it. Isn't it wiser to also look at the 'variability' of returns? In investment theory it was long ago discovered that a better approach was to maximize the information ratio, or ExpectedProfit/ExpectedVolatility. I've never read any comparable in poker.

As an extreme example, if you're 51% favorite to win a hand against one opponent should you go all-in knowing he'll call? No, but a strict adherence to EP would suggest that you should.

You're going way off on tangents, and chasing your tail, as far as I can see. Leave the extreme examples out, we're not talking ifs and butts and fudge and nuts - we're talking WINNING poker and the real world. If you were following the original poker thread (unfinished) we had going three months ago, you should have been able to see where I was heading - that is, 1) to understand your OUTS and the probability that goes with it 2) create and memorize simple mnemonics (924, 825, etc). The next step that I was heading towards was to address variance in results; that is, use the coin toss example (binomial trees, Pascal's triangle, blah blah blah), show results distributions, calculate returns on "even" probabilities, calculate returns with "vig" (or in the case of roulette, "against the vig"). Demonstrate the theory of big numbers and contrast that with what happens on the short run. Example: tossing coins 4 times, you have five possible results and 16 different pathways, even tough over the long run the probability of you getting a choosing correctly is 50%, over the short run, 6.25% of the time you won't win at all, and 25% of the time you'll choose correctly only once. As you can see, it's here that I'd address the variance (volatility) of poker (or any other game of chance.)

Going all-in, or making large bets in a poker game is a close cousin of the Martingale scheme, and Martingales will eventually break all disciples. Placing large bets on a 51% winner is a losing play for that reason alone. In a "portfolio of winning bets" one doesn't invest heavily in any single opportunity, that's absolutely foolish - IT'S GAMBLING! Gambling and winning poker are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Strict adherence to EP formula? NOPE. You're being extremely presumptuous here. Just because I provide a REWARD/RISK formula at you doesn't mean a player needs to be crunching numbers every time he bets. It's just an empirical example of the way one SHOULD be thinking if he is to be a winning player. As I've stated before, if you don't have your "outs" table memorized before you sit down at a table (I've provided easy mnemonics) you are not disciplined enough to be a winner at poker. Just because you have a 35.0% chance to make a flush it doesn't mean that when you make your flush you are going to be winner, does it? NO. If the odds of your draw are 1.86:1 against you to make your hand, then 2:1 pot odds probably isn't enough to make the play (excluding "added outs" such as two over-cards or the Ace) You need to add some "vig" onto your odds. Of course I could go back and forth answering every single "what if" scenario you could dream of and I'd accomplish nothing at all. There are plenty of poker books that will do that for you. My input here (in WPITHOL) is to cover the foundation of poker, and to make sure you understand what the game is really about for bottom up. It sure as hell isn't about gambling.

The main problem that I see, is that most players (thank God for them) do not understand limit poker first, and when they get in tournaments they are doing little more than swinging for home runs. Very stupid. Keep doing it folk

Punk wrote:

One dealer told me that AA is only good one time in 7 at the low limits b/c of the drawing hands.

They're dealers, not players, for a reason.

AA in a low limit game will win 31% of the time even if everyone at the table calls every hand to the very end.

Here are your top 20 hands (and winning percentage) in such a situation:

1) 31.1 AA

2) 26.1 KK

3) 22.2 QQ

4) 20.7 AKs

5) 19.3 AQs

6) 19.3 JJ

7) 18.6 KQs

8) 18.1 AJs

9) 17.6 KJs

10)17.3 ATs

11)17.2 AK

12)17.2 TT

13)17.1 QJs

14)16.9 KTs

15)16.6 QTs

16)16.5 JTs

17)15.6 99

18)15.5 AQ

19)15.4 A9s

20)15.1 KQ

Top 20 hands heads-up even if your opponents calls you to the very end. Note how the pairs come to life:

1) 85.3 AA

2) 82.4 KK

3) 79.9 QQ

4) 77.5 JJ

5) 75.1 TT

6) 72.1 99

7) 69.1 88

8) 67.0 AKs

9) 66.2 77

10)66.1 AQs

11)65.4 AJs

12)65.4 AK

13)64.7 ATs

14)64.5 AQ

15)63.6 AJ

16)63.4 KQs

17)63.3 66

18)63.0 A9s

19)62.9 AT

20)62.6 KJs

Malmo -

Please continue the discussions from the last thread here - there was some really good info you had in there. I agree about focusing on the long run in poker. I've been a winner in my neighborhood game all year and have started playing online with real money. If you are disciplined, you can suffer many bad beats and still come out well ahead.

Last night alone I was on the losing end of four bad beat hands where I bet aggressively.

JJ; flop K J 8, some other dude had KK

QQ; flop A Q 3, some other dude had AA

AA; flop A 8 7, some other dude had 96, stayed in while I raised the pot, and lucked into 5 on the river.

AK; flop A K 10, some other dude had K10 and the river was 10.

And yet I was just barely underwater for the evening because I didn't let the bad beats get me down. In the long run, I'll win my share and the disciplined style and long-term outlook will move my profits upward consistently.

So let's keep the discussion rolling people.

sorry but i have a really simple question-

do you guys play with everyone betting a small amount predeal or with the "big/little" blind?

What is the proper way to play in neighborhood games?

malmo wrote:

Just because you have a 35.0% chance to make a flush it doesn't mean that when you make your flush you are going to be winner, does it? NO. If the odds of your draw are 1.86:1 against you to make your hand, then 2:1 pot odds probably isn't enough to make the play (excluding "added outs" such as two over-cards or the Ace) You need to add some "vig" onto your odds.

This is an important point that is routinely ignored in pot-odds discussions: MAKING YOUR DRAW DOESN'T GUARANTEE A WIN!!!

[quote]malmo wrote:

The best way to think of poker, is to think of it as a portfolio of bets. Some are going to win 85% of the time, some are going to win less than 10% of the time and the entire spectrum between. As long as you are continually putting on bets with a positive expectation of profit you don't care which bets come home on any given hour, or day, or even any given week. Just so you keep making good decisions and bets, the theory of big numbers will eventually come through and you'll be a steady winner. A good poker player will make money 65-70 percent of his 10 hour shifts with a very predicatable variance in daily P/L. I'M SURE OF IT. ONE HUNDRED POINT ZERO, ZERO, ZERO PERCENT.

Everyone really should learn how to play limit poker before attempting to play no-limit. However romaniticized poker legend has become, you're not going to learn poker without playing limit poker. The popularity of poker now is for beyond my wildest dreams, a perfect situation for making money - especially considering most of the new players' only experience with Hold'em comes from watching it on TV. It's the worst possible way to learn, the best thing possible thing to happen to experience players.

quote]

Malmo,

What can you say about the variance of no-limit poker? The implied odds change things dramatically. Of course a good player can't win every session but I think for no-limit the percentage can he higher than 65-70%. Brunson said he went 50-some sessions in a row before finally losing.

Most of what you are writing seems to refer to limit poker, which I abhor. It's mostly grinding and math. It is rare to be able to put a play on someone, while that can happen at any time in a no-limit game. Winning $500 pots with a pair of 2s by calling an induced bluff, or getting someone to call my $100 bet on the river when I have the nuts and they have Ace high are things that I love in no-limit and aren't present in limit.

In the regular neighborhood game, we ante up, because the dealer calls the game and we might play Texas Hold Em only 20-25% of the time. In neighborhood tournaments, we use blinds.

If you decide at the beginning to play nothing but Texas Hold Em, then you should use blinds that rotate around the table.

Anybody else get a kick out of Moneymaker's hungover, stanky ass, my moment is over look before getting busted like a fat girl in dodgeball. I did. Ever play poker in a small reservation casino with 8 sad-faced natives on their last 50 bucks? Sobering. I'll still go to Vegas and take Frat boys' money all day, but never to the res. dont support that shit.

That is all.