Author Archive
John McCain and legalized gambling
Well US election season is upon us and while gambling isn’t the most pressing issue – I can think of a few more important ones – it’s finally surfaced in the campaign coverage.
I ran across an interesting series of articles on John McCain’s ties to the Native casino industry. I’m no McCain supporter, far from it, but I thought I’d post these if people were interested in his history with the gaming business.
Apparently he’s a gambler himself, though not a poker player – he prefers the craps tables.
I’m good at Omaha? (not really)
For a month, I’m playing only heads-up poker for cash games. I was getting really burned out on 6-max poker, and faced with the alternative of trying full-ring or heads-up, I opted for the latter. Heads-up really is a wonderful game, the swings are manic but the continuous decision-making keeps the boredom at bay and allows you to focus. I often felt that I quickly settled into a rut with 6-max, and started opening more tables and playing even more mechanically. I can’t play more than 3 tables simultaneously with heads-up, and although my FPP rate is far lower my winrate is higher than it’s ever been. HU is really about making adjustments, much more than full-ring or 6-max. I think people who say HU is 90% metagame are overstating it but “playing the player” certainly has a much bigger role.
Away from the Bosom of Hold ‘Em
Like most online cash game players, 99 percent of my time is devoted to Hold ‘Em. I stopped playing limit hold ‘em last year, and I now pretty much exclusively play $0.50/1 and $1/2 NL cash. It’s a nice situation: there are many many games to choose from, usually with at least one fish per table. Still, it can wear thin like every routine.
Running bad and wondering where it goes
Lately I’ve been playing the 1/2 NL games on Pokerstars. I’d been warned that 1/2 is a pretty big jump from smaller-stakes games, and the warnings are fairly accurate I think. The average regular is far better than at lower stakes: looser, more positionally aware, better at bet-sizing and better at hand reading. Most don’t stack off too light, and can put you in very tough spots on later streets. Squeezing pre-flop is really common, too much so I think but I’m pretty sure cardrunners has convinced people that it works with any two cards.
What makes the Poker Economy Chug?
I’ve recently switched my primary playing location from from one major poker site to the other; let’s call the one I left the Full of multi-tabling TAGs site, and the other one hopefully will be a Moneymaker in the long run (Pokerstars, obviously). These two sites are the big players in the US market and aside from PartyPoker, probably the biggest sites in the world.
Technically, the sites are quite similar: both offer smooth-running clients for multiple operating systems, with all of the attendant abilities to tile and cascade tables, automatically set buy-in preferences, locate “friends” on the site, and quickly contact support. As far as the interface, there’s not too much difference between them, although I think Pokerstars has the better client and I get disconnected far less frequently.
Moving on Up
It’s been quite a hiatus from writing, but I’m hoping to get back into a regular posting schedule in the next few weeks. I’ve been playing a lot, and I’m playing at five times the stakes I was at the beginning of the year. This still isn’t much, of course; I was playing the micros before and I’m hardly making a living from poker, but moving up is quite a satisfying experience. In the past I took shots on really thin bankrolls and it never worked out for long, so I finally just took the slow-and-steady route. What a surprise, it actually works.
Squeezing is the Devil, or at least the spawn of the Devil
I say this with all due respect to Azn_cutie’s recent post on squeezing. In fact, I’m really intrigued by his idea of trying to squeeze blind just by recognizing favorable situations.
BUT as someone who only plays online 6-max no-limit, my firm opinion is that excessive squeezing kills games. Once a small-stakes no-limit game has settled into the pattern of raise-call-squeeze or raise-reraise-fold, it becomes very very tedious. I won’t say that the good players don’t still have an advantage. Knowing how to get value out of big hands, and when to four-bet a squeezer are skills that good players possess. But as someone who really enjoys play on the flop and later streets, I find this style of play crippling. It makes small pairs (my favorite hands) much less viable, and it just becomes a tit-for-tat exercise where you squeezes me last time, so I’ll squeeze you this time.
Why do you bet?
What do you expect to accomplish by betting? Just one of three things: (1) you can get a better hand to fold; (2) you can get a worse hand to call; or (3) you can protect the best hand. If you can’t accomplish any of these things, you should not be betting.
- Chris Ferguson, Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide, p. 118
This may seem like a self-evident question, but why do you bet in a cash game? Usually the answer is pretty vague: “to take down the pot” or “to push my draw hard.” I like Ferguson’s typology of why to bet, because it points out a few situations where you should not be betting no matter what. He mentions this particular one in his chapter:
Where are you LEAST likely to be cheated in poker?
Like many people, I started playing poker with the goal of playing big MTTs. The drama and prize money of the World Series. I wanted to come from nowhere and make a deep run in the big-money tournaments, a la Moneymaker, Raymer and McManus. (Here’s a long post from my previous blog about my captivation with Jim McManus’ experience – I’m sure AmarilloSB can relate to that…)
However, after a year of playing poker, I’ve switched almost exclusively to cash game play. I may play a Sit and Go now and then but it’s just for fun, I don’t consider them a part of my bankroll building strategy at all.
Thoughts on the Ultra-Nit
I’m sure you’re all familiar with this player; he (or she) is a staple of micro-stakes NL games. Even if you don’t have Pokertracker – and I don’t – you can tell when you have an ultra-nit at your table. The defining characteristics:
- Refuses to play a full stack
- Plays about 10-12% of hands
- Min-raises with monsters
Last night I played with one of the worst nits I’ve ever seen, which is stiff competition at the Full Tilt micro stakes. In almost two hours of play, I saw him show down five hands: KK, QQ, AK, AQ, and KJ. Faces cards only. No other pairs. No blind steals: he open-folded the button almost every time it was folded around to him.
