Author Archive
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.
How the Money Moves Around the Table
How do some people get big stacks in cash games? Usually, by winning one big hand. Sometimes it’s from good play, and sometimes it’s from coming behind.
I was thinking about this yesterday in my usual 6-max online cash game. I had KK on the button and of course raised it up. A pretty big fish in the blinds re-raised me. I came back over the top of him all-in; he thought and called, and I was pleased since I’d seen him do this with all sorts of weak aces and small pairs. He showed A9o and flopped top 2 pair to take down the pot. The very next hand, the fish called off an entire buy-in with top pair/weak kicker against a strong player to my left.
Don’t Bluff Mike Sexton or Allen Cunningham
I’m not a huge fan of televised poker, although I like High Stakes Poker, both the gameplay and the AJ Benza/Gabe Kaplan announcing team. A friend of mine honestly believes the popularity of Sammy Farha on television has softened up cash games, as people stand raises with crazy hands like Th 5h.
However, Youtube is a gold mine of old tournament footage, and you can find some incredible instances of people calling down huge bluffs with almost nothing.
Below are two of the greatest calls I’ve ever seen, anywhere. Which of these is more impressive?
Do you have a least favorite “good” hand pre-flop?
I just posted this question on a forum, and I thought I’d throw it out here:
What is your least favorite “good” hand? I’m talking about hands that are high in any pre-flop hand ranking system, but tend to get you in trouble. For me, that hand is definitely KQo. I have stopped playing this hand in the blinds against a raise, even a steal raise. It seems like the worst reverse-implied-odds hands, where you’ll either win a small pot or lose a big one.
The Vocabulary of Poker
Most of my friends and family are not poker players, and when talking to them I realize how incredibly jargon-rich the poker world is. I have only been playing a year and these words and phrases have entirely different meanings to me now:
- Position:
- Button
- Cutoff
- Hijack
- Under-the-gun
… And there is a time to check behind quads on the river?
I’ve been re-reading Theory of Poker (Thepokerforum review here) and I’m convinced it’s one of the deepest poker books ever written. Sure, the Harrington books are wonderfully comprehensive, the Cloutier books are full of good stories and the Vorhaus books have snappy writing. But passages like this make me re-think how well I understand poker. A very simple, obvious example but quite profound:
There is a Time to Value bet J3o (isn’t there)?
That title may sound ridiculous, but consider this hand I just played.
It’s my first hand at the table. I’m dealt J3o in the big blind. The pot is unraised and the flop reads:
A J 8
with two diamonds
We all check the flop.
The turn is a 7 of hearts. The small blind checks to me and I decide to bet based on the following factors:
Worthy of a Bad Beat Jackpot
Just thought I’d share this gem from last night:
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $0.10 BB (6 handed) Full Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)
BB ($8.25)
UTG ($11)
MP ($4.45)
CO ($18.35)
Button ($10.60)
Hero ($13.30)
Preflop: Hero is SB with
1 fold, MP raises to $0.2, 2 folds,
Hero calls $0.15,
BB calls $0.10.
Flop: ($0.60) 
(3 players)
Hero checks,
BB checks,
MP checks.
Turn: ($0.60) 
(3 players)
Hero bets $0.3,
BB calls $0.30,
MP calls $0.30.
River: ($1.50) 
(3 players)
Hero checks,
Pocket Jacks out of position - The Problems Never End
Poker_kat just posted on trouble with pocket jacks in a tournament situation, and they aren’t much better in cash games. Here’s a situation that came up a few weeks ago. I’ve posted the full transcript on the Low Limit Forum for discussion:
I’m dealt JJ one off the button. An extremely fishy player who’s already down two buy-ins open-limps, as he has almost every single hand for the last three orbits. I raise with my pocket jacks, intending to push this hand pretty hard unless the flop is something like AK7 and he comes out swinging for the fences.
Stacking off - How Comfortable is Too Comfortable?
A lot of what I think about deals with the marginal situations in poker. Lately I’ve been thinking about pre-flop all-ins, which can be the greatest second-guessing opportunities in poker.
When you first play no-limit, your greatest fear is getting stacked. The biggest mental hurdle in the switch from limit is dealing with the embarrassment of stacking off. Unless you’re willing to stack off, you can’t play an effective attacking game - I believe the phrase for this in tournaments is “in order to live, you must be willing to die.” Once you get over that fear of stacking off, you’re able to play more comfortably and aggressively, especially when you have an adequate bankroll of 20-25 buy ins.
