Thoughts on $1/$2 BLIND NL HE Game at Foxwoods

[shipitfish]

I spent a few days at Foxwoods, and unfortunately ended down about $150. But, given that I had a variance of nearly $900 while there, I was happy to recover so much (nearly $800) on the last day. I'll be making a few posts about my experiences there over the next few days.

I think the biggest mistake (in EV terms) was to spend a lot of time in the $1/$2 blind NL HE with $100 maximum buy-in. (Although, your buy-in can actually be $138, because you can buy in for the minimum of $40, and then rebuy for another $100 when you drop below $40, so you can pay one blind and rebuy.) I spent a lot of time in this game because it was what nick_marden wanted to play. Not that I needed to play with him, but we had some interest in hanging out together and analyzing each other's play, and, since having fun is more important to me than EV, I did play in that game, particularly when Nick indicated it was a good game, and even though there were likely more profitable opportunities for me in limit games elsewhere. And, it fit too with my desire to play lots of different types of games as opposed to just limit HE.

It's not that I think the many good players I know who play profitably in the $1/$2 NL game at Foxwoods are lying, nor do I think they are necessarily better NL HE players than I am. I think that there are a number of factors that demand you pick up good hands in that game frequently.

The first problem in that game is the way that it is raked. In fact, it's not actually raked; it has a time charge instead. This means that rather than taking a certain amount from each pot when someone wins, each player must pay a certain amount every half hour (in this case, $5). that means that it costs a player $10/hour to play, even if they don't win a single pot. Not only that, but they typically forbid you from taking the time charge out of your pocket. This means you have to deplete your stack size with it, making it even more difficult to build a stack.

The rake might be beatable in that game. It could be that the game is so soft, and the players so unknowledgeable about NL HE that the time charge is not "the favorite". Indeed, many individuals I play with in home games whose skills are at least equal to mine report being able to beat the game. nick_marden, in fact, did beat the game for a small amount (which I hope he'll post about soon). I was not so lucky -- and I chose that word for a very specific reason.

Luck is of course a major factor in poker. However, many games are profitable because other game conditions are such that the skillful player can overcome the unfavorable game conditions (e.g., luck and the rake). Winning players win because they have a edge, sometimes just a slight one, over the game.

I am sure that I have an edge over that $1/$2 NL HE game. Most players were, by and large, making very questionable and negative EV plays. They valued KJ like it was AK. Many thought any pair or a suited ace preflop was a monster. Yet, I ended down $360 in that game over four sessions totaling around 12 hours. I frankly don't think my play was bad in the least; I rarely ended up in pots without the best of it.

For example, I can account for about $200 in those losses in a few hands. In one hand, I had A A, when a very loose aggressive player, who had wandered over drunk from the Blackjack pit, had raised to $20 from his relatively large $500 stack. I moved all-in for the $100 I had in front of me, as there is no real reason to slow-play aces in that game. You can expect a caller from almost any all-in.

I got two callers. One called all-in for his last $40 with a K3, and another for his last $50 with pocket twos, and the loose-aggressive called all my stack with J 8. A rainbow-ish board containing QT9 cost me the whole pot. I rebought, played few pots with reasonable starting hands but folded when the flop missed me. I picked up Q Q when facing a raise from that same loose aggressive Blackjack player for $20. I now had $70 in front of me, and moved all-in. He thought for a while, and finally called, and I flipped my cards saying: "I think we have a coin flip", expecting to see AK. He showed A 7 , made a side comment to Nick that "you gotta to call with A7 soooted!" His ace came on the turn, and I lost another $80 in this very positive EV spot.

The loose aggressive Blackjack player now had a huge stack, which he quickly leaked away to other players in the matter of an hour, and I didn't get a reasonable starting hand during that time. My money was quickly and efficiently redistributed around the table by our quick-to-burn-out ATM.

I saw similar situations like this in other sessions. Sure, all my plays has positive EV, and I got hit by the luck. But, I introduced an incredible amount of variance to my session bankroll (hundreds of dollars in a game like that), without the possibility of winning all that much. Since, when you bust, you can only buy in for at most $139 (using the "rebuy trick"), the best you can get back to is $278 in the prefect spot. If you've lost two buy-ins, you have to double back through twice to get a profit!

Meanwhile, the game churns on, the bad players bust a few buy-ins, and give up, bringing in new players. Eventually, the table is full of reasonably good players who have been lucky enough to have the best of it and win against the turn-over of bad players. The game goes bad, with blinds being handed back in forth, waiting for players who actually will make bad decisions and bust! This is a "bad game" and I, of course, leave, because while many of the players in such a game are pretty good, they don't seem to have enough game selection ability to realize they should leave, too. Plus, if they have a huge stack, they don't want to leave, because the time charge isn't much to their stack size, and they can wait it out until the game improves.

I suppose some might believe I am making excuses here, but I really think I am not. I don't disagree that the game can be profitable. I would speculate the best time is on Friday or Saturday afternoons, when there would probably be an extremely high turnover of unknowledgeable players. But the luck factor is still high in these games. Because your stack is often low, and so many hands are multi-way, you have to put yourself in profitable drawing situations based on pot odds. You are so often called that this sort of play is correct, when you calculate in the implied odds. But, you are introducing hundreds of dollars of variance, when you must double through three or four times to even make that much profit in the game.

I have decided, finally and completely, that the game is just not for me. The variance is too high; for the same $300 to $400 of per-session variance, I can play $5/$10 limit HE game and have the potential to make $600 to $800 per session. And, the game is easier to beat, more relaxing, and has fewer jerks in it. That's win-win in my book. I'd be much more inclined to play a NL game at the Borgata in Atlantic City, where the buy-in is $200 minimum and $500 maximum, allowing the potential to win substantial amounts.

As a final note on this thread of the topic, it's worth comparing the little Foxwoods NL game to Greg's NL game, which has a similar structure: $1/$2 blinds with $140 buy-in. There are three things that make Greg's radically different. First, he takes a rake of (maximum) $3/pot rather than a time charge. This means that you can sit card-dead in Greg's game for hours, learning what you can about the players, eating the free (read: rake-bought) pizza, and pay only your blinds. Second, it is possible to do more read-based plays in the game, because there is a huge overlap of players every week. At Foxwoods, you build up a good read only to have the person leave.

Third, the big stacks are in play for longer. I've noticed a strange thing in the Foxwoods game; the loosest players tighten up or leave outright when they are way up. It is probably a vestige of the fact that many Blackjack and other table game players come over to this NL game. They probably have learned "gambling money management" and thus "quit when they are ahead". Nick and I watched with chagrin when a very loose player, who gambled over and over and won, tightened up immediately when he hit $1,000 in front of him. He even went so far to rack up the grand and would always fold when more than about $50 chips had to be in play. That doesn't happen at Greg's. Even the really gambling-style players, like Big Jon, will keep their stacks in play when they build them.

Finally, Greg's game has a better rebuy/top-off rule. At any time, you can bring your stack up to "half the largest stack". This is a great rebuy rule. It of course only works for a game that will last seven or eight hours (i.e., not 24/7 casino games), but it makes nearly perfect situations. The game never gets too big on a particular night, but if a few big stack do get built, it's possible to rebuy to just enough to be able to double through them, but not so much that it automatically escalates the game stakes too far. Hats off to Greg for making a really good structure for one-night NL games.

I should point out that there was one hand where an interesting thing happened, and really got me thinking. There was a player at our table on Wednesday night who had a reasonable understanding of poker odds (he was able to notice, for example, when I made my one big win with an open-ended straight and flush draw combo, that I was a favorite when all the money went in on the flop), and he had a pretty tight-aggressive style, although he loosened up now and again.

Due to unfortunate seating, I had ended up on his immediate right, a problem I was trying to remedy, but no one had left the table in a while. During this time, an interesting hand came up when I was UTG with K K. I made what had for the past twenty minutes or so been the standard preflop raise at the table of $15. I was called by two players, including the good but occasionally loose player to my left.

The flop came J J 4. I really didn't want to mess around on this board, so I bet out $25 immediately trying to win the pot right there. That player called quickly, and the player behind him folded. We went heads up into the turn of 6. I paused for maybe one second, and bet out $50 into the $80 pot. He thought for maybe 4 seconds, and called.

That one second I had spent thinking, the following thought had crossed my mind: "I think he has a Jack, because there is virtually no other holding that this player cold-calls me with on the flop. However, checking the turn will just show so much weakness that it will cost me the pot for sure. I'll bet a near pot-sized bet on the turn. If he just calls, he's got the jack for sure and if he raises, I'll have to think hard because he might be making a play."

So, when the river fell 4 , leaving a board of JJ464, I was pretty sure I was beat. I couldn't see a mere overpair holding up. I checked, and this fellow went into the tank. He eventually bet $125, leaving about $50 in his stack. This really seemed like a value bet with a Jack to me, having read me for KK, AA, or QQ. Most of what seemed like river bluffs from him had been overbets of the pot, yet in this case, he could have easily went all-in and made it even more difficult for me to call. Yet, he kept back this small amount! I don't think he's incapable of a bluff, but a non-all-in bluff actually doesn't make much sense. He had put some thought into how much I might be willing to call. I folded.

I thought as I folded that I should show what I was laying down, but second guessed myself and sent the cards to the muck. I wasn't completely sure I could induce him to show his hand if I did this, so I didn't bother. I did end up saying I had kings, and he very quickly said, "Oh, I had queens". That was a very specific hand to pick to say, and after ribbing him a bit, I began to really doubt he was telling the truth. He had a jack and wanted to get paid off, and decided to make me feel bad, hoping for tilt odds, by lying. At least, that's my theory, anyway. The only way that's not true is if he was thinking one level deeper than me, and knew that I would read his bet that way. I think he was a good player, but not that good. Thoughts would be appreciated.

Comments

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