One of my readers whom I know in Real Life urged me not to start posting again by making the stereotypical blog apologies for a hiatus. So, as a compromise, I'll keep it short: I apologize to my readers for my (effectively) two month disappearance.

I've learned that once-a-day isn't a sustainable post rate for me. I made it work through March, but as I had a busy April and May, I was left with the feeling of “Well, I can't possibly post every day this week, so why post at all?”. I'll try to be more realistic about what and when I can write.

Besides my non-poker life, which intruded quite a bit the last two months, I also made a big change in the last three months. I made a decision to add an additional major monthly financial expense (about $1,100 each month), and I decided to fund that major expense out of poker.

I did this for a few reasons. First, this expense was very important, and I couldn't really find an easy way to fund it from my regular work income. But, second and more importantly to my poker content readers, I wanted to experiment with having to rely on poker income for something. This is a step toward learning to be a professional in more of a full-time capacity; I have to take these steps if I'm going to be a full-time professional by February 2016.

I have to be honest, however. I have not really enjoyed the experience. Once before in my life, I converted my hobby into a career. While I wouldn't change that, because I like my current career much better than what I used to do, I do recall that my excitement, interest, and focus in the area was greatly reduced when I switched. It became “just a job”. The past few months have been a taste of reliving that experience.

With the pressure to pull in a grand a month, I've found that I can't take a lackadaisical attitude toward poker play. It needs to be scheduled, and I have to think hard about when and where to play games. This means, for example, that live (in person) play is generally a financially bad decision! The collapse of the NYC poker scene (that's a bit of a “Chicken Little exaggeration” there, but I'll write later this week on why I call it that), means that there are virtually no good public games going and the private games are either very small (enthusiasts getting together for small stakes) or very big (famous and infamous local games for very wealthy people and local pros). Plus, the overhead of playing live — be it in Atlantic City, Foxwoods, or even in NYC — is extremely high compared to the easy-to-schedule, great and quick game selection, no-tipping online games.

I also have found myself seeking and playing in games that are much below my level because of the ease (and therefore low-variance) of play. For example, sitting in three $0.50/$1 blind games can easily yield me a few hundred each evening when I win, and the losses usually aren't too terrible (in the $50-$100 range for an evening) when I lose. Since I have this specific target of “a grand a month”, this is much safer way to play than seeking the biggest games that (a) my bankroll can handle and (b) I can beat with my best play. But, playing one table like that is generally higher variance and requires more concentration, leaving me not multi-tabling. The choice quickly becomes a no-brainer: multi-tabling against the truly clueless.

I've also found that my frustration level at losses has gone up more when I am relying on the money with a deadline. I find myself annoyed by a mere $100 of loss, which is so little compared to “normal” session variance that I'm accustom to. (Indeed, it's truly nothing compared to what my limit variance used to be — I'll be writing more about NL vs. limit variance soon). When I started experience this “easy annoyance”, I became worried that it would have a negative impact my ability to play well. Any annoyance with a loss can yield problems in one's game. However, with this monthly goal-focused attitude, that annoyance actually leads me play harder. I was pleasantly surprised by my own reaction here, frankly. But, the fact that I've been playing my best game with minimal mistakes for months straight is probably the only real benefit that I'm getting from this goal.

Poker done this way can really feel a bit empty. It's like playing in a holding pattern, where I am confident I'll scrape together that thousand by the end of the month, but my bankroll will stay at about the same level and I'll just keep grinding it out at the same level. I also hate the fact that live play doesn't make economic and scheduling sense in this scenario. I've always enjoyed playing live, focusing on reads and psychology, than being a pure grinder. But, people grind for a reason: it makes easy, solid cash.

The other negative is that my focus on direct monthly profit has made me feel like journaling time is all but wasted. I enjoy writing here, but from a poker-profit point of view, it's mostly dead time. There's no question that discussing poker here has improved my game, but, if I am able to stick to my best game, there's not much more I need to learn to beat a couple of $0.50/$1 NL HE tables for a grand a month.

Just as they have at every step, these facts makes me question whether I really want to do this professionally. I have years to think about that question, and, of course, at the end of those years, the worst case scenario is that I've spent time getting really good at a life-long hobby that has interested me since childhood. Still, I have to wonder if my first instinct about working toward primarily a poker profession was right: “Do I really want to turn my beloved hobby into ‘just another job’ for the second time in my life?“

There have been a series of busts over the past few weeks in the New York City clubs. Since early March, I have been playing mostly online (if at all). I was only occasionally visiting the clubs — about once every two and half weeks. Each time I look up to see where to go, the whole landscape has been changed by busts.

A club that I once visited called Satellite was busted a long time ago. Another club opened in its location, called Playground. I went once, but it was still busted within weeks of its grand opening. I went to Playroom once, and but it got busted before I could go again. All In (which I called the L Club) has been gone for months. Another club I hadn't mentioned yet, the Straddle Club (made up of some old Ace Point people), was busted a few weeks ago.

I have to admit that the police attack strategy is starting to work on me, for two reasons. First, I am simply fed up with the comedy of errors the casual player must go through to find what clubs are open. I am never a regular; I haven't been one since the old R club and 72nd Street (aka the NY Players' Club). If you aren't tuned in constantly to the NYC poker scene, you have to do some leg work to find out what has happened. I'm in touch with some regulars, which helps, but it's still impossible to go to a club on the spur of the moment unless you are constantly “tuned in”.

Second, the games are nowhere near as good as they once were. Sure, there are some fish about, but the line-ups have gotten substantially tougher. The casual players simply aren't going out to the clubs. Think about this, and it's obvious why: a heavy poker enthusiast like myself, who, all things being equal, wants to play live once every week or two, cannot find out who's in business without 24-hour lead time to email out to regulars to see what's going on. Can you imagine that any casual $1/$2 NL player wants to do that work? Do they even have any regulars' email addresses?

The public policy here is ludicrous, given that Off-Track-Betting is legal throughout the city — it's not like we are a gambling-free zone. But, that argument doesn't help much to solve anything. Meanwhile, rumors abound that owners of some clubs are calling in competing clubs, but this seems quite unlikely. A rising tide of “reduced police heat” would raise all boats here, and I am sure everyone is savvy enough to realize that. More likely, the best of the best club workers are heading the relative safety of dealing and running high-stakes private games (see below).

I know of four clubs still operating around the city, but I have not been racing to get to them. The regular fish that I watched move from 72nd Street to the Loft and Satellite have either quit, or have returned to the baby-limit home games from whence they came, as far as I can tell. For my part, I am finding amazing games online. I miss the social side of it, but I must admit that even that has decayed.

Indeed, I realized something: most of the people in the clubs now are not the people I want to hang around. This is something that roryk might have been correct about. I've noticed that the people that I meet at these clubs now — those people that keep coming even after multiple busts and reopens — are not really people whom I want in my poker games. Now, I wouldn't say they are “seedy” people, by any means. It just seems that most of the people who have “stuck with it” are either sharks looking for a good game (who are generally nice people, but not the people I want to be playing against all the time), or just plain jerks who clearly have no ability to be socially connected in any other way.

That's a sweeping generalization and an exaggeration, but it has some truth. I have noticed that once clubs have been around a while, they attract some weak competition who are also nice people. But, the hard-cores really are jerks or sharks. Compare this to the casino, where you get to meet retirees who are just relaxing and enjoying their time off, and vacationing people from all over who play a home game from time to time and have simply picked poker instead of blackjack to burn their vacation dollars. I loved getting to know and “entertaining” people at Foxwoods when I played there regularly, but that's not the feel of a “just opened and could be busted next week” NYC club.

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There are, of course, many private games throughout the city, but nothing at low or even medium stakes. I know of a $50/$75/$150 Stud game and a $200/$400 HE game, for example. Those are, of course, way above my bankroll. There are probably serious fish (and serious pros) in those games, but I can't imagine I'll ever play those kinds of stakes, frankly.

I have been invited to, and attended twice, a private “study” game. It was started by one of the local limit sharks who practices securities law in his “real life”. The goal of the game is for everyone to learn mixed games. If it were a pure limit HE game, I'd be throwing my money away with the tough lineup there. But, we play quite a large mix of games (more on this in a later post), and I'm probably a favorite to the game in most of them, given my diverse poker experience.

I look forward to posting about that game, which I'll call “C.H.'s Game”. However, they all have the URL of this journal, so I have to be prepared, as was with the late River Street days, to have all the players reading the posts.

[ By popular request, here's the second entry in my River Street series. ]

It was every Tuesday. I was fortunate to have an office that didn't even get moving at all until 10:00, and sometimes later. I even came in a bit after that — around 11:00 — on Wednesdays and Fridays to make it easier to manage. I had to go. I had to be there. My week was planned around it. It was River Street.

What was the magic? I'm still not sure, even a year later. The feeling struck me even earlier this month, as I pulled into Cambridge for a conference at MIT, and saw the Riverside Pizza and the empty lot, and that building. The building of Greg's old apartment. The first apartment of River Street; it's where the magic happened.

Through February 2004, we were still self-dealing, and continued to do so into March. The limit game became goofy, fun and interesting. I realize now that we were slowly building the cast of characters that would become the center of the NL HE game — stakes always escalating — that would define River Street for most of those who came later.

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I remember nick_marden's first arrival vividly. A unseasonably warm night in February 2004 a slightly chubby, broad-shouldered, smiling and friendly fellow stormed into Greg's living room. As Sydney jumped and barked around his legs, from under his Red Sox cap, he bellowed: I was just driving through Central Square with my head out the window trying to reboot the three Windows boxes on the roof of my car. Do you know how hard it is to reboot Windows while driving with your head out the car window?. My only thought: Who is this guy?!?!

Nick is that extroverted fellow, somewhat like myself. I immediately felt kinship to this guy — he was a computer geek, he was exuberant, he was thoughtful, he was friendly. We had a lot in common, and we quickly became friends. Well, at least we did eventually; for a while, he was was my friendly neighborhood fish.

Through February and March of 2004, I remained fearful of the NL game. I felt I was totally outclassed in the game, and I surely was — at the time I had a very poor understanding of the complexity of NL HE and had too much of a limit mindset toward the game. But, $2/$4 limit HE were my usual stakes anyway, and that limit game through February was rocking with new players. I probably only had six months of careful study ahead of them, but poker is about selecting games where you have relative, not absolute, edge. I certainly had one here, especially against Nick.

Nick started as a tight-weak player; many good players (including myself) start their poker play this way. This made Nick incredibly bluffable. I'd be sure to sit on immediately on his left — a treat anyway because he was a fun guy to talk to — and I'd three-bet him every time he'd raise. I'd bet the flop, and if he didn't fold there, I could bet the turn and the river, and he'd almost never call me with anything less than a strong top-pair. I got lucky enough that the few times he did call me, I had hit some goofy draw. He caught on after a few weeks, but it was easy pickings early on.

After some time, Nick and I exchanged contact information, and we became friends outside poker. I also eventually told him what I was doing and how to avoid it. I taught him everything I knew about how to beat the games, and being the smart guy he is, he soaked up the knowledge and became a formidable opponent. We played thousands of hands on Poker Room, watching each other's table and learning the game. These days, Nick ranks on the short list of my best friends in the world, despite that I have moved down to New York. When anyone questions whether or not poker is good activity, I think about how I met one of my best friend thanks to the game. It's all part of what made River Street so special for me.

I love tax time. Unlike most folks, I rather enjoy filling out my own tax form. I always have, actually; it's a nice way to review the previous year's financial accomplishments. But, it is even more enjoyable now that I'm filing for the second year as a “professional poker player”, since poker income became a non-trivial chunk of earnings in 2004.

It's exciting to have my Schedule C as legal documentation that I'm a winning poker player! I can see clearly in black and white that I'm a winning player. Today, I realized that my direct gross poker earnings from playing in 2005 were $10,028. I had $2,109 in miscellaneous expenses (mostly travel expenses for casino visits), so my net income from pure poker in 2005 was $7,920.

My gross was only $992 more than the previous year. However, since I played much more online this year, I reduced my expenses by $3,392. Thus, I increased my net income from direct poker play by $4,337. between 2004 and 2005!

I am taking a short moment for some pride in this. At one point during 2005, I had a bankroll in the hundreds. (I believe right after my NYC relocation when I raided it for “real life expenses”, my bankroll was little more than $300.) I was staked at that point so I could keep playing at middle limits. (Thanks again, Mystery Man, feel free to take some credit here for the help in comments if you like — you helped me get there!). And, even after paying back the interest on that stake agreement, I came out ahead $7,920 for 2005!

Sure, I haven't lived off that amount of money in a year since I was in graduate school (and that was in one of the cheapest cities in the country). I certainly didn't make enough to go to full-time pro in 2005. But, I also spent weeks in late 2005 playing only rarely due to pressures from my “other job”. I firmly believe that I can go pro if I want to someday, and filling out my taxes reminds me I'm on that path.

Watch for more in my journal about poker and taxes later this week. The guilt trip is on its way! :)

I apologize to my readers. I have a project at work that has a deadline for the end of the month. I'm probably going to slip the deadline a bit anyway, but I definitely don't have time for much poker this week. This is why I missed my Sunday newbie post and that I won't have much this week, if anything.

I'll try to post again this Saturday afternoon. I hope all your hands hold up and they call when you bet the nuts! Have a good week.

I have an interested lay-person's understanding of an area of social psychology known as attribution theory. I took a near-minor in Psychology in college (I left off a few courses due to laziness and over-obsession with taking all the Computer Science electives offered), so I don't have that advanced nor complicated understanding of this sub-field. However, social psychology and addiction were the two areas of psychology that interested me most. Now that I play so much poker, I'm glad I took those courses. Some of the basic principles, particularly those related to cognitive bias and attribution theory, can be applied pretty directly to poker without too deep of an understanding. (Indeed, rereading Shoonmaker's Psychology of Poker is helping me see how these social psychology principles apply to poker. He avoids technical terms to make his work accessible to those who haven't taken an introductory course in social psychology. However, if you get a working understanding of the technical terms before reading his book, you can see where he's applying the principles.)

It's actually kind of amazing how quickly and easily you can start to apply these principles to poker. The wikipedia entry that lists some common cognitive biases reads almost like a laundry list of problems we all have and witness when we play poker! I stumbled across the page doing some poker research this past weekend, and I got inspired to make a journal plan. I'm going to go through each of these cognitive biases and consider carefully how I might have each of these biases in my attitudes toward poker. I'll also consider how I can look for these cognitive biases in others to improve my edge against them. I may even be able to pull out some examples from previous posts, and consider them in light of particular cognitive biases.

Of course, by linking to the page, I've already spoiled some of the thunder. Those of you that click through will read the list and the short descriptions and begin to see quickly how they apply to poker easily. Poker is just one of those contrived, confined social settings that let these psychological concepts play out without too much complexity.

To start, I'll focus on the list available on wikipedia, since the definitions seem reasonable and are easily linkable. I hope that you'll find this series useful and educational to consider. I'll probably go slowly, interspersing these over the coming weeks with my regular types of posts, so that this doesn't become the “cognitive theory poker journal”.

And, after all, I don't want to suddenly “anchor” all of my poker thinking to cognitive bias and attribution theory. That might lead to a choice-supportive bias that I've made a good decision to focus so much on this issue. :)

I was somewhat surprised that I hadn't read or seen this rather obvious pop culture connection to poker. However, as I sat at the U Club, with music fed from some staffers iPod, I heard this refrain from Tom Petty:

Baby, even the losers
Get lucky sometimes
Even the losers
Keep a little bit of pride
They get lucky sometimes

Of course, this refrain couldn't be more appropriate for poker. It also got me thinking that I don't face the constant luck attack now that I usually play NL. There are some major draw outs on occasion, but solid play can really rake it against loose players if you know what to bet. But, even the losers get lucky sometimes, no matter what form of poker.

I lost $140, but no real harm. I don't think I misplayed any pots — will post the only (vaguely) interesting hand later

[ This is the third part in a continuing series called So, You Want To Start Playing Poker?. The series is designed to help new players learn some basics about starting poker from the ground up.]

In a post about what game structure to select, I recommended two possible games: limit HE and NL HE. In this article, I discuss what books and materials are best to read for beginning the former.

Compared to NL HE, limit HE is much more of a technical game. Your understanding of the mathematical odds, starting hand selection, and technical details of play will determine much of your success at the lowest limits of HE. You'll need lots of practice to understand the concepts involved, but much of the hard information you'll need is available in books.

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Jones Is Your Best First Choice

The book that opens most players' eyes to poker “book learning” is Lee Jones' Winning Low Limit Hold 'Em. It's the book I used when I taught the poker course at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. I read it many times myself when starting limit. The cover literally fell off of my copy of Lee Jones' first edition. While his second edition covers some things about NL HE, it is basically only for online “Sit and Go” tournaments.

Lee Jones does a very good job helping you understand starting hand selection and the very basics of preflop odds, pot odds and implied odds (and their limited use in limit HE). However, I believe his starting hand selection suggestions are far too loose. If you follow his starting hand recommendations exactly, you'll find yourself in a number of complicated situations. Granted, you'll have position (acting last — a central component of HE poker) when these situations come up. But, there is really no reason for a new player to make marginal choices. Avoid the goofier hands he suggests for late position.

The other downside to Jones' book, one that I didn't discover until much later, is that the material is carefully tuned for play in the extremely loose limit HE games of California. California poker is somewhat unique, because many people in the games are playing poker not because of a direct interest in the game, but because it's the only available legalized “gambling” there. Many individuals who would be playing other games (say, craps) are playing poker instead. This leads to many a poker hand played out more like a craps roll. Jones' advice is designed for those types of games — as if you are playing the house against people taking 8 the hard way.

Those caveats aside, Lee Jones' book is probably the most important book on limit HE on the market. I mention these downsides only to make sure you don't treat it as a poker bible, the way many of us did when we started with limit HE. It's a great book and you'll learn a lot. However, try to move quickly to getting enough knowledge and experience to see the places where Jones is giving bad advice for those games you play and learn to adjust it to suit your needs.

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Krieger May Be Overrated

Many people recommend Lou Krieger's Hold'Em Excellence series of books for beginners. I'm less enthusiastic about them than most. I like Lou and think he writes well, but I think his books fail to give enough step-by-step advice (i.e., “when you have situation X, usually you should do Y”). New players really need this type of advice as they get started. Lou focuses more on general concepts for beginning to win. Of course, they are good concepts, but I think you'll pick them up just as easily in other books that also include step-by-step advice.

Lou is also the co-author of Poker for Dummies. Despite the inappropriate titles (I don't think someone who lacks knowledge and seeks it is ever a dummy), I'm actually a fan of some of the dummy books. Their editors are usually good at designing books to give good quick introductions. I read Poker for Dummies early in my poker learning process. I was less impressed with it than other dummy books, primarily because it tried to cover all forms of poker in one volume, which is really difficult for new players. Poker is just one of these areas where you have to start a bit specialized. Trying to generalize too early will only make it difficult for you to begin booking wins early; this may decimate your confidence. Poker is somewhat unique in that you can get benefit from specializing early, but try not to stay one for too long.

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Maybe Burton To Start?

I can't help but mention the book that got me started with limit HE. I was going on a Foxwoods vacation with my in-laws, and had just discovered that casino poker actually existed (more on that sometime when I write a history of how I got into poker). I literally ran (they were about to close) the night before to the book store, after googling around about.com for more information. I found a book written by about.com's casino author, Bill Burton.

Reviews of his book, Get the Edge at Low-Limit Texas Hold'em say that he teaches a “tight-weak” strategy. However, if you want an overnight crash course so you won't be a total fish at extremely low limits, this may be the right book. It's written very simplistically with basic ideas and simple-minded tactics. I found it got me up to speed so I could hold my own without burning through too much bankroll as a total HE newbie, playing the $2/$4 limit HE games at Foxwoods. Tight-weak doesn't do too bad in these games, because no one there makes any bluffs, and raises in multi-way pots nearly always mean the nuts or close to it. Burton basically recommends simple statistical play, gaining most of your edge from starting hand selection and folding unless you flop top-pair, strong kicker or better. This approach actually does work in the loosest, highest rake, lowest limit games at the casino. (Remember, BTW, that the rake is really heavy at the lowest limits and you can sometimes be a favorite to a game but an underdog to the rake.)

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Be Selective With Books, Just Like With Starting Hands

There are so many poker books on the market now you could break your first bankroll just buying the books. Try to get books you aren't sure about from the library first (if you can — few libraries carry a strong poker book selection), or borrow from a friend (those in NYC are welcome to contact me if they'd like to borrow some). Read through them first to see if they are worth owning and rereading. Nearly every poker book (even Hellmuth's stinker of a book, Play Poker Like the Pros, which I borrowed from Boston Public Library) that I've seen is worth a quick read, but few are worth owning. Poker books are expensive under the theory that you can “win the cost of the book in one session of applying its principles”. But, I'm not a fan of this theory. Some poker books are more or less a scam by pros to find some extra easy money; Hellmuth's is the best example. Make sure you pick the good ones that many other players recommend.

I had to stop thinking about poker for a bit after losing that grand, and I will be posting more about total donkey plays I made last weekend. But, I want to be clear about the hand that is the subject of this post: I am pretty sure that I love this situation. I made a brief off-handed reference to it in my earlier post. The thrust of the argument against my play below is that the preflop decision leaves me an underdog (i.e., playing AQs against a likely big pair or AK), and therefore it's not worth taking a flop. Furthermore, one could argue that the flop is at best a coin flip, so why introduce so much variance for this? Before I get deep into the analysis, let me first retell the whole situation, which should be stated and considered first before extensive analysis can be at all useful.

The hand begins on 21:09 on last Saturday when readysteady, a tight-aggressive, overpair-overplayer player on Full Tilt raised UTG to $9 in a six-handed NL HE game with $1/$2 blinds. I was right next to him and decided to call with A Q. I could have easily been dominated by AA, QQ, or AK, but felt that it would be reasonably easy to get away for a small raise on the flop if it came A or Q high. Meanwhile, having seen him play aces once before at this table, I felt he'd raised less preflop with AA from early position (probably only $6), trying to induce action. He'd won with those aces earlier, so it was unlikely he hadn't gained a temporary “must over-protect aces” philosophy. He had raise to $6 before from early position with hands like AJ, so I suspected here that he held a vulnerable big pair that didn't want to see a flop out-of-position — probably TT or JJ. But, maybe he did hold QQ or KK; I couldn't rule it out. AK was another possibility, of course.

There was still some chance he had AA, but I figured (at the time) that most of the time, he held a hand like AK or TT-KK as opposed AA. In fact, the real numbers were much better. He's a tight player who almost always holds one of those hands when he makes that raise. With an Ace in my hand, there are only three ways he can make AA, while he has 33 ways to make one of those other hands, so he's about 1-to-11 underdog, statistically, to hold AA after his $9 raise. Why am I so focused on AA in this post-hand analysis? I'll get to that shortly.

To continue with the hand itself: I decided to call his $9, and that I'd get away on the flop if I made merely one pair. I had $259 and he had me covered. He had overplayed one pair a number of times at this table; he fit the typical profile of someone who plays NL HE by being very tight preflop and getting all the money in on nearly any flop where he holds an overpair or top pair, strong kicker. I'd of course rather have a set-building hand against him, but a nut-flush-building hand wasn't too bad, and I'd have position for the rest of the hand, as I expected the rest of the four people to fold unless they had monster.

With $21 in the pot, we see the aforementioned 5 2 3. (My original quick note about the hand had the suit of the 5 wrong, but it isn't relevant since it wasn't a diamond. :) readysteady bet out $15.

I now had him read for an overpair, or maybe a feeler bet with AK (pretty unlikely). Folding on this flop seemed like a bad move; I have too many outs against so many of his possible holdings. I could call and see if the turn hit me, or raise right away. It was highly likely that he would reraise, and I decided that, before I raised, I had to know what I'd do when he reraised. If he reraised, I had to be committed to playing for all my chips. I had limited time to make this decision, but I was sure in about 20 seconds of my one minute to act that I had to be committed.

My biggest consideration was how I'd get paid off if my outs came. I thought he might put one more pot-sized bet in if I hit the flush or the straight, but he might slow down if an overcard came. If my overcards are actually live outs, then I might make another half-pot bet from him on the turn, and when I called it or raised, he'd be done with the hand because he knows that I am not going any further without a pair that beats his (i.e., his “get all money in with overpair” rule no longer applies). Meanwhile, if one of my overcards isn't good (specifically, if he holds KK), I'm a favorite (see numbers below), but it's still tough to play a Q on the turn. I was therefore ready to commit my stack.

I raised to $40, readysteady paused for about a quarter of the allotted time (15 seconds) and reraised to $100. That pause made me even a bit more sure that he didn't have AA. I felt he'd be faster to commit chips with AA, because he doesn't have to pause to consider that I might have an overpair to his. The pause, of course, could have merely been his consideration of a set, but this was a player I'd seen commit quickly to aces once at this table. I felt he would do so again. I moved in, putting my whole remaining $250, and he thought again (this time only about 2-3 seconds) and called. He showed K K and the board completed to 5 2 3 J K. His set won $521.

Now, in the moment, I didn't have time for heavy math analysis. But even after the hand, I think that the questions are really these: (a) should I fold AQs preflop to an early position raiser, and (b) should I just see if my draw hits on the turn rather than getting all my money in?

As to the first question, I don't think it is reasonable to fold the hand, even against a tight online player. The typical profile of tight players in the six-handed games on Full Tilt — a profile which this fellow fit and had confirmed by his actions — is that they overplay overpairs and/or strong top pair for all their chips. My 9-to-253 implied odds are just too huge to pass up in a six handed game. The other players behind me are highly likely to fold. I'm going to see a flop heads up with position.

Of course, I may be dominated. I need a lot of help on the flop (which I got, IMO) to put any more chips in the pot. But when I do get that help, I'm going to get his whole stack. I am focused on taking stacks in NL HE; not making sure I make the absolute direct odds pre-flop EV play. This is why I decided that for me in this hand “hitting the flop” did not include merely top pair. I definitely needed two pair or better.

Two pair would be tough to play, but this fellow was likely to slow-play a set, so it'd go check-bet-call or check-bet-raise on an AQx flop should he hold a set. Either way, I would have slowed down and eventually folded two pair in that sort of situation. I might lose a bit more on the turn, but I'm only going to bet a quarter of the pot on the turn when he checks again, worrying specifically about the check-raise by that set of aces of queens. Once he check raises, I'm done — I've folded two pair many times in such a spot. So, while there are some negative implied odds for two pair against a set, I also get paid off pretty well from AK, with which he bets out rather than check-raising in that spot. (I should note that despite lots of advice out there about betting out with a set, few players do it; I didn't think readysteady was likely to.)

If I flop Broadway, I'm getting all my money in on the flop while winning. In that spot, he puts it all in with AK most of the time, and a set all the time. If I flop a flush, I almost always win but I admittedly don't make too much from him, unless he flops a set.

If I flop what I flopped, overcards, a flush draw, and a gutshot, I have to tread lightly if the flop is ten high or bigger, but in this case, with all babies, I'm in great shape.

Yes, he can wake up with AA in that spot, and I get my money in as a 36% underdog. But, going back to the hands he likely to have, given his preflop action and flop lead, he's a 1-to-11 underdog (about 8%) to have specifically AA. So, 8% of the time, I'm a 36% underdog. Another 8% of the time (when he has QQ), I'm a 44% dog. Meanwhile when he has KK (18% of the time), I'm a 51% favorite. Against the rest of the likely pairs (TT, JJ), which he holds 36% of the time, I'm about 58% favorite. I'm of course crushing AK (the extra 30%), but if his flop lead was actually a feeler bet with AK, he folds any AK when I raise.)

Anyway, I'll even set aside my read that he didn't hold AA. I'll just do the pure EV calculation that his lead bet gives us no new information (i.e., it may be an AK feeler), and that he gets all the money in with any pair (i.e., we assume no fold equity). I do the calculation by assuming I win right there when he holds AK, and that I have to face the odds with all my chips when he has any other holdings.

With these assumptions, my flop EV (when I raise on the flop, expecting him to reraise and we get it all in) is as follows:

Hand	Probability of Holding	EV formula	EV component
AA	8%	36% × $271 + 64% × $-250	$-5
KK	18%	51% × $271 + 49% × $-250	$3
QQ	8%	44% × $271 + 56% × $-250	$-2
TT, JJ	36%	58% × 271 + 42% × $-250	$19
AK holdings	30%	$36	$11
TOTAL:	100%	—	$26

(The EV “component” field is the “percent he has it” column multiplied by the “EV formula” for that situation.)

Now, I agree that introducing $250 of variance for $26 of EV is nowhere near the best spot I can get find in these tight-weak games online. But, it's still a good spot that I'd take every day for $250! I believe in keeping a large bankroll (larger than most proposed recommendations), in part so you can take these tight marginal edges.

There are also meta-game considerations here to think about. I have chosen to play short handed NL HE tables precisely because the players there tend to be tight-weak preflop and play one pair too loosely after the flop. I play best in NL HE against tight-weak players who overplay one pair.

When playing against these players, I want to sometimes take these tight-edge gambles. I want them to know they are going to get action when they overplay one pair. More importantly, I want them to know that sometimes they won't be a huge underdog against me when I give them such action. (Indeed, I engaged readysteady in chat window discussion about the odds precisely to make sure he realized that I'd pushed an extremely tight edge.)

You see, I want readysteady (even his username exudes tight-weak play, did you notice that?) to overplay that KK every time. I want him to continue to believe that folding an overpair is impossible. I want everyone at the table to feel the same way. I want readysteady to call up his poker buddies, and tell him about the huge fish who pushed in with AQs with “only” 15 outs. I want them all to react this way, because, if I didn't have straight draw outs as well, I wouldn't have played the hand the way I did. I would have called with 2-to-1 direct odds on the flop, seen if I made the flush on the turn, and folded for a pot-sized bet if I didn't. It would have been a little mundane pot that wouldn't even have made it to my blog. But, I had at least three extra outs, and went for it. Sure, the math shows I'm risking $259 to chase $26 in EV. But, most of the time when I get the money in with him, I have a set of fives, not the nut flush draw with one (maybe two) overcards and a gutshot.

Some might argue this is a reckless way to play NL HE when I could sit and wait for more of lock. I'm going to ask my coach to read this one, but I'll probably need a lot convincing from him that I made the wrong move. I watch these tight-weak players bleed away money playing ultra tight and making themselves like textbooks. I want them to fear me at the table; to worry that they can't fold because maybe I have some big draw, not a set. I don't move in every time with AQs in that spot with every player. It felt right in this situation, with that board, against that player.

We can argue about “risk vs. volatility”. We can disagree that introducing $259 of variance into one's bankroll for $26 of EV is too much variance. (Although please consider that the limit HE player frequently puts 30 BBs at risk to win at most 2 BBs for a given evening — and that this situation is much better.) But, I think that's the most important point of this hand: varying a little bit from playing “by the book” (i.e., calling with AQs after a preflop raise, moving in with a big draw that may be at best a coin flip) builds a complicated table image that keeps your opponents guessing and forces them to respond to you.

We'll see what Bob says when I ask him to read this — if I'm full of crap, I'm happy to eat my words if he tells me to. :)

Update:Bob finally answered me on it.

So, while the U Club remains open, the L Club was in fact raided on Thursday night! I was actually there that night; W.D. and I couldn't be gladder that we left early to head over to the H Club!

I am sure this was a bust, because there was a a post on Craig's List, a comment in my journal, and W.D. himself stopped by after work yesterday to play a half only to find them gone and not answering the phone.

This club had a number of questionable policies and practices. I heard a rumor that the house people, who often played in the game when they should have been paying attention to the customer needs, were cheating. I doubt this was true, but what I do believe is that they structured table assignment to get a pyramid scheme going whereby extremely weak players dumped stacks to mediocre players who then would be placed at tables with big stacks than they could lose chips to the house players. They implemented this scheme through a creative and strange “must move” policy. (It was unlike any must-move setup I've ever seen at any casino I've visited, in part because the floor manipulated and changed the order of people's moves. They would also arbitrarily suspend the must-move policy for a few halves depending on who was where.)

I can't say I'm sad to see the club go. They had bad customer service, were rude to the customers, and treated their dealers badly. They flaunted their existence on public fora, so it's not surprising that they eventually got busted. I just hope this isn't a beginning of another round of city-wide busts.