Also, resteals are a pretty straight foward mathematical decision. If you are shoving T9s for example with 15 bbs, into a lp raiser, there is a definite % that he needs to fold in order for it to be profitable. Assuming no antes, if you are in the bb with a hand that is 2-1 on average against a normal calling range, and you have 15 bbs behind your blind, your opponent raises to 3 bbs, sb folds and you shove, you are risking 15 bbs to win 4.5. When you are called you will lose roughly 5 bbs on average. Thus if you are called 60% of the time, 6/10 times you lose 5, 4/10 you gain 4.5, for an avg loss of 1.2 bbs I think. btw I am not a math person, I am just sort of improvising.

Ok, so in that example 60% is too high for it to be profitable. If he calls 40% of the time, you win 4.5 60% of the time, you gain 7/10 bbs. Hmmm, so somewhere in the middle is the % he needs to fold for it to be profitable.

Ok, but how do you determine that magical % threashhold that will tell you how often he calls? Well that’s what reading players is all about. If it’s Gobboboy raising your blind, you have huge folding equity, because he’s a maniac and likely has crap. If it’s rizen, you have much less folding equity because he is a fairly tight player, and doesn’t auto raise the button like some others. If it’s Comeonphish, don’t try it at all because he will insta call with A4o (seriously).

Ok, so it’s essentially a very intuitive and mathematical question of hand ranges and folding equity, and risk-reward.

The reason I used 15 bbs as a number, is because that is prime restealing territory for effective stacks. Realize that I say effective stacks– if you are a big stack and a 15 bb stack raises your blind– shove it in there pretty light obviously. Like I said it’s about risk reward, so that’s why 15 bbs is very often a good number. The villain will not be priced in with air, so you have folding equity against hands like a8o and KT, etc, but at the same time you aren’t risking TOO much.

There are a few common mistakes that people will make though, (including myself) regarding interpreting folding equity.

Common Mistake 1:
They pick the wrong player to pick on. 12 left in the stars 150, comeonphish raises from the sb to 3x, i shove 14x with Q8, he INSTAcalls with A4o. There are certain people who just won’t fold. They protect their raises so that people won’t resteal on them, and it makes it nearly impossible to effectively resteal with air.

Common Mistake 2:
They push when no matter what they have no folding equity. If you are hovering aroung 10 bbs with an ante, you have very little folding equity. But at the same time this means you need to readjust what hands you are pushing. If for example you have A7o and someone raises your blind, you do have at least a little folding equity, and if you determine that you are neutral EV with the overlay versus his range, you should obviously push with any folding equity. That’s where so much EV comes from late in tournaments of course- pushing those small edges when you are shortstacked. So as I was saying, when you are short and shoving with little folding equity, you need to be sure you are going to be ok against his calling/raising range. Very often you have more folding equity than you should however. The day Rizen won the 1m, I was also relatively deep. People who were watching might remember how often I restole from the idiot pansy 2 to my right. One round he raised my blind, I shove for 9 bbs with A6o and he folds getting around 2-1. Next round he raises again, I shove K4o for around 10 bbs this time (blinds went up and I stole a few times), and he folds again. Schaefar then writes in the chatbox “Welcome to pwntown. Population, you.” ty schaefar. So clearly if you are restealing from the right people, what they “should” be doing isn’t what they will be doing- in both senses. You need to realize when you have either increased or decreased folding equity.

Common Mistake 3:
Shoving for way too much. If someone who covers you opens your blind, and you have something like A9o and 25 bbs, it’s ok to fold. You are ahead of his range likely, but that doesn’t make it right to raise. Typically if you reraise but don’t push you are comitted to a push, so for math purposes it is the same risk/reward. If you are shoving 25x he really needs to fold a huuuge % of the time, or be a total monkey and call with A2o and KQ.

Conditions:
There are certain situations which will affect your folding equity in huuuuuuuuuge ways obviously. Any bubble, money, final table, anything- will typically increase folding equity. Very obvious, but people don’t resteal enough when it’s just so easy to on the bubbles. The reasons are two-fold. 1) You will have increased folding equity against the weak tighties good hands, because they don’t want to risk their precious “tournament life” and all that crap. And 2) The smart aggro players are going to be raising any 2 in position, and therefore you fold out a huge % of their range, and pick up the free mobneys.

For example, the other day in the 150, there were 60 or so left and 45 paid. I was at a pretty good table, no big names, and it was playing pretty tight. I had a decent stack of around 25 bbs. The 3-4 players to my left ALL had around 12-18 bbs, very good territory for restealing my raises, but they were all weak tight bitches so I was raising almost every button, CO, and hijack. These guys were literally passing up free chips because they have to realize my range is so wide that not pushing is giving up serious +EV.

There are situations (like above) which in my opinion are horrible if you aren’t restealing. Back when ZeeJustin won the stars 500, I was watching with a friend, and there were 11 people left–(FT bubble…) and ZJ had a massive chip lead with around 3 million. Blinds were 25/50k and a guy with around 800k opens to 150k on the button. ZJ is in the small blind. I immediatly say to my friend “I’d bet any amount of money that ZJ resteals w/ any 2 here.” sure enough he put the guy all in and he folded. Unless you have a very specific read on why it’s a bad spot, a situation like that is perfect. The guy is a few places from more money than he has ever seen probably, and has just been put to a test for all of his chips. Obviously he isn’t going to call off with marginal holdings there.

The value of your hand:
Despite what people say sbout your hand being irellevent, it isn’t totally the case. Clearly there is a point at which if you have 20% equity versus a reasonable calling range, versus 40%, if you shove 20% with x folding equity it will be -cEV, but if you ahve 40% equity with that same x folding equity, it becomes +EV. The reason however that people will say things like “your cards don’t matter” is because a lot of the time you are so clearly +EV to shove 42o or whatever if he’s opening 100% and calling with 10%.

Position:
It’s obviously a sliding scale, the later they open from, the wider their raising range is, but also the wider their calling range is. If you shove over an ep raise 10 handed, you better have a hand because people obviously will have a tight opening range here. But in late position, people are raising comparatively much wider and calling off with a smaller % of their opening range to a reraise. However, know the player- just because someone opens from the button DOESN’T mean they have A2o. People get real hands on the button as well.

Lesson 2
Everything in moderation. When I first started becoming more and more aggressive in tournaments after reading a lot of posts by the MTT regulars (you know who you are), I started going nuts open raising 100% of the time from the button, CO, CO-1, CO-2, if I had the chance. Obviously players picked up on this, and I would get my raises abused. Stealing blinds is only +EV if well, if it works. Don’t open raise if you are going to get picked off every time by the big blind. I have been at incredibly aggressive tables where I rarely button raised, because I didn’t think it would work

Lesson 3
No fear, and make sure they know it. Let the players to your right know that your blind is like your first born child. Resteal with 72o (thanks for the PM lesson Woodguy) and if the circumstances are right, show it. If you don’t like restealing, you can call the raise, and lead out on any flop.

Lesson 4
Watch the action, always. I have stopped playing more than 2 tables when I’m in a tournament, because every hand that you are not involved in is like a goldmine of information waiting to be exploited. Even online, there are tells. Recognize what every hesitation means, and remember it. One important note that I like to take on players is, can they fold top pair or not. Some players are incapable of folding top pair. They just can’t do it. Others can fold the 2nd nuts. Always know who they are.

Lesson 5
Don’t berate the fish. I was once in a sit and go with Augie00, when I ‘lol-ed’ someone for open pushing J9o for 40 big blinds. Augie00 went nuts on me, and taught me my lesson. It’s really a general poker thing, but it’s a good lesson. Although I never would abuse them, I always would playfully joke at the fish for doing dumb things. There really is no point. Make them feel comfortable playing like a jackass.

Lesson 6
You don’t have to win every pot. I think there was a post where MLG basically wrote. “I raise 86s in MP, I get called by the button, flop comes T9A. I check, the button bets out, what’s my line?” Basically the post was a joke and the point he was trying to make, is that it’s ok sometimes to check/fold. If you bet 100% of the time on the flop, well, it will get picked up on.

Lesson 7
Think everything through. This has probably been the biggest improvement in my game lately. Take all the time you need to fully assess a situation, and make the educated decision. Like I said before, sometimes I would act immediately without really knowing why I was making a decision. Never again will I just click call without at least trying to put my opponent on a hand. Your reasoning behind every decision is just as important as the decision itself.

Lesson 8
Be able to judge yourself. A few weeks ago, I made a big all in call with a crappy hand that was clearly no good on the flop. Afterwards, I looked at myself and couldn’t figure out what I was thinking when I called it. I relapsed back to my old self where I just clicked call or fold without thinking it through. I knew if I was playing that way it was time to take a break. Always be able to assess your current mental state. Know when you won’t be able to play well and don’t play. You can’t just play like a machine in tournaments, the way you sometimes can in cash games. You really have to be in the right state of mind.

Lesson 9
Maximum value, every time. You always want to get every chip you can get when you have the best hand, as it can and will come in handy when it gets late and 1 big blind can make a big difference. This means knowing your opponents’ tendencies, knowing how much you can get out of his TPTK when you have a set, your TPTK vs his TPWK etc. I am really not a fan of slowplaying very often. So many times people just think “wow I flopped trips/straight/etc, I can’t bet.” Well often times one of three things can happen that are bad. 1) You let your opponent improve to a better hand. 2) You let a scare card fall, which kills your action. 3) Despite trying to appear weak, you in fact appear strong and lose all deceptive value.

Some Applied Concepts
A prime example of that is during a hand in the $300 that I came in 3rd in. With relatively deep stacks, I defended my big blind to a small button raise by a very aggressive player with 52s. Flop came down, 22T. I led out for half the pot, I didn’t even think of check-raising. Why?

Lets think about it. Suppose he has an overpair, the money is going in either way. But let’s say he has something like 33-99. It’s pretty hard for him to put me on any kind of a hand by the way I played it, so it’s unlikely he’ll fold, whereas if I check raise him he may fear that I have a ten. But there is also a 3rd possibility, that he completely missed with overs, or a total steal like 87o. He is an aggressive player, so if I check to him he will most certainly bet, I will raise and he will fold. So I probably get a half pot sized bet out of it. What a waste. However, by leading out I think a lot of aggressive players will play back at that with any 2 about 75% of the time. As it turned out I led out for half the pot, he reraised 3x my raise and I smooth called, figuring that he still had nothing, and it is unlikely that I would lose action from him if he did in fact have a hand. By just calling I now give him a chance to bluff a 2nd barrel.

The turn was a jack, I checked to him and he went all in for about a pot sized bet, I insta-called, and he turned over AK. River blanked and I doubled through. Had I check raised there, he folds on the flop. Another thing this does, is it allows you to lead out at flops from the BB, and your opponents who were paying attention, know that you can have a very strong hand doing this.

When I made the transition to cash games a few months ago, I really learned how to think about NL Hold’em and poker in general (something I think is harder to learn with tournaments), one thing I definitely learned to do was fold marginal hands. TPTK in tournaments may as well be quads, given that you usually have less than 40bbs. In cash games, when two people get all in for full stacks, you typically expect them to have relatively strong hands, set vs tptk, big draw vs overpair, etc. In tournaments however, it’s not unusual to see very large pots with fairly marginal hands. For whatever reason though, I seem to have been overcompensating when playing tournaments- I just assume that any hand is good enough cause “he might be bluffing!” or some shit like that. So despite learning how to fold in cash games, I definitely don’t do it enough in tournaments. Also, I seem to react poorly to unknowns in tournaments. Since I am playing less, I don’t really get the right reads on total unknowns. For example, for an unknown in a 10/25 game on UB, it wouldn’t be crazy to see him bluff multiple barrels with air, but that is much less likely to happen in tournaments– even high buy in ones. I’m probably being influenced by the cash games though, because I find it harder to play against players I don’t know these days.

Someone on 2+2 said I wasn’t updating my blog very often, so here I am. He also suggested I live up to my word, and make a post with all my good 2+2 posts. Is this self-promoting and arrogant? Yeah probably…

I guess I’ll post them quasi chronologically:

• After playing really not seriously for a year, (even though I thought I was) I told my poker story to 2+2. It is basically the way I started off, and how I got into poker and such. Here it is.
• This was like 8 months later, and really was the start of my real poker career I think- about 1 year ago. I still was pretty horrible back then, but I think it’s the point where I really decided to take poker seriously and when I made the decision to commit myself to my game: Man I still sucked!
• Fast foward to my first real downswing. Variance is a bitch huh. (probably was because I was terrible too.)
• Here is a post I made regarding the switch from tournaments to cash games. It’s down there somewhere.
• I’m definitely a sucker for lame inspirational speech type things, especially in poker. So here’s one that I made, although I think it isn’t half bad.
• Here is a post I made re restealing in response to La Brujita.
• And finally, I recently had a little argument where I sort of explained why I am so addicted to 2+2 and why I’m sometimes a jerk in my posts.

To ANY and EVERY American person who reads this blog, PLEASE do your part and call your reps. Tell them you are a voter, and this will seriously affect your vote in the next election. If this passes my life will be completely changed, and so will thousdands of online poker players. Not to mention, that it is purely political, and not moral or right at all. Bill Frist is a politician, and he is using this bullshit issue to get himself elected in 2008. I do not want the government telling me, and 300 million other adults how they can live their lives. This isn’t democracy, this is politcal masturbation.

The bill isn’t even going on the senate floor, the threat is that it will be piggybacked on a new DoD defense bill authorizing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Regardless of your politics, this is absurd. Our servicemen are getting their agends fucked over because of some dumb politcal ulterior agenda. The defense bill has already passed, it is just in the committee phase now.

Do not just sit around, call your reps, do ANYTHING you can to help.

Update: The UIGEA passed in 2006.  There is currently an effort led by Barney Frank to repeal the legislation.  You can help the cause by contacting your state representatives, governor, Congress and President Obama through the PPA.

1. It’s more fun
2. It’s something new
3. It definitely helps my game a ton

Shorthanded hyper aggressive NL cash games (especially if it gets deep) are so intense and very often the most difficult thing to play. Anyway, I played for a few hours and got slapped in the face with the deck and ended up over 10k. God damn it I told myself not to use numbers in this stupid blog, but I guess everyone does it. Here are some hands, and then later I feel the need to go on a rant about idiots.

• Woooo full house! http://www.pokerhand.org/?363347
• Good fold sir. http://www.pokerhand.org/?363407
• Maybe an interesting hand, I typically fold preflop but I had some good reasons on why to call agaisnt this player, which I don’t really want to say. Anyway, I almost shoved the river, but opted for the standard value bet. Not sure if he calls a shove. http://www.pokerhand.org/?363409
• Once again, def not my typical line in a hand, but a nice pot was won anyway  http://www.pokerhand.org/?363416

Today was different.

Tilt happened. I have been taking periodic shots at the UB 10/25 game. There were multiple really soft games that I have jumped into, but I have run really bad every time. No this isn’t an excuse, I really did just get bit in the ass by variance (at least at first…). Twice I have run up like 10 buy ins at 5/10 then seen a donk sitting HU in 10/25, or a sweet shorthanded game, and every time I have lost most of it back at 10/25. 97 vs A8c on 79T 2 clubs, I lose. QQ vs AA on all rag board against a guy who was blatently tilting, 99 vs A9h on 234 2 hearts, etc. Not bad beats or anything, but they were all very big pots and very standard situations that I couldn’t have done much about.

Today was kind of like the last string. There was an absolutely sick 10/25 game running, and it got down to heads up between me and another player. He was actually decent, but he was too tight and passive I thought HU, so I decided to play him. We played for a while and we were up and down, but then more people joined the game so we were playing 3 or 4 handed. Still though, it felt almost like HU because we kept getting into big pots with eachother and I definitely think he was getting tired of how psychoLAG I was being a lot of the time. I was already slightly pissed and not feeling great about poker, but then I got him in a spot just where I wanted him. He thought I was a nut who never had hands I’m pretty sure, so I was just waiting to get a chance to stack him when I finally flopped big. I opened the button with 55 and he repopped me from the BB. I was really happy with this spot, since he’s not raising light at all, and we were almost 200 bb deep I think, so I could really win a huge pot if I flopped a 5.

Bingo, flop comes 2c 5c 8x, he insta pots. I don’t remember exact stack sizes, but I know that if he was shorter I’d just jam, and if he was deeper than I’d have raised, but this spot seemd perfect to just call, so I called. Turn was something like a 9c, and he overbet shoved, and I INSTA called. This was exactly the type of spot I wanted. He was calling me down with like middle pair all day, so if I ever had a real hand I knew I’d get paid off. River was a club though, and he won the 7k pot or whatever it was with AA with the ace of clubs. God damn it. I immediatly sat out and sort of sat there. I really just laughed for a while at how shitty a hand that was. Then I made a post in BBV and random lettered some. After that, I really wasn’t sure what I was feeling. Something about this beat felt worse than usual, but I thought I was still in a sound state of mind. Obviously I wasn’t and I dusted off a few buy ins in the 10/25 game on some horrible play by myself. It was full blown tilt.

I’ve lost over 10k in 1 day on several occasions, and both were when I had a smaller roll, and I really didn’t tilt those times. It is funny the way UB works. It is so unbeleivably fast, and the games play so hyper aggressive that I think it breeds tilt. Taylor Caby made a post about this once on 2+2 in reference to captZEEbo I think. He talked about how it’s so easy to tilt on ub cause you very often are focused on 1 or 2 tables, and it goes so fast that you don’t really get a chance to get a hold of yourself. I guess that happened this time. I basically blasted through my whole UB roll. UB-BUSTO!! Well, I had a really small fraction of my roll on UB, so it’s not a huge deal. Either way, it’s not something I am proud of doing.

I guess everyone tilts every now and then though, and maybe this will be a good lesson. I suppose the next time I lose a monster pot at a game that I am taking a shot at I will be less shocked or pissed.

I need to go for a walk. I haven’t quite felt so pissed through poker in about 8 months I think. Good thing I have a blog to vent in. peace.