Mad Man Poker

There is nothing as ambiguous as having a mark on your back in a tournament.

When you’re on a hot streak you love the fact that everybody is coming after you. It’s like the victims are just lining up to be butchered by your string of straights, flushes and sets.

But when you’re not running so hot, having people constantly aiming for your chips, rather than those of your neighbour, can be an immensely frustrating part of the game.

With TPC X coming up, I thought I’d give a few short pointers about what to do when you feel all eyes being on you.
Because, believe me, I’ve had people coming after me with a passion more than once on previous editions of the tournament.

First of all, you need to realise something very important: When you have to deal with people seeming to have it in for you, it could mean a couple of things.

First of all, it could mean that you are vulnerable to things like this, in which case, you have a big problem. There’s probably nothing as exploitable as a guy not being able to handle being called down a lot.
How do you become vulnerable for this? Well, a lot of people see players like Tom Dwan, Victor Blom or Lex Veldhuis on television and don’t seem to realise that for every “wild bluff” these guys pull there’s probably about 20 times when the same type of hand, played in exactly the same way by exactly the same players would result in a massive pot going to these guys.

But T.V.-poker is not fun when it’s not spectacular. It’s just much more fun to see Phil Ivey sweat on a call for about 3 minutes on a durrrr-bluff then it is watching Chris Ferguson play decent standard balanced poker.
Add to that, a player like Dwan realises very very well that the amount of money going into a pot is by far the biggest factor for any player with at least some sense in his head. There comes a point where being a 75% favourite to Durrrr is no longer worth the risk of loosing a huge pile of money once every 4 hands.
Also, as you see, I’ve been analysing this hyper bashing strategy from a ring game point of view.
Newsflash kids: the big bluffing, highly risky moves you see Dwan pull off on High Stakes Poker have nothing to do with tournament poker, and even if it is used in a running structure, like Veldhuis did in 2009 during the WSOP, the fact that nobody calls, while you’re thinking “if only someone would call this prick !”, it’s probably because somebody did and it backfired and because Lex recognized a table not willing to risk a tournament on a bluff catch that early in the venue.
In all other cases, this style is just pure rubbish. I’ve had guys comparing my “Bullying the bully” with what Veldhuis did in the last main event, but these things have nothing to with one another. Lex’ tactic was based on nobody willing to gamble, “Bullying the Bully” is based on punishing the gambler for gambling in forcing him to either shut down or shove in.
So, if this is the case, and you feel like you have a big red mark on your head people like to shoot at, it’s time to change gear. You are being pested on, because your style allows that, it has nothing to do with any of the following.

Because there are of course other reasons why people could be coming after you.

In fact, the most common reason is because you are a tight aggressive player. Yes, people are chasing after you, because you play standard ABC poker. When you just started out, every website, every book, every player already in the game, every DVD, video and article told you the way to go was tight aggressive. Wait for a hand you can defend strong with or attack fiercely and then do so.

Often do you forget that’s exactly the advise every guy around you got. Yes, we have all seen Lederer’s DVD’s, yes, we’ve all read the Hold’em bit in Super system, yes, we’ve all seen “learn from the pro’s”.
You need to realise that what you are playing is so commonly known that for every basic poker player, even if he is now playing very loose, TAG is a second nature, it’s what we all grew up in, it’s the standard on which everybody around you planted his own specific characteristics.
And that’s the problem, right there. In a deceptive game with that much of psychology, like poker is, if you’re never prepared to think outside of the box, to do what’s wrong because now is the right time, your opponents will know exactly what you’re doing. They saw the same material you learned from.
Add your own input to what you learned from the books, or don’t be surprised that a standard play gets recognized by players better at interpreting these books then you are, let alone players who read the book and moved on.

However there is one reason why people having it in for you is a great feeling.

It could be that people constantly attack you, … because you scare them. All ex-champs of TPC have told me the same thing. The hardest seat to be in is table 1, seat 1. Everybody knows who you are, and everybody wants to be the one taking you out. Why? Because you just proved that you can win this thing, seeing you get strong is probably the scariest thing ever to the rest of the table. Name-players (everybody in our group has this problem) or loud players (style: myself, Jeroen Vanacker, Dennis Van Hove, …) will have people attacking them more often than people keeping a low profile.

This however is a good thing. Fear in the other guy is always your friend. It looks like people are playing like they have nothing to loose against you, but they desperately want you out, preferably strengthening up in the process. When you in turn start to threaten them, you’ll quickly see that they would rather avoid your rages and easily back out, even out of hands that are somewhat legit. When people know you for what you do at a poker table, you get 2 effects: they put you on a bluff more easily or they’ll give you far too much credit. It’s now your job to figure out which case you’re handling here.

When people get after you just for being you, the only thing you need to realise is that, however arrogant it may look or sound, you’re probably a better player than they are. Stay calm, play your game. Whatever you do, don’t change your style. If you’re really that much better, you’ve probably already implemented a change in gear to deal with more action on your hands, and in the long run, you should do just fine.

Well, next post will most likely be after TPC X, and I hope I have some good news to tell you by then.

Should you have some questions about this all, find us, we’ll be the ones with the spot on our back.

Untill next time, take care,

The Mad Man

I’ve already talked about becoming predictable in some of my other posts, but it is past due time to give this subject a place of its own.

Becoming predictable is the downfall for every poker player. Not only does it mean that you severely damage your bluffing opportunities, it also means that your hands in which you do hit big will hardly become paid off. No extra value in dead hands and very little in live ones. That adds up to becoming a losing player in the end.

Of course, there is no real strategy to become unpredictable, but there is, however, a strategy in avoiding routine.

I’ve already briefly suggested (in the heads up post) that you design game plans per hand before the hand is even played out. Sticking to the plan then will automatically mean that your opponents have no chance in reading you.

Easier said then done, I know, so I’m going to put you onto your way.

First of all, assess your hand. What category is your hand in?
Is it pure and utter junk? I’d rather you throw it away right now, of course, but OK, in some cases there is something to be said for playing any hand when the position, your image and the other players’ tells all scream out for you to play.
This is the easy kind, there can only be one game plan here. You are trying to steal and will leave at the slightest sign of opposition. Should you be called and happen to catch a monster when the cards come down, we’re in another category. As long as you are trying to steal, this hand is over either before or right after the first played street in the hand (the flop in community games, third street in stud or the (first) draw in drawing games).

Are you carrying a monster in your opening hand? Good, there’s 2 ways you can go here.
The slowplay, in which case you can only have the plan to go for the kill once an opponent starts showing real aggression, or the fastplay.
When slowplaying, realise that you need close to, or even no less than the stone cold nuts. Since you delay trying to get value in the early rounds, you need to exponentially get more value out of the later rounds, meaning the other guy needs a pretty good hand too. This all seems very clear when you read it here, but in too many cases you see players slowplay their top pair top kicker, to finally get action in a later betting round and then be amazed when someone pulled two pair or a set on them. One pair is weak in almost every form of poker. One pair is what you pick up small to medium pots with. You do not slowplay one pair. Not only will you run into better hands far too often, you also limit your own bluffing possibilities. If people notice that you are willing to play high on 1 pair, they will be less eager to believe you have a big hand when you do bluff big.

Predictability is oddly enough something that hangs closely together with physical tells. A lot of times people will not be able to tell exactly why they did or did not believe you, but often enough it has something to do with subconsciously giving off tells that predict a certain action. When someone’s subconscious was expecting something to happen, people will be far more at ease when it actually does happen, even if they aren’t really aware of it. In this comfort zone they will be far more at ease to make quite amazing calls with threatened pair or ignoring straights and flushes on boards that scream for the draw. Most of the time they will put it on instinct, but in reality more often than not, they could predict a certain action and were relaxed enough to call, knowing they had the best hand.

It also works the other way around when your monsters don’t get paid off, because your opponent had this gut feeling that you had it or “didn’t feel like risking a lot of chips”. If you get a lot of this, start assessing what tells you could be giving off that make you so predictable.
Avoiding this could be the hardest thing you ever have to do. Pushing back your own tells is something even top professionals sometimes don’t succeed in.

But there are a few things you can do.

First of all, start a lot of opposing actions in the exact same way. Do you check raise a lot? Then start using check fold as well in quite some situations.

Do you often chase draws, then attack drawy boards when they complete in any way, even if you don’t have it. Not only will you pick up pots that others didn’t hit, it will help with draws you did hit, because people will gradually start doubting if you have made your hand.

But most importantly, find 1 general way of betting.

Too often do I see people bet carefully on draws and monstrously on made hands. It’s not too hard to predict what is going to happen when you know your opponent’s hand, is it!

Find yourself a comfort zone between which about 90% of all your betting will be. In this way you cut out an important way for anyone to tell what kind of hand you are on.
And off course, as always, kids: aggression, aggression, aggression! Nobody cares about you being predictable when you let them control the pots.
Your aggression should be about the only thing on which predictability is usually a good thing. When people know chances are big that you will raise their bet or won’t check behind them, they will be less likely to make that play.

Should you still have any confusion, I predict you’ll know where to find us.

The Mad Man

In order for a regular poker game to stay alive it needs a couple of things:

 

It needs a spot to play. If your game has to move too much and you never know when and where the next action will be, there is no chance in hell you can keep it running.

It needs quality. Without players that have some advanced tricks up their sleeves the game will generally degrade to a once and again type of happening. People will start getting frustrated about tough decisions and will need more time to reload their appetite for poker.

It needs commitment. Without players that are actually prepared to worry whole night about poker hands, your game will slide into some kind of gathering where there happen to be some poker hands.

It needs material. Sure you can play on the kitchen table with pennies and cents, in your hand a cardboard deck that has more cringes than George Burns’ face, but for enjoyment reasons it is more fun to actually have some quality cards and chips in hand while you are sitting at your genuine poker table.

 

But most all

 

It needs players!

 

And that’s where it goes wrong most of the time.

Why?

Simple! Have you ever heard about a “consistent loser”?

Ok, Ok, Laliberté isn’t exactly winning, but he has so much money he hardly notices he’s losing.

Furthermore I don’t think anyone will be able to come up with names of active players who have been down in the trenches for a while now, but have nothing to show for themselves.

 

Players like that get lost along the way.

This makes for one of the biggest anomalies in home-game poker.

You start playing out with a bunch of friends and soon notice that there are consistent winners, people who win less often, but win big when they do, people who need to catch up a bit after a cold streak, and then you have consistent losers.

This type of player will leave the group, eventually, because there is no more fun in playing with the rest of the group.

Therefore you always need fresh blood in a poker game.

But what when you run out of friends who play?

 

Casino? Making new friends? Playing with people who are not your friends?

 

The solution is actually far more simple than this.
You need diversity in games.

 

From the original 9 players in my group 5 are to be considered nothing less than action-junkies. They play all games, and usually pick up on standard game strategies in card games quite fast.

Guys like this are not amused by No Limit Texas Hold’em alone anymore. They want PLO, Razz, deuce to seven, seven stud. But also badugi, blackjack, Chinese poker, gin rummy, heck, even coin flipping. In that very diverse list of games there is bound to be a source of pleasure for everyone. It is almost impossible that a player is consistenly getting beat in all these games.

 

The world is maybe centred around No Limit Hold’em, but it is sure not limited to that.

 

It’s a shame that new blood is usually only a bit experienced in NLH and has never played any of the other games.

It’s even more of a shame that when people ask me “hey, do you want to teach me how to play poker”, they are talking only No Limit Hold’em and look at me in utter disbelief when I start out “with the basics”, Limit 5-card draw, or try to explain that there are 3 major types of poker, community, stud and draw. Let alone I try to tell them what antes are.

 

In my experience it is not always the best idea to teach new players NLH from the start. I play a small pot of poker every year with my parents, aunt and uncle on Christmas eve. For 2 years I tried to lure them into the wonderful world of Texas Hold’em. It failed! The different types of hands where not to difficult to learn, and sure they understood the concept of the community cards, but their insight in pot odds was a disaster and they had no idea how to play pre-flop. And then I got an amazing idea! These 4 people are not idiots! They have a pretty decent level of intelligence and should be able to grasp a basic idea of gaming theory. Especially my mother likes to understand the deep underlayers of what she is playing and them not being able to catch up was beyond me.

I decided to cut out the No Limit part and give them a basic idea of information from the moment a hand started.

So, what game gives at least some information about the other players from the start and is generally played limit?

 

Yes, Seven card stud! My uncle fell for this game as a comet drawn to the gravity of the sun. My mum, finally rid of the pre-flop psychology part flourished in stud and found a type of poker in which she had to allow only me to consistently beat her. My uncle now wants to play whenever he sees a chance and because he feels he is getting beyond the point of the nit player he is really taking an interest in the game and is starting to show interest again in NLH, a game he was never drawn beyond the point of “throwing chips around” in.

 

So, in the end, they learned 2 games, in stead of 1, are more involved in NLH and have a far better understanding of the whole theorem of poker.

Mission accomplished, it seems.

Especially since it turns out that my dad, who’s not half bad at NLH doesn’t seem able to handle the draws and the swings that come with it in seven stud.

My uncle on the other hand likes chasing a drawing board in stud, but is not able to recognize a losing hand in Hold’em.

 

As long as we keep playing both games in a nice mix none of these two will lose interest in these evenings.

If we had stuck to 1 game (NLH) we would have lost my uncle after a couple of sessions and the game would probably have died out.

In fact he is now the motor behind us playing and even bought a small chip set of his own.

 

When you are playing another game than Hold’em, not only do you train your capacities of handling different situations, also, you might be keeping a player in your home game that otherwise would have been lost a long time ago. Think about that the next time you find yourself playing a game you’re not so good at.

 

Untill next time, try to broaden your horizon.

Should you come across some difficulty, come see us, we’ll show you all corners of the room.

 

The Mad Man