Mad Man Poker

There is a very important aspect in poker that many people neglect. It is the fact that you built history with players, which goes way beyond tagging someone as a loose or passive player. When you consistently beat the same games online, you will run into regulars. This is where the metagame kicks in. Let’s say you are in a pot with a regular. You call his Cbet and now he checks when a blank turn comes off.

Normally, you will fire here, as it is the best play in most of the cases. Now, if you consider metagame, you may opt to check behind, even though you think you are ahead and thus missing out on value. The reasoning behind this is; if you always bet in this spot, your opponent will expect you to bet and adapt. There for, it will become pretty easy for him to trap you. However, if you mix it up and check behind on a couple of occasions, your opponent will be reluctant to check his monsters to you, fearing you may check behind. This way, in future endeavours, your opponent will be more “honest” on the turn: checking when he is giving up and betting when he has it.

Another example: if you play a lot with the same people, it is correct for you to make hero calls on the river every now and then. Even though you will be wrong most of the time, you teach your opponent that they can’t just bluff you off on the river. This may look like a bad short-term move, but it’s very helpful in the long term.

My past poker week hasn’t been too great. IN the search of why this was, I settled on my metagame. Some players play totally different against me than against someone else and often I fail to adjust. This really shows in cash games. Luckily, I had some time to think this over now and came up with a totally different gameplan. I am looking forward to our NL Hold’Em session this Thursday!

We also had our HSOP #4: Omaha 8. We played 4 handed and I thought that I played rather well. I didn’t catch a lot of cards but was able to put the pressure on when needed. However, I nearly lost my entire stack in a hand I played like a beginner. I really am disappointed in myself for that hand. I managed to make a little comeback, but still went out in 3rd. At least I’m still leading the player of the year list, my main goal.

Hopefully I will have better news next week, see you then!

I know magic. I will state 3 words and know what you will be thinking about. Poker, Movies, Matt Damon. That’s right; I’m talking about Rounders. (if you though of something else, I really do wonder what you are doing here on this blog!) Today I’ll talk about some poker movies that saw daylight. Actually, I will do more than just that; I will tell you which movies you should *never* watch. I think I watched every movies with even the slightest bit of poker in it and I ran into these 5 disasters. I will go over them briefly, 5 is the “best” one, 1 the absolute worst. Enjoy.

5: The Grand
I actually looked forward to seeing this one, as it had a lot of known poker players in its cast (Phil Gordon, Gabe Kaplan, Doyle Brunson) and Zak Penn, one of my favourite actors, had one of the lead roles in the piece. Even though it did have some realistic hands in it, the movie was a disappointment. The general story was boring and the humorous notes really weren’t what they should be. You could make a case for some cheap laughs here and there, but I know jobless comedians that are funnier. This movie had potential, but it didn’t work out. A shame.

4: Lucky You
We all watched this one, and I do not think I can find someone who was happy about the movie. Every little bit in it was both cliché and predictable. They had Doyle Brunson as a consultant on the script, but it still turned out like crap. It has a few good parts but the bad parts are, well, really bad! The worst thing is though, that this movie probably did make money. It was the right kind of movie at the right time. Unfortunately, the producers decided to make a simple, easy, quick hollywood-fix. Imagine what a movie with the potential of Rounders could have done for the poker boom in 2006. I guess we will never know…. thank you, money sharks.

3: Aces
Probably less popular, but I still watched it. This one tells the story about a young girl that learns poker to make some extra money after missing out on a vacation job. She ends up with 2 other female poker players who decide to mark the aces in the decks they play, so that one girl with glasses can spot the aces and thus play significantly better, somehow. She ends up winning super big in a HU match, only because of this knowledge. You might even think this resembles a story, but it really doesn’t. 3 attractive women and some poker are not a guarantee for success. Strip poker with few poker and even less skin.

2: Deal
Another poker movie without a script. Really, imagine “lucky you”, take away some of the good parts, and you’ve got “deal”. I absolutely hated this movie and I do not want to spend many words on it. Some people just must think that, because they add a few known faces to the crew and advertise that the movie is about poker, that it will get them succes. With garbage movies like this one, that actually made me less inclined to be a casino rounder, nothing good can come. If you have to decide to either watch your garden grow or this movie, I would have a hard time chosing between the two.

1: All In
The ‘plot’ as it were, centres on a female med student named Ace who naturally has an uncanny poker talent inherited from her supposedly dead dad. Ace and a rag-tag team of poker pals from school head to the “Casino” where they try and help her get a poker edge through computer wizardry. Only the pals don’t really help her, the dad — shocker — is not dead, and the poker played makes little to no sense. A rainbow of bad acting and improbable plot lines make a further muck of this movie.

This movie was just a total waste of my life and I still regret the evening I decided to watch it. The (supposedly) plot centres on a female med student who is great in poker, because her dad used to be. Her dad however, is dead. She gets together with a bunch of idiots from school and head to the Casino where they will coach her to help her win a big tournament. She ends up playing heads up against her dad. Yeah. Not a single actor played well in this piece and the plot was even worse than a non-existent one. If you watch this movie, I assure you you will agree with me that even watching wet carpet dry could have been more entertaining.

Alright, so I made sure you won’t waste your time on these… things (let’s not call them movies). Use your time to play online and learn instead!

Yesterday I played a HU session against Thomas Vanbrabant. We played a mix of 5 games, all of which pot limit: Omaha Hi/Lo, Badugi single draw, Greek Hold’Em, 7 card razz and 10 or better Stud with a 2-7 low. Even though the only game I could play decently was PLO 8, I was looking forward to this clash. About half an hour into the match, an interesting hand took place. Below you find the interview made with Thomas Vanbrabant from mickeycpoker.be with his thoughts about the hand.

Q: First of all, what were your thoughts entering the game. Did you feel confident playing all these variants you have less experience with?
A: With some of them I did, with others I didn’t. I haven’t played too much PL Omaha8 and I know my opponent has, so the plan was to keep a low profile in this round. I was looking to take advantage in badugi due to the fact he had never played this and in Greek hold’em. In razz I had the plan to keep control of the pot and see how it will go. Stud10 was a total new game for me and the game plan was here to let him push the action. But overall, I was confident that I was at least even money in most of the games.

Q: The hand we will discuss took place after one full round. Was your game plan working out thus far?
A: At that time I was losing almost a third of my stack, so not really. I had some difficulties in omaha8 because my opponent was very aggressive on flop and river. I really love to play Omaha, but like I said: omaha8 is a really different game. At the point of the hand, I was just starting to use his betting in omaha8 against him. Twice of three times during the game, I checked the river to him and then when he bet, I reraised big. This was always with the best hand and I think he paid me off, twice? Not sure about that. But I knew at that time that he loved to value bet in omaha8 on the river. For the other games, it was going both sides with no real exceptions.

Hero gets dealt KdQc3d3s and is BB. Villain raises to 120 from the SB (blinds are 20/40), effective stack is 8380. Hero calls.

Q: Do you put him on a polarized range here or do you think he’d make this move with most of his hands?
A: I don’t know why but I had the idea he had an A2. But because he raised a lot from the button in omaha8, I decided to call. I think I actually called all of this raises in omaha8. In Omaha, the hand starts on the flop, right?

Flop: QhQs8h. Villain checks, Hero checks behind.

Q: What went through your mind when Villain decided to check over to you?
A: It was a bad flop for A2. If he was only raising preflop because he had a nut low draw and was speculating for the high on some connecting cards, he missed totally. So I thought: I outflopped him and have the best hand.

Q: Why did you check back to him? Was that for pot control or were you trying to induce bluffs?
A: Like I said, I didn’t want to let the omaha8 pot get too large. And because I was afraid of a reraise (a big one, like he always does), I decided to wait another card. If my read was wrong, then I could get away cheap on the turn. A set isn’t that big of a hand in Omaha 8 and I had no backdoor draws.

Turn: 7d, Villain bets 200, Hero raises to 600

Q: Did you think villain was trying to steal the pot here? Also, why did you settle on the reraise of 600?

A: A thing I haven’t mentioned is that the villain is pretty aggressive in Omaha and omaha8 and likes too bluff more than you actually think. This is also why I didn’t bet the flop, the pot would be too big and he would get the change of betting really big on turn and river. So the 7 came and he bet. This was strange. I still had him on A2 so he made a nut low draw. But then, I had a problem putting him on a high. A queen was unlikely, and an overpair he would have bet on the flop. He couldn’t have made two pair because the queen would counterfeit that. So he made 7’s full, he picked up a straight draw or he had nothing together with his low draw. I decided to raise and make it very expensive for him to draw to either his low draw or his possible straight draw.

Villain reraises to 1750
Q: did this raise surprise you?
A: Yes I was. If he had a draw, which I thought he had, then the raise was strange in my opinion. But my hand wasn’t that strong. I had no low draw, just a top set and actually almost no backdoors (2 3’s, 3 king’s and the case queen, 14% to hit one of those). The pot was becoming very big. I dismissed a draw for the high, so it was either a bluff or a boat I thought. Did he flopped eights full? Turned sevens full? I was really surprised and thinking here.

Hero goes into the tank, Villain flashes As2s

Q: Did this change anything for you, even though this was what you put him on? Did you think he was trying to make some weird kind of point?
A: This surprised me because I have almost never seen him flash cards. I still was thinking and actually I thought he was bluffing. But because of the size of the pot and because I was very deep (over 8000), it was hard. I couldn’t call and give him a river. It was reraise or fold and because my hand wasn’t that strong, I decided to fold. First due to what I said I told him almost my hand. Then I showed him my KQ to look for a reaction. It was a full house or nothing, both with the nut low draw and for a big pot. I folded to wait for a better spot.

Hero folds.

Thomas, I thank you for this interview and wish you the best of luck for this evening!
A: Due to the hands that I could have been playing during this interview, I think you owe me 250k, a WPT title and two bracelets.