The Poker Blog

By Tony Guerrera

In cash games, you can afford to lay low while you observe your opponents and obtain extensive book on them. But what do you do when a tournament just starts, when new players are moved to your tournament table, or when you’re tournament table breaks and you’re forced to move to another table? In tournaments, you can’t afford to sit back idly; one missed opportunity can mean the difference between a huge payday and no payday whatsoever, and certain blind structures simply don’t give you the time to wait. And though you can theoretically sit tight early in cash games, what happens what you get AA the first hand of a session and an opponent shows aggression on the turn and the river: are you ahead or behind?

Fortunately, if you have a bit of playing experience under your belt, you actually have information about your opponents before you even sit at the table. That’s right…you have information about players you’ve never seen in your life! Before you play a single hand, you can draw upon all your past poker playing experience. You can assume that your opponents play like the average of all foes you’ve encountered in your poker-playing life.

Since poker evolves, the default profile I assign to my opponents now (April 2008) isn’t the same as the default profile I assigned to my opponents two years ago. And most likely, it won’t be the same as the default profile I assign to my opponents two years from now. It’s important to monitor and update constantly the default player profiles you assign to unknown foes. If you play in different venues, it will probably be the case that you’ll have default profiles that you assign depending on where you’re playing. For example, I use different default player profiles for each online poker room as a function of stakes, and I also have a different default player profile that I use when playing in an LA card room.

The more accurate the default profiles you use are, the less trouble you’ll encounter against fresh faces. However, default profiles are ultimately not enough. No matter how good a default profile is, you must identify as quickly as possible how each of your opponents deviates. As soon as your opponents show their true colors, you can then assign them to more specific player profiles–let’s call these more specific player profiles archetypes (In Killer Poker Shorthanded (Kensington, 2007), John Vorhaus and I put forth several player archetypes that we commonly encounter in shorthanded NLHE cash games. Check them out if you’re looking for some examples).

Archetypes are a step forward, but they still aren’t enough. After all, archetypes are just slightly more specific versions of default player profiles. The task of profiling opponents is never really done. But nonetheless, using good default profiles is the foundation for success when playing against so-called unknowns.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com

By Tony Guerrera

Poker is about much more than just your cards. It’s also about how your opponents play. Putting opponents on hand distributions is a big part of determining how your opponents play, but it’s only half of what you need to do when you read your opponents. You also need to predict how your opponents respond to your actions:

1.) If your hand compares unfavorably to your opponents’ hand distributions, lines of play may exist that will force your opponents to fold often enough for you to show a long-term profit.

2.) Suppose you’re in a hand of no-limit hold’em, and you put an opponent on a range of weak hands that are all better than your hand. For example, you missed a straight draw with 87, and you put your opponent on ace-high or bottom pair. Many foes will fold to bets on the river with such hands–but not all of them. Bluffing is only a good play if your opponent is the type who will fold such hands.

3.) If your hand compares favorably to your opponents’ hand distributions, size your bets such that you extract value or take pots down immediately depending on what the circumstances dictate..

4.) Know when you’re against a tricky opponent capable of inducing a mistake from you when you have a good–but not–great hand. Ideally, when in such a situation, you should employ lines of play that allow you to see showdowns relatively easily and cheaply. You don’t want to fold too many winners; simultaneously, you don’t want to lose lots of chips in big pots when you’re beaten.

Once you’re able to put your opponents on accurate hand and action distributions, you can have complete control over your table. You’ll know how to make as many chips as possible with your very good hands, you’ll know how to maximize value while minimizing losses with your decent–but not great–hands, and you’ll find ways to win chips even when you’re not getting good hole cards or hitting flops. To be a good player, you need to be good at accomplishing all of these tasks.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com

By Tony Guerrera

Situation 1: Joe Schmoe is playing in a fullhanded no-limit hold’em ring game. Action folds to Joe, and he raises with A♣9♣ from the cutoff. The button and the blinds call, and the flop is A♥A♦9♦. The blinds check to Joe, and he makes a pot-sized bet fueled by two hopes:

1.) One of his opponents has the case ace and will go over the top.
2.) An opponent with a pocket pair will call on the flop
3.) An opponent with a flush draw will call or semibluff

All three of Joe’s opponents dash Joe’s hopes and quickly fold.
Situation 2: Joe Schmoe is playing shorthanded no-limit hold’em. In 100 hands of play there’s only been one reraise preflop. Joe raised from the button, the small blind reraised, and Joe folded. This happened around hand #50 of Joe’s session.
During hands #101 and #102, Joe (who has been playing somewhat aggressively but far from manically) opens from the button and the cutoff with raises. Both times, the same player reraises. After not doing much for 8 hands, Joe opens for a raise with JJ. Joe is reraised again–this time by a different player who has never reraised preflop. Being that this is the third time in the span of about 10 hands that he’s been reraised preflop, Joe has faith in his JJ, goes over the top, and ends up losing 100 big blinds versus his opponent’s AA.

Hope and faith adversely affect our poker playing. In situation #1, Joe needs to think about his opponents. Instead of betting pot and hoping, he should think realistically about his opponents’ distributions. In many–but not all–games, a half-pot bet (or even something slightly less) will be ideal. A pot-sized bet might actually force a player with the case ace out of the pot if he has a bad kicker to accompany it. And anyone who mucks an ace with a bad kicker here will do the same with a pocket pair. Instead of betting big and hoping for a monster confrontation, Joe should bet smaller and get value from his hand.

In situation #2, a lot of things happen within a short span of time, and Joe makes a common mistake. At a table where no preflop reraising is happening, the reality of the game is that players are waiting for cards. The player who reraised Joe twice in a row probably had big hands both times. It could be possible that the different player who reraises him the third time observed Joe’s reaction to the prior two reraises, but the texture of the table dictates that Joe probably ran into another big hand. If preflop reraises begins happening regularly–on the order of once every two orbits or so–Joe can reason that the dynamic of the game has changed. But by letting faith replace reason with a hand like JJ and a random short spurt of events, Joe got himself into a lot of trouble.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com

By Tony Guerrera

Texas hold’em, seven card stud, Omaha, razz, Mexican poker, blind man’s bluff — the list of playable poker variants extends pretty much as far as your imagination can take you with a deck of cards. And the same can be said for the number of ways each poker variant can be played: cash games and several different tournament formats.
When playing in a cash game, the chips on the table are directly equivalent to cash (a $1 chip represents $1), and you may cash out or add more chips at any time. Generally, chips aren’t directly equivalent to cash in a tournament. You can’t just take the payout for first place and divide by the number of chips in play to find out how much each chip is worth (the exception being if you’re playing a winner-take-all tournament). When playing in a tournament, your goal is to maximize your monetary expected value, which is equal to P(1st)(Payout for 1st) + P(2nd)(Payout for 2nd) +…+P(nth)(Payout for nth)–P(kth) is the probability that you’ll finish in kth place.

At a given time in a tournament, your probability of finishing in each place will be a strong function of the relative stack sizes. And the monetary expected value associated with each stack distribution is a function of the payout structure. When evaluating the monetary expected value of a tournament decision, you need to evaluate the distribution of possible stack distributions that will result from a particular move. For some payout structures -– particularly top-heavy ones –- you won’t mind taking risks that are just barely above neutral chip expected value. For other payout structures–like the relatively flat ones found in satellites and many single table tournaments–you’ll prefer to avoid big confrontations with marginal edges, looking to keep pots small in such situations and folding if action gets too heavy.

Poker is a game of situations, but those situations aren’t just defined by the cards and how your opponents play. They’re also defined by the structure of the game you’re playing in. You can have the same cards and be playing against an opponent who plays identically regardless of format, and optimal play can dictate taking completely different lines of play depending on the format. Those who say that it’s tough to be good at cash games, single table tournaments, and multitable tournaments tend to be those who play the same regardless of the poker format they’re playing. Account for the game format, and you’ll be able to succeed in whatever form of poker you’re playing.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com

By By Tony Guerrera

When asked about the philosophy I take to the tables, I recently put forth the following two aphorisms:

1.) Embrace the process, and have no attachment to outcomes
2.) In general, don’t generalize
I didn’t put focus and discipline on this list because they didn’t even cross my mind. I’ve always assumed that focus and discipline are part of who I am. But after a recent edition of Killer Poker Analysis (in which Todd Brunson emphasized the importance of focus and discipline) and a careful look at my own game, I realize that focus and discipline can never be taken for granted.

Since landing my deal for Killer Poker By The Numbers back in the fall of 2005, I’ve been a writing machine. Add coaching and some random consulting here and there, and well, 2006 and 2007 weren’t exactly spent playing a lot of poker. Now we’re in 2008. I’m still writing, coaching, and consulting, but I’m also putting in some serious online playing time.

My old stomping ground, Party Poker, is no longer a possibility for me. After some serious scouting, I decided to adopt Cake Poker as my new home. Their rakeback deal is excellent, and the competition on Cake is easier than average. I don’t know exactly why it’s easier, but one hunch of mine is that it’s because they don’t allow the use of player tracking software and heads-up displays (HUDs); the hoards of HUD-using multitablers on Poker Stars and Full Tilt aren’t at Cake.

Of course, this means that I myself can no longer be a HUD-using multitabler. Luckily for me, I was multitabling before HUDs. But in those days, I was playing 4 tables at most. The beginning of 2008 has been all about honing my 6-max no-limit hold’em multitabling chops to where I can play 8-10 tables without a HUD. 6-tabling seems quite comfortable. 8- and 10-tabling territory has been tough. Observing opponents when not involved in a hand is difficult, as is typing player notes (I’m currently working on a system of note-taking acronyms to help in this department). Fatigue is also a factor (both mentally and physically). And leaving tough games can be a hassle–especially when it comes to navigating through the lobby to find a new game to sit in.

Unfortunately, the difference between success and disaster is slight. If you have KK preflop, and you’re facing a preflop reraise from a very tight reraiser, is he on {AA, KK, AK} or {AA,KK}? Is a suspicious looking bet on the river coming from a known floater or a straightforward, hit-to-win player? The difference between my big wins and my big losses at Cake (well, big in terms of big blinds anyway) has been subtle, almost undetectable shifts in judgment. Focus and discipline are the keys to reigning in these shifts.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com

By Tony Guerrera

Recently, I played in a home game with some friends of mine. If $.25-$.50 no-limit hold’em sounds like a friendly get together, think again. All the players were tough, and there was no max buy-in. $100, a 200 big blind stack, was typically the shortest stack at the table. Meanwhile, the largest stack was around $4,000. If that seems excessive for $.25-$.50 blinds, just believe me when I say that it wasn’t. What was excessive was the number of players at the table: 11!

These days, when I play online, I typically 8-table shorthanded no-limit hold’em cash games, meaning that I play something on the order of 600 hands per hour. That’s 10 hands per minute, or one hand every 6 seconds! And since I’m playing shorthanded, I’m not folding 85% of my hands preflop. When you’re used to such a high rate of action, it’s easy to let impatience creep in at a live table–especially an eleven-handed one where the number of hands per hour was probably somewhere in the 20-25 range.

The game was too slow for my taste, but that didn’t mean I got into a bored funk. Maybe it helped that all the players at the table were highly skilled; lots of interesting poker was happening. But the bottom line is that poker is a game that’s played even when you’re not in a hand. In fact, with all the thinking I do away from the table, I tend to think that it’s a game you play even when you’re not at a table!

I think having started out as a live player helps me a lot whenever I’m in a live game. But for those of you whose only experience is online, open yourself to the whole new world of information that awaits you live. Online, you get information from repeated situations happening within a short period of time, and from heads-up displays with all sorts of statistics. Live, you don’t necessarily have the same context density when it comes to betting patterns. But nonetheless, a wealth of information is at your disposal. It just presents itself in a different way.

When playing live, people’s words and physical actions might give something away–both when they’re in a hand and when they’re not in a hand. And you’re in a realm where it’s impossible to miss what an opponent does because you have to do something to do at five other tables; you don’t necessarily need betting patterns to repeat a whole bunch of times when you’re playing live.

You’ll wish that you could play more hands per hour. But the quality per hand is much higher live. And that’s what should compensate. Datamine and enjoy the show when you’re not in a hand, so that way you can pummel your opponents whenever you are in a hand.
Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com

By Tony Guerrera

Lots of motivations exist for playing poker. When I write about poker, I always write from the perspective of making decisions that make the most money possible. But really, your goal in poker, as in everything else in life, is to maximize your utility. Utility is a term from economics referring to overall satisfaction; think of it as a variable that somehow combines money and happiness (because money and happiness are not the same thing).

When I play poker, it just so happens that I maximize my utility by maximizing my expected profits. I’m a competitive son-of-a-gun who’s addicted to the thrill of victory, and I like making as much money as possible. Competitive players like myself have a tough time understanding those without the same killer instincts. But I’m finally grasping the idea that some people actually maximize their utility when they don’t maximize their expected wins.

This is a huge step from simply saying “I’ll let my opponents make however many mistakes they want.” For example, perhaps some player loves getting drunk and watching opponents’ reactions to bad beats that he puts on them. The amount of money this player loses is more than compensated by the joy this person experiences from playing the way he does. And in this player’s worldview, he’s playing optimally by playing drunk and repeatedly getting his chips in with the worst of it, because optimal play is being measured in terms of utility instead of dollars and cents.

It’s amazing how people sitting down playing the same game can actually be playing different games. Poker is wonderful in so many ways, and this is just another one. On the surface, it appears to be a zero-sum game (well, before accounting for the rake). But actually, it’s possible for the overall utility of the table to increase (or decrease). Maybe you’re a pure money player who gets in a huge pot as a favorite against an action junkie who loves the ride regardless of the outcome. You get your positive monetary expectation, and the action junkie gets his adrenaline rush. Meanwhile, two skilled players get involved in a huge pot. The underdog wins, but is pissed off about making a mistake, and his opponent is mad about having lost the huge pot when he was way ahead.

I know this article seems to be a huge departure from my usual “make the most money possible” material, but I think it was an important one. Understanding what poker can be to different players can only serve to help us in our quests to maximize our individual poker-playing utilities. And through this filter, maybe we can begin to think of poker as a game played by people, and give all players the respect and dignity they deserve–regardless of whether they play profitably.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com

By Tony Guerrera

Transitioning to Mixed Games

Prior to 2002, the first exposure that most people had to poker was a dealer’s choice home game – you know, the type where a bunch of people get together, drink beer, and play all sorts of poker variants involving wild cards, passing cards, buying cards, chip declares, and whatever else comes to mind. Even though we’re in the hold’em era, these dealer’s choice games still happen. Usually they’re played at stakes low enough such that people can buy-in with their change jars, but I know of some dealer’s choice games where you need to be armed with some (or several) Big Bens.

With all the apparent craziness, these dealer’s choice games appear to be nothing more than a luck fest. But they are games of skill where most of the players haven’t done their homework. And though HORSE is a more tame mixed game, many players are lacking in the ORSE department.

All the poker variants may seem wildly different, but fundamentally, poker is poker. Here are a few concepts that apply whether you’re playing hold’em, 7-card stud, Omaha 8/b, razz, anaconda, baseball, follow the queen, blind man’s bluff, or whatever:

1.) Reading Your Opponents

Poker is a game where people interact. Your opponents cards matter as much as your cards–if not more. Regardless of what game you’re playing, you should be able to pick up betting patterns and physical tells that allow you to put your opponents on hand and action distributions.

2.) The Numbers

You need to know the odds against you hitting various types of draws–that way you know if the pot is laying you a good price. If it’s your first time playing some crazy poker variant, it’ll be hard to know your precise odds of hitting a hand with n cards to come. But with some basic probability know-how, you should be able to come up with some rough estimates–estimates that you should check rigorously post-session.

3.) Betting for Value

When you have a good hand, know your opponents’ calling ranges. If you have 99% of your opponents’ hands beaten, but your opponent will only call you with the 1% that beats you, betting is a bad play. Similarly, look for opportunities to raise draws for value. Typically, these will be situations in multiway pots where your raise won’t really shut any players out of the pot.

4.) Opportunities Where the Cards Don’t Matter

Many games have standard plays that you can run regardless of your precise hand. For example, you’re playing razz. A king brings in. You’re first to act, and you’re showing a 3. Everyone else is showing face cards. You should complete no matter what your downcards are. Keeping these concepts in mind should help you adapt any poker variant. The ability to adapt brings greater game selection, and greater game selection brings greater profits.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com

By By Tony Guerrera

Betting the River

If you don’t think, you can’t win. Players tend to focus on tough calls when it comes to big poker decisions. But really, every decision requires careful thought. If you have the stone-cold, unbeatable nuts, you still need to put reads on your opponents, so you can figure out the most profitable line of play.

You Have the Best Hand; Should You Bet?

Suppose you’re in a hand of limit hold’em. The board is K♣T♠7♥8♣2♣. On the flop and the turn, your opponent checks to you, you bet, and he calls. Your opponent checks again on the river. You have KQ, and you think that your opponent missed a draw, has a pair less then tens, has one pair with {KJ, K9, QT, JT, T9, QQ, JJ}, has two pair with {KT, T8, or 87}, or a set with {TT, 88, 77}. With all the missed draws, you’re clearly ahead of your opponent’s hand distribution. But what’s really important here is your opponent’s calling/raising distribution.

If your opponent calls or raises with {KJ, K9, QT, JT, T9, QQ, JJ} (58 hand combinations that you beat) and {KT, T8, or 87, TT, 88, 77} (33 hand combinations that beat you), and you fold to a raise, then the expected profit to be derived from betting is 25/91 big bets (about .2747 big bets).

However, if you’re against a slightly different opponent who’ll fold T9, JT, and QT, your opponent’s calling distribution contains only 25 combinations that you beat compared to the 33 that you don’t. Though you’re way ahead of your opponent’s hand distribution, you’re behind is calling/raising distribution. Betting here results in an expected loss of 8/58 big bets (.1379 big bets).

Seemingly Small Differences Can Be Huge

.2747 and -.1379 don’t seem like huge numbers–along with the .4126 difference between them. But limit hold’em is all about being on the right side of many marginal situations. And through that lens, taking only a few hands out of your opponent’s calling/raising distribution changed things dramatically. Reading opponents typically applies to putting them on hand distributions, but really, reading opponents is about putting them on hand and action distributions. You can beat 99% of your opponent’s hands, but if your opponent is only going to call you with the one hand that has you beaten, then betting on the river is a losing play. Careful thinking on the river–when bets are typically largest–will contribute positively to your bottom line: may all your value bets carry an expected profit!

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com

By Tony Guerrera

Counter Intelligence Operations: Deception

If your opponents play systematically, you can eventually break their systems down and deduce counterstrategies to beat them. And as much as poker players love to think that their opponents are bad, the fact is that your opponents aren’t complete morons. If you play systematically, most of your opponents will deduce counterstrategies to beat you.

To consistently win, you need to lean one way while your opponents think you’re leaning the opposite way. You need to induce your opponents into making big mistakes in big pots, and your ally on that front is deception. I’m not talking about the blatantly transparent “weak means strong” and “strong means weak” psychology that makes beginners stick out as much as American pop stars who’ve skated through life without rehab or jail. Instead, I’m talking about employing inherently deceptive betting patterns.

Mapping Actions to Situations

One way that opponents will dissect your game is to associate actions with situations. Suppose you call a bet out of position with nothing, check the turn, and then make a half-pot bluff on the river after your opponent checks behind on the turn. The hand tells your opponent that this betting pattern corresponds to a float. Later, you can catch this opponent off guard by employing this same betting pattern when you have a good hand. You’ll get value from your opponent if he has a mediocre hand, and if you’re really lucky, you might induce your opponent into attempting a rebluff on the river into what’s actually your made hand.

Mapping Situations to Actions

The other way that opponents will dissect your game is to associate situations with actions. After opponents see you play a situation a certain way, many will assume that you always play the same situation the same way. Suppose that you flop bottom set against two opponents, and you’re first to act. You check-call the flop, check-raise the turn, and bet out on the river. Provided they’re paying attention, your foes will now associate this betting pattern with really solid hands. Next time you have a monster, change things up and bet out on the flop, the turn, and the river.

Keep ‘Em Guessing

Once you start playing tougher foes, you can’t play according to a predictable algorithm. And that includes employing a predictable algorithm for mixing up your play. For example, if you play every single hand identically, you’re being predictably deceptive, and your opponents will correctly assume that they’re playing against a random hand every time they’re in a pot with you. You need deception to win, and the best way to be deceptive is to come to the table armed with a wide range of plays.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com