Team poker event

I participated in team poker event recently. People who were interested signed up, participants voted for team captains, team captains drafted teams. The events were a variety; mostly no limit hold’em but some others like limit, Omaha, HORSE, ect. Some were open to all participants and some open to just a couple from each team. It was a lot of fun. Lots of trash talking, some side bets, lots of railing team members.

But the reason that I write about it here (yes, there’s always a lesson that I’ve learned or re-learned if I write about it here) is the degree to which I was affected by the slight change in situation which threw my game off. That slight change was having a teammate at my table sitting close to my left. That meant when I was in prime stealing position such as on the button or cutoff, it was a teammate’s blind or small blind that I was stealing. Unfortunately this seemed to happen often with the random seating algorithm. Only one time that I recall was a teammate situated close to my right which made him have to decide when/if to steal, and that didn’t last too long before some player movement eased that situation.

It’s a very small thing, but just having to pause and think caused me to throw some hands away that I raise up in most situations. JQ suited, KT, A8 suited went into the garbage instead of making a play at the blinds. And even when not stealing but being faced with a teammate’s raise preflop led me to muck one or two hands that I may have played. Just having that extra unusual unfamiliar thought pop up every now and then really threw a wrench into my playing flow.

I was fortunate that in the last event I rarely had a teammate to my left and was able to more or less play my normal game. I managed to ITM finally, and recover the cost of all the buy-ins that I had to pay plus about a 50% profit.

Scared money

Last night I felt I was playing without my aggressive edge. This came after some intimidating play at a private freeroll against other members of the forum, followed by a foray into a $3 rebuy where a couple people had offered extra prizes for members of the forum for various targets. I ended up rebuying once, topping up at the break and winning a $5 prize for lowest VP$IP during the rebuy period. I played pretty much how I play the freerolls that I mentioned in the Poker Porn post but didn’t get a lot of hands to limp in. One time I did miss was in the BB with A4o but it was raised to me. I could have called and would have if it was suited, but chose instead to fold. The flop came with a baby straight draw which filled on the turn.

Rebuys can be a bit scary. You’re afraid you’ll lose control and just throw your money away with rebuy after rebuy. I’m sure these two tourneys contributed to my weak play in the evening, but there probably were other factors as well.

Scared money is when you play too tight, too weak because you’re afraid to lose. The typical situation is when your bankroll is psychologically too small for the game(s) that you’re playing, but there could be other reasons as well. A general lack of confidence in your game, intimidation because of the quality of players that you’re facing (definitely a factor in the first tourney, and to a lesser extent in the second one as well), a mistake you made at work earlier in the day that you feel guilty about, all these and more can contribute to playing with scared money.

And, I think for me, this applies more to preflop than to postflop. I’m afraid/hesitant to raise sometimes, especially if there are limpers ahead or when I know the table is prone to call raises. At the current levels I play I’d estimate 1/3 of limpers will call a raise from later position even when it is 4BBs + 1 for each limper, so there’s not a lot of fold equity. Then you have to guess whether 1) this is a weak player who limps big hands, or 2) a calling station who won’t fold to a c-bet if he catches bottom pair.

Post flop I have a tendency to c-bet too often against multiple callers or against calling stations. On the turn I sometimes fire a second bullet against calling stations, as well as failing to fire when I have a marginal hand and the fish is chasing. Against reraises I fail to check the player’s stats before automatically folding or calling. On the river I tend to lose value sometimes by not betting when I’m ahead, but often also call a lead bet/reraise after leading the betting in earlier streets, realizing on the showdown that I’ve been outdrawn, often against pot odds.

Here’s a PokerStove calculation using Phil Gordon’s basic starting hands chart. I wanted to see how often I should be playing in general.

So, as a starting point, I should be playing and raising about 12.8% of the times that I’m not in the blinds. This is of course mitigated by the table and by the players ahead of me. For example, if there’s a raise from MP I’m not not going to be playing all 30.9% of the hands on the chart. If there are multiple limpers, which happens probably just as often, I’m also not raising or even limping behind with all 30.9%. On the other hand if there are raisers/callers or limpers and I have drawing hands such as medium suited connectors which are not on the chart I’ll be likely to call as well, which also goes into VP$IP but not into PRF.

UTG I always control my opening move, so my VP$IP should be around 3.3%, and it should be almost all raises. The only exceptions should be a few mid-ish pairs and possibly suited connectors at a known limpy table.

Another scary thing about preflop play is that gets you into postflop play. The decisions are harder at this point, and more expensive. Cost is one of the reasons that I often don’t bet the turn, but that creates a situation where you often induce a bluff on the river (or even on the turn if you’re OOP). How do you distinguish a bluff from a donk that caught the Q on the river for two pair with his Q5s?

For reinforcement, I’m seriously considering digging up an old starting hand chart, referring to it, making adjustments based on reads, but doing what I have predetermined that I should do.

Raise, then fold

Playing a $2 SnG last night. Had poor hands for a long time until the table was only 6 handed. Then the next 5 hands I raised 4 and took the blinds in all but one situation with above average pockets.

But later when there were 3 left, I was raising fairly often. I think I was slightly the big stack, raised from the button with A7o or something, BB shoves for 1/3 of my remaining stack. Now, he had been shoving fairly frequently, partly because he was bouncing around being short stacked and partly I think because of my raising frequency he shoved into my blind a few times, one of which I had called earlier for 1/9 of my stack with Q8s, losing to his K6o which hit a 6. This second time I’m getting 2-1 pot odds but I figured I’m probably slightly ahead of his range but his stack size at this time is too big to risk calling, so I fold.

The only reason that I mention this is because the SB commented something like “raise then fold nice lol”. Obviously he doesn’t know too much about poker, but the reason for wanting to write about it is that this sentiment is not unfamiliar to me and so I think there is something worth exploring.

When you raise preflop, you’re standing up and proclaiming, “I have a hand”, as well as challenging “if you want to play against me, it’s going to cost you to see the flop; do you want to risk it?” If someone reraises and you fold, it’s like saying “Okay, my hand wasn’t that good” But there’s also a degree of being called out and backing down, as if I said “I’m going to make it costly to see the flop”, followed by “Okay, you win”, with the image of tucking your tail between your legs and running back to your corner.

I think it’s that kind of image that makes it hard, especially for guys, to back down to plays against the pressure that you initiate.

I tried to search the internet for more descriptions and uses of this image to better define it means for people, but it seems most people assume that we already know what this means and just use the image to fit their needs. Each use seems to be very similar in situation; some one is proven wrong or suffers a defeat, especially after representing themselves as correct or superior. Pretty much fits the situation.

So, perhaps the thing to do is to redefine or reinterpret the situation so that this image does not attach itself to folding to a reraise.

Maybe it begins with reinterpreting how you view your statement when you raise preflop or also later. Maybe instead of a challenge, view it as a inquiry, like, “I’m raising the stakes, what do you think about your hand?”, or something like that.

ps, I ended up winning, with the BB finishing second and the SB/commenter finishing 3rd.