Sunday December 02, 2007
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Ramblings from the Mountains Michael Hunter's Weblog |
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Sunday December 02, 2007 not a cribbage board... I went into the liquor store at the stop of Kingsbury grade this evening and saw a sign stating they had poker chips for rent. The hand written sign didn't state a price so I asked the attendant. He said $4 per night. He followed that up with a comment that they had requests over a period of time so they had brought in several sets for purchase. Those wouldn't stay on the shelves so they decided to rent instead. Not sure I quite follow that as this liquor store mostly services local vacation rentals so I'm pretty sure you could squeeze people for a lot more both on markup and rental fee. I commented that people were probably too lazy to just go down to the casino and buy some chips to use for the evening. He didn't seem to get it stating that sometimes casinos discontinue chips. ( Dec 02 2007, 09:56:26 PM PST ) Permalink
Saturday November 03, 2007 Online Attitude After having not played any online poker for months I played a few sessions lately. Low limit NLH ring games, PLO8 ring games, or NLH tournaments to get my feet wet and see how the environment has changed. One thing that hasn't changed is that people still act in ways they wouldn't in meatspace. Its amazing to me that you could get interested in a competition like poker in which you gain from your opponents mistakes and be unable to not lecture your opponents when they make a mistake. In an amusing moment I misclicked between two windows and an action intended for one game ended up in another and then I ended up sucking out. For whatever reason these are the only times I feel a little remorse. The rest of the suckouts are just part of the lack of complete information and chance in the game. But before I could say oops my opponent started "helping" me with my game. Remorse gone. ( Nov 03 2007, 05:32:03 PM PDT ) Permalink
Friday November 17, 2006 I found it suprising that an article in our local pro Nevada casino conservative newspaper wasn't written (or edited to have) a completely anti online casino bias. Its even more suprising that it was on the front page. Unforunately I don't think we have a prayer that UIGEA will be repealed nor that the real indecenciess of how it was passed end up getting reflected in what kinds of people get elected to our governing bodies. I guess we have some hope that those making up the rules by which UIGEA will be executed will be political in nature and will create rules that are kind to online poker. But at best thats an uneasy and unspoken truce. I wouldn't be completely suprised if we hear about the President playing poker in his youth at some point in the near future. Not for real money of course 'cuz that would hurt his abilities to attract the moralists but for fun so he can "connect" with the blue collar player who might vote for his party next time around. ( Nov 17 2006, 05:01:58 PM PST ) Permalink
Tuesday May 09, 2006 shady? Somehow the concept of reducing the cost to the casino of running a very high vig game like keno is bringing the online gaming world out of its shady hiding place just doesn't sit well with me. It might actually be worth just a little more to reduce the influence that casinos have on media? Or maybe its better that its so obvious and silly? ( May 09 2006, 10:46:12 AM PDT ) Permalink
Thursday October 13, 2005 GBA Texas Hold'EM Poker There are a fair number of poker games you can play on your hand held. This has to be one of the worse. The game play is painful. You keep flipping back and forth between a table view and an individual hand view. The effect is one of constantly moving and not being really sure where one is. This is really not needed. You know you have between 2 and 9 opponents, each has two cards, some number of chips, and can do a limited set of actions. That information can be easily represented with a fixed display. The game played appears to be NLHE. You are allowed to raise yourself all in. But it also appears that you can raise less then the previous bet or raise. Once, when the blinds were 5-10, I raised to 45 and had another player raise me to 50. Standard poker rules are that if you raise you either have to go all-in or rise at least as much as the last person. In some card room the open is considered the bet in others its considered a raise. But in either case my opponent (who wasn't all in) couldn't raise 5 off of my bet. Everytime I jammed all of my opponents called. That created the following situation in which the computer misread the hands. The hands outs were Ac4s (me, I jammed), 6d8d, Ah9s, Js4d, Qs7d. The final board was 8h 5s Ad Ks Qh. The third players hand ended up being Ah Ad Ks Qh 9s. My handed ended up being Ah Ad Ks Qh 8h. Note that the third players hand is better then mine by a single card. But the computer split the pot. I'm not sure how gamespot gave this a 5.7 out of 10. I wouldn't call this mediocre but just bad. Don't waste your time. ( Oct 13 2005, 07:08:45 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Monday October 10, 2005 Another idea I disagree with in Mastering No-Limit Hold'em. This one is related to the buy-in size issue I've written about before. Its starts on page 56 in a section entitled "Relative Stack Sizes". It starts out talking about how in capped games one has to win money to have a big stack. It goes on to say that
A lot of people either hear that the big stack has a advantage or read what Doyle has to say about covering the table and just assume that being deep is a big advantage without really thinking about where that advantage comes from. The first basic idea to understand is that the deepest stack is only as deep as the second deepest stack. If the table is 9 $100 stack and 1 $2000 stack then if they all went all-in the pot pushed would only be $1000 (10 times $100). So the early part of this quote seems to be in contradiction with the last sentence of the first paragraph and the situation in the second paragraph. I suspect that much of the misunderstanding in this area has to do with the advantage that the big stack have at the end of a tournament. In the tournament case the change in chip values allow the deeper stacks to bully the medium stack forcing them to make survival decisions. But that same situation doesn't exist in ring games. But its actually worse then that. First its important to realize that its as important how others perceive your deep stack and it is to use the deep stack. Some short stacks see it as a chance to gamble with somebody who obviously has more money then sense. Others see it as a threat that they will have to leave the game early. Understanding how the various players perceive you is important to using your stack whatever its size. A downside to having a deep stack is that you have to be concerned about the other deep stacks. In a game where you can play a hand aggressively (AK preflop, top pair top kick post flop) against a short stack you might have to either play passive or fold against a deep stack. So in games where you have a deep stack with another deep stack that has position on you its possible you would not be able to bully the short stacks _as much_ as if you had a shorter stack. As the authors say
I wish instead of perpetuating the myth that a big stack can just bully a table they would have pointed out the pros and cons of a deep stack. That would have helped the reader better adjust to table conditions and win more money. ( Oct 10 2005, 09:59:27 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Monday October 03, 2005 fixed thinking doesn't work so well in non fixed limit games I've been reading Harrington's second book lately so I hadn't gotten much past the intro to Mastering No-Limit Hold'em. After digging through the preliminaries I thought it was a good sign that they talked about taking into multiple factors when considering hands in nlhe at the beginning of chapter 5. That was until I got a few pages into the chapter and ran into "The Rule of 13". The concept is that, independent of any other factors, you shouldn't play any hand which totals to 13. None of the examples include suite although they don't state they are only considering unsuited cards. Assuming they mean offsuite cards I still think their statement is too strong. You should consider more then your cards when deciding if a hand should be played. If everybody at the table has $200 in a 1-2 game and its a limpfest to your with passives in the blinds you should be thinking about hands like 85o which are typically considered trash. The immediate price you are getting is large and the implied odds could be large. An even stronger situation is when a readable player who plays poorly post flop raises to a small amount in early position and gets some callers. Now your price isn't as good but the chance you will get action post flop is very good. The point is that you need to consider more then your cards. You need to be considering the overall situation which includes things like stack sizes and how good or bad the active players are. Most of the time you will be folding the flop but thats afforded you by getting a good price on the hand. ( Oct 03 2005, 06:22:43 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Wednesday July 27, 2005 Ace on the River by Barry Greenstein is an amazingly cool poker book. Its a strange but well coordinated mish-mash of stories about Barry's poker career together with a lot of very straight up comments on the poker community. In some ways the subtitle ("And Advanced Poker Guide") is likely to lead many astray and many others to take their game to another level. I only have a specific comment on one section (below) but the overall comment I would make is to be sure that you don't overlook all of the great material at the beginning of the book just to read the hand examples. Both are great. Read it all. Many times. Chapter 23 has a great pro/con list on how much to buyin to a game. Many other authors (esp. ones writing about big bet) just say "cover'em" without any explanation of why. But this isn't always correct as Barry's lists show. ( Jul 27 2005, 02:59:01 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Monday July 18, 2005 I recently picked up Russell Fox's and Scott Harker's Matering No-Limit Hold'em. I know Russel and Scott from BARGE and thought it might be an amusing read. Its hard for me to go to Vegas and not make it to one of the gambling book stores in town and spend at least some money. On page 8 I ran across this statement:
I see variations on this statement made all the time. Typically there are no reasons given (like in this book) or the reasons are example of where it would be better to be deep. I think the statement is fundamentally broken. First off I'm fairly certain that Russel and Scott are only talking about capped games (the context of the paragraph implies that). "In all cases" makes me wonder though. Even if we assume capped buy ins the statement is still to glib for my tastes. Its not clear that you are giving up an advantage not to take the max buy in. Maybe there are several target stacks that will push on the small stacks but play sanely against the larger stacks. This is not so uncommon in these days of television tournaments. In that case it can be more profitable to play a short stack. Maybe you are taking a short at a larger game and think that playing a short stack is a reasonable tradeoff. Maybe there are meta game consideraitons. For example I've played with one well known television "pro" who played like a smuck in a smaller game until he was covered. It would be silly to cover him. Scott and Russ talk about Poker being a game of decisions. Behind those decisions needs to be solid logic. Learning to not just blindly buy in for the max or to cover the table is an example of where applying logic and experience can lead to becoming a more profitable poker player. ( Jul 18 2005, 02:16:03 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Thursday July 14, 2005 WSOP main event didn't amount to much for me. I was rarely over 10k. I started out at a fairly active first table. I had all the calling stations lined up to my left. But then nothing to go after them with. A few steals always got called. One amusing story from the first few hours. A player who early on made the statement that "today was for survival" managed to get his stack in on a flush card turn with top and bottom. I had marked him for some special attention. Glad I didn't push on him too hard. Well after dinner on the first day I was moved to a more passive table. Managed to steal some and win a few pots. Picked up black aces UTG, open-raised to 1100, got two callers. The first caller gives wonderful tells. On a Qs 7s 5h flop he was interested. I checked, he bet 3k, the player behind folded, I called off 3k of my 3900 (I intended to raise but lack of sleep or something and I made an inconsequetial error). I bet all in on the 6 turn and a spade came up on the river. He showed me 8s 6s for a thin leader on the flop and a slight trailer on the turn (guess that erroneous call on the flop was better then I thought). Next. Generally I thought there were a whole host of silly organizational issues with the tournament. The painful hallway of smoke. Some really silly decisions (floor decides that because there hasn't been "much action" [only a fold, open-raise, two more folds] and because the opener doesn't mind that that a late discovered 3 cards in the big blind creates a misdeal). The poker lifestyle arena mostly holding the hopes and prayers of companies trying desperately to jump on the poker bandwagon (reminds me of an Amiga conference I went to in the early 90s except that the booth babes at the WSOP had invested in Dow chemical a little more). Creating more congestion around the tournament by forcing the participants through the poker lifestyles area. Having the side games be "first-come first-serve" (I'm sure this cost Harrah's some multiple of the side game revenue) because nobody could figure out how to or cared to figure out how to use a clipboard in this day and age of computerized game lists. But that was well made up for by the amount of dead money in the tournament and the amazing side action around town. ( Jul 14 2005, 02:04:04 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Friday June 24, 2005 circus novice announcement! I'd been a little bummed that it looked like I wouldn't make the WSOP this year. In past years I've gone and played side games. Several times I've thought about playing one of the tournaments but thats never really been interesting to me and has taken a back seat to playing ring games. This year my schedule was such that I couldn't get away until after July. Then Widespread Panic announced shows at Caesars Tahoe on July 5th and July 6th. No way I'm missing those. As it turns out Harrah's moved the WSOP from later in the year to an earlier date such that the final event (with the first day broken into a, b, and c heats run over 3 days) started on July 7th. So there wasn't any way for me to make it to vegas, play some satellites, and play in the main event. I messed around with the idea of buying into the main event but without knowing which day I would start that means I'd have less then a 67% chance of being able to see both panic shows. I couldn't quite both pay up front for the event and miss the panic shows!? Well, I'd been haphazardly playing some of the online satellites. I won a seat and hotel package from Party earlier this week. I don't know what day I start so I might still miss the panic show. But for a less the logical reason that seems ok at the moment. With the size of the event this year this should prove to be quite a circus. I'm excited to be able to see if from the inside and have a shot at what looks like a lot of dead money. ( Jun 24 2005, 08:48:55 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Thursday May 12, 2005 A recent article in the May 12, 2005 Tahoe Daily Tribune made me fear the worse about the long term fate of anything other then slot machines in casinos. The title of the article is "Nevada casinos win record $1 billion in March".
The article didn't appear on their website when I looked and contains some claims that are not consistent with the above quote.
Looking at a little more credible source, the Las Vegas Review Journal, we find the equivalent article.
Still a pretty sick number. Its pretty hard for me to imagine how its worth 11.3 billion to sit in front of a machine and pull a handle with the hope you get a good random number the next time1. Some part of the 11.3 billion includes video poker play which I can vaguely understand. I use to wonder why casinos spent so little money promoting new pit games. With the poker craze going on wouldn't it be interesting to hook some more of that money by the house? Well, the answer is probably that the cost of gaining that extra income doesn't make it viable. 1 Not to be harsh, but that takes less thought then it took when the editor managed not to notice that the numbers in the article didn't make sense. ( May 12 2005, 01:55:02 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Tuesday May 10, 2005 hands reads are not that precise At the bottom of Page 16 in the print copy of Card Player Vol 18, No 9 there is a sidebar about a hand from day 2 of the 25K WPT championship. Its an interesgting hand that Chri Bigler appears to have played wrong. The blinds are 600-1200 with a 200 ante (3600) when he opens in late position for 4k with AsKs (a raise of 2800 into a 4800 pot). The blinds call. Post flop he is against middle and bottom set on a Kh Jh 7c flop. The blinds check to him, he fires and is raised and reraised. He then goes all in and is called. The interesting part of the analysis is made by whomever wrote the sidebar (authorship is not clear).
I don't believe this is true assuming standard player tendencies. He was in late position and so didn't have to have a strong hand to open-raise with and his opponents didn't have to have strong hands to call. The flop is an action flop so he shouldn't "expect" to pick up the pot by betting a set on the flop. In fact I think with a late position open, that flop, and two opponents he should expect action on that flop. Firing top set on that flop both gets him action and information while not revealing a lot about his hand. There just isn't enough information from the blinds prespectives to think that a bet on the flop couldn't be from top set. No, the reason for the small blind to be happy getting all his money in is that the distribution of hands that Chris could have is wide. Thinking the big blind has probably over setted him made the proportion of that distribution that he could beat even larger. The real hand read here should have been made by Chris. He bet a scary flop and had two players came back at him. Top pair top kicker isn't any good and is a weak hand to draw to. ( May 10 2005, 08:37:08 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Monday March 21, 2005 9 hour tour for a fist full of dollars I dropped by the WPC at the Reno Hilton Saturday evening on my way to the Bay Area. The game selection was better this time. Several good looking 20-40s, several ok looking 3-5 NLHEs, a 30-60 interest list, and some $210 SnGs. I played mostly NLHE that evening with the plan to leave the next afternoon. As I had left Tahoe it had started to snow and I was worried about getting over Donner. I'm generally lazy about some things and waiting in long traffic lines for others to put chains on and/or having to put them on myself is just plain miserable. So I got up sunday morning, did some work, and wondered down to the card room a bit before noon with the intention to leave fairly soon. The NLHE I'd left the night before still going. As an indication of how good this game had gotten the participants told me about the huge pot that had been played right after I'd left. Some not really described prelop action had taken place although they all described the new player involved as a maniac (some of those giving the description were not exactly passive). The flop came down 552 (suites not stated). Willy bets out $200 with a straight draw, Vinny goes all-in for $1000 with 57o, and the maniac comes over the top for $4000 or $5000 with 22 (Vinny said 4k, but Willy was clear he lost 5k in this hand), and Willy called. I had left the game because I was tired, winning a fair bit (thus exposed), and several newcomers had looked fresh and were taking away my control of some situations. Even after hearing this tale of wild action I'm still very happy I went to bed. I put my name on the board for a couple of games and had a quick bite at Asiana. Its always a nice meal and esp. good relative to other asian meals I've had in casinos. After my meal I got in the the NLHE game and played for a while. I Managed to trap KQ with my AK in a King high board and have him backdoor a straight. About 1330 I was already thinking about getting on the road when Charles Williams, the room manager, decides he now had time to get a PLO game together. Before this I'd checked the road conditions and chain controls has disappeared (they had existed earlier in the morning) over Donner. This game is one I rarely get to play live but really enjoy so I chanced it and decided to play. It was a pretty fair game but soon after it started I checked the road conditions and unfortunately chain controls have reappeared. I pick up a few pots correcting for my earlier misfortune plus a bit. By 1700 I was getting nervous about my drive to the Bay Area. 9 hours later when I finally climbed into bed I question the tradeoff I made for a few hours of PLO. After many years of traveling to and from Tahoe and 3 years of living there I had managed never to get myself into the position of having to wait that long. With that barrier reached I'd be more then happy never to spend such a long time on that trip again. ( Mar 21 2005, 09:26:05 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]
Monday March 14, 2005 Card Player needs an editor Frequently Card Player has some article with a basic error in it that should have been caught by any reasonable competent editor. This time the first one I noticed was in Michael Cappelletti's article about calling a small raise from early position with a weak hand (QJo) in the big blind. The action proceeds fine until the river when the early position raiser checks to Michael... ( Mar 14 2005, 03:16:16 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0] |
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