Raise or Fold?

So this is one of my favorite hands that I’ve ever played, and it happened in a freeroll tournament near my home a couple of years ago.  I play poker at a small card room near my home, where if you have enough hours you can enter into a monthly freeroll tournament with a $5000 prize pool.  I think the 60 people who have the most hours get to play.  I almost always have enough hours.  :)

So it’s late in the tournament at the final table, and I’m doing fairly well.  I have an above average chip stack, and have gained a reputation as a tight/aggressive player.  (This is a reputation I foster at the cash games, by showing down with premium hands, and when beneficial, showing a good laydown.)

I’m in late position and there are 5 of us left at the final table.  I’m already in the money, and looking at two of the other players who have smaller chip stacks than I, hoping I can knock them out.  I watch as 3 players limp in (pay the big blind amount) preflop.  I’m last to act (on the dealer button) and I look down at King, Jack suited.  In late position I feel like I need to raise, hoping to either hit the flop or set myself up for a bluff on the flop.  I raise to 3 times the big blind, and only one other person calls.  One of the smaller chip stacks.  This is pretty good news for me.  He’s a good player, but he’s also been demoralized over the last few hours, as I’ve watched him go from chip leader to the smallest chip stack.  He’s been beat up and seems less than hopeful about his chances.

Now King Jack suited is a decent hand, but certainly vulnerable to so many possibilities.  That my opponent even called let’s me know that I should hope that an Ace doesn’t hit the flop – unless it puts me into a position of making a straight.  Even if a King hits, I’m still vulnerable to so many hands!  An Ace King or King Queen will beat me, not to mention the plethora of other possibilities that can dominate me.

Nonetheless, he calls, and the flop comes Six of Hearts, Deuce (2) of Diamonds, Jack of Clubs.  I like this flop, but it doesn’t exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling.  Ace Jack is a very likely hand that my opponent could hold.  In fact, as he is first to act, he leads out with a pot sized bet.

Whoa!  He has something.  That Ace Jack possibility is almost all I can think about.  He is very unlikely to have a deuce or a six – I just can’t see him calling a preflop raise with Ace Deuce, or Ace Jack.  If he has pocket deuces, or pocket sixes, he would have my hand dominated – but wouldn’t he rather check here and try to set up a trap for me?  He has to put me on a big pair or maybe Ace King.  By letting me think my hand is good can only make him more money.  No, this is a sign that he hit the flop with top pair, I’m almost certain.  My King is a good kicker, but would my opponent call a preflop raise with anything less than Ace Jack?  I don’t think so.

With this bet, he’s committed a fairly large portion of his chips to the pot; not quite half as far as I can tell.  As a novice, especially in no-limit tournaments, I’m more than a little anxious in this situation.  I call “Time!” and think.  As I’m shuffling my chips with one hand I’m considering all of the possibilities.  I can’t just call his bet – that really does nothing for me at this point.  He means business, and there’s a pretty good chance that I’m behind.  Maybe he had a pair of Jacks?  No, again, with trip anything he would have checked.  Ace Jack almost has to be his hand, which means I’m beat unless I can pull off a bluff.

As I mentioned, he’s been demoralized, and almost seems to expect to lose.  I can see it in his face.  As I sat there watching him, the only thing I could think to do was to raise, representing Aces, Kings, or Queens.  Now if I raised enough to prevent him from having pot odds, I know he’ll think I’m trying to steal – it will be too obvious, and he would have to put me on a smaller pair than Jacks – meaning he would call.  If I bet a small amount, he’ll think I’m trying to give him pot odds to call, and might think I’m trying to make it easy for him – but if he’s thinking that far ahead (players often do), he may see through that as well.

Here’s the thing – I know he’s a sophisticated enough player to think ahead of me, but how far ahead?  Finally I decide to raise the minimum amount – double his initial bet.  It’s actually enough of his chip stack that he would have to become pot committed at this point, so combined with the idea that he may believe I’m trying to price him in, but still risking his tournament life, it may be enough to scare him off the hand.

I announce a raise and push the chips, and watch his reaction.  I remember he shook his head in defeat – and announced, “I guess my top pair/top kicker is no good.”  He did have Ace Jack after all, and would have beaten my King Jack.  I muck my hand and collect the chips, feeling good that I had worked it out.  :)

I ended up placing 3rd in that tournament.  It was one of my early wins that encouraged me to pursue poker.  :)

Welcome!

Mark over at The Vegas Tourist mentioned that it might be a good idea to write a post to explain who I am, and why I love to talk about gambling and poker and blackjack and all things Las Vegas.  If you listen to The Vegas Tourist podcast, you might have heard them talk about “The Ringleader.”  That’s me.  I’ve also gone by the name “Heather Floppenstrop” and “T-Dawg.”  Those are interesting stories, but maybe better suited to another post.

My first experience with gambling happened when I visited Germany immediately after high school.  I visited an uncle, who was living on an Army base in Gelnhausen.  They happened to have some slot machines, and I happened to have a few extra coins.  On my third roll, I won about $10 and thought to myself that it was way too easy!  I expected to give away a couple of bucks but instead ended up winning $10.  I then proceeded to give the entire $10 back to the machine hoping for another win that never came.

After that, I went to college and was introduced to two forms of gambling:  blackjack and the stock market.  I applied for a job at a casino, where I would deal blackjack; I had to get a license from the state, and I promised to spend some time at the casino practicing in their back room before they would give me the job.  I got the license, and spent many hours practicing.  I was smart enough at that time to know that people who visited the casino were basically giving their money away, in much the same way I gave my money away in Germany.  There’s no way the casino would offer any games that provided a positive expectation, or I would see people making a living at the casino.  Well, I figured I was one of the smart ones; I expected to make money at the casino as an actual employee.

Interestingly enough, I was offered a better, higher paying job as a database developer, which I took, before I ever stepped up to a blackjack table to deal.  That was when I started to learn about another type of gambling:  my 401(k).  Still, somebody told me about card counters, and how they were able to beat the game by keeping track of the high cards in the shoe.  I was very intrigued!  I wanted to know more, but needed to spend my energy where I had a more guaranteed source of income.

Not long after that, I was given an assignment by my employer to travel to Wisconsin, where I would do some programming work for a company out in the middle of nowhere.  I only spent a couple of weeks there, and it was in the middle of winter and the town was small.  The only entertainment available, as far as I was told, was a casino about 10 minutes out of town.  I went there with some employees from the company I was working for, and we played blackjack.  This turned out to be perfect for me; I remember playing and I knew intuitively that there MUST be a correct move for each and every situation.

The first night I lost $40, and went back to my hotel room with plenty of spare time, and I wrote a program that would deal out blackjack and keep track of what hands won and what hands lost and how each hand was played.  In fact, I had a really fun time because I wrote a genetic algorithm program that started with a random distribution of moves – so for each possible hand combination, along with the dealer’s up card, do you hit stand, double down or split?  I was able to seed a set of solutions, and then run them through tests to see which ones worked best.  My little program then “married” or combined portions of the best solutions – those which resulted in the best win rates, and then ran the results through yet more tests.   Eventually I ended up with a basic strategy which after some research, I realized had already been done for me and was available on the Internet.  :)  It was interesting to see that there were some minor differences in the published basic strategies – for different situations.  But basically I had managed to recreate at least a very good basic strategy based on the game in Wisconsin.

I set about to memorize basic strategy, and even took down some notes for myself on a piece of envelope paper and went back to the casino.  As luck would have it, I managed to make my $40 loss from the previous night back and then make another $100.

Having found the sites that provided information about basic strategy, I then decided to learn more about card counting.  I ended up at a book store, where I purchased “Beat the Dealer” by Edward Thorpe.  It is a mathematically intense book, but provides sound theory, and explains why and how card counting actually works.

Well, I returned from Wisconsin energized.  I still had to focus on work, so I let card counting go for a while; I knew that in order to do it well, I would need to practice – a LOT.

Eventually after college ended, and I got a “real” job and some discretionary income, I purchased a blackjack table and explained to my little brother (who lived with me) that I wanted to learn and practice card counting.  I bought as many books as I could find on the subject, and learned how to count, as well as how to vary my strategy based on the count.  We practiced for literally hundreds upon hundreds of hours.  Eventually we started visiting card rooms around Seattle and put our new talent to practice.  It worked very well.  In fact, it worked well enough that I was able to supplement my income to some extent.  In fact, as a gadget geek, it allowed me to keep up with the latest in technology.

A few years later, I started to bore of card counting.  Here’s the thing – card counting is really a grind.  You’re working with very small advantages – usually around 2-3% over the house, so you have to get LOTS and LOTS of play time in, in order to make it pay.

I had played a little poker with family and friends as a child, and after Chris Moneymaker’s fantastic win, I started to become interested in Texas Hold’em.  With the same intensity that I put into blackjack, I went about reading and learning as much as I could about poker.  I started to host a small game at home, where a group of us played and learned poker.  Of course we all started with Texas Hold’em, but today we play everything from Omaha Hi/Low to Crazy Pineapple.

Today I play poker almost daily.  It’s pretty much become a second job for me, except the only game I have consistent access to is $3-$6 limit with $6-$12 kill.  It’s tough, but I make a fairly consistent $10-$15 per hour.  I keep detailed records in order to ensure that I’m being honest with myself.  :)

Unfortunately I don’t get to play what I really want to play – no limit cash games.  It’s kind of a dream of mine to become good enough to one day make a living playing poker.

Next year I’m hoping to buy into the women’s no-limit Texas Hold’em event at the World Series of Poker.  I’m reading and studying and gearing up as much as I can!

So that’s who I am, and why I love to talk about poker and blackjack and gambling.  :)

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