Why I Hate the Monte Carlo Board (And why I’ve chosen to ignore it)

In addition to the normal rake that a casino takes from each pot in order to make profit, some casinos take an additional, usually smaller amount, which is deposited into a Monte Carlo jackpot, and possibly even a “bad beat” jackpot.  In order to win a Monte Carlo jackpot, you usually have to have something like four-of-a-kind or better.  The bad beat is awarded when a really great hand is beat by a better hand; usually, it’s something like Aces full of Kings beat by quads or better.  When the “bad beat” is hit, usually one half of the jackpot goes to the loser of the hand; one quarter goes to the winner, and the remaining quarter goes to the rest of the players.

I don’t like either the Monte Carlo or the bad beat because it changes the way you play your hands, and it increases the amount of the rake that the casino takes from each pot.  I suppose I’d rather win on the strength of my play, rather than play a lottery (which is what the Monte Carlo really is).

Here is a scenario that happened tonight when I was playing $3/$6 at The Caribbean:

I’m dealt pocket Queens in early-middle position; I raise preflop, and everybody folds to the Big Blind.  The Monte Carlo jackpot for quad Queens is over $400, so I ask the player on the Big Blind to call, promising to give him his money back.  It’s common; some casinos don’t allow it, but sometimes if you ask another player to call, they’ll do it for you, knowing that you’ll give them their money back.

He calls for me, and my pocket Queens don’t become quads.  I give $3 back to the Big Blind person, and life goes on.  Except that one player at the table criticizes me for raising preflop.  She has told me before that she never raises preflop unless she has pocket Aces.  This is a horrible way to play poker, but then again, that’s why I’m playing with these people.

A little later in the game, I’m dealt King, Queen of hearts and I raise preflop again; this time, the same person who criticized me for raising with pocket Queens says something snide – that I need to stop raising preflop.  I look up and realize that she’s on the big blind.  It was then that I realized she’s complaining because she thinks I should play like she does.  Not that I care that other people think I should play differently, but it made me realize just how much I hate the Monte Carlo board.

I’m done playing that stupid board.  From now on if I’m dealt a pocket pair and I raise preflop, I’m not going to ask anybody to call.  In fact, one of the reasons you raise preflop is to narrow the field; asking people to call invites somebody to possibly beat you!  I’m going to be very happy to win the pot preflop with a pocket pair from now on.  If the board hits, that’s fine – but I’m not going to change the way I play in order to try and win a lottery.

Oh, and I will always raise preflop when I have significant pot equity!  :)  Most of the time when I raise preflop it’s because I know that my pot equity is large.  As an example, when you have pocket Aces against 5 players, you have about 50% pot equity; this means that you can expect to win about 50% of the time (I used poker stove to come up with that), so 50% of that pot is your equity.  When I have more than 25% pot equity, I’l usually raise preflop.  This means big pocket pairs, 9s or better, big suited connectors like KQ suited, QJ suited, and such.  I will also raise preflop with Ace King and sometimes Ace Queen.  I’ll even raise preflop under other conditions with other hands – like for instance, when everybody has folded to me, and I have any pocket pair deuces or better, and if I’m on the button and everybody has folded to me I’ll raise with a significantly wider range of hands in order to try and steal the blinds.

At any rate, there’s so many reasons to raise preflop.

Professional Poker Players & The Economy

I had an interesting conversation with The Consigliere a few days ago, about professional poker.  It seems that professionals are starting to come down to lower limits in order to find the “fish,” or bad players.  As the economy has worsened, the bad players aren’t risking as much money, and staying at lower limit tables, instead of venturing to the higher limits like they used to.

It isn’t as profitable to play with other good players; in order to make money you want to play with poor players – it seems obvious, but to a professional, selecting the right table is important.  So as the economy has sunk, so have the bad players, to lower limit tables.  And like good anglers, the professional players have started to follow the bad players to the lower limit tables.

This can have an unfortunate side-effect for people like me, who are trying to build a bankroll and become better players.  It’s unlikely that this will have much of an effect on $3/$6, but possibly at $8/$16 and $10/$20 where I intend to spend more time in the future.

The side-effect is that it might chase off bad players.  One of the reasons there are so many bad players at $3/$6 is because they win often enough to want to return.  If a bad player always loses, they won’t return.  But if they win even a little bit, they are encouraged to come back.  You never want to absolutely CRUSH the bad players.  They need to win every now and then.  I know it sounds cold, but that’s how it is.

My friend believes that no-limit poker isn’t sustainable because bad players are punished too much; they can lose everything easier than they can in limit, and more frequently.  He believes that eventually it’ll only be good players at the no-limit tables, and therefore not profitable enough to play.  This might be why I met up with other professionals in Las Vegas playing low stakes no-limit poker.  There’s always tourists who want to try their hand at no-limit Texas Hold’em, to experience what they watch on TV.  And there are always professionals waiting to give them their wish.  Then again, if there are no tourists, where do the professionals go?

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