Thinking About (Not Practicing) the Art of Misdirection

I mentioned a couple of days ago how I’d been playing a lot of pot-limit Omaha, and how I was on the lookout for interesting hands and/or situations to share. Found one.

Have been mostly sitting at the “20-50bb” six-max. tables with $0.10/$0.25 blinds, buying in for the maximum $12.50. Having been playing decently of late, I think, but I have to admit I’ve been running especially good, too. Among the big pots I’ve played I’ve hit a couple of two-outers, the sort of thing that does a lot to help keep one’s momentum going in the right direction.

Two seats had emptied, so we were four-handed. After a few orbits I’d chipped up to $19.47 when I was dealt on the button. The cutoff limped in for a quarter, and I raised to $1.00. The small blind folded, then both the big blind and the cutoff called.

That meant there was $3.10 in the middle when the flop came . (I said I’ve been running good.) I get top set, with no flush draws to fret (yet). It checked to me, I bet $1.75, and only the big blind stuck around. Pot now $6.60.

The flop had been good, and the turn was pretty decent, too -- the . Not too worried about a set of aces here, and now I have the nut flush draw. My opponent, now with $13.21 left, checked, and I went ahead and made a nearly pot-sized bet of $6. His quick call made me think he’d either picked up a diamond draw, too, or perhaps had flopped a set of sixes or deuces. Pot up to $18.60.

The river then brought the , giving me kings full of sixes. With no hesitation whatsoever, my opponent fired a bet of $4.50, leaving himself just $2.71 behind. The bet momentarily slowed me down, and I sincerely thought I might’ve been one-outed here. In fact, I’ll admit my recent run-good might’ve affected me here just a little, making me irrationally feel as though I might be due for a bad beat.

I took a couple of seconds, then, I suppose as a way of insulating myself against the disappointment I would feel if indeed my opponent held sixes, I typed “if u got u got” before raising to $9.

I knew I was good when my opponent didn’t instantly call. But as a few more seconds went by, I found myself wishing I hadn’t typed anything. The pot was about $30, yet he appeared actually to be considering folding and preserving his $2.71. Finally, after 20 seconds, he called, showing . He’d flopped top-and-bottom pair and a gutshot, chased, then made a failed play on the end to try and steal the big pot.

As the next hand was dealt, I thought again with some regret about my chat. All I had really accomplished was essentially to tell my opponent what I had and thereby give him a chance to fold a worse hand.

Then a thought occurred to me. What if I didn’t have a monster hand there? What if I had nothing at all -- say, a couple of busted draws myself and nothing but ace-high -- and typed the same line?

It genuinely felt like I’d nearly caused a player to fold in a situation where he had better than 10-to-1 to call on the river. His hand was weak and he knew it, but it was better than ace-high. Or, say, a pair of queens. Perhaps typing such a line might not be such a bad maneuver to accompany a desperation river raise to steal a big pot with air?

Then again, perhaps not. Still, the hand made me think more generally about those times in poker when we act in ways that unambiguously reveal our hands or intentions -- when we not only give tells but consciously do so -- and how effective it could be to act the same way in a different situation, that is, one in which the seemingly unambiguous information we are giving away is completely misleading.

I imagine the better players are often devoting their energies toward working on this -- the art of misdirection. More so than toward fearing quads, anyway.

The Jerk Store Called, and They’re Running Out of You

When I take a spot at a six-handed limit hold’em table, I generally spend the first few orbits paying close attention to the other players’ styles, what they are showing down, how they handle the blinds, etc. I mentioned last week that down at the low stakes where I’m playing ($0.50/$1.00) it often doesn’t take very long to get a decent enough read on the other five players, although occasionally one will fool you with his or her play during those first couple of orbits and that initial impression turns out to be unreliable.

In that latter case, what often has happened is a player has done something to draw attention to him/herself -- e.g., raised preflop from early position with a trash hand, or called someone down with queen high, or something similarly conspicuous -- then subsequently plays in a manner that exploits those who are expecting him/her to play that way again. I suppose you’d call what they are doing consciously creating a false image, then profiting when others mistakenly assume they are incapable of changing their style.

There’s another sort of player, though, who consciously creates an image, but doesn’t appear to do so for any “metagame” reasons. Or if s/he does, that’s apparently just a secondary purpose.

I’m talking about the guy who by whatever means he can makes sure the table is paying attention to him at all times, basically just to be in the spotlight. Like I say, he may be partly motivated by the hope to rile others up and thus take advantage by tilting them, but (practically speaking) his primary purpose amounts to making sure everyone understands clearly the following message: “I’m a horse’s arse.”

Was playing with such a dude yesterday, whom we’ll call MrJerky. He takes a seat with $100, that is one hundred big bets. Already a minor attention-getter. (The default at PokerStars for this limit is $20, and most players tend to start with that.) Stack sizes generally don’t mean too much at the LHE tables, other than perhaps showing others at the table whether you’ve been winning or losing. Anyhow, after winning a hand early with a king-high straight when a poor player called him down with bottom two pair, MrJerky types a facetious “thx” in the chatbox. An introduction, of sorts.

When he adds “should have folded when yourten was no good,” it’s clear we have ourselves a self-styled lecturer. Later, holding pocket deuces, he unsuccessfully tries to bluff another player out of a hand who actually has a straight himself, then predictably criticizes his opponent’s play in the chatbox. “call of the donk,” he types.

I’m watching all of this, noting as well that in terms of his play he’s actually being loose-aggressive before the flop, but fairly passive afterwards, doing a lot of calling with middle or lower pairs (when not occasionally bluffing). I’d been steering clear with my mostly poor starting hands. In fact, after 30 hands or so the only one I’d shown down was ace-king, and so if anyone was paying attention to my image it was that of an overly tight nit.

Then came a hand in which I drew on the button. It folded to me and I decided to raise. The small blind called, then MrJerky three-bet from the big blind. Would probably have to outdraw here, I knew, but I called as did the SB. The flop brought two clubs, and when MrJerky bet I raised. The SB folded and MrJerky just called. The turn was the , MrJerky bet the dollar, and I called. The river brought my flush, MrJerky bet, I raised, he called, and I took the $12 pot as he mucked pocket queens.

The epithets that followed were expected. “donkey,” he began. “faaaag.” “raise with that.” “come on.” “raise with crap.”

Two orbits later MrJerky limped from UTG, and I open-raised from the cutoff with Q-T. The flop came , and when MrJerky bet out I raised him with my middle pair. When he just called, I suspected he didn’t have the king. When another king came on the turn, I was even more sure. He check-called me down and showed J-T. I’d taken another pot from him, sending him into further hysterics. “dude u r an idiot,” he opined. “ill get u.” “then u will be broke.”

It was about three orbits later when I finally picked up a real hand -- two red aces. On the button, too. Perfect, I thought. The table very nicely folded to me, and I raised. The SB three-bet, and MrJerky capped it from the big blind, typing “here we go.” I called, and the SB, suspecting further trouble ahead, surprisingly folded.

The flop came and MrJerky instantly fired out a bet. I just called, figuring him for just about any two cards here. (Should have raised, I know, but the decision didn’t matter too much.) The turn was the somewhat-troubling , but when MrJerky bet I decided to raise. I figured it likely he had a club, which meant unless he’d lucked into a straight he had at best just a pair. He instantly three-bet back, making me think maybe he had actually picked up two pair here. Or was it possible he had pocket queens, again? Didn’t like the looks of things, but I wasn’t going away. I just called.

The river was the , he bet, I called, and he turned over for the flush.

“lol” he typed. “idiot.”

So it goes. Sometimes the guy who caps it with deuce-trey cracks aces. I smiled, vaguely noting the coincidence of his having made a club flush to top my big pair after I had done the same to him earlier. In fact, now that I look back at the hand, I actually don’t think our respective efforts at cultivating images really had much effect at all on how that hand played out. Perhaps he’d only have called the three bets preflop (thus keeping the SB in the hand). But I don’t think he’s folding his sooted cards. And from there the hand played itself.

MrJerky gave back a few chips, then left the table a couple of bucks shy of where he’d started. It was easy to tell how he’d done, since he came with that hundy. That everyone noticed was all part of his plan, I suppose.

Hope That Helps

Maybe once or twice a month I’ll take a peek at the stats and ponder over what searches led folks to stop by Hard-Boiled Poker.

Some keywords turn up pretty regularly. I’ll often have people who are looking for “169 hands” or “169 starting hands” (the number of different starters in hold’em) arrive at a post I wrote over two years ago in which I discussed what my first 50,000-plus hold’em hands looked like in PokerTracker (“169 Ways to Showdown”).

I am noticing that here lately seekers of information about Clonie Gowen keep finding a post from last year titled “Learn, Cheat, and Play Poker With the Pros.” That is the one where I talk a bit about an episode of Poker After Dark in which Gowen admits to having once scooped a pot even after she knew the deck had been fouled.

The recent 60 Minutes segment on the Absolute Poker/UltimateBet insider cheating scandals also drew a number of folks searching for further information, almost all of whom were focused on the UB part of the story. The most popular searches along those lines presently are “ultimate bet cheating,” “cheating on ultimate bet,” “ultimate bet poker cheating,” and “ultimate bet scandal.”

Oh, and there was one person apparently looking for information on “how to cheat on ultimate bet,” too. Clearly some are wantin’ to get in on that super-sounding super-user action!

Over the last few days, I’m seeing a number of folks looking for information about Stephan Kalhamer, co-author of that not-so-hot book with Chad Brown, Act to Win in Texas Hold’em Poker. I reviewed that book here back in August 2007, and I think my review may be one of the very few on the web as that post comes up first in searches of Kalhamer’s name. From what I can tell, Kalhamer continues to wield some influence in Germany as a well-known poker author, getting interviewed not too long ago in the German poker magazine Royal Flush. Indeed, appearances indicate that Act to Win was originally Kalhamer’s book (published in German), and when it was translated into English the publishers brought Chad Brown in to add a couple of brief passages and pose for the cover as “co-author.”

Have had a few hits for “sartre gambler” lately, from which search readers land on one of three posts I wrote back in May that were devoted to Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist philosopher -- most specifically looking at a short passage from Being and Nothingness in which Sartre uses the example of a gambler to make a point about existentialism. Here are those posts, if yr curious: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

There was one search from a day or two ago, though, that inspired me to share all of this today, a search which reminded me of what it was like when I first started to play online poker. Someone, somewhere, typed the following into a search box and as a result clicked on through to Hard-Boiled Poker:

“what does donk mean online poker talk”

Landed on a post titled “‘Nice catch, donk’” from early this year in which I related the story of a hand that ended with my opponent sending that message to me.

Do you remember the first time you were called a donk? Did you know what it meant? One of many, many poker-related terms, I suppose, that many of us learn the hard way.

I still remember the first time an opponent genuinely berated me in the chat box over a poor play-turned-lucky pot for me. It was at the penny PLO tables, and I’d only been playing for a week or two. Guy completely lost his mind when I’d chased my flopped two pair and backdoored a flush to pilfer a couple of dollars off of him (at most). (Now that I’ve gotten all of my old hand histories from PokerStars, I may have to go back and find that hand.)

As a brand new player, I was sincerely bothered by the unexpected dressing down, thinking perhaps I’d crossed some line of accepted behavior by my play. He didn’t use any terms that were unrecognizable to me. (I recall it was his typing “jesus christ” that signaled to me the dude was genuinely upset.) So I didn’t have to look online to see what I was being called.

In any event, I do hope my post was successful in demonstrating to the reader what the term actually means. I also hope that perhaps that reader might find his or her way back to the blog again someday.

Despite the fact that it appears the author might possibly be a donk.

And Bingo Was My Name-O

Was playing some pot-limit Omaha yesterday. Am going for my Silver Star cash bonuses on PokerStars. Can’t exactly trade the FPPs directly for cash -- you still have to put in some hands to get the moneys. But clearing the bonus isn’t too arduous.

By the way, to revisit that question I posed earlier in the week -- I am not displaying my status at the tables. When I see others’ displaying that they are Silver Stars or Gold Stars or Platinum Stars or Supernovas or whatever, I suppose I tend to believe they at least have some clue what they are doing. In other words, in a game of PLO, say, I tend to expect such players to understand a little something about starting hands or how the hand values aren’t like in hold’em and so forth.

Thus do I choose not to let my opponents know of my Silvery superpowers. Now that I think about it, not displaying my status might’ve encouraged the following bit of hilarity from yesterday’s session.

I’d been playing for awhile, two-tabling at $50 max, and was starting to think about leaving. At the full-table I was up quite a bit, while at the 6-handed table I had been down for a while, but had managed to chip back up to about $55. At the latter table a short-stacked player had taken the spot to my left about 20-30 hands back. He’d bought in for just $10 and had been raising or reraising pot preflop about once per orbit.

Had a hand come up where I picked up in the small blind. A nice Omaha-8 hand, but not really the cat’s pajamas here in PLO high only. Anyhow, the table folded around to the button who raised pot to $1.75. He’d been open-raising from the button with just about anything, so I went ahead and called with my double-suited hand. That’s when Mr. Shorty (in the big blind) decided to pump it up to $7, leaving himself just $7.35 behind.

The player on the button thought a moment, then folded, leaving just me and Mr. Shorty. Feeling as though his range was pretty wide here -- looked like a definite squeeze, frankly -- I decided to gamble and so reraised enough to put him all in. He called, of course.

As we were on PokerStars, the cards didn’t get turned over until the very end. So when the flop came , I was pretty sure I’d lost the hand. The turn was the , giving me a ray of hope. And the river was the . My hand was revealed, showing I’d backdoored a flush. Mr. Shorty then chose to show his hand -- . Ouch. He was now sitting out as the $28.95 pot slid my way.

Mr. Shorty: why call with that ****... u fat bingo player

I instantly smiled. I typed back.

Short-Stacked Shamus: fat?
Mr. Shorty: u stupid fat idiot

I rarely get called fat. If I were a boxer, I’d literally be a lightweight (almost a featherweight). I think at the WSOP last summer the wiry F-Train might have been the only guy in the entire Amazon Room over whom I had any weight advantage, although to be honest I think he could probably take me. I base that assumption on the fact that F-Train is, after all, the the 33rd best razz player in the world. And razz players tend to have an ornery streak, even if it is hidden most of the time. Much more so than us bingo players, anyhow.

My opponent continued.

Mr. Shorty: yes and your fat mother 2

Hahahahaha. He left soon afterwards, and so didn’t get to see my response:

Short-Stacked Shamus: :)
Short-Stacked Shamus: that made my night
Short-Stacked Shamus: think i'll go exercise

“Raise That Rake!” (1 of 2)

Have been playing more and more Stud/8 lately. Did a quick check of my April stats over the weekend and saw that almost 30% of my hands this month have been at the Stud/8 tables. Was sitting at one a couple of days ago ($0.50/$1.00) and had an issue arise that I know all players (of all games) have probably at least considered before, if not openly debated.

(DISCLAIMER: Usually when I present hands here I alter nothing other than player names; i.e., the action is always exactly as it occurred. In this case I have changed a few of the particulars since they would’ve complicated the question unnecessarily.)

In this particular hand I was dealt with the eight showing. Among the other players only one other upcard was a low card, and it was also an eight. I limped in, then, after a couple of folds, a player to my left -- SideshowBob -- with the showing competed to fifty cents. Two others called, as did I. Going to fourth street the pot was $2.55. On fourth I received the , giving me a so-so low draw. SideshowBob picked up an ace and so acted first with a bet. I called. The other two players also called. Pot $4.55.

Fifth street was good to me. I picked up the , giving me a 8-6-4-3-A low. SideshowBob got what appeared to be an unwanted nine. And the other two were dealt brick-looking cards. This time SideshowBob checked. With the only completed low at the table, I bet the dollar. The others folded and Bob called. We’re now heads-up. Pot is $6.55.

Sixth street is where that issue I mentioned at the beginning begins to arise. I get a jack, and SideshowBob gets another ace. Here’s the scene:

*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to Short-Stacked Shamus [] []
Dealt to SideshowBob [] []

Bob checks. Dunno what he has underneath, but it doesn’t matter, really. I have the low locked up, he has the high locked up, and if we both remain to the end we’re destined to be splitting this pot. The question is, should I bet?

As you think about that, I’ll tell you I did bet, and he just called. Now the pot is $8.55. Seventh street brings me another jack and SideshowBob checks again. I bet again, Bob called again, and we split a $10.05 pot (with fifty cents going to the rake).

While the cards are being dealt for the next hand, SideshowBob decides to object to my having bet the latter two streets: “you cant beat the hi & youre betting why?” I chime back quickly with a “why not?” His response: “raise that rake!”

Now when I bet sixth and seventh, I know there is little chance Bob is going to fold. The cards I have showing -- -- suggest I could have a flush (or maybe on seventh having completed a very unlikely straight). But I know it is very, very unlikely he’s actually going to fold here. Should I be bothered about raising the rake, though?

Well, let’s look at the rake structure in this particular game. We were on PokerStars, where a nickel is taken for every dollar in the pot, and the site stops taking anything after the rake reaches $0.50. My bets on sixth and seventh meant the final pot ended up over $10, so Stars took the full fifty cents. Had we checked it down on those last two streets, the final pot would have been $6.55, meaning the rake would have been $0.30. Indeed, I did “raise that rake” a full twenty cents, meaning the two of us each lost an extra $0.10 because of our bets. (Or because of my bets, SideshowBob would likely clarify.)

Set aside the fact that nickels and dimes mean more or less to us depending on the stakes we play and think of this question in relative terms. Is Bob right? Should I refrain from pumping up the pot like this in a situation where I know my opponent and I each have half the pot locked up, and I also know the chances are slim my opponent will fold?

Here’s another way to look at the question: How often does my opponent need to fold to make betting the latter streets the right play? What am I risking here? Ten cents. With every dollar I stick into that pot, I’m probably going to lose a nickel. Definitely not smart, if I know that’s how it is going to go down every single time. However, if he does happen to fold on sixth street, I win a $6.25 pot (after the rake). And if he folds on seventh street, I win a $8.15 pot (after the rake). If I’m not mistaken (and hey, I could be, so lemme know), that means . . .

If he folds at least 1 in 62 times on sixth street, I profit.

If he folds at least 1 in 81 times on seventh street, I profit.

Why do I say that? Well, let’s say we played out this same scenario 62 times and I decide to go ahead and risk losing five cents every time with my sixth street bet. If SideshowBob does call me all 62 times, I’m going to lose $6.20 overall. Not good.

But if he folds just once, I win a $6.25 pot for my efforts and come out $0.05 ahead. And if he folds twice, I win two such pots and come out $6.30 ahead. Takes me an extra dime to get to seventh, so that means he’s got to fold once in 81 hands for me to realize that nickel profit. Again, though, if he folds twice I’m gonna be $8.20 ahead overall.

All of which seems to mean that if I think it is possible SideshowBob could fold this hand, say, once every 30 or 40 times we play it, I have to keep betting. Am I right? (You tell me.)

Curious, really, how often people make that “raise that rake!” complaint in the chat box. (Especially in the low limits where I hang out.) Am gonna return tomorrow with one more post concerning this issue of online sites and the rake -- in particular that idea that the so-called “rigged” site pumps up the rake with action-inducing deals.