Chasing the Tortoise

Yesterday I’m once again riding along in the slow lane of a nice, quiet game of $1.00/$2.00 limit hold ’em (full table). Let’s face it . . . I’m a low limit hack. I used to alternate between NL and limit on a regular basis. Then about six months ago I realize I’m going back to the limit tables more and more often. Now I’m always there. Kind of like the alky who finds himself leaning up against yet another brass rail, raising yet another shot, not really sure of having consciously decided to be there . . . .

I suppose I’m getting older. Limit is obviously less volatile, more predictable. More a fuel-efficient, two-seater Honda than the “Cadillac of poker” (as Texas Dolly describes NL Hold ’em). So there’s one appeal for your risk-averting, humble servant. I’m also a numbers guy, really, and so tend to find interesting humdrum things like the fact that in Hold ’em you always have a 1 in 17 shot at being dealt a pocket pair. Or you’ll complete your flush by the river about 6.5% of the time when dealt two suited cards. You know what I’m talking about. Poindexter stuff.

Anyhow, there I am. After three orbits or so I’m sitting in the SB with my stack exactly two bits larger than it was when I started when I’m dealt Ah 2h. It folds to a dude in middle position who calls, then the rest of the table folds back around to me. I complete the bet, the BB checks, and the three of us see a flop of 4d As 8d. I go ahead and bet to try to get an idea here, the BB folds, and the limper -- let’s call him Tortuga -- puts in the raise. Now I figure Tortuga for a number of possible hands here, including a better ace, a hand with an eight in it, or a flush draw. I call and the turn comes 4c. Feeling a little randy, I bet to represent trips and Tortuga waits a bit before raising. I’m fairly sure he doesn’t have the four. No, I’m thinking there’s about a 70% chance he has a better ace. But there’s some chance he doesn’t, as well as the possibility of a split pot, so I stubbornly call. The river is the Js and I check-call only to be treated to the sight of Tortuga’s pocket rockets. With his aces full he takes down a pot of 9+ BB ($18.25, to be exact), $9 of which I contributed. Salt in the wound comes when a couple of others offer their “nhs” to Tortuga by way of approval, who responds by quickly exiting the premises.

Perhaps at the higher limits one sees this sort of thing more frequently -- limping w/AA with an eye toward reraising when someone in late position tries to steal. Doesn’t happen so much down here in the land of the blue chips, however. In fact, at these low limits, I can’t really think of a single situation where one shouldn’t preraise w/aces. Perhaps when it's blind-vs.-blind and you’re worried that a raise might end the hand preflop, although even then I dislike not raising since raises from the blinds can be interpreted in so many ways other than representing a premium hand.

Before he left I was able to make a quick note on Tortuga (“no preraise w/AA, mid. pos.”), not to warn myself that he may have aces when he limps preflop, but as an alert that this here dilly will make an unorthodox play. Such folderol stands out like a sore thumb at the low limits, where most players play a similar, conventional style. When I checked Poker Tracker later I saw that Tortuga in fact did not raise preflop a single time in the thirty hands I played with him. He also ended up exactly $1 ahead for the session. A small sample, but it seems preraising probably ain’t a big part of Tortuga’s arsenal. Also seems he was satisfied to have recovered from me some of what he’d previously lost before deciding to make tracks.

I always feel profoundly ambivalent after losing a hand this way, a great big “whatever” hanging over my seat like a dreary cloud. So I fell into the trap. But in order for it to have worked in this particular hand, Tortuga really needed to flop the case ace (or perhaps a flush draw for me). Even if I weren’t a numbers guy, I’d know that flopping a single card like that is not very likely. (Since I am, I figure it out by adding the chances of spiking the ace for each of the three flopped cards: 1 in 50 [2%] + 1 in 49 [2.04%] + 1 in 48 [2.08%] = 6.12% or about 1 in 16.) Of course, if I’m holding any Broadway card and pair it on the flop, he’s likely gonna cash here as well, although again, the chances are against that happening.

As I’ve written about before, AA can be a problem hand. But it seems to me one way to make it less of a problem (in low limit Hold ’em, anyway) is to play it straight preflop and raise it like the sensible Honda driver you are. As the young'ns like to say, that’s how I roll.

(For a similar argument more eloquently put, see Matt Lessinger’s recent CardPlayer article, “Back to Basics -- Raising Preflop With Big Pocket Pairs.”)

Folding AA: A 12-Step Program

Last summer I found myself walking through the MGM Grand (a rare excursion for yours truly into brick-and-morter land) when a sharp-eyed gentleman in a white shirt and striped tie thrust a glossy pamphlet in my hand and quickly shuffled away.

The little rectangular tome was titled "Folding AA: A 12-Step Program." Can't say I thought about it much until the other week when I numbskulled my way to having my aces cracked by a backdoor straight. Took awhile but I finally found it under a pile of papers. I'll skip the preamble and get to the skinny. Here are the 12 steps:

1. Admitted that you have become powerless not to fold AA. Came to realize that all of your better instincts -- the fruits of countless hours of study and play -- are hopelessly undermined whenever you are dealt pocket rockets. In other words, your game becomes unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that the poker gods -- powers greater than yourself -- can restore you to sanity. The poker gods have determined the order of the poker universe, which includes, for example, the unalterable truth that if played to the river 65-suited will crack aces over 20% of the time, even when one of your aces is the same suit. Have accepted you cannot change that fact, nor should you question it, if you wish to keep your marbles (and chips).

3. Made the decision to turn your will over to the care of the poker gods (as far as you are able to understand them). Have recognized they have determined flops like J-10-9 suited generally are not friendly to AA and that folding to a reraise here may well be the right play most of the time. Subsequently appreciated with full awareness how the hold ’em universe has been thoughtfully arranged.

4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of your poker ego, ascertaining precisely when and where you came erroneously to believe folding aces was strictly for Nancy boys. Have comprehended that just because there are 220-to-1 odds against something occurring, when such an event does occur there exist no guarantees about what might happen next.

5. Admitted to the poker gods, to yourself, and to someone else you have a serious problem laying down bullets, even when up against a scary board and multiple opponents. Confessed that while in the past you have concsiously understood that aces are often generally a coin flip at best to win versus three or more, you have been utterly governed by a sense of entitlement when dealt AA, incapable of acting rationally in the face of certain danger.

6. Readied yourself to yield to the poker gods and remove this serious defect from your play. As you have experienced on multiple occasions, hours of intelligent poker can be undermined in a single hand, and while AA has often proven beneficial to you, you have come to understand that by misplaying the hand you have become less of a player than you are capable of being.

7. Humbly asked the poker gods to remove your shortcomings and make you understand that having made your set of aces still does not mean your hand beats a straight, flush, or boat.

8. Made a list of all the times you have misplayed pocket rockets. Not the times you played them correctly and suffered bad beats, but the times you consciously made mistakes calling or raising when you were certain you were beat.

9. Made direct amends to such people who have unfairly cracked your aces in the past and to whom you may have treated less than appropriately with remarks about their ancestry and the like, except when to do so would injure them (by hurting their pride) or others (whose livelihood depends on such donks).

10. Continued to monitor your play and take personal inventory, always noting when you misplay aces and promptly admitting having done so.

11. Sought through reflection and meditation to improve your conscious understanding of probabilities, other players’ tendencies, and your own table image, praying for the ability to act according to such knowledge in all that you do, most particularly in your handling of AA.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in your entire game.

Now that I think of it, the fella who handed it to me might have had a drink in his hand.

Image: Alcholics Anonymous logo (adapted). CC BY-SA 4.0.