Seat 3 is the button

Total number of players : 9

Seat 1: tommi303 ( $21,656 )

Seat 2: dn9299 ( $53,572 )

Seat 3: aaronlt ( $32,154 )

Seat 4: mreclectic ( $28,511 )

Seat 5: Stixmex ( $70,454 )

Seat 6: queenconnor ( $36,565 )

Seat 7: MoyaPensia ( $9,820 )

Seat 9: harro1991 ( $42,471 )

Seat 10: 7he_Queen ( $24,636 )

queenconnor posts ante [$200]

Stixmex posts ante [$200]

mreclectic posts ante [$200]

aaronlt posts ante [$200]

MoyaPensia posts ante [$200]

dn9299 posts ante [$200]

tommi303 posts ante [$200]

harro1991 posts ante [$200]

7he_Queen posts ante [$200]

mreclectic posts small blind [$1,000]

Stixmex posts big blind [$2,000]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to aaronlt [ 9h, 9s ]

queenconnor raises [$4,400]

MoyaPensia folds

harro1991 folds

7he_Queen folds

tommi303 folds

dn9299 folds

aaronlt raises [$31,954]

Again we are in a bit of a tight spot with our chip stack and the fast blinds. This spot is closer to the one that I need to improve on where I might flat call in position and peel a flop instead of 3-betting.

This time we are facing a similar small open raise from “queenconnor” similar to the one they raise/folded with earlier. Having an equal stack, an all-in from us at this point means their tournament life. If they are raising light again, they have to fold and we take down a juicy pot uncontested.

Their UTG position worries me slightly. The 2.2x open raise is a sizing of someone who is conscientious of their bet sizing and their position is one of strength. However, over the past year there has been an increasing trend of raising UTG with light holdings to sneakily steal a round of blinds.

Either way, the combination of the fold equity we have, along with their history of open raising early with a wide range, makes this an attractive spot for a 3-bet.

mreclectic folds

Stixmex folds

queenconnor calls [$27,554]

aaronlt shows [ 9h, 9s ]

queenconnor shows [ Ad, 8s ]

Here we can see the long-term benefits of 3-betting come into play. We have 3-bet three hands in under 15 minutes. Our opponent has clearly taken notice of this as they call our all-in 3-bet holding only an A8 off.

Perhaps this is a result of our first 3-bet where we isolated against the short stack (AQ v AT). Maybe we pushed them out of the hand with a medium pair that would have won. Sometimes players have a hard time letting go of hands they might have won and let it affect their decisions later in the game.

This player has shown that they are considerate of their actions. Both their preflop raises were intentional amounts, which suggests to me they play more than recreationally. However, often times ego clouds our judgement and we make mistakes against players who threaten our ego. I know I make terrible mistakes at the Casino whenever I’m playing against a player wearing a dumb hat.

Or maybe they have simply seen us re-raise 3 times in under 15 minutes and have made a calculated guess that their A8o is well positioned against our 3-betting range.

In this instance, I believe they have miscalculated my range. I don’t think I shove 22-77 or A2-A7 often enough in this spot to make A8 a profitable call. Either way, we are in great shape to take down a large pot and go from short stack to one of the chip leaders in under 15 minutes.

** Dealing flop ** [ 3d, Qh, Qs ]

** Dealing turn ** [ Td ]

** Dealing river ** [ 2d ]

** Summary **

aaronlt collected [ $68,708 ]

Seat 2 is the button

Total number of players : 8

Seat 1: tommi303 ( $21,806 )

Seat 2: dn9299 ( $53,722 )

Seat 3: aaronlt ( $18,224 )

Seat 4: mreclectic ( $30,161 )

Seat 5: Stixmex ( $70,604 )

Seat 6: queenconnor ( $36,715 )

Seat 7: MoyaPensia ( $9,970 )

Seat 10: beckham_vn ( $11,530 )

queenconnor posts ante [$150]

Stixmex posts ante [$150]

mreclectic posts ante [$150]

beckham_vn posts ante [$150]

aaronlt posts ante [$150]

MoyaPensia posts ante [$150]

dn9299 posts ante [$150]

tommi303 posts ante [$150]

aaronlt posts small blind [$750]

mreclectic posts big blind [$1,500]

Given the Turbo structure of the tournament, the blinds move up very quickly. Despite our double up last hand, we soon find ourselves with just over 10 BB’s once again.

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to aaronlt [ 8h, 8c ]

Stixmex folds

queenconnor folds

MoyaPensia folds

beckham_vn raises [$6,450]

tommi303 folds

dn9299 folds

aaronlt raises [$10,650]

The 6450 open raise is aggressive. The opponent has put more than half of their chips in the pot and has open raised more than 4x the blinds. We can gain 2 reads from this bet sizing:

1)      They have committed themselves to calling any raise that puts them all-in

2)      They have a hand they are willing to commit with, however they do not particularly want any action from.

With these two reads, I eliminate QQ-AA from their hand range; 99-JJ as well as medium Aces are still a possibility. I’m expecting to see small to medium pairs a high percentage of the time here.

Given this range, our holding of 88, and the fact that dead money in the middle from blinds and antes, I feel 88 is ahead/if not flipping, often enough to make this a profitable all-in.

I move all-in, 100% expecting a call from my opponent. The few times I run into 99, TT, and JJ here will be outweighed by the times I’m up against 22-77.

mreclectic folds

beckham_vn calls [$4,930]

aaronlt shows [ 8h, 8c ]

beckham_vn shows [ 9d, Ah ]

Turns out we are in one of the coin-flipping scenarios. This is ok given the dead money in the pot, our shove is profitable.

** Dealing flop ** [ 4d, 2s, 4c ]

I wanted to stop on the flop here and point out one more advantage to 3-betting over flat calling this hand. If we flat call preflop, we will be put to a difficult decision on the flop, out of position.

1)      Any flop that comes down with face cards or an Ace, will make us feel at risk and we will likely end up check-folding this pot – essentially giving $6500 to our opponent.

2)      When an attractive flop such as this (4d, 2s, 4c) lands on the table, we have the opposite problem; how do we get our opponents money into the pot?

1. a.      We can check and hope he moves all-in, taking the control out of our hands and putting it into the opponents.
2. b.      Another symptom of checking is that we give our opponent the chance to check behind. Any threatening turn card puts us back in the awkward spot we were in before having to give up the hand.
3. c.       We can stop-and-go, push all-in first, and risk giving our opponent a chance to fold when he misses.

Considering all of these factors that are possible after the flop, moving pre-flop when we have the appropriate equity to do so, will eliminate all the potential for trouble down the road.

** Dealing turn ** [ Qs ]

** Dealing river ** [ 5s ]

** Summary **

aaronlt collected [ $25,460 ]

The following hand is from a .25/.50 Pot Limit Omaha session where I made a fairly major mistake on the flop. On the turn, my natural instinct was to make a decision that would have resulted in following a mistake with a bigger mistake. I chose this hand because I see this particular mistake in Omaha daily:

#Game No : 224238788
***** Cassava Hand History for Game 224238788 *****
$0.25/$0.50 Blinds Pot Limit Omaha - *** 01 03 2013 22:37:11
Table Bayamo 6 Max (Real Money)

Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 1: aaronlt ( $102.71 )
Seat 4: AndyOhmsen ( $84.06 )
Seat 6: Huima88 ( $82.50 )
Seat 7: slow_roller1 ( $85.21 )
Seat 9: SnowyHe ( $58 )
AndyOhmsen posts small blind [$0.25]
Huima88 posts big blind [$0.50]

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to aaronlt [ As, Js, Td, 6c ]

slow_roller1 calls [$0.50]
SnowyHe folds
aaronlt raises [$2]

I don’t like coming into pots on a short-handed table for anything less than a raise. It really lends towards bad habits and spewing chips. If you make sure that when you want to play, you come in aggressively, it will help to build pots for you as well as disguise the strength of your hand. To support the raise, we are on the button.

AndyOhmsen raises [$6.75]
Huima88 calls [$6.50]
slow_roller1 folds
aaronlt calls [$5]

With a raise and a call in front of us, a hand that could make the nuts  a number of different ways, we should be calling this 3-bet and taking a look at the flop.

** Dealing flop ** [ Jh, Ts, Ah ]
AndyOhmsen checks
Huima88 bets [$16.12]
aaronlt calls [$16.12]

The original 3-bettor checks and the big blind leads out with a pot size bet. Trying to guess the opponent’s range at this point is very easy. Huima88 has exactly KQxx. It’s possible he has additional outs towards a flush and may have even connected with a pair or two. However we are 100% safe to assume he has flopped the nut straight.

We are looking at 6 possible outs to a full house and 2 outs to the nuts. We have a backdoor spade draw but that hasn’t materialized yet. We should comfortably FOLD at this point knowing we can’t beat our opponent and we have nowhere near the odds to chase.

My flop call here can be chalked up entirely to hubris and not wanting to let go of my 3 pair/backdoor flush draw. This is a losing call every day of the week and a fairly major mistake.

AndyOhmsen folds
** Dealing turn ** [ 9s ]
Huima88 bets [$53.74]

Here the hand gets a little more interesting. We pick up spade to give us the backdoor flush draw on top of our 6 full house outs. Our opponent still holds the nuts with KQxx so he of course leads out with a pot size bet a second time.

After running the numbers, we are an approximate 40/60 underdog in this spot. My first instinct, knowing that we are still an underdog and we aren’t getting the pot odds, was to fold.

However, folding in this spot would be a much bigger mistake. Consider:

If we fold: We lose ~$22.00 100% of the time
If we call: We win ~$90.00 40% of the time and lose $83.00 60% of the time.

If we had no money invested in the pot up until this point, it would be a clear cut fold. Let’s take a look at the maths to see the long-term affect this decision will have.

The maths:
Play the hand 100 times:

40 times we win the pot earning us $3600 in winnings
60 times we will lose the pot earning us a loss of ($4980)
For a net loss of -$1380

Or we can fold the hand 100 times:
100 times we fold on the turn giving up our $22 investment
For a net loss of -$2200

When we compare these two scenarios, we see that by folding on the turn, we would actually be losing $820 more than we would by moving all-in.

aaronlt raises [$79.59]
Huima88 calls [$5.64]
** Dealing river ** [ Qs ]
** Summary **
aaronlt shows [ As, Js, Td, 6c ]
Huima88 shows [ Kc, 7d, Qd, 9d ]
aaronlt collected [ $168.50 ]

As a result of the mistake on the flop, we have put ourselves in a losing spot regardless of the outcome. At this point the goal of the hand should be to minimize the losses. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking “minimizing losses” means that we should fold the hand and avoid investing any more money. However looking at this example, we can see that guarding your short-term losses can end up costing you much more in the long run.

Side Note: We do not have to move all-in on the turn. Our opponent is more or less pot committed regardless of the river. So we can flat call his $53.74 pot size bet and save ourselves $5.64 on the river should we miss.

The following hands took place in a $4r/$12 000 Guaranteed tournament all within a 20 minute span. I wanted to discuss these hands to highlight some of the short-term and long-term benefits of 3-betting.

$500/$1,000 Blinds No Limit Holdem -

Seat 1 is the button

Total number of players : 9

Seat 1: Orang3Bud ( $8,285 )

Seat 2: bora15 ( $12,070 )

Seat 3: aaronlt ( $9,535 )

Seat 4: mreclectic ( $34,981 )

Seat 5: Stixmex ( $53,084 )

Seat 6: queenconnor ( $25,935 )

Seat 7: MZsolt14 ( $4,809 )

Seat 9: iya1966 ( $10,800 )

Seat 10: beckham_vn ( $11,760 )

The first hand takes place just after the rebuy period has ended. We have less than 10 BBs and need to make a move quickly to have any impact in the tournament. There are still hundreds of players left.

queenconnor posts ante [$120]

Stixmex posts ante [$120]

iya1966 posts ante [$120]

MZsolt14 posts ante [$120]

Orang3Bud posts ante [$120]

mreclectic posts ante [$120]

beckham_vn posts ante [$120]

aaronlt posts ante [$120]

bora15 posts ante [$120]

bora15 posts small blind [$500]

aaronlt posts big blind [$1,000]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to aaronlt [ Qd, Ad ]

mreclectic folds

Stixmex folds

queenconnor raises [$2,290]

MZsolt14 raises [$4,689]

One of the chip leaders makes a small open raise from early-mid position of just more than 2x the BB. While I believe he has a playable hand, I’m not necessarily giving him credit for a monster.

The short stack moves all-in for less than 5 BB’s. Again, the short stacks raise here suggests they have a hand they are willing to risk their tourney on. However, the size of the stack and the position on the table would suggest that they need to make a decision very soon, so a quality hand to them doesn’t necessarily mean a strong hand.

iya1966 folds

beckham_vn folds

Orang3Bud folds

bora15 folds

aaronlt raises [$8,415]

queenconnor folds

We have two options at this point. We can move all-in, or we can fold. Calling is not an option. Let’s break down both these options quickly:

Fold

• We have 1000 of our chips already committed to the pot from Big blind. We can fold here and still have 8 big blinds to get us through the next round of blinds but we’ll need to move all-in within the next 10 hands if we want ANY fold equity (not that we have much now anyways).

Raise

• We still have 9500 chips, which threatens “queensconnor” as they have a starting stack of 25k. Our all-in at this points represents about 40% of their total chips. While we expect they should call, we might get a fold if they were open raising very light.

• Holding AQd, we are not threatened about the short stack’s all in either. Their range is made up of any pair, most aces, two face cards, and even some medium suited connectors. We are well ahead of their range.

• The fold from the original raiser is a bonus. We have now isolated ourselves against the short stack and we get to play to the river, risk free, for a sizable pot, against an opponent we are confidently ahead.

The all-in raise here is a must. While it’s actually a 4-bet in this instance, the rationale remains the same.

aaronlt shows [ Qd, Ad ]

MZsolt14 shows [ Td, As ]

aaronlt collected [ $13,248 ]

A perfect anecdote took place Friday. I played the Friday Challenge on 888, which started with over 800 runners. I had a pretty decent tournament and ended up finishing around 45^th. Unfortunately the payout structure is such that while it pays many players, the majority of the money is very top heavy. So essentially I spent 5+ hours, besting more than 90% of the field, to net a profit of about $8/hour. Not a great investment but that is the nature of Multi Table Tournaments. They have a fantastic ROI for the top place finishers but more often than not you’re going home unsatisfied.

After the tournament I hadn’t quite scratched the poker itch but I wasn’t prepared to commit the amount of time and attention to another MTT that was necessary to win. The only logical conclusion… to play some Omaha! I fancy myself an adequate Omaha player. I enjoy the game more than Hold ‘em and I’ve logged well over a million hands. That being said, jumping into a cash game after a long, unsatisfying MTT is usually a very effective way to turn a mediocre winning day into a devastating losing day.

I was lucky this time, I caught some cards, played some hands well and pulled one big river when I needed it. After I finished my short session, I was playing at a rate of $600/hour. It’s easy to see why I keep going back!

I then went out to meet a friend for dinner. I returned back home at about 1:30am. I’m a bit of a night owl so I’m still planning on being awake for a couple hours more. Again, it’s too late to commit to the length of a new MTT but there is just the right amount of time for some more PLO cash tables. I sat down and proceeded to give back half of what I won earlier. I managed to recognize what I was doing and leave the table, preserving the rest of my earlier winnings.

What have I learned?

-          The win rate of $600/hour is artificial. This number doesn’t mean anything and it never materializes. Using this as an excuse to play is asking for trouble.

-          I have a habit of choosing my games based on how they fit into my schedule. Instead I should be choosing the games I think I have the best chance of winning and scheduling around them.

-          If my schedule doesn’t fit or I am not in the frame of mind to play my A-game, I should not settle for my B-game. Playing less than optimal poker is expensive.