This will really be a continuation of the MDP thread I posted here http://my.888poker.com/go/thread/view/111146/29444839/m-d-p

Everybody knows you should only risk money you can afford to lose, but without the missing ingredient to the statement all you have is the rule that gamblers live by, it’s what drives the fish, the donks and the calling stations of poker sites, they believe they are doing the right thing because it’s money they can afford to lose, and if they can afford to lose it they are prepared to risk it! They have no need of knowledge of the maths because they will just deposit more “money they can afford to lose” if they bust, some of them might even save up just to deposit money they can afford to lose.

And that’s true of any gambling be it horses, football, dogs or poker, bookies bank accounts are full of money people could afford to lose, poker sites make their money from the rake people pay from the money they can afford to lose, and the more money deposited that people can lose the more money there is swilling around the poker site meaning even more rake for the sites, but to understand the difference between the poker sites and the book makers you have to look at both separately.

Poker sites make their money from rake paid, they do not gamble to win their money they charge people to use their service, they really don’t care if Joe from number 6 in your street has won over a million dollars, Joe is paying his rake and the site is making its money, all the poker sites need to do is constantly grow its player base and encourage people to deposit, and that’s why conspiracy theories about people being set up to lose are so ridiculous, poker sites don’t care who wins they just care about being paid.

Bookies are a totally different animal, they make their money by setting up the book in such a way that they win whatever the result, but they don’t like people constantly winning from them because they are gambling themselves, you bet with them and they then lay that bet off elsewhere but they do suffer big losses on some events, if you have ever used an online bookie you will know that if you constantly win they will restrict the amount you can bet, or they will just refuse to take your bet, that seems strange as the profits bookies make can be astounding and they are flush with “money they can afford to lose” but the fact is somebody constantly winning is beating the bookie and bookies don’t like that because they know what the full statement should read.

“I only gamble with money I can afford to lose! But I never gamble with money I’m PREPARED to lose”

If you gamble with money you can afford to lose and are prepared to lose it then you may as well sit next to a window throwing pound coins out every 10 minutes, when you collect them up later that day you may not find them all! Or you may find a couple extra! That’s the gamble.

So you can see the difference adding one more phrase to the statement makes, think about it next time you think of calling to hit your draw just because you can afford to!

The stop and go is a short stacked strategy and involves calling a raise short stacked to shove any flop instead of just shoving pre flop, for example when the hand starts you have 6BB’s left in your stack and are on the BB (blinds 100-200), it folds to the cut-off who raise’s to 600 and it folds to you, you look down at Ah Qs and shove for your remaining 1000 chips, your opponent now needs to call 600 into a 1900 pot (3/1) with 5 cards to come it’s an easy call with cards he was prepared to raise with, with 5 cards to come you have very little fold equity shoving pre flop, so playing the stop and go here could improve your chances as it will give a much harder decision to your opponent on the flop.

So to understand that lets look at the example again but this time we will stop and go.

When the hand starts you have 6BB’s left in your stack and are on the BB (blinds 100-200), it folds to the cut-off who raise’s to 600 and it folds to you, you look down at Ah Qs and decide this is the hand to make your stand with, but instead of shoving here and now you just call the raise, the flop comes Kd 7c 4h and you shove your remaining 600 chips into the pot, you have played the stop and go but what have you achieved?

In example 1 your opponent needs to call 600 into a 1900 pot with 5 cards to come, he is getting 3/1 pre flop against an all in range and should be making the call if his hand was big enough to raise a short stack with.

In example 2 your opponent still needs to call 600 into a 1900 pot so is still getting 3/1, but now there are only 2 cards to come, and you may have just hit this flop or slow played a monster, it’s a much tougher decision for him and he may just fold if he’s missed or was playing a PP below Kings or an AQ AJ hand, and don’t forget statistically you only hit 1 in 3 flops!

So by playing the stop and go here we have given our opponent a much tougher decision on the flop than we would have pre-flop, and it really doesn’t matter what he does now as we identified this hand as the one we were going to make a stand with, and that is what we have done! If he calls and we lose we had decided we were all in pre flop anyway so it really doesn’t matter, but by making his decision that much harder of the flop we gave ourselves some fold equity as he might just fold and look for another spot

As with all strategies of this type overuse will soon see you being called more often as people expect it from you, so use it sparingly, you should also only use it in heads up hands as with more than 1 opponent in the hand your fold equity decreases again

There has been some hand history discussion on the forum pages where the check raise has been suggested, I’m going to concentrate on two in particular and give my opinion on what has been suggested and why I think it’s a good/bad move

Hand 1 (5 handed), we are on the SB (75-150) we have Ah Qc the player utg+1 has min raised to 300 and it has been folded to us, we raise to 806, the BB folds and utg+1 calls the re raise, the flop comes 2s 3h 4h, the hand now pauses for discussion and a post is made saying “this is where I get into trouble with these hands check raise”

Hand 2 (6 handed), we are in the BB (100-200) with Kh th, the table folds to the cut-off who raises to 525, it then folds to us and we make the call, the flop comes Ah 7h Tc, what happens next isn’t really relevant to this, what is relevant is a comment in the discussion saying check raise

So 2 hands both from the blinds, 2 very different flops, out of position in both and first to act and 2 suggestions to check raise, so let’s look at hand 1! AQ off suit on a 5 handed table from the sb is playable, but in my opinion you need to isolate the original raiser, this is what we attempt and it works, but the flop is horrible for us all low cards with the possibility of a 5 giving us a str8, our opponents pre-flop raising range is likely to contain some big aces and most pocket pairs down to 88-77 and he was strong enough to raise and then still want to see a flop when re raised! He must have something! Potentially we are drawing to 6 outs here 3xQ and 3xA if he has a middle pocket pair, if he has Ax we are drawing to 3 outs as a 5 will split the pot, so if we check raise here and he re shoves we have to fold as we won’t have enough outs to make the call

Hand 2 is a much better opportunity; calling 325 into a 825 pot to try and protect your blind isn’t a bad play as you are capping the action, the flop is good for us even if the A is worrying, assuming his pre-flop range includes the same hands as hand 1 we could potentially be in front with our TT and behind to any A, AA-JJ, if we check raise here and are re shoved we have enough potential outs to make the call

It doesn’t matter if you sometimes get it wrong or sometimes miss your outs revealing you were drawing to the str8/flush, this can be used to your advantage later when you check raise with top 2 pair, people will look you up expecting you to be drawing to the str8/flush

The check raise is a good move to have but don’t over use it or people will never believe you, and if you miss a couple of draws and people start looking you up more regularly just swap to check raising big made hands, people will still look you up as they will put you on a draw

As always take care all, and win or lose enjoy your poker it’s still only a game

Using your range finder! What does that mean? Well if you’re reading this then I’m hoping you play at 888poker, and if you play at 888poker then you have a very handy tool available to you! It’s in the lobby under my profile and named “game history” this fantastic little free tool gives you the opportunity to go back over every hand of a tournament you play in video playback whether you played them or folded, you can replay any hand step by step, you can also right click and add notes to players while in there as well, “but what has that got to do with range finding”? I hear you ask.

We’ve all see the replies to hand discussions asking “what range did you put them on” we all know how important trying to put players on ranges of hands is when we play them, and right here for free is the opportunity to do just that, so grab a coffee/tea/beer or whatever floats your boat and open your game history because that’s what we are going to do.

Open any game history cash/sng/mtt it really doesn’t matter! What we are looking for is hands with the river dealt because these hands have the potential for a showdown, and wherever there’s a showdown you are going to see the winning hand, this means you know exactly what the winner played and you can now play the hand through taking notes on what he had and how he played it, you are going to see showdowns from the same players occasionally and this is where their range comes into play, you will see what type of hand they open with (opening range) and how they bet with them going forward (narrowing the range) all of this can be put in your notes and when you play them again you will have an idea of their range.

You will find that you will meet a lot of the same players in your games, especially at cash tables and sng’s if you mostly play the same levels, and the same is true if you usually play a set selection of mtt’s on a regular basis, or restricted games, so over a period of time you are going to find a lot of information on what they open with and how they play those hands in different situations.

It’s called game history, but it’s the perfect range finder

Until next time enjoy your poker and may all you losses be miniscule, and all your winning pots floweth over

 The format is quite simple, you play a 1 table sng between the players of each team, and points are awarded for the top 5 on each table as 10pts, 7pts, 5pts, 3pts, and 2pts, the prizes are provided by local companies with the view of local charities benefiting (it’s why it’s invitation only) this event gives £2,000 to charities of the winning teams choice, the winners get 1^st £1000, 2^nd £600 and 3^rd £400

In the previous 3 years we have won the event once and come 3^rd twice so we sat down in high spirits, 2 of our players were eliminated before the points, one was unlucky and the other ****ed his stack because he thought he had  a read, he did! he put him on Ax and played his AQ as if it were the nuts, Ax proved to be better (but we’re not doing bad beats) the unlucky one had JJ on a J67 board and got called for a 3/4 pot bet on the flop he shoved the 6 turn to get called by 66 and go out in 8^th to quads

That left 4 of us one managed 3^rd place on a table he described as ridiculous, and lasted the shortest time, we got another 3^rd place when another called an all in against a short stack with AQ  and the short stacks A9 paired, he shoved 2 hands later with 77 and lost to a turned straight, looking at the standings we needed two 2nds at least to get 3^rd place and a pay out, one was in first with a massive lead and I was 4^th and short, our massive leader won his game and it was down to the tightest table of the night, 3^rd place would probably give us a pay out  and I was now 2^nd

And from then it was downhill all the way, I was dealt AQ and raised I got called by the guy in the BB who hadn’t played many hands at all during the game, the flop came KK8 and he checked to me, I put in a bet of just over half the pot and he snap re raised, I had to fold and he mucked KQ face up, 2 hands later I lost a pot to the short stack when I put him all in after a pre flop raise with my TT, he called with KJ and river was the J, I was now the short stack and looking for paint or an ace to shove with, I got it all in with AT and the chippo called with T 4 suited and he hit the flush on the turn, we finished 4^th overall

But it was an enjoyable night and 3 charities win £2000 between them