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6:58 pm
November 18, 2008
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jamleeco
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Ed,
Here is my situation. I have been playing nl for last couple years, only about 600-700 hrs. a year. Haven’t had the time I had when playing limit full time ( by the way, thanks for all the help making me a winning limit player and now, I think, a winning nl player.) My average since switching, including the fair amount of break-even time factored in, hovers around 6-8 bb’s an hour.
When I first started winning decent amounts I found myself getting over-protective of my stack. I at least had enough sense to leave when I caught myself. Now for my next transition, last couple of months or so I have been playing deep-stacked instead of getting nervous, of course have to be having a good night to get deep-stacked with 100bb capped buy-in.
By sticking around deep-stacked I am talking about when I have 250-300 bb’s or more and at least 2 people at table have me covered or close. And reasonable table time for me when doing this, under 8 hours of play at time. Meaning I’m not playing 10 hrs. to get deep-stacked and then pressing on.
So, couple of times it worked out ok, I won a little bit more here and there, but the last couple of weeks, ugh. Twice I’ve had 400bb+ stacks and not been stacked but taken 200bb hits or more. I know variance, and I know deepstacked is going to be more and hurt more. I’m hoping some of this is just adjusting. But Ed, help me here. Am I just making stupid mistakes but they are more stupid or feel that way because they cost me so much more at a time.
Here is the hand from earlier today, I’m playing well, doing what you’ve written, targeting the right player raising and reraising with hands I normally wouldn’t dream of , etc. Busted target out and have to 280bb’s. 2 players have me covered. I get pocket J’s utg. I decide to limp, my left and 2 others call. Button ( who has me covered, raises to 6 bb’s) I almost reraised (should I have?) but I have grown to hate being out of position so much with any hand, I decide to play for set value instead of building big pot with the HATED jacks ( I know, I know).
Anyway, my left calls (other player that has me covered) others fold. Flop comes KsJs2h, I check to raiser and damn, checks around. CR foiled. Turn comes 2c. ( Pot: 20 bb) I bet out 12bb with my full house, left calls, button folds. River comes 10s . (Pot 44bb) I bet 45 bb, figure if spade hit him I’ll get called. Instead , as Tommy says, I got Gobsmacked. He raised 90bb on top. Of course I’m calling, but here is where I need help. I matched the 90bb (pot: 314bb) but then pushed my last 140bb in pot. Was this retarded?
Non-math facts. I know this guy splashes around some but also fairly aggressive. I all but rule out Pocket K’s, Aqs more likely but not that much because of no pf raise. But, the clincher, he was racked up and ready to leave with a nice 400bb win. I am not a newbie, I have never seen a racked up player get involved without a crusher. So I know he’s strong. So, the two aforementioned hands crush me, Q9s and quad 2’s. He could raise the nut flush the way the hand was played even though board is paired, but he will fold to the all-in. I will get called maybe by K2s ( which he would play) and pocket 10’s he floated me in case I was betting a draw.
So, I am familiar with the “you will only get called if you’re beaten syndrome” and it seemed to lean that way. How bad did I mess up? With a normal 100-150bb stack this is nothing, but if I’m going to play with 3,4, and 500 bb’s , I gotta get my mind right. My gut told me to call because of the scenario, but I convinced myself that that was my absorbed-but-non-dissolved-weak-tight-chicken-shit-twin talking. Or would it have been wrong to miss possible value there on a read? Or was there no value to begin with? Or maybe this was that little baby my-hand-is-so-good-it -surely-can’t-be-beaten-wah-wah voice taking over? I mean, help me Ed. Pleeease?
( I know the result doesn’t matter, but my post was such an embarrassing crybawller post,, probably obvious I was beaten…Q9s).
PS. I made this post last night tilted and upset. But I want to clarify, not about losing the pot, no matter how big. It's about my river decision. Am I too poor a player to be playing deepstacked? I really felt if I had taken my time at table and analyzed the situation like Ed says , you bet with a purpose. My only one here was to win more money. But am I going to with a hand I beat. And Ed, is this one for combinatorial analysis of opposing hands, or pot-committed in for a penny in for a pound? And did I not adjust my committment properly given the action?
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11:37 am
November 19, 2008
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karbyn
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You can't be afraid of getting stacked. Whether your stack is 20BB or 2000BB.
There was nothing wrong with that hand, just a bad beat story, until you pushed everything in the middle on the river. The only thing I would draw your attention to is playing JJ 5-way from EP. It is very likely someone has a King, so I think you are safe to bet the flop.
Asking the question “what could you beat?” He is deep stacked too, and not throwing all his work away either, especially if he was racked up. You are behind 5 specific hands: Q9s, KKx3 ( KK made 3 ways ), 22. You are ahead of K2×6, J2×2, AsXx (maybe 10 ways). He's just not sticking his neck out with less than that. There may be slightly fewer combinations as I can only see him raising with K2s ( and the Ks was on the board ), and not J2, just the AsXx combos.
It is a classic Call-Call-RaiseYouOnTheRiver scenario that tells you he has a monster. You just decided erroneously how big his monster was. I think at that point with his reraise, you were looking pretty thin. The best you could hope for was AsXx, but KK or 22 was more likely than Q9. I don't think you were “obviously” beaten, however, you still have to call his raise.
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3:21 pm
November 19, 2008
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Todd
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If you don't feel comfortable playing deep stacked, then don't. It's harder. The deeper you get, the better you need to play on the big money streets.
I think the hand was played well enough except for the river. Preflop, calling is fine. You are out of positon. No need to bloat the pot. On the flop, I prefer to go bet/3-bet with a field that large and you can disguse your hand as a draw. There's nothing wrong with a c/r, though, if the button can be relied upon to bet. I don't think the river raise was very good unless you had a read the player was very weak. A call there is fine. There is a high enough probability that you have the best hand, but you have the 4th nuts. A c/c is fine there too. There are a lot more hands that will bet there then will call off a bet. Against a real nit, bet/fold isn't out of the question. But he'd have to be a real nit.
Here's the thing about the river raise. When you have the best hand, what can call you? If he's bluff raising, he'll just fold. If he's value raising a flush or a 2, he's not going to call it off unless he's not that good. There really aren't many hands that well call your raise on that board that deep. There are certainly fewer hands that will call than will actually have you beat. Really, is an A high flush going to call you there with all of the boats on board? The best you are hoping for is that TT made a set on the river and will pay you off. That just isn't plausible given the turn action.
There are a set of interviews from Samoleus over on pokerroad.com in the Cash Plays section that have a lot of good information on deep stack play. There are two recent ones and an older one. All 3 are worth listening to. In one of the last two, Samo has a really great discussion on river raising that covers these situations well. Really, really good stuff.
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11:02 pm
November 19, 2008
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jamleeco
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Todd, I read your comments regularly and have a lot of respecet for your writing. Yes, I have believed if one is not comfortable playing deepstacked, dont'. I have played that way, doing well in games with60-200 stcack but bigger, 300 and more I get nervous, not scared or fear of getting stacked (obvioulsy) but nervous about making big mistakes, being good enough.
I know the more one studies and plays he should be making fewer of these. I know playing is part of it . When I had no idea i got thrown to the wolves in limit 5-10, i woull have liked cutting teeth on 1-2 o3-6. but I adapted. And became working-class good at it. Wasnt happy when I first had to swithch to nl, but thruoug study and play doing well, wiinning money. All along the way ED has been a big help. now wiinning poker money at a good clip and conitully getting out there and doing plays much more often. At first I was amazed in games “”called no fold em nl” I realized some days over 1/2 my money was made being a thief. I am qiute comortable now doing a lot of stuff.
But, NO, I am not fully comfortable playing deep. One reason my playing has been terribly erractic this year with family resopnsiblities, poker was very potshotty. Deal is, I want to get comfortable playing deepstack, have confidence like i do in a 100b game. The catch is I kinow I have to bite the bullet and do it again and again.
I warned you my first post was whiny, cause basically i'm crying , NOT about a beat, crying that I didn't take my time to reason it out. I was doing it at ligthning speed and for some bermuda triangle reason I pushed there. Had to be psycho. I know why not to, the possible hands, the not get called by most hands i beat, etc. Even the math combo. hands there that dont have me beat match up math wise close with others, doesn't matter, i KNOW the MOST likely hands have me beat. I know that. What I dont know is why I did it anyway, Im not a mouth-breathing moron. Showing my self I wasn't afraid to get stacked in a hand when deep?
It was a crybaby thing cause I messed up, knew I messed up, and wanted to tell someone WHO would understand how dumb I was.
When I started limt full time it was hand charts, dont do this , watch out for that, stay out of trouble. Then I learned much more.
Then with no limt it was things are different now, hand values are different, consider stack sizes, etc.
I know poker is increidibly complex and simple adages or axioms are of limited value. What I was hoping for , maybe vainly, was a kind of ” ok, you know a little hold'em , you have had some success at no limit. NOW, you are going into deepstack play and these are the things you shoudl be thinking about MORE now, your mind should be woriking along these lines, etc. some get me started idiot-proof help guidelines. I went back today and got up to 260 bb's or so. kept playing, trying to me more stack alert wiithout worrying aobut stack.
so, anyway, stuff I was hoping to find. I hope i dont do collossal stupid again, but I mght, because I 'm going to play deepstacked till i get it. Things like which bet has the most power related to the stack size, 1st, 2nd , or 3rd,
So, thanks for taking the time to read it and thanks for the link. going to check it out.
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9:18 am
November 20, 2008
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karbyn
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karbyn said:
There may be slightly fewer combinations as I can only see him raising with K2s ( and the Ks was on the board ), and not J2, just the AsXx combos.
Correction: There may be slightly fewer combinations as I can't only see him raising with K2s ( and the Ks was on the board ), and not J2, just the AsXx combos.
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9:32 am
November 20, 2008
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karbyn
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jamleeco said:
But, NO, I am not fully comfortable playing deep. One reason my playing has been terribly erractic this year with family resopnsiblities, poker was very potshotty. Deal is, I want to get comfortable playing deepstack, have confidence like i do in a 100b game. The catch is I kinow I have to bite the bullet and do it again and again.
Perhaps when you reach a certain limit, like 300 BB, you could take a dinner break. Come back and start fresh. Or maybe you play 300BB+ for 1 hour, then take a break. Something like that. Possible set a couple other rules … stack 1 player after you reach 300BB, or play ( maybe not win ) 1 pot over 75BB. Then you get a chance to play with a deep stack for a while, and then enjoy the reward. As you become more and moe confortable, you can modify these rules to keep you at the table longer.
jamleeco said:
What I dont know is why I did it anyway, Im not a mouth-breathing moron. Showing my self I wasn't afraid to get stacked in a hand when deep?
For sure it is the thrill of thinking one is going to win a 600BB pot that clouds one's judgement. Especially live! Check out Daniel Negraneau on HSP season 1 where he lost a massive pot against Gus Hansen. He made the same type of mistakes.
jamleeco said:
It was a crybaby thing cause I messed up, knew I messed up, and wanted to tell someone WHO would understand how dumb I was.
Oh, you defineitlye came to the wrong place. We're all good students of Ed's and have *never* made mistakes. Umm, except that one time …
jamleeco said:
Things like which bet has the most power related to the stack size, 1st, 2nd , or 3rd,
The one that commits you or your opponent to the hand. SPR, baby 
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11:01 am
November 20, 2008
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karbyn
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3:20 pm
November 20, 2008
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Todd
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jamleeco,
Do you use that avatar on Stars? I played Badugi with someone using the same avatar last night.
Todd
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3:27 pm
November 20, 2008
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Todd
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3:32 pm
November 20, 2008
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AKQJ10
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Well, I can certainly relate to the OP.
Bad players don't tend to keep deep stacks for very long. Typically in live play I play in either a $1-3 $300 max or a $1-2 no max game. Naive players buy in for about $300 the first time, bust out soon because they call too much with weak hands, rebuy for $200-300, repeat, rebuy for $100, etc. Sometimes they get lucky and double up, but they don't usually hold on to their winnings for very long.
Decent-to-good postflop players in these games tend to build up large stacks and keep them — not always, but often.
Both the bad players and the decent/good postflop players make obvious, glaring preflop errors when playing against short stacks. E.g. they can observe me playing tight but still call my raises for 1/6 of my short stack with KJ or JTs.
I know I can short-stack this game profitably. I may be able to deep-stack it even more profitably if I can play big pots against bad players. But those moments where the bad players are deep are fleeting, and they mostly require showing down big hands.
Also, when I run slightly bad (e.g. down $500-$1k or so — really nothing in BBL terms) I lose confidence and definitely want to minimize variance.
All this to say that I worry I'm stunting my growth as a poker player by short-stacking for profit, but I also don't want to play a game where I'm break-even at best when I could be winning. And to top it off, of course, B&M poker is notoriously slow so it's hard to get enough sample to tell whether I just suck deep stacked relative to the game or not.
I should probably play more deep-stack NLHE online, where I play for lower stakes (but tougher games!). I've tended to avoid that because I just like live poker better, but I have more free time and plan to do this more.
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11:26 pm
November 21, 2008
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jamleeco
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Hey guys, Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. And for the links, Todd. Just getting responses is a moral support system in and of itself.
No, that's not me Todd. But I have to wonder, ( i'm not claiming to be American Idol or anything) if he / she got that avatar or idea from moi`. That is from Townes Van Zandt , who is sorely missed, 1994 album “Deeper Blue “. His last studiio album.
A genius but also a degenerate gambler. gotta love TVZ. He wrote a great poker song years ago called ” Mr. Gold and Mr. Mudd”. Townes once bet his gold tooth in a poker or craps game on his front porch and took a hammer and chisel to knock it out because he always paid his gambling debts. Poor Townes knocked out the wrong tooth. I'm pretty sure alcohol was involved.
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