david, no lie.

everyone find me and put the biggest fucking fish you can above my name.

6/17/2006 9:16:32 AM

Are you serious?

PokerStars Game #5281719061: Hold'em No Limit ($0.10/$0.25) - 2006/06/17 - 15:38:49 (ET)
Table 'Merlin' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Slinky25 ($23.20 in chips)
Seat 2: 89fm ($47.15 in chips)
Seat 4: garygun ($10 in chips)
Seat 5: buckyie ($14.85 in chips)
Seat 6: The Hish 24 ($22.95 in chips)
89fm: posts small blind $0.10
garygun: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to The Hish 24 [Jd Jc]
buckyie: folds
The Hish 24: raises $0.75 to $1
Slinky25: folds
89fm: calls $0.90
garygun: folds
*** FLOP *** [As Ks 5h]
89fm: checks
The Hish 24: checks
*** TURN *** [As Ks 5h] [Js]
89fm: checks
The Hish 24: bets $1
89fm: calls $1
*** RIVER *** [As Ks 5h Js] [Ah]
89fm: bets $2
The Hish 24: raises $2 to $4
89fm: raises $6 to $10
The Hish 24: calls $6
*** SHOW DOWN ***
89fm: shows [Ts Qs] (a Royal Flush)
The Hish 24: mucks hand
89fm collected $23.05 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $24.25 | Rake $1.20
Board [As Ks 5h Js Ah]
Seat 1: Slinky25 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: 89fm (small blind) showed [Ts Qs] and won ($23.05) with a Royal Flush
Seat 4: garygun (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: buckyie folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: The Hish 24 mucked [Jd Jc]

6/17/2006 3:40:31 PM

I really shouldn't play online after 3 bottles of wine, I just accidently called a third stack bet with queen high and pretty much had to go all in on the river for any chance of salvation. I lost to 72 os pair of 7's. At least it was only for 5 bucks so I don't really care. Wine for life biatch

6/17/2006 9:11:37 PM

absolute just sent me 5 bucks, does anyone wanna play with it?

6/17/2006 9:15:28 PM

i lost $127 today on partpoker. I quit for good

6/17/2006 10:03:21 PM

poker gods stopped smiting me for a night.

up $110 (pretty big for me and my bankroll since i grew it from $50 part time 3 months ago)

6/18/2006 8:58:23 AM

i turned my 5 into 150 woo

6/18/2006 4:49:56 PM

i recently switched from .25/.50 and .50/1 NL on Party to 1/2 NL and have had a great run.

Do you guys find that 1/2 tables (and up?) have bad players? Possibly at 1/2, your average player has money to throw around while at lower stakes you find people who can't afford to lose much and take their play more seriously.

Or maybe i'm just on a good run....

6/18/2006 9:42:46 PM

the 25 and 50 games on party have sucked for a long, long time.

the 200 games can be hot, and more resemble the 50 game of old.


just got back in town from a swing up north, with a bit of borgata action to spice things up.


i remember why limit holdem is so superior to this no limit garbage.


probably write up a trip report tonight, but it was only 5 hours of poker and 1600 miles of driving in 3 days.. soo, im kinda tired.


(two hours of junk, bleeding off ~12 big bets, then rushing for an hour or so to push up a 40 BB profit for the night. hotttt.. not bad for a $250+ hour rate for the 3 hour session. ahaha)

also, ive really been putting a whole lot of thought into promo raise values in limit holdem, using omaha promo raise concepts and crossing them over... if anyone is interested, i could write a bit on that.


or i could just post bad beats here, that seems to be the popular thing.


[Edited on June 18, 2006 at 10:06 PM. Reason : e]

6/18/2006 10:02:39 PM

stalkers

[Edited on June 18, 2006 at 10:09 PM. Reason : always trying to spoil my small victories in life]

6/18/2006 10:06:10 PM

Ben,

Please post any LHE thoughts you have... I've been playing more lately and trying to cut NLHE cash games out as much as possible (so boring). Glad to hear anything you have to say.

- Mike D

6/19/2006 12:43:18 AM

I'm all ears.

6/19/2006 12:49:55 AM

Hole number one: Getting overly aggressive from the blinds when i know the other person has nothing at all.

In short games this is incredibly important in lhe. not so much in nl, due to the fact that the hands escalate to the point where blind defense is an irrelavence. After playing 6 handed limit almost exclusively for a long time, i find myself going back into situations like this in full ring games.

Who makes the bad play here?


Party Poker Hold'em (10 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 6d, Ac.
7 folds, Button raises, Hero 3-bets, 1 fold, Button calls.

Flop: (7 SB) 8s, 3d, 4s (2 players)
Hero bets, Button raises, Hero 3-bets, Button calls.

Turn: (6.50 BB) Kh (2 players)
Hero bets, Button raises, Hero 3-bets, Button calls.

River: (12.50 BB) 9d (2 players)
Hero bets, Button calls.

Final Pot: 14.50 BB

Results below:
Hero has 6d Ac (high card, ace).
Button has Jd Ah (high card, ace).
Outcome: Button wins 14.50 BB.

Is this just me spewing chips, or is it correct?

in the process of writing up a the thing i mentioned earlier, its takinga while. going to implement some hands for examples and the like.

[Edited on June 19, 2006 at 10:26 AM. Reason : e]

6/19/2006 10:23:16 AM

(dont have a word processor on this computer, so it was done in notepad hastily, so fuck off about spelling)

Out of Position Pushing and Pulling in Limit Hold'em with passive play and a promo raise concept:

[terminology - since this pretains to limit holdem exclusively, ill be using the abbreviation BB to stand for big bets, not big blinds. Talking about hands in means of BB in limit is an important concept, and should not be confused with talking of big blinds in no limit holdem.]

It is well known that the most important part of a solid limit omaha 8/b game is a concept of when to push and when to pull in early position in multiway pots. The concepts of these correlate to the importance of pot control in deep stack no limit or pot limit games. In shallow situations, pot control is not as important, but in deep situations (ie. the beginning of a tournament or a deep tournament where everyone has an M >>20, or in deep cash games such as a long running 150 big blind buy in game as opposed to a short or shallow 100 big blind cap small game) pot control is the most important concept to be able to see all 5 community cards and control your own variance. Pot control in no limit is absolutely key, as is obvious.

In omaha, you frequently run into situations where you have a hand that is very vulnerable. You run into times where you have a marginal one way hand that is very vulernable to being drawn on, or a decent one way hand with a marginal holding in the other direction. Since your whole goal is to scoop, you want to thin the feild as small as possible in this situation. You mush push the action here, as to improve the values of your hand by betting fast and hard. There are situations where you are locked up in one way and freerolling the other, and are looking to pull as many people into the pot as possible, and do so by playing passive. Many times throughout the course of a single hand, whether you should push or pull changes on every street. Identifying these situations is the KEY to making money at limit omaha. It is a skill that is developed by a keen understanding of the odds involved, and by knowledge of equity ranges that you put your opponents on.

Can we associate the concepts of pushing and pulling into our limit hold'em game?

Sure.

Is it important?

Some will argue that you should always push every edge in limit holdem.... I used to agree.

Im beginning to change my mind however, but a good bit of it is game and player dependant.

This weekend I was in a heavenly 10/20 limit holdem game at the borgata.

Around the table, the play was very predictable, and exploitable.

Seat 1 - A tighter guy who seemed more involved with his iPod and Cardplayer magazine than the game. Solid player, but over-valued top pair as is common in these games. We got into a few interesting hands, more to come. Hes the guy that if he hits his ace, he's going down to the river with it. Not saying that this probably doesnt earn him money in a game such as this one.

Seat 2 - A older gentlemen who thought he was very, very good. Slow played sets to the point of nearly asking for people to outdraw him, but was on a bit of a schneid and his calling values were declining through the night. Specific hand to be described.

Seat 3 - A girl who kept buying for 100, and would take any pair down. Dangerous when she caught up with 2 pr or something.

Seat 4 - A really solid pre-flop lady who would raise any strong ace or pocket pair preflop, once she raised pre, she resigned herself to calling down to the river. very exploitable, a specific hand will be mentioned later.

Seat 5 - Some kid mixing it up playing tight-aggro some hands, loose passive some, and actually a bit of tight weak!! (well, it was me)

Seat 6 - Guy who thought he was a poker king, on complete monkey tilt.

Seat 7 - Probably the best player ive ever encountered in AC. Asain guy, probably mid twenties, relentless bettor. Possible to check/call him on the flop to pump raises on the big streets when you make a hand... Made two of the most astounding plays ive ever seen at a 10/20 game during the course of our couple of hours playing together.

Seat 8 - Another poker God who was really bad, possible to put a move on b/c he was so tight/weak.

Seat 9 - Old man, tighest player of all times. Only showed down AA, KK. AK. QQ during the 3 hour session, never really involved enough to be a factor in these hands.

Seat 10 - Quintesntial AC stud player trying holdem b/c the 15/30/30/45 7cs8 game wasnt going. Even bet like a stud player, slinging chips all over the place. Loose passive/weak.

We'll get back to this great game in a bit with specific hands to illustrate conecpts that i'm doing a bad job explaining.

6/19/2006 1:02:33 PM

So, why push/pull in a loose/passive limit holdem game?

In this game it was not uncommon to go 5 or 6 ways to flops limped. It was also not uncommon to go 5-6 ways to the flop in a raised or 3 bet pot. This is pretty standard for mid-limit hold'em play in casinos around AC. Obviously, mulitway hands such as suited connnectors and suited aces go way up in value in a game like this... Contrary to popular thought, midding and low pairs actually gain a whole lot of value in games like this as well, set value in multiway hands is a huge thing to have.

So when you have that many people seeing flops, you want to be in command of the action, if the players know it or not. You do not have to be the raiser or bettor to be in complete control of the hand.

A loose association of a pulling concept, with a specific hand walkthrough::::


Table lineup as described above.

We are sitting UTG with 9c9h, and limp. (don't say anything about this, as i mentioned, if i raised, i was still getting 6 callers, and when playing for set value, keeping the initial investment small is crucial, im also not committing myself to calling a bet if the flop is like T62 or something.)

Mokey-tilt limps.
Asain limps.
Stud limps.
Older man limps on the button.
both blinds come along

7 way action for 7 SB in the pot.

Flop comes: 9s 8h 2s

Pretty good flop, but we are vulnerable. The chances in this game that someone limped with spades, JT, 67, QJ, or some other likely hand are pretty high.

sb and bb check,

We bet the hand.

monkey tilt folds
asian folds
stud calls.
older man 2 bets, making it $20.
sb/bb fold

What do we do here and why?

We know that stud is comming for the ride even for a 3 bet calling 2 cold. If we do this we know we are ahead here, but we also know that if we start pushing here, that we are only committing ourself to keep calling raises down if the spade or a straightening card hits. Conventional wisdom is to pump it up with top set and slow down if we get scared, but im beginning to disagree in this situation. Button has shown strength, and hes a solid player willing to make this raise with a two way draw or maybe two pair, we just dont know. We learn nothing by raising, it only costs money. Why not pull and gaurantee that stud comes along for the entire ride? The big streets are next, and thats where the money is anyways... Id rather be locked up having two calling my raises than just one player casually calling and not RRing me. Im now in a position to dictate the action, but I want the button to think that he's dictating the action, so i can get more out of him on the big streets. I decide to pull, and peel one off, hoping for th eboard to pair a spade. I think pulling here is right, and by doing so, I appear very, very weak. the fact that I bet out and didnt RR on a button raise is very problematic for the button, but he doesnt have the ability to know this. I dont think he realizes what i am doing, and stud is oblvious.

We call the raise of $10, and stud of course, obliges another small bet.

Pot size is now $130, or 12 smal bets or 6.5 BB.

Turn: Qs.

Well, thats probably the worst possible card for us to see now.

We are first to act, and decide to keep playing passive, since that was a scare card. check.

stud checks, button wastes no time betting. If stud wasnt in this hand, id checkraise here, but i cannot.

We have no option but to call. stud of course calls.

Pot size is now 9.5 BB

6/19/2006 1:03:06 PM

River is the Qh.

Bing. Now it is time to change gears comepletely, and bring out the pushing.

We lead out for a bet. stud calls.
Button RR to 2 bets.

Now, due to the action in the hand, we are 90% sure hes jsut betting his flush/straight, and hope he didnt hit a running FH with 2pr or quads.
resume pushing to run the action up in the big streets. We 3-bet,

And stud comes along calling 2 BB cold. (loved that guy)

Button caps. I know for sure know by his disgusted look hes only on the flush.

I call, stud calls.

final pot: 21.5 BB for $430.


We table our FH, stud shows A9o (yeah, wow), button shows the flush.

Even though the button thought he was bad beated or whatever, he had no idea he was being led into costing himself the bets on the end. Our actions by pulling with a relative monster on a vulnerable board and then going slow when we thought we were beat, allowed him to think that he had complete control of the action. Our pull on the flop, when the bets were small, led him into investing at least 3 more BB on the end that he shouldnt have. We disguised our hand enough by pulling in order to gain more money.

Even if we dont fill up on the end here, we have enough hand equity and have controlled the aciton enough to justify profitably check calling the buttons inevitable river bet on any non-spade river.

Now, identify the difference between this and slowplaying a hand. In slow playing you are wanting them to catch up. In pulling, you are not, you are just wanting them to get committed to a hand in order to pay you off.

I am becomming to think that plays like this, could be a very valuable key in keeping your opponents completely out of touch with how you are playing and putting you on a range. A solid player doesnt try to put you on a specific hand, but rather on a range of hands and associates the different possibilities of you being on those ranges. IF you have your table thinking your range could be anything from a set to no pair, it is very advantageous for your position.

Knowing when to push in early position with a marginal hand is also a very important concept.

Usually pushing in lo8 is associated with early position reraises on the flop. In omaha its usually utilized as more of a promo raise than anything, which is another interesting concept id like to officially involve more in my limit hold'em game. Many times, esp. in no limit holdem, players use an unintentional promo raise in order to "find out where we stand." This is usually overused, missused, and generally a bad play in shallow loose passive games.

What is a promo raise that you keep talking about?

A promo raise by definition is a riase used in order to attempt to isolate against a player with a weakish hand that you feel may be best against the initial raiser, but is very vulnerable due to the texture of the board. It is key when you are pushing the action from early position. You develop control of the rest of the hand, and take advantage of the flop bets being on the cheap streets.

A classic omaha example would be that of a Queen high flush draw reraising from early position with a little bit else to go along to get the king high flush draw to fold from late position. Or, a double promo raise would be a situation where we have something like A34K in early position with a flop of 4KJ... EP raises, we reraise in order to get A2xx, QTxx, etc to fold out and protect our marginal holdings against the early raiser. We have enough equity in the hand to go along for the ride, but want our backdoor draw to be live, even if it is non-nut. in general, if the initial raiser is the only caller, they check to you on the turn, and the hand will play itself out.

Where can we use this in limit hold'em?

Well, lets use the same table as described above as an example.

Two hands with the same villian, the lady to our right who compltely overvalues her hands.

She open riases UTG,
We cold call 2 bets with QcJc. (we are going to try and exploit some of her weaknesses, and shes been running over the table lately. Many of the others will come along due to the fact that shes been winning a whole lot of pots, and they want their money back. ahah)
5 callers, others are irrelavent, as we'll see.

7 way action for 14 small bets in the pot.

Flop comes 2c Jh Ks

sb/bb check, she fires out. just as we expected.

What is our play here? Since its limit, well, we have three options.

1.) Folding. Probably not a bad idea, but getting 15:1 with 2nd pair and a backdoor draw, unlikely.
2.) Calling. The worst possible choice. You learn nothing, you tell them nothing, you invite the rest of the table to come along with your mediocre holding.. Even making 2 pair here would be bad, since you have no idea if someone is calling with a gutter. Calling is a horrid idea, but seems to be about standard by most of the play ive read on here, and seen in person.
3.) Raise. To me, this seemed like a prime spot to make a promo raise. Every single time she has riased preflop, she has come out with a bet on the flop. lets see how she reacts to a RR. So i 2 bet, and the rest of the table folded (this was acutally sort of surprising).

She flat calls, and seems to be irritated. we can eliminate AK.

She says "go ahead," before the turn comes out

Turn is a 3c.

Of course we bet. she calls.

River is a Th.

She check/calls our bet with ATo.

Our raise did many things in this hand, by investing an extra small bet, we pushed out any holdings of AQ, Q9, any weak king, and probably if anyone paired their jack. We also took control of the hand, and identified exactly what she had. We knew AQ/AT. The river action eliminated one of these. We also bought a free card if we wanted it, but since we picked up the other draw, theres no need for a free card, our hand is strong enough. I dont think she was confident enuogh to c/r the river with AQ. she would have bet out, and we would have had to fold.

hopefully you see the value in making plays like these in a game such as the ones i described.

From early position in limit holdem, control of the action is the most important aspect of your entire play. incorporating conecpts of pushing and pulling with proper promo-raises seem to be a really interesting idea that ive been trying to formulate over the course of my driving the last two days.

Would love to hear any comments, or replies.

6/19/2006 1:03:34 PM

why did neteller have to go down while im awaiting a large withdrawl that is preventing me from playing the rest of the day?

ive got nothing else to do

6/19/2006 3:02:29 PM

what a donk

6/19/2006 3:08:21 PM

basically.


Guess i can go about writing up the three interesting hands i saw with that asain kid.

6/19/2006 3:10:28 PM

Hey guys...nice post Ben.

6/19/2006 3:12:50 PM

^^ boobytwaps

[Edited on June 19, 2006 at 3:13 PM. Reason : .]

6/19/2006 3:12:58 PM

Hand 1, he had just sat down.

im utg and fold.

guy to my left is the guy who goes on monkey tilt, this hand being the primary factor.

mokey raises, asian cold calls.

flop is 2h2s5h

monkey bets, asain calls, button raises, monkey RR, asain cold calls. button calls.

turn is a black 7.

monkey bets, asaian calls, button RR, monkey RR, asain cold calls, button calls.

river is a black T.

monkey bets, asian RR, button calls, monkey RR, asain 4bets, button folds, monkey calls.

monkey shows KdKc,

asian shows 2d5d.


ehehe


very trickily played flopped boad against obv. big pair.




Other hand has me in it.

Im mixing it up a bit, and they havent seen me show down a hand where i raised preflop other than AK/AQ/JJ, its early.

i open raise with 5c7c utg.

monkey folds, asian 3bets.
button calls,
lady to my right in the bb calls.
so of course i call.

flop comes Jd 4h 6c.

here we go.

sb checks, i check, asian bets, button folds, sb raises, i cold call, asian calls.

turn is the 8d. lady bets, i raise, asian and lady call.

both looking at me strangely, wondering what the fuck the 8 helped with something i raised UTG with.

river is the Ks.

lady checks, i bet, asian JUST CALLS., lady calls.

lady has AJ, asian has KK, before i flip my cards, he asks what suit my 57 was. i show the straight.

How he didnt RR me on the end there, is sick.

ahaha



another hand i limp with A9o, asain raises.. (as he does about 30% of hands)
i call after like 4 cold callers.

flop is 935 rainbow.

i check call the asians c-bet, everyone else folded.

turn is a T

i check call

river is the A. w00t, his AK just hit, fireworks.

i check, he checks behind and says "show me the A9", and flips his AK over.

I asked why he didnt bet it when he hit his hand, and he said he knew i had A9, and knew he was only made hand would be the king. dammit.

6/19/2006 3:19:29 PM

asian say i wed u like brook

6/19/2006 3:41:30 PM

I heard the Cabin was raided 2 hours ago....anybody else hear this?

Rumor has it cops said to tell all your friends they are cracking down they will see you at the next game.......

[Edited on June 19, 2006 at 5:07 PM. Reason : ]

6/19/2006 5:07:22 PM

aha cops

sounds like one of the cabin morons got upset and told

6/19/2006 5:17:02 PM

i think i am skipping pkr for awhile.

6/19/2006 5:17:50 PM

me too

6/19/2006 5:26:50 PM

wtf is the cabin.

i was gonna go to pkr tonight too, guess not now.

6/19/2006 5:30:21 PM

[Edited on June 19, 2006 at 5:31 PM. Reason : quinline told Tom....tom told us...]

[Edited on June 19, 2006 at 5:39 PM. Reason : ]

6/19/2006 5:31:22 PM

answer my question, or pm me

[Edited on June 19, 2006 at 5:34 PM. Reason : e]

6/19/2006 5:34:32 PM

yea lemme know

send me a pm

6/19/2006 5:36:59 PM

.................


[Edited on June 19, 2006 at 11:06 PM. Reason : anyone hear anything new?]

6/19/2006 11:03:29 PM

ok so.'

theres really no point in posting serious conceptual posts in this thread.


i may be drunk, buta i see whats up.


[guess ill save my thoguts for myself]

6/20/2006 2:39:16 AM

I enjoyed reading 'em... not sure one person's enough for the effort though!

6/20/2006 7:38:42 AM

I just got through reading them and I thought they were really good. I liked how you put into words some of the things I have learned playing lhe. The part you said about being in complete control even when they think they are in control is so true. Great info!

Also, remind me not sit down with asian!

6/20/2006 3:19:21 PM

we should all write a book

poker = $ these days

who knows

6/20/2006 3:32:00 PM

its a good idea.

there isnt a single lo8 book (specifically only lo8) worth a damn

6/20/2006 3:32:58 PM

my uncle has written a few books and may have a connection with a publisher

I wouldnt mind writing a money management section. I really think that is one of the most important things. Other than Ace on the River, no other book adequately addresses it



[Edited on June 20, 2006 at 3:37 PM. Reason : idk if the publisher is good or anything]

6/20/2006 3:34:00 PM

the young players' supersystem

6/20/2006 4:04:32 PM

Poker 101: The college student's guide to all things poker.

6/20/2006 4:50:04 PM

Supposedly WRAL (CBS) is reporting about a poker raid in North Raleigh at 11PM tonight...

6/20/2006 10:22:50 PM

it is probably that 5/10 game

wtf cops

6/20/2006 11:28:56 PM

Virgil Elliot on Tar Heel Road is what the news said. Apparently they picked up $40k and drugs.

6/20/2006 11:48:08 PM

great, now they are going to associate drugs with home games

6/20/2006 11:49:09 PM

if it was a 5/10 game,

40k is quite a bit of cash.



btw, taking shots sucks when it doesnt work out. ahah

6/21/2006 3:58:13 AM

I was actually surprised it was only 40K they took. While they may only have 10-20K in play at the table...10 people with a 1-2k buy in........there's no telling how much each person is sitting with in their pockets and how much the house had there as well.

6/21/2006 9:04:30 AM

is there an article about this online? i cant find it anywhere.

6/21/2006 9:41:00 AM

What do cops do with all the cash they take????


They use it to juice the pots in their own poker games of course.

6/21/2006 10:05:11 AM

http://www.wral.com/news/9403387/detail.html

6/21/2006 10:20:52 AM

Quote :

"RALEIGH, N.C. -- A two-month investigation paid off for investigators in Raleigh. Authorities confiscated more than $40,000 in cash after breaking up an illegal poker game in Raleigh. They also found gambling equipment and drugs inside a house on Tarheel Club Road. Authorities charged the homeowner, 44-year-old Vergil Allen Elliott. Fourteen others were issued Class 2 misdemeanors for misdemeanor gambling."

what the fuck, a two month investigation for 14 class 2 misdemeanors?

6/21/2006 12:47:02 PM