I declared this month SNG month. I certainly took the most risk I have ever taken playing SNGs, but it didn’t bode particularly well for me. I played in a lot of $5600 games where I played either new players who played odd but were actually pretty good at poker. I still felt like I had an edge in those games but the results didn’t show.

My first few years of poker I focused purely on 6 max texas hold’em and heads up cash. These past two year I branched out in to CAP games (for those not familiar with Full Tilt these games are where no matter your stacksize, 30bbs is all in) and heads up SNG’s. With both, I am decent winner. I just started playing some of the 20-50bb games and seeing if they may be worth looking into. I realize that most of the top players seem to prefer 100bb poker, not many innovative thinkers left for the short buy in games.

That theory certainly held true. I have lost a small amount playing the 5/10 game the past week but overall I see a weak overall strategy from many of the regs and a lot of fish too. I’m going to try to put in a 100k hands over the next 30 days at the games and seeing what kind of winnings I can put up. Hopefully they’ll be pretty good of the get go, and I’ll have a new good game to choose from.

It looks as though we were hacked by some rogue hacker who had too much time on his hands. He seems to have gotten many websites who use our same host. So if you saw some weird webpage while trying to visit our blog, this is why.

We’ve fixed the problem for now, but who knows whether he’ll come back to pester us some more. For now, our blog is back.

Sorry about the brief problem,

Max

I suppose that catching bluffs is the sexiest move in poker. It can also be the stupidest when you are wrong, which I am a lot. The problem is that being good at catching bluffs isn’t about making the biggest calls, it is about folding when you have the worst hand and calling when you have the best hand. If your a total station your bound to catch a bluff, but your not going to make a lot of money.

When deciding to make a hero call or not, I use three factors: Possibilities, Logic, and Emotions.

1. Possibilities: Is there actually a hand he could have gotten to this point, where he is betting or raising, that is not a nut hand? For example, you are OOP in a 3bet pot (heads up) and cbet a K72 rainbow board. Your opponent calls. Turn comes a 3. You check and he bets. In this situation, the only way your opponent is bluffing is if he decided to call the flop with a total air hand with the intention to take the pot down on the turn or river,  or if he decided to turn his hand into a bluff. Both are unlikely scenarios. On the other hand, change the board to T95 two spades and you have a much different story. Now there are many hands he could call the flop with, KQ KJ QJ 87 to name a few, that would call on the flop.

2. Logic: Is there logic present that he could use that would make him decide to bluff? And is that logic more compelling or evident than the logic not to bluff? Another example, say you have called a open OOP, again heads up. The flop comes J86. You check, he cbets, and you call. The turn comes a King. You check and he bets. Because there are very few hands in your range that improve with the turn king, and some hands in his that a king improves, this card makes logical sense for him to bluff on (among many, many other reasons). On the other hand, in the same situation if the flop comes AT8 rainbow and the turn comes a T, the only logic I could see for him to use to make him decide to bluff is that he has a good draw, something that isn’t plentiful in his wide range, or that he feels I would lead the turn if I spiked trip tens, or maybe that I would fold an Ace, weak draw, or an 8 to a turn bet. Even though the logic is present, I would tend to not make a hero call in this spot because this logic is not as compelling as the logic that the turn card is good for my range and nearly irrelevant to his.

3. Emotions: Would his likely emotions sway him to bluff? This may seem hard to figure out, but it is something that can be grasped. Winning, for example, could make someone feel confident, disregard money more, and cause them to decide to bluff. Emotions can often be outweighed by strong logic. I may feel like total shit after I lose 4 buy ins in 5 minutes but that probably won’t cause me to bet that Ten turn on the AT8 board if I’m in position. It may however cause me to bluff when my logic is foggy. Fourbetting preflop is a great example. Most people do not have set rules on what hands they will 4bet as a bluff. You could 4bet bluff with J4s and it could very well be a good bluff. The logic is unclear. 4betting as a bluff at any given time vs most players could be good. So if you are feeling like someone is 3betting you constantly, you have lost a lot of money, and you haven’t fourbet in awhile, 93s looks as good of a candidate as any.

Sometimes, using these factors I can be absolutely sure with what seems like near 100% certainty that my opponent is bluffing. The funny thing in poker that much of the time you only have to be 30% sure to make a call correctly. And we are faced with this problem constantly in poker, because 99% of the time we don’t have the type of hand we are willing to get all in. Hopefully, this post will help turn this problem into a good situation.

5 ways situations where you mess up good pot odds:

1) You’re playing in a hu sng, the blinds are 25/50 with 1200 effective stacks and your opponent, who’s opening about 2/3 of buttons, minraises to 100. You have KT. You know shoving KT shows a small EV. This does not mean you should shove! Calling here, especially given the great pot odds, has a much better expectation, almost regardless of how your opponent plays post. If he’s a weak player post, it’s an even better call.

2) Same situation, you call KT and take it post flop. You do not, I repeat, do not try to win every pot. You had 3:1 pot odds post flop, the adjustment to these odds is to take them. Play a wide range and be patient and wait for good spots. You don’t need to win that much.

3) You’re facing a player who loves the small bet. He like min cbetting, small thin river bets, and triple barreling small. I see so many players here trying to make plays at these bets, trying to c/r bluff a lot. I think the reason for this is players feel that if they call, his opponent will know he’s weak and beat him. But what his opponent is really doing is a) Giving you really good pot odds in every pot and b) Giving you an opportunity to build a pot every hand c) Giving you an opportunity to get big bets in on the river by c/ring him. The correct counter to this strategy is take your pot odds with draws and bad hands, c/r good hands for value, occasionally slowplay for balance, and very very occasionally c/r bluff.

4) You’re facing a loose and aggressive player who 3bets tons. However, he plays extremely tricky and 3bets to only twice your raise most of the time. Again, the correct strategy is here is to take your pot odds. 4bet your good hands, call preflop with a wide range, and don’t try to win every pot. But instead, many players try to 4bet bluff here and just end up building really big pots with a terrible hand.

5) Someone minbets and you’re oop with a weak hand. Unless you’re pretty certain that you can get this player to fold, you’d have to give a pretty good argument to pass up 6:1 or 8:1 pot odds. Even an over card or a runner runner fd may be enough to call here.

I absolutely despise players when I see them blatantly mishandling situations with good pot odds. Don’t make me have to despise you.

Sadly, my life in Washington DC is over (for now). It was a good 4 years, and I’m proud to say I know the area very well now. And with knowing the area, I also know the good food. While I did occasionally go to some very upscale restaurants, my favorites were always the cheaper  kind with amazing food. For all you readers who live or are going to travel to the DC area, here are 5 places you cannot miss.

5. Otello: I happened to go to this place when I found myself in Dupont Circle with two friends after, for some unexplicaple reason, Buca de Bepo had a 45 minute wait. We wanted Italian so we went to this small Italian place a half mile away. It was a really pleasant surprise. The food was absolutely amazing. Everything was made from scratch, which seems to make Italian food that much better. I recommend the meatball ravioli.

4. A. Litteri Inc.: This place is a gem found in the middle of a grimey looking old meat packing and wholesaler square. When you see the surrounding area you’ll probably want to turn around, but you shouldn’t. It’s an Italian grocery store that sells subs at the deli, and damn are those subs good. So good that there is an hour wait during lunch time, so go during odd hours. You simply fill out a sheet with your choice of meat and toppings. The Chicken Parmesan is crazy good.

3. Cava Mezze: A great Greek tapas place. Not too fancy and simply superb food. In an area with other great restaurants such as Matchbox, a great pizza place. I’d recommend the spanikopta, meatballs, and lamb sliders.

2. Rasika: I know a lot of people do not like Indian food, but I personally love it. Believe me when I say this is the best Indian restaurant I have ever been to, and very well could be one of the top Indian restaurants in America. It’s very spicy, but not so much that it hurts the experience. The palak chaat is unworldly; it’s fried spinich that has crispyness you would never expect. The only downside for Indian food fans: No samosas .

1. Parkway Deli: Growing up in DC, I went here with my parents and ordered a grilled cheese everytime I went. It was bomb. But there is way more to Parkway than grilled cheese. It is a New York quality Jewish Deli in the DC area. Yes, it isn’t diet food, but if you are looking to get painfully full go here. My personal favorite dishes: Crabcake Sandwich, Hot Open Face Turkey Sandwich, Lox and Bagels, and the Matzah Ball Soup. I kid you not, I have ordered all these things for myself in one sitting.

Don’t miss these places when you travel to DC.

Cool, well written, article done by a sportswriter in the local newspaper in our hometown of Fairfield, IA. It’s fun to see yourself in the paper, even if it’s the newspaper of an Iowa town of only 10,000 people.

I want to preface this post by saying that, in poker, nothing is absolute. I should probably say the word “probably” more throughout this post but since that’s pesky and is technically bad writing I’m going to assume you know that when I imply that you should “always” do something, that I don’t mean it.

If you have talked to any great poker player, or read a poker forum, you have probably heard the phrase, “Plan your hand.” It’s sound advice that seems simple and easy to apply, but many players don’t apply it correctly. They plan out how they’re going to play if so-and-so bets, or if he checks, or raises, or whatever, but they don’t take into consideration how likely it is that someone is going to do any of those and how that changes what you should do right now. In this post I’m going to outline situations where the potential for future betting should change your approach to the hand, the math behind it, and a few tips on what typical, thinking poker players are likely to do.

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