One last hurrah
Well...that was a short break. :) I was surprised today to find that Momz decided to make a little trip to Atlantic City, so what's a son to do? Hang out with her at the casino and play poker, that's what. :) I went back to rock mode today for the most part, so there's not a lot that's interesting to take away from the session, except for one hand that really sticks out. I find it pretty interesting in and of itself, but it also has the added bonus of calling back to something I blogged about recently, so it came at a pretty opportune time. It goes a little something like this...

I'd been playing at this table for a little while by the time this hand rolled around, so I'd already established a pretty tight image. I won a lot of small pots uncontested, and any time I'd shown down (mostly in the process of busting an all-in short stack), I'd had both decent starters and a decent hand, so for the most part no one was getting out of line with me. This is, as per the norm these days, 1/2 NLHE. It started with UTG opening with a raise to 5.

This was very strange right off the bat. Firstly, standard raise at the table was like 10 to 12. Another popular opening was 7, but it was widely regarded as nothing but a sweetener, as you could expect 6- or 7-way action with that kind of nonsense. More notably, though, it was out of character for this particular player, too, who would normally bring it in for 12, whether that was a hand that merited a raise or not. (That is...he's brought it in for 12 with decent pairs, but also brought it in for 12 with 65 suited. I remember that one vividly because he flopped a straight with it and stacked somebody with pocket queens. ;) ) So I really didn't know what to make of that opening bet, but whatever. Even more strangely, action folded around to me (I guess other people found it as suspicious as I did), and I'm in mid-late position somewhere and look down at AK suited in diamonds. I make it 15 to go, it folds around, UTG calls, and he and I are heads-up.

The flop comes K54 rainbow. He checks, I bet 15. He calls. So far, so good. Turn comes a second 5 (also a second spade, matching the king). UTG checks, and I make it 25. He check-raises me to 75 total, and leaves himself with about 50 behind (I've got a pretty big stack -- 500 and change.) Action is to me. UTG looks really relaxed, which is pretty in-character. I go deep, deep in the tank.

Here's the thing. My gut says I'm no good. I really, really want to be good, but my instincts say no. But this is a really tough decision for me.

First, let's tackle pot odds. Unless he's got complete air (which I don't believe for a second, by the way), I know that if I call, I'm playing for the rest of his stack, which means I fold or jam in this spot. Lets look at the situation. After my turn bet and his check-raise, the pot holds about 160. If I play for the rest of his stack, that's 100 more I have to put in the middle and 50 more he puts in, so I'm effectively getting 210 to 100, or just over 2 to 1. Simple enough.

So what's his range? I feel it's really narrow in this spot. I don't put him on any kind of bluff, simply because he's made a raise that commits him to the pot, but he didn't jam. I know that's not a completely reliable signal, but from this guy, I believe it. He's a thinker. I also don't put him on a semi-bluff. A check-raise semi-bluff just isn't this guy's style, so far as I've seen. He's made some really crazy call-downs, actually, but rarely was he on the aggressive end of crazy moves. So I give him a made hand.

Seriously...the weakest hand I can put him on in this spot is AK. My gut is screaming to me that he has AA. I can just taste it. In a sick-ass universe, he has KK. Equally sick: 55 (and frighteningly appropos to a 5 dollar opening bet, by the way). Slightly less sick but still sick: 44. I honestly can't put him on some random holding with a 5, as I don't see him calling the flop bet. Bringing up the rear (so much so that I didn't think of it until now, actually), maybe he's got 54.

Now. All those hands are really unlikely. But here's the thing: aside from AK, his whole range beats me. And if he isn't beating me, we're chopping. Sound familiar?

Yeah...I ran into this shit last time. Chop or lose...do you call? Remember those pot odds? 2 to 1, right? Not so great-looking now, are they. If I call a chopping hand, I'm getting a whopping even money on my bet. All the rest are losers, and I light an extra hundred bucks on fire for no apparent reason.

My consciousness resurfaces at the table, and I know I've thought about it all I can. I make a speech how this is a bizarre laydown for me, but I have to do it. I show my AK, and I toss it in the muck. He fiddles with his cards a bit, and is wavering on whether to show. Eventually he does: AsKc. I folded the chop.

You know what else? I actually felt good about it. Apparently, too, so did a couple of my fellow players. The guy to my right, who I just met at that session, but who had shown himself to be a really good player, backed me up, saying it was a good laydown. A regular I see a lot in the room told me, "Damn. It takes a really good poker player to make that fold." I joked about it, saying how it looks like I should have called, but deep inside, I felt like I did right. Honestly, at the end of the day, it was that tiny pre-flop raise that did it. I felt that was either a speculative hand or a monster. What it didn't say to me was AK. Turns out I was wrong, but hey. :)

To throw some math at it, let's pare down the range and say he could only have AK or AA, assuming that if he had any of the stronger holdings I considered, he would have slowplayed the turn. There's three unseen aces out there, and two unseen kings. Going solely by card distribution, he's got three ways to hold AA and six ways to hold AK. So 1/3 of the time I'm losing, and 2/3 of the time I'm chopping. Remember my pot odds of 2 to 1? Amazingly, this setup gives me a -EV of a third of the action, so about -$33 EV for me to make that jam against that range. Crazy, right? Now even better: for every hand I add to his range that beats me, though all are crazy unlikely, my EV goes down even more! Again, by card distribution, he's got one way to hold KK, one way to hold 55, and three ways to hold 44. If I add all those to the range, my EV drops to around -$57.

The only way for me to swing my EV back up is to give him holdings that I could beat. The only thing I'd really want to see there is, say, QQ or some sub-king pocket pair like that. A decent semi-bluffing hand really jumps his pot equity up (76 of spades, anybody?). All things considered, I really don't like my spot there. And regardless, that's all just wishful thinking anyway. I really couldn't put him on anything but a made hand in that spot.

Also keep in mind, faithful readers, that I didn't run through any of this math while I was at the table. Really the only coherent thing running through my head at this point was, "Chop or lose...chop or lose...chop or lose..." So in that sense, I feel this blog is helping me out already, just by keeping topics like that in my head. :) The results may not support it, but I genuinely feel I (finally) made the right decision in that situation. And my half-baked card frequency example above shows that I netted the Sklansky Dollars to prove it.

But that's not what's exciting for you guys. What's exciting for you guys is the question I pose to you now: What, if anything, should I have done differently? I already have an idea in mind, and it will, more than likely, be the topic of the next post. But first I'd like to see what thoughts you guys have. Or even if anybody's reading any more. ;) In any case, really time for that break now. :) Peace!

[EDIT: I totally forgot to mention: I rocked this session and booked a nice win. My devastating loss from yesterday is all but forgotten. Between last night's mini-comeback and today's win, I walk away from the last two days with a negligible dip in the bankroll, as opposed to the wild swing it used to be. Variance is as variance does.]