interfacelab

I Thought a Week of Poker in Vegas Would Cure Me

I fell in love today.

Her name is 2/5 No Limit Hold ‘Em and she is beautiful. I had always been sheepish around her. Flirtive glances here and there; always considering her beauty from afar. I’d often daydream of the time when we’d finally meet, but - to be honest - I always thought I wasn’t good enough for her. I always thought she required more than I could give. She also seemed a little bit like a gold digger, and I wasn’t sure my ATM card could carry the weight.

David knows her well. He had been riding her ragged for years, and gave her nothing but the highest accolades and compliments. “Sensational from start to finish”, he’d tell me. “Top notch.”

In a scene out of a Rocky movie - replacing Rocky with a slightly paunchy middle aged guy and the crotchety old trainer with an equally paunchy Korean guy with headlight sized sunglasses - David hyped me up with some pre-game pep talk. “You’re good enough!”, he exclaimed. “You just have to believe you are good enough!”

I conceded to let him introduce us. I was shy at first, intimidated almost. But then she gave me a gift in the form of a small stack of red, lime green and blue casino chips. I suddenly knew that I was going to be alright. And I was.

Stepping Up to the Plate

The real story is that we decided to check out the room at Caesar’s Palace. David and I agreed that we’d play the same table to help each other analyze our plays and pointing out each others tells. He told me the 2/5 game was a way better game than 1/2 because more people play it as it should be played. You are way less likely to deal with Bachelor Party Guy at the 2/5 table. I have a semi-aggressive style that he said would be a good match. So I thought I’d give it a spin and see how it went.

We drop into a 2/5 table and are seated with four professionals, one of which was a european WPT title holder. Ok, so I’m totally intimidated at this point? A few hands pass around and David ends up making a mistake on one pot that costs him his initial stack. He rebuys and then asks for a table switch, leaving me alone with these sharks. The intensity of the situation caused my nuts to climb into my throat. My heart was totally rocking out, blood rushing to my head, burning palms.

The obvious thing to do is layback and observe the action, so I do just that. I was a little frustrated at first because I felt like there is no way I could integrate myself with this table in such a way as to get respect. I was also seated in the 9 seat (the seat second from the dealer) which sucks for someone who’s game is largely based on being as social as possible with everyone at the table. I requested a seat change to 5 (the middle) which is prime real estate as far as I’m concerned. I’m within conversation distance of everyone and I have a great view of the entire board. I can also consider action in my peripheral vision while I’m laying out a bet. Home game players tend to riffle chips as a tell and you can catch that from the side once you’ve put someone on that particular tell. They think it represents skill, a statement that they’ve been playing the game for a long time. Also, how they riffle is specific to the invidiual, some people spin up with monsters or some spin up on bluffs. The guys that do the middle chip spin outs in both hands are corny by the way and the only respect I pay them is that they know how to watch videos on youtube. Really, the dual chip spin out is douchey.

So I finally get into seat 5 and I immediately make buddies with the guy on my left. To my right is the female professional, so I’m thankful I’m following her action to save on some chips. In the 2 seat is a girl that David recognized from Seattle, so I used that to lead into conversation. The great thing about her sitting in the 2 seat is that by talking across the table to her, you can hook others into the conversation but always be leary of the guy who never talks. The guy in the 4 seat never said a word and was always fixated on the flop, in or out of a hand. I avoided as many pots with him as I could.

I had not really considered what to do if there was a strong personality already running the table. The guy in the 1 seat was a stand-up comedian and a solid player, so it’d be fruitless to try to compete with that. I decided it would be best to play more early pots with him to get some respect and to get on his good side. In this situation it’s good to rally other players into a team to work on the weaker stacks and generally try to avoid each other. Also, I’m folding premiums at this point because I don’t have any image with these cats. I’ve decided to use the next two hours to integrate into the table and make some friends, so I’m not going crazy and have no aims to win monster pots. In fact, at one point I folded AK in the button because people didn’t have enough information on me and most certainly would catch me down in a bad situation. Here it’s important that when you are receiving information from other players that you are giving information to other players, even if that information is a stone cold lie. At one point I was talking up that I spent several years as a dealer in some big NYC clubs. I’m not here to foster deep meaning relationships, so I’ve got no problems lying straight faced to them to build up my image.

I make some bad plays on purpose and am essentially calling the comedian running the table when I have a chance. We start joking that I’m a calling station, so I play this up, making “choo choo” sounds when I call or telling him that “the train has arrived at the calling station.”

This works like a charm and once I’ve beaten him in a few pots we start to work together on the weaker stacks. I can’t stress enough how important it is for my play to have team building going on. You need to make yourself a resident and neighbor at the table. This allows you to start sneaking in semi-bluffs and bluffs. I was OK with getting caught in some bluffs too, to make my play seem slightly unpredictable - but never enough to make it look like I didn’t know what I was doing. At this level you need to represent that you have the chops and the balls to play along. Making small semi-bluffs and congenially giving up pots when you are caught can be a good start in that regard. Trying to play the table dunce might work in 1/2, but your better off with a strong image at this bigger level because you want people to play a predicatable game with you. They are only going to do that if they think you are a strong, seasoned player.

What really pushed me into a solid session of play was a picture perfect play of AK. I get dealt AK in the small blind, limpers come around to me so I make a pre-flop raise of 35 and get called by one guy. I hate AK post-flop, so I was hoping just to scoop up the pre-flop action and call it a hand. One caller I can live with, so we go to the flop and K-K-3 gets dropped. In 2/5 you need to protect your trips so I make a 100 bet into the pot and the guy calls me. Now it’s important to note that this guy had just sat down at the table and was making a huge mistake. It’s critical in the first few hours of play NOT to make moves unless you are 100% certain you are going to get away with it, and only then make your moves on small pots so it’s not expensive to get caught. I figured he had trips, and I had him out kicked so I was feeling confident I was going to take this down. The guy calls me and the turn drops me an ace giving me the boat - kings full of aces. I check to my caller and he makes a $100 bet. I promptly go all-in. I had an inkling that he might call, but at this point I’m happy with the value I’ve gotten from the hand considering how early in the session it was. Low and behold he calls me and I’ve double up my stack to around 700. To be fair, he flopped a boat, holding K3 in the pocket, but he should have been clued in that I was holding AK by my pre-flop raise and post-flop action. Maybe he had me on AA, but even then you know I’m now aces full. To put me on anything else was a mistake. After that beat, he promptly requested a table change and I was glad that he got it because he’s not going to be an action player after losing a monster pot like that. He just got burnt and is going to play tight as a whistle. You don’t want these guys on your table. Once you are in the zone and have your team behind you, you want action to come to the table to build up your stack. He wasn’t going to give it, so good riddance to him.

Not 30 minutes later, some serious action stumbles up to our table. Two drunk guys plop down in the 9 and 10 seat. Initially, their action turned the game into a 1-2 game, it was obvious the drunks that landed in the 9 and 10 seats hadn’t any inkling on how to play. Specifically the moron in the 10 seat. He was raising a ruckus from the get go and let some information slide that he’s been kicked out of the Caesar’s poker room on multiple occasions for being too drunk. I feel bad for alcoholics, but I also have a mild disdain for them. It’s part of the reason I rarely drink ever. If I was more moralistic I’d feel bad taking chips off them, but in other ways I feel like I’m doing him a favor by quickening his descent to rock bottom.

9 seat, a rough looking asian kid that didn’t broadcast any particular ability to play makes some stupid runner runner hits and triples up his stack almost immediately. For him, he should have pushed off the table 15 minutes later and called it a night because he now has a huge target painted on his forehead. Everyone is mocking him, the comedian has nicknamed him “the double gut” for “his big belly and his massive suck outs”. He should have racked up and walkked away because all of us have the patience to extract those chips back when the time is right. When you tell yourself that you are planning to play a 10+ hour session, it’s much easier to be patient with setting your traps and waiting for the opportune time to get in a hand where you can make a dent on the weak stacks. His table awareness was so weak he hadn’t any idea that we were waiting to feed.

10 seat, the drunk, had no idea how to play. Raising all in pre-flop with AA is moronic because you aren’t maximizing the value of your hand. Make a nice raise, for sure, but try to get one caller. Don’t be afraid to ditch those aces either if the flop doesn’t come your way unless you have the cahones to bluff the shit out of the pot, but be wary that insightful players have you pegged on AA already so those bluffs might get called. A couple of times I’m involved in pots with him and he tries to put me on tilt by calling for a clock on me to make a decision, or telling me that I should fold. I’m the wrong dude to pull that shit with because I’m willing to spend money to make money and have no qualms putting in bets that are going to shut you up and make you think about what to do next. Not being married to your stack is hugely liberating in these situations. It also helps to remind him that I’m from NYC and he’ll have to try harder to put me on tilt. In fact, that’s really a prime time to pull out the passive aggression and flip the situation around so you put him on tilt. I ask him how well the alcohol is fueling his game, reminding him that he’s a drunk which seems to be a sore spot. When he makes a bad play and shows down crap hands, laugh at them and tell them they are good players. Do what you can to slide the bamboo shoots beneath the fingernails, but don’t be overtly aggressive about it. Here and there give the trash talking some zing, but use it minimally and sparingly otherwise your going to look like a big jerk just like him. It’s important that people like you on the table, it’s critical that a few even adore you. But the drunks, sock it to them and make sure you get some of the team to laugh with you when you mock them in a “good natured” passive aggressive way.

To make a long story short, the rest of the session was simply amazing. My level of play was through the roof, mostly because of the level of people I was playing with and partially because I applied what I had learned in the 13 hours prior about socializing the game and working that to your advantage. I was hitting a run of cards for sure, but I was also making some brilliant plays and put my aggressive semi-bluffing to work to make me some money.

A note about semi-bluffs and bluffing. One thing that I do when I’m on a semi-bluff is that I visualize that I’m holding pocket AA’s or whatever the nuts for the board might be. Forget that I’m holding 8-2 offsuit, I convince myself that I’m holding the nuts and bet at it like I have it. When I do this, my hesitation on betting lessens and I portray strength through nice sized bets that make it damn near impossible for people to put me on any other hand than the nuts. I have to be careful, I don’t want to recklessly commit my stack, so I hold off on the bluffing until integration with the table is complete and I have enough information on everyone to be sure of my bluffs. It’s OK to get caught, you want to get caught once in awhile so that people know you can do it - which makes it harder to put you on a hand and gives you mad respect. That you can sit and bluff at 4 professionals and laugh about it when you get caught says volumes with how comfortable you are with your play. The pro’s will pick up on this and give you leeway in the next few pots.

I would say that you never want to bluff chasers. The ROI is slim because they almost always call, forcing you to slap some weight into your bets that puts your chips at risk for a session ruining suck out. Bluff the pro’s and let the chasers see it. Once you’ve hit a bluff and taken down the pot, show it only once in a blue moon, but make sure you engage those chasers in conversation after you show down your bluff so that it sits in their heads that you have that capability. Do this a few times and the chasers will start to be afraid of you and you can start picking off their stack with semi-bluffs or huge overbets.

I Can Never Go Back

Playing 2/5 has ruined 1/2 for me. I almost feel like it’s ruined my home game for me too. When we play Empty Pockets, I almost always have bad runs lately because of two factors that I’ve just now figured out. The first factor is that I genuinely like everyone I play with at Empty Pockets and I always feel a little strange taking their money. I sometimes even feel bad about bluffing someone off hands. The second factor is that the game is so loose and willy nilly that playing serious would be a drag. I’m thinking, however, that the next few Empty Pockets games be higher buy-in 2/5 for people that want to play at a higher level and want to do some play analysis post-game. Run it as a home game, but more of a learning situation that preps us to go run Atlantic City every now and again. I think if we’re up front about the buy-in and expected level of play, people will come to learn from each other and we can all strengthen each other’s game so that we can go decimate the tables in AC where it’s no problem taking money from degenerates.

Look Ma, No Hands

Rocking the 2/5 Game