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AQ Analysis
Thursday, March 31, 2005 I finished the EV analysis of my AQs hand from Sunday's Stars tournament (see a few entries down). It was a pain in the ass and I'm not sure it was worth it, but I will share my results. I got a lot of different responses on what my opponent's range might be. Some people had him slam-dunk on KK/AA. Obviously if that's his range, folding is our best play. Some people gave him pocket pairs all the way down to 66. Obviously if that's his range, jamming is our best play (we want to give him the chance to muck the middle pairs, and we want to see all five cards ourselves if we have to). It's the more in-between range that makes this an interesting question. People were more inclined to give my opponent a pocket pair than AK. I agree with that, but I don't entirely rule out AK. I do pretty much rule out any other unpaired hand, although I did throw in a 3 percent chance that this guy was just on a total (strange) steal. The range I settled on for my opponent, and the range of hands I analyzed my options against was: AA, KK, QQ, AKs, 2/3 of his possible combiations of JJ, half of his TT, 1/3 of his 99, 1/6 of his 88, and about a 3 percent chance of snow. I think this is pretty reasonable--what do others think? Against that range, my analysis came out that calling earned T1500 while jamming earned T1200. (If we called, I had us jamming the flop with a pair of queens or a flush draw, check-calling with a pair of aces or better, and check-folding everything else.) The inane, nitty-gritty details of these calculations will be posted in the Math Corner after I clean them up. But the main reason it came out profitable to jam was that my opponent was folding about a third of his hands to that action. Calling showed a profit because we almost never folded what turned out to be the best hand, still got the best hand to fold a few times, and tended to lose very little when we were crushed. The moral of the story is, if you can't lock your opponent into AA/KK here (and I certainly don't think you can) you should continue with the hand. It turns out (at least according to my analysis) that it doesn't matter much whether you jam or call, as the EV difference is stastically insignificant. In the actual hand, I jammed. My thinking at the time was, "I want to continue with the hand, and the best way to continue with AQ is to jam preflop." I did, however, seriously consider calling. I thought it was a close decision, and my analysis seems to have confirmed this. My opponent called with QQ and I busted. One final note: Some of the emails I got said that we're in big trouble against KK and QQ. We're not. We're a 2-1 dog against that range. That's the same as a flush draw. If you're comfortable semibluffing with a flush draw, relying on your equity if you get called, you should be comfortable semibluffing preflop with AQs, relying on your equity if you get called. All of this is, of course, my opinion. Reno Day Two (that was quick) Wednesday, March 30, 2005 Well, I'm out. Had a few steals go bad, made a tough laydown, then bluffed all-in on the river on a paired board and got called by a three-high flush. (Yes, he open-raised with 32s and busted me with it.) That's poker. Oh well, at least I get to watch the soccer game. That's gotta be worth a few hundred thousand dollars. Reno Day One Update Wednesday, March 30, 2005 I'll take it. About 100 players left, maybe a little less. I've got T47,800. We started with 361 players and T10,000 in chips. Phil Ivey (who else?) is the chip leader (I think) with T99,000. Hand of the day: Young player (who I later learn to be Aaron Katz) moves to my table with about 50k in chips during the 200-400, 50 level. This is a very big stack at the time. He loses a few pots and starts complaining that there are too many chips on the table and he can't bully. The next hand it folds to him and he says, "my turn to bully" and opens for 1500. I make it 4200 on the button with AJo. It folds to him and he says "I think I'm being bullied" and calls. The flop comes A74 with two hearts. He checks. I bet 5,000, and I have 16,300 left after my bet. Aaron makes it 20,000. I think for not too long and call. Aaron puts me in for my last 1,300 on the river (why I don't know) and after I call instantly says, "you win." I had it up to T60,000 at one point, but I really can't complain. I had no starting hands all day. AA once (won the blinds). AK four times--once folded preflop (!!!), once folded on the flop, once folded on the turn, and once won the pot with a preflop reraise. And I ran JJ into Harley Hall's KK. I have to be happy with where I'm sitting. In other news, I started the AQ analysis this morning but don't know when I'll finish it. Patience. Also, I've received a ton of emails since my last post and I'll get to all of the ones that requested responses, but maybe not for a few days. For now, I'm (obviously) focused on trying to win this tournament. Off to sleep. Wish me luck tomorrow (seemed to work today). Writing from Reno Tuesday, March 29, 2005 After a long day of travel (Westhampton to Brooklyn to San Francisco to Reno), I made it to the Reno Hilton. I even had time to play the lightning fast super satellite, where I only lasted two and a half hours but that was still longer than 80 percent of the field. The supers here start you with 1000 in chips with blinds of 25 and 25 and the levels go up every 20 minutes. Yowzer! Good thing I only played one. I'm excited for this tournament--my first WPT event in almost three months (although I did play a WSOP Circuit event, two PPT events, and several L.A. events in the interim)--so I'm going to try to get some good rest for tomorrow. We're scheduled to play seven eighty-minute levels on Day One. A lot of freaking poker. But before I go to sleep I wanted to quickly get some feedback on a hand from yesterday's $500 tournament on PokerStars. With 190 players left, I'm in 23rd place or so with about 23k in chips. 135 get paid. I cover everyone at my table except for a big stack with 30k. I've been playing very aggressively taking advantage of the table's tightness. I've stolen three of the last four pots when a bad player limps UTG for 800. In the next seat, I make it 3200 with AsQs. The next guy folds, and then the big stack makes it 6400 to go. Everyone including UTG folds and it's on me. What's your play? I'm going to do an EV analysis of the three options later, but if you have some comments I'd like to hear them. Please include what range of hands you give the big stack, and your plan for future streets (if your recommendation requires such a plan). As usual, email comments to jacksup@mattmatros.com. And wish me luck tomorrow. The Plan Saturday, March 26, 2005 I got a lot of responses to my WPT Championship dilemma. A lot of them were of the "of course you should play!" variety. While I appreciate the enthusiasm of those respondents and their interest in my poker career, I want to make sure I'm making a sound financial decision, and not just playing because it's exciting and fun. So here's what I've decided. I have four chances to win a seat this weekend, three chances next weekend, and two chances to make big scores (Reno and Foxwoods). Plus, I'll have some other opportunities somewhere. If, after Foxwoods, I still haven't won a seat, then I will accept partial backing for the WPT Championship from people not playing in the event. I will probably accept up to 40% of the buy-in, and I won't play if I can't get at least 30%. I still hope to make this a moot point by winning my way in, but at this moment in time I've pretty much decided to play the event one way or another. In the meantime, here's to satellites! Sweet Sunday Monday, March 21, 2005 Before I get to the poker from yesterday, I'd like to announce that The Making of a Poker Player has hit the shelves and amazon.com is shipping it. Buy your copy today! So Sunday started out pretty blah. Full Tilt had to add about $25,000 to meet their guarantee, which made for a great overlay. Naturally I busted from that one when AA couldn't beat AQ (all-in preflop). On Party I never had any hands and busted early. On Stars, I ran my chips up nicely and naturally busted when AQ couldn't beat QT (all-in preflop). On Paradise I ran my chips up nicely and got to the final 100, then lost a coin flip and busted. At 7:30 I entered the Full Tilt WPT Championship super satellite, where again Full Tilt had to add significant money to make their gurantee. I got chips early, but busted later with AJs that ran into KK. Fresh off busting from the super, I noticed two players sitting $30-$60 Hold 'Em on Full Tilt, and I didn't know either of them. Thinking this had to be a good thing, I sat down with them. It became apparent that one of the guys was on tilt. Something I did (raising? calling? who knows) pissed him off further and he asked me if I wanted to play $100-$200. I said sure, and we moved to the bigger table. He was a fun heads-up opponent. He didn't bluff enough, he slowplayed his monsters, he didn't make thin value bets, but he got stupidly aggressive with stuff like bottom pair. Basically, a dream matchup. Eventually several others joined in the fun and for a few hours we had a six-handed $100-$200 game going. I wonder if that's a first for Full Tilt Poker. So how'd I do? Let's just say that even after whiffing on six tournaments yesterday (I had already registered for UB and you can't unregister there, so I played that tournament while I sat in the $100-$200, but I obviously was focusing on the UB tournament as little as possible), I made about $7,700. Ah, Sundays. Here is my current poker dilemma. I really want to play the $25,000 + $500 buy-in World Poker Tour Championship. It has the best structure of any event (including the WSOP main event), the prize pool is going to be astronomical, and obviously I'd love to "defend" my final table appearance from last year. Also obviously, $25,500 is a shitload of money. I'm hoping to win a seat, and I'm going to have something like 10-15 opportunities to do so between now and the event. With luck, that will make my decision for me. But what if I don't win a seat? After setting aside money for investments and living expenses, my current poker bankroll is somewhere in the neighborhood of $200K. All things being equal, there is no way I would risk one-eighth of my bankroll on one tournament--especially since I plan on playing $13K worth of tournaments at Reno and Foxwoods leading up to the WPT Championship. Except all things aren't equal. The Professional Poker Tour (PPT) has the right to boot players off their tour if they don't play in at least half of the WPT events. After I play Reno, I'll be one event short with one event to go. Guess which event is left. So I need to factor in the equity of insuring a spot on the PPT. This calculation would have to include the chance that the PPT actually would boot me, and the chance that the PPT survives for another season. There is also the TV/book promotion factor. With my book on the shelves now, another successful WPT Championship would do amazing things for publicity (or at least, I think it would). Finally, I could use the $25K buy-in as a tax deduction from the online winnings I've already made this year. So I have a dilemma. Any thoughts? I'm not going to leave this decision up to a vote of my readers, but I will listen thoughtfully to anything anyone has to say. The email is jacksup@mattmatros.com. Slow Days Friday, March 18, 2005 I've had some requests to update the journal again, since it's been over a week now since the last update. The fact is I haven't played much poker in the last week. I had plans on Sunday so I missed all the Sunday tournaments, and I've been busy with apartment stuff and other preparations before I start a truly insane travel schedule in ten days time. Here it is: 3/28 - Reno 4/4 - Foxwoods 4/14 - L.A. (wedding) 4/17 - Vegas 5/5 - Lake Tahoe ? 5/10 - Vegas (Mirage PPT event) 5/23 - New Orleans ? 6/8 - Vegas I didn't even bother to include four other east coast weddings I have in that timeframe. Travelling to D.C., PA, MD, and Queens just doesn't seem to count. I'm tired just thinking about the next few months, and I'm thinking of taking a few months off from traveling (at least) after the WSOP. But until then, full steam ahead! In other news, I just wrote my first column for CardPlayer Magazine. Look for that soon. Winner Again Thursday, March 10, 2005 I had only played the infamous $11 rebuy tournament on Stars once this year. But Ivy and I went to dinner with Chris and Jodi tonight, and Jodi suggested I play it. So I did. And I won. I bested 1,006 others, the largest field in which I've ever won, and I netted 141 buyins ($10k--now you can figure out how many times I had to rebuy), also a personal record. I took the chip lead with 31 players left, and I only relinquished it for about a minute, and that was at the final table. With two tables left, there was one point where I had five and a half times as many chips as the guy in second. Sick! I'm certainly not going to complain about the cards I've been getting for the first two and a half months of the year, but I also wouldn't complain if I got them again come July, you know what I'm sayin'? Anyway, it always feels good to win. General Update Monday, March 07, 2005 Sorry that it's been a few days since the PPT bustout hand entry, but I've been real freakin' busy running around and playing poker. I'll try to cover as much as I can. First, the comments I received on the PPT bustout hand were interesting. I'd like to address the hand once more and be done with it. Some of these comments are repeated from a post I wrote to WPTfan.com. 1) Some have suggested I have to give the SB credit for a big hand here, and that AK is the worst hand he could have. It would be a great play for the small blind to reraise with lots of different hands here, not just monsters. This is especially true because the first two guys who entered the pot were very loose, and thus highly vulnerable to a resteal. 2) Some players told me they thought it highly unlikely my opponent would check the flop with AK. I agree that my opponent's flop action is more consistent with AA than AK. But I wouldn't go so far as to call AK highly unlikely after the check. 3) People pointed out that although the turn bet makes no sense, it's a classic mistake bad players make all the time--waiting until their big pair might not be good, and then vomiting a bunch of chips into the pot. The problem was I didn't think this guy was a bad player. 4) Some suggested I should ignore physical tells unless I know exactly what they mean. I use whatever information I have, and I had some physical tells to work with in this hand. I see no reason to wait until I'm "sure" about a physical tell. We're never sure in poker. That's the whole point. If I give my opponent credit for thinking, the turn bet looks like a semibluff (with AK, or even Ax with the ace of diamonds). This is consistent with the physical tells. 5) Some said I should fold because folding is safer. There's no law that says you should err on the side of folding in close decisions. In fact, when folding incorrectly costs 12,100 and raising incorrectly costs 8,600, you're probably better off erring on the side of raising. It doesn't matter to me that it's my last 8,600. All I care about is getting chips, especially when the pay structure is very top-heavy. 6) I induced a bluff by checking the flop, and then a bluffing card came off, and my opponent overbet the pot (which is often a bluff). If there is a ever a situation when I'm going to call a big bet with JJ on a queen-high board, I should seriously consider calling here. I've made a lot of money inducing big bet bluffs with marginal hands. In fact, that's the way I got in to the PPT in the first place. 7) I think some players at my table were surprised at the way I busted. But that's not a reason to avoid busting in a similar way in the future. As a friend of mine said, I'd rather be known as a bad player and actually be good, than be known as a good player and actually be bad. 8) Of course you can fold here. Against bad players I routinely fold here. In hindsight, I think this guy was a bad player, not a genius. At the time I had a different, and incorrect, read. It happens. There's really not much else to it. So after I got home from San Jose, I rested for a day and then went to my sixth straight ATLARGE. It's a blast every year, and I plan to always come back for more. Some quick highlights: I do this thing at ATLARGE where I play the pink chip game ($7.50-$15 Hold 'Em) and blind raise and reraise preflop and on some flops with my friend and fellow professional player ActionBob. The locals think we're sick idiots and salivate to get in the game. (One guy even gave ActionBob his business card and invited him to his home game.) There were many pink game highlights, but my favorite came when I blind-raised, took the flop six ways for three bets, and called a bet dark on a flop of KT6. The turn came 7 and it checked around. When the river brought a 3 I checked my hole cards to see what I had--45o of course. I bet! Then in the No Limit tournament (where I actually try to play well), I ended up seated between my genius friend Bill Chen and my pretty-damn-smart-himself brother. Fun! In one hand, a bad player opened for 150 and Bill raised to 315, leaving himself with only 500 behind. I looked at him and said, "did you just raise to 315 and leave yourself 500 behind?" He gritted his teeth and said, "yeeees" as if to say, "shut up Matt, I know you know what I have, I'm not exploiting you." The bad player moved all-in with sevens and Bill called with his aces. I'm not sure what I would've done if I'd had kings there. Bill gave his classic line when I asked him what he thought of my PPT bustout play. "I think it's reasonable," he said. (This might only be funny if you know him.) Anyway, ATLARGE rules. Thanks a lot to my friend Goldie for putting together another fantastic event in 2005. I drove home from ATLARGE this morning to play the monster Paradise Masters tournament. $600 buy-in, 2730 people. Long story short, I finished 100th and made $1200. I took the chip lead with about 250 players left when my TT held up against AQ and AK. But from that point forth I lost my next six showdowns. In three of them I started with the best hand, and in three of them I started with the worst hand. It didn't matter--I lost them all. The stallers were in full effect with about 185 people left (they were paying 150), basically rendering the later stages of the tournament a crapshoot. A poster on WPTFan had a good idea--after a player uses his full 30 seconds before the time bank twice, only give him 20 seconds the next time. Then 15, then 10, then 5, then zero. I really think this would help, and I plan on pitching the idea to some of my friends who work for online cardrooms. OK, that's pretty much it. Oh, I decided I'm going to Reno for the upcoming WPT event. Cool, Reno! Bad Read at the PPT Wednesday, March 02, 2005 We started the San Jose Professional Poker Tour event with T10,000 in chips, as is customary for a PPT tournament. For the third straight PPT event I drew an extremely good starting table relative to the tough field. And for the third straight PPT event, I busted early. For the first hour and forty-five minutes of the tournament I never had more than T10,500 or less than T9,875. And then I lost my whole stack in one hand. A lot of times people overanalyze bustout hands, thinking that up until their bustout hands they had been playing great, and their one mistake of the event came when they busted. This is, of course, silly, as the proper way to analyze one's tournament play is to analyze every hand from the tournament, even the ones you win. But in my case today, I think the bustout hand was pretty interesting. So let's look at it. Blinds T50-T100. A good, tricky player opens in early position for T300. A good, loose, tricky player calls T300 cold to his immediate left. I am in late position with two jacks. I call. The small blind, who had played tight for the first hour but had recently limp-called 7xBB with 75s from UTG, makes it T1400 to go. The big blind folds. The raiser and the cold caller fold. I call T1100 more. I have about T8600 behind after calling, and the pot is T3500. The flop comes Q74 with two diamonds. I have no diamonds. The small blind checks. I check. The turn is the ten of diamonds. The small blind tosses six thousand-dollar chips into the pot. I ask him how much it is and he looks as if he doesn't know. Anyway, he doesn't say anything. As I try to make a read, he is pretty much staring right back at me (although occasionally looking away). I feel pretty confident that my opponent has AK. I decide to move my T8600 in. He calls (as he has to with virtually any hand he bet for T2600 more). He has AA (no diamond), and I fail to spike my two-outer. There were several ways I could've played this hand and not gone broke. 1) If I reraise preflop, I never see the flop. 2) If I bet the flop, I never see the turn (or at the very least, I lose no more money). 3) I can fold the turn. Each of these three lines are OK ways to play the hand, but they all have one thing in common--they never make any money from a worse hand. I don't like to play JJ in such a way that I either lose a big pot or win a small pot. Choice 1) removes any chance of have of making money when I flop a set. I like to take flops, and I trust myself to make good post-flop reads (even though I made a bad read here). I really believe that the only way to be a great poker player is to maximize every little edge you have, rather than to minimize your risk of going broke. Choice 2) is a classic example of "I'll get check-raised by any better hand, and any worse hand will fold." It's not a value bet or a bluff. It prevents him from drawing for free if I'm ahead, but it also eliminates any possibility of inducing a bluff (since I was not prepared to commit if he check-raised). I don't like to make these kind of bets. Usually when I bet, I'm either hoping to get called by a worse hand, or to make a better hand fold. There are exceptions, but I don't think this is one of them. Choice 3) is, in my opinion, the best alternative to the way I actually played the hand. I successfully avoided his trap on the flop, and now he's made quite an overbet on the turn. If this is the way he's going to play AA, I can safely only call when I beat AA here and exploit him. Folding is a very reasonable choice here. The thing is, though, if I think I have the best hand, I don't fold. I did not give my opponent AA here. Let's look for a second at how he played his hand. Preflop: Standard. Flop: Somewhat curious. Most people will follow through on any preflop reraise with a bet on the flop. Especially on a two-flush board, I didn't think he would check with AA. That said, he knows I probably don't have a flush draw, and he probably thinks I'm more likely to bet myself than to call a bet from him. I don't hate checking here (although I think I prefer betting, at least most of the time). Turn: Here's where I can't decide if I love my opponent's play or hate it. He leads out for T6,000 into a T3,500 pot, in a situation where most opponents would only call when they have AA crushed (not everyone is crazy enough to call with JJ like me). But here's the thing--because of what I just explained, I don't give my opponent AA in this spot. I give him an AK semibluff (the ten of diamonds is a great turn card for this semibluff) or a set of queens, with a slightly lower possibility of a 99/88 semibluff (with one diamond) or of KK/AA. Now, was my opponent intentionally overbetting the pot, counting on me to read it as a semibluff? Or did he just make a bad bet that happened to work out? I don't know, but on top of everything else I read him as weak. (Not that this read was far off, it's not as though AA is a monster in that situation.) There's a decent chance my opponent thought all of this through and put on the reverse tells to boot. If so, my hat's off to him. He deserves all my chips. I mean, he must have done something right to get me to commit 86 blinds with JJ on a queen-high board, after I'd put in 14 blinds preflop. In the final analysis, the reason I don't really like choice 3) is that I checked the flop to at least sometimes induce a bluff on the turn. A great bluffing card came off (and there's no way my opponent would've checked the flop with a flush draw), and my opponent made a bet that really looked like a bluff. I can't induce a bluff, and then fold when it looks as though my opponent is bluffing. The fact of the matter is, when two good players are dealt JJ and AA with 100 big blinds in front of them, the money is going to get in a decent percentage of the time. Why couldn't a king have come off on the turn? Better yet, why couldn't a jack have come off on the turn or river? :) Anyway, interesting hand. Email your thoughts and comments about it to jacksup@mattmatros.com. I'd like to hear what others think. So after spending 24 hours in San Jose, I'm flying home on the next plane out of here. Wow, that was fun!  September 2004 | October 2004 | December 2004 | January 2005 | February 2005 | March 2005 | April 2005 | May 2005 | June 2005 | July 2005 | August 2005 | September 2005 | October 2005 | November 2005 | December 2005 | January 2006 | February 2006 | March 2006 | April 2006 | May 2006 | June 2006 | July 2006 | August 2006 | September 2006 | October 2006 | December 2006 | January 2007 | April 2007 | May 2007 | June 2007 | July 2007 | October 2007 | January 2008 | |
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