Archive for January, 2006
Another comment on the JOE FRASER hand
I received the following comment from stealthmunk:
“In the analysis of this hand you are missing a key aspect of Bhoths play. He held the “nut card” in his hand, the Q of diamonds. By smooth calling the flop he could be saying, “I will jam turn card 1. If i still have the nuts 2 . If diamond falls and I can represent the nuts.” He could figure Joe could fold a lone set or a set and a weak flush draw to a full potsize bet on the turn. When the diamond fell on the turn, Bhoth led out with a pot bet. By betting this big, he is forcing Joe to make a play for his stack KNOWING joe couldn’t have the nuts. As anyone who plays plo knows in PLO it is very easy to make the 2nd best hand and lose a lot of $. As it turned out, Joe’s hand was way too strong (2nd nuts) and even if Joe was coolered he had a redraw to a boat, so Bhoths play didn’t work. However, I don’t think Bhoths play was entirely “donkey” or “incorrect” I am no math expert as to the EV on the flop, but the fact that Bhoth held the Qd nut card is essential to the analysis of the hand. Although Bhoth had no fold equity on flop, I think he definitely could have imagined some fold equity on a bricked turn.”
I agree, I should have mentioned that. The dry nut flush card bluff is one of the few pure bluffs that occurs on a regular basis in PLO. I do this on occasion when I hold the dry ace and the flush is completed on the board. However, here’s why I don’t think that play would work.
I don’t think JOE FRASER would repot without something in addition to his flush draw, especially it’s known that he’s not holding the nut flush draw. Also, for Bhoth to flat call a pot and repot with just a nut flush draw is pretty bad… and if Bhoth flopped the nut flush draw and the nut straight, then you might expect Bhoth to repop so as to get the set + dead flush draw to commit all his chips on the flop. As you said, there isn’t much fold equity against a re-potter, so it’s fairly likely the nut straight + nut flush draw will get a call.
However, stealthmunk did make a good point that I left out. I appreciate the comment.
Omaha Followup: Illustrative Example
If you read my previous entry, I said you should fold the nut straight if there’s heavy action between two players in front of you and you don’t have a redraw. I received a couple emails on that subject and I noticed this hand a few minutes ago on Stars, so I thought I’d bring this to your attention.
Here’s the hand, bit by bit:
PokerStars Game #3796705551: Omaha Pot Limit ($10/$20) – 2006/01/29 – 15:59:22 (ET)
Table ‘Diadem II’ Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: JOE FRASER ($1687 in chips)
Seat 3: crazytiger ($2185 in chips)
Seat 4: thaitiger ($1987 in chips)
Seat 6: Bhoth ($2027 in chips)
Seat 7: Pupu II ($1560.50 in chips)
Seat 8: Hörhö2 ($5787.50 in chips)
Seat 9: hamsa ($1415 in chips)
crazytiger: posts small blind $10
thaitiger: posts big blind $20
emilie: sits out
** HOLE CARDS **
Bhoth: calls $20
Pupu II: folds
Hörhö2: folds
hamsa: calls $20
JOE FRASER: calls $20
crazytiger: folds
thaitiger: checks
The preflop action isn’t important, although you should always be careful to not even bother entering pots where you can’t make nut hands.
** FLOP ** [Ad Kd Js]
thaitiger: checks
Bhoth: checks
hamsa: bets $87
JOE FRASER: raises $261 to $348
thaitiger: folds
Bhoth: calls $348
hamsa: folds
JOE FRASER is a regular in the 10/20 PLO game on Stars. He isn’t making this move without at least a straight with a redraw or a set with some other draw. While people frequently semi-bluff in Omaha, a pure bluff is very rare and you should never put your opponent on a pure bluff as it’s a long term losing play even if you might snap one off every once in awhile. Therefore, set + flush draw, straight + flush draw and possibly top two + flush draw are the common range for JOE FRASER when he repots a pot-sized bet on the flop. For Bhoth to call with a straight, he should have a redraw because he’s a dog to JOE’s range.
** TURN ** [Ad Kd Js] [9d]
Bhoth: bets $870
JOE FRASER: raises $449 to $1319 and is all-in
Bhoth: calls $449
** RIVER ** [Ad Kd Js 9d] [Qc]
** SHOW DOWN **
Bhoth: shows [Qd Tc Ts 8s] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
JOE FRASER: shows [Jc Jd 5d 2s] (a flush, Ace high)
JOE FRASER collected $3508 from pot
As it turns out, JOE flopped a big hand… bottom set plus 2nd nut flush draw. Bhoth only had a straight without a redraw except to a runner underboat (I’m not sure a running underboat can even be counted as a redraw). This is a prime example where the nuts should be folded. Why? First, Bhoth holds two tens, so that makes it a bit less likely that JOE FRASER also holds a T. Therefore, it’s slightly less likely that he flopped straight. Bhoth is a dog to set + flush draw to the tune of 63% to 37%. Considering the turn card, it’s terrible for Bhoth to bet out in my opinion. He would have saved himself quite a bit by just folding the flop with pot and re-pot action in front of him.
Take this hand as a lesson for your play in the future. Everyone makes this mistake, but if you can cut down on mistakes like this, you’ll be a much more profitable PLO player in the future.
The Texture of Omaha Draws
I wrote an article for PocketFives about Omaha and draws. It isn’t up on the site yet, but it will be shortly. Here is an advance look.
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A lot of people say that no limit hold em is a fishy game. And it is, for sure. If you have a lot of skill, no limit hold em cash games are where the real money is in online poker. The problem is, most people will lose in mid and high blind no limit hold em cash games. While tournaments are easier to beat than cash games, trying to dodge six coinflips and a bunch of big favorite scenarios leaves many of us pulling our hair out trying to comprehend the variance of tournaments. So what’s left to play? Basically, STTs and Omaha. Since other people have covered STTs pretty well, I’m going to write about Omaha.
First, you have to understand what Omaha is. It’s about redraws, redraws and more redraws. Having the best hand preflop means almost nothing and having the best made hand on the flop means just about nothing as well unless the board is of a very rare and non-drawy texture. The best hand on the flop is often the biggest draw. Why? It’s simple, you’ve seen 7 cards, so there are 45 unseen cards. If you have 15 outs, you’re 33% to hit on each street. That means you’ve just become a favorite to win the hand with two cards to come. Of course, it’s not that simple. Often, you’ll be sharing outs to a split pot or, even worse, your outs are dead to a better draw, such as a higher flush draw. The key is picking spots where you have outs to the pure nuts and letting go of hands where you appear to flop huge, but your hand is actually a big dog. An example might be where you flop the nut straight without a redraw and there is heavy action on a flush draw board between two players in front of you. Regardless of having the nuts, your hand is a dog. While I don’t have time to go into all the rules of profitable Omaha, I’m going to explain how to understand the keys to picking up a big draw.
The ideal flop in Omaha is probably top set and nut flush draw. The reason I say probably is that it’s a relatively hard flop to get paid off on unless someone flops something like middle set with a flush draw. Needless to say, it doesn’t happen often. The good part is, you basically can’t lose unless someone hits a straight not of your suit or you get one-outed by an underset. Against a flopped or turned straight, you have an enormous re-draw to a flush, full house or quads. It’s not hard to see when you’ve flopped top set nut flush draw, so I’ll move on.
Here’s where things get a bit more complicated. Straight draws. Unlike flush draws or sets, straight draws can present themselves in a number of different ways in Omaha. There are five different straight draws that you can flop with 8 outs, 9 outs, 13 outs, 16/17 outs and the big daddy full wrap for 20 outs. Of course, if you put a lot of money in on any of these flops, you can be assured that you’re either splitting some outs with someone or someone has another big hand of some kind. Nonetheless, we’ll take a look at how each one can present itself.
1. There’s the typical hold em “up and down” straight draw for 8 outs.
For example: AA78 on a A56 flop.
In this situation, you have top set with an 8 outer draw to the pure nuts assuming no flush draw. This is a great hand, but if you have A268 on a A79 flop, then you should be very cautious as your draw is very weak.
2. There are situations where you can have three cards to hit for a straight.
For example: KQJx on a ATx flop. You can hit a K (three left), Q (three left) or a J (three left), for a total of 9 outs to a nut straight.
This is a fairly powerful draw when combined with a flush draw. If you have KsQcJsXx on a AsTsXx flop, then you’ve flopped huge. Even if you have the K high flush draw, I’d recommend putting a lot of chips in. While you can certainly see additional cards without a flush draw, you should be cautious if a flush gets there or the board pairs. Ideally, there won’t be two to a suit on the board when you flop this hand without a flush draw.
3. You can have four cards to hit for a straight. I call this a quarter-full wrap, although I don’t know if that is a technical term.
For example: 2458 on a A36 flop. You can hit a 2 (three left), 4 (three left), 5 (three left) or a 7 (four left) for a total of 13 outs.
This is getting to the point where it’s a huge draw, although you should be careful on a flop like this as not all of your outs are to the nut straight. This is a VERY powerful draw if you flip the cards to the top of the spectrum to something like KJT7 on a AQ9 flop. If you notice, you still have 13 outs, but all four cards will give you the nuts as a K, J or T will give you the A high straight and an 8 will give you QJT98 with your hole cards in play in bold. Combined with a flush draw, you can’t flop many bigger nut draws than this.
4. You can have five cards to hit for a straight. I think this is known as a semi-full wrap, but the terminology isn’t really important.
For example 79TJ on a Q86 flop. You can hit a 5 (four left), 7 (three left), 9 (three left), T (three left) or a J (three left) for a total of 16 outs to a straight. This can also present itself as a 17 outer on a hand like QJ8x with a flop like T9x. In this case, you can hit a K (four left), Q (three left), J (three left), 8 (three left) or 7 (four left).
If you notice, the way to hit a flop like this is to hit exactly in between and around your cards, like so: 6789TJQ with hole cards in bold. The key to this not being the biggest straight draw possible is that your hole cards aren’t perfectly split apart due to the 9TJ being in sequence. One thing you might notice about a draw like this is that you start to get into trouble with endpoints, which reduces your ability to have nut draws. For instance, with the quarter-full wrap, you can have almost every out be to the nuts as I demonstrated in the analysis. With this flop, you simply can’t flop as many nut draws. More specifically, it’s harder to flop a lock nut flush draw because you can’t be holding an A (also known as an endpoint in the ranking system) and flop this type of straight draw. You could take my example and move every card up one rank to achieve a nut flush draw when you have the K of a suit and the A of that suit flops, but that’s the only way to flop a nut flush draw.
5. You can have six cards for a straight. This is the ultimate 4-card Omaha straight draw and it’s known as a full wrap.
For example: 79JQ on a 8TK flop. You can hit a 6 (four left), 7 (three left), 9 (three left), J (three left), Q (three left) or a A (four left) for a total of 20 outs to a straight.
Just to have another look, this is what this draw looks like when lined up in sequence: 789TJQK. Note that this time, you’ve flopped a hand where the flop fits into your hand and around your hand perfectly. In a similar fashion to the semi-full wrap, it’s impossible to flop a nut flush draw with a full wrap, although you can make a nut flush with the K and A of your suit on board. However, it’s pretty hard to get paid off on a flush board with the A and K out there and you’re holding the Q and possibly the J. Even donkeys won’t pay off huge with a T high flush.
To wrap this up, understanding your draws is very important in Omaha. It’s also important to study what types of hands have the capability to flop certain types of draws. You might notice that once you reach the quarter-full wrap, there are only a fairly small number of hands that are even capable of flopping that type of draw. They become even rarer when you get up to the full-wrap draw. I’m confident that any thinking player who learns to fully grasp draws in Omaha will soon become a profitable pot limit Omaha player at even the highest limits.
In Atlantic City
I came down to AC for the day with stevesbets, Rolex528 and jtheace2. Steve and jtheace2 are down here to play in the prelim events of the Borgata Winter Open and Rolex528 came down to play cash games. I, on the other hand, had a ton of stuff to do and I’ve spent most of the evening in the hotel room working on some projects of mine.
Poker-related projects have pretty much taken over my poker-playing time, but I’m okay with that as I enjoy doing other things just as much as I enjoy playing poker. Having played for a few years, poker had started to become somewhat dull at the lower limits (easy to beat, but not all that much money). I’ve considered moving up in stakes a number of times, but I almost always find the swings to be too stressful and not worth the gain in the end. In addition, hold em tends to get a bit boring. There’s only so many times that someone hitting a flush draw can be exciting (or disappointing, depending on who hit). On the other hand, playing new games is a lot more fun and I wish that online poker rooms would spread more games like 6 card omaha, hi/lo without a qualifier, etc. Unfortunately, most people just like to play nlhe and nlhe only, so anyone who wants to make real money is stuck in their world.
On to one of the things that I completed tonight. Steve and I were curious about his exact records against opponents, so I set up some of my auto-requesting software to get the tournament histories of every heads up match that he ever played. For the 5Ks, that number was about 1300 tournaments. While I can’t go into any of the detailed results because they’re personal, I can say there were some very interesting finds. Hopefully the information gained will help Steve to improve his game selection and become a more profitable poker player in the future.
In addition to the project for Steve, I completed a few projects that I’d been asked to work on. One of the things that I do in my spare time is custom database work for people who want a good interface for looking at their tourney results. I can’t actually show you any of the work that I do because pretty much all of the databases are private results for some of the biggest winners online (I doubt they want their results to be 100% public), but I plan on making a sample version of each of my scripts with fake data so you can see exactly what I do. Maybe I’ll incorporate some of them into thepokerdb in the future.
In terms of the weight loss project, I have at least 1K on it, with possibly more action to come. I have to speak to one person who got in touch with me to see what amount he’s interested in. Also, I plan on taking some pictures along the way, but you won’t see any until the whole thing is complete. I got one comment that said that I should be losing 60-70 pounds to get into the 170-180 range because it’s the “right” weight for my height. Maybe I didn’t get my point across. It’s not like I’m a blob without any muscle. I’m actually pretty muscular and when I was 210 pounds about 18 months ago that was a good weight for me. I was benching 250 pounds, I could do 25 unassisted dips, I could curl 100 pounds, etc. Those are pretty good marks for a 210 pounder. I can still do what I just listed, but the problem is that I put on 30 pounds without adding any muscle in the last year or so and I don’t want to slip further into the pathetic shape that most people in their late 20s and early 30s end up in. In other words, I want to stop this slide right now and considering the time I have to do it, there’s no excuse to not turn it around. I have absolutely no desire to get to 170-180 pounds because that would mean I’d either a) have to lose a decent amount of muscle or b) spend 30 hours a week in the gym to get into amazing shape. I don’t want either one to happen… I just want to be in better shape.
I’m going to head to sleep in a few minutes.
Plans
It appears that Ozzy and Roman may spend a month in Europe in between EPT Deauville and EPT Monte Carlo, or so I’ve been told. Ozzy has been known to say one thing and do another in the past when it comes to something that requires planning ahead or effort, so I’m not sure whether this will actually happen. Either way, due to a few different reasons, I can’t go on this whole trip. I also have heard from my friend schaefer that EPT Deauville is pretty dull. And he won it last year while one of his best friends finished second. So, if he doesn’t find it interesting while winning it, I probably won’t find it interesting at all. Also, I noticed this in a message that Bushman forwarded me about the EPT Deauville event:
To comply with local French gaming law, the poker room will be restricted to players who have registered for the EPT or other poker events during the EPT festival. The poker room is not open to members of the public.
Therefore, I won’t even be able to take pictures and blog the event, so it’s pretty much pointless to go.
My plans have been modified to the following. I’ll fly to Europe maybe one or two weeks before the Monte Carlo event and meet up with Roman, Ozzy and whoever else they decide to travel with in Europe. This is, of course, assuming that they actually decide to go ahead with this whole travel around Europe for a month thing. I’ll then travel with them to Monte Carlo, blog the event, enjoy the city and then fly home to the US with them. It should be a fun time.
A few people have emailed me and mentioned that there weren’t really any PCA pictures with me actually in them. This is, of course, because I took almost all of the pictures (yes, I know, they’re dark, blurry, etc… they didn’t let us use flashes and I was forced to move quickly due to being chased by guards, so I couldn’t set up the perfect picture). However, SKOAL was nice enough to email me a shot that he got of me sitting in the lobby with some other people:
I am on the left in the gray shirt, JERRRY is playing a 5K HU match on my laptop, WB123456789 is toasting the camera, moledaddy is in the striped red shirt and BeL0WaB0Ve is drinking.
And wow, one of the things that I’ve realized after looking at some of the pics of me in the Bahamas is that I’m WAAAAY out of shape. I’m still fairly strong, but I’ve lost most of my aerobic fitness. I was in pretty good shape through most of college due to regular workouts, but after I graduated and worked at Deloitte for a year, I let myself slowly get into worse and worse eating and exercise habits. This happens to a lot of people, so I’m not shocked that it happened to me. That being said, I don’t work a regular-houred job anymore and I haven’t since I left my job a few months ago. It’s pathetic that I’m in the shape I’m in considering the time that I have to go to the gym. I also have the time to eat healthy as opposed to being rushed at most of my meals while I was working. New Years resolutions have always seemed dumb to me, so I’m going to do something that is more my style: bet on my recovery. As of 5 minutes ago, I weighed a scale-tipping 239 pounds. This is pretty much the heaviest I’ve been in my life. I’d like to propose the following to anyone interested in making a wager:
I will be weighed in Las Vegas at the World Series of Poker at some point prior to the start of the main event on Friday, July 28th, 2006. I have the option of being weighed at any point after my arrival in Las Vegas or Tuesday, June 27th, 2006, whichever is later. Obviously, anyone I bet with should be present or should be prepared to take the word of a mutually-agreed upon party. The target weight will be 210 pounds, or a 29 pound loss. If I weigh 210 pounds or less upon weigh-in, I win; if not, I lose. I will accept even money bets.
Obviously, anyone betting with me has to trust me and I have to trust them because I don’t plan on getting the money escrowed. It shouldn’t have to be said, but I will do this “substance-free.” I plan on exercising more and trying to improve my diet, not take some shady pills. Also, you have to trust me on my current weight. Sadly, anyone who met me in the Bahamas will probably tell you that it’s correct. If you’re interested, let me know via email at natarem@gmail.com or via AIM or MSN. If you don’t know me at all and I don’t know who you are, then I’m not going to accept the offer because I wouldn’t trust that I’d get paid. I’m going to get in better shape regardless, but I wouldn’t mind taking up to a few K in action on this.
Anyway, I need to head to sleep. Later.
Recap of last couple days
I watched a bit of NFL football over the weekend, although I’m not as into sports as I once was. The second half of the Colts-Steelers game was great though. I still can’t believe Roethlisberger managed to trip up the Indy defender after the fumble recovery…. I was sure he was going to score after I saw him scoop up the ball and run a few yards.
In terms of the big tournaments over the weekend, congrats to JohnnyBax and sheets for final tables in the Party $200+$15 events – Bax got 4th in the 200K and sheets finished 3rd in the 500K. It would have been nice if a friend of mine could have made the FT of the UB SCN or the Dise Masters, but it didn’t happen. Schaefer was doing well in both, but didn’t manage to go really deep.
In other news, we’re (by we I mean thepokerdb) working with some new software to track UB, Party and Paradise. It seems to be working pretty well, but there are still a few bugs to work out. We’ve been collecting results for a little while now, but the remaining bugs might prevent us from ever including these in the database when we do decide to release data from other sites. That’s a bit frustrating for me because I want to have a few months of data (at least) before we start showing anything.
I don’t have much planned for the next few weeks. One of the nice things about not having a job is that I can just focus on poker, going to the gym, hanging out with friends, etc. I might spend some time down in AC for the new Borgata WPT event as a lot of my friends will probably be there. I’m also considering going with Ozzy and Roman to the EPT Deauville and EPT Monte Carlo events. I’ll make the decision when the time comes to book tickets. If I do decide to go to any events, I’ll definitely be bringing my camera and I’ll be posting a lot of pictures. Considering all the positive feedback that I received on my picture blog from the PCA (even though I clearly am not a good photographer), I think it’s worthwhile.