Poker Gambling...

I was licking my wounds from last sundays fiasco at the bellagio when I got pretty unlucky in three hands to lose most of my winnings from my friday session. Up 1900 friday , down 300 sat and down 1400 sunday.

So back to LA I went and played a little on tuesday for a small 300 win. Then yesterday went to play and had the best day in years. Up 3500 in the 300-500 5/5 blind game. I have made some tweaks to my game that I think are finally bearing fruit. Mainly trying to value bet single pair hands and raising more with nuts ..basically not being so scared of the board as most of the time my opponent will be weaker than me.

All of this aside there is something to be said about players just coming to gamble by playing poker .. I had this experience last night. After doubling up against one of my favorite players to play against with 56 diamonds on a 6 Q J two diamond flop. I won with a pair of sixes when I went all in on the flop after the preflop raiser made a very small 50 bet into the 200 pot.. then my favorite player raised to 150.. I shoved. I have a tight image and I thought the raiser would be doing this with Q x anything, a flush draw , straight draw... I also thought there was a decent chance he would fold to my reraise.. Well he didnt but he had K5 diamonds and my pair of 6s was the best hand. This was a nice win that now had me over 1100 in chips and with more chips I can play more loose (in pos of course...)

had a few other hands and drifted between 1600 and 1400 after that until this new player came and was bascially wild.. He is raising a lot but will also just flat call a raise wo a big hand.. In this hand I called a 20 raise from a player in ep with J10 suited in clubs in the cutoff or button.. there were either 5 or 6 players in the pot. I have 1400 or so in front of me and the crazy player has around 1000. a few others have around 500 and one player has 300.. Flop comes

K Q 5 two spades..

One player leads out for a relatively small bet of 50 into the pot of over 100 and with my oesd I just call. I am not thrilled about the flush draw possible but I am in position so I will just see what comes on the turn. Crazy guy min raises to 100.. and ep player who bet 50 originally just calls. Well I have to call .. I could raise but why? well a beautiful turn comes

9 hearts.

giving me the nuts and now the ep player checks and I go ahead and bet 225 or so to protect against the flush.. Crazy guy thinks then raises me 400 more leaving himself less than 200 behind. The ep player thinks for a long time but eventually folds.. I put in the rest of my chips and hope this guy isnt on some kind of draw..

2 clubs comes on the river and I have the nuts and flip it over and crazy guy flips over KJ off suite. ep player says he had a set of 5s and I am just dumbfounded. with that board so draw heavy why would the set guy not reraise to protect his hand? I think he was a 100-300 buy in player and came to my table because there wasnt a seat available at the lower limit game. I think he was afraid and wanted to see the turn before he comitted his chips. This was a fatal mistake. by not 4 betting he allowed me to hit my hand and stack the crazy player rather than shoving himself and doubling up for over 1000 pot.

the pot was very large as I had the crazy guy covered and he had almost 1000 behind..

I really do think that the players generally in LA are better than anywhere else .. but you get a couple of players playing wrong and I happen to be in the right place at the right time. I would say that I tried to play as many pots as I could with the crazy guy and with the couple of other players I thought were much worse than the 3 or so good players..

lets hope this trend continues for a little bit eh?

I've read your post 3 times, hammah, but I still don't understand. Are you suggesting that poker is a form of gambling, and that luck is a factor?

Why, this can't be true! I know that for a fact because I read it on a forum.

(Good luck and keep up the good work.)

Night

I am suggesting that some folks like to gamble and will do that using poker as their medium. Since I consider myself a skill player I just happen to be in the right place at the right time to pound on the gambler. Had the guy with the set of 5s (if thats what he really had but he might have considering how long it took for him to fold) he played horrible to not protect his hand on the flop..

h

So played last night at Hustler again and I got to sit next to the guy who flopped the set of 5s in the above hand. turns out he has been playing 300-500 5/5 buy in for a while .. hes just super dooper passive and very afraid of putting any money in without the nuts. I remember those days!

Problem with this play is that it is very hard to get paid off since good players notice very quickly that you only bet when you "have it" and will fold good but worse hands and only call when they have a draw that looks to be better than what you are betting. This only breeds big bad beat hands.. Gee sound familiar?

I saw him on a number of hand NOT bet a straight because it wasnt the nuts on a board that wasnt that scary as only two cards can make the straight.. He even once made a statement "I couldnt bet the river, I didnt have the nuts"

I really feel that as poker in general has gotten tougher and the players better you have to make thinner and thinner value bets against certain players and very very passive against others. Furthermore if you only bet the nuts or near nuts you are easy ... very easy to spot and therefore people will fold the run of mill top pair type hands that you need to call to really make money. I think I can speak from personal opinon on this.

Lets say you played passively and only bet really good hands and started the session for $500. You flop a set and get little action when you bet the flop because there is a straight draw and flush draw. So instead of making a few hundred on that hand you make 50.

then you get a really nice flop again and have a set against a player who has an overpair. Again you dont get his whole stack because he folds to your reraise on the flop.

each time this happens you have left money on the table. This money is just like a bad beat.. in fact it should be worse because this situation will happen so many more times than the bad beat that you are hurting you chances to make money in the long run..

So here is an example from last night.

After my nice run from thursday I am pretty much card dead and havent gotten much other than a few hands for hours. I manage to chip up to about 1100 when I make a hero call on a guy who I thought was bluffing on the river for a 150 bet but he was staring me down through his sunglasses. I thought it unlikely he had the straight but he could. Well I decided to put my money where my mouth was and called his bet.

After that I drifted down to around 600 after not hitting a flop for what seemed like hours. We also had a new player come to the table I recognized the guy but havent played with him before. As it turned out he was wildly agressive on draws and tptk hands. Liked to really use his stack to get players he thought would fold to fold.. Actually I think if you can handle the swings not a bad way to play if you pick your spots well.

Well I made a mistake against the guy by reraising him with JJ from the sb with only 550 in front of me. He never folded to a reraise and after the AK6 all dias flop and I didnt have the J of dias I folded to his shove after I checked to him. I knew then I had to be patient and try to outflop him and let him use his agression as my weapon or only reraise with a bigger pair .. like KK or AA..

Well I got stacked a couple of hands later when a guy that will make plays raised and I called with AQ with the Q of dias and on the flop of

AK8 all dias goofy guy bets 30 into the 90 pot. well I saw that as weakness and reraised .. he shoved and I got it in.. well he had AA lol.. nice weak lead huh? well I had the nut flush draw.. I didnt hit and now I was busted.. I bought in again and really had to tighten up. I literally won one pot in three hours.

during this time I flopped two straights and won both pots on the flop because of my tight image. I couldnt get hardly any action..so frustrating.

Then the maniac raised to his normal 40 when he had something and one player called in pos.. I look and see KK in the sb and here was my spot. I reraised to 140 and of course maniac calls. this guy had bought in for 500 and this was the second time he had gone from 500 to 1500 back to 300 and back up to 1500.. at this time he had around 550 and I had him slight covered at around 600.. So after I reraised him I just prayed he didnt have an ace and an ace wouldnt flop so when I shoved I wouldnt get snap called. Well I saw the door card first and it was .. an A.. shit.. but the other two worked out just fine..

A K K..

he he. I flopped quads. now when I had JJ and I checked to him last time he shoved. so I figured he would try it again. I checked. but this time he ONLY bet 150.. now this told me he really did have and ace and I thought about it for a few seconds and just check raised for the rest. he snap called. I announced I had the nuts and he said nice hand.. I left about a half hour later because it was late and I got close to even..

Now had I managed to win some money on my straights I might have had a chance to win more..

so bet your draws a bit.. or more like block bet your draws sometimes. also bet your tptk hands if you raised pre .. again.. if you get raised on the turn especially you can fold. then you can win big big pots ..much bigger pots then you would have if you just played very very tight..

h

Ham,

Sometimes you still get in the "I have the best hand, I should raise mode."

Often, you should call with the best hand. The AQ with Q of diamonds is a good example. You crush the board and aren't worried about free cards. What is he repping with a tiny bet? It's a really polarized range. If he has k9 or 77 or something really weak, you'll get more value just calling. And when he's nutted, you're a lot better off calling and controlling the pot.

Yep you are so right.. just last night a guy I played against did the exact same thing against me with tp and nut flush draw.. we got it all in on the flop.. I had a set and it held up..

h

You are absolutely right about the pure gamblers at the poker tables in L.A. Even more so at the 200-300 tables. I am not a highly skilled player and I do not call myself a pro but I was playing 4 or 5 sessions a week till my child was born 2 years ago. I cut my teeth at this level of play when we lived in Puerto Rico. You think its tough playing with one pure gambler at your table? try having 5 players all willing to shove all their chips in pre flop with nothing just to satiate their egos. Bad beats were the norm. Even so I managed to have a positive expectation by exploiting these players. After moving to So Cal, while keeping my original bankroll positive, my hourly return dropped. It took awhile, but I now play a game similar to what you describe and have maintained a positve bankroll for over 10 years now. It doesn't suprise me as much as it does the other serious players when one of these gamblers sits down but I have noticed that like you, they are happy to take their money.

By and large, L.A. players (of the type you describe) are total idiots. Your ROR is humongous. When you play in those kinds of games you will quickly discover that their reraises are simply a reaction to the raiser, not to the strength of one's hand, table position, or anything else. In other words, reraises seem to be purely emotional or based in anger.

While you can hit it big once in a while playing against these degenerates, you are much more likely to go broke. I avoid L.A. casinos due to the high kook factor. YMMV.

If players are putting lots of money in with very bad hands, I try to sit with them.