For the last year my main computer has been a laptop. Pretty basic one that I purchased during the back to school sales at the end of summer, but it does everything that I want to do these days. Or mostly so; the screen is only basic laptop size. Sometimes I’ll connect as well to my old desktop monitor so I can have an extended desktop for when I want to multitable 4 or more poker tables, possibly while doing other things as well. The old monitor is not big, but can handle 4 tiled tables fairly well, and then I can do other things on the laptop monitor. If I were more heavily into multi tabling poker I’d seriously consider a larger stand alone monitor to handle more tables and better.

But in this tourney right after the first break I lost connection. No connection with my browser either. At first I thought the ISP was down so I waited. Then tried rebooting the cable modem and router. Then tried accessing the router to see if I could see anything. Nothing worked. My mother-in-law is staying in the room where I keep my computer supplies including an RJ45 cable, so instead I went to an old desktop that has physical connection to the router, but to my surprise the internet access was working fine. I connected to the router and could see both the desktop and another laptop in the house connected to it.

I went back to my laptop and still couldn’t get connected. Finally I rebooted the laptop, and the wireless came back up again. Apparently that’s all it was all along; the wireless network card in my laptop had gone sideways.

Unfortunately by then I had blinded out, finishing 22nd.

Reminder to self: keep an RJ45 cable available when playing poker.

Recently I was playing a tourney with some people, many of whom I had played before. Generally I got a lot of respect for my raises, and didn’t do a lot of post flop play either way as I gave most of their raises respect. For example I get AQ in the BB, mid position raise, the SB reraises so I fold. They get all in with what turns out to be AK and 99. Against those cards my AQ is a 34/46/20 dog and I saved myself some chips.

But the day prior to that I was playing a private freeroll with a lot of players that I don’t know and where the average playing level is lower. I had a stack, got moved to a new table. A few hands in, the CO raised into my SB and I chose to flat call with AA. K high flop, no draws, I check, he checks behind, I bet the turn and he folds. Much later, like 2 or 3 orbits later, the same player raises from mid-ish, and I 3-bet from CO. He calls, flop comes KQx. He checks, I bet 2/3 pot = half my remaining stack, he calls. Turn is a brick, he checks, I shove the rest of my chips, he calls, with AT, I show my AK and take it down. He type “sick” in the chatbox. I ask why call a 3bet with AT, and he says I’ve been raising his raises. I said all I remember is flatting from SB with AA, and he says, so you always had a hand, so sick.

Apparently, at least in this player’s eyes, I was showing enough aggression that it was likely that I was doing so with marginal holdings, or, perhaps he felt that I, for some unknown reason, was targeting him. Disrespecting him perhaps. And in turn he disrespected my raise and bets.

From my perspective, mind you, I knew what cards I held, his plays to that point and mine as well were entirely reasonable, up to the point when he called the 3-bet with AT and the subsequent calls in that hand. It wasn’t as if I raised or called his raises 3 times in one orbit or anything like that, but apparently it was enough to tilt him, enough to put him off his normal game.

If an unknown or normally tight player plays back at you, give them the benefit of the doubt for being lucky, unless you have a monster of course. Two times within two or three orbits or even within one orbit is not enough of a sample size to assume that you are being targeted. Four or five instances of aggression against all players within two orbits of full ring would indicate an aggressive player but even that might be a combination of a card rush and lucky timing with standard aggression. If you suspect you are being targeted, most players that I’ve watched seem to wait until the third or fourth targeted instance before playing back.

~

Anyway, I seem to have wandered off my intended topic. In most instances I prefer to be respected rather than feared or disrespected. Normally I will raise or fight back often enough to gain respect, and unless no one seems to want to call my bets/raises I just play a normal game with no objective in generating general table fear of me. The exception being late in cheap SnGs where players don’t understand M and are still trying to limp 1/3 - 1/8 of their stack hoping to see a flop. Often I’ll see things in the chatbox indicating that one or more of the other players are getting frustrated with me.

How much of this stems from personality? When I take the bus, go to a social event, go to work I don’t want to be feared or disrespected. On the other hand, I can imagine that if I played competitive sports I would strive to be feared within the confines of the game. The old “winning through intimidation” premise. I can see where I would strive to be the best that I could be, and if I had the physical tools I would strive to dominate, and then use to my added advantage the fear or apprehension that other players might have when I attack. It’s “friendly” competition, because it would remain within the confines of the sporting environment.

By comparison, perhaps I can’t see my opponent’s fear or intimidation clearly enough when playing on-line, but am well aware of my own. Or maybe I lack the confidence in my abilities to be comfortable generating fear. Or maybe I’m too aware of the distribution of cards, so that one player cannot dominate in the same manner that a superior basketball or hockey player can dominate. If I’m a dominant player and I’m bearing down on someone, I already know that I’m faster, or stronger, or have quicker moves. In poker, I may have more moves, but some of them will be lost if my opponent is thinking on too low of a level, and because of the random distribution of cards, sometimes I will have the stronger hand, but sometimes he’ll have the stronger hand. In poker everyone will get dealt Aces the same number of times, and it’s a matter of chance whether another player holds KK, and another matter of chance whether another K but no A comes on the table.

If we were playing the card game War, I might hold more Aces and more high cards in my deck than my opponent holds, and then I might have a chance to dominate (though there’s not much skill added to the domination in this case). Poker doesn’t work that way, but a dominating player makes it seem that way.

Within this line of thinking is one of the reasons to play short stack poker. Because you have a short stack, you cannot dominate except early in a hand, but you also cannot be threatened as much either because you have less available to lose. The other night 4 tabling short stack, my first hand in the BB at a new table UTG, who is also short, minraises and its folded to me with AQo. I don’t really want to see a flop, and I think I’m likely ahead of a SS minraise so even though I had no reads I raised him almost all in, and he pushed over the top. I was right; he held 98o, a 2-1 dog to my AQ but he caught a 9 and I missed. He was pretty bad and after a couple more orbits I got most of that back from him. My massive overbet was probably spew but I thought that’s the only way I could threaten him, and he reacted to the threat by shoving.

Again my writing is starting to wander off topic. When it comes down to it, I lack the confidence to dominate, except when I play down in levels. Part of this lack of supreme confidence stems from my knowledge that the cards really are random and in the long run everyone will have the same hands at different times. Sometimes my middle pair really will be good, and other times my top two pair is in big trouble. The confidence has to come from being able to guess correctly in both cases and then being able to read the opponent well enough to know when and how much aggression to apply.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with it, Nanowrimo is National Novel Writing Month, which takes place each November. People who are participating are challenged to write 50,000 words of a novel, or, 1,700 words per day. Apparently, they figure that’s doable by people who have jobs and a family. We’ll see.

So I’m 5 days into it. At this point, I’ve got approximately 6 days worth of writing completed. I’m trying to do 2 days worth each Saturday and Sunday, and 3 days worth between Monday and Friday. I’m working on a work of fiction, no connection to poker.

But what that means is that my poker playing is going to be limited this month, as will be my posting here. That’s assuming that I don’t give up before month end. On top of this, my mother-in-law is coming to visit mid-month for a few weeks, so my non-working/non-sleeping time is going to have lots of claims on it. I have a few partially completed posts for here though, so I’ll try to finish those thoughts and post them, and I want to try to generate some activity for some posts that I made before I moved my blog that have lost viewing popularity since I moved.

Along with grades from undergraduate studies, recommendations and relevant work experience, the other thing that MBA programs consider for admission is the score on the Graduate Management Admissions Test, or GMAT. This is the equivalent of the MCAT for med school or LSAT for law school.

Image by PerfectoInsecto

Back when I did the test, the lowest acceptable GMAT score that I saw was 550. Most universities require 600, and the highest minimum score for admission was 650. I scored 720. Relative to the other test takers, I was in the 95th percentile for quantitative, 99th percentile for qualitative, and in the 99th percentile overall, implying that most of those that scored higher than me in the quantitative did poorer than I did in the qualitative. Scoring must have changed over the years, because if I look at scoring now the averages seem quite high relative to when I took the test. For example, INSEAD, which sought my application back then, now apparently claims an average score of 705, or almost my score, so unless the scoring has shifted, that doesn’t make much sense. Or maybe they’ve never accepted anyone who didn’t score in the 90th percentile.

Years later I discovered later that I scored high enough on the GMAT to gain admission to MENSA, but after investigating the organization I decided that joining a group where people seemed to sit around doing word jumble puzzles didn’t seem my style.

Anyway, at various points I’ve considered offering tutoring for people planning to take the GMAT exam because I did well and because I think that I used a good approach to preparing for the exam. As I remember the test, essentially the GMAT tested two things; high school level math skills, and reading and comprehension skills. And it tests for speed on both. You do do half hour sections, and you cannot go back to previous sections once you’ve finished a section. There are 7 half hour sections to write, over a four hour period. Endurance, speed, accuracy.

My exam preparation involved buying two books with tests from previous years and doing one 1/2 hour test at a time at first, later building up and doing longer test sessions. After each session I would score my results. And the crucial aspect, I would then categorize my mistakes into 1) carelessness, either misreading the question or misreading the answer options, 2) speed errors; ran out of time to do the question properly, 3) unable to answer given the restraints. The last ones were ones that I for whatever reason I couldn’t get my head around, or would have taken me too much time to work out properly. Those ones all I could to was to learn to recognize them before I used up too much time and mark them to come back and finish, if I had extra time.

As I took more practice tests, I focused on eliminating the careless errors, with some background awareness of the speed errors/constraint. Over time I got both of those down to a minimum, and then even found myself with time available before the 1/2 hour ran out for dealing with the difficult ones.

With that kind of preparation for the exam material and the structure I didn’t feel pressured and did fairly well.

~

Two things come out of this for me with regards to poker:

1. I should be fast and accurate with math skills.
2. I can draw from my preparation for the exam to improve my poker play by using similar analysis of results

Unfortunately, 1. does not seem to be the case anymore. Since the advent of computers, I never add, multiply, subtract or divide anything in my head anymore. (And no, calculators and computers are not allowed when taking the GMAT exam). My math skills have gone down the tube and I don’t seem to be interested in redeveloping them. When faced with pot odds calculations, I tend to do eyeball estimates if it’s at all complicated, rather than make any effort to work out the correct ratios.

The second I apply sometimes, more when I was first starting out. But we can probably all spend more time reviewing our hand histories than we do. In the heat of the moment for example, I often tend to put players on a narrower range of hands than I should, seeing what hands I’m behind and missing the ones that I’m ahead of that might also explain his move. In the other direction, when I started out I often missed seeing straight draws that filled on the turn or river, though that ability tends to come with time and especially if you play Omaha.

~

I saw a site which sells a preflop poker hand odds calculator. Its a hand-held calculator, and “keeps you from cluttering you screen while you play”, or something like that.

Here’s my preflop hand calculator.

(Click to view proper size)

Pairs are listed on the left, then Ace-high hands, King-high hands, across to Jacks, then underneath the Jacks are Ten high hands, and back the other way. My version also does not clutter your screen if you print it out and have it by your keyboard. Do not tape to the front of your monitor unless you want it to clutter your screen.

Be aware that this chart (or the expensive calculator as well!) is only useful in certain situations. Most commonly, late in a SnG when the blinds are getting higher and you have to decide whether or not to steal or possibly to push. Sitting in the SB, 5 handed, folded to you, you and the BB have 12 BBs, you hold Q8s, 58% chance of winning against an unknown hand, push.

The other possible situation is perhaps in the SB in ring games, folded to you, and you want to consider how good your hand is relative to the BB, but then you need to consider some of the aspects listed here.

If you’re not familiar with this chart or some version of it, take a look at how even the top pairs and especially AKs/o and AQs/o fare against 1, then 2, then 3 random hands. And these are just random hands, not raise-calling hands like TT but any hand at all, which is exactly what the BB and SB might have if you don’t raise preflop. This is one of the reasons why you raise AK and AQ in position preflop.

There. This is another of my contributions to the anti-commercialism of the internet. I’ve made other such contributions in areas where I have much more experience, but listing them here would serve to uncloak my anonymity. This information is not unique, and you can find other versions throughout the internet, but I like this compact format.

Once you get a feel for playing those hands, there are more hands that are worth playing, in certain situations. This post is about the next range of hands to consider playing and when to play them. Don’t try adding these to your game too much until you really have the basic starting hands down, as well as some good post-flop playing experience.

Middle/low pocket pairs:

These hands may be the best hand preflop, and even at showdown if higher cards have missed the board. Against AK, 22 is a 52/48 favorite, but once the cards come out, 22 is a 91/9 dog against 54 if either the 4 or 5 has paired the board. So the lower the pair, the more difficult they can be to play postflop.

When/how to play middle/low pocket pairs:

• From the SB or late position, if the pot is unopened, raise to try to take the blinds. If called, evaluate the flop for likelihood that it hit the caller and if not, c-bet and represent a hand. You may in fact have the best hand.
• At a weak table, from early/mid position open limp. Try to set off a chain of limpers and hope to hit a set. Against good players, this can be a transparent play. In most cases, fold unless you hit a set.
• In a tournament, when you have 10 BBs or less, push all-in and hope that at worst you get in a race against overcards. As a big stack, you can also call short stack shoves and hope that they are pushing any two big cards.
• At at cash table, against a loose player, and either he or you have short stacks, when he raises preflop, try to get him all in for the same reason as above.
• When faced with a raise and both you and your opponent have fairly deep stacks, call their preflop raises and hope to hit a set. This is called “set mining” as basically you are hoping to flop a set, and you hope to get paid off big when you do. Note that this is only applicable when the stack sizes are at least 50 BBs each. Because the odds are 7.5 to 1 against flopping a set, you need implied odds to get enough return on the times that you do flop a set. Standard minimum effective stack size requirement is 12 to 1; both players need to have 12 times the bet size (the extra from 7.5 to 12 is to cover the times we hit the set but don’t win a big pot), meaning around 50 BBs since the PFR will be about 3 or 4 BBs. Again, if you miss the set, most of the time you just fold.
• Against decent competition, open raise any pair from any position. Again, you’re going to steal the blinds, or c-bet any flop that you think your opponent missed. Best case scenario is when you flop a medium or low set and your opponent catches a high pair. The other purpose of doing this is to balance your play, so that an early position raise is not always the top 5% of hands and so a 962 flop does not always mean that you missed.

Sometimes you will miss a set but the flop will be a lower than your pair. Or, you flop an OESD. Or it’s a dry flop with only one overcard and you suspect that your opponent who raised preflop might have missed the flop as well. There are definitely situations where you miss the set but decide that it’s worthwhile to call one bet or to lead out and hope to win a small pot, but that’s material for an entire separate post.

Suited connectors

Suited connectors were Doyle Brunson’s favorite hand, but since publication of his Super System book some who have read it tend to overvalue these hands, both preflop and on the flop.

Suited connectors (ie. 8s7s) can be played very similarly to medium/small pairs. There are some dangers in these hands that are different from pairs.

1. If you catch one pair (ie. a 842 flop) you may have the best hand, but you may be behind an overpair or be dominated by someone who has a better kicker. Often you will catch middle pair which is even more difficult to play.
2. When you get two pair (ie. Q87 flop) those two cards often give someone else a straight draw. You have to play this situation very fast and charge anyone to chase. It gets worse if the flop may have already given someone else the straight, such as a 987 flop.
3. Similarly if you flop the bottom end of a straight you need to play this fast (ie. JT9 flop) as anyone with a Q can outdraw you, but be careful because again you may already be behind KQ for a bigger straight.
4. If you flop a flush you can’t play it too slow either as your flush is vulnerable to anyone who holds only the A of the suit, and again you may already be behind a bigger flush.

These dangers are what make suited connectors somewhat more difficult to play than pairs. It’s often less obvious when you have the best hand, and even when you have a big hand it can be vulnerable to being already behind, or to being outdrawn.

How/when to play suited connectors:

• From the SB or late position, if the pot is unopened, raise to try to take the blinds. If called, evaluate the flop for likelihood that it hit the caller and if not, c-bet and represent a hand. Unlike pairs, you likely do not have the best hand if you missed the flop, but when you do hit it’s well disguised. Just calling from the SB is also an option, because when you hit a hand it can be so well disguised that you have a chance to win a larger pot, if the BB catches something or wants to try to bluff you off.
• At a weak table, call behind limpers. I’m less inclined to open-limp suited connectors because unlike pairs it can be difficult to determine how good your hand is. It’s easier when you are in late position rather than early position.
• In a tournament, when you have a big stack suited connectors can be good cards to call small stack shoves. Because they are so rarely dominated by the type of hands that a short stack will likely shove with you are rarely drawing dead. Against overpairs they are 80/20 underdogs, but against two higher unpaired cards they are 64/34 underdogs, and against underpairs they are 52/48 underdogs. Obviously not as good as pairs, which is why they are better for big stack calls rather than short stack shoves. This is often where I see players overvalue suited connectors by openshoving, believing that they are as good as a small pocket pair.
• When faced with a raise and both you and your opponent have fairly deep stacks, call their preflop raises. Again suited connectors are deceptive and rarely dominated, especially against the big (most commonly open raised) hands.
• Like pairs, you could open raise suited connectors, but do so judiciously because there are so many combinations of them that if you raise every time you have them you will be raising often.

Some further notes about suited connectors.

• 45 through to TJ can make 4 different straights. 34 and JQ can only make 3 straights, 23 and KQ can only make 2 straights (though obviously KQ that paired the flop is much stronger than 23 that paired). Similarly any one-gap connector (T8/97 ect) can only make 3 straights, and a 2-gapper (T7, 96 ect) can only make 2.
• a pair with an OESD (ie. 87 on a T97 flop) has 8 outs to a straight, 2 outs to trips, and 3 outs to two pair if your opponent has a lone overpair. That’s 13 outs, or 55/45 underdog.
• a pair with a flush draw (8s7s on Ks8c4s) is a 53/47 underdog against an overpair
• a pair with and OESD and flush draw (9s8c6s) is 64/36 favorite over an overpair
• an OESD and flush draw (KsTs9h) is a 53/47 favorite

These odds to draws are somewhat simplified, as they do not take into consideration the times that your opponent may have a draw to the same straight or to a bigger straight or flush.

~

Adding middle and low pocket pairs and suited connectors to your preflop hands of choice will give you a lot more hands to open your tight arsenal of opening hands, but these extra hands are ones that have value if you use them in the proper situations. But use them properly. Don’t just add them as hands to play from all positions in all situations or you’ll be spewing chips almost badly as as the fish who plays Kh 4h because it’s soooted.

Note that between the list of starting hands and then adding these hands, there’s still no place for KTo, A6o and the like, hands that are very rarely going to dominate a flop but hands that are easily dominated. These are fine for stealing blinds (in fact any Ace hand or gapped connector is good for blind stealing) but are just garbage for less experienced players who will get into trouble with these kinds of hands.

Others, like this, are plainly a personal meandering, but that’s also part of the purpose of the blog as a whole.

~

Another addendum to “road rage” and “poker aggression“. On a recent Friday night I was dropping someone off in a commercial area. I pulled off on to a residential side street. There was no traffic on the side street, so I turned around, stopped at the intersection. The person got out the passenger side, and in the meantime a car pulled up behind us.

The passenger was a little slow getting out, and as they closed the door, the car behind honked. I immediately honked back, waited for the passenger to get clear of my car, and turned right onto the other street and drove away. Later I when I saw the passenger again I said that I hoped that I didn’t put them in a difficult situation when I honked back at the car. They replied that it was just a bunch of young guys having fun.

The encounter made me think of idiots at the poker table. At the poker table I assume that some are probably just general jerks in real life, others might be drunk at the moment. The honk from the other car felt similar to a comment typed in a chat box, one which I felt was inappropriate (we were causing a 5 second delay, on a residential street, what’s your problem?) and so I responded in kind.

And, like a poker aggression situation, immediately following the incident I was curious to note my reaction. No increased heart rate, no adrenaline, no noticeable mental shift. Good.