Ok Cut! That’s a Wrap!
February 23, 2007
So my debut as film director didn’t seem to go down too badly. Aside from some spoilsports being a tad selfish, it was a general thumbs up from most folks.
While it is nice to get praise in comments here on the blog and on posts on the forum, I was really hoping for questions and opposing views on some of the plays I made.
 |
|||||||||||||||
|
————————- The true worth of something like this, is not just in watching the movie, but in the discussion and dissection of the game and the way it panned out. As online players we miss this very important area of our poker education. I have read and watched interviews of several professional players, where they have stated that one of the most valuable aspects of their poker education was dissection and analysis of hands within their formative years in land based poker schools. Also it is not uncommon to see many professional players coming from the same small poker schools. This tells me that debate and discussion of hands is definitely a very valuable teaching format. They [the pro’s] say that quite often they used to all turn their cards over at the end of the hand and enter into debate about the why’s & what’s of the hand. Obviously this is a difficult if not impossible thing for us to do as online players. The nearest thing we can do online is to produce a movie of one of our games and then critique the game played. Of course this has the obvious disadvantage of being able to see only one players hole cards.
As for analysis of the game in the movie, Well I think Gopher & Dog just about covered it all but, heck yah know me by now, I can’t just have a wee lil blog entry now can I? During the movie of the game, ya’ll have heard me chatting away, but what you didn’t hear was all the other stuff running through my head. Here I’ll try explain some more of my reasoning and at the same time address the notes SvcMgr took whilst watching the movie. Remember these are my personal insights, I am not saying they are text book poker plays. Dog mentioned the point about starting tentatively and sitting back watching the table. Information is power, anything you can pick up from an opponent on the felt is valuable. Because I am sitting at a table of unknown quantities, anything less than a monster hand the first couple of rounds I will fold, spending most of my concentration on watching the players. Aside from watching for betting patterns which will really only become apparent as the game develops. The less experienced players (especially monkey’s) will quite often reveal their naivety early on in the game. And this is exactly the players I am immediately looking for. I will be looking to target them as early as possible, when the position and hand is right, I will go strong for their chips. They are the weakest players on the table and if anyone is going to take their chips I want it to be me. I will get sucked out by them now and then, but by a fair margin it’ll be me who will walk away with the stack. Also I want to mark them as wild/fish because I don’t want to be caught out by them if they go quiet and then hit me with sucker calls late in the game. In addition if I ever run in to them on another table I have their card marked already. Dave (SvcMgr) took notes and though they were not so much a critique but rather his personal observations, there is opportunity here for me to give more of an insight on my thoughts on the game. Thanks Dave! [Remember these are my personal insights, I am not saying they are text book poker plays.]
Aggression is usually king in this kind of game. I wanted to prove that the pro’s are correct when they encourage aggression. Of course you have to get yourself mentally ‘lit’ for it to work, show no weakness and play it hard and be confident. Getting the right cards at the right time helps immensely in these short SNG games. If you [Dave] think this puts a player in a “heightened state of mind” then surely you should be doing it also?
I tried to move the info bet size up as my chip stack increased, keeping it to a percentage of my stack, the obvious advantage to me was that because I had a large chip stack my info bets could hurt a limper. And yes the point was it worked, so why change a winning strategy? I did throw the odd random sized info bet out there, to stop myself getting into a rut. For example if I had just stuck in three info bets of $300, then throw out a lower info bet of $120, it causes doubt in their minds. All of sudden they’re a bit lost on what I am doing.. “Is that $120 an info bet?”.. “so what were those $300 bets?” Etc… Well this is the theory, the thing was to every now and then throw out a different size info bet just to keep them guessing, make them ‘over-think’ the hand, nine times out of ten they will see cards that are not there. Two suits on the flop, they see my non existent flush draw, high card on the board they see my non existent high card pair. How many times have you talked yourself out of hand because someone bet and you immediately put them on the best possible hand the board can give? And I know you touch on this later, but, it is not a semi-bluff either.
Ok, that monkey was at that point, the weakest player on the table. It was important that I did not allow him to even start pushing me around. I had a made hand and what ever drawing hand he turned over I had the edge. Risky? Maybe, but vital to my rep at the table at that time, so I deemed it worth the hard push. I wasn’t pot committed but I also may have gone all the way with the made hand.
This was the second hand after the pocket 4’s. I was on the button and had one flat caller before me. Previously it was just the two of us when I pushed the fours. Now I already had one flat caller and two blind hands behind me yet to call. That would have been a risky push with 66. Yet I was half invested, with a comfortable stack, it was likely, (going by what I had observed already) that the SB would flat call and we would have a check off the BB and a family pot of $200, so for $25 I was getting 8-1. 66 in the hole against any 3 random hands gives me a 30% chance of taking it down I was getting good pot odds. [ Note: any pocket pair from 3’s and up against 3 random hands your are 25% minimum, so even with 33, I would have been getting good pot odds.]
Think yah made an error there mate, I did flat call the J10os. I was on the button and would have pushed but a tight player had limped in and I had the two blinds yet to bet. So flat called. I took the hand down when the 4AA flopped and after it checked around to me on the flop round.
Ok couple points here, I called his 400 raise lightening fast, that is gonna stick in his head, also I am still trying to show him (note: the monkey) if he takes a swing at me I ain’t scared of swinging back. Also I strongly suspected he was blind stealing. Also even though I was playing hard, I don’t think anyone including the monkey had me marked off as a monkey player. I risked a low flop with a half a drawing hand, the flop did come low, I am putting him (at best) on high cards, two suited cards, ace rag. The flop was rainbow’d and any draw on the flop was mine not his. Then a 2nd 3 hit the turn, so I bet his naivety, he sees two 3’s on the board and starts to worry about trips, two pair etc
97 off suit is not a bad hand in the SB, if it flat called around to me, as it was, a tight player went all in making it a bad hand.
I was on the button, it was flat called around to me, family pot, that is a calling hand for sure. I had the power position. Flop gave me an open ended straight which proves my point. I have explained this before somewhere, when it is flat called around to you in the power position by more than 2 or 3 players, you can almost be sure, at a minimum, two of them, if not all of them are sharing cards and outs. NL Hold’em is a game of high cards and that is what people generally play. Though after the flop two tight players then hit the pot with 300 raises before it got around to me, so even though the flop had hit me as best as it could I backed off and let the two tight players hit into each other. Hoping one would take the other out. The idea being it is easier to get the chips of one player than is it is 2.
It is quite likely that several times there were others out there who had a piece. The info bets are not semi bluffs from my point of view, they are info bets. If everyone folds to them then they themselves make them into a semi bluff. When I had I had a piece of the flop and then analysed the pre-flop action and any subsequent post flop action or lack of, along with my position, more times than not I bet into the board strong. This is also not so much a semi bluff, as a reasoned move on my part. If you ever look back over the movie, you’ll see where I could not reason the hand confidently, I usually checked. I recall hitting a 2 on one flop with a King and another over card, by using the variables above I reasoned I could hit into the board and take it down. The flop was basically King, rag, rag. Ok so it is a game of high cards, the opponent might have had a King in his hand, but he almost certainly had a crappy kicker. Think about it, three handed you pick up a King with a high card you going to limp? So I bet into it, he is putting me on a higher kicker, simply because he also knows most people play high cards in NL Hold’em. Or he simply had diddly squat, whatever, the reasoning was correct for me to hit into the flop.
I was actually on the SB mate and half invested. Four handed, two folds, so it was $40 to have a look. Again my stack size was 3 times the size of the other 3 players. The flop gave me bottom pair Q7A. The other three players are on the bubble and are all tightened down. I bet $300 into the BB after the flop not so much on my 7 pairing the board, but on my position and the fact they were trying to avoid me as big stack as they were playing the bubble. Note even though I wasn’t truly betting my pair of 7’s, with a made pair at this point I am 2-1 favourite to take the hand down against any random hand The only other 67 was off suit and was the first hand of heads up and though low to middle connectors are not very good heads up I was massive chip leader and it was worth a look for $80. Also I was starting a re-evaluation as we had now entered the heads up end game and people often change their style, sometimes drastically, when they get into heads up. I wanted to see how his game was going to change, e.g. Would he allow a limp etc? As it was I hit top pair with back door flushes and straight’s so then from a limp-in, I hit it for 500.. A very uncomfortable bet for him to call, almost 25% of his stack.
This was the Q9 suited right? Against 2 random hands I am 40% favourite to take it down by the river. I was also on the button position and in the frame for the next round of betting. I had Q9 several times and played it several different ways according to the table dynamics, position, bets, who was in etc. A raise was the correct move I think, at that time taking into account the above considerations.
He had limped into my BB and I checked it. He again checked to me at the flop with an AK4 on the flop. It is unlikely heads up he had a flush draw. You say I bet into a flush draw but that is exactly what is immediately jumping into his head when I raised on the turn as the third diamond hit.
The raise to me was a minimum raise, J9 suited 3 way against 2 random hands I am well favourite. For $120 (1% of my stack) it was worth the look no matter he was a tight player, at this point $120 did not have any affect on my chip stack or chances of winning or losing the game. If I had hit the flop I’d have taken him out the game. Adding all that up a bet of $120 is a gimme.
Lol, yup especially considering my chip stack versus his. Thanks for the input Dave appreciate it! Not sure if my reply will satisfy or confuse, but by all means keep at me if you are still unconvinced or want to question again/or more. I might be wrong mate but from reading some of your notes, (and I know they were just hastily scribbled down live so I take it they not set in stone or anything) I think that it may be you do not consider the positional bet carefully enough. Position is incredibly important, it is more often than not, the determining factor on who takes down the pot. And yanno who ever takes the most pots down usually wins the game. Ok that is about it for today, probably bored ya’ll enough already. I haven’t played any poker to talk of for several days now, still taking a weeks sabbatical. I plan to start my assault on the higher stakes games sometime next week. As always comments and thoughts welcome. Good luck on the felt all. |
Comments
10 Responses to “Ok Cut! That’s a Wrap!”
Got something to say?
My eyes are burning and I haven’t even finished half of the blog. It would take me a week to type that novel Blaggz, lol.
Give me a while to take this all in, and are you doing a new voice over too explain you thoughts on each hand? lol How bout putting some more pressure on ya huh. Just kiddin Bro.
Hope to see ya kickin butt again soon in “Blagger’s Revenge” or “Return of the Blagger” or even a direct name theft like “Blagger Wars”, I can see it now “Coming to a Cinema Near You …. Close Encounters of the Blagger Kind” lol
Overall, Excellent !!!!…now…what I’d like to see is another video…AAAACK!!!…don’t kill me lol.
When you come back to playing from your hiatus (sp)..and you start playing those higher stakes games, there (out of say 10 games) is bound to be at least one game that you lose.
See if you can’t record one where either bad luck or a booboo play sent you down the road. This would be as informative as any winning game analysis, and speculation and critique would also be quite fun and interesting.
Have to agree with Lippy. Having a video where you do rather crap would be interesting and open to more debate. Now, don’t think for one minute I want you to deliberately loose a game. You might end up recording 5 or 6 games before you get a really disasterous one.
As for your idea of playing a sit and go with eachother, then requesting the hand histories, that is an excellent idea. I would definately be up for that. Again though, I wouldn’t look at it as an insight to how others play because we can all have our bad days (or in my case bad month ;-)) and also days when we just can’t loose. But I for one would enjoy an analysis for that particular game.
Paulie,
I told you it was going to be a short debate..lol.
You counter points are well thought out. When I wrote down the comments, I just watched str8 through without pausing etc.
I wanted to give you something but you played it so well, there wasn’t too much to say.
I think Lippy makes a good point. It would be interesting to see or watch when the game doesn’t go as well.
For example, If you look at the 4th hand you played (I think it ws 4th, it was early anyway). You had A K off. You raised 350 I think. The BB called.
Flop came 4 2 7. You bet 500. The BB called. The turn was an A. BB went all in and you called. You won that hand but it could have been disasterous.
You previously labeled this player as a Monkey. We all know the Monkeys LOVE Ace rag. They think this is an all in hand and are proud when they win with it.
When the hand started he had about 2500 chips to your 1500 chips.
That guy COULD have just as easily been playing A 7 instead of 5 6. You called your tournament life on the fact that he didn’t.
Was that a “over confident call”?
Did A 7, A 2, A 4, ever enter into consideration?
I am sure we all have been taken out or crippled with the Ace rag monkey play.
I am not sure I would have put my tournament life on that call.
I think the Monkey put you on a mid to high level PP since you increased your bet after a flop that shouldn’t have helped anyone. The only way he could get you off the hand was betting the Ace and putting you all in. He probably figured if you were on a mid to high level PP you wouldn’t call and if you did call, he had some outs. He also had more chips than you so he wouldn’t be out of the tourny if he lost.
Dog and I were talking little bit about this the other day. Dog was playing a hand, I don’t remember all the specifics, but he ended up losing the hand. After the hand finished, Dog said something to the effect that he got caught up in the hand and should have folded. His confidence and agression level were so high, logic took a back seat when it shouldn’t have. I am not dissing Dog, he is a great player, I am just using it as an example because I was there and as soon as the hand ended, Dog knew he made a mistake.
No one at the table ran into a monster “invisible” hand which I think they all were waiting for. (Invisible to me is the one you never see coming. PP hits, str8 hits that you don’t see, etc.)
The players to your right later in the tourny was very weak. You had a few blinds folded to you.
Anyway, don’t take this the wrong way. I think your level of play was much higher than anyone at that table. It would be educational and fun to watch you play at a table with higher level players.
Your brain would be going a million miles an hour so I think watching and listening would be easier than trying to video in it.
Maybe we can talk about this later, I would like to know what you think.
Yeah sorry folks that was one long blog post…
So ya’ll wanna see me get beat up.. sheesh.. I am starting to feel like a poker stuntman here lol..
Next week I will skydiving whilst playing 89 off suit from the small blind! And by extra request I’ll be doing this whilst clutching onto a copy of the Theory of Poker by David Slansky using just the power of my butt cheeks!
I don’t mind recording any game and showing it but, it is a lot easier said than done. There is not much appeal in watching a monkey suck someone out, we all know what that looks and feels like. I don’t want to have the distractions of the recording when I am playing in a higher stakes game.
I suppose the best thing might be to enter one of them $1 dollar 45 man SNG’s, not overly long and if I did reach the final positions I could edit it down to 30 minutes or so again. Have to think about that one. Maybe record a league game, that might prove interesting?
Gopher I am sure Dog and maybe Dave and Lippy would be up for that sharing hand history idea. If we can’t get 9 of us to do it we could always find a 6 seater table, also we do not have to play for real money either. There is no reason we can’t do this with play money, as long as we all play our best game and take it seriously. Perhaps a post on the forum might be in order to jolly the idea along?
@Dave-
Hey bud, I didn’t think it was a debate as such where one person tries to out-debate the other side. I tried to make it very clear that those were just quick notes you scribbled down and not set in stone.
The reason I typed up such a detailed point by point reply was that you were the only person to give me an opportunity to do so. I suspect that many people that watched the movie had similar thoughts. I bet if you had sat with me on audio through that game your observations would have been totally different. And I do appreciate you gave me something to work with.
I note what you say about the movie being a live stream and it is difficult to catch things on the fly, next time I will also include a direct download link of the movie so you can shuttle it back and forth, pause, stop, start etc.
There is actually a direct download for the old movie on the site if you still want it? Had to put it up for Dog, cos his crappy ISP kept freezing the stream on him.
Re; your new comments.
The counter points were not thought out retrospectively mate just in case you are thinking that, when I really do get into the game, this stuff zips through my head as I am playing.
Regarding the 4th hand, yup it could have been disastrous, but so can any hand, to be honest. It was early in the game I had pinpointed a monkey, AK I think on the button? Raised like $350 as you say, a hefty raise that early. BB (monkey) called, hit into the pot with $500 he called again.
Now a couple of things at this point. It is early in the game and there are still a couple (at least) of monkey’s still at the table. I have pushed in, what? 60% of my stack? So I can lay down the hand and give the monkey a commanding chip stack and cripple myself.
Where I would have to fight tooth and nail to get back to where I want to be, or I can take a risk and either get the chips right there and then or get sucked out and move onto the next game and not waste 1 hour plus limping around.
Sure I considered he might be playing Ace rag, but what made my mind up for definite was the bet he made on the turn card the Ace. He didn’t just go all in, as he surely would have done if he had two paired an Ace with a rag on the board. Instead he deliberately and carefully bet exactly what was left in my stack, something like $620. That is novice play and in this case I saw right through it, you’ll hear me exclaim when he makes that bet something like” ahah, nope that isn’t gonna work mate”. If he had me, he’d have been all-in quicker than you could say it.
In a different situation with a different player I might have taken a different view but not against Mr Monkey there. I was quite happy to put my tournament life on the line as it was a key point in the game, it was early so as I said if sucked out I ain’t wasted too much time and just move on and if I took it down it gave me the upper hand over the table and allowed me to implement my stated strategy.
I think you give the monkey too much credit mate, monkey’s don’t put people on hands, they only see their own cards most of the time. Was it an overconfident call? Nope not in the slightest, I knew exactly where I was and what was happening. Don’t read that wrong of course I wasn’t 100% sure but I was totally aware of the risk and quite prepared to take it at that stage of the game. I wasn’t caught up in the hand either.
As for the other guys on the table not hitting into a monster invisible hand, how do you know they didn’t? I am certain that monster hands were dealt out to the others at some point. I didn’t play every hand and the hands I was not involved in were usually folded to the first raise or folded to the blind.
I think the guy to my immediate right was a monkey, but once he caught some chips I think he clammed right up and to be honest I also think he was very intimidated having me directly on his left. Would you want to have been sat to my immediate right in that game? I know I wouldn’t lol..
Yeah recording a higher stakes game sounds good but yanno I have to consider the fact I am putting up good money to win good money and when push comes to shove, money is what it is all about. The distractions of recording the game is something I can do without when playing for a $100-$200 SNG prize. But, we’ll see..
BTW Dog. If it burns yah eyes when reading the text try this..
Hold down the Ctrl key and roll the wheel on your mouse, you can adjust text size of most web pages like this.
Paulie,
Good point on the A rag thing. I didn’t notice that he didn’t go all-in he just put you all-in. That is a good indicator of someone trying to represent a hand they don’t have.
I guess I haven’t played from the perspective of building chips early or going home.
I know you have talked about this before and it is a strategy you use sometimes.
No one wants you to loose. I think we just want to learn more. A different result in a game would let us learn more.
Your analysis during a game and after are detailed, well thought out, and to me a great learning tool.
Of course, I understand not doing this when you move up to a more serious level.
Maybe when you get some time and want to play for fun, we can play together.
Good luck with the higher levels.
Let me know how you do.
Thanks for all of this.
Thanks for the encouraging words mate, appreciate that.
And as for getting together to play, the shout is out there already if yah wanna join up.. The hand history thing I mentioned and that Gordon has already put his hand up for.
You know i’ll play…when and where is an important matter…weekdays is out for me…Fridays as long as its after 6:00pm…Saturday..anytime with a weeks notice…Sunday…anytime as long as it don’t last past 8:00pm…that would be 10:00est…and of course ya all know I will only …KILL KILL KILL..hehehe
I’m available most days, but probably the best time would be a Saturday around 9pm (4pm est). As you have indicated Paul, we could even play at the play money tables, as long as we play how we would normally if we had cash invested.
If not Saturday then on a Friday night after the league’s Full Tilt game would be best.