During the WSOP, I played the $2-$5blinds pot limit holdem side game–it was great! It produced great action…it allowed the game to played in a way where the skills of betting, reading other players and position really mattered. I also played 4 satellite tourneys that were no limit, and of course, the same skills could be applied there also…so my question is, how can both pot limit and no limit holdem be popularized and encouraged to be spread in casinos in Atlantic city and/or Foxwoods?…especially at those cheap $2-$5 blinds….i know that pot limit failed in AC, but I’m not sure why….

Answer 1:

Tunica, MS and Kinder, LA, are areas places I have played where pot limits games are very popular. But here in the Phoenix area, there are no pot limit games. I don’t know this as fact, but I believe some of the casinos are afraid that a game like that will cause too many players to go broke and therefore cut down on their ongoing rake.

Answer 2:

There is much less chance of a poor player winning at NL or PL, and too many of the “backbone” recreational players that card rooms rely on would bust out too quickly.

Answer 3:

Card rooms worry that in pot-limit (1) weak players never win, and they will get frustrated and quit playing, (2) a wealthy “donator” will get cleaned out all at once, and the high- limit games that depend on him will dry up, or (3) having gigantic pots turn on one card will lead to allegations of cheating when someone spikes a lucky card (high-limit is different since the pots are more equal; you don’t have a few huge hands out of a long session of small pots). I don’t buy a lot of these justifications as long as pot-limit is done right: (1) experienced dealers only, (2) mid-limit and high-limit games continue to be spread, just offer pot-limit for variety, (3) proper buy-ins and reasonable rake/time charge. If the total fish never win in pot-limit, they’ll just go back to limit. Pot-limit would still be profitable for an expert playing against mediocre players. Also, a pot-limit game would draw in players if it was the only one in the area.

I was playing 7-handed in a 3-6 holdem game last night. It was a ramming-jamming kind of game until a couple of action players left, and another suddenly tightened up. I have 99 in the BB, two limpers, SB folds and I check. Flop comes 899. I check for the slow play, and in the back of my mind, I think about the bad beat jackpot. First player checks, second player bets, I call, first player folds. Turn is a T (pretty sure no flush possible). The read I have on the other player is that he has no hand, and is trying to buy the pot. My strategy is to check and call the turn and then check raise the river (and then he would fold and I wouldn’t have to show my monster). I figure if I bet out, he would fold, or if I check-raise the turn, he would fold. Check, bet, call. River is a J. Great, a scare card. Board is now 899TJ. I am hoping he has made a straight and check. He turns over KT. (No!). I turn over my 9s and the whole table looks at me like I am and idiot and don’t realize quad 9s is a good hand. My question: Am I an idiot? Knowing the cards now, I think the best way to play would have been to check raise the turn, and he might have called, guessing he was beat, but hoping to catch a T on the river. In general, how do you play a hand where you flop a monster and are first to act?

Answer 1:

Never check a monster on the river heads-up, IMHO. If a scare card comes, it will probably scare him away from betting. If not, your bet may confuse him enough to call. If he has been betting into the hand all the way, he will most likely at least call.

Answer 2:

I would try to bet and make it look like a bluff. You know bluff a bluff. Use deception if you can. Like a reverse tell or similar. How best can you get the most money into your stack? Know your opponent how will he / she react to an apparent bluff. How good a player are you in your opponents eyes? I had a guy the other day tell me what a shitty player i was for drawing out on him. I guess he thought I could see his hand, that his buryied set of kings had me beat coming out. Never mind about that, what I’m getting at is the fact that, I knew he thought I was a crummy player .So now I could use that against him. It got me a few calls and loose bets out of him, and increased my stack 50% with his help. (What didn’t help is getting drawn out on at the river, 10:1 by the drunk with a buried A’s full house a few hands later) [Jacks full on 6th was my hand, he bought an over paired board at 6th and I'm showing a pair of jacks so I started ramming it after he checks]. The question is how best I can go about obtaining my goal. And remember if all else fails BET!!! esp.w/ a monster (Hmmm if I could only have caught the case ???)

Answer 3:

I played with a loud-mouth a few weeks ago who gave a lesson after every hand. At one point, he flops quads, checks every round, nobody else bets (I am last to act and am known to bet a lot, but not when I have nothing and there are six players). He then treats us to a lesson as to how this is “the only possible way to play the hand”. Ok, back to your question. You are a partial idiot. You did very well in thinking about the hand. You did not think enough. You play was not so good, even in foresight. How to play when you flop quads is very dependent on the number of opponents, the character of the game (loose, tight, tough, soft) and the texture of the flop. Lopping quad aces after you have raised before flop and the flop comes AA6 is not the same as when you have checked the BB and the flop comes 899. First, why not bet? Is everyone going to put you on quads and fold? No, they will put you on an 8, as straight draw, a small pair, two over cards, or something else. (There is this though that the easiest way to get money into a pot is to put it there yourself). If you bet here, many people with over cards will call; many people with a gut show will cal (like 75, for example, might give you a call for a small bet). For the same reason, you should give more action on the turn. If you bet out, you might even get (bluff) raised by the guy with the KT who now has an open end draw. You will certainly get called. And you cannot check the river. If a brick comes, you might try to get a final bluff out of someone on momentum, but when a scary card hits, you need to bet to make sure your opponent is not scared into checking a mediocre (calling) hand. BarryT’s rule is never turn over the nuts for free. If you have 100% macadamias, bet! Don’t forget, a check-raise wins zero or two bets, while a bet wins one or three. The major mistake you made (and this is one of the most frequent mistake in poker) is looking at your hand and knowing what you have. You need to look at your hand, sure, but you also need to be thinking abut what the opponents think you have instead of what you know you have.

How far should you ride your stack down in a limit tournament? At the last two tables in my local tournament everyone clings to their chips for dear life. The entire last table is paid. When I am down to 2 or three blinds I start to look for a gamblers hand, figuring that doubling up 1 lousy chip will do me no good if I wait. Should I just let the blinds force me out?

Answer 1:

IMHO you need to increase your stack or get eliminated as soon as possible. You need to shoot for the final three spots to get the money – especially when your opposition is being conservative.

Answer 2:

Some of the better tournament players take advantage of this situation, and play very aggressively at that point, accumulating
mounds of chips. Jack Fox comes to mind. Marie Gabert is another. I would rather play against almost anybody else at this point in the tournament.

Answer 3:

While aggressive play is often correct against overly tight players in the late stages of tournaments, focusing excessively on winning will cost you EV. When you risk chips in a close to even money situation late in the tournament, the chips you are risking are worth more than the chips you stand to gain. So putting your stack in constant jeopardy in marginal situations will win you more tournaments, but will lower your EV overall as confrontations resulting in elimination benefit players other than the ones involved. Just playing to “make the money” is the other extreme and is also wrong. Getting blinded off to ensure yourself some profit is similar to people who insure blackjacks to guarantee themselves a profit. When you have highly profitable situations, those do call for risking your stack, and when facing weak-tight opponents who just want to finish ninth, aggressive play is often called for despite the tournament situation.

Can anyone tell me if Draw is played anywhere in the world regularly apart from here in Australia? You pro’s in the U.S. ought to be pushing for its reintroduction – a good player will make a much better hourly rate with a much smaller standard deviation! (At least in half-pot or full pot games).

Answer 1:

When Hold ‘Em was (finally) allowed in California card rooms the disappearance of Draw games (hi or low, limit or no limit) was inevitable. Although you may be finding better “hourly rate” here you play, in the games I knew there was just so little chance of the mullets successfully swimming upstream that the dead money dried up and the games became quarry festivals with virtually zero chance of beating the rake let alone making any “hourly rate”. At least that’s been my interpretation of the events. The house didn’t kill the games, the players did. Any game in which cards are in view has a higher luck factor and that’s what brings ‘em in. Draw games are just too dull when there’s no fish to hook.

Answer 2:

Stay tuned for an announcement (in the next couple of days) of a 5-10 draw game to be spread in a Las Vegas casino. No details yet, but I will post all the information when it’s a certainty.

Answer 3:

You say, “The house didn’t kill the [draw poker] games, the players did.” I see it quite the opposite. I believe draw poker is the very best game for attracting new players. Either it or seven-card stud is the most common home game. (I’m pretty sure of this because I had one of the world’s-largest public relations agencies do that research when I was a spokesperson for Canadian Mist and we were doing charity poker tournaments.) And draw is very popular even in casinos in any parts of the world. Draw poker is fast-paced, easily understood by non-poker loyalists, requires a short learning curve to play adequately, and can be suspenseful (all elements that appeal to broad segments of potential customers). I know the true story of draw’s demise. I was there. Casinos deliberately tried to bury draw and lowball — less profitable games — by discouraging low limits. They often introduced burdensome rakes to these two-betting-round games, rather than sticking with small seat rentals that were traditional. And casinos stopped promoting draw games. Their prop (shill) resources were often inadequately used for draw games. Beyond that, they spread the word “draw is dead” so loudly that all the “smart” poker players thought they were ill-informed if they didn’t spread the word, too. And that’s what really happened to draw poker in casinos, especially in California where it formerly reigned as the only legal type of poker (until I personally joined the crusade to legalize hold ‘em). So, you’re probably thinking I’m just bitter because I’m the so-called best draw player in the world and I’ve got no game. Good point. To be fair, draw would have lost much of its following when the newer games were introduced in California. But it would have hung on as one of many popular poker forms, given fair treatment. Draw poker is perhaps the truest, easiest to televise and understand, most traditional form of poker. You see it everywhere from Old West movies to TV situation comedies. The fact that it isn’t even an event in the World Series of Poker or any other major poker tournaments is a crime beyond the boundaries where crime turns into something more sinister.

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