Wild Thing

[andyfox]

Very wild and crazy 40-80 game. Not my style. The wildest and craziest player is on my immediate right. The following two hands occur in succession:

1) He open-raises (for about the 6th time in a row) and I 3-bet with Ad-Td. Everyone else folds, he calls, and we see a flop of three non-diamond rags. He bets and I call. The turn is a 4th rag and he bets and I call. He looks at me around the dealer (he is in seat 9, me in seat 1) and says, "You going to call me down?" I answer in the affirmative. The river is a fifth rag and he says, "OK, you win." I turn over my cards and he indeed told the truth. He laughs. I laugh.

2) He open-raises and I 3-bet with A-Ko. Miraculously, everyone again gets out of our way, he calls, and we see a flop of 7-6-4. He bets and I raise. He calls. The turn is a 5. He bets and I call. He again peers around the dealer and says, "Same thing?" I answer in the affirmative. The river is an 8, putting an 8-high straight on the board. He bets. I fold. He says, "How can you fold, you crazy, there's a straight on board, you et half the pot?" I laughs. He laugh. He shows J-9. I nod and rap the table as a thank you. He throws me one chip back as a you're welcome.

Commerce is a wild and crazy place these days, with a tournament starting soon. There was a guy today who bought into the 30-60 game with a rack full of $100 chips, a $10,000 buy-in. He would play one round and then go to the bar for a round. When I left, he was sleeping at the table, with about $4,000 left.

Anyway, my buddy loses his third rack and goes to the 80-160 game. Good for Snakehead. I get up two racks, lose one back, and go home.

[Clarkmeister]

I still owe you an explaination about my last post on this board. I bring that up because this post is fairly similar, so my reason for a lack of follow-up might make sense.

See, hands like the one you asked me about, and hands like these you just posted about, are nearly impossible to describe to the forum. The "correct" forum comment to your post is that "you must call the river in hand #2". And you know that. But you folded. Why?

The problem is that the explaination is the sum of so many variables, from knowing how your opponents perceive you, how deep they think, the flow of the game that day, and the at-the-table intangibles that we can't consciously describe, but which trigger the correct action because we have "been there" so many times before.

Because its never so simple as "he checked last time, but bet this time". Its more than that. And I don't know if we can adequately describe the "why" of our actions in these spots. There's too much to it. It's too personal, to unique. Its about really understanding your own game, and the effect it has on others. And even if you could describe it, its relevance to others is certainly debatable.

Or maybe I'm thinking too much.

[andyfox]

No, you're not thinking too much, it's such thought processes that probably put more money in pockets than whether or not to raise, limp or fold pre-flop with K-Js.

Indeed, I had no doubt that he had a 9 in hand #2. Of course, I might have been wrong; many players take what they consider a free shot at the pot in such situations. While the guy was maniacal, he was not clueless and would have known it was unlikely I had a 9.

But there was something about the situation that I suppose is almost indescribable that told me a fold was right. And maybe it's really not indescriable, just that I'm not capable of descibing it. Maybe it's a combination of several factors, some of which I'm aware of on the surface (while he plays wildly up through the turn, he turns timd on the river; he felt a sort of comraderie with me, based on times we've played before and because of the prior hand; and yes, he checked the previous hand and bet this one) and some of which I'm probably only subconsciously aware of. Yes, been there, done that.

This is where I think Tommy has so much over the rest of us here. While I've only played a few hours with him, his buttonitis and anti-blinditis diseases must certainly cost him, on the surface. But his sixth sense, if you will, more than make up for the way he plays (or refuses to play) from the blinds and the button assuredly more than make up for any play that deviates from the 2+2 "book." Not only does it more than make up for his seemingly non-optimal blind and button play, but they are symbiotic and non-separable.

This brings us to the point that even more interesting might be the things we do wrong for just the same reasons. Maybe our understanding of our own game, those personal and unique things you allude to, and the effect they have on others, are just flawed enough to keep us from taking that one more step from whatever level our game is at to the next level. Or maybe those things are, like for Tommmy, symbiotic and non-separable parts of our optimum game.

Or maybe I'm thinking too much.

[Ulysses]

Both of you guys are thinking too much.

Sometimes you know what the other guy has, so you act accordingly.

[elysium]

hi clark
your thread here is great and really defines andy's action to a tee. there is never an all-in-one correct course of action for hand 2. andy will tell everyone that against this same opponent and situation he will often likely call it down. but something about the way this opponent put his bet into the pot, or perhaps how he remained undaunted by the four to a straight on board, told andy that a fold here was correct. had you and i been at the table, we likely wouldn't have picked up on what andy was picking up on. sometimes, in order to correctly observe an opponent, we must be involved in the hand. having a stake in the outcome often heightens our radar percepters giving us that little extra rudder needed to navigate safely through these complex areas. this forum could conceivably hurt a players poker skill if that player fails to turn on his radar with all the knowledge accruded here. for example, we know to check into an opponent who will check behind with a stronger hand, but nowhere is it written or spoken about how to tell the difference between this particular opponent and one who might be on a draw needing a free-card. how our radar interprets his manner of getting the bet into the pot, whether he's smooth and fluid or almost imperceptably jittery, and knowing to bet and not check or check and call or check fold, is all in the realm of our radar capacitors. simply always betting to make the draw pay is wrong because many times opponents meekly check-call with stronger hands. usually they will always call your flop raise, even cold-call, with hands like KTo, but if they flop top pair against your over-carded TT say, or QQ, they have so often been shown-down a better kicker that they go into kicker shock and check it all the way. they also never ever fold if bet into because after all they do have top pair. but the previous hammerings they've taken against the better kicker slow them down to meekly check-calling all the way. against this type opponent, checking with your over-carded pair is correct.

if, on the other hand, your opponent is on a draw, and that draw fails to develop by the river, then again checking into your opponent is correct. notice though that the action taken by you is solely dependant upon the return blips given you by radar. this is the area i am working on improving and in most of my threads i will try to address this area. sometimes, when you have your opponent against the ropes, it is correct to check and i think a lot of us forget that in the heat of battle. what do we call these type of checks? well, in sales, some of the best salespeople will suddenly stop selling and do what is known as 'the take away'. i think that's a good term for these type checks. sometimes a take away will reveal a prospective customer who really isn't interested and sometimes the take away makes the customer more interested, so interested that the take away itself sells the product. well, a check take away against these two type opponents may be a good remedy. sometimes we have to take away bets from the pot to get KTo over-carding us to admit he's really not interested in building a big pot, and to get the draw to buy a bigger pot when he busts on the river.

[MMMMMM]

"Not only does it more than make up for his seemingly non-optimal blind and button play, but they are symbiotic and non-separable."

andy you were more or less making sense until this point. And the subject is interesting.

But you say: Tommy's sixth sense is symbiotic and non-separable from his peculiar blind and button play??? So let's see: if through some strange quirk of cosmic Hold'em fate Tommy never got to be dealt in the blinds or the button again for the rest of his hold'em career, but still got to play lots of hold'em, he wouldn't have a sixth sense anymore?

Intuition, or subconscious analysis, surely exists and Tommy probably has a ton of it. But to say it is inseparable from...just doesn't make sense.

I know, you like the artistic merit of such a concept. So do I, but it still can't fly if it flies in the face of reason. Great art may be inexplicable but that doesn't make it un-reasonable.

If I'm missing something feel free to chime in, I'll shut up now.

[andyfox]

As I said in my response to Clark, maybe it's something indescribable, or maybe I'm just not capable of describing it. I guess I kind of proved my point. /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

The unique set of circumstances that makes others play as they do against Tommy, and that gives Tommy the feel he has for what they're doing that only he has when it happens, as it happens, is part and parcel of the way Tommy has played against his opponents, especially from the blinds and the button. (Because Tommy plays unusually, or un-2+2-like, from those positions.)

It's not really a sixth sense, it's knowing what to do against a particular opponent at a particular time that is the result of how he (Tommy) plays. That's what I meant when I said that sixth sense is non-separable from the way he plays.

I'm still not sure I'm getting this notion quite right in writing, but hopefully you've prodded me a bit closer.

[andyfox]

I guess we're trying to put into writing why it is that we "know" what the guy has. That is, why in a certain situation I would know but you wouldn't, and in another situation you would know and I wouldn't.

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
I guess we're trying to put into writing why it is that we "know" what the guy has. That is, why in a certain situation I would know but you wouldn't, and in another situation you would know and I wouldn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. And all I know is that I tried to post a response to you explaining why I played those 2 simple hands the way I did, and I realized I couldn't do it. Not because I didn't want to, but because no matter how I explained it, I didn't really explain it.

[Barry]

It's hard to explain why we do certain things. I called with K high against a maniac over the weekend and won. Everybody thought I was crazy, but I knew that I had a very good chance of being ahead and if I raised, he was capable of bluff 3-betting, which I couldn't call. Why did I think that I was ahead, I'm not sure...

[MMMMMM]

er...Barry, if you know he is capable of 3-bet bluffing, why wouldn't you be able to call?

I do understand not wanting to risk three bets instead of one , though, but that's a different matter. Of course if you win those extra two bets...just goes to show there's always another level to poker, I guess;-)

[Ulysses]

I go back to my contention that you're thinking too much inasmuch as you're even trying to explain how it is that you know.

[Barry]

It's wasn't the extra $80, per se, that I was worried about. It's because while he is "capable" of it, the probability that he would still be bluffing when he 3-bet is enough lower to make me not want to invest 3 bets to find out.

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm still not sure I'm getting this notion quite right in writing, but hopefully you've prodded me a bit closer.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think your description was quite good, but I also think it's somewhat futile for anyone (including Tommy) to try and describe his style of play. I've put in a lot of hours with Tommy at the table and it's still pretty much impossible for me to articulate exactly what it is about his play that is different than anyone else's. I can tell you that he's mucked AA before pre-flop and called 400 bets cold on the button pre-flop w/ 22. But that doesn't really do much for you, does it?

As for his "sixth sense" wrt how to play a specific hand vs. a specific opponent, sure I agree that is a great skill and Tommy's innate card sense, people sense, and his experience all combine to make that an important asset. But I think there are numerous players who, if not better than Tommy at this, are at least in the same general ballpark.

However, I think players trying to better their game would be better off looking at a different aspect of Tommy's play, which is where I think he really separates himself from the pack. That's his almost complete emotional detachment from the results of any given hand. I know many players who are almost tilt-free and maintain great emotional control at all times and don't let it affect their play. But Tommy's better at this than anyone I've ever seen.

What's my point?

Well, Tommy recently posted a set of Tens hand where he made a great read and great river value bet. Ooooh, impressive. Some might have checked behind. But what did Tommy's play get him there vs. what others would get there? Well, one extra bet some % of the time that some players might not get. But many people seem very focused in these types of situations on understanding how exactly to figure out the right move on that street. I just don't think that's all that important in the grand scheme of things.

What I do think is much more important is that some percentage of the time Tommy's flopped set will lose there to some piece of crap runner-runner straight or flush. Here's where Tommy would move on to the next hand and that's that. Many players (including myself) might lose a few extra BB than we should in the next few hands. Other players (myself a couple of years ago) could lose much more. Avoiding this situation, IMO, is more important than that bet on the river.

[MMMMMM]

Right, and I pretty much agree with that analysis. I just thought that that was really the main point and not that you "couldn't call" the third bet;-)

Thx 4 the response, gl

M

[Tommy Angelo]

"But you say: Tommy's sixth sense is symbiotic and non-separable from his peculiar blind and button play??? So let's see: if through some strange quirk of cosmic Hold'em fate Tommy never got to be dealt in the blinds or the button again for the rest of his hold'em career, but still got to play lots of hold'em, he wouldn't have a sixth sense anymore?"

I can't have a sixth sense for situations that you (or anyone) constantly find yourself in that I almost never do. For example, being first to act in a headsup pot facing a lone preflop raiser. That is a situation that most players get into a lot (from the blind) that I almost never do. Expectedly, my sixth sense in those situations is unpracticed and weak. Likewise, you are unlikely to have developed a sixth sense for situations that I often find myself in, that others almost never do, for example, reraising preflop, getting it down to headsup, and then checking behind on the flop. Now comes the turn card, and in all likelihood, the opponent has rarely if ever been involved in this betting pattern, and I've been in it a thousand times.

Back to Andy's idea, about symbiosis. Another situation that very few opponents find themselves in is playing pots against a guy who folds his blinds way too much and never tilts. Rarer still, is being that person, and being in pots against opponents who are made uncomfortable by players who fold the blinds a lot and never tilt.

I can't quite express whatever it was that Andy was talking about, but I think he's right.


Tommy

[turnipmonster]

tommy is pretty much the thelonius monk of poker, as far as I can tell.

--turnipmonster

[MMMMMM]

I don't disagree with the "symbiosis" part (though I think the effect is overrated). What I was taking issue with is the "inseparable" part since I believe your intution would adapt fairly quickly even if you never got to play those favorite situations again. Obviously you're not a Johnny-one-note, so I have too much trouble believing the "inseparable" part.

15 years ago I used to play 20-40 Hold'em (at Binion's) probably even tighter than you--I wouldn't call even with AJ in the BB against a button's possible steal raise--so I do have a pretty good idea of what you are talking about. I also agree that there is a metagame effect but I think it is overrated (it works at first but the good players soon adjust). And doing this definitely wasn't "inseparable" from my intuition...so that's why I have trouble believing it is "inseparable" from yours.

[MRBAA]

I think Roy Cooke writes superbly about feel and the play of different hands. He's been playing midlimits so long he really has cleared away a lot of the b.s. Every good play has a reason -- as Tommy explained his reasons for playing as he does. If you can't defend it rationally, it's unlikely to be a good play.

[nykenny]

Andy,

i love that 40-80 game in commerce! i played it day and nights when i was there 2 weeks ago. it was the best time i have had with poker in a long time. sadly i didn't win as much as i anticipated...

but the games are just goooooood. one night, the game played like a 4-8 game i see somewhere, with 2 calling stations calling EVERY hand and a whole bunch of induced calling stations hahaha... hope i can make it back there sometime soon.


enjoy,

kenny

[andyfox]

Enjoyed meeting you, hope I'm able to spend more time with you when you get back. It's 68 degrees and sunny as I type.
/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[nykenny]

About 12 degrees as i am typing /images/graemlins/frown.gif.

Kenny