time-pot hand
 

$20-40 blinds NLHE at Lucky Chances. The collection is $7 per player per half-hour. We almost always do time pots. If the pot has $200 (or more) of called money in it, then the winner of the pot pays the time for all players who do not have a missed blind button. (Players with a missed blind button pay their own $7.)

On this hand, it was a time pot, and the collection was $63.

Three players limped in for $40 each. I was in the small blind. Stacks of the players in this hand were 2K to 7K and I had 5K. Nobody was gambling with me at the time even a little bit. In two hours, I'd won every pot I bet at or raised without showing a hand. My average bet size was $100. My average raise size was $200. I think the secret to NLHE for me is to completely miss every flop. I don't think I can lose when that happens.

So on this hand, when it was my turn, the pot was $180. It cost me $20 to call, so if I called, that would make it a time pot. In other words, it cost me $83 to call. Or put another way, it cost me $20 to call, but the pot was really $117, not $180. Or, the way I think of it is, it was going to cost me $20 for the opportunity to lose $63. I had AK. That's a flop-hitting hand. And if that wasn't bad enough, I was going to be first all the way no matter what. I went ahead and mucked it.


Tommy

Re: time-pot hand
 

Hi Tommy - I pay my own time all the time. It allows me to avoid spots like this.

Re: time-pot hand
 

i can understand folding KT there... AK has equity 5 way, and is also not hard to play (especially in a limped in pot). This fold is bad.

Re: time-pot hand
 

standard

Re: time-pot hand
 

I dont get it. You are getting 5:1 on your call with AK?

Re: time-pot hand
 

If this is the strategy, wouldn't it be best just to fold every time there was a timed pot? You'd be playing rake-free.

Re: time-pot hand
 

If you have AA, you're avg profit > $63...so yeah you'd be playing rake-free but you're giving up potential profits.

Re: time-pot hand
 

i think 'ak' is the sound you make due to agreed time collection here. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: time-pot hand
 

If you raise, and steal all the blinds, you don't have to pay time, how come that wasn't an option? Time pots are the nuts when you are running cold.

Re: time-pot hand
 

Beautiful. But no "accidental" show? They'd be folding TPTK for a week after that.

Re: time-pot hand
 

he must assume its loose enough that he wont be able to. but after talking about firing and winning regardless of cards, did you plan on not firing at this flop? do you think they were going to play back preflop knowing you just didnt want to pay time AND pick up the pot?

or is it considered a 200$ pot because you must 'put in' to raise it thus you owe regardless?
(forgive me ive never played a rake like this)

Re: time-pot hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
$20-40 blinds NLHE at Lucky Chances. The collection is $7 per player per half-hour. We almost always do time pots. If the pot has $200 (or more) of called money in it, then the winner of the pot pays the time for all players who do not have a missed blind button. (Players with a missed blind button pay their own $7.)

On this hand, it was a time pot, and the collection was $63.

[/ QUOTE ]
hi tommy,

that seems like a horrible time-pot structure. at the borgata 10-25 when we do time-pots, the first TWO qualifying pots go towards paying the time, and the threshold for qualifying is also higher than yours. they usually set the threshold at about 5x the total time to be paid, or 10x the time to be taken out of each pot. if there were $63 of time to be paid, for instance, the time-pots would be $32 and $31 at $300. if there's $81 total time (the borg charges $9 per half-hour) then it's $41 and $40 at $400.

so the burden of paying time comes out of two pots, not just one. and the percentage taken from each time-pot is only about 10%. in your game you'd have to pay $63 out of a $200 pot? i'd fold AKo too.

Re: time-pot hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
If you raise, and steal all the blinds, you don't have to pay time, how come that wasn't an option?"

Because if I raise, the first $20 of the money I put in the pot completes the small blind, which makes $200 in called money in the pot, so no matter what happens after that, someone will pay $63.

Re: time-pot hand
 

that 200 threshold seems ridiculous. in 10/20 nl games in LA it's $400.

Re: time-pot hand
 

Tommy,

So when someone posts in the co for 60 and you have AKo in sb you just muck right? Cause you'll be out of position? Honestly I see very little difference in the situation. (I know the precise difference is 2 more players and that certainly doesn't make me want to muck)

I take the 20 into 120 here preflop with ako every time with stacks that are up to 5k deep. I don't see why 20 into 200 is fine but 20 into 120, oh no, fold time!

I am curious if the people who have responded with, classic, great fold, etc have any thoughts along those lines.

Re: time-pot hand
 

"that 200 threshold seems ridiculous. in 10/20 nl games in LA it's $400."

It only seems ridiculous to you because it is foreign to you. Time pots and time pot thresholds are agreed upon by the players. To say that LA's thresholds are not ridiculous and that the bay area's thresholds are ridiculous is no different than an Englishman and an American telling each other that the other is ridiculous for driving on the "wrong" side of the road.

Re: time-pot hand
 

"So when someone posts in the co for 60 and you have AKo in sb you just muck right? Cause you'll be out of position? Honestly I see very little difference in the situation."

I see a huge difference. If I complete the small blind in your example, that's still only $140 in the pot. That's under the threshold, so yes, I would call or raise. If I end up winning the pot by showing my hand down after all streets gets checked, or by betting postflop (or raising preflop)causing them to fold, then I still don't pay the $63.

If in your example what you had in mind was that it is NOT a time pot, then again, I see a huge difference. If there is not going to be $63 taken out of the pot, then it's just a regular poker hand, and I would do whatever I would do if there was no such thing as time pots.

Can you think of a case where the fact that it's a time pot would affect your preflop play? If the answer is no, then fine, we're not on the same page at all. But if the answer is yes, then all we really differ on is the degree to which time-pots affect our preflop strategy.

Tommy

Re: time-pot hand
 

Tommy,

What kind of an extreme do you take this to?

If you get AA in the BB in your example and the SB folds (180 in the pot) would you just move in?

Apathy

Re: time-pot hand
 

Hey Tommy,

While I respect your play/posts/opinions as much as anyone, your thoughts in this thread make it seem as though you're not examining the situation properly. You frame the situation in three ways:

[ QUOTE ]
It cost me $20 to call, so if I called, that would make it a time pot. In other words, it cost me $83 to call.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Or put another way, it cost me $20 to call, but the pot was really $117, not $180.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Or, the way I think of it is, it was going to cost me $20 for the opportunity to lose $63.

[/ QUOTE ]

The first "framing" is flat-out incorrect. The third framing is not incorrect necessarily but strikes me as potentially misleading. I think that the second framing is the way to get to good decisions in these spots.

That is, if you were trying to decide whether to raise preflop here, you would set up the decision-making process as follows. Under the conservative assumption that you will never win a hand at showdown after being called preflop, you should raise preflop (we'll say, your standard raise of $200, so make it $220 to go) if that raise will win immediately 64% of the time. You said that you had yet to be called on a raise; do you not think that you would have dragged the pot there at least 64% of the time, especially since I would imagine people to be more reluctant to call, given that it was a time pot?

Further, with regard to completing preflop, your strategy should probably not be too drastically different from a normal blind situation where you are getting 6-1. Having to pay the $63 is contingent on your dragging the pot, so there is no way that you can win the pot and still lose money. Also consider that, with regard to being out of position, I think that, all else being equal, people are more likely to play straightforwardly in a time pot. This fact mitigates your positional disadvantage to a degree.

So, while you should certainly adjust your preflop strategy in some time pots, I can't tell if you are examining the situation in such a way that you are making the proper adjustments... As one poster noted, AA can never be a fold, so how far would you take the concept here, and how does it compare to your normal blind strategy?

If you are looking at it the same way that I am but did not think that any +EV criteria were met here (e.g. you didn't think a raise preflop would win the pot very often), then I certainly can't argue with that. I am also not privy to any metagame considerations, etc.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Mike

Re: time-pot hand
 

"I'd be interested to hear your thoughts."

My thoughts are that all of your thoughts are spot on. If I were to rebut my initial post, it would come out sounding exactly as yours did. All the same points, even in the same order. Where the breakdown is is that you are assuming that I base my plays on EV, and that based on EV, I think my fold was "correct." I don't and I don't. I've never known the EV of any play I've ever made or any buy-in I've made or any food I've eaten. So to strive to base my decisions on EV would be foolish, for me.

"I am also not privy to any metagame considerations, etc."

And the way I see NLHE for me now is that it's all metagame and nothing but metagame. Everything touches everything and nothing is isolated. In this happy little world, there is no such thing an incorrectness.


Tommy

Re: time-pot hand
 

"What kind of an extreme do you take this to?

If you get AA in the BB in your example and the SB folds (180 in the pot) would you just move in?"

Yes.

Re: time-pot hand / repost
 

This is a reposting of a post that came out ugly due to errant quote commands.

[ QUOTE ]
If you raise, and steal all the blinds, you don't have to pay time, how come that wasn't an option? Time pots are the nuts when you are running cold.

[/ QUOTE ]

Because if I raise, the first $20 of the money I put in the pot completes the small blind, which makes $200 in called money in the pot, so no matter what happens after that, someone will pay $63.

Re: time-pot hand
 

what about KK/QQ? Your line is wrong here i believe... i'm open to discussion as to why it is correct... however i think it is a very +EV call/raise preflop w/ AK there. Since it was a timepot i would probably just call. I think there would need to be some severe circumstances for me to muck this in the SB (such as knowing that the BB raises very frequently OOP, and people will limp/raise him).

Re: time-pot hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
"What kind of an extreme do you take this to?

If you get AA in the BB in your example and the SB folds (180 in the pot) would you just move in?"

Yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is bad.