Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

Hello all, below is my first draught of my Poker IQ test, I have had a couple of posts on this before.

First Post

First Posted Question

Basically, I need a way to determine the poker ability of participants that are going to take part in my dissertation on Visual Perception in online MTT poker. I have picked the following questions because I think they have quantifiable answers, if anyone would be willing to take this test and post their answers it would be much appreciated, I will post what I consider the answers tomorrow giving me time to make any adjustments from the consensus answers. If anyone can think of any good questions along this vain I could include that would be much appreciated (I want to get to about 20 questions), or anything I could add, or anyway I can edit the current questions in order to improve them. The current test is out of 21 marks, if anyone thinks the amount of marks available for each question is not right let me know, though I will post my reasoning on the marks with my answers tomorrow.

Thanks in advance.

Jon

Poker IQ Test Draught

1) The following is the order of hands according to their importance in Texas Hold’em, from the strongest hand, down to the weakest hand. There are however five notable exceptions from the list below.

Royal Flush
Straight Flush
Four of a kind
------------------
------------------
------------------
------------------
------------------
Pair
High card

Please put the following five hands in order from strongest to weakest according to where they should be in the above list. (1 mark)

a) Flush
b) Full House
c) Two pair
d) Three of a kind
e) Straight

2) In a MTT tournament, how does the value of each individual chip that you win compare to the previous ones? (1 mark)

a) They are worth more
b) They are worth less
c) They are worth the same

3) Your starting cards are 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

Board: 4[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

a) You are confident that your opponent has an Ace, how many outs (an out is a specific card that could win you the hand) do you have? (1 mark)

b) Roughly what are the odds that you will hit one of these outs on the river (fraction or percentage)? (1 mark)

c) The pot is currently $80, your opponent goes all-in (no further betting) for $60, assuming money isn’t a worry and you were to make this call solely on the principle of positive expected value (+EV), or in other words, long term profit, would you call or fold for $60? Please explain your answer. (2 marks)


4) You enter a £75 buy-in MTT tournament. 96 people enter the tournament. The pay structure is as follows.

1st £2600
2nd £1500
3rd £800
4th £650
5th £500
6th £400
7th £300
8th £250
9th £200
10th £0

You are on the final table of the tournament, 10 people are left. The blinds are 400/800. You are sitting on the button (last position). There are 96,000 chips on the table, you only have 800 chips. There are 8 hands left before you will be forced all-in on the Big Blind (BB). The smallest stack after you has 2500 chips; he is currently on the BB.

a) The majority of people are playing tight, they are waiting for you to get knocked out so that they can ensure they reach the money, this is especially true of the player with 2500 chips. Please state in the following situations if you would call (all-in) for your last 800 or fold, and briefly say why.

i. You are dealt 9[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], there are three players in front of you who limp (call the blind). (1 mark)
ii. You are dealt K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 2[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], there is one player in front of you who limps (calls the blind). (1 mark)
iii. You are dealt 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], everyone has folded around to you. (1 mark)
iv. You are dealt A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], there is one player in front of you who limps (calls the blind). (1 mark)

b) In the above situations there has been a lot of aggressive and loose play from the other players, including the short stacks. They do not appear to be holding out for 9th place and the money, please state how you would play the hands in questions iii and iv given this new information. (2 marks)

5) As you are approaching the money (the Bubble) in a Multi Table Tournament (MTT), which of the following would you do and why? (2 marks)

a) Become tighter with my starting cards, and weaker with my betting.
b) Become tighter with my starting cards, and be more aggressive with my betting.
c) Become looser with my starting cards, and weaker with my betting.
d) Become looser with my starting cards, and be more aggressive with my betting.
e) No change to my game at all.

6) Roughly, what are the odds of a pocket pair versus two over cards all-in pre-flop? (Fraction or percentage) (1 mark)

E.g. 6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] vs. Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

7) Your starting cards are K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Board: K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

Three people see the flop; there is a lot of betting.

a) What hands could be beating you? List them. (1 marks)

b) The next card out is the 6[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], what new hands could now be beating you? (2 marks)

8) You are sitting down for the first hand in the WSOP $10,000 buy-in main event. There are 6000 entrants, and a prize pool of $60,000,000. The SB is 25 chips, the BB is 50 chips. Everyone on the table has 10,000 chips. Please say whether you would fold or call in the following examples.

a) Johnny Chan is sitting to your right (two times winner of the WSOP main event), you are sitting on the BB, he is sitting on the SB. There is a lot of raising in front of you, the bet is 1000 chips to Johnny Chan, he thinks about it for a while and then goes all-in for 10,000 chips. You look at your hand and see you are holding A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]. (1 mark)
b) The same situation as above, but you are holding K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. (1 mark)
c) You are on the BB with 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], you do not know the player who is on the SB, everyone folds to the SB and he goes all-in without looking at his cards. (1 mark)

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

1. i. Full House ii. Flush iii. Straight iv. Three of a Kind v. Two Pair

2. b) They are worth less.

3. a) 8 ways to hit OESD, 7 additional ways to hit flush. b) 15/46 we have the best hand. c) Have to put in 2/5 of the pot and we'll win a little more than a third of the time. If opponent shows an A, we should fold. But it's close enough that since there's always a chance he's full of it, we call because it's so close.

4. a) i. I call. I like my odds. ii. I fold. iii. I call. iv. I call. b) i. I call. ii. I fold. iii. I call. iv. I call.

5. d) People play scared on the bubble, and we should exploit our large chip advantage.

6. Pocket pair is around 55% favorite versus two overs. In that situation, QTs is probably the favorite, because it's a one gapped suited connector and it also covers one of the suits of the pocket pair. That's probably a very close coinflip.

7. a) KK, JJ, (Neither likely.) and 66. b) 6x.

8. a) Call. b) Call. Johnny Chan isn't pushing AA here. I don't know what he is pushing here, I bet it's a range of... nothing. c) Call.

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

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8. a) Call. b) Call. Johnny Chan isn't pushing AA here. I don't know what he is pushing here, I bet it's a range of... nothing. c) Call.

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Well at least you could see what I was aiming for here, any way you can think of to change the wording so its a fold? I still think its AA.... with a lot of action in front he cant just raise to like 3k too suss, and you don't want to call and let others in. But I accept this hasn't been very well thought through. Just trying to bring in the fact that with such deep stacks it’s possible to fold KK with lots of betting.

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7. a) KK, JJ, (Neither likely.) and 66. b) 6x.

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You’re missing a few hands with part b. I was a bit worried as to how people would answer this, (thinking you had to name suits) this puts my mind at ease a bit.

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

1. FullHouse, Flush, Straight, Trips, 2 Per
2. b
3a. 15
3b. 15/46
3c. Pot is 140, you have to call 60, so your pot odds are 200/60, 15 outs is enough to call this since (200/60)*(15/46) > 1.
4a. call, fold, call, call
4b. fold, fold, fold, call
5. b or d. Depending on the table you can loosen up if they will let you run over them since they are looking to wait to play until they get in the money. If they aren't letting you have your way you still need to be super agressive, but tighten up.
6. 50/100
7a. KK, JJ, 66
7b. KK, JJ, 66, AA, 6x
8. call, fold, call

Edit, I'm stupid early in the morning.

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

your odds Scarytiger, your odds. 15 outs with 46 unseens cards means 31 to 15 underdog, close to 2 to 1. You put 60 on the pot to win 140 : 2.3 to 1 on your money: you have to call.

this test is more about what you are suppose to know if you studied the game a little, I mean the basics. I believe you can spot huge leaks on someone's game with that test but you can't rank good players.

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

A few? All I can think of is AA. We just took a big lead over QTdiamonds though.

But yeah, the Johnny Chan question was fine, I'm just being a donk about it. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

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this test is more about what you are suppose to know if you studied the game a little, I mean the basics. I believe you can spot huge leaks on someone's game with that test but you can't rank good players.

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The idea of the test is to separate good players from average players, as this is what I need for my dissertation. It is not necessary to rank good players. However the more levels and the harder the test the better, so if you can think of any higher concepts that could be put in this test in its current format, please suggest them. I do not consider myself the best MTT player on this site by any means, thus a test I come up with will never be better than me, so if someone can think of some questions that have quantifiable answers that I can't answer, I would be very happy.

p.s. I will post the marks in a minute; needless to say you both got A’s.

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

What amazes me is how many good players don't have a good understanding of odds. You'll see pros like Miami John ask if QTs vs. A5o is a a 2:1 dog or someone ask Jenifer Harmon the odds and she'll just say she's not a math player. It just blows my mind that people who make a living playing cards don't take the few hours it would take them to learn to calculate the odds.

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

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The idea of the test is to separate good players from average players.

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Here you can detect is someone knows basic strategies and basic maths about the game. It doesn't mean your are even average if you know that. And some players do pretty well without that too.

I would think more of a quizz like the problems in Harrington on hold'em. Those are already more subtul and he still chose hands where the answers are pretty obvious for a good player. For that you need to describe situations where you incorpore reads and styles and blind levels.

I'm sure you can find a lot of them in the threads at 2+2. For the maths I would chose some examples similar to the ones in weighing the odds in Hold'em Poker.

You can also ask the size of a pot size bet when you are acting after a bettor and lots of people forget to separate the call from the raise. So they mini raise thinking they are raising the size of the pot.

The situation with Johnny Chan is caricatural. Ok you made your point about folding KK, but why does he overbet the pot? Unless there is three players putting 1000, but you only said there was lots of action and it is 1000 to him.

For the last question a call is +EV because you are 64% favorite against random cards (pokerstove). But if it is that early in the tournment and I have only the big blind in the pot, I'm not sure. If he turns two overcards and you loose that hand, you'll feel terrible. The situation is not very realistic. Of course if you are against the best players in the world, that's the best spot you'll have but why would they do that?

You could keep this part and a add a second part about reads and decisions. Just a suggestion though.

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

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The situation with Johnny Chan is caricatural. Ok you made your point about folding KK, but why does he overbet the pot? Unless there is three players putting 1000, but you only said there was lots of action and it is 1000 to him.

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As I said, I hadn’t really thought it fully through. Can you think of a way of improving it?

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You can also ask the size of a pot size bet when you are acting after a bettor and lots of people forget to separate the call from the raise. So they mini raise thinking they are raising the size of the pot.

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My test is supposed to be a test of MTT NL internet poker. I think this is more a problem of PL live poker; however as a generally based question I think this could be worked in, cheers.

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For the last question a call is +EV because you are 64% favorite against random cards (pokerstove). But if it is that early in the tournment and I have only the big blind in the pot, I'm not sure. If he turns two overcards and you loose that hand, you'll feel terrible. The situation is not very realistic. Of course if you are against the best players in the world, that's the best spot you'll have but why would they do that?

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I’ve seen many crazy people go all-in blind on the first hand in live tournaments, some just for kicks, and others as a statement. I can only assume it’s just as possible to happen in the WSOP ME, especially with 6000 runners. Besides, the realism of this situation isn’t the point, its hypothetical, (I guess the same could be said of the Johnny Chan question), the point being you should never turn down being a 2:1 favourite (there was some massive discussion about never turning down a chance to go all-in as any favourite, even as little as 1%…… unless of course your name is Phil Helmuth). With it being 2:1, its irrelevant that you would feel terrible if you lost to over cards, that’s what this question is really about, a good player would never be scared of going out in the first hand of the tournament, nor should they regret their decision if they lost, they should not be results orientated.

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You could keep this part and a add a second part about reads and decisions. Just a suggestion though.

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I think I will have to do this; anyone got Dan Harrington’s email? Might have to ask permission if I can use some of his examples in the book as part of this test.

Thank you very much for all your thoughts, it is very much appreciated.

Cheers

Jon

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

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For the last question a call is +EV because you are 64% favorite against random cards (pokerstove). But if it is that early in the tournment and I have only the big blind in the pot, I'm not sure.

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Dead money in the pot is of no consequence. Folding here is worse than just giving 1/4th of your stack to the other player. This is almost like folding KK because your opponent shows you AKs.

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

Of course you are right for the 2 to 1 favorit. But a pro doesn't pass on small edges because is point is to win or to save some time if he loses early. It is only another tournment for them. You see what I mean. If you go there you may not feel that way.

For the hands you should make up your owns, you don't have to copy it. If you are not going to publish your test I believe you can ask him by courtesy, but it doesn't really matter.

My example about the pot size bet is about NL. If you go for a check raise or a raise and want to cut someone's odds to call. for example there is 200 in the pot and you face a 150 bet, now if you want to cut his odds and bet the size of the pot you have to call the 150 and then raise 500. So you have to raise 650 total to give him 2 to 1 odds. If you only raise 350 (thinking that's the size of the pot) he gots 3.5 to 1 (200 to win 700).

I'll quote Harrington for the kings. He says he's not good enough to fold them preflop. Of course if everyone goes all in before you and they are all decent players you can reconsider. But like you said with the 66, against the range of hands they can have it is +EV so you shouldn't fold. I don't think KK preflop could be an example of a good lay down.

Hope that it helps. You should do a thread to help you to collect previous hands. And then submit your analyse of them for approval. I'm sure the good posters here will be happy to discuse the final line (once you prepared the hands). That's a lot of work though. You can wait for HOH3. I read that's what it will be about. Or use other books like that, there is a few (TJ's for example).

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

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For the last question a call is +EV because you are 64% favorite against random cards (pokerstove). But if it is that early in the tournment and I have only the big blind in the pot, I'm not sure.

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Dead money in the pot is of no consequence. Folding here is worse than just giving 1/4th of your stack to the other player. This is almost like folding KK because your opponent shows you AKs.

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Very good point. Thanks.

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

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For the hands you should make up your owns, you don't have to copy it. If you are not going to publish your test I believe you can ask him by courtesy, but it doesn't really matter.

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Time is really an issue with making up my own. And besides, the examples of one of the best poker players and authors in the world will I suspect be better than mine. It may be more than just a case of courtesy, my results for the visual perception study may be published, and thus how I filtered my participants may also have to be published. Why can't poker just have a ranking system like chess, my life would be so much easier.

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

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Dead money in the pot is of no consequence. Folding here is worse than just giving 1/4th of your stack to the other player. This is almost like folding KK because your opponent shows you AKs.

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Very good point. Thanks.

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My pleasure. This topic has come up a few times. Probably the best and most concise point was made by Greg Raymer:

http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/...page=&vc=1

Re: Poker IQ Test Draught (Long)
 

1 - BAEDC

2 - B

3a - 15
3b - 2.3. - 1
3c - Call

4a1 - Fold – (if I do hit my hand likely I am dominated, or drawing to an inferior holding)
4a2 - Fold (If I catch either card, I have either bad kicker or any pair beats me.)
4a3 - Call – It least a coin flip against 2 overs.
4a4 - Call, of course no Explanation necceasary

4b1 - call – I might catch a flush or straight, my hand does well w/ multiple opponents, and will get paid off well, if I hit.
4b2 - still fold
4b3 - call
4b4 - call

5 - D. I’m hoping to p/u a few blinds from tight bubble hopefuls that are holding out. I want better hands to fold because they don’t want to risk it so late in the game.

6 - 53 / 47

7a - KK, JJ, 66
7b - 6x

8a - Fold, too early to take a chance on coin-flip, even w/ AA this early. Chan is likely holding at least KK.
8b - Fold – at the very least Chan has KK or AK (prob not).
8c - Fold. Unless I hit trips on the flop, I’m likely drawing to 2 outs. Many stronger hands will call.