Friday, December 29, 2006

My Single Favorite Line

It's always nice to lose all the small pots and win all the big ones. My single favorite occurance in Limit poker is flopping a flush draw from early position on a loose table, raising against several opponents when I have the equity to do so and having a player from late position such as the button re-raise me, trapping the whole table for another bet. When I see that it's go time, that's the green light, time to ram and jam the pot and trap most of the table for a full cap. I will lose with my draw about two-thirds of the time, but when the flush hits I'll win a big massive pot. The play is also deceptive against the casual/bad player because you began raising before the flush hit. They'll often not be able to put you on a flush when it hits and anyone that makes a smaller flush (if you're with big cards) will lose the maximum to you. It's just feels nice to drag a pot about 4x the size of the average pot.

Most of the time, the best way to play isn't to try to win every pot, just try to win the big ones.

Check in next week where I'll be discussing the reason 90% of cash game players are terrible. If you find yourself fitting the description, you'll be able to improve your cash game drastically and if you are already a very good player, you can take full advantage of that 90%. I haven't seen it discussed anywhere else so don't miss it.

Limit-Up

Yey! I just moved up in limits online. This is no huge accomplishment because I started out with $50.00 and started at the .5/.10 table. I needed 300 BB's to move to .10/.20 regularly so I only started needing $10 or 100 BB's from the .5/.10 table. A few hours later and I made it.

I'm going to try to do it the long way, but I may be tempted to jump limits later. I'm fairly confident I could hold my own at the $2/4 tables, I just don't have the bankroll for that right now.

I have to be careful, though. I tend to get in a lot more trouble online than I do in real life. I just don't give people the respect that I would normally. I tend to think they're pulling a move on me more often than I would irl. This is all because I can't look over at the person and try to figure out what they're up to. I didn't realize I used that as much in limit as I do. When something's not there anymore, you definitely start to miss it.

It's not just that. I'm really bad with names, I mean terrible. There are people that I speak to two or three times a day at work (I only work 2 days a week) whom I've worked with for several months and if you asked me, I could not tell you what their names were. Short of being a friend, relative, or someone I speak to on a daily basis, I probably will not remember your name. Now that's fine for live play, I can remember faces just fine. However, it's a problem online. I use reads irl but the main tool I use in Limit is just recognizing betting patterns and remembering how someone plays. I have a hard time online with this because there are no faces, just names and occasionally pictures (which are the only reason I can do anything). I struggle trying to remember that bob29 check-raised his trips, l33tz limped with Queens, Jacko raises with K10o, and deeznutz will raise middle pairs all at the same time. In real life, that all comes naturally, I don't even have to put in the effort for a 9 handed table. Online, I'm lucky to be able to keep track of 3 people at once. This is one of my biggest weaknesses and it's something I have to work on.

Who would have thought being bad with names would hurt your poker game?

The Cardsharp continued...

If you haven't already, read the previous post first. Then watch this video (Pay no attention to the first guy):



I chose this video because the guy is pretty sloppy, probably just learning, and it's easier to spot the move than the video in the previous post. These are fairly basic and can explain how the really good cardsharp (last post) did most of his tricks. Once you go back and watch the first video, you should be able to spot several of these.

Trick #1: Starting with the blue deck, all he does is palm the card. Somewhere around 0:35, you can see the hand movements when he slides the card into his palm. He deals and just drops the card back on top after.

Trick #2: The next thing he does is called dealing "seconds". To do that, you just use your thumb to slide the top card to the side and pull out the second card. When you do it quick enough and with a lot of motion, it's hard to notice. Obviously, the top card will be face down.

Trick #3: This is bottom dealing. The Kings are on bottom of the deck. When he gets ready to deal one, he'll just pull it from the bottom. If you look closely, you can see the difference when he deals each King.

Trick #4: He's just palming again. He handles the deck alot so it's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure he palms it at 1:29. He drops the card out of his palm at 1:34. You can count all 3 cards right there while there are only 2 cards in the other stacks. Granted, he's on a bed, but this can be pretty much unnoticable in the right hands (and as you'll see, all these tricks can be).

Trick #5: I bet you guessed it by now, it's just more palming. People can get very good at switching cards out this way.

Trick #5: Yep, he just switched the card in his palm with the one on the table. With a lot of practice, it's not hard to do.

The last couple were easy to figure out because the cards were face up, but do you think they would be nearly as noticeable face down? Of course not, you'd have no they had even been switched. It's much easier when you see the two cards change face up.

This is a neat trick that shows some decent sleight of hand:



Bet you didn't see what was going on until he showed the Ace. He just slid the Ace out from the bottom when he put the deck back together after the cut, and then he palmed it. You can see the point that he slides the it out, but you can't actually see the card.

These basic tricks can add up to hundreds of variations. They are hard enough to spot when you know what's happening and you're staring at their hands. Would you notice this during a card game from someone you didn't suspect? No, you wouldn't. You'd probably only figure out something was going on if they screwed up. A really good one would do it right under your nose all night. Dickie, and others as good as he, would even swap the entire deck out right at the table. You don't make six figures a year cheating without being that good.

This next video shows what a combination of tricks can do. He actually changes decks at the end and it's hard to spot even though you're looking right at him:



He swaps the two decks out at 0:56. A cheat can take the used deck and bring in his stacked deck that way. From that point on, he can keep the deck where he wants it all night. Shuffling will not undo it completely and they can just work it in time to get it back where they need it.

When these simple moves are used in combination, the deck and cards can be manipulated any way the cheat wants and controlled throughout the session. That's just the tip, though, because there are many, many more cheats not mentioned here. These are just a few basics.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

The Cardsharp

The man in this video is not a stranger. He's not just a pair of hands. He's your good friend, maybe your best friend. He knows your family, your kids by name, was at the last Christmas party, even brought presents. All your friends know him and they know what a great guy he is. He's loyal and was always there when you needed it. You've had a lot of great times together. You two have never talked about poker, but you decide ask him over to your card game. He says "Sure, I'll bring the beer!" and you get ready for a great night. Little do you know what he can do with a deck of cards. This is your friend.










Sadly, the day after you'll never see your friend again. You just met a true professional. This is how Dickie made six figures a year.

Do you want to know how he did it? Next time, I'll pull back the curtain and show you.

Doyle Brunson North American Poker Challenge


The five day tournament is over and Joe Hachem is the champion winning a cool 2.1 mil. This is a little bit of validation for him to prove his WSOP Main Event win was not a fluke.

One notable hand was when Ed Jordan moved all-in against Mads Andersen and Negreanu on a board of Qh,Qc,10h,4h. Mads bowed out but Negreanu called. Get this: Ed Jordan flips over 8s,7s and Negreanu flips over Ac,Kh. What a call! Jordan didn't improve and was eliminated. After the hand, Joe Hachem takes the mic and announces "Daniel Negreanu is the sickest poker player on the planet."

Negreanu came into the final table as the chip leader and was 3-2 by the oddsmakers at Bodog to win. Unfortunately, Daniel lost a couple big pots and was eventually eliminated by Hachem.

This was a great win for Hachem. He's been on fire lately after having not one, not two, but three final table appearances at the WSOP this year and just barely missing two new bracelets.

Also of note was that Grinder solidified his spot as Cardplayer Player of the Year in this WPT event and stacked another 50k on top of his 29th place winnings for it.

You can read up on the whole tournament at
Cardplayer.com

Saturday, December 16, 2006

This Week In Poker

School is out and due to that I played a whole lot of poker this week. I didn't get the 40 hours I wanted because I ended up having more things to do than I had planned and lost one day to feeling a bit under the weather. I couldn't resist playing a little NL this week for the first time in ages and was pleasantly surprised that I think I'm playing better than I was before. It's completely due to the experience that I've gained playing post-flop from all the limit play.

Oh, I started back up online this week. I had to start my online bankroll all over again after I cashed it out back when it was unclear how online cardrooms were going to deal with the new law. I'm all the way down to 10/20 cents :( and I won't be moving up until I triple up my roll to $150. I follow Lederer's suggestion of having 300x the BB before moving up limits.

Also, I played a couple Fixed Limit SitnGos and a No Limit where I placed 2, 2, 1. On the two SitnGos, once I was at a big chip disadvantage heads up, but we were about even in the other. I'm not sure how to play Limit heads up in a tourney. I do pretty well without the increasing blinds, but they just throw me off in tourneys when you are down to the final two. They were so high I couldn't really let the blinds sit out there without trying to pick them up, but the bets were so large by that point that losing a few means I'm severly short stacked. Not sure, that's why I think I lost both.

In the NL SitnGo, at one point I was almost out on the bubble against two overwhelming chip leaders and 1 guy that had about 4 times my stack. I could tell they had tightened up because I was about to go out and no one wanted to get involved until then. I only had about 8 times the blinds so I couldn't afford to do much but move-in preflop. The game seemed to come to a halt for a while until I finally got some action and doubled-up, putting me just barely in 3rd place and opening up the game now that I wasn't on my last leg. The 2nd place huge stack got involved in a big pot with the chip leader (Doh!) and was put out on the bubble. Eventually the other guy went out and that left me heads up with something like 5-1 chip disadvantage. ThanxB. I figured I had no chance so I just got really aggressive and hoped to get lucky. On about the 3rd hand, I picked up KK and the guy thought I was just pushing with air. I ended up doubling up twice to take the lead and then took it down.

I can tell I'm going to love tourneys when I get to that point. I just want to do the cash game thing now and eventually move to NL as well for the experience, but tourneys are where I want to be after that. They are about 100x the fun.

I also played in Jasper last night and found a good table. I averaged about 8.5BBs/hr or about $17/hr minus $13 for expenses. Bingo must have been closed that night because the place was full of retirees. Every seat in the house was soft. Early on I did a good job of getting away from hands before they cost me too much. I folded like 3 hands that anyone else at that table probably would have been raising with on the flop. My reads were on and it saved me a few extra chips. I ended up giving them back at the end of the night when a couple new players sat down for the last 45 minutes who were extremely loose/aggressive (and one looked JUST like a young Mark Seif). I would have a big hand and raise or re-raise and they would put in a 3rd raise and then raise all the way through the hand. I thought I was beat on a couple hands and check-called all the way only for them to flip over middle pair (huh?) or a weaker two pair. I could have made another 5-7 BBs had I known how they played. Merry Christmas guys.

An older guy that's there regularly and I sat on one end of the table with huge stacks of chips for 1/2. He had moved up to nearly $200 and I was up to $190 so it was a bit awkward with the people commenting about how they were broke as they had to rebuy over and over. It reminded me of the gambler's lament:

"Dear Lord, help me to break even. I need the money."

Unfortunately, I noticed a huge decline in the older guy's play after 10 o'clock and he ended up dropping off about half his stack in a couple hours. It was pretty bad because before he was showing down monsters and by the end he was calling with A high and bottom pair. I felt kinda sorry for him because he plays really well but he just doesn't seem to have the endurance at his age.

Well, that's enough for now. I'll be logging a lot of hours this week and I mean it this time. I could be at work Mon-Fri but I choose not to in order get in the table time. I'll probably be blogging plenty as well. Peace Out.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

How To Cheat Your Friends At Poker

Don't let the title fool you. I'm not going to tell you how to be a card cheat so don't get so damn excited. I'm referring to a book I recently read titled "How To Cheat Your Friends At Poker." When I first picked up the book to skim through it, I figured the cover was some gimmick and the book was really about playing ABC poker to beat your friends or a few cheap magic tricks or something. Nope. It's the real deal, boys. The whole thing is literally about how to be a real card cheat. My personal morals and ethics would not let me buy it for anything near that reason, but as an entertaining read, well that's another story.

The story is told through the eyes of "Dickie Richards," and no, that's not his real name. Let me tell you, this guy is dirty. I mean Duuuuurrrrttttyyy. You know that dirty relative you have. Everyone has at least one; my family has a few. The one with no shame that will tell stories of his glory days that would make a sailor blush. The stories that make you think he's full of shit 'cause no one would do anything like that, but it just might be true too. Dickie is the epitome of that person. Not just that, he's concentrate. You know that devil that you see on people's shoulders? No that's not Dickie, but he takes notes from Dickie.

"Being buddies sometimes means putting in some effort. Usually, you only have to do that work to get invited to a game.....Maybe you lend and hand when your friend is stuck in the parking lot and you stop to help fix his flat tire. He'll be grateful and want to hang with you some day, and maybe you'll wind up playing cards. He'll never know you let the air out of his tires in the first place."

You know Worm from Rounders? I'm not totally sure they didn't base that character on Dickie. There are so many similarities, like either Worm was based on Dickie or Dicked was based on Worm. If Rounders had made a spin-off book based on that character, they couldn't have done it much better than this book. The only difference is that Dickie is much meaner, dirtier, more cunning, ...and richer.

The title is a little bit misleading. I've read it, and I may know more ways people can cheat and what the slang for it is, but I'd still be no better at it than anyone else. In fact, the book only really has one dedicated chapter to it and in that chapter he says to go buy Erdnase's book if you want to figure out how actually to do it all. Dealing seconds, palming, slugs, cold decking, bottom dealing are all mentioned but he doesn't go into much detail on how to do it. Dickie didn't really want to teach people how to cheat, he just wanted an outlet to tell the world the things he had done. That's not easy to do in his line of work because the next day you might get whacked. This book should really be titled "Memoirs of a Con."

However, what the book does do is give you insight on the life of a card cheat. With each new piece of advice he gives you, he'll usually accompany it with some story that happened to him. These things are fun to read. I found myself laughing out loud at what I was reading.

"I played in a weekly game with a bunch of thirty-to-forty year olds who worked at a northeastern college. One night, three young coeds showed up shitfaced. They'd heard about the game and wanted to play some poker. They weren't beauties, but they were all fuckable. They were welcomed into our game. Somebody suggested, only half-jokingly, that we play strip poker. After a few more drinks the girls agreed, and no one had to convince the fellows.

We played for six hours. I won big. All the girls were completely naked and ready to play for "favors." The guys were down to socks and underwear. I told the table that I was taking my winnings, scooped up all the clothes and walked out of the room. Everyone had a good laugh. Besides, no one was going to chase me across campus in just their underwear, and with a raging hard-on.

I went out the back door, got into my car, and drove away. I never saw my friends again. They must have thought of it as a joke taken way too far. They were drunk and never thought to stop me; they must have forgotten that I had all their wallets in their slacks...

Subtract the $300 I'd paid the hookers to pose as coeds, and it was still a good business move. Whores can act; they almost had me believing they were shy about taking off their clothes."

That is only the tip of the iceberg.

Dickie wasn't just a card mechanic. He did quite a bit of con'ing. He was a loan shark at one time. Also, a pimp. His passion was with cards though. Throughout the book, he describes clever tricks like making an extra set of fake car keys to leave on the table when he "goes to smoke." That buys him enough for him to snatch the cash box and get the hell out of town. They think his keys are on the table, he's not going anywhere.

"Junior, the most trusting of the bunch, had told me that Ploppy - a two-faced old coot - had complained to all the other guys in that game that I was cheating. I was cheating, of course, but he didn't know that. I get pissed at being slandered about something no one really knows I'm doing."

There are other things besides cards, too. For instance, there's a chapter dedicated to screwing the host's wife. Another one describes a con he made up to pull a few hundred from strippers. There are things that are just hilarious that are just too wrong for me to put down in this blog. If a movie were made about this guy (and it would be a great movie), it would be rated R or NC-17 and Quentin Tarentino would direct it (minus some of the violence).

Like all things, there is a climax where karma catches up to him towards the end at the 50,000/100,000 stakes Judge's game and he wants to jump off of a bridge afterwards. He can't believe how stupid he was. You can feel how mad he's getting while he's building up to tell you what happened to him. I won't spoil that for you, though.

Next time you're on a road trip, have some time to kill, or just want a new book to read, pick it up. You don't even have to like poker for this guy to be hilarious.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

A Gambling Joke

A guy worked all his life in Pittsburgh. One day he wakes up and hears a voice in his head: "Quit your job, sell your car, sell your house, go to Vegas."

The guy figures he's been working too hard, so he ignores it and goes to his job. Every day, he hears the voice, louder and more often:

"Quit your job, sell your car, sell your house, go to Vegas!"

This guy's been in the same job for twenty years, and he doesn't want to throw that all away. But every day, the voice comes back. He tries to ignore the voice, he goes to therapy, he gets on Prozac, but week after week, month after month, the voice just gets louder:

"QUIT YOUR JOB, SELL YOUR CAR, SELL YOUR HOUSE, GO TO VEGAS!"

Finally, the poor guy can't take it anymore, so he quits his job. He puts his house up on the market and takes the first offer that will give him cash. He sells his car, and he cashes in his retirement options. He takes all the cash and buys a ticket to Vegas.

When he steps off the plane, the voice says, "GO TO CAESAR'S PALACE." He hops in a cab and goes up the Strip. When he enters the front doors, the voice says "GO TO THE ROULETTE TABLE." The guy doesn't even check in. He makes his way past the slots, past the blackjack tables, and pushes his way to the first roulette wheel he sees.

"PUT IT ALL ON 13-RED."

The guy takes his whole roll of cash, slaps it down on 13-red, and the dealer spins the wheel. The ball goes round and round, eventually slowing...it bounces around different numbers until it finally lands on 26-black.

The voice says, "FUCK!"

-Dickie Richard

Friday, December 01, 2006

The Cooler

I haven't played any limit this week, instead feeling like playing No Limit again. I brushed up today just before going back to play in Florida. I think I didn't play as well as I should have. I know I made at least four really loose calls pre-flop but that doesn't bother me nearly as bad as some of my post flop play where it really matters. I know I made mistakes in several hands.

It's ironic because the only time I've left down, I felt really good because I couldn't think of any clear mistakes I had made all night. Tonight, I left up and felt really really bad and could think of a couple hands right off the top that could have been played better. I'm glad that it's that way, but it doesn't ease the feeling at all.

One thing that bothered me, although I know it's correct, was that I raised pre-flop exactly 10 times and folded by the turn 9 out of 10 times. At least 5 of those times, the flop came 3 of one suit, which I was not holding. I never paired big cards and the one hand I won was a straight I caught on the river. I folded the best hand once or twice, and one time I probably should have stayed in. I had AQ and raised pre-flop. The flop came 3 hearts with 1 Ace, neither of my two cards were a heart. The pot was about 10 bets and I was in 2nd position with 2 players to act behind me. The small blind raised and I folded, figuring that with 2 people behind me and the raiser to my right, I was drawing slim. Everyone folded and she showed me A3, no heart. It's just terrible to fold the best hand, worst mistake you can make in small stakes limit. I should have re-raised, to get everyone besides the flush draws out (who would have still called)and to see if anyone already had the flush. That would have been the correct play but instead I gave up about 10-15 bets. Awful play.

The cooler came at the end of the night. I had KQs and raised preflop on the button. It was 6 handed. The flop brings AA2 rainbow and it's checked around. The turn brings the Q with all 4 suits on the board. I'm confident I have the best hand here. There is only one guy that worries me because he was a tricky player and always slowplayed trips or big hands he made on the flop. His check on the flop didn't guarantee he didn't have trips. I raised here and he called as well as one other guy. This raised my suspicions because there was no draw on the board and people usually get out of the way if they have nothing on these kinds of flops. To add to it, these guys were semi-tight. The only hands I could put them on were a duece, small pocket pair, and queen thats afraid to raise because of the 2 Aces, or a straight draw. I really had my eye on the tricky player here. The River brought the 3rd Ace. I felt like I had the best hand at this point with only 1 Ace left in the deck. I had a full house and could only be beaten by the case Ace or pocket Kings. Both players would have raised pre-flop with Kings so the worst case scenario was lose to the last Ace or tieing the pot. The tricky player checked, the next checked, and I raised. Tricky player re-raises me and the next folds. I re-raise back, and he caps it. I'm still kinda suspicious of the case Ace because if he had it, he would have played the hand exactly this way. I put him on about 20% Ace (which is a huge percent considering only 1 left in the deck), 70% to hold a Q, and 10% to be holding something else. There's no way I'm folding here and I think we're going to split. I can't shake the feeling of the case Ace though because of how the hand played out. He'd have raised with any medium strength hand like a duece or pocket pair and would have folded if a straight draw hadn't come in. He rarely bluffed. "You got the Ace?" I ask him. "Nah, I got a Queen." I immediately put him on the last Ace then, something that is very hard to do, but I had played with him for about 3 hours at this point and had a great read on the way he played/acted at the table. He was good enough to not be re-raising me with a smaller hand that Aces full, as he knew I was strong if I was re-raising. With 1 big bet to go for a 20 big bet pot, I certainly was calling, but as I did, I asked him to show the Ace to everyone, being about 90% sure that's what he had now. He shows the Ace and I muck Aces full of Queens, the 2nd best hand.

I'm not unhappy about the hand. This is not really a big deal in limit unlike had it been No Limit because the last call was automatic here, no matter what I thought he had. It would have been more deserving of that analysis had it been a No Limit game. I was just really happy that I had such a good read on him that I could put him on the 1 card in the deck by how the hand played out. But you're never totally happy losing a huge pot to the case card. I ended up losing about 6 BB's in that pot, thanks to his slowplay (something, btw, you should only rarely do at small stakes. He could have won more had he fired back at me on the turn trapping the caller between us).

I'll get my game back in gear this week and be looking to do some damage next time. Playing poorly is just not acceptable.