Or how I learned to recycle other people’s content.
Iggy briefly expounded today on the loose-aggressive nature of poker at Party Poker, how it translates into greater variance, which translates into greater potential profits. In other words, you can’t break the bank at a table full of folding stations.
This segues into today’s topic quite nicely.
As I’ve said before, the 6-max games tend to be full of aggressive little monkeys, which makes one wonder if playing the Broke’s Lament can be as profitable as it appears to be for a monkey with the Rage. Well, perhaps if I were a better player, I could play any two cards well after the flop and win lots of money. Since I’m not a better player, I’ll stick to the fundamentals.
But here’s an example of where I’ve adopted some wisdom from a blog.
When you’re sitting on the big blind, the monkeys will almost always take a shot at stealing the blinds. If I’m holding utter junk, I’ll go ahead and fold to these raises. But if there’s a decent chance of flopping a big hand or a big draw (small/medium offsuit connectors and one-gappers), I’ll call the raise. If the raiser is a confirmed monkeyboy, I’ll call with worse hands, especially when there are other people in the hand. As Iggy said by way of HDouble, “You are getting 3.5-to-1 on your call.”
Excellent advice.
Now, I think it’s possible to extrapolate this incorrectly to calling anything in the small blind in an unraised pot. Sure, no hand is that much of a dog, but there are two key differences when calling for one small bet in the big blind:
1) With the preflop raise, the pot is laying better odds for your draws on the flop. Calling from the small blind in an unraised pot raises the bar for the strength of your draws.
2) With the preflop raise, you can count on the aggressor to bet out on the flop and the turn, and possibly go to the showdown with a dominated hand. The implied odds are enormous!
On the other hand, if you’re limping in from the SB with a hand that you wouldn’t even play on the button with 4 limpers ahead of you, then where are you? First to act with complete junk.
So here’s an example of where I called for one small bet and caught the upswing of the variance cycle:
Preflop: Hero is BB with 5h, 6s.
UTG calls, MP calls, Button raises, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG calls, MP 3-bets, Button calls, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG calls.
Flop: (15 SB) 6h, 4s, 7s (5 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, MP bets, Button calls, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG calls.
Turn: (10 BB) 3d (5 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, MP bets, Button folds, SB calls, Hero raises, UTG folds, MP calls, SB folds.
River: (15 BB) 9c (2 players)
Hero bets, MP calls $0.63 (All-In).
Final Pot: 16.31 BB
Main Pot: 15.63 BB, between Hero and MP. > Pot won by Hero (15.63 BB).
Pot 2: 0.68 BB, returned to Hero.
Hero has 5h 6s (straight, seven high).
MP has 2c Js (high card, jack).
Outcome: Hero wins 16.31 BB.
So why didn’t I bet/raise the flop? Other than being a total wuss, I believe my thought process was that the pot was too large to be able to force any flush draws to fold with a flop bet or raise, thus giving even better odds on the turn to see the river.
On a related note, I believe if you can figure out that a particular player wants to leave, you can make a killing with reduced risk. This is particularly true in no limit, where a player has ~30% of a buy-in and goes all-in preflop. Almost any pair, any ace is strong enough to call. Just don’t tango with the table rock.
I can’t find the “non-poker” version of this blog. Where is it?
I hope you noted MP’s play for future fishing reference. That was a pretty thin call pre-flop on your part, but not awful…I’d guess slightly -EV.
I’d probably have played the flop the same, like you said, because two bets isn’t getting rid of the flush draw, and the way MP played pre-flop looks like he’s ahead of you.
You’re looking like you’re going to have to hit your straight, two pair (not great), or trips to win at that point.
Turn check-raise looks right and of course, the value bet on the river.
Going back to the pre-flop play, I’m always going to play 65 against a single raiser pre-flop, looking to hit a pair/draw and check-raise the flop to retake control of the hand.
Here, your call’s likely getting 9:1, so I’m OK with it, as long as you know that one pair on the flop isn’t hacking it.
Against two or three opponents, lay 65o down out of the BB. One opponent, or four or more, play on.
Really? I was getting at least 6:1 and figured I’d probably get 9:1 for my call. Looking back at PT, it looks like the Button reserved his raises for the Button (A7o), the CO (ATo, A4s), and the SB (88), so he clearly had a habit of raising in position.
I’ll admit that I was worried when MP decided to limp-reraise, but by that point the pot was huge and I was getting 12:1 and could probably rely on getting 15:1. If the Button had capped it, I probably would have folded.
I knew I had to get two pair, trips, or the straight to win with confidence, and was psyched to get the non-spade 3 on the turn. An 8 would have made me vulnerable to the higher straight (gutshots don’t worry these people a lot of the time, and they certainly would have odds with the size of this pot).
makes one wonder if playing the Broke’s Lament can be as profitable as it appears to be for a monkey with the Rage.
Without a doubt, the finest turn of phrase this year, coupled with a damned good reference. Nice!