totallyirreverent.com

Quoted from SimplyHoldem.com:

The formula below was developed by Bill Chen, winner of 2 WSOP bracelets. He basically developed a mathematical formula to determine if a hand is playable based on giving the cards certain values.

Determine your highest card and score as follows: (only use your lower card for gap and suited analysis)

• Ace = 10 points
• King = 8 points
• Queen = 7 points
• Jack = 6 points
• 10 through 2 = half of face value (i.e. 10 = 5, 9 = 4.5)
• Pairs, multiply score by 2 (i.e. KK = 16), minimum score for a pair is 5 (so pairs of 2 through 4 get a 5 score)
• Suited cards, add two points to highest card score
• Connectors add 1 point (i.e. KQ)
• One gap, subtract 1 point (i.e. T8)
• Two gap, subtract 2 points (i.e. AJ)
• Three gap, subtract 4 points (i.e. J7)
• Four or more gap, subtract 5 points (i.e. A4)

Sample scores
AA = 20 points
98s = 7.5 points
K9s = 6 points

The information below is not strictly from the Chen formula as he believed the system only told you what to play, not when to come in for a raise. There are too many factors in determining when to raise, call or fold. The scores below can be used as a general rule of thumb.

Early Position

• Raise = Score is 9 or higher
• Call = Score is 8 or higher
• Fold = Score is lower than 8

Middle Position

• Raise = Score is 9 or higher
• Call = Score is 7 or higher
• Fold = Score is lower than 7

Late Position

• Raise = Score is 9 or higher
• Call = Score is 6 or higher
• Fold = Score is lower than 6

I need to slow my game down and get rid of the jam-itch.  Everyone knows the itch.  It makes a RAM JAM shooter out of you and makes you broke too.  Variance is a term that gives balance to your game whether you want it or not.

I’m reading a book that basically says your Win/Loss ratio on bluffs should be break even.  Bill Chen is a math wiz that helped put Matt Harilenko in the winners circle of the WSOP $5000 limit event this year.  He believes that if your ratio of bluffs shows you a winner you should back off bluffing .  The inverse is if you are losing your bluffs you should bluff more until you break even. 

Finding balance in any endeavor is important.  Math geeks call it the MEAN.  I do not propose to understand THE MATHEMATICS OF POKER completly, but I can say if you get around the numbers and see the essence, its a good book that urges the gamble in you and gets you thinking that being a MANIAC (till you break even) sometimes has its rewards.  It also justifies all you tightass players out there to be patient and fleece all of Mr. Chen’s disciples by watching for your opportunities.

Or you can become well rounded(balance your BLUFFS) and do BOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got killed for 30 dallah last night in a .50-1.00 limit game on Poker Stars.  Worked my way back up to $13.92 this morning.  Rule number one:

 never risk more than 5% of your bankroll and when the cash game pile in front of you represents 10% of yer bankroll quit and do something else.

Rule number two:  Yer crazy if you don’t follow rule number one.  KEEP It SIMPLE, BOZO.

Now on to today’s soup.  Walmart sells turkey sausage for tacos in rolls for a buck.  Crock pot (Is there any OTHER way to cook) celery, onion, red wine ( a three splash),can of Mexican tomatoes, jalapeno pepper (use pablano if eaten by other than X-RATED audiences), a few diced red potatoes, dash of Montreal Steak seasoning, and some roasted garlic.  A good crockpot (the old kind) will brown meat.  If yours won’t, its time for you to retreat to the Goodwill store and get one. 

Brown the meat and potatoes while you fix your hair, do yer nails,  mind the kids, call yer bookie , play Badugi, WHATEVER!  When the brew is soft and juicy, turn the crock pot to LOW, stir well, and add the rest of the stuff plus TWO Cans of tap water. cover and go to work.  Come home and eat!

Ok I started playing the really low limits of poker so I could tune my hold’em game up.  The idea was I wanted to practice counting outs and calculating pot odds in LIMIT poker.  I have also been following Bill Chen, Matt Harilenko, and Jerrod Ankeman.  Harilenko plays at Fulltilt on the limit side of hold’em when he can get a game up.  He likes the nosebleed stakes. 

All of these guys have or are working for an options trading firm called Susquahanna Partners.  They teach poker there as a skill needed to do well buying puts and calls.

These boys have racked up some impressive numbers using a formula Bill Chen invented to assess starting hands.  Im impressed with it and have purchased Chen’s book “The mathmatics of Poker” from ye ol Amazon and am now waiting for my used copy to arrive. Tonite I played for a total of three Hours for a total income of $5.08 on both PS and FT which I consider great due to my variance during the games. I will keep ya posted.  I’m also reading another book by another Susquahanna member, King Yao entitled “Weighing the Odds in Poker”.  He is into baseball betting and can be found on 2+2 magazine.

All of these guys are math nerds who play well in the game theroy area.  They are aggressive players whose Mommies, Im quite sure, dont like the games they play.

Comments are welcome here.

There is a certain amount of time that we use as a learning curve for anything we do.  After that the objective we want to reach, by learning and practicing, comes to us for a while and we prosper.  Poker works that way, players winnings pitch up and down like a bucking horse at first then even out with time.

Poker is an ongoing learning curve.  The object is to continue winning money in a fashion that allows the player to keep some of it.  Many people attribute success to good play and bank roll management.  Yes that’s a large percemtage of success but how important is constant concentration to the good play effort?  And how importtant is it to bankroll success.

Players hit what is known as the zone.  A period of high concentration and effort where it seems the cards never stop playing themselves.   Players that have enjoyed this comment on the feeling they have as a side effect of this ultra-concentration, calling it euphoric.

Extended concentration enjoys peaks and valleys as the player continues the game.  Finally the time and effort of this concentration bull ride wears the player out and money begins to leave the bankroll sometimes in great quantity.  The player then begins to chase and this is never good.

Stay in the moment. When the euphoria is leaving slow down.  Pacing is smart when the energy to concentrate is dropping.

Of late I have been preoccupied with the importance of hand ranges in my game.  Everyone hollers about how important they are but I admit my mental laziness is akin to Obama’s bowling prowess.  I didn’t even make it to the Stump Olympics.  I have decided that now is the time for action.  I intend to better this part of my game to the fullest and I want to invite you on the hunt…So you’ve got bottom set on a three-flush board and your opponent just check-raised you all-in. What do you do? Well, you put your opponent on a hand.

Hand reading is simultaneously the most important and the most difficult thing that a poker player does. Some of the best poker players in the world who ignore many (or all!) of those other “rules” in poker, have deadly-accurate hand reading skills, and make mountains of cash for their troubles. Other players are exquisitely good at all the fundamentals but stink at hand reading and therefore struggle to consistently come out on top.

I began reading on the subject and the first wonderful thought came from Eric “Rizen” Lynch.  I like this approach.

“Have you ever wondered what exactly someone could possibly be thinking about when it’s taking him seemingly forever to make a decision during a hand? As much as some of us pros would like you to believe we’re simply “looking into your souls,” what we’re really doing is quite simple and basic, even if it is just a little counterintuitive to how we’re used to thinking away from poker.

Rather than a top-down approach, when you’re dealing with key decisions in a poker hand, it’s very beneficial to think in a back-to-front manner. What I mean by that is that if you are faced with a tough decision, you need to reconstruct the hand and the action in your head from the beginning to the current point, using each street’s action as a chance to narrow down your opponent’s hand range. With a little practice and some thought, it’s quite spooky how good a hand reader you can become if you can simply adopt this way of thinking.

Not only is this thought process important for trying to figure out what your opponent has, but if you’re playing against a thinking opponent, you can often use it on your own hand in determining if a bluff might work.”  Eric Lynch

This point of backwards analyses is used by many pros and makes sense to our brains as we must account for everyones moves.  Ted (Professor Backward) Forrest enjoys its use and credits it with recent positive results in both tournaments and cash game play.

Been playing .25/.50 6-max again and need to start testing some of my thoughts about the average player.

For example, have noticed an increase in the number of players who will cold call a raise behind and lead the flop, turn and river on low boards. My thought is that the average player will not fire with nothing in his hand into two players on the flop and turn but I think I’ve got this wrong. In looking at hands I’ve folded on the river, villain won much of the time without showing his cards. 

Over the next week, if I’m raised and get a cold-caller and a blind call, I’m going to go to the river regardless and see how it plays out. The math on a few scenarios indicates calling down with hands that are likely to be better than their range is +EV.

For example, you raise post flop and get two callers, the board is low and one opponent leads the flop, both call. Turn is another rag and the bettor leads again, one fold, you call. You miss the river and bettor leads again, you call.

Opponent will hit a pair on the flop 32.38% of the time, he’ll have air 67.62%. If neither of us have improved:

.6762(8.5BB) – .3238(2.5) = +4.94BB

If he checks the turn and then bets the river unimproved, a call is +3.58BB.

If the second opponent will call the turn because he improved, a river call is -0.78 but all you need is an 8% chance he is bluffing the river unimproved to break even.

It’s still read dependent but think I need to try the call down approach for at least a week and track what happens.

Totallyirreverent.com is a place without regard to structure.  The format is to let you post or comment on anything you like.  Enjoy yourself!