Table Courtesy

Table Courtesy

Round 1 - Do You Chop?

If you understand what chopping the blinds is, skip to the 2nd paragraph.

In Hold 'Em and Omaha, the flop games of poker, there's a standard small and big blind bet placed out by the two players just to the left of the player currently marked as the dealer with the dealer button. People get that. Cool. In every single casino in the San Francisco Bay Area, there's at least one game where there's also a blind bet put out by the player with the dealer button. For example, at Garlic City, you have a $1, $2, $2 blind structure. $1 on the button, $2 in the small blind, and $2 in the big blind. At M8trix, there's a $1,$2,$3 game. $1 on the button, $2 SB (small blind), $3 BB (big blind). OK. Now chopping... so in a normal game with 2 blinds - Lucky Chances' $3,$5 game for example - if everyone folds to the players in the blind, those two player can "Chop it". Chopping means that they take most or all of their money back and chose not to the play that hand against each other. With Lucky Chances specifically, they rake $2 a hand no matter what ($1 + $1 for bad beat jackpot), so each player hands the dealer a dollar and we all move on to the next hand. Why would people do that? Well, normally in that same game, the house takes $6 per hand that goes post-flop. So out of the $8 out there, which will likely turn into $10 once the player in the small blind player calls, $6 is immediately taken away. So the two players have invested $5 each to play for a pot of $4. So most people instead chose to chop it. Makes sense, right?

It's a little different when you've got a blind bet out on the dealer button. Let's take M8trix and Bay 101's $2,$3,$5 games for example. If the action folds around to the player on the button with $2 out there, and everyone chops, the player with the dealer button sacrifices $1 out of the $2 they have out, then the small and big blind take all of their money back. Well that's not particularly fair, now is it? You take the best position at the table and make it so of that guy is super nice and decides not to use it to his advantage by raising, he is the one also giving up money in the chop. In my opinion, that's stupid. So when the situation comes up and players ask me, "Do you chop?", the answer is "I don't chop my button, but I chop my blinds every single time." People that haven't thought it through like I have sometimes take issue with my policy. They think I might be a shady character by changing my blind chopping policy dependent on my positional advantage. But if they ask or say stuff out loud about it, I typically explain and they typically say "Oh that makes sense.", and we move on and play cards.

Yesterday at Bay 101, this exact scenario went down. I told the table my chopping policy when asked, I told them, someone asked why, then I explained it. Almost the entire table made a Eureka-moment "Ohhhhhhh!" after my explanation. Then later on, a new player sat to my right, the situation came up, and he asked if myself and the player to my left chopped. I told him, "I don't chop my button, but I chop my blinds every single time." Then the player to my left started mouthing off about how stupid the policy was. I attempted to explain the thought process to him, but he just kept mouthing off, cutting me off, and telling me what I should do. I asked him politely at first not to tell me what to do and not to tell another person what I do, what I should do, or what I shouldn't do. He then went off and spouted out several poor defenses, to which I got a bit more agitated and said something like "Look, just don't talk for me and don't tell me what to do." This cycle happened a couple times until the guy shut up.

Round 2 - Talking When You Don't Have a Hand

Probably 10-20 minutes later, I got involved in a pretty sizable pot. There was 3 way action and currently around $700 in the middle with $200 for me to call, but likely more money would go in if I continued in the pot. The board was 7,J,J,K. The guy to my left started talking to the guy to his left. I couldn't understand him perfectly because his English wasn't great, but it was clear to me that he was talking about the hand that was taking place and what types of hands the bettor was likely to hold. THIS IS NOT OK. Talking about a hand you're not in while those who are in it can hear can change the actual action and win or lose people money.

Example: let's say in precisely this pot, I was holding Q,Q or A,A & I'm a complete idiot. Maybe I hadn't strongly considered the possibility that the guy betting into me had a jack or I had written it off in my mind for whatever reason. This guy saying "...jack.." could restart the thinking process in my brain of what types of holdings my opponent might have. Literally one word out of that guy's mouth could lose my opponent $200 or even more, considering we both would have had more money left over had I called the $200.

So I asked politely again for the guy to not speak about a hand that he's not in. Again, he went off and spouted out poor defenses, such as "I wasn't talking to you." and "I wasn't talking about the hand.", which were both complete lies. I called over the floor man and requested that he ask the guy to my left not to speak about hands he's not in. The floor man then asked the dealer what happened. To my surprise and dismay, the dealer basically shrugged and said he didn't know. I explained precisely what happened and asked probably 2 or 3 more times for the floor man to just remind the guy not to speak about hands he's not in, to which he eventually mumbled out "yeah don't do that." Guy to my left wouldn't let the incident go and kept on me while I was still trying to think through this hand I was in, the floor man had to come back twice and say "hey just calm down guys move on", to which my reply was "sounds great, I'd love to." I wasn't paying super close attention and I'm not sure if someone asked him to move, but soon afterward, the guy to my left picked up and either moved to another table or left.

Super frustrating 20-ish minutes. I was super heated and very glad that he left.

Bottom Line

Don't be disrespectful to others at the poker table. It's OK to have differing opinions on things like blind chopping policy, but that doesn't mean you should express them in a disrespectful manner. And don't talk about hands you're no longer in while they're still happening. Even wincing when a card that would have been good for you comes is rude and disrespectful to the players that are still in the hand. Players in the hand don't want your words or facial expressions to change the action that you're no longer involved with

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Feel free to comment below or send any questions, comments, ideas, or w/e in to dj8bitavenger@gmail.com, and I'll make sure to incorporate the feedback into future posts.

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Let's Catch Up

Let's Catch Up

No hands today. I've played several sessions live and had some interesting hands that were worth talking about. But I played a bunch of sessions online @ America's Cardroom as well as live and kind of thought them through and answered my own questions. I've also gotten approved for a home loan, had an offer on a property accepted, and had the loan pass conditional approval through the underwriter. Oh, and I still have my 40hr/week job. So you could say that I've been busy.

Live vs. Online

I played a bit over 5000 hands of NLHE (No Limit Hold 'Em) online at $.10/.25 stakes - some 6max and some full ring (9 players) tables. Plus I played a few small tournaments. It's pretty incredible how many hands you can get in online when you're playing 6 tables at once.

The biggest lesson I've learned is that people playing NLHE online are really, really, good. The $.10/.25 tables were dramatically tougher than the $1/2 and $2/5 type tables I usually play at live. So I'd say that playing NLHE online is like playing over 10 times the same stakes live. It's pretty nuts. People are making plays every other hand that I might not see an entire night live.

Other Games

After losing nearly half of the money I deposited, I decided I'd rather try to grind out my deposit bonus playing other types of poker at even lower-stakes, somewhat for fun and somewhat because I'd like to know a bit more of how to play other games when an opportunity presents itself to play those games live.

I had been listening to an old poker podcast ran by Bart Hanson called Cash Plays and depending on the guest he had on, he would talk about different games - 7-Card Stud, Stud Hi/Lo, Omaha 8, PLO (Pot Limit Omaha), and some even rarer games. This got me kind of excited to give these games a shot and learn about them at the baby stakes.

Stud Hi/Lo

So I hopped online and looked for low/micro-stakes games of Stud Hi/Lo, PLO, and O8. I still have a ton to learn about all 3, but I quickly learned that even though I knew little-to-nothing about the game, that the players I was facing at Stud Hi/Lo knew even less. It's a split-pot game, where the goal is to make the best high AND the best low hand, with half of the pot going to the player with each of the 2. So if you have the best of both, you'll take the entire pot. So a few great starting hands might be:
A♠,2♠,3♠
3♥,4♥,5♥
A♣,2♣,5♣.

For some reason, people were playing and raising stuff like:
J♦,K♣,K♥
9♠,10♣,J♥
A♦,5♠,8♣

There are always exceptions, but playing hands like these clearly give you no real shot at winning both the high and low end of a hand. Another big mistake I saw players making, is that even if they had decent or great starting hands, they would still bet/raise extra money in situations where they could really only expect to win half of the pot, while I've got a two-way hand.

Once I felt comfortable that I was easily out-playing the micro stakes, I quickly moved up to $1/2, then 2/4, 3/6, and finally $5/10, where people are still making the same basic mistakes. I'm definitely making mistakes, and focused on learning, but I can see clearly that long-term I can make a significant profit against these players at these stakes.

Stud Hi/Lo has another few really cool benefits. Since it's an ante game and there aren't blinds, you can truly get up and sit down any time you want without losing a whole lot of value. Also, I'm receiving points toward my deposit bonus at an extremely high rate in a game with much lower variance compared to NLHE. You end up splitting the pot when you're behind a lot. And even in a super aggressively raised pot, the maximum you might lose is very low compared to a No Limit or Pot Limit game.

Until Next Time...

Unless something particularly interesting comes up, I probably won't make another post until after the move, when I'll hopefully have something super cool to announce. Good luck at the tables!

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Feel free to comment below or send any questions, comments, ideas, or w/e in to dj8bitavenger@gmail.com, and I'll make sure to incorporate the feedback into future posts.