A Slave to Variance

In limit hold’em, given that you had the best hand on the turn heads-up, how often should you bet the river?

I have been playing poker since very early 1999. In today’s poker world, I mostly play hold’em, omaha/8, and stud/8. I usually play anywhere from 30/60 up to 100/200, and sometimes a little higher or lower depending on the exact circumstance. Since the beginning, I’ve also written software to help me analyze my game. PokerStove is the most important application that I’ve developed so far. This weblog is for discussion of poker analysis, and also acts as a semi-official place for announcements regarding PokerStove and any related software.

I remember a long time ago seeing what someone had noted about me in their comments:

“Goes berzerk heads-up”

It’s still true. I’ve learned to temper my insanity a bit, trying to target players who are even more insane than me, but sometimes it just feels good to raise. In the three hands below the fish in question is the same player.

hold'em[L] $ 40/80 Paradise Poker - Turtle Cove           ante:0.00 blinds: 20.00 40.00  rake:2.00 pot:  638 [2s Ac 3h 4s 2c]   "fishy A"     1080  1 Sr   brc  k    b           320  -320 [Qs Ts]   Andrew        3251  0 Bc   rr   k    c           320   318 [4c 8c]   "folder"      3094  4 f                            0     0   "folder"      2342  3 f                            0     0   "folder"      1034  2 f                            0     0  ---  hold'em[L] $ 40/80 Paradise Poker - Mahe (Turbo)           ante:0.00 blinds: 20.00 40.00  rake:1.00 pot:  719 [Qd Kh 4h 9d 7s]   "folder"      3487  2 f                            0     0   Andrew        2523  1 Srr  b    b    b           360   359 [9h Qh]   "fishy A"     1509  0 Brc  c    c    c           360  -360 [Js As]  ---  hold'em[L] $ 40/80 Paradise Poker - Mahe (Turbo)           ante:0.00 blinds: 20.00 40.00  rake:1.00 pot:  959 [4s 2s 2c 2d 3d]   "folder"      3433  2 f                            0     0   Andrew        2288  1 Sr   brc  bc   kc          480   479 [Ad 3c]   "fishy A"     1296  0 Bc   rr   r    b           480  -480 [5h 6h]

Notice how thin I’m playing. This may in part explain why I have a hard time folding pairs after the flop (see last post). I play so hyper that people are often taking shots at me with all kinds of crazy shit.

Hand 1: I cap with a flopped gutshot/backdoor flush draw because I don’t think he’s got an ace. I’m right and win when I river a 4. Notice that I do in fact take the free card when offered with 8-high.

Hand 2: I cap preflop with Q9s because I want to take control of the hand.

Hand 3: Another capped gutshot, but I’ve got the ace this time, and my best hand holds up all the way through the river.

Caro calls it image, I call it poker.

Mike Caro is probably the best poker author out there. Long before he got yanked from CardPlayer, I downloaded all of his available articles. One of his gems was exactly Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard line recycled into poker speak. And it’s exactly true. To quote Kenny Rogers, “You got to know when to fold ‘em”.

hold'em[L] $ 40/80 Paradise Poker - Mahe (Turbo)
         ante:0.00 blinds: 20.00 40.00  rake:3.00 pot: 1377 [Ts Ah Jc 8c Tc]
 Brentie       2982  7 rC   bc   bc   b           480   897 [Ac 5c]
 triwhurly     2714  6 f                            0     0
 mzk1234       1814  5 f                            0     0
 zaratusa      1600 -1 -                            0     0
 slaphappy     1777  4 f                            0     0
 TheMaroon     5192  3 Rc   r    r    c           480  -480 [As Qs]
 2NDGRADER     2930  2 R    C    f                240  -240
 olegus        3382  1 Sf                          20   -20
 Andrew        1889  0 BC   kf                    160  -160 [Kc Kh]
.
hold'em[L] $ 40/80 Paradise Poker - Mahe (Turbo)
         ante:0.00 blinds: 20.00 40.00  rake:2.00 pot: 1498 [7h 8d 8c 5s 9c]
 diwizard2     1698  2 C    cr   rc   r           600   898 [7s 7d]
 sliknik44     1370  1 Sf                          20   -20
 olegus        1996  0 Bc   krc  kR   bc          600  -600 [6c 8h]
 Andrew        3376  3 r    bcc  bf               280  -280 [Ad Ah]

The first hand is an easy fold, but the second hand takes a good read and a certain amount of courage to follow through on that read. Under many circumstances, a three-bet paired flop is only marginally dangerous for AA, and you should call down. In fact, the turn betting looks a lot like nutcases are trying to leverage me off of a big pair. The real clue comes from the fact that diwizard2 is a fucking nitfuck.

Fucking nitfucks don’t call-reraise the flop with a draw on a paired board.

Alas poor AA, I hardly know ye.