Playing $1/2 6max no limit.  I raise 99 in first position to $6 and get called on the button by a very weak recreational player(60/20 for those interested in stats) and a poor playing regular(27/12) in the small blind.

The flop comes 9h9s6c giving me four 9′s.  The small blind checks. Since neither of the two players were likely to have anything or to call with nothing(float), and the button was likely to bet when checked to, I elected to check.  Unfortunately the button checked behind.

The turn is the 6h.  The small blind checked and I bet $6 into $19 hoping that my opponents would either call me with Ace high or a pair, or try to bluff me, since it doesn’t look like I have too much.  The button folds and the small blind calls.

The river is the 5h, so the final board is 9h9s6c6h5h and the small blind open shoves for $190 into the $31 pot.  I call, he shows a 8h7h for a straight flush and I lose.

The point of the story isn’t to complain about how unlucky and rare it is to lose with four 9′s, but is to wonder what the heck the small blind was thinking and how we can use his mistakes to better our play in the future.  Here is the way he should be thinking about the hand on the river from his point of view (forgetting about ways to take alternative actions previously):

“It looks like my opponent doesn’t have much, so betting a large amount is likely to make him fold the vast majority of his hands.  If he did have something like AA that checked behind the flop or a flush, there is no way he can call a huge amount(6 times the pot) on the river with so many hands that he loses to.  My best bet is to bet something small in the hopes that he thinks I am bluffing either with something like T8, a pair under 6′s that got counterfeited or ace high.  If I bet a small amount and he does have a 9 or maybe even a 6, he is likely to raise and I can reraise and get all the money in, the same as if I had shoved.  Plus, if I bet small, there is a chance he might decide to bluff me.  If I shove all in, I take away all chance for him to call me with weak hands (since he knows I would never do this with a bluff) and he also cannot bluff me.  Clearly, the best play is to bet small, pray to be raised and expect to be called sometimes.”

His actual thinking went something like this:  ”I made a straight flush!  I am going to push all in and hope to get called because I cannot be beaten.  Wow, I can’t believe someone called me, didn’t he realize I had a straight flush?  What an idiot!”

Before I called, I remember wondering what he possibly could have(given that I had all the 9′s, his most likely shoving hand) and that whatever hand he had, he misplayed it.  For instance, if he had four 6′s, he should use the same logic I outlined above for when he had a straight flush and he should never be bluffing all in when a smaller amount would have done the job done with a similar frequency.  Fortunately for me, this short term variance where people grossly misplay their hands and still win occurs frequently.  Over time though, playing my hands more correctly than my opponents leads to better outcomes for me and is the reason I have been a successful professional.

For the record, on the river it’s still a good call by me because he would do this with one combination of four 6′s and one combination of 8h7h.  This means I win 50% of the time, and need to call $190 into $411, which only requires me to win 46% of the time to break even.

Since internet gambling has been up and running in New Jersey, I have been putting in a lot of hours playing online poker.  It feels really great to be able to play online again and my results over the last several months have been much better than even I could have expected.   I would like to share my experiences with you.

As I said above, it is great to be back online again.  When I started playing poker professionally, I began online because of the convenience, the ability to analyze my game and the flexibility of my schedule.  Those advantages have returned in full and not being forced to travel to the casino has made a huge improvement in my quality of life.  Travelling to casinos was not why I became involved in poker and though I met some great people,I am very happy to return to playing online.

Since I travel to New Jersey every day, I feel a bit like I have a regular job, commute and all.  I don’t mind the regularity so much, as it allows me to get into more of a routine than I had over the past 10 years or so.  I play at a local coffee shop which is nice enough to let me sit there for hours at a time and is open late.  I have adapted well to playing longer sessions since it is more difficult to take breaks.  The downside of not being able to play at home is that I get less hours at night when the games are the best.

The games have been excellent and there has been a lot of action most of the time.  I have been impressed by the number of players and am looking forward to New Jersey making compacts with other states to widen the player pool.  It seems like it won’t be too long before other states allow internet gambling as well and are looking to join New Jersey in the online gaming arena.

Geolocation is a huge issue for me.  To play, you must be in New Jersey and the software that checks your location is spotty and though it is improving, I still get disconnected frequently.  The geolocation is finicky and I have sometimes had trouble finding a place to play that is recognized as being in New Jersey.  The location system should be better, especially with a real and significant amount of money involved.

Depositing was very difficult in the beginning, but over the last month or so, I have had no trouble.  The addition of Neteller as a payment option and the ability to deposit at the cage have helped as well.  I hope that the banks will soon allow deposit via credit cards.

There are 3 main sites where there are a significant number of game: Party Poker/Borgata, WSOP and 888.  The software on WSOP and 888 is good and their promotions and customer service are responsive.  Party Poker/Borgata software frequently crashes on me and I have many more geolocation issues there than on the other two sites.  The crashing of their software has been an issue for nearly six months and they have refused fix it or even to acknowledge the problem.  I hope that as more sites and games become available, I will not need to play there any longer.

While watching an episode of Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles, Josh, a broker, was met with the owner of a multimillion dollar house that he needed sold within 30 days.  The seller seemed like a shrewd businessman when he negotiated his contract with Josh to sell the house, and Josh assured him it would be sold within the allotted time.  When Josh was unable to sell it within 30 days, he called the seller begging for additional time.  Josh wanted the nearly $250,000 commission for selling the house and on the phone he said, “we can definitely sell this house in an additional 30 days,” “we have a number of interested people” and other similar unverifiable, yet very soothing things.  These sort of bold, self serving statements that have no penalty for being incorrect bother me.

In light of his previous promise and failure, I was surprised that the owner allowed Josh the additional time without adding in any additional stipulations.  After all, it was the seller who lost if the house went unsold, and there were no negative consequences for Josh only monetary gain.

If I were the seller in this situation, I would have suggested that if Josh was unable to sell the house in the 30 days, he should owe me a set amount of money.  Without any skin in the game, Josh was free to guarantee the house would be sold with me taking all the downside risk if it did not sell.  In this case, he was free to guarantee it twice without any consequence for being wrong.  If Josh truly had an idea of the timeframe for the sale of the house, then he should have been willing to wager on it (especially since he is the expert and the seller was not).   In this case, it would work like an option.  If he sold the house, he would get $250,000 and if he did not, he would give me some set amount of money, say $50,000.  Since Josh is an expert and “knows the house is going to sell,” it should be easy money for him.

The truth is that Josh was exaggerating his knowledge of the situation and making him put his own money on the line would make him be more circumspect about what the real probabilities of selling the house are.  If they were forced to wager on the outcome, the seller (who is in the broker’s realm of expertise) could get a more accurate picture of what the broker believes the true probabilities are.  This seems like a good way to bring more honesty in businesses like contracting where one side has an incentive to make outlandish predictions without any penalty for being incorrect.