While watching NFL Countdown today, which was previewing the games, the commentators were discussing how to beat the Denver Broncos.  They unanimously agreed  that what the opposing team (Dallas in this case) needed to do was to score more quickly and speed up the pace of the game.  I believe this is the decidedly wrong answer for two reasons.

Firstly, assuming that Denver is the better team, which the commentators agreed on, Dallas would want each team to have fewer possessions(not more) in the hopes that one outlier (fumble, interception return or 90 yard play) for them would be the difference in the game. Dallas would not want to score quickly and allow each team to have more possessions, which would enable Denver’s (and Peyton Manning’s) skill advantage to have more opportunities to shine through.  To use another sports analogy, in baseball, anyone can win a one game playoff, but over the course of 162 games, the best team usually wins its division.

The second reason why this might not be an optimal strategy for Dallas(and other Denver opponents) is that they are not accustomed to playing at a faster pace and taking more chances on offense.  Attempting to run plays that have little chance of success (though may go for huge yardage once in a while) means the chances of overall success(touchdowns) go down, and then the chance of success(winning the game) goes down even faster when you increase the number of possessions.

There are two definitions of variance.  The first is the statistical definition of how far a set of numbers is from their mean.  For example, if you were a conservative player(tending to play less hands) winning $100 an hour playing poker, your variance would be lower than someone who was a more aggressive player (tending to play more hands and be involved in more pots).  The reason is that there are more opportunities for your stack to go up and down as you are involved in more pots.  The other definition of variance used in the poker world is the idea that all situations will even out in the end, so that being on the wrong end of a bad situation is just “variance,” or a statistical anomaly taking focus away from what is really important aka. your winrate.  So when you have KK and the other person has AA, you can usually chalk it up to “bad variance” meaning that it was unlucky and that if the situation was reversed, the outcome would be the same.

In theory, if your winrate was high enough and your variance low enough, you would never(or at least very, very rarely lose).  For example, if your standard deviation(the square root of variance) was $20 an hour, your winrate was $100 and your results were normally distributed, you would only lose when you had a result that was 5 standard deviations away from the mean(which is about 1 in 1.7 million).  The reality is no one has a high enough winrate and low enough variance to never lose(or come close to it)  and that results are not normally distributed.  I was one of the most successful players in midstakes no limit and my winrate was approximately 5.5 big blinds per hundred hands and my standard deviation was approximately 65 big blinds per hundred hands.  Although I frequently lost during an individual hour, I won approximately 70% of the days that I played and 100% of the weeks.

When I hear other players talking about going through a prolonged losing streak(aka a “downswing”) they are often focused on the second kind of variance, instead of the first kind.   They often fail to realize that the main culprit for their losing money is not having a high enough winrate(or too high a variance).  For example, if two players have the same standard deviation (the square root of variance), say $70 an hour, and one wins at $100 an hour and one wins at $30 an hour.  When they both experience a rough patch and are one standard deviation away from their results, the player winning at $30 per hour loses $40 an hour during this period and experiences a “downswing,” while the the player winning $100 wins only $30 an hour during this period.  However, they are both the same dollar amount and standard deviation from their true results!

Why should I care about all of these statistics and numbers you ask?  The answer is simple, poker is an emotional, thought driven game and results and emotions can affect the way you make decisions .  I assure you that the player who has undergone a “losing streak” takes it much harder mentally and emotionally than the player who is still winning, albeit at a lower rate.  If you feel like you have been losing and that the plays you have been making have not been working, you are less likely to make the optimal play when the opportunity arises.

It has been proven that losses hurt twice as much as wins thrill.  This idea is very important when comparing more conservative and aggressive playing styles.  As a looser player it is much tougher to maintain your winrate because when you are losing it is tougher to play your A game AND you are involved in more situations.  Not only does losing cause you to play your B or even C game, where your decision making is worse, as a looser player, you are now making more of those bad decisions.

When playing poker in person, you get the opportunity to observe people for large amounts of time and you can see there are many players(often of the loose aggressive variety) who do very well when winning, but who, when losing, play the same way despite the fact that their edge is no longer there.  For example, let’s say it is profitable to open T3s on the button when everyone has folded.  Doing so requires that you value bet 2nd pair well, fold when someone has a bigger flush, call at the right time with draws and a host of other things.  When a loose aggressive player is playing well and winning, he might be able to do all of these things and to turn a profit.  However when he is not playing well, playing this hand might get him into situations where his errors compound and he is no longer able to make all of the correct decisions necessary to make this hand profitable.  If he continues to lose, his winrate will drop, he will win less frequently and play less than his A game more frequently, all of which will contribute to less winning and more frustration.

There are many reasons that it might be beneficial to play tighter, but I believe that the most important one is the reduction of your variance.  Since many players do not have an adequate bankroll to play in the stakes they normally play, increasing variance and lowering their winrate increases the risk of ruin if they happen to encounter a run of bad variance.  This will prevent otherwise winning players from being able to play(and therefore win) assuming they could always play their A game, which is a near impossibility when they are losing and low on funds.  Playing more conservatively will allow you to play your A game longer, since you will be winning more instead of losing.  In addition, playing tighter has the huge benefit of helping you to avoid situations that are close that will tend to become unprofitable if you are not playing your A game.

The end result is that reducing your variance and keeping your winrate high has important additional benefits like keeping your mind sharp and being in the positive frame of mind that will allow you to win even more money.

The first one was the first hand I had played at the table.  The villain is not a good player and we have played a lot together.  He doesn’t fold any moderate hand preflop or anything on the flop.  He starts with $750 and I cover him.  Villain limps, another player limps and a good aggressive player raises to $75 and I reraise to $250 out of the big blind with QQ.  The villain calls and the aggressive player folds.  Villain has a very wide range of hands(approximately any ace, any two cards 10 or bigger and any pair as well as some other random hands he felt like playing).

The flop comes 955r.  There is $600 in the pot and villain has $500 behind.  Since I am way ahead of villains range and am not folding, the question is, what can I do to get him to put the rest of his money in the pot?  Since this particular villain is unlikely to bet, he just hopes to hit his hand, there isn’t much point in giving him a free card.  Shoving all in will get him to call his best hands(pocket pairs,big aces and hands that hit the board), but he will call a smaller bet with those hands anyways.  Betting small, allows him to call in hopes of making a hand on the turn and he will likely shove all of the hands he will call all in with.  I bet $200 (note that it’s less than the the amount he called preflop) and he thinks a long time before shoving all in with KQ.  I called and no King came for him to win the pot.

Just want to do the math quickly.  I am ~85%-15% favorite on the flop so if I shove all in and he folds, I win $600 for a profit of $350.  If he gets all in on the flop, then I am an 85% favorite in a $1600 pot, for an expected profit of ~$600.  The difference between a good play and the best play is ~$250.

The second hand is against a villain($1600) who had recently shown an unwillingness to fold, and a willingness to make huge bluffs in bad situations.  The pot is stradddled and villain limps for $20, another player calls and a loose player raises to $110.  I decide to reraise with QQ to $325, villain calls and everyone else folds.  The flop comes AAJ and villain leads $500.  I decide that I have the best hand and will not fold, so now what?  If I shove all in for about $750 more, villain will fold all of his bluffs and call all hands that beat me.  By calling the flop, I give him a chance to bluff the turn and collect another $775 if I am ahead.

Fortunately, this is exactly what happens, as the villain quickly shoves all in on the turn and  I call.  He shows 44 and I collect a pot that had an additional $775 from my opponent.

I believe that some of the biggest differences between professionals and amateurs is their ability to make the maximum with their best hands and avoiding situations where they put a lot of money in with little chance of winning.

My name is Jason Schlachter and I used to have the greatest job in the world until I was fired by the government 2 years ago.  I was an internet poker player.  Playing poker on the internet challenged me and pushed my limits.  Each day I woke up excited at the prospect of being the best I could be and through my hard work, I was one of the most successful internet players.  Not only was I successful in my job, but I took pride in the fact that I could provide for my family, and I loved the flexibility that allowed me to never miss spending time with them.  It has been 2 years since the government has prevented me, as well as my colleagues and other aficionados from playing poker on the internet.  Now, despite the fact that the law that was passed in 2006 making internet poker illegal has since been ruled NOT to apply to games of skill (like poker), and the proliferation of casinos everyplace in the US (including lottery and horse racing on the internet)the government continues to prevent internet poker sites from operating in the US and no longer allows me to pursue my chosen profession.

It took me a very long time to be able to admit to people that I played internet poker professionally, because some people did not understand the skill involved and therefore looked down on me, asked me when I was going to do something real with my life and called it gambling.  In reality, playing poker professionally is actually a bit like being a professional chess player and a bit like being a stock trader.  Like playing chess, it requires  thousands of hours of study to determine what the best moves are in different situations and when to use them.  You must be able to consider what your opponents are thinking and their thought processes as well as to remain in complete control of your emotions at all times.  As in stock trading, it is necessary to analyze situations in real time and to have the ability to make quick, calculated and rational decisions, often for a lot of money.  Despite what many people believe, it is in fact nothing like playing craps or the lottery.  You are competing against other players, not the casino, and your skill has a large effect on the outcome.  In fact, as someone who has played nearly 8 million hands in his lifetime, an amount which would take more than 300,000 hours in the casino, I can assure you, there is little gambling involved.

I began to take poker more seriously in 2003, when I was senior at the University of Pennsylvania.  I had played poker with friends on occasion and realized that there was a lot of skill and that I could get better by studying the mathematics of the game.  As a former runner and tennis player, I enjoyed the competition inherent in poker, was looking to improve and was willing to work at it.  I went to Atlantic City once or twice, but between taking 5 classes and writing my thesis, I did not have time to make the trip, so I decided to deposit a few dollars in an online poker site.  I began playing for pennies and soon I was trying to learn the best way to beat my online opponents too.  Often this required working out solutions away from the table and my geeky, math loving, solution based self loved it.  When I graduated, I moved back home and was looking for jobs during the day, and playing poker at night.  Before too long, I was making far more money playing poker then I could if I had gotten the jobs I was seeking, so I decided to continue.

In September of 2006, on the last day before Congress would break for the election, Bill Frist and John Kyl, two extremely conservative Republicans tacked on the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act(UIGEA) to The SAFE Port Act.  This bill made it a crime to process payments to online poker sites according to the 1961 Wire Act.  Despite the fact that no one on the Senate-House Committee had seen the final language in the UIGEA, it did not matter, because it was attached to The SAFE Port Act, which had to pass.  After this bill was passed, the European Union and Antigua filed lawsuits and won damages against the United States as a result of this law violating free trade agreements.

In 2009, New York and Illinois requested clarification of the UIGEA from the Department of Justice(DOJ).  In April of 2011, the DOJ took action to shut down the sites that were still operating in the US, ignoring the request for clarification over whether operating a site was actually illegal.  It was not until December 2011 when the DOJ finally admitted that the 1961 Wire Act did not apply to poker, which made their attempts to close the internet poker market in 2006 and 2011 wrong.

In fact, before the UIGEA, the internet poker market in the US was operating well and in the open.  Since 2006, poker has moved into a grey market and players who want to play have been forced to deal with disreputable companies, delays in payment and even the possibility of not getting paid.  When the US government shut down the poker sites in 2011, the reputable site that I played on, paid me, as well as everyone else immediately, but the players on Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker were not so lucky.  The government has sold the company and has said that they will pay the players the money that is owed but to date has not done so and has shown no plans to.  This is very unfortunate for many people who needed these funds for living and working expenses, who were not only fired by the government, but have also had their money trapped by them.

Since 2011, I have been forced to travel to Atlantic City and Pennsylvania in order to support myself and my family.  Not only has my income been reduced substantially but my expenses have also risen. In addition, since I live in New York City, nearly a 2.5 hour drive from there, I cannot commute and must stay over and be away from my wife for extended periods of time.  While many of my colleagues opted to move out of the country to work playing internet poker, I did not feel as though this was a reasonable option for me.

The government has admitted that they have erred in this matter and have lost in the WTO regarding internet gambling.  I believe they are hypocrites for continuing to push the lottery, horse racing and for allowing casinos to be built everyplace, while denying people the ability to gamble in their own homes.  I am asking that the government finally do what is right and just and to restore internet poker to people who want to play.

Sincerely,

Jason Schlachter

$5/$10 at the Borgata.  Villain has $2000 and I cover him.  He raises to $40 and I 3bet to $150 out of the blinds with 9h9c.  I played about 10 hours with the villain  and he doesn’t like to fold or be bullied and likes to raise at any sign of weakness.  In an earlier hand I watched him bluff a full stack on an all spade flop and spade turn.  I had also seen him raise smallish looking bets throughout the day when he sensed weakness.  In addition, he would also call the flop lightly(float) with the hopes of winning the pot in the future if his opponents didn’t have anything.

The flop was a beautiful AhQh9s, and I bet $150 into the $300 pot.  This is about what I would bet with most of my hands since it folds out a lot of hands that missed(against this opponent who liked to float and raise I might have bet a different amount had I missed, but that’s for another time).  He quickly calls.

The turn is the 2h.  I believed that if I bet small, the villain wouldn’t be able to help himself and would turn whatever pair he had into a bluff or bluff with whatever he floated with on the flop.  I bet $170 and he raises to $625.  This is great for me, however there are a lot of scary rivers that can either make him a better hand(if he has KhTs or JsTc), or kill my action if he does happen to have something like As2s.  Given what I had observed, I thought the likelihood of him bluffing, and bluffing the river were much higher than him having a strong hand, so I elected to call despite the risks.

The river was the 4h, making the board AhQh9s2h4h and giving me a 1 card 9 high flush.  I check and villain immediately shoves allin for about $1100.  Though I am not thrilled with my hand on this board, and am not generally in the business of calling such large bets with relatively weak hands, I had a plan for the hand and I followed through with a call.  Villain says, “just an ace” and I show down a flush to win the pot.

I was very happy with the way I played the hand since I used the observations I had made about my opponent to win a large pot.  Had I bet differing amounts throughout the hand, it likely would not have played out in the same way, and I would have won a much smaller pot.

One of my greatest strengths is being able to adapt to different and new situations and being able to get to the best solution, even if it is via a route I have never traveled before.  In poker, it’s very important to be open to all possibilities and to be able to change your decisions in order to incorporate new information.  The easiest players to beat are the ones who play only their own hand, who look down and say, “I have TT and that’s a good hand and I don’t care what the action is in front of me, I am playing it!”

Here are 4 hands from the past 2 weeks that I have played in a way that I have never played them before.  I won’t go into too much detail about my thought process in each hand, but if you email me, I will discuss them further.

1.  $10/$10 with $3,000 effective stacks.  A bad player opens to $40 UTG, I 3 bet from MP with KK to $130.  The SB, who plays a ton of hands and is very aggressive (and is also very good) 4 bets me to $460.  Knowing that this is not a spot for him to be messing around, I decide to fold.

2.  $10/$10 with $1900 effective stacks.  A bad player who does ridiculous things limps UTG, UTG+1 raises to $50, someone calls, I call in MP with AQo, 3 other people call and UTG makes it $350.  I make it $1200 and he calls.  The flop comes T52 and he folds for his last $700.  Note that in the last hand I folded KK preflop and here I (effectively) get it allin with AQo.

3.  $2/$5 $300 effective stacks.  A loose, bad player limps UTG and I check 65o out of the BB.  The flop comes 5s3s2c.  I lead out for $15 and he calls.  The turn is a J.  I lead for $40 and he calls.  The river is a K.  I check and he bets $50 and I call.  There are few hands he bets on the river for value, and he was nice enough to give me a good price to call.

4.  $10/$20 $3000 effective stacks.  A loose bad player with $3000 limps, I raise to $90 with 66.  The SB($1000) who has been reraising over half his hands and shoving allin frequently reraises me to $400.  I decide to put him allin for his $1000.

These 4 hands seem to be all over the map, but the important thing to learn is that there is no “always.”  You should have standard action that you take, but have no attachment to the standard when the scenario changes.

The rule is this: if a player acts out of turn with a raise or a call, he is held to that action if the action before him does not change significantly(there is no raise).  So, if it is your turn to act, and I act out of turn and raise (either because I don’t see you have cards, I am not paying attention, or the dealer isn’t keeping order in the game) , I must raise if you fold or call.  This allows the person who should have acted first, and who was not materially harmed in any way(I would argue that they benefit from the information that the person behind them wants to raise), to essentially act last, as the person who acted out of turn must raise.  In addition, this puts the other players in a difficult position since the order of action has effectively been changed.

I have asked many people for a good rationale for this rule, and no one has been able to give me a good explanation.  In fact, the only explanation I have received(other than “that’s the rule”) is that enforcing the rule ensures that the person who acted out of turn does not “angle,” by raising out of turn and then being able to take it back.  While I agree that people acting out of turn and being able to take it back would be bad for the game, allowing the person who was acted in front of to have an enormous advantage seems silly.  After all, they have not been harmed in any way.  If the person who acted out of turn was able to take the raise back, the person who was passed over would still have the threat of being raised as there always is in poker, plus the information that the person intended to raise.

If anyone has a good reason why this is a good rule, please chime in!

This hand occurred towards the end of the trip late one night:

I recognized my opponent as someone who plays big games in NYC and was a winner at high stakes many years ago.  He has also made instructional poker videos and I had a sense  that he was not afraid to gamble and was also very good.  We were playing $5/$10 no-limit, which was below his normal stakes and he had just lost a pot where he got all the money in as a 3-1 favorite, ran it twice(where you put two different turn/river combinations out, and each takes half the pot; it’s a way of reducing variance) and lost them both.  He was visibly irritated and proceeded to raise the next 4 hands, make a few bad calls, and lose a bit more money.  As we say in the business, he was on tilt.

He has about $2200 and I cover him.  He straddles (puts out a raise without looking at his cards), there is one caller and I raise to $100 on the button with QQ.  The SB calls and the villain thinks and raises to $370.  In a lot of games, against a lot of opponents, I wouldn’t be thrilled about my QQ, but I knew immediately that against this particular opponent, who was both capable and tilted,  that I would be happy to get all the money in the middle in this situation.

I thought for a minute or so about the best way to accomplish this, and felt that even though there was a sizeable amount of money out there, ~$600, that if I reraised him a small amount, instead of shoving all in, I could get him to make a bigger mistake(that he might not ordinarily make).  I decided to raise to $870 and he responded by quickly shoving all in, exactly as I had hoped, and I called immediately.  He tabled A4o, which was the sort of hand I had hoped he would have, and I was a 70-30 favorite.  It is always invigorating to make a play based on a read I feel confident about, follow through for a significant amount of money, and be right about it.  We agreed to run it twice, and unfortunately, I was only able to win 1 of 2, so we wound up splitting the pot.  Nonetheless, I left the game a few hours later feeling extremely good about the situation and the way I had played.

It is easy to get frustrated when playing poker in person,  you are dealt only about 30 hands per hour, which means you are rarely dealt a premium hand.  There is little to do between hands but think about the hands you have played and how you are doing, evaluate the other players, and make small talk.   Since the solution to each hand requires a complete analysis of a new set of variables., the best outcome for me is one that I can look a back on away from the table and be happy with the result.  If you are not doing well during a session, frustration can build and can close off your mind to certain possibilites.  Things like “I never flop a set” or “I always lose with pocket kings” can be at the forefront of your mind and crowd out the optimal way to play each hand.  Your can begin to believe that actions you take at the poker table, which you know are incorrect in a vacuum are correct.  The most well known of these is known as tilt, where you get frustrated and play sub optimally to the point of giving away money.  I often remind myself at the table that I am capable of anything at any time and to open my mind up to figuring out the best answer, even if I have never done it before.

Often a hand can come up where you are planning to do something, but then the action in front of you changes your perspective.  This is one reason is why it is important not to look at your cards until the action is on you.  That way you are able to independently evaluate what is happening without being clouded by your hand.  If you look at your hand before you have seen the action in front of you, you are more reliant on your heuristics and are more locked into your solution set.  For example, if there is a raise and you look down and see K9o, you might decide that it is not worthy of calling a raise and decide to fold.  You might miss the fact that there are 5 callers and it has now become a profitable squeeze opportunity.

In addition, looking at your hand before the action gets to you makes you become more vested in the outcome.  For example, if you look down and see JJ, you might get excited that you have a great hand.  Then when there is a raise and a reraise in front of you, you will be frustrated that you have a good hand and cannot play.  Instead, if you saw the raise and reraise in front of you, you know that you will only be able to play QQ or better.  Thus, you see JJ and fold with the same feelings as if you had 72o, keeping your emotional balance.

The Hand:

He opens to $75(which is standard) in late position, there are 2 callers and I 3bet to $375 with  QQ.  I had squeezed a few times previously and not been called, and my opponent wasn’t folding most hands he opened at this point.  He calls and everyone else folds.

The flop is QdJs4c and I think and lead out for $450.   In retrospect, this bet was terrible because it makes him fold most of his lower pairs/crappy draws.  If I bet $300 on the flop, he calls with any pair, like 55 which is drawing dead.  I should be encouraging that type of action.  If he had a draw, he was going to call the flop no matter what, and call or fold the turn based on how he was feeling, not on how much I bet, so there was little need to “price him out.”

Once I bet, he looked unhappy that I had bet so much, and I realized I had made a mistake and wanted to grab some chips back out of the pot.  Alas, I could not, nor could I get him not to fold what he said was TT.  I will learn for next time.