Unfortunately for most amateurs, they do not use this strategy and amount to “doing what they feel” which makes it relatively easy for a professional to figure out why the amateur takes the actions he takes.  For example if an amateur checks a strong hand on the river when a flush card comes in, it is generally because he is worried about being beaten.  Thus, in the future, when a flush card comes in, a professional will deduce that it is much more likely that the amateur has a flush when he bets.  If the amateur threw a wrench into the professionals hand reading, for example, bluffing when the flush possibility was in spades, the professional would almost never figure it out and would be folding more often than he should.

This idea became clear to me when watching a hand played by an excellent live player who I will call Don.  The game was $5/10 no limit with $4000 effective stacks.  He raised preflop to $40 with 6d5d and was reraised by a bad amateur player to $150 which Don elected to call, knowing that the amateur almost surely had a big hand, either QQ, KK or AA.

The flop came Ts6c2d and the amateur bet $300(almost the size of the pot) after Don checked.  This almost certainly meant that the amateur had a big pair and Don knew it.  Don elected to checkraise to $800 hoping that the amateur wouldn’t want to put in so much money with his big pair, in addition to having a pair and a backdoor straight and flush draw in case he amateur called him.  The amateur elects to call.

The turn is a 7d, and Don elects to bet $1900.  Sitting at the table, I knew that Don just had one pair and was hoping the amateur would fold to this big bet.  The reason I knew this was because Don was a good player and almost certainly would have bet less if he wanted to be called, because that would make it more likely he would be, then make it more likely he would be called on the river.   For example, a much better bet sizing on the turn with about $3000 left would be $1200 on the turn and $1800 on the river and I knew that Don knew it.  So why would he bet so much unless he was trying to induce more folds from the amateur?  As it turned out, the amateur thought a long time, and eventually went allin with QQ and Don called, missed his flush draw and his two pair draw and lost.  I realized after that Don actually should have shoved the turn to induce the maximum amount of fold equity from the amateur.

Knowing that the Don would make the optimal play against an unknown opponent allowed me (and possibly his opponent) to decide that he did not have QQ beat and went allin instead of folding. In these situations professionals can be somewhat restrained by knowing what the optimal way to play the hand is and not wanting to veer too far away from that.  This leaves most of them playing relatively formulaic and makes it easier for good opponents to figure out what they are holding.   Adding a bit of randomness or doing things a bit oddly can make it much more difficult for your opponents to read your hand and can entirely change your image at the table.  So, randomly open to $100 on the button instead of $35 the first time your are on the button and the new dealer just sat and include whatever other randomness you can in your game.

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.

There is usually a fine line between costing yourself too much expected value in the present term in order to expand your range to gain yourself more expected value in the long term.  I see far too many players against whom it is difficult to narrow down their range, but because their range is so wide, solid play defeats them.  For example, if someone pushed all in every hand, they would be unreadable and their hand range would be wide, but it would be very easy to beat an opponent who plays like that.

Let me show you two examples where narrow hand ranges played a role in allowing me to win a pot I would not have ordinarily won.

Playing $5/$10 No limit with $2500 effective stacks.

There are 5 limpers and I call out of the small blind with 98o.  The flop comes Jh7s5s giving me an open ended straight draw.  I check, the big blind, who is a solid regular bets $50.  3 players call and I call as well.  The turn is the Tc.  I lead out $175 and the big blind makes it $675.  Everyone else folds and I am 100% sure that he has the straight here.  Because he is limited to only having the nut straight here (he wouldn’t raise 2 pair with so many people to act behind him, and wouldn’t bet the flop with 43 into so many people) we are currently splitting the pot.  However, I can make it look like I have something else so that if a scary card comes on the river, I can bet and hopefully win the pot.  Note how his limited range should allow me to play perfectly against him, while he has a more difficult time playing against me.

I elect to call and the best card comes on the river, the Js, bringing in the flush draw and pairing the board.  I elect to shove all in and he grumbles about it being the worst card for the straight and folds.  If he had a wider range then just the nuts on the turn(or if I thought he might have a wider range), then I would not have been able to play optimally against him and would have just shoved all in on the turn to with the hopes that he would call with a worse hand, or fold his equity in the pot.

Another example comes from pot limit omaha(in this game you MUST play 2 cards from your hand).  Effective stacks are $700.

There are 2 limpers and I complete the small blind with 8c7c7s6s. The flop comes Jc9d7d.  I bet $20 and only the big blind calls.  I have played with him a bunch and know that he will only put a lot of money in with the nuts and will not be tricky.

The turn is a 4c giving me a flush draw along with bottom set.  I bet $60 and the big blind calls.  My plan is to bet a river that does not pair the board or complete a flush just in case he has a bigger set.  Since I am representing T8 for the straight(and can easily have it), and I know he will never call the turn with the nuts or call the river without it, my bet is what I call a freeroll.  I am rarely beat by a better hand, but just in case I am, I will win the pot anyways.

The river is the 2s, completing no draws.  I bet the pot and the villain throws up his hands in disgust, shows me JJQT which had me in very bad shape, and folds it.  If my opponent was tricky in this situation and could have just called with the nuts on the turn so that HE could win the pot if the board changed, then I would have had a lot more concern about betting the river(and the turn too).  In this case, my opponents straightforward play caused him to lose a pot that another opponent might have won.

Villain is on my immediate left and straddled to $20 when I was in the big blind.  All folded to the passive SB and he calls. I make it $100 to go out of the blind with Th9c , expecting to win it outright a lot, and take initiative if I was called.

The villain called and the flop came down 8c7s2h. I bet $160 into the $220 pot and he called.  Villain didn’t like to fold much so I thought I might have to bet the turn and river to possibly win pot.

The turn was the 6d, making the board 8c7s2h6d and giving me the nuts.  Against an opponent like this who didn’t like to fold and could bluffraise or semibluff against what looked like an overpair from me(I usually have a tight image), it was an especially good spot to be in.  I bet $440 into the $540 pot praying for a raise, but he just called and the hand got interesting.

The river was the 5d making the board 8c7s2h6d5d.  I stopped to think for a second.  If my opponent had 2 pair or better, he would sometimes raise the turn and when he didn’t, it didn’t look like he could call a lot on the river.  If he had a 1 pair hand, he also couldn’t call much, so there wasn’t a lot of value in betting a lot.  Betting a small amount had 3 benefits: 1)it was an amount he could call with a weakish hand 2)it is an amount he might raise a 9 with and feel compelled to call an allin 3)he might turn 1 pair into a bluff and raise the river, which is exactly what happened.

I bet $450 on the river and he raised it to $1600.  I shoved allin and he folded after some thought.  I am sure that the size of my bet on the river is what made him think I was blocking, betting weakly when I couldn’t call a raise or a big bet, and is what caused him to raise.  I wound up winning a good amount for the session and that hand kept me feared at the table and allowed me to win a few more pots uncontested.

John has $2000 and is tight and not very aggressive.  Adam has $2000 is in the BB and has shown down big hands when a lot of money goes in the pot.   He has some bet sizing tells and is probably a breakeven player.

John(AJ)  limps in and seat 6 and Adam (66)  checks.

The flop is JJ5 and all players check.

The turn is a 6.  Seat 6 and Adam check and John bets $30 and only Adam calls.

The river is a 3.  Adam checks and John bets $80.  Adam checkraises to $400 and John calls.

John went on a long tirade about how unlucky he has been getting and how unfortunate that turn was.  I would like to look at his decisions throughout the hand.

Preflop:  With hands such as AJ John should raise as it makes the hand far easier to play.  If he calls, it will likely result in playing a pot out of position if people call behind and if it get raised, it is probably best to fold because he will be out of position against a player who likely has a better hand.

Flop:  John was lucky that he was able to see a flop and it was a good one.  He should be willing to put a lot of money in on the flop, but unfortunately, it is unlikely that anyone has anything that is willing to put in money.  If either of the blinds had a 5, they would likely bet the flop to protect their hand and win the pot easily. A Jack would sometimes bet out as well.  The flop provides no draws, so another card is far more likely to give his opponents a second best hand that they can put money in with than a hand that puts them ahead.  For example, if the turn is a King and an opponent has KT, they may be willing to call turn and river bets.

Turn:  The board now has straight and flush draws so betting is a better alternative to giving another card that might give either of the blinds a free card to a winning hand.  Note that seat 6 or Adam would often bet an open ended straight draw, a flush draw or a 6 on the turn, so a bet will probably result in winning the pot right there.  When the blinds check, John bets $30 which is good since it protects his hand and it starts to build the pot with his hand in case someone has something they want to call with.

River:  I like John’s $80 bet on the river as it represents either a big hand (trips or better) or a bluff.  If Adam has a 5 or a 6 and does not believe that John has him beat, he is probably going to call $50 as readily as $80.  When Adam checkraises, John’s hand, which had previously appeared very strong became not nearly as strong because it is unlikely that Adam(or most players) would checkraise the river to such a large amount without a full house or a straight or as a bluff.  In addition, if you combine that with the fact that Adam is far more likely to slowplay a full house than a Jack and that most of Adam’s bluffs would be missed draws that likely would have bet the turn, there are few hands that John beats.  As such, I believe this is a fold, despite the strength of John’s hand.