The Quicksand Theory

            The final piece I’d like to focus on for our blog assignment is the theory of “The Quicksand Trap”. It’s common knowledge that if one gets stuck in quicksand that they will sink faster if they are struggling harder. The same can be said about poker. One costly mistake can lead to several others and before a player knows it, they are totally broke. It’s not a new concept to the game; in fact most people call it “tilting”, but I found quicksand to be a more appropriate metaphor for the actions that take place.

            There are fundamentals which should be followed in order to avoid falling into the Quicksand Trap. First is good bankroll management. If you walk into a casino or start playing online, the general rule is that you should have at least fifteen buy-ins for the game you wish to play. So if you want to play $1/$2 no-limit where the maximum buy-in is $200, then you should have at least $3000 that you are willing to play with so that you can handle the swings of the game but not go broke. Another, and while this sounds simple, it is a hard discipline to master, is patience and self-realization. You need to be able to see where mistakes are made, and in the world of online poker there are several different forms of software that will help you detect leaks in your game. Unfortunately this doesn’t exist in the real world.

            Let’s say you’re playing at a $1/$2 6-max cash game and your opponent raises in middle position with A♠K♠ to $8. We obviously can’t know exactly what his exact holding is, but we call on the button with A♦T♦. Both blinds fold and we go to the flop. Both players have exactly $200 in their stacks and the pot is $19. The flop comes out A♣T♠4♦. So we’ve gotten lucky here and outflopped our opponent. In this situation we are a huge favorite to win the pot. Our opponent continuation bets to $16 and we just call. We go to the turn with a pot of $51 and the turn is the K♦. This is by far the worst card in the deck for us. Not only does it make a better two pair for our opponent, but it’s also going to be hard for us to believe that we’re beat here. Maybe we were slow-playing the flop so we could hope for another bet from our opponent on the turn. He bets again, this time he for $40. Again, in our minds there isn’t much to think about here. The pot is $91 and we have $168 left behind. We could shove all-in now, but we decide to just call. We go to the river with $131 in the pot and $138 left behind. There’s almost no shot that all the money doesn’t go in here. Hoping to get paid off, our opponent shove all-in for his last $138. We call and see the bad news. This is where the Quicksand Theory comes into play. Many players would then reload for another $200 and go after the $200 that they just lost in the previous hand, so they start raising with weak holdings and playing super aggressive. This is something that your opponents will pick up on very quickly and by doing this you’ve just put a target on your back. There’s not much you could have done to avoid losing that pot; it was just bad luck. However, by realizing that this was just one hand out of many that you will play and not struggling to get “your” money back, you can continue to play your best game and avoid this trap.

            These kinds of things do happen in poker. While skill and knowledge can give you a huge edge over your opponents, luck does factor in. Even the best in the game go broke. The most important thing to do is move on, accept it, and continue to play to the best of your ability.

            As always, questions and comments are welcome.

The Meta-Game

Poker isn’t all about the cards you hold and the amount of chips on the table. It is a thinking man’s game, and one of the biggest considerations in the realm of thinking about the way poker is played is the “Meta-game”. The Meta-game is known as “the game outside of the game”, so it is based on previous actions from you, your opponents, hand histories, history with a particular player, and so on. By paying attention to the way your opponents play, you can make easier and more profitable decisions at the table. Many players don’t realize that they follow certain betting patterns based on the type of hand they have, but if you know this then you can certainly take advantage of it.

A good example of the using the Meta-game is calling a small to moderate-sized bet on the river with a hand you are sure you’re losing with. This accomplishes two things:

1. It allows you to see your opponent’s hand
2. It can establish a loose image for yourself at the table which you can use later to your advantage.

By calling with a losing hand, you are losing money in the short-term, but you can use this information to make more money in the long-term and make up for this particular loss.

You’ll find that the Meta-game will work much more efficiently against opponent with whom you have history at the tables. If you’ve played with them before and you’ve paid attention to their playing styles then it will be easier for you to know when you’re beat and when you’re ahead. Let’s look at a very basic example of the Meta-game.

We’re playing at a six-max $1/$2 cash game with an opponent that we have played with several times. We know that this particular player knows you play a loose-aggressive style and that you are willing to try and steal pots when you can. We also know that because of this knowledge that this particular opponent will be willing to call you down with marginal holdings to catch you bluffing. We both started the hand with $200 (100 BB). We are in middle position and see we have J♠T♠ - a perfectly suitable hand to raise with. We make it $6 and our opponent on the button calls. Both blinds fold and the pot is $15. Effective stacks are now $194. The flop comes out J♣J♦5♥. There’s nothing that we really need to protect against since we have such a strong hand, so we decide to slow play our hand and check. Our opponent check as well and we see a turn of 5♦. This puts two-pair on the board and our opponent is most likely going to think that ace-high will be good here a large percentage of the time. By using the information we know about this opponent and knowing that he thinks we will steal a lot of times in this spot we put out a bet of $12. This accomplishes two things:

•  We are building a pot with our full-house
• We are making what can look like a very bluffy bet here, so we’re likely to get called with almost any ace.

Now our effective stacks are $179 and the pot is $39, so we have lots of wiggle room. We go to the river and it comes the 8♥. This is a very inconsequential card for the board as it’s not likely to have helped either players’ hand. Now we want to extract as much value as possible from this hand. There are a couple of routes we could take here if our opponent does have ace-high and thinks the two-pair on the board are good enough for him to win or chop the pot. We could

• Shove all-in
•  Over-bet the pot, but not move all-in
•  Bet the size of the pot or slightly less, maybe around $35

We want to get maximum value from our hand, so shoving $179 into a pot of $39 probably isn’t the best idea. If our opponent is any type of thinking player he will probably not call because the risk is too high. Over-betting the pot could work against some players, but I’ve found that a majority of the time that you probably will not get called for the same reason as moving all-in. Making a pot-sized bet here is probably the best move. It still has the ability to look like a bluff because you would probably bet less if you really wanted to get paid off, and many players can’t stand the idea of losing to a hand that they might have won or chopped the pot with. They call and you turn over your full-house. They show you their A♦K♠ and you win the pot.

Because of your image as a loose player who likes to try and steal pots, you were able to get the maximum value for your hand due to previous history with this opponent. Another example of using the Meta-game would be targeting a specific player because they just lost a big hand, so they’re likely to play badly against you. There are many ways to use the Meta-game, and while it should only be used against players that you’re familiar with, it shouldn’t take you too long to pick up on players’ tendencies if you just watch the action.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.

Stack-to-Pot Ratio (SPR), Part Two

In the last post we identified what stack-to-pot ratios were and how we could use them when that figure was low, but what if we have a higher SPR? How do we commit to hands with higher SPRs as opposed to lower ones? As we went over in the first part of this post, lower SPRs are easier to play due to the smaller stacks size in relation to the pot. There aren't a lot of tricky plays to be made with a low SPR. For example:

We are playing against a loose, mediocre player and we hold AQ. Effective stacks are $60 and there is already $25 in the pot with a flop of Q75. Our opponent cannot put us to a tough decision because our SPR is 2.4, so if our opponent moves all-in, we should have no problem calling here with what will be the best hand most of the time. However, what if the effective stacks were changed from $60 to $300? Then our SPR goes up to 12. If we bet and then get raised, the rest of the hand may be trickier for us to play because we have so much money left in our stacks in relation to the size of the pot. 

In this post we'll look at different size SPRs, how they can be beneficial, what problems they present, and how to create a target SPR. First let's look at the categories of SPRs:

Low SPR: 0-6
Medium SPR: 7-16
High SPR: 17+

So if your SPR represents how many pot-sized bets you are able to put in post-flop, how do we play hands with higher SPRs? Let's look at an example:

We're playing a $1/$2 6-max cash game. We have $200 and everyone has us covered. We are in middle position and we find ourselves with K♣K♠ so we make a standard raise of three times the big blind to $6. We get a caller on the button and the small and big blinds fold. The pot is $15 and we have an effective stack of $194. Our SPR is 12.9. The flop comes Q♥7♠5♥. We then continue and bet $12, but our opponent raises to $45. Even though we’re likely to have the best hand here, our opponent has put us to a tough decision. Do we just call? Should we move all-in? If we do move all-in here and get called, it will generally be by a better hand than ours. By tweaking one little part of this hand, we can play it more easily.

It’s the same situation, but instead of raising to $6, we raise to $12. We still get called by the player on the button so now there is $27 in the pot, and we have $188 behind. Now our SPR is only 6.9. By tailoring our preflop raise, we can make a plan around the hand that will make it easier for us to play. Say we bet $22 and our opponent raises to $75. The pot is now $102 and since we only have $166 left, it’s much easier to get the rest of our stack in here instead of facing tough turn and river decisions. By tailoring our preflop raises to meet our target SPR, we reduce the difficult decisions we may be forced to make on later betting streets.

What about hands with medium-sized and high SPRs? What types of hands should we be playing with here? Typically with medium-sized SPRs we want to be playing hands like sets, two pair, good drawing hands, and flushes and straights. With high SPRs we should be playing top-tier hands like very strong draws, full-houses, and big flushes or straights. The idea behind this is to get in as much money as possible when we stand the chance of having the best hand or making the best hand. Let’s say we’re playing the same $1/$2 game and our opponent in middle position raises to $6. We are on the button with $500 and our opponent has us covered. We look down and find 5♣5♠. We call and both blinds fold. The pot is $15 and we have $496 behind. Now our SPR is 33. This is incredibly high, but the flop comes out 5♥5♦Q♠! It’s going to be very hard for our opponent to put us on one 5, let alone two of them. If our opponent has a hand like AQ or KQ, they’re going to have a hard time folding in this spot. In this situation it’s good to have a high SPR because we want to get as much money in the pot as possible. We won’t be faced with hardly any difficult decisions with this hand.

In essence, stack-to-pot ratios give us a better understanding of our risk vs. reward and they can help us to plan commitment around a hand more efficiently. This can give you an edge over your opponents because many players don’t worry about a difficult decision until they’re faced with one. By knowing how to use SPRs to your advantage, you can manipulate the way the hand is played and you benefit.


As always, question and comments are welcome.

Stack-to-Pot Ratio (SPR), Part One: Introduction

Many Texas hold'em players know when they should push all of their chips in the middle, but few know the mathematical principles behind this decision. If you have a short stack and you look down at a hand like AK, you know that you should try to get all of your money in while your hand is most likely the best. What many players don’t know is how to plan commitment around hands which, while often overlooked, is a fundamental part of the game. This is where the idea of stack-to-pot ratios comes into play.

So, what is stack-to-pot ratio? In its simplest terms, stack-to-pot ratio is the size of the effective stack divided by the size of the pot on the flop. An effective stack is the smallest stack that is involved in a hand. If you are playing a pot heads-up and you have $200 in your stack, but your opponent only has $100, the effective stack is $100 because you cannot win or lose any more than that amount, so basically you’re only playing a stack of $100 as well. The whole idea behind the stack-to-pot ratio is to balance your risk versus your reward. We’ll look at a quick example to start and then we’ll go more in depth.

Say we’re playing a $1/$2 cash game and we raise with A♥A♦ in middle position. The button calls and both blinds fold. The pot is now $15 and both our opponent and we have effective stack sizes of $100. Our SPR looks like this:

6.67 = 100/15

So what does this mean? Essentially it means that you are more committed to your hand, but this is based on a number of variables such as the way your opponent plays, their range, the texture of the board, and what you consider to be your maximum SPR. If the flop comes out 8♠9♠T♠, then we may have some problems. If our opponent moves all-in here, it’s easier to find a fold because we only have one pair with no draw to the flush on a highly coordinated board. Although an SPR of under 7 is generally easier to play, we need to know why this is true.

Lower SPRs means less decisions after the flop. Let’s use the same example as above but change the flop. Let’s say it comes out Q♠3♥7♣ and our opponent moves all-in. We still have an SPR of 6.67 with an overpair and not a whole lot to worry about, so we should be willing to call, especially against a looser player. As previously stated, stack-to-pot ratio is a way to balance your risk versus your reward. On a flop like this, we should be willing to risk $100 to win $115 on a queen-high board.

In this entry we’ve looked at the introduction to small SPRs; in the next section we’ll look at how playing high SPRs will change the commitment around your hand and how you should play them.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.

The REM Process, Part Four: Maximize

We've gone over the first two steps in the REM Process (range, equity) and now we use this information to make the best possible decision about what to do with our hand. If we've assigned our opponent a range, then we can estimate our equity against their range of possible hands. Once we estimate our equity against that range, we use the final step in the REM Process to make the best possible decision that we can. This brings us to "maximize". By maximizing our decision-making process, we can do our best to get the most money in the pot when we are ahead, and the least when we are behind. 

The fundamental theorem of poker states: “Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose.”
By knowing what our opponents are holding at all times, we would obviously be able to make the best possible decisions with all of our hands. Unfortunately, since poker is not a game played face-up, using the REM process is the most efficient, and really only way to make the best decisions you can. 
If you are contemplating a bet or a raise, you should always ask yourself: “Do I want my opponent to call or fold?”

·         If you want your opponent to call then you are value-betting.

·         If you want your opponent to fold then you are bluffing.

·         If you’re not sure yet what you want your opponent to do, then you should not be betting.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:

We are playing a six-max $1/$2 cash game. It is folded around to us on the button and we find A♠K♦. We raise to $7 to and big blind calls. The pot is now $15. The flop brings A♣8♥5♣. This is a spot where we will most likely be ahead a good amount of the time, so we want to be our hand for value. We want to get our money in the pot for value with what is more than likely the best hand because we can get called by all sorts of weaker hands here such as a weaker ace and a flush draw. If we assign our opponent’s range to a flush draw, we want to bet it so that they are getting bad odds to call. If we only bet half of the pot here we are giving our opponent 3-to-1 odds, and they would be right to call to try and hit a third club. However, if we bet something like $11 or $12, we are only giving them around 2.2-to-1 odds on a call and they will be making a mistake by calling here. With a flush draw our opponent has about 36% equity in the pot, giving us 64%. While sometimes they will call and make a flush, it will be much easier for us to shut down our betting because the third club is a big scare card for our hand. It’s likely that we won’t lose any more money in this hand.

Now let’s look at a different example:

It’s the same situation: it’s a six-max cash game and it is folded around to us on the button and we find A♦Q♦. We raise to $7 and the big blind calls. The flop this time comes out T♦5♠8♦. Now we have no pair here, but we have two over cards and a draw to the best possible flush. The big blind checks. Although we would be bluffing here, we can still bet because of the substantial amount of equity we have in the pot. Any ace, any queen, and any of the nine remaining diamonds will more than likely give us the best hand here, so we have an estimated equity of around 52%. If our opponent has a hand like JT, then we are essentially a coin flip to win the hand, and by applying pressure we may be able to make him fold a ten. However, what if he has a hand like AT or QT? That takes away our outs to an ace or queen because our opponent would make two pair. In this case we have a perceived equity of 47%. Although we have lost some of our equity, we can still bet here to try and get our opponent to fold or make the better hand.
As we established, the idea of maximizing is making the best possible decision with the information you have at hand. This will allow you to, with the other two parts of the REM Process, to deduce useful information and receive better insight as to whether you should be betting, checking, or folding.

I hope this series helped shed some light on the idea of the REM Process.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.

The REM Process, Part Three: Equity

In the last post, we talked about our opponent’s range, or possible hands he could be holding. Now that we’ve successfully put our opponent on a range of hands, it’s time to figure out our equity in the pot.

Equity, in its simplest terms, is our stake in the pot. It’s the percentage of times our hand will win against our opponents. By figuring our equity in the pot, we can then make decisions based around our equity, and it will be easier to know if continuing the hand is profitable in the long-term. As a quick reminder, we must remember that it is not necessary to put our opponent on his two exact cards, but merely a range of what he or she could be playing. Let’s look at an example:

Let’s say we’re playing a six-handed $1/$2 cash game and we are in late position with K♥Q♥. It is folded around to us and we raise it to $7. The small blind folds and the big blind calls. The pot is $15. Now the flop comes A♥Q♣5♦. We’ve caught a piece of this flop, but there is an overcard to our Q on the board. The big blind checks and we bet $11, which the big blind then calls. The pot is now $37. Here’s where we should stop and take a second to analyze the hand with the information we have.

The big blind called out of position, meaning he knows he’ll be first to act on every betting round. This should lead us to believe that he may have a stronger hand than ours. However, we can take hands like AA, AK, and AQ out of his range as he more than likely would have re-raised us before the flop. With our bet and his call we can safely put hands like AJ, AT, A9 suited, or A2-A5 suited in his range. It is also possible that he could have a hand like QJ, QT, or even KQ in his hand. There is also a slim chance that he could be holding 55 and is slow-playing a set of 5’s. Against any hand like AJ, AT, A9, A4, A3, or A2, our equity is essentially the same. We need to catch another Q or a K to win the pot. Going back to the Rule of Four and Two we can estimate our equity by multiplying our number of outs (3 Ks and 2 Qs). This gives us an estimated equity of 20%, so only one in five times will we win this pot outright. However, what if our opponent thinks that we don’t have any pair and is defending with a hand like QJ? That only gives him three outs (3 Js) to take the pot from us, putting his equity at around 12% and giving us an 88% chance of winning the pot. Lastly, what if our opponent is holding A5? This would be one of the worst hands our opponent could have against us because even if we hit a K and make two-pair, our opponent is still beating us. Our equity in this situation is roughly 13%.

We will receive more information on the hand during later betting rounds, and that’s when our next post will come in handy. In this post I just wanted to cover how to calculate equity based on our perceived range of our opponent’s hand.

Next week we will cover the final part of the REM Process which is the “M” which stands for “maximize”.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.

The REM Process, Part Two: Range

While all three parts of using the REM process are important, possibly the most important is the first and that is to put your opponent on a range of hands. Many players, especially novice players, believe that they should be putting their opponent on two specific cards out of the over 1,300 combinations of hands. Now, if you can do that it's all well and good, but many get caught up in this line of thinking, get set on the idea that they have a dead read on an opponent's hand, and lose money because of it. Therefore, it is much more valuable to be able to put your opponent on a range of possible holdings and gather information as the hand progresses. A lot of times it's much easier, with the information at hand, to eliminate possible hands from your opponent's range than it is to narrow that range down or define it. Let's look at an example:

If a tight player raises from first position, you can take hands like Q♦4♦ and hands like it out of their range. In fact they’re not going to play basically any trashy hands in first position. So how can we narrow down this person’s range? We look for their tendencies. We look for physical tells, what we’ve seen them show down with in the past, and betting patterns and sizes. One thing that many players are not aware of is that they will reveal the strength of their hand by the amount that they raise before the flop. Say for example that a weak-tight player is raising three times the amount of the big blind with hands like KQ, KJ, AJ, AT, but they’re coming in for five times the size of the big blind with hands like AA, KK, or QQ. This person essentially just told you what they had, so you can make the best decision based on those types of patterns. One of the keys to playing a loose-aggressive style is that you should keep your raise sizes the same amount no matter what two cards you hold. If you’re going to raise with AA, you should raise it the same way you would with something like 8♣9♣. By doing this you are able to make it much more difficult for your opponents to put you on a specific range of hands from the very beginning.

One thing that you should be doing is reassessing your opponent’s range with each card that is dealt. What if your opponent likes to slowplay big hands such as flopped sets or top two pair? Let’s say a tight player has raised from first position. We can likely put his range around AA, KK, QQ, AK, or maybe even JJ or TT. Then the flop comes K♥7♦3♣. Your opponent checks, and you check. Now we’re thinking that we can eliminate KK or AK from his range. We see a turn card of J♠ and we put in a bet and without hardly thinking, our opponent puts in a raise. As stated before it’s unlikely that our opponent would raise with something like KJ, so now we can pretty easily put our opponent on either KK or AK. If our opponent likes to slowplay, it’s more than likely KK, which is the best possible hand right now. Your evaluations will change with each new card and action and will give you more information and allow you to narrow down your opponent’s range.

In the next section we will take a look at the second part of the REM process: equity and how you can make the best decisions possible after you have put your opponent on a range of hands.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.