Ode to a nit

The word ‘nit’ in poker has evolved in the years since I started playing. When I first heard the term around 2003, it had a very particular meaning that was outlined fantastically by Daniel Negreanu on his blog at the time.

Back then, a nit was someone who took what they wanted from the game but didn’t give back. They would sit down at a table, fleece any novices and then leave, breaking up the game. Always looking out for number one.

I think this is a true description of a nit; a tenacious, bloodsucking insect that is nothing more than a pest. However, this is being used less and less by modern poker players.

Nowadays, a nit is pretty much anyone who plays a tight style of poker, whether it be aggressive or passive, and it is still used as a slur – usually by loose-aggressive players.

And that’s because playing loose-aggressive is seen as “cool”. I’m a massive nit, but I often feel the pressure to loosen up my game, just because playing tight gets such bad press.

After all, taking down a huge pot with 7-2 off-suit on a monster bluff is way more exciting than sitting around waiting for pocket kings.

The thing is, being a nit works as long as you are tight-aggressive and not tight-passive (probably the least successful poker style ever).

Careful hand selection, controlled aggression and giving yourself easy decisions post-flop is a winning strategy for 95% of players at micro, low and some medium stakes games.

Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan are among the best cash game players in the world and they play extremely loose-aggressive because the level of competition they face is very high and they need to avoid being predictable.

 

Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey are both considered loose-aggressive players

 

Most players do not have these restrictions. Whenever I sit down at a micro-stakes online poker table, I can be pretty sure that around 30 per cent of the people I’m playing with rode the special bus to school.

The chances they are able to process any information other than the two cards directly in front of them is minimal, so there is no real need to balance my range by playing anything other than the complete nuts.

I’ve lost count of the number of times at 888 Poker where I haven’t played a hand for an hour, I reraise with pocket aces and someone pushes on me with absolute garbage.

There is no need for subterfuge here, they don’t consider the fact I haven’t played a hand in an hour. They don’t think the reraise is suspicious and they don’t recognise how bad their hand is.

Time to take the bus to Value Town

Once you move up the stakes, you’ll find this doesn’t work so well and it will be important to vary the way you play to avoid becoming easy to read.

Until then, be nitty and proud.

 

Live tournament streak ends

My hot streak in live tournaments has come to an end, having today busted out of a tourney held at Circle Casino in Manchester in double-quick time.

A friend of mine had been complaining about Grosvenor Casinos’ extortionate fees for tournaments, with a £15 event having £4 added on. So instead we decided to go for Circle’s Saturday night £15 + £2 tournament.

If only we had known how terrible the structure would be.

After we’d registered, we quickly saw that the blind levels started at 50/100, with starting stacks of 5,000 – this meant 50 big blinds as opposed to the 100 that you get at Grosvenor.

Furthermore, the blind levels went up every ten minutes! Within an hour they were on 200/400 and I’d probably only had 25 or so hands.

None of this would have mattered if I had managed to get some decent cards. Unfortunately, my best three hands were pocket 3s, A-10 off-suit and king-jack suited.

With rapidly increasing blinds and poor cards, there wasn’t really much wriggle room and I ended up busting out on a rather pathetic flush draw with overs.

Most frustratingly, we had a drunk guy on the table (not me this time!) and he was intentionally holding up the game. He received several warnings and had the clock called on him a ton, but it still slowed up proceedings considerably.

While most of this is sour grapes, I do think the structure was pretty horrible and I came away feeling deeply unsatisfied from my night of poker. I will definitely be avoiding this tournament in the future.

My friend and I decided to take a piece of each other’s action before the tournament started, meaning we would share 20% of any winnings either of us got.

He made it to the final table, but fell just short of making the money by coming 6th (top four paid).

Although neither of us got paid off on this occasion, I do like the idea of staking each other, as it means we can compensate for each other’s downswings.

I’m still hoping to play in the Genting Poker Players’ Championship later this month, but admittedly it is looking like a tall order, as I won’t be able to stump up the £165 entry fee directly.

This means I’m reliant on qualifying through a satellite, but at £15 a pop and only one person receiving a ticket, these are pretty steep themselves.

I will give myself one attempt at a satellite for the tourney, and then regrettably give up on the idea of playing in the tournament, although I am intrigued to see how I would fare against a much higher calibre of player.

Summary

Live poker: -£17

Total winnings from live poker: +£174

 

Dealing with a downswing

The hardest thing about playing poker is dealing with a downswing.

Whether you are a professional who puts in twelve-hour days or just an amateur who plays a few tournaments a week, there is nothing more soul-destroying than when the poker gods decide to have a laugh at your expense and give you a shitty run of beats.

Poker is probably one of the only professions in the world where you can put in a full day’s work, give it 110% and come back with less money than when you started.

The problem is that when you are winning you feel invincible. All of your raises are getting paid off, you’re hitting flops and taking down pots as big as your head.

Amateurs start thinking their pipe dreams of making a living off the game aren’t so far fetched after all.

Unfortunately, the euphoria of these hot streaks quickly wears off when the odds starting catching up to you.

And this is where I find myself now. It’s only been a week since I posted that I was running like Jason Mercier and the downswing I predicted at the time seems to be coming to fruition.

Since that last post I’ve cashed in just two tournaments out of 19, both of which were minimum cashes, meaning the Challenge bankroll has taken a bit of a hammering over the week.

These are still early days and downswings can go on for weeks, months and even years in some cases – but I believe you learn more about your play during the low periods than you do when you’re running good.

Here is a list of things I try to do when the cards are running bad.

Don’t Tilt: Not tilting is easier said than done of course, but I take a break if I start playing like a tool

Review my hands: It’s easy to blame the cards but am I playing hands perfectly? Unlikely

Put it in perspective: Remember that everyone has downswings, no one can run good forever (except Mercier)

Don’t change my game: When the cards are running bad, it is tempting to tighten up or get more aggressive. I become an absolute rock. However, it’s always best to stick to an existing winning style

Stay positive: I’ve worked $0 into $140 in around 2 months, so I should stop bitching

Failing all that, I could always sell all my possessions and retire to a Buddhist monastry for the next five years like Andy Black.

Black took a five year break due to the emotional lows of poker

Summary

Challenge: -$16.33

Total winnings so far: $145.62

My downswing at 888 Poker

 

Harrington on Hold’em Volume III: The Workbook

Dan Harrington is a hallowed name in the poker world, renowned for being one of the best tournament players the game has seen in its brief but turbulent history. Not only has he won the World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event, he reached the final table in consecutive years in 2003 and 2004, beating fields of 839 and 2,576 respectively. This is often cited as one of the most significant achievements in WSOP history, perhaps only beaten by Johnny Chan’s 1987-1989 main event run where he placed 1st, 1st and 2nd, (although this was with much smaller entry pools).

WSOP main event winner "Action" Dan Harrington

“Action” Dan, an ironic nod to his generally conservative style, has since written a trio of books outlining tournament strategy for advanced players. The first two volumes of the set, Strategic Play and The Endgame, are generally considered must-reads for any player looking to progress from a beginner level to an intermediate/advanced level, although some feel Harrington’s style is slightly too tight for some of the aggressive developments seen in poker over the last few years, both online and in live play.

Personally, I think Harrington is an absolute hero and everyone should read these books if they are looking to improve their game, particularly at micro- and low-stakes games where a conservative approach is much more successful. I’ve read both cover to cover several times and still refer back to them if I feel I need a refresher, much more than I do other poker books in my collection, even Tournament Poker for Advanced Players by David Sklansky – another must-have classic.

However, less revered is the third book in the Harrington series, The Workbook. Often overlooked, I think this volume is definitely a worthy follow-up to its predecessors, despite being shorter on theory and strategies.

Harrington's Workbook

The book uses a format familiar to any of you who have ever picked up one of those trite lifestyle magazines that form the backbone of any doctors’ waiting room reading selections. In these mags you’ll inevitably find a quiz entitled “Find your perfect man” where you will be asked a series of questions with answers of A), B), C) or D) depending on your preference. Each answer is designated a certain points score and you tot them all up at the end to find out your perfect match. Normally a load of horseshit, in other words.

Well, Harrington employs this structure in a poker context, with much better effect, and readers are encouraged to work through 50 poker problems, being asked at separate stages what they would do at certain phases of a hand. This usually comes in the form of betting, raising, checking or folding. You write down all your choices and then Harrington goes through the solution to each problem, dishing out different points for how he thinks you played the hand.

Despite having had the book for about 3 years, I only actually went through it this week. Overall, I thought it was a good challenge, which definitely does a good job of encouraging you to accumulate the knowledge you have learned from the other two volumes and bring it together to solve “real-life” situations. When answering the questions I tried to do it quickly in order to emulate the kind of time pressures I would be under online (I’m pretty sure 99% of decent players could solve most poker odds problems with infinite time, a calculator and multiple choices!).

Once you’ve finished, you tot up all the points and calculate your final score out of 591, which Harrington stratifies as:

• 500 or more: World Class. Probably already making a fine living out of the game
• 400 or more: A very good player who should show a solid profit in big tournaments
• 300 or more: A player with a solid base of skills to build upon
• 200 or more: A player whose game needs work in many key areas
• 100 or more: A novice or beginner-level player

So how did I do? Well, before I started I would have been happy to get 300 or more. However, after adding my total up twice I managed to achieve a rather surprising 506 points. World class!! However, halfway through packing my bag for Vegas and next year’s WSOP I realised that the score is flattering in more ways than one.

1. I guessed on a few questions. When I was truly stuck on how to act in a hand (usually whether I should check or bet), I tended to check, knowing this would probably score higher with Harrington’s conservative approach
2. While it’s easy to make the right choice with plenty of time and background knowledge, making the same moves in the heat of battle, so to speak, is a lot more difficult and I would be hard-pressed to say I always make the optimum plays when under pressure
3. The book is around 5 years old now and Harrington is extremely tight, so even if I was world-class by his standards, it can be argued that standards have changed in recent years
4. Some of the questions are pretty leading. For example, one is called “Smelling the threat”. Obviously, you are inclined to take the cautious approach in this problem on the understanding that your opponent clearly has a monster
5. I’m not world class, so it’s clearly wrong. Duh

I suck then? Well, there were a few positives to take away from the exercise. I got almost all of the pot odds problems correct without really spending too much time calculating them properly (on instinct mostly). I also got 99% of the bet sizes right. Furthermore, the problems where I dropped points were marginal rather than blatant mistakes. For example, I tended to take a more aggressive line in some hands, which is obviously frowned upon by Harrington, but can’t really be faulted in some circumstances (incidentally, the hands where I took this approach I would have “won” by pushing people off draws, as results-orientated as that sounds).

All in all, I think this is a nice little book to work through and a lot of the information, particularly the mathematical calculations, are still relevant to anyone looking to improve their game. It does have a few faults – my biggest gripe was that “good” answers were often given a mark of say 4, while all other answers would be given 0, despite some being obviously worse options than others. While this is supposed to encourage you to make the optimal play (in his opinion) each time  I think it could discourage some players by having their slightly sub-optimal play being ranked alongside ridiculous donk moves – such as pushing into three overcards on a drawy board with an underpair.

Despite this, I think it serves as an excellent companion to Volumes I and II of Harrington on Hold’em, albeit a less well-thumbed one.

 

Phil loses out again

Phil Hellmuth missed out on his 12th bracelet by coming second in an event for the third time this year. And while he now tops the Player of the Year rankings, it will probably be little comfort for the Poker Brat, particularly as he was was a significant chip leader in heads-up at one point.

It’s hard to feel too sorry for him (although I admit I do), as Phil still managed to come out with one of his trademark snipes after being eliminated. Shaking his opponent Brian Rast’s hand, he murmered: “If I were you, I’d tip that dealer a million”, insinuating that Rast’s win was in fact more down to luck than skill.

However, it was Phil who was relying on luck to win in the final hand. Rast had raised on the button to 240,000 chips and Phil quickly called. The flop came: J♦ 9♦ 10♠

Rast raised 500,000 and Hellmuth moved all-in holding 8♦ 2♦ for a flush draw. Unfortunately, Rast had K♣ Q♣ for the nut straight and called, with a 5♥ on the turn and the 8♠ on the river changing nothing.

Oh well, better luck next year Phil. Unless he wins this year’s main event of course ….

Brian Rast shows off the King-Queen suited that won him the tournament

 

Hellmuth set for 12th bracelet?

Phil Hellmuth is a polarising figure in the world of poker. His brash, cocky attitude and inevitable blow-ups when the Poker Gods aren’t looking on him favourably have made him one of the most well-known faces in the game.

Here are some of the Poker Brat’s best (worst?) moments:

However, this doesn’t tell the whole story and for all his shortcomings in personality, Hellmuth is the most decorated tournament player in World Series of Poker history. With 11 bracelets, he has one more than both Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan.

Furthermore, until the internet poker boom, Hellmuth was the youngest player to win the WSOP main event at the age of 24 (this has since been broken by Peter Eastgate and Joe Cada who were 22 and 21 when they won the main event in 2008 and 2009 respectively).

This year, Hellmuth has really been gunning for his 12th bracelet. He’s already finished 2nd in both the 2-7 Draw Lowball No Limit event and the Stud Hi/Lo event. At the moment, he is in the final nine of the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship, and I for one am rooting for him.

Not because I like him exactly. In fact, I think he can often be a bit of a tool, but probably because I feel like it has become a bit too fashionable to NOT like him. Fellow pros often berate his skills or consider him a has-been who hasn’t evolved with the game. They’ve challenged his inability to master other forms of poker (all of his 11 bracelets thus far have been in no-limit hold-em) and show unbridled joy when he falls victim to bad luck.

Admittedly, most of this is because Hellmuth’s attitude stinks, but I think his Poker Brat antics should be taken with a pinch of salt. I still remember him playing on Late Night Poker in the early 2000s – before Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP and shot the game into its modern-day popularity – and during that time he was a lot classier. There were a few minor tantrums (a particular hand with Robert Cohen springs to mind), but I imagine a large amount of his blow-ups are shrewd attempts to generate buzz around himself and his sponsors.

So what better way to silence the naysayers than winning the Poker Player’s Championship tomorrow? It will not only show that he can handle himself at other varients of poker than hold-em (the event is a mix of 8 games) but a victory would catapult him to the top of the Player of the Year award rankings.

Hopefully these accomplishments will go some way to Phil regaining the respect of his peers. And if he keeps a lid on his Poker Brat persona, he might just keep it.

Phil Hellmuth is close to securing his 12th bracelet