|
2nd April 2007
Hi there and welcome to my very first Poker E-letter.
I want to tell you about an absolute classic poker hand which I
call ...
Robin Hood -v- The Unlit Cigarette...
...and I also want to make sure you get hold of a copy of PokerTracker
– Software that EVERY online player should have.
*********************************
But before I discuss those – I just wanted to tell you a little
story –
A few weeks ago, I went to London to play in the Regional Finals
of the local Poker League I play in – we play for points and it
is a great way of getting some live experience without costing anything
at all – I'll give you more details about this at a later date....
The Top 4 qualified to play against other players from Guildford,
Ashford, Bognor and all over the South East Region. It was a fabulous
day, I managed to come 5th out of the field of 42 which I was very
pleased about.
I had arranged for my 11 year old daughter to spend the day with
her cousins who live next door but one and for a babysitter to get
there at 7pm to look after her in the evening as I had no idea what
time it would end.
But she rang me up in tears saying that she’d locked the keys in
the house and couldn’t get back in. Bang went Plan A - !
Luckily, this tournament had started at 1pm and wasn't likely to
end any later than 8pm, so she had to stay next door until I got
back at about 9pm. She started crying again about locking herself
out and I just hugged her and said – "as long as you learn from
this and make sure you don’t do it again – then no harm done."
I often tell my daughter – "Don’t worry - anyone can make a mistake
– but the wise person will learn from it" and then we’ll discuss
what went wrong, how it could have been avoided and how to make
sure it doesn’t happen again –
So - the same principles apply here - Lets get Poker Wise – By analysing
a poker hand each week –
we can work out what went wrong, how it could have been avoided
and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again – or at least keep
it to a damage limitation exercise.
*********************************
Robin Hood –v- The
Unlit Cigarette
*********************************
A couple of weeks ago, I was playing in a tournament on the PokerStars
website and in the break, I pressed the "Find a Team PokerStars
Player" button and was amazed to see a lot of the Pros playing in
the Sunday Million Tournament.
There were 5709 players in total and Isabelle Mercier, Barry Greenstein
and John Duthie were amongst them.
I went to observe Barry's table and someone asked him how he felt
about the renowned High Stakes Poker hand when he played Sammy Farha
-
It was a hand that, if it hadn't been captured on television, I
don't think anyone would believe it ever happened -
Barry's response was, and I quote …
"barryg1: that never happened. I have had my memory wiped of
that hand"
I'm not surprised – what a corker !!
This is what happened –
It was the very last hand of the night of the High Stakes Poker
game where the players put in their own money and as the title suggests
– the stakes are VERY HIGH !
A number of players folded around to Barry - He picked up the Pocket
Rockets, American Airlines, the best hand pre-flop in Texas Hold'em
Poker, a pair of Aces.
He raised the pot by $2,500 making the pot total $4,200, Sammy Farha
picked up a pair of Kings and raised it by $10K more, making the
pot total $16,700 -
Barry raised by another $50,000 making the pot now a staggering
$76,700 and Sammy was now in a quandary -
He asked Barry how many chips he had left and ascertained it was
about $200K - all the other players were starting to pack up and
get ready to leave while Sammy pondered what to do.
It was a bit like a football match, when the fans realise their
team is not going to win with only 1 minute left to play and they
start heading for the aisles to get out of the rush for the car
parks - but as the other players watched the hand unfold, they drifted
back to their seats to watch the action -
The percentages of Sammy winning the hand were only 18% in his favour
with Barry favourite to win with 82% -
Sammy sits there and tries to work out if he has the chips to call
or raise or whether he should just fold - and while he fiddles with
his chips, he glances surreptitiously at Barry, trying to get a
read on him as to the strength of his hand.
PokerFace !
Barry is totally impassive - If you ever want to see the finest
example of Pokerface - then this is it !
The commentators say "Great poker players can count on the fingers
of one hand, how many times they have been able to get away from
Kings against Aces" -
They explain that Sammy could just fold and walk away as he is already
a winner on the night and he only has $12,500 in the pot and make
the "greatest lay down in No Limit Hold'em" –
I know $12,500 sounds like a massive amount to you and me, but to
these players, it’s peanuts -
Sammy looks at his cards again for inspiration and says "I feel
sick to my stomach" - Sammy has to sit there and work out what
Barry has - he knows that Barry is a tight solid poker player who
doesn't make many 'moves' (bluffs)
It is unlikely, given the odds, that he has the other two Kings,
and it is also unlikely that he would re-raise with anything less
than KK - so he has to deduce that Barry has Pocket Rockets - a
Pair of Aces.
Even knowing this, finally, after nearly two minutes of pondering
and weighing up the odds, he says the immortal words "All
in" And Barry takes less than one second to call !
The pot is now a whopping $361,800 and the cards get turned
over - Sammy, the huge underdog, sees Barry’s Aces and chews on
the unlit cigarette he always has in his mouth –
It is said that Sammy chews on the same cigarette until he loses
a bad hand and then he replaces it with a new cigarette -
No matter how many times I've watched this hand, I still gasp out
loud when the flop comes down with a King in it giving Sammy Farha
Trip Kings against Barry’s, now measly, pair of Aces! This is what
is known as “Hitting your two-outer” meaning that there are only
2 cards left in the whole pack which will give you the winning hand
when you are completely dominated by someone elses hand.
Totally amazing ! - the percentages completely change to
88% in Sammy's favour and his whole demeanour completely transforms
from hangdog to Superman ! The turn and river bring no help to Barry
and Sammy wins it all -
You can view this hand at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OtFjpT-X5k
*************
Post Mortem
*************
It is extremely difficult to lay down a pair of Kings pre-flop,
even if another player has raised - sometimes if you're playing
in a Tournament, the sensible move is to fold the hand but in a
cash game, it's virtually impossible to lay it down.
I looked at Sammy Farha’s website and he quotes –
“In a cash game, you can make mistakes, but it's going to cost
you.”
and
“In a tournament, there is no room for mistakes. Don't gamble
until the end. The main thing is to be patient and endure.”
So I am sure that if this had been a Tournament, rather than a Cash
Game he would have laid those Kings down.
Sammy's play was reckless but Barry's play was correct - you want
to raise with AA to try and get heads up with one player, you definitely
do NOT want a lot of people in the pot - the number of times
I've seen AA getting cracked is definitely more times than I can
count on two hands -
When I check my Pokertracker statistics - (see below if you don’t
know about PokerTracker) I can see that out of all of the hands
I have stored in there, when I have had AA, they have won 85% of
the time - so Barry and the stats hold up -
Get your money in with AA and most of the time you will win although
I hope it doesn't cost you $200K the 15% of times they do get cracked
!
*********************************
Playing Poker Online? PokerTracker is a MUST
!
If you are going to play online a lot, then get yourself some software
called Pokertracker - www.pokertracker.com
and also one other piece of software called PokerAce HUD (Heads
Up Display) - http://pokeracesoftware.com
Both pieces of software are happily supported by most of the main
Poker Websites - Pokertracker will store statistics of every hand
you play and on every player that you play.
Suppose you have a fairly good hand like a pair of Queens… someone
before you raises the pot –
Don’t you think it would be an advantage to know the type of player
he is?
If he is a very very tight player and has only raised 1 pot out
of 50, then it is probable that he has a Monster hand and your Queens
are probably not good enough and you would be wise to play this
hand very cautiously, if at all.
But - if he is a very loose aggressive bully player having raised
30 pots pre-flop out of 50, then he could have anything in which
case you would play the hand very aggressively against him.
With PokerTracker – it logs all these statistics for you –
You can see how often someone voluntarily puts money in the pot
(vpip), how often they raise pre-flop and post-flop, how many times
they try to steal a blind, how many times they fold their blinds
to a steal and a whole host of stats more.
What’s more, you can also look at your own statistics and analyse
them to see where you are making most of your money and where you
are losing it.
The HUD will then overlay these stats onto the players on the table
so you can see these stats immediately without having to go looking
for them -
At this time of writing, Pokertracker is $55 and HUD is $25 - so
that's not a lot to fork out if you're going to take online poker
seriously.
*********************************
I hope you have enjoyed my first E-Letter . Have a look around my
website: where I have spent days, weeks and even months adding information
about where to play live and online, a Poker Tutorial and lots of
other stuff you might find interesting.
Anyways, I’m off to try and qualify for this weeks Sunday Million
Tournament – and I’ll see you next week.
Bye for now
Cheers
Meg Arana
|
