Page 9 - January 2006 • Southern California Gaming Guide

It’s That Time of the Year:
Jim Mercurio’s New Year’s Poker Resolutions by Jim Mercurio
F or years I played poker for fun. My silly goals for a night would be to “Scoop a Mannie Moe and Jack pot,” “ Trap Russell when he blu s all-in,” or “Get Michael to fall for my reverse-tell.” But then a crazy thing happened this year. I had a winning year. A decisively
winning year. And I’ve made up my mind. I am not going back. I am going to try even harder to improve my game this year. Here are some of my poker resolutions. Hopefully, they will help your game too.
I AM GOING TO CONSIDER GAME SELECTION
6/12 Limit Hold’em is your game. You put $400 aside this month for poker. You find a game that has two seats open. In seat 1 is a maniac on a rush. He’s got $1,200 in chips. In seats 5 and 8 are two patient tight-aggressive players. Seats 3 and 7 are two tricky players. They have read all the books and although most of their moves are lost on the table, their deception sometimes pays
off and frustrates the by-the-book rock in seat 10. So where do you sit? Seat 2, so you can have position over the maniac? Seat 9, to the right of the predictable rock? Or seat 4, so you can see the cards better since you lost a contact? Cue Jeopardy theme. The answer is “None of the above, Alex.” You don’t play in this game. Who are you going to make money from?
I play against maniacs in LA, but with more than two buy-ins in my wallet. And the rest of the table is just no-fun. Unless your goal is to struggle to break even as
a learning experience, pick another table.
I AM GOING TO BE THE BETTOR, NOT THE CALLER WHEN I’M ALL-IN
Would you rather lose a dollar or win four? There is $10 in the pot. You are first to bet. You go all in for $50 with AQ. A player behind you has pocket nines. Let’s say 50% of the time that player folds. When he folds, you win $10. When he calls, you lose $1.20 [44% ($110) – $50]. Your net gain is 50% of $8.80 = $4.40. The fact that you were first to act and made an opponent fold (sometimes) made you a profit. The vigorish of being first in the pot is an important element when you are short-stacked and trying to stay alive in a tournament. It’s better to be the bettor. If anyone needs more proof, please send $4.40 and I will send you $1.20 and a better explanation.
Happy New Year.
Jim Mercurio is a writer, filmmaker and poker player. He produced the film Hard Scrambled, which stars Kurtwood Smith (That 70’s Show) and Richard Edson (Do the Right Thing). Email him at jim@jamesmercurio.com for a chance to win a set of his custom- made Poker Stat-Tracking cards!
I AM GOING TO DEVALUE SUITED CARDS
Start with one card. What are the odds the next card will be the same suit? 51 cards unseen, 12 in that suit. 12/51. 24%. Yes, 24 freakin’ percent of all hole cards will be suited. “It’s special to be suited.”“Only I get Q3 of diamonds on the button in a raised pot.” Did you used to think this too? Here’s a sobering statistic. Your suited cards will flop a flush about 1 in 120 times. You will flop a flush draw slightly less often than a pocket pair flops a set: 11% for the flush draw, 12% for the set. So let’s say you play 67♦ and flop a 38J with two diamonds. Woo hoo, jackpot, bingo, eureka! Not.
You haven’t even made a hand yet. And there is about a 3% chance that your opponent has a better flush draw. Ewww! I only flop a draw 10 percent of the time. Then I am an almost 2-1 underdog to hit my flush. And there is a chance I will hit my hand and still lose. No, thank you.
I AM GOING TO DEVALUE CONNECTORS
Especially in tournaments. In Doyle Brunson’s Super System, he talks about calling raises with connectors in an e ort to win a huge pot. But he was referring to cash games where the money was deep. Let’s just use some imaginary numbers pulled out of our poker butts to
a perfect scenario. Which means you have to win about a hundred times
the original call to make
it pro table. So in a $100
buy-in tournament where you start with $1,500 in chips and the blinds are 25/50, if you decide to call a $150 raise with your 45, you and your opponent should both have $15,000 in chips in front of them. How often does that happen?
I AM GOING TO
RETHINK HOW I
PLAY AGAINST AK
I don’t know about you, but
I have an AK detector. Once or twice a session,
I will be able to sniff it out. There are some logical clues like when a player flat-calls a big raise or re- raise, but often times I am a junior Phil Hellmuth who magically absorbs energy from the poker ether. In satellites with few chips and I have a pair against
an AK (somehow, it’s usually QQ), I used to re-raise AK all-in to take advantage of my 56:44 edge. But on my last trip to Vegas, I learned a better way. AK needs to see all five cards to live up to its 44:56 showdown percentage against a pocket pair. However, its chances of hitting on the flop are only about 33%. So if you are against a player who can
see how many
chips have to be
in play before we
should call a raise
with 45 o suit?
How many times
do you op a
monster like A23
or 236 with 45?
Let’s just make up
a number. How
about calling it
ten percent. And
how often does
your opponent
op a monster
hand and willingly
give you all of his
the Mason Malmuths of the world and just call it ten percent also. So one in a hundred times, you hit
the original call to make it profitable. So in a $100 buy-in tournament where you start with $1,500 in chips and the blinds are 25/50, if you decide to call a $150 raise with your 45, you and your opponent should both have $15,000 in chips in front of them. How often
chips? Let’s continue to infuriate
lay down AK when they miss, wait until the flop misses them (and they are a 3:1 dog), then shove in all of your chips.
does that happen?”
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
“So one in a hundred times, you hit a perfect scenario. Which means you have to win about a hundred times
January 2006 Page 9
Poker: Wired Aces and River Rats with Jim Mercurio