Page 13 - March 2008 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Jim Mercurio: Poker
OIut of Position is Tricky
n my last column, I charted several online hands I played at low levels in No-Limit Hold’em. I was a winner in every position except for the blinds. And although I was up nine buy-ins on the button, I was down 20 buy-ins in the big blind. I don’t know how to make it any
clearer that playing out of position (oop) will ensure that you lose money at poker.
I know you are going to play oop once in a while, so I want to give you some guidelines. Using a little bit of math, intuition and knowledge gleaned from others, I want to come up with a reasonable hand selection for under-the-gun (utg) and utg+1.
I went through my Poker Tracker software and found a few players who had played more than 1,000 hands and were up utg. eir vpips (percentage of time they chose to play) were like 12.4, 17.2, 11.6, 13.4 and 13.7. So they were playing about 13% of the hands or like one in every 7.5
op sets, right? So let’s add the rest of the pocket pairs, 55–22, which takes us to 27%.
ere’s gotta be a give and take here. Let’s get rid of those o suit aces. If you have A7o, what are you hoping to op? is may seem counterintuitive, but I am going to take AJo o the list. at will get us to 22.5%. I am going to take o all of the suited kings except AK and KQ. I know KJ suited looks pretty but let it go. at will get us to 20.7 of all possible hands.
Someday I will do a column on the danger of KQ, but for now, let’s get rid of
loose passive game where there are small bets, few raises and people who pay o big. Also, when you play suited aces and kings, you have to be able to get away from the hand when you op only a pair.
If you play suited kings, you will lose sometimes to the nut ush. So you have to be at a table where people can’t lay down ushes. If you are at a table where a couple of players show o that they can, in position, lay down a Q-high, J-high or even a ten-high ush by watching the hand play out, then you can’t be playing suited Kings out of position. If you hit, who’s going to pay you o ?
Out of position is tricky. When you are utg, stay within this hand selection and you should be able to stay out of trouble.
Buy Jim’s lm Hard Scrambled at www.hardscrambled.com or if you like his column, contact him at jim@jamespmercurio.com.
hands. Live, this translates to one hand utg every two hours.
Here are some assump-
tions. First, we are in a
Los Angeles low buy-in
no-limit game that is
not too wild and aggres-
sive. Second, draws are hard to play oop, because it’s hard to get paid off. Third, sets are relatively easier to play oop.
Let’s start with the top 25% of hands per Pokerstove (check out pokerstove.com). is would include pocket pairs down to 66; all suited aces; KQs-K6s; QTs-Q8s, JTs-J8s and T9-T8s; AXo down to A7; KXo down to K9; and QJo, QTo and JTo. But everyone loves to
every o suit K except AK and KK. New score: 17%. Dumping the QJT o suit combos gets us to 14.3%.
And if I am going to make you throw away KJ suited, then Qxs, Jxs and Txs have to go too, right? Now
we are at 11.9%. So that you can op Broadway or the nut ush, let’s only play suited aces down to ATs.
is leaves us with AA-22, AKs-ATs, AKo, AQo and KQs, which represents 9.2% of all starting hands. is might seem sort of tight, but I like it for online. In fact, I would probably take o AQo and KQs online.
is is also a really safe place to start if you are playing live. To add in all suited aces, you need to be in a really
“If you play suited kings, you will lose sometimes to the nut flush.
So you have to be at a table where people can’t lay down flushes.”
March 2008 Table Games and Slot Tournaments
HARRAH’S RINCON CASINO & RESORT MONDAY, March 10th at 4:30 p.m.
$10,000 Rincon Riches Slot Tournament
Tournament is free for all Seven Star, Diamond and Platinum Total Rewards cardholders, and $20 entry fee for Gold cardholders. Cash prizes awarded to the top 20 players, plus a “player in the middle” prize. Register at the Promotions Center from 4 p.m. t0 7:30 p.m. Space is limited. Prizes awarded at 10 p.m., and must be claimed by 11:59 p.m. or else they will be forfeited.
SOBOBA CASINO
DAILY THROUGH MARCH 21st
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TUESDAY, MARCH 25th
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WEDNESDAYS at 5 p.m.
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MONDAY and TUESDAY, March 17th and 18th
$10k T-Shirt Giveaway
Earn 15 V Club points playing your favorite table games on March 17th or 18th and collect your free T-shirt at any V Club booth. If the back of your T-shirt reads
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Win $2,500 with a $1 Side Bet
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Play Blackjack and win with speci c combinations of aces and/or face cards. Increase your payouts by splitting a pair of aces and getting face cards as your hit card.
March 2008
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
Page 13
Receive up to $500 in bonus payouts for containing Kings on all table games.
hands
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MONDAY, MARCH 24th at 4 p.m.
The Kings and Queens of Blackjack Tournament
$40 buy in, $20 re-buys, $5,000 guaranteed prize pool.
All tournament participants receive $20 in Match Play if theyarePlayersClubmembers.EntriesonsaleMarch1st at the casino cashier. Space is limited.
Poker: Wired Aces and River Rats Tournaments