poker essays

[elindauer]

I just looked at my other thread and found it locked. I'm not sure what that's about. I'd like to add to it though, it seems in the best interest of this forum, and I can't figure out any other way to do it, so here's a new thread.


ok, first, to those who think I'm trying to scam you... fair enough. I will take your advice and post some articles in this thread. I think you'll see that the reason I don't just cut and paste everything is that there is a lot of material and it would kind of overwhelm one thread.

second, to those concerned about signing up and then forgetting and getting charged for membership... if that happens, just email me and I'll refund your money. I'm not trying to trick you. It's just easier for me this way because paypal handles the cancelations / renewals automatically and I don't have to do everything by hand. 2+2 has a lot of traffic, and I'm ok with giving away the existing content, but I don't want to give it away forever and don't want to have to cancel access for everyone by hand in 3 months.


Don't have a credit card / don't like paypal / want everything fast and now? Well, sorry. This is the best I can do right now.

So that's it. Look below in this thread for a few example essays. And thanks again.

-Eric

[elindauer]

(essays lost some formatting in the cut / paste process, sorry)


What is a donk bet? In poker, the player who put in the last bet or raise in the previous round is said to have "the initiative". On a simple level, he's the guy that has made the most convincing claim to have the then-best hand.

When the card or cards are dealt for the next round, the most common scenario is that all the players in the hand will check to the guy with the initiative. This guy will then either continue to claim to have the best hand, by betting, or check behind and admit that ok, he was only kidding.

In many situations, the guy with the initiative can be counted on to bet every time, so it makes sense that players tend to check to him. In hold 'em on the flop, this expectation is so powerful that it has become almost standard practice to "check to the raiser" when the flop comes down.

A few players, many of them very bad players, don't follow this rule though, and the term "donk bet" was born. It's a deragotory term describing a bet in a spot where most people would check, namely, a bet when someone else has the initiative.

Donk betting is good. It turns out though, that donk betting is a powerful poker weapon, one that most players fail to utilize. I've already described in other articles that donk betting on the river heads up can be effective, and we've also seen that the initiative itself is really just a made up concept in a poker players mind, and not a fundamental part of the game. By learning to donk bet the flop more effectively, we'll learn yet another tool for mitigating the disadvantage of being out of position, and begin to understand how to handle not having "the initiative".

Advantages to donk betting: the right of first bluff. There are many disadvantages to being out of position, but there is one excellent advantage, and that is the right of first bluff. Take this typical situation: button raises, big blind calls, heads up to the flop for 4.5 SB.

In this scenario, the first person to bet at the pot is getting 4.5:1 on his bluff. The second person will have to raise if he wants to resteal, and it will cost 2 small bets to do so. With only 5 small bets in the pot, this player is getting substantially weaker odds to try to steal than the first player (2.5:1 compared to 4.5:1).

Further, in heads up pots, especially in hold 'em steal situations, you're going to find that quite often both players hold weak cards, and both have missed the flop. In these situations, being the first person to bluff at the pot is a distinct advantage.

This is a large part of why so many players feel that "having the initiative" is a big advantage... they've come to understand that being able to bet first at those heads up and short-handed pots is critical, and they know that having the initiative "ensures" that they will get this right of first bluff. But you don't have to give it to them! Any time you see a flop, try to pretend that you don't know who raised preflop (something that bad players have no trouble doing, hence the name "donk bet"). If you think betting the flop is the right play, fire! Don't feel that you need to constantly check to the raiser... reclaim your right of first bluff. Playing out of position is hard enough without giving the stealer your right of first bluff as well.

How often to donk bet. This is of course the $64,000 question. How often should you donk bet? Which flops are good choices, and which are bad?

First of all, simply recognizing that you need to donk bet some flops as part of a good short-handed / heads up strategy is probably enough to improve your results. You're going to find yourself in some uncomfortable spots because you've never done this of course, but keep at it... your opponents are just as uncomfortable, and you'll learn how to handle these situations much faster than all of your opponents will learn how to deal with you!

Here are some tips though:

consider your opponent: donk more against tight players
consider the flop: how likely is it that your opponent has 2 overcards? how likely is it he flopped a pair? Flops like K73 and Q44 are very unlikely to give your opponent either a pair or two overcards.
consider the flop: are there many draws out there that he may put you on? For example, K67 with two hearts may not be likely to make your opponent a pair, but with flush and straight draws in the mix, he may well get stubborn and plan to showdown ace high.
consider your image: does your opponent think you are tight and predictable, or does he think you bluff too much? Donk (bluff) more when you have a tight image.
Using information like this lets you outplay your opponents, usually by playing a strategy that is itself exploitable, if only your opponents could figure out how to exploit it. This can be risky though... sometimes you don't have any of this information. Worse, sometimes you happen to be heads up with a very good player, perhaps even a player who is better than you. What should you do then?

Use game theory. In these spots, your best plan is to use game theory to mix up your play and make it impossible for your opponents to get a read on you no matter how good they are. Your goal is to give away as little information as possible about whether you have a hand or are bluffing, while at the same tending to bet when you have it and check when you don't. A better treatment of these kinds of strategies can be found in this game theory article, but a good general guideline is to bluff about 1 flop in 3, while donk betting about 2 out of 3 flops with which you actually connect.

You'll flop a pair about 1 time in 3, so these ratios put your opponent in a very uncomfortable spot. If he constantly resteals, he's going to be banging his head against an already made hand about half the time. Since you have learned all about semi-bluffing and value-bluff raising, you are also going to sometimes outplay him the other half of the time, even when he catches you on a draw. And of course, he is sometimes going to catch you on a draw only to watch in horror as you succeed in drawing out! This means that his 5:2 resteal odds don't look terribly attractive, as he is going to be behind often and then sometimes lose even when he is ahead.

On the other hand, if he gives up most of the time when you donk and he misses, he may be folding the best hand and passing over 2.5 big bets. If he folds too much, which is easy to do, he may not notice that his strategy has become highly exploitable. Either way, you've forced him to really play poker to try to beat you, and inevitably many of your opponents are not going to be up to the challenge. They are going to spew chips trying to push you off your made hands, lay down winners too often, and just generally find themselves unable to figure your game out. Just the way we like it!

[elindauer]

(some minor formatting lost in the cut/paste process)

Charging draws. When you make a bet with the best hand, you are generally trying to force your opponents to pay for their equity in the pot. This is called "charging them to draw". If the pot is big enough, they may still be right to call your bet, as their pot equity may be worth more than the amount you are charging, especially in limit hold'em where the bet sizes are fixed. In this case, you want them to fold, but are forced to settle for minimizing their profits when the play on. If the pot is small though, an interesting thing happens. You may now actually be rooting for a call, even if your opponent has some chance to draw out on you, because he won't draw out often enough to justify the amount he is investing.

Small pots are very common. As you go up in limits, small pots become much more common. Most pots are contested short-handed, between two or three players. In these spots, the pot on the flop is often just 2 or 3 big bets. In a more passive game, you can find pots that are even smaller than this. In these pots, you must change your mindset. You stop thinking about betting to avoid giving a free card, and instead focus on maximizing value for the bets that go into the pot. That is, you want to lose the least when you are behind, while giving worse hands maximum opportunity to hang around and contribute to the pot.

Maximizing value in small pots. Against very loose and passive players, the best way to maximize value on your made hands is often to simply bet them. Your opponents make all kinds of bad calls with hands that they won't bet if you check to them, so you simply fire away and let them contribute by calling. As you move up in limits though, truly loose passive players become very harder to find. Online especially, it's quite rare that your opponents are both loose enough to call your flop bet with weak hands, and passive enough that they won't bluff those hands if you check to them.

Small pots against aggressive players. Against tighter, more aggressive players, you often maximize your value best by checking. In a short-handed pot, the preflop raiser will often bet no matter what the flop is. Further, if he doesn't or if there was no preflop raiser, the last person to act can almost always be counted on take a stab at the pot. When you flop a made hand in a small pot, it's almost always better to check and let these aggressive players put that small bet into the pot rather than bet and risk driving them out. Even if your made hand is very weak, say, bottom pair, and you think your opponent has a 6-out draw, you still are very happy to check and risk giving a free card. Consider this: when the flop gets checked through, you have granted your opponent his pot equity, a 6-out draw in, say, a 2 big bet pot. If we further assume the worst case that this player won't put any more money in the pot unless he improves, than we have made a 1/4 BB mistake by checking. If we get him to bet and we raise though, then we've gained 1/2 a BB vs betting, and if he calls the raise with his 6-outer, as many players are prone to do, we make even more. This shows that in a small pot, we need to be quite concerned about the flop getting checked through to bet bottom pair for hand protection. In modern games, it's rare that this would ever be the case, especially online.

Taking this idea further. With a stronger hand, say, top pair, checking becomes even clearer. Now even if the flop gets checked through, good things can happen. In the extreme case, imagine you check A2 from the big blind after a middle position player limps in and the small blind completes. If you flop an ace, you are almost required to check the flop. You don't even really mind the flop getting checked through, as there are so many ways for your opponents to turn a little something and payoff 2 BB in a small pot. If your opponent turns a pair, for example, he'll likely end up calling a bet getting only 3:1 or so on an 8:1 shot. That's a very bad call if he could see your hand. In this case he's likely to payoff a river bet too, so he ends up getting, say, 4:2 on that longshot draw. Even if he check-raises those times he gets lucky and you pay off every time, he's not getting anywhere close to the 16 big bets he needs to even break even on this draw.

Turning a "big draw". Checking the flop in a small pot can also benefit you when your opponent picks up a "big draw" like an open-ended straight draw or a flush draw. Most players are incapable of laying this hand down, but when they call your turn bet getting 3:1 on their money, they are making a mistake, especially when you factor in the times they make a 2nd best hand by rivering a pair below yours. It's almost amazing that in many of these short-handed situations, if you knew a bet would win the pot, that a check would result in a free card, AND that your opponent would turn a 9-out draw, you STILL should give the free card. Flop a pair of aces in a small pot on a 2-flush board? Most players bet to "charge flush draws", but you really want to check and almost hope a 3rd of that suit arrives. Now your loose opponents can pick up crappy little flush draws that they think are worth calling a bet for, which helps line your pockets.

Raising vs calling after inducing that flop bluff. After checking your hand and getting that autobet from the preflop raiser or the last guy to act, you are now going to faced with a decision. Should you raise or just call? The key to answering this is to know your opponent. Many players, once they start betting at a pot, don't ever stop until somebody raises them. Against these players, you should just call their bet and check to them again on the turn no matter what hits. You just go into loose-passive calling station mode against these hyper-aggressive players and crush them. There is no need to protect your hand, just be content to collect bluffs and "charge them retroactively". In these spots, it appears you are giving a cheap or free card, but what you are really doing is putting the aggressive player on a payment plan. He's paying for that 6-out draw, he's just doing it after the fact. In fact, charging draws this way is even better than charging them up front, because you have now killed the implied odds on their draw. For example, imagine your opponent is drawing to two overcards, KQ on a J-high board. If you bet the turn and he calls, he still has the opportunity to recover some of that cost on the river should he catch a pair. If you check behind and grant him has draw on the turn, knowing he will bluff the river no matter what hits, then you still get your 1 BB from him all those times he misses, but now he can't recover anything extra those times he hits.

More specifics on deciding when to raise. The danger with giving these cheap and free cards is that your opponent may not be willing to pay for them later. Many players will stab once at a flop they've missed, and then shutdown if they get any action. Against these players, you should raise the flop immediately. It's fine to give cheap cards if it encourages aggressive players to keep bluffing, but not if they aren't going to make the required payments on the next street. How often does your opponent need to bluff the turn unimproved to justify calling his flop bet with, say, bottom pair? If you call and he checks the turn and folds the river, you have given him a 6 out draw twice in, say, a 3 BB pot. The math is complicated, but roughly this is about a .75 BB mistake. On the other hand, if you get him to bet a hand on the turn that he would have folded had you raised, you gain .85 BB every time he misses, while losing, say, 3 BB those times he catches and you call down (note that you still have some equity in the pot even when he catches). That means if your opponent will always bet missed 6-outers but will fold them to your flop raise, calling beats raising by a wide margin, almost a full small bet. How often does he have to check behind the turn to justify raising the flop? A reasonable rule of thumb might be this: if you think his most likely action with a missed hand is to bluff again, then call his bet. If not, raise.

Adjusting these ideas for flop texture and hand quality. As already discussed, as your hand goes up in quality, you can afford to take more chances with your "slowplays". If you flop top pair with a K, for example, your opponent's draws are likely to be much weaker than the 6-out draws we've been discussing. In many cases they will have 3 outs and sometimes they'll be drawing dead. In these cases, slowplaying becomes much more viable. Even if you think there is a fair chance your opponent will see through your play and give up, you are taking so little risk of losing what is already a small pot anyways, that you almost have to go for it. Another consideration is the flop texture. If the flop is very dry, affording very few draws, then a call from you is much more likely to result in your opponent checking the turn. This is especially true when your opponent will have a hard time putting you on two overcards that are just peeling once. An example might be a K73 rainbow flop. Checking and calling on this board is going to set off alarm bells in any decent player's head. If you flop bottom pair on this board, you should check-raise. On the other hand, if you flop a K, it might be worth just calling a steal bet even though you know the odds of drawing a bluff are slim. In this case, you can always benefit by having your opponent pick up a pair on the turn that he calls a river bet with. Note that this is the opposite of the way most players would play. They'd typically raise on draw-heavy boards, figuring their opponent can have lots of draws to justify calling them. This is true, but it ignores a common facet of today's online game, namely, that players with flush draws often will bluff them all the way. Against a player like this, and they are very common, it's MUCH better to just check and call the flop and let them bluff the turn too. If they get there, at least you've killed off their implied odds somewhat. If they miss, calling down gets more out of them by an extra SB than raising the flop. (Raising the turn may be the best play of all, but you open yourself up to a 3-bet and either a painful calldown or the possibility of being outplayed. I won't get into that here.)

How weak a hand can you slowplay? I find that hands as weak as ace-high are candidates for these moves in very small pots. For example, I often limp in the SB with small aces heads up, and then check the flop. My aggressive opponents raise preflop often, and when they don't, they can always be counted on to bet the flop for me. Now I call against those that will continue to bluff, and raise against those that won't. Hands like middle pair in heads up pots are also great candidates for a flop check. Say you raise a limper and you hold QQ. The flop comes down K73. The limper checks to you. You should check. By checking, lots of good things happen. First, you lose less when you are up against a better hand. 2nd, you give your opponent a chance to bluff the turn with a hand he would have folded to your bet. Finally, you increase the odds of your opponent making a 2nd best hand by turning a pair with, say, a T and paying off 2 BB in a pot that is smaller than 3 BB. That's huge. The only risk for you here is that your opponent may hold a bare ace and was planning to fold, won't bluff the turn if he misses, and now he catches an ace. That's a rare combination though, easily made up for with the saved bets and induced bluffs you get by checking.

Times when this strategy is not appropriate. Don't slowplay if your opponents are loose and passive. Don't slowplay when the pot gets to be a decent size, say, 4 BB or greater. Don't slowplay when there is a good chance your opponent has a made hand and will pay off all the way, for example when you flop a set after being 3-bet preflop, or when you flop a straight on a board with 3 high cards. Be less inclined to slowplay past the turn, as many players pay off turn raises all the way but won't bet the river after you've called the flop and turn. Finally, if you play with the same players over and over again, you sometimes need to mix up your play by betting strong hands in order to keep from being too predictable. Online, with the high player turn-over, ability to change your screenname, etc, this is rare, but worth noting.

[elindauer]

Know your opponent. First and foremost, you must know your opponent. If your opponent is the loose type that consistently calls down with ace high, forget about trying to bluff him. You beat these guys with value bets, not bluffs. If your opponent can be made to fold, say, AQ on a K73 board, then you have a player you can consider attacking with very few outs. Your ideal opponent is the tight aggressive type raising from late position. He'll have a fairly wide range of hands, can often fold ace high especially if he has only 1 overcard, and can be counted on to bet the flop almost no matter what hits.

Flops to look for. Naturally, flops where you flop a good draw that is nonetheless definitely 2nd best right now are good flops to check-raise and lead the turn. This play is widely known though, and good players are going to be suspicious that you might be drawing when you make this play, especially if you're making it with an obvious draw like a flush draw. You'll get called down more often, but since you have a good deal of equity in the pot, this play is still profitable.

The play many players miss though, is to check-raise and lead with a hand that has no outs on a board that has no draws. Say a TAG raises from late position and you call in the big blind with JTh. If you get a K73 rainbow flop, you should strongly consider attacking him by check-raising and leading the turn if need be. On this board, your opponent cannot put you on a draw, so he knows you're either on a complete bluff, or you have a pair. If he doesn't have a pair and he respects you not being a maniac, he's going to give up lots of hands. The typical late position raiser will not often have a pair on this board, but since you are defending from the big blind, he can't know the same about your hand. You'll win quite often without a showdown, easily enough to justify the expense provided you pick your opponents well. Further, sometimes you'll catch a pair and it will be good enough to win over a hand like AQ that decides to get stubborn.

In these situations, it pays to know whether your opponent is the type to give up to the flop raise directly, or tends to peel after being check-raised and then fold the turn. Most players do one or the other, and knowing where your opponent's fold point is can save you lots of wasted bluff attempts.

In general, flops that contain 1 or fewer cards in the "playing zone" A-T, and which don't afford many straight draws (J97, for example, is not a great flop to steal on), are the ones to consider making moves. Also, flops with 1 or 2 very low cards, like deuces and threes, are less likely to have made anyone a pair. Most players, even bad ones, fold hands with deuces in them.

The lower the highest card, the more inclined you should be to fire again on the turn, as it is that much more likely that your opponent has called your flop bet with just overcards and will now fold if you bet again. This assumes, of course, that the turn is not a card that hits these hand. If you check-raise a Txx flop and the turn is a K, betting now looks pretty dubious. You're unlikely to win the pot at this point, since the K just connects with way too many of the weak hands you were hoping he'd fold. KQ, KJ, QJ, AQ, AJ... all of the hands are now getting to the river at least. Check and fold if you were on a total steal. Finally, if you check-raise and lead the turn and your opponent is still in there calling, it's probably best to just give up on the river. Sure, sometimes you miss an opportunity to bluff them out of the pot, but more often than not they are just in there calling all the way and you aren't getting the right odds to bluff again.

In short-handed games and in all games as the limits get higher, defending the big blind from steals becomes more and more common. You're out of position in a small pot with a weak hand... that's a tough place to be. Mix in a few of these pure bluffs to steal just a little more than your fair share of the pie. Your wallet will thank you.

[elindauer]

What does it mean to "have the initiative"? In a sense, the betting and raising is a war of escalating claims between two players. With each bet and raise on a given street, the players tell each other that they feel they have the best hand. When one of these players finally relents and just calls, he has, in a simple sense, conceded that the other does, at the moment, have the best hand, or at least that the hand his opponent claims to have beats his own.

The player who put in the last raise on the previous street has, therefore, a standing claim to having the best hand. He has what we refer to as "the initiative". In typical poker games, the next street will involve everyone checking to the guy with the initiative. He bets, and then anyone who was helped by the most recent card (or cards) can raise claiming that now they have the best hand.

Advantages to having the initiative. Having the initiative has several advantages in a game that plays the way I just described, with lots of "checking to the raiser". First, you can often take a free card when you feel you need one. Particularly on the turn, taking free cards at will is a huge strategic advantage. Second, you are afforded the "right of first bluff". You get to make the cheapest bluff available, while your opponents will be forced to raise and make a much more expensive bluff if they want to contest the pot. Often times, especially in short-handed pots, everyone misses, and having the "right of first bluff" results in the guy with the "initiative" taking down the pot.

Raising to gain the initiative. These advantages are so significant that often players justify raising with marginal hands for the sole purpose of gaining the initiative. They expect their opponents to check to them, to tend to fold to continuation bets, etc. This expectation is so strong in fact, that most players will bet the flop no matter what they hold or what the flop is, simply because they raised preflop.

An important realization. Here's the catch though... the initiative is just a made up word! There is nothing inherent in the game that makes having the initiative more advantageous than not having it. The only reason having the initiative is an advantage is because your opponents allow it to be! Their mistake is in constantly checking to the raiser, giving you free cards and cheap bluffs when they should be betting and competing for their fair share of the pot.

Taking advantage of their mistakes. If your opponents are making a mistake to check too many hands to you, how do you take advantage? It seems obvious that you should not bet as often. Take the free cards they are giving you rather than bet someone else's hand. Most players bet constantly when checked to, and that gives up a significant part of the advantage to having the initiative... the ability to take free cards.

Not making this mistake yourself. If it's a mistake to check to the raiser, does that mean you should bet your legitimate hands? Not necessarily. When you flop a strong hand, you should often check to the raiser just like the bad players. The reason is that you are taking advantage of your opponent's tendency to bet way too much. If he'll bet all his hands, of course you should check to him.

There's another angle though, and that is reclaiming the "right of first bluff". Particularly in smaller short-handed pots, being the first person to fire at the pot is a significant strategic advantage. Don't feel that you must check-raise to bluff at a pot. Just bet! It's a much cheaper bluff and it puts your opponent in a difficult position. If he raises too much, you simply start betting your made hands as well, planning to 3-bet. In a vaccuum, checking these hands might be better, but you bet-3-bet in order to fight for the right of first bluff even when your opponent has raised preflop.

If he instead folds his weak hands, then he has given you an enormously profitable flop bluff that you can take whenever the flop is likely to have missed your opponent. Flops with exactly 1 card in the broadway zone are ideal for this.

In other words, you make life much more difficult on the preflop raiser when you bet into him with your bluffs rather than check-raise, and at the same time, you make the actual bluff much less costly for yourself. That's a winning combination. Add in the fact that you will be putting your opponents in new and uncomfortable positions, and they are sure to make more mistakes against you than they do against other players.

Summing it up. Since so few players actually do bet / bluff this way correctly, it's hard to predict how your opponents are going to respond to you. As always, pay close attention and take notes. Do they fold much? If so, consider making some pure bluffs. Do they fold a bit and call a lot? Semi-bluffs with outs will be very profitable against this player. Do they constantly raise? Just wait for a made hand and fire into him, planning to 3-bet.

Take advantage of your opponents misplaying of the initiative by checking behind more. At the same time, ignore the initiative whenever you do not have it. Your wallet will thank you.

[RudeboyOi]

at this rate
you may as well
post everything here

[elindauer]

well, there are a couple dozen more essays and I can't cut and paste them all here. Many of them have a lot of formatting and would be very hard to read without a lot of editing.

Hopefully these samples will offer a little something for those of you who don't want to be bothered with creating yet another website account. I might add a few more for you in the coming days... assuming this thread doesn't get locked too! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

good luck.
eric

[elindauer]

[ QUOTE ]
at this rate
you may as well
post everything here

[/ QUOTE ]

For a second, I thought this was a haiku.

I'm just going to post a few articles here though. That said, even in just these articles there's a lot of material... I think they should be useful for a few people at least! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

-Eric

[RudeboyOi]

[ QUOTE ]


For a second, I thought this was a haiku.


[/ QUOTE ]

you have no idea
how much i get that

[private joker]

Dude this is really not the place to just cut and paste everything you've written about poker. You might want to submit your articles to the 2+2 magazine (PM Dynasty or something). But I don't think you're going to spark much discussion. If you have a specific point you want to debate, post a paragraph. What do you hope to gain from this thread?