Another No-Limit Event
This entry originally appeared on my WSOP blog at PokerTips.org.
Another washout.
Today was a $560 at Venetian. Things were going nicely for a while, I won some pots, flopped a set and dodged two outs, and was sitting on 45k during 300/600 when I lost a 65k pot with KTdd all-in against TT on a 932dd flop. A few hands later, I got AJdd all-in preflop against the same guy’s 99 for a 28 big blind pot and watched him flop quads. Run better against me in races, dude.
One individual at our table was setting records for how long it took him to fold each hand. An older gentleman at the table timed him and determined that he was taking an average of 9 seconds to act preflop. If that doesn’t seem like a long time, believe me, it is. When most players fold preflop, they do so in about 1-2 seconds from the time the action is on them. Nine seconds is considerably long. I told him that I’ve never seen someone take so long to play each hand. If he was wasting 7 seconds per hand more than a replacement player, that means he was wasting a full 5 minutes and 15 seconds per hour if we assume we were playing 45 hands per hour. Five minutes an hour wasted waiting on this guy to fold!
On one hand, my lone opponent began to reach for his chips to make a bet on the flop and I just went ahead and folded while he tried to determine his bet size. I told the table, “I’m trying to re-coup some of our time that this guy is wasting.” Everyone laughed since they were all equally annoyed at him. Despite the chastising, he seemed unfazed and continued wasting time every hand. I would love to have it in me to be that selfish and inconsiderate to others. Life must be a total charm when you can do whatever you feel like and not be least bit affected by how your actions impact others. I’m sure he never uses a turn signal and likes to smoke cigars indoors too!
Something I got to thinking about at the table today was how much poker players seem to discuss strategy right at the table with their opponents and why this is obviously dumb from a value standpoint. I know making comments like, “I figured you were three-betting fairly wide there otherwise I probably wouldn’t have shoved that hand,” is just harmless social small-talk, but it’s actually pretty dumb for a few reasons.
First, you’re basically announcing to the table that you’re a good, thinking player. Why make it easy on them? Second, you’re encouraging bad, non-thinking players to become thinking players. I understand that away from the tables people are going to talk about poker and improve, but do it away from the tables! Let’s not forget that when you’re sitting at a poker table, the other people at the table are your opponents. You are playing a game where the objective is to beat them. I have no problem with people being social at the table about things that have nothing to do with poker, but why would you be social/friendly when the discussion topic is poker? It just doesn’t make sense to me and is a leak that a lot of players seem to have.
In general, players seem to discuss strategy at the table so regularly that it can be exploited. Since so many players give away information by verbalizing their exact thought process on key hands, the practice has become common enough that it’s gotten to the point where players almost expect you to disclose information! It seems like there’s always a few people who like to ask, “would you have called if I shoved there?” or “I wasn’t sure if AQ was in your three-betting range there or not…” that they make it really easy on you to mislead them. That’s what poker is about, right? Misleading people and inducing mistakes? Some players seem to make it all too easy to do this. You can set up whatever image you want to have with your words almost easier than you can with your play.
Alright, that’s enough about poker. Let’s talk about soccer. I feel like those two words describe my whole summer: poker and soccer.
I made a couple of World Cup outright winner bets tonight. I took Japan at 100:1 (Pinnacle has them at just 75:1) and Uruguay at 15:1. Both of those teams have fairly soft paths to the semi-finals. In the case of Japan, there will be quite the handsome hedging opportunity if they can get there.
A couple of other bets I’m eyeing are England at 10:1 and Netherlands at 8:1. Before the tournament started, England was 7:1. They allowed one fluke goal in their entire group stage, advanced, and are now 10:1?! The consensus seems to be that England is a disappointment, but I think if their attack can improve a little, people will be quickly reminded of why they were one of the favorites coming into the tournament. In the case of Netherlands, I just love them. They’re able to get away with being so attack-focused because their mid-fielders win a lot of balls which allow them to skimp a little defensively without consequence. My only concern with them is that they’ll almost certainly have to face Brazil or Spain in the quarterfinals which is unfortunate. If they were able to avoid playing the Big 3 (Argentina being the other one) until the semifinals, it would be a much easier position to derive hedge-value from. What am I saying? Hedging an 8:1 is pretty nitty. I’ll just bet it and root for them to win it all if/when US is eliminated.
Tomorrow is a $1,500 at the Rio.
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