Eric Rizen Lynch

Ask Rizen - Special PokerNations Edition!

I waited until it was officially 'Saturday' to post this as I figured if I updated the blog twice in one day people's heads might explode from shock. This is a typical 'Friday' Ask Rizen post with all of the questions having been submitted from users over at PokerNations. There is a running thread with submissions that can be found here and as always please feel free to use the form on here or e-mail rizen@lockpoker.com with subject line 'Ask Rizen' and I will feature them in a future segment. On to the questions!

Q: Online sng's seem to have increased significantly in difficulty over the past year or two.

Do you believe this is a related more to

1. the UIGEA thinning many of the fish from the online ranks (i.e. they're less informed about the legality of the situation)

2. the expansion of player knowledge on game theory and sng strategy

3. the global economic situation pushing out more recreational fish and leaving behind more hardened grinders

A: Can I say all of the above??? Quite honestly in the case of SnGs I actually think #2 is the biggest reason, but certainly #s 1 and 3 have had a significant impact. The fact is though, SnGs, particularly the turbo variety, are more or less 'solved' and players of high skill levels have VERY small edges over one another given the flat payout structure and the escalating blinds. There are certainly still players who make very good money playing SnGs but I think there are much easier paths to profit at this point in time.

Q: I read in a poker mag that some players are now looking at early stages in a mtt torney ie first 5 blind levels to get chipped up rather than keep the tight image, and risk it all at later stages of a tourney do you think this is true or would you advise sitting back until you can assess the table and your opponents

A: I think a lot of this really depends on where your individual strengths and weaknesses lie. Most players who advocate for playing very actively in the early stages of a tournament use the argument that you want to get the chips from the bad players before they bust out and you have to try and take them away from the better players that presumably are the ones that pick up these chips.

Players who advocate the tighter, more 'Harrington-esque' approach use the argument that if you have a significant skill advantage, going broke during the early stages of a tournament is catastrophic and you are better off building a tight image and waiting until the blinds/pots become more significant to pounce.

I often choose my approach based on the table I am at and the overall difficulty of the tournament. In tougher tournaments where my edge is presumably smaller and there are fewer bad players, I will often go out of my way to play pots with the poorer players early on, even if this adds significant risk to me busting out the tournament. For example, if I'm playing a $5k buy in at the WSOP the fields are usually tough and usually only a couple of bad players are at any given table. Taking a little extra risk and trying to accumulate chips from the poor players before they give them to someone else takes on more importance there IMO.

On the other hand, in softer tournaments (like the mian event) there are an abundance of poor players, and passing on early opportunities rarely costs you too much, particularly if they are thin, as there are almost always 3-4 (or more) poor players from whom you should be able to accumulate chips from at any given point in the tournament.

I guess to summarize I don't really believe either approach is 'better' than the other, but that it comes down to the individual style of the player. Some players play better with big stacks, other know how to work a short stack extremely well. Play to your individual strengths as well as your given table's weaknesses and don't force any one given strategy. There are many paths to success in poker, and often times your ability to implement a given strategy can be more important than the strategy itself.

Q: Raise or Call?

Your stack 62k Opponent: Dave "the DevilFish" Ulliott 48k (Crafty, Dangerous, Explosive...I mean he's the Devil)

Blinds: 200-400 50 ante

Position: Your in the HI-Jack Fish is in the BB.

Situation you've put you've elected to put yourself in: Your Hand: 8/6 of spades.
Established a strong image and now looking to exploit and begin dominating the table. You raise 1100 and BB calls. The flop falls 5/6/7 one spade. The fish leads for 2k. Do you call or raise in this spot?

A: I've only played with 'DevilFish' once in my life, so I'm making a few assumptions about his play from limited experience and what I've heard. If it's a full 9 handed table we have a 2850 pot at this point and he's leading for 2k into us when we raised pre-flop. I think at this point his range can be pretty wide. This probably looks like it is a very bad flop for our range. Even if we have an over pair we can't stand a lot of heat on this board. So he could be completely bluffing. He also could be leading as a semi-bluff with a dry 8 or even 4. I also think he can have a lot of two pair (and perhaps even set) type hands in his range here. I also think 'DevilFish' is perfectly capable of leading a straight here. That's a pretty wide range of hands, and with the exception of 98 we have a hand that could be ahead, and is pretty live when we're behind. I'm also assuming that the board is rainbow and not two tone since you specified one spade.

I'm not really looking to raise here very often since we have a decent hand with a decent draw. I'm pretty content keeping the pot relatively small and playing position with a hand that may be the best against this sort of player. I'm definitely never folding here, particularly against a known aggressive/tricky player who could have a wide range here.

Q: Second question:

If you call: The turn brings an off-suit 8 but your opponent in less then 2 seconds leads again for 5k not even considering. Do you simply fold, call or raise in this spot?

A: The pot size at this point should be 6850. If we consider the range we give him from the previous street (bluffs, two pairs, sets, dry 8s, dry 4s, and made straights) as well as how quickly he acted, I actually believe that this may be a good raising opportunity. While it's possible a crafty player such as 'DevilFish' can act this quickly when he has a 9 or T9 here, most players, even good ones, would hesitate a little trying to figure out how much to bet if the 8 was really a good card for them. Most of the hands in his range don't include 9s, and even if he has a 4 it's going to be VERY difficult for him to call a raise here. The only argument I can make against raising here is that we do have two pair, which is ahead of a significant part of his range, and if we flat call we could potentially induce another bluff out of him on the river.

That being said, I think this is a situation that given the pot size (11,850 after his 5k, he should have roughly 40k behind) that just taking this pot down now is beneficial, plus we can often make him fold better hands than ours here (dry 4s, 87, 55, 66) that we can't beat in a showdown. We could easily have played 99/98s/T9s this way so I think if we raise here, especially given the strong image we've established, that we're very unlikely to get re-raised on this turn by anything less than a 9, although you can't count it completely out against 'DevilFish'. I really like raising here as I feel it prevents us from having to make potentially difficult river decisions in a fairly inflated pot (if we call here pot should be 16,850, if the river is a brick an dhe bets ~12k it's a pretty disgusting spot for us), plus we get the added benefit of folding out a lot of hands we can't beat in a showdown here. I probably raise it to 15-17k and fold if he shoves.

Q: Third question:

If you elect to call again on the turn. The river brings an off-suit King and your opponent leads for 6k and the pot is over 20k. Call, fold or raise?

A: Unless my math is off the pot shouldn't be any larger than 16,850 at a 9 handed table or 17k at a 10 handed table. Part of the reason I don't like calling on the turn is because of how difficult this decision becomes. Once he three barrels his range should be pretty polarized to straights and bluffs. I suppose it's possible he's betting random two pairs and sets here, but I think most of the time he either has nothing and can't win the pot any other way or has a straight of some sort. If the pot is ~17k and he's betting 6k we're getting 23k:6k or roughly 4:1 on a call here, and he has to be bluffing over 20% of the time here to make calling profitable. If my math is wrong and it is over 20k here then the % of time he needs to be bluffing goes down here.

I almost want to say I really feel like he has a 4 or air here a lot as he seems to be trying to set you up to make a crying call with a set or something. Given that you called the flop/turn (although I don't know how much you deliberated on those decisions) I don't think it's super likely he thinks your folding here, but he doesn't have to be bluffing very often here to make calling profitable. My initial inclination is to fold here, but I think it's pretty close and isn't a huge mistake either way. Without knowing more about how 'DevilFish' players I think if he really wanted us to fold here he would probably bet a little more (although that's precisely why it may be a great bluff) on this board.

-Rizen