Poker Peeves

[JuddsABlue]

Had a guy yesterday who I hate playing with, this guy ticks all of my boxes in things that annoy me at the poker table

Firstly, (and for whatever reason I'm not sure why it annoys me so much), he instantly projects the strength of his hand. If its crap he mucks, if its medium he thinks and if its strong he instantly says "I raise" or "I reraise" etc annoyingly loud, then looks at his chips for about 30 seconds before choosing an amount. Hes completely oblivious to the world around him and the fact what he does projects an image of either strength or weakness.
This is an angle shoot btw, you cant say raise then think about your raise size because during the time youre thinking you can get a read on your opponent (for example if you're raising as a bluff, say "raise" then tank, a bad player may instantly go all in and you can say you were raising the minimum, or you can get a read on him like him grabbing his stack ready to shove it in you can also raise lower etc)

Secondly, he sweats everything to the extreme. He had an allin situation where he spiked the river, and he jumped in the air, throwing his hands up victoriously and screamed "YES!!". Then sat back down and didnt say another word. Then afterwards, he has a shortstack all in and hes behind but catches up on the flop but the board runs out all spades for a chop and he lets out the biggest "OAHHH!!" at the river and shakes his head furiously, which brings me to my last point

Thirdly, He completely ignores the fact he may have been ahead or behind at some point. If hes all in and behind and catches up but gets resucked on hes furious and thinks hes the unluckiest player ever. If hes all in and behind and catches up, skill game baby.

And lastly, which ties in with twarps post, his raise sizing is completely ****ed. Early on he was usually 10xing it pre, then would do a random spazz and 25x it (unopened etc, not 3betting) then all of a sudden started 3xing it for a while, then a random 8x. Havent been able to determine what he has because his big raises ime have never gotten to showdown, never gets any action

So yeah, hes one of those guys I love to hate. I obviously like that hes like this because its entertaining and hes bad at the game, but something deep in my core turns red whenever I'm around him, its very strange.

 

[TRAWP]

Big difference if its 65 all in,or 65 with say 200 behind.

If, as is standard with 1/3 everyone's limped and I look down at ak or pocket 10s. I'm all in for 65.

Well it wasn't an all-in for $65, he had probably another $80-120 behind. Even in the case you said with 10's or AK I dont think I'd go all-in for $65 and be the one putting it out there as I dont think anyone's going to call unless they're in front of you and the best you'll win is blinds?

 

[TRAWP]

So yeah, hes one of those guys I love to hate. I obviously like that hes like this because its entertaining and hes bad at the game, but something deep in my core turns red whenever I'm around him, its very strange.

Oh I know what you mean, you get a lot of those types at the Pub Poker events. All thoughts of bluffing them off a small pair should go out the window, even if the board has a possible straight flush on it.

 

[JuddsABlue]

Well it wasn't an all-in for $65, he had probably another $80-120 behind. Even in the case you said with 10's or AK I dont think I'd go all-in for $65 and be the one putting it out there as I dont think anyone's going to call unless they're in front of you and the best you'll win is blinds?

You'll win the blinds and the limpers as well, seems like an easy way to win another $15 or so. Also you'll be surprised at how often people will call with worse hands

 

[TRAWP]

You'll win the blinds and the limpers as well, seems like an easy way to win another $15 or so. Also you'll be surprised at how often people will call with worse hands

Hmm might be just me then I suppose, anytime I've made a play pre flop with mid pockets everyone will fold and I'll win the $7 worth of blinds. Or I'll be called with J's or better.

 

[checkraiseulite]

So what you raise to $15 with ak, get two or three callers and the flop comes down 8s9s10x. You're first to act with $50 behind...

 

[TRAWP]

So what you raise to $15 with ak, get two or three callers and the flop comes down 8s9s10x. You're first to act with $50 behind...

I'd rather be $50 behind than $65 in the pot and chasing cards to be honest, only time I'd ever shove all in with that if I was second last to last to act. Always can get out of there with chips in front of you.

 

[checkraiseulite]

If someone is calling $65 preflop and hitting that board, it's profitable to get it all in preflop?

 

[TRAWP]

If someone is calling $65 preflop and hitting that board, it's profitable to get it all in preflop?

Its profitable mostly as anyone going allin with JQ or 8,9,10 will lose most time in an allin. But still I rather possess the ability to get out of there instead of hoping not to be lucked out.

 

[checkraiseulite]

If you're sweating losing 65 when you're getting it in ahead perhaps you shouldn't be playing poker.

 

[TRAWP]

If you're sweating losing 65 when you're getting it in ahead perhaps you shouldn't be playing poker.

It's not the fact of losing 65, cash games is about skill. I dont believe going all-in preflop in them unless you're calling with the nuts. Tournaments, yep thats what tournaments require. No requirement to do so in cash game. Just dumb poker in my mind.

 

[checkraiseulite]

Lawl now you're just trolling.

Cash games are about adapting your game to exploit other players.

Some times you're calling it off for 100bbs with a10o and sometimes your folding kk preflop.

Having stupid rules like never calling aipf without aa is jut asking to be exploited.

There is no skill in waiting for aces and winning $12.

 

[JuddsABlue]

It's not the fact of losing 65,

cash games is about skill.

I dont believe going all-in preflop in them unless you're calling with the nuts.

Tournaments, yep thats what tournaments require. No requirement to do so in cash game. Just dumb poker in my mind.

You're contradicting yourself. The "skill" in poker is having a collective knowledge about many aspects of the game, maths and equity being one of them, a very important one of them. If you define the 'skill' in poker as being able to solely fold strong hands postflop and preflop then you're going to have massive leaks in other aspects of your game that cost you more money than you'll make by making folds postflop

AK isnt a hand where you need to "chase cards" as you described it in order to win the hand. It has roughly 48%~ equity against all pairs from QQ down, it has really strong equity against Ax hands, including AQ/AJ/AT, the same going with Kx hands like KQ and KJ, it also is leading significantly over all other hands like JT/QT that people like to gamble with.

The only hand AK is at a major disadvantage against is AA (which you usually wont find hidden within a bunch of limpers at 1/3, and the odds of somebody else waking up with AA after you that hasnt acted yet is considerably small because you have an Ace blocker leaving only 3 left in the deck). The second worst case scenario for you is KK which you still have 27% equity with.

Overall, against the range of hands people are going to limp/call with in a 1/3 game AK has crashed and you wont go broke moving all in with it. The board is going to run out all different types of ways, sometimes you'll win with Ace high, sometimes you'll win with a pair on the river, sometimes you'll lose to a hand you have beaten. All of these boards and the chances of them running out are distributed in the equity of your hand. You cant hide from those. If you are getting it in as a favourite, you'll be making money over the long term.

You will go broke if you raise and fold every time you dont find an ace or kind on the flop. Doing this isnt the representation of a skilled player.

Tournaments, yep thats what tournaments require. No requirement to do so in cash game. Just dumb poker in my mind.

This is a pretty ludacris statement and bluntly it is wrong. Many things are different in a tournament, but for the most part the game doesnt change.

Hand values dont change, Aces is still favourite against Kings. The only change in how you should play with your equity is considering ICM when on final tables etc, and this requires an even greater skill as its not something cash players need to learn and is extremely difficult to calculate in real time.

Aside form that, the play and bet sizing in tournaments is usually quite different from cash games, however skills like hand reading and the maths dont change.

At time tournaments will come to an end because of a flip, however when somebody moves in with pocket 88s preflop hes not doing it because its a -EV move. Even though he might not win, hes always still making profitable plays that unskilled players wont make.

When bad players make mistakes in tournaments they hand money to people making less/no mistakes and over the course of many tournaments its reflected in the profit and loss of those players

 

[TRAWP]

All I'm trying to say is putting it all in with Aces pre flop may allow you one caller. Putting it in for a decent value, you may get 1-2 callers. Obviously in a hand you want the least amount of callers as possible but at the same time you want max value out of your Premium hands.

I'd rather extract good value out of a hand where I can get it all out of two people.

 

[JuddsABlue]

All I'm trying to say is putting it all in with Aces pre flop may allow you one caller. Putting it in for a decent value, you may get 1-2 callers. Obviously in a hand you want the least amount of callers as possible but at the same time you want max value out of your Premium hands.

I'd rather extract good value out of a hand where I can get it all out of two people.

You're getting mixed up. Technically if I have aces and I go allin I want everybody to call, because I have the best hand and will be making the most money. In a 9handed table if we are all all-in for $100, creating a $900 pot, I need to be more than a $11% favourite to be making money, which with Aces you are, so its a great result for you.

When you're going heads up, you'll see more wins but you'll be winning smaller pots etc.

The only time I want the least amount of callers is when I have a bad hand and am bluffing

Max value and least amount of callers cant be done at the same time when you have the best hand, if you want max value then you'll need max callers

 

[JuddsABlue]

I get that players want a 'balance'. For example winning a decent amount of money with a lower risk of ruin, and the more players are in a hand the less likely you are to win it, however you're still getting a profitable price and making money

In the short term variance of live poker it can be hard to realise, but theres no refuting the maths behind poker

 

[TRAWP]

I get that players want a 'balance'. For example winning a decent amount of money with a lower risk of ruin, and the more players are in a hand the less likely you are to win it, however you're still getting a profitable price and making money

In the short term variance of live poker it can be hard to realise, but theres no refuting the maths behind poker

You've actually opened my eyes to a few off my discrepancies with your last two posts. I can see where you're coming from mathematically its a good process to go with, might have to start reassessing my ways off going about Premium hands.

 

[JuddsABlue]

You've actually opened my eyes to a few off my discrepancies with your last two posts. I can see where you're coming from mathematically its a good process to go with, might have to start reassessing my ways off going about Premium hands.

Jason Koon said if you dont think you were a fish 6 months ago then you're not working hard enough

With poker being an unsolved game there is always an area a player can improve on

 

[ashley12]

Words cant describe exactly how bad I used to be even 12 months ago with regards to making some really elementary mistakes.

One thing I will say however, is that you have to broaden your thinking, and remember that poker has a lot of elements of a paper, rock, scissors game, in that if you can pin point some thing that your opponent is doing, you can do something to counter their moves.

For example, your opponent always bets when you check to them. You can counter by checking with your strong hands and raising him, rather then just betting ourselves. As well as that, if we are getting upset that every time we raise with a strong hand everyone folds, we can add some bad hands and bluffs to the hands we raise with, and take advantage of them folding a lot. And on the opposite side of that, if we are upset that people keep calling our bluffs, we can decide to slow down our bluffing and bet mainly strong hands.

Generally speaking, if we can identify what our opponents are doing, we can change our game to take advantage of their mistakes.

Now, if we are playing sauce123 heads up, and he is perfectly balanced in every spot and we have no idea why we are continually getting destroyed then its a good time to quit.

 

[MrKK]

This is a home-game pet peeve: people who deal out the board face down at the beggining of the hand (after dealing the players' cards). I find quite a lot of sloppy etiquette somewhat annoying but this in particular just tilts the hell out of me.
An open invitation for cheating if you have marked or damaged cards and greatly increases the chances of prematurely dealing a street and having to deal with the fallout from that.

 

[MrKK]

Oh, I'd also like to bake people who rearrange the board after dealing the river - makes it difficult to remember the preceding action when you have a river decision.

 

[checkraiseulite]

What do you mean rearrange the board? Don't think I've ever seen this whilst a hand is in play...

 

[Goodo73]

This is a home-game pet peeve: people who deal out the board face down at the beggining of the hand (after dealing the players' cards). I find quite a lot of sloppy etiquette somewhat annoying but this in particular just tilts the hell out of me.

Lucky you don't come to the home game I play with guys at work. That happens a lot, among other things. LOL.

Thankfully our stakes are low and we're mostly playing for sh*ts and giggles.

 

[MrKK]

What do you mean rearrange the board? Don't think I've ever seen this whilst a hand is in play...

I mean that after they deal the river they change the order of the cards - put them in ascending order or whatever dumbarse idea they have in their mind at the time. Or they deal the river at the opposite end of the board to the turn. So the end result is that the board cards are the same but it's no longer possible to tell which cards were flop, turn and river.

 

[checkraiseulite]

Ah ok. I'm assuming this happens in home games then. Can definitely see how it could affect action and it would definitely piss me off!