Rounders, Inc.

A good friend of mine emailed me information on a hand he was in and asked how I would have played it.

He is a very solid player and could easily promote himself to the Rounder category of card player. (He does not need the money and plays mostly for fun)

Here is what he wrote:

I have my $300 buy-in in front of me. The table is wild with bluffs and big bets.

The guy to my right bets $10 preflop and I CORRECTLY put him on A-K.

I have 7-4 suited and there are 5 players to the flop.

The flop is K-7-4 rainbow.

The A-K bets $20 into a $50 pot.

I’m next to act and raise to $80 to get rid of everybody else.

Everyone folds except the original bettor. He re-raises me $100.

I do not put him on K-K for top set. He would have bet harder preflop with that hand. I go back to my original read of A-K.

I push all in.

He calls and shows A-K and sighs when he sees my two pair.

The turn is a deuce.

He hits an Ace on the river.

I read everything right, got all my money in being a 4-to-1 favorite and lost.

How would you have played it?

In short, you got unlucky.

That said, here are my thoughts:

The wild nature of the table was not a factor here. You were dealing with a below average player, at best, that was obsessed with A-K.

Why do I say that? With your strong table image and you playing back at me on the flop, I would have given you credit for at least two pair or a set.

You are not the K-7 or K-4 kind of guy. So, I would have played it safe and put you on a set of 4s or set of 7s. My A-K would have been in the muck.

I would have played it the same. You got unlucky.

But, I probably would not have played 7-4 suited in early position (or any position) with a wild table like that.

If I was feeling frisky AND was playing with their money and not my original buy-in, I may have played the hand.

The problem with having suited connectors with one or two in the gut is they are not profitable hands over the long run. With two in the gut, you can hit only one nut straight.

Compare that to a J-10 where you can hit five straights and four of them are the nuts.

When I am at a table with bad players, the range of hands I normally play gets reduced by 67%.

If the table of bad players is a wild one, I reduce it again by 67%.

This translates into playing 8-8 or better and J-10 suited or better from late position.

I cannot recall the last time my bottom two pair held up when someone flopped top pair. Bottom two is a dangerous hand. If the board pairs or they hit their other hole card, it all over baby.

Until recently, I took refuge with the fact that I put the money in good and could only be beat with pure luck.

How many times does one have to get unlucky with less than premium hands against bad players?

That experience forced me to tighten up my game.

And even then, luck is a factor.

Just like when I was at a wild table of bad players and got it in good on the flop with A-A and got beat by a player under the gun that called $100 preflop in a $1-$2 game with J-8 offsuit to protect their $10 straddle.

Most players have tells.

Rounders work hard to remove their tells.

I work hard to have no facial expression during a hand.

Although I have a few “poses”, my head, upper body, arms, and legs remain still during the hand.

Timing is key too. I take the same amount of time to look at my cards and bet. I can always tell when a player has a pocket pair versus two random cards based on how much time it takes them to look at the hand. Pocket pairs take a fraction of a second. Random cards takes a couple seconds. For me, it is always the same.

That said, I am in a hand with a player that impresses me to be an occasional player - a business guy skipping work. One that watches too much poker on television.

He raises from early position. I am guessing he has any Ace or any King. Some bullshit garbage hand he thinks is good simply because he has an Ace or King.

I am next to act and call with 10-9 clubs. Yeah, not great, but I know it is more flexible than his hand. I also know we will likely be heads up or three-way going to the flop.

Why is it more flexible? It is easier for me to hit a straight or flush than him. Bottom line is I like my hand better than his even though mathematically, he has a stronger starting hand.

The flop comes 10s-9s-4h.

My opponent seems to like the flop and bets the pot.

I now put him on a hand like A-10, A-9, K-10, or K-9.

I am not fond of the flush draw. But I am more concerned about him drawing to an Ace or King.

“I raise. Hundo mo,” I say as I push out a stack of red chips.

Now, I am in seat 8 with my head pointed toward seat 1. My opponent is in seat 7. My head never moves, but I can see him out of my peripherial vision.

He is staring me down. This goes on for a good minute or two.

I get tired of waiting.

I slowly turn my head so we are now face to face.

“Sir, the action is on you,” I say.

He stares at me. He is trying to get a tell and intimidate me with his stare down. This player, like most, will come up short here. I have played poker with mafia guys, drug dealers, pimps, and other hardcore badass types. When you sit down with that crowd and survive, nothing intimidates you at the table.

“Are you looking for a tell?” I ask.

“I think I have the best hand right now, but I am not sure,” he says.

“Here are two tells for you,” I begin. “Let me tell you what you are holding. I think you have K-10 or maybe A-10.”

His stare turns to a look of confusion.

“I can tell you how many chips I have behind. I have another $455.”

At this point, I stare him down. We are as close to nose-to-nose as you can get.

Inside, I am giggling to myself because my sunglasses have mirror lenses. He is really staring at himself. You know, like the young guns do in the mirror as they are practicing their “I am all-in” speech.

Another minute passes.

I finally tell him I flopped top two pair and I don’t want him drawing out on me.

As always, I offer to show either way.

He folds and and shows K-10 off.

“Nice laydown, Sir,” I say as I show my hand as promised.

So, you want to play poker like a pro?

In my mind, one can play profitably but not play like a pro.

What does it take to play like a pro?

Two key ingredients that you have to be born with are the ability to accurately read other players’ hands and heart.

Reading hands blind is 80% of my game. You either have it or you don’t. Most don’t.

Having the heart … the killer instinct to push all the chips in the middle is crucial to playing like a pro.

I remember a recent game where the board had Broadway on it. No flush or anything like that. One player in early position bet the river hard. Everyone folded to me. I insta-called because the board played and we chopped.

The other six players who folded did not have the heart to call even though they knew it was a chop. The board had the stone cold nuts, yet no one had the balls.

The biggest mistake I see players make is they are focused on the cards and not the players.

Cards in this game are secondary. Poker is an information game.

How can you get information if you are looking at your hole cards as soon as they come out?

You need to look at the players looking at their cards. Check your hole cards ONLY when it is YOUR turn to act.

Same goes for when the flop comes out.

DO NOT look at the flop first.

Watch the other players reacting to the flop.

Then, when it is YOUR turn to act, look at the flop and make your decision to bet / call, raise, or fold.

Waiting to look at the cards should come as naturally as breathing. Make it an instinct. It should become second nature.

Speaking of breathing, you also need to train your body to maintain a constant breathing pattern and heartbeat.

Whether I have A-A or 9-2, my heart rate stays at 60 beats per minute. And my breathing never changes.

This makes it hard for others to read you.

This will give you a good start to becoming a pro player.

I have played my last hand of poker. It is time to find a new source of income.

One without extreme disappointment and longshot odds.

What is driving this?

In addition to me being generally tired of playing with bad players, drunks, and scumbags?

I have taken some brutal bad beats lately. Especially yesterday.

I lose to the worst players and they give the money away almost as fast as they win it.

And they win by sheer dumb luck.

Tournaments. Cash games. It is all the same. The only thing these players know is they have a better chance of winning on a 989-to-1 runner-runner longshot than they do at playing slots. So they play poker.

The sickening thing for me is I played a perfect game yesterday for 10 hours. Not a single mistake.

Every read was accurate.

Hell, I even laid down A-A on the flop when I felt another player flopped a set of 4s.

Yet, it was a losing session.

I had 7 runner-runner longshot bad beat hands in a row.

Seven.

No one takes extreme bad beats like that on seven consecutive hands.

One could argue variance and cluster.

I argue curse.

The only reasonable answer is this: I am the unluckiest person in poker.

If Gus Hansen can give up poker, then I can too.

Seat open.

You can tell how a person plays cards by the way they tip (or don’t tip) the dealers.

Players in the casino for the first time generally do not tip the dealers at all.

Drunks and donkeys tend to tip too much.

Grinders and rounders tend to tip the right amount.

So, the question is how much to tip and why.

The first thing I do when I am in a poker room for the first time is find out their rules and procedures. I ask floor management a bunch of questions. I want to know what goes and what does not.

I find out if the dealers pool their tips or keep the tokes they earn themselves.

Most card rooms force the dealers to pool tips.

I am bit more stingy in the pooled version. This is because some dealers are better than others.

And some are just plain awful.

A competent dealer can deal at least 30 hands an hour with no misdeals, is friendly, and has complete control over the action at the table.

My guideline for tipping competent dealers is simple: the tip amount is equal to the small blind.

If the dealer is better than competent and keeps their own tips, then I will tip an amount equal to the big blind. This is the exception.

In a $1-$2 game at 30 hands an hour, the dealer is making $30 an hour in tips, or over 3X their base salary. That is fair.

Plus, if you are playing for money and not the thrill of victory, you are already losing $5 a pot to the rake and bad beat jackpot. It is hard enough to beat the rake let alone bleed off chips to excessive tipping.

Keep the tips limited to the small blind amount - big blind max.

If you are a regular player at a poker room, and want to do more, then do what I do: Give the dealer a Christmas card with a cash gift at the end of the year (assuming the year was profitable).

When you play poker in a casino, you need to know the rules.

The House Rules are posted in plain view.

Read them before you play in a card room for the first time. It will save you money and heartache.

This week alone, I saw four blunders that cost each player involved their hard earned money.

Rules vary from casino to casino. What is acceptable in one is forbidden in another.

Here is what happened this week:

Monday

A player is first to act in three-way action. He bets $100 after the flop and shows one card.

The dealer scoops the $100 into the pot and mucks the player’s hand.

The remaining two players did not have to act on the bet.

The rule is, to avoid collusion, cards cannot be exposed in multi-way action.

When you do this, you just declared your hand dead.

Tuesday

A player sitting across from the dealer did not protect his cards by placing a chip on top.

One of the first rules in any card room is it is the PLAYER’S RESPONSIBILITY to PROTECT their hand at ALL times.

Long story short, this player did not protect his hand, and after investing $300 in a hand by the turn, the dealer thought he was folding on the river and took his cards. Once they hit the muck, it is a dead hand.

He claims to of had A-A, which would have been the winning hand.

Instead of taking a $1000 pot home, he took the bus home.

Wednesday

This scenario happened twice on this day: A player checks the winning hand on the river, declares what he has, and I show the losing hand.

The player then mucks his hand and waits for the pot.

Since he mucked and I showed, I win the pot.

Hee haw.

Thursday

A player was on his cell phone when the cards came out.

The dealer warned him twice to get off the phone.

This player had A-A and ignored the dealer.

The dealer waited a good 30 seconds to deal the flop.

Floor management happened to be standing at the table.

The dealer had no choice but to warn the player a third time and deal the flop.

Once the flop hit, the player bet $100.

Instead of getting off his phone, he got off the hand.

The dealer grabbed his cards and mucked them.

The cards and the money were gone in a flash.

Know the rules.

Play poker long enough, and you experience just about everything.

The card that is not in the deck, but is in every cardroom is the Queen of Drama. I saw:

• physical fights break out at the table;
• a couple break up because a boyfriend sucked out with a one-outer and took the pot from his girlfriend;
• a dealer get shot;
• neverending speeches by losing players that played a hand wrong;
• people become friends, then enemies over the emotion of the game.

I am generally social at the table trying to help people feel happy about giving me their money at the table.

At times, this has crossed into conversation of a personal nature. Boy, was I wrong in not keeping things at arm’s length. Getting personal can and will backfire.

Next time, I will make the Queen of Drama my burn card.

No, this is not another post on how I lost to donkeys blessed with exceptionally good luck on the river to overcome 19-to-1 longshots.

I was in a tournament yesterday (I rarely play tournaments) and was sitting next to a solid player that was about tied with me for chip leader.

He goes all-in.

I am out of the hand and wished him good luck.

This player sat on my right and was heads-up on the flop with someone on my left.

“HE is the one that needs the luck!” this player forcefully said. “He has 14 outs and 12 nervous twitches!”

I could not help but laugh.

I thought the speech was brilliant.

This sign of strength got his opponent to fold what was probably the best hand.

I do a self-assessment of my play after every session. It seems like once a week, I simply end up playing poorly by the end of the night / morning.

The common denominator is fatigue.

Fatigue is my number one enemy on a losing session.

Why? It is simple. Fatigue affects your judgment, which, in turn, affects the quality of hands you play and the accuracy of your reads.

Fatigue also affects your aggressiveness. People become passive when they are tired.

Before you know it, you start bleeding off chips on trash hands. Then, you begin to chase cards in an attempt to regain your stack - the stack that was built when fatigue was not a factor.

Do yourself a favor and stop playing when you begin to feel tired.

There are a few casinos around the country where I regularly play Hold ‘Em. I know the grinders at these card rooms.

Two of the biggest rooms I play at are at MotorCity Casino in Detroit, Michigan and Ameristar in Black Hawk, Colorado.

I have to admit, I do not remember the hundreds of people I see each week in the card room who are not regular players.

No matter where I play, I frequently get someone who will walk up to me while outside on a smoke break that mentions they played with me and describe a hand to jog my ever-increasing short memory.

There is a twist to this last night that made me feel good.

I am standing outside Ameristar Black Hawk. Elevation 8050 feet.

A young attractive woman approaches me and says, “Are you from Detroit?”

“Originally.” I reply.

“Is your name Sammy?”

“Yes.” I am mildly concerned now.

“I watched you play at MotorCity Casino a few months ago.” she says.

“A few months ago? Damn, you have a good memory.” I reply.

“The hand you were in was amazing. How could I forget?” she continues.

“I am easily forgettable after 3 seconds. You remembered me from across the country three months later?” I say.

She laughs and begins to describe the hand, “You were in a short-handed 200-500 game with some real donkeys.”

A by-stander listening in pipes up and asks, “200-500?”

“The buy-in”, I reply, “It was a no-limit game with 2-5 blinds.”

She continues, “It was the hand where you broke the game.”

“I remember the hand, but I am sorry, I do not remember you at the table.”

“I was at the next table over and saw what happened.” she says.

“I got lucky. Are you vacationing here in Colorado?”

“No, I live here but am originally from Detroit.”

The by-stander asks what happened in the hand. The lady tells the story:

“The player under the gun raises to $100 pre-flop. The next player raises to $200. The player after him re-raises to $500. Sammy here is on the button with a mountain of chips and calls. The small blind and big blind each call.” she says.

She continues, “The flop comes J-3-3. All players ahead of Sammy go all-in. Sammy sat there cool as ice and just calls. I figured him for aces.”

The by-stander is now eager to hear how this turns out.

“There had to be, what, over $7,000 in that pot. Anyways, the small blind had K-Q offsuit. The big blind had A-10 hearts. The original raiser had K-K. The player two off the big blind had Q-Q. The next player had J-J.”

“The turn card was an Ace. The river was a 10.”

The bystander says, “So, if I follow you, everyone thought they were good. You had a straight, two pair with an ace, kings up, queens up, and a full house. What did you have Sammy?”

“Sammy flopped quads. He took all the money on the table and broke the game.”

I still can’t get over the fact that this person spotted me. Very flattering. Makes me feel good.