DJ,

Do you call a 2/3rd pot river bet with that Q8ss hand?

Good TR!

Haha, I read that exact same thing (about ppl tending to only play big hands after getting food cause obv they're hungry and wanna eat) somewhere, either on this site or in Caro's book of tells which I browsed through once.

Kind of a funny situation but there's not a lot you can do to act like you aren't hungry The vast majority of the time though, people won't have food or other distractions in front of them and you'll just be reading body language, which isn't entirely as reliable. Kinda like how it isn't a huge mistake to misplay a royal flush because you'll only encounter that spot once every 30,000 hands or something like that so what you do doens't affect your long-term EV much. I don't doubt what you say about physical tells being revealing at a live poker table, but having logged quite a few hours at live tables (possibly more than DJ though obviously nowhere near as many as a live pro) I don't think those kinds of reading skills are more valuable than being able to interpret betting patterns, which don't lie. Playing 2/3/5 at LC on Saturday I folded 33 on a 5 3 2 J board and the dude showed me A4. I don't have any talent in knowing what his body language meant (if anything he seemed to be squirming a little which I interpreted as being weak, although I put little stock in any opinions I formulated based on his appearance), I was just fairly sure that he doesn't bet the way he did with a worse hand than mine.

I'd be interested as to what you'd think about the thread in NVG about Kenny Tran's comments of live vs online players - specifically what FoxwoodsFiend (very talented online player, think he plays up to 50/100 nl) said about how effective employing simple fake tells has been in his experience to counteract the natural tells he gives off as an online player.

It is indeed necessary to have the ego of a champ if you are going to sit down at the table. Otherwise, you are playing at a disadvantage.

I enjoy these trip reports from DJ Sensei as they are well written and entertaining. I thought that robfulop's appearance in the thread was interesting as it confirms how 2+2 has become known to the world at large.

It sounds like DJ tipped off robfulop to his posting, which I would not do at an initial meeting like that. Perhaps later on, but why give up any information that you don't have to?

DJ is probably one of the nicest hsnl players i've ever met. in fact...many of the hsnl "internet kids" are all pretty solid guys. while many of us are cocky as hell, myself included, Dan is probably the most humble out of all of us.

that's all i wanna say i dont really wanna get to involved cuz it's not really my problem and both rob and dan were two of the nicer people playing at the table.

DJ is a very respected poster not only because of his insight but also because he is overall just a very solid likeable guy. just dont check on the river with 2pairsss vs me next time k thanks, a$$hole

-ktc


BTW, that hand where the stanford kid flopped the joint wasnt me right. cuz if it was i dont remember this hand lol.

I don't want to sound like the standard arrogant online player, but when you say that one gets these spots "every six months," the average internet grinder gets into spots like this daily. The assumption that he needs the nuts to do this is a bit laughable; his range may be polarized, but I seriously doubt 100% of players (especially thinking players and proven winners) are only nut-peddling here.

Even assuming he has the nuts, what's your logic for the statement that the underbet/3bet is burning equity? I'm not saying you're wrong, as I obviously wasn't there, but what kind of range are you putting Marcus on? Perhaps the most equity was in taking a line that encouraged bluff raises and valueraises from marginal holdings (which would clearly not raise a psb anyway).

You don't seem to be thinking in terms of tailoring plays vs. ranges, which is one of the main differences between a live player and an online player. A live player will often rely on physical tells and other "spidey-senses" to figure out if they're "good" or not. As such, they develop these skills more than the internet player. However, playing online forces the internet player to compensate for the lack of tells by thinking in terms of hand ranges, then choosing their actions primarily based on that. Each style of reasoning is suited for their respective type of poker, but you have to take into account perspective before deciding "in the three times I've seen someone do this in my life, they had the nuts, so clearly he has the nuts."

Also assuming he was going for value here, what other play do you recommend? I'd be interested to see you put his opponent on a range of hands (perhaps aided by tells etc), then defend a specific plan for the river or betsize reliant on their probable responses. It sounds like you're spewing criticism based on your assumption that "he had the nuts because he made a play that people only make with the nuts, and thus he played his nuts badly," which is pretty clearly circular logic.

I'm holding As 10s in the CO .. I call an early min raise open ... and this kid also calls from the MB. Flop is 2h 5h 10h. Kid leads out for a flop size bet .. opener calls .. I can't muck my TPTK fast enough .. I mean . I don't even study for ONE SECOND ... my hand is instantly tossed .. zip .. there it goes. Because it was 100 percent obvious that the kid flopped the joint .. there was not one bit of doubt in my mind that he held a flush (turned out that it was the nuts !)



It amuses me a great deal that overcalling here would even be an option. Had you instafolded without the caller in between then I might be impressed.

As a 26 year old who has logged a large number of hours in both live and online settings, I just don't get it. Why is it that so many live players claim to be on this whole other amazing level that we just can't understand.

It's just ****ing poker for **** sake. Quit ****ing talking about your ****ing amazing ****ing live ****ing reads. I'm so ****ing sick of it.

Rob, I believe that you are likely a winner and have a decent edge in the games you play in, but coming on here and disrespecting DJ is both immature and rude. Don't you think it's a bit ****ing ironic that you decide to lash out at a person who has accomplished something you have not?

DJ, Thanks for the trip reports. Really enjoy them.

Rob,

I appreciate your thoughts in this thread. Thanks for contributing to the forums.

j3ka,

The discourse has been largely civil and productive on both sides. You are out of line.

It's cool that you want to defend DJ, but this is just laughable. 550bb river b3b scenarios might be more rare online than live given the shallow stacks we start with. The people who are dismissing Rob's thoughts out of hand are pretty close minded imo.

Yikes, you're right, I guess I should read the hand more carefully before I get all ranty. Didn't see (or remember, this late in the thread) exactly how deep they were. The rest of my post still applies, however. I don't think I'm being close-minded, I'm genuinely interested in his input and would appreciate it if he answered my question re: maximizing equity vs. opponent's range.

yea, i do.

the kinda funny thing about that hand is once the queen hit i was almost hoping for a non-spade, because i thought it'd be easier to deal with (well, if it came A i'd pretty much consider my hand the nuts, not K or any other though). I just don't think he's betting that big into my likely range of {some weak-ass hand} on a Ko river (that i almost certainly bricked) intending to valuebet me, and marcus is definitely capable of firing that third barrel if anybody is.

Rob I like your more recent posts in this a lot more than the first ones . I certainly am aware that my relative inexperience in live games should seem obvious to the seasoned veterans. What may not be as apparent is that i'm actively using that image to my benefit as often as I can. I still have things to learn in that regard, like everyone else. But I definitely have the capability to give off reverse tells, and have used them successfully on numerous occasions. I couldn't tell you how effective those plays were against the weak prey in the WSOP, heh.

Also, as regards my river b3b shove hand, I don't know that you're giving full consideration to the whole river action, just the final shove. I think that even if the level/sizing of my final raise was incorrect (and i can't admit that it was, in my opinion) my line as a whole is pretty great with a wide range of hands.

(Also, your free first lesson in internet poker is to stop thinking of your opponents specific hand and think of his entire range in that spot. its the only way to really achieve high levels of success when live tells and reads are not present, especially when the stack sizes are 100x bb or less)

Look, I'm sorry that my sarcastic retort occurs to those who worship at the Shrine Of Dan as disrespectful and immature and a "lash out". If you have a moment, maybe you should read his thoughtful and polite reply, before painting me as the disrespectful jealous donk that I truly must be for daring to suggest that Dan The Daring maybe has a few things to learn about a game he claims to be an expert at. I sat with the guy for a few hours, not a lot, but certainly enough to get the joke ... he plays live poker similar to the way he plays online poker .. this is hardly extraordinary given he's a highly skilled and well regarded player in this, his community. But his belief that such transforms him into some sort of live poker shark, capable of "stacking fools" at will ... and pretending to imply that he shows up one day .. buys deep .. and brags about his "big pot" with one of the top moneywinners in the game .. a breathtaking tale which ends with The Daring Dan 3betting the river all-in holding two napkins, is just so silly ... so ludicrous .. so totally absurd .. and to be honest .. so completely disrespectful of the game itself .. that I just had to comment.

Not for my own amusement .. but for the reason this forum exists. To educate, inform, and enlighten a community of people who to be better educated, better informed, and more enlightened about their favorite past time. Yeah, I did introduce myself to this forum with a bit of sarcasm .. such was a reaction to the "nobody can possibly be smarter than me' attitude evident in his posts. And I'm aware that with such an introduction, it may not be possible for people like you to accept what I have to offer ... since you feel somehow slighted, or insulted, by my chosen words. The reality is that I found Dan's post so funny, that I shared it with a few close friends who agreed that it was so absolutely adorable that I needed to reply. Is sharing the fact that the post was one of the funniest things I've read in a month somehow disrespectful? Is it rude to tell somebody how much you enjoyed their post? Because I really did enjoy it a lot. How is such rude?

If Dan is "capable" of playing a 500+ BB stack .. and getting into a situation where a pot was raised preflop, bet on the flop/turn .. and then he ends up 3betting the river all in without the #1 or #2 hand .. then so be it. I don't know the guy .. you do. But surely you can then send me a hand history of just such a play that he, or you, or ANYBODY in this community has made in the past year. Because I simply don't believe that such a hand exists, nor will I believe it until somebody shows me a hand history that proves me wrong.

The "training wheel" stack sizes online simply prohibit that sort of situation from occuring.. which is precisely why the online game has evolved the way it has over the course of the last four years. The online game is totally different ... the tools at your disposal are totally different .. the nature of the game is totally different .. the ONLY thing that online poker shares with it's brick and mortar equivalent is a set of rules .. little more. Sure, there are some transferable skills .. but the PRIMARY skills in each of these worlds remain worlds apart, as far as I can tell. An online player does not have his trusty little set of floating numbers hanging over my head ... and when I venture online .. I can't look at you when you shove after the third spade hits the river, possibly crushing my flopped top set. So when you come play in my game ... you are as hopeless at making skilled decisions .. as I am when I come online. Because the tools we both rely on to do our job are simply NOT AVAILABLE.

Re: range for Marcus in the pot. He can raise with napkins, with trips, with a full house, or quads here. Any are possible. If I am holding the first or second nuts like Dan was holding ... I'm not going to count on Marcus raising a dinky sucker bet an amount that is LARGER than a bet he will call in this spot. Because I know Marcus is only tossing away napkins here ... any other holding in his range .. and Marcus will very likely call a reasonable amount. The better his holding, the more he will call, obviously. But I don't know his holding. So I'd be a lot better if I bet too little, instead of betting too much ... since if I bet too much, I get nothing . I've overpriced my hand .. which is the most basic, the most fundamental, the most HORRID mistake to make when one is in that rare sweet spot of holding the goods in a big pot. To not get paid in such a spot .. is a financial disaster . since such spots are rare and hard to come by indeed. So I'm betting an amount that Marcus will call even if his hand is as weak as trips ... I'm going to the bottom of his calling range and selling my hand at the price he will call. If I'm wrong, and Marcus is sitting there with the 3rd nuts .. he will certainly "let me know" pretty quick ... and I'll soon be stacking ALL of his chips into pretty little pyramids of my own. I probably would make a 1.5 pot sized bet .. enough to make it look like it could be a bluff .. because given I know how much Marcus doesn't want to fold here .. he's got a good reason to call me even if he is holding bare trips here.

What Dan did instead, was grossly underbet .. a "sucker bet" if you will .. Marcus took the bait and raised .. and then Dan sprung the big trap and moved in. Such was a classic amateurish mistake .. nothing to get terribly defensive about .. again .. it's not like Dan wrote the book called "How to price the nuts on the river". So when he brags about the hand in his post, it's just plain goofy. What is he so proud of here? That he turned the nuts? Is such some sort of acheivement? Last I checked, turning the nuts is one of the more enjoyable aspects of the game, but I would never pat myself on the back for it .. especially if I throw away a huge moneymaking opportunity like this by overpricing the hand, and letting my opponent off the hook. When I make the overpricing error . which I do a lot less often than I did 10 years ago .. but still do sometimes .. when I make a big mistake that costs me thousands of dollars ... I'm quite a bit more reflective and thoughtful .. then I am proud and boastful. I don't know any other way of getting better.

I totally get the "range" concept .. what I don't have a lot of experience in is using the tools like PT and the gizmo that overlays the stats onto the heads effectively. I sort of get it, but I know that I don't get maximum benefit from those tools, which occur to me as "must have" at this point ... if you are using it, and the next guy is using it, then I must use it as well. I just don't really know how to use these tools .. and so given I can't see the villain's face when he shoves .. I'm sort of sitting there in the dark using pure game theory to help decide .. without a lot of stat backup .. such is basically resorting to "wild ass guessing" .. which is why I lose online, of course.

Re: reverse tells. Such can make a difference sometimes, but basically anything that you are "faking" ends up simply becoming an extension of the most basic tell of all at a poker table ... that of players acting weak when they are strong, and vica versa. So if the tell you are "reversing" is looking away from a flop when it hits you .. and instead you stare at flops that hit you hard ... that may work against some players .. but ONLY players who are looking for such tells and you have no idea if your recent wins against certain players were due to them picking up a fake tell .. or simply because you found yourself in a favorable situation against them. It's probably more likely to be the latter actually, since I really have no clue whatsoever is if even ONE of the many many "reverse tells" that I've cast off as an attempt to hypnotize and manipulate the villain into my bidding have ever been effective. All I know is there have been TONS of times when I find myself in some ridiculous spot that I have no business being in ... and I somehow convince myself that shoving is my only way "out" .. and obviously infinitely more desirable than tossing away my hand that has been soundly slapped for putting it into the cookie jar one too many times. And so I shove .. and then about 30 seconds later, the villain is staring me down, and counting and recounting his stack .. and I'm about to lose ALL of my chips for no good reason whatsoever other than my tendancy to sometimes get too caught up in an ego battle with the villain .. where I can't seem to be able to lay down on the flop out of foolish pride, but given i have no pair and no draw, calling the villian's oversized pot bet anyway .. convincing myself that 'floating' can actually be a profitable play in certain situations .. so maybe this particular situation qualifies. Oh, and btw, I did have position .. so that makes it double okay to float here. And at the moment I just KNOW he's gonna say "call" .. i I start sending out reverse tells like a MADMAN .. avoiding his stare down, not daring to lock eyes ... pretending to be mentally counting the pot and eyeing his chips and visualizing them stacked into all sorts of pretty pyramids .. etc. All the while I'm obviously praying inside "please fold, please fold, please please PLEASE fold" .. and then when he starts to speak .. I try to will him to toss away his hand instead. I've been there .. right in that spot .. more times than i can count .. and it just SUCKS so bad when they say "okay, call" ... and it feels SO GREAT when they toss their hand away ... and I honestly can't say for certainty that even ONE time, have any of my desperate and pathetic 'reverse tells' been recieved and decoded by the villain. Most of the time he folds, are probably times when he was sitting on napkins himself, and wants to save face .. thus all my fake tells were for naught.

But there are tells that simply cannot be reversed. One in particular is the difference between when you are holding the goods, and trying to figure out how much you stand to make in the next 20 seconds .. and the time when you are holding napkins .. and are trying to decide if the villain has the sort of hand that he'd be willing to call you if you shove. The internal process of these two situations are so extremely different .. that it's very hard to "fake" that you are trying to price your hand .. when actually you are trying to assess whether the villain checked to you to trap you . or because he's ready to muck the moment you reach for your chips. It's damn spooky to consider shoving a BIG number into a pot since you will be ever so sick when the villain snaps "CALL" before you even finish saying the words "all in". Nothing is a sicker feeling ... I feel like such a total bobo when I think and think .. and finally announce "okay, I'm all in" .. and the villain says "CALL" in the same instant. So before anybody makes that move, they have to THINK about it .. and that sort of thinking is VERY VERY different than what it feels like to be sitting their on the nuts ... where I am ever so comfy that I have the best hand .. and the ONLY thing I have to think about is the very lovely decision of just how yummy the nasty villains chips are going to taste .. and exactly HOW many of them do I want? I certainly would like ALL of them, but if I ask for too many .. he may give me NONE instead . and that sucks. So I gotta think about it .. which means I look at my chips a lot .. and mentally pretend I'm stacking the villain's chips into little pyramids, and castles and stuff ... until I figure out the number. There is a WORLD of difference between what a person looks like when thinking about what he should do here .. or thinking about how much he should bet here.

The other day, after Marcus raised, it occured to me that you were in the 'happy mode' .. where your only decision was how much to re-raise ... and then you spent 15 seconds trying to figure out the number. And the number was too big, so you lost your customer. That was a very expensive fifteen seconds .. it's those very seconds where people routinely toss away TONS of their golden opportunities to collect 'free money' .. playing their very own version of "Deal or No Deal". It's a disaster to go for the whole enchilada .. and end up with nothing. At least i think so.