Please tell me how you play the hand when the flop is Jxx or 9xx and the preflop UTG raiser continues for the same $25 c bet?

I’m not one to give hand analysis but horrible is a bit much. I still think the right move is to fold pre flop. You’re calling from the SB with a speculative hand and less than 100BB. I’m also a nit though.

With no draw, Jxx is a call for one street and a fold on the turn if I pick up no equity. ; 9xx is a fold on the flop.

As played, let's see if the shove might be any good, using Splitsuit's All-In Fold Equity Calculator. First we calculate our equity, if called, using Equilab.



So I have 37% equity when called. I don't know if he actually calls off with AJs. I'm sure that he c-bets it. If he bet/folds it, it actually drops my all-in equity 0.5%, since I'm slightly ahead of AJs, but it adds 3 combos to the fold column, which helps me on the other end, so it's sort of a wash.

Next we punch everything into Splitsuit's chart to see how often we need villain to fold in order to break even.



So we need villain to fold at least 21% of the time.

Now, he's calling with 52 combos, which we hope makes up no more than 79% of his betting range, so that the remaining 21% that we need him to fold would constitute 52/79=x/21, x=14 combos that we need to find that he would c-bet into 2 players after one check and then fold to a shove.

How about 3 combos of AKs, being overcards, backdoor nut flush draw and a gutshot draw. Would he c-bet any more AKo, with just overcards and a gutshot? There are 9 of those. Let's give him 2 to bet/fold, with him checking the other 7.

Now, I have him calling off KQs. Is that too loose? What about KQo? Not everyone opens that UTG, but not everyone folds it. I think we can give him 4 combos of KQo out of 9 to bet/fold, assuming that he never opened the other 5.

ATs for 3 combos. That brings us up to 12. KTs for 3 more and the win? Maybe. In the end it looks to be pretty breakeven.

Wrapping up the hand: Villain snap-called with T9o and held. That he opened T9o from UTG means that we can throw the ranges and math from the last post into the shitter. C’est la vie.

Golden Nugget: 1 hour:
(-$200)

The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I'm supposed to be reading House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski, but I've been studiously avoiding that particular book for years now, for reasons that I'll try to explain some other time; and besides, Dostoevsky's The Gambler arrived and I couldn't stop myself from jumping into that.

The story is not how I remember it: it's a ridiculous and sometimes hilarious farce--essentially it's a 1860's rom-com, with a few touches of Dostoevsky's inherent darkness and potentially violent insanity carefully folded in. The story I remember in the place of The Gambler is Dostoevsky's own life story, for he himself was a pathological gambler.

By the time he reached middle age, almost everyone Dostoevsky cared about had died on him. His mother died from an illness when he was a child, his father (whom he's said to have despised) was murdered by his serfs when Dostoevsky was a young man, his first wife died, two of his young children succumbed to illness, his own execution by firing squad was halted only seconds before the bullets were fired, his sister was a psychopath, he and almost all of his remaining relatives were alcoholics--or perhaps they were just 19th century Russians--and last but not least he suffered from severe epilepsy.

So why not gamble a little? Really, what else did he have to lose? As his readers, we have had everything to gain from his addiction. Dostoevsky wrote The Gambler to pay off his gambling debts. After its publication he would repeat the same cycle with some of his greatest works, namely Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov.

These books were recognized and appreciated in their own time, and all of them made money upon publication, money which invariably made its way to the roulette tables, where it would be lost, every last kopeck of it, along with even more money borrowed from friends and associates. This is the story of the Gambler that I remember, but it's not quite the story of The Gambler.

In the novella of that name, our "hero" (always in scare quotes with Dostoevsky) is Alexis Ivanovitch, a private tutor to the young children of a retired Russian General on holiday with his extended family and retinue of hangers-on in the fictional German (or Swiss maybe?) town of Roulettenburg...yes Roulettenburg.

Alexis is a charmer, but never a flatterer. When it comes to kowtowing to the upper class, he simply won't; he DGAF and he mostly gets away with it. He constantly antagonizes his employer, the General--whom yes, I have trouble not picturing as a cartoon insurance mascot--who always faithfully forgives his transgressions.

Alexis is an outlier and a wildcard, so it's a matter of course that he is violently in love with the General's haughty adult stepdaughter, Polina Alexandrovna, and that she--for her part--pretends to hate his guts while regularly keeping him by her side.

Who are Alexis's rivals in love? They don't take long to emerge straight out of central casting: first we have a rich, tongue-tied and emotionally stunted Brit named Mr. Astley, portrayed in my head 100% of the time by 90's Hugh Grant; then we have the shady oleaginous Frenchman M. de Griers, who has loaned the General a significant amount of money and who holds the mortgage to all of the latter's property in Russia.

De Griers's counterpart in grift is Mademoiselle Blanche, and she has endeavored to captivate and ensnare the twice-widowed General, but she refuses to marry him until he has himself some significant money in the bank. I'm willing to give Mlle. Blanche credit in that she never once denies that she's all about the francs and the rubles. Everybody knows it, especially the General, but nobody holds it against her, such are her charms.

Why is Blanche hanging around the General when she knows he's busto? The General has an elderly and wealthy mother tucked back in St. Petersburg, and the whole gang is essentially waiting around for her to die soon so they can reap her inheritance.

Meanwhile, up at a viewing spot atop a high cliff overlooking Roulettenburg, Alexis turns to Polina and says "Say but the word and I will leap into the abyss." We are given to think that he's dead serious. Later, back in town, he goes even darker, telling her "You are driving me to frenzy. Am I afraid of a scandal, or of your anger? Why should I fear your anger? I love without hope, and know that hereafter I should love you a thousand times more. If ever I should kill you I should have to kill myself too. But I shall put off doing so as long as possible, for I wish to continue enjoying the unbearable pain which your coldness gives me." That's probably the part that ought to be cut from any modern rom-com adaptation.

Polina asks Alexis if he would kill someone if she asked him to, and after some hemming and hawing he answers in the affirmative. She then gives him a somewhat easier task, insulting a snobby German baron and baroness in the hopes that the baron will use his walking stick to bash Alexis around a little, because that seems to be Polina's idea of entertainment.

Alexis goes right to work on it, stepping into the baroness's pathway and loudly greeting her in French, "Madame la Baronne, j'ai l'honneur d'etre votre esclave", which (Google) translated comes out as "I have the honor to be your slave", but I'm guessing that the phrase hews closer to "I'm honored to be at your service." The insult, I would presume, lies in a pleb like Alexis interrupting the procession of a pair of noble German snobs, and speaking to them unbidden in French as if he were on their level.

The baron, fortunately, doesn't clout Alexis with his stick, but instead shouts, "Hein!" at him several times. I originally assumed that this was a German word, but it instead appears to be the French word for "Huh?" or basically "WTF?"

Alexis then answers the baron with "Ja-wohl!" which means yes in German but, as Alexis explains to us, the wohl at the end can be dragged out and/or inflected to get it to mean several different things, sort of analogous to the various inflections on 'dude' or 'right on' in American slang.

The baron then asks Alexis, "Sind sie rasend?" are you crazy? To which Alexis answers.

"Ja-wo-o-ohl!"

The baron and baroness beat a confused retreat to make inquiries as to who this mad insulting Russian lackey might be, and when Alexis gets back to the hotel, the General summons him and attempts to fire him at the behest of the Germans. Alexis threatens to challenge the German baron to a duel for ignoring him and for going around his back to the General, a challenge that would bring even more scandal and shame to the General and his entourage, but before any of this can be resolved, the General's mother shows up off the train from St. Petersburg, wheelchair-bound but otherwise the picture of health.

Antonida Vassilievna is 75, as sharp as a serpent's tooth and someone you would call a real pistol if you were a connoisseur of understatement. Much like Alexis, the General's mother DGAF about norms or ceremony; but unlike him, she's rich and in a position of power over the other characters, and she knows it, and she knows all about the telegrams that the family has been sending back to St. Petersburg to check on whether or not she's kicked the bucket yet.

Right off the bat she tells her own son the General that he's a blockhead and that he's never going to get any of her money, then she demands to be taken to the casino to try her hand at some roulette. Dostoyevsky plays the consternation that she and her pronouncements cause the General and his grifter retinue for some fine laughs.

Antonida Vassilievna knows Alexis from some time before, and she likes him, probably due to him not being a grifter or a flatterer, so when she finds out that the General is trying to fire Alexis, she puts a quick stop to that and appoints the young man as her roulette guide.

On her first trip to the casino, Antonida Vassilievna keeps insisting on playing the number zero, even though it turned up a few spins before. Alexis, a "system" player (much like Dostoyevsky himself), falsely believes that the chances of zero hitting again are reduced, but Antonida will hear none of that.

"Rubbish! Stake, please."

"Pardon me, but zero might not turn up again until, say, tonight, even though you had staked thousands upon it. It often happens so."

"Rubbish, rubbish! Who fears the wolf should never enter the forest. What? Have we lost? Then stake again!"

A second ten-gulden piece (about $119 current USD) did we lose, and then I put down a third. The Grandmother could scarcely remain seated in her chair, so intent was she upon the little ball as it leapt through the notches of the ever-revolving wheel. However, the third ten-gulden piece followed the first two. Upon this the Grandmother went perfectly crazy. She could no longer sit still, and actually struck the table with her fist when the croupier cried out, "Trente-six," instead of the desired zero.

"To listen to him!" fumed the old lady. "When will that accursed zero ever turn up? I cannot breathe until I see it. I believe that that infernal croupier is purposely keeping it from turning up. Alexis Ivanovitch, stake two golden pieces this time. The moment we cease to stake, that cursed zero will come turning up, and we shall get nothing."

"My good Madame--"

"Stake, stake! It's not your money."

Accordingly I staked two ten-gulden pieces. The ball went hopping around the wheel until it began to settle through the notches. Meanwhile, the Grandmother sat as though petrified, with my hand convulsively clutched in hers.

"Zero!" called the croupier.

Soon after, she hits the zero again, then she stakes a max limit 4000 florin on red and hits that three times in a row. When they leave she's up 4200 gulden and 12,000 florins, or around $192,500 USD.

But grandma's caught the gambling bug, and we all know what's going to happen next. It takes her three days of marathon sessions, but she managers to lose it all back, along with an additional 115,000 rubles, or around $1.5 million USD. After the first day of losses, Alexis tells her that he can't countenance standing at the tables and helping her lose. She understands and gives him 500 guldens as a going-away present.

As far as anyone knows, Antonida Vassilievna is now busto. She heads back to St. Petersburg. Mlle Blanche tells the General that she's not marrying him and she starts packing up to seek her fortune in Paris. The General is left a complete wreck, wandering the hotel weeping and without direction. M. de Griers heads off to Frankfurt try to sell the General's mortgaged property to make some of his loan back, but he deeds over 50,000 francs ($272,000 USD) in property to the General for his stepdaughter Polina's sake, mostly because Polina has been de Griers's mistress this whole time.

Polina, the love of Alexis's life, shows up in his room and tells him about her affair with the Frenchman, and also says that she wishes she had 50,000 francs to throw back in de Griers's face. Alexis tells Polina to stay put for an hour or so. He turns around and hits the casino with his 500 guldens ($6,000 USD).

He's back an hour and a half later with 100,000 florins ($1.2 million USD) in roulette winnings, from which he offers Polina 25,000 florins (the equivalent of 50,000 francs, the amount she needs to free herself from de Griers's charity). Polina spends the night at Alexis's place and they like totally do it, I'm pretty sure.

In the morning, though, Polina flings the 25,000 florins back at Alexis and runs away to be with Mr. Astley, the boring English guy. Upon finding this out, Alexis decides to throw his lot in with the gold digger, Mlle Blanche. Together they move to Paris and proceed to ball completely out of control for a month straight, until all the money runs out and Blanche abandons Alexis to marry--surprise--the General! It's at this point in the story that I realize that the old master is now once again laughing at me for getting caught up in his characters.

Should I spoil the ending? I don't know how I get caught up in these overlong plot summaries rather than just writing a review, but here we are.

I may as well finish it; if you've come this far with me, you'll probably want to know how it all ends. Alexis takes off from Paris with around 5000 francs ($27,000 USD) in money and jewelry, thinking that he can spin up a new bankroll by playing roulette. Lol.

After he goes completely busto, he spends some time in debtors prison, from whence he is mysteriously bailed out, then he spends some months as an unpaid manservant, then some more time eking out small sums at the roulette table, waiting for the EV hammer to drop again. At some point he runs into the Englishman Astley, who tells him that Polina's grandmother has died and left her and the other grandchildren a small inheritance, so the old lady was not completely busto. Alexis also finds out that Polina hasn't married Astley yet, and that she is instead staying with his sisters in Switzerland.

The truth comes to the forefront when Alexis finds out that his meeting with Astley isn't a coincidence.

"Are you aware," Astley continued, "that wretched, ignoble, petty, unfortunate man though you are, it was at HER request that I came to Homburg, in order to see you, and to have a long, serious talk with you, and to report to her your feelings and thoughts and hopes--yes and your recollections of her too?"

"Indeed? Is it really so?" I cried--the tears beginning to well from my eyes. Never before had this happened.

"Yes, poor unfortunate," continued Astley. "She did love you; and I may tell you this now for the reason that now you are utterly lost. Even if I were also to tell you that she still loves you, you would none the less have to remain where you are. Yes, you have ruined yourself beyond redemption. Once upon a time you had a certain amount of talent, and you were of a lively disposition, and your good looks were not to be despised. You might even have been useful to your country, which needs men like you. Yet you remained here, and your life is now over."

Astley gives Alexis 10 louis d'or (about $1100 USD) and tells him that he would have given him more but Alexis would only gamble it away, and so they part ways.

Above all things I need to think of Switzerland. Tomorrow, tomorrow--Ah, but if only I could set things right tomorrow, and be born again, and rise again from the dead!

[...]

I have only to remember what happened to me some months ago in Roulettenburg, before my final ruin. What a notable instance that was of my capacity for resolution! On the occasion in question I had lost everything--everything; yet, just as I was leaving the casino, I heard another gulden give a rattle in my pocket! "Perhaps I shall need it for a meal." I thought to myself; but a hundred paces further on, I changed my mind, and returned. The gulden I staked upon manque--and there is something in the feeling that, though one is alone, and in a foreign land, and far from one's own home and friends, and ignorant of whence one's next meal is to come, one is nevertheless staking one's very last coin! Well, I won the stake, and within twenty minutes had left the casino with a hundred and seventy gulden in my pocket! That is a fact, and it shows what a last remaining gulden can do...But what if my heart had failed me, or I had shrunk from making up my mind? No: tomorrow, all shall be ended!

Exactly. The small blind is a 3bet or fold position, unless it was limped around.

That's assuming an active big blind. When you have a strong read, as I did, that the BB is getting ready to muck, you effectively become the big blind.

And it's still a fold in the big blind. You are really underestimating the power of position.

And postflop I have relative position in a multiway pot. This is pretty simple stuff.

If you think having relative position makes up for the disadvantages of having the worst actual position on all streets while playing a suited one gapper high enough where you will run into reverse implied odds, I wish you good luck in your poker playing career.

Here's a homework assignment for you. Think about how you'll play J9 suited across boards where you flop a draw out of the small blind. Then think about how you'll play J9 suited on the button in a similar situation. If you can't figure out that you'll make more money when in position, then you are lost.

If that doesn't clue you in on how important actual position is, then I don't know what else I can say.

I know I'm coming off like a jerk in my posts but contrary to my tone, I want you to be successful as I do with everyone I meet in Vegas that's trying to play 1-2 for a living.

But when I see clear fundamental errors in your game, I have to be harsh to show that these aren't small insignificant errors. These aren't live read, player dependent adjustments that you make to exploit mistakes. These are flat out wrong in all instances.

I appreciate your feedback and your encouragement, URMeowed. I look forward to it, and it helps me to give more thought to the hands. Now though, I'm done discussing this particular hand. We have a fundamental disagreement about a preflop spot. We've both made our cases and we're not going to come to an agreement on it, so it's time to move on.

I'd play J9s out of the small blind in the right context. I think playing against a wizard I'd fold 100% but let's consider our audience for a second.

Overheard in the Paris food court hallway:

"Is sushi herbal?"

Tonight at the Golden Nugget the first table was tougher than necessary. I put in for a transfer and was soon whisked away to an even tougher table, or so I thought at first. "Tough" at $1/$2 implies an absence of loose passive stations from whom to steal limps or escort to Value Town, and there were none at the table.

I stuck around and looked for other spots, and I was rewarded with a player a few spots to my right who was a LAG preflop, opening a lot of hands and pounding limps from all positions, but who would mostly check/call the flop when he missed then check/fold the turn unimproved. I did not see him pull off a checkraise. The great thing about LAGs is that you see them play a lot of hands in a short amount of time.

On one hand I 3-bet him pre from the BB with our favorite hand, AKs, then I fired two barrels into a high board to get a fold on the turn and a decent pot. On the other two hands I flat called his opens in position, bet the flops when checked to, then bet and got folds on the turns. Easy game.

Golden Nugget: 4 hours:
+$120

On the reading front: I'm around 1/6th of the way through the large and dense House of Leaves and it occurs to me that in the last few years the only diversity within my authors has been between middle-aged white guys, old white guys and dead white guys.

It wouldn't kill me to read something from a woman of color next. I'm thinking of Zadie Smith's White Teeth, but I'm open to suggestions--fiction or non--if you have any.

I’ve got The Obelisk Gate by N K Jemisin on hold at my local library. It got a really good recommendation somewhere, but I don’t remember where.

Also, I just finished The Stand based on your recommendation earlier in this thread. It was really good overall, but honestly I didn’t think the ending was that great. It didn’t meet the standard set by the rest of the book, in my opinion. This was the first Stephen King I’ve read. It reminded me of Tom Clancy’s style in a couple of ways. First, just so much really exhaustive, detailed writing about the events taking place. And second, jumping between several different, equally elaborate, plot lines that eventually come together.

^^ That's pretty much how I remember The Stand. I agree that the ending was disappointing, especially compared to the rest of the story.

The Obelisk Gate looks great, gt_ie, thanks! It's the second in a series, so I'll probably start with her first: The Fifth Season, which won the Hugo in '16 according to the wiki. Not too shabby.

The only Clancy I've read was Red Storm Rising back in the mid-80's. I remember liking it, but I don't remember much more about it, other than me finding comfort in the idea that NATO and the Warsaw Pact could engage in a major conflict without letting the nukes fly and annihilating 98% of life on Earth.

If Clancy wrote The Stand, I think he'd probably have some of the military be the good guys, whereas King had them as universally bad, intentionally spreading the disease in Russia and China and killing hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians at home just to try to keep the secret of the outbreak from the world, and all for nothing. The beauty of The Stand's Act II is that it didn't matter if the military were the good guys or the baddies, the world was always going to end the same way.

I apologize for not discussing King's endings, which are well-known for being subpar in more than a few cases. I think it comes down to his process, which involves discovering some characters then throwing them together and seeing what happens--always following their lead rather than outlining a story.

His talent lets him get away with that while telling some great stories, but his endings often suffer through a lack of planning, and when he's in a corner he typically resorts to the "Imma blow it all up real good." contingency.

He's aware of the problem. For one of his recent books, 11/22/63, he consulted his son, author Joe Hill, on the ending and it turned out great! I love the ending of 11/22/63, though I don't want to talk about it because it's a major spoiler. In any case he should consult his son on all of his endings going forward.

I did enjoy the epilogue of The Stand though, with Stu and Tom Cullen snowmobiling through 20 foot drifts back to Boulder, and us wondering if Frannie's baby was going to be born immune to the virus or not, given that Frannie was immune but the father wasn't.

0ne more thing:

An interesting and somewhat chilling article about a biocontainment research lab in Wuhan, the epicenter of the new Coronavirus, at which site they were researching some of the more deadly versions of the Coronavirus for years before this new epidemic hit.

There's not much sourcing here beyond a blog post, a research article, and an article in Nature magazine, but the latter is pretty damn credible and I do so love to scare myself, especially now that I find I'm coming down with a bit of a cold, here in the city that welcomes thousands upon thousands of Chinese gamblers.

Today's session at the Golden Nugget was uneventful. The game there hasn't been great lately. I might give the Orleans a try tomorrow.

Random thought: One of the costumed characters downtown should start dressing as Geralt from the Witcher series and hold up a sign that says "Throw a Coin to Your Witcher."

Golden Nugget: 3 hours:
+$31

See, this is why my wife says I’m a cheap date. She can just put in any old movie and I’ll love it and then after it’s over be like “hmm, i might have seen that before”

I couldn’t remember who recommended the obelisk gate because the recommendation was actually for the fifth season, which I read way back in November and liked it so I put the next in the series on hold at the library.

If you’re interested in Urban Fantasy, you should check these out: https://ilona-andrews.com/kate-daniels/. My wife is a voracious reader, and this might be her favorite series. After hearing her talk about it for years I finally caved and read them a few years ago. They were really good, much better than I hoped for when I set out.

I really like Clancy, he was my favorite author for years. It’s been so long though that I can’t remember which were my favorites, other than Without Remorse. It is sort of a prequel, telling the origin story of the John Clark character that appears in some Jack Ryan novels. I know i really liked it. And I think Sum of All Fears may have been another of my favorites, much better than the movie.

Thanks gt_ie! That's why I'm a fan of re-reading. More than once, I've bought a book for a second time and not realized it until 200 or so pages in, and it's often not been a problem because I still generally don't remember how it ended.

Tonight I found a good game at the Orleans, but I still lost every hand over the course of several hours. After around 3 hours the best spots started calling the floor on each other for various minor infractions, and they all subsequently left the table, unsatisfied by the floor's rulings. They took off either quietly or noisily, to be replaced by better players.

Orleans: 3.5 hours:
(-$273)

Read any books by Ben Elton? He's a good author