3 Hours at The Commerce

[Alan Mendelson]

After work tonight, my son and I decided to go to The Commerce Casino to play a little poker. We haven't played poker in a long time. I hadn't played poker at The Commerce in maybe a year.

We both bought in at $100 games -- and at different tables. It's both fun and invigorating to play at a $100 buy-in game. You're not playing "big money" and the pots are generally small, and no one's life gets ruined at a $100 game. At least you hope not.

Generally players buy in for $100 and maybe they do a second buy-in if they lose it all too early.

Players are allowed to do a short buy if they go bust, and that's what I want to write about here -- a player doing a "short buy" (less than $100) after going bust.

The player in question appeared to be a low-level pro poker player meaning he spent a lot of time playing poker. I doubt it was his full time job and I doubt he lived off of his poker earnings, but I am sure he wanted to.

He wore worn out jeans and a worn out sweatshirt and he had a tattoo on the inside of his wrist right below the palm of his right hand that said "all in." You can't make this stuff up, you know. He really had that tattoo. And he was a very aggressive player -- playing many hands and always making a raise. He would never call -- he always raised.

Now raising when you are in a hand is a good strategy because it can eliminate weak hands and weak players -- but this player just played too many hands and raised too many times. And he got busted down to the felt -- all his chips were gone.

And so the player made a re-buy -- but instead of a re-buy of $100 he made a short re-buy. There is nothing wrong with making a short re-buy except in his case the short re-buy was $84 and that told me and everyone else at the table a lot.

Why $84 and why not $85 or why not $80?

$84 told us he was desperate -- and in fact it was all the money he could pull out of his wallet.

Desperate players make bad decisions and can be forced out of hands. And it wasn't long before the player with "all in" tattooed on his wrist was in fact all in and busted out.

So the lesson here is watch those "re-buy amounts" as they can tell you a lot.

How a player dresses means nothing. I've seen great poker players who are loaded with cash dress in worn out, tattered shirts and pants. And that was their "uniform" to deceive others at the table.

I had a fairly good night, by the way. I was playing a tight game and often folded to a raise so players would raise my raises thinking I would fold with weak hands. But in three hours of play and watching the action I could see who were the bluffers and who would bet big on draws and with weak cards.

And after three hours it happened -- I was dealt pocket queens. I was in early position and raised the big blind ($3) to $15 and another player re-raised to $50 and another player went all-in with $110 -- and I knew both of those players were likely to do that with hands like A-K or A-Q or even A-5. So I went all-in as well and thought if they both had an ace I was in pretty good shape.

There were three low cards on the flop, another low card on the turn and on the river came a Queen. I had beaten A-K and Ten-Jack to win a bit more than $200. (Photo below after winning pot with QQ.) A few hands later and I was dealt pocket-Jacks for a win of about $40.

I left the table with $345. Not a bad three hours at The Commerce.

But more importantly I got a good read on the players at my table and if I meet up with them again I will have a pretty good idea of how they play.

[Dan Druff]

Anyone playing a $100 buyin game isn't a real poker pro (even a low level one). You can't beat the rake at that level.

You are right about the $84 buyin indicating desperation. I look for the same type of thing at my tables.

BTW people are more likely to bluff you because you're older and white. Older white men have the stereotype of being tight and folding too much.

[ke6cdh]

Looking forward to playing poker at the same table as you.

john

[Alan Mendelson]

Older white men have the stereotype of being tight and folding too much.

One of the "tricks" that Phil Hellmuth uses in tournaments is to fold early in tournaments to make it appear that he can be scared away from pots. Yes, Phil Hellmuth does this. It is in fact one of his major strategies. He will fold several times just to give the impression that he is too tight.

Yet, what he is doing is setting up the other players to try to bluff him off of pots when he has every intention of coming back with a re-raise because he is sitting with a monster hand.

I actually used the same technique last night. In a few pots I called with absolutely weak cards because the call was only the minimum -- three dollars -- and I wanted to fold to a raise (any raise) just to show weakness. Poker is not a game won in a hand. It is a game that is won with a strategy that started many hands earlier.

Dan there are real poker pros who play $100 games -- and they don't give a damn about the rake. The only thing they care about is getting the pots from the weak players at those $100 games. These real poker pros play every day, make a couple of hundred dollars a day, and live at places like Commerce and the Bike. Being a real poker pro doesn't require buying into a $10K tournament... or getting free rooms at the Rio during the WSOP. But they will eat you alive.

[Dan Druff]

One of the "tricks" that Phil Hellmuth uses in tournaments is to fold early in tournaments to make it appear that he can be scared away from pots. Yes, Phil Hellmuth does this. It is in fact one of his major strategies. He will fold several times just to give the impression that he is too tight.

Yet, what he is doing is setting up the other players to try to bluff him off of pots when he has every intention of coming back with a re-raise because he is sitting with a monster hand.

I actually used the same technique last night. In a few pots I called with absolutely weak cards because the call was only the minimum -- three dollars -- and I wanted to fold to a raise (any raise) just to show weakness. Poker is not a game won in a hand. It is a game that is won with a strategy that started many hands earlier.

Dan there are real poker pros who play $100 games -- and they don't give a damn about the rake. The only thing they care about is getting the pots from the weak players at those $100 games. These real poker pros play every day, make a couple of hundred dollars a day, and live at places like Commerce and the Bike. Being a real poker pro doesn't require buying into a $10K tournament... or getting free rooms at the Rio during the WSOP. But they will eat you alive.

Trust me, Alan, these guys may think they are poker pros, but that is not sustainable. The rake is too high in order to live off $100 games. They won't win a couple hundred a day every day. They will also book losing sessions, and in the long run, the rake will eat them.

[Alan Mendelson]

Dan, I think we have different definitions here.

Sure, they're not going to be driving a Mercedes or living in Thousand Oaks playing $100 games. But they will take home $100 to $200 a night, seven nights a week. I know half a dozen guys who do it.

Heck, I used to bring home about $200 a night playing at Hollywood Park at their $100 game... and I stopped doing it because my wife asked me if that three to four hours I spent there every day was a "second job." And I still have about $80 in comp dollars sitting in my account there for food.

I used to play there so much that I was picked for their hourly drawings on certain nights -- and one night I was picked for a $5,000 drawing and I wasn't there.

[Dan Druff]

Dan, I think we have different definitions here.

Sure, they're not going to be driving a Mercedes or living in Thousand Oaks playing $100 games. But they will take home $100 to $200 a night, seven nights a week. I know half a dozen guys who do it.

Heck, I used to bring home about $200 a night playing at Hollywood Park at their $100 game... and I stopped doing it because my wife asked me if that three to four hours I spent there every day was a "second job." And I still have about $80 in comp dollars sitting in my account there for food.

I used to play there so much that I was picked for their hourly drawings on certain nights -- and one night I was picked for a $5,000 drawing and I wasn't there.

I know a lot about this subject. I've been a regular part of the poker community for over 13 years. If you were bringing home $200 per night nearly every night from the Hollywood Park $100 buyin game, then you're the best $100 buyin player who ever lived. Poker win rates are defined as "big blinds per 100 hands" (or big bets per hour, which is easier to keep track of live).

That's an average of how many big blinds you're winning per 100 hands, streched out over time to also account for losing and breakeven sessions.

Great players can average 7 big blinds per 100, but that is only possible at a relatively low-rake game. At the high rake live games (and I'm assuming you tipped every pot you won, too), that is not sustainable, no matter how great you are.

But let's say that is. You are probably getting in about 30 hands per hour, meaning a 7-hour session would yield 210 hands.

Even with a great win rate of 7 big blinds per 100 (and ignoring how hard this is to achieve with the high rake/tips you're paying), you would still only be averaging $14 per 7-hour session at $1/$2 NL holdem.

There is a similar discussion of this here: http://www.thepokerbank.com/strategy/other/winrate/

Now, of course is this an average. Can you come home hundreds of dollars richer in a single session? Yes. Can you do this for several consecutive sessions? Again, yes. Just like you can hit two Royals in a short time if you're lucky at VP (unless you're me, where you never hit any.)

But poker is a high-variance, long-term game.

The lower limits are simply not sustainable for any pros. Not for a high-expense lifestyle, and not for a low-expense lifestyle.

Look into it deeper and you will find that these low limit "pros" are either getting money from another source (family, disability payments, savings, etc) or simply running way above average, and eventually will be smacked out of the game when the variance catches up.

Hell, there is even discussion recently that the $6/hand rake at $40/$80 limit holdem is too high to be able to play sustainably as a pro. I still think that game is beatable, but it's already getting close because of the rake, even though the game frequently features various weak and semi-weak players.

If you were really killing that Hollywood Park game, consider yourself fortunate to have dodged the variance, and your wife probably did you a favor before the negative variance set in.

[Alan Mendelson]

Dan you often quote statistics. You do it in video poker when you criticize Rob Singer for the wins he reports at negative EV games. Now you quote stats when I tell you I have a record of winning at cash games in poker (I do terribly at tournaments, by the way).

Your statistics mean nothing because I won. And there are others that win. The rake means nothing when there are $300 in the pot and you win it all. The same way that 97% return on Royal Aces Bonus means nothing when you hit quad aces.

The point is -- it is easier to walk out of a card club with a $100 profit or even a $200 profit when you play at a $100 game with a bunch of players who don't know what they are doing. And that is one of the "secrets" to winning. If the smart players aren't at the $100 game because the rake is too much for them, then you play the $100 games.

And that's what some very savvy players do... they play the lower limit games and walk out with the money.

[Dan Druff]

Dan you often quote statistics. You do it in video poker when you criticize Rob Singer for the wins he reports at negative EV games. Now you quote stats when I tell you I have a record of winning at cash games in poker (I do terribly at tournaments, by the way).

Your statistics mean nothing because I won. And there are others that win. The rake means nothing when there are $300 in the pot and you win it all. The same way that 97% return on Royal Aces Bonus means nothing when you hit quad aces.

The point is -- it is easier to walk out of a card club with a $100 profit or even a $200 profit when you play at a $100 game with a bunch of players who don't know what they are doing. And that is one of the "secrets" to winning. If the smart players aren't at the $100 game because the rake is too much for them, then you play the $100 games.

And that's what some very savvy players do... they play the lower limit games and walk out with the money.

Statistics mean nothing when you win -- only in the short term.

Anything can happen in the short term.

You could sit down at a 6-5 JoB machine and hit a Royal on your first hand. Will you be a huge winner that session? Of course. But if you continue playing it regularly, you will get clobbered, even if you do luck into another Royal before playing another 40,000 hands.

The subject of rake and low limit poker has been extensively studied over the past 10+ years. It was determined that it's simply not possible to be a pro at overly-raked games, no matter how weak the players. Your type of thinking is actually what has allowed the rake to rise over the last several years, as players haven't complained enough, assuming that a few more dollars each hand is meaningless if you're a good player. Wrong. A few more dollars per hand is absolutely brutal when multiplied by all the pots you win in a given session.

You are ignoring the losing sessions that eat into your big winning ones. I'm sure you've run into sessions where you're on the wrong end of set-over-set, kings-against-aces, or take bad beats where you get your money in good and still lose the hand on the river. There will be certain brutal sessions where you will absolutely get clobbered, no matter how good you are. You will also run into streaks of several sessions where nothing goes right. If somehow you were not running into these, you had incredibly good luck, but it would not last if you played regularly.

There is nothing wrong with low limit poker if you are playing for fun (which is what I assumed you were doing), but you can't use it as a reliable way to make extra money.

I do hope that, in 20 years or so when I am your age, I can also visit the card room with my son, and we can have some fun playing low limit poker together without stressing too much about our results.

[Alan Mendelson]

You still miss the point. These "pros" are not trying to earn a hundred thousand dollars a year or more. They want to win $100 a day, maybe $150 or $200 and bolt. They are short term players who hit and leave.

It's what I did last night. My "win goal" was only $100 but I got lucky and two player went all in against me so I tripled up.

And I hate to bring Rob Singer into this -- but this is the one part of Rob's strategy that really makes a lot of sense. If you have a short term win goal, and hit and win and let the short term wins build on top of short term wins you can beat the long term. Yes, the math guys call that crazy -- but it's not.

And the reason why you can do this at $100 games is that the better players aren't there playing. They are following the math which says to play other games with a smaller rick and they are leaving the low-hanging fruit to others to pick.

Try this analogy: in the short term there is enough low hanging fruit to fill your stomach.

[Alan Mendelson]

Just for kicks, Jason and I went back to The Commerce tonight. We only played for less than 90 minutes. Jason walked out with a profit of $170 after making two $100 buy-ins playing pot limit Omaha, and I left with a profit of $17 (that's seventeen dollars).

It was an aggressive table, (yes, a $100 buy-in game), and I wasn't comfortable playing with players who with the big blind at $3 made initial bets of $20 and $30.

I had to make two $100 buy-ins, but I won back my money and scored my profit on just two hands:

1. The first hand which gave me a win of about $140 was when I was the small blind with J-2 offsuit. It only cost me $1 to call and there were four other players in the pot. Of course I had to call with only $1. The flop came 6-2-2. The turn was a 7, and the river was a Q. Yes, my trip-deuces held up. It was a true small-blind special.

2. The final hand which gave me a win was when I was the button (and it was going to be the last hand I played, as Jason had already cashed out). I had A-K offsuit and raised the big blind to $12. I had three callers. The board was all small cards. My AK won the pot -- no one had a pair. A true miracle with three other players in the hand.

It was a nice hit-and-run for Jason, and for me it was two lucky hands that wiped out the previous losses and let me go home with a small profit. But no one ever went broke leaving a poker game with a profit.