Post Two
It became increasingly obvious that this player was not just aggressive, but VERY loose. As people loosened up slowly to adjust, it became almost comical how many hands he was playing preflop. His stats were something like 80/65 - this is NOT an exaggeration. I was looking for any spot I could to get involved with this player, but I wasn't just card dead with respect to premiums - I couldn't even get marginal hands to try to make monsters with. Until around 2am, when I finally picked up a hand in a perfect spot...
Preflop:
Villain’s stack his been up and down, and he’s now sitting on only about $160-$180 (it’s tough to see as he’s in seat 8 and I’m in seat 1). I’m ready to get it all in preflop with him if he lets me. Villain makes it $17 (his standard size) UTG, and the decent reg in between us folds. Perfect. I 3bet to $50 without much thought, planning to shove almost any flop. It folds around to the aggro-fish villain who snap calls after asking how much the bet is.
Flop: ($100) (2 players)
Villain checks to me as I expect him to do with most of his range when he wasn’t the last preflop aggressor. I quickly go all in ($117), and villain snap calls.
Turn: ($100) (3 players)
River: ($380) (2 players)
I say “I have jacks,” and villain rolls QJo to scoop.
I was devastated in the moment. It wasn’t even that much of a bad beat in reality, as villain had 7 outs, but it was just gross to think that jacks were the absolute bottom of my jamming range there. He was drawing to just 4 outs against the rest of my range. My stack was crushed back down below $200 after this, and I topped up.
I kept my nose clean for a few orbits, making sure I was folding anything even resembling a marginal spot preflop, so as to not tilt-spew any chips away. I needed my ammunition for the war. I couldn’t misuse it – I needed to save it all for the next inevitable confrontation. I got my head back on straight and began looking for any spot I could find to get involved with the fish where I didn’t risk getting reraised by anyone. I was still pretty card dead, which was all the more frustrating after nearly stacking the fish, but I remember distinctly thinking to myself: “These are the nights where winrates are made.”
It was not too long before I got into another favorable spot.
Preflop:
Aggro-fish villain is MP and makes it $12. I call, as do the blinds.
Flop: ($45) (4 players)
Perfect flop. I’ve flopped a set, but just as importantly, it’s a flop that could potentially spark a lot of action. It checks to villain, who bets $20. I think about calling, but I expect I’m going to get the most value by far by just raising and getting value from the aggro fish. I bump it to $65, and it folds to villain, who quickly calls.
Turn: ($170) (3 players)
At this point I realize I’ve sort of messed up my sizing, as I’ve got about $180 left, and I would have preferred to make a smaller turn jam. Villain checks to me, and I decide that a jam is still the highest EV play. I jam, and villain tanks and folds, showing a J.
It was pretty tough to not get paid off here, especially after villain called it off so light before and binked his 7 outer. But I was not overly deterred – I reminded myself: “These are the nights where winrates are made.” It was only another 20 or 30 minutes before we got involved again:
Preflop:
It somehow folds around to the Asian aggro-fish, who bumps the action to $17 in MP. The reg in between folds. I decide to flat, knowing I’m well ahead of the fish’s opening range, but not seeing much value in making a 3bet preflop. I’m already likely to go HU to the flop, and see no reason to create an SPR of 5 with a non-premium holding.
Flop: ($35) (2 players)
Villain makes a cbet for $20, and I flat, still way ahead of his range. He was cbetting very close to 100%, and that’s including 3-, 4-, and 5-way pots.
Turn: ($75) (2 players)
Villain checks this time, and since I think I have showdown value but can’t really bet for value, I check behind.
River: ($75) (2 players)
Quads just hit the board. I have the nuts, with my ace kicker, and I’m having trouble seeing straight because of it. Villain checks, and before I can convince myself that a smaller bet might be higher EV, I shove all in for nearly $300 effective. Villain tanks for a minute or so and folds, showing a 7 in disgust. I don’t know if he had a higher kicker or if he was playing the board though.
In retrospect, I feel like a smaller bet was probably in order. Even something on the order of pot would have gotten way more calls. But I really wanted to look like I was just getting crazy, and since I’d already shoved into him a few times, I didn’t rule out a call from something like queen high. There was a high-hand promo running that night, and with quad 3’s and a 7 kicker (I didn’t want to show down my hand), I had taken the lead. With only 4 other tables running, it seemed extremely likely that my hand would hold and I’d take down the $100 bonus, which was starting to feel pretty damn good given how I’d been running against the fish thus far.
It wasn’t just that I’d run bad though – a decent reg had come to our table maybe 2 hours after the fish, and had stacked him about one and a half times. He was sitting on over $600 now, after starting with about $200. It was frustrating knowing that the rest of the table was hoping to do exactly what I was hoping to do – stack-a-fish a few times and keep inviting him back for more. I was also the only one at the table to get sucked out on by the fish in a sizable pot, so it was doubly annoying to think about how far up I was in EV in comparison to my actual stack.
With about 10 minutes to go until 3am, I was feeling antsy, but good about winning the high hand promo. It was pretty unlikely I’d lose, and one of the options for promo money is to add it to your stack – even if that puts you over the maximum buyin. The fish was covering me again at that point, so I was looking forward to having some added ammunition. But my plans were foiled when, at 2:58am, I heard the dreaded announcement over the loudspeaker:
“New high hand of the hour: Straight flush to the 9.”
The next words spoken were by the dealer on my immediate right.
“Now that’s a kick in the balls…”
A couple people voiced their agreement, but the reggish player on my left said, “No, you saying it was a kick in the balls was the kick in the balls.”
“Can we stop talking about how much of a ‘kick in the balls’ this all is, please?” I pleaded.
The conversation turned back away from how shitty I could possibly run, and how much kicking my balls could take, and I tried to refocus on the game. I reminded myself that I was still playing quite well, adjusting to the whale-like player sitting two to my right. And I resolved not to leave until that fish was out of money.
But I didn’t get the chance to follow through on that promise to myself. Another hour or so had passed, and I was back to being up about $100 on the night. The whale-villain made it $17 UTG, and I snap-folded my J4o. The action folded around to the SB, who had been sitting on a pretty short stack and playing fairly tight for the night. The poor guy was clearly unprepared for this game, as he sat down with just under $100, and the standard preflop raise was $17 (80% of them coming from the fish). Recently he’d been getting a little fed up and calling pre, but he just wasn’t equipped to handle this action, and he was folding a ton postflop. He’d gone all in preflop for about $60 a few times now and gotten folds. When the action got to him, he shrugged his $50 stack into the pot, and the BB folded. The SB did not look confident at all. What happened next was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever seen at a poker table.
“How much more?” the whale-villain asked. He turned over his cards – pocket aces – and pushed them forward near his chips.
The dealer’s hand swung forward… and swept the whale’s rockets into the muck.
“WHAT THE ****?!” The whale was not happy.
“You mucked your cards, sir,” the dealer replied calmly.
“Are you ****ing kidding me?” The whale had a mixture of incredulity and rage on his face.
“You didn’t say ‘call,’ you didn’t put any chips in, and you pushed your cards forward – that’s a muck,” the dealer replied again, a little less calmly now.
“Are you ****ing kidding me,” the whale asked louder this time – perhaps wondering if the dealer hadn’t heard his question the first time. “You really think I would just muck my pocket aces – I had pocket aces!!”
The conversation (shouting contest) went on like this for another, awkward 30 seconds, before the whale asked for the dealer to call the floor over. The dealer did, and after another uncomfortable minute or so, the floor managed to get both sides of the story – all with the all-in short stack sitting quietly by. When all was said and done, and with surprisingly few expletives in between, the floor decided that the hand was still live (though the cards themselves were not retrieved from the muck), and the board would be runout and the pot pushed to whichever hand won.
I won’t lie. I wanted that short-stack to double up. I had a sneaking suspicion that the whale wasn’t going to be interested in sticking around much longer. When he heard the verdict, the short-stack sheepishly turned over J7o. The board didn’t even bring him a pair, and he left once the pot was pushed to the still-emphatic whale. Just two hands later, he was racking up his chips and huffily asking the name of the dealer at the front desk. I gripped the side of the table in frustration and disgust. There was no doubt in my mind as to why the fish was leaving – had it not been for that little incident, I was certain he would have stayed for another $500 at least.
I didn’t “make” my winrate that night, it’s true. But I gained a lot of valuable experience. I played well. I bounced back from frustrating win after frustrating defeat. And I learned something about myself. No matter how infuriating the player, and no matter how bad the run, those are the games I will live for. It doesn’t matter how annoying that whale is – he is the game. It doesn’t matter how bad I run – this is the essence of the phrase “+EV.” These are the games I will live for.
This is where winrates are made.
