Commitment and pot size

I did a review at +1 of Professional No Limit, vol. 1. I won't repeat it here, but I will say again that I think this is a really, really interesting book. Just remember the wisdom of Izmet, "Books are meant to be thought about, not agreed with."

Even if you disagree with some of the particulars, there are a lot of big concepts that are not really invented, but re-emphasized in the book. One of them is planning your hand before you put any money in the middle. What you should plan your hand around most of the time is either stealing or committing all your chips.

A lot of times, you may think you're doing this, but then you realize how often you see your two cards, bang the "bet pot" button to open the pot, get called somewhere, bet the flop for 3/4 of the pot and really at this point haven't even thought about what to do next. At least, that's true of me, and I suspect most people, even good SSHE TAGs. Maybe especially them.

The big part of this plan is understanding, through the hand, when you're committed and when you aren't. When you're not committed, you usually are looking to play a small pot against a wide range. When you're committed, you're looking to play a big pot against a smaller range that you still think you beat.

Here's a hand where my plan changed on every street, and it fucked me badly.

SB is a 53/4/.8 fish. Very bad player who has sucked out on a couple of others recently. We start with effective stacks of 315.

I open As5s from the co for $7. SB is the only caller.

The button was an unknown, the BB was a known TAG regular, so I'm stealing here. I dont' want to play a big pot without a big flush draw. I'm happy to make a standard raise, keep a lot of money behind, and pick up the pot preflop or on the flop. That's pretty obvious, but just worth noting. I has a plan: Steal.

Flop is 8s7d6c, pot: $16

This is the kind of flop smacks a fish's cold calling range in the face. All those junk Kx, Ax hands that he just has to call with now have either an OESD with a 9, a pair with an overcard kicker, or maybe pair+draw. None of these hands ever fold, I have a weak draw, we still have more than $300 behind, so there's no reason to bet. I can maybe steal this on the turn or river, or I might get lucky and hit a four and get some value from 7x or 8x. I check.

Now, my plan hasn't changed, I'd still like to steal this pot, but I have almost no chance of doing it on this kind of flop, so I choose to keep my stack intact and see if I get something to work with on the turn or river.

Turn is the 4s. Pot: $16. SB leads for $10

Jackpot. I not only turn a straight, but pick up the nut flush.

Now, I want to make a small raise. I want to get value from two-pair, pair+9 hands, and I want to set him up for a big river bet in case I river the nuts. So I make it $45 and he calls.

A couple things I should have noted here that I didn't. The first is, we still have $260 left behind, and the pot is only 105. I have a big hand right now, but I'm not yet committed to anything. I have plenty of room to fold, and more importantly, unless i spike a spade, if something happens that leads to us getting all in on the river, there's a good chance I'm chopping at best.

River: 9d Pot: $106. SB checks.

I'm not amused by the river card. I'm more concerned that he can get away from two pair. He might freak out now and think I have a ten for some reason. I think fish genuinely think this way. There's no reason to think he has a ten, but I dont' want to worry him too much, so I want to keep my VB small. So I bet $60.

SB checkraises all in for $254 total, and it's 194 for me to call.

Now, there are a lot of ways to look at this hand, but I really think that commitment is clarifying a lot of situations for me. Actually, I think commitment is just about pot size, and understanding what size pot you want to play immediately, and how you need to calibrate each action based on what the pot is, what it might be based on a bet/check/raise, and how the pot will dictate your reaction to an opponent's bet/check/raise.

I've been playing PLO the last few days, too distracted with moving and everything else to put in a NL session, and the same principle is applying--looking at hands immediately and asking "what size pot would I like to play," and then evaluating that as one of your action criteria postflop makes the game make sense.

I have to admit, I'm pretty dense about this stuff. I'm sure for a lot of people, this is headslappingly obvious. For me, it's explaining a lot of what limit didn't teach me. I really for the first time feel like I'm playing hands with a strategy that isn't just a modified version of a limit game, where you can isolate actions and evaluate them individually.

Poker is fun when it makes sense.

Coming soon: Pix of a new apartment and ytd results