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Dear Clonie,
We ran into a very sticky
situation during a short-handed poker
game at my house recently, and we
need your help to settle a dispute. My
wife and good friend were playing heads
up. I was permanent dealer, as I had been felted a few hands before. Then
came the most interesting hand I have ever witnessed, and I had to make
a judgment call. Please tell me if I made the right call.
My wife held 5.4.; my friend held A.J.. The betting and position
are not really important. Let’s just say they bet and called all the way to
the river and had to show down their hands. Here was the board when
the hand was over: 6.7.8.9.K..
My wife smiled as she reached out to rake in the huge pot that she
thought her straight flush had just won her. “Not so fast,” I said. “Your 5.
doesn’t play. The ace wins the pot.”
I tried to explain that since there was a flush on the board, the five
community cards took precedence. The only way for a card to play is if it
is of a higher denomination than the lowest card on the board. Since the
6. was the lowest card, her 5. did not play, but her opponent’s A. was
higher than the lowest card, so it played. Of course the argument erupted
right away that if the community cards took precedence, neither of their
cards should play and it should be a chopped pot. I stuck to my guns and
awarded the pot to my friend. I leave it up to you to tell me whether I was
right or wrong.
Sincerely
Mark B.
Mark, Mark, Mark…
What you must do right now is pack up your decks of cards and
mail them to me – you are not allowed to play poker anymore. Not
because of your line of thinking here, although it’s very much wrong, but
because you actually ruled in favor of your friend and against your wife.
Do you have a good divorce attorney on retainer yet?
I can only guess that you are thinking of a situation in which the board
makes a flush and one player has a card of the same suit that is lower
than any of the board cards, while the other player does not have a card
of that suit. For instance, if your wife had held the 4. instead of the 5.,
and your friend didn’t have any diamonds, the board would play and they
would split the pot.
Remember that poker is a five-card game. The five community cards,
plus the two cards in your hand, are combined to make the best possible
five-card hand. In this case, the best possible hand your friend could
make was an ace high flush, A.K.9.8.7.. The best hand your wife
could make was a straight flush, 9.8.7.6.5.. As we all know, a
straight flush beats the hell out of a regular flush, so your wife should
have won the pot.
My main goal with this column is to give good advice to Bluff readers.
So, here is my advice to you: a dozen roses, a nice card, a sincere apology,
and a romantic evening at home. These are the things you need to do
to make this up to your wife. And next time remember, even if she’s
wrong, she’s your wife; so she’s actually right!
Clonie
Dear Clonie,
I’ve been playing poker online since October, and I’m very happy
with my progress thus far in tournament and sit-n-go play, but my problem
is that I’m the deadest money at the table anytime I try to play in a
ring game.
My question for you has two parts: first of all, is there any advice you
can give me about the kind of adjustments I should make when playing
a cash game as opposed to a tournament; and secondly, can you recommend
any books or DVDs that focus primarily on cash games?
Thank you for your time and effort in teaching us the little
things that help us to become the players we want to be.
Will Holloway, Fergus, ON, Canada
Dear Will,
There are three main differences to think about
when you switch to a cash game from a tournament. The
first is that all of the chips in front of you are now real money
instead of just tournament chips. The second is that if you put
all of those chips in the pot and lose, you can continue to play by just buying
back into the game. The third difference is that the blinds and antes
never increase in a cash game.
When all of the chips in front of you represent real cash, it means you
have a lot more at risk. When you bet 5,000 in a $20 tournament, you are
never risking more than your $20 buy-in. When you bet $5,000 in a cash
game, you are risking all of that, and possibly everything else you have in
front of you. This means that making a big bluff in a cash game can have
huge consequences if you are caught.
On the other hand, if you do get caught putting all of your chips into
the pot with the worst hand, as long as you are not broke, you can re-buy
and continue playing; whereas in a tournament, you would be done playing
for that event. In a cash game, you need to assess the benefits and
consequences of both of these factors and put them together to make the
decisions that are going to work best for you.
In a tournament, the blinds and antes go up continuously, sometimes
very quickly. As they increase, the relative value and power of your chips
decreases, and you are often forced to take chances and gamble. This is
especially true in tournaments in which the blinds increase rapidly. In a
cash game, you can play very tight poker, wait for premium hands preflop,
rarely make any bluffs or fancy moves, and you will be a winning
player in most games.
One last thing to keep in mind about playing cash games is this: sometimes
in a tournament, even though you are getting the proper odds to try
to catch a card for a drawing hand, the amount of chips you have to put at
risk may make drawing at a hand a bad decision. If you don’t hit your
hand, you may be crippled to the point where it is difficult to recover. In
a cash game though, if you are getting the proper mathematical odds to
draw to the hand, then it is almost always correct to draw. Playing a much
more mathematical game, instead of playing by instinct, will be an overall
winning style in a cash game.
A couple of good books to read for playing in cash games are Winning
Low Limit Hold’em by Lee Jones, and Killer Poker by Jon Vorhaus. Jones’
book should give you some good basics of the game, while Vorhaus’ book
will give you some more advanced theories and thoughts about the value
of aggressive play.
Best of luck,
Clonie.
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