110k in wins... Fear of success: How big an effect nearing final tables?

It is mystifying to me how someone can play (presumably good) Poker for three days, and get within striking distance of $100k, and then completely lose their mind.  I was the lucky beneficiary of four such instances, and am $100k better off mostly as a result.

With 30 left, someone with a substantial chip position decided that A3o on a board of A875 with three spades was worth a shove (no spade).  With 15 left, someone in about 7^th place (maybe 15bb), decided that 53s was worth a shove from the hijack.  With 12 left, someone in 2^nd place decided that 55 with 30bb was an open shove from the button with the chip leader (me) on his immediate left.  As chip leader, I guess I would shrug fold AK to a 30bb open-shove (I had only 40bb) as ICM probably means I need 2-1 to call (maybe more) and this is always a pair (I mean there is no sensible value-range here, but it is 99% pairs).  However, I woke up with AA and held.

I’ve won plenty of tournaments, but never have I had such extraordinary spews (for entire stacks) thrust my way.  In addition to these amazing gifts, I picked up blinds and antes from late position steals relentlessly.  (Another aspect of run-good is people not having reshove hands!)

The mechanism that has people tilt may not just be fear of failure.  Nearing the end, emotions excitement and anxiety, run high.  From my recollection all of these horrible plays were ‘insta’ – no real thought given to stacks, ICM, ranges and the like. It is almost as if people become giddy at the end.

I am prone to the same thing – in fact, when I spew, it is almost always an insta-spew.  I’m laboriously slow at the best of times, but at the final table, I slow down even more – if that irritates some players, excellent!  The ability to do this comes from years of high-level bridge.  In that sphere I was famously spewy on some occasions – but produced outstanding results because when the stakes went up, I got better.

A few good hands

The most interesting is a hand from four-way action.  I had 12m in chips, 2^nd place had 9m, and there were two stacks of around 2m.  The blinds were 150/300k.  (As you can see, I’m not in bad shape.) 

Take my opponent’s hand.  In second place you open for 700k with 99 UTG four-handed.  The small blind, an older, very sound, and very aggressive player (that would be me) 3-bets to 2m. (You have about three hours of history, but haven’t played many pots.)  (Pay jumps are as usual, 25k for 4^th, 100k for 1^st.) (He has not 3-bet you once, but he has 3 bet others aggressively.)

I think this is a fascinating ICM problem.  Clearly folding is absurdly exploitable as we are top of our range, calling is possible, but we are left with and SPR of 2.  (Can we fold an overpair?  Can we fold on Qxx dry board?)  What is our plan if we call and get the 100% c-bet?  On which flops will we stack off?  Jamming is clearly the 100% play with even stacks, and perhaps here?  How often will villain want to stack off?  I think calling is by far the worst option.  We are just going to have to make a disgusting decision on the flop.  

Villain is hammering the short stacks (open jamming a lot), and there is 50k between 2^nd and 4^th.    I would have shoved 99 without a moment’s thought (I am an online player after all).

We call (puke), the flop comes K 8 3 rainbow and villain bets 2m into 4.4m.  To cut a long story short, we call, villain bet 3m into 8.4 on a 2 turn, and jammed a blank river. We called, he showed AA and we lost about 30k relative to tournament EV.  Villain (the author) then had 20m out of 25m in play 3 handed and the rest is history. 

Views vary on what to pre (nobody sees a flop)

1.       Let him run over us until they bust – there is no evidence that he is overdoing that – and he is playing hard against the shorties.
2.      Shove.  I think this puts the pressure on him.  How does he feel (ICM) with AQ?  TT?   A loss f Both AQ and TT are plus chip EV, but both folds from and ICM point of view I’d wager. If he calls and loses, is he who has given up 30k (maybe more) in tournament EV.
3. 3    One (rejected out of hand by pros with who this was discussed) play is a min 4 bet.  Of course we fold to a shove, and have done half our stack (to 5m), but look at how strong this looks.  From his point of view we are never folding to the 5b, so we look (I think) like QQ+.  I think wagering and additional 3.3m to win 3.3m he’d have to fold half the time.  I’d say more like 75% is more likely.  If we win, we have 12m and we are even with him.  Of course there is something gross about turning 99 into a bluff here, and 4b folding from this stack looks horrible – but he knows this too.

I played one or two hands very well.  One of my leaks is being a calling station – I can talk myself into thinking villain is bluffing a lot more than he is.  One very aggressive big stack limped in the SB, I had Q6 suited.  Resisting the temptation to raise, we saw an AK3 rainbow flop and he bet half-pot.  This guy never ever has an ace or king here, so I called partly for value, and partly because I’m going to win here like always when he checks the turn.  The turn brought a 6 making my next play even easier, he bet less than half pot and we called.  The river brought a 5, and villain now bet pot.  I snap-called and he sheepishly turned over t9o.  The table ooh-and ahhed when I showed.  Easy game.

Perhaps a better played hand, and the last one, is KQo 5 handed at the final table.  I’m the chip lead again against the 2^nd place stack.  We are very close in chips with 7m each.  The blinds are 100/200k.  I open for 425k and he calls out of the BB.  The flop is A 8 3 rainbow and we check back. The turn is an 8, and he bets 450k, less than half pot.  We call, the river is a very friendly K and he bets 700k and shows JT when we call.

Being a calling station helps.  So does picking up AA twice with fewer than 18 left and having it hold.

Poker as a Career Choice: Should I play Poker professionally? (Part 1)

What started as pure recreation in 2004, and became a substantial focus in 2009, is now my chief source of income and where most of my productive time is spent.  To some extent, I chose this, and to some extent circumstances pushed me into it.  As the Buddhists say 'and now this'.  Here I am, what should I do.

Despite the fact that I am 51 and have achieved a great deal in other spheres, have several college degrees, have had several different white (starched white) collar careers, there is an old nagging question: is this what I ought to be doing with my life?

My credentials for writing this?  One of the things I’ve done with my life is to earn a degree in Organizational Psychology, and one aspect of that field is ‘career choice’.  Another thing is to qualify and earn my living as a career/ life coach for some of the highest paid people in the world.  And I play Poker professionally now – so my comments come from ‘inside’ the profession (so to speak).

The reasons I ask this question of myself, and you should ask it of yourself are two-fold.

If you don’t think you ‘ought’ to be doing this, then there will be limits to your happiness.  You may achieve a lot, but if the voice in your head (sometimes called the ‘itty bitty shitty committee’) feels you ought to be doing something else, the ‘bracelet’ moment will be quickly followed by more existential malaise.  This is not theory.  I returned from a massive series where I’d won two tournaments and narrowly missed ‘player of the series’.  I’ve been somewhat depressed since and this ‘ought I to be doing this’ is part of that depression.  (In a later article series, I'm going to discuss poker, addiction and mental health.)

If you don’t think you ought to be doing it, you will not devote yourself passionately, whole-heartedly to being the best you can be.  You may be talented, but you will not spend the countless hours away from the tables improving.  You may not take ancillary factors seriously enough: diet, sleep, exercise.  You may distract yourself with other, more ‘legit’ pursuits.

So we, I, need to settle this question.  You need to settle this question.

Let us first deal with ‘ought’.  In ethics, ‘ought’ has some moral force.  In Freudian psychology, ‘ought’ is the superego (parental and societal influences) talking.  Always, the ‘ought’ in poker comes out against it.  It doesn’t count as a legit occupation in the eyes of society – despite the fact, as I’ve argued elsewhere, that poker is precisely the same set of intellectual activities as trading on Wall Street.  Few parents, and especially not mine, find tears of pride when they discuss ‘my son the poker player’.

However passionately we may feel about the game, those are substantial psychic forces – greater in some individuals than in others – will act as a counterweight to our passion: a ‘but’ that will always be there.  That can be hard to live with.  In this century, in the West, we are unlikely to get invited to the snootiest of country clubs.

It is ok to care about this (negative) influence; it is ok to not care about it.  What is less ok from a psychological point of view is to pretend not to care (who gives a s^&t) when actually part of you does.  Intellectual honesty is required, and in my case, with my parentage, and the cultural influences in my life, the ‘my son the poker bum’ will be hard to avoid.  It is one of the realities I have to live with.

When you do decide ‘I can live with this’, it is wise to be aware that it may limit opportunities elsewhere.  The nice girl you now want to marry, may decide as tying the knot comes closer, that the ‘oughts’ in her life are too strongly against marrying a poker player.

Samurai warriors used to visualize their fear out in front of them, at their sword tip, so they could 'look it in the eye'.  That is what, if you are serious, you need to do with the 'oughts' in your Pokerlife.  They are always there - the choice is how to accept them fully, and deal with them honestly and squarely.

In part 2, I will look at a model of career values, and provide you with a ‘values questionnaire’ to help you decide whether poker aligns with your values.

In part 3, I will look at a three-part career model (from career counseling), which asks whether the three key career choice factors are there:  passion, skills/ aptitude, and lifestyle fit.

Paul Gibbons has been an investment banker, a consultant, a top executive coach, and a successful serial entrepreneur.  In 2011, he founded Healthy Poker LLC.  He has $500k in live and online cashes during the last eighteen months. He has degrees in Biochemistry, Philosophy and Psychology.

Epistemology, Poker and Health

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge.  What do we mean when we say we 'know' something?  When Carl Jung said 'I do not believe in God, I know...', did he mean the same thing as I do when I say 'I know that 3 plus 4 are seven', or 'I know that object is blue'.

There are two interesting tracks in Epistemology relevant to Poker.  I will cover just one now (and very briefly).  The second is skepticism which I will get to another day.

It has to do with two different 'kinds of knowledge' - conceptual knowledge (know about), and practical knowledge (know how).

Lets quickly take losing weight.  We all (conceptually) know about losing weight - fewer calories and more exercise (broadly).  Some of the fattest people could probably reel off the calorie count of half the items in the supermarket.  It does no good.

'Know how' is the ability to do that which we 'know about.'  What becomes interesting is someone who says, 'I know HOW to exercise, I just don't'.  We should treat this skeptically - KNOWING HOW to exercise is more than just knowing what to do at the gym, it is KNOWING HOW to get your body to the gym.

Take a Poker parallel.  I may 'know' that I can check-raise bluff this river profitably - villain never has more than a pair.  But, if in the moment, I freeze, 'wait for a better spot' or otherwise chicken out, do we really know HOW TO check raise bluff rivers?  If we can't overcome the anxiety (of putting in a lot of money with no hand), or the habit (of sitting on the couch rather than going to the gym 3-4x per week), can we accurately say we KNOW HOW rather than KNOW ABOUT?

The second point is that conceptual knowledge can be the enemy of personal change.  This is important, because you could say that CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE is  the bedrock or foundation of practical knowledge.  In fact, it can be the enemy of PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE.  How many times do we wave off advice, ignore criticism, or opportunities to learn and change thinking 'I KNOW THAT'.  I see this in my programs on personal effectiveness (time management) - people 'know about' time management (because it is pretty simple), but they suck at it.  They let the fact that the CONCEPTS are simple get in the way of the hard work of applying them.

When it comes to personal change, improving, learning, growing, KNOWING ABOUT is the booby prize.

Reno - Vegas trip report and update

Flying up to Reno from Vegas, for my first trip there, and my first Heartland was fun.  I loved being near the mountains in Reno - a reminder of how beautiful Tahoe (next door) is.

Poker went fabulously, I played 2 130 dollar satellites and won one, which put me in a 500 dollar satellite which i won easily (OMG satties are such gr eat value - from the 'i only play QQ+ guys that get blinded out' to the people who limp-call pre and then fold flops with 8BB.  to people who won't call shoves with AJ (i figured i was racing - yeah, right!)
I was basically card dead in the main - which can be good - because i can't spew off chips will silly steals....  finally some old guy put all his dough in with AQ when I had QQ (there was also a TT in there)... all of a sudden we are in the money....
sadly, at the final table, with 55k in sight, the eventual winner - quite the worst player i've ever seen - had the following action to him.... all in (from 8 BB stack), all in (from 15 BB stack - me) and he had J9s... he was covered by bigger stack...  ' well this is my lucky hand' - i call.  board K 8 4, turn Q, river T.... I'm crippled down to 3 BB and run into QQ three hands later.  still Im 7k better off...  had i held up, i would have been chip leader with 5 left and would have run them over...

after a nice year-end break with some excellent online success, i headed out to the circuit in Caesars...  to cut it very short, i limped onto the final table 10th in chips but managed second for 25k.

two days later, i was deep in a deep stack....  one of the most aggro donkeys i've ever seen was chip leader with 1/3 of chips with 20 left. he is on my left on button, i pick up 77, he 3 bets (like every hand), i jam and a) he has AK (how someone who is 3 betting every hand has ak now), and gets there....

still another 1200 bucks...  my backer very very happy...

don't feel i ran that super well.... bounced out of one tournament (the 1600) when set was run down by draw, and out of another when AA was cracked by AA...

I did play my socks off - and i really am becoming a strong live player... people (pros) tell me that.... lets keep it up...

however, bad news is my health practices deteriorated in dec, jan and feb - i finally hit rock bottom this monday - bought an e-cigarette, got back on the various anti-psychotics (just kidding ADD) i'm supposed to take, got a new CEO-type for Healthy Poker, and finished 2012 goals - which include losing this 10kilos and winning 500k at poker...

my other work (university teaching) has recently collapsed - so for right now - unless i go back into the business world, poker is it....

better be healthy then, and keep running ok....

Poker Stars and US players

Pokerstars and US players

Throughout the post April 15 debacle, PS has behaved admirably, returning funds, and complying with DOJ wishes.

However, apart from the FAQs, there have been no updates since about April: my US friends are completely in the dark…

I’m an expert in corporate strategy, and even in the face of uncertainty it is important to retain customer relationships.

A monthly update – even 2-3 lines - such as

‘We continue to work with the DOJ…

‘We have made a proposal to the DOJ to…

‘No clear timetable for return…

‘We have a hearing on x date to explore y…

That sort of thing builds trust and loyalty.

Im sure the issue is complex, but I'd love to recommend what should have been done years ago - negotiate a settlement with the US government that makes happy the tax authorities, and legislators concerned with moral hazard.

-        Aid US tax authorities by reporting US player income (some sort of 1099 as issued by banks)

-        Reinforce the notion of very strong ‘no minors’ and ‘no non poker gaming’ safeguards

-        Don’t take credit cards (at first), this reinforces the safety notion that ‘dad’ can’t quietly go broke by gambling on the family credit cards

-        Develop superior money laundering safeguards

-        Offer to pay corporate taxes on % of income generated in the US (PS operates through US subsidiary)

-        Plead ‘mea culpa’ to the charges, pay the fines and move on – you are aware how much you are losing in US income monthly..

As the best run of the sites, the above should be trivial.

PS is simply the best poker site by a great margin... Lets get you back operating ASAP.

A few months ago, I published an article on the Healthy Poker site (www.healthypoker.com) which I'm re-posting here.  Here is the introduction, and there is a link below.

Omar: “I don’t know about cards, yo, but I reckon these four fives beat a full house.”

Marlo: “That’s my money.”

Omar: “Man, money ain’t got no owners, just spenders.”

Omar, anti-hero from The Wire, holds up Marlo’s Poker game. Marlo protests that the money in the pot is his. Omar disabuses him of that idea.

We think are comfortably ahead on the flop, the turn is a blank and we fire when checked to. Now villain repops for the rest of his stack and most of ours. We only beat a bluff and we require a dispassionate and rational analysis of the probability that villain is bluffing. Yet if we’ve invested 2/3 of our stack, such unbiased rational analysis is extremely difficult. Loss aversion, a very useful attribute on the Savannah five hundred thousand years ago, inevitably biases our decision.

A rational analysis requires us only to consider the potential return on future costs, the amount required to call villain, (and the expected value of calling that amount, weighing his percentage of bluffs against made hands) yet behavioral economists have repeatedly demonstrated a systematic cognitive bias toward weighting historical costs in our decision making.

What we have put in the pot already is (should be) completely irrelevant to how much we should put in now. Having bet pre-flop, flop, turn and river, giving up to a shove should not be influenced by how much we have put in. Yet, psychologists and economist assure us, it does. 

An unhealthy attachment to the money in the pot remains.

If you think you can and do act optimally in such situations, consider the examples below and see whether they might apply more at the Poker table than you would care to imagine.

This sunk cost fallacy (or error) appears everywhere: the value at which we would sell a car or house should be unrelated to how much we paid; our decision to stay until the end or leave a horrible movie should depend only on the relative value of the remaining time and not what we paid for the tickets; Britain and France’s decision to continue Concorde development should have been based exclusively on the economic prospects for the project and not how much had already been invested; in stock trading, future buy-sell decisions should be made independently of whether we own the stock, or have an unrealized loss or gain.

http://www.healthypoker.com/live/2011/09/systematic-cognitive-error-in-poker-part-1-the-sunk-cost-fallacy/

Humanist thanksgiving prayer

I was always asked to do the praying bit at Thanksgiving dinner, because once upon a time I was 'the religious one'.  Truthfully, I alwasy stumbled over the G-word.  A theist friend said 'you atheist have nothing to be thankful to' - and I thought 'the hell I don't'.  So here is my shot at a little prayer.  Modify and use as you like.  It is original.

Thanksgiving

We give thanks for the farmers and other workers who brought this food to our table, and to Mother Earth for the abundance we enjoy.

We give thanks to the men and women who worked hard toward our ideal of a fair society, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and who make possible the freedoms we enjoy today.

We give thanks to the unheard, who because they have the least possessions, have the smallest voice.

We give thanks for our health, for the people who work tirelessly to keep our air, food and water clean, and to the men and women who devote their lives to healing.

We thank those who still hold a vision of a just society: where those who want have a chance to, one day, want less, and those with plenty do what they can to uplift those with little.

We give thanks to the people of science who work to broaden our understanding of the workings of our world, and to the people of letters and culture who enrich and deepen our lives.

We give thanks for families, for our own, for the closeness and love we feel today, and to those who went before, paving the way, and preparing the soil for the prosperity of those we love today.

Today we give special remembrance and thanks to the men and women who leave to fight wars they may not understand and to their families who have to reconcile their loss with the senselessness.

Finally, we give thank for the privilege it is to be human – for the minds that allow us to exploit or be caretakers of our world and to the growing wisdom to make that choice well.

Paul Gibbons