A Tough Lowball Call

I recently used pure math to make a tough lowball call. It was the "longest" call I've made in my lowball playing career. I called a blind bet with a relatively large pair, a call no one else at the table would have made, but it was the right call for the situation.

Some lowball players like to gamble, and they are willing to gamble it up with others who also show a little gamble. They don't even mind taking the worst of it, sometimes saying, "You've got to give action if you want to get action." They resent tight players who want to play only the nuts and are not willing to gamble it up a bit even when they (the tight players) have the best of it. Lowball is particularly amenable to gambling-type situations, some of which fall under the classification of propositions.

We need a few definitions here, from (what else?) The Official Dictionary of Poker:

gamble

1. (n) Loose play, or the desire to play other than tight. "He must have a lot of gamble in him, because he never lets any of it out." Also, bounce, jump. 2. (v) Play loosely. Be willing to bet on situations with uncertain outcomes. Note: This word has special meaning among poker players, and is different from the more generalized definition of the word as found in most dictionaries.

gambler

(n) One who takes chances in a poker game, or one who exhibits gamble (definition 1). According to Doyle Brunson, in his Super/System, this term "… is often used to describe the class (that is, the quality) of a poker player. When the word is used this way, it describes the highest class of player – which actually means that the player is not really a gambler at all, but a highly skilled player."

open blind, raise blind

1. (n phrase) The term usually applies to a draw game, generally lowball, and is often shortened to OBRB. A game in which the first player to the dealer's left blinds the pot and the next player raises before getting his cards. Often called just raise blind. 2. (v phrase) This is usually part of a proposition. That is, one player asks another, "Open blind, raise blind?" This means, "If you open the pot blind, I will raise you blind."

open blind, raise blind, reraise blind

1. (n phrase) The term usually applies to a draw game, generally lowball, and is often shortened to OBRBRB. A game in which the first player to the dealer's left blinds the pot, the next player raises blind before getting his cards, and the next player raises before getting his cards. Since this puts six bets into the pot before the cards are dealt, the effect is to increase the action of the game. Often shortened to reraise, and sometimes called raise blind. 2. (v phrase) This is usually part of a proposition. A player who asks another, "Open blind, raise blind, reraise blind?" is saying, "I will open the pot blind and reraise you back blind if you promise to raise blind."

proposition

(n) 1. An offer by one player to another to play under certain circumstances, usually more favorable to the other player, in exchange for calling a bet. Propositions are found mainly in no-limit lowball games. For example, one player raises. The player who opened the pot asks, "Two for one?" He is offering a proposition, which is, in effect, saying, "I need to draw two cards to this hand. I would not normally call your raise, but you look like a sporting fellow, so I will call and draw two cards if you agree that you will take one card. If you have to break a pat hand to comply, so be it; I will not play otherwise." Gentlemen do not offer a proposition and then renege. In other words, if you offer, for example, two for one, it's not considered sporting to then draw only one or stand pat after the other has thrown his card, nor is it sporting on his part to accept and then stand pat. (Of course, he could accept and draw two, because that is more of a gamble than the offerer of the proposition was requesting or expecting.) If someone offers you a proposition, naturally, you can decline. Again, the sporting thing to do in this example is not to say, "Oh, I'm probably drawing anyway," and then stand pat. If you don't want to give away anything about your intentions, you can say, "Just call the bet or throw away your hand," or say nothing. Just don't out-and-out lie. While permitted, it's not sporting, and will lose you respect and action later. A counterproposition (described under pass for a prop) is also a possibility. 2. An agreement between two or more players to always take part in a certain gamble when circumstances warrant, such as open blind, raise blind (definition 2) or bet blind, raise blind.

raise blind

1. (v phrase) Raise without having seen your cards. 2. (n phrase, v phrase) Same as open blind, raise blind. 3. Same as open blind, raise blind, reraise blind.

The subject of gambling – that is, not just sitting there waiting for the nuts but putting in a little action – came up in the lowball game I frequent. I mention offhandedly that I'd recently played bet blind, raise blind, reraise blind with someone to my right when he had the middle blind, I had the big blind, and everyone else had folded. I said this only casually because I doubted that any of the normally conservative players in the game would be interested in risking several bets without looking at their cards. Doing so adds considerably to one's variance in a lowball game.

Jones, two seats to my right, a man who had been playing a loose, aggressive game, and appeared to be annoyed by the other players' unwillingness to accommodate his desire for action, said he'd agree to a proposition like that anytime. I now wanted to get the seat to Jones' left. Directly to my right sat Cindy, a weak-passive player I normally like on my right because she plays a lot of two-card draws and draws to eights and nines, and calls too much after the draw. But I thought the potential proposition with Jones might be worth more this day, and would enhance my image as an unpredictable player who is willing to give action. The problem was that Cindy had just won several pots, and didn't want to leave her "lucky" seat. I told her my seat was lucky, too, and she'd have more opportunities to catch me bluffing. She reluctantly agreed.

Of course, I wanted to engage in this proposition with Jones because I would really be getting the best of it. Normally, the proposition is just bet blind, raise blind. That is, if no one opens and only the middle blind and big blind remain, the little blind opens the pot without looking at his cards, and the big blind raises. The player who acts last in a lowball pot has an advantage by getting to see how many cards the first player draws. Raising blind supposedly offsets this advantage, because the raiser puts in twice as much money as the opener. I believe that this actually shifts the advantage to the opener, because he then gets to decide how to play his hand, and whether to fold, just call, or reraise. If he has a truly hopeless hand, he is out only the $15 (in a $20-limit game, because he had already put in $5 for his middle blind). I wanted to revert the advantage to myself, while at the same time giving the illusion of being a wild and crazy gambler, so my proposition went one better. The opener put in three bets, and I put in two, at which point I could finally look at my cards and decide what to do. This actually gave me a huge advantage, because I would have last action both in the betting and in deciding how to draw to my hand.

We would not have a chance to put our proposition into play until a pot came up with no one, including the button, opening. The game was reasonably lively, and every pot for a long time involved someone opening. Each time that happened, after the hand was played, I speculated with Jones how the action would have gone between us had we had the opportunity to play. Most of the time, one or the other of us got "saved" when only one of us actually had a playable hand. When he had a better hand than mine, I noted how that would have been a nice one for him, and speculated about how big the pot might have been. We went hours with no opportunity to exercise the proposition. I could tell that Jones was itching to play one of these hands with me.

The game became sevenhanded, plus two players were lobbying, and I predicted we'd be able to play heads up the next hand, when I would have the big blind. My prediction came true. Neither of the other three players opened. As we agreed, Jones opened, I raised, and Jones reraised. At this point, I looked at my hand. Jones was disappointed when I looked at my cards after his third bet, saying that he'd hoped we would just keep raising and not looking for several more bets. In retrospect, that would have been just fine this time, but the closer to equal the number of our bets, the lesser my edge. If he had put in seven bets, for example, and I six, I would not have much chance to outplay him, nor could I get much of a read on his hand from subsequent action. If a player wants to gamble, I always propose three for two. This is the least number of bets involving raising in which I have the best of it, unless, of course, I am in the middle blind (when I might agree to bet blind, raise blind), but then I don't have the positional advantage, which is crucial here. I knew I could outplay Jones in my drawing decisions, but I wanted the crucial information of seeing how many cards he drew, and I wanted not to give away my own draw prematurely.

What I saw when I looked at my cards was what I had been hoping for, either a pat hand or a one-card draw. I would have been quite happy with a pat jack or better, or a draw to a 9, since both are considerably better than a random five cards. What I got was much better, 6-4-3-2-2 – that is, a one-card draw to a 6, as close to a monster as I could get for this situation. Naturally, I didn't just call his blind raise, but went one more bet myself. He called this fourth bet, and asked for one card. Now I knew I really had the best of it, for several reasons.

Jones had already been pushing his hands in the full-table situation a bit too much. More than once, he had raised drawing to an 8. In many of these situations, he had been drawing worse than the opener, but had gotten lucky several times and had made his hand while his opponent had caught a 9 or 10 and called his after-the-draw bet. Raising on the come is often a good play in lowball, but you should have the best hand when you do so. I sometimes raise when drawing to an 8 when I'm against a player who habitually draws two cards and draws to rough hands, but I don't raise someone who opened in early position unless I'm drawing to a 6 or better, and I don't even raise with that hand all the time. Jones had been raising on almost all of his one-card draws, though, and it had been working for him. He had sometimes been taking the worst of it and coming out with the best, and had built his stack up to more than $1,000. Playing this way can generate a rush when the cards come, allowing him to build his stacks more quickly than I usually can. Of course, he loses overall, and I don't, but when he wins, he wins more than I. Because of the way he'd been playing and because of his eagerness to gamble, I knew that if he'd been drawing to as good as an 8, he would have put in at least one more bet. I knew that with Jones drawing one card, I really had the best of it. If he had had a good two-card draw, he would have called and drawn straightforwardly to his hand. If he had had a good one-card draw, he would have reraised and drawn one. If he had had any pat hand, from a 10 on down – and maybe even a jack! – he would have reraised and stood pat. Meekly calling and drawing one told me he was drawing rough, very rough.

I, of course, drew a card. Before receiving his card, Jones made a blind bet, and again looked disappointed when I didn't raise blind. I couldn't outplay him, though, by raising blind. I needed to base my decision on what I caught. Yes, I was drawing better than he, but I did not want to give him a 2-to-1 advantage when I didn't have that much the best of it. In fact, with a blind raise from me, he would be getting better than 11-to-1 on a call. (We each had put in four bets already, and there would be three more bets in the pot if I raised blind.) Many players, wanting to give the appearance of gambling, would raise blind in this spot, and would have an overall positive expectation by doing so, but not as much as I would have by making my decision based on the card I caught. My plan was to raise with a 9 or better and call with most other hands.

Disaster! I caught the absolute worst card I could, another 6. Several possibilities crossed my mind.

Folding was one, but there was too much in the pot, so I had to consider further.

Raising was another, but I rejected that. I knew he'd call with almost any hand better than mine. He earlier had called bets with pairs in much smaller pots. This is actually not a bad strategy, and he had caught a few people bluffing. I thought a raise was useless; the only hands he would lay down would be those worse than mine. I was sure he would call with a pair of fours or better, and maybe even fives, so most of the time the only way I'd take the pot by raising would be when I had the best hand anyway. But raising had a further downside. He might take it into his head to reraise with a worse hand, giving me an even tougher decision. I could have read things completely wrong, and he might be drawing to a good hand, with which he would reraise if he made it, or he might reraise if he made whatever rough hand he was drawing to. This was not so unlikely, considering that he was in a gambling mood, and this pot was finally satisfying his urge. I would probably then lose two bets – or even three if I decided I was still getting odds to call – on a hand with which I should have lost either none or at most one more.

I needed to use some math. I was getting better than 9-to-1 to call. There was a good chance that if he paired, it was higher than sixes (due to his not having reraised). In fact, I assessed the hand he was drawing to as most likely containing three cards higher than mine. That is, I thought he was drawing to something like 9-8-7. None of my cards were available for him to catch, including the deuce I threw, so he was effectively drawing from a deck of 42, of which at least six cards paired him higher than sixes. Probably any of the six cards I had seen (6-6-4-3-2-2) would give him a winner, but they weren't available to him. Subtract his first five cards plus my six from 53 to get 42. The odds against his pairing, then, were 36-to-6, or 6-to-1; the better than 9-to-1 that I was getting made it a clear overlay to just call. An added reason to call is that this opportunity won't come up again anytime soon, so I can't take advantage of the long run. That is, I might play for years and never have this same situation come up again, so I couldn't afford to throw away a pot of this size for one bet. I probably would have called even if doing so had a slight negative expectation. One more plus of calling is that if I lose, I can just quietly dump my cards unseen, but if I call, I can really look like a terrific player. I called, and he said, "I don't know what I have." (Duh. He had bet blind and hadn't yet looked at his cards.) He didn't do what some lowball players love to do – squeeze their cards and take forever before showing them. Some players love prolonging the suspense, particularly if it can make an opponent sweat. He just quickly spread the hand. Lovely! He had caught a 9 while drawing to 10-9-8-7! My winning this pot made a difference of $200. The other players emitted gasps of amazement and congratulatory remarks at my seemingly prescient call.

Logan, another aggressive player, said, "I could never call with a pair of sixes. I would fold or raise." Both decisions are wrong, but I wasn't about to explain why.

I was somewhat surprised that Jones would not only bet blind when drawing to a rough 10, but also would want to go several bets at that point before either of us looked. I guess he truly wanted to gamble, because he was taking way the worst of it. Had I been in his situation, I would have drawn one card, looked at it, and then probably bet upon pairing nines. Had he done that, my decision would have been a lot harder. I probably still would have called, based on game theory, but he didn't know that. Or, in his shoes, I just might have given it up for a bad cause, and passed and saved one bet.

Denouement: At this point, Jones was down to $60, after having been up to more than $1,000. I didn't want to continue the proposition if he had only three bets, and he was not showing signs of buying more chips. At about this time, Logan quit, Cindy said she didn't want to play shorthanded, and I had my own good excuse to leave, saying that I had to get up early to drive to Las Vegas for the World Poker Players Conference. The game would have been threehanded, and I don't think it would have gone much longer. I quit as a $90 winner for the session, after having clawed my way back from a $700 loss. Had I lost that pot to Jones, I would have had little chance of winning that night.