Woohoo for Lowball

I wrote previously about the draw poker game I've been playing at a popular online gaming site. Did I say I like it? I do.

But a new game has been introduced, and in comparison, well, as the players say, "Woohoo!" The playing area of the computer screen has a small rectangle into which you can type comments that are seen by all the seated players, as well as anyone who happens to be observing the game while waiting for a seat. In addition to words, you can also type certain letter combinations that generate sounds in all participants' computer speakers. Typing "woohoo" generates a war whoop. "LOL" (or "lol" or any combination of uppercase and lowercase letters) produces an insane cackle. "App" produces a few seconds of applause. You can even flush a toilet, perhaps as your reaction to a bad beat.

So, the new game is, of course, my favorite poker game, lowball. This online lowball game actually bears more relation to that found in b&m (as Internet folks call brick-and-mortar, as opposed to virtual, establishments) cardrooms than the draw game I described. The deck has no joker, and the game does not have the 7 rule. Apart from those two differences, the game is exactly the same as the double-limit draw lowball games that used to flourish in every club in Gardena. (The game is still alive and well at Normandie Casino, and I believe Commerce Casino regularly spreads a day game that sometimes continues into the night.) Well, the structure and play of the game is similar, but the actual realization is something else. Players years ago used the term berry patch to refer to a particularly live, sucker-populated game. We need a new term for the online games, though – maybe berry farm. Now that I've played online lowball a few times, draw high has less attraction for me, even though the recent introduction of blinds (replacing the ante game) has made the game livelier and more interesting.

Many players have some conception of how to play draw poker, and are generally aware of how one hand compares to another. That is, they realize that a pair of deuces does not stack up well against three aces or a flush. That's not so in lowball, though. Hold'em players, perhaps disgusted at not making any hands in their game or while on the waiting list for the game of their choice, drop in all the time, and they appear to be the most clueless. They seem to be trying to make up strategies on the fly, not realizing, of course, that lowball strategy is not quite intuitively obvious. They are not aware that a two- or a three-card draw is a decided underdog against almost any legitimate pat lowball hand. And on the other side of that coin, they think that any hand without a pair is a favorite against any draw. In the first case, you see players call in capped pots to draw their two and three cards, and then call the pat hand after the draw with their queens, kings, and even small pairs, hoping the pat hand was bluffing or maybe stood pat on worse.

Did I say a good draw player can make two or three big bets per hour in the high draw game? I think a good lowball player can make double that in the online lowball game. But that good lowball player had better buckle up and hold on to his hat, because the action can get pretty furious.

Here is an example of what I have been running into:

It was my big blind in a $2-$4 game. TXperp opened the pot for the minimum. In the old Gardena days, they called that gypsying in; nowadays the term limp is more popular.

NJLoser, on the button, called.

(Parenthetically, I wonder where some of these folks come up with their names. Is TXperp a convicted Houston felon? Does NJLoser regularly contribute in Atlantic City? The ones I love to see jump into a lowball game are those with obvious hold'em handles: cracked-aces, TJQKA, sooooooooooted, LiveBlind999, AKoff, and the like. The stud and Omaha eight-or-better players at least seem to understand what constitutes a possible winning low hand. Their game of choice appears often in their names, too: HLScoop, LiveCards, GoForLow, and so on. The ones I should perhaps be wary of are GardenaEx and no pair.)

CutyPie called in the small blind.

I had 7-6-2-A-K. This hand figured to be the best. Most limpers in this game come in for the minimum with a rough draw (drawing to an 8 or 9) or try to get in cheaply with a two-card draw. Since it's a blind game, they either have to open or throw away those three lovely low cards. So, limp openers generally have considerably worse than my hand. Limp callers, such as NJLoser in this pot, are even less likely to have a powerful holding. This trying-to-get-in-cheaply situation was common in the old Gardena games – and still is. Then, when the pot gets raised, as it frequently does, they "have to call for the size of the pot." That's one of the nice things (for a good player) about lowball. After a player makes the initial mistake, everything thereafter often is correct. That is, if the pot contains six or seven bets when the action gets back to you, calling one more bet has a positive expectation, because the odds against your winning are not worse than 6-to-1. So, the losers can go years griping about their bad luck and not understanding why they lose. Limp callers are even less likely to have anything. I raised. Everyone who was there at the start called my raise, so the pot then contained eight small bets.

CutyPie, the first to draw, took three cards. She had likely been hoping to get a cheap draw for half a bet. She had called the raise because it was "only one more bet and look at the pot odds I'm getting." At least that's what I imagined was going through her mind, assuming any thought processes were even present. More likely, it was something like, "I've got two good cards. Maybe I'll get lucky and catch three more. Anyway, it's 50-50: either I win the pot, or I don't."

I drew one. In online draw games, you see the card you catch immediately, so I saw the 8 right away. It was not the best card, of course, but it was well within the range of good cards. I would have preferred catching inside, a 3, 4, or 5, but an 8 was infinitely superior to pairing one of the cards I started with. There's another mistake that action-oriented players make in this spot. They start out trying to build a pot and hoping for calls after the draw. They pair, and suddenly start rationalizing, "Hmm. I've got a tight image in this game. I'll bet my pair and no one will call." Against three calling stations, such a move is suicide, even if everyone draws two or more cards. When I pair in this spot, I just give up, knowing that a similar situation will come up again soon. Anyway, I liked my 8 and planned on betting it after the draw.

TXperp stood pat. Now, I liked my hand even more. A hand with which a player limps in and only calls a raise is not a pat 8 or better. You have to watch out for a few tricky (or just plain tight) players in the online game who just limp with good hands, but fortunately, there are not too many of them. This is where keeping notes is a wonderful thing. Since a player who had been slow-playing a big hand would have reraised, and TXperp had just called, I put him on a 10 or possibly a rough 9. Of course, I would not have been surprised at the showdown to see TXperp had stood on a jack. Many players think that a pat hand, any pat hand, is better than any draw, and they include any number of draws in their definition of "any."

NJLoser also stood pat. This was even better. Two players who might have had a shot at drawing to beat the 8 I had made had essentially conceded the pot to me. They just didn't know it yet.

All I had to worry about was CutyPie's three-card draw, but that wasn't much worry: an 8-7-6-2-A beats a three-card draw approximately 16 times out of 17. CutyPie bet. Well, there was no way I was going to throw my cards away. In addition to likely betting all the hands that beat me, she would bet many hands worse than my 8. That included betting a pair. Players who put in two bets to draw three cards are quite capable of thinking they can get an excellent draw and two pat hands to fold. I was not going to raise, though. She could have made a miracle draw, and one of the players behind could have fooled me. Also, if one of them had a marginal hand with which he wanted to overcall, I didn't want to discourage the bet.

TXperp called. NJLoser hesitated a moment, and also called. At that point, the application instantly exposed all the hands. That's one of the nice things about online lowball: You don't have to wait for some slow-roller to turn up the best hand.

CutyPie had made a three-card 9-8-7. Nice bet. TXperp had stood pat on and then called with Q-8. NJLoser had 10-9.

Again, assuming thought processes, I can only assume that TXperp had figured CutyPie was bluffing and I was calling her for a bluff. Or, maybe the thought went no further than, "I have a pat hand. That beats most draws." Maybe he'd heard someone say that in lowball, a pat hand is better than a draw, and he hadn't gone as far as asking what that someone included in his definition of pat hand.

As for NJLoser, his reasoning had to include all of TXperp's, with the additional assumption that TXperp was trying to catch both drawers bluffing and had called thinking that NJLoser obviously had stood pat on worse than a queen. Well, maybe NJLoser had played a Q-9. My brain grew dizzy trying to account for any sort of reasoning, and I gave it up as a bad job. But I had won six bets on my hand; "tyvm," I typed, and the whole table heard Elvis say "thank you very much" in that inimitable Elvis fashion. I added a "Woohoo" in my boyish exuberance, and someone generated a round of applause.

I love the game.

What else have I seen?

Well, I saw a player stand pat on 8-3-2-2-A when the player ahead of him drew two cards. Yep, he had a good 8 to draw to, but didn't. I guess his thought was that a small pair had to be better than a two-card draw. And then this player called the bet from the two-card draw, who had made 9-8-7. The pat hand holder had had a free shot to beat that hand, but didn't take it.

I had the big blind. TwoQueens limped in from the middle blind. I had 9-6-2-A-A. That hand figured to be better than whatever most players don't even consider raising with from the small blind, plus I had position, so I raised. She – well, I thought that name cloaked a female – called, and stood pat, and I drew one card, catching a very nice 7. She checked, I bet, and she called. She had Q-6-5-4-A – obviously a hold'em player without a clue. All she had to do was draw and I was drawing dead. In fact, a good player would have opened for a raise, and maybe even reraised if I (the big blind) raised. Said player would have drawn, bet the 7 she made, and, if I had drawn to the 9 and made it, earned an extra bet. Sadly for her, TwoQueens had the same mistaken idea of what constitutes a pat hand.

I loved this one. Warthog came in with a raise just to the right of the deal position. Warthog knows how to play lowball. SplitPot777 called on the button, as did the big blind. The big blind drew two cards, Warthog took one, and SplitPot777 took one. The big blind passed, Warthog bet, SplitPot777 called, and the big blind folded. Warthog had made 7-5-4-3-2; SplitPot777 had called with a pair of eights. I laughed. "Good call, SplitPot777," I said to the screen; "you had him if he paired nines." Maybe SplitPot777 had thought he might back into the high half …

Do you lowball players think you can beat a game like that? Or, do you online players with a bit of card sense, those who might have read Free Money: How to Win in the Cardrooms of California or maybe followed some of my lowball columns? I think you can.