Winning Wisdom

At only 27 years old, Gavin Griffin already holds one of the most impressive collections of poker's most prestigious titles. The former poker dealer won the $3,000 buy-in pot-limit hold'em event at the 2004 World Series of Poker, a win that, at the time, bestowed upon him the record as the youngest bracelet winner in history. Since then, he has accumulated more than $4.5 million in live tournament winnings, and made history again by winning the European Poker Tour Grand Final Championship, which boasted the biggest first-place prize in EPT history at the time, more than $2.4 million. Griffin continued his quest for major titles at the 2008 World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Classic, where he snagged a triple crown by winning the coveted WPT title and the $1.4 million first-place prize.

Now, Card Player is giving its readers a chance to send questions directly to the poker prodigy.

Poker fans can send Griffin their questions to [email protected]. The questions can be about anything from poker strategy to his opinions on certain aspects of poker or his life as a poker pro traveling the circuit. The best questions will be answered by Griffin and published in Card Player. If your question makes it into print, we'll send you a free Card Player T-shirt.

Playing Jacks or Queens in a Multitable Tournament Online

Gavin:

Recently, I have vastly improved my game and am having a lot of good results online. However, there is one thing that is hurting me deep in tournaments. Let's say that late in a multitable tournament (MTT), I get J-J or Q-Q and raise, and get reraised. I'm not sure if these holdings are worth shoving with, but I know that the reraise range of most people could be much less than these hands. So, let's say that I call, and the flop comes all undercards. This is where I get into trouble. Now I am faced with a three-bettor preflop and have an overpair to the board. Is there some kind of advice that you can give me on getting through these situations with my stack intact? Thank you.

­- Dustin Jung

Hi, Dustin:

Congrats on your recent success. Deep in an online MTT, I'm almost never folding J-J or Q-Q in a heads-up situation. Perhaps if it's against some guy who doesn't play any hands at all, I'll fold, but against most online MTT players, J-J or better is never a fold. There are a few reasons for this. First, online MTTs have a much faster structure, and therefore the stacks are shorter. If you have 30 big blinds, it's probably never correct to fold J-J against one other player. Get the money in and hope that you don't get unlucky. Sure, sometimes you'll be beat, but that happens, and there is nothing you can do about it. When there are only three hands that beat you, you don't need to be looking for reasons to fold; you need to be looking for ways to get your stack into the middle of the table.

The second reason that I wouldn't fold J-J late in online MTTs is the looser tendencies of online players. They are much more apt to reraise you with small pocket pairs, bad aces, Q-J, and so on than live-tournament players. This is because they can just fire up another tournament whenever they want. To high-volume MTT players online, each individual tournament means little; therefore, they play faster and find themselves in neutral or slightly positive EV (expected value) situations more often and go for them because those small edges add up when extrapolated over thousands and thousands of situations.
Finally, a good argument for getting all of the money in preflop is that if the flop comes A-Q-7 and you hold J-J, you are likely to get bluffed out by a worse hand, such as two nines or two tens, that reraised you. Now you've forced yourself into a huge mistake (folding), when you could have doubled up as a 4-1 favorite. Good luck, Dustin. I hope that the online tournaments continue to bring you success.

Different Strategies for Different Structures

Hi, Gavin:

Congrats on the great success. I have a question about playing a relatively strong hand early in a tournament with a somewhat fast structure. Most of the tournaments I play have a starting "M" of around 30 or so. Let's say you hold A-K, flop an ace on a ragged board, bet out, and get smooth-called. The turn brings a blank, you fire again, and get raised. I see a lot of players go broke with top pair in these situations, and I wonder if it is a mistake to do so. What do you think? How should my strategy shift for a more deep-stacked event?

- Wayne, Las Vegas, Nevada

Hi, Wayne:

In tournaments like the one you described, I'm going broke when I flop top pair, top kicker with A-K. There is just no avoiding it. The value of winning chips is so much greater than the value of saving chips, because you don't have a lot of chips to begin with. This is true because of the quickly elevating structure. Sure, you may only be dropping from an M of 30 to an M of 20 by folding on the turn, but in 20 minutes, when the blinds double, your M is now 10, and when they double again, it's 5. You need to be winning chips rapidly in faster-structured tournaments.

In the slower-paced tournaments, you can afford to lay down big hands if the situation warrants it. If your example occured in the main event of the World Series of Poker, my answer would be different. You have a starting stack with an M of 133, so saving chips in situations with marginal hands (this becomes a marginal hand due to the action and the situation) becomes much more valuable. If your opponent is a straightforward player, you can fold your top pair, top kicker and feel OK about it, while still having plenty of chips to work with. Of course, I don't want you to let yourself get run over. Poker is about knowing your opponents and deciding what to do with your hand based on all of the information that you have. Make sure that you keep your opponents' tendencies in mind when you make your decisions. Good luck, Wayne!

Avoiding the Temptations and Pitfalls

Gavin:

First of all, congrats on all that you've accomplished, winning the triple crown and all.

I was wondering, with all of the temptations that exist out there, especially in the poker world, such as casino games like craps, drugs, and all of the other terrible pitfalls, how do you avoid them and stay level as a person and as a player? What helps you to stay away from all of that when sometimes it is right there in front of you, or when you have easy access to it? Essentially, what helps you get past all of the bad things in the poker world?

Thanks, Gavin, for your time, and good luck in the near future.

- Joe Wurtz

Hi, Joe:

This is a great question. So many incredibly talented poker players end up broke because of the outside problems that are associated with playing poker. We use money as a tool, and that mentality leads to a loss of respect for the value of a dollar. This, in turn, leads to excessive gambling, drug use, and spending. I'm guilty of that last one quite often. However, there are a few things that keep me grounded. My parents have been very supportive of me in my professional career. They have always kept me grounded and raised me with a value system that has kept me away from drugs and gambling (outside of poker). Sure, I have drinks with friends and I'll play blackjack every once in a while if I'm in Vegas with my friends, but I don't gamble huge sums of money, mainly because it doesn't appeal to me. I can always look back at the way my parents raised me, and I expect them to be proud of the way I turned out. The other thing that keeps me grounded is the rest of my family: my brother, my sister, and my girlfriend, Kristen. They all are extremely hard-working individuals, and my love for them ensures that I won't let them down. My support system is so good that I would be heartbroken if I didn't live up to their expectations of me as a person. Good luck, Joe.

Gavin Griffin is the newest member of Team PokerStars. Visit his website at www.gavingriffin.net.