Variations on the 'Learning Curve' Theme

A couple of weeks ago, I came across Jan Fisher's column, "My No-Limit Hold'em Learning Curve Lesson" (Card Player; May 23, 2003). Jan analyzed a hand from the WPT Celebrity Invitational that she thought she'd misplayed. If I may be so bold as to judge, I think Jan came to lots of correct conclusions, but omitted some points that seemed relevant to me (probably because I was involved in the hand).

Unlike some Card Player columnists and tournament reporters whose work lazily seems to run on endlessly, Jan works hard to keep hers to one page (it's harder to write a good short column than a good long one), so space limitations almost certainly prevented Jan from moving on to the matters I want to examine here.

Jan had just been moved to a table containing, among others, Men Nguyen, Allen Cunningham, Brad Daugherty, Humberto Brenes, and me. Antes were $200 and the blinds $800-$1,600, meaning it would cost $4,400 to sit out a 10-player round. Jan had only $6,000 left, which meant she almost certainly had to find a hand or make a move quickly. She'd have been anted off in less than a round and a half.

Now, let's look at what Jan wrote about the pot:

" … Right after the blinds went to $800-$1,600, with Andy on my right and under the gun, I picked up 8-8. Andy raised the pot to $4,800. I had about $6,000 in chips. What was I supposed to do, and what did I do? Well, the answers are as different as night and day. I mucked the two eights without a thought. Of course, I should have gone all in over the top of Andy. Allen, in the cutoff seat, reraised, and Brad went over the top, all in. Andy mucked, Allen called, and we saw their cards and the flop. Allen had K-J (and must have read Andy for weakness), and Brad had A-J (and was low on chips). The turn and river cards were then displayed (Andy note: Actually, all this action came preflop, not after the flop), and Brad won with ace high. Not only were my eights good, but I would have flopped a set (Andy note: This proves the action was indeed preflop) and rivered quads! Of course, I likely would not have gotten action from either player behind me if I had come over the top of Andy, as I should have done, since I had a very tight table image. Most likely, I would have had a heads-up showdown with Andy."

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to beat quads.

Jan quite correctly noted, "You cannot play 'results' poker when looking back to determine whether or not you played a hand correctly." She went on to draw some other good conclusions about the role fear can play in no-limit.

Let's back up a little bit.

If I opened for $4,800 and Allen raised me, he had to have pushed at least $9,600 forward, and (I wish I could remember, but I don't) it's unlikely he would raise that little. It's more likely he had made it something like $12,000-$15,000 to go.

Brad then reraised Allen. Because it was an all-in reraise, there's no way to know what the number was. Jan indicated Brad was low on chips, so let's be conservative and say Allen bet $12,000 and Brad pushed $15,000 forward – certainly no more than $20,000. First of all, is $15,000-$20,000 low when the blinds are $800-$1,600? Yes, but not desperately low, and not even dangerously low. It's just low, and left Brad far better off than Jan, especially because Brad had now made it through the blinds.

My first question is, then, what in the world is Brad doing what amounts to calling all in with A-J? I'm still in the hand and could be interested in playing: My raise from early position indicates strength. OK, let's say Jan was right and somehow or another I was projecting weakness that both Allen and Brad could read; I'm not willing to rule that out no matter how much I might not like the idea.

Nonetheless, Brad can't have made a raise that would have caused Allen to lay down K-J unless he had at least $25,000, probably more, and if he had 25K, he wasn't short. So, when Brad "raises," he has to assume that Allen is playing and he's going with A-J for his whole stack.

Two issues ago I wrote about how deceptively weak A-J is in no-limit, so there's no need to go into all of that again here. It's conceivable that Brad was good enough to read weakness not only on my part (back to that in a moment) but also on Allen's (figuring that Allen had been making a play at my weakness with something weak of his own, which mostly turns out to be correct).

I say "mostly" because I don't remember exactly what I'd raised with from under the gun, but I know what kind of hand I would need to hold when the cutoff seat had made a significant reraise and then the button had moved all in behind him, knowing that he (Brad, the button) was going to get called at least by Allen. I think the only hands I would even consider playing there would be A-K, Q-Q, K-K, or A-A, and I'm not sure how long I would consider A-K or Q-Q (I'd have to do a little reading of my own).

So, whether I was stealing out of the one-hole (unlikely, but not impossible) or decided that something halfway decent wasn't good enough to stand against two players who had shown such strength (I'm pretty sure I threw some medium pair away), we don't know how good both reads were. Unless Brad Daugherty is one of the great readers in the game's history, though (he's a former world champion, so maybe he is), his "nonraise" raise with A-J seems kind of shaky. The hand is almost never a big favorite even when it is a favorite. Brad was very fortunate to run into one of the very few hands A-J could dominate.

Ironically, one of the reasons I'm now as familiar with A-J's weaknesses is that it's the hand I went out on at the final table of this event!

I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for Allen from now on (not that I wasn't already), because if he can make that play with K-J, he either has a read on my game or a tell on my body language, and maybe both (I would bet on the "read on my game," but in poker, even your friends don't tell you if you have a tell … at least not until the rest of the world knows about it). I wish I could remember the hand better: As soon as Brad moved all in on Allen, whatever I had couldn't have been winning, I felt sure (it turns out I was, but as Jan said, you can't play results poker).

Let's look at the other players. I agree with Jan that she needed to move in there. Just going through the blinds (three more hands) would have left her with $3,000, an amount that never could have pushed anyone out of a hand: She'd need to win whatever her next confrontation was. With two eights, she's winning if facing overcards and can even be dominating if I've gotten frisky with a smaller pair.

Jan wrote that she threw her hand away from fear, but she has valid reasons to at least consider throwing it away. Two eights can very easily be dominated there. If she moves her stack all in, several bad things can happen. Someone could come in with two big cards for a flat call, and then she's facing two opponents, something you don't want with two eights (she wins about 55 percent of the time against A-K, but if someone with pocket fives limps into the pot, her winning chances drop to 45 percent). If someone reraises her all-in move, she's extremely likely to be losing, and given her early position, there are lots of players left who can wake up with a hand.

She's right to play because in her desperate chip position she needs to take a risk, and she certainly doesn't mind a coin flip against someone with A-K (she's actually much better than a coin flip at 6-5).

I can't tell how great Allen's play was, because Brad coming in after him eliminated any chance that I might play along, even with something like two jacks. It looks pretty good, though. If I'd held a pretty decent pocket pair, I really would have had to put my reading glasses on to decide if Allen was messing with me or not.

That raise will and should make the initial bettor lay down many hands that are better than his. Every once in a while he gets his clock cleaned, but you don't run into aces very often, you don't have to lose when you do, and most players aren't foolish/imaginative (take your pick) enough to repop Allen without much (assuming, of course, that Brad had folded).

I know I had a stack that was around par because I hung around par almost all day, so I have no reason to want to play a huge modest-edge pot even if I have two eights and Allen shows me K-J (which he can't do, of course, under modern rules).

What does all this tell you about the complexity of no-limit poker? We have two players who were involved in the hand writing about it, we know the holecards of the other two players, and we still can't be sure how good or bad Allen's and Brad's plays were, can't be completely sure about mine, and even though reasonably sure, can't say absolutely that Jan made a mistake, because there are arguments for her folding aside from fear.

Her play is a mistake because she wrote she folded from fear, as well as "without a thought" (rarely a good idea, although I too have both folded and bet without a thought – not on the same play, that would be a record), rather than the other reasons, although perhaps "fear" was her shortcut version of the things she did indeed have to fear.

In 1939, Winston Churchill said on a radio broadcast, "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." Most people have forgotten the ties to Russia, but remember the wonderful "riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" line.

How one makes correct decisions in no-limit poker certainly qualifies as a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. The players who succeed, ultimately, are those who are like Jan: willing to analyze their own play, willing to concede the possibility they made a mistake, and always trying to learn.

Jan's on one point on the no-limit learning curve, I'm on another, and Allen and Brad are on two others. All of us started at the curve's beginning, and we progress because we've been willing to learn. Allen learned faster than any of us, although Brad certainly burst onto the scene in a hurry when he got serious.

It doesn't matter where you currently sit on the curve. The moment you adopt the attitude that you've learned all there is to learn (or, almost but not quite as bad, that you've learned all you can learn), figure that you've got about a year's worth of play left in you.

After that, the only way you'll be able to succeed is to continue moving down in limits (or buy-in size, for tournaments), because as sure as day follows night, the players you used to be able to battle successfully will come flying by you. Make sure you're nice to them on the way up, because you'll meet them on the way down.