TOURNAMENT PLAY - TOLERATING THE DONKIES

TOURNAMENT PLAY - TOLERATING THE DONKIES; Article 03

by: D. Michael Vadnais

(c) copyright July 2006 by D. M. Vadnais; all rights reserved

TARGETING DONKIE CHIPS; ROUND 1 OF TOURNEY PLAY (Part 1)

The tournaments' first 30 minutes have ended; and we've survived the donkie 'dung tossing' with patience, with playable pocket card sanity, and with a consistency of focus. Our targets are now known to us...they're the 'morons' who have doubled up, or even quadrupled up, as a result of the 'All-In' madness with 4/Q suited against the now eliminated calamitous play of the 'beanbrains' who called with 6/J off suit. These surviving members of the 'fling-em around early' club are sitting with stacks of 3K, 5K, 6K or more; and, we're prepared to concentrate our efforts with a singular purpose in mind...even though that sole purpose is built around a duality of goals. We want those chips, and we want the 'knuckleheads' out of the game. Yet, we're aware of the presence of the sane, sensible, and possibly good players who are sitting at the oval felt with us. We recognize that we might be well advised to proceed with caution against this group of players...the potentially good players; principally because we've not had ample opportunity to fully evaluate their play. But, the bozo's are in our sights, their stacks are in our sight, and our poker weaponry is about to unleash it's fearsome wrath on the lucky few dimwits who managed to escape the half hour of quantifiable stupidity. There they sit...believing that they're invincible, believing that they're WSOP bound, believing that they're 'in the money'; without an iota of comprehension about the poker environment that they're participating in. And, we sit beside them...fully armored to re-arrange their mindless fantasies of glory, fully armored to reduce their idiotic TV dreams, fully armored to level their stacks; with an arsenal of poker armaments at our disposal...the use of each weapon being fully known to us, or, at a minimum, some of the weapons being fully known to us. Plus, we need not put up a sign that reads 'Donkies Beware, Landmines Present'...not because these dodo's can't read, but because these dodo's won't ever realize that the sign is directed at them. In all candor, they're completely oblivious to the fact that they each possess zero gaming smarts, and even less reasoned poker thought capabilities. So, our mission is defined...level the morons, identify the real competitors, and accumulate some chips. Or, in paraphrasing Mark Twain, since the donkies possess little or no gray matter in their heads, our task is to get them out of the tourney and send them packing; possibly to Congress...where the absence of brain tissue is a requisite for Washington employment. Poker requires thought, politics mandates the exact opposite...as evidenced by the recently introduced House Bill attempting to disengage all U.S. citizens from participating in on-line poker play.

With the attempt at abstract levity aside, let's begin our weapons deployment with a reminder about the three we've already brought to the table...they are patience, playable pockets, and consistency of focus. And, while I have no interest in dismissing the significance of each, I'd merely like to move any detailed discussion about those topics to a subsequent article. So, take my reminder to the sidelines, and we'll get to those three weapons eventually. Here, in Article 03, I'd prefer to introduce a serious weapon of mass destruction; one that is often overlooked by many of us...pocket pairs. And, I'm not talking about just the 'dominant pocket' AA, or the 'gamblers pocket' KK, or even the premium pocket of QQ...no, I'm going to make reference to all pocket pairs; all 13 of them. Where, in being dealt our pocket cards, we have about a 6% chance of getting any one of the 13. Thus, on average, once in every 16 or 17 pockets, we'll get a pair. Moreover, when we have been dealt a pocket pair, we have about a 1 in 8 chance of hitting a set on the flop. Now, when we do all of the math, we realize that we're going to have a set once in approximately every 133 hands. Or, at a table with 10 players, we'll end up with a post-flop set one time for about every 13 Small Blinds/Big Blinds we've deposited into the various pots that have come and gone. The one set we end up with, however, becomes a WMD...especially if it's a set that was made by the flop when we held pocket 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, or 6's. Oh...Aces down to 7's are serious weapons too; but, the likelihood of inflicting major damage to the targeted donkies lies more in the low pocket pairs, rather than the higher pocket pairs. Thus, we'll proceed with the belief that pocket 2's thru 6's are major WMD's, that pocket 7's thru 10's are average WMD's, and that pocket J's thru A's are minor WMD's. And, if you haven't asked why the lower pocket pairs are more powerful than the higher pocket pairs, then the next paragraph is going to serve you well...in it the question gets answered, and your arsenal gets to expand by 1 weapon.

Now, if you're a member of my NLRG Study Group, you can take a 2 minute recess; the materials I'm about to present have been talked about in our Lecture series. However, for those of you who are contemplating abandoning this article out of a concern over my sanity...possibly soon to be adjudicated, please take the time to continue on; I think you'll readily come to understand the logical reasoning that confirms the increased value of low pocket pairs, rather than high pocket pairs. And, keep in mind that our stated mission is to reduce the donkies, and their chip stacks, to smoldering ashes. So, in a sample hand, let's give 'beanbrain' a pocket A/8 offsuit, and let's give a sane player a pocket A/Q suited...and, in this hand we hold pocket 5's. The sane player raises to 3x the BB, the 'beanbrain' calls, we call, and everyone else folds. The flop arrives, and it contains A/8/5 rainbow. The player who we believe has a degree of poker intellect again makes a 3x the BB bet, the 'beanbrain' raises the sane player by a factor of 5, we call, and the sane player calls. The turn card is a Queen. And, again, the sane player bets a token amount, and the 'beanbrain' raises dramatically...all-in. Clearly, we don't know it, but they both hold 2 pairs...yet, more importantly, they are completely devoid of the knowledge that we hold a set of 5's. The board is showing us A/8/5/Q...two cards are suited; so we face a possible flush draw, we also face 4 possible straight draws, we face 3 possible sets, and we face six 2 pair possibilities...all of which have full house draws. We certainly want to call the 'beanbrains' bet, and we'd be correct to make the sane player pay for any draw he might be looking to catch. So...all-in we go, and the sane player calls; the river is a brick, and we triple up. And, yes, I agree that this is an extreme example of what can happen with low pocket pairs. Yet, you need to take a few moments to identify all the possible hands where a set of 2's thru 6's are going to act as major WMD's in your play. Not because they are the most powerful cards you'll be playing, but because your opponents never have the ability to put you on a set of 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, or 6's. And, it is that very fact which causes the 'whooping' you put on a donkoid. Go ahead...think it through. Give the donk a QJ unsuited, and a flop of 3/8/Q...when you hold pocket 3's. Or, give the donk a KT unsuited, and a flop of 2/6/K...when you hold pocket 2's. Well...what happens? Sure, the donk goes nuts with his chips, and you blast him to holy hell. But, none of this gives us immunity from bad beats...they are an inevitable part of the game. Actually, when you truly analyze your beats, most of them...almost all of them...should be bad beats. Because when you're depositing chips into the pot, you should be holding the best hand. Then, when the river card puts you into a compromised position...well, so be it. You bet when you were supposed to, and Lady Luck opted to side with your opponent.

Pocket 2's through 6's will, over time, prove their worth to you; and, you'll be more than happy that you've stockpiled your armory with the knowledge of their use. But, we also want the pocket 7's through A's to be stored in close proximity to the lower pairs. Hopefully, my point has been made. The small pocket pairs, when they're fortunate enough to have grown up to be a post-flop set, are ICBM's dispatched to take down weather balloons...and the balloons are donkies who started out in the tourney clueless, who remain clueless after the detonation, and who will return in some reincarnated form to experience the devastation anew. And, that next 'destiny determined donkie destruction' could easily come from the use of our stockpiled 7's through A's. Where, each of these pocket pairs can also inflict a fatal wound to the beanbrains bravado. You may not take as many chips from dodo when you make a set out of Tens, Jacks, or Queens...but, the beating that beanbrain has suffered through will sure as heck put him on tilt; and, shortly thereafter, he's gone. Plus, there are times when the 7's, 8's, and 9's are equally as powerful as the lower pairs. Yet, in the case of holding pocket 7's through Q's, don't make the mistake of aggressively calling a pre-flop bet that exceeds 3x the BB...it's still early in the tourney, and you'll want to stick around; mostly because you want to stick a round, or a few rounds, of 9mm discharges up the donkies backside. Now, that leaves us with pocket Kings and pocket Aces. When we have Kings, remember that any one of our opponents has a 1 in 212 chance of holding pocket Aces...thus with 9 other players in the game, there's a 9 in 212 chance of someone holding pocket Aces; or, less than one-half of one percent. This being true, if everyone else folds, a donk goes all-in, and, you're the Dealer Button, the SB, or the BB...make the call; you're chances of doubling up far exceed the chances of going bust; by an average margin of greater than 5 to 2. If one or more have called the donks all-in bet...lay down the Kings, and wait for a better opportunity. The tourney is young, additional donkoid destructive pockets will be dealt to us in due time. When we have pocket Aces, we are about a 32% favorite to beat all 9 of the other hands. Or, in a 9 handed game, we are about a 35% favorite to beat all 8 of the other hands. So, as was mentioned in Article 02, we'll be a bit more willing to call multiple all-in bets. Not against 8 players. But, certainly against two players.

With all of this having been said, I can think of no greater reason for you to wave goodbye to the donkies, and say hello to the quality players of this Forum's Elite Players Club. If the pocket pair play strategies included in this Article require any validation on your part, you're going to find it in the EPC. The club's members know the game well, and they fully realize the potential 'damage infliction' capabilities of their pocket pairs. There is no 'insanity of play' or 'absurdity of chip flinging' that occurs in the ten to fifteen EPC tournaments every month...the play is solid, with poker styles that range from tight to loose, and passive to aggressive. Yet, no matter what the individual members' style may be, the fact is that each of the members can, and do, teach the balance of the membership something of value month-in and month-out. Maybe it's time for you to bid that long overdue endearing middle finger gesture to the donkies, and join the pleasantries of the EPC...and the courtesies of it's members. Or, if you're not quite ready for the Elite Players Club, enter yourself into the Forum's Monday night Micro-Tourney...it only costs 25c to play, and, since many of the EPC members regularly play in the Micro, you'll get a real feel for the 'quality of play' and 'table pleasantries' that are ever-present in the EPC tournaments.

Best of Luck at the Tables.