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When the River is a Formality

Sitting on the rail, some no limit games appear to be gold mines. Six or more people see every flop. A lot of preflop raises that build massive pots. Handfuls of cold callers, over callers and over bets. Ridiculous stacks, marginal hands and so many suck outs it would make the Las Vegas Porn Convention blush. (Writer’s note: that convention, shortly after New Years and lasting less than one week, assures a player great action both on the tables as well as off ; )

These games can make a great night a good month. But little do most players know, the chip-slinging free-for-alls can be deadly to even a properly rolled professional (proper roll being a minimum of 20 buy-ins in a no limit game).

How’s that? It seems contradictory that a game with large pots and loose action could be bad for your roll. Consider these two points:

1) These games are rare and your roll is based on a less aggressive, less crazy game.

2) If you’re 75% to win a hand on the flop, you’re going to lose 25% of the time.

The second point is the one to consider first. If the game is as good as described above, you’re probably getting a lot of money in against one or two opponents and you’re often very right to do so. Frequently, you’ll be all-in or close to it and hopefully a favorite. However, your roll requirements are based on a smaller-pot style of game but that’s NOT what you’re playing. Typically, when you flop a set or some monster, you’re going to invest a decent amount of your money, but rarely your whole stack. Your hourly rate goes up in games like this, but so does your variance.

Now consider these two points:

3) Normally when someone sucks out, it’s typically not for a lot of money. But in these games, suck-outs cost buy-ins. In other words, 75% of the time you double up, 25% of the time you’re calling for a chip runner.

4) When you lose that 25% of the time, you’re most likely very comfortable re-buying and may be willing to rebuy several times. Perhaps a bit TOO willing and TOO comfortable.

Think about point one and point four. The game is rare, meaning the potential to win a lot of money is high, AND when you bust you’re more likely to re-buy. It’s tough to walk away from a game you think you can beat, but when opponents are willing to put a lot of money in with weak hands BEWARE:

5) Their strong hands play exactly the same, so you’ll be more likely to pay-off in marginal spots. That may be doubly true if you’re stuck two or three buys as you try to ‘catch’ him/her/it.

6) If you run in to two or three strong hands or bad spots, you’re staring down a loss that’s normally a really bad week, not night. And that night gets worse when the wild man’s wife is ready to go home, taking fistfuls of your roll with him.

Author’s moment of truth: This was a really big hole in my game. When I got stuck early, I got stuck in the middle and in the end. So I was no longer stuck, I was f***ed. I knew that my money could leave at any time – that this great game could break or come down to earth and return to normal. Those thoughts messed with my mind and threw me off my normal game. I would start hammering marginal edges, gambling with the gamblers, falling in to a disconnected state where I didn’t care about limiting my loss, I just wanted to play. And all poker pros know, you really can’t manufacture a win.

This isn’t a game you can exact your will on. It’s a sick game, a brutal, unforgiving joke whose punch line sometimes makes me laugh like crazy. Sometimes I don’t get the joke and I have this melancholy intuition that I never will get it. But alas, I do get it and without getting too existentialist I’ll say that ‘to get it’ is to know there’s nothing to get.

So, here’s the great conclusion to this article that started so poignant only to take a strange turn. Points 7 and 8:

7) You better believe your skill comes from making better decisions, more decisions, than your opponents. In games like these, you lose a good deal of your edge as those opportunities decrease. This is true because most of the big bets and big decisions are made on the flop – the river is simply a formality.

When you’re all in or damn near it preflop or on the flop, you leave yourself no way to get away from a losing hand.

If you find a regular game like this, I advise your roll requirements be a bit larger, like a minimum of 35 buy-ins. Anything less and you’re gambling with your stability. If the game is truly rare, a once in a blue moon thing, you can play on your normal roll but be sure to have a loss number for the night, like 3 buys. And stick to it, damn it. Even in the best games, it’s tough to make up 3 buys.

Sure, the potential is there to have a great night or a really bad night. But that’s true for ANYONE at the table, including the idiot.

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