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#380 – “War Were Declared”
Seminal Futurama line. Fry and Bender are buying gum – ham-flavored gun, which “pinkens your teeth as you chew” – when a soldier comes in and receives a 5% military discount. Fry and Bender want a 5% military discount, so they join the army. They are assured they can instantly quit and still receive the discount “unless war were declared.” They sign up and a moment later, an alarm goes off. What’s the alarm?
The recruiter gravely says, “War were declared.”
There are times in poker tournaments when, even when no one says anything, it seems like it’s getting personal. (Sometimes, they do say something.) The hands become vendettas, with one player calling any bet to play a hand with an “enemy.” Among amateurs, “war” is pretty much the same as “tilt.”
The goofy thing is when it happens early in the tournament. That’s the point I want to make: you don’t want to be fighting any wars in the first levels of a tournament. Other than getting super-lucky or super-skillful, you want to just ease through these levels as if they were the 1920s and 1930s.
This is generally true in online tournaments, but you can play (and play well) a lot of online tournaments without understanding that point. First, the “deep stack” portion of online tournaments goes pretty fast. Second, generally, even if you screw up, there’s a tournament just as good starting in 15 minutes, so who cares if you went to war without your pants on?
I like showing up for a live tournament a little bit tired. Acting sleepy for the first couple levels is just the right image to cultivate … especially as a self-image. Somebody raises in early position. You have pocket tens.
You stretch. It’s 150 to call, probably 400-600 to raise. (Say you’ve got 8,000 chips.) Work the kink out of your neck and lazily toss the 150 to the center.
You don’t know this guy who raised. How can you say if he has a bigger pocket pair? Or whether he’ll call a raise with K-Q. Or whether he’ll push all-in with 7-7.
If an ace flops, you have a lot more information on how to play it. You’ve got position, yawn, and maybe you can tell from the size of his bet and how he makes it whether he has an ace. If you are pretty sure he doesn’t, maybe you still want to just rub your eyes and call. Because you didn’t reraise preflop, there is only about 400 in the pot. Unless he’s one of those Seven-X lunatics (which could cause you to play this much different), it’s probably costing you just 200-300 to call. Now you have a lot of options on the turn. Maybe you can take the pot away even though his hand is better. Or maybe not, but it’s pretty unlikely he’ll fire two bullets out of position without an ace or better. And if you hit a ten on the turn, the pot is still big enough, and there are enough bets left, to win a bundle if the raiser has a real hand.
It just seems wrong to me, when you have all those chips, to want to get them in so fast. Even if you’re the player with the ace and an ace flops, it might be best most of the time to slowly lean back in your chair and stretch than to heave a lot of chips in the pot. What if your opponent has a set? What if they have a better ace? What if they have a draw you can’t get them off? It’s pretty rare for a single pair to win a giant pot here, so take it easy. I’ve found, early in a tournament, I make more with top pair by NOT betting when it’s heads-up. The other guy will usually bet at some point. And if I’m beat, I’ll definitely lose less by not betting.
Unless you’ve got some kind of monster hand and you can get paid off, it’s generally too early in the day to declare war.
In that $3,000 NLHE event at the Wynn, it definitely seemed like half the table was instituting the draft even before the first break, with Seat 1 in the role as Napoleon. He just gave Kathy Liebert 7,000 in chips. He raised in early position with A-5. (I know Andy Bloch’s tables put that as an early-position raising hand, but probably not in this crowd, where a lot of players are raising 6-7x BB – including Seat 1 – and there is a lot of preflop reraising going on.) Kathy Liebert, who is not a Seven-Xer or Warrior Reraiser, called. The flop was A-7-3 and Seat 1 couldn’t get his chips in fast enough. He made a big bet, Kathy reraised, and he raced her into the middle with enough chips to put her all-in. She had A-Q and doubled up.
Seat 1 was quickly at war with me. On one multi-limper hand, I had T-7s and the flop came 7-high. I bet and everybody but Seat 1 folded. (I think I was one the button, which would put Seat 1 in the small blind.) He called. We both checked when a jack came on the turn. I checked the king on the river and he bet. I knew I was good with third pair and insta-called. He was bluffing with A-8.
On the next hand, I open-raised with Ad-Qd. He flat-called and it “felt” like it was a war-were-declared call. The flop came with 3 spades, queen-high. I bet, he called. In my mind, I’m thinking he has paired one of the lower cards, or has a spade, or both. I feel confident enough that I’m ahead that I bet 1,000 on the turn. (I think there was probably 1,500-2,000 in the pot.) He raised me, but only to 2,000. I was pretty sure I was still good. I really didn’t think he had a flush yet but I was worried about two small pair so I called.
The river brought the fourth spade. I checked and braced for the difficult decision of whether to call with top-pair/top-kicker. I knew he was capable of bluffing, but I also knew that he knew that I’d call a bluff. Because he would have to worry about bluffing since I could have a spade, I was prepared to lay the hand down.
So what did he bet? Nothing. I figured I was probably good, turned up my top pair, and saw him turn up Jc-Ts. Initially I thought it was a pretty ridiculous way for him to play the hand, and I still think so. But he was probably correct not to bet on the end; maybe it’s a stretch but I’m giving him credit for knowing the thought process I just went through. Just the same, he paid a lot to hit it – more than he needed to pay, most of it paid by his own aggression when he had to figure he was at least 80% likely to be behind.
I felt very good about how I played the hand and my general philosophy of keeping it small early in the tournament. Based on how the maniac played, I could have lost a lot more.
