The Poker Lab Rat

There are a lot of potentially horrendous moves to be made in No-Limit Hold ‘em: playing out of position with a marginal hand, chasing down a draw without the correct odds, overplaying (or underplaying) the nuts. All of these are horrible, horrible plays. But in my opinion, the worst play that you can make (and I see made far too often) is the min-check-raise.

I’ve never seen this play used correctly. In fact, I don’t think it’s even possible to use it correctly. If you min-check-raise a hand it means one of two things: either you have an incredibly strong hand and don’t want to scare off your opponents, or you have a draw but absolutely no idea of how to play it.

The first instance I can almost live with − you have the absolute nuts and are just trying to milk the minimum amount of money out of your opponents with a bet so small that they’re forced to call. The flipside to that thought process is that if one of your opponents actually has a hand that he thinks is good, wouldn’t he possibly call a bigger bet? You might think that you’re slow playing, but you’re going about it the wrong way. While you might win an extra bet with the min-check-raise here, most of the time you’re just costing yourself more chips later in the hand by not getting a little more creative with your play.

The second instance of the min-check-raise is what really gets to me. You’re on a draw and hope that min-check-raising is going to accomplish something. I guess these players think that they are semi-bluffing, but they’re a little mixed up. The point of the semi-bluff is to take the pot down right then and there (with the potential to make the best hand later on if your opponent calls), but if you min-check-raise in that position, your opponent is priced in to the pot and there’s no way he’s folding anything better than 8 high.

This exact situation occurred recently while I was playing in a tournament. I was in middle position with K-6 of spades and one limper in the pot. I put in a pot-sized raise with the intention of stealing the pot. If worse came to worst and someone called me, I knew they’d probably be out of position during the hand. As expected, everyone folded – except, of course, the limper.

The flop came A-8-8 with two diamonds. A complete whiff for me – I had King high. There’s no reason to believe I had anything but the worst hand, so I had to proceed with caution. The limper checked to me and since there was no way I’d win this hand if it went to a showdown, I bet just over half the pot in an attempt to pick it up. The limper responded by min-check-raising me. Hmm? At this point I have two options: get away from the hand unscathed or make the call to see what he would do on the turn. He could have a monster hand here or he could simply be on the flush draw – the turn would give me the information I needed. Since it wouldn’t hurt my stack to find out, I decided to call.

The turn brought a blank. If he came out betting he obviously has a strong hand because there was no reason for him to bluff after I called his raise on the flop. He checked. There was a slight chance he was trying to play his hand super tricky, but it was unlikely.

People who min-check-raise either want to protect or get value from their hand, and will usually come out betting the next street. His check told me that he was most likely on the draw, so I decided to bet about half of my entire stack. This showed him I wasn’t folding to anything and the only way he could raise was if he was extremely confident he had the best hand. I had raised pre-flop, called his raise on the flop, and bet out on the turn – signifying to him that I had a very strong hand. His min-check-raise had worked against him and he was forced to fold his hand because he wasn’t getting priced in.

This player lost a lot of chips because he tried to get cute and put in a min-check-raise. Learn from his mistake and avoid falling into the trap of the dreaded min-check-raise.

Nicknamed “GambleAB”, Aaron Bartley is one of the world’s best online poker players.  If you want to learn more about Aaron, join him at the table on FullTiltPoker.com.

For more about Full Tilt Poker read the June poker room review at PokerLabRat.com.
Here’s a link to a page that compares FullTiltPoker with other US friendly online poker rooms

After nearly 12 hours Day 2 of the $5,000 Mixed Hold’em event finally completed and we’ve reached another final table packed full of star power.

Day 1 reduced the 332 starters to 91, and day 2 has reduced the contenders to the final 9.

Only the top 36 players cash in this event and so players like Hoyt Corkins, Berry Johnston, David Benyamine and Marcel Luske made it deep into day two but still busted out before the money bubble.

However, the 9 survivors will be playing for a $375,000 first prize and there are some big player names and some popular poker rooms represented.

Bodog spokesmen David Williams and Justin Bonomo will sit down and face off against Full Tilt’s Erick Lindgren, Howard Lederer and Roland de Wolfe, along with unattached players Isaac Haxton, David Rheem, Andrew Robl and Pat Pezzin. (hint - get some sponsors guys).

Chip Counts going into the final table :
885,000 David Rheem
678,500 David Williams
517,500 Justin Bonomo
345,000 Erick Lindgren
324,500 Howard Lederer
194,000 Roland de Wolfe
162,000 Andrew Robl
115,500 Isaac Haxton
108,500 Pat Pezzin

The final table will start at 3pm Pacific time.

Serbian born, Canadian raised Nenad Medic grabbed the first bracelet of the 2008 WSOP season after eliminating day one chip leader Andy Bloch in heads up play.

Medic considers himself a “cash player” mostly but after picking up nearly $800,000 here he as tournamnet earnings of over $3,6 million - not bad for a cash player.

In 2006, Medic won the World Poker Tour’s World Poker Finals at Foxwoods, while in 2007, he managed a 3rd place finish in the same event, leaving little doubt he’s one of poker’s true masters.

Final table placings and payouts for Event #1 :

1. Nenad Medic ——- $794,112
2. Andrew Bloch —– $488,048
3. Kathy Liebert — $306,064
4. Mike Sexton ——- $248,160
5. Amit Makhija —— $198,528
6. Chris Bell ———- $157,168
7. Patrik Antonius $124,080
8. Mike Sowers ———- $99,264
9. Phil Laak —————- $74,448

The final table of the 2008 WSOP’s first event looks like being a publicity dream with several players at the final table well known to the poker playing public.

Event #1 is the $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em tournament which was scheduled for 3 days - starting on Saturday 31st May.

This afternoon’s final table (which begins at 3pm, an hour later than originally scheduled after a long period of play to eliminate the 10th player), offers several of the game’s biggest stars.

Andy Bloch, with 2,115,000 in chips, holds a lead of more than 900,000 over his nearest competitor, Nenad Medic, with Mike Sexton in a strong third place as the three players with more than a million tournament chips.

The complete seat assignments and chip counts for the final are as follows:
Seat 1: Mike Sowers 675,000
Seat 2: Chris Bell 455,000
Seat 3: Amit Makhija 525,000
Seat 4: Patrik Antonius 230,000
Seat 5: Andy Bloch 2,115,000
Seat 6: Mike Sexton 1,130,000
Seat 7: Phil Laak 425,000
Seat 8: Nenad Medic 1,200,000
Seat 9: Kathy Liebert 285,000

ESPN’s camera crews are at the event - so expect to see this final table featuring on TV in the ont too distant future.