The Bluto/Brutus Conundrum

Suppose a friend suggested that you assemble a deck of thirty red cards and twenty black cards and you cut the deck 300 times at $5.00 each cut. If a red card is chosen you win and if a black card is chosen he wins. I suspect you would jump at the chance for two reasons. First, the total maximum risk you would be taking is $1500 if by some billion to one chance (ok it’s actually 2 to the 300th power and I’m way too lazy to try to calculate that number) black cards were chosen 300 times in a row, and secondly because as a 3 to 2 favorite to win, you should win 180 times while your friend should win 120 times, giving you a net profit of $300. Of course in the short run the results might not hold true to the actual odds and in fact you might reasonably come to the exact opposite result – yet all in all it is still a pretty good wager for you.

Now let’s change the rules just a bit. Suppose that instead of playing for $5.00 a cut you were playing for $2,000.00 a cut. Using the same logic you should win $120,000 but at the same time your potential risk would be $600,000.00. Is it still a pretty good wager for you? What if you reasonably came to the exact opposite result and lost $120,000?

If you were a multi-millionaire easily able to withstand a possible short term variance then it would certainly still be a pretty good wager for you. However if there were a reasonable possibility that it would wipe out your entire life savings then your point of view might indeed change.

Now let’s change the rules one more time. Instead of cutting cards let’s play ANY game in which the odds of you winning are 60 percent AT BEST.
Would you be willing to shove thousands of dollars into the pot hand after hand as a 60 percent favorite? Maybe you would. Maybe you are enough of a gambler to be willing to risk everything for this potential edge. I can tell you that I am not because the one thing that any successful poker player needs to do is survive short-term variance.

And yet…. I now find myself in just such a position as I have begun to play pot-limit Omaha on a weekly basis, a game in which it is so rare to become a huge favorite that it is not unusual for a good player to muck the nuts on the flop or even the turn. Think about it. In what other poker game – or for that matter in what other competition in life – would the frontrunner quit because he doesn’t like his chances of winning.

Many players love the excitement of pot-limit Omaha but I will admit to despising the game. So why do I despise the game, and why do I play a game that I despise, two issues that are at odds much like Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and quantum mechanics, or much like the fact that in some Popeye cartoons the fat bearded bad guy is named Bluto and in some he is named Brutus.

While physicists have still not resolved the conflict between the General Theory of Relativity and quantum mechanics, in the case of pot-limit Omaha as in the case of the fat bearded bad guy I do have an explanation. (Bluto was the character’s original name but the studio changed it to Brutus to avoid a potential copyright problem, not that you care).

First, why do I despise the game? There are three reasons. To begin with as I have alluded above, luck plays a far more important role in Omaha than it does in hold ‘em. A simple way to illustrate this is to point out that often when a player flops the nuts in hold ‘em, he is a significant favorite to win the pot whereas in Omaha a player can flop the nuts and reasonably be an underdog. I am not a gambler. I play poker because it is a game of skill. If I wanted to roll the dice I would roll dice.

The second reason why I despise Omaha is that since each player is actually playing six different hands the permutations are so varied that it entices the true gambler to consistently up the ante. In the game in which I play it is rare that at least two players aren’t all-in by the turn. This kind of action (and thus this kind of risk) far exceeds that which is normally found in hold ‘em.

Finally I despise Omaha because you have to remember four cards and at least according to one annoying player in my game it is unacceptable to lift the cards off the table to look at them, and so you have some very difficult peeking to do.

Okay so I hate Omaha for two and a quarter good reasons. What then would ever possess me to play the game? In response I will tell you that the game I play in is a half and half game – alternating rounds of no limit hold ‘em and pot-limit Omaha. I will also tell you that there are three huge action players in the game who are only willing to play hold ‘em so that they can play Omaha. For this reason I am only willing to play Omaha so that I can play hold ‘em.

We have played for three weeks and I have been forced to readjust my strategy as I have found that these three players are using the hold ‘em rounds to smoke, eat, go to the bathroom and make phone calls. I don’t smoke, am on a diet, have excellent bladder control and have nobody to call in the middle of the night so I needed to find something to do during the Omaha rounds and then it came to me – bring my laptop and write my blogs.

Ooops time for hold ‘em. Gotta go!

I was beating up a game at the Parx recently when a young internet player sat down and within a few minutes I could tell from his playing style and conversation that he expected to plow through the table. There’s a certain arrogance that some players have, a way of playing with their chips while they talk about poker strategy that sends a signal that they are forces to be reckoned with. I have seen many of these kids at work and have learned that the way to beat them is to let them beat themselves through overconfidence.

(As an aside I have heard that a good tell on a player’s poker skills is to observe his ability to handle chips – you know the riffling and fancy fingerwork with them. However as a contrarian I have concluded that generally a player’s dexterity with chips is inversely proportional to his playing ability. Now I’m not claiming to be a great player but I do okay and I am unable to riffle chips at all. While others were practicing the technique, I was concentrating on the game itself. Admittedly I did watch a You Tube video teaching the riffling technique but gave up after a few minutes of frustration).

In any event I saw the kid eyeing my rather hefty stack and I knew that it would only be a matter of time before he would try to raid the chicken coop.

Prevailing theory suggests that the strongest players are those who have a tight-aggressive style. I don’t fit this mold because I usually see a lot of flops which can send a signal to new players that I am a calling station and am generally a weaker player than the rest of the table. After about a half hour I was certain that this was the impression internet boy had of me.

I was involved in a few hands in this regard in which I called bets on the flop and turn only to muck the river. In each case I was on a draw at the right price and did not hit. Since internet boy did not see my cards he may well have assumed that I was flopping around, just to muck my cards to a large river bet.

After about an hour of play I found myself with pocket 7s in the cutoff seat. I would normally limp with a small pair but everyone ahead of me mucked and so I raised to 4 times the blind. The players behind me mucked except for internet boy in the big blind who called. I had a funny feeling that the call was the first step towards potentially making a move on me later in the hand.

The flop was K-J-7 with two diamonds and he checked. When I made a significant bet he made a significant raise. I decided that he did not have two pair because if he did my sense was that he would have smooth-called my bet to trap me on the turn. My reads are far from perfect but I decided that he either had a flush draw or was just going to make a play for the pot with air. I decided to smooth call his raise and peel a card. If it were a diamond I would check call the rest of the way and if not I would trap him later on.

The turn sealed the deal for me. It was another jack, giving me a full house. Internet boy made an overly large bet. I was now certain that he did not have a full house because the bet was too large. If he were holding something like KJ he would not want to push me off the hand at this juncture.

I stalled as I counted my chips, allowing enough time to pass so that it would appear that I had a very difficult decision to make. Knowing that internet boy was surely aware that a forceful call was an indication of weakness I confidently slammed calling chips onto the table as part of my triple-reverse psychology.

The river was a third diamond and internet boy moved another large stack of black chips to the center of the table. Now I was surely hoping that he was on a flush draw and this time I instantly raised, trying to look like a weak player who hit the flush. (I reasoned that if he were on a bluff he would muck anyway and if he were on a flush draw he would hopefully have high cards and call).

He seemed genuinely stunned by my action and responded to it shakily “You have pocket kings?” He then refused to act. He counted and shuffled and recounted. I knew for certain that he didn’t have a full house because the pot size would have demanded a call from any full house. Did he have the nut flush? I was hoping so because even the nut flush would be a callable hand to a player like me who could have chased a smaller flush.

Finally after an eternity he slowly pushed his cards to the dealer and I raked in the pot. And it was then that I knew that his play was totally a bluff. In an obvious attempt to save face at the table he muttered “I mucked a monster. I had pocket 7s but I’m sure you had pocket kings.”

Unfortunately I had to leave shortly after that hand but I’m sure we’ll cross paths again. At least I hope so.