Harrington on Cash

[GaF]

Started reading this at the weekend - am going to try really studying it this time, rather than just reading it - so will put some bullet points up here on the main topics, and what I take to be the "key ideas" - with a bit of luck we may even get some discussion going ;) I've finished Part I - there are 12 sections overall spanning both volumes.

Introduction NO LIMIT CASH v NO LIMIT TOURNAMENTS Cash is typically deeper stacked. This allows a wider range of starting hands to be played. It also means stronger hands are required to get to a showdown. Top Pair Top Kicker is a strong hand in most Tournament situations, but a weak hand in Cash games A SAMPLE HAND What are the players thinking in High Stakes Poker, Series 3, Episode 10 when the flop comes A99 with hole cards of AK, Q9, A3 and 97 Being deep stacked, cash play allows for a wider range of starting hands but needs to showdown a stronger hand Part 1 - Basic Ideas of NL Play THE FOUR PRINCIPLES OF POKER - In General you want to bet your strong hands, check your middling hands, and fold or bluff your weakest hands - In General, aggression (betting and raising) is better than passivity (checking and calling) - In General, a successful bet must be able to do one of three things: force a better hand to fold, force a weaker hand to call, or cause a drawing hand to draw at unfavourable odds - Never do anything all of the time EXPECTATION AND EXPECTED VALUE POT ODDS EXPRESS ODDS & IMPLIED ODDS - In all close decisions you should try to make the play that creates the appearance of giving action. A table image of an action player ... is more profitable than the table image of a rock. CALCULATING OUTS The rule of Four: If two cards are still to come and you will be able to see both cards, multiply your number of outs by four to get your winning chances in the hand The Rule of Two: If only one card is still to come, multiply your outs by two to get your winning chances BET TYPES -The Value Bet -The Probe Bet -The Bluff -The Semi Bluff THE CHECK CONTROLLING POT ODDS Part 2 - Key Elements of Deep Stack Cash Play Part 3 - Difference between Tight Aggressive and Loose Aggressive. How to play TAG preflop Part 4 - Flop Play Heads Up Part 5 - How to handle multi way flops. Introduction to "Harringtons Law" Part 6 - How to play the turn Part 7 - Intricacies of river play Part 8 - Tells and Observation Part 9 - Intoductions to basics of LAG play Part 10 - What are weak games and how do you beat them? Part 11 - Managing Bankroll Part 12 - Conversation with Bobby Hoff

[GaF]

Re: Harrington on Cash

- Never do anything all of the time

Not sure I necessarily agree with this - and it's the Chris Fergusson comment I tend to go with - something along the lines of "It's not necessary to do something different with the same cards if you do the same thing with different cards" - either way you have your deception factor....

[Tom Hedonist]

Re: Harrington on Cash Unfortunately Gaf, I'm not sure there is much to discuss here at the moment. :sad I haven't bought the books as yet, although I certainly do intend to... I wish they'd have come out a couple of months ago, as I'd have got them whilst I was in New York. But at the moment, my Poker Library is probably worth as much as my bankroll :$:rollin I play far more cash games than I do tournaments, however I'm a bit dubious that Harrington may be jumping on his own bandwagon, as he seems better known for his tournament success than for playing cash games. Regarding playing the same cards differently or different cards the same. I guess it doesn't matter a whole bunch because, as you say "Either way you have your deception factor." That said, I prefer the Ferguson approach... as a tight player, if you've shown down a couple of big hands which you raised pre flop, bet/reraised on the flop, etc, etc, it does mean that (with position) you can make some great steals with suited connectors, pocket pairs or occassionally just with air. There was great play made by Paul Wasicka on HSP. Where he established a very tight image in the first couple of hours, which later enabled him to steal a large pot by representing a huge hand :ok

[Marlin]

Re: Harrington on Cash Sorry if this may seem a stupid question, because I have only read Vol1 of the no limit Harrington books and I am a novice, but I don’t remember reading the rule of four or two.

If I have 9 outs with the turn and the river to come, so I multiply it by four to get 36, but then what do I do with that figure? Does it relate to pot size and size of bet I can afford to make/ call or whether I should continue playing my hand at all, because I have or don’t have enough chances of winning, or have I missed the point completely?

[Samba_SamPa]

Re: Harrington on Cash Hi Marlin, it means you have approximately a 36% chance of hitting an 'out' Expanding on this, you are then able to calculate whether you have the right odds with which to make your play. Eg. There's $25 in the pot, and it will cost you $5 to call - you are getting odds of 5/1 about your call when you are approx 7/4 to hit an out Or there could be $40 in the pot, but it will cost you $25 to call - you are only getting odds of 8/5 about your call, but you're longer odds to hit an out.

[GaF]

Re: Harrington on Cash Marlin - dont confuse Harrington on Cash Vol I and Harrington on Holdem Vol I :ok

[Marlin]

Re: Harrington on Cash Thanks for the replies. I didn’t realise it was an approximate percentage of hitting an out. Now it makes sense.

[slapdash]

Re: Harrington on Cash I bought these today, but haven't really started reading them yet. Quote:

- Never do anything all of the time

Not sure I necessarily agree with this - and it's the Chris Fergusson comment I tend to go with - something along the lines of "It's not necessary to do something different with the same cards if you do the same thing with different cards" - either way you have your deception factor....

I don't think that doing different things with the same cards and doing the same thing with different cards are necessarily contradictory. I have a half formed kind of idea that in a deep stacked game it might be more important to vary your play: I'll think about it and see if I can articulate it.

[slick mick]

Re: Harrington on Cash Now available on amazon for under £12 each, ordered mine today.

[GaF]

Re: Harrington on Cash Looking forward to your comments Mick - hopefully we can get some discussion going on the key concepts :ok One thing I've always struggled with:

If you have a pair of tens against two opponents with some action before the flop' date=' and the flop comes Queen, Jack, Ten, all one suit, you have a set, but you dont want to play a big pot with this hand. You've got a small hand for the situation and you'd be happy to end the hand right there.[/quote'] You have two contradictory goals. Firstly, you want to control the size of the pot (implying check-call or small bets). Secondly though you want to end the hand right there (implying a big bet). So what's your action here? (talking very generally - I know there are no stack sizes, details on the players etc)

[slick mick]

Re: Harrington on Cash That's certainly a tricky situation, so many possible hands that could be beating you or could be drawing to a hand that beats you. There are so many unknowns it's impossible to give a clear, concise answer apart from - it depends:tongue2

[slapdash]

Re: Harrington on Cash

If you have a pair of tens against two opponents with some action before the flop, and the flop comes Queen, Jack, Ten, all one suit, you have a set, but you dont want to play a big pot with this hand. You've got a small hand for the situation and you'd be happy to end the hand right there.

I didn't interpret that to mean "you should try to end the hand right there". Just that you wouldn't be disappointed if you won a very small pot. The general theme of the book, at least as far as I've read so far, seems to be that in a deep-stacked cash game your strategy should be focussed on the big pots: both on winning them and on trying to make the pots bigger when you're fairly sure that you are going to win them. So I'm pretty sure that Harrington's answer on this hand would be that you keep the pot small, and don't worry too much about the fact that you might be able to win a small pot right here if you made a big enough bet. Small pots don't matter. Actually, from what's before that paragraph, I think the only point he's trying to make here is that although he's just advised trying to play big pots with big hands, you should apply common sense about what constitutes a "big hand": although trips after the flop is usually a big hand, it's not really big when there's a good chance an opponent has a made flush or straight or higher trips.

[GaF]

Re: Harrington on Cash :ok He goes on to talk briefly about dealing with conflicting goals. Then there is a really interesting example with the KK v AQ and an Ace on the flop (and whether the KK should continuation bet)

[GaF]

Re: Harrington on Cash I think my reading over the weekend has led to a bit of a "eureka" moment in my poker development (impacting the early stages of my tournament play as well). To date I've been very "heavy handed" in my play - either bashing away with large raises street after street or check folding - but I finally seem to have "seen the light" when it comes to controlling pot sizes - I seem to have discovered the ability to check call with my "middling" hands :loon Whilst it sounds pretty simple, and I think I kind've knew I should be doing it, putting it into practice was something that always seemed to elude me - no more :nana :cow (I'm sure most who know my game would agree that my biggest weakness has always been overaggression)

[GaF]

Re: Harrington on Cash Maybe not - I played this pretty poorly and let myself get outdrawn (I presume) - I suppose the main error here is that I'm not deep stacked, so the sledgehammer approach was probably more applicable :tongue2 ***** Hand 1087358101 ***** 50.00/100.00 Texas Hold'em (No Limit ) - 19 May 2008 20:32:41 PL Champs FR (Real /Tournament ) Seat 1: GpdDelusio (1850.00) Seat 2: pokaleg (3740.00) Seat 3: uberpl1 (1700.00) Seat 4: MissPene (4630.00) Seat 5: pl---GaF (1830.00) Seat 6: DRAGON57 (3035.00) Seat 7: AAHall (2887.00) Seat 8: Red_Fear1 (1870.00) Seat 9: Sleeekshot (1778.00) Seat 10: PLjolly67 (2305.00) DRAGON57 post SB 50.00 AAHall post BB 100.00 ** Deal ** GpdDelusio [N/A, N/A] pokaleg [N/A, N/A] uberpl1 [N/A, N/A] MissPene [N/A, N/A] pl---GaF [8h, 8c] DRAGON57 [N/A, N/A] AAHall [N/A, N/A] Red_Fear1 [N/A, N/A] Sleeekshot [N/A, N/A] PLjolly67 [N/A, N/A] *** Bet Round 1 *** Red_Fear1 Fold Sleeekshot Fold PLjolly67 Fold GpdDelusio Fold pokaleg Fold uberpl1 Fold MissPene Fold pl---GaF Raise to 350.00 DRAGON57 Fold AAHall Call 350.00 *** Flop(Board): *** : [6h, 10c, 6s] *** Bet Round 2 *** AAHall Check pl---GaF Check *** Turn(Board): *** : [6h, 10c, 6s, 6d] *** Bet Round 3 *** AAHall Bet 562.00 pl---GaF Call 562.00 *** River(Board): *** : [6h, 10c, 6s, 6d, Ah] *** Bet Round 4 *** AAHall Bet 1874.00 pl---GaF Fold *** Showdown *** : Rake: 0.00 Total Pot: 1874.00 GpdDelusio Fold Win: 0.00 pokaleg Fold Win: 0.00 uberpl1 Fold Win: 0.00 MissPene Fold Win: 0.00 pl---GaF Fold Win: 0.00 DRAGON57 Fold Win: 0.00 AAHall By default Win: 1874.00 Red_Fear1 Fold Win: 0.00 Sleeekshot Fold Win: 0.00 PLjolly67 Fold Win: 0.00

[Nade]

Re: Harrington on Cash Have to say i can't think of any logical reason to check in that spot on the flop. Pre flop- looks like you're stealing the blinds so could call with a slightly larger than normal range of hands. If you bet on flop most likely oppo. will fold and give you credit for a hand. Just thinking through this hand some more realise i could write an essay on all my different thoughts and possibilities :loon The more i think, the more the answers come round to you playing the hand well as it only cost 900 whereas in many other scenarios you go bust or spend 1400+ finding out where you are and in many scenarios still go bust. It looks such a standard hand on the surface but scary how much depth i can now look into a single hand. Edit: Think this is due to my own 'eureka' moment a couple of weeks ago where i can now pretty accurately predict what a player has and what they'd and in turn what i'll do to counter it in most situations. Have final tabled 2 PL tourns since and crushing HU matches so as long as i keep improving it it's onwards and upwards, will be playing cash again seriously from wednesday so look forward to it. Love those moments when things just click. Will be interested to see yours and others thoughts but my thought at this time has gone from 'can't see a single thing right about this' to 'you might have played this as well as possible, losing the minimum'. Confused.

[Nade]

Re: Harrington on Cash No one else interested?

[Fonzie14]

Re: Harrington on Cash Personally, I don't like the check on the flop. I would rather put a bet out to try and establish where I am in the hand. OK, so the BB could be calling with a wide range, thinking that you are on a steal. With a bet on the flop you can test for resistance, I would probably go with about half pot size. If BB has nothing he should fold and you take down the pot. If he calls/raises then I'm going to be very wary and probably throw my hand away to any further action , particularly with the 6 coming on the turn. Would be interesting to know what hand Steve (AAHall) had.

[slick mick]

Re: Harrington on Cash So I order them together from the same place and get volume 2 today...no sign of 1.

[Nade]

Re: Harrington on Cash Lol @ 'Poker Strategy' section ... :eyes

[GaF]

Re: Harrington on Cash My fear here is getting committed. I want to bet the flop. I want to ask questions. I dont want to get to the situation where I'm committed. By checking the flop I'm looking to get to a showdown if I can without putting all my chips in. If the Ace doesn't come down on the river I probably pay with my stack for a showdown :unsure Given that I'm probably prepared to pay with my stack on that flop to get to a showdown, I think I was wrong to be passive/try to keep the pot small on the flop. With hindsight I think I needed to bet - probably about $450 (2/3 of the pot). That leaves me with 1000 chips in my stack and dangerously close to being pot committed. Overall I think it's a horrid situation and a horrid hand. AA Hall did say he had a Full House afterwards, though he didn't say what cards - however the specific cards he had in this specific situation dont matter to me - it's a question of how it should be played against the range of cards he could have....

[Nade]

Re: Harrington on Cash It is a total nightmare situation due to the blinds. If we start from the top the range i'd put him on is any pocket pair and QJ+. So the flop then comes 6,6,T. There's not many hands that you're behind to here - KT, AT, A6, TT, 66, 99. Tempted to exclude TT as a lot of people will re-raise with it, but i don't know how Hall plays so possible called with it. 66 is very unlikely for obv reasons. So that leaves 4 hands really you're behind to. (Unless he had a similar read as me when i decided to trap you with jacks the other day but generally can discount jacks here as well) So really you have to bet i think against that range, about 450 ish as you get a good idea of where you are but still have 1k if it goes pear-shaped as you say. The turn - killer. If he was to call the flop then i'd probably put him on AT. But the thing is you're only really behind to a T and it's possible he was calling with 2 high cards like AQ hoping to take it away or spike on the turn. I think by betting the flop you're now put into a situation where you have to commit your tournament to find out where you are as it's extremely likely you'll be faced with a big card coming and/or face a big bet committing you. or you just total give up on it. So this hand is just bizarrely hard to figure out a 'correct' way to play it. I think a bet out on flop ~450, if called check/fold to river would have been the best way in the end to try and win the hand but lose the minimum. He must have hit the A so ... unless he had A10 then you were ahead until the river which means the best play is to bet out the flop to which i reckon he folds, but as you check he sees a good opp. as big stack to take it away on turn, probably confused by your call, happy to see A on river with AJ ... Whether those ramblings have solved anything i don't know ... Edit: forgot to mention got my harrington books this morning , look forward to reading them :ok

[slapdash]

Re: Harrington on Cash How about making a slightly smaller bet preflop? That allows you a bit more room to make a bet postflop without necessarily committing yourself.

[GaF]

Re: Harrington on Cash Yes - quite possibly :ok Because stacks are small, implied odds are low and it should take a smaller bet to get a fold :) However, on the flip side, 88 is a pretty nasty hand to play post flop - there will almost certainly be overcards, and my 88 will probably not have improved - a smaller bet reduces fold equity..... Which gets me thinking - what's my real objective with the bet? Am I looking for the blinds to fold, or am I looking for action (88 is currently probably the best hand, but is unlikely to improve on the flop)? If everyone folds, 150 increase to my stack isn't especially significant. If I get a caller I'm probably pretty uncomfortable post flop.... If I'm happy to take down the blinds - how about just shoving as an alternative? I know that this is positive ev (positive, not maximum) in tournament chips because the Sklansky Chubukov number is 159 - from the button, even if my cards are exposed, I can shove without negative ev with stack sizes up to about 40x BB. SO I know I have positive ev and I know I have no difficult decisions to follow (should I be scared of difficult decisions when I have position?)

[Fonzie14]

Re: Harrington on Cash Looking at it again, with an M of 12, I don't think pushing is a bad move. Obviously, it would depend on the tourney situation - how close to bubble, how long until next level (and halving your M) etc. The other option I supose, is to limp with your pkt 8s, hope to hit, but if you don't just muck them, leaving you with a large enough stack to carry on with no major dramas.

[Nade]

Re: Harrington on Cash What's your objective? Only you can answer that. If you're confident with your post flop play then you'll welcome the action but if you're not confident playing 88 post flop then you may as well shove or limp hoping to hit a set. But, Having narrowed down Hall's range with hindsight i think he would have called an all in pre flop and you'd have lost anyway. FWIW if i saw a little tiddler of a bet in front of me pre flop then they shut down post flop it'd be the easiest thing in the world to take it down no matter what the flop came. I think the objective is to not be scared when raising, don't act as if you have a mid pair and are frightened. I'd be happier to limp pre flop rather than a scared looking smaller bet.

[AA_Hall]

Re: Harrington on Cash Hi guys just been reading this very interesting dont want to give away to many clues as to how i play;) but i had A something full housed it on the river was behind until the river ????? Not quite sure bout it as its been a while and been playing loads of hands recently but dont think i played it wrong OR DID I !!!!!:ok

[slapdash]

Re: Harrington on Cash

FWIW if i saw a little tiddler of a bet in front of me pre flop then they shut down post flop it'd be the easiest thing in the world to take it down no matter what the flop came. I think the objective is to not be scared when raising, don't act as if you have a mid pair and are frightened. I'd be happier to limp pre flop rather than a scared looking smaller bet.

When I suggested a smaller bet preflop, I just meant something like 3 BB rather than 3.5 BB, not a "tiddler". While it doesn't seem much difference, it means that a two-thirds-pot bet postflop is only about 28% of your remaining chips rather than 33% (assuming the BB calls), so might just make the difference between getting pot-committed and not. By the way, I think that on the flop that came, a bet of 2/3 the pot is larger than necessary. Unless he's already ahead, he probably only has 6 outs. I wouldn't bet much more than half the pot. This also makes it easier to bet without committing yourself.

[GaF]

Re: Harrington on Cash Have posted this hand on 2+2 to see what they come back with..... http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=210527

[Nade]

Re: Harrington on Cash Lots of interesting points in vol.1 and bits of vol.2 i've read also very good. His theory on how to play monsters with deep stacks surprised me tbh. I've always played them aggressively but make sure i get value on every street so at least 1/3 pot bet on every street to guarantee getting a decent pay off. But he advocates pot bets on every street as the expectation is it makes 20 big blinds with 100BB deep stacks. He says the times people fold on flop/turn/river will be out-weighed by the times people call you down the whole way and you take their stack or double through. I'll take his word for that. Still will be very hard in the heat of battle to avoid putting in value bets the whole way to not scare away your customer but i'm going to try pot bets and see what happens. A different idea i'm struggling on is keeping pots small when i'm not sure of being favourite to win. i.e. if i have top top and there's flush draws or boards a bit dodgy i always want to bet big on the flop to find out where i am. He seems to advocate checking the turn mostly and calling a small river bet or put out a block bet to keep the pots small with 1 big pair. I do the river part but not the turn part, i hate checking the turn but watching pros and reading the books it seems the standard thing they do.