Well, I’ve taken the last couple days off from playing any WSOP events. I have some friends from home in town and with the way I’ve been running, it just seemed best for my sanity. Couple that with the fact the last two days have been $1500 No Limit and $2000 Pot Limit, two of the very worst possible events (since I don’t consider myself to have any edge in the $5000 Omaha 8 yet), and it was a pretty easy decision. However, I figured I could write a piece with a little more content in it, and perhaps discuss a hand that has received some discussion on the internet.

In the $2000 No Limit Hold’em, I was off to a really hot start, building up to what had to be close to the chiplead despite feeling incredibly ill feeling forced to play in the 100 degree heat of the tent Harrah’s disgustingly provided for excess players. Ready to leave the tournament and try to feel better after getting to 45,000 in chips, more than the “in the money” average, I took a sick beat on the river with a set and had been hovering at a little above average for a while.
 

On my final real hand of the tournament, I opened for 1300 at 200-400 with AsKc UTG+1, early position. Rolf Slotboom tanked for over 3 minutes before being forced to whisper to the dealer that he was all-in, raising my 1300 chip bet to over 13,000 chips, with the 8d9d. I wrote a blog detailing this hand, as it was obviously pretty frustrating to bust from the tournament, but more than that, it is soooo frustrating to lose to one of the worst plays you’ve ever seen in your life. Rolf is apparently a blogger for pokerpages.com and I guess does some writing for CardPlayer Europe? I’m not entirely sure his background, but he responded to my blog in his piece, which I will take the time to address now.

First he addresses the fact that I am unable to handle my loss, and then asks how good or great players can complain about someone playing terribly and beating them. If this was a cash game and I had a player who played as bad as Rolf in it, I wouldn’t say a thing. Ever. Obviously I would want them to remain in the game and keep feeding me their money. The terrible beats would obviously frustrate me to some extent, but over time, I would get all that money back from their bad play. Tournaments are similar in some ways, in that over time I am going to have a lot of success playing really strong poker and the bad players will get lucky here and there, but it evens out. Anyone who has actually played tournament poker knows that getting knocked out of tournaments isn’t fun. You can’t rebuy and are just out, while the person who played awful to get all your chips now suddenly has great equity. Even if you play really poorly, if you have a ton of chips and are overly aggressive, you have a decent shot at success in the short term.

Now to address the actual hand and his perceptions. He says that I played a bit overaggressive and had a tendency to overplay big cards. This probably comes from the fact that he was unable to pay any attention to the actual game, as he may have noticed that I had raised the fewest pots of anyone the previous two hours, only opening 3 total pots. Clearly it’s good for me that he had no idea what was going on, as it led him to make this horrific play in a spot where I likely have JJ or better, or AK. If he had been paying attention to the game, he would have me labeled as the tightest player in the game, but luckily he had me pegged as the loosest. Should work out pretty nicely for me! He says he was trying to push me off a hand like AJ or AQ, and obviously his 13,000 chip raise would accomplish this. However, he could have also done this by playing well.

 

The hand was folded to Rolf in the small blind and he had mid-suited connectors. This is a pretty good hand and plays well against overcards, but it also isn’t the best hand to play out of position, especially against someone who you feel plays pretty well. So that leaves him with three real options here. The first would be to fold it, which isn’t really advisable considering how deep we are and the fact he could get me to pay off a lot of chips with a hand like AcAs if he hits the flop well. So the other two options would be to smooth call, or put in a reraise to try to get me to fold a hand like AJ or AQ. Had he put in a normal size raise, of course I would have folded those hands, so it accomplishes the same thing as moving all-in, but it saves him 10,000 chips, more than average at that point, when I have him just completely crushed, which will usually be the case.

So he had two real choices, to call and see a flop, reevaluating then, or put in a reraise and react to whatever I do. He decided to make up a third option, what he claims in his blog to be a signature move, to go all-in for 35 big blinds. As I’ve said before, this is one of the worst plays I’ve ever seen in poker. It shows little to no understanding of the game, and is basically conceding the fact that you don’t know how to play and can’t win if you let skill get involved, playing flops or small ball poker. There’s a reason the vast majority of the best players in the world get involved playing a ton of small pots and building up their chips. It takes the most skill, but it’s also the most profitable. When your signature move is putting all your chips on the line when you can’t be ahead and hoping to get a fold or get lucky consistently, it means one thing. You are bad at poker. You don’t understand the fundamentals and you have a lot to learn and probably a lot to do before you try to play in real tournaments.

Whether Rolf is actually a decent player, I have really no idea. I asked many other players about him, both Dutch and American to try to make sure it wasn’t a bias, and they simply laughed. Apparently he has been playing this style for many years and the consensus is that he is just a really bad poker player. Apparently his real game is Pot Limit Omaha, so maybe he just has no understanding of no limit hold’em or just tournament poker in general, but I’ve also heard that the way he plays PLO is also incredibly wrong and ill-advised. I have never seen him play this game, so I won’t be commenting on that here.

To say I can’t handle a loss, however, is beyond ridiculous. Obviously I’ve been doing this for some time, and never for a second would I claim that I’m not going to be frustrated, and possibly angry when a donkey eliminates me from a tournament with a horrible play that gets rewarded. It’s a sick feeling you get when things like that happen. Going bust to a bad beat is something that happens more often than not. It’s really not a big deal, and despite the fact I won’t be happy as it happens, I rarely remember it an hour later. It’s when someone makes a play so outrageous and terrible where it really sticks out. This was one of those instances.

He claims that he creates lots of renewing strategies, and hopefully that is the case here. I have not seen any other players taking to the Rolf-method and moving all-in in terrible situations and hoping against hope for laydowns in early levels or to get lucky. Possibly the readers of his material have given it some thought and realized it was really just beyond bad. For those who are still considering it, however, hopefully this blog will help save you some money. Should be back in action over this weekend, will keep you all posted.