I’ve been a bit (well, a lot) lazy about updating my reader lately. Sorry about that. I guess it’s because I’ve been playing less and less poker as the year has gone on. Since coming back from Vegas (of which more in future posts) I’ve really only played forum games: the excellent UK Sharks webcam games, also PPP, Fishypoker and a few others here and there.

Partly this is because I’ve been spending time on other things (Angry Birds? Gardening?); but also I know that my game needs work if I’m going to win at the wider game. I’ll enjoy putting the work in when I get started, but the need to stick with it makes me reluctant to get started.

It’s a poser, for sure.

Still, no excuse for not giving you the scores on the doors for April and May:

Now then, moving on…

In last night’s game there was some interesting discussion about “playing bingo instead of poker”, so this morning I thought it would be a good idea to check some of the maths.

There are a lot of situations late in tournaments where it is right to play bingo, i.e. to get all the chips in the middle with any 2 cards. There needs to be one or preferably both of two preconditions:

1. There should be enough dead money in the pot (blinds and antes)
2. There should be enough chance that the opponent(s) will fold and give you the pot.

So with the aid of Pokerstove and Excel I made up a nice little example…

The scenario

Blinds are 500-1000 with an ante of 100. There are 5 players left. You are on the small blind and it has been folded to you. You only had 8 big blinds left (8000 chips) and have put half a one in the pot already as small blind so you have 7500 back.

You estimate that if you go all-in, the big blind will call with any Ace or King, any pair, Q8 or better, J8 or better, T8 or better, 98 or 87 suited but will fold anything else.

What to do

Pretty much everyone knows you should go all-in here without looking at your cards, but let’s check the numbers.

• The big blind’s calling range here is 45% of their possible hands, so they will fold to your shove over 55% of the time. In this instance you win the dead money, 2000 chips.  55% x 2000 = +1100
• If the big blind calls, you might still win. Your any 2 cards will win a solid 40% of the time they call, in which case you win a nice 9500 chips (the 2000 dead money plus another 7500). 45% x 40% x 9500 = +1710
• If the big blind calls and you lose, it has cost you 5500 chips and you’re out of the game. This happens 60% of the time they call. 45% * 60% x 5500 = -1485

So your total chip expectation from going all in with any 2 cards is 1100 + 1710 – 1485 = +1325. This is such a profitable scenario that there’s no excuse for not shoving blind.

Interestingly, the BB can’t do much about this. If they decide to counter your play by calling with any 2 cards, your expectation goes up to +2000. If instead they tighten up, to say any pair and any 2 broadway cards, your expectation goes up to +1622.

I am told that all “serious players” have memorised the optimum push-fold ranges. This feels like hard work to me but it is one of the things I will spend some time getting the feel of one day. There is a useful set of charts here, for example.

There’s a time and a place for bingo poker!