http://www.deucescracked.com/ recent articles published at deucescracked.com en-us Moving Up Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:44:55 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/1024-Moving-Up http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/1024-Moving-Up A Smooth Move There was a period of a couple years, I think it was around 2000 and 2001, when there was a no-limit hold’em game every night in a poker room in San Mateo called Pacific News. The room only had three tables. One of them was used for newspaper reading and dealer break-taking and players in [...] Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:50:19 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/945-A-Smooth-Move http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/945-A-Smooth-Move DIY: Build a Poker PC Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:33:52 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/911-DIY-Build-a-Poker-PC http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/911-DIY-Build-a-Poker-PC The Butoff (This blog post is an article that is in the October 2008 issue of BLUFF Magazine.) The Butoff Words lag behind what they label. For example, the blogosphere was well past infancy before the word “blogosphere” existed. Bad beats were around long before the term “bad beat” was. And “the universe” was here for billions of years [...] Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:34:05 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/892-The-Butoff http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/892-The-Butoff Secure your computers! This is a topic that has been covered in general before (best by KyleB/coldcaller — for a great comprehensive look at online security look at this thread by KyleB and this blog post by Nat Arem), but I figured I'd post about what programs I use to help w/my security.  Any time you're keeping a [...] Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:58:56 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/845-Secure-your-computers- http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/845-Secure-your-computers- Butchering 72o Have you ever played a hand so bad that you just can’t let it go? During the session you keep thinking about it. The next day you keep thinking about it. It’s like a festering infection. It’s like the first time somebody put those trick candles in your birthday cake. [...] Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:30:44 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/840-Butchering-72o http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/840-Butchering-72o Downswings and the Information Game Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:41:07 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/803-Downswings-and-the-Information-Game http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/803-Downswings-and-the-Information-Game Something Jack Said My friend Jack is from China. When he speaks English, he does so with a very heavy accent, and his word selection has on occasion caused me to reach for my pen to capture the moment. Like this one time… We were playing shorthanded $40-80 limit hold’em in the middle of the night. A hand came [...] Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:27:28 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/795-Something-Jack-Said http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/795-Something-Jack-Said Call or Fold? Stay or Quit? Here’s a decision I made in the $10-10-20 no-limit hold’em game at Lucky Chances in the spring, when the minimum buy-in was $2,000. The lineup — what we lovingly call The Breakfast Club — was playing tight and tough, as it so often does. Inevitably, the cards slice deep cuts into some of [...] Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:44:59 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/780-Call-or-Fold-Stay-or-Quit- http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/780-Call-or-Fold-Stay-or-Quit- Acting Last Acting last is like taking a drink of water. We don’t have to understand why it’s good for us to know that it is. And the benefits are unaffected by our understanding of them. (From “Elements of Poker”) Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:05:13 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/753-Acting-Last http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/753-Acting-Last Value Ranges, Bluff Ranges, and why handreading can be so damn hard Every poker player can remember improvements in his thought process.  We know how important the decision-making part of poker is, so we have the tendency to jump straight to it.  When we started with poker, it was: “I have an Ace and a Jack, and those are pretty good so i’m going all in!!”  Then [...] Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:18:57 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/752-Value-Ranges-Bluff-Ranges-and-why-handreading-can-be-so-damn-hard http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/752-Value-Ranges-Bluff-Ranges-and-why-handreading-can-be-so-damn-hard From the Cutting Room Floor This is an image I made in photoshop that I was going to put inside the back cover of my book and then decided not to. Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:05:29 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/710-From-the-Cutting-Room-Floor http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/710-From-the-Cutting-Room-Floor Minimum Wager When I play no-limit hold’em, sometimes I’m a minimum wager wagerer. And I don’t mean minimum wager wagerer as in “one who tries to bet the smallest amount that will get them to fold if they have nothing,” such as when the flop is A-A-6 rainbow and a bluffer bets half the pot or [...] Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:15:09 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/701-Minimum-Wager http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/701-Minimum-Wager Freeness Airline On June 19, I woke up in Ohio and I went to bed in California. Meanwhile, there were delays. My flight from Cleveland to Houston was a little late getting off the ground, which gave me only 20 minutes or so to walk from gate E14 to gate C32 at the Houston airport, [...] Sun, 22 Jun 2008 02:32:52 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/676-Freeness-Airline http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/676-Freeness-Airline Ask Me About Music Lessons When I moved to California in 1997, my bankroll was about $100,000. That was the barrier between floating freely on the breeze, and crash landing in the dank underworld of employeedom. Of this $100,000, about $40,000 of it was in the form of actual money. About $20,000 of it was money that credit card companies [...] Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:28:49 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/647-Ask-Me-About-Music-Lessons http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/647-Ask-Me-About-Music-Lessons A Hand I Didn’t Play at Lucky Chances I was in the big blind in the $10-10-20 game. The player under-the-gun opened the pot for the minimum, $40. He had about $7,000. Everyone folded to the button, who called the $40. He had about $6,000. The small blind folded. It was my turn. My stack was $5,000, and my hand was Q-9 suited. [...] Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:00:05 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/606-A-Hand-I-Didn-t-Play-at-Lucky-Chances http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/606-A-Hand-I-Didn-t-Play-at-Lucky-Chances Musings on Poker Education Musings on Poker Education by Chris "DeathDonkey" Vitch               “I taught you everything you know, but not everything I know”.  We as poker educators struggle to prove this oft quoted statement of superiority is not necessarily true in our field.  However, I recently read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, which argues that not only is this quotation accurate, [...] Wed, 28 May 2008 10:43:56 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/607-Musings-on-Poker-Education http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/607-Musings-on-Poker-Education The Bay Area’s 3-blind structure for no-limit So far this year I’ve been playing almost entirely no-limit hold’em almost entirely at Lucky Chances Casino, near San Francisco. This area of the country lays claim to lots of things that have never existed anywhere else, such as The Golden Gate Bridge, Jerry Garcia, and the triple blind structure in their no-limit poker games. [...] Mon, 26 May 2008 18:26:15 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/599-The-Bay-Area-s-3-blind-structure-for-no-limit http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/599-The-Bay-Area-s-3-blind-structure-for-no-limit Two Rights Make a Wrong People say you shouldn’t quit if the game is good. That seems like good advice. And people say you should play in good games. That makes sense too. But if you put those two pieces of advice together — that is, if I only play in good games, and I don’t quit good games [...] Thu, 22 May 2008 14:53:26 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/595-Two-Rights-Make-a-Wrong http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/595-Two-Rights-Make-a-Wrong Omaha 8 and the refusal Took me a long time (and a lot of money) to learn to play O8 well. At first I thought it was complicated. It isn’t, it’s easy. Stick to playing strong hands that play well in both directions and you will dominate. Now, I used to also think that it was [...] Fri, 16 May 2008 02:35:51 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/591-Omaha-8-and-the-refusal http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/591-Omaha-8-and-the-refusal Two-Way Bets Mon, 12 May 2008 06:15:14 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/583-Two-Way-Bets http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/583-Two-Way-Bets Leverage is Your Friend This could also be titled “Why it sucks to get minraised OOP (feat. T-Pain)”  There’s a reason many poker players are fascinated by investing– our day-to-day job is essentially a collection of small investments; he raises UTG, I have 55…. I’ll invest 4bb.  Maybe my investment pays off, maybe it doesn’t.  In real-world investing, however, leverage [...] Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:56:23 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/491-Leverage-is-Your-Friend http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/491-Leverage-is-Your-Friend lol sleepaments This phenoma occurs when online players are very stuck. They have no idea how tired they are and are locked into a marathon session. Sleep is the most important thing to play your A-game consistently. It is that important. This is really easy to grasp. Think about human evolution, the survival of the fittest and now [...] Sat, 29 Mar 2008 05:56:07 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/441-lol-sleepaments http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/441-lol-sleepaments Why Good Table Selection is Not Enough Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:34:54 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/386--Why-Good-Table-Selection-is-Not-Enough http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/386--Why-Good-Table-Selection-is-Not-Enough 3-betting is Overrated Hey y’all I’m chilling at Logan airport in boston waiting for my flight to leave for the British Virgin Islands (supposedly paradise), and so i’m going to write a little bit about why I think 3-betting is overused. Essentially, I think 3-betting is something that average players do to make money.  It probably nets a slight profit [...] Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:16:16 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/382-3-betting-is-Overrated http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/382-3-betting-is-Overrated Thoughts about winrates and variance Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:00:38 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/373-Thoughts-about-winrates-and-variance http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/373-Thoughts-about-winrates-and-variance A quick bit on preflop play — why not. I mean, this is a poker blog, amirite?  So yeah.  Why not.  This isn't revolutionary or anything but I've talked about it with several students and have actually had to mention it in a few videos that I've done for Deuces.  Anywho.  I'm talking with a student about hands he's played where he coldcalls in [...] Sat, 01 Mar 2008 02:22:26 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/365-A-quick-bit-on-preflop-play-why-not- http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/365-A-quick-bit-on-preflop-play-why-not- On advertising, and an appropriate budget for such things I generally hate advertising as a rule. It wastes my time, it is usually pretty annoying, and it is almost always aimed at people with a more primitive sense of humor than me. Now thats not to say I don’t love a good football-in-the-crotch scene now and again, but most ads come up woefully short [...] Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:59:27 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/328-On-advertising-and-an-appropriate-budget-for-such-things http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/328-On-advertising-and-an-appropriate-budget-for-such-things A little wander in the woods Imagine yourself taking a little constitutional into the woods near your home, headed for a particularly enjoyable overlook of the neighboring valley (which has been reputed to shelter a sizeable treasure!) You’ve been through these woods many times, searching for various bounties, and you reckon that you know your way around pretty well. You leave [...] Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:57:40 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/309-A-little-wander-in-the-woods http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/309-A-little-wander-in-the-woods A little live poker in Kansas City I’ve been in Kansas City for a few days now with my family, and got the chance to play a little live poker tonight at Harrah’s. There are a few things of note about this casino and its patrons: There are some ridiculous rules regarding entry and buying chips, primarily as a result of ridiculous Missouri [...] Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:19:37 +0000 http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/287-A-little-live-poker-in-Kansas-City http://www.deucescracked.com/articles/287-A-little-live-poker-in-Kansas-City