For our milestone episode, I talk with old friend Steve “ChipXtractor” Catterson. I met Steve through the defunct Red Chip Poker forum, and we have been more or less in touch since.
Steve and I go over some stories, but it seems to me that the present in this case is more interesting than the past. Steve is working on his game and that means becoming more interested in the game. Teaching, in turn, makes me more interested in the game. The reason for all this is that when we see what is possible or what we have been blind to, the world regains its color. I’m obviously not just talking poker here. The way to overcome loss is to see what still lives and what you have been missing from the bigger picture.
Less seriously, it’s fun to hear hand histories from South Point, which can be a fun, popular local’s place. Soon Steve will be moving up from the cheap seats and will get involved with the notorious shit regs of the “Jewel.” Good luck with that.
Here’s the hand discussed:
The theme of this podcast is sociability. From Steve’s angle, poker is a part of one’s real, physical, meaningful life. Otherwise hard-tack players need to remember that. I regret my many rudenesses at the table and have been trying to make up for them for some time. For those currently embracing misery and its spread to others, I suggest you rethink your approach. You don’t have to embarrass that old guy who doesn’t want to show his cards. You don’t have to fight over who straddled when. You don’t have to wander the room looking for exact right game to worsen.
Thanks to Dean for all his work on the pod. Thanks to Porter, Julie, Burge and anyone else who put in some editing time. Congratulations us.
If you want to join Steve in relearning the game, use the coaching link or email me.
Have a great week,
Chris
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It was great of OOP to have Steve as the guest for the 100th episode, as he is a poker unicorn: an extremely likable person.
F
I loved the hand analysis: it accurately highlights (not at all picking on Steve) a flaw of “experience.” I’ve heard countless people say, “Ive been playing poker, or trading, for thirty years,” when, in reality, they’ve been playing cards, or trading, the same year thirty times; maybe, if they improved in year two, fifteen times.
F
exactly. it’s the “this is water” thing, over and over, that holds us back.
It was great to come back to fundamental strategy discussions, and to get a reminder of the excellent sessions and discussions back when I attended the Construction courses. I have to admit that I too, get pulled into pool tendencies in casual settings (home games) and get lazy in my strategic thinking from time to time.
Running this hand through a solver like GTO+ isn’t “clean” because it starts out on the flop as a 3-way hand. If I stretch the imagination to model it as heads up, and given certain opening range assumptions, on the flop it wants the AKdd to bet 1/3 pot (also given a 2/3 option), checking 18% of the time. On the turn (assuming it bet 1/3 and was called), it splits 50/50 between 75% bet and check. When it bets 75% and is called, the BB never leads river and when checked to, the AKdd checks back.
A better tool for this could be PokerSnowie, which has a multiway scenario modeling tool. It wants the AKdd to bet 25% pot on the flop. When it bets as played (50% pot) and gets called, it usually assigns a higher EV to a turn check back, as Persuadeo argues. But – a half pot size bet yields equal EV to checking. When BB jams the Tc river, it assigns basically the same EV (0) to calling and folding.
very good comments. definitely be careful about thinking MW and HU play similarly. Good to hear from you.