Hoy likes to play long ball. He often swings for the fences. He often hits it over the fence. Me, I tend to go more for singles and doubles. I've tried to play long ball and it almost never works for me.
It's well known that Babe Ruth long held the record for the most career home runs. In a career that spanned 22 seasons, he hit 714 home runs. This record stood for a very long time. Lesser known is the fact that he also struck out 1330 times. Hank Aaron, who broke the Babe's record, hit 755 career home runs. He struck out 1383 times.
Swinging for the fences means committing early to a strategy that is difficult to alter in mid-course. If the ball tails off in an unanticipated way, you often miss it completely and end up dragging the bat back to the dugout rather than trotting around the bases.
It's the same with poker. Swinging for the fences is often going to end up in a strikeout rather than a home run. It's just the nature of the game. This doesn't mean that playing long ball is wrong, it just means it's a strategy that has a frequent, unavoidable downside. After you've skillfully disguished your hand, lulled the other player into thinking you're weaker than you actually are, got him to commit far more of his chips than he would had he been able to see your cards, after all this, the other player will often catch the card he needs to beat you.
In a blog imitates life moment in last night's Hammer Day tournament, Hoy and I got into just such a hand. I was UTG and Hoy was in the BB. I raised to 3BB (720) with ATs. Ordinarily I wouldn't raise with this, but I was getting very close to seriously short-stacked and needed to get something going. This was the best hand I'd seen in a while so I thought I'd give it a shot. It folds to Hoy with AKo who simply calls, already setting up that long ball play.
The flop is 9hQdAh. Hoy. continuing his swing for the fence, checks. I check also, planning on at least going for extra bases.
The turn is the 4d. Again Hoy continues his long play by checking. I have to admire his fortitude. Me, on the other hand, I don't have that kind of discipline. I switch back to the short play I'm more comfortable with. I bet 1200 into a 1760 pot. Hoy calls. At this point I'm thinking he's got maybe a Q, maybe a flush draw.
The river brings the Th. This gives me two pair, but also fills his flush if that's what he's going for. He completes his long play with a classic Hoyazo move, putting me all-in minus one. I was pretty sure I had the winning hand if he didn't have the flush. After a bit of navel gazing, I made the call. My two pair took down a huge pot, leaving Hoy with crumbs.
My point in telling this story is not to criticize or denigrate Hoy's play in any way. He did exactly what he intended to do with this hand. He disguished the strength of his hand by simply calling before the flop. He gave no indication whatever of what he held on the flop and his turn call could have meant almost anything. He expertly set up the big swing. Then the deck threw him a curve and he dragged his bat back to the dugout.
This is the price sometimes, maybe often, paid for playing long ball. This is why I seldom make such plays. When I swing for the fences like that I almost always strike out. The other guy rivers his two-outer with incredible frequency. Hoy, on the other hand, has apparently had far better luck with this type of play, as witnessed by his many significant cashes.
I have no conclusion here. I'm not even sure I have much of a point. These are two different styles of play. One is not clearly better than the other, nor are they mutually exclusive. A skilled player can shift from long ball to short ball and back again with little difficulty. I do know that the long ball hitter will sometimes hit the ball out of the park and move way up in winnings as a result. I also know he can strike out and go home early. Long ball hitters should not be surprised when this happens. I suppose the key to success is to get more home runs than strikeouts. Duh.
Hoy, down to crumbs, busted out a few hands later. Sadly, I was unable to use his chips to particularly good effect. I was borderline short-stacked when the hand started, so while doubling up improved my lot considerably, it didn't leave me with a stack I could bully the table with. Hoy finished 33rd; I finished 23rd. Given the 158-runner field, neither of us has anything to be ashamed of nor much to brag about.
Congratulations to JoeBrooklyn for winning the first Hammer Day Poker Event. I read somewhere there would be four Hammer Day events this year. The other obvious one is 2 July. I'm guessing the others to be 27 February and 27 July. Maybe 22 July since that would be 7/22/7. More details as they unfold.
CC's Thursday Bash is apparently back on this week. Just when I thought I might have a night free for other pursuits... Oh well, see you there.
2 comments:
Well said on all counts, Patch. Lord knows in retrospect I wish I had raised earlier in that hand in the Hammer Day tournament, and I paid the price for my not doing so. But I think to say that you "almost always" strike out when you play that form of long ball, that can't actually be right. I mean, what happened in that Hammer Day hand was a 3-outer on the river, plain and simple. We're talking about a less than 7% chance, basically something that should only happen one time for every 14 times I try it. At those kind of odds, I am surely more than willing to go for the fences if I've done a good job of disguising my hand. But no doubt it bites me in the ass more often than I would like, and invariably when it does, it's for a big pot because I know the other guy has no clue what I have, so I end up calling/betting/raiaing at the end even when I actually got beat by the longshot.
Hope you fared better with my chips last night at cc's bash than the night before. Though as you say, a 23rd place finish in that field is nothing to sneeze at.
What I meant to say was that _I_ "almost always" strike out when I play long ball. Maybe it's poor skill at reading the cards, maybe it's just plain bad luck, but when I try to make such plays it is almost certain there will be no joy at the end. You, on the other hand, fare far better with this type of play. This was an example of when it failed, but, as I tried to suggest in the main post, you wouldn't have had significant cashes in so many tournaments if you regularly failed with this play.
Having re-read my post, I think the point I was originally going for and maybe wandered away from just a bit, is that long ball hitters strike out. A lot. It's just part of the game. I'm not sure the baseball metaphor holds up as far as percentages, but it should come as no surprise to anyone that long plays like this will have a high failure rate. And the cost, as witnessed on Hammer Day, is often quite high.
I went out in something like 7th at CC's Bash. I have a lot of trouble pushing very far into the third hour. The blinds always seem to start catching up and when I decide to make a move I often run headlong into somebody with a monster. Bad timing.
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