Poker: it's (not) a team game.

Which the exception of a team event taking place at Raise the River I’ve not played any poker so you’ll be delighted to hear I won’t be moaning in this blog! I couldn’t tell you when I’m going to play again though, I barely seem to have any interest at all in even loading up a poker client. Remember that blog post from a couple of weeks back; You’re either 100% committed or totally disinterested? I’m still in the latter.

The Raise the River team event brought up a couple of interesting conundrums to put to you, my loyal and non-existent readers. The format was/is (we are half way through it): three teams have four players selected by team captains. Two players from each team play heads-up with players from other teams while the remaining two players from each team go into a 6-man SNG. The winners of the heads up games and the top three from the SNG go into a final 6-man SNG with the winner of the game sharing the prizing money between the team.

Of course the team aspect has conjured up all sorts of banter and it’s been a good laugh so far, but the interesting component has been team play which pretty much polarises the whole concept of poker which is probably the most individual, selfish and greed-driven game you can imagine. Of course, in heads up it doesn’t matter but for the team event teamwork actually prevailed, or at least I think it.

I was playing with team-mate Cell1919 and I had the button every time he was in the big blind. On one or two occasions I stole his blind with absolutely nothing just to keep my chip stack healthy. Then, as the game got close to the bubble there where a couple of occasions when we were in the blinds (the original small blind player in our button-big blind equation had been eliminated) and I called the small blind with complete trash and we both checked the board down. I guess it was pretty pointless since the other team wasn’t involved in the hand and we were never going to chop the pots unless miracles happened. But, without basically telling each other what hand we had (which we didn’t I hasten to add) we were minimising the risk of crippling each other, and we could have easily done that in one hand when I turned two pair and he rivered trips which, in a blind V blind match would basically have meant all the money going in the middle.

The other point to mention is that when either one of use raised the other player simply didn’t get involved. I know there was one occasion when I had AJ in the small blind and because Cell had raised UTG I just ditched it because I didn’t want to risk getting into a confrontation with my team-mate. This meant that we never really got into a spot where we could team up on an opposition player basically playing four hole cards to the oppositions two – that would have made for some very interesting spots.

We did this checking down business at least three times while it was 4-handed, which was the bubble. Baring in mind that the other two players were on the same team too (with Burnley Mik’s team of cretins going out early on) this critical hand came along which decided the bubble and which three players would go into the final:

So, splunk1 (me) and Cell1919 are on the same team, as are CarlYork and Hammerhied.

PokerStars Game #20953092929: Tournament #112303760, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2008/10/05 15:57:18 ET
Table '112303760 1' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 4: Cell 1919 (2800 in chips)
Seat 5: CarlYork (950 in chips)
Seat 6: Hammerheid (3030 in chips)
Seat 8: splunk1 (2220 in chips)
CarlYork: posts small blind 50
Hammerheid: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cell 1919 [Jh 3d]
Mair38 [observer] said, "yeah lol im downloading so it spikes every now n then hehe"
splunk1: raises 250 to 350
Cell 1919: folds
Cell 1919 said, "lolol"
CarlYork: raises 600 to 950 and is all-in
Hammerheid: calls 850

Now I’ve thought about this hand for a while and tried to work out if I made the right decision here. First of all, why would hammerheid call the shove by his own player? Is it survival of the fittest or is he trying to protect his team-mate from me with a hand like 7-2 so that, if he loses he redistributes the chips to a more even playing field while stealing 350 for my stakc? I doubt this since each game has individual prize money as well. The next question is why did hammerhied just call and not shove over the top if he wanted all of CarlYork’s chips and protect his hand a little bit from whatever I might have? I guess just calling might represent huge strength – it certainly would if we were just playing as individuals. And finally, what the hell do I do here?

Let’s ignore Carlyorks hand here, I don’t have to beat that. All I need to do it beat hammerhied’s hand which would mean I come out about even (because I might lose 1,000 to Carlyork but win about 1,200 from Hammerhied, so it’s slightly profitable and definitely profitable with the chips I’ve already invested in the pot). Other than both having overpairs the worst situation would be that they have all the othercards, eg AJ and KQ. However that’s unlikely so it could well be possible that they have each other’s outs like AQ v KQ which would be OK for me. The next thing to factor in is that I have more chips than CarlYork which means that if Hammerheid wins he knocks us both out but I go through in third place to the final. The worstcase scenario would be if Carlyork won the hand but also Hammerhied beat my hand which would mean I went out in fourth. And finally, I have pocket tens with 1200 left and about 2200 in the pot I’m getting pretty good odds to push it all in. Here’s the result.

splunk1: raises 1270 to 2220 and is all-in
Hammerheid: calls 1270
Cell 1919 said, "ouch"
*** FLOP *** [9c Qh 2h]
*** TURN *** [9c Qh 2h] [6s]
CarlYork said, "STAN YOU'RE SPOSED TO BE MYTEAM MATE"
*** RIVER *** [9c Qh 2h 6s] [Ks]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Hammerheid: shows [Kc Ad] (a pair of Kings)
splunk1: shows [Tc Ts] (a pair of Tens)
Hammerheid collected 2540 from side pot
CarlYork: shows [Qd Th] (a pair of Queens)
Hammerheid collected 2850 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 5390 Main pot 2850. Side pot 2540. Rake 0
Board [9c Qh 2h 6s Ks]
Seat 4: Cell 1919 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: CarlYork (small blind) showed [Qd Th] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 6: Hammerheid (big blind) showed [Kc Ad] and won (5390) with a pair of Kings
Seat 8: splunk1 showed [Tc Ts] and lost with a pair of Tens

So I don’t know whether to be pleased or not with the result. If I’d folded both Cell and myself would have gone through anyway and up until the river it was fairly dicey stuff. Was I routing as much for an ace or a king as I was for the case ten? A weird one and probably one that we will never see of its ilk again.

Poker’s a funny game to begin with, but when you bend the rules for your own amusement it’s virtually impossible.

The final will be contested between Amaty’s team and Our team because Burnley Mik is rubbish and none of his team made it to the final. It’s basically 3v3 which should make for even more teamwork (or not in the case of Hammerheid). See you all in the final. (check out www.raisetheriver.com/discuss to find out more about the names and the competitions mentioned in this blog).