The Cards Spoke

2004-02-09T23:40:00.000-08:00

After a 5 year layoff, I'm back!

2004-02-08T18:25:00.000-08:00

Grubby, Grubette, and the Big Dog

"The great gamblers, and there are not many, don't need anything. They simply wish to prevail. And we all know how dangerous people are who don't need anything."
--Stephen Dunn

After a marathon, 9 hour session at Hawaiian Gardens on Friday night, I don't even know where to begin. This night had everything-- great plays, horrible plays, maniacs, fights, and best of all, an appearance by Grubby and Grubette.

The original plan was that Grubby would arrive from DC late afternoon, and we'd meet up at Hawaiian Gardens for the 6:30 Limit Tourney. But I got word that he'd missed his flight, and he wasn't going to make it in until 9. Grubs later explained that he probably would have made it on time if he hadn't played "a few more orbits" on Empire, trying to win one last pot. I figured I'd try to make it to the tourney anyway, since I'd been looking forward to it after a grueling week of 50 hours of writing ASP code. The application went live on time, and what better way to celebrate than winning a limit tourney?

Of course, Friday night traffic in LA had other plans for me. Hawaiian Gardens is about 30 miles south of LA, located in the nation's poker capitol, Bell Gardens. It's about 10 minutes from the Bicycle, and half an hour from Commerce, and the cheap rent in the area allows many pros to make a decent living preying on the fish. Anyway, it took me an hour and a half to fight through the freeway traffic, and I arrived 15 minutes after the tournament began, only to find that the waiting list was already 20 deep. I think if there is a hell, it probably looks something like the LA freeways.

Walking into HG, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people playing poker. My usual joints have around 100 tables going on the weekend, but HG must have had at least 300, and every available inch in the casino had a full table. Although physically the place wasn't that big, the swarm of 3000 people made it the biggest cardroom I'd ever seen, and I walked around dazed by the action.

Although I was annoyed at missing the tourney, I knew I had a lot better chances of making money in the ring games-- getting to the final table in a 300 limit table was difficult enough, if I could even stay awake for the entire thing... the tourney ended up going on for over 6 hours, and I was already worn out from the week. I quickly got a seat at the first $6-12 table I could find, and tried to get a read on the players. The first thing I noticed was that the drop was far more reasonable than at Hollywood Park, which has a ridiculous $5 pre-flop drop no matter how many players are in the pot. HG took $5 only if there were 6 or more callers, and less depending on the number of players.

Another difference between this table and my usual was the black box embedded in front of seat 10-- a shuffle machine! This made the game considerably faster than the manually shuffled games, and the hands went by at a blinding rate. More hands = more profit, and it seemed like the machine shuffle was better than the dealer's imperfect manual blending.

A reasonable rake, a lot more hands per hour, and plenty of fish! This was better than Party! (waiting for lightning bolt to strike...)

The table wasn't a great one. A couple calling stations, but the players were mostly solid, and I knew it wasn't a typical Friday night crowd when we didn't see a flop for 3 hands. But it had potential... all it would take was one drunk, one guy who had a bad week, and this table would be fired up. I played tight, and picked up a big pot a few hands in to put me up around $40, but I didn't see anything close to a playable hand for the next hour, and was quickly blinded back to my buy-in. I think my discipline has improved-- I didn't find it hard to fold for an hour straight, whereas before I would be tempted to take a shot with Q8o or some marginal hand out of impatience.

Then, as if sent from the poker gods, a young, slobby, round guy waddled into seat one with a sweat shirt reading, "If you can't run with the BIG DOGS, go home!". You could feel the atmosphere of the table changing, and the sharks sniffed blood when he raised in early position on the first hand he was dealt.

Big Dog was a true maniac. Talk about firing up a table-- the guy immediately to his right would 3 bet nearly every Big Dog raise, and probably 50% of the hands were capped pre-flop, with at least 4 players seeing the flop. I was happy to be to the right of the maniacal combo, as I could punish them by capping with premium hands. The best part was, although I tightened up considerably, nobody cared... I was showing down premium hands, but the size of the pots made people lose their mind, and people continued to call my raises with junk. At one point, the Asian lady to my right told me, "You play too tight! Like a virgin you so tight!", but my raises weren't scaring anybody away.

As I tried to remember all my reading about "Playing against maniacs," I got a text message informing me that Grubby was in the building. I looked around for a trail Wendy's wrappers, but couldn't find any... I sent a text telling Grubs I was playing 6-12 wearing a tan baseball cap. 10 minutes later, still no sign, so I hit the call button on the cell... no answer, but I turn around to see the mighty Grubby himself, in the flesh! We exchanged greetings, and I suggested he do everything he could to get to my table full of insanity. Grubs was younger than I expected-- I was thinking he would be a little bit older, being an established playwright and all that. But it was great to finally put a face to all the great posts, and it was strange to think how much time I'd spent reading this person I just met.

Check back tomorrow for the conclusion of the HG trip report... you won't want to miss:
Back to back pocket Kings against the maniac
Two Aces on board, and 2 in the hole
Grubs and Grubette take my chips

...and best of all

Grubby drops the HAMMER!

Migration
Well, it's finally done. The Cards Speak is in the process of moving over to a friendlier and prettier environment, my very own linux server running movable type. After next week, the BlogSplat site will be taken down, and I'll only be posting to the new site. So replace your bookmarks! The new site is here: http://cardsspeak.servebeer.com

Poker Blog Patrol
Ignatius serves up yet another superb post before taking a well-deserved break from blogging. He points out the trade-off between writing about poker and studying the game:

"But I've gotten too far removed from focused studying and reading. Running sims. Replaying my hands. Building up my bankroll. I hit my year end goal in '04, (thank you very much Steve Lipscomb!) but I seem to have caught some kind of malaise since early January. As my original poker coach once told me, breaks from poker tend to re-energize you and you come back with a renewed vigor and focus."

I too have seen my study time fall off, and will probably go into a cave in the near future in order to fine-tune my game. I hope all the other poker bloggers can step it up while Iggy's gone-- his daily wit and insight will be sorely missed.

Chris Halverson put me on to Bloglines, an excellent web-based subscription tool that uses weblog feeds to notify you of an update. Highly recommended.

The Penguin actually turned something I said in my recent ramblings into a profit. He doubled up several times in the supersoft NL ring games on Party, which I ranked in my last post as the highest EV game in online poker. If you haven't yet, go sit in an NL $25 or $50 ring game and watch your bankroll grow. Penguin, this link's for you: Penguin Baseball

TFG continues to amaze me, feelin the pain after a marathon brush-busting session, Chainsaw massacre style:

"I'll probably have to super-glue my toothbrush to the counter and rub my teeth back and forth over it, my arms are so weak. Heck, my toenails hurt."

The Fat Guy writes code all day and still makes it out to the woods to fire up the chainsaw. I'm jealous, they don't even have trees out here in LA...

Royal explains the rationale behind his 10,000 hand quest at .50/1:

"I agree that putting in a bunch of time at the same limits and tables, say $0.50/$1 at Party Poker, is great from a human pattern recognition standpoint. Human beings have a unique ability to do neural pattern mapping and quickly recall those patterns."

With a background in AI, I've coded up plenty of neural networks, which attempt to learn patterns from the data you feed them. Royal points out that humans are far better at filtering the input-- recognizing which variables have a significant effect on the outcome, whereas the computer can only use the explicit variables you feed it. For example, a typical pattern I've seen is for short-stacked players to bluff excessively when their stack is below a certain size. Sure, a neural net could discover this rule if you explicitly gave it some threshold value and enough data, but this would only be possible if you've discovered the pattern first for yourself.

This is the real reason why I now believe playing one table is important if you are looking to improve your game. Two tables interfere with your ability to see patterns, which is what makes you a better player.

Lord G is off and running in his pro poker career, crushing the online $5-10 games while building his bankroll. LG is the only poker blogger playing for a living, so it's great to see him off to a big start.

I finally made it over to Ugarte's Poker Grovel, a nice-looking site with multiple authors. Check out an account of the latest home game, featuring Pauly.

And thanks to Iggy for pointing out Suited Trash, the first Meta-Poker Blog in history. Liz keeps tabs on the poker blog world, and gives out a coveted asterisk to the "especially recommended" blog of the day. Hopefully I can earn one of those in the near future...

2004-02-05T22:05:00.000-08:00

"Oh the humanity!"

"Industry executives and analysts often mistakenly talk about strategy as if it were some kind of chess match. But in chess, you have just two opponents, each with identical resources, and with luck playing a minimal role. The real world is much more like a poker game, with multiple players trying to make the best of whatever hand fortune has dealt them."
--David Moschella

The good news is, I found myself highly ranked in a top ten list of poker bloggers. The bad news is, the king of the poker blog did not even make the list, along with many of my favorite bloggers. So, I'm not sure how I feel about the list, but I guess a little PR is probably a good thing. But in tribute to the man left out:

Sign up at Empire Poker with bonus code IGGY1! (and get $100 and a date with Iggy)

Ok, I feel better now. In all seriousness, if you haven't yet, go read Ignatius, where you'll find great poker content and the best set of poker news links anywhere.

Party Poker Games by EV
Since I didn't get to play any poker tonight (I'm exhausted after finally finishing a big project at work where I was the designer, programmer, and lead tester on), I thought I'd take a stab at figuring out which games on Party offer the "best bang for your buck", or highest expected value. I can only write about the limits I've played, but I'd love to hear other opinions (email me, or click on the comment link below this post).

6. NL $100: Party's best no limit players hang around here, and although the games are still good, the players at the lower NL limits are considerably weaker. If you want to play NL, don't waste your time here, take a step down to $50 (see below).

5. $5-10 Limit, 6 max: Grubby insists these games are Party's most profitable, but the sharks hang out in these waters. Even the minnows can jump up and bite you in this game. The variance is huge, and without a sufficient bankroll, you will not survive. This game requires an iron will, and the unwavering belief that you WILL win, or else you'll succumb to tilt when the fish bad beat you on the river. The best thing about these games is that if you find a table with 3 fish, then you only have to split the winnings with 2 other players, as opposed to 6 others in a full ring game. These games are full of tricky, aggressive play, and are not without psychological warfare. An excellent place to test and develop your poker skills, but if you're looking to make money, spend a lot of time finding a fishy table.

4. $5-10 Limit: Although these tables are usually tighter than a nun's bustier, I've had my highest win rate here. Unfortunately, there are usually at least 10 people on the waiting list for every table, so it takes a while just to get a seat. Although the tightness makes the pots smaller, it's relatively easy to put players on a hand, and bluffs and semi-bluffs have a reasonable chance of success. The $5-10 games feel like "real poker" to me, where psychology and hand reading are crucial, and can win you a few extra pots per hour.

3. $3-6 Limit: Depending on the time of day, there are usually plenty of fishy games with open seats. Tight, aggressive play is rewarded here, and the bets are big enough that it's possible (sometimes) to raise out ridiculous draws, which limits the number of bad beats you take. These are the tables you'll usually find yours truly at... I'm afraid of cheating at the higher limits, and refuse to wait forever for a $5-10 table. A bonus is that a wide variety of players jump in these games, so each table has a different feel to it.

2. $15-30 Limit: From what I've seen, the $15-30 games aren't much different than a tight $3-6 game, with the added bonus that you find plenty of players trying to throw money at you and bluff you out of a pot. If your bankroll is big enough and you aren't afraid of the cheaters (be afraid, be very afraid... with that much money at stake and the ease of hopping on instant messenger, I believe cheating is RAMPANT in these games), you can rake it in at Party's highest limit.

1. NL $50/$25 Ring: The true grinder's game, the lower limit ring games on Party are full of passive pre-flop players, who are happy to go in with top pair. In many games, you will find 7 or 8 people limping in for the minimum bet. In a no-limit game, this is the grinder's dream. Just sit and wait for the nuts or near nuts, push all your chips in, and double up when one or more players calls. The implied odds of multiway pots are through the roof if you can be pretty sure that you can get one caller to the showdown. Just think, you can play 25 hands for $1, and only have to flop a big hand (and get at least 1 caller) once to double up. Not a bad hourly rate. The downside is that this style of play is barely poker-- almost no strategy, and very little risk, but it will get you the money in the long run.

The list doesn't include tournaments... I'm still on the fence about Party tournament EV. There is lots of dead money in both SNGs and Multis, but you start off with so few chips, it's just too much of a crapshoot. I've done pretty well in the 40 or so I've played, but my intuition is that the long term EV of Party tourneys isn't nearly what it is in the ring games. Of course, that's the nature of tournaments... much higher variance, and much greater potential profit.

The Bot Question
There has been a lot of talk about poker bots for a while now, and after getting a master's in Artificial Intelligence, I've been intrigued by these discussions. Iggy addressed this a while back in this post, suggesting that while a bot could play good ABC poker, it would not extract the maximum profit, and would have great difficulty in reading an opponent's hand. To me, the real question is:

If I had a year or two to program a bot, how would the bot's win rate compare to mine in low-limit games?

Well, the simple answer is that the win rate would probably be inferior to mine, but by how much? If it was only 50% worse, then the bot is a profitable endeavor-- clearly a bot can play twice as many hours as me, and is unsusceptible to tilt, fatigue, and hunger. But as you escalate in limits, psychology and hand-reading grow in importance, and the logic for the bot becomes far more complex.

The poker player should aspire to use all of his or her knowledge and skill to extract maximum profit, and this will not happen at the low limits. I've gotta get to the limits where HDouble beats HDouble 1.0, otherwise I might as well spend my time coding.

On to the B&M...
Can't wait to sit down at Hawaiian Gardens casino tomorrow, after a LONG and stressful week of programming. I'm looking forward to meeting Grubby and his sister Grubbette... a $20 buy-in limit tourney, followed by heavy action in the Friday night games. You'll only get the REAL version of what went down here-- Grubby's a playwright, so he believes in that poetic license thing.

Congrats to Pauly for winning his first SNG!

Thanks for reading, and take it one hand at a time...

2004-02-04T00:05:00.000-08:00

Heads Up with Grubby at Burger King

"The entire table can't help but hear him say, "I'd just like to know one thing - what is the biggest difference between playing 100-200 and 10-20?" I look at him and say, "The limit - this is a different limit," and he gives me an uncomprehending look and then smiles because he thinks I'm joking and says again, "No, really, I mean what's the major difference in play in these games?" And I say, "The chips are different - these chips are worth more money." And I say it completely deadpan and now he thinks I'm taking the piss out of him and he wipes the smile off his face. I see Johnny trying hard not to laugh. "You see if we were playing 10-20 we would be using red chips, but we're not." Everybody thinks I'm trying to make a fool out this guy, but I'm just saying the only completely honest thing that I can. But it's not what this guy wants to hear. I want to shake him. I want to shout, "Look at me! Listen to me! There is no difference in play!!" But I don't say that, I just repeat in a small voice, "This is a higher limit. The game is exactly the same as 10-20 but we use different chips."
--Jesse May from Shut Up and Deal

Ahh, nothing like writing about poker while drinking Theraflu and your nose leaks uncontrollably. For you, loyal readers, I go the extra centimeter.

I signed in to Choice Poker to see if it was possible to work off 300 Hand bonus (I no longer believe in bonus whoring-- I usually end up losing money on these). As usual, there was a single table going, and I sat down to check it out. A bunch of tight players (most likely props)... but who is that over in seat 3? Could it be... Grubby himself! After everyone folded to the blinds for 3 hands straight, I challenged the bad beet king to a little Heads Up action to work off the bonus. Bring it on Grubs!

I started off dominating, quickly going up 120 to 80 (on a $1-2 table) after we both bought in for 100. But the Grubster got a read on me quickly, and began to battle back. The key hand came when I slowplayed my pocket aces, and he caught a flush on the river, punishing me for 6 big bets.

This disaster began a downward slide, and he made all the right reads, and took a big lead at something like 110 - 50. They were raking away quite a bit, but at least the bonus hands were wearing down at lightning speed. I finally got a read on Grubby's play, and fought back to even it back up at 70-70. I lost a hand or two, and realized that while I fought it out with an excellent heads-up player, the fish were happily swarming over at Party.

"I've got to let you go, Mr.Grubs," and I got ready to go back to more familiar waters, but I took my last hand in the BB. Ahh, Big Slick, and Grubs raised from the big blind. I reraised, and when the flop came 2 4 4, I felt pretty sure I had the best hand. Grubs bet out, I reraised, and he just called. I figured it would be nice to go out with a bang, and the 7 on the turn didn't worry me too much. The raise war continued, and I started to fear I was up against a pocket pair, so I just called... the river was another 4, and I called to see the Grubster turn over...

43 offsuit! Poker Gods, what did I do to deserve this? Well, at least he won the high hand bonus, collecting another $25 on the hand, leaving me $60 in the hole after getting my ass handed to me by quad 4s.

Much respect to Grubby, but I will take my revenge this weekend, on my home turf. Grubby, Grubette, and yours truly will be taking on the Hawaiian Gardens (right outside of LA) limit tourney, followed by some action in the loose ring games. Grubby's advice: "Bring lots of money!"

Why waste time in a negative EV game when there are so many fish to fry? Well, the bonus hands were calling me, and I couldn't resist the chance to serve up a bad-beat whopper to the stellar blogger/playwright. Veteran grinder Iggy stresses game selection, and it's definitely something I need to work on:

"Because most winnings come from the relative difference between your skill and that of your opponents, and are not just a function of ability alone, any player - pro or not - who plays to win money, should simply table hop and find a table to their liking."

Don't be stubborn, hop along to greener pastures. A single extra bad player is worth at least a big bet an hour. Get your avatar ass out of the seat and hop to the next table.

The most difficult step for me in my poker development has been going beyond session-based thinking. The most valuable thing I've learned from Ignatius is that you absolutely cannot judge your performance or your poker skills by looking at short-term results. Yes, it's tough to lose 25 big bets in a wild and loose game, but it's even tougher to go back and analyze the hands that you lost with. Did you abandon your hand selection? Were you getting proper odds for your draw? Did you give a free card because you made the wrong read?

Sometimes you play perfect and you are outdrawn. In my former life as a football player, the day after a game would always be tough-- your replay your mistakes in your head in slow motion all day, and you do your best to improve and avoid making the same mistake in the next game. But in sports, results usually go with performance. In poker, perfect performance often results in loss-- even Aces are unlikely to win with enough players in the pot.

I keep reminding myself that in the long run, my hands will hold up, and the results will come. If I'm patient, and commit to the grind, I know that I will win.

A $100 winning session at a wild $3-6 table tonight was a nice end to the poker night, although the money came in true grinder fashion. No outstanding plays, just raking a few big pots in the 80 minute session (although I did lose a $120 pot with KK when four diamonds appeared and my king high flush was beaten by the ace of diamonds). I'm probably jinxing it, but that's 7 winning sessions in a row. But session-based thinking is in the past, and I have made far too many mistakes during the run. A poker player never stays the same-- you either get better or worse, and I'm hoping writing about poker will make me better.

Thanks WPT
I received a package from the WPT yesterday, and I was expecting to find a free entry package to the Commerce tourney, but got something nearly as good: duplicates of the $180 set of DVDs! A letter explained that many of the first set were found to be defective (they did skip excessively), and they bit the bullet and replaced them. I thought the $180 price tag was outlandish, but they gained many points for providing replacements. Especially since I left the disc with Lederer and Chip Jett playing heads-up speed hold-em on my flight back from DC to LA. But that's a story from another time...

RDub with the Celebrity Poker Crew
If you remember from earlier posts, my buddy RDub has connections with Celebrity Poker announcer Phil Gordon, and made it down to Houston for the filming of the most recent episode. I won't spoil it, but he's got the inside scoop on your favorite celebrities, as well as plenty of hilarious stories about our favorite card-catching goofball. That's right, Phil Hellmuth was there! When he's not studying game theory or beating the hell out of the frat boys at his high-powered state university, he'll be writing up his trip report. I'll post it here as soon as I get my hands on it...

Chris Halverson has an excellent post detailing his start as a poker player:

"I finally came to the decision that if I wanted to actually learn how to play, I would have to pony up. I deposited $25 into UB and started playing the .25/.50 tables. I remember the first time I reached to move my mouse to click on that "Call" button. It was nerve wracking, this was real money after all! Well, OK, it's only a quarter, but I was still nervous. That all went away when I won my first pot. After all, this is real money!"

I find it interesting the different ways people arrive at poker. For those of you that have read Cards Speak from day 1, you'll remember that I got to poker after a frustrating stint as a blackjack card counter. The edges were just too small, and my bankroll not big enough to make a good hourly rate on the blackjack tables. And if you think poker is a grind, try counting. In blackjack, the biggest edge you EVER get is around 5%, and you have to wait hours to see anything like that. No thank you.

Lord G also debates whether to make "the leap" to playing poker for a wage. Danger Will Robinson! Most everybody wants to "roll up the stake and go to Vegas", but if I ever went pro, I would have to prove to myself that I had what it takes to make it. Sufficient proof? 2 BB/HR for at least 500 hours. I've never really aspired to play pro, but if I lost my job right now, I'd probably play at least 40 hours a week. But grinding for survival is a lot different than grinding for fun, and even if I was making a decent amount of money, I'm not sure I could handle the lifestyle.

Study these guys!
Every time I read Abdul and Izmet, I realize how pointless it is to post strategy or theory stuff here. It's all been said. Read Abdul and Izmet. Every word. Then go back and read it again. You are not maximizing your profit until you do so. I can't stress enough how much the concepts they discuss will help your game. And it's free!

2004-02-02T22:44:00.000-08:00

How Tom Brady broke my heart, and the Grublog Classic

If I hadn't downed a tasty mixture of Guinness and Coors Light, I don't know if I could have swallowed Brady's interception in the red zone yesterday. With the Pats up by 5, and Adam V practically on the field to put them up by 8 (I took the Pats and gave 6.5), I was thinking of what tourney I could buy into with my winnings... But Brady, the rock, the quarterback who NEVER makes big mistakes, pulled a Favre and threw the ball up for grabs in the red zone. For a guy who plays smart, this was probably the dumbest play he's ever made, in the biggest game.

And then the Pats give up an 85 yard bomb to Muhsin Muhammed, who runs a slower 40 than HDouble. Stud safety Rodney Harrison's (who was hurt on an earlier play) backup played undisciplined in the zone coverage, and it nearly cost the Pats the game.

From the betting perspective, it was a heartbreaker. From being up a sure 8 points, to Brady's INT, leading up to the Pats improbable 2 point conversion to put them up 7. It was mayhem in HDouble's abode after that 2 point conversion, only to be followed by a Hellmuthian temper tantrum when the Panthers came back.

Point spreads aside, it was a great game, although both teams were sloppy. Very sloppy. The Pats special teams were awful, and Carolina picked up penalty after penalty. For super bowl teams who thrive on playing smart, it was an unimpressive performance. But what a game. The Pats showed their character, making the big plays when they needed to, while the Panthers dropped big passes and didn't step up their game. Except for Jake D-- he made me eat my words, playing a superb game. No interceptions, and his passes were on the money all game long.

I didn't even want to talk about this, but Scott's rant was too good to leave out:

"It was a boob, and a damn unsightly one at that, from a woman who is circling the drain and knows it, exposed by a talentless jackass who's circling the drain and knows it, produced by a brainless cable show that is circling the drain and knows it, and broadcast globally on a leaderless over-the-air network that is circling the drain and knows it.

Anyone shocked or surprised or delighted or enlightened or titillated by this hasn't been paying attention for the last decade. I don't want to have to tell you people this again."

Well said my man.

Grublog Poker Classic
Luckily for me, I didn't have time to wallow in my sportsbook sorrows, as I discovered that the Grubster had taken the plunge and finally gotten a venue for the blogger tourney:

THE GRUBLOG POKER CLASSIC
Date:	Sunday, Feb. 22, 2004
Time:	2100 ET (9 p.m.)
Tournament Format:	No-limit Texas Hold'em
Location:	ChoicePoker
Buy-in:	$20 + $2
Prize Pool:	$1,000,000 (if 50,000 bloggers enter)

That's right folks, set your calendars... HDouble is signed up for Choice Poker, a ghost town of a poker room, with a colorful interface. TFG seemed to like the color scheme:

"Looks a bit like the UB client, except uglier in a 1979 Burger King kind of way."

I'll take a Whopper and an SNG victory... To Go! When I logged on at 4 pm Pacific, there were only 7 players on the $1/2 table, and I think I saw a dust bunny roll across the screen. But they do have heads-up games, so if anyone wants to ~~take my money~~ take their chances against HD, email me and we'll set it up.

I actually got to play a little
I wanted to make it to the 7:15 Limit Tourney at Hollywood Park tonight, but after a brutal day dealing with the INS (Mrs. Double is Swedish, and we spent the afternoon talking to a wonderful Immigration officer), I couldn't muster up the energy to fight through the downpours and LA traffic (rain and LA drivers do not mix), and ended up playin in the $30 NL tourney on Party, along with 941 other people. I actually feel bad about this, because live tourneys are about 10 times more exciting than online tourneys, but sitting in traffic for an hour put me back in front of the comp.

321st out of 941... after making several mistakes early, but catching some big hands, I found myself with a decent sized stack with 321 players remaining. I get AQo in middle position, and test the waters with a decent sized raise. I throw in 500 (blinds are at 150) of my 2500 chips, am raised to 1500 all-in in late position, and reraised 2500 all in by the big blind. I think, and think, and think, and I do the gollum routine "Nooooooo, AK or KK, you're a LOSER! Yessss, you're committed, and you have 2 overcards!" I take my odds and my chances, hoping that I've got 2 overcards, I push all in, trying to triple up. The flop is 3 Q 8, with no flush... the turn an Ace, and I'm reaching for the 6K pot. The river is a ten... and middle position shows KK, and Big Blind? You guessed it, TT for the set on the river.

Well, I guess I was a big dog preflop, so there you have it. Another river casualty. First prize? $6200.

I need to play a couple limit tourneys before Grubby gets here on Friday so I can win a last-longest bet between me, Grubette, and Mr. Pokergrub himself. The Grubster is coming off a huge multi-table tourney victory, and I hope he continues rolling... all the way to second place this weekend.

Poker Blog Patrol
Well, the Penguin won the third hammer challenge, which should have been mine (see previous post). Penguin gets my respect for demanding a response, yelling HAMMER! not once, but two times in chat. Alas, the table was left speechless.

Lots of buzz about the Poker Blog tourney. I think my buddy Pauly may need to lay off the wacky tobacky-- he actually listed me as the favorite in the Blogger tournament. Surely he couldn't have been sober when he posted these odds:

HDouble 3-1
The Penguin 4-1
Iggy 9-2
Grubby 5-1
London Froggy 8-1
Pauly 10-1

Thanks for the compliment Pauly, but I definitely am not the best NL player of the bunch. Iggy's been playing NL since before I was driving, and Grubby and The Penguin have been dominating the Multis lately. Not to mention Lord Gorbachev, who just tore it up in Vegas. And if Felicia jumps in, we're all in trouble-- the woman plays NL tourneys every night, and is a proven winner. But can she adjust her B&M game to online play? I'm hoping the answer is no... and if Royal joins, I fall even further down the list. With that many skilled players in the game, the SNG is pretty much a crapshoot. Short term luck always wins, and even Lederer would be something of a long shot in a SNG with such amazing talent. I'm serious, I think.

The king of Poker News informs us that the WSOP is going to be a 7 day affair. Ye gads. If I plan on going, that means 5 precious vacation days sacrificed, just to sit on the rail.

And last but not least, my favorite non-poker content comes from the infamous Boy Genius, who refuses to pull punches. BG takes us through his day, beginning with the agony of Valentine's day. He also answers the question, "What's in your wallet?", with a post revealing what the Genius carries in his back pocket. My favorite journey, however, is the no-holds-barred account of my least favorite activity... yep, underwear shopping:

"My 'bad' underwear was outlet mall irregular stuff, and it’s not surprising once you put it on to figure out why. It’s as if the Spandex truck didn’t show the day they made my four pair, but they kept on sewing anyway."

Refreshing to see somebody tellin it like it is.

Keep winnin folks, and may your top 2 pair not get outdrawn on the river.

2004-02-01T13:09:00.000-08:00

Super Bowl Blog

"Whether he likes it or not, a man's character is stripped bare at the poker table; if the other players read him better than he does, he has only himself to blame. Unless he is both able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in cards, as in life."
--Anthony Holden

Short post today, as I've gotta watch the WPT special before the big game. Lederer and Hansen at the final table, so I'm expecting some fireworks. People have called Gus "lucky", but from what I've seen, the guy can really play, and his bluffs are well-timed and well-planned. It will be interesting to see how Lederer fares against the uber-aggressive Hansen. I was also shocked to see that Juha Helppi, the Finnish amateur who won the Aruba tourney, made the final table. He seemed like a good enough player, but he doesn't have much experience in live tourneys... but neither did Moneymaker. I suppose if Varkonyi can win the world series, anybody can... short term luck beats skill every time...

For my superbowl pick, I'm reposting my prediction from 1/19:
But this week Delhomme will be overwhelmed by the brilliance of Belichek and Crennell. The Pats will pick this boy clean, and the backers will eat him alive. The Pats are giving up a whopping 6.5, but I think I'll still drop a few bills on my boy Billy B. This game will probably be low scoring, but I'd be happy to see a couple Patriot defensive TDs early. Billy also gets an extra week to prepare, which is worth at least 3 points.

The Pats have been to the Big Dance before, and from the interviews I've seen, Carolina has been partying it up all week. Business trip for the Pats, party for the Panthers. I took the Pats and the points today.

To Play or To Write
Yesterday I blogged about becoming a grinder, but the most important thing about grinding is that you put in the hours. Both Iggy and Grubby have lamented recently that reading and writing Poker Blogs has severely cut into their playing time, and I couldn't agree more. There are lots of great blogs out there, and my daily reading list is growing exponentially, as I discover more folks who can both write and play poker.

Grubby explained this well in his post yesterday:

"More and more, poker has consumed my life. The excellent poker blogging going on is no help! Catching up on the poker blogs is an addiction unto itself.

If I were doing it for a living, that would be a different story. That would be an excuse to play even more. But trying to balance time spent playing (which is at least 3-4 hours a day, plus another couple hours with Poker Grub as well as reading other blogs and boards) with the day job and personal life and sleep is becoming harder to manage.

Personal life and sleep -- eh, what's that?"

Iggy also weighs in on the effort involved in coming up with daily posts:

"Good God, I'm too ~~drunk~~ tired to post anymore. I really just want to play some damn poker, rather than writing about it. I hope you all appreciate the time spent on this craziness."

I like to write, and I like to play poker, but finding the balance is tough. Especially when you've got to pound out code day after day at the 9 to 5. I wish I didn't need sleep.

Poker Blog Patrol
Grubby's most recent post takes us through a journey through poker addiction and a big multi-tournament victory. This post is one of the best I've read in a while, and I was at the edge of my seat reading it. What a story-- you devote yourself to something, you dive in, you struggle, and then you're rewarded. That's how it's supposed to be!

Iggy continues to bring us the best of poker on the web, and he saves me the hassle of scrolling through junk posts on RGP by only providing quality links. Oh yeah, and there's a chance that I'll be on the rail with a Guinness, cheering the poker BlogFather at the WSOP final table. If he gets to face off against Hellmuth, I think my head will explode...

Chris H. has a fancy new blog format. Hopefully I can get mine to look as good when I get the site moved over to Movable Type.

Paul finally ponied up for PokerTracker, and I'm looking forward to a breakdown of his 10K hands at .50/1. Hopefully that will heat up the cold cards he's been getting lately.

The Penguin continues to blast out intellectual posts, and has reached the second rung on the 100 BB challenge. He also got 3rd in a Multi... between him, Grubby, and Lord G, I think I'm gonna get crushed in the poker blogger tourney.

Mean Gene is cool, his Mom told me:

"The dealer would shake his head. "I'm sorry, you're playing Chip Jett. No one as uncool as you can beat him."

I'd fight hard to keep my lower lip from trembling. "My mom says I'm cool."

Stick and Move writes about his recent run of cards... I wish I was pulling in 31 BB pots.

There are a bunch of great blogs that I haven't got around to linking up to yet, but hopefully I'll get a chance to roll through those soon.

Poker's On, time to go! Hope the cards hit you in the head, and Go Pats!

2004-01-31T17:21:00.000-08:00

Grinding and Taking a Shot

"Certain individuals come here just to make money. They grind, grind, grind in the small-stakes games, they make a living and they have no down side. But they have no gamble in them, either, so they will never know the enjoyment of the high roller, the romance of gambling."
--Mickey Appleman

After a long week at work, its good to be back in blog lang and getting the energy to blast out a long post. For you loyal readers, I'm fighting through a cold that is threatening to put me to bed, but hopefully I can stay awake long enough to finish the post.

After sleeping in this morning, I finally got a chance to do some grinding, after an undesired 3 day break. Between working late, hanging out with Mrs. Double, and the site migration, I just couldn't click that "log on" button. Despite being sick and not remembering how to play poker, I fired up Party after breakfast, wondering what kind of crowd would be playing on a Saturday afternoon. I found a decent $3-6 table, and proceeded to get my ass handed to me, dropping $150 in record time (20 minutes). I played too loose, and suffered some horrible beats... my 2 pair getting flushed on the river, 2 pair losing to Quad 6s, and missing a bunch of 10 out draws. Ahh it's good to be back.

But the tide began to turn-- I remembered how to play (funny how losing 25 Big bets will do that to you), and started picking up some cards and some chips. I picked up $75 profit when my nut flush hit on the turn, and I slow-played 2 aggressive players, one who hit his set of 8s on the turn, the other with a smaller flush. After donating 6 BBs to a great player who hit a set of 4s on the turn (to beat my pocket Kings), I turned the nut straight in a huge 4-way pot for a $100 profit. This brought my stack back to life, and the vultures circling over my monitor flew away to find some better prospect. I picked up KK again a few hands later, and this time they held up for a $39 profit. I left down $60 after an hour of play, but after throwing away 25 BB in the first 20 minutes, it was a moral victory.

Becoming a Grinder
It's subtle, but I am beginning to feel myself becoming a true grinder. One of the indicators was my ability to emotionally handle the bad beats and the 25 Big Bet loss in 20 minutes. A few months ago, I would have been on tilt-- not full on, play any two cards tilt, but a subtle tilt, playing hands that shouldn't be played. I remember the drive home from my first terrible (50 BB loss) B&M session, thinking about the hands I lost with. I was pretty down, but I didn't think the loss tilted me."I'm untiltable," I thought, "I played the way I always play." And then I remembered getting outkicked by KQ after playing QTo from middle position for a raise. It dawned on me then that tilt's most dangerous form is not a Hellmuth chair throwing fit, but rather a very subtle slide from playing poker as a game of skill to playing it as a game of chance. Any time you play a hand without firmly believing that you have a positive expectation, you are on tilt.

The grinder plays when he knows he his bets have positive expectation. One trait of the true grinder is that he will muck his hand in marginal situations (when the expectation is zero). I find myself avoiding marginal calls lately, and I think I have profited from it. For example, suppose you've got AhKd in the BB, and there are 4 limpers ahead of you. You check, and the flop comes Qs Js 8c. You check it around, UTG bets, and second to act raises. The third and fourth limpers call, and now it's your turn to act.

At best, you've got 4 outs with the T, although you can't like the Ts. And maybe you can add 6 more outs if you pair one of your cards, but again, if one of those cards is a spade you're in trouble, not to mention that an A or K on the turn could give someone 2 pair or a straight. So at best you have 10 outs, so you need at least (if we assume our 10 outs don't make someone else's hand) 2:1 from the pot to call. The pot is laying you 6:1 here... IF we think all of our 10 outs are good. If so, it's an easy call, but there is no way we have 10 outs-- subtract all the spades from our outs (one of these guys is likely on a flush draw), and we are down to 7 outs. Ignoring straights, trips, and 2 pair hands, that gives us 5.7:1 that we get our hand on the turn. So, expectation is still positive, but barely.

The grinder will always muck this hand. Whenever we can't confidently determine which hands make someone else a better hand than ours (the negation of outs), we probably aren't getting the proper odds to draw. There are just too many hands out there that can beat us, so we throw away big slick without much thought with a board like that.

Joey Knish vs. Mike McD
The grinder vs. the gambler. Of course, a romantic roots for the guy who lays everything on the line. The audience sides with Mike when he tells Knish that "you see all the angles, but you don't have the stones to play them." But to me, Knish is the real poker player. Most likely Mike blows his stack after a couple bad sessions in Vegas, or if he does succeed, he'll go broke a few times on the way, after some whale catches a few cards in the $100-200 game.

But there's a middle ground. You have to be opportunistic-- once you've got enough bankroll to take a shot, you wait for the softest "big" game you can find, and lay it on the line. Which in a sense, is what Mike does in Rounders-- he beats Teddy, acquires a new bankroll and puts himself on the road back to success. Alas, we can't imagine Mike going back to the grinding style that treated him well... he's going to take another shot as soon as he gets to Vegas, methinks.

I had a suspicion that a lot of the young stars were those who had taken a couple shots and hit their mark. I know Chris Ferguson won a blackjack tourney before he really began his poker career, and that gave him the bank to produce a tourney victory. Daniel Rentzer parlayed a few hundred bucks on PokerStars to save up enough money to play some satellites to get into the WPT at the Bike, and he ended up taking home 2nd place. The great Howard L was a big loser in the low limit games for a couple years, and eventually scored when he played way over his bankroll in a soft $50-100 game, and caught some cards (check out this RGP post for details). But to be sure, I had to ask one of the stars...

One of my favorite all-around people in the poker world is Daniel Negreanu. He's honest, cares about poker players, and was nice enough to reply to one of my emails. Here are Daniel's replies to my questions:

1. How did you build up your bankroll when you first began playing?

The truth is that most of the young guys playing in the bigger buy in tournaments started out severely under bankrolled. Basically taking shots here and there. I did it several times. With a bankroll of $2200, I'd often play a tournament with a $1000 buy in! This isn't the best way to go at all, but it worked for some.

2. Is there anything I can do to move up the ladder more quickly?
Right now (when I'm not at my 9 to 5) I'm playing 2 or 3 $3-6 games
online, or the $6-12 game at the local cardroom. I'm having excellent
luck and have been successful just playing tight, solid poker. But I'd
like to move up to the $10-20 game as soon as possible. My plan is to
build a 500 small bet BR before playing in this game-- is this a decent
bankroll in your opinion?

Yup. That's a decent bankroll in my opinion. One thing you need to understand is that you don't need to be as careful as Sklansky/Malmuth advise. Why? Because you can step down in limits any time you want. Example: Say you have just 100 big bets to play with in a 10-20 game ($2000). Well that's a short bankroll yes, but you could take "a shot". Meaning, play the game anyway, but if you lose say, $800 step back down until you've recovered.

That's how ALL the high limit players got there. If you did it Sklansky's way, it would take 147 years!!! :-)

There you have it. The algorithm for becoming a high limit player:
WHILE (bankroll not sufficient to take shot) {
GRIND;
}

IF (bankroll > threshold) {
TAKE SHOT;
IF (SHOT = success)
Move up in limit;
ELSE
Exit and return to start;
}

Or something like that. And no, I'm not really a computer geek.

Back to the Grind
After working on finishing a secret business plan that my partner and I are looking to turn into a multi-million dollar company (I'm serious!), I hopped back on the tables for some more fun. And boy, was it fun. I returned to two table play, being a bit to worn-down from the cold to "work on my game", which I feel is much easier to do at a single table. After an hour of play, I found myself breakeven at one table, and up a monstrous 34 big bets on the other table. Most of this came from 3 hands:

1. The first hand I played, I get AA in my BB. Amazing, of the 67 times I've been dealt rockets, 26 of them (39%) were in the blinds! What does this mean??? The rockets miraculously hold up even though the flop is 6 7 8 with 2 hearts, and I pull in $57 profit.
2. A monster $82 pot when the board pairs on the river, giving me my boat in the face of someone who flopped the Ace high straight. I've been on the other end of this one too many times, and I actually felt bad when I checkraised Mr. AK on the river. For about a second anyway.
3. After my suited connector post, big 87s came through, winning me a $67 pot. I heeded Izmet's advice and jammed preflop, and was rewarded when the flop came J 5 6 with a single heart. The lucky 9 came on the turn, and I punished some poor guy holding a set of jacks.

So it's 5 pm Saturday, and I'm up 25 BB for the day (after a horrible start). Yeeeeeee haw... I guess grinding can be fun when you are catching cards. Anyway, the fish should be hittin the tables soon, so if I can manage to fight off this cold, you'll find me at the $3-6 tables...

This post is getting out of control... so much more to say, but I'm not sure if anybody can survive this many of my words without passing out. I haven't even mentioned the BIG GAME, in which Belichek will use Jedi mind trickery to force Jake D to throw several interceptions. Patriots win this one easy. Oh yeah, and the big WPT event before that. My head may explode from too much visual stimuli... a Super Bowl and WPT championship back to back.

Poker Blog Patrol
Man, oh, man there is some great stuff out there. I think Iggy's Pokersavvy article really raised the bar, and all the bloggers stepped up their game. It took me 2 hours to get through all of the great blogs last night... I had a lot of highlights to share, but I'm running out of steam, so I can only tell everybody to keep up the great blogging.

Saturday night on Party! What could be better? Oh yeah, check out the images at my BlogSplat plus site, if I get around to putting them up. Surely the final product will be better than Russ's site.

And I leave you with the agony of playing THE HAMMER!

***** Hand History for Game 364847345 *****
3/6 TEXASHTGAMETABLE (LIMIT) - SAT JAN 31 14:08:03 EST 2004
Table Card Room Table 3689 (Real Money) -- Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 10
buggirl posts small blind (1)
Islander posts big blind (3)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to hdouble [ 2d, 7s ]
sharp2403 folds.
CHICKENKING folds.
tcaldaro folds.
nordbanken raises (6) to 6
hdouble calls (6)
sammyq folds.
bossman48 raises (9) to 9
pruspapaw folds.
buggirl folds.
Islander folds.
nordbanken calls (3)
hdouble calls (3)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 4h, 2c, 4s ]
nordbanken checks.
hdouble bets (3)
bossman48 raises (6) to 6
nordbanken calls (6)
hdouble calls (3)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 8h ]
nordbanken checks.
hdouble checks.
bossman48 bets (6)
nordbanken calls (6)
hdouble calls (6)
** Dealing River ** : [ 9d ]
nordbanken checks.
hdouble checks.
bossman48 bets (6)
nordbanken calls (6)
hdouble folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: $76 | Rake: $3
Board: [ 4h 2c 4s 8h 9d ]
hdouble balance $148.50, lost $21 (folded)
bossman48 balance $129, bet $27, collected $76, net +$49 [ Ks Ad ] [ a pair of fours with king kicker -- Ad,Ks,9d,4h,4sKs(kicker card) ]
nordbanken balance $203, lost $27 [ Td Ah ] [ a pair of fours -- Ah,Td,9d,4h,4s ]

2004-01-29T23:02:00.000-08:00

Building the bankroll... the hard way

Between work and migrating the blog to another server, I didn't even get to play any poker today. This week's been rough at work, but my deadline is tomorrow so it should ease up after that.

Migrating the blog is another story... I hope my pic didn't scare anybody away, and I'm looking forward to getting movable type installed, as well as putting some images up on the site. I built my linux box today, now I just gotta find a way to get it from work to home. They've got these silly rules about these things...

Since I didn't PLAY any poker, I thought I'd take a quick run through my favorite loose-game theorist, hoping that some of his wisdom will rub off on me.

Izmet's 4 rules of thumb
1. Build pots preflop with big suited cards, suited connectors and pairs above 77.
2. Jam your flush draws if you expect three or more callers.
3. Seldom call if you can't raise.
4. Don't try to bluff the fish.

My pocket 8s haven't been nice to me, but I still like the 1st rule the best.

Izmet on Axs
Raising with Axs becomes profitable when there are enough loose limpers in play. For example, A4s will win more than 14.3% (which is about fair share of the 7-way pots) against 6+ opponents and will therefore profit from the six+ limping opponents putting more money in the pot preflop.

So, play your Axs hard when you're sure you'll get 6 callers.

Izmet on Responding to a raise
When raised, stop, think, reevaluate. A raise is an incoming message. What is the sender trying to communicate? Does he have something to say or has he just pressed a wrong button at the wrong time? Bets and calls are often automatic, not so with raises. When in doubt, fold. If you like winning, you'll have to do lots of folding. Flea and live to tell.

Izmet on the learning curve
Be happy if you break about even after a few months. You proved yourself better than most, you have beaten the house. Not everybody can.

Izmet on playing with the fish
The best strategy in loosest games is to maximize fish mistakes, build big pots when having the best of it and get the hell out preflop when in marginal situations. As the fish are often calling correctly postflop (good pot odds), it is imperative to hit them with raises when they are not. The time to do it is usually preflop, where they are apt to call with anything. If there is a reasonable chance that your hand is best, you should raise and reraise right there to destroy the implied fish odds. This is the time to maximize their mistakes. Sure, they will try to offset this with correctly chasing postflop, but to no avail. Big mistakes preflop cannot be compensated in any way. Please note that fish very often chase incorrectly too, a good example is when they try to hit a set with their small pairs all the way to the river. This is another reason to raise liberally when having a reasonable chance to collect.

Whew. Reading that makes me wanna hit the tables, but my bed sounds even nicer at this point. Thanks for reading, back to the good stuff tomorrow (I promise).

2004-01-29T00:24:00.000-08:00

The Migration Continues...

Spent all my time moving the site so didn't have time to post... hope it doesn't crash!
Cards Speak... in color!

2004-01-27T23:55:00.000-08:00

Loosening up, and "The Migration"

''. . . to be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease.''
--Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground

It's been a while since I posted anything about theory, but recently, I've felt like my game has hit a plateau. So I've been hitting the books to try to get over the hump. I've been running good lately, but it's been mostly the cards, not my play. I've always been extremely critical of myself in whatever I do, and poker is no different: good plays are expected (and therefore forgotten), while bad plays stick to my memory and beg for a fix.

My time at the wild no-fold-em $6-12 tables at Hollywood Park have also inspired some thought about hand selection. The juiciest of these games involve huge multi-way pots (at least 5 seeing the flop) and few pre-flop raises. Obviously, the implied odds go through the roof here, and if you flop to your hand, you can collect a lot of bets.

How strong are suited connectors?
Much has been written about the value of suited connectors, and Abdul and Izmet say that we should happily ram and jam with these hands, since they will win more than their fair share of multi-way pots. But other writers have said that the medium suited connectors are overrated.

In his excellent no-fold-em simulation, Todd Mummert says that Sklansky, among others, overrates the strength of the medium suited connectors:

"In fact, as the games become looser there is a clear trend visible in Table ___ for the showdown linearities to dominate. Even if you think you're playing under the ideal conditions for medium suited connectors, if one player leaves or a new player joins the game your assumption may suddenly no longer be correct and inertia could easily lead you to end up playing what are just relatively weak hands."

His point is, since these hands are so dependent on the number of players in the pot, it is easy to misplay them. However, if you have a good handle (well, as good as one can get) on a loose game without too much raising, then it is clear these hands are extremely strong.

Lets looks at some odds: the medium suited connectors have excellent odds to flop to a strong draw or better. Medium suited connectors are 5:1 to flop either a draw with 8 or more outs or a made hand. 5:1! I found that a little bit surprising, since the odds of flopping a set is 10:1. This illustrates the power of the suited connector, and we see why it is so popular in No-Limit. With a few passive players in the pot, we can be fairly confident we'll get enough callers if we flop to a draw or a made hand.

However, it's not that simple. Suppose we hold 87c and the flop is 2c Jc Qd, with 5 players in the pot. Although we've flopped the flush draw, we have a lot to worry about. Expert players are good at accounting for the "negation of outs," or outs that will make our hand but make someone else a better hand. There is a good chance we are drawing dead on a flop like this: someone may be holding Axc, and we are drawing dead. Someone may hold QQ, JJ, or QJ, and that eliminates a bunch of our outs, and guarantees that it will be expensive to make it to the showdown.

So, the theory tells us that while these hands have great implied odds, they are extremely dangerous. They require excellent post-flop play, and if you aren't able to read your opponents well, you will end up discovering that you just threw away 7 or 8 big bets to someone holding a bigger flush than yours.

But what does the data say? Although the sample size is small, PokerTracker gives me some empirical evidence:

HAND  TIMES  BB/HAND  %PLAYED VOLUNTARILY
T9s  34  -.33  59%
98s  119  .26  58%
87s  38  .26  53%
76s  36  -.22  25%

Well, it's not very conclusive, but it's interesting. Why did I get 98s 4 times more than the other medium suiteds? I'll have to ask Russ Georgiev about that one... but the -.33 BB/Hand with T9s I attribute to poor play, such as going to the showdown with the idiot end of the straight a couple times. 76s I only played voluntarily for 9 hands, so the sample size is way to small.

So my conclusion: suited connectors are big money hands, but make sure you aren't drawing dead. Thanks, Captain Obvious. What I really mean is, play suited connectors strong, but realize that a lot of your outs might make someone else's hand a winner.

Poker Blog Patrol
My favorite entry of today has to be Royal's attempt to answer the question, "Why do I play poker?"

"I play poker to get better at poker.

As mentioned above I'm learning a lot about table selection, but it goes against every competitive bone in my body. I want to play the 9 best players in the world..."

I'm with Royal here (check out my attempt to answer this question in a previous post), but I'm still on the fence as to whether tough games should be enjoyed or not. As an ex-footballer, I always wanted to play my best against the best. But what do you do when you crush Johnny Chan in a single session? Celebrate that you got good cards and made good plays? The great players view poker as one long session. You win by having more knowledge than your opponents, so why play against the best? Just ask Ignatius.

Speaking of the guinness fiend, Iggy hit the big time, and represented all us poker bloggers in his new PokerSavvy article. Check it out! Igs writes in his own blog that he's going back to the grind after a long run on the multi-tables. I'm sure you're tired of hearing me pimp his blog, but how can you not when you get gems like this:

"But I'm glad I shifted gears for a bit. Stasis in poker = death. You constantly need to be evaluating your game, your mentality, your emotional quotient. The difference between the long-term winners and losers is character. Discipline."

I can barely keep up with Pauly, who posted his Foxwoods trip report. It took him 4.5 hours to get in a 2-4 game! I get mad if the wait is longer than 10 minutes in LA. Pauly knows a sucker when he sees one:

"Although I dropped $50 at Foxwoods, I made all my money back when I took some of Haley's friends for $200 betting on various Golden Globe categories (Bill Murray's win was clutch!)"

Pauly emailed me to let me know he may be in LA sometime in the future... I hope I don't have to watch his back when he starts a rumble in the $2-4 game after dropping the Hammer. I really miss the East Coast (but not Foxwoods), even if it's freezing over there... Yesterday I saw in the log files that 55% of my readers are coming in from the East Coast... confirming my suspicions about the literacy rate in LA.

I wish there was some sort of BlogCenter highlight reel for BG's posts... he put up SIX today, and I'll be catching up at work tomorrow...

In the low limit world, Sean sounds like he's climbing the learning curve after a trip to Borgata... and my man Paul is battling a "frozen wave of cards" to go with the cold weather.

Lord G takes us along on his Vegas trip, and concludes with a brilliant victory in the Orleans tourney. Congrats LG, you da man! The guy goes to Vegas for the first time and wins a tourney. Keep an eye on his blog...

Felicia got great news from the docs and was nice enough to give up some tourney play, and play cash games with her lucky husband. I'm sure the regular tourney crowd was happy.

Actual Poker Content
For a little variety, I sat in the $50 max buy in NL game on party last night. My NL game is much weaker than my limit game, but from my limited experience on the $50 tables, if you sit and wait for the nuts and pick off the bluffs at the right time, you can make a lot of money. I found a very weak-tight table and started throwing my chips around. I'm sure you're wondering when this post will end, so I'll keep it short:

Hand 1: On the BB I have T3o and see the flop for free. 3 limpers. Everybody checks all the way to the turn, and the board is 9 Q 5 5, with 2 hearts. The river comes Td, and it's checked through, but the guy in last position bets $10. I feel like this has to be a bluff, and I know that I'm outkicked if he has the ten, but my gut says its a bluff. I call, and he shows KJ for the straight. I told you I was a bad NL player.

Hand 2: The very next hand, I get AKo in the SB. Amazingly, everyone folds to me, and I overbet ($5), trying to convice the BB that I'm stealing. He raises it up to $10, and I have to decide if he's got a pair or overcards. I call, waiting to see what happens on the flop. Flop is 2c 4d 2s, and I check. He bets 15, and this screams bluff to me. He could have a pocket pair, but this guy has been bluffing, so I put him to the test, pushing all in for $37 more. He calls, and I get ready to rebuy for $50. The turn is Jh, and river 9s, and I am sure I lost, but he turns over... KQo! Nice call, fishie. HDouble doubles up, and I can't help but think my horrible play on the previous hand won me this pot.

Hand 3: I get AQ on the button, and raise it up to 4 after 2 players limp in. the BB calls, and the limpers also call. Flop is 9d 2c Ac, and I don't want to mess with a flush draw, so I bet the pot ($15) and I get one caller. I fear AK here, or a set, but I'm here to win money, so I bet $20 when the turn shows Js. He calls again, and the river is 8s. He checks, and I check, raking in the $45 pot when he shows T9c. Dodged a bullet there.

I mostly folded the rest of the time, but the above three hands put me up $70 for 25 hands. That's why they say it's the golden age of poker. Even if your play is a bit fishy, you can still escape with a nice little win.

Party sinks to new low
I received the following email from Party yesterday (this is not a joke):

Dear Henry (hdouble),

PartyPoker.com, the World's Largest Poker Room, brings you the opportunity to be at the venue of the most happening event of this year - The Lingerie Bowl.

The PartyPoker.com sponsored "Lingerie Bowl" is the biggest and the most talked about Super-Bowl party. The event will feature two teams of supermodels who will play a seven-on-seven tackle football game.

The Lingerie Bowl will take place on Sunday, February 1, 2004 at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

For more details check out http://www.lingeriebowl.com/

To be present in this extravaganza, immediately mail us back at promos@partypoker.com.

We have limited tickets to the show and they will be offered to our esteemed clients on a first come first served basis.

Regards,
PartyPoker.com Team

The migration begins
In Geek news, I've begun migrating my blog to my server at home. This should please Chris and TFG (who has been hounding me to move to a nicer home-- are ya happy Scott???), and the next step is to install movable type. But for now, please click on the link below... I'm not sure if my PC can handle the massive amount of traffic this site generates (all 10 visitors), so I'll have to see how it holds up over the next few days.
The Cards Speak, now with images! (warning: probability that server is down = 80%)

Good luck and keep the blogs rollin...

2004-01-25T23:20:00.000-08:00

Killing skill and choking on THE HAMMER

A post-first-anniversary champagne filled blog, we're going on a run through the WSOP, one of my greatest Party sessions ever (including a hammer victory!), and who knows what else... read on...

WSOP Highlights
Thanks to Chris H., who was kind enough to send a copy of the WSOP DVDs, I was finally able to see the WSOP in it's entirety. Great coverage and terrible beats, and the intensity seems to be a lot greater than the WPT tourneys. It's a lot more interesting to see the progression of the tourney, rather than just the last 6 players at the final table. Even Mrs. Double was hooked, and we ended up going through the first 4 days in a single sitting, for a whopping two hours of poker on TV. However, when we popped in the disc for the final table, we found that it was a repeat of day 3! My wife pulled a Hellmuth and nearly flipped over a coffee table, and I think I heard her scream something about KJ offsuit.

Anyway, here are the most memorable moments from the first 4 days:

5. This Tomer Benvinisti guy is about 350 lbs, and his job title is "expedition leader". Where's the expedition go, to the fridge???

4. All interviews with Dutch Boyd. This guy got his law degree before he was 20? He sounds like Rocky. And I love that he thinks he can intimidate guys like TJ Cloutier by rolling chips across the table.

3. Grizzle vs. Hellmuth. Sam's mocking of Hellmuth, especially in song, had me dying. The close-ups on Hellmuth as the entire room laughed at him were priceless, especially after Sam called him a "goofball who catches cards".

2. The agony of the Ivey. Oh man, poor Phil. The two bad beats he took were painful. Moneymaker's miracle river card was like a knife in the back, and I was only watching the DVD. I'm too lazy to plug it in to the "bad beat o meter" on PokerSavvy, but that's got to be one of the worst ever... remember, the prize money here was 2.5 mill. I strongly believe that if Money didn't catch one of his 7 outs (I think that's right) against Phil, then Phil woulda have been the champ. He deserved it gosh darnit, and after watching his WSOP performance (he came back from another horrible beat put on him by Freddy Deeb earlier), he's up there with Lederer in the "poker idol" category. And he's the same age as me.

1. Of course, the number one highlight from the WSOP is the walk through the life of Hellmuth. I can't even begin to write about the unintentional comedy provided by Mr. Hellmuth, although I will mention that seeing him shirtless and brushing his teeth nearly put me over the edge.

Seeing all the bad beats made me ponder the benefits of tournament play. Imagine being Phil Ivey-- making no mistakes, playing perfectly, and catching great cards to boot. Then you lose all of your chips on two suckouts, where your opponent has a 1 in 10 chance at both of them. If I played a perfect football game, and the ref called me for offensive interference on the greatest catch of my life, I think I'd be on tilt for a couple months. I don't know if I can stomach the notion of losing all of my chips when I am a 90% favorite. But that's tournament poker. At least in ring games, you can always reach back in your pocket and have more ammo in your quest to get to the long run.

Short term luck is the skill killer.

The hammer swings back
Finally, after 6 attempts, I achieved victory with THE HAMMER! Not your regular hammer, I played the Hammer from the Hammer (the cut off postion)!!! Here's the hand history:

***** Hand History for Game 353798148 *****
3/6 TEXASHTGAMETABLE (LIMIT) - SUN JAN 25 20:07:00 EST 2004
Table Fuzzy Navel (Real Money) -- Seat 5 is the button
hdouble posts small blind (1)
KingpinKilla posts big blind (3)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to hdouble [ 7c, 2d ]

The hammer in the SB!!! My table image is superb, since I've been dominant since I sat down. The table is tight, so I know I've got a shot here.

Nguyenvan folds.
skinnydawg calls (3)
Rounders24 folds.
icheckraise2 folds.
BIGBADBUG folds.
zion4lyfe folds.
shadysam calls (3)
hdouble calls (2)
KingpinKilla checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 9d, 8d, Ad ]

Three diamonds, I might as well take a shot...

hdouble bets (3)
KingpinKilla folds.
skinnydawg folds.
shadysam folds.

Wait a minute... everyone folded???

** Summary **
Main Pot: $15 | Rake: $0
Board: [ 9d 8d Ad ]
mpark67 balance $150, sits out
icheckraise2 balance $156, didn't bet (folded)
BIGBADBUG balance $146.50, didn't bet (folded)
zion4lyfe balance $246, didn't bet (folded)
shadysam balance $73.50, lost $3 (folded)
hdouble balance $360, bet $6, collected $15, net +$9
KingpinKilla balance $293, lost $3 (folded)

Wait a minute, where is the chat??? NO NO NO!!! I wasn't able to uncheck the "Muck all uncalled hands" box in time! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! The agony! The humanity!

Well, that's what I get for reading Sklansky and chatting while DROPPING THE HAMMER. What a travesty.

Ah well. It's not over till The Fat Guy sings, so maybe I'll get one more shot. I'm still livid over this. What a choke. Anyway, that $15 was a nice addition to my $210 win in 75 minutes on a single $3-6 table, for a whopping 28 BB/HR. My hands were holding up, I was sucking out, and I was making bluffs at the right time. I took 46% of my hands to the showdown when I saw the flop, and won 82% of those hands. It's nice when the cards hit you in the head.

You'll notice that I only played one table. This is a change for me, as I've always felt that ABC poker on 2 tables is much more profitable than playing a single table at 100% focus. After analyzing my game, I realized that playing 2 tables just encourages quick, sloppy play. Not only are you reading 20 players when playing 2 tables, you don't have nearly as much time to take in all the variables coming in from the 10 players at a single table. The flow of the game, the mood, and the last hand has a huge influence on the actions of the current hand. These variables get lost in the chase of trying to play 2 hands at once.

In addition, playing 2 tables encourages bad habits. While ABC poker on 2 tables may increase your short term profit, the bad habits you pick up (as a player who is still improving) will hurt your bankroll in the long run.

So after making too many mistakes at Hollywood Park yesterday, I knew I had to tighten up my game. I'm committed to the true grind, a single low-limit table, selecting the best game I can find, and playing as the pot odds dictate. The true winners in the poker world are not the Moneymakers or the Mike McD's, but the real grinders who play the odds. Yeah you take your shot when the odds are good, but not until you've sharpened your game until it's like a razor's edge.

I know I have a lot of room to improve, and I'm going back to the basics. I'm hoping bet counting and a deeper knowledge of pot odds will take my game to the next level. I hit the books today, and was reminded of the following interesting stats:

--Suited connectors are 5:1 to flop a straight OR flush draw or better
--2 suited cards are 8:1 to flop a 4 flush or better (note: this is considerably better than flopping a set, which is 11:1)
--2 sequenced cards are 10:1 to flop a straight draw or better

And the most interesting:
--1 gap suited connectors are 6:1 to flop a straight OR flush draw or better

I also reviewed Abdul's great lecture on the art of sucking out. In the wild, no fold-em 6 or 7 way pots, it's surprising to see some of the draws that you can still call with a positive EV. For example, on a ragged flop with bottom pair, you are getting proper odds to draw to trips or two pair with 6 bets in the pot. Warning: this only works if you are sure your trips or two pair will be the best hand if you hit.

After 25 years in academia, you'd think I'd be able to quickly learn the stuff I read, but I'm finding that going back to Sklansky and Cloutier with more experience under my belt is makes grasping the concepts a lot easier. My long term goal is to get to that $15-30 B&M by building my bankroll, discipline, and knowledge on the lower limit games. By the time I get there, all of the calculation you need to do at the table will be branded into my brain. I have to say thanks to Ignatius, who inspired me to think more critically about my goals and my game. I am looking forward to sharing a few six packs with Iggy after he cashes at this year's WSOP. Yes, I am serious.

Poker Blog Patrol
Yeah, I'm a little slow, but I finally got to Lord Geznikor's blog. Check out his gripping account of his 2nd place finish in a huge party multi. I'm not jealous or anything.

I also made it to The Poker Coder's site... PC, I feel your pain:
"I'm at Party playing dumb *ss poker getting spanked by a bunch of guppies. Actually, I had a 70 pound tuna slap me in the face. I was then kicked in the groin by a group of gold fish. And to top it off, I stayed up way too late on the eve of a very important day. My bankroll took a 50% hit."

Speaking of Bankroll
You gotta love Daniel Negreanu... he does not pull punches, even in his current article for CardPlayer magazine:
"It just wasn’t my day and I can live with that. I went to dinner with Jennifer and Marco and was feeling fine. Somehow, however, on my way to Bellagio, $10,000 dropped out of my pocket, but that’s another story! Some waiter at the Macaroni Grill probably didn’t show up for work the next day, that’s for sure!

That really ticked me off. I mean, how dumb could I be? How could I just drop $10,000 in cash out of my pockets? I truly felt like a sucker."

The joys of living in Hollywood
The waiter at the steak restaurant we hit for dinner actually wished us a hearty "happy golden globes!" before he took our order.

Hope everybody reeled in some big ones this weekend, and thanks for reading!

Pic of the day:
Why pokergods, why???

2004-01-24T21:58:00.000-08:00

The Hours

Apologies in advance for the quality of this blog-- I'll do my best, but I am coming off an 8 hour day of poker. 6.5 hours at Hollywood Park and 1.5 on Party $3-6. Not to mention coming off a hangover after giving 2 pints of blood yesterday and drinking a lot more than 2 pints of beer. Not good times.

But there were good times earlier today, as I finally conquered the fish at Hollywood Park: $320 to the good in six and a half hours, for a nice win rate of 4 BB per hour. However, the results were much better than my play. I played too loose, and made 5 or 6 seriously bad plays, and probably lost around $100 with those mistakes. I could make excuses like "I'm tired and hung over", but the truth is I just wasn't at the appropriate concentration level to maximize my profit.

Part of the problem was that the table began as a tricky, aggressive table full of solid players. I dropped nearly $200 in the first three hours, due to a combination of bad beats and bad play. But as the day wore on, a bunch of loose aggressive players sat down (the usual weekend crowd), and I didn't tighten up my hand selection as much as I should have. There were 4 players at the table who would play nearly any two cards, so tight play was right. My problem is that in games like these, I loosen up a bit, because I know my ATo is probably the best hand preflop, since these guys would play any suited and any ace rag. What usually happens is something like this: I flop top pair T, play it hard, and the turn or river will come a J, Q, or K. Instead of slowing down, I'll either bet out or end up calling, and the loose player will show something like J8s or K7s. If I just tighten up my starting hand selection I won't have to deal with tough decisions like that.

Luckily for me, I benefited from a couple players who overplayed their hand badly. I got pocket queens on the button, raised it up (punish the limpers!), and got 3 callers. Flop was Q J 9, beautiful except for the possible straight. I bet out after being checked to, and got 2 callers. The turn was a 9, and it was time to get nutty. I bet out, was reraised, and called by the 2nd limper. Back on me, I figured that the raiser had hit his 9, and the 2nd limper had the straight. Beautiful. I reraised, trying to trap the guy with the straight between me and the raiser. To my amazement, he capped it... could he have pocket 9s? and the limper reluctantly folded. I happily called, and then the raiser smacked his head in some revelation (what did he think I had?), and checked the river. I bet, and he called, turning over 98o, and I showed the queens to rake in a $220 pot. The one eyed man is king in the land of the blind...

So was 6.5 hours enough? No! Saturday night on Party, I had to get in the action. And after playing horribly for 45 minutes (dropping $100), I got some cards and picked up my game, and ended $5 to the good. My head hurts from all the pot odds calculations.

So, my game needs more work than I thought. I'm going to work on some fundamental skills, such as bet counting, and the memorization of the odds for each draw. Not tough stuff, but I am spending too much mental effort doing odds calculations at the table, rather than just calling them up from memory. Flush and straight draws are easy, but overcard draws, or the odds of pairing your kicker, etc. is stuff I need to have memorized.

So which parts of my game need work?
1. Play tight to start, then loosen up if you have a good read on the table (e.g. don't try to sneak in with A7s for one bet when you are in 2nd position).
2. Memorize the odds for all draws, beyond flushes and straights.
3. Make bet counting second nature (in other words, know the pot odds at all times).

Enough of this laziness at the table, I need to put my brain to work.

Poker Blog Patrol
Congrats to Grubby, whose play came to life last night in a sold out DC venue. Poker is great, but I have the utmost respect for the artist who creates something beautiful. I share the Grubster's opinion on ambiguity:

"I tend to write ambiguity into my plays. Theater is more accepting of unanswered questions than film, and I try to take every advantage in this somewhat dying medium."

The audience's interpretation of the art defines the greatness of the art, and a work of art that causes the audience member to tell their own story is the goal of the writer. Ambiguity forces the attentive audience to tell their own story, and as a result, creates a story that touches the audience more than a force-fed moral or lesson.

Back to poker. The Penguin left this comment:

"Anyway, having conquered the hammer myself (see blog for details), I think everyone should start the Hdouble challenge - nothing in it but pride.

The person who has the best results in a month with 88 (ring games only, poker trackered or records on paper) becomes king of the middle pair."

By a twist of fate, at the exact moment I read this, I was dealt 88 and actually won with it (a rarity for me). Before that hand, it was my biggest loser, at a rate of .5 BB per hand. So much for my lucky number. But maybe the Penguin has turned the tide... He seems to be lucky (and good) today, finishing second in a $10 multi, coming back from 9th chip position on the final table. Check out his ~~painful~~ excruciating bad beat on the final hand of the tourney. Ye gads. He also offers a superb breakdown of the meaning of bets in NL tourney hold 'em. Quality writing from PP.

Iggy cracked me up as usual, debating whether to go all-in on an ebay "hot foil stamping machine" contraption, so he could customize his chips for his next tourney:

"I can just picture a drunken Iggy trying to play with that thing. Hilarity would ensue. I'd either burn my house down or lose an appendage."

I can definitely picture Iggy surrounded by a firestorm of melting clay chips, cackling as he pushes all-in with the hammer like some sort of poker Nero.

Pauly is back at Foxwoods, and if anyone missed his screenplay for the Phil Hellmuth show pilot, check out the entry for 1/21. My favorite lines:

"CUT TO: One of the girl's fists attacking Phil's head.

Sorority Poker Player 1: This will teach you to only play premium hands!!"

CJ at Up for Poker dropped the hammer, joining the Penguin and TFG as Hammer winners who don't qualify due to the limit. The resulting chat cracked me up:

cusephenom: It's the HAMMER!
BVGrimley: I wanna know how many notes that generated?
cusephenom: Yep... guess I'm on a few buddy lists now.

Mene Gene gives a detailed lecture on the different species of fish swimming in the Party Ocean:

"The fish I don't like playing against is the Pseudo-Lederer, the player who, when the action comes around, sits there and thinks, and thinks, and thinks..."

This had me laughing, and Howie L can play at all speeds. Anyone catch the speed-chess-like battle between him and Chip Jett, going heads-up for the WPT Limit hold 'em title? Talk about playing fast.

Whew. Bedtime. Hope everybody's Saturday night was both fun and profitable. My first wedding anniversary is coming up tomorrow, but unfortunately Mrs. Double has to work. And no, we are not eating 1 year old cake. Where do they get this stuff?

2004-01-22T22:57:00.000-08:00

We're going to California... and Texas... and New York!

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.
--Hermann Hesse

I really like writing this blog, but man, it takes a lot of effort to try to get a good post up every day. So I want to thank all my fellow bloggers who bleed and sweat on the keyboard pounding out post after post, day after day. Iggy said it best:

"Damn, you are only as good as your last post. And I keep pounding em out. It takes effort to put these rambling posts together. I may need a sabbatical soon."

Amen. Thanks to everybody pounding em out (uhh, the blogs, that is), you make my work day a lot more fun.

I didn't play today, so this post will probably be on the weak-tight side, but I do have a few things I think are worth writing about. I did play some last night, but I was just playing a single table and watching "American Idol" at the same time, so my concentration level was probably at about 30% of what it should be. I did manage to turn in a small profit in my hour of play, but most of the profit came from the ole Big Blind specials-- I flopped two pair in the BB twice, and made the table pay. I definitely have problems playing at a single table of $3-6 or lower, because the poker is so straightforward that I get bored easily. I should be working on my game, putting people on hands, and just absorbing the pattern of the game and storing it in memory for later use.

I've always been hesitant playing 2 tables at once, because you lose a lot of information, and therefore potential profit. Of course, if the poker is straightforward, even if you're playing at 75% of your optimum level, you still increase your profit by 50%.

The problem with this is that the players in the LA B&M games are considerably worse than those online. The $15-30 B&M games out here play like the $3-6 online games, and I've always viewed my online play as a training ground for these games. Well, a training ground and a place to build the bankroll. I need to put in the hours grinding at two tables of $3-6 to build up enough bank to get into these super soft B&M games. At 1.5 BB an hour on each table (tough, but I believe it's possible), that's $18 an hour. So after 200 hours, that's $3600, which would give me enough to play at the limit I want. Continuing the math here, if I was able to play 20 hours a week (if I was a real player), I could do it in only 10 weeks. Of course, this only works if lady variance treats me well. But looking at PokerTracker, I'm only averaging a little over an hour a day for the last 3 months. With my B&M hours, that puts me at about 10-13 hours a week.

13 hours ain't nothin, but it's not enough. I really would like to play more, but work has been kicking my ass lately, and I just haven't had the energy to endure the grind. But I do feel my discipline has gotten better, and my feel for the game is still improving, so hopefully I can increase my hours. I should probably just finish my damn book and cut down on poker, but I just can't help myself-- too many fish in the PartyPoker sea.

Six Degrees of Hammeration
Lots of hammer news. I'm a bit appalled that THE HAMMER has gotten its own section in a post, but this story is just too good to pass up.

In a previous post, I told you about my boy R-Dub, an up and coming poker star in Virginia. Today, R-Dub offered up this story (tighten up your seat belt):

"Alright I got a weird hammer story for you... Some guys from my tournament and some that live around got a 4-8 game going last night, pretty big for being mostly students, but a few of the better players couldn't make it, and it was real soft. About halfway through the night, a guy shows up who just started playing a few months ago, real easy to get a read on. He's also the type to remember any kind of beat you put on him, and complain and shit. All fold to me, I look down at a 72o in the small blind, and i've got to play it. One for the implied tilt odds, two because i think i can play any two cards against this guy for profit. So I raise it, he 3 bets from the big blind. I'm worried about a big pair, but that's even better if i can crack it... Flop is Q82, i check and call. Q on the turn, I'm ready to lay it down thinking i've only got 2 outs... He checks behind me and I'm sure he has AK. Blank on the river, I value bet my 27, he agonizes and calls with AK, which he always will. I show my 27, he starts with his usual shit, but this other guy at the table interrupts him by saying "Dropping the Hammer!"

So i ask him why it's called the hammer, since the only other place i'd heard that was from you... He says he used to play in this game in northern virginia, there was a player there who's last name was hammer. And he made some incredible bluff once with the 72, like he called the whole way with nothing and check raised all-in on the end, and from that day on they all called the hand "The Hammer"."

WOW! I don't think that quite qualifies for TFG's Tertiary Adjunct to the Hammer Challenge, but could this actually be the true origin of THE HAMMER??? I know Grubby is currently in DC, but could this be the same source of the naming of the mighty 72o?

Meme Evolution Diagram:

Johnny Hammer --> Grubby --> HDouble --> RDub --> Guy at RDub's Game
(N. Virginia) --> (DC) --> (LA) --> (VA) --> (VA)

I lost twice with the hammer last night, although I threw in a total of 8 big bets desperately trying to push people off of hands. Ironically, I flopped two pair with 72s in the BB, and was punished when a guy turned the dead man's hand for aces up. The hammer is hitting me over the head.

Check out Poker Penguin's full house with the hammer. He was even able to get a response out of the table. But luckily he was playing .50/1, so it's not an official victory.

Rec.gambling.puke
Ugh. Just spent 15 minutes scrolling through horrible RGP posts. Where have you gone, Abdul Jalib, poker nation turns its lonely eyes to you...

I was amused to read about another hand that apparently is competing with the Hammer for popularity:
Beeflog?

Finally, I found a good RGP post, which discusses the good and bad about my favorite poker tool (it's how I learned to play), Turbo Texas Hold 'Em. The big hole in TTH is that computer players are unable to use pot size in making decisions. For all of you programming geeks (like me) out there (Halverson and TFG, this means you), note the comparison between Programming Language generations and the Poker Simulator generations.

Time for bed. Keep up the great blogs and stay focused.

Pic of the day:
This is what it looks like when you drop the hammer

2004-01-20T23:48:00.000-08:00

"I always raise with pocket sevens!"

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.
--Hermann Hesse

I type happily tonight, coming off of my 3rd straight winning session after diving into the $5-10 6 max games. Grubby's insistence that these games are soft inspired me to put in some work on these tables, along with reading about David Ross's $60,000 journey through the same waters. As John Feeney points out, if there are 2 fish at a 6 person table, this is somewhat like having 4 fish at a full ring game. Since bluffing is much more likely in a short handed game, players are forced to call you down more often, so the mistakes of the fish are greatly magnified.

My short 30 minute session at the shorthanded tables netted me $116, or 23 BB/HR. Obviously, table selection is crucial in shorthanded games, because one additional bad player increases your profit exponentially. If I had an unlimited bankroll, I think I'd exclusively play the shorthanded games. Reading hands, psychology, and quick thinking is constantly in play in these games, and you can still play a single table and not get bored (I still don't understand how Grubby plays 2).

I also played a 1 hour session on the $3-6 tables, getting crushed on one table and doing quite well on the other, putting me even after the hour. On the good table, I received 7 pocket pairs in 9 hands, including a streak of 5 pocket pairs in a row (a new record for me). Unfortunately I only won 2 of these hands (AA and JJ). Coincidentally, I was playing this table with my buddy, who demanded a tithe for the inordinate amount of luck he brought. I was ready to give it to him, until he cracked my KK when he turned 2 pair with his JTs from the BB.

Yesterday I was able to collect $105 in profit after a 40 minute session on 2 $3-6 tables. Typical tight aggressive grinding-- I won 5 pots out of the 90 hands I played, but of course I played aggressively, and they were big pots.

No hammers to speak of, although I have gotten 72 suited a couple times. I'm at the point where I'm tempted to hammer away with 62o or 83o and type HAMMER JR! upon victory. Perhaps the brilliant Hammer Challenge creator could devise some sort of "crap hand tourney" where separate crap hands get different points based on their crappiness.

So my last 3 sessions have put $440 of profit in my pocket, and I feel like I'm handling the grind better. My game is steadier... as I acquire more bad beats and losing sessions, I am better able to psychologically handle the moods of the poker gods. A great poker player has an unflinching faith in his abilities, and the ability to ruthlessly evaluate his play without bias. Practice, study, develop yourself as a player-- and then do not doubt yourself when the cards go cold.

Poker Blog Patrol
Ok, link of the year goes to Iggy (who else), with Phil Hellmuth trashing his blog. Don't believe me? Check it out... people at work were looking at me funny when I was rolling on the floor laughing.

My man Paul had a tough night at the Ho Chunk Casino, but I'm impressed that he stayed off tilt even when his SO was chirping in his ear. He learned what is (sadly) perhaps the most important rule of the poker trip:
"Don't bring anyone along who isn't also going to be playing poker."

Mr. Halverson writes that scared money will not win. He also mentions that he will probably be heading to Vegas for his younger bro's bachelor party. Be sure to ram and jam on all streets Chris... THE HAMMER in big time NL tourneys is also on the menu... I remember hearing that 72o is well known to be a big bluff hand for many years now, and players will often use this hand as an excuse to try a bluff.

I really enjoyed the Penguin's discussion of Multi-tables vs. Ring Games. I have been pondering this question for a long time, and I'm still on the fence as to how profitable multis are. I agree with PP-- if you have the patience and discipline to play the multis, they are probably the way to go. Personally, I like the action, so 2 limit rings allow me to play on the order of 10 times more hands, and a steadier profit. But I think I'll eventually end up in the multis...

Royal lets us in on his PokerTracker analysis after 6K hands at .50/1. I was comforted by his finding that 99 was his biggest loser, since 88 (my football number) is by far my biggest loser. While the win percentage is 19% with 88, I'm losing .66 BB with it on average. Explanation: it's just big enough to be an overpair on the flop, but small enough to get trumped on the turn or the river. Correction: do not play 88 past the flop on a loose table, and if played on a tight table, play it very aggressively to eliminate potential callers.

Felicia Lee showed her toughness today-- she made it to her usual NL tourney after a little afternoon surgery. I've had two knee constructions and a metal plate put in my hand, so I have much respect for those who taste the knife. No, I have yet to set off a metal detector... Felicia also had this comment for yesterday's post:

"I wish I could come sweat you in a B&M session. Maybe you could come over to Laughlin sometime?"

Forgive me Felicia, but if I was trying to get a poker diva in the sack, those are probably the lines I would use...

TFG, who had the mind-blowing experience of reading about his own blog in the Southwest Airline Magazine, had this comment about the article's author:
"So, 'Chris Tucker', if you're still reading this, here's what I have to say: You lousy sumbuck!
In typical bad journalist fashion, the author focuses on TFG's non-existent spelling errors to make his crappy article more interesting. I think TFG should drop the hammer on 'em! Anyway the famous blogger asked about casinos in Brazil after yesterday's pic of the day, which featured a Brazilian female poker star. I'm not sure if they do, but apparently there are plenty of backdoor flushes to go around.

We're reaching new lows here.

Pic of the day:
Search algorithms gone wild

2004-01-19T21:41:00.000-08:00

Don't call it a comeback

"Now that Fortuna had saved him from one cycle, where would she spin him now? The new cycle would be so different from anything he had ever known."
--John Kennedy O'Toole, Confederacy of Dunces

Just chain me to my PC and never let me back in the B&M. After losing my shirt-- actually, I think my most expensive shirt is $30, so let me rephrase-- after losing 10 shirts at Hollywood Park, the cards smacked me in the head and I managed to walk away with $260 in 1 hour and 20 minutes last night. For some reason I'm missing $50 of profit on PokerTracker, since the auto-request seems to have failed once (this is the first time that's happened-- maybe it was on party's end?). But the BB/HR is up there at a whopping 25 BB/Hr.

I was 9 for 13 showing down, and had 6 two pair hands, a flush, and a full house. And did I get some cards.

starting_hand    times_dealt    win_pct    amt_won
AQo    2    100    49
KTs    1    100    39
TT    1    100    37.5
AJs    1    100    37
KQo    1    100    28
QJo    2    50    20
AKo    1    100    20
AA    1    100    18
86s    1    100    14.5
QQ    1    100    14.5
99    1    100    14
K7o    2    50    10
JTo    1    100    6

A grinder's dream. Note I even hit on my 86s and one of my K7o blind hands. The sad thing was I didn't feel like I was focused the entire time, but my cards were so good it didn't matter. I did make a couple of good calls, and a couple well-timed bluffs, but the old saying "it's better to be lucky than good" certainly applied.

I took pleasure in busting out two short stacked players who were tilting their money away. I ended up calling them down with small pairs, and of course they were trying to buy the pot. Each of these dying fish added $40 to my profits, so most of my winnings came from simply calling these guys down on the 6 pots I was in with them. This brings us to the simple corollary that I'm sure most of you have already figured out:

Unless a player has proven him/herself as solid, if that player has less than 9 BB on a Party Table, the probability that they are running a bluff is much higher than usual.

I suggest doing everything you can to get these short stackers heads up, which is usually relatively easy-- the tilter raises early, allowing you to make it 2 bets to go, making it much more expensive for later callers. Obviously the table's texture might prevent you from isolating the short stack, but if you think a raise might knock the others out, it's usually worth a shot.

Here's an example:
***** Hand History for Game 341773724 *****
3/6 TEXASHTGAMETABLE (LIMIT) - MON JAN 19 01:25:03 EST 2004
Table Ice Cream (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Conejo ( $47)
Seat 2: LTGambi ( $9)
Seat 3: markarian7 ( $146.50)
Seat 4: elvislives_ ( $301)
Seat 5: hdouble ( $173.50)
Seat 6: FeelGoodFern ( $210)
Seat 7: loubrdar ( $140)
Seat 8: Mgraw ( $63.50)
Seat 9: John549 ( $175)
Seat 10: bbadon ( $175)
hdouble posts small blind (1)
FeelGoodFern posts big blind (3)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to hdouble [ 9h, 9d ]
Mgraw folds.
John549 folds.
bbadon calls (3)
Conejo folds.
LTGambi calls (3)
markarian7 folds.
hdouble calls (2)
FeelGoodFern checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ As, 3h, Ac ]
hdouble checks.
FeelGoodFern checks.
bbadon checks.
LTGambi bets (3)
hdouble raises (6) to 6
FeelGoodFern folds.
bbadon folds.
LTGambi calls (3)
LTGambi calls all-In.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 8s ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 5c ]
Creating Main Pot with $23 with LTGambi
** Summary **
Main Pot: $23 | | Rake: $1
Board: [ As 3h Ac 8s 5c ]
Conejo balance $47, didn't bet (folded)
LTGambi balance $0, lost $9 [ 8c 7h ] [ two pairs, aces and eights -- As,Ac,8c,8s,7h ]
hdouble balance $187.50, bet $9, collected $23, net +$14 [ 9h 9d ] [ two pairs, aces and nines -- As,Ac,9h,9d,8s ]

Short stacks make for easy prey.

Grubby and Ignatius T. have turned me on to David Ross, and his latest rush makes mine look like one of Donnie McNabb's passes. Check out his latest post on 2+2:

Then the most amazing thing happened. I went on a rush like I’ve never had before. Between 1:00 AM and 4:00 AM I won back everything I had lost that day finishing up $14 for the day. Over $1,200 in 3 hours. And it didn’t end there. Thursday saw me win another $1,616 and Friday another $1,502. From 1:00 AM Thursday morning until 4:00 AM Saturday morning that’s $4,400 in 19 hours of play. Over $200 / hr. Just an incredible feeling. Flopped quads on one hand (666 on board) and got all kinds of action from 2 pocket pairs. In a 4 way pot the final board was 5 6 7 8 9, I had the button with JT and the UTG guy bet into me, everyone called hoping for a chop and I got a raise in which they all called. If I was ahead on the flop I stayed ahead, and if I was behind I hit the river. I made so many sets on the river after being raised on the turn it was crazy. I also called down some outrageous bluffs.

No I'm not jealous. The guy has made 52K in 9 months playing full time. Note that the rush happened at 1-4 AM on Saturday night. Primetime!!! If I ever go pro (10% probability?), I will play from 6 to 3 AM (9 hour shift) on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. The players are just so much worse then.

I need to think it out more, but my intuition tells me that you need to loosen up your starting standard BIG TIME in games where you can be sure that 6 or more players will see the flop. The implied odds go through the roof, and it seems like you can get away with suited queens and longshot suited connectors, like T8s. A lot of the poker literati will tell you that expert players often go too far by loosening up their starting standards, but this seems wrong to me in big multiway pots. Hopefully I can stumble through the math or better yet, run the turbo sims, and see how this plays out.

If I had a hammer...
Well it looks like my boy Paul took down the Hammer Challenge II. Congrats Paul. I still want to see more trash talking. When you drop the hammer, they gotta hear about it! Unfortunately I didn't get to swing it last night, although I did get 72 suited twice. It appears Jason isn't worried about me taking the third hammer, since he's thrown down the gauntlets and challenged Paul to go double-hammer-or-nothing in his blog. I haven't been able to log as many online hours as I want to (too busy blogging!), so I suppose I'm not destined to drop it. We'll see...

Thanks to Tommy, Peyton, Donnie, Jake, and you too Coy
I managed to go 3-1 on my conference championship bets, losing one of my 2 prop bets and winning my two spread bets. Peyton played awful, and most of it was due to his inability to read Belichek's constantly changing defensive formations. The Pats offense actually played quite badly in this game, and Brady seemed determined to choke, making a huge mistake (I can't remember seeing the last time he made a mistake) by throwing a pick in the endzone that would have put the game away.

McNabb couldn't suck it up when it counted, and was a disappointment after last week's stellar performance. Where was the fire Donnie? I'm still bitter after Mike Vick dominated him in last year's playoffs, losing me lots of money in the process. In his defense, he was coming off a broken leg, but D Mac, you gotta step up in those games.

Jake D has gotten a lot of crap all year, but I think he isn't that bad. He doesn't make all that many mistakes, and he's made a lot of tough throws throughout the playoffs. He reminds me of Brady in his rookie year, or perhaps a more accurate version of Trent Dilfer in the Raven's SuperBowl run. Delhomme won't win you the game, but he probably won't make any mistakes that cost you the game either. He is a little bit too excited for my taste, but some guys like a fired up QB.

But this week Delhomme will be overwhelmed by the brilliance of Belichek and Crennell. The Pats will pick this boy clean, and the backers will eat him alive. The Pats are giving up a whopping 6.5, but I think I'll still drop a few bills on my boy Billy B. This game will probably be low scoring, but I'd be happy to see a couple Patriot defensive TDs early. Billy also gets an extra week to prepare, which is worth at least 3 points.

Buy that man a Guinness
No blog pimping today, except for a shout out to THE KING. Ignatius has been offering us poor souls great links, theory, and everything else poker consistently for a long time. It's a lot of work to write a good blog every day, and I'm grateful that he's opened my eyes up to some great reading. If I ran a 50 player tourney, you'd probably see one-sentence blogs from old HDouble for at least a week. Here's to hoping the buy-ins for the tourneys he's running can raise enough money to get him in the Big One... I want a piece of that action.

Pic of the day:
Ignatius revealed!

2004-01-18T00:27:00.000-08:00

B&M S&M

No, I'm not talking about Sklansky and Malmuth. Yours truly was whipped into submission on the $6-12 tables at Hollywood Park, dropping $300 over 7 hours. There were plenty of calling stations, and of course that makes for plenty of bad beats. My stack fluctuated wildly, going down to -200 all the way up to +70, and then a series of terrible beats sent me home with an empty wallet.

Looking at my notes, I see that my last session at HP was 6 weeks ago, on 11/22 for a loss of $350. The only note I have says: "bad beat city". The beats I took yesterday were just awful, and for all the grinders out there at .50/1, I don't know how you can handle it. Looking back at my play yesterday, I think I only misplayed two hands, and one of the few positive things that came out of the session was my ability to stay sharp for the entire 7 hours and avoid tilt. There's no way I could sit in front of the comp for 7 hours (unless I'm working), and it felt good to have a solid session of poker. Once you're immersed in the game, it's a lot more fun, even if you are taking ~~some~~ many bad beats.

The players were pretty bad. I ended up moving tables about halfway through the session when my first table tightened up. Both tables were about evenly divided between calling stations, and tricky, loose-aggressive players who would often raise on the come, and punish you when they actually had (or hit) a hand. The 3 or 4 calling stations combined into one giant fish, and usually end up biting my head off. I felt like Gandalf going into battle against a horde of orcs, destroying most of them but taking a knife in the back from an unseen foe.

I tried to keep notes on the interesting hands, and here is the list I came up with:

Beats
1. AQ in the SB, Q flops. River is T, beat by 2 pair by a guy with QT. This was the second hand of the night.
2. AA cracked by J9s for the straight on the turn
3. 42 BB, flop A 2 3, turn 3, river 4, guy wins 55 for the wheel.
4. Limp UTG with 88, flop 3 3 7, I bet, raised on turn, I muck, he shows J3o
5. Missed on three open straight draws...
6. AQ, flop Q 7 5, turn 7, I get reraised and fold, she shows 75o
7. Overplay JJ, guy 3 bets it, flop Q T rag, he check raises and I call to river-- he shows AA. This was one of the two seriously bad plays I made.
8. Last hand-- KJ, call UTG, 2 callers. Checked to river, K, guy turns over 6 8 for a straight he hit on the turn.

Wins
1. Hit a straight on the turn with 78s
2. pocket 6s, flop K 6 6 w 2 hearts, I bet out 3 players muck. The calling stations decide to fold when I have quads, how nice. Pot was around 4 SB.
3. TT overpair raising the whole way, guy also has TT (Split pot)
4. I crack AA with 65s in the BB, flop is 4 5 8, turn 6
4. AQ-- Board Q 9 9 K Q, guy bets out on the flop, I reraise. I bet the whole way, he shows QT (split pot).
5. 88- flop 8 A rag, I slowplay heads up.
6. AJ, J flops, I win.
7. AJ again UTG, J flops and one guy calls to the river. A Pot Limit player who just sat down to my left said he mucked AK on the flop.
8. QQ holds up when K hits on river.

Poker Gods, why hast thou forsaken me?
None of the above hands would have really mattered if I had won the biggest pot of the night, which went down like this:

5 limpers, I look at AQs in the SB, and raise it up, and everyone calls, so there are 6 BBs in the pot pre-flop. The flop is no good for me: T J 7 with none of my suit, so I check it and a guy in middle position bets. Everybody calls, and I know the pot is laying me the correct odds for my gutshot, since people are tied to the pot at this point. I call, and the guy to my left check raises, making it 2 bets. The first bettor reraises, but everyone still calls, so I reluctantly throw in 2 more bets, knowing that only the King can save me. The pot now has 15 BBs ($180), and we haven't even hit the turn. The turn is... THE KING OF CLUBS!!! I manage to keep my poker face, and check raise when the early bettor bets out. There is no possible flush on the board, so the early bettor has either a set of jacks, a set of tens, or JT. He calls the check raise, along with one other player, so now 21 BBs ($252) in the pot. I think I heard the poker gods booming laughter in my ears as the river paired the board with a ten, and the bettor immediately bet out. I sadly called, asking "are you full?" as he turned over JTo and raked in the $300 pot to give me my answer.

I would have been a lot happier if he had won with a set of jacks or tens, but he's got 4 cards in the deck that he can win with (10%), and he hits one of them. The 90% favorite goes down hard, and turns a winning night into a losing one. You gotta love poker. Again, this is why we need a 300BB bankroll-- to survive the cruel strokes of fate.

The annoying thing about the long session yesterday was that there was relatively little skill involved. I picked up several tells, but it didn't really matter. With the pots being so large, it was pretty much ABC ram and jam poker. I remember a guy in middle position showed down 53o for the 6 high straight, which he gutshotted on the river, and called a raise preflop with. The guy to my left asked me "was that suited?" as a serious question, implying that 53s is ok to call a raise with.

Time to go back to the masters of wild games, Izmet and Abdul, so I can "enjoy loose games" a little bit more.

Poker Blog Patrol
A blog that has been around for a while but I haven't discovered until today: Paulsburbon, where you can go to find the best hard liquor out there, as well as some great chat. Check out Paul's chat after sucking out on a fish:

maxi27: you have to be KIDDING
maxi27: WITH THAT HAND
maxi27: \ODO
Paulsburbon: should have folded that bottom pair against me...
Paulsburbon: ;)
maxi27: I HAD HUGE FLUSH DRAW
maxi27: U SHOLD HVE NEVER BEEN IN a HAND LIKE THAT
maxi27: KEEP IT UP
Paulsburbon: Draw being the most important word there
maxi27: KEEP PLYIN FOR LUCKY
maxi27: U HAD NOTHING I HAD A PI]AIR
Dealer: Akos, it's your turn. You have 15 seconds to act
Dealer: Player Akos has requested TIME
Paulsburbon: and I took the pot... it happens
maxi27: U HAD ONLY THE WOST DRAW
Paulsburbon: nh
Dealer: Paulsburbon has two pair, Kings and Nines
Dealer: maxi27 has two pair, Tens and Nines
Dealer: Game #217135443: Paulsburbon wins pot (3360) with two pair, Kings and Nines
Dealer: maxi27 finished the tournament in 11th place
Paulsburbon: luck wins again
maxi27 [observer]: U ARE THE PITSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
jukebox: thats the game

I've been reading Table Tango for a while, but I didn't discover Linda's Book of Tales until today. I've only made my way through about half of them, but I recommend all of these to everyone. There are some excellent poker lessons in here, lessons that go beyond pot odds and table image. Check out Linda's musings about the big name players created by the media.

Next mention goes to TFG, who is back on the tables with a vengeance. Go check out his win with seven-deuce offsuit, which unfortunately (for him) didn't qualify for the HAMMER CHALLENGE because it was at the .50/1 level (read the rules carefully!). TFG also confesses that he has been playing Strat-o-matic baseball with his buddy Otis for years... I had the board game back in 87, and the computer game in 90, but I figured most folks had moved on to bigger and better baseball sims by now.

A late congrats goes out to Jason at Stick-and-move who took down the first hammer challenge. Of course I am jealous, and he's also got cool images on his site, which made me even more jealous. I guess I'll have to win the second one.

I have to put in a complaint to both TFG and Jason that there is not enough smack being talked upon dropping the hammer. Let me tell you, if HD ever drops it, I will goad the table for at least a couple orbits before relenting.

Also, one of my favorite poker bloggers talks about life as a playwright, and has a one-act showing in DC soon. If I had the cash, I'd fly out and check it out, and repeatedly bellow "HAMMER!" at the top of my lungs immediately upon the play's conclusion. Grubs had the misforgute of busting out in the big Saturday tourney when his AQ went down in flames to AK.

Reading about OJ's night at the $10-20 game at the Mirage was somewhat comforting, after coming off a similar night last night at HP. It was even more comforting to know that he booked a big win in his next session at Ocean's Eleven in SD.

Boy Genius continues to blog like there is no tomorrow, and explains how he dominated his home game NL tourney. Congrats my man.

Peyton, you're just another pawn in Belichek's game
The Pats are busy dropping the hammer on the Colts. Those Boston boys are some tough MFs. They have pounded the hell out of the Colts all game, and the Pats O-line is mandhandling people. Billy B has blown Peyton's mind, and I can't even explain how brilliant Belichek's schemes are. I just wish I had put down more cash on them. I might have to push all-in in the superbowl and let it ride on the Pats. Two guys I would never want to play poker against-- Bill Belichek and Tom Brady.

Side note: Daniel Graham, the TE for the Pats, is the TE whose game most resembles mine. Expect big things out of this guy (he had a couple big drops last week and cost me a win in the sportsbook, but besides that he has been impressive). He is big, athletic, and runs great routes, and goes an excellent job blocking, unlike Shockey or Shannon Sharpe. If I'd ever sold out and used roids, I like to think I'd be doin the stuff that Graham is doing.

Fun with keywords
My last blog entry had several references to Paris Hilton. I noticed that the ads at the top of my blog today were in French! Nice work Google theoreticians. Just for fun, I'm going to see if I can get Swedish ads with the following text:
"Jag ska vinna alla penga pa Globen Casino i Stockholm". Translation: I'm going to win all the money at the Stockholm Casino. I wish I could say something more interesting, but my Swedish sucks. More likely it will pick up on the "S&M" in the blog title, which is probably more fun anyway...

Chips anyone?
I got an email from Stephan, who runs a poker chip site. He seems like a nice guy, and the chips look really nice, so I've linked up to him. I'm still using plastic chips that I bought at Target, but if I ever win a tourney I'll probably buy this set.

2004-01-15T21:15:00.000-08:00

Hit me Paris

Thanks to everybody for the comments about the Vegas trip. I especially enjoyed TFG's take:

How could you not let the fat girls buy you a drink? That's bad karma,
dude. They would have been talking about it for years.

When I'm sitting at the WPT final table it will be a shame if those girls
have to say "We tried to buy that guy a drink!". Unfortunately I probably
destroyed my only chance of making it by ruining my karma.

Back to reality... I busted out 6th last night in a $30 SNG, but I don't think
I played that badly. On the good side, I caught up with my old buddy R-DUB
(no relation), a rising poker star who's tearing up the tourneys at a major
college campus. He's a math major, and taking game theory courses, so his
game is only going to get better. Anyway, just after I sat down R-DUB appeared
across the table, which I was not happy about, but at least I'd be losing my chips
to someone I liked.

The table was pretty tight, and with 6 players left I had 1100 chips. I think
I'd won 2 hands, and stole a couple blinds. I got A8o one off the button
(blinds at 200/400), and when everybody folded to me I popped it up 600,
hoping for everyone to fold. But R-Dub on the SB pushed in the rest of his chips,
and was all in for 600. Not a good sign, especially when the board came K T 5
Q 9 (why can't party show the all-ins right away? it really annoys me), and
R-Dub took down 1200 chips with KQo.

In the BB I got to see a free flop with K3o, and when the flop came T 3 6, I
pushed in and collected 400 more chips to get me back to 800 when everybody
folded. The BB was 400, so I needed to catch a hand, and immediately got
pocket tens in the SB. Everyone folded to me, and I couldn't have been happier
to push my chips in, hoping the BB would call what looked like a steal and
I could double up. BB called all in for 400 more, and the flop came Jh 8d 9h...
I like it! The turn was Th, giving me trips, but putting the heart flush out there...
and the river the 4h, and I figured the Ace of hearts would knock me out.

I would have been happier if he did have a flush? Guess the winner-- Ad 7c for
the straight! Beautiful.

R-Dub went on to bust out in 4rth, so my chips didn't even contribute to a
good cause. Ah well, at least I got my chips in when I was a BIG favorite.
I'm not really bitter.

After the tourney R-Dub offered up his Party SNG theory, which explains why the
$30 SNGs have the highest EV:

To win a SNG, you need to be able to steal some blinds
once it hits 100-200. You just can't do it in the $10-- even if I have the best of it,
my A8 gets beat by some dope with a KQ and you're done. But in the 30's, you've still
got enough loose players to go broke and make dead money, but once you get
down to 4 or 5, it's 3 or 4 tight players which allows you steal and build up your
stack to put you in good position to win it.

I'm hoping R-Dub will start a blog, but I guess he's too busy winning.

Poker Blog Patrol

As you see I'm experimenting with new colors. It's been a while since I've gotten
to check out some new blogs, and there are a couple of good ones that I'm adding
to my daily list.

Londonfroggy pointed out "Poker & Devotion", a new blog from a
female poker dealer. You know you love poker when you can deal it 12 hours a day, play it,
and write about it.

Iggy introduced me to "Knowing When to Hold 'Em", a new blog from a low-limit grinder and apparently a Kenny Rogers fan. I'm happy I get to follow a newcomers
progress as he overcomes the same challenges that I fought through.

OJ offers some great tales and insights to the middle limits. He's honest and he plays in games in my area, so he's on my daily list.

As far as the old timers go, I am very grateful to Chris Halverson, who had
the time to copy and mail the WSOP on DVD. It arrived in the mail today, so
my non-espn-getting ass finally gets to see the whole tourney. I've seen bits
and pieces while playing at Hollywood Park, but it will be nice to see the
Moneymaker run in all of its glory. Thanks Chris! Hopefully that'll give you
some karma and unfreeze the cards you're getting.

Liquid Swords has been on a terrible run, but the good news is that he'll be working on his Poker Comics while he rests his mouse finger.

The Grubster continues his insane dedication to the $5-10 shorthanded games, which in my opinion are the toughest games on Party. He also let me know that
he'll be in town in a few weeks, so I'm going to have to drop the hammer on
him at the lovely Hawaiian Gardens casino. The hammer challenge is now up to
$15, so it's still a losing proposition, but hopefully I'll get another crack
at it tonight.

Pauly is booking tickets for Phish in Vegas. That sounds like a bad combination to me. Maybe they'll jam with Celine in the Colosseum.

Londonfroggy is back representing the Brits with multiple daily blogs.

Felicia took 4rth in a 50 player NL tourney, and continues to gain points towards getting in the WPT. I hope she makes it, even if she's not quite as
hot as the sexy Hon Le.

Boy Genius continues write pages and pages of quality material, and nearly took the precious hammer down. I can barely keep up, but don't miss his great
and wide ranging posts.

TFG nearly chopped off his thumb, hopefully not out of spite-- I know I have
had the temptation when my mouse finger uncontrollably calls a check raise
with when the third flush card hits on the river.

Mean Gene continues his presidential campaign, but the rumor is that the Republicans are saying he's too angry to be president. Apparently they have video of him
smashing his keyboard after losing to THE HAMMER.

And Royal gives tips on how to teach your newborn hold 'em while winning a $200 NL tourney qualifier.

Don't you wish you lived near Beverly Hills?

I probably came as close to hitting the jackpot as I ever will walking to
lunch at work yesterday. As we were crossing the street, a black Mercedes
SUV rolled up, and I was staring at Paris Hilton, who was 2 feet in front of
me. I yelled to my co-worker "Push me in front of that car!", but the
driver sped up, and blew threw the stop sign before I could wedge myself under the tire.
Man that girl is ugly.

2004-01-15T01:11:00.000-08:00

Fish Fry

When we left off, yours truly was in Primm Valley Nevada, comforting himself with a whiskey after losing a huge pot when his rockets got cracked. But I wasn't worried... the combination of a true maniac and a bunch of calling stations made for a very profitable table at the legendary Buffalo Bill's poker room.

The maniac was 3 players to my left, and had about 4 racks in front of him. He raised the maximum nearly every single hand, and there would usually be 3 or more callers, so I limited my hands to suited connectors, any pair, and AT or above, since this was the type of table to play any ace. The hands that were shown down were unbelievable. One player would show Ace high nearly every showdown after calling 2 $6 bets.

Taking a page from Pauly, here's the lineup:

------------------rail------------------------------
pretty 40 year old lady
guy with sunglasses
maniac
young confused redhead guy
another old guy
old guy from utah
one-legged old guy: "coach"
drunk guy
*me*
------------------rail------------------------------

After mucking for a while I picked up big slick offsuit in late position. A trouble hand, since it does very badly in large multiways, so I hoped that someone in front of me would raise so I could make it $12 to see the flop. Maniac just called the $2 blind, as well as everyone else at the table. But a drunk, 40 year old guy to my right popped it up to 8, allowing me to make it $14 and chase off the people who understood what mucking was. (Note: this guy would order a cocktail, the waitress would walk away, and 3 seconds later he would shout "cocktail!" again. When someone reminded him that he'd just ordered, he would pause and say "Yeah I know I ordered, I just want the drinks to actually come!" (pause) "I like the come!") The BB called 12 more, and maniac reraised to 20 for the cap. Drunk guy called, and we had a 4-way, $90 pot.

Flop was no good for me-- J 8 4 or something like that, and I had to calculate my odds for drawing. With 6 outs I needed around 4 to 1 on my money to call, which I got after maniac bet, and everyone limped. I feel like calling with overcards is usually a mistake against good players, but in this case, I was happy to call.

The cowboy rode through on the turn, giving me my money card. A little check raise, and everyone folded except the maniac, who also called my river bet after a harmless river card fell. I was raked the monster pot and quickly forgot about those cracked aces. It actually took me two entire hands to stack the chips. In addition, it appeared that the maniac was only a preflop maniac. He didn't seem to raise often on the turn or river, which made it easier to play against him.

This tendency saved me a few bucks when I flopped top pair Queens with KQ suited, and had two callers the whole way. The river put a runner-runner flush on the board, and I value bet and both called. Old guy to my left showed QJ, and maniac showed... 74 diamonds for the runner-runner. He didn't have a pair or a straight draw either. But why the hell wouldn't you raise?

But Party has taught me how to deal with the old runner-runner flush. At least with party most of the hands are mucked and you don't have to see what's going on. But I began to feel sorry for this clueless collection of imposter poker players. They acted like they knew the game, and must have had some experience, because they knew how to bet (they still hadn't learned how to fold yet, but that's ok). I don't think there's any way that any of them had read a poker book. And I felt my killer instinct fading away, feeling like I was playing against pop warner football players rather than people who have played the game for years and years. But as I was dealt rockets for the second time, the pity faded away.

They held up this time. And the calling stations did their job, and my chip pyramid had grown large. I was up 100 at this point, but since I lost my original buy in I had 300 chips on the table. The maniacs had lost 2 of his racks, and had one left.

The biggest pot of the night? The dead man's hand. I got A8o in the blind (there was a single $2 blind) and decided to call in a 7 way pot for $6 more. The flop was 8 Q 6, and I checked, maniac raised, and several people called in between. Semi-maniac to my right (I'll call him coach) reraised, and I had to decide whether I wanted to call $12 with middle pair. I figured that none of these guys had trips, since people were capping it preflop with nearly any pair, so if I paired my Ace I was good. I called, and of course maniac reraised. Luckily for me, a bunch of players tagged along, so my odds weren't as bad as they could have been. The pot was gigantic at this point, so I made the call... and what do you think the turn was?

A silver bullet, giving me Aces and Eights. I bet out again, thinking my hand was now best, and maniac reraised again. Everyone dropped except for coach, who made it 3 bets. I was wed to the monster pot at this point, so made the crying call. I checked the river, which was a Jack, and called as maniac and coach called a truce on there raise war. I sadly flipped my Aces up, expecting trip queens or trip 6s, or most likely AQ. But maniac flipped over Q6o, and coach also showed Q6! The dealer pushed a mountain of over 200 chips to me, and I piled them up in disbelief. Maniac yelled "rebuy!" angrily, as the old guys eyed the pot and said "nice hand!". Where the hell was I???

Anyway, at this point I began to feel sorry for these saps. I paid the $2 blind for the old guys and the drunk guy for 2 orbits, and my rush continued when I squeezed out pocket aces in late position. 3 times in 3 hours! It was around 2 at this point, and despite the rush, I was running out of steam. The ABC poker was putting me to sleep, but rockets have a way of waking you up. The drunk guy was taking some vicious beats, and I muttered "fold" to him under my breath. But he raised me, so I reraised him, and he called me all the way to the river. I collected another monster pot, as he sadly said "I knew what ya had. But if I hit my third jack..."

The worst thing about it was that no one respected my raises. I sat there for 4 hours playing quality hands, and I've got 500 chips in front of me, but you still won't respect my raise. You gotta love calling stations.

My stack was up to 750 at this point, and I was running out of energy. There were two chubby, drunk looking girls watching the game from the rail for around an hour. They were looking over my shoulder, and I leaned back, initiating what turned out to bed the funniest conversation of the night. My wife had gone to bed long ago, which may have been the reason they were sweating me (why couldn't they have been hot, drunk, and good poker players? Is that too much to ask?):

h: "So are you guys gonna play?"
tall-less-chubby (tlc): (girly laugh) "hee hee"
short-more-chubby (smc): "we've been watching forever but we're too scared!"
h: "Sit down, you can learn."
tlc: "hee hee"
smc: "we're too scared! But you look like you know what you're doing!"
h: "it helps when you're lucky."
smc: "the game moves so fast! it's hard to keep up!" (slurring words)
tlc: "hee hee"
h: (holds up KTo so they can see, mucks) "See, if you start with a good hand, you win"
smc: "yeah! can I order you a drink?"
h: "uhh... no thanks..."
smc: (slightly insulted) "Please. Let me just order you a drink."
h: "no thanks... I uhh... have one already" (sips melted ice from glass)
h: "so i guess you guys saw poker on tv?"
tlc: "hee hee"
smc: "yeah! we play at home too! but never in a casino!"
h: "ahhh, was it the world poker tour?"
smc: "yeah! we love that show!"
h: "yeah me too. who's your favorite"
smc: (long pause) "uhhh... the... asian guy? he wins a lot!"
h: "uh huh"
smc: "and the... russian guy... he wins a lot too! Let me order you a drink!"
h: "you guys are big fans!"
tlc: "hee hee"

I pretty much gave up on them at that point and went back to mucking my hands, but I probably should have tried to get them in the game, if just for the hilarity. They probably would have been two of the better players at the table.

Anyway, after missing a few flops I said my farewells, and could barely carry the 7 racks to the counter. As the cashier counted out the money, I basked in my $500 profit in 4 hours, a new personal best as far as session total win in a B&M (although it's spread limit against idiots, so I'm not sure that counts). Mrs. Double woke up and we enjoyed a terrible meal at the coffee shop, served by a waitress with no teeth who disappeared after our food came, and we never got the check. But anything tastes good after a win like that.

The silly thing was that I probably only won about 9 or 10 pots. They just averaged around 100 each. And I think I only lost two showdowns-- the runner-runner flush and the rockets getting cracked early. I could have sat in that game forever, but honestly, that kind of game is not much fun, unless you like taking candy from a baby.

Of course I blew most of the winnings the next day getting bad beat in blackjack (card counting is the biggest grind ever) and feeding money to Mrs. Double's favorite slot (the price is right). Slot machines are EVIL! Whoever designs those payout structures is brilliant.

I need to get back to playing serious poker. A couple hours in the B&M a couple times a week. Now that the wife has the new job, we'll see what the schedule is like. I would love to make a run and get to that top section, where the rake is small and the big bets are big.

Thanks to all of you for reading! Comments and emails are highly encouraged. And if you ever get a chance to stop in Primm Valley on the way to Vegas... don't waste your time (unless you're looking for the softest spread limit game you'll ever see).

2004-01-14T11:02:00.000-08:00

Bubble Boy in the $9+1 Saturday Qualifier

Instead of finishing up my Vegas trip report last night, I found myself seated at the Party $9+1 Party qualifier with 240 other players. Now usually I don't have the patience to sit through these marathons, but I figured I'd probably bust out early and then resume my $3-6 grinding (and maybe drop the hammer on somebody). Confession: when I get the hammer, I get more excited than I do when I get rockets.

Anyway, the Party tournament went very slowly for the first 2 hours, as the blinds slowly escalated (they almost have a reasonable structure for these multis!). I don't think I played a hand (besides the blinds) for the first hour and a half, taking the Penguin's advice to "survive early" and "play late". To make it worse, I was hoping to get a workout in after I busted out, so I wasn't even drinking.

I collected some chips by stealing a pot or two, and got myself up to about T1900. I was starting to wake up when I was dealt QQ UTG, and raised it up 600 (3x the BB), fearing only AA and KK. To my surprise, the player to my left went all in. To my horror, the button called, forcing me to make a tough overcall. With two all ins, I didn't like my ladies anymore. I was getting decent odds on the call, but two all ins after a UTG bet? I folded, and watched the board come K Q J, and just hoped someone would show KK so I wouldn't smash my monitor. Nope: AA lost to JJ, and I would have been 4000 chips richer, but at least I was right in laying down the hand.

The orbits went on and on and on, and finally I picked up some hands. With the blinds up to 100/200, and me shortstacked at around 1400 chips, I picked up A8o in middle position and made my standard 3X BB raise, only to be called in two places. Trouble. Flop came Ad Qd 7s, and I was committed, so threw in the rest of my chips, doubting that my kicker would hold up. 2 callers, and I got ready to exit with an ugly 90th place, but to my surprise the chips slip my way, and I was in business. One caller showed A3o, and I was now back in the game with 4200 chips.

I have to say that the play was generally terrible up to this point-- a lot of people limping, and lots of weak tight play. I played pretty tight, hoping to steal my way to the final table when the blinds got high, and people tightened up trying to get in the money.

30 players left and play is super tight. I've stolen a couple blinds with KQ and middle aces, and I'm almost up to 5K chips. I get J2d in the SB, and everyone folds to me. The blinds are 400, and BB has around 200 chips, so I figure this is the perfect time for a steal. I raise it up 1200, and hope he folds... but he calls, and the flop comes A K 7, no diamonds. Now I've got two choices... give up on the hand, or represent the Ace to try to steal the pot. I've already got 1200 in, and losing the hand will put me in rough shape. I figure that to call for 800, there is a very good chance that the BB has an Ace, and I reluctantly check. To my surprise, he also checks, and the turn is a rag. What could he be holding? I quickly fire a 1K bet to try to represent the Ace, and BB goes into the tank and finally, to my disgust, calls. The river is a 9, and I don't think I can push him off the hand, so I check to him, and he turns over pocket 8's.

A good read by him, and a bad one by me. By not betting the flop I lost this pot-- for him to make that call on the flop would have been pretty tough, and the ace scared me off. I don't regret the steal attempt. I didn't have enough chips to coast into the final table, and I believe that stealing on a very tight table against a relatively short stack was my best shot at building my stack. But my mistake was betting on the turn... either take a shot on the flop and then check and call, or give up when I miss the flop. The worst play I could have made was to show weakness by checking the flop, and then continue betting on the turn.

You aren't allowed many mistakes in tourney play. And this one cost me half my stack. But I wasn't quite dead yet. I had 2K chips to work with, so if I could double up I still had a chance. The blinds went up to 500, and this time I found myself in the SB with A6o. Everyone folded to me, and it was now or never... 22 players left, and I had one of the shortest stacks, so I had to double up to have a shot at the final table. I moved in, and was called by the BB. The flop came 9 2 2, the turn a 9, and the river a 6. I liked my chances with Ace high, but the BB turned over 98o to knock me out 22nd out of 240.

The total tourney time was around 3 hours, and what did I have to show for it? Well, I learned something. Survive early, steal late. And when stealing, either give up when called, or try to take the pot on the flop. DON'T bet the turn after checking the flop, this play will cost you. You'd think I could have figured that out BEFORE I made the play, but maybe sobriety was clouding my mind.

I do recommend these Multis if you have the patience to sit for 3 hours. There is a ton of dead money there, and if you play tight and catch a couple hands, you'll have a chance to make some moves when you get to the last 50 players. I really think Multis offer a reasonable way to hit it big, and if my wife starts working nights I might start to play more of these. When you're getting cards, it's a hell of a lot more fun than grinding. At least I say this until I go out on the bubble with 20K in prize money.

I also had the honor of being "sweated" by the mighty Iggy himself, and probably wouldn't have survived the 3 hours without him. Expect big things from this man (or is Iggy a woman?) in the near future.

Check out BG's Conference Championship picks. He was on the money last week, and I think he's nailed these games as well. His "things I don't understand" was also a relief, knowing I'm not the only one baffled by most of the stuff going on in the world ("The Sports Guy" should definitely have his own show).

Pauly is back after a brief hiatus with another Foxwood tale. I miss my old stomping ground, but I'll take the wild LA poker scene anyday... Chris and PL continue their ride on the low-limit swingset... and I can only hope that TFG is in the poker lab, devising a down home texas recipe for winning hold em.

The conclusion of the Vegas-State Line trip to come. And oh yes, the hammer will drop... The creator of the challenge himself says he's throwing his hat in the ring, but he's too addicted to the 6-max tables, which by the rules, can't qualify for the prize. Fear the hammer!

2004-01-12T21:30:00.000-08:00

If you can't spot the shark at the table...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to play in a game with 9 fish? Can you even conceive of it? Well friends, I am here to tell you that I played in such a game. Saturday night on the Cali-Nevada state line, there was a fish fry in the poker room.

The things that went on at that table had to be seen to be believed, and I'll do my best to recount them, but I really wish I had a digital video camera with me as imit games are spread limit. There is a single $2 blind, and you can bet/raise anywhere from $2 to $6 at any time. My previous experience with spread limit (at the Excalibur) had made me dislike the game-- tight play is extremely important, because it may cost you 3 times the BB to see the flop. Usually after the flop the number of players is widdled down to 2, since pot odds for draws are terrible. So I went into the game not expecting to win much, but at least it's still poker.

If you read my previous post, you'll remember that the gambling day started off horribly with the heartbreaking miss of the under in the Carolina-St.Louis game, followed by dropping a couple of bills on slots. I was hoping to win a rack or two at most and get even for the night. I bought in for $100 and took my rack to the 3 seat in a table full of players aged 40-70, plus one middle aged guy wearing sunglasses and trying to look mean. I licked my chops. It was 10:30, and I was ready to ram and jam.

I folded my junk hand and watched the action progress. Chips were being thrown into the pot like Marc Bulger interceptions. A $2-6 action table? 5 players were in for 8 chips preflop. One player bet the max and 2 players called to the showdown. The bettor showed AK, for Ace high. Another showed KQ. The third took the $100 pot with Q4, pairing his 4 on the flop. Where am I?

I played tight for an orbit and finally picked up AJ. I raised it the max, and a player with 4 racks in front of him raised it $6 more up to $14. 2 callers. The flop was J rag rag, with no straight or flush draws. I bet out the max, and big stack guy just called this time. The turn was another rag, and big stack folded when I bet out. With that stack, he was either a maniac or a good player, and there was no way in hell this clown was any good. So his laydown irked me, but I raked in a sizable pot... maybe my luck had turned.

I told the wife that I might be here a while, and if I didn't leave with a lot of money she should shoot me. In early position I checked my cards and saw only white. I squeezed the other and saw more white. Like staring into the whites of a tiger's eyes, I almost smiled when I saw the single mark on each card. Rockets in this game? I resolved to offer a sacrifice when I made it home. I got 2 callers, and maniac reraised me. We capped it at $20 preflop, and took a poor sap in the middle along for the ride.

Flop was Q J rag, and I bet out the max and was reraised the max. Ok maniac, you got kings? AK maybe? Would you cap it with JJ? Or maybe QQ? Let's find out... I reraised and he capped it at 20. No way, does he have the trips? I put on the brakes and called the rest of the way, and he said "you lose" as he flipped over his QUEENS and took $62 off of me, as I chided myself for the reraise on the flop. I guess I was hoping he had KK, but with two face cards out there, I could have been beaten by several hands. My wife told me not to worry about it, and as I bought another rack and looked around the table, I definitely wasn't worried. There is no better formula for profit than a maniac surrounded by calling stations.

Not a good start. I was down almost $100 in a $2-6 game, where it's tough to win money fast. Or so I thought...

TO BE CONTINUED
Apologies for running out of steam, but the game took the energy out of me. I need to catch up on sleep...

Lots of great blogging going on out there-- Grubby laid down the HAMMER CHALLENGE today, and now has taken his blog up to the next level with GRAPHICS. Grubs Hammer Challenge nearly knocked me out of my chair at work, and my co-workers gave me funny looks as I busted up at the genius and comedy of this challenge. I'm not making any guarantees, but the hammer is mine, all mine!

Mean Gene gets my vote-- for quote of the day, with "when I bet out he folded like Superman on laundry day". One of those joke grenades... it took me a minute to get it, then BOOM!

Iggy owes my employers probably 1/8th of my salary, as I spend a good chunk of every morning crawling through his links. The Fat Guy hypothesizes that Ignatious' female party avatar reveals his true gender. Should we start calling him Iggamina?

In the strange dream department, I had a rambling journey last night in which I kept removing and replacing my nose. I found this:

"Seeing your own nose in your dream means a conscious effort to achieve whatever endeavor you chose to undertake. The nose represents energy, intuition, and wisdom. Alternatively, the nose symbolizes curiosity."

So, have I lost my energy? Probably. Have I lost my curiousity? I hope not. I think not playing football is driving me insane.

Good luck on the tables and watch out for THE HAMMER!

***** Hand History for Game 330955410 *****
3/6 TexasHTGameTable (Limit) - Tue Jan 13 00:39:55 EST 2004
Table Card Room Table 3973 (Real Money)
-- Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 10
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to hdouble [ 7d, 2h ]
glenda1960 calls (3)
jonkira calls (3)
dsscanuck folds.
alaskankid checks.
hdouble raises (6) to 6
gooseduck folds.
heyryn folds.
DRAMA_Q calls (6)
notchincorp calls (5)
Mona_Lot calls (3)
glenda1960 calls (3)
jonkira calls (3)
alaskankid calls (3)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 7c, 2d, Qd ]
notchincorp bets (3)
notchincorp calls all-In.
Mona_Lot calls (3)
glenda1960 calls (3)
jonkira calls (3)
alaskankid calls (3)
hdouble raises (6) to 6
DRAMA_Q calls (6)
Mona_Lot calls (3)
glenda1960 raises (6) to 9
jonkira folds.
alaskankid folds.
hdouble raises (6) to 12
DRAMA_Q folds.
Mona_Lot calls (6)
glenda1960 calls (3)
Creating Main Pot with $60 with notchincorp
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Jh ]
Mona_Lot checks.
glenda1960 checks.
hdouble bets (6)
Mona_Lot calls (6)
glenda1960 calls (6)
** Dealing River ** : [ Ad ]
Mona_Lot checks.
glenda1960 bets (6)
hdouble calls (6)
Mona_Lot folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: $60 | Side Pot 1: $60 | Rake: $3
Board: [ 7c 2d Qd Jh Ad ]
alaskankid balance $221, lost $9 (folded)
hdouble balance $116, lost $30 [ 7d 2h ] [ two pairs, sevens and twos -- Ad,7d,7c,2h,2d ] gooseduck balance $155, didn't bet (folded) heyryn balance $296.50, didn't bet (folded) DRAMA_Q balance $205, lost $12 (folded)
notchincorp balance $0, lost $9 [ 4c 4h ] [ a pair of fours -- Ad,Qd,Jh,4c,4h ] Mona_Lot balance $98, lost $24 (folded)
glenda1960 balance $136, bet $30, collected $120, net +$90 [ 4d 3d ] [ a flush, ace high -- Ad,Qd,4d,3d,2d ] jonkira balance $114, lost $9 (folded)
dsscanuck balance $67.50, didn't bet (folded)
hdouble: "HAMMER!"
DRAMA_Q: preflop raise on 7-2?
hdouble: yep
hdouble: that's the hammer
jonkira: lol
DRAMA_Q: love ya
jonkira: real imtimadation there
jonkira: lol
hdouble: you aren't scared of the hammer?
jonkira: i had jacks, 4s
DRAMA_Q: of course i am . i folded my hand
hdouble: smart man
************************************************

My precious... the diamondses bad beats the hammer... we has the hammer in our handses, and they STEALS it! Precious... we takes the hammer and crush them! Yeeeeeeeeesss! Crush them! Gollum! Gollum!

2004-01-11T22:36:00.000-08:00

And Miles to Go Before I Sleep

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep

--Robert Frost

After a one-night trip to the Vegas state line, I feel like I have enough Blog material for a week. What a trip! Imagine being 10 feet away from blackjack, craps, and a soft poker game, and the NFL playoffs going on. I felt like Pacino as Tony Montana, running around with a kilo of coke on my face. I didn't know which way to go.

Hopefully I can return to writing some better posts... my wife's friend has (finally) left after 3 weeks, and I get some time to let my thoughts unfold, and reflect them. I have a deeply introverted streak, and if I'm around people all the time for an extended period of time, my brain turns to mush.

Anyway, let's start with the NFL games. Although I think the overall quality of the teams this year is somewhat lacking compared to recent years (the no-talent Pats are looking the best right now), the games this weekend were some of the best I can remember. Kudos to Boy Genius, who picked all 4 games correctly, and was on the money about the Colts-Chiefs over:
"Who’s going to stop this one from turning into a 38-35 game? No one, that’s who. Take the over on this game. Hell, double the over and take it."

Listen to BG and win cash. If anyone out there wants to open up a new account before the superbowl, Pinnacle offers the best lines.

Yours truly had a good weekend, thanks to going 4 for 4 on my prop bets in the Carolina-St.Louis game. That got me to even in that game, after losing the under bet in the second most heartbreaking gambling loss in my life. Number 1 was another under, in one of last year's San Antonio-Phoenix NBA playoff games. Amare Stoudamire hit a bank shot three pointer to tie the game and send it into OT. I still had 10 points to spare, but with 3 minutes of overtime, I was a little nervous. Of course, another buzzer beater at the end of the first overtime put them over my total, and just to rub it in, sent the game to a second overtime. I remember staring at the TV in shock as they showed the replay Stoudamire's ridiculous shot banking off the glass over and over. That one may never be topped.

But the good old Panthers did their best to top it. This game was in the bag from the start. Neither team could get in the end zone, and after the first half the total was at 19. The game rolled on, and it was in the bag. I was getting ready to hit the blackjack tables with a nice win, the Rams needing to score 11 points in the final 2:39 for me to lose my under. Not a chance.

The St. Louis onside kick recovery was like being all-in with trip aces against pocket 2s, and seeing runner runner twos to knock you out of the tourney. Just mind blowing. I'm not going to discuss how badly the Rams played (I really thought Martz would have his team more ready than that), but I wasn't surprised when one of the most overrated players in football (Jason Sehorn) was badly burnt for a big play in the clutch. If I was a QB, I'd lock in on Sehorn and throw to whoever he's covering.

That loss was a heartbreaker. But I won my props, and then watched Peyton put on an offensive clinic against KC and poor Dick Vermeil. Why would anyone ever kick to Dante Hall? Manning is in the zone, and I can't wait to see them against the Pats next week. I guess I was wrong about Brady's knee... anybody else see that block he threw? I'm gonna ride the Pats to the bowl, although the chess match between Peyton and Belichek should be one for the ages.

I was also wrong about McNabb, who willed his offense into the end zone to beat the Pack. I hope everybody saw the play where he scrambled around for about 10 seconds, escaping the GB dline and throwing a dart to Pinkston in the end zone. Just amazing. However, any defense that gives up that much space down the middle on 4rth and 26 in the clutch deserves to lose. Way to send 4 guys Mike Sherman. This game was over, and poor Brett reverted back to his early days, just throwing the ball up like a college freshman. This was a truly terrible play, and sadly is a mistake that Favre has never really learned how to fix. But 4rth and 26, you need a stop.

Ok enough football. On to Vegas!

For anybody who's never made the drive up I-15 from Cali into Vegas, you probably don't know that there are 3 large casinos in Primm, Nevada, just across the California state line. The state line is about 50 miles west from Vegas, so why the hell would anybody go there? Well, it saves an hour drive, turning a 5 hour drive into 4, or 3.5 if you're lucky. On Friday night, the wife and I decided that since we were both off, we'd spend Saturday night at the nearest Casino, which happened to be in Primm, Nevada. I booked a room at Buffalo Bill's, the only of the 3 casinos with a poker room. I probably could have gotten comped if I wanted to play some green chip blackjack, but the room was only $50 so I figured I should just book it online.

We left Saturday morning, and the drive was quite nice... around 4 hours, going 80 the entire way. Everybody must have blown their wad on New Years, as bad traffic can make the drive up to 7 hours long. After checking in and watching the heartbreaking Rams game, I was ready to win some money (I needed a couple of gin and tonics first).

The suckers at the poker table were calling. The poker "room" was right next to the sportsbook, and was composed of 3 poker tables cordoned (is that actually a word?) off by some metal rails. Hollywood Park has 100 tables (most of them going 24 hours on the weekend), and I can never get over the horrible treatment of poker in Vegas. Yeah, I know, 1 slot machine probably makes more than 5 poker tables, but give us a break. To my amazement, there were actually a few people on the rails watching the two games going-- this was a 2-6 spread limit game, why would anyone watch?

But poker would have to wait. I wanted to wait until the wife was all gambled out, so I could fry up some fish without being disturbed. She LOVES the slots, and doesn't much like any other game, so I quickly dumped 40 bucks and watched the little lights flashed as my credits quickly were reduced to zero. Talk about a game for suckers. Not only is it negative EV, there's not even any way to calculate how much you're losing on each play. No I'm not bitter.

We then played around on the roulette wheel for an hour or so, which was actually fun. I met a guy that was charting the wheel, and had a system for beating it. You might not believe it, but roulette is a game that can actually be beaten. I was amused that the guy was standing right in front of the wheel with a pad and taking notes on each spin, and the pit bosses never said anything to him. After a half an hour of up and down, we both got bored and dumped our remaining chips on "even" and "black" and the ball hopped out of my lucky number (10) into red 31. Not a good start.

TO BE CONTINUED...
Stay tuned for a report on the poker game. Let me just tell you it involves me peering over a tower of chips, and tales of the biggest fish you've ever seen.

Before I forget I have to leave you with a little bit of poker content. Well, not quite. But at least it's "poker on tv" content. I just discovered that my cable company has graciously given me free cable for the month. I am not a big fan of tv-watching, although growing up I saw my fair share. On Friday after I had overdosed on NFL previews (O how I miss thee Chris Berman!), I flipped around to see the old familiar face of Jean-Luc Picard. I never was a trekkie, but I thought "Next Generation" was one of the best shows on TV. I watched for a few minutes, and realized it was part one of the famous "Borg" episode. But it appeared the commercials had been cut out. This was like a dream come true!

Finally after the 1 hour episode ended, I remembered that I wasn't in some sort of TV heaven, and some ad told me I was watching "Spike TV, the network for men." Network for men? What the hell happened to cable? I felt like some sort of chauvinist for enjoying the Borg episode until the part two (the second hour) of the show came on. Groans from the wife as I reenterd TV heaven for another hour.

(Be patient, poker on tv content is coming)

Ok, so after the show was over it was time for bed, but I had to figure out how to get my wife's EAD (Employment Authorization Document) renewed. For those of you who don't know, the US pisses on its immigrants, even if they happened to be married to an American. But that's a rant for another time. After a few minutes of web searching, I turned to see a flyover of Vegas on the Spike Network. I'd heard about CSI: Las Vegas, but never seen it. After the intro, I was drawn back to hear the clatter of chips and see poker on TV.

What followed was one of the most appalling and hilarious plot lines involving poker I have ever seen (or probably ever will) on TV. Who writes this stuff? I'm not going to spoil the ending for you, but lets just say it was more improbably than a MacGyver plot. I urge you guys to read the entire script (it's short) for laughs. There was even a more horrible subplot involving fast-and-furious type racing. To whet your appetite, I'm including the intro scene that sucked me in (note the great discussion about the number of outs that "Doyle" has). Check out the entire script here:
The worst written tv show about poker

SCENE #01:

[INT. RIO HOTEL - BACK ROOM - NIGHT]

(Camera view looking in on a group of poker players in a quiet room. It's a
high-stakes game.

DEALER: Start with you, sir?

(GRINDER knocks his fist on the table three times.)

GRINDER: Check.

MATT: He doesn't bet, but he keeps a beat. You check. Someone's on a flush
draw. Mm, I'll take the free card. Check.

LITA GIBBONS: I'll check.

(LITA puts some eye drops in her eyes.)

MATT: What do you got, Candyman?

(DOYLE PFEIFFER, the Candyman, puts some candy in his mouth. The waitress
approaches the table to refresh the drinks. She stops by MATT first. He puts a
chip on her tray as she serves the drinks.)

DOYLE PFEIFFER: Check.

WAITRESS: (to Matt) Thank you very much.

(The waitress moves to serve DOYLE PFEIFFER. She puts a drink in front of him
and he gives her his empty glass. MATT notices the slight.)

MATT: (mutters) "Stiff" ... typical.

(The Grinder looks at his cards.)

GRINDER: I can bet. Make it ... $2,000.

(The Grinder puts a short stack of blue chips in the middle of the table.)

MATT: The Grinder speaks.

(Matt puts his chips in. DOYLE PFEIFFER doesn't hesitate.)

DOYLE PFEIFFER: We raise $4,000.

MATT: Call the bet.

DEALER: $2,000. Raise you $2,000.

MATT: It's all about you, Grinder.

GRINER: I'm going to go get a $2,000 slice of pizza.

(The Grinder folds. LITA GIBBONS smiles.)

MATT: Well ... might as well make It a poker game. I'm all in. What do you
got, Southern Iowa?

LITA GIBBONS: A pain in the ass to my right side.

(LITA GIBBONS folds. There are only two players left in the game.)

DOYLE PFEIFFER: Um... yeah, you might have a winning hand. You might be just
trying to buy it. Johnny Chan thought I was too old, too back in the '86
series.

MATT: You mean, the series where the ball went through Buckner's legs?

DOYLE PFEIFFER: Save the story, kid. Here's what's what. I got aces. What do
you got? Maybe you got trips, maybe king, queen. Maybe you got two pair. Ace
hits the board ... I win. Club hits the board ... I win.

(He pops in a piece of candy.)

DOYLE PFEIFFER: Eight, nine hits the board ...

(He pops in another piece of candy.)

DOYLE PFEIFFER: I win.

MATT: Here's the matter old man. Thirteen of every suit in the deck. I see
three clubs. That means you've got ten coming 37 cards left in the deck. You
like those odds?

DOYLE PFEIFFER: I like 'em a lot better than I like you.

(DOYLE PFEIFFER moves to gather his chips. His hands freeze and he starts to
convulse. His entire body starts to spasm uncontrollably. The players around
the table stare aghast at the man.)

(DOYLE PFEIFFER lands face forward on the table. Dead.)

FLASH TO WHITE

2004-01-09T21:22:00.000-08:00

Good things come to those who play tight

The Good: Flopping the nut flush on a $15-30 table, being bet into the whole way, and pulling in a $387 pot.
The Bad: Turning a full house, and having the board double pair on the river. $109 pot is split to the two fools holding a higher full house.
The Ugly: Tilting away a total of $300 after getting rags for an hour.

It began a cold and stormy night on the $3-6 tables. Our hero was mucking rag after rag, and became so bored he started semi-bluffing and drawing to hands that the pot odds didn't justify. The poker gods punished him, dealing him a few bad beats and not pairing his big offsuits. They looked on him in scorn and he felt their laughter rain down on him, as pixellated chips magnetically were drawn to fishy players.

Our hero drew comfort from the instant messages from another chip warrior. He laughed bitterly as he wallowed in the river, and vowed to get his revenge.

So he asked the poker gods for mercy, and sat with the mighty and the bigger fish at the $15-30 tables. He resolved to play correctly, taking few chances. He mucked and mucked, hoping to see a big pair before the blinds came around again. There were a few sharks, and several fish, and he roamed above the waters, waiting to pounce. His second hand, he took a chance and called a raise from the SB with pocket 2s. But no 2 on the flop, so he humbly mucked, and the poker gods were content. The orbit completed, and he was down $45. He resolved to play one more orbit, and hoped for a single big hand.

Rag after rag, he mucked anxiously. His time was running out. 3 more hands until the BB would end his session. The first card was the mighty Ace of spades... and he found his hand filled with the 8 of spades and had to quickly decide whether to call or fold. The player UTG limped before him. He figured this was his last chance, and hesitantly called. The table was respecting calls from early position, and he hoped he could limp in to a multiway pot.

To his dismay, it was folded around to the SB, who raised. But the BB called, along with the UTG limper, so he called the raise, making it 4-way. The computer hummed, and his heart leapt as he saw the black cards hit one after the other. He had flopped the nut flush. Thank you poker gods.

He pondered how to extract the maximum number of bets. But before he could think, the SB bet out, and was called by the 3 limpers. He smooth called, waiting for the turn to raise.

But the turn was another spade, making his hidden flush less valuable. The SB bet out, one call, one fold. To raise or not to raise? He didn't want to scare anyone out, and figured that he could get another bet and call on the river, so he just called.

The river was the horrible, ugly, 5 of spades. Not only was a straight 4-flush on the board, but it killed his action. He didn't fear the 4-flush, but sadly watched the 2 players check to him. He bet, and was called... the SB showing AQ, with the queen of spades as the $387 pot finally floated his way.

#325217303: hdouble wins $387 from the main pot with a flush, ace high with ace kicker.

I'm not sure if I should have raised the turn, but hey, I'll take it. That one hand turned a $300 losing session to a $100 loss in a matter of minutes. For the record, I was drinking Guinness #2 when the I hit the hand (currently imbibing number 4). Regular, not extra stout, like one NL multi-fiend and guinness addict prefers.

Although I don't recommend this desperation style of poker, I do have to say that playing at the outer reaches of your bankroll is guaranteed to make you play more solid poker. "You gotta play where it hurts to lose!" says Doyle, and I think good players perform better when the stakes are higher. I know I play sloppier at the lower levels, rationalizing drawing to pots that aren't laying good odds with the thought "it's only $3". I have to remedy this quickly.

One of the best scenes in Woody Allen's movie "Sweet and Lowdown" is when Sean Penn (playing the idiotic musical prodigy) enters a small-town talent show and blows away the hicks with his masterful guitar playing. They refuse to give him the cash prize, as he is obviously a hustler. His buddy tells him, "Why do you have to play so good?" Penn replies, "I can't remember the tunes if I don't play good."

The main leak in my game is impatience. If I go several orbits without picking up a playable hand, I loosen up a bit, and find myself playing hands like QTo from early position. This leak is getting expensive. If I get 1 playable hand per orbit, I can stay sharp... I think this is why playing 2 tables helps my game. You're almost guaranteed to get a playable hand out of the 20 you are dealt in the single 2-table orbit.

Mrs. Double starts the new job at the posh Beverly Hills Hotel on Monday. So we're both off this weekend. What should we do to celebrate? You guessed it, VEGAS! Well, state line anyway. We're taking off tomorrow morning and will be staying at Buffalo Bill's, one of three small casinos on the Nevada state line, about 3.5 hours from LA. It saves us an hour by not driving all the way to Sin City, and yes, there is a poker room. The game is 1-4-4-8 spread, which I don't like, but at least you get to see more hands (a max of $4 to see the flop makes the implied odds quite good). It's been a long time since I've sat in a B&M, so it will be cool to play a lot of hands.

But I can't miss the games tomorrow, so hopefully we can beat the traffic and get there before the morning game.

Check back on Sunday for the report.

Don't let the fish bite ya, and don't forget to ram and jam.

2004-01-08T22:40:00.000-08:00

Never marry your big pocket pair

After 3 winning sessions, I was due for a loss. Party's hand history isn't working, but I think I ended up down $100 after 100 hands. I played pretty well with the rags I got, but got burned on JJ and QQ when I couldn't muck them even though I knew when I was beat. I really felt the grind-- mucking 90% of your hands isn't much fun. I did win a big pot with rockets... as usual, the only time I got them was on the blinds. What's up with that?

But the loss didn't get me down, because I got a postcard that made my day. The Grubster fought off the flu bug to get to his mailbox, and let me tell you, the Grubster is quite a looker. The postcard shows him in action, check raising some poor sap. I'll forgive him the Andy Warhol stamp, maybe the flu got to his head.

Playoff Picks
The linemakers did a good job this weekend, and I don't like any of the spreads, but I wanted some action. I like my under bet better, but I'm hoping Peyton can pull it out at KC. Me and Peyton were academic All-Americans at the same time (yeah, he was a big shot on a top DI team, and I played DIII, but so what?), so I'm hopin his brain will continue to lead the Colts to victory.

Carolina at St. Louis UNDER 45
Originally I had the Pack at St. Louis, but Dallas stayed home last week so it changes the matchups. The Rams are so tough at home, and Carolina's D will keep the game low scoring. I can see a Ram blowout, 27-10, or a low-scoring battle, but I don't see the total going over 45. I'm keeping an eye on Bulger and Faulk... if these guys come to play, the Rams could win it all.

Indy (+3) at KC
I'm waffling on my original prediction here, after Peyton's masterful play calling last week (he's one of the few QBs that calls his own plays) and the Indy special teams. The Chiefs win by capitalizing on their opponents mistakes, and I think Peyton interceptions or Edge fumbling could lose it for the Colts, but I don't see it happening.

Those are my sportsbook picks. In the other 2 games, I'll stick with my original prediction for Tennessee at NE, with the caveat is that you should never bet against Belichek:
--Titans at Patriots
Ahh the Pats. Belichek is my man, and I'm rooting for New England, but I really think Brady's knee is a lot worse than they are letting on. They'll brace him up, but the tough Tennessee D-line will pressure him all game. The Pats are outclassed by half the teams in the league talentwise, and there are only so many rabbits Belichek can pull out of his hat. However, he does have an extra week to prepare... I'll be rooting for the Pats, but I think the Titans will take this one.

--Green Bay at Philly
Game of the weekend. Favre against McNabb. The Eagles are suspect. They have been consistent all year, but McNabb is the 16th rated QB in the NFL and doesn't have much in the way of receivers to work with. If Favre and Green get rolling, I like the Pack. In a close one, I think the destiny talk continues next week as GB capitalizes on McNabb turnovers.

In sad television, I kept an eye on "Extreme Makeovers" as I was mucking uncontrollably on Party. This has got to be one of the most appalling shows ever. They butcher some poor woman, and then she returns home to her family to reveal the new face. The crying and outbursts of "this is the greatest day of my life!" from all involved really disturbs me. Maybe this is one reason for my poor play... I was dreaming of getting implants...

2004-01-07T23:58:00.000-08:00

Live by the overcards, die by the pocket pair

Just busted out 3rd in a $30 NL SNG. I was playing well, and catching cards, despite the fact that I'm exhausted. I haven't been sleeping well and it caught up to me today, so my tentative plan to hit Hollywood Park was foiled by tiredness. I took it easy and actually watched "The Simple Life", which was somewhat enjoyable and appalling at the same time. Could they have found more annoying girls? And do people really think Paris Hilton is hot? By the way, please click on the poll to your right... I'm interested to find out how much poker experience exists in the blogger community. Are we ever gonna get that blog game goin???

But back to the tourney... there were 2 or 3 solid players in the game, but the rest were calling stations or weak tight. Here's the summary:
--Second hand in, T40 to see the flop. I fold, but several call. Flop is all spades, 4 5 9. 3 people go all in! I figure somebody's got trips, and somebody's got a set... turn pairs the board with a 9, and the river 7c, and the winner takes down T2500 with quad nines! Ouch. The other guy had KJs, and the third? 88, with one spade. This gave the guy a monster chip lead, and he remained chip leader for the rest of the tournament.
--10 hands in I get Big Slick offsuit (TFG might call this "Walkin back to Houston" like TJ Cloutier... if you don't hit an Ace or a King...) and end up pushing all in when a king flops. Other guy has KQo, and I will be flying first class to Houston... I double up early and can wait it out until the blinds go up.
--I get AQd and raise it up 3x the BB, and the BB calls. I flop the flush and think how I can extract chips from this guy... surprisingly he goes all in, and I can't click call fast enough. 750 more chips, and I'm in great shape.
--I make 5 or 6 steals as the table tightens up, and I'm in second with 1800 chips. Big stack from early has 3000.
--Big Slick offsuit one off the button, I raise it up 500 and this chatterbox who has been talking all day says he's got 77 and finally calls. King comes on the turn, and I was just one jack off from hitting the straight. Like you haven't heard that one before. This puts me up to T3200, giving me the chip lead for the first time all tourney. There are 4 players at this point, and 2 of them are at least decent, so I have to be careful...
--One guy goes out and doubles up the best player at the table, who's only got 1667.
Ok, so here's the big hand. I need your opinions...
Seat 4: ReverendIke (3023)
Seat 8: thepokerguru (1667)
Seat 10: hdouble (3310)

I get pocket tens in the BB. Great. Ike raises 600. I know that he is a little loose, and may be on a steal here. I want him to fold, so I raise it 1200, half my stack, and hope I don't have to mess with this hand post flop. But Ike calls, and the flop is 5c 9s Jc. Would Ike call 900 chips with a small pair? Maybe. But most likely he's got overcards, AK or even AQ, or maybe a suited ace. These are much more likely starters that would be raised... I debate and become the anti-Hellmuth, and push all in. I want him to fold his AK or flush draw, and there's no way he can call unless he's already got me beat. I've got a longshot straight draw and a longshot flush draw giving me a couple more outs... and I think my hand is best at this point. Ike quickly calls, and I can only hope for AK. The turn is old Saddam himself, the Ace of spades. I figure only a river 10 can save me... but no help, and Ike surprises me with AJo. I just didn't put him on AJ, although clearly this is a reasonable hand to have put him on. So he had two overcards and busted me.

Looking back at this play I think it was quite bad. If I had thought about it, I would realize that I had no reason to risk all my chips in what was most likely a coin flip situation. He hadn't shown himself to be a very good player, so rather than flip a coin, I could have used my big stack and steals to build up my chip lead. The Hellmuth approach is correct here-- if you feel you have a skill advantage over several other players at the table, do not risk all your chips in marginal situations. I believe Poker Penguin addressed this a while back.

But I'll blame it on tiredness. What do y'all think?

I'm about to pass out but wanted to encourage people to check out Royal's Poker Blog, passed on by that multi-table freak Iggy. Royal is on a quest to play 10K hands at .50/1 and win 2BB/Hour. Talk about a grind. Or, have a guinness and read about Iggy's journey to the top of the Party multi-table circuit. The only good advice I ever gave Igs was to test the multi table circuit. I don't dare to suggest that the extra stout is not even close to the new bottles with the widgets in them...

My main man Paul got screwed by the Chicago snowstorm. Hopefully that will give him more time to storm the .50/1 Party tables.

The Penguin is ramblin and gamblin up at the $10-20 tables, check out his wild ride. I share TFG's frustration with the web architecture at medium and large sized companies... Tell 'em Scott:
"This whole thing is held together with naught but baling wire, chewing gum, jackasses on support desks doing zippo to resolve your problem, and a swift hard kick in the gonads of the server of your choice."
Amen. It's amazing how much babysitting and manual junk our webmaster (and now me as well sometimes) does every day. Write some code!

Check out Sean's NFL picks... they are good ones.

Last night I found the infamous Daniel Rentzer had commented on one of my posts after I mentioned him as one of the most interesting WPT players:
"Anyways I saw my name on here and read was written about me, and wanted to state that the story is true. I did manage to do what I said I did regarding online poker. However there were many other things besides online poker that led to my success, it all added up to what it did."
If you haven't read Daniel's story, check out his post, "How PokerStars changed my life" to see how a longshot kid got to the final table at the WPT with Gus Hansen.

To sleep perchance to dream... the rub is actually that I'm not playing enough poker. Don't play tired...

Weird PokerTracker Stat of the day:
I have 13,154 hands in PT. 61 of these (this is almost exactly 1/220 hands) are AA. The wierd part: 21 (1/3) of my AA have been received in the blinds. Coincidence? You decide!

2004-01-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

Not born a ramblin man

Well I'm pressed for time at work today, but I thought I would try something different. I usually like my posts to be relatively well thought-out, and have some overall theme. Today I figured I'd try rambling stream-of-consciousness style and clear my the thought cache" in hopes of allowing more interesting thoughts to fill up my head.

The Wife flew to Vegas this morning, and will be staying at New York, New York for 2 nights. The whole package cost $300. I've trained her to avoid the flashy slots and stick to video poker, where the EV is slightly positive if you play correctly. But the odds are, she'll end up pulling the old lever at "Wheel of Fortune" or another of Grubby's flashy favorites. If she hit's the big one, I'll probably end up living in a poker room somewhere in Europe...

Up $120 last night after 100 hands in $3-6. $50 of this came from a $3-6 table that was down to 3 players... I played 3 hands, and won all three. I took some guys last dollar when a queen hit the river and I paired my AQ for a nice suckout after he flopped a pair of tens (hey, AQ heads up ain't bad). I'm feeling really comfortable at the tables, and I've had several excellent sessions in a row. But because we've had company, I haven't played a session longer than an hour or so. I may make my return to Hollywood Park tonight or tomorrow (I'm free!) to conquer the wild games that drove me to playing Party exclusively. May the poker gods be more kind this time.

I watched the USC-Michigan and LSU-Oklahoma bowl games last week. These were the first college games I had seen all season, and reminded me why I don't watch college ball. Michigan's offense was just horrible, and their QB couldn't even check off the primary receiver to the second option. I really think that the majority of college coaches are very, very bad, especially the offensive coordinators. I think both of these games had teams of equal talent level, but the difference was simply coaching. The Michigan and Oklahoma offenses were stiff and inflexible, and when their opponents forced them to throw, the Mich/Ok QBs looked like they were playing sandlot ball. A successful offense is very systematic-- a good quarterback knows where to look when the primary is covered. Check down to secondary. Then to the third option. Then throw the ball away or run with it. These guys were like deer in headlights.

Peyton Manning on the other hand looked like a wizard. He knew exactly what Shanahan was bringing, and just torched the Bronco D. Read, recognize, and react. Peyton's neurological processing is on a whole different level than say, Quincy Carter.

I was 2-0 on my bets, and 3-1 on my picks. Carolina really came to play, and Dallas didn't. I thought Parcells might pull another rabbit out of his hat, but he didn't have much to work with.

I've taken my NFL bankroll from $100 to $700. Hopefully I can get it up to $1K during the playoffs, and then everyone bets on the super bowl, making it a very easy game to pick (although I got burned last year, I hate Bill Callahan!).

KD down in Texas sent me an email telling me to increase the size of my font (yeah, it was too small) and also pointing out an outstanding blog. Check out TableTango for an up close and personal look with the high rollers at Bellagio, brought to us by Linda, a dealer there. Linda knows how to write, and brings us the antics of Grizzle and the genius of Lederer. Check out her new year's post to see who's better, Damon or Affleck.

Boy Genius is a blogging machine. It took my entire 20 minute lunch break to catch up on his latest round of posts. BG gives some honest advice to women about how to get a man, and does so with untarnished optimism:

"I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I have a theory. It’s called the “ugly people at the mall” theory. It’s really my way of saying that if a bucktoothed slack-jawed yokel can find an emaciated sunken-eyed roadhouse barmaid to share his life with, then there absolutely positively is someone for me out there too."

I'm not sure if he's serious, but Mean Gene is running for president...

Grubby is back with a great recap of his Vegas trip.

Don't mean to shortchange anyone but it's time for me to get out of this cube... more tomorrow...

2004-01-04T22:24:00.000-08:00

Win big, lose small

Okay, a lot of my favorite reading has been polluted by Vegan bashing, and I'm hoping I get to read about poker soon. I agree with The Fat Guy, who thinks good writers shouldn't waste their time with idiots:

"Anyone that can use the phrase 'fellow mammals' with a straight face doesn't deserve the attention paid to him thus far, much less a rational counterargument."

Amen to that.

Yours truly is a bit worn out after a weekend jaunt 4 hours north to Hearst Castle and Wine Country. I'm not a foodie-- in fact, I've been mocked many a time by friends for my motto that "food is fuel." I use food for energy... and while I enjoy eating (sometimes), I've chosen to spend more time on things that I feel are more important (football, poker, reading, writing, etc.). Sometimes I wish I could share other people's enthusiasm for food-- we've got to eat, so why not enjoy it to the fullest? But a steak and potato tastes just as good to me as the recipe of a famous French chef. Unlike certain other folks who will tell you how and what to eat, I respect a person's choice to enjoy whatever food they want... it's just that personally, I can't get excited about different wine flavors or a gourmet chef's cooking.

That said, the wine tasting was fun. We only made it to a few wineries, and I was driving, but it was kind of like a high class pub crawl. The wife thoroughly enjoyed it, so it was time well spent. This was my first trip to that area, and I was blown away by the amount of open land on the central coast. We were about 10 miles inland of the Pacific, and there were more cows than people. Stretches of beautiful landscape for miles and miles, which soothed my nerves, on edge thanks to the concrete jungle of LA. I'm from a small suburb in Connecticut, and it had been a long time since I'd seen anything that resembled "nature".

Hearst Castle was something else. Beautiful and decadent, but all in all a big waste of money.

Back to poker. We drove home on the Pacific Coast Highway, which wound its way along the Pacific through several very small towns. My eyes nearly popped out of my head as we drove through a town that must have had a population of 5,000, and I saw the good old symbols of the four suits painted on a window. "Oceana Card Room" the sign read, and it must have been the smallest card room I'd ever seen. I was really tempted to stop, but the odds of a game going on Sunday morning were probably not good. I found this tidbit on the web "Brook's Oceana Card Room has 3 total table games". 3 tables! I doubt I'll never make it back that way again, but if I do, I'll be sure to stop.

PartyTime: Had a short session that netted $124 for 73 hands, or 28 BB per 100 hands. Both tables were very loose, and my profit came from hitting two big hands, and bailing out early if the flop didn't hit me. The big hands were as follows:
--$76 after flopping the nut flush with KT in the BB. Some idiot capped the turn and river after an Ace hit the turn. He had A8o, for top pair weak kicker. Where do they get these guys?
--$66 after slowplaying a set of twos in a multiway pot.

I also won 4 or 5 smaller pots (5 BB not including my bets) just playing my top pair aggressively.

I've heard it said before, but I am really starting to agree that the low-limit winner's profit comes from his ability to lose money well. Once you gather an appropriately tight set of starting hands, and play "fit or fold" poker, you gain extra bets by folding when you accurately assess where you stand in the hand. The successful low limit player is good at identifying situations when there is a reasonable probability that his hand is beaten. Everyone will suffer suckouts and bad beats, but the real profit comes from the correct play facing a check-raise on the turn, or saving a bet when your nut flush is in trouble when the board pairs on the river.

Its obvious that knowing when you are beaten is important in low-limit poker. But I think by constantly working to put players on hands and saving bets in situations where we are marginal favorites, we can increase our win rate by at least a big bet an hour.

Maybe that wine got to my head. Back to real poker this week, and better blogging!

Pick of the day: Hellmuth's Home?

2004-01-02T11:16:00.000-08:00

Fighting the school of fish: Morton's Theorem

You gotta love LA. I spent 3 hours waiting for a cab to escape a party to a bar, where my boss and coworker were waiting for me. Of course, I didn't arrive until after midnight, and there was no way they would believe that a cab took 3 hours. Besides the poker, this city really sucks.

Now that I've started the new year off with a complaint, let's get down to business. The mysterious and ultra-knowledgeable Izmet Fekali actually sent fellow blogger Ignatious an email after reading his blog. I was happily surprised at Izmet's appearance, as he and Abdul have disappeared from the poker scene as RGP has become a cesspool.

I can't say enough about these two. After reading and re-reading their advice, I always wish that I had started with their work rather than Sklansky. Abdul and Izmet's ideas are clear and well-explained (sometimes you have to read them a few times to get it), and most importantly, they apply to the type of games I play in. While Sklansky's "fancy plays" may work on a very tight table, they will cost you lots of chips on the typical loose low-limit table. In my opinion Abdul and Izmet have written the definitive guide to loose low-limit poker-- study them and profit.

Ok, enough praise. Izmet's stuff got me thinking about the mysterious "Morton's theorem," which is often referenced but rarely explained. It was offered up as an RGP post several years ago by the late, great Andy Morton, who tragically died in a Motorcycle accident at age 34. No doubt Morton would have been a star in the poker world, as Lou Krieger, Abdul, and Izmet have all attested to.

Below is my attempt to explain Morton's theorem, a very important concept not only for low-limit games, but for the general understanding of hold 'em.

Morton's Theorem

Andy Morton read a Mike Caro article in Card Player in 1996 which advocated never raising from early position in loose hold 'em games: "The mistake is raising when many potential callers remain behind you, thus chasing away your profit." Morton got to thinking about this, and argued against it in a post to RGP in 1997.

However, not raising when your hand is best violates Sklansky's fundamental theorem of poker, which states:

"Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose."

In other words, if you raise in early position with AA, and show your rockets, players in late position should not col call their AT suited-- you gain from their cold calling, and they lose.

But of course we've all seen rockets go down in multiway pots. Another version of the question could be stated as, "Do we want our opponents to chase with weak draws when we are betting the best hand?" So Morton got to thinking (and talking with Abdul), and made an effort to figure out why Caro was wrong about not raising with the best hand in low-limit games:

"What I'm going to tell you is that if you bet the best hand with more cards to come against two or more opponents, you will often make more money if some of them fold, *even if they are folding correctly, and would be making a mistake to call your bet.* Put another way, *you want your opponents to fold correctly, because their mistaken chasing you will cost you money in the long run.* I found this result very surprising to say the least. I've never seen it described correctly in any book or article, although at least a few posts to this newsgroup have concerned closely related topics."

Thus, Morton found that there are times when the Fundamental Theorem of Poker is violated in multi-way pots. I'm not going to get into the details (see Andy's original post for this), but Morton shows that there is a certain range of pot sizes for which it is correct for the chaser to fold (odds wise), but you make more money when he folds than when he incorrectly chases.

How can this be? Morton's great insight is that in a multiway pot, the player with the best hand is no longer making 100% of the profit on the incorrect chasing by the fish. In a heads up situation, the player with the better hand takes 100% of the incorrect chaser's bets, since there are only two players. But in a multi-way pot, the player with the current best hand is dividing up the incorrect calls with the player holding the best DRAW.

Let's look at a simplified example:
You hold 77 in early position and the button holds AK hearts. You raise and 4 players (including the button) cold call. The flop is Qh Jh 7c. Assume that our Aces represent the current best hand. Obviously, the button has the best draw. Morton's idea is that for every incorrect call the 3 players between us and the button make, the potential profit is divided between us and the player on the button. We can picture half of these calls going into our stack, and half of them going into the button's stack.

Now let's pretend that two of the players are colluding. Player C1 holds 98o and player C2 holds QJc. So Player C1 has a gutshot (4 outs) and Player C2 is drawing to the full house (4 outs, since another 7 gives us quads). With 5 BB in the pot on the flop, C1 (about 11:1) and C2 (about 7:1) individually are not getting the proper pot odds to draw (considering only the turn, for simplicity). However, together C1 and C2 have 8 outs, and are getting 4.7:1. So if these two fish play together, implicitly (implicit collusion) or explicitly (collusion), they are making the correct call.

This is the notion of "implicit collusion" and "the schooling of the fish." Although individually, C1 and C2 are making the incorrect play, from your perspective, the 2 headed fish have enough outs that they are getting the proper odds to draw. To make things worse, their calls are divided between you and the button, who has the best draw. Morton's Theorem says that we want the fish to fold in a multiway pot, even if they are getting the incorrect odds to draw out on us.

This "schooling" makes it very tough for the player with the best starting hand to win, and leads to the bad beats we see all the time at the lower limits. If 5 players at a table never fold, then together they have many, many outs.

I hope I did Andy Morton's ideas some justice. Check out a collection of information about him, as well as the original "Morton's Theorem" post here.

I'll be heading up north to Hearst Castle and Wine Country for the weekend, so no poker or blogging for me for a couple days. I hope everybody's playoff betting and wild nights at Party get the new year off to a good start.

2003-12-30T23:44:00.000-08:00

He's heating up

I don't know if anyone else played NBA jams a couple years back, but when you made two shots in a row, the announcer would say "he's heating up!". When you hit the third shot, he would say "he's on fire!" and your players shooting percentage would go up to about 90%. Well I had my second big session in 2 days, and I feel like I'm heating up-- I've been on my a game (except for last night when I was tired), and it feels good to make the proper reads and steal a pot here and there.

I did play poorly last night however. One leak in my game is when I'm playing a lower limit game, and I'm tired and up a bit, I tend to make poor calls (e.g. with second pair and I feel there is a reasonable chance I am beat) or dumb semi-bluffs. While not terrible plays, they are clearly negative EV, but I let my tiredness and the boredom weaken my discipline.

Anyway, I had one of my best $3-6 sessions ever, pulling in $211 on one table in a little under an hour. I lost $34 on the second table, but I'm not complaining... I was getting some cards, but I was also making pretty good reads with top and second pair. Of course, when the rockets hold up on a loose table, and you pull in a $116 pot, that doesn't hurt either.

I tried to follow my own advice and think more carefully about my river bets, and ended up collecting a couple of extra bets with my top pairs.

Shout outs: I got an email from Mean Gene, who said he has an insane success rate for the check-raise bluff on the turn. I was never a big fan of this move, but I may have to add it to the arsenal... here's when it seems to work for me: heads up against a blind stealer when I'm in the BB, if there are no face cards on the board, you can check and call until the turn. If you check raise the turn, often the raiser will muck his Ace-high and give you credit for having a hand. The reason I like this play is because I often play Ax aggressively heads-up against the blinds, and most low-limit players aren't tricky enough to pull a bluff check raise, so you have to give them credit for a hand. Obviously this will not work against calling stations, who will call you down with their ace high.

Iggy also communicated that he's all bonus-whored out, and not quite sure what to do with himself. I think he should go for the big one and try to win one of the multi-tables, and then blow it all playing WSOP satellites to get in the 1000 player field this year.

The ITC is still building his bankroll, valiantly battling off the minnows in the .50/1 game. I think he's 0 for his last 8 with rockets, which just goes to show you how tough those games are to beat.

Also, the joy that people get out of Hellmuth-bashing or just talking about Hellmuth is a little surprising to me. To me he's just another one of those insecure guys you knew in high school, good at one thing, and trying to use that one talent to compensate for their low self-esteem. I mean, the guy is a great player and somewhat interesting, but I'll take Gus Hansen, or Kirill Gerasimov anyday. These guys are more interesting than Hellmuth, and maybe almost as good. Another player who I was either impressed with or appalled by was Daniel Rentzer-- if this guy's story is true, he belongs up there with Moneymaker in the pantheon of online poker heroes-- he claims to have built his $50 poker stars deposit into 11K, which he parlayed into a 250K win in the WPT tourney. Check out this hilarious and interesting thread. I don't know if I believe him, but it's possible and gives all us $3-6 players hope.

I'm rambling again, but I'll share my only Hellmuth story. This guy I know met Phil Gordon, and said his favorite part of the WPT was when Gordon pulled out the "hand ranking chart" in Aruba when he had a boat (I think) to knock out Hellmuth. Gordon told him that move actually cost him a considerable amount of money: "My buddy called him up 2 months after that to invite him to play golf with us... Hellmuth is a terrible golfer and was always good for a few grand every outing. Anyway, Hellmuth answers 'What? Are you kidding? After that hand ranking crap in Aruba??? No way!'"

I'm rambling... but here are my playoff picks, as promised:

Wild card weekend
--Titans at Ravens
This may be the best game of the playoffs. Steve McNair against Ray Lewis. The toughest offensive player against the toughest defensive player. Lewis has owned Eddie George and the Titans for the last couple of years, and he will own them on Saturday. But McNair's poise and desire may outshine Lewis, as he always finds a way to get it done. The team with less turnovers will win this game, and special teams will be extremely important, since the scoring will be low. Wright will throw an interception that leads to a Titan TD, and the Titans win a defensive battle.

--Cowboys at Panthers
A game between two of the worst playoff teams. Parcells and Fox have both squeezed the most out of their teams, but the talent is lacking on both squads. I don't know who to pick here, but I think Parcells leads the way in another defensive battle. My man Roy Williams is a playmaker and I gotta go with Dallas, even though Quincy is one of the worst QBs in the League.

--Seahawks at Packers
Favre. Lambeau. Seattle on the road. Bye bye Hasselbeck.

--Broncos at Colts
Will Peyton earn his wings? With an injured Portis, the Broncos may keep it close, but the Colts have a big edge here. Plummer will make at least one mistake, and Peyton won't. If I was a betting man, I'd take the Colts and give away the 3 points.

Divisional Playoff
--Packers at Rams
Another great game. It will be Favre against Martz masterful offensive scheme, and a healthy Marshall Faulk. Don't underestimate the value of a bye week at this time in the season, and don't underestimate St. Louis at home. I'm taking St. Louis here, but if Favre plays his "A" game, Green Bay could roll. St. Louis wins in a shootout.

--Titans at Patriots
Ahh the Pats. Belichek is my man, and I'm rooting for New England, but I really think Brady's knee is a lot worse than they are letting on. They'll brace him up, but the tough Tennessee D-line will pressure him all game. The Pats are outclassed by half the teams in the league talentwise, and there are only so many rabbits Belichek can pull out of his hat. However, he does have an extra week to prepare... I'll be rooting for the Pats, but I think the Titans will take this one.

--Colts at Chiefs
Interesting game. We have Peyton and the Colts, who choke every year in the playoffs, and the Chiefs, who can't stop the run. I think Edge is still only about 90% healed, so this game will be close. On paper, the Colts are much better, but I have a "feeling" (a poker player's famous last words) that KC will take this one. Maybe their stellar special teams will come through.

--Cowboys at Eagles
A great run for Dallas, but it stops here. Philly outclasses Dallas in a blowout.

Conference Championships
--Titans at Chiefs
Tough game to pick. These teams match up pretty well, and I think it will be a low scoring battle. In an even game, look to the team who makes fewer mistakes... the Chiefs specials are the best, but McNair has made fewer mistakes than any other QB this year (at least it seems this way). I'll go with Tennessee in a close one-- McNair finally gets them there, with the help of the tough Titan defense.

--St.Louis at Philadelphia
Another good matchup. But I think the Rams are just a little too talented for Philly. McNabb doesn't have the receivers, and with Westbrook out, they lose a little speed. St. Louis will break a couple big plays, and Philly's offense will have to play catch up. Don't be surprised to see the old Kurt Warner making an appearance in the playoffs. He should be healthy now, and people don't realize how good this guy was... his numbers are off the charts for his short career, and I can't believe he's lost all of that.

Super Bowl
pregame: WPT on NBC???
--St. Louis vs. Tennessee
Bulger/Warner vs. McNair. The Freak vs. Leonard Little. This should be a great one. The Rams are so much better on turf, and they will be playing on the grass in Houston's new stadium. This hurts them... but everything depends on McNair's health. If he can survive until the super bowl, I think the Titans take it in a close one. But don't bet on it.

Whew. I'm going to bed. If you made it this far, have yourself a beverage... happy new year, and let's all double our bankroll in 2004, and welcome in the golden age of poker.

2003-12-30T10:14:00.000-08:00

In the poker game of life...

Women are the rake! A little harsh, but I haven't been able to play much lately because of family, and my wife's friend is in town from Sweden, so we've been entertaining. What's worse, they got a two night trip to Vegas (I'll be at work) next week for $300, airfare included. And they're staying at New York, New York. No, I'm not jealous.

Great blogging going on out there. My boys Chris H. and TFG both hit royal flushes last night. Again-- No, I'm not jealous. I think I hit my only royal flush after about 7000 hands, and do you know how much I won for it? $30 pot in a $5-10 game. So I won 1.5 BB. Bah humbug. Iggy has moved on to Multi-table NL, where I think he should have been all along. Pretty soon you'll see "Congratulations to HornyBabe2003 for winning multi-table tournament," and we'll just have to wonder if that was Iggy's screenname.

Since my play has been sporadic, I'm going to offer a little bit of theory, and since it's playoff time, I'll give a full treatment to NFL playoff predictions. I love the $3-6 tables, and I've definitely found a new home... I was up $50 after 45 minutes last night, but ended up pissing away my winnings playing too loose and attempting some ill-advised semi-bluffs. As a tribute to Mean Gene, I even tried a semi bluff checkraise with bottom pair and a flush draw, but it failed miserably. Obviously, use this play cautiously.

Theory: Decisions on the river
Feeney's "Inside the Poker Mind" really has me thinking. I think this is probably the best book for Intermediate players (which I would classify myself as), and really breaks down poker into its most crucial elements. Between draughts, veteran poker blogger referenced Feeney's "strategic moment" concept, which basically says that there are moments in the hand where the player must use all of the inputs given to him, and use that information to choose the best action.

One of these strategic moments is "what to do when you are heads up on the river and first to act". I think this decision is one of the hardest to make in poker, and I often find myself making the wrong move here. Let's take an example hand here (here's how my thought process would work)...

I've got KQo in middle position, and limp after 2 other limpers with 2 players (it's a passive table, so we'll play this in middle position). The Button and BB call. Flop is K 7 8 rainbow. BB checks, and the 2nd limper folds. We'll ignore the strategic considerations until we get to the river for now, but I bet out, trying to protect my hand and making straight draws pay. The button and BB call, and the turn is 7d, putting 2 diamonds on the board. I bet out again, and button calls while BB folds. The river is 2d.

Now for the strategic moment...
We have some choices here.
1. Bet our top pair for value. We believe we have the best hand, and we believe that the Button will call with second best hand, perhaps KJ. If the button was on the straight draw, he will fold.
2. Check, since we are afraid we might be beaten. It's possible that the Button has A7d, a reasonable hand to limp in with, considering the hand was 3 way before it got to him.
3. Check in the hope of check raising. If we put the button on something like AQ, we may induce a bluff. If the button bets, we call, and get an extra bet (since he probably would have folded had we bet)

Sklansky and Krieger argue that 2 is often the best choice... unless we know a lot about the player, we don't know what kind of hands he will play on the button, and it is definitely possible he has caught trip sevens on the turn, or backed into a flush. On the other hand, given no evidence to the contrary, and knowing that most low-limit players tend call too much with second best hands, we don't want to miss a value bet.

This is a very tough decision. Probably what I would do is bet out, and this will put the button to the test. If we are reraised, we can probably fold (the bluff check-raise on the river is very rare, so we can assume that he backed into the flush or turned trips). Since if we check he will bet anyway (and we have to call, because there is a decent chance he is bluffing), our betting out gives us a chance of winning an extra bet, but exposes us only to a bluff-check-raise, which is rare.

This example shows how valuable the ability to read players is... if we had any read on the button, the amount of information we have available at our strategic moment is far greater. In B&M play, we can use visual input to help us-- loosely stacked chips might tell us that the guy is more likely to hold KT than A7 (maybe), or a neat stack might tell us the guy was on a straight draw and will fold to our bet.

Ok, I suppose I should do some work now, so the Playoff picks will have to wait. Keep up the great blogging, and may karma reward you. Comments? For all you Sklansky disciples, I'm debating if I should reread HFPAP and/or Theory of Poker. I think I probably missed a lot of stuff, and haven't reread it since my "beginner stages". I didn't like his stuff that much, as it seems to apply mainly to tougher games. But I'm listening to recommendations.

2003-12-28T11:26:00.000-08:00

Careful! Cards are very hot and will burn mouth

Finally! A rush! It had been a long, long time since I'd gotten a good run of cards, but here is the bottom line from last night's short session:
$3-6 53 Hands
Amount Won = $201.50
BB/100 Hands = 63.36
Percent of times going to showdown when seeing the flop = 68.75
Percent of times winning at showdown = 72.23

All this with a measly pre-flop raise percentage of 7%. I guess that means I was hitting my draws! Anyway, this monster session had to be ended prematurely when my wife and her friend returned from the bar and demanded to play a no-limit tourney (for fun, not money). She promptly knocked me out when she trapped me with pocket kings, and flopped a set (I rivered 2 pair), and knocked me out again when my trip Jacks lost to her trip Jacks when my 9 was outkicked by her Queen. I felt like pulling a Hellmuth and throwing furniture, but she played very well.

Anyway, the fish were out last night at Party. I remember 3 or 4 large-sized pots where scare cards hit on the turn and river, and I was forced to check and call, relatively certain that I didn't have the best hand. Here's an example:

3/6 TEXASHTGAMETABLE (LIMIT) - SUN DEC 28 02:45:27 EST 2003
Table Card Room Table 1389 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
wayne28 posts small blind (1)
RosyScenario posts big blind (3)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to hdouble [ Ts, Jc ]
ElProfessor calls (3)
BlackHawk89 folds.
Rixy37 calls (3)
baddplayer folds.
LilSketchy folds.
JMP23 calls (3)
hdouble calls (3)
tideguy folds.
wayne28 folds.
RosyScenario checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 9d, Qd, 8c ]

(I flop the nut straight, but with the diamonds out there and 3 other players, my hand is not a monster.)

RosyScenario checks.
ElProfessor checks.
Rixy37 checks.
JMP23 checks.
hdouble bets (3)
RosyScenario raises (6) to 6
ElProfessor calls (6)
ElProfessor: we need to change the name of this table to check/raise
Rixy37 folds.
JMP23 calls (6)
hdouble raises (6) to 9
RosyScenario calls (3)
ElProfessor calls (3)
JMP23 calls (3)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 2d ]

(I didn't want to see that card. Check and call from here on, fearing the flush. One of these guys must have been drawing to the flush.)

RosyScenario checks.
ElProfessor checks.
JMP23 checks.
hdouble checks.
** Dealing River ** : [ Kh ]
RosyScenario checks.
ElProfessor bets (6)
JMP23 folds.
hdouble calls (6)
RosyScenario calls (6)
** Summary **
Main Pot: $67 | Rake: $3
Board: [ 9d Qd 8c 2d Kh ]
hdouble balance $246, bet $18, collected $67, net +$49 [ Ts Jc ] [ a straight, nine to king -- Kh,Qd,Jc,Ts,9d ]
RosyScenario balance $105, lost $18 [ 9s 2c ] [ two pairs, nines and twos -- Kh,9s,9d,2c,2d ]
ElProfessor balance $78.50, lost $18 [ 8s 7d ] [ a pair of eights -- Kh,Qd,9d,8s,8c ]

The guy bets a pair of eights with a flush and a straight on board??? Wow. Anyway, that kind of stuff was happening all night. Just horrible players.

The man of Guinness has shown me the light, and resulted in the first commandment of PartyPoker: "Thou shalt not play $5-10 and $10-20 on Party Poker. Thou shalt seek out the fish, who swimmeth only in the waters of $3-6 and below, and $15-30." I have obeyed this commandment in my last couple sessions, and the poker gods have rewarded me.

Philly cleaned up yesterday, so I got a good start on the NFL weekend. Two more wins today would give me an excellent regular season record, and set me off for a big playoff run. Check out BG's playoff analysis, this man is on the money.

I got mail from Hollywood Park Casino, and there was some interesting news-- they are now serving smoothies! Actually, there is now a super satellite every thursday to win a WPT Satellite. I'm not sure exactly what this is, but here's what it says on the brochure: "Buy-in: $50 Entry Fee= $15 [yikes] Multi Rebuys [yikes] Win seats, airfare and accomodations to the WPT Satellites on April 17, 2004."

I guess this is the three-tier WPT structure I read about somewhere... a small satellite (step 1) to get in the big satellite (step 2), to actually get in the tourney (step 3). I'm sure I'll wind up playing one of these, although I don't like the multi-rebuys, and your chance of actually making the damn tourney is very slim. I would like to win a free Vegas vacation however, so it might be worth a shot. I really need to get back to playing the tourneys at Hollywood Park... lots of dead money and a cheap buy in. My best finish was 21st out of 220 players, 2 off the money. This was a limit tourney, and I was still pretty fishy back then, but I wasn't all that far off of grabbing some of that 25K total prize money.

Alright friends, good luck tonight, Sunday nights are hard to beat on Party, so don't miss out!

2003-12-27T11:56:00.000-08:00

Withdrawal

Although I've had a great Christmas, and my family is here through tomorrow, I miss poker! I was able to sneak in a late night session at $3-6 last night, but I was exhausted so I wasn't on my "A" game. This is very unfortunate, because one of the tables I was at had a true maniac, who played 75% of hands and capped probably 50% of the betting rounds. This guy was out of control. I even started to suspect collusion, as the maniac and another guy ended up trapping one other player between their capped betting rounds quite often. Who knows.

Anyway, in PokerTracker here are the guys stats:
34 hands, $32 won (12 BB/hour)
Percentage of time player voluntarily put money in the pot: 80%
50% pre-flop raise

So the guy played 80% of his hands, and raised 50% of the time preflop. His biggest hand was a $124 win with 67s, and the next biggest was a $103 win with QJo.

Unfortunately the maniac is not me. This guy was obviously a maniac who could play, and he set the whole table on tilt (including me). I know how to play against a maniac when I can get him heads up, but in this game there were always 2 or 3 other players in the pot. My top pair, top kicker would end up getting sucked out on by a flush or straight draw-- the pots were so big that it was incorrect to fold, so there would always be 1 or 2 chasers on the river.

Anyway, I ended up even for the night after doing quite well on another table. I wish I could have stayed up and played all night, but I was just too tired. If I was serious about making some profit playing poker, I would play all my hours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The games just seem so much juicier on the weekend nights, and your win rate will be so much better on these nights.

Alright I gotta wrap this up as the family is on the way... I just lost probably $500 bucks in future playoff bets as Tom Brady's ACL probably just got demolished in the Buffalo game. I had the same exact thing happen to me in my sophomore year in college... a 300 lb guy lands right on your knee, and snaps the rubber band that attaches your femur to your tibia. Poor Brady. What a year. Hopefully I'm wrong, and the MRI will show a sprain. But it don't look good folks.

WOW. Brady is staying in the game! The trainers must be on crack... you could almost see the ligament tearing on the replay. Their up 21-0 in a game that only has home field implication, and Belichek doesn't pull him. This is a terrible move, but maybe the trainers are confident that it's only a sprain. We'll see...

Quick Picks:
Last week in the regular season, 3 picks.

Philly (-6.5) at Washington: Reid vs. Spurrier, and the Redskins have already mailed it in for the season.

Denver at Green Bay (-6.5): Brett rises up again, this time at home after an emotional roller coaster week. Portis won't play, and the game is meaningless for Denver, so I'll take my chances with Brett this week.

Dallas (-2) at New Orleans: The Saints coming off probably the toughest loss in NFL history after they made the miracle "lateral play" comeback and the idiot kicker botches the PAT. Parcells is a bulldog, and won't let his team lose this game in preparation for the playoffs. The Saints have nothing to gain, so I think the Dallas D will come up big in this one.

Shout outs:
Iggy's Poker Blog never disappoints.

The Poker Penguin discusses money and its abstraction.

A Poker Odyssey offers up one of the best "betting systems" I've ever seen in his "Sophomore Poker" project.

TFG rambles about a variety of topics, and offers up some great quotes:
"No-Limit is like playing against Danny DeVito in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

I think tonight is gonna be a great night on Party, and I'll do my best to be on. Good Luck!

2003-12-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

Happy Tree Day

Ok boys and girls, I just downed my second cup of coffee and I have 30 minutes before I have to go pick up my sister at LAX, my favorite place in the world. With the Orange Alert, I’m sure it will be a blast. I just read Iggy’s Christmas blog, and thought a Christmas post would be better than no post at all, so here goes…

I grew up a Catholic boy, and even went to Catholic high school, but if I had to classify myself these days, I’d probably say I was a Deist. I guess the amount of evil in the world doesn’t jive with my notion of what a perfect being would want the world to be like, so I have trouble with that one. Yeah, the problem of free will and all that, but I don’t buy it. Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” story is a great illustration of this for all you literature buffs out there. Interesting to note that old Fyodor was a Christian himself… while we’re on religion, remember that the Christmas tree comes from Catholic missionary’s slick move to convert the (Irish?) tree worshippers to Catholicism. “You celebrate Jesus’ birthday, and we’ll make your tree our centerpiece.” I think this was St. Patrick’s idea, but I’d have to go back to the high school textbooks…

Minimal poker content in this post (I have been doing Christmas stuff for the past couple days, and did manage to sneak in a 10 BB win at $3-6), but I wanted to point out a good observation in Feeney’s book. He makes the point that a shorthanded game with 2 bad players can be much more profitable than a ring game with 5 bad players. Why?
1. In a full ring game, much of your time will be spent watching these bad players play against each other
2. In a shorthanded game, aggressiveness has “cover” since it is expected and rewarded. So good and bad players alike are forced to call you down, even when they are confident they are beaten, just to keep you honest.
3. You play many more hands, since you must loosen up your starting hands, and the games go much faster.
These are all great points, but the key is that 2 of the players in the shorthanded game must be bad. On Party, every once in a while you can find some fish in the shorthanded $5-10 games, but usually the players there are tough. Maybe I should explore the shorthanded $5-10s more, and start practicing game selection. Or, try 2 of the $1-2 shorthanded games, but before when I’ve tried two shorthanded tables simultaneously my brain nearly exploded. I don’t know how the Grubster can handle it, I guess his neural net is faster than mine.

Speaking of which games to play, I think I’m going back to $3-6 exclusively now. The wait list for the $5-10 games is out of control, and the players there are considerably better than at $3-6 (judging from my last couple $3-6 sessions). The Party user base is changing and it’s important to figure out how the games are being affected. I want to use online play as practice, and put the real money on the felt at Hollywood Park. The weekend $15-30s there are like the $3-6 Party games, so if I can squirrel away enough cash (thanks, Christmas gifts), I will sit with the big boys. My wife’s new job at the Beverly Hills hotel should help… why don’t you just play in the $6-12 game, my astute readers will ask. Well, in California, it is illegal to rake the pot, so they take a “drop” after the preflop betting is completed. The drop should be called robbery, because at $6-12 it is $6!!! A small bet! The way I think of it is that there is an invisible 11th player at the table, who is collecting a small bet every hand. If 40 hands are played in an hour, the invisible man is collecting $240 or 20 big bets an hour. No wonder he can afford that invisible mp3 player and those nice invisible sunglasses. You have to beat the hell out of a table to overcome a 20 big bet an hour hole created by the casino. But the top limit section has a time charge—in the $15-30, it is $7 per half hour. So the invisible man in top section is only making 10 small bets an hour from the table, or 5 big bets an hour. This is beatable, and just shows you how badly the Cali casinos treat the low limit player.

Running out of time here… I was dying when I read about McGrupp’s bad beat at Foxwoods. Aces full beaten at Hollywood Park wins you the jackpot, which is between 10K and 20K. Not only did poor McGrupp lose the pot, he lost 20K in missing bad beat jackpot cash. But I hate jackpot games, since the probability of hitting it is something like 1 in 25,000, depending on the hand. Hear that McGrupp??? 1 in 25,000!

I’ve always been more on the “content” side of blogging than the “links” side. I know that blogging has traditionally been about linkage, but I have always tried to give my faithful readers more content and less linkage. But it’s Christmas, so I thought I’d give linkage a shot. Enjoy.

1. The greatest interview ever, in MP3 format. Just in case you missed it on Sunday night football this week.
2. My favorite sportswriter out there. Check out The Sports Guy for a different take on sports journalism.
3. Far and away the best NFL column available.

And last but not least, a bit of shameless self-promotion. Check out a snippet of my first novel, which I’m working on when I’m not developing software or playing poker. The title is “The Escape Artist”. Thanks to McGrupp for including it in this month’s edition of Truckin’, his blogzine. He doesn’t just take bad beats, he’s also a writer.

Merry Christmas!

2003-12-23T21:30:00.000-08:00

The Hot Seat

Horrible day at work today. I'm not going into details, lets just say it was straight out of Dilbert. By the time I escaped my cube for lunch it was 2 o'clock, and I only had time to grab 2 pieces of pizza. I don't think I could handle the grind and pressure of playing poker professionally, but at least you have no bosses, and make your own schedule. On days like today I dream of mucking hands all day and winning my 2 big bets per hour.

So I don't feel up for playing poker, but I did read something last night that sparked some thought, and I figured was worth writing about. I played some $3-6, but it was pretty unevenful (losing to flushes on the river, or the ugly loss when some guy hits his kicker on the river to beat my top pair-top kicker), the usual Party stuff.

What I read last night was John Feeney (2+2's resident psychologist) on rushes and "independent trials". Feeney says rushes are non-existent, and uses the "coin flip" analogy to illustrate the inherent variance of every single hand. Here's Feeney's example, from "Inside the poker mind":

"Say you begin to toss a fair coin over and over. Beginning on the 458th toss you happen to have a streak of 17 tails in a row. Would you be willing to lay odds that it will come up a tail on the next toss?... To do so you would have to be convinced that the next toss is no longer 50 percent. You would have to believe that it has somehow risen to over 66 percent... As you looked at the coin sitting in your hand prior to the next toss, you would actually have to believe that some force was present making it over 66 percent likely to come up a tail."

Feeney's point is that each hand represents an independent random process, and we are equally likely to receive a good hand on the 459th deal as on the 1st deal. I believe that in the B&M world, this is a false assumption. I think we can safely say that the standard B&M shuffle does not generate a completely random distribution of the cards. It has been conjectured that it takes at least 6 standard shuffles (cut, riffle, join) to ensure that the next hand dealt represents a truly random distribution of the cards. The standard B&M deal usually is composed of mixing the cards on the table, followed by 2 standard shuffles. This means that hand t+1 has a reasonable dependence on the card distribution of hand t.

The best blackjack sharps are called "shuffle trackers," and are able to follow a "slug" or group of high cards throughout the deck. For example, if we notice that 6 aces have come out in 2 hands, we would identify that slug as a profitable one, and memorize its location when the dealer performs his shuffle. We are more likely to get a blackjack (or a winning hand) during this slug, and our expected return is much higher than it would be for a completely random deck.

The point here is that each deal does NOT represent a truly independent trial, but rather, is dependent on the previous deal. The deck (or rather the shuffling process) "has memory," and if we were dealt pocket Aces, we are slightly more likely to receive an Ace the next hand. Only slightly, but as positive EV gamblers, we know these percentages add up in the long run. Of course, the shuffled deck is very different than the last one, and we are still very unlikely to receive any of the cards we held in the previous hand. However, I or one of the players to my immediate left or right may have a significant probability of receiving one of the Aces that composed my pocket rockets.

What I'm getting at is that although I don't believe in "rushes" in the traditional sense, I do believe that a group of seats can get "hot", winning a significant number of pots in the short run. This means that some seats are "hotter" than others, since players in that group have a slightly higher probability of receiving a good starting hand than players not in the group.

How can we use this information? Well, it's not very useful, but I've gotten in the habit of moving seats when one side of the table becomes chip heavy. If three players are accumulating a lot of chips, and my side of the table is getting killed, I'll move to a "hot" seat if one of the players leaves. Besides that, it's pretty much useless. The B&M shuffle is more or less random, and we don't have a chance of using the previous hand to predict what one of the players next to us has, or of predicting what the turn or river will bring.

This bring us to online play-- if we discount the action flop theory, we would expect to see a truly random distribution of cards, and we should agree with Feeney-- each hand is completely independent of the previous one, and there are no "hot seats". This is one explanation of veteran B&M players screaming that online hands look nothing like they've seen in a B&M. They've never seen a true random shuffle before.

Alright I'm running out of steam here. I'd love to hear other people's opinions about rushes and hot seats... Not sure if this theory was worth anything, but it did make me miss the B&M. The visual input of seeing players with chip pyramids up to their chin, and seeing the eyes of the player on a rush is missing from the Party avatars.

Happy holidays to everyone... hopefully Santa will give us all a couple 25 big bet win sessions when everybody is full of turkey and alcohol...

2003-12-21T22:56:00.000-08:00

Sunday Morning Comin Down

I spent Sunday morning fighting off a vicious hangover after losing badly in a drinking game last night. My wife and her friend teamed up and threw every drink my way, and we ended up polishing off a bottle of tequila to go with the horrible $5 bottle of margarita mix. Don't play drinking games with Margaritas.

Sportsbook review
--The Chiefs got blown away by the Vikes, who look tough when they come to play. I bet on them heavily early in the year, but they fell apart midseason. Saturday's game suggests they may be back... I think Tice is inconsistent-- seems like he gets his team ready for big games, but Minnesota plays sloppy against inferior opponents. I'm not sure what happened to the Chiefs-- Green looked AWFUL, and couldn't hit his receivers... Chavous and the Vikes secondary did the best job of single-covering Gonzalez I've ever seen, and Green couldn't get the ball to one of his favorite targets.

--The Pats came through last night (barely), and Belichek outsmarted Pennington, who threw an interception on the potential game winning last drive. It looked like Billy B picked up a tell on Pennington-- he kept his athletic D-line back, and had them jumping up to knock down Penny's passes rather than go for the sack. It resulted in several key 3rd down pass deflections, as well as McGinest's big INT to put the game away. Belichek = best NFL coach ever.

--Baltimore predictably trounced Cleveland, and Jamal Lewis had another 200 yard game. Unbelievable. Butch Davis has got to be one of the worst in the NFL. Why wouldn't you stack the line and force Wright to beat you rather than Jamal Lewis? Just baffling.

--So I came out 2-1 on my big bets, and then pissed my winnings away on the Colts game. I figured the Broncos were dead without Portis, and the Colts needed a win to clinch the division. I didn't get to see the game, so I will have to figure out what happened tomorrow morning.

Google sells out?
I had a very disheartening read through some anti-google literature today. Here's a snippet:

How bloggers game Google
Wise words from blog spammer Elwyn Jenkins, PhD
"There is an additional idea that you need to implement to get good results from Google and that is as you write each day, make sure you are using new words connected with your area of interest. I have a list of 158 words that must arrive in my text over a two month period -- these, if you like, are keywords that have to do with my area of interest. Make a list and make sure you get through all of them over a certain time. This will increase the number of people arriving at your site from Google who put in all manner of query strings." -- found on a pro-Google forum, 2003-05-02

I'd always looked at Google as the pinnacle of Internet technology. Because of Google, the new generation no longer has to flip through library card catalogs, and waste our time wandering through towers of books. There's a lot to be said for libraries, but the instant access to information through Google has saved me hours and hours, and I think I can safely say it has increased my amount of knowledge about life drastically (one could continue this line of thinking in arguing that Google has actually made me a better person). I spent a fair bit of time in graduate school researching Google, and I even proposed a tentative thesis dissertation on how to improve their PageRank algorithm.

So it was very sad to me to see that Google may be selling out. I'm not going to get into the details of their going IPO and all that, but this excellent article suggests that something is fishy in the Google ranking algorithm: Google Filter Fiasco. The implication is that Google has recently altered their algorithm to elevate larger commercial websites in the results ranking. The intention is to keep people from "cheating" the ranking algorithm (it's relatively easy to do, but hard to filter), but the article suggests that the real intention is to increase the visibility of major commercial sites so that these sites will increase click-throughs, etc. strengthening the IPO.

All that said, the methodology of the investigation is suspect, and it's not clear to me that "unfair" filtering is going on. I experimented with a search for "Poker Blog", and the new Google filter produced "better" results than the unfiltered results. My definition of "better" is of course subjective, but I found the filtered results to be much more conducive to finding "interesting" sites. So the jury's still out on whether or not the filtering is done for commercial reasons, or if Google is just developing ways to weed out "cheating" sites.

Personally, I'm not into GoogleBombing, or getting my site higher up in the ranks. I would love to have more readers, but I figure if I provide quality content, they will come. But then again, I'm not an "A-list" blogger, and not competing with other Bloggers.

Thanks to Iggy for turning me on to the Google literature. If you want links, Iggy's got em. Here's my contribution: check out this google mirror. I tried a search for "golb rekop" and got some interesting results.

Isn't this a poker blog?
Back to our regularly scheduled programming. I'm still feeling a little shell shocked from my losing battle with the river, so I didn't make it to the tables today. More and more I'm starting to think of online play as practice for B&M play, where you can see the whites of their eyes, and the players aren't as strong. Which means I'll probably drop down to $3-6 and get back to good old Hollywood Park. The man of Guinness got me thinking along these lines, and I thank him for it. Two Iggy links in the same post, somebody stop me!

I started reading "Inside the Poker Mind," a collection of essays by John Feeney from 2+2. Sklansky is listed as "strategy consultant". So far the book is superb, but I'm only a couple essays in. Just read an excellent quantitative analysis of the profitability of tell-reading. I'll post a full review when I finish the book, but so far, it seems like one of the best poker books I've read. Feeney is a psychologist, and takes a psychological approach to poker, which brings a different perspective than the other books I've read.

I had an excellent discussion with The Intrepid Card Player about implied odds, and the difference between tournaments and ring games. Someone has probably said this before, but I came up with an example that I think illustrates a decent way to understand the difference between ring games and tournament games. Sklansky sort of gets at this in his "Tournament Poker" book, but the guy doesn't know how to write. Anyway, here goes:

I offer you a game, and you get two choose between two payoff structures. You choose the structure before we begin, and cannot change until we have finished all of our betting.
The game: I think of a number from 1 to 10. You guess the number. If you are correct, you win, if not, you lose.
--Game R: For every dollar you bet, you receive $11 if you win. You can play the game a maximum of 100 times, and $1 is the maximum bet.
--Game T: For every dollar you bet, you receive $15 if you win. You can play the game 10 times.

So to compute the expected value of each game, we use the following formula:
EV = (probability of winning)*(payout) - (probability of losing)*(bet amount)
Thus, EV(Game R) = .1(11) - .9(1) = .2
So, we expect to win 20 cents for every dollar we bet in Game R.
EV(Game T) = .1(15) - .9(1) = .6
So we expect to win 60 cents for every dollar we bet in Game T.

Which game do you choose? Although Game T has a higher expected value, we clearly get more profit from choosing Game R, due to the low limit on the number of tries at Game T. Our expected profit from game R is (.2)*(100) = 20, while the expected profit from game T is (.6)*(10) = 6. Despite the fact that game T has 3 times the expected value of game R, it pays off less than 1/3 as much as game R.

Obviously Game T represents tournament poker, where R is ring games. The idea is that in tournaments, our number of bets is limited, so we want to save our bets for situations with heavy positive expectation (60% or better). This means that even though we might be getting the right implied odds to play a hand, it may be a negative EV play for the tournament as a whole. This is why small pairs are no good, even in a 10 handed pot for a single bet. You're 10 to 1 to hit your hand, but you can't bleed chips in a situation where you're a 10% favorite to win. This is why you need to stick to hands with Reverse Implied odds in tourneys, and avoid suited connectors and small pairs. This holds especially for Party SNGs, where your measly 800 chips only give you a couple shots to increase your stack size. Sure, sometimes these hands are good to play (e.g. if you have a big stack), but usually you will end up losing chips with them. We've all heard the discussion of folding pocket Aces when you are chip leader and there are 2 short stacks fighting for second. The idea is that even though a given hand might have a positive expectation, it has negative EV when one looks at the play as part of the entire tournament gamble.

Whew. I hope no one fell asleep during that theory rant.

The Poker Blogiverse Expands
I am continually amazed at the quality of Poker blogging out there. I've added Mean Gene to the list of Blog Brothers, and highly recommend his site. He uses words like "schadenfreude" to describe poker, so you know there's somethin good goin on there.

Another poker player with a bigger vocabulary than mine has started a blog: Anisotropy. Check out Sean's blog and avoid him at the tables...

Some great blogging by a guy who (sometimes) makes more money on the tables than he does at his job: Poker Odyssey.

Keep up all the great blogging folks, and much thanks for reading. And when it's checked to you when the runner-runner four flush hits, don't waste a bet!

2003-12-20T15:46:00.000-08:00

"Greatness is defined by how one responds to adversity"

This was a quote hammered into me by my college football coach. And I've faced some poker adversity in my last couple sessions. I had my worst 2 consecutive sessions ever:
-$729 on 173 hands!!! On average, thats a $4 loss per hands. Almost a small bet every hand. WOW. These losses came on the $5-10 tables, and although I was playing slightly tilted, the majority of the losses were just bad luck.

If I get another turn-the-nuts-and-cap-the-turn-but-the-board-pairs-on-the-river hand I'm gonna have to hack the party servers and wreak havoc. The poker gods punished me brutally for trying to steal the blinds with ATo. Check out the hand:

***** Hand History for Game 291330040 *****
5/10 TEXASHTGAMETABLE (LIMIT) - FRI DEC 19 20:44:50 EST 2003
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to hdouble [ Ad, Tc ]
nemisisone folds.
ddosu folds.
CrazyN8 folds.
ngcngc folds.
hdouble raises (10) to 10
dsmith3622 calls (5)
squidpickle calls (5)
Hellmaker calls (10)
Boston2Vegas calls (8)
adjayscent calls (5)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 3d, Jc, Kh ]
Boston2Vegas bets (5)
adjayscent folds.
hdouble calls (5)
dsmith3622 calls (5)
squidpickle calls (5)
Hellmaker calls (5)

(I call with the gutshot draw and one overcard. Not a bad play in my book, as long as I know that no one behind me will reraise.)

** Dealing Turn ** : [ Qs ]
Boston2Vegas bets (10)
hdouble raises (20) to 20
dsmith3622 calls (20)
squidpickle folds.
Hellmaker folds.
Boston2Vegas raises (20) to 30
hdouble raises (20) to 40
dsmith3622 calls (20)
Boston2Vegas calls (10)

(I hit my gutshot and hold the nut straight. I can tell from the reraise that the guy has either a set or we're going to split the pot. I make a note to offer the poker gods a virgin sacrifice for allowing me to hit my 11:1 draw.)

** Dealing River ** : [ Qh ]
Boston2Vegas bets (10)
hdouble calls (10)
dsmith3622 calls (10)

(The board pairs-- I've seen this before. I curse the poker gods and tell the virgin to go back to school.)

** Summary **
Main Pot: $232 | Rake: $3
Board: [ 3d Jc Kh Qs Qh ]

hdouble balance $133, lost $65 [ Ad Tc ] [ a straight, ten to ace -- Ad,Kh,Qs,Jc,Tc ]
dsmith3622 balance $135, lost $65 [ Qc 9d ] [ three of a kind, queens -- Kh,Qc,Qs,Qh,Jc ]

Boston2Vegas balance $277, bet $65, collected $232, net +$167 [ Jd Jh ] [ a full house, Jacks full of queens -- Qs,Qh,Jd,Jh,Jc ]
******************************************************************

So, that was a nice $232 pot down the drain. Enough complaining. Needless to say, it sucks losing a huge chunk of your bankroll in 2 sessions, and I was pretty down. But I know I didn't play too badly, and was just unlucky. Which is the tough thing about poker-- playing perfect poker often costs you more than playing badly. I got my money in when I knew I had the best hand... I knew I was favored-- the guy with the set has a 23% chance of the board pairing, so I like my odds here. So capping the turn is the right move. But I paid for making the right move.

I think the tough thing is to walk away, analyze what you did, and say "Ok, I got unlucky. I'm a good player, and in the long run, I will win." This is true in all walks of life... I made plenty of mistakes on the football field, but I also did things that not many players could do. If you have faith in yourself as a player, these things will roll off your back and you'll recover. If you let them affect your confidence, you will play poorly.

So I dragged myself back to the tables, and decided to take a shot at a $50 SNG. Sadly, even a first place finish would get me back less than 1/3 of my losses. Party now gives you 1000 chips to start at the $50 buy in or higher, so you have a tiny bit more room to work with. There were some real tourney players here... I don't think I saw an all in until the blinds were up to 100/200, and people weren't playing junk hands. I knew I'd have to play well and catch a few hands to win this thing.

I raked in a 170 chip pot on the first hand when a cautious table gave me a King on the river to go with my KQo. I got my muck on for a while until I picked up KJo in the big blind. The blinds were at 200 here, and I called the button's 200 chip steal-raise after SB folds. Flop is Qd Jd 9h, and I sense danger, but have to test the steal-raise, so I bet out 400 more. Button calls, and I feel like I'm in trouble. Turn is 3h, and I check. He bets out 900, and I go into the tank. I've seen this guy try to steal, but he's been pretty solid... could he have AQ? KQ? My intuition tells me he's got a queen, and I throw away my second pair. He shows me AQo (why did he show?) and I'm happy about my laydown, but I'm down to 865 chips.

Sidebar: I just discovered an awesome new feature on PokerTracker! I downloaded the new version last week, and in reviewing the tourney, I saw a button that said "Playback this hand". Click on it, and you get a graphical replay of the hand, betting and checking included! I'm really impressed with PokerTracker. Anyway, the way you find this screen is to select a session from the session note/game notes tab. Double click it. Then go to the "game notes" tab. Double click on a hand, and a window will come up displaying the hand history for that hand, but also a new button labeled "Playback this hand". Click it, and you get to the hand replayer function. You can replay the entire tournament, or just a single hand. The cool thing is, if someone wants you to analyze their play, they can just send you the hand history file, and you can replay it in the Pokertracker playback feature. Gotta tip my hat to the guys (actually I think it's just one guy) at PT.

Back to the tourney. The blinds are up to 300/600 and I've got 1100 on the SB. Folded to me, and I go all in with A9o. BB calls the extra 500, and here we go...
board comes 3 2 9 K 3... and I'm not happy, but BB has Q8s and I double up. I try to steal the blinds with K9o one off the button, as this table has been super tight. Oops... SB calls all-in, and the board is 8 A 7 3 T. I figure I've lost half my chips, but SB shows QJs!!! K high holds up! We're down to 3 players and now we've all got the same size stacks. The next hand I'm the BB and reraise a limper (I almost never reraise on the BB but felt that this was the right play here) with KJo. He calls, and the flop is K J 9, and it's all in time. He calls, and my 2 pair holds up over his K4o. Heads up with a big chip lead!

I've got 7395 chips to the other guys 2605, and I know that the blinds are so big (300) that I can knock him out with a couple good hands. I steal a couple hands, but he wins his all-in bet of 1K chips when his Q8o pairs up and beats my K6s.

The blinds go up to 500, and he's up to 3260, with me at 6740. I get 65s in the BB, and he just calls. Flop is 7h 5c 8h and I like my hand... a pair with the open straight draw, so I bet 800 and he calls. The turn is a Kd, and the guy has been playing tight, so I try to win the pot right there with a 1K bet. He comes over the top all in for 2K, and I go deep into the tank.

I figure he must have the king, but I've got some outs here. I figure I've got 13 outs--the 2 5s, 3 6s, and the 8 straight fillers. So the odds are against me, but the pot is so big at this point I think I have to call. I barely make the call before time runs out, and the river is... a 9!!! Hdouble wins! Poor guy had K7, so I really only had 10 outs. The poker gods were kind. But even if I lost this pot, I still had 3500 chips to work with.

It felt good to win, especially after getting hammered for the past week. Gotta get a little win streak going, especially since Moss and Culpepper have pocketed my $100 bet with a 21-0 lead at halftime. I was right about one of these two things: "Chiefs specials make the difference in this game, even though Moss will have a huge game." It's up to the Pats and Ravens, unless the Chiefs have an unbelievable 2nd half...

Hopefully I'll get to dive into the Saturday night fish pond later on, and get some of those losses back... I watched The Intrepid Card Player get rivered to go out 4rth in a $10 SNG. But I guess that's poker... and watch out for McGrupp, he's getting ready to jump into the Party frenzy after Christmas. He's building a photo book of poker bloggers... I'm curious how many players will reveal their faces and risk losing some B&M profits.

pic of the day:
Ghost story

2003-12-19T11:40:00.000-08:00

NFL Week 16: Everything must go!

Well, the linemakers are off this weekend, which means yours truly is puttin the cash on the table. I feel pretty good about these picks. I am 80% confident that I'll win at least 2 of these games. Also, the games are Saturday! So you have a chance to Parlay if you win tomorrow...

Game 1: Ride the lightning
NE (-3) at NJ
I said I'd ride Billy Belichek all the way to the playoffs, and what better opportunity to bet on the Pats than this week in their matchup with the hapless Jets. The Pats are only giving away 3 here, but all the Jets have got is Curtis Martin, and the Pats have effectively stopped the run all year. They're also playing for homefield advantage in the playoffs, whereas the Jets have nothing to gain from this game. On the negative side, Pennington was one of the few QBs to figure out Belichek's defensive scheme last year, and punished the Pats in a big game. But Chad P doesn't have the horses this year. Pats win by at least a TD.

Game 2: Special teams and turf
KC (-3) at Minn
This game should be a high scoring shootout... two very weak defenses against high powered offense. I think these teams are more or less evenly matched, except that KC's special teams are far better than Minn (Vermeil was the first NFL special teams coach ever!) and I think Vermeil is a much better coach than Tice. Look for Dante Hall to have a couple big returns on the turf. Chiefs specials make the difference in this game, even though Moss will have a huge game.

Game 3: Fade the Browns
Baltimore (-3) at Cleveland
Baltimore needs this game, and Billick has been stressing that the Ravens need to finish strong. Cleveland is a horrible team, and has nothing to gain from this game. I will bet against Couch/Holcombe any day. Ray Lewis is the best defensive player in the league, and probably deserves MVP this year. Jamal Lewis went for almost 300 early in the season against the Brownies... that won't happen, but he'll get plenty of yards rolling over the horrible Cleveland front 7.

INJURY BETS
There are two games that currently aren't showing a line--
1. Denver at Indy
If Portis plays and the spread is less than 7, Indy is money here. With a sprained knee and ankle, Portis will lose his most valuable skill-- explosiveness. The Broncs have no offense without Portis, and Indy should demolish them.

2. Tenn at Houston
Tennessee's starting QB for this game is Jason Gesser, an undrafted free agent from Washington State. QB is mostly mental, and the kid might be alright, but the odds are against him.

Boy Genius drops some knowledge in his Lions report card. The guy should be a scout. BG, Detroit -10 at Carolina? I think the under (37) could be a decent bet in this game...

Sweat the action!

I gotta give props to the poker penguin... I think we may be long lost brothers... he's working on a novel, has bad knees (I've had 2 ACL surgeries), and blogs profusely. Check out this gem from the Penguin:

"It was a dark and stormy night at the Last Chance Saloon. The No Limit Holdem game had been going on for a while now and everyone was getting fed up with the angle shooting guy with the big moustache. So, when another towel headed guy put a monster of a bad beat on the simple looking cowboy, trouble was in the air.

Sure enough, a couple hands later, the cowboy makes a decent sized raise to try to steal Saddam's blinds. Saddam hated this, so he started talking about how he had rockets in the hole and was going to take great pleasure in taking the cowboy down a peg or two.

Well, sure enough Saddam came right back at the cowboy with an allin re-raise. Problem was, all he had was 72o and the cowboy knew this. After Saddam takes a beating, he slopes off to a 1-2 game threatening to build his stack up and have another shot at the cowboy. He also threw in some choice words about the cowboy's daddy.

"Ain't nobody insults ma Pa" the cowboy drawled. Dammed if he and his pardner English Tony didn't leave the game too and chase him right down to that 1-2 game. But Saddam, he turned into a total calling station. Wouldn't fold anything, wouldn't raise anything, just sat there behind his dwindling pile of chips calling away. Sure enough, his chips eventually disappeared.

The moral of that story folks is that if you're going to piss off a cowboy who has a crapload of chips, and the only rockets in the game, you better pray."

2003-12-19T07:33:00.000-08:00

Santa, I want a big bankroll

It has been one of those non-poker weeks. I haven't even had a chance to avenge the $300 whoopin I took earlier in the week. Work has been rough this week-- I'm launching my application, which means we have to move all the code over from the development server to the server that runs the public website. This is the bad part of programming... no creative thought, just meticulous grooming of code, making sure the semicolons are in the right place, etc.

Sample of annoying conversation with boss:
(I send out an email to the group, saying that the code is being moved over and is ready to launch. I have spent about 6 weeks coding this up, and it has passed testing and is ready to go. My boss approved it about 3 weeks ago)
boss: (comes up to my cube) "Can you bring up the app?"
me: (annoyed feeling building in stomach) "Sure"
boss: "Ok, see this color here? Can we make that blue? Can we add some more space here? Can we change this icon?"
me: (annoyed feeling threatening to destroy me) "Ahhh... we discussed this earlier... the customer really liked the color and icons the way they are... it's going live soon..."
boss: "Yeah that's true. Maybe you could do it as an enhancement, after everything's all done."
me: (trying not to smash monitor) "Sure. Just put in an enhancement request."

Apparently I live in a Dilbert comic strip these days. My dream: a 1 year freeze out with the manager's salaries on the table, we play until somebody takes all the cash. I picture myself strolling into work, pulling up a chair, and check raising until 5 pm. I'm not sure how one becomes a manager, but some soul-selling has got to be involved. Most of these people know nothing and do less.

Back to poker: I did play 3 3-player NL sit and gos last night... at home with the wife and a buddy. Things do not bode well for the all-blogger SNG for me-- after I won the first tourney, my wife beat the pants off of me and took all of my chips in the next 2 games. Which is a bit sad, since she's played poker maybe 20 times or so. But she is actually tough to play against, because she plays with a strange combination of bluffing and calling. She'll always think I'm bluffing and call me down with stuff like King high, which forces me to bet if I have anything. And if she does have a hand, she won't bet heavy, so I never really know if I should value bet or fold. To top it off, she has the worst poker face ever, but I can't differentiate between the "I'm smiling because I'm bluffing" or "I'm smiling because I have a monster" face.

The first tourney went as it should... I stole pots and value bet my hands, and won our 3 player tourney pretty easily. But the second one didn't quite work that way. She demolished my buddy's stack (uhh that didn't sound too good) when she caught the 4rth Ace (!!!) on the turn. 4 Aces in a 3-player game. On video poker that hand pays off 2 grand on some machines. She knocked me out on the next hand when I went all in with second pair, thinking she had nothing. She had the Queen for top pair, and I was out. The next game was a short one for me, as I went all in with AQ and she called with 55, and her pair held up.

This was one of the few times that losing hasn't bothered me much. I was proud of her and the way she played, and also somewhat impressed.

Bankroll news: in addition to her tournament domination, the wife landed a job at the swank Beverly Hills Hotel, a big step up from her current place... which means I might actually be able to put enough money towards a real poker bankroll, and sit in the $15-30 every once in a while. We'll see...

All this Christmas stuff has kept me off the tables. Hopefully I will get a chance to play over the weekend, as tonight is the department Christmas party, so there will be no poker. It's 7:30 Pacific time, and I was debating hopping on the tables right now (8,000 players logged on!) for an hour before work, but the quality of the players has to be much better now, so I'll wait. I wish someone could
(1) come up with a measure to quantify the looseness of a game (not "avg. pot size")
(2) get an average number for each hour of the day

I think it's possible that there are a lot of calling stations playing during the morning hours-- retired people not taking the game too seriously, etc. Or perhaps some of the Eastern European players play looser on their Friday night, so now would be a good time to play.

Unfortunately I had to wipe out all the old comments to get the new comment tool (the old one kept dying), but hopefully this one will work better.

Good luck to everybody... Friday night is fish night!

Stay tuned... football picks to come...

Pic of the day:
Fiber optic full house?

2003-12-17T10:54:00.000-08:00

When your bankroll gets kicked in the nuts

Dropped $300 in about 45 minutes of $5-10 shorthanded Party play last night. Just painful. These two clowns at my table were catching EVERYTHING. My top pair, good kicker was wiped out about 10 different hands as I watched my stack help build theirs. Grubby says that he gets competitive and won't quit until he gets his money back from the lucky opponent. I definitely played this way last night, but these guys were catching everything. Not fun.

I was tired and I think you need to have energy to get revenge, so I hopped on a $15-30 table, resolving to play until I won or lost 1 big pot. I ended up playing 3 orbits... and losing $5. A bit sad that I don't even get much adrenaline anymore, even at teh $15-30 level. I think knowing the odds makes gambling somewhat less exciting. Anyway, I only played 4 of the 30 hands I think... I won 2 pots with semi-bluffs... I called a blind-steal raise (SB raised my BB) with Q9o and checked through the flop. The turn gave me a 4 straight, and I bet out and was called. The river was a rag, and I bet-- I was psyched when he folded, but I collected only 2.5 big bets ($75) on this hand. The guy seemed like a decent player, which meant that my river bluff had a decent chance of succeeding. Pretty tough to call there with Ace high...

Anyway, on my final hand I get TT UTG. I raise to "limit the field" (see Iggy's blog for more on this), and it actually works... a short stack in middle position reraises, however, which knocks out everybody else. He's got $20 left in front of him, so I raise it up to roll the dice against whatever hand he has. I want to be all in since he's going to bet the flop anyway. He puts his last $5 in on the flop, and I call... the flop has a K, and I'm putting him on AK, but when another K comes on the turn I like my chances. But no help to my tens, and sure enough he's got AK suited. Well, I had a slight advantage preflop, but I'll take this beat... had I won that hand I would have been up $130 or so on the table, but instead ended up down $5. Ah well.

Some good Blogging goin on out there. Finally got to the infamous Decker's site. Lots of material here, Decker doesn't miss a day. Also, the poker penguin offers some great theory on multi-table tournaments. The Fat Guy offers diatribes on everything under the sun, even Robbie Fulks.

So it looks like this Blogger poker game is gaining some momentum... it looks like everybody wants to play a NL SNG (damn, I voted for limit ring game!), so I guess I'll have to reread my Doyle. I've put up a new poll, please vote!

FINAL BLOGGER TOURNEY POLL RESULTS
NL SNG 7
Limit Ring 1
NL Ring 1
Limit SNG 1

Check out McGrupp's meeting with Phil Hellmuth in Vegas. Here's my tale of my only brush with poker royalty:

My buddy and I went to the Bicycle casino in LA to see the WPT event being held there a couple months ago. We got there about an hour after the tourney started, and the seats were all taken, so we were stuck watching on closed circuit TV in the room adjacent to the WPT set. Anyway, after about an hour this old floorman comes by, and we start chit-chattin. He says that they're playing 3,000-6,000 Hold 'Em out there on the floor. These numbers are staggering, and we immediately take off to see who the hell could be playing in a game with stakes this high.

So we take a stroll out there, and finally come to the "big" table. There are about 2 people watching, and as we get closer, I recognize Jennifer Harman. "Wow, must be a big game" I was thinking, when I saw Johnny Chan sitting across from her. My eyes continued around the table, finally landing on a Jabba-the-hut like presence in seat 3. Yep, big old Doyle, wearing a Paradise poker hat. What a monster table. I think I recognized Mickey Appleman in seat 1. As I watched them play their HORSE game, I wondered why anyone would play at this table. One of the guys I didn't recognize must have been a sucker... otherwise it wouldn't make sense. 5 minutes later Gus Hansen takes the empty seat. WOW. We stood their in awe for a couple minutes, until half the table got up to take a smoke break. Doyle didn't move though, and I felt like I had to say something to the legend.

"Doyle, you scared em off" was the only thing I could come up with. He smiled and nodded his head. Oh well.

More recent celeb sightings:
1. Ben Stein at lunch yesterday in Beverly Hills. Work lunch with the marketing guys, they took us to some fancy place that served "filet mignon tacos". I got the cheeseburger. I had to resist the temptation to go up to him and say "I want to win your money!".
2. Hank Azaria walking out of the Beverly Center movies on Saturday while I was walking in. 2 minutes after that, I saw a preview for a movie he was in.

Pic of the day:
An eyeful

2003-12-14T22:29:00.000-08:00

Drunken Master and Football 101

WILD night at party. I had a rockin and rollin 11 hour total marathon session (2 tables, so 5.5 hours realtime). I feel like a real poker player. I have the suspicion that this blog entry will suck, as I think beer number 7 has just gone down the hatch. I feel like Jackie Chan in Drunken Master. For anyone that hasn't seen it, our hero is a karate master who can only fight optimally after taking in a good amount of alcohol. The catch is, if he drinks too much, then he loses his skills. So the trick is to drink just the right amount (cool idea, no?).

Anyway, although poker tracker doesn't keep track of number of beers ingested, I found that I was "in the zone" after about 4 beers. Making great calls, stealing pots, everything. I dominated during this period, and built up a nice stack for myself... but after that it started going downhill... 5 or 6 beers saw me getting sucked out on, and making crying calls at the river... the drunken master had clearly had a little too much.

Anyway, I ended up winning a whopping $435 on one table, and losing $300 at the other table. What the hell? I looked through the logs and saw I got rivered 4 or 5 times to lose big pots on the losing table, and was able to catch a couple rivers at the winning table. I think Abdul's quote is, "at the turn of a card, a dominating hand can become dominating." Too bad I didn't cash out at beer number 4, as I was up $550 on the lucky table. I guess I can't complain.

I managed to go 7-6 for my NFL bets, netting me a huge win of $3.00 after the juice. I didn't like the spreads this week, but kicked myself for not betting the house on Dallas. Here we have 2 junk teams... one with an excellent coach, one with a terrible coach. We've got a second string QB who wasn't even on a practice squad a couple months ago... and a tough Dallas defense. Dallas beats up on bad teams, because they play disciplined, smash mouth football, and let the other team make mistakes. Washington is a team with no strengths, and got lucky when Ramsey was hot at the beginning of the season. And Dallas was giving away a single point! I don't know how I missed this one.

Warning! Football rant following... skip ahead if you don't like football.

It's tough to explain how important coaching is in the modern NFL to someone who's never played football before. The complexity of the offensive systems is really amazing. On any given play, each player has a series of reads on the defense:
1. Pre-snap read: what defense are they playing? zone? man?
2. Pre-snap play read: for every play that's called, there is a different set of reads that have been memorized, based on the read in 1.
3. Post-snap read: we know what are route/block is, but if the defense does something that counters our expectation, we have to adjust.

Here's an example from my days of playing Tight End:
Coach calls: Kinger 685 F-flare
Explanation: Kinger means I backfield, tight end right. 685 are the pass patterns-- first receiver runs a 6 (an in), second receiver (me in this case) runs a post, and the third receiver runs a 5 (an out). F-flare means the fullback runs a flare.

1. Presnap read: I line up and read the defense. I check the safeties... if there are two safeties equally deep, I know they are in a cover 2 zone, meaning that they divide the deep half of the field in two. If there is one safety in the middle, then they are in cover 3, meaning one safety takes the middle, and the two corners take the deep thirds. Let's say in this case they are in cover 2.

2. Presnap play read: I know that in a cover 2, my post route goes right between the safeties, so I am the primary receiver. In a cover 3, my job is to make the Deep safety run with me, so either the back or one of the receivers comes open. Since they're in cover 2, I expect the ball.

3. Postsnap read: I release inside the defensive end, and make a move to get past the linebacker. I look at the safeties, and see that it was a disguised cover 3, because there is a single safety in the middle of the field. So my job is to run straight at the safety and make him cover me. I break on my post, and run by the safety.

This is the key moment of the play. The QB's read is to check down the receivers based on the coverage. If he did not see the disguised cover 2, he will look to hit me in the middle of the field. If he sees it, then he will look at the other 2 receivers, and if covered, then to the fullback. This is where the "system" ends, and the quarterback's skill begins. The quarterback can choose to "disobey" the system that the coach has installed... it's kind of like calling when the pot odds don't quite justify it. In this case, the system says "if all 3 receivers are covered, dump it to the fullback for a short gain, or throw it away". But if the QB sees that I have ran past the safety, he can go for the home run, and risk interception or an incomplete pass.

Whew. Ok, the point of that was that NFL football is incredibly complex. Every single play has a different set of complex reads for all 11 players. In this way, it's a lot like poker. But it also shows you the importance of coaching. A team is really only as good as the "system" that its run by. Watch Belichek's team or Parcells'. These teams know their system well, and it works. They don't gamble much, and their offenses are designed to take what the defense gives them-- no more, no less. They are the "grinders" of the NFL, where teams like the Vikings might be more of the "gambOOling" type-- watch how many home run balls they throw to Moss in double coverage.

Which brings us to the Philly (+3) at Miami game tomorrow night. Andy Reid: great system. Dave Wannstedt: horrible system. But I can't figure Miami out... Ricky is a good back, and their defense is tough all the way through, but they just don't seem to have much heart. Philly baffles me as well, but I think they are pretty much solid.

Saddam captured: The first thing I thought of when I heard this was a story I wrote when I was 12 or 13. It was this long, rambling war story about a marine who fought through all the iraqis and got Saddam. It must have been during the first gulf war. I read the headlines today with no real surprise, awe, or joy, although I was surprised when I found out that no shots were fired. When I thought about my story, it was strange to think how much has happened since then. In some sense, I've been anticipating this event for over 13 years, if that original story ever meant anything. Maybe the joy was dampened by all the death required to accomplish the mission...

Ok, if you made it this far, congratulations, I thank you! I think I'm sobering up now, so I guess it's time for another beer. I hope nobody drowned in the river...

2003-12-13T17:17:00.000-08:00

The Great Blogger Hold 'Em Experiment

Following up on Iggy's idea to have an all-blogger table ("One of these days we'll need to get a private table and have a poker bloggers only game"), I've created my first poll (see right). Boy Genius says he's in. So's that's 3 to start. Who else is in? I nominate Iggy to set up the table (he's got all the hookups and his Blog has been around the longest), but I believe it's pretty easy to set up a private table on Party. I think this table would have -EV, but for the trash-talking rights it would be worth it. Personally I don't want to take on any of my fellow bloggers for high stakes, and because everyone should be able to play, it is probably best to have it be a microlimit game (or small buy in tourney). Place your vote!

Just finished a 2 hour session play 2 $5-10 tables. My poker endurance really sucks. I started getting distracted towards the end, but managed to stay on my "A" game. I can sit in a B&M for 8 hours, but I guess sitting behind the computer screen makes me feel like I'm at work, so I get the itch to run away. Anyway, I fought my way to a $54 win (not enough to cover my stud losses this morning, but hey!) after battling the maniacs. One of these tables was probably the best $5-10 table I'd ever seen, and I ended up pullin in $156 on this table. So what happened on the other?

Unlucky Ladies. Pokertracker says I was dealt QQ 5 times (5 times!), and my total loss for all 5 hands was $151. Ouch. Most of this came when my overpair was overpaired by KK, and I played it hard and lost $60 to some punk with KK. Oh well. The ladies went 1 for 5 and did not help my winnings very much. Wait, it gets better--
I flop my set of queens with 3 players in the pot for 3 bets, and manage to cap it when the flop is Qs 8c Ts. Re-raiser bets the turn, which is 3h, and I raise, and we lose the third guy. I make sure I have the nuts here, and get ready for the river, which is... take a guess? Of course, the 5s. I check and call, and I'm completely shocked when the raiser turns over... A8s! Big surprise. I hate when people reraise on the come and hit their card on the river. It ain't right poker gods, ya hear me! So that was $65 more down the drain.

In sad news, I just took a disheartening surf through RGP. Spam, spam, spam... "Hookers in Vegas," "I want sex," etc. etc. A couple months ago this stuff didn't dominate, but it's getting out of hand. I think I may have learned more from RGP than any book, and there are some great posts in the archives. Sad to see such a great forum for poker knowledge slowly get polluted. It would be cool if someone would create some sort of great posts Archive as a separate site... you could probably just run a script that takes in a list of names of prominent posters (Abdul, Howard L, etc.) and grabs all those threads and weeds out the trash. But I'm not writing the code...

Movie night tonight: gonna see the Farrelly brothers new movie, "Stuck on You". Can't wait to see our boy from Rounders as a siamese twin... hate to miss out on the Party action though. Good luck to everybody out there!

2003-12-13T13:30:00.000-08:00

I don't want no stud

After reading a Russ G. post claiming that Hold 'Em is the worst game for a pro to play, since it requires the least skill to play, I decided to try my hand at stud. Russ seems like a horrible person, but he is a microcosm of RGP-- if you sort through enough of his crap, eventually you'll find something interesting. I just finished Yardley's book, which advocates super-tight play, and discusses all the old school forms of poker (no Hold Em). He gives a few simple rules for starting hands, and I figured I'd give it a shot. I've played some $1-2 stud, and it does seem that less suckouts happen here, since there are no community cards. You also have to pay attention to other players up cards, giving someone with memory an advantage.

Of course, all the $1-2 tables were full, so I had to bump up to $3-6.

I started out pretty well, and was quickly up $50. The pots in stud can get pretty big relative to hold em, since there are 5 rounds of betting. But after I missed my share of 4-straights and 4-flushes, I ended up cashing out down $80. Much to learn. What's worse, I discovered that PokerTracker doesn't handle stud games! Oh well.

In Hold 'Em news, I finally got back to winning last night. $160 in 35 minutes on 2 tables! Felt good. I think I earned most of it too.
--$92 win when my pocket tens held up to a board of Jh 3s 2s 5h As. I bet them the whole way, and was able to chase a couple players out, and managed to checkraise on the turn a guy with pocket 8s. Finally I made a good read on someone.
--$54 with QQ
--$57 when my pocket sevens flopped a set

Nothing too exciting. But I finally was able to make some decent calls with my non-top pair hands, and that made the difference in the short session. The wife came home, so I cut the session off, pocketing 16 BB.

It had been a while since I'd played any SNG, so I thought I was due for a $30 NL tourney. I've done pretty well at these, and really liked them when I was learning. But the EV here is so low-- it's not too hard to get 3rd, but for 1 hour of play and a $30 win, the return is pretty weak. I checked pokertracker, and it had me at a ridiculous win rate:
10 $30 tourneys, with a net amount of $347 (3 firsts, 2 2nds, and a 3rd). There is a bias here, since I didn't request hand histories for a bunch of the losses I've taken, and it doesn't include all the $6 SNGs I played when I was getting started. I'd say I'm probably about even overall... I play very tight until the blinds go up to 50/100, when I start making moves and trying to pick up chips.

The tourney started out in the usual fashion, with 4 or 5 limit limpers playing every pot when the blinds are low. After mucking for a while, I picked up 75o in the BB, and called 15 after 3 players limped in. I'll take the implied odds... Beautiful flop-- 7 7 9 with 2 diamonds. I bet out 250 (too much? but I'm afraid of the flush) and get one caller. The turn is... a 7!!! I pee in my pants and check it, hoping that the river is another diamond... and it is!!! All-in time... and he calls! He shows the ATd, and my quads draw oohs and ahhs from the peanut gallery. A lesson in implied odds.

Anyway, that gave me a lot of chips to work with, and I waited it out while the fireworks went off around me. Actually the table was pretty tight, and it ended up being one of the longest SNGs I'd ever played. I made some steals, and survived to make the final 3, with the chip count like this:
hdouble: 3280
seat 2: 3200
seat 8: 1320

Seat 8 was very tight, and I was able to steal liberally from him, but I didn't have much of a read on the other guy. On the SB I got A9o, and figure I could steal seat 8s BB (button folded) with an all-in. But he calls, and says "Watch out now", and his pocket rockets hold up. Ok, he got me, but I still like this play. So I'm down to 2160, but I like my chances. Then comes this hand:
I'm in the BB (which is 400 at this point), seat 2 is on the button. Seat 2 calls, which confuses me, because he seems to be tight and more or less solid, so I question the limp. Seat 8 calls from SB, and I see AJs on my BB. I figure my hand has got to be best, and I have a chance to pick up 800 chips. I think for a second and go all-in, and the board does not help... I know I'm beat, and to rub salt in the wound, Seat 8 turns over... AA! Bullets, twice in 3 hands. Ouch.

Anyway, I think I played this hand poorly. I should have taken the Hellmuth approach... I knew I could outplay the other 2 players, so all-in bets should be used sparingly. The tight player limp should have rang the warning bells, and I should have waited it out a few hands, even though the blinds were up to 400. Some of you readers would have played this better than me... advice???

Check out the wild and wide-ranging Blog of
Boy Genius (thanks Iggy).

If you want to hear some new music, check out this track from my best friends band (yours truly on lead guitar):
I hate you

Well Blogger doesn't allow images, but if anybody's interested... HDouble... revealed!

Pic of the day:
Rudolph sighting

2003-12-12T13:52:00.000-08:00

Where are they coming from?

A lot of my graduate research was spent on web-log analysis, so I still have a little place in my heart for web logs. I got a few laughs seeing how visitors found their way to this page, at least how they got here from search engines. So below is a list of my favorite searches that resulted in the user actually visiting this page...

1. Google: holcomb's baseball suckers
2. Dogpile: texas holdem percentage hand strength
3. (my favorite) Google: brad pitt left college 4rth year
4. Google: poker and movie rounders and "the wheel"
5. Google: "smaller the stakes"
6. Google: "poker tracker" crack

Great stuff.

No real football picks this week-- I don't usually play games with big spreads, and all of them are big this week. However, here's my picks for every game, although I think it's mostly a crapshoot this weekend.

(Home teams in Caps)
Minnesota (+3) over CHICAGO
CINCY (-2.5) over San Fran
INDY (-7.5) over Atlanta
Detroit (+14) over KANSAS CITY
NEW ENGLAND (-7) over Jacksonville
NY JETS (-3) over Pittsburgh
ST. LOUIS (-6.5) over SEATTLE
TAMPA (-6) over Houston
Buffalo (+6.5) over TENNESSEE
DENVER (-10.5) over Cleveland
Baltimore (-6.5) over OAKLAND
Dallas (PK) over WASHINGTON
Carolina (-6.5) over ARIZONA
Green Bay (-5) over SAN DIEGO
NEW ORLEANS (-7) over NY Giants
Philly (+2) over MIAMI

Season Record: 29-21-2
Last Week: 3-2 (2 unit win on Monday night)

Can't wait to get on the tables tonight... Friday night is Party night on Party!

2003-12-11T21:48:00.000-08:00

Shorthanded and shortchanged

After finding EVERY $5-10 ring game and every $5-10 shorthanded table full, I was forced to find a $3-6 game. Party showed almost 22,000 Players logged on (I'm guessing this includes fake money players, which I think are mostly bots), and even the $3-6 tables were full. I finally sat at a $3-6 table with 3 players, and figured this was the only game I'd get. The players were hyper aggressive, frequently capping on the flop or turn. I figured this would be some easy money...

1 hour later, I was down $200. Fortunately, Party's hand history emailer does not seem to be working, so I don't have to see the carnage. I didn't play well, but I didn't play poorly either. I lost a couple big pots when my top pair was beaten by someone catching their 2nd pair on the river, and I just wasn't catching cards. After quickly dropping $100, I switched to a nearly identical 4 player $3-6 table.

These tables were money... 3 of the 4 players frequently going to the river... everything you could ask for. I just wasn't catching, and making too many bad calls with 2nd pair.

In brighter news, I discovered Felicia Lee's Yahoo Journal (note: I had to change my link section title to Blog Brothers AND SISTER!), and read some great journal entries. Check out "The Bellagio Experiment" and "The Death of a Poker Player," some really cool stuff going on. Felicia made me realize how much I missed playing live, as she plays exclusively in the good old B&Ms in Las Vegas. Most of my fellow Bloggers write exclusively about online play, and I missed getting sucked out on by runner-runner flushes at Hollywood Park.

I also heard from Chris Halverson, whose non-poker-only blog offers some interesting thoughts on Stanley Kubrick, blogger syndication, and even NASCAR. I'm not a NASCAR fan, but Chris knows his whiskey as well as Java, so he's good in my book...

Playing 2 tables is great, and helps us get to the long run faster, but we are missing out on one of the biggest aspects of the game-- the eye to eye combat involved in reading people. The rake at HP is deadly, but maybe it's time I went back to face the fish. Or maybe I'm just steaming after a bad night.

That 1 hour session beat me up pretty good, and I feel like I'm at a loss for words. Hopefully I can sleep it off and come back with a good session tomorrow night. I almost found myself at the $15-30 tables trying to recoup my losses, but was able to resist. I just don't have the bankroll to play here, but there is always the temptation of trying to recoup losses at higher stakes. I know this is a trait of "problem gamblers," but it's also known as the Martingale betting progression, which given an unlimited bankroll, cannot fail. Unfortunately my bankroll is not quite unlimited.

Off topic: the lines on the NFL games are awful this week-- I don't think there is a spread of less than 7. I didn't see any game I liked, so I ended up putting $5 on every game. So at best I stand to win $65, but at least I've got something riding...

I started running in the mornings before work, which hopefully will sharpen up my mind a little bit. Besides the times when I've been injured, this is the longest period (3 months) in my life when I haven't done any cardio. My energy level is definitely down as a result of my inactivity, but since I'm retired, there's no real motivation to run. But I think working out really keeps my mind on edge, and hopefully that will help me stay focused at the poker table.

Thanks for reading, hopefully everyone else fared better than me tonight... I don't mind losing the money, I just hate to lose!

2003-12-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

The growth of gambling in America: subverting Capitalism

No poker tonight, but LondonFroggy's blog got me thinking about gambling, capitalism, and the poker boom. I figured I'd give a shot at an explanation, since my Google search didn't seem to produce much. Warning: philosophical and cultural content to follow.

First off, lets look at the numbers. Is gambling really booming?

"In 2002, commercial gaming revenue nationwide rose a modest 3.5 percent to $25.5 billion, according to Analysis Group, a Los Angeles economic consulting firm. During the same period, Indian gaming revenue increased almost 11 percent to $14.1 billion."

These numbers suggest that while Brick and Mortar casinos are increasing revenue, there is no evidence to suggest a "boom." But what about online gambling?

"'In 2000, Internet gambling brought forth an estimated $2.2 billion in
worldwide revenues... [and] could reach $100 billion a year by 2006' (Hammer, 2001).
Americans wagered the majority of the $2.2 billion (Sinclair, 2001). Recent market
research estimates that consumers spent from $6.5 billion to $8 billion on Internet
gambling in 2002 (M2: Presswire, 2003). This represents significant revenue growth
from just $300 million in 1997 and $651 million in 1998 (NGISC, 1999)."

Aha! These figures fit the "boom" label, suggesting that online gambling is growing at an exponential rate. It's difficult to collect accurate data on online casino revenue, since most online casinos are not based in America. The numbers here are outdated, and probably underestimate the actual revenue figures.

The internet has brought gambling to our living rooms: riches are only a mouse click away. But if the medium was available 10 years ago, would we have seen the same growth? Or is there something unique about the time, something about 2003 that has increased the number of people who want to gamble?

I believe that if gambling had been convenient in the past (imagine blackjack tables at the local bar), people would have gambled then as they do now. It's difficult to separate gambling as a social activity from gambling as a "hobby". The new Strip and the dying of Fremont Street suggests that the real gamblers (the non-social ones) are far outnumbered. But the internet suggests otherwise.

Back to the central question. What is attracting Americans to online gambling (note: these conclusions may hold for other countries, but as an American, I can only speak from an American perspective)? I think the answer lies in an underlying disgust with capitalism.

Robert Nozick, a contemporary philosopher, defines a capitalistic society as one in which "the market distributes to those who satisfy the perceived market-expressed demands of others, and how much it so distributes depends on how much is demanded and how great the alternative supply is." So members of a capitalistic society receive money based on the demand that exist for the product or service that they supply.

Gambling represents a subversion of capitalism: the gambler receives money not for a product or service, but for either (a) their skill in estimating the expected value of various events, or (b) luck in guessing an event with a negative expectation. Most gamblers clearly fit into category (b), but we can think of poker players, card counters, and roulette sharps who would fit into category (a).

A positive expectation gambler uses his knowledge to create situations where he has an advantage over his opponent(s). Is it a failure of capitalism when a brilliant mind chooses gambling as a profession over another career which large amount of demand exists? I say it is-- the system's inability to capture the potential good or service of the brilliant gambler has caused him to seek a career where he can use his brilliance to gain a higher profit.

The positive expectation player need not deal with organizational charts and bureacracies that may impede his ability to generate useful products. In gambling, the player's income and reward is based solely on his level of skill and knowledge. This directly proportional relationship between personal performance and income rarely exists in traditional capitalistic careers, where income depends greatly on the performance of co-workers and bureacrats that the employee has little or no influence on.

I argue that the failure of capitalism-- the failure of the employee's ability to control the good that he produces-- is responsible for the growth in online gaming. Speaking from a personal perspective, gambling is the only arena in my life in which my performance has a direct and visible effect on my well-being. I think the future will bring more "professional" gamblers, and skill games such as poker will see enormous growth as casinos eliminate skill games such as blackjack. Vegas has already seen a proliferation of 6:5 single deck blackjack, which offers the house a nearly insurmountable 1.5% edge (vs. .5% with traditional blackjack rules).

What does this mean for poker players? The good news is that there will be a constant supply of new players who are trying to develop their skills. These will provide skilled players many opportunities for positive expectation plays. The bad news is that the poker "industry" will be able to support a much larger number of professionals, and the ocean will be filled with a greater number of sharks.

For those unsatisfied with American capitalism, the convenience of online gambling has created an opportunity for knowledgeable and skillful gamblers to make a large amount of income. The "rugged individualism" of old America is returning in the waters of the internet gambling, a place where income is solely dependent on one's knowledge of the game and the ability to recognize positive expectation gambles. Come on in, the water's nice!

I welcome comments and disagreements-- the thoughts you see here are in their infancy, and represent only my humble opinion.

2003-12-08T23:10:00.000-08:00

How I learned to stop worrying and love slowplaying aces

oooooooooooooofff... the Rams nearly killed me tonight, I had doubled up my bet and given away 5 points to the lowly browns. Thank you Tim Couch and Aeneas Williams! St. Louis won by 6, saving me from a big hit in the sportsbook. Bulger played terribly, and the Rams D won it for them. The Browns played their usual horrible game, and Kelly Holcomb's interceptions were quite enjoyable.

I think this is the first day I've posted twice-- I can't stop blogging!

After a couple short sessions, I ended up winning... $1 whole dollar! But it feels like a win, since I just came off a $174 win in a 36 minute session on the $5-10 short handed tables (Grubby thanks for drawing my attention to these babies). There were a couple maniacs there, and I managed to hit a couple big hands. After dropping $170 at the $3-6 games in a matter of less than in hour, it was nice to finally hit a couple hands on the shorthanded table. I didn't have my A game at the $3-6ers, I was busy watching the Rams game and trying to stay awake. Bad news.

The idea of going to bed with a loss that big forced me to focus, and I actually played pretty well shorthanded. The tide turned when I took a gamble slowplaying Aces in the BB... here's what happened:
5 players at the table, first two fold, 3rd player raises. 2nd player calls, and I don't want to define my hand (using Abdul's logic). Flop is 7c Kd Tc, sb bets, I raise, and am reraised, called, I cap it, 3 players in. Turn is 6d, and I'm hoping we've got AK and not KK, and I'm guessing there's a flush draw out there. SB bets out, I raise, and 2 callers. Turn is 4d, and I bet out and get two callers: SB shows KQo, caller shows JTc... dodged a bullet! $118 profit.

I managed to make a couple good calls with middle pair, and was getting some good cards... I was playing far tighter than the rest of the table, so was able to take a couple pots with the bluff checkraise or bet-reraise on the flop. With 6 players at the table, it's easy to tell who's playing tight and who isn't, so you can actually use your table image to bluff (unlike at the $3-6 level).

I don't even want to talk about the horrible play on the $3-6 tables. Maybe I should get away from them... my stats are much much better for $5-10... I'm averaging 2.59 BB/100 hands at $5-10, and only .78 at $3-6! A lot of this is because many of these $3-6 hands were played 3 at a time, and it includes a lot of early sessions back when I was not a very good player. For me, I know that adding a 3rd table probably costs me at least 1 BB per hour per table, probably more than that. Maybe I'll stick to $5-10.

TJ Cloutier said you've gotta gamble at a limit where it hurts to lose-- seeing that $20 checkraise in $5-10 makes me FEEL that call, whereas $6 more just don't hurt as much. I've gotta do an analysis to find the breakeven point for 3 tables $3-6 and 2 tables $5-10. The annoying thing is that it takes forever to find a $5-10 game on Party these days. Can they please open up some more tables??? Buy some more servers! I couldn't even get in a $30 SNG... it's harder to get in one of those things than to actually win the tourney.

MrsDouble is watching the previews for the next "Average Joe"... this whole reality TV stuff cracks me up. The ideas for the shows sound great-- Joe Millionaire and Average Joe have a sort of vicious mockery of society, which attracted me. But then you see the people on the show and they are so boring that it always ends up being anticlimactic.

WOAH! Just saw a preview for next week's "Las Vegas" on NBC. This is a direct quote from the promo:
(man in macho voice) "Meet poker players that will KILL to win!"

Ye Gads. Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? Can't anybody out there write a sitcom or drama with some backbone? Or just WRITE a sitcom period? I guess before I can complain I would have to get cable. Is it possible to be on tilt in blog writing?

I saw somewhere (I forget where) that Phil Hellmuth is optioning the rights to his life story to someone? Can you imagine a sitcom about Hellmuth? I would give up my whole bankroll to see a season of that...

Hellmuth: "Here's your toast honey... just like you like it."

Mrs. Hellmuth: (looking at toast)

Hellmuth: "Come on honey... I'm really rooting for you to eat it..."

Mrs. Hellmuth: "Phil I told you I hate white toast."

Hellmuth: "That's funny, because I READ YOUR MIND and I know you're lying. You love white toast."

Mrs. Hellmuth: (Stands up and waves to neighbor outside)

Hellmuth: "Have some class honey. Eat my toast, don't do the wave in my face!"

(fade to commercial)

Can you tell I'm a little tired? If you didn't see the WPT episode where Hellmuth faces off against a magician, you won't get that dialogue. Not that it's funny anyway.

May your slowplayed Aces hold up.

2003-12-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

Back to the Drawing Board: Abdul Jalib's strategy

There comes a time in a budding poker player's career when he realizes that starting hand requirements are flexible, and vary widely based on changing table conditions. In my case, I've been starting to play a little too loose, relying too much on "feel" and too little on odds.

So I'm going back to the best pre-flop poker strategy available (and it's free). Abdul Jalib's definitive guide to preflop play is probably my favorite poker strategy writing I've come across. However, it's taken me about 10 readings to really get a good understanding of it. I've read on RGP that Abdul Jalib is the pseudonym for a well-known pro, but no one seemed to have any good guesses as to who.

What follows are the highlights of the document, broken up by section.
**************************************************************************
1. General Concepts
--Domination: "A hand is dominated if it has 3 or fewer outs against another, like AJ against AQ. Second best offsuit hands are what make you money in hold'em - when other players play them."
--Implied odds: "Small pairs, suited cards, and zero and one gap hands (examples: 22-66, A6s, and JTs and QTs respectively) thrive on "implied odds", a term coined by David Sklansky, meaning they will frequently be folding after the flop unless they flop big, and so they normally want to see the flop cheaply."
--Reverse implied odds: "Offsuit hands have "reverse implied odds", since they cannot usually bet and raise with confidence towards the end of the hand. Normally, an offsuit hand likely to be best should make it expensive to see the flop, in order to harm the hands that would have good implied odds to see the flop cheaply. Big pairs have reverse implied odds as well, but they are much more robust, since they can win unimproved, or by making two pair with a low pair on the board, or by making a set or full house."

2. Opening
Note that a lot of people use Abdul's preflop openers table as a starting hand chart. This is a mistake-- it applies ONLY when no one ahead of you has bet, as it is an OPENING chart.

TIGHT GAMES
--Blind stealing in tight games: "When opening in tight games in any position or loose games in late position, your attention should be on getting heads up with a blind or outright stealing the blinds."
--The value of big hands: "Most hands are worth less than the blinds and so for most hands stealing the blinds is a coup; hence, raising is correct for most hands. AA is worth about four times the blinds if it gets some action, so stealing the blinds with it and your other very strong hands is a major disaster. Without other concerns, in a tight game you should raise with marginal hands, and limp (and usually reraise if raised) with your strongest hands."

LOOSE GAMES
--Always open-raising: "In games where a raise generally gets 1 or 2 callers, but rarely steals the blinds, open-raising with any playable hand is very reasonable and helps avoid leaking information."

3. Facing Limpers
--General advice: "You should raise an opened pot when you will win the pot more than your fair share of the time or your hand would play better without additional players in the pot. Consider whether calling would lure dominated hands to call after you (or additional hands period to give you odds for your draw), or whether raising would drive out dominating hands after you or allow you to get heads up (or almost so) versus a hand you dominate."

4. Facing a raiser
--General advice: "The key concept when facing a tight raiser is: "run away and live to fight another hand." Most players raise with their best hands, limp with their worst hands, and you can exploit this by deftly sidestepping their raises and punishing their weak limps with raises of your own. You need a hand a couple levels higher than the raiser's minimums to consider playing. Offsuit aces are especially vulnerable to being dominated by a tight raiser. The implied odds of suited zero or one gappers are trashed by raises. Medium pairs can easily be dominated by bigger pairs, and otherwise it's usually a crapshoot against two overcards. Versus a tight raise, you can only three-bet profitably with AA, KK, and AK. Therefore, to avoid giving away information, flat call with these hands preflop and go for a raise on the flop."
**************************************************************************

Ok, so how can this help my game? Well, the first thing I recognize is that I haven't been thinking about domination enough. Depending on the looseness of the table, do we really want to call a raise with AJ offsuit? If the table is very loose, then maybe... but would a typical player raise with AT suited? I need to stop playing KQo for 2 bets, even in late position.

The second thing I realize is that I haven't been raising enough with my big suiteds, e.g. QJs, KTs. These hands will win more than their share of the pot when it hasn't been opened, so bring it in for a raise when you open.

Abdul focuses on "balancing" play a lot, so he advocates liberal use of the limp-reraise. With online play I don't think balancing is as important--it's very hard to get a good profile on players, because you rarely play with the same set of opponents. I love the limp-reraise for purposes of confusion rather than balancing-- it's great to see the long pause after a limp-reraise.

Ok, so I have to clean up my pre-flop game a little bit, and Abdul's breakdown of opening hands should help. Your play shouldn't be dictated by a chart, but knowing the odds of good/marginal preflop hands winning (e.g. QJs) can help you play better. The other thing I need to do is start counting the number of bets in the pot. I have been lazy with this, and it has not yet become automatic, since I often play 3 tables simultaneously. Multiple tables = bad habits!

Exhaling... ok, not sure how that little exploration of theory space went, but if nothing else, it made me realize my game has gotten a bit sloppy. Gotta get back to disciplined play. Yardley's book (although completely outdated) basically says that the key to winning is to (1) play only hands that are strong favorites, and (2) find a table with at least 4 suckers. I've heard many times that table selection is the most important skill in poker, and I definitely don't spend much time trying to be seated at the most profitable table. I suppose if I was playing as a pro, I would spend the extra 10-20 minutes scoping out the best table, but for now I have to sit wherever they stick me (sometimes I have a choice of $3-6 tables, but not often).

Got an email from LondonFroggy, who is out there blogging for all those UK poker players. I think I'm more of a fan of British poker than American poker, I must confess. Alvarez and Holden were both Brits, and I guess they've made me think of the British players as more intellectual than the ramblin gamblin Texans who (supposedly) invented Hold 'Em. Then again, Devilfish seems like a twit, so who knows. Check out LondonFroggy's blog at the link on the right.

Ok, I'm going to take a page from Iggy's blog and start offering y'all a "picture of the day" link. For the first offering, I'm gonna have to "serve up"
an interesting pic of our favorite tennis player doing what she does best

Ok one more, just to show you how much I miss the east coast:
Real fans, who would drive to the Laker game even if it was drizzling

2003-12-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

Grinding and Leak Finding

A relatively uneventful day on the tables. Managed to pull in an average of 2.5 BB per hour on the triple 3-6ers, but after 6.28 hours total, it only added up to a $115 win. I'll take it, but I see what they mean when they say it's hard to drop down levels. You can sit in the $5-10 shorthanded game and win or lose that much in 15 minutes, and the robotic play just wore me down after a while. But I need to build the bankroll, and the variance is much much smaller at $3-6, so I'll keep at it for a while. Party seemed unusually tight today. The evening $3-6 games looked more like the normal tight $5-10 games. I guess Party doesn't loosen up until everyone gets a few drinks in them... but it's 10 PM east coast time, so I figured it would be prime time. I also killed the coors lights last night, and was too lazy to make it to the store, so I think that decreased my patience tenfold. It's a lot easier to sit there and click fold with a few beers in your stomach (there's a point when the raise button becomes attractive though).

Nothing too exciting to report from the day's play, although I did have the pleasure of sitting at a .5/1 table with the Intrepid Card Player (link to his blog on right). Watch out for this guy, he's got the patience to be a good one... Anyway, this particular table was just amazing. Amazing! I just looked at the pokertracker stats, and not counting my raises, there were only 3 raises in the entire 23 hands I played! And 2 of those were made by ICP! The players had big flashing calling station signs hanging from their little icon heads. There would be 8 players seeing the flop, and it would get checked down to the river. Someone laughed at me for raising preflop when I didn't have AA. What is going on here? I was baffled.

It reminded me of a song by one of my favorite groups, The Bottlerockets. It's called "Thousand Dollar Car" and here are the lines that ran through my head after sitting in this game:

If you only got a thousand dollars
You oughta just buy a good guitar
Learn how to play it'll take you farther
Than any old thousand dollar car

The point is that by trying to skimp on the bankroll, you end up with junk. This .5/1 table didn't resemble poker. More like video poker. I encourage everybody playing this limit: once you have some experience under your belt and have read some Lee Jones, to save up $600 (or perhaps $400) and move up to $1-2. I really don't think too much can be learned at games where there is no raising and very little betting. But maybe I was just at an unusual table. It really made me want to code up a bot and unleash it on the unsuspecting calling stations, but I just don't know how to do all the screen scraping involved.

I went through Pokertracker to try to find some leaks, to see where my game was weak. There's a cool feature that lets you sort by BB/Hand. If you sort it in ascending order, you see the hands that have lost you the most BB/Hand. In my case, here's what I got:

Hand BB lost per hand
88 .78
AKs .68
K8s .54
T7s .52
77 .40
55 .40

Ok, so a couple of statistical "yeah buts" here. The sample size is around 35-45 for each hand, and except for AK, about 1/4 of these hands were received in the blinds. So that kind of screws up the analysis. However, it is clear that I'm pushing my middle pairs too hard... raising with 88 might be ok on the button, but it looks like I'm losing money pushing them from middle position. I will have to cool off with 88 and 77, and play them like the smaller pairs.

The K8s and T7s are mostly from shorthanded games, when trying to steal the blinds. I guess I should slow down with these hands and not gamble as much. I was surprised to see that T7s there, although nearly 50% of those hands I was in the blinds with.

It's also clear that I'm hanging on to AKs too often. These are the only overcards that I usually call with, so often I'm calling a bet with only 6 outs. For a correct call on the flop, I need to be getting at least 4 to 1, probably more since if an ace hits there is a decent probability the opponent will fold. But I think where I'm losing with this hand is heads up on the 5-10 tables, when I usually (wrongly) feel that AK can win unimproved.

Another check I did was to review the Misc. Stats tab, which breaks down the amount of money by hand rank. I was surprised to see that I had actually lost $141 on Final Hand = One Pair, and won $2200 on Two Pair. This didn't make sense, but I realized that two pair also includes the times the board pairs. Duh. The only tentative conclusion I could draw from these stats is that I need to be more careful with top pair, as it holds up less often than I thought, according to these figures. They back up the idea that in multiway pots, you need better than top pair to win.

Ok, sorry if that was boring, but I think I learned something. Football was good to me this morning... I missed the under on the Cinci-Baltimore game when Baltimore inexplicably tacked on an extra TD in the fourth quarter. I didn't see this game, so will have to check the paper tomorrow to see what happened there. But I won my Colts bet, thanks to the wonderful special teams of Tennessee. A fumbled punt and 2 fumbled kickoffs was about the only thing that could keep the Mighty MVP McNair from ruining my bet. You know, the lack of good special teams in the NFL amazes me. In college, my coach always spent equal time practicing offense, defense, and special teams. He always said that special teams was 1/3 of the game. I agree with this, and there is no excuse for some of the horrible plays you see on special teams every week. The Chiefs specials are the best in the league, and they've stolen about 4 games as a result of them. I'm going to start finding games with tight spreads, and just bet on the team with the better specials.

Anyway, during the indy game I remembered the snowstorm in New England, and remembered that the Pats were giving 3 points to Miami. The Pats have no running game, and the conditions were not conducive to passing. I figured Ricky Williams would get his 80 yards, and we'd see a game something like 13-6. Now, to take the under or just go with Miami? The Pats are my newly adopted team (unfortunately I am a lifetime Raider fan), me being from New England and all, and Bill Belichek actually graduated from my college, Wesleyan University. Belichek is, hands down, the best football mind the NFL has ever seen. And, like an idiot, I went against my gut and with my bad-weather logic and put the money on the Dolphins. Result: 12-0 Pats, all Belichek. Why didn't I take the damn under???

Faulk will run all over Cleveland tomorrow and get me my money back, but what a dumb bet. I'm gonna try to ride the Pats all the way through the playoffs...

8 pm Sunday night, maybe I should get back to Party...

Addendum:
Well, I hopped on a $5-10 shorthanded table while I waited for the full $5-10 tables to clear out. With whiskey in hand (there was no beer in the fridge), the following hand unfolded.
I'm too tired to write it out, but here it is:
5/10 TEXASHTGAMETABLE (LIMIT) - SUN DEC 07 23:49:50 EST 2003
Table Mystique (6 max) (Real Money) -- Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 1: lketowin ( $193)
Seat 2: Wheels2003 ( $245)
Seat 3: Holdouts ( $148)
Seat 4: hdouble ( $198)
Seat 5: Mistressromy ( $315)
Seat 6: prosound ( $243)
Wheels2003 posts small blind (2)
Holdouts posts big blind (5)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to hdouble [ 4c, Ac ]
hdouble raises (10) to 10
Mistressromy folds.
prosound calls (10)
lketowin folds.
Wheels2003 calls (8)
Holdouts calls (5)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 8d, 5c, Tc ]
Wheels2003 bets (5)
Holdouts calls (5)
hdouble calls (5)
prosound calls (5)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Jc ]
Wheels2003 bets (10)
Holdouts raises (20) to 20
hdouble calls (20)
prosound folds.
Wheels2003 raises (20) to 30
Holdouts calls (10)
hdouble raises (20) to 40
Wheels2003 calls (10)
Holdouts calls (10)
** Dealing River ** : [ Js ]
Wheels2003 bets (10)
Holdouts calls (10)
hdouble calls (10)
** Summary **
Main Pot: $208 | Rake: $2
Board: [ 8d 5c Tc Jc Js ]
lketowin balance $193, didn't bet (folded)
Wheels2003 balance $388, bet $65, collected $208, net +$143 [ 8s 8h ] [ a full house, Eights full of jacks -- Jc,Js,8s,8h,8d ]
Holdouts balance $83, lost $65 [ 2c Kc ] [ a flush, king high -- Kc,Jc,Tc,5c,2c ]
hdouble balance $133, lost $65 [ 4c Ac ] [ a flush, ace high -- Ac,Jc,Tc,5c,4c ]
Mistressromy balance $315, didn't bet (folded)
prosound balance $228, lost $15 (folded)

There is nothing more I hate than the river full house. 10 to 1 and the guy hits it. Would have been my $143. I fought my way back with a couple hands, and ended up down only $60 for the session... damn river jack.

However, there is a happy ending. I hopped on a couple full $5-10 tables and ironically, won two big pots in a row with... 99! The hand that had lost me the most money apparently was feeling neglected, and through for me. A lucky suckout to hit my trip 9s on the river and a $94 pot. The high board card was a 10, and it turned out the guy had QT. Hey, I deserved this one after getting hit in the head with that boat. The next hand I get 99 again, and call an aggressive player to the showdown, who ends up having 66. $44.

I raked a $72 pot when my KQ on the button flopped 2 pair. Nothin like hittin the flop while the scotch goes to your head. Final figures: up $57 after 1 hour total. It was nice to be a winner again, and the $5-10 tables are definitely my favorite. I better get to bed before I throw my winnings away in a drunken tilt...

2003-12-06T22:28:00.000-08:00

Drowning in the river

Wow. I'm stunned. My worst online session ever this morning, by far. Just got brutalized. 3 $3-6 tables, and managed to lose on all 3. A total of 337 in a 1.5 hour session (4.89 hours combined)! I didn't think I was capable of losing this much at the $3-6 level. I'm going to take a walk through the poker tracker database and see what happened. I seem to remember getting rivered over and over again, but let's see if that's true:

Table 1: -131
1. -18 when my AJd is beaten by 88, and I go to the river drawing to the wheel. Bad play.
2. +40 when my AQ hits a turn on the river
3. -21 when my JJ loses to a guy who flopped two tens with JT
4. -15 on a missed nut 4 flush
5. +54 when my pocket tens hold up
6. -21 on a missed nut 4 flush
7. -27 when my flopped pair of Aces goes down to a BB limper who flopped two 3s with T3o.
Ugh this is depressing. I guess it was a little bit of luck combined with a little bit of bad play, but losing 14 big bets per hour is just awful. Time for another beer.

Table 2: -177
1. -24 when my flopped top pair (queens) goes down to pocket aces
2. +32 flopping a set of 9s
3. -21 when my 9s get killed by Q7o when two queens flop (why didn't I fold here??)
4. +41 when my QJ catches a Jack on the turn (why was I still in this pot with 2 overcards? Ok, the pot was pretty big, I guess this is OK)
5. -18 on a missed open ended straight
6. -18 when my flopped pair of Aces goes down to a flopped straight
7. -21 when my JJ overpair goes down to a set of nines
And the beats go on...

On the third table I managed to lose just $5. Amazing.

Ok so the river didn't kill me after all, but it certainly didn't help. I remember checking my statistics at one point and finding out that I'd seen 30% of flops with a 6% winning percentage. 6% Just horrible. When you are running bad, you're running bad. I guess I have to learn to tighten up when I'm running bad. I get into trouble in those tables with no pre-flop raising and 4 or 5 players seeing the flop. By then the pots are big enough to chase nearly any draw, and I guess today I didn't hit my fair share of draws.

Anyway this was a serious blow to the bankroll, as well as the confidence level. My wife came home early from work, which probably saved me from throwing away more money. I wasn't on tilt, but I definitely wasn't on my "A" game. Anyway, we took a ride down the street to see "Bad Santa" at the Beverly Center mall, a huge expensive place on the West Hollywood/Beverly Hills border. What a nightmare. We spent 15 minutes trying to find a spot in the horribly designed parking structure. This put me over the edge (I hate LA!) and I did my best to make an empty plastic coke bottle explode. I hadn't been that angry in a while, but I think LA can do that to you...

Luckily I was saved by Billy Bob Thornton. The movie was hilarious, and features about the meanest hero I can remember seeing in a movie. The movie opens with Billy Bob puking up a fifth of Ole Grandad. There was also more drinking and smoking in this movie than in Iggy's home games. Definitely lots of low brow humor, but it was well done.

After getting home and throwing down a couple of coors lights, my spirits were back in order. I sat at a $5-10 shorthanded table, and proceeded to quickly drop $95 in 3 consecutive hands.
Hand 1: BB, one limper, SB folds. I have T5d, and flop is Qc Ad 9d. We both check the flop, and turn is a Ten. I bet out, he raises, and I call. River is another ten. I check raise, and he calls, and turns over KJ for the straight. Ouch. -45.
Hand 2: 5 player pot, my AQ misses everything and I fold on the river.
Hand 3: I loosen up and play my K3 suited because 3 players have limped in before me. 5 player pot, and flop is T Q 3, none of my suit. I call the flop bet, hoping to catch the turn (the pot was at 9 small bets at this point). And the turn is a beautiful K, and I get a checkraise in. The river is a Q, with no flush on the board, I fear the Q, and check the river through... sure enough, some clown turns over QT. I guess it would have been a bad beat if the queen hadn't hit the river anyway... -$30.

Ok so that's -95 in three hands, but I'm calm, I'm calm... a few beers in my system helps. I wait out the bad hands and start turning it around. I get A8, AQ, and AK three hands in a row, and pull in $109 on those three. $48 more when I catch a jack on the turn, and my KJ beats out AQ. A huge $75 win when my AK flops a king. $38 more when my Q9s flops top pair and holds. A pair of 6s holds up for $30 more. And a big blind special, my 42 suited flops 2 pair in a multiway pot (but everyone folds), $30 more. Ended up winning $66 in 40 minutes after being way down. A nice moral victory, but not much of a dent in the ailing bankroll.

The night is young. The tables are calling. You can't beat Saturday night on Party.

Addendum: Well, I did beat party, but only for $50 on the $3-6 tables after a 1 hour session. Hey I'll take it. More importantly, I saw an ad for Party Poker on Saturday night live. They've reached network tv! Bring on the fish!!!

2003-12-05T21:53:00.000-08:00

Rushing shorthanded

First off I want to say thanks to all the blog brothers (see the links on the right) for making a boring day at work more interesting. Lots of excellent blogging going on out there.

I finally hit a nice run of cards... I'd been waiting to hit a rush for a while, and after 6 coors lights, I was ready to roll. The wife was off from work, so I was a little distracted, but managed to pull in a $20 win after a 1 hour session on 3 $3-6 tables. I guess the poker gods rewarded me for complaining about my fare with AK, as I pulled in two $45 wins with 2 AKo (I lost $6 on one AKo). And I pulled in a huge $79 win (26 big bets!) when my pocket rockets were helped by an Ace on the turn, and some poor sap held KK. Of course I managed to call most of this away with marginal hands. 2 of the 3 tables were those typical Friday night gems, where 5 or 6 see the flop and there is little preflop raising. So I had to call with my marginal hands and live with the implied odds.

Anyway, I took a little break, polished off a couple more beers, and sat down at a $5-10 shorthanded game. 15 hands later, I was up $238. I won 4 of the 15 hands:
1. QQ, flop is QK3, and the table is aggressive. I'm hoping one of the other 2 callers has AK, and the betting tells me this may be true. An Ace comes on the turn, and I miss on a check raise, but the check induces a capped fifth street. One guy had K7, another AT. Just perfect. $98 win.
2. Q9s, flop is 529, turn 2, river 6. $63 from two players, one with 33, another presumably missed his flush draw.
3. A9s, flop is AA2, and I bet the whole way, called by QQ and Q2. $73 win.
4. 87s, I play it aggressively heads up and, the 7 is top pair on the flop, and holds up for a $30 win.

That's it. 4 hands, $238. It felt good to finally beat the shorthanded table, I have struggled there the last couple sessions, but tonight's win puts me back positive for the shorthanded $5-10 games. It was also nice to be able to focus on one game, rather than straining my eyes to follow three tables. I really think these games put a poker player to the test, because everyone is aggressive here, and the ability to read players becomes more important. I love playing these games, but I think the best players play here, so I usually avoid them. Maybe I should change that...

Anyway, my wife wanted to go buy some Swedish Christmas drink (she's Swedish), so I took the money and ran. Of course on the way there, I rambled on about how a poker player is measured by the way that he loses, not the way he wins. Anybody can push a winning hand. But cutting your losses when you sense your beaten is the hard part. These mindless sessions on 3 tables seem more like waiting for the rush than anything else. I've managed to win a small amount while not getting much in the way of cards, and I think I'm getting better at losing.

At the moment, there are 180 players waiting for the 2 $30-60 tables, and 2 of the players have been occupying a seat at each table all day. Why party doesn't open up more tables is baffling. I guess they are easing into the world of high stakes poker. The new $200 NL tables only have 20 people waiting for the 2 new tables. I guess Party doesn't want their flock to bust too soon, so they limit the high stakes tables... the longer the fish survive, the more money party rakes. It will be interesting to see if they add more tables... Maybe they are scared of losing players to the bigger games at UB and PokerStars.

Started "The Education of a Poker Player" by Herbert Yardley. This is old school poker. Yardley tells stories about guys who literally "bet the farm". This is old school stuff, the first section of the book only talks about 5 card draw, jacks or better. He also shows a bit of hubris in claming that he never, in his entire lifetime, lost at 3 consecutive sittings. But he does give us a great quote about low limit poker:

"As I got farther from home I found the value of the bets smaller, the raises more frequent, and the games wilder. I fashioned my method of play after long study of each game and discovered that the smaller the stakes, the wilder the game, the easier to win."

Mr. Yardley, I wish I could say the same.

2003-12-04T21:53:00.000-08:00

Aces and Kings and Queens, Oh my!

Whew. WILD Thursday night at the $3-6 tables. After all was said and done, Poker Tracker tells me I ended up $27 after 5.86 hours. That's not very many big bets per hour. But I think I played pretty well (although a little on the loose side), and a few terrible beats cut down on my winnings. The title of the blog refers to the unusual number of KK, QQ, and AK I held. You'd think I might be able to win a few pots with those, right? Ah but the fish were in school tonight...

Here's a quick summary of what happened with these hands:
1. KK:-24 after 3 hearts flop, and I say hell with it, and bet into the two callers. Flop is J83h, and turn is 6, I bet and am called by 2 players all the way. One guy had JJ, another had 66, and I'm left with cowboys in my pocket. This was a dumb play anyway, so I deserved it.
2. KK:+76 on my biggest pot of the night, after highest card on the board is 9, and I'm called down by AK and 55. And you wonder why I can't leave party.
3. KK:-6 when I go soft and and fold the winner after an ace flops. Winner took $39 after his J9 picked up a jack on the turn. There were 5 players seeing the flop, I figured one of them had the ace. I don't think this is too bad of the play.

4. QQ:+6 when BB calls me and folds on my flop bet
5. QQ:+23 when maniac's 96s flops a 6 and calls me to the river
6. QQ:+37 when the ladies hold up against maniac's AK

7. AKo:+18 when an Ace hits on the river and the other caller folds.
8. AKo:+27 when I beat a maniac's 22 when Ace hits on the turn
9. AKs:-33 on my favorite hand of the night. This one is great. Two maniacs behind me, I raise it up, and BB maniac reraises me. Maniac junior calls, and I cap it, knowing that these guys raise with anything. Flop is K 6 9 rainbow, and I'm sittin pretty. Maniac checks (?) and maniac junior bets out, and I'm not sure what to think, so I call, and maniac check raises. Maniac junior reraises, and I just call (ok I chickened out a little here, but I was playing 3 tables and wasn't exactly thinking clearly). The turn is a 5, and all four suits on the board. This time they check to me, and I bet out, sure I've got the best hand (no check raise). The river is a 7, so the only thing I have to be worried about is a set, or the 78 for the straight. This is possible, and when maniac junior bets out, I just call, and maniac calls behind me. Maniac junior shows 76s for 2 pair on the river, and rakes the pot. Maniac had Q6 suited, and I had a bad beat story. Ye gads.
10. AKo:-9, I fold on the turn after the 3rd heart hits, and 789 is on the board.
11. AKo:-12 after the board is 777 and I bet out... I'm raised, and one player calls, so I fold. Turns out the raiser had AA and the other guy had 74. Ouch.
12. AKs:-6 when flop shows 3 clubs and 5 players are in.

Ironically, I won $121 at one table over 2 hours, and only held KK once (no QQ or AK). But in my 12 "top hands", I ended up winning $97, even though only 6 of them held up. I guess 50% ain't bad. But it shows you you've got to play more than the top hands-- 380 hands means 38 orbits, so that's $133 to the blinds. That doesn't count the rake. Anyway, the point is my 12 top hands didn't even pick up enough to cover the blinds. And I never held AA once.

3 tables is pretty crazy, and I don't really like it... tough to get a read on players, and hard to determine if you made a good play or bad because you're always moving on to another hand at another table. But it's the most profitable thing (I think), because it's mostly ABC, fit-or-fold poker, which doesn't require much critical thought.

I asked Iggy (see his blog on the right, it's one of the best) if the $15-30 games were really as juicy as they looked. He said they were, but he rightfully pointed out that collusion is very scary at that level. It's so easy to cheat, and big money is involved, so it's probably better to just go down to the B&M and SEE the players. Just for peace of mind alone it's probably worth it, and the rake is very reasonable once you get up to that level. But man, oh man, those games look fun...

Amazon delivered Yardley's "Education of a poker player" today, and I got through the first few pages. His style is a bit dry, and he seems to be a braggart, but there are some funny stories in there. My Dad told me he read this book when he was a kid, so I guess it goes way back. I'll put up a review when I get through it.

Ok I'm running out of steam, but I'll quickly put up my football picks in case anyone is interested.

Cincinnati Bengals at Baltimore Ravens
Total Points UNDER 39.5
--Should be low scoring game... two solid defenses, and the total is up because both teams have had big scoring games for the past two weeks. I think we're looking at 17-10 Cinci.

Indianapolis Colts at Tennessee
Indianapolis, Spread +3.5 for Game -104

Indianapolis Colts at Tennesse
Indianapolis, Money Line for Game +164
--I hedged my bet here, but I think the Colts will take this one. I don't like Volek starting for Tenn (please please don't let McNair start!), and Indy has impressed me every time I've seen them. They will be hungry after a tough loss, and I think they want this game more.

St Louis Rams at Cleveland Browns
St Louis, Spread -4 for Game -108
--Not sure why the spread is only 4 here. The Rams O is looking like the offense of old... Faulk looks healthy for the first time in a looong time, and that's dangerous for Cleveland, who is horrible against the run. I say Faulk goes for 150 in this game and Rams win big. I may double up my bet here depending how the Sunday games go.

Ok, that's way more than enough blogging for today. I leave you with a classic Party battle between two clowns at my $3-6 table. It was so good it distracted me from the other 2 games. I missed the first couple barbs, but needless to say it was started by a bad beat. Enjoy.

norookie2: fag
mitdata: ohhh
mitdata: what are you 10
norookie2: with your little needle XXXX
mitdata: what is your problem - why don't you come over and suck a juicy fart out of my ass
norookie2: speaking of mature
mitdata: my girlfriend does it all the time
norookie2: she blind?
mitdata: no a model
norookie2: yeah...a plastic doll?
mitdata: I bet your some fat ass aren't you
norookie2: or are they rubber?
mitdata: What is like being an ugly ass person
norookie2: little mit bookworm loser....
mitdata: rich too
norookie2: that's why U'r playing 3/6?
norookie2: loser?
norookie2: rich guys play 30/60
mitdata: yea, why not people like you are easy pickens
norookie2: nh bud
mitdata: was better than yours
norookie2: long as u beat needle d i c k
mitdata: I hung in there hoping you would bet
norookie2: idiot
mitdata: I knew my pair of two would be your hand
vincecb: caty
norookie2: be?
norookie2: "-B
mitdata: 'nh
norookie2: lol
norookie2: nh
norookie2: 59 and counting
norookie2: backwards
mitdata: only thousands where that comes from
norookie2: pathetic liar
mitdata: not at all
mitdata: why would I lie to someone as low as you
mitdata: this is play money while I wait on the next tournament to start
norookie2: which one? I'll beat your ass there too
mitdata: what makes you think that, you have not won any hands on this table
mitdata: thought maybe you matured over the last few hands - but your still an ass
norookie2:
mitdata: wow
mitdata: you can't complain about losing to a hand like that
norookie2:
mitdata: nh vince
vincecb: thanks
mitdata: hilarious - roookie you are down nearly 100 since you started mouthing
norookie2: and you?
norookie2: more
norookie2: I saw your buyin
mitdata: down $16 on this table
mitdata: make sure you save $55 to donate to the tourney
mitdata: hey rookie
mitdata: you have a nice Thanksgiving
norookie2: thanks......but I'm no yankee
mitdata: Oh you have to be a yankee to celebrate thanksgiving - real nice
norookie2: we've had ours already
norookie2: ahead of you as per usual
mitdata: yea, I am convinced you must be really ugly
mitdata: I bet he piples on my ass look better than you
norookie2: I'm happy for ya....
norookie2: a delusional state
mitdata: don't see you in the tourny yet, maybe be will get on the same table
norookie2: crazy people have no worries
norookie2: guess you're blind AND dumb
mitdata: by the way, have you always walked around with a di ck hanging off your forehead
norookie2: oh how clever!
norookie2: take you long to figure that one out?
mitdata: No I am serious, just wondering why you are so angry
mitdata: you get screwed over in life or what
norookie2: who says I'm angry
norookie2: I just hate whiners like you
norookie2: think you're the only one supposed to win
mitdata: just the fact you use the word hate
mitdata: at a 10 person table
norookie2: he's notva
norookie2: he's not allowed?
mitdata: you were lucky enough to not be at the table at the time
mitdata: what do you mean he is not allowed
norookie2: it's called a rush...and if you play enough holdem you'll see them once in a while
mitdata: not shiit
mitdata: no
mitdata: XXXX your not on my table
norookie2: your?
norookie2: how about you're
mitdata: your what
norookie2: speak English much?
norookie2: why u locking up a seat?
mitdata: to bother you
norookie2: people wanna play here
mitdata: I guess I will go - hope you have a nice day
norookie2: you're selfish too
mitdata: not at all - donate more in a year to charity then you can even think about making - I would not call that selfish
mitdata: see you - merry christmas
norookie2: right

2003-12-03T22:20:00.000-08:00

Two nights off: The Cooler and Confidence

The wife is off from work Tuesday and Wednesday, so it's been two days with no poker for me. Back to the grind tomorrow night. We went and saw "The Cooler," a movie about gambling and love with William H. Macy. If ever a movie "pulled no punches," this one is it. Just some brutal scenes. Overall not much of a movie, but there was a fair bit of gambling, so I was happy.

One of the ideas in the movie is that Love brings luck on the tables. This theme has been explored in thousands of movies in one form or the other. The loser hero falls in love, and suddenly is transformed to winner. Is there any truth to this legend? Well, I think that love can bring confidence, and believing in oneself is a major component in being successful at anything. It brings us back to the theme that in poker or in sports, if you don't believe you're the best, then you're not playing the best you can play. On the football field, there were many games where I was sick, or injured, or just not at the top of my game. And there were times when I let that affect my game-- I let myself believe that because I was sick, I had an excuse to not make a big play. But these lapses were rare-- I always felt that there was a little switch that I could turn on when the adrenaline hit, and I would be able to beat anyone on the defensive side of the ball. Whether or not this was true, this belief helped me to make the play-- if I didn't believe I was better than the defense, how could I beat them?

In poker, the confidence from a rush or a few great plays can put one in "the zone." The poker zone is a place where all doubts are gone, when you are 100% sure that the guy you put on AK has AK. Whether he ends up having it or not, that confidence makes you play better. The problem in poker is that confidence is dangerous. I've found myself sitting at a table where every player there has clearly never read a poker book. I've found myself seeing more flops, thinking "I'll outplay them after the flop," and then wincing when my top pair loses to some guy who filled up holding 72 offsuit. There is a fine line between extracting the maximum amount of bets from a game, and playing it safe. Lee Jones tells us to play it safe. But it's hard to resist those chips that are just waiting for us on the table.

My poker confidence is still in flux. My stats tell me I'm a solid player, averaging nearly 2 BB an hour for 100 hours. I believe I'm a solid player. But my stat classes kick in, and tell me that 100 hours is nothing. I want to be more than a "solid" player, someone only bets when they are sure their odds are heavily in their favor. It's easy to value bet with top pair, top kicker, but what about the times when you think you can bet your Ace high for value? Hopefully with experience will come confidence. The brain is superb at pattern recognition, and we are naturally wired to learn from patterns. The key is being able to break down the hand into something that you've seen before, so you can apply the general principles you've picked up along the way.

I remember reading a study they did on a bunch of movers in Alaska. They told the movers to pack a box as they normally would (with limited space, as usual for the movers). Then they gave the problem to the mathematicians, who applied an optimal packing algorithm to the geometric shapes to be packed. Guess what? The movers packed optimally. They had learned the algorithm (or something like it) after years and years of experience.

So the bottom line is, I need to play more. Practice. Practice isn't much fun, but when you finally make it to gameday (15-30 tables?), you're prepared for the big game.

I guess all of this should be obvious, but it helps me to see it on paper. I have faith in our ability to learn patterns, even when the number of variables is in the thousands. Eventually we'll put it together.

I was hoping to take one of my first stabs at poker theory about opening with middle Aces on a loose table (inspired by Sklansky's current column on http://www.cardplayer.com, check it out), but all this pattern recognition stuff suggests I should just play it out and learn the patterns. I also want to explore the probability that if you flop second pair, your hand is the best, but I'm too tired now. Hopefully I can get to that in the future.

So train your neural networks, and believe in yourself. See you on the tables Thursday night.

2003-12-02T00:15:00.000-08:00

Feeling the Grind

The theme of something you love turning into a grind has been running through my head for a while. This theme can basically broken down to three questions, as applicable to poker:

1. Is it possible to "master" poker, to reach a level where there are very few plays that are not "known" to you? At this point, the play becomes more algorithmic and less creative. Your heuristics for deciding whether to raise or fold are based more on memory than critical thought.
2. If it is possible, does poker become less fun at this point? Is it truly a grind?
3. How long does it take to reach this level of mastery?

I've been pondering these questions for a while now, and today came across a GCA post that said something like "Those who truly love the game will have a harder time making money. Those who treat it like a job will have a better chance at succeeding."

Now I'm no GCA fan, but this hit home. After playing football for 18 years, I met several pros (or players who ended up pros) that played football only as a job. They didn't even like the game anymore, but it was their best career option, since most of these guys had little in the way of education. I always loved the game, and played "for the love of the game." Of course it was a grind after week 12, when your body is beat up and your legs tired, but I still loved it.

Poker is different. Tight play gets the money in most cases, and at low limit tables, one is usually better of "looking for an excuse to fold" as Lee Jones says. When you play like this, poker becomes very boring, but perhaps also becomes more profitable.

My tentative conclusion is that there is much more interesting tactical play at the higher limit games. Simple tight play won't get the money there, and critical thinking becomes more profitable. However, at the lower levels, robotic tight play in loose games will prevail. So, I am planning on treating poker somewhat like work. If I put in the robotic tight play, I can develop some fundamental skills, and hopefully reward myself with the bankroll to play in the "big game".

After getting my ass kicked at a shorthanded $5-10 table, I thought the above was a good plan. This table had the toughest players I've ever faced, and it didn't help that I wasn't getting any cards. I admit my shorthanded game is probably only slightly above par, but there are only so many times you can lose with AK heads up before you start giving a little blame to the cards. Anyway, I got demolished, dropping $182 in 30 minutes.

This was not good for my Thanksgiving-depleted bankroll, and I figured it was time to start the experiment. If nothing else, the beating at the shorthanded game made me happy to do some jail time as a robot at the $3-6 tables. (Side note: I have only played a couple shorthanded sessions at $5-10, but the players here seem to me the best on party collectively. The only reason to sit at this table is to test your game.)

So I sat at 3 $3-6ers, resolved to play tight, with the occasional move thrown in to spice it up. It helped that each of the 3 virtual decks was pretty much slapping me in the face, but after a 1 hour session, I found myself up $75 $62 and $82 for a total of $219. Excellent (as Mr. Burns would say), it worked! Just when my confidence is in the gutter, a wave of cards will wash over me and bring me back in. I even stole 3 or 4 pots, not an easy task at low limit.

The downside is that even if I average a whopping 3 bets an hour on all three tables, it takes 19 hours to make a grand. Is it not better to take a shot at the $15-30 games, and hope to hit 3 or 4 big hands? Of course the risk is much greater, but we're looking at at least 40 hours to earn 1K (at 1.5 BB hour), and the most I want to put in is a couple hours a night at most. Yeah, yeah I know. 40 hours is nothing. But I'm old. A wife and a 9-5, and hopefully a book on the way. Ah well. We'll see what happens. That's why it's an experiment.

I leave you with a passage from Paul Auster's "The Music of Chance". I think it's a good illustration of what it takes to succeed in life. No matter what the world tells you, if you don't have an unflinching faith in yourself as a person, life ain't gonna be worth livin...

"At ten thirty, he switched off the television and climbed into bed with a paperback copy of Rousseau's Confessions . . . . Just before he fell asleep, he came to the passage in which the author is standing in a forest and throwing stones at trees. If I hit that tree with this stone, Rousseau says to himself, then all will go well with my life from now on. He throws the stone and misses. That one didn't count, he says, and so he picks up another stone and moves several yards closer to the tree. He misses again. . . . That was just the final warm-up toss, he says, it's the next one that really counts. But just to make sure, he walks right up to the tree this time, positioning himself directly in front of the target. He is no more than a foot away from it by now, close enough to touch it with his hand. Then he lobs the stone squarely against the trunk. Success, he says to himself, I've done it. From this moment on, life will be better for me than ever before."

2003-11-30T17:11:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving, tilt, and rebirth

Well friends, it was a rough Thanksgiving. Your humble narrator nearly gave his whole bankroll, thanks to a little too much Budweiser, combined with several shots of frustration. I thought I was immune to tilt, but I found myself playing like a maniac on a drunk Thanksgiving afternoon. Here are the gruesome statistics:

Date Game Hours Return ($)
11/27/2003 3-6 1.05 158
11/27/2003 5-10 4.78 -452
11/27/2003 15-30 1 -126
11/27/2003 15-30 0.5 -258
11/27/2003 15-30 0.16 -311

It hurts just to look at them. However, I did learn a valuable lesson, and although the cost was high, I think it was worth it. As you can see, I took a shot at the big game. Actually 3 shots, and all 3 missed the mark by a longshot. Yes I was on tilt, but I was also very unlucky.

I can't stomach a hand by hand analysis of these awful sessions, but I will give a general overview. The most painful loss (and I can't get this one out of my head) was a 300 dollar loss when I flopped a flush with a straight flush draw, and was beaten by a full house on the river. That hurt. Amazingly, in all 3 of these sessions, I was dealt AA in the big blind on my first hand. All 3! I thought this was some sort of sign, but apparently it was only a sign to take my money and run. If I had only taken my rockets and went home... anyway, those 3 hands only netted me a paltry $190, and unfortunatley I was trying to win back what I lost in my 5-10 game...

What are the odds of getting dealt those 3 pairs of aces? Well if we use the simple 1/220 calculation, we get one in 10,648,000! One in 11 million! The poker gods smiled on me, and then punished me brutally with a few bad beats when I decided to be greedy. Ah well. The good news is that the 15-30 games were considerably softer than the $5-10 games. Considerably. Lots of bluffing, lots of loose play. Tight play still gets the money at this level, and there were many multiway pots... I know, the results look bad, but I was on tilt and playing way too loose, and suffered 2 or 3 really bad beats.

Anyway, the lesson learned was that the games at $15-30 are not much different than those at $3-6. Which says that you should try to sit tight in these games as soon as your bankroll is anywhere near 300 big bets.
After getting punished for my careless play and playing over my bankroll, I was forced to take stock of my relationship with poker. Was it worth it? Was I wasting my time? Shouldn't I be doing something other than moving chips around a
table? I decided to take a couple days off while I tried to answer these questions.

I had time to come up with some answers on the 4 hour bus ride to Vegas on Friday. I have confidence in my poker skills... I know I'm not great, but after a few months, I'm pretty sure I can win a couple big bets an hour on the average table, as long as I can hold some cards (and I'm not on tilt). The grand I just dropped on the tables came out of my profits, and may sting now, but in the long run is not a big deal. I'm still learning, and I still like to play. But do I want to spend every waking hour playing poker? There was a time when I thought I could do this for 8 hours a day, and I might even enjoy the grind. But now I realize that although there is a lot of variety in poker, it's just like any other game... like a computer, you follow your algorithms-- you develop a general strategy for each starting hand, and stick to that strategy. Except in the rare case where you pick something up that tells you to deviate, such as a tell or an opportunity to bluff. Although these deviations from normal strategy are what keep the game interesting, most of the time you're just following a set of rules that your brain has picked up with experience. That's why they call it the grind.

I thought about my dream of being a writer. I wondered if I was ready, ready to face long sessions in front of the keyboard, waiting for the muse, hoping that the creative spark would be there. Was this so different than poker? Can writing become a grind as well? Is the feeling you get when you get that creative spark so different from hitting your flush on the river and raking a big pot?

Poker is great. But our options are limited, very limited. Given a starting hand, a flop, and a set of opponents, the number of possible optimal plays is very small. Finding that optimal play is fun, but the choices are limited by the board and our opponents. To write is to express your unique perspective, your unique view of the world. The options are unlimited. And when you've finished a book, you've given something to the world. You've taken a shot that your view might comfort others and might give someone out there a sliver of happiness.
As the bus rolled on, these thoughts flashed through my head, and I felt a slight giddiness that the time to start writing had come. I'd always felt that when I was ready to write, I would know. And I hoped that this terrible poker Thanksgiving might have pushed me over the edge and prepared me to start that first book.

The Nevada border came into sight, and welcomed me like an old friend. I tucked away the internal monologue and got ready to win some money. After waking up at 4:30 and sitting on a bus for 4 hours, I was hoping the tables would shake me out of zombie state. After getting killed yesterday, I resolved to play conservatively, and set my trip bankroll at a meager $400. This was plenty for the 7 hours we would be there, but wouldn't allow me to win much. The thought of trying to win back what I lost yesterday flitted through my head, but I figured a big loss might knock me out of commission for a while, so I remained conservative.

I picked a bad day to be conservative. We started out on the $2 craps table (ya gotta love the state line) and after an hour, I had slowly built up a $50 win. No big hits, but a slow progression of 6s and 8s grew my stack of red chips. On to the blackjack tables, where I suffered through a couple of cold shoes, but managed to stay afloat long enough to hit a couple big hands when the shoe turned positive. Card counting finally paid off, and I came out slightly ahead after being down $60 in the first 20 minutes.

This particular casino was the only state line casino with poker, and every hour or so I'd hear "Joe, your Texas hold em seat is open" on the PA. I was tempted, but knew that the game was $1-4-4-8 spread. I didn't like these spread games, and wanted to avoid poker, since the LA poker rooms are 20 minutes away, but blackjack and craps are at least 2 hours away (the Cali indian casinos have blackjack, but no craps). So I resisted the urge, and found myself at the deuces wild video poker machine, where I quickly hit 5 of a kind and cashed out $20 ahead. So I had completed the trifecta-- 3-3: small wins at all three games. There is a first time for everything.

It was time to try to hit for the cycle. I sat down at an empty roulette table, and tried out a simple strategy. $4 on black, and $4 on inside bets, usually $1 or $2 on 4 corner bets. Black was hitting, and I managed to hit a couple of the $2 corner bets, and walked away after 20 minutes $20 up. So I'd hit for the cycle, but was only up $90.

The rest of the day was spent playing blackjack, and had its share of ups and downs. The highlight was a pair of sevens I was dealt on a positive shoe. I had $15 on the table (playing too conservatively!) and the dealer showed a 5. I split the 7s, and got another 7. Another split. A 4. Double down 11. Dealer gives me a 5, and now I need her to bust. I get an ace, and am forced to double again. This time I get a face card for 17. So there's $75 on the table, and my heart nearly breaks when the dealer turns up a 5, and I wait to see the face card. But it's a 2, and the face card comes next, as my heart pounds in relief. Whew, a nice $75 win.

The whole time I'm busy counting cards, I'm also dealing with the worst casino patron I've ever seen in my life. This swarthy bald guy, maybe about 50 years old, is playing armchair quarterback and second guessing my blackjack plays on every single hand. In his Indian accent, he's telling me to stay on my 14 against a dealer 8. This goes on for an entire shoe, and he hasn't played a hand the whole time. Finally the shoe ends, and I have to take my money elsewhere to prevent myself from punching him in the face. He asks "Where you going?" and the only thing I can answer is "You're the worst blackjack player I've ever seen!" and he seems shocked. Never seen anything like it.

Anyway, I got on the bus home with $160 in my pocket. Not much, but better than losing. The bus ride home was endless, and I am not planning on EVER doing a turnaround trip again.

I got some rest and spent Saturday reading Paul Auster's "The music of chance," which is sort of about poker. I definitely recommend it-- Auster's style is kind of annoying, but he hooks you with his characters (maybe because one of them is a young punk poker player). After about 70 pages I felt my poker mind coming back to me, with a new appreciation for the game. I resolved to take the day off from poker, and take another shot when I was ready.

So what did I do with my day off? Write, of course. I finally started my book, and the sentences slowly, but at least they came. It was tough, but after a few hours, I had a few pages and my main character started taking shape. It felt good to get something "on paper."
I woke up today feeling pretty good. It felt kind of like a serious relationship-- you get in a fight, get frustrated,and think that it's not worth your time. But then you reflect, and realize how much you care about the person, and you find yourself back where you started. In this case, the poker table.
So I found myself back for one more shot at the $15-30 this morning. Luckily this story has somewhat of a happy ending. I'll leave you with the hand history:

15/30 TEXASHTGAMETABLE (LIMIT) - SUN NOV 30 15:16:48 EST 2003
Table Card Room Table 2700 (Real Money) -- Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Redfish ( $1941)
Seat 2: chibikiko ( $750)
Seat 3: jogman ( $306)
Seat 4: Etowah ( $738)
Seat 5: hirtme ( $382)
Seat 6: hdouble ( $570)
Seat 7: bcm252 ( $539)
Seat 8: heelhook ( $1243)
Seat 9: patientone ( $1477)
Seat 10: coonz ( $160)
bcm252 posts small blind (10)
heelhook posts big blind (15)
chibikiko posts big blind (15)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to hdouble [ Kd, Kh ]
patientone folds.
coonz folds.
Redfish calls (15)
chibikiko checks.
jogman folds.
Etowah folds.
hirtme calls (15)
hdouble raises (30) to 30
bcm252 calls (20)
heelhook folds.
Redfish raises (30) to 45
chibikiko folds.
hirtme calls (30)
hdouble raises (30) to 60
bcm252 calls (30)
Redfish calls (15)
hirtme calls (15)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 7s, 7d, 6d ]
bcm252 checks.
Redfish checks.
hirtme checks.
hdouble bets (15)
bcm252 folds.
Redfish calls (15)
hirtme calls (15)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Ad ]
Redfish checks.
hirtme checks.
hdouble bets (30)
Redfish raises (60) to 60
hirtme folds.
hdouble calls (30)
** Dealing River ** : [ 4d ]
Redfish bets (30)
hdouble raises (60) to 60
Redfish calls (30)
** Summary **
Main Pot: $552 | Rake: $3
Board: [ 7s 7d 6d Ad 4d ]
Redfish balance $1746, lost $195 [ 8h Ah ] [ two pairs, aces and sevens --
Ah,Ad,8h,7s,7d ]
chibikiko balance $735, lost $15 (folded)
jogman balance $306, didn't bet (folded)
Etowah balance $738, didn't bet (folded)
hirtme balance $307, lost $75 (folded)
hdouble balance $927, bet $195, collected $552, net +$357 [ Kd Kh ] [ a flush,
ace high -- Ad,Kd,7d,6d,4d ]
bcm252 balance $479, lost $60 (folded)
heelhook balance $1228, lost $15 (folded)
patientone balance $1477, didn't bet (folded)
coonz balance $160, didn't bet (folded)

2003-11-26T22:32:00.000-08:00

Down the ladder: like a young man coming in for a quickie

I couldn't take "Josie and the Pussycats" on TV, so I sat down and signed on to Party, while my wife watched that terrible movie. I really wanted to take a shot, and found a juicy $15-30 table and thought I would sit for a couple orbits and try to win a single pot. I downed my coors, and took my seat, and I was next for the big blind. But I forgot that you can't post immediately, so the button passed me by, and I sat and waited. Of course my feet got cold, and I left the table for more comfortable (and less risky) pastures. All of the $5-10 tables were filled, and I don't like to play there if my wife is around (harder to focus), so I found a couple of $3-6 tables, and figured I'd check out my old stomping grounds. Figuring this is equivalent to a Friday night due to the holiday, I knew the games would be juicy.

I felt like I was back in the wild games of Hollywood Park-- 5 or 6 callers sometimes, just beautifully bad plays and lots of money on the table. Both tables were pretty loose, so I shifted into "ram and jam" mode, getting ready to raise my four flushes and big draws. A player to my left was very loose-aggressive, and I couldn't have picked a better seat at one of my tables. Anyway, I played tight, folding everything for an orbit, when I picked up AQd on the button. An early pre-flop raise, and I just call, hoping to suck in the blinds. Loose-aggressive girl in the small blinds raises me, and BB calls, along with the early raiser. I happily call, and we've got a 4 way pot. Flop is Q 7 5 rainbow, and I'm ready to roll... I bet the flop and get 2 callers, and the turn is the 8 of spades, putting 2 spades on the board. I bet the turn, and loose-aggressive reraises, and we trap the caller in the middle. I pop it for another reraise, sure that I have the best of this one. Both call. The river is Kc, and no straights or flushes are on board, but I fear AK from the trapped caller, so I check it through when the river is checked to me. Loose aggressive had QJh, and the trapped guy has 99, so I pull in a $66 win. You gotta love $3-6.

Two hands later I pick up 88 in middle position, and happily call an early raise, 3rd into the pot. We get 2 more callers, so it's a 5 way pot. I get a dream flop of 8 J 7 rainbow, and I'm hoping loose-aggressive will do her job and help me trap the fish. Early raiser bets, and I raise, but this time loose-aggressive just calls, along with one other player, building a big 4 way pot. The turn is a 3, and with all 4 suits represented on board, the only thing I fear is 10 9. I bet the turn, and get 3 callers, and the river is a Queen. I know that I'm money here, and bet for value on the river, but get only one caller. The caller shows J 10 suited, and it's $85 in my pocket.

I later pulled in a $44 win when I flopped Aces and Tens in a pot that was 3 bet preflop, and was called to the showdown by a player with KQ, after the flop was A Q T. At least this guy had outs.

My final $28 win came when a King flopped to my AK suited, and somebody drawing to spades (I think) didn't hit his flush card.

So that's $190 win in 30 minutes on a $3-6 table. Amazing. That's 66 big bets an hour! Maybe I should move back down. Yeah I held some cards, but man, these players are awful.

Not so lucky on the other table: Ended up down $31 bucks after not getting many hands... besides the two $10 pots I took, the only pot I won was a $33 one when my pocket nines tripped up on the turn. Turns out I didn't even need the third one, as a guy with AQo called me down to the showdown. He actually called my river bet with Ace high! The losses came from rammin and jammin with a couple four flushes that didn't hit.

So a win of $158 in 30 minutes of play on 2 $3-6 tables. I probably could have doubled up with a single pot in $15-30, but there was a lot less risk swimming with the fish.

So total poker profits are hovering around $1800... a few more sessions like tonight and the bankroll will be in excellent shape.

Off topic notes:
--Knocked out some Christmas shopping today. The wife and I actually bought a fake tree (ugh). My first Christmas tree. Man, you know you're getting old when you find yourself buying ornaments at Kmart. What a capitalistic holiday... minimum you're spending is $500 bucks, and that's just for about 10 gifts at $50 a pop. The total spending on Christmas per capita has got to be through the roof.
--Sportsbook: I agonized over taking Favre and Green over the hapless Lions tomorrow, giving 6.5 points. I ended up taking the Pack, but one of the reasons is because the game will be on TV and my wife is working tomorrow, so it will give me something to do. The guy has a fractured thumb, and scares the hell out of me, but the lions defense is so horrible I couldn't resist.
--Hats: my old poker hat fell apart (the little flex band on the inside broke, so I was getting these elastic black gummy balls in my hair), so I broke down and bought a nice hat today. $40 bucks for a baseball cap! Definitely the most I've spent on a hat... and it's got a stupid Kangol logo on it, but it was the only one they had that fit my noggin.

Happy Thanksgiving, may your heart pound when you hit your flush on the river.

2003-11-26T11:51:00.000-08:00

Death, poker, and tilting

Yesterday was a rough day. The day began with an emergency meeting at work, and the entire department listened in shock as our director announced that one of our coworkers had taken her own life. It was a complete shock to everyone... I was not close to her, but in the past few weeks, had started to get to know her. She came out to get drinks a couple times after work, and seemed smart, fearless, and attractive. Our team went out Thursday night, and she seemed pretty happy. She even said she had lost a few cents playing penny hold-em when her pocket Aces lost to a flopped flush. She was 39.

I sat down at my desk and reflected on the depths of pain that one must feel when the decision to take your own life becomes attractive. The fact that I have been a few steps away from her cube for 2 years, and we only had 3 or 4 conversations in that time made me sad. LA is a strange place, and people rarely come out of their shell, especially in a professional environment. But the fact that no one could penetrate her shell was depressing.

For some reason this depression brought a quote from Rounders to my mind: "Life is on the wire. The rest is just waiting." Spoken by Papa Wallenda, a great high-wire walker. The banality of everyday life is nearly unbearable, but waiting for the things we enjoy keep us going. In my case, I've always been waiting to get on the football field, but now I'm waiting to get on the poker table.

After sitting at home depressed for a while, I decided to play some poker, hoping that would lift my spirits. 2 nights ago I had won $150 in a 40 minute session by hitting a couple hands and playing solid. After seeing my stack up 15 big bets in such a short time, I realized that this could be considered a good win for a 15 hour session, not to mention a 40 minute session. At this point I decided that a win-limit might be a good thing... i've never believed in them, but if you assume that the table has a reasonable number of good players, 15 big bets is a huge swing beyond standard deviation, and you will be extremely lucky to swing beyond that. Yeah, yeah, each hand is independent of the last, but still... So I'm debating an experiment in which I cash out as soon as I'm up 15 big bets.

Anyway, back to last night. I started strong, and was immediately up $100 after hitting a flush (I'm at work now, so I don't have my PokerTracker hand histories in front of me). It felt silly to think that I'd cash out after one more pot... I don't play as a source of income, so I've always had the luxury of playing until I got tired, win or lose. But I'm trying to build the bankroll... anyway, the tables were of the usual composition... a bunch of tough players, with a couple fish thrown in. A lot of heads up action, and not much easy money on the table.

You can guess what happened. As the button when around, I slowly loosened up, and slowly lost focus. My mind wasn't on the game, and I paid for it. I gambled too much, and after a 2.5 hour session, I ended up down $320. My biggest online loss to date. I was on tilt. Not in the sense that I was playing every hand, but playing borderline hands that I wouldn't play if I was focused. J9 suited from middle position, or blind-stealing with K8o. Just bad plays. Tilt is a subtle thing for me... I'm not going to go over the edge, but it's easy to lose a couple big pots when you play those borderline hands.

I guess it could have been worse. It's easy to put things in perspective when you're surrounded by tragedy. I will have a lot of time to win it back over the Thanksgiving weekend, as the wife will be working a lot. I think I'm going to take a one-day "turnaround" bus trip to Vegas/State Line on Friday with a buddy. Clear the cobwebs out of the brain, shake things up. Hopefully make up for the last Vegas abberation (although my buddy is a craps player, so I may not reach the poker room).

I'm glad I didn't do it, but I found myself watching a $15-30 game, debating whether I should "take a shot." It was super loose-aggressive, and looked like easy money. $300 pots... but I just don't have the bankroll. Too risky. Luckily my wife came home and saved me from losing my entire bankroll, but man, those games look soft. Someday...

I've added a subscription feature at the bottom of the page (scroll down). If you sign up, you'll get an email in the morning if I've posted to the site.

See you on the wire...

2003-11-23T21:36:00.000-08:00

The comeback kids (are all right)

A little luck in the book
After getting the crap kicked out of me at the tables on Friday night, I needed a big Sunday in the sportsbook and on Party Poker to rebound. I forgot to post my picks this week, but it’s probably a good thing because the games nearly gave me a heart attack. All 4 of my teams were trailing (3 of them trailing by 12 or more late in the game), so it was a rough morning. Here’s the summary:

Indianapolis (-3) at Buffalo Result: Push (Indianapolis 17 Buffalo 14)
Baltimore (-3) home vs. Seattle Result: Push (Baltimore 44 Seattle 41)
Cincinnati (-3) at San Diego Result: Win (Cincinnati 34 SD 27)
Tennessee (-6.5) at Atlanta Result: Win (Tennessee 38 Atlanta 31)

Indy was down 14-3 in the fourth quarter before Edge and Peyton brought em back, and I needed the two point conversion to get the push. I nearly fell apart when Marvin Harrison (of all people) dropped an easy go route down the sidelines for a TD, but Edge looked great picking up tough yards. And how about Baltimore coming back from a 17 point deficit in the third to pull out the win in OT!!! Baltimore scored 44 points! I had mailed the game in and even put money on Tennessee late in a “desperation bet” to stay even… Anthony Wright throwing for 319 yards, 4 TDs and no picks! ANTHONY WRIGHT! I can’t believe I bet this game… where the hell was Ray Lewis? And Tennessee was down 21 after five minutes, and ended up coming back… (breathing sigh of relief)

After a rough month, it was nice to get back in the win column today. Today’s 2-0-2 performance puts me at 26-18-2 for the season, for a winning percentage of 59%. I’ll take it, but I was lucky today (after being very unlucky last week, so maybe I deserved it in some karmic way). With the money in my “virtual pocket”, I headed off to Party to get back what I lost on Friday.

The bullets hold up: Party session 1
With a renewed dedication to Party, I settled down at a couple $5.10 tables with only a couple minutes wait. It’s baffling why the waiting list is so much longer for the $5.10 tables than for $3.6… servers are cheap, so I don’t see why Party doesn’t spend the 100K to add 5 servers and increase the number of tables. Speaking of servers, after a few minutes, the chat box showed “We are rebooting our servers. Please finish the hand you are playing and wait in the lobby until they are rebooted.” Amazing! I’d never seen this before, and I imagine it ends up costing Party a fair bit of money, since people who log off may not come back for the day, so Party loses a couple hours of rake.

Of course I waited, after checking out what was going on at PokerStars. I see they have added rebuys to their tournaments (ugh), but I guess that was inevitable. PokerStars seems to treat their customers 10 times better than Party, but I’m addicted to Party like its crack, so I guess I’m stuck there (I think the players are stronger at PS). After about 15 minutes Party was fired back up, and I took my seats (at two tables).

Both tables were pretty tight (as usual), but it looked like a couple suckers were throwing away their money, so I did my best to isolate them. Table 1 was pretty uneventful… I played solid, and I ended up winning $62 after 40 minutes. Basically I won 3 medium sized pots:
--The first pot I won was strange, and made me wonder about the players at this table. I’m dealt Aqs in early position, and decide to pump it in hope of isolating the suckers. The two short-stacked suckers call (perfect!), and a solid player in the BB calls. The flop is Q 7 3 rainbow, and I’m licking my chops… but BB leads out, and I fear QQ or Q7, but we’ll see what happens— I just call to see how the hand develops. One of the fish raises (?), and I decide to reraise to try to get BB out. Short stack guy goes all in, and BB calls, and the raising fish 4 bets it! I’m clueless now, but I’m hoping he’s got KQ or something. The turn is a 9, and puts 2 hearts on the board. BB checks to me, I check, and raiser fish bets, BB calls, and I call, still clueless. The river is another 9, and I’m feeling that raiser fish might have filled up… but BB bets (?) and I make the call mostly out of confusion, hoping that raiser fish doesn’t reraise. He just calls, and BB shows Aqo and we split the $170 pot (a $34 win for me). The hand history shows that raiser fish had QTd and short stack had Kjo. Wow.
--I took a $38 pot after my A9 BB caught an Ace on the flop and held up.
--My biggest win of the session ($67) came when I caught my flush on the turn with Ajs. Unfortunately I could only collect $10 after it hit, since the two players in the pot were smart enough not to make the crying call.

Table 2 was even better, offering a $103 win in 40 minutes. Basically this came from two hands:
--I got lucky and caught the 3rd nine on the turn, holding A9o. A $57 win after outdrawing somebody with JJ.
--A big $109 win when my pocket rockets held up in a 5 player pot. I love it when that happens.

After the short 40 minute session, I took my winnings and took a page from Minnesota Fats book—a shower and a shave before coming back to the tables gave me new life, and I sat down ready to go.

Jacks for everyone: Session 2
I sat on the waiting list for a couple minutes, and ended up at 2 typical $5.10 tables—tight, but 1 or 2 loose players donating to the rest of the table.

One of the tables was pretty loose, and I made a terrible play to start things off… this was the first time of the night I was dealt pocket Jacks (more on this later) and I played them terribly:
--JJ in late position, I 3 bet it, hoping to make everybody fold. The flop comes all clubs, T 5 8. I know I should fold (especially on party), but I see my Jack of clubs shouting “put me in coach!” and I call the flop bet along with 3 other players. The turn is another 8, and I have no business being in this pot, but I call the turn bet, and am reraised. One player (smartly) bails, and 3 players see the river for $20. The river is 5s, and I figure someone hit the boat, but everyone checks. Of course somebody has A2 clubs, and the other guy shows AA! Just horrible. A $40 loss, and I’m starting out in the hole.
--I must be on tilt, because I lose $60 with pocket Queens after a guy hits trip sixes on the flop. Just horrible. I grit my teeth and refocus.
--I pull in a $52 win when my A8o holds up after an Ace flops.
--$34 win on three kings day after two kings flop to my AK.
--$47 win when I flop 2 pair with QTs defending my BB. The comeback is on.
--$60 win when I make my set of jacks on the river. JJ finally wins for me.
--$44 win when I fill up on the turn with my KTs
--$54 more when my A9s flops 2 pair, and I’m rollin… (note these hands are not consecutive, but I’m only writing about the interesting ones)
I decide I’ve come back far enough, and will play one more orbit… I muck the junk, but finally get AJ utg for my final hand. 3 players call my preflop raise, and the flop is 9d 2c Jd. Turn is 5h, I bet the whole way, and the river is the Ad. I don’t want to see this diamond, but I take a shot (last hand!) and bet out, and surprisingly, the chaser folds! I leave with a $52 win for a total of $105 on the table.

The second table treated me even better, and most of my winnings ($82) came when I hit my set of tens on the turn in a 4 way pot. I played solidly at this table, with no big mistakes, and was rewarded with a $156 win.

So totals for the day on party:
+$426, 3.3 hours real-time (6.6 actual), 289 total hands
+6.5 BB/hour actual, +13 BB hour (real-time)

Yee haw!

Jack magnet: I was dealt pocket jacks 6 of the 179 hands of the evening session. That’s 3.3% of the hands, where the expected probability is 1/220, or .4%. So my actual post-probability of receiving JJ was 7.3 times the expected value! I’m not going on an action-flop tirade, but this was a little strange. I guess I should be happy about this, but JJ is a tough hand to play! Party is making me work for my Big bets!

Comebacks, winning bets in overtime, and a couple of nice sessions on Party. A great day in gambling.

2003-11-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

How I learned to stop worrying and love Party Poker

Well friends, yours truly got crushed at Hollywood Park again. A brutal loss of $350 in 3.5 hours on the $6.12 tables. That's 8.3 big bets an hour! Just painful. And I didn't even play badly. On the drive home I vowed to stick to online poker. After last night's beating, my records show that I am down -$1,150 at Hollywood Park, and up $2,700 at Party Poker. Yet I keep going back to that hellhole. The place has some evil power over me... the horrible players, and the opportunity to get out from behind the computer monitor is what draws me. But it's too much to give up-- I can play nearly 4 times as many hands online, and it's less of a gamble, since there are usually 5 or 6 players seeing the flop at HP. Last night was the last straw-- I'm not going back to that place until I have the bankroll to sit in the top section games.

So here's how it went down:
Driving through LA traffic after work yesterday, I looked forward to getting back to the green felt, the feel of the chips, and the dirty looks after check raising an unsuspecting fish. It had been 3 weeks since I'd been there, due to travel and the visit from the wife's family. After a winning session on Party the night before, I was ready to roll... ready to hit my big rush, to finally take 5 racks off the table after the deck hit me in the head like it never has before. I got a seat immediately, and I recognized a few of the players at the table as decent, but saw none of the solid players that I try to avoid. To my surprise, cards flew into the muck at a rapid pace, and the table was extremely tight for a Friday night... usually the drunks and weekend warriors can't get their chips in the pot fast enough.

Anyway, after trying to get a bead on the table, I pick up 99 in late position and everyone folds to me. I raise, and the button calls, and the blinds fold. Beautiful... the caller is a solid player, so I put him on big cards. He had just finished telling me he had spent a few months in Vegas playing 12 hours a day at the Horsehoe, and staying at budget suites for $200 a week. It sounded like a nice life to me, but he told me it was so incredibly boring that he couldn't do it again. 12 hours a day at the Horseshoe does sound like quite a grind, and the boredom comment served as a good warning to any of my hopes of ever playing professionally. Anyway back to the hand-- the flop came 2 2 7, and I was feeling good about my hand. I bet out, and the semipro called, which surprised me a little bit. Immediately I put him on a big Ace, AQ or AK, and resolved to keep betting until one of those big cards showed up. The turn was a Ten, and again I bet and he called. When the Ace hit on the river, I sadly checked, he bet, and I called. I wasn't too happy that I was right-- he turned over big slick and raked in the $92 pot. I know it's a coin flip against AK, but if the Ace or King had just come on the flop, it would have saved me at least $24 bucks. Not a good start.

My luck continued when I raised with AQ suited and only the big blind called, making it heads up. The flop came A A 8, and I bet out, bb calls, nd I put him on a smaller ace. I didn't have a good read on this guy, but he seemed pretty loose, and I felt pretty sure I had him outkicked. The turn came an 8-- bet, call again. River is a rag, and I bet and he raises me. My stomach sinks, and I now realize his kicker is an 8, but I make the crying call anyway. Aces over 8s it is, and he rakes the $116 pot. Nice catch in the big blind.

So after these two hands I've thrown away $104, and I'm not real excited about that. Not terrible beats, but the cards were definitely not falling for me. I pick up a medium size pot from the small blind when my flush hits, and now I'm ready to roll... I pick up Q9s in the big blind, and call an early raise, since there are 2 other callers before me. The flop is 10 8 5 and I have to figure out if I want to draw to the gutshot. I check, early raiser bets out, and one other player calls, a limper mucks, and there is one call ahead of me. So 5 big bets in the pot, I decide to gamble on my 5 to 1 gutshot, since I think that early raiser will bet out if the Jack comes. The beautiful Jack of spades hits on the turn, and I'm licking my chops. Everything according to plan-- bet, call, and I check-raise, licking my chops and wondering the last time I ever hit a gutshot. Early raiser says "I thought you might do that", and calls the raise, but the other player folds. The river comes a 5, putting a flush on the board, and the possible full house. I fear both (this early raiser is very loose), but bet out in frustration. Of course I am raised, I make the crying call and he turns over pocket 10s for the full house. Ouch. I sadly watch him rake the $174 pot and realize that in 3 unlucky hands, I've lost $170 of my money, and should (probabilistically speaking) be up around $250. Poker gods, have you forsaken me? To rub salt in the wound, the full house clown says "Hey, I was 50-50 to hit the full house." I say, "Not quite." He gets angry and says "I was 50-50!" I say, "Not quite, you had 11 outs, and there were 44 cards left." He gives me a "whatever" and I feel like vomiting on the floor.

I quickly down a jack daniels on the rocks, hoping that somehow the alcohol will change my luck. I glance at pocket rockets in late position, and think about ordering another. A loose, horrible player limps in from middle position, I raise and the guy who hit the full house calls from the BB. The flop is K J 6, and I'm watching out for K J, but feel pretty happy about the flop. They both check to me, and I raise, and both call. The turn is a 7, and I figure I'm in good shape. One of these clowns may have K7 or J7, but I'm don't play scared. Loose horrible calls, and I am clueless now. I want to raise, but I'm sure both of them will call, and I may be losing at this point. So I just call, and the river is a 4. This time full house guy checks (missed a draw?) and loose horrible checks. I'm baffled at this point, and don't want to risk getting check raise, so I show my rockets. Full house guy says something about me being lucky and a good draw, and he turns over K Q. Amazingly, loose horrible turns over... 7 4 OFFSUIT!!! I look at full house guy and laugh and he smirks and says "Well, you can't beat 7 4 offsuit." $84 pot.

I can't go on recounting this, it is just too painful. There were several more bad beats, and although I wasn't on tilt, I definitely wasn't playing my A game. But I will tell you that the night ended the way it started. Down to my last six chips, I pick up 99 in late position, and raise all in. The big blind calls, and flop is A 2 2. I figure he's got the ace, and I get out of my chair, and the turn comes 7, river 8. BB turns over Q2! and I hear the poker gods chuckling in the background.

So, that's it. No more gambling with players that can't be read. The "any two cards can win" is beating me up, and I know in the long run I should come out ahead, but I just can't take losing to people who don't even know what outs are. I'll stick to online play where the long run is much easier to reach, and although the players are better, the bad beats come less often. The swings of no-fold-em poker are not for me, so I am cutting way back on my live play until I can get in the bigger games. The rake at HP is also ridiculous, so I need to give up on the horrible players and just play my A game online against tougher opponents.

Possible leak in brick and mortar game: I played a lot of middle aces, because it is a jackpot game, and people will play any ace. This is dangerous because if you're against two other aces, and the ace flops, one of them has a decent chance of hitting their kicker. I never play these hands online, but I don't think it is a horrible play in a play-any-ace jackpot game. But I did lose a lot of money on these hands...

PartyPoker here I come...

2003-11-20T22:39:00.000-08:00

The tight table flop steal

After a too-long hiatus, I hit the 5.10 tables hard tonight, albeit only for 40 minutes. I managed to rack up $131 in 40 minutes on 2 tables, and my stomach started growling so I bailed out to eat some pizza. Interestingly, I sat down to play after I got home from an after-work martini session, paid for by a co-worker who is running for Congress (vote Rick Bell for Congress!). His campaign picked up the tab, so I didn't feel too bad about drinking 3 martinis at a posh West Hollywood restaurant (next to work). Celeb sighting: Tim Allen, king of the midwest, strolled in to have a nice dinner. Just like his character on TV!

Enough of Hollywood. My results were somewhat interesting, but perhaps the most interesting thing from tonight's session is that I picked up a possible algorithm for bluff steals in tight games. Both of the tables I was at were very tight, but one was so tight that a preflop raise from any position won nearly 50% of the time without seeing a flop. I noticed that if 2 or three players did see the flop, it was pretty easy to get them off their hand with a bet, as long as no high cards came out. It's a pretty safe assumption that tight players will only play premium hands, so they either have a medium pair, or 2 picture cards. So suppose the flop comes rags, like 3 5 9. If they are weak tight, and everyone checks to you. It is almost mandatory to try a steal here, no matter what cards you hold. If you think there is a decent probability they will fold (usually the case for weak tight players), then we might as well bet out. If you called a pre-flop raise, it may still be worth a bet, because you may even be able to get a super weak tight player off his ace-king or whatever. If you're raised, then you can throw your hand away. It's not rocket science, but I never realized that this bluff-steal on the flop is a high EV play. It was successful for me once, but I only picked up on it after I'd watched the table for a while.

On to the hands...
Table 1:
$44 win when my AKo holds up unpaired against one other player holding KJo.
$69 win when my AKo beats out QQ when I flop a king, and turn is A, river K. Beautiful.
$30 win with KK after caller folds on raggedy flop.
Hmmm... hard work! I guess sometimes you get really lucky.
I did lose 20 on my last hand, when I limped in with KTs and called a raise, making it heads up. Flop was Jh 2s 2d, and I called his bet, not wanting to be weak tight. But the turn came another 2, and I figured that the Ace I put him on made him a big favorite, so I folded.

Table 2:
Nothing real exciting here. I pulled off a couple of late position steals (one with 43o!), but the biggest pot I took was $30 on a hand I sort of misplayed. Here's how it went down:
Pocket Jacks 2 off the button. I raise, and the button calls, everyone else folds. Flop is 4s Jd 6s, and I bet, he calls. Turn is 3h. Now how would you play this? I feel that if I fake weakness here he will bet out and try to take the pot. But I'm also a little afraid of those spades, so I'm not sure if I should lead out or not. I put him on big cards, maybe AT or better. I decide to check, and sure enough, he bets. Now I have to decide whether to reraise, and hope that he's dumb enough to call. Or just call, hoping the last card isn't another spade (would reject a free card if he did have spades anyway?), and bet the river. I decide to reraise, and I'm a little surprised when he folds. If I do call, I'm not sure he bets the river anyway, so I probably would have to bet out. So I think reraising was the right move here, but I'm not sure.

As an indication of the table's tightness, every pot I won (5, including the above) didn't make it to the showdown. Also, the 3 hands I lost didn't make it to a showdown either. It looks like 4 of the 32 hands at this table actually made it to the showdown.

There is a lot of tactical action going on in games like this. Bluffing works, and so does slowplaying. I love the psychology involved when there are 2 or 3 players in a pot, and I think I am much better at these type games than the no-fold-em style that is more common at Hollywood Park. Hopefully I can win enough to move up, although I've heard the 15.30 at HP is like 3.6 at Party. That is a scary thought.

I'm still trying to erase the Vegas travesty from my brain, and after a short but profitable hour on Party, the game is coming back to me. The poker gods seem to be forgiving.

2003-11-19T21:17:00.000-08:00

In the poker game of life...

Noble readers: I bow before you, asking forgiveness for a grave sin. I spent 4 days in Vegas, and played only 2 hours of poker. It disgusts me just writing that. How could this happen? How could I let myself stand at the crap table for hours and hours, with the Mirage just minutes away? And only 2 hours of blackjack! I gave up the only 2 positive EV games in the casino to play craps. As a result, I don't even have anything to write for a trip report. NOTHING HAPPENED. It was easily the most boring 4 days I've ever spent in Vegas, despite the fact that I think I set a personal best for number of beers in a day.

I'm not going to attempt a trip report. There is nothing to report. It was fun to spend time with one of my best friends on his birthday, but that was about it. I won't get into them. I will just say that a newlywed couple where the wife hates to gamble and the husband loves to gamble can make it difficult to get out of the casino.

The one positive thing about the trip was that I think I played my best tournament poker ever. The 2 hours of poker were spent in the Luxor $30 buy-in limit tourney (one Thursday night, one Saturday morning). We rolled into Vegas at 7:30, and quickly headed over to the Luxor to get in the 8:30 tourney. I had placed third in this tourney on our last vegas trip, and about half of the players were playing poker for the first time in a casino. This time there were 4 tables (plus alternates!), and what looked like a lot of dead money.

I took my seat at the table, and it looked like almost everybody there was over 60. There were a couple of young guys, and I was sitting next to my buddy, the birthday boy, so we brought a little youth to the table. We started with 250 chips (!?) and had the option of buying 50 more for 3 dollars. 300 chips with blinds starting at 10-15, this was even worse than the PartyPoker sit-and-goes (800 chips). I figured it was pretty much a crapshoot, and determined to hang tight until I picked up a big hand. With this structure, you could barely make it through 2 full hands if you didn't win one of them. What a joke.

Anyway, play got started, and apparently the weak-tight convention was being held at my table. Cards were being mucked at a lightning pace, and I don't think we saw a showdown for the first 20 hands or so. I picked up K8 in the blinds, and saw the flop for free against 2 other players. 3 8 9 on the flop, and I bet out, knowing that everyone will fold. Someone calls, and the 4 on the turn doesn't scare me, so I bet again, and the caller folds.

With that win under my belt I take it easy for a few hands, and pocket rockets nearly blind me when I peek at my cards. 1 limper, I raise from late position, and the blinds fold. Beautiful. The limper calls, and I'm heads up with a young guy who I prepare to have for dinner. Flop comes K 9 4, rainbow, and I remember Abdul Jalib saying that Aces are worth much more than the blind. Limper checks, and I set the trap by checking also. The turn is a jack, and limper walks into the trap and bets. I smooth call. River is a rag, and no flush is on the board, and limper makes me happy by betting. Check-raise, limper actually spikes his hand on the table and folds, leaving him with a single 100 chip. Beauty.

The bullets put me in the zone, and I feel like I have a read on the entire table. I steal a few pots, the most notable with a 3-2o on the button-- I raise and SB folds, and the short stacked BB slams his cards on the table and stares me down for 4 hands. I should have showed my hand. The table fears me, and I steal when I can, but it's not enough-- I'm up to about 1000 chips, and the blinds are up to 100-200.

My buddy next to me has played 1 hand the entire tourney (good, he's playing tight), but finally comes out firing. He takes someone for a ride to the river, and turns over pocket aces to win a big pot. The next hand, he's firing again, and gets a couple callers. One caller has a single chip left, and my buddy, in early position, checks the river. Single chip guy thinks about it, and checks, and my buddy turns over pocket Aces again! Why didn't you bet the river!?? Later he told me he had a brain freeze, but this major mistake would come back to haunt us... 2 pocket Aces in a row have brought him up to 1000 chips, and we're all even.

The weak-tight convention soon breaks, and I move on to the next table: 20 players remaining. This table is the opposite of the last-- calling stations in all seats. Maybe it's because everyone is so short stacked. I vow to hang tight until they knock each other out. I have enough chips to survive a few blinds. But I look down and see the Aces again (! I'm in the zone!) in late position. UTG limps (the guy is horrible), and another early player raises. Beautiful. I reraise, and put UTG all in for 300. Raiser just calls, and the pot is now 900. Flop is J 9 6 rainbow, and I bet out after pre-flop raiser checks. He folds, and I turn over my Aces. All-in guy turns over J9d, and I feel my chair leg being chopped out underneath me. Ugh. Oh well, I've still got enough chips to survive, so I grin and bear it...

I survive to bring 625 chips to the final table. The game now switches to no-limit, with the blinds at 200-400, and I know I have to make a move. My buddy has also made the final table, and so has one-chip guy who should be long gone by now. My buddy has 200 chips, and one-chip now has 400. On the second hand, I get AJo in 4rth position and figure this is my chance. I sadly watch as my buddy goes all in UTG, and I have to come over the top with my 625. Surprisingly, one-chip man calls from the button, and we all turn over our hands. My buddy has Q3s, and one-chipper shows QJs. I'm liking my chances here, but of course a Queen hits on the flop. I watch in disgust as one-chipper hits a flush on the river, and I'm left with a measly 125. I go out before the blinds reach me with a K7, when nothing hits on the flop and and Ace high busts me.

Disappointing. I felt like I played perfectly-- not a single mistake, and a couple excellent steals early on. Who knows what would have happened had my Aces held up against J9, and who knows what would have gone on if my buddy had bet the river. But that's poker.

The rest is ugly. I went on to lose about $800 on the craps tables, and managed to win back $300 when I hit four deuces on the deuces wild video poker machine. I won about $100 counting cards in a double-deck blackjack game, but my heart just wasn't in it, due to extraneous circumstances. Here's how bad it was: we saw a movie in Vegas! At least it was good-- I recommend Matrix III-- I hated the second one, but the third was very good. Not in the same league as the first one, but the story was very good.

My Vegas appetite has only been whet. In the words of KGB: "Just like a young man coming in for a quickie. I feel so... unsatisfied." From now on: no women accompaniment to Vegas, unless they are real gamblers. I gotta get some rest and get back to POKER!

2003-11-18T13:48:00.000-08:00

The Road to Vegas

That’s right. It’s Vegas time! Today marks my first trip to Vegas as a somewhat established poker player… the last three times I’ve been, I’ve gone primarily as a card counter. I did place third in the Luxor $25 Sunday tourney on the last trip, but before today, the chips have primarily been of the blackjack denomination, not poker. Anyway, it will be interesting to have a choice between poker and blackjack… I guess I should probably try to maximize my time spent playing blackjack, since that game is illegal in Los Angeles. But after printing out a list of the weekly Vegas tourneys at www.cardplayer.com, I figure I’ll be stuck in the poker room for much of the trip.

The trip was spawned as a birthday present for one of my best friends, a budding poker player. He’s been playing for a couple months, and I’ve offered some tutelage, although he can’t seem to shed that loose-beginner shell that is common to most beginners. Maybe the tightness required to win these tourneys will help his game. I’m writing this on Thursday afternoon, so we’ll probably roll in to the Tropicana (where we’ll be staying) around 7. I’d prefer to stay downtown, but he’s bringing his wife, so we’re stuck on the strip. We stay until Sunday, so we’ve got a night and 3 full days of gambling.

The last trip showed my worst loss in my Vegas history-- -$600, mostly due to some horrible luck on the blackjack tables. I’d count down the double deck games, wait for a hot shoe, and then lose about 5 $50 hands in a row (scroll down for the trip report). Hopefully the odds will “catch up” this time around.

I’ll be fighting fatigue—after a busy 5 day conference in DC, my body managed to adjust itself to east coast time. Hopefully the combination of caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine can keep me sharp when its 1 am Vegas time and I’m feeling 4 am DC time. Who needs sleep anyway?

I’ve set my trip bankroll at around $1000. This is a pretty hefty sum, and represents half of my poker winnings. But in blackjack, you need a pretty large bankroll to exploit the card counter’s small edge over the house when the deck is good. Technically, you need a bankroll of around $10K just to average around $20 an hour. But perhaps the god of standard deviation will bless me today. If I can come out up $500, I’ll be ecstatic… a 50% increase in bankroll is within reason, although I’d have to be pretty lucky to get there. It’s probably best if I stay away from the sportsbook and the craps table, but hey, it’s Vegas. The possibility of doubling my trip bankroll makes me smile… that would put my poker bankroll at 3K, just about enough (with the help of my recent raise) to let me sit in the $10.20 games in LA.

Where to play? And what limit? Right now I’m thinking that the Mirage is the best option, probably starting out at $6.12, although the $10.20 game is an option if blackjack treats me well. I’ve never really played Vegas poker though, so I’m a little wary… I’ve always had better results online, where the games are tighter, so I’ll be happy if I sit down at a table with 6 or 7 local rocks. We’ll see if I can spot the sucker, or if I am the sucker.

Maybe a little homage to the gambling gods is in order… I’m not a religious man, or a poet, but I’ll give it a shot:

The pilgrim returns to do battle
With mathematic wit
Armed with odds, a score to settle
At the feet of chance I’ll sit
Knowing the path is long and hard
The long run, glowing green in the distance
Outwaiting fickle Luck, who owns the river card
Outsmarting with skill, her sister named Chance

To swim with the fish and bite like a shark
I’ll act like a lamb, and then release my wolf bark
Patiently preying on tourists so weak
So begins the winning streak

2003-11-11T09:45:00.000-08:00

All expenses paid

Since I’m writing this on the flight on the way to Washington DC, I guess this represents the first traveling journal entry. The last 2 weeks have been pretty hectic—between being tour guide for my wife’s family, transitioning to the web team at work, and preparing for my conference presentation, I’m pretty drained. Hopefully I can catch up on some sleep before the presentation tomorrow, but that’s doubtful… I guess good old adrenaline will have to pull me through.

The presentation is for the American Medical Informatics Conference, so there will be lots of hotshot doctors listening to my talk. I haven’t given a presentation in a long time, and never one at a conference, but I tend to do better under pressure, so I’m not too worried. This is the first time I’ve had the luck to have an all expenses paid trip… I added it up last night, and I think the bill came up to $3000 total, so I owe a good presentation to the hospital. There will also be some excellent networking opportunities, as all the leaders in the field will be there.

Another perk I snagged was a high power laptop that my boss loaned me for the trip… I’m in the middle of watching Paul Newman in “The Hustler,” and surprisingly, the movie has inspired me to deliver a good presentation. There’s a great Newman speech where he talks about the beauty of a person doing something he knows he as good at. Newman says that even an expert bricklayer’s work can be beautiful if the bricklayer is inspired and “in the zone.” This made me realize that a good presentation is defined mostly by the enthusiasm of the presenter for the work he is discussing. The standard is dry, monotonic explanation of statistics… if I can bring some youth and energy to the presentation, I think people will listen.

The psychology of gambling is really the main theme of “The Hustler.” After Fast Eddie loses to Minnesota Fats, the knowledgeable gambler who ends up backing Eddie explains that Eddie was a born loser who was just “waiting to lose.” Interestingly, the gambler is a high-stakes poker player. The gambler also claims that talent is of relatively minor importance in long heads-up matches. It’s character that counts, and Fats just has more character than Eddie, who has never really lost in his life.

Losing builds character, so the cliché goes, but I definitely think this is true… all the great poker champions have been broke at one time or another (or so legend has it), and this is probably for 2 reasons—1, it built the character required to become a great poker champion, and 2, when you believe you are the best, and are playing against the best, you must keep putting your money in the pot until you are broke. When you believe you’re the best, at no time do you think, “I can’t beat this guy, I should quit,” or, “I’m already $X up/down, let me get out while I’m ahead/not broke.”

The danger of this line of thought is also explored in Rounders—Mike McD gets his money in when he thinks he has the best of it, and loses everything. Although he regrets his decision, the journey it forces him to undertake ends up building his character and showing him the path that his life should take. The foil for McD is Knish, the true grinder who only puts his money in the pot when he is sure he’s got the best of it. I’m still on the fence on this idea—can you still be a great player when you always leave yourself “outs”? Maybe. But if we say that character is built by risking great loss, then the gamblers of great character are willing to put it all in the pot.

Back to the world of low-limit poker—I finally got the 500 hands to collect the empire bonus, but took a lot of punishment in getting there. After being up $120 on my initial deposit, I had an awful session that brought me back to even, WITH the bonus. I played a few orbits on 2 5.10 tables, promptly dropping 60 on one and breaking even at the other. My play wasn’t bad, I just wasn’t getting the cards, and the game was so tight that when I did have a hand, even the blinds folded me. I escaped to the looser world of 3.6, which treated me even worse than the 5.10 tables. After an hour and a half, I ended up down $170 on two tables after not picking up a hand on either table nearly the whole time. I had about 10 medium pocket pairs, and was unable to hit the set on any of them. I think I won 3 or 4 hands out of the 150 I played, and I misplayed only one or two of them (I don’t have my pokertracker installed on the laptop, and even if I did I would be too depressed by looking at them). I guess sometimes you just catch a “frozen wave of cards” and you just have to minimize your losses.

So 500 hands on Empire showed me losing $117, but the bonus brought it back up to a $17 loss. I guess it could be worse, but it’s still depressing. I can take comfort in the $8K raise I just got, and the hope that my wife gets the waitress job at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Ahh, just reading the last sentence makes me feel better, and I can’t wait to get back to the tables. Hopefully like Fast Eddie, the loss built my “character bankroll,” and I’ll be even more fierce when I sit down at the Mirage next Thursday. Yep, that’s right VEGAS BABY, VEGAS! (Thursday)

2003-11-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

Poker in the office: negotiating salary

First of all: OUCH! 0-3 yesterday in football. I finally had a losing week, and in a big way. All my hopes rest on the Pats tonight-- if they manage to win in Denver, I stay alive with a 2-3 record on the weekend (since I bet two units). If they lose, it's 0-5 and my sportsbook bankroll takes a major blow. More on the sportsbook after the game.

More importantly, in an hour I negotiate my new salary... I'm moving over to the web team, since the funding for the project I'm working on has dried up... I don't really have any clue how to negotiate a salary, but I did a bit of reading, and at least have some clue. It's definitely time to apply some poker ideas to the negotiation, but first lets start with the facts:
1. The HR department lists an upper and lower bound on the salary range for the position
2. The position has been filled by 5 other people in the last year, all of whom quit within 3 months (yikes)
3. They are currently trying to fill 2 spots
4. I am far above the job requirements in several areas, but far behind in several others
5. I've been here for a year, so I can't leverage the negotiation with offers from other companies
6. I don't particularly like LA, so it is possible for me to refuse their offer

All of these numbers suggest I might as well go for the upper range of the requirements, although number 4 suggests I might skim a little bit off the top just to make it "look good". Clearly I've got the best hand here, and I should be value betting that they don't have much of an alternative but to pay me a lot. I'm somewhat of a proven quantity and they can't fill the position, so they are in a tight spot.

In any case, I will most likely be getting a substantial raise, which will substantially increase my poker bankroll. But we'll take Kenny Rogers advice this time and wait until we leave the table before we count our money...

Thanks to Avandalay for his kind comments... my wife's family is heading up to San Francisco tomorrow for a few days, so I'm hoping to get a few solid nights of pure PartyPoker madness and get back to the grind. This journal needs to get back to poker!