Running good

2008-02-18T16:56:00.001-06:00

I had a really weird weekend. Friday I worked from home, so around three, I fire up four tables and, well, my luckbox was set to sucko. In less than 200 hands, took down $1750. My personal favorite was when a lag limped AA otb, SB completed and I checked KTo in the BB. Flop is QJ9 with a spade draw. SB bets $8, I raise to $26, button raises to $80, I repop to $240 and he shoves his aces and is drawing dead on the turn.

Unfortunately, just as I built up four figure-stacks on three of my four tables, all of the games died and the rest of the 2/4 tables were full. The site I play on has a terrible waitlist bug that ends up crashing my system and I didn't feel like dealing with it. So I quit with a big win and watch Lost then go out to dinner.

So I'm feeling good Saturday when I head to the boats with a couple people, including the legendary dukemuscle.

And I managed to lose $1150 in four and a half hours, basically in two hands.

First hour was pretty uneventful. Got up about $200 quickly at the must move table, then got moved to a main game and won a big pot quickly, and did it in a way that made me look like a donkey. I opened 87s in the hijack for $30, button is the only caller, eff stacks are $600. Flop comes JsJc9c. I bet $50, he calls after thinking a minute. Turn is the As. I bet $120. He tanks for a good two minutes, asks himself "Is this jack good?" and then calls. River is the Qs. I'm a little thrown by the jack comment and with him having just over a pot behind I'm not really happy about either his calling range or his betting range, but I decide to check (lemme know what you think about that in comments if you want). He checks behind and shows AK (no spade or club) and my flush is good.

So I really like my table image at this point and basically decide to play straightforward.

An orbit or two later, I raise JJ im MP2 to $35 behind an utg+1 limper. The limper was steaming after losing on the river with his flopped broadway. Luckily, he didn't raise any street after flopping the nuts and was smart enough to check back the river when the river paired the ace and the SB practically fist-pumped as she checked after betting flop and turn with the JJ she completed in the SB.

yeah, nothing but good players in live 2/5 games.

So anyway, I raise, SB calls, EP guy calls too and we see a three-handed flop of 4d3d2h. Checks to me, I bet a friendly $60, SB folds, EP guy calls. I have 900 and he has me covered. Turn is an offsuit ten, checks to me, I bet $135 and he checkraises to $400 straight.

Online, I fold this with almost no thought.

Live, the truth is I simply wasn't concentrated on the moment. I can't tell you exactly what I was thinking, but it wasn't "ok, limp/call preflop, check/call flop, check/raise turn, what does my hand look like, what does his hand look like and how are we doing against it?"

Mostly it was "Man, this guy wont shut up about that fucking straight, even though he played like shit. Well fuck you sir, I'm all in."

I was obviously drawing dead to his A5.

It's just a terrible shove. At the time, if I thought about a hand, I was thinking Axd, tilting and overplaying or 88 or something. But no one live plays like that. They play with their hands face up and I refused to believe it. Possibly the single worst play I've made all year.

So then I go card dead and manage to drop another buyin with queens vs. kings and it's not very interesting.

This sort of loss used to stick with me and really bother me and this one definitely lingered a bit, but after sleeping in, Bronwyn and I went to brunch at Wishbone and I was complaining a bit about how stupid I am and she said "Yeah, it's $1100, but I know that's not much money for you any more. That's like a slow week for you and you'll get it back and play better next time."

Which was awesome not just because she was trying to cheer me up, but because it's true and it's also a really hard to grasp poker concept (long run) that she completely embraces. That's an awesome girl.

So we went home and I put in a 950-hand session and ended up a $400 winner and went for a very happy 3-mile run, up about $1000 on the weekend and soon to be up one amazing wife.

I run sooooo good.

Oh, yes, well, where were we?

2008-01-25T11:14:00.000-06:00

Well, the Santi has reminded me that I've been lazy about this blog.

Not a lot to discuss really. I haven't played live poker since my last blog about it. The holidays were busy and a combination of losses and withdrawals took away about 40% of my bankroll. So at the end of December I ground out a bunch of 1/2 hands, and moved up to 2/4 early January and have just run OK, but am getting comfortable with things.

I think I've made a lot of progress on some leaks. I had a different move up plan this time (basically a 10-buyin shot rather than a 4-buyin shot I would usually take). There was some math behind the change that I won't get into, but I think the benefits are beyond just mathematical.

Psychologically, moving up is your most vulnerable time. The losses are double, you're terrified that everyone is better than you, you know the least about opponents (though you can overcome that with datamining), and I always find myself suspecting that people are taking shots at me, so I tend to spew.

Knowing that I've got a bunch of money behind me, money I'm willing to lose in order to take a good shot at being a winning 2/4+ player, is calming. I dropped five buyins my first two sessions, but turned it around and I'm a small winner over my 5,000 hands this month. I'm gonna try to put in a bunch more hands this weekend/week and book 10k hands for January. And hopefully be fully recovered from both the withdrawals and the losses in early December. Then I'm going to organize my money to let me take a few big swings at a main event seat whenever the satellites start running. Oh, and of course get married on Feb. 29.

Otherwise, life has been quiet. Bummed about the Packers blowing a golden ticket to the Super Bowl, but been working out all month. Not really losing weight like I thought I would, but my running miles are slowly building, and I registered for the Shamrock Shuffle, so now I has a goal, too.

Otherwise, life is boring, cold, but very good.

It's been a long lonely lonely time

2007-11-26T16:54:00.000-06:00

So I've been absent for a bit. A few things you've missed while I wasn't updating this blog:

-I'm engaged to marry the lovely and charming Bronwyn Jones. She'll become Mrs. Bronwyn Jones-Mortell Feb. 29 in Honolulu. (beat: hyphenater. variance: who cares?)

-I'm fat (178), so I've embarked on a new commitment to excellence that includes some running and three trips to the gym every week. I'm hoping to be up to 10 miles a week by mid Jan. I have no lung capacity at all right now and my legs are shocked to discover how hard it is to drag my fat ass around the block. That changes pretty quickly though.

-I'm learning to cook. Mainly from Anthony Bordain's Les Halles Cookbook. This partially explains the fatness. French country food is delicious though. I have no problems working out a bunch to make up for one amazing meal a week. Saturday I made onglet de gasconge (hangar steak, in a white wine and mustard sauce) and bronwyn made a side of gratin dauphinoise (sliced potatoes cooked in cream, butter, rosemary thyme and butter, then baked with shredded Gruyeres over the top), all accompanied with a nice bottle of malbec. Life is good.

-I'm finally comfortable playing in games commensurate with my roll. I'm making the commitment to play in 2/4 games online whenever they are at least acceptable and definitely when they are good. This is a fair amount. So far, so good, but not a sample worth talking about.

That brings me to what got me writing this again. I've found a nice 1/3 game that usually becomes 2/5 by the end of the night. 100bb max buyin, and the game can quickly get deep as there are no shortstackers.

It's an interesting game that I'm being purposely vague about. But it's mainly regulars who tend to know each other. The dealers know the players, the players know each other, etc. There are one or two outstanding fish, but a lot of players are pretty competent. They have their leaks. Bet sizing, of course. Most are pretty passive when it comes to reraises, though they're decent about raising. There's almost no restealing preflop, and top-pair, ok-kicker is usually still worth a stack if you do it right.

But still, it's a game that isn't easily run over. Nothing at all like the soft 2/5 300-max down in Indiana. I suppose one answer is just go to the boats and fleece the donks, but this is a nice game, 10-minutes from the house, and I think there's something to be learned from it. I'm going to start with more patient aggression and see where it goes. C-betting in particular seems tricky and taking advantage of tilt, and taking advantage of it in the right way, seems particularly profitable. I think it comes down to an annoyingly vague concept--fitting into the flow of the game. Not forcing anything and being much more aware of what and why you're doing what you're doing.

I'm going to try to write a bit more about the games and see what I can find. I'll be playing most fridays, so hopefully something will come out of it. More money at the minimum.

Stars tournament

2007-10-06T09:41:00.001-05:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 4833066

Cubs win! Cubs win!

2007-09-29T17:17:00.000-05:00

I'm enjoying this, right now.

But I can't help but feel that it will always come back to this.

God save us all.

New rules

2007-09-26T16:59:00.000-05:00

--No chat. If I chat, I quit.
--If I steam, I quit
--Stop playing weak hands OOP for a raise.
--Stop calling three-bets light in position, hu.
--Fold one pair on the turn to a raise.
--Bet the turn with one pair more often.
--Play for value, not for image.
--Enjoy folding.
--Stop caring.

I was home sick the last couple days. Fever, cold, not feeling great. Obviously, I played 5,000 hands of poker. And blew through nearly $3,000. I'm sick to my stomach about it. Not the money really. I'm still well rolled for 1/2. More the utter lack of self control. I burst right through threshold of pain, yesterday afternoon and didn't look back. There were a lot of sick beats, but a lot of horrible plays as well.

So I took all my money offline. I'll be back playing Saturday, but I'm taking the next few days off. I'll play live on Friday, and if I behave well, I'll put the money back on Saturday (bronwyn's out of town for the weekend) and play Saturday and maybe Sunday.

If I behave badly or tilt on Friday, I'm taking two weeks off.

I behaved like a child, particularly yesterday. If you're going to play a competitive game, you need to be able to lose graciously. I have failed miserably at that, and it's unacceptable. If I keep this up, I'll quit and put the money in an Roth and maybe keep a few hundred to play in the micros.
----------------------------------------------
In other news, I decided to accept Andy's invite to run the Indy half marathon with he and Donna, Memorial Day weekend. I may give Dave a run for best jog blog on the web. With seven months to plan, I think I'm going to shoot for at least a half hour off my 2:30 last year.

Attachment, part 2

2007-09-13T14:28:00.000-05:00

So, I was thinking more on this notion of attachment in poker. I think the simplest way to think of attachment is to say it's what happens when you inject emotions into your relationship with things.

You get a pair of aces, and your heart beats a little faster. You triple up early on in a session, and suddenly you don't feel like pushing edges so much, you don't attack. You just stack up your chips. Cut and count them. Then stack them up again. You don't want to use them. They're a trophy now.

A lot of times, attachment shows up as results oriented thinking. ROT is really insidious, it's amazing the places it shows up, and who exhibits it. The fundamental theorem of poker, for example, is basically ROT. It's impossible to use the FTOP to solve any kind of poker problem without knowing the other guy's hand. It's only after the hand is over that you can use the FTOP to evaluate anything. And what's funny is that online, most people use the FTOP to combat ROT: "You want him to call your raise with eight-high, because if he could see your set, he would be making a mistake."

It's insidious, it's everywhere. Look out!

Anyway, a good deal of what I blogged about last time really comes down to ROT. I had goals, I succeeded. Now I'm outside the cycle of working at it, and so a thing like a bankroll suddenly becomes money.

I don't know why, but I'm constantly fascinated by how much of a mental game poker is, and how much of a struggle it can be. It seems to me that the biggest leak I could plug is to simply see the game for what it is. In a lot of ways, the path to thinking clearly come from simplifying how we think.

This is how Phil Galfond put it in an old 2+2 thread:

Don't hope your opponent bets the turn so you can checkraise. Don't get mad when he pots the river when you have 3rd pair. Don't pray for a King to flop.

Every card that falls, and every action that your opponent takes is simply another opportunity for you to make the correct decision.

Attachment

2007-09-12T16:36:00.000-05:00

I spent $300 on a jersey Monday.

It's a 1984 Cubs road jersey, Sandburg and 23 on the back, the Division champs patch on the sleeve. It's fairly awesome.

I just had an itch to get one. No idea why, but I had it, had the money on my poker card, so I did it.

It's been freaking me out ever since. Feeling like I'm losing all my bankroll discipline, it's the beginning of the end, one bad streak and I'll be wiped down to only 30 or 35 buy ins for 1/2. Crazy stuff, basically.

I've gone from this place where I spent all my poker winnings all the time (mainly covering other stuff), to finally having built up a ~significant roll, and now I freak out over every little bit.

Is it weird that every paragraph has started with an I?

In any event, I have no idea why spending $300 should bother me. I made $500 playing for a couple hours on Sunday and just got a transfer for $250 for rakeback on Monday. So it's not like I've even take a hit.

I suspect what's happening is a form of attachment. We all know that you can't think of chips as money. They're tools. We use them for different purposes, with the ultimate goal of collecting more. But the key is to never be attached to your chips. If you need to make a bluff or a value shove, you can't think of the money. You can't think of the jersey they could buy. You can't think of the dinners or how long it would take you to earn the money in real life.

It's no big deal. They're just chips.

It's hard to sustain that detachment when you slow down though. When ego is involved, it finds ways in. Right now, I've reached a bunch of goals and landmarks, and so I find myself with less purpose and less focus. And so attachment returns.

11 months ago, I basically had $500 online and decided to learn NL or quit poker.

Does a "1" count as an "I"?

My definition of "learn" was basically to be able to beat 1/2. So now I'm doing that. But I haven't really learned poker. I've learned a lot, but there's a lot more to be learned.

I guess the problem is quantifying, encapsulating what there is to be learned.

Here are things I work on right now:

-River value bets
-Steam control
-Calling/shoving/folding frequencies when I get reraised
-Hand reading on turn and river

And I guess you can add PLO to the mix as well.

But I definitely need a new goal. Not really sure what that is yet.

Actually, I've always sucked at goals. That's why I like stuff like running. It's easy to set goals in running. Pick a distance, register for a race, pray you finish.

Unfortunately, there aren't races in poker. Just the constant clatter of chips moving clockwise around the table.

More to come on this, I hope.

Poker is not good for you

2007-09-06T14:46:00.000-05:00

So, Sklansky and Schoonmacker have a 6,000 word article on 2+2 about how poker is good for you, and should therefore be considered a socially acceptable game and treated differently, presumably under the UIGEA.

It's complete nonsense.

For one thing, many of their "life lessons" learned from poker, could just as easily be learned from golf, or tennis, or wakeboarding, or even wandering the streets aimlessly and begging for money. Poker teaches good decision making. Poker teaches how to analyze risk-reward situations. Pap. Piffle. Blarg.

So, fine, it's glib. Ok. That doesn't necessarily make it wrong, does it? Well, maybe.

Take this:

Poker teaches you to think of risks and rewards before acting. If it taught nothing else, poker would prevent some young people from making terrible mistakes. More generally, most of poker's lessons will help young people to make critically important decisions.

This is true for some people. Primarily, those people are winning poker players. Not everyone is a winning poker player. Very few are actual winning poker players. This is true for a couple reasons. Rake for one. Another is that very few people who are likely to play a gambling game have the impulse control necessary to have or learn the discipline needed to think before acting.

So really, what the article is arguing is that being a winning poker player is good for you. That's kind of pointless. Being a good cardcounter at blackjack might be good for you too, but no one is going to argue that it legitimizes teaching junior high kids how to count cards.

What this really gets at is the notion, that many people have, that since poker is a beatable game, it's different than gambling. Gambling is something suckers do. You don't have an hourly rate if you're gambling, just a negative expectation.

Blackjack is gambling. Poker is a game of skill.

Both of those statements are true, but they're not talking about the same thing.

Blackjack is a game that by rule prevents a player from gaining a positive expectation on any given hand. The only limitations on a player's expectation in a poker game are the rake and the other players.

In blackjack, you play, and ultimately lose to, the rules of the game. Unless you can count cards, you can't maintain a longterm +EV.

In poker, you play, and ultimately have either a positive or negative expectation based on the structure of the game and the other players. It's very likely that while I'm a winner at 1/2, I would be a longterm loser at 5/10.

So what Sklansky is really arguing here is that by becoming winning players, people will benefit, not just fromt he money, but from the knowledge gained along the way.

The trouble with that is that if everyone really did try to become winning players, the vast majority of them would still be losers. It's the law of the jungle. So arguing that through "skill" one can benefit automatically is just false. Winning players rely on people being worse than them. It's not a fixed level. At $25NL you may only need skills A and B to win. If everyone playing $25NL actually tried to get better, then eventually, you might need skills A, B, C and D to win, and even that might not be a guarantee.

What is absolutely certain is that even if everyone played a "perfect" TAG game of 20/18/3.5, with an ATSB of 33%, a wtsd of 24, and a W@SD of 51, not everyone would win. Someone would adjust. Someone would find cracks. Someone would run good. The rake would eat away at all of them.

And most would end up losers.

Poker is built on the corpses of losers. Putting on this mock-happy face of "Hey, look, poker teaches you all this good stuff too. It's fun and wholesome!" is just crap. It deludes those who think Sklansky is God and even worse, it all but concedes that "gambling" is bad and should be confined only to those dens of iniquity (Gary, IN) where even a gambling establishment might not pull down the public morals.

That's conceding their point. That's telling Joe McCarthy that "yes, we need to root out the Commies in Hollywood, but really sir, I'm not one. Please don't hurt me."

Fuck that.

People like to gamble. They bet on dogs, horses, little bouncing balls, Bingo, cards, slots, whatever. They don't care what, as long as they get a fix. We should spend less time telling people how awful they are for being normal. That's my answer to the UIGEA. Shut the fuck up you freaks. Crawl back into whatever snake-handling pit you came from. and leave us adults alone. We're the normal ones. You bible-thumping jackasses are the freaks.

If only I were in Congress.

Commitment and pot size

2007-08-30T14:36:00.000-05:00

I did a review at +1 of Professional No Limit, vol. 1. I won't repeat it here, but I will say again that I think this is a really, really interesting book. Just remember the wisdom of Izmet, "Books are meant to be thought about, not agreed with."

Even if you disagree with some of the particulars, there are a lot of big concepts that are not really invented, but re-emphasized in the book. One of them is planning your hand before you put any money in the middle. What you should plan your hand around most of the time is either stealing or committing all your chips.

A lot of times, you may think you're doing this, but then you realize how often you see your two cards, bang the "bet pot" button to open the pot, get called somewhere, bet the flop for 3/4 of the pot and really at this point haven't even thought about what to do next. At least, that's true of me, and I suspect most people, even good SSHE TAGs. Maybe especially them.

The big part of this plan is understanding, through the hand, when you're committed and when you aren't. When you're not committed, you usually are looking to play a small pot against a wide range. When you're committed, you're looking to play a big pot against a smaller range that you still think you beat.

Here's a hand where my plan changed on every street, and it fucked me badly.

SB is a 53/4/.8 fish. Very bad player who has sucked out on a couple of others recently. We start with effective stacks of 315.

I open As5s from the co for $7. SB is the only caller.

The button was an unknown, the BB was a known TAG regular, so I'm stealing here. I dont' want to play a big pot without a big flush draw. I'm happy to make a standard raise, keep a lot of money behind, and pick up the pot preflop or on the flop. That's pretty obvious, but just worth noting. I has a plan: Steal.

Flop is 8s7d6c, pot: $16

This is the kind of flop smacks a fish's cold calling range in the face. All those junk Kx, Ax hands that he just has to call with now have either an OESD with a 9, a pair with an overcard kicker, or maybe pair+draw. None of these hands ever fold, I have a weak draw, we still have more than $300 behind, so there's no reason to bet. I can maybe steal this on the turn or river, or I might get lucky and hit a four and get some value from 7x or 8x. I check.

Now, my plan hasn't changed, I'd still like to steal this pot, but I have almost no chance of doing it on this kind of flop, so I choose to keep my stack intact and see if I get something to work with on the turn or river.

Turn is the 4s. Pot: $16. SB leads for $10

Jackpot. I not only turn a straight, but pick up the nut flush.

Now, I want to make a small raise. I want to get value from two-pair, pair+9 hands, and I want to set him up for a big river bet in case I river the nuts. So I make it $45 and he calls.

A couple things I should have noted here that I didn't. The first is, we still have $260 left behind, and the pot is only 105. I have a big hand right now, but I'm not yet committed to anything. I have plenty of room to fold, and more importantly, unless i spike a spade, if something happens that leads to us getting all in on the river, there's a good chance I'm chopping at best.

River: 9d Pot: $106. SB checks.

I'm not amused by the river card. I'm more concerned that he can get away from two pair. He might freak out now and think I have a ten for some reason. I think fish genuinely think this way. There's no reason to think he has a ten, but I dont' want to worry him too much, so I want to keep my VB small. So I bet $60.

SB checkraises all in for $254 total, and it's 194 for me to call.

Now, there are a lot of ways to look at this hand, but I really think that commitment is clarifying a lot of situations for me. Actually, I think commitment is just about pot size, and understanding what size pot you want to play immediately, and how you need to calibrate each action based on what the pot is, what it might be based on a bet/check/raise, and how the pot will dictate your reaction to an opponent's bet/check/raise.

I've been playing PLO the last few days, too distracted with moving and everything else to put in a NL session, and the same principle is applying--looking at hands immediately and asking "what size pot would I like to play," and then evaluating that as one of your action criteria postflop makes the game make sense.

I have to admit, I'm pretty dense about this stuff. I'm sure for a lot of people, this is headslappingly obvious. For me, it's explaining a lot of what limit didn't teach me. I really for the first time feel like I'm playing hands with a strategy that isn't just a modified version of a limit game, where you can isolate actions and evaluate them individually.

Poker is fun when it makes sense.

Coming soon: Pix of a new apartment and ytd results

Relative position

2007-07-23T19:04:00.000-05:00

One of the hands I've struggled with since moving to NL is suited connectors. To a lessor extent, suited aces are in there too.

Postflop, I think those are hands that a relatively easy to play, but finding what Tommy A. might call a bread and butter spot with them has been tough. It's gotten to the point where I was routinely mucking them in the blinds, which I'm sure is wrong, and sometimes even to raisers when I had OK position. I just had no really sense for what I was doing, and I'm surely passing on some great spots.

I think I'm finally getting a handle on them, thanks to Rolf Slotbloom's PLO book.

Rolf developed a really tight, shortstacking strategy that involved keeping the laggro big stacks on his right, and then limp-reraising. The idea is simple. He limps in the CO, LAG otb raises, BB, who knows LAG is FOS, calls, now Rolf can come over the top with his short stack and either take the pot right away or get his money in almost always with a solid edge.

For some reason, this got me thinking about flops. You're way better off being able to semibluff behind a bet and a call, than you are facing a bet with a guy left to act behind you. You not only have more dead money in the middle, you're playing with a smaller stack-to-pot ratio, which is perfect for draws because you want to either see no more cards or two. You can get it in much easier.

So take this hand. MP is 45/22/2.2, CO 35/8/1.1. calls.

Ultimate Bet - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.50/$1 Blinds - 6 Players - (LegoPoker HH Converter)

Hero (SB): $99.00

BB: $117.10

UTG: $71.85

MP: $141.50

CO: $13.50

BTN: $104.95

Preflop: Hero is dealt 9 A (6 Players)

UTG calls $1.00, MP raises to $4.50, CO calls $4.50, BTN folds, Hero calls $4.00, 2 folds

Flop: ($15.50) 6 5 5 (3 Players)

Hero checks, MP bets $15.50, CO folds, Hero raises all-in to $94.50, MP folds

Uncalled bet of $79.00 returned to Hero

Pot Size: $46.50 ($2.30 Rake)

So if he folds, I pick up $25 for a $2.50 investment. If one of them calls, I'm probably behind, but likely have a solid 11-15 outs. I think he's got exactly two hands, 66 and 55, that have me in any kind of real trouble.

So there it is. It seems simple. It actually is simple, I'm just dense. I'm ok with playing the SCs in position now, but what I really want to see is that raise/call. That's bread and butter time.

If I'm ever in Amsterdam, I owe Rolf a beer.

I'll probably just head straight for the weed, but what ever.

My table image apparently sucked

2007-07-17T13:23:00.000-05:00

Will, at CP, has said several times in different threads that people rarely have any sense of their actual table image, and even if they think they know what their table image is, they're usually wrong.

I had an interesting demonstration of that Saturday night.

I went to the boats with this guy Peter, the husband on one of Bronwyn's friends. He plays a little online and is a nice guy. He wanted to go to the boats, so I got to play tour guide. I was going to play 2/5, but I called ahead for 1/2 and figured if we were at different tables at 1/2, I wouldn't look rude when I moved up. Instead we got sat at the same table, so i played 1/2. I didn't mind.

Peter got the four seat and I was in the 10. Early on, he was limping a lot and gave away two of his three buyins pretty quickly. I just played tight and looked for good spots. Second orbit, there are five limpers to me on the button with T2d. I call, the sb folds, the BB in the two seat, big stack at the table, a ~regular and a fairly straightforward player, raises $13 more. Three callers in between I make a bad call.

The flop is 982, one diamond. BB leads out for $30. Folds to me. I kind of think my deuce is good here. He's got overcards or some kind of squeeze bluff a fair amount, and I've got an easy turn fold if he double-barrels. So I throw in six more chips. He checks the turn (4d, nice card) and I shove for $65. He folds after not much thought.

Later that orbit, I raise to $15 three off the button with 9h9s behind two limpers. Both blinds and both limpers call. The flop is K74 all diamonds. Checks to me and I check. It's just suicide to c-bet this. Turn is the sweet, blessed 9c. BB (old guy with a hat from the ship he served on in the Pacific. I love these guys. Usually loose and passive, and great stories.) bets out $35 into ~$75 and it folds to me I only have $140 behind. So I shove again. He folds.

I make a quick note in my head. One orbit, two shoves.

So for like the next two hours, I played maybe three pots. I got caught making one small bluff and didn't manage to drag a pot, but was still on like $300. I'd been getting tangled up with the three seat. A nitty, socially retarded guy. Mid-40s, looks like he lives at home. Gets pissy about weird things. Loose, passive, but tough to catch in big pots because he never bets when you've got him set up for a checkraise.

So after about 15 orbits of being card dead and talking about good bars in chicago with the six seat, who has been up since Thursday (I love live poker), I get A2h otb, only two limpers, so I bump it to $15. The three seat calls in the BB, the two limpers fold. Three has about $170 behind. Flop is 5h3d2c I bet $25 with what I assume is the best hand, and he calls. Turn is the 6h. He checks and I think for a minute about betting but if he had a four, I can't call so I take the freebie. River is the 4h.

He rolls his eyes a little and checks. I think about betting something value-sized, but then I remember "one orbit, two shoves." So I shove and he calls off $130 in a $80 pot playing the board with 43o.

I love live poker.

I ran really well after that and after a couple more big pots, had the table covered for the next four hours. I nearly had $1000 on the table at one point, and never topped up. Ended up cashing out $750, and Peter got some of his money back too.

In the car driving home, he mentioned that the two and three seats kept muttering about me being a maniac who just kept pushing and pushing and they couldn't wait to snap me off. They didn't notice the two hours I spent folding preflop or check folding flops. Just the really big, obvious stuff. Even Peter noticed that every time I bet big and got called, I had it. But those two "regulars" could barely be bothered to think about why I was shoving. I love live poker.

Which is good, because online poker hates me this month. I won't bother you with details. Let's just say, that $650 win kept me breakeven for the week.

Buddy, 1918-2007

2007-07-13T11:52:00.000-05:00

My grandmother died this weekend.

I spent the first part of this week in Appleton, Wis., basically doing the family things you do when someone dies. The visitation was Tuesday and the funeral was wednesday, and the time in between was spent sitting in rooms with three generations of my family, none of us really knowing what to say most of the time.

I didn't know how to feel Saturday when my sister told me Buddy died that morning. We called her Buddy. She was a bit vain, and when my cousin John, the oldest of her grandchildren, couldn't say "grandma" he used buddy, and she clung to the nickname for the next 35 years. Buddy was 89. She'd been ill in one way or another for the last 20 years. First it was an arthritis that robbed her of the balance and grace that she was so proud of (she taught dance for 60 years). In later years, she'd had a series of strokes, the final one leaving her all but paralyzed, mentally incapacitated, often at the mercy of nursing home staffers (who were to a person kind and caring, but Buddy was as independent a person as I've ever known).

On top of the physical failings, she never got over the death of my grandfather, 10 years ago. They were married for 56 years when he passed away, and she missed him every single day that he was gone. Buddy loved to send cards, and even after Grandpa died, she signed each and every one of them "Buddy and Grandpa."

Then four years ago, my cousin Jeff died, at the age of 26. It was another blow that left all of us, but especially her, hurt, reeling and confused. By the end of that year, her health and our fears for her finally forced her to leave the white clapboard house on Outagamie Street she'd lived in for 45 years.

Visiting her in recent years, it was palpable how much these losses weighed on her. She was smaller, weaker, sometimes viciously angry at how her body and mind, so sharp for so long, would fail her.

The last time I saw her, we took her out to dinner. She was in a good mood, ate well, and played with her greatgrandson Jordan. When the bill was paid, she placed both hands on the rails of her wheelchair and tried to push her chair back and stand up, just the way the rest of us had gotten up from the table. She'd forgotten she couldn't walk. Angry and embarrassed, she tried to wheel herself out, fighting with us when we'd try to help, which of course we had to. When my dad and I helped her back to her room, she grabbed me around the neck, buried her head in my chest, and started sobbing and apologizing. I just hugged her and told her there was nothing to apologize for. We understood.

So knowing all of that, it's easy to think "well, it's over now. She's home, with Grandpa and Jeff, and in a better place." And that's all true.

But what I think was amazing about this week is that we finally got to stop thinking about all that. It started with the picture boards my aunts did. There were all of these amazing pictures of Buddy through the years, starting with her first dance studio (when she was 17, btw. Buddy was a feminist before there were feminists), her shows, baby pictures of Buddy and Grandpa and my dad. Graduations, summers at the cottage, Christmases, a whole life spread out in images.

Then came the people. I mentioned Buddy taught dance for 60 years. What I mean is, she was THE dance teacher in Appleton for 60 years. When I was a kid, if someone in Appleton happened to catch my name, almost immediately they'd say "Oh, your Chip and Marie's grandson?" Try buying a pack of cigarettes on the sly with that hanging over your head.

There were literally hundreds of people at the wake. Almost all of them had a happy memory of Buddy to share. You could tell she'd genuinely touched these people. As the father said at the funeral mass, "I must confess, sometimes I'll see the name of a person whose funeral I performed a year or so later and think, 'what was their story again?' But I promise you this: I remember Chip even now, 10 years on, and I will always remember Marie."

It was a genuinely touching sentiment and one we heard from hundreds of people. I was recognized by complete strangers who told me Buddy was always a quick one with the latest pictures of the grandkids.

Buddy wasn't the closest grandparent I had. We lived in Chicago, not Wisconsin, and visits weren't as common as we might have liked. But as I got older, we did have some time together, just to talk and know each other. I remember being dumbfounded once when she told me, even with all of the health problems, even having to move into a nursing home, she had no regrets. She would marry the same man, have the same children, have the same career. If god came to her today, she said, and offered her a chance to start over, she'd choose exactly the same life.

I've lived barely a third as long as her, but can't possibly say the same. Sometimes it seems like there's nothing but regrets. But it really is possible to live that good and that happy a life. I saw it with my own eyes, even if I didn't always recognize it.

I'm so proud to be her grandson.

I'm a loser baby

2007-06-28T11:15:00.000-05:00

Whew.

Finally had one of those nights last night. Nothing holds up, big hands run into the nuts, flopped nuts die on the river. Lost about four buy-ins.

Of course, this was at $25 PLO.

I've been on a nice run here, but I kind of felt like a pitcher in the dugout after working seven perfect innings. Just don't talk to me about it. Don't fuck with a streak. Unlike santi, I'm superstitious about these things. I still can't believe he blogs about that stuff.

So in a sick way, taking some awful beats (and even in omahahahaha, losing to river four-outers three times in a session is pretty brutal) was a relief. Every time I make a mistake lately, I've been making it against the wrong guy.

Like Monday night, in a hand I posted at +1, I raise on the button with AQs, BB (a nitty-tag 17/14/3) reraises, I've been pretty loose aggressive, so easy just call. I thought about four-betting, but I don't really need to bluff.

So the flop comes A98, two clubs, one spade. BB leads for 3/4 of the pot, about $35 into 50 and I just call. Turn is 7c, check check. River is a queen, he leads for $80 and I make a terrible raise to $240, but he calls me with 98 and I scoop a $500+ pot.

Did I mention I've moved up to 1/2?

I guess I should start from the beginning.

Vegas was a blast, aside from a bout of food poisoning that laid me up for 1 day. I won every session of NL I played, two drunken late nighters of 1/2 at the IP, one afternoon session at the Mirage and a quickie 1/2 at Venetian. I lost back a bit at 5/10 HORSE, but by saturday I was well up for the trip and decided to take a shot at some 2/5 games. I've sat in a couple 2/5s at MJII, but this seemed, well, different.

So Saturday late morning Donnie and I head over to Caesar's. I hop right into a 2/5 game, first hand catch AQo, raise, cbet, pull in a quick $30. Two hands later, I limp along in the CO with 86s, button raises, one call on my right, I call, flop a straight flush draw, checkraise behind the button's cbet and the other player's call, turn my straight shove and take down another $350.

After that, I spent an hour and a half running over the table, working my stack up from $500 to $1450. It's the first time I've ever had that much in front of me. Donnie walked over from the 1/2 game and his eyes bugged out a bit. It didn't bother me much one way or another. It just seem...normal.

Anyway, I lose about $600 in a boat over boat hand, grind back a few chips and cash out a few hours later with $400.

We head over to the mirage, say hi to ryan, I play another couple hours in a 2/5 game, didn't get much action but managed to book a $100 win.

Donnie took off for his flight, and troy was still sick, so I wander over to the Venetian. I lost a day to sickness and I was running good. I needed action bad.

Right off, I spot Josh in a 2/5 game. I say hello and we catch up while he takes a smoke break. I go get on the list and am immediately plopped down on Josh's immediate left.

Oh fuck.

For those few who don't know, Josh has been playing NL online at anything from 3/6 to 10/20 (and 25/50 when drunk) for a living for a couple years. The guy is an absolute beast and now I'm faced with the prospect of having to reraise him light.

This is all running through my head as the floor walks me over to the table as I count out five $100 bills and hand them over. Chip runners are the shit.

Anyway, I get my chips just in time to raise utg with A9s, four callers, but a c-bet on a dry king-high board takes it down.

And we're off.

For the first couple hours, I caught a fairly normal run of cards. I didnt' really run over the table, but when I came into a pot, people seemed to get out of my way. Momentum in a live poker game really can't be underrated. The rest of the table sees you hacking at pot after pot, and if you can string together a few wins, or even better, win a couple big pots and quietly bow out of some small pots without people noticing much, you suddenly gain a lot of gravity at the table.

They start guessing whether you've really got it or not when you raise the flop. They begin, whether they mean to or not, reacting to you rather than attacking you. And just like in basketball, once you get them back on their heels, you can do whatever you want.

I probably didn't take enough advantage of this, but even so, I'd run my $500 into nearly $2000 after a couple hours, but then lost about $850 in a pot where a guy played his kings pretty badly, but I paid off anyhow.

I was feeling pretty deflated. Twice, at caesar's and now at the V, I'd been in huge pots with the chance to make major scores, and twice I'd shipped a huge chunk of my stack across the table. I still had a little less than a grand in front of me at the V, but it somehow seemed like a consolation prize rather than a jackpot.

Bear in mind, at my first job as a reporter, I made just more than $1000 a month and lived semi-comfortably.

It wasn't really the money though. It was the feeling that all that work, all those small pots I played, all that energy and aggression I'd spent, all got taken away.

Then, I got aces under the gun.

I got action this time, just a bit, and won a small pot on an ugly board after checking three times. Not a big pot, but it got me back over $1,000.

In the next hour and a half, I'd catch aces three times, flop two sets and a full house, win a $300 pot with ace high and bust two people off the table.

By the time I cashed out, I had $2350 sitting in front of me. Six months ago I didn't have that much in my bankroll. It took four racks to get all the chips to the window, and I had another $500 in bills I'd won. Easily the best win and the best session I've ever had. Last big hand I played, I catch aces in the CO, raise behind one limper to $25, BB, who I stacked once with flopped aces full vs his AK, calls as does the limper. Flop is AJ6r. Leans forward and checks, limper checks, I bet $45, bb shoves for $330 total, limper folds, I call. He flips over AK and I tell him "I've got 'em again." He just walks off, swearing, before the dealer can flip a turn card or I can flip over my aces.

That was a lot of fun.

After running so good, I didn't play at all last week. Part of it was the normal "let the gambool work its way out" decompression. The other part was apartment hunting with bronwyn. We found a nice place in lakeview, but since my bankroll is basically my savings, almost all of that night at the Venetian is going into an apartment deposit.

Nevertheless, my roll is more than comfortable for 1/2NL, so saturday I took my first shot, and played three quick sessions. Just 700 hands, but once again, I've run good (see the AQ hand above) and picked up a quick $1000.

Frankly, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I feel very comfortable with my game. Relaxed. And I'm getting lucky in the right spots. But when you gamble long enough, you know that market correction is coming. You just hope it comes when you can afford it. So after losing a quick $115 last night after another guy who got all in with a dominated draw caught runner runner two pair, I let a nice long sigh of relief as I closed the laptop and headed to bed, finally, a loser.

I believe I left something here....

2007-06-05T10:26:00.001-05:00

Nevermind that last post. I got it all back already, with some interest.

A fun two days so far. I'm gonna take a nap.

Wild night

2007-06-05T08:36:00.000-05:00

I had one of those nights that just makes you a little sick.

I had a beautiful set up. Good stacks running on three tables, at least two fish in position on each. One table had a guy who was 80/13. He would call anything on the flop, and often on the turn.

Trouble is I'd made a couple mistakes, and was stuck about $50. No worries though, I had a pizza, the Cubs, and suckers.

Then, I caught aces when 80/13 raises. Avert your eyes if you'd like.
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.50/$1
6 players

Stack sizes:
UTG: $146.35
UTG+1: $172.08
CO: $187.95
Button: $142.65
cbal84: $229.45
BB: $64.93

Pre-flop: (6 players) cbal84 is SB with ah ad
2 folds, CO raises to $3, Button folds, cbal84 raises to $13, BB folds, CO
calls.

Flop: 2d 9s 6h ($27, 2 players)
cbal84 bets $20, CO calls.

Turn: 8s ($67, 2 players)
cbal84 bets $50, CO raises to $100, cbal84 raises all-in $196.45, CO calls
all-in $54.95.
Uncalled bets: $41.5 returned to cbal84.

River: 7h ($376.9, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $376.9)

Final pot: $376.9

His set of sixes held, obviously.

Against better players, I probably c-bet less, I may even get away from it. QQ/JJ aren't waiting for the turn usually. Against this guy, it might have been anything, including deuces. So I double him up.

He proceeds to go on a run unlike anything I've ever seen. The table just can't touch him. He cracks QQ with 82o (called preflop and call a pot flop bet with the deuce). He ran down my aces up with runner runner gutshot. Seriously, the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. He finally leaves with 550, after buying in for $40.

Meanwhile, at my trough, I was stuck for $350.

At this point, I'm just being stubborn. I can't leave with the fish at my table and that many chips. I'm not really playing all that bad. A couple tough beats, but nothing awful.

Finally, after the fish leaves, I'm stuck $300, and start thinking about leaving, when I catch some cards and grind back most of the loss. 850 hands. Only stuck $111 on the night.

For some reason, it feels like an accomplishment after seeing my aces die like that.

And it really did make me sick. I was up all night, and called in today. I suppose maybe I'll give this poker thing another try this afternoon.

May results

2007-06-02T10:25:00.000-05:00

Just a quick peek. I lost $265 in live play, but only two sessions (-$300, +$35), so I didn't bother with a chart.

Here's online:

I lost $55 Thursday night, which isn't on the graph, but it's covered by $80 in rakeback, so we'll call it a wash.

As expected, not a lot of hands, but I'm happy to see I kept playing well, despite irregular play. I think I'll have a lot more hands in this summer.

At the front of my mind though, is Vegas in two weeks. I'm planning to start out in the 1/2 games, but I'd really like to put in a couple sessions of 2/5, maybe at the B, where the $500 is the smallest game.

Anyway, that's it for this month.

Set luckbox to Sucko

2007-05-29T22:17:00.000-05:00

No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.50/$1
6 players

Stack sizes:
UTG: $175.70
cbal84: $194
CO: $39.10
Button: $204
SB: $38
BB: $38.50

Pre-flop: (6 players) cbal84 is UTG+1 with :10s kd
UTG folds, cbal84 raises to $3, 2 folds, SB raises to $6, BB folds, cbal84 calls.

Flop: qh qs jc ($13, 2 players)
SB bets $6, cbal84 raises to $40, SB calls all-in $26.
Uncalled bets: $8 returned to cbal84.

Turn: 4s ($77, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $77)

River: 9c ($77, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $77)

Results:
Final pot: $77
cbal84 Shows 10s Kd
SB Shows Ad Ac

Two minutes later.....

No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.50/$1
6 players

Stack sizes:
UTG: $252.95
UTG+1: $153.93
CO: $34.20
Button: $121.91
cbal84: $225.65
BB: $218.05

Pre-flop: (6 players) cbal84 is SB with qd ad
3 folds, Button calls, cbal84 raises to $5, BB folds, Button raises to $10, cbal84 calls.

Flop: 9d 4d qh ($21, 2 players)
cbal84 checks, Button bets $10, cbal84 raises to $35, Button raises all-in $111.91, cbal84 calls.

Turn: :10d ($244.82, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $244.82)

River: :10c ($244.82, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $244.82)

Results:
Final pot: $244.82
Button Shows As Ac
cbal84 Shows Qd Ad

A beautiful (and winning) weekend

2007-05-29T16:47:00.000-05:00

Had a great weekend.

Got off to a slow start. Fought traffic to get to Majestic Star for some NL Friday night. Basically made a donk move in one pot to blow $160. Ended the night only up $35, but I managed to quit at the right time, which is often tough for me in the midst of a losing or breakeven session, so I was actually happy looking back at it.

Saturday we didnt' do a whole lot other than watch the rain and catch up with the Sopranos. I used my Borders coupon for the new FT book for myself and the new Pink Martini CD for bronwyn.

I was just going to read Saturday, but the book gave the itch for some action. Played about 200 hands and won $180, while sweating DR at the FT of a 180-man sng. He took a vicious beat to finish second. We went out with some friends for tapas later on. Paella, red wine and croquettas make a fantastic dinner.

Sunday, we were booked for a barbeque in the evening and bronwyn was making spam musubi. I went for a run, and came up with a brilliant idea. We would go to Smoque, buy a pound of brisket for Monday, drop it at my place, then head out. Mission accomplished.

So yesterday, we have a leisurely morning, I played some poker in the early afternoon and managed to lose almost exactly all of my winnings from Saturday. I lost two big pots, one a bluff I shouldn't have made, the other a value shove that I dont' think I can play any other way.

But the sun came out and we had delicious brisket in the fridge, so wtf do I care? We went to the beach for a bit, walked out to the lighthouse and back, then hit around a volleyball for a bit. I suck at volleyball, but I'm good and hitting it really far. Then we went back to my place for brisket. Sooooo delicious, even after 24 hours in the fridge. The stuff just melts.

Then I squeezed in another 300 hands in the evening, and won back nearly everything I lost earlier in the day. Probably +150 over all, nearly $200 for the weekend.

After reading the FT book, I've been messing around a bit with different ranges. I've been opening for $4 from any position (no "pot" button), but I decided if I'm going to loosen up, I need to open for less, so $3 from the two up front spots and $4 from CO and OTB.

The two bigger changes I see though are calling more reraises and calling more in the BB vs. a steal. I probably took it too far in a few hands, including one I posted at +1 that has ty howling. But I also picked up a lot more pots and felt a lot less pressure to pick up huge pots. The thing about winning lots of small or medium pots is, you can be patient when you're looking for big pots.

It's definitely a manual on lag play, which I think is a double edged sword. If people really get it and implement it, it's going to make NL several orders of difficulty tougher. More likely though, people will completely miss apply it and end up the same fishies they were. I think SS is a good example of this.

Also, a lot of it is contradictory. Bloch has loads of suited hands in his preflop ranges, yet Ferguson can't hide his distaste for playing suited connectors in his postflop chapter (and I think butchers a couple hands there because of it), while Gavin advises people to throw out preflop standards all together, call a bunch of raises in position, and try to take away pots on the turn.

I highly recommend Gavin's chapter btw. Brilliance. :D

I think it's interesting. In the 1000 hands I played this weekend, I ran at 27.5/18/3.2. I was folding my bb 65% and won about 50% at sd. And 15/100 to boot.

I think this has a lot of implications for my live play especially. One big obstacle is the oversized raise, but I think that can be managed. It'll take some experimenting though. People tend to react very strangely to lag play live.

So close

2007-05-22T10:06:00.000-05:00

It was right there. I had three tables, big fish at two of the three on my direct right, another fish two to my right on the third table. I'd made a nice read and fold of an overpair earlier, and then 45 minutes in, I caught it.

No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.50/$1
6 players

Stack sizes:
UTG: $39.70
UTG+1: $226.10
CO: $201.65
cbal84: $235.20
SB: $17.23
BB: $46.70

Pre-flop: (6 players) cbal84 is Button with 5d 4d
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to $4, CO calls, cbal84 calls, 2 folds.

Flop: :10d ah qd ($13.5, 3 players)
UTG+1 bets $8, CO calls, cbal84 calls.

Turn: 3d ($37.5, 3 players)
UTG+1 bets $16, CO calls, cbal84 raises to $50, UTG+1 folds, CO calls.

River: 5c ($153.5, 2 players)
CO checks, cbal84 bets $150, CO calls all-in $139.65.
Uncalled bets: $10.35 returned to cbal84.

Results:
Final pot: $432.8

He flopped broadway and very wisely slowplayed the flop.

I win another medium pot soon after this and within an hour of starting my session, have a $300+ win.

That put my total roll, live and online, over $4,000 for the first time in nearly a year. My real landmark is $5,000. That's where I need to be to feel comfortable moving to the 1/2 and making 2/5 live my home, rather than where I go when I ran good, but $4000 felt pretty damn good. Considering I had 1/4 of that on new years eve.

But my tables were good, there's no need to hit and run, I'd only gotten in 150 hands or so. The night was young.

And of course, I couldn't win a pot.

Nothing huge, I lost a bunch of medium pots through the usual mix of second-best hands in spots I have to play them, making the right move against the wrong guy, and--everyone's favorite--the turn three-outer.

So make it a $90 win instead of $300. I'll hit $4,000 another night, and stay there next time.

Meanwhile, it's a beautiful goddamn week here in chicago. Can't wait to get a run in tonight, and maybe some cards while B watches Idol.

I love spring.

It's been a while

2007-05-21T15:19:00.000-05:00

Lots of little things. This month has felt like a recharging month. I've gotten some good news at work (mainly that they like my contributions and want me to keep at it) and also a nice raise. I haven't played much poker at all (700 hands online and another 3 hours live), I'm starting to run a bit, and I've decided to learn how to sea kayak well enough to paddle Lake Michigan.

I've been getting a bit of a belly and not feeling so good, so I'm going to try to add 10 miles a week of running and a weekly paddle to my routine and see how I feel. I always concentrate better and just feel better about the world when I've spent some time outside moving my body somehow. I did a quick mile last night (no time, my running watch is busto) and it felt good to push my legs a bit.

I also ran into Lora yesterday at breakfast, and felt incredibly lazy in comparison when she told me she's not just doing an ultra, but the chicago again and the half. Go Lora go. That's amazing.

I think it will be a fun summer though. And plenty busy, especially since B and I will be getting a place together in August.

I do want to play a bit more poker, but between california and busy weekends this month, I knew I wasn't going to see a lot of hands.

I did get to play a good old fashioned home game this weekend. Some of bronwyn's friends had a poker/wii party. I played poker mainly. Just a $20 buyin, .25-.25 blinds. No straddles unfortunately. I play very loose at first, until I got stacked twice, with top two vs. top set and then the hammer vs. fourth pair. It was kind of fun to just mess around though.

Everyone there knew I played seriously and people were joking about the pro getting stacked. It was amazing to see how easy it is to read people when they aren't taking the game very seriously. Dancing eyebrows, strong is weak, leaning back when they can't stand their hand, staring at the flop when it missed them.

Good times. Plus, I came back and only took a $12 loss. And I learned I'm a natural at Guitar Hero. Woot.

April, updated

2007-04-29T21:35:00.000-05:00

Big pots baby

Absolute Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.50/$1
3 players

Stack sizes:
Button: $71.65
cbal84: $235.20
BB: $228.35

Pre-flop: (3 players) cbal84 is SB with qc qs
Button folds, cbal84 raises to $4, BB raises to $8, cbal84 raises to $24, BB calls.

Flop: 5c :10d 4c ($48, 2 players)
cbal84 bets $35, BB calls.

Turn: 2s ($118, 2 players)
cbal84 bets $80, BB calls.

River: 7c ($278, 2 players)
cbal84 bets $90, BB calls all-in $89.35.
Uncalled bets: $0.65 returned to cbal84.

Results:
Final pot: $456.7

Played 350 hands tonight, won $325.

Month total online cash: $1247.86

He called with AKo btw.

Ship it.

April results, May goals

2007-04-28T16:35:00.000-05:00

Not sure if I'll get another session in, so I'm going to do a tentative monthly review post now.

I skipped last month, but overall, including $220 in rakeback, I managed to make a whole $300 in the month. It was pretty ugly, but it led me to a few leaks, which I think I plugged this month.

Overall, I spend the entire month in the $200NL game at absolute (.5/1 blinds). I only got in just under 6000 hands. I spent part or all of three weekends playing live, and also spent some time playing turbo sngs.

Anyway, here are the summaries.

Online cash: $923.41 (8.1ptbb/100)
Turbo sngs: $92
Live play: $574

Add in about $130 in rakeback too. So ship $1590 this month.

Online

Live

Beat: I had to pay $620 in overdue parking tickets yesterday or face a booting.

I have to admit, I've run really hot the last week-and-a-half, but I think a good chunk of that is due to plugging up some leaks. Play-wise, I've been c-betting more, getting a lot more aggressive early in a hand. I've found myself in a lot better control of hands and I've been able to make clearer reads later in the hand. I've also gotten some big action when I've flopped big. Occasionally, it's gotten out of hand, but I think the dips you see in the graph actually come from more passive spots, where I haven't really defined my ops range, and then I'll try to make a play or call lighter than I might usually.

Mentally though, I've gotten patient. This is really the biggest step. A couple weeks ago, I was reviewing a monday session. I'd won about $150, but felt I should have gotten more. I realized I'd only won 10 pots, and only one bigger than $20 (it was $200). But I'd lost three $30+ pots. There are a few big pots that define session. Lots of other things go into those pots, including building an image, picking up some small pots. But since I've gone back to a tag-ish 22/16 game, I'm generally showing up in pots with solid hands, so waiting around for big pots makes a lot more sense.

Last night was a great example. I headed down to MJII after work around 6:30. By 7, I was stuck nearly $200. I made two completely unnecessary plays and should have only been down about $50. So I take a breath and tell myself to just wait for the game to come to me.

I folded for another hour or so, picking up a few pots, seeing one showdown when I faded a shortstack's flush draw all in on the flop, and by 8:30 I've got my $200 back and am sitting with $300 in front. Then I pick up aces, double through a guy who limp-called and check/called home with tens on a nine high board. Boom. $600. Picked up a few more pots over the next two hours, but paid off quads once, and walk out with a $420 win.

As soon as I quit pushing and just waited for the game to come to me, I had easy choices, clear plays, and got a little lucky.

Easy game. Right? :p

I'm probably not going to get a ton of hands in again in May. I'm going to California for a wedding next weekend, then Bronwyn and I start kayaking the weekend after, but I'm hoping to get 10,000 in, stay patient and see a much steadier graph for next month.

And win at least enough to pay for my ticket to Vegas for June.

Thin river spots, pt 2

2007-04-07T13:19:00.001-05:00

Hand one

So, as I suspected the first hand is really really thin. If we think he bets any two

pair, T9+, we actually have 44% equity. But if we take away T9 and A4 from his river

betting range, and leave A6 in there, it's a clear fold, since we have only 28%

equity.

Here's the 28% range:

99, 44, AsTs, As9s, Ah6h, As6s, KdQd, KdJd, KdTd, Kd8d, Kd7d, Kd6d, QdJd, QdTd, Qd8d,

Qd7d, JdTd, Jd8d, Td7d, 8d7d, AcTs, AhTc, AhTd, AhTs, AsTc, AsTd, A9o, A6o

Here's the 44% range:

99, 44, AsTs, As9s, As4s, KdQd, KdJd, KdTd, Kd8d, QdJd, QdTd, Qd8d, JdTd, Jd8d, Th9h, Td8d, Td7d, 8d7d, AhTc, AhTd, AhTs, AsTc, AsTd, Ah4c, Ah4d, Ah4s, As4c, As4d, Tc9h, Tc9s, Td9c, Td9h, Td9s, Th9c, Th9s

So the question is whether he's betting closer to the 28% or the 44%.

I think against an unknown, you have to assume they're not going to valuebet thin, they're not going to want to get checkraised. So dropping T9 and A4 leaves us at ~34%. So we have to believe he's betting A6 here to call him. Really really close.

A6 is probably more optimistic on the river, so it may get excited and bet, thinking it just caught up to A8 or 7. Still not sure what I think about that, so I actually think it probably doesn't matter much. With any kind of passive read though, I think this is a close fold. Against an aggressive value bettor or bluffer, we have to call.

What I do think is interesting is how the 9d blocks a lot of hands he could have here. Since he can't have a whole slew of 98d, 97, Q9 type hands, it actually adds a bit of value to our hand. If the 2d is on the board instead, and I have A6 on a board of AT642, the most equity I can have is 41%, because he's likely never holding T6, rarely 64 and has a slew of 9x combos that make flushes. Interesting tidbit for board texture.

Hand two
This amazed me a little.

Turns out, given the price he's laying, I have to call this if he can reasonably have KQ/66, and it's not really close.

Against this range:

KK, QQ, 66, AcKc, AdKd, AsKs, AcQc, AdQd, AsQs, AhJh, AhTh, Ah9h, Ah8h, Ah7h, Ah6h, KcQc, KdQd, KsQs, JhTh, Jh9h, Th9h, Th8h, 9h8h, AhKc, AhKd, AdQc, AhQc, AhQd, AhQs, KcQd, KcQs, KdQc, KdQs, KsQc, KsQd

77 has 50% equity.

I'm a little floored by that.

Again, there's a decent chunk of suited connectors he's blocked from having, but even if I take out the non-nutflush AQo and AKo combos, and have him only betting a nut flush, two-pair or a set of kings, queens or sixes, we have 36% equity at showdown.

Here's that range:
KK-QQ, 66, AhJh, AhTh, Ah9h, Ah8h, Ah7h, Ah6h, KcQc, KdQd, KsQs, JhTh, Jh9h, Th9h, Th8h, 9h8h, AhKc, AhKd, AhKs, AhQc, AhQd, AhQs, KcQd, KcQs, KdQc, KdQs, KsQc, KsQd

If you add in him having Ah8x+ and Axh, then our equity drops to 25%
KK-QQ, 66, AhJh, AhTh, Ah9h, Ah8h, Ah7h, Ah6h, Ah5h, Ah4h, Ah3h, Ah2h, KcQc, KdQd, KsQs, JhTh, Jh9h, Th9h, Th8h, 9h8h, 9h5h, AhKc, AhKd, AhKs, AhQc, AhQd, AhQs, AhJc, AhJd, AhJs, AhTc, AhTd, AhTs, Ah9c, Ah9d, Ah9s, Ah8c, Ah8d, Ah8s, KcQd, KcQs, KdQc, KdQs, KsQc, KsQd

So it's a question again of just how low his range goes. I think A9o and A7s are reasonable floors, which leaves us with 28% equity vs. a very tight river betting range or two-pair+

Considering he priced us in on the turn, we have to call the river getting 4:1, since with have 28% equity. Honestly, this shocks me a bit. But notice that if he bets 25 into 40 on the river, we have a fold.

Hand three
At least I'm not insane here. I have about 20% equity to snap off a bluff, and I'm just not finding any combos that give me more than that. Easy fold here.

I'm really finding a lot of value lately in running these drills after sessions. I've always done it for close spots, but the more I dig into it, the more I'm applying it at the table. I'm sure this is mind-numbing for anyone actually reading, but you have only yourself to blame :)

Three thin river spots

2007-04-03T10:58:00.000-05:00

Three hands.

$100NL First hand at the table, I have A9o in the BB. Three limps, I check, flop is A94, who diamonds, I have none. I bet $2, called in two spots. Turn is a T, I bet $6.50, one fold, button calls. River's a 6d. I check and call a $12 bet.

$200NL. I raise $4 utg+1 w/ 77, get called by the SB, who is a bit of a station with $130 behind. Flop is Q76 all hearts. I bet $8, get called. Turn is Kh, SB bets $5 I just call. River is a brick, SB bets $10, I call.

$100NL I raise $2 w/ ATc utg, get called only by sb, a weird player who runs at 45/1/.3 and makes plays that I can only describe as spazzy--she recently open-shoved $140 into a $2 pot with TT as an overpair. Flop is 984r, one club, she checks, I bet $3, she calls. Turn is a 5c. Check, check. River is a red ace, check, I bet $7, she checkraises another $7, I call.

In the first hand, I probably need to bet/fold river to protect value, but having checked, I'm ok with folding.

Second hand, I think the river is a clear fold. This is just not two-pair.

Third hand, my first river bet is pretty bad. She calls with almost nothing I beat. Second call is just retarded.

I had a nice day yesterday. Played about 600 hands, and ended up $65. But the three hands above are the ones I spent most of the time on when I reviewed. I remembered each as tough spots in the session and really think in each case, I'm not giving up a ton of money by folding. And there is collectively $82 at stake if I win the pots and $39 lost if I make the wrong call. (I realize we're actually talking about fractions of that amount, but let's be literal for the sake of discussion).

So how do we think about these spots?

The pot in hand 1 is $32 when he bets, so effectively 3:1 on a call.

The pot in hand 2 is $40, so 4:1 to call.

The pot in hand 3 is $10 on the river, and I'm getting $24:$7 to call a checkraise, so ~3.5:1

In hand one, I beat T9. I really don't imagine an unknown not raising A4 on that flop.

Hand two I only beat KQ or the worst played set of sixes in history.

Hand three, I beat a busted flush draw or maybe 9x turned into a bluff.

So, that means I need 33% equity in hand one, 25% in hand two and 28% in hand three.

I'll update it tomorrow with what those ranges would look like. I have actual work to do now. But if anyone actually reads this and wants to take a guess, feel free. I think it's a good exercise and one I know I need to add to my postgame more often.

Cardrunners and aggression

2007-03-28T12:26:00.000-05:00

So I finally got around to joining cardrunners, and like anyone else who joins cardrunners these days, downloaded a couple aba videos.

I watched his 2/4 vid last night and I can definitely see how this is going to be money well spent.

Two things stood out. The first was the general tone. I also watched a Green Plastic vid also, and in both cases, the casualness, the calmness, and the ease of the decision-making stood out more than any particular hand. In general, you get a better sense of what a game flows like for them, how they let it come to them, how losing is such a part of the game. At one point, he makes a comments "and if he's got it, well, he's going to win a nice pot." No judgement, just an acceptance that in some spots, you're just going to lose sometimes. More and more, I realize that's my biggest leak.

Also really cool was the postgame review aba did. He broke down one hand using poker stove, which is standard, and also talked some about stats. He said his street-by-street agression went Flop: 5 Turn: 4 River: 3. Minimum he said should be 4.5/3/2.5

Right now, I'm 3.8/2.5/1.8, and my last 5,000 have run a little passive.

So tonight or tomorrow night I'm going to dig through PT and look at some winning periods and losing periods to compare aggression, and look for spots where I'm playing too passively.

A couple places that come to mind are not pushing or folding appropriately with draws. I tend to chicken out from time to time, instead of pushing harder. I also tend to just call a lot of leads when I'm in position and raised preflop. I've been working on this lately anyhow.

A turn aggression of four just blows me away though. I honestly don't know how you can ever take a pot control line or free card and be at 4 on the turn. Likewise, 3 on the river seems hyper-aggressive, both value betting and bluffing.

Both are worth messing around with though. It's easy to let reasons that have nothing to do with good poker get in the way of good play.

I came across one hand, that may partly unlock the river aggression for me, in NLHT&P. Effective stacks of 100bb You have KQo on a board of KT865, with a flush possible and you've raised preflop and bet the flop and turn, with about 3* pot behind.

S&M suggest betting in position here for 1/2 pot-ish vs. solid or thinking opponents.

I'm working off of memory, but the idea is that you're almost certainly a dog if you get called, since solid opponents aren't going to be calling with AT-type hands for three streets. But you end up putting a fair amount of pressure on AK or small-two-pair type hands and also provide cover for bigger hands like top-two, flushes, sets, etc.

I'll have to dig it out again and look at the spot more closely, but There's certainly some logic to it. There may be even more logic to betting JJ again there, since it has less showdown value than KQ and can force your opponents into a lot of uncomfortable spots.

Anyway, it's not something I'm 100% on, but as Izmet says, books are to be thought about, not obeyed.

Trip Report: The Pot 4/8

2007-03-26T10:21:00.000-05:00

I came to the sad realization last week that two runs in four weeks is no way to train for an 8k run. I can do two miles right now. Barely. So my lazy ass dropped out of the Shamrock Shuffle on Sunday.

This freed up some time for the live pokers.

So Eric and I headed up to meet Fritz at Potawatomi. For some reason, I had a bug up my ass to play 4/8. It's a really nice limit for my BR right now, and I think it's easier to beat than 3/6 just structure-wise, especially with a kill. I was feeling a little stupid as it took nearly two hours to get all three of us onto a table, but it turned out really really well.

Fritz was the first in and immediately spotted the fish, sitting in the three seat. A nice, older guy who liked to just call along, but would play big hands very predictably. He made it easy to play well against him. In four hours, he put about $400 into the game.

I got very lucky and got into the four-seat, directly to the fish's right, and with three rocky players to my immediate left. Five seat was a black guy with shades who took some strange postflop lines but was very predictable preflop. The six was a guy named marcus with sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled down tight. Just looking at him made me want to roll my eyes. I raised quite a bit in position early on, isolating the fish on my right, and Marcus began to take offense at me attacking his blinds.

One hand with Marcus: Fish open-limps in CO, I raise otb with QTo, Marcus defends his BB, fish calls. Flop comes J84r. Check, check, I bet because that's my job, marcus calls, fish folds. Turn and river are 3-2, we check it down, he rolls over 87o, taps the felt and say "Thanks for the raise. You think I'm folding this to you?" I just smiled and said "In that case, thank you sir."

There was another rock to Marcus' left, then Eric in the eight, a rotating cast of weak players in the nine and we started with a solid player in the ten, but he was later replaced by three fish.

I can't imagine a better table layout. Enough space that Eric, Fritz and I weren't stumbling over each other, and a nice distribution of weak-tight folders and soft spots.

We basically killed it all afternoon.

Fritz had a rough start, getting stuck for close to $100 early on, but finally his hands started holding up and I think he walked off with $120 or so. Eric ran good for most of the day, but then took three brutal beats with aces or queens in the last half hour and lost 2/3rds of his win. Still +$80 on the day.

I seemed to have big pots available to me any time I wanted, and for once I ran good as well. I lost twice with aces, but got paid off in good sized pots with two straights, a flush, made kings hold up on an ace-high, three-flush board, won a decent pot with aces and stole more than my fair share of position raises early on. +$310 on the day, and I can think of three pots where I bluffed off about 6BB that I didn't need to.

I was just loving limit hold'em. Games online are close to unplayable lately, and I've been messing around so much with live NL, I'd forgotten how easy limit comes to me. I don't really know why, but the decision-making in limit, the reads, the values, they all make intuitive sense to me. NL is so much harder for me to keep a grasp on and the decision tree really is a lot more tangled.

So it was a nice feeling to sit at a table again and be in complete control. Perfect seat, perfect image, a few perfect cards. It was just gorgeous.

A couple hands.

Kill pot, so we're playing 8/16. Two-seat has the kill for second time in EP. He raises, I throw in eight chips with Jc8c. Terrible, but I liked him for raising light and was steaming from a beat that started his run when my bottom two got counterfeited on the river after he put in way too much action with tp, jack-kicker. So I call, then Eric in the SB three-bets, BB calls, killer caps it, we all call. Ugh. Four to the flop for $128-$4 rake.

Flop is a not horrifying AT7r. Eric bets, BB calls, killer raises, and we all call. $188.

Turn is a six of spades (two spades) and it checks through.

River is a sweet, beautiful 9d. Two checks, killer bets, I'm so excited I forget I've got two behind me and I raise, both fold, killer calls, shows A8s for top pair, and a straight/flush draw on the turn. I have no idea how the turn checked when I see that hand, but I'm grateful as the dealer ships me a $254 pot.

I'm not sure I like my play on any street, but I got stuck in the hand and got reasonable value on the action I put in. I run good.

The more interesting hand was another kill pot. It was interesting even before the cards got dealt. I'm in the BB and the second card that louis the dealer tosses me catches some air, hits my blind and flips over, exposing the 8c. He finishes the deal and I wait until the action comes around to squeeze my cards. Marcus open-limps, Eric limps in MP, the killer in the ten seat checks, folds to me in the BB and I squeeze two kings.

"Louie, if I drag this pot, you're getting a hell of a tip."

I raise, and all three call, so we're four to the flop for $60.

Flop comes Q84r. I bet, marcus calls, eric calls, killer folds. I'm pretty sure Marcus has a AQ-QJ or something like nines or tens he isn't folding to me. Eric I'm unsure about on that dry a board, but he may be floating with an AJ-type hand looking to backdoor something or catch an over.

Turn is a miserable Ad putting a flush draw on board too. I check, and to my disgust it checks through.

River is a third diamond, lower than the eight. I think for a minute and while I'm now positive I beat Marcus' Qx, I can't imagine a hand Eric has that doesn't either beat me or take a river stab at a pot that's loaded with scare cards. But again it checks through and my kings are good for a $90 pot.

As promised, I toke Louie three pinks. (the game played with pink $2 chips, which is a fantastic addition to the game. Still a 2-4 structure, but much more orderly than having loads of $1s on the table).

I'm kind of upset I missed a river bet there. If anyone but Eric is in the pot, I bet there, but I thought he was capable of bluffing into the two of us with air, and I didn't want to face a raise there. In retrospect, I think I can bet/fold, since a river raise bluff in this size pot, with those two players, was almost out of the question.

So, like I said, a fantastic game, the new room at the Pot is terrific, and I'm a luckbox. Felt good to enjoy poker again after running breakeven all month, and I translated the good vibes into a nice day online Sunday. Good times.

Fun with satellites

2007-03-07T10:58:00.000-06:00

So I decided to try to win a main event seat this year. I'm not going to invest a load of money into it, but I'd like to give it a shot. My tournament play, while infrequent, has been pretty solid lately (two plus 1 tourney wins, decent showing in some sngs), and I need something to do on those days when I should to step away from the cash tables because I'm getting close to tilt. So this is a little side project to work on

Plus, Full Tilt has a rather underutilized tournament chip system, and I think I can get a seat on the cheap. The two-table, $6.60 sngs give away four $26 chips in each event. People are absolute retards in these things and I think I can easily make these +Ev.

Examples of retardity: Last night, we're at the final table, I have T6500 person on my left has 7000, blinds are 120/240. Two shorties in the blind and we're six-handed. One fold, I raise 3x, the big stack calls, I flop middle pair and a nfd, the big stack raises my cbet then checks down the next two streets (I should have shoved) and shows 42s. Another time, we're five handed and the BB has 2.5 blinds left after posting, it folds to the sb who gives the BB a walk. The most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

Anyway, I'm 1 for 2 so far and hope to play at least one 2-table sat a day, then play the $26-supers into one of the main Sunday or Tuesday satellites. A long-shot for sure, but what the hell. And since I don't have any good tracking system, I'm just going to keep notes at the end of entries here to see how I'm doing. If I start spewing money on the sats, I'll just give them up. So far so good though.

Satellites:
Played (through 3/6): 2
$26 chips won: 1
$26 sats played: 0

End of February, start of March

2007-02-26T22:14:00.000-06:00

I didn't much like poker in the middle of February. I started the month pretty comfortably rolled for $100NL, even after segregating my rakeback for the previous six months into a separate account.

What followed was not pretty.

Basically a very small winning month, mainly because of a sick hot run my last three sessions.

Up until last Saturday, I was probably stuck about $500 for the month. Since then I've booked about $250 in live wins and $800 online.

Here's the month in pictures.

I didn't really feel like playing in the middle. I took more than a week off in fact, between car shopping, and spent most of the rakeback account on a downpayment.

But I got a new car, and booked a winning month. I also think I've gained a good measure of tilt control and feel a lot more comfortable at $100 finally.

Next month's goals: 15,000 hands minimum, no tilt, four live sessions, and if all goes well, start taking shots at $200NL online and $300 live.

Wish me luck

Two misplayed hands I won

2007-02-22T14:08:00.001-06:00

Played a couple hours of 1/2 NL at MJII last night. Hit two strong draws early, flopped tptk once and then pretty much treaded water for an hour and a half before leaving. It was kind of interesting going over the hands after I got home, because I'm pretty sure I could have won bigger pots with both of them.

In the hand I misplayed, was T8d in the sb. I have about $190, four limpers, I complete, BB taps the felt and the flop comes out Jd 7d 6c. I lead out for $10, only the CO (who is wearing mirrored sunglasses and has me covered. Really. Mirrored) calls. Turn is a black nine. Jackpot. I think he's pretty likely to call the flop with anything, and bet any jack or draw on the turn, so I check. He bets $25. I count down a stack of red, and push out $75. He thinks for at least three minutes and calls. River is a black 7. I really hate that card. I check with $100 behind, hoping he bets. He checks behind, straight is good.

I have a really easy value push there. I'm pretty sure he's got two-pair, 97 or J7 just became incredibly unlikely, and I should have seen it was near impossible for him to have a set and not get it in on the turn. Instead i worried that he only calls with a boat, which sucks, but probably in the end only cost me about $30 of EV, since he was pretty tight and probably gets away from top two semifrequently.

What would have been awesome would be announcing all-in before the river gets turned. The money should go in anyhow, and it makes the texture irrelevant. Probably also a stupid play, but it would have been fun against this guy. You had to be there to see it. He must study Phil Hellmuth tapes at home. The imitation was perfect.

Anyway, that was a nice pot, even with the obvious missed value, but the extra $100 going in the middle on the end is much nicer.

The other hand where the pot stayed smaller than it should probably turned out in my favor. UTG limps, I limp next to him with KQd, seven of us seen an unraised flop of Ks 6d 5d. SB leads out for $10, I make it $35, everyone else folds and he calls. Turn is Ac. Terrible card for me. I really don't want to give the nfd or a set the chance to checkraise here, so when he checks, I check behind. River is the Jd. Hooray! SB checks to me, I bet $60 and he calls pretty quickly with a set of sixes.

Online lately, I've been betting the turn with these combo draws, and calling jams. I think that's ok, but I probably need to look at taking more free cards like this. I definitely call a reasonable river bet after I check, but lucky for me, the turn slowed me up enough to keep me from making a big turn mistake. Considering I had about $200 behind on the flop, getting it all in on the flop or turn would have been a much bigger mistake than not VBing the straight.

End result? A decent win. The room has been really busy lately. There were 14 tables running at one point last night, and though the games aren't as loose/bad as they are on weekends, it's really tough to find a $100NL game that isn't soft. I'm just feeling very uncomfortable online lately and more comfortable live. No idea why. But I may try to sneak off on Saturday and give it another run.

A greatest hits post (not mine)

2007-02-21T16:55:00.001-06:00

The HSNL forum at 2+2 had a really cool greatest hits thread going, which I used to kill time at work.

I opened up a thread that had Strasser OOP with KK on a board of 9653r facing an all-in overbet from Phil Laak. Sick spot, but pretty standard.

Then about 3/4 into the thread, this fight breaks out over calling frequencies. Prevaricator and durr basically say strasser can always call an overpair here because if laak is playing a hand that makes two-pair, Laak can never catch up, therefore strasser is always +eV.

That sounds nice and logical, one of those bits of wisdom lag players have that give them comfort. But then this guy punter11235 comes in and absolutely one off in their asses using game theory to completely destroy the lazy logic of "just call, he can't make money anyhow."

He also ends up owned sunny mehta a little, which is funny because I've never read a post of sunny's I agree with, but (s)he's the guy writing a book.

Ultimately what it's about is how a range works together. If your range is AA, KK and AK, the turn folds you make with AK make your calls with AA and KK correct because they'll conform often to a proper calling frequency.

I'm not really sure I completely grasp it, and not really sure (completely) how to apply it, but I like to think, so I'll get there eventually.

PPA: Is this really what's good for poker?

2007-02-19T14:31:00.000-06:00

A while back, at +1, I wrote a long post, that was summed up in a few words: I'm a gambler.

Poker is my gambling vice, but I tend to look at life through odds. The EV of an illegal parking spot (if the fine is less than a parking garage, and you're only 50% to get a ticket anyhow, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?), birth control, job options, buying a car, retirement planning, apartments. I look at things much more through the prism of expected value now than I did before I started playing poker.

Even so, I'd probably be going to the boats to play some blackjack if there were no poker. I went to vegas twice, and gambled like nuts, without ever playing poker.

Poker is just a +EV way for me to gamble. It let me put a bigger downpayments on my new Element, it's paid for some vacations, and it gives me an emergency fallback to supplement my unemployment if/when my boss realizes how overpaid and underworked I am.

But I'm under no illusions that it's gambling.

Which is a long way for me to say, pay attention to what Gary Carson has been writing about the PPA.

Gary is one of my favorite bloggers anyhow, mainly because he's an ornery sonofabitch and knows it. Gary on Mason is always a good read.

His latest object of scorn though has been the Poker Player's Association--the "lobbying" group that claims to speak for poker players post-Frist.

They're tack is that poker is not gambling, it's a skill game and should not be governed by the online gambling act. They're pushing for a carve-out that specifically exempts poker. Their argument ultimately ends up by conceding that online gambling in general is illegal, but poker is not gambling.

A lot of people like that argument. It gives cardplayers a certain amount of validation. You're a skill player. You've got an edge. You're a winner. Not like the suckers playing craps.

The truth is, a losing poker player probably has about as much edge as a typical craps player. It might even be worse than that.

Even worse, as Gary points out repeatedly, the carveout argument goes beyond even where the law is. By conceding online gambling is illegal, the PPA does what the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to do--criminalize gamblers.

Even further, the PPA doesn't really explain how the carveout helps poker players. Poker has always piggybacked on the payment systems of other gambling sites. It's just a slice of the gambling economy. A carveout wouldn't prevent what happened with Neteller. It wouldn't make it easier for us to get our money on or off of sites, because there are no poker-only payment processors. It wouldn't really help anything.

Except it would leave Stars and Full Tilt as the only clearly legal poker sites still standing.

Most any other poker site has some connection to sports betting or casinos. A carveout would cripple or kill every other site on the market--UB, Absolute, wsex, and whoever else is taking our business today. Full Tilt and Stars would literally be our only options.

I have no doubt they're 100% behind the carveout naturally. And in the meantime, thousands of bloggers, pokersite operators and many many well intentioned people are hustling up cash for the PPA, which is likely raking in the operating dough, with zero accountability in the end.

It stinks like hell and I hope more people listen to gary on this.

I win another +1 tournament: A trip report

2007-02-01T11:27:00.000-06:00

I was pretty upset when I missed the first PFX +1 tournament last week, so I made sure to get in on the second event last night.

Good thing I did. I ended up killing it for a pretty good score.

We got a pretty good turnout. 39 registered and about 34 showed up. Early on, there wasn't much action at the table. I had dwal on my left, and of course he three-bet me twice when I raised, so after dropping a third of my stack, I tried to keep quiet. Then I doubled through necco with JJ and started to pick on aces, who was playing strangely passive--limping in EP, small pfr then fold, open-completing his SB. I chipped up to about 3,000 without showing down a hand.

Somewhere around there, Croda and Lucko got moved to my table, both with about 5,000 in chips. Croda was actually the chip leader for most of the first hour.

Lucko was semi-active, but I only restole once on him, with T9o in the BB vs a raise from him in the hijack. I reraised Croda twice and got folds, he reraised me once and I folded. He even typed in the chat something about my loving resteals. Which mainly told me I needed to have a hand next time I reraised him. So after I built up some more chips and was on about 7,000 and covering him by about 2,000, he raises from the CO, I find AKh in the BB and reraise, he shoves, I call, he has AJo and doesn't get there. I take a pretty dominant chip lead at that point, and basically wouldn't look back.

Nothing much memorable happened after that. I think I busted a couple shorties. I did one nice resteal on Zai, when he raised my BB for the second orbit in a row and I came over the top with 42o. He had about 12bb left if he folded, which seemed like enough fold equity to me.

So I was still a fairly substantial chipleader as we hit the final table, and I had Tru, who was in second, on my right. The only real problem I saw was having Ty on my left.

Ty immediately reraised me when I opened a little light utg with 66. I called, getting poor odds, but I played to lead into him on a bunch of flops. It came J54r, I led for 2/3rds the pot and he mucked. Curious to see what it was. Either AQ or TT I think.

An orbit or two later, I open utg with AQ, Ty reraises again, I call. Flop is queen high, and I check call flop, then check call his turn shove. He had 98o, was drawing dead, and I was up to around 23,000 chips.

Sick.

So things go along, quietly for a bit, we burst the money bubble somewhere in there, and four-handed, with the table covered, I jokingly suggest going all in dark on the next hand. Tru, who had about 13,000 chips to my 28,000 agrees. He open jams the next hand and I have aces. Holy crap. I really kind of wish I'd folded, but all I could do was laugh at my luck. So I call, he has A7, flops a seven, but can't hit the two-outer, and I'm left with about 40,000 chips, vs two guys who didn't have 10,000 combined.

So very very sick.

I eventually get heads up with DR, who played pretty tight after the first break. I play awful heads up to tell the truth, but had so many chips, and sucked out twice (and he only sucked out once) to win.

So I not only locked up $78 for the win, but another $140 on a $20 last-longer pool. Basically, I got unstuck after the tilt-off of a few nights ago. Is nice.

I can't wait to see the replay and I'm curious to see if anyone has any comments on how I played. I really felt like I played the middle section very well. I didn't see many flops, and didn't really get my money in bad until the final table, but I kept up a pretty steady level of aggression and didn't get played back at much at all.

Of course, I was lucky enough to wake up with hands when I needed them, but that always happens when you win a tournament. I really feel like I played the stretches where I didn't have a hand very well.

And just like that, all the angst and tilt I had last week is gone.

A quick jog through the arctic

2007-01-30T12:15:00.000-06:00

I just went for a short run last night, after slacking for a week. I was going to do two miles, but the 20-degree weather cut right through my running pants, so I did a mile. My shins were hurting like hell too.

I feel bad because Lora's been orgnaizing some lakefront runs, but I'm just not in shape for 3 or 4 miles yet. I'll get there though. I need to make it part of my routine again. And soon. My pants are getting snug.

Not folding makes me steam

2007-01-30T12:13:00.001-06:00

So I went on a little bit of tilt last night. Funny thing is, it's because I didn't fold.

Here's the hand.

Full Tilt p0ker
$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Ring Game
6 Players
http://www.legopoker.com/hh

Hero (CO): $67.75
BTN: $52.25
SB: $60.15
BB: $57.15
UTG: $54.35
MP: $48.85

Preflop: 7s 6s ($0.75, 6 players)
UTG folds, MP folds, Hero calls $0.50, BTN folds, SB raises to $2, BB calls $1.50, Hero calls $1.50

I limp here because the BB is the worst player in the history of $50NL. 70/4, called down with middle pair often. I just wanted to take a flop and not swell the pot. Zero chance of stealing the blinds. SB is a TAG 21/14/3.

Flop: 6c 4c 6d ($6, 3 players)
SB bets $2.50, BB calls $2.50, Hero raises to $10.50, SB calls $8, BB folds

Nice flop, and if feels like I've got a big pair on the line.

Turn: 6c 4c 6d [Jh] ($29.5, 2 players)
SB bets $15, Hero calls $15

This doesn't feel like a monster. Looking at it now, I can see he's pricing in draws, but it felt at the time like AA-QQ trying to protect against a draw. I fold a lot of draws here though. Since I'm still feeling good about AA-QQ, I call looking for a river brick and an easy all-in.

River: 6c 4c 6d Jh [Qc] ($59.5, 2 players)
SB bets all in for $32.90, Hero calls.

This bet doesn't make sense. This would be a suicide bet for AA or KK. AK clubs got there, and QQ and JJ hit two outers on me. But I have trips. I call.

He flopped a boat with 44.

I got mad not because I think it's an easy fold. I probably should have shoved the turn. But I got a little steamed because after playing about 1,200 hands of good, steady, thinking poker over two days, i pissed away $36 on the river without even taking the time to think the hand through. I didn't even entertain the notion of folding. Of course I pay off. I have trips!

This is my problem. The thought process here sucked. If I take my time, decide he's the type to overvalue AA, then call and lose, fine. If I shove the turn and he coolers me, fine. Those things don't get to me.

But paying off on the river without thinking just pisses me off to no end. If I think the hand through, I think I find the fold here, and I at least redeem the bad turn call. It's just a hand. It's not priceless. I'll make trips again, and I'll get lots better boards with them too. No need to fall in love here.

That probably sounds weak-tight, and maybe it is, but I think I need to earn calls like this by thinking it through, not just calling because "I have trips."

Anyway, I played well the rest of the night, finished up another couple buyins and have already put back together more than half of what I steamed off last week. I'm getting there, getting a little better every time. The truth is, I've only been focusing on NL for about 3 months, and already I've tripled up $500. And this is with only medicore game selection and a lot of donking off stacks with AK preflop.

Slowly forward.

Folding my way to riches

2007-01-29T15:54:00.000-06:00

I haven't wanted to post about this, but last weekend, between a bad live session and a heinous tilt session, I dropped nearly a third of my roll.

Terrible timing too, since games and action are already drying up, but that's not really important.

What is important is I played absolutely horrible in both sessions.

I didn't play horrible because I played bad hands. I was generally playing my regular game. I didn't take any particularly bad beat. I bluffed three times in bad spots, and I called a couple too many bets with one pair.

Mainly though, I lost because I refused to fold and I refused to quit.

These things will change.

Step one is getting my ego out of the way.

So much tilt comes from "I have to win this pot.....fuck I lost it." Removing the I from this game removes a good portion of the emotional swings. All that's left is the cards and your opponents. It's much easier to think clearly in that situation.

For example, I made two bluffs last night. One worked, one didn't. Both were based on reads, both of my hand and his hand. Neither was brilliant and neither was awful, but when I got called, I didn't much care because it was the only move I had, and when I swiped the pot, I didn't pound my chest and call myself the king of poker. I made a correct play, next hand.

Step two, oddly, is to fold more.

One of my problems is playing one-pair too much past the turn. When I get in bad runs, I start calling turn raises with one pair, then either compounding the mistake by calling the river, or folding the river and then getting irritated at my stupid turn call.

I take folding personally in some ways, especially when I'm playing poorly. I want to play hands, I want to win big and get unstuck. I want action.

But folding is where the money comes from.

I folded top pair three times last night. Felt good about it. Capped off the night by check/folding a straight on a really bad board.

I liked it.

Really, it's just about calming down and making more good decisions. Longterm. Always longterm.

Little things

2007-01-22T10:02:00.001-06:00

It's the little things.

You're up $200 on the session. The games are tighter than normal, only two tables running. Most people are home, out of the snow and watching the Bears. You're thinking about heading home and doing the same.

But you're on the button. The tight octogenarian in seat one raises to $10. He's got 99+, AQs, AKo. You've got KQo. Easy fold. But it's your button. And you can probably bluff him off on some bad looking flops. So you call.

This is a violation of the second law of no limit poker: Make things easy on yourself.

But you call and so does the BB and the pot is $31 and the flop comes KTTr. The BB checks, the old man in seat one counts out four red chips with his thick, shakey fingers, and you hate yourself as you call. Thank god, the BB mucks.

The turn is a brick, and the old man checks to you. You're a smart person. You were in honors level classes, you got through college in four years, you've succeeded in demanding, fast-paced, decsion-making positions, you can understand concepts like reverse implied odds and calling ranges.

And still you cut off eight redbirds and fire them into the middle.

The old man calls of course.

Why of course? Because when you bet $40 into this ancient rock who stirred himself to raise preflop, he's only calling with AA or AK. Because you're a moron who has violated the third law of no limit holdem: Don't make a bet that only gets called when you're beat.

The river comes an A, he checks and you mercifully check behind. His AK is good.

Your win is now down to $130.

A few hands later, three off the button in a seven-haneded game, you look down and for the first time in four live sessions and see two aces. Finally. You open for $7. But there's action in the Bears game, the table is busy worrying about football and muck with the junk they're usually happy to see a flop with. You take down the blinds.

Christ man, the game is dead. There's no action here. Just leave.

But no.

The very next hand, you're determined to run over these people until you grind back the $70 you dumped on the one-seat. You see 65s utg. Make it $10. The SB, the only other solid player at the table calls.

The flop is AK4r. The SB checks. You bet $20. He peels off four chips while his eyes dart up to the giant plasma across the room.

The turn is a seven, so you pick up a straight draw. He checks. Keep the heat on. Build a pot. Get it in if you hit. $60. He gives you a long look out of the corner of his eyes. You look at his chips, then look away. He doesn't seem to like it, but he calls.

The river is a ten. The sb makes a speech about how he knows he's gonna get called by the big stack bully, but he's gonna bet $100 anyhow. Thank god he did, because you might have bluff-shoved the river.

Your win is down to $40.

Two hours later, you shove in your last $65 with top pair, only to see the two-seat has turned a three-outer. You finally make a good decision and stand up, walk out of the room and take your $300 loss.

Little things.

Loose lips sink chips

2007-01-19T10:54:00.000-06:00

The seven seat probably didn't realize he was talking.

"I know what you've got man. I know it."

From three off the button in the ten-seat with KhJh, I had raised the weak-tight limper on my right to $12 in a 1/2NL game. The seven (sb) and eight (bb) seat both called.

The flop came J22, with two spades.

Both blinds checked to me and I led out for $20. I wish I hadn't bet that flop, but I was c-betting too much last night, mostly because it was working.

The seven seat called and the eight folded.

The seven had been getting killed. He was stuck at least four $100 buyins, and as he purchased his most recent stack of 20 redbirds, he ordered his second Heineken. He'd made a lot of strange folds as well, including one where he bet $50 of his remaining $63 on a flop in a raised pot, then folded to a raise.

So I have no idea why he's calling. He may be steaming, he may have a jack, he may think a pair of threes are the nuts.

I made my second mistake of the hand on the turn.

It came a red ten, and when the seven checked again and took a pull off of his Heineken, I bet $35. I instantly wished I'd made it $50 or just checked behind.

At this point, the seven starts counting down a stack of red. He'd doubled through someones aces with a set and had about $200 at the start of the hand, covering me by $10.

As he's counting out $75 red chips, he starts talking to himself, almost absentmindedly, the way my mom used to sing Motown songs while washing the dishes.

While he decides how much to raise, I run through the hands that beat me--A2, AJ and JT, and maybe TT. That's it. But that's a lot.

When he puts out his $75 chips, he commits himself to the pot. If he's bluffing, he's drawing nearly dead--three outs to an overcard most likely, though he could have a flush draw with a ten for ~13. I don't really beat anything except QJ.

But why would he say he knew he had me beat?

I'd been c-betting a lot. There was a growing suspicion amongst my tablemates that I was full of shit (they were right). If he really had a strong hand, he wouldn't care what I have. He'd bet his deuces or boat and hope I had aces and couldn't fold. If he thought I had an overpair, he might know that JT is no good here.

So he thinks I'm full of shit.

His hand has barely had time to go from his chips to his beer bottle when I shove for about $75 more.

He calls. He flips T8o.

He says, "I've got you. I've got a ten. AK no good."

I show him my jack.

He didn't tip the waitress when she brought his third beer of the night.

Tilt, and recovering from tilt

2007-01-16T11:54:00.000-06:00

I had a wild night while playing poker with the pros. It started as an average, slightly down night. I got outdrawn once, whiffed a few flops, The usual. Nothing crushing, down about a buyin. Then, I found a beautiful seat next to a 55/35/4 with $350 in front of him, and a delightful habit of weak-leading whenever he whiffed, and potting when he had a piece.

At least, that's what I thought. So fucking sick...

Full Tilt Poker
$0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em Ring Game
6 Players
http://www.legopoker.com/hh

MP: $82.75
CO: $382.85
Hero (BTN): $173.05
SB: $104.3
BB: $149.1
UTG: $107.75

Preflop: 2h 2c ($1.5, 6 players)
UTG folds, MP folds, CO raises to $3.50, Hero calls $3.50, SB folds, BB folds

Flop: 2d 7d 8d ($8.5, 2 players)
CO bets $1, Hero raises to $11.50, CO calls $10.50

Turn: 2d 7d 8d [4s] ($31.5, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $26, CO calls $26

River: 2d 7d 8d 4s [6s] ($83.5, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $43, CO raises all in to $341.85, Hero calls all in for $89.05
Uncalled bet of $209.80 returned to CO

Showdown
CO had Ad Jd (a flush, Ace high) and won $344.60
Hero had 2h 2c (three of a kind, Twos)
Final Pot: $344.60 ($3.00 rake)

Now, there's no way I should be betting this river. I can see that now. At the time, I'm thinking he's on a scared overpair w/ a diamond, and I get paid off, plus he's more aggro on the river than on the flop, so he's a big bluffer. The problem is, my hand just isn't worth $130 on the river. Just check it and carry on.

Of course, I didn't.

The tilt came a few moments later on another table....

Full Tilt Poker
$0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em Ring Game
6 Players
http://www.legopoker.com/hh

Hero (BB): $110.75
UTG: $24
MP: $92
CO: $100
BTN: $99.70
SB: $132.35

Preflop: 6h 8c ($1.5, 6 players)
UTG folds, MP folds, CO calls $1, BTN calls $1, SB folds, Hero checks

Flop: 2c 5s 8s ($3.5, 3 players)
Hero bets $3, CO raises to $12, BTN folds, Hero calls $9

Turn: 2c 5s 8s [3s] ($27.5, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $18, Hero raises all in to $98.75, CO calls all in for $69
Uncalled bet of $11.75 returned to Hero

River: 2c 5s 8s 3s [Jc] ($201.5, 2 players)
No action

Showdown
Hero had 6h 8c (a pair of Eights)
CO had 7s 9s (a flush, Nine high) and won $198.50
Final Pot: $198.50 ($3.00 rake)

I am an idiot.

I make another stupid semibluff into a calling station five minutes later, and I'm stuck about $500, feeling kind of numb. I was doing some laundry, so I went to get clothes out of the dryer, and apparently the cold air smacked some sense into me. An hour and a half later, I logged off stuck just about exactly $50. $450 in ninety minutes.

Here's what that looked like:

A couple of things I thought about, looking over the night.

First is that jesus christ are things thin. 80% of the time, my set is good or the board pairs and I've got the near nuts and take down a good % of the fish's stack, plus have $250-ish and the best seat at the table. After I rebought, I ended up taking down another $50 at the table anyhow. That's easily a $300 swing from one hand.

You can probably toss in another $100 of the $150 I steamed off. But then maybe I don't play for another hour and a half. Maybe I book a $100-$150 win and go read or something.

That's a huge difference in an entire evening, and something I probably haven't fully appreciated until now. Giving away a stack like that isn't just about the $130, but the ripple effect for the next hour or so.

It was also just a stupid play.

I'm also noticing a pattern to my down sessions. I've generally started sessions off being a little bluffier, then switching to a value-betting approach, then once I've got a firm grip on my reads, mixing it up player-by-player.

This seems a backwards. Next few sessions, I'm going to try out playing tight and value-bet early, then mix in some bluffs. The obvious advantage is that I keep my stack intact/grow it enough early to be able to cover a few bluffs. Honestly, I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I'm almost positive it's why I've seen a lot of sessions at $50 and $100 where I would start out down a buy-in or two, then come flying back in the second half to break even, or book a few small wins. Occasionally, I'll hit big early or the bluffs will work, but going tight--->lag seems much more sensible. Honestly, I don't know what the fuck I was thinking.

By the way, $187 is a new high for most money lost on one hand. A few things that could have bought me:

*Paid my cable and cellphone for the month
*At least two dinners+good bottles of wine at Cafe Ba Ba Re Ba
*At least nine books at Borders
*One month closer to paying my car off

But playing a big pot against a guy begging me to take his chips: Priceless.

So now what

2007-01-15T15:54:00.001-06:00

Good times? Maybe.

So from the post below, I guess I can count myself a $100NL player now, though things can always change quickly. Even if I stick, I'm not really satisfied yet.

Looking back over the last three months of 2006, I saw these improvements in my poker life:

*Finally developed an understanding of NL, and started to improve.

In the past, when I'd try NL, I'd basically take my limit game, play aggro in position, value bet hard, and usually run up a good number, then crash back down to zero or negative when I'd overplay overpairs/draws/bluffs. I feel like starting in November, I finally began to get a sense of NL as a completely seperate game from limit, and now I'm building to tools to develop a complete game.

*Accepted that poker is part of my life, an not something to hide.

Aside from the +1 guys, no one I know gambles. My folks go to Vegas for the restaurants and the shows. My dad talks about dropping $25 at blackjack like it's money. Most of my friends either don't understand, "tut-tut" and think of it as a vice, or don't care. I was talking to Stretch's wife about cards a bit over the summer and she asked me how much I'd won since my first deposit, and after I gave her a number, she asked "But how much have you lost." Ugh.

Bronwyn has been really great for this though. On our first date, she told me her grandmother was a lifelong poker player, and even though B doesn't play, she completely understands that it's a semi-important part of my life. At least once or twice a week she'll say "Lets stay in. Play poker." Having someone like that has helped me be comfortable that I'm not just some junkie sitting in my apartment swapping money with other junkies. Ok, I probably am, but the delusion helps.

*Separated poker money from my money
This is partly a work in progress, but I'm getting close to making it a reality. I set up an online savings account and hooked it into my Neteller account, so that all withdrawls and deposits go through that, and not my checking account. Poker is still my emergency fund, though that's close to changing as well. I'm fine with using it for emergencies though. What would be great is to be able to use it for occasional expenses, and not miss the money so much.

What does that mean?

I'm not really sure. I'm not sure it's worth even dwelling on the money at this point. Do I think if I can turn $500 into $2000 in three months, I can turn $2000 into $8000 in the next three? Maybe.

Maybe if I continue to get better, I can do it even faster though. The money isn't the point. It's a great reward, and something to be handled with care. What's more interesting to me is gaining skill.

I don't want to be one of those old guys, sitting around a 3/6 omaha table, breaking even or losing a little bit, griding out a hobby. I want to get good. I want to get very good. If online poker goes bust this summer, I want to be a regular in the bigger games around town--$300 or $500NL, maybe even get back to the 10/20 or 20/40 limit games at Resorts.

What I don't want to do is stand still. I spent most of last year dicking around in games I was overrolled for, or withdrawing too big a % of my winnings and never seeing any benefits from it.

I think it's time to take this shit seriously, not just as a game and a hobby, but as something that takes up a good portion of my time and my thought. I need to let poker have some value, and I need to spend more time getting value out of poker. With that in mind, a few leaks I still need to plug:

*Game selection
I game select only mediocre. Last Sunday, I played nearly 700 hands in $50NL games where a table vpip of 30 was good. Playoff games and the Sunday Majors just killed action. I didn't care, and was lucky to break even. Later that night, I got into a couple games stocked with fish and just killed. I need to take better advantage of my datamining, rely more on my fish list, and not force myself to play just because I may not be able to play again for a couple days.

*Apply what you've learned
This is one of those things that has always dogged me, even in grade school. I'm a smart guy, but I apply like half of what I learn. The rest of it seems to be a mix of luck and flexibility. I need to get better at that. I'm getting there. Solid session reviews, a fair amount of time reading and studying, and keeping my mind active away from the tables have all done me very well the last few months.

*Respect my money
I spent most of the summer and fall pissed off. In the spring, I finally had the $3,000 roll for 3/6 short. Then, I hit a nasty 25,000 hand breakeven run. Shit happens, right? But right as I think I'm pulling out of the run and the donkeys on Party are getting their comuppance, by car goes busto and I pull out half my roll. No comuppance! I play small games most of the year, piss away a little more on an August spending spree, and then completely cash out at the end of September. I checked my stats for the summer, and even after the withdrawl, I did ok moneywise, but it was less than I would have earned in the 3/6, and because I didn't care about it, I spent it quicker that I would have if it mattered.

No more of that shit.

Anyway, that's the plan. It's been fun wasting a day of work on this stuff.

A hand I played bad

2007-01-15T14:10:00.000-06:00

My adventures at $100NL continue. Played about 600 hands last night, finally built up the nerve to three-table, and pulled out a $100 win after dropping two-buyins early (nothing awful, just a mix of card dead, a dark tunnel bluff I shouldn't have tried, and KK lost to AA)

I wanted to look closely at a hand I thought I'd played well at first.

I'd been up and down small amounts at this table. But nothing exciting either way. My image was probably tight, maybe a little weak as I was folding a ton of missed hands postflop. Guy was running around 24/9 over 200 hands. Seemed to play predictably.

Full Tilt p0ker
$0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em Ring Game
6 Players
http://www.legopoker.com/hh

BTN: $165.55
Hero (SB): $138
BB: $129.65
UTG: $153.55
MP: $94.75
CO: $99

CO posts 1
Preflop: Jd Jc ($2.5, 6 players)
UTG folds, MP raises to $5, CO folds, BTN folds, Hero calls $4.50, BB calls $4

The $5 raise was kind of weird. Standard raise in this game is generally $3.50-$4.5, and I hadn't seen him make this kind of bet before. It seemed kind of weak, but it also slowed me down from repopping to $14ish, so I guess it worked. I think that's my first mistake. I can't let BB in here, but I do.

Flop: 2c 6d 2h ($16, 3 players)
Hero bets $12, BB folds, MP calls $12

At least I sensibly led out the flop, right? But wait, what's my plan if he raises? I don't have one. I can't fold here, so I suppose I'm getting ready to get it in, but I'm not sure I should want that. In hindsight, maybe leading isn't as good as check/call or check/raise.

Turn: 2c 6d 2h [5c] ($40, 2 players)
Hero bets $20, MP calls $20

Likewise, I don't understand my turn bet very much, but it's not awful. I think looking at it now, I'd prefer $30. He might be trapping with aces, but I think QQ and often KK are raising me on the flop. My reading here is bad. This guy is predictable and didn't raise a flop that looks good to most overpairs. He's never calling the turn with overs though, so I should be pushing harder here to get value from 77-TT.

River: 2c 6d 2h 5c [4c] ($80, 2 players) I check, he checks.

For a minute I thought AK made a wheel, but then saw it didn't. He's still got $55 behind at this point and I'm worried that I may lose some of his weak pairs. Since my turn bet may have looked weak, I checked, hoping he'd bet at least 99 or TT. I should have realized that he would be clinging tightly to his last few chips though, and he checks.

If I'd bet the turn stronger, the pot would now be $100 and he'd have only $45 behind. He can't fold anything at this point and I can stack him.

Result: He shows 99, I win.

A $40 win on my last orbit isn't a bad result. Really, this pot took my session from small win to reasonable win. If I drop it, I book about a $20 win.

Still, I need to be thinking these things through better at the table. There's tons of information out there that I'm not processing, and I need to get better at it if I'm going to keep winning at this level.

Still, my first 1,000 hands I'm 21/16/4, with only 48% won at showdown. I've run cold with aces (only caught them twice and won $4 total with them) and am breaking even with kings (ran them into aces all in preflop once for 50bb). I feel like the cards haven't broken even, but still I'm at 18.5ptbb/100.

There are guys who are way more willing to pay off in marginal spots if I let them (checking ace flops a high % of the time really mindfucks these types, especially since they don't realize that their cold-calling ranges are obvious). There are also some tight spots where people are willing to make big or strange bluffs, and that's going to need sorting out.

I really think big things are possible though. How big?

And after only winning a buy-in last night, I finally got back over the $2,000 mark online. I've got most of my rakeback in a savings account, so this is just winnings. I had no money online when I went to AC in october. Sometime in mid-October I put $500 back on, and so far, even running just mediocre, I've tripled it over about 32,000 hands.

Good times.

I can still run (most of) two miles

2007-01-12T10:28:00.000-06:00

It was about 35 degrees out, a nice 15 mph wind with a light misting rain when I stepped out my door last night. Perfect day to get back to running, huh?

It was actually pretty nice though. My watch died in the three months since I ran, so I just headed out, figuring for the first week or two I would run at whatever pace felt good and just keep things laid back. I'm not training after all, this is just for me.

I had one stoplight break, but otherwise ran the entire mile from Columbia up to Howard. I took two short walks on the second mile (which was dead into the wind as well. Is nice.) and probably did the whole thing in around 25 minutes. Not a bad start.

The aftermath isn't so bad either. My legs are definitely feeling it this morning and my lungs were about gassed, but I already have a much better base than I did when I started last May, and I went from doing a mile in one-minute on/one-minute off increments to running an entire half marathon in Just four months, who knows what I'll be able to do by the summer. For now, I'd just like to build up to ten miles a week, three days a week and then do a little training for the Shamrock Shuffle 8K this spring.

This blogging by email stuff is pretty kickass, btw. Go new blogger!

Playing the flop at $100NL

2007-01-12T10:24:00.000-06:00

Poker has been a little slow the last week. Only gotten in about 400 hands online, but they've all been at $100NL. So far, I've been card dead, running around 16/10/4, and only two-tabling while I adjust, but I'm still up about 3 buyins, so no complaints. Game selection has been a chore at FT though. Lots of nitty tags with stats between 17/12 and 24/18. There are still a decent number of fish, but where a $50NL table may have had two suckers a couple decent players and one guy who knew what he was doing, there may only be one good fish and two guys who know what they're doing. So as usual, edges are getting thinner.

I've been mining pretty heavily at FT for the last couple weeks, and the game doesn't look that much tougher from a 10,000-foot perspective. $50Nl population was 31.5/10. The $100 population runs at 30/11 with about 90,000 hands.

What really sucks is that pre-Frist, I had about 90,000 hands at $50NL at Stars and the population ran at 38/9. It's just sick what's happened to games. I can't imagine what $400NL or $600NL looks like. I don't even want to imagine what they'll look like if the regulations cut off payment processors.

Anyway, I've been through the process before in limit and it's always the same story. More people who know what they're doing, fewer fish, more aggression and more tough decisions.

One thing that gives me hope is the relative poorness of the TAGs at this level. C-betting has become a real focus of mine, I've read a bunch of chipp's stuff at +1 and MOP has some great insight into balancing and bet sizing. I've also seen how certain limit concepts, like semibluffing more OOP apply (or get distorted by big betting). So when I saw a thread on 2+2 (I'll add a link later maybe) on c-betting OOP as spew, I made one of my rare posts. Just something simple--it's generally better to c-bet more OOP, same as it's better to semibluff OOP. Several of the regulars absolutely howled about that.

You have more fold equity in position, not out of position! (Something that's retarded, on its face given what your distributions will look like, and also assumes a c-bet is a bluff, which is dangerous I think.)

If you bet more OOP position you'll get floated! (As opposed to check/folding I guess, no one ever really got into what to do having checked.) Considering the success I've had recently checking top pair on drier boards, and the ways I've been able to balance that with delayed cbets, that advice is just nuts imo.

Then there were the guys saying, well no, you can't c-bet 100%. Maybe just 80%. Sigh.

Two hands:

I raise AQo to $3.5 in the CO. A taggy guy with 25/14/3.5 stats calls in the BB. Flop comes AK4r. BB checks. I see no purpose in betting here. I checked behind and then ended up making two 3/4-pot bets on the turn (2) and river (8), only to get looked up by a pair of nines. Heroic calldown sir.

I raise utg+1 to $3.5 with 33. Button (45/3/.8) and BB (30/10/1.4) call. Flop comes AJ2, two hearts. BB checks, I check, utg+1 checks behind. Turn is a nine, not a heart. BB checks. I bet $9, they both fold.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but I guess the point is that playing the flop well is turning into a strength and especially an area where I've got an edge I can positively exploit against nearly anyone at that level. I'm working on my play OOP, and MOP is going to pay for itself in that category in no time. Especially because most of the TAGs I've found so far are c-betting 75-90% of the time, and banging away like that is just begging to be attacked.

At least, I hope so. I always felt I played well against tags in limit. You're never going to make loads of money off of them, but in small games, even the best players have bunches of leaks. Maybe I'm just now settling into a NL strategy that's complete enough to play against good players.

Game selection still sucks though. I may have to give Absolute or Stars a try. Rakeback/datamining is so nice that switching to Stars is probably -EV. I have a feeling once the Absolute/UB software merger is complete, that site is going to get a ton of my play. Especially if Absolute keeps in place their policy that bonus doesn't count against MGR.

Sorry for the rant, but their cracking down on Internet at work, so I'll probably spend some of my free time at work writing blog posts, just to keep all four brain cells firing.

Can't run, so I run bad

2007-01-08T15:14:00.000-06:00

I was pretty sick all last week with a chest cold that I barely shook by Saturday. That kept me from getting back to running in the first of the year. Naturally I decided to recuperate by spending Saturday in the Majestic Star II cardroom.

I think the problem was I wasn't in the mood to be patient. After walking out +$330 last time, I just wanted to sit at the table and have people ship me their chips. Unfortunately, they weren't as accomodating.

Sat in the $100 game for an hour and a half and mainly folded. Called one raise in position with 6h5h behind an utg raiser ($10) and three callers. Blinds call. SB pushes all in for $10 on the flop of 973r w/ one heart. Folds to an old black guy I have a nice read on and he makes a weird bet to $55. He looks like he hates what he's just done, so I jam for $65 more, hoping he folds a seven and I have pair outs vs. SB. He instacalls with A6, board bricks, and he looks at me funny when I say ace-high is good. I steal two pots and leave at the next time, -$95.

On to the Omaha game with Eric. I made a nice play early when I took down a $120 pot with a flush vs. a guy with trip kings. He though he had a boat on a board of KK77J. Unfortuntely, it was the high water mark for the day. I make a bad fold on the river in a kill pot, then proceed to lose with four sets and two straights over the next three hours. Five times I had the nuts one-way (at least) on the turn, and five times I got quartered or nothing. Fun game. -$105.

Eric and I did have some fun talking cards, and talking with some of the old guys in the game. It was a relaxing game compared to NL, but just brutal. On the other hand, I took about as many bad beats as I possibly could and was stuck less than 20 big blinds, so the game can't be all bad. I'll definitely be back.
**************************
The trip did give me a chance to put some of this Christmas present into practice.

The book seemed kind of simple and obvious as I read it. Basically, Navarro outlines a series of tells coming from our limbic system (the same place the flight-or-fight response comes from). Unlike Caro, he doesn't spend much time worrying whether someone is an actor or not, and most of the book seems to overthrow the Weak is strong/strong is weak conventions. Navarro's pretty confident that high-roller or fish, the tells are legit, especially if they show up in clusters (a concept he does share with Caro). The most interesting ones I noticed had to do with physical proximity to cards or the pot. The closer to the table people got, the better their hand. The further away, the worst the cards.

For example, in the hand I played with 65, the old guy reached far into the table trying to look strong (strong=weak), but then sat back in his chair, looked down and to the right, pursed his lips and crossed his legs. He was physically trying to get away from the hand, even if he was too much of a calling station to do it.

I saw another one where a gutshot hit on the river, and a guy overbet the pot, then stood up and was physically leaning over the table while a guy was thinking about a call. In Caro's world, I might see that as strong=weak, but Navarro would probably lean toward calling it strong, and it turned out to be the nuts.

I'm still not much for soul reading, but even a tell can factor into a range. Worth a read if you're playing live much.

How to get off of tilt in three easy steps

2006-12-29T00:22:00.000-06:00

I had an absolutely awful 600 hand run earlier tonight. Dropped nearly six buy-ins. Paid off four sets (twice with aces) ran a turned straight into a rivered boat, missed a 14-out draw in a $110 pot. Brutal. I was pissed too because I was feeling steps away from moving up to $100NL.

I logged off, got a beer and signed back in.

I ran good.

Step one: Make a solid, aggressive value-bet

This is something I've been missing lately. My river AF is low. I'm playing too passive and missing this too much I think. He was an unknown, but looked pretty loose passive (48/3 over 30 hands).

Full Tilt Poker
$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Ring Game
4 Players
http://www.legopoker.com/hh

UTG: $63.45
BTN: $32.95
Hero (SB): $51.45
BB: $46.2

Preflop: Ah Ad ($0.75, 4 players)
UTG calls $0.50, BTN calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.50, BB folds, UTG folds, BTN calls $2

Flop: 7c 9d 2s ($6, 2 players)
Hero bets $4.50, BTN calls $4.50

Turn: 7c 9d 2s [Th] ($15, 2 players)
Hero bets $9, BTN calls $9

River: 7c 9d 2s Th [Qs] ($33, 2 players)
Hero bets $17, BTN calls all in for $16.95
Uncalled bet of $0.05 returned to Hero

Showdown
BTN had 9c Js (a pair of Nines)
Hero had Ah Ad (a pair of Aces) and won $64.90
Final Pot: $64.90 ($2.00 rake)

Step two: Cooler the TAG next to you.
I nearly felt bad about this.

Full Tilt Poker
$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Ring Game
5 Players
http://www.legopoker.com/hh

BTN: $39.35
SB: $54.6
Hero (BB): $142.7
UTG: $55.25
CO: $49.40

Preflop: Qs Jd ($0.75, 5 players)
UTG calls $0.50, CO folds, BTN calls $0.50, SB calls $0.25, Hero checks

Flop: 6d Kh 9c ($2, 4 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, BTN checks

Turn: 6d Kh 9c [Td] ($2, 4 players)
SB bets $2, Hero raises to $8, UTG folds, BTN folds, SB raises to $24, Hero raises all in to $142.70, SB calls all in for $30.35
Uncalled bet of $88.35 returned to Hero

River: 6d Kh 9c Td [9d] ($110.7, 2 players)
No action

Showdown
SB had 8h 7s (a straight, Ten high)
Hero had Qs Jd (a straight, King high) and won $107.70
Final Pot: $107.70 ($3.00 rake)

Step three: Find someone to pay off your set on the turn.
This guy was just erratic as hell. Obviously. I get the feeling a lot of people on CP would be folding here. lol.

Full Tilt Poker
$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Ring Game
5 Players
http://www.legopoker.com/hh

SB: $31.8
BB: $49.5
Hero (UTG): $189.15
CO: $60.35
BTN: $117.90

Preflop: 6c 6d ($0.75, 5 players)
Hero raises to $1.75, CO calls $1.75, BTN folds, SB calls $1.50, BB calls $1.25

Flop: 6s 8c 3c ($7, 4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $5, CO calls $5, SB calls $5, BB folds

Turn: 6s 8c 3c [7d] ($22, 3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $16.50, CO raises all in to $53.60, SB folds, Hero calls $37.10

River: 6s 8c 3c 7d [Qd] ($129.2, 2 players)
No action

Showdown
Hero had 6c 6d (three of a kind, Sixes) and won $126.20
CO had 8h 9s (a pair of Eights)
Final Pot: $126.20 ($3.00 rake)

End result: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Still a bit pissed about the earlier play, but it's a lot easier to sleep knowing I only dropped two buyins in a night, rather than six. If only I'd gotten a little action on the hands I caught at my other two tables....

Trip Report: Majestic Star II

2006-12-26T10:26:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, Bronwyn went to see Mama Mia with my mom and sister, so I slipped away for the afternoon to MJII to try out some live NL. I'd been there a couple years ago once when it was the Trump, but it was like a new room.

Quick impressions: Much more space than Resorts. I didn't once have someone bump into my chair while trying to squeeze out. Around 1 p.m. on Saturday, they had four 3/6 games going, two 1/2 NL going and three 2/5 NL going. The dealers were good, the floor was much more alert than Resorts and the chips didn't stick together like they did when it was the Trump.

Unfortunately, the structure sucks. $100 max buy, $6 half hour drop and the must-move never comes off.

I bought in for 20 redbirds and four quarters (I love chip lingo), got a seat at the 1/2 must-move table in ten minutes and within an hour won a big pot with aces, lost a big pot when my aces got cracked, and didn't win much else. With time, and one sidebet, I was stuck about $65, and still nursing a $100 stack when they moved me to the main game.

Here's the problem with the must-move setup. I go from a table where the biggest stack was $200 and most people were nursing max-buys or less, to a table where seat one is on $150, seat two is on $75 and otherwise the smallest stack was $275. One guy was sitting on $800.

Fortunately I caught a hot run. $60 pot with a raise and a c-bet, stole the blinds and two limps once PF (with AJo), then doubled through a guy when I stackadonked with with TPTK on a Q329 board. Guy called a pfr with QJ, called my flop bet, then just had to bet the turn for $50 when I only had $90 behind, so of course, pot committed when I checkraise jam.

Eric (Fomori from +1) showed up just in time for me to play a hand very nicely, even though I lost.

The calling station with $150 openlimped, big stack made it $10 to go in MP, I called in the SB with JsJd and $330, then the BB, who had $400 behind makes it $40, the calling station calls, the big stack folds, and I call.

Flop Tc 8c 4c Pot: $130
I check, BB bets $40 again, calling station calls, I call.

I think I played this street badly. I didn't have a plan for the turn, and probably should be looking to get away, since I'm not very far ahead of any hand, but potentialy drawing dead.

Turn is Jc Pot: $250
I check, BB leads for $60 now and was all but screaming "I made a flush" with his body language, calling station calls again. Fuck. I have to call this bet, but I'm already preparing myself to fold the river.

River is Ks Pot: $430
Checks around. For a second, I think my set is good, but BB rolls over KdKc for the flush and a ton of missed value.

Like I said, the flop is a mistake, but I was pleased with myself for not overplaying a weak overpair, and I was 100% committed to folding the river if I don't pair the board. A few months ago, I probably checkraise all-in on the turn, or at the least pay off the river. I could never imagine folding a set, but at this point, I'm past that. It's just a hand, not not a strong one in that spot. So I was feeling good, even if I was short $160.

I grind back most of that $160 for another hour or so while Eric gets into a 3/6 omaha game. Finally, with about $360 in front of me and the table tightening up a lot (another problem with must-moves, only the good players last in the main game while the fish get picked off in the must-move tables), I grab a seat on Eric's right in the Omaha game.

No real memorable hands, but the game was unbelievably juicy. Unlike Resorts, where the 5/10 Omaha game is a rock garden, these guys were playing awful hands, calling for any kind of low, and paying off obvious nut hands on the river with junk like two-pair. I was card dead for a lot of the time, but caught a hot run at the end in several kill pots and scooped another $200 off the table, Cashed out at the end of the day for $528, tipped the lady at the cage $3 and wished her merry christmas, then went to dinner in the sports bar, bought Eric a couple rounds and talked some poker. Great afternoon.

Live poker is tough to beat when you're winning.

Comments

2006-12-19T12:29:00.000-06:00

By the way, sorry for anyone who has tried to leave comments and not been able to lately. I converted to the Blogger beta, but apparently an issue has come up where people can't leave comments when signed in on their old Blogger accounts. If you'd like to say hey, you can still leave anonymous comments. Hopefully Blogger figures it out soon.

Beyond the possibility of defeat

2006-12-19T12:26:00.000-06:00

The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
--Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I generally hate leading with a quote, but this is a line that has come up over and over as I've read and thought about poker the last two years, and I think I finally have started internalizing it.

I've been back to playing NL the last couple months, three-tabling $25 and $50 games on FT. Generally, I've been solid. I had one horrible 10-buyin downswing at $25, mainly from overplaying preflop, and I've run solid but unspectacular at $50 the last three-weeks. I'm up about $450 in 8,000 hands, so about 5.5 ptbb/100.

In general though, I feel like I'm underperforming. At first, I thought the games were a little too tight to beat for 10ptbb/100 or more, but as i get comfortable with exploiting TAGs and game select better and better, I don't really think it's that tough.

Looking at my database for $50, I'm seeing a trend where I'll take down several big pots, but then dump one or two big pots. My last three sessions, for example have been +$210, -$25, +$180. Nice work (especially since it's been 1500 hands since I've seen aces), but in the first session, I overplayed JJ in a reraised pot, in the -$25 session I dumped way too much money on AK preflop and then lost more than I needed to with a river raise when I had a turned straight and a flush got there. My last session, I dumped about $60 on two hands where I could have easily gotten away for $20.

The point is, I'm giving away a lot of chips too loosely, especially when I'm already up and take the SuperSystem "I'm playing with their money anyhow" line.

The good part about what I found in the review is that playing smart and straightforward against the TAGs, with a little preflop trickiness in the right spot, is way way profitable. I need to recognize when I'm in a marginal spot and err on the side of caution a little more. My aggrotard limit insticts will probably keep me from ever getting too weak-tight and making big laydowns anyhow.

Stacking off with one-pair or AK is so unnecessary so often. I need to lay back more and wait. Because even good, multitabling tags at $50 NL can't get away from overpairs when I flop bottom set. Getting too jiggy with top pair looks stupid, by comparison.

I'm a winner!

2006-12-15T10:57:00.000-06:00

So I cashed in the HORSE event last night, but it was a pretty disappointing evening overall. Only 15 people turned out (bunch of cheapskates cant' swing a $20 tournament?) and the structure at Stars is just horrible. 8 minute levels, which meant by the time we hit Stud and Stud/8 in the rotation, the stakes were at 100 and 150. There was just zero play, it was basically wait for a hand and jam the pot.

Still, the $60 I took for third guarantees I'll get through the festival with a profit, which is nice. The win last Monday was exactly enough to cover all the of the fees, making it a freeroll. Last night was pure profit, and a cash in the main event Sunday would be gravy.

Makes you realize how ridiculously wild the swings can be for tournament guys though. So far I've got a first, two lasts, a ninth and now a third. That's a lot of action and a lot of swings for essentially a win rate of one buy-in.

Considering how tough the fields are, that's got to be way above my EV in these things, so I'll take it, but the mechanics behind being a winning tournament player are far sicker than most realize.

Speaking of sick tournament players, congrats to lucko and mag for taking down the $100r on Stars back to back. Josh took it on Tuesday and Kevin took it on Wednesday. I missed Josh's FT, but Kevin played some sick poker to win it, including calling off his stack preflop with AJ. It was absolutely the right call, the SB's play screamed resteal, but the nerve it took to make that call is astonishing. In a $10 tourney, it's probably just some donkey overvaluing an ace. In a $100r, it's sick good poker. Congrats guys.

Mr. Irrelevant

2006-12-13T22:54:00.000-06:00

Busted out first in the TPOAPC tournament tonight. Usually, that's not very notable (this is the second time so far) but this was the limit tournament. I can honestly say, those guys are awful at limit. The worst was a beat against macroz. I raise T7s otb, he three-bets from the bb. Flop is T75. He checks, I bet he raises. Obvious overpair. I three-bet, he caps. Turn is a five and I fold. Lots of guys limping and calling bets. Calling flop bets with third or fourth pair. Ugly stuff. And I couldn't beat any of it. lol.

Fortunately, the fish were biting at Full Tilt tonight. After dropping 2 1/2 buyins Saturday night, I ran good tonight and won 4 1/2 over about 1100 hands. I'm still figuring out a lot about NL, but I feel like I'm making more and more progress. My handreading has improved, datamining and some other tools have helped my game selection. I'm still not running especially well, but I can feel things starting to come together. Tonight, I think I learned something about c-betting. I've seen a lot of players talk about c-betting--either they do it every time, or they're awfully careful.

I've been betting about 65% of flop after a raise, checking only 18%. Today in 110 raised pots, I bet 52% and checked 30%. Mainly, I'm checking Q+ top-pair type hands. I checked one set (and promptly got runner-runnered) but mainly checked top pair or whiffed high cards. In a couple spots, I was able to pick up a three-way pot on the turn with fifth pair on a delayed c-bet on an ace-high board.

It's not groundbreaking stuff, but looking at my db, I'm not winning nearly enough with my big card hands in my latest run at $50 nl. I'm losing with every single king-hand except KJs and K5s. That includes kings. I'm a loser with AKs so far. I think I'm betting too many flops where only better hands give me action, and I'm not getting enough action. Checking more, theoretically, might get me more turn calls. We'll see how it goes anyhow.

Fun hand of the night, and maybe the worst flop checkraise ever.

Full Tilt Poker
$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Ring Game
6 Players
http://www.legopoker.com/hh

UTG: $50
MP: $58.15
CO: $5.60
Hero (BTN): $83.35
SB: $52.85
BB: $32.75

Preflop: 9s 9h ($0.75, 6 players)
UTG folds, MP raises to $1.75, CO folds, Hero raises to $6, SB folds, BB folds, MP calls $4.25

Flop: Qs 8s 9d ($12.75, 2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $10, MP raises to $32.50, Hero raises to $55, MP calls all in for $19.65
Uncalled bet of $2.85 returned to Hero

Turn: Qs 8s 9d [Jh] ($117.05, 2 players)
No action

River: Qs 8s 9d Jh [Jc] ($117.05, 2 players)
No action

Showdown
MP had Th Td (a straight, Queen high)
Hero had 9s 9h (a full house, Nines full of Jacks) and won $114.05
Final Pot: $114.05 ($3.00 rake)

Sometimes, it really is fun.

My first bracelet

2006-12-05T11:03:00.000-06:00

Last night was the kickoff to the innaugeral The Plus One Annual Online Poker Championships. It's a monstrous name. Not my idea. Anyway, we got this started off with a $10+1 NLHE event. Only 22 runners, which is a little disappointing, but a hell of a lot of good players turned out--Chipp, lucko, drome, jmill, stoner. Even Whale made a rare appearance on Stars. Things started slowly for me. I had chipp on my immediate right, lucko two seats to the right and drome in the blinds when I was in LP. Lots of fun. I restole on chipp a couple times when he opened in steal position and got a few chips, but no real action until the table broke

At the new table, I sucked out on dwal with KJ vs. A8 in a blind vs. blind all in preflop (ugh, I played that like crap) and had 2500 in chips with blinds still at 25/50. Stoner was very active on that table, but I started reraising him light (k5o otb, 33 from the BB) and he was mainly folding when I came over the top. Reraising light has been pretty good to me lately when I pick the right people and it's an interesting NL dynamic I hadn't much considered until a couple weeks ago.

Anyway, I stayed pretty aggressive, raising about 18% of the time, while most people seemed to be playing pretty tight. I dodged any big confrontations, took down a couple pots on c-bets. Pretty much what's becoming my standard NL game. I broke the final table bubble when whale open-shoved from the SB with AK and I called with QQ and it held. So I moved to the final table as the chipleader.

I scaled back the reraising at the FT. Most people who were raising looked to be committed. I just stole a lot of blinds at this point, though I did come over the top of fulton once when he opened with a 25bb stack from the CO. I reraised about the pot from the SB with jack shit and he thought and thought and mucked. This stuff is fun when it's working.

When we got to six-handed, I started running very good. I busted nick with T7s. No idea why I called out of the SB instead of reraising, but he was still deepish and I figured a little postflop play wouldn't kill me. On a board of 762, we both check. Turn is another two, I lead for 1,000 into a pot of 1500, he thought for a second and jammed for another 4500 or so. I wasn't sure on the call, but nothing decent made any sense there, it felt like he wanted a fold and assumed I was stealing. I call, he showed 96o and suddenly I had about 13,000 chips four-handed.

I busted Andy's pocket tens when I called a small bet from the BB with 43s and flopped two pair, and then sucked out hard with the hellory against Halfbee's KK. He sucked me in and I made a bad preflop call hoping for live cards. Flop was all rags. Turn 9. River Q. And we're heads up with Ferris.

Aric played tight the entire tournament, and even with an M around 12-14 heads-up he seemed to be either jamming or folding, so I played a lot of small pots and avoided big pots with him. He swung between 12,000 and 5,000 chips and finally we got it all in for his 5,000 chips with my J9s vs 44. A river nine gave me the win.

Overall, it was a pretty normal tournament win. A couple suckouts, a couple traps, a couple times the best hand won. I'm a lucksack. But it was good to put some of the NL stuff I'm working on into practice against guys I know well. Seeing the position defenses work so well against guys like chipp and shawn gave me some confidence that I'm on the right track with this stuff. Thanks troy, for setting these up.

****************

Sorry, to any regular readers, for the extended absence. After the half-marathon, I was pretty exhausted and busy travelling and catching up with people. And I've met a nice girl (with horrible taste in men, fortunately), so we've been going out quite a bit. Things have been terrific, but just haven't had a lot of time for the blog. I'll try to fix that though, since I miss the writing. I'll just cutback on lurking at CP probably.

***************

Finally, a little pimpage. Gary Carson is probably the most underrated poker writer out there. He's got a great, strange little blog he keeps up that usually cuts right to the heart of things. His last two entries are classics in cutting through bullshit with a minimum of words. Check them out (here and here)

Also, in case he reads this, thanks to AceHighWine for the linkage. I was a little shocked to find myself on his blogroll with much better players than a lowly $50 NL grinder. In case he checks in, I highly recommend this Spanish Rioja man. Got a bottle with dinner last week at a Tapas place in Lincoln Park and even my red-wine-phobic girlfriend liked it. The rest of you should check him out. Is there anything better than a poker/booze blog?

Ain't that a man?

2006-09-16T12:27:00.000-05:00

I really needed a good run this morning. After doing my 13 miler two weeks ago, it seems like I can't run two miles without something aching, straining or cramping. I cut a six-miler short last saturday then bailed on a three-miler Thursday after I tweaked something in my left knee. Three freakin miles. Ugh.

So I get in the car, hit the iPod and hear those first sweet strains of Muddy Waters singing "Mannish Boy." Sweet. Unfortunately, our 10 miles started off the way most runs have lately--sore. By the second mile it felt like I had a hernia. I kept thinking of George C. Scott's immortal line in "Man Getting Hit by Football," "Oh, my groin!"

Thing of it is, my legs felt fine otherwise. No cramps, my back was loose. So I just kept moving. Didn't push, didn't struggle or fight. Just run, slow, steady, humble. The soreness never really went anywhere, but it didn't smack me down either. In the end, we finished at 2:01, just about exactly 12 min/mile, exactly where I should be for a last long run. Then did a great stretch routine after and felt energized, loose, and just a little more confident that 13.1 miles is not going to kill me. It may not be pretty, but it will get finished.

Which is really why I'm doing this anyhow. That feeling of finishing a race is addictive. There aren't many times in a 33-year-old's life when he gets cheered for, or gets a medal, or gets to lean over, put your hands on your knees and look back at 13 miles.

So that's quite enough of doing stuff this weekend. I've been hungover the last two Sundays, I think I'm just going to chill, ice my genitals (too much? sorry), watch Notre Dame kick the holy shit out of Michigan, and play more poker than is probably good for me. Good times.

_________________________

Speaking or more poker than is healthy, I played the absolutely sickest $25 NL cash table in the history of Poker Stars last night. Mag, Lucko, Stoner, Croda and a few other +1 sickos hit up the microstakes for a little fun. Money was moving fast. I bought in for the $25 max and within an hour had run it up to $200. Bottom pair was usually the nuts. I called stoner down once with five overcards to my fours and took down a $60 pot. Josh was jamming 92o, and hitting. Stoner flopped a straight flush in a three-way all in. Lucko, bless him, dropped about $500 donking around.

The average pot hovered between $55 and $75. At $25 NL. The next highest avg pot was $7. Sick sick stuff. I managed to walk off up about $75, but it was a blast watching Kev, Mag and Stoner work. Three of the best NL players I know, and when they weren't donking it off, a lot of the small plays they were making were amazing. Kevin once iso-raised on a turn with jack-high because he though he was good. I laid down king-high and stoner called with a gutshot straight draw, six-high, but sucked out on kev with a pair.

Stoner just couldn't miss though. Look at this chip stack (click on the image for full size:

And then, not to be out done, Josh went on a five minute run that put him up $300. I logged off, brushed my teeth, took the laptop to bed to see if I could get back on (12 people on the list. The $25 sharks smelled blood. lol) and he'd run from $25 to $325. Sick. Cannot wait to get on the table with these guys in AC.

Straight pimping baby

2006-09-07T10:01:00.000-05:00

So we finally got a decent Plus One tournament going last night. 31 or so started what has to be one of the toughest $10, three-table tournaments Stars has ever hosted. My first table was nine handed. Mag was on my left. He's only a 5/10 NL pro who has been on an absolutely sick tournament run in the last couple months. Probably about $20,000 in cashes the last few months.

On my immediate right was Chipp, who's only a fucking genius, also a NL cash pro and probably the guy whose game I respect most. The next three seats were filled by Cards, Stoner, Lucko and Sportfreak, who between them have two main event cashes and six main event starts. Gleeful rounded out the table, and drunk Brits watching baseball at 2 a.m. their time tend to be tough to get reads on.

We started off pretty tentatively. 3x raises were taking down the blinds, but postflop play was aggressive as hell. Two plays I remember: Three of us take a limped flop, I have KTo in the BB. Flop is 974r. checks around. Turn is my ten and I lead out into the 120 pot for 80. Only Mag calls. River is a 3, and I check, Mag bets 160 into 280 and I call. My tens beat his 82o. I love inducing bluffs.

The only other hand worth mentionis is when Chipp opened for 3x in the co (this was at 25/50 I think), I come over the top for 1200 with AJs. He thinks for about 10 seconds before mucking. Jam or fold indeed.

After that, I caught a frozen wave of cards. I jammed to steal a few times, sucked out on Donnieonce (it's like the national pastime at this point) and kept my stack somewhere around 1800-2200. Never got called, never showed a hand. So I was one of the shortstacks when we hit the final table.

If there was a table tough than my first, it was this one. Here's the line up

One seat: Jamfreak--Phish fan, music freak, purveyor of fine flooring goods and a solid cardplayer. He wouldn't be raising with cheese and had enough chips to be aggressive early.

Two seat: Chipp--Probably the second-to-last guy you want to see with a big stack of chips at a final table. The math freak would no doubt use game theory to jedi mind trick us into giving him all our chips.

Three seat: Feng--Making an Ali-like return to the game. Feng's disappeared from the poker scene, preferring to stalk young, attractive churchgoers, but he's still got tons of game. He was shortstacked along with me, but that could change fast

Four seat: Your hero--I think at this point everyone figured I was rocked up. I'd gone an hour without showing a hand, but only had 2800 chips and with blinds at 100/200, needed to get some action soon.

Five seat: Dr0me--The word "shark" was invented for this guy. I didn't like seeing him on my right with a lot of chips.

Six seat: Snyder--Weaned on the blood of IPC donks, he had a decent stack, and after delivering a runner-runner beat to him in Indy back in June, I figure there's no way I'm every getting lucky in a pot with him again.

Seven seat: Lucko--Aggressive as hell, always liable to keep the pressure on and willing to gamble. Exactly who you don't want stealing your blinds.

Eight seat: Sportfreak--The shortstack, but a tough player, loads of tournament experience and like Lucko, a serious gambler.

Nine seat: Robcapp--The Aussie came into the final table second in chips and a Hachem-like arrogance that said this thing might already be over.

My cold cards kept up at the final table. I open jammed a couple times, jammed out of the blinds on resteals a couple and kept my stack somewhere at 2800-3200. Meanwhile, Snyder busted ninth, Sportfreak was out soon after, and feng and drome were building stacks.

Down to seven, Jamfreak had just lost a good sized pot and was sitting on his last 550 chips. He open-jammed on my BB. I was getting about 2:1 on the call but was risking a quarter of my own chips and only had 54o. I finally talked myself into the call, he flipped up 76o, but I caught a five on the turn and we were on the bubble.

I was still the shortstack, but if I recall correctly, this is the point where rob went nuts and lost a huge stack in two hands, putting feng in second to Chipp. Kevin busted in fifth and then suddenly feng and dr0me got into a huge pot and feng's QQ won a race against AK and drome was busto. So without ever chipping up above 5,000 I managed to come in third. The moral of the story: patience.

Feng and chipp had a nice heads up match, and feng took it down. Lots of good poker, lots of good play, everyone took it at least semiseriously, and I won money. Good times. Next week, we're doing O/8. God help us all.

Goals? I guess maybe I should try having one

2006-09-05T12:38:00.000-05:00

I've felt retarded playing cards lately. Tilt, bad decisions, overplaying my roll. I think part of it has to do with when I broke off a third of my roll in June to pay for car repairs. Thanks VW!

Anyway, pulling out $1200 forced me to move back to 2/4-short, after playing 3/6 short and 5/10 full all spring, and I managed to have a breakeven summer anyhow. I spent most of June and July avoiding limit, splashing around a bit in Omaha and NL, and then I had a decent comeback in August until life put me on tilt a bit and I ended breakeven.

So I decided to make some goals. September and October are going to be devoted to a lot of grinding and bankroll building. I'm going to use WSEX cash games and rakeback to do this. I started last week with $800 on there and was a modest winner after yesterday, plus my first week of RB put me at plus $220.

I'm hoping to stay withing 300 BB at 3/6 and 5/10, and by the end of October see what I've got and chart a course from there. I'm going to use this dough for the trip to AC too though, so probably taking $600 out at some point.

I dunno, it's not really organized, but it's something. It's not that I've been bored, I've been dissatisfied with my game lately. I'm a good enough player to be playing 5/10 short I think, but I'm stuck grinding 2/4 and then getting pissed and tilting off 100 BB because some 70/2 donkey got lucky in a couple pots.

So there we go. Get back on a sound financial footing and a sound frame of mind and take it from there. Maybe I don't really want to play 5/10 or 10/20 and I'm just sabotaging myself because I'm at heart a small stakes guy. But it's time to find out.

Last year at this time I had about $800 on Full Tilt. I was gonna run that up into an engagement ring for Samantha at Christmas. The relationship didn't work out so well, but she'd have gotten a $4,000 rock under the tree if it had.

And instead I got two vacations and a new apartment.

Wonder what I'll get this time. Hopefully not the clap.

***********

Speaking of the clap, a round of applause for me. I finished my 13 miler on Saturday, dead legs and all. I was completely gassed by mile 10, but Erin and the other girl (I feel really bad about not remembering their names every week) dragged me along for a couple miles and Lora pulled me along for most of the rest. Even run/walking (with lots of walking) the last mile I finished with a respectable 2:48. The race should move a good bit faster than that, so I think at least 2:40 is doable. Maybe better.

I'm just relieved my legs are feeling fine and I'm not making an appointment with an ortho. I did 2.7 miles on Sunday at a 10:20/mile pace and felt pretty good. Looking forward to a cutback week though.

Forbidding myself the tilt

2006-08-21T11:20:00.000-05:00

I've been putting off blogging about this because I know I'm going to jinx myself, but I've made a fairly spectacular return to limit hold'em this month. After pretty much burning myself out in April and May (playing 20,000 hands of 3/6-6 and winning $35!) I messed around with Omaha and then no limit in June and July, with mixed results.

Finally though, it felt like it was time to get back on the horse. I missed the subtlties. I missed the gamble of ramming and jamming on a laggy table. I missed the feeling of absolutely owning a table, one big bet at a time.

No limit cash games are fun, and they're quite profitable. I'm not playing for profit anymore though. Not in the same way anyhow. For once in my poker career I have zero outside money pressures. I can play simply to play. And to me, being a winning limit cash player (even at the donkarific 2/4 and 3/6 levels) is one of the toughest tasks in poker.

So one night a week and a half ago, I decided once more into the breech. I threw $1,000 onto Party and decided to see if 2/4 was still as soft as I remembered.

Oh my.

It's a small sample, but 4.65/100 over 3500 hands can't be all wrong.

I've run a little hot, but I've also been playing under control much more than I used to. My tilt-o-meter hasn't hit red once, and the few times I've tipped into orange, I've managed to get off the tables or get my head back in the game. I'm much more conscious of my mindframe now and, as chipp's new favorite poet would say, I'm forbidding myself the tilt.

I also think it helps that I don't care about the money. I know I can beat 2/4 short. I know I can crush it in fact. I've run at 4/100 over 10,000 before in this game and I genuinely believe I'm good enough to keep that up for long runs. So if I lose the occasional big pot to a suckout, I roll with it. At 3/6, it still tends to feel like money, or, it did when last I played. I'm gonna triple up this first stake before I find out again.

Another thing I'm doing is playing shorter sessions. I two-table, which is just enough for me, but even so I think mentally I'm maxed out around 2 hours in. Yesterday I played three sessions, 2 hours, 2.5 hours and 1 hour. I won all three, but was glad for the breaks. Popeye talked about this many moons ago, and I never listened, mainly because I'm a compulsive about shit and want to get more more more. I should know better than to ever contradict popeye's advice though.

The only other differences I see are paying off slightly less and value-betting a little more.

Simple things, but they're the things you do when you're running good. It's nice to be back.

These guys are no good

2006-08-03T11:03:00.000-05:00

Well, I did it again. Played two $4 yesterday, one sober, one not so sober. Busted out of the sober one around 30th. Final tabled the buzzed one in the middle of the night.

This one was mainly thanks to a hot run in the first hour. Everything was hitting and I chipped up to 9,000 at the first break. Hovered between 17,000 and 10,000 for the rest of the tournament, then finally got it up to 22,000 at the FT, but was still basically in jam-or-fold mode. Busted seventh when I ran AK into both TT and 88. Win that one and I've got 80,000 chips. Oh well. I need the sleep anyhow.

The best pitcher I'll ever see

2006-08-02T11:24:00.000-05:00

Baseball was my game when I was a kid. I messed around with street football, shot hoops from time to time, played soccer once even, but I ate, slept and breathed baseball. It was the only game for me, I still love it more than any sport.

Sadly, I was also a Cubs fan.

I got to watch some pretty good ballplayers in the mid to early 80s though, Billy Buck, Ryno, Sarge, Manny Trillo, Jo-dee, Lee Arthur, the Red Baron, Gracie, even the Bull. Some of those guys were actually good, some were just good considering they were Cubs, but none, not even Ryno, was in a class with Mad Dog. Greg Maddux, to me, is the best ballplayer I’ll likely ever set eyes on, including Clemens.

No one thought much of Maddux in ’86 or ’87. He threw a 90-mph fastball and that was about it. I’m pretty sure I could have homered off of him. Nearly everyone else did. But as he worked with Billy Connors (god, about half of the Yankees ‘90s management staff worked for the Cubs—Zim, Connors, Gene Michaels… Thanks TribCo) and developed that change up, then learned how to make a baseball do absolutely sick things, he became a true wonder.

It wasn’t like watching Doc Gooden or Clemens overwhelm guys with their stuff. I remember seeing both several times as a kid and they were absolutely dominated. Maddux looked more like, well, some guy. The ball didn’t explode out of his hand. The pop of the mitt didn’t echo out to the bleachers. But always, just at the last moment, the ball would seem to float away or around the bat, rolling harmlessly to short or second for a routine putout. It wasn’t just one batter or a few good innings. Every time. He was, in his way, more dominant than Doc or the Rocket.

I got to see him pitch twice on his return to the Cubs. He won both games without being dominant, just crafty. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now that he’s off to the Dodgers, I really wish I had a kid and wish I could have taken them to see the old man throw every kind of junkball you can imagine. He’s the last link to my childhood, and it’s rare you get to share that sort of thing with your kids. The same way my dad wishes we could go to Sportsman's Park and watch Gibson throw once. And now he’s gone again.

My strongest memory came in the dorms when I was in college though. About six of us were watching him throw 8 2/3rds perfect innings in the ’92 Cubs home opener, when some guy, a Cardinal fan, says “Cool, I’ve never seen a no hitter.” Crack. Line drive to right.

Sorry for the jinx Mad Dog. And thanks for everything.

Nice end to the weekend

2006-07-31T21:48:00.000-05:00

Well, aside from running, I ran awful damn good this weekend. Woke up Sunday morning and took 12th in a $4 before I even brushed my teeth. Did some shit around the house and then played another. Took 10th this time, only because I'm a goddamn retard who likes donking off 50,000 chips in four hands.

Last night, hit up one more and final tabled it.

Ironically I had the worst run in the last one, but was patient around the FT bubble, jammed judiciously, and made one miracle comeback. Ended up 7th for $25, but I never really caught a hot run of cards all day, just lots of solid play, patience, and did a good job of being sure I had enough chips usually to deal with a bad beat.

I should probably step up to the $20s, but frankly I'm not sure if I want to take tournaments all that seriously, and really not sure if I feel like dealing with the swings. Last time I was playing $20s, I ran bad and dumped nearly $200. Not horrible, but I think I'm not in the mood for lots of gambling right now. Running is taking a lot out of me right now, I've got busy weekends the next two weeks, we need a live rooster to take the hex off Jose's glove, blah blah, we're dealing with a lot of shit.

Anyway, here's what I've been focusing on in the $4s to run well. This is for my own benefit when I start running like crap.

1. Patience early on People are really eager to race early in these things. Playing big pots won't scare them, so I'm playing smaller pots where I can and playing big pots only when I can really justify it. I'm not blind stealing at all and so I've nearly completely eliminated my biggest weakness, which is overplaying turns with steals that miss.

2. Be water, my friend Cash game NL has taught me a lot already about how hands play and what kind of situations they want. I have no problem with mucking 99 or TT to an early raise that doesn't give me implied odds. I have no problem calling an EP raise with 33 when I'm getting the odds I need. I'm limping behind more as well, not trying to isolate with stuff like A7s or 65s and then flop bluff (opposite of my cash game strategy actually, but it works and sells the bluffs a little better later on). Basically, I'm letting the game come to me more, listening to what the table and cards are telling me and and not forcing my action. Be water, my friend.

3. Reads My reads, have frankly been pretty damn solid. I think at least part of this has been paying attention to bet sizing and giving credit. Especially out of position, I've lead at a number of pots with tpwk or middle pair, usually with a type of bet that is going to define their hand. Maybe I'm just getting lucky, but I've been able to get away from a few hands I used to go broke with and I'm picking up more than my share of pots, I think.

So basically a lot of ABC poker. When I get out of sorts though, I'm jamming too soon or calling off too much of my stack. I still get impatient, but like I said, lately I've been building enough of a stack to recover from a donk move.

Weekend update

2006-07-30T13:15:00.000-05:00

Busy weekend. In pieces:

--The show was excellent on Friday. I knew Ray Lamontagne, she knew Guster, so it was a perfect choice. Easily the best date I've been on all year. That's about all for now.

--Note to self: staying out until 2 a.m. and drinking is not the best pre-long run routine. It was 91 degrees by the time we shoved off at 7 a.m. for 7 miles. Did ok down to Oak Street beach and back, then basically lost it around 4.5 miles. So hot I couldn't feel cold water on my skin, which freaked me out. I walked it in though, and lesson learned.

--Crashed on the couch for three hours and was late getting to Stretch and Chris' for the bbq. There were about 10 of us, and six kids, none older than five. It was actually a great time, but sitting in their leafy suburban backyard, watching kids run around and play with balloons while we formed up beanbag teams, drank beer and grilled, it was an odd reminder of how old we've all gotten since we met in the dorms 15 (15!) years ago.

--Got a call from my sis around nine. She and her boyfriend Bob were going to Kingston Mines. Since I'd drank a six of guiness at the party after dehydrating/overheating twelve hours earlier, this sounded like a great idea. Went and listened to an OK band with a chick lead singer. Headed home early though.

--Woke up Sunday, played my first hand of poker all weekend. Cashed in another $4, but couldn't get through the FT bubble and busted 12th when my 77 ran into AA preflop. I made two stupid plays or I probably would have been able to FT it. Had a c-bet get cr'd when I was stealing and dropped about 3,000 chips. Earlier though I crippled myself with this one: Blinds are at 300/600, 50, I'm on about 12,500. I raise 3x in CO with A4s and the BB calls. BB is not good, I don't think he's played much at all, and makes odd, random plays, like min betting the nuts on the river in a big pot. He's got me covered. Yeah, I love this situation.

Flop is KK10r one diamond. He leads into the 4,000 pot for 1,200. I bump it to 3,600 just to see and he calls. Turn in a jack to complete the rainbow. He bets 1,200 again and I'm lost and just fold. I think he had the king.

Anyway, gonna clean my place a bit, play more poker, run, and give that nice girl a call later today. And drink a lot of fucking water. Jesus I'm old.

Still no final table love

2006-07-28T09:50:00.000-05:00

Made my second final table in a week playing a $4-180 sng on stars. I really need to close better in these things though. Busted out fifth Saturday night after having nearly 1/3rd of the chips in play with seven left.

Last night I really never caught great cards. I had queens once in the BB and it was a walk. Other than that I just played position, didn’t show many hands down and sucked out once with AJ vs AK all-in pf.

Still, I had about 52,000 chips at the final table with six left. The big stack had about 110,000 so I should have been laying back a bit looking for good spots. Heaven forbid I play smart at a final table though.

I pick up nines in MP with the blinds at 1000/2000 w/ 50 antes (not sure on the antes). Anyway, I make it 7,000, the big stack calls on the button. He was a horrible, lucky player. With two-tables left he was raising every hand and calling jams with A3s, A6o, K10s. And then sucking out.

Anyway, he calls, blinds fold, the pot is about 17,000 and the flop comes 10 5 3 rainbow. Nice flop for me, I bet 10,000 and he calls. I really don’t know what he’s doing here but A5 seems like such a possibility. Or eights. Turn is another three. I check (don’t ask), he bets 11,000 into a 37,000 pot. I should have come over the top, but I decide I’m way ahead here and just call.

River is a Jack, I check expecting him to check behind but he jams. God damn it. I still think I ahead a lot here but I feel sick about it. I’m looking at the size of the pot though and looking at what my stack is if I call and getting 3:1 to basically have a monster stack and against an imbecile I can’t pass on it even though I played the hand like crap and know it.

So I call and he’s got QJ and ighn.

Like I said, I need to work on my final table game. There’s no reason I shouldn’t have been top three at least in both of these. Ah well, at least I’m getting there. My tourney game has been helped a lot by my cash play I think. I’m a little more patient, a little more willing to max fold equity by keeping a pot small preflop and forcing a big decision postflop. Hopefully I’ll get a few better spots and get back to the $20s again. I just don’t feel like dealing with the swings in the $20s just yet. I’m very testy about my BR these days for some reason. That’s probably another post though.

It's monday and I'm tired

2006-07-24T13:12:00.000-05:00

God I'm tired. Don't feel like writing, but feel guilty for not updating this thing.

Bits o' news instead:

--Did six miles on Sunday quite comfortably at a 12:30 pace. Probably need to pick that up more, but I've been having a bit of left knee soreness after running this week. I'm flash back to two years ago when my left knee let me down. I tried resting last time, this I'm I think I'm going to strength train a little more.

--Final-tabled a $4 180-man Saturday night. I shouldn't have even signed up to tell the truth. About a half-hour in I had 1700 chips and was falling asleep on my couch. So I shove in with 92h and hope to get called and go to sleep. AQ calls, but I river a flush and I double. Next hand I get KQd utg. Push again. Get called in two places both by stacks of about 2,800. One guy has aces, one guy has J10d, I river another flush and suddenly am the chip leader at the first break. So I played it mainly seriously from there. Did a good job of not bluffing off my chips on steals, won a few races and was chip leader with five left when I donked it off in three hands and took fifth for a big time $46. So, basically, the usual final table experience for me.

--Alan Dershowitz probably hurt himself contorting his way through this column. One can hope he hurt himself anyhow. It would be nice if dehumanizing people carried actual consequences. I doubt it though.

--Hit the Sox game on Sunday with Stretch and his wife, then went to dinner in Evanston. The game was good, the "World champions" crap was way over done as usual (note to Sox: no one cares you won the World Series. fuckers.). Gary Matthews Jr, hitting .300-something, led off against John Garland, so it was like going to a bizzaro world Cubs game where Cubs staff are able to keep and develop the right players. Quick tip: Gorging on chili and cheese nachos, then going for middle eastern for dinner and ordering the spiciest dish on the menu is not good for your digestive system nor the air quality of a small apartment. Thank god I don't smoke, the place would have blow out if I sparked a lighter.

--I'll probably write a longer rant about this later, but isn't there something deeply disturbing about an administration that signs laws and then issues statements saying they won't enforce them? I don't think so either. Doubleplus good. See you at the five minute hate later.

Random street crime and the meaning of life in particle physics

2006-07-18T16:41:00.000-05:00

I really like my neighborhood, but I've never had any real illusions about it being nice. I saw the same homeless guys every day at the Loyola stop when I El'd it up to Evanston for work. Running through the park these days I've occasionally had people stop me to ask if I needed any weed, saw a guy clock his girlfriend in the face, and two weeks ago nearly stepped on a stray hypodermic.

Just Friday, walking back to my place after dinner I saw two kids (19, 20, generally shiftless kids who sit on the corner of North Short and Sheridan) in cuffs against an unmarked cruiser. I just assumed they were dealers anyhow, but it was oddly unsettling to think back on the countless times I'd walked past them in the last six months.

Not once have they bothered to offer me even a dime. Fuckers. Do I really look that old? Don't answer that.

So yeah, Rogers Park is no Roscoe Village. And I like it that way. With all the teardowns and 30-something couples in Roscoe, it was distinctly suburban. Even if I do miss the awesome Italian food.

Things have gotten slightly more weird this week though.

First, on Saturday, after bonking at 4.5 miles and walking in the last half mile of my run, I spent most of the day nearly catatonic, pushing fluids and trying to cool off. It just shouldn't be 90 degrees at 7 a.m.

Anyway, around 7:30, I'm feeling normal and decide to head out for a burrito. I leave the iPod because it's barely a five-minute walk. Halfway down the block, this guy hollers something at me from the other side of the street. I look over and see this short, squat black guy in a powder blue yankees hat running over to me, an exhausted, half inch of a roach in his left hand. "Hey man, you don't got no problem with black people do you? Cool, I'm just gonna walk along cool?" I roll with it. He looks harmless, I don't have any money on me, my wallet's in the house and random things make me laugh.

He's not entertaining though (which I realize is a horrible thing to say, but some random guy runs up, you're looking for a show or you're looking for him to leave you alone). He tries to sell me some blueberry (I felt oddly cool for knowing that), hits the pathetic looking roach a couple times and tails me the whole way to Chipotle. Then we bump into each other again outside.

Hey man, there's these two girls... No thanks. I'm feeling a little targeted, but I'm still not really worried about this guy. I just want to shake him before I get home. He tells me the girls are in the building with the White Hen a block north, so we get to my corner and I say I don't really give a crap about these random chicks, so he can head off. He asks for money. I say fuck off and he takes a step towards me. I put my right hand in his chest and push him back a couple steps. He seems to remember that we're on the corner of a busy street and walks off, mutter about not being a thief.

Odd. Random.

Then yesterday, I go out to my car and find someone stole three of the four wheel covers. That's just more inconvenient than anything, but somehow the combination had me feeling anxious last night, checking window locks, looking over my shoulder a bit walking from the car. I felt oddly relieved that I had leftover pizza and didn't need to go out for food.

Really feld stupid about that after a little bit.

It's easy to think stuff like that is about you. That somehow you've been tagged as the weak antelope and it's just a matter of time. The truth is, it's just a random collision of particles. We're all shooting along in our own orbits and from time to time we'll collide with others. The collisions may be nothing or they may go thermonuclear, but we rarely see them coming and rarely understand them except in hindsight.

Even then, we usually get stuck thinking they're about us.

Another one, from playing cards last night. I get beat in a pot by a guy who posted and then played A9o like it was the nuts. My combo draw missed and I doubled him up on his first hand. I said something sarcastic. Three hands later, he pushes all in on a king high flop into my aces. He's got K5o, hits a kind and doubles through me again.

Now I'm steaming and thinking this guy is playing any two cards to get at me. The truth is, as the session wore on, the guy is just some random donk who thought top pair was an unbeatable hand. There's every chance he didn't see whatever it was a wrote after the first hand and even if he did, didn't understand it (he was from Europe I think). Instead of tilting and making my every play about this guy, I just treated him as a fixture of the table, like rocks off a shore. He was a fact, not an force acting against me.

Soon enough, I'd doubled through him twice and he went broke.

Almost every time I'm in a bad place mentally, thinking life is awful or cruel or unfair or whatever, I need to step back and realize it's none of those things. It's random. It's completely unexpected and uncontrolable and we're just hanging on, hoping it never stops, and at our best we remember to laugh because even when it mushroom clouds over your head, it's better than nothing at all.

Except when you're all in with aces and lose on the river. Nothing makes that better.

Party time, again

2006-07-12T09:49:00.000-05:00

So I moved about $1,000 to Party last night. Not so much in reaction to the chat ban at FT as my having more than $200 in bonuses I can clear in the next 10 days.

Big difference in sites, but the biggest difference seems to be from something you might not even notice.

As usual, the Party tables are looser, more aggro, and generally fishier. At Full Tilt, I was raising almost any two cards in position, and c-betting the flop to pick up the pot.

At Party, at least at the tables I sat at last night, they were much less willing to fold. No big deal. Tightened up a bit, took better notes and watched more to try to get a feel for the tables.

The two key differences I found were interconnected actually. They call way more on the flop with nothing but a bare ace, bottom pair or a bd draw. I think many of them are calling because of the second difference--nearly every one at Party sits with a max buy-in. FT is home to the $20 short stack.

It's amazing the massive difference one little change can have. At Full Tilt, when you click on an open seat, the buy in window defaults to $20 and you have to make one extra click to buy in for the max.

At Party, the default is the max.

The average pot at FT tended to be in the $7-9 range. Party had about 10 shorthanded tables with open seats and avg pots bigger than $12. Several times I saw tables over $20.

Small difference, huge change in game styles.

There were a fair amount of nitty 17/4 types at the tables as well, mainly set miners. They were easy to spot and easy to get out of pots with, so my approach is going to mainly be avoiding big pots with them, and stealing as many small pots as I can, while nut peddling to the 65/30 fish at the table. When I was betting, I was potting it much more often, and getting paid off, so that's nice.

I know, it's amazing you don't have to pay for this kind of insight isn't it?

Still, it pays the bills. Well, I don't actually pay bills with it, but you get the jist.
--------------------------------
I am thinking about ditching FT entirely. I left $450 on there, but the more I think about it the more irritated I am about the chat ban. My fault though. I'm definitely an idiot. The rakeback/bonus thing is nice, and I found some Chicago bloggers who are starting an online tournament series there, so maybe for the time being I'll let that money sit.

But playing at Party once again reminded me why, despite all the shit they get, they are the best site on the net for cash players. In an hour and a half I saw nearly twice as many hands as I would have at FT, I had several enormous fish call raises with hands like K7s and 86o. The tables resize and if I play about 2500 raked hands in the next 10 days, I'll get $225 in bonus dough. And hopefully a VIP offer after that.

Stars comes close, but I tend to piss away too much money on tournaments when I've got balances there. There's something about tournaments I just don't get, whether it's patience, bet sizing, hand seletion, reads, I dunno. But I'm probably breakeven at best.

So for the time being, I'll be at the online gaming leader. Until I hit another cold streak and have to withdraw before I piss away the whole roll on tilt.

Weird day at the tables

2006-07-08T22:15:00.000-05:00

I'm streaky as hell at NL. I was streaky at limit too, but not like this. I'm gonna have no regard for money at all if this kind of streaky keeps up. Last night I dropped about $60 my first hour. In the next hour and a half I took down $100 to book a small win.

Ok, nothing odd about that.

Today I dropped at one point about $130 in the first two hours of my afternoon session--$100 of it in two hands.

The first hand I bet-three bet semibluffed with A9 on a flop of J108. The pot was at $3 on the flop (button open-minraised, yeah I respect that), I led for $2, the BB called (hmm), button made it $6 (no sense of bet sizing) I make it $20 to go, BB wakes up and sticks his whole stack in there, button folds and I've got to call my remaining $30 getting 7:3. I made the call, he had Q9 for the nuts and I should have repopped it preflop.

Second hand, I raise to $2.25 in the CO with KJd with a poster behind me. Only the BB calls. Flop is 10s5h4h. BB leads at it for the pot, ~5. I put him on a flush draw here, but he's not going anywhere on the flop, so I just call. Turn is an offsuit brick, he checks, I bet $12 into the $15 pot. He calls. Fuck. Learn to fold dude. Ok, river is a queen that doesn't make a flush. I move in for ~$30 more he uses his whole time bank and calls with 10h8h.

Just like that, I'm stuck $100.

The only real problem I have with either hand is that I was new at both tables and didn't have great reads on either player. If I had reads, I probably don't make either play.

Anyway, I'm stuck, but I'm still playing ok. I lose a few more small pots, and before I know it I'm down $130. Still playing good though, I think. So I grind it out and by the end of the afternoon, I've won back about $100 of it. Have dinner, relax, pop open FT tonight for a couple hours and right off I'm up about a buy-in spread over my two tables. Then this hand hit. The orbit before I'd raised utg with tens, a shortstack hand jammed for $10 and the BB flat called. I thought about it for a second and mucked. The BB was too tight for me to be good much there and it was too big to get odds. I was right and was happy to tell the table about my sick read.

The button apparently didn't appreciate it. As I raise:

craiger113: !$&&ing tool

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.25/$0.50
6 players

Stack sizes:
cbal84: $82.30
UTG+1: $17
CO: $50
Button: $96.35
SB: $54.10
BB: $14.05

Pre-flop: (6 players) cbal84 is UTG with th ts
cbal84 raises to $2.25, CO folds, Button raises to $8, 2 folds, cbal84 calls.

Flop: 7s 6s 2h ($16.75, 3 players)
cbal84 bets $12, Button raises to $24, cbal84 raises all-in $74.3, Button calls.

Turn: jc ($165.35, 2 players + 1 all-in - Main pot: $165.35)

River: 9d ($165.35, 2 players + 1 all-in - Main pot: $165.35)

Results:
Final pot: $165.35
Button showed 7h Ah
cbal84 showed Th Ts

cbal84: who's the tool?
craiger113 stands up

I honestly thought he had eights or nines, but I'll take it. That minraise seemed like "I want to end this hand but I don't want to put chips in."

So after clearing $20 in bonus and busting a couple other shortstacks, I ended the day +$130.

Sick game. God I love it.

Four miles just got owned

2006-07-08T08:45:00.000-05:00

Terrific run this morning--ran the whole four miles with just over 12 min pace and stayed mentally tough in the last mile. I think it helped that I didn't do anything last night except sit on my ass and play poker (and take down a quick $50 from the weakest-tightest donks online). Rest, a good light meal and off to bed by 10:30. Running three days this week obviously made a big difference as well. According to my log I did 10.6 miles this week at 11:57 pace overall. I'm going to bump my middle run up to three this week and see how we do from there. That plus a long run of 5 would put me at 12. That's a pretty feasible gain I think.

Damn I feel good right now.

NL Lesson #1: I'm a payoff monkey

2006-07-05T13:43:00.000-05:00

My one major leak right now is playing big pots with one-pair. I'm up about $200 after 2,000 at $50, but I can think of about six hands where I lost another $150. Play those hands smarter and I'm well ahead of the game. Still a good start I think and I can see lots of room to improve.

This morning was a great example of why I'm going to like this game. Sit down around 11 and right off lose a $40 pot with tens vs J5 (suited of course). Drop the rest of the stack with AK on an ace high flop. Grind out at a couple tables and before I know it am stuck $100.

I'm still playing well though, near as I can tell, and the tables are good. I don't feel the tilt monster building, so I stay at it. Soon enough I double up at one table, which promptly breaks, then double up at another and triple up at a third. My hands were holding, I was making solid reads, keeping pots to the size I wanted them and playing position hard.

Just like that, I'm plus for the day.

Now I just need to play smarter against stacks that can hurt me.

-------------------

I'm probably in a better mood today anyhow after my run yesterday. 2.2 miles at 11:25. Still not expecting a great run on Saturday, but I think my level and the training schedule may converge sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Running, um, fair

2006-07-03T09:30:00.000-05:00

Two runs this weekend and neither were very good. Saturday morning kicked off the Roadrunners training group. I was running with the 12/mile beginners group, scheduled to do three miles. It was not pretty. I’m not ready for 3 miles at 12 per. I was doing more like 12:30 per, falling well behind the group, but meh to that, until mile three when I found myself longing to walk. So I walked. Three times. About 2:30 total. Sucked. Felt like a quitter. The trouble is that once you walk, it’s hard to run again, at least when you’ve pushed yourself too hard. If the walks are built in—say in a race you decide to walk through the water stations—then usually you can pick up the running. Saturday, I was just gassed and ended up doing the three miles in 41 min. Bleh.

On the other hand, it’s done and behind me. I’ve done the three miles and then did run a full 2 miles at a below 12 min pace on my recovery run. So that’s done and now it’s my first week of four runs rather than three. I know I’m starting at a bit of a deficit here and need to catch up to be on pace with the training. On the other hand, my legs are growing into the effort. My lungs need a bit of catching up, but I have faith. I’m hoping to get a bike this week as well, and I think some cross training will add the spark I need for the cardio.

The next couple weeks are key. If I can make some strong progress these two weeks, I think I can get on track and let the training schedule do what it’s supposed to do. If I can’t, well, it may be a long 13 miles Oct.1.

I will do this.

Strippers, City Stickers and Tilt

2006-06-30T22:37:00.000-05:00

She had pajama pants on, little musical instruments I think, and they hung low on here hips letting the thong straps crawl up above her hip bones. The V of the straps ticked left and tocked right as she ambled about. Her hair was dark brown, but the strands coming off the top of her head were frosted a slutty blond. It took nearly a block for me to notice she was carrying a little kid, maybe 1 year old. What the fuck did I care? I was just enjoying the show.

Turns out she was headed my way too. We both needed city stickers and were going to spend a couple hours of our afternoon standing outside the Jefferson Park City Clerk's building. The stripper's sister was about ten people ahead of me. There was another kid with them too, about six or seven maybe. I felt kinda guilty for assuming she was a stripper. Maybe she was just a young, slutty cop's girlfriend. It's a cop and firefighter neighborhood after all. But then I noticed she looked almost exactly like Rachel Duguid, who discovered her unfortunate allergy to latex sophmore year of high school when she woke up after one long saturday night with a mouth rash.

It didn't help that her name is pronounced Do-good either.

The frosty blond was going to be a stripper whether she liked it or not. She'd have Rachel to thank for that.

It was about 1:40 when I got in line, sun directly overhead, the Cubs already down a run. I slipped on my headphones and settled in for a long wait, eyeballing the stripper and her sister.

The iPod was in tune with my mood. A little Smashing PUmpkins (finest Chicago rock band ever), some Van the Man (a little Irish in honor of Hizzoner). As the sun beat down and the Mexican ice cream cart guys circled the line like vultures, the Dead's Death Don't Have No Mercy caught the angst perfectly.

Soon enough, the stripper and her sister got boring to me. One of the clerk's workers caught my eye. A little broad in the hips, but she was wearing those loose goucho pants that cling to every hint of curve and crevice on a girl. There were few secrets between us, though we never spoke. When Let's Get it On popped up, it was a powerful moment between us, though she never knew it.

.....

Yeah, I could probably sound creepier at this point, though it would be something of an accomplishment.

....

Somewhere along the line there was a point to this post, but I've lost it, so I'll just leave it with my City Clerk play list and eyefucking girls barely aware of your existence. You know, the usual.

The rest of the day has been pretty dull. Got an air conditioner and installed it, just in time for the outbreak of summer. I've got to be up at 6 tomorrow, so I'm just playing a $20 180-man (busted out of the first on a river two-outer. Who calls two 3/4-pot bets with 88 on a board of AA74?). Ate lots of pasta today and hopefully will have a good three miles tomorrow. I better. No gaps in the training schedule from here on out.

....

I did want to write a little about last night. Had a nice short session at the $50 tables and finished up $30, despite getting stacked early and needing to grind my way out of a hole. If limit taught me anything, it's how to grind at a table.

There was a good fish at the table who kept sucking out, until I resucked with a turn ace to get back a good chunk of my stack. He and I were jawing in the chatbox nearly the whole time. Trying to be funny, but it was pretty serious.

Then later had a solid run in a 180, cashed for $42 placing 17th. Once again though I was jawing with a couple people at the tables and even an observer. It was pretty obnoxious to tell the truth and it led to me making a $100 heads up challenge to anyone who wanted some. One guy said he'd bring it, but then backed out when I sat at the table, so I got stuck playing an actual $100 heads up sng.

Frankly, I was getting owned. The guy took 1,000 chips off me early when I called a river bet with a medium ace, and from there I was dog-paddling. He got impatient though and pushed a couple times trying to knock me out and I fortunately had hands both times. I'd finally gotten a 2:1 chip lead on him when I raised Qc2c in the BB after he limped on the button. The flop was a 762 two hearts and a club. I bet and he min raised. It felt like the heart draw so I called hoping for some improvement. He had about the pot behind if I called, so I could stop and go him if I caught a card. Turn was a 9c, and I jammed. He called with AhKh and, well....

I won, but it was a ridiculously stupid thing to do. I went to bed pissed at myself for losing it again in the chat box. It's all well and good if we're railing someone at a final table, but this is just nonsense.

It's no good for my table image, because people are looking to make moves on me to bust me. It's no good for keeping fish at the table, because who wants to get berated while they lose? It's no good for me because all that anger leaves behind a residue, like bitter salt on your upper lip after sweating all afternoon.

Not really sure what I'm going to do, but it's going to take more discipline and more control. Anger is useless at a card table. I have to stop bringing it out or I'm going to lose a hell of a lot more than $100.

Leaving Las Cardplayer

2006-06-29T18:39:00.000-05:00

So, finally decided to kick the Cardplayer habit. Fourth day in a row I tried to log on and 10 minutes later finally got to the limit forum--only to find there was nothing worth reading. Sweet.

I'm not going to rant about their poorly designed and timed upgrade, but it's a joke what they've done. The content sucks and I'm disappointed so few good players ever ended up there. Are the plus1ers the only good non-2+2ers on the net?

Anyway, as a farewell, I posted this. I'm copying here because it's not bad and I want to remember it.

Nine most important things I’ve learned from CP

1. Odds are odds I remember once seeing someone say they wouldn’t take 12:1 on a gutshot because “chasing gutshots is wrong.” No, it really isn’t. Poker is just gambling on future events. You know the odds of those events happening, roughly. If you can read hands and board texture, you can further narrow the range of possibly future events, and reckon more precisely the odds of it happening. If you’re getting those odds, call. If not, fold. Simple game.

2. Raise! People are terrified of raising it seems. I don’t really know why. Maybe they don’t want people to think they’re a donk for bumping it with Q10o on the button. Maybe they see monsters under the bed. Guess what? The other guy is more afraid than you are. Push them, pressure them, make them fear you. Everyone gets the same cards. If you just limp and call along, you might win your share of pots, but you’ll lose the pots you should lose. Good players, the best players, win the pots they shouldn’t and they thicken up the ones they should.

3. Implied odds Implied odds are a baseline in limit. In nl, they’re a justification. If you call the bb getting 4:1 with 44 and think you need a set, you’re taking a bet that you’ll net another five sb when you flop a set to cover your 9:1 implied odds. Do not play implied odds hands for too many raises. Your profits will be thin and your SD high.

4. Draws have equity You’ve flopped the nut flush draw and there is a bet and two calls ahead? Raise! Jam chips into the middle. If a guy accidentally turns over aces, laugh while you raise. He’s not that far ahead of you, and it’ll be good fun when you crack his aces.

5. Play tight, but when you play a hand, attack. Aggression pays, sometimes in ways that you’re only barely aware of. I’m usually a pretty tight pf player. 23/17/2.8 at 3/6-6max. Yet, I’m almost always thought of as a near maniac. I raise all kinds of crap in position. If I try to steal the blinds, get one caller and the BB leads at me, I raise without looking at the flop. This is my hand, not his. If he three-bets and I’d like a free card (I’ve got a draw or at least an out or two), I’ll cap it. Usually, I’ll get a nice free card on the turn if I want it. When I hit and show down and they see how far behind I was when I capped, believe me, they won’t notice the solid values I’m starting with. Attack attack attack. You cannot take a hand off in limit. The edges are too small. You’ve got to win every chip you can.

6. Respect your opponents I, probably as much as anyone, struggle with this. There’s no way not to think someone who plays 42o for three-bets is not brain damaged. No way. But respect their retardation. Don’t steam into the chatbox like I do. Bad beats are part of the game. Understand that they are giving money away. Remain in control and you’ll take that money. Lose control and your stack will be gone before you know it. You are at the table to make money. Other people are there for other reasons. Respect those reasons and show respect for them. Then take their money.

7. Bankroll management I’m a nit with money. If I lost all my money online tomorrow, I could not reload. Someone would be posting a thread asking why I’m playing the .01/.02 on UB. I started out playing 1/2 on Party with a $200 roll. Somehow, I didn’t go busto. Since then though, I live within my BR. I’ve run that $200 into probably about $8,000 in winnings, never playing higher than 3/6. There’s plenty of money to be made at small stakes. Play within you means and you might even manage to not go broke.

8. Post hands No offense, but you guys are horrible about posting hands. You post brags where you turn a boat and river quads or you post these “look at this donkey” threads. They’re fun and all, but if you want to play poker well, you’re going to have to examine your game more and more closely. I usually replay in PT every hand I vpip on during a session. If there’s a bet I’m not sure of, I’ll post it (not here obviously). If there’s a situation I’m not sure or, or I see three options on, I’ll post it. Learn from each other. There are nearly infinite situations in this game. The more situations you’ve thought about before you sit at a table, the better decisions you’ll make at the table. Respond to hands, just to check your thinking. If someone says you’re wrong, figure out why they’re saying so. This game is so marginal, if you’re not improving, you’re falling behind.

9. Do something besides poker This is probably about me as much as you. I used to play poker 7 days a week. I was “freelancing” and had plenty of time on my hands though. Before I knew it, it was all I could talk about, and those bad beats turned into day-ruining events. It was too consuming. It’s a fun hobby. It’s awesome the amount of money that can be made, but none of us are going to be sitting in Bobby’s Room any time soon. Take a walk, read a book, go out to dinner. Do something besides this. It’ll make you better at this in the long run.

Good luck guys.

Endurance

2006-06-28T22:30:00.000-05:00

Bad run this afternoon. I drank a cup of coffee and half a bottle of Sprite all day. Had a banana for lunch and a twix for a snack. Then sat on my ass for an hour after work before stretching and running. Poor preperation. And I paid for it after about 20 steps when I realized I had almost no fuel in the tank and I needed to pee, so none of that fluid was in me.

Some how I muddled through at about 12:30 per mile. Two miles. Consistent pace at least. Oh well. One bad run doesn't mean much, and for the first time in a week I'll have two days off in a row, then run Saturday morning with the group. My legs need a rest, but they're clearly much much stronger. A month ago I couldn't run five minutes straight. Now, it's 25.

I've been thinking a lot about endurance this week.

I'm just exhausted from Indy. Gambled out. There wasn't a single game, from the rebuy to screw your neighbor, that I didn't play like blood was on the line. Everyone was the same I think. It was an all star game and no one wanted to look soft. What a fucking blast. And once the money started moving, it was just sick. I'm fairly certain that I won $200 on Saturday just betting flops and playing screw your neighbor. Thank god I don't live near those guys. I'd be broke in a week. Or retired.

The weekend also got me in a great mindset for poker. I feel like I'm thinking about the game well again. I guess having Wonka on your left for five hours will force you to play well I guess.

But then there's the question of endurance. I can play limit games for about six hours before I start making bad decisions. No limit, I can play about an hour and a half. (This is online of course. Live is a different story.) Kinda sucks because I'm into this game and trying to get as many hands in as I can, but you can't play with a bad mindset or it's all gone. And I am very mistake prone at NL when I get tired.

So I'm just pecking along, trying to get hands under my belt, build a base. It would be foolish to dive in without preparation. More than ever, after Indy, I feel incredibly good at this game. Won about $70 last night in my first stab at the $50 game on FT. Tons more six-max NL tables than the last time I was there. 20,000 players on last night. I expect this weekend will be a lot of fun. But too fast, too far, too soon is nothing but a disaster waiting to happen.

Meanwhile, I'm just going to be exhausted, let my mind and my body recover, and think back again on the rush of jamming for $377 vs a guy who had me covered. I knew I had him. I was right. What a fucking rush.

Now that's a good weekend

2006-06-18T20:50:00.000-05:00

What a terrific couple of days, even without air conditioning.

First off, for some reason, I'm just happy I kept the apartment reasonably cool during two 90-ish, humid days. I love this place more and more, and that little trick just makes it better. I'm still getting some a/c as soon as I can though.

Yesterday was the start of my no limit cash experiment. Limit has just grown stale for me. I'm falling into the trap of mechanical play, and after talking with wonka about some hands, I realize my mind is not focused on the situation, just on the five or six rote lines I've picked up.

Besides, if this guy can win at .25 6-max, I have to think a trained monkey could.

Fortunately, I didn't run into any trained monkeys at the Stars tables.

I'd reread Doyle's NL chapter again, totally prepared to completely disregard it and play a tight, equity, value-based game. Instead, I found tables loaded with passive, fit-or-fold types who would call preflop whether it was 1 bb or 5, but then immediately imagine the worst when I continuation-bet the flop.

So I picked up small pot after small pot, and then felt free to gamble when a big pot developed.

So far I'm winning 24 ptbb/100. Totally unsustainable, but even so, I've been stacked or at least gotten all the other guys chips in, four times and lost. So I've done quite a few things right I think.

I lost one big pot that I think encapsulates why I'm liking NL.

Poker Stars
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.10/$0.25
6 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is Button with :ks :ac
2 folds, CO raises to $0.75, Hero raises to $2.25, SB calls, BB folds, CO calls.

Flop: :4d :7h :qh ($7, 3 players)
SB checks, CO bets $1, Hero calls, SB calls.

Turn: :kc ($10, 3 players)
SB checks, CO bets $1, Hero raises to $14, SB calls all-in $13.45, CO calls all-in $4.75.
Uncalled bets: $0.55 returned to Hero.

River: :9h ($42.65, 1 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $27.25, Sidepot 1: $15.4)

Results:
Final pot: $42.65

Lately, this kind of beat is putting me on serious tilt in limit. Here, I made it pretty damn close to unprofitable for the fish on my left (and he was a huge fish) to call. I control the gamble, and I've grown pretty damn good at judging the quality of a bet. Still quite a ways to go, but it's a far cry from when I first tried NL cash games a year-and-a-half ago.

Then, there are calls like this.
Poker Stars
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.10/$0.25
5 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
cbal84: $42.75
CO: $30.85
Button: $25.95
SB: $25.65
BB: $74.05

Pre-flop: (5 players) cbal84 is UTG with :7s :7h
cbal84 raises to $1, 2 folds, SB calls, BB calls.

Flop: :jh :3h :kh ($3, 3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, cbal84 bets $2, SB calls, BB calls.

Turn: :tc ($9, 3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, cbal84 checks.

River: :7c ($9, 3 players)
SB bets $2, BB raises to $17.5, cbal84 calls, SB folds.

Results:
Final pot: $46
BB showed Jd 3d
cbal84 showed 7s 7h

It took me about 40 seconds to gather my thoughts and make the call. Finally, I just thought the BB was too big a donkey to fold a set against. It doesn't bust me to call, and maybe it's easy, but it's a moment I'm not used to in cash games.

I loved it.

I'm gonna stay at the .25 for at least this week, and then move up to .50.

So that was Saturday. And it was more of the same Sunday afternoon.

After breakfast with my family and poker in the afternoon, I just felt gassed. I was due to run 20 minutes today. I haven't run 20 consecutive minutes in a year and a half. A month ago, I could barely run three.

Finally, around 7:30, disgusted with my own chickenshittedness, I dragged my ass off the couch, put on my shoes and was out the door.

I walked up the beach, stretching out my legs and back. Families were still out, a few folks were painting their sections of the benches along the walk (every year folks can paint sections of long concrete benches in Loyola Park. Kinda neat to see new stuff on my runs).

My five minute walk done, I start running. Immediately, my legs feel like crap. The air is still thick and hot, my lungs are burning, and I'm wishing i were home. Can't do it though. Can't quit. I keep putting one leg in front of the other. I get through the park, cut up to Sheridan and then north to Jarvis. Still running. Still haven't stopped.

Turn around at Jarvis. 10 more minutes. Move, keep moving. Back down past the park, staying on Sheridan. My legs are looser now, by tired. Breathing is heavy, but not labored. I'm sweating a ton. Still going though. Past Leona's. Five minutes more. Past the coffee shop, past the African store, One minute more as I pass the White Hen a block north of Columbia. I hit Columbia with 30 seconds and run it out.

I could have gone further.

What a fucking feeling to go as far as you've gone, and feel something left in the tank.

I rewarded myself by walking to the end of the block and jumping in the lake, cool and sweet now as the sun went down, and then walked back to my place, dripping with lake water and sweat.

What a great weekend.

WSEX---Play higher

2006-06-11T18:28:00.000-05:00

At poboy's recommendation, I've been messing around at WSEX and I think there are tremendous benefits. The 100% rakeback essentially provides between 1 and 2.5/100 to your winrate--paid weekly (the breakdown is 2.5/100 at 2/4, 1.7/100 at 3/6 and 1/100 at 5/10). Do the math for your own game here.

What's really exciting about this isn't guaranteed money. Most rakeback is a nice bump at the end of the month, unless you're a 4-tabling pro working 120+hours a week. But even at moderate play levels, 100% rakeback adds so much to your bottom line that it can redefine the limits you can play.

Say you're winning 2.5/100 at 2/4 with a SD of 16, and let's say you're confident that your wr has resolved to a fair degree. But, like me, you've recently had to pull most of your bankroll out to cover some expenses, and you've only got $900 left online. Back to 1/2, right?

Not so fast.

By adding 2.5/100 to your win rate with rakeback, you can radically alter the math behind bankroll requirements. A 5/100 winner at 2/4 only needs a bankroll of 136 BB to play 2/4 with a .5% risk of ruin. That's less than $600. If you feel like gamboooling up and taking a 3% ror, you only need 90 BB. Think about the implications here.

Even if you're playing 3/6, with a WR of around 2.2/100 and an SD of 16/100, you can keep your BR under 150 BB. Less than $900 to play 3/6.

Eventually, up around 5/10 or 10/20, the RB isn't going to be that big a deal relative to game quality because the RB as a percentage of WR is going to diminish. I'd say you need to be at least a 1/100 winner at 5/10 to make the play worthwhile, but through 5/10, this is bankroll-building heaven for winning players.

The most delightful thing is that even the fish, who will go broke no matter what, are propped up because each week they get the same 1-2.5/100 back into their accounts too.

So far, the games are reasonably tight, but the players are laggy and erratic. Tons of people, especially euros, love to limp-reraise or make strange plays like limp on the button behind an open-limp, but then three-bet when the BB raises. You'll see some strange plays, but if you've got some brass and don't get weak-tight, good players will find plenty of opportunity to profit.

They also only spread 5-max, instead of 6-, along with their full games. Full games are frequently shorthanded though, and if, like me, you don't mind mixing full and short, it's got plenty of good tables.

Traffic is low, but steady at between 900 and 1,300 people. We can only hope it grows though. I'm making it home, at least for the short term.

Hung juror

2006-06-10T01:21:00.000-05:00

So I had the pleasure of performing my civic duty these last two days by serving on a jury and quickly convicting someone of a crime he surely committed.

I actually didn't mind getting called. It's kind of a hassell to haul myself from the far north side down to 26th and Cal (Chicagoese for ghetto jail), but whatever. I didn't figure I'd get picked. Given that I've sat in hundreds of courtrooms, know cops and lawyers, am related, have been convicted of a crime and am also capable of critical thought, I didn't figure I would be a good prospect.

The case itself was boring as shit. The guy, with a partner, did a smash and grab in a Home Depot parking lot. The store manager was eating lunch in his car and saw the guy do it. The cops pulled him over three blocks and five minutes later, and found the tools in the backseat of his car. He should have just put a sign in his window announcing "Thief here." It took us all of ten minutes to convict him. Four of those minutes were spent picking a foreman.

What was amazing though was that through this entire two day deal, everyone was bitching about the time it was taking out of our lives, the hassel, blah blah. Then we convict the guy, and people want to sit around for another 10 minutes hashing it out. As if the absence of DNA might point to his innocence. He had the motherfucking tools in his backseat. Then after we've delivered the verdict, the judge comes back to thank us before we're dismissed and everyone has 20 questions. It was at least another hour before we're finally out the door. The after-conviction shit lasted longer than the defense's entire case.

I realized afterwards, these people felt guilty.

We were all going home for the weekend to various things. Donald Gatewood was going to spend 6-28 years behind bars (this was his 6th offense).

It was a bit of a train wreck for folks I think, and they wanted to linger, not go home and explain it. It was odd.

Why am I rambling about my boring ass two days? Well for one thing, I had plenty of time to digest Cappellietti's Omaha book. Look out omaha donks.

But for another, I realized sitting while we chatted with the judge, that I had no remorse at all about what happened. One guy, Mike, black guy in his late 20s, worked a delivery job and lived on the south side, was really kinda busted up about it. The defendent was black, both the public defenders were black, and Mike said when the judge said guilty all three looked straight at him.

I couldn't have felt less guilty. Which is odd for me. There was a time I would have looked for reasons not to convict. Would have wanted to know about his history, his background. Why did he do it?

Whatever.

Guy jammed in all his money with rags and got busted. I could care less. Next.

It's disturbing how poker slithers into all these corners in my head.

Running good....oh I get it. Lame.

2006-06-05T22:12:00.000-05:00

Welcome to bad pun-ville, population: me.

I figure to spend nice long summer playing cards and training for the half-marathon. Might as well keep a place for any random thoughts that may come through.

The big problem right now is this horrible run I've hit. Two weeks ago, I had about $3200 spread over three sites. One $1,200 car repair bill, a bad run at $3/$6 short and a horrible attempt at learning PLO8 by starting at the $50 game while on some kind of hideous perma-tilt and I think I have a total of $1300 in action. And that's including my WSEX payout of today.

So it's time to rebuild.

In truth, that's fine. For once, I've got a nice paying job, my expenses are under control and I don't need the money. Those of you who know me may not realize that I needed the money back in November and December. And relying on 2/4 and some $24 tournaments for enough income to cover the games is not a comfortable place to be.

So, time to grind again. Time to give a little bit less of a crap about poker. And especially it's teach my body how to run 13 miles in two hours. And maybe in between learn me how to catch some fish on a fly.

Should be a fun summer.