threebet33

2007-01-06T11:25:00.000-08:00

Well, 2006 has come and gone like a thief in the night. I'm a year older, with a little more money in the bank, and I live in house rather than an apartment, but other than that, things aren't much different from a year ago.

With my mediocre results the past few months of the 2006, I've been afraid to look at the bottom line on the ol' spreadsheet. Just looking now, though, and I see that I had another very good year, one much better than I could have had at any "real" job.

I did not do as well as I did in 2005, however. I got real close! Temporarily, at least. The first week of October, I got within 2% of my 2005 total, but then that's when it all went to shit, and I finished with a year that was 20% less profitable. On the other hand, I put in about 2/3s of the hours I did in 2005, mostly due to my extended breaks this year, and so I actually had an overall hourly rate in 2006 that was about 20% higher.

I think the biggest change of course was my lack of live play.

Year / Live Hours / Online Hours
2005 / 580.9 / 600.5
2006 / 181.0 / 609.5

I wish I could say I did something productive with those 400 saved hours of live play, but no. The funniest (and perhaps somewhat depressing) thing is that I spent 181 hours playing live and walked way with a grand total of....$207. Yes, I made $1.14/hour in my live game play this year. Of course, that includes tournament play, and I did drop quite a bit in live tournaments. My live cash game results are about 90% of my table hours and some X thousand percent of my total live profits.

Last year I made it a goal to play in more tournaments. I did play in more, but I failed in what was my quest to actually go to these exotic places to play, like Aruba. And by fail I mean I didn't even try. So I'm not even going to hazard a guess as to what I'm going to try to do this year. There are scenarios that have me winning millions (1st in the WSOP ME of course, why not?) and scenarios that have me winning $0 (Tibetan monk). So who knows. If I had to guess right now, I'd say the likeliest scenarios are much closer to that $0 figure, as I'm about ready to put poker on the back burner. All I need is something else to go on the front burner...

2006-12-13T20:14:00.000-08:00

I feel like I take more breaks than I play sometimes, but I'm going back on break. And this isn't a week- or two-week-long break, but more like the break I took earlier this year where I was off for two months. It's more like a sabbatical.

I have no clue how long I'll be away from poker, but it's clear I just need to get far, far away once again. Maybe I'm just developing a routine where I play for six months then take two months off then repeat. Or maybe I'm winding down the poker-playing phase of my life. I don't know.

What I do know is that I can no longer concentrate, can no longer make good decisions (or am afraid to act on what I think is a right decision) and I no longer have the proper respect for my bankroll. And all the while, I have lots of personal problems and issues popping up that are just distracting me more (not to mention they're much more important).

And unlike my last break (100/200 PLO, anyone?) I mean it this time. I'm in the process of cashing out my online bankroll, what little is left at least--even during my two-month break earlier this year I kept my online roll in tact. I'm going to distance myself from poker as much as possible for what might turn out to be only one month, or for what might a lot longer.

And unlike my last extended break, I hope to do more than just sit around not playing poker. This will hopefully be a much more active break; cliched as it may be, I'm hoping to do a lot of soul-searching and traveling. I don't think I'm going to run off to Tibet and become a monk, but really, I can't promise that I won't.

So there will be very little poker on here in the coming months, and really might not be much of anything. I'll certainly update if anything interesting or exciting happens. But $18k pots in NL and bluff-capping the river in limit are put on hold indefinitely.

2006-12-10T20:40:00.000-08:00

I hate to sound like a broken record these last two months or so, but my bad run continues. I'm not vacillating wildly or anything like that, I'm just slowly, but surely, losing. PLO, NLHE, whatever. I'm certainly running bad, but I think I might just have to face the fact that I'm playing badly, too. I've lost focus and motivation. And, most importantly, confidence.

Maybe post-Party, the online games are tough enough that I should pursue other options. Like playing live a lot more often. Or even *gasp* moving on from poker into other things. Poker never was a life-long goal of mine, just another step in the road.

I've never been one to be able to sit still because if I do I get bored real quick. So maybe it is just time for the next phase in my life. We'll see, we'll see.

I hate being so melancholy (again), but that's just where I am right now.

2006-12-04T21:46:00.000-08:00

A scant week and a half after my brief but profitable shot at 100/200 PLO, I took another shot at a big game, 25/50 NL. Not quite as big, perhaps, but I managed to actually play for a few hours, in the meantime playing the biggest pot of my life.

My friend and I showed up at the Bellagio looking for some live poker action to break the monotony of online play. It was a slow night. The 10/20 had already broken (the first time I'd ever seen that happen) and the 5/10 was going on one table but was the only game that had a waiting list. There appeared to be seats at 15/30 and 30/60 limit, but...it's limit.

Well, our only other option was 25/50 NL. My friend was hesitant. I was a little worried, myself. Neither of us had played that high before.

"Look, I don't want to play crappy limit where I won't care but could still lose a lot and we can't get into the 5/10 game so I either want to take a shot at the 25/50 or just totally donk around at the 8/16," I told him.

"I'm not playing 8/16."

"Then 25/50 it is, c'mon."

We each bought in for $4k in a game where the typical stack was closer to $15k. We continued to show our noobness by each posting only one green chip to come in. "This is going to be fun," I remember thinking.

I didn't make much of a splash for the first couple rounds, until one particular hand. UTG limps. A bunch of other people limp. I check my BB with 5h3h. The flop comes 4c 6h 7h. SB checks. I check. BB leads for pot, about $300. Folds around to the SB who calls. I check-raise to $1000. UTG moves all-in. SB folds. Well, if he limped 74 UTG, more power to him...I call. He rolls over AhKh. I have visions of going home after only 20 minutes of playing. However, my hand holds up and I double up to about $8k.

Hmm...maybe I should go home anyways?

Hell no! I'm here to play. So feeling a bit more confident, I go through a few more rounds as my stack gets whittled down a bit with a couple check-folds on the flop in multi-way, raised pots. Then with $5650 in front of me and the table covering, I run into the biggest hand of my poker career so far.

A few limpers and a good player who's been playing it really loose and aggressive in position raises to $300. I'm in the SB and look down to see AsKs. I reraise to $900 fully expecting to take down the pot right there. But UTG calls, MP calls, and LP shakes his head and throws in his $600 call.

Flop ($3650): Ah 7s 4d. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough reads on the players to try to get tricky. The last thing I wanted was for it to check around and then be stuck OOP in a big pot with one pair on a potentially scary board. I had to bet. But how much? I wanted to bet close to pot, but I only had $4750 left. A pot-sized bet is already 3/4 of my stack. I could do a half-pot bet, but screw it! All-in! I open push.

At this point I figured my hand was face-up, and would only be called if one of my opponents hit their set. UTG immediately counted out $4750 and then started looking at the stacks of the two players to act behind him. Uh-oh. He thought a bit, what seemed to me to be him deciding whether to just call or raise. He must have 77 or 44, I thought. Ultimately, he decided to only call.

MP was next to act and immediately groaned (as I would find out, he was also quite a terrible player, or at least he played terribly that night). He took time to think for a bit. Given that my hand was essentially face up and UTG called I had to put him on quite a hand, too. Did he flop two pair? A7s or A4s? Does he have 44 and afraid enough of UTG's antics that he thinks his bottom set is no good? Finally he called, too, while LP turbo-mucked. The dealer raked it all into the pot. I started deciding whether after the hand I should donate my last few blue chips to the dealer or cash them out. Then I figure, well, one of them could have a straight draw and the other AJ or something...

Turn ($17,900): (Ah 7s 4d) Jc. I groaned a little more inside. But then something baffling happened. Check, check. Wha? Now I know one of them has 65. The dealer prepares to deal the river. No 8, no 3, no 8, no 3, no 8, no 3...

River ($17,900): (Ah 7s 4d Jc) 9d. Check, check. MP was already shaking his head.

Still expecting to lose I flipped my cards over, and kind of shrugged as if to say, "as advertised." MP mucked and later said he had 65. UTG, who I fully expected to roll over at least two pair or something, sat there and looked at the board, looked at me, looked back at the board, looked at his cards, looked out into space a bit, then back at the board and finally released his hand.

I didn't believe it until the dealer pulled his cards into muck and $17,900 was shipped my way, in multiple shoves. I started shaking. And smiling. And stacking and stacking.

I wish I could say I walked out of there $14k richer, but you win some and you lose some, and I was done with winning some for that day. I completely air-balled a few raised pots, made a terrible play when I paid off a super-tight guy's full house on the river when I had a flush. I flopped an OESD+FD against a guy's TPTK and we got it all in (I had him well covered) only to watch his hand hold up. My stack whittled, whittled, whittled down and finally around 8am I left, still up, but nowhere near as up as I had been.

As a coda, despite having to practically cajole my friend into playing, he went on to play in that game each of the next few days, doing very well, and then went on to LA where he sat at 50/100. I, meanwhile, have played one short session of live 10/20 since.

2006-12-01T17:55:00.000-08:00

August and September were back to back "best month ever"'s but then Party went under for US players some time around Oct 12/13 or so. Poker has been very hit-or-miss for me since then. The two weeks before they cut off all us US players was a break-even grind.

Then afterwards I decided that not only would I play different sites, I'd play different games! Limit hold'em, MTTs of all varieties, SnGs, limit O8, PLO8, PLO, as long as it wasn't NLHE it was all fair game. I even played some small stakes online mix games.

Playing new games along with playing very intermittently left me with the least-busy month of the year (outside my extended break in April/May) but also a break-even month (technically very slightly losing). I found out things I already knew, or at least should have known:

*I no longer have the right mindset to be a successful LHE player, at least at the online stakes of 30/60 or higher. Even 20/40 might be iffy at this point.

* I don't have the patience or experience to legitimately contend in most MTTs. Specifically, bubble play and final table play kill me.

* I am a break-even SnG player, at least at the level that would potentially make me any sort of decent money, that is the 109s or higher.

* I hate, hate, hate limit O8, and hate PLO8.

* PLO, on the other hand, intrigues me.

* Mix games are a fun diversion, but it would take me a very, very long time before I can play them at a level higher than, say, 3/6ish online or 10/20ish live. And I'm not sure I'd want to anyways--the attraction of "big bet" poker is simply too much.

So towards the end of October I started focusing more on PLO. Then into November I played mostly PLO, with one last desperate attempt at limit thrown in. I was on vacation from Nov 15-25 and played nothing, but came right back to...PLO. And despite my brief foray into 100/200 PLO, I've been staying primarily at the online 2/4 level, with some 3/6 and a very occasional 5/10 thrown in.

People have always told me that PLO plays bigger than NLHE and now I see that's definitely true. 2/4 PLO feels very much like 3/6 NLHE, which is to say it's possibly to do very well at seemingly small stakes.

At the very end of November I returned to NL, trying 3/6 at the various sites. I've gotten slightly rusty and it shows--missing value bets, folding to bluffs, calling when beat. But I've run decently and have pulled a small net win out of my NL play.

But still November ended as another slightly losing month--I think the first time I've ever had two losing months in a row (although, given the stakes I play, they're essentially break-even). I did pretty well at PLO, did ok at NL...but my 30/60 LHE play absolutely killed me.

And I lost this month despite taking a shot at 25/50 NL at the Bellagio! Trip report to come by Monday.

2006-11-26T11:50:00.000-08:00

Didn't mean to take so long. I was out of town for a week and a half but I figured I'd get to posting part II anyways, but I didn't. Whoops.

Trip Report: Laser Eye Surgery, Part II.

All I know is the next thing I know, my eyes are being yanked open and there's half of a blurry, upside-down face looming above me.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Siems, I'm here to do the surgery." And without any hesitation, suddenly my eyeballs are clamped by what felt like industrial-strength vises.

And so it began.

Words were scarce. In fact, although there were probably some, I can't remember a single word exchanged between doctor and assistant. And aside from one exchange, the only words said to me were two commands, repeated over and over.

"Lean your head back."

"Look down, at the light"

Drugged up as I was, I was having trouble following those simple instructions. I'd tilt my head back and feel like I was holding it there doing a good job, but five seconds later I'd hear it again, "Lean your head back," and I'd realized that somehow my chin had slipped down again. I spent the next day talking to others who had the surgery, and it seemed as though that was a common problem among them, as well. Perhaps a brace of some kind is in order?

The procedure is pretty quick. Each eye only takes a few minutes. The eye is propped open. Then a flap is cut on the surface of the eye. Many doctors use an actual instrument, called a microkeratome, to cut this flap. The doctor I chose uses a laser to cut this flap, called IntraLase. After the flap is cut, it is moved back, so the laser can then be shot into the eye to reshape the cornea. After that, the flap is smoothed back down, and it's onto the next eye.

The entire procedure is supposed to be painless, although sometimes the eye being propped open can be somewhat uncomfortable. For me it definitely was. In fact, I just found a site that instead of using cute, harmless illustrations like most places, has actual pictures of the procedure being done. If I'd seen that site before having my eyes done, I might have lost my resolve.

So my right eye was propped open, and that was pretty uncomfortable. Then the flap was cut, and an instrument was used by the doctor to fold the flap back. Uncharacteristically, however, I could feel that as well! It wasn't overly painful, but I'm a squeamish guy with respects to that kind of stuff--that is stuff touching my eyeball. The eye-puff part of any eye exam is more than I can generally handle. It was quite a hurdle for me to even agree to having the surgery done. Actually feeling instruments on my eyeball had me trying to escape on the table.

Literally, I was trying to escape. I tried to clench my eyes, but they were propped open uncomfortably, and trying to fight the props made it hurt even worse. I kicked my legs, and would have sat up probably if I wasn't so drugged up (and who knows, perhaps I was restrained in some way, as well). I of course vocalized my discomfort using all the grunts in my arsenal.

Then came the laser. My eye was watering and uncomfortable at this point, and it was hard to keep my eye focused on the light. "Look down, at the light." And I did, but like keeping my head back, five seconds later, somehow my eye had lost it again. "Lean your head back. Now look down at the light." Okay, okay, okay, I'm trying.

The laser was red and round and dull except for when one looked right at it at which point it might as well have been the sun, or at least the sun viewed through somewhat tinted windows. I would look at it, and then it would slip away from my vision. Why did it keep doing that? "Look down, at the light!" Oh, right...

Finally that was done, and I got the distinct pleasure of feeling someone smooth the flap back down onto my eye, much like someone rubbing their hand on your arm, except it's on your eyeball. Yuck.

The clamps were removed and my eye mercifully shut closed, watering excessively. I had a fews seconds of relief, thinking it was over, but then my left eye was clamped open and it all happened again. This time it was more painful. Rather than merely feeling it somewhat at a distance, the cutting of the flap and the folding it back was now actually painful. Not extremely painful, but how much pain in one's eye does it take for one to be very, very uncomfortable and unhappy? I lurched around on the bed some more.

"Stop kicking."

"I can feel that!"

"No you can't."

"Yes, I can feel that!"

"You're squinting your eyes, that's what's causing it to hurt."

"I. Can. Fucking. Feel it."

"It's almost over."

It was red light time again, and my left eye was watering even worse than my right was. It was futile trying to focus on the light, as after two seconds, the light again slipped away to the edge of my vision. Being clamped open and unable to blink, my eye was on fire.

"There's only 10 seconds left, please just focus on the light."

No chance. Finally, they squirted stuff into my eye. Suddenly I was able to focus on the light, and when it came time to smooth down the flap, I could see that they were doing it, but I couldn't feel it. At all.

Then it was all done and the next thing I knew I was being led into the post-op room. My vision was blurry for the few times I tried having my eyes open, and it hurt some to have them open anyways, so I resolved to just keep my eyes closed.

Two of my friends were there. Apparently they'd arrived in time to watch the procedure through the glass. Their reaction was something like this:

"Wow. I'm never having that done."

My eyes were squeezed shut. I had on eye covers. Over that, I had on sunglasses. Over those, I put my hands. Yet when I was led out into the sunlight, it felt like my eyes were being pricked with needles. The pamphlet said, "there will be some sensitivity to light immediately following the procedure." No shit.

My friends drove me home, fed me and put me right to bed. It was over.

*****

Needless to say, the next day I was not too happy. I was promised no pain, and yet there had been plenty of pain. I talked to my friends about it. They said after I had the numbing drops put in when I first entered the operating room, I was laying there for about 45 minutes. The nurse had told me, of course, that the drops would last about 30 minutes. Oops.

There was a 24-hour follow-up appointment. I went, and the waiting room was filled with people carefully moving about, all wearing the cheap sunglasses they give you for the "slight" light sensitivity. I talked to some other patients who had their eyes done the same day as me. One woman also felt pain. She had a slightly different procedure done, one that took two different lasers in different rooms. In the first room she had the same thing done I had but didn't feel anything. Then she was moved to a second room where she had to wait a while and when she was finally worked on, she was feeling pain.

I of course didn't see Dr. Siems, but other doctors in the practice. I told one about the fact that I was on the table waiting for 45 minutes before I was worked on, and how I could feel pain. She seemed genuinely apologetic, and told me that for some other procedures they keep track of when the numbing drops are administered, but for the Lasik, they don't (although, she said, they probably should). Hmm...that seems negligent to me.

*****

So how is it? It's been over two weeks, and so far, so good. The first few days were pretty bad. It wasn't painful, but my vision was very, very hazy. Not blurry, but hazy. They tested my vision during that follow-up visit and said I was seeing slightly better than 20/20. However, lights, especially lights in pretty dark environments, were problematic. All lights had heavy halos around them. The best I can describe it is it's like how things look right after swimming for a long time in a heavily-chlorinated pool. Driving at night, especially in such a flashy place as Las Vegas, was quite the experience.

Over time my eyes improved. Now, there's still halos but they're very, very, slight. I actually have to concentrate to realize I still see them a bit. My vision still seems excellent. Another follow-up appointment is scheduled for tomorrow, so we'll see if my vision has changed much since the day after--some people have their vision slowly improve over a matter of a couple weeks. I had one friend go from 20/30 the day after to 20/15 after a few weeks.

The only other annoyance with the procedure, besides spending a week with all the visual effects of a weak acid trip (but, alas, none of the mental), was the eye drops. For the first week, I had prescription eye drops. 30 a day. So, on average, every half hour while I was awake I had to be putting in some kind of drops. But that's only for a week. Now, the only drops I have to put in are over-the-counter moisturizing drops. My use of them went from hourly, to every two hours, and now I'm down to about once every four hours or so, even in such a dry climate as Las Vegas, and spending half my awake hours staring at a computer screen.

Despite the clear lack of organization on the part of the office--everything from simply not looking at my file, to letting the numbing drops wear off before doing the procedure--I'm happy with the results. I can see and I'm free of glasses. My experience is downright atypical, as I know a few people who've had the procedure, and not a one experienced any pain. So hopefully I didn't scare off too many people who were considering having Lasik done. You just may want to try a different doctor than me.

*****

Next post will be back to poker. I'll update on what I've been doing (drastic cut in playing hours, playing almost exclusively PLO) and also give a trip report of my brief shot at 25/50 NL at the Bellagio. And I promise it won't take me 12 days to get around to it.

2006-11-14T09:39:00.000-08:00

I got tired about halfway through, so I'm splitting this into two parts. I'll get around to part two within the next few days.

Trip Report: Laser Eye Surgery, Part I.

So at 10:30am on Thursday the 9th I show up at Siems Advanced Lasik & Eye Center prepared to have my eyes zapped. The theme of the day would be "disorganization."

I talk to the girl at the front counter and am asked "are you having surgery today?" Why yes, yes I am. I'm then given a short stack of papers to fill out--medical history, emergency contact info, insurance info, signatures, etc. Except...that I filled out the exact same forms on my previous visit. But whatever, I fill them out again. They then take a $100 deposit, for whatever reason.

I'm then led into the back for my eye exam. I'm again asked, "Are you having surgery today?" Yeeeesssss. Then, "When was the last time you had your eyes examined?" Oh about a month ago, you know, last time I was in here? "Ohhh, let me go get your file."

After the cursory eye exam, I'm led to another room where a doctor comes in, again asks me if I'm having surgery today, and then proceeds to give me a more in-depth exam. This one included numbing my eyeballs so they could perform some up close and personal tests. I have to say, I've never had numb eyeballs before, and it was quite the experience. I didn't even realize I could feel my eyeballs until I couldn't any more. Walking around after that second eye exam, I just wanted to stop people as they went past, grab them by the shoulders and exclaim, "this....is so....WEIRD!!!" But I restrained myself.

At this point, I'm led back into the head salesman/negotiator's office where he asks if I have any more questions and we talk money. Like a good salesman, he of course gets me to give a price first.

Me: "I just wanted to double-check the price again."

Him: "Did we quote you a price before?"

Me: "Yes"

Him: "What did we quote you? It's probably gone up since the last time we talked."

I tell him what I was quoted.

Him: "Oh, that's a thousand off our regular price, but I'll tell you what, we'll let you have it at that price, with the thousand off."

Me, thinking he'd say that even if I had said the quoted price was a million dollars: "..."

I'm then led into the small pre-op room, where the lights are low and soothing music is playing. I'm given Valium and Xanax. I sit in a comfy chair. I then wait. Finally I'm led into the operating room.

This room is large and well-lit and very white, with a rather cold-looking table in the center, straddled by two medium-sized hunks of machinery that I assume are the lasers. One side of the room has a large glass pane in place of the wall, so observers can watch. I'm feeling pretty nifty at this point thanks to being doped up more than I've ever been since high school. Another assistant is there and I begin talking/flirting with her even though looking back on it she probably wasn't too flirt-worthy. From her reactions, she felt the same about me. She administers more eye-numbing drops, and I ask her how long the numbing will last. "Oh about 30 minutes." Doped up as I was, I very may have replied, "grooovy."

She lays me down on the table, and the room is freezing, so I'm given a big stuffed dog named Daisy to hold and a blanket to cover me. I'm told to lay down and relax and the doctor will be in shortly. Laying down, under a blanket and drugged up, I close my eyes and just enjoy the random thoughts going through my head. I may very well have fallen asleep, although it's hard to say. All I know is the next thing I know, my eyes are being yanked open and there's half of a blurry, upside-down face looming above me.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Siems, I'm here to do the surgery." And without any hesitation, suddenly my eyeballs are clamped by what felt like industrial-strength vises.

And so it began.

To be continued...

2006-11-06T03:47:00.000-08:00

So somehow during my break I've managed to have the worst downswing of my poker career.

I took a few days off then tried some PLO, as described in the last post. It went okay, so I tried it again the next day. I got slaughtered.

Took a few more days off. Then decided to give LHE a try. Had a decent first day. Gave it a try the next day. Another slaughter.

Took a few more days off. Tried some SNGs last night. Let's just say I'm now 0 for 3 in my non-NLHE games.

So the past (almost) month I've played about 1/4 the number of hands I normally play and have managed to lose more money then I ever have before, peak to valley. Arrgh! I need Party Poker back! I can't beat any other sites! Full Tilt, Stars, Absolute--all rigged dammit.

I'd post hands but I've whined enough. Just two and three outers up the wazoo, a nice gutshot straight flush coming in against my top full house, and really, so many more I can't even remember specific hands any more. Blarg.

In other news, I'm scheduled to have laser eye surgery on Thursday. So maybe once I do that I can finally take a real break before I maul my bankroll so much I have to start playing 2/4 LHE again.

2006-10-25T01:11:00.000-07:00

Just because I'm on break doesn't mean I'm not railbirding games. The last week or so I've gotten into the habit of watching a bunch of games, sometimes four or six at a time. 200/400NL, 1000/2000 limit, and so forth. And I don't only watch the "big" versions of the games I play--I'll pull up some limit O8 or PLO tables and check them out, too, despite my hatred for all things Omaha.

In fact, while watching a PLO table the other night, I noticed a very big fish playing. I'm a horrendous Omaha player, so when I notice someone is playing badly, it means they're playing VERY badly. He had to have been playing 80% of his hands, and was calling huge river bets with one pair, that sort of stuff. I had no choice. I had to play.

Oh, did I mention this was 100/200 PLO?

Screw it, I'm going on the waiting list! (Not surprisingly the game was full and not budging.) While on the waiting list, I took stock of my previous PLO experience. Let's see...there were those .25/.50 $40 buy-in silly games I played with friends...there was that one half hour I played 2/4 PLO on Party 6 months ago...and that's about it.

It would be silly of me to just go from about 500 hands of PLO experience to playing 100/200. I'm smarter than that. So while waiting, I fired up a few tables of 2/4 and 3/6 to learn me some valuable experience.

One hour, and a few buyins later (in the wrong direction) it was my turn. Time to play.

I sit into the full six-max game, to the immediate right of the fish, who had gone through a few buyins before getting particularly lucky and running up a big stack, that was again slowly leaking away. I'd been watching the game all along, and knew exactly how to play him. Against anyone else, play for the nuts. Against him, value-bet, value-bet, value-bet, but fold any non-nut hand if he actually perks up and raises. Easy, right?

Not wanting to risk too much on this speculative venture, I only buy in for $8k. Okay, that might sound like a lot to some, but I was tied as the smallest stack at the table, compared to stacks of $19k, $20k, $36k and $57k. If there's a better way to broadcast, "hey guys, I'm just an incompetent fish taking a shot waaaay above my skill level and bankroll!" I can't think of it.

I fold my first ten hands. That's one good thing about playing way, way higher than one should--one has absolutely no desire to play those pretty-looking but crappy hands like when one is too comfortable at the present stakes.

But then I'm dealt AAJ6 with a suited A. Well, I'm here to play...

Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $100/$200
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $8000
Hero: $7400
CO: $41342
Button: $13191
SB: $28174
BB: $57168

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is UTG+1 with Ac Js 6s As
UTG folds, Hero raises to $700, CO folds, Button calls, SB calls, BB calls.

Flop: Qd 2c 8s ($2800, 4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks, Button checks.

Turn: Th ($2800, 4 players)
SB bets $2800, BB folds, Hero folds, Button folds.
Uncalled bets: $2800 returned to SB.

Results:
Final pot: $2800

Er...well I guess if there's any kind of flop to bet in Omaha with a one-pair, no draw hand in a four-way pot, that's it. But my general instinct in multiway pots is to flop either a really strong hand or a nut draw (preferably both) or get out. Especially when I'm playing a game over 30 times bigger than I ever have before. So I checked and I think had a pretty easy fold on the turn. Being results oriented, a flop bet very well might have taken it down, but who knows if that's the right play in general. I'm sure there are a million people out there who know how to play better than I do, so feel free to chime in.

I had a few more folds, one hand where I saw a free flop from the BB and won it with an uncontested flop bet, another blind-battle hand where we each flopped three-pair, got all-in and chopped, won the blinds once, and then after feeling a bit more comfortable, I had two more interesting hands.

Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $100/$200
5 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $7500
CO: $4499
Button: $33466
SB: $53168
Hero: $7396

Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is BB with Kc 4h 2h Tc
CO folds, Button raises to $700, SB folds, Hero calls.

Flop: 9c 3d 2c ($1500, 3 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $1500, Hero raises to $6000, Button folds.
Uncalled bets: $4500 returned to Hero.

Results:
Final pot: $4500

Yay? Nay? All I know is it worked that time...

Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $100/$200
4 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $5496
Button: $52068
SB: $9598
Hero: $9094

Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is BB with 2c 3c 8s Kd
2 folds, SB calls, Hero checks.

Flop: 7c Jc Qc ($400, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $400, SB calls.

Turn: 5h ($1200, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks.

River: 5s ($1200, 2 players)
SB bets $1200, Hero calls.

Results:
Final pot: $3600
SB showed 3d Qd 9c Jd
Hero showed 2c 3c 8s Kd

So my baby flush was good. I think I may have lucked into playing the above hand well, although I'm certainly open to other opinions from anyone who actually knows the game.

But yeah, by then the fish had left, and the table was breaking down. After paying my small blind, we were down to three-handed--me and two regulars who were also in the 200/400 PLO game. I may be developing a bit of a gambling streak, but I'm not that far gone (yet). With a strict eye on my EV, I left the table after folding my button.

And the final result? 20 minutes. 22 hands (was that it? Felt like 2200). And a decent $2800 profit. Most of which I promptly dumped back in a mix of 2/4 and 3/6 PLO games, a big tourney, and some 3/6 and 5/10 NLH games. Yay, poker!

And just like that, I'm back on break.

2006-10-21T16:30:00.002-07:00

I am officially on break. Again. The last nearly 5 months or so have been very profitable, but very taxing, as I've put in many, many hands. The last month has been break-even and I'm just not feeling it any more. Can't really describe it better than that.

All I know is that when I take some time off--maybe a week, maybe a few weeks--I often come back with a lot more focus and resolve. And, ultimately, I'd like to aviod completely burning out on NL like I did on limit earlier this year.

So no clue when I'll be back to playing, but I doubt it'll be too long--probably early November.

2006-10-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

LA was a roller-coaster ride of the most depressing sort. Up, up, up! Down, down, down....splat.

I played a little 40/80, but the majority of my time was spent at the 60/120 games. Friday's lineup was spectacular, with five- and six-way raised pots the norm. With an excellent read on all the players and a bit of gamble in me, I was able to LAG my way to my biggest casino win ever. Having a big pocket pair every fourth hand or so and having them hold up 90% of the time doesn't hurt, either.

Saturday was a break-even grind.

Then there was Sunday. Sunday's lineup was almost as good as Friday's. Fewer weak spots, but it featured one super-LAG of about 80/40 in online parlance. She had the pattern-mapper that night, though, as she won over $20,000 with the most unbelievable run of cards ever. A classic see-you-at-the-river player, she would chase the ace, chase her gutshots and never, ever, miss. 24o open-limped from the cutoff? Good after capping the flop with bottom pair and hitting two pair on the river. That type of player.

Apparently a semi-regular at those games, the other regulars had many stories of her running up huge stacks and then giving them back. So I waited. And waited. And waited. But the magic never left her, while simultaneously I shot over from where I was on Friday at the way right-hand side of the bell curve to the very far reaches on the left. Nothing won, nothing held up, no draws hit. I kept rebuying. And rebuying. Waiting for a hand to hold up, anything. In the end the damage was enormous, and I was left with an exact mirror-image session from the one on Friday--Sunday represented my worst casino loss, ever. Final overall tally: dead fucking even.

What an abrupt reminder as to why I stopped playing live limit hold'em and got into online NL.

RIP, PartyPoker.

2006-10-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

A bit tired of NL, I decided to have another limit session. But 15/30 and 20/40 are so boooring. I want something that will keep me interested. Hmmm. I know! I should multi-table 100/200 on Party for 5 hours!

I never even played that back when I was playing limit for a living. But I tried it. And wow, I had fun. Yes, that means I won. But I like games where people's mistakes are in being too aggressive. Maybe I've just become too much of a gambler, but games like that are so much more fun.

Example of a fun hand:

Party Poker Limit Holdem Ring game
Limit: $100/$200
6 players Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $2700.50
UTG+1: $21970.50
CO: $2695
Button: $8216
SB: $3981
Hero: $5111

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is BB with Qs Js
UTG raises, 4 folds, Hero calls.

Flop: Kh 6s 2s (4.5SB, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets, Hero raises, UTG calls.

Turn: Ac (4.25BB, 2 players)
Hero bets, UTG raises, Hero calls.

River: 7c (8.25BB, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets, Hero calls.

Results:
Final pot: 10.25BB
UTG shows Ts Qh
Hero shows Js Qs

QJ-high good! I had a read, dammit. Another hand:

Stack sizes:
UTG: $19743.75
UTG+1: $6588.50
CO: $3856.50
Hero: $4746.75
SB: $1192.62
BB: $2783.50

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is Button with Th 7h
2 folds, CO raises, Hero 3-bets, 2 folds, CO calls.

Flop: Kc 3d 9c (7.5SB, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets, CO calls.

Turn: Jh (4.75BB, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets, CO calls.

River: 3c (6.75BB, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets, CO calls.

Results:
Final pot: 8.75BB
Hero shows 7h Th
CO shows Ac 7d

Donkeys who can't fold high-cards...tsk, tsk. Although, I bet if the river didn't pair the board he would have folded. At least no one can accuse me of not being able to cultivate an image.

Anyways, in a few hours I'm off to LA until Monday. I was going to just play the 10/20 and maaaaybe 20/40 NL games out there, but now I'm considering playing the 40/80 and 100/200 games as well. Not because I want to switch back to limit, but variety is good. Wish me luck.

2006-10-09T00:23:00.000-07:00

With the future of internet poker completely up in the air, you'd think I'd be playing all I can. In fact, that was my original plan. But I played Wednesday night and Thursday night and walked away with a small loss and a medium loss, respectively. Not because of suckouts or being generally card-dead, but because of a lack of concentration and motivation on my part. I simply couldn't get into the games enough to be profitable. I haven't played since.

For a while now, I've wanted to explore other avenues. I have some money to get a business or two started. So maybe this whole bill is finally giving me an excuse and reason to finally move on with my life. Or, I dunno, maybe I just need another extended break. Or both.

2006-10-04T21:54:00.000-07:00

Wow. If this goes through, I guess I can expect my current average of two out-of-town houseguests a month to, oh I dunno, triple? Quadruple? Maybe I can start charging...

Included in that article are some of the most intelligent things I've heard anyone of any mainstream polticial or religious affliation say with regards to marijuana:

"But our marijuana laws are not curbing marijuana use and they are causing more harm than good by filling the pockets of dangerous criminals and ensuring that children have the easiest access of anyone," she said...

"One of the roles of religion is to point out hypocrisy in society. By any means, marijuana is less dangerous to individuals and society than alcohol," Scheuneman said...

"Marijuana doesn't cause this disregard for human life. Our marijuana laws do," Woodson said...

Of course I don't actually expect the measure to pass, if only because governments historically don't do anything intelligent until long after the governed have overwhelmingly figured things out for themselves.

Then there's this tidbit:

The newest version [of the initiative] imposes a $45 per ounce excise tax, which would be used to defray administrative costs.

Hmmm...maybe it should be kept illegal after all. It's cheaper that way!

2006-10-02T01:32:00.000-07:00

Well...back to playing live poker.

On 30 September 2006, the United States Congress passed The Safe Port Act. That measure also contained certain provisions known as the ‘Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006’ that will affect the processing of payments between US customers and online gaming companies, including PartyGaming...

The Act is expected to be signed into law by President Bush within the next two weeks...

...the Board of PartyGaming has determined that if the President signs the Act into law, the Company will suspend all real money gaming business with US residents, and such suspension will continue indefinitely...

2006-09-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

I returned to playing last night, and things went okay. I actually tried my very first hands at the 2kNL games, despite my previous proclamations saying that wouldn't happen for a while. My abrupt about-face probably shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone who's been reading my blog for a while--what I plan on doing and what ends up happening are very often quite different.

Anyways, I've been running very blah for my last 15K hands or so, and I've been searching for reasons. Well there've been many, including some tilt. But I think the most telling is this stat:

I've had 14 consecutive hands where I've flopped a set against someone's flopped straight, or vice-versa (I flopped a straight against a set), and I've lost every single hand. Just to clarify, no that wasn't 14 consecutive hands dealt to me, but 14 straight hands in which it was straight vs set. To make matters worse, 9 of those 14 were where I had the straight. So 9 consecutive hands I've had a straight vs a set and I've lost every single one. And it isn't like the money's been going in bad--in every single one all the money went in with me ahead, mostly on the flop, a couple times on the turn.

The straight should be a 2:1 favorite, so I should expect to win about 6 of those straight hands, and nearly 2 of those where I had the set.

I don't really mean to whine about running bad, I just thought that was one of the more interesting runs I've had, up there with a run I had waaaay back in the day when I first started playing online poker and I had a run of 20 hands of KK where 10 times I was up against AA.

But yeah, I'm back to playing. When I have disasterous days like I had last Friday, it's always best for me to take some time off. It allows me to get my emotions more stabilized, and resets my perspective. Playing poker is a lot more fun when you feel like you're playing starting from even rather than playing starting in a huge hole, which is how it would feel if I'd played any of those subsequent few days.

2006-09-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

So the previous week was my best week ever, making this month, by Sept 15, my best month ever. The sky was the limit.

Then the poker gods sayeth, "ha-HA!"

Yeah.

Thursday wasn't noteworthy, but Friday ended up being my Worst NL Day Ever, almost as bad as my Worst Limit Day Ever (aka, Worst Day Ever). Wow. Mix an unbelieveably bad run with just a little bit of tilt and it's quite amazing what can happen at this game.

Saturday? Off. Sunday? Off.

Any thoughts of moving up the 2kNL games I might have been having are now well on the back burner. Not because of bankroll considerations (Friday wasn't THAT bad) but simply because of psychological considerations. I'm doing well enough overall that there's no reason for me to push myself to soon to limits above what I'm comfortable with.

(on the plus side, Sept is still, for the time being, my best month ever, if only barely.)

2006-09-15T22:54:00.000-07:00

1000NL has been going great. I just played my 60,000th hand at that level, and have done better than I could possibly have hoped. Still, I have no plans to move up to 2000NL until I've played at least 100,000 hands.

1000NL is wacky enough as it is. Tonight was extra-wacky. Here are two examples.

Hand #1:

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $5/$10
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $2133.70
UTG+1: $950
CO: $1706.64
Button: $1747
SB: $1338.31
Hero: $2785.20

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is BB with Qc 8c
UTG raises to $20, 4 folds, Hero calls.

Flop: 8s 3h 4d ($45, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $50, Hero calls.

Turn: 7s ($145, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $420.74, Hero calls.

River: 5d ($986.48, 2 players)
Hero bets $300, UTG calls.

Results:
Final pot: $1586.48
Hero balance 3577.94 bet 790.74 collected 1583.48 net 792.74 Qc 8c
UTG balance 1342.96 lost 790.74 Tc 9d

Hand #2:

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $5/$10
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $1780.25
UTG+1: $890
CO: $1391.12
Button: $1416
SB: $1275.31
Hero: $3875.42

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is BB with As Ks
UTG raises to $20, UTG+1 calls, CO folds, Button raises to $80, SB folds, Hero raises to $295, UTG calls, 2 folds.

Flop: Ts 7h Th ($695, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG is all-in $1495.25, Hero calls.

Turn: Kd ($3685.5, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $3685.5)

River: 6h ($3685.5, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $3685.5)

Results:
Final pot: $3685.5
Hero balance 5757.67 bet 1780.25 collected 3662.50 net 1882.25 As Ks
UTG balance 0 lost 1780.25 7d Ac

I didn't even think I had to get lucky on that last one...

2006-09-08T02:32:00.000-07:00

Gaaah. I've gotten so lazy with this blog, with barely an update a week any more. I guess playing online leaves one with a lot less to talk about than playing live, especially compared to when playing live required planned vacations to far-off casinos like it did when I lived in Austin.

It also keeps getting harder to find hands that I find interesting enough to want to post. I probably still see two or three a week, but in the deluge of 600 hands an hour, I tend to forget them by the time the session is over.

I also hate posting too much about results because 1) I try not to focus on results much because it drives me crazy otherwise (20K hand breakeven streaks are a lot more fun when I don't even realize I've had them until I'm going over my results with a fine-toothed comb at the end of each month) and 2) every time I post about how well I'm doing, I tend to start doing poorly--so I'm hoping to aviod toggling whatever psychological doom switch I'm flipping on myself by bragging.

End result: fewer posts, and those that I do get around to don't have much content (like today's, yay!).

So yeah, just take this post as a semi-apology without any actual promises of improvement.

2006-08-31T20:41:00.000-07:00

What a day, what a month. It's been a long time, but I finally had one of these at NL:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $10 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

saw flop|saw showdown

BB ($1017)
Hero ($4649)
MP ($2789)
CO ($2410.50)
Button ($1163)
SB ($960)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 4d, 4s. SB posts a blind of $5.
Hero calls $10, MP raises to $40, CO calls $40, 1 fold, SB (poster) calls $35, 1 fold, Hero calls $30.

Flop: ($170) 9d, 4c, 4h (4 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, MP bets $110, CO calls $110, SB folds, Hero calls $110.

Turn: ($500) Kc (3 players)
Hero checks, MP checks, CO bets $400, Hero raises to $1373, MP folds, CO calls $973.

River: ($3246) 9s (2 players)
Hero bets $2432, CO calls $887.50 (All-In).

Final Pot: $6565.50

Results:
Hero has 4d 4s (four of a kind, fours).
CO has 9h 9c (four of a kind, nines).
Outcome: CO wins $5021. Hero wins $1544.50.

It's always 50/50 on Party. I think the rule is this: the bigger the pot, the more likely you are to get sucked out on.

But despite that, I ended up having my best month ever. Most of that was within the first two weeks, with these last two weeks being a slow crawl upwards. Well, actually, it was more of a violent vascillation that ended slightly upwards. But overall, I can't complain.

2006-08-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

I made my triumphant return to limit this morning, playing 5/10 and 10/20 6max. Wow what a silly game. I actually won (despite more rivered two-outers than I care to think about) but I still think it was just silly.

Bet, call, bet, call, bet, call, showdown, hand after hand after hand. No one folds a pair or A-high. I got called by K-high a couple times. You'd think games like that would be like printing money, but it's limit! They almost always either have odds or nearly do. And Party's RNG doesn't help things either.

And wow, the rake. Brutal--I played about 1400 hands, had a decent winning session, but still payed more rake than I won. Gaah. I'll gladly return to NL for the rest of the weekend.

2006-08-18T04:12:00.000-07:00

All right, it seems to be getting a lot of flak, so let me go on the record as actually liking this new Party promotion. I can't speak for low-volume and/or lower-stakes players, but for players like me who play a lot of hands at decent-sized stakes all on Party anyways, it's great.

For people who don't know, Party's new promotion is that for the next two months, any Party points you earn can be traded in for cash at a max rate of 2.5 cents/point.

But they take your points which you could have used to get stuff! And it only amounts to a 25-30X bonus! And they discontinued bonus points! It's horrible!

They do take your points, and it does amount to a 25-30X bonus, and they did discontinue bonus points. But it isn't horrible. In fact, I think it's great. At least, like I said, for me. Here's why.

First, and foremost, they bumped me up to Gold, which means I earn points at a 33% greater clip than I did before. They also increased the points given at the stakes I play from 12 to 15 per 20 raked hands, which is a 25% increase. This adds up to about a 67% increase in the number of points I earn, which more than mitigates the loss in bonus points which was only a few thousand per month anyways (a couple deposits, and the occasional time I play very late night/early morning). So I still earn 25-50% more points than I would have.

I expect to play enough hands to earn 50K-70K points over the next two months. Let's assume I only achieve the very bottom end of that range, so 50,000. That means I get $1250 at the end of the promotion but give up those 50,000 points.

Assume they didn't offer the promotion and they kept things as they were. They might have offered two reload bonuses at $100 each, and I would have kept the points. So I would have gotten $200 plus 50,000 points worth of stuff, which is, for example, a 2GB iPod nano, valued at about $200. Total: $400. So, net gain over the status quo is $850.

Now, let's compare this promotion to previous VIP promotions from earlier this year. Well, the first one (which may have been December, can't really remember) was really a crazy-great promotion. IIRC, I got $930 for about 10,000 points, which I got to keep. So yeah, this promotion might not be as good as that one, but that one was out of this world and will never happen again.

Then there was the weekly one where I got $670 for about 16,000 points for each of four weeks, but had to give the points up. Now $670 for 16,000 points is better than $1250 for 50,000 points (multiply by just 3 and that's $2010 for 48,000 points), but that promotion came with two caveats: 1) I had to earn all those 16,000 points in a given week, and 2) I couldn't earn more than $670 in a week--once I hit it, that's it and then the counter would start over the next week, where I'd get nothing for anything below about 8000 points. Now, at that time (February), I played limit which gave out a lot more points than NL, so earning 16,000 points in a week was annoying but not outrageous. But for me now, earning 16,000 points in a week would be quite an aberration.

Similarly, the acceller-8-or (or whatever the hell it was called) was one which had a pretty nice high-end possible bonus, but again you were forced to play a lot of hands every single week for 8 straight weeks in order to pass the return of this current promotion.

This current promotion has no forced hands every single week. It's open-ended (at least within it's own imposed limits, if that makes sense). I can miss a few days and not have screwed my chances at any high paydays. I get linear rather than exponential returns for my play, which might not sound good to all those mathematicians out there, but think of it as comparing two equations where the linear equation is 10t and the exponential equation is 2^t and while the maximum value of t might be 6 or 7, the expected value of t is about 5, and is more likely to be below 5 than above.

So for the heavy, but not back-breaking, loads of hands I'll be playing, this promotion is superior to the last two VIP offers because I'm given freedom of when I get to play my hands, as well as no cap on total possible bonus earned beyond simply time--all for what will probably amount to about the same or more total bonus money.

My own personal bottom-line: I get an extra $850 (up to perhaps an extra $1350 if I manage 70K points) for doing what I was going to do anyways. I'm happy.

2006-08-07T04:46:00.000-07:00

Woah.

So I've started playing the 1000NL regularly on Party. And all I can say is, woah. The first few days were great. Win, win, win, and I tied my best week ever, from back when I played limit. Heck those three days were as good as all of July, which was a pretty good month.

And then...

Woah.

I know I only have a small sample size, but it seems the variance at the 1000NL game is much greater than at the 600NL game. Moving up from the 400NL to the 600NL was a clear, but small, step up. Going from 600NL to 1000NL is definitely a large jump. People don't give up nearly as quickly as they do at the lower levels. They're willing to fire multiple barrels with regularity and C/R bluff at will. So, yeah, things went real well for the first few days and then all of a sudden I ran into guys who, well, weren't quite bluffing (or if they were, they got there anyways by the river).

I generally try to avoid posting specific results, but here's last night's graph:

Yeah, I hung on for a long, loooong time. It was one of those sessions where I knew I was buried so deep I'd start throwing things if I actually stopped and checked the cashier. So I kept playing just to save my monitors from a 20 ft. trip down into my living room. Only after I finally stopped (from exhaustion, actually--finishing even was just a coincidence) and graphed the day did I realize just how deep I went.

So yeah, 1000NL. Fun times.

2006-08-04T15:10:00.000-07:00

The move went good. I think I'm just now realizing just how much more expensive a house is than an apartment, even aside from the mortgage/rent comparison.

Poker has slowed down for me. The last week of July was my first losing week since playing NL. As soon as Party started that ridiculously stupid Monster promotion I stopped winning. I can't beat that extra $0.50 rake!

Seriously, though, that new Monster promo is wretchedly bad. Don't even get me started.

2006-07-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

Today's the big moving day, and because of a lag getting services switched, I'll be without internet access for a couple days. So you people who are used to getting email responses within 0.4 seconds will have to either wait or actually call me on the phone. Hopefully I'll be able to remember how to work my vocal chords while my preferred method of communication is out of service.

2006-07-26T19:43:00.000-07:00

I played like a desperate addict last weekend, logging 21.5 hours online over three days. It was very profitable overall--including my most profitable day at NL yet, as well as my most profitable day so far in 2006--but ultimately my hourly rate was actually somewhat depressed from the previous month and a half or so. That's not suprising, as ultimately hours 5-8 of a session will not be anywhere near as good as hours 1-4 on average simply because one isn't going to be nearly as sharp or focused. I've been very good so far this year at maintaining short sessions, but have gotten away from that lately. Note to self: carpal-tunnel is not worth a few extra bucks and tons of added stress!

On the home-buying front, it looks as though everything is going to go as planned. I close on Thursday, 7/27, at 10am, and then will spend the weekend moving.

The house-buying really came together in a hurry. It was just two months ago that I finally decided to make the leap and buy a home. I spent the first week of June juggling different agents, then the second week of June looking at a jillion houses. I then spent mid-June to mid-July in negotiations over a house, intermittently running off to look at new houses that would pop up on the market. Finally on July 13 we came to a deal. There was a brief scare when my lender bailed, but I found a competent one at the last second, and so voila, here I am on the verge of home ownership.

With luck, the housing market won't crash as much as all the doomsayers have been predicting.

2006-07-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

So last night started off kinda badly. A few reallllly donktastic hands at 1000NL had me in a deep hole. Sour and depressed, I plodded on and eventually found myself at a 600NL table with an all-time all-star. I'm talking about the Babe Ruth of donkeys. It really is funny how people (like me) spend so much time working on and developing their games, when most of the profit comes in the form of playing very easy hands that a retarded monkey could play against very bad opponents who quite possibly are retarded monkeys.

Babe Ruth was on my immediate left and was raising and reraising practically every hand, often by massively overbetting the pot. Looking at his pokertracker stats afterwards, he was about 80/60. Needless to say, he was making my life a little tough at first, but then I managed to get in three hands against him in rather quick succession.

Hand #1:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

MP ($455.55)
CO ($271.40)
Button ($1119)
SB ($1936.96)
Hero ($362.50)
UTG ($2171.40)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ks, Ad.

UTG raises to $150, 4 folds, Hero raises to $362.50 (All-In), UTG calls $212.50.

Flop: ($725) Qh, 3c, 7d (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($725) 3d (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($725) 6s (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $725
Results:
Hero has Ks Ad (one pair, threes).
UTG has Ah 9h (one pair, threes).
Outcome: Hero wins $725.

Hand #2:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

UTG ($342.40)
MP ($958)
Button ($1576.21)
Hero ($811)
BB ($2924)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Th, Td. Hero posts a blind of $3.
3 folds, Hero (poster) completes, BB raises to $805, Hero raises to $811 (All-In), BB calls $6.

Flop: ($1620) Js, 2c, 8s (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($1620) 6h (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($1620) 5s (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $1620
Results:
BB has Tc Ah (high card, ace).
Hero has Th Td (one pair, tens).
Outcome: Hero wins $1620.

Hand #3:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

UTG ($468.40)
MP ($980)
Button ($1489.21)
Hero ($1663)
BB ($2147.80)

Preflop: Hero is SB with As, Kh. Hero posts a blind of $3.
1 fold, MP raises to $21, 1 fold, Hero raises to $72, BB raises to $300, MP folds, Hero raises to $1663 (All-In), BB calls $1363.

Flop: ($3345) 7d, 6h, 9c (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($3345) 6s (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($3345) 2d (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $3345
Results:
BB has Kc Qs (one pair, sixes).
Hero has As Kh (one pair, sixes).
Outcome: Hero wins $3345.

2006-07-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

Ah, yes, so that's why I hated tournaments. Play good for hours, beat 80+% of the field, then suffer a bad beat or two and bingo bango busto, all that time and effort is wasted with no return.

I played in both the Stars and Full Tilt WSOP tournaments and got nowhere. And since I was on such a tournament kick, I played in Party's million guaranteed and Stars' Sunday second-chance tourney. No interesting hands in any of those four and nothing really to say other than that I misplayed a few hands overall and got unlucky one time too many in each tourney.

5 hours and about $1300 down the drain. And for some reason, I'm still considering one of the $1500 NL events in the WSOP. Someone crack me over the head with a shovel or something.

Thankfully, I did do very well in cash games today. Between cash games and tournies I logged 9.5 hours of play, all online. My brain is fried. So fried, it actually helped me dig my way out of a hole the last hour. Here's a hand I played on auto-pilot daze during that last, uber-profitable hour (on pokerroom so I have no hand history; you'll just have to take my word for it):

I'm multitabling and have just sat in the only $600NL game going on pokerroom, to go along with my mess of $400NL tables. I post my big blind. One limper and then the button raises. I see I have pocket fours and so I call. Only then do I realize that the button didn't just do a standard raise, he had gone all in for nearly $450! Seriously, $3 SB, $6 BB, $6 limp, so $15 in the pot, and he made it about $450 to go. And me, acting quickly with 6 tables going, I call almost instantly without a second thought. I wonder what they all must have thought when they see my 44 and how quickly and casually I called an all-in with them.

But anyways, I'm slapping my forehead and groaning, but my groans turn to cheers as the board comes Q-high and my opponent shows unimproved AK. Woohoo! That's how to play poker!

Now if only I could win my coin flips in a tournament setting.

2006-07-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

What is this sickness? I hate tournaments. I hate playing them. I hate having to wake up for them. I hate busting out after hours and hours of play with no reward to show for my time spent. I always do badly.

Yet, here I am registering for the $500+35 Full Tilt super-mega-satellite into the WSOP main event where the top 100 finishers all get seats. And here I am considering playing in the two remaining $1500 no-limit events. Heck, even the $1500 limit shoot-out event is looking appealing for some perverse reason.

What's wrong with me? Someone talk me out of this stupidity. I have better uses for my money.

2006-07-12T01:44:00.000-07:00

Last week managed to be my best week since switching to NL, and, without actually looking it up, probably my second best week of the year. I didn't even have any huge days. I just didn't have any losing days, consistently doing "pretty good" every day. Now if only every week could be like that.

The WSOP has finally intruded upon my little bubble of isolation. I had a piece of my friend Stacy in the women's event, where she fought her way all the way to 17th place, thus requiring me to make the drive out to the madness at the Rio to cheer her on. She busted playing correctly, getting all her chips in as greater than a 3:1 favorite against the big stack, and in fact would have been the big stack herself had her hand held up.

Other friends of mine in town have been going on an on about how juicy the live 5/10 NL games have been, and so I fully expect to try my hand at them some time this week. I was hoping to have built my way up to 10/20 NL by the time the main event was going on, but that's looking less and less likely. Although from what I've heard, many of the 5/10 games are playing as big as a more typical 10/20 game, so perhaps I'm not missing out on much.

I had an interesting live hand this past week. Somewhat interesting in itself, but also interesting in that I think it shows just how far my NL game has come.

Three-handed live 2/5 NL. Effective stacks are $400. Suits don't matter. Button has been raising his button nearly every single time, although post-flop has been somewhat conservative.

Preflop: Button raises to $15. I call in the SB with T9o. BB folds.

Flop ($35): A 9 2, rainbow. I check. Button bets $20. I call.

Turn ($75): (A 9 2) 5. I check. Button thinks for a second and checks.

River ($75): (A 9 2 5) 3. I bet $25. Button thinks for about 30 seconds and then raises to $85.

What does he have? What should I do?

2006-07-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

Today is the one year anniversary of my moving to Las Vegas. Boy does time fly when you're having fun.

One year ago today I flew in from Austin, TX and stayed my very first night in familiar digs--the Tropicana Motel 6, near the MGM, the same motel I'd stayed at for many of my frequent Vegas trips as about the only guest who who wasn't paying by the hour. The next day I saw my apartment for the very first time, and that second night was spent, where else, but at the Bellagio playing poker until 7am.

Now here it is a year later, and I still live in the same apartment, still play poker for a living, and I still love living here. Yet much has changed. That very first night I was in Vegas, I walked across the street from the Motel 6 to play a couple hours of 6/12 at the MGM. Today, the MGM can barely get a 4/8 game going on many nights, as a result of the continued slow and inexorable advance of no-limit as the most popular game. That second night at the Bellagio was spent playing 30/60. I would then move on to the 80/160 game, and even play the 100/200 game at the Commerce in LA. Yet, I've evolved along with the poker rooms, and now recognize NL as the choicest game.

Also very different is my schedule. Mostly an internet player in Austin, I came to Vegas with the intention of playing more live. That I did, almost the point of neglecting online play altogether. This led to bigger winning months (it takes a lot of online 15/30 hands to equal a good extended run at live 80/160), but also to bigger losing months--heck, losing months at all (one reaches the long run much, much slower while playing live). My first 8 months or so were spent as 75%-live/25%-online limit player. But now, I've relearned the real value of online play, and am a 90%-online/10%-live no-limit player.

Also changing was my diet.

And finally, this apartment I'm in isn't going to be around much longer, as I'm in the process of buying a house. Yes, the guy who moved to Vegas so he could play live at the Bellagio every night has for the most part given up live play but has fallen in love with the city enough to make it a more permanent home.

I look back on the first five or so months I lived here with very mixed emotions. On one hand I'm kind of sad. Those first months were spent living a completely carefree existence, doing what I love. Wake up in the late afternoon, eat, play poker, eat, play poker, eat, go to bed an hour or two after sunrise. Practically every night was a winning night. I was living a blissfully unaware and simple, dream existence. For those five months I was completely engaged, completely happy and, above all, successful. (Of course, that was before I was harshly reminded of how cruel poker could be.)

On the other hand, I hardly recognize that guy who spent five months gorging himself on nothing but poker and food. Poker is no longer the basis for my existence. Rather, it is now a means to an end. An interesting, thought-provoking, and enjoyable means it is, but still just a means to an end. And that end is profit, plain and simple. Likewise, the copious amounts of free food available--the comped buffets replete with row after row of tantalizing desserts--no longer appeals to me as much. Thanks to saving those buffets only for more special occasions, my slowly softening and expanding body of those early months has now completely reversed its course.

Now my life is much more diverse, with a regular exercise routine, and a much reduced poker playing schedule. Also in the works are a variety of possible investments completely unrelated to poker.

But enough rambling. Here's hoping that the next year is as exciting as this past year has been.

2006-07-02T22:11:00.000-07:00

The WSOP is in town and you know what? I don't care. I'm not sure why that is, but it doesn't matter to me at all. I've never been a fan of tournaments, definitely not ones that begin at the crack of noon. And with my recent switch to NL over limit, I don't feel like I have a game that's developed enough for me to be really competitive in any events. I probably could have been competitive when I was at my peak at limit, but that was 6+ months ago, before I got bored then frustrated then stopped playing it altogether. My NL game is still very raw, having only played it regularly for a month and a half now. And so despite my new year's stated goals of playing more tournaments this year, my reaction to that idea now is just "bleh."

On the bright side, despite being a relative newbie to NL, I've done very well. June was my first full month playing only NL and I did much, much better than I could have possibly anticipated. Interestingly, I only won 11 out of the 16 days I played, which is a much lower rate than when I only played NL sparingly. Of course, it's the bottom line that matters, and since my winning days have been for the most part large, and my losing days have been, except for one exception, very small, the bottom line is excellent. But I will have to make sure I don't go on autopilot as much as I did when I was playing limit. NL is a game where one or two mistakes can really kill an otherwise good session.

In other news, the house hunting is going well enough. Every time I feel I'm close to a decision, another house or two pops up that completely sends me back to square one. I actually put an offer in on a house two weeks ago, but it wasn't accepted. Although I was willing to come back with a higher offer, other possible homes have entered the picture, leaving me with a decision to make out of about five places. As usual, every place has its pros and its cons, and life would be perfect if I could pick and choose different parts of each house and put it all together, but alas that's not gonna happen. And if I want to keep my August 1 move date, I'd better make a decision soon. Hopefully within about one week I'll have made my choice, and with a little luck have even gotten the ball rolling on actually buying my chosen home.

So yeah, between online NL and all this house-buying stuff, the WSOP is just in the way. But I should be able to make it out there to play in a few live cash games in the evenings. After all, there probably isn't a more profitable time of year to be a poker player.

2006-06-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

I finally tried the 600NL on Party. It seemed very similar to the 400NL, just a little bit more aggressive. People were still making pretty big mistakes.

Well, okay, maybe "a little bit more aggressive" isn't quite accurate. It was considerably more aggressive. People were much more willing to fire multiple barrels. Let's say someone raises preflop, you call in the BB and check-call the flop and check the turn. At 400NL, the vast majority of the time your opponent is checking behind if he's missed, and only betting if he has made a hand, so you know where you're at pretty much always. At 600NL, the guy is betting again, no matter what. This is good if you're trying to get more money into the pot with a strong hand, but bad if you don't have much of a hand yourself, which is the reality most of the time. So you either have to be willing to give up a lot of hands on the flop (since you know you'll be bet off on the turn anyways) or wait until the turn and be willing to attempt a lot lead bluffs or C/R bluffs (since there seems to be a rule out there many players follow: never fold to a flop C/R).

This aggression does make the games a little more gut-wrenching to play at times, but it also results in guys putting a lot of money into pots with really bad hands. It does shift the skill set somewhat, from rewarding tight, mechanical play that relys on opponents blindly calling large bets, to rewarding hand-reading and the ability to make big calls with mediocre, but good, hands.

Here's a few examples of guys willing to put a lot of money into pots,

Hand #1:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (6 handed)

SB ($1521)
BB ($448.33)
UTG ($779.71)
MP ($1199.65)
CO ($624.75)
Hero ($522.91)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Qc, Qs.

2 folds, CO raises to $21, Hero raises to $65, 1 fold, BB calls $59, CO calls $44.

Flop: ($198) 6s, Td, 2c (3 players)

BB checks, CO checks, Hero bets $125, BB calls $125, CO calls $125.

Turn: ($573) Kc (3 players)

BB checks, CO checks, Hero checks.

River: ($573) 4h (3 players)

BB checks, CO bets $434.75 (All-In), Hero calls $332.91 (All-In), BB folds.

Final Pot: $1340.66

Results below:
CO has 6h 7h (one pair, sixes).
Hero has Qc Qs (one pair, queens).
Outcome: Hero wins $1238.82. CO wins $101.84.

Hand #2:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (5 handed)

Hero ($538.25)
BB ($240.95)
UTG ($287.88)
MP ($696)
Button ($194.38)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Qd, Qc. Hero posts a blind of $3.

3 folds, Hero raises to $14, BB raises to $42, Hero raises to $257, BB calls $192.95 (All-In).

Flop: ($500.95) 3h, 5d, Jd (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($500.95) 5s (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($500.95) As (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $500.95

Results below:
Hero has Qd Qc (two pair, queens and fives).
BB has 6h Tc (one pair, fives).
Outcome: Hero wins $500.95.

Hand #3:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB Hero (5 handed)

Hero ($1217.85)
UTG ($376.37)
MP ($602.10)
Button ($291.85)
SB ($1221.17)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Qc, Qh. SB posts a blind of $3.

2 folds, Button calls $6, SB (poster) raises to $19, Hero raises to $60, Button raises to $285.85 (All-In), SB folds, Hero calls $225.85.

Flop: ($605.70) 9c, 7s, 2s (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($605.70) 2h (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($605.70) Kd (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $605.70

Results below:
Hero has Qc Qh (two pair, queens and twos).
Button has Kh Qd (two pair, kings and twos).
Outcome: Button wins $605.70.

Hand #4:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (6 handed)

CO ($619.46)
Hero ($695.19)
SB ($883.21)
BB ($204.79)
UTG ($968.40)
MP ($1179.40)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Ac, 5c. SB posts a blind of $3.

3 folds, Hero raises to $18, 1 fold, BB calls $12.

Flop: ($39) Jc, 5h, 3h (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $25, BB calls $25.

Turn: ($89) Jd (2 players)

BB checks, Hero checks.

River: ($89) 6s (2 players)

BB bets $161.79 (All-In), Hero calls $161.79.

Final Pot: $412.58

Results below:
BB has 2h 2c (two pair, jacks and twos).
Hero has Ac 5c (two pair, jacks and fives).
Outcome: Hero wins $412.58.

2006-06-24T02:27:00.000-07:00

I am really starting to enjoy NL.

The other night at the Wynn I was playing 2/5, and was completely card dead. I played perhaps 3 hands over the span of a couple hours, all of which saw me check-fold an air-balled flop.

Then, finally, I flop a hand. I push all-in, get called, and my slim advantage holds up. Maybe 20 minutes later, I call a short-stack's all-in with A7s, and win that. I then sit around card dead for another 30 minutes or so before leaving, up about one buy-in.

Three hours, two hands won, yet I can add one more winning session to my ledger. I'm trying to remember the last time I played limit and won only two hands over the span of three hours. Well it happened a lot, poker being what it is, but I'm not sure I ever had a winning limit session with those kinds of stats. Certainly not one where I nearly doubled my money. Yet, in NL, that's very possible.

Why did I ever play limit?

2006-06-20T03:08:00.000-07:00

I made an interesting choice today.

I went to the gym, which is nothing new. I lifted weights as usual, got a protein shake as usual, came home and showered, as usual. I have a friend in town, so we went out to eat, also fairly typical. Nothing interesting there.

But the confluence of events left me in a slightly unusal situation. Because of the exercise I was hungry, and because the exercise was weight-lifting specifically, I was hungry for something serious. Some people may not know, but I'm a vegetarian. But quite frankly, vegetables are not "serious" enough for a guy fresh out of the weight room with testosterone pumping through his veins. The veggie wrap just ain't gonna cut it. At home, I don't have a choice to even consider meat, but this wasn't home.

The restaurant we chose didn't have the largest vegetarian selection, and what they did have was the same stuff I always eat--the aforementioned veggie wrap, omelets, pasta. Bleh.

But look over to the left of the menu, under burgers. Big Angus Beef Burger. With mushrooms. Wow, that sounds good. I haven't had one of those in nearly four years.

And so all these typical events added up to a very non-typical choice--I went with the big honkin' mushroom burger. And loved it.

So I dunno what this means, whether I'm done with being veggie or if this was just temporary, or what. I always said that I was only veggie as long as I didn't want to eat meat, but the second I really wanted to I'd do it. Well, I did it.

Perhaps I'm the only one who really cares.

2006-06-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

Just finished up another week of NL, and a very good week it was--the best week I've had since an outrageous heater in mid-February.

I really feel like I'm getting a pretty good handle on NL. I'm faced with much fewer tough decisions, and I'm developing a pretty good "sense" like what I had for a long time playing limit.

Of course, I'm still only playing the 400NL on Party. It's surprisingly profitable, but I have a long way to go before I can feel like I've developed my game as much as I did in limit.

Nothing underscored that point more than playing on Stars over the weekend, trying to take advantage of their reload bonus. I was playing Stars tables and Party tables simultaneously, and the difference between the two games was night and day. Stars games were much tighter and much tougher. I got myself into trouble responding to the Stars players like I would the Party players--flop TPTK or an overpair, bet out and if you get raised on Stars it means a completely difference thing than if you do on Party. On Stars, the guy's got two pair or a set (as I learned the hard way), on Party the guy's got any two cards.

So the bottom line is that I can handle either the fairly straight forward and somewhat timid players or the absolute maniacs like those that populate Party's 400NL games, but tougher, thinking opponents like those I'd face at higher limits I'm sure would still be very rough for me.

But I should be able to do okay as long as Party 400NL stays how it is and there are players like this (Hey, buddy...I tried to tell ya...I HAVE ACES):

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $2/4 (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

saw flop|saw showdown

MP ($400)
CO ($425.50)
Button ($1784.82)
SB ($629.38)
Hero (BB) ($391.40)
UTG ($386)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ad, Ah. SB posts a blind of $2.
1 fold, MP raises to $15, 1 fold, Button raises to $41, 1 fold, Hero raises to $111, MP folds, Button calls $70.

Flop: ($239) 5s, Qs, 2h (2 players)
Hero bets $280.40 (All-In), Button calls $280.40.

Turn: ($799.80) Js (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($799.80) 8c (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $799.80

Results below:
Hero has Ad Ah (one pair, aces).
Button has 6s 6d (one pair, sixes).
Outcome: Hero wins $799.80.

2006-06-13T19:27:00.000-07:00

I had another good week playing NL and was feeling quite happy. That is, until I checked my portfolio, and realized I actually lost money overall this week. Quite a bit, in fact.

Sigh.

2006-06-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

Oh noes! Online poker is evil! Why didn't anyone tell me??

2006-06-07T16:43:00.000-07:00

So I did finally have a bad run at NL, as was expected. I'm not too distraught, however. That's just poker. And this bad run is still well short of my limit bad runs, so I'm actually kind of giddy over it. Kind of. I plan on continuing playing NL for the forseeable future.

The bigger news is that I am now working full time........towards buying a house. I'm spending my days talking with lenders and realtors and searching through hundreds of online listings and driving all over the valley looking at everything from dilapidated hovels to, well, slightly-less-dilapidated hovels. (Hey, Vegas housing is expensive!)

My plan is to get a place to move into within 2 months. That's somewhat ambitious, but we'll see how it works out. I've already secured a loan and have found an agent I like so I'm 2% of the way there! All that's left is sifting through the thousands of available homes in Vegas, looking more in-depth at a few hundred of them, seeing in person a few dozen of them, reivisiting a handful, finally choosing one, inspecting it, making an offer, having it accepted, closing, and then finally actually moving. Wow, that's it? I might be 3% of the way there.

2006-05-28T05:38:00.000-07:00

I should have switched to NL earlier. My results have been amazing. Ok, I'm not winning at a rate that some top players achieve, nor am I playing particularly high (online 400NL, live 2/5 or 5/10), but coming over from essentially 2+ solid years of limit play, my bottom line results are so beautiful they make me want to cry. Why? They're almost all black. 90% black, 10% red. Sure the numbers themselves are smaller, but I'm not sure I'm giving up much if any total expectation. I mean, I might win $X playing NL whereas I'd win $5X playing limit, but the next day playing NL I'd again win $X, whereas I'd lose $3X playing limit. End result is $2X for each, but I'm in a much happier mental state having played the lower-variance NL.

I looked back on my occasional NL play when I was still primarily a limit player, so before about two weeks ago. 8 of 9 live sessions were in the black, as were 6 of 7 online sessions, with the one losing session a whopping minus six bucks. Last year I was a goober and didn't keep track of online very well, but in live play I was 17 for 19 in the positive playing NL.

This week playing only NL I had a great week. Sure, it's one week. Yes, I know about sample sizes. I'm not "counting" on anything yet. But I do know that if this week does become typical, I will have matched my average weekly win playing fairly big limit games, online 20/40 and 30/60, and live 80/160 and occasional 100/200. I'm sure I have yet to see all the ugliness NL can offer, but so far I'm very, very happy with my switch.

That's not to imply I find NL easy by any means. I'm still faced with tough decisions on a regular basis. My biggest problem is when I have QQ or JJ and someone else is representing a bigger hand. So far I've taken the "safe" approach, but I'm not sure. Here are a few examples.

(In each of the first two hands, my opponent is a very good player for the level. The third hand, my opponent is described afterwards.)

Hand #1:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (5 handed)

Button ($394)
SB ($3618.13)
BB ($394)
Hero ($763.14)
MP ($1689.73)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Qh, Qd.

Hero raises to $12, MP raises to $35, 3 folds, Hero calls $23.

Flop: ($76) 5s, 7h, Ts (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $54, Hero raises to $150, MP calls $96.

Turn: ($376) 7d (2 players)

Hero checks, MP checks.

River: ($376) Js (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $200, Hero folds.

Final Pot: $576

Results:
MP doesn't show.
Outcome: MP wins $576.

Hand #2:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (6 handed)

SB ($546.08)
BB ($682.64)
UTG ($519.84)
Hero ($801.60)
CO ($91.10)
Button ($379.92)

Preflop: Hero is MP with Qd, Qc.

1 fold, Hero raises to $12, 1 fold, Button raises to $42, 2 folds, Hero calls $30.

Flop: ($90) Js, 3h, 6h (2 players)

Hero checks, Button bets $75, Hero calls $75.

Turn: ($240) 9c (2 players)

Hero checks, Button bets $262, Hero folds.

Final Pot: $502

Results:
No showdown. Button wins $502.

Hand #3:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (6 handed)

UTG ($362.60)
MP ($231)
CO ($568.10)
Button ($399.40)
Hero ($404.55)
BB ($1165.48)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Jd, Js. Hero posts a blind of $2.

1 fold, MP raises to $15, CO calls $15, 1 fold, Hero (poster) raises to $53, 1 fold, MP folds, CO raises $553.10 (All-In), Hero folds.

Final Pot: $642.10

Results:
No showdown. CO wins $642.10.

The last hand I found most interesting because I'd never seen that play before. Call a raise from the CO, then when the SB re-raises, go all-in. I took up all my time thinking about that one, particularly because the CO in that hand had reason to be on tilt from recent hands. I've seen people call a raise then go all-in after a reraise behind them, and they've usually had a middle-pair, like 88 or 99, and relatively short stacks, like under $200. I've never seen someone do that against a blind's re-raise with such a deep stack, however. That definitely left me a bit bewildered.

2006-05-26T04:27:00.000-07:00

I've finally had a couple big winning sessions, at least in relation to the stakes I'm playing (online 400NL). I'm definitely getting more comfortable playing some of the more precarious NL situations, like one-pair hands while heads up and out of position.

In fact, here's my favorite hand from the last couple of days.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (6 handed)

Button ($472.20)
Hero ($388.60)
BB ($303.08)
UTG ($462.82)
MP ($916.75)
CO ($514.10)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Kh, Kc. Hero posts a blind of $2.

1 fold, MP raises to $8, 2 folds, Hero (poster) raises to $24, 1 fold, MP calls $18.

Flop: ($56) 8d, 7s, Td (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $60, Hero calls $60.

Turn: ($176) 2h (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $35, Hero raises to $150, MP calls $115.

River: ($476) 4c (2 players)

Hero bets $152.60 (All-In), MP calls $152.60.

Final Pot: $781.20

Results:
Hero has Kh Kc (one pair, kings).
MP has 8h Ah (one pair, eights).
Outcome: Hero wins $781.20.

What I like about that hand is that if I had played it faster on the flop then I probably wouldn't have gotten all-in. But by letting him take the lead and therefore define his hand more, I was able to confidently push knowing my hand was best.

NL definitely seems to reward skill more than limit poker. Here's another example of a hand where, while on one hand it was easy to play (I had the nuts after all), the fact that I knew my opponent was obviously strong allowed me to take his whole stack by way overbetting the pot rather than just dink a couple bets off of him, a la limit, or string him along afraid he might fold if I bet too big, a la most NL hands.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (5 handed)

Hero ($448.72)
UTG ($450)
MP ($485.50)
Button ($416)
SB ($605.50)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Js, Tc.

3 folds, SB (poster) raises to $10, Hero calls $6.

Flop: ($20) Qh, As, Kc (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $12, SB calls $12.

Turn: ($44) 7c (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $35, SB raises to $85, Hero bets $391.72 (All-In), SB calls $391.72.

River: ($897.44) 4h (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $897.44

Results:
SB has Ah Kh (two pair, aces and kings).
Hero has Js Tc (straight, ace high).
Outcome: Hero wins $897.44.

Here's a hand that illustrates pretty well the value of hand-reading and position.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (6 handed)

MP ($110.69)
CO ($386.81)
Hero ($801.19)
SB ($888.50)
BB ($184.99)
UTG ($219.04)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Qc, 8c.

3 folds, Hero raises to $12, 1 fold, BB raises to $30, Hero calls $18.

Flop: ($62) Ah, 6s, 5h (2 players)

BB bets $30, Hero calls $30.

Turn: ($122) 9h (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $100, BB folds.

Final Pot: $222

Results:
No showdown. Hero wins $222.

But really, some guys are just donkeys. It really seems as though once a guy has made a bet at a pot, or the pot has gotten to be, say, at least $50 or so, some people just won't fold any pair. Here's an example which really isn't of any value except to laugh at my opponent.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (6 handed)

SB ($805.20)
BB ($448.30)
UTG ($684.13)
Hero ($1028.60)
CO ($189.40)
Button ($726.45)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 4d, 4c.

UTG calls $4, Hero calls $4, CO raises to $20, 3 folds, UTG calls $16, Hero calls $16.

Flop: ($66) 4h, Jh, 9c (3 players)

UTG checks, Hero checks, CO bets $40, UTG calls $40, Hero raises to $200, CO folds, UTG calls $160.

Turn: ($506) 5c (2 players)

UTG checks, Hero bets $808.60 (All-In), UTG calls $464.13 (All-In).

River: ($1778.73) Ah (2 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: $1778.73

Results:
UTG has 9d Ad (two pair, aces and nines).
Hero has 4d 4c (three of a kind, fours).
Outcome: Hero wins $1778.73.

He called a large bet and then an all-in with a fairly deep stack with middle pair. And while that's the most extreme case I've run into--so far--there are a dozen other hands which are similar, where a guy has middle pair and no real draw yet is willing to get his whole stack in the middle over the course of the hand. It boggles my mind, but I'm definitely not complaining. Those guys pay my bills.

2006-05-24T02:47:00.000-07:00

NL has been going okay. My wins and losses have been quite small in relation to limit, even when I just played 5/10. I haven't been playing a whole lot, though. The sense of urgency that compelled me through 40 hour weeks back in '04 and '05 (and rocketed me from 4/8 to 100/200 in the same timeframe) seems to have deserted me.

One trend I've noticed, which I admit might be just some combination of selective memory and small sample size, is this: If someone goes all-in when I have the nuts, they invariably are completely bluffing. They didn't decide that I didn't have the nuts when they held the second nuts or whatever, they were just all out bluffing. However, if someone pushes all-in when I have the second nuts, they invariably have the nuts.

First, this leads me to the possible conclusion that a person pushing either has the nuts (or close enough for government work) or it's a total bluff. Assuming stacks are reasonably large, people just won't push with very strong but clearly non-nut hands, nor will they with relatively weak hands that aren't total misses (middle or top pair or something). I guess that makes sense. If you have no hand whatsoever the only way you can win is if the other guy folds and if you have a great hand, well hope the guy has something he can call with. But between the two, why risk blowing a person off a weak hand with which he might call a smaller bet, or make a huge bet that only hands that beat you can call?

But also, one thing I'm still confused about is how come it seems as though a person never pushes on a bluff when I have the second nuts? They've certainly shown a willingness to push on a bluff. And I'm not going to play the second nuts much differently from the nuts, so I doubt my play influences their decision. Yet the #2/pure bluff combo never seems to happen.

I guess I should just chalk that up to either selective memory or small sample size.

Anyways, I really feel like I'm approaching NL much like I used to approach limit when I did 2/4 and 3/6 limit online. I'm very wary about moving up. I always feel like if I won or have been winning for a while it's just luck and it'll all come crashing down soon.

I still haven't had the convincing string of wins that I would have at limit. At NL, the wins are supposed to be large and the losses rather small and sporadic. Well my wins are bigger than my losses, but still not overly large. And my losses seem to occur more frequently than some good NL players experience. Although many of those can usually be traced back to that one bad call, or one bad attempted bluff.

Certainly it should be expected that I'm not as good as guys who've been playing NL like I used to play limit. But it would be nice to just have that one day like I had with limit where all of a sudden I was winning and winning regularly for 18+ months. I guess while I'm at it, it would be nice to have a Ferrari, a beachfront mansion and a supermodel girlfriend, too.

I guess if how much attention I've been paying to my blog lately is indicitive of how focused I am on poker then it shouldn't be too surprising my results aren't improving as much as I'd like.

2006-05-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

I'm back.

I played last night, Friday, at the Wynn. 2/5NL. Last time I'd played live was March 10. Last time I'd played online was March 24. In fact, I didn't play at all between those two dates, so besides that one day in late March this is the first time I've played in over two months.

I actually started writing about it as soon as I got home last night. I spent over two hours on a long, rambling emotional examination into how apparent it is now that I've played how burnt out and out-of-it I was a few months ago, but how excited and eager I am to be back playing. Well you all know what's coming next. I lost it. It's almost a rite of passage for bloggers to have that one post complaining about a lost post. Personally, I would smugly look down on all those guys who would sit there and whine about losing a super-long entry, since 95+% of the time the reason was "blogger ate it! I clicked submit and it disappeared!" Ha-HA, I would think to myself, I am superior to these other twits because I make sure to copy what I wrote before I submit it. Good ol' Ctrl-C. That will never happen to me.

Of course, rewind to many months ago after my UPS dies--and after finding this out by my computer dying along with the power during a rare storm here while in the middle of frickin 8-tabling--I decide to procrastinate for a half a year before replacing it right up until the moment the power blinks out again, last night, with clear skies overhead, 2 1/2 hours into typing what would have been my magnum opus, and about 5 minutes away from finishing it and clicking submit. So instead of a deep, meaningful, serious post, you get this somewhat sarcastic, slightly bitter, semi-whine post (which I've saved about 8378304362928 times so far). But, hey, it's shorter, so maybe you win anyways.

I'll summarize the long-lost entry in list form:

1) Haven't played in a while
2) Haven't wanted to play in a while.
3) Played last night because I actually wanted to.
4) It was like I'd never left
5) Except I was more emotionally detached and mentally engaged than I was two months ago when I was the exact opposite--emotionally engaged and mentally detached. Last night, I was playing more like I'd played 6 months or a year ago.
6) Yay, poker!

Of course that means I won. And, for the first time in forever, I actually have hands to post! I can't guarantee they're interesting, only that they're the most interesting hands I've played in the last two months (spanning a whole 5 hours of play!).

Hand #1:

UTG seems to be slightly on tilt. What this means is that he's as tight as ever (which is very tight) but he is uber-aggressive. I've only seen him call once, on any street, otherwise he's been in pump-it-or-dump-it mode. He bets, raises or folds. Because of this he hasn't shown down many hands, but those he has shown down have been good. He has, however, mixed it up a little preflop, like the last round where he raised 3X the BB from UTG with A2s.

MP is the exact opposite. He's been very, very passive. He merely called out of the BB with AA after a few limpers and a late-position raise. Then he proceeded to check-call both the flop and the turn, only betting the river when he looked down to find himself almost all-in in a large pot heads-up.

$500 effective stacks, 2/5NL, full game.

UTG raises to $15. One fold. I'm next to act with QQ. I make it $45 to go. MP calls right after me. Folds back around to UTG. He immediately makes it $115 to go. I fold.

Hand #2:

BB has been playing tight and fairly solid, but for the last 15 mins or so, so has the rest of the table. He's gotten somewhat antsy. He straddled, he's made a couple of moves with mixed results. He's essentially playing like someone who's gotten a bit impatient and feels he can push the rest of us nits around on occasion.

$600 effective stacks, 2/5 NL, full game.

Everybody limps, I limp along in the CO with 8d7d. Button limps, SB completes. BB raises to $40. Everyone folds to me, and the button and SB are clearly folding after me. I call. Button and SB do as they promised and it's heads-up. BB seems nervous.

Flop ($101 in pot): Ad Kc 9d

BB leads for $50. I call, planning on betting or raising any turn.

Hand #3:

UTG has been very tight and fairly inactive for a while now. No real reads on him except that he's not a lunatic.

$700 effective stacks, 2/5 NL, full game.

UTG raises to $25. I'm in MP with AhKh. I call. Everyone else folds.

Flop ($54 in pot): Ad 8s 4c

UTG leads for $100. What's my best move here? What about if I didn't have an A?

2006-05-02T03:19:00.000-07:00

Living in Vegas means I'm regularly entertaining out-of-town guests. One item that has always been of great interest (to the point of earning a permanent spot on the "visitor tour") has been the $5,000 slot machine at the Wynn. Almost without fail, everyone who sees it looks at it in awe and bewilderment for a few seconds and then asks: "Who the heck would play that thing?"

Until now, I could never answer because I'd never seen it in use. Well, finally, here is your answer.

John Daly says he has lost between $50 million and $60 million during 12 years of heavy gambling...He told one story of earning $750,000 when he lost in a playoff to Tiger Woods last fall in San Francisco at a World Golf Championship. Instead of going home, he drove to Las Vegas and says he lost $1.65 million in five hours playing mostly $5,000 slot machines.

Sounds like I should install a $6,000 machine in my apartment and try to take all their business.

But thank you, Mr. Daly. Sounds like we owe a fairly large fraction of 1% of the strip to your generosity. Have you ever considered poker?

2006-04-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

Such a strange dichotomy it is being in my mid-to-late twenties. I'm both old and young at the same time.

This morning I was shopping for a new pair of running shoes. I hit the outlet store for the best price, find the brand I like, look at all four selections they have in that brand and miraculously find one that is both in my size and my price range. I grab it off the shelf, try it on, like it. Back in the box, up to the counter to pay.

Then, only then, do I realize that the shoes I chose and were about to pay for were the most hideous things ever. They were white, except with random splotches of neon green randomly distributed about their surface, and then criss-crossed with random black and grey lines. Seriously, it looks like after the shoes were made they were sent to be decorated by an eplieptic four-year-old with neon paint followed by a retarded two-year-old with black and grey crayons.

And you know what? I didn't care. I shrugged and paid. Heck, the shoes satisfy my more pressing needs, who cares if they aren't very attractive?

Now, compare this to most of the rest of my life when I would search for shoes based solely on looks, find the best looking ones, and if those actually had some use other than looking good (you know, comfort, reasonable price, etc) then that was just a bonus. Evidently, that process has completely reversed itself at some point.

Conclusion: I'm getting old.

But then I come home, go to mlb.com, open this story and giggle like a schoolgirl at the included picture:

At least some part of me never grew up.

So in conclusion, I have the fashion sense of a 70-year-old man and the sense of humor of a middle-school kid. That's a winning combination.

2006-04-20T01:10:00.000-07:00

Between a week and a half of visitors in town and no poker, there hasn't been a whole lot to update.

Except. I'm starting to get the itch. Not a whole lot, but it's there. Also, going over a month with zero income after having had a couple weeks of fairly substantial negative income is starting to annoy me. So poker will be back pretty soon.

Limit hold'em really became a huge grind. I mean very, very annoying. So I was thinking that this extended break might be a good chance to switch games up completely and see how it goes. That is, start in doing NL primarily and see how it goes. I've been thinking of making the switch for a while yet, so why not now?

If I do, though, it will be like going back in time to a year and a half ago or so in limit and starting all over again. Dollar amounts, game knowlege and comfort, will all be pushed back by many hundreds of thousands of hands. A real life equivalent would be like starting high school over again.

So we'll see.

Ultimately, it would be nice to get some kind of regular positive cash flow coming in again so I feel more comfortable with what is my next goal--buying a house. It's one thing to have a downpayment ready, it's another to be able to make monthly mortgage payments for the next umpteen years. Even bringing in a relatively small amount, as long as I'm confident in my ability to do so, would go a long way towards making me feel comfortable with such a large purchase.

2006-04-07T18:32:00.000-07:00

Stupid taxes.

2006-04-05T18:05:00.000-07:00

I was never, ever comfortable, and that to me was the biggest thing. It was that fear that made me good. You can't take anything for granted.
--Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley, on his success in the ninth inning (Contra Costa Times)

I read that quote--found here, first quote under the heading that starts "In Order To Be Successful..."-- and immediately thought of my own poker sojourn. I'm not claiming to be as good at poker as Eckersley was at pitching in the ninth inning (at least for five years), but I think his idea on how he approached his job was very similar to how I approached mine.

When I was doing my best, I was never comfortable. I was always on edge, convinced that I was one foul-up away from going broke. As the weeks and months went by and my success continued, my state of near-paranoia barely waned, thanks in large part to the variance inherent in poker--any time I'd get the slightest bit relaxed, I'd drop 150BBs in a blink of an eye, promptly resetting my nerves on edge.

But somewhere, I lost that constant state of paranoia, and with it my edge. The seeds were sown with my move out here to Las Vegas last July to live the dream. I was proclaiming that poker was no longer just a profitable hobby, but a career. Isolated from friends and in a new town I wasn't all that comfortable in or familiar with, I had little else to do besides play poker. Slowly, the other aspects of my life shriveled away. Socializing, physical activity, reading, trips to new places, all things I enjoyed, were no longer on the daily plan. Wake up, play poker, surf the web, play some more poker, go to sleep. Those were my days.

The staggering opportunity cost of doing anything besides poker compelled me to keep my attention on poker and nothing else. If I wasn't playing I was reading about it online or in books, or discussing it with friends or just thinking about it. But while my poker senses sharpened and my bankroll grew, my body softened, my intellect dulled, and my social skills withered. My life was poker hedonism at its most extreme. Any activity not required for the continued function of my body, ie, anything other than eating and sleeping, represented merely an obstactle in my undying pursuit of the next flop.

I managed quite fine like this for a suprisingly long time, nights blurring together, and weeks rolling by effortlessly. The first of every month I'd poke my head up to take stock of how I was doing, but otherwise my head was down, with my nose on the proverbial grindstone.

As anyone who's lived a singularly-focused life for a while knows, such a lifestyle is always temporary. Burnout will set in.

The first cracks in my dream lifestyle appeared in December. What? A losing month? That can't happen. Must be an anomaly. Sure I lost in September, but that was playing 80% live. In December I played primarily online. Losing over 3000 hands is one thing. Over 30,000, it's something else.

But it happens, even to the best of us. Right? Except that even with my attempts at rationalizing the losing month away, it shook me. Poker had become such a huge part of my life that at some point I become emotionally invested in it. If I couldn't do poker, what else could I do? There was nothing else in my life.

I continued my grind into the new year and had success overall but with wild fluctuation, much worse than typical. And sharp drop brought another emotional jolt; each one was actually now a blow to my self-worth.

To cap it all off, I was experiencing "poker numbness." Just like overexposure to any other kind of stimulation will cause one to simply go numb from it, playing poker day after day, week after week, month after month, left me unable to feel the game as I once did. This is different from emotional detachment (a very good trait to have while playing), rather it's more like poker apathy--I wasn't caring enough to focus on what was happening enough to try to learn from my mistakes. Individual wins and losses stopped mattering. Did I just win $5000? Meh. Did I just lose $5000? Meh (although when I was still down at the end of the week or month, it did hurt).

Because of my apathetic approach to individual wins and losses, gone was my motivation to make every decision as good as it can be. I was comfortable. I was no longer the least bit afraid, no longer on edge. Perhaps being unafraid is an asset in NL, but in limit that's death. A few bets that have no chance of accomplishing anything, a few calldowns that have no chance of winning, that's all that separates the winners from the losers in many circumstances. No longer focusing on those small edges is limit poker suicide.

And so I swung wilder and wilder. Any financial adviser will tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket. Diversity is key, otherwise you risk losing it all in one fell swoop. Just like people's money is invested in stocks, people's emotions are invested in their lives. My life was poker, poker was getting wacky, and so my emotions were also getting wacky.

February nearly broke me emotionally. The first half was brutal, but then I made a raging comeback the second half. However this didn't make me happy. Much like after many years a heroin addict will take heroin not because it makes him feel better, but rather because not taking it makes him feel worse--a subtle but real difference--I'd simply been granted a reprieve from my pain.

March accomplished what February nearly did. I think the snowboarding trip was a large part of it. The first half of March went just like the first half of February, only worse. But before I could try to regroup, I was off for a week freezing my ass off on some godforsaken mountain, intermittently digging snow out of my pants, or my ears. I didn't play any poker the entire time, and for the first time in as long as I could remember I was 1) completely focused on an activity besides poker and 2) enjoying it. I can't emphasize that enough. That trip reopened my eyes to the variety of experiences life offers.

After that trip, I decided to try to branch out. Only then did my fragile emotional state become apparent. So much of my time, effort and emotions were all invested in poker that when it cratered on me I was not only an emotional wreck, but one who would have to relearn how to get out there and deal with a life that had a lot more to it than dealers, floorpeople or overseas customer support. It was like I was six again. Simply dealing with, say, the counter person at the gym or the mechanic working on my car were learning experiences. Sad to say, but true.

This isn't the end of my poker career, not by a long shot. Despite what it may sound like, I'm far from broke financially--my March losses are but a small fraction of my overall success from the game.

This is, however, the end of my being a poker junkie. I am now rebuilding my life outside of poker. Slowly and a bit hesitantly, as is my style, but I am doing it. Once I add in the other parts of a well-balanced life in sufficient quantities--social life, physical activities, hobbies/interests--only then will I add poker back into the mix. Poker will become just a part of who I am, a small part, rather than the overwhelming defining characteristic of my person. Sure I'll give up some EV, perhaps quite a lot, but you know what? I don't care.

I want to go rock-climbing under the sun. I want to play a grueling session of racquetball. I want to roll down a snow-covered mountain while a snowboard is attached to my feet. I want to meet a group of friends for dinner and bullshit for hours even after the meal has ended. Then after all that, after I've enjoyed life a bit, I'll play some poker. Just a little bit. Enough to earn some money to pay the bills and maybe put a little more away. But just enough to do that. Because there will be a life to get back to.

2006-04-03T20:38:00.000-07:00

So I thought I might try an interent dating site. You know the ones that are 95% male, 4% ugly psycho chicks and 1% hookers? (I might have those last two numbers reversed.)

I figure after I post this the offers should roll in.

So here's my description:

I'm 27, white, male, single. I sit around my apartment all day wearing nothing but boxers and socks reading internet message boards about baseball or poker. I communicate with practically no one. I have no social skills or confidence. I am not funny.

I burp and fart. A lot. I enjoy the smell.

I have no job, no ambitions or goals, and really, no role in society. I just waste space and resources. Well, except I do pay the rent for many fine, young women who are willing to take off their clothes for me.

Due to a long history of fucked up relationships, I have become heavily misogynistic. I have no respect for women and just want a fuck toy. I am cheap and won't buy you anything. I don't care how your day was. And the last thing I want is your small-minded opinion. On anything. And for those thinking, "I am intelligent and enlightened; I don't have small-minded opinions!" you are wrong. If you have an opinion, it's small-minded. Trust me.

Women over the age of 25 need not apply; ya'll are too hairy and saggy to be worth my time.

2006-03-27T05:59:00.000-08:00

All right, I've been very neglectful of my blog. But there's a reason. I haven't been playing any poker! I played Friday night. Before that it was...er...March 9? So there really isn't anything poker-related to talk about.

I've been trying to focus more on other things. I pretty much let poker become my life, and that's not good. It's one thing to enjoy and play poker, even a lot, but when one's entire emotional state begins to rely on how the cards are running, it's time to take a break.

Many people have a family, a job, hobbies and whatnot so that's not really a concern for them. I'm single, and this was my hobby and became my job, so suddenly I was left with little to distract me from poker. This was good for my bottom line, but ultimately bad for my emotional health, and so I think this break is good.

I'm looking into developing other hobbies, creating more of a social life out here, and trying to find investments for some money I have saved up. Hopefully things will start to develop, and I can go back to playing poker pretty soon in a much more detached state.

2006-03-21T00:54:00.000-08:00

I'm back from vacation. Whistler was great. I haven't been snowboarding in over 5 years, perhaps over 6. Anyone who says boarding is like riding a bike is completely wrong. Wow. I got on my board, got on the slopes and proceeded to fall right on my ass. Over and over and over again.

But I eventually got myself back to semi-decent. Now I just have to start going more regularly so I don't completely lose it again.

Whistler really is a beautiful place. It's huge, with super long trails. I was definitely unworthy. I probably got down less than 5% of the available trails. A few pictures (all taken by a friend):

I've also played zero poker over the last 11 days. (Well, unless you count a few free HU tournies played during down time.) It's been a good break, I think. I'll probably play again on Thursday, give or take. In the past I've always done better after breaks of a week or more, so hopefully that trend will continue. I may even have to institute a "one week a month off" policy. I mean, I have the freedom. I might as well take advantage of it.

2006-03-09T04:10:00.000-08:00

Saturday I leave for a week of skiing/snowboaring at Whistler, near Vancouver. I'll probably do mostly or all snowboarding since I've only been skiing once in my life, when I was 12, and the results weren't pretty (only had to go to the doctor, no emergency room, thankfully). Of course, I haven't been snowboarding in over five years, either, so it should be interesting.

But, being the hopeless degenerate I am, I'll be bringing my laptop and playing poker online! If anything interesting happens on my trip, win a million bucks, break my neck, whatever, I'll post it here.

2006-03-05T04:17:00.000-08:00

Here's March so far. Limit poker is fuuuuun.

On a positive note, I've tried some of the 30/60 6max games, and my initial impressions are that I can probably handle them. Doesn't hurt that I've done very well in my short time there, of course.

The 20/40 has been stagnating for me lately. I've created a perfect maniac image, which leads to people calling me down with tons of random crap, even good, tight players are calling down my turn CRes with A-high. One problem, though--Party keeps giving them their two- and three-outers! Godamnit.

All right, off to bed with me before I start complaining about Party being rigged.

2006-03-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

February was definitely a tale of two months. The first half sucked. The second half was amazing. Overall, it was a decent month. Which I'll more than take considering halfway through I thought I was looking at another losing month.

I tore up the cash games the last half, I think having a record two-week run in cash games. Overall, for cash games I actually matched my pretty good January, despite essentially moving down in limits from 30/60 full to 20/40 6max (and only after having a 300BB downswing at 30/60 the first week of the month). I guess doing similarly well shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. That's just how soft the 20/40 games are.

No, what made this month only decent rather than pretty good were trying MTTs and not doing overly well. I did fine in the few $22 and $55 online events I entered, but I air-balled the $109, $215, and $378 events I entered (admittedly not an overwhelming number of them). Oh yeah, there was also that $1500 rebuy event at the LA Poker Classic at the Commerce that ended up costing me $7580.

The last MTT I tried was Sunday's $750K guaranteed on Party, a $378 event ($350 + $28). I busted in the first quarter of the field, on a stupid donkey play from a result of playing too many tables at once and not actually thinking (I called someone's EP limp-reraise all-in with 99....yeah pretty bad). If I'm going to make any serious effort to play NL, whether it be cash games or tournaments, I'm really going to have to make more of an effort to eliminate those one-time mistakes. In limit, it's often a bigger mistake to fold than to call with a half-way decent hand. In NL, the exact opposite is true.

(Edit: I just had a friend email me, basically saying, "you make it sound like you multi-tabled the MTT!" Haha...no. I was playing too many tables, but the tables were random SnGs, tournaments and cash games. I only had one table of the actual big tourney going. No multi-accounting here.)

Anyways, here's one hand from Sunday's tournament that I thought was interesting. I may have actually misplayed every single street. But I think every street is quite debateable. I'm certianly open to any and all opinions.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t60 (10 handed)

MP2 (t4765)

MP3 (t2334)

CO (t4738)

Button (t5267)

SB (t6145)

BB (t4585)

Hero (t4480)

UTG+1 (t6487)

UTG+2 (t4030)

MP1 (t7169)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Js, Jc.

Hero raises to t120, 1 fold, UTG+2 raises to t220, 6 folds, BB calls t160, Hero calls t100.

Flop: (t690) 7h, 2h, Td (3 players)

BB checks, Hero checks, UTG+2 bets t300, BB folds, Hero raises to t800, UTG+2 calls t500.

Turn: (t2290) 6d (2 players)

Hero bets t1000, UTG+2 calls t1000.

River: (t4290) 8d (2 players)

Hero checks, UTG+2 bets t2010 (all-in), Hero folds.

Final Pot: t4290

Main Pot: t4290 (t4290), returned to UTG+2.

Results below:

UTG+2 doesn't show.

Outcome: UTG+2 wins t4290.

2006-02-25T11:33:00.000-08:00

Random odds 'n' ends today:

*I've been taking a day or two a month and multi-tabling one-table NL SnGs. The hand histories have been going to my yahoo mail account and yahoo is stupid and doesn't allow access via software mail clients unless you pay for their premium service, but I finally got around to getting them off yahoo and into Pokertracker yesterday.

7% ROI over 118 SnGs. Yeah, small sample size. I'm up overall but not a whole lot, and most definitely not anywhere near my hourly expectation in limit cash games. But it's a good change of pace, I guess. And improving one's tournament game can never be considered bad.

The ones I've been playing the most have been the 109s, and I'm actually down at those. 91 tournies and I'm down just about the same amount as fees I've paid. Maybe I'm break-even at that level? At least while 6-tabling. I know, I know--sample size.

I've also done a few 77s, and I'm down slightly there. Thankfully, the few 215s I've done have had very good results, and so I'm up overall.

*Speaking of tournies, I have played a few 55 and 109 MTTs with mixed results. I'm up slightly, but I don't really have any big cashes (well I did final-table a 22 event and get over $900, so proportionally speaking I guess that's a big cash). I was going to try the 215 tonight on Party, but, er, let's just say that I'm a bit skeptical thanks to recent events.

(To very briefly summarize the links, two high-profile online players were recently caught having played multiple accounts from the same computer in the same tournaments, thereby forfeiting a combined $280K. Each said the practice of playing multiple accounts is fairly common.)

No, I don't have multiple accounts, but I also don't want to be putting my money up against a whole bunch of people who do. And anyone who thinks that two high-profile players getting busted will stop other people from doing it is living in a fantasy world. Sure, it'll deter some people, but unless there's a major crackdown where some significant percentage of players who multi-account these tournaments are busted, many guys will just keep trying. After all, both the above players weren't busted until they were stupid enough to open their mouths and get reported to Party by someone else--Party didn't just independently figure out that they were playing six or whatever accounts all on the same computer in the same tournament.

I guess I'll probably have to go back to Stars for my MTT needs since they seem to better have their act together about cheating prevention.

*Yesterday was my best online day ever cash-wise, and second best ever BBs-wise (second only to a magical day on UB's 3/6 tables way back in Aug, 2004). In addition to eeking out a small win at SnGs, I had a crazy run at the 20/40 6m tables. The games were phenomenal last night. I mean they defied description. Guys were check-raising the turn with bottom-pair and calling down when three-bet, calling river bets with K-high, Q-high, calling when playing the board, all despite having faced multiple raises.

I'll be back tonight for another long session, that's for sure.

*And in a related note, I've only played at the Bellagio twice since Jan 15, a span of nearly six weeks. And neither time did I play the 80/160 game. I keep meaning to get out there, but when people are literally giving away money on Party, and Party themselves are giving away money (and iPods), it's kind of hard to get up the motivation to go play a slower, higher-variance game, with less earning potential, and then have to beg for a $15 food comp afterwards. Yes, playing live is more fun, but I'm a greedy mofo.

I will have to get out to the Wynn and try what is apparently now an oft-running 60/120 game, and perhaps even delve into their occasionally-running 150/300 game that I've heard about.

2006-02-21T04:25:00.000-08:00

These new 6max games combined with the Party bonus offers are like crack. I played over 22 hours online last week and that's the most I've played online in a week in a long while. It also doesn't hurt that I ran very well. It's been a while since I've had a long sustained run of success so I'm feeling better. I think the fact that I essentially dropped in limits, from 30/60 to 20/40 and occasional 15/30, has helped. Also playing primarily short-handed I think more suits my "natural" style.

I'm not out of the woods yet. Examining my results for the last nearly three months shows that I've had poor overall results, at least relative to the standards I set for myself over the previous year and a half and 300-400K hands.

I don't usually post graphs and go into too much detail about results, but I will this once to illustrate what I'm talking about and the source of my concern.

This is how this current year has gone on Party, a little more than a month and a half:

From the start until the peak around the 16K hand mark was January. Not a bad month, overall. Nothing fantastic, but I'll take it--certainly better than the bad months. From that peak until the valley around the 27K hand mark was the first part of Febuary. Yes, that's over 300BBs. Not fun. From that trough to the end was this past week, which equates to nearly 10K hands and nearly a 4BB/100 WR, despite two separate 100BB+ losing streaks. Yay for me.

But overall, you see that my WR is sitting at 1.06BB/100, which is quite a bit below my "standard," less than half, in fact. Well, it's still only 36K hands or so, so what about December?

Er....26K hands, 0.19BB/100. So there's 62K hands at about a 0.70BB/100 WR. That's not a good trend. For most of my poker career, downswings were an anomaly. Maybe once a month I'd have a 130BB downswing or so, and once every few months I'd venture into the 200ish BB downswing territory. Now, they're practically commonplace.

I have enough statistical knowledge to know that even excellent players can run as I have for as long as I have, but I also know that I've moved up quite a bit in limits (most of this grinding my wheels the past 2 1/2 months has been at 30/60 and 50/100) and that I've also not been playing optimally--I've been trying perhaps too many tables, stubbornly staying in games that weren't great, and in general not focusing as much as I perhaps should as I continue to take the game more for granted. I for one am inclined to believe that my recent mediocre results are as much deserved as they are a result of one of those 60K hand statistical anomalies.

Now anyone who wants to do the math can deduce that I'm still paying my bills with room to spare (although it's worth noting that most of the downswings were at the bigger limits and the upswings at smaller limits), so I know many won't feel too much sympathy as they wake up at 7am to go to their cubicle job.

I'm not posting this looking for sympathy. I'm just saying this because I started this blog mostly to keep friends and family updated on how I'm doing, for better or for worse, and, well, that's how I'm doing. I've had three months of subpar results, and so I'm questioning where I go from here. I think I'll be hanging around the newly opened-up 15/30 and 20/40 6-max games for a while since my results have been better there and I like short-handed, and one can still make plenty of money at those levels.

I may very well have hit the peak of what I can accomplish given my current committment level to the game, and if that's true, so be it. I'd love to be one of those guys who makes 100K+ in a month, but I may just not have the mentality for it. So while I'm not about to give up poker as a profession--I still make much more at this than I can doing any "paid" job--I may very well have gotten knocked off the rocket ride up in limits, and am now operating a hand-cranked dumbwaiter. And if that's a stupid metaphor, then, well, deal with it. It's 5am.

2006-02-18T02:33:00.000-08:00

Party has completely overhauled their software, and have done a fair amount of changes to their game offerings. Most imporantly, they now have 6-max at every LHE level, including 20/40 and 30/60. The 30/60 seems to be restricted so I haven't played that yet, but the 20/40 is wide open and amazing. I've been playing that the last couple days and doing great.

What is it about 6-max that attracts all these amazingly bad players? So many guys will raise and reraise with absolutely nothing. I guess it works on some people, but anyone with half a brain will catch on quickly. The level of play definitely reminds me of the level of play at the old 10/20 6-max games, although perhaps a bit more aggressive.

I'm definitely enjoying myself more than I have in a while. Full ring games have gotten to be quite a chore, with everyone sitting around waiting for AQ or better (and, being full ring, it's always out there). 6-max allows for a little bit more creativity, and I can play more hands and be more aggressive with weaker holdings. I mean, who doesn't like to raise, raise, raise?

Combined with better tournament stuctures, their acceler8or program, and a new store that is supposed to have lots of cool stuff, Party seems intent on not only having me not play on any other sites, but not even play live any more! And, golly, it just might work.

2006-02-14T19:31:00.000-08:00

I'm back from LA. Was fun. I did pretty well in the cash games, and so decided to take my shot at the million-dollar guaranteed limit tournament on Saturday. $1580 buy-in, plus unlimited $1500 rebuys for the first three hours, and then a single or double $1500 add-on. So it was a "cheap" tournament that could get quite expensive.

First place paid over $500,000, so I was willing to gamble a bit. So I budgeted $3000 and promptly spent over twice that.

The first round everyone was pretty tight, and then rounds two through perhaps four everyone loosened up considerably before tightening back up. I pretty much stayed around an average chip stack through the entire day 1. I was for the most part card dead and therefore not playing many hands at all, so I got pretty good respect any time I was in a pot. But a few suckouts kept me from amassing anything substantial. Then a bad couple of hands in the last 30 mins of day one left me fairly short-stacked going into day two.

Day two saw 57 of the 434 original players return. 27 spots paid. I was in dire straits, however, pretty much forced to go all-in on any hand I wanted to play, and that hand came eight minutes after the start of the day when I picked up TT but finished in third place to JJ and an 85s that became trips. Such is life.

That was my first "big" tournament and I think I handled myself pretty well. I did let nerves prevent me from making a move or two that I normally would have, and perhaps kept me from being as aggressive as I should have been in a couple spots, but I think my comfort level will increase pretty dramatically with a little more experience in these tournaments.

One thing that was surprising was seeing how some of the "bigger" names played. In my admittedly brief playing time with some of them, there was definitely quite a disparity between reputation and skill in a few instances.

I did play a substantial amount against two players who made the final table. One of them I had all in as a 3:1 favorite after the flop at one point late in day 1 (and of course lost) and another one had been shortstacked for most of day 1, all-in a couple times, before having a nice run the last round of day 1 and apparently having an even nicer run on day 2. That's the nature of tournaments, I guess.

All told it was quite an experience. I've had pretty good success in my fairly short limit hold'em tournament career, and so I think I'll probably try more events, both online and live. There are quite a few big events that come through Las Vegas and LA, so I won't even have to travel very far. I'll even start adding some NL events, although I'm not prepared to try any event above about $1500 just yet.

The final tally for the weekend wasn't too shabby either considering how much I dropped in the tourney. I was down a little bit, but not a whole lot, thanks to having decent success in the cash games. And maybe if I try enough of these tournaments, one of these days instead of just paying for my tournament entry with cash game wins, I'll have a nice big score that will make all the long hours all worth it.

2006-02-09T00:35:00.000-08:00

Well I've been on what so far has become the second worst run of my poker career, so the time has come to take stock of the facts.

Fact: I hate losing money. I mean really hate it.

Fact: My performance has become a lot more volatile over the last four or five months, ever since I regularly started playing 30/60 online.

Fact: Since October I haven't earned any more money on average than I did the previous months, I've just had bigger winning runs and worse losing runs (see previous fact).

Fact: It really isn't a goal of mine to be as good at poker as I can possibly be. I mean I want to do well, and for a while there I was doing everything in my power to be as good as I can get, but I've reached the point where it's not really a priority to get better. The money is more than I need, and the additional stress of playing against better players just isn't worth it. I like keeping a relatively laid back, easy-going lifestyle.

On the flip side:

Fact: I hate jobs. I mean a lot. If I have to spend my life working at a job like my last job I will kill myself. Seriously. Or just be a homeless bum. I'll figure something out, anything out, rather than work a job.

Fact: I like being able to make good money playing poker.

So my conclusion: I should probably drop in limits and "redo" what I did most of last year. I'll be earning money with less stress, and perhaps (hopefully) plugging leaks that have sprung up in my game. I won't need to put in 50K+ hands/level like I did last year, but it should hopefully help me get my bearings again.

I'm not talking going to 15/30, or even 10/20. I'm talking trying out 5/10 again for a while. Maybe 20K hands. Then 10/20. Then 15/30. Then 20/40. Then 30/60 again, if I make it that far. If not, oh well. One can make a very good living at the 10/20 to 20/40 level. Heck, one can do better at 5/10 than I was doing at my last job.

Ultimately, my goal in life is to enjoy my life, and so I rate quality of life higher than anything else--money, fame, accomplishments, whatever. Not having a wage-slave, cubicle-monkey job is about #1 on my list of things that improve my quality of life, but #2 is simplicity. Many people over-complicate their lives (most of the time unnecessarily, and I mean from any viewpoint), and I'm someone who's always done the opposite. Some may say my life is overly-simple, and perhaps it is, but I love it that way. And stressing out over dropping $6k+ in one night at 30/60 is just complications I don't need.

Perhaps I'd feel better if those $6k losses came after tons and tons of wins, but they haven't. I'm still up in the online 30 game overall, but not a whole lot. Yes it's only been maybe 40K hands, but they haven't been much fun.

(Warning, tangential rambling--yes, even more--ahead.) I think the turning point came last weekend when I did very badly, but couldn't exactly put my finger on exactly why. I've certainly had plenty of bad runs over my career, but there's always been a clear reason, sometimes bad play or bad game selection, but often just extended runs of bad luck. I remember my worst run when I used to play 3/6 was losing close to $1000 in one night (still by far my worst BB loss in one day). But that run was an obvious bad luck run--I remember three times within 5 minutes I flopped the nut full house and lost. AK never hit, pocketpairs never hit or held up, two-outers on the river kept coming in for opponents, etc, etc.

But last weekend I couldn't say that. I in fact won some huge pots, like, I dunno, hitting a gut-shot straight flush over a full house and a straight. My big pocket pairs have been doing quite well, although KK and QQ are perhaps a little below typical. Where I've been getting ground down was the small "typical" hands, where it's heads up or three-handed and people have their usual assortment of A-highs and middle pairs and whatnot. I think I'm just letting too many pots go without a fight since really every heads up or three-handed pot is getting bet on the flop (and often raised) regardless of people's hands.

It's possible to run badly in these small pots, but the other possibility one has to consider is that, well, maybe I'm just getting flat outplayed.

Of course the other possibility is that I'm simply overreacting and other people who've played a similar number of hands at similar levels would laugh at my overreacting to having two bad runs in the span of about two months.

Regardless, it's back to the drawing board.

And, as my first attempt at reducing variance, I'll be in LA this weekend playing 100/200. Heh. Okay, much like with diets, I'll start being good come Monday...

2006-02-04T22:41:00.000-08:00

January ended up being a very good month overall. February started off well, but the past 48 hours have killed me. So to make myself feel better, I'll post a hand where I hit the single perfect card (although the karmic backlash from this hand is probably what has sent me spiraling).

Party Poker 30/60 Hold'em (9 handed)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Kc, Qc.

2 folds, MP1 raises, 1 fold, MP3 calls, Hero calls, Button 3-bets, 1 fold, BB calls, MP1 calls, MP3 calls, Hero calls.

Flop: (15.50 SB) 9c, Kd, Jh (5 players)

BB bets, MP1 folds, MP3 calls, Hero raises, Button calls, BB calls, MP3 calls.

Turn: (11.75 BB) Jc (4 players)

BB bets, MP3 calls, Hero raises, Button folds, BB 3-bets, MP3 calls, Hero calls.

River: (20.75 BB) Tc (3 players)

BB bets, MP3 calls, Hero raises, BB 3-bets, MP3 calls, Hero caps, BB calls, MP3 calls.

Final Pot: 32.75 BB

Results:
BB has Th Jd (full house, jacks full of tens).

MP3 has 9d Qs (straight, king high).

Hero has Kc Qc (straight flush, king high).

Outcome: Hero wins 32.75 BB.

2006-01-31T01:39:00.000-08:00

Well, no PPM V cruise for me. I did well in all three tournaments, but not well enough. Two of them I went out within just a few spots of winning a cruise package.

I also played in a few MTTs and a bunch of SnGs the last couple of days, just to remind me why I hate tournaments so much. I must be a sadomasochist because at the same time I'm hating these tournaments, I have this strange compulsion to play in more. The story is always the same. Build up a nice stack, get deep (I final tabled over half of the MTTs I played in this weekend) and then in the span of about three crappy hands lose it all, just out of reach of the real prizes--the cruise package in some, or the big payouts in others.

For some reason that's more irritating than playing the same amount of time in cash games and dropping like $4k.

Ugh, that's it for today, I'm too annoyed.

Goal: PPM V, value $13,500. Total Spent: $1332. Status: Doh!

2006-01-29T06:47:00.000-08:00

So as some may remember, I made it a goal this year to try to qualify for a few tournaments, starting with the PPM V (Party Poker Million V cruise) in March. Well, since I posted that on December 13, this is what I've done towards that goal:

December 14: absolutely nothing
December 15: absolutely nothing
December 16: absolutely nothing
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
January 26: absolutely nothing
January 27: absolutely nothing
January 28: SOMETHING!!!

So yeah, between doing well at cash games and my general malaise towards tournaments, I kept putting off working towards the PPM V until "tomorrow."

Until yesterday. I realized I only had until Jan 30 to win a seat! So I got right on it, playing in their 250+20 semi-finals, where one out of every 54 entries gets a cruise package. No, I didn't make it.

So, I only have three shots left. There's one more 250+20 semi-final today, and then tonight there's a 675+40 "PPM V Gateway" where one out of 20 make it, and then finally tomorrow there's a 150+12 super-satellite--to which I've already won an entry--where one out of every 90 make it.

So chances are looking pretty slim for me. But I have hope. And if I don't make it....eh. There's always Aruba!

Goal: PPM V, value $13,500. Total Spent: $347. Status: $985 more in tournaments over the next two days to try and make it!

2006-01-25T10:47:00.000-08:00

Not much poker stuff today, other than to say that I spent all last week multi-tabling the 20/40 and 30/60 games on Party and I didn't play a single live hand or hand of NL. I ran quite well, so now NL is on the back burner again. At least until I run badly at limit again, which, given the nature of limit, should be within another day or two.

No the point of this post is that I'm a happy man. Obviously, Jessica Alba in a bikini is enough to make any man happy, but what really made my day was seeing the man who bagged her. That guy's not Brad Pitt or George Clooney, or Colin Farrell, or whomever. He's just a typical guy. Heck, it looks like he might already be thinning a bit on top (of course, that could just be the combination of camera angle and short hair, but I prefer to think he's actually balding).

Seriously, Me - 5 pounds + a few days of tanning = him. Well, plus eleventy kajillion dollars, too, I'm sure.

But talk about giving hope to average guys everywhere.

More poker and less superficial juvenile fawning next post, promise.

2006-01-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

I haven't really had any hands of interest of late, so I thought I'd throw an old one out there. It has stuck in my head for the better part of six months now, so that must mean something.

Mirage 40/80, four-handed. Button is quite loose passive, but the other two players (UTG and SB) while fairly loose themselves are quite aggressive, the SB especially so.

UTG limps, button limps, SB completes and I check my option with K5o (an unraised pot preflop is quite a rarity).

Flop (4 players, 4 SB): K 8 6. Checks around.

Turn (4 players, 2 BB): (K 8 6) A. SB checks, I check, UTG bets. Button and SB both fold.

What does UTG have? What's my play?

2006-01-17T04:32:00.000-08:00

So my "NL-only" week went well. Except, of course, it wasn't "NL-only." I managed to play nothing but NL cash games online (400NL 6-max on Party) and I did well there, but playing live was a different story, as the Bellagio had one 5/10NL game going with a lengthy list every night while the 80/160 game always had an open seat. This led to the peculiar result of my being called from the 80/160 game to go play at a 5/10NL game--peculiar because people usually get called from a smaller game where they kill time to go play in a bigger game.

My results were pretty good, although my handful of hours at the 80 game were by far the most profitable playing time I had this week. 400NL has gone well online, despite getting stacked a couple times with KK against AA, and another time when my nut flush ran into a very well-disguised straight flush. I was actually on the phone with a friend at that exact moment, and I think my exact words were, "hey, someone just went all-in while I have the nuts! Woohoo!......What the fuck!?!?!"

Live NL has been a somewhat harrowing experience, however. I've just been running badly, though, so I imagine it should turn around at some point. Lots of guys play it like others play limit--flop a pair, and call bets to the river hoping to hit two-pair, assuming you'll be good if you hit. At some point, they won't (either hit, or be good when they do), dammit. But besides a mistake here and there, I think I'm playing the game pretty good and, in fact, better than most at the table. I'm making good laydowns, good raises.

The only drawback to online NL is that it kills my Party points accumulation for their VIP offers (and, ahem, MGR for that matter). My points total over any given number of hands is tiny compared to playing, say, 20/40 or 30/60 limit. But oh well; I'll gladly give up a few bucks an hour if it keeps life all the more interesting.

I'm going to try to do for NL what I did for limit: play many tens of thousands of hands at a given level and move up. I already put in plenty of time at the 25, 50, 100 and 200NL levels--spread out over the last 2+ years--and so I'm at 400NL now. Maybe in a few months I'll be at 600NL and by mid-year, 1000NL. The 2000NL seems daunting just because that's where a lot of the super hardcore NL players play. Of course at one point live 6/12 limit seemed daunting, so I imagine by the time I get there it'll just be another step in the ladder.

Overall, I think NL is going to become at least 50% of my game now, meaning 50% of my playing time. The variety is great. Perhaps I'll be comfortable and confident enough in my NL game by mid-year to spend the rest of the year building up my other games so I can start jumping into some of the big mixed games around. 100/200 mix is pretty popular at the Bellagio, and if some of the players are as "good" at the other games as they are at limit hold'em then I should make out pretty well.

I'll end with an interesting NL hand from the other night--at least interesting to a NL newbie like myself.

Bellagio 5/10NL. Five-handed. I have about $900 behind, everyone else has me covered. Cutoff and I have been playing for a while, and he's rather weak-tight, although he's not oblivious to the benefits of position. He respects my bets and raises. SB is a brand new player playing his second hand.

UTG limps, CO limps, I limp on the button with K8o. I've been making a real effort to play more hands in NL when it's both shorthanded and I have the button--but I freely admit K8o might be stretching it. I dunno. SB completes, BB checks.

Flop ($50, 5 players): Js 8d 7h, rainbow. Checks to the CO who bets $40. I can narrow his holdings pretty easily here to most likely one pair, JT or better, and since he's able to get away from one-pair hands to big bets, I call planning on raising most turn cards, depending, of course, on my read. SB calls, the others both fold.

Turn ($170, 3 players): (Js 8d 7h) 7s, now two spades. SB checks, CO bets $80. I raise to $200. I expect to take the pot right there. But the SB now agonizes. "How can I lay this down?" He thinks and thinks and thinks. And thinks. Finally, he calls. The CO now agonizes as well, saying finally, "I have two outs" and calls. Yikes. My interpretation of CO is that a big river bet will get him to fold almost definitely. I felt the SB would either fold the turn or not fold at all, but he was too new to tell for sure.

River ($770, 3 players): (Js 8d 7h 7s) 2s. Both check pretty quickly to me. I have about $650. All-in or give up and check?

2006-01-13T02:27:00.000-08:00

My annoyance with limit poker has crescendoed to the point that I am now, for at least this week and maybe longer, a no-limit player.

True, I've been spinning my wheels for about a month, now. True, I've ascended to limits that very few can hope to ever beat. But the main problem hasn't been the mediocre (recent) results or the difficulty of competition. Rather, I'm starting to feel hamstrung by fixed limit. I feel like I've developed skills that are rewarded more in NL play, but are practically squandered in limit.

One skill is hand-reading. Obviously, hand-reading is valuable in any form of poker, but one can exploit the skill much more readily in NL, via pushing people off of mediocre holdings, or folding fairly strong holdings. Here's an example from the other night:

Bellagio 2/5NL. I'm in the SB with 88. MP and button limp, I complete, BB now raises to $15. We all call.

Flop ($56): Jd 5s 2s. I check, BB makes a very weak bet of $15, followed by weak calls from both MP and the button. I call.

Turn ($116): (Jd 5s 2s) 3c. I bet $60. BB grinds his teeth a bit, almost calls, but ultimately folds. MP folds quickly, and button thinks for a while and calls.

River ($236): (Jd 5s 2s 3c) Jc. I bet $100. Button folds.

Now let me explain the hand a bit, and then I'll contrast how it played out in NL with how it would play out were it a limit game.

What's BB's hand range when he raises preflop? AK/AQ/AA-?? for pocket pairs, essentially. I hadn't been playing with him for too long, but he didn't seem to be much more than a basic weak-tight straight-forward player, the type that pervades Vegas poker rooms in the very early morning hours during the week.

He then leads out very weakly. Well, he could have JJ, but my read was that he was legitimately weak. AsKs or AsQs are possibilities, while much less likely are other suits of AK or AQ. Also very possible are TT or 99 (or 88, 77, but very doubtful lower).

The weak calls show that either no one has a J or at least no one has a J they're happy with.

I could go ahead and raise right there but there is a possible flush draw, and if there's one thing I've learned about NL players, even with your typical weak-tight mid-week Vegas crowd, it's that people have a hard time laying them down on the flop, regardless of the money involved. Looking back, I probably still should have gone ahead and raised, but at the time I decided to play it safe and wait for a good turn card. This, of course, ignores that there are many more "bad" turn cards than "good" turn cards for me, but it's what I did at the time.

The turn card thankfully was fan-fucking-tastic, so I lead out. This shows a lot of strength, and given I was in the blind, people really can't put me on too specific a hand. A straight, two pair, whatever, are all possible. But this is still baby NL, and so no one's folding AA/KK/QQ on that board, so really what I'm trying to do is get out what I think are hands that beat me but aren't too happy regardless--say the BB's TT and MP's J6s, for example.

The BB's very reluctant fold tells me he had something more than just AK--perhaps AsKs but then I'd think he'd call. I'm willing to bet just about anything he had TT/99 there, most likely TT. MP mucks quickly, so I figure he wasn't even as strong as J6s (66? A5?), but then button annoys me to no end and calls after a bit of deliberation. Turn pairs the Jack. Now, what does he have? A flush draw would call quicker. A Jack would either put more assertive action in on the flop or call quicker on the turn. He has a pair. And not only does he have a pair, it's not a 5--it's something he's reluctant to put down. He's got a pocket pair from 66-TT, but given that both he didn't raise and he really doesn' t want to lay it down, it's in the 77-99 range, and much more likely 99.

Now obviously he could have his J6s or whatever, in which case he's calling my final bet--or raising--but I'm 80+% confident he has a pocket pair and about 50+% sure he has me beat. Getting him to fold a better hand here is both 1) huge and 2) very possible. So I have to bet out and hope my read is true.

He folded, and claimed to have none other than the other two eights.

So I accomplished exactly what I wanted--I was pretty sure people were weak enough that a show of strength got me the pot. And not only that but I folded out one hand that was most likely the winner and another hand that would have chopped the pot with me.

Plays like that are possible in limit, but in very rare situations. You need the right image, the right opponents, and even then you're probably SOL. What does TT/99/88 do on that board? Raise preflop, bet the flop, call the turn bet, call the river bet. Next hand. All the hand-reading in the world doesn't get me that pot.

Another skill that is much more suited for NL is forcing people to make mistakes. I tend to play a fairly aggressive style and so anyone paying attention will realize that I don't have a hand every time I'm betting. That makes me look foolish at times, but also wins me a bunch of payoff bets on the hands I do make. It's a tough line to straddle in limit, since playing too crazy will just lose you money, while not crazy enough won't give people a reason to call down your full houses. And even if they do, it's only a bet or two. In NL, their poor calls and poor folds are much, much bigger mistakes, thus more benefiting my own natural style.

And, finally, although it's not really a skill per se, I simply like that I'm not limited with how much I can win in a hand. In limit, if I make a powerhouse to someone's second best hand I win a few bets, just like if I make a medicore hand to someone else's slightly more mediocre hand. In NL, my powerhouse gets the stack of my second-best opponent. As long as I'm better at folding #2 when mine and my opponent's positions are reversed, then I'm profiting, and hugely.

Now, all this isn't meant to disparage limit. I've played probably 400,000 hands of limit poker in my life, and I'm sure I'll play plenty more. Each game accentuates different skills, and has its own beauty. For now, I just need a change, and so will focus on NL for the time-being. With luck, I'll get proficient enough to hold my own at the Bellagio 10/20 game (or even, yikes, 25/50, which has been running pretty regularly), and so I'll have my choice of games when I show up--80/160 limit or 10/20NL? Which one looks softer? More variety is always good.

2006-01-09T16:50:00.000-08:00

I've been quite busy lately which is why I haven't been posting. I've had multiple friends in town visiting, and had a three-night trip out to LA.

LA was tons of fun. I may have to move out there. I'm not kidding. The games were great, even the 100/200, which played more like the Bellagio's 30/60. Now if only the cost of living and income taxes weren't both much, much higher...

I finished December having my second losing month of the year, and the second of the last four months. Unfortunately with poker, it's impossible to tell if that's a trend (ie, I'm starting to play "out of my league" a bit) or just random fluctuation.

Graphing my income over the last year and a half or so looks like this (I hope this makes sense, I'm doing it the ultra-lazy way):


June '04:    +
July:        +
August:      +
Sept:        +
Oct:        0
Nov:         ++
Dec:         +++
Jan '05:     +++++
Febuary:     ++++
March:      0
April:       +++++++
May:         +++++++++
June:        +++++++++
July:        +++++++++
August:      ++++++++++++++
Sept:      --
October:     ++++++++++++++++
November:    ++++++++++++
Dec:     ----

Oct '04 was technically losing and March '05 was technically winning but each by trivial amounts.

By Sept '05 I was both playing significantly higher, and significantly more live, so both of those increase variance in dollar amounts. But we'll see. Oct '04, March '05 and Sept '05 each represented a 40-day or so break-even streak (over-flowing a bit into adjacent months, of course), and it looks like Dec '05-Jan '06 might be the same. I guess there's no reason to go through one every five or six months like clock-work. But if my average income isn't going to increase--I'm just going to have bigger winning months and worse losing months--then there's really no point in my playing higher. But we'll see. If there's one thing I've learned about poker, it's that there's way too much randomness to ever really conclusively tell anything.

Also, just for fun, I figured out which limits I'll be playing on Jan 1, 2007 if I have the same proportional increase in limits during 2006 as I had in 2005:

Live: 600/1200 limit, 10/20 NL
Online: 200/400 limit, 2000NL

Hmm...something tells me I'll slow down considerably in my ascent up the limit ladder, but those NL numbers may very well be correct. In fact, I hope they are. I'm giving serious consideration to trying to make NL my main game. And to help me out, Bellagio has just started spreading 5/10 NL, with a $400-1000 buy-in, which will be my next step. Woohoo, go Bellagio!

2005-12-31T16:20:00.000-08:00

Greatest hand ever:

Party Poker 20/40 Hold'em (10 handed)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 3s, 2d.

4 folds, MP2 calls, 4 folds, Hero checks.

Flop: (2.50 SB) Th, Qh, Qs (2 players)

Hero checks, MP2 folds.

Final Pot: 1.25 BB

Main Pot: 1.25 BB, returned to Hero.

He didn't misclick; that was a deliberate fold. It saved me from having to check-raise his ass.

Happy new year!

2005-12-28T13:34:00.000-08:00

Woohoo! Not only did I win some money playing 1/2 and 2/5 NL yesterday at the new Caesar's Palace poker room, but I got this:

Don't everyone get jealous, now.

As for Caesar's poker room, holy shit did a lot of wishful thinking go into that one. They had lists of interest going for 15/30 and 30/60 7CS, and 20/40, 40/80 and 50/100 holdem. Oh and 25/50 and 50/100 NLH. Then there was the second room with about a gajillion tables--all empty. Over-under on when that second room becomes, oh I dunno, a restaurant? 6 months.

The people running the room obviously have little experience actually running poker rooms. Everyone from the floors to the cage personnel were greener than Kentucky bluegrass (thanks to my horse-nut friend for that saying). Getting on the waiting list took a nice long time as the floorman was still trying to learn how the computerized waiting lists work. Switching tables was a fascinating new concept to another floor person. Cashing out was an ordeal as instead of counting one stack of chips and sizing up the others, the cage person felt it necessary to count each and every chip in each and every stack (these were all brand new chips so they aligned perfectly). And finally, the room is hidden! It's next to Pure, but the only evidence of its existence is a sign saying simply, "Poker" hanging on the wall. There's no rail whatsoever--one has to walk down a short hallway to gain entrance into the room. They certainly won't be attracting all that many casual, drop-in players.

Overall, it seems to be a very poorly conceived room.

2005-12-19T03:47:00.000-08:00

This past week was a bit frustrating. I had a nice run over a few days to get back to even for the month, and I was so excited I went out and played like crap and dropped a bunch more. Argh.

This has been a long year of poker, so I may really just be getting burnt out, to the point that a week vacation or so just isn't enough. I've logged nearly 1150 hours at the tables this year, probably 90% of that playing limit hold 'em. Also, at least half of those hours have been multi-tabling online, typically six tables at a time. That's a lotta poker.

I've done very, very well, despite my treading water this month, so I really can't complain. The amount I've made this year has far exceeded even my wildest expectations. I'm definitely not in a situation where I'm, say, working for next month's rent, by any means.

So, it may be time to pack it in for the year. I guess I might play once or twice more, but between the holidays and visiting family and having friends coming into town, I really can't see myself playing any more than that.

2005-12-13T05:10:00.000-08:00

The year isn't quite over yet, but I've already chosen a goal for 2006. Okay, I have a few, but besides the usual ones (make lots of money, improve my game, move up) there's one that is brand spanking new.

I am going to make real, focused effort to play in more live tournament events. How often in my life am I going to be so free of responsibilities that I can run off to Aruba, or Paris, or on a Caribbean cruise to hang out and play poker?

I'm less interested in the other, stateside events, but I guess depending on how comfortable I am I may make efforts to make it out for those. No offense to the place, but Tunica, MS is not somewhere I'm exactly yearning to go.

So, online satellites, here I come! Focus #1 will be the Party Poker Million V (the Caribbean cruise). #2: Play in a few WSOP events. #3: Grand Prix de Paris and finally #4: UB Aruba Classic.

I figure I have my best shot at the limit tournaments, but I'm willing to try for NL events that are in locations I'd like to be anyways. I might be in Europe in late July anyways, so Paris is a good choice. And who doesn't want to go to Aruba? Er, I'll refrain from the obvious off-color jokes about that.

I'll be trying to do these as cheaply as possible. Party runs $162 (technically $150+12) super-satellites for the PPM V. But that was too expensive for me. Yes, I played a $22 SnG to win my entry into the super-sat my very first try. If I finish in the top 1/90th of players in the super, I win a PPM V package, worth $12,700. So we'll see. Attempt #1 is this Friday.

I'd put a little permanent blurb somewhere on this page, but doing anything I can't just accomplish with a simple click on blogger is way more work than I'm willing to partake, so I'll just post random updates at the bottom of entries (since most people probably don't give a shit anyways).

Goal #1: PPM V, value $12,700. Total Spent: $22. Status: Super-sat #1 this Friday!
Goals #2-4: One thing at a time! No progress yet.

2005-12-08T04:56:00.000-08:00

So with this recent bad run, I dropped down a bit and played at the Party 20/40 games last night. And I did very, very well. In fact, I had my biggest day in terms of BBs since August. It was nice to again play a game where I pretty much always knew where I stood.

There definitely seems to be pretty decent skill jump between the 20/40 and the 30/60 games, and another very big jump between 30/60 and 50/100. I guess that really shouldn't come as a surprise. But the skill jump does seem much more drastic at those levels than the jump was between, say, 3/6 and 5/10, or 10/20 and 15/30.

I guess at a certain point, really bad players just become quite endangered. I know when I play the 20 game, the table generally has about four "known" opponents, that is, regular, usually pretty tough players that I've played hundreds or thousands of hands against. At the 30 game, suddenly that number of known players is more like six. At the 50 game it was eight. Eight tough players, lil' ol' me, and one revolving door of a seat. Game selection, anyone?

So yeah, as much as I'd like to keep rocketing through the limits, I think the time has come to slow down a bit. As much as pride and skill development might matter, what matters most as a professional is the bottom line and so I need to play whatever game adds to the bottom line the most. And that ain't 50/100.

So for the forseeable future it'll be online 20/40 and 30/60 for me, with more emphasis on game selection. I'm not above playing 20/40 if the 30 game doesn't look good. Certainly I can make plenty at those games. There's no reason to take the much added stress and swings that come with larger limits just for what might (or might not) be a few extra dollars at the end of the week.

I haven't posted a hand in a while, so I'll post one here. I think this hand shows how one can have a perfect read to the point of having his opponents' cards face up, and yet still make a poor decision. Also, I might have been a bit afflicted with fancy-play syndrome, but I do have a defense for my actions, if necessary.

Bellagio 80/160, nine-handed. The game has been playing pretty tight, and UTG+1 has been taking some advantage by opening fairly loosely from all positions. He has shown a little bit of trickiness when heads-up, but in multi-way pots he's about as honest and straight-forward as they come. MP is probably the loosest player in the game (probably 30-35% VP$IP for those internet players) and is quite unskilled and passive relative to the game, although his preflop raising and reraising standards have been surprisingly light. Everyone else is squeaky-tight.

UTG+1 open-raises. Two positions later I look down to see 9h9c. I'm about to three-bet, when MP, acting out of turn, declares raise and throws out three bets. The dealer corrects him and he pulls back. I decide to only call. MP seems a bit hesitant now about raising, but does indeed three-bet, mumbling something to the effect of "well, I already said I would." When he talks he's honest. Folds back around to UTG+1 who calls. I four-bet. MP calls, UTG+1 calls.

Flop (13.5 SB): 9s 7d 5d. UTG+1 checks. I bet. MP calls. UTG+1 calls.

Turn (7.5 BB): (9s 7d 5d) 4d. UTG+1 checks. I bet. MP calls. UTG+1 check-raises. I three-bet. MP shakes his head a bit and folds. UTG+1 four-bets. I call.

River (16.5 BB): (9s 7d 5d 4d) Ks. UTG+1 bets. I fold.

So yeah, three very questionable plays all in one hand.

If only that were a record for me.

2005-12-04T05:32:00.000-08:00

So, there I was, primed, rested and ready to play poker. My mind was sharp, body strong(-ish), and spirit willing. The tourney was coming to town, and I'd be there ready to tear up the side games.

Quoteth the poker gods: "Ahahahahahahahahahahaha...(big breath).....hahahahahahaha!"

So yeah, things haven't gone very well this month yet. This week started off well. Thursday night I went and had a very good night online, playing primarily 40/80 on Paradise. But then I went out to play live.

The 80 game at the Bellagio was much tighter and tougher than typical, but I was in the must-move game and the main game actually looked pretty good so I decided to tough it out. We slowly lost players and finally it got down to three-handed. It was me, an unknown but seemingly tough player, and another guy who's currently near the top of the CardPlayer player of the year standings. (Sorry, I don't mean to be so mysterious, but I'm not a big fan of name-dropping. Just trust me, he's way up there and quite good.)

So two tough, aggressive players and three-handed poker means sky-high variance. Let's just say that, despite my being first in line for the main game, I never quite made it there. As my one friend said--and I'm paraphrasing--"You sure are an expert at game selection." I think she was being sarcastic.

Friday would be better right? With my recent focus being more on online play, I decided I was too impatient to be playing live. So Friday and Saturday would be all online. Well, I went back to good ol' Party 30/60 and was having a tough time, and so what better to do then try an even higher limit? Party 50/100 here I come!

Yuck. Friday was a bad day.

Saturday couldn't be as bad as Friday, could it? You can go back and re-read the poker gods' above quote right now. Saturday would become my Worst Poker Day Ever. And believe me, that's quite an accomplishment.

All told, between when I decided to go play live Thursday night up until the last hour or so I played Saturday night (I made a small comeback that final hour) I had my worst poker run ever in terms of raw dollar amount, beating the old record by a factor of two, and my second worst run ever in terms of big bets.

But I'm not here to complain. I'm actually surprisingly quite chipper. Of course, that could just be the insanity.

But yeah, I played the Party 50/100! One of the things people always say about the difference between good and great players is that the better players are much better at hand-reading. While I'm sure there are quite a few excellent hand-readers at the Party 50 game, what surprised me was the mindless aggression displayed by a large fraction of the players.

I mean mindless. There is no attempt whatsoever on the part of many of these guys to even consider what you might have. It's bet, bet, bet, raise, raise, raise with no slowing down until the river. The way to tell someone actually has a hand is he'll check.

At most levels, the preflop raiser auto-bets the flop. Whatever the flop is, he's betting. At the 50 game? The preflop raiser is auto-capping. I wish I were joking. If they can, they're capping. I don't know how often the preflop raiser capped it against me and then folded to one bet on the turn. If you were to take their word for it, they have AA every single hand they play.

These guys are so mindless I could write a computer program to play exactly as they do. All I'd have to do make sure the program follows a few rules:

1) Raise, reraise and cap if you can: AJ+, 88+, any two suited broadway cards.

2) Raise, reraise, but don't cap, 22-77, any suited Ace, any two off-suit broadway cards. Cold-call with all if it's already been three-bet.

3) Fold: everything else.

4) Exception: your big-blind. Always defend, no matter what, no matter who raised, what your two cards are, or how many bets it is to you.

5) When defending, always check-raise the preflop raiser, and cap if you can. What the board is and what your cards are: irrelevant.

6) If you are the preflop raiser cap the flop if you can.

7) If heads-up: cap any pair on the flop, go to showdown no matter what with K-high or better.

8) If three-handed: cap middle pair or better on the flop, go to showdown with A-high or better.

9) Four+ players: cap top pair on the flop, go to showdown with any pair.

10) All flops, no matter how many other players: cap any flush draw, any straight draw.

11) If you have two overcards to the flop, call to the river. If you hit, you'll be good.

12) Only stop betting once you have a very strong hand. Check. Then you can check-raise.

13) If checked to, always bet. If check-raised, call down with K-high or better. He's bluffing.

14) Folding is for wimps. Why fold when you can cap?

So, you'd think with such mindless betting these games would be uber-profitable. Perhaps that's true, but that unfortunately has not been the case for me yet. But one thing's for sure: I will be back. I think I'll try playing more tonight, and I may even venture back out into live play again. Wish me luck. I'll need it.

2005-11-29T22:29:00.000-08:00

I'm still alive.

The break was good. I had a few days to myself and then had family in town and got to do a lot of the "touristy" things that I don't generally do--went and saw "O," took a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon, ate at a few swanky restaurants, etc, etc.

I pretty much stayed away from poker most of the time. I played a few hours last Wednesday and played a couple hours this past Sunday night but that's it since the 18th. I'm not sure a single poker thought went through my head while family was visiting.

But, I've been thinking about poker more over the last couple days and I'm excited to get back into it. It's good to be looking forward to poker again, especially with the tournament arriving. Tournaments seem to make the live games that much livelier, and it should be good for my bottom line to be ready and willing to put in a lot of focused, motivated hours at the tables.

My "work" starts up again in earnest tomorrow, for what should be a very busy three weeks or so. Here's hoping it's profitable as well.

2005-11-19T07:35:00.000-08:00

So after the up-and-down first week of November I was a little annoyed. Then there was the second week which ended up being my best week ever and so things were looking better again. This week started off nicely as well, but then something strange happened.

I got home from playing Thursday night (okay, technically Friday morning, especially since the sun was already up), having had another great day (er, night; #8 in a row) and all I could think about was how when I got up on Friday, I would sit right back down at the computer and play another few hours online before playing live. Usually that fact doesn't bother me--in fact I kind of enjoy the prospect of jumping right back into the action. But it was different this time. I really did not feel like playing; I wasn't looking forward to it at all. I went to bed that night (ahem, day) with much the same apprehension I used to have as a school kid going to bed on a Sunday night facing another full week of school.

Yeah, that bad.

I know, I know, my life is so rough, having to wake up whenever I want and play a card game for a living. But still, that's how I felt, and I got up and played like I should on Friday and not surprisingly I had my first bad session in about a week and a half. I was making poor call-downs, bad folds, and missing raises and value-bets left and right.

Since I have family coming into town for Thanksgiving, I figured I'd play my normal week until Sunday and then take a week off, but now I think I'm going to have to just go on vacation early. I've just been drowning in poker recently. Some people can play 50 hours a week; I cannot. I've been averaging 30/week for a while now and that's been too much.

So maybe I'll play again this weekend, but I'm not counting on it. At the very least, come Monday I'll be off until at least Saturday. So it might be a week or more before I post again.

I thought I'd leave with a hand, but none were all that interesting this past week despite my super-hot run. So I'll post one just because it represented a first for me:

Three-handed live 80/160. I'm on the button with 44. I raise. The SB three-bets, BB folds, I call. The SB is a very solid player whose three-betting standards are probably relatively loose here considering it's three-handed, but figure any pocket-pair bigger than mine, any decently-sized ace, and probably any two suited broadway cards.

Flop (2 players, 7 SB): A Q 5, rainbow. SB bets. I call.

Turn (2 players, 9 SB): (A Q 5) 4, two diamonds now. SB bets. I raise. SB three-bets. I four-bet intending to fold to a five-bet.

I mean, really, how often does one four-bet fully intending to fold to a five-bet?

Anyways, I'll still be around to talk about my donkerific hand, but otherwise everyone have a happy Thanksgiving!

2005-11-15T02:40:00.000-08:00

A few odds and ends:

** While playing NL at the Wynn a few nights ago I sat next to a guy who said he was in charge of the new Caesar's Palace poker room opening in December, sometime around the 20th. Since I hadn't heard anything about what types of games they'll be spreading, I asked him for specifics.

Apparently the room is going to be actually two rooms, one a 31-table cash game room and the other a 33-table tournament room (please excuse my numbers if they're off by +-1; I'm going by memory).

The tournament room is going to spread three tournaments a day, every day, at noon, 7pm and midnight. The noon and midnight tournaments will be $85 plus $50 rebuys and the 7pm tournies will be $220 with $100 rebuys (once again, the numbers are from my sometimes imperfect memory).

The cash games they're looking to spread are 2/5 ($100-500 buy-in), 5/10 ($500 min) and 10/25 ($1500 min) NL, and for limit 3/6, 6/12, 10/20 and 20/40 "and up." Sounds to me like they're competing directly with the Mirage for limit players.

Comps will be just like the MGM or Wynn--$1/hour.

I'm sure at first the room will be packed, but I'm curious to see how it will fare once the initial excitement wears off. It'll be interesting to see just how many of these large poker rooms Las Vegas can support.

I'm especially curious to see if they can really get regular 10/25NL games or 20/40 or higher limit games going. Seeing the MGM and Wynn do so poorly in that regard, I'm doubtful.

** Speaking of the Mirage, I swung by there Saturday night after leaving the Bellagio. Talk about a night-and-day difference. Admittedly it was 3am, but the Bellagio's casino floor was still pretty packed while the Mirage's was practically a ghost-town.

I went right to the poker room where I was cashing in my Mirage chips. The poker room was still doing okay, but once again the 40/80 game broke pretty early, right before I'd gotten there according to the floor.

It was sad. Much like going to an ex's house to pick up things, I was entering this familiar place that was now foreign territory. I got what I came for, felt sorry for the state of things, and left, perhaps with a bit of a tear in my eye. Okay I didn't date the place--I only played poker there--but I did play there every other night for over two months. I think I can feel a little bad for "breaking up" with it.

** And, finally, I have a confession to make. I am a limit Omaha/8 fish. There I said it. I had another disasterous run at the game and can no longer hide behind variance, bad luck, whatever. I'm a full-fledged fish, flopping around on dry ground for anyone and everyone to make a meal of.

Oh there are reasons, ones that are correctible. For example, I always do well for about an hour then start doing badly. What happens is that I can start out playing well but eventually I get tired of playing the patient Omaha game (sit around and wait for the nuts) and start trying to play it like hold 'em. You know, raise with slightly less than uber-premium hands, call with something that can make a strong-but-not-the-nuts type hand. And it's all downhill from there. Omaha isn't hold 'em (and limit isn't pot-limit), and I should stop pretending there's much skill beyond waiting for premium draws and pushing them.

So from here on out, if I sit at an Omaha table I'm on a strict one hour time-limit. That's it, no more. I can still play it in mix games for obvious reasons, but no more four or five hour sessions for me. I just can't play a game that seems to have so little imagination involved. Or maybe I'm just not 'getting it' at the level other people do.

Either way, I'm done with donating my holdem winnings at the O8 table.

2005-11-12T08:47:00.000-08:00

Bellagio 80/160. UTG limps, MP1 limps, MP2 limps, CO limps, Button limps, I complete in the SB with QdJd, button checks.

Flop (7 players, 7 SB): Td 9h 6d. I bet. 1 fold. MP1 raises. 1 fold. CO calls, button calls. I three-bet. MP1 calls, CO calls all-in. Button four-bets. I cap. MP1 calls. Button calls.

Turn (3 players + 1 all-in, 9.5 BB + 3 BB side pot): (Td 9h 6d) Tc. I check. MP1 checks. Button bets. I call. MP1 calls.

River (3 players + 1 all-in, 9.5BB + 6 BB side pot): (Td 9h 6d Tc) Ts. I bet.

2005-11-10T02:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, a few hands this post. And not one of them limit hold em.

First, a trio of NL AA hands. The first two are almost the same exact hand. I've never really been in that position before, and then it happens twice in a day.

Hand #1:

2/4 NL on Ultimate Bet. I have $356, BB has me covered. Three limpers and I'm in the SB with AA. I raise to $20. BB raises to $40. Everyone else folds. I go all-in.

Hand #2:

2/5 NL at the Wynn. I have about $520, SB has me covered. Four limpers and I'm on the button with AA. I raise to $25. SB raises to $65. Everyone else folds. I go all-in.

Hand #3:

2/4 NL on UB. SB has $310, I have him covered. I have AA UTG. It's been a fairly aggressive game, so I limp. The table spoils my plan of limp-reraising when there's one other limper, the SB completes and the BB checks.

Flop (4 players, $16): K 6 2, rainbow. SB bets $16. BB folds. I raise to $40. Other limper folds, SB quickly calls.

Turn (2 players, $93): (K 6 2) Q, completing the rainbow. SB checks. I bet $60. SB check-raises all in for $266 total. I fold.

Hand #4:

2/5 NL at the Wynn. MP has $800, I have him covered. UTG limps, I limp UTG+1 with 8d7d. This has been a fairly unaggressive game preflop, obviously. MP limps, a few others.

Flop (6 players, $29): Ad Tc 9d. Checks to me. I bet $20. MP raises to $60. Everyone else folds. Now normally, people like to pump OESD+FD on the flop, assuming they're over 50% to hit one or the other and they have fold equity so if their opponent doesn't fold, they've still got a great shot of winning the pot.

I couldn't do that here, though, for one reason: there was no doubt in my mind that MP had either two pair or a set, and there was also no doubt that he wouldn't fold one of those hands. So I had zero fold equity. The only non-pair hand he would possibly play that way was Qd Jd which just totally destroys me, so my best bet was I was about 50/50, with the latter hand making me as bad as a 75/25 dog.

So I called. Since he can't fold, I can get a nice value-bet should I hit.

Turn (2 players, $147): (Ad Tc 9d) Ks. Check, check. Wha?

River (2 players, $147): (Ad Tc 9d Ks) 6d. Dammit, couldn't you have been any other 6? I bet $100. He called, and mucked after I showed down, saying he had A9 and that he was afraid I had AK, which is why he checked the turn. Any substantial bet on the turn and I would have had to fold there.

I also played in the 10/20 mix game at the Wynn. They had quite a lineup of games tonight, including Crazy Pineapple 8-or-better. Yes, a split pot crazy pineapple game. The first hand I didn't even know it was hi-lo, until my opponent rolled over his utter crap and the dealer gave him half the pot despite my protests. Then it was explained to me. Whoops.

To further my donk image, I check-raised the river in Razz when I made what I thought was a 6-perfect low, but what turned out to be an 86 low. My opponent thankfully had an 87, but wasn't too pleased when I called out "six!" then turned over my hand and quickly amended, "err....uh...ok 86." Lesson: always double check one's hole cards on the river.

So anyways, for more donkilicious action, hand #5 (this actually happened before the above two donkey hands):

10/20 2-7 TD at the Wynn. Six-handed.

UTG folds. UTG+1 raises. MP folds. I three-bet in the CO with 234TJ. Button folds, SB folds, BB calls, UTG+1 calls. As bad as I am, the BB seems to have no clue at all. On the previous hand he limped UTG, it was raised, he called then took four cards. His cold-call didn't mean anything to me.

BB takes 2, UTG+1 takes 1. I think and remember that a J is a favorite with one draw over anyone drawing a card (someone who read Daniel Negreanu's 2-7 section in Super System 2 told me that a J is a slight favorite over someone drawing one). So that means I'm a favorite to be a favorite, right? Not to mention that I can represent a real strong hand. So I stand pat. Heh...anyone laughing yet?

They both check. I bet. I figure if either of them make a hand, they'll CR me and I can probably call and draw two. Otherwise, they missed and I'm still good. They both call and I figure I'm still good. This time, they each draw one.

Once again, I'm stuck with the same logic. I'm a favorite to be a favorite. I should stand pat and simply fold if one of them comes up betting. So once again I stood pat. (Have I mentioned I have no clue how to play this game?)

Check, check, I bet. Call, call. Yeesh. Once again, they each draw one. At this point I knew my right play was to stand pat, fold if bet to and check behind if it's checked to me. So that's what I did.

BB kind of shakes his head, UTG+1 turns over K-perfect and my J-high takes the pot.

"I could beat that TWICE and I broke it!"

"Same here!"

Muahahahaha.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Although, looking back I think I might have inadvertently actually played the hand kinda well. But obviously I have no clue whatsoever, so perhaps someone who knows something (anything, really) about 2-7 TD can give me an opinion.

All I know is that my lesson from that hand is the same as the one I've learned over and over again: position is critically important in triple-draw. I'm not sure I've played another game where it's so important, although I guess some people would argue for NL hold 'em.

All told, it was a fun night. At some point, I should just go a whole week playing anything and everything except limit holdem and see how I do.

2005-11-08T01:45:00.000-08:00

The first week in November has been a roller-coaster ride. Up-down-up-down, pretty severely in each direction. The end net result was a small win for the week which is smaller than any one of my individual wins for the week (or losses, in absolute terms).

Considering some of the brutal stretches I had during the week, I guess I can't complain too much--I still won, right?--but it'd still be nice to receive a little more confirmation from the all-important bottom line that moving up in limits was the right choice. I mean, if I can't earn any more money playing 80/160 live and 30/60 oniline than I could playing 30/60 live and 15/30 online, why should I deal with the stress and higher variance? Admittedly, I still have a long way to go before I should even attempt to estimate what my profitability is at this level, but early returns point to a pretty similar earn-rate.

Which all (kind-of) leads into the main topic for this post: utility of money. I have a proposition:

Poker players have the smallest utility for each dollar earned of any profession.

Okay, perhaps that applies to all gamblers, but let's stick to poker since that's all I can semi-intelligently write about.

Let's compare someone who plays poker for a living to someone who holds a more "typical" job. I'll throw a nice round number out there for earnings. Let's say $100,000 a year. So perhaps this guy with the "typical" job is a lawyer.

The lawyer who makes $100,000 a year brings in a little over $8000/month. Since he works at an actual firm 40 (or, ahem, 80) hours a week, he gets his regular paycheck for the same amount every couple of weeks to do with as he pleases. He can save up for a downpayment on a house, one for a car, save up for retirement and budget for all the normal expenses based on that paycheck. There are no surprises; the paycheck will be there every week.

Assuming he doesn't totally screw up his work, he can expect to make that much money year in and year out, heck even get regular raises! Next year his income might be $108,000, and in five years maybe he's all the way up to $150,000. Because of this knowledge he has about his future earnings, once he does have enough money to make that downpayment on a house he can go right ahead and buy that house with its accompanying monthly mortgage payment of $2000-3000 a month. He can even lease that fancy BMW for $400-500 a month. Put away $W into retirment, $X into other long-term investments/savings, $Y into food/clothing/etc and $Z into entertainment, and there's his paycheck all chopped up and accounted for.

The poker player who makes $100,000 is in an entirely different financial world, however. First, what does it mean to be a poker player who makes a specific dollar amount per year? Is that how much he's made in the last year? Averaged for the last five years? What? A poker player can't tell you how much he expects to make in a given time frame any more than a trader can tell you how much he expects to make in the stock market.

All this is to say that even if the poker player made $100,000 in the last year, it certainly doesn't mean he'll make that much this year. It could be more, heck a lot more, but it could be less, yes, even a lot less. But let's assume he can maintain that pace. What does his $8000/month get him?

First, he has to maintain a bankroll, which should be quite large for someone whose goal is to earn six figures on the year, especially for limit players, and especially for live players. So all that money that would be going towards that downpayment on a house or on a car is instead sitting around in various accounts (or casino chips) as the most basic tool of his trade.

The poker player will have dry runs. Sometimes for a week or two, but sometimes for much longer. I remember reading an article on Jennifer Harman where she said her longest losing streak was six months. On the far other end of the poker-playing spectrum, I just had a losing month in September, my second since poker became my main source of income in June, 2004. I also had one essentially break-even month. What these examples show is that in addition to a bankroll, the poker player needs to maintain a healthy living-expenses account that he can withdraw from those weeks or months where he simply isn't getting a paycheck from his bankroll.

So he sure as heck can't budget for all the 8000 theoretical dollars he expects to make in any given month and simply chop it all up the same way our lawyer friend can. If the poker player lives that close to the wire, he'll simply guarntee himself of having to either delve into his bankroll, perhaps drawing it down perilously low, or having to withdraw from long-term savings and investments. Neither option is particularly attractive, as both sources are vital to one's wellbeing--one for current profitability and the other for eventually being able to, say, retire. I don't want to be grinding out my weekly meds bill at the 4/8 table when I'm 80.

And if the poker player wants to, say, get a raise, then he has to sock even more away into his bankroll so he can properly play the higher limits. And it isn't a linear growth--bigger limits bring with them better players and a smaller edge which means higher variance. If I want to increase my limits by 50%, I'd sure as heck want to increase my bankroll by at least 75%, or maybe even double it (note: if you're going from 4/8 to 6/12, this probably doesn't apply to you--a 50-60% increase should be sufficient).

The poker player also has more threats to his long-term prospects. As is common knowledge, poker is booming right now, perhaps bubbling. Like all crazes, it will die down, and with its wane in popularity will come tougher games and less profitability for everyone. The guy making $100,000 this year and $150,000 next year might be making $50,000 five years from now (or looking for one of those "typical" jobs).

Suffice to say, even if he does save enough above and beyond his bankroll to put in a nice downpayment on a house or car, he certainly shouldn't be locking himself into the same high payment that our lawyer friend can. Do you really want to be making monthly $3000 mortage payments when you're only pulling in $4000 a month in a few years? The end result is that the utility of the poker player's money is not only lower, but drastically lower. Perhaps by as much as 50% or more, although putting a number on it is like playing pin the tail on the donkey.

Personally, because of the all the future uncertainty inherent in poker, I feel the utility of the money I earn is nearly zero. I am a fairly cautious and frugal person as it is, in large part from how I was raised, so perhaps I'm more extreme than most, but I keep my monthly expenses to a (relative) bare minimum. I rent a one-bedroom apartment, drive a Sentra, spend almost nothing on clothing, eat as many comped meals as I can, and in general am watchful over just about every dollar I spend. I'm living just like I was when I was a graduate student living on a meager graduate student stipend.

I live this way in part because of my nature, but also because I don't feel like I can live like someone who earns much more than that. Yes I could drive a nicer car, live in a fancier place, have clothes that actually cost me money and eat at fancier restaurants, but with the large bankroll I feel I have to maintain respective to the limits I play and the completely uncertain future inherent in earning money from poker, I'm hoarding most of my earnings because I can never be sure--have I just been running well? Can I really make $X every single month? So the bottom line is that although I get added financial security, I'm really getting very little additional enjoyment out of my earnings.

Anyways, those were just a few thoughts for those aspiring pros.

And, as if this post weren't long enough, I think I'll end it by posting a hand. In my wild yo-yo-like ride of the past week, the hand that I found most debateable seems on the surface to be rather boring (no massive pots or huge bluffs here) but I felt that my play on every street but one is wide-open debateable. I certainly don't know the best way to play it.

My very first hand at the table. Live 80/160. I'm in the BB with KTo. I've watched the table for a few hands and I recognize a tough spot or two, but for the most part the lineup seems rather weak--too loose and rather passive, at least for an 80 game.

UTG+1 open raises, and the next two players both cold-call. It folds around to me. I call.

Flop (4 players, 8.5 SB): Q 9 7, rainbow. I check, UTG+1 bets, UTG+2 calls, MP calls, I call.

Turn (4 players, 6.25 BB): (Q 9 7) K, completing the rainbow. I check, it checks around.

River (4 players, 6.25 BB): (Q 9 7 K) Q. I check, it checks around.

See, what'd I say? Boring. But I think there's a little more to it than first meets the eye. And to be honest, it's decisions in more common hands like these that make the difference between winning and losing, not between folding, calling, or raising with a mediocre hand in 30BB pots.

2005-11-02T18:23:00.000-08:00

It's now November, and I just spent the ritualistic few minutes closing out the "October" section of my poker spreadsheet and firing up "November," the entire time thinking, "Didn't I just do this?"

October was a blur. I was running good and settled into a pattern. I'd play most days, winning the vast majority of the time, and so I didn't spend much time smelling the roses, so to speak. I had my nose to the proverbial grindstone and next thing I noticed the month was over. One day I was preparing the "October" section of the spreadsheet and seemingly the next I was closing it out.

Time flies when you're running good.

Since the end of October also represented the end of my third full month out here in Vegas, baby, Vegas, I think I'll finally stop and smell the roses for a second. Yes, it's time for a quarterly update. Or something.

For those who haven't dug through the archives, I moved out here to Vegas from Austin, TX in July. And, yes, the move pretty much took the entire month. I was finally out here for good on July 28, with the plan of playing limit holdem, 15/30 online and 30/60 and 40/80 live, games I'd been playing regularly for three or four months already.

Those games went so well that in late September I moved up to 80/160 live, while also taking shots at 20/40 and 30/60 online (heck, even 40/80 one night). And that's pretty much where I currently stand. As usual, I have no real desire to move up again for the time being (although I'd play live 100/200 should the opportunity present itself), but I can imagine myself reaching the six month mark and pushing ahead once again. Time will tell. If I do move up, of course, that will have to be mostly online since limit holdem games above 80/160 are scarce here in Vegas. To play higher, I'd have to be willing to play mix games, and that's just not my cup of tea yet. But I'm working on it.

Quitting one's job and making a move away from all one's friends to play poker for a living is quite a life-changing event, to say the least, but so far I'm quite happy. I miss everyone, of course, but I'm enjoying life. I'm enjoying the freedom, the fact that I actually look forward to going to work every day, and yes, of course I'm enjoying the money (not that I really spend anything).

I had what's turning out to be my twice-annual bad run (about 40 days of break-even play, which has happened like clockwork every six months so far), but I survived and ended up having my best month ever in October.

The focus of my play has shifted dramatically since making the move. Through June, my online hours to live hours ratio was about 2.4:1. Since July, that ratio has flip-flopped almost completely, making it nearly 2.3:1 in favor of live play. That's not because live play is more profitable--indeed, online play this year has been 50% more profitable per hour than live play--but rather I simply prefer to play live. If I sit there and lose $3000 in a live session, I'll still have enjoyed myself more than if I sit there and lose, say, $800 in an online session; heck maybe more than if I win, say, $200 online. I really don't know why that's the case, it just is.

October also marked the 18th month I've spent playing poker seriously for profit. It's funny; I've spent nearly that entire time feeling like the new, inexperienced kid. But compared to lots of guys, I'm now a seasoned veteran!

All told, this year has gone completely unexpected. I'd like to forecast what might happen in the future, but if ten months ago you told me I'd be living in Vegas playing 80/160, I'd have called you nuts.

So the first three months have come and gone in a flash. I can only imagine what I'll be doing when I sit down to write my six-month recap. I can only hope it doesn't involve the phrases "4/8" or "looking for a job." My fingers are crossed.

2005-10-30T12:29:00.000-08:00

I'm back in town with a lot I want to write about, but I think for now I'll stick to a couple hands I played last night. One of them is even one of those rarely talked about and even more rarely seen online hands!

Since it seems to make the subsequent discussion more interesting, I'll save the results for a day or two and see what people think.

This first hand, I was new to the table and had zero reads. I came really, really, really close to folding the turn.

Paradise Poker 20/40 Hold'em (10 handed)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with Jd, Qd.

2 folds, UTG+2 raises, 1 fold, MP2 calls, Hero calls, CO calls, 1 fold, SB calls, BB calls.

Flop: (12 SB) 9s, Kh, Th (6 players)

SB checks, BB checks, UTG+2 bets, MP2 folds, Hero raises, CO calls, SB calls, BB folds, UTG+2 3-bets, Hero caps, CO calls, SB calls, UTG+2 calls.

Turn: (14 BB) 3h (4 players)

SB checks, UTG+2 bets, Hero raises, CO folds, SB calls, UTG+2 3-bets, Hero calls, SB caps ($14, all-in), UTG+2 calls, Hero calls.

River: (23.70 BB) Ac (3 players)

UTG+2 bets, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 25.70 BB

To show the difference between online and live play, here's a hand I played last night at the Bellagio 80/160. I thought it was a pretty simple fold, whereas I felt the above hand warranted a call-down.

Nine-handed table. Typical game--most of the players are too loose and people cold-call waaaay too much, but everyone still has a few tricks up their sleeves postflop and they aren't total dummies by any means. MP is so tight he squeaks, although I've been playing a little LAGgish recently, and so his preflop reraising standards might have expanded from two possible hands to about four.

I'm dealt black AA UTG+2. UTG limps. I raise. One fold. MP three-bets. Button cold-calls. BB calls. UTG calls. I four-bet. MP caps. Call, call, call, I call.

Flop (25 SB, 5 players): Kc Qd 8c. BB checks, UTG checks, I check, MP checks (!!!), button bets. BB calls, UTG raises, I three-bet, MP four-bets, call, call, call, I call.

Turn (22.5 BB, 5 players): (Kc Qd 8c) 7h. BB checks, UTG checks, I check, MP bets, button calls, BB calls, UTG calls, I fold.

Fold getting 26.5 to 1? Closing the action?? Am I crazy???

2005-10-20T06:25:00.000-07:00

So I got bored, and motivated by my recent hand where I flopped quads with three on the flop for what I believe is the first time in my live poker playing career, I ran some numbers. (These are all "back of the envelope" calculations, so there may be errors. I think my calculations are good, but let me know if you spot any errors.)

The chances of flopping quads given two non-paired cards is (3/25)(2/49)(1/48) = 6/58,800 = 1/9800. That tells me I almost have to have done it before. If so, I really can't remember. I did it in Omaha once that I can remember, but those odds are much better--twice as likely, in fact, at 1/4900. (For those curious, the chances of flopping quads in hold’em given a pocket pair: ~1/408.)

Of course, maybe that's why I remembered that I haven't done it, because even though it's unlikely, the chances of my going whatever high number of live hands I've played without ever having done it is actually a somewhat low 1/351 (approximately, according to this calculator, with N = 80,000, p = 0.00010204 and t=0).

The most statisitically unlikely things that I've noticed happen to me in live play are probably:

1) flopping a royal, 1/649,740, of course (that's pre-deal odds).

2) I got dealt 88 three hands in a row. The odds of getting dealt the same PP three times in a row is 1/830,297.

3) This just happened a few days ago and I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it. I got dealt the exact same two cards three hands in a row. Now, I've been dealt the same two cards two hands in a row many times--that carries a probability of 1/1326, so it happens every week or two. The probability of three times in a row? 1/1,758,256. Not only that, but miraculously the two cards were in the exact same order each of the three times. Td on the left, 6s on the right (alas, no Ad As for me). Updated probability: 1/7,033,104. Some people use their luck to win the lottery, I get the Td 6s powerhouse three times in a row.

(And before some wise-guy comes on here and says something, yes I know the chances of my being dealt the exact two cards I've been dealt each hand of my 80,000 live hands is one in eleventy bajillion.)

Other odds and ends:

* I just realized from one of the above calculations that 1/98 = .01020408163265..., that is, it just about lists the powers of two in order (darn 65 instead of 64!). Pretty nifty.

* I've been a baseball fan all my life, and my current favorite team, the Astros, just won the NLCS to advance to the World Series last night. Later on that night, I'm playing poker and this guy asks, "so when does the World Series start?" and the first thing I think is, "dude, the World Series was months ago! They're already showing episodes on ESPN!" Yeah, poker really has taken over my life...

* I'm going back to Austin on Friday to visit, so it might be a week or so before I'm able to update again, depending on how the games go tonight and whether or not I just have to write about it tomorrow morning.

2005-10-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

$33,000. No, that's not how much money I won (or lost) last night. Rather that's how much money these two total fish contributed to the 80/160 game. I didn't even get seated until about 2:30am, and one of the fish was already there. I'll call him Tiltboy, since although he's definitely a donator anyways, last night he was on megatilt due to getting insanely cold-decked and playing even worse than normal. The other fish sat down soon after I did. I'll call Amigo, since that's what everyone was calling him.

To give an example of Tiltboy's, well, tilt, here's a hand I played against him. I open-limped UTG+1 with Ac7c. Not a play I typically recommend, or do, but this was the type of game for it. Six- and seven-way pots were the norm, with only a handful of people doing any real raising. This pot ended up being unraised and five-handed, with Tiltboy in the cutoff.

Flop: Jc 7d 3c. Pair+flush draw. SB bets out, one fold, and I raise. One fold, Tiltboy cold-calls and the SB calls.

Turn: (Jc 7d 3c) 9s. Check, I bet, Tiltboy calls, SB calls.

River: (Jc 7d 3c 9s) x (I really can't remember, but it was irrelevant). SB checks, I check figuring any worse hand will fold while any better hand--a jack for example--will call. Tiltboy checks and turns over...A5o. No pair, no draw, calling all the way anyways. SB shows Ts7s and so MHIG.

Tiltboy's final tally: $14,000.

On a wholly different planet was Amigo. Amigo was in the game last week and dropped a considerable sum, perhaps $20,000 over the week. It would have been more, but he was getting lucky. Well last night his luck ran out, and actually went all the way over to considerably unlucky.

Amigo was a nice guy. Very kind, laughing a lot. Also he was very rich. And he knew absolutely nothing about poker. Acting out of turn, not acting when it was actually his turn, calling any amount with any random cards and as a result producing some unholy suckouts. These last two weeks may very well have been his first experience playing actual poker.

He once called someone on the river with 9-high, just to see what he had. I made the perhaps ill-advised attempt to bluff him, and he of course called and caught me. After that he said that he was never folding to me again. Muahahahaha. After winning a few hands where I value-bet him to death (where perhaps he had 9-high, as well), this hand came up.

Now this hand doesn't actually totally represent the egregiousness of his play in general, but it does a decent enough job of that. However, it also represents a first for me, so I'm kinda killing two birds with one stone here.

Amigo open-limps, which happens a lot as he plays 90% of his hands. I raise in the CO with AJo. BB calls, Amigo calls, three of us.

Flop: A A A. Well, would you look at that.

Check, check, I bet (remember, I can bet with impunity against Amigo), call, call.

Turn: (A A A) 5

BB, a solid player, bets, Amigo calls, I raise. BB folds, Amigo, of course, calls.

River: (A A A 5) K. Amigo checks, I bet, and surprising the hell out of me Amigo check-raises me, with a huge grin on his face. I three-bet and have visions of the time he went 8 bets on the river with an eight-high flush (against, of course, the nuts). But that was so many hands and so long ago (a week) when he was inexperienced and naive; he's a wily veteran now. He only calls, and flips over his....K6o.

Given that I flopped quad fucking aces, that's a much bigger pot than I deserved.

That hand was the first time in my live hold 'em playing career that I'd ever flopped quads with three on the board. I've flopped quads "many" times with pocket pairs. Hell, I've flopped a royal flush, the hardest thing to do in poker. But somehow, flopping quads when I don't hold a pocket pair had eluded me in my thousands of hours of live play until that very moment. What made it more interesting was that about two hours earlier another guy had flopped quad 4s holding 64o (hey, he was in the SB and it was only raised once preflop!) and I commented how that was something I'd never done (the flopping quads part, not the calling two bets out of the SB with 64o part, ahem). And then, wham, it happens, and I get paid off handsomely to boot.

Amigo's final tally: $19,000 for the night and nearly $40,000 for the two weeks or so.

Between the two of them, the game didn't budge for hours. I couldn't leave, and neither could anyone else. It was one of those games where maybe every three hours a seat would open up, and then when the uberfish finally left, the dealer's calls rang out to the floor, "One open seat on thirteen! Make that two! Two open seats! Three! Three open seats on thirteen! Four seats!"

One of those recently vacated seats had belonged to me. I intentionally avoided looking at my cell phone clock while playing and when I finally did upon leaving it looked exactly the same as it did when I had sat down so long ago. 2:30. Only it was now PM.

That session ended one hell of a week in the 80 game. I think an entire book could be written on the things that happened in the high-limit section this past week. Amigo was the star of the 80 game; there was another guy in the 25/50 NL game apparently raising and betting blind practically every other hand. This one drunk guy sat at the 80 game and proceeded to play every hand, raising most of them, and he would turn one of his cards face up every time. Seriously. This one hand he turns over an Ace (with how loosely he was playing his other card could be any single card in the deck) and he was against two other opponents, with position. He of course raised, they called, and the flop came K 6 4. Check, check, drunkboy with his A showing, checks. Turn: (K 6 4) J. Check, check, check. River: (K 6 4 J) 9. Check, check, check.

Both opponents then look at the board, look at their cards, look at drunkboy's bare Ace, frown, and then slowly muck, while the entire table cackled with glee. Drunkboy of course walked away hours later a huge winner.

One night, one of the ultra-high-limit players came over and played ultra-drunk 25/50NL blowing through a ton of cash that was only a few BBs in his regular game, laughing and toasting everyone the entire time. Another night, there was a physical fight right there in the high-limit section. Another night, a couple ordered a bunch of food that got passed around the table like it was a party (and given how people were playing, it really was a party). There were the $60,000 pots in the big NL games that had seemingly half the casino over watching how they turned out. Every night, people were laughing and shouting and complaining, eating and drinking and gambling, giving each other back rubs and high-fives, and all with gobs of money on the table and even more practically (and sometimes literally) spilling out of their pockets.

Yes, all told, it was one hell of a week. There's still a few more days left in this tourney. But already I can't wait for the next one.

2005-10-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

Just got done with an eight-hour session last night. 2:30am - 10:30am. What a game. I got stuck a small car and made most of it back.

I have to say I'm really enjoying the 80/160 if for no other reason than it's really giving me an opportunity to play against better players and isolate leaks. Also, it's giving me a chance to work on moves and become more fearless. Since any tables beyond the first are always must-move, I find myself short-handed quite a bit. I've played probably half my hours five-handed or less (with a long session heads up one night) and that's been quite educational. You simply will not beat the game if you can't sit there and either bet or raise the river with absolutely nothing and be able to stoically take a twenty-second staredown without breaking a sweat.

The games can be fierce. At some games, a preflop raise is relatively rare. Games like last night, not only is every hand raised preflop, probably half or more of them are three-bet.

It's not surprising, then, that I nosedived to start. Although some poor decisions helped in that. A few pots, a bet or raise on the river would have won them for me, and a few others I was clearly beat yet threw in that final call.

I made most of it back thanks to a nice run of cards when we got five-handed. Three hands in a row, I got AA, QQ and then KK. I've never had that happen before. And, amazingly, all three held up.

Anyways, here's a hand that I want to see people's opinions on. At the time, I made a good read which should have led to the obvious play, but alas, I choked under pressure. I think my three options are clearly ranked 1, 2 and 3, and of course I chose #3.

It's a time-pot, so people are playing tighter than normal. The SB is a very solid, winning player who respects me.

I open in MP with AhQc. Folds around to the SB who three-bets. BB folds, I call. SB's three-betting standards are probably any pocket pair down to 66, AK, perhaps AQ, but probably AQs-ATs.

Flop: Kd 8c 8s

SB bets, as she would with any hand on any flop. I call, intending to raise the turn.

Turn: (Kd 8c 8s) 4h

SB now checks. I bet. She grits her teeth and calls.

River: (Kd 8c 8s 4h) Ks

"I don't believe you have three kings," SB says as she bets.

What does she have? What's my play?

(PS--I just wanted to point out an excellent article by Peter Birks that features a hand I so lovingly screwed up and posted here.)

2005-10-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

With this tourney in town, the 80/160 has been 4/8. No lie. I may have to put a moratorium on the online play for the next week. That's how good the games have been.

UTG raises. UTG+1 cold-calls with...J8o.

Five bets preflop. SB calls with...84s.

Gut-shots are not being folded for any number of bets, or heads-up in the tiniest pots. Runner-runner flush draws are golden.

Maybe I should start going on the tourament circuit. Not to actually play in any tournaments, but simply for all the side games. I can't even being to describe it.

Now I really have to get to bed, so I'm ready to dive right back in tonight.

2005-10-10T07:03:00.000-07:00

Bad news and good news.

I got killed in the 40/80 Omaha/8 game last night. Once again, I got a reminder about why I hate limit Omaha/8. There's just so much less opportunity for creativity. Of course, it doesn't help that I try to get "creative" anyways and of course get killed. I also need to learn that if you have the second nuts and get raised, fold. Even heads up. I pay off way too much.

But. That all pales in comparison to the good news, which is that the monkey seems to be off my back. Okay, that's a good way to get it right back on my back. But for now at least the downswing is over. I peaked August 28th and then hit a downswing through the first half of September, and then bounced around up and down, slowly climbing until finally on October 7 I once again surpassed my August 28th mark.

This past week I hit a nice rush and actually zoomed past it. It's good to be hitting cards once again, last night notwithstanding. Downswings and long break-even streaks suck, but if there's one good thing I can say about them, it's that they really get me examining my play--and I mean going over it with a fine-toothed comb--and so I always come out a better player than I was before.

I feel that I'm a much, much better player now than I was just in late August, and so despite the 40-day break-even streak it may very well have been worth it.

Now I just hope I didn't just jinx myself into having another one.

2005-10-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

Here's an 80/160 hand I played last night that I thought was interesting. I think my play on every street is debateable, even preflop (although I think preflop is the least interesting street). I'll give a brief description of the other players, but otherwise I'll give the hand without comment, and see what people think.

UTG is the worst player in the game, bar none. The BB and MP are pretty bad, and the button is a bit of LAG. Collectively, they are the four worst players in the game; they are bad to the point that besides BB, none should even be playing 15/30. BB, UTG, and MP pretty much bet their hands, while the button likes to bluff and take stabs at pots.

I'm in the SB. UTG limps, MP limps, button limps, I complete with Jc9d. BB checks.

Flop (5 players): 8c 7s 5c

I check, BB checks, UTG checks, MP checks, button bets. I raise. Sb folds, UTG cold-calls, button calls.

Turn (3 players): (8c 7s 5c) 3d

I bet. UTG calls. Button agonizes for a few seconds and folds.

River (2 players): (8c 7s 5c 3d) 6s

I bet. UTG raises. I call.

UTG shows Qh4h and MHIG.

2005-10-03T18:19:00.000-07:00

So this is the type of hand you'll never ever see at low-limits.

Bellagio 80/160 and I'm in the BB. It folds around to the button, an extremely smart, knowledgable player that I've been playing with for hours. He open-limps. Another smart player that I've only been at the table with for about twenty minutes completes in the SB. I check with 85o.

It's worth noting that I've shown the ability to make moves on pots and semi-bluff. I've also been running kind of badly. But also, I've shown the "ability" to not fold reasonable hands to someone else showing strength (I've twice paid of sets hit against me, for example).

The flop comes 7 7 5 rainbow. SB checks, I bet out expecting to take it right there, figuring both players are most likely on random overcards. Call, call. Was the button open limping with a big hand there? Often it's A-rag in that spot, and he'd probably raise A5 on the flop. SB's hand is not defined at all, although people calling with random overcards in that situation is common enough at least at, say, 30/60, so his call doesn't mean much at all.

(7 7 5) Q. SB checks again. I bet out again and again the button calls. He'd almost definitely raise a Q there, and although I've shown the ability to bet out with strong hands, I know they know I most likely only have a 5. So he has something he isn't letting go of, and perhaps waiting for the river to raise. I was fully expecting him to raise AA or KK on the turn, so QQ? He still can't be hanging around with his AK, AJ, Ax, can he? I decide then and there I should check-fold the river if it comes to that.

But it doesn't come to that, as the SB now check-raises. I insta-muck, and the button now thinks for about twenty seconds and mucks as well.

The SB now is eager to show his hand and does. KTo, for a total bluff, into two players who had shown reasonable strength.

Button: "I had JJ." And I believe him, since that perfectly fits in with how he played the hand.

At the time I was trying to decide if that play by the SB was foolhardy or brilliant, and the more I look back on it the more brilliant it seems.

Overall, the 80/160 game has been hit-or-miss. I've played in it five times now (including one night of 60/120) and three times the games were good, while twice they were not. One of those times it was just rocky as all hell. The other time was the night the above hand came from, when it was relatively loose preflop, but there were a good number of players who knew exactly where they (and you) were at postflop, as I think the above hand illustrates. Although there were a couple obvious soft spots in that game, I think I was in a bit over my head that night.

So the obvious conclusion is that I'll have to be very careful with my game selection for those times I want to play in the 80 game. With the big tournament coming up in a few days, the games should be fairly lively I'd think, so hopefully game selection won't be a problem at least for the next couple of weeks.

2005-09-29T18:31:00.000-07:00

Let me get this out of the way first (necessary in order for me to actually play in it):

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

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 5384013

Now onto the post:

I may seriously consider transitioning over to no-limit play. Assuming I can again play limit like I used to a month or two again, my current expectation in limit is probably far greater than that in NL, but I'm finding my time at NL to be more enjoyable.

I sit at a limit table and my mood can be summed up as, "siiiigh, back to the same ol' same ol'."

I sit down at NL, even though it's itty bitty 2/5, and I'm excited, interested and engaged. In part this is because I can't really play NL any more than I can sing like Pavarotti, so it's kind of new and exciting just on that level. But also NL better rewards people who can get good reads on other players, and allows the bad players to make bigger mistakes. And I feel like I have a leg up on the competition in that I probably have a better understanding for the game in general than most of my opponents, so despite my lack of experience in specifically NL I think I can hold my own, at least at the baby limits.

But really, these guys just make massive mistakes that one simply can't make at limit. Examples:

2/5 NL. UTG raises to $30. Three people call. BB now raises to $180. Three of the four original callers all call. And it's not like it was AA against QQ against JJ or whatever, the BB goes all-in on the flop, and getting better than 3:1, the other three players all fold.

Another hand: UTG raises to $40. Five people call. It's not like people's stack sizes were all over $1000 here. One guy had $150, a bunch of others were between $300 and $500, and one or two were over that.

And hands like that are common. Seven-way pots for $20-30 seem to happen every two or three hands at the better games.

People overbet like crazy. I so often see people bet $50 into a $20 pot, or $250 into a $100 pot, whatever. And people will not fold two-pair under any circumstances. If someone gets two pair and you have something better, you will break him, period.

I don't know what a good win-rate would be, and I don't have enough experience to even guess, but I can really see someone living quite happily off these live 2/5 NL games.

Is 5/10 NL like that? 10/20? Inquiring minds want to know.

Now I'm here about to go back to the limit grind, about to fire up my normal six limit tables on party, and seriously considering just playing four NL tables, instead. Hmmm....

2005-09-27T18:11:00.000-07:00

So: Bellagio 80/160.

First hand, ever. AKo, three limpers, I raise after having posted between the button and the blinds. Blinds get out, flop comes K 9 7 rainbow (can't remember suits at all for some reason).

I bet out and get two callers. Turn: (K 9 7) 4. I bet, MP raises, button folds.

So, very first hand at the 80 game, big slick, it's the turn and I make my first mistake: I call.

River: (K 9 7 4) 6. I bet, he thinks for a bit, does one of those grunt-laugh things, and mucks.

I think the turn's a clear three-bet, and even at the time I was thinking "hmm...this is a clear three-bet" but my very first hand at a table where every single player is brand new, at a limit I've never played before all kind of conspired against my instincts and reduced me to calling and hoping a 3 or an 8 didn't hit the river.

Someone asked if I CRed the turn. I generally try to reserve getting somewhat tricky for after I've gotten a pretty decent read on the table. I've found live isn't like online, where the button will always bet if checked to. Unless I have a good reason to believe someone will bet even without a good/great hand, I bet out to avoid giving a free card.

A three-bet there is clear because I can pretty much assume someone isn't playing K9, K7 or K4, and if they are, they're probably raising the flop, although K9 is a possibility. KK, 99, even 77 probably raise preflop (77 is iffy) and 44 folds that flop. So I'm worried about 77 or K9 slightly, but much more likely is someone picked up a draw, say 56, or is raising their top or middle pair in a big pot hoping for either a free showdown, or to push me off TT-QQ, AQ, whatever. KQ, A9, 98s, whatever may very well play it that way.

When I've been running well, I three-bet. When I've been running poorly, I get a bit weak-tight and call/lead or call/check-call. Sigh.

But, I won the pot, and went on to play five hours in what turned out to be a surprisingly good game. The cast of characters was long and varied. One guy sat down who didn't even know the mechanics of how limit poker worked. Seriously. Didn't know how much to bet on what rounds, had to be constantly reminded, kept trying to push in two stacks or whatever. It was a field day for the rest of us, although as always the frustrating field day that comes with the territory of this being poker: it'd be three bets to the guy and he sits there and asks, "how much to me?" gets his reply and nervously places out the call with whatever random hand he feels like he should play, and of course on a board of all rags suddenly starts betting and raising causing the guys with obvious big pairs to get that "creeping doom" look that anyone who's played poker knows quite well.

But, as usually happens, he rode the variance of poker up and down before finally busting.

Another guy was one of the most unthinking LAGs I've ever run across. He raised every single time he was UTG. Every. Single. Time. He probably raised 30% of his hands, and played about 50% of them. If he hit anything on the flop, a pair, a draw, whatever, he was capping if he could. If the board got a little scary, he'd call down from there, but under no circumstances was he folding. He'd bluff in position, and regularly CR out of position. In other words, he'd fit right in on Party Poker. Being a long-time veteran of Party Poker, I managed to do pretty well against him, despite a couple of aggravating hands.

There was the usual assortment of tight-aggressive players with various leaks in their games, but what was most interesting were the best players. They were, in short, quite good and accomplished players.

At, say, 4/8 the best players are those who actually read a few books and maybe that guy who was good enough to try 15/30 for a while before slinking back down. They watch those big tournaments on TV.

At 15/30, the best players were those who not only have read the books, but think about making a living at the game, and actively try to, say, play in the big tournaments. Every so often you'll run into a guy who won his way into a big tournament.

At 30/60 or 40/80, it's not uncommon to play against guys who play in those big tournaments. They don't necessarily win, but they do play. And there are plenty of people who make their living at that level.

At 80/160? The best players are the guys who win those big tournments. There were two 80 games going Saturday night, one of them a must-move. I was in the main game, but I looked over at the MM game, and there were five players...and four WSOP gold bracelets at that table. Yikes.

Admittedly, three of those bracelets belonged to David Sklansky, but still. As it happened, David sat down about 30 seconds after I left the MM game, and left before getting into the main game, so I never got to play against him. For those curious, the other bracelet belonged to Todd Witteles, who won his in limit hold 'em just this past July. I did play against Todd, but we weren't really involved in any hands.

Two other players were very well respected (and very winning) high-limit online players that I recognized, but most people probably wouldn't.

Despite the seemingly tough lineup, the game was actually quite good. It was definitely tighter than 30/60, and more aggressive, but there were plenty of four- and five-way pots.

I had one other hand that I think I also made a mistake on:

I'm UTG+1 and raise with AdQc. It folds to the CO, a very tight player who's also way too passive for this game. He cold-calls, as does the button, who is one of the excellent high-limit online players. I know he plays higher than 80/160 online, multi-tabling at that, and probably has just about every trick up his sleeve. Similarly, I assume he has pretty good radar for sniffing out just about every trick around. The unknown BB also calls.

Flop comes: Kd Qs 7h. I bet. Super-tighty CO calls, high-limit button calls, BB calls.

Turn: (Kd Qs 7h) 8d. I bet. Super-tighty calls. Button raises. BB folds.

Out of the standard three options, I internally ranked them as follows: 1) three-bet, 2) call, 3) fold. 1 and 2 are close, though, with 3 way, waaay behind.

The tighty, although relatively passive, would most likely raise a K on that flop with so many to act behind him. I figured him for almost definitely JT, since he would most likely fold a weaker Q already, though I really can't say for sure.

I was a little scared that he was slow-playing a monster--top-two, a set, whatever, but I'd worry about that if and when he began raising (a raise from him would represent about as easy a fold as there is for me).

My main concern of course was the button. I know for sure he likes to mix it up a bit, especially with position in what's becoming a big pot, so a semi-bluff raise is very likely.

What makes it more likely, is I can't really see what he'd CC with on the button that beats me. I know after one CCer, and having the button, his range is pretty big there. But he's also smart enough not to CC an early position raiser with the classic dominated hands like KQ or KJ. Perhaps he has JT, too?

The problem I had was that I couldn't just sit there and put them both on JT and be done with it. I had hit a spot where I was pretty sure I was good, and pretty sure that my correct play was to raise, but once again the combination of the new, higher limit, and my recent bad run making me a bit gun-shy left me simply calling.

Super-tighty called, and we saw the river of (Kd Qs 7h 8d) Td. My gut instinct was to bet out again (I was just loving those stop-n-goes that day, I guess) but the completion of the flush against a guy who loves to semi-bluff got me figuring that I was in a position where my opponents would either fold their missed straight draw or raise their possible set or backdoor flush (AdJd, AdTd, QdJd, whatever, all possibilities for a flop call and turn raise). So I checked, and it checked around. I showed and MHIG.

Of course I could have three-bet, lost the CO, had the button call and then fold the river, and I would have ended up winning the same amount. But at least I would have charged the draws the most (CO probably grits his teeth and calls with JT for example) and perhaps gotten a crying call on the river in a huge pot when the T falls. Most likely not from the button, but perhaps from the CO.

Gah, just an ugly hand, all around. Just call me Mr. Weak-tight.

Anyways, I ended up bouncing around a bunch, up, down, up down, and when the live ones left and were replaced with decent-enough tighties around 3am, I got up and left up just under 15BBs. Not a huge win BB-wise, but still represents a decent amount of cash.

As a coda, I played in the 80 game again Monday night. I only lasted an hour. There was one live one, but he left soon after I sat down (after handing me a nice runner-runner bad beat, which he had been doing to the table with regularity) and the game became probably one of the worst games I'd ever sat in. Super tight, with the button or CO going HU against the BB every hand that wasn't just folded around. The two or three decent-sized pots I got involved in didn't go my way at all, and so I ended up losing. I left after an hour when it became clear that people were not going to be making a whole lot of mistakes and I'd be better off spending my time elsewhere.

I think what all this means is that I'll try to make the 80 game my regular game at least on the weekends, with still more time at the 30 or 40 games, but I'll stick to developing other games during the week. I played 2/5 NL for five hours last night, and plan on doing that again tonight. NL is going to be my new focus, starting at 2/5 and perhaps in a couple months progressing to 5/10 and hopefully 10/20 at some point.

Anyways, that's long enough of an uber-post.

2005-09-26T16:58:00.000-07:00

I didn't make it back out to the 80 game last night. A combination of going running and then having an exasperating (although winning) session online left me a little too warn out to go play such a big game.

But, like I said, I played in it Saturday night. Wow. Poker was fun again. Everything about that night was exciting on some level.

First, before even getting into the game, I had to of course put myself on the list. Now, for people who've never been to the Bellagio poker room before, it's laid out thusly: there are a number of podiums where one can put themselves on waiting lists. The first podium is immediately inside the entrance, practically blocking the entrance. That is where people sign up for 4/8, 8/16 or 2/5 NL. One could call it the low-limit podium. Set back a little ways and to the right, amidst all the action, is the next podium, where one signs up for the middle limits, 15/30 and 30/60 hold 'em, plus 20/40 and 40/80 omaha and seven-card stud, and a 40/80 mix game. That is the podium I've been visiting for oh about a year and a half now.

Now behind even that podium is yet another one, placed like a sentry in front of the area that appears, at least to this envious middle-limit schlub, like poker nirvana: the high-limit room. Set apart a bit and elevated, this room is for players only; no gawkers please. What is there to be envious about? What's not to be envious about: it's private, exclusive, well decorated, less busy, more TVs and more cocktail waitresses (per table that is), it's full of games that use exotically-colored chips, heck even the lighting is better, which serves to make it appear even more heavenly to those of us jealously watching from afar.

After so many hundreds of hours watching that area at first with apprehension (it is a bit intimidating) and eventually with yearning, I finally was at the Bellagio with the intent of playing specifically there. Nirvana. Heaven. The high-limit room.

I had butterflies. Almost like a middle-school kid approaching a girl at the school dance for the first time, I walked up. The lump in my throat had me worried that I might not even be able to talk intelligibly to the floor person. Seriously, that's how hard up I was.

But I managed. They actually ended up having three games going. I wanted to check them out first, so much like that same kid with that girl after the dance, I was meekly asking permission for anything and everything, expecting to get shot down, "Is it okay if I go up there to check out the games for a bit?"

"Of course."

So up the handful of steps I went, to enter the high-limit area for the first time.

As it turns out, they had three (!!) 80/160 games going. One was running very short, though, at three-handed. The other two were full. Well, I wasn't about to have my first experience at 80/160 be playing four-handed--I might get scarred for life--so I put my name on the list to be called when a seat opened at a full table.

And back down the steps I went, leaving the exotic foreign land for the drab elegance that is the poker room as I've always known it, returning, temporarily, to my proletarian poker.

I didn't stay long, as twenty minutes later I got called back to the promised land. Time to play 80/160. Would I lose $5000? Win $5000? Get completely run over, and have to scurry away with my tail between my legs?

I sat down just in time to post between the button and the blinds. I threw out my four yellow chips and just like that I was simply playing poker. The lighting was better, there were fewer people bumping into me from behind, the walls were filled with pictures and paintings, and the chips were a really cool color, but this was a poker table, and I know what I'm doing at a poker table.

Three limpers and I look down to find AKo. What an introductory hand. I raise from my worst position, both blinds fold and everyone else calls.

K97.

And I was off.

To be continued...

2005-09-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

I finally played 80/160.

I may play in it again tonight, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow before talking about it much, but I just thought I'd throw that out there.

And oh yeah, I did win. Thankfully.

2005-09-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

I'm still alive. I've just been enjoying my time away.

It has now been nine days since I last played a hand of poker. At first I was sick of poker. Then I was indifferent, but when I walked past a poker room in a casino I'd feel somewhat queasy. Eventually, I started missing it and ended up really wanting to get back to playing. But finally, now after nine long days, I'm sitting here thinking, "Pok-er? What's that?"

In other words, I think I may have stayed away long enough to go past being recharged, and am now technically "rusty."

I plan to next play this Thursday, to make my total vacation eleven days. That will be the longest I've gone between poker hands since I started playing seriously nearly two years ago. I may need to be reminded whether a straight beats a flush or vice-versa, but I think I can get back into the swing of things.

If you see a guy fumbling around at the 40/80 game going, "Who's it on, me? What's happened? Oh, I didn't even see the flop, gimme a second here..." and he's not kidding, well that'll probably be me.

Anyways, because I spent the first eleven days of the month losing and the next eleven days on break, it looks very likely that I will have a losing month. It happens. March was actually a losing month play-wise, but I managed to barely squeak above even thanks to bonuses and rakeback. And then April-August was a five-month rush the likes of which I could never have imagined, where even my worst month was more lucrative than I could have believed possible. Similarly, October '04 was losing and then November-February was an excellent four-month run.

So clearly, if the pattern holds, I'm about to go on a six-month run that blows everything preceding it out of the water.

All right, I admit I'm not exactly holding my breath for that.

I leave you with an interesting article on psychopaths and financial trading, for which the parallels to poker are obvious.

A team of U.S. scientists has found the emotionally impaired are more willing to gamble for high stakes and that people with brain damage may make good financial decisions...

In a study of investors' behavior 41 people with normal IQs were asked to play a simple investment game. Fifteen of the group had suffered lesions on the areas of the brain that affect emotions.

The result was those with brain damage outperformed those without.

...Baba Shiv of Stanford Graduate School of Business said many...top lawyers may also show they share the same trait.

Heh, is anyone surprised by that last part?

I know, I know. Low blow.

2005-09-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

I am officially on a poker break.

I've had what amounts to my worst run of poker ever, and it's not all the cards' fault. It's gotten to the point where I'm playing impatiently and desperately. I'm not making good decisions, I'm not reacting to the situation, I'm just numb and playing very, very badly.

I don't know how long I'll be on break for. Hopefully at least a week. I need to step back and regroup. And I really need to get my mind on other things. I'll focus more on being physcially active, focus more on developing a social life out here in Vegas where I know practically no one that I haven't met at a poker table. Heck, I might even get around to unpacking those boxes in my living room.

One thing for sure is that I'll not be thinking about poker.

2005-09-09T03:42:00.000-07:00

I've been running pretty badly lately, so there's not much I can say that won't come across as whining.

Hmm...non-whiney stuff to write about...hmmm....

Well, I continue to really, really want to try the Bellagio 80/160 game, despite the fact that most of my recent bad run has been at the Bellagio 30/60. The reason I really want to move up is that for me to play my best I need to have a healthy respect for both the amount of money involved and the other players at a game. Once I play at and beat a certain level for a long enough time, I tend to lose my respect for each. It happened at 5/10 and 10/20 online, it happened at 15/30 live and now I think it's happening at the 30/60.

I could just play primarily at the Mirage 40/80, but there's almost never more than one table going and about five or six of the players are always exactly the same. That isn't necessarily a problem except that with only one table going and those five or six regulars bolted to their seats, I often have to wait quite a while before getting into the game, and that's just no fun.

One of these days.

2005-09-05T09:04:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. I've had a couple friends in town and so have been pretty busy.

August ended spectacularly. I had my best week ever and so that contributed to my best month ever, by a large margin, at that.

September has not been kind to me yet. I've been alternatively winning big live and losing big online or vice-versa, and have ended the first week down a little bit for only my second losing week since March (but my second in the last three weeks--sandwiching the best week ever).

I think this past week is more a function of not playing enough. I only played five hours online instead of my standard 15+ and so with the smaller sample size comes the increased probabilty of finishing down. I finished up in my live play.

I'm not too distraught about the losing week. That's just part of the profession. It's always nicer to win, though.

I had some hands I wanted to post but I'm having trouble remembering them all. If I remember more I'll post, but here's one for now (then I have to get to bed):

Crazy 30/60 game at the Bellagio. I'm three off the button with black 99. A couple limpers, the guy to my right raises and I reraise. CO calls three cold, SB and BB both call, everyone else calls. Seven see a flop of:

Tc 6d 6c

I'm sixth to act, 21SBs. Checked to the first raiser who bets. Since he didn't four-bet preflop, I have a hard time putting him on a big pair, although JJ is a possibility. Otherwise, it's probably a club draw (perhaps AK or AQ) or even a pocket pair like 88 or 77. I didn' t have the greatest read on him, but I was pretty sure that there was a good chance my hand was still good, at least compared to him.

No, I was worried about the fact that it was a big pot and there were still five other players in. A flop raise wasn't driving anyone out, but it was too big a pot to just let go immediately, so I called planning on raising any non-threatening turn (ie, anything below a 6). Only one person drops, making me very worried, and six see the turn:

Turn (13.5 BBs): (Tc 6d 6c) 9d.

Well, I hit my money card.

Checked to the bettor again, and he bets. I call. CO folds and now the SB check-raises. The BB calls two cold, everyone else drops even the bettor, and now I finally wake up and three-bet. The SB agonizes a little while before finally calling (in general he has a very keen sense for when he's beat--but he still won't fold), and the BB also calls.

My read: SB has a 6, and BB is an atrocious hand-reader and still chasing a flush. I mean, c'mon, the call/three-bet on the turn in a huge multi-way pot is about as a clear and strong a signal as just turning your monster over for everyone to see.

Despite what I think their most likely hands are, either one could easily have a T--people who can't let go of TPTK no matter what are relatively common. Unfortunately, I have no real read on the BB yet, this being the second round I'd ever played with him, so I have to assign to him a small amount of intelligence and that means flush draw.

SB now checks in the dark. The river:

(Tc 6d 6c 9d) Ts

23.5 BBs in the pot. BB checks, it's on me.

Who bets here?

2005-08-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Nothing but low-limit silliness this post.

So me and a buddy decide to do some more low-limit donking, and decide the 2/4 at the Imperial Palace is the place to do it. $3/hour in comps is enough to convince me.

Once again I start out trying to be good, but end up straddling every time I'm UTG and raising with the hammer. I don't think I three-bet with much worse than 65o, though, so I wasn't being that bad.

I created a good image for myself, so that people kept trying to pay off my legitimate hands. But the darndest thing is they kept hitting! KK went down in flames at least five times. Top-two lost to runner-runner more times than I can count.

All told, I played 6 hours and lost--brace yourself--$400. At two freakin' four! That's 100BBs in 6 hours, for a lovely winrate of -16.67BB/hr. That's gotta be some kind of record.

I also somehow managed to get into another grudge match with a dealer. Now, I have to say that I always treat dealers wonderfully. I tip on every pot, I never berate them or get mad at them or anything. Hell, they screw up tremendously at times and I'm the most understanding guy at the table. Yet, here I am with yet another grudge match.

Okay, that all said, this one I kind of understand. So it's 2/4 and so they change out a dollar to quarters since they take rake in .50 increments. Well, when I was winning big pots, I'd grab a dollar chip and tip that. But when I won a small pot, say $10-12 and so there were still quarters in there from the partial rake taken, I would tip $0.50. Okay, okay, call me a cheapskate, but c'mon it's two freakin' four, it was a twenty second hand, a tiny pot, I'm getting brutalized enough by the rake, I'm not going to be tipping another 10% of my pot.

But the point is I was still tipping. And I repeat, I was tipping $1 on the decently large pots.

Anyways, this one dealer seemed to take offense to my fifty cent tips. David his name was. He dealt to us probably about four downs. He'd deal the cards, but only throw them halfway to me. And if anyone has been to the Imperial Palace, you know the tables are huuuge. So finally I tip him $0.50 on this tiny pot and he doesn't even take it. He leaves it in the middle of the table, for all to see, and goes on and deals the next hand, leaving the two quarters in the center of the table. People play their hands, and David just scoops the bets right into the center, with the fifty cents now part of that next pot.

So fine, if he doesn't want my tips, he won't get any. I won a good-sized pot and didn't tip him at all. So the next hand, he deals around and literally drops my cards right in front of him. Everyone else gets them flung perfectly to their waiting hands, and mine are like three feet away, practically on top of his chip rack.

"Uh, David, you gotta throw 'em a little farther."

He just smiles.

He normally pushed the pots completely over to the winner, but when I won another pot he just grabbed the portion of it on the far side of the table and pushed it over and just dropped it unceremoniously still like three feet away from me, still in a random spread out mess.

I would have complained, but fine I was tipping fifty cents, and he was finally done dealing, and he's like seventy fucking years old and dealing 2/4 poker, so I imagine his life isn't all that great to begin with.

But still, wow.

That does answer why I think that one dealer at the Wynn acted strangely towards me--I probably forgot to tip him on a hand.

I imagine being a dealer is stressful and annoying, and that's why I try to treat them all nicely, and always tip (my recent decision to do 0.50 on small pots at 2/4 notwithstanding). But still, if a dealer decides to be overtly rude to someone for not tipping, that just seems to exacerbate the problem. I mean, if someone simply forgot to tip on a pot, and then you treat him like dogshit, well do you think he's going to start tipping? Not at all--I sure wouldn't. And, in fact, others might see the treatment think the dealer is a prick and stop tipping themselves.

But fine, if that's how they get their jollies, so be it.

Oh well, no more soapboxing. Time for bed.

2005-08-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

First, a NL hand. I don't play much NL, so it's good to get some feedback.

2/5 NL at the Mirage. I'm at about what I bought in for, approximately $500. Typical loose, dumb table.

I get AKo UTG+1 and open for $15. I immediately regret making such a small raise because the last time I did 3X like that I got six callers. But after one fold, MP raises it to $65. It folds back around to me. MP has $110 more behind.

Not a fun situation to be in. Based on how he played other hands, I was pretty sure he didn't have AA or KK since the raise almost seemed as though he wanted everyone out. So what does that mean? Unfortunately, he probably doesn't have AQ or AJ, since to him those are calling hands. That tells me he has a pocket pair, but fairly low. Probably not JJ or TT, either based on my read.

So I'm essentially in a coin flip situation. I definitely have odds, but I'm still pretty much flipping coins for my money, and I don't like to do that. Since he was on a pretty short stack I decided to push right there. I figured that way I give him the chance to fold, and if not then it's a flip, and I get to see all five cards rather than simply calling and hoping I hit my A or K on the flop, in which case I might not get paid off. So I pushed (well, raised enough to put him all-in) and he reluctantly called.

My read was good, as he had 66. And it worked out, as I hit a K and he didn't improve. But still, I have no idea if that was the best way to play it. Looking back, I don't think I can really fold, and I don't like calling for the reasons mentioned--I'm only seeing three cards and I probably won't get paid if I do hit.

I guess my main concern is how would I play that if the stacks were deeper? His short stack limited my options (rather nicely, I think), but if we each have, say, $1000 behind, then what? Call and hope? I'm getting about 1.7:1 but I'll only hit an A or a K 1/3 of the time on the flop. And if I do hit, I'll probably not get paid off. That just seems like a tough situation to be in. Just like in NL tournaments, in NL cash games AK seems to be a good hand to raise with, but a tough hand to be reraised with. I'm sure this is a very basic hand as far as NL goes, but that's about my level right now.

Anyways, secondly, all I have to say is that poker is SICK. Sick, sick, sick.

Last week was my worst week ever, and so what happens this week? I have my best week ever, and it's not even close. The entire week was one huge rush the likes of which I've never seen before. No Royals or even straight flushes, but lots of big hands, and lots of big hands holding up in big pots.

The week started off a bit slowly, but then Thursday I had my best single day of poker ever, as I tore through both online and live games. Friday was another very good day. And then Saturday. Wow. If Thursday was Mark McGwire in 1998, Saturday was Barry Bonds in 2001. I set a personal single-day record online and then I went out and had a top-ten day live to blow past my two-day-old record and set yet another all-time best single day. I finished the week out with a Sunday that was very good, but still paled in comparison to the previous days.

To continue with the baseball analogies, this past week was Steve Carlton circa 1972. Just the absolute pinnacle. All I can hope is that next week is a little better than ol' Lefty was in 1973.

Each of the last four days of the week was a good week in itself, to make the entire week the equivalent of a good month.

It's amazing how fortunes can change so dramatically.

2005-08-27T07:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of pocket aces hands from last night:

Mirage 20/40. UTG limps, MP raises. I'm in the small blind and find black AA. I three-bet. Call, MP four-bets and I cap. Call, call.

Besides the other two aces, there's exactly one hand that MP could have: KK. UTG is immaterial since he's a calling station donk; I'll worry about him once he starts acting up.

Flop comes Ts 9s 2d.

I bet, UTG raises, meaning he hit a pair or a draw, and MP three-bets. Here's where I'm unsure whether I played it correctly.

Obviously I could four-bet. UTG would call just about no matter what, and MP might at that point start getting the idea, and simply call. Assuming bet-call-call, bet-call-call, that's five BBs more going into the pot, unless one of them hits.

What I was thinking at the time was that, well, it's already a big pot, and so I'd like to drive out UTG if possible. I could smooth-call the flop, it'll check to MP on the turn and then I can check-raise, either driving UTG out or making him make as big a mistake as possible for calling. And even if he does call, that's six BBs going in. So I merely called.

Fancy play syndrome?

I finally got called to the big game. Mirage 40/80 (this is more of a "look at this donkey!" hand):

MP opens, once again in the SB I find black AA. I three-bet. He four-bets, I five-bet. He six-bets. Er...okay, no FPS here, seven bets! He eight-bets. Crap, I get AA and so does he. Well, if so, that's that. Nine bets! Finally he just calls.

852 flop. I bet. He calls.

Turn: A. What? He went nine bets preflop without AA? This is where I made my mistake of the hand. I bet. He folded, claiming to have KK. But as I found out from playing against him, his real range of hands there is: any two cards, one of which is at least a face card. Sigh.

I have to say, the Mirage 40/80 has got to be the least predictable game I've ever played at, as far as what to expect day-to-day. Maybe that's more the nature of games as one moves up in limits, but a lot of lower-limit games generally play pretty similarly. The Bellagio 15/30 has its crazy games and its tight(ish) games, but there's a pretty typical type of game you can expect when you sit down: loose passive. Same with the 30/60. In fact, same with most low-limit games. The Mirage 20/40 is often just plain wacky.

But the Mirage 40/80 is half the same players every night, yet every night it's a completely different game. Sometimes it's tight-aggressive as anything, and other nights it's loose-passive beyond belief. Just one or two players can make a huge difference in how the game plays. I imagine that's not a good quality, since that game takes me the longest to adjust to every time I sit down, despite the fact that its mostly the same players night after night.

Anyways, apparently the Wynn is changing their selection of games. They used to jump from 15/30 to 40/80. But last week, I was in there and the options were: 15/30, 30/60, 60/120! Hey, good stuff. They weren't able to keep a consistent 40/80 going, so maybe 30/60 is as high as they'll ever have going regularly, but a 60 game would be fantastic. I've been looking for a stepping stone between the readily available 40/80 and 80/160 games, and Phoenix simply isn't convenient enough for me.

2005-08-24T22:23:00.000-07:00

Top Ten Reasons I Love Living in Las Vegas (non-poker related):

10. No rain.

9. No cops. Seriously, I can count on one hand the number of cops I've seen the entire time I've been here. It's great.

8. When I do see a cop, he's usually breaking more traffic laws at once than even I can manage, and so he hardly cares what I'm up to. I mean, when he's going by at 120, my 90 appears the speed limit to him.

7. In a similar vein, traffic "laws" are merely suggestions. Ultimately, do whatever is most convenient for you. At a red light, but no one's coming from either direction? Go ahead and run it. Everyone else does it.

6. I sleep until I don't feel like sleeping any more. Oh man, that's so great I just have to repeat it: I sleep until I don't feel like sleeping any more. Aaaahhh.....

5. Forget an alarm clock, I don't even have a clock in my bedroom. Every morning is a little game with myself, as I try to guesstimate what time it is by the time I get clothes on, lurch into the kitchen and turn on my cell phone to find out what time it actually is. It's my own little daily surprise.

4. There's a poker room on practically every corner. Even junky little casinos like Silverton and Tuscany each have one! Oh, that's poker related? Heh...moving on...

3. 24-hour booze. I don't drink, but it's nice to know my opponents can still drink at 4am. Poker-related again? Crap.

2. 24-hour everything. It's 4am, I'm hungry, no problem. I want to work out? No problem. I need to go food shopping? No problem. I want to go to a club that's full of hotties? No problem. Seriously, this place has 24-hour hotties. And I'm not even talking about strippers or hookers. What a town.

1. I no longer need to go visit anyone. This is Vegas! The whole world--quite literally--comes to visit me. The other day, I was in line to go to the top of the Stratosphere and no more than about half the line was even speaking English. And don't even get me started on what moving here has done to my popularity amongst friends and family. Although, I guess one might consider that a mixed blessing.

Bottom line: Vegas = great. And I can even say that right after spending a week getting reamed at the tables.