Move

Same mut, new address:

PhantomMut

This site stays for historical purposes, but I have re-created recent posts on the new site just so the first few real posts don't get lonely.

So if you want to read the continuing donkalicious exploits of an amateur poker geek, you know where to go.

But Wait! There's More!....

Money (v.001)

Played my first real-money (well, as real as a $1.20 buy-in can be) Sit & Go tourney. (Drumroll please.....)

I came in fifth, which is kind of disappointing as I had first, second, or third place for most of the tourney:

Not much to say about my play. I caught cards early on, played bully for a while, didn't catch so much later on, but still managed to steal some pots. I think I played pretty well until the blinds started squeezing, then pushed with AJ on the button (which I really didn't need to do at the time), ran into Big Slick in the big blind, and that was all she wrote.

Still, after just shy of two hours of play, I'm up a whopping $2.80 over what I had to start the night. Woo hoo!

Bankroll status: 4.05M PSD, 53.45 USD

But Wait! There's More!....

Bluff

I went to Dawn's Crackhouse Game last night. I was honored by the invitation to come return the money I had luckboxed away last week. So I played and I did. Left down multiple (3? 4? but hey, who's counting?) buy-ins.

But I went in with a plan, and while I left not exactly happy with the lighter wallet, I did have a good time and I did succeed in what I specifically set out to do.

Bluffing online (at least on the play money tables) is damned hard to do. Basically, nobody respects anything, and any two cards are good for just about everyone. Catch rockets in early position, go all in with a full buy-in, and you can still expect anywhere from three to eight callers.

What this means is that I have no real practice in the art of the bluff.

So while I was hitting everything last Crackhouse Game (and probably looked loose as Paris Hilton) last night I decided I would actually be loose and aggressive. It was to be my (self supervised) bluff practicum.

I'm actually reading Jay Greenspan's Hunting Fish right now, and he has an excellent passage about poker players and gamblers. He points out that even very good poker players have very different feelings about gambling.

Gambling here refers to how much risk a player is willing to accept in a given situation. Poker being a game of imperfect knowledge, there is (nearly) always some level of risk inherent in every decision, every poker player has to be willing to gamble to some extent. But every player has a different (and very complex) natural profile in how they balance changing risk versus changing reward.

So the art of the bluff is to push hard enough to make the apparent risk outweigh the apparent reward of the next card (or the completed hand) without making the bluff obvious (Unless the hand is strong, and the bet is meant to look like a bluff. After a while, thinking about this stuff makes my brain hurt.)

Example: Early in the evening I tangled with Alceste, who is tight, agressive, and strong and, unfortunately, sitting to my immediate left. (In other words, a damned good poker player in the "Mut Killer" seat, but take it as given from this point that I was playing with a whole table of very good players. Looking around, I knew I was the mark, because I couldn't identify anyone else as the mark.)

Anyway, I had a pretty marginal hand (Q8 offsuit, if I recall correctly), but this being BluffNight, I bet it pretty hard. (Three bucks, with the usual caveat that amounts may be wildly inaccurate, but that the texture of the situation is accurate.) He calls, so I know he has a hand, probably a strong ace, probably NOT Aces, Kings, or Big Slick. Rest of the table folds.

Flop comes out, and while I can't remember exactly what it was, it screams at me that Alceste has hit a straight to the Ace. It also whispers to me that two of those cards are diamonds.

I bet out another three, Alceste calls. So yep, he probably has the straight, or possibly the nut flush draw.

Next card is a third diamond. That gives me a flush draw. I bet ten.

Alceste thinks, thinks, calls. Damn, definite straight, and I didn't quite push him off it. Unless he was playing a very deep game with me (bluffing being nearly bluffed off the hand) I had almost but not quite found the right bet. This is when I knew I was probably rooted.

River pairs my Queen, but I miss the flush, so I'm 99% sure I'm beaten like a rented donkey. I go all in.

Alceste thinks, thinks, says it's just his first re-buy, calls my all-in, and I am a much poorer mut.

So, horseshoes and hand grenades and all that. Against a weaker player, I'm sure I take that pot down. As it was, I very nearly did, and later in the evening one of my bluffing hands (J4 off) turns into Jacks and 4s on the river, I push all-in, Alceste calls with his pocket Aces, and my two pair hold up.

I think that the earlier failed bluff set up a couple of hands like that, where a bluffing hand went Dutch and I got paid off decent-sized bets.

So yes, I was pleased with how I was betting.

Now, the trick is to do less of it.

Risk, reward. I was taking too many risks with too little regard to reward. I caught a couple of bad breaks last night, but mostly I was just exposing myself to too much risk, buying a few small pots but losing ground by chasing and mucking on bigger ones. By the end I was tired, worried about PhantomWife, and ended up donking off a lot of chips to Fisch. (Who then apparently lost them to his nemesis, Evil Dawn.)

But an absolutely great learning experience.

Other things learned:

• I'm old. And pop-culturally senile. Dawn put on a playlist of popular TV show theme songs, and I didn't recognize anything produced after 1979.
• I'm blind. Even with my ugly glasses, sitting at the end of the table I couldn't really read the cards. Time for Lasik.
• I'm old. (Did I already say that?) Besides for the "Bad husband!" reasons I shouldn't have stayed out as long as I did, today I am totally zonked.

Bankroll status: 3.94M PSD, 50.75 USD

But Wait! There's More!....

Dime

Quick status update, and a few notes:

• The Dime tourneys at PokerStars are like crack.
• In one of said Dime/Crack tourneys:
  • Holding pocket 10s, stack size at roughly 4000, blinds at 50/100, in early position, I open betting with 400.
  • Folds around to a late position caller with something like 2200 in chips, who calls.
  • blinds fold.
  • Flop is QQ2 rainbow.
  • I go all in.
  • Insta-call -- Mut has just bet into trip Queens, Ace kicker!
  • ...which evolves into Queens full of Aces!
    
    I still don't know whether my play was awesome but unlucky or simply stupid. (Numbers may be wildly innacurate, but ratios are correct.)
    
    
• After that, my tourney life was exciting and brief.
• $.01/.02 cash tables are tight.
• $.01/.02 cash players are either weak fish, or absolute sharks.
• If it isn't clear by now, I prefer the $.05/.10 tables.
• It's good to take a bad beat from a fish sitting directly to your right. Call his crap with good cards, and benefit from the entire table trying to cash in.
• Quads still stalk me; Les Deux Orangs dropped quads on my boat last night, and another player hit them in a hand I got away from on the turn.
• Oh, and I had a hand in an early PSD session where my 7c 9c turned into a straight flush on the flop, and I earned bubkus. Played it as slow as I could, and the designated donator still folded on the river -- only won about 4000 with it.

Bankroll status: 3.94M PSD, 50.75 USD

But Wait! There's More!....