Let Loose the Dogs of Poker!

Move

2006-11-12T20:42:00.000-05:00

Same mut, new address:

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.

Money (v.001)

2006-11-06T21:03:00.000-05:00

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

Bluff

2006-11-02T18:14:00.000-05:00

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

Dime

2006-11-01T15:56:00.001-05:00

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

Image

2006-10-31T13:07:00.000-05:00

A lot of stuff happening in the mut's life of late. My mind's not been focused on my poker, and it's shown in my play (and, of course, in my bankroll).

So last Saturday the 28th the PhantomWife has gone to bed, and I've gone to the kitchen to play poker. First table I'm at I play like a total goofball, losing 100,000 PSD in relatively short order, but not worrying much about it because I'm goofing off. (Today's word is "goof".)

I decide to get serious, switch to .01/.02 USD, and discover my head isn't in it enough to play that, losing a real dollar in a really short time.

Being a goof but not yet an idiot, I decide to focus on the social aspects of poker and flee from the real money tables, looking for someone I enjoy playing with. I find the Evil Denmother and elements of the Degenerate Cubscout troop. Play some hands, get my head back into pokerspace, and start pulling away. Actiongomez shows up, but I'm in a decent state and actually refrain (or at least moderate) my taunting. After a couple of hours I'm sitting pretty on something like 285K PSD, and combined with some winning from Thursday night, I'm actually over the 4 Million mark.

Then comes the suckout.

It was late, and I don't even remember the guy's handle, but a player who showed up and immediately Dutched his way to 200K goes all in from early position, and I'm holding pocket aces.

His Q8 (but they were suited!) turns into a straight to the ten (yes, four cards to the straight busted my rockets) and suddenly I'm down to about 85K in front of me.

And yes, tilt ensues.

Made worse when Dutch donks off all the chips that used to be mine to gomez.

Ah well. Long story short, I ended the evening way too late in the night, down to 3.44M PSD. And yes, that's by far the biggest swing I've seen in one session.

I promised Les Deux Orangs last night that I would post about embarrasing mut-poker today; that's my embarrasing mut-poker.

Last night was a lot better, although I still made one hugely stupid play.

First, a bit of revenge, and how image came to be the title of this post.

Found the Degenerate Cubscouts again (Les Deux, Death-to-Poochie who had a huge stack, NoStaticAtAll, and the Evil Denmother), and after getting felted by Evil Denmother twice (on hands I should have been able to get away from -- once trip jacks, queen kicker beaten by trip jacks, king kicker, the other IIRC trips taken down by a boat) I had settled down and was slowly gaining chips. (The hands against Evil Denmother were stupid, considering how often she's felted me in the past, but defensible I think.)

I was also doing something I don't generally like doing, which was playing two tables at once.

Last night I decided to sit in on one of the Turbo Dime tourneys, and actually caught some cards early and was doing well. During a tourney hand that required concentration, a new player had taken a seat at the cash table and pushed from early position into a TTK flop where I happened to catch trip tens.

I do what I nearly always do in that situation; I go all-in. I get an immediate call; either the turn or the river (can't recall which) gives me a boat, and I felt the new guy his first hand at the table.

The new guy, it turns out, is gomez, who'd caught Big Slick on his first hand.

Talk about a "Wrath of Khan" moment.

(Won the tourney hand too, but that's all I remember about it.)

A little later my hugely stupid hand (see, I got back to it) was calling gomez' all-in with an ace on the board while holding second pair (Jacks) with a King kicker. Donked off most of half my stack to some random player's AQ. (Gomez caught a small piece of that pot; he had a bigger stack than random player going in, but his kicker was weaker. As I recall Gomez ended that hand at about 17K.)

Yes, it was stupid; I was trying to nurse a small stack in the tourney, and I was, I admit, back in a bit of goof-mode imagining the tilt that would ensue if my Jacks tripped, or if I caught a King for two pair, because gomez' all-in was screaming weak ace.

Finished the tourney not long after in 133rd place, earning a whopping $.32 for a .22 cent profit.

Woo hoo!

But about image.

My play on the felting boat hand was purely reflexive. (Which is why I don't like playing multiple tables; that kind of thing should never be reflexive.) But whenever the odds say I probably have the best hand, and I find an unrecognized player pushing into me, I push back and push back hard. (BTW, the same instinct really screws me over in tourneys, but that's for another post....)

I often win these hands, either by having the agressor muck or by showing down with the better hand.

Even if I don't win those hands, I hopefully establish that bluffing and loose play both carry risks. (Against guys like the earlier mentioned Dutch that can be a vain hope, but hey...)

In Doyle Brunson's Super System, he talks about forcing your opponent to think about the bet after the bet. To place into that person's mind the idea that a bet (or a raise) may not be just for the chips going out now, but possibly for all the chips in his or her stack.

I'm not going to go into all my thinking about image (gotta keep some secrets) but I don't think I'm letting too much out of the bag in saying that I always want to project an image of strength at the table. Which means calling B.S. when I think I see it.

(The risk, of course, is pushing beyond "strong" into "stupid", but again, that's another post.)

Postscript: Unfortunately, I think I've pissed off Evil Denmother, who apparently counts gomez as a friend. Part of image, at least as important as strength in all likelihood, is demeanor.

My demeanor towards gomez at the tables has frankly been awful. (See the running trash-talking in the last post for an example.

If I do progress as a poker player, I will inevitably run into people who emulate the worst of the poker loudmouths, and I'll have to have a strategy for dealing with them. While it might be fun talking back and possibly tilting these people, the bottom line is there are others at the table who may or may not be enjoying the show. And at any given table, if I plan to stick around, I want these other people happy to be playing with me, and I really don't want a quality player (such as, say, Evil Denmother) gunning for me because of my 'tude.

That's just not smart poker, and therefore it's really stupid to let that kind of trash become part of my image.

Bankroll status: 3.54M PSD, 46.11 USD (After many hours of "donkalicious entertainment", down less than a healthy PSD raise and one USD. Hard to get better value for your insomnia-killing play- and/or real dollar, huh, Senator Frist? Hope you enjoy your well-earned minority status.)

Luckbox

2006-10-26T12:37:00.000-04:00

That was my role at Dawn's home game last night. Not so much my way-too-late play Tuesday evening.

No way I can top Dawn's write-up, but I do want to note that I was even luckier than was apparent in her post. I mean, I got so many boats last night I could have opened a marina. In addition to being Dawn's nemesis du jour, I sucked out on F-Train's nut flush by catching a runner-runner post-flop pair, elevating my flopped trips into a winning full house.

So when my signature quad magnet skills turned Brian's pocket Threes into pocket Kings-killing quads to lighten me by ~$28, it was simply the universe correcting the karmic balance a bit.

About Tuesday night: Bad cards, combined with bad play, combined with a conviction that my luck was going to change produced a pretty significant draw-down on both fake and real bankrolls. The fake I don't care so much about. The real loss upsets me, because I knew my Inner Donkey (whom I shall now name Dutch) was pissing away real dollars, and I just let him do it. Bad Dutch!

Time to start channeling my Inner Dan Harrington, I think.

Bankroll status: 3.55M PSD, 47.45 USD (Please note: "USD" refers only to online holding. I have to consider whether to keep a separate "kitty" to hold real-world money. Probably a good idea for the future.)

Rabbit

2006-10-24T13:52:00.001-04:00

The rabbit is dead, Jim!

For the chronologically challenged, bunnies used to give their lives to ease (or increase) the anxieties of potential parents. This sacrifise is no longer required.

(No rabbits were harmed in the production of this post.)

Chips

2006-10-23T19:52:00.000-04:00

So, I deposited into Pokerstars while I still could, and guess what?

After one night of playing (last Friday) I'm still in the black.

Score!

Yeah, it's not much, and I should have cleared more -- I played like a donkey for a while, or the real money should have been more like $65 -- but all-in-all I'm pleased. I played pretty much the same game at the .01/.02 and the .05/.10 USD tables as I play at the 100/200 PSD tables, and made it work. Only ran into one player who I thought was significantly better than me, and because I didn't adjust (that was my donktastic period) I lost about $5 that I shouldn't have.

It's evening, and depending on what the PhantomWife wants to do, I may play a little more real money later. One night certainly doesn't show my readiness (or lack thereof) to play for real cash, and even if I do continue to play positive poker, I'll move up to .1/.2 USD before jumping higher.

Still, it's nice to have my feet wet, and to feel like I'm ready for this very tiny baby-step.

To recap -- Bankroll status: 3.71M PSD, 59.21 USD

Burn

2006-10-19T15:42:00.000-04:00

It gets worse:

US Congress steps into cyberspace

The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) of the US Congress has announced it is investigating the amount of commerce taking place in virtual game worlds.

...snip...

Although an economic value can be put on this trade because in-game currencies do have an equivalent real world value, committee chairman Jim Saxton said its investigation was not being carried out with a view to slapping taxes on this trade.

"There is a concern that the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) might step forward with regulations that start taxing transactions that occur within virtual economies," said Mr Saxton. "This, I believe, would be a mistake."

Instead, he said, the investigation wanted to get a better understanding of where the line falls between taxable and non-taxable trade. Studies of game activity suggest the time and effort put into these online worlds has an economic impact equivalent to the GDP of Namibia.

First they came for poker players, but I was not a poker player...

For those who care (and oddly, Actiongomez apparently does)-- Bankroll status: 3.64M PSD, 50.60 USD (Story of the cash deposit later....)

Throwdown

2006-10-17T02:09:00.000-04:00

Actiongomez, here's the blog post about you.

You mistake aggression for skill. (First approximation only, dude.)

You think a lucky draw makes you a playa.

When you don't hit your draw, you think that makes the opposition stupid for calling your shit.

You're a bad player, and you're in my "Find a player..." list.

Oh, and thanks for the chips.

Set

2006-10-14T13:26:00.000-04:00

Warning! Much non-poker related stuff.

So, the title of this post was going to be "Nut", but that was just too painful to write about, so it's been a while....

But first, for those who care:

Bankroll status: 3.55M PSD, 1 USD (I'll use it, I'll use it...)

So this morning around 10:30 the doctors implanted three embryos into the PhantomWife's uterus.

PhantomAce, PhantomDeuce, PhantomTrey. Which is, in fertility terms, a set.

PhantomWife is currently taking it easy, hoping the new tenants are making themselves at home in a stress-free environment.

I'm currently avoiding housework, because I hate housework, but I'm going to have to get used to it.

This last week has been nervous for her, painful for me. On Monday she had her eggs harvested (no walk in the park, but she was under a general for it, and the pain was gone in a couple of days) and I had my left nut drilled looking for reluctant sperm.

They did that under a local anesthetic. But unfortunately, this was truly a PhantomAnesthetic, in that it didn't work.

At all.

The. Most. Painful. Thing. Ever.

I couldn't take a dump for a day and a half because the necessary muscle contractions sent hot daggers of pain through everything even remotely connected to my testicle.

It's amazing what is remotely attached to a testicle.

I'd planned to take Monday off. I took Tuesday as well, bacause breathing hurt my nuts. Walking felt like riding a bronking buck with the only point of contact being my wounded gonad.

On Wednesday it merely felt like I'd been kicked in the groin by a mule five minutes before, except every moment the clock re-set on the five minutes.

Thursday felt like the worst case of blue balls ever. (Women might not understand, but I'm still mad at you for what you did -- or didn't -- do back in your student apartment in Baltimre, Christine.) But this was probably a little worse.

Friday (yesterday) was the first day that holding still long enough would make the pain go away. I was still making a point of not laughing....

Today there is still discomfort. (Understand, Doc, that what I feel today is discomfort. What I felt Monday was "pain". When you asked if I was in discomfort I wanted to kick you in the head, needle in my balls be damned.)

And the fracked-up thing? They couldn't use any of the sperm from my specimin. We had to use back-up donor sperm. (I'm actually good with that. For 17 years I thought I wasn't producing anything at all. It took a biopsy -- during which the anaesthetic didn't work either, so I actually knew what I was in for on Monday -- to find out that my gonads were producing anything at all. So I was well-prepared to accept "Plan B". But in life, like poker, once in a while you have to play your drawing hands.)

Anyway, it's all worth it if we get a baby out of this. In fact, it will have been worth it regardless. (See again, playing your drawing hands.) Sometimes doing a worthwhile thing hurts at the time. The nice thing is, if it is worthwhile, it's easy to laugh at the pain afterwards.

So I've not been able to concentrate much on writing about anything this past week. I have played a little poker (and either well enough or with enough luck to considerably enhance my bankroll) and I've muddled-through at work, but really the week has been a holding pattern.

Now there's another holding pattern of sorts, as we wait the ten days before a blood test tells us whether we've been dealt a winning hand, with at least one of the cards dealt proving good. Wish us luck.

Shot

2006-10-08T18:09:00.000-04:00

So, I took a shot at one of the dime tourneys that the Degenerate Cub Scouts play so much of, and of course missed badly. I played my 3/5 off aggressively when three trash diamonds (including the 5) flopped. I went all in, a person I identified as a weak player called me (I had him covered by 250) everyone else folds, and his As/7d makes it when a diamond hits on the turn. (Another diamond hits on the river, giving the board a flush, but alas, his diamond was better than the lowest on the board, so no chop.)

Out soon after. So I did in fact "waste" the ten cents graciously given to me by the Evil Denmother.

But that's not really the shot I was talking about, and I will get back to unexpected kindness from strangers.

More after the fold, but first:

Bankroll status: 3.1M PSD (Woo Hoo!)First off, please understand that PhantomWife has a black belt in a particularly violent martial art. (And no, I am not making this up). And last night, as the denoument to two weeks of self-administered nightly subcutaneous shots of feminine hormones (meaning she's been in a perpetual mood of late) I have to take a frickin 2 inch hypodermic needle and stick it in her butt.

I insisted she lie face down for this. I would have insisted on handcuffs too but the cat pissed on our toys a while back and we haven't replaced them yet.

We had tried earlier in the day to dry run this, because I've never delivered an intramuscular injection. (I worked in a vets office one summer long ago and in a countrified state a long way away, so I have given subcutes to cats and dogs.) But every time I went to step two, which was to pinch a hunk of skin on her butt prior to inserting the phantom needle, she'd start giggling, twitch away, and say it felt like I was trying to grab her ass.

So I was really looking forward to the real deal.

But when the time came, it went beautifully. We iced the spot down for two minutes before-hand, I told her what I was doing as I did it, pushed the needle in fast and smooth, pulled up on the plunger without drawing blood (if that had happened we would have had to switch needles and done the other cheek), injected the meds, pulled the needle straight out, and afterwards we couldn't even find the site. (Part of that was the needle went in inside one of her tattoes, but still....)

She insisted for a couple of minutes that I hadn't really done it because she felt nothing, but after a while her ass started throbbing, for which I am heartily grateful.

Tomorrow she goes in to have her eggs harvested, and I go to get a TESE performed.

And this is how the Mutt learned to sing soprano.

As to the kindness of strangers, one of the Degenerate Cubscouts transferred a dollar into my PokerStars account so I could join them in more of the dime tournaments. NoStaticAtAll (very strong, tight player) said he won't miss a buck, and with Frist's Folly coming into effect getting money into PokerStars is a pain.

Don't really know what to say, except thanks. And that I'll do my best to turn this dollar into a real bankroll, and return the kindness to someone else some day.

Hammered

2006-10-05T12:17:00.000-04:00

Last night I took an unsanctioned leap off the wagon. In other words, I got hammered for no good reason, other than I felt like it.

(Maybe this abstinence thing is going to be harder than I thought....)

The agreement I have with the PhantomWife is to keep booze out of the house while we're trying to become parents, and to cut it way back regardless. What's odd is on Tuesday I was very depressed, and didn't backslide. Yesterday, I was exhausted after work, and I had one of those "what the hell" moments as I passed the liquor store. In the spirit of Screw You Jim Leach I steered away from my normal drink (bourbon, produced domestically, of course) and bought a bottle of Myers Rum. Product of Jamaica, where Poker - and fun in general - are still legal and relatively safe.

It was delicious.

And the PhantomWife was justifiably ticked off. I violated the hell out of our agreement.

She's not mad at me today because I've taken care of some of the coordination of our upcoming fertility procedures that she's been too busy to handle (getting different doctors' offices onto the same page is a pain in the ass -- if PhantomWife and I weren't professional project managers I don't know how we'd be getting through this) but I can't - and shouldn't have to - keep trading good deeds for redemption.

Anyway, for whatever it's worth, it was another "up" night at the tables, but only because I finished strong.

Bankroll status: 2.9M PSD

I left my last table with something like 300,000 PSD. Considering I only netted about 100,000 for the evening, it's easy to see that I was playing some really donkish poker early in the night. I wasn't concentrating early on, and I made some very bad decisions until I started remembering my drunken poker skills or just started getting lucky

Whichever it was, at one point I take down a big pot with pocket aces, and some guy new to the table types "another aces player" to which I responded "HA!"

But it was another Evil Denmother and her Degenerate Cubscouts table, and I had already noticed that I wasn't getting much action, so....

Even though I think the whole "play the hammer" schtick is pretty damned stupid, in early position a few hands later I picked up 2/7 off and went with it.

Pushed out 2400 into an unraised pot.

Got something like four callers, including Didn'GetTheMemoMan.

Flop is KQ8 rainbow. I fire out a pot-sized bet. Get one caller, IIRC.

Turn is a blank, but now two suited cards are on the board. I bet pot again. DGTMM and one other person folds.

Last Caller (one of the Degenerate Cub Scouts) thinks a while, folds. I flip the Hammer over.

"Aces player my ***", I type.

Last Caller is a very nice lady who from this point forward will be known as "DeathToPoochie" because she has vowed to relieve me of my bankroll.

I'm a baaaad doggie.

And that, children, is how I started last night's rush.

Note to self: Steal more pots. And watch out for DeathToPoochie.

Gifted

2006-10-04T12:50:00.000-04:00

So, the Evil Denmother has transfered 0.10 USD into my PokerStars account so I can play in a dime tournament with her and the Degenerate Cub Scouts. Which is incredibly nice, and an incredibly friendly gesture. And kind of begs for a decision (and some serious thinking) on my part.

I've avoided putting cash into any of my accounts because I know I'm somewhat obsessive, and I always try to run before I can walk with any new obsession, and playing for real cash early looked like a great way to lose a chunk of money. Hence, my tidy little bankroll of play money.

Recent real-world experience makes my decision look pretty good. I'm not ready to swim with the sharks yet, although I don't doubt that I will be ready eventually. Really, when you get down to it, swimming with the sharks takes a combination of the following:

Talent
Balls
Ruthlessness
Patience
Money

It's possible I'm wrong, but I think I have the first two. I find I don't like pushing around people I like, so the "Ruthlessness" thing may be an issue. (On the other hand, it makes playing "Tight/Aggressive" against them easier. When I'm sure I have a hand, I try to make it easy for people I like to fold. Something to think about.) I know I have patience issues, but because I know it and it's an internal issue, I can train myself to deal.

There ain't no way to compensate for lack of money, though.

Now there are low stakes, and there are low stakes. I wouldn't mind playing the .05/.10 real money tables if the play didn't suck major ass. I remember the play at the entry level PokerStars tables. I remember it being very much like playing in a room full of psychotic children high on PCP and armed with shotguns. I remember it so well now because the other night I signed up for Full Tilt Poker (PokerStars was down, and besides, their stance on Frist's Folly has not been promising) and the play at the entry tables there is as gruesome as I recall from PokerStars.

Would the play at the micro-stakes table be any better? I don't have much reason to think so.

To get around the piranha pool aspect of the entry-level cash tables, I built my play money stack at PokerStars playing in Sit-and-Go tourneys. I would play the 330 and 2200 SnGs until I had about 100,000 PSD, then switch to the 100/200 cash tables. Took me a couple of cycles of this before I found my rhythm and started winning consistently at the 100/200 level. Since then, with the exception of my Bad Run, I've been pretty steadily ratcheting up.

(An unfortunate side effect has been my tournament game has really deteriorated. Investing 2200 PSD to potentially win ~40K PSD doesn't make much sense when my ROI at the cash tables averages about ~20K, and a SnG can take 2-3 hours to complete. That means I haven't been playing many tourneys, and that means that when I do I don't do as well as I once did. Practice counts. Which means I'm likely to just piss away that gifted dime. Sigh.)

So maybe the answer is to put 50 USD into an account at FTP, play exclusively low-stakes Sit-and-Go tourneys, and see if I can adjust and build a bankroll that would let me play the $1/$2 on-line cash tables.

Which of course brings us back to Frist's Folly.

Any money I put into any system right now I'd have to treat as lost money. I've got not problem in theory with dropping $100 down a rat-hole if said rat-hole provides me with hours of amusement. (Even this mind reels at that metaphor, but I continue....) But if I start winning, I am going to be so freaking pissed if I can't get my money out that I'm likely to pop a blood vessel.

Ahem.

Eh. Maybe just to spite Frist, I'll drop a hundred into Full Tilt Poker next week (because they seem more committed to overcoming Frist's Folly) and start playing their low SnGs. See if I can build a bankroll.

And maybe put $50 into my PokerStars account just to hang with Evil Denmother and the Degenerate Cub Scouts. Who knows, maybe they'll show me the secret handshake someday.

Mules

2006-10-03T12:05:00.000-04:00

"There is nothing in Internet gambling that adds to the G.D.P. or makes America more competitive in the world," Mr. Leach said. "Everyone loses if this industry continues its remarkable growth trends."New York Times, Oct. 3, 2006.

So sayeth Representative Jim Leach, Republican of Iowa.

Of course, nothing about my willingness to shell out too much money for years on booze has made me more competitive, and now I'm really sorry my preference has always been for domestic products. By all means, in honor of Mr. Leach and Senator Frist, (Republican from Tennessee), I will endeavor at all times to buy foreign goods, just because.

More Scotch! More Tequilla!

Note to you jerks in Congress; you work for the American people. We do not work, or play, or do anything at all, for you. You are our bitches, do you understand? Just because you've rigged the system so that getting you unelected is harder than do-it-yourself wisdom tooth extraction, don't think that it can't be done.

I like playing on-line poker. God help me, I like doing it with fake money. Meaning, it costs me squat. Meaning the Almighty U.S. Government isn't losing any tax revenue. (And don't get me started on how reamed I feel by my current tax burden....) But if the paying players dry up, us free-riders lose out when the sites go dark. And hell, I want the option of doing what I damn well like with my money, even if it doesn't have some ill-defined net-positive social contribution. After all, it's my fricking money!

It is not my duty as a citizen to maximize the GDP or make the United States "more competitive", whatever the hell that means.

What's next, you outlaw masturbation because it decreases the incentives to date, resulting is less tax revenues generated through retail and service industries? (Oh, that's right, the government heavily persecutes the Adult Entertainment industry already, I forgot. Not being a customer of said industry, of course. Never mind.)

And Frist, you sorry excuse for a man, sneaking the legislation through as a last-minute rider on a must-sign bill, why don't you try the same trick next time with a measure to outlaw College Football? After all, every year far more people are killed or seriously injured on college football fields than are injured playing online poker. (Damn that carpal tunnel syndrome....) And god knows millions, nay billions, of dollars change hands every year through gambling on college football. That's obviously money that isn't going through the taxable "engines of competitiveness", so....

Ban College Football! Make America Great Again!

See how THAT affects your hoped-for Presidential run. (Speaking of masturbation....)

I have always identified Libertarian, but the vast majority of my votes have gone to Republicans. No more. The Democrats are (as a group) blithering idiots when it comes to national security issues, but the Republicans have proven themselves to be blithering idiots everywhere else.

Hey, if the Republicans have decided the citizens of this country are supposed to be beasts of burden in the service of the Greater Economic -- and Moral -- Good, I might as well switch sides.

Better to be a Donkey than a mule.

Divine

2006-10-01T14:42:00.000-04:00

So, today's tasks include cleaning the kitchen surfaces, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the litter box and all the pet food and water bowls, helping make the beds, and probably some sweeping.

I'm really looking forward to all that.

But before I went out gaming last night I promised the PhantomWife that she could play foreman to my dogsbody today.

She's still feeling like hell because of the fertility treatments, and yesterday I left her here alone to go have fun at the WeHO gals' home game.

I did have a lot of fun, too. Came back lighter in the pockets, (could have been a bit lighter; more on that after the break), but I learned a hell of a lot, and the hosts were extremely gracious. Great bunch of people showed up. If they'll have me back I'll definitely go, and hopefully have my inner donkey held more in check. (But I love my inner donkey....)

But before going into (only a little more) detail, I would like to discuss my ideas on Divine Intervention.

Leaving the game last night, I mentioned to Karol that I had the theory that God talks to us all the time, and we just refuse to listen. There's an old joke about a guy who prays fervently every night, asking to win the lottery. After years of this God finally appears before the guy and says "Lenny, I'd love to help, but you have to buy a ticket!"

Last night Divine Intervention worked hard to get me to not go. First bad break: As I left the house, I had ~$150 in my pockets. My plan was to take $250; that would be enough for the $30 buy-in for the tourney (figured I'd only buy in once; if I busted out early I'd just watch things until the cash game started) and $200 for the side games.

I was getting a late start because for some reason I thought the starting time was 9:00; when I went to send the directions to my cell phone I had misremembered and the actual time was 8:30. Aaargh. And more about those directions later.

So I walk over to the local liquor store, stock up on booze to take, pay with my bankcard no problem. Walk across the street to the ATM to take out another $120. "Transaction denied." WTF? It's not a Chase ATM, but it is a Bank ATM, so it shouldn't be a communications problem, but I can't even get a balance. "Transaction denied."

Okey dokey. I'll try an ATM at my destination. Walk to the subway, get lucky with my transfers, and I'm at the correct subway stop (corner of Church and 18th street) in plenty of time. Flip my phone open, read the directions, head west on Church Street looking for Ocean Parkway.

But first, more cash. Find an ATM. Same result.

This is the point where I'm thinking about how God might be telling me to fold this hand.

(Still don't know what was going on there. Nothing looks odd on-line with our accounts, no messages about suspicious activity or anything. I'm thinking it was just a general network failure, but who knows?)

So, I hit Ocean a lot sooner than I expect. S'Okay, I start looking for the number given, and figure that's about the right time given the building numbering. So I walk a ways and find the right number.

Except it obviously ain't the right number.

Crap crap crap.

Look closer at the street signs. This is Ocean Avenue I'm on. Directions said Ocean Parkway. So wearing my best donkey expression I ask a random stranger "Excuse me, is Ocean Avenue the same thing as Ocean Parkway." The lady is very nice; she's obviously had to deal with the brain-damaged before. She tells me Ocean Parkway is at least a 30 minute walk away. It's now 8:25

Backtrack.

And of course I am now totally turned around.

When I get there I duck back into the subway station, look at the map, and become even more confused if that's possible, and I'm in minor freak-out mode because I'm already 10 minutes late (that's right, I'm not a native New Yorker), but I see where the problem is; somewhere in the recent past I have lost the ability to tell my right from my left, my east from my west.

I find True West and start hoofing.

So, I hit Coney Island Parkway, I'm 20 minutes late, I don't remember Coney Island Parkway from the map in the subway station, and I'm in one craptastic bad mood, and I don't trust myself to know shit from shinola, directions-wise. I use my lifeline

411. Brooklyn, NY. Safeway Car Service. Connecting. Press one to speak with an operator.

"I need to be picked up. I need to go to YYY Ocean Parkway, I'm at the corner of Coney Island Parkway and Church Avenue, and I am totally lost."

"Which corner?"

I contemplate North, South, East, and West and answer honestly "I have no fucking idea."

"Do you see the auto parts place?"

OMFG.

"Yeah, it's across the street."

"How about the pizza joint?"

Actually, I'm on the phone right now with God. Who knew he worked for Safeway Taxi Service? And maybe He doesn't mind if I play poker tonight after all.

"The pizza place is across the street too, on the other corner."

"Okay, cross the street, keep walking straight on Church, you're three blocks awasy."

From this point forward, the Mut will use Safeway Taxi whenever possible, and tip liberally.

But note to self -- never rely on written direction (especially when they're limited to 127 characters) when you could just print a map.

So I arrive, finally, a little before 9:00. Things are just getting set up, people are finding seats, and I think I wasn't even the last one there, but I could be mistaken on that.

So my state of mind wasn't what you'd call the best to get started, but, hey.

As to the poker itself, I was pretty happy with my play before the first break; got some very good cards for a while, including rockets at one point and making a boat at another, busted some people out -- (Sorry, Dawn, et. al., I don't have the monster memory for hands that you folks do, at least not when I'm in meatspace) -- and had a pretty big stack going.

Then there was the bourbon incident, which I will not discuss here.

It's a good thing I love my inner donkey, I guess.

Anyway, afer the breaks the structure of the tourney was such that the blinds were bleeding me dry, I'd gone pretty much card-dead, my smallish suited connectors were being mile-missed, and when I'd get a middling hand (J9 off, which I generally like to play) play in front of me would drive me out because, well, just because. At one point a very good player who I read as pushing people off cards raises up to what would be about 30% of my stack, I've got K9 suited (and even though I know it's a crap hand, I love the whole "K9" abbreviation and they were, well, suited) so I go all in. The gentleman whose handle I do not know flips rockets, and I'm busted in 9th, IIRC. I decide not to re-buy; 2000 in chips gets through one round of blinds at that point, and it just doesn't make sense.

Not unhappy with the finish, really, considering it was my first live experience.

Cash game starts. Being very poor, I buy in for $80 with nothing behind because that last $20 for the max buy in is spoken for. (I will not try to get back to the subway station on foot; Safeway Taxi, take me home.) I know I don't have enough to really play, even at .50/1 blinds, but I want to hang around and learn.

I'm wasn't happy at all with my play in the cash game, but that just goes back to the "scared money" addage. Nothing was hitting, I started fishing, and I'd become a calling station, loosing a dollar here, 5 dollars there, playing awful.

Finally, in early position, down to about $50 of my original $80, I decide to push next decent opportunity, just because. I get pocket 8s, say something about making a stand, go all-in. Folds to Karol, who has a real hand, and calls with KQ. This is actually pretty much what I wanted; coin flip, with me a little ahead. Her king hits, I'm felted.

Later Dawn tells me I should have played those for less up front, and of course her logic is impeccable. I didn't know what was coming after; someone could have woken up with a monster pocket pair after me and I would have been dominated, I might have spoiled a hand with monster earning potential should a third 8 have been destined for the flop and everyone folds, etc. The problem with that was I wasn't getting a read on anybody, I felt like I was bleeding money away, I knew the 8s had good (obviously not great, but good) show-down potential, and if I could buy a small pot it wouldn't hurt my confidence or my table image. If I'd been in a position to re-buy chips, I would have done exactly what Dawn suggested. As is, I decided to try to get lucky, and I didn't. C'est la vie.

So I stuck around until the end afterward watching, trying to learn something.

Thoughts:

A lot of pots get won without showdown. I knew that intellectually, but it's different seeing it in real life. I realize that my ability to put people on hands on-line (and I really am pretty good at that) comes from seeing hands flip. I need to think about how much I use that as a crutch.
On-line limit hold'em bores me to tears, but in the real world I should probably start there if I go to Atlantic City.
Another crutch: my 2.8M PSD bankroll. (Yes, I got home, went to bed, and couldn't sleep, so I was again Up for Poker. Another hour of play, another 50K PSD.) It's a nice feeling knowing you can go all-in at any time and re-buy for the max if your monster draw misses. Bankroll counts.
The distractions in a live game are much more of an issue. Simply tracking the action takes a level of concentration that on-line doesn't require. Oddly enough, that makes focusing on the cards easier, because I have to focus or lose it entirely.
Finally, the WeHO girls rock. If either of you read to this point, thanks for inviting me; I had a great time.

Bankroll status: 2.75M PSD -- 0 USD (Sigh.....).

Guilt

2006-09-30T16:56:00.000-04:00

The title of this post was going to be "Fun" but PhantomWife hasn't been having a lot of it lately, and because I have had a lot of fun playing poker (and writing about it) "Guilt" is more appropriate, I think.

I'd say we're going through fertility treatments in hopes of becoming PhantomParents, but in truth she's the only one having to deal with the nightly shots, and they're really bothering her now. I can't take them for her (I wish I could) and I feel kind of helpless and useless about the whole thing.

It doesn't help that she doesn't care for poker. And she's not wrong in thinking that my poker playing is eating into our time together.

To exacerbate matters, tonight I'm going to play in a tourney along with the WeHO ladies. It will be my first real-money experience outside of some very low-stakes poker played with friends from Baltimore.

So tomorrow night I will post about how I cleaned the house for PhantomWife earlier in the day, and the results from tonights tourney, in that order.

Okay, back to poker.

So the last two nights were pretty good nights

Bankroll status: 2.75M PSD -- 200 USD (New! Real World Only).

Thursday Night

....Was a very good night, at least at first. PhantomWife worked late, and I played NLHE until she got home around 9:30. I stopped around 9:45, up around 120K PSD for the session. (The session spanned two tables; the final table I was only there long enough to point Evil Denmother to the previous PhantomMut post and to suckout on some poor unsuspecting player. What could I do? Had 8/9 off, flopped the up-and-down nut straight draw, three diamonds on the board gave me a flush draw with the nine, and she goes all in. I knew she was protecting high pockets without a flush draw when she went all-in. I called, hit the flush, and felt like a dick for cashing out, but PhantomWife was calling.... And at least I'd announced it would be my last hand BEFORE the deal.)

So, by 10:45 PhantomWife is out like a light, I'm not sleepy, soooo.....

I'm not addicted to poker, not at all.

(**SOB!!!*** Yes I am! And play money poker at that!)

Ahem.

So anyway, I'm goofing around, not really making any money, not really losing any, and frankly not paying much attention. I hop from table to table as players come and go, not really getting a feel for anything except "these aren't places I really want to be." Finally around 1:00 (IIRC, writing this on lunch break the day after) I look up Evil Denmother who for once doesn't seem to have any of the Degenerate Cub Scouts with her; don't recognize anyone but her.

So not long after I sat down I catch pocket Tens in early position. I bet out something like 2400 (blinds 200/100). That's pretty much my standard "I have a hand I like" bet. Four calls. Flop is (IIRC) a 9 5 4 rainbow. Again, if I'm remembering my betting correctly I bet another 4 thousand into the pot, trying to get a feel for what's out there. Two calls. Turn is (I think) another 4. Checks all around. River falls a 7, no flush draws, board looks like an uncoordinated mess, no one's been aggressive, I figure my tens are good and bet out 10 large.

Guy goes all-in.

Which is SCREAMING "go away" to me.

I call, putting myself all-in.

Guy flips 8/6 off, having filled his inside straight.

Okey-dokey. I've been a donkey before, I'll be one many times more in days and nights to come. Have to trust your reads, and I misread.

Another 40K re-buy for me, Mr. Cashier.

Later, after serious card deadness for about 40 minutes, I get 2/4 suited. For grins and giggles I join a bunch of limpers into the hand from late position. The rainbow flop totally misses my suit, but the 643 gives me middle pair and an inside straight draw. Couple of limps, then The Guy bets something like half the pot.

Crap crap crap.

I can feel my inner donkey yearning to be free, so I call, other limpers let their donkeys cavort as well. Call, Call. Turn is a deuce, giving me two pair and aforementioned inside straight draw. Check, check.

The Guy bets pot again.

Did I mention "crap" before?

Calling will cost me something like 20K at this point. I have something like 30K. My inner donkey is channeling old Nike commercials, hissing "Just Do It!" in my inner ear. "Two pair is a good hand, you can hit the straight, and you might catch a boat. What are you waiting for, Mut-boy?"

The Guy has at least a set. My gut tells me he flopped the straight and is defending it from something stupid, or hoping one or more of the ghost donkeys he can no doubt sense thundering around the table does indeed assert control.

But I love my inner donkey. I go all in.

The two players before the guy whip their inner donkeys into submission and both fold. The Guy insta-calls.

Turn is bubkus. The Guy shows his straight. I show my donkalicious cards.

I say to the table "I have now donked off nearly all my winnings for tonight, so bedtime for the Mut," or something like that.

The Guy says, "Mut, don't go." Gee, thanks. As they say, everyone's got one.

I type (churlishly, I admit) "I know I'm you're good luck charm, but I really have to go."

He responds "Wait, did you get it?" as I'm closing the window.

The Guy, it turns out, had gifted me with a 10,000 PSD transfer. This High Stakes Poker Matasow moment brought to you by Q_Ballss.

Q_Ballss (a.k.a. The Guy -- tick me off, get your real ID mentioned on my blog) is now on the Mut's Official Shit List. OTOH, if he wants those ten large back, he's going to have to win them.

Last Night

I followed the same play pattern as has become my habit; got home around 6:45, walked the RealPhantomMut, and played poker until PhantomWife got home around 8:00. (Okay, she got home around 8:00, I played on until a little after 9:00, when she pulled the plug. Did I mention "Guilt" somewhere in this post?) Anyway, that session was very profitable; when I logged off I was up to 2.85M PSD, up 200K PSD from the previous day. I was playing very solid poker and getting lucky too.

Spent some time with my darling watching TV, talking, trying to pamper her, until she went to sleep, at which point I padded out of the room.

So, cracked-out poker addict that I am, back to PokerStars I go. Found the Evil Den Mother and the Degenerate Cub Scouts again. Played some very high-variance poker, losing big twice to Les Deux Orangs who was on a major rush. He was hitting everything, and I think getting on EDM's nerves a bit. (She was also at different times playing in different cash tourneys. While we played she finished 11th in a ten cent tourney, beating out more than five thousand other players if I recall correctly.)

At one point I was pretty sure I had LDO beat with pocket nines on a trash board, but he bet large and I folded, telling him I thought he'd catch his Ace on the turn or river. (He'd already felted me twice. Did I mention I was playing a loose, high variance style?) He said he had sevens, but I still feel good about the fold, because the way the cards were falling he would have probably caught 7-7 runners to make quads.

When he left, Les Deux Orangs had something like 475,000 on the table. Not shabby.

Long story short, I played until I was literally falling asleep at the keyboard, down 100,000 from where I was previously in the evening.

Conclusion: Late night sessions are fun, but I really should tighten up. And even on a Friday night, even my inner donkey is kicking me in the head, saying "Get more sleep, you idiot!"

I love my inner donkey, but he can be a bastard at times.

Quads

2006-09-28T11:36:00.000-04:00

Maybe the bad running is over for now. PhantomWife slipped into slumber and I slipped off to the kitchen to play a couple of hours of poker. Finished up 150K PSD on the evening.

Why I think the bad running may be over is that I actually hit a couple of up-and-down straight draws, had a top-pair/top-kicker with a nut flush draw actually turn into the flush, etc. In other words, things broke my way on multiple occasions.

But of course, I lost twice with boats to quads.

Anyone who has read my posts to this point will start to realize I've been a fracking quad magnet.

Once happened at an early table and did end up felting me. (Flopped the boat with low connectors, bet it hard, got raised, went all-in, c'est la vie.) Second happened at a table with the Evil Denmother and her Degenerate Cub Scouts. That one I got away from with a minimal loss (about 10% of my stack, as I recall) because the board was 88Q and I was holding AQ. I bet ~4K or thereabouts, got (I think) two callers. Turn is an 8. Checks all around. River is a Ten, IIRC. I bet another eight thou, one guy folds, other guy raises to sixteen thou, I call fully expecting to see the fourth 8 flip over. And it does.

The weird thing is, I've gotten totally zen with the quad sightings. One of those "snakes on a plan, whatchoo gonna do" kind of things.

When I typed "I don't know how many times I've lost to quads" Evil Denmother types back something like "I've lost count".

Evil Denmother is cool. (I think she's seen it happen to me four times, but it may be more by now.)

I call her Evil Denmother here because she's:

Very pleasant to chat with,
Extremely comfortable taking your chips, and
Almost always accompanied by members of a group I think of as the Degenerate Cub Scouts.

The DCS generally know how to play, have pretty deep PSD stacks, and aren't uncivilized louts.

Funny how virtual communities can coalesce around someone like Evil Denmother.

So, at that table I was up to a stack of 300K PSD at one point, before having a couple of legit hands turn sour as well as losing concentration and flat-out donking off about 50K. However, one of the last hands I played had my AT turn into Aces full of Tens.

And my opponent mucked! No quads!

So knocking on wood, with luck my luck (for a while at least) will stay right in the middle of the bell curve.

Bankroll status: 2.65M PSD.

Interlude

2006-09-26T09:47:00.000-04:00

Played some Friday night. Fell off the wagon (not going to go into that here, but I felt I deserved it after a Full Day of Medical Tests - guys, if you know you're going to be getting EKG(s), do yourself a favor and shave your chest beforehand) but it didn't help my poker game. Finished 3 hours of play up about 10K PSD. Beats losing, but in a way unsatisfying.

Back on the wagon since, but I haven't played poker. Time to re-set the head a bit. Spend more time with the PhantomWife, the RealPhantomMut, PhantomCats[1-4], playing too much Diablo II, etc.

After all, I don't want to get totally cracked out over poker....

Talk

2006-09-20T10:58:00.000-04:00

Good night last night. Finished up about 100K. Maybe I'm getting my feet back under me.

One incident came up that bugged me though:

With a stack of about 70K, I hit pocket Aces (in the small blind), bet out 4K, got a call from an until-now quiet short stack three positions to my left (~6K, again not really sure), see an nonthreatening flop, push the guy all in, and take down the pot with the guy mucking his losing hand.

Pretty standard felting.

Next hand (on the button) I get the rockets again , bet out 4K, get a single call from the Cocky Bastard (but I mean that in an affectionate way, if he's reading this -- cocky is good if you can back it up) to felted guy's immediate left, and see a Queen-high shotgun flop, but with two diamond on the board. Natch, neither of my aces is a diamond. I bet out 20K into a ~8K pot, which is about half his stack. If he's got a draw I'm going to make him sweat the call.

CB takes his time; I wanted him to think about it, and he is thinking about it.

I type "Unless you have a set, calling is probably a bad idea."

Suddenly, felted guy turns into Tilted Windmill, typing "Call! Call!" and "He's on a flush draw. Call."

Now, I believe I was giving CB honest advice. Maybe I was implying that if I had two pair, but it should have been clear I had an overpair (I think my table image was as being fairly tight, but not in TW's mind, obviously) and I don't think CB would have called my initial 4K with any hand that would have made two pair on that board. Hence, a set or a flush draw.

(Rant: Isn't it rude as all hell to interject yourself into a hand in which you aren't playing? I know it's against the rules in tournament poker, and while cash games are supposed to be more relaxed, butting in is disrespectful of all parties actually playing. Not only that, the guy's advice was dead nuts wrong.)

So anyway, I tell TW that he's being annoying (don't remember the exact words) and politely ask him to cease and desist (maybe not so politely) and he keeps ranting about a flush draw. I say "okay, that's exactly what I have" and CB promptly folds, realizing of course that that isn't what I have. I show the rockets.

"Your reading skills are astounding, TW" I type.

General tilt ensues. Next hand Tilting Windmill goes all-in with his 40K re-buy, CB goes all-in, and I tune out (click on the "fold to any bet" checkbox, "sit out next hand" checkbox, and get up to get a re-fill on my salted-in-the-shell peanuts) while the table goes crazy. When I get back, the guy to CG's left is now sitting on a stack of about 200K and apparently quite a few people have had to re-buy, including TW and CB.

For the rest of the time I was at the table, TW was on an "All in or fold" binge and made it work for him. TW was gunning for me, but I never had a pre-flop hand worth an all-in, and he was avoiding multi-player action. So next time, TW.

(CB calmed down and later left the table with around 100K. When I went to bed TW had about 100K as well, but I doubt he kept it long.)

One other fun hand happened near the end of the evening. Can't remember full details of who started the betting (probably it was me holding AQ, in the small blind again if I recall correctly) but five players were in for 2.4K each pre-flop. Flop comes 77Q. It checks around, and another 7 hits on the turn. (77Q7). Woo hoo! I have a boat. 4K bet. Called all around. River is (again, IIRC) a Ten. Checks around to me, and I check. My hand is displayed, one muck, two mucks, three mucks...

Player to my right turns over his quad Sevens.

"How could you not bet that!"

"Les Deux Oranges" (referring to the Gus Hanson -- but hairier, and schizophrenic -- clone to my immediate left) "taught me the other night about slow-played quads. I've been down that road before."

So again, a minimal loss instead of a catastrophe. (Such are the joys of moral victories.) A couple of hands later I called it a night.

Note: I'm not using any real screen names other than my own in these posts. (Doesn't seem fair to put out scouting reports on players other than myself.) In a future post I'll profile a group of players whom I've stumbled upon and started playing with on a fairly regular basis. Think Evil Den Mother (probably not really evil, but this is a poker blog) and her Degenerate Cub Scouts.

Bankroll status: 2.5M PSD.

Dry

2006-09-19T10:36:00.000-04:00

So, the "running bad" is still running, but may be easing up a bit.

(This blog should be subtitled "PhantomMut's Chronicle of Bad Beats". At least as of post number 2.)

So here's a partial list:

Big slick under the gun bet hard pre-flop (4K, 20X big blind, which wasn't ridiculous for that table) gets three caller. Flop is KKT (if I recall correctly) with two diamonds. I check, guy to my left folds (wtf?), gargantuan stack checks, small stack (less than half mine) checks. An otherwise blank diamond hits on the turn. "Danger Will Robinson!" I try to take the pot down there (barn door, anyone?) by firing another 16K into the 16K pot. G-stack and S-stack both call, and I'm bumming. Fourth diamond hits on the river, G-stack bets the pot, S-stack goes all-in, and I fold. G-stack flips over the Ace-high flush (had nothing else going), S-stack thought his Kings and Tens would be good (ha!), and I'm a hang-dog dog. I immediately announce "No more slow-play!"
I lose 24K when my Queens full of Jacks (AJ to a board of QQJQx) is taken down by someone slow playing quad Queens. (He was happy with his play, and I was happy with my play. If I'd been on tilt it would have been hard not to go all-in on the river when he made a 4K bet into a 16K pot. I just called and think I lost the minimum I could lose there.)
I force the same player all in while I'm holding pocket Jacks and he's holding pocket Fives. He hits a set on the flop, I don't improve, and I double him up.
Begging Donkey (BD) at the table sitting between G-stack, recently seated Creative Aggressive (CA), and me. I've got in the small blind and have AQ. G-stack calls the blind, CA raises to 3.6K (his standard bet) and ND calls, which eats half his stack. I call. Flop is Q87, if I recall correctly. I fire out 20K, again figuring to take it down. Fold, fold to BD, who says, "I have KJ" and I say "call it" AND HE DOES. Turn is a King. River is a blank. I've just doubled the donkey.

The observant reader will realize that I've just described churning a lot of PSD. But the critical thing is that I didn't re-buy once at that table. I lost a lot, but I played aggressively, took down quite a few decent pots without a showdown, played good percentage poker out of position, pushed when I was sure I had the best hand, and folded when I was sure I didn't and pretty sure I couldn't just buy it. I pushed the small stacks around and got out fast against the big stacks (and there were two monsters at the table, both well over 200K by the time I left) when necessary.

In other words, I was happy with how I played; I dealt with some adversity, didn't tilt, and ended the session up 20K from my initial 40K buy-in.

Trouble is, that wasn't the first table I played at.

First table I got busted out fast by some total donkeys doing the all-in tango.

And I realized that part of my problems recently have been because I've given up drinking.

Pleasantly buzzed, I'll be loose enough to take risks, mellow enough to bail on situations that aren't to my advantage. At the first table I was getting irritated and trying to push irrationally. And given the way my luck has been running, that's a recipe for disaster even against (or maybe especially against) banzai idiots.

Unfortunately, playing pleasantly buzzed is no longer an option because:

PhantomWife is working on becoming a PhantomMom (wish us luck) and while she's dry I've promised I'll be dry, and....
A recent physical resulted in the doc informing me that my liver is an Unhappy Organ.

Surprisingly, as much as I enjoy drinking, giving it up hasn't been a problem so far. Except....

I don't know how to play poker sober!

Actually, that's not true. But what is true is that the emotional posture to play poker well isn't trained into my sober mind. So in a way, I am relearning skills honed while previously stoned.

Bankroll status: 2.4M PSD.

Running Bad

2006-09-15T13:04:00.000-04:00

First post, and it's a bitch.

Okay, I suppose as poker blogs go, this is extrememly lame, because I'm not even playing for real money. My idea is to hone my skills in freeroll games, get the point where I can do the math fast and accurately on a given hand, and once those basics seem natural, move into live cash games and maybe the nickel and dime online games.

But man, after gaining a certain level of confidence, the past two weeks have seen me doing some very bad running.

Good news: I topped 3 Million PokerStars Dollars (PSD) twice in the past month.
Bad news: Last night I dropped under 2.5 PSD.

Why?

Well. Recently I've gotten fairly proficient at putting people on hands. I play a table for a while, start out loose/passive pre-flop, lose some money with feeler bets, watch how things play out, and within a few blinds I've consistently been able to tell who has what by how much they bet, how fast they bet, and where they bet.

Nailing someone's hand perfectly is almost as sweet a rush as busting a deserving donk out of a game.

Cool, right?

Well, it's cool until you have a week where you yourself bust out consistently by losing your nut straights to flushes on the river, boats to frickin' quads on the river, flushes to boats on the river....

Seeing a pattern here?

What I've been doing is playing aggresively, forcing players all-in while they have inferior hands, and having them hit their 1,2,3,5, or 7 outers on the river on an alarmingly consistent basis.

In too many cases my best poker has lead to my worst results.

It's gotten to the point where I cringe if I'm sure I have someone dominated on the turn, because if there is a way for an opponent's hand to beat me, that way will hit on the river.

For me, the benefit to this episode is that a big hole in my game has been made obvious; running bad has a bad tendency to morph into playing bad. Running bad isn't a sin. Playing bad is. And I can see where I've done that on multiple occasions. I get frustrated and I go beyond aggressive into stupid. I stop trusting my reads. I start taking unneeded risks. I take it personnally when people notice that I'm running bad and start attacking my game. In other words, big-time tilt.

I fully expect the real world will be different than playdollar world. In playdollar world, pricing certain donkeys out of a hand can be nigh unto impossible. Especially the subspecies that haunts the tables immediately after normal business hours. Even at the high stakes tables, these people play like Gus Hansen (after the lobotomy) in the middle of a 36-hour crack binge. I don't expect those types of players to be as prevalent when real money is at stake because, well, it's real frickin' money.

But they will be out there in the real world (and at the real money online tables) nonetheless. They will call my obvious flushes with top pair on the flop and hit runner-runner to catch a boat. And statistically speaking, that will at some point happen consistently over some period long enough to count as a "running bad" episode. If I ever play for real money for any period of time, the "running bad" scenario is inevitable.

Hopefully what's happening now will prepare me for when it happens then. And even if I never play for real money, I've learned something about myself that otherwise wouldn't have been obvious (at least to me). And maybe by working through how to handle the situation at the poker table, I'll figure out how to recognize real-life analogous situations, and apply the same methodologies there.

Who says poker can't be good for you?