Thursday, July 27, 2006

Click

Poker is quite the odd little thing. You can memorize every single piece of literature on the subject that there is out there but that still won’t mean you understand most of it. It’s through your experiences, your successes and your failures that the pieces of the puzzle will slowly fall into place.

I’ve been playing this game seriously for just about a year. The difference between the player I was then and the player I am now is otherworldly, and while I still have decades full of learning to look forward to, I can safely say that I’m very slowly but surely heading in the right direction.

I believe I had one of these "click" moments in the past few days, as if another piece of the puzzle fell into place. I’ve been complaining a lot about running badly, losing with the best starting hands, suffering unusual amounts of suckouts, etc. I finally had to take a step back and look at my game as a whole and ask myself if I was truly being honest with myself through all of this.

The answer was a resounding no.

The fact of the matter is I ran insanely hot for two months tripling my bankroll by playing games I had no business sitting into yet. To make matters worst, this upswing not only made me ridiculously overrate my skills as a player, it also made me turn into quite the arrogant asshat (For instance, I had sworn off reload bonuses as they were too much of a grind for such meagre rewards)

What had to happen happened. Leaks that were not as much as an hindrance at the lower levels caught up to me in a hurry and the downswing combined with my bad play had me crying uncle like a little bitch.

Humbled, I dropped down in limits to sort out various kinks of game.

I was in the midst of grinding out a little profit in a 2-4$ session a few nights back when back to back busted draws with Big Slick had me right back to square 1. I folded a trash hand and I found myself looking at AK for the third time in four hands! The pot was raised in MP right in front of me and I hesitated. Now, any LHE player will know that this is an automatic reraise with AK but the sting of the two previous losses had me hesitating on my next move. I finally gritted my teeth and threw in the 3-bet. Flop came A-3-8 rainbow. I look good here. He checks, I bet, he check raises me and I cap. Turn is another A, so unless he has 8's or a ridiculous pocket 3's , I’m pretty much golden. It turns out he had pocket queens and I pick up a nice pot.

Click

Of course, there's nothing special here. I'm not reinventing the wheel. It's all over the Poker books: Cards do not have a memory, every single hand has no relevance to the ones that preceded it, it's all about the long run, etc. Yes, we know all that stuff, but we don't really know, you know? It's like that stupid kid who's been told a million times not to stick his tongue on the metal pole in the winter yet he keeps doing it until he ends up getting stuck in there real good or, the guy who bangs that stripper with no teeth without wearing a rubber. You know you’re not supposed to do these thing but we still do, right?
I don't know why it happened at that very moment but that's when I finally got what the long run is all about. The beats are just that, beats. I pretty much shrug them off now The chips are just that, chips, and everything's gonna be alright as long as I make the right decisions.

Duh!

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Another Day, Another Flame out

Got dumped in 34th spot of the WWDN when I pushed my rivered two pair into my opponent’s rivered straight. It was a heads up pot, I was big blind and she limped from UTG. Was really hard to put her on that hand (7-5s) but at that point, the pot was bigger than my stack so there was no getting away from this one.

Watching the blogger tourneys, I’m really wondering if you can get anywhere in those things without catching cards? The field is usually really strong and aggressive and every pot is hotly contested. The big pots at my table usually involved two players with really good hands (two pair vs Set or Trips with Ace kicker vs. Trips with K kicker) or big confrontations pre-flop between big pairs. My biggest hands were a pair of 6 in the big blind and KJs. No big pairs, no big ace-x, simply rags.

The fact of the matter is, if I intend on competing at the higher levels of Tournament Poker (doubtful), these situation will surely be the norm. I guess I really need to add the re-steal to my repertoire of moves in tournament situations. There were definitely quite a few opportunities where I felt my opponents were trying to pull a fast one on me but I just couldn’t pull the trigger and come over the top. At this point, it’s only a matter of confidence and I’m hoping that once I’m able to pull it off successfully, I’ll be able to go down that path many times again. I’ve already gotten over the barrier of raising the blinds with absolute garbage, this should be the next step.

Loaded some cash games afterwards, started well, finished disastrously. Some bad beats in there, though more bad play by myself. I think I found the next thing I need to work on, making the big lay downs. Some of them are not even that big, you know you’re beat but you still call that extra bet with your two pair or set when the guy obviously has a straight or a flush. My reads are right more often than not, and yet, I still hesitate to act on them from time to time. Must. Fix. This

If anything, this move down in limits has allowed me to see more of the big picture. I’m still making mistakes but the costs are less. At least I now have an idea of what to focus on. I can finally make some progress in my game that had, truthfully, stagnated for far too long.

Monday, July 24, 2006

It's not them, it's me

The BloggedPods event was pretty much a non-factor. I busted out early when my double belly buster + flush draw didn't connect and I lost to a player holding top pair second kicker. I wanted some chips early so I gambled on a 15 out draw that unfortunately didn't come through. It happens.

I won't complain about calling off your whole stack early in a tournament with TPSK since this is typical of these low buy-in tournaments: Donks playing two card Poker.

Who's the real fish here?

Here I am, willingly shoving all my chips on a come hand against an unknown opponent in a low buy-in tournament. What exactly am I hoping for here? For all I know, this guy could be one of those players who have never heard of the fold button before. Again, what am I hoping for here?

What sets a great Poker player apart from an average one is his ability to adapt to his surroundings. If he's up against loose aggressive maniacs, he'll TAG his ass straight up. If he's playing against Weak-Tight Donks, he'll raise and re-raise every other hand. AND, if he's playing against level 1 weaklings, he won't jam his whole stack on come hands on the first level of a tournament.

Notice I didn't mention being a favorite when the chips went in? That’s beside the point. I should never have been in that situation to begin with. By putting all the chips in, I’m pretty much denying myself an opportunity of outplaying the Donk and luck ends up settling the issue.

Too much time is spent blaming the play of weaker players for the inadequacies in our own play. If you really believe that your play is superior to theirs, let your skills do the talking and pick up all their chips. For any time you let a weaker player get the best of you, the problem is not him, it's you.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

PokerOnAMac Blogger Tournament

I’m registered in the BloggerPods poker tournament by pokeronamac.com


I have registered to the BloggerPods tournament. This 1$ tournament, exclusive to bloggers, will give me a chance to win all kinds of amazing prizes, like IPODS, and such.

Hurry up and register since the tournament will be held tomorrow (July 23rd) at 6PM!

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Striving for?

One of the finest cash game players in the blog-sphere, The Law School Drop-Out, posted quite the eye opening post the other day.

Before we get to that, we need to put in perspective just how good of a player he is. He has been crushing the 30 /60 Limit game for more than a year. He’s also started tearing apart the 10/20 NL cash game on Party Poker. His most impressive feat, IMHO, was to exceed his self imposed 40 000$ in 30 days challenge when he managed to win 50k in 28 days!! Unreal stuff.

He had recently talked about moving up to the higher 80/160 limit and earn his stripes there. Unfortunately, it started with a 20 K loss. This was followed by a 10K drop. Followed by a 12k’er.Finally, one more 5 digit loss.

All in all, our poor friend lost 60 000$ in the span of 5 days playing on-line poker.

Read that line again.

That’s more money lost playing Poker than my GROSS salary for the year.

Although our friend has recouped 2/3 of his losses already, it does make one think. What are You/I/We hoping to achieve by playing this game? Could you/I psychologically handle such enormous losses in such a brief period of time?

I’m not a gambler at heart. I can’t stand –EV games since they're, well, -EV. I don’t see the fun in pissing away money bit by bit. Poker is somewhat of a medium in all of this. A skill game where $$ is awarded for your good play. Games where you can, to a certain extent, minimize the effects of luck on your results. Having fun while earning money, it can’t get any better than that.

Yet, at what point does Poker stop being a game? Where is the fun when the weekly swings are as big, if not bigger, as your yearly salary?

My initial goal, when I started playing this game somewhat seriously, was to become proficient at all the major types of games (Hold’Em, Stud and Omaha). How do you define proficient? I figure beating all these games consistently at the 10$/20$ level should make one a solid Poker player.

Will that truly be enough though? Human beings are greedy by nature. I don’t happen to escape that rule either. Whenever I’m running well at any level, I already start looking at the bigger tables trying to spot some juicy action. Although I have yet to be punished for taking those shots, it does seem to show that my inner greed seems to be yearning for more.

Only time will tell if the noble quest for perfection will be overtaken by the naked ambitions of greed.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

A New Challenge and Mookie Thoughts

Here's how the month of July has been going for me at the cash tables:

  • Pick up AA, cap it pre-flop with the loosest idiot at the table. He has 10-8s, flop comes 10-8-10

  • Pick up KQs on the button; raise it up, mp limper calls. Flop comes 4-K-K, limper had pocket 4's

  • Cap it three ways preflop with AA, flop comes 5-5-J, one of the cappers had pockets queens, the other idiot had 95s

  • Raise from the cut-off with AA, both blinds call, flop comes 2-8-10. Small blind has 10-2s; big blind has 10-8s

Looking briefly at PokerTracker, my two biggest losers for the month are pocket aces and pocket kings! Aces held up 30% of the time and Kings 40%.

Needless to say you won't make money at this game if you're losing constantly with the best starting hands in Hold'Em.

What now? I can't win a pot to save my life so it's pretty useless to wander around aimlessly while destroying my bankroll. I figured I needed some kind of challenge or goal, something to give some kind of purpose to my play.

So I decided to pick up Jordan's limit challenge.

It's pretty simple. Start from a certain amount at a specified limit and when you reach a certain point, you move up. Here's the chart:

Start $            Limit          Play Until          Drop Back
$25.............10/.25...........$55.....................$0
$55.............25/.50..........$110..................$50
$110...........50/1.............$215.................$100
$215...........1/2................$370................$200
$370...........2/4...............$550................$350
$550...........3/6...............$750................$525
$750...........4/8...............$950................$720
$950...........5/10............$1500...............$915


I intend to start with 215$, playing 1 / 2 LHE at two websites. I wouldn't be able to take the damn thing seriously at anything lower. Do I plan to go all the way with this? I might, don't really know, I'll stick to it at least until the downswing seems to subside. If anything, it should bring a purpose to my play, something that has been lacking big time for me lately.

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


I signed up for the Mookie last night in a attempt to redeem myself for an absolutely embarrassing performance at the WWDN. Things started pretty slowly while every single player at my table was doubling up as if it was the new “In” thing. I made my first successful move when my pocket 7's outraced AKo to end a 452345 losing streak of races in tournaments. Seriously folks, I almost cried. That double up gave me some chips to play with. I chipped up here and there, maintaining myself amongst the average stacks until I knocked out Bob Respert in a battle of the blinds where we both flopped top pair but I had him out kicked which earned me a pretty decent size pot. And then, I finally picked up a hand…

At 100-200 blinds, I make it 550 to go with Kings at UTG+1. The table was playing really tight and I didn't want to only pick up blinds with my first decent hand of the evening. 2.5X the blind seemed like a decent sized bet. Everyone folds to the button (xkm1245) who makes it 1200 to go, leaving himself 2400 behind. I happen to have him covered by about 100 chips. Ecstatic with this turn of events, I push and he insta-calls with AKo.


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


Let's pause for a second and talk about something that's been bothering me a lot lately. What is it with online players and their fascination with AK? I simply can't believe how many players are willingly calling pushes with AK early in tournaments when their stacks are deep. While it's true that it dominates all non pair hands, you're still at best either a 60/40 % favourite or 50/50 against any pair. Again why?

xkm1245 here makes an enormous mistake. An UTG raiser pops it to 2.5X the big blind. That's strength . He picks up AK from the button and he decides to raise it up. Not a bad play, although a call would have made sense since he will have position throughout the hand. He decides to raise it up and I push all my chips right away. That's a shitload of strength. What hands I am representing here? What range of hands would put in a raise from UTG and flat out push after being played back at? QQ+ and maybe AK. So why call off your entire stack (Remember I have him covered) when you're either behind or tied at best? His answer in the chat box when my Kings were turned over (“Mother effer”) seems to imply that he actually thought he was ahead! Meaning he was playing his cards and his cards only.

Now I should be ecstatic about this call. I'm a huge 70% favorite to pretty much double up my stack and be in the top three in chips for the tournament. But since I'm spending so much time on this, it obviously didn't happen, and a fucking ace fell on the turn and my ass was crippled.

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


But what can you do? I put my chips in as a huge favourite but the cards didn't fall my way. That's Poker, the long run, blablabla…

Anyway, I hope to get started on the limit challenge tonight. Hopefully I don't end up losing my entire roll trying to get stupid thing off the ground.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Zidane Speaks!

"The words he said concerned my mother and sister."


In other words, the French captain was sent off in the final game of the World Cup for a Yo Mama joke!

Whoever ends up coaching the US national team should have these boys hard at work cranking up the nastiest, vilest, sickest Yo Mama jokes on earth in preparation for 2010. The WC would be theirs to lose!

See you at the Mookie tonight!

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

It’s freaking hot in herre

Man ALIVE, its nice outside. Its days like this you’re really grateful to be alive.

I finally got off my lazy arse and bought myself a headset for my computer. I put off buying this damn thing for so long that I’m almost embarrassed to say since when. No matter, it’s here now so I can finally get down to business. Now I need to find myself some blogger addresses and get this show on the road. What the hell is a dial-a-shot by the way?

I didn’t play any Poker last night so I’m pretty anxious to get back to it tonight. What’s really nice is that my schedule is completely clear for the evening, no lifting, no soccer, just Poker. This treat could not have come at a better since I’m absolutely fucking knackered.

I’m really enjoying reading the various trip reports from the bloggers who were lucky enough to hit Vegas. You almost feel like you were really there. I have to make it for December. That’ll probably be my vacation time for the year so hopefully all will go well and I’ll be able to make my first foray into Sin city.

On tap for tonight, LHE cash games (let’s see if I can win a freakin’ pot tonight) and the WWDN. My tournament game has been coming around lately, so let’s see if I can burst the bubble bullshit and get myself some kind of score.

Later

Monday, July 10, 2006

Back to the drawing board

After a wonderful month of June, July is off to a dreadful start where I’ve been dropping out BB’S out of my arse crack as if it was gonna out of style. Seems like my downswing is back in full force. *Sigh*

Limit Hold’Em is a pretty straight forward game. Nut peddling really. You sit and wait for your good hands and you play them hard. That, and that alone, should be enough to make you a winning player at the lower limits. Problems arise when those good hands go down in flames to a bunch of mouth breathers who’ll play any suited two and river trips or 2 pair to crack your aces, kings, etc. over and over and over and over...You get the point.

What to do? There’s nothing you can really do about it. A hiatus will not work. You have to ride out a bad streak. It’s pretty much a never ending cycle, sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. They really call it the grind for a reason, it’s all about grinding out a few measly BB’S here and there and somewhere down the road it should lead to some kind of change in your back pocket.

My best advice would be to drop down limits. If you’re gonna play entire sessions without winning a single freakin’ pot (Happened to me a few times this week) might as well be doing it at the 1/2$ table instead of the 5/10$ table.

Not that I’m getting Rakeback at a few websites, I’m starting to wonder if I should move back temporarily to the land of Party Poker. I just miss the terrible players and it might be a good idea to splurge around in there to repad the roll. I’ll see how the rest of July unfolds, I might be overacting a the moment, but it’s definitely something I’ll keep an eye on.

BTW, while checking out WSOP updates on the Cardplayer website, I stumbled upon this new Pokerroom, Naked Poker. There are no words. I haven’t laughed this hard in weeks. Let’s make it NSFW just in case. Some of their promotions are quite interesting, one of them being winning a date with a Penthouse model (I guess Playboy girls have too much class to hang out with Online Poker geeks). Can you say disaster waiting to happen? I’m sure Miss Penthouse will be thrilled to hear some 21 year old 16 tabler with a winrate of 4.5BB/100 go on and on about why putting in that 5th bet on the river when his 17 outs draw missed on the end might be +EV. Poor girl.

Anywho, I probably won't make the MATH tonight but the WWDN should be a go so hopefully I catch you guys there.

Later

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Bubble Boy

Well last night was a first: I was bubble boy in a live tournament. My last hand? Pocket aces. I shit you not. Douchebag chip leader felt it was his duty to call every all-in at the table and he kept winning the showdowns going in with the worst hand more often than not. His Q6s turned a straight to send my rockets down the crapper.

I played alright, I was also very fortunate to catch some cards. I received aces three times, which is crazy since I’ve never received them once playing at that place before. I doubled up with them once, picked up the blinds on the second and the last time was mentioned up there. I had a decent stack but I was constantly meeting up with resistance whenever I was making a move on the blinds. Basically, I couldn’t build myself a huge stack so most of my tournament was spent grinding it out with an average sized one. Maybe next time.

I need to come up with some sort of plan to create a myself a serious live bankroll. I dipped into my wallet to pay for the tournament last night. You’d figure someone making thousands a month could somehow withdraw a 150$ every once in a while to create a live roll. Which is what I plan to do.

I had some pretty good results running cash games this weekend although I did hit some kind of snag yesterday. I’m really excited about hitting the tables tonight to win some of that back.

I still have that 25$ that Party Poker put in my account which I’ll blow on a few 10$ tournaments. I haven’t cashed in a tournament in a decade, I figure it’s bound to happen soon. It would be all kinds of cool if I could manage to bag a huge score using Party’s free money. Crossing fingers.

WWDN tonight, I should be there so hopefully ya’ll will be too

Later...