From the Cheap Seats

Back to the Party

2005-04-06T16:57:00.000-04:00

We resumed our home game this week after what I think was a weeks off. The night started abysmally. I kept running into good boards that never panned out. Top two beat by straights at the river, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I was down a buy in when things finally started to turn around and my hands held up. We had a couple crazy boards. In back to back hands, a flop of 333. Maybe I don't play a lot but that's pretty crazy. In the first hand someone had the case 3. Unfortunately, it wasn't me. Fun night which was a nice change of pace as we had a couple of pretty quiet games in weeks past.

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Yesterday, I made it back to Party for the first time in quite a while. I played 3/6 for a couple of hours. All in all, a bad night. On my first table, I overplayed a couple of big hands where I overvalued my top pair. It drives me crazy when I go into that mode of just not believing that the other people at the table might have a hand. Anyway, 2 blown hands and a bunch of failed attempts when I did get cards and I ended down a bit. I think it was 10 BB or so (no PokerTracker at work). After a disconnect, I moved to a new table where I was able to focus better and pulled out a win. Mostly good hands held up. The only particularly interesting hand involved a board with a straight on it. I started out the hand with a slopped top pair which eventually turned into the straight. I had the next card up though and took away a nice win. My opponent ended up having A high throughout the hand and called it all the way down. I'll be back at the tables tonight, trying to stay focused. That remains my biggest issue when playing online. In live games, I have no problem but online I get bored or distracted and lose the little focus I have. No need to rehash the same topic I've mentioned before though.

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I've been thinking lately of trying out some of the card rooms in NYC. Though I have some reservations. If one of these places gets busted while you are there, what kind of problems does this cause for the players? Do they get busted too? Where do you find these places? Anyway, I am going to email asphnxma and see if he has any advice. If anyone is reading this (I doubt it at this point), and you have some thoughts, drop me a comment.

Good Poker Friday

2005-03-28T16:28:00.000-05:00

Borgata

Since I had the day off and my girlfriend was stuck at work, I went down to the Borgata on Friday. I got there around 10:30 and was happy to see that there was no wait for the 6/12 game. I bought some chips and away we went. I was in the 6s which I kind of like even though I don't have a good view of the 4 or 5 seats. The table started out loose aggressive preflop with very passive post flop play. I started out getting horrible starting hands. T3o, 92o, etc. In the three orbits, I only played my big blinds. At some point in here, the loud mouth in the 1s asks me is I am getting horrible cards or if I am really THAT tight. This seemed to help out quite a bit as the entire table took notice and I took away some big pots over the next hour. I would simply limp preflop and raise on the flop or turn and take down the pot. Eventually, I got called after doing this a few times and I changed gears to take advantage. All in all by lunch time I was up about 250. Not bad for 3 hours or so. After a quick break for some chicken fingers (thank you Borgata comp dollars), I headed back to the tables where I went card dead for a long time. I basically stayed around +250 for a few hours as I would win small pots here and there to sustain paying the blinds. Then, evil bluffing Danny came to visit. Two or three bad beats in a row and my aggression factor turned up. Slight tilt mixed with boredom I guess. I started ramming and jamming any pot I was involved in. With a few orbits of that coupled with the bad beats I was hurting. Down to about a little below even.

This is when the day turned for the second time. At this point, I was the player who had been there the longest. A series of new faces were gathered around. I guess the early morning weekday crew switched to the weekend crew. Anyway, no one remembered my earlier tight image. I had vanquished that with my LAG play in the last hour and the new players only saw me as a LAG. The 1s sucked out with JJ against my AT flopped two pair to spike a set on the river and commented on how he couldn't respect my bets with all the bluffing. That's what finally triggered me to get back into my game. I started playing my A-game again, and since I had a loose table image (weird feeling for me), I won some big pots. I played until about 8:30 PM and booked a $106 win. Not much considering how long I played for and my lack of concentration in the middle of the day. But an up day is an up day.

This was my second trip playing in the 6/12 game at the Borgata and it was as I remembered it from the first time. I think its an easier game than the 3/6 tables and with double the stakes a good bit more profit. If you aren't trying this game because you think it will be significantly harder than their 3/6 game you are dead wrong.

Vegas - Memorial Day

I finally booked my first trip to Vegas. Unfortunately, the plans started before the June WPBT tourney was announced so I won't be able to make that as I am taking off on June 1. Anyway, I am heading out there May 25 - June 1. I can't wait! If anyone has suggestions on what games I can't miss please let me know.

By the way, I haven't posted in quite some time (Jan 22nd!). It's not that I haven't been playing its just that I have not had anything remarkable to write about. This was my first live play since January. Hopefully, I will have some more stuff soon. If you are still stopping by (god knows why), thanks.

The Good, the Bad, and the Really Ugly

2005-01-18T14:35:00.000-05:00

I started out my weekend with some really ugly play. After hanging around Friday night not doing much, I was in a bad mood and decided to fire up Absolute for a short session. Now, alarm bells should have been going off all over the place. What the hell was I thinking sitting down at a table like that. From the moment I sat down, I might as well have asked everyone to pick on my stack. Luckily, the cards weren't so bad so I wasn't able to piss away too much money. I think it was 12 BB (though I don't have my spreadsheet with me).

Saturday was poker free. I did get to check out the new MoMA. If you live in/around New York, you should definitely check out the new museum. There are many great pieces in there though the crowds are a bit much right now. I also watched some football (Steelers game) and went out to a good seafood restaurant.

Sunday was back to poker. After watching 6 hours of football, we settled down to our weekly home game, aka the Bad. As we were waiting for a couple of players we started playing a little 1/2 LHE. Nothing very exciting though I was up a bit. Once everyone had arrived, we played a $40 NLHE Tournament. The tournament went alright. There were only 6 of us and I dropped in 3rd place (top 2 paid out). Unfortunately, Bluff-every-hand-until-my-stack-is-gone Danny came to play. I hate when he shows up. When I busted out, I went all in with 2 overcards to the flop after I thought I sensed weakness. Turns out he had top pair and I didn't get any help. Once we had finished up the tournament, we continued with some more LHE (2/4 this time). I was up again enough to cover my losses in the tournament and leave me slightly up for the night. Proving once again how much I suck at NL. I really have no sense of what size bet to make. I think I am giving away a lot of information in the size of my bet. Something I have to work on if we are going to play NL at my home game.

Yesterday, I had the day off since I work for a bank. My girlfriend had to work, so I thought it would be good time to spend the day in Atlantic City. I headed down there with my roommate and his girlfriend. As we drove up to the Borgata, it didn't look too crowded so I thought we were in for a short wait. I should have known better at the Borgata. Anyway, the wait for 3/6 and 2/4 was pretty crazy so I put my name on the 6/12 list which was only 12 players. I was a little nervous about it since I had never played anything higher than 5/10 and I had not played much at that level. Anyway, I was soon called for a new 6/12 table. Since it was a higher stake, I decided to play basic poker until I figured how tough the competition would be. Turns out it was not any better than 3/6. It was a loose and very passive table. I can easily count on the number of times there was a raise on the turn or river (most of which were either me or my roommate). I don't think I ever saw a reraise there. Me and my nervous hands, shot up quickly as the deck was hitting me over the head. I could do no wrong. Pocket Jacks and Aces flopping sets. K5s in the big blind getting a 4-flush including the A on the flop to which I raised and caught the nut flush on the turn. You get the idea. I quickly jumped up. Within 1 hour I was up 200 (16 BB or so). I hovered around there for a while as my cards cooled down but then it started again and I was up 350 by the third hour. Around this point, I heard my name called for a 3/6 seat. Ridiculous 3 hour wait. Anyway, I stayed at the 6/12 table, obviously. By the time the table broke up and it was time for me to go home (6.5 hours after I sat down), I was up 425 (35 BB).

So all in all it was a good weekend in terms of poker. The game on Monday really made me think of my Limit game and I think I am going to try to return some of my game to the basics. I don't want to be too results oriented especially with 1 session but I am going to try out a few things in reducing the number of "fancy" plays I incorporate in to my game. I am also going to start taking notes during my games so I can go back and reexamine some hands. I do a decent job of that now with PokerTracker for my online games but need to incorporate that into my live play as well. Thankfully, the ugly play came out at 3/6 and not the 6/12 game.

Bad way to start

2005-01-04T09:34:00.000-05:00

After a lot of drinking for New Year's, the resulting cold, and a weekend visiting my girlfriend's family, I played in our first home game of the year. Needless to say I was very tired going into the game. As I have mentioned on several occasions before, this is one of the worst states of mind for my game. Anyway, to make a long story short I started off the night with lots of bad plays. I was cold calling, missing possible flushes and straights on the board, and missing obvious opportunities to take down a pot at signs of weakness. At one point, I decided to bluff the blind off his hand and popped it up preflop only to forget that I was bluffing by the time the flop rolled around. I looked down to check my cards and checked still wondering why I had played that garbage hand. Anyway, I later realize what I was doing by the turn and try to continue my bluff again. I think its clear that didn't work and I lost 3 BB for nothing. That's the kind of mindset I was in anyway.

One interesting hand, I am dealt 66 and call. Flop comes AQ6. I threw in a bet and get called by 1. Turn is an A. At this point, I know I am set. I figured he either had a Q or the case 6. I bet out and he raises me. I didn't think he had AQ or QQ as he didn't raise preflop or my flop bet and I didn't think he was trapping me. So i reraised and he just calls. At this point with just a call, I am sure he has a Q and didn't put me on an A. The river brings us another Q and I know I am screwed. He bets and I make a crying call to see him turnover QJ. Oh well. Fairly large pot but nothing I should be upset about. I think I played it correctly. I didn't slowplay or allow him to go on cheaply at any point as I was betting/raising whenever possible.

After that, I did win a few other big hands to negate my bad play early on and finished the night dead even. Not a great way to start the new year, though it could have been much worse with that mindset going in.

On another note, I played at Absolute for the first time. The software seemed ok. Pretty standard I guess though a very busy screen. The only bad note so far is the number of players. There was 1 full 3/6 table and 2 other tables about half full each. On top of that, my roommate was playing on one of the tables at the time so I only had 2 choices.

Destruction, Christmas, and a Happy New Year

2004-12-31T11:50:00.000-05:00

Tsunamis

Check out the following links:

BlogAid - Donate some Affiliate and Ad dollars to the relief effort

Map redrawn - The quake was large enough to displace some of the islands by a few meters.

Pictures - Woman goes after her group as the tsunamis are seen in the distance.

Aerial Photos - Aerial photos of the damage.

Photos/Graphics - NY Times photos (these are pretty graphic)

Miami

I just got back from Miami. What a great way to spend Christmas. Most people are always looking out for a White Christmas but its the sandy ones I'll take anyday. While the midwest was getting blanketed in snow, I enjoyed 8 days by the pool/beach. 70 perfect degrees. Anyway, I guess I should stop rubbing it in. You can check out my girlfriend's moblog pictures from the trip here.

Poker

Nothing really to report on that front. I did not have any internet access while in Miami (gasp!). Not that I would have played any poker there when I could be outside. They should get some WiFi access by the pool areas. I will be trying Absolute poker this week now that I am settling back into the routine. I am also hitting up some more Casino bonuses. More to come on that. I will also be able to make it back to the weekly home game this weekend.

Happy New Years to all! May the poker gods treat you well in 2005!

Same old

2004-12-15T10:52:00.000-05:00

Not much to post. I haven't been playing too much online lately. I know I said work would quiet down by now but that plan seems to have gone out the window. I am busier than ever. On top of that, with all the holiday shopping, parties, and the now in full swing ski season poker has taken a back seat. I got in two full days of skiing a couple weekends ago which was a nice warm up to get my body reacquainted with exercise. I will be up at Killington, VT again this coming weekend. Next week, it's a full dose of family. My girlfriend and I are heading down to Miami to spend Christmas with my parents on the beach. Since it is currently snowing outside, I am very much looking forward to a few days bumming around the beach. Beautiful weather in Miami next week.

To get back to gambling, I have been playing a little bit. I finished up the OIC at the gaming club up 75 whole cents. I almost busted out. When I was down to $15, I went into maniac mode but ended up doing well and came back up to 50. I ended the challenge in 55th place out of 175.

I've been playing exclusively at PStars lately and decided that I should try out some other sites. I think I will try Absolute next week. In the mean time though I have been playing some blackjack. Thanks to scurvydog for posting a guide to casino bonuses. I have done, a couple of the sites and am working on the third. The first one went well, I was up over the 800 hands I played. The second one on the other hand was a disaster. I was doing $2 bets again and ended up losing all the bonus and most of the deposit. Oh well. I am still profitable on the whole thing.

Well, that's all for now. It was good to read all the trip reports from the blogger excursions to Vegas. Wish I could have been there. Unfortunately, I have never made a trip to sin city. Next spring.

A good day

2004-11-20T02:46:00.000-05:00

I finally got to play again today even if it was only for a short while. I was playing 2 tables, 2/4 on PokerStars and .5/1 on TGC for the OIC. Speaking of which, what is with the enormous waits for 3/6 on Stars lately? There are easily 20 people waiting yet no one will start a new table. Very annoying. Anyway, the line for 2/4 was much smaller so I jumped on one of those tables. I think I only played like 100 hands on each site. Both went well though. At the Stars table, I was +20 BB. Both great cards and good play. I was making great reads on weak plays and punishing it. We had a couple No-fold-em-until-the-river-fold-em players. Needless to say these were very profitable. At one point I get dealt the hammer in the CO and it folds around to me. I popped it up and continued to bet it through the river when the BB finally folded. I had been getting a lot of respect for my raises before this (mostly due to the great cards I was getting early on) so I showed him the 72. He was not pleased and went on a tirade about how I could bet so much with absolutely nothing. Fun to watch. On the TGC table, I had more modest gains of 10 BB. Nothing interesting there though. Since its .5/1, I really have to play my best. We had like 5 players to the SD at one point. Anyway, being patient helped that out a lot. I think the 2 tabling prevent bad play due to boredom. This has been a real issue for me in the past. Maybe I should do this more. The OIC is a good opportunity to do it since its so little money right now.

After Day 2:
$57.25 (+10.25)
Level: .5/1
107th after Day 1

This weekend I will be off for an early Thanksgiving dinner and some early season skiing so probably no poker until the home game Sunday. Finally, ski season has arrived! Hopefully, there is some decent snow. Thanks for stopping by.

Home Games and OIC

2004-11-16T23:33:00.000-05:00

The past two weeks have not been very good in terms of time for me. Work has been brutal and a few other complications have left me too tired for anything but collapsing into bed. Such is the nature of my job. It gets very cyclical.

Last week my home game switched it up a bit and we played a couple of NL tourneys. To be honest I don't remember much of what happened since I didn't write anything down. We played with slowly increasing blinds but there was still a good bit of action. Both tournaments were winner take all. I took down the first tournament and took a second place in the second tournament. The tournaments further exemplified how little I know about NL. It's not when to bet, raise, call, or fold but rather how much to do it. I am conditioned to a limit frame of mind. Throughout the night I was betting in certain standard raise amounts based on the blinds but not so much on pot size. All in all it seemed to work since all of us were in that frame of reference.

This week we also played a couple of tournaments. The first was a 6-person NLHE with the same blind structure as the previous week. This one lasted much longer though it had some interesting hands. Early in the tournament I had JJ in EP. I raised the flop moderately. I think there was 1 caller. Flop came J high and I decide to slow play the set. I call his raise only to see a beautiful J on the turn. I check again and this time he pops a larger bet trying to steal it. I again call. On the river, I checked again (I was pretty sure he would try another steal or maybe he had something) and then raised. After a lot of thought, he called and that was that. Late in the tournament (down to three) I tried to steal the blinds putting the shorter stack all in. After much thought, he made a great call with A2 against my suited rags. I didn't hit the flush and so I doubled him up. Stupid move. This extended his life for quite a bit though he eventually busted out in third. I went on through a very short heads up to win the tournament with an all in call with Q7 and a flop of 766. I didn't think he had a 6 as he had raised preflop so I figured it a pot steal. Turned out he had JJ but the turn brought a Q to save the day. Later we played a speed tourney with blinds doubling every 10 minutes. I remember a lot less from that as it was late and things were going fast. I did battle back from near extinction and ended up second against a huge chip lead. Overall a good night for me.

In online news, I signed up for the OIC. Thanks to Chris for mentioning it. I think it will be a fun time though hardly profitable. I started tonight. Got some pretty horrible cards from the first hour and then a bad suckout when my nut flush lost to a miracle boat. Oh well, that's .50/1 for you. So after 2.5 hours, I down 3 BB.

After Day 1:
$47 (-$3)
Level: .5/1

Thanks for stopping by. I hope to post some more stuff in the coming weeks as work will be a lot quieter.

Go Vote!

2004-11-02T09:13:00.000-05:00

Go Vote! It is far more important than anything the vast majority of you are doing today. So whether you support Kerry, Bush, Nader, or anyone else, just go cast your vote!

You can find your polling place here.

PS. Voting for Kerry is preferable

Quite a pot

2004-10-30T17:45:00.000-04:00

Check out this hand. Probably the largest I have seen at 3/6. Speaks for itself...

PokerStars 3/6 Hold'em (8 handed)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with Td, 4c.
3 folds, MP2 calls, CO calls, 2 folds, BB raises, MP2 calls, CO calls.

Flop: (6.33 SB) Jc, Jh, Kc (3 players)
BB bets, MP2 raises, CO 3-bets, BB calls, MP2 calls.

Turn: (7.66 BB) 3c (3 players)
BB checks, MP2 bets, CO raises, BB calls, MP2 3-bets, CO caps, BB calls, MP2 calls.

River: (19.66 BB) Ts (3 players)
BB checks, MP2 bets, CO raises, BB 3-bets, MP2 calls, CO caps, BB calls, MP2 calls.

Final Pot: 29.66 BB ($187)

Results:
BB has Kh Ks (full house, kings full of jacks).
MP2 has Qc Ac (straight flush, ace high).
CO has Js Jd (four of a kind, jacks).

Outcome: MP2 wins 29.66 BB. ($187)

Looking In

2004-10-26T20:56:00.000-04:00

I promised some poker content tonight so here it is along with the blogger tourney summary. Last week I had to write my self evaluation at work along with a bunch of other work. Hence, the lack of content on here recently. Anyway, writing my evaluation reminded me a lot of writing this attempt at blogging. It required me to look back at the last 12 months and figure out what I did and what I accomplished/acheived. While, this may sound fairly straightforward, I find this extraordinarily difficult. Granted it didn't help that I was playing in the blogger tournament while writing a piece of it or that I didn't have the equivalent WorkTracker to look back. The evaluation comes down to grading yourself in 4 categories along with supporting writing for why you deserve the grades you assigned yourself. In a parallel poker evaluation, what would those categories and subcategories be? I guess it would somthing like the autorate rules flying around for PokerTracker. Loose/Passiveness, Preflop aggression, post flop aggression, winning money at showdown... But that really doesn't take into account what kind of play comes natural to you. (Primate Poker had an article about this a while back.) You often hear a lot of talk about which category is best but I tend to agree with articles like that above where the best style is really the one you can do best with. As an example, there are a lot of people out there who get bored playing very tight. This type of play may eventually get to them such that they start playing their B game because they are just not having a good time. Even with discipline to remove this kind of tilt, I think that player would be most effective playing whatever suits him best. Though, that should not be a license to allow myself to go off and play poorly because it's fun. Suckouts are fun in the short term but
that doesn't make it my best style. For me, I tend to have a lot of fun (and win money) with a sLA-N strategy, using PokerTracker terminology. Something on the order of 20% VP$IP, 8-10% preflop raising, and middle of the road aggretion. Though, that just leaves us back with a very theoretical framework around which categories make you a good player. I think there are also a lot of softer non-stat things to consider as well.

So, in the end, what categories or criteria make a good player? Let me know what you think.

Blogger Tourney

2004-10-26T20:44:00.000-04:00

Should have posted this earlier, but here it is late anyway. I had a great time playing. 133 players is pretty crazy. Though I am sure Wil had a lot to do with that considering all the people going from table to table looking for him. Congratulations to MtDew and Todd on the top two spots.

Here is a recap of some of the hands:

Start off at a table with Chris and Wil.

Level 1: The table started out pretty tight at first as did I. Won the blinds a few times when i raised good hole cards. Dealt 42s in the SB. Everyone folds except the Button (Nolan 11) who limps so I call as well. Big blind folds. Flop is T77 (2 spades). I check and call a small bet. Turn is 5s. I bet and get called. River is Ah. Same thing and I take down T660 pot with a ten high flush.

Level 2: I get QQ in BB. All fold except SB who calls. I raise to 120 and get called. The flop is KQ8 rainbow. I bet all in and he folded. Should have slowplayed the set. I later get 99 in EP. I raised and am reraised by the button. Flop is TTT. I check and am raised all in. I thought I smelled a rat so I call and lose T1105 to JJ.

Level 3: Get dealt QQ again short stacked in EP. I raise and Chris calls. Flop is 982 rainbow. I bet all in and Chris calls. Turn is 6 with T river. I double up against Chris' JJ.

I am moved to a table with Iggy, helixx, and Todd.

Level 4: Dealt QJo UTG. I call as does dankhank and helix in the BB. Flop is AJT. Dankhank bets after our checks I call and we lose helix. Turn is a 2 and we see a free river of another 2. I check, dankhank bets, and I call since he had been pushing around chips with nothing. Sure enough he has 98o and I take down a T1550 pot.

Level 5: I come back from the break happy to have survived this far in NL. I only played 6 hands before the one that ended it for me. Dealt JJ in EP with only T785. I am raised by UTG and reraise all in and am called. Board is AT849. I lose to AJo who flopped an A.

I finished 86th. Not as bad as I expected for a NL tournament. I really don't know how much to raise at any given juncture. Still survived longer than some blogger greats so could have been worse. Thanks again to Iggy for setting it up.

Bored at the office

2004-10-26T15:58:00.000-04:00

After Al posted that last office sucking activity, I had to give it a try. Anyway, best score:30. I am sure SirFWALGMan (you ever going to post what that thing means?) will come around and smack that 30 around.

Some other favorite timesucking games:
Tea Games
Reverse (no cheating by turning the mouse upside down)

Actual poker content tonight. I think. I hope.

86th

2004-10-21T23:09:00.000-04:00

Busted out 86th in WPBT V. Went all in short stacked against with JJ against AJo. An A flopped and that was that. Iggy, thanks again for setting it up. Had some great cards early on but didn't make much of them. Then again what do I know about NL. Anyway, will post some hands tomorrow. Good luck to the top 30 or so that remain.

Putting your moves on

2004-10-11T16:00:00.000-04:00

Home Game

My home game last night seemed to discover the preflop raise. Normally this is a pretty passive game. 3 betting any round generally wins the pot without a showdown. Last night it was a completely different story. Loose Aggressive became the latest fad with a raised preflop and 3-4 callers (out of 5 players) being par for the course. Made for a very different game than I have been seeing there for the past few months and a welcome change from the same play week after week. Everyone also finally agreed to double the stakes. I have been pushing for that or a switch to a NL game for a while. 1 for 2 is not bad. This should hopefully liven the game up a bit. It's been getting a little boring for a while there when we stopped getting new players.
We also had quite a freak set of cards there for a while. In 2 hours, we had AA dealt 6 times, 3 of them to the same player. This same guy was dealt JJ 3 times and made quads 2 of those times. Needless to say he had a huge chip lead for a while.

Slide

My online slide continues. I have plugged a few holes and definitely slowed it down but looking through my last few weeks it is also the cards I am being dealt. I have been getting really horrible cards and even worse flops when I do get playable hands. I have been able to keep control though and have not resorted to my standard response of loosening drastically. Now I just need to ride out the storm.

Going Pro

I don't understand the flurry of people out there working to go pro. I really do not have a desire to do that. Poker is a hobby for me. I really enjoy thinking about strategy, playing, etc. but doing it for a living would kill my love for it. As a software developer, on most nights the last thing I want to do is to go home and stare at a computer. I used to be interested in side projects in college but now that is totally gone. After 8 hours in front of user issues and crappy code, I can't stand to look at another line of it when I am out of here. I think going pro would produce the same thing. On top of all that, the life of a poker player with all the travel does not seem that appealing. A lot of long nights and time away from family and friends. This is not to say that I don't catch myself daydreaming at times about making it in the poker world and taking home a multi-million dollar finish. For me though it is just that a day dream. Not something I am actively striving for.

Blogger on Blogger Action

2004-10-01T01:11:00.000-04:00

I played a little .50/$1 with SirFWALGman, Double As, Todd, and one hot babe. As usual, I played poorly and got killed. I loosened up a lot with 4 players but probably too much. I was betting just about any face which made the game a lot more fun. Been a while since I have had a fun game online. Anyway, I had a good time blowing my money down the drain or rather my girlfriend's money since I have basically cashed out of Party. I think I have $6 left there. For now I am going to stick to Stars. I like it a lot better over there and I seem to play better there too. I kept Poker Tracker on during the game just cause the screen is not right without a PT window in the corner. Anyway, some pretty aggressive stats with double's aggression factor in the 5's! I finished the night with an all in with the hammer. Unfortunately, it didn't pay off and Sir took it down with A's up. You can check out the HH here. Hopefully we can do it again sometime with some more players!

Been a while...

2004-09-30T15:47:00.000-04:00

I have been very remiss in not posting for a while. To be honest I have not been too busy just more focused on my game and the holes in it than blogging about more losses. Poker Tracker has been quite helpful. Seriously, if you haven't bought it yet it's a must if you are serious about tracking your play. There seems to be a lot of talk out there about how to best utilize it. Maybe I will try and get something together and post it here. I will definitely try.

Anyway, not much new to report on the poker front. Still having some trouble online and working on plugging up the holes in my game. It's been helping that my girlfriend opened up a Party account. By the way, I definitely created a monster there. Anyway, talking to her about why/how she should play in certain situations is definitely helping me out come up with a string theoretical background for my game. They always say a teaching is the best way to learn. I will be on Party tonight to see if we can get a bloggers game going. Check out Sirfwalgman's post about it here. Hopefully, I won't go on tilt as I watch the presidential debate getting frustrated with both candidates. I am also looking forward to the next bloggers tournament. Iggy has a post about it here.

This week I played in a couple of home games. One of them was the weekly game at my apartment. We were a bit shorthanded but it was a pretty good game nonetheless. At least for me... I did well and took down about 20 BB I would say. There was lots of money flying around since one of the guys busted out 3 times for a total of 60 BB in 2 hours. Ouch! The other game I played at was a NLHE tournament at a coworkers place. It was a very tight passive game. After 2 hours or so 2 of 6 people had busted out and we were still going. We ended up closing up after a while and they let the chip leader (me) take home the cash. I wasn't complaining. How I became the chip lead was an interesting hand. I had 98o in the BB. No raises so I saw the flop. The flop was 985 rainbow. I made a healthy bet (about the size of the pot). Player to my left is a very loose aggressive player. He had made a lot of bluffs lately and definitely had a bit to drink. He went all in. Based on his style I put him on face-9. To his right was the chip lead at the time he thought about it and called. At this point, the pot is huge and I am quite torn. I figure the chip lead had to have either A9 or a set. I didn't think he had 76 as he wouldn't have been in the flop. I thought about it for a while and finally went all in (I had the first all in covered) since I was getting tired and I had a lot of outs. The first all in sure enough turned over JTo for an open ended straight draw. Chip lead had a set of 5s and I had 9's over 8's. The turn was a blank so I start to stand up to leave when the river comes with a beautiful 8 giving me the 8's full of 9's to his 5's full of 8's. I took a huge pot and became at least a 3-1 chip lead. Very fun hand.

Anyway, I hope to see some of you on Party/Empire tonight. Should be a fun game. As always thanks for stopping by.

If it looks like a fish and smells like a fish...

2004-09-20T13:20:00.000-04:00

it must be me. In the last few weeks I have become every poker players dream opponent. I am that guy that every new player who sits at the table can feast on. I don't know how it happened or what triggered it but in the last two weeks ago I have become one more fish to be ripped apart online. Now, I would love to attribute my slide to bad beats, suck outs, bad cards, variance, etc. but I would be lying. I have been losing for one very clear reason; I am playing as though everyone is out to get me. Instead of playing patiently and waiting for good cards, I am playing garbage hands like A6o in EP. Instead of raising flops that hit me, I am simply calling my way to the river hoping to catch that two outer when I am beat or thinking he has nothing when he flopped the straight. Ultimately, I am funding all of your games in the last few weeks and I determined to patiently bring myself back to the play I have become accustomed to.

With that in mind, let's figure out where I am going wrong. At first glance, I am playing a lot of weaker starting hands that I normally would have tossed away. That's an easy hole to plug for me. I don't think it has to do with thinking that they are worth playing but rather boredom and frustration at the real holes in my game. I know I have the patience to wait for the right cards and, in the last couple of sessions, I have been doing just that. The biggest holes in my game are in how I am playing the flop. 2 major points stand out. The first is when I hit the flop with top pair without any redraws. In this case, I have been doing a lot of check-call and simply not taking control of the hand. A check-call basically leaves me open to my opponents having free range on the turn and leaves me without much room to win the hand without catching perfect cards on the turn and river. If I do have a redraw to a powerful hand, nut flush or straight, I am not raising a multiway pot to build up the size I need to make the play profitable in the long run. In both cases, I am not in control of the hands and end up calling down to the river. A devastating mistake. The second mistake is not nearly as costly as the first but still an issue. Basically, I am like a lost child at the flop when playing with two overcards. I seem to be playing it as though I have hit the flop rather than as a drawing hand. Since this does not happen as often (probably because I am playing some crappy starting hands), it isn't as big a deal but in the end I have to focus on the odds I am getting and play it like I would any other draw. I know I can play these situations and a bunch of others I am currently struggling with since I have proven I can in the past. I just have to stop myself from sliding not only in my bankroll but also in my game. At least, I am looking at the big picture and not attributing bad play to external factors even though it is so easy to do.

In other news, my home game went pretty well last night. We had 5 players so not as full as we normally would be but we did up the stakes which was a nice change of pace. We played 1/2. It was a fun night mostly, though no terribly interesting hands. Matt had an interesting night, I think at one point he had KK, AKo, KK, and QQ in a row though not sure about the QQ. My best hand was a small pot where I flopped trip tens wh0ich turned into quads on the turn. It was a fun night. I really enjoy our weekly games because it's a good outlet to keep some fun and social poker in the rotation which, in my opinion, is important to keep up my interest in the game. It also helps doubling up last night.

I have also been reading Miller's book and was quite surprised at the section on outs surrounding counterfeited hands. I think I am in a large group of players out there who have been significantly underestimating their odds without taking these situations into account. This is definitely a newbie kind of mistake. Anyway, I will definitely be taking a closer look at that section along with a bunch of others to help bolster the bad play I spoke about earlier. Though ultimately I need to play my game and find those holes. Reading isn't going to get me where I need to be. Though it may nudge on the way there.

As always thanks for stopping by.

Adapting at Home

2004-09-13T14:51:00.000-04:00

Recently, I've been thinking about how to adapt my game to different tables. It usually takes me about 45 minutes or so to adapt which is way too long. This was most evident last night in my home game. We play every Sunday night and, after playing for the week online, it takes me at least 30 minutes to adjust. This leaves me plenty of time to throw away some solid pots that I could easily take down which gets back to some of the ideas I posted earlier about paying attention which I will get to later. In this week's game, I started out the night playing pretty tight. I was throwing away top pair when some aggressive play could easily win me the pot in this game. After going around the table a couple of times, I realized what I was doing and made some adjustments. I loosened up a bit and started taking down some pots that I would have folded to earlier. The adjustments were definitely paying off and I started to settle back in to the game. The rest of the night proved to be a bad one. I ended up down 11 BB. Throughout the game I was trying to remember a few good hands I wanted to post about but in retrospect they aren't very interesting (probably a few too many beers during the Giant - Eagles game). One hand to note, I had 67s in the BB (no raises preflop). The flop came 10s 8s 9h (I had spades). I bet the straight, 1 raise, I call. At this point, I am thinking he has two pair though could easily have JQ. I think I played that last bit wrong, I should have raised it to 3 to see if he had it. Anyway, the turn is a meaningless card. I check, he bets, I call. Same thing on the river. Sure enough he shows JQ for the higher straight. I never hit my flush or straight flush so he takes it down. I really have trouble laying some of these down. I had 9 outs (assuming he didn't have spades), 1 of which would have given me the straight flush. Ultimately, I think my biggest mistake was playing this hand passively. 3 betting the flop probably would have gotten me a free turn based on his earlier play. I have to learn to either lays these down or play them aggressively. Passiveness is not going to get me anywhere.

As I mentioned at the top, I am still having a lot of trouble getting my head in the game. I keep loosing focus and my stack quickly reacts as expected. I really need to get my state of mind to play. Most of the time I am playing online I tend to also have the TV on or some other distraction. This is the first and easiest mistake to correct. Though I can't take silence, maybe some music will help. The other mistake is I tend to play in the most comfortable way (bed, couch, etc.) I also think this is not ideal as it makes it very easy to drift off the task at hand and relax a bit. I am going to try and develop a better atmosphere for when I play and try to focus on my state of mind before playing. This will hopefully allow me to examine whether I have the right mindset before I play.

I have been mentioning my home game a bit lately so I thought I would describe it a bit. Lately, we have anywhere from 6-8 players at the game. We play for about 3-4 hours. It's a pretty wide range of players. At one extreme, we have a very loose aggressive player who will raise absolutely anything. You can definitely count on him to do your betting for you. At the other extreme, we have 2 players who are very tight. Basically, a raise from these guys means they are representing a top two pair or better. Though a raise into them with anything less tends to translate into a fold. We also have 2-3 solid tight aggressive players who change up their play throughout the night and generally know when they are beat. The rest are pretty much the loose passive players you would expect at any home game. These are the guys going into the showdown with middle pair and the like. All in all, I think it's a pretty good game. We have a good mix of players to apply different techniques against.

That's it for now. Thanks for stopping by.

How big is it?

2004-09-07T21:32:00.000-04:00

This was a pretty good weekend for me. I recuperated the losses I made last week. Unfortunately, the whole time I was playing, I kept checking where I stood against my losses rather than concentrating on my game. I was still happy to have some winning sessions to counteract last week but I have to stop concentrating on the short term winnings. Definitely far from tilt proof in that respect. Now I just need to apply the same game I play when I am committed to regaining losses to my everyday game. It really becomes a question of gambling. When I am up, I can gamble my larger bankroll and I start to attempt to steal blinds, chase draws, bluff middle pair etc. This, of course, leads me back down and pumps up everyone else's bankrolls. Now, when I am down, I cover my downside, I play good cards aggressively and pull myself out of the holes I dig. The obvious answer is that I need to focus the game I know I can play all the time. The question is how to do that? A couple ideas come to mind. The first is easy, simply putting time limits on my play. That should shift the focus a bit off of my winnings/losses and allow me to look at each hand individually. The second is to look at each of the starting hands I played in that given situation and mark off all the ones that I should have laid down. I've also been reading the ICP who has been covering his stack while he plays to avoid this kind of play. I considered the same but don't think it will work for me. I don't think I have the discipline to not look. Though maybe this says more about my game. Also, I don't think it would have a long term effect. In the short term, I would not be able to change my play based on my short term results but I can't fly blind forever. At the point when I uncovered my stacks, I feel I would slip back to my old ways. I guess let's see what happens with some time limits and analysis. Hopefully that will go a long way.

On a completely separate note, I've been wondering lately why so many people play at Party, Empire, Paradise, etc. I've been playing at PokerStars since I started online and really like their place. After reading about all the other places people have been playing at, I tried some of them out and really didn't like what I saw. So the question remains, why do others play there? The only thing I can think of is the bonuses and possibly softer games. The bonuses I can understand opening an account. But why play there everyday? Just sit back and collect the cash. As for softer games, is this the case? At the moment, I just don't get it.

As always, thanks for dropping in.

It must be the Republicans...

2004-09-02T16:15:00.000-04:00

I had an abysmal night. I was I played for about 2.5 hours and ended down 16BB. For about the first hour or so, my cards were as bad as the night I ended up having. When I did get decent cards, I played poorly and went down pretty fast. This was some of the same play I posted about earlier. I was extending any bluffs way to far and limping in when I should have known I was behind. (probably did know in the back of my mind if I had thought about it) Anyway, this play cost me a good bit when I finally realized that I was playing like an idiot and started paying attention. This is the single weakest point in my game at this point.

A couple of interesting hands came up. The first of these was a mistake followed by a questionable call though I think I played it right (after my first mistake).

The hand went as follows converted:

Preflop: I am in MP with Kc, Js.
UTG raises, 2 folds, I call, 3 folds, SB 3-bets, 1 fold, UTG calls, I call.

Flop: (10 SB) 7d, Ks, Kd (3 players)
SB bets, UTG folds, I call.

Turn: (6 BB) 6h (2 players)
SB bets, I raise, SB calls.

River: (10 BB) 5d (2 players)
SB checks, I bet, SB calls.
Main Pot: 12 BB, between SB and Danny. > Pot won by Danny (12 BB).

Results in white below:
SB shows Ad Ac (two pair, aces and kings).
Danny shows Kc Js (three of a kind, kings).
Outcome: I win 12 BB.

The way I see it my first preflop call was a mistake. With a raise from UTG I should have folded, as he was playing fairly tight (though I hadn't been paying too much attention to him at this point). The mistake was a stupid one in that my touchpad registered a premature click over the call button. At the time though, it wasn't a big deal KJo, while not being a great hand to play in a raised preflop, is not horrible. Then comes the reraise from the SB. Here is where I am not sure of the play. At this point, I am thinking I am probably behind but I have already committed 2SB into the pot. The raise got a call from UTG so we now have 9SB in the pot. At this point, I have to assume the SB has a top notch hand so assuming it is AA I am a 6 to 1 underdog. At this point, knowing that the preflop won't be capped, I can throw away my 2SB or I can toss in 1 more and check out the flop. At some level, I need to discount my mistake call as a sunk cost but I am not sure that it implies that I should not call the reraise. In the end, I decided to make the call and see what the poker gods had in store for the flop. After the flop, I think I played the hand well. A raise at the flop would probably have gotten a call from the SB followed by check-bet-call on both the turn and the river. Thus, I think that call and the raise on the turn were about right.

After that the play went without many interesting hands. I started getting some better cards and was able to claw back some of my losses though I still ended down for the night. My stats for the night proved interesting. Before this I had generally seen my winnings increase as I was in LP. Last night, I seemed to do my best (or at least get the best cards) in MP. Haven't been able to extract enough to detail (or enough hands) to determine if that was just where I got the cards or if it had to do with my play. Or maybe the bad karma from the RNC being caused me to have a bad night. Right...

As always, thanks for stopping by (if anyone is actually stopping by).

Poker Tracker, Play Money, and the RNC

2004-09-01T14:14:00.000-04:00

It's been a very slow few days for me on the poker front. I haven't been able to play all week. Hopefully, I will be able to get some time in tonight.

In the meantime, I have been fooling around with Poker Tracker to see what it offers out of the box and what I can build around it to enhance its statistics. I built a couple of reports and charts off of it using Access/Excel. This is pretty useful and helps summarize a lot of the data in there. While doing this, I started discussing the stats with a fellow player and actuary. The data in PT seems to be somewhat skewed in that you get information on very specific types of hands. Let's take two examples that we discussed. The first is a player who always raises AA and 27o. (yeah, yeah, just go with it for now) In this case, he is not very likely to make it to the showdown with 27o since he will either fold his bluff in light of callers/raisers or the bluff works and everyone folds to him. On the other hand, AA would make it to a showdown much more. In PT we would see that he always raises AA but that he rarely, if ever, raises with 27o even though he routinely does. Thus, you are really only seeing a distorted set of hands. This becomes even more evident when you think about why you would see someone's cards at the showdown. Basically, you are seeing the cards of those people who think they won and those who called because the pot was big enough. Ignoring the second case, as that can be screened based on the size of the pot, you are essentially seeing the cards of bad players since they are more likely to be in the showdown, not knowing that they are beat.

Another area where this skew tends to play a role is around raises in multiway vs shorthanded pots. Let's take a player who raises a good draw in a multiway pot preflop but chooses to fold in a shorthanded pot. In this case, PT will show that this player always raises a given hand. In reality though, he only raises the pot if he is going to get a big enough pot by the end.

Ultimately that leaves PT to be effective only in looking at starting hands in isolation and tracking one's own play against various attributes. Now don't get me wrong. I don't think that PT is a waste of time. Rather, I think one needs to think about the data its providing before blindly following it to change your play. At the very least, it's a good system for players to easily track winnings/losses.

On an unrelated note, last night I was teaching my girlfriend how to play hold em. After going through the basics, she launched up PStars and started playing on the play money Limit holdem tables. After watching her play like 2 hands, I was annoyed and I wasn't even the one playing. I mean seriously what's the point in playing that. I realize it drums up business and gets people interested but these sites should look at hosting these on a different server or something. I mean why waste bandwidth on these games and detract from the connection of those playing for real. In the end, she came to the same conclusion I did and will be depositing some real cash to learn the game at some very low limit tables. Hopefully, she won't become bait and will pick up the game quickly. We shall see.

For those of you in NYC, check out this site. Very offensive but parts are pretty funny. It has been pretty crazy in the city the last few days. It's very odd to see them using city buses to arrest everyone. 1100 arrested last night. Crazy!

As always, thanks for stopping by. Drop me a comment if you have a different take on PT. Thanks to Matt for his input on the thoughts above.

A new favorite

2004-08-31T23:11:00.000-04:00

Iggy posted a bunch of new bloggers today and I gotta say Damning the River definitely takes the cake. This guy's has some great posts with deeper analysis than I have seen recently. Anyway, check out what he has to say.

how can I tell what's attributable to a bad swing and what's attributable to bad play? The former makes me think, I'll get em next time, so just keep going ahead. The latter makes me think, because there is no right time to sit down if you are not a good enough player. The right answer is some of each. Keep going ahead, but practice more - keep thinking. Don't use luck as an excuse to play beyond your means, but don't use bad play as a reason to play scared or doubt yourself completely.
--Derek Slater

Homegames and Protests

2004-08-30T11:10:00.000-04:00

Not too much poker this weekend as I tried to take advantage of the good weather. So I spent Saturday out on a boat enjoying the sun. Sunday I spent a good portion of my day watching the protests around the Republican National Convention in the city. Some pretty crazy stuff going on down there. I have never seen so many cops. At least I know I won’t be getting a speeding ticket this week.

Anyway, I did get to play some poker last night in a home game though unfortunately not in the Monty Memorial (congrats to Iggy, sounds like it was a pretty good time). It was a great night for me there. I was up 32BB! This was probably my best performance in this game (not sure since I didn’t start tracking it until recently, doh). I tried to play a little more aggressively than I have been in the past. That seemed to pay off, though we will see after a few more attempts with it.

One interesting hand to note, our third hand featured 2 players going all in at the river (mind you this was a limit game) with a couple of boats. The winner doubled up with Jack full of Aces (AJo) to the losers Tens full of Jacks (TT). There was a straight and a flush possibility on the board so it was a pretty crazy hand to see go all in at a limit game.

Most of my winnings were on fairly average sized pots. None very interesting to report. All in all, as expected, it looks like the aggressive play paid off especially short handed (5-6 players). Hopefully next time I will join you guys at the next blogger tournament.
On a completely separate note, does anyone know of a forum where people share hand histories to come up with a larger dataset? I would think this exists somewhere though I am not sure since I would think a lot of people would want some anonymity.

What time is it?

2004-08-25T20:53:00.000-04:00

Over the last few days I have been looking back at how I do at various times of the days and I am definitely noticing a trend. My game seems to suffer either late at night or right after work. (not too surprising) I can see the effect of this in 3 places: limping in on questionable draws, continuing semi-bluffs after several calls, and misreading the board (not seeing the flush that beats my two pair, etc.) The last of these is clearly the most troubling and costly. I continue betting into someone who is sitting pretty on the nuts. Interestingly this does not seem to happen in tournament play.

The other problem is that I see myself trying to continue my plays later and later as I try to recoup earlier losses, not wanting to leave on such a low note. This, of course, leads to more and more questionable play.

On the other side of the coin, it looks like my best play comes at off hours. A few weeks ago, I came back from a business trip in Europe and was jet lagged so I kept waking up at 4-5 AM and playing for a while before work. These games and some of my other off hour games seem to be some of my best play. I find myself playing tighter and more willing to wait out for the good cards. Though I also think that a good portion of this "better" play is the poor play of some of the others who are up at some of these hours.

All in all, I need to make it more of a point to make sure I am at my best before continuing my play and being aware of the time. Also, I must learn to accept a bad day for what it is and move on to play another day.

Little Ones

2004-08-25T20:18:00.000-04:00

After reading Sean's post about the effects of television on children, I started looking around for any other news or academic articles. I was very surprised at all the writing out there about how TV brings kids to the tables. I always figured that some kids got through to registering or there parents signed up for them but I did not think the problem was that widespread. I mean it takes quite some effort to start up as it is. Setting up a neteller account, depositing some cash, setting up an account with one of the rooms (yeah, this part is probably a joke). I find it hard to believe that this is so simple. A while back a friend of mine (well over age) tried to get his account going on PokerStars and it took him quite sometime getting his neteller account verified.

The question then becomes, even if kids get lured to the sites, can they sign up? News organizations seem to think so but is this just an emotional ploy to evoke a reaction? I looked for any academic articles or in depth research but never found one. Has anyone ever seen real research or evidence that this is a widespread problem?

Dealer's Choice

2004-08-22T23:15:00.000-04:00

This weekend I went down to Miami for my cousins wedding. Amid all the standard small talk and "I haven't seen you since you were this big" (referring to the size of a small dog) conversations, I ran into a couple of guys who were "really into poker." You know these guys. They are at every party. They are just itching to tell you about how good they are at poker and how they play all the time. At this point I am hopeful that maybe they are actually referring to poker but of course this becomes painfully obvious as they respond that they usually play a Dealer's Choice kind of game involving such favorites as Guts, Follow the Bitch, Anaconda, etc. There we had it. There went all chance of actually having a good conversation about poker. I would think that with the recent poker explosion you would get more people who knew what they were talking about and had begun to play real poker games. I don't want to sound elitist here or anything but while those games may be fun over a bunch of beer to screw around with they are not poker. After a while I tried to convince them that there is a lot more to poker in Hold em, Omaha, Stud etc. Through all this, they mention that they have played a few times on PartyPoker. I would love to meet these guys at a game online. I guess its time to refund that account. Candy from a baby.

All in all though, the trip was great. I mean I can't complain about a couple of days on the beach in beautiful weather. Anyway, now that I am back in New York, hopefully I can turn my attention back and start to post some more interesting topics. More to come on that soon...

Why Show?

2004-08-19T22:30:00.000-04:00

A couple of friends and I went down to AC recently to catch some low limit (2/4 - 3/6) Hold em games. First of all, I gotta say that this recent explosion of poker (the Moneymaker effect) is making it crazy to play on any given weekend night. We showed up at the Borgata at 5 pm on a Saturday and I was 74th in line! Now, I realize the Borgata's poker room is not one of the largest in world but 74th is ridiculous. Needless to say, we didn't wait and headed over to the Taj for a more reasonable 10 person wait for a 3/6 wait.

Anyway, back to my point. We were playing at the Borgata the next day and one of my friends is getting a torrent of horrible cards. It was just one of those sessions where no matter how long we sat there he couldn't get a playable hand. As he got emotional, he started to turn over his losing hands in anger. In one hand, his full house loses to the higher boat and he flips over his hand. While showing it may give him an emotional outlet, what does he really gain from doing this? He essentially is letting us all know that it wasn't a bluff. Leaving us guessing here might be a good idea here since he generally plays without too many bluffs. All in all he took out his frustrations by giving us all the extra information about his hands when he could have mucked it and walked around for a few minutes. Or maybe I am missing something? Do his possible losses due to the extra information out weigh his possible losses if he goes on tilt?

So, why show?

Here we go...

2004-08-19T16:13:00.000-04:00

I created this to have a forum to reflect on my poker play and hopefully others will enjoy it as well. I am by no means an expert Hold em player but I think I can hold my own.

While this is supposed to be a poker blog, I am sure I will stray into other areas I may be thinking about at the time but I will try to keep it relevant most of the time. Anyway, enjoy and let me know if you have any comments, thoughts, etc.