DownByTheRiver

Not Gonna Make My Goals

2006-08-22T23:28:00.000-04:00

My goal for the month was to hit 20k hands since June 1 at a winrate of 6.5 PTBB/100 and to move up shortly thereafter. I'm going to hit the 20k hands easily but I have been on a nasty downswing for my last 3000 hands or so and 6.5 looks like a pipe dream as I am currently under 5. Downswing might not be the best term because as I look at things, it's primarily due to bad play. Reckless semi-bluffing and just horrendously godawful calling. It's basically making me want to vomit just thinking about it. That's about $400 I pissed away by playing bad. It wasn't that long ago when my bankroll wasn't even $400.

Anyway, I have decided I need to recover from this downswing before I really think about moving up so it's probably going to be another 5000 hands or so which should only be a couple weeks but I have to get that winrate up to or at least near 6.5.

Baseball Sucks

2006-08-19T03:26:00.000-04:00

A little more than a month ago I liked where I was in regards to my baseball wagers. I no longer feel that way.

Don't get me wrong, I am not having second thoughts about my judgments on the team coming into the season and I am not having second thoughts about the lack of activity at the trade deadline.

It's just that our bullpen fell to shit right after the all-star break. Seanez and Tavarez have always had their problems but Timlin, Hansen, and even Papelbon have spit the bit in the past few weeks. Combine that with injuries to Varitek and Wakefield and I just don't think there's enough gas in the tank.

My Other Blog

2006-08-19T03:21:00.000-04:00

I have been thinking a lot recently about religion and atheism and have managed to wander from being a lackadaisical atheist who thought relgion was mostly harmless to a more hardcore atheist who sees religion as fundamentally dangerous.

I'm not going to write about it much here because it doesn't belong here, but I am going to write about it HERE.

Trade Deadline

2006-08-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

It's one of the most exciting days of the baseball season. Half the fun of baseball is talking about it and nothing generates talk like trades and potential trades. It's all great stuff.

The Yankees traded for Bobby Abreu which should be a decent upgrade for them. They got Cory Lidle who isn't all that great but better than the drek they have thrown out there at the end of their rotation.

The Red Sox did nothing more than acquire an aging, inexperienced loogy.

I'm fine with that.

The party line is that getting guys like Wells and Wakefield back healthy is better than anything they could trade for, and there's a certain amount of truth in that.

The real truth, though, is that it isn't about this year. It's not that the Red Sox don't want to win this year, because they do. It's not that I don't want them to win this year, because I do. But the Red Sox are building and outstanding young team capable of winning for most of a decade. It's more about not screwing that up than it is winning in any given year. We've got a decent chance of winning by standing pat, and we don't screw up the future by trading someone like Lester or Hansen. It may end up costing us the postseason this year if Wells and Wakefield don't perform. It may be worth it even if it does.

July Goals/August Goals

2006-08-01T10:50:00.000-04:00

To start July I had a goal of making more from gameplay than from rakeback. My rakeback was a little screwed up because I played on Stars some, and because it's bonus time at Full Tilt so my rakeback is lower than normal and I was wondering how I was going to handle it if I ended up in that gray zone where I beat the rakeback but not what the rakeback would normally be.

My rakeback was about $100 plus about $180 in bonus. My normal rakeback is a bit under $300. I made over $500. That's meeting the goal and then some.

For August, I want to get up to 20,000 hands since 6/1 at my game of choice while maintaining a winrate of at least 6.5 PTBB/100. I am at 10,625 and 6.79.

Assorted Crap

2006-07-23T01:41:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted much lately because there hasn't been that much to post.

I'm up a little over $400 on the month so I'm in good shape to meet my goal of making more from gameplay than rakeback. On that note, my rakeback this month is going to be off because it's bonus time, and because I've spent a bunch of time on Stars playing donkaments. I'm at about $140 in bonus and $80 in rakeback so I like my chances.

I've made a couple decisions regarding performance tracking and moving up and all that. First, I'm going to base any moving up decisions on performance since 6/1. If you graph it, my progress back upwards starts around 5/20 and 6/1 is just a nice arbitrary date that comes a little after that.

More importantly perhaps, is that I have decided to ignore hands played at Absolute. I really don't like doing this because it goes against my nature to eliminate data. However, my time at tilt was one massive tiltfest and I never plan to return.

That means that I have only 8800 hands at the $50 NL short games since 6/1 (6.34 PTBB/100). I'm going to have to be aggressive in moving up. I had wanted to have about 50,000 hands before heading to the $100 games but I think that's going to have to be more like 20-25k instead. If I buckle down and put in the hands at the $50 rather than playing around with other games and other levels I think I can probably do that by the end of August. That will probably be my goal for August, get to 25k while maintaining a winrate of 6+ PTBB/100.

The NL Sucks

2006-07-11T23:26:00.000-04:00

Seriously, spot the guys a 2-1 and two outs in the ninth and they still can't beat the AL. Pikers.

Once again the real World Series is the ALCS.

Before the season I wagered $25 each on the Sox to win the division, the pennant, and the World Series. I like where I stand.

House Passes Anti-Gambling Bill

2006-07-11T23:10:00.000-04:00

Click the link for a NY Times article on HR 4411 which would make it illegal for credit card companies to process payments to some online gambling sites, including those for poker.

It also updates the Wire Act to specifically prohibit online gambling and make it a felony.

You can find out who your congressman is by going here and you can find how how they voted by going here.

The bill now goes to the Senate and there has been no indication I know of that the Senate intends to discuss the issue.

However, you can find out who your Senators are by going here. I suggest you write to both your Senators to tell them you won't vote for them if they pass a similar bill.

I Am The Biggest Bankroll Nit Ever

2006-07-07T23:55:00.000-04:00

I played a pot horribly tonight, absolutely horribly to the point where I got pissed off at myself. I decided it was wiser to back off the real money games lest I tilt off a bunch more.

I figured I would screw around with some play money games. I thought stud hi/lo would be a good choice. There were two 10/20 games that were full and a 100/200 game with a seat open.

I decided not to play the 100/200 game because I didn't have enough play money chips.

June Goals July Goals

2006-07-01T00:05:00.000-04:00

In May I set a goal to have an actual documented positive month from game play. I've had plenty of positive months due to bonuses and rakeback and I'm pretty sure I have some undocumented positive months but I hadn't had any documented positive months from gameplay.

In May I failed miserably. I tried out Absolute poker and it's rockishness sent me reeling on frustration tilt and I didn't make it.

In June, I did. I recovered from some Absolute tilt and managed to post a $37.94 profit for June gameplay. That is, if not pathetic, at least a little anemic. However, it is just another step on the journey.

So, my July goal is to continue more steps along the journey. To show a gameplay profit that is more than my rakeback in at least ten to fifteen thousand hands.

Yankee Talk

2006-06-26T15:48:00.000-04:00

The guys from the Lord Admiral Card Club were kind enough to mention my blog on their show for yesterday. This, of course, puts pressure on me to produce content that doesn't suck. Anyone have blog content viagra?

They mentioned that someone is a big yankee fan and perhaps I should discuss the Yankees less than stellar play recently.

I would be delighted.

I am from Boston. I am a Red Sox fan. I despise the New York Yankees with evey fiber of my being.

For the most part, this is because Yankee fans are assholes. No, not every single one of them, but enough of them that that non assholes don't even show up on the radar. The Yankees have been so successful for so long that they attract as fans the kind of people who seek validation in external things. These people actually seem to think that if their team wins it makes them a better person than the people who root for the other team. It's a totally bizarre outlook on life that I haven't seen from any other fanbase.

But enough about Yankee fans, this is supposed to be about the Yankees and their crappy play.

In all honesty, what the hell did you expect? The Yankees are old. Mike Mussina, Mariano Rivera, Randy Johnson, Bernie Williams, an Gary Sheffield were all born before 1970. Ignoring the hitters, that's their three best pitchers coming into the season...and all the rest are either mediocre, injury prone, or both. Eleven guys on their 40 man roster are 35 or older. Their depth is virtually non existent. The end of the Yanks roster is putrid and they have no excuse but their own stupidity.

The Sox have been making a point to get younger, trading for Josh Beckett and Coco Crisp and putting Jonathan Papelbon, Kevin Youkilis, and Jon Lester into key roles. Had the Yankees done likewise they wouldn't be destined for third place this year but they didn't and they are.

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NLHETAP: The Skills for Success

2006-06-18T20:00:00.000-04:00

Over at the NoLimitSpy forums we're trying to have a little study group for Sklansky and Miller's No Limit Hold'em: Theory and Practice. I find that writing about things I'm reading helps clarify them in my mind so I'm going to write about parts of the book and if it sparks a discussion, so much the better.

The Skills for Success
pp9-16

The section starts off with the following:

You can't learn to be a good no limit hold'em player until you understand what it means to be a good no limit hold'em player.

This sounds perfectly obvious but the authors point out that many people--decent poker players even--don't really know what skills it takes to be a good NLHE player. The authors suggest there are five skills:

Manipulating the Pot Size
Adjusting Correctly to stack sizes
Winning the battle of mistakes
Reading Hands
Manipulating opponents into playing badly

They then go on to discuss each skill briefly.

Manipulating the Pot Size:

I have said to a few people that the key to poker seems to be "Don't lose big pots." The authors are, I think, addressing the underlying issue. Obviously you are occasionally going to lose big pots. I am perfectly willing to lose my stack with a full house. Sometimes people have bigger boats or quads. It happens but it's rare enough that you need an exceedingly specific read to not lose your money. At the same time, two pair losing to trips is much less rare. Big Hand/Big Pot. Small Hand/Small Pot. Simple as that.

A couple relevant hands. First, we have an early position raise; hero reraised with TT; a player yet to act re-re-raised; the original raiser called and hero folded. In discussion on the NLS forums, people generally agreed that the fold was good and discussion centered around hero's raise. Some folks argued for a smaller raise; I argued for a call. My logic in doing so was this principle. Hero has tens. He's got to figure he's facing either a pair or overcards. If it's a pair it's more likely to be a higher pair than lower pair. With tens there is a very good chance of an overcard hitting on the flop at which point hero can't possibly be sure he has the best hand unless he hits his set. In our example, hero raised to 4 and the later player raised to 16 effectively putting hero's entire stack at risk. With just TT he correctly folded. Had hero just called the later player would most likely not have raised to 16. They may not have raised at all considering what they actually had (99) and if they did, it would more likely have been to something like 5. That would be a bet that hero could call without risking his entire stack. By raising, he effectively allowed his opponents to price him out of a hand.

And here's a similar hand the opposite way.

Hero is in the big blind with AA. UTG+1 raises to 3xBB. Folded to small blind who raises to three times the original raise. Hero absolutely knows he has an edge here and the re-raise makes it reasonably likely that the small blind has something like KK or QQ and might call off all their chips. Hero pushes, SB calls and shows QQ.

Note here that preflop, hero knows with absolute certainty that he has an edge but he has a hand that is unlikely to improve and if it doesn't then depending on the board his hand may be vulnerable. Hero tried to build the pot when he knew he had the best hand and it worked.

Adjusting correctly to stack sizes
This isn't discussed here in any detail. In a nutshell it's a matter of keeping an eye on all the stacks in play. There's no sense taking the worst of it in the short term for long term implied odds if your opponent doesn't have enough chips to make the payoff worth it if you hit your hand.

Winning the battle of mistakes
Also not a whole lot of discussion here. Basically the point is that everyone is going to make mistakes (note, these are mistakes as defined in Sklansky's Theory of Poker which is essentially this. If you take the same action as you would if you knew your opponents cards you did good. If not you made a mistake.). Your job as a poker player is to make fewer and smaller mistakes than your opponent. You do this in two ways. 1) Limit your mistakes in terms of frequency and dollars (see also pot size above) and 2) Putting your opponent in a situation where he is likely to make a mistake.

I don't think I do this very well. Say you have a hand like JTs and you limp with several others. The flop comes down J 6 2 rainbow or something otherwise uncoordinated where you have a decent pair with a mediocre kicker. You bet and get one caller who has position on you. The turn doesn't look like it would hit anything. A lot of times I end up checking in these situations for fear of being outckicked or running into a slowplayed set. I'm not sure that's good. If you check you're doing two things. 1) You're putting your opponent in a position where if they make a mistake, it's a small one. If they have QJ and check they are making a mistake because they have the better hand and should bet. More importantly, however, you're giving them the opportunity to put you in a position to make a mistake. If they have J9 and bet and you fold, you just make a pot sized mistake. Of course, at the same time if you're betting into a set you're making a mistake too. How you know where you are is not a science and I don't think I am really much good at it.

Reading Hands
There's not a lot of meat here. Basically it just says that it's very important (no kiddin'), that it's about getting into your opponent's head, and quite often an act of balancing probabilities.

Manipulating opponents into playing badly

Manipulating your opponents means behaving in a way that gets them to play the way you want them to play. Put them on tilt. Put them at ease. Get them drunk. Make them feel sorry for you. Make them fear you.

God help me but there are going to be people citing this as justification for acting like a-holes.
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I'm Getting Better

2006-06-11T00:28:00.000-04:00

My biggest problem in this game is the emotional control aspects. I have never been the most disciplined person in the world and discipline may be the one quality a poker player can't do without.

I've been known to suffer from frustration tilt. That is, tilt that arises from hand after hand after hand of not hitting a flop. Pocket tens see a flop of AKQ; AK sees a flop of JTx all the wrong suit. I get frustrated that nothing is happening and try to make it happen and that is a recipe for a colossal downswing.

I haven't done it tonight. I've had two very frustrating hours of play at tables I know I can beat with about eight bucks to show for it. Very frustrating. It hasn't led to steaming monkey tilt. I have felt the frustration but have been able to keep it from affecting my game.

I'm getting better.
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Some Hand Analysis

2006-06-03T00:26:00.000-04:00

Part of the point of this blog is to help me get better at poker by getting me to think about the game in order to write about it. I really haven't done much of that so I am going to try to do a little more.

Here are the biggest winning and losing hands from my latest session. The session was at Absolute, .25/.50 NL on a Friday evening.

Hand 1 is the winner. I am in the small blind with $48.40 and two players have me outchipped including the villain in this hand.

I am in the small blind with 7h 6s. One limper to me, I complete, and the big blind checks.

*** FLOP *** [Ah 4s 5s] (1.50)

I check, big blind checks, villain bets $2.

I call. Now, I don't have pot odds to make this call but I'm not entirely sure villain has an ace and if he doesn't then perhaps I can take it away from them on the turn.

Big blind folds.

*** TURN *** [Ah 4s 5s] [8c] (5.50)

Bingo!

Villain bets $15 which I thought was odd but I raised to $30, he pushed, I called.

*** RIVER *** [Ah 4s 5s 8c] [9h]

Villain shows 5d 8d for two pair on the turn and I double up with my straight.

Now this hand wasn't all that interesting. It didn't hinge on any great read or any complex math but I think it clearly illustrates both the difference between limit and no limit, and the difference between entry-level no limit and "the next level" no limit.

In limit play your implied odds are much smaller so making that kind of semi-float kind of play probably wouldn't pay off. Say I call a $0.50 small bet on the flop. I'm getting 4:1 on the call so the odds are not really in my favor. With two pair the villain isn't going to be willing to cap it very often so while I have implied odds in this specific case I won't have them very often.

Now, the difference between entry-level NL and the next level NL is the float play. I didn't have odds to make that call. The only thing that makes it reasonable is the possibility of stacking someone if I hit the straight. You have to watch out for that kind of thing in NL. My opponent in this hand didn't, and it cost him.

The other hand is my biggest loser in the session. Same stakes, different table.

I am in the big blind with $75.25 and Ah Kh.

Playing four handed, a very aggressive player raises to $1.50 and I just call. Usually I would re-raise here but I decided to do something a little different this time. I don't want to get into big pots, particularly with aggressive players.

*** FLOP *** [Kc 4c Jh] ($3.25)

I check planning to check raise after the aggressive player bets.

He bets $4.

I raise to $12.

He raises to $34

I folded.

Against a tighter player, I would have folded without a second thought. As it was, this guy is very aggressive and perfectly capable of trying to push me off a hand. At the same time, these guys make their money off people who can't fold top pair top kicker when they need to. I decided it would be best not to commit a ton of chips with one pair and no real draw.

For the session, I was up $76.73 over 561 hands for 6.84 BB/100 which is good enough for me.

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Foxwoods' New Poker Room

2006-06-02T19:16:00.000-04:00

Most of the reviews of the new poker room have been positive but not gushing. This one will be no different.

The new room is much larger, which is a good things. We were there on a holiday weekend and only once did I consider the wait time to be an inconvenience. It is located directly beneath the old room sprawled out among several rooms.

The Tables: We had heard tales of gold felt which conjured images of this bright yellow gaudy thing but luckily that isn't what we got. We got a muted yellowish brownish something that I would describe as being cat puke green without the green. It's not really a good thing but doesn't do any harm.

All the seats have cupholders which is a very good thing. The downside is that they are too small to fit the standard sized water bottle that one might bring in from the outside. They're plenty large for cans or the poker room sized waters.

The seats are padded and much more comfortable than in the old room.

Automation: There were reports of automated signup machines, and they were in place but marked as out of order. Similarly, there were reports of buttons on the tables that would enable dealers to call the floor or notify the desk of an open seat. These were nowhere in evidence.

Foodservice: Food service is no longer allowed at the tables which is probably a good thing. There is a restaurant on site which is a dramatic improvement over what was available in the old room. It's not gourmet by any stretch but I had a philly cheesesteak which was passable and my wife had a turkey dinner which was pretty damn good.
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The Semi-Bluff, Plan B

2006-05-29T04:39:00.000-04:00

Just how often does a semi-bluff work for you? Almost never, right?
I'm on the button in a .50 NL Six Max on Absolute. Two limpers to me and I limp with KsJh. SB completes, BB checks.

Flop comes Q 5 4, two spades and it's checked around.

Turn is the 7s giving me second nut flush draw. UTG bets $1.5 into a pot of $2.5. I raise to $5. He calls, damnit.

Turn is the As. He pushes his last $8. He had 6c 8c for the straight.

Yeah, okay hand history posts are lame. It's almost five AM and a classic play just worked beautifully and I'm posting it just the same as I would if I had just used Hannibal's double enveloping manoeuver the way Daniel Morgan and William Washington did at Cowpens.

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Foxwoods--Saturday

2006-05-29T00:48:00.000-04:00

Saturday we checked out and headed to the poker room for a bit more action. I hit the 4/8 tables again and my wife joined the fray for some 2/4.

I ran well and was up two hundred something in about an hour and a half. Then the wheels fell off and I ended up leaving after four hours with six whole dollars in profit.

The memorable hands:

I get aces. A raise to me and I decided to get a few overcalls to build the pot. I got about five of them. I don't even remember what the flop was was but when I raised, the guy to my left re-raises. Turn pairs the board with 4s. I and others end up calling him down as he flips quad fours.

A little later I get both red queens. Flop comes all hearts lower than my queens. Bet, raise, I reluctantly call. Turn is a rag. Bet, raise. I agonize and fold. Captain Crusty the table coach ends up showing down ace rag for the flopped flush.

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Foxwoods--Friday

2006-05-29T00:00:00.000-04:00

Friday we slept in until around noon, probably about ten hours sleep...or rather ten hours of supposed sleep time. Hotels seem to insist on firm mattresses and I like mine very much the other direction. Anyway, we had some room service breakfast and I hit the room. I decided to start with a little 1/2 NL though I have never had a whole lot of luck in that game. I think there may be a fundamental flaw in my live play to the point where I turtle up into a week tight pansy.

After about twenty minutes or so I determined that there were no complete idiots at the table and one guy seemed to be quite good. I pretty much made up my mind that I was going to get deep soon or go play 4/8. Not much happens until I get AJ in mid position and raise. My stack is small enough that if I am going to bet the flop I'm going to be pot committed. Flop comes AJT rainbow and as I'm pushing my chips in I think "I'm fine unless he has KQ." He reraises, all my chips go in and he flips over KQ. I don't improve and I head to the 4/8 table.

It seems odd but the afternoon 4/8 session didn't include any terribly memorable cards or people. It's odd because that was my most successful session of the weekend as I erased my deficits of the two previous sessions and ended up about $130 to the good.

The wife came down and we had dinner and headed back to the room to watch the Sox beat the Rays again before I returned before the end of the game for a late evening/early morning session of 4/8. This one was memorable. I have never seen a bigger bunch of angry nits in my life, starting with this craggy asian calling station. He was screaming at the TV that Foulke sucked while Seanez was in.

Down the other end of the table was the reanimated corpse of Stonewall Jackson.

The guy directly to my left had this look like his skin was a little too big for the rest of his body. It was a little creepy actually. I was more creeped out by him than the reanimated corpse of Stonewall Jackson.

There were a few memorable hands.

I have developed a rule that if there are going to be five or more players in the hand, I will complete from the small blind with any two. I'm sure it is probably -EV but it helps stave off the boredom and I like being able to show down a goofy hand every now and then.

So I'm in the small blind with J2o when the rule comes into play. Flop comes J26 rainbow and I bet, get a few callers. Turn is a six and I bet and get raised by loose skin guy and it's folded back to me and I call. River is a 2 and I check raise, he calls, and the look on his face was friggin priceless.

Another hand, I have jacks and raise. Craggy asian nit and several others call. Flop comes Q46 and I bet and craggy asian nit check raises. Hmm...interesting. He doesn't play queens so he must have either 46 or a set. I call. Turn is a queen. I decide he has 46 and call his turn and river bets and win when my queens and jacks beat his 46. He started swearing louder and switched seats.

The line of the night came from craggy asian nit who said "I was the small blind--I was pot committed." Pot committed preflop in a limit game. You can't make this shit up.

Anyway, I ended that session up about $130. I decided to quit when I called myself semi bluffing an OESFD into craggy asian nit. He of course called me down with bottom pair. WTF was I thinking?

Foxwood Trip Report--Thursday Night

2006-05-28T01:29:00.000-04:00

The wife and I went down to Foxwoods for a few days and I thought I would provide a trip report. We went down Thursday night and stayed through Saturday.

I am going to be writing up a review of the new poker room at some point but I'm tired and lazy so here's a less formal trip report.

We get there Thursday just before the Sox game starts so we hit the room to watch the game. Sox win, life is good. Afterwards, we headed down to the poker room for a first looksee and a little late night action. As I'm sitting, the guy next to me says something to the effect of "What a coincidence both of us sit down at the same time."

I say, "Huh?" and look at him.

Apparently there were two empty seats at the table and we both arrived within thirty seconds of each other. He looks like a tool. He's wearing shades for starters. Ten-thirty, indoors, yeah, nice shades. He's wearing a baseball cap. Not really a problem in and of itself. I was wearing one too. For that matter, we were wearing the same style cap. Green red sox hat with socks logo.

I sit and play a few hands. At one point he flops two pair and tries to "trap" a guy. It's 2/4 limit and he's trying to trap a guy. Whatever. Thing is, he leans over and whispers at me and shows me his cards.

It may have been relatively late at night but all of a sudden I put myself in the shoes of everyone else at the table. Two guys wearing the same hat sit down next to each other at the same time and start whispering and showing each other their cards. I would suggest that people who were actually colluding wouldn't do things to draw attention to all the things that make it look like they might be colluding, but if they have to collude at 2/4 they're too stupid to avoid it.

Anyway, I take the next available seat change which happens to put me directly across from him. Half an hour later it occurs to me that this is exactly what a colluder would do. Who wants to sit next to the guy you're colluding with?

Anyway, the guy is like the poster child for the unmitigated tool. Baseball cap, shades, the utterly pretentious "I'm better than you because I take this game seriously" attitude. He even tried to look cool in checking. He wouldn't just tap the table or say check or anything, he would pause, staring at something, and then, keeping his hand still, he would move his entire arm up and down to tap the table.

I quickly found myself unable to watch anything else. It was a little disturbing quite frankly and I tried to force myself not to watch him which was difficult since he was directly opposite me at this point.

Only one memorable hand. I have a medium suited connector in a family pot. 78 diamonds I think. I flop the flush draw including the 6d. I say what the hell, and toss a bet out there in hopes of winning a big one. A couple calls, a couple folds, and then it's raise, re-raise, cap. Oops. My flush draw just shrunk smaller than Giambi's testicles. I fold. Turn card is the 9d. Three guys cap. The turn card, of course, is the 10d that would have given me the straight flush. Bet, raise, call. Nut flush against second nut flush. Unmitigated tool tells the other guy that he should have folded because there was no way he was getting raised by less than the nuts. It took every ounce of restraint I had to refrain from coming over the table, shoving that gigantic pot down his throat and screaming that he didn't have the nuts and was an unmitigated tool to boot.

Bottom line, 1.5 hours, -4 dollars.

Two cent review of the new poker room: I like it.

World Blogger Championship of Online Poker

2006-05-23T22:27:00.000-04:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

English as the National Language

2006-05-19T21:56:00.000-04:00

If you peruse the right hand sidebar, you will note that I listen to Penn Jillette's radio show. Today they were talking about some Senators who voted for a bill to make English the national language. Jillette, and his goofy sidekick Mike Goudeau are libertarians so their default position is that the government should just get the hell out of the way, and they stuck to that on this issue.

My position is different.

My position is this: What is the fucking point?

The bill, as they describe it, would name English the official language of the United States, but would not in any way prevent the publication of public documents in other languages.

I have to ask, who benefits from this?

Recent immigrants who don't speak Egnlish don't benefit. The bill does nothing to force or otherwise encourage them to learn to speak English. It does nothing to provide educational resources for those that want to learn English. It doesn't save anyone any money by obviating the need for printing multiple versions of documents.

The only thing this bill would do is name English the offical language so the only people who are going to benefit are going to be those who feel they will benefit by having English become the official language. Since there is no money, no goods, nothing of value changing hands here, I am left to conclude that these people feel they are better than people who don't speak English and are looking for some official government validation of that feeling.

Now, before we go any further, let me make it perfectly clear what I mean by "better." In this context, it is a measure of value rather than skill. I am sure that the people who support this bill are not completely without skills. At least some of them are better at something than people who don't speak English. If nothing else, it has to be safe to assume that they are better at speaking English. I have no problem with that. The meaning of the word "better" that I am using in this context relates to value. The people who support this bill feel they have more value either as people or as Americans than people who don't speak English. To put it in absolute terms, they feel that if they where stranded on a rooftop in a flooding city with a non English speaker, that either the world or the country would be better off if they got the last spot in the rescue boat and the non English speaker were left to drown.

Clearly this bill is designed to set a precedent so they can come back next session and argue for reducing or eliminating the things we do to facilitate thing for those who don't speak English. They would be talking about eliminating bilingual education and that sort of thing. In that sense, my conclusion above is facile flapdoodle but really, is it wrong? They do get something that is a benefit in their eyes but it's a benefit in their eyes because they think they're better than non English speakers. This is ethnocentrism at best and outright racism at worst.

Don't get me wrong; I think people who live here should learn to speak English. It will broaden their horizons in virtually all respects. They will have more job opportunities. They will have more cultural opportunities. They will be better equipped to avoid becoming a victim. Making English the national language doesn't make this happen.

My default position is that people who think they are better than other people aren't. I see no reason to deviate from that here.

An Interesting Look at Betting

2006-05-19T14:18:00.000-04:00

I found this at Columbo's blog.

I'm not convinced you need to think that way to win but it's interesting.

Poker, Baseball, and The American Way

2006-05-16T17:08:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about poker, baseball, and the US Constitution. This probably sounds weird, but there are a lot of similarities between the three.

Poker and baseball are both games of controlled aggression. A good poker player waits for a good hand and bets it aggressively. A good hitter waits for his pitch and crushes it. Poker and baseball are games of misdrection. Great poker players won't just play high cards. They'll play offsuit crap against straightforward players trying to get in cheap, flop a monster, and stack someone. A great pitcher throws a changeup when the hitter is expecting a fastball, and vice versa.

As everyone knows our government is built on a system of checks and balances. Congress writes laws, the president can veto, Congress can override, the Supreme Court can overturn et cetera and so forth.

Poker and baseball have a similar system. Everyone wants players who can hit but there is, at most, one DH in a game at any time. The other eight hitters must be able to play defense to some degree. A left fielder may not need outstanding skills but if the shortstop, second baseman, and center fielder are statues then you've got a problem. Similarly, while there is enormous power in betting and raising in poker, much of that power is neutralized by calling. What's the advice they give to aggressive players? "Don't bluff a calling station." But at the same time someone who calls all the time will lose their money to players who play good hands and players who don't play enough hands will lose their money to players who bluff more.

There are contradictions built into our system of government. We basically operate by majority rule through a democratic republic and yet we have built into our Constitution a Bill of Rights that guarantees the individual some near universal liberties. If one person in the country wants to say "The President sucks." then he can do so even if everyone else in the country wants it to be illegal.

Meanwhile, baseball is a team game but at the heart of it is the one on one matchup of pitcher against hitter. Yes, there are defenders involved and perhaps baserunners can assist the hitter but contrast baseball with a game like football and you'll see that baseball is much more individual. In baseball a player can perform well even if the rest of his team does not. In football if the offensive line stinks then the running backs and quarter backs are going to have a hard time performing. If the quarterback stinks the receivers are going to have a hard time performing, et cetera.

Poker has a similar internal conflict. Poker players are taught to think of the game as one long session. Make plays that have a positive expectation and then repeat as many times as possible before you die. And yet, on any given hand the outcome is almost entirely driven by luck. I have seen it described as flipping a coin for a hundred dollars then playing a game of chess for twenty five dollars. If you repeat that every day for a year you find that each day your wins and losses are dominated by the coin flip but over the course of the year it's how you do in the chess matches that determines whether you win or lose.

Full Tilt Poker Mods

2006-05-14T13:50:00.000-04:00

For those of you who enjoy the waffle card mods for PokerStars there is finally a version for Full Tilt which you can find in the 2+2 thread here.

I've been playing around with them this morning trying to find a good table to go with them and I wasn't finding anything. I decided to give it up and go back to the original table for a while so I deleted the table file and realized I hadn't saved the original. Oops. I figure if I open a table it may re-download it. No dice. It gave me a table with no table image. Lo and behold, I like this better than any of the tables I have tried. With the midnight background, the waffle cards, and no avatars, it looks like this.

I tried to embed the image in this post and it got shrunk down and just looked like crap. The table surface has a shadow that's part of the background. Without the table image it's like the shadow provides a table-like image that provides a good enough contrast with the card images but without being a distraction. Me likey.

May I have your attention PLEASE!

2006-05-13T19:20:00.000-04:00

I just hit a flop and bet. Someone shoved all in on me and I called. They had a flush draw. It didn't hit.

Can someone call Satan, he might want to check the air conditioning in Hell.

Now that's an ass kicking

2006-05-13T18:40:00.000-04:00

Absolute has so completely kicked my ass today I have to stand up to take a crap.

Absolute Poker--Site Review

2006-05-12T18:57:00.000-04:00

I've been playing at Absolute Poker some lately, and I think it's time for a review.

The attractions are rakeback and seemingly endless bonuses. They aren't actually bottomless a la Bodog but there is a 100%/$750 signup and frequent reloads. What's more, the bonus is not deducted from your MGR.

The bonuses don't clear all that quickly, 100 points per $10, released in increments of $10 with one point given for each hand raked $.50 or more. If all those hands are raked the minimum, that's 20% of your rake back. Combine that with 28% rakeback and you're doing pretty good in terms of getting dollars back.

The Software is pretty eh as far as I am concerned, neither particularly good nor particularly bad. The lobby is reasonably well laid out with separate tabs for the various games, heads up, tourneys, and SnGs. The tables aren't sortable or filterable in any way and that's annoying.

The tables make no pretense of three dimensions, which is a good thing. There are chairs and avatars which I find irksome. They give you several options for table colors and schemes which is nice.

The betting inputs are alternately excellent and loathesomely bad. The slider makes it easy to make preflop bets in multiples of the big blind. This is very handy. Once the flop hits, the handiness goes out the window as it still moves in increments of the big blind. What's more, if you want to type your bet in you have to backspace over the default bet. You cannot highlight and overtype. You cannot doubleclick to highlight and overtype. You must backspace and retype. What's more, once you have retyped your bet you cannot just hit enter, you must click the bet button. It's very annoying. The buttons, however, are very large to the point where I think misclicks would be damn near impossible. On my 2001fp set at max resolution the buttons are roughly the size of my thumb.

The Gameplay has a rockish reputation which is well deserved. I am finding it very frustrating to play there. I play primarily the .50 Six Max NL and I am down about a hundred in about 4,200 hands. In doing so I have cleared $90 in bonus so with rakeback and bonus I'm a little bit ahead of the game in spite of the losses...which is one of the reasons we get those things.

I'm playing Holdem but it feels like I'm playing Omaha. There are very few big pots and very few medium pots won by anything less than two pair or a set. On the other hand, there are far more pots taken down preflop. I think there are two reasons for this. First, it's a small site that doesn't advertise much outside the poker world so those who are trying to make money with bonuses and rakeback come to Absolute and play like rocks for as many hands as they can stand to play. Secondarily, there's the fact that the table limits are double those at most sites. At Full Tilt, for example the NL Six Max games with .25/.50 blinds have a max buyin of $50. At Absolute the max is $100. Most buy in short but enough buy in for full or near enough that there's a lot more money to be lost in each hand.

On the face of it, this sounds like a bad thing but there's nothing that is all bad. If you are interested in improving your game, I think Absolute can be an important step in the process. It's one thing to beat the buttery games at Party and another to beat the slightly tougher games at Stars and Full Tilt. Absolute ratchets it up a notch. If you can beat the games at Absolute I would imagine you could beat the mid to high games in your local B&M cardroom. As a caveat, I reiterate that I have yet to beat the Absolute games and add that I haven't played mid to high games live.

Game Selection is limited. There are plenty of shorthanded Holdem games, and some full ring Holdem but other games are sparse.

The Rest of the story is a VIP program and store. The non VIP stoer is rather sparse with a few books and magazines (including CardPlayer). It only takes 5000 points to make the lowest level of VIP and you'll make that before you clear your deposit bonus. The VIP store has some tastier items including top of the line video iPods (none of this nano crap) and tourney buyins.

Podiobooks.com

2006-05-11T23:33:00.000-04:00

I love listening to audiobooks. I've got a ton of them on my iPod. All the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, assorted Dan Brown, Sherlock Holmes, Caleb Carr, Simon Schama's A History of Britain, and the first volume of Shelby Foote's Civil War: A Narrative...for starters.

With that in mind, I want to plug Podiobooks.com.

These guys aren't well established authors but sometimes that's a good thing. Basically the idea is that they take a novel, serialize it, and release it as a podcast. It's a phenomenal concept. I have enjoyed listening to some of their offerings.

In particular, I have enjoyed 7th Son and The Tenth Cow.

I have linked them both at the right, and I would encourage everyone to give them a listen.

Roger Clemens

2006-05-10T21:55:00.000-04:00

Every morning NESN gives us a Roger Clemens update. Well Hazel, knock it the fuck off. I am sick and fucking tired of hearing about Roger Fucking Clemens every morning. I don't care if he ever pitches again and if he does, I don't particularly want it to be for the Red Sox.

Poker 101: Situations

2006-05-10T21:42:00.000-04:00

There are 52 cards in a deck and in Holdem, each player gets two. That means there are 1326 different hands you can be dealt. If there are ten people at your table, and because when you have TT it matters very much whether the guy with AA in on your left or on your right, there are something like ten nonillion different sets of hands the players at your table could have.

Nonillion is not something I made up. One nonillion has 30 zeros. I suspect I am not exaggerating when I suggest that a nonillion is more than you can comprehend.

Now, most of these situations aren't very different. The guy to your right having 5s 7c isn't really any different functionally than him having 5c 7s. Still, there are an enormous number of differences that really do matter.

Poker is gambling so the key to winning is to get your money in with the best of it. That is, you get your money in when you're more likely to win than lose. Your job is to figure out when you have the best of it. You can't see your opponent's cards so you have to go by the other things you know:

* Your cards
* Your opponent's actions
* The basic probabilities of any card game

This article isn't going to try to teach you how to do this in any detail. What I am trying to do here is just point out a lot of the things you want to pay attention to.

Position: You hear a lot about position in poker, and with good reason. It's important. It's important because you get to see what your opponents do before you have to act. In it's simplest application, being in later position means you can play more hands. In early position you haven't seen anyone act and there are the maximum number of players left who could have something big. If you're second to last there's a chance the guy to your left has aces. If you're first to act you can multiply that by nine because there are nine guys who have a chance to have aces. Now with some hands this isn't going to matter. The chances of someone having aces when you have kings is slim and if you get it all in preflop and lose, well, you're supposed to lose some of the time. With some hands, though, it matters a great deal. Hands like Ace-Ten and Ace-Jack which are good but not really all that good are hands where position matters a lot. Remember, nine people left to act after you means nine times the chances of someone having aces but also nine times the chances of having kings, queens, jacks, ace-king, ace-queen, or ace-jack all of which beat you most of the time. The bottom line is this; you should be more apt to play marginal hands from later position than earlier position.

Blinds: For the most part, the importance of the blinds is their size relative to your stack and the stacks of the other players at the table. The bigger your stack is relative to the blinds the more options you have at the table. The lower your stack in relation to the blinds, the fewer options you have. Occasionally in a tournament situation, your play will be greatly influenced by the size of the stack of the person in the big blind.

Your Opponent's Actions: Your opponent's actions are the single most important factor in determining what you should do. Yes, even more so than your cards though on occasion your cards will be so good you'll be more than willing to lose all your chips with them. Your opponent's actions will tell you what they have. Yes, people can bluff and slowplay and if you're going to be a world class player you're going to have to figure out when they're doing it. At the low levels, you are best served assuming they have what their bet says they have. Sometimes you'll be wrong and you'll fold the best hand. Everyone folds the best hand from time to time.

Monitor Envy

2006-05-10T11:46:00.000-04:00

I have monitor envy. Look at this. Now you have monitor envy too.

Rudyard Kipling teaches Poker

2006-05-09T21:29:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about it today how the Rudyard Kipling poem "--If" provides a lot of good poker advice. Lets take a look. You can find the text here.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you're playing a tight aggressive game, there are going to be people who get ticked off at you. I once sat at a 2/4 table at Foxwoods and almost every time I raised preflop, it sparked a discussion amongst the two players to my left about how you should never raise preflop. They were obviously intending it for my ears and just as obviously is gut-wrenchingly horrible advice. I kept raising. I left with quite a bit of their money.

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,

Quite often you're smarter than you think. There's a little voice in your head. Sometimes it tells you that the guy down the end who shoved all his chips in is bluffing. It's going to cost you all your chips to call and the mere fact that he can bust you causes doubts. Listen to the little voice in your head. Sometimes he's not going to be bluffing. Listen to the little voice in your head.

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

This should be obvious. Keep folding your crap cards.

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

All this means is keep your composure. When they suck out on you, tap the table and say "Nice hand." Don't tap the aquarium. Don't target a person because they sucked out on you. Don't talk poker intelligentsia type stuff at the table. Maintain your composure. You have no need to prove that you're better than they are. If you actually are better than they are, the money will flow your way.

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,

Don't rely on hope at the table. Calling off all your chips on a 10:1 shot is fine if you're getting more than 10:1 on your money. Less than that, and you're relying on hope. The cards are not influenced by hope. They will fall in the percentages that they are supposed to whether you need that pot to pay your mortgage or not.

If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;

Thinking about poker is good. Playing is how you're going to get better.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

This is all about being results oriented. It's a bad thing. Winning or losing doesn't matter. Making good decisions matters.

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

You work hard to become a decent poker player. You sit at a table and do all the things you're supposed to do. You get all your money in with a straight against two pair. Your opponent hits the 10:1 shot by filling up on the river. Do you run screaming about the injustices of the world or do you pull your wallet out and set to work getting your money back? I throw things but I'm working on it.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

This is pretty much more of the above but instead of having a hand that's a huge favorite you make a great read, make a great bluff that he can't possibly call, and he calls anyway. You played well and lost because your opponent is a moron and you didn't catch the card you needed. Pull out your wallet and get your money back.

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

In no limit, if you lose focus for a second, it could cost you your stack. If you're at the main event of a big tourney and you've been playing for twelve hours you need to be as focused as you were a half an hour in.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;

Be a good citizen at the poker table. You don't have to be everybody's friend or loan people money or any of that nonsense but you should be polite to the other players, the dealer, and whatever waitstaff or chiprunners your cardroom has. Don't be rude to the bad players. Don't make fun of the young kids or old geezers. Don't be a jackass. Don't cheat. Don't tolerate cheating. If someone is new and does something wrong, correct them kindly.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Poker is not a game that requires god given athletic ability. There are innate skills that can help you be a better poker player, from reading skills to math skills to just plain old intelligence but there is almost nobody who cannot become a solid low stakes poker player with study and practice. If you have no reading skills, learn the math cold. If you can't do math, learn the players cold.

And if you're lucky enough to have some of those natural talents then the only thing keeping you from making money at this game is study and practice.

Goal for the Month

2006-05-08T21:16:00.000-04:00

I came up with my goal for the month of May. It wasn't really that hard. Last month I was aiming to get back to even at the $50NL Six Max. This month is simpler, perhaps easier. I just want to win more than I lose. It occurred to me the other day that I can't actually swear that I have ever had a winning month. I'm pretty sure I have, but I have no documentary evidence to support this. Well, I'm documenting every damn hand now, so if I have a winning month it will be documented. Then I can have two winning months.

That was a quick month

2006-05-06T00:59:00.000-04:00

UB pretty much completely kicked my ass today. I have lost pretty much everything I had on there which was "only" two hundred somthing but to lose it in one night is a bit disconcerting. To be sure there was some bad play involved. I don't think you can get crunched that hard without playing a few hands poorly. On the whole, though, this was attributable to bad luck. Kings got stacked by aces twice. A set turns into a boat on the river and that just coincidentally turns villain's two pair into a bigger boat.

I am going to take it as a sign and leave UB, probably for good but you never know. I signed up at Absolute and while my initial reaction to their software is to want to vomit, I shall give it a shot. I have rakeback there, of course, and they have bonii out the wazoo. I figure between them and Tilt I can pretty much never play without rakeback and bonus.

So, I suck at Omaha

2006-05-05T20:06:00.000-04:00

It's a little pathetic really.

Preliminary UB Bonus Month Report

2006-05-03T23:10:00.000-04:00

We're three days into the month. I have played a total of 1125 hands of Omaha losing $42.43 in the process, mostly by being a retard. I have cleared $27.05 of bonus. I am kind of surprised I have cleared that much bonus, quite frankly. Only $1300.89 to go.

May is UB Bonus Month

2006-04-30T13:14:00.000-04:00

I spent a lot of time playing at Full Tilt in April and Tilt is probably going to be my #1 site going forward but they have a general dearth of Omaha games.

I've decided that the way to take a step back is to step away from Holdem for a while. So, for May I will be playing mostly Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo. With the dearth at Tilt, I'm going to be playing a UB and I decided to take the opportunity to do a challenge.

I have $1327.94 in bonus dollars at UB. So the challenge is this: How much of that can I clear in on month? Can I clear more in UB bonus than I earned in rakeback at Tilt?

I dunno. I shall track the progress here.

Poker 101: First, we bust some myths

2006-04-27T12:28:00.000-04:00

This is one in a series of articles for extreme beginners. In this article, we address certain poker myths. If you don't purge your mind of these ideas before you start to play you will lose.

It's All About The Bluffing: When I first told my mother I was getting into poker, her first words were "It's all about the bluffing."

It's not.

Don't get me wrong, if you're going to play at a very high level you're going to have to bluff on occasion or you will get completely outplayed by those who do. Thing is, you're not playing with Doyle and the boys. You're playing against low level schlubs. If you weren't, you wouldn't be reading this. Low level schlubs have one defining characteristic—they call too much. When you're bluffing, you don't want a call. Do you really want to be bluffing into people who call more than they should?

Of course you don't.

Play ABC poker. Wait for good hands and bet them. You'll get called.

Any Two Can Win: People who like to play a lot of hands say this all the time and technically speaking, it's true. It's true in two ways. First, if you can force the other player(s) to fold it doesn't matter what you have. Second, low cards are just as likely to make monster hands as big cards.

There's two problems with this though.

First and foremost low cards don't make many middle strength hands, and those are the ones that win most pots. You win more pots with top pair, or two pair than you do with flushes, straights, and full houses. If you're playing low cards you won't be hitting top pair with them. You'll be hitting bottom pair and you'll have a bad kicker. You're not going to be winning the small pots on the strength of your cards. If you hit a flush it's always possible someone hit a better flush particularly in low limits where players often have an unholy fascination with suited cards.

Secondly, bluffing in these games isn't going to work often. You can't force your opponent to fold very often because they just don't fold as often as they should.

Don't get cute—play big cards.

It's All About The Math: It's funny that there are those out there who think it's all about the bluffing AND there are those out there who think it is all about the math. The latter are more correct but the people who have this belief seem to be the ones intimidated by math.

There is no need.

The math in poker is mostly disguised. If you're playing big cards then you're using math in poker and you just don't realize it. When you hear about math geniuses and poker you're generally dealing with a branch of mathematics called game theory. Game theory basically asks two questions, "What could he hold?" and "What should I do based on what I think he could hold?"

At some point once you get a little experience, you will want to ask yourself what your opponent holds in a hand. Other than that, you do not need game theory to become a solid poker player.

There is some explicit math in poker. It comes in the form of pot odds and the probabilities of certain cards coming to make your hand. These are fundamental concepts in poker but the actual arithmetic isn't complicated and can, for the most part, be memorized.

Poker 101

2006-04-26T22:33:00.000-04:00

By the way, my wife is trying to get into poker. While you and I know that the best way to jump start a poker career is to read a bunch of books, my wife is not much of a reader and studier. How I ended up married to a woman who doesn't read is beyond me but such is life. Point being, I am going to try to write for her a series of articles or essays that convey the most important nuggets of information. I figure I will also post them here on the off chance that someone can get some use out of them. If you have already played a lot of poker, you're not going to get much out of them and may in fact disagree with things I say. If you do, feel free to make a comment, drop me a line, et cetera and so forth.

Poker Wannabe: Consequences, Schmonsequences

2006-04-26T22:13:00.000-04:00

If you're reading this--and chances are you're not--then I'm guessing you might listen to Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio and thus are familiar with Columbo.

Yesterday he made this post in hist blog:

Poker Wannabe: Consequences, Schmonsequences

At least it aint just me.

Have you seen this crap?

2006-04-26T20:59:00.000-04:00

There's this video out there on google starring Kirk Cameron, the guy who played Mike Seaver on Growing Pains and some schmuck I don't know. In it, they are telling Christians how to talk to atheists.

They actually say that a banana is an atheists' worst nightmare. The logic is that because a banana fits in the hand real well and has a nice non slip surface and a easy flip top that it was clearly designed for human hands and because it was clearly designed for human hands there was clearly a designer which must, of course, be God.

They then went on to do some one to one thing with some atheist off the streat and quite frankly I was too nauseated to continue.

The fact that one fruit out of all the edible things in the world fits nicely in the hand is an argument for the existence of God. What, then, about all the millions of things that humans eat that don't fit well in the hand like rice, pineapples, lobsters, and communion wafers? Are they arguments that God doesn't exist? What about all the things that fit well in the hand that people don't eat like, I dunno, penises. And here's the thing...penises are shaped much like bananas. If a banana is clearly designed to be stuck in your mouth and this is proof of God, and penises are the same general shape, doesn't it follow that it was meant to be stuck in someone's mouth? And since it was designed by God doesn't that mean God approves of homosexuality?

Of course not, the whole fucking thing is just stupid.

Rakeback

2006-04-25T23:08:00.000-04:00

I mentioned in my last post that bonuses and rakeback will cover my losses for the month. I have also decided to take a step and become an affiliate for RakeBreak.com. That's where I get my rakeback and they have been good to work with.

They offer rakeback at all the sites you would expect. I get mine mostly for Full Tilt. They can pay you by Neteller or into your poker account depending on which site you're dealing with.

So what does being their affiliate mean? It means that if you sign up with them through a link you find on this page I get a tiny portion of your rakeback. You still get what you're supposed to get but they pay me a small percentage out of their pocket for referring you. I mainly did it so I could get some return on my wife who I am trying to steer to Full Tilt but if you'd like to help out the Human Fund I would heartily appreciate it.

Taking Stock

2006-04-25T21:59:00.000-04:00

It would seem that I suck at poker. It's not just me whining, I have documentation of my suckitude. The graph below represents 22,033 hands of $50 NL 6 Max mostly at Full Tilt but some also at Stars. In those hands, I have lost $658.95 for about 3 PTBB/100.

Twenty-two thousand hands is certainly a sizeable enough sample size even if it does include the growing pains involved in adjusting to a new level.

The latest downswing starts at about 19k hands. That started on Friday night when I came home and pissed away $150 in about an hour by playing like a retard. I followed that with about two thousand hands where I thought I was playing well but looking back I was forcing things. Is this just revisionist history under the influence of piss colored glasses? Perhaps, but I really don't think so. Anyway, I followed that up with a few hundred hands tonight where I pissed away more money just by being stupid. What's stupid? I flop TPTK (with AK of course) and a guy who has me covered pushes on the turn. I have no business calling with one pair and no draw but somehow I convinced myself it was a semibluff with a flush draw. It wasn't, it was a raggedy two pair that held up. Another dumbass hand involved going back and forth and eventually getting it all in with top two on a monochrome flop. Well DUH he's got the flush! A third involved going back and forth and getting it all in with a set against a board with an obvious straight possibility.

Less than two weeks ago I thought I had put that kind of thing behind me. It is a fundamental fatal flaw. You simply cannot win if you put your stack at risk with good hands in the face of better ones. [Edit--I went looking for something on 2+2 and found this.] Secondarily, I think I have had several occasions where I gave away money by trying to force the action. You can't really afford to do that.

So where do I go from here? I haven't figured that out yet, quite frankly. I see several potential options:

Go back to $25 NL 6 Max and play ten or twenty thousand hands while constantly trying to address these two specific faults.
Give limit another trial for ten thousand hands. Limit has always frustrated me but I haven't played it for any decent period of time since the Fall and I feel I have a better feeling for poker now than I did then.
Go back to full ring.
Give Omaha Hi/Lo a more serious shot.

Like I say, I haven't decided which of these I'm going to do. I suspect it will end up being the $25 Six Max but I want to give it some more thought first. Rakeback and bonuses will cover my losses for the month so the bankroll issues aren't pressing.

I figure I can start by taking a break if not from poker entirely then at least from NL Holdem. If I play between now and May 1 it will PLO or PLO8, probably the latter. I'm going to dig out Theory of Poker and read some or all of it. Also, Sklansky and Miller's No Limit Holdem: Theory and Practice will be out by early June. I may just play O8 and $25NL until then.

A Setback

2006-04-22T01:24:00.000-04:00

I have been thinking that I was starting to get a handle on this game. I had in mind the notion of reaching the break even point at the $50 NL 6 Max games by the end of the month. I had been down a little over $600 at one point and before starting play this evening, I was only two hundred something in the red. It was a reachable goal.

Then I sat down and pissed away $150 like I hated money.

I don't understand it. I worked hard to get to the point where I feel like I am competent at this game. I have been playing it for almost three years now and have really started to feel competent only in the past three weeks or so. When I make a mistake, I generally know it's a mistake and I have been getting better and better at avoiding them.

Then I sat down and pissed away $150 like I hated money.

All the stupid things that you do when you aren't thinking about the game...I did. I shoved all in with draws knowing my opponent had top pair and wasn't going to let it go. The fact that my read was correct didn't make me feel any better.

I pissed away $150 like I hated money.

That took something like 250 hands. I played another 1000 hands tonight after that, and on two occasions I was almost back even then lost it again. I really, honestly feel like I played pretty well in those 1000 hands--not perfectly by any stretch, and not as well as I can, but pretty well.

I ended up the night down $145. I took some nasty beats and I still would have been ahead if it weren't for the fact that I sat down and pissed away $150.

I'm conflicted. On the one hand, it makes me sick that I could sit down and play while totally detaching my brain from the process. On the other hand, I recovered from that mentally and played a pretty good game after that despite the frustrations of some nasty beats. On the other hand, I'm still down $184 in my game of choice (up about $40 in other games). And that means that it's highly, highly unlikely that I will be able to reach the break even point by the end of the month.

I am now $458.45 in the red and probably looking at five or six thousand hands in the rest of the month, and that's only if I play a ton over the weekend. I would have to win at over 9PTBB/100 to make that up over 5000 hands. It's possible, of course, but highly unlikely.

I'm not entirely willing to give up on that goal but I may shoot for one or two secondary goals. I have also wanted to get back to even at the $50 NL full and I'm now down just about $40. I also have a chance to be in the green at the 50 six max for the month of April. I'm currently down $180.05 so there's a more realistic goal. And hey, I'd have to reach that before getting all the way even anyway right?

Defending Against Sets

2006-04-17T10:29:00.000-04:00

The guys on Card Club at Lord Admiral Radio were talking about defending against sets and basically came to the conclusion that there's not much you can do and that the donks that call down or check raise with top pair crappy kicker will pay for the times you get stacked by a set. At some level, this may be true but at some point as you move up it becomes untrue.

I recently moved up a level and as many do, struggled when I first got there. One of the big adjustments I had to make was due to the fact that there were a lot fewer total donks begging me to take their money. As perhaps you could surmise, one of the ways this manifests itself is the flop call. It can mean all the thing is can mean in a lower game, flush draw, straight draw, top pair crappy kicker, low pocket pair, and set. There's just more sets and good draws and fewer crappy kickers and bottom pairs.

It is at this point that you need to be reminded of a fundamental fact of poker. You don't win money from the table, you win money from the players. Your second job is to figure out who at the table is an idiot and who isn't. Your first job, of course, is to not be an idiot. Poker reads can be as complex as you want but one of the first ones that has any practical use, particularly online, is this. Does a flop check or call mean he has TPTK beaten? Figure that out and a lot of decisions become easier.

Assuming you have not yet had the time to make that determination your goal is twofold. 1) Make that determination, 2) Maximize your winnings and minimize your losings.

If you look at great coaches, one of the things they do is take away their opponent's strengths. Look at the Patriots in the first SuperBowl of their recent run. They didn't attack the quarterback with a ton of blitzes. They took away his receivers. It didn't mean a damn that he had a quick release and could handle the blitzes because they didn't blitz and his receivers weren't open.

If you apply that concept to sets--or perhaps more accurately--to the people who love them. Their strength is that they are strong and that they are well hidden. They are an ideal slowplaying hand so there are a ton of people who slowplay them. You take their strengths away from them by not betting into them and not raising them.

At the same time, you're faced with the possibility that they're an idiot who is playing a lesser pair. You're not worried about their strengths because they don't have any. They're likely to bet with their crappy kicker hoping that you're going to fold.

The guy with the set wants you to raise. The guy with the top pair and crappy kicker wants you to fold. You can disappoint them both by calling.

One final note, remember the adage big pot big hand, small pot small hand. Top pair is a small hand. Keep the pot small.

I am better than I was a month ago

2006-04-13T22:37:00.000-04:00

They say that the only way to stay alive as a poker player is to continue to improve. Once you stop improving they start catching you.

I haven't even begun to reach the hgher levels of poker studliness but I am improving and I have actual proof in the form of a hand where I made a laydown that saved me thirty bucks.

I get JJ in the cutoff ($50NL 6Max) and raise. Get two callers. Flop comes 4s 7c 6h. I bet, get one caller, and the small blind raises. A few weeks ago I would at least have called and quite possibly raised. This time, I folded.

What, I asked, could someone possibly call with before the flop and then raise on a flop like that? AA, KK and QQ are certainly possible, people are that stupid. The flop is very straight connected of course. And then I thought of the early position caller. WTF? Best case scenario is someone has a straight draw...but with a caller AND a raiser the likelihood of me being ahead just shrunk to nothing.

I fold. They go to war and turn over 44 for bottom set and 35 for the made straight. I patted myself on the back.

Never again

2006-04-09T23:48:00.000-04:00

I just can't take Paradise any longer. I finished off that bonuses they offered me and all it did was serve to remind me that I cannot freaking stand their software. It forces me to play limit and I can't abide limit. I suppose I should work harder at getting good at limit because I feel like a half a poker player without those skills but my god is it frustrating. Today was a never ending streak of people hitting stupid draws. Stupid draws, not reasonable ones. I hit top two pair and bet--they call with bottom pair and turn trips. Stuff like that. Oh well, my $100 bonus cost me $20 in losses over all.

Limit at Paradise Poker

2006-04-08T01:14:00.000-04:00

So I get this e-mail from Paradise Poker saying they want me back and are giving me a hundred dollar bonus to convince me.

I say sure, nothing wrong with a free hundred bucks, right?

I had forgotten just how much I hate Paradise. The software is so goddamn slow and crappy that it makes playing no limit virtually impossible. You can't type a bet and hit enter and have it bet. You have to type the bet then click the bet button. And god forbid you try to use the slider...sliders suck and Paradise's slider is exhibit fucking A.

So I have cleared $30 of the bonus, primarily at limit--which sucks--and I'm up about forty bucks in lord knows how many hands. They don't save them to your hard drive so you have to remember to request them Then th ey put a limit on how many you can request so you have to remember to request them frequently.

Paradise sucks.

Yanks lose. Rex Hudler sucks donkey balls.

Table Selection

2006-04-05T22:06:00.000-04:00

You know, I never worried much about table selection. I figured at the stakes I was playing at, chances are any decent poker is going to make money...and for the most part, it was true. I didn't always--or really often--play decent poker but I think I may be beyond that point now.

I'm playing at Tilt and having a less than stellar time being down about $100 (50NL6). I happened to notice the average pot of one of my tables was $3. Then I checked the others and they were just as low. WTF?

I changed tables to some that were in the 8-10 range and really quickly made up about forty bucks.

Memo to self...pay more attention to table selection.

ZeeJustin Apology

2006-03-31T22:48:00.000-05:00

Unless you have been under a rock or just don't give a rat's ass about online poker, you have probably heard about the ZeeJustin cheating scandal.

He posted an apology to his web site recently and of course it caused a fuss over at 2+2.

In a nutshell what he did was play the same tournament with multiple accounts. In other words, he was paying four entry fees and occupying four seats in the same tournament. He would get four times the hands.

He says he never really thought it was wrong and I really just need to call bullshit on that one. I didn't need to be told that the school administration would look with disfavor on someone driving their car in the sandpits near the school. I was smart enough to figure that out on my own. I did it anyway of course but I was a stupid little punk who didn't give a good goddamn what the school administration thought.

Playing multiple accounts in one tournament is so obviously wrong it shouldn't need explaining but I think I have come to the conclusion that not thinking it's cheating is actually worse than doing it when you know it's wrong. Willfully cheating shows a disrespect of your own skills, your opponents, and the game. Cheaters should never be tolerated because abiding by the rules is one of the prices of admission.

The only way to not know multi-accounting is cheating is to just not care that it's cheating. It's an implicit assumption that the rules don't apply. There can be times when cheating is not right exactly, but less wrong than all the other options. If your wife and kids are going to starve if you don't bring home food money tonight then cheating may be your least crappy option. But damnit, you're not different than anyone else. It is one of the fundamental principles of American society. One could argue that it is THE fundamental principle of American society. The same rules apply to everyone.

It's the logic used by Leopold and Loeb when they killed Bobby Franks for yuks. The rules didn't apply, they said, because they were a higher class of human. It was bullshit for them and it's bullshit for ZeeJustin. No, wait, he doesn't deserve internet anonymity. His name is Justin Bonomo and he's a punk kid who thinks he's a better class of human being than the rest of us.

So I took a shot

2006-03-27T00:08:00.000-05:00

I took a shot at the $100NL games on Stars and it went almost as well as the Bay of Pigs. I ended up losing $520 or thereabouts.

The funny thing is, I don't think I played all that poorly or got all that unlucky, it's just that when I did, it cost me huge.

As retarded as it sounds, I think I have proven to myself that I can play at that level once I address a few issues. I continuation bet way too much for that level, and when I get into big pots I occasionally rely on hope. Hope is a bad thing for poker players.

Roughly $300 of the losses came on three hands. I flopped a flush and couldn't let it go when someone turned a boat. I had kings and couldn't let go when someone hit a set. I got it all in with a nut flush on the turn and someone rivered a boat.

I have got to work on the hope thing. Squash it. Destroy it. Hope = Bad.

The World Baseball Classic

2006-03-22T21:07:00.000-05:00

I loved it.

Sure, it had a stupid name and the timing of it is problematic but all things considered that was some damn good baseball. Most of the crowds were amazingly into it and the emotional reactions from the players says they were into it as well. Yeah, the US lost, and quite frankly, deserved to lose. The game the US won against Japan was pure thievery and the only thing that makes it remotely palatable is the fact that the US probably would have scored more in the ninth if they needed it.

I went into this thing thinking that it would be better for the future of the event if someone other than the US won it. After the first couple rounds I was thinking a win by Korea would be good. It would piss off the Americans, Japanese, and Dominicans and that's a good way to make sure it happens again.

Four Straight!

2006-03-10T23:37:00.000-05:00

Yeah, okay so it isn't that big of a deal but I had positive results at the Stars Six Max tables for the fourth consecutive nights. I made a whopping three bucks in three hundred plus hands. I misplayed one fairly sizeable hand or I would have been up something significant. Oh well, average it out with yesterday and it's still a nice winrate.

If the deck were a shovel I would be a bloody corpse.

2006-03-09T22:07:00.000-05:00

I played 435 hands of Stars $50NL Six Max and made $111.35 or 25.6 PTBB/100. I had quads twice, two or three boats, one straight and several two pairs/sets that won. The memorable hands:

I get KK and raise, get two callers. Flop comes Js 6s 7c. I bet pot, get one caller. Turn is a 5. I bet pot, get raised and we get it all in. He's got 56o. River is a K and I take his stack.

I get JTo in the BB and check with several limpers. Flop comes 9d 7d 8h. The guy to my right bets, I raise about the size of the pot, he calls. Turn is an ace. He bets, I raise, we get it all in. River is a K. He has T6o for a smaller straight.

So for the last three days it's about 1100 hands with a 12.7 PTBB/100 winrate. I'll take it.

Another Night of Stars Six Max

2006-03-07T23:07:00.000-05:00

So I returned to the Stars Six Max tables this evening more to prove a point to myself than for any other reason. That, and I want to make sure I get silver every month and with a vacation next week, my time is limited.

The second or third hand of the night I lose $47 when my AKs goes up against another AKs and he hits a flush on the river.

From there, I recover to finish up $24.20 on the night in 317 hands for 7.63 PTBB/100. I consider that a victory.

The Passing of Kirby Puckett

2006-03-06T23:54:00.000-05:00

It's a damn shame.

Kirby Puckett wasn't perfect by any means. Very few of us are, but for folks my age, Kirby Puckett is an icon of our youth. The 1991 World Series may well have been the greatest ever played.

The Twins won Game One 5-2. The Braves whalloped the Twins 14-5 in Game 5. All of the other games were decided by a single run.

Game Two was tied into the bottom of the 8th when Scott Leius with all of 28 home runs in his career homered to put the Twins ahead 3-2 and Rick Aguilera closed it out.

Game Three went back to Atlanta where the Braves won on a single by unfrozen caveman Mark Lemke. Marke Lemke! What I find astonishing about this game, though, is that Steve Avery started and pitched seven strong. He was followed by Alejandro Pena who was followed by Mike Stanton for two innings each. For the Braves, Mark Guthrie pitched the 10th and 11th and Rick Aguilera blew it in the 12th. Avery, Pena, Stanton, Guthrie, and Aguilera all later pitched for the Red Sox. Throw in a third of an inning by Kent Mercker and that's fourteen innings and a game winning hit by future Red Sox.

Game Four was, of course decided by one run, which was scored in the ninth. Winning pitcher Mike Stanton; losing pitcher Mark Guthrie. And, the game featured a homer by Mike Pagliarulo. No, pardon me, make that Medford's Mike Pagliarulo. But he was friggin' Yankee asswipe quisling.

Game Six is the one that turned Kirby Pucket into an icon. The Twins needed to win or their "worst to first" season was over. It's tied (of course) and Ron Gant hit a long shot to center that Kirby Pucket just robbed him on. Fast forward to the eleventh and Puckett leads off with a dinger to force Game 7. It's like Yaz but with no Bernie Carbo or handwaving.

Game Seven may have been the greatest capper to a great series ever. John Smoltz, Mike Stanton, and Alejandro Pena threw ten innings of shutout ball at the Twins and were simply outwilled by Jack Morris who threw ten shutout innings all by himself. And in the 11th Gene Larkin got his second career postseason RBI and the Twins won the game 1-0 and the series 4-3.

Look at the inning in which the winning run scored in each game:

Game 1 - 5
Game 2 - 8
Game 3 - 12
Game 4 - 9
Game 5 - 7
Game 6 - 11
Game 7 - 11

I don't think I have ever enjoyed a sporting event that much when I haven't given a damn about the outcome.

Kirby Puckett was part of that, and he always took the field with a smile. He loved what he did and it showed. And for that, Kirby, we'll miss you.

Differing dynamics

2006-03-06T23:14:00.000-05:00

I played a little more six max at Stars tonight and it went horribly. I have come to the conclusion that the six max/full ring dichotomy is reversed at Stars and Tilt. I cannot comprehend why this might be but it seems to be the case. Of course, I have a limited sample size so it could just be a load of crap but it seems like players at Stars are much more willing to call flop bets than those at Tilt. I stole a ton of pots at Tilt and hardly any at Stars.

I guess the only thing to do is tighten the hell up at Stars.

That sucks; tight is boring.

Then again...

2006-03-05T21:18:00.000-05:00

With Full Tilt down I decided to play a little six max over on Stars and got absolutely hammered. In about half an hour I lost two thirds of what I had won over on Tilt. The bulk of that was in one hand where a maniac (yes, more than me) happened to have aces when I had tens and the flop was all raggy looking. Perhaps I should have lost less and yet I don't think I played it all that poorly. I think if I had called the turn rather than raising it, he would have shoved all in on the river and I'd have had a tough decision. I may have saved myself some money or I may not.

Tilt came up later, of course, and my WSOP sat was listed as voided. I don't know if they're going to refund the FTP so I can play later or not. If they do I may take the Chris Ferguson bobblehead instead. You can't have enough Jesus.

Apparently I'm Daryle Lamonica

2006-03-05T17:27:00.000-05:00

Being that I am going to be playing a lot of six max to clear some Tilt bonus, I figured I would dig up some pokertracker autorating rules for six max. I chose the set linked in the FAQ of the low stakes no limit holdem forum on 2+2. I ran them on my whole database of six max players and discovered something interesting. Apparently I am what they call Ultra-Aggressor. I never felt like a maniac. A little loose to be sure but nothing insane. Well, apparently I am more aggressive than I thought.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. If you talk to the tournament poker pros they talk about playing small pot poker. They play a lot of pots and try to keep them small so they can be easily stolen. They will bet--bluff if you will--at a lot of small pots while avoiding large ones. If they get involved in a large pot, they have something. I have been trying to play that way at full ring and it hasn't worked. At six max, it seems to be working. It's a tiny sample size of a little over a thousand hands but I haven't gotten particularly lucky. I have, in fact, had a few horrendous beats. And yet, I'm winning at a rate that is fluctuating between about 6 and about 12 PTBB/100. I don't know if this is going to hold up over a decent sample size but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't. Anyway, we shall see.

$50 NL at Tilt and a return to Six Max

2006-03-05T02:13:00.000-05:00

I have had a problem with the $50NL Holdem games on Full Tilt. To be more specific, they have kicked my ass. If I had just not lost all the money I have lost in that game in the past year, my bankroll would be about double what it is now. It has absolutely killed me and I haven't really known why. I have done fine on the $50NL on Stars and I see no particular reason to believe that the players on Tilt are all that much better than the ones on Stars.

The problem with this is that the $50 level is, as far as I am concerned, the cutoff point where clearing bonuses at Tilt makes sense. If you play below that it just takes too damn long. I have come very close to just swearing off Tilt. I would hate to do that because I like the software, I have rakeback there, and I think they are positioning themselves fairly well to be one of the sites that survives the inevitable downturn in the poker world.

I figured I would give the $50NL games one more shot today. I played just two tables, and I was playing well. It felt right. I wasn't making stupid bluffs. I wasn't making stupid calls. It was beautiful. I was up about $100 in an hour or so. Obviously I was running real well. A few hours later I was down $14. Obviously I was running real bad, but I started to play poorly as well.

I made a bad call--two of them really--and was unable to shake it off. Shortly thereafter I was in a hand where I had aces and may have let someone steal it from me. The board was paired and there was a potential flush out there so I think I probably made a good fold but it felt like it was stolen. Those two hands cost me a big chunk of my profits and I just wasn't able to get past them and just play the hand in front of me. That's a bad thing.

Partly as a result of my play I went to the $50NL six max games to change things up. I have often thought that the six max games fit my natural playing stile better than the full ring games. I tend to be a trifle too loose for the full ring games. The problem is that when going to the six max games I overcompensated for the difference and they ended screwing with my game so much I couldn't even compete in the full ring anymore. But that the heck, it's worth another shot, right?

I played about 500 hands of $50NL Six Max and won at a rate of about 6.75 PTBB/100. That's a respectable winrate in NL. Sure the sample size is miniscule, but I am choosing to take this as a good sign. I shall probably be working off most of the rest of my Tilt bonus at the six max tables. It clears slow so by the time I finish, I should have an almost halfways decent sample size.

New Blog

2006-03-03T18:17:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I started a new blog. Why? Because I finally came up with a name that doesn't suck. Okay, maybe it does suck but it sucks less than the last one. And frankly, that's good enough for me.