A Month of Shorthanded Play

Poker has been going well for me. I'm in the midst of my 7th consecutive winning session. My cards have been good, but more importantly, I've had an array of poor players to pay off all my hands. It's really amazing, I'll play almost no hands, and only bet on top pair...for hours on end, and continually get paid off. One guy even noticed this...and said something to me about how tight I was playing...and proceeded to hand me a $40 pot with me betting my ass off the whole way. He mucked, so I dunno what he had, which is a shame.

SPAZZMI: drag ur very good
DRAGONYSTIC: what makes you say that
SPAZZMI: ur tight and bewt smart
SPAZZMI: bet
DRAGONYSTIC: everyone looks like a good player when they hit cards
DRAGONYSTIC: ive just been lucky
(I have no idea why I try and play it off that I'm playing tight, no one pays attention anyways. And even if they are, they don't change the way they play.)
SPAZZMI: im not judging 1 hand
SPAZZMI: been here half hr
DRAGONYSTIC: well thx for the compliment

4 and a half minutes later...

STAGE #162507235: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $0.25 [ 2005-07-30 08:37:11 ]
Seat 4 - TOMPIE $48.02 in chips
Seat 6 - HANZFAT $25 in chips
Seat 7 - DRAGONYSTIC $49.71 in chips
Seat 8 - SPAZZMI $44.43 in chips
Seat 9 - LUCKYBILL $10.85 in chips
*** BLIND [dealer 4] ***
HANZFAT - Post small blind $0.25
DRAGONYSTIC - Post big blind $0.50
DRAGONYSTIC - Pocket [Qd,Qs]
SPAZZMI - Calls $0.50
LUCKYBILL - Folds
TOMPIE - Folds
HANZFAT - Folds
DRAGONYSTIC - Raises $0 to $2.50
SPAZZMI - Calls $2
*** FLOP [10s,2s,9s] ***
DRAGONYSTIC - Bets $3
SPAZZMI - Calls $3
*** TURN [10s,2s,9s,Qc] ***
DRAGONYSTIC - Bets $8
SPAZZMI - Calls $8
*** RIVER [10s,2s,9s,Qc,5c] ***
DRAGONYSTIC - Bets $10
SPAZZMI - Calls $10
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DRAGONYSTIC - Show cards [Qd,Qs]
SPAZZMI - Lost mucks
*** RESULT ***
Total Pot($47.25) Rake ($2)
Board [10s,2s,9s,Qc,5c]
TOMPIE - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
HANZFAT - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
DRAGONYSTIC - Total ($45.25) HI:($45.25)Three of a kind, queens [Qd,Qs - P:Qs,P:Qd,B:Qc,B:10s,B:9s]
SPAZZMI - HI: [Lost mucks]
LUCKYBILL - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
########################################################

He left right afterwards, so I couldn't ask him what he had. I really wanna know too damnit!

Anyways, my BR is over $1600. I'm alllmost to the point where I will feel comfortable moving up. But I want to have a lot of cushion in case I hit a dryspell right away. A bad run where I lose $150 at my current level is gonna be $300 at .5/1.00. And it's never fun to lose $300. Once I get over $2000, I'll be content, and I'll move up...which should be sometime next month. I'm really excited and optimistic.

::

Well, July is almost over, and my first month of shorthanded play is coming to an end. I finally have some good pieces of data to put up from PokerTracker. (These are just for shorthanded play on Absolute.)

Hands :: 9229
Hours :: 114.95
BB/HR :: 6.38
$ Won :: $733.80
VPIP :: 22.22%
PF Raise :: 5.75%
Win % at SD :: 59.04%

Pretty damn good first month of shorthanded play. I expected my results to be shakey at first, but I'm winning at a better clip than at full tables. I must note though, normally I 3-table at full ring, but lately I've been playing mostly 1 shorthanded table, and sometimes 2. Never 3. So I've been focusing more on the play at one table, and getting into a nice rhythm. (Which was more difficult to do 3-tabling.) I find after about a straight hour of play at a single table, I have a good read on most everyone there, and can usually dominate the table. I'm interested in how my results will pan out next month, with this month of experience under my belt, and a few good lessons learned.

I'd like to get my PF Raise up, but I dunno if that's such a good idea. Originally, I was raising almost 8% of hands. But people didn't adjust at all and give me looser calls, even though I was playing a very open game. So in the middle of the month I abandoned that strat and started limping more with A9s, KQo, 55, etc. My opponents play was pretty much the same. And I got paid off no more or less in either case. The idiots at these levels play their cards and little more. So I don't think raising preflop anymore than I am is worthwhile. I do however plan on raising more when I move up, and see how that goes. I may find an equally unimpressive group of opponents who require nothing more than ABC poker to beat, in which case I will back off. We'll see.

Stuff

I couldn't sleep well last night so I ended up reading the last few Iggy uberposts. He pointed out that Lord Geznikor is posting again...which is cool. I saw him awhile ago at the Party tables, but when I checked his blog, I just got a 404 error. GL Gez.

I ordered this Sharper Image sleeping mask (blindfold) to block out the light when I sleep. I just got it today and I'm looking forward to trying it tonight to see if it helps me sleep. Light often bothers me, along with irritating sounds. (I also ordered some damn expensive earplugs.) I'm gonna be like a human sensory deprivation chamber. Hope that's good for sleep.

::

Last night we were 14 handed at Don's Tuesday night game. So we had to start with 2 tables of 7 until we worked down to 10. The first hour I played 1 hand, in the BB, KQo, which I called a raise cause I was sick of getting my blind raised. Didn't hit. We only started with T3000 this time around because there were so many people. After we got to 10, I had maybe T2200, and hadn't won a single pot in the first hour. My BB was raised every single time.

When I was moved to the main 10 person table my first big bling was raised by Tiffany, a rock who plays strong hands usually...so I folded and she showed AK of diamonds. The first hand I got to play I was on the button with A5s in diamonds. Flop hit 2 diamonds. Checked around. Turn game me a straight draw and there was a bet and a call, so I decided to gamble and call, and Ryan called behind me. River bricked out of course, and I mucked. Ryan showed a smaller flush draw to me.

I was card dead for the next hour as well, didn't play any more pots until I find AKo UTG. I move in my pathetic stack and it folds around to Greg, who agonized over folding. He asked me "you haven't played a hand yet?" I shoulda pointed out that I just played A5, maybe that would have gotten a call. He folded an ace...which I found very surprising. But I was more than happy to take down the uncontested pot.

Another orbit later Tiffany raised my big blind again. Yargh. Gotta fold. Shows me AKs again. Good hand. My stack is dwindling, and I'm just looking for anything to move in with now.

Then the following hand comes up. Dan raises either UTG or UTG+1, the guy to my right moves in and I look down at JJ. I, of course, have no choice in this matter...and move in myself. He shows TT and I get a much needed double up. Glad I didn't have to race against KQ or some shit. So after 2 hours or so of just sitting around...I have more chips than I started with. Amazing what tight play can do for ya.

After the J's, it was back to card dead. 92 in consecutive hands, 63, 62, a bunch of K2, Q4 and J5's. I decided I was gonna wait for a hand to bust out on. It was unruly hot in Don's house. No AC, must've been atleast 85, probably more. The game was slow paced too. But it didn't get me undisciplined. I was happy about that atleast. In the background Ryan wouldn't stop the table chatter. Nonstop bs spewing out of his mouth for 3 hours. That also didn't bother me. I just ignore him now anyways. He's chatty when he gets chips...and ultra quiet when he's losing. Doesn't know how to play without letting his feelings get the best of him, which actually worked out good for him this week.

Several more people bust and we're down to 7 players. Ryan raises my big blind and I look down at KJ. He raised enough to pot commit himself, so if I play, I'll be playing for all my chips. I figure KJ to be the best hand here, but know I can find a better spot, and the blinds aren't eating me alive or anything. So I fold, he shows J7. (We fox hunt, he hit his 7.) I'm still happy with my fold even though I had him dominated. I was hoping to set up a play later on when I would need a double up.

In the SB that very same orbit I find QJs. Everyone folds to me and I complete the blind. Greg is on my left and he moves in on me. I was about to throw it away, but not this time. I was sick of people stealing my blinds, and I had a feeling he was uberweak, so I call. Let's gamble!

I wasn't gambling at all it turns out, he had J5o. And my hand held up. I got another double up and had about T5500 in chips.

We got down to 5 players and I wasn't seeing much. I raised one pot with 88 and Jim called. He took it down with AK on the flop. Another hand I limp in the SB with A3s. Ryan raises, and I fold showing him the ace. I guess this pissed him off cause he slammed down his ace and got out of his seat. Then said something like "show your other card big man," so I showed him my 3 and he SLAMMED his jack down real loud right in front of me. At this point I wanted to find a lead pipe and knock his fucking head off for getting in my face. The fact that he talks about my table manners is laughable. Wow! You got a better ace in the BB when I got an ace. Who cares, why the fuck do you think I folded my weak ace?

A few hands later Ryan raises it up and gets called by Dan and Jim. Ryan instantly moves all in on the flop (even though it wasn't his turn.) Flop was Jxx. With about 3x as many chips as Ryan, Dan folds his top pair here. What?! Ryan gets yet another gift. Turn would've made Dan 2 pair, and I think even if Ryan did have an overpair (which he didn't) he still woulda lost. What's the point of calling a preflop raise with J8 if you aren't gonna call after hitting top pair? I don't understand this play. What's amazing is, this is the same player who calls me all the way down to the river and then all in a few months ago with third pair, for all of his chips. So lemme get this straight...you call a tight players all in for all your chips with third pair, but throw away top pair against Ryan the maniac, who had been raising damn near every single pot, and moving in on almost every flop, when you have him outchipped by a ton? Uhhhhh....ok. (I'm extra pissed about this cause he woulda busted Ryan out in 5th and I woulda made money, AND ryan wouldn't have gotten so many TLB points.)

Ryan amassed quite a few chips after this by stealing blinds. I can't knock this style of play against those passive players. They don't know how to adjust. He could raise 5 pots in a row and they still won't looses up their calling standards.

Anyways, An orbit later I pick up 8s6s in the BB. Flop brings 2 spades and it's checked around. Turn brings the third spade, completing my flush, and I make a pot sized bet. Jim moves all in, and I called. (I can't lay down a flush here on an unpaired board, 5 handed.) Jim shows Ks4s for a higher flush. That was it for me.

Ryan needles me afterwards saying something like "it's been a while since you've won over here." Not really, but donkeys always focus on the short term.

And each of the last 3 weeks I've gone bust on a hand which anyone else would have gone bust on as well. How can I fold a flush here? The week before I flopped 2 pair and Reid called my all in with a draw and hit. WTF can I do? The week before that I moved in with 2 pair again and got called by Majdi's top pair and got rivered. WTF can I do? That's the nature of poker. All the variables in the game can come about in such away that you can easily go 4 tourneys without making the money. With really bad luck you can go twice that amount. And if you are a bad player on top of that, you could miss the money even more than that! I'm happy with the way I've played, that's all I care about (and all I can do.)

Focusing on shortterm results is a waste of time...and what poor players tend to do anyways. I can't count the number of times I've seen a complete donkey destroying a table online, talking about how much he's won that week. Only to lose it all back to "bad beats" later on.

I read from a few places that only between 7.5-8% of online players finish the year in black (meaning they win money for the year.) Of course if you took a poll in any poker room, almost half the players would say they make money playing poker. That's why the game of poker is so alluring. It sure looks like a lot of people are winning. The reason for this is humans like to focus on shortterm results, and forget about all the other times in the past when they've lost.

I had more to write, but I'm hungry and it's time for breakfast.

2nd Lifetime Royal

Ok, this is a bit odd. For starters, my other royal flush was in clubs. 2, the flop came down exactly the same, aside from me having KJ of clubs. I flopped the nut flush with a straight flush draw, and hit the 1 outer on the turn in both royal's I've had. And both times the board had a paired face card. 3, I was just thinking before this session..."it's been a while since I've had a royal." Weird.

Addendum: After a lot of searching, I found my first Royal Flush hand history. The reason it was so hard to find was because I purged all my tournament hands long ago. So I had to physically go through a .txt file with 12,000 hands in it. But I found it! I thought I had KJ of clubs, I was wrong, it was QT of clubs. But look how identical both situations are. Rigged.
PokerStars Game #734469446: Tournament #2793518, Hold'em No Limit - Level XIV (2000/4000) - 2004/10/01 - 02:09:57 (ET)
Table '2793518 94' Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: jouwstrm (183808 in chips)
Seat 2: TheGeneral83 (24014 in chips)
Seat 3: Dragonystic (101214 in chips)
Seat 5: SallyDoppler (106748 in chips)
Seat 6: SCmachine (83273 in chips)
Seat 7: DeadHead0316 (58378 in chips)
Seat 8: chubbybatboy (25236 in chips)
Seat 9: threes (36790 in chips)
jouwstrm: posts the ante 200
TheGeneral83: posts the ante 200
Dragonystic: posts the ante 200
SallyDoppler: posts the ante 200
SCmachine: posts the ante 200
DeadHead0316: posts the ante 200
chubbybatboy: posts the ante 200
threes: posts the ante 200
SCmachine: posts small blind 2000
DeadHead0316: posts big blind 4000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Dragonystic [Tc Qc]
chubbybatboy said, "oh, I am back with my friends"
chubbybatboy: folds
threes: folds
jouwstrm: folds
TheGeneral83: folds
Dragonystic: raises 4000 to 8000
SallyDoppler: calls 8000
SCmachine: folds
DeadHead0316: folds
*** FLOP *** [Jc Ac Ks]
Dragonystic: checks
SallyDoppler: bets 8000
Dragonystic: raises 12000 to 20000
SallyDoppler: calls 12000
*** TURN *** [Jc Ac Ks] [Kc]
Dragonystic: checks
SallyDoppler: bets 16000
Dragonystic: calls 16000
*** RIVER *** [Jc Ac Ks Kc] [3d]
Dragonystic: bets 57014 and is all-in
SallyDoppler: folds
Dragonystic collected 95600 from pot
Dragonystic: doesn't show hand
Dragonystic said, "royal flush"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 95600 Rake 0
Board [Jc Ac Ks Kc 3d]
Seat 1: jouwstrm folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: TheGeneral83 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Dragonystic collected (95600)
Seat 5: SallyDoppler (button) folded on the River
Seat 6: SCmachine (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: DeadHead0316 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: chubbybatboy folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: threes folded before Flop (didn't bet)

AA Drowns Again

In a previous post I posted about AA getting cracked all in preflop. That shit happens, what can you do?

What I don't understand is this. I just lost with AA all in preflop again. I've had AA 33 times over the past month. The 2 biggest pots I've played, I've lost with AA. Both times I was all in preflop. This always seems to happen. The biggest pots are the ones where I take the worst beats. Why is that?

And that is not merely confirmation bias. I'm looking at my PT data, and speaking of facts. The biggest pots I play...I get screwed.

STAGE #160190621: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $0.25 [ 2005-07-25 22:25:21 ]
Seat 2 - DRAGONYSTIC $33.35 in chips
Seat 3 - JANCHAN $53.79 in chips
Seat 5 - JVNF18 $29.55 in chips
Seat 6 - SWANSON69 $19.50 in chips
Seat 7 - MATDON460 $91.62 in chips
Seat 8 - WRESTLING189 $27.50 in chips
*** BLIND [dealer 3] ***
JVNF18 - Post small blind $0.25
SWANSON69 - Post big blind $0.50
DRAGONYSTIC - Pocket [Ad,As]
MATDON460 - Folds
WRESTLING189 - Folds
DRAGONYSTIC - Raises $0.50 to $2
JANCHAN - Folds
JVNF18 - All-In(Raise) $1.75 to $29.55
SWANSON69 - Folds
DRAGONYSTIC - Calls $27.55
*** FLOP [Qs,2d,9s] ***
*** TURN [Qs,2d,9s,6s] ***
*** RIVER [Qs,2d,9s,6s,10c] ***
DRAGONYSTIC - Show cards [Ad,As]
JVNF18 - Show cards [10h,10s]
*** RESULT ***
Total Pot($59.60) Rake ($2.95)
Board [Qs,2d,9s,6s,10c]
DRAGONYSTIC - HI:One pair, aces [Ad,As - P:As,P:Ad,B:Qs,B:10c,B:9s]
JANCHAN - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
JVNF18 - Total ($56.65) All-In HI:($56.65)Three of a kind, tens [10h,10s - P:10s,P:10h,B:10c,B:Qs,B:9s]
SWANSON69 - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
MATDON460 - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
WRESTLING189 - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
########################################################

Silly me, I thought I was busting out of this losing streak.

Art of the Week, 7

Fantasyscene - The Valley by Nicklas Forsberg

No Thank You

Revenue just from having a blog? What could be better? Oh, wait, if that wasn't a lie.

No, you aren't gonna make money from this. I didn't really think about it until I read Mean Gene's post about him taking it off his site. Yeah, if his blog can't make any money off it, one that is 10x more read than mine, than mine can't either. It's amazing I didn't think about it when I signed up...it was just something to put on my blog I suppose. But it's really quite a scam. They get tons of free advertisements on millions of websites. How much do they pay out for this? Well, aside from absolutely huge sites which get lots of traffic, zilch I'm sure.

Even Iggy barely makes any money off of his affiliate links. Bill Rini has an interesting article about blogging and affiliate programs; basically that it is completely futile. It sure would be nice if I could make money from writing in this here blog...but I don't have any delusions that that is gonna ever happen...atleast not from affiliate programs. I'm gonna remove my Party links on the side.

This is the weather for tomorrow. I did have plans to do a few errands I've had to do for a while, but I think instead I'm gonna sit in front of my air conditioner for 14 straight hours and play online poker.

For someone in a southwestern state, you may think something like "98, that's nothing." I can't deny that it's still much lower than the 100+ degree weather they have been having lately, but they don't have the humidity. A hot humid day, like tomorrow is gonna be, is one of the worst things. You feel like your living underwater walking around outside, the air is so thick and stiffling. I heard the heat index for today was over 110. I can't imagine what it's gonna feel like tomorrow. Ugh.

::

In a previous post I asked for some sort of divine intervention to break me outta this rut. I'm not much of a religious person, in fact, I'd most closely align myself with atheists if I had to choose (but I really think there probably is some sort of creator...whatever that means,) but for some reason, right after I posted that blog entry my luck turned around. I took down a monster pot down from a guy who couldn't get away from AK after hitting a K. I flopped a set of tens and got his entire $100 stack. And I took down several more large pots throughout the night. Almost makes ya wonder...

::

I've been thinking a lot about my future, and poker...and just how long I'm gonna do this for a living, and how I'm ever gonna move up to higher stakes, and what I want to become as a poker player.

I must say, I'm very happy with where I am at, in terms of skill, at this point. There's always more to learn, but I'm getting to a point where I feel like I can't learn much more from books...that I have to play tougher opponents, and continue to learn at the table. That may sound rather arrogant, but I don' t intend it to be. I feel now that I've learned a lot more about the game, that there was a lot that couldn't be taught in books anyways. Even if I do read something in a book, you gotta put in the hours at the table to learn how to masterfully apply what you learn.

I noticed this because I've read a few books recently, and realized that it wasn't for me anymore. I knew everything I was reading, atleast implicitly. Really what makes a player good is observing opponents and adjusting to each different player as best as possible. After you learn how to play fundamentally solid poker, this is the next step. This is where I feel like I am at now. Like I no longer have to ponder too much about what the correct move, in most situations. That I have to learn exactly what type of player I'm dealing with, and how is he playing today, and whether or not he is on tilt. And if he is a solid player, did he bring his A game today? Or is he being a little loose, and getting too much involved. These are often a good target for playing big pots. Solid players who are a little bit off their game can be remarkably easy to trap if you can get em leaning the wrong way. Show em one bluff, tilt em a little...and hope you hit a set in the next half hour to play a pot with. That is often a move I like to make if I think it will work.

Anyways...I read a post by Bill Rini saying that this upcoming year should be the year of the blogger. I'm hoping and thinking this is gonna be the year for me atleast. I'm at a point where I think I should be able to win a satellite and play in a few WPT events...if not the Big One, next year. I realized a few things have to change about my current circumstances if this is gonna happen.

Mainly, I need to have a bigger bankroll. And I have figured out what I'm gonna do. I know I'm a winning player, I've proven that to myself again and again. I haven't had a losing month this entire year. And I've only had 1 losing month in the 12 months that I have played. I don't think I ever will again either. (Unless I get up real! high and am playing in 100/200 NL at Bellagio or some crazy shit.)

So what I'm gonna do is not cash out my online bankroll at all. Thankfully I have a little bit of money saved up, and I'm gonna live off of that while I build a bankroll. Right now I have $1400 and I'm playing .25/.50 NL. I want to work that up to $2500 and start playing .50/1.00 NL. I think I can make pretty much the same hourly rate (so twice as much money.) The players are NOT better at all from what I've seen. In fact, many of my opponents in the .25/.50 move up to play .50/1.00 on occasion. Also, I used to play .50/1.00 NL on PokerStars half a year ago, and I was a winning player then...and I'm a much better player now!

Once I move up I want to build my bankroll up to $5,000 through the generous Absolute bonuses, and then I'm gonna move it all over to play the shorthanded tables on PokerStars. I want to do this for a few reasons. 1) They have a constant stream of new players on their site, while Absolute can sometimes get full of rocks. There's plenty of fish, but not nearly as many as PS has. 2) PS gives you FPP's while you play, which can be used to play in satellites for WPT/WSOP events, as well as their $500,000 Guaranteed tourney. I want to start playing that every week. 3) I want to mix up my ring play with tournaments on occasion, and PS has the best tournaments. Lastly, I want to start making my move up to 1/2NL and hopefully 2/4NL by the end of the year. And PS has plenty of players, while Absolute does not really run many tables (if any) at those NL stakes.

I think I can do it. Just don't know how long it's gonna take...but I'll be sure to write about it in here. Wish me luck!

Hand History Disection, 1

I realize, for a poker blog, that my writings often lack poker content. So I want to get back in the habit of writing about poker strategy on here. I hope to both share some of my knowledge about the game, as well as learn things myself. Replaying key pots is a good way to learn from your mistakes, and grow as a player. And it's often better to do it after some time has passed, so your prejudices surrounding the hand (being on tilt, being tired) have faded away, and a more nonbiased review of the hand can be made. So here goes. I encourage anyone to comment with questions, or just remarks regarding the way I view these hands.

STAGE #159132162: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $0.25 [ 2005-07-23 22:47:28 ]
Seat 3 - LGKEEPER $18.75 in chips
Seat 4 - LEVI0197 $26.87 in chips
Seat 5 - DRAGONYSTIC $37.25 in chips
Seat 6 - IPLAYRAGSTOO $49.17 in chips
Seat 7 - GCADEHOE $21.15 in chips
Seat 9 - SOUTHPAWUGA $15.55 in chips
*** BLIND [dealer 3] ***
LEVI0197 - Post small blind $0.25
DRAGONYSTIC - Post big blind $0.50
DRAGONYSTIC - Pocket [Qh,Qc]
IPLAYRAGSTOO - Raises $0.50 to $1.50

Here I find the Hilton Sisters in the big blind and UTG has raised 3x. I've played with this player before, and he is fairly solid, but doesn't have any problems with gambling from what I've seen. He could have pretty much anything, but my gut says he's strong. He did raise UTG afterall.

GCADEHOE - Folds
SOUTHPAWUGA - Folds
LGKEEPER - Folds
LEVI0197 - Folds
DRAGONYSTIC - Calls $1

Everyone folds to me, and I decide to simply call here. There are quite a few ways I could play this here...reraising is definetly a viable option. QQ is likely the best hand...but I don't particularly like to reraise here for a few good reasons.

1) If I reraise him, and he comes over the top, I'll be all but forced to throw my hand away without even getting to see a flop. That's not something I want to do here. If he is on a big hand, I'd like a chance to take down a big pot if I'm able to hit a Q on the flop.

2) If he isn't on much of a hand, then all I will win is the blinds and his $1.50. Again, I'd rather try and win a large pot with QQ, or get some kind of value for my hand. If he's on AK or AQ and the board hits Qxx or better yet, AQx, there's no way he'll be able to get away from his hand.

3) If the board hits AKx, Axx, or Kxx, I can still get away from my hand rather cheaply. But if I reraise him and he calls preflop, the pot will be substantially larger, and I won't want to give it up so easily if an overcard hits. I could lose all my chips if I make a bad read.

So I think calling is the best thing given the circumstances.

*** FLOP [4s,7c,2h] ***
DRAGONYSTIC - Checks
IPLAYRAGSTOO - Bets $2.50

I could bet out, but if he missed the flop completely, I'm likely to only get the $4 in the pot if I bet. Plus he raised preflop, and is the type of player who follows his preflop raises up with a flop bet, and I'd like to get some value for my QQ.

DRAGONYSTIC - Raises $2.50 to $7

I check raise him to $7. This is intended to do a few things. One, I want to see where I am at in the hand. Does he really have a big hand, or is he just on a good ace. Often times this check raise will win the pot from non-donkey players who missed the flop. I don't have this guy pegged as a donkey, so if he plays back I'll have to assume he has some type of hand, or I'll win the pot.

IPLAYRAGSTOO - Raises $4.50 to $14

Whoops. Now I'm in a quandry. He has a hand, that much I can be sure of, but there still are a ton of hands which he could have that I can still beat. JJ - 88 is the most likely hand he could have that I could beat. And I still lose to AA and KK.

$14 is 1/3 of my stack, so it's pretty much now or never. If I call this bet, I might as well push. I'm not gonna call down here and try and hit my 2 outer.

I replay what I know...he raised UTG, he bet out after I checked, and reraised my check raise. When you put it that way, it seems almost certain that he does indeed have A's or K's.

DRAGONYSTIC - Folds
IPLAYRAGSTOO - returned ($7) : not called

I tell the guy that I had QQ and he decided to be nice and show.

*** SHOW DOWN ***
IPLAYRAGSTOO - Show cards [Ad,Ac]
*** RESULT ***
Total Pot($17.25) Rake ($0.85)
Board [4s,7c,2h]
LGKEEPER - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
LEVI0197 - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
DRAGONYSTIC - Folded on the FLOP
IPLAYRAGSTOO - Total ($16.40) HI:($16.40)One pair, aces [Ad,Ac - P:Ad,P:Ac,B:7c,B:4s,B:2h]
GCADEHOE - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
SOUTHPAWUGA - Folded on the POCKET CARDS

So I made a good laydown, he indeed did have aces.

That is not to say he couldn't have had JJ, for instance. It's likely he would have played the hand exactly the same with JJ. So it's not a clear cut laydown. Poker is rarely that easy, but I'm happy with the decision and even happier with the result. These kind of hands are where you really can make your money against low stakes holdem players. Most of your opponents will call you in this situation with QQ. And as Mike Caro says, your bankroll knows no difference between saving money by folding a losing hand and taking down a pot with a winning hand. Feels a little different, (which is why most opponents can't lay this down) but the money is the same.


STAGE #148844817: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $0.25 [ 2005-07-03 12:53:27 ]
Seat 2 - LIBERATOR111 $19.25 in chips
Seat 3 - JOSHPITT $104.75 in chips
Seat 4 - AGASSI08 $100 in chips
Seat 5 - DRAGONYSTIC $70.57 in chips
Seat 7 - PTEARGRIFIN $63.35 in chips
Seat 9 - WIREYSPINDEL $85.73 in chips
*** BLIND [dealer 2] ***
JOSHPITT - Post small blind $0.25
AGASSI08 - Post big blind $0.50
DRAGONYSTIC - Pocket [Js,Jh]
DRAGONYSTIC - Raises $0.50 to $2

Here I am with pocket jacks UTG. Now I raise 4x anytime I raise, standard. That way my opponents can never put me on a hand. I must note that I had been running a little cold and was a bit on tilt here. I was also not thinking nearly enough about the hands I was involved in.

PTEARGRIFIN - Calls $2
WIREYSPINDEL - Folds
LIBERATOR111 - Folds
JOSHPITT - Calls $1.75
AGASSI08 - Folds

I got 2 callers, which I wasn't thrilled about, since JJ does rather poorly 3way. But I got a nice flop.

*** FLOP [9h,10d,3h] ***
JOSHPITT - Checks
DRAGONYSTIC - Bets $3

$3 was about half the pot, but I didn't want to scare anyone out if they were holding a ten.

PTEARGRIFIN - Folds
JOSHPITT - Raises $3 to $15

This should have been it for me right here. A $12 raise is rather substantial, but not only that, I had notes on this guy, he's a very solid player! But that paranoid little voice in my head was saying "he's bluffing you, cause he knows you'll fold." And I was feeling stubborn. Doesn't he know I have an overpair? How dare he push me around! I instantly reraised him.

DRAGONYSTIC - Raises $12 to $30
JOSHPITT - Raises $15 to $91

Wow, another reraise. There's no way in hell my hand is good. But I just couldn't let it go for some reason. This is a product of being on tilt and running cold. I had an overpair, which was one of the best hands I've seen in a while. How often do you catch a nice flop like that with jacks? No A, K or Q...I think it hynotized me. Despite being given yet another chance to fold this hand, I call.

DRAGONYSTIC - All-In $38.57
JOSHPITT - returned ($22.43) : not called
*** TURN [9h,10d,3h,6c] ***
*** RIVER [9h,10d,3h,6c,10h] ***
JOSHPITT - Show cards [3c,3d]
DRAGONYSTIC - Show cards [Js,Jh]

A set, of course. What else could he have here? He's a tight-solid player, he's not gonna get his chips in with AT. And that's about the only hand I can beat here. What was I thinking!

But I learned a very valuable lesson on this hand, and atleast I can take something away from this abysmal play.

Well, that's all for now. I'm gonna try and post these disections every week...and hopefully generate a little discussion. If nothing else, perhaps a few people will learn from my mistakes/good plays. Happy gambling.

Dear God...

This is Adam, please send help.

My bad luck streak is now going on 3 weeks. It just doesn't seem to end. First hand I sat down with tonight I find AA. All in preflop against J9...you know what happens.

STAGE #158243965: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $0.25 [ 2005-07-22 04:07:06 ]
Seat 1 - TALKIZCHEEP $15.75 in chips
Seat 3 - IRISHBALLA35 $28.10 in chips
Seat 4 - DRAGONYSTIC $40 in chips
Seat 5 - LUXORSONIC $37.05 in chips
Seat 8 - RHEINO $10.93 in chips
Seat 9 - MILFSROCK $18.55 in chips
*** BLIND [dealer 1] ***
IRISHBALLA35 - Post small blind $0.25
DRAGONYSTIC - Post big blind $0.50
DRAGONYSTIC - Pocket [Ad,Ac]
LUXORSONIC - Raises $0.50 to $2.50
RHEINO - Folds
MILFSROCK - Folds
TALKIZCHEEP - Folds
IRISHBALLA35 - Folds
DRAGONYSTIC - All-In(Raise) $2 to $40
LUXORSONIC - All-In $34.55
DRAGONYSTIC - returned ($2.95) : not called
DRAGONYSTIC - returned ($0) : not called
*** FLOP [9s,Jd,8d] ***
*** TURN [9s,Jd,8d,9c] ***
*** RIVER [9s,Jd,8d,9c,2h] ***
DRAGONYSTIC - Show cards [Ad,Ac]
LUXORSONIC - Show cards [Jh,9h]
*** RESULT ***
Total Pot($74.35) Rake ($3)
Board [9s,Jd,8d,9c,2h]
TALKIZCHEEP - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
IRISHBALLA35 - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
DRAGONYSTIC - HI:Two pair, aces and nines [Ad,Ac - P:Ad,P:Ac,B:9s,B:9c,B:Jd]
LUXORSONIC - Total ($71.35) All-In HI:($71.35)Full house, nines full of jacks [Jh,9h - B:9s,P:9h,B:9c,P:Jh,B:Jd]
RHEINO - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
MILFSROCK - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
########################################################

I didn't play them in my normal fashion. That was the very first hand I got when I sat down, and I had never played with that guy before, so I thought he might give me a looser than normal call if he had a good pair or AK or something.

Despite how shitty the beat was, I wasn't really mad. I wanted a call. Just wish I could win one of these all ins. 4:1 favorites aren't doing so well for me lately.

2 hands later I lost with QQ to AJ. All in on the flop. Guy called my all in with nothing more than a flush draw...river hit.

Don't let anyone lie to you. Poker can be a brutal game.

You're Welcome!

Once again I have saved mankind from certain doom, this time at the hands of the evil Medusa. Not only do I get a kick ass helmut for my troubles, but also a hot spear throwing chick in a robe. Score!

I dunno how popular Kid Icarus is amongst the general populace, but growing up it was definitely one of my favorite games. It only takes like 3 hours to beat it if you know the dungeons well, just wish it had an alternate adventure or something like Link. I want more Icarus mayhem.

I heard there was gonna be an N64 release of Kid Icarus years ago, but apparently that got scrapped. What a shame.

There's Medusa, the final boss. She's a crazy bitch with snakes coming out of her hair and some sort of eye lazer (which for some reason isn't viewable in this pic.) So basically she's a freak like all women. Ha, I'm kidding. ...seriously, that was a joke.




Sweet victory. Like most women, Medusa gives up rather easily. LOL! I'm just kidding again! 2 female jokes in one post, hope I don't incite some estrogen fueled violence my way. Thankfully, this is a poker blog, so I think 90% of my readers are male. Whew.

Alright Sir

I don't know what else I can do. Sometimes the fates of poker won't allow you to win. This week at Don's I played super tight, no bluffs, got my money in with the best hand everytime...and lost.

I'm very puzzled right now. Reid is one of the most solid players we have in our weekly game, but for some reason he decided to gamble with me.

The hand went as follows. The blinds were $1/2 and I had $30 in my stack...so I'm not really shortstacked. Reid had about $50-$60 if I'm not mistaken. I find J8o in the SB and with 2 limpers ahead of me, decide the pot is laying me enough to limp in the SB. The flop comes JT8 rainbow, and I decide to push right here. The pot had $10 in it, so it was worth to take down, plus a J might call. Reid thinks for a while. I was sure he had AJ, or KJ. He finally calls (about half his stack) with A9?! ...for the OE straight draw. Um...ok.

Of course the next card makes his straight and that is that. I don't understand the call, and I don't understand how I keep losing to draws. But whatever. I'm happy with the way I played, and that's all I care about.

I only played 5 or 6 pots the whole tourney. The one hand I'm pissed about came when I had about $24. I pick up AA, and the previous hand I had moved all in with AK. So I thought I might be able to stir up some action with a raise here. But I raised too much, made it $9 and the blinds were $1/2. That's usually enough to scare people out. Jerad told me he folded AQ. Picked a good time to show me respect.

The other interesting hand I was involved in Don was UTG and the blinds were $.5/1.00. He made it $2.50 to go, which is not a normal Don size raise. I found TT and I did not want to just call here. I smelled something funny, so I reraised to $7. Jerad on my left agonized over the fold (he folded JJ eventually!) Then Reid called on top of that! I was now very befuddled, I thought my reraise would get everyone aside from perhaps Don out of the pot. Don then came over the top, and acted sorta reluctant about doing it. I wasn't buying the act, and I folded, even though I was getting more than 2:1. I was putting him on AA. Reid then folded...and Don showed KK.

Another frustrating tournament. I can deal with losing when I play shitty, or I'm cold decked. But I got cards this week, and I was playing well. Guess it just wasn't meant to be.

Hey, Your Coffee Stain Looks Like Fidel Castro

PokerPlex has THE worst customer service of any poker site I've ever played on...and I've played on just about every single one.

A month ago I sent them an email to try and find out some details regarding the monthly competition. I didn't want to play a ton of hands only to find out I had to be playing at .5/1.00 or higher, or that there are some other odd rules. And the website is mysteriously lacking of any details.

A week later (yeah, that's 7 days) they finally respond by asking me which site I'm talking about.
Apparently all the Crypto's use the same email help. Ok, that's fine, but is there more than one site with a monthly competition? I thought not.

So I email them back, telling them I'm talking about the PokerPlex monthly competition.

This is a good one...

3 weeks later!...I get the following email...(you don't have to read it, it's the rules of poker) LOL!

"Dear Adam,

Hello and thank you for contacting Players Help.

THE BUY-IN
You must buy-in a minimum amount of chips when sitting down at your chosen table. The minimum limit is equal to ten times the lower
bet limit of the game. For example on a $1/$2 table the minimum buy-in is $10, on a $5/$10 table the minimum buy-in is $50.

SIT DOWN
Up to 8 players plus a dealer are seated around a table.

ANTE
You like all other players must ante before any cards are dealt. The amount of the ante reflects the table limits. The lower the
limit, the lower the ante. $1.00/$2.00 tables have an ante of $0.25, and $10.00/$20.00 tables have a $1.00 ante.

BETTING
You are dealt two down cards ("Hole" cards) and one up card. The player showing the lowest card by suit (highest to lowest: spades,
hearts, diamonds, clubs) must bring-in the first round of betting with a forced bet of half the lower limit. The player who is to
begin the betting will be prompted.
After the initial bet, three more up cards are delivered (with a round of betting after each card), then a final down card and a
final round of betting. There are betting limits at each table. The stakes being offered at the particular table determine the limit
or maximum bet on any player's turn. For example, at a $1-$2 table, the limit on any bet is $1 on the first two betting rounds and
$2 on the final three betting rounds.
We allow one bet and three raises in our card room. The final raise is capped and the only options you have are to call or fold at
this point. The action of the first two rounds is set at the lower limit of the table structure. The exception to this rule is when
a player shows a pair after the 4th street the bet is the lower limit multiplied by two.
All players have the option to bet the higher limit for the second round of betting. If a player does bet the higher limit,
subsequent bets must also be at the higher limit.

THE SHOWDOWN
Any five of your seven cards can be used to make up your best poker hand. The best poker hand wins the pot. Should multiple hands
tie, the pot is split with any odd amount going to the player immediately to the left of the dealer.
If all eight players are still in the hand on the river, the total number of cards needed for all the players to receive their own
card would not be available in a standard deck of cards. In this case the river card will be dealt face up on the table and it will
be used as a community card.

START AGAIN
After a hand is completed and the pot taken by the winner, the dealer button is moved one player to the left and the next hand
begins.



We hope this attends to your enquiry. (well if you read my inquiry, you'd know that it doesn't!) If we can be of any more assistance please feel free to contact us at anytime. We are open 24
hours per day, 7 days a week (including holidays). You can contact one of our friendly and courteous Players Help support staff
(toll-free) at:



Tel: 011-800-7777-4357 North America
00-800-7777-4357 Europe (Where available)
++800-7777-4357 International (Check your country's outbound dialing code)



Fax: +357-2255-2499 International



Email: mailto:helpdesk@playershelp.com


Kind regards,

Alisa
Customer Care Representative
Players Help "

______

Wow...thanks for the help! I previously believed that the worst hand won the pot. But now that we got that all straightened out.

This actually is more of an inconvenience than you may realize, because I really wanted to try winning the PokerPlex competition, but I refuse to do so unless I have the rules. I'm not gonna spend a whole month on a site, playing 80 hours a week...only to be later told that I'm not eligible, or some other bs.

Thanks for nothing.

Art of the Week, 6

The Nest by Rochr

Sunday Night Game

Last night I hosted my weekly game. We were 9 handed, and I did rebuys for the first hour and a half, which made for an insane game. There were 8 rebuys on top of the original 9 entries (I didn't rebuy.)

Best hand of the tournament: I can't remember if Jim raised or limped, but I believe he raised it up to a sizeable amount. Matt smooth calls. Flop comes Qx2. Jim moves all in and Matt says something like "this is the worst call ever." Jim's all in was a lot! of chips. Matt turns over 72o for the bottom pair. Jim turns over pocket kings. Turn, brick. River, 7! Jim wasn't pleased to say the least. But you gotta admire the moxy of Matt, calling an all in with the hammer.

Eventually it got down to heads up between Ryan and myself. Ryan was in his "I'm not folding anything" mode, which made for a difficult heads up battle. When you can't bluff him, you just need good hands, so if the cards aren't coming, it's almost impossible to win.

To illustrate just how much of a calling station he can be. I bet the flop, turn and river...and he called me down with bottom pair 5 kicker. Next hand I bluff again and he has difficulty laying down a pair of deuces, but eventually does.

At this point I'm just hoping to pick up anything. And the following hand arises. The blinds were $6/$12. Ryan raises to $25. I look down at Ac Qc. I make it $105 total. Which was about 60% of my chips.

Here's where Ryan's weak understanding of poker comes in. He doesn't even grasp basic concepts of poker like being pot committed. He moves over the top of me and I insta-call. He has K8. He of course hits his K and wins the match.

But consider the strategy behind this. Afterwards he justified his move by saying he was the one who moved all in. Technically this is true, but for all intents and purposes, he called my all in. Why? As I said, I reraised to $105 which was over 60% of my stack. If he wasn't completely ignorant to this fact, he would know that I can't lay any hand down. Nor would I.

Moving all in with weaker hands is only a +EV situation if there is some folding equity involved, which gives you 2 ways to win: your opponent could fold, OR you could outdraw him.

That is not the case here, oblivious as Ryan may be to this fact. There is no folding equity against a person who is pot committed. Now I don't particularly want Ryan to change the way he plays. I wanted him to push there, and give me a chance to take the chip lead. Let him believe he was being aggressive or whatever. Really he was just being reckless, and was on a pure gamble with his garbage K. Again, I'm fine with that. Ryan only wins in that situation 37% of the time, otherwise I have the chiplead, and am in a good position to take the tournament down.

Anyways, the point of all this was...Ryan is always asking me what I think of him as a poker player. He genuinely believes he is the best player around, or atleast that no one is better than him. But he lacks understanding of even elementary concepts. He makes mathematical mistakes every game he plays in, and there's no way to overcome that. The best poker players win because they make the fewest mistakes, while their opponents make more mistakes. It's not a big secret, but that's how you win at poker. It's not doing anything fancy, it's letting your opponents fuck up. Every tournament I play with Ryan I just sit there and wait for him to fuck up and take his chips. I'm glad that he gets to win occasionally so he keeps coming back to give away more money.

How's that for "saving it" for my website Ryan?

Classic WPT

I'm currently watching the 2003 "Storming Los Angeles" WPT event. This one has Andy Bloch, Gus Hansen and that guy who got way too much plastic surgery...I think his last name is Stupak.

It's fun to watch the old ones. I mostly like making fun of Vince Van Patten while I watch because he's such a moron. On one hand Gus bluffs with a 24o in the hole and a scary 4 straight board. Gus puts out $36k on the river and Vince says something inacurate and stupid like "Gus betting out on that scary board there, 36 thousand...of REAL money." He emphasis the word "real" despite the fact that it's not real money, its tournament chips. Gus isn't betting $36 grand there you fucking dolt.

I really need to make a whole post just on Vince's idiotic sayings from the WPT. I could fill up an Iggy sized uber post, but unfortunately I don't have them all on DVD or anything, I only see them when Tivo records em.

::

Just ran into bottom set with top 2 pair on Absolute. The beats are following me onto that site too. I also lost earlier with a flopped set, all in on the turn (AGAIN!) and lost to a flush draw. Absolutely amazing.

The guy even talked trash to me afterwards. WTF is wrong with people? The deck hits you over the face, you win a large pot in about as fortunate a situation as possible in holdem, and then you gotta talk shit to me?

::

I was gonna write more, but now I'm sweating Don in the Bodog $25k guaranteed.

Danny Nguyen Would Be Proud

Scott Lazar has the button in seat 9, Lazar raises to $350,000, Black reraises all in, and Lazar instantly calls once again. Lazar shows Qc-10d, while Black has pocket jacks (Jc-Js). Lazar is in trouble once again.

Wtf? Insta-calling QTo? I hope CardPlayer somehow messed that up...otherwise I'll be forced to ridicule Scott Lazar more than Tiffany Williamsen.

I look forward to seeing the actual broadcast of these hands...because some of the ones I've read about seem utterly stupifying. But yeah man...call off all your chips with QTo...you're a millionaire either way.

Poker Happenings

Last night Reid held a game at his place. About 8 people showed up, and at first it was annoyingly slow, due to a few players being completely stoned, and not paying attention. For some reason though, I had almost an infinite amount of patience last night, and I wasn't bothered too much. I didn't resort to playing every hand due to boredom like I sometimes do in slow games. And that was about as slow a game as possible. We were seeing maybe 1 hand every 4 or 5 minutes. Anyways, after an hour or so, most of the game broke up, and we played shorthanded for a while.

At 11:30 I busted Chris on an inside straight flush draw which hit on the river, making me a Q high straight flush.

So then it was just Reid and myself. And we played on ...for 7 hours! I think Reid must be as stubborn as me, cause I really wanted to win. I was playing pretty darn well too. I wasn't seeing really any decent hands so I decided to play ultra aggressive and see how that went. It was slowly working and I worked my way to a huge lead through a few successful bluffs with the hammer. I got Reid down to his last $3 and the following hand came up.

Reid looked at his hand and said something like "so you ready to go all in?" He's a chatty player heads up, so I didn't necessarily think he was on a monster hand, but he did move his chips in. The blinds were nickel dime, so a $3 raise is rather hefty, I was ready to fold pretty much anything, but I had to look down at AQo. One of those decisions were I can't really win. I hate folding it, and I hate calling with it...atleast against Reid. Some players heads up I'll gladly take AQ all in with, but Reid is very solid, so I figured him for a good hand. I called him anyways, hoping to end the game there and then, and he turned over AK, which held up.

Back to battling. Again, very few cards, so I continued a game of constant bluffing, but wasn't as successful the second time around, and I slowly was dwindled down to a few bucks. Talk about tables turning.

I can't remember how I got my money back, I think I did make a fullhouse on one hand and got him to pay me off, and I slowly worked my way back from nothing like Reid just did on me.

The straw that broke the camels back was the following hand:

Reid had perhaps $6, and I had the rest...$14 I believe. I find AA...the first fucking good hand all night. I raise it up nevertheless and Reid calls. Flop comes 874 I think. I bet out and Reid calls. Turn was a 9, and we both check. River was a J, making a board of J9874. Reid moves all in.

I was very puzzled, especially considering the fact that I was positive he didn't have the straight. He would have put in a value bet with a straight, and what could he have been calling me with on the flop? T8 perhaps, but I don't think so.

What I thought happened was Reid was getting fed up with my constant pushing him around. I had leening the wrong way much of the match, and so my thinking was that he had something like AJ or KJ and made top pair on the river and wasn't gonna leave room for me to bluff him out. Because up to that point, I had been bluffing massively, and showing him. I decide to risk it, and I call. And he turns over 84o for a flopped 2 pair.

That tilted me, along with it being around 5am. I eventually bluffed off all my chips on a flush draw and Reid caught me.

It was a really good match, frustrating, but good. I wish more players were willing to play that style of heads up, for hours on end. Really becomes a psychological battle, and it's the kind of competition I like. I know Reid really wanted to win, which made me want to win even more...so the level of play goes up, which makes for good poker. As Reid pointed out, those all in heads up battles are bullshit, and don't leave much room for skill.

So at 6:30 I left Reids to walk home. The sun was out already and I was still a bit drunk, and hella-tired. Some other guy who looked stoned was walking beside me, telling me that the renovations in the area (a large part of High Street which used to be pretty run down is getting massive renovations) were strange, and he couldn't tell where he was. I think he was on his way to Taco Bell, but it was closed...lol. Tough break man.

::

I'm sure everyone knows Ivey, Ly and Raymer busted yesterday. I'm pissed. I really wanted to see Ivey take the tourney down. And if not him, Raymer. I thought 1 of those guys had a good shot. I'd say "next year..." but man...I can't even imagine how big the tourney will be next year. 10,000 entrants? Who knows.

I dunno what needs to be done, but I wish something would change in the way we pick the "world champion" of poker. Winning 1 tournament, no matter how large, doesn't make you a world champion. Anyone can win a tournament. The slogan "anyone can win" isn't a lie, it's a sad truth about tournament poker. No current tournaments are structured in any sort of way as to negate short term fluctuations. We really need a poker league, playoffs, and a championship tournament. I hope I get to see that sometime in my life.

::

I got raped more on Empire today. Despite my previous post with AA v KK, I gave it all back a little bit later with KK all in preflop against AA. That's twice in 2 days.

I also lost with KK after flopping a set of K's. Was all in on the turn againt a player with a pair and a flush draw...the draw hit, and that was another buy in.

I also lost with KK to A2, all in on the flop of 575. The guy with A2 had no pair and no draw...turn card? You know it. Nice shiny ace.

Lost another all in preflop when I pushed against a shortstack with AK...guy called with JT, and flop came JTx.

Lovely day of poker. For some reason PokerTracker won't let me load the hands in, but I think with AA-JJ, i was less than 33% for the last 1500, which is pretty sick. I know for a fact that I was 2 for 8 with KK...I can't remember the other hands. But with the $100 bonus I worked off, all those bad beats only cost me $3. I can live with that I guess...although I'm still pissed I wasted 4 days and lost money! Short term variance can be a bitch.

Funniest Hand History in Months

Last post was funniest quote, here is the funniest hand history I've seen in a while. I got in a raise on every possible street, from preflop, flop, turn and river. Some guys just can' t let go of a hand.

***** Hand History for Game 2368855165 *****
$25 NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, July 15, 17:54:24 EDT 2005
Table Table 54788 (6 max) (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 2: johnrey ( $58.46 )
Seat 6: dragonystic1 ( $34.55 )
Seat 1: SENATOBIA ( $7.43 )
Seat 4: twud11 ( $20.15 )
Seat 5: TheSnapper ( $24.75 )
TheSnapper posts small blind [$0.10].
dragonystic1 posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to dragonystic1 [ Ah Ad ]
SENATOBIA calls [$0.25].
johnrey folds.
TheSnapper raises [$0.40].
dragonystic1 raises [$1.75].
SENATOBIA calls [$1.75].
TheSnapper raises [$3].
dragonystic1 raises [$8].
SENATOBIA folds.
TheSnapper calls [$6.50].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Td, 8c, As ]
TheSnapper bets [$0.25].
dragonystic1 raises [$3].
twud11 has left the table.
TheSnapper calls [$2.75].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3h ]
TheSnapper bets [$0.25].
dragonystic1 raises [$4].
TheSnapper calls [$3.75].
** Dealing River ** [ Qh ]
TheSnapper bets [$0.25].
dragonystic1 raises [$6].
TheSnapper calls [$5.75].
dragonystic1 shows [ Ah, Ad ] three of a kind, aces.
TheSnapper shows [ Ks, Kc ] a pair of kings.
dragonystic1 wins $46 from the main pot with three of a kind, aces.

funny side note, a few hands later TheSnapper told me I was lucky to have Aces on that hand when he had Kings. i cant deny having A's when someone has K's is a fortunate situation, but for the love of god, i put in 5 raises in that hand! I don't think K's are gonna be good man.

Best Poker Quote I've Heard in Months

guy in tourney: "im sick of people hitting their six outers against my low pocket pairs" (after losing all in preflop coinflip)

LOL, give em hell man! Coinflips are bullshit.

Weekly Game/TLB Stuff

All yesterday I was on supermegaubertilt, from my online play...and it carried over to my live game. I hate that. My poker game is solid, but when I'm on tilt, holes emerge. (Well, duh.)

So why was I on tilt?

Last 5 KK's ::

5. Flop Axx : Lose to A8
4. All in preflop, lose to AA
3. Flop Axx : Muck on the flop
2. Flop A6x : Lose to set of 6's
1. Flop Axx : Lose to A8

I really wish that was some sort of exaggeration, but it's not. Oh, and the all in preflop losing to AA, the previous hand the guy raised preflop with AT and bet it like it was the fucking nuts (board didn't help him at all) and I won a large pot with AQ. Very next hand bets again super hard, and I gotta look at this clown holding AA.

So anyways, I was on uber-tilt when I got to Don's. But I was gonna try and play my A game anyways. And I started out very solid. Only large pot I got involved in early, Reid came in for a minimum raise. I looked down at KTo, which isn't stellar, but I'm not gonna be pushed out for a min raise holding any 2 cards above ten. Flop comes AQJ! Reid bets out and I know he hit this flop hard, at first I was putting him on a set. Mark "Clown Hair" moves all in over the top of him.

No time to fuck around now, there's enough money in the pot, and I don't wanna see the board pair, so I move in too (I had Mark covered by quite a bit) and Reid now struggles for several minutes. I tell him that he doesn't want to call...and he eventually folds 2 pair (AJ for aces up.) Glad he did too cause the very next card was a J, ha. Woulda been 4 outted...fucking rigged.

Anyways, I had to split the pot with Mark cause he flopped broadway along with me. Ah well.
Had to split another pot with Reid with a pair of aces, cause the board had AQTT, and neither of us had a kicker over a Q.

So I can't seem to win a pot. Raise it up with 77 and Mark calls in the blinds a round later. I try to bluff him out on the river, and he ain't a layin down. He calls the bluff and puts a hit on my chips.

Next orbit I play like a maniac and take down 3 pots in a row (but show down top pair each time.) Not that anyone is paying attention.

Then I see 77 again. Blinds are 75/150 at this point and I make it 600 (which is a large raise for our game.) Mark calls me with K9! Flop comes KQx I believe. He checks, I check. I knew he got some part of that, so I didn't wanna bet here, I know he's calling. On the brick turn he bets out 300, and I smooth call. River brick and he bets out 300 again, and I move all in on him. He thinks for a while, but he has top pair, nothin beats that...and calls. I'm out, and royally pissed.

Can't beat the donks online, can't beat em live. I definetly made a mistake in bluffing someone who can't be bluffed, that was my fault...but goddamn, K9 can only beat a bluff. Other than that, what hand am I raising with preflop and moving in with on the river after checking and smoothcalling? The answer, for nondonks, is a set of course. Or maybe AA, I dunno.

I'm glad he falls in for traps like that with nothing but top pair weak kicker, when the only hands I've moved in with thus far in the game have been the nuts. I learned my lesson about bluffing Ryan, and I just learned a good lesson about bluffing Mark. Waste o' Time.

Anyways, I updated the TLB. Reid finished in 2nd, and is fucking destroying the per tourney average. Way to go Reid! And Jerad recaptured the 1 spot on the Main TLB. Well done JRad.

Bustin Em

Wow, Raymer is destroying the Main Event, chipleader with over 1.4M now. I'm now pulling for Mr. Fossilman and Ivey, as Lederer just busted to Juanda. I also wouldn't mind seeing him do well.

::

Anyways, I put some money on Empire to do the $100 bonus. In less than 200 hands I was cheated out of 2 buy ins...from crummy beats by even crummier players.

Amazingly, on 2 consecutive hands I had KK on one table, both flops contained an ace, and I lost both...once to a set, and once to A8...called an 8x raise with A8o...and wasn't at all concerned with the prospects of me having AK or any ace better than A8. Fantastic!

I then lost with A9 after flopping top 2, A95 flop. Runners were QQ, giving AK the $20 pot, despite my betting the hell out of it.

And to top it off, I hit a jack high flush, only to lose to the 4th club hitting on the river to a K high flush.

Brutal frustrating shit...sooooo, same ol' same ol' on Empire.

::

I went to Starbucks to cheer myself up, and when I got back I dl'ed a bunch of ROMs for my SNES emulator, including some sports classics: Bulls v. Blazers (wow does that game suck more than I remember,) 4 different NBA Live games, and Super Mario Kart. All the NBA Live games look pretty much the same...I can't believe so many people shelled out $60 year after year for nothing more than updated rosters.

::

Double A's is currently kicking ass in the $1,500 NL Holdem event. Best of luck to him, he's one of the top poker bloggers, in terms of poker skills. So best of luck! And you can read updates about that event on CardPlayer and Tao of Poker.

Art of the Week, 5

Bronze Skies by Mia Bengtsson

Fuck...is That So Bad?

Tonight I had my home game. We did rebuys this week, and it was a pretty crazy game. 7 players, but a total of 12 entries made for a decent prize pool. I didn't bother rebuying, and almost made the money, finishing 4th. Lost with AK to Majdi's QQ. Oh well, I got lucky to stay in the tourney anyways when I beat Majd's 8's with A6 when the board hit KKQQx. Not much else of interest.

::

Matt won the Main Event Contest, both Ivey and Lederer are still in it, so he did better than everyone by far. So everyone pay up to Matt, and Pauly...when you get a chance, just send me $2 on PS.

::

I noticed on CardPlayer that Chip Reese is one of the leaders right now (day 4.) Since all my horses are out, I'm rooting for him. Show these young whippersnappers how to play.

::

I downloaded an SNES emulator today, since I now have a gamepad to use. I might be forced to go through the Zelda for that system since it's probably my all time favorite game. I'm also looking forward to replaying Chrono Trigger, arguably the best RPG of all time (don't bother arguing though, I don't give a fuck if you like FF more.)

::

I feel so lethargic of late. I don't really wanna do much of anything, and I haven't been blogging a whole lot either. It's amazing how much the readership falls on my statcounter in such a short amount of time (3 days maybe) when I don't post. *shrugs*

::

I wish PS had more tournaments, I know that sounds crazy, but I'll log on there at random times and there won't be a decent tourney for several hours...this is a daily occurence. Perhaps I should memorize the schedule, but that seems excessive. Absolute has a NL tourney for less than $10 every hour...and PS has like 10x the amount of players. Why are the tourneys so damn infrequent?

I just logged on there 20 minutes ago and the wait for a NL tourney that isn't over $100 is over 2 hours. Fuck that.

::

Maybe CardPlayer has had some of the all-ins wrong, but it seems like a lot of pro's bust on really shitty hands. I was following Todd Brunson's progress in the main event cause he was one of my picks. The hand he busted on was AQ. Apparently he raised preflop, was reraised by someone else...and came over the top all in, only to lose to AA. WTF is that? I have no idea the chip counts, cause the WSOP coverage is so horrendous, so it could be that he was forced to put the rest of his chips in, but when I'm reraised, and all I have is AQ...that's usually it for me right there. You can't even beat a shit hand like AK...

But like I said...no chip counts, so it's hard to tell. Which leads me to a tangeant...

Why the fuck is the WSOP coverage so shitty? Seriously. All I get is a few sentences every half hour from hard working guys like Pauly, and the crummy CardPlayer updates. There's something majorly wrong with this. It's the the most prestigious sporting event in the world, and I can't even fucking watch it...until ESPN finally allows me to see 1 hour segments once a week months later. That's utter bullshit. I'd like to see them try that in any other sport. Show 1 hour a week, for 2 months, of the Indy 500. Yeah...now do you see how stupid it is?

What else is fucking stupid is the bs swear policy instituted by the assholes running the Series. No F bombs? FUCK that you fucking morons. ITS POKER. P - O - K - E - R. A game so exclusively for adults that you have to be of age to legally play, and only in certain states. A game that's whole history is about bending the law. A fucking game like any other that is not played be a single soul who hasn't heard the word a million fucking times.

I'd like to see them try that in the NBA.

Ben Wallace: "Good fuckin call ref."
Fucking Ref: "Ten minute penalty for using the F word."
Ben Wallace: *beats the living daylights out of the ref* "Fuck you bitch."

You get the point. It's ridiculous! How can you ban swearing in a fucking adult game? You can swear in damn near any other professional sport, but not poker? Fuck that. Poker is hard enough already. Not only do you have to deal with other poker assholes the whole tournament, and bad beats, and sitting in a chair for 14 hours, but you can't even alleviate stress with a fucking word. That's a bullshit policy. It's not even aired live, so vulgar language can be edited out. There's no children there since ITS POKER...gimme a fucking break.

Alright, enough of this bitching. GL to everyone at the tables...except my opponents.

Can't Finish

Thinking about all the main event stuff made me want to play in a tournament...so I opened up PokerStars to see if any were about to start soon. I only had $10 so I couldn't play in a big tournament, and there was a $1 NL holdem one about to start, so I signed up. 876 people played and I made yet another final table. That's 4 final tables in my last 6 tourneys (not counting WSOP satellites.)

My shorthanded practice has been coming in very handy, as it's been making me a much more aggressive player. I didn't even need cards to make it down to the final table...I stole blinds the whole time pretty much. I only saw AA once, and I won nothing with it. And at the final table I got my first KK, and I doubled up. That was it for big hands. I was 1/2 in all in coin flips, and my cards were pretty shitty.

Some hands to note...I lost with the nut fullhouse to quads about halfway through the tourney...which stung! I had about 35k in chips and the guy in the pot had 18k. I was in the big blind with K2. One limper, and that was it. So I got a free flop. It came down K99. I checked it to the guy cause he was a super solid player, and I wanted to see what he'd do. He checks. Turn is a brick. Check check again. Now I think my K is good. River, K. Now I'm sitting on K's full of 9's. I put in a pot sized bet and he inexplicably goes all in. It actually flashed through my head real quick that he had quads, but I can't lay down the fucking nut boat here. And he turns over 99, taking half of my chips and dragging the 40k pot.

Didn't rattle me too much though, because it was only a $1 tourney, and it was still about half way through the tournament, and all I was looking for was 1st or 2nd place. I slowly grinded up to 25k again by the 3rd break...and was sitting well below average...which by then was 45k or so.

When we got back from break I went right back to stealing blinds. I only had one person look me up, and I had AQ with an A on the flop...lost to AK. That happened 3 different times throughout the tourney where I had AQ and ran into AK...pretty amazing. (I lost all 3 btw.)

Looking back, I have no idea how I made it to the final table. I only doubled up twice...all the rest of the chips I got were in small pots.

When we got to the final table, I was shortstacked at 70k, average stack was 125k I believe. And 2 different people had 300k+, those 2 people were on my right and my left. I decided when I saw which seat I had that I was gonna trap with every big hand I get.

4th break, I come back and first hand I see is KK in the SB. Everyone folds to me and the chip leader is on my left. I weakly just complete the blind and of course he moves in on me, to which I call and get a much needed double up. Now I was in 3rd place with 150k, 2 people above me had 350k, and the rest were pretty much tied around 110-130k. Close battle.

Another orbit later and I look down at pocket tens. A fairly tight player moves all in in front of me and we were almost even in chips. Fuck. I hate these decisions. I hate either move I do. I hate calling off all my chips with tens, cause I'm likely coinflipping or destroyed, and I hate folding, cause they're a pretty big hand 7 handed. (2 people busted.)

My thinking went like this...the blinds were still reasonable, and the guy who moved in had enough chips to put in a standard raise with plenty to spare. I don't think he'd move in here like that with AA or KK. JJ is a definite possiblity, but so is 99 and 88, especially since it seems like he wants to shut everyone out of the pot...he doesn't want a caller here. AK is the most likely of all, but I just can't get past the possibility of him having 9's or 8's. That was what I decided he had.

So I call and he turns over AQo. Fuck again. I fucking hate coinflips and I knew that was the end of my tourney when he turned over that hand. Flop? 3A5 I believe. With a nice shiny ace right in the middle. (Oh, I just remembered, I had KK twice, the other time a guy moved all in preflop with A9, got half my stack with a AA9TT board.)

So that was that. One of these days I'm gonna win a coinflip or two in a row and bust everyone's ass, cause that's all I need right now. I really should play touraments more, but they take up so much time. The one I played in today took me 4 and half hours, and I netted $30...woo. Yeah, I know, it was only a $1 tourney. I just don't feel like putting up a lot of money to play a higher buy in.

Fellow readers should stake me for percentages. LOL. I'll post my PT data if you need evidence I make final tables at a high clip. ;) Nah, I'm jk, you'd be better off going to Dairy Queen or something.

Tecmo Glory

Well, I just made my way through Tecmo Super Bowl (Hacked Rose Bowl 2002 Edition.) It's a fantastic ROM, and the makers of it obviously paid attention to detail. The only problem is some of the stats for certain players is way out of proportion. Larry Fitzgerald was a helluva WR, but they gave him better stats than Jerry Rice in the regular version. Anyways, I busted Texas in the Rose Bowl to take my place as Champion!



It's amazing, the OSU coach looks just like the coach of every other team!

Anyways, my final stats for the game were my highest ever for Krenzel...due to the outlandishly good play from the computer throughout the playoffs. Maurice Clarett, who was a force throughout the regular season, was pretty much useless in the playoffs; as is evidenced by the fact that Krenzel was also the leading rusher on my team for the last game.



Those stats don't seem all that high, especially considering the fact that it is a Tecmo game, but the Rose Bowl version is much harder. The players are on steroids in the playoffs, and I barely made it through to get to the Rose Bowl. I had a rough time beating Georgia, and had to half-cheat against Michigan to take them down...but I don't feel bad about it, the computer cheats too.



Was Georgia really that good in 2002? Cause they were hard as fuck to beat in this game. David Pollack on defense was a nightmare. 75% of the time he instantly pushed over my offensive lineman and I either got sacked or had to throw to a receiver within 2 seconds.

Anyways, fantastic ROM. Any emulator/tecmo lovers should play it...it's very well done. But beware of other shittier versions. The NCAA 99 version is not nearly as good. They didn't bother to change the helmets, so you can play as the Buckeys, but you have the Oilers helmet or whatever, it's lame.

::

In poker news, I'm sure everyone knows that the main event starts today. I'm super psyched, and I'm gonna be following Pauly's posts, as well as the live updates from Cardplayer.

Last minute picks for the Main Event can be made, but only up until start time, which I believe is noon Pacific Time. GL to everyone who made a pick.

Jopke

This is a transcript of part of an interview with Phil Hellmuth on Cardplayer.com

Phil Hellmuth :: "...you know look...I'm becoming very very wealthy...an an and you know, very rich and famous, and you know my books are selling and everything I'm involved in is selling...and the new clothing line..." *trails off*

This was after being asked about being flocked by fans and laying down a tough hand in the tournament. LMAO.

GL in the main event Phil!

::

No one else seems to want to pick anymore players in my Main Event Pool, and it starts tomorrow, so I'm gonna pick up another player or two. If you want to put in a pick, better make it soon! And it's only $1.

...

About once a month the Tuesday night game is brutally frustrating. This was one of those weeks. Actually last week was too, but I'm cool with losing cause I didn't have any cards the whole time. This week I actually picked up a few hands, but often, 70-80% favorite wasn't good enough. We had 9 players this week and after about 3 hours of play it got down to 4; Majdi, Jerad, Ryan and myself. Jerad was the shortstack and I was looking to take him out...especially because he started pushing rather frequently, so I had a feeling he was weak. Finally he moves in and I look down at AQ. I still gave it some thought, but eventually called (which was about 3/4's of my chips.) He flipped over QJ and I got that feeling in my stomach like...you know what's coming. Door card, J! Fuck that bs...

Ah but a ray of hope. Either the 3rd card on the flop or the turn was an A...leaving Jerad with a few outs...but he caught runner runner flush...and raked in the pot. I really reallllly hate "dominating" hands. I've said it before in previous posts, but we need to find a new name for these so called "dominations." For being dominated, they certainly do win a lot of the fucking time.

Anyways, I'm not too mad about Jerad sucking out. He's had pretty bad luck the last few weeks, so it all evens out. Last week he lost to a 2 outer on the river.

Back to the poker...I'm now brutally shortstacked. The blinds were 2/4 now and I had 16 chips perhaps. My first big blind Majdi raises it up and I look down at the steller 24o. I actually thought about it, but decided to fold. The previous hand I had 23o...and things were not looking good. I was down to $12 in chips and we were 4 handed, so I needed to find pretty much anything to call with. In my small blind Ryan moves all in, and I find KT. I decide to gamble...pretty much knowing I was destroyed, and possibly dominated. Ryan had AQ, so I had live cards...and I flopped a ten to keep me in for a little bit.

Now I could sit back for an orbit and find something better hopefully. Very next orbit I find pocket tens and I move all in. (Blinds still 2/4, and I had about $30 in chips.) Jerad is in the BB and he thinks for a bit. I tell him he's crushed and probably has 3 outs. (At this point I didn't want to gamble, and was hoping Ryan would bust out before me.) Despite my warnings, he gives me a nice loose call with K7 soooooooted. And actually gives me a scare when the turn brings the 2nd club. But thankfully no river this time. Now I have about $50 in chips and am in a decent spot. 2 orbits later, now with about $30 in chips, I call in the small blind with K2 and Majdi checks. Flop comes down beautifully, K62, giving me top and bottom. With Majdi and Ryan behind me, I decide to check and hope for a raise. Majdi put in the minimum bet, Ryan folded, and I quickly moved all in.

Majdi calls after some deliberation with KJ...and the river brings another 6, counterfeiting my 2 pair. Had I won that one...I would have had a very nice stack, and think I would have gone on from there to take 1st or 2nd. My shorthanded practice has been paying off lately, as I'm not as afraid to put in raises with marginal hands when it gets down to 5 players or less. I really didn't have many good hands this tourney...but stole plenty of blinds. Yet another week without seeing a big pair. I had JJ once, but lost to Ryan's KQ. That's 2 weeks in a row somehow without being dealt AA, KK or QQ. I did see AKs twice though, so that worked out.

Guess I'll have to get em next week.

Anyways, whenever I get the full details of the final 3, I'll do the stats and post them.

KK Would Be Nice

I'm officially cold now. I was going over some PokerTracker stats. I've played 2000 hands thus far shorthanded. 2026 to be exact. Meaning, given average luck throughout, I should have seen AA (or any pair for that matter) approximately 9 times each.

Statistically determined amount of times I should have had AA, KK, QQ or JJ :: 36
Actual number of times I've been dealt AA, KK, QQ or JJ :: 21
...including pocket kings only 4 times!

That certainly hasn't helped my bottom line. I've also paid $84 in rake through this short span of hands. That seems VERY high to me. I realize the reason for this. I win more pots per hour, so obviously, pay more rake. But $84 through 2000 hands seems excessive. Good thing I'm playing under a bonus, so I can get part of my rake back.

Now that I think about it, $84 is REALLY fuckin high. I could play 2000 hands in one sitting. And I would have to give AP $80 to do it? That's highway robbery. Bastards!

Anyways, as for how I've been doing in these shorthanded tables, I started out really hot...but playing well too. I feel I'm still playing well, but have been getting the shaft on more than my fair share of hands. Oh well. I'm still up a significant amount, but not nearly as much as I once was. I'm becoming ever more convinced, though, that shorthanded play is indeed where the money is at.

I'm also pissed that a few times I forgot to request my hand history and now there's no way of EVER getting those hands. That's one thing I really hate about AP. I emailed them once, and they said that all they could do was my last 200 hands. That's the only site I've ever asked and been declined by. So once again, go to hell AP!

::

Time is almost running out to make a pick for who will do the best in this years Main Event. It only costs a dollar to make a pick and there are some elite players who still haven't been chosen (i.e. Doyle, Mr. Greenstein, John Juanda and Paul Phillips, just to name a few.)

Art of the Week, 4

Untitled by Acid Spit

I realize this is rather dreary, but I think it's actually happy. One, the scarecrow is smiling, despite his predicament, and two, if you think about it, for what reason would a scarecrow have to fear being hanged. It flies in the face of death. Hope you like it, and if anyone has any comments, please share.

Yeah, Fuck You

Man, some poker moments...are hard to stay composed through. I've been doing really well, even after losing some humongous pots to 2 outers...but the one I just took, I flew off the handle. And I deserve to...I'm so sick of taking the bad beats on the BIG pots. They happen way too much...especially with some of the monsters I've flopped.

The hand I just lost was with A6. Flop comes AA6, in a 6 handed game. Turn K...I bet out, get called. River, ten, I bet out, get raised...I reraise, and he makes a huge reraise. I suppose in hindsight its easy to see he had AT, but in all fairness, that hand is hard to put him on. He didn't raise preflop with it...which is strange. AT is a big hand in a 6max table. And he just called my bet on the turn with it, not trying to get any value for his trips. How the fuck can I put him on AT? There's a whole ton of other hands which I beat that he easily could have had too. QJ for the straight, any ace which didn't get lucky and hit a fucking 3 outer. A smaller fullhouse with KK, TT or 66.

God, I'm at my wits end. I lost $160 pot yesterday with an overpair to a set, and today another $140 to this debacle. Fuckin 3 outers. I take that guys whole stack if he doesn't hit his miracle card. He was trapping with his trip aces, not knowing I had a made hand, and he backs into a fucking boat. Lucky ass shit wins the money, and as usual, I'm left with nothing but bad beat scars and another shitty story to tell people on Tuesday night. Go to hell Absolute.

Random ****

Lately I've been getting bored with the normal full ring games I'm used to playing online. I want to now start learning all the small parts of the game. So I'm switching to shorthanded tables for the time being. And so far it's been very profitable. I read some really good strategy from some fellow poker bloggers a while back, can't remember who, but basically the advice was, play aggressive! Don't limp preflop, either fold or raise, and play smart aggressive on the flop. So far that's been working very well. I'm raising 8.4% of the hands preflop, and I'm only seeing about 20% of the flops. (I limp if someone limps in front of me, but if I'm first in, I raise!)

I've only logged about 750 hands thus far, which I know is not statistically significant in any sort of way, but I'm up 240 big bets in that amount of time. I've been hitting cards, but mostly I've made money from my idiot opponents making mistakes. I was lucky enough to flop a straight in one hand, and one overly aggressive guy got his entire $50 stack in on the river with Q9874 on the board. I had JT, which I know is rather fortunate, but all he had was QT.

There's so much action in these shorthanded tables, it's a fucking goldmine.

I've also made some damn nice laydowns. One hand I had 99 and flop hits QJ9 all of diamonds. A fairly solid, but aggressive player bets out slightly over the size of the pot. Warning bells went off in my head.

I figured he had KT/T8, AQ w/A of diamonds, 2 low diamonds, or QJ/Q9.

So I call and the turn is a brick. He puts in another healthy bet, $15 if I remember correctly. ( We each started the hand with about $100 in chips.) River is yet another brick and he moves me in for $60 bucks. I go into the think tank for the maximum amount of time. If he had 2 pair there's no reason to put in a huge bet here, he no longer has to protect his hand from a flush draw. If he has a straight, it seems like he'd have to slow down a bit because I've called his 2 large bets now, so I could easily have a flush. So I decide its either AQ and busted flush, or the low flush. With that large a bet, it almost looks like he doesn't want a call. But I figured he was just trying to maximize his profits and overbet his flush...so I fold, and he turns over the ten high flush (someone else was all in, so I got to see his hand.)

I'm happy with that lay down. I know it's not SPECTACULAR, that most skilled players would be able to get away from bottom set there, I'm just happy I was able to as well. He should have value bet his flush, I would have called a sizeable bet on the river for sure. The pot was enormous because there was a third person in the pot (who I completely ingored the whole time cause he was a donk.)

Anyways, I hope I can continue to do well in these shorthanded games. In a small amount of time I've adapted well to that style of play, and I think I'll thrive. The players are just as bad (if not worse) and with so many hands being dealt in an hour I get to use my skill to make even more better decisions per hour against them, which I hope will translate into a better hourly winrate. We'll see. 750 hands isn't enough to go by. I'm gonna log probably 3-4 thousand in the next few days and see where I stand after that.

::

My sleeping schedule has again been thrown into the proverbial washing machine. In less than 2 days I've completely switched when I wake up and when I go to sleep. I was falling asleep around 8am a few days ago, now I'm waking up at that time. It's making me feel like crap. I have an ultra fast metabolism to begin with. But when my sleeping schedule gets thrown around, I have to eat even more! I'm like a fucking rabbit. Every hour I need a meal...it's ridiculous. And it doesn't matter how much I eat. I could have sirloin stake, lobster, a veal patty, a big ass salad with a side of soup and dessert, and I'll be starving 2 hours later.

When I was younger my mom would joke around that I had tapeworms or something. (Note: I've been to the doctors, and I'm thankfully tapeworm-free.) I just have a hyper appetite. It's good for energy levels though. But they come in short burts. Food, energy, hit the wall, repeat.

It can be annoying. I should start trying to wake up at a set time every morning, but that plan always goes to hell. I'll stay out late and want to sleep in, and there's pretty much no reason not to sleep in if I want to. I can play poker anytime I want.

That has to be one of the best parts about playing poker for a living. Can just play anytime I feel like it, and do whatever else in the day that I want to, and not have to worry about being somewhere. Still though, I am gonna try and find a job here shortly, in all likelihood.

::

Another topic I wanted to write about was some interesting ways in which people misunderstand the game of poker. Often I'll be sitting at a table and after a beat, someone will justify their play with some sort of rationalization. Today, for instance, while at a shorthanded table, a player limped with 74, flop hit J74 I think and he was all in on the flop. But lost to J4 or J7. He then said something rather peculiar. It was "that's what I get for changing gears and playing rags."

This person is a bit confused. And this actually is a confusion a lot of people have. It's rather funny too, cause I've heard several pro's, on many occasions, say that "mixing up your game" is not playing bad hands, but playing good hands differently!

Same idea here. Limping with a shit hand like 47 is not changing gears. Changing gears is switching back and forth between passive play and aggressive play. Limping with shit hands is NOT changing gears...or "mixing it up." It's trash. First off, don't play 47. But if you feel compelled to play it, raise with it. It's not a calling hand. And no, it won't be "deceptive" if you hit with it. No one is deceived by people in low stakes online poker rooms playing shit cards. It's common practice, and it's weak.

It's akin to what I call "the Gus Syndrome." I haven't heard it too much lately, but for the longest time I heard people justify their playing shit cards by comparing their play to what Gus does. Um...no. First off, you only see Gus at final tables on TV. He's playing skilled opponents and deception is an asset in those games. Secondly, Gus doesn't limp in with 74o. He raises. He's not passively calling down hoping to hit a miracle card (though he's hit many.) He's the aggressor in these situations.

The point of all this is that there are many differences in plays people make that a lot of weak players don't see. It's like the difference between calling all in with AQ and moving in with it. A lot of people see these plays on TV, then they find an AQ and call off their chips with it because they saw a pro do it...overlooking the fact most pros wouldn't be caught dead calling off their chips with AQ unless their stack size or the pot odds compelled them to.

Well enough on this tangeant. I need food. lol

Predictions/ $1 Bet on Who Will Win

I wish I would have made this post about a month ago. I do have witnesses, however, who will attest to the fact that I did predict earlier this year that the pro's would dominate the WSOP.

In the last few years the amateurs have come out of the woodwork to win dozens of bracelets. My thinking at the time was simply that the number of entrants for each tournament has gone up so high that winning one of them now meant having immense shortterm luck.

I'm rethinking this though. I believe this theory, though containing an element of truth about tournament poker, is flawed and incorrect. The truth part is that the more entrants you have, the more people you will have to deal with who are running hot.

For a simple exercise, that I saw Hellmuth do, if you had all the entrants of a tournament line up and half take a step forward, repeat the process until you get down to 10 or so, count up the amount of steps, and this is statistically how many coin flips in a row a dozen or so entrants will be lucky enough to win. It's tough to beat that!

But as I thought about it more, a better picture has emerged...which may or may not be correct, but I believe it to be so. I now think that many pros did a poor job of adjusting to the sheer number of donkeys in the new tournaments. A slightly different approach has to be taken when playing with weak opponents. I remember seeing Sam Farha last year try to run over a guy with 3rd pair (or maybe 2nd pair, but a super weak hand, nonetheless) and lose a significant portion of his stack. This is the key problem!

Solid poker wins against weak players, and I don't think pros were adjusting correctly. I may be wrong, but this seems to be the case.

My prediction then, which I told a few of my poker buddies during a Tuesday night game, was that the pros this year would dominate the field. This despite the fact that yet again we have unprecedented numbers of entrants for each tournament. And still most every tournament is getting down to the very top players. How?

They're now realizing how to correctly adjust their game to weave through these tourneys with so many entrants. A lot of amateurs are used to this! If you play on PokerStars, for instance, it's normal to play in a tournament with 1000+ people. I think many of these players learned how to weave through the heavy numbers well and were better adapted to thrive in the new WSOP setting than a lot of these pros.

But no more! I think of the last 50 players you will see in this years main event, 20-30 of them will be top pros. And of the final table, 6 of the 10 will be among the poker elite. That's my prediction.

That may not seem like that's such a long shot, but consider this. This years main event will have 7000 entrants, give or take. Of which, about 6000 will be rank amateur. Meaning the pros will only make up about 14% of the field. And that's being pretty conservative with my estimate. The poker "elite" that I am thinking of involves perhaps 100 players, at most. That's 1.4%.

And I think this 1.4% is going to crush the field this year.

But we'll see.

::

Since the main event is only a week away, I kinda want to get a bet or 2 going with some friends. We'll all pick a player, and throw in $1, and whoevers player makes it the furthest, wins the pot. Anyone can get in on this, not just my homegame poker players. Other bloggers, or even faithful (bored to tears) readers can make a pick. However, if you don't live by me, and you make a pick, you'll have to send me $1 somehow, perhaps via PokerStars transfer, or whatever.

Anyways, my pick this year is Phil Hellmuth, if you can believe that! I don't particularly want him to win, actually I wanna see Ivey take it down, but I think Phil is so hungry to win, he's gonna go far. I'm also making a secondary pick of Todd Brunson.

So details, $1 to pick a player, and you can pick as many players as you want, but each player is $1. No odds, every bet is straight up 1:1. And it's a last-longer bet. If you pick a guy who gets sick or doesn't play for some reason, your bet doesn't count and you don't have to pay. Also, you can't pick a player that someone else has already picked. GL to everyone, (but especially me!)

Here's a quick list of the odds Bodog is running, for anyone interested.

End note: The reason I'm only making it $1 bet is because I want everyone to join in and make a bet. I originally was gonna make the bet $5, but thought perhaps less people would put a bet in. But everyone can spare $1...so just post a comment on who you're picking and I'll keep track.

Quick Note

...regarding the PT stats I put up on the TLB. Unfortunately, I haven't figured anyway to account for ties. I know Matt and Don split first place one week, but there was no way to put it into the tourney summary that you each got first. It kept giving me an error. So I decided to give that tie to Don, since I recall him telling me that he was way up on chips when the deal was made.

To Matt: The next tie involving you, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.