Waiting is the Hardest Part

I'm gonna be hitting the tables harder than ever this coming month, or atleast that is the plan. I wanna see how many hands I can play in 1 month...I'm thinking I could do 75,000 if I really tried, but I have no idea, I've yet to push myself for a full month. In any case, I think I'll be trying that for the month of August, or September, depending on when it looks like I'll have the most time.

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I'm kinda mad that I didn't bother buying a share of Matt Maroon for the main event. I was thinking about it, but then sorta just forgot, and before I knew it, the main event had started.

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I also hear Raymer had a nice first day, nearly hitting the 50k mark. I dunno why, but I really like the way he plays tournaments, and am always rooting for him to do well. I think it may stem from my desire to see a repeat winner in the main event. It seems very likely that the next 50 main event champs will all be different. (In fact, highly probable. I'd put a large wager on this if the opportunity arose.) But I think these sorts of things help pokers image as a game of skill. When you see a schmuck win, it's hard not to think "poker is a complete crapshoot." And I'd hate for those anti online gaming legislators be proven correct.

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Speaking of which...am I the only one freaked out by this? I can imagine it's a minor annoyance to the casual player, but what about the players who do this for a living! I think if I heard that the legislation were to go through and be effective in the coming year or 2008, I'd sit at my computer for 14 hours a day making as much money as possible. What a nightmare.

I've read quite a bit about the topic, from both sides, and my biggest concern is not that I'll be prosecuted. That doesn't seem likely at all. But all the fish are gonna leave! If the shit really hits the fan, all the smaller sites would probably die and perhaps the big 2 could stick around and be the only game in town (which would still be an EV disaster.) I'm alright at poker, but I'm not good enough to beat tables full of other pros, I realize this. And to be honest, poker is perhaps one of the only beacons in my life right now. ( I never thought I'd say THAT after the past 7 months.)

But things are looking up and I am intensely optimistic. My NL game is reinvigorated and I feel fresh again at the tables. I'm gonna play hard for the next 12 months and see where it takes me.

I got brutalized at the tables today.

The largest loss of the day ($154) went to my opponent with AQ. I had 99 and the flop came A9x. Running Q's and I lose. Then the standard AA into a set for another $100. Ran into 2 gutshots. Lost JJ v AJ all in preflop for $50.

And the coup de grace...I took a flop with JdTd, and the flop came Kd Qd 9x. So I flopped the nuts with a royal flush draw. Got all in on the flop for $170 only to look at another JT. My flush draw freeroll of course doesn't come through and I'm forced to chop the $350 pot (a net loss considering the rake.)

Even with all this, I ended up down less than a buy in ($200 is the full buy in on AP.) So I guess I can't complain too much.

For as well as things are going, I'm still running rather poorly. So many times my loose play aggravated my opponents enough to the point where if I could hit even two small pair against them, they were ready to hand over their entire stack. The multitablers pretty much don't pay any attention to anything, so I play a lot of hands against them with small cards looking to bust big pairs with either a small straight or 2 pair. I'll check raise on small coordinated flops only to have my opponents fly over the top with most of their chips (with nothing more than overpairs) just dying to get broke if they run into a hand. One of these days I'll have a few hands at the right times and bust several players at full stacks.

About Time for a Hammer Post

Sick

Well my limit experiment is pretty much over. I didn't go into it thinking it was an experiment, but that is what it became...especially after I cruised over to the NL tables again, and destroyed everyone. I think I'm done with limit for about the 4th time in my poker career.

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I'm loving NL all over again. And I play like an utter maniac. It's nice. You don't need cards to win. At the limit tables I felt futile...I couldn't do much to win, just hope for good cards (and hope they hold up.) At NL, I can push people around. This week I've been mostly card dead, and I'm still up about $950.

I feel like I should be up even more, but unfortunately, many of the best opportunities for opponents to hand me money have gone down the drain with ridiculous 2 outers or severely cold decks.

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Anyways, just wanted to update what I'm up to lately. Still on AP...and I doubt I'll be leaving anytime soon.

Lastly, anyone wanna make some bets on who will go deepest this year in the main event?

I must say, I find this extremely underwhelming.



The VIP invitational was one of the nicest freerolls around. My first week it had only 88 players I believe. Which is a tidy $17.04 overlay.

But somehow there are 240 players already registered (WTF?) and the tourney is still 4 days away.

Now I'm no genius but I was always under the impression that 240 > 200. But somehow there are more ppl registered in the tournament than there are spaces alotted.

And the overlay is now cut to $6.25 (which will likely go down even further within the next 4 days.) Making it almost pointless to play in.

Groundbreaking new study. Apparently..."Desire Controls What We See, Study Finds"

"Without realizing it, people will perceive things according to how they want to see them, a new study suggests."

I think Yahoo! is a bit confused though...this study was already published in the Journal of Things Everybody on This Planet Already Knows, years ago.

After considerable! analysis of nearly every piece of data in my PT base...I'm rather content with my play. There are a few spots which can use improving, but I'm convinced that my play is not the cause of most of my losses. Having said that, I've identified ONE leak which I believe to be causing me great trouble.


(stats for the month of July)

I'm weak in the big blind, there is no denying it.

I think I'm gonna reread every text I have on the topic of blind play in limit holdem, but book info is often dry and not as relevant to the games I play in as I'd like. So I have a favor for anyone with PT data. How often are you going to SD in the BB and how often do you win? How willing should I be to see the showdown with 2nd pair, bottom pair, or even an underpair? I often don't know where to draw the line, and I need to hem this up quickly.

I think the $50k H.O.R.S.E. event is a fantastic idea, and may come close to outshining even the main event. The final table is set, and CardSquad has a nice writeup.

I can't wait to see this one on tv, because the final table is (predictably) stacked with pros. I'm rooting for Mr Chip Reese, since his skills often get overlooked with the much-too-hyped TV tournament poker predominating. I also would love to see Doyle win, not because I particularly care much if he does...I just want Hellmuth to fall further behind the bracelet leaders.

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Sir AlCantHang has some hilarious quotes overheard from the bar...I don't want to spoil too many of them, but here's a gem.

"God says gambling is ok. It's right in the bible. Jesus was '6 - 5 against' to come off the cross. The over/under was 4 days. It had to the be the under. But do you realize how hard it was to shut that guy up?" - BigMike to the 3 people left in the bar when the ugly lights came up.

I love reading stuff like that because it makes me feel like I'm not quite as bad an alcoholic as I thought I was. (Or gambler)

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One of my favorite bloggers, MeanGene, is celebrating his 500th post.

"Like many people who do this blogging thing, I've often asked myself this pressing question, "WHY THE HELL DO I SPEND SO MUCH TIME WRITING THIS CRAP?"

Touche.

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I've heard on the grapevine that the there has been quite a few problems with the dealers at the WSOP this year. Pauly has an interesting look into some of the problems plaguing this years tournament.

I've also heard about marked cards in the HORSE event, but I have yet to see whether or not that is substantiated.

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I saw Mike Caro when he came to Columbus a year or so ago, and wasn't that impressed (but I had already read his book that the seminar he teaches was based from.) Poker Nation has a write up about the Mad Genius and some of his tips for limit play.

"In his 'final affirmation,' Caro, clad in jeans and a sport coat, asked the crowd to repeat with him, 'I am a lucky player. A powerful winning force surrounds me.'

Suddenly, one had to wonder if he had stumbled into a Tony Robbins seminar instead…"

He did that at our seminar too. I think it would probably help my game if I could say that enough times to the point of believing it. I'd have to better learn to lie to myself though.

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Poker Comic #83 at GoBeRude is rather funny. If only such things were true...Sir Al would be the Barry Bonds of Poker.

cheerio

I made a final table bet with MR_WOLFF...and I lost...so kudos to you! You won 2 bets at once. ^_^



Now all you have to do is win it!

Well, I have little to say...so let's see what others in the pokersphere are saying.

Bill Rini has a great post up about John Gollehon's article regarding the popularity of poker and its possible negative effects. As usual, Bill offers a "play by play" (to quote the man himself) of the original article with his insightful synopsis/critique layered throughout.

"Yes, teenagers are immature and prone to overestimating their abilities. Their world is quite small and they’ve yet to had life kick them in the junk enough times. That’s part of the territory with being a teenager.

It’s also why many of them die in auto accidents."

I think this applies equally well to people with the maturity level of a teenager!

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Pauly is selling pieces of himself to play in the WSOP $1,500 Pot Limit Holdem Event. $100 a pop to back the degenerate New Yorker...help him out if for no other reason than his excellent WSOP coverage. And you never know, the share may become a nice payday for yourself.

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My favorite wreck of a blogger Redpill is back to playing poker/posting after a lengthy hiatus. His current posts are a bit dry, but for pure hilarity, check out some of his older posts , like that one which asks for people to pay money to read his blog...or his february archive where he starts his own forum because he got banned from all the major forums.

I poke fun at the guy, but I think he is genuinely funny, and should focus on his comedy rather than his poker.

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In almost unabashed self righteousness, Dutch Boyd, the self proclaimed prodigy, and mastermind behind one of the worst online poker scandals to date, writes about the television show which is in production based on The Crew.

In seemingly unending irony, the title of his post reads "We're on a mission from God." And the last line reads, "You can never hurt your back lifting someone up."

I can't help but wonder if he'll use any of his newfound wealth to lift up some of his ex-PokerSpot customers on his back.

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Monk at TheCardsSpeak has a nice post up about life and luck and the longrun...a view which I have been far more sympathetic to than I would have been in the past.

"Now I know we have to keep some sort of perspective here. Good old Uncle Math tells us about the, oh so faithful long run, and I believe, oh I do, but could it be guided by a form of luck that's even bigger, maybe (if you will let me use the word without giving it all sorts of strange connotations) Fate?"

It's probably best for the sake of sanity to believe this is false...also better results (in life and poker) seem to come about with the mindset that one has a personal role to play in how things turn out. This of course is true...(unless you wanna get into free will discussions.) But to what degree is rather mysterious.

I personally have taken a lot of my own beliefs as Upaya. Upaya in a nutshell is a nice lie to believe that still may be good to for the person to hold if it ultimately brings that person closer to truth; a white lie, so to speak, that is beneficial to believe for alternate reasons.

Being overly confident at the poker table is a good form of upaya. It helps the person who holds that belief, even if it's false.

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I sympathize greatly with MeanGene who is also in the worst losing streak of his poker career. His last post takes place on a weekend trip to 'the lake' where the bad luck follows him.

That is always one of the amazing things I have found about losing streaks...like a midday shadow, they follow you wherever you go. You can switch sites, games, styles; but if you're meant to lose, you're gonna lose, and there won't be much you can do about it.

I pray things pick up for ya Gene.

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That's it folks. I'm all read out.

Here We Go

The numbers on the left represent "a 2+2 study from players with a 1.5BB/100 or above win rate." They are from The Grinders site himself. The numbers on the right are my numbers for the hands I posted.



Aside from, of course, VPIP, they are almost the same. And mind you, I am quite certain that most of the players who posted on 2+2 play on PARTYPOKER! Where there is constantly better odds to be in pots with marginal hands! For instance...low pocket pairs require 2-3 people in the pot prior to your action in order to be profitable. On AP, this sort of limping is rare! On Party, this is much more common. So I end up throwing away more small pairs because they won't get a high enough price. (I still appreciate your blind 2+2 ideals though.)

I defend out of the blinds with nearly exact the same frequency, along with playing about the same VPIP from said positions, and lose almost the exact same too. (Not bad for running horrible.) Were I to raise a few more hands and see them out to the river with a few higher %'s, my stats would dare say be the same. My flop aggression is almost the same, turn aggression just a tad short, with only my preflop and river aggression falling behind, which is easily amendable.

And as I said in my last comment, I actually call on the river MORE than these players...and despite this fact, you railed me in your original comment about folding on the river too much! Give me a break!

As for going to showdown more often...consider the following math.

Yes I go to showdown less often. But I win a higher % of the pots.

Let's take a nice round number like $25 for the pot size and consider the outcome over the course of 100 hands.

If you see 33.1% of the showdowns, you'll have a chance at (33.1 X $25) $827.50. Winning 53.8% of those hands will give you $445.19.

If you see 28.76% of the showdowns, you'll have a chance at (28.76 X $25) $719.00.
Winning 58.73% of those hands will give me $422.26.

That's nearly the same, just a different route in getting there. And like I said, I'm running real bad! Maybe I'm seeing less showdowns cause my hands fucking suck, and I'm winning less often than normally cause I keep getting outdrawn!

Even admitting that I could go to the SD a little more often, this is not much of an argument that I'm weak. The $ are virtually the same. (And that's compared to winning 2+2ers. I just got into limit motherfucker!)

So there you have it. I fucking hate other people analyzing my play when they are hypocrites, and I am once again reminded why poker is such a wonderful game. Everyone thinks they rule at it, and everyone other than themselves is terrible.

I keep thinking things can't possibly get worse. I can't have ANOTHER session of ridiculous beats can I? CAN I?! Yes, yes you can!

Here's a doozy. And rounding that off nicely is this...here. Making the grand total for times I ran into quads with a premium hand for the day: 3! (The third one being in the previous post, QQ v 99, Q99 board.)

But that's not all folks! What session would be complete before getting AA cracked by runner runner...and then KK cracked...and the ultimate set over set beat. Fantastic.

Stay tuned tomorrow...where I will continue to chronicle the mathematical aberration that is my poker life.

I thank the few people who gave me comments about my limit game. I've been doing a lot of thinking about my play and while I'm not pleased with a few aspects, overall I'm very happy with my play. I don't think I'm losing because I'm playing poorly. I'm losing because of shit like this . (Those beats are just the tip of the tip of the iceberg mind you.) Every session is one long bad beat fest.

Having said that, I'm gonna try stepping up my aggression a bit, and also my PFR's. I played the session today with more raising, and though I lost (cause of the aforementioned beats, etc) I still was able to tread water and almost break even. Plus aggressive play has a lot of metagame value (i.e. people calling you down with worse hands because they've seen you bet weaker holdings.)

I know I can beat these tables...I just don't know when.

Help

I can ignore the data no longer. I've now put in over 26,000 hands at the limit tables, and in short...im getting rocked. I realize that 26,000 isn't as substantial as say, 50,000 hands, but it is worth analyzing now. I also realize it is possible to run bad for this number of hands. I believe I'm running bad, but I really am starting to doubt myself, as I keep on losing. So here is all of my data for the previous 26,000 hands. I am hoping some good limit players can give me some insight into my data. Any criticism is accepted, but if you are going to criticize I ask that 1) you know what you are talking about and 2) you are willing to go into atleast some depth in your comment. Oh, and 3) You must play higher than 1/2. Thank you!

Quite honestly I think my numbers are pretty solid, but I'm not sure what to look for in some areas. So here we go.







sigh

I don't keep up well with my fellow bloggers. Apparently Mean Gene lost his job and his wife (ex-wife, dammit) and I'm just now reading about it. I think I left him a comment saying he should play poker for a living, but the instant I hit enter I thought about what it's really like playing pro for a living. In a nutshell, it's hard! However, without a job most people should have enough to time to bonuswhore $2k a month, +/- what they make from the actual poker. And if you can multitable well, you could easily make twice that in bonuses.

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I just had a brilliant idea. The top bloggers all have a niche...Iggy has uberposting, Pauly has his live coverage of events...etc etc. But no one does a write up of the poker bloggers themselves. Almost like metapokerblogging.

Some sites just put up ALL the poker blog content on the web and let you surf through it...but with the sheer number of donks taking up the virtual pen, it's pretty much as bad as going through a search engine. No one really cares if your top set got cracked at the .05/.10 tables, do they? I barely care about my OWN bad beats! I hate reading my blog, and I hate writing it too a lot of the time because I'm running so bad that I can't find many rays of light to write about, and no one wants to read bad beat stories all day long.

But if someone read through the blogosphere and highlighted the most interesting posts of the day/week and provided a link, that would be pretty cool. I don't think I can do this myself, but if there are any aspiring poker bloggers (lol, hit yourself on the head if you're rising with anticipation) this might not be a bad idea.

I also might try out a test post, to see how it looks, and how long it takes. I think I'm running out of shit to say in regards to poker. Especially about "strategy" type stuff. I find strat posts to be mostly hilarious and a gross overestimation of the skill factor involved in poker. Yes, skillful play will win in the long run. How many players will play enough hands to get into the long run? Almost none. All the pros will, and almost no amateurs will. If you play poker for fun, fuck the strategy, just have a good time.

I played in the VIP Invitational again this week. I thought I was gonna money for sure when I tripled up on the 2nd hand dealt in Level I. I had KK in the big blind and 2 people were all-in in front of me with TT and 99. But I gave half of those chips back when I called an all in with TT on a Qxx flop. I guessed correctly that the guy was bluffing, he turned over JT, and the runners were 98, making him a straight.

I lost 2 60/40's after that and busted out in 20th (top 18 paid.) I wasn't really disappointed though. That tournament is only lucrative if you can make it into the top 3. So I was playing a more gambling-style poker to try and get some chips.

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The limit tables are still kicking my ass. I'm convinced I'm just running bad, but there is a voice in the back of my head saying "you're losing cause you suck at limit." I really have no way to verify if this is true or not. I've only played about 15,000 hands. If I'm still in the red after 50,000, I'm gonna have to seriously question my game.

I really feel like I'm playing well though! I dunno if that is a ray of light amidst the darkness, or false optimism. Most of my hands that I lose there seems to be virtually nothing I can do other than minimize the damage.

For instance...I see a free flop with Q2. Flop comes Q2x. I bet out, get called. Turn is a T. I check raise and get called. Then I bet out the river and mysteriously get raised...call down to see the winning hand of QT. Most of my hands run along these lines and I don't really know what I can do to change that. I'm just trying my hardest to stay tight/agressive and avoid tilting. I'm amazed at how rarely I'll tilt despite running bad now for almost the entire year. Still, when will I win again?

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The good news is that Absolute Poker gives enough to me in bonuses that I usually break even on my bad days, and do pretty well on my good days. Except the good days are getting greatly outnumbered by the bad days. The bankroll rebuilding is painstakingly slow. I thought I'd be playing 5/10 by now and making a tidy monthly profit. Instead I'm grinding out at 2/4 and making very little headway.

Nothing I can do but keep playing hard though. I've been putting in 1000 hands a day (sometimes twice that,) in an attempt to build my roll up, and simultaneously get to a higher VIP status on AP. Once I reach elite I'll get to play the $200 biweekly tournament free once a month, and a few other guaranteed tournies as well, on top of the VIP freerolls. So even if I'm breaking even I might still get a big score. Here's to hopeless optimism.