End with a....

One final live poker session for 2007 at Ameristar. I started by winning about $200 in the NL cash games after floundering on the $15-$30 limit table for about a half hour while I waited for my NL seat.

I made to the fourth level of the tournament with a decent sized stack. I picked up AA UTG at the 100-200 level, raised to 500 and the SB called. The flop came K-Q-J with two hearts. SB immediately pushed and just had me covered. Two thoughts quickly went through my head: “There is absolutely no hand that he would push with on this flop that I could beat. I kinda don’t care because I think the cash games are going to be more lucrative for me tonight.” Just one of those feelings, but maybe it was my own way of rationalizing a martyr call with AA. So against my better judgment I called, and he tables T-9 for the lower straight.

Back to the NL game. First hand I get AA, raise to $20 UTG+1 and one guy calls to my immediate left. He is there just about every time that I’ve ever played at Ameristar. He’s the guy that’s always looking around the room, calling out loudly to other players across the room and talking with all the dealers like they’re best buds. There’s one of these guys (and usually more than one) in every poker room.

The flop is 9-8-6 rainbow. I lead out for $25 and he raises to $75. I ask him, “Really?” He kinda nods and shrugs, like “Yeah, I like that flop.” My instinct is to raise him, make it $200 total. But then I don’t like the idea of building a huge pot with one pair this early, so I just call. I’m having trouble putting him on a hand, and he’s an experienced and somewhat tricky player. The turn is (9-8-6)-3. I check with the intention of raising if he bets. But he checks.

The river is (9-8-6-3)-7. I bet $110, and he calls with A-5 for the straight that made it on the river. His raise on the flop was what, just goofing with me? And my instinct was dead on – I could have easily blasted him out of the hand. We discussed the hand as the play went on, and he admitted that even a min-raise back at him on the flop would have made him fold.

So, now I’ve had AA cracked in back-to-back hands, once in a tournament and once in a cash game. A new record for me, on two counts. I resolve to trust my instincts more, since my instinct in both AA hands was accurate.

The rest of the session went great. A few hands after the second AA hand, I was faced with an all in bet on the turn with AJ on a board of A-K-8-J. The pot was about $150 and the bet was about the same. I had tangled with this dude before several times. I could not put him on AK or 88 based on the way he played the hand, so I called. I heard the always wonderful “Good call” as I slid my chips forward, and he mucked before the river and before I even showed my hand.

I won a few more very large pots and built up a nice stack:

I always laugh inside when I can build up a $1500 stack in a $1-2-5 NL game ($1-2 blinds, $5 to call). I can play this game completely wide open, and bully the $200-$300 stacks, while at the same time usually avoiding significant trouble because I know that plenty of opportunities will inevitably come along. They always do in this game.

A good way to end the year. I remain very confident in my live game, but I remain unable to make any headway with on-line play. I have become very reliant on my live reads, which I don’t think is a bad thing at all, but I have completely lost my feel for on-line play.

Poker Year in Review

I’ve been very busy with work and life, and I haven’t had as much time to play poker lately. Certainly not as much as in the past, or as much as I would like. But I do still think about the game all the time – strategy, hand analysis, branching out into other games.

Live Poker

Live poker has been great for me this year. I had some very successful Vegas trips, good results in local cash games, and a nice local tournament score. I have worked on and improved my player reading ability, and this is what I like the most about poker. I have a very good feel for the game when sitting with real players, and the math and strategy aspects of the game that I have learned over the last several years is now second nature in live play.

On-Line Poker

On-line poker has sucked this year. I cannot win the Chiptalk tournament. The fish have largely dried up due to legal restrictions on deposit. The games are tougher now, and even the low level games are populated by more skilled and tricky players. On-line play is becoming closer to my Clone Theory every day – the majority of the on-line players are closer in skill, and the results therefore reflect luck and variance rather than differences in skill.

In years past, it was fairly easy to win. I took a single $200 deposit and ran it up to several thousand dollars spread over several sites over a period of a few year. I played a slow, steady game and gradually built a bankroll at several sites. The Poker Horror Story took a nice bite out of my on-line bankroll, but I fully recovered.

Then the new laws went into effect. New deposits were restricted, so much less new money was coming into the game. Moving my funds between sites was cut off when NetTeller was shut down. As a result, all of my funds were pooled in my PokerStars and FullTilt accounts. Then the games went bad, and now I cannot win.

To compound problems, for the last half of this year I have been on the worst ice-cold streak of my poker playing history. I cannot count how many times I have put my money in as a 75%+ favorite and lost. I cannot cash in a freakin’ $10 SNG! Last night all the money went in and Villain had 6 outs on the river, making me about a 84% favorite. Exactly as expected, one of his outs hit. It happens so often that it is now routine. I expect to lose.

All this has combined to nearly eviscerate my on-line bankroll. This is so sad, because there was a time when winning on-line was routine. So I ask myself – have I lost my skills? Am I doing something wrong? How could I run $200 up to around $6000, and now I absolutely cannot win at anything? Why do I win in live play, but lose on-line?

I guess I have answered these questions for myself already – deposit restrictions dried up the fish, tougher players remain, games are harder, I have little or no edge over my opponents since they are all equal to or better than my skill level, and variance kicks into create losing streaks from which I cannot recover. In addition, from what I can pick up in my readings, there are more players using data mining tools, Poker Tracker and other statistical or tracking software, and there is obviously collusion and cheating. All of this has some negative effect on a casual player's overall results. How much, I am not sure.

Branching Out On-Line

But I love to play the game! What’s a hobby poker player to do? Well, I have dropped down in limits, but soon I will have no funds left if this trend continues. Also, I am looking into other games. Hold ‘em is fun and popular, but everyone had read the same books and everyone knows how to play like Harrington, Ferguson, Bruson, Negreanu, Sklansky, etc. I have the feeling that there are many games out there that play like PartyPoker NLHE circa 2005.

I cracked open the FullTilt Tournament book in the last few weeks and read the Matusow chapter on Omaha HL and the Ferguson chapter on PLO. Matusow really knows what he’s talking about with Omaha-8 The same with Ferguson’s chapter on PLO. Ferduson's chapter has completely re-aligned my approach to starting hand values in Omaha – it really is very different that hold ‘em. I expect that the edge right now in PLO is beating the legions of players that apply hold ‘em strategy and starting hand values to PLO.

I will have the opportunity to play the Ameristar this week, so there will be one more live session to round out the year.

New Chips

After purchasing nearly every sample set ever made, I finally made another purchase – a new 1400 set of the Dunes commemorative chips. Paid from my live poker bankroll. I believe the Dunes chips are, by far, the best looking chip available in the moderate to low price range. Actually, I think they look as good or better that the Pharaohs. The replica Dunes house mold is and inlay are classic. For a plastic chip, the sound is wonderful, almost exactly like clay.

Do I need another chip set? No, but collecting is an affliction, so I do not fight it. And, I will be giving away my original dice chip set, so I need something in replacement.

All Hallows Eve

For thousands of years people have been celebrating different holidays and festivals at the end of October. The Celts celebrated it as Samhain (pronounced "sow-in", with "sow" rhyming with cow). The Irish English dictionary published by the Irish Texts Society defines the word as follows:

"Samhain, All Hallowtide, the feast of the dead in Pagan and Christian times, signalizing the close of harvest and the initiation of the winter season, lasting till May, during which troops (esp. the Fiann) were quartered. Faeries were imagined as particularly active at this season. From it the half year is reckoned. also called Feile Moingfinne (Snow Goddess).(1) The Scottish Gaelis Dictionary defines it as "Hallowtide. The Feast of All Soula. Sam + Fuin = end of summer."(2) Contrary to the information published by many organizations, there is no archaeological or literary evidence to indicate that Samhain was a deity. The Celtic Gods of the dead were Gwynn ap Nudd for the British, and Arawn for the Welsh. The Irish did not have a "lord of death" as such.

The information on Samhain is from Rowan Moonstone's The Origins of Halloween.
For more info check out Halloween on Wikipedia(1) Rev. Patrick Dineen, "An Irish English Dictionary" (Dublin, 1927), p. 937(2) Malcolm MacLennan, "A Pronouncing and Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language" (Aberdeen, 1979), p. 279

The Celts believed that every year on the last day of October, the souls of the dead visited the earth.

When the Romans conquered the Celts in the first century A.D., they added parts of their festivals, Feralia and Pomona to the tradition. Feralia was a festival to honor the dead and Pomona was a harvest festival named after the goddess of fruit (apples) and trees.

Around the eigth century, the Christian church made November 1 All Saints' Day to honor all of the saints that didn't have a special day of their own. Over the years these festivals combined, the mass held on All Saints' Day was called Allhallowmas (the mass of all Hallows - saintly people). The night before was known as All Hallows Eve. Eventually this name became Halloween.

In the 1800s, as a lot of people emigrated to the U.S., the holidays and traditions of different cultures merged. Halloween was not always a happy time. October 31, or the night before took on other names. Some called it Devil's or Hell night, to others it was mischief night. Here in Vermont, the night before is called cabbage night. To some people this became a time to play tricks on others. Some of these tricks were not fun at all. Luckily, community groups and individuals took action and started to change Halloween into a family event. Dressing up in costumes and going "trick or treating", costume parades, community parties and Fall festivals are some of the ways that Halloween is celebrated today.

Other countries have different Fall festivals to honor the deceased.

The Festival of the Dead is one of the most important happenings in both Palermo and the rest of Sicily. The second of November is a festival day for the children of Palermo as, according to tradition,they were made to believe that their dead relatives would return the night before and leave them traditional sweets and cakes on the table (Martorana fruit, which is almond paste made into the shape of different fruit). They would also receive puppets of boiled sugar and toys. It's one way of keeping the memory of their dead relatives and loved ones alive.

Rate

While driving home from work today, a system to rate my live poker sessions occurred to me. The primary skills for my play on a 1-10 scale are:

Energy: how much energy I bring to the game, measured by how awake I feel and how much I am "into the game" (high number = more energy)

Focus: self-explanatory -- how well I am paying attention and reading my opponents (high number = better focus)

Cards: how good the cards are to me, and a measurement of luck (high number = better cards)

Opponents: quality of my opponents (high number = better players)


Recent tournament win --
Energy: 8
Focus: 9
Cards: 6
Opponents: 4

Recent cash game session --
Energy: 6
Focus: 8
Cards: 6
Opponents: 5

Venetian cash game session --
Energy: 7
Focus: 9
Cards: 10
Opponents: 5

Play at Your Own Risk

The Absolute Poker cheating allegations are the hot topic. I can’t help but laugh at all the people writing about this topic – despite all the bitching, everyone will keep playing. And really, what are you, as a player, going to do about it?

My thoughts from a different angle. Imagine these scenarios and tell me what you would do:

-- You log onto your on-line account one evening and the cashier window says your account is $0. You send some e-mails. The response is “our records reflect that your account is $0.” You send more e-mails, make phone calls and repeatedly receive the same response – our records say that your account is $0.

-- You play in a cash game and its obvious that two or more players at your table are colluding. Several people lose money, including you. You send e-mails, and the response is “we have reviewed the history and our records indicate that there was no cheating.”

-- You try to log on to play and the site is no longer running. The company just closed up shop and ran with the money in all player accounts.

Seriously, what would you do? Send messages, make phone calls, post loud rants on chat boards, scream in your personal blog. What would this accomplish when someone else is holding your money? In the U.S., possession is 9/10 of the law. With off-shore internet poker sites, its probably 10/10 of the law (whatever the law may be that governs the situation).

Would you try to sue? Would you actually seek out an attorney and pay him/her money out of your own pocket to file a lawsuit? Who would you sue? How does US law apply in the jurisdiction in which the on-line company operates? The jurisdictional problems alone might be an insurmountable hurdle to anyone that does not have lots of money to pay attorneys. And what attorney would take this case on a contingency basis?

The point is, if any scenario happened where your money just disappears from an on-line poker account, there’s probably not a damn thing you could do about it. For this reason, I am amazing that people rely upon on-line poker as their primary (or only?) source of income. For anyone that actually relies upon this to feed their children -- absolutely irresponsible. I am not indicting poker as a profession, just the unreliable nature of on-line poker.

Play at your own risk.

Tick Tick Boom

The Game: Ameristar $120 buy-in NLHE Thursday night tournament, 49 entrants.

Result: 1st place, $1928 cash. My second biggest tournament cash to date.

I didn’t actually win 1st place outright, but there was a 4-way chop at the end and I got the full 1st place prize money because I had a crushing chip lead over the other three players. I held something like 70% of the chips in play when we were down to four.

How it went down: Nothing spectacular throughout the tournament. I did not deliver a single bad beat, and no one delivered a bad beat against me. I was all-in only twice, when I open-pushed at the 100-200 and 150-300 levels when he blinds were very high relative to all stack sizes. No callers both times, so my tournament life was never at risk in any hand. Every contested pot was for less than my entire stack.

Keys to this tournament: In live play, I play cash games much more than tournaments. The only time I play live tournaments is in Vegas and in the Ameristar tournament maybe 3-4 times per year. As a result, I feel that my read is best in live cash games. So, I went into this tournament with the intention of focusing on my reads, as I do in cash games, to improve this aspect of my game.

It was primarily due to a sensitivity of stack size compared to style of play. I focused on identifying players’ styles, and then balancing that against stack size. There were situations where I avoided confrontations with smaller stacks who were prone to be more aggressive and play back, and be more on the attack against bigger stacks who were generally weaker players.

I would fold some strong hands that I might normally raise with pre-flop, when I had the sense that someone was ready to call or re-raise. I focused on the “look to the left” skill – looking around left at the players remaining to act to get a sense of their strength before I looked at my cards. Most everyone else looked at their hands before it was their turn to act, and they were giving off tells, or at least some aura of strength or weakness that I could just feel. It sounds like New Age mumbo-jumbo, but it was really working – I was predicting (to myself) with amazing accuracy who was strong and ready to pounce. I avoided a lot of trouble and coasted through the mid-levels by doing this.

The Key Hand: When we collapsed to the final table with 9 players, the Villain was a 60-ish woman wearing a red leather cowboy hat. She had a dominant chip lead with maybe 14,000 and everyone else was somewhere between 3000 to 6000. But, she played a big stack horribly. Her problem was that she hardly played at all, and when she did play she was usually out of position and her hand values were relatively weak for all-in confrontations. She would occasionally raise in EP with a hand like KJ, and then call a small stack push who had AJ. Worse, she would fail to call with tremendous pot odds in multi-way pots (ex. 700 call with one teensy stack all in, when the pot was already 3000+), with the opportunity to check it down and knock out the small stack. She continually made bad plays out of position and I got the sense that she came to the final table with a big stack due to luck. So she was the target, if I got the chance.

Despite her weak plays, she managed to collect an even bigger stack after winning some races. I won a few decent hands as the players dwindled, and Villain and I each knocked out two players. Down to five players, she and I were close as the big stacks, but I had her covered, and the other three were short.

At the 700-1400 level, she opened UTG for 4500. I was next to act and had two red kings. The moment I had been waiting for. How to get her stack in the middle? I intentionally fumbled around with a raise, and made it look like I was weakly making a min-raise, but intentionally made it 1000 (two orange chips) short. The dealer called this out, and I tossed the other two chips in. She was watching this act. My read was that she had Ax. The plan was call a push, or push myself if she checked, on any flop that didn’t have an ace.

The flop was T-9-6 rainbow, and she quickly pushed. I called and she showed A8-hearts. Perfect. I held up, and had about 70% of the chips. The other players quickly worked out the deal and I took the full 1st place prize.

Question: When the initial deal idea was raised, the other players all quickly pointed out, “You get 1st place money. You can’t finish any better than that!” But could I have gotten more than 1st place money in a deal? Is this ever done? Do players ever use extreme big-stack deal leverage to squeeze better than 1st place money out of a deal – pay me better than 1st place money, or no deal? My equity in the remaining prize pool was about $2800 based on my stack size, but they were correct that I could not win more than $1928 if we played it out. They each got about $700 in the deal, but 3rd and 4th place money was somewhere around $600 and $400, respectively, so my leverage would have been their individual risk of losing about $300 by playing on. I would have looked like a greedy hog for even trying, but I’m still curious if this would have worked.

Save the Chipleader, Save the World

The Game: $1/2 NLHE with a $5 bring-in. It costs at least $5 to limp in, including the BB. You can sit down with a max of $500 or 75% of the biggest stack at the table. I have no idea why the blinds are only $1/2, when the stacks are so big. Standard PF raise is $15 or $20.

My image: Loose PF, fairly tight after the flop. I’ve been playing a lot of hands, open raising or calling standard PF raises with anything playable, including everything down to single and double-gapped suited connectors. Important for this hand: I have not lost a single showdown all night. I’ve either won before showdown, won at showdown, or bailed out before the showdown. I started with $500 and I’m the big stack at the table with around $900.

The Villain: Sunburnt 40-ish Kansas State fan who watched Kansas whip K-State earlier in the day. He’s the luckbox of the evening – he keeps stumbling into lucky coolers that no one can fold. He has AA when someone else has KK, all in PF. He flops top set when someone else flops middle set, all in on the flop. He turns a straight when someone else flops 2-pair. He sat down with about $250 and ran it up to nearly $800 through dumb luck. He’s playing somewhat loose PF, but he sticks to the big cards and doesn’t seem to play the lower cards. Most importantly, Villain has the shakes when he has a big hand, and its very obvious to the whole table. Its been a 100% reliable tell.

The Hand: UTG+1, I raise to $15 PF with AT-clubs. Four callers, including Villain in the BB.

Flop is 4-A-4, rainbow. Villain checks. I bet $45. Everyone folds to Villain, who just calls.

Turn is 4-A-4-2, two spades. Villain bets $100, and he’s shaking horribly. I openly called attention to his shaking by saying “The Shake-O-Meter is pretty high. That really scares me.” Some laughs at the table. Villain looks kind of scared. Then I call.

River is 4-A-4-2-2. Villain bets $200, and he’s shaking even more as he struggles to push forward two stacks of red without causing a minor earthquake. He has $405 left. I say “Wow” when he is done, to point out that I am very aware of how badly he is shaking and aware of his strength. Then I calmly push.

Villain thinks about folding for a long time, then calls and shows J4-hearts. I muck and go home.

Analysis: I was attempting to use his tell against him, but my play failed miserably. I was trying to tell him, “I know how strong you think your hand is, but I am still pushing in the face of such an obvious tell. I have you beat.” Maybe I should have been more blunt and just said, “I know you have a four, but you should still fold and save your chips. I’m all in.”

His pause after my push on the river meant that he at least gave serious consideration to the fact that I could have AA, or maybe A4. I played this hand exactly as I would with AA – just calling his strong bet on the turn, and then pushing on the river even though it was almost 100% obvious he had a four.

(As a side note, I could not figure out his other card during the hand. I really didn’t think he had A4, so that left something like 54 or maybe 64. So, his actual hand of J4 was very unexpected and out of character with his prior play, but also completely irrelevant.)

What I learned from this hand: Don’t try a big bluff against a mediocre player that is incapable of folding in this situation. Be less likely to bluff against someone that has had a really good night and 75% of his stack came from other players. Don’t bluff K-State donkeys.

The Clone Table Theory

Imagine that you are playing at a deep-stack, 9-player NLHE cash game table. Your 8 opponents are clones of you. They are not simply like you, they are you – exact clones of you today. Consequently, each player has exactly the same skill level and playing style.

How could you win in this game?
1. Avoid mistakes.
2. Randomize your play.
3. Have a bigger bankroll.
4. Get lucky.

If you are playing at a table against equally-skilled opponents, the best way to win is to reduce your mistakes and randomize your play. Even if your opponents understand your playing style perfectly (i.e. they are a clone of you), you can still be unpredictable by randomizing your play. Open with a wide range of starting hands. Play recurring hand types (i.e. draws) in different ways (sometimes call, sometimes raise). Respond to aggression in different ways. Make your opening raise constant (3xBB, as Mr. Ferguson teaches), but vary your post-flop bet or raise amounts.

There is also a key external factor – bankroll size. A bigger bankroll will allow you to better withstand bankroll fluctuations, and a bigger bankroll should provide more confidence, thereby reducing mistakes (or at least the fear of making mistakes) and enhancing aggression.

As players move up in playing levels, they get closer to the theoretical Clone Table. Over time, the natural selection process that occurs by winning at lower levels and moving up to higher levels brings together players that are more closely matched in style and ability. Picture the table in Bobby’s Room populated by Brunson, Ivey, Chan, Reese, Hanson, etc. – they all have large bankrolls, play aggressive, randomize their play, play with confidence, and avoid obvious mistakes. They aren’t clones of one another, and certainly have different playing styles, but in theory their skills are the most closely matched because they have risen through the ranks of weaker players and reached the poker pinnacle where the most highly skilled players compete.

These suggestions aren’t anything new, but imagining a Clone Table helps to emphasize the key attributes that would allow you to compete and win against equally-matched opponents, as well as lesser-skilled opponents.

I ♥ Live Poker

My hot streak in live play continues, and my on-line game flounders.

Due to rare scheduling of family events, I was able to play on the last two Friday nights in the Ameristar NLHE cash games. Two weeks ago, I won $1040, and last Friday I won just over $200.

Two weeks ago was a spectacular session. I actually started at the $1/2 NL game because that's the biggest game they had running. A single $2/5 NL table finally opened around 9pm. For some reason they let players sit down with $1000, so I was instantly in deep-stack play. My favorite. Most other players only bought in for around $300.

By 1am, my stack was over $2000 and the table closed. Between myself and the guy next to me, the only other decent player at the table, we literally cleaned everyone else out except for two poor souls with $200 stacks. So the table closed.

Last Friday, I was running really cold, and nothing connected early on. I made a heroic comeback for a positive night. I had lots of interesting confrontations, which I'd like to write about if I have time.

I'm 100% confident in my reads in live deep-stack cash play. Its not that I can read my opponents 100% of the time, but I can tell when my read is accurate, and when my read is uncertain. I can tell when I can't tell what my opponent holds. That make sense? I can feel when I can successfully push back, and I can feel when I don't have a good read and need to back off. I can play a wide range of hands and show down some goofy hands that connect, scaring the table and giving me an unpredictable style.

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

My on-line game continues to suffer as I play more live games. I am dependent on a read of my opponents. So, I am floundering on-line. I'm not losing, I'm just not gaining ground anymore. I really think that the games are tougher now on-line. An on-line $1/2 NL is easily more difficult than a live $2/5 NL game.

I'm sticking to the $50 SNGs and the $1/2 and $2/4 NL games. Up $200, down $200. Up $300, down $300. There are no soft games that I can find. Plus, I've become more dependent on my live reads, which is just absent with on-line play. I'm liking the heads-up play even more because its the best way I can get a read on-line.

I'm going to try to get back to a more math-based game on-line, since I can't read there as well as live.

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

The weather is getting cooler, football season is here, and Halloween is coming. I love this time of the year.

Testing the FullTilt Bankroll

The Disney Cruise was great fun for all. As soon as we got off the ship, both of my kids asked when we can go on another cruise. Like we can just book one for next month…

Many, many weeks ago, I cashed in some of my 40,000+ FullTilt points for two books – “The Poker Mindset” and the FullTilt tournament strategy compendium with chapters written by all the famous poker immortals associated with FullTilt. I ordered these specifically with the thought that I would read these on the cruise.

The books did not arrive before we left for vacation. I said, “Dammit, these are the two books that I want to read on the vacation. Is that too much to ask?” So, I went and bought the FullTilt tournament book. I was able to read parts of a few chapters on the trip. Kids are time eaters, even on vacations. The Post-Flop NL chapter by Ted Forrest was great, and reinforces much of what I have written in this blog about feel for the game and the Zen mindset that can set in with deep concentration at the table.

Of course, when I got back from vacation, the two books that I had ordered from FullTilt had arrived. Some poker friend will be the recipient of a shiny copy of the FullTilt tournament book in the hear future…

*********

I can’t bring myself to spend 25,000 points and order a FullTilt jersey. But the football jersey would be cool. I would just feel like a complete geek wearing that in public, even thought I am, in all honesty, a complete poker and chip-collecting geek. It would be cool to have my name on the back, but it’s the logo thing on the front that would make me feel embarrassed. Unless I was playing at a final table at the WSOP and FullTilt was paying me to wear their logo. Maybe some day.

**********

I emptied my FullTilt account of everything but $2000 (voluntarily). Then I went on a bad streak and ran it down to around $700. Exactly $800 of the losses were due to two bad beats at the $2/4 NL tables. Upon further review, my official definition of a “bad beat” is when I lose a hand after getting all the chips in the pot as a 75% or greater favorite. I guess I should not be playing $2/4 NL when I only have 5 buy-ins, but I play better at a level that at least feels slightly meaningful.

So after I hit the $700 mark, I decided to play only $100 buy-in or higher SNGs. Again, not optimal bankroll management (for just my FullTilt bankroll), but what the hell. I play better when there is more at stake. I concentrate more carefully on each decision when I reach a certain cash threshold. As for SNGs, that threshold seems to be $100 for me.

I was playing well and got an average run of cards, and the FullTilt account is back to around $1400. Full recovery to $2000 is the goal, and then I’m going to try the Bad Bankroll Management Challenge.

***********

I really like the heads-up SNGs. I am involved in every hand and constantly make decisions. I like reading my opponents patterns. It’s the best way that I have found, on-line, to replicate what I like about live play – reading the opponent. At a full on-line table, the other players are just so many avatars. But heads-up, I can focus exclusively on one opponent and his patterns. I’ve had good success in heads-up play, and its more fun for me.

I like playing a single-table SNG and a heads-up SNG at the same time. The heads-up table takes enough of my concentration to ensure that I don’t get bored with the full table and play too many hands, or over play medium-strength hands. The heads-up table essentially provides more patience to wait for the best hands at the full table.

Even at the $100 SNG level, its amazing how many players still make huge mistakes. Like pushing 44 after an EP raise at the third level with an average-sized stack. Or pushing middle pair on the flop during the third level when the stack sizes still allow plenty of room to play.

A New Challenge

I think I need a new poker challenge. With much of my on-line play, I kind of just sputter along. Over the several years that I’ve played, I am slowly, ever so slowly, building up a bankroll. But on-line is much harder than live play for me.

On three occasions in the past I’ve “taken a shot” at higher on-line limits -- $5/10 and $10/20NL. All three times, I had initial success and then dropped it all back. When giving it back, I’d fairly say that 50% was due to variance and 50% was due to bad play brought on by the variance.

I’m thinking of an accelerated “shot taking” chance. For example, start with a decent amount, like $500 (the “Starting Stake”), and put it all in play. Then, with each win, immediately put the Starting Stake plus all the Winnings from the Starting Stake in play. Instead of using good bankroll management with the Winnings, continue to push by putting the whole Starting Stake and all the Winnings in play. But never put in play more than the Starting Stake plus all Winnings. I will play mostly cash games, with some SNGs thrown in for variety.

If I crash, it would be like one losing session and I’m just out the Starting Stake. With solid play, I should be able to avoid a crash with anything but a bad beat. At least that’s the theory. I have the feeling that a lot of high stakes on-line players quickly built up this way.

I’ll set the goal at $10,000 -- if I can parlay the Starting Stake into $10,000, I will stop and go back to good bankroll management. (I might change my tune if this actually works and I hit something like the $5000 or $8000 mark. It would be difficult to set down at an on-line table with $5000+, but we’ll see what happens.)

I’d like to eventually be playing on-line for the same stakes as I do live, so there’s not so much disparity for me between on-line and live games. I pay more attention and play better when there is more at stake, which might explain why I often sputter along at the lower on-line stakes. Sitting down with $400 at a $2/4NL game and cashing out after an hour with $500 just doesn’t seem to have much pop when there is so much money in play on-line.

Busting the Boss

Another Vegas tale. Playing with idiots is fun. In my last cash game session, I set one guy on super screaming monkey tilt without saying much of anything. He thought he was the Boss of the table from the moment he sat down. He was immediately spouting poker lingo, pot odds, math, and talking about pro players. He bought in for $400. I was way up by the time he sat down, so my range of PF hands was large at this point.

After he had won a pot or two, he raised in MP to $25. Everyone folded to me in the BB, and I called with T8s. This is my favorite hand. I have no idea why.

The flop is Th-Ts-6h. Bingo. I check. He bets $50, and it’s a bet of confidence. I can tell he’s 100% sure that he is ahead.

I raise to $150 total and stare at the felt in his direction. After about 10 seconds he shoves, and I can tell he still thinks he’s ahead. I call and immediately show my hand.

The Boss blows up, and the jibberish he started spouting made everyone laugh at the table. “Nice hand! Way to go! Great play! You hit your 42 to 1 against long shot! Nice play!”

He slaps AA on the table. Like I didn’t already know what he had. Then he continues.

“I’d say nice play, but it wasn’t! That was a horrible play!” He’s yelling everything. “Keep playing like that and I will bust you! Players like you pay my monthly salary! Keep it up!”

This guy plays like this for a living? Scary thought. The whole time I’m just stacking his chips, saying nothing. Then he asks, “Why’d you call with that hand?! What were you thinking?!”

Interesting question. The real answer should be obvious – I know what he had PF by his body language (AA, KK, QQ or AK), and that if I hit something good, I will take his whole stack. Against many other players, I would easily muck PF. Of course I can’t say this, so I just reply, “Its my favorite hand.” Also an honest answer, but he thinks that I am messing with him.

“Your favorite hand, huh?! Well, I had my favorite hand, too! Which hand was better?! Which one of us is better there, huh?”

I just finish my stacking and continue playing. During the next hand, I quietly repeat, “It really is my favorite hand.” He thinks I’m needling, and I am, sort of, but its still the truth.

Our conversation is over, but the Boss is just about as pissed as a player can be at the table. Its good to get the donks steamed. He rebought for $300.

I few orbits later, I busted him when I flopped two pair with T9 against his AK on a board of K-T-9. I had called his raise again PF, and a series of raises on the flop got all his chips in. He didn’t learn much from our prior battle. He shipped the remainder of his stack my way. “You’re just too good for me!” he yelled. “I can’t play with you any more! Shit!” He stomped off.

After the Boss left, the dealer said, “Thanks for getting rid of that guy. He’s an ass. We all hate him. He treats everyone like that.”

Another player at the table said, “He’ll have to go make his monthly salary somewhere else tonight.”

Patience, patience, patience

Live Cash Game

I played in a live Ameristar $2/5 NL cash game last Friday, and came away with $1300 profit. My live game picked up where I left off in Vegas. I went into the session with the goal of continuing my focus and remaining patient, and it paid off. I started tight, then loosened up and pulled off some bluffs after I built up my tight image and a big stack.

I rarely overplayed a hand, and was very willing to release if I felt that I was beat. This is a significant adjustment for my cash game play. In the past, I think I would call down with inferior hands too much. Now, I keep reminding myself in tough situations that better opportunities will come along, and I save my chips for those moments.

I had a solid read on everyone at the table. I like live poker so much more than on-line, because of this main difference. There moments again where I knew exactly what my opponent was holding, or what another player held when I was not involved in a hand. Generally, it is much easier to read hands when you’re not involved and you can focus all of your attention on the read. When you’re involved in a hand, the distractions of running through calculations and the natural nervousness that comes with people watching you are distractions from reading your opponents hands.

With significant live practice, however, distractions during a hand are easier to block out. When I’m really relaxed and in the zone, there is no need to “block” anything out – instead I’m just 100% focused on the moment and reading what my opponent has, and I don’t have to run through any calculations or worry about people watching and waiting for my move. I’ve come to be very comfortable in these situations. I still see a lot of players get very nervous when the spotlight is on them during a hand, and you can see them tense up and lose the ability to focus on their decision.

Picking off the LAG

My patience paid off against one particular player. He sat down about an hour into the session, two to my left. So, I was horribly out of position against him. He was 20-something and seemed to be a walking advertisement for Nike, with a Nike hat, shirt and jacket. I named him Swoosh. He immediately started raising pre-flop nearly every hand, and made obvious continuation bets and bluffs on later streets. For a while, he got away with this and didn’t have to show down a hand.

His stack fluctuated wildly, and he eventually picked off some players for big pots with goofy hands. He’d hit two pair with K6, for example, that turned into a boat with another 6 on the river. Everyone had trouble putting him on hands and playing back at him. After about 2 hours, he’d built up a healthy stack, and my goal was to get it from him.

But, the opportunity never seemed to arise. He routinely called my PF raises when I had good hands, or he would make a big raise after I limped with several other limpers. I didn’t get frustrated, I just told myself to stay calm and wait for an opportunity. The hand started with all but two players limping to me in the SB. I called with 56o, a nearly useless hand except for straight potential. BB checked.

The flop was Q-3-4 rainbow. I decided to lead out for $25, specifically thinking that if I connected later I might win a decent pot against Qx. Swoosh called and everyone else folded, so I knew he had at least a Q. Would this be the hand that I’d get some of his chips?

The turn was (Q-3-4)-T, now with two spades. I bet $40, again with the specific thought that if I hit my hand would be completely disguised. Swoosh raised to $90. I put him on either two pair with QT or a draw with two spades or something like KJ or AJ. With a $50 call into a pot of about $215, my thought process remained the same – I’d either be folding on the river, or getting a lot more of his chips.

The river was a beautiful (Q-3-4-T)-7, no possible flush. My leads on the flop and turn actually paid off -- it seems like these are usually wasted bets, unless my opponent folds. There was virtually no way that he would guess my hand since I led out on the flop and the turn. It probably looked like I was betting something like KQ or QJ, possibly a flush draw on the turn. So, my only thought on the river was how much would he call?

I bet $80, which either looked like a blatant value bet or a weakfish bluff. He stared at me, and I decided that this was one situation where I should make direct eye contact and try to play some mind games. He was exactly the type of player that would read any confrontational non-verbal signals as a sign of weakness, forcing him to play back more aggressively. Strong means strong, but he would read it as strong means weak following classical tell literature.

He usually bet very quickly, but here he paused for a while during this staring contest. To my surprise, he raised $120.

Wow. This was completely unexpected. I double-checked – I do have the nuts, right? Yes. We continued our staring game while I tried to figure out how much more he would call. I raised another $150. My initial $80 river bet had grown to $350 total.

Swoosh had about $600 more behind, and I had him covered. He started fumbling around with chips, and it looked like he was trying to put together $150 in red and green. Then he just jammed all the chips together and pushed everything in.

I couldn’t call quickly enough and flip over my cards. Showing 56o for the nuts put the frighteners on everyone, and I was able to run the table after that because I could be holding any two cards. A player at the other end later said that Swoosh had Q4 -- what the hell does he beat after I put in the third bet on the river? He slow played himself to death.


The next day, I went and bought one of these with some of the winnings at Best Buy:





Internet Play

As good as my live play has been going, I am running exactly the opposite on-line. During my first session after the Vegas trip, I played several SNGs and was crippled or knocked out of five in a row when I got my all chips in as about a 75% favorite or better. The first two SNGs I lost with AQ vs A7 and AK vs AQ. No big deal.

But, this trend continued. I ended up running several hands on PokerStove just to make sure I wasn’t losing it and overestimating my edge. It was an amazingly horrific series of beats. The session ended when I was knocked out as a 92% favorite against a 4-outer on the river. Incredibly frustrating, but nothing that I can do in these situations. I just hate it when beats bunch up and make me feel like I’ve completely lost the ability to play poker. Could someone please make the bad beats spread out a bit more?

So, switch to on-line cash games. I am reminded that live play ruins my on-line play. I rely heavily on my reads in live games, so much of what I base my decisions on in live games is completely lost on-line. Its like I have to re-learn how to play on-line cash games after playing mostly live. Without live reads, I find myself lost at times when faced with a crucial but close decisions. On-line, I lean more toward calling rather than folding because the players are much more loose overall. Combine this with a beating in SNGs, and the picture starts to look bleak.

Live upswing = on-line downswing. Frustrating when I know that I won’t get to play live again for quite a while.

We're supposed to be having fun.

I watched as much of the WSOP Main Event final table, live, as time would allow that evening. Overall, I was tremendously disappointed. The players were far too stoic to make for good viewing. Nothing against the players or their style, just not good to watch.

For me, poker is a hobby. Poker is a card game. Poker is fun. I realize that there are many players that make their living playing poker. Good for them. But, I will never do that. Even if I make a huge hit in a tournament at some point and win life-changing money, poker will still be my hobby.

Consequently, when I see players claiming that God answered their prayers and brought a set on the flop or a winning pair on the river, poker ceases to be fun. Its fine that some players make a living at the game, or that they are winning enough to allow them to quit their jobs, but don’t lose the humor. Don’t lose the fun.

Take baseball. Its is a game that is fun to play and watch. There are many people that make their living from baseball, but at that level its still a game that is played for viewing entertainment. When players lose site of the fact that it’s a game played for entertainment, the game ceases to be fun for the viewers.

When it comes to poker, I want to see leather-assed Texas road gamblers. I want to see Scandinavian uber-nerds that employ bizarre games-theory techniques. I want to see Vegas rounders that are living from tournament to tournament. I want to see professional gamblers that are gambling. I want to see wealthy Iranian and Israeli guys with thick accents needling their opponents to gamble it up. I want to watch loud Americans with swollen egos that think they are the center of the universe. I do not want to watch or play with stoic monks that pray for God to alter the order of the cards so that they can provide a better life for their family. That’s a virtuous endeavor with plenty of merit, but its not fun poker, either in person or on TV.

Each player is free to play the game as he wishes, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it. A selfish but honest perspective.

Vegas 2007

Vegas trip, June 28-July 1. A trip report that is out of order.

Achieving Zen

I’ll start the Vegas report at the end. During my last session on Saturday night, for about five hours in the $2/5 NLHE Venetian cash games, I finally reached what for me is the perfect Zen state of poker. I was in a zone that I have been trying to achieve since I started playing this game as a serious hobby. I was perfectly focused and locked onto everyone at the table. I knew exactly where I was in every hand. I knew when I was ahead and when I was behind, and I almost always knew when another player had a better hand but I could make him lay it down. I can recall only one hand where I won a sizable pot with luck.

I bought in for $1000. After about an hour I was up several hundred. Then things just took off. I hit some big hands to take a few players’ stacks of around $300-$400. Then I became more active, playing a wider range of hands pre-flop and occasionally hitting some boards in the range that no one else was playing.

I still maintained a fairly tight image, and I did not become a chip-spewing maniac. I would fold for extended periods when I got bad cards. I would bet or raise when I thought I was ahead or needed to see where I was at. I yielded to aggression when I felt that I was behind, unless I felt that I could steal. I focused on staying tight, in the sense that I refused to pay off in big pot with a strong second-best hand. I think the most that I ever put into a pot which I later abandoned was maybe $150. I did not double anyone up.

You Don’t Pay Off

There was one very solid player at my table on Saturday night whom I sat next to for several hours on Friday night. He was playing similar to my style, but he probably had a bit more gamble. He was easily the best $2-5 NL player I encountered on my trip.

A good portion of the Saturday night Chip Fortress came from his stack. After the Chip Fortress started to take shape, I too some big pots off of him. The pattern became this: he and I would take from the other players, and then I would take some more from him. At one point the commented, “I think half of your stack came from me.” He was right -- he was doing a serious amount of chip collecting, and then delivering to me.

Mid-way through the session, he started commenting about how he was paying me off for my big hands, but I was not paying him off in return. My response was, “I know when I am beat.” That was probably the key to maintaining my focus and resisting the temptation to give back to the table. When you build up a big stack in a live cash game, its easy to give a lot back because (1) you loosen up and (2) you feel somewhat obligated to spread the love around to keep the action lively.

Is the Stack too big?

After I crossed the $2500 mark, the thought occurred to me that I might be killing the action with a monster stack. Its one thing to build up an intimidating stack in a tournament, when no one can move. In a cash game players can leave whenever they want, and some players don’t like to play against someone who has a dominating stack.

It was clear that I was not freely giving chips back to the table. I started to wonder whether I would kill the action. But that question was continually answered throughout the session – players kept playing back at me, and I kept collecting chips.

Remembering Zen

I’m sure I will have future sessions where I completely lose the ability to read the players and get in a zone. Here are a few of the key things that I remember about this session --

I almost never spoke during a hand, unless it was to tell someone what I thought they had before I folded in a heads-up pot. I’d say something like, “You must have hit your set. OK, I’ll give you credit.” Sometime this would get a verbal response, or they would just show me their hand. The thing was, I hardly ever said what I actually thought they had -- I would just call out a very strong hand, and then see how they responded. If they showed me, fabulous. If not, I still had a good sense by their reaction if I was right or not. It was a great way to gather information. Deep down, I think that most players don’t like to be called bluffers (i.e. “liars”) when they are not, and many will expose their hand to prove that they were strong and not bluffing. This is probably much more the case in cash games than in tournaments.

I hardly ever made eye contact during a hand. I used my peripheral vision a lot. I was almost always looking at the felt between the betting lines on the table, and no higher than players’ hands. I did not look at faces or make eye contact. I discovered (or rediscovered?) that I can get almost all of the information that I need from a player by watching their hands and arms, general body position, and just getting an overall sense of their strength. Kind of like “reading their aura.” That sounds really silly as I write it, but that’s what it was -- I could just tell where a person was in the hand by staying relaxed and letting all of the information that they were giving off flow to my read. The true Zen state of poker. Its very hard to describe, but it was completely working for me.

I paid attention when I was not involved in a hand. I watched people as the hand played out. I would try to guess a player’s strength. I would watch the player and ask “Did he like the flop, or not?” Then, if there was a showdown, I would see if I was right or not. This is what I like most about poker – watching players and making reads.

Response to the Chip Fortress

After the stack grew to multiple players, the rock to my right named it the Chip Fortress. I saw an interesting dynamic taking place during the last half of my session. As players busted out and new players came into the game, they eyeballed the Fortress. Nearly everyone had one of responses: (1) they were scared and requested a seat change; (2) they were amped at the opportunity to win lots of chips from me. It was comical -- about half of the players who sat down would say within one orbit “Seat change button!” This was new to me.

Rock on the Right

So, the players that stayed were eager to make a play for the big kill. Some were super-LAG, trying to get me to open up my game or frustrate me. Some were TAG, waiting for a hand to bust me. There was one guy to my immediate right all night who was a complete rock. A giant granite boulder. He was sitting on around $1800 all night after making two huge hits early on. This was perfect, because I knew exactly where he was all night long -- he was 100% predictable. And, he had the shakes when he got a good hand. Only the players not paying attention tangled with him. And, there was a third level of thinking between us -- he knew that I knew that he was a rock, and he knew that I knew where he was in a hand. Does that make sense? So, I had the ability to raise him off a hand – when I played back at him, he would give me credit for knowing that he was strong. I only did it 2 or 3 times, but it was effective. Fun stuff.

Do I have to leave?

The hour passed Midnight. I was running so well that I did not want to leave this table. But, I had to get up around 5am on Sunday morning to catch my painfully early flight home. I had about two hours at home to repack, and then load the kids in the van and head to St. Louis for three nights. Pulling an all-nighter would mean pain for several days. I just can’t do that anymore.

What to do? If this session happened on Friday night, I absolutely would have stayed at the table as long as possible. I would have played until I lost my ability to focus. I heard Phil Ivey say on TV one time that one of the biggest mistake many players make is leaving a cash game too early, while the table was still good, in order to lock in profits.

But, I had to stop. It was a decision made for the benefit of my family, more than anything else. I didn’t want them to have to put up with tired, cranky dad. But, I just could not lose at this table. As I started racking up my chips, I continued to play. After the chips were fully racked, I decided to play to the button. UTG, I raised to $20, got one caller, led out on the flop and won the pot. In the BB, I checked after several limpers, led out on the flop after flopping top pair with QJ and won the pot. I folded the SB, then finished the session by winning the pot with a pre-flop raise on the button. Its never been so hard to leave a table! I cashed in +$3200 for the session.


Venetian Tournaments

The First Tournament

I arrived early on Thursday to play in the noon Venetian Deep Stack Tournament. I registered at the hotel, dropped my stuff off in the room, and proceeded directly to the tournament sign-up counter at the back of the poker room.

I received a card with the number “242” scribbled in black marker. I was alternate #242. You’re kidding me, right? I arrived early to play in this tournament, a field of 480 players already have a seat, and I have to wait until 242 players bust out before I can even get a seat? Fuck that.

Backup Plan -- I’ll just play in the Venetian cash games after I grab some lunch. No, sorry, all tables in the Venetian will close at 11:30am because they are devoted to the tournament. And, since about half of the bustouts will be filled with alternates, there will be no tables available for the cash games until around 3:30 or 4pm. Fuck that, too.

Backup Plan B – relax at the Venetian pool for two hours, hit the cash games at the Mirage late afternoon, and then proceed as the Vegas winds blow.

Okay, the First Tournament

I won a few hundred at the Mirage NL cash games on Thursday afternoon, then signed up for the 8pm Venetian tournament. Its not a “Deep Stack” tournament, but you still start with about 80BB, so its not bad. First significant hand – I flop a set of nines on an 983 board. I use Jedi mind tricks to get the PF raiser to commit his stack on the flop with QQ. Q hits on the turn, and I am crippled. Being a 92% favorite is not good enough on-line or in Vegas, apparently.

Second significant hand – I push 1500 at the 100/200 level with QQ, and BB calls with A8o. What a donk. An ace hits on the river. Live poker is completely rigged. I go to bed.

The Second Tournament

On Friday morning, I hit the Venetian NL cash tables at 9:30am. I won a few hundred. I signed up for the noon $500+ tournament the night before, so I had a seat at noon.

The room was packed. Poker players were swarming everywhere. Dozens of alternates were clustered at the back, waiting for a seat. Poker is fun for everyone.

We start with 10,000 chips and 25/50 blinds, for a starting stack of 200BBs. Very cool. Despite the deep stacks, I quickly notice something very odd. Everyone was playing artificially aggressive. What I mean by “artificial” is that most of the players aren’t really capable of playing a good LAG game, and are weak-tighties, but they believe that they must play a LAG style because this is the “correct tournament strategy” despite stack size. So, the range of raising and calling hands was immediately larger than it really should have been when everyone still had a deep stack.

I did not adjust correctly. I loosened up a bit, but I flopped absolutely nothing. I was down to 7500 when the blinds hit 100-200. As my stack dwindled by playing solid starting hands that never connected, I was quickly forced to push with QQ into AA and was out before 2pm.

Tournament Observations

The Venetian has scored huge on this tournament series. They have perfectly tapped into a swelling market. There are lots of decent players that want deep stack tournament poker which is lower on the luck factor, with reasonable buy-ins that still produce a healthy prize pool. For $500+, you get 200BB to start and a chance to cash for $100,000+.

But, I don’t like the payout structure. Its way too top-heavy. Despite starting fields of 500+, including alternates, they only pay 40 spots. And, 40 through 25 or so only pays a few hundred above the buy-in. You have to go really deep to even hit a 2x buy-in profit. I guess this allows them to publish the big 1st place payouts at $100,000+.

The players reaction to this shallow pay-out structure is to chop as soon as possible. The big story at the Venetian was how they were getting ridiculous chops early in the tournament. I heard at least four dealers tell the story about the tournament a few days before I arrived -- they had a 32-player even chop for something like $6000 per player. The story was that, shortly after they hit four tables, some guy yells out, “If we chop now, we all get $6000.” Everyone looked around at stack sizes, and said, “We’ve been at this for 11 hours. That doesn’t sound too bad.” So the tournament ended at four tables remaining.

The place was swarming with packs of guys from Europe. An army of Gus Hansen wannabes. I played with guys from Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Holland. They seemed to travel in packs of four or five. They were all 22 or younger. They all had backpacks and jackets. They all drank Red Bull or Green Tea. They all had big headphones that were permanently resting on their shoulders. They were all pale white, but usually in good physical condition. They all needed a haircut. They would typically gather behind one of their brethren who was sitting in a cash game, and proceed to work themselves into a frenzied poker conversation in German, Dutch, or whatever the hell language they were speaking. I could tell it was poker talk because occasionally I would recognize an English word or phrase thrown in like “turn cahd,” “beht,” “spaides” or “I donknow vat he was tingking by calling hees stack wit a backdoow floish dwaa.” They were focusing on tournaments and playing in cash games when they busted out. I took one German guy for about $350 in a $2/5 NL game, but that was the extent of my confrontations with them.

Bad Cash Game Hand

Okay, not everything was roses in Vegas. For the trip, I won several thousand, but I made my share of bad plays along the way. Here’s one hand that still makes me mad –

Friday morning Venetian $2/5 NL cash game, about 11 am. Table is running very loose for a morning session, with no drinkers. Soon after I sat down, I hit a big hand. I called a standard raise to $20 in late position with 77 and was heads up against a 40ish dude that looked too serious. The flop was A-8-7. He bet out $30, I raised to $90, he raised to $190, and I pushed. He had another $350 or so and I covered, so it took him about two minutes to call off the rest of his chips. Based on how long he took, I was 100% sure that I was ahead and he probably had AK or AQ, maybe A8. I turned my hand up on the table, showing trips. The turn was A-8-7-7, and the table gasped at quads.

A few orbits later, I called a raise to $20 in the CO with 98s. Three players to the flop of 9-8-K. Original raiser was a young, nervous looking dude, and he bet out for $50. Based on his style, he still had a wide range of hands here, and I read this as a continuation bet. Player between us folded, and I raised to $125. Nervous Dude thinks for a while, then just calls. At this point him on a draw or top pair with a mid-kicker, like maybe KQ. The pot was now about $310.

Turn was 9-8-K-T. Nervous Dude checked. I asked him to raise his hands so I could get a look at his stack. As he did this, my read was that he was not checking with the intention of check-raising. My read was that I still had the best hand. It appeared that he had about $320 or so left in his stack. I thought about how much to bet, and here’s where I made my mistake.

I wanted to make a bet that made this the “pressure point” of the hand. I didn’t want to push and scare him completely away, but I wanted the bet to be big enough so that if he wanted to continue, he would have to just push. So, I bet $180, a little more than half of his remaining stack.

He thought for a long time, and was clearly troubled by the decision. Then he just called.

River was 9-8-K-T-J, no flush possible. He checked, and still looked nervous. I pushed, and he immediately looked exasperated. He thought I hit a straight. It was another $140 for him to win $670. He called and showed JT for a better two pair. I mucked.

I’ve re-run the hand in my head numerous times – I raised on the flop with the best hand and bet on the turn with the best hand. I am still kicking myself for not just pushing on the turn. My intention was to bet enough on the turn to signal that we were playing for his stack, but my bet was not enough to deter just a call. Then he was priced into any bet on the river with just about any sort of hand, even one pair. Next time in this type of situation, I push the turn. I’m sure he would have folded one pair. If he calls my push and draws out, I can live with that result.

I just hate my play in this hand. I gave back almost all of the profit from my earlier quads hand.

The Venetian

Among the Venetian, the Wynn and the Bellagio, the Venetian wins the poker competition. The staff at the Venetian act like they want the business from poker players. They know that there is stiff competition for poker traffic right now, and they have stepped it up a notch. The tournaments are well run. The room is huge, and there is space between the tables to move. They fill tables very fast. The dealers are solid and keep the action moving. A lot of the dealers are also players, and some even play in the Venetian tournaments. The location on the Strip is great. Overall, this is where I prefer to stay and play.

Vegas Cash Games at WSOP Time, Baby!

Back from Vegas. Donkaments suck, cash games rule. This pic of The Chip Fortress, as it was duly named in a Venetian $2/5NLHE session, pretty much sums up the trip. Cash game action was Fan-tastic. For me, there is nothing better in poker than building up a massively intimidating 600+BB stack in a cash game. More later when I have time.

I Don't Wanna Stop

Random poker observations and thoughts and ideas:

Poker After Dark -- Finally new episodes. The table this week is pretty cool -- G. Hansen, D. Benyanine, P. Antonius, D. Negreanu, M. Traniello, B. Booth.

Booth is blowing up before our very eyes. He gains at least 10 pounds every time he appears on TV. The black shirts only hide so much.

I am coming to the realization that Benyamine may have more game than anyone we have seen in a long time. But he could blow up, too, even more.

All the players are betrothed to Full Tilt. Me too. I saw it coming. Maybe it was all the TV ads.

Speaking of Full Tilt, I have decided to stick to the lower level games in my tired, end-of-the-day poker zombie state. $1/2NL is my foundation. I've cleared about $1500 in the last two weeks. Its hard to lose in this game with patience and TAG play.

Speaking of TAG play, I am firmly of the belief that solid TAG play is the antidote to LAG and HAG play that is prevalent on-line. No one notices if you play TAG on-line. They notice in live play. The LAGs and HAGs still call my raises on-line when I raise UTG after folding 28 hands straight. Might as well play the nuts and rake the profits.

Speaking of raking profits, I am back to the Running Back Plan. I leave the table when I make a 2% bankroll profit, and then open another table with the max buy-in. For those of you that know what the hell the Running Back Plan actually means, congratulations. I 'took a shot' at higher on-line levels a about a month ago. One bad beat and on bad play = bad results for the on-line bankroll. The Running Back Plan is slow, but it rules.

I am curious who actually reads this blog. I have no links from anywhere, as far as I know, except a few links on my ever-decreasing Chiptalk posts.

The Tao of Poker is my lifeline to the WSOP. I read Pokernews and Cardplayer, and all the WSOP tournament results are a blur. There are too many events to even follow. The volume of tournaments dilutes the significance of each event. Joe Koozeface won the 2110-field $2000 NLHE event. Waahoo.

I continue to be disappointed that I do not have more time to give myself a chance at winning some major money at poker. I know that I am smarter than the majority of poker players, a boldly arrogant statement. But good poker players are supposed to be arrogant, right? I have worked on my live reads and concentration as much as possible. I continue to feel that I could make tons of money in poker, if only I had the time and energy to devote.

When a player folds and says "Good bluff!" they always have a medium strength hand that probably should have called and are absolutely dying to see what their opponent actually had. I know, cause I've said it.

Play on.

Vegas again, Baby!!

In two weeks and two days, I will be in Vegas, Baby! I am staying at the Venetian. The tentative schedule:

Thursday, Noon -- Venetian $300+ Deepstack tournament.

If I crap out of that early, Bellagio $1000+ tournament at 8pm.

Friday, Noon -- Venetian Deepstack tournament, unless I qualify for the final table of the Venetian tournament from Thursday, which would start at 4pm. OR, I might hit the WSOP on this day. I would try to sat into the NLHE tournament, or I might actually try the 7-stud HL tournament. I like this game, and have performed well when I have played this game. My only issue is whether I could see all the cards, with my bad eyes.

If I crap out of these options, the Bellagio $1000+ tournament at 8pm on Friday is always an option, or possibly the Rio cash games.

In between tournaments, as much NL cash games as I can possibly play, since the NL games during the WSOP are fantastically donkarific.

My long term goal is to build up a substantial bankroll to hit the WSOP Main Event in 2009 with enough to also play the bigger cash games. I am aggressive, but also a realist. I've decided that I need to keep hitting the smaller tournaments and cash games when they are juicy, which means WSOP time.


Also, I think that I am the only poker blogger that does not have a single link from anyone else's blog. I'm kinda proud of that.

A poker ninja blogger.

Gut Push

I watched a good part of the Cubs game on Saturday with my 4-year old son. Watching baseball is rare these days, due to soccer, basketball, T-ball, softball, general playtime outside and lots of other weekend activities. I'm a lifelong Cubs fan, and my son announced that he likes all the teams that I like. Cool. We also built a dragster with K'Nex during the game.

We watched the Pinella tirade at 3rd base, when he got booted. My son thought that these antics were very odd, but entertaining. "Daddy, why is he kicking his own hat?"

Today, they announced that Pinella was suspended indefinitely. Commentators and Pinella himself said that there was no contact with the ump. But there was -- I'll bet it will come out that the "contact" was Pinella's giant gut pushing against the ump!!

Vegas, baby

I started the Vegas report soon after I returned in February, but got sidetracked with work, life and playing poker.

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

Wynn Tournaments

Overall, these were uneventful tournaments in which I gained zero traction. I lasted through the mid-levels, but was forced to push with mediocre hands and busted. Waaa.

In my first tournament, I sat down next to Michael Craig, the author of “The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King.” I recognized him immediately when I sat down. The conversation went something like this:

“You look familiar. You write about poker, right?”

“Yes.”

“Where have I seen your work?” He mentions the book.

“I really enjoyed that book.”

“Thanks. It was one year ago today that the Ivey match with Beal started.” He motions in the direction of the poker room to indicate where the game happened. We are seated in an area of the main gaming floor which is occupied by several dozen tournament tables. He also mentioned a book that he is writing with the Full Tilt pros, which he expected to be in print by the WSOP.

I ask a few questions about the Ivey-Beal match and his experience, but his answers were short and clipped. This conversation occurred between hands, and it seemed as though he didn’t want to talk much. I can respect that, because I am very quiet at the tables and don’t care for much chatter when I am playing.

Overall, the experience was much less enjoyable than I would have expected. I would assume that a poker writer would be willing to talk about poker and his book, but apparently not Mr. Craig. He came across as someone who is really into the poker scene, but doesn’t really have time to be bothered by someone who is not a famous player or a pro. He treated me like I was just another schlub at the table.

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

Wynn Cash Games – Day 1-2

I played in the $2/5NL cash games a lot in between the Wynn tournaments, and won my buy-ins back plus about another $1000 during the first 36 hours of my stay. The games were fairly soft, and the good players were easy to spot and avoid. There were a lot of 20-ish cowboys that liked to play a blind straddle, and then re-pop no matter what from UTG when it got back to them pre-flop. I took advantage of this twice by deep-limping with KK and AA, and stacked one player with this move.

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Venetian -- The Cash Game Run Begins

At 10:30am on Saturday, I was seated at the only $2/5 NL game running at the Venetian. It played big and surprisingly loose for the early hour, mainly because the table seemed to be populated by players that had been up all night. Except for me. The stacks ranged from $400 to $2500. I bought in for $1000. I’d been at the table for 20 minutes, and played maybe 2 hands, when this hand occurred...

I was UTG with 5s5h and raised to $20. Folded to BB (what, do I appear to be that much of a rock?), and BB just called with around $600 behind. BB had been talking to the guy on his right, and I could tell they are both solid, strategic, experiences players based on their analysis of players at the other end of the table. BB took a little bit to call, and possibly he was thinking about a re-raise.

Flop was 4h-Td-Kc. BB checked and I bet $30. BB thought a bit and called. I got the vibe that he was probably ahead with a better pair, and was probably not on a draw. Maybe something like AK, JJ or 99.

Turn was (4h-Td-Kc)-5c. An unexpected gin! I always look for the set on the flop, but for some reason I am always shocked when it hits on the turn – if I’m still in the hand.

BB checked again. I thought a bit and bet $80. BB raised $200 more, and it looked like a bet of confidence. In fact, it dawned on me that he was probably setting me up all along for the turn check-raise. If I just called, the pot would have been $660. He had around $270 left, so I was not going to fold on the river if he pushed. I paused for a while to make him think I had a tough decision, acted like I’m was counting things up, and then announce that I’m all in.

BB cursed and spun around in his chair. He faced away from the table and hunched over. He spun back around and was clearly agonized and angry about the decision. I was about 95% sure of what I was about to see, since I had done this to myself before.

He called and turned over AA. My set held up on the river.

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

The Venetian Tournament

I was a bit aggravated with my performance in the Wynn tournaments, so coming into the Venetian tournament, I made the decision to shift into a higher LAG gear with the Venetian deep stack tournament. I wanted to play this one different that my usual tournament strategy. The plan in my head went something like this:

1. In MP or later, when its folded to me PF, I will raise regardless of my hand. If I get re-raised PF (a) when I have junk, I will fold, (b) when I have anything playable, I will call, (c) with a premium hand, I will re-raise.

2. I will regularly fire continuation bets and play aggressive when the cards come out. The goal was to really ramp up the aggression.

3. Build a big stack early or move on to the cash games.

A lot of players say that they don’t come into a tournament with any sort of plan. Now I know why. My plan was foiled because I kept getting medium and baby pocket pairs. Tons of ‘em. During the first two levels, I remember receiving these starting hands:

22 - 2
33 - 1
44 - 2
55 - 3
77 - 2
88 - 1

The string of PPs was amazing. Since I hit the big hand at the Venetian cash game right before the tournament started, I thought that maybe it was an omen for the luck that I would realize with all these starting PPs.

So, if there was a raise in front of me, I called with a lil’ PP. If it was folded to me, I raised with a lil’ PP. When I open-raised and it was re-raised, I called with my lil’ PP. I decided to see every flop with any PP, regardless of the cost. The way that the table was playing, if I hit even one big hand with a set, I would have vaulted to the chip lead at the table.

Absolutely nothing panned out. No sets. Not even a straight draw. Every single flop missed my lil’ PP in every way. When I took a shot on the flop or after with my lil’ PP, I got called. So, by the end of the second round, I had pissed away nearly my entire stack. The cash games were calling, which is a bad mind-set for a tournament. I went out in a blaze of glory after 5 limpers by pushing a stack of about 2500 with 87s.

I really wish I could play this Venetian tournament table again with more patience, because there were some real donks at that table. Of course, I probably looked like, and truly played like, the biggest donk of everyone, based on the way I ended up playing my hands and busting out first from my table. If this had been the first tournament on my trip, and I hadn’t come into the tournament with a specific “strategy,” I definitely would have played differently.

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

A Huge Wynn?

I had played in several sessions at the $2/5 NL tables, and except for the occasionally solid or tricky player, the competition was fairly easy to read. After a few profitable sessions, I decided to step up to the $5/10 NL game.

This felt like wading into a deep pool of sharks. There is no max buy-in at the Wynn NL games. At the $2/5 NL game, it was a sea of red chips and some green. At the $5/10 NL table, you see the full range of colors and wads of cash. Some players were sitting with $5000 or more – mountains of red topped by black and green. Back home, I’d played in several $5/10 NL games, but the max buy-in was $1000 because of the silly Missouri loss-limit rules.

So, sitting down at this table felt, in some ways, like my first few no limit sessions. It’s the intoxicating mix of tremendous excitement and sheer terror. But, after a few tight orbits, I adjusted and settled in.

The villain in question was the kind of maniac that that you see every so often at the tables. He was 25-ish, talkative, antsy, and raised pre-flop in 90% of all pots. He would open raise to $40, or raise after limpers to $70-80. He would raise from MP, the button and the BB with equal consistency. Position meant nothing to him, as far as raising PF was concerned. He was a regular, knew lots of people in the casino, and within my first hour at the table had invited three people to the parking lot to share a joint (with no takers). Spliff the HAG.

Spliff’s stack swung from large to huge, and bet on the flop and after with as much frequency as he raised pre-flop. On the occasion that he got called on the river after wild betting, he showed either medium strength hands (sometimes winners) or complete junk.

I sat with $1500 an had run my stack up to about $2500 after about 2 hours of play. Spliff had about $4000 or so.

The hand:
Spliff raises UTG to $40. One MP caller, and I have JJ on the button. I raise to $155 total. Spliff calls, and MP calls. There is more potential cash involved in this hand than any hand I’ve ever played before. Time to dial it up a notch. Pot is $480.

The flop is 8h-7s-6h. Spliff opens for $300. MP folds.

Now, the problem is that Spliff could have just about anything. His range of hands, even after this bet, is still huge. I can rule out the premium pocket pairs AA and KK because I really think he would have re-raised me PF with another player in between us. What hands could he have that beat me right now? QQ, T9, 88, 77, 66 and 54 are all possibilities. But so are any two hearts, as well as any two random cards, because he has shown the propensity to play complete junk with exactly this sized bet on exactly this type of flop.

So what’s my read of him? He’s staring at me, kind of bouncing in his seat, and I get the vibe that he is trying to intimidate. After a bit, I get the strong sense that he is simply trying to buy the pot, and I am ahead. There’s no particular tell, just a strong feeling. Time to trust my read and my instincts.

I raise to $800 total. He quickly counts out the call in red stacks, and slides them in. I sense that he’s already preparing to bet the turn, because he’s kind of eyeballing the remainder of my stack as the dealer collects the pot together. The pot is around $2080, and I have about $1550 left.

The turn is [8h-7s-6h]-2c. This doesn’t appear to change anything. He says, “I’ll put it all in,” and starts moving his chips, stack by stack, in front of him.

Gulp. Time for a serious gut-check. Several thoughts and questions flash through my mind at once. This is the biggest pot of my life. Was my read wrong? Am I walking into a monster? Or, as I initially felt, is he just trying to bully me out of the pot? What does he have? A set?

Time to calm down. Everyone at the table is quiet, watching me or Spliff. They’ve been waiting for this type of confrontation involving Spliff. Let’s take things one step at a time. The pot is over $3600, matching his push against my remaining stack. What is my read of this play? Two clear thoughts occur to me. First, my read on the flop was that this fit his usual pattern of bullying with junk. I got the strong read that he was not ahead, and was continuing with his normal bluff game.

Second, and more importantly, what does he think of my play? He probably thinks that I’m a rock, and that I can be pushed around. I’ve played relatively tight so far. I’ve only produced solid hands at the showdown. He does not think that I connected with that board. He thinks that I think that the flop could have hit him in many ways. In fact, based on my PF raise, he thinks that I have exactly what I have -- a strong but vulnerable starting hand that did not connect.

Then, its suddenly like I can read his thoughts -- he thinks that I have exactly QQ or JJ. Its like I can read his mind. This is exactly how he would play against a tight-aggressive player that he puts on QQ or JJ with that board, and he knows that I would be scared of that board and his bet, and that I should lay down just one pair. After what seems like five minutes, but is maybe only 60 seconds, I decide to go with my read.

This is the roller coaster that has reached the peak, and freezes just before plummeting. My stomach is in my throat. I call.

The dealer quickly deals the river before either of us act -- [8h-7s-6h-2c]-8c. Spliff looks at me without turning over his hand and loudly says, “Two pair.”

Oh shit, I’m beat. That’s my first thought. I’m staring at the board. Everyone is staring at us. Then it occurs to me that I also have two pair. “Me too,” I say.

Spliff sort of waves his cards in the air but doesn’t turn them over. I’m waiting, and suddenly I forget the rules. He has to show first, right? Yeah, but he’s not tabling his hand. So, I just turn my hand face up on the table. Everyone at the table, and several that I finally notice who have gathered around the table, all in unison crane their necks at my pair of jacks.

Spliff slaps his cards face down in the general direction of the pot. “What a fucking horrible call!” he yells, and stomps away from the table. The dealer collects his hand into the muck, and starts pushing what seems like all of the chips in the entire casino in my direction. I have just won a $3600+ pot.

I start stacking chips, which takes two phases -- assembling the chip buildings, and then arranging my little chip city. I love chips. This goes on for about three or four more hands. I’m in a daze. Spliff has returned to his seat and is still bitching about what a horrible call I made. After a few more hands he wanders off to take a break.

I finally ask to the guy that saw his hand, “What did he have?” He replies, “Pocket fours.”

So, in the end, I basically just sniffed out a bluff, but holy shit was it scary. This is the hand that really taught me to trust my reads, at least in cash games.

Zen Focus

If you are following along with this blog, one theme that you will see bubbling up more frequently is the idea that my poker results are now almost always the direct result of my focus. The more focused I am at the game, the better I play and the better my results. On certain rare occasions, I have been keenly focused and it has felt as if the game was flowing through me -- I could tell exactly where I was in each hand, and it is like a sixth sense had developed that was telling me what to do with incredible precision.

From poker, I am better able to "read" people in everyday life. Its not poker, per se, put a skill that I have developed from playing poker. I am frequently telling my wife that I can almost feel or 'hear' what another person is thinking. (There have been a few times where I was 'reading' the other person so well, it scared me. I haven't really told anyone about this in any detail.) This happens when I am focused on the moment, and not thinking about the past or the future. The nature of my profession requires a lot of planning and thinking about the next meeting, activity, due date, etc., but I am best able to communicate with, and sometimes 'read', other people when I am completely in the moment.

I encountered two things today that drive this point home:

1. On some poker show that I caught today (the 2004 WSOP Tournament of Champions, I think) Howard Lederer was talking about his effort at Zen focus. He said that he was concentrating more on being 100% in the moment at the poker table. Not thinking about the past, the future, or anything surrounding the poker table, but instead focusing his energy 100% within the confines of the poker table. When I saw this, I said out loud to no one, "Yes, that's exactly it."

2. The following is copied directly from Shaniac's blog, posted on March 6, 2007, and is a perfect summary of what I think it takes to play great poker:

"As cliché as it sounds, maintaining a good mental balance is the one true key to performing consistently well in tournaments. There are hundreds of excellent tournament players out there, and most of them are familiar with a similar range of strategic poker concepts. But I think it's a level of Zen-like focus, a real inner calm, that allows the best players (like JC Tran, Nam Le, the Grinder, and, recently, Paul Wasicka) to put up incredible results over and over. That psychological fortitude is much harder to achieve than, say, a basic grasp of Game Theory, and that is why tournaments, while challenging and rooted in luck, are still profitable and fun: in any given event, some percentage of the expert players simply aren't "in the zone" and therefore aren't giving themselves the necessary edge to win."

Monthly Blog Dump

I’ve been typing these posts in Word over the last few weeks. Rather than posting periodically, I’ve collected them. And now, I take a blog dump for your reading pleasure.

Random but Useful Poker Thoughts

Whenever I have to think for a long time about whether I should call a big bet, I am almost always behind. Like 99% of the time. If I can make a decision to call quickly, I am usually right.

Practice at a full cash table erodes my ability to play at 6-seat tables. I should practice both more often, in order to make the adjustment better. I played in a 6-seat table this last weekend [several weeks ago], and I found myself folding way too much and getting completely run over by re-raises pre-flop. When I played a hand to showdown, the starting-hand quality of the PF re-raiser was amazingly poor. I give way too much credit to a PF re-raiser in a 6-seat game.

Whenever I need to regain my balance or confidence in cash games, there is one solution that always works for me: tighten up. If I tighten up for a brief period (like a session or two, or maybe the first half of each new session), it’s usually a solid way to drag a few pots (although less frequently) and regain confidence. There are times, after taking a series of beats, where my sole goal is to simply win a pot and leave the table on the plus-side. Then repeat a few times, until confidence is restored.

If you can get your money in 10 times in a row as an 80-20 favorite, you might lose every one of those 10 hands. Bankroll management is the only way to compensate for these stretches.

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

A Good Call

$2/4NL on FullTilt, I’m to the left of a player with a double stack that is habitually overbetting the pot. Massive overbetting. A hand usually went like this -- Overbettor raises to 4xBB in MP, 1 or 2 callers including BB. Flop is low cards, BB bets about 2/3 pot, which makes the pot about $80, and Overbettor pushes for $810. Everyone folds. He is building a massive stack because no one is willing to risk their stack with just a pair (and no one has flopped a great hand against him yet).

This is a giant on-line tell.

The hand:
Overbettor raises to 4xBB in EP, and I min-re-raise to 10xBB with AKo, to isolate. It works, everyone else folds and he calls, and we’re heads-up. Pot is about $86. Flop is 2-3-4r. Overbettor pushes for over $800 and has me covered. The moment I’ve been waiting for. I run through this analysis:

1. He does not have AA or KK, or he absolutely would have repopped PF. So, 2 aces and 3 kings are likely good outs if he even has a PP.

2. He probably would not just push here with a PP like 88, 99 or TT, because there is a very good chance with my re-raise PF that I have him crushed with a bigger PP. SO, I’m putting him on Ax, or a weaker random hand like JTs. But, it really feels like Ax.

3. I may have as many as ten outs if, by chance, he’s pushing with a PP (3 aces, 3 kings, 4 fives). So, my pot equity is probably at least 40%, and maybe much better if my read is right.

4. This fits his pattern of massive overbets when he whiffs.

I call. He shows ATs. But, the turn is a five and we chop. A moral victory, but damn it!

I’ve been the first player at this table to respond appropriately against his overbets, so he is pissed. He proceeds to berate me in the chat box, that I called with “nothing,” I’m a terrible player, etc. This made it all the more humorous, because it was one of my best on-line reads in a long time, and was due mainly to paying attention to his betting patterns for about an hour. I just wish there was a financial payoff from this skirmish. He left the table within one more orbit.

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

WPT Championship -- 7 players left

From the Cardplayer blog:
“Thu Apr 26 23:13:00 PDT 2007
Mike Wattel raises to $420,000 and Paul Lee calls. Thomas Wahlroos re-raises all in for $4.35 million more from the big blind. Wattel quickly mucks and Lee calls with A Q . Wahlroos shows A 10 and the board comes J 8 2 2 5 . Wahlroos fails to improve and is eliminated in 7th place for $278,465. Exact chip counts for the remaining 6 players in the WPT $25,000 NLHE championship will follow. “

Are you fucking kidding me? On the WPT Championship TV bubble and this dude pushes with ATs, but he has 27 BBs left and 3 players have smaller stacks? If I were in his place, I would need to have less than 10BBs left to make this play with these cards. That is at least a $31,000 mistake based on the cash difference between 7th and 6th, and certainly a lot more in overall tournament equity.

I read some threads on 2+2 where some argued that this was a good, or great, move given the situation. Yeah, maybe if this was a $100 on-line tournament, and not the WPT Championship TV bubble with $31,000 on the line for 6th vs. 7th, and the opportunity for millions as the 3rd biggest stack at the table.

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

WPT Championship winner

Carlos Mortensen won it. This is the first time for me that I was actively rooting for a player to win a tournament. I was following the action closely on Cardplayer, and really pulling for Mortensen.

Back before the WPT, I watched an ESPN show on the WSOP 2001 Final Table. It was before the hole-cams, and a lot of the show focused on some guy they called “Big Country”, but it was the year that Mortensen won. As far as I can remember, it was the first poker show that I ever watched. I still have it on tape. I had been playing with friends in home games for about 8 years at that point, but it introduced me to the WSOP and big poker. I was hooked, and I really liked Mortensen’s demeanor at the table and in interviews. Since then, he’s been one of my favorite players. Until this 2007 WPT championship tournament, I’ve followed poker but never really pulled for anyone.

The WPT Championship is my dream tournament, and I will play in it some day. If someone offered me a free big tournament, I would take this tournament over the WSOP main event, and not just for the buy-in amount.

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

Thursday Night Live Tournament + Cash Game

The Tournament

With my renewed interest in tournament poker, I played in the Thursday night Ameristar tournament. Each level is 20 minutes. During the first hour, 3 levels, I was the boss. I was playing great small-ball poker. I would raise to 3xBB with any playable hand (any pair, any two big cards, any suited connectors). I typically got one, maybe two callers. I would make a continuation bet, or raise if it was opened in front of me. During the first level, I showed down KK for the winner, T8s for the winner (flopped 2-pair) and 67s for the winner (straight on the turn). With this full range of hands, I had the table believing that I would play just about any two cards (and I was), and my betting patterns were consistent throughout, so no one had a clue about my hand and every flop was potentially scary.

I think I won maybe 20-30% of the hands during this hour. I was raising liberally and taking down pots constantly with modest continuation bets. I had a good read on the table and had a decent feel where everyone was at in each hand. I was focused and paying attention to all hands, even those that I did not play.

Just before the break, I raised UTG with AKs. Weakish player re-raises with a stack of about 900. He kinda looked like he was getting pissed off with my play, so maybe he was making a play back. I pushed, he called with QQ, and we race. I lose, and he takes a 900-chip bite out of my ass. The trouble with small-ball poker is that it doesn’t result in huge profits, and the big losing hands still significantly damage your stack.

So I was back to about where I started, and during the second hour the blinds escalate quickly to push-fest levels. No one had a stack for me to play small-ball poker, because either I was pushing, or any player that might call was forced to push due to his stack size. Also, during the second hour, I was completely card dead, an endless stream of J4 and K2 type hands. There was no room for maneuvering. Get a good hand and push, or fold. I dwindle down and busted shortly into the third hour. Tournament poker sucks again.

The Cash Game

So, I sat in the $2/5 NL cash game. The game was friendly and very loose pre-flop. Nearly the whole table routinely called. Occasionally, someone would raise the field with a premium hand, and all but maybe one would scatter. Otherwise, it was a decent table for post-flop play, which is what I really like.

I was nearing the end of my session. Every player but one limped to me in the BB, and I wake up with AA. Now here’s the dilemma with AA in this situation. I have two basic choices: (1) raise to something like $40 and chase everyone out, winning $5 from each player, or (2) raise a modest amount, to maybe $25, and invite the whole table in for a monster pre-flop pot. I chose the latter, since I had a good read on the table, and got 5 callers. Eep.

The flop was something harmless like K-8-4 rainbow, and I check-raised one MP player on the flop, winning a decent pot on the flop and escaping unharmed.

I decide to play one more orbit and then pack it in for the night. On the very next hand, the entire table limps to me in the SB, and I look down to see AA again! Same dilemma, compounded by the fact that I may have to make the same play again from the blinds. I again raise to just $25, and get only two callers (the guy to my right, on the button, actually said, “Not again. That’s enough with the bleeding chip thing to you.”)

The flop was Kh-Qh-8c. I open for $80. BB raises to $180 total, third player folds. I check things out, and BB looks nervous. I ask him to raise his arm, to see his chips, but he quickly counts out to exactly $235 behind. [Tell Theory: What does it mean when you just ask to see a stack that’s hidden, and the player counts out the stack without being asked?] If I just call, its probably all going in on the turn anyway. I think there’s about 50% chance that he has a flush draw with AhXh, maybe 40% chance that he has KQ, and 10% chance that he has AK. Here is a key decision-point of my read: I do not have the A-hearts, making it much more likely that he is on the nut-flush draw with the Ah.

So, I pushed. He called with KQ. Eep, again. Fortunately, I suck out with an Ace on the river, and I win about an $840 pot. My night is over and I end happy. Cash games rule.

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

Swing Back to Tournaments

Cash games have gone somewhat cold for me, but my on-line SNG/tournament performance has picked up. Again, I am at a loss to explain why these swings occur.

During my February Vegas trip and for about two months thereafter, I absolutely sucked at tournaments/SNGs, but could do no wrong in cash games. My cash game play felt solid, the competition seemed weaker, and I was stacking players on a regular basis. My on-line bankroll hit an all-time high from cash games. I avoided SNGs and tournaments altogether.

About two weeks ago [now three], my cash game results slipped. I would open two tables and after about a half-hour I would be down about 10-15 BBs on each table. Generally nothing horrible, just not gaining any traction. Then, during one session, I dropped two buy-ins on two tables in quick succession. So the thought occurred to me that maybe it was time to switch back to SNGs.

And suddenly, I’m back on track with SNGs and tournaments. I’m cashing in about 6070% of my single table SNGs, and I’m winning about 4 of every 5 $50+2.50 heads-up SNGs.

There’s obviously distinct differences about the flow of cash games and SNGs/tournaments, but I still can’t put my finger on why I swing back and forth with strong performances between the two, but don’t perform well with both at the same time. My play is taking on about a three-month cycle. I’m learning to identify when the cycle is about to swing. Maybe I can anticipate when the swing will happen again, and make the switch before I drop on either. For example, when I initially experienced a slide in my cash game performance a few weeks back, I should have switched back to SNGs right away and avoided dropping a couple of buy-ins at the cash tables.