Tuesday, March 21, 2006
I like Empress.
Well, let me be more specific. I like my results so far at Empress. There are some things I don't like, and the most annoying thing might be the fact that a small number of dealers in the poker room really suck. I've encountered 2 so far. And they aren't new. They're just bad.
Tonight's example (from a dealer I'd seen before): Two players go to showdown with the following hands: 10-6 and 10-2, on a board of 10-10-9-8-3. Both players flipped their cards, and the player with the deuce kicker says to his opponent, "Oh, man, you outkicked me!" The dealer wiped the board and pushed the pot to the guy with 10-6. As she started pushing the pot, me and the player to my left simultaneously said, "That should be a split pot." The dealer said, "No." Meanwhile, 6-kicker-guy was stacking the pot into his chipstack. We explained that the 9 and 8 on the board played with the 3 tens, and then two guys from the other end of the table piped up and concurred. The guy with the 2 kicker, who rightfully owned half of the pot, didn't understand why it should be a split pot, so he wasn't fighting for his money. The dealer started shuffling the cards, and another player said to the 2-kicker guy, "You can have the dealer call the floor - that should have been a split pot." 2-kicker was flustered and didn't know what to do. Then, the dealer starts dealing the next hand!!!!
Everyone at our table was in the conversation now, and the floor heard the commotion and came by. The ruling was that they can't do anything about it because the next hand had already been dealt. Then, the floor person (who was quite rude, IMHO) said to 2-kicker guy that it is HIS (the player's) responsibility to know if his hand is a winning hand or not. I was astonished, because in most cardrooms, the cards speak for themselves. I could understand if the floor person had told the guy that it's his responsibility to protect his hand and prevent it from being mucked until a proper winner was determined, but he explicitly said that players have to read their hands correctly. That seemed odd to me, so I went to the front of the room to get a rule guide, and sure enough - CARDS SPEAK. I clarified that for the players at the table who had heard the floor man say otherwise. 6-kicker guy then gave $30 to 2-kicker guy as a peace offering.
So, that was pretty nuts...
I endured my first Empress Suckout tonight. I limp into a 6-way pot with KJo on the button. The flop comes K-4-x, one spade. The cutoff bets, and I raise. UTG calls, cutoff calls. Turn comes Js. Check-check-bet-call-fold. River comes 2s. Check-bet-raise. Mother fucker. Call. Weak ass called UTG with 9-3 of spades. WTF?? Runner runner for the flush, but wtf was he calling the flop bet for?? Arg.
Now- in the paragraph above, I called this guy "weak ass," and it is for a reason. I have never in my life seen as weak of a player as this guy. By "weak," I don't mean that he sucked (though I can't explain what his reasoning might have been for playing the 9-3). Generally, his starting hand selection was decently tight: Face cards with kickers 10 or higher, mid to high pocket pairs. He folded a lot. But, when he did play hands, he never, EVER bet. EVER. I mean, **ever**. I can't stress the "ever" enough.
Example: I limp into an unraised multiway pot with AJh, late-ish middle position. WeakAss was UTG+1. The flop comes J-x-x. It checks to me. I bet. Everyone folds but WeakAss, who calls. Turn is an undercard. No flush or straight draws out there. He checks. I bet. He calls. River is a blank. Same thing - check, bet, call. I turn up my AJ for TPTK, and he turns up Pocket Queens and immediately says, "I'm sorry." I said, "Wow, nice preflop raise... noted..." and resumed my quiet look of contemplation.
Reason #1 why WeakAss is a pussy: come on. Even morons raise preflop with QQ.
Reason #2: Apologizing at showdown for being a WeakAss definitely qualifies a person for the Giant Vagina award.
What's with my mouth today?
Anyway...
For as cranky as I sound, you must think I was a big loser tonight :) On the contrary - I had very good results. I played for 3 hours ($5/10 LHE), and here's what they looked like:
+5.3 BB/hour
+17.6 BB/100
Speaking of counting hands - I counted 2 different half-hour time spans, and in one, we got 14 hands, and in the other, 16. So - my estimation of 30 hands per hour (for purposes of keeping my results spreadsheet) seems to be about right. I thought of a way to count hands so that I wouldn't have to think so hard, and wouldn't risk frustrating myself by forgetting what number hand we're on: at the start of each hand, I put one chip into my "hand counting" stack. At the end of the half hour, I counted that stack. :) Yeah, I'm pretty lame.
I can't express to you how amazed I am at the LACK of quality of play at this $5/10 game. Granted, it is the lowest limit they spread, so at any lowest-limit in a casino, my guess is that you'd get the most fish, but this game at Empress is seriously more fishy than ANYTHING I've ever played, anywhere. I thought on a Monday night it might be a little tighter, figuring that only hardcore players and drunks come out during the weeknights, but not so.
Example (so that you don't think I just make this stuff up): I've got AA in the big blind. 5 people limp ahead of me. I raise. Everybody comes to the flop. My stomach turns as the dealer says, "Six players...." and lays the flop out. All cards lower than 10. Middle position bets. Call - call - I raise - fold - call - call. 5 players to the turn. It's a blank. No coordination on the board at all. It checks to me. I bet. Fold - call - call - call. 4 to the river. I want to puke. Another blank. I'm expecting to get sucked out on by some dumb 2 pair. It checks to me. I bet.
EVERYBODY FOLDS! For ONE bet into a pot of $135!
Aces goot.
There were at least 5 or 6 such hands, in the 3 hours I played, where 4 or more people saw all of the community cards out to the river, and then would fold to one bet on the river. WTF are these people calling down with??? Absolutely astonishing.
Tonight also had the token "play 2nd pair like aces" guy, which is always nice. TPTK = teh goot against him. Always.
Another nice pot tonight was my Broadway straight with KJ with 4 people calling me to the river.
You honestly, truly do NOT have to play many hands to be profitable in this game. I didn't win all that many pots - didn't play all that many hands - but if you can save the bet or two here and there when the fish broadcast to you that you're beat, and reel them in when you hit a hand, the game is profitable.
I leaked on one hand tonight. It seems like I have one of these per night, and I could go home with another $25 bucks or so if I could just stop this. Same scenario as last session's leaky hand: I had top pair and couldn't let it go. In this case it was even worse than my AJ vs AQ hand. I had J2s in the SB and completed to see a flop of J-x-x. I check-called with 2 other people in the pot, knowing my kicker sucked mightily. Turn was a blank, and I check-called again. River was a King, and I check-called some more. The river call here was HORRIBLE, but I should have gotten rid of the hand on the flop, because I knew I was beat. Turns out I was 3rd best the whole way. I was up against AJ and KJ. The worst part is, I know while I'm doing it that not only am I playing like a WeakAss, but I know I'm beat. I'm consciously thinking that I'm beat, and I check-call anyway. One hand per night. It's like a virus. Or attack of the body snatchers, where I turn into a guppy for 3 minutes. I could have broken the double-up mark tonight if it weren't for that hand. Bah. Must. Stop. Leaking.
Strangely, that hand is always very early in the session. Could it be that I subconsciously like to put myself slightly behind, so that I hunker down and focus on recouping that loss? If so... THAT IS PRETTY DAMN STUPID!!! My Lord. I have GOT to stop that.
So, here is my running tally for my Spring Break Rush for 1K:
+172
828 to go...
Ambitious, yes. I'm gonna try, though... I'm off on the right fin... errr, foot.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Huge congrats to Gracie, who won last night's WSOP satellite! I went to bed after busting out in 11th place (I repeat: how depressing. I pushed with KJo when the BB committed 10% of my stack and the button, who had been on a raising frenzy since the announcement of "5 minutes till break" raised preflop for a third of my stack. If I was calling, I was committed, so I figured I'd at least try and get some folding equity, since nobody in the previous 6 hands had challenged the pusher. He called with AQ0. Oh well, out I go... at least I didn't have to sit through a 5 minute break just to bust).
I woke up this morning, hoping to turn on the computer and find out that somebody cool had won the thing, and I couldn't be happier at my discovery.
You go, Gracie! Woooohoooooooo!!!!!
I'm off to go shopping with my mother for light fixtures. Ahhh... the lovely sound of spring break. Spring starts in a few hours - just in time for the huge snowstorm that's supposed to hit us. :-/
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Due to the fact that I have not been able to adequately kick the kleenex habit today, I will not be going to Empress tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Instead, I'll be playing in the WPBT bloggers-only WSOP satellite on Paradise Poker. Per Iggy:
WPBT WSOP Satellite Tournament
March 19th - Sunday
9pm EST
Paradise Poker
$30 NL
password: email Iggy
Winner wins a seat in the 2006 WSOP $1500 event of their choice.
(That there is Iggy's sign-up link, so show him some love and use his link! C'mon... it's cool... everybody's doing it... even me...)
While killing time, I'm sitting at a .50/1.00 limit hold'em table. I only bought in to the site for $50, because I really don't want more money spread elsewhere. I like to play amongst my couple of favorite sites and that's about it. The $20 I started with on this table is up to $35, though, and that is nice.
Some things I like about Paradise Poker:
- The total amount of the pot (including bets on the table) is shown at the top of the screen, updated as players add money to the pot.
- The fold button appears right where the fold checkbox is in the action area, so you don't accidentally end up calling a bet when you intended to fold when the software acts faster than your hand-eye coordination.
- Seems slower than other sites I play at (FTP, Stars).
- Too much verbage in the action area. What's with all of the "in turn" written all over the place? Of course it'll be in turn - I've never seen software that gives me the option to act out of turn.
- Un-innovative compared to other sites. No avatars or graphics for players. No ability to change your table view.
- No way to auto-save hand histories to your hard drive (making use of Poker Tracker a pain compared to other sites).
47 minutes and counting... Go sign up for the blogger tourney if you haven't already!
What do you do when you have a desire to blog, but nothing really to blog about? You post anyway. (At least, I do).
Empress Casino Joliet:
I've been there twice so far, to the tune of about 12 hours of play in their 4-tabled poker "room." I discovered last Sunday that in fact they do NOT give any comps for playing poker. No time rating, no nothing. Sucky.
The players I've seen so far absolutely suck. The $5/10 game feels like a Vegas $1/2 game, and I'm not kidding. It's your usual variety of suckage - players play too many starting hands, hold on to them for too long, and call call call constantly. I've seen LAG's here and there, but they tend to bust out rather quickly. Randy had told me that a friend of his frequented the Empress 5/10 game and found it to be the fishiest thing he'd ever seen. I thought he might be exaggerating, but he is not. Very fishy. The oddity is, the fish are all regulars! Everybody knows everybody else's names, including the dealers. Very non-Trump-ian.
I've managed to avoid the un-luck factor so far. Cumulatively for my 2 trips, my win rate is 1.7 BB/hour or 5.62 BB/100 hands. (I'm counting 30 hands per hour, though haven't measured that yet. Will adjust if I ever get around to counting my hands. I always get bored and forget to keep counting).
I like playing at Empress because it is SO close to home (18 minutes or so away). I don't mind the 11-handed tables. I try to think of it as one more free hand per orbit. The games are so loose/passive anyway that all pots are multiway to the flop with at least 5 or 6 players - quite often 8 or 9. I have yet to hear a dealer say "10 players in" - but it's coming, I'm sure.
My goal is to get up to 10/20 AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. Empress only runs one table of 10/20 (and 2 tables of 5/10, and one NL table - $400 max, I think). In a perfect world, I wouldn't consider trying 10/20 until I had at least 200BB in my bankroll (and even that isn't really "properly" bankrolled for that limit - though I think you can get away with a lower bankroll live than online). The Princess and I talked a bit last week though about taking a shot at the next level: moving up to test the waters when you may not be quite bankrolled for the move. I also read a strategy on 2+2 about moving up in limits by osmosis. Move up and play 20% of your games at the higher level. If it's going well, make 40% of your sessions at the higher level, then 60%, etc, until you have moved up completely.
I have this thought in my mind that if I can get my bankroll to $2,000 by the end of spring break, I will take One shot at 10/20 and see how it goes. Spring break starts now, and I have one week off. I'd like to make it out to play cards 5 times in the week. I go back to work next Monday. I'd have to win about $1,000 (essentially doubling my bankroll in a week), which is a lofty goal, to say the least. It would basically require no significant losses, and at least one massively lucky session. (I figure, a 2BB/hour win rate is the most I hope for on a normal day. My normal session is 5 hours. That's $100/day, or $500 for the week if I can play 5 days).
I may be in la la land, but it's good to have goals. I don't think this goal is especially far-fetched. It is ambitious, but I like a good challenge.
My main focus will have to be to save bets in my donkey moments. Check-calling top pair Aces with Jack kicker to the river against a tight player who you just know has you beat is NOT a good idea. That's $25 or more I could have kept in my grubby little hands. I had a few of those instances last session. Must plug them.
I've noticed in looking over my PT stats that my preflop aggression is much higher online than it is in the B&M cardroom. Post-flop I think I play the same in either venue, but for some reason I hesitate to raise preflop in those positional situations. Online, if I'm in mid-late to late position, holding a hand I intend to play, and it is folded to me, I open-raise most of the time. I don't do that in the cardroom. Online, I'll also raise preflop some of my more favorite drawing hands, to get the money in the pot early in case I hit a nice draw. I don't do that in the cardroom. I need to work on that. Granted, I'm playing at lower limits online ($1/2 - mainly because I'd rather invest my bankroll in B&M play than online play), but my game should really be the same.
I was wondering last night: does playing poker on my Blackberry against the artificial intelligence players whom I've already memorized ruin my poker game? I'll limp with anything on the Blackberry :) I'll also bet with anything, though, which I have trouble doing in a "real" game (ie. I need the cards to win), so that's got to be good practice, right?
Moving on... I hope to get out to Empress tonight, if I can wean myself off of the kleenex box I've been tied to since last Tuesday. I've got a cold that has been kicking my ass, and I'm rarely sick for more than a couple days. I'm optimistic though that today is the first day of my journey back to health, so we'll see. I have a family function to attend this afternoon, and that will be my big test.
In other news... Russ Fox inspired me to try out pot-limit omaha last night. I only played for 20 minutes or so, but managed to more than double my buy-in of $25. :) Nice! It was definitely intriguing.
I was thinking, while playing omaha, that it is very good practice for certain elements of holdem, such as board texture analysis and consideration of draws and redraws. For example - with so many cards in your hand, it becomes more of an exercise to consider what redraws you have, but also to consider that if a card improves your hand, how does it affect the hands your opponents may be playing? They, too, have more cards in THEIR hands, and therefore more draws and redraws and backdoor opportunities.
I like omaha. Not the split-pot games - just straight up omaha hi. I think I will be playing some more of it.
In fact, maybe I'll go do that right now... I've got about 2 hours to kill before I must go wash the grime of the Sickness off of my war-torn body and make myself presentable. It will be SO impossible not to hold my baby neice today, but I don't want to get her sick. :( Woe is me! Wanna go see her? Morgan's Photo Gallery
*huge grin*
Happy Sunday, everybody. If I don't make it out to Empress, I'll likely play in tonight's WSOP blogger tourney. Go see Iggy if you need details.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Subtitle: Husband and wife clash again - Andrew and Cathy bring on round 2 of their last longer bet
Mid-March. Time for another Diamond Game. This time, seven of us gathered for a Wednesday evening incarnation of the D-Game - a $50 buy-in freeze-out NL hold'em tournament. Players start with 3500 in chips, and blinds go up every 15 minutes. Two places paid.
The starting table:
1. Shelly (me)
2. Cathy (Andrew's wife)
3. Ed
4. Alex
5. Scott (our host)
6. Randy
7. Andrew (Cathy's husband)
Level: 10/20
Early in the game, Scott pussed out and failed to raise preflop with the Hammer. Instead, he limped in the blinds, saw a flop, and folded to a bet.
That is NOT how you play the Hammer, Scott. Sheesh.
In our first husband-and-wife clash: Cathy won a small pot that was checked down. She rivered a pair versus her husband Andrew's Ace high, upon which Andrew pouted. Cathy reacts, "He's just mad because he didn't get any! [chips]" Andrew replied, "All day!" (Do ya sense what's coming?) Cathy: "And all night!"
Cathy took charge of the table early on, taking advantage of everybody's fear of her tight play. In a hand in level one, Cathy raised preflop and found callers in Alex and Scott. She bet all the way down to a board of 5-4-Q-7-K, and on her river bet, the wuss boys folded. I advised Cathy to start bluffing them, if they insist on respecting her bets. :)
Level: 20/40
From the big blind, I looked down to find 5-2 offsuit. I saw a free flop of 2-2-x. Nice. However, my opponent was Alex, who I had never played against. All I knew at that point was that Alex played in larger buy-in tournaments online. (There was mention of a $1,000 buy in game). He'd been a bit aggressive thus far, but - again, the game was still new and we'd hardly been playing for 20 minutes. I checked my trip ducks. Alex bet out (less-than-pot-size, if I recall correctly). I called. The turn came a blank (no flush or obvious straight draws). I checked again, as Alex had already moved his hand to his chip stack. He fired out the same bet. I contemplated raising, but was suddenly worried that my 5 kicker would be the death of me. I called. The river was an Ace, and by now I'd decided that so many of my children were in that pot that a check-raise was in order. I hoped the Ace helped him, maybe giving him 2 pair. It must have helped, as he pushed all in. I sighed - I'd have felt better being the one pushing, as I don't like the thought of calling all in for my tournament life, particularly so early in the tournament. I called. Alex turned over Ace-x for top pair, Aces. My trips were good. Turns out, Alex was trying to run a bluff on me. I love it. I doubled up.
Alex went out shortly thereafter, when Ed hit a presto. Ed's 55 made a set against Alex's KK. With that, Alex went out in 7th place and was left to watch the rest of us play. I suppose that's part of the reason why some people advise not to play big pots early in a tourney. Watching other people play sucks.
Level: 50/100
Scott and Andrew got into it, making baby Jebus cry with a series of min-raises against each other on a board of: 8s Ad 4c. Hey, guys - this isn't limit! The turn brought the 3 of diamonds, and Andrew pushed all in. (Finally!) Scott called.
The flippage:
Andrew: AK
Scott: AQ
Before Scott could even bemoan his fate, the river brought another Queen, and instead Andrew did the moaning. (That was likely to be the only moaning to be had, as Cathy had indicated earlier). Andrew's chip stack was crippled.
Before I kick Andrew out of this story with his fateful exit from the tournament, I must say that he has one of the coolest nicknames ever. Andrew is known to some of his friends as "Deeks." Why? Apparently, one drunken evening, his friends were comparing him to a lame duck. It was noted that he is even lamer than a lame duck. What is lamer than a lame duck?
A decoy.
Thus the nickname, Decoy - or Deeks for short.
Andrew lived up to his nickname when he threw himself all in. His Ace-Ten was acting as a decoy for a real hand, but my hook-hook tore that shit up. My Jacks held up and Andrew finished in 6th place. Cathy outlasted her husband once again. (It's so typical, isn't it, Cathy? Only a girl can truly understand). Great nickname, though, Deeks!
Cathy made another play that had me thinking she rightly should be feared. On a board of Qh 6h 8s, she check-raised Ed. He called, and the turn brought Qd. Cathy checked, scaring the living hell out of Ed. He went into the tank and eventually checked behind her. The river was the 10h, and when Cathy checked again, Ed bet out 300. Cathy folded. I thought I heard that Cathy was pulling the check-raise with pocket two's, trying to find out where Ed was in the hand. Not a beginner move, if you ask me. Nice laydown, too. (Maybe I'm just spending too much time with the fish that call down with low pocket pairs despite multiple overcards onboard, because they "have a pair!").
Alex and Andrew, bored with watching the rest of us play poker, started with the degenerate gambling, betting on high card draws.
Level: 75/150
Zzzzzz......
Level: 100/200
Randy met a nasty suck-and-re-suck fate. He raised big preflop, and I had to put him all in with my Hilton Sisters. Being mostly committed (to the pot), he had to call with his ATo. The flop:
T 8 J
Turn: T (ouch)
River: Q (yikes! Sorry baby!)
I won with the queens full of ten's, versus Randy's set of ten's. He went out in 5th place.
Level: 300/600
What a hand. There were 4 people left, and 2 places paid. Cathy, Ed, and I are pretty well short-stacked, while Scott is doing alright. I'm on the big blind. Cathy raised under the gun preflop. Scott re-raised. I groaned, not wanting to even look at my cards. I peeked down at AKo. OY. My lips parted and nearly let loose an insta-push, as is seen so often on TV with Big Slick. I held back though, and tanked. I checked out Cathy's chip stack. She barely had me covered. Scott definitely had me covered. If I and another person went out on that hand, we'd both be out of the money, leaving Ed and Scott in the money. Ed had even fewer chips than I did, but was out of the hand.
OY. What should I do? At best, I'm racing. One of these two has a pair. At worst, they've both got pairs, possibly AA or KK, and equally possible is a split pot with one of them.
I folded.
Turns out, Cathy had AKs and Scott had QQ. Cathy's hand did not improve, and she continued her trend of finishing in 4th place. I patted myself on the back and vowed to make the money.
Level: 400/800
Ed pushed all in with Ace Ten offsuit. I called with Ace Queen suited, and my hand held up. Ed bubbled in 3rd place.
The heads-up match between Scott and I did not last long, as I was very short stacked in comparison to him. A few hands in, on a board of KQ9, I pushed all in with my Q2. Scott called with K8 and his top pair held up. I went out in 2nd place, and Scott was crowned champion.
The final tally:
1st: Scott
2nd: Shelly (me)
3rd: Ed
4th: Cathy
5th: Randy
6th: Andrew
7th: Alex
It was a relief to finally cash again at a Diamond Game. I've done nothing but donate there since last summer, after a hot streak of cashing in early 2005. Look out, boys (and Cathy!) - I feel a winning streak coming on!
Thanks to Scott for hosting a great game, as usual. I look forward to the next Wednesday night Diamond Game.
Blame Slayre.
 | You scored as Big Slick. You are the comrades in arms, best buddies Big Slick - Ace-King. Not prone to rash decisions, you are impeccable, recognize a good opportunity, but won't procede unless the conditions aren't just right and you have gathered all the evidence.
What starting Hold 'Em hand are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Hi all -
I'm soooo behind on writing. My most sincere apologies. It's been a crazy couple weeks. Last weekend was tied up with family stuff (birthday parties and the like), though I did manage to hit up Empress on Sunday night for a profitable session at $5/10 LHE. That makes 2 in a row :)
Monday and Tuesday, I was downtown for a conference. My excitement included a train evacuation due to a bomb threat, so that was an experience. (There was no bomb). It was kind of weird though. All of the passengers (including myself) were standing inside the station, listening to the activity up above on the platform where the police were inspecting the train. I called various people to let them know what was going on, laughing about my luck and how late I'd be getting to the conference. (A tiny part of me was calling people... just in case...) I thought to myself, "If there really is a bomb up there, and it blows up, I'd likely die... maybe I should be a little more nervous?" I mean, if that was to be my last few minutes of life, I sure wasn't doing the usual "I'm about to die" stuff. It was a bit surreal.
I've got a Diamond Game to write up from a couple weekends ago, and will be attending another Diamond Game tourney tonight. I'll catch up this weekend - I promise.
Randy and I discussed the possibility of heading over to Resorts tonight after the Diamond game. That would be excellent. I think I'm coming down with a cold, though, so I hope I can manage to fend it off and not feel like absolute dog shit tonight.
Right now, I'm off to have lunch with my sis-in-law and my new neice :)
Thursday, March 09, 2006
The Wall Street Journal Online has a poll going on now:
Should Congress ban Internet gambling?
Go vote!
The results so far:
Yes 1113 votes (18%)
No 5122 votes (82%)
6235 people have voted so far.
Question:
With regards to online play of the wonderful game of limit hold'em:
At what limit does the average number of donkeys per table drop below 5?
Assumptions:
- The table is 9-handed.
- A "donkey" is a player with a VP$IP of over 55%, and can come in any of the typical subflavors: calling station donkey, loose/passive donkey, or loose/aggressive donkey. See also: "any ace, face, or offsuit connector"
Your thoughts?
Addendum:
How many bad players do you want at your table?
It's my thought that you want some bad players at your table, so that you can make money off of non-immortal-nut hands when the donkeys call you down with even worse hands. However, at what point are there so many bad players that the bad luck factor exceeds the potential profit (ie. the chance of getting sucked out on when hands make it to multiway pots that theoretically should have been folded)? Where do you draw that line?
I'm in the mood for quantification today.
Quanti-fica-forni-catiooooon.....
Monday, March 06, 2006
For all of you that have been waiting with bated breath...
I've returned to the local card room.
Yes, it's true. I'm playing again. This afternoon, despite a bit of snowfall in the Chicagoland area, I decided to venture out to a card room I'd not been to before: Empress Joliet. Upon making this trek, I knew immediately of a couple pro's and con's.
Pro: It's less than 20 minutes from my house (and that's if I drive slowly).
Con: They only have 4 tables: two $5/10 limit hold'em, one $10/20 limit hold'em, and one NL $500 max hold'em.
(Possible con: they play 11-handed on all tables)
Going on the thought that I was bored to death grinding out my 2BB/hour win at $3/6 limit, I knew I would play the $5/10 game. I called ahead, and instead of giving me an hour to get there, the woman on the phone asked what time I planned to arrive. They give you up to 15 minutes after your stated arrival time before deleting you from the waiting list. Cool. I told the woman I'd be there in 45 minutes, giving me time to get dressed, brush my fangs, and drive out to Empress.
One thing I forgot to do was get nervous. I mean - $5/10 is pretty much higher than any limit I've ever played. (I did play one time at the $6/12 game at Trump, but it was very early in my poker career and I hardly remember it). I was pushing myself to a new level - I should be nervous, right? You see... the thing is, I bought in with $200, and the blinds were identical to the NL game of the same buy-in that I was used to at Trump. So, the game didn't even feel "big" to me. It felt... I don't know... normal.
I took my time parking, and made it to the "poker room" around 3:40pm. There was one name on the list ahead of me, and it took about 10 minutes for a seat to open up. Note to self: Don't get there ANY later than 4pm on a Sunday. Once the list builds up, the wait is easily over 2 hours (even if you call ahead). The guy to my right who sat down in the early evening waited nearly 3 hours for his seat. I'm not a big gambler, so I have no desire whatsoever to kill time in the casino.
It didn't take long for me to realize that this game was NO tighter than the typical $2/4 or $3/6 game, and in fact, it was fishy as could be. In sharp contrast to Trump, though, the 5 or 6 regulars at my table were extremely fishy (whereas getting money out of some of the Trump LHE regulars is akin to squeezing blood from a stone). It seemed like the entire table knew each other, and that I was the only "new" person, but my end of the table was friendly. The other end, however, had a regular who was easily one of the most obnoxious people I've ever played cards with. He actually had a feud with one of the dealers, and the two verbally spat at each other the entire time. The guy would literally throw his cards AT her when he folded, and she would say things to him like, "If you don't like how I deal you can get up and leave," or "I wouldn't touch you with someone ELSE'S hands." (I can't remember what he said to invoke that comment). It was brutal. Apparently, the guy had made some crude and ignorant comments in front of this female dealer about one of the cocktail waitresses, and the two have been at war ever since. Whatever the cause, this woman likely had reason to despise the guy, because his behavior honestly should have gotten him thrown out of there.
The one thing I really didn't like about Empress was that the dealers and floor people didn't really enforce rules or etiquette. The ignoramous from the other end of the table routinely showed his hand to his neighbors prior to mucking, and it wasn't until late in the evening when someone at the table finally requested to see his hand. The dealer obliged (as he should have), but didn't stop the guy from showing his hand to his neighbors in later hands. There was constant betting out of turn, and the dealers wouldn't notice it until 4 people had acted incorrectly, causing arguments amongst the players over whose fault it was that the betting got screwed up. I much prefer the dealers that keep the game running smoothly and properly, and not only abide by the rules themselves but enforce the rules in the players at the table (explaining the rules as necessary).
Other than that, though, I liked the room. It's not actually a room, but more like a nook off the side of the casino with 4 poker tables roped off. On the plus side, it's right around the corner from the restrooms, and is also nearby a bar, so cocktails are speedy. The location, however, does not block out cigarette smoke very well, and despite being a non-smoking area, players smoke on the rail. That smoke and the casino smoke wafts into the poker area. By the time I left tonight, my contacts were cloudy and my allergies were going in full force.
The poker was, like I said, fishy. The game was extremely soft. I was pretty much card dead, but not the kind of card dead that makes you broke; on the contrary, it was the kind of card dead that, other than making you bored, doesn't cost much more than the passing orbital blinds. I only lost one hand that went to the river, and the few hands that I won allowed me to leave with a small profit. End result: + 2.1BB/hour or 6.89 BB/100 hands. (I'm calculating based on 30 hands per hour). I want to calculate in BB/100 only because I'd like to be able to compare my brick-and-mortar and online poker results, and counting by the hour would be hugely imbalanced.
I don't really have any poker stories. I had QQ twice, and it held up both times. My first QQ hand was almost a loss. I had the overpair, but the guy to my right had T9s and had called my raise after limping. He turned 2 pair, but the river paired the board, giving me a higher two pair. (Thank you, river!) No river suckouts against me today. I saw AK a handful of times, throwing it away on the flop a few times and taking down pots with TPTK a couple times. I limped with some suited connectors and suited one-gappers from late position a couple times, and folded after missing the flops. I saw AQ what seemed like a million times, and always from early position. Almost ever time, the guy to my left raised after I'd limped, and he was a very solid player. Once, I saw the flop with him and outdrew him. Another time, I hit my top pair Queens and bet out UTG. He raised, and I had him on the KK or AA. He had played straight up with me all night, never slowplaying me, so I folded my TPTK face up. (There was nobody in the pot but the two of us). He showed me AA. :) Yay, me! LOL. Neither of us trying to pull any trickery on the other, and I appreciated his "honesty" in truthfully displaying the strength of his hand. He did get a decent pot off of me when the same situation occurred, but this time he had JJ and flopped a set while I flopped an Ace. There were 5 people in the pot and I was also drawing to the nut flush with my top pair, so when the flush missed, I was out some cash. I'm glad it went to him, though, and not Ignoramous at the other end of the table.
Man, that guy was a dick. There's no way I could do any justice to the degree of his dick-hood. You just had to be there.
Joe the Dealer berated me for eating ketchup on my hot dogs. I have no idea how that topic came up in conversation (though it made me REALLY want a hot dog). He said I was "unAmerican." Ha! 3 of the 5 people at my end of the table also enjoy ketchup on their hot dogs, for the record.
After 6 hours or so at the table, my back was getting sore from sitting with my arms on the rails (horrible posture), so I racked up and grabbed my coat to leave. As I left the poker area, a guy walks up to me.
"Shelly?" he said.
?!?!?!?!? "Yes.....?"
"I'm Chicago Joe!"
Excellent! It was Chicago Joe, of the Chicago Poker Club forums on CardClubs.net (also the home of the Card Club Podcast on Lord Admiral Radio). Too cool! Apparently, the fact that I was wearing my yin-yang poker sweatshirt and was carrying my Flyers jacket tipped off Chicago Joe to my identity. We chatted about some local tournaments (Joe cashed in one this weekend - congrats!), and Joe told me stories of some of the people in poker he's met over the years. I'm so jealous of people who have these great poker histories, ya know? I'm pretty new to the game, only really getting into it along with the rest of the poker booming world. Joe talked of seeing Bruson and Chan win their WSOP bracelets, and playing with Barry Greenstein when he was still a "local" around here. (I didn't know he was from Chicago!) Stories like Joe's are part of a rich poker fabric that I can only marvel at, and hope that my time spent loving the game results in such great stories to tell down the road.
It was great to meet Joe, and I enjoyed playing at Empress. What I enjoyed the MOST was the fact that it only took me 18 minutes to get home :) Woohoooo! I'll definitely go back, but will have to be mindful of the waiting list. It looks like it can be pretty brutal.
It's nice to have money in my poker box again. :)
Friday, March 03, 2006
The fine Princess and I had a conversation a few months ago that went something like this:
Princess: I think you should go back to playing limit (hold'em).The words start to sink in... I could go someplace else. Resorts spreads $5/10 and higher. Empress (which is wonderfully only 15 minutes or so from my house) spreads $5/10 and higher.Wow. Could I really go someplace else?
Me: [Scooby voice] ??
Princess: You were profitable at limit. (I heard this subconsciously: "You've gone broke in NL.")
Me: True, but there's a learning curve in switching from limit to no-limit. I'm willing to pay for my education.
Princess: Sure, but WHY? No-limit cash games go completely against your nature. Are you aggressive by nature?
Me: [kicking rocks] No.
Princess: The aggressive players have the edge in NL, regardless of how well you can read people or do math.
Me: There's no way I'm going back to grinding out a $12/hour profit and $3/6. I'd rather stick pencils in my eyes.
Princess: You don't have to play $3/6.
Me: But the $6/12 game hardly ever runs at Trump. (In actuality, it pretty much just runs on weekends, whereas much of my play is on weeknights).
Princess: You don't have to go to Trump. You can go someplace else.
Me: [Silence] [Thinking... go someplace else? What??!! But I love Trump! But... but... but... I love Trump! It's like Cheers, they know my name!]
The Princess went on to explain her observations, mostly of things I already know. I'm not aggressive by nature, and though I could probably learn to be a solid NL player, I'd likely be much better at limit. Math is my thing. My interests and personality are much better suited for limit. I was profitable at $3/6 (for a little over 2BB/hour after tips and drinks). Her advice: go back to limit and start playing $5/10. Then go from there.
I've had to chew on this a bit - since Super Bowl weekend, actually. Heather's assessment of my game was spot on. However, was I ready to give up exploring no limit cash games as my primary games? Did I believe that, in fact, my sub-aggressive tendencies would continue to hamper my game and hold me back? Or, did I think that with time I could outwit those tendencies? Did switching back to limit mean that I had failed at no-limit? Had I given NL enough of a chance?
I can't even begin to explain the process I went through in weighing this decision. No-limit hold'em cash games had one major attraction for me: I loved the challenge. I loved stepping outside my comfort zone and pushing myself - something I'm typically not too keen on. The challenge completely reinvigorated my game, and I loved that feeling.
But, wait... couldn't I get that same challenge by moving up in limits (in LHE)? I felt a bit silly for never thinking of that as an option.
After looking at my previous posts, my spreadsheets, and my results - after considering Heather's advice - after listening to what my gut was telling me after all of the "what if" chatter died down, I came to an amazingly easy conclusion.
I'm switching back to limit hold'em for cash games, and will move up to the $5/10 game to start (unless there are $6/12 tables running at Trump). This switch not only fits my "poker nature" much better, but also gives me the option of playing locally and not having to drive an hour each way to the card room. (Unfortunately, Empress only has a handful of tables in a tiny poker room, and does not spread poker on the weekends, from what I hear. I'll likely still have to play a majority of my cards in Indiana).
I've already made the switch back to limit online, albeit at lower stakes. I want to make most of my bankroll reinvestment in brick and mortar games. I've been playing $1/2 LHE, and am so far profitable to the tune of 3BB/100 hands (over 3,500 hands or so). It seems to be working out alright for me.
Now, I just need to decide when I will make my relaunch at the casino. Here's hoping I've made the right decision!
Monday, February 27, 2006
I've linked up to a few people this week. Feel the love:
Play Poker Like Hartflush: I ran into Hartflush the other day on Full Tilt Poker, when he outed me as a poker blogger and gave me some props. So, I gave him a link! The girl in his Blogger profile photo looks so familiar to me that it's scary. He ran a poll the other day on whether it's easier to win money live or online playing poker, and I'm interested to see his interpretation of the results (as they're about split right now). For the record, my vote was for Live.
Poker Road Warrior: Next up is Shark, the poker road warrior. I must apologize to Shark, as it took me nearly a month to get around to replying to his email. I just added him to my Bloglines today, but look forward to a good read. :)
Quest of a Closet Poker Player: Last but not least... in my Bloglines, I have a subscription to the Google feed of links to my blog, so I can see when people link to me. Today, I got a link from someone who made a blog posted titled "Sex with Melissa Gilbert" (the obvious ploy to get some search engine traffic - which I have brilliantly repeated here!) I was curious, to say the least, so I checked out the site to see why on earth my poker blog would be listed on a site about having sex with Melissa Gilbert. (LOL I'm cracking myself up over here!) Anyway... turns out, it's a poker blog, and CC (the author) had some nice things to say about Hella Hold'em (and a few other bloggers - go see if you're one of them!)
In other news.... I'm almost ready to compose the post about My Poker Future, including the much anticipated food for thought that our dearest Princess bestowed upon me. I've been chewing on her words for some time now, and have come to terms with my decisions. I will grant you access to my mind soon, my faithful readers. But now, I must go eat a chicken club sandwich with no tomato.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
I'm an aunt! Go see! :)
No poker here... move along... or, go look at cute baby pics!
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Mr. Subliminal has posted his own version of the KK Quandary. (Remember mine?)
Here's how I responded to his post:
Friday, February 17, 2006
Online gambling absolutely, definitely illegal: "Gamble online and you could go to jail. That's the message meant to be conveyed by a new bill introduced in the House of Representatives by Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and his counterpart Rick Boucher (D-VA). The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act (PDF) aims to update the Wire Act, which makes it illegal to place bets over the telephone, for the Internet era. The new law would make it explicitly clear that gambling using the Internet is illegal in the US, but it also seeks to target offshore gambling sites that are aimed at American users. Such sites are specifically forbidden from accepting credit cards, electronic funds transfers, or checks from US players. Penalties for violations have been raised from two to five years in jail, where your only gambling will be with cigarettes."
There's more... go read.
No, not on my finger... at the Diamond Game, silly! This past week included the first weekday incarnation of a $50 buy in Diamond Game. This Wednesday night event is apparently going to happen every 4-6 weeks, supplementing the weekend Diamond Games that occur with about the same frequency.
My first note of the evening: I must complain about some false advertising. I bought a new pen for this event - a Bic Grip Roller fine point pen that explicitly stated, "Smooth Writing" on its packaging. Three bucks I paid for this thing.
It does not write smoothly.
Moving on... we had 11 participants that ponied up 50 bones to play for their share of a $550 prize pool. We started with two tables, and once we lost one person we planned to combine to a single table of 10. 3750 starting chips, 15 minute blinds.
Table 1:
1. Rob
2. Scott
3. Shelly (me)
4. Andrew
5. Derek
Table 2:
1. Cathy
2. Randy
3. Mike
4. Ray
5. Rodney
6. Ed
Level: 10/20
Andrew wins our first hand with an aggressive preflop raise of 50. Scott folded.
On table 2, Ed picks up a pot with the stellar holding of 2-3. He hit trips.
Andrew fakes his first all in. Foreshadowing?
On the last hand of Level 1, Andrew folds preflop for the first time.
Level: 20/40
We have our first big hand. Derek completes from the small blind against Rob in the big blind. he flop comes 77x. Action ensues. The turn is a blank, and the river is a 4. More action. Rob had flopped trips with his A7, dominating Derek's 7-4, until the river boated up Derek. Rob did well not to lose all of his chips there.
Overheard from table 2: Ed says,
Gotta shuffle these up! Randy got a hand!At the end of level 2, I win my first hand: 9-6o from the small blind. I flopped top pair. It was around this time that Derek announced to the table (which included Rob, who I did not know) that I play so tightly that if I'm in the hand, everyone should fold fold fold. This nugget allowed me to bet some people off pots I had no business winning. I was surprised how well it worked, since everyone else at the table had played with me quite a few times previously and shouldn't have been affected by such a statement. Muchos gracias to Derek! :)
Level: 20/40
The first bluff of the evening: Ed bullies table 2 with his 2-4. I proclaimed at this point that 2-4 would be the hand of the night. Rob took me as a prophet and tried to see some flops with the magic hand, to no avail.
Level: 30/60
A hand very similar to the first clash between Derek and Rob: Derek held 10-7 and Rob held 7x. The board came 7-7-x-10-x, boating up Derek against Rob's set once again. This time, both players tried to slow play, and betting on the river was consequently small.
Level: 50/100
Scott gets boned. Rob raises all in preflop. Scott re-raises all in for the isolation move. I fold 3-4 suited. The rest of the table folds. The boys show AQ and QQ, respectively. The flop comes A-2-5, and my tongue starts bleeding as I chew it off. Scott bemoans his fate, as he has been outflopped by a 2 outer (the other ace had been folded). No ladies came to bail out Scott, and Rob doubles up.
Note: We are 5 levels into the game and not a single person has busted out. This is VERY unusual for our crowd of degenerates.
I have no notes for levels 75/150 or 100/200, but somewhere in that time frame we had our first casualty. Derek pushed with A5 of clubs against Scott's Big Slick and couldn't outdraw him. Derek finished in 11th place.
Level: 200/400 - 25 ante
We've combined to a single table of 10 players. I congratulate my opponents for making the final table.
Ed doubles up with AJ versus Rob's A7. Ace seven was the nemesis hand of the night. It was a guaranteed loser. (More on that later). Rob finished in 10th place.
Randy doubles up with a knock-out punch to Rob. The Hilton Sisters did Randy well versus Rob's A3s. Apparently, the Ladies like Randy more than they like Scott.
No notes for 300/600 or 400/800. Rodney, Randy, and Ray have busted out, pushing short stacks against the monster blinds.
Level: 600/1200 - ante 75
I've got about 4 big blinds in front of me, and am under the gun with A7 of diamonds. I should have folded immediately and taken my chances with my big blind hand. However, the ace looked pretty and I ignored the evil karma that the 7 kicker was bringing along tonight. I pushed all in and was called by Mike's pocket 10's. Ouch. No love for the diamonds nor the ace, and I was crippled to the tune of holding 350 chips to my name. I went out on the next hand, finishing in 6th place.
The last-longer bet between Cathy and husband Andrew is still going strong. The suspense would soon end, though, as the couple found themselves heads up against each other with Cathy all in. Andrew mis-stepped, pushing with A8o and obviously did not expect a call from his wife. When the wife holds JJ, though, a call is imminent. The board came A-T-K-7-A, a brutal backstabbing with a twist at the end, and Cathy finished in 5th place. Andrew finally lasted longer than his wife. Apparently, this was a huge milestone for the couple, with poker being just a small part of the equation.
Scott knocked Mike out with AK. Mike's A5 did not improve, and he finished in 4th place. Ed is thrilled to see Mike go, as it means Ed is in the money!
His glee was short lived, as he pushed his A4 all in and got a caller in Andrew, who held AJ. The board came 8-7-J-A-7, and Ed finished in 3rd place.
Heads-up: Scott vs Andrew. This didn't take long, and the final hand went:
Scott - A7 versus Andrew - 33. Andrew rivered a set to win the tournament.
Final Standings:
1. Andrew
2. Scott
3. Ed
4. Mike
5. Cathy
6. Shelly
7. Ray
8. Randy
9. Rodney
10. Rob
11. Derek
Thanks to Scott for hosting the game. It was a great time, as usual. We'll be back at the home of the Diamond Game this Saturday for the larger weekend event. Until then, have a wonderful weekend, everybody!
Go read Dr. Pauly for the most informative, creative, funny, and downright real live coverage of the LA Poker Classic, coming to you from the Commerce Casino in sunny California.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Last night, Randy and I went over to my cousin's house out in the boonies (about 20 minutes south of where we live - yet, ironically, I am not in the boonies. My backyard is the edge of civilization). My cousin just learned how to play poker. His wife has played in several of our home games, and finally convinced Kevin to learn the game. The two hosted a little home game of their own last night, with Randy and I and two of their neighbors (Mike and Fran) in attendance.
We broke the ice with some pass-the-deal games for quarters, one dollar max bet. Randy bankrolled me, as I didn't have time to stop at the ATM. I tripled my money, turning $2 into $6. I'm not even sure what games we were playing, as some of the other varieties of poker are still foreign to me. I believe it was a hand of 7 card stud that won me my biggest pot of quarters.
There was an incident involving some marked cards that bears mentioning. Neighbor Mike brought to our attention that one of his cards was significantly bent. This was about 10 minutes into our play, so Randy and I were still "new" to the table. Randy said, "Yeah, I noticed that." Kevin asked what the phrase "marked card" meant, and to demonstrate, Randy told him, "I can tell you what that card is." (It was still face down in front of Mike). Kevin asked, "What is it?" Randy replied, "It's the 9 of spades." Neighbor Mike flipped up the 9s and Kevin oooh'd and ahhhh'd like it was a magic show. His wife Tracy went off to find us a new deck of cards. That little incident solidified the notion that Randy is "a professional" when it comes to cards (since he works as a dealer at a casino - though not dealing poker). It's quite amusing to me to watch people respond to Randy's job.
Once we got a new deck of cards, we brought out the poker chips to play a hold'em tournament. We started with 800 in chips, and 5/10 blinds for ten bucks a head. Here's what I knew about my opponents at that point:
Tracy: Solid player. We've taught her well :)
Kevin: Newbie, but a surprisingly quick study. Needs work on his physical tells.
Mike: Likes to play hands to the river without looking at them, betting all the way. He likes the surprise in flipping up the cards at the end to see what he's got. Gambler extraordinaire.
Fran: New to hold'em, but knew other forms of poker. Rock-ish. Stay out of the pot if she's in.
The tournament started out well for me. I put on my "versus newbies" game (which involves playing more of the Ax and Kx hands, since the newbies are often very willing to call down to the river with second and third pair and other weak holdings). It was working well for me, and my top pair was taking down some nice pots. Then, Randy and I got into a bit of trouble.
We're in a 3 way pot with Neighbor Mike. I have KTs. The flop comes KQQ. Randy bets, Mike calls, and I call. (I'm not sure anybody raised the entire night - after all, it was a "friendly game"). The turn came another Q. Randy checked, Mike checked, and I bet. Both called. Now I know Randy's got a K. But wtf does Mike have? You never could tell with this guy. The river was a blank, and when Randy checked, Mike bet out. We both had to call, and of course, Mike had the case Queen. How on earth is that possible?? Out of all the cards he could have had... there's just no way he had the case Queen. At least, that's what Randy and I were thinking as we went to showdown. That pot hurt us both.
I took Randy out of the game shortly after that hand. I was last to act, and he had raised all in with 4 callers. I had A7 of spades, and called. An Ace flopped, and that was all she wrote. Randy graciously continued to deal for us, though by the end of the night I could tell he was totally sick of dealing. Thank you muchly, dear - you are a saint :)
I continued peddling my short stack, until I made a near double-up through Kevin. I held pocket 7's and flopped a set. The board paired on the turn, which gave me a full house, seven's full of fives, and gave Kev his own set of 5's. An Ace on the river gave Kevin a full house, fives full of Aces. It was his first boat-over-boat heartbreak, but he took it well.
A little while later, Fran went out when she pushed her short stack in with Ax. Then, I took out Mike and Kevin in one hand. I had pocket Aces (my only premium hand of the night), and they held up on a scary board of 10-10-x-Q-J.
Tracy and I embarked upon familiar territory - heads up at the final table. The two of us have dueled each other before. I had about a 5:1 chip lead on her, but she made a valiant effort to dethrone me. She was making a bit of a comeback, but the cards were falling in my favor, and flops kept hitting me. I chipped away at her until my Ax flopped an Ace and won the tournament.
It was good times in the boonies, and I left with a profit. That was a nice bonus. This Wednesday, Randy and I will head out to a mid-week incarnation of the Diamond Game. Next Saturday is the semi-monthly big Diamond tournament. And, I just might end up at Trump on Monday afternoon with Ed, Jim, and Scott (of the Diamond games), who have planned their own trip up there. I think I may play limit, though, as I don't like to sit down to the 200NL game with less than $400 in my pocket (due to the unusually high blinds of 2/5), and I don't have $400 right now.
To update you all on my poker status... my tax refund will seed my B&M bankroll again. I expect it to arrive any day now, as I sent in my taxes last weekend. (I love Turbo Tax Online - highly recommended. I've been using it to do my taxes for 8 years now. http://www.turbotax.com). I had a talk with our favorite Princess a couple weeks back, and she gave me some advice that I've been mulling over on a daily basis ever since. I'm pretty sure I've come to some conclusions based on my pondering, but am not quite ready to share them with you all just yet. Soon - once I decide if in fact I've made up my mind. At any rate, I may play 3/6 limit on Monday at Trump, as I can afford a $100 buy-in, but can't really afford $400. (Rarely is a rebuy necessary at the 3/6 game).
So - you might get a Trump story out of me a bit sooner than expected, after all :)
Saturday, February 04, 2006
I had hoped I'd still be at the boats playing cards at this point in time, but... I've completed my trek home and here I sit.
So I drove to Trump tonight, feeling really good. Sometimes I drive there and have this sort of wary, battle-ready feeling inside - as if I'd just watched a season full of X-Files episodes and had a mini Chris Carter on my shoulder going, "Trust no one!" I know poker isn't a "friendly" game, and trust plays no role at the table, but I'm not a big fan of walking into the poker room with negative mojo in my pocket. There's the opposite of that, too - the egomaniacal version of me, where I sit down with a chip on my shoulder and something to prove. That typically doesn't work out too well either.
It's been a long time since I've gone to a poker game just feeling "good." Plain ol' good, as in - I'm good at this game, but know who's better than me. Feeling optimistic without being unrealistic. Just having a good sense of confidence that doesn't turn over-emotional and affect my game. I felt good tonight, and the poker room was hopping.
It was so busy, in fact, that I've never seen so many cars at Trump - not even over the holidays. I walked as far as I've ever had to from my car to the casino tonight - and saw a nutcase woman drive her SUV backwards into a parked car because she was trying to beat another guy to a parking spot. I mentally jotted down her license plate, as I saw the whole thing happen and she started to drive away, but I stopped and stared. At that point, she reluctantly got out of her car and was talking to her passenger and looked like she was going to do something about her accident. I probably should have told somebody inside anyway, but I didn't.
Anyway... the poker room was crazy full, with lists longer than could fit in the entire columns on the board. Luckily, though, I'd called ahead from close to home (which is a good hour from the casino), so I was pretty high on the list. When they called a new $200 max NL game, I made the cut. It took forever to get the new table opened up, so I only saw one hand at that table. I folded on the button, and watched two guys get themselves all in on the first hand. It ended up being a showdown between Quad Ten's and 2 pair, Ax. Then, I was moved to a main game.
There were no real big stacks at my new table, as it was formerly the must-move table and had just been converted to a main game. I saw 2 players I recognized from previous Trump visits: one guy I thought best to avoid, and one I thought best to get into pots with whenever possible. There were a couple sunglass-toting WPT wannabes, two very serious college kids (one with the must-have White Sox ensemble, the other in a preppy smart-kids' fraternity type getup). I had a drunk but very friendly Asian gambler to my left, who apparently had been coming to Trump every weekend for 6 weeks straight, losing $1,000 every time. Two different dealers confirmed this, and he explained that for him, it was cheap entertainment - cheaper than women and bars, anyway. I don't know what kind of bars he goes to... apparently he must have expensive taste in women. He liked to do things like push all in blind preflop. Lots of chasing, lots of "I have nothing but I wanna see what you have - I call!" He was Person #2 I wanted to be in pots with.
Please, God, just give me some cards!
No such luck, really. My VP$IP (as best as I can calculate) was about 15%. I limped 3 times with KQ, KQ, QJ and missed all 3 flops (unraised pots). My blinds were so bad I folded most of them to preflop raises. After an hour or so of folding, I find KK and raise it to $20 from UTG+1. I give about half the table credit for noticing that it was the first time all night that I'd bet out or raised. I had 4 callers (*gulp*). When the flop came all undercards with 2 clubs, I bet out $60 and was thankful to see everybody fold.
Then, I made my Play of the Night. You see, I picked out 2 people at the table to "study" for the evening: one regular who, shame on me, I didn't really have any solid mental notes on, and one guy I didn't recognize but seemed knowledgeable enough to be worth watching. The one guy I didn't know from prior games seemed intimidating at first. He was aggressive, and my first impression from his mannerisms was that he was serious about his game. I read that as tight. He didn't talk much, didn't seem to have "gamble" in him. He just watched everybody else, and spoke his actions with a very stern voice. After a while though, I noticed that he played too many hands to fit into the "tight" category, and by the time I saw a few showdowns, I pegged him as a newer player. Top pair was a monster to him, and any ace looked good. He wasn't awful, but I'd given him too much credit up front.
So, I'm in the big blind and haven't looked at my cards. My study raises preflop (he's sitting two to my left) to $25. The drunken Asian to my left had limped, and everybody folded to me. I look down to see JJ. I'm not going to go broke with this hand. I want to see a flop. I thought of re-raising, but that would commit half of my stack to the pot, essentially marrying me to my JJ. I'm not really after seeing 5 cards. I want to see 3, then I'll re-evaluate my position. Besides, I have some mental notes on my opponent, and I don't mind going up against him.
I call the $25, and the drunk guy folds. We're heads up to a Queen-high flop. I check while looking straight at my opponent. Of course he's going to bet out - he's a big fan of the continuation bet, and had previously laid down hands twice to players who came over the top on his flop bet. As I'm watching him, I'm thinking - AA? KK? AQ? QQ?
Nope. He's got none of those. That board missed him. Actually, I put him on a low pocket pair. I watched him bet out $25 into the $55 pot, and... my JJ was good. I looked at my stack. I had $120 or so left in front of me. I don't want him to see any more cards - at least not cheaply. My hand is good NOW and I'd like it to stay that way. I chose to raise it to $60. I was going for an amount that said, "Dude, I have you beat - and this bet obviously commits me to this pot, so you're playing for all of my chips if you play at all."
Alright, so my original plan of not going broke with JJ was no longer my plan. Every street brings a fresh analysis of the hand on the table...
It turns out that the guy folded, but he was mighty reluctant to do so. I even caught a glimpse of the, "Damn it! I don't want to fold to a GIRL!" look, which is actually not as common as I thought it would be. (It's still out there, though).
I wish I could see what he folded, but my raise and his dramatic laydown solicited a genuine, "Nice play!" out of the guy I had planned to avoid. He was wearing a pink shirt, though, so I couldn't fear him too much. I just don't get the whole "guys wearing pink" thing. I took his comment as a compliment, though, because he rarely complimented anybody, and was very obviously NOT hitting on me. (Like I said, he was wearing a pink shirt). No offense to anybody reading who wears pink shirts - it's just not my "style." My style is more like Orange and Black. Hockey jerseys and jeans. You know. Shirts with buttons are a bit fancy for my taste.
Unfortunately for me, despite all of my intent reading of this guy, I lost my money back to him. It was a case of part bad read, part bad luck.
I've got AK on the button. There are a few limpers in the pot, and I raise it to $20 (same raise I made with my KK). The SB folds, and my Study, in the big blind, pops it up to $40. That clears the field, and I want to see a flop. The guy easily raised one in every 3 hands he played, and he easily played one in every 3 or 4. I don't take his raises to mean much - so far, they had meant 77, KTo (???), QQ, A7s, and ATo.
I call the extra $20 and the flop hits me with a K on an uncoordinated board. This is what I'd hoped for with my AK (spades, for the record, though there were no flush draws onboard). I've got about $200 in front of me. He's got slightly less than I do. There's $100-ish in the pot. I bet out $75. He min-raises me to $150, which nearly puts him all in. I pull the $75 out of my stack, compare it to what's left, and compare it to what he's got left.
Here we go again: does he have AA? KK? He doesn't have a set, because the one set I saw him hit, he check-called to the river then popped a big raise on the end. He liked the slowplay, even with hands that were too vulnerable to slowplay.
I figured, if he had AA or KK, he'd slow play me. He wasn't slow playing, and he wasn't pushing all in, either. If he loved his hand, why wasn't he trying to get it all into the pot? Really, his raise made no sense in the context of his previous play, and I decided that he was trying to pull the same move on me that I'd pulled on him - the ol' check-raise.
I pushed all in, and he immediately called. That's something the ol' gut never wants to see - someone calling before you even get the words "all in" out of your mouth.
He had the AA, and neither the turn nor river helped my TPTK. I had him covered by $20, but the dealers were changing and our $7 time was due, so I took my $20 and left.
On one hand, I made some cardinal sins here - the most obvious being, don't go broke with top pair, top kicker. AK is one of my least favorite hands to play, I think mostly because it requires such a variety of decisions to be made. The situations you see AK in are so varied that it is hard to have just one or two main strategies for playing it. Compared to a monster like KK or AA, there are more ways to play AK than to play a monster.
I think the only way I'm getting away from that loss is to fold preflop, because from all of the pieces of the story that I'd assembled about the guy from watching him, I'd put it all together the same way again and again.
Overall, I'm not unhappy with how I played tonight.
However, this leaves me in a pretty bad place. My B&M bankroll is about broke. I have $40 or so upstairs in the poker box that may as well be spent on a manicure or something, because it's not enough to buy into a card game for. I dipped into my poker money to pay off some Christmas gifts (damn credit cards, they're the work of the devil). I took some to blow on PokerStars (because I keep my personal money separate from poker money, period). Of course, I didn't intend to "blow" it on PS, but... me and online poker haven't been the best of buddies since mid-2005. (I think online poker is jealous of my trips to Trump).
Now, there will be no trips to Trump until I can manage to save up some money to set aside for poker. Again. I managed to go to Vegas 4 times last year on poker profits. This year isn't looking so fruitful. There's only one reason why I wish I'd have laid down that KK back in December, and that's because I really couldn't afford to lose that pot.
I've got money collecting over at Full Tilt. I haven't touched it. It's like an online poker savings account. I have a few people signed up under my bonus code, and the money that generates is just sitting in my account. If I dive into it now, I'll run into the same problem I always run into online. Starting with a meager bankroll allows no room for variance. Human Head hit the nail on the proverbial head in a comment he posted about my typical $50 online poker buy in's. He said that even at a low limit like $.50/1.00, that's only 50BB, which doesn't leave much room for variance. He also pointed out the disconnect between the levels I'm playing at Trump and the levels I'm playing online. I'm not sure exactly how that disconnect affects my game, but I'm sure that it does, because my B&M game is different from my online game - something I've vowed to rectify in 2006.
So, I won't be going to Trump for a while - probably not until I get my tax return, of which I might be able to spare a buy in or two (after Randy and I tear up this old carpeting and put down some wood flooring in the living room). And, I think I'm going to let my Full Tilt Fund grow for a bit. In a perfect world, I'd like it to grow to the point where sitting down at an NL table requires no more than 5% of my online bankroll. Compared to my usual (sitting down at a $25 max table, with a bankroll of $50), that would be unheard of. I may not get it that high before I cave and play, but my vow to you now is that I won't sit down with more than 10% of my bankroll. That's my plan.
Until then... I think I need to go back to the drawing board. Hit some books, listen to some podcasts, think about my game, take some notes, rework some things. My apologies, though, that I won't have many tales from the felt in the next few weeks!
I don't think that's a bad thing, though.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Hello, my fellow bloggers and readers! Yes, I've been away from the poker tables this week. I plan to return to the felt this evening.
Are there any Chicagoland bloggers/readers heading to Majestic Star tonight (formerly known as Trump)?
My night's calendar is free and I'm ready to go :)
Thursday, January 26, 2006
I'm thinking that this weekend needs a trip to Trump. Yup. That's what it needs. I don't think it will be Friday, though, as I have to go in to work early, and have meetings all day, and by the time I'm done I anticipate that I will be pulling my hair out and in no condition to play poker. We'll see.
I finally piddled away the last of my money on PokerStars, playing SnG's. So much for that fifty bucks! Though it did last me a good couple months... I need to do something about my online game. Regroup somehow. The "somehow" part is what's elluding me. I have a little money over on Full Tilt but I don't want to touch it until I figure out how not to lose it.
Seriously - I had a nice 4 month stretch or so where I was making money hand over fist online (on FTP). Before that, zilch. $50 rebuys, one after another. After that run? Zilch (though after that June rush, I've played very little online and instead have played more at Trump). Is it that buying in for the minimum $50 isn't enough to get started? I seem to build it up to $100 or 150 and then, poof. A couple bad days and it's gone.
I guess it's hard to follow the 5% of your bankroll max buy in rule when you only start with $50.
Ahh well. I'm not all that concerned. Honestly I like playing live better, but I can't deny the wonderful convenience of playing online (and the awful inconvenience of living an hour away from the poker room).
If any of you Chicago locals plan to be at Trump this weekend, give me a holla' yo!
Friday, January 20, 2006
Now, back on the horse.-- Otis calling me out, in his comment on my KK hand.
I have a confession to make. This is going to seem obvious to most of you, but honestly, I didn't realize it was the truth until after reading Otis' comment the other day.
That KK hand stung me. Not only did it hurt my bankroll at a time when there wasn't much left to hurt, but it was my first true gutcheck at no limit cash games. At its conclusion, I'd decided that I played the hand correctly and would do it again.
But it has taken me the last three weeks to grow the balls to put myself in the face of that danger again. Why? Because if I'd have been in the same situation again, two weeks ago - I'd have likely chickened out and laid it down.
I don't want my poker game to be governed by fear.
So I was subconsciously waiting for the fear to pass. Sure, I have "reasons" why I haven't played at Trump the last 3 weeks. First of all, I've been off work, and work is 20 minutes from the boats (whereas home is an hour away). So, the convenience factor was way off. Then, there was Christmas and New Year's and all that jazz. (I actually did go to Trump once between Christmas and New Year's).
But the real reason I didn't go is that I didn't want to be a hypocrite to myself. And I know myself well enough to know that fear is one emotion that can override even my most rational convictions.
So I went back to Trump tonight. I'm on shaky ground financially; my brick-and-mortar bankroll has $237 in it right now. One false move or stroke of bad luck, and I'm pounding pavement.
But at least I'm not afraid.
My starter table (the feeder table to all of the other NL 200-max games) was a strange one. I don't think I've ever seen so many people go broke at the starter table, rebuy multiple times, and leave with empty pockets - before making it to a main game. I unfortunately had no playable cards, and could not capitalize on the massive chip movement that was going on before my eyes.
When I got moved to a main game, I could tell the waters were completely different. Nobody had a big stack; the largest may have been $400 or so, and the owner of those checks had taken them from my starter table. It was a somewhat loose but very passive game. In retrospect, I think the lesson I learned tonight is that I really need to abuse such table conditions and pick up those orphan pots, regardless of what cards I hold. I really had no playable hands tonight, and accordingly folded them all. Limping into a few pots in late position and betting on flops where the table showed weakness could have probably won me another hundred bucks. Quite a few hands were checked down to the river with 5 people in the hand; that's how passive it was.
The "big stack" at the table (and I use that term loosely) was a good player. I had him pegged for a nut peddling tight-aggro. He played very few hands (both at the starter table and at the main game), and I'd only seen him show down high pocket pairs. He was also never in a pot after the flop that he didn't show down; he just showed down monsters. End of story. So I'm watching this hand play out between him and the guy next to him (your average fish: any ace or face, any two suited, and easy to raise off of hands and out of pots).
The nut peddler limps into the pot in early position. Next to act raises to $25. It folds around, and the nut peddler calls the raise. The flop comes 4-8-10 rainbow. Nut peddler bets out $25. His opponent raises to $50. Nut peddler re-raises another $100 on top. The other guy thinks and thinks and thinks, and finally lays it down, saying, "Nice bet, nice bet." The dealer proceeds to say something to the nut peddler - I couldn't hear what he said, but apparently he'd made an accurate guess at the nut peddler's cards, because NP then flashed an AJ offsuit to the dealer (which I could see from the 10 seat). NP laughed about how the dealer had guessed his cards, and when his opponent caught wind of what the nut peddler had, he was shocked - and reiterated what a great bet NP had made.
The guy folded JJ.
Nice fold, nice fold. It was the wrong fold, but... what can ya do. Poor guy was dumbfounded for the rest of the night.
I don't really have any stories of my own. I played 4 hands outside of the blinds: TT and 77 - limped into raised multi-way pots in hopes of flopping a set, and bailed when I didn't hit. AA flopped a set against AQ and earned me a double-up. (Unfortunately, by then, I was down to $100, so it brought me even). QQ got no action when I raised preflop.
Exciting stuff, eh? :)
I left up $38, minus a buck for the cashier's cage. For 2 1/2 hours (it was a quickie trip), I'm OK with that.
And thusly so, I am back in the saddle.
On a side note, I've decided that it would be better for me to consider my winnings in BB/100 rather than BB/hour, considering that there's really no way to realistically compare B&M and online play by the hour. One thing I want to STOP doing is living in the mindset that my online game and my live game are different. I don't want them to be (despite the fact that indeed, they are). The first step in aligning them (meaning, making my online game more like my live game, because that IS my game) is to stop thinking of them as completely separate. I want to expect the same results from both. So I'll count in BB/100.
That's it for me. Time for bed. I have to go restock one of my vendors in Ultima Online real quick first :)
Monday, January 16, 2006
So yesterday, I was catching up on my Bloglines, and noticed a title on one of Wil Wheaton's posts that to me was a quote from one of my favorite R.E.M. songs, "Fall on Me." I was going to post a comment, and then thought to myself, "I sure would feel like an ass if that quote is also used in some famous movie or literary work or something, and here I am thinking it's a famous R.E.M. lyric." So I didn't post a comment.
Today, I was back in Bloglines doing some reading. Wil's next couple posts continued with lines from that song. So now I know he's intending to quote R.E.M. Nice! So I posted the comment this afternoon that I'd intended to post yesterday, mentioning that Fall on Me is my favorite song of theirs - that, or "Perfect Circle."
I haven't thought about the song Perfect Circle in ages, which caused me to want to hear it. So I checked my iTunes library, and sure enough, I don't have that song. So I go into the iTunes music store to buy it. I then see that my iPod is missing the entire Murmer album, so....
instead of spending 99 cents for Perfect Circle, I just bought the whole album. It's such a classic, and I so love R.E.M. that I just needed to have it. Incidentally, I found my Murmer CD, but it is too scratched to play. Thank goodness for digital music! I'm so horrible at properly caring for my CD's.
That's how I ended up spending ten bucks on iTunes this afternoon. Wil made me do it!
(Thanks, Wil!)
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Speaking of Ultima Online... meet my new parrot, Phlyersphan! :)
Here's the big version of the pic
Saturday, January 14, 2006
I'm trying out something new tonight; I'm logging off from online poker after tripling my buy-in. Why? Well, I've had this habit lately of playing for too long. I get up a nice little egg, and just stay at the table one orbit too many, and lose it. I tend to do this particularly at the wild tables. I manage to get lucky and hit a monster double up, and instead of taking my loot and running, I hang out until I endure some sick suckout and go broke.
So, tonight I'm leaving a winner. (In fact, I already left a winner. Logged out before I started this post).
It feels pretty good.
I see that Alan has compiled the WPBT IRC chat statistics over at Geek and Proud. Nice!
My apologies for being absent of late. I went back to work this week, and am still enamoured with Ultima Online. What can I say? My eight year anniversary is coming up, and it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Too bad none of my friends that used to play still do. But, I've met up with a very cool guild in-game (an ADULT guild, imagine that), and it's been pretty damn fun.
Drizz's comment on my last post still has me wetting myself laughing, though:
MMORPG addiction is bad bad bad!I know, I know - I'm being mocked. That's OK.
Much better to blow $500 in 10 seconds at a 2/5 NL table, then waste two weeks obtaining the +6 Stick of the Frog.
Randy and I played a little weeknight poker on Thursday at the home of the Diamond games. I was sans notepad, but let's just say Randy won the first game, chopped head-up in the second game, and I went home mighty pissed after he crippled my already short stack with a button hammer bluff. (I wouldn't have been so mad if he didn't regularly criticize how retarded we are for playing the hammer). Ahhh true love...
I think I have to go play some more UO now. It's been a few hours. I'm itching.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
No news is... no news!
Not much poker-related going on over here the last few days. I got into a bit of an Ultima Online kick and have been playing that instead. (At least my losses in UO are limited to the $10/month subscription fee!)
I'm soooo overdue for a trip to Trump Indiana, but I've been hobbled up this whole past week with a sore back. If I move too far from my heating pad, it gets ugly. I'm doing a bit better the last couple days - got some drugs. I go back to work tomorrow (Xmas break is over), so maybe next week I'll hit up the poker room. (Work is half way between home and the casino).
In the absense of any real poker related stories, I will leave you back to whatever meaningful task you were doing before you stumbled across this post. Have a wonderful day!
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Yeah, I'm hella bad azz cool. You know it:
That's right. I won! Yay! OK, so it's not a win of Factual proportions, but I haven't won a SnG in a while, so I was pretty stoked. (Huge congrats to Facty, btw, who is simply Krushering the New Year!)
My new SnG strategy:
1. Fold until you're blinded down to push-all-in mode. (5 players should be eliminated by now).
2. Double up.
3. Twice.
4. Play real poker, since by now you're in the money.
And you thought there was all sorts of complicated trickery and math involved... sheesh. Seriously though - there's something to be said for letting all of the Ace-push morons knock each other out without risking a suckout early on. Who wants to play in those big pots when the blinds are so puny?
There's one caveat to my strategy though: you must avoid pushing AA into a set of Kings. I managed to do this during SnG #2 of the evening (which shamefully has no snazzy screenshot as accompaniment).
After my quick exit from SnG #2, I was not quite ready for bed. So, I pulled up a .25/.50 NL 6-max cash table on Stars. I proceeded to fold (a lot) and then played a 3-way all in pot with AA. I was up against KK and AK, and my Aces held up.
With a triple-up tucked firmly in my pocket, I bid my tablemates adeiu and logged out.
I tried to cash out a bit of my winnings to Neteller (per Facty's inspiration to start saving for my Big Tournament Goal of 2006 - play in one of the $1500 WSOP events this summer), but the cash out screen said it can only send funds back to the original deposit source. This reload was done with a credit card, and I don't want the cash out to go there. I want it to go to Neteller instead. Anybody know if this is possible? I emailed PS support, and hopefully I'll wake to an answer.
That's my night in a nutshell. And yes, I finished taking down all of the outside Christmas lights. It was sad. :( I love holiday lights! I think I should find some red or pink lights and jazz up the bushes for Valentine's Day. Whaddya think?
