Weak Player's Poker Blog

You Don't Understand; Chunks is My Dog!!

2009-06-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, I am here in Vegas, specifically at the Illy in the Plazzo. I have been here for about 24 hours. I had hoped to get to town a few days earlier, but I had family obligations. I still have not been over to the Rio yet.

It has been a really interesting day and a half. Yesterday at 11:00am, it seemed my
landlord was going to try to sell our house and break our lease because he is getting expelled from the country. I spent some time on the phone with a lawyer while I was waiting to catch my flight being assured I will probably be okay.

On the flight, I had two drinks on an empty stomach. Then we hit some wicked turbulence. It had never happened to me before, but I ended up chundering. I did manage to get it all in the barf bag. I was shaking afterwards, and need some water to clean up. I got the water, got cleaned up. Still shaking, I spilled some of the water, some of which landed in my backpack. My backpack was open and my laptop was vent side up. It is toast.I ran out and got an HP mini. It fits in my fag bag. I am typing this post from the Illy in the Plazzo whilst on dinner break from the 12:00 Deep Stack. Chad busted out early, and CK is still alive. The cantaloupe gellato is exquisite.

The place I am saying is awesome. It is a timeshare resort. I have a one bedroom with all the luxuries, for $55/night. It is a bit more expensive than other places I have stayed in private homes, but not having any psycho roomates is a big plus.

Edits and additions to follow, as well as more posts. Sorry to be sloppy, but I need to get back to the tournament. I don't want to fall behind or leave you in the dark, so I am posting this now.

More tomorrow. I promise.

Back In the Saddle Again

2009-03-25T11:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I have done it again. I have blogged and blogged and then disappeared. There was some drama with my wife’s job, and some drama with us moving and a change in situation as far as our baby; I am taking care of her while the wife works. It has taken me some time to re-re-re-re-adjust and I have finally come back to poker. More on that in a future post. I want to write about poker, starting now.

While I have come back to playing on-line, what has really gotten going is a recent trip I took. The main purpose of my trip was my high school reunion, but I managed to squeeze in a trip to Foxwoods during this last weekend. We took a long weekend and I made it there on Monday.

Not having planned ahead, I was expecting that it might be a bit quiet on Monday. As luck would have it, there was a major tournament series starting. I made it there at 10:30am and was seated in a new 2-5nl game immediately. This was the second table.

Before I discuss the game itself, I will make a few quick comments about the venue. This was the first time I had been there in three years and things have changed a bit. The customer service used to suck; now it is acceptable or better. While it is hard to judge from one session, the last time I was there, it sucked so hard that I noticed in one session. Also of note is the change in the game structures. It used to be that they would take time for all NL games. That is no longer the case. In the game I played it was rake, and I have to assume it was also rake in the 1/2nl game. I view this as a huge improvement for lower level no limit games. Finally, I think the room is bigger still. It is hard to judge the level of action given the tournament, but I was not disappointed.

On to the game: It was all male, for the entire time, which I found the odd. It was the same way at almost all of the NL games. That was very strange to me. All of the players were dead serious for the first hour or two. No laughing or joking or anything like that. I could tell which players were the regulars without much effort. I felt really good about that; it has been almost as long since I played live as it has been since I last blogged. Even though the game was serious and filled with regulars, there were enough bad players to feed the game and I was able to play real poker against some of the better players.

This is so very different and very refreshing as compared to on-line play. I have been doing a lot of that seriously this last month on Full Tilt, and for fun on Bodog. You need thousands of hands of history on an opponent to get a good read on him/her. If you are observant, you only need a few minutes to size up your opponent live. I think I am good at that because I have a lot of experience, but I think most players can replace the huge amount of PT data with something more intuitive and psychological for live play. It is necessary; I saw more on-line hands in March alone than I will likely see in several years of live play!

I played for 4.5 hours and was involved in two big hands and few minor hands. Twice I got all of my chips in when I was way ahead. There was no question in my mind that my hands would hold up, and they did. There was not one hand where I was forced to gamble. It could not have gone much better. The first big hand was just my flopped set of tens vs. villain’s flopped TPTK. I think a really skilled player may have been able to get away from that one, but I am not sure.

The second one, I am fairly sure that my opponent was a skilled player and he did not get away from his hand. Here is how it went: I raised to $30 with 67d in EP. This is a very unusual play for me and anyone who had been paying attention would put me on something bigger….much bigger. I got one caller immediately behind me. The player that called me I judged to be really solid. With $63 in the pot, we saw the flop heads-up. I was really fortunate to have flopped the flush. The board came Ad Td 3d. I lead out for $55 and he snap-called me. The turn was a blank. With $173 in the pot, I fire again for $125 and he snap calls me again. The river comes Jc. With $413 in the pot, I jam for his last $175. He snap calls me and immediately shows his hand. He has KdQs; He rivered the Broadway when he was looking for the nut flush. With the Ad on the board and the Kd in his hand, I don’t think he could possibly put me on a flush, though I was worried that I might be wrong about him and he had the flush. Not that time. I take down a $763 pot.

I am not the kind to take a victory lap, but an orbit later it was time for my hourly break. I walked around to examine the rest of the action. Again there was a tournament in town, but the action seemed really good even so. This was around 2:30pm. At that time, there were more than ten 1/2nl games, six 2/5nl games, and two 5/10nl games. There were several very deep spots in the 5/10nl games, but some that were not so deep. I would have taken a shot if I had had more time. They were also spreading 1/2PLO, 4/8 O/8, a few very high dollar stud games and there was even an interest list for 8/16 HORSE.

So, it was great action, I had a great session, cashed out for an $858 win, and liked the place more than ever. Given how much I had hated Foxwoods, this was a big change.

I will be back in a few days to talk about what I have been playing on-line, where I want to go with poker from here, my plans for the WSOP and more. I will try really hard to not disappear yet again, but I can make no promises. Thanks for reading.

Welcome To Okie Vegas

2008-07-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I am not at Okie Vegas. Scheduling is tough. We almost made it. We did make it to a Okie Vegas pre-party. The video features me filming, Weak Baby with GCox's M-I-L, Surflexus, and Gary. We were there a few days ago. We were in OKC to visit my sister. It was impossible to schedule the same trip a week later. Next year. Until then, a shout out to everyone that is actually at Okie Vegas.

I will return to blogging my most recent Vegas experience tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

Playing at the Bellagio

2008-07-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

A few days before I left Las Vegas most recently, I played at the Bellagio. The Mookies were staying there. The idea was that Don and I were going to meet Mookie there and play some 2/5NL. Don ended up not making it out to play. I got there around 11:45 am, 15 minutes before the appointed time. I put my name on the list and waited.

Because of the time of day, I only had about a fifteen minute wait. Mookie showed up a little after noon and put his name on the list. The list was quite long at that point. Based on the lack of tables, the fullness of the room, the fact that the list was not moving, and that he only had a few hours left, Mookie ended up giving up. It turns out that it was an excellent decision; hours after I sat, I heard them call him. In fact, they call the list at a rate of one name every five seconds. If you are not standing right there when they call your name, you are SOL. This is just one of the many ways that the Bellagio poker room sucks. I can name so many other ways that it sucks, that I am saving it for a future post. For now, let's just say that I ended up playing alone.

The thing that struck me most about the Bellagio poker room on this session was the extreme douchebaggery of the other players. Douche bag (DB) #1 was on my immediate right. Please notice that I did not say "sitting." Yes, he was standing and playing. He was also talking to his friends that were also standing. They were next to and around my seat. They were talking loudly. It became clear that they were all leaving soon, so I decided to just grin and bear it. DB #1 declares that he is going to play to his button and quit.

After he plays his big blind, DB#1 takes his bills and stuffs them in his pocket. "Sir, are you planning to play your button?" I ask. "Yes, why?" Because that is the rule and I want a shot at them, I think. "Because you are going to have to put your bills back on the table", I say. "Sorry, I didn't realize the poker police was here." He seems to think that is a minor infraction. Most everyone that plays any amount of 2/5nl or higher knows that the bills must stay on the table. It is perfectly fine to take them off the table when you get up to leave. It is perfectly fine to take them off the table when you get up to take a break. In that case, you return the same number of bills to the table before you are dealt in. That is not only the rule, but it is basic etiquette. He continues whining about the bills, even after the dealer confirms that I am correct and the next hand is dealt.

The next hand is my big blind, my first hand. Everyone folds to the button who limps. DB #1 completes his small blind. I look down and see KK. I raise to $35. The button calls. "Because it is you, I am going to call" says DB #1 as he is putting in his delicious $30. The flop is unconnected, off-suit, low cards. I bet $75, the button calls and DB #1 folds. He takes some sort of parting shot and then picks up. Yes, he paid his blinds and then forgot to take his button hand. The turn is a blank and I bet $100. The button calls. The river is a blank and I bet $200. The button folds and the pot is pushed to me.

After I finish stacking my chips, I stand up to put on my sweatshirt. As my hands are in mid-air, with my head not yet out of the neck of the sweatshirt, I get shoved. I poke my head through the top of the sweatshirt to see DB#2. He is a crotchety old fucker and he is trying to push past me to get into the recently vacated seat. "One moment, sir, and I will be out of your way." "Okay." He keeps pushing and is in his seat before I finish putting on my sweatshirt. I sit back down.

The button is now in DB#2's seat and he has to wait a hand before he can enter the game. During that one hand, one of the other players pauses to think about calling a $150 bet. After about thirty seconds, DB#2 calls for the clock. Not only is he not in the hand, he is not even in the game. What is next? Railbirds calling for the clock? Perhaps the janitor wants to clean trash from underneath the seat of the player whose action it is. Certainly he should have the right to call for the clock. DB#2 only plays aces, kings, and ace-king. I don't hear from him for the rest of the session.

However, DB#3, my left hand opponent, starts chatting with me. He seems like a perfectly nice person. He tells me an endless stream of jokes. There are many Jew jokes and n-word jokes in the joke parade. Sir, I would be allowed to laugh at the Jew jokes if they were funny, but the n-word jokes make me feel very uncomfortable.

DB#4 enters the scene when I get to the flop HU with him. I flop a flush and shove all-in to his raise. He goes into the tank and eventually calls. The turn and the river are dealt and then he sits there, waiting for me to show my hand. I am waiting for him to show his hand as he is immediately to the left of the button and there was no action in the last round. This is the rule, generally. At the Venetian, the last aggressor shows first. This is a deviation from Robert's rules, but I am fine either way. In this case, I wanted to know why he was in the tank so long. "You are first to show, sir." The dealer confirms this. DB#4 whines and gnashes his teeth. I relent and show my flush. DB#4 mucks and the pot is pushed to me.

A short while later, DB#2 gets up and DB#4 takes his seat. He lectures me for five minutes on the meta-game value of not pissing off your opponents. "I am sorry." He goes on. "What can I do to make it right?" I ask. He goes on. He finally gets up to play 30/60 O/8. "Good game, sir." You whiny pussy, get over it.

The rest of the session is good poker-wise, but no more rampant douchebaggery. My cards go cold, so I cash out for a $550 win. There are definitely a lot of douche bags playing poker. More than the natural distribution. But, from my limited observations here, it seems that Bellagio has more than its share of douchebaggery.

Aside from player antics, I will be comparing the Venetian poker room to the Bellagio poker room in an upcoming post. Thanks for reading.

Traveling Man

2008-07-01T12:39:00.000-07:00

Well, it is time for me to leave Las Vegas. I am writing this post from my boarding gate at McCarran. Free wifi rules! I owe several posts, either promised, or based on ideas that I have that I have not had time to turn into actual writing. In the next week or so look for posts on my Bellagio experience, my final doings at the Rio, the one Deep Stack Extravaganza event I played, a summary of my results, my take on pit gambling, a skewering of the Golden Nugget, and more. There is just so much to write about and so little time. That is especially true when you are spending the bulk of your final days in Vegas playing poker instead of blogging.

Until next time, I give you my badly mangled song lyrics:



   Donkeys have come, donkeys have gone,
      Everyone trying to stack me.
   Flops were so sweet, I barely got free,
      Others, they only cracked me.
   Sometimes at night, I see their faces,
      I feel the traces they left on my roll.
   Those are the memories that made me a wealthy soul.

Three Strange Days

2008-06-28T01:00:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been interesting, to say the least. Wednesday I played a three hour 2/5NL session at the Venetian. The net result was +$1,000. It was a bunch of small pots, a few large pots, some bluffs and a lot of folding. But, strangely, there were no really memorable hands. My table dried up, so I picked up and went to play another $130SNG.

I did not cash in this SNG. It was the third level, I had just raised to T300 with AQs, and I got re-raised to T700. I had T900 remaining and it was a narrow split between push and fold against this opponent. I elected to push. He called and showed AKo. The board came all blanks and I was done. I was fine with that. However, my opponent opined, “I thought you were better than that.” and several other apparent experts nodded in approval at his scholarly knowledge of the game. I just smiled and got up. Whatever.

I then played some 1/2NL with Don and Mookie. It was a somewhat entertaining game but I only got involved in a few pots, all of which involved me missing with a big ace. We decided to get something to eat. While eating, I mentioned that I still have to use up my $100 food comp at the Rio. The plan was to take Mookie and Mrs. Mookie out for a nice dinner. It is something that I really wanted to do to thank them for their hospitality last year. It was supposed to be the Mookies, Me, Don, and CK.

When I called the next day for reservations, the Harrah’s reservationist got me hooked up with the required reservation quickly. As I was about to conclude this quick, efficient discussion, she asked me for my credit card and informed me that there would be a $25/person charge for cancelling the reservation less than five hours before the meal. I said, “I am sorry, but that is too inflexible, never mind” and hung up. My thoughts were to just do the same thing on the spur of the moment.

I then headed back to the Venetian and played a miserable seven hour session. In addition to being really card dead, I lost two huge hands. I will describe them here, not because I am interested in discussing strategy, and not because I want sympathy. And they are not bad beat stories (I was behind both times.) I simply want to illustrate that some days really suck, like at any other job.

The first hand started with a young punk, new to the table, raising $20 UTG. Several people called behind him. I called with ATs in LP. I was looking for a flush or Broadway or two pair. Not an ace or a ten. The flop came 844, with two of my suit. He bet $35 and all folded to me. I called for the flush draw. The turn came 8. He hesitated and then checked. I checked behind him. The river came A and he checked again. At this point, I put him on a big pair, KK, QQ, or JJ, or possibly a big ace. I felt that he either would fold to my bet or that he would pay me more often than I would pay him, so I bet $200, about the pot. He came back over the top of me for $170 more (he started the hand with a little more than $400.) I was then feeling like I was most likely beat, but there was almost $800 in the pot with $170 more to call. I found it really tough to fold, so I called. Yes, I was beat. I would have been happy to lose if he had showed me AK or AQ. I would have been slightly annoyed about losing if he had showed me AJ. I would have been a little surprised if he had showed me AA, 44, 88, A4 or A8. But he didn’t show me any of these hands. He showed me J8o. I was totally irate. Seriously, WTF, dude? I got over being irate in time for the next hand.

A little later in the session, I was on the B with AsKh. All folded to me, I raised to $30, and the BB called me. Heads-up to the flop, I saw Ad5s4s. He checked to me, I bet $45, and he raised to $200. I didn’t think he was a great player, but I also didn’t think he was terrible player. I considered a pair and a draw, 44, 55, A4s, A5s, Kqs, AK, and AQ. I also considered stone cold bluff, but not very seriously. He only has $300 more to bet and I couldn’t fold after calling a bet, so it was push or fold time again. Again, I elected to push. He went into the tank. Eventually he called and showed me 55. Dude, why did you think for so long? Have you ever folded a set on the flop in your life? I know some people have, but not you. Later, I ran this one through PokerStove and it is 60/40 for him, assuming the range I gave you, minus worse hands, and assuming he is incapable of folding any part of that range. So, on the whole, it was a marginal decision on my part, not terrible, not great. Later in the session, the same player got all-in against another player on a paired board. He proudly turned over a suited ace for the nut flush and announced “Nuts! “ The other player turned over his boat and dragged the pot. Shit! He was a donkey after all.

But, at the time, I was feeling that I really hate my job. And I hadn’t really wanted to go to work that day anyhow. This is really what I was thinking. And, like any other job, it has its good days and its bad days. And, like any other job, it is often not fun, but you get paid for doing it. I had strongly mixed emotions. I was elated that I had accomplished what I had set out to accomplish. I was depressed that I had found myself in another job that is less than perfect. But it was a really perverse pleasure that I was in this place and I mostly liked that part of it.

I got startled back to reality very quickly. My phone rang. The person on the other end gave me some really disturbing news: They had reason to believe that some of my personal information could now be easily compromised and there was not a fuck of a lot that I could do about it while I was sitting in the Venetian Poker room. I don’t want to get into the specifics of what was compromised or how, but I was then ripe to be the possible victim of identity theft

I decided to go back to Don’s to mull over my options as far as how to best protect myself from this unexpected threat. It was the right play as I could no longer focus on my game and I was no longer hungry. Also CK had bailed on dinner to play a WSOP event. Good thing I didn’t give those Harrah’s fucks my credit card.

I considered calling each of the credit bureaus to request a fraud alert from each of them. I also considered signing up for Lifelock or a similar service. Such services do the fraud alerts for you. They charge a hefty fee for doing so, but they also make things right if the fraud alert alone does not prevent identity theft. A simple actuarial analysis shows that Lifelock is -EV. However, in the case of a low probability, high cost event, fear is the key factor, not the EV. My life insurance policy is definitely -EV, for example. I check BBB Online. BBB tells me that they are not terrible. This article I found breaks it down nicely. I decided to sign-up for a year of service, with a pro-rated refund promised at any time I cancel. I made a few other required phone calls. I finally could relax a little. I was supposed to meet Don and Mookie at the Bellagio for some 2/5NL donkery the next morning, so I called it a night.

Okay, that was only two strange days, but I am totally out of time. Tune in next time for a blow-by-blow description of the donkery I experienced at the Bellagio today. Thanks for reading and good morning.

Where Has All the Time Gone?

2008-06-25T09:49:00.000-07:00

Where has all the time gone? I ran good, then I ran bad, then I ran good. Then Weak Wife and Weak Baby came to visit for the better part of six days. I don't feel like boring you with the details of my play from a week and a half ago, so this post is going to be about their visit and my time off.

We first stayed at the Venetian for two nights. Our stay was very nice there, but it was not quite as good as we would expect from the Venetian. Don't get me wrong, all the nice things you have heard about the place are true. I actually found it odd that we had any issues. The first problem we had was that the room that we were assigned had someone else's luggage in it. Not wanting to go back downstairs, I called from my cellphone. They gave us a different room on the same floor, had security meet us to let us in to the new room, and had new keys (which didn't work) delivered to the new room. It was a minor hassle, but it was odd.

The second problem we had was with the alarm clock. It was not obvious that it was set, but it was. For midnight. It woke Weak Baby up. I could not figure out how to set it properly, so I just unplugged it. They spent an assload of money on furnishing the room; it is odd that they could not spend a little more on a clock/radio that does not require an operating manual.

Okay, there were two minor annoyances, but we had a really great room otherwise, and the view was excellent. We were looking westwards, across the strip, towards Treasure Island. The room was large and elegant. The bed was really comfortable. They gave us a small refrigerator for milk and baby food and such. It was just great. We were staying at the poker rate ($139 week nights, $169 on the weekend,) an excellent value.

The second night we got a babysitter so we could have dinner and see a show. We ate at B&B. It was really a great meal. After dinner we went to see Spamalot. Both being huge Python fans, it was hard to not enjoy the show. Like all Vegas shows, it was cut down to get you back to the gambling as quick as possible. This show ran 90 minutes. The Broadway show runs 140 minutes. I wonder what parts they cut out? I hope it was not an extended orgy scene at the Castle Anthrax.

The next two nights we stayed at Red Rock. These were my two full days off. I had played some poker at the Venetian, but they were not full sessions and my heart was not in it. Red Rock is absolutely first class in every way. The staff was as attentive as possible. Everything was perfect with the room. Great view, well furnished, etc, etc, etc. Here we got the casino rate ($100/night.) based on my past action. The view was great. We were looking eastwards, across the valley at the strip, from the 16th floor. You could see from north of downtown to south of the strip. It was just amazing. In addition to the already amazing array of amenities, the room had a Bose clock/radio. It did not wake us up unexpectedly.

Our stay at Red Rock was for a special occasion. Indeed, it might not have come to Weak Wife and Weak Baby coming for a visit were it not for Weak Baby's Birthday. It is hard to believe that the little girl is now a year old. Without further ado, here is the birthday girl:

In addition to having a birthday party for Weak Baby, we ate at Hachi, spent time at the spa, and I gambled in the pit. I am more or less done with with pit gambling; this stay at Red Rock and the following stay at The Golden Nugget involved a lot of gambling. Now I am done. More about that in a future post.

The final night was at the Golden Nugget. Even though I was a VIP guest with a comped room, the GN absolutely sucked. The room was just standard, had not been redone in ages, and had an old A/C unit that did not keep up with the heat and wheezed worse than I do. It also had an alarm clock that went off unexpectedly. The last time I paid for a room there, it was much nicer than the one that they comped me. It is almost like they don't want me to come back. Don't worry, I won't. Here is the view from this room:

After checking out of the Golden Nugget (good riddance, forever,) I took Weak Wife and Weak Baby to the airport, went back to Don's, did laundry, bought groceries, unpacked, etc, etc. I then went down to the Venetian and played a full session.

I played 2/5NL for three hours, up $450. I then played a $130 SNG satellite. It has two winners and pays $500 in lammers and $70 in cash. I won my first one. I played a second one, paid one lammer and $30 in cash, then dropped the rest of my lammers on the table and exchanged them for the other player's cash. The second one was not as good as the first, and I was done for the day.

I am only here for another six days, including today. I will be playing a lot of poker and then going home exhausted, I expect.

A Really Fun Night

2008-06-13T12:17:00.000-07:00

I had one good session and two more bad sessions since I last blogged about playing. I was in the middle of a an unplanned day off when my phone rang. It was Russ Fox, my friend, poker player, and noted poker author. Also, he is my accountant. Check out his mug here. And his poker books here, here, and here.

He was planning to play 1/2 NL at the Venetian. It sounded like the perfect interruption to my unplanned day off. I headed down to the Venetian. Before heading over to the poker room, I placed a few bets at the sports book. I am not a big sports book customer, and I have completely stayed out of the pit so far this trip (more about that in a future post). But, there was some significant value to my bets and I just could not resist. That and I used to be a Celtics fan back in the day. I bet one unit on the money line (+260) and two units on the points (+7.5)

I quickly found Russ in the poker room and I managed to get a seat at his table. One quick seat change and we were able to talk and play. It is good catching up with old friends. It was also good when I picked up aces, limp-re-raised them, and got put all-in by queens. The aces held and I was up $300 and change. On the downside, the Celts were down 24 points. It seemed like I was net even at that point.

Since things were slow and we were hungry, we picked up rather than leaving our chips on the table and had a bite at the Grand Lux cafe. When we were done, we were quickly seated in a different game. The play was lively and loose, but I didn't get many of the donkey dollars. One or two orbits after we re-sat, I noticed that the Celtics had made a huge comeback. After anxiously waiting to play my UTG hand, I got up and watched the rest of the game from the sports book. The Celtics held on to win and both of my tickets cashed.

I went back to the game and played until we were both tired. Russ gave me a ride over to the TI valet. This gave me a chance to see the Palazzo, where Russ had parked. I was interested because I am staying at the Venetian for a few nights later this month when Weak Wife and Weak Baby are going to be in town visiting.

It was a fun and profitable night.

I Have Arrived

2008-06-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

You know you have really made it big when you have found that you have your own hater. Not that he is a very good hater. This sounds like an internet cliche, but my troll lives in his mom's basement. For real. Bad troll, no link for you. I need to upgrade my hater for better cred. At least Waffles is funny. Too bad he is not hating on me these days.

Running Like Ass

2008-06-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

Friday I had another bad session, this one at the Venetian. It only takes one hand to make a bad session and this is one of those. The donkey in question had been very active with marginal, at best, holdings. For example, there was $15 in the pot on the river with a straight to the nine on the board. Donkey leads out for $15, gets raised to $100, re-raises to $200, and then he calls all-in for $500 total. He proudly shows his ten and then looks shocked when the other player shows his jack-ten. Duh.

Having taken note of this donkey behavior, I end up involved in a pot with him. I have QQ, he raises pre-flop, I re-raise and he calls. HU to the flop, it comes J62 rainbow. I bet, and he raises. At this point, there is about as much in the pot as there is left to bet. I can't put him on AA, KK or a small pocket pair. So he has AJ or JJ. I think he plays either the same way. There are six ways for him to have JJ and twelve ways for him to have AJ. I jam, he calls and shows his JJ. Oh well.

Saturday was much the same way, at the Venetian also. I got felted for a full buy-in. I had top two on a flush board and I refused to believe the flush and paid the price for it.

Sunday I found my self stuck $800 before fighting back to stuck $300. No big hands that I care to mention. At this point, I want to go back to the Rio. It is late enough in the day that there will be cash games running. Bayne called me to tell me what the board looked like, so I was comfortable picking up and going there.

I played even at a somewhat active table for a few hours. No hands of note, but one donkey said something that totally cracked me up: "Your reads are way off; you should read Cardplayer Magazine to help with your reads." OMFG LOL WTF WUT? Huge donkey...Cardplayer Magazine...Might as well tell me to watch WPT to learn how to play.

I decide that three hours of even play was enough. I pick up and move to a 5/10NL table for a change of pace. I sit with $1500. The other players are mostly good, but there are some soft spots. I get no cards at all, but pickup $200 on two different moves. The third move I make gets bitch-slapped hard. I quit, still even.

Yesterday, I was completely drained, so I took the day off. Today, I have plans to meet Mitch for lunch and some poker.

Zeus, Mostly.

2008-06-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, after I posted, I went out and played at the Venetian first. I was waiting for the huge donkament crowd to die down at the Rio before playing there. After two hours and change, I cashed out for a $300ish profit and went over to the Rio. I played at the Rio for four and a half hours and cashed out for another $300ish profit. I am running like Zeus, up more than $3k in live play for the month.

Yesterday, I had some errands to run and finished up a little too late to go to the Venetian and a little too early to go to the Rio. I flip a coin. It comes up heads, I go to the Rio. The donkament is running strong when I get there and the 2/5NL list is 100 deep with only seven tables going. I decide to play a Sit-And-Go (SNG) while I am waiting.

Everything you have heard about the SNGs is true. They are butter soft and they are definitely +EV if you have mastered the $5 Turbos on Stars. That is about the skill level. Don’t practice on anything higher; it will mess up your head. It is also high variance, so be prepared to get lucky on your first try or be prepared to play a shit-ton of them so that variance can even out. I just played the one and got busted in push-or-fold land by pocket sevens when I jammed with pocket sixes.

Off to the cash game I go. I get my first really bad beat of the month and it is for all of my chips. I pick up KK in the BB. It folds around to the CO who makes it $15 to go. I make it $45 to go, he calls. Heads-up, the flop is 896 rainbow. I lead out for $100, and he puts me all-in. I feel he has JJ or TT. I insta-call. Turn comes T, river comes A. I show him my kings, he shows me his tens and takes a $1000 pot.

I am a little steamed, but it is under control. He tried to give me his chips and failed, I like that. I am a little unhappy about the bottom line, but I push that out of my head as I try to make good decisions for the rest of the session. I play on for another hour or two. Between the cold air, the annoying person on my right, and my lack of food (I forgot to put the icepacks in the freezer the night before), I am feeling like I should end it. I cash out for a net minus $600.

I had twelve wins in a row and am still up $2k and change for the trip. I had hoped for a couple more big scores in a row. I want to take a shot at 5/10nl when I get up $4k to $5k. But the bottom line is still what I am watching most closely.

My Day Off

2008-06-04T12:21:00.000-07:00

I had a great day off. I woke up late, had some breakfast, read some blogs, and pretty much did fuck-all for the whole morning. This was somewhat forced as Don was getting the carpets cleaned and we had to hang out in the one room that was not being cleaned.

In the middle afternoon, an old friend called me. She knew I was in Vegas and, by chance, she was too. She told me to meet her down at the Rio; she wanted to see the WSOP action. It is kind of funny that she wanted to see the Rio on my day off but whatever. I headed down there and got on the 2/5 list because I was early. She called me to say she was going to be late, so I sat and played.

In my second orbit, I pick up a set and stack someone with it. Just then, my friend calls to say that she is there. So, I pickup and drop my chips in my box, another $500 richer. Yeah, I am a hit and run artist. My friend and I hang out for a while, and then she had to go. Up $500 on my day off.

I head off to rent a video and then back to the crib. I am running great, obviously. Except I just ran a set into a flopped wheel in my daily quest to make Iron Man. There is a cash bonus on the line this month. I know it is sort of lame, but I want the bonus. I am off to the Venetian today because there is another donkament starting at the Rio today.

Her Name is Rio and She Finances Me for a Grand

2008-06-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

It has been an interesting few days. I had trouble sleeping Friday night. There was no really good reason, just insomnia. I felt like playing, but I decided to take it easy, just in case. I went over to the Venetian to play 1/2NL. I beat that game for a full buy-in. I also won a $10 prop bet from Miami Don. There was an obnoxious drunk at our table. The first one to bust him gets $10 from the other. I get the drunk in before the flop for his last $50, me with QQ, him with KJ s000ted. As the dealer is running the cards, I am a little nervous about him sucking out. Not because I care about the pot, more because I want Don’s $10. The drunk whiffs, the dealer ships me the pot and Don ships me the $10; w00t!!

Sunday I start off at the Venetian; there are no cash games running at the Rio due to huge field in day two of event two. I win one big pot. Here is how it went: I pick up JJ UTG, several limpers to the cut-off who really loves to raise. He raises and it folds back around to me. I re-pop it hard, and it folds back to him. He just calls and we see the flop heads-up. It comes 883, I don’t remember the suits. I jam for his remaining $300. He calls, the turn comes J, the river comes K. I show my boat and he mucks. I ask him if he was ahead on the flop, he says he was.

Now here is the interesting question: Was he really ahead? I think he would jam pre-flop with AA. He didn’t have kings or he would have claimed the pot. QQ is possible, but he didn’t look at all upset about the apparent beat. I think he was lying. I lie all the time about what I mucked, don’t you? He probably had AK, possibly suited if he had the flush draw.

I have had enough and I head back to Don’s; I am thinking about playing The Big Game and I need a rest either way. When I arrive back at Don’s, I am on the fence about playing. Don twists my arm hard so I play. Four hours later, I take fifth for a $400 win. I am feeling too pumped to sleep so I head over to the Rio for a quick late-night session. I crack someone’s aces and pick up with a modest win shortly thereafter.

Yesterday I wake up early after five hours of sleep. I feel okay as Don and I go out for breakfast. I feel really worn when we get back. I take a two hour nap, which is really unusual for me. I get up, laze around, cook some pasta, eat, shower, pack a sandwich and some snacks into my lunch box and head off to work at around 5:00 PM.

When I get there the Rio is jamming. There are seventeen 2/5NL games and ten 5/10NL games. I sit for 2/5NL, but discover that the first table is intolerable. You want bad players, but not ones that are so bad that each hand takes forever. This one donkey had his reds, blues, and whites all mixed together randomly. He would take forever to count out each bet and he just generally pissed me off. I know I could have had the floor-person make him stack the chips properly, but the table was just not worth the trouble, so I grab a seat change card, head back to the table to grab my chips and my lunch box, and head to my new table.

The next table was filled with tight regulars. Boring. I grab another seat change card and head to the next table. It is a lively game filled with donkeys, ones that can count out bets quickly. So I settle in for a while. I don’t get involved much, but there are lots of bad plays and big pots. I finally get involved in a pot and it was huge. I have 33 in the big blind, late position (LP) raises to $30, the button (B) calls, and I call. The flop comes QJ3, rainbow. I check, LP bets $65, the button calls and I make it $165 to go. LP jams for about $300 total. B re-jams for $600. I had $490 to bet at the start of the hand. I feel I may be up against a bigger set, but I can not fold in that situation. So I call. The dealer runs the cards and I show my set. B shows his top two and mucks and LP shows his aces and mucks. I drag a monster pot.

When the big blind (BB) gets back around to me, I sit out. I pull a sandwich and an icy cold water out of my lunchbox and have a little meal. When I am ready to play again, I pull out my dessert and wait for the BB. I play a few more orbits and pick up one more small pot. I am feeling a little worn as the food kicks in, so I pick up and put my rack in my box for a net win of about $1000.

I am pretty happy now; I have had a modest work week and I am up about $2,400, including on-line play. It is time for a day off. I might read a poker book, blog a little, and play on-line a little. I still think it is a day off.

Wasting Away in Donkeritaville

2008-05-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

Thursday I went over to play at the Rio (The World Series of Poker) for the first time this trip. There was a little bit of a crowd there, but still very light. I got a seat immediately, locked it up so that I could open my box and get chips. There is one window for the boxes, and there was someone ahead of me opening a box for the first time. It takes a lot more time to do that than to get into one that you already have rented. By the time I got back to the table, my locked up seat was gone. They had taken my seat card and returned it to the board even though I told the dealer what I was doing. Oh well, it was just a few minutes before I got another seat.

They have a seat card system this year to prevent people from jumping the line. The reason people were jumping the line last year was because the board was not keeping up and there was a long list at the same time that several tables were short-handed. I see no signs of improvement in the board operation, so I predict that the seat card system will break down in the next day or so.

Having gotten my second seat-card and gone to the assigned table, I saw just the kind of action for which I was hoping. That is, donkey central. There were certainly several solid players at my table, but there were two or three really soft spots. If the spot is soft enough, you really only need one. For example, this one player sits and posts immediately. He was not behind the button or in the hijack seat. He posted under the gun. Within two hands, he needlessly stretches out his arm so that people can notice his WSOP Circuit Event bracelet. If those two things are not clues enough, you have to check out the action in the first hand he showed down.

I was the button. I am straddling the button every time (more on that in a later post.) He is the cut-off. The small blind and big blind call the straddle, as do three other players. There are six players and $60 in the pot and this donkey shoves for $370. All fold to the third limper who goes into the tank and then calls with AQo. The donkey flips over A6o, the dealer runs the cards and the donkey makes a straight.

I am delighted to have a donkey with chips on my right. There is also a donkey on my left. The weakest donkey I have ever seen. He called off his chips several times with nothing. He was buying in for $200 at a time. I didn’t think that was so terrible until he told me he was playing the $10,000 Pot Limit Holdem event the next day. I almost lost my mind when he told me that. On the inside, that is. Outside, I politely smiled and wished him the best of luck. It goes on from there, but you get the idea.

Throughout the session, I have no big starting hands, I make no big hands, and I don’t get involved in many pots, but I end up bleeding off a little just out of shear boredom. I catch myself doing this and get up immediately. I am stuck $200 for the session. No big deal.

I head over to the Venetian to meet a guy that is a Tilt regular and a 2+2er. I saw him post on 2+2 that he would be here and would meet up with other 2+2ers, so I had set that up before I came out here. We were going to have a beer, but he was still in the midst of a bad case of food poisoning. It appears that he got it from eating something at Caesars, another Harrah’s property.

We talked for a while about playing for a living and such. I think he and I could collaborate. He has a lot more experience multi-tabling on-line for a living than I do. I have a lot more experience with all things computer related. I am going to help him with some of the tools I am using and so on. He is going to talk strategy with me, help me review tricky hand histories, etc. And we may cross-sweat each other as soon as I get him hooked up with YIM, because AIM blows for that.

The next day, I went back to the Rio. I was having a really solid session. I played well, stole some mid-sized pots, and caught a few good hands. I was up about $750 and thrilled to be having my first decent win. Sadly it did not last long and there was nothing I could do about it. I am about to tell you how I lost a huge pot. It is not a bad beat or cooler story per se, it is more about the thoughts that went through my head after the pot was pushed.

I had AQh in the big blind. There was one limper in EP, MP makes it $30 to go, I call, the limper folds. Heads-up to the flop with $67 in the pot, the board is Q86, two hearts. I feel that my opponent has a limited range based on how I have sized her up and the limited number of hands I have seen her play so far. I fear AA or KK, but don’t think she is raising a small pair. She could have a number of other holdings that she will c-bet with and then fold. I decide that a check-raise is the way to go. I check to her, she makes it $60, I make it $150 on top. She jams back over the top. Now it is either stone cold bluff (unlikely), same hand, AA or KK. There is $487 in the pot, not including her raise, and about $350 more to call. I am getting good enough odds to call even if she has a set. I have played this scenario enough to know that without doing the math, so I insta-call. She shows me aces. I whiff on the hearts and the queen and she takes down a pot worth close to $1,200.

Now here is the reason I am telling you this story: I acted correctly with a minimum of anguish, and I wasn’t even slightly upset when they pushed the pot her way. It takes a certain indifference to money to play poker properly that is paradoxical, especially when the bottom line is the ultimate concern. I feel pleased with myself that I am not upset. I am friendly with her as the pot is pushed, as the game continues, and as I am leaving. And again, later, when I return to retrieve my sweater that I had left behind. Losing money never felt so good.

I had been playing several hours, needed a break, and, potentially, some food. I decided a change of venue is in order, so I cash out for a $167 profit and leave. I head over to the Mirage where my 2+2 friend is playing. When I get there, I discover that he is stuck quite a bit in a 1/2NL game and is in no mood to go back to the Rio with me. I play in his game for a few hours without result and call it a night.

I feel a little disappointed about not having a big session yet, but it is a high level concern and did not change my play while I was sitting. I am not seeking to have no emotion at all about poker, just not while I am playing. I am slightly above water for the trip and feeling frustrated.

The Rio will be a zoo on Saturday due to the first affordable event for the large donkey demographic. I likely will not play there.

I Lost $20,000 at the Rio

2008-05-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, it is true, but this post is about my first twenty-four hours in Vegas, so I will get to how that happened in a bit.

Here is how Day One went: My flight arrives close to on-time, I am close to the front so I am out and rolling quickly, not trapped behind a herd of blue-hairs. I get to the luggage carousel and the luggage starts coming out in drabs. Forty-five minutes later, I finally have my bag. McCarran is okay to good in many ways, but the luggage handling is always the soft spot. Always.

I jump into a cab and head over to Miami Don’s place. No sooner did I arrive than I was pressed into service by Carmen . She was playing the Skillz, Don was still in it, and she had decided it was a lost cause because the blinds were 100 and 200 and she only had 1,500 chips left. So I played out the rest of the tournament for her. I pumped the stack up to 13,000, above average at the time, and within striking distance of the final table. Some douche bag with plenty of chips decided to get all-in pre-flop against me and my QQ. Douche bag’s AJo sucks out and I am nearly crippled. Fuel decides to race me for the rest of my chips and I am out. It was not even my account and I am not sure I would have been rewarded for cashing, so I should not even care. I really need to work on not caring about things that do not have a potentially significant outcome.

Almost ready for bed, I decided to call over to the Rio cage to check on my wire. The cage seemed like a logical place to keep my money. I had decided before the trip that I would like to have a box at the WSOP side game cage. I don’t want to walk around the Rio Convention Center parking lot after dark with thousands of dollars in my pocket. If I have to walk to the main cage when I am done to deposit to a front-money account, so be it. But I will try to get a box before I commit to making that walk twice a day. But if I did have to do that, it would not be so bad; I do need regular exercise. And it is a long, long, long walk.

After looking up the number and dialing, I get the Rio and ask for the cage. I get a clerk who is unintelligible. I slowly get out of her that they don’t see the wire and that it has not yet come. I explain that a wire is a single day transaction, and it has been received. She starts muttering something about accounting and being busy and suggests that I try back “tomorrow or the next day.”

I ask to speak to the cage supervisor. She is intelligible, but not at all intelligent. She tells me the same stuff the clerk told me. She completely fails to apologize for the trouble and fails to provide any sort of reasonable explanation as to how the wire could not have made it from their mythical account department to the cage. She asks me when it was sent. I tell her that it was at 4:30PM, Eastern time. She posits that it was 7:30PM local time when the wire arrived at the Rio, that the accounting department was closed, and that is why they don’t have it. I am clearly wasting my time. I end the pointless conversation quickly.

It seems quite difficult to get to sleep. I am not at all surprised at the gross incompetence of the Rio staff. After all, it is a Harrah’s property. Any gambler or poker player knows that Harrah’s is a giant black hole of suck. Their business model is to make money off of slot players and low end table game customers. They don’t understand how to cater to serious gamblers or poker players.

They fought against poker until it was clear that poker was here to stay. Then they bought up the WSOP, turned it to suck. They continued the vortex of suck by bribing Bill Frist into jamming through the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. They saw internet poker as a threat to their business rather than a business development tool. They don’t get it and they suck.

I somehow manage to get some sleep. I roll out of bed early. I was told that WSOP SNGs, live action, and registration will be open for business at 9:00am. I want to get a box before they are gone. Don drives me over there because I don’t have my car yet. We get to the convention center. Not too many customers, but there is a little SNG action. Live action area not open yet. We take note of the new layout and make the long walk over to the main cage.

We get there, and I attempt to claim my wire. They shuffle about for a bit and, eventually, the cage supervisor appears. This is the one that was on mids. She was still there. She is a different supervisor from the one I spoke to on the phone. She is very apologetic. She tells me they have a record of the wire arriving at the cage, but they are having trouble locating it. She actually admits that they had lost the wire. So I did manage to lose $20k at the Rio without even bellying up to a gaming table. She gives me her card and offers to take my cell number so she can call me when they have it sorted out. She promises me that she is not going home until this is resolved.

I am absolutely shocked. A Harrah’s employee was nice, competent and actually seemed to care about the customer. As Mrs. Weak later says to me on the phone, “She doesn’t seem to know the Harrah’s way. She needs to stop being so nice before she gets fired.” Exactly. It is sad that getting the normal world expected response in that situation is shocking. But that is how they roll.

Don and I wander back towards the Convention center. We stop so I can get my boots shined. We get there and check out the SNG area again. I wander back over to the live action area. Still not open. I ask to be admitted on the pretext of wanting to speak to the cage manager about my missing wire. I am admitted, but they misunderstood the meaning of “cage manager.” What I got instead was a cage supervisor for the WSOP area. That does not help. But I ask if I can get a box while I am in there. They need to train their green-as -hell clerks in this aspect of the operation, so I help the one guy that knows what he is doing teach the green-as-hell clerk the ins and outs of lockbox operation. Present key, verify id, have customer sign for entry, present box, take box back, have customer sign for receipt of their box key. I know the drill but the clerk didn’t. The instructor and I taught her what she needs to know, I hope. In any case, I come away with my box and its key. Just then my phone rings. They found my money.

We hoof it back to the cage, collect my money, hoof it back to the convention area, I drop it in my box and away we go. We head out to eat, but end up at the rental car area. There is a really good Mexican lunch place next to it, so we grab a bite. I pick up my car, a brand new something or other. It has power everything, which is awesome; my last rental didn’t even have power locks. Why didn’t I get a rental at the airport? Because I am here for a month and the airport fuck-me-in-the-ass fees come to an extra $200. I scored a primo rental for $200 less. And I have my money in a box. I am starting to feel good.

I arrive back at the crib, chill for a bit. I play on-line for an hour and a half; I am two days away from achieving Iron Man status on Tilt. I chill for a little longer and finally saddle up and ride on out to play live.

My plan is to play only 1/2NL for the first session. Again, I am not here to test my game or play at the highest level possible, I am here to find games that I can beat consistently for a decent earn rate. 1/2NL games can be very profitable. And, word has it, many of the 2/5NL games have gotten tougher over the last several months. Not that there aren’t still plenty of soft ones. Not that there aren’t going to be Marshmallow Peep soft games over at the Rio a few days hence. But this is where I am starting. I am here for the money.

I play over at the Venetian for a few hours. The table is soft at first, but the chips keep leaving and the spots keep getting filled with people that know how to play. I decide to head over to the MGM. Their 1/2NL games are pretty reliably filled with certified donkeys. I grind out a $50 profit in an hour and change. Unfortunately, I spend the proceeds on ~~hookers and blow~~ a chair massage and a pastrami sandwich. I am tired and decide to call it quits. Making the rounds, but no dollah, dollah, dollah yet. I am okay with that for the first day.

I head home and play on-line for a bit more; I make Iron Man, but have a losing session only due to an epic suck-out. I fail to care about the suck-out. It is par for the course. But the suckee immediately starts berating a regular whom I respect for good-beating him. It is on now. I smack-talk him into submission while I take the remainder of the hands I need to make Iron Man. I really need to stop caring about crap like that.

Day one is complete. I am happy even though I am no richer.

Pre-Road Downs

2008-05-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

Time has really slipped away from me. I am getting into a groove as far as playing on-line. I have a lot of good structure in place. I cleaned up my office and made a comfortable work place. I have invested time in getting proficient with some tools I need, such as PT3 and FTS. I have gotten into some good habits as far as when I play, when I quit, and looking at my game critically afterwards.

I am now ready to move up the number of tables I play at the same time. I started at two and then quickly jumped to three or four. Now that I feel comfortable with FTS, I am totally ready to play six to nine. Unfortunately, I will not be able to get in enough hands in this new configuration before I leave for Las Vegas. My flight is late Tuesday afternoon, and I haven’t even started to pack yet.

Also, I am not totally prepared emotionally for being gone for that long. Mrs. Weak and Baby Weak are going to come visit me for a few days while I am out there, but it will still be really hard to be away for that long. Thinking of it as a business trip doesn’t help much. On the other hand, I am really looking forward to the WBPT .

On the whole, I am really happy with how things are going. I have seen 22k hands and I am beating 1/2nl for 4.5ptBB/100. I expect things to improve as I continue to improve my game. Of course, I may give up a bit of that when I go from four to six to nine tables. But anything I lose there will be more than made up for in extra hands seen. I have now determined that I need a new CPU and one or two large monitors. That almost makes me want to stay here and play on-line and skip the Vegas thing altogether. Yeah, that is way sick, I know.

But I really want to beat the live games. It has to be part of my balanced approach, at least until I know if I am going to be living within easy access to live poker. I still want to be a successful live mid-stakes NLHE cash game player. But I am starting to see that on-line can be much more profitable. Profit, fun, challenge: It is going to take some work to balance all of those things.

Speaking of fun, here is a shout out to BrainMc. I played in his home game last night. I was not together enough to make it there in time for the tournament. I had been up until 5:00am playing poker and spaced on the time. But when he called me, I packed up my computer and headed over there. I played on-line while I was waiting for people to bust out of the tournament and start the cash game. I got to meet ISS Spock and I dropped the hammer pretty hard on Surflexus . Good times.

I am nervous and excited about my trip and I really need to go get my stuff together for it. And then I will six-table my ass off until it is time to go to the airport. I will be playing one or two hours a day on-line while I am Vegas, mostly for process, not for profit. I will post again after I get there, get my car, pick up my roll at the cage and drop it in a lock box and get back to MiamiDon's house where I will be crashing for the month. Catch you then.

Weak Player Returns

2008-05-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

Why have I been absent for more than a year? What was I doing in Vegas last year? What else have I been doing in that time? What am I doing now? Why did I decide to start posting again? These questions and more will be answered if you read on.

First, I would like to genuinely apologize to anyone that I left hanging and to thank you for caring enough that you were left hanging. If there aren’t any of you, that is cool. I am doing this for myself. I would love for anyone interested to come along for the ride, but this is for me. I think most bloggers probably think the same about their own blogs but may not often articulate that in their posts. For me, I was never clear on that with myself so I was always ambivalent about my posts. Add to that severe doubt and confusion about the future direction of my life, and you can see why I couldn’t commit to posting regularly.

Let me explain. When I first got interested in poker blogging and the poker blogsphere, it was because of my friend Sox Lover. He convinced me to put some posts up so I could go see what the WPBT is about. I got to like it and enjoyed it for a while. During that time, I was having a crisis with my work, with my family, and with my health. Something had to give and I decided to take a year off from work. I quit my job and did absolutely nothing for a time. That was what I needed. By the time that I started thinking about what would come next for me, things had changed again. Against all reasonable hope, my wife and I conceived a child. I started to work out in my head what I was going to do. Did I want to stay at home with my baby? Did I want to play poker for a living? Did I want to go back to what I was doing before?

About the time that I was starting to get a sense of that, things changed again. My wife lost her job. The highest priority in our lives, other than our new baby, became her getting a new job. Since her work is very high level and specialized, it could take some time for her to find a suitable position. And, it would almost certainly mean that we are moving. This added more uncertainty to my life. I tried to plan it as though we were packing and moving at any time. As the weeks stretched into months and the months into almost a year now, I woke up one day with the feeling that I must live my life to its fullest starting right that minute.

Okay, I know that sounds obvious from the outside, but it was a significant moment in a long journey for me. It was the first time in recent memory that I felt I had a purpose and I had a drive towards that purpose. How am I going to occupy myself while I am waiting to see where we are moving to and how my wife’s new job is going to change our lifestyle? By playing poker, of course.

Now, you may think: Uh duh, Weak always is playing poker. But it is different now. Before, I played to pass the time, for recreation, to avoid doing other things, for social reasons, and for any number of other reasons. But, recently, I have come to what I really want to do with poker. I want that to be my job, and I want to be successful at it. Now, don’t get all excited. It is not nearly as glamorous as it seems. Actually, it is probably, in some ways, a fairly bad job to have compared to my former life in the corporate world. But I think I can play well and improve my play. I have established to my satisfaction that I can earn at a rate that will make it worthwhile and cover our monthly expenses. Of course, I need to play a few more hands to get to the 95% confidence interval on that. But I can live with that.

I have been playing seriously since the beginning of May, so that is not a very long period. I ran the confidence intervals with my numbers and the ranges are broad. On the other hand, I have established a regime of post-play analysis and am plugging the holes in my game. I am also doing the same for my opponents: how to extract more, how to lose less for given opponents. So, even with iffy confidence numbers, I expect to beat the game sufficiently. I am not so sure that I want to get deep into on-line strategy here. It has all been done before. And if ever I were to do something new, which is unlikely, I am not about to share it with anyone that I am playing against. I think I would prefer to write on my journey as a player and where it is taking me in my life. Few hands, little strategy, mostly how my recent outlook is affecting my life, for good and for bad. At the very least, my life can serve as a warning to others.

As for what I was doing in Vegas that last time I wrote, I was there to try to beat 5/10NL. I stepped up to the game and held my own, but I did not beat it or even come close. But it was an experience I had to have, and it was at a time where I didn’t really care if I lost my entire roll. I am going back to Vegas this coming June to play. My roll will be the same, but capital preservation and win rate will be my top priorities. I will not be playing for pleasure, though I will try to have a good time. It will be interesting to see how that experience stacks up with last year, and I hope I can share that with you over the coming weeks.

My Last Few Days in Vegas

2007-02-17T10:52:00.000-08:00

I took the next day off since I was so burnt out. I did not realize it at the time, but after reviewing my records for the trip, I was putting in an average of seven hours a day. That includes the first day, the last day, and the two days I took off.

The following day, I had a really good session at the Bellagio. I finally was rewarded for my patience. I pick up JJ in the CO. There were several limpers ahead of me. I have started playing situations like this a little differently, at least occasionally. I limp in expecting to fold if I miss the flop. Some tables will not fold to a raise and I want to take down a big pot, not a small one.

I get the flop of my dreams: QJ4, two spades. The table checks around to LP who bets $40. This is a player that is going to pay me, I know it. I pot it and he calls; everyone else folds. This is fantastic. The turn is a blank, and LP checks to me. I have $414 remaining behind. My only problem is how to get it all-in. I am guessing he will call at least $200 here. He does not want to be pushed around. I bet $225 and he calls. The river is another blank. I push for my last $189. He calls, I show my set, he mucks, and I take down a $1045 pot. Wheeeeeeeeee!!

It is still relatively early in the evening, but I want to book this win. I cash out and head over to the MGM. I decided I want to mix up my game a little. I play much looser and more aggressively than I normally do. I think it is something I need to incorporate into my game plan, and I am willing to make the investment. Most players are not going to see it coming if they are expecting my usually TAG game. It doesn’t work out for me that evening, and I call it quits, down a bit at the MGM, but nicely up from earlier at the Bellagio.

I, again, feel completely burnt out so I take the next day off. The day after that, I head back to the Bellagio. This turns out to be a fairly bad session. I just couldn’t hit any hands. Finally, I flop the nut flush and get all-in. The dude that I get all-in against is resigned to lose his money. “I have to go soon. I am probably behind and have to go see my wife…” When he starts saying these things, I immediately know two things. One: He will call me. Two: He will suck out on me. It never fails. He shows two pair and then he spikes his boat on the turn. That fucking figures.

Later in the session, I make a mistake that makes the session much worse. I get involved in a pot with AQ in EP. Four people see the flop. The flop comes ace high and I go to the mat with my AQ against a player in LP with AK. I just could not figure out why he wouldn’t raise at any point. If he had re-raised before the flop, I was gone. In a four-way pot, I would think that he would be concerned he may not be good even if he hits the flop. I have since learned that many people will play AK that way. I won’t, but I can no longer exclude AK from a player in LP’s potential holdings just because he didn’t raise. Live and learn. I book a sizable loss and head out.

The final session of my trip, I finally get a chance to catch up with Linda. She even dealt my table while I was there. She is now dealing more regularly. I had only started playing the Bellagio towards the end of my trip, so I didn’t know that until just then. When she got a break, we talked for a bit. Insane gambler-bookie dude is playing 10/20nl, and I ask her to watch his play while she is dealing that table. She reports back that he is less than completely solid based on her observations. I am not surprised. I am looking forward to playing him in some home games; he hails from somewhere in the Southeast part of the country.

There is a donkey on my right that keeps accumulating chips. I can’t seem to get involved in a pot with him. He started with $200, and works his way up to $2,500. He dishes out bad beat after bad beat. I still can’t get any of his money. At least he doesn’t have the chance to dish a bad beat out on me.

A solid player that I had played with in several earlier sessions is on my left. He and I talk for some time. A punk-assed kid sits down. He is white, but is sporting lots of gold chains, a basketball jersey, and a baseball cap worn sideways. He talks about how good he is and what a pro he is. When the punk gets up for a break, the solid player posts a line of 2 hours for the under/over on when the punk is going to bust out. I take the under for a dollar. The punk returns. He notices us discussing the over/under and we point to the basketball game that is on the opposite screen. The punk gets into an argument with a player from Detroit about the straddle rules at Greektown. The player from Detroit is just trying to tell a story about some idiot that blind straddled his whole stack and lost. We don’t care about the punk’s notions of the rules at Greektown, though he insists that he is a legend there.

About an hour into the over/under period, the punk gets all in with a straight draw and loses to a boat. He leaves, I collect my dollar. Sweet!! That was the best part of the session. The worst part was me running my boat into quads. I still eked out a win, but a much smaller win then I expected.

On the plane home, I do my bookkeeping and discover that I am roughly even (in poker) for the trip. I played 105 hours. I likely paid about $1,000 in rake. I took $2,700 in bad beats. To my knowledge, I didn’t dish any out. I made a few expensive mistakes, but I feel that I achieved many of my goals for the trip. I played 5/10nl twice and won each time. I played with more discipline than in the past. I did a better job of not playing when I was not feeling it. There a number of areas where I still have room for improvement, but that is the subject of a future post.

But the question still remains, why was I there? I will tell you next time, I promise. I admit that I was putting that off initially to promote interest in my trip reports. But, I was also lost in the moment of playing and staying focused. And I was torn between writing about my poker sessions and writing about my motivations. In the end, poker won out against meta-poker. But now that I am back, that is coming up next.

Day Eight, A Day Late

2007-02-12T01:23:00.000-08:00

I started the day at the Bellagio a little after noon. I sat at a $2/$5NL table. I play very tight for the first hour. My tight play was not just my feeling out the table at a low price; I was totally card dead. Eventually I wake up to AhKc UTG. I joke about opening for $35 being a bluff because I am bored. Everyone except the button folds. The flop comes A72, two diamonds. I bet out $75, the button raises to $150. My read on him is that he has a weak ace. I jam for another $300. He calls quickly. He shows Ad8h. and proceeds to four-flush me. After patiently waiting for cards, picking a good spot, and making a great read, I get fucked in the ass. I am happy about everything except the ass-fucking. Not that there is anything wrong with that; it is just not my style.

Not too many hands later, I pick up KQ in LP. I limp, CO calls, Button raises to $25, I and the CO call. Flop comes Q high, somewhat coordinated. I check, the CO checks, the button fires out $100. I and the CO both call. I think the CO has me beat, but I want to take one off because I think I am getting paid if I hit. The turn comes K. I jam, the CO thinks for a while and calls. The button mucks aces face up. The CO shows a flush draw and a gut-shot draw. The river misses the flush and the gut-shot but pairs the board. I take down a monster pot that should have gone to the button. The pot was $1,175.

I play for a few more hours uneventfully. I cash out at 6:07pm for a $689 win. I am not feeling quite done for the day, but I do want a change of scene, so I head over to the Venetian. I sit in a 1/2NL game and order food service. I play a few rounds before my sandwich arrives. I sit out for a round and eat my sandwich. I start crashing hard, so I get up and get ready to leave. I forget to clock out and lose my time played. No sandwich for me next time. Doh!

I drop $200 on dice on the way out. The main dice pit is on the other end of the casino, but they have one table immediately opposite the main entrance to the poker room. How convenient!

It was a good day. Next up, day ten, and then I will be caught up and will, therefore, be able to talk about why I am really here.

Day Nine

2007-02-11T16:37:00.000-08:00

Well, I am really burned out today. I don’t feel like going out to play poker at the moment because I had such a long, crazy day. Perhaps after I am done with this post I will hit it. Or maybe I will take a nap. Who knows?

Yesterday started off early; I was on the road before 10:15am. I got seated at a 2/5nl table at the Bellagio at 11:06am. Yes, I carry a notebook with me. My first table was dead and the few hands I could play got not much action. And there was little action outside of the pots I was playing. And, most importantly, there were no donkeys. I transferred tables an hour later and that is when things got really bad.

I lost two monster hands, both to bad players. In one hand, I had top two and the villain’s flush draw hit. In another, I flopped trips and the other player flopped a boat. The players were really annoying me. A drunken idiot sat my right and a punk ass kid sat on my left. They were both annoying, but in different ways. There was a solid player on my right that I got into a huge hand with. I don’t think I could get away from it.

I had QQ in MP. He raises to $25 UTG. I re-raise to $75 He thinks for a while. He calls. At this point, I am wondering what is up. I had shown a huge bluff on the previous hand. He had been seen making moves at a few points in the session. Because of these things and the length of time he thought before calling me, I can put him on a number of different hands. Flop is small, uncoordinated rags. He checks to me, I bet $125. He thinks for a while, and he pushes. It is $215 for me to call to win $547. I am getting reasonable odds considering the range of hands I can put him on. Some miserable cocksucker calls time on me while I am sorting it out. I do a good job of staying focused on the decision. I feel I am probably beat. But given my odds and doubts, I call. He shows aces and takes it down.

The guy that won the pot was nice and I was not at all upset at him or even upset about losing the hand. But that cocksucker that called time on me must die painfully. I had not even been thinking a minute when he called time. He was an old fart that plays a hand once an hour. He wanted more hands so he can eventually get a monster and peddle his nuts. And he didn’t want to wait another minute for me to make a decision for all of my chips. Cocksucker. Prick. Bastard. Yes, I was steamed. But I didn’t let it affect my play. I wish I could not be mad at all when some guy is a prick, but at least I left it at emotion rather than letting it move on to my behavior. I am improving.

I lose a few more medium sized pots before getting fed up and moving on to my next adventure. The only consolation was exchanging knowing glances at a solid player across from me while the donkeys attacked each other. I see a hand where a guy pushes all-in in a three way pot. Both players call. One shows JJ, the other shows AK. The board is KQT. The donkey that pushed in had A2o. The board comes running 2s. Why can’t I get any donkey dollars? I book an $1128 loss after a seven hour session. Normal people would have given up way before I did. But I am making a calculated decision here. I feel I am making good decisions; I am letting my thoughts rule me, not my emotions. I have a desire to succeed at a high level, and I only have a few playing days left before I go home.

So I do the only logical thing; I sit in the 5/10nl game. At the Bellagio, the game is capped at $1000. That is what I sit with. I had to first go to the cage and cash out, and then buy a rack of $10 chips. In the MGM 5/10 game, all chips play, but there are no $10 chips. People had $5 chips, $25chips, and some $100 chips, but mostly bills. And it is uncapped. The Bellagio game is mainly $10 chips, with some bills in play. But since it is capped, bills are not a big force, at least not in the must-move game I am a little uncomfortable with the $10 chips. But I knew it would be there, I have no problem with the math, and I have experience from the $10/$20nl game at Commerce from a year ago. So I am mostly fine with $10 chips, but many people that are stepping up are not. I am, however, a little uncomfortable with the level of play. I know it is going to be a tough game. My play is very tight for the first few orbits, playing no hands. The dealer gets pushed and time is collected. In this game, they collect $6 per half-hour time instead of rake. That is different than all other games I have played except Foxwoods and the Commerce $10/$20NL game. I am cool with it here; the game moves quickly, people make decisions, even big ones, reasonably quickly.

I pick up a premium hand, I raise and all fold. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Finally, I get involved in a hand. I raise to $40 in LP with 77. The BB calls me. The flop is K93. He checks to me, I bet $60, he calls. The turn comes T. He leads out with $60, and I call. River comes blank. He bets $140, and I think for a long time. My read is that he is a solid player and is probably making a play at me. He shows A9o and takes it down. Should I have played back at him? I am not used to placing a lot of chips at risk on a re-steal. This is one hard aspect of that game. There are a lot of playahs make plays. And there are also players just playing. It is hard to know the difference. It is much harder than knowing donkeys from good players in $2/$5NL because the overall skill level is higher. Does anyone have any thoughts there?

The next hand that I got involved in was a monster. I believe it was a good test of what I am made of as a poker player. I was small blind. There were 4 limpers to me. I glance at my cards as a formality before completing for $5 more. I had T4s. The flop comes JT4, rainbow. MP leads out for $30; the Button makes it $90. I make it $200 total. All fold to the button who immediately jams. It is another $440 to me.

My thought process involved putting together a lot of meta-information. One bit was very valuable, in my opinion. I went back to two days ago at the MGM. I remember playing with a guy there. He is the same one that had stacked Don on a draw. I had talked to him for a long time. He plays in big games in the SC area. And he takes sports action, I think. I got the impression that he had flown a bunch of his most valued customers and some buddies to Vegas for a poker junket. I saw one of his other buddies in my game earlier (it was a must move-game, and one of his buddies had gotten up.) Earlier in my current session, the bookie, big time playah guy had greeted me and introduced me to his buddy, the guy sitting on my right. This is the guy on the button. This is the one that I am facing a $440 all-in re-raise from at this very moment. Oh, he looked like a gambler and played like one. “I call” I say. He leaves his cards down. The dealer runs it. He looks at me. My cards are still down. “I called you,” I say. He gets ready to muck his hand. His hand is in the muck before my hand is fully face up. “Good hand,” he says.

One orbit later, I get into another confrontation with him. This time, I am the BB and he is the SB. I have KK! There is one limper, he raises it to $80, and I make it $200 straight. He smooth calls me and we take the flop heads up. The flop is K82, rainbow. I just about come in my pants. He checks to me, and I make a $250 bet. He pushes in for another $300. I call and the dealer runs it. I show my set. He shows his aces and mucks. BOOYAH! Good time to get some luck.

I lose a few small pots and a few players get moved to the main game. I realize that it is 8:40pm and that I have been playing almost continuously since 11:00am. To top it all off, I have not eaten lunch and had a small breakfast since I was in a hurry to motor early this morning. So, I do the logical thing, I sit in the $10/$20NL uncapped game with $5,000.

Actually, I am just kidding. I pick up, and go to the casher. I cash out for $1,203 in chips and $1,000 in bills. I book a $1,203 win. This cancels out my pounding in $2/$5NL and then some. I head to the North Valet. I am going downtown to the Golden Nugget to get some food and do some straight-up gambling. Downtown is a cluster-fuck due to road construction, Saturday night, and a bunch of other woes. It takes me a while to park. I get into the Nugget and immediately hit the blackjack table.

I buy in for $1,000 and nearly get felted by the dealer. I need to buy another $200 in chips to handle a double-down followed by a split. I win. I then win the next fourteen hands in a row. I am exactly unstuck in this game! I get up. It was the most fun I have ever, ever had in a non-winning casino game session.

I move right along to an empty $5 craps table. I open it up with a bang. I spin many points in a row, making come bets and taking max odds the whole way. When I finally spin a seven, I have had the bases loaded for some time and I have $175 in profit. Not bad for $5 dice.

I then move on the poker room. They spread $1/$2NL uncapped. There is a list, the floorman tells me it will be about twenty minutes and that he would lock a seat up for me. I go play Pai Gow to kill time. I walk with a $1.25 loss. Back in the poker room, a must-move game is forming and I lock up my seat. I sit with $300. I don’t play much, but notice small stacks and a lot of limping pots.

It quickly comes my turn to move to the main game. There are deep stacks, and crazy, inappropriate large bets all over the place. I have arrived at Donkeyville. Sadly, I fade fast as it is now 12:45am. I cash out for a modest loss and head back to my home away from home. On my way, I remember that I still have not eaten.

I stop on the way at a tavern. They have these things all over greater Vegas. It is a food and video poker bar. This one is just down the road from my bed. They have a ½ priced ($4.95) steak and eggs breakfast after midnight. I play $10 worth of $0.25 video poker while waiting for my food. I pay $15 for my steak and eggs. HEEEEHAWWWW.

I finally arrive back at the crib at 2:00am. I crash hard.

This has been one long post and I still haven’t gotten to why I am really here. I probably won’t next time either; I haven’t posted about Friday yet. Please note that Friday will be my next post even though I am posting about Saturday first.

Day Seven

2007-02-10T10:14:00.000-08:00

I am still posting because I want a journal of what I have done on this trip. But I would like it a lot more if I got some comments. *sniff* me so unloved *sniff* The day before yesterday was long and mostly uneventful. Don and I played at the MGM. After I got seated at the 2/5NL table, I got up and went down to the pit where I was last playing blackjack.

I had re-checked my notes and I had actually given them closer to three than two hours of $100 action when I was on pit-tilt. I sit at the table, buy-in for $1000, and immediately ask to speak to the host. Apparently there aren’t so many around that early in the day. Early in the shoe, the pit manager comes over to see if she can help me. I tell her I want a nice meal for two. She goes and checks. A little while later, she comes back and tells me that I only have about $50 in credit; I could get a meal at the café or two buffet tickets. I am thinking “THAT IS FUCKING BULLSHIT.” I nicely ask her if I could discuss it with the host. She promises that she will send him over. This is at the end of the first shoe.

I finish the second shoe, up $200, and get ready to get up. I shove my chips forward for the dealer to color-up and ask her to send the pit manager over again. I am fully prepared to tell her that their comps are way out of line and that I had gotten the distinct feeling that I am not a valued customer. I don’t have to play there anymore. This is not a bluff; I am really serious.

She comes back accompanied by the actual host. I tell him what I want. He tells me the same thing the pit manager told me. I tell him what kind of customer I have been in the past at the other MGM-Mirage properties, I tell him that me giving the MGM Grand action was unusual for me, but would definitely do it again if it were a positive experience, which it wasn’t at the moment. He compromises on a meal at Wolfgang Puck’s. This is the first notch above the café or the buffet. That is marginally satisfactory for me. I agree.

He explains that the real problem is the alcohol. When they comp a meal, it includes the booze and some people would take advantage of that in a gourmet room. For example, one could order a $500 bottle of wine with their $200 meal. I asked for a food-only comp. They don’t have those. I ask how much action it would take to get the kind of comp I was wanting. He told me about five times as much action. I told him that I would get RFB, no questions asked, for that kind of action somewhere like The Golden Nugget. He agrees and tells me he plays at the Golden Nugget. Enough said.

The moral of the story is don’t play casino games at the MGM if you want comps. They are tight even by Strip standards. That is fine. I shouldn’t be playing there anyhow. Next time I choose to gamble, it will be for fun, I won’t be on pit-tilt, and I will take the time to drive myself to the Golden Nugget.

I return to the poker room with my comp ready to go, I sit and play for several hours without getting involved in any big hands. Don gets busted by an aggressive player on a draw and packs it in. I don’t blame him a bit for packing it in, but I did have to go cancel the comp. I assume I will be able to get the same or better without too much additional BS at some point later in the trip.

I return to my game. Another hour goes by without me playing any big pots. I then make the only mistake of the session. I raise to $45 in the BB with AQd. There were several limpers in the pot, and I had just shown a big bluff two hands earlier. A loose, aggressive, and very good player in EP re-raises to $100. Given what I know about this player, I put him on several possible hands. A re-steal is possible as are TT, JJ, QQ, and AA. I decide to see the flop. Flop comes Q high, two diamonds. I check to him, he bets $100. I call. Turn is a blank; action is check, check. River is a blank. I bet out $100, he calls and shows me his aces. I regret my play on the hand, but given what I know about him, I don’t regret it a lot.

I change tables and start playing some really solid poker. I find my way back to close to even before the table dries up. I am tired so I call it a day.

I am now a full day behind; I had a great session at the Bellagio yesterday that I want to tell you about. It will have to wait until next time as I want to get down there before there is a long list; Saturday is super-busy, even early in the day. I also want to get into why I am really here, but, unless nothing happens today, it will have to wait until Monday.

Six, Six, Six, Six….

2007-02-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

I forgot what six was for. Well, no, I still remember vaguely. The day before yesterday was really, really bad poker-wise. I misread the board on the river; I thought I had the nuts. The problem is that I failed to notice that that the river paired the board at the same time it made my nut flush. This resulted in severe stackage. However, I did have my flush on the turn, and the person that got all of my chips did have top two at that point. If I had bet at that point, I would have lost significantly, but perhaps not as much as I did on the river. A few orbits after I had re-bought and I was starting to rebuild. I flopped a wheel. I got stacked again as the other guy had flopped a six high. I had lost two buy-ins plus change. It was time to bag it.

Fortunately, I could not bag it; on my way out, I went on full-on pit-tilt. I played some dice and dumped two hundred. Then I really went nuts. I got the remaining $1000 in my pocket out and bought in for the whole thing on a blackjack table. No, this is not my whole roll; this is just what was in my pocket. I almost got felted by the dealer before I started to win. I got up about $1000. I decided this was a good time to get crazy drunk. I went and checked with Don; yes, he would drive me home.

Back at the blackjack table, I was drinking and giving $100 action. On some hands I bet as much as $250. This would have been one of the stupidest things I did in a casino in recent history, except I had $2500 when Don came to collect me. I wanted to finish my last drink and Don was antsy because he had just taken a couple of sick beats, so he took my five white chips ($500 at the MGM, most other places they are purple) and cashed them for me. He came back and counted them out in front of me. I paid no attention; I just stuffed them in my pocket. I am sure it was right.

So let’s review: I suck at poker, I went crazy in the pit, I got drunk, and I made $1500. This cancels out my craps and poker losses for the day. I am hoping the day will be a net positive in that I gave them $100 action for two hours; I hope to turn that into a nice dinner later today.

Since I did not have my car the yesterday and Don wasn’t going anywhere, we just hung at the crib and played on-line. I bubbled in the 11:00 24+6 on Tilt. I bubbled in the Hammer Day tournament on a bad beat (my AQ vs. AT soooted.) I then kicked some ass in the blogger cash game. It was a good and relaxing day.

I am ready to go back to work now. Yes, I know I missed a day of posting. But I have probably already exceeded last year’s total posts, so cut me some slack.

I am still a little foggy, so I am not even sure I know why I am here, so I will cover that tomorrow instead.

Day Five

2007-02-06T10:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was short and sweet. I went to work like it was Monday morning. I worked seven hours and I went home. It is easy to take the rest of the day off when it is payday. Yeah, that’s right I got paid. When it was time to cash out, I had four full racks and a partial rack on top that I was carrying to the cage. I got up to the window, and bent at the knees to do the heavy lifting necessary to get the chips up onto the counter (the counter is a little high for me at the MGM.) I was in for $600 and out for $2227.

The action was very good at the MGM, with most of the regulars taking the day off after working all Super Bowl weekend. At the start of the session I had a good table. But the few other good players got the chips before I could and it started to dry up. Thank goodness for table changes. My second table was loose and I did get a lot of the chips. It was a lot of back and forth at first. I made a set and got paid a few hundo. I then gave up most of the winnings to someone else’s set.

The big hand of the day went down like this: I am in LP with 99. EP makes it $20 to go. I call, BB makes it $40 to go, EP folds, I think for a while. I am deep at this point and so is the BB. My read is that he is a bad player that has aces or kings and he is likely to pay me if I flop big. I call. The flop comes nine high, rainbow. In my head I am all “OMFG, OMFG, OMFG.” He bets $100, I calmly wait for just long enough to sell TPTK or TT, JJ, or QQ. I begrudgingly call. The turn is a blank. It is especially loud in the room at this time. He says what I think sounds like “all-in.” I am a little stunned as the pot is about $300 at this point and I still have $800 behind and he has me covered. I ask him to repeat himself. “ALL-IN,” He says again. I say in a loud, excruciatingly carefully enunciated voice “I call.” I immediately flip over my nines. He shows his kings, the river is a blank and I take it down.

Now, realistically, this was not a very hard hand for me to play. I was in the right place at the right time, I made the right read on him, and I played appropriately for my hand and my read. But I did do some things correctly yesterday that led me to this situation. First, I had eaten in small amounts at regular intervals. Second, I had taken regular breaks. Third, I did not get involved in pots out of boredom. Fourth, I made it a point to constantly scope out the other tables and move at the right time. Finally, I was patient, patient, patient. These are the things that I am going to keep doing since I got the appropriate reinforcement for these behaviors.

The other thing I did right yesterday didn’t even happen until I got home. I transcribed my scrawling excuse for hand written notes on my sessions into an Excel spreadsheet. I broke them out by poker, stupid bets on the Super Bowl, and craps. It is very sobering to see my some of my hard won dollars go down the drain in –EV wagering. But I am still improving. I used to have my own host, now I just have a player’s card. Soon, I won’t even be rated. Maybe I will even have to go to one of the skid row places to play $1 craps. The bottom line for poker is looking good. +$950 for the trip, and the trend is positive. I would be +$2150, were it not for that big hand at the Venetian the other day. I am not at all upset about it; I got my money in with the best of it. I am merely taking note of it here as I am trying to gauge how well I am playing overall.

Again, I ran out of time before I can tell you why I am really here.

Until tomorrow,

Weak

Day Four

2007-02-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

I didn’t make it out to play live yesterday. After the Super Bowl, I just chilled for a while, ran my QQ into a set and bottom two into top two in 1/2nl. I then fell into a super stupor that I never recovered from, so I went to bed. Yeah, I know I implied a second post in a single day and didn’t get there. You knew it was too good to be true.

My Super Bowl moment: discussing possible “wardrobe malfunctions” with Don and Carmen. I suggested that Prince may whip it out and start waving it around. Sure enough he did. You missed that? With the big sheet flying in the breeze and the perspective projection, he appeared larger than life with his penis shaped guitar, and he was wailing on it. Tell me it didn’t look like he was waiving it the breeze.

Now, speaking of units, here is what I had in bets:

Bears and the points, 4 units
Bears on the money line, 2 units
Bears -3 ½ +280, 2 units
Under, 2 units
Bears to score fist, 1 unit
No 3 unanswered scores, 2 units

Here I am tearing up my tickets:

So, when all said and done, I lost 6 units. I feel I got good value and I am not terribly upset about it.

About the MGM 5/10NL game: I hadn’t planned on playing it the night before last. I had just come from the Venetian not really feeling it. I sat at the 2/5nl at the MGM and it wasn’t very loose. I wasn’t feeling it either. I got up for a break, looked at the other 2/5nl games and decided that they didn’t look that good either. Then I spotted the 5/10NL game.

It had been one of my goals this trip to play 5/10NL, but I had planned on playing a capped game, and had also planned on playing after I had been running well for a while, so this was unexpected. I saw an open spot and I picked up from the 2/5 game and sat at the 5/10 game. I took another five bills from my roll and put them under my chips.

I played very, very tight for a few orbits while I was sizing up my opponents. It was clear early on that I was up against three drunks and one known donkey; the rest were good players. I had a very loose and not too aggressive drunk on my right. There was another drunk on his right, and a third on his right. Happy day!

I took several pots from the drunks and made one of the good players lay down a better hand than mine. Then a series of horrible things happened: one drunk got up, and got replaced by a rock. Then another drunk got eject for telling the floorman to fuck off. He was upset that the waitress would not serve his non-playing friends drinks. The sober players all offered to buy his friends drinks, but he wasn’t having any of it. He insisted that he was gambling with thousands of dollars and he was entitled to anything he wants. The floorman didn’t even bother to explain that the amount of money he had had no bearing on what he was contributing to the bottom line; waste of time. Out he went.

One other person got up, and got replaced by two rich, middle aged golf shirt and Rolex wearing fuckers that each had three thousand in bills. They both played really tightly at first, and then I noticed the first one had loosened up, was playing more pots, and was bluffing at some of them. This is where I really cleaned up.

I played a pot against the loosened up golf fuck with the intention of taking it away from him on the river. I had J9 suited and flopped a flush draw and a gut shot on a very uncoordinated board. There had been a small raise from called in four spots pre-flop, so there was about $125 in the pot at the point. He bets $100, I think for a long time, and call. Turn is a blank, He bets $100, I think for a long time, and call. River looks like a blank, but it makes my gutshot and a possible back door flush! I get to raise him here with near nuts! At this point, I believe that he is making a play for the pot, but really hope he has a real hand. He bets $200. I think for a long while, then I get my bills (I had collected a few more in earlier pots) and I count out two bills, announce raise and count out four more. He thinks for a while, asks me how much more I have behind, and I tell him (about $500 more.) He thinks for a short time longer and mucks. Damn, he didn’t have anything. But I still took the golf shirt, Rolex wearing fucker’s money.

The remaining drunk loses most of the rest of his money, and the game slows down. The sober donkey leaves because he got into a fight over a pot he was not even in. I decide it is time to go, so I cash out for $1800, a $900 profit.

I still want to play in a real 5/10 game, but it was fun playing in that one. I will probably hit another later in the trip, but not soon, unless I am so lucky as to find another table with drunks and one or two known donkeys. Not too likely, I am guessing.

I wait in a long line at the sports book to buy my losing tickets. There are two windows open and there are a bunch of people ahead of me asking stupid questions and then buying $25 tickets. Oy. I finally get up to the window, lay down my bets, and hit the road at 2:30am.

That brings me up to yesterday, and I didn’t really do anything other than watch the Super Bowl, so my Day 4 post is going to Day 3 part 2.

Next up: today’s action, I update my blog roll, read some other blogs, and, if that doesn’t fill my time, more about why I am really here.

Day Three, Part One

2007-02-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

Wow, yesterday was such an action packed day that I may have to post twice today! If I do post twice today, do I get a day off, or are am I going to get nailed for not sticking to posting every day while I am in Vegas? Whatever, I suppose.

Yesterday, I got up early, and was banging out yesterday’s post in a rush to hit the road. Around 10:00am, Don started harassing me about getting going. I have to blog, I have to get going; the guy is never happy. The tournament started at noon, and we wanted time for Don to register (I already had my ticket,) and to have breakfast. We had just the right amount of time to do that at a leisurely pace.

I was ready to play, or so I thought. Looking back on it, it is clear that I did not have my head in the game at all. I busted out early. Way early. In fact, I busted before the end of the first orbit. I will stipulate upfront that I played like a complete donkey, and that I know exactly how I should have played the hand. Nevertheless, I am going to tell you how the hand went down so I can get to the main learning point that I got out of the experience.

I was in the small blind with AK, it folds around to late position who made it 200 (blinds were 25 and 50.) I call. The big blind re-raises to 700. Late position folds and I call. Flop comes K-rag-rag. I check, BB bets 1000, I make it 3000. BB thinks for a while, and then shoves. I think for a while. He asks me, “Do you have AK?” I reply “Is it good?” He mutters under his breath “It is if you have it.”

I keep thinking. Someone calls for the clock; the floor arrives and gets ready to start the clock. Here is where I feel like I am in slow motion, falling to the canvas, with the beads of sweat flying off my face one by one in ultra-slow motion. I call, he shows his aces and I am done.

Yeah, I made several different mistakes here. I am about to tell you my thought process, but please keep in mind that I am not saying my thought process was right or that I did the right thing, or anything close to that. I am not even going to get into what I would have done differently. I just had the “deer caught in the headlights” feeling. He implied that I was good. My experience is that really top notch players will say things like that to get the call. Anyone below top notch will probably tell the truth, figuring that you will never believe them. Also, there is no way he should push there if he has aces. Now here is the clincher: he was a Euro. I was figuring he was a donkey, so I called. Back to full speed, face hits the mat, splat.

Now that I have been carted off in the ambulance, let me tell you what I have learned. It is a well established principle that if the choices are call or fold and you are in doubt, you should fold. But how does one exercise that discretion when he is in “deer caught in the headlights” mode? It is instinctual. I have had similar experiences a few other times in my poker career. Every single time, I have made the wrong decision. For now own, when I am feeling like the deer caught in the headlight, I muck. I know that this sounds obvious, but it is experiential learning and words, even words better than I am capable of writing, are not adequate to express how much of a difference this is going to make for me the next time I am feeling that feeling.

After attempting to shake off the horrible feeling of just having committed an incredible donkey move in a big tournament, I sit in the 2/5NL game at the Venetian. I do not get involved in any big pots, I lose a few little ones, and then I go card dead. I am really not feeling it, and I think I need a change of scene, so I book a loss of $375 and I roll out to the MGM around 7:30PM.

Up next: I play in the 5/10NL game at the MGM, and my Super bowl bets.

Progress Report, Day Two

2007-02-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

This has been a rough two days. The first day, Thursday, I get into LAV airport around 10:00AM, an on-time arrival. I then spend more than 45 minutes waiting for my luggage. Sadly, that is normal for LAV. Picking up my rental was a snap; I used Alamo’s on-line check-in. I drove straight to the MGM to meet Miami Don.

I played 1/2NL for a bit while waiting for 2/5NL. I book a quick $50 win, then get called for 2/5NL. I play tight-aggressive, looking for opportunities to win several small pots. Miami Don shows up and gets seated. The complexion of the table gets interesting. There are three or four major donkeys, one or two rocks, and the rest are solid players. One of the donkeys is playing every pot and spewing chips. I can’t get any of those chips. One of the other donkeys sucks out on me in a big pot. I slowly bleed chips as I go card dead. I lose a coin flip. Eight hours later, I am stuck $450 and we call it a day. We head back to Don’s place where I am staying for the trip.

Yesterday, we got up early. Don has been getting up early, and I am still on Eastern Standard Time. I spend time getting my stuff together, unpacking, and writing yesterday’s post. We go get breakfast, and then head down to the MGM. The place is jamming, and teaming with donkeys. I love super bowl weekend. There was a 5/10nl uncapped game running by 1:30pm. There were also more than 10 1/2nl games and 3 2/5nl games at the same time. I want to play 5/10nl sometime during this trip, but not uncapped, and not until I am running well. I sit at 2/5nl.

I play small ball for a while and build up a few of stacks of profit. I then switch gears in an attempt to get involved in some large pots. I don’t catch a hand and my profit dwindles. Smokkee shows up and sits at 1/2NL. The three of us continue playing our games for several hours.

We roll out of the MGM around 6:30. I have booked a $150 win. We are heading over to the Venetian to play a satellite to the Saturday $550 tournament. I have a really rough cash game session, and I get stack in a hand where I am way ahead. I quit, and hang for a while. I then play my satellite. It is $130, ten seats; top two pay a tournament seat. SNG Machine, Smokkee and I are all playing the same satellite. Smokkee busts first, and SNG Machine busts second. I hang tough, and then start chipping up. I end up winning a seat!

I play 1/2nl for a while and book a $200 profit. I wait and wait and wait because Miami Don is going deep in the nightly tournament and we all drove there together. He busts out in the money, and we head out at 2:30am. It was a long day for a marginal profit for me. I sleep a few hours, get up, bang out this post, and now I have to hit the road; the big tournament starts in two hours.

I wish I could have spent more time on the details, proof read this thing, added hyperlinks and shit, but damn, I am posting for the 2nd day straight and you know about how things are going. Got to motor; wish me luck.

DQB, a Mathematical Approach

2007-02-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

I have just arrived in Las Vegas for another two week stay. I want to tell you all about my setup, the trip, the games, and so on. I intend to post every day while I am here. Yeah, I know you will believe it when you see it. I will take that as a challenge. I will get to the beginning of that tomorrow.

Today, I wanted to discuss a hand I have been kicking around in my ahead for some time. It was a $0.25/$.0.50NL game on Tilt. A brief summary of the hand: I was small blind, there were a few limpers to me, I completed with huge odds and 89o, and the big blind checks. I flop top two on an uncoordinated board, get all-in against the big blind, he shows me bottom set, and I get runners to make quads to take it down. For your reference, the full hand history is here.

After the hand, I said something like ‘sorry for the beat.’ He went on to tell me that he would have gone away in my spot. I took it back my apology and called him a pussy. I got to wondering if my play was correct. Intuitively, I was sure it was. At the time, I had gone through all of his possible holdings in my head. I recognized that there was a significant possibility he had bottom set, and a very small chance he had middle or top set.

The thing that makes this hand interesting to me is that he and I both had essentially random hands. Paradoxically, this turns out to make the analysis compact and clean. Here is what I did on paper after the fact:

There are some very unlikely holdings he could have that I am beating, like an over pair, or a straight draw, or a pure bluff. I ignore these possibilities for this discussion. His more likely holdings are some combination of threes, eights, and nines. How many combinations are there? There are two remaining nines, two remaining eights, and three remaining fours. That makes a total of seven cards. He most probably has two of these seven cards. I think any of these possible combinations are equally likely. On to the math:

There are C(7,2) possible hands he likely has. This is 7!/(5!*2!) which works out to 21 possible hands. There are six ways for him to make bottom set, one way to make middle set, and one way to make top set. This makes a total of eight possible ways for him to make a hand that is beating me. This makes 13 ways (21-8) that he can make a hand that I am beating. The odds that I am ahead are 13-8. Of course, I am assuming he plays any of these hands the same way. With little information on this player, I think the stakes we are playing drive me to this conclusion.

Something else I find interesting about this hand can be seen from his point of view. With his 44, he can make the same basic assumptions I did. If he does, I have six ways of making top set, and six ways of making middle set, the only hands that are beating him. That makes 9 (21-12) ways that I am not beating him. His odds that he is ahead are 3-4 (9-12). This means that, on average, that he is behind! He told me I should have gone away, but did not consider going away himself.

Now, looking at it at the top level, of course it all goes in every time. But I am happy that my intuition was correct there. And that the math shows he is a pussy if he would have gone away in my spot.

Tomorrow: My setup, why I am here in Vegas, and a quick update on how my live games have been going.

Fuel Gets Hammered

2007-01-05T13:18:00.000-08:00

Well, I have not posted in forever, and I guess I am due for my semi-annual post. It seems bad that Al mentioned this hand before I did. In a 1/2NL blogger game last night, I dropped this hammer on Fuel:

FullTiltPoker Game #1535659925: Table Plunging Falls - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold'em
- 1:47:56 ET - 2007/01/05
Seat 1: aquaman17 ($451.25)
Seat 2: MiamiDon
($164)
Seat 3: JHarr1219 ($197)
Seat 4: Fuel55 ($216.60)
Seat 5:
ScottMc ($63.15)
Seat 6: boilermatt ($307.70)
Seat 7: Troublecat
($237.90)
Seat 8: weak_player ($367.20)
Seat 9: SirFWALGMan ($184.80)
Troublecat posts the small blind of $1
weak_player posts the big blind
of $2
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to
weak_player [2h 7s]
SirFWALGMan folds
aquaman17 folds
Fuel55: well
that worked well
MiamiDon folds
JHarr1219 folds
Fuel55 raises to $6
ScottMc folds
boilermatt folds
Troublecat folds
weak_player
raises to $19
Fuel55 calls $13
*** FLOP *** [Ad 5s 6s]
weak_player
checks
Fuel55 checks
*** TURN *** [Ad 5s 6s] [4h]
weak_player bets
$25
Fuel55 raises to $50
weak_player has 15 seconds left to act
weak_player calls $25
*** RIVER *** [Ad 5s 6s 4h] [3s]
weak_player
checks
Fuel55 bets $88
weak_player calls $88
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Fuel55 shows [4d 4c] (three of a kind, Fours)
weak_player shows [2h 7s]
(a straight, Seven high)
weak_player wins the pot ($312) with a straight,
Seven high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $315 Rake $3
Board: [Ad 5s 6s
4h 3s]
Seat 1: aquaman17 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: MiamiDon didn't bet
(folded)
Seat 3: JHarr1219 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Fuel55 showed [4d
4c] and lost with three of a kind, Fours
Seat 5: ScottMc didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: boilermatt (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: Troublecat
(small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 8: weak_player (big blind) showed
[2h 7s] and won ($312) with a straight, Seven high
Seat 9: SirFWALGMan
didn't bet (folded)

He must have been shitting silver bricks. Man this is comedy silver. I think fuel is really steamed about this. Maybe he will tilt off some more chips tonight. Even if he doesn’t, the silver lining in this for me is that Al got me to post.

PS

Silver, silver, silver, silver.

Punished for PSA

2006-07-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

I have fallen way behind; i wanted to write a post to wrap-up my trip to LA. I wanted to write a post to discuss my trip to Foxwoods. I wanted to write a post (or several posts) about the trip to Vegas. I got ummm distracted. I may still get back to those topics, but something happened last night that I just had post here.

Some of you may know about the Public Service Annoucement. It has become custom to issue a "public service announcement" at the end of the first break of a rebuy tournament. It consists of something like this: "ATTENTION DONKEYS: THE REBUY PERIOD IS OVER. This has been a public service announcement." It is useful in that some people as though they can rebuy. You know, donkeys.

So I did this last night at the DADI. Perhaps the PSA worked; I took 2nd! I got an e-mail from Stars about it:

Hello weak_player,
We have received a complaint regarding some things you said in chatvat our tables. I have reviewed the chat log and did find some of yourcomments to be inappropriate.
Our goal at PokerStars is to be a fun place to play, where everyone can feel comfortable. Foul language and abuse of other players takes away from everyone's enjoyment, and therefore cannot be permitted.
We must ask you to refrain from using this type of language in the future, or we will be forced to remove your chat privileges.
Please note that you may not be the only one receiving a message suchas this. When we receive a chat complaint, we review the entire chatof all players at the table. Any other offenders at the table were also warned or revoked as appropriate to our policies.
Regards,
PokerStars Support Team
---59782771 weak_player ATTENTION DONKEYS: THE REBUY PERIOD IS NOW OVER. Observer 7/26/2006 10:02:32 PM

Uh, WTF?

I respond:

You have got to be kidding me...this is the lightest possible language and it was meant playfully...was someone really offended by that? If so, wouldn't that be their problem? Come on now...seriously.
It is customary to joke about the rebuy period being over because some people keep playing like it isn't. Is "donkey" an offensive word? If so, maybe you should add it to your filter; it gets used a lot at your site, and it is usually is meant personally as in addressing a specific person, as opposed to a humorous greeting meant for a friend that is sitting at that table. This is the way in which I was using it. Especially in a private event that I am a part of. Someone was pulling your leg or it is remotely possible that another practcipant that is new to to these events took offense, but seriously, so what?
In short, I completely fail to see how the example you offered is in any way offensive to anyone, let alone something that you should be warning me about. If there is something about this that I am missing, please explain it to me. Otherwise, I will be forced to assume that you have gone off the deep end.
Since you chose to take this issues seriously, I am too. I would like a response from the management team explaining this. I demand that you either retract this warning and apologize, or at least justify why the language is offensive...it really is not obvious.
Or, I may be taking offense to the things that are said to me that are much more offensive; things that i typically just ignore. I will dutifully report them all, and expect you treat the other customer as you have treated me. It will be a lot of work. Or you can admit that you made an error in judgement, retract the warning and apologize to me. That would be easy. Or you could chose to escalate this further and risk losing all of my business. Have you looked at how much rake I contribute? It is a lot of money to lose over the word "donkey"
Thanks for your quick attention to this matter.
Aaron (weak_player)

They respond:

Hello Aaron,
I am sorry about this warning. It was sent to you in error.Good luck at the tables.
Best Regards,
Ellis
Shift SupervisorPokerStars Support Team

So, appearently, my PSA is still okay. Good to know.

Unstuck!!!!

2006-06-19T03:53:00.000-07:00

The day started out very slowly. I guess father's day killed the action. Eventually I sat at the $300-$500 game, which we all agreed to make a $500 game. This brought the blinds up to 5 and 10 from 5 and 5. It also made it a unrestricted game. I bought up to $1000. There were 2 or 3 donators, a few solid players, and one or two unknowns. I was not thrilled with the game, but it was there was the only thing that interested me at The Bike. I lost few hundered while waiting for a hand to get involved with,

When I finally found the hand I was looking for, it was a fun one. I picked up JJ in LP. There were two limpers to me. I made it $55 to go. It folded around to the button who made it $110 to go. The limpers went away and we took the flop heads-up. It camed JK4, all clubs. I was happy about making middle set, but a bit worried about him having a big club, or the made flush, or top set. I think I only had one move there. I pushed it all in. He insta-calls me and shows me AQc. I am spinning around like I am about to hit the canvas, when in a lasp gasp attempt, I say to the dealer "pair the board!" Smack! a Kh comes on the turn. So I have made my boat and the only thing that is going to save his ass is if he gets his one outer for the royal on the river. I know it is hard to believe, but my hand held.

The weaker players got replaced by tougher players. Guys that I don't want to play with. Guys that were licking their chops at my chips. So I got up and cashed out. As I counted my roll, It seemed to me to be about what I started with. Unstuck. OMFG I AM UNSTUCK. Praise FSM.

The bad news is that the Bike is now really dead, except the shark tank i just got out of. I decided to wonder over to Commerce and check out the action there. They had 3 $400 main tables running and they had just formed a must move game. I played very defensively, knowing that this is not a good investment. I am not going to give my chips to someone that will end up a different table than I will. And it was only marginally usefull sizing up the players and putting them on styles and experience levels, and so on. I got move fairly quickly.

My protected table was very good. No sharks, a few semi-solds, some ABCs, one donkish player, and (yes, it is the Holy Grail, not a grail shapped beacon!) the Ultra-Mega-Super-Donkey-With Roll. This is going to be good. He was throwing a party, if you know what I mean. He was betting with anything, calling, with anything, and raising with anything. He actually got some big pots because everyone was trying to bust him and he actually made a few hands. But he, of course, got felted several times. Each time he would reload. I lost count. One thing I didn't lose count of was how many times I got HU with him. That count stayed at zero for several hours.

I was getting ready to give up when I caught a hand. I picked up AJs in CO. UMSDWR is in MP. He he limps. it folds around to me. I make it 65. The button, BB, and SB, and UMSDWR all call. I am not so happy about this. A raggedy, rainbow J high flop comes. I am wondering whol might have flopped a set. I am also wondering if I can get HU with UMSDWR. There is only one way to find out. I bet out $175. The button (a solid player) thinks for a while and gives me respect. The small blind (also a solid player) does the same. The big blind (an okay player) folds quickly. That leaves me HU with UMSDWR. He re-raises me another175. I have 385 left at that moment. I am reasonable sure he has garbage. Really. I push in-for the rest of it, 210 more. He thinks for a long time before reluctantly calling. The turn is another J. The river is a blank. I show my trip jacks, ace kicker and he starts to muck. Another player at the table (not me, I would leave the donkey alone) asks to see his cards. The dealer shows his 63 s000ted. In my head, I am working it out.....okay I was unstuck.....now....this....magnificent beast....just paid for....my....entire...trip.

I decided that while it is wrong to leave money on the table, I am very, very tired, and I am afraid of getting felted by a good player that is also trying to get the rest of UMSDWR's money. I cash out and leave. I am a happy man.

I am going to try to do Live at The Bike again tonight (Monday night); It is my last night of poker; I fly home Tuesday morning.

Scrambled Eggs

2006-06-18T04:15:00.000-07:00

Scrambled eggs is what I had for breakfast at 3:00am. Scrambled like my brain. Here is a brief summary of recent developments:

1.) I ran into Russ Fox and played with him for several hours. He folded like the French army. For Russ that means that he played one hand every two hours rather one hand every hour, since he was card dead. But he did manage to get a seat next to mine and we talked for a while. He gave me a low down on some of the players I might run into if I sat for the 1000nl Live at The Bike. I gather you already know I ended playing that game (watch the replay on Sunday if you missed it on Friday!.)

2.) I held my own against a tough table in that game. It included two or three of the top cash game players around. It also include several very solid players not in the top tier. It also included an Ultra LAG maniac with more money than god. He was immediately on my left. Fuck! I picked my spots very great care. With all due respect to the commentators, they missed several key points about my play. First of all, there was hand where I flopped a 88 overpair. I knew I was probably ahead. However, I also knew that if I called the bet on the flop, I would be put to the test and I was not prepared to play for all my chips yet. Second of all, I made a great move on the ULAG. I dropped a $100 chip into the pot without saying 'raise' on purpose. I knew that it would be enforced as a call and I knew that ULAG would raise anyhow. I also knew that I would win after re-raising. I had big brass ones there. The official chip count at the end had me +1000. They fucked up. I was really only up $360. But that was against top players, with a bad seat, in a game that was two steps up from my normal game. Yay me!!! Yes, I was fucking crazy for doing it, but it was my kind of crazy.

3.) I don't remember much of the rest of the day. I am really drawing a blank. I think it is understandable under the circumstances.

4.) Today, I played the $100nl donkey push-fest while waiting for a real game. I avoided getting involved without a big pair or AK, as it always goes all-in. Blissfully, I got to sit at a real poker game quickly. I was going for the $300-$500nl game which plays about the same as $400nl at Commerce. But the $500nl unrestricted opened up and I sat with $500. It played a little bigger than I normally play, but not nearly as big as the 1000nl the night before. I was reasonably comfortable. After several hours of patient, careful play, I took down a $1200 pot. I opened in early position for $55 with AQ. I got raised to $110 by MP and overcalled by LP. Flop comes A74 rainbow. A pot sized bet would be about $345. I had just a bit more than that, so that was my spot. I pushed, MP calls quickly, LP folds. River and turn are blanks. I show my hand, MP mucks and the dealer pushes the pot to me. This gets me unstuck for the trip.

5.) Sadly this does not last long. I get up from that game and sit in the $300-$500NL game and get busted twice in one orbit. The first time I had KK and got all-in pre-flop against the biggest donkey at the table. Before the flop is dealt, I ask him if he wants to flip the cards up. He agrees. I show my kings. He starts acting like he is deaf. He doesn't show. The flop is dealt, all blanks. The turn is a Q. The river is a blank. He shows QQ, points at me and laughs. I showed great restraint in not shoving my chip rack up his ass. I don't mind losing. It happens. I got my chips in with the best of it. I do mind people acting like jerks after winning when they should lose. Fuck him. I started tipping each player at the table as they took pots off of him. He didn't even get the joke. I think he looked puzzled when he didn't get a tip when he won his next pot.

The second bust of the orbit came when my set gets cracked by a flush. I am stuck again.

6.) I played even for most of the rest of the day. I gained a little ground late in the session. The best hand I played went as follows: I open for $40 in early position with AQ. Solid player in MP smooth calls. Donkey in late position overcalls. (deja vu!!!) The flop comes AAQ. I am stone cold serious. No expression change. None. I was sure. I look a little perturbed, I check. Solid player checks. Donkey bets out for $50. I think for five or six seconds and smooth call. Solid player makes it $150. Donkey folds. I look disgusted. I think for a long time. I smooth call. The turn is a blank. I check instantly. Solid player checks. The river is a blank. I check, solid player bets $200. I look positively sick. I think for a while....the expresion I was going for was "well, I am fucked....might as well go home" I push in my last $300. Solid player calls the $100 and turns over AK. He asks "do you have QQ?" Me: "no" I turn it over. SEND IT!!!!!

7.) I think I am stuck about $500 as of this moment. This includes several dreadful beats and one or two of mistakes I made. I feel good about how I am playing. Really good. Now, I just need to make some money.

8.) Yes, I am playing at the Bike all week. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I will be there if you want to wonder by. I will be wearing the green WPBT cap and my Tilt Jersy. It is hard to miss me. If you think you have just spotted Andy Bloch, it's me. I tend to start around 1:00pm or so.

Seat Change!

2006-06-16T02:48:00.000-07:00

I am really worn, so I will keep it short.....

1.) I was on Live at The Bike last night. It was really fucking cool. It is like High Stakes Poker. It is webcast live, and the replays run continously today, until tonight's live webcast. Check it out: http://www.liveatthebike.com/webcast/

2.) I won money before the Live at The Bike Game.

3.) I won money in the Live at the Bike Game.

4.) I cashed out for $500 before changing back to one of the other $300-$500NL tables

5.) I went bust at that table with this hand:

me: 9d Td
donkey1: Js 7c
donkey2: Kc 5h

It was a live straddle, I was in late position, I call. The flop comes [Kd 9s Ts]. All of the money goes in on the flop. How did I lose? bigger 2-pair? No. Straight? No. I got 4-flushed. If I my hand had held, I would have been up $1000 for the day. Instead, I am up $100. That is better than yesterday. And I was on Live at The Bike. Really fucking cool!

Did I mention how fucking cool that was?

The game tomorrow is much bigger, $1000min, 10 and 20 blinds. If I get crazy, I might play. If you get a text from me that says "I am on Live at The Bike" watch the webcast, hmmmmkay?

Round One: Donkeys

2006-06-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

It was an interesting day yesterday. When I finally arrive at my motel, I notice that there are 5 people waiting and no one at the desk. I call the hotel number and ask about it, and then the attendant appears. I wait for my turn. Thirty minutes later I am in my room. It is clean and reasonably modern. It has free WIFI. The channel line-up is limited but includes free hardcore porn. At the moment, there is not much else on except the news. The problem with this porn channel is they seem unusually obsessed with anal which not my thing is. But I would marginally prefer watching a hot model taking it up the ass than watching the American public take it up the ass, so I change the channel. The voice-overs are really bad. I am really digressing aren’t I? Perhaps not that much, since I really took it up the ass last night.

First stop was Commerce. I sit at 200NL while waiting for my usual 400NL game. I take a few small pots uncontested. I get called for 400NL, up about 50. I had one good hand there before things went sour. I had AKc on the button. 3 people limp. I raise to 35 and get two callers. The flop comes 666. It checks around to me. I fire 100 into the pot and take it down.

The next interesting hand was more amusing than painful. Again, I am on the button. There are 7 limps to me. I make it 110 to go with KQ (I know, not a good hand.) It folds around to late position who puts me all-in. It really perplexes me that he limp-re-raises all-in in late position. He could have TT or JJ in which case I should call. Or he could have AK or AQ in which case I should fold. I think for a while. While I am thinking, he shows the rest of the table what he has. I call the floor over. The rest of the table grumbles at me. “What are you hoping? The he will have to show you his hand now?” Obviously not; I want it to be very clear that he is showing me his hand if I fold. The floor agrees. I fold. He shows TT. The dealer spreads the deck, and I pull the flop, turn, and river out. There would have been a K on the river. Oh well.

The next big hand was extremely painful. I had 500 behind. I had bet and then layed-down several times in the last several orbits. One or two of those times were steal attempts. Three or four of those were cases where I thought I had the best hand until I got re-raised. This is important as I gave my opponent credit for noticing this. He had already picked me off once. He is in late position, I am in early position. I pick up AKh. I raise 35. It folds around to him. He makes it 135. Okay, it is push or fold with him; he is going to bet the flop, I am sure, and I don’t want to have to make any more decisions, so I push. He calls with KK. The flop came king high. This is bad in that I am now dead to running aces. On the other hand, it was good in that the money would have gone in any other way I had played it. Oh well.

Somewhere along the way, I decide to start taking notes so I can write a better blog after the fact. The Commerce gift shop has one in the kids section, so I am taking notes in a Mickey Mouse notebook. Here is a list of things I forgot to pack:

Redbull
Note pad
Hand Sanitizer
Water & Snacks (for hotel room)

I lost several more small pots. At one point I get involved in a situation with one of the weaker players at the table. He has asked me about my notes several times. Each time he asks what my notes say, I reply “It says I ran into KK with AK and lost 500 or so.” He makes a weak raise and I am sure his hand is weak. I make a big re-raise with 33. He asks me what my notes say. I calmly insist that there is nothing interesting in there besides the AA vs. AK hand. I toss the notebook over to him. He reads my notes and folds.

Between the two large pots I lost and a few smallish pots, I am stuck about 650. I decided to call it a night. I cash out, get my car, and head back to my motel. Except I get lost, drive around in circles, and finally end up at the Bike. I sit at 200NL and promptly loose my buy-in, not realizing any and all bets will be called if not raised. I lose another buy-in when I raise 75 pre-flop with KK. I get 2 calls. No ace on the flop, I go all-in. I get called by a set of sixes. I call it a night.

I have had my coffee now, and am ready for a shower and some donkey-slaying.

Misty Mountain Hop

2006-06-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

Well I haven taken a week and some change at home to decompress and get a few things done at home. I also played a lot of poker. I was running really well on party. Then Party kicked me in the junk…..repeatedly. I am fairly sure from reading back the histories that I am playing well and just got bitch-slapped by the long tentacle of variance. Oh well; so it goes. I also have been playing razz, O/8 and such. I am trying to diversify, chill, and prepare for mixed games at the MGM.

I am choosing this moment to start posting again for a good reason. I am on my way to Commerce for a week. I traveled on business to LA several times in the six months or so leading up to my quitting my job. I kicked butt on most of those trips. So I am somewhere between very hopeful and confident that I will do well.

However, the game is a little different; I am doing this to make money and reloading from my bankroll using my paycheck is no longer possible. So I am playing the same game I know and love (400nl at Commerce.) But the stakes seem strangely higher.

On the other hand, my primary goal is not really to be a pro. So, I could take a loss without feeling totally crushed. But I am expecting to crush this game. Just as I have in three of the last four sessions.

I also plan to have some fun. Veneno and I are planning to play a MTT at the Bike. That should be a blast.

It is unclear how much internet access I will have, so I will be attempting to text updates to Garthmeister. He will probably post them on his blog. Got to catch my plane; later.

Crawling From The Wreckage

2006-05-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, here it is: my first official day of unemployment. All missions have been accomplished; the house is totally clean, all my paperwork is done, everything is repaired. It is time to go back to work. Okay, not really. I slept in, played some poker and did a little cleaning.

We had a great weekend in NY. It was cool meeting Garth, Jordan, Dawn and KATM at Sox's home game on Friday. I booked a modest win.

On Saturday, we had a great meal (see Sox's post.) I have two things to add to his description. 1.) The foie gras with eel custard was sublime. 2.) I felt like a juror on the Iron Chef panel, except less whiny. Best.Meal.Ever.

As Sox mentioned, we went off to a seedy card club after dinner. I made a nice chunk of change there. It was good to play live against a bunch of maniac donkeys (as opposed to maniac bloggers.) I am looking forward to playing live more often, now that I have time to find a game. The underground scene just doesn't seem to be happening here in Atlanta.

On Sunday we went to Dawn's home game (thanks for hosting, Dawn.) F-Train showed up later on. While no one likes watching a junk-kicking, it was good to see him again. I suffered a minor loss which offset the modest win from the Friday game (ignoring Weak Wife's losses.)

We went home on Monday. I stayed up late and slept late. That brings us back to today. I intend to get my poker world in order slowly, just like I am getting my house in order slowly. I need to map out my poker course, do some book keeping, fix my blog roll, respond to people who have been commenting here (in general, thanks y'all for the kind words.) It will take time.

Fortunately I have time.

It Is Going To Be a Good Day

2006-05-03T06:36:00.000-07:00

I was feeling really out of sorts last night. I keep inventing reasons why I may be making a mistake in my "career" change. Yesterday was the defining moment; I have eliminated all of the obstacles in my path. I have my mind made up; I am going to tell them on Friday that my letter stands as written. It is still a major adjustment, and I am still nervous about it, but having removed that doubt and uncertainty has me feeling good today.

Also, I took first in one of those $15+1 turbos this morning. I played it more or less straight up (I might have called a few bets, sorry) a few players gave me their chips needlessly, and I out-played the rest. I also feel really good about my recent results after playing with the sharkscope filter. Looking at just the last three months at levels at or below $20, I am a shark! Good times!

Amusing Distraction

2006-05-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

Last night I was feeling very anxious. It was the usual Sunday night thing. Except bigger because I am leaving my job, but have not yet given them my "final" answer. Gracie suggested that I try this: play a SNG, but don't call any bets. Raise or fold only. It seemed like an distracting concept, and I had nothing to lose. I chose a $15+1 turbo and away I went. The results were unexpected. I played like a maniac, but that is not that bad of a strategy in a turbo, it seems. Here are some really funny hands:

I raise [Qc Tc] in late position. HU, the flop comes [4c 3c 8h]. EP bets out 120, I min-raise. I make my flush on the turn. He bets out 400, I go all-in. He calls with [7s 7c]. I take it down.

With the blinds at 75 and 150, EP makes it 400 to go. I min-raise with [7c 7s]. (The shoe is on the other foot, now.) The flop comes [5c 8c Kd]. EP bets 500, I go all-in for 1758, he folds.

With 100/200 blinds, I am UTG and I raise to 600 with [Ac Jh]. The button puts me all-in for 2858. I call. He shows [Ah 7c]. I take it down.

Finally in HU play, 200/400 blinds, I pick up [Qs Js] The button makes it 800. I make it 1200, he makes it 2000, I make it 4591. The button calls and shows [Ah 2d]. I hit the flop and take it down. I take first place in this SNG.

I will definitely try this again. Perhaps it may actually be +EV in low level SNGs? If not, it sure is some righteous fun. Almost as good as a $3+R.

Moving On

2006-04-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, it has been forever since I posted, and many of you had been wondering if I would ever post again. Frankly, there has been a lot going on in my life, and it has left me drained of energy and unexcited about posting. Actually, I have not really been excited about much of anything. Except playing poker, that is. If I had stopped playing poker during this time, I think my wife would have checked me into the psych ward.

So what has changed? Well, I have identified the source of the great sucking of life force out of me. It is my job. I have come to the conclusion that the only reason I kept showing up was that I liked getting a paycheck. That’s about it. I like to be passionate about what I do. Failing that, I like to at least think that there is a useful purpose to it all. Failing that, I like to pretend that I am doing things when I show up. Failing that, I like to amuse myself until it is time to go home. It had gotten to the point where I couldn’t even do that. So, it is a time for a change.

I have been continuously employed for eighteen years. Most of them, I worked really hard, done interesting work, learned lots of new things. I have found that when I am feeling like it is time to move on to the next thing, my instincts have always been correct. I am too tired to look for another job. I don’t want more of the same at another company. I don’t want to prove myself all over again. It is time for me to rest and relax. I am taking some time off. How much? I don’t know. I did take a month long leave of absence last year. That wasn’t even close to long enough. So, this is open ended.

Do I intend to devote my life to poker? No, I don't at this time. But I certainly intend to devote more time to it. I intend to play very seriously (except when I am just playing.) So long as I am aware of the distinction and take it into account when selecting games and stakes, it should work well. I would like to post more often. I would also like to read my fellow bloggers more often. Finally, I would like to spend more time studying the game, reviewing my play and the play of my opponents. Improving my game is something that I can be passionate about. It is a reason to get up in the morning, excited to get going. It is something I want to do.

What else do I intend to do? Lots of things: cook, clean, garden, take care of my fish, build furniture, read, get in shape, sleep, work on home improvement. The list goes on and on. Just like poker, I will be most effective in these things when I have discipline and a good routine. This will take some time to develop. I will keep you posted as I progress. But, I make no promises about posting every day, even though this is my goal.

Thanks to all of my blogger friends for their support while I have been trying to summon the courage to do the right thing. Also, a special shout out to you pricks that have been needling me about not posting or reading (you know who you are); in a strange way, it has reminded me of what is important. Barring a miracle, my last day at my job will be May 26th. Also, thanks to Kat for beating me in our HU match. Her prize was that I have to post. It never felt so good to lose.

Peace

Weak

FU, UB

2006-03-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

I sent them an e-mail yesterday afternoon, and they have not responded. Since I am feeling pissy today, I will make it an open letter to them:

Dear UB:

It appears that you refunded the buy-in, but not the $3 entry fee. In other words, you charged me $3 for the privilage of being annoyed, frustrated, and confused about this tournament that did not complete. You did not seem to make an announcement, nor issue an apology for this, either. I am still out $3, and I am still angry. Are you trying to lose customers? You already screwed up to the point where you lost virtually all of my ring game business. I guess you want to lose my tournament business as well.

Give me my $3 and an apology; are you so dumb that you don't know that it is the right thing to do? Any decent business person would have refunded more than the entire amount AND apologized immediately. What is wrong with you?????

weak_player

Jordan Writes My Post For Me

2006-02-07T19:26:00.000-08:00

Today's guest writer: Jordan. Thanks, Man

HighOnPoker: won my turbo sng
Fluxer: nice
HighOnPoker: wanna play one?
Fluxer: nah, no money online atm
HighOnPoker: cool
Fluxer: and i owe sox for this tourney
Fluxer: lol
Fluxer: already
WeakPlayer: i am going to get some muscle to start busting legs....veneno owes me $21
Garth: Hehehe.
Fluxer: lol
HighOnPoker: haha
WeakPlayer: and cookies
HighOnPoker: thats not cool
Fluxer: with pictures
WeakPlayer: yes
HighOnPoker: @##!! better bake you some cookies
Fluxer: lol
WeakPlayer: lol
Fluxer: with pictures
HighOnPoker: you gotta be like, '@##!! , break yoself and get to the baking! how do you have time to blog if you don't got time for baking! bake me my cookies @##!!!'
HighOnPoker: that'd do
HighOnPoker: in fact, i'll tell her for you
WeakPlayer: the issue is she needs a digital camera
WeakPlayer: I will take up a collection for her camera. that's my next post.
HighOnPoker: and your issue is you don't give a fuck! bake me some cookies!
HighOnPoker: haha
WeakPlayer: heh
WeakPlayer: I think this chat text goes in the post, too.
HighOnPoker: only, leave out the @##!! part
HighOnPoker: sorry veneno
Fluxer: lol
HighOnPoker: she's gonna kick my ass
WeakPlayer: lol
HighOnPoker: (but not in poker)
HighOnPoker: OH SMACK!
HighOnPoker: ok, and that's a wrap
HighOnPoker: cut and print it

Back In The Saddle Again

2006-02-04T10:44:00.000-08:00

I have been feeling really bad about not posting in so long. I was in a major funk about the beating that I took in AC. I lost my discipline as far as record keeping. I stopped reading, too. By the time I faced up to what went wrong and was ready to write about it, the moment was gone. My bad.

I realize my goals were (and are) very ambitious. So, I can forgive myself and move on. One improvement that I have made: I started using PokerDominator, to track my sessions. It is a lot easier to use than my homemade spreadsheet. It also has lots of graphs and reports, too.

While I have really wanted to post (in spite of everyone nagging me about my lack of posting,) the thing that has brought me here now is that I made the final table in two different Tilt MTTs in the space of a week. I made second in a 24+2 on 1/31 ($1250 pay day.) Then, last night, I made sixth in another 24+2. I entered this one with a token, so it only cost my $6.60. It paid $560. Yay!

The coolest thing about last night was that Daddy was at the final table. As a result, lots of bloggers stopped by to say 'hi.' And at least one of them chided me for not posting. In no particular order, Fluxer, Donkey Puncher, Falstaff, CJ, Gary, THG, Jordon, Gambling Blues, and Drizz were all at the rail watching at various points.

The other improvement I have made is this: keeping in focus that this blog is for my thoughts on my game. I post when I have something to say. Having the stress of needing to post because my family, friends and other bloggers are ragging on me is added to my own stress about it. I will try to keep posting regularly, but, if I don't, please don't tell me. I already know.

Peace

A Very Belated AC Trip Report (Part One)

2006-01-16T19:52:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been quite a while since I posted. Yes, I am still alive. I returned home from AC just before the New Year with a 103° fever. It took a few days to get better. Then the procrastination set in. By the time I realized what was really holding me back from posting, it was time to go to St. Lucia. So, I have quite a lot to talk about. Rather than post one huge post, I will break it up a bit. Today, I will start with my AC trip.

When I booked the trip, Harrah’s told me that the first two nights would be free, and the last would be at the casino rate ($79, not bad.) When I arrived, they gave me a suite and comped all three nights up front. Did they know something I didn’t? It turns out they did. I had a horrible run of luck in the casino. Yeah, I know casino games are not a +EV situation.

In the past my philosophy was something like this: my play is –EV, but I get 50-60% back of that –EV in comps. The rest of the EV I can chalk up to entertainment value. But I have changed my mind about that. Here are my reasons:

Losing 10 hands in a row of pai gow at $100 a pop is not entertaining.
Losing an equal amount in craps is not entertaining.
Losing a greater amount in black jack is not entertaining.
Poker is +EV for me and my casino loses are eating into my poker profits.
The casino losses put me on tilt in a way that poker never can.
I can afford to pay for the stuff I like that is otherwise comped.

Before you decide that I really went off the deep end, please understand that I have had several trips in the last few years where I have won as much as I lost here. I think my overall analysis is correct, but I am done with casino games for at least a year. Poker is profitable. Why even bother comp whoring?

The main thing that was holding me back from posting is that I got slaughtered. When I took some time to think about it, my casino losses seemed to blur together with my poker action. The reality is that I lost about $1400 in poker. Not a disaster by my standards. My last live outings were +$1800, +$2800, and +$400. I lost the money in two key hands, one of which I made a small mistake. But I am getting ahead of myself. The point is that I let the money bother me.

After much ado, here is the poker action at Harrah’s: They only spread 3/6 limit and 1/2 NL. I sit at 3/6 while waiting for the 1/2 NL. Every flop is 4 or 5 way, usually un-raised. I wait a couple of rounds for cards. Nothing doing. I play 67 suited in early position, confident of getting the pot odds I need. Sure enough, there are 5 limpers behind me. The flop comes 667. I get paid. Next hand I pick up QQ. The flop comes QJ7, rainbow. I get paid by AJ. One really fun thing I watched while I was folding most of my hands: The guy across from me had a hillllllarious tell: every time he had a big hand, he tried to bet 6 or 12 on the flop. This is in a 3/6 game. Good times. I get a seat in the 1/2 NL game. So I cash out for a $60 profit.

No big or memorable hands happened in the 1/2 NL game, but I managed to double it on some small moves and one TPTK vs. TPSK hand in about an hour. It was just too easy. This day, I was not in the mood for fishing; I was in the mood for big game hunting. I cash out for another $200 profit and head over to the Borgata.

Tomorrow: The Hunt
Later this week: Playing in NYC, poker in St. Lucia and a really great picture of SoxLover

Victory! (And a Few Minor Defeats)

2005-12-26T11:40:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been a while since I blogged at you. I have been busy……busy kicking Veneno’s butt. Yes, she is only getting waffles here. She is whining in her latest post about how I sucked out on her. The fact is that I was on the mat earlier in that session and she let me back in.

In the final hand, I held AK and she held 77. Half of my chips are in the pot when the flop comes J5J. She goes all in, I call. The river is a king. Game, Set. Match. I figured she may be bluffing, but most likely she has a pocket pair or a 5. Given that I only need the one game to win the match and she needs two, I think it is a call. Let’s take a back-of-the-envelope look at the EV:

I call:
28% + 10% chance she is bluffing = 38% chance to win the match right then and there.

I fold:
I am a 2-1 underdog by the chip count. That makes me about 33% to win the match in that session.

I can afford to lose that game, as I would still have another shot at it. Call seems to be the correct play. So, I think more baking, photographing, shipping, and image hosting and less whining would be in order. Boo-yah!

The bad news is that I seem to have totally lost my focus. I have stopped tracking my sessions on my spreadsheet (although, my Poker Tracker stats are still in order.) I have stopped going back and analyzing the best and worst of my play after each session. And, I have stopped forward progress on my reading list.

This all started about a week ago. I had a couple of really bad beats. I should have just walked away. Instead I played harder. In the end, I made back all the losses from a really bad session. But that isn’t the bad part. I kept playing and playing. The cycle of wins and losses repeated several times. Finally, this morning, I realized that I had been sucked into a swirling vortex.

To put it simply, I had, in the last week, become outcome oriented, instead of process oriented. That seems to be the worst thing I could be doing. The whole point of this exercise is to have a process, use the process, and use the feedback I from the process to improve the process.

Where do I go from here?

I need to forgive myself for screwing up.
I need to resume tracking all of my sessions in my spread sheet.
I need to estimate my time and win/loss for the sessions I missed.
I need to set aside some time to catch up on my reading.
I need to get back into the habit of reviewing the best and worst of each session, immediately after the session.
I need to celebrate kicking Veneno’s butt.

I am going to be in AC (and probably NYC) tomorrow through Friday. I plan to bring my laptop and blog after each session.

Cheers.

Bonus Whoring and Stuff

2005-12-16T07:55:00.000-08:00

I am somewhat pissed at Party Poker right now. After quickly earning my initial deposit bonus, I got a re-deposit bonus from them. I have been up the whole time, so I hardly need to re-deposit. But, it is hard to pass up a free $100. The problem is that they pulled a bait-and-switch on me. The first bonus had a 500 raked hand requirement with 30 day expiration. The second one has a 1,000 raked hand requirement with 7 day expiration. I am a raving poker fiend, and even I am not sure I will be able to do this.

I have been three and four tabling 2/4 limit. I was mostly up until my last session. Therein, several knuckle draggers laid some nasty bad beats on me. For example, one of them made jacks and threes on the river against my flopped TPTK. Oh well. I am not giving up until I get my bonus. Fark them.

In other bonus whoring news, I still have half of a re-deposit bonus pending at Tilt. I guess I will be taking a break from Party, soon as I get my bonus from those cork sucking bastages. And, then, I can re-deposit at Tilt for another bonus. Good times.

I was wondering why these sites keep offering these bonuses. Then it hit me! Oh this is so good. There are lots of losing players and fewer winning players. The winning players are in the habit of withdrawing funds from time to time (ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.) That leaves the overall level of funds lower. This means less action, so less rake. To induce the losing players to keep it going, they offer bonuses. Because they don't want to piss-off the winning players, they offer the bonus to everyone. After all, you kind of have to be a winning player to make the required number of raked hands before going bust. And on top of it, I get rake-back. Except at Party. Those fargin iceholes.

If you don't know about rake-back, we need to talk. Next up: Atlantic City trip soon. Good times.

Peace.

Cock-Blocked

2005-12-15T09:34:00.000-08:00

Last night, in the 6:00pm UB 40+4 MTT, I was close to making the money. It would have been the second cash in a row in a MTT for me. In fact, I probably would have made the final table. There were 22 left, 20 pay. I had about 13,500, an above average stack. All I have to do is not screw up and I am in the money.

The blinds are 200 and 400, ante 50. I wake up in mid-postion with AA. I make it 1,800 to go. I get one customer in late postion for a call. He has me covered. The flop comes Td8hQd. I don't like the texture of this flop at all. With the straight draw and the diamond draw, I want to take this down right here. I go all-in. I get called by TT and get sent to the rail in 21st position. Oh well.

WPBT Trip Report (Part Two)

2005-12-14T09:36:00.000-08:00

The live games I played in were at Rio, MGM, Wynn, and Excalibur.

Rio:
I played two sessions there. The room is smoky (it is a non-smoking room, but is not divided from the rest of the casino or the sports book.) The players were drunk, obnoxious, and bad. They spread 4-8 limit and 2-5 NL. In my first session, I eked out a $270 win at NL in 3 hours without any exceptional hands. I feel that I could have made a bunch of money had I stayed. But the players were just too rude. Normally I tolerate rudeness when I am in a +EV situation, but I just wasn't in the mood.

The second session, the players were not as annoying, but I was card dead. I left even after an hour.

MGM:
I like the room. They spread pretty much whatever you want, within reason. I first sat in the 5-5NL game, and bought-in for the max ($1000.) It was a tough table with some moderate action. The scary thing is that I recognized some of the players from big games that I have played in the past in Reno and AC. The one I hand I played that is worth writing about was a real lulu.

I am in the CO. There are 5 limpers around to me. I see A7c. I limp. SB calls. The BB checks. Flop comes AQ7r. The action checks around to me. I bet 65. SB calls, everyone else folds. The turn is a brick. I bet $200. SB calls. The river is a brick. SB has me covered and goes all-in in front of me. What is my action?

I can't put him on AA, QQ, or AQ as he would have raised pre-flop, for sure. I can't put him on a turned or rivered set as he would have folded the flop. I can't put him on 77 as he would have check-raised the flop or turn. So, I can't put him on anything that beats me. I am on the verge of soiling myself as I call for all my chips. We chop.

After another two orbits of no hands, I decide that I don't want to swim in the shark tank anymore. I go play the 2/4 mixed stud games. I drink, play and break even. I get tired, go back to the Rio and lose some money playing craps.

The Wynn:
This is one of the nicest rooms I have ever been in. It is very classy and well decorated. Not only will they let you lock up a seat in advance (for a deposit of $20,) but they will also give you a pager (for a deposit of $100.) The decor is really classy. It is away from the casino and it is truly smoke free. The waitresses are nice, attentive, and hot. The tables and chairs are nice. Everything is nice. Except for the competition, that is. It was a rock garden. That is not too surprising, I suppose.

I sit in the 2/5NL game and buy-in for $500. SoxLover is on my right. Several orbits go by with very little action. One person busts out in a hand in which I was not involved. He leaves and is replaced by another player that buys in for $700. What? I thought it was $500 max buy-in. The dealer informs me that it is unlimited buy-in. SoxLover and I immediately buy up to $700.

Several more orbits go buy with very tight play. Then I get involved in a hand with the gentleman that sat with $700. I am UTG and he is MP. I have AA. I open for $35. He makes it $70 to go. The action folds around to me and I smooth call. Flop comes K83r. I check to him. He bets $200. I go all-in. He calls. He flips up KJ!!! The turn and river are blanks. He is de-stacked. WTF???

I was also involved in a very memorable hand with SoxLover. But I will let him tell the story, since he outplayed me.

The third hand that was notable in the session was really great, even if it was not the biggest. I am MP my opponent is LP. I have AK. I make it $35 to go. He thinks for a while and calls. He has about $120 remaining at this point. I see the dealer peel off the flop cards. I see a king come out, just before they are spread face up. The flop is K-rag-rag. I instantly announce all-in. I acted so quickly that he may think I did it in the dark. He thinks. And he thinks. At this point, I am sure I have him beat, and I am bored, so I start taunting him. "Just give me the pot and no one gets hurt" I say. He continues to think. "I know you are going to fold. Just go ahead and do it. Stop wasting our time." He calls and flips over JJ. Turn and river are bricks. I take it down. Another opponent busted.

I make a few plays at some small pots and mix it up a little more after that. After 4 hours, I cash out for a $950 profit.

The second session was also a rock garden. But I got paid with aces and with a flopped set against my opponent’s aces. Aces have been very good to me. I cash out for a $530 profit.

Excalibur:
They only spread very small games. But that's okay; we were there for some donk poker. I sit at the 1/3NL table, $200 max buy-in. G-Rob is on my right. F-Train is on my left. He busts twice and leaves. G-Rob bluffs me off a good hand with the hammer. The most fun was the $1 prop bets on the color of the wheel of misfortune. I cash-out for a $50 profit.

Net live game total: +$1800. Ka-ching!

Ka-ching, The Register Rings.

2005-12-13T21:43:00.000-08:00

I just finished 2nd in the UB 8:00pm 40+4 MTT. The cash was about $2200. I had Jordan sweating me at the final table. Thanks, man. I am way too tired to write about any of the hands. Besides, you want to hear about the big action live games I played in Vegas, right?

Reading List Update

2005-12-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I just finished the book that I was reading. The book is "The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time" by Michael Craig. I absolutely loved this book. This post is about why I loved the book and why you should read it.

First of all, this book is not instructional and contains very little in the way of detailed descriptions of hand play. Yet, it is about poker. When I heard the stories and rumors about the big game, I wanted to know all about it. It was just incredible to me that some rich dude would throw down the gauntlet and get the huge game he was looking for. When I heard that there was a book out about the game, I jumped on it. I was expecting to learn the story of the game and how it went down, and that's about all I was expecting.

Instead, what I got was an inside look at the lives of the top pros that were involved in the big game, the games they played with each other, the dynamics of the group that formed to play the challenger, and lots of interesting other tidbits. Most significantly, through reading this book, I got to know the challenger, and got to understand that he was anything but some rich dude looking for a game. Michael Craig paints a compelling picture of an extremely bright, extremely motivated challenger that went to unprecedented lengths to prepare himself for the matches. The fact that the mystery gentleman was competitive in his games with the top pros was just unbelievable to me until I absorbed the entirety of who he is and what his motivation seemed to be. The author does an excellent job of weaving the background of each of the pros, the life of the challenger, and the game details into a compelling story. It was more exciting to me than playing poker. Wow.

In the end, I ended up admiring the challenger even more than some of the top pros that played him. I found the story inspiring. While I may not achieve anything of the same magnitude, ever, I still found the story very inspiring. I can make myself a better player; a much, much better player. I may never be in the position to beat the top pros, but that's okay.

Not until I heard Michael Craig speak about his experiences writing the book did I understand what an achievement it was for him as a writer. The people involved in the big game are all very private people. The challenger is an even more private person. Nobody wanted to give any information out about the huge sums of money involved, the strategy and tactics, etc. Yet, using just one or two casual contacts, the author was able to work his way into the inner circle of the top pros, and into the confidence of the challenger. It must have taken a huge amount of determination and perseverance to pull that off.

Thank you, Michael, for writing the book. And, thank you for taking the time to speak with me at the WPBT event. It was great.

Next post: a break-down of my live action play during the WPBT trip.

Peace.

Guest Book

2005-12-12T17:06:00.000-08:00

Please Sign Here. Thanks.

WPBT Trip Report (Part One)

2005-12-12T17:05:00.000-08:00

I am still hung-over. But, I wanted to capture at least the essence of my trip and some of my key thoughts about it before they start to fade. First and foremost, I want to give much thanks to Bill Rini; it must have been a whole lot of work to organize all that.

When I decided to go, it was mainly to hang out with SoxLover; I didn't have a blog at the time, and wasn't sure I wanted to have one. I eventually decided that this is something I wanted to do. But, by the time I committed to the trip, the tournament list was full. So, I started out with very low expectations. I showed up at the main event just to see what it was like.

I was pleasantly surprised. It was a big thrill to hear Barry Greenstein speak. While I really enjoyed hearing Michael Craig speak, much of what he had to say I either knew or had inferred from having just finished reading his book. I got a chance to speak with him later about the book and the things that I liked about it. Talking to him was great. My next post will be about his book. Seeing Wil Wheaton was cool. In addition to having poker in common, we are fellow Farkers.

I wasn't expecting to get to play, but Bill made sure that the alternates would get to play as people busted out (for the first hour.) I made it in half way through the second level. I was card dead for almost the entire time. I picked up a few blinds. I picked up KQ in MP, blinds 200 and 400. I made it 1200 to go. I got raised to 1900 (all-in) by the SB. He had aces. I was crippled. Two hands later, I picked up the hammer. I went all-in for the last 1000 chips. Russ Fox called me with JJ and I was gone. At least I went out in style.

I got to meet lots of interesting people and had a good time. I am not really good with names; sorry. You were all cool. I hope if I stick with this, I will know most of you for next time. Please sign my guest book.

Next two posts: why you should read Michael Craig's book, and my cash game play (serious and donk-fest.)

Peace

Jackass

2005-12-06T16:28:00.000-08:00

I am in good shape in the $40 UB tourney. It is just before the first break. The villan's play is inexplicable. Even more inexplicable is that he makes near perfect runners to beat me. Okay, it's not like that crippled me, but it really fucking pissed me off. I shouldn't have let it shake me, but it did. I busted right after the break with a bad hand. If I had to do it over again, I would have taken a walk or something during the break. Live and Learn.

Hand #10108419-78 at Tue6pmA-011 (No Limit tournament Hold'em)

ALL-IN is at seat 0 with 10820.
Clayton JC is at seat 1 with 4560.
FrewDiggs is at seat 2 with 7375.
Triplesec is at seat 3 with 2315.
JDogg 20 is at seat 4 with 1980.
yre2e is at seat 5 with 1425.
COgolferguy is at seat 6 with 1845.
sdaan1 is at seat 7 with 1170.
quietwhine is at seat 8 with 2610.
weak_player is at seat 9 with 5250.
The button is at seat 4.

yre2e posts the small blind of 30.
COgolferguy posts the big blind of 60.

ALL-IN: -- --
Clayton JC: -- --
FrewDiggs: -- --
Triplesec: -- --
JDogg 20: -- --
yre2e: -- --
COgolferguy: -- --
sdaan1: -- --
quietwhine: -- --
weak_player: 8h 8d

Pre-flop:

sdaan1 folds. quietwhine folds. weak_player calls.
ALL-IN folds. Clayton JC folds. FrewDiggs folds.
Triplesec folds. JDogg 20 folds. yre2e calls.
COgolferguy checks.

Flop (board: Qh 8c 5c):

yre2e checks. COgolferguy checks. weak_player bets
180. yre2e goes all-in for 1365. COgolferguy folds.
weak_player calls.

Tournament all-in showdown -- players show:

yre2e shows Qd 2s.
weak_player shows 8h 8d.

Turn (board: Qh 8c 5c Qc):
(no action in this round)

River (board: Qh 8c 5c Qc Qs):
(no action in this round)

Showdown:
yre2e has Qd Qh 8c Qc Qs: four queens.
weak_player has 8h 8d Qh Qc Qs: full house, queens full of eights.

Hand #10108419-78 Summary:
No rake is taken for this hand.
yre2e wins 2910 with four queens.

Veneno is Getting Waffles, For Sure.

2005-12-05T20:49:00.000-08:00

Too bad it will be at be at IHOP. hehe.

ghengis_socrates: you said you don't cook. why would I want your cookies?
ghengis_socrates: can't make cookies without cook.
yosoyveneno: lol
ghengis_socrates: I want photos of you making them. hands only would be okay.
yosoyveneno: okay
yosoyveneno: deal
ghengis_socrates: and packing them and shipping them. posted on the web somewhere I can link to.
ghengis_socrates: you can have the same with the waffles, if you want.
ghengis_socrates: still a deal?
ghengis_socrates: and I want race to 7 on the matches. 2/3 not good enough.
yosoyveneno: okay
yosoyveneno: deal
ghengis_socrates: cool

Police And Thieves

2005-12-04T20:01:00.000-08:00

Well, my live game didn't go so well. And I don't mean because of the $ result. I got my chips all-in in the right spot, and busted in the $100 tourney. I was acting late. The blinds were 25 and 50. It was 175 to go. There were three callers in front of me. I had TT. I call. There was one caller behind me. The guy on the button (solid player that likes to gamble a bit) goes all-in for 1000. The action folds around to the guy on my right. He thinks for a long time before laying down. I think that the guy on the button has a big ace, and the guy that layed down had a big ace. So, I call. The one caller behind me folds. So, we are HU. He shows AJ. The guy to my left says he folded AK. An ace hits the flop. I am crippled. Oh well.

I spend an hour reading my book while waiting for the cash game to get going. I got to the part where Jennifer Harman hands Andy Beal his ass. Sweet! The game starts. It is $400 NL, blinds are 2 and 5. I draw the button. I am dealt QJ. UTG makes it 15. He gets three callers. I call. Flop comes QTK, rainbow. UTG bets 30, only has 30 remaining. I put him all in. He shows Q9. Turn 2, river 4. I take it down. So far, so good.

Then disaster strikes. A thunderous knock rang out. It was coming from the door. It was as though it was being kicked down. Except, it was louder. A quick check of the surveillance camera shows some masked thugs with a battering ram. Seriously. The door withstands three blows. I was wishing I had my compact .380 auto with the frangible ammo. Then, upon reconsideration, I am glad that I didn't have it.

The would be robbers ditch. The proprietor calls the cops. With clock like precision, the chips are counted, stored, along with table #2, and all the chairs. Table #1 is covered with a table cloth and food. The tournament board is replaced with Sunday Night Football. We all whistle as the cops come and take a report. The cops leave.

The proprietor is someone I like and respect. He is in a bad spot. He has a bit invested in this setup. But he also fears for the safety of his customers. Here, robbery is a much bigger threat than the law. This is not even close to the first sign of trouble in the underground scene here. Several armed robberies have already gone down. One place got busted, but it seems that none of the charges stuck. But I think underground poker is doomed. Much more doomed than it seemed it was in NY. Fuck.

Bankroll Managment

2005-12-04T08:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, I believe I have been substantially following my goals. This morning, I went through and analyzed all of the big hands I was involved in recently. On the plus side, there were some major luck situations, some of which I get points for getting maximal extraction. On the minus side, I found one hand that I was in for no appearent reason. It was so abhorrent, I am not even going to post it here. The problem is that I think most of my good work was in the middle, stealing small pots, and getting away from potential big losers. Any thoughts on how I can use PT to find these? I probably need to keep hand written notes as I go, and then add these notes to the PT db later.

I have been on a tear lately. Since 12/1/05, I am up $788, including $130 of bonus whoring. Thinking about my current heater, one thing is appearent to me: While having to re-load a given poker account is not a problem for me (most of my roll is in Neteller,) it is a big psychological downer. I have been playing mostly $100NL games. I think I could play bigger and still get good results. But, the varience would be too big for any one of my poker accounts individually. So, I plan to stay at this level at each of the sites I play until I have about $1200 in a given account. At that point, I will start taking shots at the $200NL game. When I get over $2000, I can start thinking about a withdrawal.

For live games, my roll is probably big enough. I have 10 buy-ins for a $400-$500NL game, which is what I like to play. My main problem is that I tend to use this cash for other purposes. SoxLover told me that when he does this, he writes himself a marker. I think I will start doing this. For the upcoming trip to vegas, I will need to divide that into a craps/BJ roll, a poker roll, and a spending money roll. I am thinking $1000 craps/BJ, $2500 Poker, $500 spending money.

I am having a hard time coming up with firm rules for bankroll managment. I don't do this for a living, and can add more money anytime I want. But, it clearly is part of the regime of discipline. I want to avoid re-loading any of my poker accounts, and I want to avoid using Neteller (or my real bank) to reload my live game roll. I will do this by playing no more than 1/6 of my roll at a time on any given on-line site. Ideally, it will be less than 1/10 of my roll. I know it should be a far smaller percentage, but that would involve playing at fewer sites, and keeping more cash at the sites than I keep in Neteller. I would prefer to not do that. My other challange is that I would prefer to get most of action at Full Tilt, as I get rake-back there.

Obviously, I have not thought this out enough. Any suggested reading or pointers?

Results

2005-12-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

I think I am making good progress. I have kept perfect records of all of my sessions. I have also made progress in eliminating distractions. And, I am half way through the first book. I had surgery yesterday; this is why I haven't posted lately. I am fully recovered. Weak Player isn't really weak.

I did make two mistakes, though. I lost my temper after a really bad beat, and starting calling my opponent a donkey. He was a donkey, but I shouldn't have said anything. Also, I played two tournaments last night while I was high. I was still high from the anesthesia. SoxLover made me play even though I explained that I was high. It was his fault. Personal responsibility is un-American.

Site	Type	Net
Noble	NLHE 100	$95.00
Noble	NLHE 200	$102.50
Party	NLHE 50	$50.00
Party	Stud 5/10	$54.00
Party	NLHE 100	$72.25
Party	NLHE 100	$46.40
Stars	NLHE SNG	-$22.00
Stars	NLHE SNG	-$22.00
Stars	NLHE MTT	-$22.00
Stars	NLHE MTT	-$11.00
UB	NLHE MTT	-$33.00
UB	NLHE MTT	$23.10
UB	NLHE MTT	-$33.00
UB	NLHE MTT	-$33.00
		$333.25

Reading List

2005-11-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

Here is the reading list I promised yesterday:

The Professor, The banker, and The Suicide King. Ben Franklin is my bookmark for this one. It seemed appropriate. Its a real page turner, so I should be able to put Ben back where he belongs shortly.
Harrington on Holdem (both volumes) Still need to find them. They are in here somewhere.
The Theory of Poker
Supersystem II
Weighing the Odds in Hold'em Poker
Profiling Poker "Nitwits"
Supersystem (again)
Card Player
2+2 Forum
Card Player Forum
Other blogs (of course.)

If you have any comments on my list, or any suggested additions, I would love to hear from you.

Peace.

SMART

2005-11-30T16:04:00.000-08:00

Okay, now it is time to talk about goals. The problem with goals is that they are frequently too vague to be useful. For example "I want to be a professional poker player." How much do you want to make? Playing what games? Do you want to be famous? By when do you want to achieve "professional" status? You get the idea.

I don't think I will have a complete set of goals by the end of this post, but I will put some out there. The goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. I think you will get the idea of what I am trying to achieve, and may be able to either suggest additional goals, or at least give me the feedback I need to write the goals in a SMARTer fashion.

You may think this all sounds silly, or perhaps that I am being too anal. Maybe you think that I just won't stick with it. I certainly have thoughts like that. I will just take a shot at it and see how it works out. In advance, thanks for your feedback.

I would like to exercise more discipline in my playing.

I will always act with class and courtesy. Except with people I know well, who deserve less (you know who you are.)
Log positively every single session I play (even if PokerTracker is already doing it for me.)
Import every tournament summary into PT
Perform post-analysis on every big hand I am involved in (hmmmm, lots of blog material here.)
Carefully review PT data once a week.
No web surfing or watching TV while I am playing. Ever.
No booze or drugs while I am playing. At least not when playing with any large sums of money. Let's say no more than $20 at risk. Not that I would ever take drugs. That would be wrong.
I will begin doing all of the above starting 12/1/05.
I will post an entry on my bankroll managment plans no later than 12/8/5. The final product will become encorporated into this list.
I will evaluate my progress on this goal every two weeks.
I will publish new blog entries every day. I will use this my blog, in part, as a tool for tracking my progress against these other goals.

I would like to focus on specific games, and not play other games, at least for now.

NLHE ring games will be my primary focus. I will spend at least 45% of my playing time playing these games.
I will also play NLHE tournaments and SNGs quit a bit. I will spend at least 35% of my playing time on these games.
I will play 7-stud high occasionally. I will spend no more than 25% of my playing time playing these games.
When I multi-table, I will not mix formats.
I will evaluate my progress on this goal twice a week.

I would like to study the game as well as play it.

I will read poker books and magazines.
I will maintain a reading list (to be published here as a blog entry.)
I will read at least one poker book a month.
I will read other bloggers every day.
I will spend at least four hours a month reading 2+2 and/or card player forums.

I would like to make friends and have fun

(crap, I don't know how to make this one specific.)

Let me know what you think.

Cheers.

Friends

2005-11-27T10:25:00.000-08:00

Well, I am still working on a mission statement and a plan. I spent most of my blog time this morning tweaking my template to include links to my blogger friends. As Veneno puts it "...the least I can do is pimp his blog." She has been kind enough to include me in her links section. Sox Lover has been a little slow (ehhhhmmmm.)

I had a great time last night. Some other bloggers helped me get the voice feature of Yahoo IM running. Then, I had lots more fun in the audio conference. I played a HU match against Veneno and lost (score: 5-1, advantage Weak Player.) I then played a 4-way HU match. I played Gordogg and lost. Then, I entered a huge $10 MTT and busted out. But I got a piece of Sox Lover’s action. Yay! Finally, I played a 180 seat $20 SNG. I made 4th, $288.00 pay-out. That took me to beyond “up too late.”

The bottom line: I am starting to realize that becoming a blogger, and hanging with bloggers is about, at least partially, making friends, friendly competition, and all the attended bragging and taunting. So, I don't have a mission statement or a plan yet. But, part of it is going to be: "Make friends and have fun."

Peace.

Hello, World!

2005-11-25T22:24:00.000-08:00

Okay, I have been thinking about it. My poker blogger friends have encouraged me to start one. Christ, I am even going to a poker blogger convention next month in Vegas next month!. It is time. Thanks to SoxLover and yosoyveneno, and others, I am on my way.

So, since this is mostly for me, I think my next post or series of posts are going to be creating and refining my mission statement. By this, I firstly mean "what I am going to accomplish with this blog?" Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I mean "what is my ambition as a poker player?"

When I have this down, I can move on to how am I going to accomplish this, and what my progress is. What do you think?