Tilted Halibut

Blog 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 09:32:00 +0000

Ok, so this blog kind of petered out.

It's time to try again. I have been playing poker, so an update will follow soon!

January review

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:49:00 +0000

High time for a serious progress update.

It's been a couple of weeks since I blogged due to a combination of being very busy and some poker and health challenges.(see next post). So here is what has been going on, starting with a review of January.

Overall
Overall in January I made a small profit online, if I include rakeback and bonuses. SNG's were pretty profitable, but I played a lot of tournament & satellites in a concerted effort to gain experience. I lost money in these, but think I improved a lot as a result - experience is a key thing I lack. I lost money playing live - almost a grand (see later).

Live cash games
Well these were a disaster. I have not been playing at the casino, since I can't do the late nights when I have to work the next day and have been seeing my lady friend at weekends, and frankly as I have nowhere near the bankroll to play them.

Play in the regular (smaller) home game was disastrous. In 4 games I ended a grand down. Half of this was due to a huge tilt session (documented in a previous post), the other half due to a very tough night where I just could not hit a flop, apart from a couple of huge draws where I put my money in with the best of it and did not get paid.

It is somewhat perplexing - I have found it much harder to win in our incredibly loose small stakes home game than I did last year in a casino game with stakes 10 times as big and far better players. Certainly the home game makes me play very loose which I need to address. I also need to stop trying to take down pots with continuation bets when I miss the flop and there were 3 preflop callers - it just does not work in this game.

Online cash games
I did not play cash online until right at the end of the month when party had there 100$ reload bonus. I deposited 500 there to work off the bonus, and as always seems to happen at party I got killed at the 50$ & 100$ NL hold em tables. I really cannot play cash games online it seems. I am useless. Certainly I need to drop down to 25 and put some time in improving, but I also find party has always dealt me horrible beats - every time I hit a set someone else seems to sho up with a bigger one!

So before long I was 400$ down chasing a 100$ bonus, and decided to switch to Omaha (a game I want to put some effort into this year). Adopting the Rolf Slotboom shortstack tight preflop strategy I soon repaired some of the damage helped by the fact that even a Omaha novice like me can see that some of the 50$ & 100$ Omaha players on party are just clueless. Thanks to a hot run at the Omaha tables, I finished the bonus chase only a hundred down, a embarrassing result but not the disaster it was proving to be.

Live tournament play
I played 6 of the weekly 80 runner PL or NL 50+10- rebuy NL or PL tournaments at the casino, which were a complete washout until the night of my second last post (the Halibut excels himself) when I played great and hit the final table as second chip leader...only to be all in first hand of the final table against the chip leader with JJ on a low, 3 flush board......when he had flopped the nut flush. That night I really despaired at some of my poor decisions.

The wound was eased the very next week, where despite being short stacked and card dead for most of the time, I played a perfect game to make it to the final table, and despite no cards to work with ended up 4th after a donkey called my push with Q4 with J3 and rivered me! 650 euros here left me even for the month and made me realise I can actually play when I engage my brain! It also made me realise that even someone of my limited experience knows more about how to play than a lot of the people in these casino tournaments.

Online tournament play
This was more a case of pilgrims progress - a lot of learning and not a lot of end product. I am an aggressive player who can ask questions of opponents, but I need to learn better when to ask them! The culmination of this came in the 100$ entry 100k guaranteed on mansion when I was chip leader with 30 left (out of 500), and managed to go out in 29th when my resteal attempt with 22 bumped into AA. The 450$ i got for that felt like a huge let down when first prize is 25k!

Still, I am becoming a better player, which is the focus of my play!

So that was January!

a short hiatus....

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Has impacted my blogging....personal, health and poker issues.

I promise to write a full blog update tomorrow.

The Halibut Excels himself - Part 1....

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:03:00 +0000

...Or how I managed to go into my first Casino final table of the year chip leader and finish 9th.

Gutted. I made a call that smelt of putrid fish.

I have to get to bed as I am up in 3 hours for a 2 day work event, which gives me a welcome break from poker, upon my return I will lay bare the details of my achievement.

Progress update

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:00:00 +0000

A progress update....

Live tournament play is a black hole this month.
Tournament play is a black hole - just been sucked out of the Mansion poker100$ 100k guaranteed (attracted by the massive overlay), Pokerstars 25k guaranteed and Full tilt 11k guaranteed; I was running well in each.
I have not played a single cash game hand this month so far!
Turbo Sit & Gos are keeping my bankroll heading in the right direction -here is how my bread and butter is going since my last lengthy post on the subject:-

The swings playing these turbo SNGs are brutal. However I am making $, and now I am playing exclusively 33$ & 55$ turbos, 4 at a time. I am improving as a (SNG) player I believe, so I hold out hope that the ROI will rise next month. I learnt a lot from the big downswing at the start of the month. ROI is 7%.
Rakeback really makes a difference. I got 200$ this month from December, and will get well over 300 in February from this months play. Anyone who does not have it, get it!
I have played over 600 of these things so far this month - boosted by 4 days off work after new year where I played solid. I can't keep this rate up next month, it's too much with a full time job. I am away for a couple of days this week so I don't think I will get much past the 700 mark.
I am thinking about the goals for next month. I may spend some time on my cash game - which really needs some work and do some studying, or I may continue grinding these things. More on that at the end of the month.
Final note - I think I could easily 6 table these now, if not 8, if I had another monitor. Goal: Win another 600$ for 21 inch LCD display ;-)

Apparently I am not a muppet, just a Dane pretending to be a drunken Irishman.....

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:11:00 +0000

So I got chatting during a Full Tilt 55+5 turbo to a regular opponent (who seems to play these professionally) and is Swedish.

He thinks I am Danish. Partly as my screen name could hint at that....

...but mainly because I "play scary aggressive".

Not sure how I feel about this. I am tight early on, but when the blinds get big, I play these things VERY fast, and I bust out like a donkey in plenty, but steal a lot of blinds and win a lot of pots with the worst hand and get paid off on my good ones. I am making money over 1000 Turbo SNGs at 22-55 level, so I am doing something right - and this figure includes the first few hundred where I had no idea what I was doing. My ROI could be a lot better though - I have huge room for improvement.

Then later on I go all in (with 8 big blinds) for a blind steal in another 55+5 with JT and am called with A2offsuit by a solid player. I am shocked he calls with this and tell him so.

He tells me that he would not have called against anyone else, but called based on his notes on me. "Plays wilder than a drunk Irishman."

This worries me!

He then tells me that he also rates my play and has me down as "Dangerous".

I tell him that I obviously need to tighten up my stealing requirements against him, which he thinks is a good idea. I make a note on him that he thinks I am loose.

Having sown this thought in his mind, I steal his big blind 3 orbits in a row with utter trash. How I smiled.

On a reflective note, I am conscious of table image when stealing blinds, but I had never considered what my opponents actually thought of me before. I guess being thought of as wildly aggressive is much better than weakly timid, but I have to be careful with my late game stealing against regular players who by now know that I am pushing with a very wide range of hands when I am shortstacked. It is nice to know that at least a few people view me as a decent player and not a donkey. Progress!

Finally on a very satisfying note, I won some SNGs on Sunday; Of note was a stars 25+2 turbo where I had 75 chips at one stage and made a storming comeback, and a Full Tilt 55+5 where I was down to 100 chips and came back to be very shortstacked with 5 players left but played it perfectly (and of course was very lucky) to make it into the money and then win. Very satisfying.

Now if I can just stop playing live cash games like a Dane pretending to be a drunken Irishman we may see some progress on that front.....

I am a muppet.

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:23:00 +0000

I should have sent Kermit the frog to play with my bankroll at the home game last night. He would have played better.

I start off card dead for 4 hours (again!). I called raises with a few small pocket pairs and suited connectors, hit nothing, tried a bluff or two, and am soon stacked pushing a draw.

I rebuy, I drink a beer.

I get JJ. I raise, get a caller. I bet the K85 flop; he re-raises me all in (its only a bit more than twice my original bet as I am short-stacked). I have a feeling he does not have the K, and this guy is loose, so I call. He has A5. He hits an ace on the river.

I rebuy, I drink a beer.

Then I get AK or AQ 5 times in short succession. Each time I raise around 5 BBs (this is a loose game!), and get at least 4 callers. Each time I miss the flop. A couple of times I continuation bet and am raised, the other times I check and am raised off the pot. Each time a big hand develops between 2 of the callers.

I rebuy some more, and drink some more beer.

3 top pair hands follow, each time I am called down and face an all in bet on the river when the opponent has made his flush or straight.

I rebuy some more, and drink some more beer.

I get dealt AJ, raise, get a caller, and the flop comes J 85 with 2 suits. I put him on a draw with maybe a weaker pair. I bet the pot on the flop. He calls. Turn is blank. I bet half the pot on the turn, he calls. River is a blank - a 3. His draw is busted. I value bet the river. He calls. He had 83 suited, and made 2 pair on the river.

I rebuy, I drink some more beer. I am now not enjoying myself.

Given that ABC poker seems to have failed, I now begin to think I am Gus Hansen, some loose aggressive wizard, and am playing any 2 cards that have some kind of relation to each other, and betting big on scary flops to force my opponents to fold. For every time I bet them off, they come back over the top as they have much deeper stacks than me.

I rebuy, I drink some more beer. I am now double rebuying as the stacks are deep. I think I might be on tilt at this point.

I get dealt aces - the first big pair of the night. Everyone folds and I win the blinds. This is like the first time someone has won the blinds without a caller all night, and it is annoying as I am more or less playing every hand by now. Next hand I go all in semi-bluffing on a draw, I don't improve.

I rebuy, I drink some beer. I must have irritated the S*** out of the other players with my whinging by now. (in fact go back 6 paragraphs, I must have irritated the S*** out of them by then).

At this point a testosterone battle has erupted between me and one of the other players as we are betting and raising each other off of pots with very little. I hit top pair weak kicker, and decide that my opponents re-raise is him making a play on tilted old me, I go all in. He has 2 pair.

I make a great laydown - in that I decide to go home.

I am a muppet.

I read all these books, do all this thinking & studying, then I go and play like that. Why do I bother if I can't a) accept I won't get cards/hit flops for long periods and b) not get tilted by it?

I really feel embarrassed and humiliated. I was a total fish last night, and in almost every situation I absolutely knew better. I stopped thinking. I was one of the big fish. I was so utterly tilted I was there for the taking and everyone at the table knew it apart from me.

Even with my limited abilities and experience, I should be comfortably a winning player in this game.

If I can't apply what I know, then I had better stop wasting my time playing this game. Maybe I am not cut out to be a poker player? I am on notice. Either learn to control tilt, or take up yoga.

I will never drink alcohol while playing poker again. Ever.
Continuation betting after missing the flop with 4 callers is rarely profitable.
Don't go broke with top pair, especially in a loose game.
You are not Gus Hansen. You are not even a good player.
Don't be Kermit the frog. Everyone laughs at you, not with you.

Arresting the slide....

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:26:00 +0000

So I arrested the SNG slide last night and won a couple of 55 turbos, after moving some money I moved from FT to Neteller earlier this week back to FT (I am glad, living in Europe, that I am still able to do so!). So far this month I have been down 1000$, then up 1500$, now up 500$. Brutal swings. I am going to stick to the 33's for the moment until I stabilise my play.

I think 60% of this is variance. But being honest the rest is bad play. I have been sitting down for a quick session of a set of4 SNG's before doing something else, and I never seem to play well at the start of a session, I always seem to need to "warm up". This is having a real impact on my bottom line. Once I sat down for a long session last night, I began to play well again. But bad decisions in these SNGs really hurt when they make you miss the money, or not take 1st when you should do.

I think I need to look at my pre-session preparation. Not eating my dinner at my desk at the start of a session might help. Need to think more on this, because in these SNGs when I am hot I kill them, and at other times like last night I am calling a raise & re-raise all in on the bubble with 99, which was just awful.

Meeting Ms D. tonight for a meal, and then the weekly home game on Saturday - since it is moved from the usual Sunday night slot this week there should be a long session with some alcohol involved.....I am either going to win big or lose big I think....hopefully I can play good poker this time for the duration of the session.

The end of US players?

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:04:00 +0000

So it looks like the US government is following through on it's zealous ambition to prevent the innocent American citizens being corrupted by the evils of online poker (but horse racing and lottery is ok by the way). Neteller founders have been arrested and they will be pulling out of the US market. Getting money to and from a poker account will be much more difficult, impossible for some. Does this mean I will find it harder to get a game of poker late at night?

I don't want to get political in this blog, but whatever happened to America the land of the free, champion of liberty? It seems to be run now by lobby groups, full of restrictions on individuals at home and violent foreign policy abroad.

I am glad to be European today (funny how having lived away from the UK for so long I feel European now - maybe the topic for another post!), and my sympathies to fellow players across the pond. I guess from my point of view, there will be more investment in European markets, which is good for us. I also may have fewer people calling me a "Donk" if there are no more US players ;-) However, it has to be seen as a disaster for poker and for individual freedoms. I just sat back and thought about how I would (will? - it could happen here!) feel if online poker were banned in Holland. My hobby taken away from me, something I have invested so much time in. What about people who feed their families playing online? this is just awful.

Live poker is rigged!

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:45:00 +0000

Just returned - earlier than expected - from my weekly foray to the Holland's pot limit rebuy/add on tournament.

I am frustrated right now - for the second time in 3 weeks I was card dead. And I mean card dead. No suited connectors, not a pair in sight, AQ once (missed flop), nothing. Meanwhile left right and centre around the table we had AA vs AK twice, numerous other big pairs and sets. I felt like the poor guy at an investment bankers convention.

I tried everything - I limped, I gambled, I rebought (3 times - 210 euros for the night). Not even a hint of a flop hit. I went out (very short stacked) trying to represent trip Aces.....the other guy actually had 3 aces. So the last 3 live tournaments I have been totally card dead twice and in the other lost a huge pot when 87% favourite. Most annoying thing is that this weekly rebuy has a large percentage of absolute donkeys - and weak passive ones at that. If I can just get some chips early I can easy cash.....which I need to do or I my live bankroll will be broke!

I love live play but boy can it test you when you have nothing to play with - at least online I can play 4 tables at once!

To top it off I am on a SNG downswing again - 19 buy-ins and counting...

Poker must be fixed, surely......

Alien visitation!

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:47:00 +0000

Some people have visited this blog!

After a link exchange with the very personable Mr Cloud (whose posts I very much enjoy) some adventurous surfers appear to have visited me.

Now this changes everything. This is now not just a little diary of my progression and regression as a poker hobbyist (I don't dare call myself a player yet). I have responsibilities. Maybe even an audience.

How will I cope? Is this what all bloggers go through, a sudden realisation that someone is actually reading, judging, commenting, engaging with or rejecting your writing? Does it change things? Or do I just carry on writing these ramblings safe in the knowledge that having read my attempts at being interesting once these visitors will jump right back in their little spacecraft, mark their starmap with "unfit for habitation" and blast off back into blogsphere?

Amidst the summaries of my ups and downs, I will attempt to write some interesting or amusing thoughts, just in case anyone who has been here once actually should come back again.

Stay tuned.

Monday mid-month musings.....

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:40:00 +0000

So a quicky on a Monday morning when I am trying to get into my work.

Home game fishy play
Have not played online cash and do not intend to this month or until I burn out at SNGs. I played last night in the regular home game, hosted by yours truly. We were 8 handed for most of the time which is unusual, and there was the usual mix of bad play and some good in what is a very loose game.

It was a disappointing night. It's a .5/1 euro NL game, and at one point I was 400 up and playing really well, using position to bully people and making sensible decisions. Then in the last hour I proceeded to blow it and finish 47.50 up. I came out ahead but it feels like a loss. However, focussing on what I learnt, and I have some key poker concepts reinforced in a few hands where I blew my winnings from previous tight(ish) aggressive play:-

- Don't get attached to Aces. Especially when called down by a loose manic calling station, and especially as with each street more draws which fit his crazy preflop hand selection appear. Don't then pay off a large river bet by convincing yourself that he actually only has a pair when he could have had a flush, a number of straights, a set or 2 pair. He had the flush. I doubled him up. I call this "Please don't let my Aces/Kings be beat, I waited so long for them" syndrome. Online I would have laid this down - why did I make this mistake live?

- When an aggressive player who bets his big hands big joins the game midway and sits on your left, don't build a big pot preflop when out of position when he has shown a lot of strength and you have AK. Why I re-raised his raise of my bet when it was clear he had a big hand I do not know, but what was worse was that when the flop missed me (and I had put him on QQ or KK) I bet into him, having to fold when he then pushed showing me Kings. I had a read on him at the start (see later), why didn't I act on it?

- Think about why I am making a bet before I make it, especially if it is a river bet. Am I bluffing, or betting for value. If it is the river, will a worse hand call me?

- Position, position, position. I won a lot of pots last night in position. In many of them, I actually had no hand to speak of. I lost a lot of that money out of position betting into a hand. I need to continue to be aggressive in position, and more cautious out of position. I lose most of my money betting when out of position. How basic is this?

Learning point for the month: Trust your reads
I am making reads - good ones. Huh? Big deal I hear you say. Well, as a fledgling player this new revalation is quite satisfying. All those thousands of hands I have cluelessly stumbled through over the last year are beginning to bear fruit. I am beginning to develop card sense and instincts based on previous experience (usually losing experience). I am picking up on body language live. I am seeing patterns online. I am putting someone on a hand, sometimes.

Only problem is, I am making the read but not acting on it and just going ahead with the standard donkey play I had in mind anyway and then realising after losing the chips that I knew better.

Oh well, I guess Rome was not built in a day.

SNG's
SNG's are going stormingly well now. Despite my continued flair at making donky plays, I have recovered from my 1000$ downswing, am well in credit and the bankroll is really starting to grow - I have creamed off 1k chunks from FT back to Neteller twice in a week, this is really unprecedented - last year money was always going in the other direction,originating from my credit card!

Tried a 110+9 turbo on Friday as a little reward for being such a good boy in winning lots of SNGs....and I won it! I won't be playing these regularly until my bankroll is bigger, but it was reassuring that the level of play did not seem much different from the lower levels.

My SOP now is to open a FT turbo 22+2, 33+3 & 55+5 at the same time (there is not enough traffic like there is on stars to have 3 or 4 of the same buy in open in short order) and then open another 33 or 22 as soon as I can. I am quite comfortable playing 4 tables now and I think I could handle another 2 or 3 if I have another monitor (which I will pay for out of poker money when I make my first cashout, hopefully some time this year).

MTTs
I played in 6 MTTs last week with fields >700 people. I cashed in 3 - 6 months ago I would have thought this was not possible. Yet I was very disappointed. Why? in each case I was near chip leader, and with more experience and composure I had a shot at the final table. Except, I don't have any experience going deep in these MTTs. Yet.

My MTT game is really improving in terms of chip collection - I am making moves without big hands and picking up on and exploiting weakness. Only problem is, I either make donkey plays to lose chips or my attempts to steal blinds later on lose me chips.

Goodbye stars
I have cashed out most of the money from stars. I have collected the bonus (though I only broke even on the chase due to the SNG downswing), and kept a little there for the odd MTT. I hate the software which pales into comparison compared to FullTilt, and much prefer the FT SNG turbo structure which has faster progression but more levels. They also seem softer. But I guess the main reason is that FT gives me rakeback - which is working out at a couple of hundred a month - not to be sneezed at!

Looking ahead this week, will play in one or 2 live tournaments at the Holland, grind some more SNGs, maybe a couple of shots at the FT 11k guarantee MTT, a (hopefully) romantic date on Friday with Ms. D as she will now be known in this blog, and try to get to the gym.....

Tournament Disappointments...

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:35:00 +0000

One of my goal for the year is to improve my tournament results, and especially online actually concentrate and play well (rather than donk of chips trying to be overly aggressive).

So I played in 3 so far this week, 1 online and 2 live, and each was disappointing in it's own way.

Monday night I played in the FullTilt 11k guaranteed 24$+2$ - this tournament is perfect for me as it starts 8pm Amsterdam time. I started well and got good hands which held up, and I was soon cruising through the 722 player field. I donked off a bunch of chips, but recovered and made my first cash in a FT tournament as 3rd chip leader with over 80k, stealing well and maintaining a very tight image through the bubble stage - helped by the fact that I must have had AK 9 times during this time. The final table, and a shot at 5k first prize loomed.

Then I went card dead, totally. The blinds were getting big, and now we were in the money play had really loosened up. I lost patience and tried a steal with J4s, but got caught with my hand in the cookie jar when a short-stack called me and I lost the hand and my table image. The next 20 minutes were sick - I never got a hand and every time I tried a steal someone came over the top. In a flash I was short-stacked and then out in 32nd. 63$ seemed like a punch in the face after being in such a good position. However, whilst I lost patience at the end - I should have waited a little more to try and pick up a hand - my focus was final table or nothing and I am not sure I would do things differently again. Luck was not with me.

Tuesday I played in the Holland Casino 50 euro NL rebuy, and it was not enjoyable. The rebuy hour was a joke - more like the lottery than poker with every hand a case of how many people will be all in preflop. This is part of the territory with a rebuy, but without exaggeration during that hour my best hand was A3, I never had a pocket pair or 2 face cards and the nearest I had to a decent suited connector was 75 of spades - which I folded unwilling to call all in pre-flop (and would have made a straight!!). I foolishly chucked all my chips in at the last hand for the rebuy, re-bought and almost immediately with the rising blinds am playing shortstack. Not enjoying the experience, I commit a shortstack sin of pushing over a raise with a easily dominated hand (AT) and he flips AQ to send me home.

Last night I played in the Holland's 50 euro Pot Limit rebuy/add on, a tournament I final tabled at the end of last year and I really enjoy given that there is actually some proper poker in the first hour. I did not get cards again, but this time was able to see some flops, and due to a gamble (44 all in vs 4 other players, i hit a 4 on the river) and hitting some flops I finish the rebuy hour with 4000 (from start of 500) without reaching into my pocket. Final table here I come!!

I then make an awful play. I raise pot in the cutoff with AQo, SB (a tight pro player) re-raises pot. I call. Flop is dry, he puts his last 300 in and i call. Just what part of his range did I think I was beating when i called pre-flop? So he has KK and I have donked off a 1000. I spend the next 10 minutes steaming, and have to go for a walk to get a drink. I need to manage this steaming better.

My Steam gets cured when I try a blind steal with J6, and get called by the button. Flop comes k62, we both check. Turn is a 9, and I bet 200 into a pot of 300 and he calls. I am putting him on a draw or a medium PP here. Another 9 comes on the river, and I bet the pot. He asks me if I have the 9, gets ready to call...and folds. So back to 4000.

Then comes one of the most upsetting hands I can remember. With Blinds at 50-100 I get dealt KK UTG. I limp in, seeing one of the main tournament players (he seems to final table every week) who is super aggressive with 3500 chips on the button. 5 limpers after me (!), and then sure enough villain bets pot. I re-pot, and he shoves all his chips in. I am thinking AA?? Hopefully AK/QQ....he actually has KdQd. How a good player goes all in in that situation with KQs after a limp re-raise I don't know.

I am big favourite, with 7500 in the middle and I can make my way to the final table with my eyes closed with that many chips. 2 diamonds on the flop, diamond on the river. Unbelievable.

QQ next hand allows me to double up and stage a short recovery, but I am soon short-stacked and out soon after.

I elected to walk the 15 minutes home rather than take the tram which allowed me to curse the whole way.

You can't fool a woman....

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:46:00 +0000

Quick little snippet from my relatively uneventful existance:-

On the phone to my relatively new lady friend (we have been dating since July), just chatting about stuff. I am sat in my office speaking to her, too ashamed to admit that when she calls I am in the middle of 4 stars SNG's. Challenging the myth that a man cannot do 2 things at once I am trying to navigate the push or fold stage of these 4 tables whilst making nice smalltalk with this really rather cute lady.

Lady: "Are you listening to me?"

Me: "Yes of course"

Lady: "What did I just say"?

Me: Silence, faced with a big call for all my chips on table #1

Lady: "Are you playing poker while speaking to me?"

Me: "No."

Lady: "Yes you are. I can hear the beeping noise that your poker program makes when you have to play a hand".

Busted. :-) I did get 2 firsts, a 2nd and a 3rd though!

Anatomy of a moron.....

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:16:00 +0000

"ur a jafi"

I studied the chat window and furrowed my brow. Now perhaps if there are any readers of this blog they may instantly know (perhaps it is North American slang?) what this meant.

Playing a stars 25+2 SNG I had recently just sucked out on another player, who had made himself busy since then telling me that I was a moron. I had called called his massive overbet on a 2 flush 479 high flop with pocket 8's putting him on a draw. He actually had a set of 4's but I hit a 8 on the river. I had actually apologised afterwards, which I do quite often in these circumstances, as whilst i gratefully take the chips I hate to win this way.

Then a few hands later I called a push from a shortstack with AJ, he turned over K9 and hit his 9 on the river. "Darn, he lucks out when I totally have him dominated" I typed into the chat window. Obviously, I forgot to prefix the comment with "*Begin Sarcasm*". Mr villain then errupted, despite me pointing out that I was making a joke.

After a number of comments that could only loosely pass for English of some description, I was moved to type "Excuse me could you write this in English please".

Villain: "You are a jafi"

Me: "What is a Jafi"?

Villain: "You".

This repartee continued for a few minutes until I pointed out to the villain that he was lacking a sense of humour, manners and a basic grasp of English. At this point I also realised that he was actually tilting me, and that my attention had wandered from the other 3 tables I had running and that I had just made a bad call in one of them to be busted out.

Me: "You are a plonker".

Villain: "What is a plonker"?

Me: "You"

As the old saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them ;-)

Seriously though, I have lost count recently of the number of times I have been called "Moron" or "Donk" this last week - mostly after actually making a good read and calling with a weak but best hand or semibluffing with and hitting a big draw. After a while it started to get under my skin and make me angry. Unfortunately I can't jump down the wire and beat these people senseless (and in any case I would likely emerge from the wire on the other side to be confronted with a much larger and meaner adversary; also to be truthful, I am a far better lover/runner than fighter).

This of course is not a healthy reaction. Whilst I harbour ambitions of making a nice second income from this game at some point, and this drives my zeal to improve, I play for fun, relaxation and enjoyment. Getting worked up during the evening after a hard day at work is not good for me.

After resorting for a while to taunting these kinds of people about their lack of intellect or understanding of poker, or trying to ignore them, I have now started to thank them in the most polite way possible for their kind feedback. I actually find that in a lot of cases this really tilts these people and sets them off, and I have to admit I just cannot resist teasing someone in these circumstances. I am going to do my best not to get tilted again by one of these people (and if I find it happening turn off chat) - it costs me money!

P.s. Villain won the SNG and I busted out on the bubble. Boy was I mad, I had so wanted to end up heads up with him and have a jafi beat him. Next time ;-)

Variance, beats, tilt, recovery.....a survivors story

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 18:43:00 +0000

....So with a few days off after a bloated Christmas back with my family in the UK and whilst keeping strange hours as I watched England's cricketers get hammered in Australia, I sat down to work on one of my first poker goals of the year - to build my bankroll playing SNG's. Now this is the one area of poker where I know I already am capable of being a winning player, even if the cash & MTT side of things are still work in progress. I played about 500 of them at the end of 2006 with some success, and did a lot of studying of correct strategy and odds/ICM.

There is a nice reload bonus on Stars at the moment, so I decided to deposit there for the first time and clear the bonus playing 20-30$ Turbos (yes, I decided in the end to stick with Turbos) SNG's both at Stars and Full Tilt (where I get lovely rakeback). I also downloaded and bought TourneyManager - a new piece of software that automatically tracks SNG results and has lots of nice reports and graphs. It's a really great piece of software - gone are the days of laboriously plugging in results into PokerOffice and my tracking spreadsheet.

So I started playing, expecting to be building my bankroll at a rate of knots. I knew how to play these things, no problem. Well the poker gods had other ideas.

I began firing up 25+2 stars Turbo tables, 4 at a time, and immediately I ran badly. Like not only could I not hit a flop, but when we got to push shove mode I was consistently getting called down with worse hands and losing. And then when I got a coin flip I was always at the wrong end of it. Stars also seemed to be much tougher than Full Tilt where players donk off there chips early on. Before I could blink I was 500$ in the hole, then 750$ in the hole. But hell, I was remaining calm (it was only 40% of my bankroll after all), not tilting and focussing on my play. Or so I thought.

At this point I dropped down to 15+1 tables, and 2 or 3 tabled, and then after 175 SNGs and 1000$ in the hole I stopped altogether and spent some time looking at my results, re-reading strategy posts on 2+2 and running ICM scenarios on SNG power tools. I feel good about this looking back - I really applied my learnings from last year and am practicing sensible bankroll management and the discipline when things are going badly. I also signed up on cardrunners.com (mainly to work on my cash game) and watched some SNG videos.

My analysis showed that I was indeed running bad in terms of variance, but I had become victim to the worse kind of tilt. Not the steaming, 'screw this' kind of tilt where you know you are tilting but do not care, but the insipid systemic tilt that creeps up on you and ingrains itself in your play while persuading you that you are not in fact tilting and are in fact just running bad.

2 things were clear:-

1. I had totally forgotten how tight you need to play in the early phase of these things, and was trying to be too LAG in position. I was making some huge bluffs - which don't get me wrong were working a lot (I love nothing better than representing a hand and taking a huge pot with nothing, there can be no better feeling in poker), but too often some donk (or was the donk me?) was calling me with worst pair and I was busting out prematurely too many times.

One comment from a cardrunners video stuck out - if you arrive at the 4th level (where push or fold often begins) with more or less what you started with, it is not a big deal. I was taking too many risks trying to build a big stack in the early stages rather than being patient.

2. I was taking too many coinflips. It was almost as if subconsciously I was sticking 2 fingers up at variance by taking obvious coinflips which in hindsight were not necessary. I was often throwing away a big stack trying to bust people with a big stack on a coin flip when they had enough chips to hurt me.

So after this, I hunkered down to play super tight early on, but still very, very aggressively when I had a hand and adjusted my late game towards ensuring that I reach the bubble with chips and can then use them aggressively. Results were immediate, though I ran badly again after a while I then stormed through the next 150 or so SNG's, 4 tabling a mix of Stars 25+2 and full tilt 22+2 & 33+3 turbos:

The chart below shows this roller coaster that was the 8 days spanning the end of 2006 and the start of 2007:

I learnt a lot from this experience, and also feel that I showed I am maturing as a player in the way that I responded to the situation.

Looking back, the long and the short of it is:

Viewing the glass as half empty I can say "OMG I lost 1200$ in a few days playing SNG's, I should quit"
Viewing the glass as half full I can say "OMG I wn 1200$ in a few days playing SNG's, I should do this for a living"

I know enough about poker now to know that the next test is if I can now continue over a period of time to rack up a profit playing these things - that will be the proof that this rollercoaster is not just natural variance applied to a losing player and that I actually am becoming a winning player. I will blog the situation at the end of the month - I won't play nearly as many now I am back at work but we shall see.

What I also know is I need to keep working on my game. To this end I booked a training session with someone called Jenifear who does SNG training (110$ for 4 hours) and has good reports from many sources. Unfortunately she cannot fit me in until the start of March. I am also going to spend some time brushing up on my poker probabilities and ICM, as well as making a point of posting hand histories on 2+2.

Final thought. During my tilt, I found myself using chat a few times to call people that put an awful beat on me a 'Donk'. I am ashamed of this - this is not the person that I am and I loathe the people that spend their time insulting other players after suffering a bad beat. I will not do this again and if this game begins to turn me into one of these people I will quit the game immediately. It is the cards that have been cruel, not the person, and if no one made donk moves I would have zero chance of winning at this game.

That's all on my first tilt of 2007...until the next time!

Review of 2006 and New years resolutions

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 13:41:00 +0000

Well this blog kind of died a death very quickly, but my first resolution is to renew it and contribute regularly to it.

Review of 2006

My first year having poker as a serious 'hobby'. I invested a lot - too much - in learning the game!

Some of the statements below hurt to admit:

What I did:

I started the year clueless. A total fish.
I started out playing limit games on party. I have since played on Interpoker (yuk), Pokerroom (I always loose money there!), Fulltilt (I love the site and the rakeback), Noble (another busto site), Ladbrokes (did well out of their sign up bonus)
I gave up Limit in June and moved to NL games
I started playing SNG's - 20$ turbos in November and realised I could build my bankroll through these
I have read 12 books and countless websites & forum posts
I have playedaround 40000 hands, 400 SNG's, 50 tournaments
I have played some live sessions at my local casino, well underrolled (these are 5-5 NL games). I ran well for a time and my bankroll was increasing, though they games have become tougher and some big hits cost me a lot of my gains at the end of the year.
I have played about 7 times in the Holland Casino NL or PL tournaments, being completely hopeless at the start and making the final table in that last one I played in 2006.

The end product:

Online I have been a losing player to the tune of around 3000$, going broke at least 4 times bonus chasing well above my bankroll.
My online bankroll finished at 1750$, having been at 300 at the start of November before I focussed on SNG's and some PL Omaha playing a supertight shortstack strategy.
I have probably broken even for the year playing live.
My live bankroll finished at 1100$, down from a high of 2300$
I learnt a lot, an awful lot.
The biggest thing I learnt was some realisation of just how much I still have to learn.
I ended the year with some clue how to play. I am still a loser.

New years resolutions: Poker

Keep detailed records of every session I play - tournaments, cash, SNG etc.
Do not mix games in a session. I am either playing SNG's, Cash NL, Tournaments or Omaha, but not a table of each as I have idiotically attempted at times during 2006.
Play within or just above (taking a shot) my bankroll at all times, none of these crazy bonus chases playing well above my limits.
Blog a weekly summary, every week
Perform a monthly review, each week

New years resolutions: Life

Each month achieve something in my apartment. E.g get roof terrace built, clear my utility room free of junk
Eat better
Look after my health better in general
Get fit
Get my career moving

Goals: Poker - be a winning player, even if it is 1$!!

Get online bankroll up over 10,000$
ROI>5% playing 20-30$ Turbo Full tilt & party SNG's
Play at least 2 times a month in a live Casino Tournaments
Win a live Casino tournament
Final table in a online tournament >100 players
Become a winning player at NL50$ then NL100$ 6max
Learn to be a winning player at PL Omaha 50$
Make a first cash out >2000$ from my poker account to my current account

Goals: Life

Lead my cricket team to promotion this summer
Be cash positive over the year
Pay off my overdraft (see above poker goals)
Get my apartment finished
Enjoy life

Downs and then Ups...

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 13:20:00 +0000

So last night was Monday night pub trivia quiz. I mean, what else can you do on a Monday, it is a dead night. Got home from work, and did something stupid. Fired up a normal SnG, then realised with 6 players left I was running out of time to get to the quiz. Started playing like a lunatic, going all in with nothing or bottom pair, and everyone kept folding to me - it was sick. One player (notes duly made) lost 3/4 of his chips in 4 successive hands where I pushed on the turn with nothing and he folded. So I end up with a massive chip lead, and decide I am out of time so push a couple of times too many and I am out. Why did I not just leave it there, get blinded away - probably would have cashed. I am such a muppet sometimes. I am never going to be a winning player with behaviour like this.

So anyway, I played in the quiz with my team - it's a fun gang of people and we drink a few beers. At 11 we are done......and I go to the casino. This was not a planned outing, and does seem worrysome for addiction does it not?

Anyway, I get there, wait 30 mins for a seat (there are 2 limit tables - which I never play, and 2 NL). When I sit down, to say the action is lively is an understatement. My 400 euro buy in is dwarfed by most of the stacks, and I soon fritter away some chips out of position with TPLK being pushed off the hand. Then I get some hands with some awful flops, and am almost 2 buy ins down (I never leave the house with more than 2), before someones all in with TT is called and won by my AK. I leave the table at 2:45 550 euro down. Now I should add that this is my
first losing session in the last 10 playing live, so I am not too bothered, and I played ok.

Then I do something I never, ever do. I go play blackjack for the last 15 minutes until the casino closes. Now I am a retired Blackjack player - I played quite regularly years ago at a semi-legal casino in Amsterdam, but now that the Holland is the only place to play, and I found poker, and the Holland has card shuffling machines for Blackjack (so no counting), I vowed never to play again. So I did, I stuck 40 euros on blackjack, and had the most amazing run with the house busting like 12 out of 13 times. I walked out exactly evens for the night.

I got lucky. I won't play Blackjack again for the foreseeable future.

I am also playing too much poker - I am taking a couple of days off.

Ups and downs and downs.....

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:59:00 +0000

Ok, so the weekend featured a lot of poker and not much return. Lady was sick so time to myself...

Friday I ended up playing online and cashing 5out of 6 SnG's, before watching cricket all night while 2 tabling party poker .5/1$. Realised that very late at night on the weekend, if you are sober you have a huge edge as now with the US players are gone and there are mainly drunk Europeans. Was soon 400 up, but then lost the lot after a bad beat and then getting it all in with a straight flush draw only to see opponent hit runner runner full house. Still, going to keep some pocket money at Party for those late night weekends...

Saturday played some SnG's and undid all the good work by going 0 for 8, and now my FullTilit bankroll is almost gone. Decision: Stop playing turbos, as these seem to turn too quickly into a lottery and the mid phase of the game, where I am good at stealing is very short before it turns into an all-in-fest. Played live on Saturday evening at Holland Casino, and had trouble picking up hands. Then this interesting one happens:

NL, 5euro 5 euro blinds, I have 450 in front of me, seat 3 has like 1500, Cutoff has 1200.

Me: UTG with QdQs, raise 30 (standard raise on these tables is something like that, they are very loose)
Seat 3: Call
Cutoff: Call

Flop: As Qh Jc
Me: Bet 30 (this was too low...)
Seat 3: Call
Cutoff: Call

Me thinks....mmm, could be K10 out there.

Turn: 10s
Me: Oh dear, someone has a K, check
Seat3: Call
Cutoff: Bet 120
Me: mmm, he has it, now I have 11 outs to fill up here, 3 outs for a King to chop (unless he has KK, v.unlikely), maybe 10% chance he is bluffing. I reckon I just about have the odds here, so I call, praying that the seat 3 does not go all in.
Seat 3: Call

River: 3s
All check.
Cutoff turns over KQ to take the pot with the nut straight. I start complaining about my bad luck with the flop, then Seat 3 shows slowplayed AA! We joke about how the flop saves me from going broke, but also that a re-raise from AA chases KQ out...

Anyway, I am about 700 down at 2:40am, and the table ends up at 4 players, at which point it all gets very loose. I quickly double up when Q10 hits a full house on the turn, start being very aggressive, float someone off a few hands with nothing and within 10 minutes I am showing a profit for the night of 90 euro. Not a bad conclusion considering.

Then go home, watch cricket all night while playing online and loose money.

So live, tilt factor 20%, played well.
Online, played awful, again. Back to basics with the online game.

Obsession, to play or not to play....

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:52:00 +0000

Ok 2 posts in, I can see this blogging thing could be addictive.

But the I have an addictive personality to some degree, or more accurately an obsessive one. I tend to get obsessed with something, it takes over my life for a while, and then I either give up on it or allocate it a more balanced role in my life. Still working through the obsession process with Poker I think, pretty confident it will enter the balanced category at some point in time.

It's a cold, dark night in Amsterdam. Looking at of the window of my office, and it is dark. That depresses me, not sure how Scandinavians cope it is apparently worse there. Maybe that explains why so many sick gamblers and huge binge drinkers come from Scandinavia..(I know, rich for an Englishman to be talking about binge drinking).

Tonight late I go to an Aussie friends house to watch England continue losing the cricket. So in the meantime do a) play online or b) go to the casino and play live for a few hours. I am not going to play much the rest of the weekend as the new lady in my life (or at least who is only just about in my life) is around, so I guess it would not hurt to play a bit.

mmmm, just got a call from the fish from my regular home game who wants to go and play NL in the casino for the first time, this is almost too good an opportunity to pass up!

I so much prefer live play. How is it that I struggle not to consistently loose at .5/1$ NL online, but can play at the local casino 5 euro/5 euro NL game (the smallest they have) and (so far) despite being very under rolled hold my own and show a decent profit so far? I guess it is because no-one plays live there as tight as a lot of online players.....except me of course. In fact, I am so darn disciplined playing live as I know a few busts kills my live roll, that I play tight (but not scared), disciplined and very aggressive, and most of all focused. If I could just do that online......

Tilt report

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:55:00 +0000

Ok, so now for an actual poker report.

Got home from work absolutely dog tired last night - I had been up watching the ashes cricket till 3am on the internet. After a bite to eat decided to sit down and play some Tilt 22$ S&G's (which I have a big enough roll for), and the 10$ rebuy on party in which the previous night I had made the final table in a >100 person tournament for the first time.

I have just started playing S&G's and have done a lot of reading about strategy, and when I am not tilting I am making a fair impression of someone that could be quite handy. The first 6 I played last night I cashed in 4, with 2 2nd and 2 3rd and was 4th in the other 2, but I seem to be on a ridiculous run of cards when it comes to being knocked out in the money. The turbos seem to be all in or nothing by the time 2 are left, and I just cant get a hand to stand up even when I am dominating opponents (note: this is not going to be a bad beat blog). I have reached the conclusion that barring a mega bad beat it is a terrible crime to finish earlier than 4th - the standard of play is poor and so many opponents play tight for too long and don't know when to steal/push with a small stack before it gets too small to have fold equity.

The rebuy went ok, I had gone from 3000 to 21000 with 3 rebuys and an add on (playing my act like a nutter to put everyone on tilt first 5 minutes strategy) after the first hour, but full of new found confidence I preceded to react to a card-dead 2nd hour by playing loose aggressive/idiotic, and donking off a perfectly healthy chip stack in a characteristically stupid way whilst reading about England's poor day in the first test.

Meanwhile, a couple of .50/1 NL (which I am nowhere near bankrolled for) cash tables had found themselves opened along with the BBC news website sports page, and this brought about by own brand of tilt as i donked out of a couple more S&G's. Then KK all in bumps into a set on the cash, and the damage is only limited by the other cash table finding a flop to match my AK and stack a non-believer.

At the end the positive thing is that I was sensible and logged out before I turned this mini-tilt into one of my mega tilt bankroll busters.

So overall a losing night. Learnt more with the SnG's, realised I could have cashed in the rebuy if I had not been web surfing, and that playing cash massively under-rolled with anything other than total focus is lunacy.....and something that I keep repeating!

Have resolved now to focus on S&G's and the odd MTT online now as I am burnt out playing cash, and play cash live - where I seem to play far far better.

Conclusions:
- keep that internet browser closed when playing
- Less tables, more quality
- Stop playing when tired
- Above conclusions are so darn obvious
- Maybe acting on above would be a good idea

Session profit: -53$
Tilt factor: 5 (started very low, peaked at end due to tiredness/boredom)

So here goes.....

noreply@blogger.com (Tilted_Halibut) — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 16:14:00 +0000

So,

Finally, I relented. After years of scorning blogging, I decided to jump (belatedly) on an already old bandwagon.

Why? Well, initially this idea comes out of my recognition that I am a bad poker player and I could be Ok, dare I say it even decent, if I could just stop tilting. So, I guess this started out as some kind of tilt log, where I declare to the world (or more likely a handful of bored souls) my tilting sins openly as a way of recording them and repenting, and maybe just rationalise and begin to deal with it. Anyway, the idea started out as JAFPB*.

Then I kind of realised (please note US readers, British English spelling applies in this blog) that my life is on tilt most of the time. Not in a about to melt down way, but probably as much or slightly more than anyone elses with regular risk of a large explosion. So maybe I can admit to, share and deal with a bit of life tilt while I am at it.....

Finally, I might as well try an put into written words the occasional confusion, delusion and joy that seems to drop into my existence in equal helpings. I have never kept a diary, but maybe keeping a record of some of my ramblings could be fun.

So I have basically just been talking to myself, since no one is reading this. When I was growing up I learned that talking to oneself is a first sign of madness. Does this mean that bloggers are mad? Perhaps someone can help me with the answer to that....

Ok, that is the end of the first entry. Next installment will be my very brief history as a poker addict.

* Just Another F****** Poker Blog