Hole Cards are Wild

WCOOP Update

2010-09-19T02:07:00.000-07:00

I played two more WCOOP events last week. The first, Sunday's $215 No Limit Hold'em event, just wasn't in the cards for me. I did well for a few hours but then got it all in with K10 on a K 10 3 board. He showed pocket 3s and I didn't catch any miracles. No regrets, the pot was too big to fold with our stack sizes. That's just one of those situations where I'm always going to want to get it in with a hand that strong, and if I'm beat there's nothing I can do about it.

The second event was different story. On Monday I played the 4-Max No Limit Hold'em tournament. I've played shorthanded before, but 4-max is nuts. It was a really intense challenge for me and it was a lot of fun, but I busted from that one due to my own mistakes. The format required me to play a lot of hands and the result was that I had more chances to make mistakes. I had all the 'run good' I needed, coming back from the brink of elimination several times, but I didn't do a good job of holding on to chips. I wound up busting close to the money with kings.

I really want to take down a big score in this series. I've played four so far and made the money in one, but nothing like what I'm looking for. I think I have what it takes against these fields, I just need a few things to go right and to play a solid game. I won a seat for tomorrow's $215 NL Hold'em event. Let's see if I can make it this one.

2010 WCOOP Recap

2010-09-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

I just played my 2nd WCOOP event today. Great tournaments, the structures offer a lot room for play. So far I've made the money in my first event but busted from today's. I ran bad but am still happy with the way things went. I'll be back, with these fields I'm sure I can cash again.

In the first even I started off strong but had a rough 2nd and 3rd hour. Thanks to the structure I was able to hang on until my luck changed and work back up to a big stack. When we got to the bubble I was sure I would coast into the money but one hand changed all of that. I got it all-in with jacks vs kings. It was a bad play on my part, the signs were there but I though he was bluffing. I was still alive but my stack was crippled. With the money close I decided to hang on and see if I could make it. I did, barely, and then went on a hot streak to build back up to an average stack. I lasted for several more hours but was never able to build back up the momentum I needed. I finally went out in 285th.

In today's event things went pretty rough for me. I built a good stack early but wasn't able to hold onto it. Three main hands took me out of the event. I had two pair lose twice. The first lost when bottom pair caught runner runner quads, and the second lost when my opponent caught a higher two pair on the turn. The final hand to take me out was pocket sixes. I called a raise from the button and hit my set. My opponent led out and I raised. He called and I shoved the last of my chips when an 8 hit the turn. He called again to show me pocket eights.

All three hands dropped to three outs or less, and each time I was up against the same opponent. It can feel personal when it happens like that, but it's not. No matter who you're up against it's the same deal. You do your best to get your money in good and hope someone calls with a worse hand. Those are the situations you look for. After that it's out of your control. But you have to keep a cool head whatever happens. I tilted this time, tilted bad. And that's OK, after all, I busted and no more damage could be done. But under different circumstances I'd need to find a way to control that.

I Love Fish

2010-08-31T21:15:00.000-07:00

Not the kind you find at the poker table (OK, those too), but the swimming variety. Keeping a saltwater aquarium has been a hobby of my wife and mine for the past year now. This month has been a fun one for us because of our new tank. We set up a 135 gallon tank and got it cycled to stock fish these last few weeks.

Getting set up

The first inhabitants

After a lot of planning we decided on a lunar wrasse, niger trigger, and volitan lionfish to get us started. They are aggressive fish but they do a good job of holding their own together. They've proven to be an interesting group. The lion makes for an awesome centerpiece and the wrasse and trigger have great personalities. The wrasse patrols the tank constantly while the trigger keeps himself busy rearranging sand and rocks. I only wish he would stop knocking over the stacks I build. It's not a simple matter to reach in and stack them back up when you have fish with poisonous spines on it's back.

Probably the last time our wrasse sat still

The Trigger claiming his territory

Our lion stalking the damsels

On the poker front August has been a disappointing month. In the past I've ran good, I've ran bad, and I guess now I've ran in place. Every step I've had in the right direction has been matched by another bringing me back where I started. Consistency is my problem, and for now I'm toning things down a bit until I get my discipline under control.

Bad Month

2010-08-03T02:02:00.000-07:00

July has been a bad one for me, but it's not just a downswing. I am not just losing because variance is against me. I have been making some bad decisions, and they have cost me. It's not really fun to post like this but it's the truth, and the first thing I need to do to fix things is to admit and accept this truth. There is no better way I can think of to face this than to put it out there like this.

It sucks that I'm going to have to take a step down now. That's a far drop beginning of the month when I was looking at the idea of moving up. I even took a few shots at the bigger games, salivating at the idea of making them my new home. I'm going to work my way back now and that's just how it is. Survival is half the battle in this game and protecting the bankroll is key.

I am capable of playing better than I have. Now seems like a good time to prove it. I have set some goals for this August. It's time for me to patch up some leaks, focus on consistency, and get myself back on track.

Long time coming

2010-07-22T19:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've made a post, too long really. It's not like there hasn't been anything to write about. There's been a lot of poker, trips to Vegas and Atlantic City. I even won two bad beat jackpots. Oh, and I quit my day job.

That's right, I finally did it.Well, at least I tried to. You see, they made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I turned in my resignation and they countered by asking me to stay on part time as a consultant. So for the past few months I've been able to work from home and on the road while traveling around playing poker. It's been great. The situation has worked out as the perfect bridge from collecting a regular paycheck to the up and down swings of poker.

And since the time I quit I've already found myself riding both. I started out on a tear, walking away from almost every session with large profits. Add in the two jackpots I won and this whole 'poker for a living' thing was beginning to feel easy. That, of course, was just the right mentality to get myself started off in the wrong direction.

I think it was from there that I let myself get too laid back. I scaled back my playing time and took a few vacations. There was even a trip to Vegas with minimal playing time, barely covering my travel costs at the tables. Meanwhile my poker elsewhere wasn't doing well. I had a series of losing sessions and found out how much of a dent I could put into a bankroll in only a month.

It's OK though. Nothing that can't be repaired. I just need to take these lessons in stride and move forward with better time and bankroll management.

WSOP Rincon

2010-03-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

Poker has been on my brain non stop since the WSOP arrived in San Diego. With all of the action going on just an hour down the road it's hard not to think about it.

I started off the series on Thursday with a great cash game session. I sat down at a 2/3 table loaded with big stacks and by the end of the night I was the biggest leaving with almost 6 times my buy in. I ran well, played aggressive, and got paid off. There's not much more you can ask for than that.
A few key hands

I ran a semi-bluff on a player with an overcard and a flush draw. I put him on an overpair but believed he was good enough to fold when I shoved on a paired board. He almost did but instead gave me my first double me up when I hit one of my outs.
I turned a straight in a multi-way pot. A player bet into the field, several players called, and I reraised the pot. The first player called all in with a weaker straight and I raked in a massive pot.
A field of limpers called a straddle and then, to my amazement, also called a short stacks tilted shove. Reading them as weak I reraised with AQ suited to isolate and race for the dead money. I got an all in from a player I put on a hand like jacks and the rest folded. I'm not sure if the queen on the flop was good enough to beat him but the flush on the river sure was.

The next day I played in a $350 buy-in event. I began the tournament well building a big stack early but caught a rough beat. I called a raise in position holding a pocket pair and flopped a set. I was able to get 2 players all in for a massive pot that could have made the tournament for me, but it wasn't meant to be. The turn and river put a 4 card straight on the board leaving the pot to be split between my opponents. I was able to build my stack up after that but didn't hold on to it. I finished the day with a small losing session on the cash tables.

On Monday I came back for another run at a tournament but had similar experience. I chipped up again but didn't hold on to them and was sent to the rail again. I think I actually went out too early making a move with AQ when I didn't need to. I raised and got a chain of callers followed by an all in from one of the blinds. I reraised to isolate only to find a big pair hiding in the pack. I missed my ace and that was it. I decided to hop back on the cash games and see if I couldn't stir up some action like I had the other night. I didn't quite sextuple up but I was able to make back most of my tournament buy-in.

All of the action has left me twitching at my desk. I'm sure I'll be back in time to play some more before the event is over.

$700 Lessons

2010-03-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

That's how much it cost for what I learned the other day. After dusting off my stack 3 times I had to get up from the table. It's OK to lose money so long as you're playing well. That's part of poker; it happens all the time. But I had made a few serious mistakes that accounted for a lot of what I lost.

The most grave error I made was the most basic possible. I had a hand where I made all the right reads and then turned around and made all the wrong decisions. I hit the board with a pair and a draw against a player I put on an overpair. He shoved on the turn not giving me odds, I knew I was supposed to fold, but I called anyway. There's just no excuse for that. A fold there was almost automatic but I let my emotions make the decision for me. I missed and he won with the hand I knew he had. There is no way I can expect to be a profitable poker player if I keep making calls like that.

But that wasn't the only way I misplayed that hand. I had put myself in that position because I took actions on the flop without having a plan for the later streets. Going back through my hand history I realized it was a mistake I made in several other hands too. I wasn't thinking my lines all the way through. I made raises building big pots and played right into spots where I made my own decisions difficult. I was handing my opponents the rope with which to hang me.

We're going up to Harrah's Rincon this weekend for the World Series of Poker ciruit events and cash games. I've caught my mistakes, now it's time to prove I've learned from them. Let's see if I can use what I've learned to earn that money back.

Can't win them all

2010-02-22T18:22:00.000-08:00

I went back out to the LA Poker Classic for today's tournament today to see if I couldn't play out the rush. Things didn't go so great though.

About an hour and a half into the tournament I had added a few hundred chips to my starting stack. Then within 2 quick hands the short stack to my right had all of my chips and I was on my way out the door. On the first hand I raised over limpers and he came in with suited garbage. He was short so I put him in on the flop and he called having hit a pair of 4s. My ace high failed to improve and close to half my chips went his way. The very next hand he limped again and I popped it up even bigger with AK suited. A third player shoved and he went all in over top. Although he was too busy to sit at the table for most of the time in the tourney, either on the phone or walking around talking to friends, while he was there he had been loose and wild so I took it as an easy call. He flipped over pocket 2s and celebrated being the only pair. The flop brought a paired board with my flush draw giving me even more outs to my overs but he boated up on the turn and I was done.

It sucks going out that way, but I think it was really my fault. Late registration was still open and players were still coming in the door. It was way too early to put everything on the line for a coin flip, even against a wild player. It just wasn't necessary at all. I had odds with the size of the pot, but this wasn't a cash game. There isn't much equity gained busting people so early in a tournament. Oh well, you can't win them all, and it has still been a pretty nice week.

LA Poker Classic Event 34 Final Table Recap

2010-02-21T17:24:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week I took down 3rd place in an event at the LA Poker Classic. If you haven't checked it out you can start with the Day 1 Recap.

It didn't take long for the action to pick up at the final table. Within the first few rounds the player to my right opened with a raise, I looked down at AK suited and pushed all in. He called with kings and I was in danger of getting knocked out for the first time of the tournament. But the first of several flips of went my way and I doubled up. My kings would later get cracked by a set of nines, my AK took out eights, AJ lost to AK, and my A7 upset AK.

As we got down to 5 and then 4 players I had several chances to build a monster stack slip away. There were a few hands that I just misplayed to keep knocking myself down after chipping up. By the time we were 3 way again I had built a stack again but failed to adjust to the fast paced action. I lost a few key pots before shoving 2nd pair heads up and getting called by top pair. That was it and I went out in 3rd.

It's hard to describe the feeling after getting knocked out. I was a little disappointed that I didn't adjust as we got shorthanded, but I was also happy about how far I'd gotten. I had a great tournament and a lot of things went my way to get me there.

LA Poker Classic Score Day 1 Recap

2010-02-18T13:01:00.000-08:00

On a whim I decided to drive up to LA and play in event 34 of the LA Poker Classic. I had been following the results online wishing I had the chance to play when I finally decided to just go for it. I checked the schedule to see if there was an event I was rolled for and then drove up to LA within an hour of making the decision. It worked out for the best as I took down a nice prize.

The first day went about as well as it could have. I built a big stack early and never looked back. I played well and ran better, using my stack to put pressure on my opponents without ever having to put my tournament life on the line.

A few key hands:
Early on in the first round I had built to about 4500 chips. I called behind a chain of limpers with pocket 3's in late position. One of the blinds popped it up with a "go away" raise, which of course means "don't go away" to me so I called and we were heads up. I could see his distress when I called and I was even happier to be there. The flop came QQ4 and I knew he didn't like it. He bet out and I raised to take down a nice pot, giving me twice the average chips.

There was a player to my right, the type who talks too much, who began to drill the guy about his hand.
"I put you on pocket 6s, was I right? I think you had a medium pair…"
"Wow, did you say 66? You were right. Good read. How did you know that?"
It was probably the dumbest exchange I've ever heard but I picked up good info. Seat 7, although he seemed like an innocent straight forward player, was capable of lying to you with a smile on his face. That was useful when I picked off a river bluff in another hand.

Later on I had another big hand go my way. I called a raise on the button with 10 8 suited and flopped the nut straight. It was checked to me and I bet. The big blind check raised all in and the preflop raiser went into the tank before folding, later claiming to have QQ. “That was going to be my move,” he said. Lucky for him. I called of course to see the raiser had the nut flush draw. More than half of my chips were out there so I had to duck a diamond if I was going to be able to keep a big stack. I didn’t have to sweat for very long though, the 9 of diamonds came on the turn giving me a straight flush and my hand was invincible.

As we got down to the final few tables a really big hand worked out for me. The player to my left raised under the gun and was called by the cutoff and the small blind. I looked down at 64 suited and couldn’t resist the odds. When the flop came 964 with 2 hearts and I donkey lead into the pot hoping for action. I was hoping I’d be read for a draw and get raised. The preflop raiser twisted in agony before flatting. Almost.... There was still one more to act so I still had a chance. The cutoff raised all in and I had a second chance. The dealer stopped me though, before I could come over the top. The cutoff was too short and his shove wasn’t full raise. Damnit, if I had only bet a little less. An ace hit the turn and I put my chips in. The original raiser folded his queens, claiming to have put me on a big ace. No sir, bad read, but good fold either way. My 2 pair held up against the cutoff’s 10s and I raked a monster pot. With over 100,000 chips at that point I had a safe ride to the final table. Looking around I only saw a few players with a comparable stacks, one being Theo Tran. It was an awesome feeling being in competition with a player on that level.

I don't want to risk losing anybody to Internet Attention Deficit Disorder so I'll continue with the final table in a later post.

It's not Losing that Hurts

2010-01-27T22:45:00.000-08:00

It's losing by my own hand that gets me. The cards aren't always going to be dealt in my favor, but I always have the power to play them right.

I started off the night playing in a single table satellite for the Viejas Classic. The structure was a little faster than I would have liked but I decided to play anyway. No score but no sweat. I played aggressive and took chances which is what I needed to do.

It was at the cash tables that I disappointed myself. I found myself seated at a weak tight table with a few nitty regulars and couple of passive short stacks. I should have just enjoyed running over the table all night stealing pot after pot, but I left myself in overdrive too long and went straight off a cliff. Every time I added a chips to my stack I would just turn and give it back.

First I raised a short stack all in when I flopped top pair. He called and I knew instantly he had an overpair, he wouldn't have taken that line and then called with anything less; and I had to ask myself why then would I raise in the first place. Calling and then check folding the turn would've given me all of the information I needed. Later I flopped bottom pair + FD and turned a gutshot straight draw to go with it. A reg offered to check it down but I decided to bet and put pressure on him anyway. He called of course with the ace I knew he had. Funny thing is if he had never said anything I would have checked behind, I knew I was drawing. I just didn't like the insinuation that I should play the hand the way he wanted to. I missed and my ego cost me a free draw.

Then AK cost me a few hundred twice in one round. The first time I was all in with it preflop and lost to two pair. I got it in as a favorite but it didn't hold. I hate playing the preflop game when I feel like I have a read on the table but there's no sense crying about it on the river. By then the decision has been made. The second time with AK I reraised and got called by a nit. He check called a baby flop and then led a blank on the turn. I put him on a pocket pair and thought about raising to represent aces or kings but didn't know if he hit a set and wasn't sure if he'd be good enough to fold if he didn't. What I did know was that I was beat and folded. He claimed tens and I believe him.

At this point I was a little on tilt. My stack bounced up and down as I played few rounds before finding AA in the big blind. I raised it up over a few limpers and got called. I overplayed the hand on a dangerous board and found myself facing an all in on the river from the same nit as before. I check raised him on the flop, he smooth called and then checked behind when a possible straight hit the turn. The board paired on the river and he shoved. I put him on a full house right there and regretted that I had made the pot so large. I was geting 4 to 1 to call and decided I had to find out if I was wrong. I was wrong, but aces are no good against quads and I shipped it to him. He was the type who you know has it when he bets, but I paid him anyway. That's when I knew it was time to leave.

Add some EV

2009-12-14T11:35:00.000-08:00

EV, or expected value, is a term that comes up a lot in gambling. Your expected value for any bet is the amount you should make on average given the cost, odds, and payout of winning. A bet with positive EV will make money in the long run while one with negative EV will lose. In most casino games EV is easy to calculate. There is always a fixed and known chance of winning or losing with a set payout that can be used to find the EV; which for games played against the house is always negative by design.

For poker finding your EV is a much more difficult task. You'll often read examples of easy calculations. You have a flush draw, the pot is now 200 and it costs 50 to call, is that plus or minus EV? It's usually assumed that your opponent is all in, has top pair and the flush is the only way to win. But the game of poker isn't designed to make decisions that simple.

Pre flop hand values are easy to caluclate. You can study a hand chart and see where your hand ranks, but on the flop everything changes. And because you don't know what your opponents hole cards are it's not possible to calculate your exact odds. If you have 2 overs and a flush draw you might have 15 outs to beat top pair. But if you share one of your over cards you're down to 12, and if they have a set or better you're down to the 9 flush outs. Then again, you may already be ahead in the hand up against a smaller flush draw. There are also multiple streets of betting, further complicating things. If you make your hand on the turn will you be able get action and increase the payoff? Or will you be sucked in to paying another bet if you miss?

But, with a little finesse you can use the dynamics of poker to your advantage. It's possible to chose a line of action that will increase the value of your hands. Take a hand like J-10 suited, for example. If you limp in early position you are going to have a hard time making a profit off of the hand. A good aggressive player on the button might raise you with almost any 2 cars, and if you miss the flop you will probably have to give up the hand and fold. But if you switch positions instead be the raiser punishing the limpers your hand's power is multiplied. Not only will you win when you hit the flop well, but you'll also win when your opponents miss and you conitnue to show strength. You've used the action to change the equation in a way that benefits you.

There is a lot of extra value to be found at the table if you know where to look. Study your opponents and their playing styles. Which players will limp and then call your raise only to fold on most flops? Is there anyone who might call you from position and then float the flop with air? Try to build pots whever possible when you have position on the weaker players while avoiding being out of position to the tougher players. If you can control the sitiuations in this way you'll find yourself taking a lot more profit from the table than just the paper EV of your hands.

A good traveler

2009-12-09T11:41:00.000-08:00

After I decided to take a step down I took a lot of the pressure off of winning or losing and have been focusing on how to improve my game. I looked back over the records I've kept these past few months and did my best to make an honest assessment of my progress.

The truth is that right now I have a great hobby. But that's about it, just a hobby. I'm a good player and I had a good amount of profit before my last downswing. Thanks to a jackpot I hit I'm still in the black, but I can't take credit for that. Without that I'm just below broke even. I have excuses, every player does.

"I lost too much online, too easy to rebuy, I'm fixing that."

Or "I lost too much to tournaments above my bankroll, I'll never do that again."

"Looking at the adjusted percentage gains I still have profit, it's just that my bankroll is much larger now and the last swing was bigger. The next upswing will be bigger as well."

The list goes on, but the bottom line doesn't change.
That's a great result for a hobbyist. Not many can dedicate as much time as I did to an activity they love and be able to say they made money doing it. But I can't quit my day job on that.I need to make some changes before I can be ready. I put a lot of thought into what is stopping me from going from a good poker player to a professional one. The conclusion I've come to is a lot simpler than I expected.

Consistency. It's easy to learn to play poker well, what's not easy is showing up every day and doing it. If I always brought my A-game to the table I'd have quit my job by now. Greed, fear, stress, fatigue, and my biggest killer, pride, affect the way I play the game. Overcoming the inherit flaws of being human isn't something they teach in many poker books; however it is crucial to success in this game. My wife found a quote this moring which has stuck with me all day.

"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving." -Lao Tzu

I'd like to incorporate this philosophy into my poker game if I can. Away from the table there is plenty of time to plan and set goals. But at the table I need to just play in the moment. Play the cards in my hand from seat I am in against the players at my table. That's all that I should be thinking about. It hasn't been lately, as I've been so caught up in the idea of wanting to go pro. But that desire has been clouding my mind.

It's frustrating to know that this is what I need to work on. The definition of consistency requires that I build and prove it over time, and that doesn't go well with my "quit in just a few weeks" based goals. But for now I just need to work on sitting down at the table and being the good traveler.

Play Money Poker

2009-11-27T03:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's right. I'm writing this entry now from the trenches of donkeyland that are the PokerStars play money tables. My bankroll has died a horrible death and this is my pergatory.

Ok, well, maybe that's a little over dramatic. But things haven't been going well the past few weeks and I have to take a step back. It's not just that I'm in a downswing; I've been playing really bad. At first I was in denial of this. Pride makes realizing and then admitting that difficult. But unchecked that can be the end of a bankroll.

I think the problem is in my mindset. I've been playing impatiently, and it's because I'm getting impatient. I want things to move a long too fast. I want to build up and go pro so bad that I'm getting in my own way. I've decided that I have to go back to the beginning. When I broke my leg I passed the time playing for hours on the play money tables. And I did that because I like playing poker. It's fun. I've lost that. I've put too much pressure on myself.

So for at least for a little while now this is how things are going to be. I'm dropping the stakes and making things fun again. When I feel like things are falling back into place I'll move back up again and get back on track. I'm not giving up, I'm just making sure that I don't continue flooring it in reverse.

Dual Bankrolls

2009-10-24T00:57:00.000-07:00

Things haven't been going great since I started playing online. I'm happy with how I've played, but I haven't respected my bankroll. I played a few Texas Holdem sessions very well, and then blew away all the effort rebuying too many times on tilt. After I started to build back up I began experimenting with pot limit Omaha H/L. Things went so well that I decided to play higher where I dropped a few buy-ins leaving me below where I started. I don't feel I played bad, I just ran into a normal swing I should have expected.

I know what I've been doing wrong, but how to fix it didn't really come to me until I sat down to write about tonight's live session. I haven't made a post since I started online, yet returning to the card room booking just one win put me in a good enough mood to want write again. And the reason is simple; tonight's win eclipses all of the activity I've had online. I play many times bigger when I play live, and I care much more because of that.

Now I know that's a problem. I need to be able to respect the game I'm playing even if it is smaller than I want it to be. But what is more important is that I need to stop pretending that I have two bankrolls. I don't have some money that matters and other money that doesn't. And likewise, my time isn't less valuable on some days than it is on others.

I've been playing smaller online because I have less in that account. But it doesn't matter whether I take it out of an ATM or transfer it online, it all represents a number of buy-ins. I'm going to start playing at equivalent levels online as I do in the card rooms. In this way I'll have to approach the game with the same respect in both venues, but I'll also have the opportunity to be rewarded on the same level for my efforts.

Status Update

2009-10-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I’ve made a post. I wish I could bring better news but I’m in another downswing. It would be better to call it a “can’t pull off a winning Omaha H/L session to save my life”-swing. It’s depressing because part of why I chose to play Omaha was that it was an easy game to beat.

There are a few reasons I attribute to this losing streak. I think that I have put up some mental barriers that are holding me back. To start I’ve picked up a few habits that are hurting me. I’m catching myself making a lot of mistakes in places where I should know better. And despite the fact that I see this I find myself making them again and again. I’ve also been playing with the wrong mentality. I noticed that I’ve started showing up to the table with the expectation that I’m going to lose, which is the complete opposite of how I started and how I should be thinking. If you don’t believe your there to make money you have no business at the poker table.

All of this has made me to take a bit of a break from Omaha. I decided that if I can’t get past the issues I’m having with the game I should play something else. Later on I can come back with a fresh mindset play with more focus. Despite this current downswing my bankroll has still returned more than triple what I had put in. One reason I had chosen Omaha was because it allowed me to play with fewer funds, but now that my roll is much larger I have more options. And my favorite option on that list is Texas Holdem. Holdem is my strongest game and despite the fact that it can have more variance I believe I can sustain a higher win rate playing it.

I’ve also decided to make one other change and start playing online again. Over the past few months I’ve noticed how much time I spend driving and waiting on lists. I don’t have much time after work and sometimes spend more time getting on the table then playing. I made a deposit to my Pokerstars account in an attempt to work around this problem. I have to play smaller stakes because of the amount that I chose but the convenience makes up for the difference. With not having to drive, being able to multi-table and getting more hands per hour I’m starting to prefer online poker for after work sessions. I’ve also been running hot since I started which always helps the ego. ;)

All together the decisions I’ve made over the past few weeks have made me realize that I need to build more before I can leave my job. It’s not enough to be able to play the lowest variance game that pays the rent. I also have to be able to change games and keep things interesting. That way I can always play my best. It’s not a fun realization, because the “paying the rent” qualification had just about been met. But I know that if I’m going to make this work I need to tough it out and do it right.

Knowing when to quit

2009-09-13T18:07:00.000-07:00

I had small loser playing 6/12 Omaha last night. Nothing terrible, almost a break even session actually. But had I listened to my manager (aka the wife) I could've left a winner for the night.

I started out on the must move table which was loose enough for me to grind out a small profit, but when they changed me to the main game things started going downhill. The main game was much tighter. Pots were contested shorthanded and nobody was giving much action. My wife suggested we leave but I insisted that I still had an edge. And I might have, but things just didn't go my way. I really only got action on 2 hands at the table. I had top pair with the nut low and the nut flush draw on one hand, but got quartered by the nut low + nut straight when I whiffed on the flush. On the other hand I had the nut flush + gutshot broadway draw that turned a 21 card no bust low draw to go along with it, but caught a pair instead to get scooped by my op's set.

Those were big hands and that's just the way they go sometimes. I wouldn't change a thing about how I played them really, except for 1 thing. I would've loved to have had 3 or 4 callers stuck in between me and my ops. That's the typical scenario on a loose Omaha table, and I really shouldn't have settled for anything different. I stayed on the table to try to prove I had the skills to beat tougher players, but all I was really doing was allowing myself to play for a smaller edge. I chose this game because of all of the loose players who contribute dead money and I shouldn't settle for a table that provides anything else.

Stacking Racks Again

2009-09-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

It's good to have the money flowing in the right direction again. It's funny how sensitive your results in poker are to the smallest of changes. A new player sits down at the table, another goes on tilt, or perhaps you do. The game changes and if you don't adjust you lose. In this case I had been making mistakes, and the results were affecting me psychologically which was causing me to make more mistakes.

I'm sure I'll never be immune these things. Rather than pretend that I can become the perfect player who always makes the right choice I think it's better to accept that I can't and do my best to recognize when I'm doing something wrong. As long as I can do that I believe that I can minimize my downswings and stay alive in this game.

Streak Broken

2009-09-06T01:16:00.000-07:00

Tonight was a great night, with a session at Commerce that brought an end to my losing streak. It wasn't the largest profit I've ever made, nor was this the first winner since starting this downswing. It was smaller in fact than my previous win. What made this one feel so good was that I know that I have finally fixed my errors. I have spent a lot of time going over my hands and analyzing what I was doing wrong. I had been playing too loose in certain spots, both before the flop and after, and it was costing me a lot. But tonight I played well, not because I pulled off a winner, but because I played very disciplined. Despite a number of the typical bad beats that are so characteristic of Omaha H/L I still pulled off a winning session and I did it because I made very few mistakes.

I Will

2009-09-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

I will continue to build my bankroll.
I will move up in stakes.
I will play in major tournaments.
I am in a downswing.
This sucks.
This is poker.

I find myself repeating this in my head. I'm in a large downswing do to the tournaments I chose to play in last month and a series of bad cash game sessions. I had also made a withdrawal in order to pay a credit card bill, before this swing started, of course. All together this has caused me to have to drop in stakes.

But this is just poker. Sometimes I'm going to need money most when I'm making it the least. That's why it's important for me to build an adequate bankroll and savings before I can leave my day job. I just have to keep my head up and push forward. I've identified some mistakes I've been making in my play. The most important thing for me to do now is respect my bankroll and go back to the grind.

2009-08-31T16:38:00.001-07:00

Gotta love it. Watching a 2/3 NL game from the rail. 6 players just saw a flop for a raise of about $40, none of them more than $200 deep. Loose enough for you?

Legends of Poker

2009-08-24T23:05:00.000-07:00

It's about a week late but I figure I'd follow up on a previous post. I decided to go ahead and play in the $300 + 35 event in the Legends of Poker series. Things went well at first, as I expected. There were a lot of loose players giving away way too much in the early rounds. I built my stack up early and secured a nice lead.

As the antes kicked in I picked up the aggression and kept the chips flowing into my stack. When we went to break I had 3 times what we started with. Things went downhill from there, though, as I fell into one of my usual traps. After coming back from the break the table started to play back at me and I didn't change gears. In just one round I got caught red handed trying to steal one pot, then another, got reraised, and then had a player shove all in over the top of another raise.

It happens to me sometimes, perhaps I'm not the only one. Things are going so well that you fail to notice that things aren't going so well. I lost over a quarter of my stack before I slowed down. I was still above average, but no where near as comfortable as I was the round before.

Now that I'm playing tighter the table has a new captain. People are shoving left and right to stay alive, their stacks not adequate for the blinds and antes due to their wreckless early play, and he is picking up the hands to call with. A few rounds go by before I pick up a hand to raise with. Definitely not the pace I started with.

From early position I look down and find 2 jacks. A player shoves over top, and our table captain thinks for a moment before flat calling. The action comes back to me and it's more than 75% of my stack to make the call. Right now my gut is telling me that the flat call isn't good. I've seen the first player all in a little more often than his share and I think I have his range beat. But the flat call, it's bugging me.

His stack is big enough to gamble here, monstrous in fact, and I believe he'd do it. But with a smaller pair I think he'd come over top and try to isolate the all in player. I smell a trap. At best I think I'm against 2 overs and it's a coin toss if I call. But somehow my brain takes over and starts to disagree. He's just had too many hands, how could he have another one. This is my inner calling station speaking, but I don't know it yet.

I have nowhere near enough chips to induce a fold, but I throw them all in anyway. He snap calls and it's the moment of truth. My instincts were spot on. 99 for the first player, QQ for the deep stack. No set for me and I'm on my way home.

Doyle Brunson once wrote that when you face a tough decision you should go with your first instinct. I'll have to remember that next time.

WPT Photo

2009-08-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

Very cool. Hanging out on the rail right now watching the WPT event at the Bike. As I'm watching Negreanu play Scotty Nguyen walks by. Scotty was nice enough to stop and take a photo, but I didn't get a chance to catch Daniel before he left. Maybe next year I'll be at the table with these guys.

Management Decisions

2009-08-14T11:10:00.001-07:00

When most poker players hear the term "management" I'm sure the first thing that comes to mind is their bankroll. But managing poker really goes beyond taking care of your bankroll. Playing poker professionally is like running a business, every aspect must be planned well to succeed.

It's ironic that I've taken such an interest in organizing my poker these days, as much as I hate being managed at my day job. I actually try now to apply many of the principles that have been used by those I work for. I put thought into everything from selecting the right games to choosing the right times to play. I set short term an long term goals, monitor my progress, and look for feedback to see where I need to adjust. I even put together spreadsheets with tournament structures to evaluate how I should approach them.

Right now I find myself trying to remain objective making a tough decision. The Legends of Poker tournament series has a $200,000 guaranteed event this weekend that I am considering competing in, but I'm not sure how well it aligns me to stay on track this month. I think it's a good opportunity, but I'm off track with my goals.

One of the main objectives I have set for my self is to minimize variance by focusing my play around cash games. The idea is to make sure that tournament buy-ins don't outweigh cash game winnings, that way I can sustain a long run of tournaments without cashing and still have income. But since returning from Vegas last month I haven't taken a lot of time to play poker. I have however competed in a local tournament, and competing in another would raise my total buy-ins for the month above what I've made in cash games. It would also take up most of my weekend, which is the best time I have to really get in a good session and grind away at a cash game.

But one thing I have in the back of my mind is that I am not yet dependent on my poker earnings. I decided to plan my time and game selection with these ideas to try to optimize things for when I do play poker full time. Right now, though, the income from my day job pays the bills and my poker earnings are used to grow my bankroll. And this tournament offers exactly the type of bankroll growing opportunity I look for.

One of my other goals is to keep my eye out for large low buy-in deep stack events just like this. The cost is low enough at that it should attract a lot of recreational players, yet the structure clearly favors the experienced. I expect that this should result in a large amount of dead money, with amateurs busting out long before they should in a deepstack event. I believe these really are the best tournament opportunities at my bankroll level.

I'll have to weigh things out an make a decision tonight. I'm also trying to remember that poker is an emotional game, and greed probably has a lot to do with my thought process now. I don't want my desire to chase large prizes to break my rules unless the circumstances truly justify it.

We are creatures of habit

2009-08-12T16:28:00.001-07:00

This is a fact. Our lives are filled with mundane tasks we must complete every day. Our brains allow us to go into autodrive and handle these tasks without any effort. We put our pants on with the same leg first. We tie our shoes in the same way.

Even complex tasks are subject to this. Studies have shown that we learn to solve problems in set ways, and afterwards continue to attempt to reapply the solutions we have learned. It's referred to as the Einstellung Effect.

Poker is not exempt. If anything poker is the most susceptible to the affects of our habitual nature. It is a game of repeating situations. We will make similar choices again and again, and our success will depend on taking the correct actions. Every good habit that we have is a valuable asset. They will make money for us as we play the game. Every bad habit is an expense that will rob our profits. We literally pay to have them.

Consider this next time you find yourself tempted to take an action you know is wrong. Are you really making the call "just this one time"? Or are you reinforcing a habit that is costing you money?