Monday, November 30, 2009

Feeling flush

I lucked out tonight. I was playing cautiously, probably too cautiously. When I flopped trip 8s, I slow-played that hand, and ended up losing to a straight. If I'd bet it out, it's likely the player with the straight draw would have folded before it came to showdown. Of course, hindsight is 20-20.

Though I've never surfed, I'm pretty sure that catching a monster hand is like catching a monster wave. You have to be patient, but not too patient! You have to sense the monster before you actually see it, and get up on your board and start riding before you know exactly how big it is.

My monster hand tonight was a flush. I was dealt the nine and queen of diamonds, and caught a diamond on the flop. I also paired the nine, so I decided to stay in the hand in hopes of trip nines. Admittedly, not a very sound strategy. I certainly wasn't staying in the hand for runner runner diamonds! When the turn came a diamond, though, I then started thinking about a flush on the river. No one bet huge on the turn, so I stayed around and got lucky. When I made the flush and bet it out, I had a taker who ended up crippling his stack. Poker karma again!

How can I defend my strategy of holding out for trip nines? I just sensed that I was due. A hunch, pure and simple. There was certainly no conscious calculation of odds. If I'm lucky often enough, though, it might be that my hunches are based on some kind of subconscious calculation of odds which I'm not even aware of. Pretty unlikely, I'll admit, but it makes for an interesting supposition!

tonight's delta: $2,335
current balance: $245,639

Friday, November 27, 2009

Stop loss

When your goal is to consistently earn steady, unspectacular amounts over time, the worst thing you can do is to refuse to take your lumps. By this I mean, to refuse to accept that sometimes, it just isn't your night. You must be willing and able to stop playing when you've been "felted" (to use a Phil Laak coinage). I have a stop loss strategy I now adhere to, though I admit it took me a while to come up with it and to realize its utility. I now stop playing for the night whenever my chip count hits zero. Many players on pokerstars immediately replenish their stacks when they get busted, but I think that's an emotional response which should be avoided.

Employing this strategy, there's a maximum amount you can lose in a poker session, but no maximum amount you can win. That's a beautiful thing, when you look at it the right way. Tonight, I didn't win a single showdown. I was being pretty patient, so I saw a fair number of hands. My last hand of the night, I was dealt a pair of kings, and thought my patience had been rewarded. I felt confident enough to be the final reraiser pre-flop. After the flop, which was rainbow undercards, I felt confident enough to reraise until I was all in. I ran into a pair of aces, my main pre-flop competition, and was out. I was sure that only a pair of aces could beat me, and was pretty sure that no one had it.

Here's the thing -- you can't really beat yourself up in that kind of situation. You just tip your hat to the poker gods, intone "I am not worthy" a la Wayne and Garth, and hope for better poker karma in the future. Let's face it -- poker is largely played on the basis of educated hunches, and the most educated hunch in the world can still be wrong. If you're going to wail and moan when the unexpected and unlikely happens, you just shouldn't be playing.

For those keeping score at home, my net pokerstars worth after tonight's $2000 loss is $243,304.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

hello world

I've finally decided to join the 21st century and start writing a blog. Heaven help me! (and of course, heaven help you, who are reading this, whoever you might be). I've been bitten by the poker bug, specifically, the Texas Hold'em bug, so that's what this blog will be about. No need to read any further if poker is not your thing.

The name of this blog is both a boast and a promise I hope to keep. I play on pokerstars.com under the screen name neostreet, and as of the time of this writing I have not yet earned a million play dollars. My current worth in play dollars is $245,304. But who'd be tempted to read a blog called "My first play quarter million"? For that matter, who'll be tempted to read this blog even with its current boastful and inaccurate title? Only time will tell.

In order to try to engage with my potential audience, I'll end this post with a trivia question: in a classic poker movie, the main character at one point says, "You're just not ready for me yet". What's the name of the movie, and the name of the actor who plays the main character?