Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Poker rhythms

Play poker long enough, and you start to feel the rhythms of the game. Nothing ever stays the same; stacks are continually bobbing up and down. The tide comes in and out. You eventually get a sense of when it's about your turn to receive some good cards.

In high school, I had a Math teacher who would always give us the same advice when he gave us a test -- "Take your time, but hurry up". That was excellent advice for test-taking, and it also happens to be excellent advice for poker-playing. Take your time waiting for the good cards to come along, but when they do, hurry up and recognize it!

I watched a couple of overly aggressive players flame out, and was the short stack among five remaining players. I felt one big hand would right my ship, and sensed that it was coming up. It did. I was dealt a suited J Q, and both the turn and river were queens. I bet it out, went all in, and actually got two callers; that pot was worth $3,125. Hasta la vista, baby!

delta: $1,115
balance: $287,858

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Four and out

I'm pretty sure I set a personal record tonight for poker futility. It only took me four hands to hit the felt! Those of you who are football fans will recognize the allusion in the title of this post to football futility. Despite my early exit, I don't think I played that badly. I happened to join a table with an aggressive front runner, and several other players with big stacks who were just as aggressive. When I joined, there were two other players with about $2,000, but they left the table after the first hand. That left my 2k stack battling it out with four bigger stacks, the largest of which was about 6k.

On my fourth and final hand of the night, I started with $1,600 and was dealt 7d Ad. There were a bunch of raises before the flop, all of which I called. The flop was 8c Ac 6h. Even with such a crappy kicker, I felt good about my pair of aces. I had a gut feeling I was the only one with them. So I hung in there, and eventually went all in. I lost to a pair of aces with a higher kicker (a 9). So the question is: should I have gone with my gut, or should I have jettisoned my aces because of my shitty kicker? I truly believe I did the right thing, which is why I don't feel bad. Poker is a game of instinct, and if you can't learn to cultivate and trust your poker instinct, you're playing the wrong game.

delta: -$2,000
balance: $286,743

Sunday, February 21, 2010

An embarassment of riches

If you play this wonderful game of poker long enough, once in a blue moon you'll have sessions where hand after hand, you're dealt premium cards. Don't quit too early when this happens! Ride the monster wave for all it's worth!

Let's look at the odds a moment. Given a table of 7 contestants, over time, you can only realistically expect to win one out of every 7 times. Tonight, I only played seven hands, but won 4 of them! That's outrageously good luck. In a word, it's "sick"!

I actually didn't follow the advice I just gave you. My sense of the severely rare nature of my good fortune forced me to leave the table after my fourth won pot.

I know I did nothing to deserve this extreme good fortune. Actually, that's not strictly true. I did do one thing to deserve it -- I kept playing long enough! By that I don't mean in this particular session, I mean in my overall poker life. If you play long enough, you'll eventually benefit from incredible good fortune. The trick is in not letting the bad fortune which will also inevitably come your way break either your spirit or your bankroll.

delta: $4,275
balance: $288,743

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Good things come in threes

Tonight I only won two hands, but that was okay, since I only played about eight or nine in total :-) Each hand, I had a slightly different flavor of three of a kind. The first hand, I had a set of fives; the second one, trip eights. Here's the thing -- I knew the hands were winners; I didn't have the hint of a scintilla of a trace of a doubt about that. So I bet them big -- over half the pot for each for my final bet. I've mentioned before about how betting the whole pot is a really bad strategy, and nothing has occurred since to change my mind.

Since there's such a heavy component of math in poker, it shouldn't surprise you to learn that I keep a fair number of stats on my poker life. The most important stat to me right now (and for the foreseeable future) is my percentage of winning sessions. I feel certain, though I can't explain precisely why, that if my number of winning sessions is at least twice my number of losing sessions, I'm in the clear, the clover, the money, whatever you want to call it. That's the gold standard I aspire to. Since I started keeping records of my sessions last March, I've stayed remarkably close to that gold standard. Right now, my overall counts stand at 54 losing sessions, 106 winning sessions. As it happens, my counts since starting this blog aren't quite so stellar -- 20 losing sessions, 34 winning sessions. But I'm within shouting distance of the ballpark!

There was a really nutty hand tonight that I wasn't involved in. Almost everyone else bet like there was no tomorrow, with almost all of them going all in. When I saw the hands, it made me wonder what they all could possibly have been thinking. Maybe they all got impatient at the same time? For the record, the winning hand was two pair, tens and fours. If I ever go all in with such a hand, with most of the table still live, revoke my poker-playing license immediately.

Here's another stat I keep -- average per-session delta. Since I started record-keeping, this stat is what I immodestly consider to be an eye-popping $1,223; however, that number is inflated due to the fact that I went through a period where I had the balls and/or stupidity to be playing $100/$200 tables, instead of the $5/$10 tables which are my true bread and butter. Since I started this blog, which was after I'd come to my senses and was back to the $5/$10 tables, my average per-session delta is a more earth-bound but still quite respectable $725.

If I keep up this same per-session delta pace, I should reach $300,000 in 22 more sessions, give or take. Onward and upward!

delta: $3,565
balance: $284,468

Five hammers

I recently learned some more poker lingo -- "the hammer" is slang for 7 2 offsuit. The nickname is ironic, since that's actually the worst poker hand you can have. The hand is actually a feather, not a hammer. As it turns out, a lot of online players like to play it for fun, instead of folding. If they manage to win with it, which for all practical purposes means without a showdown, they then show the hand for free and exclaim "Hammer!" in the chat box. Folks not in on the joke can get pretty riled up at this, but that's partly what the hammerers are looking for.

It always seems that when you first learn something new, it starts cropping up in your daily life with incredible frequency. That could just be due to a heightened sensitivity to the new thing, or it could be due to the strange workings of the universe. For whatever reason, in my session last night, I had no less than five hammers! Actually, 3 of the 5 were suited, so technically I guess you could call them "suited hammers", but still, 5 is an astonishing number to have in one session. Needless to say, I didn't waste much money on them.

I went up and down a lot. Once again, there was a point where I should have quit while I was ahead, since I'd already had a Lazarus-like resurrection from the first poker death spiral of the session, but I was having too much fun playing. The second time I went into a death spiral, I couldn't implement my strategy to exit before hitting the felt to save some chips. My last hand of the night, I went all in before the flop with an ace ten; I paired my ace on the flop, but lost to a set of queens. C'est la vie!

delta: -$2,000
balance: $280,903

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Why pot limit is the hold'em style for me

I recently came across an article Daniel Negreanu wrote for Card Player magazine in 2002: here's the link:

http://www.cardplayer.com/cardplayer-magazines/32-15-10/articles/12550-should-pot-limit-or-no-limit-hold-39-em-crown-our-world-champion

Even though my no limit hold'em experience is extremely limited (no pun intended), I completely agree with Daniel. As he says, you definitely get to see more flops in pot limit, therefore you have to make more decisions, therefore your skill level has to be higher.

Tonight, I won a hand I likely couldn't have won at a no limit table. I was dealt an ace four offsuit, and both the turn and river were fours. Since nobody had bet really big up to that point, I was able to hang in there and then bet big on the river myself; I raised a bet of $150 to $300 (which the original bettor called). I won a side pot and the main pot, for a total of $1,380. In a no limit game, I probably would have been forced to fold before the river (if not before the turn).

delta: $1,055
balance: $282,903

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The hand I now love to love

I wish to amend a sentiment I've often stated before in this blog. I'm upgrading my relationship with the "hidden two pair" hand from love/hate to unadulterated love! Even though I know it can't always win, its stealth factor is so awesome I can't see many circumstances where I won't take it all the way to showdown. Also, "stealth two pair" is a better moniker, so that's what I'll use from now on.

Tonight's session was another short, sweet one. On about my fifth hand, I was dealt queen five offsuit, and the flop came Q 5 3. I steadily built up the pot, the board didn't pair, and there was only one overcard (a king). I doubted anyone had a two pair with kings, and was right. I raked in $3,210 from two side pots and a main pot.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again -- when you're winning, this game seems ridiculously easy. That's the way I like it!

delta: $1,940
balance: $281,848

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Pocket kings

It was a short night tonight; I caught a premium hand early on and got a huge payoff from it. I was dealt pocket kings, and the button was trying to throw his weight around. There were no overcards on the flop, turn, or river. I bet big on the turn -- $500. The button doubled me up, and someone else reraised before it was my turn to act again. I ended up going all in, and raked in a pot worth $5,890. I won't pretend I wasn't nervous, but was fairly sure I had the best hand. I knew that win or lose, it was the right poker play to stick with the kings to the end.

Poker takes guts, no question about it. You can't win if you can't face risking all your chips on a single hand from time to time. You need to try to optimize your chances that it's the best hand, though.

There's definitely a yin and yang to poker. If you're too aggressive, you're toast. If you're not aggressive enough, you're also toast. Tonight I was lucky enough to join a table which had some players who were just a bit too aggressive for their own good.

I let my pocket kings sing, and it sure was sweet music!

delta: $3,860
balance: $279,908

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Milestone

Tonight marks a milestone of sorts -- my 50th post. When I started this blog, I certainly didn't have "number of posts" as a goal; my goal was (and remains) to win a million play dollars, through a combination of guile, ingenuity, guts, and luck. Yet there's something about the sheer number of posts that will be a by-product of this quest that makes the act of posting significant in itself, whether or not I ever achieve my goal.

I don't have an account on Twitter, yet I follow with interest the varied opinions of the blogosphere on this intriguing company. Some fascinating statistics have come to light, which I'm sure also have relevance to "regular" blogs, in addition to the "micro" blogs Twitter has pioneered and popularized. What really captured my attention were what could be termed the "one-tweet wonders" -- micro-blogs consisting of a single, solitary tweet. I'm sure there are "one-post wonders" in the realm of traditional blogs as well.

I guess you could say that right now I'm indulging in a not-very-transparent act of self-congratulation. Though I have no statistics to support this claim, I'm nevertheless somehow absurdly certain that this blog is more successful than half the blogs ever started, where the definition of success is "at least 50 posts". How can I make this claim with no statistics to back it up? Intuition, baby; it's what we poker players live (and die) by :-)

My intuition was working well tonight. I even came up with a couple additional rules of thumb!

additional rule of thumb #1: it's worth it to flush the bluffers from the scene by betting a decent amount in late position even when your hand is nothing much to speak of. What you get when you do this is information; all information costs something, so consider it money well spent.

additional rule of thumb #2: you need to make it clear to the rest of the table that you bluff sometimes, just to "keep them honest" in their distrust of you. If you never bluff, you're a marked man. In that case, it makes it a simple decision for them to fold when you bet a significant amount.

The hardest thing I had to do tonight was to stop playing when I felt like I was on a roll. The thing is, I've had enough experience to know how dangerously seductive that "just a couple more hands" attitude can be. You need to try to do the right thing, as well as you're able, always! Sometimes, the right thing makes you feel like a wimp, but so be it.

I honestly believe this to be true: if you have a good memory, the more you play, the better you'll get. By good memory, I mean a memory for situations, not exact circumstances. You have to listen to the innermost voice of your experience, which can't be bullshitted. The problem is, that voice speaks very quietly. There are a whole bunch of intermediate voices in between you and it, all of them louder than it, and all trying to drown out that innermost voice. Ignore them! Just listen to the quiet one. It knows!

delta: $1,430
balance: $276,048

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Back in the zone

I read a good chunk of "Positively Fifth Street" today, and like it a lot. I know the next poker book I need to read when I'm done with "Fifth" -- "The Biggest Game in Town", by A. Alvarez. McManus praises it to the skies, and basically admits he's a mere acolyte to the master.

Tonight, what can I say? I felt like I could do no wrong. I folded when I needed to fold, bluffed when I needed to bluff, and value bet when I needed to value bet. For all that, I did go down about half my stack in the first half hour. That'll happen, and you need to expect that it'll happen more often than not, and not be fazed by it. Look at it this way -- you're one against 6, 7, or 8. The odds are against you. You're basically going to go down before you go up, unless you really luck out. Just don't get your sorry ass so discouraged, mon! As long as you don't do something stupid, your time will come. Tonight I didn't do anything stupid. I know now that last night I got impatient, and overplayed a halfway decent hand, fooling myself that it was a fully decent hand. Don't fool yourself! That's the cardinal rule. So easy to say, and so hard to obey. Do you enjoy my waxing poetical? Tonight I didn't fool myself.

When I got up over $900 above my starting amount, I said "That's enough -- I'm outa here!". You have to be religious, and I mean religious, about not getting too greedy. You have to recognize when you've ridden a big wave to the beach, haven't wiped out, and can just hop off your board and stroll onto the sand, secure in the knowledge that you've bested the poker gods for the time being.

McManus lays bare the addictive nature of the game, and I can't deny it. The thing is, you have to admit to yourself that you're addicted, but try to make it work for you in whatever way you can. Don't pretend you can just walk away, but do try to channel the addiction in productive ways. Keep yourself on a leash, but let the leash out every now and then!

I realize there's a world of difference between pot limit Hold'em and no limit Hold'em. They're two completely different animals. I think you have to be a little bit insane to play no limit. I'm just fine with pot limit, thank you very much! Of course, that means I can never win the Main Event at the World Series of Poker. However, if I get good enough at pot limit, that shouldn't matter a bit!

delta: $920
balance: $274,618

Friday, February 12, 2010

Stuck in reverse

Tonight I went down in flames for the third straight session. Despite that fact, I don't think I played all that badly. I didn't win a single hand, it's true, but my reads weren't terrible. It was the night of the lost straights, as fully three of my hands would have made a straight if I'd had the guts/stubbornness/recklessness to stick them out; all of them would have won. I think that tipped the balance against me. You only get so many chances. The thing is, two of the three were gut-shots, so I don't really blame myself for bailing.

You have to make the proper, correct plays, regardless of how the poker gods taunt you afterwards! You should actually feel better about making correct plays and losing than you should feel about making risky plays and lucking out. I say that, and intellectually know it should be true, but I have to admit I feel great when I make bone-headed plays that actually pay off! Then I pat myself on the back for my prescience, guts, and genius :-)

Let me take a good hard, honest look at my last hand of the night. I started the hand with $829 in chips, more than a third of my starting stack. I had the button, and was dealt ace seven offsuit. After a small first round of betting, the flop came 2 Q A. The table checked around to me. I felt good about my pair of aces, and bet a whopping $10. Someone raised me up to $235, and I immediately called. Not good! Not good at all. As the narrator in the TV cartoon version of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" said, "Stink, stank, stunk!" Why didn't I at least flinch? Why would I call immediately? That was one of those lapse-in-judgment moments. I think the answer is that I was fooled by the oldest trick in the poker book, the tried-and-true check-raise. Since the table had checked around to me, I had an inflated sense of the worth of my hand. I can say now, with the benefit of hindsight but also logic, that that immediate call was my worst decision of the night. Now I was in the psychological bind of essentially being forced to defend my first poor decision by making secondary and tertiary poor decisions. Suffice it to say, I ended up going all in, and my pair of aces and deuces lost to aces full of deuces. When you run up against pocket rockets with only a single rocket in your holster (I know, I'm mixing metaphors again), you're basically screwed six ways to Sunday.

delta: -$2,000
balance: $273,698

P. S. I've been reading reviews of poker nonfiction books lately, and found that quite a few of these books are available on the Amazon Kindle site. I plan to download "Positively Fifth Street", by James McManus, and start reading it tonight.

Poker archeology

I'm pretty sure this is the longest period of radio silence between blog posts since I started this blog. I've been missing the blog, and missing playing poker also. The proximal reason is that I've been really busy at work; an ancillary reason is that it's winter, and people in general (and me in particular) have less energy in the winter.

I actually played poker last Saturday night, but went to bed without posting. There were several reasons for that, the most prominent ones being that it was late and I was tired. But as you might suspect, it was also a losing session for me. I also have to confess that my decision-making skills were impaired by the fact that I was drinking beer throughout the session.

As I've probably already mentioned, it's my practice to save the big hands I'm involved in, whether I win them or lose them. So my task of reconstructing last Saturday's debacle is not impossible, despite the beer-induced haziness of my memories of the session. The two prominent things I remember:

1. I was really enjoying listening to a new song I recently downloaded from iTunes, "Heaven" by Brett Dennen. So much so, in fact, that I kept cycling through the last three songs I downloaded, so I could keep hearing it. On iTunes, I couldn't find the version of it I'd heard on the radio which introduced me to it, which is a duet with Natalie Merchant, but the solo version is awesome as well.

2. I went up $800 on my starting stake after about an hour, kept playing, and eventually lost it all.

Pardon me while I go on an archeological dig of the poker variety ...

...

- first notable hand of the night, I won a pot worth $310 with three of a kind, nines
- next notable hand, I folded on the flop
- next notable, I won $1,600 with a pair of aces. I'm pretty sure that was the hand that got me up $800; clearly (in hindsight) I should have quit right there
- next, I won $420 without a showdown
- next, I won $550 without a showdown

Sacre bleu! The archives go dark after that. Apparently I was so discouraged and/or trashed when I lost it all, I didn't even bother to save the final hand.

I promise my faithful reader(s?) that'll be the last of my shoddy record-keeping.

delta: -$,2000
balance: $275,698

Friday, February 5, 2010

Costly lapses

For the third session in a row, I went up a small amount early, and decided to keep playing. This time, I was up $400 on my starting amount of $2,000 after about five hands. I should have quit right then. I ended up hitting the felt after almost three hours of play.

What I'm starting to notice on the nights I lose is that sprinkled into a plurality of good decisions are a minority of decisions that display major lapses in judgment. I know this because I cut and paste the big hands (wins or losses) to study later. My biggest lapse tonight was paying an inordinate amount to see a flop that my hand didn't merit me paying that much to see. On that one hand, I lost about $550, or more than a quarter of my starting stack. That's just crazy!

My last hand of the night was very dramatic. Three players (including me) ended up going all in, only to lose to quad sixes. I was going for a straight draw (an open-ended one, for a change). It wouldn't have helped if I'd made it, of course. One of the other all-in players had a full house; that had to have hurt. My losing didn't hurt as much, since my stack was crippled at that point and I was in the throes of another poker death spiral; I had to bankroll any halfway decent hand.

I'm adding another self-imposed rule to my collection -- when I realize I'm in a death spiral, I should just end my night right then. Might as well save a couple hundred! I know this rule will be hard to follow, but formulating it is the first step.

delta: -$2,000
balance: $277,698

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Poker karma

Here's the thing. You're going to win, and you're going to lose. Expect either one. Expect that if you win, you're increasing the odds that next time you'll lose. Expect that if you lose, you're increasing the odds that next time you'll win. Expect that with experience, you'll win more times than you lose. And expect that, with a simple stop loss rule (which I should try to patent :-), on average you'll lose less when you lose than you'll win when you win.

Poker definitely has karma. When you've played long enough, you come to realize that. If you die by the hidden two pair, some time later ("maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, ..." -- bonus trivia quiz question: identify that movie quotation) you'll rise like a phoenix from the ashes with a hidden two pair. If you die by holding out for a gut-shot, some time later you'll soar like an eagle on the wings of a gut-shot (how's that for a mixed metaphor?).

Other than imputing it to stupidity and stubbornness (and just possibly to an awesome hunch), I can't explain why I held out for a gut-shot for the second night in a row. But let's back up a hair. Like last night, I won a healthy sized pot early -- putting me up about $700 on the night. But (also like last night) I couldn't find it in me to take the small gain and run; I hadn't had enough of a poker fix yet.

So I kept playing, quite conservatively. There was a wild player two places to my left who raised big almost every hand. I tried to stay out of her way. After folding a bunch of hands, I was dealt an ace five offsuit, and saw a flop of 2c 3c 3h. I knew it was unlikely the gut-shot would come out, but no one else was betting big enough to make me come to my senses. Wouldn't you know, the turn was a four, completing my gut-shot. I ended up going all in, and won every pot (there were two side ones in addition to the main one) for a total haul of $6,520. Who says you have to play at the expensive tables to win some really excellent play dough?

My oldest friend in the world (i.e. the friend I've had the longest, not the oldest person I know who's a friend) is reading this blog faithfully, and gently chided me in an email for being stuck in the $260K range so long. He wondered aloud when I'll hit $300K. I hereby make it my short term goal to hit that plateau by the end of next month.

delta: $4,500
balance: $279,698

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Another death spiral

I experienced another poker death spiral tonight. Very early on, I was up $500 on the strength of a full house, which was a good start. If I'd followed my own revised rules, I would have ended my session there, but I'd only played two hands and wanted to play some more.

I knew my night was headed south when I was dealt a king queen offsuit and couldn't win with a board of 4h Qh 6s 7s 9h. I lost to a set of fours, which had been slow-played masterfully. I had the dealer button on that hand, and was glad I checked the river; the set of fours was trying to check-raise me, but I looked at the pot and thought "That's big enough for me". It would have been $2,518, and I could have ended my night right there.

The tide was going out at that point, and it didn't come back like it did last time. My final hand of the night, I was dealt ace ten suited, had to go all in before the flop, and lost to a king high heart flush.

You have to have a lot of hubris to play poker, but you also have to have a lot of humility. Admittedly, it's a strange combination! Also, you must be brutally honest in your evaluation of your hands. The less you let emotion enter into the equation, the better. Looking at one of the lost hands I cut-and-pasted tonight, I see I played it very loosely. I realize now I was fooling myself, hanging around when I should have folded. You can't kid a kidder, but you can kid yourself a hell of a lot of the time! Sordid truth to tell, somehow I made the cardinal sin of holding out for a gutshot. I don't understand what I could have been thinking; more likely than not, I wasn't thinking much at that point in time! You have to keep a constant watch on your critical faculties as you play.

I'm not getting down, though. As the Governator said so memorably, "I'll be back!"

delta: -$2,000
balance: $275,198