Saturday, May 29, 2010

Into the stratosphere

Last night I had the biggest single session gain of my poker career, and it was almost entirely due to one of my opponents being on a historic tilt. He made it clear he would bet big with any cards, and more often than not they turned out to be rags. Every time he hit the felt, he'd immediately reup with a fresh $40k, but with his wacky and irrational betting style intact, making it quite a simple matter to relieve him of his chips. Here are the pots I won from him:

- my two pair of tens and sevens beat his high card ten for a pot of $36,000
- my full house of fives over deuces beat his two pair of aces and fives for a pot of $86,600
- my three of a kind queens beat his two pair of queens and jacks for a pot of $79,000
- my pair of nines beat his pair of threes for a pot of $46,800

I wasn't the only one at the table who benefited from his largesse, but I was the main benefactor. I lost count of the number of times he reupped, but figure he must have dropped over $150k while I was at the table.

I now believe I'll hit the million mark well before the end of this year.

delta: $101,200
balance: $725,744

Friday, May 28, 2010

Neo the Bruce

My inability thus far to put the $600k boundary permanently in my rear view mirror reminds me of the story of Robert the Bruce, which my mother told me when I was young. He was a Scottish king who tried and failed to defeat the English many times. The legend has it that while in hiding after one of his defeats, he observed a spider trying and failing many times to complete a difficult maneuver in the spinning of its web. The spider finally succeeded, and Robert the Bruce took inspiration from its perseverance. He came out of hiding to defeat the English.

My hope is that I will ultimately conquer this milestone which is giving me so much trouble. If I do, you can just call me Neo the Bruce :-) Last night I had a good session -- good enough to cross over to the high side of the boundary once again. This marks the 11th time I've crossed the boundary in either direction, the 6th time I've crossed it on the rise.

One feedback loop which my experience is starting to reinforce is that good things can happen when you fold. I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating: ideally, it should feel just as good to fold when you ought to fold as it feels to call when you ought to call.

Another thing I'm noticing is that I'm starting to recognize when other players are going on tilt. Since I've been guilty of that myself, I can empathize; that won't stop me from trying to relieve them of their chips, however!

delta: $41,600
balance: $624,544

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Deja vu all over again

My Achilles heel did me in again last night. No matter how many times I swear I'm not going to overbet stealth two pairs, all too often I do it anyway. On just the third or fourth hand of the night, I found myself going all in on a stealth two pair. Not only did I not win, I didn't even come in second! Here are the ugly details:

my chip stack at the start of the hand: $34,400
my hole cards: 4d 6d
flop: 5h 6h 4h
turn: Qd
river: Qc
winning hand: ten high flush
second best hand: eight high straight
my hand: third best
my chip stack at the end of the hand: $0

Looking back at this hand, there's no way I should have bet another cent after a flop like that. I mean, it's so obviously both a straight draw and a flush draw. It's imperative that I work extremely hard to disable the reality distortion field that fogs my brain every time I see a stealth two pair.

I reupped at another table and went up about $20k almost immediately. I should have stopped at that point, but didn't. Eventually I lost almost all of those winnings, and finally called it a night.

delta: $-38,770
balance: $582,944

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Many fish bites if ya' got good bait

The title of this post comes from the song "Fishin' Blues", by blues musician Taj Mahal. Poker has a lot in common with fishing. You need to be patient, first and foremost. When you get a nibble, you can't suddenly reel in your line hell bent for leather; that'll just rip the bait out of the fish's mouth and you'll end up with nothing. You have to gentle the fish along, slowly but steadily increasing the tension on the line. Strange as it may sound, another attribute poker and fishing share, at least for me, is that they're relaxing.

Last night my patience was rewarded with some nice hands. I gentled them along, winning some nice pots. It was another night when poker seemed dead simple. Would that it were always so!

delta: $31,000
balance: $621,714

Monday, May 24, 2010

Revisiting the invisible leprechaun hand

Faithful readers of this blog will remember that I lost a memorable hand to a straight flush a while back, which I wrote about in the "Invisible leprechauns" post. At the time, I guessed my chances of losing in that situation were only about 1%. Using an online poker odds calculator the next day, I discovered that the actual number was considerably higher -- namely, 8.28%. I then tried working out the odds on paper to verify the number, but came up with 9.19% instead.

Recently, I decided it would be beneficial to write my own odds calculator, since I could tailor it any way I saw fit. This weekend, I finished it, and it also came up with the 8.28% number. Here's the breakdown of opponent hand types which beat my hand, out of a total of 990 possible turn and river combinations:

straight: 45
flush: 33
four of a kind: 1
straight flush: 2
royal flush: 1

(45 + 33 + 1 + 2 + 1) / 990 = 82 / 990 = 8.28%

When I tried working the odds out on paper, my mistake was crediting too many flush wins to my opponent; what I forgot about was that any flush my opponent made with the 3 of diamonds would actually lose to my hand, since in that case I'd have a full house of queens over threes. I'd been erroneously crediting my opponent with 42 flush wins instead of 33; that produced the faulty 9.19% number.

The upshot of all this is that I was indeed the victim of a suckout on that hand, but the suckout was not of quite as monstrous a proportion as I'd guessed in the heat of the moment.

On Friday night, I porpoised around, but ended up with a modest gain.

delta: $16,800
balance: $590,714

Friday, May 21, 2010

Groundhog Day

I never saw the movie "Groundhog Day", but know the premise. I feel like I'm trapped in a poker-related version of the movie; I appear to be doomed to keep falling back below the $600k mark every time I manage to rise above it. The most natural milestones on the way to my goal of a million play dollars are the $100k boundaries. I just looked back over the history of my balance to see how hard each of them was to leave in the rear view mirror; here are the numbers of crossings:

$100k: 5 crossings
$200k: 3 crossings
$300k: 7 crossings
$400k: 5 crossings
$500k: 5 crossings
$600k: 8 crossings (at last count)

As you might have guessed, I hit the felt again last night. The killer blow was another hand I just couldn't lay down; I had a 9 high straight, and lost to a king high straight. That hand cost me $54,400.

delta: $-40,000
balance: $573,914

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Temporary invulnerability

I bounced back from Tuesday's debacle with a nice gain last night. Witnessing some really bad luck hit other players reinforced my understanding that the poker gods spread the bad luck around as well as the good.

I've developed a somewhat kooky theory about bad and good luck in poker which isn't based on science, but which seems to be borne out by experience. In a nutshell, it's that when bad luck hits you hard enough, you'll have a small window of time after that in which you'll be invulnerable to it. In Pac Man terms, it's like the window of time after you eat a power pellet and all the ghosts turn blue and run away from you.

My last hand of the night, my ten high flush beat a nine high for a pot worth $69,400.

delta: $41,400
balance: $613,914

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Double whammy

Last night was a bad one, poker-wise; I lost my full starting stack of $40k at both tables I joined. Thus, the name of this post. This $80k loss wasn't as big as the loss I detailed in the "Massive loss" post of last month, but it was plenty big. The aforementioned loss was $96,600, which represented 21% of my balance at the time. Last night's loss represented 12% of my balance -- a mere bagatelle in comparison!

Although the end result was the same, the path my stack took to the felt was very different at the two tables. At the first table, it took a slow but steady elevator downwards; I only won one hand, and that didn't help much, since it was a split pot. At the second table, my stack bounced around for a while, then rode up to $62k on a mini hot streak. Then it took a devastating body blow which took it down $33k in one fell swoop. Here are the gory details: I had the button, and was dealt Ks 3s. The flop came 8s Js Jd. I made my flush on the turn (2s), and raised to $1600. Two players stayed in the hand, one of them eventually reraising to $10k; I decided to stop reraising and just call. The river card was an innocuous 5d. The player who'd reraised to $10k on the turn bet $21,700 on the river. I thought about it for a while, then called. I just couldn't lay down my flush. It lost to jacks full of eights. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and reviewing this hand today, it seems obvious that the big bettor had hit a full house. I had a nagging suspicion of this at the time, but ignored it.

After that blow, I hit the felt pretty quick; I was basically on tilt. I have yet to learn to lay down monster hands when an opponent's more monstrous monster is in the offing. That's what really separates the professionals from the amateurs.

delta: $-80,000
balance: $572,514

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Inexplicable gift

I received an inexplicable gift last night. One of my opponents went all in on a mere pair of queens, while I had a full house. The queens were on the board; all my opponent had for hole cards was K 3 offsuit. My hole cards were a third queen and a second ace, as there was one ace on the board. I won a pot worth $84k, $40k of which came from my generous opponent. I guess he was trying to buy the hand with a stone bluff. Not a good idea!

stats:

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 19 hands and saw flop:
- 3 out of 3 times while in big blind (100%)
- 2 out of 3 times while in small blind (66%)
- 10 out of 13 times in other positions (76%)
- a total of 15 out of 19 (78%)
Pots won at showdown - 3 of 6 (50%)
Pots won without showdown - 1

delta: $44,300
balance: $652,514

Monday, May 17, 2010

Playing against big stacks

On Friday night, I decided to join a table which had two players around the 100k mark. I wanted to get practice playing against big stacks. One of the big stacks was quite aggressive; I thought it was pretty clear that he was trying to bully people off their hands. I had an early gut check when I went all in to protect a good hand against the bully; we ended up splitting the pot. Thinking about it later, I realized I hadn't made the smartest play in the world, but it was gutsy. Funnily enough, after that hand, the would-be bully's aggression diminished.

That was the only hand I went all in on. My stats were decent:

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 67 hands and saw flop:
- 8 out of 12 times while in big blind (66%)
- 9 out of 13 times while in small blind (69%)
- 30 out of 42 times in other positions (71%)
- a total of 47 out of 67 (70%)
Pots won at showdown - 8 of 17 (47%)
Pots won without showdown - 2

I'm liking my new philosophy.

delta: $3,011
balance: $608,214

Friday, May 14, 2010

Golden ratio

Last night's winning session brought me back, after many months, to what I call the poker golden ratio. This is the ratio I've decided will ensure continued poker success. It' s simple to state -- the number of your winning sessions must be at least double the number of your losing sessions. It's less simple to achieve :-)

Since I started keeping stats on March 24, 2009, I've had 69 losing sessions and 138 winning sessions. That hits the golden ratio right on the nose!

Last night, I was pretty good about sticking to my new philosophy of keeping up my fold percentage. I did let one hand get away from me; I lost just north of 10k on it. I didn't feel too badly, though, as I'd just won a big pot and was willing to gamble a little.

delta: $34,000
balance: $605,203

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Fold percentage

One stat I'd never thought of calculating before, but which now occurs to me as an important one, is fold percentage. Your fold percentage has to be above a certain threshold in order for you to gain chips. If you're taking too many hands to showdown, you'll be spending too much to get there, since your showdown percentage necessarily will drop.

Pokerstars doesn't give you your fold percentage directly, but it can easily be calculated. Here are my stats from last night:

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 46 hands and saw flop:
- 5 out of 6 times while in big blind (83%)
- 5 out of 7 times while in small blind (71%)
- 25 out of 33 times in other positions (75%)
- a total of 35 out of 46 (76%)
Pots won at showdown - 6 of 11 (54%)
Pots won without showdown - 2

Since I didn't fold on 13 (11 + 2) hands, that means I folded on 33 (46 - 13) hands, for a fold percentage of 72. I'm going to just throw a number out there now, and see how it flies; I'm guessing that the minimum fold percentage should be 70%.

Last night, there were several times I was sorely tempted to call, but I did the right thing and folded instead. The ability to fold at those crucial moments allowed me to have a winning session.

delta: $21,700
balance: $571,203

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

How to win over 25% of the time and still lose

Last night, my stats looked pretty damn good:

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 53 hands and saw flop:
- 9 out of 10 times while in big blind (90%)
- 8 out of 8 times while in small blind (100%)
- 33 out of 35 times in other positions (94%)
- a total of 50 out of 53 (94%)
Pots won at showdown - 10 of 17 (58%)
Pots won without showdown - 5

15 pots won out of 53 hands equates to winning 28% of the time, which is double the expected clip at a 7 player table. Unfortunately, what these statistics don't show is some spectacular misjudgments and profligate spending on a small number of the hands I didn't win. So despite good looking numbers, I ate felt once again.

Looking back over the hands I misjudged so spectacularly, I see now how badly I was deluding myself; the trick is to realize you're deluding yourself while in the act of doing so. That's a skill that will take some time to master :-)

delta: $-40,000
balance: $549,503

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Blood supply

Chips are the blood supply of poker; without enough of them, you're not going to survive. This same concept applies to the table as a whole; without enough chips at the table, the table itself won't survive, since the players will drop away, looking for greener pastures elsewhere.

Last night, I'd lost nearly half my chips when the table went on life support; the chip leader left the table, and after one or two more hands, there was only one active player left besides me. This gave me a good chance to practice my heads up skills, but hampered my ability to bring my stack back to health. I porpoised up and down, and still had only half my starting stack when I decided to call it a night.

Here are the stats from last night:

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 102 hands and saw flop:
- 28 out of 30 times while in big blind (93%)
- 30 out of 30 times while in small blind (100%)
- 34 out of 42 times in other positions (80%)
- a total of 92 out of 102 (90%)
Pots won at showdown - 12 of 26 (46%)
Pots won without showdown - 15

delta: $-19,200
balance: $589,503

Monday, May 10, 2010

On tilt

I've been aware of the concept of a player going "on tilt" for some time, and knew what it meant by context. Today I decided to google it to make sure my understanding was correct; here's the top link I found (edited for typos):

[start]

http://poker.about.com/od/pokerglossary/g/tilt.htm

Definition: When poker players let their emotions cloud their poker judgment, it's called going "on tilt." Often, when a player suffers a bad beat or a losing streak, they will go "on tilt."

[end]

I realize that I went on tilt during Saturday night's session, but not in the way you might suspect. I didn't suffer any bad beats, and I wasn't angry or emotional. I was on what you might call a "greed tilt" -- I'd won a bunch of chips, but wasn't satisfied, and let my hunger for more cloud my poker judgment. At the session's peak, I'd parlayed my $40k initial stack into $73k; at the end, I'd lost almost everything I'd won. Live and learn!

delta: $1,050
balance: $608,703

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Higher things

As I near my hundredth post on this blog, I realize that for me the hardest part of writing a post is coming up with the title. Of course, that's really just another way of saying that the hardest part of writing a post is deciding what to write about, since once you've decided what to write about, selecting the title is actually quite easy.

Except when it's not :-) I knew that in this post I wanted to write about how last night's session returned me to uncharted territory again, but was having a hard time coming up with a title. By uncharted territory, I mean that the session took my balance up to a new all time high.

Here's a synopsis of my thought process: high -- up high -- higher than ever before -- from lower to higher -- higher things -- stepping stones of dead selves to higher things -- line of poetry -- google it -- done

Here are the first lines of the poem "In Memoriam", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.

delta: $46,000
balance: $607,653

Friday, May 7, 2010

Battling back

Last night I again lost my whole starting stack of $40k at the first table I joined. I reupped at a different table, as is my custom. I don't understand why some players reup at the same table where they've just hit the felt. For one thing, it's certainly possible that the reason they hit the felt is that the other players at the table are simply more skillful. In such a case, it's foolhardy to stick around for more, since the likely result is another felting. Even if the feltee took some bad beats, and has the same or higher skill level as most of the other players, they have the advantage of the history of his play to help them decide how to play against him. Of course, that history works both ways; the feltee has the history of their play to help him also. I guess it's a personal choice; I just feel that joining a new table wipes the mental slate clean, and gets rid of bad vibes.

At the second table, I did much better, winning back almost all the chips I'd lost at the first. The most common thing I did last night was actually folding on the river; I did that 10 times out of 58 hands. That can be costly, but not nearly as costly as calling when you don't have the best hand. I actually won more pots without a showdown (6) than I did with a showdown (4). Winning pots without a showdown is never a bad thing!

delta: $-2,915
balance: $561,653

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Second best

I had an off-night last night. Hey, they happen. I don't fool myself that they won't. My nemesis last night was an old failing -- betting stealth two pairs too big. Some things never change. I only had two stealth two pairs, but was second best on both, and bet them both pretty big. Let me check the archives...

stealth two pair #1: my jacks and sixes lost to a queen high straight. I lost $3,600.
stealth two pair #2: my queens and fours lost to a five high straight. I lost $3,600 again.

That's actually pretty small potatoes, but those were the hands that stuck in my mind. Let me check the archives again to see if I did some really stupid moves which I forgot about...

Well, yeah, I did make same pretty lame decisions on my last hand :-) But I was short-stacked at that point, so it's somewhat forgivable. I had a gutshot straight draw after the flop, and called to stay in the hand. Then I had a double gutshot straight draw after the turn (which provides the same odds as an open-ended straight draw), and again called to stay in the hand, having to go all in to do it. The river was no help, and I ate felt. That hand cost me $9,700. Back to the drawing board!

delta: $-40,000
balance: $564,568

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

80 80 vision

Good vision for eyes is 20 20; my newest rule of thumb is that good vision for poker players is 80 80. That is, I think you should aim to see the flop 80% of the time, and aim to win 80% of your showdowns. I hit both numbers on the nose in last night's session:

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 47 hands and saw flop:
- 9 out of 10 times while in big blind (90%)
- 7 out of 8 times while in small blind (87%)
- 22 out of 29 times in other positions (75%)
- a total of 38 out of 47 (80%)
Pots won at showdown - 8 of 10 (80%)
Pots won without showdown - 1

One of the showdowns I lost was a heartbreaker; I had a stealth two pair of queens and tens, which were the top cards on the board, but lost to a flush. Things balanced out, however, when I risked everything later on in the session on a hand where all I had was two overcards to the board and people were betting like crazy. I went all in, and lucked out when the river card was my top hole card -- a king. I won a pot worth $81,449 on a pair of kings. I had no real business staying in that hand, but what can I tell you, I had a hunch! My hunch apparatus was working well all session, as the second time I was dealt a pair of threes, I knew I'd be hitting a set of threes on the flop. On that hand, I won a pot worth $35,500.

delta: $42,049
balance: $604,568

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Table ender

Last Thursday night, I had my first table ender, which is what I call a hand which causes play to abruptly cease at the table. Unfortunately, since play did cease, I wasn't able to snag the detailed hand history (I consider this a bug in the PokerStars software); all I could grab was the summary in the chat window.

Why did play cease? For one thing, I took at least one opponent to the felt (it may have been two). For another, the pot I raked in was big enough to put me in a very strong bullying position. All the remaining players quickly decided they didn't like the looks of that, and left the table.

For the record, on the table ending hand I won $38,444 in a side pot and $49,594 in the main pot.

delta: $59,813
balance: $562,519