Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The lure of aggression

Last night, though I was playing well at the start of the session, I fell into a trap I've fallen into before -- namely, getting caught up in the playing style of the aggressors at the table. At one point I went up about $900, but played too loosely after that lift, and lost most of it immediately (and all of it eventually). When you play too aggressively in Omaha, it's akin to buying a lottery ticket; in other words, not a good idea!

Another difference I've noticed between Omaha and Hold'em is that you almost never see a pot won without a showdown in Omaha, though that scenario is quite common in Hold'em. As far as I know, I haven't seen that happen yet in my five sessions of Omaha.

Note to self: play more cautiously tonight.

delta: $-1,590
balance: $1,040,692

Monday, August 30, 2010

Double o-fer

On Saturday night, I experienced what I believe to be my first ever double o-fer -- I hit the felt at two consecutive tables without the consolation of winning even a single pot. I have the feeling that o-fers are much more common in Omaha than in Hold'em. If that's indeed the case, then I need to make sure not to get too down when the o-fers occur. Since I never allowed myself to get too down during the pursuit of my initial goal, I don't think I'll need to do much of an adjustment now.

delta: $-4,000
balance: $1,042,282

Saturday, August 28, 2010

The catbird seat

After three sessions of Omaha, I think the way to maximize your winnings is to bet heavily when you're in the catbird seat. Of course, this good advice is close to useless, since it requires you to know when you're in the catbird seat. To know that, you must already have attained a high level of expertise in the game. Stripped to the essentials, my advice becomes, "to be good at Omaha, get good at Omaha"!

My last hand of the night, even an Omaha neophyte like me was able to realize I was in the catbird seat. I was dealt 8s Ac Ks Ad, and the flop came Jc 6s As. Not only did I have a strong hand in my set of aces, I was drawing to the much stronger hand of a nut flush. I ended up going all in; the flush hit on the river, and I raked in a pot worth $5,790. That was a great outcome, especially as I'd hit the felt at the first table I joined.

By the way, I discovered I don't need to do any programming in order to be able to preserve my Omaha hand histories -- from the PokerStars FAQ, I learned that there are play money Omaha tables on the .com site; they're available below the real money Omaha games in the Omaha tab, instead of having their own separate play money tab like the play money Hold'em games on the site.

delta: $1,710
balance: $1,046,282

Friday, August 27, 2010

Hold'em is from Mars, Omaha is from Venus

Already, after only two sessions of Omaha, I can see that it's an immensely more subtle game than Hold'em, and therefore potentially immensely more satisfying. I feel like I've been playing a kid's game for the better part of two years, and now I've discovered a different game which requires exponentially more maturity and expertise. I wonder how anyone who masters Omaha could ever go back to Hold'em. I'll have to try to find out. If I ever mastered Omaha, I don't think I'd be able to go back to Hold'em; it would be like trying to enjoy Tic Tac Toe after you've mastered chess.

Last night, I was a folding machine at the first table I joined, until I finally got impatient and hit the felt on a hand which I stubbornly wouldn't give up on. I'd noticed that the level of aggression at the table was very high, and thought I could turn it to my advantage; the problem was, I didn't (and still don't) have a good feel for Omaha probabilities. At the next table I joined, everyone was playing relatively tight compared to the first table, which was fine with me; I was able to recover my losses and get back into the black again. My last hand of the night, I won a pot worth $4,940 with three of a kind, nines.

delta: $2,713
balance: $1,044,572

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Auspicious start

Last night, I had an auspicious start playing PLO (pot limit Omaha) for the first time. Since I'm a newbie to Omaha, I joined a $5/$10 table instead of a $100/$200 table. I'd read some good introductory information on Omaha beforehand, so I was well prepared to fold early and often.

Unfortunately, for some reason PokerStars doesn't make play money Omaha tables available on their .com site, so I had to use their .net site instead; a big drawback of using the .net site is that it doesn't make hand histories available, the way the .com site does. Therefore, for the time being I won't be able to study the hands I've played. My first step will be to send a friendly email to PokerStars, asking why the only play money tables on their .com site are Hold'em tables, and requesting that they make play money Omaha tables available as well. If that doesn't get results, I'll definitely consider writing a program to save the hand histories myself; that's one of the advantages of being a computer programmer!

I forgot to save the stats from the session, but I think I played around 50 - 60 hands and won 3 or 4 of them. I actually played at two tables since everyone eventually deserted the first table I joined. My final hand, I won a pot worth $5,870 with a full house, queens full of kings.

Seeing that I had more than quadrupled my initial stack of $2,000, I decided to augment my poker database to be able to see where that session stood in terms of percent gain on initial stack size; it came in fourth of 268 sessions, with a percent gain of 311.75. Not bad for my first crack at a new game!

delta: $6,235
balance: $1,041,859

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The end of the beginning

Friends and neighbors (as Stephen King likes to say), I did it. Last night, I achieved what I set out to do roughly a year and a half ago; I surpassed the million dollar mark in play money. On my final two hands, lady luck took my head in both of her hands, drew me towards her, and kissed me full on the lips. What a way to achieve the goal!

penultimate hand:

my hole cards: 9c 7c
flop: 5c 8c 6c
turn: 5h
river: Tc

I'll have to figure out what the odds are of flopping a straight flush; surely infinitesimal. Then I'll have to figure out what the odds are of improving your flopped straight flush on the river! Infinitesimally infinitesimal. I only won a pot of $3,400 with this hand, more's the pity.

final hand:

my hole cards: Kh Ts
flop: Kd Kc Tc
turn: Js
river: Qs

I won a pot of $82,600 with this hand. The odds of flopping a full house are better than those of flopping a royal flush, but they're still extremely small. The odds of flopping a royal flush on one hand and flopping a full house on the very next hand are so remote that I honestly believe this was a direct sign from the poker gods to me of their approval.

To make the sweetness of the session complete, the win brought me back to the golden ratio again -- twice as many winning sessions (178) as losing ones (89).

As I mentioned some posts ago, I've had a plan for a new poker goal which I was only waiting for the achievement of my original goal to reveal. Here it is: I want to win my next play million by playing pot limit Omaha, a poker flavor I've never tried. I love Hold'em, but want to pad my poker resume. On to pastures new!

delta: $42,400
balance: $1,035,624

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The secret to poker success

Reviewing the bar chart of the state of my stack over the course of last night's session, I see that it reveals the secret to poker success! Of course, I'm being facetious. Like all such secrets, it's incredibly simple to state and for all intents and purposes contains no practical advice whatsoever. It's merely this -- to be successful at poker, you must lose only a small amount whenever you lose a hand, and you must win a considerably larger amount whenever you win a hand. Last night, I probably lost an average of $1,000 on the hands I lost, and won an average of nearly $10,000 on the hands I won. Opponents kept leaving the table until I was the only one left; I decided to call it a night at that point, being up a healthy amount.

delta: $28,900
balance: $993,224

Monday, August 23, 2010

Poker whimsy

Almost from the moment I first heard it, I've had a disliking and distrust of the term "bad beat". I find many things about it objectionable, and just plain wrong. The chief among them, and the most egregious, is its implicit condemnation of luck. That's biting the hand that feeds you, plain and simple. Without luck, wonderful, glorious luck, no one would ever fill an inside straight, complete a flush, or hit for a full house. You can't assume that the luck which helps you is your due, or that the luck which hurts you is unfair. You can't pick and choose when luck will appear, or whether it will be good or bad for you. Luck just is.

When I experience what others might call a "bad beat", I call it "poker whimsy" instead. Last night, I hit the felt at the first table I joined due to poker whimsy; on my last hand at that table, I went all in when I hit a straight on the turn, only to lose to a flush, which had also hit on the turn. I recovered nicely and recorded a healthy gain at the next table I joined.

delta: $33,542
balance: $964,324

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Shark fins

The bar chart of my changing stack size from Wednesday night's session reminds me of shark fins -- sharp rises, followed by a slow, convex descents. Luckily for me, the fins were trending upwards! My radar on whether it was worth it to go to showdown was quite accurate. As a general rule, it's much more often not worth it to go to showdown than it's worth it! I reached a new all-time high again, and am now tantalizingly close to reaching my goal.

delta: $52,052
balance: $930,782

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Mesa

For fun, I like to try to come up with names which describe the shape of the bar chart formed by plotting regular snapshots of my stack size over the course of a session. Looking at Saturday's bar chart, the word which immediately sprang to mind was "mesa"; my stack jumps from $40K to $60K about a third of the way through the session, stays in the $58K - $68K range for almost half of the session, then drops back down to $40K in the last fifth of the session. The shape of the bar chart looks like a classic horizon line in a Western.

Luckily for me, some overly aggressive players joined my table, and I was able to rocket my stack upwards on my last hand; I won a pot worth $86,235 with a pair of kings.

delta: $46,035
balance: $878,730

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Two big body blows

On Wednesday night, I suffered two big body blows to my stack in quick succession, and couldn't recover; the second one dropped me into poker death spiral territory, and I didn't have the strength of character to end the session before hitting the felt. I actually don't remember the hands, so I'll have to delve into the archives...

body blow 1: I was dealt 9c Ac. The flop came Ad 6h 3s, the turn was the 4s, and the river was the 3d. Three of us saw the river. I bet $5000; one of my opponents called, and the other raised it up to $21,200. I folded, and lost $11,400 total on the hand.

body blow 2: I was dealt 2d 3d. The flop came 3s 5h 4d, the turn was the Jd, and the river was the Kc. Four of us saw the river. The initial bettor in that round bet $11,000. I folded, and lost $7,400 total on the hand.

I played fairly well all night except for those two hands; unfortunately, that's more than enough of what it takes to lose. Back to the drawing board!

delta: $-40,000
balance: $832,695

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Gutshot nirvana

On the last hand of last night's session, I had another poker ESP moment. I had a gutshot straight draw after the flop, had a hunch it was going to hit on the turn, and called a bet of $4,600 to see the turn. It hit, and I ended up going all in; the pot I won was worth $72,500. One of the reasons I had the hunch was that there was a bully at the table who'd been taking down a lot of pots, and I just felt his luck was due for a change. Why couldn't I be the one to change it?

delta: $32,500
balance: $872,695

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Poker tax

Paying to see the flop is similar to paying taxes, except that you pay the tax before you gain the revenue. It's incredible how often, when I try to get cute and avoid paying tax on a marginal hand, I'm punished by a flop which would have given me a great chance of winning. I don't get cute as often as I used to, it's true, but I still do it a bit too much.

Last night I saw a bunch of players come and go at my table, but hung in there until I was able to realize a small but decent profit. My last hand, I won a pot of $17,800 with a full house, deuces full of sixes; I'd been dealt a pair of deuces. I always have a good feeling when I get dealt that hand, since I've turned it into at least a set on more than one occasion.

delta: $7,900
balance: $840,195

Monday, August 9, 2010

Night of cruel hands

Last Friday, I endured a night of cruel hands. Four or five separate times, I had strong hands which were beaten by stronger ones. The odds are against that happening, of course, but that knowledge is of little solace when it happens to you! I can't decide which was the cruelest hand. Was it the 5 high straight which lost to a 6 high straight? Or was it the full house which lost to a four of a kind? When I hit the felt the first time, I should have had a clue that it wasn't my night and closed up shop then. Of course, I didn't, and paid the price by hitting the felt again. You know me well enough to know that I'm not downhearted!

delta: $-80,000
balance: $832,295

Friday, August 6, 2010

On the final leg

Last night, I reached the penultimate plateau in my quest -- $900k. The view from up here is great! Who knows where I'd be if I hadn't made the wise decision back near the beginning of March to jettison the $5/$10 tables and step up to the $100/$200 tables? As I discovered, the quality of play on the $5/$10 tables is actually a bit better than the quality of play on the $100/$200 tables. So by making the move, I not only increased my chances of winning, I increased the amount I'd be winning by a factor of 20.

Towards the latter end of last night's session, I got a bunch more three-handed practice in; I'm starting to really like it! Maybe I was just up against two tight players, but I won a disproportionate number of those pots.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 38 hands and saw flop:
- 7 out of 8 times while in big blind (87%)
- 8 out of 8 times while in small blind (100%)
- 18 out of 22 times in other positions (81%)
- a total of 33 out of 38 (86%)
Pots won at showdown - 5 of 6 (83%)
Pots won without showdown - 10

delta: $45,092
balance: $912,295

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Savior hand

Last night, a single hand made my night. Savior hands like that are rare, but you have to realize they exist and play accordingly. This particular saving hand was a gutshot I made on the turn. I had to put up a decent amount of chips to see the turn, but I had a hunch it was going to hit. There's no way to determine the accuracy of such hunches; when they don't pan out, there's no point in dwelling on them, and you soon forget you even had them. When they do pan out, though, you certainly don't forget! I know this will sound silly, but I actually believe there's such a thing as poker ESP; when it's on, it's a wonderful thing.

A practical side-note: in my experience, if a gutshot's going to hit, it will hit on the turn way more often than it will on the river, so there's little point (and a lot of chips to be lost) by pursuing it to the river. Of course, that's statistical horseshit; the logical part of my brain knows that, but the ESP poker part can't be convinced :-)

At the start of my savior hand, I had $22.5K in chips; at the end, I had $70K. I ended my night posthaste.

delta: $30,290
balance: $867,203

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Three-handed practice

As I think I've already mentioned, I use the following rules for picking a table to join:

1. it must currently have 6 players
2. the player whose stack is the largest shouldn't have more than twice the chips of his nearest competitor
3. it should have at least 3 players who have more than the starting maximum stack size of $40K

Usually, this means I'll hardly ever get to play heads up, or even three-handed. Last night, there was a big exodus of players from the table at one point, and I got quite a bit of three-handed practice in. Three-handed play is tricky -- almost as tricky as heads up play. I did okay, but was happy when more people joined the table and it got back up to six or seven players.

I had a decent gain on the night. I feel like I'm in the stretch run of my quest.

delta: $15,042
balance: $836,913

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Online poker face

Last night's session was successful in part because I had a good poker face. How is such a thing possible when playing online, you ask? Let me explain, grasshopper. The hallmark of a good poker face is that it betrays nothing, neither weakness nor strength. The only way to achieve the quality of betraying nothing when playing online is to have no recognizable pattern to your betting. I can think of only two ways to have no recognizable pattern to your betting:

1. vary your betting sizes randomly, without respect to the strength of your hand
2. keep your betting sizes consistent, and your betting progressions consistent

I use the second way. It worked like a charm last night.

delta: $49,521
balance: $821,871

Monday, August 2, 2010

Inexplicall

On Saturday night, I made a play so egregiously bad that it's taken me all this time to decide on an appropriate title for this post. Two candidates I considered and rejected:

Nothing or double
Zero call

I decided I needed to memorialize my idiotic play with a neologism, so here it is -- the inexplicall. That's when you inexplicably call a big bet which you have absolutely no business calling. It can be used either as a noun or as a verb. I invite readers to use it, with or without attribution.

First, a little background: I lost my full starting stack of $40K at the first table I joined, in much the same fashion as I'd lost it the session before -- namely, a slow but steady descent. I joined a second table, and almost immediately went up about $33K. I should have quit right then, but didn't. I still had a healthy $51K at the start of the Inexplicall hand. I was dealt a big slick, and the flop came 6h Jc 4c. Someone bet $35,600 to go all in, and shockingly, I inexplicalled; that put me all in as well. The turn was a 6 and the river was a 3; my pair of sixes lost to two pair, queens and sixes. I'm pretty sure $51K is the largest amount I've ever lost on a single hand. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Realizing how stupid I was won't stop me from playing again, however (nor will it stop me from making the occasional inexplicall, I'm afraid :-)

delta $-80,000
balance: $772,350