Personal borscht

Like most players, I enjoy it when I achieve a personal poker best. Unlike some, I also enjoy it when I achieve a personal poker worst. Why would I enjoy a personal worst? The simplest way to explain it is that it's a luxury to be able to enjoy it, and I like luxury :-) I know that I'm a good enough player that no personal worst will ever be able to discourage me. I know that I'll bounce back, and even reach new heights.

There's a third kind of personal poker record that I also enjoy, but it's hard to come up with a name for it. It's neither a personal best nor a personal worst, yet shares features of both. At first I thought I'd call it a bestworst, then a worstbest, but neither of those really fit the bill. I eventually came up with personal borscht. Of course, that's a nonsensical name, but it has the merit that phonetically it reminds one of both best and worst. Also, borscht is a kind of soup, and this new kind of record is like soup in that it combines disparate elements.

My latest personal borscht is that on Sunday night, I had the lowest winning percentage for a winning session of at least 100 hands. I won only 9 of 113 hands, for an anemic winning percentage of 7.96%.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 113 hands and saw flop:
 - 13 out of 16 times while in big blind (81%)
 - 7 out of 16 times while in small blind (43%)
 - 33 out of 81 times in other positions (40%)
 - a total of 53 out of 113 (46%)
 Pots won at showdown - 6 of 17 (35%)
 Pots won without showdown - 3

delta: $21,531
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,857,347
balance: $7,306,755

Perpetual patience

I gave this post a title describing a poker quality which I don't possess. To be fair, no human being possesses such a quality; only a machine could. Last night, I was patient for a long time, but not perpetually. I started the last hand of the night with $10,129, and ended it with nothing. I'd been dealt a pair of eights, and the flop came 3d Kc 3s. A player acting before me bet $2,200, and I decided he didn't have a king. I didn't make this decision based on any kind of read; I made it because I was tired of playing, and my holding was good enough to make a final stand with. To be consistent with my decision that my opponent didn't have a king, I felt duty bound to call with my last $5,129 when my opponent put me all in on the turn, after a turn card of 2c. It turned out he did have a king, and I was done for the night. This hand revealed to me one of the weak parts of my game. I'm not willing enough to cut my losses and end a session before I hit the felt. A session where I lose $30,000 is better than one where I lose $40,000, and I need to keep that in mind more often.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 110 hands and saw flop:
 - 7 out of 13 times while in big blind (53%)
 - 9 out of 14 times while in small blind (64%)
 - 35 out of 83 times in other positions (42%)
 - a total of 51 out of 110 (46%)
 Pots won at showdown - 5 of 10 (50%)
 Pots won without showdown - 9

delta: $-40,000
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,835,816
balance: $7,285,224

My latest sincemillion

It's been a while since I coined a poker neologism, and there's no time like the present. Therefore, I present for your approval (drumroll, please): sincemillion. A sincemillion is a million play dollars earned since a specific point in time. My latest sincemillion is the million play dollars I've earned since returning to cash games from sit and go tournaments. I achieved this last night on the strength of a great comeback in the second half of the session; I leaped from below $20,000 to more than $100,000 in under 20 hands.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 45 hands and saw flop:
 - 3 out of 5 times while in big blind (60%)
 - 2 out of 6 times while in small blind (33%)
 - 12 out of 34 times in other positions (35%)
 - a total of 17 out of 45 (37%)
 Pots won at showdown - 3 of 4 (75%)
 Pots won without showdown - 2

delta: $61,638
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,875,816
balance: $7,325,224

Six whales

One of the nice features of the PokerStars software is the ability to see at a glance, in a section of the main lobby window, a list of all the players at a selected table, what country they're from, and what the current size of their stack is. You can sort the list by any of these attributes, in either ascending or descending order. I always sort the list by stack size, in descending order; that's how I keep track of where my stack is relative to the other players at my table. Last night, I noticed something quite rare - the combined amount of chips at the table kept growing, until there were fully six players (including me) who had stacks of more than $100,000. The only way that can happen is for the unsuccessful players to keep hitting the felt, and either keep reupping or keep getting replaced by new (and equally unsuccessful) players, and for the successful players to keep playing instead of cashing out. The combined amount of chips at the table peaked at $820,073; I checked the records, and there was only one session this year which had a higher combined amount - $961,977, on 4/13.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 60 hands and saw flop:
 - 4 out of 7 times while in big blind (57%)
 - 6 out of 9 times while in small blind (66%)
 - 15 out of 44 times in other positions (34%)
 - a total of 25 out of 60 (41%)
 Pots won at showdown - 7 of 9 (77%)
 Pots won without showdown - 1

delta: $62,552
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,814,178
balance: $7,263,586

The exploding hand

The mark of a truly great poker player is the ability to lay down aces. By that standard, I'm not great yet. I haven't done the research, but know that when I do, I'll probably only find a couple of times when I've laid down aces, in the 112 chances I've had since I started auto-saving the hand histories. Last night, I had another chance, and failed. This failure cost me $40,600 and caused me to hit the felt. Aces, aka pocket rockets, are truly the exploding hand. They can explode on your opponents, but they can also explode on you. You have to be really careful with them; the thing you really have to guard against is the feeling of invulnerability they can give you. There's no better illustration of the volatile nature of aces than the fact that they are the hand I've won the most money with, and also the hand I've lost the most money with. I've won $1,173,920 with aces, and lost $416,003 with them.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 132 hands and saw flop:
 - 19 out of 27 times while in big blind (70%)
 - 14 out of 24 times while in small blind (58%)
 - 40 out of 81 times in other positions (49%)
 - a total of 73 out of 132 (55%)
 Pots won at showdown - 12 of 26 (46%)
 Pots won without showdown - 18

delta: $-24,450
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,751,626
balance: $7,201,034

The Table Vanishes

The title of this post is a snowclone of "The Lady Vanishes", a classic Hitchcock movie. What do I mean by it? Simply that all of a sudden, the players at the first table I joined last night all left in a hurry. Here's how the number of players dropped off:

hand 29: 6 players at the start of the hand
hand 30: 5 players at the start of the hand
hand 31: 4 players at the start of the hand
hand 32: 2 players at the start of the hand
hand 33: my sole opponent leaves the table at the end of the hand

Undeterred, I joined another table and played another 28 hands. I ended up making a profit at both tables.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 61 hands and saw flop:
 - 4 out of 8 times while in big blind (50%)
 - 5 out of 10 times while in small blind (50%)
 - 18 out of 43 times in other positions (41%)
 - a total of 27 out of 61 (44%)
 Pots won at showdown - 4 of 6 (66%)
 Pots won without showdown - 6

delta: $23,389
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,776,076
balance: $7,225,484

A lesson from Paavo Nurmi

Last night, I hit the felt after only 16 hands, then reupped for the max and played essentially even the rest of the night (another 38 hands). Thinking back over how I played, which wasn't actually all that badly, I realize my cardinal sin was that I saw too many flops. I wasn't disciplined enough to fold enough hands before the flop. That can really do you in. What does Paavo Nurmi have to do with this? In case you haven't heard of him, Nurmi was a great middle and long distance runner, the winner of 9 gold and 3 silver Olympic medals in the 1920's. I saw a documentary on him roughly four decades ago, and one detail has stuck with me all these years later. Nurmi trained with a watch, and kept himself to a specific pace for every lap. He realized that he didn't have to race against other runners; he merely had to race against the clock. If he could keep up the pace he set for himself, he essentially knew he would win. Here's how I relate this to poker: if I can keep my seeing the flop percentage under 50%, I essentially know that I'll win the session. It's really as simple as that. I just need to have the discipline to follow this flop pace that I'm setting for myself :-)

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 54 hands and saw flop:
 - 7 out of 7 times while in big blind (100%)
 - 2 out of 6 times while in small blind (33%)
 - 26 out of 41 times in other positions (63%)
 - a total of 35 out of 54 (64%)
 Pots won at showdown - 6 of 12 (50%)
 Pots won without showdown - 5

delta: $-39,550
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,752,687
balance: $7,202,095