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Hiatus
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Jul. 2nd, 2004 @ 11:07 am
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:(
I just don't have the time to update this anymore. I have only been playing poker about 1-2 days a week, and even then it is usually just a sit and go or two.
My new job is great, and is going very well. I am actually *gasp* using my brain on a daily basis at work, and when I get home (or even when I get on the bus), I tend to want to rest it. I'm also moving this summer, so I have to plan for that, and I need to get my ass out of the house more to enjoy this nice weather.
So, expect to see updates here only after major events or milestones. I may try to pick this up again in the fall, assuming that I start playing more.
Cheers,
Phil |
This is my second post in a few hours. Been a while since that happened. But I thought I would post the good start to my evening . . .
Played in two $30+3 3-table sit and gos at Party. Took a first and a second. Wooooohooooo!
I would have garnered two wins, if not for this hand:
Heads-up against a fairly idiotic player. He was a huge big stack when we all hit the money, and I doubled up on him twice to take the lead, both times with bottom or middle pair vs. his unpaired big ace--that's how predictable his betting pattern was. I have KJo in the BB, he raises the minimum from the small blind, and I call. Flop is K-J-x rainbow. I check, he bets BIG (a signal that he wants me to fold), and I come over the top for all my chips. He calls with AQ. The river brings his broadway straight, and I am down to about T3000.
In the final hand, I move in my last T2200 with 52s, he calls with 44. Flop is 5-2-x. The river makes his set, and IGHN.
Of course, the win I did get was on this hand:
Heads up, I am the big stack with ~T19K, my opponent (who seems like a nice guy and a solid or better player) has ~T11K. He raises than the minimum from the small blind/button, and I call with JhTh. Flop comes Ts-7s-4h. I check, he bets T1500 into a pot of T2400. I make it T6000, and he moves in behind. Since it's only ~4K to call (my numbers might not be exactly right), I don't see much choice in the matter. He turns over AA, and I pray for one of my six outs to hit. But they don't--instead I get a 8d on the turn and a 9d on the river to make my runner-runner straight!
So I guess the universe is in balance.
Incidentally, the first place money for these tables is $270, and second is $225. A little too flat, don't you think?
I'm off to play in my favorite tournament, the 9:30pm $50 Short-Handed PLHE on Pacific. Remember that if you want to sign up, use me as a referral ("chgophil"). |
Posting this morning from the bus on the way TO work this morning. Usually there isn't room to sit and type (sometimes I don't even get a seat), but so far so good today. I don't have a lot of ground to cover, which is good because it's an express bus.
A couple quick things about Party Poker before I talk about the home game I played in last night. One, they have a new table type that I really love. The multi-table sit and go! Two- and three-table sit and gos, so far with $22 and $33 buy-in. It's about time. And unlike Stars' two-table sit and gos, these fill up within minutes. On the downside, the first version of the software update they released to support this feature (and others) was a big mess, and crashed every time you closed it. In addition, when you make the final table in these tournaments, a message comes on the screen congratulating you, which stays up for about five minutes and blocks your view of the pot. For a site that must be making money hand over fist, they don't exactly hire the best software developers/testers in the business. How these versions could have made it out of beta testing is beyond me.
So I played in a home game last night with some friends. Cash NLHE game, $50 buy-in with two equal blinds of $1. A mix of good players and bad, with some right in the middle. I had a stellar night, a win much larger than you would expect in four hours at those limits. I took home $420. My actually chip count at the end put me up $455, but the bank was wrong, and I was the bank, so there wasn't much I could say about it. I have no idea how it could have gotten short $35 (I was very careful playing the bank), but it's particularly odd because there were seven players, and the bank was off by $5x7. Anyway, I made my money on good cards. I had pocket aces twice, and they held up all in against a single opponent both times. I also got called all-in on big bets at least twice with someone having a draw, and the draw didn't get there either time. I released top and bottom pair on the flop once, and made a few other tough laydowns that turned out to be correct, so there WAS some skill involved.
I realized something about playing in a home game with friends last night. I don't really like it. There are certain players that I can see straight through--I can tell when they have a hand and when they don't. It actually really makes me feel bad to take their money. It's sort of an odd situation to play poker if you feel like you lose when you win. These are people I genuinely like, too, and not just a bunch of people who happen to gather together because they all play poker.
It's also not as much fun socially to see these people when playing poker. Since I have to focus on the game (and dealing when I am the dealer, which I was last night), I don't really feel like I can relax and stay involved in the side conversations. When I'm in a hand, I have to maintain my blank expression, and not respond to people in the way that I normally would. And when I'm not in a hand, I feel like I have to keep an eye on the action, or the game will come to a grinding halt.
I also realized last night that these people, who I like very much, and who I think like ME very much, have been playing on a fairly regular basis and not inviting me. It was never said explicitly, but when you hear people saying things like "We met before when we played together last week as so-and-so's house" and "What was with that Asian guy with the dreadlocks who played at your place last week?" it's not that hard to figure out. I asked one of my good friends about it after the game, and he confirmed that some people didn't want to invite me, because I was "too good". It hurt my feelings a little, but at the same time I saw it as a pretty nice compliment.
So I played solid the whole night. I accumulated a nice stack early on, and didn't give it away by playing looser while ahead (something I have been working on lately). There was only one hand that I think I may have played poorly, and it has to do with a new theory I have about playing a big hand on a "drawy" flop. I shall call it "Flopping the Vulnerable Nuts", and it applies to no-limit only. It is particularly relevant in tournaments. Don't worry--it's short. Or at least short-ish.
Flopping The Vulnerable Nuts
by "Chicago" Phil Sandler
Let me start by reading from the Book of Conventional Poker Wisdom:
When you flop a big hand that may be vulnerable to draws, you must protect your hand by betting big, ruining the odds of the drawing players and increasing the chance of taking the pot down on the spot. The size of the pot is irrelevant; a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Perhaps I overstate this, but this is generally the advice you're going to get from a solid player. Don't slow-play a vulnerable hand, because it's inevitable that you will get outdrawn and end up paying someone off because your hand is too good to lay down.
Lately I have not been taking this advice. I am quite capable of laying down a beautiful flop-hand when it goes all to hell on the turn (which actually might be exploitable, but ignore that possibility for now). There are situations where you can flop a big (but vulnerable) hand, and still have MANY MANY cards that can fall on the turn that will leave you with the nuts. When there is multi-way action, my theory is that it can be profitable to take that chance. This is especially true in a tournament, where winning a single small pot can often be (almost) meaningless.
So last night, I was in the small (yet equal) blind. Four limpers to me, and I look down to see 4d3d. I check the option, as does the big (yet equal) blind.
The flop is beautiful: 6h-5s-2h. I am first to act, and I check my vulnerable made hand, hoping that someone to my near left will bet and get some callers. At that point I will have the option to raise (if the pots gets swollen and juicy), or flat call (if a bunch of people fold) Alas, it is checked to the button, who bets the pot ($6). What should I do? The Book tells me that I should raise the pot, and make it $24 to go, which is very likely to be the end of the hand.
Maybe it's because I'm a greedy bastard. Maybe it's because I'm stupid. Maybe it's because I don't have the basic common sense to take $12 when it is being offered to me. But I like to think that it's because I'm smart and disciplined enough to make this play and take this risk. I decide that I want more than $12 for my monster flop. I know that any non-heart over a 9 is likely to get someone to pay me off. In addition, I might get paid off by flush draws who don't know enough about pot odds to fold to a big best. So I smooth call, with the intention of overbetting the pot on the turn if nothing scary falls.
Three more players call, and five of us see the turn: the 5h. I have pre-decided my play for this contingency, and I execute it. I bet $20 into a $36 pot. If I get raised, I'm gone--no one here will want to pay $40 (minimum) to test my resolve on this hand without the goods. Player to my left makes it $80, everyone folds to me, and my cards join the party in the muck.
The big downside that I see to this play is that you might be missing an opportunity to get callers who think you are on a re-steal. When you are up against players who call too much, straightforward play is often the best way to go.
One more quick note. My stop is coming up so I REALLY better make it fast. I have noticed in the past two weeks that I haven't really felt like playing very much. Even when I do have time, I've been pretty content to just sit and watch some mindless TV, or play a bit of Warcraft 3 (that rhymes). I've been a bit confused about why this is the case. Since I no longer force myself to play when I don't want to, I have really cut back on the number of hours I play each week. I think I now have a good theory on why. I think because my new job is actually mentally stimulating, the void in my life that poker filled is no longer nearly as large as it used to be, and I don't "need" poker in the same way that I used to. Which, by the way, is a really good thing.
Ok, one more thing, and this time I mean it. I really, really feel like I am playing well lately, like I am firmly at the top of my game. Maybe the cards are being kind to me, or at least being kind enough to let my hands hold up when I get my money in with the best of it. Maybe it's because I won my first multi-table tournament last week. Or maybe it's because I officially crossed that financial boundary that I feel like I have been stalking for the last two months. At any rate, I feel strong and confident when I'm playing, and it is a great feeling. But this, like all things is the game of poker, is probably only temporary. Cards are essentially like women--you can't trust them as far as you can fling them, they change their mind every five minutes, and they sponge up your money until you are left cold, hungry and tired in the gutter, wondering why you ever thought you could put even the tiniest bit of faith in them.
Bah, I don't really mean any of that. In the long run, you actually CAN trust the cards. :)
Alright, so I lied--that wasn't it. Actually it was, but since it's now Wednesday, and I (obviously) didn't have the chance to finish that up and post it on Monday, I've got a leeeeeeetle more to report. Just a little, I swear it.
I played in my "regular" pot limit tournament ($50+5, 9:30pm Pacific) again Monday night and finished 10th out of 46, five away from the money. I never really built a huge stack, but I always managed to stay just a little south of average. I took a bad beat to semi-cripple me (the idiot who I lost to had me covered and could have busted me, but apparently wasn't smart enough to put me all-in). I lost the last of my stack (which was at about 40% of average at that point) to the only decent player I saw in the whole tournament. I made it 3x the big blind preflop (I had more than 8x the BB, which is my minimum for NOT simply raising all-in preflop; adopted this standard reading Paul Phillips), with QJo, and was called by the big blind. Flop comes 9-high rags, and I move in when he checks. He thinks forever, and finally decides to call. Turn is a K, river is a blank, and I know I'm dead. He flips A2o for ace high, which is a hell of a tough call. He didn't have me covered by that much, so he was basically finished if I had a better ace or any pair.
It was a "tough" call, like I said. I'm not sure it was a "good" call. But he was better than most players I have seen in that tournament, based on hands other than this one. And he made the winning (if not "correct") play in any case.
I also played in three $50+5 sit and gos, and won one of them.
I will be playing tonight, but getting an update up tomorrow will be tricky, as I have volleyball. Maybe if I can get some elbow room on the bus . . . |
Well . . .
Clearly, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I haven’t really had the time to do the writing, and I haven’t played as much as I normally do. I’m writing this on the bus, on the way home from work as an experiment. If I can get a seat and a little space, it might work out that I can actually blog on a semi-regular basis. It’s not perfect—I hate a laptop keyboard, time is very limited, and I don’t have access to other livejournals and other important information—but at least I have thirty minutes or so to type.
Anyway, I wanted to post because two (fairly) major events transpired last night. Actually, there has been a lot of good news lately (with the new job and all), but two good things happened last night in regards to poker.
There is a certain tournament I have been playing in regularly lately. I am actually loath to give up the information (it’s a very soft game), but here it is anyway. It’s the 9:30pm $50+5 pot limit tournament at Pacific (if you sign up for Pacific, please use me as a referrer—my name is chgophil). I have played in it four times to date, and have made the (four-player) final table three times. The fourth time I finished just out of the money in eighth after taking THREE rough beats in a row to knock me out. The tournament usually gets 40-80 players.
Like I said, the game is soft. Even though it’s short-handed, it’s a limp-fest from start to finish. I would estimate that I saw the flop in the big blind without putting an additional dime in the pot about 85-90% of the time. When your opponents let you see the flop for free this often, all you have to do is sit back and wait for it to hit you hard. In addition, most (not all, but I really mean MOST) of the players who play in this tournament don’t understand pot-limit at all. There are SO many times that I had a marginal hand where I was “allowed” to see the turn and river with huge pot odds (not to mention implied odds). There is nothing better than a game where you are playing proper pot-limit and everyone else it playing like it’s a limit game.
Anyway, like I said, I only have the bus ride home to write so I can’t be too verbose. I got nailed on a rough beat early to put me down to about T200 (you start with T1000). So I went into super-aggressive mode and started putting in pot-sized bets every other hand. I slowly (and I mean slowly) built back up to T1000 or so, and then went on a run of doubling through, and doubling through, and doubling through again. With six players left (which only took about 45 minutes), I was the HUGE chips leader with around T17K. Since there are so many bad players getting knocked out early, it takes quite a while to knock anyone out late, when the blinds are still pretty small and the stack sizes are big by comparison.
Anyway, we had two tables of three left. One player at my table was decent (by this tournament’s standards), and one was almost 100% predictable, and super-super awful. The two of them were getting into it all the way to the showdown every hand, so I pretty much just let them fight it out while I played only premium hands. The top five places got paid, so the ratio of stacks to blinds, plus the fact that people were essentially playing a limit game made for a long, long bubble. Eventually the terrible player knocked the not-so-terrible player out on a series of monster vs. smaller monster hands, leaving me in the money, and heads up with a really bad player.
It went well for a while. I had seen him play many, many hands, and had his betting pattern pretty much worked out. I bluffed and took the pot when I knew he had nothing, and I got the hell out of his way when he got aggressive. Drawing hands were especially profitable, since he hardly ever bet more than the minimum. Just before we got to the final table, he caught on a flush draw and took about half my stack, making him the chip leader and me the second biggest stack. In the first few hands of the final table, he took half of it again, again calling my pot-sized bet and hitting his draw on the turn (he still didn’t bet big enough to take my whole stack).
Anyway, I was down to about T5K, in third place out of four, when I took out the small stack and doubled up against the 2nd place player in the same hand with JJ (hit my set on the flop with an ace showing, bet all-in and was called in two places). Shortly after that, the bad player took out the third player, and we were heads up. I can not think of another player in that tournament (or the world for that matter) who I would rather be heads up against.
He had 3x as many chips as I did when we started, but when the dust settled I had all the chips, and took home my very first multi-table tournament win!!! It was only a 40-player tournament, but I’m still very pleased.
I am basically out of time, but I will go ahead and just mention the other major event from last night: according to my spreadsheet, the $700 I won in the tournament put me over the $10K mark for the year! Not bad for a fun little hobby.
Don’t tell the IRS. |
But content will be thin on this site for a while. I just have too much going on with the new job and the nice weather to be able to post here every day like I have been for the past few months.
I WILL be playing poker when I can, and I WILL be posting as much as I can, just not as frequently (for either) as before.
I actually wrote up a post on Friday, but my computer (at my old job) ate it, and I didn't have time to re-write it. :( |
Sorry about the lack of poker content and updates lately. I just haven't had that much time to play, and therefore haven't had that much to write about. Also, the (minor) losing streak I am on right now is sapping my motivation to play.
It's possible that content will be thin for the next few weeks as I adjust to a new schedule. The combination of this (hopefully short) losing streak, starting a new job, and the weather getting nicer may seriously affect my ability to update here on a regular basis. I hope not--like I have said before, this blog has become its own hobby, almost distinct from playing poker.
I gave my friend "J" a ride home from volleyball the other night. J plays poker in my local group. Not long ago, he and I swapped referrals--I used him as a referral for UB, and he used me for Party. That way we each earned some cash for the other. Anyway, I asked J how he liked Party, and he said he was getting crushed there. He said he liked UB better, because people at UB respected a raise and tended to play closer to "real" poker. It sounded like he was getting his money in with the best of it most of the time, but was getting sucked out on when he got called by multiple players all the way to the river (or all-in). He said he hated Party because there were too many bad players.
I hear this logic all the time online. I hear people complain about too many bad players spoiling the game. And although I do understand where that frustration is coming from, I still think it's the wrong attitude to have about game selection. The more bad players in a game, the more opportunities there is to exploit their mistakes and make money. I completely understand that games with higher variance cause big bankroll swings (and thus big emotional swings), but the bottom line is that the more bad players you have in the game, the more money you stand to make.
J didn't say this, but I hear it all the time: "Should I move up in limits? Because the players at these low limits are just terrible and it's impossible to make money!" The limit isn't the problem. A good player must adjust their game to suit the texture of the table. If you can't do this successfully at a lower limit, the only thing that's going to chance when you move up in limits is that you are going to lose your money faster. High limit tables can have tons of bad players too. |
For some reason, I can access LJ from work again. Hmm. Some exec must have complained to IT that he could no longer access his "How I Got Rich By Sticking It to the Little Guy" journal. In any case, I'm happy that I have access for my last week here (assuming it's not just a fluke).
I had a great time in San Francisco and Napa. Since this is a poker journal, there won't be a trip report. One of the stranger things I saw on the trip was a tiny casino just outside of Napa. It said they had Blackjack and Hold'em on the sign, but the place looked about as big as a four-bedroom ranch house. I believe the name of the street it was on was Sosocal. Anyone know anything about it?
In other non-poker news, I finished one of the few novels I have read in the last few years. It's called Life of Pi, and I mention it only because I would like to HIGHLY recommend it.
I have a lot of non-poker stuff going on this week. I have to get my life ready to start a new job next week. It's likely to be more intense (it would be impossible for it to be less intense), and probably less flexible than my current job. This week my current gig will be intense, because I have to wrap everything up and document some of the stuff I do. Plus my car is making funny noises, I need to get my emissions checked, I need a haircut, I need to do laundry, my dishes need to be washed, etc. etc. etc.
I took my car in today because the brakes are making weird noises. On the cab ride back, I told the driver the address, and asked her to take the Cumberland North exit. "No, no," she explained in a thick eastern European accent, "that is Cumberland South." She then said a bunch of stuff that I didn't understand. I let her take the south exit, which was, in fact, correct. I have been working here for eleven months, and for eleven months I have been taking an exit that adds five minutes to my commute. Should I be happy that I finally figured this out, or angry that I lost that much of my life to an extra stop sign and stoplight?
And last but not least, some (thin) poker content. I played in three sit and gos last night at party, and took 2nd place in two of them. Yes, a 66% cash rate is pretty darned good, but I am getting more and more alarmed by how many 2nd place finishes I am having. Two months ago, my 1st place percentage was the highest of all ten places. Now I have ~95 2nd place finishes and ~70 1st. Not good! I don't know if it is just an anomaly statistically, or if I am really doing something differently when I get down to heads up. Outside of letting myself get blinded down to nothing, I don't see what I could be doing to make my percentages so skewed. If it keeps up, I'm going to start posting hand histories for my second place finishes. |
I don't have much to write about today. I did have a winning night last night, but nothing stellar. Still, a win is a win. I played in 8-10 sit and gos and cashed in half of them. I also played in two limit tournaments on a lark. I have to say, quite honestly, that I did not play my best game in either of them.
I posted last week about how I was getting concerned that my sit and go stats were improving for making the money, but deteriorating when it came to finishing in first. As I looked over my stats last night, I realized that this problem is getting worse and not better. I have now cashed in almost 43% of SNGs for the year, but my win rate is just over 10%. I am very disturbed by this. Last night I got down to heads-up with a huge chip lead twice, and got second place twice. If you want to make any kind of money playing sit and gos, you need to take down a substantial number of first place finishes.
Another alarming reality of my spreadsheet is my poor multi-table tournament performance. I am down over $1K for the year, which is substantial, although not overwhelming. I know that large tournaments are high in variance—one win can make up for many losses, but I still think that there must be a reason for my poor showing. One of two things seem to lead to my downfall in every tournaments:
- I get no cards until I am forced to make a move with a marginal hand (I see no remedy for this).
- I get a good stack going and end up losing it little by little to smaller stacks.
If there is one thing I think I need to focus on, it's calling less when I have a big stack. I think when you have a small stack in a tournament, you need to start playing more aggressively, and seek out "steal/double up/go home" situations before your stack dwindles to the point where you have no power. When you have a decent stack, you should just maintain your game, playing the same way you played to get yourself there (at least through the mid-stages). I think I'm calling too much, smelling desperation on players where there is none. I vow that after my vacation, I will put the effort into examining my play on this particular issue, and adjusting my game if it needs adjustment.
I strongly believe most of a good player's play in ANY no limit game (tourney or cash) should involve two moves: raising and folding. This is theory, and as everyone knows it is easier to talk theory than to play by it. I'm very good at analyzing a hand if it's described to me—I just need to blur the line between the way I would analyze a hand and the way I would actually play it.
I just got the call for the job I interviewed for yesterday. They are offering and I am accepting. Yahoo!
I'm not sure if this will have an impact on the amount of time I can spend on poker or blogging. One of the main reasons I have had so much time to write is that my current job doesn't keep me very busy. Of course, that all changed two days ago when the fascists started blocking me from LiveJournal.
And my final bit of news is that I am now in the PokerStars affiliate program. All that means is that if you sign up through the links to PokerStars that I post, I will get paid a bit of money by PokerStars. I will not become any more of a shill for PokerStars than I was before I affiliated with PokerStars. However, I will say (as I have many times in the past) that PokerStars has the best software, PokerStars has the best customer service, and PokerStars runs the best tournaments of all the sites I play at.
Seriously, download their software through one of the above links, make a deposit, and play in 100 raked hands, and I will get a bit of cash. And I'll be your best friend.
Have a great weekend.
Weekend forecast for Chicago: High in the low 80's.
Weekend forecast for San Francisco: High in the low 60's. |
After crossing a major (for me) bankroll threshold a few days ago, I've had two losing days in a row. And last night was a BRUTAL night. I played multiple $5-10 tables at once, and just about everything that could have gone wrong did. Since I think talking about limit is boring anyway, I won't recount a bunch of hands that hurt me. I will say, however, that I have never flopped two pair that many times and lost with it.
This was the worst single-day loss of the year for me. I handled it pretty well--I don't think I changed the way I was playing, I didn't swear (much), and I didn't berate players at the table for sucking out on me with their two-outers (actually I have never done that). But I did have trouble sleeping. Lots of trouble.
It sucks to lose. I know how completely stupid that sounds, because it's self-evident. It's like saying it sucks to break your leg. But big losses seem to hurt disproportionately; last night didn't even wipe out my winnings for the rest of the week, but it still bothered me enough to keep me up past 4am.
I'm home today, as I had a job interview (cross your fingers for me). So I do have a lot of time to play on my last day before my vacation. For today, I am sticking to tournaments; I'll get back up on the limit horse after I've had a little time to heal. |
I linked up some favorite blogs on the left side of the page. I will have to fiddle with the style to make them look nicer.
If you have me linked and want me to link you back, send me an email at psandler70@hotmail.com. It may take a few days. |
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