This is where our edge comes from...

Seat 6: RikkiDee (12160 in chips)
Seat 8: JADACHRON (1340 in chips)
RikkiDee: posts the ante 50
JADACHRON: posts the ante 50
RikkiDee: posts small blind 400
JADACHRON: posts big blind 800
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RikkiDee [5h 8s]
RikkiDee: raises 800 to 1600
JADACHRON: folds

Heads up.. dude has less than a BB after posting his blind and he folds.

Whats strange about fishy calling stations is that they end up backing down to pushes late game when they have to play for all their chips preflop. I guess they figure that they can call away their chips as long as they can see a flop so they have a chance to outplay people. I mean if you are going to call a a 3bb raise early game with K5s, why are you going to fold to an all in with that when I'm definitely going to have a worse hand?

LOLypops

The vagina monologues

So since I’ve gotten back from Vegas my virtual pussy has grown a good 2-3 sizes. I can’t seem to sit down and play a meaningful session without my pussy acting up and telling me to stop. And because I have no job, life or aspirations, I’ve been spending my entire time playing MVP Baseball for the computer because I’m a sucker for baseball games. I had worked up an impressive record of 15-10 with the Jays, good for first in my division when I loaded it up today to avoid playing poker again and to my dismay, all my data was gone.

The obvious question was; what the fuck? And I quickly realized that I had recently contracted a virus somehow and maybe it had erased my data for some reason. How I contracted that virus I’m not sure. Probably from one of the many religious websites I frequent. However, now my data is gone and since I’m not playing those 25 games over again (even though I had signed up for a 120 YEAR dynasty mode) I’m forced back to poker yet again.

I took this time to reflect on my irrational risk aversion for poker.

I consider myself a solid, tight winning player, who rarely takes risks online but has grinded out a decent amount of wins and a good win rate. I often get upset when I lose to bad players, as for some reason I feel I am entitled to their money absolutely, even though I continuously overlook the fact that bad variance for me equals good variance for them and that is what keeps them in my games. Otherwise I would be playing against 9 carbon copies of myself each game, all of us taking turns winning and eventually losing out to the house rake.

I simply can’t imagine being a losing player. I don’t know what I would do. If I was sitting here faced with months of losing activity with dozens of reloads I would throw in the towel. I am the type of person that will give something a try, but when faced with even a small sample size of failure, I’ll move on. I’m not the type to lose lose lose for years hoping to turn it all around and become a superstar, taking enjoyment in all the knowledge and experience I am gaining. Now while I generally give up on things too early before my true potential is considered, I avoid the risk of just plain sucking for life at something, which is a fair tradeoff for me.

So while its funny that I’m avoiding playing right now just to avoid varying degrees of winning, there are people out there avoiding playing because they don’t want to reload another grand off their bank account. So maybe I’ll take this virus that has finished my baseball playing days as a sign that I should get my winning ass back to poker and stop being such a bitch.

Q+A

I read this on Badblood’s blog and since my brain has been reduced to mush since I’ve returned from Vegas and can’t think of anything interesting to write about, I’ll just answer these questions.

Q1: What is the biggest mistake people make at a NL table?
A1: Overplaying semi-strong hands and getting yourself pot-committed in the process. An example would be raising with AK, hitting an ace and pot-sized betting the flop and turn against a solid opponent. At this point there is so much money in the pot that no matter what they do or have, your stack is almost committed and you only have one pair. What often happens is you justify calling big bets on the river or turn with the hopes that they are bluffing or are on a draw. Probabbly not the biggest mistake you can make, but definitely one I see often, and fall into as well.

Q2: What is the biggest mistake people make at a limit table?
A2: I’m not much of a limit player, but I would have to imagine that preflop hand selection would be the most important aspect of limit holdem. Calling raises with small pairs and suited connectors with only 1-2 opponents would seem to be a huge leak as you won’t hit often enough to break even.

Q3: Why do you play poker?
A3: Currently I play poker for income. I started playing for fun, as most people do I would imagine, but as the stakes got higher, and the hours got longer, the fun invariably decreased. At this point the only true fun I have when playing is late stages in a MTT, live home games with friends or the occasional live casino game if the right people are there.

Q4: If you weren’t playing poker, what would you be doing?
A4: As far as income is concerned I would undoubtedly be working some horrible 9-5 office job with suicide on my mind 24/7. As far as a hobby goes, I would probably just find some other form of online entertainment, probably a random addictive video game.

Q5: What is your favorite poker book and why?
A5: I would have to go with the Harrington on Hold’em books for sure. They are simply a fantastic guide to hold’em fundamentals, especially for tournaments. The books force you to think about each check, bet or fold you do and why you do it. After I read these books I realized that I was making a lot of bets without truly having much reason to do so. Being conscious of the reasons for every move allows you to improve your game immensely as you now can base your future decisions on past ones, rather than just some sort of intangible feeling.

Q6: Who is your favorite poker player and why?
A5: I would have to say Ted Forrest simply because I’ve seen him make some ridiculous reads and having the balls to go with them. For example, in a high stakes poker episode I saw him see a 3-way raised pot with 53s with Barry Greenstien and someone else. Greenstien had raised preflop from the SB and the flop came KQ8 or something. Barry bet out and Forrest raised him somehow with 53s. Greenstien had 99 and had to fold. There is no other single player that I’ve seen make similar reads and moves like he has and I would hate to play against him.

Q7: Which poker player do you dislike the most and why?
A7: I’d say Hellmuth, but he does make me laugh often so I’ll have to go with Michael Mizrachi. First of all, just based on appearance I hate this guy. He is your classic douchebag with his jewelry and the get-ups he wears. Besides that, he is such an arrogant prick at the poker table, letting everyone know when he makes a good laydown or a well timed bluff. And he does it with such a smug look on his face that you can’t help but dislike him.

Q8: Do your coworkers know about your blog.
A8: Coworkers? But if I did have a job, I’m sure one or two close friends would know about it.

Q9: What is the most you have won in a cash game or MTT (both live and online):
A9: I can’t remember any 4 digit type cash game pots, so I’ll have to go with one pot I won in my recent trip to Vegas when I flopped a set vs TPTK and the donkey called my check raise all in for an extra $250 or so creating about a $600 pot. My biggest MTT win was back in February when I took down an online $20 game for $3,813. My biggest live MTT win was just a week ago when I won the daily Sahara tournament in Vegas for $2600.

Q10: What is the most you have lost in a cash game or in one day total (both live and online)?
A10: Live I’ve never lost more then $300 in one session. Online I’ve lost $832.50 on April 18, strictly playing SNG’s.

Q11: Who was your first poker blog read?
A11: Definitely Tao of Poker. I read it during last years WSOP daily updates and became hooked instantly. At the time I was working at a terrible office job and they had software installed to block any site that had an immoral theme (sex, drugs, gambling etc.). But blogs passed the filter no matter what the content was so I was able to read poker blogs all day with impunity.

Q12: What satisfies you more, your aces holding up for a big pot or a bluff working for a big pot?
A12: Definitely a bluff. Nothing gets your adrenaline going like pulling off a massive bluff. I’ll take this time to mention the biggest bluff I pulled off of my life just recently. In a live 1/2 NL cash game I was dealt TT in mid position and raised to $12. A solid opponent in the SB reraised me preflop, something I had seen him do exactly one time in a few hours and he had AA. I called the reraise and saw the flop of A74 rainbow. He immediately fired out a pot sized bet of about $100. At this point I had about $200 behind. His reraise preflop told me that he had a big hand, probably QQ, KK or AA, with the slight possibility of AKs. I knew no matter what hand he had, I was beat at this point. But then I thought, out of all the hands he could have, which would he bet big on this flop with? I assumed he wouldn’t bet that strongly if he had AA, and figured there was a good chance that he was actually afraid of that ace. So I pushed all in and he insta mucked. Fucking gorgeous. I could only raise him an additional $100 but because he probably had KK or QQ, he just simply couldn’t call to my “obvious” AK.

Q13: Why do you blog?
A13: Like most poker bloggers, I started to keep track of my results and to have a written account of the evolution of my game. That has pretty much stayed the same. I've enjoyed the writing aspect as well since I've never really considered myself much of a writer and I've definitely seen improvement as far my engrish goes.

Q14: Do you read blogs from an RSS reader like bloglines or do you visit each blog?
A14: I visit each blog, although bloglines seems like a much more efficient method.

Q15: Would you rather play poker for a living than do what you currently do for a living?
A15: I’ll answer this by saying that at this point in my life, there is nothing I could see myself doing that can outweigh the advantages poker has given me. That being said, I have no intention of doing this for more than a few years, and getting some sort of normal form of income will definitely be in my future.

Q16: Do you wear a tinfoil hat on occasion?
A16: No, I’ve trusted the internet and any kind of technological advance like I trust myself.

Q17: If you had to pin it down to one specific trait, what does a great poker player have (or do) that separates them from an average player?
A17: Their total indifference to money. They seemingly can win or lose thousands and treat it like nothing happened.

Q18: Is Drizz the coolest person on the planet for naming his baby Vegas?
A18: I don’t know him or read his blog, but if he did name his baby Vegas I think that’s actually kind of lame. I wouldn’t want to be named Vegas, especially as a baby as you would invariably have to deal with the “Vegas Baby” jokes.

Q19: What is your primary poker goal and are you close to accomplishing it?
A19: My poker “goal” at the moment is to not only survive off poker income, but to obtain enough additional capital from it to be able to use it for future investments and endeavors. I don’t have any aspirations of becoming a world famous poker player or anything like that. I just want to make enough money off it before I get completely burned out so I can do something else.

Q20: What is your primary online site and why?
A20: Definitely Poker Stars. I mostly enjoy it because of its abundance of tournament and Sit&Gos, but also their software is flawless and their support and cashouts are the best I’ve experienced.

Q21: What site do you dislike and why?
A21: I really haven’t enjoyed many other sites I’ve played on, with Full Tilt being the only slight exception. I suppose Party Poker would be my least favorite, simply because of its buggy software and horrid interface.

My buisness, my biz-NASS

Alright finally back at home, settled and continuing the waste of life that I’ve led for the past 5 months.

After spending almost 3 weeks in Vegas, living out of random hotels and a backpack I’m definitely glad to be back to normality. Not to say that Vegas wasn’t a great time, its just that I’m definitely a fan of the sloth-like existence that I’ve grown accustomed to at home. Additionally I was pretty much cashed out mentally during my last few days playing cash games. I was in the “play not to lose” mindset for sure, and while I didn’t lose, I didn’t win and ultimately was just wasting my time.

We ended up driving our asses back home across the whole massive fucking U.S and A. It was a 45 hour drive, by far the longest of my career. We did take one sleeping break in buttfuck Nebraska, but otherwise we drove most of the time. The drive through Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Colorado are pretty interesting as far as drives go, but once we got to east Colorado through Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan, the novelty of seeing grass pastures wore off. We ended up saving a grand total of about $100-150 each by driving, which if I had the option again I would definitely fly. I can see why they invented Airplanes.

As I mentioned previously, we spent most of our time playing 1/2 NL at the MGM Grand. I was up and down varying amounts throughout my entire trip. I believe I finished at around even for cash games, although I stopped keeping track about halfway through. The tournaments continued to be good to me though. I played in another Sahara nightly tournament. This time there were about 120 entrants and wouldn’t you know it, I took it down again for a big score of $2600. I’ll try and recap some of the hilarity that occurred at the final table.

It’s amazing how much of an edge one possesses against these inexperienced players at a final table if he or she utilizes simple push/fold strategy depending on stack size. To get to the final table, the deck admittedly was very good to me. I had some big pairs at times when opponents had not as big pairs and I avoided all potential 80/20 suckouts. Actually, there was one time where I had TT vs 88 against some dude all in preflop, but he spiked an 8 on the flop to stay alive (I had him covered). That dude ended up playing me heads up.

I want to mention one hand that I feel I really evolved from an internet player to a live player. We were down to 7 players and an older man from the CO limped. I had Q9s in the SB and limped as well with about 15BB. The BB checked and we saw a flop of K93 with two of a suit that I didn’t have. I put out a 1/2 pot probe bet to see where I was at. The BB folded and the old man moved all in. I barely had him covered at this point, so I was effectively playing for all my chips. My first reaction was that my hand was too weak to be playing for all my chips, and almost folded. I then looked up and tried to get a read on him, since I’ve heard that’s what good players do. He had a scowl on his face, one that was unnatural to his normal demeanor. I hadn’t played any pots with him or even seen him play a hand up to this point. He was staring me down intently, not taking his eyes off mine once. For about 20 seconds this went on when I finally concluded that there is no way he would stare me down with a very strong hand – especially keeping in mind we have had no history together. The only thing I was truly afraid of was that he had a weak king, or a nine with a better kicker, but they seemed like relatively unlikely holdings at this point with the blinds this high and him limping. I need to get better at this “reading weakness” thing, as people can probably feel like they are weak or don’t want a call from their opponent when they actually have the best hand, but I went with my read and called for all my chips. He had AT (???) and he didn’t hit his 6 outs and I took it down. Like I said I could have gone either way on this hand but after analyzing the situation for almost a minute I felt that it was probably +EV to call, even if it was only a small edge.

Once we were down to 4 players, I was either 3rd or 4th in chips. Since the payout was something like $2,600, $1,500, $650, $450 for the four remaining places, we started to discus a deal. The chip leader had about 2-1 on the 2nd place while the 2nd place was about 3-2 on myself and the other short stack. The chip leader was a moron in the purest sense; the type of moron who didn’t know anything about final table poker and figured that he got to his position by “outplaying” everyone else. Oh by the way this is the same dude with 88 vs my TT earlier, yea. His “offer” was that he took $2200 and the rest of us got $1,000 each. I told him to eat a dick and that we weren’t going to be giving him virtually 1st place money just because he had 25bb. Additionally the 2nd place player wasn’t going to be giving up his chip equity either so clearly the deal didn’t come into fruition. Eventually I doubled through the 2nd place player and then started an assault on all three players blinds every time I got the chance. They were quite vocal about trying to avoid going broke, even the chip leader. Once he noticed me gaining on him, we started talking while waiting for the now super short stacks to bust. He mentioned that we should split it 50/50 once we got heads up. At the time, he still had me in chips so I said that I would probably be interested in that idea, once the others bust. Blah blah blah, the short stacks bust and we get heads up. At this point, I have him covered at least 3-1 in chips now due to my aggressive strategy. He gets up and says to me; “50/50 right?” in a serious tone. I assume he is kidding at this point as it is obvious just by looking that I have a serious lead on him now. He asks for time so we can discuss a deal. All his “deals” consist of him getting at least $2k for his little stack. At this point I honestly couldn’t even figure out how badly I had him outchipped so I just refused any deal and continued playing. Once play commenced and I started pushing almost any 2 into him as he was still waiting for a top 10 hand to play for all his chips. After a few orbits of this he said, rather astutely, “you aren’t one of those internet players that pushes all in every hand are you?” I replied “I sure am” followed by another “all in”. He was visibly upset that not only did I refuse his deal, but I am now even refusing to “play poker” with him. Oh well, you have 3bb left, I’m not concerned. He finally decided to push with QJ when I had A9 in the BB and that was that, I had taken down my 2nd straight MTT at the Sahara. He stormed off in a hissy fit, while I calmly collected my winnings. He came back to talk to some people on the rail. He was standing about 5 feet away from me, making sure I knew how much of a better player he was, and that “I had probably never even seen that much money before”. I couldn’t say anything because he was just too upset and I didn’t really care what he thought, but I really wanted to mention the fact that his expert play got him all in preflop with an underpair to my tens before the final table had even started. But I decided to just take my score and leave.

The rest of the following weeks were filled with mediocrity as I mentioned earlier. I played the Sahara tournament one more time, busting out near the money to end my streak of 4 straight cashes in it. I also played the daily Caeser’s $220 tournament, which actually had a fantastic structure as well, but ended up busting out 5 out of the money when I pushed over a few limpers with JJ on the button (13bb) and got called by KJ for some reason and lost. But if I had to go back I would play it again since it really was well structured.

Other than the tournaments I really didn’t play that well in Vegas. I think I ended up a moderate winner in cash games, but it was close. Truthfully I should be crushing the lowest buy-in cash game that Vegas has to offer, but for some reason I couldn’t ever get much of a streak going. It’s a small sample size, let’s just assume it was the asshole side of variance for now.

I’m still glad to home and playing online again. We’ll see how long that lasts…

Still Alive...

Still in Vegas though... but I finally decided to bite the bullet and purchase some wireless internet so I can dust off this old blog here. Since I've been playing live poker everyday for 2 weeks straight, I probably won't remember 90% of the shit that I've done (+drinking), but I'll give it a shot.

Goal for this post is to keep it under 1,000 words, just updating the bare minimum, like a summary/reminder post for future reference.

So where to start?

After arriving I quickly realized the difference only a month can make for Vegas weather. After being disappointed in early April with the coldish temps outside, I was ready for a similar experience for early May. Clearly, I was wrong in my assumption. Average temperature has been somewhere between 90F and the boiling point of human skin. Needless to say we've spent 100% of our time indoors where it is safe.

Anyways, since I had no plan for this trip as far as what I was going to be playing as well as how long I was staying, it's going to be pretty difficult to run down my day-to-day activities, so I'll just try to post the highlights.

First night there we hit up the MGM for 1/2 NL action. In fact, we've spent 90% of our time at the MGM Grand, playing 1/2 NL. I never got the balls to hit up any higher stakes games, despite my clear dominance at the 1/2 level.

During my first 3 days I had won about $500 and was feeling good about my game. I still hadn't gone back to Sahara to claim my winnings from the last tournament I played there and had to leave before the final table, so we decided that we would check out that same tournament again. They had $540 waiting for me there, which was pretty gangsta. I ended up finishing 4th place, which is just hilarious. I wish I could have watched them play that one out, seeing the frustrated look on the short stacks faces as another round passes through my behemoth stack, nary putting a dent in it.

We played the 7pm tournament that night at the Sahara. The buy-in is $60 and the structure is definitely the best in Vegas for these stakes. Plus the competition is just ridiculously soft as they have no knowledge of late game push/fold strategy. Most of them end up blinding themselves off waiting for that elusive top 10 hand. It is pretty humorous watching the reactions to my aggressive late game strategy, especially from the old-timers. Because they were so reluctant to call off their chips late game with anything less than AA, I could literally push any 2 and steal the blinds with impunity. I did get "caught" a few times, pushing with pure shit, much to the delight of said old-timers. But since I had a lot of chips to lose, I didn't mind doubling up a 3bb shortstack. Anyways long story short, I ended up winning the entire thing for a cool $1,750. The best part was playing heads up live against an unknown opponent for a lot of money. 2nd place was $850 so I really wanted to win. And since my opponent was an inexperienced old man who was still waiting for TT+, AJ+ heads up, I managed to widdle him down to nothing before he finally was forced all in with something and I won. Pretty sweet indeed.

So after 3 days in Vegas I was +$2750 and feeling mighty fine.

The next few days were filled with long sessions at the cash game tables with no real big wins or losses. I will point out one hilarious hand that I won't forget ever for the rest of my life.

First I have to set it up a little bit.

Older man who had been the victim of numerous lost big pots had been verbally jawing back and forth with lucky Asian man. It got pretty heated at times, with the older man actually yelling across the table at him. Anyways, it was clear that this dude wasn't having a good day, was extremely emotional and was ripe for the fucking pickings. Ok, here's the hand:

I have J9 of clubs and limp from mid position. Button raises to 5bb and he gets a few callers, including Old Angry Man from the BB. I call the raise and see a flop of A34 with 2 clubs. Old Angry Man bets out from the bb. I call the raise, and everyone else folds. The turn brings another 4 and he checks to me. I thank him mentally for the free card and check behind. The river brings another 3, but its the 3 of clubs. So the board reads A3344 with 3 clubs. I have the flush but it's not exactly the type of board you like to see when you have a flush. Instantly Old Angry Man goes all in. At this point he is betting like $150 into a $80 pot. I take a second to think about the situation. Because it is just him and I on the river, and he is all in, I decide to flip over my cards to "get a read on his reaction". I show him my flush and ask him, "what should I do?". Old Angry Man sort of shuffles in his seat, says "you calling?" in sort of a uncomfortable way and then for no reason flips over his cards as well! Keep in mind my hand is still live, and I have yet to make any decision. He shows me his AK(!?@?) for only top pair and I obviously insta call with 100% certainty that I have the best hand. He then LOOOOOOOOOOSES it. I mean this dude flips his fucking wig. You can see the confusion in his face, but is so angry that he doesn't know what to do. He immediately attacks me, stating that I know what I did was wrong and I shouldn't have "played it that way". I really don't know how to respond to him so I just sit there silently, awaiting the dealer to push me my chips. But the dealer hasn't done anything yet. Old Angry Man demands the floor for a "decision" on this hand, even though in my mind there isn't any thing that needs to be decided. The floor comes over and the dealer replays the hand for him. All the while Old Angry Man is pacing back and forth, spouting random thoughts that come in his head, all the while probably realizing that it was his dumbass fault he is in this mess in the first place. The floor awards me the pot, which of course sends Old Angry Man off even more. I quietly scoop the pot, keeping an eye on Old Angry Man for comedic value. He continues his incoherent rant to the floor manager for about 10 minutes before finally leaving the poker room. On the way out he passes me saying "you know you did wrong". I still don't know what that means.

Anyways, fuck I knew this post would be long. I'm getting uncomfortable and restless here in my hotel room so I'll end this here and now and continue it some other day. Thats probably the best for all of us. For anyone who cares, I'll be returning back home this Friday, which admittedly I'm looking forward to as I'm almost sick of live full ring cash game poker.