LAW OF POKER

Goodbye Blog

2007-02-05T21:45:00.000-06:00

So much has changed since I started this blog way back when. I was nearly consumed by poker back then. Now, while I still enjoy the occasional live hold'em game, the online game seems to be slowly changing (not for the better). I basically only play omaha online nowadays.

I'm much more interested in music, movies, TV, books, and the like right now. I've been kicking around an idea of a pop culture site for some time so I finally went ahead and started one. I'll be doing my writing there from now on:

www.madcentury.com

Expect lots of music and TV reviews there. I may throw in the occasional poker talk, but nothing regular.

I just have a nother generic template up for now, but I hope to jazz it up a bit shortly. My first post is already up.

It's been fun and I hope to see most of you there.

Well, it's Friday the 13th...

2006-10-12T23:47:00.000-05:00

and W is apparently set to sign the law sometime today. PokerStars and FullTilt, and a handful of other companies appear poised to fight this thing, at least for now. Neteller also wants to stick around, but I think that they will be run out of business on U.S. soil - it's just a matter of how long they will last.

So it appears that we will still be playing poker online next week. But the Act has unquestionably taken a toll even before it has been signed. And unfortunately, the carnage is not yet complete. If some of these companies want to declare war against the U.S. government, they are going to have to accept the consequences. As noted by Nolan Dalla, the former Media Officer at PokerStars (he quit his job at Stars upon advice from counsel after the Act passed) and current WSOP media guy noted, officers and owners of companies that continue their "business as usual" stance after tomorrow will have to think very carefully about setting foot on U.S. soil. Mr. Dalla also has a pretty bleak, but very informed view of what this silly Act might mean to the world of poker. It's a really good article, written from a unique perspective.

The question is how many resources the Justice Department will be willing to expend (waste?) trying to prosecute or possibly extradite offenders. Also, will they spend any time trying to get injunctions against internet service providers to block access to some of these sites? That would really be trouble.

Let's keep our fingers crossed, and keep hoping that we will be able to play some online poker this time next month.

Also, I am really getting annoyed by Allyn Jaffry Schulman's articles on CardPlayer. In one of her recent ones, she somehow claims that the new law means nothing to poker players because the Act affects only transactions associated with "unlawful internet gambling". She reasons that, because "Online Poker Is Not Illegal", it cannot fall within the Act. It's an argument that she seems to have stolen from Professor I. Nelson Rose, who made similar comments on a podcast on pocketfives.com. However, she forgot to mention that online poker is expressly made unlawful in a bunch of states. Also, gambling of any type is unlawful in a handful of states. Thus, it seems clear to me that online poker, at least in most cases, will qualify as unlawful internet gambling. Professor Rose mentioned these issues, but Schulman omits them from her discussion. At some point, you have to wonder if Schulman, whose family has undoubtedly made loads of money during the poker boom, is just deperately trying to hang on to something she can see slipping away.

Good Possibilities, Bad Possibilities

2006-10-02T22:38:00.000-05:00

There is still a group a people completely in denial about the law. Some of them have some strong thoughts about what it will mean, and really won't listen to reason. Some of their thoughts may be correct, but they might also be overly optomistic.

There is another group that feel that the law is solid, and likely to eliminate online poker as we know it. Some of their views may also be correct, but they might be taking a slightly more dreary view than necessary.

The truth may fall somewhere in the middle. However, we all need to agree on a few points:

1. Neteller is out. I've heard people argue that it will still be available as a funding option. But none of them can really articulate how or why. Some say that the law only prohibits transfers to gambling sites. Well, that is true. But the intent of the law is to stop restricted transactions. And Section 5364 tells the Federal Reserve that it MUST promulgate regulations to prevent the restricted transactions. There is no question that, the transaction from Neteller to the poker site is a restricted transaction. Thus, there will be a regulation that restricts transfers to third-party sites that do business with companies in the business of gambling.

It's clear that PartyPoker realizes this. Otherwise, they would not have announced the shutdown of US operations, right? Would they have stood by and allowed their stock to plummet if they thought Neteller was a funding option? No. They would have shut down their direct pay operations, and kept their doors open to US bettors with Neteller accounts. Also, Neteller seems to realize it themselves. They announced to stockholders that the passage of the Act will have a materially adverse impact on revenue.

Allyn Jaffry Schulman said the following on cardplayer.com:

"However, the government cannot stop its citizens from sending money out of the country for legitimate purposes. For example, if I want to buy a widget offshore, the Constitution protects my right to do so. As long as there is a third party, not involved in gaming, I am permitted to place my money in that receptacle from a U.S. financial institution and then spend it. Once my money goes to NETeller, I can buy a watch, or pay for a trip. Because there are legally allowable things that can be done after sending the money to NETeller, the government cannot tell my bank not to send my money there. Our Constitution protects one's personal right to send money from a U.S. bank or financial institution to a business outside of the United States.

The company I mentioned is the popular NETeller. Others will soon appear on the horizon. NETeller happens to be a publicly traded company on the London AIM Exchange with a user base of more than 2.3 million customers. More than 1,700 online merchants accept payments through the NETeller system, and most of those companies are not gaming sites. With corporate headquarters in the Isle of Man, the company processes billions of dollars yearly. Companies like NETeller are not going to pack up and disappear. This legislation merely encourages more of the same.

It will be fascinating to watch this issue unfold. If our government tries to stop US financial institutions from sending money to a place like NETeller, this would surely be fodder for a lawsuit.

The issue will probably be decided from a business perspective. If NETeller makes millions from non-gaming related sources and it would hurt their business if they lost US customers, they may voluntarily stop sending money to offshore sites. On the other hand, if a large portion of their business is online gaming, a lawsuit is in the making if NETeller is blacklisted."

But what if the banks decide to block neteller once the bill is signed? Lawsuits? Okay. Who is going to sue, and why? She seems to think that, because the money in neteller could be used for legitimate purposes, the U.S. cannot regulate transfers to it. Unfortunately, she never sites any case law or other support for this bold proposition.

What if there's a fund that gives money to terrorist groups and children's charities? You want to send money to the fund to help the kids. Could the government block the transfer to the fund? I sure hope so. Why? Because they have a legitimate public interest in blocking the transaction, and because you have an alternative to making your legitimate donation (just give it straight to the kids, or use another fund).

Similarly, the government has a legitimate interest in blocking the neteller transaction. And you have alternative means for making your legitimate transaction. You don't need to use neteller to buy a vacation or a product. Use your credit card, or wire the money. I think that the government is within it's rights here.

2. Banks could block some transactions as soon as the law is passed. It's possible that they may wait for the regulations to be promulgated. However, I think we all need to prepare for the possibility that they will not.

3. There will be a way around the law. The most likely option is that you will have to set up an offshore account, and then transfer from there to neteller (or directly to the poker room). But the problems with these options are all significant. How many players will do this?

A reading of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act from the perspective of an average poker player and lawyer (i.e., me).

2006-10-01T21:04:00.000-05:00

What follows is a section-by-section analysis of the Act from my perspective. I've now gone through the Act a bunch of times, and I have a pretty good idea of what it does. As a caveat, I'd like to note that statutory construction is an inexact science. I've seen two good attorneys argue two equally plausible interpretations of statutes before judges many times. If anyone disagrees with anything, or wishes to take me to task, I'd welcome it.

I'm concerned that the discussion on the poker forums is mostly inadequate and not based on the language of the bill. The goal really is to start up a discussion (or argument) on the language of the bill. It might help us figure things out. If my tone misleads you into thinking that my view is the only possible reading of the bill, then I apologize. And lastly, the analysis below is not legal advice. Please don't rely on anything below to guide your actions.

As I think most will see, the Act is pretty well constructed and likely to be quite effective in stifling the industry. The analysis is based on the version of the bill attached to the SAFE Port Act, and beginning on page 213 of that document. If I omit analysis of a particular section, it is because I do not think it important enough to discuss or relevant to the average Internet poker player. My hope is that people will follow along with the Act as they read the analysis.

§5361 – Congressional Findings

This is the basic reasoning for passing the Act. I'm not buying any of it, but this will be a decision left to individual readers.

§5362 – Definitions

Here is where many of the terms used in Act are defined. I'm not going to go into detail on all of the definitions unless someone has a specific issue. I think we can all agree that poker bets qualify as a “Bet or Wager” and that all of the poker sites we use are in the “Business of Betting or Wagering”. It is also important to note the broad nature of the term “Financial Transaction Provider”.

The term “Interactive Computer Services” is incorporated from the Communications Act of 1934, which defines the term as “any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.” It's safe to say that any ISP would fit into that definition.

The broad nature of the term “Restricted Transaction” is also important. It essentially means any financial transaction that would violate §5363 (we will get to §5363 in due time). Checks, Credit Card transactions, wires, etc. will all qualify. We will also safely assume that poker falls into the definition of “Unlawful Internet Gambling”.

§5363 – The Meat of the Act

§5363 prohibits anyone in the Business of Betting or Wagering, from accepting payments from a person in connection with Unlawful Internet Gambling. As mentioned above, the poker sites are in the Business of Betting or Wagering, and playing poker on the sites falls within the meaning of Unlawful Internet Gambling. For now, I'd rather not get too hung up on details regarding what transactions qualify as unlawful, and what transactions might not violate the act. It's reasonable to assume that any transaction accepted by a gambling site will be received in violation of this law.

Note what the Act does here. It makes it illegal for PokerStars, PartyPoker, etc., to accept money in connection with gambling. It makes no attempt to criminalize the behavior of the players, either in placing the bets or funding the sites. Nor does it expressly prohibit the sites from accepting bets, exactly. It actually prohibits them from taking any money in connection with betting.

§5364 – Regulations/What the Banks Must Do

This section requires the Federal Reserve to promulgate regulations requiring financial institutions to identify and block restricted transactions. This must be done within 270 days from the date the bill is signed. Some have mistakenly assumed that, because of this 270-day period, nothing will change for 270 days. This viewpoint assumes that banks will not take any action without the promulgation of the regulations. I think it is likely that, even without the promulgation of the regulations, banks will act to prohibit many transactions.

While I admit that this is conjecture (who can say they know exactly what banks will do?), it must be noted that the Act appears to take effect immediately upon signing. Thus, the poker sites (and other gambling sites) will be violating U.S. Law as soon as they accept transfers after the bill is signed. I would think that banks, knowing that Neteller and other 3^rd party sites are basically intermediaries between gamblers and gambling sites, would choose the safe route and cut off the transactions from day one. To do otherwise would be to aid illegal activity. And, as I will discuss more below, the banks have a reason to act with a “better safe than sorry” approach. That is because the Act has, what I call a “better safe than sorry” provision. But as far as the precise timing of the blocks, I think we will all have to wait and see.

The regulations will likely set out exactly how the banks will know what transactions are bad ones, and will probably have some type of enforcement mechanism. I would expect a list of restricted organizations (all online poker sites, neteller, firepay, etc.) that banks cannot send money to, and some type of coding system that will effectuate the blocks and restrictions. My guess is that the list of bad organizations will be constantly updated. I'd also expect some stiff fines for banks deemed not in compliance with the Act.

This section of the Act also has the “better safe than sorry provision”, which states that a bank cannot have liability for refusing a transaction under the Act, so long as it has a reasonable belief the transaction might violate the Act. Thus, if a bank has any question as to whether or not a transaction is unlawful under the Act, it can decide to block the transaction and claim it had a reasonable belief the transaction was unlawful. This section effectively shields them from liability for such an action. Accordingly, I'd expect banks to adopt a “better safe than sorry” approach to this Act, especially in the gray areas. See pg. 234, §5364(d).

§5365 – Civil Enforcement

This section allows your local U.S. Attorney's Office, or your local state Attorney General's office, to file suit in Federal District Courts for injunctive relief (think restraining orders) to prevent or restrain transactions in violation of the Act. This is pretty straightforward.

§5365(c) is an interesting provision that no one has discussed much. This section allows your local U.S. Attorney or state Attorney General to file for injunctive relief against Internet Service Providers. The section is clear that ISPs do not have any affirmative obligation to maintain a list of gambling urls and block user access to them. However, it does allow your U.S. Attorney or Attorney general to ask a District Court Judge for an injunction or restraining order, prohibiting the ISP from allowing access to any website in violation of the Act. Thus, a District Court Judge could issue an order requiring my ISP to block access to PokerStars, PartyPoker, etc. I will be interested to see if any U.S. Attorney decides to try this provision out. I'm especially worried about my U.S. Attorney, who seems to have taken an keen interest in Internet gambling.

Worse yet, some ISPs may just start blocking sites. Let's hope that they don't.

§5366 – Criminal Sanctions

If you violate the Act, you can get fined big time and/or go to jail for up to 5 years. Pretty simple, right? Remember, this would apply to the person or entity accepting the payments, and not the bettors.

My concern on this section relates to possible conspiracy charges against affiliate sites. If you are making money by referring U.S. Bettors to companies that are violating §5363, could you be hit with a conspiracy (i.e., you conspired with PokerStars to violate §5363, by referring a U.S. Bettor to a site and facilitating a Restricted Transaction) charge and subjected to possible jail time? This is an interesting question, and I'm not sure I know the answer quite yet.

All questions or thoughts are welcome. This is a pretty scary time for online poker players.

The poker boom ended last night...

2006-10-01T02:01:00.000-05:00

As I'm sure everyone knows by now, The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act passed late Friday. The bill that passed has only the restrictions on funding to gambling sites. What are the effects of the Act? Unfortunately, I don't think anyone can be 100% sure about what will happen. More on that will follow. Here are some of my thoughts after reading the Act:

1. Taking ANY bets over the internet will now be, without any question, unlawful. Although the Justice Department argued strongly, and with some success, that taking internet bets was already illegal, Defendants before could argue ambiguity in the federal statutes. They can no longer make these arguments. This may seem to be a small point, but the legitimate poker sites will now have to consider whether they want to cut U.S. bettors off, or fly in the face of U.S. law. The Justice Department has shown a desire (for whatever reason) to expend its resources going after online gaming executives. Now that this Act is law, it may start trying to extradite executives of some big companies if they take U.S. bets.

2. Neteller, Firepay, etc. are probably no longer viable funding options. I think that banks, in an effort to be "better safe than sorry" will probably stop allowing transfers to neteller and other third-party companies as soon as the law is passed, or shortly thereafter. Although the exact enforcement mechanisms will not be in place for many months (the Treasury Department has 270 days to promulgate regulations), banks will not want to be involved in transfers to companies that do business with gambling sites. It's simply not worth the risk. Compliance departments across the country will be discussing the issue on Monday morning.

3. This Act is a big deal. The general view on most message boards is that this won't change much. I think that many online players are in denial. This is very bad, and is likely to have a huge impact not only on the online poker world, but on all of poker. We may not even recognize the online poker world we see this time next year.

4. Cashouts might be affected. Although the act seems not to prohibit financial institutions from accepting payments from online gaming sites, might banks simply block them on their own? Of course. In fact, I think that this will happen. The banks are going to be careful with this law for a time.

5. The fish will follow? In my mind, this is the biggest question. Will the bad players jump through more hoops to deposit? The ease of depositing certainly has helped fund the poker boom. If depositing becomes more difficult, what is going to happen? How will traffic be on the big sites? Will we be playing only with people who have a solid bankroll on the site? Obviously, this would be bad.

All in all, we have lots to worry about. I'd love to hear some comments or questions on this.

I am an idiot...

2006-08-17T02:16:00.000-05:00

It's coming up on 2:30AM, and I have to be at work at 8AM. I made the stupid decision to play the $3 rebuy on Stars that started at 11:00PM. While I'm deep right now, with a good stack, I'm somewhat worried that I may not be sleeping tonight. The Stars software broke down, and we've been delayed for the past 45 minutes. Sigh.

I was running insanely good at the tables recently, but it has leveled off substantially in the last 10 days. I have been playing 7-card stud mostly. I've also mixed in some pot limit omaha, and some stud hi-lo as well. Tonight I have been at the HOSE and HORSE tables that Stars just opened. I just love playing the mixed games. There are probably some better spots for me (I am not a great razz or O8 player), but it's fun.

In other news, I have become completely addicted to playing Mario Kart DS on Nintendo's wi-fi system. It's a blast, even though I don't play especially well yet. Soon I will be as good at Mario Kart DS as I was at Mario Kart 64. Then I will finally be able to beat some of these kids online.

-

In recording my results of late, I have concluded that I am not a very good pot limit omaha player. It's a hard truth, but one i think I need to address. I've tried the strategy of waiting until the turn to push the nuts (this seems to make sense), but lately I've been losing with hands I don't think I can get away from. While bad luck comes into play, I think I've been making some mistakes. What was once my favorite game is now a game I hate to play. And my results or the past several months seem to be bad.

***********************
Update:
I busted in 19th. I needed a top 16. Man I ran cold tonight. After a great start at the HOSE and HORSE tables, I ended down there. It's 3:37AM.

Congrats to Dan Nassif

2006-08-11T14:42:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to St. Louisan Dan Nassif for finishing 9th in the Main event. Dan sells advertising at the RFT, and apparently plans to be back to work bright and early on Monday despite the $1.5 million payday.

Unfortunately, I think he might have misplayed his last hand a bit. The Post article details it. In my view, if you are pot stuck by your preflop raise and will have to push any flop, why not just push preflop? This puts the maximum pressure on Gold, and forces him to either fold, or make what I think is a pretty bad call with his deuces. Gold had lots of chips, and apparently he told Dan he would have called the push (Why not comfort the poor guy?) regardless. I am not sure I believe him.

Thoughts?

Welcome to St. Louis David Carruthers

2006-07-21T09:55:00.000-05:00

I wanted to be the first to welcome BetonSports CEO David Carruthers to St. Louis. It's a shame that he could not see our lovely city under better circumstances.

I'm still having a hard time figuring out why this is a good use of federal resources. Can anyone enlighten me?

More bad news

2006-07-19T11:15:00.000-05:00

Here's a pretty good article from Forbes.com, on the recent events in the world of online gambling. The most interesting tidbit in the article was something I had not heard before. It seems that Paypal has come out in support of the most recent measure that passed the House. Why? Because, in their estimation, it puts Neteller and most other third party payment sites out of business in the U.S. So much for the idea that the law would not have an impact on funding sites. I'm just glad that someone else is reading the bill, and thinking about it sensibly.

I still have serious doubts about the bill actually getting through the Senate. But we should all be fighting like crazy to kill the bill just to be sure. Simply listening to Cardplayer's inexplicable theory that Neteller will still be a funding option, would not be smart. Their theory that the ISP blocking provisions would be unenforceable is similarly flawed.

Our Tax Dollars at Work

2006-07-18T09:22:00.000-05:00

I don't have a ton of time, but I have been closely following this story. The CEO of betonsports.com, David Carruthers, was arrested in Texas on Sunday. He was brought before a judge yesterday in federal court in Fort Worth to hear the allegations of a June 1st indictment. Apparently St. Louis's own U.S. Attorney's office is responsible, and he will be brought back here for the trial, if it gets that far.

More on this later.

Update: Here's the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on the subject.

Random Notes: online poker at risk; NBA; Sufjan stung

2006-07-13T23:26:00.000-05:00

Here are a few funny and/or interesting things I have run across or thought about the past couple of days:

1. Coverage of the Internet Gambling Law: The national media seems to be summarizing the bill as prohibiting credit card transfers to gaming sites. Of course, most of us know that you can't use a credit card to deposit on legitimate sites anyway. But this bill specifically prohibits it...who cares? This does somewhat establish my point about the danger of the law though. We live in an environment of compliance. The credit card companies, scared about even the slim chance of sanction, have blocked these transfers even though they are not (as evidenced by the apparent need for this bill) unlawful. This is why I fear that a US bank, when presented with a transfer to Neteller or Firepay (two services that pretty clearly make a living transferring to gaming sites) will simply choose the 'better safe than sorry' route should this bill pass.

2. NBA: I haven't spoken much about the NBA Finals on the blog, but my overall impression of them was not good. I was pretty disgusted by the officiating throughout the Playoffs, but the Finals just made me sick. Along those lines, here's a funny e-mail my friend Jason sent me:

"I went to buy my son a Nowitzki kid's jersey on NBA.com, and got whistled for a foul on Dwayne Wade."

3. Sufjan sullied: One of my favorite pop music critics recently got harsh with another of my current favs. It's food for thought, though I find the author to be struggling at times to find something to be upset about.

Online Poker Attack

2006-07-11T23:46:00.000-05:00

Sorry I have not updated in some time. It figures that, just as I am finally running good at the tables for a couple of days, that the House of Representatives hits me with a cold deck.

Unlike many other experts, I have some serious concerns about the bill that passed on Tuesday. This bill is substantially based upon the bill from the spring. Click here for CardPlayer's summary of that bill. If you read CP's summary by Allyn Jaffry Shulman, you'd think the bill is no big deal. I have looked over her summary a bunch of times, and I have a few problems with the rosy picture she paints of the bill.

Specifically, Shulman strongly believes that our ability to fund poker sites will be unaffected. The bill makes a fairly strong attack on our ability to get money to poker sites. It does this by empowering the federal reserve board to make regulations to prohibit transactions to gaming sites. The fact that Neteller, and other 3rd party sites are overseas, according to Shulman, keeps them being affected by the Act. That's where I think her logic fails. Here's why:

The regulations that the Fed will promulgate will almost certainly create penalties for banks caught transferring money to gaming sites. The banks, which all do huge business in the US, will be scared by this. Their compliance/legal departments will be take action. In fact, if the banks think that they might (no matter how long the odds) get fined, they will block all transactions, even if only possibly unlawful. Shulman thinks that, because Neteller funds can be used legitimately, the bill cannot prohibit transfers to Neteller. I think that this view is somewhat naive. What Shulman fails to consider is that the banks themselves don't have to make the transfer if they don't want to. If the banks know that neteller allows transfers to gaming sites, they would be smart to prohibit transfers to neteller, right? Of course they would.

The provisions that require ISPs to block gaming sites might, as Shulman claims, be a "nightmare" to enforce. But I think that the tech-savvy IT departments in the ISPs will figure something out. The risk of fines will motivate them. Even if they only block the popular sites, the effect will be staggering. I like playing on sites with tons of action. Where will I go? The popular sites will get blocked just as they gain ground. Eventually, no one will bother starting a site. The cost for getting around the ISPs will be too much.

All things considered, I am worried. I think we all should be.

"This isn't farm life"

2006-06-14T23:10:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention in my last post that I splurged on a little something for myself last Sunday.

I'm super close to beating the game of the year. I know, I could have acted more my age and bought a PSP. But there's not a game I would want to buy for that dumb thing. Sure it looks good, but I guess I'm just a Nintendo guy.

What other games should I buy?

"I'll take the quiet life, a handshake of carbon monoxide."

2006-06-14T00:10:00.000-05:00

* The people who know me well (both) know the fervor with which I hate Charter Communications (our local cable company here in St. Louis. My blood especially boils when they air their local 'Phonies' commercials. In these thirty second spots, Charter and it's big cable company friends manage to educate me and the rest of their victims on the phone companies gall in trying to infiltrate the cable tv market place and create some legitimate competition for Charter's absurdly overpriced cable tv packages. Charter has managed to convince (i.e., scare or bribe) our miserable state legislature that AT&T should not be allowed into Missouri. But they continue to run these TV spots, hoping to label AT&T as some type of communist organization hell bent on getting special laws to crush cable. They insult the intelligence of all of us.

That said, I must say that I am quite hooked on their On Demand service. Tonight after the quite good third game of the NBA Finals, I stumbled around the service and found some free concert footage. Anyone in the mood for a religious experience might want to check out the Radiohead clips they have on there. It's under Free Services - Concerts. They do a version of Paranoid Android that will really sock your knocks off. I's the kind of thing you see, get inspired by, and then feel disgusting waking up to go to work and contribute to the capitalist machine the next day. It's too great.

All episodes of Big Love are also available for free through the service if you have HBO. This was the best dramatic TV I saw last season. I found myself clock gazing through the snoozefest that was the past season of the Sopranos just to get to Big Love.

* I quickly read News Junkie, which was pretty fun. It's about the soul selling of journalism, told along side a Freudian whining, with a cocaine background.

* I recently revised my Best of Ben Folds mix CD, which turned out well. The man has had a prolific last 12 years.

Sure- I'll play the lotto

2006-05-31T18:27:00.000-05:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 3350457

"I've been trying to make this pay for so long."

2006-05-29T22:31:00.000-05:00

I suppose I could ramble on about the run of beats I took tonight, explaining each in excruciating detail and analyzing the play of my donkey opponents. But I'm just sick of it. I'm numb to it now, which might be good or it might be bad. I'm not sure. I know it's not as fun as it used to be. But I don't get down much about it either. There's only so much you can say about pushing top set and getting run down buy a guy who claimed he has 12 outs (the donkey had 9).

What's the point of it all? Every time I get a bit of a bankroll together, I end up cashing out half of it for something (most recently taxes). Then an inevitable losing streak comes along and pushes me back to the lower limits and small time sit and goes. It's like I'm walking in circles in the dark, with someone coming along and hitting me in the gut every month or two. Sound like fun?

I guess I'm not good enough to break through and contend at the higher limits. Otherwise I would be there by now. It's just a reality. So why do I keep doing this? The more I think about it, it's just chasing down some pie and the sky dream. I must be hoping to catch lightening in a bottle. Winning a big one.

The truth is that it's not likely to happen. To really give it a shot, I'd need to invest more time, and be willing to take risks. I see do not see either opportunity in my near future.

Right now, it's lost it's fun. Playing live is still fun, but online is just brutally difficult at the moment. I'm slowing down significantly until it seems fun again.

80's Lyric Quiz

2006-05-23T12:19:00.000-05:00

I mentioned last time that I was reading Our Band Could be Your Life. In doing so, I realized that the underground/indie scene was in many ways a response to the whole new wave movement of the 80's. I'm reading the Sonic Youth chapter now. Sonic Youth arose out of the 'No Wave' scene of New York ,which was a direct repudiation of the evils of new wave.

New Wave basically came about when record company execs., desperate to sell records and find a marketable style (punk was not selling), invented it. It's hard to hear for me, because I really took a liking to much of the 'New Wave' music. Of course, looking back at it, it all does seem pretty contrived. Still, not all of the music of the 80's was created in a conference room in New York.

Here's a little 80's music quiz. You get a point for the song title, and a point for the artist. Bonus questions count for only one point each total. So theoretically, you could score 105. The quiz, I am told, is tough. But all of these songs were on the radio. I'm not pulling b-sides, or non singles into the quiz. These were all hits. Good luck.

1. “Where does it go from here? Is it down to the lake I fear?”
2. “New York to East California. There's a new wave coming I warn you.”
3. “I am the son and the heir/of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.”
4. “The power lines have floaters so the airplanes won’t get snagged.”
5. “Oh I never should have said/the books that you read/were all I loved you for.”
6. “Looks like the whole world's out of sync.”
7. “And this is my four leaf clover.”
8. “I make them want me/I like to tease them/they want to touch me/I never let them.”
9. “But there’s somethin' in your eyes that says maybe...”
10. “I'm alone/sitting with my empty glass/my four walls/follow me through my past.”
11. “I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert/but I can live and breathe and see the sun
in wintertime.”
12. “Doctor says you’re cured/but you still feel the pain.”
13. “Get my dinner from a garbage can.”
14. “When I was driving once I saw this painted on a bridge: 'I don't want the world, I just want
your half.'”
15. “Whenever I'm alone with you/you make me feel like I am home again.”
16. “Funny how I find myself in love with you.”
17. “I have stood here before inside the pouring rain.”
18. “I was born to love her and I will never be free...”
19. “At my bedside empty pocket/a foot without a sock.”
20. “In the paper today/tales of war and waste/but you turn right over to the T.V. Page.”
21. “Acting on your best behaviour/turn your back on mother nature.”
22. “well she used to have a carefree mind of her own/with a devilish look in her eye.”
23. “Did you make disease, and the diamond blue? Did you make mankind after we made
you?”
24. “It's not the perfume that you wear. It's not the ribbons in your hair.”
25. “Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable/and lightness has a call that's hard to hear.”
26. “Teddy sniffing glue/he was 12 years old/fell from the roof on East Two-nine.”
27. “Say after me/it's no better to be safe than sorry.”
28. “I used to think maybe you loved me/now baby I'm sure.”
29. “I see the doorway/to a thousand churches.”
30. “He wants me/but only part of the time/he wants me/if he can keep me in line.”
31. “In between what I find is pleasing/and I’m feeling fine/love is so confusing.”
32. “They only hit until you cry/and after that you don't ask why.”
33. “You'll flow down her river/she'll ask you and you'll give her...”
34. “It's a new road/I follow where/my mind goes.”
35. “Let's go slam dance/we'll dress like Minnie Pearl.”
36. “The cloud is moving nearer still. Aurora Borealis comes in view; Aurora comes in view.”
37. “The grabbing hands/grab all they can/all for themselves/after all/it’s a competitive
world.”
38. “You say I'm a dreamer/we're two of a kind. Both of us searching for some perfect world
we know we'll never find.”
39. “Moving into the universe and she's/drifting this way and that.”
40. “Do you hear me? Do you care?”
41. “I hope you know this will go down on your permanent record.”
42. “I got it/I got it/I got your number on the wall. I got it/I got it. For a good time/for a good
time call...”
43. “He said 'In winter 1963/it felt like the world would freeze/with John F. Kennedy and the
Beatles.’"
44. “You're my guy, just what the doctor ordered/so sweet, you make my mouth water.”
45. “Just like that river twisting through a dusty land.”
46. “I try to laugh about it/cover it all up with lies/I try and laugh about it/hiding the tears in
my eyes...”
47. “Waiting for an invitation to arrive/goin' to a party where no one's still alive.”
48. “They took the credit for your second symphony.”
49. “I want a doctor/to take a picture/so I can look at you from inside as well.”
50. “Birthday party/cheesecake/jelly bean/boom!”

Bonus Questions
1. Name the rather famous gentleman singing backup vocals in #19.
2. Name the Canadian songstress who covered #23 (it's not Celine Dion).
3. “There's a stain on my notebook where your coffee cup was.”
4. “Burn down the disco/hang the blessed DJ/because the music that they constantly play/it
says nothing to me about my life.”
5. “If depth of feeling is a currency/then I'm the man who grew the money tree.”

"she wears a wire that runs all the way to Stockholm"

2006-05-22T10:14:00.000-05:00

Any excuses for not blogging in so long? Not really. My guess is that my few loyal readers have all probably abandoned me by now. This is understandable. The main reason for not blogging has been my general disdain for writing about poker. I'm really starting to think that, if you've read one poker blog, you've read them all. Plus, I've grown a bit sick of hold'em lately, and I'm not sure how much PL Omaha and low limit stud h/l people really want to read about. As such, my poker reflections are likely to be sparse from now on, and of a more general nature.

I had a really amazing April. I won and sold a seat into the Stars $650 WSOP qualifier, and had a pretty amazing month otherwise too. May has been much less fun. I won a seat into the Stars $215, but not much else has gone right. I have been teaching myself stud h/l, which has been fun.

I have been doing a bunch more traffic tickets and other miscellaneous minor municipal violations. I even went back to night court last week. I have also been moonlighting quite a bit of late, performing various research and drafting tasks.

My reading list includes Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azzerad, which is a fun book profiling several indie bands from the 80's and early 90's. I have been listening to Cannibal Sea by The Essex Green, and the new Snow Patrol. I have also been listening to old XTC for some reason. I put together a pretty difficult 80's lyric quiz, which I may post later for fun. I also want to do one for the 90's. Stay tuned for that.

Sucking up nickels

2006-04-04T16:53:00.000-05:00

I've been wrapping up When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein, which is a really fun read. I've become somewhat obsessed with finance and trading of late. I've read a few books, and they lead me to Lowenstein. The book tells the story of Long Term Capital management, a hedge fund headed by a few sparkling academics, and some experienced Wall Street arbitrageurs. The fund was a huge success for 3-4 years, but then proceeded to lose 85% of its capital, along with the reputations of its partners, in a couple of months. In describing the funds strategy, Lowenstein notes the analogy oft cited in arbitrage that Long Term was 'sucking up nickels'. The idea was that they found trades with very, very small margins of profit, and very, very small risk. They would then leverage (borrow) to the extent that they could make millions even from a small percentage profit. One particularly prophetic insider noted that Long Term was sucking up its nickels in front of bulldozers.

Despite the seemingly small risks, Long Term eventually failed for numerous reasons. The academics heading the fund thought they had quantified and eliminated risk. However, the book chronicles a very human story, touched off by very human events. These were precisely the events that the academics at Long Term could not quantify in their models. Long story short, things went very wrong very fast. The fund almost brought down the markets.

The story is good for poker players and other investors/gamblers. It's always good to remember that, no matter how good you are, ruin (going broke) is still possible. The calamitous can, and does happen. The traders at Long Term, when things started getting difficult, started pressing (tilting?). They invested in areas where they didn't have advantages, and began taking silly risks and following their models to a fault.

Also, these guys were sure that their system of bankroll management was perfect. They were wrong. In poker terms, they were playing way above their limits.

******

As a fun side note, I'm going to see a Cards game at the new Busch Stadium next Friday. Check out my view.

Deju vu? No Thanks...

2006-04-02T22:34:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been busy with some other pursuits. I have my day job, plus I've been doing some traffic stuff on my own at night. And I've been logging some hours at the table as well. I was running good for a lot of my hiatus, and I was afraid to write too much of it as it almost always serves as a jinx.

Last year, I had a spectacular March too. I followed it up with blowing everything in April. My decline was largely trying to play WSOP sats, and other big tourneys. This year, I'm concerned that the same may happen. I had a huge March. I was running good, collecting bonuses. I even had a great session live at Harrahs. But I've been running horribly since March 27th or so. Really bad. I played a ton of tourneys today, and I'm just convinced I cannot win. I'm going to play tomorrow in the FIAB, and I'll run some more cheap buy in WSOP rebuy sats, but if this continues I'm going to shut it down for a bit. Its been ugly.

But I havent lost much,. This is due mostly to keeping things small. I'm just running small buy in S&Gs, and small rebuy sat tourneys. I'm not looking to go on a bender here. And with some of the things I saw today, I could have lost a ton of cash had a been playing bigger. Imagine pair over pair losing twice out of four times. Not too bad? How about losing 4 straight races. Not too bad. Okay. Maybe not. Remember these are all key hands of course. This ended my night...bad beat warning. Don't say you havent been warned. I hate posting these, but sometimes I think its the only way to adequately describe the session.

PokerStars Game #4503681487: Tournament #22205021, Hold'em No Limit -
Level VIII (200/400) - 2006/04/02 - 23:28:16 (ET)
Table '22205021 15' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: tinys22 (17770 in chips)
Seat 2: Ahill06 (10555 in chips)
Seat 3: lilguy31 (3075 in chips)
Seat 5: deltadom (16875 in chips)
Seat 6: livingsign (7320 in chips)
Seat 7: -Izz- (11675 in chips)
Seat 8: alexans (2790 in chips)
Seat 9: kegger (4250 in chips)
tinys22: posts the ante 25
Ahill06: posts the ante 25
lilguy31: posts the ante 25
deltadom: posts the ante 25
livingsign: posts the ante 25
-Izz-: posts the ante 25
alexans: posts the ante 25
kegger: posts the ante 25
deltadom: posts small blind 200
livingsign: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to livingsign [As Qs]
-Izz-: folds
alexans: folds
kegger: folds
tinys22: raises 400 to 800
Ahill06: calls 800
lilguy31: folds
deltadom: folds
livingsign: calls 400
*** FLOP *** [Kc 3c Ad]
livingsign: checks
tinys22: checks
Ahill06: bets 800
livingsign: raises 5695 to 6495 and is all-in
tinys22: folds
Ahill06: calls 5695
*** TURN *** [Kc 3c Ad] [3d]
*** RIVER *** [Kc 3c Ad 3d] [Td]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
livingsign: shows [As Qs] (two pair, Aces and Threes)
Ahill06: shows [Kd Qd] (a flush, Ace high)
Ahill06 collected 15790 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 15790 | Rake 0
Board [Kc 3c Ad 3d Td]
Seat 1: tinys22 folded on the Flop
Seat 2: Ahill06 showed [Kd Qd] and won (15790) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 3: lilguy31 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: deltadom (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: livingsign (big blind) showed [As Qs] and lost with two pair,
Aces and Threes
Seat 7: -Izz- folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: alexans folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: kegger folded before Flop (didn't bet)

jjprodigy/zeejustin...an alternative thought

2006-02-28T09:22:00.000-06:00

So much has been written about the jjprodigy/zeejustin fiasco that I’ve been somewhat reluctant to discuss it. Why keep repeating the same things?

For those who don't know, both zeejustin and jjprodigy have been busted by Party for entering the same tournaments numerous times through different account names. Apparently they were dumb enough to do this through the same IP address, which made Party's investigation pretty simple. Stars also took some of zeejustin's cash, but not all of it.

Most of what I read online is of the ‘Dirty cheaters get what they deserve’ mold. I understand that sentiment. I think it comes mostly from schmos like me who didn’t realize the extent of the multi-accounting problem. But I have one question:

Does anyone care about the fact that Party just took some amount north of $100,000 from a user account unilaterally, leaving jjprodigy with essentially no recourse?

My guess is that the answer to my question will mostly be ‘Hell no!’ The reasoning of the response will most likely be in the vein of the ‘Dirty cheaters get what they deserve’ responses I’ve seen plastering the message boards (boreds?). To an extent, I understand and agree with that response. After all, the evidence (including a confession from jjprodigy himself) is fairly overwhelming.

I’m focusing mostly on Party, because Party apparently seized all of its alleged multi-accounter’s funds, including funds that the players presumably won legitimately in straight cash games. In the case of zeejustin on Stars, Lee Jones indicated that it seized only the amounts it was sure zeejustin won illicitly. This, I think, is a much more tenable position. Party, citing its user agreement, feels that closing your account and seizing all of your funds, is allowed.

I question whether or not such a position would be upheld in a court in the U.S. Of course, Party feels that it will probably never find itself in court over the issue. First of all, playing poker for money over the internet, according to Justice, is a violation of the Wire Act and other federal statutes. That cuts both ways, I suppose. Zeejustin or jjprodigy could argue that, because the contract was made for an illegal purpose, it is void and Party cannot rely upon its language to seize their funds. Of course, this would also circumvent any breach of contract action by a player against Party as well. But if Party feels that, simply because the tournaments themselves are illegal, it can act as it pleases without concern for possible legal action, it may be acting arrogantly.

I still foresee the option of a conversion (stealing basically) action against Party. Such a suit might well be successful in a US Court. Let’s assume that Party would be subject to jurisdiction in a US Court (I think that this is a reasonable assumption given its numerous contacts to the United States including advertising and marketing here). Of course, given the proof of cheating, zeejustin and jjprodigy may well have ‘unclean hands’ in the eyes of the court. This may well preclude the recovery.

It’s a fascinating hypothetical lawsuit. But the main issue is that, because of the above-discussed troubles, suing Party is not a simple prospect. So imagine that you check your e-mail tomorrow, and see that Party has conducted an investigation, and concluded that you are in fact violating sub-sub paragraph (5)(H)(1)(b)iii, part Q. Consequently, they have seized all of your funds (let’s say $2k) and closed your account. This must be a mistake, you think. You have not done anything wrong. You call Party to clear things up. After spending and hour being transferred and on hold, their answer is basically ‘Tough luck.” You ask for an explanation and receive one in broken English, which you do not understand.

What do you do next? Getting a lawyer to take this case is not at all practical. It’s complex, and there’s not enough money at stake to pay someone hourly. Worse yet, you have jurisdictional issues, and will be going into court admitting that you have been performing illegal acts.

To some extent, I realize that Party is only as good as it’s reputation. That’s why it is doing this in the first place, and that’s why Stars responded so quickly. They want people to feel safe playing there, and they don’t want people concerned that other players have 5 entries in each tournament. Their reputations, and their long-term success, depend upon people trusting the site. For that same reason, Party should be concerned that seizing people’s funds left and right without justification would make players uneasy. That too would be bad for business.

Nevertheless, it makes me somewhat nervous. I’m not sure that what Party did to jjprodigy is lawful under US law (such a determination would involve looking into all of the records, analyzing the Agreement, and is beyond the scope of this entry). But the trouble is that the availability of the courts to players may be limited. As such, we all have to trust Party (and Stars for that matter) exercises the seizure of player funds fairly. So far, it appears that they are. But it’s something all online players should keep a watchful eye on.

Nothing worse than a whiner...

2006-02-27T21:24:00.000-06:00

but after my AQ lost to AT (running TT on turn and river) and generally being card dead all night, this was a fitting conclusion to my night in the $3 rebuy on Stars. I love watching donkeys misplay aces...

PokerStars Game #4123130384: Tournament #20355203, Hold'em No Limit - Level V (75/150) - 2006/02/27 - 22:19:13 (ET)
Table '20355203 94' Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: livingsign (4700 in chips)
Seat 2: mld59 (19705 in chips)
Seat 3: one time buc (10950 in chips)
Seat 4: robes5 (3615 in chips)
Seat 5: LuckyLinda14 (10465 in chips)
Seat 6: nodaksam (6605 in chips)
Seat 7: trickpilot55 (6915 in chips)
Seat 8: j stutter (11280 in chips)
Seat 9: mitica (10355 in chips)
mitica: posts small blind 75
livingsign: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to livingsign [6c Jh]
mld59: calls 150
one time buc: folds
robes5: folds
LuckyLinda14: folds
nodaksam: folds
trickpilot55: calls 150
j stutter: folds
mitica: calls 75
livingsign: checks
*** FLOP *** [Td 6s Jd]
mitica: checks
livingsign: bets 500
mld59: raises 1000 to 1500
trickpilot55: folds
mitica: folds
livingsign: raises 3050 to 4550 and is all-in
mld59: calls 3050
nodaksam said, "lol"
*** TURN *** [Td 6s Jd] [Kh]
nodaksam said, "hold them aces"
*** RIVER *** [Td 6s Jd Kh] [Ac]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
livingsign: shows [6c Jh] (two pair, Jacks and Sixes)
mld59: shows [As Ah] (three of a kind, Aces)
mld59 collected 9700 from pot
j stutter said, "nh"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 9700 | Rake 0
Board [Td 6s Jd Kh Ac]
Seat 1: livingsign (big blind) showed [6c Jh] and lost with two pair, Jacks and Sixes
Seat 2: mld59 showed [As Ah] and won (9700) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 3: one time buc folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: robes5 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: LuckyLinda14 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: nodaksam folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: trickpilot55 folded on the Flop
Seat 8: j stutter (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: mitica (small blind) folded on the Flop

pretty sick

2006-02-26T22:50:00.000-06:00

i've been grinding away on stars, playing $5 S&Gs, slowly increasing the bankroll. I play well in the $3 rebuy into the $215 (my specialty). I was well on my way to taking it down, when this happened. This guy was raising a bunch of pots, and playing like a wildman. Nevertheless, I nearly folded preflop, and I took 20 seconds to call post flop. I finally decided he had a draw (wrong!). I haven't a beat like this at a critical moment in a few weeks.

PokerStars Game #4113364493: Tournament #20355183, Hold'em No Limit - Level XI (600/1200) - 2006/02/26 - 23:46:17 (ET)
Table '20355183 96' Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: Steke (25087 in chips)
Seat 2: klmz88 (61235 in chips)
Seat 3: bluesky21 (29573 in chips)
Seat 4: Wicked Dude (15569 in chips)
Seat 5: sht2scr (13821 in chips)
Seat 6: OKCBroker (44857 in chips)
Seat 7: TheMagican (36565 in chips)
Seat 9: livingsign (26649 in chips)
Steke: posts the ante 75
klmz88: posts the ante 75
bluesky21: posts the ante 75
Wicked Dude: posts the ante 75
sht2scr: posts the ante 75
OKCBroker: posts the ante 75
TheMagican: posts the ante 75
livingsign: posts the ante 75
livingsign: posts small blind 600
Steke: posts big blind 1200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to livingsign [Th Ts]
klmz88: folds
bluesky21: folds
Wicked Dude: folds
sht2scr: folds
OKCBroker: raises 2400 to 3600
TheMagican: folds
livingsign: calls 3000
Steke: folds
*** FLOP *** [2c 7c 9s]
livingsign: bets 5000
number44 is connected
OKCBroker: raises 36182 to 41182 and is all-in
livingsign: calls 17974 and is all-in
OKCBroker said, "nc"
*** TURN *** [2c 7c 9s] [Qh]
*** RIVER *** [2c 7c 9s Qh] [9h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
livingsign: shows [Th Ts] (two pair, Tens and Nines)
OKCBroker: shows [Kd 9d] (three of a kind, Nines)
OKCBroker collected 54948 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 54948 | Rake 0
Board [2c 7c 9s Qh 9h]
Seat 1: Steke (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: klmz88 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: bluesky21 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Wicked Dude folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: sht2scr folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: OKCBroker showed [Kd 9d] and won (54948) with three of a kind, Nines
Seat 7: TheMagican (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: livingsign (small blind) showed [Th Ts] and lost with two pair, Tens and Nines

Cool Things...a change in play

2006-02-24T20:04:00.000-06:00

I've been lazy, plus I've moonlighted a bit since my last post. I'm doing some drafting, etc. for my old boss. This is by no means an excuse for the week away from the blog, but it's all I have.

It's good that I left my job on such good terms, as it gives me the opportunity to do some of this moonlighting work at night. I've also taken on a traffic ticket or two. My rather ambitious goal for the year is to make 15,000 of taxable income outside of my job this year. I've a long way to go.

Cool Things

Beth Orton: The Comfort of Strangers

It sounds like Beth has reclaimed her talent. Everyone should buy this.

Workplace Lotto Pools

You have no chance, but isn't it cool to talk about leaving the working world? It's a great way to get to know the people you work with everyday. I loved watching the meat packers from Nebraska (or wherever) talking to the press. How cool.

$5 sit and go's on Stars

I'll talk more about these later, but man these are great.

Jenny Lewis

I'm not sure how much I like her new album, but I do remember having a crush on her as a kid watching The Wizard. I think I still have a slight crush on her. My fiancee Kim is allowed to have crushes on out-of-reach celebs (apparently) so I don't see why I'm not allowed one or two.
-

I think I'm going to quit cash games for awhile.

Huh?

I can't believe I'm saying it myself. There are a few exceptions to my decision. Bonuses can only be achieved efficiently through playing limit games. So I'll play them to bonus whore. I'll also continue to play 3/6 at Harrah's...it's just too soft to pass up. But otherwise, I'm playing tournaments.

Why? Well, a few reasons. First of all, I've played deeply into a large percentage of the tournaments I've played lately. I'm especially liking rebuy tournaments, and I've had success with those in the past (loyal readers may remember me cashing in three straight $3 rebuys into the Stars $215). I still have yet to cash big, but I feel like I'm on the cusp. I want to find out if I'm right.

I also feel like I've been playing tournaments differently lately...better. I think I'm better and I need to keep playing to prove it.

I also am really sick of limit hold'em. The suckouts are normal, but when they stack up I stop having fun. I'm sick of that.

Lastly, from what I've seen in my recent results, I can make enough money playing low-level S&Gs on Stars to pay for bigger tournaments and take home a small bit of cash each month. And the variance seems to be much lower. I'll have bad days, to be sure...but you can only lose so much in a tournament.

So far, I've only played 5.50 S&Gs on Stars. I know they are low, but they get the job done. So far, 253 invested, with a return of 423, for a profit of $170. That's a total of 46 S&Gs, cashing in 27 (58.69%) with (7) 3rds, (10) 2nds and (10) 1sts. It's been a mix of Pot Limit Omaha and No Limit Hold'Em. I can't keep up those numbers, but I see the ability to have some pretty sick numbers regardless. I've been playing at least three at once, and often 4. If I can play that many at a time, and only waver slightly from these numbers, I'll keep my hourly rate above minimum wage.

Myth

2006-02-14T19:55:00.000-06:00

I like it when people write in with poker questions to espn.com hoping to get an answer from an expert. Instead they get Steve Rosenbloom. This guy's about as informative as one of those maps to the stars' homes you buy on the side of the road in L.A. His readers would be better off throwing their written questions, enclosed in a sealed bottle, into the ocean and hope that someone more knowledgable (Vince Van Patton maybe?) finds them and points them to a section of a Lee Jones book to read.

Does this guy even play? Here's my favorite from the last set of questions:

From Zach in Cincinnati: "I play online at pretty low stakes ($0.50 to $1). My question is, as a general rule, when do you feel the caliber of talent dramatically increases online? Are the $0.50 to $1 players as error-prone as $2 to $4?''

In 50-cent games, almost nobody folds. In $2 games, still almost nobody folds. Online play is a lot looser than live play. The anonymity and not being stared down has a lot to do with players making wild moves, in my opinion. Whatever the talent and whatever the level, you still have to be able to read your opponents and understand what their betting patterns mean.

So Rosenbloom's answer shows he either is an idiot, or was not at all careful in crafting his response. My guess is that he's never played a hand of hold'em online, and that he's simply subscribed to the general myth that online limit is looser and fishier. The truth is that low limit live games are generally fishier and looser than the online games.

What he should have said (or maybe what he meant, if you think this guy is halfway smart) is that people chase after the flop.

In my experience, online games are much, much tighter...preflop. But then after the flop, some of these guys will chase with anything. Of course, the guys at the low limit live games do the same thing...they'll chase anything post flop. But at a live low-limit game, you have the benefit of people playing all sorts of starters. Occassionally you'll see one or two of these guys at your online table, but it's rare to see more. Why? More hands per hour means these guys go broke quicker. At a casino, these guys might be willing to slowly bleed hundreds of dollars for entertainment's sake. Online, you can lose a ton, and it's less justifiable as entertainment.

on edge...

2006-02-12T22:20:00.000-06:00

I may be making too much of it, but I've been thinking quite a bit about money, poker, gambling and well, life of late. What I've decided is that I really love having an edge. And the more I play, the more I realize that my edge in poker is directly impacted by ability to withstand the tough runs.

As I predicted, my last post was quickly met with two straight ugly sessions. I played for an hour or so on Friday after work. I dropped $50 playing on Party. Joe and I planned to go to Harrah's later on, so I foolishly hoped that I had washed all of the bad beats and bad cards out of my system for the night. I promply dropped $150 in about 6 or so hours of play on Friday playing in what one familiar dealer (also a player) there called "the tightest 3/6 table" he's ever seen. That dealer went down the line, and pointed to the five "tight players" he recognized at the table, including me. I should have changed tables...because he was mostly right. I still saw three or four fish there, but when it came time to take advantage I was outdrawn. I flopped two pair three times and lost every time. Such is life...and poker.

The weird thing was that I was never frustrated. I never let myself get down or play junk. I think I played really well for the most part. I read a couple of guys hands perfectly, and had a couple of others pegged really close. Winning that night was just (cliche alert) not in the cards. And here's the other thing, Joe had a great night. He netted an almost $300 profit! This is really amazing. The best thing was that, I was genuinely happy about for him. I was somewhat bummed that I lost, but I'd been running good lately and I recognized that this particular night was just a small downward spike in a very longline graph which has been moving upward lately.

I really don't like losing. But it's an inevitable part of poker. The best thing for me is to get over that competetive, ego thing. I have an edge at these low limit games. I don't want to throw it away steaming. Most of all, I want to have fun playing. That's the point of playing poker, isn't it?

I really think I'm there...well, I'm really close. I go over this thing in my head everytime I play online these days. It varies from night to night, but it generally goes something like this:

I am a good player. I will play my best, whether I'm winning or losing. I will have fun playing, whether I am winning or losing.

I am a smart player. I know that losing happens and that smart players make decisions in a vacuum without regard for their recent results.

We are just stood here, waiting for the next great wound"

2006-02-09T20:42:00.000-06:00

This is so stupid...

I've been afraid to blog.

Why? No good reason really. It's just that I've been running good. Everytime I run good, I blog about running good, then I go to play good some more, and well...you know the rest.

This makes no sense and has no grounding in logic, probablility, or reason. Nevertheless, I've been scared.

Tournaments have been good. I really feel like I've turned a corner in the multi tables. I'm lasting a lot longer that I used to. I final tabled the poker stars 180-man sit and go on Monday, which was great. I made played beautifully for 3 hours, and essentially gave it away at the end though. But I'm choosing to be happy about the cash, and the fact that I'm getting really close to winning one of these danm multis. I've cashed in a bunch more tournaments lately too.

And I'm finally making money playing cash games again. I really don;t have an explination as to why. I don't think I'm playing much differently...but the bad beats (oh they are still coming) are less frequent right now. More importantly, I'm absorbing them better emotionally. Just tonight I three-bet KK in a limit game, and had three callers including the big blind. ME and the big blind capped the 862 flop, and when she turned the 8, I check-called her down, saw her 89 offsuit, and thought nothing of it. "This is a good table."

Everytime I sit down to play, I give myself a little mental peptalk. "You are here to play well, not make money. You always play your best, even when you are losing." I have a million of them...

So I'm now jinxed. I'm headed to Harrah's tomorrow, and I'm sure I'll pay for all of this there. Wish me luck.

So I'm jinxing myself.

Quickie Post...

2006-02-07T08:08:00.000-06:00

I played in three tournaments last night - the $10+1 Fish in a Barrel, the $20+2 6-handed pot limit omaha, and a $20+2 20/20 sit and go. All were on Stars. I blew the FIAB, but I took 12th out of 200 or so in the PLO tourney. I pushed with AA92 (with clubs) on a 792 rainbow board. A big stack called getting about 4 to 1 with KQ2x, and turned a K on me. I pushed as hard as possible preflop, but he wouldn;t get away from his junk hand. I was peeved, as 1st paid about $1k.

I took 6th in the 20/20 for $180. I was even more miffed. Here I was mad at myself...I misplayed TT badly, and I made an even worse play trying to steal blinds at the wrong time. I'll elaborate more later. In any event, I was using tourney dollars from a 1500FPP sit and go from last week. So I was basically freerolling. But I'm still mad about the result. I was the chipleader going into the final table, so 6th is not good. 1st place paid a little over $1k. I just can't seem to finish anything off...

Tournament Update

2006-01-25T19:00:00.000-06:00

For a couple of reasons, I've really been trying to play in more tournaments lately. For one, I think I'm a decent tournament player. When it comes down to it, I think I'm just more comfortable in a no limit hold'em multitable tournament than in any other game. Secondly, I'd really like to catch one or two cashes over $1k if at all possible. This could give me enough of a roll to play in more $20-$50 tournaments consistently. Maybe even a $200 on occasion.

Frankly, I've not played well in cash games so far this year. My results suck, and I don't have anyone to blame but myself. I lost about $16 more than I should have yesterday with KK, mostly because I let pride affect my reasoning skills.

I raised from the button with cowboys into a small blind who just spiked a gutshot on me a few hands earlier. I called him an idiot (I sometimes do this when I'm losing...it's terrible and stupid, but I can't stop myself). He raises from EP, and I 3-bet KK from LP. The flop is QJx. He bets, I raise, he three bets, and I cap it. Heads up, I figured he'd do this with any Q. I don;t entirely hate the way I played it here. The turn is insignicant. He bets, I raise, and he three-bets. Okay. Here's where some bells and whistles needed to start going off. They were drowned out by the steam coming out of my ears. It was like all of the beats of the last 4 weeks were passing before my eyes. I must have known I was beat, but I guess some sick part of me just wanted to experience the pain again - to feel sick about it. I called, and then raised the brick river...yes that's right. I raised the river. Why? I was a tilted donkey. I don't know how else to put it. My patience for limit poker had expired, and I donked off at least 4 big bets I didn't need to. I'm publishing this here in the hopes that: a. I'll be so embarrassed that it will never happen again, and b. if any other of my 6 readers have done the same thing that they too will stop. Sigh...

In any event, I've cashed in 3 of my last 4 multi table tournaments. This is good. The trouble is that I've been seriously close to real money in a couple of those, but came up just short. I finished 8th out of 170 in a $20 pot limit omaha tournament on Stars on Monday night. 1st paid almost $1k, and I got all of my chips in w/AAQx vs. AKxx. I had diamonds, and he had hearts. I don't need to tell you that his hearts came.

I finished 32nd out of 599 in a $20 NL hold'em tournament last night. I played really solidly, rounding up about 20k in chips by winning two races (my JJ v AK, and my 66 v AQ) and having AK hold over A9. I proceeded to bully the table up to about 25k. Then I moved to the table with a guy who essentially took everyone's chips. It was unreal. He caught AA and KK a million times, and he also sucked out three HUGE pots. The one pot I remember was this:

Big stack raises from under the gun to about 4200. This was a big over bet of about 10x the big blind as I recall. He had raised preflop, without exaggeration 4 of the last 5 and probably 7 of the last 12. I looked down at AQ offsuit 1 off the button. I decide to muck it, as I'd rather not get involved with this guy with AQ in this spot with about 20k in chips. I put him squarely on 77-TT, and I figure he's betting anyflop...probably putting me all in. I've been doing this quite a bit lately...folding to the situation as opposed to the cards. I'd love to hear what everyone thinks about that fold.

Anyway, the small blind, a pretty experienced poker player, decided to call after much thought. They take a flop heads up, big stack had about 45k, and the small blind about 25k.

Kd, Qc, 8h. Aggressive Big Stack leads out about half of the pot. The small blind thinks, and calls. The turn is the 9h. The Big stack pushes. I really think he has 99 at this point, but I also think JT is a possibility. Regardless, I don't see this guy making this play without a hand. After about 20 seconds the small blind calls with AhTh. I was pretty stunned by the call. Big stack had 99, which held.

He had a 30k chip lead over the guy in 2nd when we were down to 100. It was crazy. Anyway, I watched the cards go cold...really cold. I badly wanted to find a race when the blinds were high, but I couldn't find one. I had 44 and 33, but had to fold them each time to big raises and reraises. I finally went out when my steal w/K7 ran into AA.

Oh well. The point is that I'm getting close. I will cash for over $1k this year in a tournament. The only tournament I exited early from recently was the $10 on party where i got all of my money in w/22 on a flop of KT2 against KT and AA, and managed to lose. Maybe I'll have some hands hold up this year.

Randomness

2006-01-22T22:36:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd through a general life update on the blog. I'm working outside the legal world now, but I'm really trying to get my own thing going on the side with traffic tickets and things. Hopefully, I'll be able to build it into a legit income with some time and effort.

Work is fine - but boring. Four weeks of company-mandated training classes. Wow! But I haven't had much in the way of stress, either.

I bought a new computer, which is amazing. I'm looking at the new 17" LCD flat panel now. Four tables never looked so good. Poker has been up and down. I'm pretty sure I'm down slightly for the year. I cashed in a 20/20 Sit and go on Stars, but only in 12th place. That one hurt. I also bubbled (literally, right on the bubble) trying to qualify for the 750k on Party. I finished 7th, and top 6 went in. As is often the case, miracles by the short stacks, and a couple of coolers did me in. But ultimately, I think my own poor play was the biggest factor. I played a beautiful few hours, and threw it away at the end.

I built up a huge, huge double-than average stack in the $5 party rebuy tournament yesterday. I was at about 35k (average was around 16k) with 300 or so left out of 1200. Then the party abruptly ended. No, no. It wasn't the famous "Geoff blow up". Hell, we didn't even get that far. The damn thing was cancelled. Great, I'm playing well, bullying my table. And party hits me with a unique new cooler. Awesome. I still made about $100 profit after the distribution, but I was still peeved. Plus, the way party settles cancelled tourneys is grossly unfair to big stacks. But I'll leave that for another time.

I've been reading quite a bit lately. I just read Johnny Magic and the Card Shark Kids, detailing the rise of the Magic the Gathering players in poker (including David Williams). It's a classic 'Revenge of the Geeks' tale. I also read Ben Mezrich's newest - Breaking Vegas. A bad title, for an okay book. You have to love Bringing Down the House, as it's nearly a sequel. Now I'm reading fortune's formula. Another neat book about math, the financial markets, and blackjack. Mostly the first two. It's about Ed Thorp, and the many academics involved with the theories he used to make a ton of money. He's an interesting guy. He kind of invented card counting (he wrote 'Beat the Dealer').

Top 10...er Top 7

2006-01-15T22:08:00.000-06:00

I could have done a top 10, but the last few records disn't impress me on the same level of these 7. So I'll stick to the 7. I'm giving honorable mention to Gimme Fiction by Spoon, Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs, and Twin Cinema by The New Pornographers.

7. Songs for Silverman – Ben Folds
I love Ben Folds. This record had the pop single of the year, 'Landed', on it (as voted by me), along with a number of other solid pop gems. Folds doesn't go out of his way to impress anyone. He's a pop songwriter, and a seriously good one. He cares not whether the critics write him up as a genius or a fool. There's no surprise here...it's good.

6. X&Y – Coldplay
I'm always a bit skeptical when I'm being told what's good and bad. Do you know what I mean? I was reading an issue of Spin some time back, and I read some remark from Elijah Wood commenting about how dumb the American public was for running out to buy the newest release from Coldplay. Every time I read something said by Elijah Wood my body physically tightens with anger. I'm just not sure who died and annoited him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Great State of Cool.
Make no mistake about it – Coldplay is not cool. I'm losing 75 indie cred points just by listing them here. Moreover, this album is not great. It's far from it. But it is good, and I think I listened to it for about 3 weeks solid when it was released, and thought about it quite a bit more than that.
I finally came to the conclusion that, while pretty, the album lacked the punch necessary to be considered anything more than a 7-star (out of 10) record. It's not even as good as their last. Coldplay is frustrating because, while immensely talented, the band seems to be stuck at a certain level lyrically. It's this obstruction that keeps them from taking their place as the greatest band in the world (despite the proclamation from Justin Timberlake a couple of years back).
That said, the record's grand and beautiful enough to be impressive. Especially given the extreme hype surrounding it's release and the huge pressure the band must have felt making it (apparently their label, Capital, held off releasing some numbers to stockholders pending the record's release).

5. Plans – Death Cab for Cutie
One of the few criticisms you'll hear about this record is that 'It's no Transatlanticism.' This is, of course, true. Transatlanticism was a moment in time, and a nearly perfect one at that. Plans, while far from perfect, is still pretty damn good. While 'Marching Bands of Manhattan' and 'Soul Meets Body' give the album an arguably better start than it's predecessor, it struggles to keep up the beauty on each of the following tracks. What we're left with is a truly solid record that just barely failed to meet the uniquely high expectations the reigning best band in the world made for itself.

4. Leaders of the Free World – Elbow
Elbow’s a Mancunian band with a reputation for being dark and dreary. This is
their third album, and it’s by far their best. They lighten things up a bit here, and the result is a multi-layered, plush slice of melody pie. The preciously political 'Commander in Chief' is an unfortunate departure from the band's forte. But otherwise, the record alternates between melancholy and melodies in a way unique in the world of rock music. I doubt there are five lyricists on the planet better than Guy Garvey. While he often sounds a bit too much like Peter Gabriel, his voice is still strikingly good. Elbow should be scaling the rock charts, but there really aren't any rock charts anymore. One of the best bands in the world will probably have to settle for being underrated, under appreciated, and largely unknown. This is not likely to change anytime soon.

3. Extraordinary Machine – Fiona Apple
I think Fiona Apple has the best singing voice in pop music. I’m not a Fiona fanatic, but I’ve heard some of her material. This is the strongest work her yet. I especially love ‘O’ Sailor’ and ‘Get Him Back’. The critics have been utterly incapable of resisting the comparison of this record to the one that leaked onto the Internet. Personally, I could care less about which one sounds better. The talk simply distracts from the fact that this record – the one that she released – is damn good.

2. I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning – Bright Eyes
It’s kind of the tale of the two folk records this year. In January of last year, I was quite upset to see that Best Buy had sold out of the two Bright Eyes releases before I arrived at the store. They had them on sale in their ad super cheap. Apparently I live too near various college campuses and coffee shops for my own good. Unfortunately, my grandmother died right around the same time. That meant a trip to the scenic Joplin, Missouri for her funeral. After a nice ceremony, I hit the Joplin, Missouri Best Buy. Not surprisingly, they had millions of copies. Apparently no one in Joplin appreciates the Nebraskan folkie, despite his appearances on nearly every music trade rag that month.
On the way back to the ‘Lou, I listened intently. I’d read so much about the record by that point that I expected a lot. I wasn’t disappointed. Critics purported that the album was about death, and the theme seemed eerily relevant after the funeral I had just attended. This was supposed to be Conor Obert’s masterpiece – his coming out party. For the first few listens, I was trying to find the importance. Most critics reviewed the record like a book or a manifesto. The truth is that Oberst has always been much better with words than ideas or emotions. One of my main complaints about the last Bright Eyes record was that was mostly just pretty words arranged well…it lacked cohesiveness.
Oberst has cleaned up since then. He’s found his soul, and he seems much more adept at telling stories. Is it really the folk Ok Computer? Probably not. Listening to the album now, I mostly just hear an amazingly good folk album. And what's wrong with that?

1. Illinois – Sufjan Stevens
I could not have told you anything about Sufjan Stevens before this
record came out. This is especially strange given my general disposition towards folk-pop, and given that Stevens’ last record was on almost every top 10 list last year. But this record was so universally lauded that I had to pick it up. My first few spins did not leave me moved. In fact, I’d say I hated it.
The album plays like a series of short stories. The State of Illinois is either the star or the setting of each song. Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and John Wayne Gacy all make appearances. Stevens is a tour guide through not only the places of Illinois, but also the spirit.
The album seemed just a little too cute to stomach at first. But I started to love a couple of songs, most notably 'Decatur'. It wasn't long before I began to notice the subtle beauty in each track. Better yet, each track conveys a unique, complex state of being, showing Stevens emotive versatility.
While quite a bit has been made about Steven’s spirituality, most of this attention has focused on his perceived Christianity. However classified, the album unquestionably has heart. Though Stevens’ words may occasionally leave your brain wondering if he could do more, his voice will always leave your soul satisfied. It’s this soul – this heart, that separates the album from many of the others on this list. His voice is versatile enough to convey the pain and joy, and he expresses each with equal fervor on this record. After examination, it’s likely that Illinois will be remembered as one of the best albums of the decade.

Last Day

2006-01-06T13:40:00.000-06:00

Well, it's my last day. I can hardly believe it. I'm going out the same way I came in...that is, I'm working. I'm still wrapping things up now. Thus, I have to get back to it. The last few days have been, well, crazy. Perhaps I'll elaborate more this weekend. I have a few more petitions to draft before the day is out.

I've been working on my top 10 record list, if anyone cares. It will be done this weekend.

My year end poker results have been harder to put together than I thought. It may take a couple more weeks. We'll see.

"Just 'cause you feel it, doesn't mean it's there."

2005-12-30T09:55:00.000-06:00

I got hot last night playing 1/2 6-max limit again. I doubled up at one table, and caught the2nd nuts against this loose-aggressive bad player at another. In that particular hand, I flopped a gutshot and a flush draw w/T8 of diamonds after posting the BB. My gutshot filled in when a 7 turned, and we capped it all the way down. He turned queens up with Q7 (that's a great 6-max hand, right?).

Another funny hand. I'm in the big blind with 52 offsuit and I get to see a freebie. The flop is K34. I decide to lead out, thinking I have a chance to steal it right there. I'm called by the cutoff. The turn is the A, giving me the nuts. I bet, and the cutoff raises. I three-bet, and he caps it. The river is an insignificant J. I bet, he raises, I three-bet, he caps. He turns over 52 of spades. You can't make this stuff up.

I was doing well at 1/2, but getting killed at the .50/1 6-max tables. I finally decide to play a little omaha. I sit down at one table, proceed to miss 100 flops straight, and post a $6 loss. I also sat on the waitlist for another $25 pot limit omaha table, where a rather famous blogger was running things. After 30 minutes or so, I finally get to sit down to the right of the man himself. Eventually, I doubled through him on this hand.

Me: A57x with the nut spade start

I limp from EP because I'm a loose passive fish.

4 or 5 others including Pauly limp with me.

Flop comes 346 with 2 spades. These are the flops PLO dreams are made of. I always hope that someone else has caught the nuts, so that I can get all my money in on a freeroll. I bet 1.25 into the small pot.

Pauly raises the pot, to about 4.00 or so. It folds back to me, and I pause. I ask him if he's going to blog about this hand tomorrow. This was a mistake. Whenever I ask my opponent if he plans on blogging about the hand, it's a tell that I have the nuts with a redraw.

I re-pot it, making it about $17 to go. Pauly only calls. The turn is a non-spade 5 I think, which is a bad card for many reasons. My last $7 or so goes in just because. Pauly calls. The river is a brick. I figure we're chopping, but to my surprise I took the whole pot. Lucky me. I guess Pauly spiked a set or something.

Anyway, it was a fun night. The pessimist in me is just waiting for the winning to stop. I know that the more you blog about wins, the more likely you are to lose. This has been proven by empirical, scientific study.

Commiserating with Donkeys

2005-12-29T12:47:00.000-06:00

I had another rough low-limit session last night. I was up big after about 30 minutes, and then it all went to hell. I ended up down $10 or so, nothing tragic. But these sessions frustrate me for some reason.

Okay, here's a quick hand from last night. After taking two horrendous river beats, I was in the cutoff w/AT of clubs. This is a 6-max, 1/2 limit table on PokerStars. I raise, and only the big blind calls. The big blind is one of those guys who sits down with way too much money for the limit he's playing. I've seen him show down some decent hands, but I'm still not certain how good he might be.

The Flop is KTx rainbow. I bet, and the big blind calls. The turn is yucky Q. I bet again, only to be raised by my opponent.

Okay - what now? Folding is an option, but I'm not certain I'm beat. Usually I fold anyway, but maybe it was the tilt factor. I called. The river was a complete brick. I check-call, and he shows 88. So I take the pot, and he says "NH - I guess". I don't listen to the donk chat when I play...especially when it's critical of me. Why respond? But in this case, when I looked back on the hand I thought I screwed it up too. I don't know how I could think I was good w/AT there.

It was not my most shining moment, but I really hate the way he played it too. So, who played it worse? Shortly after this hand, I stopped playing for the night. I knew I was not playing well, so why continue, I thought. I've gotten a lot better at doing this lately.

Change is good

2005-12-27T20:35:00.000-06:00

I have been a bit busy with the holidays and life of late. As such, it's been difficult to update the blog as much as normal. I do have a few things to report though.

Last week I gave notice at my job. I have sold out and taken a job with an insurance company. I will be making substantially more money, and more importantly, I will have substantially less stress. My new hours are 8-4. I won't have to deal with night court anymore, nor will I lie in bed worrying about the many things on my work "To Do" list. I also have a full benefits package, vacation time, etc. I'm excited.

This is not an attorney position. That's one of the best things about the job really. I guess you can count me among the ranks of the thousands of other burned out lawyers.

I also bought a new car. It's my first new car ever - a black 2006 Focus ZX3. I wanted a small, reliable car with good gas mileage. It fits the bill. It's also fun to drive.

Poker has been a little better lately. I suffered through a brutal session tonight, but still managed to break even. That's a good sign. I grinded out low limit sit and goes to get my hugely depleted bankroll up. Since then, I've been slumming it at the .50/1.00 and 1/2 limit tables. I've also had some good luck playing omaha lately.

Reminder: I've been plugging away at my stats for the year. I'll post them within the next week. I've also been assembling a top 10 album list for 2005. It will also be posted shortly.

So much has been happening...

2005-12-12T16:33:00.000-06:00

...lately, that I've really been neglecting the blog. There is good reason to think that I might have more time for regular updates in the near future. I'm afraid I cannot talk too much about that right now though.

What have I been doing? Well, quite a bit actually. Work has been as busy as ever. Last week we filed a Petition with the US Supreme Court. It's not likely to be successful, but we had to try anyway. I really believe that the District and Circuit Courts didn't get it right. So, we needed to go to the next level. It's much more principle than practicality.

I argued against two motions in St. Louis City in the past week. I'm pretty confident that we we successfully defended both Motions. Kim and I went condo-hunting again last night, with some promising results. I have a feeling something is going to happen soon, and that we'll be in a new place in January.

Really, poker has been quiet of late. I just stopped the bleeding at the cash games. I took the little bit of my bankroll that was left and started hitting the low-level S&Gs on Stars. I'll build the roll up slowly and take it from there. Playing these things are a realy great way to slowly build up the bankroll. I'm also trying to repair my shattered confidence. About the only game I'm playing well right now is no limit hold'em...in its tournament form. Well, I'm also playing the omaha S&Gs fairly well too. I'm waiting for the game to seem fun again. Occasionally it becomes fun, but sometimes it just sucks. I'm getting really good at getting in with the best of it. But I just keep losing as a dominant favorite. Here is an example.

Loose aggressive player has been raising every hand. We're down to 4-handed, and I have somewhere around 4.5k. LAG big-stack has more like 6k. The other two stacks are much shorter. The blinds have gotten really big, I think we're at 200/400. Generally, I don't want to tangle with guys like this unless I can trap him. But...

I catch TT in BB. He raises from button...again, to 1200. It folds to me. I think about folding, or maybe reraising. But I decide in the end to push. I just knew I had the best hand, and I didn't figure he'd want to tangle with AJ or worse. I thought he'd fold. He used his whole timebank before finally calling w/77? I was pretty stunned by that call. Situationally, it seemed like a bonehead play to me. Anyway, he turned a 7 and I was the bubble boy.

I read the hand about right, and I tried to control the action. But dumbo was not folding a pair in that spot I guess. Oh well. I played it to win, but looking back, I think I may have screwed it up. Any thoughts?

"I'm sick of working for a living. I'm just ticking off the days till I die."

2005-12-01T15:40:00.000-06:00

The end of the year is quickly approaching. I have some housekeeping-type things I really want to do before the year closes. Specifically, I want to find out my poker results for the past 12 months. This will take some time. I'll have to go back and update the past four months or so in my spreadsheet. Poker tracker is great, but it doesn't account for my live play, or for my pre-pokertracker hands. My goal was to make $12,000 playing poker in 2005. I know I'm going to fall woefully short of that, I'm just not sure how short exactly. I've taken an absolute beating the past 7 days, which is not helping matters. I'll post my year-end results, warts and all, in the next few weeks. It's going to take some work on my part, but it needs to be done anyway. I also want to post a top 10 album list for the year.

Anyway, until then I thought I'd have some +EV, -EV fun...

+EV

Arrested Development: Best Buy nearly gave away both seasons of the DVD sets last Friday. I bought both, and they are truly great. Why wasn't I watching this show for the past two years? Why wasn't anyone else? It's a shame that a show so brilliant cannot stay on TV.

2005 WSOP Main Event Coverage on ESPN: ESPN completely botched the coverage of all of the Circuit and minor WSOP events. But its coverage of the Main Event, in my opinion, was pretty spectacular. We saw lots of hands, and not just the stupid all-in confrontations. The poker's in the playing, right? They still have tons of work to do. It would be nice to know the size of the blinds and pots in each hand, for instance. How hard would it be to just add a damn informational graphic to the corner of the screen? But overall, the coverage was really fun to watch.

Ladainian Tomlinson: It's nice having the best football player on the planet on your fantasy football team. I'm so glad I had the 1st pick.

FullTiltPoker.net Invitational Coverage on Fox: I love it when FoxSports does the live coverage. How cool was it to see Ivey, Devilfish, Gus, Jesus, etc. wearing the formalwear playing live in Monte Carlo? It was great. The only trouble was, when the blinds went up, it seemed like the skill level was taken out of the game. Let the big boys play for a bit! Oh well.

Mario Superstar Baseball: A few frustrating gameplay control issues aside, this game is fun. Not quite as good as Mario Power Tennis, but cool nonetheless. It was Kim's birthday present to me - to make me feel young, she said. A truly great gift. It's actually kept me away from the online felt a few nights...'nuff said.

-EV

Limit Poker: It's can't be my fault I'm losing. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Real Estate Get Rich Infomercials: I was up last night at about 3AM (don't ask) when I caught this guy's infomercial on how to make bazillions of dollars in real estate without really trying too hard. Perhaps it was the late hour, my lack of sleep, or the fact that my Dr. Pepper was wearing off, but I was thinking to myself "This might really work!"

Ha! I researched the guy a little today, and the consensus is that he, along with all of the other crooks you see on these informercials, is a fraud. Shocking! But listening to all of these people talk about the hundreds of thousands of dollars they are raking in w/o working wore on me, I guess. I was telling myself, "It's only $40...you lost that much playing omaha in the last five minutes of your session tonight. You'll be rich." I can see how people fall into the trap.

"But he was driving a Porsche!"

Xbox 360: Hey, if I can't have one, then I'm putting it in the -EV column dammit.

Nick and Jessica: US Weekly's parent company just experienced a 50% drop in their stock price. Thank god Tom just bought a sonogram.

"Keep staring like you've never seen the stars."

2005-11-28T16:34:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd talk briefly about poker for a second. I loaded up for the Stars bonus this weekend and took a horrific beating playing both limit hold'em and omaha. I took some of the most improbable beats I've ever taken, all over a two-day span. I don't know how many times I told myself "Don't steam - keep your cool."

I'd take a few deep breaths, and return to playing solid poker. Only to be creamed some more. It wasn't just bad beats...it was cooler hands too. Losing to set over set situations, catching top pair good kicker against a set, etc. I've also had quite a few AK or AQ v Ax situations go against me when my opponent's Ace-junk catches aces up on the flop or turn, and I can't put them on it.

I basically feel like dead money. I was doing fine on Party, but I had to try and get cute with Stars...I probably deserve the beating I took. The only neat thing I did was play in my first deep stack tourney on Saturday. I didn't realize exactly how long these things take. I played for almost 7 hours!! I outlasted over 1150 of the 1200 or so entries. Unfortunately, that was good enough only for about $25 profit. The only time my stack was in jeopardy was my last hand. My 77 v AK of clubs. Flop was QJT with two clubs. Bye-bye. I think that these structures might suit me. I had racked up 30k in chips pretty fast, and the blinds were still only 100/200. That's pretty amazing. But I was unlucky to the tune of about 12k in chips when I limped w/56 of hearts and managed to see a cheap multiway pot. The flop was 56x. I managed to get a medium-sized stack all in with his poorly played AA (he limped and then couldn't fold them- do you see why that's bad?). He caught his A on the river, and I never could get anything going from there.

My dilemma is in what to do now. I could just rally what's left of my bankroll and push ahead on Party. Or I could just take all of it out but $100, and start from scratch again. I hate doing this, but every time I've done it in the past, I've had success. Hmm...I'm still not sure.

I've been listening to Elbow's new album, along with Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs - an album I should have bought long ago. Anyway, both are wonderful.

Hypothetical situation...

2005-11-28T09:38:00.000-06:00

Here's a purely hypothetical situation...

A young attorney (let's say he's based in St. Louis County) goes to watch his boss, an experienced attorney, conduct a preliminary hearing in Clayton. Let's say that, hypothetically, this particular case involves a police officer who pretty clearly pulled over a defendant without any probable cause. Hypothetically, this officer claims his probable cause was that the Defendant's car matched the description of a car being chased by another police department. Unfortunately, the Defendant's car did not have any police cars chasing it, nor did it match the color or size of the car involved in said chase...hypothetically of course.

Hypothetically, let's say that the police officer who pulled over Defendant, testifies at the hearing. Let's say that he works for hypothetical Poice Department X. During said testimony, let's say that this police officer makes some mistakes. Maybe he's a young police officer, and maybe he didn't read his report before testifying. Let's also say that this hypothetical young attorney's hypothetical boss goes at him pretty hard. We'll call this hypothetical zealous advocacy. As such, let's assume, for the purposes of this hypothetical, that this young police officer's testimony did not go over well...hypothetically.

After said hypothetical testimony, let's say that this hypothetical young attorney's hypothetical boss is pretty sure that he's won the preliminary hearing. It is more than clear that the Defendant was pulled over w/o any probable cause. Nevertheless, the hypothetical Defendant does not win the preliminary hearing. Instead, the judge hypothetically indicates that the evidence obtained after the stop may be vulnerable to a (hypothetical) Motion to Supress (i.e., a motion asking the court to keep the State from using illegally obtained evidence).

Despite the setback, let's say that the hypothetical Defendant and his attorneys are pleased with the way things went and are ready to file the (hypothetical) Motion to Supress as recommended by the judge. They go back to their offices/homes ready to enjoy the holidays.

Let's say that Police Department X, the employer of the hypothetical young officer, was not pleased by the way things went at the hearing. As such, hypothetically, the young attorney gets a call over the holiday weekend while getting his eyes checked. He then, hyothetically, learns that Police Department X, apparently not pleased by the hearing, broke down Defendant's door and ransacked his home. Hypothetically, let's say that this happened about 3 days after the hypothetical hearing.

I'm so glad that this is just a hypothetical. Were something like this to actually happen, it might disillusion a young attorney.

"It's the great I Am"

2005-11-21T12:32:00.000-06:00

I'm going to apologize for my lack of recent updates. I've kept pretty busy. I have a lot on my mind, but we'll start with poker at Harrah's on Friday morning:

I played pretty well, refraining from any large mistakes. I caught a couple of hands, which you have to do to win there. Here are a few hands of note:

- In my most proud moment, I limped from MP with 66 and was able to see a cheap multiway pot. An important note: up to this point, I'd been folding like a madman, and folded on the flop the few times I did make a call. I think I looked pretty weak-tight. The flop comes 358. It checks around to the button, who had shown down some junk hands earlier. He bets out. I'm the only caller. The turn is a 7, which seemed like a good card for me. I check call the bet from the button again. The river is a J, which upon first glance seemed to be my ticket out of the hand. I check, and the button forcefully throws out his bet. I stop, think for 30 seconds, and call. He shows a 5, and I take a small pot. What was I thinking about? Well, I wanted to fold, but something just didn't make sense. I thought he may have missed a draw or something. But his 'strong is weak' tell forced me to call it down. That was a great hand for me, because I felt like it put the whole table on notice that it was not a great idea to try and push me around. It also might have helped me take some small pots later w/AK and AQ when I made continuation bets on flops that missed me.

- I only caught the end of these two hands, so I cannot give a complete blow-by-blow. I was reading Bluff Magazine at the table. I know...I should be reading the players, right? I hate to breakit to you, but the only thing you need to know is that these guys are almost all bad, and that your only job is to keep track of the ones that can count past 10. I already knew who both of those guys were.

Anyway, Hand #1. We're at the river, and the flop looks something like 9922x. The board had double paired and any 9 made the nut boat. Pretty simple, right? An old guy directly to my right (hereinafter referred to as "Fish") was in the hand, along with the guy who was the button in the previously discussed hand. The old guy to my right checks, and the other guy bets out. The guy to my right immediately raises, and, for whatever reason turns his attention away from the table. The initial better thinks for over a minute, and finally calls. The old guy to my right, apparently thinking he had reraised, tried to 4-bet. The dealer tells him that his opponent just called (I started to think the guy had some type of medical condition or something), he takes back his chips and says "Two pair." He turned over 44. The other guy showed a 9, for the nut boat.

Here's my question, who played it worse? The guy with the nut boat who didn't reraise the fish on the end probably. What, he thought the guy had quad deuces? The fish was dying to put in more with his 44.

- Another hand with Fish. Again, I missed the action, but the board read QJ9xx at the end. Someone bet into the Fish, who raised. The initial bettor called w/top pair, and Fish turned over AT for only A high. I'm not sure if he misread his hand or what...wow.

- The Fish finally left, after he sucked out on some poor guy. His victim began berating him for being, well, a fish. The Fish eventually got up, and said, "It was nice playing with most of 'ya." An idiot from the other side of the table thanked the Victim for berating the Fish, noting that the that the guy had played horribly. The whole time I'm thinking to myself "Why do we want the Fish to leave?"

Here's the funniest part - the Fish writes a regular column in a major poker publication!

- I held AJ in LP and just limp (for many reasons, this is a play I'm likely only at a looses table and every table there qualifies). This California kid, who had recently sat down to my left also called. The flop came down AA4. This old, loose, bad player bet out, and California raised. Well. I just called, as did Old and Bad. The turn is a brick, and now it checks to me. I bet, and they both folded? Good luck figuring that one out.

- Loose dummy (waiting for a 6/12 table - man I need to up the stakes) raised from EP. I'd seen him raise with 88, QJ and QT earlier, so I don't think too hard about cold calling two bets w/KT (I'm a donk). The flop comes out K high, it checks to me and everyone called my bet. The turn gives me trips, I bet, and everyone folded. Oh well.

- Old and bad limped from under the gun, and California raises. I three-bet w/KK. Flop comes out J-high. Old and Bad checked, California bet, and I raised Old and Bad out. California just called. The turn is an A. Cali checked and I did the same. California practically bet out before the blank river hits. I have to call, right? He shows the AJ, and I started typing "nice catch" on my imaginary keyboard.

- My biggest pot came when I limped from EP with the 96 of hearts. I rivered a flush, and took a monster side pot. Unfortunately, I lost the main pot to a guy who got his last few chips in with a flopped set. He rivered a boat, which cost me almost $20, but I couldn't complain. I left shortly thereafter a $53 winner.

As an aside, the mini bad beats appear to be permanent. However, they only pay out on cracked aces...the first five of the day. So you need to be there early.

Birthday Approaching...

2005-11-15T13:32:00.000-06:00

I've been at my job for just over a year now. I'd write up some reflective "What have I learned?" type post if I cared a little more. I'm becoming less and less excited about my prospects within the legal community. The bottom line is that I'm not really living any better than I was as a student a few years back. I still can't buy a car, and I've had to rely on my meager poker profits just to pay bills a couple of months. These are problems that I feel I must address by the end of the year. I may have to change the name of my blog at the end of it all.

And I'll officially be 29 on Thursday. This is depressing too, especially given the issues discussed above. Perhaps things will be changing soon.

In some happy news, I'm taking Friday off as a birthday present to myself and I may head down to Harrah's to partake of their mini bad beat bonuses. These things are just too +EV to miss in my opinion. I'll be down there bright and early I guess.

"Not 'till I can read by the moon, am I going anywhere"

2005-11-10T09:58:00.000-06:00

I tilted last night. Now I'm mad at myself for tilting, and I'm afraid that this anger will only lead to more tilting.

I'm down $200 or so the past couple of sessions. The amount itself is nothing abnormal, but I'm really not pleased with the way I played last night. I had one guy hit two consecutive two outers on me at an omaha table, and for some reason my blood just started boiling. I haven't felt that way in a very long time. I know that I lost more than I should have over the next hour or so. Usually I'd just blow it off, and say something like "Wow, I'd better stay out of lightning storms tonight." But last night, it was more like "I'm the unluckiest sap at the table...I'm dead money with these cards." You get the picture.

As humans, our patience level varies each day...at least mine does. Some days I seem much better equipped to deal with being stuck in traffic or waiting in line at the grocery store checkout. Other days, for whatever reason, I just have no patience. Yesterday, I just had no patience for the suckouts. In the future, I'd like to be cognizant of my lack of patience and just stop playing. Perhaps it's yet another trait of a good poker player. Thankfully, I don't tilt too often.

I did realize that omaha was not going well, so I kept the Mini Steps going. I cashed another Step 2 into a Step 3, which gave me two Step 3 entries. The first one I played went poorly, and I wound up back at Step 1. I took second in the next one, which gave me a Step 4. I played the Step 4, and bubbled in third place, which puts me back at Step 4. I had big stack early in this, so it's somewhat disappointing to bubble. But things just didn't go my way late. When the blinds get so big, luck definately comes into play. When we were down to 4, my big stack was severely hit by the short stack when I had him all in twice. Once AQ couldn't beat A6, and the next hand I couldn't get KQ to beat Qx. He finally went out, but only after giving my chips to the other two players. The blinds went up to 300/600, and I had less than 2k in chips. This was not a good spot,and I went out.

"My head is a box filled with nothing"

2005-11-09T09:39:00.000-06:00

I had a really nice session last night playing limit and pot limit omaha. I was upset with myself though, as I probably gave back $30-40 of profits at the end. I didn't make any glaring mistakes, but I probably played a half hour too long.

I also dropped $22 to play in a Mini Step 2 on Party a couple of nights ago. I kept getting 5-3 place, which just drops you right back into step 2. Finally, last night I busted a table up to get to Step 3. I also realized that I had a freeroll to Step 1 in my account, which I parlayed into another Step 2 entry by really killing the Step 1. I've made it pretty high up the ladder a couple of times in these, but I've never cashed. I guess I'm just giving Party a ton of rake. But it's hard to complain too much if you get 5 or six shot to get to step 3 with one step 2 buy in (you need only place 5th to get back to Step 2). If I get to Step 4, I'll probably keep notes to give a play-by-play here.

I thought I'd talk about a few of the hands from Harrah's on Sat. I knew that it was going to be a long night after the first hand. I sit down, and tell the dealer I'll post. I didn't used to post early, but after reading Sklansky/Miller, I always do. The idea is to look like a player willing to give action - a gambler. Plus, I am an action junkie anyway. So I post, pick up two red deuces and see a flop in a multiway pot. The flop comes an ever-so-lovely 872 rainbow. A round young gentleman bets out, gets a caller or two and I decide to smooth call and raise the turn. The turn is a 5, which I didn't like too much. I was hoping for a higher card. The round guy, acting first, checks. I bet at it, and only the round guy calls. The river is a 10. Excitedly, the round guy throws $6 out. "Okay, he has J9," I say to myself. Of course he chased his gutshot. I can't fold, so I drop the $6 out. He turns over TT and proclaims "I have the nuts." I didn't have the heart to tell him.

Under the gun, I pick up two red queens. I raise, and the guy to my left cold calls, the guy to his left cold calls, the guy to his left cold calls, everyone else at the table calls, along with a guy on the wait list and the nice girl selling pretzels and hot dogs at the snack bar. Wow. I've never been in a 12-way pot before.

The flop is 9 high, all spades. As they all simultaneously check their cards for spades, I think to myself that they all look like line dancers, moving to bad country music. The small blind bets, I raise, and the round guy cold calls again. The turn is a brick. I bet, and this time only the round guy calls. The river is also a brick, which puts a four card gutshot draw on the board. We check-check, and he turns over KK. Oops.

I went on to win two small pots with aces, but I misplayed top pair when I flopped an A with A7 out of the small blind. This really old guy had KQ on the AQx board. He bet, and I just called. The turn was another Q.

I caught eights up with 86 offsuit, also out of the small blind, to win a decent pot. I was paid off by a single A that hit the turn. The guy had the nerve to criticize my play too. He had A7 on a 86xAJ board, and he gives me crap for check-calling the river with middle and bottom pair.

I lost another decent pot with queens when I had to fold on the river to a 4 card straight on the board. I flopped top pair twice and had to fold on the turn to a scare card. In a multiway pot, it's not a good idea to play moderate hands. Finally, I was down to about $15, when I picked up AA for the third time. I raise, and get one cold call and a call from the small blind. Flop is 248, with two clubs. I bet, and both opponents call. The turn is a nonclub 3. I bet all in, and both players call again. The river is an ugly nonclub 5. It gives me a wheel, but when the SB bet I knew I was beat. He turned over 69 of clubs, and I got up from the table.

Harrah's: Where Dreams Die

2005-11-08T13:58:00.000-06:00

For those of you living outside of the metropolitan St. Louis area, imagine Harrah's as your own local low-limit cardroom. I imagine that these rules apply not only to Harrah's, but to your local room as well. I was there on Saturday night with Joe. I lost $99. He lost (correct me if I'm wrong Joe) about $70. Joe was back to even after I busted, but made the mistake of capping the flop and turn with the stone cold nut straight. Afterwards he should have realized that, being sandwiched between one donkey with a backdoor flush draw, and another with the sucker straight could only lead to disaster.

Here are some rules I've formulated for the uninitiated:

Rule #1: Carry 1 cyanide tablet in case of emergency.

The mental anguish associated with the suckouts can be devastating. I know from experience that attempting to do the job by hitting your head against the table is ineffective, and likely only to cause a dazed state. And I wouldn't bother looking around the casino for alternatives. These places are designed to keep you alive and spitting tokens into slot machines.

Rule #2: Don't listen to the table talk.

The best for me on Saturday was when 4 or 5 of the nine people repeated stupid jokes to the rest of the table. "A rabbi, a priest and a pit bull terrier walk into a bar..." I swear each joke was worse than the last. Not wanting to be left out, I finally chimed in: "Okay okay...These nine donkeys sit down at a card table in the Harrah's poker room...".

My joke didn't get many laughs.

Rule #3: Don't mistake logged hours for skill

The old man at the table who knows the names of each dealer and claims to play 50+ hours a week? Did he just turn over 26 of clubs to river a flush? Why yes he did. Nice hand sir...I'm sure that hand does play well in your retirement community games.

Rule #4: If you hold top pair, top kicker, and a the board pairs with a middle pair on the turn or river, you are beat.

This happened to me twice on Saturday.

Rule #5: If there are four cards to a straight on the board and you don't have a straight...stop betting. You are beat.

Kinda self-explanatory I guess. But even if it's a strange gutshot draw...you are beat. Call at your own peril.

Rule #6: If there are any three cards to a straight on the board, stop betting...you are beat.

See Rule #5...it's best to be safe...

Rule #7: If there are two cards to a straight on the board at the river, stop betting...you are beat.

My hands are shaking right now, and I left the card room 72 hours ago...

Rule #8: Oh hell - just fold on the river.

See Rules 5-8. Why did you come here again?

Rule #9: Don't look at the other players' ever-growing chip stacks.

How does that donkey with the sunglasses and Phil Hellmuth t-shirt keep winning, even though his VPIP is 120 (rough calculation) and I'm pretty sure he can't count past 11? Don't bother asking those questions. Just keep donating.

Rule #10: Have fun!

Of course...this can never be forgotten.

I had to get these off my chest. I may talk about some specific hands later, but only if my therapist (I didn't have one before this session) thinks its a good idea.

"A lot goes on, but nothing happens."

2005-11-04T10:18:00.000-06:00

It has been too long since I posted. Here are the things that have happened since my last post:

1. The St. Louis weather has warmed, and I've run to the St. Louis County Courthouse 15 times breaking a sweat each time.

2. I finished a summary judgment package in between my numerous court appearances.

3. At 8:30 yesterday morning, I was able to get a default judgment for one of our clients, which was good. She was really ripped off by this sleazeball, so I'm quite satisfied.

4. At 10:00 yesterday morning, what I expected to be a routine hearing turned into a nightmare. My client had his probation revoked thanks to a bad drug test. The lab report was admitted over my many objections. There was no one there to authenticate the report, no one there to explain the report, and no foundation for its admission. On top of it all, I saw the report for the first time at the bench before the judge. This was literally 5 minutes before the hearing. The report was dated 3 weeks ago, our name and address is all over the file, but nobody bothered to send us a copy. Unreal. I'm probably going to fight this - it seems like I was sandbagged. I'll keep everyone updated.

5. I had a couple of very productive omaha sessions, and a couple of sessions where I felt like I was running through quicksand. The good news is that even my bad sessions have been small losses or break even. Overall, it's been a substantially profitable week on the poker end.

6. I was stuck in traffic for about an hour going to night court last night, which made for a really long day.

Poker again?

2005-10-31T12:09:00.000-06:00

Well, internet connection problems have severely hampered both my blogging and my poker playing this weekend. The internet seemed to be back yesterday, but I do not know how long it will stay up. I'm having signal problems, which appear to be identical to the problems I had about a month ago.

Kim and I spent a bunch of time together this weekend, which was great. She was off on Friday, and I had taken the day off to spend a relaxing day with her. Unfortunately, work demands pulled me into the office for most of the day. But we still had a late lunch and went to the park to enjoy some nice weather. We also saw The Weatherman. The movie seemed to pose the question - can we all be defined by what we do? That is, if we are not careful, can our jobs become who we are? The movie doesn't seem to come to a clear conclusion on this. Nevertheless, I think the movie was a pretty obvious tale of caution. You can screw up your life pretty quickly these days.

What's that...you want to hear about poker? Okay...I had an up and down session yesterday. I should have stopped when I was up $100. Instead I stopped down about $80. I went from $50 to $120 at this omaha limit table in about an hour. Over the next 2 hours, I lost all of the profits, and left with only about $35 of my initial $50. It was a wild, wild table. There was a player there raising every hand. He bled over $100 onto the table...but I couldn't catch a cent of it. In fact, one lucky guy got almost all of this guy's money, and quite a bit of mine too. Luckily I played well and showed a tidy profit at a couple of other limit omaha tables in the same session.

Pot limit omaha had been my big moneymaker lately, while limit omaha had been killing me. Last night this reversed somewhat. Last night at a pot limit table I flopped the nut straight on a board with two diamonds (I did not have diamonds). The pot was raised before the flop, so when I bet out the pot it was a decent bet...only had one caller. The turn is a brick, which does not pair the board. I still have the nuts. I bet out the pot again, which I think was about $15...a big bet for a little $25 table. This guy calls, which suprised me. The river is a diamond of course...and he pushes his last $3.00 in...I call just to see it. I see plays like this all of the time, but I still cannot believe them.

Here's a better one: A limit game...I have AQxx, with the nut diamond draw. Flop is KTx with 2 diamonds, which gave me a gutshot and the nut diamond draw. I check call a big multiway pot. Turn is the Q of diamonds. I bet out with the nuts, and this guy to my left raises. IT folds back to me, and I reraise with the nuts. The genius caps the betting. I literally laughed out loud...until...

River is another K. Now I sigh. I check call, and he turns over the KQ - no diamonds, and takes the big pot. How funny. I say "Wow, that was ugly" and he says "Why? I had top two pair?" In any event...you can see why these tables are so great.

I also returned to a six-max hold'em table this morning as I ate breakfast. I caught some hands and doubled up from $50 to $100, which was great. I'll try to mix some more hold'em in the next week or two.

"I will not be afraid of women."

2005-10-27T12:54:00.000-05:00

Well, Dar put on one hell of a show last night. She was with her band, which really makes a big difference. I'd seen her a couple of times previously w/o band. This performance was worlds beyond the previous band-less shows. Dar has an amazing voice and spirit. In fact, her voice is so strong and sharp that she can hang in with the full band like a rock star. The place really responded well to a couple of her more famous songs, and it was generally a fun experience. Without question, the world will be a better place if everyone forced themselves to go to a couple of shows like that each year. I was somewhat disappointed that she skipped a couple of my favorite songs, but I'll let it slide. This was not your typical folk show. I left inspired...

Unfortunately, I had to be a couple of different places in the City for work this morning. Everything went wrong of course, and a couple of hours and about 217 stress units later, I'm asking myself why in the hell I ever decided to go to law school. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I had no idea what this profession was actually like when I signed on. My fear is that the job itself is fundamentally incompatable with me, my beliefs, and my desires.

Perhaps I'm just having a bad day. In any event, I hope to return to playing some poker today and get back to talking about it some more tomorrow. Sorry for the rant.

"Am I the habit you're too tired to break?"

2005-10-26T11:41:00.000-05:00

I've run into some rough luck the last week playing mostly limit omaha. As I predicted, variance swung back and I'm feeling somewhat dazed by the blow. This is to be expected. I'm fortunate that, because I've built up so much bankroll the previous 2 weeks, I'm capable of absorbing the cards laughing at me for a few days. It's been ugly, but I won't bore anyone with the beats. I have, for the most part, played pretty well during the stretch.

I need to thank Joe for filling in valiantly for me in the $5.50 omaha tournament on Stars last night. Joe knows as much about Omaha as I do about hamburgers. But he figured things out quick apparently. He tripled me up, and almost cashed for me. I couldn't play anymore because I wanted to go get Kim some dinner. She had a long, long day because of parent teacher conferences, so I wanted to make everything easy for her. I'll pay for Joe's next entry into the FIAB, so that he can bluff all of his chips off in the second orbit on a freeroll. Sound fair, Joe?

Tonight we'll be attending a Dar Williams concert at the Pageant. I've been to Dar shows before, and usually I'm the only male there. She attracts a unique crowd, most of whom tend not to have male companions. But they are nothing if not spirited...it should be a good time. I think we are in the first row. The shows coming at a good time, as I probably need to take a night or two off from the tables. When you're running bad, sometimes a good infusion of art is what it takes to get back on track.

Listen to Your Cards

2005-10-25T09:57:00.000-05:00

The deck has spit on me since Saturday, and I'm down about $250 as a result. In these low limit omaha games, you really cannot get cute by making tricky plays. You catch a top-five nut hand, and then you run with it. If you don't catch big draws, then you blind away. It's usually correct to chase a good nut draw too, so it's not at all unthinkable to drop half of your 50BB stack just by missing a few draws or being outdrawn.

The weekend was brutal, but I managed to scrape back to even after a good 1 hour run on Sunday night. I took a brutal hit in my last session. I just could not get a hand to hold up. The worst is when you flop big sets and have to fold them on the river. It's frustrating.

I busted out 240 or thereabouts in the blogger toourney on Sunday. Early on I built my stack up to about 5k without a showdown. I won two huge pots with big river bluffs, once with Q high and once with 8 high. In each of those hands I called big bets on the turn just to make a play on the river. Each of these plays was against the table maniac. I guess I was lucky that each worked. A couple of interesting hands:

As a big stack (4.5k or so), I defend my blind from a button raise w/25off. I read it as a downright steal and decided not to fold for principle's sake. Flop is 58T rainbow. I check-call the small bet thinking I have the best hand. Turn is a 7. Again, I call a small bet thinking bottom pair is good. I must be a donkey. River is a 5. Bingo. I bet big (I think 500 chips), and the button minimum raises. Ugh. I call, and see the bad news - J9.

I built the stack back up with blind aggression, and by flopping a boat. But then the PokerStars structure caught up with me. It's hard to raise 3BB preflop when that's 1/8th or more of your stack. After being card dead for a level or two, I found myself in that spot. I kept hanging on by stealing, and finally pushed from the button w/66. I was called by KT in the small blind, and lost the race.

I cashed in the FIAB last night, but finished a disappointing 8th. I had all of my chips in w/A9 vs K4, but found a way to lose. Oh well.

AAxx in Pot Limit Omaha

2005-10-21T15:24:00.000-05:00

I always raise w/AA in pot limit omaha. Many people will tell you it's pointless at the lower limits, given that it's not a huge favorite to a random hand (much less 2 or 3 random hands) and you won't get anyone to fold. I used to agree with this line of thought, but I've changed my tune recently for two reasons:

1. You will often be reraised after your open raise. It blows my mind, but people will occasionally reraise you w/KK and QQ at the low levels. AAxx, even if offsuited and unconnected is a big favorite against another big pair. I'll gladly reraise and put all of my chips in if I know I'll showdown heads up.

2. You'll need to make a big bet to protect top set if you spike an A. In order to do this, you'll need to build the pot preflop. If your pot bet is less than $3, people will chase, and each chaser entices more chasers by building the pot. If you can open with a $8 pot bet at the $25 table, you'll give the drawing hands some worry, while building a nice pot for yourself if your hand holds or boats.

This morning I ran a few hands of PLO before work. For some time, I could not get anything going. Finally, I catch AAxx with three hearts. It was not a great hand, but I nevertheless raise from EP. I had about $22 of my initial $25 in front of me. A guy with a similar stack size raises to about $2. After a cold-caller, I pot-bet. The genius reraises most of his stack (the cold-caller folded) and I push in. He had QQ - the board came 999xx, and I'm up to over $50.

Overall, I put together two more modest winning sessions since my last post. I'm definitely not running as good as I was last week, but I couldn't expect to keep that up. PokerTracker showed I was running at over 11BB per hour at the 1/2 limit omaha tables during my hot stretch, which is ridiculous.

Fall in STL

2005-10-20T10:47:00.000-05:00

Fall is a nice time here in St. Louis. The weather is nice, and it's generally nice to be walking to and from court on mornings like today. I had high hopes for watching our Cards in the World Series this year, but it was not meant to be. We were dominated, and never realy deserved to win. Oswalt was unhittable. There's not much you can do about that.

But Backe, Petitte and Clemens never looked all that sharp to me, and we couldn't hit them either. Reggie Sanders and Jim Edmonds are just not very good playoff hitters, and really had no business in the lineup against Oswalt last night...especially Sanders. He's a nice guy, and a really great hitter against bad pitching when we're up by five. But we needed base hits, and he was waving at the Oswalt fastballs.

I have not played much poker the past day or so, but I have managed to put a couple of winning sessions together in limited play, and rack up about $75 in profit. It's not I'm happy to get back on the right track. I was having some trouble with PokerTracker Omaha, but it seems to have cleared up. I was looking at my results this morning, and I'm generally pleased. I'm not sure about what my VPIP and preflop aggression factor ought to look like in a 6-max limit omaha table. Right now, the VPIP is high and the aggression factor is low. In a normal hold'em game, this would be bad. But I'm not so sure in omaha. There are a lot of good hands (AAJTdouble suited) which you'll have to throw away on flops...imagine a flop of QQx, with a flush draw that you dont have. AAJT does not look too good anymore on a flop like that, and you're probably drawing to 2 outs.

I made a quick night court trip last night, and still managed to get home and only miss a tiny part of the game. I have night court again tonight unfortunately. At least I don't have to worry about missing game 7. Night court is easily my least favorite part of the job.

Various ramblings...

2005-10-19T13:42:00.000-05:00

Here are some things I've been contemplating, considering and/or questioning:

1. Why can't I stop listening to These Are the Fables by The New Pornographers? Man that's a beautiful song.

2. Why would I want to play limit hold'em anymore? According to my Poker Tracker numbers, I'm losing money playing on Party. Now, I am showing a profit on Stars (does this make sense?) but not a great one. The bottom line is that I'm not even a very good limit player. At best I'm still learning. At worst I'm a donkey. Now I dont have a ton of hands logged yet, but the picture is nevertheless pretty clear. I keep finding these amazingly tight tables on both Stars and Party. I fail to see the profitablity in these tables. And table selection on Party is really difficult because of their software and wait list system.

3. Sports = life. I know that it's often correctly pointed out that "It's only a game." when someone takes a sports loss too hard. But the more I think about Monday night, the more I think that what happened is at least a really effective metaphor.

Scrappy, pesky David Eckstein is down to the last strike of the last out of the season. The guy was given up on last year, and the Cardinals were universally thought to be the losers in the big shortstop sweepstakes of the offseason by picking him up. The guy weighs about 110 pounds, and is facing arguably the most dominant pitcher in the majors. Lidge is 6'5" and 220...he throws 98mph. But the pest squirts a grounder through.

Then you have Jim Edmonds. The former California golden boy, known to have more style than substance before he came to the Lou. Dont get me wrong, he still put some ridiculous highlights (some on ESPN, some in his hair) while here, but he's mostly just played hard under the watchful eye of Tony LaRussa. Edmonds was the hero last year, but only after Lidge left the mound. Edmonds was overmatched by Lidge, and he knew it. So, keeping the team in mind, Edmonds drew a walk. After the game he essentially conceded that Albert had a better shot against Lidge.

And of course you have Albert Pujols. We all know where he was drafted. The guy was not on anyone's radar. Apparently nobody thought he could play. All he's done is have arguably the best start to a career in MLB history.

My favourite part of the whole thing was watching Tony LaRussa not move a muscle when Albert hit it. I'm screaming at the top of my lungs from my bedroom in Webster Groves. Meanwhile, the actual manager is staring at his lineup card while the dugout is hopping with energy. He knows that there's more work to do.

Bad Cards, Good Cards

2005-10-18T09:40:00.000-05:00

I knew it would happen. Everything had to change.

I had a truly horrible night of poker. Everything that had been going right all went wrong. I dropped $150 or so playing omaha. None of my draws came, and everytime i flopped a set the board refused to pair. Oh well, no biggie. I knew that this was coming. I'd been running too good. I may post some of my pokertracker stats later. Some of them are just sick. There's no way that I could continue at that pace. My goal is to get 10000 hands in and then evaluate the numbers. Right now I have almost 4000.

Most of this losing came while the Cardinals were sunk. Once again, we had the look of a losing team. Squandered opportunities, small mistakes, etc. I generally refuse to give up on my teams. But I have to say that I had given up on the Cards. Lidge had us down to 1 strike...unreal. That pesky little runt Eckstein sure did come up with a big one. And I loved the Edmonds walk. After the game, he basically admitted that he thought Albert had a better shot than he did. Thus, he took some inside fastballs (one ironically similar to another pitch from Sunday night) to get the big guy to the plate. That's smart, unselfish play.

That said, why in the world you'd let Pujols beat you there is beyond me. You'd think these guys have not looked at his numbers or tape. He's as cool as Phil Ivey, and just as good. Reggie Sanders has looked foolish against Lidge. Interesting choice.

No more junk homers. We're back to Busch now. Berkman's flyballs to left are now just that - flyballs. The Cards have hit Oswalt well in the past. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Damn Cardinals

2005-10-16T19:03:00.000-05:00

I'll do my best to explain the juxtaposition. Here I am playing some limit omaha on Party, having a great session. While grinding, I'm watching the Cardinals not score. I've been watching the Cards not score for about a week now.

It's wild.

I know good pitching beats good hitting - blah, blah. But come on. This is pitiful. Larry Walker finally puts the bat on something, and then we cannot even get him home with one out after he steals third. For a team that's normally so great at doing the small things, we sure have blown a few small plays. Marquis makes a costly error, Marquis cannot get a bunt down or otherwise move a runner, etc.

Don't even get me started with the bullpen.

Anyway, the point is that some things are more important than poker. Namely playoff baseball. I'm not old enough to remember 1982 very well. I do remember 85, 87, and 88-2005. I'm amazingly frustrated watching this team. So despite running outrageously good this weekend, I'm really feeling crappy right now. This will be the second straight year we'll lose to a team that's just not as good as us.

Omaha sessions: (Limit 1/2 tables; starting count/end count)

Saturday: 50/66.87; 50/90.25; 50/131.88; 50/98.12 = 187.12 profit

Sunday: 50/44; 50/162.82; 50/44.75; 50/63; 50/93.75; 50/81; 50/102.5 = 241.82 profit

Unfortunately, I did donk away about $44 in tournaments on Saturday...so that cuts into things a bit...but overall I'm extremely pleased. I threw $200 into Party 1 week ago, and it's now close to $800, and I already took $100 out earlier this week. I think I may have found a little niche with these tables. Plus, Party owes me $90 for reaching a certain points plateau. Not a bad deal.

Of course like all limit tables, variance will eventually catch up to me. I'm probably on an upswing right now. I ran really great on these tables back in the Spring (one of my two or three faithful readers may recall), and I was later crushed by them.

I have dramatically altered my play at them, and I like to think that this is why I'm winning. It may just be that I'm the luckiest donk ever. Time will tell.

I played horribly in the live game last night. Getting terribly short, I limped from EP w/A9 (I know - donkeyish), watched 2 others limp, and then called the small stack's all-in from the BB. I thought A9 was probably ahead of his range of hands. I was right about that (he had KJoff). However, much to my dismay the other limper - a big stack, also called. He had AQ, flopped a Q, and I was home 15 minutes later to take Kim out for dinner. It was a strange way to play AQ, for certain. Oh well.

"'Cause in my head, there is a Greyhound station..."; Random Grotesques from Webster Groves, Missouri

2005-10-14T22:43:00.000-05:00

1. I was haunted by Fiona Apple's performance on Letterman earlier this week. I found it difficult to go back to work the next day. It's like eating leftovers after watching a gourmet chef handle herself on Food Network. The new album seems good, although I've yet to get through it all. Fiona is out of her mind, but in an entirely good way.

2. Other CDs in my rotation: Plans: Death Cab for Cutie (nerd rock); Twin Cinema: The New Pornographers (who said Canadians cannot rock?).

3. I read 3 and 1/2 pages of Ace on the River by Barry Greenstein at Borders tonight. It changed my life. OK, maybe not yet, but I was very intrigued. Nevertheless, I decided to go with The Professor, The Banker and the Suicide King instead. Barry's story is interesting to me...I'll pick it up eventually. The few pages of Ace on the River I read had a distinctly arrogant tone. From what I've seen, Barry is a very confident guy. It actually made me a little arrogant about my play as I walked out of the store.

4. Speaking of Borders, how can a copy of The Great Gatsby cost $14? That does not seem right to me. Simon and Schuster ought to be giving away Fitzgerald for the public good, shouldn't they?

5. I made the biggest fold of my still young poker career yesterday. Read about it here. Forget about the results (if you can), and feel free to drop me a line to call me a donkey. The consensus on WPTfan seemed to be that I was a weaky-tighty.

6. I'll be playing in a live tourney tomorrow, which should be fun. I've played precisely 0 hands of no limit hold'em the last week. Oh well - it will come back to me.

The Party's Over?

2005-10-11T16:14:00.000-05:00

Much of the poker talk over the weekend related to the breaking apart of the Party skins. For those who do not know, Party is now on its own. If you play on Party, you play only with Party players logged onto Party itself. The formerly Party skins (i.e., Empire, Eurobet, etc.) now make up their own separate network. Most solid players believe that Party is soft because of the mass marketing of the site. As a result, most online limit pros and semipros played through Eurobet or Empire, because they received rakeback through an affiliate while still feasting on the Party fish. Those days are now gone. The consensus is that the new super network of skins (Empire, Eurobet, etc.) is made up mostly with rakeback sharks and generally solid players. The guy watching the WPT while drinking a beer who thinks "I can play poker" will no longer be playing at the same table with empire and Eurobet players.

So, will everyone switch back to Party? Obviously Party thinks that they will...I tend to agree. The skins will be wooing everyone with reload bonuses in the coming weeks. Empire has a 100% bonus right now, and is promoting a $700 bonus of some kind to be announced soon. I've been playing on Party anyway, and it seems to me that now is a really great time to be there. The sharks are still in transition. If you read the message boards, you'll see that many of them do not know what to do. But most of them appear not to be moving to Party...at least not yet.

"Locked into the conference room, we're only what our minds assume..."

2005-10-09T22:59:00.000-05:00

I have to spend the next two days in conference rooms defending depositions. This is quite possibly the most dull legal task on earth. I'll have to be alert, as I'll want to make all of the necessary and appropriate objections. Thus, I really need to focus intently the entire time of the deposition. But otherwise, it's essentially an exercise in sitting around. Despite the lack of movement, in my experience, it becomes an exhausting affair. I'll walk out of the damn thing tired...probably with a headache. I'm not at all looking forward to them.

I'm actually coming up on my 1 year anniversary at work. It's causing me to reflect even more than usual. I was so excited about this time last year. Now, a year into it, I just feel numb. I question whether or not I've learned anything I could not have otherwise learned on my own. I've certainly learned little, practical things. For instance, I know how to get someone's bond reduced or their warrants recalled. I know what to do at a collection docket, and I know how to get a second summons...stuff like that. I'm much more knowledgeable about case valuation and jurisdictional differences. When someone calls in, I can tell whether their case is any good in about 2 minutes.

But I'm starting to ask myself some difficult questions about my career path right now. I'm sick and tired of being broke. I'm living much more comfortably now than I was 2 years ago...but I'm still only a small step above my life as a student. I'm paying my bills...but there's not a whole hell of a lot left over when I've paid them. Of course, my stress level has quadrupled...

-

I finished a very disappointing 8th place in the PokerStars Pot Limit Omaha 20+2 on Saturday afternoon...

PokerStars Tournament #13241909, Pot Limit Omaha
Buy-In: $20.00/$2.00
222 players
Total Prize Pool: $4440.00
Tournament started - 2005/10/08 - 14:00:00 (ET)

Dear livingsign,

You finished the tournament in 8th place.
A $115.44 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 121.50 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at
http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

It was disappointing, because 1st place was over $1200, and I had a decent shot. I was in the top three for quite a long time when were down to 12-15 players. I went to the final table 6th...so 8th was not great. But I was there to win, so I made a move with a mediocre hand hoping to chip up. I pushed with top pair, a weak flush draw and a backdoor straight draw. I ran into top set and a very slightly better flush draw. It was as bad of a spot as I could have found.

On a cheerier note, I rediscovered PartyPoker this weekend. I racked up about $100 playing at the $25 pot limit omaha tables on Sunday. This makes up for my atrocious attempts to rack up a bankroll playing six man sit and goes on Stars. I've run into tough luck (I caught JJ vs QQ 3-handed, lost w/JJ to A9 three handed, lost AK to AQ three handed, and (my favorite) lost AA to K3 of diamonds three handed) in these. I've only cashed an embarrassing one time out of my last 8 of the damn things.

I want to talk a little about my recent low limit hold'em experiences on Stars and Party. I might try to do that while playing in the FIAB tomorrow night. I'll give a quick preview...I'm thinking about leaving the 1/2 and 2/4 games, for the most part, behind. More on that later.

Some Thoughts...

2005-10-07T11:07:00.000-05:00

I recently heard a quote from Phil Laak (a.k.a. the Unabomber), in which he stated that poker is 30% luck, 30% skill, and 40% mental stamina. I'm paraphrasing here, but you get the basic idea. I've thought about that quote quite a bit this week.

I've lost some pretty absurd hands lately - mostly at limit hold'em. I've also played like a donkey in a few sessions. Omaha has also gone sour this week. In omaha, I've made some gigantic folds the past few days. It's been frustrating, but I think I've generally played decent omaha the past few sessions. The trouble is, I've lost back much of what I'd won the past month or so. My fear is that my mental stamina is not where it needs to be to successfully play limit poker online.

Without question, I have improved in this area. Early on in my admittedly young limit hold'em career, I could not handle two bad beats in a row. I'd steam away chips trying to make the money back, etc. Now, I rarely steam over two, three, even four or five bad beats in a session. Instead, I steam only when they add up over a few days or so. I look at my account balance and say, "What happened?" Then, instead of gradually building the balance back up (the way it creeped up in the first place), something in my brain tells me that I need to get this all back now. My brain expresses anger that it made all of these correct decisions, and has only a net loss to show for it. "It's not fair!" says my brain.

The result of this is of course nightmarish. The bankroll drops along with my confidence, and I have to have a long talk with my brain to straighten it out. It's nearly a monthly event with me.

So, while Phil Laak may not be my favorite player, I think he has something right here. Think about the great players...why do you think that they win? I'd argue that most win not only because they have an actual tactual advantage over their opponents, but also because they have a huge mental edge. Phil Ivey is my new idol. Do you think he lets bad beats get to him? I guarantee that he does not. That guy wakes up cool...if he even sleeps.

John Vorhaus writes about the ease in which players can fall into a tilt online in his book Killer Poker Online. This book, although not really a great guide on how to actually play hands, is helpful in outlining the mindset of a winning online player. As a rule, Vorhaus thinks that it is much easier to tilt online. I think that he is completely correct. You are generally alone when playing online, and it's often much easier to talk yourself into thoughts such as "I'm the unluckiest sap ever", while in your underwear staring at the monitor. You have no one to talk to...except your brain.

Return to Poker

2005-10-04T12:21:00.000-05:00

The Internet was back up and running on Friday. I played a bit on Friday, but just could not get anything going. I'm encouraged in that my dry spells lately have not resulted in losses. When I'm running bad, I'm still managing to break even or only lose a little. I ran around in a nother circle on Saturday, managing only to recoup my buy ins for two unsuccessful $22 tournaments I played. I just kept asking myself, "What if I could just get some hands to hold up?" My answer came on Sunday, when I netted about $150 in only a couple of hours of play. This is realy good for 1/2 limit and small time low limit omaha.

My goals right now are to buy a new laptop, and to accumulate a $3000 bankroll. This is going to be difficult, but I have some reasons to be hopeful. A big tournament cash would go a long way. I made my way through about 900 people in a $20 NLHE on Stars on Sat, only to get involved with another big stack in a crucial sopt and lose. Oh well, I'm confident I played it right. Eventually it will happen. I plan on investing more in tournaments...I think it's +EV.

I saw serenity on Saturday with Kim. It was really great. Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, is responsible for the film. Thus, the same good writing and quirky humor from Buffy is also prevelant in Serenity. It's just really well-written and conceived. Impressive indeed.

I splurged on three new CDs over the weekend. I'm still not sure about any of them...it's just too early to tell.

The Orange Peels: Circling the Sun
The New Pornographers: Twin Cinema
Idlewild: Warnings/Promises

Damn Internet

2005-09-30T11:45:00.000-05:00

Well, as I mentioned in my last entry, the cable guy came out on Wed. and installed some sort of filter onto my modem, which was to give me internet access until the signal problem in my area was resolved. It was working when he and I left my apartment at 11AM, but by the time I came home that evening, it was back down. I've been fighting with Charter ever since...it's been a week w/o internet. This is unacceptable. I'm looking for a free month of service at this point. It's crazy.

I'm not missing poker as much as I thought I would. I left work sick yesterday and collapsed on my bed. Four hours later I woke up when Kim walked in the door. I've caught a nasty little cold. I feel slightly better today, but not 100% by any means.

I'll be playing in the online blogger poker championship, assuming Charter gets me back online in time. Other bloggers should check it out.

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 7000779

A Quick, Funny Hand

2005-09-28T14:10:00.000-05:00

The cable guy was to come out today, at some point between 1 and 5. The procedure is that he calls me 30 minutes before he arrives, and I meet him there.

As I arrived at work at about 9AM, he called my cell phone and told me he was already at my apartment. Great procedure.

Anyway, they have a signal problem, which apparently will be fixed shortly. In the meantime, I was given a temporary fix. It's still slow, but something's better than nothing. I played two quick rotations on Stars before I left, to see if the connection could handle poker. Here's the last hand (the blinds were coming back around) I was going to play. Sometimes, if I know it's my last hand and it's even close to playable, I'll play it. This is stupid - but I'm an action junkie at heart I guess. Make no mistake, I normally muck JToff under the gun. But I took a flier...

PokerStars Game #2679779653: Hold'em Limit ($1/$2) - 2005/09/28 -
11:41:35 (ET)
Table 'Eunike' Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: livingsign ($59.50 in chips)
Seat 2: Slapshot88 ($14.50 in chips)
Seat 3: bigblues ($39 in chips)
Seat 4: bnlulgjuraj ($214.25 in chips)
Seat 5: Akira2005 ($10.50 in chips)
Seat 6: jantro48 ($49 in chips)
Seat 7: bulldawg88 ($22 in chips)
Seat 8: Sue1230 ($61.50 in chips)
Seat 9: permaholiday ($58.75 in chips)
Seat 10: GaryTheGoat ($55.25 in chips)
permaholiday: posts small blind $0.50
GaryTheGoat: posts big blind $1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to livingsign [Js Th]
livingsign: calls $1
Slapshot88: folds
bigblues: calls $1
bnlulgjuraj: calls $1
Akira2005: folds
jantro48: folds
bulldawg88: calls $1
Sue1230: raises $1 to $2
permaholiday: calls $1.50
GaryTheGoat: folds
livingsign: calls $1
bigblues: calls $1
bnlulgjuraj: calls $1
bulldawg88: calls $1
*** FLOP *** [Kd 9h Qh]
permaholiday: checks
Akira2005 is sitting out
Akira2005 has returned
livingsign: bets $1
bigblues: calls $1
bnlulgjuraj: raises $1 to $2
bulldawg88: folds
Sue1230: calls $2
Akira2005 is sitting out
permaholiday: folds
livingsign: raises $1 to $3
bigblues: calls $2
bnlulgjuraj: calls $1
Sue1230: calls $1
*** TURN *** [Kd 9h Qh] [7s]
livingsign: bets $2
bigblues: calls $2
bnlulgjuraj: raises $2 to $4
Sue1230: calls $4
livingsign: raises $2 to $6
bigblues: folds
bnlulgjuraj: calls $2
Sue1230: calls $2
*** RIVER *** [Kd 9h Qh 7s] [3d]
livingsign: bets $2
bnlulgjuraj: calls $2
Sue1230: raises $2 to $4
livingsign: raises $2 to $6
bnlulgjuraj: calls $4
Sue1230: calls $2
*** SHOW DOWN ***
livingsign: shows [Js Th] (a straight, Nine to King)
bnlulgjuraj: mucks hand
Sue1230: mucks hand
livingsign collected $62 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $63 | Rake $1
Board [Kd 9h Qh 7s 3d]
Seat 1: livingsign showed [Js Th] and won ($62) with a straight, Nine
to King
Seat 2: Slapshot88 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: bigblues folded on the Turn
Seat 4: bnlulgjuraj mucked [7d Kc]
Seat 5: Akira2005 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: jantro48 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: bulldawg88 folded on the Flop
Seat 8: Sue1230 (button) mucked [9c 9d]
Seat 9: permaholiday (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 10: GaryTheGoat (big blind) folded before Flop

Weekend Report - Pt. 1

2005-09-27T09:52:00.000-05:00

I left the office early on Friday, which was very nice. I planned on running home to grab a quick bite to eat, and maybe play some low limit hold'em on Stars to warm up for the $3/6 I planned on playing later that evening at Harrah's. The plan for the night was to hang out will all of my friends, see Transporter 2 at 7ish, and then hit the casino for poker. I arrived home, but the internet died on me as I was playing. 30 minutes of phone time with Charter tech support didn't do the trick, but it did cause us to miss the movie. We caught a later show of the film, which may be the worst action movie ever to have a major theatrical release. At least it was funny...although it was not meant to be. At one point, my friends were laughing so hard at the ridiculousness of it all, that I was afraid we were going to be kicked out of the theater.

We went to Harrah's, where I was forced to sit down at the same table as Joe. Although it is fun to play together, I think we both would rather sit down at separate tables. Plus, we were on opposite sides of the table, so we couldn't even talk. There was this guy in a green shirt at our table. We'll call him LuckBox. This guy could not miss. I've never seen anyone get so lucky so many times. He could not play, but with the cards he caught it hardly mattered. He rivered a seven-outer on me, and I was later clobbered by another fish at the table with a runner-runner flush. This took my $100 buy in down to less than $20. I contemplated an early exit several times, but I thought better of it. I knew that LuckBox would start bleeding chips soon, and I wanted to be a part of it.

A solid player seated next to Joe lost a big pot to LuckBox, when LuckBox hit a miracle gutshot wheel on the river, to suck out solid's flopped set of nines. The poor guy exclaimed, "Fu** me in the a**hole!!" as he stood up.

I finally had my chance to get some of my chips back. LuckBox limped from early position, like he had been doing all night. I raised from middle position w/AJoff. A guy I read as halfway decent cold calls the two bets and the blinds fold. The flop came T7x rainbow. LuckBox checked to me, and I thought I might get a freebie if I checked. I guessed right, and the turn was a J. Luckbox bet, and I decided to raise. I hoped that this would isolate LuckBox. To my dismay, I received a cold call from the decent player...LuckBox called the extra bet. The turn was a seemingly insignificant card. LuckBox checked. I knew I had him beat, but I was slightly worried that the decent player had JT. I eventually decided that he could not have cold called two bets preflop w/JT. So I bet, and they both called. Luckbox turned over a seven (no, I'm not kidding), and decent asked me if I had queens. I say "No, ace-jack." He disgustedly mucked KJ face up (he made some mistakes here), and I took a big pot. LuckBox said "Good play." Well if he thinks it was good, then I must be doing something right. I later sucked a flush out to beat a flopped set, took LuckBox for a ride with my KK, and won a couple of other small pots.

After my luck turned, I wound up leaving a $21 winner. Not bad considering the brutal start. I didn't get home until about 5:00 AM, but Joe and I had plans to play in a small no limit home tourney on Saturday afternoon. This was interesting. I'll post about it next.

Sorry about the lack of posts the last week or so...my internet connection at home is still down.

The Ups and Downs of Limit Poker

2005-09-20T10:21:00.000-05:00

I was having a sparkling run at both the 1/2 limit tables, as well as the omaha tables. For about a month, I could do no wrong. I've had similar runs like this in the past, and without fail they are followed by horrific losing streaks - -150-200 BB losses. Yesterday, I fell into the losing streak.

It's strange how the beats seem to come in bunches - always in big pots too. I'm running into big hands quite a bit too. For the first time, I'm not questioning my play. I know I haven't changed anything - I've just hit a big downswing in variance. It happens. I cannot complain, given that I'm still up big for the month. I just hate to lose, and once again my bankroll has shrunk. I've taken so much out of it the past two weeks, that this run has hurt. I may run another $100 challenge to motivate myself. $10 sit and go's and low limit omaha really can be my bread and butter. Of course, even omaha had been cruel to me the past two days.

I saw a guy take a really bad omaha beat from one of the worst players I've seen. The bad player was a maniac, raising every hand. I never had anything to play back at him with. It was frustrating. Another solid player finally raised maniac's pot bet on a AcQcXh flop. The turn was Ad. Solid bet the pot, which is now pretty big for these limits. Maniac calls. River is the Tc. Solid pushes maniac in, maniac calls and turns over KcJcXX for the royal, to beat solid's aces full of queens. To make matters worse, Maniac relentlessly taunts solid after the major suckout.

I played in the FIAB last night too, hoping to get my no limit game back on track. I think I played perfectly, but lost all of my chips when KK couldn't beat a big stack's AQ, with all of the chips going in preflop. I just cannot get anything to hold up right now...I'm running bad, what can I say? It will turn back around soon.

Taking my shots

2005-09-16T10:39:00.000-05:00

I played in a quick $38 Turbo double shootout last night. The winner gets into the main event of the WCOOP. In case you are unfamiliar with the format, I'll explain it. Essentially, you have 81 entrants playing 9 sit and go tournaments. The winners of the 9 sit and gos play at a final table to play for the seat, worth $2500+100. 5th place at that table pays $55, 2nd-4th pays $60. My first table was crazy. Three people were out before I knew it. I never had a hand, but just hung around. I stole some blinds here and there (you need to do this in the turbo format) and kept the stack at about the starting point of 1500. As the blinds rose, I was dealt QQ four-handed in the SB. The button pushed, and I called. He outdrew me with the K# of clubs. That knocked me down to under 500, with the blinds at 100/200. I started pushing all over, finally doubled with 66 vs A3, and got heads up with the long time chipleader and table bully. He sucked out a big one on me once, but otherwise I pretty steadily chipped him down to win it.

AJ has been the hand I've screwed up lately. Normally I'm smart enough to fold the damn thing. But down to 6-handed at the final table, I raised the small stack's big blind one off the button. It folded to him, and he pushed. I was almost getting 3 to 1, so I called. He had AQ, and I was crippled. I hung around to take 5th (for $17 profit!), but I was severely disappointed.

Last night I also took a shot at a FPP PLO satellite and a cash rebuy PLO satellite, both into the main PLO event this afternoon. Neither went well. Oh well, I played some cash games at the same time at offset all of the losses.

"We all deserve love from this mad century"

2005-09-15T09:44:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back to work unfortunately. My week off was good, from both a mental and financial perspective. I did not play as much poker as I wanted, but I still wound up +$500, which is about what I would net at work for the week working more hours. It's difficult to describe how much happier I was while I was off. I felt like I was really living. Whereas most of the time I feel like I'm living only until I have to go back to work. The week off has made me realize that I am not okay with that feeling. It's something I'm going to have to address in the next year or so. Life is too short.

Right now I am making so little money at my job, that I am having difficulty saving much money at all. In fact, I took about $400 from my poker bankroll to pay various expenses over the past week. Thus, it is currently quite difficult to explore alternative business opportunities - although I do have some ideas. On the other hand, it would not take much of an income stream to match my current meager salary.

I think I'm going to start playing in some satellites to bigger tournaments again. Why not take a shot? One of the regular posters on wptfan.com just cashed for about $170k in a big party tournament. He's a better player than me, but the point is that big cashes can happen. $5k would make a big difference for me. So I'm going to take a few shots. The low limit cash games have been consistently good for me recently, but taking some chances would be fun.

If you're too careful, your whole life can become a fucking grind, right?

Quick Update

2005-09-08T16:46:00.000-05:00

Well, I recouped my losses, though it took me most of the day to grind back. I've had some awful luck at omaha. Here's the best beat of them all. This may be one of the worst omaha beats I've had in months. I plugged it in to Card Player's calculator.

Enjoy.

Day Two of Pro for a Week

2005-09-08T11:18:00.000-05:00

After hearing about some promotions at Harrah's, I decided to wake up early and head for their poker room. They are giving the first five people to have their aces cracked $100, and the first players to lose with a full house or quads some bonus too. It's a nice promotion, which adds quite a bit of value to the game. Two people at my table lost with aces, including one guy I cracked myself. I had K4 in the big blind, and a newly-seated guy to my left made an under the gun raise. He had a cold caller and a big fish to my right in the small blind called. I looked down at K4 off. With 21 in the pot, and three more to call, I didn't think I could fold. I flopped top and bottom pair, and cracked the guy. I was lucky enough to have aces twice, but I unfortunately won both times with them. One of those times I flopped a third ace, and was actually upset about it. This promotion makes you play your aces a little differently. It's worth limping with them and hoping for a 6-way pot.

There was one interesting hand that I think indicates the type of play at the casino. It was a four way pot, unraised before the flop. Flop comes AKT rainbow. Now, I don't remember the exact sequence, but they wound up three-betting the flop. One of the players was the fish to my right, another of the guys was a solid player, and the third was a loose aggressive type (I've seen him at the casino everytime I've gone), who made some novel plays. The turn was a brick, and again the pot is raised and reraised. Now, the solid player has to have QJ. He three-bet that turn, and in my mind, he'd do that only with the pure nuts. Nevertheless, LAG bet into him. Solid raised, and my friend the fish three-bet. LAG finally folds, and Solid just calls, saying, "I guess we're splitting." He turns over the QJ, and fish says, "No - take it." Wow.

I also won a big pot with KT, when I flopped top and bottom pair on a KJT board. Fish checked to me, I bet at that flop and had 2 callers (including fish). Turn is a K, giving me kings full. Fish checks, and I check to this tight player (I didn't realize how weak-tight he was until later, when he checked an ATx flop to me as I held JT, I checked, caught another T, bet him all the way down, and raked a big pot when he showed AJ) who bet. The fish raised, and I smooth called. The river blanked, fish bet, and I raised. Tighty folded, Fish called and showed my KQ. That was actually a tough hand for him - I would have lost quite a bit there too.

Anyway, I did not win any of the promotions, but I left the table up about $170 regardless. I played from I then went to lunch with my mom and went to help rearrange Kim's classroom. I also had to use about $100 of the money to pay sales tax on Kim's car. Oh well. Still not a bad day #2.

Day #3 has been pretty ugly. I'm down about $70 playing online this morning. It was bound to happen. I was running too good the past couple of days (weeks really), and I've been waiting for a bad stretch. I'm keeping the big picture in mind, and so far I have avoided steaming (I've taken some ugly ones this morning). I could easily go on a 15 minute run and be back to even

I'll try to update my progress later today. I hope to play until 5:00 or so today. I may head to Harrah's tomorrow morning, so I'll blog about that too.

Pro for a Week

2005-09-06T13:58:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm on vacation the rest of this week. My main goal is to relax. I have been dealing with quite a bit of stress lately, and I want to forget about everything work-related this week.

I will be playing a lot of poker. In fact, I'm basically considering myself a professional player for the rest of the week. I've been playing exclusively on PokerStars of late. I've stopped chasing bonuses for the time being. The bottom line is that I'm confortable playing at Stars, and I'm having a good time finding the bad tables. I've run the 1/2 Limit Hold'Em tables exclusively of late. Both the full and six-max tables have been okay. My $100 is currently at it's high-water mark of $840. I spent $31 today on a pot limit omaha rebuy tournament. I was playing well until I ran middle set into top set for almost all of my chips. I just busted out, KKAT double suited v TTAx, when the last T hit on the flop.

Regardless, I'm up almost $200 for the day, which is sadly more than I make working a full day.
-

We went to Harrah's again on Friday, and I was a $45 winner. Joe beat me again, as he was a $50+ winner. My $45 paid for my groceries this weekend, which I was pleased with. I'll be heading back tomorrow morning, and possibly on Friday too. The games there are great, although they cannot compete with the online games (you can four-table online). I still like to play live - it's just fun.

Because I'm off this week, I should be updating daily. Stay tuned. I've hit some bad beats today, but I still have not run into that really bad streak of cards yet. I'm sure it is coming. In the meantime, I'll be grinding it out.

The $100 challenge

2005-09-01T09:10:00.000-05:00

About a week and a half ago, I looked at my depleted bankroll and started questioning my abilities. My confidence was really low, and I basically decided that I couldn't play. When it all goes really wrong, I start waiting for the wrong cards to fall. Of course, this attitude only compounds losses. On the last WSOP broadcast, Cindy Violette said something during her interview that I thought was so true and profound. She said (I'm paraphrasing here) that when she's feeling good, the cards just seem to come. In my experience, the exact opposite is true too.

Thus, I decided to regroup and pull all but $100 off, and play $10 S&Gs and low PL Omaha at PokerStars. I'd also play the extreme low limits (1/2) in LHE after I built the roll up a bit. The idea was to build it to $1000, and then start again. I'd use the money to pay credit card bills, or maybe buy a computer. I felt that, if I concentrated and played enough, I could do it in 4-6 weeks. I liked the idea of having a goal. I've built a bankroll up this way before, but often squandered it by moving up levels too soon.

So, I'm up to about $480 as of this morning. I've had some lucky runs, but I've also had my fair share of rough outdraws.

Kim has been getting up at 6AM to go to school. I woke up when she left today, and could not get back to sleep. So I played a bit. I was on a tear early, but then I went cold for the last half hour. I looked at the clock and realized that I needed to leave for work, right as this hand came up:

PokerStars Game #2472365477: Omaha Pot Limit ($0.10/$0.25) -
2005/09/01 - 09:45:57 (ET)
Table 'Nauplius IV' Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: riverqueenl ($10.95 in chips)
Seat 2: dumbfounded ($26.15 in chips)
Seat 3: RtoC ($26.50 in chips)
Seat 4: livingsign ($67.30 in chips)
Seat 5: oskar92 ($24.90 in chips)
Seat 6: 6kevin6 ($9.40 in chips)
Seat 7: SuperNorm333 ($26.90 in chips)
Seat 9: booker73 ($7.90 in chips)
SuperNorm333: posts small blind $0.10
booker73: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to livingsign [Td 5c 8d 9c]
riverqueenl: folds
dumbfounded: calls $0.25
RtoC: folds
livingsign: calls $0.25
oskar92: folds
6kevin6: calls $0.25
SuperNorm333: folds
booker73: checks
*** FLOP *** [9d 6d 7d] - - -- - - - -- - - - - - -- Hello. I flopped the ultra nuts.
booker73: checks
dumbfounded: checks
livingsign: checks - -- - - -- - - - - - - - - - -- -- - I'm not likely to win anything with this hand unless someone boats. It's slowplay time.
6kevin6: checks
*** TURN *** [9d 6d 7d] [Tc]
booker73: checks
dumbfounded: bets $0.50
livingsign: calls $0.50 - -- - - -- -- - - - - - -- - - - I'm just trying to catch a few bucks.
6kevin6: folds -- - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - -- - - bummer
booker73: folds - - - - - -- - - - -- - - - - -- - - - - - - - double bummer.
*** RIVER *** [9d 6d 7d Tc] [Kd]
dumbfounded: bets $2 -- - - - - - --- - - - - - - - - -- - this is when I first suspected he had A high.
QueenOvettes has returned
livingsign: raises $2 to $4 -- - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - -- If he had the third nuts, he'd still call this I think. If he had the second nuts, he might raise. I felt like the min. raise maximized my opportunity to win real money on the hand.
dumbfounded: raises $10 to $14 -- - - - - - - -- - - - - - Bingo.
livingsign: raises $30 to $44 -- - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - --I almost felt bad. I've been in his shoes before.
dumbfounded: calls $11.40 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
livingsign: shows [Td 5c 8d 9c] (a straight flush, Six to Ten)
dumbfounded: shows [Ad Qh 5d 8c] (a flush, Ace high)
livingsign collected $50.30 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $52.90 Rake $2.60
Board [9d 6d 7d Tc Kd]

Seat 2: dumbfounded showed [Ad Qh 5d 8c] and lost with a flush, Ace
high

Seat 4: livingsign showed [Td 5c 8d 9c] and won ($50.30) with a
straight flush, Six to Ten

Don't be mistaken. No names have been changed here. His actual screenname was dumbfounded. How appropriate. Poor guy. When I first started playing omaha, this happened to me (catching A high vs the straight flush). It's since happened one more time, and I've seen it happen four or five other times too. The first book I ever read on Omaha told you to beware of straight flushes when you hold A high. I remember thinking, "Come on." But now I do look for them. When I play Omaha, I keep a running count of the nuts in the hand.

I have refrained from rerasing with the A high flush with a straight flush out there in omaha. I did it just a few days ago, and the table gave me some crap about it. "No raise with the nuts?"

I certainly lose quite a bit of $$ in dumbfounded's spot. However, looking back on it, he has to wonder if I would have been reraising there with anything other than the pure nuts. I may have lost less.

Live Play Report

2005-08-28T20:42:00.000-05:00

Joe and I arrived at Harrah's pretty late. I think it was well after 11PM, but there was still a really long wait. We waited for 45 minutes or so, read Full Tilt Magazine and I broke even on some video poker machines. We finally sat down at separate tables. To my left was a middle-aged woman with her breasts popping out of her tank top. For our purposes, we'll refer to her as Boobs.

Across from me was this Loose Loudmouth, who I took to be a regular given that he knew the names of the managers and seemed to have the poker vernacular down. Loudmouth liked to make this noise when he looked at his cards. You know the sound effect used in a movie when some treasure is unveiled? It's difficult to explain in writing, but it's essentially an "Ahhhh" in a sort of high-pitched tone? That was his trademark. What a schmuck. He had way too much cash for a 3/6 game, and he didn't mind betting and raising. He was on the 6/12 list, but unfortunately for all of us nothing opened up. He openly stated that he didn't care about the money, and he also informed us all that he much preferred sucking out on someone with junk to actually outplaying his opponent. He would periodically suck some huge pot out on the river, and spend the next 15 minutes spreading the proceeds around amongst the rest of us.

One poor, Unlucky Sap across the table lost about $100 pretty quick. His major downfall was when Loose Loudmouth sucked a gutshot out on the river to crack his aces. This poor soul lost with aces on the river later on too. Next to Unlucky Sap was Self-Perceived Expert, who was fond of isolating Loose Loudmouth, and building a big pot with him. This guy also had the Sam Farha unlit cigarette bit happening. Cute. While Expert was certainly better than most of the players seated, I was never convinced that he was as good as he thought. There were also two quiet older ladies at the table, and a guy two seats to my left who I realized, as the night developed was Loudmouth's pal. When either of them won a pot (especially on a suckout) they liked to exclaim in tandem "Ship it!" Neat-o. I'd like to tell you that they were drunk or just turned 21, but I didn't notice any booze and they each looked to be at least 32.

In fact, the table was not nearly as drunk as I'd hoped it would be. Nevertheless, I sat down confident that I was the only real player at the table. In the second hand I picked up the 56 of hearts. I limped from EP figuring I had odds with the limpers already in front. Boobs , directly to my left, raises. She does not have many chips left. I call, along with several others. Flop is a nice looking As, 7h, 4h. So I have the open-ended straight flush draw. I follow the checks in front with a check to Boobs, who bets. It folds to me (there was a good amount of folding to one bet after the flop, even when the pots were big) and I just call. Turn is the ten of hearts, flushing me. I check-raise Boobs, who looks none too pleased with my apparently unfriendly maneuver. River is a blank, I bet and Boobs calls. I flip the flush and she quite angrily shows AT for aces up, and storms off leaving her remaining $12 behind. Hey, I'm up $30.

Four rotations or so later I've been blinded down, and have not hit another playable hand. There is enough raising to make limping from early or middle position hazardous. Finally, I pick up KJ suited and limp from EP. There were no raises, and I flopped trip jacks. I check hoping to check raise and build a pot. It checked around. I bet the turn, and Boobs was the only caller. She called my river bet too, and I won a small pot. Later on I had the J2 of hearts in the BB and was able to see a free flop. The flop came J high, and I check-called a bet from Boobs. The turn was a 4, and I again check-called Boobs. The river was another 4, and I called Boobs' last bet. She said "I was kinda bluffing my ass off, but I hit trips." She turns over Q4, and takes the pot. Sweet. This put me back to even.

I never had AA, KK, QQ, or JJ. I had TT once, and had to fold it on a KQx flop. I had nines twice, and had to fold them once to a three-bet from Loudmouth before the flop. The second time they went nowhere and I folded on the flop. It was three-bet by Loudmouth to me in the small blind when I held 66. I folded, but I would have flopped a set and taken a big one. Loudmouth turned over (I could not make this up) K9 off on that hand.

About halfway through the session, a young guy sat in who had a bunch of friends with him scattered throughout the poker room. We'll call him College, given that he had "I'm in a fraternity" tattooed on his forehead. Judging by the way he kept telling everyone that he'd never played before, I knew he'd logged some hours. College raised from EP, and I folded junk. He received several cold calls including one from Loudmouth in the blind. The flop was all diamonds, all under ten. College bets, it's raised, Loudmouth three-bets, and College caps. As a sidenote, when College raised, he said "Raisssseee", with a really long, pronounced 'ssss' at the end. He kinda had a lisp or something, and I really found it annoying. Everyone (yes, everyone) calls. The turn is an non-diamond junk card. College bets, gets a call and a fold, and I'm fairly certain that Loudmouth raised again. College re-raissssses , and gets two callers. I'm dumbfounded by the play so far. At least one, and maybe two of these guys are idiots. I put College squarely on the flush, and I'm not sure what these other guys are thinking. The river is a brick. I think there was some more 'raissssing' on this street too, but I cannot remember how much. Anyway, College turns over the KQ of diamonds to take a monumental pot and practically double up. He loudly announces 'Go fish' as he rakes in the million chips. This statement will become ironic later. Unbelievable.

As my session was winding down, a younger guy sat in with only about $40. I think that $40 is the minimum buy-in. Personally, I don't think that this kind of stack can withstand even one bad beat. In any event, ShortStack does not play a hand for a long time. Finally, College raisssses his blind from EP and he defends. Flop comes AKQ rainbow. College bets. ShortStack raises. This is the first move I've seen ShortStack make all night. It was abig red flag from my perspective. College three-bets. ShortStack four-bets. College asks about the cap. The dealer informs him that there's no cap heads up (I didn't know this) so he five-bets. Wow! Then ShortStack six-bets! Again, I cannot emphasize it enough. I could not recall ShortStack raising, or even calling a bet up to this point. Finally, College just calls. The turn is a ten. College check-calls, and check-calls the river too. Can anybody guess what ShortStack showed. Obviously he had flopped Broadway. College told us he had AQ. I love the fact that he five-bet that flop with top and bottom pair. It cracks me up. He gave back a good deal of his winnings on that hand. I think he may have 'raissssed' more had the ten not turned. "Go fish!"

I finally got involved with Loudmouth, when he raised and I called from the button with AQoff. The flop came J high with two diamonds. He bet and I called. It folded behind me. The turn was a brick. He looked at me (into my soul maybe?) and bet again. I called. I'd seen him bet and showdown too much junk to fold AQ high. It was a monster against this maniac. I called the river brick too, and he turned over A6 of diamonds, and I was up to $130 again. I blinded down to $121 before leaving at about 3:00AM.

There is one other hand I wanted to talk about. I wasn't involved in it, but I'll recreate it as best I can. As I recall, one of the old ladies was in the big or small blind and saw a free or cheap flop with Loudmouth. Flop was K4x. The older lady bet, Loudmouth raised, and the older lady called. The turn seemed innocuous, and the older lady check-called Loudmouth. The river was K. Now the older lady bets, and Loudmouth raises. The older lady decided to reraise, and Loudmouth four-bet her. The older lady made it five (it's not capped remember), and Loudmouth thought about it and just called. He turned over his cards so that you can only see a four. I know immediately that he has fours full (he was a maniac, but I didn't see him three and four betting hands on the river with garbage; plus he had to know she had the king). The older woman turned over her weak K for trips, and this jerk slowly unveils the second four for the boat. The old lady gets up, as she's nearly broke. The table of dopes exclaims 'Wow!', and I'm still kicking myself for not calling this guy out for his behavior. Man what a jackass! He slowrolled grandma?

This guy was some class act.

Ready or not, tort reform is here...

2005-08-27T15:45:00.000-05:00

I've done nothing but draft lawsuits and run to and from court the past couple of weeks. I've played some poker here and there, but work has essentially dominated my life. Our plan was to have everything done on Friday, and then each of us (me, my boss and our office manager/assistant) would go wait in line. We expected lines, but I didn't think I'd be waiting for almost 2 hours. Well, I was. All the Plaintiffs' attorneys in town have been struggling the past few weeks to get these cases filed. It's not easy to file almost 20 lawsuits (many of which simply are not ready to file) quickly to beat a deadline like this. I was stuck waiting in the St. Louis City Circuit Court, which had the longest lines. It's generally the most favorable venue in our area. I think I may have been on the news, as TV cameras seemed to be filming me making my filings. As a picture was being taken of all of us by the Post-Dispatch, one of the attorneys guessed that the headline would read something like "Greedy Trial Attorneys Rush to Take Advantage of Old Law". It wasn't quite that bad.

But I really was looking forward to playing poker at Harrah's after all this crap was over. I went with Joe, and I'll post some neat stories later tonight or tomorrow.

"Can you squeeze me into an empty page of your diary...?"

2005-08-25T10:19:00.000-05:00

Well, we have 20 lawsuits to file by tomorrow. I've been working quite a bit this week, hence the lack of posts. Poker has taken a backseat to the workplace madness that is the week before tort reform. I didn't play at all on Tuesday, and I just ran through two sets of sit and goes last night. 7 NLHE sit and go's (I was four-tableing), 5 4th place finishes and only one cash (it was a 1st). A couple of my favorite hands were with me on the bubble. I was 3rd out of 4 in chips, when I caught KK UTG. I made my standard raise, and get a call from next-to-act. Flop is raggedy, uncoordinated...8 high. I push my last 1300 or so into the 1100 chip pot. He calls off about 3/4 of his stack with AJ. Turn is a J, river is an A. Hello bubble.

2nd out of four in chips, I pick up the Q2 of hearts in the big blind. Action folds to the small blind chip leader who limps. Flop comes Q2x. I bet the pot with top and bottom pair. Small blind raises to about half of my stack. He has me covered, but not by much. I push in, and he calls fast w/AA. He calls me an idiot ("Q2?!?!"), but only before catching running fours to take a commanding chip lead and send me to the rail. Apparently I like finding new ways to lose with the best of it. Man I'm running bad. Oh well, I took first and second in two omaha S&Gs while I was playing these, so I was able to subsidize much of the carnage. That's the only good thing about S&G's. It's easier to move on and forget.

Today's a long one. We not only have loads of these lawsuits to get filed, but I was in court arguing a motion this morning, and I have to be in court again at 3, and then again at 7PM tonight. This morning, I was arguing to have a default judgment set aside. I lost. I was practically in a screaming match with the other attorney. It was bad enough that the judge walked out of his chambers as we were yelling...we continued. I at least stayed cordial...I'm not sure about my opponent. Basically, I don't like these collection firms stepping on people and taking advantage of them. This attorney was able to convince the judge the judgment should stand, though I think that her client really screwed my guy over. The judge called me "creative", but said I just wasn't there.

This is the same firm (and same attorney) that sued one of our clients for breach of an automotive finance agreement, even though our client was not a party to the agreement. We had that set aside, and ended up suing for malicious prosecution, which I was able to settle pretty quickly. My guess is that this firm (and this particular attorney) took some heat for that screw up, and is still somewhat hostile about it. They generally don't like it when the people they sue put up a fight. They just want them to shut up and pay. Who cares if they are not a party to the contract? Go ahead and garnish their paycheck.

Oh well. I don't like losing, but there's always another fight to move onto.

I stayed up way too late last night watching "Who put the M in Manchester", which was really fun. Morrissey in concert, in his hometown, playing lots of old classics. It was like a Moz/Smiths mix tape. I noticed that his general theme was empowerment/revolution/disruption of the balance of power. A very political set. I was inspired. And Mozzer is recording again? It was on Logo, which is, well, the gay channel. Usually they play Erasure. But I guess Morrissey fans are also a part of their target audience.

Is the week over yet?

2005-08-20T13:20:00.000-05:00

Well, we lost the condo. Our offer was highest, but the seller was in some financial trouble. Because we are paying via mortgage, we could not close as fast as the other offeror. Thus, the seller went with the lower offer to get paid faster.

I'm also fighting (unsuccessfully) with VISA over an unauthorized charge to my check card. It's only about $200 (this is quite a bit of money to me, mind you), and I've promised to cost them at least $2,000 in legal fees if they charge my account. They probably get hollow threats like this all of the time, but I intend to back mine up. I'm not going to let anyone steal from me...especially not a huge corporation that thinks it can step on anyone it wants to.

Oh yeah, the tort reform law takes effect on 8/28. Thus, we're trying to file about 15 lawsuits this next week. Late nights, and working Today (Saturday) will be required to get everything done. Wow...it's fun to be me, huh?

I haven't talked about poker much recently. Usually, I only get philosophical when I'm losing. Recently, things were going okay, so I wasn't writing much about poker. Everything was going as it should...steady winnings.

Well, it all went to crap the last two days. I've blown a bunch of my bankroll...The outdraws have been sickening. A couple of my favs are posted below. I cannot do anything right the past few sessions, and since I recently took some money out to pay bills, my bankroll is severely depleted. I should have moved down a level, as I know it's not all that unusual to drop 100 BB or so. Well, I think I've dropped about more like 150 the past two days. Omaha was going really well, but I took a big beat in a $100 pot last night (see below)..my poker tracker stats for omaha were great. I cannot get poker tracker to import any of my recent hold'em hands unfortunately. I'm not sure why. I'd like to give them a look to see if I've done anything wrong. After the past two days, my hold'em stats should look like a train wreck.

Generally, at the full tables I like to wait for the hands, and push chips around when I hit them. It just has not been working lately. I've found some great tables, with some horrible players. But I cannot win a hand against them. I'm running KK into AA, QQ into KK, and sets into bigger sets quite a bit too. On raggedy flops, I have trouble getting away from these hands. Also, when I have the bigger pair, I'm running into sets. I ran AA into 888 and later into KKK (both of my opponents capped the flops with their pairs, and then turned sets) to lose two really big pots last night.

And my worst problem has been playing sets, and losing to flushes and straights. Everyone else slowplays their sets and takes huge pots. I play fast and still lose...

Seat 1: flipg11 ( $100)
Seat 2: highmark14 ( $253.64)
Seat 3: tnguyenz111 ( $65)
Seat 4: Wingnut55 ( $91)
Seat 5: cjwildman ( $49)
Seat 6: lyniad ( $65)
Seat 7: MACZX ( $106)
Seat 8: WolfClan ( $98)
Seat 9: ME ( $39.50)
Seat 10: jplageman ( $128.90)
tnguyenz111 posts small blind (1)
Wingnut55 posts big blind (2)
cjwildman posts big blind (2)
jplageman posts big blind + dead (3)
flipg11 posts big blind (2)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to ME [ Jh, Jc ]
cjwildman checks.
lyniad raises (4) to 4
MACZX calls (4)
WolfClan folds.
ME raises (6) to 6
jplageman calls (4)
flipg11 folds.
highmark14 folds.
tnguyenz111 folds.
Wingnut55 calls (4)
cjwildman folds.
lyniad calls (2)
MACZX calls (2)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Ad, Js, 9c ]
Wingnut55 checks.
lyniad checks.
MACZX checks.
ME bets (2)
jplageman calls (2)
Wingnut55 calls (2)
lyniad calls (2)
MACZX calls (2)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Qs ]
Wingnut55 checks.
lyniad checks.
MACZX checks.
ME bets (4)
jplageman calls (4)
Wingnut55 folds.
lyniad calls (4)
MACZX calls (4)
** Dealing River ** : [ 3s ]
lyniad bets (4) - - - -- - - - -- - - - -- - - -I'm already screaming in my head.
MACZX calls (4)
ME calls (4)
jplageman folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: $71 | Rake: $3
Board: [ Ad Js 9c Qs 3s ]
flipg11 balance $98, lost $2 (folded)
highmark14 balance $253.64, didn't bet (folded)
tnguyenz111 balance $64, lost $1 (folded)
Wingnut55 balance $83, lost $8 (folded)
cjwildman balance $47, lost $2 (folded)
lyniad balance $49, lost $16 [ Ah 6h ] [ a pair of aces -- Ah,Ad,Qs,Js,9c ]
MACZX balance $161, bet $16, collected $71, net +$55 [ 9s 8s ] [ a flush, queen high -- Qs,Js,9s,8s,3s ]
WolfClan balance $98, didn't bet (folded)
ME balance $23.50, lost $16 [ Jh Jc ] [ three of a kind, jacks -- Ad,Qs,Jh,Jc,Js ]
jplageman balance $115.90, lost $13 (folded)

Omaha has been good, but last night I got this idiot to practically hand me his cash...or so I thought.

Seat 1: Highwaytime ( $61.45)
Seat 2: webesobad ( $17.98)
Seat 3: richgosh1 ( $37.99)
Seat 4: Michelle440 ( $39)
Seat 5: crunkmoney ( $47.50)
Seat 6: ME ( $51.90)
crunkmoney posts small blind (0.25)
ME posts big blind (0.50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to ME [ 2d, Ah, Th, Ad ]
Highwaytime calls (0.50)
webesobad calls (0.50)
richgosh1 calls (0.50)
Michelle440 calls (0.50)
crunkmoney folds.
ME raises (2.75) to 3.25
Highwaytime calls (2.75)
webesobad calls (2.75)
richgosh1 calls (2.75)
Michelle440 folds.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ As, Qc, Jh ]
ME bets (13.10)
Highwaytime calls (13.10)
webesobad folds.
richgosh1 folds.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Ks ]---------hey, I backed into the nuts, with a nice redraw.
ME bets (35.55)
ME is all-In.
Highwaytime calls (35.55)
** Dealing River ** : [ 8s ]
Creating Main Pot with $109.05 with ME
** Summary **
Main Pot: $109.05 | | Rake: $2
Board: [ As Qc Jh Ks 8s ]
Highwaytime balance $118.60, bet $51.90, collected $109.05, net +$57.15 [ Kh Js Jc Qs ] [ a flush, ace high -- As,Ks,Qs,Js,8s ]
webesobad balance $14.73, lost $3.25 (folded)
richgosh1 balance $34.74, lost $3.25 (folded)
Michelle440 balance $38.50, lost $0.50 (folded)
crunkmoney balance $47.25, lost $0.25 (folded)
ME balance $0, lost $51.90 [ 2d Ah Th Ad ] [ a straight, ten to ace -- Ah,Ks,Qc,Jh,Th ]

Our condo offer and a poker quiz...

2005-08-15T16:52:00.000-05:00

I guess Kim and I just made an offer on another condo. We really liked this one, and I hope it comes through. It's going to be somewhat difficult financially, especially short term. There's a good chance that I will be extracting most of my poker bankroll in the next week or so for earnest money and closing costs. Kim just started her new job teaching, but she's in the middle of a 6-week period of not being paid. Thus, most of my checks are going to pay the bills and buy us food.

We were out looking well into the evening yesterday, and I made an effort not to play much poker over the weekend. I played a little on Saturday, and a little on Sunday. I basically broke even, which is disappointing. I lost a really big pot when I flopped a set of tens on a board of T9x. I bet it the wholeway, and this guy runner-runnered a flush to beat me w/K9 of hearts. Last night, I lost most of my profits playing 2/4 when I had the misfortune of catching AA on the button. I raise, and tight BB reraises (what range do you give him here?), and I decide to just call. I just call in that spot thinking that it disguises my hand. I hope he has JJ, QQ, or KK, and the flop is all garbage. Flop comes KJx rainbow. Not exactly garbage. He bets, I raise, he three-bets. Uh-oh. Turn is blank. He bets, I call. River is another K. Now I'm disgusted. Go back to your original range of hands...which of those do I beat now? Of my range, I beat only QQ or TT. I had him on AKs, TT, JJ, QQ, or KK. Of course, I don't think he'd have played QQ or TT this way after the flop, do you? Thus, do I beat anything that he could have? At what point should I have folded? The river K actually made me think he didn't have the K in his hand...I called. I was hoping that maybe he did play QQ this way heads up. I think I had to call.

What did he have? I'll post it in comments later.

"Sit down, my son. We don't read most of the bills..."

2005-08-11T11:22:00.000-05:00

You may remember that line from Fahrenheit 9/11. It was uttered by Rep. John Conyers from Michigan, talking specifically about the Patriot Act. It led to the famous scene with Michael Moore reading the Act out of the loud speaker of an ice cream truck driving around the Capitol.

Apparently the Missouri State Legislature should consider a similar procedure. It seems that the recently passed bill intended to lessen the rights of employees under the Workers Compensation system had a pretty significant error. It apparently allows some employees access to the Circuit Courts for work-related injuries.

Oops. Just to give you an idea, the Work. Comp. law basically forces employees to go the Work. Comp. Court. You generally cannot sue your employer at the Circuit Court level for an on-the-job injury. It has been this way for many years. This new law was passed to save employers money by making it even harder for injured employees to prove claims in some instances. Well, it seems that the legislature inadvertently threw some language in there that allows employees to go the Circuit Court. Because this could (theoretically) expose employers and their insurers to big jury verdicts, I bet the insurance companies that lobbied so hard for this are probably freaking out.

Hilarious.

So that was a close one...

2005-08-11T09:55:00.000-05:00

Well, we may have gotten a bit carried away with the edits on our brief last night. We really wanted to make sure it was perfectly clear. Thus, we went over it a million times and made a million changes. Regrettably, this meant that I was still making the requisite 21 copies at about 4:30. There is no way to file it past 5. Our Office Manager/assistant Extraordinaire was binding it while I copied. Unfortunately, we could only bind one at a time. At 4:45 I was calling the Court to see if there was anyway I could file after 5. They told me that the doors locked promptly at 5. Awesome. I decide to just run. I figure it will take me about 12-15 minutes to run down to the garage (yes I actually ran), get out of the lot, get out of Clayton, and get downtown.

Well, traffic getting out of Clayton was surprisingly sparse. I hit a bit of a snag getting onto Highway 40, but it cleared up fast. There was another jam downtown, so I exited at 14th to avoid it. I decided to hang a right on Market and try to park on 10th right in front of the courthouse. I found a good spot. At this point it was about 5:04. Damn. The clouds suddenly looked ominous as I get out of the car, grab the box of briefs, and take off in a dead sprint for the doors. Someone is leaving right as I walk up. I kick my foot in the door, jog into the lobby, and suddenly get looks from three security guards. As I empty the metal from my pockets, they ask me where I'm going. I tell them that my brief is due in the Eighth Circuit today. They look at the clock and say "You're cutting it really close...24th floor - go!" So I run to the elevators, get to the 24th floor, and see that the door is closed. Thankfully, it was not locked. The clerks were really great, although somewhat surprised to see me. Whew. It was a happy ending.

-

My good luck for the day was apparently used up. I played a bit more on Party, and I had three of the worst sessions of LHE I've ever had. At one point, the cards that were coming seemed almost funny. It was like everything was set up for me to lose as much as possible. I actually requested an e-mailed hand history of this one particular stretch, just to see if it was actually as bad as I thought.

It was. I felt like the deck was stacked against me. As soon as I feel that way, I need to just cut my losses and go do something else. Eventually I will learn. Oh well, I made some money back on Omaha, though a couple of disasters there cost me about $75 of profit. All in all, not a good poker night. It happens.

DEADlines

2005-08-10T12:29:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to wrap up this brief, which is due to the Eighth Circuit downtown by 5. Right now, I'm having lunch as my boss makes more revisions. I hope he hurries. 21 copies of it need to be copied and bound before it goes down there. I've made some last minute trips down to the Eighth Circuit before, but I'd just assume not cut it too close. The idea of running into the courthouse with a last minute filing may seem Romantic to the uninitiated, but if I hit a stalled car or construction on the way there, I assure you my blog entry tomorrow would read much more like a tragedy.

I cleared the Party bonus last night, and wound up clearing only $60. Yeah, that means I somehow lost $40...don't rub it in. Two key hands come to mind. In one pot limit omaha hand, my top set went down to a flush draw on the river. That hand had about a $70 swing. I also lost about $25 when this guy called my top two pair down all the way w/33 and spiked the trey on the river. How did this guy do this on an AQx board? Well, who knows?

I've given up on trying to decipher such mysteries. Instead, I'm focusing on this brief and hoping eventually to get our railroaded client out of jail. Trying to get a federal conviction overturned (or even a new trial ordered) is the equivalent of drawing to a one-outer on the river. I'm certainly not calling. But with our strong belief that the law is on our side, I cannot see folding either.

Alternative Treatment?

2005-08-09T09:07:00.000-05:00

It's been too long since I last posted. Work has been busy. We've had a couple pretty significant writing projects for a couple of our federal cases with deadlines of this week. I've been hustling to get them done. Plus I had night court last night, which took forever and did not go all that well. Such is life.

I watched that show Intervention on A&E on Sunday. I cannot take my eyes off that show. It's amazing to have such an up close view of addicts, especially heavy drug users. It's sad, but most of them end up accepting help from their family and friends, only to relapse as soon as they leave rehab. The had another gambling addict on Sunday's show.

As I was watching, I kept thinking that instead of treating her, they should just teach her poker. She apparently played slots and slots only. And she was playing a lot. Eeek. Why not just set your money on fire?

Maybe she could get her fix playing poker. If she read some books and studied, I'm almost certain that she could, at the very least, lose much less or break even. To me, after I started playing poker, I never could go back to playing slots or blackjack or any of the other games. I feel like I have an edge playing poker (probably only a slight one sometimes) and I have a hard time justifying the play of other games where the house has the edge. If this girl could be convinced of the same thing, would she really go back and play slots?

This girl was prone to tilting on the slots, so she'd have to work on that. But otherwise, maybe poker is a good alternative treatment. Perhaps I could set up a non-profit, teaching poker to gambling addicts. I wonder if I could get the funding.

-

Kim recently bought a car...a 2002 Mazda Protege. It's a nice car, and she really secured a great deal on it. Unfortunately, it ate my Sufjan Stevens CD on Sunday, so it's currently sitting back at the dealership until they can fix it. I came home last night at about 7:30ish, pleasantly surprised that I could play in the FIAB. But we had to drop the new car off to be fixed. No fun for me.

I did deposit for the Party bonus last night, and I'll knock it off in the next couple of days or so. I'm afraid that this means I'll have to play limit again. I'll temper the LHE tables with omaha...probably 2 tables of each.

Dogtown and Z-Boys

2005-08-05T12:19:00.000-05:00

I watched Dogtown and Z-Boys last night (not the movie, but the original documentary). I'd wanted to see it for some time, and I finally popped it in really late yesterday evening.

I really like it. The story is amazing to me. These poor kids from a run down beach town really changed the whole world. Some of them became more successful than others, which is sad in some ways. But mostly the story is inspirational. I don't care if you like skating or not, this film is worth your time.

It's the attitude that sticks out most from the movie. These kids were different, and basically made the world deal with them. Together, by pushing each other, they fostered the evolution (creation?) of a sport. What they did is crazy.

I was slightly bothered by the fact that Kelly Peralta, who Directed and wrote the film, was also a subject and frequent contributor to the story. But I'm over that for the most part.

"How long 'till my soul gets it right?"

2005-08-04T14:20:00.000-05:00

I was just googling that quote above to make sure I had it right, and I noticed that it is the title to some "Dummies Guide to Happiness" type of book. Rest assured that I'm not citing some self-help crap. The author of that book stole those words from the same ladies I stole them from.

Work was crazy this morning. I spent all morning downtown before judges, waiting in line, hoping my client was going to show up, etc. Nothing went right...

I had maybe the second worst session of my poker career last night. Much like this morning, nothing went right. The few times I had a big hand, I wound up against a bigger one. I just bought poker tracker, and I'm currently importing hands from Empire. I guess that Stars hands are not compatible with PT? I wish I would have realized that before I bought it. Then I could go back and check to see what in the hell went wrong last night. When I made a hand, I was outdrawn. When I caught a draw, it missed. TPTK was not working. Sets and straights were not working...and don't even get me started with overpairs. I've lost 5 out of my last 6 KK hands. It just won't hold up. It was a bad funk.

Here's the thing - I think that I play poker because I love it. It needs to be fun, otherwise I just cannot justify playing. The trouble is that when you I have a couple sessions like this (this is my second really brutal, brutal session in the past couple of weeks), it just isn't fun. It seems more like a chore, grinding my roll back up to where it was.

I did have fun playing some $12+1 6-player sit and goes. I won the last 2 I played, and I realized how much more art there is to NL. It's just more fun. I'm going to play those and omaha only for a few weeks. First I'm taking a mini-break, wherein I plan on goofing off, spending time with Kim, and maybe do some writing.

I wouldn't mind playing some live poker one night this weekend. Otherwise I think I'll stay away from limit ring games for the next month or so. Look for more NL and omaha discussion in the coming weeks. It's more interesting anyway.

-

During these bad streaks, I begin to wonder if all poker players are by their very nature masochists. Why else would you choose to do something so emotionally taxing as a hobby? Perhaps I play poker as a way to punish myself? Or maybe just to feel something. My job often involves and sometimes requires complete emotional separation. This is often an element of advocacy. Plus, I think that it's my nature to shut off emotions for days and weeks at a time. When poker is running good, I feel good. When it's bad, I feel bad. It's simple, plus it reminds me that I'm alive. Remember Mike Matusow at the 2004 WSOP main event? He basically was asking the same question...why does he do this to himself? It's a critical question. Answering it may be key to minimizing losses during the bad times. I have NO doubt that, the way the cards have turned the past two sessions, I was destined to lose a good amount of money. However, I'm just as certain that I lost more than I should have.

You need to play the same way when you are losing as you play when you are winning. It seems simple. It's obvious, right? But do you do it?

I don't. Yeah, I said it. Maybe a year from now I will be better. Until then I have some work to do. In the meantime, I'm planning on listening to Kim tell me about her new job, watching some bad TV, and listening to my new CDs. Poker won't be going anywhere. And if I miss it too badly, maybe I'll poke myself in the eye with a butter knife to tide me over.

Back to Work

2005-08-01T13:01:00.000-05:00

I don't have night court this week!!! That fact alone makes getting through the week see much less daunting, even from the perspective of a Monday.

I had a really good weekend playing poker. It would have been a great weekend, except for a rough final session on Sunday wherein I dropped about $100 or so. Two very, very bad beats account for about half of that loss. I'll spare everyone the details.

In any event, I cannot complain. Luck was generally on my side this weekend. I even sucked out one or two times - hey, I deserve it occasionally.

I've recently changed my philosophy significantly. Therefore, realizing that my short term results really are not all that relevant, I try not to calculate them. Plus, when I consider them next to the rough few days of last week, everything basically looks like it should.

So when Kim asked me how I did this weekend, I told her that I played well and that things went well. I could tell by the look on her face that she was looking for a dollar amount. But I honestly don't know. I'll plug the session results into the spreadsheet, and see a bottom line number for the year and for the month of July, but I won't bother to calculate the weekend bottom line. I need to stop caring about how much I'm up for the day, or weekend. It shouldn't matter.

Oh, I pulled $100 down to buy CDs. Here's what I ordered.

Utopia Parkway - Fountains of Wayne

This is a replacement CD. I bought it many, many years ago. I only came to love it a couple of years or so after I bought it. Somehow I misplaced the CD. Hence the need to replace it. I cannot go without it any longer.

Libertine - gene

Oh how I love gene. gene is a British rock band, often tagged with the mid-90's Britpop tag. Generally, I don;t agree with that classification. Martin Rossiter, lead singer and lyricist extraordinaire, writes some neat words, while the guitars belt out big, bold tunes worthy of the big ideas. While often melodramatic, gene never seems insincere. This is their charm.

Illinois - Sufjan Stevens

Here's the lone new CD I bought. This guy has embarked on a project to write records about all 50 states. His second stop is Missouri's close neighbor Illinois.

I'm taking a shot with this one. I read the reviews, and it sounds like it might suit me. We'll see.

I'm also eagerly awaiting the newest release from The New Pornographers later this month.

One Bad Hand; Legal Ethics and Poker

2005-07-31T00:27:00.000-05:00

I had a really nice four-hour session today. I made back most of the losses I incurred earlier in the week. Given my recent bout with poor play, I tightened up quite a bit and just focused on coming away with a winning session. It worked. I ran into one trouble hand w/QQ in a 2/4 limit game. I raised preflop from UTG and get one call.

Flop comes AAQ.

I bet and get a call.

Turn is a 9. I bet and get a cold caller from LP.

River is a J, which I did not like at all. But I have a policy of not check-calling with boats. I bet and get a raise. Now what? I three bet and he caps me. He flopped aces full w/AQ. I flopped a boat preflop and was drawing dead. I'm wondering what would have happened had he fast played it the whole way. I'd have a hard time putting him on AQ in that spot.

Also, I read an article in my local paper about some college kids making money over the summer playing poker online, as opposed to the more traditional crap jobs most of us endured. It's guys like 'Tom' in this article who worry me. At the same time, I think that these are the guys that make online poker profitable. Tom admits to going on tilt and losing about $16k in one two-day period. He now "estimates" that he's up about $12k in his poker career. It doesn't take much of an analysis to see some problems with these numbers.

These swings are too wild. Going by the 500 big bet rule, I technically play over my head a bit. But when I start losing substantially, I always adjust by dropping down a level or playing different games. I'm not sure I believe Tom's profit "estimate." This guy's going to get crushed eventually. Although his Barnes and Noble education has gotten him this far, he eventually will run into it. You never hear from the losers online. Someone's stuck. Anyone care to fess up?

These kids are 18. And they are dropping money online...big money. Log on now.

This article, along with the related article, seem to take for granted that online poker is illegal. I personally have some reservations about that broad declaration. Nevertheless, it is and has been the position of the Justice Department that online gambling (yes, this includes poker) is indeed illegal under the Wire Act and various other federal laws, most of which were created well before the Internet Age.

One interesting thing about all of this is related to attorneys. Attorneys generally have a duty to report illegal or unethical behavior by other attorneys that substantially affects their ability to practice law. This occasionally comes up in practice, when one of your clients tells you something terrible another attorney has done or is doing.

I've always pondered what would happen if someone reported an attorney for playing poker online. After all, doesn't violating federal anti-gambling statutes substantially impact their ability to practice law? Or what if this came up during the licensing process? Would a state have a duty to keep a law student from getting his/her license to practice based upon this knowledge? Would it have the right to do so? This could create all sorts of problems, as many attorneys and law students do play online. I'm of the position that attorneys violate neither the law nor any canon of ethics by playing poker online (of course that's my position!). But I envision this becoming an issue at some point.

Running bad, feeling bad

2005-07-29T00:12:00.000-05:00

I've played some lately, with pretty bad results. The limit tables that were treating me well last week have turned on me. I've dropped a few hundred (I'm estimating, maybe slightly less) the past few sessions. There have been a ton of rough cards. Flopped sets have been killing me. I've lost tons of money after flopping sets. Twice recently I flopped an underset, and more times than I can count I've lost to bizzare four flushed boards or terrible straights. Oh well. It happens.

These stretches are typically exacerbated by poor play following the frustration. I'm certainly guilty of that too. I don't steam exactly, but I do play too many hands when I get down. I try to make something happen. It's bad and I know it.

I haven't been feeling well the past couple of days either, which has made work difficult. I went in late this morning because I felt so bad. Plus I had night court yet again. Should I feel bad going in at 11 when I don't get out of night court until 7:30 or later? Anyways, I think it's just some odd summer cold or something. Still I might see a doctor if it doesn't improve. Playing while sick probably isn't a good idea.

Collection Docket

2005-07-27T10:47:00.000-05:00

I was in court this morning for a call docket. Typically, in the particular court I'm speaking of, these dockets are reserved for landlord-tenant matters (evictions), and credit card, utility or loan suits (people didn't pay their bills). It's a depressing thing to see. Before the docket is called, there are a million attorneys running around trying to get paperwork filed before the judge comes out. I've been to several of these dockets before, usually on behalf of people being sued by banks, etc. If you don't show up for the court date, you get hit with the default judgment. Then the plaintiff can, for example, start garninshing your paychecks.

The depressing part is after the docket is called. That's when Defendants, most of whom have no attorney, get beat up by these collection attorneys. Many sign judgments, agreeing to make payments that they will not be able to make, simply because they are intimidated by the courtroom atmosphere, the judge, etc. Try to invision the disparity in bargaining power here: Unsophisticated, low-income, non-lawyers negotiating with an attorney threatening a trial. Once these defendants miss a payment under the agreement (which is often inevitable), then the garnishment starts. I'm representing someone right now who was hammered by this system, and we've represented several others in the past.

I realize that, without this system we may not have loans and credit as we know it. I do appreciate that reality. But it still is depressing. It seems like there's a better way to handle people with problems. Especially the ones who make it to court. They typically care, and want to make things right. But they usually end up being scared and or pushed around, and end up with a bad result.

General Life Update

2005-07-26T23:44:00.000-05:00

Well, poker has been stressful the past couple of sessions, and I have enough stress at work. So I took it easy tonight, and just hung out. I've had to attend night court three of the last four business days, and that gets old fast. Unfortunately, it looks like I have to go again on Thursday night. Yuck. I usually try to go in late or take a couple of hours off on these days. But it's hard this week, because my boss is on vacation, leaving me more responsibility than usual.

Kim and I are quite frustrated in our condo/house search. It's hard shopping for real estate after such a big boom in property value. We're not too impressed with the things we are seeing in our price range. We'll keep looking, though we are somewhat discouraged.

I'll get back to poker shortly I'm sure. But I have a couple of other things I want to get to, so the poker may slow down somewhat. We'll see.

So it was about a year ago...

2005-07-24T22:00:00.000-05:00

when I hopped on a plane with my friends Josh and Joe. We were headed to Vegas to celebrate Josh's bachelor party. Josh was to be married in September, and I was going to be best man. We were meeting a bunch of Josh's other friends in Vegas, and a good time was to be had by all. I had about $500 in my pocket, and I very much expected to blow it all. Drinks and other amusements for the groom were often provided by the best man - or so I'd heard. Basically, I'm not much of a wedding guy.

At this point, I'd been playing hold'em for a few months. Mostly $5 sit and go's on Party. I sucked, but I was too dumb to realize it. I had read some books on hold'em, but I had very little playing experience. By some miracle, I qualified into a $200 limit tourney on Party, and actually cashed in it. In fact, I was involved in a huge pot w/KK, against AQ. This girl kept calling me down, and she rivered the damn A to bust me. Ironically, that moment, back when I didn't have much of a clue, was the closest I've ever been to a really big cash. I've since finished in the top 15 a couple of times in the Stars $10 rebuy, but that's about it.

Anyway, I found some low buy in tournaments at the Luxor, and I decided to give those a shot. I was literally reading Cloutier's book on the plane ride to Vegas. I decided to follow his instructions to the letter. Looking back, I think I now play much differently that Cloutier advocates in his book. But for a novice, his stuff was dead on. Especially for the clowns playing the Luxor tourneys. So I sat down for my first live casino poker experience. I was dealt AA and QQ in the first five hands or so. Cloutier advocated playing those. Each held up. AJ turned to trip jacks a few hands later, crushing some poor soul playing J6, or some other garbage hand.

The beginning of the Luxor tournament was limit, but I just figured I'd hang around the first hour to get to the no limit fun. But the deck hit me in the face. I flopped a set of sixes for a big pot, and turned a nut flush to take another. I stole a lot of blinds by moving in when the second hour came around (I didn't know much else) to take the extremely high blinds. Suddenly I was at the final table. Down to the final 3, my rudimentary knowledge of pot odds told me that I had to push in as the short stack from the big blind with 39 offsuit. The flop came 339 or something as outrageous, and I tripled up against my silly opponents' AK/AQ or whatever junk they had. When we were heads up, I pushed in with K and Q high a few times, and my poor opponent just didn't know enough to call. I won it for $500 or so. It basically paid most of my trip.

I called Kim to tell her about my score, and her first words were "Don't go crazy." I wonder if she'd consider the last year or so 'going crazy'. Anyway, I played the same tourney the next day (Sunday), but busted when we were down to 20 or so. Other than those two events, I didn't play poker in Vegas. There was not much time, and I rightfully questioned my ability to play limit poker and cash games generally. Joe cashed at the Luxor in the Sunday, and he probably would have won the damn thing but not for the luckiest stretch of live cards I've seen in favor of the eventual winner. He sucked out huge against Joe, though I cannot remember the details.

Interestingly enough, I also won a $50 1-table at a local casino with the same 1st hour limit format back in October. Again, I was extraordinarily lucky that day. Maybe I should specialize in that format?

Well, I've learned tons about poker since then. Mostly by making mistakes. I've been trying to teach myself limit poker, and I make mistakes every time I play there. I still feel like a novice. I guess that's why it's fun. Subject to my caveat about being a novice, here are a few things I've learned in the past year or so. Some are specific, some are general. Feel free to debate, criticize, etc.

1. You can learn in strange ways.

For example, I think that you can learn about some games by playing others. I truly believe that playing omaha has really helped my NLHE game. Similarly, playing limit poker has helped my no limit game too. Seeing boards and watching players all comes in handy when putting online players on a range of hands.

Plus, just thinking about the game is helpful. Thus, I often find that I learn by not playing. Taking nights off allows you to absorb some of the key hands from the previous session. This is especially helpful after a couple of losing sessions in a row.

2. Tight Aggressive (as defined by Cloutier and others) will only get you so far.

You need to get creative. Sometimes this means calling off chips preflop with cute hands when the blinds are small. Obviously, this in not always a great idea, but I think it can be helpful to be viewed as a volatile player. Especially if you are playing with people you've played with before. Even in an anonymous multitable tourney, there is definitely some benefit to playing strange hands early. I'm still getting the hang of this myself.

3. Control your stack.

In tournaments, the best players always leave themselves chips when they can. Oftentimes, beginners will simply move all in when they are looking to force a fold. Usually, this is unnecessary, and will result in calls only by monster hands. Always leave yourself an out.

4. Keep it simple when playing low limit poker.

I dare you to get cute at the 1/2 or 2/4 limit level. It will get you broke. At first I wasn't buying Sklansky and Miller's advice in Small Stakes Hold'Em. Now I know better.

5. AK is a monster in No Limit Hold'em. Play it accordingly.

I've become a much better player since adopting this mantra. Calling w/AK is almost always bad. For more on this, see this article.

6. If you are debating between a call or a fold on the river in omaha, folding is almost always the right move.

This is advice that I need to start taking. Be careful about always folding to a scare card, as you could find yourself being taken advantage of. But against unknown players, fold unless you can suss something significant out of their play.

7. The money at the NLHE tournament table often comes from the self-perceived experts.

I was the self-perceived expert a year ago. These are the guys that have read a book (maybe even more than one) and think they know what they are doing. They typically follow Cloutier biblically, or follow him until they lose patience. They are easily tilted, and fold too often. They complain about and dwell upon their bad beats, while ignoring their own poor plays. Unfortunately, these players may be reading Harrington now, which makes them slightly better.
8. Have fun.

When it's not fun, you will not win. Log off or stand up.

9. Embrace tilt.

Not the god awful ESPN show, but the state of anger/emotion after a bad beat. Take the anger, the red-skin, the surge of heat in you belly and make it your own. Each time I feel that sting, I use the surge of adreniline to refocus. I for one cannot brush all of these beats off quickly, especially in a limit game when an opponent makes a miserably incorrect play to take a big pot. But I try to use the anger constructively, as a way to concentrate. If you are still dwelling on a beat more than an hour later, you have a big, big problem. In my opinion, this type of problem, if not overcome, will prevent many players from being profitable. Knowledgable players will get chips in as a favorite, and therefore will be sucked out on more than an average or poor player. Accordingly, good players must deal with this somehow. Else they will not be good players.

Results Post

2005-07-21T22:56:00.000-05:00

I skipped poker yesterday to update my records and generally take a break. I also had night court last night, and tonight. Wonderfully enough, I also have night court next Monday night. Man I have a great job. Anyway, a summary of my first year or so of results follows below.

So I've been playing poker for roughly 14 months. Unfortunately, the first several months, I kept very poor records. Somehow, early in my poker journey I ended up cashing in a big Party 200+15 limit event(I qualified via a LHE satellite...again, I have no idea how I did this) for a good amount of money compared to my initial deposit. I was petrified to have over 400 in my acct., so I promptly pulled half of it down. My guess is that I showed a small profit these first months, though my records are too poor to tell.

I showed about $1400 in profit from Sept through the end of 2004. And so far for this year, I'm up about $3372. This is a hugely disappointing number, if you consider that my goal at the beginning of the year was to profit about 1k each month. I'm obviously way behind that goal. But given the very brutal month of March (this was my first losing month ever - I dropped a little more than $200 for the month, and I was stuck a tad over $100 in April too), I'm really happy to be this far ahead. I was well on my way to having a sparkling March when I went on a tailspin the last 2 weeks of the month, wherein I dropped about $1800. I had to drop down in limits in May, to coax the bankroll back up. May and June were both winners, although I was playing lower stakes so the numbers are not as huge as they could have been (May was +1k, and June about about +540). July has been okay so far, and I'm up about $800.

I've noticed that my profits have mostly been coming from limit poker and pot limit omaha. I'm still ahead overall in tournaments, but not at the same rate as the cash games.

Generally, I'm pleased with the results. I definitely hoped I'd be further ahead right now, but March and April really killed me. I think it was a classic case of building a big bankroll, and playing out of appropriate limits. I played too many bigger tourneys, and too much 3/6. My bankroll just couldn't sustain the swings. But I learned a lesson. I've really learned a lot doing all of this.

I still want to write a more reflective post, but I'm just not up to it right now. I want to do a good job on it.

Reflection and recordkeeping

2005-07-20T12:06:00.000-05:00

I played last night for a couple of hours and had some decent results. I had become sick of omaha lately, mostly because I'd been losing. I had been foolishly playing middle sets to big raises, and calling off too many chips w/weak draws. And when I did have the nuts at the turn, the river was killing me. But last night I played one table and I quadrupled the $25 buy in (on Empire). This was a good reminder of how great and fun these tables can be.

I also spent quite a bit of time last night getting all of my recordkeeping in order. I've documented every dollar spent on poker this year in detail. I also kept records for 2004, although not as detailed.

I recently noticed that I signed up for Netteller about a year ago (early July of 2004). Although I'd played a tad bit before that, the Netteller Acct. signifies my start at PokerStars, and more serious play generally. This has caused me to reflect, and attempt to get everything together, and write up a general post about the past year. I think I am so much better now than 1 year ago.

I've fallen behind updating the spreadsheet (I handwrite all of the results in a notebook) the past few months, and I'm curious to see where I am. So far it looks like July has been okay, although not as good as I thought it had been. Looking at some of the losing sessions in June, I thought I'd certainly post a loss for the month, but I was pleasantly suprised to see I still posted a profit somehow.

So I'm in the process of collecting all of my results from the beginning. It's taking some time because I fell behind the past couple of months or so. Hopefully I'll post them tomorrow.

Tilting over credit report...FIAB

2005-07-18T23:41:00.000-05:00

Kim and I found a condo we loved on Saturday evening, and submitted an offer on Sunday. It was countered, and we were on the brink of accepting...but then comes the trouble.

My credit is not sparkling. College and law school took it's toll. Thus, I have some slow pay issues in the past. That said, I always pay my bills, and there's noting too horrific on the credit reports. However, a few months back, I received a letter from a collection agency about a bogus debt. I felt it was a shakedown, so I wrote a letter (on firm letterhead alluding to a lawsuit) disputing it and requesting removal of the collection from my credit report. I even showed proof that I paid this so-called debt about three years ago. I'd heard nothing about it since. I felt that it was just a mistake. The collection agency sent me a letter dated two weeks ago indicating that they were closing the account and removing the collection from my credit report. Well, as our preapproval was being finalized, I learned that it was not removed from my Equifax report. While this alone will not keep us from getting the loan, it screws things up enough that we're looking at a huge mortgage insurance payment...a prohibitively high amount. I spent the entire day trying to get this fixed. I realize now that Equifax is set up specifically to keep people from calling. Everything defers you to automated telephone lines (order reports or formally dispute your report) or their website. I finally got through to a real person, and the punch line is that going through the dispute process takes months. The collection agency (I may have threatened a lawsuit again...I do it in a nice voice) agreed to get Equifax to remove it, but this takes 72 hours. Amazing. Right now, I'm trying to get a mortgage that makes some sense, but I'm afraid we'll lose the condo in the meantime.

I played the Full Tilt and PokerStars Fish in a Barrel tournaments tonight and cashed in 4th place in the Full Tilt tourny while flaming out fast at Stars. I played in the FT FIAB because Andy Bloch added some extra prizes to the mix for 'top finishers', and I thought it would be fun. Unfortunately, I'm guessing 4th does not qualify me for the top prizes. Oh well, it was fun as always and I basically played terribly.

It's strange how you can play so poorly and still cash in such a tough field. I made a really horrible call against Catgirl, who was the chipleader before running into livingsign-suckout machine. Here's how this played out. I had QQ UTG, and make a standard raise to 300 (blinds 50/100) and cat flat calls two or three seats to my left. The rest of the table folds. I went on a mini run before this, and I think I had about 2.5k in chips, though I cannot remember. Cat has Flop comes TTx rainbow. Seems like a good flop for QQ, so I make a decent (pot sized probably?) bet at it. Cat pushes. I think for a long time, and call. She shows AT (I didn't think she'd call an UTG raise w/AT, or any T for that matter) and I turn queens full for big suckout #1. Later on, I limped from MP w/A5 of diamonds and Catgirl raises from LP to 4 or 5x the BB. She chases them all except me...I felt pot odds compelled a call and that my A was probably good. Flop comes Q99 with two diamonds. I push all in and put Cat to a big decision for most of her chips. She folds pretty fast. Cat chats that she folded AA, and figured I had QQ or a 9. I'm not sure I'd fold AA in that spot to that bet. I'm not that poor a player to push all in w/the virtual nuts (QQ), and I'd have to get somewhat cute if I had a 9 too. Now that I think about it, I basically gave my hand away with the bet. Like I said, this was not my greatest night of poker.

Suckout number two came after I have some big hands hold up and get paid off. I now had a big stack and I was using it. The action folds to me on the button, and I raise w/KQoff. BB pushed all in for about a third of my stack (again, I don't remember) though I remember thinking I was a coin flip against many of his possible hands, so I called. He had AA , I flopped a K, turned trips, and rivered a boat. That was outrageously ugly. I was the chip leader.

Down the final 5, I couldn't get my KK to beat JJ and 88. It's impossible to complain about that, given my good fortune earlier.

Houses and Legal Memoranda

2005-07-15T00:11:00.000-05:00

I've spent the last two work days buried in a big summary judgment response we have due tomorrow. It's basically done, but I know I'll make a zillion stylistic changes at the last minute just because I can. Plus, I have to get the exhibits together. We're a small office, so I cannot just hand that kind of stuff off to some department or document service like a big firm can.

It's odd to have a job where, at least on occasion, I substantively write for a living. By substantively, I mean something more than letters (although I write hundreds of those a month too) or manuals. It's one of the things I do enjoy about my job. There are times where you can construct an argument just right on paper, and it can become more developed in your mind. Sometimes you can even arrive at the truth...or a better argument (is there a difference?). I'm probably one of the few English majors actually getting paid, albeit not much, to write. The rest are selling insurance or telemarketing.

I did leave a few minutes early to go out and look at houses again. We saw one we liked, but I keep coming back to this one we saw on Sunday. I'm having trouble finding a house that I like as much as that one. But we'll keep looking.

Three Straight??

2005-07-14T00:12:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I flamed out fast in the main event of the wptfan.com SOP. I took two pretty rough beats early, and by the time I recovered the blinds had increased and I was short. I got cute with my QQ, limping and hoping the maniac to my left would get crazy with whatever garbage he was playing. Then the pro at the table pushes into the limpers (2 or 3 of us), and I call w/o much thought. He has KK and I'm all but done. So I played in the $3+R into the big one on Stars. I'm still in it right now, currently 4th out of about 39 left. I'll fold into the money, which starts at 37th.

Seriously, this tournament is great. I had some horrible luck early, but I just rebought. Then I had a a couple of amazing developments. I raised on the button w/QQ, and the big blind (we both had about 50k at this point which was well above par) reraised big. I pushed in, and he goes into the tank. He eventually calls off nearly the rest of his stack with K6 offsuit. He does not improve, and suddenly I'm third in chips.

That this guy could compile a top 10% stack in this tournament should tell you everything you need to know. Everyone trying to build a bankroll should consider these. I played in one last tuesday, invested $12, and took the $215 tourney dollars. Same $12 investment on Monday of this week also netted me the $215. Tonight it took $15 to get the $215. $39 to $645 is not bad, although each tournament takes about 4 hours unfortunately.

Yet another $3+ Rebuy win

2005-07-12T13:47:00.000-05:00

Well, night court was fun last night. The judge told me I was lucky he didn't throw my client in jail. I didn't feel so lucky when he continued the case to yet another night court appearance in about a month. I really love night court. Oh well...it's better than the client going to jail.

Last Tuesday I played in the $3 + rebuy into the $215 PokerStars tourney, and managed to win pretty easily while playing in the WPTfan.com SOP event. Last night I played in the wptfan FIAB, chooing to skip the WPTfan SOP 7-stud h/l event (I'd be dead money for sure). I placed third in the FIAB, taking the first $ spot. And I managed to take yet another $3+rebuy at the same time. Early on in the $3, people were literally just handing me chips. That is a great tournament. I was quite lucky when I sucked a 6-outer out on the river in a key spot, and after that I basically cruised to the finish line.

Now...I'm playing a pretty decent no-limit game right now. Do I play in the tournament on Sunday, or take the tourney dollars? What do you think?

Monday again

2005-07-11T13:47:00.000-05:00

Sunday nights are always rough, especially when you know that Monday morning is going to be bad. I had to make a long drive to Court this morning, and after loads of paperwork and phone calls, I'm off to night court tonight. Ugh. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I decided to give law school a whirl. I'm honestly wondering why I ever entered this profession.

It's not that I think it's a really bad job or anything. There is no question that it can be lucrative, and maybe even fun for some people. But I am very worried that I am not one of those people. I'm as broke as I was during law school, and I'm more stressed out than I've ever been. Something's not quite right about that. I'm learning quite a bit, but with each thing I learn, I further question my decision to enter the profession in the first place.

I played some poker on Sat. I used some of my PokerStars tourney dollars to play in the $20 omaha and NLHE events. I went fairly deep into the NLHE, but I busted late with my ill-advised push at the big blind w/KQo. He woke up with AA, and Out I went. I cleared the latest party bonus though, and also showed a decent profit above the bonus. That's good. Generally, the cash games have been decent the past week or so. I had a rough session last night. I misplayed two big hands (I'll post one especially bad play if I can retrieve the history), and ran into some rough luck too. But I went on a mini run, and was only stuck $30 or so for the session. Not bad considering how poorly I played, and how bad the cards came down.

House hunting?

2005-07-07T12:47:00.000-05:00

I can hardly believe it, but Kim and I will be out looking at houses this evening. It's crazy. We have several on our list, and I guess we'll hit as many as possible tonight. It's very scary to me for some reason...it must be the prospect of a 30 year house payment. But it would be a great step financially. Wish us luck.

I had another winning session last night, albeit a super short one. I deposited the max onto Party (bonus time) and already cleared 300 of the 700 hands 4-tabling. I about doubled up at two PLO tables, but I should have done even better. Here was the killer hand that cost me about $50.

I'm dealt 4478, suited one way. I limp. I used to fold these hands all the time, but after reading a certain book (How's Your Pot Limit Omaha?)and thinking about Party's new betting structure, I tend to play junk like this if I can limp. A bunch of callers, no raises. Perfect. Flop is 456 rainbow. Not bad. It checks to me, and I check. The button bets the max - about $3. I'm the only caller (I should have raised, although I'm not sure it would have mattered). Turn is a high card, which is also the second spade on the board (I don't have spades). I check and the button bets the max (about $9-10)...I raise the max with the current nuts and a strong redraw to the boat. He raises all in (only a few dollars more). River is a spade, and he turns over 23xx, with a three high spade flush. Wow. If my hand holds (or gets better) I take that $50 pot. As it was, I still left that table as a decent winner...but it stings.

No Limit, No Problem

2005-07-06T11:26:00.000-05:00

I guess I needed to get back to basics in order to break out of the slide...back to good old fashioned no limit.

I started out playing no limit hold'em, and I guess it's probably my best game. Last night was event #9 of the wptfan.com SOP, and I figured I'd give it a whirl. I picked up a pot or two early, and hung around the 2k mark for several rotations. I picked up AA, and reraised an early position raise. Unfortunately my opponent folded, and I was upset I didn't try the stop and go. Oh well. Later, I was involved in some pots with catgirl, and she beat me up pretty good in each of them. After we check-checked a rag flop (I had big cards), she didn't believe my turn bet, and popped me with a raise. After a similar failed bluff into my feline friend, I found myself very shortstacked. Fortunately, KK found me. I pushed all in under the gun, and only took blinds and antes. Damn. Next hand, AA in big blind. A late position raiser pushed w/QJ and I more than doubled. I move tables, and a few hands later it folds to SB who pushes my big blind w/T7off. I wake up w/KJ, which holds. I'm suddenly in the thick of it. A couple of continuation bets went wrong at the final table, but I still finished in the $$ despite being the short stack on the bubble ( only 5 paid). I went out fourth, my AQ vs 88.

At the same time, I was playing in the $3 + rebuy to the $215 tourney. I wound up winning, and getting the $215 tourney dollars. I was only in jeopardy once in this thing. I made some novel plays here and there...but I rarely showed down a hand at the end. People were hanging on...and rightfully so. The big hand was my button push w/99, into the chipleader's AQ in BB. He flopped a Q, and I was in trouble. A nine on the river doubled me, and I decided not to play another hand. I was top 15 (31 get in), and we all qualified a few rotations later.

Running Bad

2005-07-04T22:24:00.000-05:00

I was running pretty bad a couple of weeks ago, but last week things turned around. My bankroll was way down, and everything seemed to be going wrong. I really was not playing well at all. But then I slowed down, took a mini break, and went on a nice run last week. I put together five straight winning sessions playing low limits, and I was winning at both the limit hold'em and the pot limit omaha tables.

But i took a ridiculously bad beat at the PLO table (just a silly 5.50 S&G on Stars) - probably the worst beat I've ever seen at omaha. Since that moment, I've run into some really tough luck. I'm careful not to just blindly blame bad luck when I am running bad. Usually, it's a combonation of bad luck and bad play...usually coming in that sequence. But I cannot think of any terrible plays lately. I've been getting in with the best of it, but the hands aren't holding up. It's been omaha that's killing me. I've actually been winning at the LHE tables, but still losing overall the past two days.

I'll spare everyone running through all of the bad beats, although I have complied several. Tonight I managed to get this ultra aggressive, big-headed goofball committed to a $100 pot pre flop, w/my AA double suited, against his QQA6 (suited one way). The flop brought two sixes, and he took it. I had about $50 in front of me, and he had about $60. I cannot believe he called w/QQ there. Anyway, he proceeds to heckle me - "Please reload fish," he says. Ahh, it's fun to be kicked while down.

Right after this, in another 5.50 S&G on Stars (these are the only omaha S&Gs that fill) I lost when I spiked a set of aces on a flop of AQ5, with two hearts. This smart guy called my all in, near pot sized bet with 6789(all hearts). This is stupid for many reasons. but he hit a runner-runner straight to knock me out.

Last night, I raised w/ double suited KK preflop, and hit yahtzee on a K55 flop. I played it slow, and made a small bet on the meaningless turn. I only get one caller, in the already big pot. River is a blank, and I bet out the pot. I am raised, and I push all in. My opponent calls and shows quads. This is not a bad beat by any means, but given that I would not fold that hand under any circumstances, it's pretty bad luck to catch it against a better monster.

Party has another reload bonus, and my goal was to get my Empire acct up to $500 again to fully take advantage. I was close, but I've since lost about $150, thanks mostly to the two hands above. I need to put something together just for my state of mind...I'm in one of those places where I'm just waiting for the bad cards to come. It's not good, and it's the worst part of poker. I'll work through it.

Plus or Minus EV

2005-06-29T16:13:00.000-05:00

I'm very much looking forward to watching the WPT Championship tonight. I'm especially curiious to see how they handle the now infamous KJ laydown by Hasan Habib against Tuan Le. They may not even show it.

Plus or Minus EV

+EV: Phil Ivey

Ivey takes his fifth bracelet (wow) in the 5k pot limit omaha rebuy tourney. Notice that the cream rises to the top in the WSOP PLO tournies, as pros (Arieh, Grenstein, and now Phil) have one each one. From what I saw, Greenstein sucked out about every conceivable way to win, but whatever.

+EV: Jennifer Tilly

She just outlasted a ton of pros to take the Ladies NLHE WSOP title. Maybe now we can all forgive her for that last Chuckie movie.

+EV: Maria Sharapova

Recently named the richest female athlete by Forbes, Sharapova also and made the semis of Wimbledon again. Not bad.

+EV: Ronald Reagan

In what I guess was an internet vote by the American people, Ronald Reagan was recently selected as the greatest American ever over the likes of Martin Luther King, JFK, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also cracked the top ten somehow.

-EV: Internet Voting and the American People

See above.

Quick poker post

2005-06-29T00:21:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what is going on, but I cannot put a winning limit hold'em session together right now to save my life. Thankfully, my pot limit omaha game has been good lately. I'm finding that my ability to make big laydowns has a direct correlation to my success rate at PLO. So, while my PLO game has been great (and profitable) the past few days, I've lost it all back and more playing limit hold'em. I'm taking a break from limit, and I'm going to play some PLO tourneys on Stars, along with the cash games on PP. I'll leave the limit for another day. I know I'm making some mistakes, and they are only compounded by some brutal beats I've taken. I lost another huge pot w/QJ. I flopped the nut straight, and the betting capped all the way to the turn. The turn and river were running threes, and I lost to a boat (I check called the river of course). This fool flopped his set, and never thought that he might not have the best hand.

It's getting late, and I have to be in court at 8AM. Ugh. Look for a fun post tomorrow afternoon.

"As the flames rose to her Roman nose and her iPod started to melt."

2005-06-28T00:17:00.000-05:00

Tournament heartbreak. Warning...bad beat stories ahead.

By playing cash games, I have managed to keep out of the tournament torture that comes with being sucked out on. I've been playing seriously for over a year now, but I still take some of these hard. I had a nasty bout of cracked aces last Friday (right before we went to the casino) in my mini step 3 on Party. And then tonight, I was playing in the $10 PLO + rebuy tourney on Stars, as it was running concurrent to the WPTfan SOP PLO event (I went out in that one with top pair, overcards, and a wrap draw. Couldn't get top two pair to fold and I should have known).

I took a huge suckout, when I flopped a broadway wrap draw (flop was KQx, and I had A, J, 10, x). I was in position, and it checked to me. I decide to see a free card, and check behind. Turn is a 10, giving me the nuts. Goofball, under the gun, bet the max and I push him all in. He shows his quite poorly played top set (KKK), rivers a Q, and doubles up. Ouch for me. I would have been the chipleader.

I managed to scrape up with some decent plays here and there, usually avoiding showdowns. I finally was healthy again, when on the bubble, I pick up a double suited AAT8, and bet the max. Crazy big stack calls from BB. Flop is mostly innocuous. But this guy bets out of position. I call. Turn is a 10, which pairs me, but is otherwise a brick. I call another pot sized bet, leaving me with only about 11k in chips, with a pot of about 30k. River is an 8, double pairing me. I'm placed all in. I think long and hard, use all my time bank and call. He shows a pair of fours, and I'm in the thick of things again.

I finally make it to the 2nd tier of $, when I'm dealt AA double suited from EP. I'm somewhat short stacked, and I make a pot bet. Crazy chipleader calls. Flop is J10x rainbow. I push all in for about 15k. Getting about 2 to 1, this guy calls me with AQ with no pair. Turn is a ten (this actually helped me), river is one of his four outs (king) and I'm out. I was really, really mad. I made some of the best laydowns in this tournament. I played so well. But I never sucked out on anyone, and I just could not get these big pots to hold. It is frustrating. (See result e-mail below).

Mix CD

7. The Boy with a Thorn in his Side - The Smiths

I recently slid by the latest copy of Spin at the library, and noticed that it had formulated yet another list - the 100 greatest albums 1985 to now. When I saw that, I immediately thought of two records. One was The Queen is Dead by the Smiths and the other was OK Computer by Radiohead. OK Computer was #1, and The Queen is Dead was #5 I think. The Boy with a Thorn in his Side is my favourite song from The Queen is Dead. The quote in the title of this entry is actually from the song Bigmouth Strikes Again, another song from this record, as updated my Morrissey himself in his most recent tour stops. As Spin notes, Morrissey need not update too much of this music. Pop this music in the iPod today, and it seems like as fresh a response to the Killers and the Bravery, as it did 20 years ago to Duran Duran or Tears for Fears.

PokerStars Tournament #9361000, Pot Limit Omaha
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00
215 players
Total Prize Pool: $7600.00
Tournament started - 2005/06/27 - 20:30:00 (ET)

Dear livingsign,

You finished the tournament in 16th place.
A $91.20 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 73.71 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at
http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

"Say cheerio to books now, the only things I'll read are faces."

2005-06-27T13:55:00.000-05:00

I was out until about 4AM on Friday with my friends Josh and Joe playing cards at our local casino. After about 3 hours of play, I was up a whopping $11. Joe did much better, showing a decent profit for the evening. My biggest hand was with 59 offsuit. Yes, that is correct. Here's a question for everyone: 3/6 limit hold'em, you are dealt 59 offsuit in the small blind. Your table is fairly normal (i.e., loose), and you have four limpers in front of you. What do you do? Well, I called figuring I was getting about 8 to 1 on the call. I flopped trip 5s, and I checked and called with two others. I turned a boat with the 9, and I checked. Woman to my left checked (I so wanted her to bet, because I can probably raise there if it's called behind her), and this other guy bet with position. I just called and induced this woman to call. River is harmless, and I decide to bet out of position(anyone check here? I thought it was too risky to check.). Both call and I take a big pot.

That hand put me back up (I took some tough beats to go from $150 to $70) and I walked away shortly thereafter. It was nice getting home at 5AM, and not waking up until noon. I have not slept that late in a long time.