Ramblings of a Poker Knight
Oct. 4th, 2004
04:34 pm - "Poker's just about the worst mistress to have."
Real Job's been a bit crazy lately, so I've only been able to get out and play once. It was an interesting trip, both in self-awareness and skill development. The actual evening wasn't anything major to speak of - just straight $3-6 kill with a full table for almost the whole time, but there were a couple of situations that let me work on setting up a deliberate tell.
A deliberate tell, for those of you who haven't heard me babble on about them, is something you do to take advantage of an experienced player in a low-limit game. They work two ways, although I usually only use them one way. Let's take last Saturday, for example. I sat down at the aforementioned $3-6 kill table, and my first hand was AT suited. Not an amazing start hand, but playable. I limped in for the flop, and the flop came TTT. Finding myself the proud owner of quads, I decided it was time to try out setting up a deliberate tell. I started bobbing my head ever so slightly, like I was listening to music in headphones. Of course, the betting after the flop was non-existant - no one wanted to get trapped. The turn came K, and the first guy bet. One other guy called, but the rest of the table folded around until it got to me. I kept bobbing my head and smooth-called the bet. The river was a 7, and the first guy bet again. The second guy folded, and I raised. He re-raised, and I capped it. He turned over KQ and smiled, then abruptly stopped smiling when he saw the case T.
Played another 30 minutes or so until I decided it was time to see if the deliberate tell worked. I had crap - literally, like 73 offsuit - and limped in for the flop. The flop came 995, and I started my head bob again. Once again, the hand checked around to the turn, and the turn was a K. The SB bet, and everyone folded to me. I raised, and the SB stopped, looked at me for about 10 seconds, and folded.
Let me stress that for this to work, you need several things to happen. It's not a sure thing, nor will you always see the setup for it, but when you do it can be worked for a pot an hour or so. You need:
1. Observant opponents. This does no good if the people at your table are so busy watching SportsCenter on the TV that they aren't watching you. This work specifically well on the type of player you'll see more and more frequently, which I call the "Poker Book Expert". This is the guy who's watched the WSoP on ESPN, read a book or two, maybe played a little online, and who is nowhere near as good as he thinks he is. They can be distinguished in the wild by their conservation during play - "I don't know *HOW* you thought you could call my bluff on the turn when I'm representing trip queens!", their banter between hands - "So, I was at the Mirage poker room in Vegas last weekend, and I decided to follow Hellmuth's advice about top ten hands on the button when facing a raise and re-raise. Man, that Hellmuth's an idiot.", and their overall attitude about the game - "There's nothing I hate worse than a river rat!" When that guy "catches" your tell, he makes it a matter of pride to take it seriously. You can run him out of pots almost at will with it, and he'll think to himself "Man, that guy caught the nuts *again*! I'm so glad I picked up on his tell and didn't get suckered in!"
2. A monster hand/the nuts, *to showdown*: That's the trick. You have to catch a monsternormous hand and slowplay it to the river. In this case, you want a showdown more than you want more money, because it's an investment - not getting an extra $10 in bets will net you $30-50 in pots later from folds. Get the hand, start your "tell", and slowplay it to death. When you turn it over and drag the pot, the first thing a decent opponent will do is think "What did I learn there?" If he's paying attention, he'll have noticed the head bob/foot tap/finger tap/whatever, and catalog it in his mind as a tell. Just make sure it's not too obvious a thing. If you lean back and stretch as your tell, that can be taken as acting. Make sure it's minor enough to be written off as nervousness and major enough to be seen. That's why I use the head bob, because it's so slight that it's easy to be seen, but the person doing it can be totally unaware they are. it also helps to come across as a poker newbie. I don't mean ask silly questions or bet wrong or anything like that - I mean just play quietly. If you try to pretend to be a rookie, you're more likely to set off warning signals than anything else. Playing quiet in a low level game can easily be written off as a new guy who's not completely sure of what he's doing.
3. A sense of subtlety. This is the hardest part. Some people can be subtle, some cannot. If you're not a subtle person, this won't work for you. =)
So, ended up about $25 down when I left - played fine, just wasn't catching cards. Planning to go back out this weekend with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
trelana assuming I can get free of work. =)
Winnings this week: $-25
Winnings so far: $-72
Sep. 24th, 2004
03:51 pm - ...and somedays the bear gets you.
As foretold, a couple of friends from work and I headed down to the Muckleshoot (what an amazing name - Muckleshoot. It just sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Try it - Muckleshoot. Muuuuckleshoooot. It's almost theraputic.) to play in a decent sized tournament. Buy in was $45, with unlimited $20 re-buys for the first hour if you dropped below $300 and a final $20 add-in at the end of the first hour. In my experience, unlimited rebuys is a polite term for "people losing their damn minds", and it was the same at this one. People going all-in with J4o, re-re-raising with K9o, and the usual madness. I just stayed low, only bet top-five, and got the hell out of the way. Ended up getting AKo, played it, called an all-in (before the flop, natch), and got beat by their ATs with a runner flush, so I did my rebuy and went back to my foxhole. Made it through the first hour with about $2200 (started with $1500), plus the $1000 off the add-in that everyone bought. Once the post-rebuy era started, people started playing a little more poker and a little less KABOOM!!!
I wasn't getting great cards - just lots of marginals with big stacks downhill. I'd bet $100 on a KQo, and you could be positive that a $15k stack downhill would raise to $1500. Yes, I knew I was just being run out, but I couldn't call - I didn't have the artillery. Finally, I got Emmitt Smith and decided to play it, but the big stack decided to call my all-in with K5o. When the flop came K74, I started getting my stuff together, and it didn't get any better. I finished roughly 60-ish in a 121 person field, so woo halfway. =)
Got lucky out on the craps tables, though. I was waiting for the last friend from work to get knocked out (he finished 37-38ish), I pulled out $60 from the Magic Money Machine and decided to roll a little dice to kill the time. My luck was apparently still around, because I won $175 in about 10 minutes. So, in terms of the bankroll, I'm down $47, but in terms of the overall money spent, I'm up $20 or so.
Gotta take it where you can get it. =)
Winnings this week: $-47
Winnings so far: $-47
Sep. 23rd, 2004
10:56 am - On again, off again, WAY off again.
When we last left our intrepid hero, he was making plans to go boldly (Star Trek got it wrong, because you're not supposed to split infinitives) forth and play in a $50+5 tournament followed by a bit of ring game goodness. I'm sure you've all been waiting blah blah blah.
Here's what happened.
A friend from work and I headed up to Everett for their Monday night $50+5 tournament. It's a straight NL Texas Hold'Em tourney with $2500 in tourney chips. In my previous performances in this tournament, I've finished 5th, 9th, and was the first one out (99, 9KQ flop, all-in called, he had KQ, caught Q on the turn), so I felt good about it. My friend from work (who we'll call Wayne, since that's his name) has a decent amount of tourney experience as well, so I figured we'd do alright. We both ended up at the same table (only 18 people showed up, due to the glory that is Monday Night Football), and we both basically sat there and folded for the first 30 minutes. I caught KQs one hand, but two people went all-in in front of me, so into the muck *that* went. Was finally able to play a few hands, and made it to the final table. I'd held the chip lead for a little while of the final table, and we were down to 5 people. The top 3 were getting paid, so I'd settled into what I call the Patton Poker Theory, or "Let the other poor dumb bastard bet all of *his* chips".
I was well on my way to profit by not getting involved when fate dealt me a pair of 5's. I'm a sucker for low pairs if I can limp in for the "Surprise, trips!" factor. I was on the button, no one raised, so I figured I'd toy with them a bit. I raised 3x, and the SB and BB both folded. The last guy in the hand (who was the chip leader by about $500) thought for a second, then called.
Before I move on, let me describe the guy who stayed in. He was wearing black jeans, a black leather jacket, and those big black sunglasses that are designed to fit around regular glasses - the kind you see grandma wearing when she's out for her Sunday drive - but he wasn't wearing regular glasses underneath them. He stacked his chips constantly in different patterns and styles, and tended to mutter little phrases to himself when he played a pot. Just a leeeeetle bit off, I'd say. The people at the start of the tourney kept calling him Darkman, so I figured he'd been around awhile. Watching him, he had a distinct pattern of aggressive play.
The flop came AKK rainbow, which made my stomach sink. I figured there was no way he didn't have an A or K if he called a 3x bet before the flop. I decided to throw a small-medium bet and wait for the raise to see where I was at. However, he just called. The turn was a rag, so I thought for a minute. I'd seen him earlier with a similar hand (JJK, and he had a K), and he was betting from the get-go. In fact, I didn't remember ever seeing him slowplay, checkraise, or anything of the sort. Given all this, I put him on a small pair (like me) coasting, trying to catch one on the board for a boat. So, I decided to run him out by going all-in. I figured that if he did have a small pair and was coasting, he'd run screaming, putting me on aces and kings. He thought for a long while, said "Time to gamble, time to gamble, time to gamble", and called, turning over Q8o.
Q8o.
Let me type that again, so you can get the full feeling of it.
Queen. Eight. Offsuit.
I grinned, seeing that I was way, way up in the hand - any card but an eight or a queen was a win for me. So, of course, the river was a queen.
I realize that the all-in was a sketchy bet, but given his previous history, I was fairly certain he didn't have an ace or a king. Also, my betting was representing having an ace or a king. And I was right, but Lady Luck kicked me in the jimmy. If I had it to do over again, I'd have folded out and just folded everything until I was in the money, but I saw an opportunity to double up and got burned. Such is life.
As the people who read this journal regularly know, I tilt. A lot. What I should have done was walk away after the tourney, gone home, and watched TV or something. So, of course I sat down at a $2/$4 ring game and proceeded to play on tilt for 2 1/2 hours, losing $100 in addition to the $55 from the tournament. So, all in all, not a good night.
Fortunately, I made my money back over the last two nights online, with 3 $5+1 in the money finishes night before last and 4 in the money finishes last night (including a $30+3 win for a $150 prize), which put me back up slightly. The logical part of my brain says that I need to just play online and grind out cash.
So I'm going to Muckleshoot tonight for a $25+rebuy NL tourney. Never said I was smart. =)
Winnings this week: $38 ($37 from Sunday, -$155 on Monday, $27 on Tuesday, $129 on Wednesday)
Winnings so far: $38
Sep. 20th, 2004
11:09 am - Poker in the woods, poker on the net
In addition to my poker addiction, I also play a LARP known as Amtgard. This last weekend, there was an event known as Pacific War, or PacWar for short. It was a weekend-long camping event where we headed out to the mountains of Central Washington to freeze our collective geeky asses off and beat each other with foam sticks.
All in all, it was a good time. However, in another sign that poker is slowly encroaching on all parts of civilization, there was a PacWar No-Limit Texas Hold'Em tournament, with a whopping $5 buy-in. The tournament was a fundraiser for the new land that's forming up here, so the winner split the proceeds with the land. There were 9 entries, so a $25 prize was there for the taking. (woo!)
Since this was: A. a fundraiser, and B. in the middle of the damn woods with a bunch of LARPers, I didn't take it too seriously. I played hands I'd normally fold, and just generally had fun. There was one hand that will stick out (to me, at least) as the defining hand of that tournament. It requires an explanation, though....
I'd read in one of my poker books (I think it was Hellmuth's book) that he knew someone who would always play the first hand he sat at a table completely blind, as in not looking at his hole cards at all. He did it to portray the image of a "wild and crazy" player, since he almost always lost - he'd cap the betting each round and play the whole hand through to the showdown. People would invariably play weaker hands than they'd normally play, assuming they'd be able to beat him easily. The guy just bet (and lost), then played supertight for the rest of the night, so when he did get a hand, he always got callers because of his crazywild play earlier. He'd do it and the money he made off of sketchy calls to him more than made up for the losses on the first hand. I read that and thought it was a bit off. However, I too am a bit off, so it sounded like a good plan.
The tourney started, but the betting was low - everyone started with $1125 in chips with $1/$2 blinds, and people would run screaming from a $10 bet. After a couple of passes, the blinds went to $2/$4 and I decided it was time to shake things up a bit.
I was in the small blind, and when the dealer (the ever-so-wonderful ellyonna) passed me my cards, I made a decent-sized show of placing them under my chips without looking at them. People looked at me like I was just crazy, and almost everyone called. The flop came Ts-5d-Ks, and the bet went to $5. I raised it to $10, and got stares with the occasional "I think Trey's lost it." comment. The turn came 4s, leaving the flush possibilities wide open, and Matt (aka Dogboy, which is its own story) bet $50. Everyone folded to me, and I called, leaving us heads-up. The river came Th, and he bet $100. I figured he had the flush, but it was worth losing the $162 to get the table's opinion of me to "crazy bastard", so I called. He turned over A7 of spades and yelled "Nut flush, baby!" I picked up my cards, looked at them, and turned over... pocket fives for the fives full of tens boat. Matt looked like I'd shot him with a 12 gauge - just sort of slumped in his chair for a minute before starting to question my parentage and social upbringing in a colorful way. The rest of the table stared at me in shock.
So it backfired...kind of. However, any time I bet for the rest of the night, I got action - I don't remember a single time that I bet where someone didn't call me up until the end. Ended up going heads-up against the chip leader for most of the night, and he had about $6400 to my $1700 with blinds at 800/1600 and increasing every other hand. I stole a couple of blinds, then went all-in on a marginal hand because I'd been getting crap for the last 6 hands. Got lucky as hell and paired up to beat him, then just blinded/bet him out for the win. It was a lot of fun, but I don't think I'll be trying the blind hand trick again anytime soon.
Got home and played a little bit online with trelana, playing 3 $5+1 sit'n'go tourneys. Got stomped in the first one, 3rd in the second, and won the third for a total of $17 profit. Not bad, even though trelana kept questioning my parentage. =)
This week, I'm off to the Everett Silver Dollar, and maybe the Tulalip Casino for some $3/$6 or $4/$8. There's a friend of mine in town from Houston who's as big of a poker junkie as I am, so we're sure to get some cards somewhere. =)
Winnings this week: $37
Winnings to date: $37
Sep. 15th, 2004
01:01 pm - New avatar =)
Mad props to thalen for the cool new avatar. He gets $10,000 when I win the World Series of Poker. =)
10:17 am - Online poker, or the Evil that is Pineapple
I got started by gambling online. It was a simple thing at first - I felt like playing some cards, so I set up an account on PokerRoom.com because I saw one of their ads. At first, it was play money, and I made about $25,000 in about 2 months. I finally decided it was time to play for real, so I deposited $50 and played a few games...and lost it all. Undaunted, I deposited $50 more....and lost it all. At this point, the smart person says "Hey, maybe this isn't my thing..."
But not me. Ooooh, no.
I started playing tournaments, and discovered I'm pretty good at those. Given everyone having equal stacks, I can usually finish in the top 3 and win a little money. I don't win like someone who's good at ring games or live money, but positive yardage = good. So, you think, you play nothing but tournaments now, right? Since you can't win a ring game to save your life. And the answer to that question is, unfortunately, no. I'm not smart enough to walk away from ring games, so it's a see-saw - win $100 at a tourney, turn around and lose $100 in a ring game. It's sort of like the Circle of Life, but without the damn monkey holding up the lion cub.
So last night (about 5 hours before the Official Start of my Poker Career™), I got online to play a bit of cards. I was only going to play $20 or so, just to unwind. Then trelana hops on and tells me about this site she plays on, called Paradise Poker. I figured I'd give it a try, so I logged on and created an account. Uh oh - minimum buy-in is $50. trelana offered to front me $25 to play, and I accept. We head over to a $5+1 tournament, but because of some mistiming we weren't able to sit in on the same tournament. So with me in my tourney and her in hers, I win $10 and she wins $15. Not a bad start. Then the darkness came.
Okay, that's a little too dramatic. Basically, trelana tells me about this Hold'Em variant called Pineapple. It's the same game as Hold'Em, but you get 3 pocket cards instead of two, and you discard one of your pocket cards after the flop. Sounded easy and fun enough, so me and my big $29 bankroll sat down at a $1/2 table to give it a try.
And I lost it all in like .5 seconds. Seriously. It was like my money left with Nicolas Cage behind the wheel and Angelina Jolie looking hot in the passenger seat. I was betting legit hands, too - pocket kings beat by a straight, a flopped straight beat by a flush, and a nut flush beat by a full house. Boom. Boom. BOOM! I mean, I know I go on tilt, but good lord. There's tilting, and there's getting hit by a truck. trelana, like the crack dealer she is, offered to spot me another $25 to play. A sane man would have said "Sure, but let's play something else."
Me? Oh, come on. You ought to know me better than that by now. I said "Nope, we can stay here. I need to learn this game." I simply refused to be beaten in a game named after a fruit.
So of course, I lost the other $25 in like, .7 seconds. Maybe that money was being driven by Giovanni Ribisi or something. I don't know. Regardless, I was now $50 in the hole and done for the night. And, after a bit of soul searching, I decided that that $50 doesn't count towards the bank roll. My reasoning is: A) it wasn't the 15th yet. B) I didn't actually spend any money - I owe $50 to trelana, and C) no game with the name of a damn tropical fruit is going to count towards my money.
I think that's fair.
Bankroll: $500, dammit.
Win/loss: $0.00
Sep. 14th, 2004
12:53 pm - First post
I decided to create this journal because I didn't want to spam the 5.25 people who read my regular journal with my poker mumblings. Yes, I'm a junkie, but those people shouldn't be forced to read "OMG WTF BAD BEAT" every other day. So here you can read my successes (few), my failures (many), and my stories (somewhere between few and many). In addition, I'm going to keep a running tally at the end of each post with my current bankroll and win/loss numbers. That way, I can look back in a few years and know where all the money went. Since this is a new venture, I feel compelled to start anew. Therefore, I'm allocating $500 that'll be a separate bank account strictly for poker, and all winnings and losses will go into that pool. Since I'm starting today and thus have no current witty stories to tell, I shall regale you with an older possibly-witty story.
I was playing in a regular old tournament in a little poker room north of Seattle a few months ago. It was a no limit Hold'Em $50+5 buy-in with about 25-30 people - a bit steep, but I had my Poker Jones™ on so it didn't really matter. I like this poker room, mainly because the waitresses keep your drink full and the dealers are nice people instead of robots. I got settled in with my usual (a Coke, because I'M WILD LIKE THAT), got my $2500 in tournament chips, and start getting my head in the game.
Let me cover the whole premise of "getting my head into the game". I'm a relative neophyte to the world of serious poker, but I'm a quick learner. My main weakness is that I go on tilt faster than a pinball machine with a broken leg. If I catch a bad beat from some clueless guy who caught runner-runner to a flush to beat my flopped nut straight after I capped it every single time, then I'm gone. Blown. As in, everyone wave bye-bye to PK's chips. Welcome to Tiltsville, population me. It's a flaw, and one that I'm aware of and am working to correct. However, at this point it's still an issue. Therefore, I take a moment or two at the beginning of every game I sit into to relax and center my thoughts a bit. I call it getting my Zen.
So I took a moment to get my Zen and the first hand was dealt, blinds at 25/50. My rule of thumb for the first hand in a tournament is to only play top ten hands, regardless of position. This is mainly to avoid suicide bombers who see the first hand as Their Big Chance. They go all-in in an attempt to either double up or leave early, and what usually happens is they give some lucky player with a great first hand a rack of extra chips. You'll either see those, or the mega-aggressive "I'm going to control this table right now!" players who likes to bellow "ALL IN" while glaring at anyone still in the pot. Either way, I don't really like rolling the dice against them unless I have some pretty heavy artillery. So this particular first hand, I get TT. Ordinarily, I'd raise these from pretty much anywhere, but I'm in second position, so I decide to play it safe and call to see what everyone's mood is. The guy under the gun folds, I call, the next 3 people fold, and a large gentleman in a (I kid you not) cowboy hat raises to $100, proclaiming "It's time to gamble, boys!" in a West Texas accent. (I grew up in Texas, so I know the different Texas accents - yes, there is a difference.) The lady next to him folds, and the SB looks at him for a second before folding as well. The BB just shakes his head and folds.
I called the raise to go into the flop. The flop comes 9-2-7 rainbow, which was about as good as I could have hoped for, since sets avoid me like the plague. I bet $250, and he just called. The turn comes with a 4, so I figured it was time to run him out. I bet $500, which he just called again. I was beginning to worry about a slowplay from him, but he just didn't seem the type to slowplay. I put him on nines with a high kicker. The river comes with a 6, no flush possibilities, and a crazy-man straight possibility. Unfortunately, I've seen people get those straights, so I was a bit wary. However, if this guy called $750 of my bets with 58, then I was screwed regardless. If he had 35 and the straight on the turn, then he should have raised me on the turn. After about 30 seconds of thought, I decided I was right the first time - he had nines with a high kicker. I bet $500 again, fully expecting a call through to showdown.
I was wrong.
"Allllll in!", West Texas Cowboy yelled. I was more than a bit surprised, because I just couldn't figure out what the hell he was doing. I'm not a poker expert at all, so I was worried there was something I was missing, a hand he had that I couldn't conceive. I started to try to look at it from his point of view - I'd bet decent amounts, not huge but not small either. I finally decided he had me on nines with a high kicker as well, so I put him on A9, with him thinking that either I had A9 as well and we'd split, or I had K9/Q9 and he'd take it. Either way, my tens were looking strong, so I started to call. As I was reaching for chips, he said "Boy, didn't yer momma ever teach you not to play *Texas* Hold'Em with a man from *Texas*?" While the sarcastic bastard in me wanted to comment right back, I was good - I just slid my chips out and called his all-in. He just grinned at me and turned over... A9. "Top pair, ace kicker! Wooo!" I turned over my tens, and he kept grinning. The rest of the table let out a collective groan, and the dealer started to slide the chips towards me when West Texas Cowboy said "Hold on a minute there! I won!"
We all sort of sat there stunned for a second at this statement, kind of like we'd been bludgeoned across the head with stupidity. The dealer seemed to recover faster than the rest of us.
"Sir... you had a pair of nines, and this man had a pair of tens."
"But those were both in his hand!"
Have you ever just not known what to say? I was stuck. How do you answer that statement?
"That doesn't matter, sir," said the dealer, trying to be polite. "Tens beat nines, and it doesn't matter where they are."
At this point, West Texas Cowboy became a bit agitated, starting to curse and yell. If you've ever been in a casino, you'll know that people who do that quickly become magnets of attention. The tournament literally stopped to watch the man wearing a fairly nice grey Stetson rant about how he was just cheated out of his rightful winnings. A couple of security types and the poker room manager were there in about 10 seconds, and the dealer quickly explained the situation. The manager spent about 2 minutes on the phone, presumably with the camera room to play back the tape of the table to confirm the story, and asked the man to leave the table.
West Texas Cowboy went *off*. "WHAT? I WON THAT HAND! I WANT MY MONEY!" The manager, who was far, far nicer than I would have been, tried to explain to the man that a pair of tens was in fact a higher hand than a pair of nines, regardless of their location. "You folks don't know how to play Texas Hold'Em?!! Everybody knows that you have to use at least one card on the table for a pair! What kind of damn house rule crap is this?"
The manager apparently was not hit by the bludgeon of pure stupid like we were, because he answered right back. "The official rules, sir. I'm not sure where you play, but we play the same version of Texas Hold'Em that everyone else does. Now, you're welcome to play at one of our regular tables, but you're no longer in this tournament, and if you continue to disrupt it, you'll be asked to leave."
This apparently did nothing to soothe him, because he just left the casino in a stomping fit. Once the games got going again and people were done laughing about what had just happened, I ended up getting knocked out of the tournament about 45 minutes later. My only real regret (aside from losing) is that I didn't come up with a witty enough reply to his "Didn't yer momma" line.
Such is life. =)
Current bankroll: $500