Weekend Rambles

Friday night was the only time I spent grinding this weekend. Not much to say other then I was down early but got on a rush late and ended the evening up around $3.00. I guess if you look at the 5% gain in my bankroll then it was a good night but I continue to lack focus early on. You would think that I would learn from my mistakes but that doesn’t seem to be happening. In reality, I think some of the early difficulty I went through was bad luck as my pocket kings were counterfeited on the river by an ace with two chasers to the end. This seems to be the norm lately but all I can do is keep putting my money in with the best hand.

The hand that got me over the hump for the night was KQ in the BB. I was play .25-.50 LHE and called one early position raiser with 5 callers. The flop comes down KKQ. Talk about getting hit in the face with the deck. I check, UTG bets and the button raises with all others calling. The turn is an ace and I’m happy. I check but get to 3-bet and have three left in the hand. A queen on the river kills all thought of taking all of this big pot is it is capped. UTG flips over K9 for a split pot. I was still happy with the outcome.

In other news, I decided to give the money back to my buddy who was going to stake me. I felt that I would change my focus from the original goals I had developed and abandon the $5-$3000 challenge. It would be nice to have a working bankroll but the whole purpose of this exercise was to achieve something that would take persistence and conviction to be successful.

Around the horn is the World Baseball Classic. The unadulterated travesty that occurred during the U.S. vs. Japan game is comical in that they want all of the best players to play but are not using MLB umpires to officiate the games. Why not insist on the best umpires? And how can the wrong umpire make a call and then have his call reversed only to have the reversed call questioned by replay? I’m glad I’m not an umpire.

Anyway, the 12U girls Fastpitch travel team I’m coaching is coming along well. We had practice outside on Saturday, which really help with evaluation of the players. There is only so much you can do in a gym and I know that they were getting tired of repeating the same drills over and over. In the end we had a good time and I feel we can field a competitive team.

Poker may be slow this week as I have many other obligations to attend to but with luck I may get some work in tonight.

Life's Passions

Here is an installment of space filling non-poker related material to maul over as you kill time at work.

As stated before, I am nothing if not a baseball fan. I live and breathe America’s pastime with a passion that borders on addictive. This mind consuming love for baseball isn’t hidden in a closet waiting for spring to arrive; it is sitting on my shoulder so that the world can get a better view of the depths of its affection for the game.

It all started as a wee little boy. My father took me to a White Sox doubleheader back in the early 70”s. As I gaze back in time I can still smell the popcorn and hotdogs elegantly mixing with the smells of stale beer and the dripping sewer pipes that was old Comisky Park. Wilber Wood pitched both games of the doubleheader that day if my recollection serves me. The sun was shinning and I had the pleasure of seeing one of the truly great things America is known for. Baseball.

The beginning of my playing career had me playing Cub Scout ball. It consisted of underhand throw it in there pitching that meant even the worst players could hit the ball. It was a great experience that tested young boys courage as their team lost the championship game after an undefeated season. My passion for the game could be clearly seen from the tear-stained handkerchief my mother carried after the game.

During the following spring I had the opportunity to try out for Little League. I was 9, going on 10, and the youngest player trying out for the team. It was a frightening time as I warmed up with monstrously sized 11-12 year old men. I decided that the outfield was the best place for me because I could easily hide among the throng overweight power hitters. After two hours of fly balls and hitting I felt overmatched and intimidated but, with the encouragement of the coach, I was determined to give it my all at the final tryout. That night my father and I had a discussion about staying in Cub Scout ball for one more year. He felt that making the leaping up to Little League may be more then I could handle. My arguments of taking on the challenge and playing at the highest-level possible was absorbed and reconciled within my father that day. When the time came for the final tryout, I was prepared to do whatever was required to fulfill my goal of becoming an outfielder for that team. The only problem was that the coach wanted me to play seconds base. Thus, the beginning of a lifetime on the infield had begun.

One of the great things about growing up in the town I did was that there was a Men’s Fastpitch Softball League there. It consisted of a dozen or so teams from the surrounding communities and played every night of the week. This initiation into the game of fastpitch didn’t seem significant at the time but would eventually been seen as another fabricating point in my life. I don’t have any idea of the countless hour I spent watching these men play a version my inner passion but I grew to admire and respect their own passion for the game. As time went by my brother-in-law started to play and he eventually asked me to join his team when I was old enough. I played some but it interfered with summer baseball so it got pushed aside for the time being.

After college, and realizing my baseball career had gone as far as it could, I began to wander. I took a job at a chemical company and decided that partying was the thing to do. The most important thing on Friday was to pay the bills, fill up the gas tank, get lunchmeat and bread for the week, and party the rest by Sunday morning. Good times. Anyway, after a year of sliding further into the abyss that was my life, my brother-in-law asked me to come play ball. It’s a 15 game schedule and we only played on Friday nights. At the same time I saw an open tryout for a team in the Aurora City League. The Aurora League was the premier league of the day and I had spent more than a few nights watching the games that it provided. So I make the Aurora team and join my brother-in-laws team but openly wonder how I’m going to play 30-40 games in one season. Four years later I’m playing for one of the top three teams in the state and nationally ranked. I went from wondering how I was going to play 30-40 games to playing well over 100 games in four years. I still liked to party but I had meaning in my life.

Someplace in between the doldrums and the ecstasy I met my wife. I volunteered to help coach a women’s slowpitch team during my off days and in she walked at the first practice. It wasn’t much of a courtship as between us we played ball almost every day of the week. But it was a match made in heaven.

Through the years of weekend tourneys and late night games, I’ve come to see how ones passion influences other parts of their lives. How the absence of passion can leave a person cold and unfeeling. These experiences I’ve gone through have left a lifetime impression on my soul that will shape me forever.

Just like the long rides to the middle of no place that instigates idle chatter to pass the time. These moments are when you truly learn to understand someone.

Just a Daily Post

I played some last night. Not quite the stellar performance I was trying to achieve but I did log a positive night on Noble up $1.05. Of coarse I gave some of that back this morning in a futile attempt at poker prowess. I did have some fun with in a 6 player turbo sng though. We get down to the final two people with me holding a 3300 to 2700 chip lead and blinds at 200/400. My opponent switch styles in midstream to a push or fold attack. This was a little frustrating as I was having trouble putting him on a hand. I think he had seen Hoyt Corkins play on TV and was trying to emulate his style. Anyway, I started to see a pattern that indicated a push with any ace or any face card. He would call with 1 face card and push if he felt weakness. So I get 2d4c in the small blind and call. He checks and we see a flop of QJ2 rainbow. I think I’m ahead here based of his previous playing pattern so I check hoping to trap. He pushes and I call as he shows his 89 for an inside strait draw and 2 over cards. No help for him and I win the prize. Now I think that his style has its merits but his inability to change gears left him open to the trap, which in essence he set on himself.

As far as my new endeavor goes, I cashed for a small win on Poker Stars last night. I made it to the money a little above average but got bounced when my pocket 6s were no match for AQ. I felt OK in this one but I needed to chip up to make a better finish.

I don’t have much space-filling non-poker material today. I’m sure at some point I’ll decide to romanticize one of my long but quasi-related poker stories to uplift the spirits of the poker blogging deities that roam the internet.

Friends, How Many of us Have Them?

I used to work in research & development for one of the largest chemical companies in the world. Almost everyone would recognize it’s slogan from the numerous colorful and aggrandizing commercials that frequent major events. What does this have to do with poker? Well I’ll tell you. Nothing other than the fact that one of the best bosses I’ve ever had worked there with me. What set him apart from many of my previous mentors is how he treated me and how he respected the work that I did. He wouldn’t hesitate to mention the quality of my work and work ethic when he could have easily passed my efforts off as his own. For this I’m grateful.

A couple of years ago both he and I chose to redirect our career paths and part ways from the mother ship. He took a position as QA Manager at different chemical company in the burbs while I moved up to a QA management position of a manufacturing company about 10 minutes from my home. This job transformation was essential for both of us as the company we worked for was moving operations out of the area. We still stay in touch and get together quite often if not on a regular basis. So you ask; “what does this have to do with poker?” We’re getting there but a little more info.

Last year I held a poker fundraiser for my softball team. The buy-in was $50 and we kept $15 for the juice (it was a fundraiser). In all we had 50 or so people and made a nice little haul for the ball team. As we get to the bubble, my old boss says “If I win this, we’re going to the boat and I’m staking you,” Well he didn’t win but I still continued to question if he would have staked me that night.

He just put $500 in my poker stars account. No questions asked. All I have to do is pay him back 50% of my MTT net winnings until it is paid off. If I bust out so be it. Now that’s faith in a friend. I honestly don’t know if I could do the same but I guess he thinks I can play. Either that or he’s an idiot. I’ll try to prove the first one right.

So from this point forward, I will be dropping information about my poker stars account but will continue to keep this blog’s main focus on my Noble account.

Leaks and Fishy Play

If you do anything today, read Tao of Poker. You will find a fantastic article about writing and about a writer who inspired many with his introspective analysis of the human condition. I honestly hope that I will achieve but a fraction of this conscious self-awareness to advance my literary being.

Here is a question. If I open push with an OESD after the flop, is it a fish move? To set it up, I have a medium stack with 7 players left. Chip leader limps in, as does the small blind. Flop come T73 rainbow. I hold 8h9h and make a pot size bet after the small blind checks. This bet commits me to the pot. Chip leader pushes, small blind calls all-in, as do I. Chip leader has two pair but I river a 6 to win the pot. My thinking at the time was that this was a good spot for a semi-bluff. If they don’t lay it down I have at least 8 outs and/or they may have missed they flop and wouldn’t call me down. Is this fishy? I don’t think I would have called with this hand but I think pushing it is OK. What are your thoughts?

On another note, I’ve noticed that sometimes when I first get to a table that I get involved in hands I should throw away. Not every time, but it does happen. This invariably causes me to lose part of my buy-in but also induces me into an unwanted aggressive attack mode that increases my downward slide. Eventually I regain my focus but have to scratch and claw my way back to meager results. I think the cause of this leak is my competitive nature. I’m the type of guy who will keep pushing my opponents weakness until they break or the game is over. There is no letting up until the verdict is at hand. This personality trait is not what is needed for optimal returns. I need to put the game back into perspective as a long term climb up Mount Everest and get away from the sprinters mentality.

Even with the leaks in my game I’m continuing to grow my insignificant bankroll.

The one MTT 7th place finish clearly skews the results in my favor.

Here is the chart I like.

This chart forecasts my results into the future. It represents a similar win rate with adjustments made for increased limits. At this pace I’ll reach my goal on December 7th of this year. We’ll see.

A Business Trip to Remember

Back in November I had to go on a business trip. I don’t have to travel very often for my job but I do enjoy getting out of the office for these trips to our other facilities. This trip happened to be in northern Michigan about an hour south of St. Ignace. With this in mind I went to the Card Player web site to check out their poke room finder. It just happens that the Kewadin Casino is located in St. Ignace and they have a $20 re-buy tourney that will be going on while I’m up there. After my woody went down, I started to make my plans. If I leave the office by 4:30 I’ll be there in plenty of time for the 6:00 sign-in.

So Tuesday morning comes and I’m ready for a full day of work. I spend the whole day riding in a truck with a sales guy meeting customers who want to kill me for various quality issues that we have been dealing with. What a great way to pre-pair for a live tourney event. So as we get back to the office, the sales guy says” be careful tonight, it’s going to snow.” “It’s only lake effect snow. No big deal.”

Traffic is good as there are no people in northern Michigan and I make the 68-mile trip in well under an hour. Now to the poker room. Well poker room is an over statement of what I found. It’s really a poker closet that doesn’t have enough room for all of your coats. Anyway, I sign up and start to get focused by hitting the roulette table. You know, roulette is a great way to spend time if you want to give the house your money. As best as I can remember, I hit one number in about 45 minutes of play. At least I got to see some guy hit double zero with a $20 bet. He was on mega tilt and chasing his loses when his number came in. He was still down 2 balloons after the win.

The tourney structure is not good. T1500 with blinds at 50/100, unlimited re-buys, 1 all-in re-buy, add-on, and dealer tip add-on with 50 players. So in reality we have a $40 tourney. I draw the 5 seat and my table was like this

Seat 1: Old tough guy
Seat 2: Old loose aggressive
Seat 3: John Denver/solid player
Seat 4: Maniac grunge singer
Seat 5: Hero
Seat 6: Passive deer in head lights guy
Seat 7: Old comedian
Seat 8: Aunt Bee
Seat 9: Loose TV poker watcher
Seat 10: Solid player

I didn’t do much right away. I bought a few pot with raises. Maniac to my right was raising a lot and scaring people away. He became my first target. I check-raised him on the turn when I caught him bluffing. A little later I caught quad 7’s on the flop from the small blind with an ace as the third card. Check, check. Turn king. check bet call. River 2. I check he raises all-in. I call. He had a pair of kings. I’m sitting good at this point and begin to put pressure on the smaller stacks. As we move in to the later rounds this hand comes up. I get JJ in late position with 2 limpers in front. I’ve got 30,000, well above average, so I raise 4 x bb to 8,000. Solid player in 10 seat raises all-in to 14,000 total. All fold to me. I call. He has kings. No help and I’m down to T16, 000. I build it back up T25,000 with some steals when I look down at kings. 1 limper to me so I raised to 8,000. TV guy thinks for along time before calling. Everyone else folds. Flop is 10 7 3. I check and he goes all in for 10,000. I called and he flips over pocket 7’s. This was my biggest mistake of the night. I called as soon as he bet. I should have taken my time and put him on a range of hands. Pocket 7’s was a strong possibility in this situation but I didn’t see it. I could have folded and been in average position instead of being short stacked. I get knocked out a little later when my Q9 loses to Q8 in a battle of short stack blinds. I was the bubble boy.

Now it’s time for the cash games. They had two 2/5 NL games going and a 5/10 Limit Omaha game. I don’t have the cash of the Omaha game so I buy-in to the $100 max buy-in 2/5 NLHE game.

The table had just the right amount of loose players and calling stations to get the pots up to the fun range. An old man calling to my right dropped 4 buy-ins before he went home. I didn’t want to see him leave. The guy to my left was a LAG who would see any cheap flop and push people off if they didn’t hit. After a short time, he avoided me when I raised unless he had a monster. For the most part we didn’t bump heads. I played until 1:30 when they closed the room up about $280. A goodnight.

I go outside ready for my one-hour trip home to see 8 inches of snow all over the place. As I go over the bridge to the Lower Peninsula I realize I won’t be home for a while. The interstate has not been plowed and I was driving in ruts big enough to suck my car into oblivion. I finally got home about 4AM. Three hours of sleep before the sales guy picks me up for a day of customer abuse.
I love poker.

Life Can be Good

Sometimes your weekend goes as expected while others are like this one. It started off well on Friday with some movie watching with the family and another movie with my wife after the kids went to bed. Bambi 2 was about what I expected and entertainment value for the kids. The wife and I watched Doom. It kept me interested, as it was full of mind numbing action but didn’t have a lot of depth. I guess depth in a movie might be asking too much if The Rock has a major roll in said movie.

All of the regular Saturday stuff went just fine. The only problem was our babysitter illness and thus we couldn’t go out Saturday night. It’s really to bad because we were meeting a bunch of my former co-workers for a night of head banging and drinking. Would have been fun.

Sunday was just like any other Sunday with the exception of the Oscars. Now I realize that many people do care about award shows but I wait all year for the Oscars. What man wouldn’t want to see all these women dressed in cleavage and long legs … err…. expensive dresses and fine jewelry? Enough said.

Poker was good! Really good! After all was said and done I raised my bankroll to almost 52 dollars.

Friday night was a grind. The cards were lukewarm at best and the chasers were calling down their two outers all night. I ended up the 4-hour session at about 24 bucks.

Saturday was good. It started out with a $1+. 10 re-buy at 6AM. I played well but could get over the hump. I was bust near the bubble when my TPTK got rivered by a gut shot. I’m happy with how I played and I’m sure I could have cashed if I wait for the bubble to burst but I was looking for a bigger payday. Now what do I do. Lets play a 3+. 30 freeze out. 308 of the finest players Noble Poker can find at 8AM central time. 3 ½ hours later I get knocked out in 7th place for a 25-dollar cash. This was about as good a tourney as I can play. After the third round I was in the top 10 in chips and continued my climb to the chip lead for much of the time. The keys were that my advantages held up and that nobody wanted to challenge the chip leaders. I put pressure on the medium stacks and challenged the shorties when I had a hand. The final table saw me with twice as many chips as the second play player with seven left. That’s when the walls came tumbling down. Blinds are 4000/8000. I have 81,000 and the villain has about 35,000. I get JJ UTG and raise to 24,000 and get called by the button. Flop is 953 rainbow. I bet to put villain all in and he calls showing A9. River ace and I’m down to 46,000. A few hands later I’m down to 34,000 and blinds are 5000/10000. Villain is still on a roll as he has gotten AA and just showed KK. I get KdQd and push. Villain calls and flips over KK again. IGHN. The sad part about getting knocked is that I could have avoided the hand that killed me but with the fast structure I had to make a move to regain my position. My M was 2 so I hade to push with any face card and was rewarded with a good cards only to be beat by a better cards. The best part was that I didn’t suck out at any point and got away from big hands a few times. I folded pocket aces on the turn when I felt I was behind. Winner had trip 3’s. I also made a good lay down when tossed my boat on the turn with a board showing 10d 9d 10c 8d. I had 109s. He had QdJd for a strait flush. That hand would have crippled me.

Later that night I played a little .05-.10 LH and found a pond full of pan fish. I didn’t think that people could make the same mistake over and over again but I was proven wrong. Time after time players would call my bets down to the river only to see me flip over the nuts. Granted, the deck was hitting me in the face but did they think I was bluffing? I was just playing a tight aggressive game and pushed when I had a hand. I didn’t play crap cards and I got out of the way when the flop didn’t hit me. I had one lady re-buy three times and she still called me down with second pair. 50-minute session, $5.11 profit. Now if only I can do that at the higher limits.
No playing Sunday because of family time but I hope to continue this run on Monday.

Better Off Dead

“I want my two dollars!” – Johnny, from the movie Better Off Dead(85)

That’s how I felt last night as I repeatedly got beat by runner runners flushes and gut shots strait draws. Amazingly enough I ended up the night with a $0.14 profit after being down $2. Now I realize that $2 is not a lot of money, but when it represents 10 percent of your bankroll it is quite demoralizing to lose it. Luckily the poker gods relented and allowed me to recover my meager but significant loses.

As far as other things, the wife and I are going out Saturday night. This doesn’t happen often so we are semi charged up. Some band is playing at a restaurant that my former boss owns so we thought we would check it out and eat some great barbeque. In reality, my former boss is a good friend and a fellow poker player who wrote the meaning of the word tight. There is no questioning his involvement in a hand. He also was the one who got me interested in playing online.

Really don’t have much of anything else going on. M and A have a Girl Scout thing. L and I have Softball. B will be hanging out and making us laugh. We have church on Sunday. Maybe 8 hours on the tables.

Depravity and Poker

How can I be tilting on one table and not the other? I don’t know how but that seems to be what’s happening. I think it has something to do with having my trip rivered three times in 45 minutes. Lady variance can really bite. Anyway, I would try to live blog but that would be an effort in futility. It is amazing that I can type and play.

I had a council meeting at church today. Introduction of our interim pastor was at hand so I didn’t bring up poker. It does make me wonder though about the moral/Christian implication of playing the game. Is poker in its pure form an anti-Christian game? (Just got sucked out again) (Again by the same person) I think the depravity within the game comes from people that were already morally corrupt. True degenerate gamblers are more then likely are not the people who write blogs and play poker on a regular basis. Degenerate gamblers are the ones taking their paycheck to the casino and blowing it on the slots or some other game of chance. (Dropped a buy-in) Poker, while a game of variation, is a game of mathematical skill and intuition. Moreover, even though math plays a large part in the game, reading you opponent and learning their tendencies can be an even bigger part of the battle.

Does this sound like textbook? I don’t mean it to. I don’t think playing the game is wrong if you stay within your resources. I enjoy sitting at a table with friends or strangers playing an intellectually challenging game.

My wife feels differently. Evil and immoral are words she likes to equate with poker. I’ve had more then a few discussions with her about the artistry of the game and how it is the only game that the house doesn’t have the advantage. That it is a game of skill vs. a game of chance. Finally, I think the wall of doubt is crumbling. She even asked me to show her how to play. It wasn’t long before she was check raising on the turn. Actually, I don’t think I would want her to become good at poker. Her observational skills are quite astute.

Overall, I think we have come to an understanding about the game. She realizes that poker is a part of me that fills a void with its competitive expectation. That it gives me a chance to compete at an intellectual level. Additionally it gives me a chance to overcome variance with perception and patience. It’s just like dealing with my kids.

Error Management

A 3.69% error rate over the last three months is unacceptable. I mean what is your negative expected value with a rate like this? With labor costs at $60-$100/hr I would think –ev of around $40 per incident would be accurate. That means that our 3.69% error rate is costing us around $6,400 a month. That’s $76,800 per year. Most of this is lost productivity that was being wasted at smoke-breaks anyway but it does show that what seems like a small % can make a big difference over the course of time.

The same thing can be said about our poker games. Little mistakes can build up over time and have a significant impact on your bankroll. For example, Lets say your playing 1-2 LHE and you are trying to advance to 2-4. If you make 1 mistake on each the flop, river and turn, at some point during each session, you have thrown away $5. That’s three mistakes per 100 hands. Now your sessions may be long then this but your still out $5. Lets add that you play 200 times a year. Now you’ve given away $1000 over the course of a year. What’s that, 5 buy-in’s give or take. It all adds up.

I did get some playing time in over the last two days and have raised my bankroll to $20.77. Another 5 dollars and I’ll move up in levels. I’m not sure but I think if I stay at the micro limits I might go nuts. I mean, I saw a guy drop $10 on a .05-.10 table in 30 minutes. I could wait to get in a pot with him. His fold and call buttons must have been broken because he raised every pot and would cap if we let him. People were lining up to get his money. He even re-bought for $18 after he busted. Life is good sometimes.