tp's table talk

Internet is dead again. But after 45 minutes on the phone this morning things are in motion and hopefully they will sort out the problem further up the line. Of course, I’m hoping for some miracle that gets it done in time for the weekend so I can take advantage of some more of the reload bonuses that are hitting me (got an email from Empire for another $100 5x reload). And of course there’s the Intertops $3000 reload on Sunday and the $1500 on Monday. *grumble*

You really would think I’d learn my lesson one of these days. I continued my confident play on Tuesday by winning some big hands early and then having my sense of invulnerability severely battered. I only ended up down 12BB in the 150 or so hands that I played, but that was after being up nearly 40BB at one point. Each time I think I have my game in good shape, I surprise myself with another session of undisciplined play. You’d think I’d learn.

Managed to get some decent games in over the weekend. Played the 500 hands necessary to unlock my Empire reload bonus and managed to snatch another 100+BB from the 25PL tables. I’m feeling very strong in my game there - then again, that could just be because I am winning. But, most times when I sit at the table I can get a pretty good read on how other people are playing and can avoid most unprofitable situations. That’s not to say I don’t make some boneheaded plays (like pushing my AK pre-flop when I *knew* my opponent had the KK) but most of the large pots I’ve lost I’ve known that I was making a questionable. Now, if I could couple that knowledge with the discipline to fold in those last few situations, I’d be golden.

Didn’t play much Sunday, but I had a good session Monday night, hitting 130+BB in about 400 hands. I probably should be exploring the 50PL and 100PL games at this point, but with win rates like that, it’s hard to justify leaving the table. It’s also getting harder and harder to justify bonus hunting at non-Party sites. I’ve got $270 waiting for me at Pokerstars after the last reload bonus, but while I am still in the black there, it’s a pretty low win rate, considering the time invested. And I’ve only got 186 of the first 750 FPPs that I need. Still, I suppose I am planning on hitting some casino tables any time soon, some of the higher caliber play at Stars could be good practice. Not that I expect top players at the casino (or the charity casino that I hope is running at the CNE again this year) but my limit game is getting a bit rusty.

I finally got my internet problems sorted out earlier this week (fingers crossed) so I was looking forward to getting back to the virtual felt this weekend. June was a short month because of my vacation and July has been slow because of Internet outages, so I have not been growing my bankroll at the pace I had expected back at the beginning of June. So, when I logged in on Thursday to a few different clients and noticed I had a 15% reload bonus available at Empire, I was stoked to get back to the tables.

But first I had my bi-weekly PLHE tournament on Friday. Unfortunately the summer months continue to be slow and we again only had 10 people show up. But that’s still ok, a full table and a nice $100 payout to the winner.

The game starts slow as usual. Between chatting, slow deals and slow calls, we usually don’t get through much more than one orbit in the first half hour. Of course, I didn’t see any kind of playable hands until my first big blind (I started the night on the button). Even still, it was only K9d, where I got to see the flop for free. The flop comes queen high with two diamonds, so I throw in a small bet. Only get called in one place, and it’s a hesitant call, so I’m thinking he doesn’t even have the queen. The turn brings another diamond, so now I don’t even have to worry about that. I check

A few hands later I’m looking at JTd on the button. Blinds are at 20/40. It’s folded to me, so I raise. I know I’m going to get called by the aggressive player to my left, but I figure I can work with it after the flop.

Now, just to set this up a bit, I run through tournaments in a season format. There are 10 events in the season, and the top five players at every tournament earn points towards winning the season championship. Last season one of our players - Alex ‘The Roti’, a name he earned for his meal choice in his first victory - won the second and third events and was in a commanding point lead for the majority of the season. I managed to bring it back to even by the 8th event, but he pulled ahead for good in the ninth week. So, there is bit of rivalry between the two of us. He is a super-aggressive player that will sometimes go on his gut, so he can be a bit unpredictable. But his aggression can sometimes be used against him.

Back to the action. I’m in the hand heads-up with JTd and the flop comes 9oQdKd and I barely catch myself before I start chuckling. I throw in a small bet, just T50. My hopes are fulfilled when it’s made T200 back to me. I hem and haw for a few seconds and everyone starts making comments that I’m doing the math to see if I should call. Really the only thinking I’m doing is about how I can extract the most money from this hand. Eventually I throw in my T150 and we see the turn.

It’s a rag and I quickly throw in another small bet. Again, my opponent comes over the top of me, this time for even more chips. I almost beat him into the pot with my all-in call. He quickly calls my re-raise with top pair. No help for him on the river and he is down to the felt. After our hard-fought battle for the points championship last season it was very satisfying to knock him out first tonight.

Unfortunately I’m not nearly so lucky when my pocket threes dont’t get much action on a 993 flop. Probably should have let it ride until the river, but I wanted a decent pot to bet against when we got there and scared everyone out on the turn.

The rest of the night was a bit of blur down to the final two. I was playing very aggressive but got caught when pocket sixes called my all-in bet with A5o on a 983 board. I don’t think my read was completely off on this play, as he wasn’t really sure about the call, but I still lost the chip lead and put myself in a precarious position. But I kept the pressure up, sticking to large bets and forcing him to make the decisions. After nearly doubling my stack grinding, I managed to double it again into a serious chip lead when my 9 outkicked his 6 when we both hit a pair of kings on the flop. After a few more small bites out of his stack, he went in with K5 and I was forced to call with 92. The first card flipped is a 2 and the third was a 9 and my unlikely two pair holds up for the win.

So, that puts me at 8 money finishes in 12 tournaments, with 4 victories. I’m beginning to get a bit concerned that people are going to stop coming out. Also, with two wins in the first two events of our second season (ah, All About the Twos, just like one our homebrew dealer’s choice games) that puts me well into the points lead for the second season, which can’t be a bad thing.

We played some rather sedate limit hold’em after that for a while, but when everyone was getting ready to leave for the night, the gamblers started coming out. It was time for a little high card action. People were playing for nearly 10 minutes and at the peak of the action we had five players trying to draw the highest card. And even though we set the rule that you could only bet with chips, that was quickly circumvented when players started buying chips off other players. One of the more entertaining finishes we’ve had in a while even if it was a bit crazy.

Well, it looks like my ADSL modem was not the problem as it works fine at a buddy’s place. So, I’m trying a second one tonight and if that doesn’t work (as I expect) then I’ll be able to coerce my ISP into finally getting the line fixed. But who knows how long that’ll take, so I may be without internet for a while longer yet.

But my home internet access is decidedly dead. After being up and working for nearly a week, it was back down for four days and counting. Trying to sort out the problem with my ISP, but it’s been a bit of a pain and it looks like I’ve got a few more things I need to do before they’ll send out anyone to test the line.

Hopefully I’ll get things sorted soon.

I managed to drop a few bucks playing online Monday night (mostly due to losing my buy-in with a set lost to an unlikely flopped straight) but I had some pretty strong hands, including two flopped full boats. Of course, the flopped boat is a difficult hand to extract money on, and I thought I’d share a specific hand I misplayed.

I was at the $25 PL tables, in the big blind, with KQo. With 3 other limpers in the pot, I was good with seeing the flop and going from there. It came down KQQ, two hearts. Very nice. It’s checked to me on flop and I check, hoping someone behind me has a queen or even a king. No dice, but I don’t think the play is wrong (at least, it’s not wrong to sometimes make that play, but many of the same issues I discuss below apply here as well, with the difference that hands may improve). The turn is a rag, and again I check it through, hoping someone might be braver with their king, or even a bluff attempt. This decision is a bit questionable, as the pot may be very small come to the river so even if I get action, there won’t be many dollars involved. But I feel there is a good chance someone behind me will play with a marginal hand, flush draw or even a pure bluff, so it has potential. Unfortunately, it’s checked through once again. I know someone people like to get some money in there so the pot is larger for later streets, but even a .5 bet would have thinned the field, and I needed someone to make a hand.

The river brings a third heart and I hope that someone just made their flush. UTG checks and I follow suit. Stupid, stupid play, though it took me a few minutes to realize how a pot-sized bet was pretty much the only play to make at that point.

Checking is a bad play for many reasons. It’s possible no one will bet and I’ll take a tiny pot with a great hand. And everyone will know that I’ll slowplay a monster, something which can work to my advantage, but trapping tends to be a very effective tool for extracting money in pot-limit, particularly when many players feel they need to follow through when they lead the betting. Even if someone has hit the flush, my re-raise is likely to put them off their hand, with possible higher flushs and a paired board, so I only double the pot, which is still far below expectation with a hand like that. Of course, it is possible I may get a bluff bet for money I could not have extracted any other way, but the odds of that are probably pretty near to the odds that someone would call me down just to see what I have, at least at the $25PL tables. And even if they do try to bluff, I am extracting only another $1.9, instead of

Now, if I bet the pot there is the chance, as I just mentioned, someone with a poor hand may call me out just to see my cards, so even if no one has a hand, I may still get paid. But, if someone hit the flush, they are likely to come back over the top of me anyways, and this gives the small blind a chance to play back at me if he was slow-playing the river flush. And if anyone hit the top (or near top) flush, they may even call my final re-raise, giving me the double-up opportunity you hope to see with this kind of hand. In the very worst case, where everyone folds, at least I have the advantage that no one sees my hand and will be no more wary of my trapping them in the future.

Of course, it turned out that small blind had hit the flush and was hoping to check-raise, so the proper play would have at least quadrupled the amount I could have won and perhaps even more. Not only did I make a mistake on the hand, it was a very unprofitable mistake.

I know this is a bit of an strange request from someone who talks mostly about poker, but I thought I’d put the question to my small non-existant audience anyways. I’m getting together with a few friends soon for an afternoon of multiplayer gaming (XBox and Gamecube) and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for group of 4 competitive guys to play?

Yesterday I got back to the real felt, tonight I renewed acquaintances with the virtual variety. I hit a few small hour-long sessions throughout the afternoon in between doing chores, posting reasonable gains in both. Then this evening I played a longer session this evening while watching a movie. I made some seriously bone-headed plays, but the fish at Intertops were kind enough to keep me afloat. But near the end of the evening I started finding my rhythm and felt like I was playing a very strong game. I managed to avoid any mistakes and posted a nice 100BB victory on the day, renewing my confidence. Now, if only I can find my rhythm for writing, then I’ll be set.

Well, after nearly two weeks without seeing a single card dealt, I finally had the opportunity to sit back down at the felt tonight. The bi-weekly tournament I run was thrown a bit off-kilter by the Canada Day long weekend, but we were back at it this week. Unfortunately, things are slowing down because it’s summer so we only had ten people show, including a buddy of mine who I was backing for his (belated) birthday. It’s a $20 buy-in for T1000 in chips, blinds starting at 10/20 and going from there.

Things started off not too bad, saw a few big aces in the first few hands for some small pots and then limped in with ducks. The table was pretty passive, so it was fit or fold. But the flop came KJ2 rainbow so it was definitely fit. I bet the whole way down and ended up losing a good chunk of my stack when someone showed pocket jacks for the overset (that he never bet or raised with). I was not pleased with the result, but was actually pretty happy I didn’t end up losing more money on the hand. I was visibly tilting for a few hands after that, right down to the bit of steam coming out my ears, but I calmed down soon after and began to work at building my stack back up.

Later on I peel KK and hit KJx on the 3-suit flop. People had started to get suspicious that I was stealing pots, particularly the guy still in the pot, who believed I bought him out of a hand earlier. I bet the pot, trying to play it like a bluff. I get the call and the next when I go all-in on the turn. The hand holds up and for the first time in the tournament, I’m in comfortable chip position. Not quite the big stack yet, but not too far off.

But the big surprise is the friend I was backing, who is doing pretty well for himself. He’s been working the play money tables for the past while as he works on finding his game. He hit a few good hands, but he was certainly holding his own at the table. Only made one mistake all night, though it unfortunately put him out on the bubble when he called the bluff I wasn’t making. Oh well, I’m sure he’ll be back and making a play at the prize money in the future.

His exit brought it down to three and I had a reasonable chip lead on second place and the third man at the table was going all-in at every opportunity to try to turn his small stack into some real ammunition. It doesn’t take long for him to run into a real hand and I’m heads-up with blinds at 100/200.

I have a small chip lead, but it was close. After trading the blinds back and forth for 10 minutes or so, I manage to squander my lead with a couple of ill-advised bluffs and am outstacked about T6000 to T4000. The big handwas a J2 of clubs in a passive pot where I made a 1000 bet at the turn with a four-flush. I really expected to take the pot after the passive flop play, but my opponent was smart enough to call and I had to hope for a club to avoid the uphill climb with my dwindling stack. Fortunately another club came on the river and my opponent wasn’t quite smart enough not to call my all-in bet and suddenly I was in the driver’s seat. Everything ended up in the coming down to my QT against his 33. The flop came 9xx, turn J and river 8 for the unlikely flush and the victory. That puts my record at 3 victories and 7 money finishes in the 11 tournaments I’ve held. Not too shabby, but I just need to hope that everyone else will keep coming out.

Despite the appearances of this blog, I’m not dead. Nor have I abandoned this blog. I’ve just been busy with both work and life, leaving me little free time (and even less energy) to post here. I’ve not even booted up a poker app in nearly two weeks, or been able to make one of my sport teams for even longer. But, things should be slowing down over the next week as we turn things over to our client, so I hope to be back to my old self soon.

I just wanted to let everyone know that despite appearances here, I am still alive. I got back from my vacation yesterday and spent the majority of the day sleeping. Today it’s back to the slog at work and I was overjoyed to discover how many issues came up during my absence. So, it’s going to be a long start to the week, but I’m hoping that I will be able to reward myself with a little poker come the long weekend. If I can squeeze it in around other fun long weekend activities.

Ok, perhaps I’m not quite in the wild, but I am on vacation north of Toronto. In a nice little cottage by the lake that just happens to be wired up for internet access. So far it has just been swimming, frisbee and crokinole, but I’m looking forward to a full, relaxing week away from the office. It’s a bit grey outside at the moment, so I decided to hook up my laptop to see if I could make a post here. Of course, now that I’ve logged on, it turns out I don’t have much to say. I’ll probably pop in again later in the week.

“Announcing your plans is a good way to hear god laugh.” - Al Swearengen, “Deadwood”

Not much new happening at the tp table. Played some 25PL last night and had a decent $60 night. But nothing much to write about - though I did hit two more quads, making it three in two days.

What I have been doing is working on a longer post about poker, gambling and addiction. I’ve always been a bit worried about addiction, whether it be alcohol or gambling, because I’ve known a few people who’ve had problems. So, I’ve been working on putting together a bit of a self-analysis/commentary on the subject. And to prevent myself from putting it off too long, I’m mentioning it here to force myself to get it done. Of course, I’m not too worried about having a poker “problem”, but I am becoming a bit concerned about my blog addiction.

Ok, I’m pissed. Or maybe I’m actually not. We’ll see where I am by the end of this post.

But I started out pissed. I was just perusing my web stats as I am sometimes wont to do and I discovered a new referring site called Poker reBlog. As I’m always curious to see who has linked to me, I hopped on over to check it out and discovered a meta-blog that was listing posts from all the usual suspects in the poker blogging world. It provides a short blurb and then a link to read the post at the corresponding site. I was little iffy that this person was running a site driven by other people’s content (without even asking) but then I noticed that they were also advertising. Not only that, they were taking offers for additional advertising. At this I got really pissed off and immediately started this post.

Now, in the few minutes it took me to write this post, I’m a little less certain that it’s clearcut wrong. Certainly many sites (such as Slashdot) make their living referring to stories posted at other sources. And many of them have paid advertisements. I know Iggy doesn’t publish an RSS feed because he fears his content being reused in this way. But the site is up front about it reusing others’ blog posts and only provides a small introductory paragraph and a link to the originating site, even if the RSS feed provides the full story. So people using the service will still be driven to the appropriate blogs, who can choose to use that traffic to endeavor to profit themselves.

My first reaction was to send an angry email asking for all references to my site be removed and follow it with an angry post here pointing out this site. On closer examination, I can see that the sitemaster actually points out some of the higher quality posts from across the poker blogging community and tries to categorize them appropriately. It’s not just an RSS parser that rips other people’s content off the web trying to make a quick buck. There is an actual service - that some people may even find valuable - being offered. And if it nets me a few additional readers visiting the site, I’m not going to complain

However, I am curious to see what other people think of it. Or if anyone has been using it for their poker fix.

Not much new to report here. Hit quad aces last night and was able to extract some money from them. That was in the middle of two hours or so of pretty solid, if a bit cautious, 25PL play. Then I managed to throw away most of my profit in 10 minutes of truly foolish play.

I read the second volume of 100 Bullets last night and it was even better than the first, if only because many more aspects of the mystery are revealed and many more questions posed.

I also watched the season finale of Deadwood last night. A truly excellent show. At the end of the episode when the camera briefly touched on all the characters, highlighting various relationships, you had to admire the excellent job the cast and crew has done in establishing the thriving community of Deadwood in the minds of the audience. A remarkable task.

I just read Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s first volume of their comic series 100 Bullets. I had opened it up to read just one chapter before bed, but I was unable to put down the tales about Dizzy Cordova and Lee Dolan and quickly devoured the whole thing.

Now, I don’t know which side most people fall on the graphic novel debate, but I have read a number of compelling pieces of fiction in this format and am a huge fan of the artform. I guess 100 Bullets would best be classified as conspiracy noir. The premise is that a shadowy figure enters the life of our protagonists and offers them a briefcase with an untraceable gun and the titular 100 bullets along with the evidence against someone who has wronged them - in quite serious ways - in their past. The protagonist is then left to decide how best to act with this new-gained knowledge and means. The internal and external conflicts experienced by the main characters ring true, even if the situations are extreme, and this is probably the greatest strength of the series. But while the individual stories of the gun’s recipients are fascinating, there is the also the underlying conspiracy behind the provision of the weapon and the lengths these mysterious forces can go to in preventing police involvement. I am looking forward to putting the puzzle pieces together as I read the further volumes in the series.

Azzarello’s feel for dialogue, particularly the prevalent street-level slang, is uncanny. And Risso’s dark and moody art - of which I was not a huge fan, at first - suits the tone of the stories perfectly. When the action leaves street level, where much of the story is grounded, and moves to the high-powered business world, the artwork makes a similar shift to brighter colors and sharper lines that demonstrate why the graphic novel can be a powerful storytelling form. Highly recommended.

Another so-so day at the tables. Thankfully I had an old friend come say hello on IM and had a good time chatting, so it wasn’t a complete write-off. The deck contiues to be cold for me at Pacific 2/4 and I dropped another 12BB there before I gave up and focused on the 25PL at Intertops. I don’t know that I have ever been cold decked quite like this before. I think I won 2 in 2 hours, and they were pretty marginal hands.

My hands at 25PL were a different story. I received back-to-back pocket rockets for the first time ever and though I was able to hit a big pot with the first one, I only managed a few dollars with the second. I would have thought my betting would get no respect just after having the buried aces, but alas, people weren’t even willing to call bets for 2/3 the pot.

I hit another milestone however, as my bankroll now officially sits at 2008.53. That’s keeping to the pace I set in May (or a little ahead) so hopefully I’m looking at another good month. *knock on wood* But I am heading to a cottage for a week later in the month, so I may not reach the same mark. But as long as I continue to play solid poker, I’ll be happy.

Well, as my loyer readers might have noticed, I’ve mentioned purchasing a new toy recently. It wasn’t my intent to tease it, but I was really wanted to have it set up so when I explained what it was, I could do it while typing on it (in bed no less, which is sadly only a few steps from my computer, as I live in a 1-bedroom apartment).

Yup, I bought myself a new laptop Tuesday night. A Toshiba Tecra S1 to be precise. Unfortunately, what I anticipated as some easy networking turned out to be more of a pain than I expected. I had trouble using the default Windows XP connection sharing when I first wired up my two machines, but since I wanted to get a wireless router anyways, I only endured a few hours of that frustration. I then had the good fortune of having a co-worker offer the use of a wireless router that he had no need for at the moment. I jumped at the opportunity and packed it in my bag Friday night.

Unfortunately, I got a bit sidetracked on Friday, as I mentioned in my last post, so it wasn’t until yesterday that I got to discover why the router had been unused. I tried various things on and off all day and eventually got things working about 8:30 last night when I finally tracked the firmware updates down on the CompUSA site, but after only 5 minutes of connectivity, I lost internet and could no longer connect to the router. At that point I decided to give up and made plans to hit Future Shop the next day to pick up a brand new router.

And that’s what I did and when I eventually I got around to setting it up this afternoon, it took the anticipated 2 minutes. That was followed by updating, registering, installing and configuring on the laptop until I was happy with the barebones. And that brings us up to now, where I decided to break in the new laptop by writing this boring blog post. But, there was a little bit of poker in the last few days so this will probably be followed by a highlights post.

With my new purchase, various sports, and a bout with the cold taking up a lot of time, I haven’t spent many hours at the poker tables for the majority of the week.

Thursday I dipped my toes in at the 50PL tables at Intertops. I’ve been running very well at the 25PL tables, so I thought it was time to take a shot. Well, it went extremely poorly as I managed to run through a buy-in and a half due to some bad play and a couple bad beats. But, it did make way for my best session at the 25PL tables when I went back later to make up for some of the loss. I finished the night at $152 at one table, $101 at a second and $36 at the third (which I started late). So, that was just shy of 4x my buy-in of $75 at all three tables. Not so bad, and more than enough to make up for my $80 loss earlier. Unfortunately, I hit sub-zero cards at the 2/4 table at Pacific and managed to pay most of those profits back in blinds. Unlike my usual cold cards, there were no beats, there was just three hours with maybe 4 legitimate starting hands that missed so badly I had to give them up before the river. Usually I get a few bad beats thrown in there when my cards are cold, but there wasn’t even anything to compete with.

My games yesterday were not much more profitable as I finished my hands at Paradise to unlock the last 5 dollars of my bonus. Of course, I managed to lose twice as much as I unlocked in bonus. The site was full of maniacs and few of my hands held up. But, I did get a 1-year subscription to Canadian Card Player out of the deal, so I’ll consider it breaking even.

I also had a completely crazy hand at Poker Stars. I find AA in the small blind and it’s raised ahead of me. I re-raise to try to thin the field further and the big blind caps it. We’re down to three for the flop (the original raiser called the re-raises while the rest of the field decided that the extra two bets weren’t worth calling). The flop comes rainbow rags and I bet out, raised from the big blind, I re-raise, he caps. At this point I start to wonder what he might have. Possibly a set, but I’m thinking overpair is more likely. Suits me fine and when the turn comes out a brick and I bet. Called again by both players. An offsuit ten on the turn and there are no flush opportunities and a couple unlikely straights. So, I bet and am called down again. He had 75s and hit two pair on the flop. I couldn’t even conceive of not only calling 2 extra bets from the big blind but capping with this hand. Oh well, I suppose he’ll be donating to my bankroll in the long run, but I had been anticipating picking up a fair sized pot on this hand. I guess my hand reading skills need work.

I also just finished reading Cloutier & McEvoy’s Championship No-limit and Pot-limit Hold’em. It was alright. Not many new insights although I found Cloutier’s suggestions on playing risk prevention poker in tournaments interesting. Of course, it’s difficult to apply to the crazy world of internet poker due to the sheer amount of poor play, but I have been finding recently that sometimes it is just better not to get involved with some situations because anything short of the perfect flop will leave a lot of questions about where you stand.