You won't see this everyday

Here's Bodie25 and DeeBakes tippin' the 40's.

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Being a good short stack ninja

I think I normally play the role of short stack pretty well, at least in live tournaments. I think it's an essential skill for bar league poker. Most players are loose passive or loose agressive so a logical counter is tight/agressive. Bar league blinds are also pretty fast so you'll reach a short stack pretty regularly.

I've always struggled with super shortie pile and when to just gamble. Case in point, a hand from last week.

We were playing 5 handed and my stack to blind ratio had evaporated to 2 bbs. When I get this low, I figure I'm getting action so I might as well just see what cards I get.

I let the bb go by. 52o is no hand take to battle with action ahead of you. LB? 82s. Again, more action ahead of me.

When I finally get the button with my .5 bet, I'm of course dealt AA. Sweet!! I quintuple up and the blinds raise. Sweet. Back to two bets.

This is where I struggle. My next hand was 58c and the table really seems weak looking at their cards. I seriously consider shoving but muck in the end.

Sure enough, it goes blind vs blind and they just check it down. I would have had a full house and tripled up.

What are your thoughts when you get very short stacked? Any two cards? Wait for something pretty? I hate shoving into action, even when very short. Seems like suicide.


I'd love to hear some thoughts on this!


-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

It's calling station night!

Nothing like a table full of calling stations and I'm stone cold card dead.

Time for chip up so I just went from 10 BBs to 7. Battling the boredom is the hardest part. Or is it watching 2 people go all in. One with king high the other with queen high and knowing my 74o would have hit two pair.

At least I can play with my phone and try out this new blogging app. Oh well. Chip up means pee break.

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

A Noob's First Blogger Gathering: Just making sure I get this part out...

"Good lord." I can just hear Kat now. Nine months have past and here I go resurrecting the the title "A Noob's First..." I really have a purpose for doing this...just bare with me...

A few weeks ago, discussion started heating up about the Winter Gathering. The golf, the pinball and especially the poker in Vegas, I can't wait for it! We've got one small fly buzzing around our ointment. OhCountess is scheduled to have her tonsils out exactly 2 weeks prior. She's not sure where she stands...until we know more, firm commitments are gonna be a problem. Make no mistake, I'll be there, but OhCountess is planning on sitting on the fence until we get closer. They have ice cream in Vegas, right?

All this talk about the gathering has me thinking about some of the details I really wanted to write about 9 months ago. (Christ, 9 months ago?) So, if you really want to see where I left off with the recap, the links are here, here and here.

It was kinda funny, we had a whole bus full of bloggers, having just attended the wedding Gracie and Sweet Sweet Pablo, show up just in the nick of time for the WPBT Tournament at the Venetian. Most of us needed to make a quick pit stops to change close, or get stuff, I think everyone made it...

The Venetian is a great place to play poker. It's beautiful and the card room was set up with our little game of skill tucked nicely in the back. I'm gonna recount some things that may or may not be accurate. It's been 9 months...so here we go.

I had Snuffy, emptyman, Joanada and BadBlood at my starting table. Of course there were others and I probably go digging to find out how. Seems other people wrote their recaps months ago, but alas, I'm lazy. I went looking for a few hand recaps I remember being outstanding by Snuffy and emptyman, but I can't find them...bummer.

Meeting Snuffy was kind of a surprise. When I sat down at the table, he introduced himself to me, "You must be OhCaptain." I had been reading The Corporation Poker blog for quite some time and we had exchanged many conversations on Twitter. I think it was my Minnesota Twins jersey that gave it away.

I had never played live poker with any of the people in the tournament. I was really excited to see what parts of people's online game would make it to the felt. I was comfortable live, but still pretty new to casino run games.

I played one hand that was recapped somewhere else in which I layed down a king high flush draw and gut shot straight draw in a multi way pot with emptyman and Snuffy. I seem to think emptyman had the ace high flush. First bullet dodged. Whew.

Now, I think it was later, I raised in middle position with a suited hand of the devil (AQ). Now, I've read and heard on many occasions that one should never tell others of a man's tells and since this is about a specific person, I won't go into specifics. If he ever wants to know, I'd be glad to tell him, but this is what happened.

My raise was just a table standard raise and I had been pretty much playing like a rock. It got around to BadBlood, he looked at his cards, and in a glance I saw something that told me he was about to make a move and with that, he reraised me. It folded back to me and I had to make a decisions. He'd put in a nice little pile of chips, but I was confident that what I saw was correct. I move all-in (or made a huge reraise...not sure). He thought for a moment and then folded.

Now, this was where live poker differs greatly from online poker. I'd played a few times with him online and new that he was a fairly aggressive player. I'd also been sitting at this table with him and had observed his game. Online, I would have probably just called him there, but with this new information, I had a feeling that he would fold to massive pressure from the rock/super tight player across the table.

This wasn't the last time I was positive I saw something in a player that helped me make a critical decision.

For pretty much the entire first 2/3's of the tournament, I played extremely tight. I worked really hard to stay very patient and pick good spots. Some where around the 2/3 spot, I found myself very short and got it all in with King high. My shove was for like 5 BB's and it was a multi-way. I can't even remember how many people were in the hand, but it was the hand the brought me back to life and got me chips to play with.

If you looked ahead, you might have seen that this post has some pictures. These pictures are the main reason I really wanted to write this post.

I'm a big fan of history. I love to read and study it. In preparation for last years gathering, I'd been working really hard trying to think about what to bring for my bounty. Tradition, I was told, was to bring something that has something to do with you as a person. I brought a framed copy of this picture. Early on in the tournament, a tight ass like myself wasn't collecting many bounties, but I had some momentum and started to bust a few people.

I was really disappointed just how few people were handing out their bounties. In fact, after busting out several people, In the end, I collected only one bounty...

VinNay and I played only one hand that I remember and didn't end well for him.

The details in my head are sketchy. I do know, that I had JT and had raised from the button.

In the LB, VinNay looked at his cards and again, it was a glance that I noticed something in him that told me he was making a move. In fact, this information told me that he was really making a big move.

He shoved.

I thought about what I saw and what hands he would play that would have him giving off this little nugget of unintentional information. I was ready to gamble with this and called with Jack high.

He makes an "oh shit" grunt and turns over 5 or 6 high. He was making a huge move and just trying to pick on me. He doesn't improve and I took him out. Dejected and shocked that I would call him with Jack high, he walked away from the table.

Now, I was gambling that jack was good, I admit that. I've already told him what I saw that gave his move away, but it was from this moment that I later got a piece of blogger history.

You see, he walked away from the table with not so much as a hint of what was to come. I busted a few more people before the end of the day. I remember taking out Dawn Summers when I shoved my ducks from the small blind into her AKo in the BB. I seem to remember busting PokerWolf when I attempted to bully his weak looking raise. I had A9h and he had JJ. I had him covered and hit my ace. I think there might have been a couple more, but that's all the details I got.

So, what's this all about? When I got back to the Imperial Palace after finishing 5th, I was approached by VinNay. I don't know about you, but when I get done playing several hours of live poker tournament, my brain is pretty much jello...he wanted to talk to me.

He handed me this bottle while we walked to the Burger Palace up one floor at the IP. Interesting. And wanted to make sure I knew the story, which was good, cause an airplane bottle of cheap whisky ain't the coolest bounty and I had wondered if it was like tipping a waitress a penny.

"I got this bottle at my first blogger gathering," he begins. "I really thought it was important that I give this to you but was a bit shocked at the table and forgot to give it to you."

"If you look at the sticker on the back you'll see, it's signed by Dr. Pauly. He gave this to me when I bust him. It signed and dated."

We went on to talk about how we were both fans of traditions and history. I really thought this was pretty cool. We had a really nice conversation over some rather unimpressive food. I can't say that I recommend the food up there...but when you are hungry and it's late...you eat what you can find.

I needed to share this before I show up this December. I'm planning on presenting this as part of my bounty again...if I have to give one...

I'm thinking I'm gonna track down VinNay and have us both sign and date it. Maybe we can get a little tradition going. I'm also hoping that more people bring a bounty. It's a really fun way we can share something of ourselves with people we don't get to see as often as we'd like.

That's probably the last of the recap from December. I'm not closing the book on Eh Vegas, that might still happen...but you never know. So..see you in December!

Summer's last breaths

Summer is winding down. Figured I would finish it the way I started
it. Sitting around the fire.

My thoughtful neighbor dragged his TV in the backyard so we could
watch the feabile Twins pitching look terrible against Cleveland. The
TV is that square glow you see.

Back to my bottle of Fat Squirrel...

Luck, lucky and luckier: Part 3

Over the last few weeks, my previous posts (here & here) have been generating traffic from interesting searches.

• short tem luck in poker
  
• full tilt lucky people
• things to do to get luckier at a poker game
• poker's just luck
• is fulltilt poker luckier when you first join
• luck factor by richard weisman
• can't find the fold button
• deebakes blog poker
  

What makes me so interested in this is just how much people want to be believe it's true. It's really fascinating to me the people always have to find an external force that's gonna change the way that random events happen.

There's a story I've heard that claims Mike "The Mouth" Matusow tracked his hands to show that online poker's results are skewed out of the statistical norms.

I've kept a every hand history I've ever played on every sight where money was involved. Running the numbers on those histories, it would appear I'm behind the curve when it comes to getting monster hands. It took me 49, 837 hands to hit my first royal flush. If found that in the 2 + 2 Forums, it was calculated that you should be apart of a royal flush every 30,939 hands. Every 32,486 hands using one of your hole cards. This would mean that I'm way behind on my royals, but interestingly, I've seen a modest growth rate in my bankroll, or in other words, I've been play other people's money for years. My record for not being dealt AA, KK or QQ is 763 hands. Heck, in live poker, I lost to quads 4 times in 2 months playing only one night a week in a bar.

How is this possible? I've already proven that statistically, I'm on the unlucky side of variance. If anything, I should have been broke several times already. Unlucky people shouldn't be profitable...it's just unAmerican.

Luck is an illusion. It helps us to cope with things we can't control or things we don't realize we can control. In TripJax's posts, he mentions making your own luck. I think that's the part the people don't quite understand about poker. They miss the nuances that make this game different.

In poker, we are asked to make some decisions: Raise, call, fold. Those are the usual suspects, but we have a little wiggle room in the raise option. Depending on the game, we can raise a little or a lot or just the right amount. It's been said by the pros for years, poker winning are the sum difference between your mistakes and your opponents mistakes.

Poker is also a game of imperfect information. The better player you are, the more details you get from the ether. Knowing more information can help you lay down a hand that's got inferior probabilities then you might normally think or keep you in a pot because you know your opponent is weak. There is no luck when you see all the cards.

One of my favorite days as a part time rounder was a trip down to an Iowa casino to play some $1/$2 NLHE. In 4.5 hours of play, I eeked out a small profit. I was really card dead that day, but you'll notice, I eeked out a profit.

How? I was card dead (read unlucky)? You see there were a couple of farmers there with money and time to burn. They had tells when it came to how they played their hands. One in particular had a bad habit of holding his cards when he was on a draw and capping them when he had a big hand. I played every hand with him know this and when I saw him holding his cards, I never missed an opportunity to bet and raise. You see, math tells us that a person on a draw will only hit their draw every so often. I pumped up the pot because I knew that he would just call and when we got to the river, he'd lay it down when he missed. Every time.

Mathematically, I'm profitable over the long term because when he does hit, I don't bet the river, I save those bets, but I made up the ones I lost the other 7 times he was going for a flush draw.

I too get bitten by the bug that I'm just running bad, but I really try not to let it get in my head. We do from time to time spend more time on the losing side of variance, sometimes longer then we want to, but it's in the nature of the game. It's not bad luck, it just the natural flow of the cards. Keep playing profitable poker and learn how to make better decisions, pick better games and look for the soft spot to exploit and your bankroll will see the difference.

My not really poker play friend I've talked about before that thinks that poker is mostly about luck said something that had my mind turning. He hypothesized that if you took the 2 great players in the world and put them heads up, the game would be decided by the cards and the cards alone. I just don't believe this. I've watched the pros play, sure it was mostly on TV, but still, when you watch them even online, you notice that they are masters at mixing up their games. It's this ability to alter your game to your opponent that makes them better pros then me.

How lucky are you? Do you make your own luck? Have you found a way to close the lid when you start losing your mind, your edge?

Summer Bankroll Challenge: A Post Mortem

I missed all the prop bets, but I think there is hope I could still get a gold star...a slim glimmer of hope...here's my wrap up. And here's what coulda been...had I not had a fantastic summer with the family and missed the entire completing of the prop betting process. I think I'm becoming a grand master of missed opportunities.