A New CALLING...?

The latest pdf I am re-reading is a gem called "Don't Listen to Phil Hellmuth."  I don't want to spoil it for you, because you are better off reading it yourself than listening to me simply rephrase it here, but I must credit it for my latest bit of impassioned research.

The book was written in response to the changing dynamics of the poker games today, challenging a lot of the foundational concepts we try to adapt to become winning players.  The more I read, the more I had to reconsider a lot of the "tried and tested" strategies that have been second nature to me.  After all, once everyone is on the same learning curve - what do we do when they catch up?

One Key Reconsideration was this:  In a poker world where aggression is now the norm, is "aggressive" still the default setting?

This seed turned into a garden of ideas when a student of mine showed me something quite shocking.  First, he punched up a list of the year's winningest players on the Ongame network's Micros field.  We were pleased to see one of our APA boys ranked #35 in the NL10 world, but that was not why he was showing me this list.

The reason he was showing me was because he had PT3 stats on the number two guy in the NL4 rankings.  This guy had played (to date) over 400,000 hands and made over three thousand dollars playing four-cent stakes!  Other than the conventional fact that he was waaaaay due to move up stakes (hello, 800 buyins at your chosen stake level...over-rolled much?), what was shocking about this particular winning grinder was his statline:

VPIP 48

PFR 1

AF 0.7

By any standard, this guy was an absolute fish!  On my Pokertracker3 autorate system, he was tagged as a Call Center!  And yet here he was, calling his way to a $3000 run at No Limit two cents fucking four cents.

That was my cue.  I HAD TO TRY THIS.

I plunked down 800 euro on ENET - where the fishiness was legendary - and started my Call Center Quest at the Full-Ring NL30 tables...

It was looking good after a couple of hours, but I was feeling sick.  Sick of pressing the call button.  Sick of open-limping.  Sick of limping behind other limpers.  Sick of flat-calling QQ from the blinds.  Sick of open-limping from the button.

Then my student sends me a text message - he was doing the same thing, fascinated as I was, and he was getting blown by the positive results he had so far.

ON WITH THE LIMPAGE!!!

Oh my Lord, this was actually working.  Why was this happening?  I thought of a few possibilities:

1. Passive play meant I was in smaller pots.  I was only in big pots once I had the goods.  This is not always the case with my usual aggressive play.  If you imagine a preflop raise and a cbet with Ace High, then I was in a lot of medium-sized pots with Air.  As a call center, I sacrificed initiative for the option to give up while the pot was small.  But I truly wonder how many small pots I can give up on before I am no longer able to make up for it with the occassional big pot...

2. The real source of money so far had been when I was passive AND in position.  (Thank God position is still a fundamental "good thing" that hasn't changed.)  In these situations, I had been able to call-center-down the common aggressive opponent who would show down Ace High versus my bottom pair.  I often got to these showdowns at the cost of a single cbet.

3.  My value bets were still being called.  To anyone paying attention, they should be auto-folding once I bet...but no.  The player who pays attention is surprisingly still a rare thing, thank God.  I mean, seriously, I only raise Kings and Aces preflop, and I never bet postflop till I have the hand locked up... and I still get callers?  Nice.

Lookit me, I limped AK from the Small Blind!

RedAirkson the Call Center just took down a 200BB four-way pot.  And yes, I left him one cent, of course.

This brings to fore a common complaint that comes my way from students:  "I CAN'T BEAT THE GODDAM DONKEYS!"

So here I was, playing like a Donkey, and finding out why a good donkey is hard to beat.  I lose small, I win big.  And these aggro-monkeys who watch too much Tom Dwan keep barrelling into me.  And despite my (horrific) preflop style of play, I still play smart post-flop.

The next ten thousand hands are going to be interesting.

Sources of Income

I spend countless hours looking at Pokertracker player statistics - mine, my students', and those of unknown villains I am trying to find holes in.  It is not uncommon to see a stat-line that can be judged as "solid" and "optimal" BUT STILL BE BREAK-EVEN...or worse, losing!

But if the stats over a great sample size indicate that I am playing well, why am I losing?  It doesn't add up!"

The simplest explanation - and often the correct one - is this:  You win small and lose big.

 Imagine a 9-max player whose range is a decent and solid 20-16, he wins when he sees the flop almost 50% of the time, he wins showdowns more than half the time, and his AF is balanced.  In a hundred-thousand hands, he has played 20 thousand - and has taken down four thousand small pots - an average profit of 5BB's each time.  That's 20,000 BB's in the bank.

Now imagine he loses focus for just 0.5% of that span.  During those 100 hands played, he made bad decisions and blew a bit more than half a stack each time - sometimes a whole stack, and in rare cases, a deep stack.  Let's just say his "bad-play-losses" average 75BB's each time.  That may seem like a lot of stack-offs, and you may say that a solid player won't stack off that much, but we are talking about hands that don't even happen 1% of the time - they don't affect his overall statistics, and this player may not even notice how many times he has made these precious few bad plays (one bad play every one thousand hands) - but they were all in medium-to-big pots.  7,500 BB's disappeared without him really noticing.

In the other 80,000 hands he folded, he was SB and BB about 9,000 times each, so scratch off another 13,500BB's.  Deduct the rake, and some other small to medium pots from a few thousand hands that were well-played but had to be given up on (or coolered/setup, etc...)... and now the solid stats guy is a losing player.

The culprit?  A very tiny amount of medium to big pots.

We've all had sessions where we grinded two hours with hardly a showdown and doubled our buyin, only to lose the whole stack in one bad 3barrel decision.  It's that easy to set yourself back and negate all the good (hard) work put in!


All the small pots won actually just barely pay off the rake, blinds, and other stabs at pots that did not work out.  As sexy as a red-line-graph might be, the simple truth is this:   

In the micro and low stakes, your source of income is still in the occassional big pots.  The blue lines.  The showdowns where the villains are making the big mistakes, and not you.



If you look at your source of income as the amount of mistakes you capitalize on - as a poker player should (we don't play for a living to hit flops and make hands) - then a BIG part of your source of income is the SAVINGS from mistakes you avoided!

So I spent time looking for these big pots.  The big mistakes.  No they aren't made with hands like 93o and K7s.  Some of them are made from suited connectors and the overplayed draws that follow.  Some of them are made from mental lapses that make me complete my SB and then flop something I get excited about.  Most of them are made from premium hands.  

Those hands sure do win a lot, but they shouldn't be losing as much either.

Of the premium hands - AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK - I noticed my Ace-King was my second-largest money-earner, expectedly behind AA.  This same hand is also one of my main big-pot losers.  It was time to play with some filters.

Back in my Full-Ring Days, shoving AK preflop showed a positive expectation.  Those days are gone.  It's not just because I am now playing short-handed, but moreso because players are not that stupid anymore.  Contrary to what we would love to believe, THEY ARE NOT CALLING AS LIGHT AS WE THINK!

In almost all cases, I am only called by hands that beat me - yes, I get the rare spazz call from AJo and K6s, but most of the time, premium pairs are only too happy to see me shove over their preflop raises!  I used to think that the dead money from all the folds I got would make up for the inevitable stack-off... they do not!!!



The important thing to remember is that a nicely sized 3bet of 4bet can get the same amount of folds as a shove.  At least when we are caught by a real hand, we are not stacking off...

Ah what a difference an adjusted bet-size makes!  Playing pemium this way is not as good for my AA - since that is a hand that should never be afraid to get it all in preflop, but it is an overall improvement for all other hands.

JJ is an exception because I really play it more like TT - which is to say "very awkwardly"... The only times I get that hand in preflop is against a confirmed and absolute spazz-monkey.  As the stats above show, I've picked those spots well.

Even KK is an improvement.  I've gotten that in so many times against AA.  And although I do not mind the times I got it in versus AQo, it's still hardly a lock when that happens.



So next I had to look at what happens when I got cautious or trappy:

Definitely better with AA, but only a slight improvement with AKs - an improvement nonetheless, since as a rule hands that have draws are better to see flops with.

Not a good idea to get cute with AKo and KK though.  With AKo, there isn't much of a monster draw to come up with, and by flatting, I have no initiative or ability to represent a huge hand postflop.  I would have to end up folding a lot.

With KK, I also lose the ability to have initiative in a bigger pot - so I am winning a small pot, or losing a big one.  Add this complication:  If I flatted PF and see an Ace on the board, I freeze.  I become bluffable - because, hey, surely he has the Ace because he was the preflop raiser and I'm a pussy, right?



So I had to ask the question:  Am I better off when I see flops, or when I get aggro from the get-go?  How do these premium hands make the most money?

Shocking.  For a hand that is my number two money-earner - behind AA - AK makes all that money without a flop!

Conventional wisdom taught me that AK was strong because once it hits, it hits better than all the others.  It is a hand that hits and dominates whatever the other guys hits.  I thought that was how it was supposed to make money.

I thought "preflop fold equity" was a nice little plus.  As it turns out, it seems to be all that matters.

I will now explain this phenomenon with a term I borrow (steal) from Dusty Schmidt's ramblings.

"CARD REMOVAL" is AK's main source of income!

What do we mean by "card removal"...?  (In sexier terms, you can also say "combinatronics")  Simply put, when you have an Ace or King in your hand, it is just so much less likely that they have one too.  AND if they don't have an Ace or King in their hand, they are not feeling so hot when you put in that re-raise preflop.

Now imagine you have QQ and raise preflop.  Once someone re-raises, you can look at your two Queens and it will be VERY EASY to imagine the 3bettor has Kings or Aces.  12 times he can have those hands, sixteen times he can have AK.  Even if you assume he has AK, you are still flipping.  So 12 times you are crushed, and of the sixteen you are ahead of, you only win 8.  It's not very exciting.

What if I raised with pocket Tens?  because of (reverse) card removal,  i have to count Jacks and Queens in his range.  That's 24 hands that crush me, and sixteen hands that I flip with.  It just gets bleaker.

Even with KK, there is always a nagging fear of the villain holding an Ace.  After all, he liked his hand enough to raise AND call my reraise... shouldn't that usually mean when that Ace hits the flop I'm in trouble?  Not really, but it sure feels that way almost every time.

With AK, I hold in my hands - in plain verifiable sight - two cards that the villain is much less likely to have.  There is no need to shove this, because when I 3bet with this hand, the villain - who likely does not have AA or KK - is already getting the point.


There is a lot more to be discovered, I am sure, once I play with the filters a bit more and have a closer look at each hand, but the basic eureka-moments are here as posted.

(Granted, some of the math above is generic, but all the stats are from Sample size are from my last six months of data)

If I stay aware of my true sources of income - as fact and not as I'd like to think of it - then I can better proceed to capitalize on those sources instead of trying to squeeze profits from shakier sources.

MetaDonkey!

I am not writing this article because I recently won the first-ever Badugi Tourney (that I know of) in the Philippines.  It's a tiny tourney, even though I pride myself in beating a few Koreans (who claim they invented the game) at the Final Table...

I am writing this because I was pleasantly surprised at how much this game feels more "pokery" than good ole Texas Holdem. 

As I was learning the game and reading up on the basics, it was already appealing to me because it seemed to combine two of the games I love but can't play enough of:  Draw Poker and Razz.  For a game that was resisted and billed as an absolute donkeyfest, I found that it was in fact more intricate than that.  You want a hand-making donkeyfest?  Go play low-limit Omaha!

To stress the subtlety, I will now post a couple of hands that I had the good fortune to learn from - just so the point is made, I will make a semi-spoiler:  in BOTH these hands, the real poker was played AFTER ALL PLAYERS WERE ALREADY ALL IN!

(as a reminder, badugi's objective is to make the best 4-card low-rainbow hand)


Hand #1:  Outdrawn and outplayed, in that order.

I am dealt A52 (rainbow) and another 5.
I bet the pot, and lose everyone except the big blind.  Time to draw...
FIRST DRAW, the BB draws two cards.  I think "donkey!" and decide to stand pat (draw nothing) to send him a message.
BB then checks, and I bet pot again...
BB raises all-in for less than double my bet, and I call as I think "uh oh, did he draw a badugi?  Surely he knows from me standing pat that I also have a badugi (I don't)..."
SECOND DRAW, the BB stands pat!
my turn to draw, and I panic.  the jig is up, he has a made hand, and we are all-in so there is no betting to be done, and therefore bluffing is futile!  I decide I must now draw to beat his hand... I draw one card.  no Badugi.
...no more betting, as I said, since we are all-in...
THIRD DRAW, the BB stands pat, looking even more confident than ever after seeing me draw.  I draw one card again and miss!
my hand remains at A52 rag.
SHOWDOWN, the BB shows a Queen-high Badugi, and I am beat!
I was in the middle of pondering the consequences of dumb donkey luck - how he could hit the Badugi in a single two-card draw - and also wondering where I went wrong... when the Korean in the BB shared this awesome secret:

IF I HAD STOOD PAT BEHIND HIM ON THE SECOND DRAW, HE WOULD HAVE HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO DRAW ON THIRD STREET!

I was floored, noob that I am at this game.  It was so simple it was awesome.  He would have concluded that I had a Badugi as well, and that his Q-High could only beat K-High.  He would have to BREAK HIS HAND to try to draw a better Badugi - and that would not have been very likely.  Once he breaks his hand and misses the desperation draw, my 3-card low would have won!

I was already outdrawn before the chips went in, but after they went in - with no further betting - I was also outplayed.



Hand #2:  The shoe on the other foot...?

I manage to crawl into the Final Table, playing the tight strategies I read about as I crammed for the tourney days before.  My adherence to strict strategy has gotten me to the Heads Up Finale versus a very aggressive Korean Player who looked every bit like he knew exactly what he was doing.
OTB, I am dealt A23 rainbow with a 3 to discard.  I raise, my opponent calls.
FIRST DRAW, enjoying my position immensely, I watch closely as he draws ONE card.  I stand pat to set up my next bet...
...except he leads into me for pot!  I smell an aggro-bluff, so I call.
SECOND DRAW, he stands pat!  I tank a bit... is this the same situation?  I decide it feels like the same situation (from Hand #1) so I save my panic button for third street and stand pat behind.
...my opponent bets pot again - enough to put himself all-in.  I have him slightly covered, but if he has a Badugi, I am drawing a nine-outer at best (all diamonds except the A, 2, and 3, and only good if he is holding the King of diamonds in his Badugi hand)... If I imagined that he had a decent Badugi hand - after all he stood pat and bet after I hand raised before and stood pat twice - then I would have to put him on at least a nine-high Badugi... which meant I needed a diamond 8 or lower.  That was a five-outer, and I had a lot of chips to play with if I got out of this bloated pot.  I haven't played this game long enough to know for sure, but folding was starting to look good...
...But something felt wrong - like I am being outplayed and everyone knew it but me... I called.
THIRD DRAW, he stands pat, and now I know I was wrong!  If he was bluffing, he would certainly have to draw now that I've called all his chips and there were no more streets to outplay me on.  If he stood pat, he definitely had me beat.
...I sheepishly draw one card, cursing at my bad read...
I draw an 8-high Badugi, and it beats his 9-high Badugi!

On this hand, he had used his image to take me to value town.  And his play was also strong enough that I could have abandoned ship with the stronger hand.

Except I metagamed myself into Donkey-ville, and I sucked out.

nh
gg
smiley face

This month's fun reads...

Nope, they're not table reads - although I did have a couple of great hero calls with bottom pair recently...

Here are some online postings that I found to be worth the clicks and reads:



IS ONLINE POKER RIGGED?
ah, that old debate...never gets old.  the guys at pokermanila make it interesting as always.



THE TRUTH ABOUT BEING A POKER PRO
thanks BERTO for this one!  Holy shit, here's something i'd like to read everyday like the Random Morning Bible Page (I don't do that anymore FYI)...
"Poker teaches you humility, emotional control and, most of all, patience. You realize that life in general is one big game of chance that you can kind of sort of control, but often is subject to just plain dumb luck, and that life is about how you react to that luck. To use an obnoxiously tired metaphor that's actually appropriate here, you learn that life will deal you a shitty hand every now and then (sometimes one after another for months on end). But when it does, you just have to toss the cards aside and wait for the next hand to come your way. The game goes on."

...I must say, however, that I do not agree with the "Guilt" portion of the article... when the author compares poker to a business, except that you don't bring home a TV after losing $500, he was unable to jump to a more proper comparison: the entertainment business.

When you fork over your money for a show, you come home with nothing but memories and an experience.  That's poker.  That's me selling you hours of entertainment, and a really good chance to win my money.  What other business sells you a TV and says "you can actually take my money too!"...



ADVICE COLUMN THIS WEEK
I get some really nice questions sent to me every now and then - this one is about a topic I frequently have to explain to even the most intermediate player:


hi

my starting stack is usually 10$ in NL10... when is it ok for me to stand up and find another table (since i'm still in the condition to play)?  i mentioned i already had 45$ before and lost it in a few hands...

when i get my stack to 20$, i keep playing, goes around 25-27...
but i usually get a hit later, goes down to around 12... and even lower when i get hit hard...

so, i wonder if it were wiser to stand up, move to another table and start with 10$ again.... i risk not getting paid more if i go back to 10$ but i also risk being the target if my stack is bigger, or lose a bigger chunk of the stack if there's a set-up.

like, i already have 25, the rest have 7- 12$... so, should i employ a hit and run approach?  Or at least have  a target to cash out from a particular table.


(my reply)

you have to be VERY honest with yourself when thinking about this.

Do I have the arsenal to change gears when my stack hits 200BB++?

--> This is a great spot to be in and I often will NEVER leave the table until the very last ounce of my A-Game is used.  There is a critical mass in effect here, where you will discover that getting from 100BB to 200BB is much much harder than going from 200 to 300, 300 to 400, etc...
--> If you feel lost as a giant stack and feel like you are just making mistakes, then by all means leave and start over.

this is also the bane of most SSS players - they know exactly what to do to double their 30BB buyin to 60 BB, but once they hit the full stack area of play, they just end up making mistakes and become short stacks again.  Their is some kind of instinct in our heads that will do whatever it takes to return us to our comfort levels, so once you feel uncomfortable, you will find yourself making plays that are designed to bring you back to where you know what to do... even at the cost of what you already earned!

La Kukaracha: Every Hand Revealed

On the PilipinasPoker forums, where I co-run an annual poker league (The PilipinasPoker APA Tour), one of the most-debated issues was the question of whether or not players should be allowed to sit out the entire tourney.

Predictably, the chief complainants were loose players who often busted out well before the sitouts blinded out. The sitouts would never make it to the money, but in a tourney league where leaderboard points have more long-term value than money they would end up higher in the rankings than some of these "playing players."

My personal stand on this issue is the simplest: A paying player has the right to play the tournament that he paid to play in however the hell he wants. If he wants to be the annoying jackass who open-shoves every hand, that's fine. If he wants to sit there and fold everything till his wrist hurts, that's fine too.

If a player's strategy is to play like a cockroach, he would not be the first of his kind.


So one day I decided to do it.

I paid for the entry at one of the PLO leaderboard events at The Midas Touch and then left the building. My last chip blinded out...12th place.

The next day I registered for the NLHE leaderboard event, immediately paid for the addon, and again left the building. Finished 11th place.

When I came in two days later, the murmuring had begun. I had to hear stories of how players could not make a move nearing the bubble because they were in mortal fear of the idea that they could bust out before an empty seat armed with naught but ante chips. Players were open-folding hands like pocket sixes and Ace-Jack!

They were not just "stories" by the way, they sounded more like informal complaints.

So on this day, to prove a point and silence the murmurs, I decided to do it again - but this time I would employ the "sitout strategy" while sitting at my seat.

"Ah, so you finally decided to play," teased a regular, "you actually do better when you don't play."

"Don't worry," I reassured him and the rest of the table, "I'm only playing Aces today."


Okay, not exactly a sit out, but it should amount to the same thing. Here's how it turned out:

Level 2, I get dealt AKs in the BB. Several players limp it to me... I check. Flop is ten-high with none of my suit, and I check-fold.

Level 3, AQs in the BB. I check, I check-fold the K-Q-7 flop. My initial stack of 5k is down to about 4k, so I decide to pay for the addon.

Level 4, nearing the end of the addon period and approaching the first break. I still have over 10k in chips. I get my Aces. Not wanting to complicate my strategy, I chose to stay true to the spirit of the Ipis. I open-shove. No callers, I don't show my hand. There is speculation that I am using my image. Whatever, I'm getting too sleepy from this strategy to get involved in the conversation.

About twenty players left, I open-fold a couple of AKo hands, pocket tens, and pocket twos. My stack is just about 8.2k...

Thirteen players left, nearing my previous high finish of eleventh, I decide to revise my strategy a bit. Since I already know that players are just going to wait me out to make the final table, I saw no sense in continuing the sit out. Change of gear, I would open-shove any Ace once my M (Magriel's number, as explained by Harrington as the cost of each round of poker) was less than five.

A loose player raises from UTG, I shove over the top with AKo and get called by J3o. My first double-up, stack is just under 20k.

A couple more open shoves - A7s and A5s - and I am in the final table with 28k.

At the final table, I keep folding as players drop off. I finally see ATo and shove over an EP limper. No callers, and my stack is back near 30k.

7 players left, and I have not played a single hand post-flop. This strategy has given me absolutely no headache, but I have completely neutralized any edge I might have had over some of the more casual players.

Two more players drop out. My stack is now at around M3, so I decide KQo is good enough to open-shove over a limper. He calls me with Q5s, spikes the five, and I am out at fifth.


Long live the Ipis!


Afterthought: in a field of mostly casual players, where small-balling might not work and there is not likely going to be any metagaming, I highly recommend employing a bastard-child of the pure sitout if you want a relaxing tourney experience. Just hang in there, and change your gears when the bubble approaches, and you might find yourself with a decent final table stack without ever playing a hand post-flop. Word of warning, it's not much fun.

How to make sure your A-Game is a perfect TEN

On this PilipinasPoker forum thread, a poster asked about how to prep for a big tourney.  My mind immediately wandered into strategic considerations that I personally prepare:

--> What is the size of the field?
--> What is the starting stack and blinds?  Duration of each level?
--> What is the expected average quality of the competition?  TAGGY or LAGGY?  Or just mostly DONKEY?
--> How long am I expecting to sit before level breaks / day-end breaks?
--> Is the venue climate warm, cold, dingy, etc...?


These, and other factors I consider, eventually help me decide if I am going to small-ball or nit up.  Will I be an incessant blind-stealer, or am I going to be the sitting-sitout-artist?


As I pondered how to phrase this into digestible advice, I then thought of something more basic that will surely help this poster... after all, people can come up with countless strategies that I may not agree with, but the bottom-line will always be this:  "make sure you have your goddamned A-Game on!"

 ...or else, no strategy can be excuted properly.



So instead of cluttering minds with stategic advice, notes and research methods, and a regimen of practice sessions pre-tourney, this is my eventual reply to the post, based on one of my favorite pickups from "The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment"...


Make sure your A-Game is a TEN.

On the night before the tourney, get some sleep - turn in early and make sure you are up in the morning.  This might get you excited and impatient, so you will have to calm down.  This is your chance to actually practice calming yourself down and getting into a "TEN" mode.  You will be doing this all throughout the length of the marathon big tourney.

You can do this calming exercise standing still or while walking around. 

Inhale deeply through your nose, then hold your breath for two seconds.  Then as you exhale through your mouth, make sure the duration of your exhale is stretched out to double the time you took inhaling.  This will slow your body down and sharpen your mind by eliminating clutter and creating space.

Then as you exhale, count ""one"

Go all the way to "ten"

If you lose count, start over.  If you cannot make it to ten, you are not mentally sharp to play, so keep focusing, unless you are happy with an "eight"...?

After ten, you are ready to play. 

Now get a full meal and a full bathroom session in before you even head out towards the tourney venue.  Time it so you get to the tourney venue just about ten minutes before it starts.  Don't worry about registration of missing the first few deals.  Get into the mindset that you will be here a loooong time.

If you feel antsy - like you wanna fucking play already - breathe...and do not sit down till after "ten"

Now play your "ten" game ;-)

The Sharks among the Donks...

It has been a long long time since I sat down at a tourney with the one hundred percent intention of staying focused.  My past few forays have been eighty percent at best - as I have taken quite a leisurely approach to tournament poker (treating it as my personal day off from the professional poker grind...to play something that was not always poker on a tournament poker table)...

It helped greatly that I was playing at a room whose denizens are not as familiar with me.  No one was trying to catch my attention every few minutes for random advice and questions.  There was no in-room crises that needed my help to resolve.  I did not need to have a say in the structure or the prize pool or the ramifications of finishing in the bubble positions without negotiating insurance...

Also, as I was here to play my best, I was not about to spiral into my usual tourney-experimentations.  I would be able to resist asking the age old question:  "I wonder what would happen if I pop this balloon...?"

Translated, that reads:  "I wonder if I can 3bet with this nine-four-offsuit and use my position to fire two more barrels and take down a huge pot uncontested?"


It helped that I had a long long day before tourney day, so I was a tad grumpy and not in the mood for the usual idle chit chat that inevitably leads me to call down a good friend with my doomed TPNK of a hand.

I was also not in the mood for my random social experiments - like the time I pretended to be drunk to see if I would get more calls... or the time I played all my BU and CO hands by pretending to look at my hole cards but never really seeing them... or the time I decided I would play with only one guy at the table, and it would always be to raise him... or the time I made all my preflop raises 1/3 of my stack - regardless of the blinds and my stack size - and staring people down after i raised it to 4,500 with my 13k stack and the blinds at 25-50...


I turned off my phone and put my earphones on.


This time I was just lotus-seated on my chair and listened to myself breathe.  I was able to do what I love to do best:  I watched other players play - and I saw some plays that made me believe in the Pinoy Poker Pro all over again!

You must understand: with all the freerollers, tiltwhores, fancy players, egomaniacs, luckboxes, anglers, cheats, charmers, nits, and flat-out-donkeys out there I take great GREAT pleasure in seeing a player really do the game justice.


Here is one of my favorite plays of the day:


BERNARD GARROVILLAS.  This player is known for fearless aggression and a talent for outplaying his opponents with a wide array of uncallable bets.  He can build a stack and lose it in one orbit.  He is not crazy, but he is not always patient.  On this day, I saw Bernard the Pro (as opposed to Bernard-the-guy-who-is-gonna-hit-the-Baccarat-tables-after-the-game) in action.

With a limper in the CO, Bernard raises from the BU.  A call after the blinds fold, and the limper check-calls Bernard's cbet on a ragged flop.  On the brickish turn, another check from the CO.  Bernard checks behind.  The river pairs the turn - I recall it was a three - and the CO bets about half the pot.  Bernard flats and his Jacks beat the Villain's MPWK hand.

This may seem pretty standard, but I do not see it enough, and I really liked this hand because of the basics involved:

1. Tourney Poker versus Cash Poker basics:  In a cash game, the chips you do not lose have the same value as the chips you win.  In a tourney, the chips you win actually have less value than the chips you do not lose.  If you have 5,000 chips for example, the four thousand you win (getting you a total of 9,000) are hardly as important as the four thousand you lose (crippling your stack to 1,000 and further crippling all your hopes and dreams).  Bernard had a hand he could easily bet for value if he played at his usual speed, but he controlled the pot to fit the size of his hand - which is to say, he recognized that his hand was no monster.  It was just an overpair.

2.  When to bet:  If a weaker hand will just fold and give you zero extra profit, why bet?  I don't buy all the hype about "Protecting my hand" and "Seeing where I am" in a ragged-board situation.  If Bernard bets the turn, he folds out his opponent.  He checks behind and actually gets the poor guy to "bet to win" - which is, in my opinion, one of the most overused plays/expressions... Bernard knew when to bet, and he knew when to let the clueless guy do the betting.

3.  Image-Crafting!  Not only did Bernard advertise that he can check with a good hand, he also advertised that his opponent was not one to be feared.  I remember being asked after the tourney why I went into triple-flat-call mode IP with my KK overpair, and I explained that besides not wanting to lose my customer, I take great pleasure in watching them be the first to table their awful hands at the showdown... and I take greater pleasure in watching the rest of the table take note and lose all respect for my opponent for the next two hours.  With one disciplined call, you can give up a few extra chips for the sake of image-crafting:  improving yours, and damaging theirs.


And now my favorite hand of the day...


MICKEY TAVORA.  I had the awful luck of drawing a seat OOP from Mickey.  I was not OOP in the right-next-to-me sense either, I was OOP in the worst way:  Mickey was in one of my "money-seats"...

My money-seats are the two immediately to my right, and the ones that are second and third to my left.  These seats are where I need the fish to be, but instead Mickey was on the seat third to my left.  This meant I was not going to be able to routinely and profitably raise my HiJack and CO because Mickey can defend his blinds very well.  As for my BU (the only other time I would be able to act last against him), Mickey neutralized me by routinely limping or raising from UTG.

To make things absolutely worse, the fishiest player was on Mickey's left - which meant that every single time I went after the guy, Mickey could cockblock and take away my advantages.

Not having much room, I sat back and watched Mickey tear up the table like he was wildly swinging a vacuum cleaner hose and sucking chips into his stack...

My favorite Mickey play came at the expense of a LAGtard second to my right.  The LT had been moved to the table with about 60k in chips at a time when people generally only had 20k.  He sat down and immediately raised his first three hands.

I remember thinking:  "I will bet anyone willing to put money down that this guy and his 60k stack will be gone before I'm done counting out my own puny stack of 5,800"

Mickey took care of him in this hand:

With the blinds at 300-600, Mickey raises to 2,200 from MP.  It is folded around to the LT in the BB, who flats.  Pot is 4700.

On a 2-2-7 rainbow flop, the LT checks and Mickey fires a bet of 3,000.  The LT check-raises to 8,000 total... and he looks so smug it makes me pray a rosary on the spot:  "Please don't fold Mickey!"

With the pot bloated to 15,700 on a horrid board early in the tourney, Mickey tanks.  Tournaments are defined by moments like these - many have gone broke by ego-shoving over the top, and many have lost sleep by folding and begging to know what the other guy had.

Mickey 3bets to 22,300 total!  The pot is now 35k, and if the LT calls, he will only have about 28k left.  If the LT shoves, well Mickey (who has the LT covered by about 5k) will have to call 28k for a pot of over 85k!  All this, with two cards to go.

The defining moment:  The LT flat-calls!

The turn comes - an ACE - and the LT insta-shoves.  Then he displays about six of the tells that I have carefully noted during my last hour with him.  My mind is screaming CALL!

But Mickey did not need any tells.  Everything he needed to know, he found out for himself with that brilliant Flop 3bet.  Mickey calls, and the LAGtard tables KQo before staring at a blank river and literally running out of the room before anyone recognizes him and asks about his brilliant turn instashove...

I loved this hand for these reasons:

1.  Fish-Isolation!  Mickey saw the LT in the Big Blind and raised to get into a hand with him while he had position.  It did not matter that he was raising from MP, he was running the table, and he got what he wanted.

2.  Mickey's Flop 3bet!!!  The Flop check-raise was almost scripted - you could almost hear the LT say "check-raise blind" after he called preflop!  Mickey did not lose his nerve, but he also gave the move the respect it deserved.  He could be running into something that had him beat - like Nines or Tens, or even some classic Big Blind Special with a Two in it!  Folding would have been awful though, because he played this hand to get the LT's money into the middle.  He had what he wanted, but he needed to make sure he actually had the LT beat.  The 3bet was a great size - significant enough to fold out most bluffs, but also a size that he could give up on if the 4bet-shove came.  Given the size of the pot after the 3bet, any serious hand would surely 4bet-shove already...

3.  "You flat this and you are mine!"  If Mickey flats the check-raise, the LT shoves any turn and it would be impossible to call with anything other than the nuts.  Mickey's hand was nowhere near nutty.  It was fruity at best.  So he 3bets, and as soon as the LT flat-called, Mickey maneuvered back into the driver's seat.  He could check the turn behind - as the LT would SURELY check the turn if he had any kind of a hand.  The LT was painted into a corner where no turn lead out would make sense after he passed on his chance to 4bet on the flop...

So the LT Donk shoves the turn, and for all intents and purposes, it was as if he had played his hand face-up to reveal the nothing that it was!


Never mind what hand Mickey had, because what he had was the balls to make the right move (a move that I am sure many could easily come up with, but could almost never pull the trigger on).  And now he had over 100k... and I still had about 6k.

Damn.

Beware of Elation!

This is a topic I had wanted to write about for some time now, but it wasn't until recently that I found the RIGHT WORD to describe the subject of this post.


ELATION.


The word finally hit me as I was replying to a post on the PilipinasPoker forums.


"...With a 1k buy-in, I was 6k up (total including the buy-in) in just a span of 4 hours....So there I was at my table comfortably winning until I got hit.  (insert bad beat story here).

"I wasn't able to shift gears as soon as possible and from there made plays that even my 12 year-old niece won't do... I really tilted big time and the point break was when I raised my JJ and a new player shoved.  I had no good read on him because he just sat down, but I was putting him on either KK or QQ... and still called.  He showed his AA and it held unimproved.

Then another guy sat down.  First hand he shoved with a 500 peso-worth of buy-in.  I instantly called with my AQ suited and his QQ hit a set on the flop....From there I kept re-buying, lost my table image and lost my stack that I used to bully people around

Calling on Coach Red.  Need advice.   :crying: :crying: :crying:"


The Original poster then goes onto post his "Lessons:" - and my comments are in yellow italicized boldface.

(1)  I underestimated the players; more like you overestimated yourself, all poker players are guilty of this.

(2)  I became too proud and my small success got into my head; see below

(3)  I became too greedy and I did not stick with the "incremental winnings" policy that I set for myself; i don't like having a stop-win rule, but as this is your personal rule - you made it up, so at least decide to follow it or scrap it eh?

(4)  I failed to shift gears; you actually shifted: all those races you entered after the AA debacle was you shifting to 7th gear

(5)  I forgot that knowing when to quit is the sign of a true grinder.  you might help yourself here by drafting your set of "when to quit rules" and running it by some people you trust.  this can't just be some abstract feeling in your head.

When you ran your money up to 6k, how much of it was from showdowns of hands that got paid off by second best hands?  There must have been a triple up in there somewhere.

The reason i ask is because you have to constantly be aware of when you got lucky, so you don't walk around thinking you own the table just because you hit quads and got paid by a full house.

If you can manage your ego, you can maintain a neither happy nor sad demeanor, and you can just focus on playing poker.  If you are feeling elated at the table because "you own these guys" then you need to think about taking a walk or buying people drinks until your joy has subsided to a normal level.

I'm not saying don't enjoy when you win, just beware of ...well, the word that keeps coming to mind is "elation" - coz when that elation pops (via a bad beat, most often) you might fight to get it back like the talented hooker who blew you like there was no tomorrow but had to go home to her pimp-boyfriend.

Okay i've said too much again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Beware of ELATION.

It used to be referred to - for lack of a better word or set of words, obviously - as "winner's tilt" and "overconfidence"... No, now I have a word for it, and it is a specific feeling that you can spot.

I have to differentiate this feeling from "being in the zone" - when I am "in the zone" I usually have no emotions.  ZERO.  Whether it's basketball, poker, World of Warcraft, or onstage performing, "The Zone" is a place where everything is automatic and I am pretty much delivering while unconscious.  I am doing what I am supposed to be doing because my body remembers everything that has to be done.  All my moves take care of themselves because they just naturally happen.  I feel like a third party watching myself play, and as much as I am pleased with what is happening, I have neither control nor emotion.  When I try to take control when I am in the Zone, I snap out of it.  When I try to assess or analyze why I am such a superstar, I snap out of it.


The moment I feel happy - or, as the word of the day goes, ELATED - I snap out of the present and start celebrating my (immediate) past success(es).

If you are overly pleased with yourself, you are NOT in the Zone.  If you have a fuzzy feeling in your head - almost as if you are floating, you are elated.  If you can't stop smiling, you are elated.  If you can't stop replaying the cut-scenes in your head where you totally pwned somebody with your Ace-High call of a River shove to beat his busted draw - and if you replay those cut-scenes from seven different camera angles - YOU ARE ELATED.

Nothing wrong with being happy, but don't go back to the game just yet.  Finish celebrating.  You cannot be in two places at once - not even if you are a 24-tabler.  When you are revelling in past moments, you are not in the present tense.  Finish celebrating, then go back to the present tense and play the Game.

Or decide to stop playing for the night, and spend the rest of the beautiful evening celebrating and telling everyone willing to share in your elation why you are so goddamned blessed.

Geek Gets Girl...?

This is not a poker topic per se, but this little work of semi-fiction was published in UNO magazine as a POV piece from a poker geek...

I am a professional poker player.  I play cards for a living.  You might think of me as a tall guy in a black hat who sits down with the local badasses and cleans them out while speaking only sparingly and in gravelly low tones.   You might think I walk out of a room full of stunned and emasculated men who can only watch as I get on my horse and ride off into the sunset, leaving behind a Legend …and a brothel full of satisfied women.

The only truth to that image is that I am tall.  And I do own a black hat.

The ugly truth is that I sit down in front of my computer with a screenful of graphics in my face.  I do try to clean out the credit cards of the parents of the kids who log on to play internet poker after watching “The World Poker Tour” on television.  While it is true that I do speak sparingly, it is not in low gravelly tones – try to say the next few sentences out loud, and your tone will probably match mine:

“Of course, OF COURSE he has a flush!”

“Another King?!? COME ON!”

“Straight on the flop?  You gotta be kidding me!”

Also, I almost never leave my room…But I HAVE left behind me a trail of satisfied women.  When I leave them alone, they are satisfied.  To add to a popular slogan:  I am single by choice, and that choice seems to be made for me over and over by every girl I meet.

I am a Geek, and while we Geeks are good at many things, we are not good at getting Girls.  I often wondered why we don’t make a serious effort to get better at it – heck, we spend countless hours googling for the best way to powerlevel our World of Warcraft toons or figure out the best setup for Plants versus Zombies Survival Mode, why can’t we be bothered to type “how to get da girl” in the search box?

Are we epic failures because we truly lack interest in them (hah!), or is it because we stubbornly lead with our brains as we charge into the territories of the heart…or perhaps we just can’t be bothered because we are so good at finding free porn…?

A girlfriend of mine once cornered me for an investigation into the matter.  She refused to believe we were hopeless. “Geeks do get Girls,” she would say, “look at Ashton Kutcher and Bill Gates!”

Yes.  Look at them.  Then, uhm,  look at the rest of us.

Also, she was not actually my girlfriend, per se.  She was a friend, and she happened to be a girl.

“Okay, so tell me how you try to get the Girl,” she asked.

I fell silent as my eyes moved up and to the left – a sure sign that I was accessing the part of my brain used for remembering things I have seen or done before using a primarily visual representation…Anyway, you get the point, I was composing my answer…

“I treat her like an unfamiliar gadget that I am handling for the very first time.  I try to figure out what’s in her hard drive so I know what stuff she likes and what activities she does often.  Then I figure out a way to piggyback onto those activities or things she likes – it’s like finding a port of entry that she might have open.  For example, I might attach myself to her gym schedule or her jogging trail.  Each time she runs, I run in the background.  Or I might get her something she can get excited about and sneak it into her mailbox one morning.”

I realize I had just answered the question: “How does a computer virus work?”

“Like a virus,” I answered my girl-friend.  And I told her the story I will tell you now.

PREFLOP:  I am at the cinemas, and I notice the hot girl on the Button.

The first time I saw the hot girl – whose name will be withheld in this article as per the stipulations of a court order – I was only concerned with how I could see her better.  I moved to an angle where I could stare without her noticing.  I silently judged her and decided that yes, she was a hot girl.  And yes, I was interested.  And yes, she was looking at me looking at her.

The best defense when you are caught staring is to make sure she sees you staring at someone else with the exact same stalker-like lust – just so she thinks “oh, it’s not me, he’s just a bigtime starer” and you are off the hook.

So when I was done staring intently at the sixty-two year old paraplegic a few feet from her, I got back to work.  I had to formulate a plan.  I had to talk to her.  So I leapt from my dark corner and walked towards her…past her…to the popcorn stand behind her, so I could eavesdrop on a conversation she was having with her friend while I bought random items from the snack counter.  If I listened long enough – and if I was both sharp and lucky – I would get her name.  I did not know how long I could hold up the snack line, so I would have to get what I needed and get out of there.

I walked away from the snack counter a big SUCCESS!  I did not get her name, but I did hear about a facebook event she was going to.  Geeks just need a tag or a keyword to proceed, so this was good enough!   I gathered up my purchases – four bags of popcorn, two large drinks, a plate of cheesy nachos, and a real-estate agent’s flyer – and ran home to do some easy cross-referencing. 

It only took four mouse-clicks before I was staring at the picture on her facebook profile.  Add hot girl as a friend?  No.  It was too soon.  Ninjas do not stealthily climb to the roof of your house to blow a hole in it with a bazooka.

One more mouse-click led to her blog, and I soon had everything I needed to craft my virus:  hobbies, preferences, a brief history of her life, her past and current occupation, the schools she went to…

Hmm, her contact number was on there, I could just call her and….NO!  I am a ninja!  Ninjas do not call hot girls!

Comment on this blog.  Click!  I left her an attagirl and a link to one of my own blogs – no, not the one with my collection of grotesque sports injuries and easter eggs from popular Hollywood movies.  From what I read about this hot girl, it would have to be the link to my travel journal.

When I got the email notification informing me of a visitor to my travel blog, I knew I was ready for my first real big move.  I clicked her facebook profile on my bookmarks bar.  Send hot girl a message.  Something very articulate but not overly eloquent.  Something friendly and casual but not too jejemon.  Something that showed interest in what her job was.

“Hi, I randomly landed on your blog the other day and couldn’t help but notice that you work for a company that supplies shower-curtain rings to hotels all over the world…”

And now the Geek and the hot Girl had contact.  It was not something to be overjoyed with – it wasn’t as if she had let me plug my flashdrive into her USB port to upload my favorite files, but she had called my preflop raise, and we were definitely going to see the flop.

“Enough with the poker analogies and metaphors,” my girl-friend interrupted, “what happened next?”

“Well, the Flop comes, of course…” 

THE FLOP:  Well, I had raised preflop with Ace-King (suited), but the flop was a ragged rainbow, and none of it was my suit.  Now that I was first to act, do I fire a continuation bet or check to see if she checks behind?

The rising height of my girl-friend’s left eyebrow indicated that I had better translate to plain English immediately.

I had established contact, but as it was under the guise of a guy interested in shower-curtain rings, my only recourse was to continue telling that story, and hope I would have the opportunity to somehow twist it to resemble something closer to reality.  The purpose of contact was to give her an opportunity to see what a great guy I could be.

Establishing contact was easy.  All a Geek had to do was make some pretense to need the Girl for something external – work-related, business-connected – anything that wouldn’t give away that I was calling her just because I liked her, and just her.

The bigger challenge for me was to figure out how to keep the connection going.  The longer it went, the less likely my initial story would hold up, and the closer she would get to figuring me out.  The challenge was to reverse the situation and create a scenario where she would need me.  Then she would have to call me, and instead of continuing to use 90% of my brain to continue lying to her, I could just use 10% of it to simply respond to whatever she would be saying.

So I told her I owned a small chain of Hotels in Northeastern Europe and I would like to receive some quotations.  We were going to see the Turn…

THE TURN was a blank, but I bought myself time, and there was always the hope of pairing up on the River…

We had begun to regularly exchange emails.  She would send me price quotations and images of the product, while I would pretend to suddenly encounter something funny that I had to share with her.  Each email from me ended with “Oh, and I still owe you an email regarding your quotations…”

We set meetings where I was supposed to show her swatches of the imaginary bathroom tiles I used in my chain of non-existent hotels.  Each time, I crafted convoluted but convincing reasons for forgetting to bring the swatches.  But since we were in a coffee house, we might as well have coffee.  I am a Mountain Dew drinker myself, but I had to learn to drink coffee if I was going to sit with this hot girl long enough for me to tell her the amusing anecdotes I had prepared for the meeting.

She thought I was funny.  This was everything to a Geek.  You have to understand:  we know where to find videos that teach us how to give a woman an orgasm, but when it comes to making a Girl laugh, we were on our own.  If I could make her laugh, I could make her want to be with me more!  She was laughing.

I closed my eyes, and I could see the Ace on the River!

THE RIVER was a final fatal blank, and she was calling down my final bet.  She had gotten tired of the nonsense emails, and I was running out of reasons to forget bringing the swatches to our meetings.  She had that look – the one that said “I am on to you, little boy!”

There are two variants to that look.  The first variant was the one where she just stares at you and smiles a lot regardless of what you are talking about.  That meant she was on to me and didn’t care because she liked me too much.  From that point, it would only take a few more days till the virus I had programmed took full effect and she wouldn’t be able to take it anymore.  One of these days, she was going to start a conversation with the words “I have to talk to you about something…” and she would somehow pose the question “What the hell are we?”

Then I would be screaming “I WIN!” in my head while I say something incredibly smooth, like “We are two souls who have been separated during creation, and now we have found each other.”

Up music, lean towards each other, roll credits.

That was not the look she had.  The variant I was seeing was the one with the furrowed brow and the arms crossed over her chest.  She knew something was not adding up, but what she did not know was that there were so many things to add up, she would need a scientific calculator to make sense of everything.

I do have a panic button for these eventualities, and I was pathetic enough to use it: I

suddenly “confessed” to hot girl that I secretly liked her friend.  This button is designed to be so utterly confusing that she would have to choice but to accept it as something that makes everything suddenly make sense.  (Another panic button “reveals” that I have a life-threatening but non-contagious disease, if the need arises).

Of course, there was no “friend” – and she would know it soon enough, because I would not be able to give her the name of her friend that I like so much I had to take the long route to get to her.  When Geeks panic, we look for a reset button or a previous save-point.  I thought I was doing so well, I did not save this game at any point.  And I was down to just a chainsaw in a  big-boss fight.

ALL-IN or FOLD:  I could come clean and tell her the simple uncomplicated truth – that I like her and want to be around her, but was too stupid and clueless to know how to be incredibly honest and endearingly vulnerable – something I could have (SHOULD HAVE) done from the get-go…

…Or I could take that business trip to Northeastern Europe to inspect every last one of my Polish Hotels.

Hey hot girl, how have you been?  Sorry I haven’t replied to you in the last week.  You wouldn’t believe the snow storms here.  One of my apartelles has major structural damage, and it looks like I am going to have to stay here to oversee the renovations for at least another month…

“So wait,” my confused girl-friend jumped in, “this is what you call getting the Girl…?”

Doh, she asked me how I TRY to get the Girl.

And as I sat in my apartment in Alabang, I clicked Send and alt-tabbed to my online poker games.  I rode off into the sunset, leaving behind me a Legend …and yet another epic fail.

Let the fish talk...

I am a big fan of not teaching the fish.  I am an even bigger fan of letting a fish continue to believe he is no longer a fish because "he knows poker now"...

So in the spirit of celebrating the existence of the know-it-all fish who will never learn because he managed to know it all in his six months of "studying the game" I now post here some of my favorite misused poker terms:

No, I am not going to explain the proper use and definition of the misused terms!  When I hear these misguided sentences, I just nod and smile - because I am such a good listener, I am not going to interrupt someone just to correct them :-)


REPOP
"Three people limped in for 20, so I repopped it to 200.  The flop came, they checked to me, so I repopped it again..."


3BET
"On the flop, he bets 200 so I 3bet him to 600..."


POT ODDS
"I limped in for 50 from UTG with pocket fours, the next guy raises to 400, the guy after him shoves for 1200, the button calls, the SB shoves for 1900, so I call because I only have 500 and I have pot odds..."

"I had an open-ended straight draw on the flop, and I called because I had three-to-one pot odds..."

"I bought in for 1000.  First hand I get KQs but UTG raises to 500.  I go all-in because he has over 10,000 in chips and I have massive implied odds..."


BANKROLL
"I moved up to play 25-50 because I managed to grind my bankroll up to 5000 from a buyin of only 500 at the 10-20 table..."

"I withdrew 10k from the ATM so that I would have a bankroll at the 50-100 game later..."


SLOW ROLL
"I flopped quad aces so I decided to slow roll it by checking the flop and turn..."


CBET
"He raised preflop and I called.  I flopped the top pair so I cbet 200"

"It was a limped pot and I was in the BB so I checked.  Then I flopped two pair so I cbet 200..."


BAD BEAT
"I got a bad beat!  I had KQs and he had only A2s but he won!"

"I got bad beat!  he went all-in on the flop with only a straight-flush draw and I had pocket tens!"


POSITION
"I flopped quads tapos I was first to act!  Ang ganda ng position ko!"


Groan.

Poker for a Living...? Really?!?

This was taken from a thread on the PokerManila forums, and is a nice thread to read because it is an issue that will come up constantly - and by "constantly" I mean "whenever anyone in your family so much as sees you holding a deck of cards...

"I'm just curious. Who among you plays poker for a living? I mean, the profession is not really popular here in the philippines, I think...I have lots of questions... I'm just curious about the ups and downs of playing professionally. I mean, in a desk job you dont risk your money to earn money.  

I just find the concept of playing poker as a profession really fascinating... I'm sure Im not the only one who's curious..."


The more common thread once this starts being discussed is of course the "isn't this just gambling?" issue.  Another key issue: "is it just a game meant to be fun, or can you really live off it?"  To this I offer the analogy of the stock broker and the professional basketball player.  One is truly gambling with a suit on to look like he has a real job.  The other is truly just playing, but gets paid to do it.

So where is the poker pro between these two archetypes?  Well, I don't believe we are gamblers, and I do believe we are making money out of having fun...


".....is it as financially rewarding as it is fun?"
One forum poster said:


"When poker is your living, it's either fun or financially rewarding, it can't be both..."

...kind of a  half-joke-half-truth here.  in general i believe it can be both, because it's fun when it is (long-term) financially rewarding.  It's the moment to moment swings between "fun AND financially rewarding" to "f@#kING RIVER" that turns this hobby/job into a psychological beatdown...

One of the keys to surviving this is to step out of the player box and round yourself out.  I got into poker to use it to become a better person.  Yes, i take other people's money with no remorse, but that is the price for the "entertainment" we are "selling" (the thrill of the game and the chance to take my money as well) - i believe this was a previous poster's point about likening us to the entertainment industry.

Back on point:  approach it like you would any job - as a complete professional with a passion for it.  Just like the way an employee who just punches in and out daily to do what he's told is not going to have fun or experience growth, I believe in having a sense of ownership in your industry and its community.

So you need to have a plan, do your homework, study your profession (skill up!), your "market" (places to play, players who play, etc...) and CRUNCH YOUR NUMBERS!  It sounds like a happy-go-lucky life, but maybe you will have to hire an accountant to take care of headaches like cashflow projection into the next six months...

Again, like any job or entrepreneurial endeavor, you have to have a reasonable capital and start scraping income from the entry-level.  The "promotion" might come in two months, or it might come in two years.  You gotta put in the hours and put your back into it like anything else.  Seriously.

As an industry/community, Filipino poker is a baby, but it is undeniably growing, so part of "going pro" is to grow with it not just as a player, but as an actual invested professional that contributes to the big picture.  (If you are what they call a "company man" you know exactly how this works.)  There are so many things going on off the table that you can get into as well!

For me, that is a big part of the profession that keeps it fun, and allows me to keep half-a-foot in the semblance of a workforce/society.  Kill the tables for profit, but show love for your industry's community by doing things off the table.

Moving on Up?

"What should one expect to encounter when moving up limits...?  Assuming that you have the proper bankroll to finally move up limits, does the play really change that much when moving from the lowest limits to the next one higher...?  I assume that the biggest difference in playing higher limits is that you will see more of the same faces as opposed to a wider range of new players at the lower limits. Is that a plus or a problem?"


...the most immediate thing you will notice is degree of tightness of the tables.  note, however that while there is a general change in what you are up against, it is not a linear change.   To wit:

--> Micro:  VERY LOOSE - expect light calls and many shoves.  Not enough players care, so you can take advantage.

--> Low:  suddenly TEXTBOOK TIGHT - expect grindy play.  These guys worked hard to get here, and they're not giving up their hard earned roll.  Also, just like the OP said, this is a smaller universe of players, and most of them will know the others (classmates) from their days at the lower levels.  To answer OP's last Q, this IS a problem.  "Classmates" respect each other too much, and in a Live game, are probably going to play softly against each other.  All bad news for  overall profitability.

--> Medium:  SLIGHTLY LOOSER again - the grinders are mixed in with noobs trying to get rich playing their entire bankroll, as well as players (or players' wives) just passing the time.  Other grinders at this level already have an arsenal of moves that make them seem loose as well (though they are not, watch out!)

--> High:  SLIGHTLY LOOSER STILL - these limits are where poker mastery meets bankroll bullies.  Massive Bankroll trumps anything less than veteran skills at this level.


II.
The next thing you may notice when you are newly moved-up is how your game changes - often unintentionally. 

--> TOO AGGRO: Your confidence from crushing the lower levels is high, and you ride it into the new level, where you are suddenly encountering a different range of hands.  Keep track of the showdowns and get used to the average winning hand.  The sooner you find those loose screws, the sooner you can settle into your new rhythm.

--> TOO NITTY: You may overcompensate because of the horror stories of how the play is greatly different.  Just remember that it IS different, but not THAT different...at least not yet.


My advice is that you OVERSHOOT your BR targets before moving up.  err on the side of caution - which in this case means "err on the side of the cushion" before moving up.

...and once you are stabbing upwards, TAKE IT NICE AND EASY!  be mindful of your A-Game, don't rush, and don't come crying back to the lower limits at the first sign of distress.

Believe in the skills that got you to the higher level, and your luck will continue to follow!

Dealing with Variance...?

"How to deal with giant downswing?  I usually have no trouble dealing with downswings. Even as a beginner, I understood how variance was a part of the game and it never really bothered me.

Recently, though, I've gone on such a downswing that it is really starting to affect me. I had just moved up to 10nl and things were going great when I got hit with a downswing sicker than anything I could even fathom before. Cooler, cooler, suckout, cooler, bad beat, cooler, cooler, card dead, cooler, suck out, card dead, card dead, bad beat, cooler, bad beat, suckout, cooler, cooler. Can't hit a draw to save my life. A in the flop every single time I have KK. We all know the story. I quickly lost all of the incremental progress I had made at 10nl, hit the red, and dropped back to 5nl. The variance did not stop. Cooler, cooler, suck out, cooler, card dead. Since then, over about 40k subsequent hands, I've dropped almost 20 BI at nl5, a limit that I CRUSHED for over 150k hands prior.

I can see it clearly affecting my game now. I've tried everything I know how to do to deal with downswings; first I tried to out-volume it, like I did with every other downswing up till now. That made it worse. Then I took a couple weeks off. The variance was waiting for me when I got back as I was quickly and brutally reminded of why I took a break. I reassure myself that it'll come back. It isn't.

What are some other ways that I can get back to playing my A game under the weight of this collossal swing?"


My FIRST THOUGHT is:  Stop thinking "I am on a downswing."

...playing despite a series of coolers is always one of our tougher challenges.  You need to have amnesia about the whole thing - cards have no memory, so in times like these, neither should you.

If you have an A-Game, you just put it on and you just keep playing.

Personally, I don't try to do things that are geared towards addressing the variance.  I don't try to out-volume it, I don't try to play tighter, I don't move up, I don't move down.

I just play my best and let my bankroll handle the rest.


Imagine a signal number 4 typhoon rips through my town:  Nothing but NOTHING I do will make that storm pass faster.  all I can do is sit in my house and hope it is strong enough to still be standing after taking the worst that the natural forces of the universe can throw at me...

If I adjust my game because I am on the ass-end of variance - what you call a downswing - then one thing is for sure:  I am not playing my A-Game.  I am playing some mutated form of my game adjusted to cater to my "bad luck."

Variance is not something you can control, slow down, or speed up... but you can minimize the damage:

1. Play your A-Game
2. Say no to tilt
3. Keep an eye on your BR
4. Back to #1


For me, the hardest thing about bringing back my A-Game in the midst of all the bullshit is this:  HAVING FUN.

So the first step i recommend as you try to get back in there with your A-Game is this:  remember how much fun this game is!  It can be brutal and heart-rending a lot of times, but so is a relationship with a nymphomaniac... so make sure you're fucking her more than she's fucking you.

Okay, now i've said too much.

Thread Hijacking: I loled, and I rolled my eyes...

Some time ago, a poster on the PilipinasPoker forums started a thread bewailing the futility of seeking help on large poker forums: 

"How am I supposed to improve my game if when I post a hand, I get mostly very brief general answers with no explanations??

How is "Lol call. poker easy" supposed to help me?

Last time I checked, poker was a very complex game that requires detailed analysis of multiple variables, so where do I go to talk to someone that actually realizes this, or am I just screwed and on my own?

Furthermore, ANYONE can post on 2p2, and a lot of them THINK they know what they are talking about but absolutely do not, or they like to just joke around and screw with you. How am I supposed to know the difference? It just seems like there's a bunch of idiots and a-holes on 2p2 with very few nice intelligent genuinely helpful people here.

Maybe I am just asking for too much to get any real help on this site?

The replies that followed were then so progressively unproductive that it crossed the line from slightly annoying to downright laugh-my-head-off ludicrous.  After three pages, the thread had turned into a juvenile bickering between two posters discussing an issue so completely irrelevant to the original poster's topic that they in effect gave him the answer he was NOT looking for!


Ah, you have to read it to believe it!  The thread escalates to a beautiful punchline from one of the forum's more balanced minds: 
"what a way to show the original poster that we are very helpful in this forum. Way to go guys."


And now my reply to the original issue:

I loved this thread you started.  Unfortunately, the reality of public forums where anyone can post is that threads get hijacked by awful and irrelevant digressions.  Part of your job as a seeker of information is to sort through a lot of the BS to get the answers that ring true for you and your style of play.

This forum is expected to behave a lot like any other forum, BUT the great advantage is that this is a smaller forum so you will find it easier to sort through the trash replies - in effect, it will still be very helpful.

What you can do is be proactive, and make sure you get the info you want:
1.  make sure the thread title is specific to what you want to discuss.

2.  make sure the thread is in the proper sub-forum.

3.  when your thread is being hijacked, please please please report it to the moderators, because some of us are reading your thread for your topic!

I hope you don't give up on public forums, and that you still post some hands here, because we all need to learn from each other.


and yes, poker is EZ, zomgnutlaserspowpowpow!


when all is lost, you can always PM the ones you want to hear from.