down nine thousand three hundred and fifty USD

Let's start from the end. At the end I stood up from the table and floated to my car in a hypnopompic daze. I didn't turn the radio on. I drove home in complete silence, the last three dollars I had on the table in my pocket.

At first, when he'd turned over his cards with a clap of his hands and a “YEAH BABY!!” I couldn't figure out what was going on. I had KK, he had JJ. The board was XQ9 K T. I studied it for a second. I looked at his cards, I looked at mine. I had no flush, I had no full house. He had about $30k on the table, in six $2k stacks of white chips, a $5k chip on top, a huge wad of hundred dollar bills behind. I had about $4200. The pot was about $8600.

About an hour before I'd sat down on this table there was a big commotion when he'd made a deal to go all in blind for with another player, for $5k. He wound up with the winning hand with 63. As I was sitting with him, he was in about half the pots, straddling every time he could, telling stories about bluffing Esfandari out of a $30k pot with 74.

So, I had Kings, and I limped in early position. He was on the button and raised $300 into a $100 pot. It folded back to me, and I did my best to hesitate for awhile, to look, at the pot, look at him, look down at my chips. After thirty seconds I said “I raise,” and threw out three hundred dollar chips. I instructed the dealer to take the money into the pot. I looked at the pot, I looked at my chips. I scrupulously avoided looking at him. For a second I thought about the possibility of him having AA, which I figured was impossible due to his over betting the pot. He was here to gamble, there was no way he'd want to kill the action on his aces. So, I thought for a little while longer, and I figured that if he had a middle pair or even a high ace he'd convince himself that I had a low pair and that he should gamble with me if I went all in.

“I'm all in,” I said in a quick high pitched voice, as I made a sweeping hand motion over my chips. I put my hand tightly over my mouth and most of my face as he thought about it. Eventually he asked the dealer for a count. I pushed my chips toward the pot, the dealer took them in and said in Chinese accented broken English,“thirty eight fifty.”

“Thirty eight hundred?” I say nothing, I put my hand over my mouth and do my best to not move, not make eye contact, and to look nervous. He has a pained look on his face. “I'm either a four to one favorite, or it's fifty-fifty.” I say nothing, keep my hand tightly over my mouth, I look up at him a little, I make a little eye contact, I look back at the pot. Finally he says, “ok, I'll gamble with you,” and throws his $5k chip into the pot. Dude to my left says “Aces.” I turn up the Kings. He says “you're good,” in a glum voice with a dejected look on his face.

It's 4:55AM PST as I type the first draft of this. I am drinking red wine and still feeling numb and in a dream. I keep thinking the “live by the sword” cliché. I guess I am that cliché now. The funny part about this is that I'm still actually up $1,265 on the trip, averaging a whopping $60.24 per session.

The real question is how did I get so much money on the table in the first place? Let me first say that I made zero blunders tonight. I had one $2k mistake of not being able to fold my own kings when I could have put a very tight older man on aces. The first big losing hand was a $4k bluff of trying to get a dude off QJ on a Q8X X A board. I had pretty much the perfect read on him, but maybe he had a better read on me. I guess I did make a big blunder after this though, of getting upset after losing $4k and putting the $5300 on the table. Which was every red cent I had at the Commerce bank. I felt that I was the best player there, and after losing that KK/AA hand, I was down to $2k which I built back up to the $4200. So I guess I might have actually been the best player there.

Bullocks. This doesn't matter. The numbness of the shock is wearing off. Through the wine I can feel it being replaced by an anger I think will be all consuming. I need at least a week, maybe two, in the poker hospital.

down $2310

Played for 27 hours straight. I felt that I was playing pretty great for the most part, which is why I kept on going. I really felt that my level of concentration was just the highest it could be, that I was so completely aware of the table at each second. Unfortunately, the bane of this session sat down next to me at in the afternoon, and from this single man, I endured two actual suckouts, one cold deck, one huge bluff, and then out of frustration I tried to make a super-star call on him that was just stupid. He took me from an $1800 profit to the loss. Sigh.

But.. For the most part of this I played amazing. I made some awesome lay downs, great bluffs, one super-star call what worked out, got paid big on most of my big hands. The lay downs were how I knew I was playing great and was able to justify staying so long. Because even after that retard killing me I knew that I wasn't going gamble crazy and chasing my money, and I knew I was still playing very good and solid poker.

But, the good play isn't what I want to write about. I'm feeling that this blog, like all poker blogs is starting to be too self-aggrandizing. I made about $2000 of mistakes that while some of them weren't so horrible, I am getting rather tired of myself for making them.

AA in somewhat late position, I raise. The donkey at the table calls (not the retard from above). I bet the flop, he calls. Turn brings a straight. He checks, I check. River makes a four card straight, that he can have either a 4 or a 9 to have. He bets like $600. And I insta-call. He of course has the 4. Retarded, really fucking stupid. Why? Well, dude was a total calling station, I'd not seen a raise out of him unless he had it. Not only that, but I didn't even think this call for more than a second. I had AA, and I got so excited that I got to play them heads up with the donkey, that I didn't think about his hand for more than a second. I didn't really consider what he could have. Last night I realized that this is a big problem with me in general, how I don't take the time to consider what people have. I get so focused on the math of the situation, that I don't take the time to use any brain power on what my opponents may have.

The huge bluff the retard laid on me went like this: I have QQ, retard straddles. I think about raising, but decide to just limp in what's now under the gun and then re-reraise. The table had been completely insane for the past few hours, every pot raised, people just throwing around so much money, it was really nice. Unfortunately I wound up on the shit end of the sick after enduring two suckouts by this dude. Anyway, a bunch people limp, and an aggressive dude on the button raises the straddle to $150, the retard calls. And I think for awhile, and make a raise of $500, $650 total. Bettor is asking me questions, says “do you have aces?” Which I just should have just kept quiet and looked down and imposing, instead I say “Do I need them?” He folds what he'd later say was AK. Retard insta-calls. Flop = AXX. Retard insta-all-ins for $700! Well, wow. So, I turn to him, and ask “What'd you put me on?” He shrugs and says “Queens or Jacks.” And I fold instantly. He turns over KJ. Barf. So, yeah.. .So fucking what there was an A on the flop? Or that he read me right and wanted me to know it? And so fucking what it was a good play? I'm the pro here. So, where's my mistake? Not thinking about it was the mistake... I'd thought about it for a little while, I could have figured out that bettor had a decent ace, so only two left in the deck, making retard having one less likely. I also could have probably come to the conclusion after he told me what he put me on that he was bluffing me. I'm not sure that I would have, and maybe I would have still folded, but at least I should have thought about it for awhile.

With 65 off in late position I make a little bluff trying to steal the blinds and get called by like five dudes. Flop = AAX rainbow. I bet $200. This was a mistake in thinking that not one of the five people who'd called me would have an A. I should have just given up on the hand there. But, this wasn't so terrible, and if no one had it I would have taken the $300 pot right there. But, I'm called by a pretty tight dude who only has $500 left after that. Turn = K. I start telling myself a fairytale how dude is super tight, and if I put him all in for the little he has left he's got to fold. So, I put him all in and he makes a crying call with AQ, asking “You have a boat?” Terrible. I mean, what'd I think the dude had? And did I seriously think he'd fold it? No, I didn't. I just didn't think about it long enough.

Ok, I left at 9 last night, went to bed at 10, fell asleep instantly for a good 11 hours, and I'm feeling about ready to hit it again now.

On losing, part 4

By the time I've registered what's happened, the dealer has put the river card out. When I finally look at it, I'm praying it's a club. It's not. It wouldn't have helped me anyway. A few seconds later, I come to my sense and say, “I missed, jack high,” he turns over Q4 of clubs. As I'm pushing my chips, all of my chips, towards the pot, I say “good call.” Brown just nods in response to this without looking at me, as he takes the pot in. The guy next to me, is astonished and says “how did he call that?” Well, I guess, because you don't get to be player of the year for nothing. I reach into my pocket and put the other $5k on the table...
- On losing, part 3
Part 1 Part 2


Now, not only did I have the desire to make things right from the $7k loss from the day before, it was compounded with Brown so completely owning me. I wound up winning a few hands gambling gambling, and shorty after I put the last $5k on the table, I'd worked it up to about $8k. But, I was still on tilt, I was still counting how I was down $11k for the trip. I had no desire to leave, my only thought, looking at the $8k in front of me, was “make it $20k, and you're even.”

I would have had better odds putting the money on the roulette wheel, a craps table, lottery tickets.

But the table is mostly pros, and they can see my tilt a mile away. So I die a slow death of bluffs, of bad calls, of looking at any starting hand and thinking how this could be the hand that I bust someone with.

Eventually, with $1500 in front of me, and I go all in on a straight draw which turned out I was drawing to a chop as the dude had flopped it.

----------------------
On returning home I told people that I was down sixteen-thousand dollars. But, I kept seeing that safe full of twenty-two thousand, three neat $5k bands, a bunch of thousand dollar chips, plus change. Twenty two thousand dollars. All my credit cards paid. A nice stock portfolio. Half of a down payment on a decent apartment.

I took a week off, I worked out every day. I got drunk a lot. I watched a lot of television. I watched a lot of porn.

When I started playing again, I had to step down to the smaller stakes home games that I was playing in before. I had no patience. I was just playing with Chad Brown! I just put out a $5k bluff! Who any of these people to be sitting at my table??!!

I am on tilt from the moment I sit down, to the moment I leave. I lose the next five straight for another $8k.

My notes on my spreadsheet during this run are about the bad beats I took, about my shit luck, about how the universe had conspired against me.

I take another week off. Ten days. I watch more movies. I stop drinking, I stop jerking off, I stop talking to people for the most part. I workout everyday, sprinting on the treadmill at the end of the session until my heart feels as though it's going to pound through my chest.

I watch more movies. One of which is an early Kurosawa / Mifune film, “Stray Dog.” It's the story about a young cop who has his gun stolen by a pickpocket. He goes on through the movie cursing his fate about how the Gods are laughing at him, how this one mistake will ruin his career. He becomes monomaniacal, focused on getting his pistol back, going crazy with frustration. While I found the Mifune character's take on his luck and spiral into depression and insanity pertinent to me, there is a line that sums it up perfectly: “bad luck can either destroy or make a man.”

And all of a sudden it was as simple as that.

down $3320

I think I played poorly. I couldn't make any tough lay downs. I had KK, knew he had AA, and I couldn't fold. I got a couple coolers, twice in the BB, flopping bottom 2 pair, then flopping the low end of a straight. Then flopping a set of T's and dude hitting a gutshot. I guess I could have lost a lot more than I did. I don't know.... I'm writing this from NY, and I don't really feel like analyzing it at the moment. So, I'll just give some stats from the first leg of this LA journey...
$12,925 Profit
$3,073.63 Standard deviation
$680.26 average profit
$1,420.00 Median profit
68.42% winning percentage
540.7 Blinds won
30.04 average blinds won

I'm counting 1 blind = SB + BB. If I ever played limit, I'd probably just count the BB. Anyway
in a 10/20 game, averaging 30 blinds means that I'm averaging $900 a game.

Up $2790

Well, my girlfriend originally planned to come to LA around this time for work, but work has changed and she'll be in NY, and so the serendipity of my subletter flaking out at just this moment means that my apartment is open. So I'm flying out of Burbank 7am tomorrow morning, and back to LA a week later. I'm looking forward to this quite a bit. Anyway, this is why I decided to play yesterday, as I don't think I'm going to play any big sessions in NY, I'll see if I can get a PLO game together at my apartment, but, that's about it.

Anyway, I played pretty great yesterday. I've broken $16k on this trip, and with this, I've found a real serenity that allows me to play my best all the time. I've gotten to the real nice calmness similar to my November to December streak, where nothing out of my control don't bother me. And in this session, I ran so cold for the first two hours, suckouts cooler, and I'm down like $2k to start. And it doesn't bother me one bit. I find myself, playing great, still totally focused on the games of everyone else at the table, still figuring out how to profit from them.

So, on the first table, I lose maybe $200 or so. Playing ok, I was up a few hundred to start, and I made a few bluffs that didn't workout, and I hit no big hands. There's a $545 tournament at 7, which I'm feeling that I want to take a shot in, so I get up and play that. In the tournament, on hand number three... I call a small raise with pocket 3's, flop a set, and lose everything when she turns the nut flush, and the river blanks. Hmmm... Well, better than playing for 3 hours and bubbling, actually much better.

So, back to the cash game. It's a particularly busy night, as the tournament I played in is part of a big thing there now, the table is pretty tight. Anyway, I wind up sititng with this dude who busted me with T7 a few months ago. He's a very strange player, very very bad, but he shifts gears from being an over-betting maniac when he's down, to being a complete lock-box conservative player when he's up. Anyway, I've sat down on this table with $2500 (in for $4100 for the day so far), I'm up a maybe $1k here (on what I can't remember...), when I get AK. I raise to $100, 3 callers. Flop = KTX 2 spades. Donkey is first to act, and goes all in for $1400!!! Wow, ok, this was like a $300 pot before this bet, it's just absurd. He does this weird act, that wheever he makes his stupidly huge bet he yells out “I have a dream...” sometimes singing it, usually with his hand out like a politician. Anyway, I pretty much insta-call. Dude at the end of the table is thinking and thinking, and folds, and said he had AK as well. Anyway turn = J of spades, and he turns over his Q9 of spades, river = blank. Well, I can't fault him for this, he did have an all in hand (flush draw and gutshot). So, god bless.

What I'm kind of surprised at is that I don't tilt. I don't even react really, I just kind of smile, and shrug, and I don't even say “nice hand.” I show the king, and fold, and don't worry about it. He takes it on himself to needle me a bit. I do my best to kind of make a show out of it “hey my friend!” Etc. It's amusing, it amuses me at any rate. He keeps holding up his stack of 100's and saying how “this is your money. I know you're going to get it back.” I'm rather surprised to find I'm amused by his banter, I respond with something like “Thanks! I'll do my best to take it.”

Eventually there's a small pot that he's in, it's checked to me on the button, and I'm counting out a bet, and he kind of yells out “Time! Wait!” And starts counting out a bet. He knew that he checked, he knew that it was on me, I'm not sure if he actually thought this was funny, or if he was actually trying to pull something. But, kidding aside, I kind of thought that I needed to draw a line, and I get a little pissed and start to call the floor. The rest of the table tells me to relax, so instead of calling the floor, I point at him and give him a really stern warning of something like “Sir, that is angel shooting. And I really don't like it.” And then I put my bet out, and the whole table insta-folds. After the hand, he doesn't apologize, but you can tell he was a bit cowed.

Anyway, I knew I wouldn't get the money back from him, and I don't, he spends most of the time walking around, letting his $2k or so sit on the table. I do get it back from flopping three sets, AT flopping two pair, on someone's broadway, and rivering a boat. And a bunch of little bluffs that work out. It was weird, after that little exchange, I just started running good all of a sudden, after a whole session of running bad.

Ok, going to play now. I think I'm going to watch that UFC fight first though. See all y'all soon.

$1805 + $3160 = Up $4965.. only when you know the rules should you break them

I've been not playing so much the past week. In a somewhat lack of discipline, I had a 22 hour session from last Sunday (8/26) afternoon to Monday afternoon, which kind of blew my brains through the top of my skull and made me pretty sick of poker. In thinking about the pivotal hands now, I really am surprised that I can't fault myself for any of the play. Anyway, the session was like 3 sessions in one, so, forgive me for omitting a lot of the details.

Anyway, I think I'm not going to play until at least Saturday, I'd like to spend time at the library getting some non-poker writing done.

8/26 Up $1805, 22 fucking hours...
I buy in for $1500, in the first hour or so I get the improbable nuts with Q9 for a turned gutshot. Two other dudes in the hand, all the money gets in when I have the nuts, on the turn. One dude calls with pretty bad odds to hit his 7 high flush to suck out on me. I buy back in for $1500, I'm about even when I try to bluff James Woods off his pair of Jacks. Stupid stupid bluff of me, I put him on pretty much the hand he had, but my stupidity was thinking that he could fold it. He kept going on about how I must have a set, but called anyway. So I'm down $3k, and break the money management rule and buy in for $2k.

I'm just even and even and more even, spinning my wheels with no big hands for hours and hours. As the night goes on the players get looser and dumber, and I find no positions to capitalize on any of it.

And I break the how long I should play rule. 9 hours, 10, 11 hours... I got there at 6 or so, it's 5am, I'm seated facing the door, and I see the parking lot light up in the dawn light. But, I'm stuck, I'm pissed about it, and I'm focused completley in the zone and focused on getting at least some of it back. The world kind of evaporated around me, I am just poker, just this table, and just these men, this table of men who didn't have to be anywhere to be on a Monday morning.

But, the cards are still against me, and I lose and I lose, as I just can't make a hand. My last $1k is sucked out as I have KQ, flop comes K6x, and dude put me all in on the flop. I insta-called. He had a pair of 67 that he would hit two pair with on the turn. So, I'm broke, I'm down $5k, I've been playing for 15 straight hours at this point. But, wow, I'm focused, and I can't recall a hand where I put the money in bad, and the table is full of either people that I can read easily, or who are just aggressive donkeys.

So, I break another rule, and I walk to the cashier, and $5k out of my account. I walk back to the table, dump the chips on it. I get reactions like “uh oh! We're playing now.” And I was there to play. I knew I was the best player on the table, and I was just in no mood to go home with a $5k loss, and so I just started playing super super aggressive. Maybe raising 25% of the hands, all medium sized raises, $100, or $120. And losing, and losing, and finally, I'm down like $1k from the last buy in (so $6k total loss, $4k on the table)...

It's about 10am, The sun is approaching it's zenith in the afternoon sky, there's not much light coming through the door of the casino, but I know it's bright out there, and I know it's going to hurt as I walk out to the parking lot...

I get 99 on the button. Me and 3 others call a $100 bet from a tight dude in early position. Flop = 678. Tight Dude bets $300, folds around to me, I make it $700. He's thinking, he's thinking... I'd been talking too much for the past few hours. Jabbering to anyone who'd listen to me, mainly to keep myself focused, swilling coffee, doing so many chip tricks I'd started to get blisters. And in this hand I'm like “come on! You have aces? Put your money in! You have Ace King? Throw it away.” Anyway, he goes all in... barf... But... It's only $1170 for me to call. And so I sit there and do the math... well, let's see 10 outs is 1.6 to 1. $1170 x 1.6 = $1872. So, there only needs to be $700 in the pot for me to call, there's already $1400 in from our bets on the turn. So, it's clearly a call.. but for $1k.. and after 15 or so hours of losing I'm really kind of frazzled, and it takes me a long time to do this math. Anyway, I finally get everything straight, I call, he shows KK. turn = 5, (straight!), river = K (giving him a set of K's as if to just punch him in the stomach...). Yay I still have no profit. I'm still down like $1k at this point...

Finally, around 11am they get a must move table going. This pretty good young poker star comes from the table and sits to my right. He's giving me a scouting report on the action at his table. I'm genuinely enjoying talking to him when I get KK under the gun. I limp, and continue with our conversation. It's folded around to the small blind, who just completes. The kid nonchalantly grabs a stack of white chips and makes it fucking $600 into what was a $60 pot. In the five seconds I think about it, I find it suspicious, maybe he has TT or QQ, the possibility that he might have AA doesn't even enter my mind, but then again, I wasn't really in a mood to entertain such possibilities and I insta-all in. SB folds instantly, the kid sighs, and calls! I don't even have time to realize what's happened, before the flop is being dealt, with probably the most beautiful King I've ever seen in the window. As the turn and river are dealt, he turns up his aces, I turn up my kings, kind of sheepishly, almost as if to apologize to him, but man, what could I have done? I'm feeling this hand kind of played itself, there was no way that I'm folding KK to that suspicious looking huge-overbet, and if I think about it for a second, just call and see the flop, I'll take his stack anyway.

Eventually I get KK again, and take a bigger than it should have been pot from the old dude the kid was telling me about. I'm up maybe $2500 or even $3k at one point. I'm no longer playing with any aggression, as I just feel the energy leave me almost as soon as I get up. I have somewhere around $12k in front of me, and I have no desire to gamble anymore. I am feeling I've managed to escape, and that I want to leave. I'm like a well fed shark, just digesting after the big kill. And I leave soon after.

Rest....
I wander around like a zombie for maybe three days after this. I smoke way too much pot, and sit on my ass way too much. I have no brain for anything, nor do I really want one as it's nice to just be stoned and spaced out. Feeling good from having my first winning month since May, for having my first $10k month in, man.. I don't know... maybe ever? (I don't feel like figuring this out right now...).

8/31 Up $3160 in 3 hours
On Friday, I had a friend coming to town to play a show. I'd kind of resigned to not playing for the rest of the week, as I was going to visit my brother in San Fran for labor day weekend, and I had to go to that show on Friday, and I'd finally just started to feel recovered from the Sun-Monday session. But, I hadn't played for awhile, and I was just feeling a hankering for it.

So my day went like this:

• I retrieved my lost ATM card at a bank of america in a part of town I have no idea existed.

• Decided that I should go to the commerce to get some money out of my account, for my trip to SF. But not play, as I didn't have the time, I hadn't written, etc etc. No way to play. No play, no way.

• When I'm pulling in the parking lot, I figure “Hey, I'm here, what's the harm in playing for a couple hours?”

  • Play for 45 minutes. Win $1425. Mostly on having AK flop = KXX, turn = K, he bets every street. Yay!

• Leave to go home, eat something, shower, change, and go to the show.

  • I get there, early, as it turns out that in LA a club saying "doors open at 8," doesn't mean "bands go on at 9” like it would in NY. No, in LA it means that bands go on at midnight.

  • But! I have no LA friends to kill the time with.. And, since I'm 15 minutes from the Commerce, why not go back and play?!??!!!!

• Play for 60 minutes. Win another $1735...

  • 3 good bluffs,

  • 1 semi-superstar call on a tilted player.

  • I hit the nuts on this kid twice, 1st time he thinks I'm bluffing but folds anyway for my $600 river bet. 2nd time he insta calls with top pair for $500.

  • I only lost one or two pots that I put $100 into.

• Leave to see the show, which wasn't so great. But the place was amazing, amazing. 3 floors of hip hop shows, all for one price, all going at the same time. The front room is freestyle, the middle room is local acts, and then they have this pretty big outside stage where the headliners perform. I was really impressed with the freestyle and the local kids. Wow, some of them were really amazing.

More rest
The next morning (Sat), I get up and drive the 6 hours on hwy 5 from LA to SF. That drive is kind of amazing at how flat it is. For some reason I thought that CA was as densely populated as NJ. It is not, it turns out it's a desert. Anyway, nice family time in SF. Good times, much wine drunk in Sonoma, much karaoke sung in SF. The drive back wasn't quite as fun as the drive there.