Donkey Punches

new blog

2009-04-09T07:56:00.001-05:00

Hi, I don't know if anyone still has this in their RSS reader, but I have a new blog that I'm being paid a little to write.

It is here: http://trueslant.com/benlebovitz/

-$2,800 + $2,520 + $525 + $405 + $975 = up $1625

2007-10-11T18:53:00.001-05:00

Hi kids. I'm somewhat recovered. Not monetarily, but more so in the feeling of that I don't want to murder people. As I typed this, I listen to Behemoth. feel free to sing along.
.

Here is a funny:
me: it's like 9% humidity here every day
my boogers are so dry
I have no simile with enough wit to match the dryness of my boogers
Steve: you just need Like or As
dry as the twat of a 4-day dead bitch on Santa Monica freeway

Anyway, so. About two weeks after I get my ass capped I go back and blow another $2800 on the 10/20 game. Ran bad, played bad. I get more depressed, but a ton of friends come into town, who either don't let me pay for stuff, or who I wine at enough that I don't pay for stuff. I feel better. My girlfriend comes and visits, and I feel more better. During this time I play two sessions at the 5/10 $400 mandatory buy in game at Commerce with a friend and girlfriend. First one I crush for $2520 in 4 hours. Next one I play 2 hours win $525. Because I'm with people I don't get to stay as long as I'd like to. But, wow this game is insane. There's less money to be made here, it's far less variance. It is remedial poker, and I'm just feeling that there is no way that I can lose without getting sucked out. Here's a good example. I have AK in early position, under the gun limps. I raise to $65, 2 callers, UTG goes all in for $400 more. I think for awhile. There's $260 in the pot, and $400 more to call. I can't put him on AA or KK, simply because he's not good enough to not get excited by that hand and put out a big raise. So, I call. I am rather surprised when I win the hand with no pair, vs what he'd later say was AJ. But, after the hand he was like “how could you call??!! You thought you were behind! You thought I had a pair!” I tried explaining to him that yes, I thought he had a pair, and I thought I was 47% to win the hand, but $400 to win $660 on 47% is a great gamble. He couldn't get it, he kept going “You thought you were behind!!!!!” I just smile and laugh.

I am also finding that I'm enjoying being a complete asshole in this game, it is also profitable... “Sir. How long do you plan on playing today?” “Umm, I think another seven hours.” “Oh! Great! That gives me plenty of time for me to wipe that smug grin off your stupid fucking face.”... “Yeah buddy, keep getting those chips. You almost have enough to double me up.” People just get so thrown off their game, so tilted. I can make loose players turn tight, tight players turn loose, people who can read well lose that ability, people who have no tells become more obvious. I guess it's something people do a lot in NY, and that the politeness of LA people don't do at all.

Here's another good hand. I flop trip Jacks vs this very aggressive maniac who had like $1500 on the table. I keep calling his bets, trying to look weak. On the rive he checks, and as I'm thinking about what size bet to put out, he does something right out of Caro's Book of Tells, and pushes $200 towards the pot and says “whatever you bet I call!” So I know that my trips are good, and I push all in for $400 or so. Anyway, he start pulling his bet back, which was ok with me, I didn't expect him to call... but, a dude sitting next to him starts spazzing out. “You can't do that! You said you were going to call! You put your money in the pot!!!” I was so shocked that dude was getting involved in a hand he wasn't even in that I didn't react quickly when he called the floor over. I should have told the floor that it was ok, that there was no problem, but I was really thrown off by dude getting involved in my hand, and I just sheepishly explained to the floor what'd happened. The floor ruled that he had to leave the $200 in the pot, to which the dude started spazzing out. I told him to just give me $100 and call it even, to which he did happily. As the cards were being dealt for the next hand, I felt shitty about it and gave him the $100 back. But, dude who called floor was still going on about how dude had committed a foul. And I completely snapped at him. Something like “you don't get involved in my fucking pots. I am very capable of calling floor myself.” He tried to defend himself about how I'd agreed with him at first. Then I realized that I could put him on complete tilt if I just let him really have it, and so I got really vicious and cursed him out until other dudes at the table started got started taking sides. I ended the conversation with a wave of my hands and something like “ok, let's just drop it.” So, yeah, dude who called the floor over lost the $800 he had on the table about half an hour later. Unfortunately, not to me.

I also like acting a bit. During my 27 hour session I of course got a little loopy 15 hours in and told the table that I was going for the world record of consecutive hours of poker played. “Really??? Why are you doing that?” I sigh, look glum, make direct eye contact with the dude, “I just contracted HIV. And I don't have health insurance.” I got a good five minutes out of him being like “wow, that's terrible,” before I started laughing hysterically. I think I might do something like this with some regularity, it's interesting, casting a pall over the table, not something you see done too often, I think it could work to my advantage. Regardless, I find it incredibly funny.

Anyway $2890 profit on the trip $111.15 average. Not so good, but winning is better than losing.

down nine thousand three hundred and fifty USD

2007-09-20T07:38:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-19T19:50:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-17T21:35:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-11T16:02:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-08T20:19:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-05T18:03:00.000-05:00

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.

Up $680... lessons on poker etiquette

2007-08-26T20:25:00.000-05:00

Write some in the blog, and then promise to myself of how I'm going to play more patient. I get there and it all kind of goes out the window. I sit down to a cramped table in between the dealer and the Staker. Staker has his chips in a rack in my space, and I politely ask him to move to give me some space, to which he begrudgingly does, and gives me an annoyed “is that ok?” To which I do my best to politely thank him.

On my first big hand I raise with KQ, Staker calls. Flop = KJT, I bet again, he calls. Turn = X. I check, he bets, I call. I only have $600 or so left in front of me after this. The river is also a blank, and he puts me all in. I insta-call him, to which he says “I've got nothing.” I turn over the cards, don't look at him. It takes him a long time to fold, at which point I've kind of got the feeling that he's slow rolling me, but he isn't and he mucks. I guess he was just pissed that I'd give him such little respect to call him on a hand like that. I say nothing, I don't look at him, he says nothing to me. I am not sure why this guy hates me so much. He's so friendly and talkative with everyone else at the table, with the entire staff of the casino, and when ever I say anything in his conversation, I get ignored. But, whatever, I've resolved to avoid engaging him in any manner that I don't have to, but also to go out of my way to be nothing but polite to him.

My next big hand I have 88, and I try to make a couple superstar calls on this tight asian dude, on a board of like 442 or something, but he has 99, which I don't realize until I've given him $1800. Very very stupid. I had no reason to be making these calls on him. I'd seen him play nothing but good cards in the few times I've played with him, and so there was no reason. My other mistake in this hand was not going all in on the river. He was obviously not happy with me raising, and to not take advantage of this was also a very bad play, I mean, if I'm going to play these cards, I should play the cards. So I'm back to even. I try to bluff at a few pots, it doesn't work out, I can't hit a hand.

The UFC is on in the bar, and I take about an hour break to watch that. Good fight, I was among the minority who wanted to see Couture get his 44 year old ass pounded. Actually I was sure that he would, and this makes me really glad that I don't bet on sports.

So I get back to the table, and lose a few hundred more on a couple small bluffs and reasonable calls. This kid directly to my right I've seen limp in early position and make a huge re-raise like maybe three or four times. So, I get JJ, he limps, I raise to $120, he makes it $320, I go all in. He calls.. with KK.. Shite. Well, he only had $900 or so, and so, I'm still alive, with $600 on the table. Down from a $2500 buy in. I have $5k in my pocket that I'm really tempted to put on the table, but I get a hold of myself, and stick to the $2500 limit that I'd promised myself. I realize that I'm pissed at myself in throwing away another big early profit. So, I resolve to torture myself a bit, and see how tight and patient I can play with the $600. Two hands later I get TT in the small blind. It's straddled, and there are a bunch of callers, and I'm getting ready to make a huge raise and take the pot. But, this pretty tight and good player with like $10k makes it $200 on the button. And I think for a second that he might be making a move, he's made some before, but, I decide that playing good means to throw hands like this away. And I do. He doesn't show or comment, but I'm happy with this play, and I think that quite a few players in this spot would have thrown all their money in.

So, I sit, and eventually pick up $300 with AK. Bet $100 pre flop, three callers, and shove the last $400 in on the J high flop. The dudes I was in the hand with were all good and tight, I was nervous about someone having a J, but no one called. I realized then who was actually paying attention to my game, and how little I was playing for the past hour, and who wasn't.

The big WPT thing has brought a lot of these 22 year old tournament players out. And they are all horrible. Horrible people to play with, and horrible at poker. They all have dollar signs in their eyes, and their brand of all in stupidity, of playing every pot like their life depends on it, is the brand that will win one of these things. But, in the cash games, if someone goes all in on you, you really need to be able to throw away aces a lot of the time. Anyway, one of these kids sit down to my left.

This hair lip, who I don't dislike, but he only has like $400, and I'd like to get him off the table, so we can get some more money on it. Anyway, me and three others call a bet from him, I have 55, and flop a set. Check to him, he bets, everyone else folds, I put him all in. He can't resist calling, and he busts and leaves. Yay. But, it's as though this kid re-spawns himself in the form of three other tournament players, who are ten times douchier than he was. These kids sitting directly to my left have no concept of poker etiquette, taking forever with every decision they make, frequently speculating loudly about hands they're not even playing in. It's infuriating, I try to get them to shut up a few times, politely, but then eventually I've kind of just had it.

This kid directly to my left got bluffed out on his very first hand for a big pot, and the kid just couldn't let it go. And for the next two hours I have to hear him whine about it. At first I was pretty nice to him, saying something like “man, you can either let it go, or go crazy with tilt.” But, being stuck a grand my patience started to really wear thin, as not only do I have to listen to him whine, but these kids taking for-fucking-ever on every decision. Finally, I snapped on this hand: another tournament looking kid, who actually knew how to not piss people off, makes a $200 raise, to which the kid to my left calls, and this other tournament kid goes all in for $400 more. Both kids call, when they realize it can't be re-raised. Flop is all low. Raiser makes it $600, and as soon as he raises I call the floor over, when the floor gets there, I call clock on the kid. To which he and his buddy spaz out on me. “It's only been like thirty seconds! What's your problem?” Blah blah. Ok, so, no time, but he's still thinking and thinking, and I try to call the floor back and call time on him again, to which he spazzes out on me again. Ok, so no time is called again. Eventually the kid calls. Turn is another low card, raiser makes a big raise and the kid goes all in. The raiser is contemplating his decision, when the kid's buddy says something like “Aahhh ha! I knew you had Ace King!!!” To which I start cursing him “shut the fuck up. This is a $4k pot.” To which he says “Really 'shut the fuck up?'” Me: “Are you serious? One player per hand, this is a huge pot, shut your fucking mouth.” Anyway, raiser calls with TT, kid had 88. Retarded. Kid buys back in for $2k though, which makes me happy.

As the cards are being dealt for the next hand, kid says to me. “Just so you know, I'm not chopping with you anymore.” Me: “You're still gonna chop with your buddy?” Kid: “Yeah, or whoever sits next to me, but not you. That was bullshit calling time on me.” A few hands later he raises to $130, that me and like 4 others also smelling his tilt, call. I have 55, and I'm thinking how amazing it would be to flop a set on his ass. And I do, with a K52 flop. It's checked to Kid, who bets $300, one caller, and I go all in for the $1090 I have in front of me. He's looking at me, “Did you flop a set? Pocket fives or twos?” I say nothing, I know that if I'm silent, and don't look at him, it'll just make him mad. His buddy says something like “you should call time now.” Nothing, nothing, nothing. He calls eventually. I'm like “good call, yeah good call.” Turn and river dealt.. “Yeah, good call, good call.... I mean, for me!!!” Turn over the set, he looks like he wants to puke. As I'm taking the pot in I say “Hey! Thanks for the money!” He says nothing, and sits there looking like someone just shot his dog. His friend tries to get him to take a break, but he refuses. I know I have him on crazy tilt, but it's 2AM, and I'm tired and I don't think I have the energy to battle with him, so I leave.

This is the great thing about the difference between playing in a casino and in home games, the chance to really be an asshole. I mean, I had this kid on such tilt, that there was no way that he could make any right decisions after that. I drive away laughing my head off, and blasting this Chavez song
.

down $3000

2007-08-25T19:16:00.000-05:00

So, talking to my mother yesterday afternoon, she asks something about if I've thought of a career change. “Well, I can make like $120k a year here if I play good all the time.” She says “but you can't play well all the time. No one can.” To which I start to argue about how I can do it! Through discipline, through money management, blah blah blah. And then as if to prove her right, I go and hang out with my neighbors who are BBQ-ing by the pool and break a good number of my rules: I smoked weed in the afternoon at a BBQ with my neighbors, I hung out too long and didn't get a chance to sit down and write before going to play. And so I made mistakes...

I sit down to a tough looking must-move with $1500. In my first hand I win a big pot with a flush, I bought in for $1500, and so I have like $2500 on the table.

First mistake:
A few hands later, I get QQ. I raise the straddle to $170, straddler and another call. Flop = J7T, two clubs. Checked to me, I bet $350, straddler raises to $800, other dude folds. I'm looking at the board, and thinking about all the draws that he could have, and how he probably just has a J, and so I go all in. Really really stupid. Wow, stupid. I mean, this is the reason why over-betting is the dumbest thing in the world. I don't want him to draw for cheap, but of course there's always the chance that he's flopped a big hand. I could have found out what he had for a raise of $1k, instead of this huge bet. Anyway, he insta-calls with the nuts of 98 off suit (why he defended his straddle for $130 I don't know, but whatever). Anyway, in my second runner runner suckout in as many sessions, the board comes A, K, giving me the nuts for broadway. Let's see, what was I here? I don't remember if I had the Q of clubs, if I did I was 9-1, if not I was 14 -1. So, I'm a bit tilted from this, which is a weird kind of tilt when the dealer is pushing you a monstrous pot.

Second mistake:
There's this super super aggressive kid on the table. Wearing this absurd yellow shirt, little goatee, and these dorky gold 80's cop glasses. I'm watching him raise to $130 every other pot, and so a few hands after I've sucked out with the QQ, I decide to pop him with 98 suited. I limp, knowing he's probably going to raise, which he obliges me with. One caller, and I pop him to $350. He calls, other guy folds. Flop = Q9X, 2 spades. I bet $400, he thinks for awhile and calls. Turn = X. Check, check. River = K of spades. Here's the mistake: I raise to $600. Why? Well, because I figure if he didn't have spades, he'd fold. Stupid. This $600 bet into an $1100 pot just screams that I don't have it, and I can be bluffed out. And this kid was good enough to pick up on that. I'm feeling that my pair of 9's was probably good here, and I could have just check/called him. But he grabs a $2k stack of hundred dollar chips, and pushes them forward. I'm thinking for a long long time, and I just know that I have him, or at least I'm pretty sure. But, I'm cursing at myself for betting the river, the check call would have only been like $1k, I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a flush, but I'm wondering if he has a K. Anyway, I think for a long while, and I fold. He shows the AT of clubs. I shouldn't have tried to muscle him out in the first place. I've done so well being very patient with the super aggressive dudes. Wait wait and wait, and then hit them over the head with a huge hand, get them to fear you, and then pop them maybe once after that. However, this process takes a minimum of 5 hours. Playing with this kid this early was so so stupid of me.

I'm moved to the main game where I lose a couple hands trying to bluff a couple pots. I put the whole $3k I've taken out of my account on the table. I've gone from being up $2800 after that QQ suck-out, to being down a few hundred.

Third:
On the main table, I'm sitting with James Woods who I played with once before, he's pretty bad. Does the Daniel Negranu thing of calling out people's hands and then paying them off. I usually see him lose, and tonight he has a bunch of money in front of him. I limp in late position with A5. Flop = 55T, 2 clubs. He bets $100, folds to me, I make it $250 more. He thinks and thinks, and then calls. Turn = X. Checks to me, I bet $600, he calls. Before the blanked river is dealt, he's going on about how he has a boat, and how he's not going to bet, because he doesn't want to “ruin your night.” I say something like “I don't think you have a boat, I think you were on a flush draw.” He says some bullshit line about, “well, it's not a very good boat.” He checks to me, and I think and think, and I only have $1300 left, and I just check. I hate myself for this, he turns over 52, and I take the pot. The mistake was not betting the river. I knew I had him, and I could have put out a $700 bet, and he probably would have made a crying call.

Fourth:
I'm chatting with this this pretty good pro sitting directly to my left. He's going on about playing the 20/40 game with Sean Shikan the other night, talking about chip tricks, etc etc. He's not that aggressive, he's a pretty even, decent player. So, in the middle of our friendly conversation, I limp into the pot with him and three others with 9T of diamonds. Flop = AJX, all diamonds. I decide not to slow play it, and I bet $130, about the size of the pot, he calls, and another call. Turn = X. I bet $300, he raises to $700. Other dude folds. The only thought in my head at this point was how to get all the money into the pot, so, I go all in. And he insta calls with KT of diamonds, and I'm drawing dead. He had me covered by a ton, and this was about a $5k pot. The all in was the mistake here, again, I could have made a reasonable raise. Just calling would have been the best option, this guy was obviously very good, and he wasn't not putting his money in with nothing. I was hoping he had a set or maybe even AK, but that was such a stupid hope, because he wouldn't have been in the hand at this point. Although this was a really tough spot for me to be in, I still think that I could have just called him down on his raise on the turn, and check called the river for another thousand or so. If I'd been playing my best, I mean....

If there is a silver lining in this session, it's that I'm proud for leaving at this point. Taking my $3k loss on the chin, admit that I wasn't playing my best, and going the hell home. In the first week of this trip, I posted sessions of $5k and $4k losses, neither was necessary, and I'm glad to have saved myself a few thousand that I'm certain I would have lost.

Ok, been writing for the better part of 4 hours now. Feeling good finally. Got a little bit of nervousness that's pretty good for me. Time to go.

Up $5380 (thursday, 8/23)

2007-08-25T18:48:00.000-05:00

I buy in for $1500, wait for my blind to start playing. The very first hand I get A5, check my big blind. Flop = Ac5c3h. I check. The button, a pretty decent, and mostly tight assed pro, who I find very funny, bets, I call. Turn = 4h. Check, bet, call. River = 6h. I check, he goes all in. The pot is only like $400. I say “wow, that's a horrible card.” Muck the hand face up. He shows me a 3 of clubs. I think I should have thought about this a little more, and maybe I could have called. It would have been a pretty amazing call. And of course a 2 beat me, or maybe he had a set of 3's? I'm not sure.

I sit for awhile, it's the must move, and I don't really like playing too much at the must move, as I usually don't feel I have enough time to get into people's games. But, this kid who's obviously really aggressive sits down. He's also talking to The Staker, bemoaning losing $3k the night before. Observing his play up to this point, I imagine his loss was because he can't fold a hand. So, I decided to call his $100 from the BB with 64 of hearts, with the plan to check raise anything he bets on the flop. I get a better flop than I'd expected in the form of KJ5 with two hearts. He bets $200, I make it $500, and he instantly goes all in. Doh! Well, I only have $750 left, I'm 2-1 to hit the flush, so I need to make $1500 to make the call right. There's already $1400 in the pot, plus his $750 makes it way in my favor. But... He turns over AT of hearts. Doh! But... Turn = 3 of not hearts, and river = 7 of not hearts, giving me a straight. Nice! As I'm taking the pot in he goes on about how bad he's running, how he was a huge favorite, blah blah blah. But I reason, that I had to put him on exactly Ax of hearts in order to give me bad expected value. I just looked it up and actually, I was 4.5 -1 so, not as horrible as I'd thought.

So, I'm up about $1k now, and am moved to the main game. I'm in seat one, and my first big hand is against seat 9 (they only play 9 handed at the Commerce). Because of the dealer between us, I don't get a really get a look at this guy. I only remember his hands always putting chips into the pot, a kind of disembodied arm feeding chips pots in hopeless situations. A real passive calling station, he could not fold any hand if he had any draw or any piece of the board. I get AA, I raise, he's the only caller. Flop = 9TX two diamonds. I bet the size of the pot, he calls. Turn = Ad. He checks, and I go all in. He calls almost instantly! Fiver = blank. I turn over the aces, he mucks. I still can not figure out what he had, maybe 9T? Maybe AT? I have no idea. He re-buys for $2k or so.

I lose a medium hand to a pretty tight Indian dude. I can't even remember the hand now, because it was somewhat inconsequential in the scheme of things. So, after this little loss I'm up about $2k, with $3500 on the table, when this hand comes: Donkey and I call this aggressive kid's $100 raise. I have 9T of diamonds. Flop = 9TX, two clubs. Donkey checks, I bet $200, kid folds, donk calls. Turn = 9!! I bet $500, donk looks at his cards, looks at the flop, looks like he's about to muck his hand, but he calls!!!!! River = 8 of not clubs. Donk makes a huge bet, I go all in, he insta-calls! He has me covered!! He proudly turns up QJ for a straight! I have a boat! He's got me covered!!! Yayaya I'm rich!!!!! He gets up immediately after this hand.

I'm feeling rather great about this whole thing, and my play in general. Which isn't the best thing for me, as I kind of get lazy, and don't get aggressive enough, and I lack the willingness to gamble, even when I'm pretty sure I have the best hand. I know a lot of people who think this conservative style of play is the way to succeed, but it's not, it will lead to missing a lot of pots you could win. Anyway, it's something I need to correct. There were a number of hands that I had big aces but, I was unwilling to see flops due to any sizable bet.

I also feel that I'm making a common mistake of getting too friendly with my neighbors at the table. It's ok to be chatty, but, I still must look into their games and find their flaws. I made a mistake in this manner against this middle aged lady who was sitting next to me, and kind of flirty and very flattering, in a way that reminded me of my high school friend's mothers. In one hand I call her bet pre flop, and I flop a set of 8's. I let her bet the flop, she obviously had an over pair, but I just went all in, kind of to let her know. I am not feeling good about this in retrospect, I should have let her hang herself, and let her bet again, or made a reasonable bet and done my best to give her a tough decision. I probably left about $1k, maybe even her whole stack on the table.

On losing, part 3

2007-08-23T17:20:00.000-05:00

I'm only down like $1k on the trip at this point. I'm not sure why the thought of coming home with a loss chapped my ass so badly. If I were home, I would have taken a break, checked myself into the “poker hospital” for at least a week and not played until I didn't feel so bad. But, yeah, like I said, nothing else to do there. When I eventually lie down, I doze in and out for a couple hours at a time, instead of ruminating about my stupidity, my brain fixated on the monomaniacal thought of how I'm going to make it right. When thinking about this sequence of events, it is this night I think of most. I think of how I could have taken the car we rented and driven a few hours to visit my parents, relax, and in a day or two come back to play the tournaments we'd gone down to play in the first place. But, no, I didn't do that at all...
- On Losing, part 2
- On Losing, part 1

I got up in the afternoon, on maybe four or five hours total sleep, put two $5k bands in my pocket, walk downstairs to the casino, find a seat at the $10/$25 table, open one of these bands and empty the contents onto it. This table features Chad Brown (Bluff magazine's 2006 player of the year), Amnon Filippi (as seen on High Stakes Poker), and a bunch of tight/pro looking dudes who I'd played with the other day. If you can't find the sucker at the table...

I sit down and start playing hard, and bluffing hard, up a little, down a little. I am about even when I get the J9 of clubs somewhere in middle position. I raise to $150 or so. Brown is the only caller. Flop = XXX, two clubs. I bet the size of the pot, Brown calls. Turn = Q of not clubs. Brown checks, I go all in for about $3500. The pot is a little under $1k at this point, and so, this bet was a retardedly huge over-bet.

I had this sunglasses sthick I'd do in these days. Where I'd keep dark sunglasses on top of my head until I'd get involved in hands, when I'd pull them down, put my put my chin in my hands, and cross my arm on my bicep. It was kind of a shield that I felt somewhat fearless behind. So, I have the glasses down, I have my hand covering half my face, I'm sitting in seat eight, and I'm staring at Brown in seat two contemplating his decision.

I'm surprised that he hasn't folded quickly. Instead he keeps looking at me, looks back at his chips, looks at his cards, looks back at me. The table is silent, all eyes are on Brown's eyes that keeps looking up at me, down to the pot, down to his chips, down to his cards. I'm not nervous in the slightest, not because I was sure he was folding, but more because this is really the zenith of degenerate gambling, of being caught in a tailspin of losing where rational thoughts are replaced by the sickly monomaniacal instinct of trying to get even. I didn't consider the risk/reward of the amount I bet, I didn't consider who I was playing. I made a frustrated and stupid play. And Brown hasn't done anything yet, he's asked me no questions, he's said nothing to the table, he's postulated no theories on what I had, or discussed his thinking. He just keeps looking up and down. I sit motionless in the same position, staring at him.

After two or three minutes he says two words: “I call.”

I reach into my pocket and put the other $5k on the table...

Up $1420

2007-08-19T12:32:00.000-05:00

I was planning to play again tonight, but I played for 5 hours yesterday and I just felt myself hit the wall. And I've won three in a row, and so I think I'll reward myself by taking take today and tomorrow to do nothing productive, drink some beers, hang out by the pool, and wander around LA a bit.

The game was easy, no huge hands for me. I sit and watch these two maniacs suck out on people the whole game. Here's a good one. Maniac calls $200 with AQ, flop = XXX, better puts maniac all in for like $1500, maniac calls. turn = X, river = Q. Better had JJ. Hands like that the whole night, so I just sit with a helmet on, and do nothing. Unfortunately I get no hands. The dude directly to my right employs the same strategy, but he gets a set of 7's and doubles through the Maniac, and then pocket Kings, and busts him, when he can't lay down T8 pre flop, nor on the T high flop. I leave shortly after this hand, as I'm tired and he was the only reason I was pushing myself to stay.

So, the whole discipline thing I wrote about worked out very well, and no drink, no bad food, exercise a lot, write a lot. Through it I found such a high degree of patientce and the ability to actualy follow my game plan, instead of being overcome with the desire to gamble that I often feel. In my last 5 games, I'm up $11k. Which I'm feeling is more of a relief than anything. Anyway, see y'all on Thursday.

Up $2670

2007-08-18T19:46:00.000-05:00

I spend the first five hours completely even. I get up $500 or so, then make a bluff, and a couple reasonable calls that don't work out and find myself down $300. Win a couple little pots, get up. Lose a few more, go down, etc etc. I get involved in no big pots, I make no big decisions, I get a couple big pairs, raise, and everyone folds. But I find myself very very patient, and very very observant of the whole table. 7 of the 9 players are either very tight or have a little bit of skill, I can bluff them, but I'm not going to win any real money from them. I'm at the table for two players: seat 8, this middle aged dude who's a calling station with a seemingly infinite supply of money, and seat 7 is a younger very aggressive kid. I watch seat 8 suck-out on a couple hands and not bet the river when his middle or bottom pair have turned into trips, and then blow all that money making some of the worst calls I can imagine. He's completely unbluffable, and because of this I avoid playing any pots with him without a hand. Unfortunately, in the four hours it takes him to blow $6k or so, and decide he's had enough, I haven't managed to find a hand I want to play against him.

But, the Aggressive Kid is still there, and he has managed to hit a few huge hands, and has gone from like $1k on the table, to somewhere around $4k. He's not a completely bad player, but he has a nice exploitable flaw of being way too aggressive, combined with generally making over-bets. He's the exact type of player that I'm very used to playing back home. I let him bluff me out of a few pots, I play pretty passively against him for a few hours. I'll bet AK, pre flop, and when I don't hit, I'll just check and fold. I know that any bet that I put out on the flop is going to get re-raised, and I also know that if I allow him to run me over for a bunch of little pots, it will pay off well if I ever manage to make a hand.

I'm even, but I'm a little bored, and want some more firepower, so I put the whole $2500 I have with me on the table, so I have a little less than that at the start of this hand, which is 67 diamonds on the button, me and 3 others call a $100 raise from Aggressive Kid. Flop = 49X, two clubs. Checks around to aggressive kid, who surprisingly checks as well. Turn = 5 of not clubs. He bets $200, I call quickly, and I'm kind of surprised when everyone else folds. The river = 3 of not clubs, giving me the pretty well disguised nuts. He bets $400. I think and think and think, and take a nice long hesitation here. I finally raise $700 more. He goes into the tank for awhile, he asks “can you beat a set?” I say “do you really have a set?” I'm pretty sure he maybe has A9 or something retarded, I've seen him making so many calls like that the whole night, and I'm pretty confident that his hand is somewhere around there. The fact that I've been calling or checking up to this point has him confused as well, as he starts muttering to himself about how it feels like I missed a flush draw. Finally he sees the straight. “Do you have 67?” I say nothing, I do my best to give him no help at all. “67, really? Ok, show me 67.” He throws his money in, I turn the cards over, take the pot. Yay. I think maybe I could have gone all in here. I think maybe he would have called, I don't know though, I have no idea what he had. Anyway, this was a nice big pot from him, and I now have a little profit, and I have this dude on a nice tilt.

On the very next time it's my button, I know that I have his number, and I call his $80 raise with J8 of spades. Flop = 875, one spade. He bets $200, I call. I turn = 6 of spades. Not the best card for me, but, it brings the spade draw, and I'm somewhat sure I have the best hand now, or if not, I have a ton of outs. Before he does anything I decide that if he bets, I'm going to go all in. He bets $600, and as soon as the bet is out of his mouth, I insta-all-in. Which I guess I should have actually counted out and maybe thought about, because it's like a raise of $2200 (on top of his $600). A big overbet, but to take the $1k pot, it's not horrible. He goes on and on about how he flopped two pair. He says “You haven't bluffed me all night, but I think you're bluffing me now.” I say nothing, look up at him, pulse pounding in my neck, I say nothing, but just look at the pot, and him in my periphery. He's still in the tank a minute later, when he asks “do you want me to call?” I shrug and say “do what you gotta do man.” Which I think is about the best response I could give him. He's counting his money out, and I've already started praying for another spade, or an 8 (or maybe even a J would have been live), but he folds.

I'm up about $3k at this point, and I don't win another hand in the next half hour. I let him bluff me out a couple times. I make a horrible fold with 99 vs two other dudes who obviously just had a big ace. It's late, and after those two hands above, I just don't have the energy to fight with people on mediocre hands. I order some food, and when it arrives, I stop playing, eat, and go home.

Up $2980

2007-08-17T20:58:00.001-05:00

Get there around 4 or so. The place is packed. It's always a great game there, but I think because of the big WPT thing at the Bicycle, it's even more insane. People seem to just finish their tournament there, and come here instead of playing at the Bike. There is a huge 50/100 game featuring Daniel Alehi, and maybe three 20/40 games as well. Anyway, sitting on the must move, I manage to win like $200 or so. Just a few little pots, playing pretty tight, kind of biding my time until the main game.

I wind up sitting with the dude who'd busted me with a set of 9's from my second session on this trip. He's a shorter fat middle aged dude, knows just about everyone there. He always sits down with at least $7k, looks around the table, and if anyone has him covered, he pulls another $5k brick out of his pocket. He stakes a few players in the room, said something the other day about how he's “not good enough to play in the big game, so I invest money with people who are.” Something like that. I think he puts money into this dude that I hate, for completely irrational reasons (he was the first hand during my AC disaster). I kind of hate The Staker for no rational reason either. This is the third table I've played with him, and each time he kind of stares at me when I'm in a hand. He's not a bad player, he has some problems with over betting, but besides this he has no hugely exploitable flaw that I've found, and for the most part he seems to be playing quality hands and I mostly stay away from him. Until this hand.. I'm in for $1500, and am up maybe $500 or so (so $2k in front of me). I limp with A4 of clubs. Flop = AXX one club. I'm first to act, and I bet $200, Staker nd another call. Turn = 6c. Runner runner draw! Wheee.. Staker raises to $1k (I think, it was some amount that was just slightly too big and dumb). Other dude thinks a second and folds. I know I'm folding, but I sit and think and think, and look up at him, and think, and think some more. I just want to make him either sweat that I'm going to call, or to be pissed that he bet too much when I fold. And I do fold. Anyway, my bet on the turn was horrible, because there was no way that I'd get both dudes to fold the hand, and if I'd just let one of them bet (preferably Staker, because that would put me in better position), and see if I could get the right money in the pot for me to call to river a club or 4. Anyway, whatever, bad bet, and now I'm down like $200 or so.

So, I lose a bit more after that hand above, nothing special, all reasonable calls, with little pairs, suited connectors, etc, but nothing hits, and I'm down $500 or so, with $1k or so on the table left. I get KQ. I limp in somewhat early position. Button, a young aggressive kid raises to $120. This Indian, who was a complete calling-station for absurd amounts, calls. I've been watching this kid raise most of his buttons in a limped pot, so I decide to pop him, I make it $400 total, to which he quickly folds. Indian thinks and thinks, and calls! Wow.. ok. Flop = AXX. Indian checks, and I insta-all in for maybe $600. Indian thinks and thinks, I lean back and drink the coffee behind me, which maybe I shouldn't have done, as I think people construe this as a tell for being weak, and so he calls. Turn = X, river = Q. I say “good call, ace is good.” He says “I don't have an Ace.” !!!!! So, I turn over the KQ and take the pot. As I'm stacking my chips I notice Staker is staring at me, and I look at him and shrug, to which he says something stupid that I can't quite remember.

When I'm moved to the main game a few hands later I have a little profit. The game is odd, it changes very quickly from being very tight and passive, to being very loose and passive. There are no real aggressive players at the table when I sit down. A few come in throughout the night, but for the most part this is a table of calling stations. It's a weird flaw, and one I seldom see in NY, people not raising with much of anything, but completely unable to fold anything remotely resembling a hand for anything upto $100 preflop. Anyway, this bearded dude from San Fran, who I was on the must move with, seems to be a pretty good player. He's been winning, and this is his first time at the Commerce, and he is in awe of how many games are playing, and is talking about taking a shot at the bigger games. Until.... he gets KJ which winds up being the nuts (broadway) on the turn. He makes a healthy bet at a dude, who thinks and thinks, and calls. The river is the third club, San Fran checks, dude goes all in for maybe $2k. SF insta calls, and is shown AK of clubs. And he goes on a very obvious, whiney tilt for the next half hour. “It'll take me 30 pots to win that back.” Any time the winner is in a hand he asks “Ace King of clubs?” He just can't let it go. He wins a few hands, by absurd over bets, and he's obviously frustrated and unable to fold anything. In a few previous sessions, I've actually said things to players when they were tilting, cracking jokes, talking to them about whatever, generally making them feel better. And while I actually like the dude, I think of these situations, and stupid it was of me to stopped the tilted players from throwing their money at the table. So, here, I say nothing, and just let his frustration grow into self-destruction. And I reap the benefits this time. I get 22, flop = 2J9. He bets, I raise, he calls. Turn = 7, and I'm wondering if he could have T8, his check, combined with knitted brow, leads me to know that he has either AJ or J9, I bet again. He calls. On the blanked river, I bet $600, to which he says “did you flop a set.” I say “Do I need one?” Which is just about perfect, he just needed a little bit of encouragement to make the call, and that did it. He calls and I say “yeah, I have a set.” He says he had J9, but didn't show.

Yay, nice hand now I'm up maybe $1500 or so. I start to feel good, but after raising to $100 with KQ and getting no less than four callers, I don't play too many hands after that. I pick up a nice pot though I get called down with aces up.

But, I'm finding I have a somewhat scary image, and whenever I raise, and then raise the flop, people are pretty reluctant to continue the hands with me. I exploit it the most on this hand, I think though. I have AQ diamonds. I call an $80 raise from the only active dude who's sitting on my right. Three others call. Flop = K3X, 2 diamonds. He bets, I'm the only caller. Turn = K. Check, I ask “how much do you have” he counts out $400 in bills and some change, I check. River = 3. Check. I pause for a little, and grab 5 $100 chips and throw them out. He thinks and thinks, and I'm pretty sure that we'd be chopping the pot if he calls, but who knows maybe he had 88 or something. He folds, and I win.

Near the end of my session, restaurateur sits down. His first hand he makes these insane call with A2 of hearts, into a pretty tight dude's AK (flop =AKX), and rivers a runner runner flush. He's very active and kind of spastic. On his 2nd hand, I limp in with KJ. He's the small blind, he's thinking, he's thinking. It's only fucking $10 more. I say “it's on you man.” He says that he knows, and he puts out the $10. Flop = JXX. Checks to me. I bet $100. He stares me down, weird sunburned long face, making these weird eyebrow movements, and calls, BB folds. Turn = X, check check. River = X. He bets $220. I'm just looking at him, looking at me, looking at him. And I think back to that 99 hand in my last session, what a pussy I was, and I'm pretty sure I have him, so I call. “If you're calling, I can't win.” Yay!

I quit after six hours. Which I'm starting to wonder if that should be my time limit rather than eight. I started to get a bit of headache, and so I knew it was time to go, and I did.

Ok, it's almost 7:00. I got up late this morning, which got me to the gym late, which got me to the cafe late, which got me to write this late. Hmm, I might be out until 2 tonight, kind of throws my schedule off a bit, but yeah, this is about the best time to be playing.

More tomorrow.

down $1650

2007-08-16T16:53:00.000-05:00

Lost last session. Sunday after the mega win. I think I played pretty good, but, I keep going up and back about that. I had AA and QQ cracked early on. Although I was able to get out of both hands with only $400 - $800 damage each.

I fought back to even about midway through the session. I had AA vs this wacky asian lady who cracked my QQ earlier. I raised to $100 pre flop, she called. Flop = 432. She goes all in. I think for a little while. She's been complaining for the past hour about how she's down, how poker sucks, etc etc. She's pretty easy to read at this point, just by her talking and talking, I know that she's not feeling so good about her hand, and I know she doesn't have a set. So, I call, she has 55, she misses her set or straight, and I win a nice pot. And have like $100 profit, after being down like $1900 at one point

About an hour after this, these two insane dudes come to the table. One is wearing a "Tapout" (mma) shirt, the other seems to be his friend. Tapout, is insane, trying to bluff everyone off every hand. His friend is a bit calmer, but still pretty insane too. The rest of the table and me all sit around with helmets on, just hoping to get into hands with the live ones. I stupidly try to bluff on 22 once, and get re-raised out of the pot. Stupid. I get 99 eventually. I call the friend's raise. He'd just bluffed big at the hand right before this one, and lost a huge pot because of a dude calling him down with like a pair of T's on a TAK XX board. He'd missed his flush. Anyway, I call. Flop is like 7 high. I check, he bets $150. He turns to eat his food. I think this is suspicious, I make it $400. He looks at me, asks how much I have left, and puts me all in. Hmmm... I fold after thinking for awhile. I am feeling shitty about this now. I'm pretty sure I had him, and even if I didn't have him, this is a call I need to make. I had a good read on him, and the circumstance was pretty right, and I just pussied out for $800 bucks. He had AK at best, I think.

Anyway, I would have played past my 8 hours if Tapout had stayed at the table, but he busts out soon after. Throwing away like $1500 on a pair of Q's (top pair) vs a pretty tight dude's made straight. It was somewhat amusing.

Ok, I'm off to play now. I wrote a lot in the novel the begining of the week, sat in this coffee shop today and worked on that "on losing" essay the whole day, worked out this morning, slept well, ate well, etc etc etc. I'm feeling nervous, but, the brain is going to feel about as good as it's going to feel, and being nervous isn't the worst thing for me. I think, I hope.

l8r,
XXXXX

On losing, part 2

2007-08-16T16:49:00.000-05:00

I went there with $16k, in three neatly rubber banded wads of 50 hundred dollar bills. At this point the safe in our room has four of these wads in it, and a couple thousand dollar chips, that I carry around and do tricks with. I'm counting out the credit cards I'm going to pay. I'm thinking about the stocks I'm going to buy. I'm deciding if I want a scooter or a real motorcycle. The next day, I get to the table, a bit hungover, a bit tired. I play poorly, get down a few thousand but eventually get a hold of myself and fight back to a $65 tie. My friend is at the final table for a satellite to the $10k main event, and so I leave the game to watch him get through a field of 300 to come in 4^th, he wins $1k, but not a seat. We have a nice steak dinner, drink some wine. I am unstoppable! Even when I play bad, I'm still better than everyone! We are both winning! We are awesome! We are in good moods.
On losing, Part 1

The the amount of to sleep I can get after a game is in pretty direct reverse correlation to the swings I've endured. This is why it's smart of me to take time off between games. But, in AC, especially in the winter, there's not much else to do but gamble. So, I get up the next day, tired, but I still manage a long hard workout, sit in the hot tub for awhile after, take a shower and then go and play. The adrenaline from the workout covered up the fatigue I was feeling, and when I sat down to play the adrenaline of the game covered it up even more.

I start playing decently enough, and am somewhere around even five or six hours in. And then, suddenly the fatigue catches up to me. It was as though I'd completely forgotten what I was doing for a few minutes... I overplay TT, AQ flopping an A, and another hand I can't quite remember. I don't remember the exact hands, I do remember the changes in the pros' faces. Their expressions and body language changed from a kind of timid wondering what I was going to do in previous hands, to a confidence knowing that they had me beat. Six months later, I'm not sure if this is a confabulation, but, either way, I had no instincts, I had no idea where I was at, I had no idea where anyone was at.

When I wake up, I notice I've lost the entire $5k I'd put on the table. I find a deep self-loathing, and tilt. I couldn't process that I'd done anything wrong, I just had the feeling I suspect my friend always has. That all the shit luck in all the world was crashing on my head. But, I found the same self destructive thing I in my brain that I imagine is similar in his. It feels like the numbness and rush of cocaine, and like cocaine it whispers “more, more, more.”

So, I get up from the table, go up to the safe in the room, and take out another $5k band. My traveling companion called sometime during this and I go and meet him for a $250 single table tournament. I'm in rare form, and just kind of pissed and willing to throw away that buyin, as I can't be bothered to fold anything. But, the funny thing about tournament poker is that the donkeys win quite a bit of the time, and I wind up knocing out like the first four dudes on some insane hands, and I roll to an easy first place $1k victory. I get no less than two dudes to curse at me, and my friend to give me the finger as I bust him, I forget the hand, I probably put him all in and hit some retarded gut shot.

Of course this win covers up any notion that the losing was my own fault, and that I needed to take a break. The numb feeling, and the idea that my money would come back to me if I kept going was there. It's somewhat late and my friend goes up to sleep, and I should be tired, but I have no desire to sleep, I only feel the desire for more more more. So I go back to the 10/25 game. They don't have a seat, and so I sit down at the 5/10 game. I lose $2300 in about an hour when I can't fold QQ vs someone's AA, and then I take a nice suckout with my TT vs K8. The act of reaching into my pocket for a rebuy in this game finally breaks my spirit, and I'm depressed enough to quit, down $7150 on the day.

It's way late now, and I can't sleep. After laying in bed for a few minutes I go to the hotel lounge and putz around on the internet. I still have like $15k left in cash in the safe. And I can't believe that after playing perfectly for so many months, that things are now going so wrong now, and how can I make things right? I need to make things right! I will make things right.

When thinking about this sequence of events, it is this night I think of most. I think of how I could have taken the car we rented and driven a few hours to visit my parents, relax, and in a day or two come back to play the tournaments we'd gone down to play in the first place. But, no, I didn't do that at all...

up $5860

2007-08-12T03:58:00.000-05:00

Hi, just finished playing. Just a quick post to say that I killed it tonight. Played great, and ran great. I think writing did the trick, I worked on that last post for like 6 straight hours before playing, and felt and played great.

Anyway, after this I'm five whole US dollars in the black. I'm feeling great. Here's my monster, $7k chip stack as I was cashing out...

On losing, part 1

2007-08-11T17:41:00.000-05:00

The man who taught me how to play poker asked me for a loan once because couldn't pay his rent. I knew the rules and I'd played a little before, but I say that I learned to play from him, because in his apartment, at his $0.25-$3 spread bet home game, I learned about “outs,” and “pot odds.” He would eventually start dealing in and playing in some of the local card rooms, which by his invite is how I wound up getting my start playing Hold 'Em for real money. But, despite dealing cards for a living, reading tons of books, and being pretty good mathematically, he has never been a winning player. I think the fundamental problem with his game is that he's a bit of a whiner. I used to get sob stories about why he'd lost on a particular evening until I responded harshly: “Dear XXXX, Here is my secret formula for poker success. 1. Stop whining. 2. Play better. Love, Grandpa.”

Most players, most people, feel sorry for themselves when faced with adversity. Rather than really sitting down and figuring out why they lose, they find a kind of contentment in finding excuses that allow them to make the same mistakes they've always made. Specifically excuses for allowing themselves to tilt. He wrote in his own blog once about how there's no writing about losing poker. He's an aspiring writer (I think, I don't really know), and there is a certain inherent poetry in the loser. And, yeah, when losing I'll compare myself to Dostoevsky, and work long and hard on the absurdly long novel that I can't seem to finish. But he is right about the pro card player's attitude toward losing, in reading other player's blogs, their winning sessions are often hardcore play by plays of how awesome they are, while their losing sessions are “played bad. Was on tilt. Too depressing to write about.” And I'm guilty of this too. It's about hardest thing in the world to sit down and really look at your own shortcomings.

So here goes...
The story of my January through February disaster starts sometime in September. After a losing August, I decided that if I played good every session, if I never tilted, I could make a decent living. It took me a few months to get to this point, but eventually I started to do it. And, during an incredible streak from October 30, to Jan 2 I had an 83% win rate, with a little over $21k of profit. I was playing great. I had enough money that I could gamble without fear when I knew I had the best hand. I could shrug off any cold deck. I achieved a feeling of calmness that afforded me the serenity to know that despite any bad luck, the money would come to me eventually, simply because I playing better than everyone at any table I was at. And I was amazing... in tight games I played aggressive and loose, in loose games I played patient and tight. I had near perfect reads on everyone. I found a way to profit from any table I was at. No one could set me off my game plan, and nothing could make me tilt. I achieved this from an intense discipline that I found in the rest of my life. All the guidelines I mentioned in the last post I followed pretty exactly.

So, at the beginning of Jan, I got the notion that my shit didn't stink, and I got into an insanely aggressive $10/$25 game. No cap on the buy in, very rich and very bad players throwing around thousands, by far the loosest and biggest game I've played in. And in my first three sessions, I won $3k, $5k, and a two hour $10,600 win that got me kicked out of the game. This brought my total since October 30 to a little over $40k (FORTY THOUSAND US DOLLARS).

The WPT was happening the next week. Now, with the notion that my shit smelled like roses, I went with a friend to the Borgata. We get there that night pretty tired from the trip, and so I decide to just play a few hours. Within the first hour or two, I wind up hitting a straight flush, and win about $6k. We leave soon after, go out to a strip club, drink a lot, celebrate in a general merriment. I tell a stripper giving me a lap dance to come and meet me at the casino the next day, that “I'll be easy to find. I'll be the guy at the poker table with all the money!” She found this charming, but never showed.

The next day, I get to the table, a bit hungover, a bit tired. I play poorly, get down a few thousand but eventually get a hold of myself and fight back to a $65 tie. My friend is at the final table for a satellite to the $10k main event, and so I leave the game to watch him get through a field of 300 to come in 4^th, he wins $1k, but not a seat. We have a nice steak dinner, drink some wine. I am unstoppable! Even when I play bad, I'm still better than everyone! We are both winning! We are awesome! We are in good moods.

down the rabbit hole

2007-08-09T16:51:00.000-05:00

Hi kids. So, in the past two disastrous months since my last update, I'm down a little more than $11k. It has not been pretty. I am an idiot for not posting here. I am keeping my spreadsheet up to date, but I am not really looking at the sessions, not really thinking about what I'm doing wrong in any long analytical fashion. I am in LA now, and I am somewhat terrified at how low my levels of accessible money has become. I have this apartment booked until November, and I have no idea what I'm going to do if I can't turn things around.

I have no one to blame but myself. I have endured a few untimely bad beats, but, I have reacted to them rather poorly. They've stuck with me, not let me sleep, causing me to tilt for weeks sometimes. I brush them off in conversation, but I don't really come to terms with them. And then at the table, I will play amazing for the first part of the session, eventually count my stack, and then start drifting off to what I have in the bankroll, to what I have in the bank, to the level of money that I would have if that fucking card hadn't come. And, invariably, instead of playing 100%, I'm just trying my damnedest to get the money back, and make things right. And invariably, that is when I play dumb, and lose.

And yeah, I'm an idiot, I think for not writing in here. When I use this space, it stops the bad thoughts from perpetuating and taking root, it allows me to keep a perspective on the situation, look at it from all angels, compartmentalize it, figure it out, learn from it (or rationalize that there's nothing to be learned), and go back to playing well. Also, I've been getting a few comments from completely unexpected people asking when I'm going to go back to writing this thing, and I'm finding that having people, even if it's only ten, who have this loaded up in their news reader, and are psyched to see a new post, is really something nice. So, yeah, thanks.

Anyway, I have been breaking my cardinal rules that have kept me profitable for so long. I feel I should reiterate them here.

8 hours, 8 hours, 8 fucking hours. When you play more, you play bad. And if you play more than 10, you can't play the next day.
- I need to put the dudes I see playing great for two days with no break out of my mind. It's simply not something my brain can do. I am not Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, or David Benyamin, I need to come to terms with this, or it's going to destroy me.
Exercise, eat well, sleep
- I've been to the gym like twice in the past three weeks. Eating fat and sugar. Having unrestful and anxious dreams. Here's a good one... I am playing at the Commerce, and I keep forgetting what my hole cards are, and I turn them over, expecting to take the pot, and they're completely different cards.
Write, and write and write more.
- I get somewhat depressed from playing poker for extended periods. It's a strange heavy feeling, and when I sit down to write, even this blog, and especially the various other artistic things I'm working on, it really relaxes me and gives me this kind of deep calmness that is so good for poker, and for my brain in general. I'd like to consider myself a writer first, and when I don't write, I really feel like an asshole.
Be honest with yourself at the table.
- Something Greenstein's said in his book, about when you play bad, get up from the table, and ask yourself if you can play good. Sit down, and then if you don't play good, leave. It's so hard though, because I rationalize when I'm at the table... I know I'm doing stupid shit, but I put it into my head that I'm just going to stop bluffing, or that I'm going to do this or that. But, then I never stop bluffing. I just react a lot of the time to things, and before I've thought things through, I've done it.... I perceive someone to be weak, and I make a bet at them, I think I'm ahead with a marginal hand and I call. When I'm playing well, is when things are on, this is usually in the first 8 hours of play, and then after that I am completely off, I can't perceive anything, I don't have the energy to bluff back at someone, intelligently, without just throwing all my chips into the pot from frustration.

Ok, sorry to be a bit mopey. I'm feeling a bit mopey.

down $4365, Bad month

2007-07-02T16:26:00.000-05:00

Well, June was my first losing month since Feb. I think I played pretty good, a number of bad coolers, and a little bit of tilt of put me down. I also didn't play all that much, as 1. it's summer so games are very slow in town 2. I've just subletted an apartment and car in LA for a few months and wanted to take it easy before I go and play 15-20 days a month. And 3. the poker scene in my town has really been getting its ass kicked by thieves and the cops busting places.

Sorry about lacking the writing discipline I was talking about from the last post. I promise to actually return to the level of blogging you're used to whilst in LA. I need to do it, as to keep my brain in good working order. The risks I'm taking on this trip is too huge for me not to. I'll either come back set for a good while, or completely broke. I don't see too many other outcomes from this trip.

Keep your fingers crossed. My flight leaves on July 30.

l8r,
XXXXX

here are my numbers from June:
-$4,365 Profit
-$335.77 av profit
$120.00 Median
St Dev $1,739.46
5 wins
6 losses
2 ties (results between +$200 or -$200 in a 5/5 game, +-$300 in a 5/10 game, etc)

Not too horrible. It hurts, but it's not the worst thing that could happen to me.

Up $7805 5/5 – 5/21 Part 8 - 5/18 thru 5/21 – I'm a slacker

2007-06-11T15:37:00.000-05:00

Hi kids. Sorry for getting behind in the updates of this thing. I think I need to get more disciplined with taking notes on my sessions right after I'm finished with them. Not only can I write these entries out easier, it helps me to digest what happened a lot quicker. It's just way tough.. when I win, I want to party. When I lose I want to watch tv and mope. Neither is a good mood for writing. I think though when I go on trips it'd be a lot better to do this, as it would force me to stay on target, as drinking isn't quite conducive to playing well, for days in a row.

Anywho, let's summarize the last three games that I was planning to write in this series.

5/18 down $2665
Back in NY, Yamakazie game. Giggly Banker busts me twice. First when he flops a set of 4's, and I have KQ, making a pair of Q's. Next when I raise with AK, and he re-raises me all in with... Q3. Nice job donkey.

5/19 Up $485
Porn place. 2/5 Small game, no one wants to play here anymore it seems. Kind of a bummer, the new by the dude who kicked me out of his big game looks like it's taking all the action. I bust some kid trying to bluff me when I had a K high flush on a 3 suited board. Short, small, no mistakes.

5/20 Up $745
Porn place again. The 5/10 game they were supposed to have at 7:30 doesn't start until like 10. I play the whole night, down mostly. I get it all back and then some when my bottom two pair hold against the donkey/owner of the place who saw fit to put it all in on the turn with and up and down straight.

5/21 Up $2590
Yamakazie... I play literally 7 hands in about 6 hours, and am up about $3k. It's so stupid, the whole table is chiding me about playing so tight. So what do they do? Of course! They call me with any marginal hands whenever I make a raise. So, I bust a dude for a ton of money with a set of Aces, and a few other small pots. I go to a $300 tournament after that for some reason I thought would be a good idea to play in after playing for 8 hours.

Anyway, more discipline from here out, I promise. I've mnaged to get my ass beat down for like $4800 since this. Mostly bad beats, AA and KK getting cracked like once a session does not make for profits. Soon, more, yes, stay tuned.

Up $7805 5/5 – 5/21 Part 7 - The Zone, and how to get in it

2007-06-06T18:44:00.000-05:00

5/14 Up $3245
I rule the school. I put the entire remaining bankroll on the table and win $1400 pretty quickly. Writing this a week later, I don't remember a single hand from the beginning part of this session, so I guess I had nothing difficult come up, and that I made no mistakes. I leave the casino and drive to San Diego to hang out with a rock band I'm friends with who were opening for Modest Mouse. Great time, great people, and I drive the two hours back from SD happy as a clam... As for the first time hanging out with them they're way happy about that things are finally going their way. I start thinking about gambling and my nature of a gambler, and after running this label, and putting $15k into a variety of cockamamie bands, it makes sense that it doesn't phase me to play poker for these stakes. Bukowski had a good quote: “not all of us are gamblers and those who aren't don't matter.” I'm starting to think of a gambler as anyone who has to rely on their own output for their income, artists, business owners, anyone not on salary.

Anyway, I come back to the casino, and put $2k on the table (no longer the whole bankroll..) There's this utter maniac on the table with like $10k in front of him at this point. Odd looking fellow, I can't figure out what his nationality is... White hair, well groomed beard, thin, somewhere in middle age, although I can't tell if he's 40 or 60, and has clear braces on his teeth. I see him playing quite a few hands, and winning them all on completely insane draws. The table is kind of going nuts, but most of them are decent enough players and know how to do the right thing. Which is be very vocal in reinforcing this behavior: telling him how amazing he is, how he can't miss... as opposed to “you suck, I will gut you, you lucky son of a bitch.” And it appears that he's dumb enough to actually believe this hype, and he keeps putting his money in so fucking bad and getting there. By the reaction of the table, and his stack, it looks like he's been running hot for a few hours. He's also very aggressive, and I am fortunate that he's sitting directly to my right.

Eventually I get QQ. Braces raises to $100, I make it $400. Folds around to Braces, who says “well, I have a big pair, so I have to call.” Flop = 88J. He checks, I give a speech of “well, if you have jacks, I guess you win. I'm all in.” And he turns his Jacks over and calls. Wow, that was so stupid of me, his speech should have let me know that he either has AA, KK, or JJ... The only only hand I'm beating is TT. But, who calls TT “a big pair?” I should have thought longer on this, but I was so psyched to get into a big pot with him with queens that I couldn't think of folding.

Well, so, I put the whole bankroll on the table again. And I just sit, and I'm really getting depressed here, thinking about how after winning earlier I'm down again, and the fact that my flight leaves the night. I'm counting my money and realizing that if I go home now I'm coming back with a $1k loss, and it cost me about $1k to get and stay here. It's really upsetting, but, I do my best to meditate, calm down, meditate, don't go on tilt, there are no cosmic forces aligning against me, there are only the forces of variance, and my own stupidity. And as I meditate, I look around and find that this table is amazing. Not only is Braces doing what he's been doing, and this young sunglasses punk at the other end of the table is also an aggressive donkey. Bluffing the shit out of everyone, he's up, he's down, he's as active as a cartoon, he's as loud as a drunk. This one hand is amazing.. Quiet Asian man on the left of me keeps betting into him with a Q high board and 2 clubs out there. He's taking his time, making pot sized bets that Punk keeps calling. The turn and river both blank, and Quiet Asian goes all in for like $3k. Punk has him covered, thinks for awhile, “you trying to bluff me? You miss your flush? You trying to bluff me???” Punk is getting really pissed off as Quiet Asian says nothing. Punk keeps going on about “you trying to bluff ME?” Asian says nothing. Punk calls... Asian mucks!! Punk has QJ!!!! one pair, J kicker!!! Punk stands up, pounds on the table, points at Asian's stack, and shouts “Gimme that money!! I knew you didn't have that flush!!! GIMMIE THAT MONEY!!!” Asian turns white, and leaves silently.

Eventually I flop a K high flush draw in late position on a T64 flop. SB bets $200, called by Financier. Financier seems to be a good player, I was talking to him about the business he owns, which provides small loans to individuals for cars and homes, nice guy, and a pretty good player from what I can see. I have like $1500 in front of me at this point,and I realize that the table is hyper aggressive now, and I know that any reasonable bet will be called probably by both of them. So I make an unreasonable bet, and go all in. SB folds, Financier is like “flush draw? Are you on a draw?” He shows AT, and folds. My side of the table is like “set of 4's or 6's?” I shrug and smile, and let them believe it, the other side of the table is sure I have a flush draw.

Next hand I have KQ. Flop = KXX, 2 spades. Braces bets, I call. Turn = Q of not spades. Braces bets again, I do my best to take some time with it, show some hesitation to hopefully draw him in. I eventually raise to $1k. He asks how much I have left, I have $600 left. He thinks for awhile, and puts me all in. I call quickly.. River = blank. Financier says “two pair is very good.” Nice read, I show, take the pot, now have $1600 profit from this part of the session. Braces says that he had spades, and figured that he should put the money in because if the last spade came then he wouldn't get called on the bet.. Hmm... let's look at the math here.. 4/1 to hit his flush. I think the pot is $800 before I go all in. So, yeah, this would have been good if he'd done it on the flop, where he'd be 2/1, but on the turn is really bad.

Anyway, I'm really wanting to play the entire night with Braces, because I know the $8k that he has left is fully in play on every hand. But, I'm a bit nervous at having $6k on the table, and I'm a bit tired. So I go home, happy with a nice win on the day.

5/15 Up $2390
When I get back the next day at like 3:00, Financier is still there from the night before! Unshaven, bleary eyes, he'd been playing for like 30 hours straight. When I'd left him last night he had somewhere around $2k in front of him, and he now has about $15k. Turns out that Braces threw away every dime he had on that table, and Financier managed to take a good bit of it a few hours after I left, and just went off to the races from there.

Ok, so $2k on the table. Sit for awhile, get good grounding, lose a few hundred on a couple reasonable calls, and have $1600 in front of me. I get QQ under the gun, make it $100, Financier and one other callers. Flop = T22, two clubs. Bet $300. Call, call. Turn = Blank. If I'd thought about it for a second I'd know I'm beat by at least one of these guys, but I don't think too hard, and make up some fantasy about how they either have a lone T, or are on clubs. So I go all in for the $1200 or so I have in front of me. Financier goes all in over the top of that. I don't even blink, I knew I was beat, and it's obvious now, I just get a wave of depression over me, and start to dig in my pocket for the rest of my money. It's obvious he has T's full. My agony is only prolonged as dude at the other end of the table is thinking and thinking, and eventually calls also... I was right, Financier has T's full, other dude has A222, I come in 3^rd when the river blanks.

I'm pissed again, just so fucking angry at myself that on the last day, like 5 hours until I have to drive directly to the airport that I would so something so fucking dumb. I might have been on tilt, but there was really no option but for me to keep playing at this point. And I do, and I force myself to get off tilt, and I do, and I get in the zone. And I mean the zone. I think terrifying thought of having to come back with little to no profit did it to me. To have to update this blog, and tell everyone how stupid I played did it to me.

This guy who'd been playing with Financier since late last night, is way on tilt. Everyone is talking what a good player he is, and how odd it is to see him down so much. He'd been bluffing a lot, he's just bluffed me out of a small pot actually, so I felt ok to call his $100 with AT. Flop = XXT. I bet $200, he goes through a long hesitation, and goes all in for $800. The instant after the words “all in” are out of his mouth the word “call” is out of mine. He asks, “you called so quick. I guess you have a set.” “No set. Do I need one?” He's silent, turns his look towards the dealer putting out blanks. With a pensive and anxious look, he stares at me waiting, I say “I called you.” He turns to a depressed hangdog look, can't talk, and looks at the felt. So I show him the AT, to which he says “that's good.” He gets up from the table immediately. I can't help a satisfied smile. A Bobby Fisher quote crosses my mind, “I like the moment when I break a man's ego.”
With a pair of 5's... The passive tight Asian with KK over my QQ from a few days ago calls this loose aggressive dude in early position. Flop = 567. Wow, set.. Somewhat dangerous board, but yeah, set, money is mine. Aggressive dude bets $250, and I'm thinking how I'll just call him and let him keep betting at me. But... Asian is thinking for long time, no expression, making me nervous. He raises to $600. Wow... I show my cards to no one, and fold instantly. As Asian is taking the pot in, I tell him I had a set of 5. He's like “really? I had set of 6's.” His reaction was so shocked, that I know that he wasn't putting me on. He kept asking why I folded, I mention the QQ/KK hand, and say “I don't mess around with you anymore.”
I sit and do nothing for a long long while. With two black 4's, I call Financier's $80 with a few others in the pot. Flop = 88T. I check, Financier checks, everyone checks, check please! Heh, sorry... Turn = 3 (red). I think “wow, wouldn't that have been great if it were a red 4?” Then I think “well, why don't I just play like it was,” and check again. Financier bets $200. Folds around to me. I make it $500. He thinks for a long time and calls. River = blank. I think for a while, know that he's good enough to fold any hand without an 8. I take some breaths, and put out a $1200 bet, which isn't quite all in for me, but it might as well be. He thinks and thinks, shows me a T, and mucks.
- A few hands later, he was like “you obviously had an 8.” I lie, “nope, two black 3's.”
Sit for awhile, play tight, win some small hands, happy with the small profit. I'm about ready to leave, when I get 99 on the button. Limp pot, no reason to raise, so I limp too. Flop = 964. Early position dude, who'd just sat down raises to $100. Folded around to me. I take a lot of time. A whole lot of time, I think what would someone with 78 do here. I finally ask the dealer “how much is that?... ok, I call.” Turn = blank. I'm wondering if he's buying the straight draw. So, he bets again, $300 this time. I take some breaths, and take a really really long time here. Finally, I decide that someone with 78 would just call. River = 4, 9's full! Wheeee! He checks, which surprises me, but I know he doesn't have quad 4's from this. So I put him on exactly the hand he has. I think and think, and eventually put out $1500. Calls quickly, and immediately turns his 6's full over, saying “I have a boat.” “No good.” Show the 9's take the pot.
- The whole table goes insane, Financier says “Excellently played. By both of you.” That was nice to hear, what was really nice to hear was the Mexican donkey who cracked me with T7 a few days ago say as a joke, “I knew exactly what you have. So, you never hurt me.” Then a few hands later, as my flush beat his set for a modest pot he says “you scare me today. I beat you all time before.”

I wish I could play this good all the time. I leave soon after, drive to the airport, and wish I were not leaving. Satisfied with the trip, but feeling that my small, $4700 profit was more of an escape from disaster, rather than a real success. I made too many mistakes, and I can't afford mistakes, in this business you need the money to weather the inevitable shit storms.

Up $7805 5/5 – 5/21 Part 6 - Perma-tilt

2007-05-31T15:47:00.000-05:00

5/13 down $1220 (Commerce)
While still steamed from that last session if I've learned anything from my Jan/Feb AC disaster, it's that I need to sleep after taking an ass kicking. Which is a huge effort as I keep waking up anxious with weird dreams. And of course wanting to go and play. So I fight every urge to drive back I force myself to back to bed, and stay in bed until I doze enough to get in a full eight hours. I finally feel that I can play around three, so I fight through stupid traffic that takes me like an hour to drive ten miles. Get there, take out the entire $3500 and change I have left in my player's account which really looks like nothing when they give it to you in three $1k chips and a few hundreds.

When I first sit down the cards are with me, and even though I'm sitting at the same table, in the same seat as the night before, still thinking about it... it doesn't matter when I flop a set of Ten's vs some kid's AA (or KK, he didn't show) and he goes all in. I take a few more pots and within like an hour I'm up $3k. But I'm still on stupid tilt, thinking about the session yesterday, and start bluffing, and trying to steal every damn pot, as it doesn't feel like I'm up $3k, but rather that I'm now down $1k. And so, a couple hours later I'm only up $2k. At which point, I kind of knew that I should leave, know how good booking a decent “W” will be for me. But, I'm only in town for a few days...

I get QQ under the gun. Raise to $80, this tight, passive, middle aged Asian calls. I'd been making these fun $20 prop bets with him about stupid shit... red/black, if we'd actually pay the collection pot, high/low on first card on the flop, it was fun and we were laughing a lot between hands we weren't playing. Anyway, he calls. Then the button raises to $180. The button is pretty aggressive, and I'm pretty sure he's just taking a shot at the pot, so after some thought, I raise to $400, and then the Tight Asian goes all in for $1500! Well, wow. Button folds. I'm looking at him, with a “hey, we're buddies” expression. He says nothing. I'm wondering if he has AK, or maybe even JJ. He finally says “I have a big hand.” I say “Yeah, I have a big hand too.” He says nothing more and looks down with a somewhat glum look. I think for probably too long, put him on, I don't know what I put him on... I call. He has KK. Board is no help for me, and 90% of profits are gone. Should I have folded? Yes, without question this was a huge mistake... His glum look wasn't because he was sad that I had a big hand, but that he was going to take money from someone who he liked. As he's taking the pot in, he says “I told you I had a big hand.”

Ok, so from $3k of instant profit, I'm only up a few hundred. The table was tight, and bluffing should have been profitable, but I think I kept running into guys with decent hands, or maybe they were good and started paying attention to me, and were playing back at my aggressions? I don't know. Anyway, I bluff away another $1k and am now down for the trip for the first time, with only $2500 left, all of which I've got on the table. At this point.

The rest of the evening is up and down. Late at night, there's an amazing donkey who puts about $10k into the game in $2k increments. He can't fold anything, will call with middle pairs, or any draw. Unfortunately, I'm unable to get into a big hand with him and I have to sit back and watch as the other good players at the table dismantle him. The table breaks when he's busted, it's 4AM, and it's time for me to sleep.

Up $7805 5/5 – 5/21 Part 5 - Horror show

2007-05-30T10:13:00.000-05:00

5/12 down $4000
I get this hand in the first five minutes of play. I have 55... Flop = 569. I bet, he raises, I re-raise, he insta-all in's. The only hand I'm beating is two pair. If he has a straight, it's not bad EV for me, but, to be honest I didn't even think long enough to figure out if I'd be getting positive value on calling against a straight. No, in fact, I didn't think at all, insta-call and say “I call, I have a set,” thinking he'd be cowed. But he says nothing and turns over his 9's. So, I'm drawing to the last 5 in the deck which doesn't come. Well... nice.. nice...

So, I'm down $2k in about five minutes. Put the next $2k on the table. The must move to the main game comes soon after, where I'm sitting next to this fat 40 year old mother, who isn't too horrible of a player, but constantly talking. I might have found her material acting to me charming during a winning session. She asks “are you a pro?” I guess the constant, and somewhat advanced chip tricks I do give me away, or maybe it's my demeanor in general. I've been answering this question lately with some bullshit line about how “I'm a computer programmer, but usually make more when playing poker,” as I used to actually program for a living I can bs about it with anyone. Anyway, the table is rather passive, there's maybe one aggressive player on it. It's mostly people who are bad at math and have skewed ideas of risk/reward. This unaggressivness and people calling with too many hands makes it very profitable to take a lot of shots at little pots on the flop. So, as long as I don't do it too often, I can take pots for like one 50% of the pot sized bet on the flop. And so I work and work, and inch my way back to being only down $500 or so after maybe two or three hours... Then then.. wow..

88.. flop a set with 2 clubs out there. Three people in the hand. Bet the flop, all players call. Bet the blanked turn, all players call again!! So going to the river it's a $2k pot. And the river of course brings the third club to an unpaired board. I check to a tight, older Asian man, who takes out a big handful of hundreds and carefully counts out thirteen of them. The dealer, then counts them out again and lays them out on the table in that neat way that dealers have of doing. Every bone of my body knows he's got the flush, but I'm so pissed that he retardedly called pot sized bets on every street, and got there anyway, and man, does that cash look good. I think for a minute, look at my cards, take a couple of breaths. He casually moves from being hunched over the table and looking at me to leaning back and to take a few spoonfuls of the soup he has behind him. I know that he has it, I mean, I know he has it. But, I can't stop being pissed at that card. And so I come up with this stupidity... the reason that he's acting so casually now is because he must be bluffing he has it. Yes! It must be! What a good read I just put on him!!! So I call, and yes, of course, he has it. As the chips are being pushed to him Mother starts telling me how I should have shown him my set and folded. About how “he's going to keep drawing out until you teach him a lesson.” I was steaming before, and I'm just kind of going nutty from her lecture, and feeling so bad about wasting the past two hours of work to just blow it on this stupid fucking call.
Still steaming, trying to calm down, meditate... literally two hands later I'm in the BB, where I have T7. I flop the nuts on a 689 board. I check, and the four guys in front of me check too. Turn = 5, so I still have the nuts. I make a pot sized bet of $100. Which is raised to $300, and then again to $900!!! Wow. There's two to a flush, there's no pair, and I still have the nuts. I've got like $1200 left in front of me which I shove in, and get called in by both raisers!!! Wow... I want to puke when the river is another 5.. but neither guy has a set, and both guys show a lone 7 for the 2^nd nut straight!!
Next orbit, in my small blind I have 53, pot is limped, I call the $10. Flop = 46T, rainbow. It's checked around to the only guy who seems to have any level of aggression at the table, who puts out a pot sized $100 from the cutoff seat. Mother calls from the button, I call, and the Asian who beat my set of 8's calls too. Turn = 7!! Hey, I have the 2^nd nuts, and 58 is so unlikely at this point that I'm pretty sure I'm winning. So, I bet $800. Mother, says “did that make your straight?” Which is unbelievably shitty of her to say, as there's two other players in the hand and the action isn't even to her. In thinking about it now, I should have called the floor over and at least gotten her kicked off the table. That comment really was utter bullshit, and I'm getting pissed just thinking about it. But I say nothing, as I'm so shocked. So, Asian folds, Aggressive Guy calls, and Mother looks at her cards, and is like “well, I guess I have to call now.” Ok, so gigantic pot, and the river brings another 6, and I unleash a fire-hose-strength stream of projectile vomit over the entire table, and check. Aggressive Dude goes all in. And mother thinks and thinks, keeps going on about “what do you have? Hmm, what do you have???” And calls. I roll my eyes, and muck the straight face up. Mother, has T's full of 6' (so 2 pair until the river), Aggressive Dude flopped a set of 4's and now has 4's full. As Mother is taking the pot in, she goes on explaining how “after you both put all that money in the pot I had to call.” Let's see.. she has 4 outs on the river, and let's even say that she knows that I have a straight and we eliminate those cards from the denominator makes it 4/44 = about a 10 to 1 shot for her to boat up on the river. So, she needs to be making $8k to make that call on the turn right. She made a little under $4k on the call.
But, then.. wow.. this is the best one... I get AQ a few hands later, so I'm in later position. Bet out $80. This very tight, older Mexican at the end of the table calls. Flop = Q89. He checks, I bet $100, call. Turn = T, check, bet $150, call. River = 6. He checks, check, hold my cards up, and when it takes him a second to declare what he has, I start extending my arms to take the chips in. Then he's says, in his broken English, “I have straight!” And shows T7 of hearts. Nice.

So, yeah, if I wasn't steaming before, I now feel like smashing every player's head in with a sledge hammer. I want to throw a grenade under the table, I want to burn their houses down, I want to rape their mothers. I get up and walk around. Walk outside, check my email on my phone. Look at the desert night sky, think about variance, and wonder if I can play more.

When I get back to the table, I sit and meditate. I do my best to not do anything stupid. Mother sees the look of being pissed on my face and doesn't say anything to me for awhile. She pays my time the next half, which I'm still trying to figure out if it was a gesture of compassion, or if it was just to entice me to stay at the table and throw away the $1500 I still had in front of me. I don't play another hand for almost an entire hour. I don't say a single word during this time either. I just sit and meditate.

In the games I play back home there is a posse of tight tight asses who have this complete gloom and doom mentality. They'll sit and not play a hand for a half hour, get a big hand, play it, lose to some donkey playing something completely retarded. During the half hour until they play another hand they'll complain incessantly about what horrible luck they always always have, and how it's impossible to beat rich donkeys because they'll always suck out on you. If their next hand goes the same way, they'll take this as more proof that there are cosmic forces at work against them and go on super-tilt, and wind up throwing away all the money they have in their pocket. Whenever they see me winning (60% !!!) they constantly go on about how I'm the luckiest man they know. Yeah, yeah, well... no, no... First of all, I can actually do the math where most of them can't, which gives me a huge advantage. But, second of all, cards, or any random systems, are like the universe, in that it looks the same from anywhere, from any direction you look at it from.. or from any seat you're sitting at... The random system of numbers and variance are the same for everyone, and in the long run it will pretty much always work out. And the long run is only about sixteen hours, (take note scientists... I've done the required research on this figure, and you can now use "the long run" as a unit of measurement). I am not lucky, I just do my best to not steam, to be happy with dudes calling me with bad T7. Obviously, it sucks when they win, but them winning hands like that are what keeps them coming back. And yeah, when you're losing it's is often impossible to keep this perspective. But, after learning the basics, it's what separates good players, from consistent winners... I'm getting better at it.

Eventually I get J3 in the BB. The hand is straddled, with like 3 limpers, in front of me, so I call the $20, straddler checks. Flop = AJ3. Check, one limper bets $200, cut off seat calls. I go all in. I have like $1500, am pretty sure my two pair is ahead, but it's bottom two, and I'm just fine taking the $600 pot. Folds around to cut off caller. Who hemms and haws, and then calls. He has AJ for top 2. I'm dead to a 3, which doesn't come. Wow. Well... just wow. I shake my head, shrug to the table, say “I guess it's not my night,” and leave.

It is a long ride home. I keep thinking how it's absurd that I'm still up $200 for the trip, and that I played pretty well. But it is of little consolation. I take two Benadryls and drink a bunch of beer to make sure that I fall asleep quickly

Up $7805 5/5 – 5/21 Part 4... The Arizona Bay

2007-05-25T16:51:00.000-05:00

5/10 Up $1775 (Commerce)
Nice start to the trip, of me missing my flight by like 10 minutes, and arguing with the manager and clerk to not charge me $500 to change my ticket. I learned something though.. that if you ever miss a flight, tell them that there was an accident that delayed you from getting to the airport. The conversation went something like this..
Manager: “Why were you late?”
Me: “Uh, the train was running late.”
“Oh...”
“Wait, why did you ask me that? What does it matter?”
“Well, if there was an accident, we could change your ticket.”
“Ok, then, there was an accident.”
“I don't believe you”

So he walks away, and I take everyone's name down, refuse to leave and insisting for a good ten minutes that there was indeed an accident until they change my flight for a charge of $25.

Anyway, despite my awesome power of persuasion I am still stuck in an airport for five hours until the next flight. Niiiice. Fortunately I thought to download some tv the night before. Heroes is particularly good back to back to back to back.... When I finally get to The Arizona Bay, it's late, and I'm tired, and I don't want to do anything. So, I hang out in the dumpy-ass hotel I'm staying at in El Segundo. Yeah, yeah, bad choice... but a room is a room, and I'm only there to sleep and unwind, and I got a deal on it from Travelocity, and maybe I can find Q-Tip's wallet. Next day I get up, and hang out with a friend, and get a good workout at Wild Card Boxing, which is Freddie Roach's place. I'm way surprised to find it's a small, unpretentious, not even air conditioned, kind of a dump. But it is where tons of great boxers have gone. It also only costs me five bucks to workout there for the day. And it's pretty rad to meet Freddie who is pretty cool to me. The friend of a friend who brought me there tells him that I'm in LA to play poker, and he just thinks that's amazing and wants to shoot the shit about it, going on about how they had a card game at his house once and how bad Manny Pacquiao is. Heh. Anyway, nice work out, shower, hang out with my friend for a little while longer, and I'm ready to play.

It's the same amazing donkey convention as last time. I don't remember much of this session, as I played pretty near perfect with only one difficult hand. It's always a shock when I start playing in a casino.. that most people will actually fold a KT for four times the big blind, so bluffing becomes profitable.

My one mistake of the session comes at the end when I make a stupid call with a J high flush on a 4 suited board, vs someone's Q high flush. I lose like $1k on that hand. It's late, I feel the hand starting to tilt me, so I leave soon after with the profit.

5/11 Up $2560 (Commerce)
Get up sometime in the afternoon, eat some shitty breakfast at the disgusting diner in my hotel. Like, how hard is it to make decent eggs?

I start the session with my usual stupidity of throwing away my first $2k buy in. Bluffing, mostly. But, it's good advertising as people see me playing a good number of hands aggressively, and it allows me to double up my second buy in via a set of King's.

My star play of the day is vs this aggressive Phil Ivey looking kid. Same lighter black skin, wearing a basketball jersey, early 20's. He's pretty aggressive against everyone, re-raising and bluffing on the flop a lot, and playing a ton of hands. I wind up folding top pair to him an hour earlier. I get KJ eventually, and limp into a pot with him and a few others. Flop = JTX, 2 diamonds. I bet $80, size of the pot, he raises to $200. I think for a second and go all in for the $1500 more he has in front of him. He thinks for awhile, looks up, says “I have a lot of gamble, I call.” Turn = J, river = blank. He doesn't show his hand.. but wow... the only hand that he could have that's not beating me that would be the right odds to call would be a straight and flush draw (so, KQ, Q9, 98, all of diamonds..).

The rest of the session is of a blur of good play. Against all the prototype insane Asians, dudes just waiting for AA or KK, and other people who have a variety of stupid playing styles and little idea of what they're doing. I open a “Player's Bank” account at the casino so I don't have to walk around with $9k on me.

Up $7805 5/5 – 5/21 Part 3... build a bankroll...

2007-05-25T03:11:00.000-05:00

5/6 down $720
I'm more embarrassed of this session than any I've had during the course of this blog. It's the horrible mentality that constantly being in a gambling environment can bring... wanting to put my money in just to see where the cards fall. If I were in a casino I'd be playing craps. It's masochistic, it's stupid. There is a good speech in a bad Al Pacino movie which goes like this...
“When we lose, and I'm talking about the kind of loss that makes your asshole pucker to the size of a decimal point - you know what I mean - You've just recreated the worst possible nightmare this side of malignant cancer, for the twentieth goddamn time; and you're standing there and you suddenly realize. Hey, I'm still here. I'm still breathing. I'm still alive. Us lemons, we fuck shit up all the time on purpose. Because we constantly need to remind ourselves we're alive. Gambling's not your problem. It's this fucked up need to feel something. To convince yourself you exist. That's the problem.”

And so, I wind up looking at my opponents, who are by and large degenerate gamblers, sports bettors, blackjack, craps... And often times, when I'm lazy, when I have been winning too much, when I am distracted, when I am not concentrating, I can not resist the urge to gamble with them... as opposed to the patient and slow moil of getting the money in good as often as you can... I mentioned this in an earlier post, and then decided that it was bullshit and my problems were entirely sleep related, but, I'm starting to think that my initial thought was correct. While sleep is probably the biggest factor, I'm thinking now that maybe this gambling vs winning duality is something deep within me, that I must constantly be in control of.

So.. the session goes like this... I get to the 5/10 game at the porn place. It's got my favorite Crazy Asian, and a bunch of others who aren't very good either. In fact there is only one player at the table who I'd even call remotely competent. And I get up $2k very quickly, that I take mostly off Crazy when my K9 turns two pair, vs what I guess was his AK. Then, over the next two hours I just start blowing the whole fucking thing. I get aggressive against Crazy, and it just doesn't work. In two years I've never been able to bluff him out of any hand, so why should I be able to do it now? But I keep throwing my money around because I'm in a losing mood. I have no big hands, but just whittle the entire profit away on one medium sized bluff after the next.

It comes to the end of the night, and I've gone from the $2k of profit, to $300 of profit. Crazy has left about an hour ago with $4k of profit or so. And I'm thinking about LA, wondering what I'm going to do for a bankroll, and I'm pissed as hell about everything... Last hand of the night I have Q4 of diamonds. Dude to my left stands up from the table as the cards are being dealt, I limp, he goes all in without looking at his cards for like $600. He gives a speech of something like “fuck it, I'm down so much, let's gamble.” Everyone folds.. and I'm feeling so shitty, and thinking some bullshit logic... if I go home with $300 profit, I will have to call this session a tie, but if I take his stack, I can mark it down as a win!! Of course I don't entertain the possibility that I have a below average hand and am probably behind. So I call. He has AK of diamonds.... wow.. I know it was authentically blind, as I watched him get up from his seat. So I lose that hand.. then game breaks, but the dude I just doubled up is all like “let's all put in $100 and just run the cards out.” To which I'm so fucked up, I'm like “ok great, let's get some of my money back.” And of course, I lose another $400 on not winning a single one. Until I finally come to my senses and force myself to walk out feeling like a complete douche. I almost start screaming at myself on the street because I feel like such a fucking idiot. But, yeah... I did convince myself that I exist.

5/7 Up $4130
Ok, so five game losing streak. No good. I recently went through my entire spreadsheet and figured out my winning percentage. I've determined that I've won 60% of my last 100 games. Which isn't nearly as good as I thought as I was doing, but it's great to be able to clarify how retarded a five game losing streak for me is.. as someone who wins 60% of the time should only lose 5 in a row 1.02% of the time.. or one five game losing streak in every 485 games. On the other hand I should win five in a row 7.78% of the time, or 1 winning streak in every 59 games. It's as likely for a 60% winner to win 9 games in a row as it is to lose 5 games in a row. I've never had a nine game winning streak.

So, I get down on myself about it. Obsessive about it. Trouble sleeping over it. I take a bunch of Benadryl and am able to doze off for a solid eight hours before the next 5/10 game. And I get to the game in the rare form of already being pissed at myself, without having to throw away a thousand bucks first.

And I am 1. Hit in the face with the deck, 2. play 100% perfect, and 3. no one can fold any hand and pay me off on everything. I get 3 sets, get paid huge on each of them, straight, flush, AA, etc etc...

However, my best hand is one that I lost... I limp with four others with KQ to a flop of KK2. Everyone checks, I check in middle position, hoping that either someone in late position will take a shot at it now, or maybe someone else will on the turn. On a blanked turn, this tight-assed, quiet dude in the big blind makes a pot-sized bet of $60. I've played with him a few times before, and I got the impression that he's never made a bluff in his life. I call, everyone else folds. River is also a blank, where he bets $100. I think for a little and just call again. And he has 2's full of Kings! I do a nice fist pump and big nod to myself I'm so psyched. I show my cards to the table and say something like “Wow, I'm fucking awesome!” I wish I'd remembered Hellmuth's “I can dodge bullets” quote.

Anyway, that's the only cooler I had the whole night, the rest of the time are just huge hands that are obviously ahead... My biggest problem is trying to get other people to put all their money in. Which is a piece of cake at this game.

So, yeah, huge relief... Bankroll is set for LA....

Up $7805 5/5 – 5/21 Part 2... 5/5 down $1510

2007-05-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

I decide to get a three day tune up playing in the little games around town before going to LA. So I go to this gross club that I don't like very much. The biggest game they have is a 2/5 game, with pretty intolerable people for the most part: the young poker superstars, the crotchety old men, the frat-boy-business assholes who try to push the table around with a huge bankroll. The worst part of course is that all of these people perpetually discuss their supreme thought processes after any hand they've won... “I so knew you had that...” “I had to draw to my hand because I had the pot odds.” Of course their constancy of putting people on hands is marginal at best, and of course they would never be able to explain mathematically what it means to have positive pot odds, the closest they can get to that is “it was a big pot...” And usually it's not even that, it's “I had so many outs.” So, the major flaw at this level of play is the fundamental one of simply having no clue about the mathematics of the game. The risk/reward factor is also very skewed, while they aren't as proactive gamblers as the Yamakazi game, they'll make far more stupid calls than stupid raises... calling anything up to $50 with any suited or connected cards.

Anyway, I played this one pretty good for the most part. The first buy in, I sit for a long long time, and hardly play a hand. Get up about $100, down $50, up $100. After about three hours I'm about even. This kid to my right, is making these huge swings of being up like $2k, to being down $500. He's making some of the most insane, dumbest calls I've seen, wants to gamble with anything. So, I have AQ one hand. Flop = K7X. Bet $100. Call. Turn = X, bet $200 call. River = X, all in for maybe $300 more.. insta call.. he has J7!! Wow, ok, nice read by me, but, how stupid was I to think that he would fold anything? Yes, pretty stupid, but I was somewhat frustrated from not playing anything for like three hours, and couldn't help but bluffing off the last few hundred. I just say “nice hand,” and get up and walk around. This is my problem playing in smaller games, that I often can't help myself with hands like this, and to bluff away five hundred I can do in the blink of an eye these days. If I'd taken more than two seconds to think about it, I'd of course have realized that there was no chance he'd fold any pair, and I'd have slowed down.... Next one, I blow when I have JJ, same guy and Aggressive Donkey call for $50. board comes QXX, I bet. He calls, Aggressive Donkey folds. Turn = Q. I go all in, he calls, and he of course he called my $50 pre flop with Q7 off suit. Nice. I don't think I played this one bad, as he could have had any pair, and I really did think my jacks were good when I made the bet.

I'm somewhat on tilt from this, and I wind up making a way bad fold a few hands later with A2 on an AAK, 9, J board. I fold to this pretty tight player's $300 bet on the river, there were two other people in the hand, and I figured he at least had a straight, if not at least an A with a kicker that played. He had A4. When I see his cards, I let out kind of a scream. I jump up from the table, and walk around.

Ok, so it's obvious I'm steaming at this point. But, I have learned to calm down and play through this kind of thing. I start meditating at the table, which I've been doing a lot these days, breathing deeply, going through the alphabet, staring at a speck of dust. Through this I'm able to calm down and focus on the game. And knowing that the rest of the table thinks you're on tilt can of course be a huge advantage when you have a big hand... Which I get pretty soon after in the form of two red Kings. I bet $50, the Aggressive Donkey from the JJ hand, and a young tight poker super star dick-head calls. Flop = KQT, all clubs. Yay, set of kings, all clubs doesn't look so good, but what are the odds that one of these guys has a club flush? 70-1 to flop a flush with 2 suited cards, and what are the odds that their 2 suited cards that happen to be clubs??? I check, donk bets $125, dick-head thinks for awhile, calls. I go all in. Donk goes all in over the top. Dick-head folds. Donk of course has 94 of clubs, which he thought was just awesome for $50 pre flop, in a 2/5 game... Wow, ok. He refuses business, the board doesn't pair, I'm down $2000, in a 2/5 game. Wow.

Well, ok, it's getting late, but I'm actually rather pleased with my play at this point, as I know I just got a bit unlucky. Just a few hands that didn't go my way, that is the nature of variance.

So, I leave get $700 out of the ATM, and go to the game with the porn on. They're kind of empty and thinking about closing at this point. But they have a few players left for the 2/5 game, and when I show up, a few of them decide to stay and play some more. I put $500 on the table. I lose a couple small hands when I first sit down. Then I get AJ of hearts. Bet $35. Two callers. Flop = 226, two hearts. Bet $125, one caller. Turn = J. Rad, I've got like $250 or so at this point, so with $160 in the pot, I go all in, figuring that I either have the best hand or at least the flush outs. Dude insta calls with, 6's full. Niiice... Wow, sometimes the cards just make you look like an idiot.

So, I'm down $2500 at this point. I've got $200 left, and I put it on the table. Which I whittle down to $125. Ok, meditate more, try to relax. So, I get QT, go all in on a J9X board, and turn the K for a double up. Sexy, keep meditating. Get AA, same dude I just doubled through puts me all in on a board of unconnected shit. I call, he doesn't show. Even more sexy, keep meditating. Then I just keep beating up on this same dude. He's loose and way aggressive, and it feels really good to be able to bluff him out of a few small pots. Towards the end of the night I get 34, which turns out to be the the nuts of a 2-6 straight. He calls another all in from me with two pairs. Nice, now I'm only down $1500 on the night. It's way late, and the game breaks pretty soon after this hand.

Well, not the results I wanted, especially while trying to build a bankroll for LA, but I'm was pleased with my play overall, and very pleased that I was able to win the thousand back at the end of the night.

Up $7805 5/5 – 5/21 Part 1

2007-05-23T09:26:00.000-05:00

During my absence, I've played 13 of the 16 days, for at least 8 hours a day. So when not at the tables I've wanted to shut my brain down completely, and watch stupid television. As the man known as Method once said: “Get the money. Dolla', dolla' bill y'all.” And so, there have been few thoughts in my head other than how to get the money. Sleep right so you can wake up and get the money. Eat right so you can get the money. Obsess over the spreadsheet to improve play to better get more money. And for at least a couple weeks not a single other thing matters.

Despite the good profits I managed to achieve, I'm really frustrated with myself. While I'm pleased with being $7800 richer, and knowing that for the most part I played well (and on occasion unbelievably well)... I can't help but agonize over the mistakes I made, which cost me somewhere around $10,000. These mistakes caused the LA excursion to be constantly on the precipice of total disaster, with my entire bankroll on the table three times.

But, I did play more good poker than bad. In a testament to how stupid the competition has been, or maybe to further my own press, here are the gory details since my last entry...
$7,805 Profit
$600.38 Average profit
$745.00 Median profit
$2,373.00 Standard deviation
8 Wins
5 Losses
0.571 Winning percent

Yes, I know, boo hoo, woe is he, who could only make $600 a day... Hard to have sympathy for me as you're probably not making $600 a day, reading this with the anxiety that your boss will walk up to your cubicle and see this site on your screen, at a job you probably wish you weren't at in the first place.

-$450 - $630 = down $1080

2007-04-29T12:10:00.000-05:00

Well, I booked another trip to LA for May 9-15, so I decided to take it easy until then and do anything that's not poker. Anyway, I'm going to play in town before I go to LA, so, more posts next week.

4/20 down $450
Yeah online poker. Wow, I'm a fool. The last live game I'm at Fashion offers to sell some of his money on Full Tilt to the table. For good reason, I haven't played online for about six months. And in the limpid afternoon of a sharp poker mind I can easily remember these good reasons and resist this offer. But, in the couple weeks I'm planning to have away from poker I of course start jonsing. I resist this urge until I get paid from the home game, and then the excitement of putting that money into paying off credit cards and a little back into my stock portfolio. And I come to the rationalization of how much can I really lose if I just go online, and play some very low stakes Omaha 8? I mean, I need to practice this game because I will be profitable at it if I keep learning more about it, right? Sure!!! So, I email Fashion, ask for $500, and in about ten minutes I have the money in my Full Tilt account.

So why am I a fool? Well, I always lose online. My first of about disaster in my poker life was a $10k online disaster. It went like this... I decided that I wasn't going to get a job, and just play poker for a living. I put a lot of cash that I had from working into Party Poker. I started winning pretty consistently at the 5-10 NLH game. Then I moved up to the 10-20 game, and had a huge win in my first session, for like five thousand. Soon after that, with about $7k in my online bankroll, I felt invincible, stopped thinking too much, started playing two tables at once, and went on crazy tilt from a couple suck outs, and in my first tail spin, that I couldn't recover from, until I lost everything I had on there. Although the recent US internet gambling ban is incredibly stupid, it was a welcome for me, because of it I wound up quitting online play as I wasn't able to get any money into my account easily.

So, I resist for a couple days, but then it kind of seeps into everything, as each time I open my Window's start menu, of course the only icon that I notice is the one for Full Tilt. And of I start to play a little. 50 cents a dollar, limit Omaha 8. I win a little, move up to 1-2, win a little more. My friend asks for some money online, I give it to him, and he starts to play. And then how can I resist playing at a holdem or PLO table with him? Impossible! So I play a few of those games with him and lose a few hundred there.

I come to the realization that I'm winning on at limit Omaha 8, so I say “why don't I move up to the 3/6 game to get my money back? In fact... Why don't I play two 3/6 tables at once!!!” Yeah... yeah..... So eventually I wind up at home on my couch playing late into the night, drinking wine, and losing, and losing. I played good for a little while, but then played until like 3AM and got too drunk and tired to care enough to play good. I think I kept rationalizing my stupidity with things like “it's shorthanded, I should be playing this many hands... These are the kind of swings you should expect...” Etc. I shut the thing off when I have $60 left in my account, (after $40 of bonuses), and feeling like a complete moron.

I don't think that I shouldn't ever play online. However, I figure out how to be as disciplined about it as I am in person. I go through a lot of stuff to get ready for a game, and the fact that I'm just playing so casually online, whenever I don't feel like doing something else is of course a complete recipe for disaster. I do like the Omaha 8 online though, and I think I could be good at it.

4/26 down $630
Well, I have a pretty nice apartment now, and so I was pretty psyched to have people over to have a home game here. Sent an email out to most of the crew who I started playing cards with like five years ago (man, I'm getting old...). It was a good game and a nice seeing the old gang.. I wanted to play low limit stupid games like Red Ass, Auction, GUTS!!! But, of course as all these guys who still play from back in the days have started gambling for real money at holdem, the small game I had planned winds up being almost entirely 1-2 PLO. And wow, do I suck at this game, and these guys aren't all that bad at it. I get a bit of bad luck, but for the most part, I just throw money away raising with the second nuts and other acts of complete stupidity.

Anyway, everyone who played reads this page, or is at least aware of it. So, hello everyone. I'm not going to tell you what I think your flaws are. But, know that PLO vengeance shall be mine...

$2,065 + $2,250 + $2,825 - $460 = Up $6,680

2007-04-14T13:42:00.000-05:00

4/11 Up $2065
Playing at this other home game in town. Some of the Yamakazi's move back and forth from here to the other game. It's not as much action as the other game, but it's decent enough. There were a few bigger places in town that used to run a game during the day; but, one by one, as those places got busted, these small home games started. With a few exceptions what happened was that all the tight, whining, panzy assed players went to this game, and all the degenerate gambling maniacs went to the game from the other posts. So, while there are still a few action players in this game throwing their money around, about half of the dudes there are play extremely weak and tight, and can be easily bluffed. Also, it's only a 5/5 game with not much money on the table, so in order for me to win $2k I have to get hit in the face with the deck. And I do...

I buy in for $500. Like the second hand I get a set of 6's, on a Q high board. Dude keeps betting into me with the Q that he'd show later. I went all in on the river for like the last $250 that he couldn't resist calling. I made it a point to make eye contact with him as he was making his decision, not sure if this did it or not. Few hands later I'm on the right side of AA vs KK, and double up for another $1k. Then... Flush! Straight! Set! Boat! Set! Flush! And before I know it, I've only been there for like an hour, and have $3k in front of my from only a single $500 buy in. I think that a monkey could have played the cards that I had. But, no, these guys are the prime example of the flaw of not maximizing profits, and they would not have made this money. I leave after like four hours, as I've made some decent coin, and I'm not really concentrating that much.

As I'm walking out the owner of the house that the game is played at is sitting on his couch. I have to walk between him and the television to leave, and pick up my jacket next to the couch that he's sitting on. My biggest winning streak came from this guy's evening 10/25 game... $3k, $5k, and then a $10k night. The $10k night went like this... I came to the early 5/5 game at his house, when he woke up at about three, I asked if I could get a seat in the later game. He told me that they were full, and I asked if I could wait around to see if one opened up. To which he said something like “I guess so.” Not a “no” but maybe an implied no that I should have caught on to. But, I didn't have anything better to do, and I had like $10k burning a hole in my pocket, and so I decided to stay. The early game ended at 7:00, and there were no seats for the later game, so I wound up watching tv. Finally, at midnight, a seat opens up, and I sit down with $3k. Which I double up in my first hand on A6 flopping an A, and about 3 hands later on KK when a guy goes all in on me on a Q high board. I manage to take a few more pots after that and I leave after two and a half hours with a $10,600 profit. When I bring my chips downstairs, the owner, says “I don't think I can let you play here anymore.” “Why not?” “Because I have to protect my game.” So, he counts me out one hundred and six hundred dollar bills. He's a Chinese guy, and I think their culture of confrontation is to avoid looking at you in the eye, because that's what he's done in the three months since then. It was strange, I was euphoric from winning that much, but also feeling like I wanted to cry from getting kicked out of this game.

So, I wind up back in this apartment from time to time , but not in the big game that I'd like to be playing in, and of course just feeling awkward around this guy, who still won't look at me or acknowledge my presence. I kind of hate going there, but I have little choice of games of this size in this town. Every time I'm there, I think how I should just move to LA.

4/12 Up $2250
Back to the main Yamakazie 5/10 $2k game. I get a look at the sheet when I walk in.... Crazy Asian #1 is in for like $7k, Landlord is in for like $5k, and so I'm set for a wild one. One of the first hands I get AK. I bet, Crazy #1 calls. Flop = XXQ. Check, check. Turn = blank. Crazy bets $150, I make it $350. He calls. River = Blank. I'm pretty sure he has nothing. I go all in. I've bought in for only $1k, so it's only like $500 or so at this point. He almost insta-calls me, I say “good call.” He's got 55, no set, nothing. The whole table tells me what a good move I'd made and how they'd fold, and they're going on to him about what a fucking nutjob he is. Crazy: “I put him on AK, if I'm good on the turn, I'm good on the river.” Fireman: “He couldn't have had AQ?” Fashion, who's kind of a blow hard says something about how I'm “really showing us something.” I know that Fashion is fucking with me a lot of the time, and that it's just his game, but it really does make the game unpleasant for me a lot of the time. He's always talking about how he's one of the richest guys at the table, he owns some clothing line, is always at his factory in Hong Kong. But, his constant blowhard needeling me, is often a lot to take. Maybe it's because he tempers this compliments like announcing to the table that I'm “the smartest person I know. Usually when he talks, I just nod and pretend to understand.” Anyway, after the hand Fashion says something like “you'll have to blog about that one.” Which kind of freaked me out, I'm pretty sure that he was just talking out of his ass, as I think I would have gotten a wink or another comment.

Anyway, I play great after that hand. Don't remember a single hand I played, as the show was watching Crazy and Landlord go at it all day. Both stuck, and with Crazy getting sucked out a couple times he goes even more crazy. One hand he flops a set of 9's, and everyone thinks he's just on complete tilt at this point (which he is) and over playing his hand (which he isn't), and so you always get like five people in the pot playing with him. I forget who sucked out on him here (maybe Backgammon, I'm not sure though), but after he's felted again, he gives up his chips, sits in silence until the next hand is dealt, and lets out a gutteral scream after he folds it. It's kind of amazing to see someone that tilted, it's like a shark smelling blood in the water. Fashion is a bullshitter, and just doing his best to keep him and Landlord sitting at the table throwing their money around. He keeps his cloying sthick up about “how we're really playing poker now, baby!” He calls everyone “baby,” which I guess is somewhat of a hangover from his 80's hard drinking and drugging days. He gave up drink and drugs for gamble... $5k a hand blackjack, huge sports betting, playing in the biggest poker games he can find in town, or Vegas or where ever. Comes back with stories about how he won $30k off the Grinder in his last trip to Vegas, how he's comped this or that at any hotel basically because he loses so much at blackjack. He's not a bad player, and now that the game has gone to 5/10, it seems he's more in his element that there's enough money on the table that he actually cares enough to play good. Anyway, these two guys being on tilt is somewhat amplified by him, and I think their time at the table is also elongated by him.

On the night Crazy winds up losing $10k, as it gets to the point that any suited cards look good to him for any amount of money, including all in. Which I think he calls at some point with KJ, and of course loses to someone's AK. It's just completely retarded.

4/13 Up $2825
Main Yamakazie 5/10 game...
Buy in for $1500, lose that pretty quickly to Backgammon on my set of Q's to his nut flush. The turned Q, made his flush. It was dumb, I probably could have gotten off the hand when he went all in. I always think that he's bluffing at me, but he's yet to bluff a single hand at me. But, he bluffs so often, that I keep thinking that he's doing it to me. I'm not sure how to play against him. I sit for a while after with another $1500. I win a little pot and am up to about $1900.

I get JT of spades. I call a bet from Giggly Banker... He's a nice guy, some big time exec at a big time bank. He comes down on his lunch breaks sometimes, but it seems that he's not really working all that hard in general. He's kind of a giggly idiot, and doesn't handle being bluffed at very well, overplays his hands. But, isn't the most horrible player I've seen. Anyway, he raises to $100, like 3 callers. Flop = 89x. He bets $500, folds around to me. I go all in, for like $1400 on top of that. I was pretty sure that he had AA or KK after making that bet on the flop, but I guess I'd been watching too much high stakes, in thinking that I could go all in and make him fold. He hems and haws, and is kind of angry at me for making this bet, he's pretty sure that I have him beat, but because he's not good enough to fold an over-pair, he calls anyway. Or maybe I'm not good enough to realize that he's not good enough? We agree to run it three times, and of course, I hit the Q on the very first card, and miss on the other five. Bummer.. could have just called his $500, and taken his whole stack. Anyway, only wind up losing a few hundred on that one. Fashion says something like “is that your move for the day? Or you got something else lined up?” “I don't know, I haven't decided yet.”

Well, it sucks, the game is not as great as it was the days before, as no one is going really insane. Landlord is about even, and it's getting to the middle of the month, and he's running out of money, so he's playing on his heels a bit. But, but, but... University has been calling, and is en route. University is legendary... a 23 year old kid who just got out of college, routinely throws away $3k a game, bets thousands on sports, craps, whatever. He seems to have unlimited cash from his family's business of setting up malls or something. Often plays after no sleep, coked up, whatever. He actually can play well when he wants to, but in smaller games like this, he'd usually rather throw away a few thousand than actually concentrate. Especially this week, as in the big game above that I got kicked out of he'd won $300k. Everyone is tired actually from that game. I guess Crazy got back a lot of what he'd lost in yesterday's session by going there and playing all night.

Well, the table is full, but, we're scrambling to figure out how to get University in the game immediately, as if he doesn't have a seat, it's pretty likely that he'll get pissed and leave. So, we decide to rotate one player out each orbit when he gets there. Low card for who goes first... I draw a duce and it's me. So, he takes my seat, and I go in the smoking room to putz around with the Internet and make phone calls. I keep hearing screams through the wall “How does that get there!!?” “OH MY GOD!! That's so sick!!” Shit like that, about half of them from University, the other half to the background of University laughing his head off. I'm anxious to get back in the game, especially since I'm down like $1700 at this point. But of course with University there the hands are always contested and everything moves way slower, so it's like twenty five minutes for them to get through the ten hands until I get my seat back.

When I do get it back the only strategy that makes sense is to dig a fox hole to China, and sit back and watch the fireworks of University blast through people, trying to win every hand. He does a decent job of blowing people out of the water with unbridled aggression. Of course until someone has a hand, and felts him. To which he gets another $2k. Blasts through people... until someone has a hand and felts him. Lather, rinse, repeat. Eventually I get KK, and take a small pot. But a small pot with University on tilt, is like $400.

A few hands later, I have 55 in the SB. It limps around to University, who makes it his usual $100, six callers or so. Flop = 235. Which makes me somewhat nervous, as there's a lot of people in the hand, and a straight is possible. So, I check. Dude to my left makes it $500, everyone else folds University goes all in. I quickly call. Dude to my left is way surprised, and has to kind of force himself to fold, “I was calling University, but I can't call you.” University of course wants to gamble, so offering businesses is stupid, which I don't do. He's cheering for a 4, so I guess he had an A. No 4 comes, and I double up, and now I have a small profit. This hand, a monkey actually could have played.

A few hands later, I get AK. Bet $125, four callers, University and Crazy #1 among them. Flop = J high. It checks around to me, University is all like “come on you nit. Bet your aces.” To which I make a finger gun shooting gesture at him, which baffles and quiets him, and then I check. Turn = A! SB bets $800. Folds around to me, I just call. River = A!!! SB checks. And I sit there and talk myself out of betting. I didn't realize that he only had $1200 left, and if I'd realized that, then maybe I would have put a bet out. But, I start to think of all the boats that are beating me, and I think of very few hands that he could have that he'd call me with. And I don't bet, “I have Ace King.” He mucks. Crazy and Fashion start going nuts. “How could you not bet that!?” I reply “what's he gonna call me with?” To which Crazy and Fashion are like “An ace!!” I don't think that's true. Maybe it is, I don't know though. I wish I'd made him show his cards, because I could have made my case a bit better if he'd only had a J, but yeah, that was a lame mistake of me. Fashion then gets on me for not betting the flop. This I can defend though, as I mean, whatever, I didn't hit, anyone with a J is going to re-raise me if I bet. So why not see if I can turn an ace or king? That wasn't a bad play... but yeah, the $1200 I left on the table by not putting him all in on the river is.

Anyway, I decide to take the $2800 profit and leave at my blind. I'm still at the stage where it makes me nervous having $6k on a table, I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot of potential profit by not staying around to play with University, but, I wanted to stop playing, and hang out with people and talk about anything besides poker.

I get up to go, they weren't able to pay me here the day before, and of course they don't have it again, so I have to carry them at least over the weekend. I'm owed slightly less than $5k now. Which is obviously better than not being owed $5k, and I have no doubt they'll pay soon.

And so I go out to meet a few friends. And I'm realizing just how completely depressing this lifestyle of mine is. I mean, despite playing great, having money, getting back to the feeling that I am not only smarter than damn near everyone on so many levels. However this doesn't make for good conversation. I realize this, and get anxious, which gives me a desire to 1. get high, and 2. to write the session out in sentences that I find satisfying to read. So, drink two drinks, mumble some shit in conversation that no one understands, and leave. At home I smoke pot and turn Kid A on loud, sit in my easy chair and zone out. I find this to be the most enjoyable thing in the world, as my decent stereo sounds so fucking amazing in a large room with high ceilings and brick walls (as any decent stereo will). I revel in my glory, the only thing missing is the $5k in cash for me to fondle.

4/14 down $460
Get up at a decent hour. Drink some coffee, do not much, and go to a 15/30 Omaha 8 game. I have been reading about this game, and I've played at a profit a few times, but man do I stink at it. I only bring $500, planning to get a lesson and not lose much. Well, I play like 3 hands in the space of twenty minutes, and lose all of them. I'm glad that I only brought the $500 with me, as I probably would have put more on the table if I'd had it. But, whatever, I need to play this game online for way cheap until I can figure out how to really win at it.

I spend another day alone, buy some more sheets. Come home and set up my modded Xbox on my network, upload and watch a couple newer episodes of High Stakes, while eating a burger, and drinking beer.

Anyway, I think I'm going to take the next week, and hopefully two weeks off. “There's more to poker than life,” as someone once told me. And I think I need a couple long trains of thought on a variety of subjects that has nothing to do with cards. Hopefully I'll be able to collect on Monday, and then live the easy life for a little while.

down $981

2007-04-10T10:02:00.001-05:00

Back to the Yamakazi home game. But it's Passover, and so the usual crowd isn't around this week. Also 5/5, $750 max buy in game has recently turned to a 5/10, $2k buy in. Which I thought should slow the pace down a bit, but wow was I wrong. The Fireman, a cartoonishly surly blue collar fireman who's conversation is always a half joke about how he hates basically all minorities. A Vietnam vet, so he has quite a few more pointed barbs for the Asian dudes who play and deal there. He plays it off as his sense of humor, and so we all laugh about it, but I think he'd be way upset if his sibling or child married a slope, kike, or shadow. You never hear the word “nigger” come out of his mouth, and maybe that would be the line of people thinking that he actually is a racist. I don't know. This one Asian dealer started calling him “my nigga',” as in “Twenty five to you, my nigga'.” This of course is about the most hysterical thing I'd heard, and cracks me up everytime he says it.

Yeah, so the first $1500 that I blow, I have 77, I raise to $100, a Crazy Asian calls, and Fireman calls. Flop = AKX all clubs. I make it like $250 on the flop, Asian folds, Fireman puts me all in. I'm like “Do you just have a club or did you hit the ace?” I put him on a club.. and I'm such a fucking idiot for not folding this fucking hand. Yeah, he had KxQc. So, I was beat before, but luckily a club (the 7... giving me a set.... barf) came on the river so I was able to sell to the table that I had an ace. Man, I should have folded, I wanted to be a fucking hero, and make the huge and stupid call. But, yeah, I mean, wow, you really need a good reason to call someone in that situation, and wanting to bust him is about the worst reason ever. I don't show anything, I have this look of disgust on my face, mostly from hitting the set and knowing I was dead anyway, I say nothing. I get sympathies from the rest of the table, but I refuse to tell anyone anything when asked what my hand is. Get another $1500, try to calm down, sit for awhile, observe for awhile...

The Landlord who loses at least $10k in these games has a predictable schedule. The third of the month he's there playing hard, bluffing every hand, laughing as he loses a few thousand, or even harder when people freak out when he hits some retarded one outer. By the twentieth of the month, he's developed a sour look on his face, nothing is funny, he doesn't bluff so much. By the twenty-fifth of the month he's nowhere to be found. By the third of next month, he's there playing hard, bluffing every hand, laughing as he loses... Of course what keeps him coming back, what gives him the most glee is sucking out on people.

So, yeah, my two hands with the Landlord in the space of about an hour.

I have AQ, bet $100, 3 callers. Flop = A7X. Bet, raise, all in. He has A7 of course. He agrees to give me business, so we run the turn and river 3 times, I catch a Q on the 2^nd one, so only lose like $500 on that one.
Not too long after that I have AK, raise $100 pre flop, he's the only caller. flop = Q99, one club. Check, check. Turn = Ac. He bets $200, I raise to $500 he puts me all in. I call, he has JT of clubs. Before I can offer business the river is out, and of course it's another club. I show my cards here, as I was getting ready to take the pot, or offer business. This gets me some condolence from the rest of the table, and Landlord who says “sorry.” Which is nice of him, but yeah, you really shouldn't say anything after you suck out on someone unless you're going to give them the money back.

Well, I'm in for $3k at this point. And I have $1500 on me, and another $1500 at home. So, I stand up, and talk to the owner of the place. I explain my money situation, and ask if I can get another $1500. I'm stuck, I'm tired, but, the Landlord has a big stack, and he's still stuck for about $2k at this point. Which is great, as it means that he's going to keep throwing his money trying to get even. So, I want to stay and play with him.

He is undoubtedly the worst player I've ever played with. I've never even seen a close second really... the other very bad players have either an aggressiveness about them that can allow them to win some of the time, or they have a tightness about them that keeps them safe from big losses (and wins). This guy has some of the aggressiveness, but it only comes out when he's losing and everyone will call him. The other huge factor that makes him so bad is that he'll call huge bets with almost any hand... bottom pair, under pairs, any gut shot, any flush draw.. pre flop any suited cards are a calling hand for almost any amount, any limped button is a raising hand. The game gets very different with him in it, the maniacs shift gears and sit quietly to try to get in a position to play in hands with him. It was odd seeing him play this way for the smaller stakes. But, now that all the old hats of those older games have come to play this 5/10 game, and the 5/5 before it, his play is astounding. He's been doing this for about twenty years, back when the only game in town was stud, and he hasn't learned anything.

Anyway, after sucking out on that hand he had about $3k in front of him which took him about fifteen minutes to lose. He of course has an unlimited credit here, his checks are like gold, and the owner never tells him that he can't have more chips. So he's in for about $5k at this point, rebuying for $1500 at a time, and within about two hands his money is always in the pot. Any ace at this point looks good to him, any suited cards for any money looks good to him.

And I get back to even nearly all from him...

A9 of clubs goes runner runner to a flush, vs his two pair. Board was checked to the turn, where he made a weak bet on his bottom pair, that I had very positive EV to call.
One hand he's not in.... I have JT, flop = AQ8. Checked to the river, where there is a beautiful 9. I make a small bet, but no one calls, but still take down a $600 pot, mostly from Fireman and a very good pro sitting to my left,who I think had at least an A, as it took him a long time to fold.
He goes all in with AQ, and I have AA. He wants to run the whole board 3 times, and I win them all.

Ok.. so, just like that I'm down only $300. And I'm about ready to go to the gym, as I'd been planning to play the later game as well. And so I leave. Workout, shower, shave, feel pretty good...

The late game...
Well, there are a couple women there, so no porn on. Early in the game, I wind up being up somewhere around $1k. This one guy, who I think had me kicked out of this other game, I beat with KQ. I make a raise pre flop, and on the flop of nothing for me, which he calls. He checks the turn, I check. River = Q, and I bet it, and he calls. I show him, he's really pissed at it, he's like “ahh, I knew that card hit you.” Like in a way that he wants to beat me up. I'd taken like $5k from this guy in January on KK on a Q high board, where he decided to go all in on me, and I called him pretty quickly. This was en route to my biggest win ever ($10,600), which I wound up leaving the game after only about two hours of play. This caused someone, I'm guessing him, to complain to the guy who runs the game, and now I'm not allowed back there. Which sucks, as it's the biggest, most profitable game I know about in town.

Anyway, after winning this hand, I start to think that my shit must not stink as I've managed to come from down $3k to a small profit. But, of course, I get cocky and bluff off like $650....

I have 88, a quiet Indian pairs his ace on the flop. Check the turn. River = another A, I make a huge bet, and of course I get called. Raising him out of the blue like that on the flop wasn't so bad, but then not firing the turn, and then firing again on the river, I might as well have told him that I was bluffing. It was fucking stupid.

Then the guy from above busts my A5 with his AJ on an AXX, X, X board. And the same guy again delivers a nice cooler when I flop a set of 3's, and out of the bb, on an un-raised pot, turns a wheel. He's a moron for not putting me in for the last $300 I had on the table (and we see this flaw again). He shrugs to the rest of the table acknowledging this. I say nothing, sit there thinking about how I can either throw this $300 away, or I can leave. And I do leave, and I'm rather proud of myself for this.

Ok.. so, two losses in a row. On a bit of bad luck, but on mostly my own stupidity...
Bobby Fischer, despite being completely insane, had quite a few great quotes, one of which was "That's chess, you know. One day you give a lesson, the next day your opponent gives you a lesson." So, what lesson? On my spreadsheet, I made a front page, where I put my seven game, $26k disastrous losing streak, from the end of Jan to mid Feb. So, now whenever I open the sheet, I am forced to look at this. And now, each time I lose, I start to think about what's the similarties between this and that unparalleled disaster? What's the difference between when I win and when I lose?

Well, in the space between playing and sitting down to write this, I've come up with something that Greenstein mentions quite a bit... Sleep. It's not the abstract concept that I was talking about in the last post of degenerate gambling vs being a good player... In reading that again, I'm thinking that that idea is bullshit. It's quite simply sleep. When I've slept well is when I'm on my game. 99% of my shitty sessions are after I haven't slept well. It's simple. Bad sleep = bad play.

So.. I spent all of yesterday (tues) buying bedding, and putting up dark curtains, and setting up a fan to drown out the noises the creaky floors and old pipes make. And I finally got in eight hours of uninterrupted sleep in my new apt, and I'm feeling that I'm about ready to go and play today.

down $2015

2007-04-09T10:58:00.000-05:00

Well, end of the winning streak, but more importantly for the first time in a long while, I played really bad for the whole session. I couldn't sleep I was so pissed at myself. Let's see the day went like this... My roommate and I moved into this amazing apartment in a great part of town. Moving is moving, and it took a day to pack, and a day to move. Exhausted, as we both busted our asses along side the movers, we met up with a couple of my other friends to see Grindhouse. It was only after the 3 hours of sitting in that movie, that I decided that I didn't want to go home to an apartment filled with unpacked boxes that and that I wanted to play. As I reflect on this, I get to thinking that this action, this feeling is what being a compulsive gambler is.. this desire to not want to do what you should be doing, and to find a game that you can idle away your time feeding on the adrenaline that gambling gives... This of course begs the question of what is a professional poker player? That's the calm, sober, and above all patient mindset of looking for opportunities to put your money in with the best hand. Of getting no thrill from winning, but rather a calm feeling of pride at putting your money in with the best hand more often than not.

So what did I do? Well, I blow my first $500 buy in, by trying to put a kid off of a hand who I thought was bluffing. He turned out to have two pair, and then I gave away my hand when I started answering his interrogation of me. Him: “Do you want a call?” Me: “I want to win the hand.” Him: “Will you show me if I fold?” Me: “Sure I'll show you.” This was the worst thing to say... I should have either said nothing, or used the “this isn't poker school” line I use a lot lately. In the private games I play in everyone has a shtick, everyone talks about their hands, about why they did what they did, about how smart they are, and how their philosophy is the right one. People show their hands way more often, people even ask to see other people's hands when they're mucking. When I'm not in the best mood to play cards, it can easily throw me off my game, and I wind up making mistakes from it. Because of this I used to wear sunglasses, mostly because people interacted with me less. I'm finding that while I don't need the sunglasses, I do need the same kind of calmness and callousness that I could project when I would wear them. Anyway, the kid calls, and I have top pair (9's) and a weak kicker, and he has bottom two pair. Turn and river blank, and he wins my first buy in.

The next buy in I blow when I just fucking know this guy has AA when he re-raises all in pre flop. And I make up all kinds of hands that he could have, so that I can call him with JJ. Fucking horrible... I lose about $1900 total at the first place. Then I decide to go to the 2^nd place.

The 2^nd home game, is a very odd one.. It's a 1-2 game, but with a $1000 max buy in. And the people there are more than willing to throw all their chips into the pot on top pair, or even just AK with nothing. The math of games like this works out to this.. try to limp with any two from any position. When you have a big hand pre, raise to whatever people are calling. When you have a medium hand, remember that it's still 1-2 and that a $15 bet in this game is still a huge bet, as you can see 10 hands for $3, so there's no reason to call $15 with a J9s. But, of course, I'm on tilt from the other game, and still tired, and still not playing well. And I just want to play every hand. Anyway, I wind up busting this dude for like $500 when my A8 turns into a 9 high straight, and he goes all in with his set of 7's. But, I lose that within about 4 hours, as I make stupid call after stupid call, and stupid bluff after stupid bluff. I wind up with only a $90 loss from here, but it feels like I'd lost $500, as I had a huge stack so early.

They also have the Playboy channel on in the background, which I find pretty horrible. When it's just R rated naked chicks taking showers, I could ignore it with some self control, but when it turns to hardcore XXX late at night, I couldn't not stare at it. And in poker when you have to look at other dudes faces, and you see this wide eyed expression of another man with a hard-on it is really as bad for me to try to play through as being drunk or stoned. And of course ten guys sitting together during a poker game is kind of gay in the first place, but ten dudes playing poker and watching porn together seems like one step away from fucking each other in the ass. If I go there again, I must get a seat with the TV to my back.

Up $735 Commerce (Mar 27)

2007-04-05T14:43:00.001-05:00

Very few big hands, but played great again. My one mistake was slow-playing a set of Queens early on... I lose like a $1000 pot, as I don't bet until the river when some guy's gone runner runner to a straight on me. Of course he doesn't put in a big raise... I'm not sure what hand he could have put me on that was beating him. Whatever, I mentioned this flaw in the last post.

I battle back, with next to no hands, but a keen sense of the table and a number of really good pretty bluffs. I played like a pussy for the most part though, I kept realizing spots where I was probably ahead, but refusing to gamble with the two maniacs at the table, who were: This Russian dude to my right, who was talking about just having won $80k at some tournament at the Bicycle, and this older Asian guy at the other end of the table. The Russian went all in on the Asian in one hand with a lone Q on a Q high board, and the Asian called him with queens up. The all in was $4700 on the river, and maybe like $3k in the pot before that. Insane bet, maybe a more insane call? I don't know, they acted so quickly in the hand that there's no way either of them gave it much thought. Anyway, games like this get me kind of nervous, as it's hard to tell where people are at, and I had no desire to gamble on my last day in LA, and I just wanted to sit in my shell, and let the gambling happen all around me, and grind out a small profit.

So, I do leave with a small profit, a huge feeling of accomplishment, and a wad of cash somewhere around $11k. As I drive around I listen to metal at full blast. I keep replaying this song
in particular which has this line that I keep repeating to myself: “we've come to an understanding. You lose. I profit.”

I fly out the next morning, thinking how I should have stayed for the full week. But also, realizing that the best trips are invariably the ones that you wished lasted longer.

Up $3980 Commerce (Mar 26)

2007-04-05T14:23:00.000-05:00

Third day in LA... Dropped my friend off at the airport the day before and found a cheap room in Chinatown where I spent the day milling about, eating delicious $5 Vietnamese soup, and delicious $3 tacos when I walked downtown. Take a nap, watch some stupid television, keep telling myself I'm going to read the book I brought with me, but don't.

I get to the Commerce around three. I'm pleasantly surprised to be recognized by a couple of the hosts there, who put my name on the waiting list as soon as they see me walking in. I tipped them a little the other days, but I think maybe they noticed my wins and/or suck-out? I don't know. Manny "Pac Man The Destroyer" Pacquiao is there playing the 50/100 game, apparently to the delight of the players in that game as the floor guys tell me that "they love him... So he must be giving something away." A few people come up and shake his hand, but it seems that not too many people know who he is. I should have shook his hand when he was finished playing, as he's awesome, but I didn't, as I needed to focus on the game.

And wow do I focus. I play near perfect, with maybe only one small mistake. Despite winning the day before, I went to my hotel room that night, happy with my larger wad of cash, but so pissed at myself for blowing $3k during the trip on utter stupidity. So I buy in for $1500, and fold for 20 minutes straight. AJ? Fold. KQ? Fold. Small pair? Fold when no set comes. Just sit there and try to key into the game, figure out who's the fish, who's the pro, and get my own brain under control.

When I think I have a decent grounding I decide to get frisky with a JT of spades. I raise to $80, two callers. Flop = AsQsX. I bet $120, dude raises to $300, other dude folds. I think for half a second, and go all in for like $900 more. Good play? Mos def.... I have draws to a flush and a gut shot which gives me 12 outs (any spade or K), which is 1.2 to 1 against most hands, there's $580 in the pot, so I'm betting $1200 to win $1780... $1200 * 1.2 = $1440... so I've got $340 positive expected value if he calls... But I also have huge folding equity as he probably just has a weak to medium ace. He asks how much the total bet is, I count it out for him before the dealer can get to it. He doesn't look pleased, but calls anyway. Turn = 8 of spades. River = blank. I show the flush, he grimaces and mucks. I silently let the dealer count the money out, and take his chips for me.

Next I hand I play I limp with 44. flop = 49X, all hearts.
I bet the flop, one caller. Turn = blank. Check, he bets, I put him all in for the $600 he's got left. River = blank. He mucks after I show the set. I'm guessing he had Ah 9x.

My one mistake of the day...
I limp with AcTc. Flop = T6X, 2 clubs. I keep check-calling pot sized bets from this Asian dude. I thought he was this crazy Asian from the day before, but I would only later realize that he wasn't the same guy, not crazy at all, and in fact a rather conservative player. I kept thinking that if I hit a T, A or club, I'd win. But the forcefulness and the speed in which he put out his flop and turn bets made me start to think that I'm gong to need a club and a club only. I'm glad too, as there have been so many times that I've put all my money in with a pair and a flush draw recently to run into two pairs and sets, which of course take away a lot of the value of this hand as the two pair outs are gone, and even if I hit the flush, they have boat redraws.

Turn = blank, bet, call. River = T. And, despite my uneasy feeling of my trips being no good, I pick up a bunch of chips. But before I can put a bet out I see him reaching for his chips, which he quickly stops doing once he sees me reaching for my own. My play on the flop and turn wasn't so horrible, but putting out the $200 that I had in my hand was. Once I saw him going for his chips, I should have just checked and called a small bet on the river. But, I did put the $200 out there, and he quickly raised to $500. I call quickly. He has 6's full.

Whatever, shake the dust off. Not a huge deal, only lost $700 or so. $300 more than I should have, but $2000 less than I could have. The dude should have gone all in there. I mean, there are not many hands he's beaten by. One of the more common flaws at this level of play is people having such a fear of losing what they have on the table they don't maximize their big hands. Knowing the math of poker is not just about knowing the odds of AK vs 99. A big part of it is 1. knowing how rare it is for hands such as his 6's full to lose. And 2. from that knowledge to get a fearless, monomaniacal, thought into your head of "how can I get all of his chips into this pot?" Yes, it's possible I could have had quad tens, or some other unlikely boat, but the odds of this are so small, that in the long run he's losing a lot of money by not betting this hand heavily.

After that mistake, I played great, I got a perfect read on everyone at the table, and became completely focused, I was in the zone, most of the hands are a blur, my opponents might as well have been playing with their hands face up.

I didn't lose another big hand.

- I bluffed the tight players with nothing
- I went hard at the crazies with top pair
- I busted a dude for like $2000 with Aces up. He had a lower two pair I knew he couldn't fold

I walked in the casino with a little over $6k, I walked out with a little over $10k in two rubber bands of hundred dollar bills.

As I pull up to the hotel, I decide to drive around for awhile. Get lost on purpose, not a good area of town to be driving around with $10k in cash on you. But, I'm driving a shitty car, and I don't care. I find a nice little Mexican place off some highway, I eat some weird deep fried fish, and drink a Corona. It was delicious.

Up $2450 (Mar 25 Commerce)

2007-04-05T11:10:00.000-05:00

Today it's the same story of yesterday's donking off $1500 in the first couple hours. I'm not sure what the fuck is my problem when I first sit down to these tables... Maybe the higher stakes make me nervous and stupid. It's frustrating.. Anyway, I over play: Pocket nines, a stone cold bluff, and AK. It's stupid.. Ok.. so... same story as yesterday, I battle back to not quite even, on really good play when I get my grounding.

The rumors about this place are true, the donk fest is amazing, and I think the fact that I can come back from two days of huge stupidity is a testament to that. Every table I'm at, all the time, there's at least two total retards throwing away thousands. I saw this one crazy Asian put all his money in with AK on the turn (with no pair or draw), thinking his A high was good, and dude calls him with QQ (I think he didn't show), and of course the Asian hits his A on the river for like a $5000 pot. Any guesses on how long it took the Asian to lose the $5k? Yes, that's right, about four hours.

Anyway.. two big hands..
I have 44. I'm one of two callers of a $70 raise from this pretty aggressive pro looking guy who I'm slightly envious of as he can do some chip tricks that I can't (and maybe also because he has $15k on the table...).

Flop = 4AQ, 2 clubs.
Pro bets like $150, I call, other dude calls. Turn is a blank. Dude checks, Pro checks, and I do my best to take some time, take some deep breaths, and then put out a bet of $400. Dude calls, Pro folds.

Dude checks the river blind, which is a T of not clubs. I think about the straight for a second, but decide that his check blind would be incredibly stupid if he has KJ of clubs. I'm pretty sure at this point that he has aces up, or maybe even just AK, and is trying to keep the pot small. It's possible that he has a better set, but the odds of flopping set over set is under 1%, and it is a position I'm willing to lose all my money every time it comes up. So.. what to bet? It's a rare player who can fold two pair on a not scary board, and it's a very rare player who can fold top two, so, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get called on any bet, and so I go all in.

He has about $2k more in front of him, and I have him covered. He thinks for a long time, hems and haws. I sit with arms crossed on the table, looking at the pot, but more concentrating on him in my periphery, say nothing, have a completely blank face. He eventually calls. I show the set, he mucks. After leaving the table, and coming back with more chips, he says did indeed have aces up.

Next big un..
I have AA in early position, raise to $80. Dude from last hand raises to $200, one guy calls his $200. I am nervous about playing the aces against two people and am happy enough to take the $400, so I go all in for the $4k or so I have in front of me.

As I reflect on this, I think that I played this poorly. There was this one hand on High Stakes Poker where Esfandari took his sweet time thinking about what to do with his aces in the face of an Elezera call, and a Hellmuth raise. Because he took his time and made a reasonable bet, he managed to lure Elezera into the pot with jacks. Making the bet I did, and making it as quickly as I did, I might as well have put up a neon billboard that says that I have aces.

But, Dude is way on tilt from the hand above, and he can't fold any kind of a hand at this point. So he thinks and thinks, and calls! Then, instantly, the other guy calls too!!! I have them both covered! Wow!

I have an awful feeling that I'm sure that I'm going to lose, and when the flop comes QJX, and I see paint on Dude's cards I'm pretty sure I'm dead. But he shows KK!! And other dude said that he had no pair and was calling for pot odds... Errrr... what?? Whatever! Thanks for the money!!

Up $300 (Mar 24 Commerce)

2007-04-05T10:04:00.000-05:00

The Commerce Casino... I'd kept hearing how it's the best poker game in the universe, and so I decided to take a trip out there. I spent the entire week before doing basically nothing: sleep, eat, tv, gym. Happy with the $2400 I'd won earlier in the week, bringing my wad of cash to $3700 that I'm feeling is pretty fragile. Anyway, my friend was working out there, so I had a bed at The Four Seasons, and free use of his rental car for a few days.

I went there with the intention of winning a few thousand in a 5/10 game, and moving to a bigger game when I can put together $5000 total. But the 5/10 game has a max buy in of $400. Which sucks, as in Atlantic city and Vegas, and everywhere else it's at least a $1000 cap. So I take a look at the 10/20 game, where the minimum buy-in is $600, and no maximum. And after sweating it for a little, I decide despite my huge anxiety, to put $1500 on one of the ten tables they have running.

So, I sit down and start to lose, and lose, and lose more. And before I know it, I'm down $1700, and I've managed to put every red cent I've brought with me on this table. I played horribly... over playing pocket tens and AK, bluffing too often, no patience, not really paying attention.

Eventually I settle down, achieve a calmness that lets me climb back to being up $100 after eight hours. I'm about ready to leave, but I decide that I'm going to bluff out a the next hand for a small profit and go home. That hand happens to be a 5/3 that I raise to $80, I get 2 callers.

The flop = 53T, 2 diamonds.
Wow! Nice, two pair. It's checked to me, I start counting out a bet, when a forty year old guy says something like "Don't make it too much... I don't know if I can call $200." He's a somewhat decent player, but he plays too many hands for too much money, but he's been getting lucky all day and is showing a decent profit. I count the pot to be around $250, and so I stupidly say "two hundred it too much? How about $180?" To which he says "oh, that's just perfect, I can go all in." And he pushes all in for $600 total or so. It folds around to me, and I insta-call. I had the right read, and dude of course has AX of diamonds... And of course he turns the diamond for the flush. Swell...

So, now I'm down about $800.

I'd been playing for about nine hours at this point, and my time limit is eight hours for reasons like the following hand. And as I'm sitting at this table, I'm very aware that I should have gotten up, and left with the small loss, and not turned it into a disaster. But, as I look at my stack it just chaps my ass that he turned that diamond and that I can't leave with profit.

A sixty year old woman (who the dude who just cracked me was calling "grandma"), who I'd busted twice earlier while getting back to even, was getting frisky for the past hour. She was constantly making a $200 pre flop raise. Which doesn't make much sense in this game, as she was usually winning the hands uncontested and taking the $30 worth of blinds. Anyway, she does the $200 a few hands after my suck-out, and I have 9T of hearts (ahh, this fucking hand...). I'd been waiting for a good hand and/or the balls to pop one of her $200's, and in my tilted head this 9T looked like an amazing hand and a great spot to do it. So I grab a bunch of $100 chips without counting and make it $500. She goes all in almost instantly!!!

Wow. Well, I'm fucking tired, and way on tilt, and looking down at my stack after throwing away that $500 makes me even more on tilt.

And then I start to do the math.. and I make a huge mistake..
As I have only a thousand left in front of me at this point, I keep thinking "It's $1000 to win $3000." Or 3-1. Which is wrong, it's $1000 to win $2000, or the pot of $1000, plus her $1000 that she'd match of my money... It'd be a $3k total pot but I'm only going to win $2k. Yes? Got it?

Then I make another mistake...
I figure, "well, against the AK that she pushed with before, I'm 3-2, so this is a great call." The possibility that she had a pair didn't even enter my mind.

Anyway, I put my money in, she has... AA

But...
flop = 99Q, turn = X, river = T, I have a full house, she has Aces up. I'm in such disbelief that it takes me a few seconds to turn over my hand. I can't speak, I sit back and let the dealer count my money out. The table kind of goes nuts.

The next hand I'm the big blind, I refuse to take it. As I'm stacking my chips, I say "I'm done. If I'm going to do things that fucking dumb, I have to go." And I get up and leave immediately with a $300 profit on the day.

Up $2390 (Mar 19)

2007-04-04T18:20:00.000-05:00

Started the day out at the most insane “home” game that I've been playing in for about a year now. It's a single table in a small apartment, it runs every day starting at 1:00, and usually has the full ten people from the start until it breaks at 8:00. The game features a variety of insane people.. the “Yamakazis” who are a bunch of Ortodox Jews (get it? kamikaze and yarmulke) who have a variety of sinecures in the business their family has had for five generations. Also a bunch of crazy Asian (and a couple non Asian) financial dudes... day traders, hedge fund managers, etc. They either manage hundreds of millions of other people's money, or have semi-retired at thirty-five and only manage their personal tens of millions. The rest of the game is rounded out by a bunch of guys who own other successful businesses, a couple pros, and when the game is short the dude who runs it gets in.

Anyway, if I use the word “insane” another ten times to describe this game it would not be redundant... It's a 5/5 game, with a $750 max buy-in. On nearly every session I've been there I've seen at least one person win $4000, and at least two people lose $5000. I've seen wins of $10k, and losses of $15k. Remember, it's only a $750 buy-in, so in order to lose $5k, it means you need to lose nearly SEVEN (7) full buy-ins. It's madness. Today's game starts like this...

Crazy Asian 1: “I'll take $750.” Hands dealt, he turns to a Yamakazi. “You wanna do it on the first hand?”
Yamakazi 1: “Sure.”
Crazy Asian 1: “Ok, I'm all in.”
Yamakazi 1: “I call.” Everyone else folds. the Yamakazi said he JT, never showed though. The Asian had... K7 ....of spades... so they were suited, wow. Asian wins by turning two pair. As the chips are being pushed to Asian, Yamakazi yawns, adjusts his Rolex and then wipes his ass with a hundred dollar bill. “I'll take another $750.”

So, mostly in this game I dig a foxhole, and only come out of it come out with big hands and huge bets, bluffing is retarded. They will see flops with any suited cards, any ace, any two picture cards, most off suit connected cards. This strategy translates to something like... If I have pocket TT thru QQ, I'll either make a huge raise pre flop, preferably all in, or just call, and hope to hit a set. Why? Well, If I make it like $50, I'll get called in at least 3 spots, and there are very few flops that I'm going to feel comfortable with against 3 hands. If I make it $100 or so, then, hopefully I'll only be up against one player (hopefully a maniac on complete tilt), and then I can put him all in when there are no over cards, and hope that he hasn't hit some retarded 2 pair or whatever. High pairs, and high Aces are pretty easy to play though.. you make it $50, hope to get 3 callers, and hope to either hit the ace, or hope that the flop isn't too dangerous for AA or KK.

Anyway, I buy in for $500, and in the first two hours I play literally 2 hands and am up about $250. Ok, so, I have somewhere around $750 in front of me. Yamakazi 2 raises a reasonable amount, I call with 33, and am way surprised to see everyone else fold. I didn't even bother to figure the expected value of calling his raise, because I figured that my odds to flopping a set would have been easily covered by the other people in the hand. Anyway flop = 33K !!! I check, he bets $100. I try to look concerned... I take three slow and deep breaths, try to look at him in my periphery, and just call. Turn is, who the hell cares?? I have quads!! I check again, he also checks, balls. I sit and think on the river for a second, and then decide that if I go all in it's going to look like a stupid bluff and he's going to call.... or if he folds, I can not show the hand and tell everyone what a great bluff I made. So, I try to make the bet as stupid sounding as possible. And in a jovial voice somewhat reminiscent of my twelve year old sister, I announce that I'm all in. He's like “all in??? What? Do you have four threes?”

I change to a stern expression, give him a sideways glance, and say dryly, shrugging my shoulders, “man, this isn't poker school.” To which he keeps muttering to himself about four threes. Anyway, he calls, I show him. The whole table was going on about how they knew it for sure. Yeah, yeah, doesn't matter what you know, I know that I'm getting doubled up, and I also know that I'd probably get called by almost any donkey at this table with a king.

The next couple hours I wind up losing like $500 on pretty amazing play. Actually it's about the best I've played since before my $26,000 disaster in Atlantic City (more on that in later posts, I'm sure). The best hand during this time I have JJ on the button. I raise to $50. Both blinds call. I've played with Asian Dude in small blind for a couple of years. He's developed from a complete retard to a pretty patient and not horrible player. This particular day, he'd played great and gotten unlucky for like $2000, I felt bad for him (not that bad, he's in his late 20's and a millionaire). At this point he's only about half way into this, and so he's still got most of his wits about him, and isn't doing anything dumb. The big blind is Yamakazi 1.

flop = Ten high rainbow, no good straight draws there either.
Checked around to me, I bet $125. Asian Dude raises to $300, Yamakazi 1 raises to $600. I'm trying to decide if they're putting me on AK,and trying to get me off. Yamakazi would make his play with a ten, or maybe even just 66, putting everyone else on high cards. Anyway, I realize that Asian Dude hasn't put his money in with anything bad all day, so I show Backgammon my Jacks and fold. Asian Dude puts Yamakazi all in, he of course insta-calls, Asian Dude has... AA!!! Yamakazi studies the turn and river and mucks. I can't contain my fist pump I'm so psyched on this fold.

After a couple hours of losing more money on more good folds, I have AK and about $600 in front of me, I raise to $50.

Backgammon, this kid to my right, who I think is a pro now used to be a backgammon pro, raises to $150. He's also a maniac, wants to play every hand, pushes all of his draws. But, is pretty precise with the odds. While he can't read anyone for shit, his math and knowledge of pot odds is very good, and allows him to compensate his flaws a little. Anyway, I just go all in, figuring that he's got some bullshit hand, and at worst I'm racing. He calls, he has JJ, a better hand than I thought. I ask if he wants to run the whole board twice, he says “no, I don't think you're going to hit.” Board = AKX, X, X.

I win a couple more hands, on... I completely forget what, and wind up up $1400 by the time I leave for the gym at 5. As this game is all on credit, the owner can't pay me as he has no cash, so I have to come back later. Anyway, come back to collect, so that I can go to the 5/10 late game that I'm planning on. So, with some time to kill, I buy in for $500 and sit down for a few more hands.

AK.. Raise to $75 which is the normal raise on the table now, as everyone who's still there is completely insane because they have each lost at least $2000. Backgammon raises to $200, Crazy Asian 1 calls. As they're insane at this point I know that a middle pair for them is worth $200 now, and Asian will play almost any suited crap. So, with not much thought, I push all in for the rest of the $500. Backgammon calls, Asian calls.

Check, check on the flop. Backgammon bets the turn, Asian folds. I've hit nothing, Backgammon has... 9hTh.... which just happens to be the nuts for a 8-Q straight. Yeah, nice you fucking donkey. I think I said something shitty, I can't remember, we did have a conversation about how he was 3-2 on winning, and like I said, he's good at the math, but bad at reading people.. So, yeah, while his pre-flop raise was retarded, once he and Asian put that much in the pot, he was of course right in calling me.

Ok, so shake the dust off, get another $500. And a few hands later I get two red Kings. Make it $75 again, Crazy Asian 1 calls, as does owner of the card room (who's another crazy Asian). Flop = J high with three clubs. I go all in for about $400. Owner goes all in as well, and Crazy insta-calls. I'm like “business? Business? Anyone?” Neither of them say anything. Collections at the other end of the table starts making fun of me “please? Business?” I laugh, sit back, turn a King, and river blanks. Owner didn't show (let's guess top pair maybe with a high club to go with it) Crazy of course has the 2 of clubs and the 4 of clubs that he played for $75 pre flop. I think he was stuck for like $3500 at this point. After that punch in the balls of not just losing but hitting the set of K's on the turn I know I'm on complete tilt. So I get up immediately, tell the owner that he only owes me $400 now, and that I have to go.

The 5/10 late game
As a lot of the same dudes from the early game come to this, it's a big donkey fest as well. However, as it's a bigger game, with a $2500 max buy in, it's enough money on the table that these guys actually care about playing well, and therefore can be bluffed now and again, and their bluffs become somewhat more obvious from the pained look on their faces.

I start the game with two amazing calls.. One with AJ with a K high flop, and nothing for me, I called this commercial real estate developer down for like $250 on only A high. Another I called Yamakazie 1 down for like $150 with K3, and flopping a 3. I got such a good read in these small hands, and I am pleased at how I played them, keeping pots small, not letting it get to the point where they'd make a bet that'd make me uncomfortable going through with the reads.

Awhile later... I straddle for $25, because the dude to my left had been sleeping or straddling on every hand, so this takes away the sleeper from him, and forces his straddle up to $50, which he obliges me with. When it gets to me I find AA, I make it like $125. I get called by Collections, who is a nice late 40's guy who runs a collection agency, intimates that he's mob connected, but always goes out of his way to be gentlemanly and trying to show how he has such a high degree of integrity all the time. Whatever, while I like him, I think that everything he says is probably bullshit... dude runs a collection agency, people hire him to send big black dudes to knock on your door. I used to think that he was a decent player, but well, no....he's horrible, and he always has a shit ton of money on him. So I love him as much as I do everyone else there. Anywho, yes I have two aces and there's about $300 in the pot...

The flop = 882, 2 diamonds.
I bet $500, Collections thinks for a little, asks how much more I have. I count out that I have about a nine-hundred more, and he goes all in, I insta-call, show the AA, he tells me I'm good, refuses business... Turn and river are both diamonds, and I have the ace of diamonds. He mucks without showing, he has me covered, I have about $1500 in front of me at this point.

The rest of the night I try to do what Barry Greenstein said to do in his book about after you win big you should never cash out at your top, and just throw away a few hundred. Well, I try to do this and keep picking up pots, betting out with like JT and flopping 2 pair. I do manage to give enough action from the big stack that I'm hoping that it left a good taste in everyone's mouth, as I'm a little wary of pissing people off these days, as I don't want to be kicked out of another game (more on that later, I'm sure as well). I win a few hands of not much note, and walk away from this game with just under $2000 in profit.

In other news... poooooooooker