For the first time in a while today I stone cold tilted. I arrived at the bike kind of late (I wasn't even going to go, but I got scouting that the game was certifiably amazing and it in fact was even better than the lineup my birdie reported) and immediately lost a rack and a half (after turning a 20 bet win into an even money proposition at my previous stop in the last hour or so). The person who currently resides in the number one position on my ray gun list (this is the list of people that, were I to have a ray gun that vaporized humans and the ability to use it with zero consequences, would be vaporized with zero consequences) was in the game, and of course he won $4k. Yesterday after I put an admittedly silly beat on him he said to me, and I quote "I love it when I can get the fish to do exactly what I want them to do". The hand in question was me flopping top pair king kicker and the second nut flush draw vs his (claimed) top set and putting in a lot of action. Whoop de fucking do. The point is that this guy is a world class piece of shit. He complained to my boss about me when I worked there because he was stuck a bunch (rare for him...he is protected from on high) and it makes him feel like a big man to threaten the livlihood of others. He always is dropping names, pretending like he matters, saying things like "I almost pitched for the Dodgers" and "I made 1.2 million last year, there is no possible way this money means anything to me" and "I actually throw a lot of hands away, I just try and show all the bad ones so people think I'm loosey goosey" (and then immediately power-limping the ten and the four double suited). Some of the people on my ray gun list would cause me a little bit of remorse; I'd feel bad for vaporizing them out of existence. Not this guy. I'd sleep like a fucking baby that night.
So yeah, maybe I am turning into an awful person, I dunno, but I've been holding it under control lately but today it just got away from me. When you lose 60 bets straight I guess that happens sometimes. When you seat change to this asshole's left and the VERY FIRST HAND YOU'RE DEALT he opens the HJ with QJo and you three bet the CO with KTs and the board runs out T98-5-4 and he looks at you like you're a retarded monkey for ever considering giving him that much action don't you know when he donks the flop he has the straight (never mind that you never raised, rather you just call call called your way to defeat). When he opens the button with JJ and you have AT and the flop comes T73 maybe you get a little frustrated. You know, that happens I guess, but it hadn't been happening to me for a while. I played pretty bad, definitely gave a few river bets away, folded a hand I never should have folded (I didn't see a possible straight, decided the guy couldn't have two pair, and for the first time in literally years laid down a made two card flush on the turn assuming I had less than the 20% equity I needed to call down) and in general did all the wrong things. I managed to quit at 4pm (only 3 hours into the bike ordeal) which I suppose is better than most players do but isn't really good enough for me. Then I got to spend an hour driving home, which was of course fucking horrible as usual but what are you going to do why would you ever consider living less than 35 miles from the casino that'd be ridiculous right? There couldn't possible be anywhere respectable to live within 35 miles...no chance. Oh and I think I have the flu or at least a cold and yes I got a flu shot. 62% effective I hear. Seriously.
So now I'll tell you a fun story. The game is off the rails, UTG raises, the most lovable regular of all time calls, the Alabaman calls, blah blah blah, the big blind three bets, blah blah blah, 7 ways for three bets.
T63r
BB bets, some calls, a raise from the button, BB 3 bets and only the Alabaman who runs like Jesus in track shoes calls. The button caps it, turn we go.
T63-Q
BB donks, the Alabaman of course call, the button raises it up one more time, the big blind calls all in for four chips, the Alabaman calls, 8 chips on the side.
T63-Q-A
All in player is still all in, Alabaman checks, button fires, Alabaman check/raises and....the big blind turns over his set of queens. Seeing this, the button now turns over the ten and six (double sooted) for what has now become 3rd and 4th pair. The Alabaman sits patiently, since the button hasn't called his bet. The button realizes what has happened, surveys then scene,. including the opened set of queens, and decides to CALL THE LAST BET. The Alabaman turns over the KJ for the stone butters (why wouldn't he take that pot off two of the biggest fish in the game? He had 4.4 percent equity on the flop for crying out loud!) and...I mean really. That happened. These people...they beat me today.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Happy New Year!
First of all, I would like to report, rather proudly, that nobody collected on the bounty. It's officially off now, so if you see me sitting in a big game don't walk up to me and ask for a Benjamin because you're not gonna get it. I'm not exactly planning to play biggish anytime soon, but I'm comfortable allowing myself the option again. So there's that.
I sat down this morning during the rose parade (Danielle watches the pre-game, the pre-pre-game, and the entire broadcast...admittedly this year I was mildly interested since I spent Friday applying hand swirled circles of palm fir to roughly 3 square feet of deer butt on the nurses float, which got a fair bit of air time, but IMR, it's tough to pay attention to the whole 4 hours) and did my yearly stats work. It's funny how that goes, but I'm always in a hurry to get it done when things have gone well and don't really want to look at it when they haven't. Along these lines, and I'm kind of making a hard decision here, for the first time I'm not really practicing full disclosure on this blog. I realize that my honesty and openness are a big part of the reason some people read, but it's gotten to the point that I just don't really want to talk about everything that's going on. That said, the results for the year were pretty darn good. I made far more money than I'd hoped to make when all the columns were tallied up, with quite a bit of it coming from what I'd call "side ventures". Some of them aren't really that (9 weeks of paychecks from the Bike), while some of them decidedly are (wsop backing). I currently have a few other irons in various fires, some of which will probably prove rather profitable, and I'm finding these little side endeavors are helping keep me sane. They're fun, even if they don't always pan out.
On to the yearly stats that I am willing to share...I logged a total of 1984 hours of limit hold 'em (and 16 of other games, putting the yearly total at almost exactly 2000), with my lowest outputs coming in November and December (Hawaii, Christmas). I had three losing months (and one break even month), which I'm guessing is probably about right, or perhaps even low given how wide a range of stakes I was playing throughout the middle part of the year (obviously mixing games makes it way easier to have a losing month, as your results in just a few hours of a very large game could ensure a monthly loser). I collected almost exactly 1100 bets playing LHE, for a win rate of just over half a bet per hour. After my initial destructication of the big games at commerce, I finished out on a mid sized downer in them, dropping almost $30k straight (150 bets) in the 1/2 alone. Had I managed to avoid that (and some more loses playing even bigger), my year would have been promoted from merely excellent to supremely fantastic. But it is what it is, and I absolutely can't complain.
I was thinking the other day about things in general, and I've probably said this before but it bears repeating. At the beginning of my poker career I basically went off half (or even quarter) cocked, foolishly thinking I could replace a software developer income playing 20/40. It's maybe not as bad as all that, as the Bay Area games in 2007-2009 were just simply stunning and I won almost $50/hour in them through the end of 2009, but I wasn't even close to ready to do what I was attempting and of course it eventually did catch up with me. I ran bad, I lost motivation, I didn't log enough hours, I played bad, and I didn't win any money for a very long time. At that point I was foolishly chasing a dream, forgoing present and future financial success in a stubborn pursuit of some intangible, and as it turns out very ill-defined, goal. Now things have changed dramatically. My software pedigree has continued to degrade over the 4.5 years I've been out of the game, to the point that if I wanted to get back in now I'd likely have to start at a start up making less than half what other engineers with my background command. Meanwhile I've gotten extremely effective at making this poker thing actually work. Obviously I've gotten a lot better at the game itself, but that's only a small part of my suite of improvements. I tilt less. I look at my options more, and have the bankroll to play big and the ego management to play small. I can play longer sessions now, if I have to. I have these side projects.
As an aside...I have started to believe that once you reach a certain level of skill in this game, it doesn't make sense to try to get much better. There are lots of players who are much better than me at LHE, but I don't think they earn proportionally that much more money than I do. I'm not saying I've stopped studying the game entirely, but I have made a push to spend more of my "free time" on these other endeavors, trying to find ways to make money through other means. These goes back to something Pete used to say, that it makes sense in life to have multiple streams of income. I think it's more profitable for me to look at developing other streams of income than trying to eek another 10% out of my win rate. Maybe that's short sighted, and maybe I really should try to become some sort of GTO master so I can sit in the 300/600 games with Juice and capture my share of the whale's $2000/hour losses, but I don't think so. Those games are drying up, always have been and (mostly) always will be. It's probably better for me to spend some time and effort on projects that can (or could) make me some money than keeping a dedicated 6 figure bankroll around to play 3/6 four times a month.
Back to what I was trying to say....The point is that now instead of sacrificing financial gain and stability in the name of chasing this "dream" or whatever, I'm actually sort of boxed into the dream itself now and would take quite a hit financially if I altered course. Obviously I'm pulling these numbers out of thin air, but I'm guessing that if I decided right now that I wanted to go back to software instead of playing poker, I'd miss out on six figures of income in the next 24 months. In a way, I've become more like a lot of poker friends, ones who don't really have very good fall back plans. I used to say I was happy to be me, to have my degrees to fall back on, and that the whole poker thing was in fact predicated on the safety net they provided. But at the time I always realized that that very safety net was in a way holding me back. I didn't have that killer instinct, I didn't have to succeed, I wasn't committed, like you read about. I was just coasting along, and for a while the results were pretty pathetic. Looking back I'm not really sure how or why I kept going though that time, but I did and now I'm here and the train is on the tracks just humming along and I sorta feel like I'm entitled to keep going, to keep winning, to keep playing a freaking game and pretending it's a job. Because despite the fact that I feel like what I do isn't actually very hard, I've gotten very, very good at it. I'd guess that most people feel that way once they've "mastered" a skill that would bewilder the vast majority of the population.
So I guess what I'm saying is pretty simple; 2012 went really well. I learned a lot, I made a lot of money, and despite how much I've bitched on here I can't really complain about much of anything. And I see no real reason to change course, other than the changes I discussed a few months ago (and practiced to good effect) like reducing my total hours slightly, taking mid-week days off, and occasionally spending the night up north. I'm going to keep playing poker, and at least for the time being feel more confident that's what I want to do than I have in quite some time.
I sat down this morning during the rose parade (Danielle watches the pre-game, the pre-pre-game, and the entire broadcast...admittedly this year I was mildly interested since I spent Friday applying hand swirled circles of palm fir to roughly 3 square feet of deer butt on the nurses float, which got a fair bit of air time, but IMR, it's tough to pay attention to the whole 4 hours) and did my yearly stats work. It's funny how that goes, but I'm always in a hurry to get it done when things have gone well and don't really want to look at it when they haven't. Along these lines, and I'm kind of making a hard decision here, for the first time I'm not really practicing full disclosure on this blog. I realize that my honesty and openness are a big part of the reason some people read, but it's gotten to the point that I just don't really want to talk about everything that's going on. That said, the results for the year were pretty darn good. I made far more money than I'd hoped to make when all the columns were tallied up, with quite a bit of it coming from what I'd call "side ventures". Some of them aren't really that (9 weeks of paychecks from the Bike), while some of them decidedly are (wsop backing). I currently have a few other irons in various fires, some of which will probably prove rather profitable, and I'm finding these little side endeavors are helping keep me sane. They're fun, even if they don't always pan out.
On to the yearly stats that I am willing to share...I logged a total of 1984 hours of limit hold 'em (and 16 of other games, putting the yearly total at almost exactly 2000), with my lowest outputs coming in November and December (Hawaii, Christmas). I had three losing months (and one break even month), which I'm guessing is probably about right, or perhaps even low given how wide a range of stakes I was playing throughout the middle part of the year (obviously mixing games makes it way easier to have a losing month, as your results in just a few hours of a very large game could ensure a monthly loser). I collected almost exactly 1100 bets playing LHE, for a win rate of just over half a bet per hour. After my initial destructication of the big games at commerce, I finished out on a mid sized downer in them, dropping almost $30k straight (150 bets) in the 1/2 alone. Had I managed to avoid that (and some more loses playing even bigger), my year would have been promoted from merely excellent to supremely fantastic. But it is what it is, and I absolutely can't complain.
I was thinking the other day about things in general, and I've probably said this before but it bears repeating. At the beginning of my poker career I basically went off half (or even quarter) cocked, foolishly thinking I could replace a software developer income playing 20/40. It's maybe not as bad as all that, as the Bay Area games in 2007-2009 were just simply stunning and I won almost $50/hour in them through the end of 2009, but I wasn't even close to ready to do what I was attempting and of course it eventually did catch up with me. I ran bad, I lost motivation, I didn't log enough hours, I played bad, and I didn't win any money for a very long time. At that point I was foolishly chasing a dream, forgoing present and future financial success in a stubborn pursuit of some intangible, and as it turns out very ill-defined, goal. Now things have changed dramatically. My software pedigree has continued to degrade over the 4.5 years I've been out of the game, to the point that if I wanted to get back in now I'd likely have to start at a start up making less than half what other engineers with my background command. Meanwhile I've gotten extremely effective at making this poker thing actually work. Obviously I've gotten a lot better at the game itself, but that's only a small part of my suite of improvements. I tilt less. I look at my options more, and have the bankroll to play big and the ego management to play small. I can play longer sessions now, if I have to. I have these side projects.
As an aside...I have started to believe that once you reach a certain level of skill in this game, it doesn't make sense to try to get much better. There are lots of players who are much better than me at LHE, but I don't think they earn proportionally that much more money than I do. I'm not saying I've stopped studying the game entirely, but I have made a push to spend more of my "free time" on these other endeavors, trying to find ways to make money through other means. These goes back to something Pete used to say, that it makes sense in life to have multiple streams of income. I think it's more profitable for me to look at developing other streams of income than trying to eek another 10% out of my win rate. Maybe that's short sighted, and maybe I really should try to become some sort of GTO master so I can sit in the 300/600 games with Juice and capture my share of the whale's $2000/hour losses, but I don't think so. Those games are drying up, always have been and (mostly) always will be. It's probably better for me to spend some time and effort on projects that can (or could) make me some money than keeping a dedicated 6 figure bankroll around to play 3/6 four times a month.
Back to what I was trying to say....The point is that now instead of sacrificing financial gain and stability in the name of chasing this "dream" or whatever, I'm actually sort of boxed into the dream itself now and would take quite a hit financially if I altered course. Obviously I'm pulling these numbers out of thin air, but I'm guessing that if I decided right now that I wanted to go back to software instead of playing poker, I'd miss out on six figures of income in the next 24 months. In a way, I've become more like a lot of poker friends, ones who don't really have very good fall back plans. I used to say I was happy to be me, to have my degrees to fall back on, and that the whole poker thing was in fact predicated on the safety net they provided. But at the time I always realized that that very safety net was in a way holding me back. I didn't have that killer instinct, I didn't have to succeed, I wasn't committed, like you read about. I was just coasting along, and for a while the results were pretty pathetic. Looking back I'm not really sure how or why I kept going though that time, but I did and now I'm here and the train is on the tracks just humming along and I sorta feel like I'm entitled to keep going, to keep winning, to keep playing a freaking game and pretending it's a job. Because despite the fact that I feel like what I do isn't actually very hard, I've gotten very, very good at it. I'd guess that most people feel that way once they've "mastered" a skill that would bewilder the vast majority of the population.
So I guess what I'm saying is pretty simple; 2012 went really well. I learned a lot, I made a lot of money, and despite how much I've bitched on here I can't really complain about much of anything. And I see no real reason to change course, other than the changes I discussed a few months ago (and practiced to good effect) like reducing my total hours slightly, taking mid-week days off, and occasionally spending the night up north. I'm going to keep playing poker, and at least for the time being feel more confident that's what I want to do than I have in quite some time.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
And We're Back
The 16 days of Christmas have officially ended, and this morning I found myself sitting down in the Commerce 60 for the first time in weeks. As I was lamenting my decision to play, seeing people fold hands and in general being concerned the game wasn't very good, this happened
I open KQss UTG and the blinds defend.
984hh
They check I bet they call.
4r
The SB donks and the BB tanks a bit and calls. I have no reads and consider calling (I almost always have 6 outs) but opt to fold cause IMR....this is actually almost the worst hand I ever have (KJs is) so whatever. I fold.
5r
SB bets, BB tank calls. SB taps out and shows ATdd. BB has 75. Of hearts!!! He flopped a straight flush draw on a 9 high board and decided to just let me turn over ace high if I wanted to. And the SB? Seriously...no money in poker everyone solid.
I open KQss UTG and the blinds defend.
984hh
They check I bet they call.
4r
The SB donks and the BB tanks a bit and calls. I have no reads and consider calling (I almost always have 6 outs) but opt to fold cause IMR....this is actually almost the worst hand I ever have (KJs is) so whatever. I fold.
5r
SB bets, BB tank calls. SB taps out and shows ATdd. BB has 75. Of hearts!!! He flopped a straight flush draw on a 9 high board and decided to just let me turn over ace high if I wanted to. And the SB? Seriously...no money in poker everyone solid.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Fun Hands
Here are some sorta fun hands from the last two days. They are mostly simply, but I enjoyed them.
Hand 1
MP opens and I 3 bet kings in the small blind. The big blind folds, head up.
A22r
I bet and he snap raises. I call. The turn is a card with pips on it and I check/call. The river is another card with pips on it and I bet to fold if raised. He gets very agitated, asks if I have the ace, then eventually calls and mucks when he sees my hand. This is how you beat live players.
Hand 2
A bunch of people are in the pot and there is a raise. The button calls, and I 3-bet kings from the small blind. We see the flop about 5 ways or so. It is
AA2r
I bet, there is a call or two, and the button calls. I prepare to hit the jackpot.
AA2-2
I check, it checks to the button, he bets, I call, one other player calls.
AA2-2-9
We check to the button, he bets, I fold, the other player folds, and the button shows ATo for the two clean shots at one out for me to win $29k. Merry Christmas indeed that would have been.
Hand 3
There is some action and I raise with AQ and someone calls behind me. The board runs out A93r-Ar-2 and I bet every street, getting two calls on the flop, one on the turn (whilst other people are declaring "one more ace" and "bring the clipboard"), and...one on the river. As I'm about to table my hand the most lovable regular of all time declares "I got him with the South African" and looks at the South African man for approval of his play of the 54. I scan the board quickly and declare "NO!!!! Not the South African!" while showing the triple aces. He tables the 54 and takes the money. A good laugh is had by all.
Hand 4
The fish who got me barred from the bike opens, another weak player calls and I call on the button with KJo because they are terrible the blinds are not great and I have the button and perhaps some ego issues. I mean really, if I can't play this hand profitably from the button against these guys with these ranges, I should look for another line of work. Maybe.
J76dd
That's pretty good. What's better is that all 4 of them check, so I bet, and most of them call. At this point I start thinking about how swell it would be to bonk a king now that I have the opener reverse dominated.
3
I cringe because the South African is in the pot and he could be holding the South African but after the three checks I bet again. He folds (blessedly) and the opener and the most lovable regular of all time both call again. Time to make gin!
J76dd-3r-Kr
And he donks. The most lovable regular of all time folds, I raise, and he...three bets! I remove my headphones and go into the tank. Deeeeeep, into the tank. Then I realize that absolutely no hand makes any sense whatsoever, but from that draw the wrong conclusion. I just got 3-bet on the river and hold only the 7th nuts. Raising again is out of the question. But that's exactly what I do. He just calls and shows me the triple 6s for the extreme expert slow play.
Hand 1
MP opens and I 3 bet kings in the small blind. The big blind folds, head up.
A22r
I bet and he snap raises. I call. The turn is a card with pips on it and I check/call. The river is another card with pips on it and I bet to fold if raised. He gets very agitated, asks if I have the ace, then eventually calls and mucks when he sees my hand. This is how you beat live players.
Hand 2
A bunch of people are in the pot and there is a raise. The button calls, and I 3-bet kings from the small blind. We see the flop about 5 ways or so. It is
AA2r
I bet, there is a call or two, and the button calls. I prepare to hit the jackpot.
AA2-2
I check, it checks to the button, he bets, I call, one other player calls.
AA2-2-9
We check to the button, he bets, I fold, the other player folds, and the button shows ATo for the two clean shots at one out for me to win $29k. Merry Christmas indeed that would have been.
Hand 3
There is some action and I raise with AQ and someone calls behind me. The board runs out A93r-Ar-2 and I bet every street, getting two calls on the flop, one on the turn (whilst other people are declaring "one more ace" and "bring the clipboard"), and...one on the river. As I'm about to table my hand the most lovable regular of all time declares "I got him with the South African" and looks at the South African man for approval of his play of the 54. I scan the board quickly and declare "NO!!!! Not the South African!" while showing the triple aces. He tables the 54 and takes the money. A good laugh is had by all.
Hand 4
The fish who got me barred from the bike opens, another weak player calls and I call on the button with KJo because they are terrible the blinds are not great and I have the button and perhaps some ego issues. I mean really, if I can't play this hand profitably from the button against these guys with these ranges, I should look for another line of work. Maybe.
J76dd
That's pretty good. What's better is that all 4 of them check, so I bet, and most of them call. At this point I start thinking about how swell it would be to bonk a king now that I have the opener reverse dominated.
3
I cringe because the South African is in the pot and he could be holding the South African but after the three checks I bet again. He folds (blessedly) and the opener and the most lovable regular of all time both call again. Time to make gin!
J76dd-3r-Kr
And he donks. The most lovable regular of all time folds, I raise, and he...three bets! I remove my headphones and go into the tank. Deeeeeep, into the tank. Then I realize that absolutely no hand makes any sense whatsoever, but from that draw the wrong conclusion. I just got 3-bet on the river and hold only the 7th nuts. Raising again is out of the question. But that's exactly what I do. He just calls and shows me the triple 6s for the extreme expert slow play.
Monday, December 17, 2012
These Things Are Actually Happening
Danielle is downstairs right now cheering her head off for the Niners to keep pummeling the Patriots. The score on her TV is 31-3. I don't know how on Earth she managed not to find out what happened in the game (it went final about 26 hours ago), or why she would ever root for the team that stands between her Packers and a first round bye. I simply don't have answers to these questions, but I'm about to go watch the score tie up at 31 all.
I received a check today for two cents from my health care provider. That's right, due to the affordable health care act they have to refund any money they don't spend out of a certain percentage of all the premiums they take in. So the federal government passed a law to make my health insurance cheaper, and because of that 4 sheets of paper and a stamp were used to send me a check for two cents. Seriously.
I received a check today for two cents from my health care provider. That's right, due to the affordable health care act they have to refund any money they don't spend out of a certain percentage of all the premiums they take in. So the federal government passed a law to make my health insurance cheaper, and because of that 4 sheets of paper and a stamp were used to send me a check for two cents. Seriously.
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