The People's Request

CT said...

Could you do a post containing your favorite training tools? Software, books, whatever.

December 2, 2008 12:11 PM

Because I'm bad at this and didn't see the comment until today, when Dave emailed out my November Stats post to our fantasy football league, I haven't yet done such a post. Here one is, albeit brief:

Books That I Suggest

Small Stakes Holdem
Beating Tough Holdem Games
The Elements of Poker
Theory of Poker
Holdem Poker for Advanced Players

I also read Winning Small Stakes Holdem (by Lee Jones), but think Small Stakes Holdem strictly dominates it.

Training Tools and Software That I Use:

twoplustwo.com

Seriously, that's it. I have a copy of PokerTracker and TourneyTracker (the ladder I used back when I was a Sit 'N Go fiend), but I probably haven't played online in 2 months. Almost everything I've learned I learned from experience, two plus two, and those books.

The Asshole Card

Private Joker recently took it upon himself to start the "Asshole Card" low content thread on Two Plus Two. To quote:

The a$$hole card is the one card in the deck that can come to cost you the maximum. Maybe you're currently ahead, hit a card to improve your hand, but it gives someone else the nuts and you lose the max. Or maybe you're behind, you hit your hand, but it hits someone else's hand harder and you lose the max. There are all kinds of ways to suffer the fate of the a$$hole card, and for some reason I've seen almost all of them over the past few weeks. Hopefully this thread, like the "hand where you ruin someone's life" thread can flourish for months and months to come. So please, post that special hand you just played where the a$$hole card bent you over backwards.

Today I hit the asshole card rather hard.

BA, the regular who tries to play good but just can't bet and raise enough raises from the high-jackish area. I call in the small blind swith KcTc (also known as 'suited broadways') and proceed to flop a monster when the board comes down:

Ac Jc 7d

The pot is 5 ways with me first and BA 4th to act. I just donk it, get a fold, and then Tom B (here forward known as Megafish) calls. BA raises and starts talking so I figure he's got a hand, and the last player to act folds. I 3-bet, Megafish calls, BA caps, I call, and Mega fish calls for the 5th time so far this hand.

Ac Jc 7d 4s

Alright, I didn't hit any of my nut making outs (I have 11 that are pure as virgin snow....2345689Q of clubs, then the other 3 queens) so I check. Megafish checks, BA bets, I call and so does Megafish (that's 6).

Ac Jc 7d 4s 7c

Little do I know it, but I've just been penetrated by the asshole card. I bet, Megafish folds, and BA raises. I decide to light $39.95 on fire and call, and he rolls:

Ah 7h

That's right folks, full how! There were 44 cards left in the deck that could come off on the river. As stated, 11 of them gave me a winner, and 32 allowed me to check and fold peacefully. Which card did I get? The $80 asshole card.

The Great WTK Debacle

First of all….WTK, if you read this, I mean no disrespect. Well, OK, maybe a little, but it’s my blog and I can do pretty much whatever I want.

There is a regular player in my game known to me only by his board initials, WTK. He used to play mostly 40/80, but for some reason of late (my speculation is a combination of massive losses in the stock market and at the tables) he has made 20/40 his new home. Let us not mince words; WTK is not a great player. He’s not awful in the way that many of my opponents are, though. Namely, he is not passive. Sweet merciful jesus he is not passive. WTK is probably the most aggressive player that I encounter on a regular basis (out of maybe 50…or a 100…I don’t know).

He plays decently post flop, but the pure breadth of his preflop opening range basically ensures that a thinking player who is capable of accurately assessing said hand range will eat his lunch consistently. He might even be a small winner in the 20/40 game by way of simply gobsmacking people over and over and over again. In case you don’t know what gobsmack means, it’s because it’s not actually a word. But rest assured, it means about what you think it means, as explained by Tommy Angelo in his book Elements of Poker (a book and author about which the awesomeness is often understated, IMO). WTK just raises and raises and raises and just when you think there is no freaking way he bet the K5o all the way down with freaking air, you call him with pocket 6s cause you’re here now and theres over a rack of chips sitting out there just waiting for a home and he does in fact show you the king and the five of the off that hit on the river for one pair of fives and the table is just like “whoa”. The thing is that most of the table goes “whoa” but thinks the hand was an abberation or for some reason lacks the mental machinery or testicular fortitude to man the fuck up and call the him down with king-high.

Moving right along…My history with WTK is getting longer and already sordid. At first the only emotion I could muster when he sat at my table was fear. This was a 40/80 player slummin’ down a the kiddy table. He bets, he raises, he drags pots…and the first few sessions that is all he did. I’d be sitting there and WTK would go on a 5 rack heater, as the man who raises K8o from EP is apt to do from time to time. I reacted to this fear by over-compensating in all the wrong ways. I tightened up preflop, knowing that “there would be plenty of chances to get him” and played every hand like a fit or fold tag-fish after the flop. Both of these playing decisions were, in a word, awful.

This stage of our relationship ended when WTK toileted me in a blind steal. I flopped a flush draw, he flopped a bigger one, and wouldn’t you know it we both got there on the turn and by the river I’m standing there with my dick in my hand while he’s got 260 of my dollars in his. After this I had a discussion with Pete about how to handle the beast that is the WTK and his advice was directly on point, as usual. “Don’t try to out-crazy him, cause you can’t.” The words make perfect sense. Why try to out-crazy a crazy person? Dude’s freaking crazy! Why fight the fight on his terms? 3-bet him light, preflop, with the cover of position, and play the hands the way you always play hands…last to act and in control. Since taking this advice to heart I no longer cringe when WTK rolls up to my game. I don’t exactly lick my chops, but I do text Hank in the other game and deride him for his non-clairvoyance. Then I batten down the hatches and call the chip runner for some more bullets. Also, as you’ll see, I do everything I can to make him think I’m a complete nit that he can gobsmack along with the rest of the unshaved masses (I usually don’t even shave to further drive this impression home). Then I call him down with 4^th pair as he bets all three streets and I stack the chips.

An aside….The first night I was staking Yoda he got a seat quickly in a game that was not mine. He asked me for a quick run down of the players which I happily gave as I was sending him into battle with my little round yellow foot soldiers:

“2 and 3 are loose passive loosers. Seat 5 is a winning professional who plays as high as 80/160. 8 and 9 are better than most regulars, but not better than you. But honestly, all you need to know is that’s WTK in seat 4. He’s a lunatic and the entire game will revolve around him and the pro 3-betting him with napkins”

Yoda was getting the 6 seat, and was in for quite a freaking ride as it was a mere one seat to the left of the jesus seat. Also, as an aside to this aside, the chip runner overheard this conversation as she was selling Yoda chips and looked at me with some combination of disdain and amazement. It was just a funny moment you had to be there for I guess, me pulling a fat wad of bills out of my pocket and handing Yoda $400 (my half of his buy in), giving him the run down and basically a pat on the ass and a “go get em tiger” speech. Anyway….back to the man aside….

I get to the table and as previously mentioned Yoda runs like Reggie Wayne. A hand I left out, though, goes like this:

WTK open-raises like UTG minus 2 or something. Yoda pulls out ye trusty 3-bang, I fold to get out the way and go about the rootin’. The flop goes off without a hitch heads-up and I’m practically already counting the money in my pocket. I told Yoda that WTK was a maniac, but he’s still playing high and probably not 3-betting as light as I would…Oh Jesse, ye of little faith. The board comes down with a paired paint and a low card…something like:

QQ4

WTK simply checks and calls. Warning bells go off in my head…Check/call? That’s not in the WTK playbook! Danger Will Robinson, Danger!!!! The turn is a brick....let’s call it like an 8 that puts a flush draw up. WTK checks again, and Yoda bets. The check/raise is swift and merciless. Yoda looks at me and I can’t say anything but every shred of my being is scream “CALL HIM DOWN!!! YOU HAS PAIR YOU CALL HIM DOWN NOW!!!” Yoda eventually makes the call. The river is actually a pretty crappy card, I can’t remember specifically but I do remember thinking “Lots of those in WTKs range at this point” which admittedly you could probably say about deuces here but whatever, and Yoda calls a bet. WTK rolls A7o for…ace-high. No draw. No nothing. Yoda rolls…Pocket 6s. The pot is dragged and I may have actually done a fist-pump. That closes our aside, and two pages of word doc in (I’m on the plane again) I’m going to set about writing what I set about to write about.

WTK raises my big blind from reasonable position (the high jack probably) and I go temporarily insane and simply call with AJo. This is a 3-bet all day long against him. Twice on Sunday. If he caps, I’m not even in that bad of shape, honestly. But I just call, because like I said I’m temporarily insane. My image to him is “weak tight nit” probably. The flop comes down:

KJ3r

In other words, I have flopped the nuts. For some reason (probably the fact that I just went insane) I just check and call, instead of taking the “old reliable” check/raise line, or the “would have been sexy” bet/3-bet line. I vow to check/raise the turn. It bricks off, I don’t remember what it was as this hand was weeks ago and I check. WTK checks! Mother father, now what am I going to do? I’ve been reverse-gobsmacked! The river pairs the bottom card on board and this voice in my head says “if at first you don’t succeed…” so I check. He hems and haws and thinks and eventually…checks. I table my hand and Yoda, the pro in 5, and I all have a good laugh. I say “It’s my pot for sure” and the pro says “Well yeah, but where’s the rest of it?”

20 minutes later….

I have regained my mind and raise KQo after WTK limps in (his range is probably only slightly stronger than ATC here, due to the fact that he’d have raised like the top 40% of holdings…for example, he can’t have like, you know, a pair). The flop brings the dreaded:

A74r

And I’ve got the nut sqaudush with a redraw to second pair. WTK checks and I bet, just going through the motions really. Then I realize “Wake up man, this is WT freaking K and you just proved to him that you’re a weak tight nit-burger! It’s time to go postal!” He check/raises me (of course) and I…3-bet. He frowns disapprovingly and I can see the AJ hand replaying in his head. He check/folds the turn. I probably only make a stone cold bluff like this a few times a week, and when it works I get that rush that’s usually reserved for dragging 3-footers with rivered nut flushes. The joke goes unnoticed, but I turn to the pro and say “There it is.”

Run like the Jesus, you must

Now that you’ve listened to be talk about the boring stuff that is the rest of my life, time to get onto some hands where I own people, get owned, or somehow have the bejesus beaten out of me. Oh wayt…first my new found staking situation, which so far has netted me a nice profit.

So Yodaman is a friend of mine from two plus two. He’s a good guy, and I even had dinner with him once a while ago (which is more than I can say for any of my other two plus two friends). He’s a student, has a job, and recently got robbed (specifically his car got jacked up while parked in San Francisco). He mostly plays live 8/16 but was hoping to move up/take some shots at bigger games. At the moment, though, the prospect of getting raped for 3 racks at 20 is a little more than his heart, head, or wallet could bear. Enter Jesse. Twice recently Yoda has met me at the casino and we have made the gamble together at the 20/40 table, sitting next to each other with me taking half of his action. Now each time I have done this it just so happens that I have gotten the snot kicked out of my personal stack. The second time Yoda basically broke even (he lost 5 bets, or 200, total, only 100 of which was mine). The first time, however, Yodaman ran like, well, Yoda. He was unstoppable. To wit:

I’d just moved to the table to sit with my horse and watched him raise a limper from late position. He got 3-bet from somewhere (the blinds I think) and didn’t cap. This is always a bad sign. The flop came down AJX (Not sure what the X was) and Yoda went to absoulte war. He got like 3 bets in on the flop and two more on the turn. By the time the big blind called on the river with his AK, it was pretty apparent he was no good. Yoda rolled AJ for top two. A few hands later Yoda got into a 3 or 4 bet pot preflop and proceeded to nut the sucker with top set of Jacks. Then his Kings held up, he made a flush or two, I can’t even remember what all happened. Within an hour Yoda’s 800 dollar buy in had morphed into 4.5 racks of chips. It was just beautiful to see. He finished the day with something like $2040 and I got to put 620 dollars of profit into my right pocket. Not before, however, the following awesomely fantastic hand happened:

Yoda opens on the button. This is a bullshit raise, and he’s doing it with some preposterous percentage of his preflop holdings…like…50. I behold the ace and the queen of the spades and turbo three bet him from the small blind. The big blind fails to see the do not disturb sign we’ve laid out on the hand though and calls. Yoda caps, and now I’m a little concerned. Away we go 3 handed:

KJT rainbow

Why oh why must I flop the nuts against my horse? Such is the way it goes. I check/raise him (probably should have donked it) and we go to war, with me putting in either the 4^th or 6^th bet (the big blind got the picture pretty quickly). The turn, however, is a queen, and some more bets go in…perhaps 3. I’m not sure. On the river he just calls me and says “we’re chopping” as he rolls AK. This hand was fantastically fun to play, but net profit for Yoda and I….73 dollars. The pot was massive, something like 700 dollars, and the dealer had to chop the whole thing up. Pretty funny.

Final result for the day, Yoda wins me 600 bucks. If you're gonna stake someone, it might as well be a Jedi.

Home for the Holidays

As I write this I am 40 minutes outside of Washington DC at 35,000 feet. Once I land I’ll be hanging out in the airport for about 90 minutes, then on a quick flight to Pittsburgh, where I’ll be spending the holidays with my family (read: Mom and Dad). So for the next 6 days I won’t be playing a single hour of poker. This saddens me greatly, but such is life.

Fortunately for all of you I’ve saved up some good stories to write about during the break. Hopefully I’ll have time to post a few of them so everyone can have something interesting to read during the holidays. If not, for once I’ll apologize in advance of being lazy…

I just finished a second reading of How to Turn Your Poker Playing into a Business by Ann-Margaret Johnson. For anybody aspiring to turn this game into more than a hobby (or simply to avoid getting in trouble with Uncle Sam), I strongly suggest this book. It’s written in language anybody can understand, provides examples, and can be finished in a 2 hour flight. The book goes through a lot of topics, the first of which is how you can determine if you’re a “professional” or merely a “hobbyist”. The primary distinction appears to be “Do you do anything else?”. In my case the answer is most definitively no, which seems to qualify me to file as a professional in the calendar year 2009. As such, I have generated a check/list of stuff that needs to happen in the next few weeks to make sure I get off the ground on the right foot:

1. Find out if I can deduct meals? Sounds like no.

2. Open separate banking account with Etrade.

3. Write business plan.

4. Get/convert a credit card for business use.

5. Transfer health insurance to said credit card.

6. Transfer cell phone bill to said credit card.

7. Create milage log. Use "mileage method" for any trips.

8. Open SEP IRA

I’ve actually already written the business plan (it’s only a page long), the purpose of which is to fight back in case I somehow manage to get audited. Most of the other points deal with the advantages of filing as a pro, namely the ability to write off expenses, effectively paying for them with income before it gets taxed (this in turn lowers your Adjusted Gross Income, which is directly correlated to how much you owe the IRS on April 15^th…which coincidentally happens to be my birthday).

I have two or three more days to play this year, and I’m going to generate a poker income somewhere in the region of $50,000. By reporting this income to the IRS, I’m basically being a “good citizen” and writing a five-figure check to bail out Detroit (those rat bastards…don’t even get me started). Why am I doing this, you ask? Well, a number of reasons. First of all, it is the right thing to do. Cheating on your taxes is wrong, even if you don’t get caught. If you do, you’re royally fucked and in for an extra dose up Uncle Sam all up in your business every year for the rest of your natural life. I don’t want that. Second of all, Danielle pretty much demands I do it this way. That my sound harsh, but to be blunt there is really only one person in this world who can tell me what to do at this point, and it’s her. She’s looking out for my long term best interests and playing the much needed role of “conscience” in this stage drama, and for that I’m greatly appreciative. Finally, at some point in the near future I’m probably going to be applying for a mortage. If I want any hope of being accepted, I need to show this income on my tax return. The “Hey I want a loan for $500,000 but oh by the way my income last year was less than a twentieth of that” really isn’t going to fly.

As a final note, this Christmas I am going to explain all of this to my parents. They are probably going to go batshit, but as per the previous paragraph there really isn’t anything they can do about it. They haven’t written a tuition check since my 6^th semester (of 10), which was in the Spring of 2003, practically (gulp) 6 years ago. Has it really been that long? Hayah!!!