Gratuitous Bad Beat

I open KK, lady 3-bets, the table lag fish calls the BB I cap 3 ways. This exact thing happened 2 laps ago and I got to demolish the lady's KK with my AA.

K66

I bet they call

9

I bet she raises he tank calls I 3-bet she calls he now wakes up and 4-bets I can only call she folds lol

6

Now remember, he call/back capped the turn and called 2 cold preflop. He can't just have a naked 6. A turn line that absurd is almost certainly a full house, hopefully 99. So I raise him anyway, he 3-bets and I fail to fold. He shows me 96o for the stone cold one outter in a 22 bet pot.

And I wonder how I lost $12k playing 60 the last two days.

Bert and Ernie

There is this adorable Asian server at the Bike named "Sumporn." She is probably 50 something but obviously you can never be sure. She also happens to be the best the Bike has....anyway, back in the day she nick named Dos and Sailboats Bert and Ernie, and then there was discussion about who else was which sesame street character. Was MikeL the cookie monster or snufalupagus? Was I Oscar the Grouch? Somehow she decided I was in fact Big Bird and calls me that to this day. Just now we had this conversation

SP: how are you, big bird?

Me: oh, I'm ok I guess. How are you?

SP: that's good. They can't kill big bird...he always comes back, he's always OK.

Post on 2p2

I just posted this on 2p2 and figured I'd share it here as well

1. LOL Jets 

2. The steelers did everything they could to let that game get completely out of hand and eventually lose, but the bungles simply would not allow it.

3. The following story is not for the weak of stomach

Commerce 40 game is just amazing like it always is and I am buried as usual. A decent player raises up front, three players call, and I make smoov on the button with the King and the jack double soooted. The books, they say you should not play this hand for two bets, but I disagreed at the moment because my ego told me I was good enough to play the hand super duper well and beat my opponents for some sklansky bucks since most of them are actually mentally handicapped. Some of the blinds call, I don't know, the flop comes off 6-7 handed. I think one guy was dealt out probably cause that's pretty low.

772r

Great flop for my hand, right? The PFR fires a bet, two players call, and I make the peeling motion. I mean what could possibly go wrong here, right? The PFR just has me dominated drawing at 3 outs (or zero) like half the time, and two commerce 40 players just made SMOOOOV on the 772 flop they could NEVER have the triple sevens here no not a chance. One of the blinds call, I guess the other 1-2 players folded but we are 5 ways to the turn.

772r - KING BALL!

Thank you kindly for the one time dealer the blind checks the PFR checks and now spewmaster number 704 bets more than in rhythm. I'm not sure exactly what I mean by that, but he wasn't just in rhythm, he was more than in rhythm. He was....extremely in rhythm. Spewmaster 705 folds, but then spewmaster 706 (that's me) decides he needs to RAIZEITUPBABY OH YEAH TOP PEAR! thinking "hey there are two players behind me big pot gotta protect the merchandise" which of course is completely idiotic they are both drawing stone dead or at two outs about 94.3% of the time. Oh yes I remember now, the small blind went all in like two streets ago, probably on the preflop, that's why I wasn't sure how many people were in this abortion. Anyway, the big blind and the pfr fold and obviously number 704 fires in the three bet just as fast as humanly possible. I mean we're talking greasy fast catch the chicken and scream YO ADRIANNE fast here. Suddenly the last two brain cells in my head actually begin to fire and I realize that I have seen this movie before, and even though the guy appears to be on a kamikaze mission (he has only 7 chips or so left) I make the EXPERT lay down. I mean really, how could he ever not have the triple sevens here, right? Right. So he turns over his hand and it is in fact the triple sevens and the all in player waits patiently for the river which is

722r - KING BALL - KING BALL

before mucking his hand and that's pretty much how I roll.

Ask a Silly Question

Actually it's not a silly question at all.  I just kind of liked that title.  Here is a (series of) question(s) I received (first on 2p2, and then via email at my request) and my rambling response to it.  I hope it makes for good reading.

Hi Jesse,

Thanks for the responses on my forum thread.  Just curious, did you ask me to email you because my thread topic isn't fit for discussion on the forum?  Or just that you would like to keep your thoughts on this matter private?

I found your blog a few weeks ago.  Your posts are fascinating, thanks for sharing your experiences with the poker community.  In particular, I was surprised by how candid you were with your actual poker results, that's definitely something I wasn't expecting from poker players.  Whenever I talk to one of the regulars while playing at Commerce, I would never ask them outright what their hourly win rate is, I just ask them what they think is a good win rate, and usually I would just get some vague response.

Have you ever done day parting for your live results?  Parse your results by each day of the week and see which days are more profitable than others?  Weekends are definitely better than weekdays, but I am interested to find out which weekdays are better and which we should avoid.  I have done that for my own results but I have no where near enough hours for that result to be meaningful.

I just didn't really feel like typing up what I think for all to hear, I guess.  Also I don't really read 2p2 anywhere but my phone, so typing a long response is...tough.  (Edit:  turns out this wasn't true as I'm putting the entire thing up on the old blog)

I used to be a lot more candid that I am now.  I'm not sure why I did that, but it was probably ego.  If you'll notice I haven't really been giving any sort of aggregate results for over a year now, and it'd be difficult to parse together exactly how I've been doing.  Like, there is a massive range of results I could have for the year given the info on my blog.  At least I think.

If I were you (or I guess if I were everybody) there would never be any discussion whatsoever at the poker table suggesting that ANYBODY ever won in the games I play.  You really don't ever want the fish realizing there are winners and losers and which they are and all that.  You really want them to think everyone is there just to gamble.  It's just not in the best interest of the game for them to be thinking about anything other than the fact that last time they were stuck this much they managed to win it all back.

I have never made any attempt to separate out my results by day of the week, and I don't think doing so would/could ever be productive.  You'd need literally tens of thousands of hours in the game you were trying to sort out, and you'd need them to be in the same "conditions" or whatever.  that's the dirty little secret about live results...the conditions of the games change so quickly that your results are ALWAYS meaningless.  No matter what.  My results are meaningless.  The fact that I beat up the Bay 101 and Garden City games 4 years ago doesn't matter at all, in the slightest.  The 20 game at commerce is always changing.  New pros come in, new pros go bust.  They work different schedules, they go on vacation.  Whales arrive, they drop to 8/16 (a lot of that recently) and in general even a sample of 1000 hours is just laughably small, so it's completely impossible to ever generate anything meaningful.  All we can do is speculate on which days or schedules TEND to be the best.  You simply can't take something that is as inherently noisy as LHE results and then add another degree of randomness (who's in the game) or two (how you're playing) and except to generate an output that is actually a signal of something.

The only thing you could do in this regard that might prove helpful is keep some sort of journal or database of your own rankings of the game conditions you see at various times of the day/week.  Every two hours look around and give a numerical ranking, or even keep a journal.  Even this would be tough in the 40s, as the case at 4pm is often "wow the main games are great" and "wow the must move is horrendous".  But it's...something.

Now that I have rambled almost without end, I'll try to answer the questions from your post on 2p2, inline I suppose

First time poster. Please let me know if there is a more appropriate forum for this thread, thanks. I have been playing a bit in the Commerce 20 and would like to ask the Commerce regulars some questions regarding realistic win rates in the current state of the game.

From what I have read from various corners of the poker world, and gathering from conversations with some long time commerce regulars, it sounds like that as recently as a few years ago, the realistic win rate for a good Commerce 20 player is about 1BB/hr ($40/hr) while the top players can attain roughly 1.4BB/hr ($56/hr). 

I wasn't around for this, mostly, but I have had conversations with several people that indicate more than 1 bet per hour was doable in the 20s as recently as maybe 3 years ago.  I specifically spoke with someone I respect (and you would also) about the LA games, and in 2008 he suggested that the 20 could be beaten for $60/hour, the 40 $90/hour.  I'm sure if I asked him again he'd drop those numbers substantially.

But according to these same players and blogs such as JesseTakesAShot, it sounds like those win rates may no longer be possible in today's games. If that is the case, what should a good player shoot for as a realistic win rate in today's games? 0.6BB/hr for a good player and 1BB/hr for the top players?

This is actually pretty inline with what I think is doable for a "big hours" guy in the commerce 20.  Note that I feel it's a pretty important distinction that you are attempting to be a "big hours" kind of guy.  By playing 1500+ hours/year you inherently put yourself in worse spots.  You have to pass on good quits sometimes.  You have to sit in bad games sometimes because you just got there for the day and I mean really what else are you going to do?  Throughout my career I have seen lots of players report big win rates over seemingly large samples (myself included).  Most of them eventually hit a 300 bet downer, or 500 hour break even stretch (or both) that brings their win rate back down to Earth.  But if you're talented, are willing to put in the hours, and don't go on any serious form of tilt, I do believe that .7 to 1 is still doable.

What about the difference in the win rate for 2 similarly skilled players, but one of them playing mostly during daytime on weekdays while the other player mostly play during weekends and week nights? I would expect the weekends and week nights player to attain a higher win rate than the weekday daytime player, but how big of a difference in win rate should these 2 players expect to get?

I have no idea on this one, and could only speculate based on the experiences I have seen reported from other players.  I do know of specifically two 20/40 grinders who have chose to completely avoid playing before about 2pm (and one before 8pm), and both report that the quality of the games is just unbelievable in the wee hours of the night.  This makes sense, and lines up with what everyone seems to think/report.  I for one have found that the commerce 40s are just amazing on Saturday and sunday afternoons.  Just yesterday, for example, there were FIVE 40 games running at 2pm and they were all fantastic.

What about the modern win rate in the Commerce 40? I have never played in the Commerce 40 before, but I would imagine that a Commerce 20 1BB/hr player should be able to win somewhere between 0.2 to 0.8 BB/hr in the Commerce 40 game. If this Commerce 20 player play in the 40 and ends up winning 0.5BB/hr while experiencing 2x+ variance/swing, there is really no point, other than a desire to play against tougher opponents. A Commerce 20 break even player would probably get destroyed in the 40 game, but what about a Commerce 20 0.5BB/hr player? What win rate should a Commerce 20 player achieve in the 20, and for how long a period of time, before even thinking about taking a shot at the 40?

This is something I have just recently spent a lot of time and energy pondering, and while the establishment will probably pull my card for saying it, I think you could sadly be pretty much spot on.  I just added up my last 4 months of commerce 40 results and roughed it all in, and the results are just the most depressing thing pretty much ever.  I've only got 500 or so hours of commerce 40 lifetime (seriously....most of my readers would have probably booked the over 2000) and I am stuck about 10k (or losing about 5/8ths of a bet per hour).  That's correct...I am a limit hold em professional in the los angeles area and I am a lifetime loser in the commerce 40 game.  That's just...amazing.  Not that I've played 500 hours and lost....that's not that hard to do.  But merely that I have actually dumped money (I've lost way more than the rake) into that game.  So I'm pretty biased obviously when it comes to this specific question, regarding the win rates between the 20 and the 40 games at that casino in particular, but obviously from my extremely small sample size you should just never ever consider playing the 40 and just play the 20 for the rest of time.  Or jump straight to the 60, where my results have been more like 1.5 bets per hour over 350 or so hours.  But I've spoken to several people I respect on the matter, and there is at least some support for the idea that it could be more profitable to beat the snot out of the yellow chips games than to let your pride get in the way and force yourself to play as much 40 or higher as possible.  For example, I am buried $25k in the 1/2 game since June 28th.  That's not...good.  It's also meaningless.  Whatever, it's 125 bets, you can lose that in 500 hands theoretically.  No matter how anyone feels about it, I'm confident that it's at a minimum correct (financially) for most players to CONSIDER playing the 20/40 games, which to be honest I almost never do anymore.

Thanks.

The Worst

I could just be the worst.  I don't know....I mean, I know I'm not actually bad at poker, but lately it feels like I've just been making these awful mistakes hand in and hand out.  My decision making machinery just breaks down and I do something borderline idiotic and then I end up stressing out and berating myself over it for the rest of the session (or day or week) and it's just bad news.  I thought I was going to write a big long post about it but I just don't have the energy right now, mainly because I played 1/2 for 13.5 hours straight yesterday.  It was a grueling session, and honestly the game wasn't even that good until the very end (at which point it had become amazing, but the hour grew late and I swore I wasn't going to over night ever again and I managed to walk out of the casino at midnight).  We lit up the reason for playing like a Christmas tree, which I guess was good, but I just played so bad for so much of the session.  I made bad peels, which often turned into bad call downs.  I made bad folds (on every street).  I attempted silly bluffs.  It's as if I just wasn't thinking, you know?  Anyway, I took half the day off today to catch up on life, and am hoping to be re-energized for the rest of the week.  A single hand to demonstrate why I could be the worst.

A tagfish opens up front and the spot calls the SB.  I just call in the big blind with KQo, mainly because I feel the tagfish's EP range is tight enough that I am not missing much, if any, value by not three betting.  Also my hand should be easier to play without initiative, since my read on her is that she'll bet every single flop vs the two of us.  So we see a board:

AKThh

And I begin to play horribly.  The SB checks, I check, she bets, the sb calls and I...just call.  This is probably fine, but notice how small I've let the pot get.  I have KQo, one of my opponents has literally an almost random (or perhaps even weaker) hand, and I have flopped a pretty reasonable board.  Yet we are taking a turn 3 ways and there are only 4.5 bets in the pot.

AKThh-4r

Total brick, changes absolutely nothing.  The  spot checks and I...check.  Don't get me wrong, that's almost certainly correct, except that my read on her range and betting tendencies here is the following....The only hand I beat is KJo, and she will check back QQ or weaker.  Now I don't know if this read was correct, but it's the one I had, and therefore I probably needed to fire the old turn donk at her.  Assuming she is pair heavy preflop (and I think she has everything down to like 55, so that's 42 combos of pocket pairs that I beat, that she'd have fired once, that I think will check back now) letting this turn check through (when I have the sb destroyed) is horrendous.  But donking never even occurred to me.  For some reason I was in "gee how will I lose this hand" mode and when she bet and the spot called I...folded.  I literally folded my hand.  It's preposterous, isn't it?  I mean sure if my read is correct it's somewhat close.  If I only ever beat the KJ AND the spot pretty much always has a naked Q or J (which hurts my equity really badly when she has something like A9s) then the fold is almost defensible.  Almost.  It's still bad, but not crazy bad.  But that's the thing, your read is never perfect in a spot like this.  I don't have tons of hours with her, and she's a high stakes tagfish who does unpredictable things.  What if she does fire the QQ and JJ here?  Or the 44.  What if she has the K9s on the preflop?  What about 87hh?  These are the things I forgot about (or more accurately dismissed as impossible instead of simply discounting) and therefore when the river came the old Jack ball and it checked through and her K9cc dragged the pot I was just sick to my stomach.  I had let the pot get pretty small, and once that happened I started looking for ways OUT of the hand instead of how I could win it.  LHE is all about being optimistic (NLHE is about being pessimistic, I think, at least once the money is in), and I simply failed this hand plain and simply.

There have been others.  I laid down AA on the turn for two bets and was wrong.  I made some horrible peels and call downs when I simply didn't have the equity to continue.  I just haven't been...sharp, I suppose.