Very proud day of poker....

Pretty much anything that can go wrong in poker has been going wrong for me lately and it has been taking a toll on my mental stability. It is just one of those ruts that any poker player has been in many times...every time you get all your money in the middle you just get a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach that whatever card your opponent needs will be the next one off the deck. No matter how strong your hand is you can never be comfortable when you are in all-in situations. Josh and I often talk about how we "know" or we can "feel" sometimes when we are going to lose and it does seem uncanny how often that horrible feeling turns out to the correct. However, we also talk about whether or not we actually get that feeling or if we only notice/remember it when we end up losing the hand (this is the most likely case). I always try to maintain a really positive attitude when faced with all-in situations. Some people root against the cards that their opponents need such as when they say "No Ace, No Ace!". I advocate all of my friends to try to change their attitude and be more positive when they are all-in and to choose a specific card that they want to see and cheer for that one. After all, it is more fun to root for something than against it and this could help to keep a positive mindset. I usually choose one that will make me win the hand, but doesn't improve my hand (assuming I got my money in ahead) For example, if I have pair of Aces and they have a heart flush draw I will choose the 7 of clubs to root for. Just so you know, I am only talking about online poker. One thing you will never see me do in your life is to audibly root for or against a card while playing live poker unless I am jokingly doing so. Also, if you are one of the people that do that you can assume I think you are very annoying to play poker with, especially if I am having a losing session. None of this really matters in the grand scheme and I am not sure why I wasted so much time writing about what boils down to being nothing more than stupid poker superstitions. However, if you can do anything to help keep your thoughts positive while you are playing it will serve you very well in your decision making and tilt control. I suppose if you have to be superstitious to stay positive then go for it.

I digress...I have been getting the horrible feeling that I am going to lose during all-ins ALOT lately and I have been losing WAY more than my fair share of them. I am about $16,000 below expectation this month and it REALLY messes with your confidence to run so poorly. However, today I fought very hard and refused to let running badly stop me from having a losing day of poker. I lost my VERY first hand of the day for a full buy-in at $600 PLO...what a great way to start. The bad news is it went down hill from there. Before I knew what hit me and about an hour and a half I was down over $3600 and my confidence was reeling pretty badly. I took a short break to regroup and got back to the grind determined to out work the bad luck I was having. I got to within $500 or so of being even, but ended up losing about $950 in a 5 hour session. I then went to meet Clint, Charlie, and Tyrone for dinner at Noodles. After dinner I came home and got back to the grind. Somehow after 8 hours of playing today I ended up winning $1434 despite running $1200 below expectation. I have had much bigger winning days than today, but staying so focused and determined makes this win feel sooo much better. I look forward to continuing to crush their faces tomorrow.

Here is what an 8 hour day of determined playing looks like in graphical form:

That's it Mr. Anonymous, you've done it now...

This comment was left after my last blog about how I had been running poorly in tournaments by none other than "Anonymous".

Anonymous said...

Last confrontation of tournament means little -- shouldn't you be focusing more on hands prior to your last coin flip?


What caused you to be in such a desperate situation?

I have ranted before about how anonymous comments drove me crazy, but I just now got around to making it so you have to be logged in to leave me comments.

I don't know who this person is that left it, but if your purpose was to needle me about running poorly in tournaments and poker in general then you played the game well, and I tip my hat to your creativity. If you were being serious and trying to get me to re-evaluate my play leading up to my "desperate situation" then you failed at the game. Afterall, it would be very counter-productive for me to try to learn how to not be card dead for hours on end.

In other news, I played another $1,500 event yesterday in which I once again did not make it out of the second level of blinds. I have also been getting my face smashed when I play poker online too. I am trying my best to maintain my sanity, but that is not coming as easily as it normally does for some reason. I am looking forward to the houseboat trip at Kentucky Lake over the 4th of July weekend....it will be a much needed break from poker. Until then, I will continue to grind my life away and hopefully start playing and thinking about poker in a little more positive manner.

I lied....

I wasn't going to get luckier in my next wsop tourney or the one after that. I have played 3 tourneys and lost all 5 coinflips I was involved in.

I lost 33 vs. K9 (52.5%)
I lost AK vs. QQ (42.6%)
I lost QJ vs. 33 (48.6%)
I lost K9s vs. QJs (56.2%)
I lost open ended straight flush draw vs. one pair (49.9%)

Winning any one of those could have greatly impacted my chances in any of the tourneys, but it wasn't meant to be. The odds of me losing all 5 coinflips are 3.04%.

I really don't think I could have done anything any better than I did in the tournaments I played and that is why tournaments REALLY suck. I will not be playing the main event this year. I don't feel like wasting $10,000 and being at the mercy of being card dead and/or being unlucky in another forced coinflip situation. The good news is I won't have to leave my houseboat trip a night early like I thought I would to make it back to play in the main event.

Josh and I talked about a possible prop bet of some sort where I have to grow out ONLY a mustache and no other facial hair for at least one month. I have never had any facial hair other than whatever grew during lazy periods of not shaving. I think it would be pretty awesome if I grew a Jim Dangle style mustache, but I am not even sure if I am capable of it.

If you guys are lucky maybe I'll grow a sweet mustache and take a picture for you wearing some shorts like his too.

So I finally figured out how I am going to do better in my next WSOP event....

I finally figured out what I have been missing from my tournament game....I need to start getting luckier! This is not a bad beat story or even a bad beat story disguised as a regular story. This is just a story about how much luck is involved in tournaments. I played in the $1,000 NL WSOP Event #4 and busted sometime in the 5th or 6th hour. I didn't make any mistakes or do anything that I wish I would have done differently and I still didn't win or even cash, but that is the nature of tournaments. It is possible there were a few spots that a really great tournament player might have squeezed out a few extra chips here and there, but I played to the best of my ability.

Twice at my table people had pocket aces while their opponent held pocket kings. Both times the aces held up. Its not like either player did anything wrong or even anything well in either one of those hands. When two people happen to get dealt those two hands all of the money is going to go in the middle (barring some extreme/weird situations) and either one of them is going to go broke or someone is going to double up. When you get dealt AA or KK you are prepared to hopefully win a big pot, but you at least want the chance to play a big pot with those hands.

I got dealt Kings once and Aces once. Both times I happened to be in the cutoff and it was folded to me. Both times I made my normal raise and both times everyone folded behind me and I won the blinds. Its not like I played my hands any differently than the people that doubled up with aces at my table would have played them. I just wasn't lucky enough to get involved in the same situations that they were.

There are other times in tournaments where action is forced in ways that it wouldn't be in a cash game. For example: I raised on the cutoff with 33 and the short stacked Pokerstars pro Dario Minieri raised all-in just like I suspected he would be doing in the near future. I already knew he would be doing this with a very wide range of hands and that eventually I was going to end up in some type of race situation with him. This time he had K9o and he caught a 9 on the river in about a 4k pot (when the blinds were 75/150). Then about 45 minutes later I raised with AKo and Dario re-raised me...we ended up getting all in preflop again and he help QQ this time and he won again and this time it was for an 8k pot and I was eliminated. There was nothing I could have or would have done different in either spot and I don't think many other people would have either.

That is just the way it goes in tournaments. In the next tournament I play in hopefully I will have some better luck and these unavoidable situations will end up going my way, because when they don't there is little you can do to help your chances to succeed.

My next tourney may be tomorrow in the $1500 NL and if not then it will be the following day in the $2500 Half Pot Limit Hold'em and Half Pot Limit Omaha.

What downswing?

I always have prided myself in having great self control and never really allowing myself or my play to become too affected by losing. The reason this is so important is because it is very easy for losing to breed more losing if you let it affect your play. Recently, I had my biggest downswing ever in terms of money lost, but thanks to some serious grinding in the last 15 days I have almost completely erased my downswing in online poker (I didn't keep track of my live losses, but those need some recovering as well, lol). I would show you my lifetime graph so you could see for yourself how drastic my downswing and subsequent upswing were, but I am holding off showing my lifetime graph until I have reached the 1,000,000 hand milestone. I am almost at 600,000 hands right now and hopefully I will make it to the million hand mark sometime around the end of this year or beginning of next.

Anyway, since I have been back in Vegas and really had grind on the mind I have won around $14k in about 15 days and I am not stopping here! I did however notice when I was looking at my graph that following every sharp upswing there is usually a semi-sharp downswing. I don't know if I get cocky and/or complacent or lose that feeling of my back being against the wall, but somehow I always seem to have a small downswing after big upswings. I guess you can't just win all the time or there wouldn't be any upswings...it would just be, well....winning all the time! Makes perfect since, huh? Regardless, I am going to work hard at staying focused and not lose my money making work ethic this time and hopefully I will go on my biggest upswing of all time!

Time to go watch the Lebron show in game 3 against the Magic.

Here is my tentative WSOP schedule....there is no way I will actually play in all of these, but these are the ones I have interest in:

WSOP Schedule
Saturday May 30th $1,000 NLHE
Tuesday June 2nd $1,500 NLHE
Wednesday June 3rd $2,500 PLHE + PLO
Tuesday June 9th $1,500 PLHE
Saturday June 13th $1,500 NLHE
Saturday June 20th $1,500 NLHE
Saturday June 27th $1,500 NLHE
Monday July 6th Day 1D of Main Event $10,000 NLHE

Jurrasic Poker

So poker has been going less than fantastic lately, but I finally had my first great day in a while yesterday. I played over 5,000 hands and won over $6,600 in about 9 hours worth of playing. When I was finished playing I obviously had to spend sometime admiring my fantastic looking graph. I couldn't help but notice the resemblance to a brontosaurus. In case you aren't as creative as I am I have done you a favor and filled in the rest of him with some of my amazing MSPaint skills. It was nice to run so well for such a long session and it was really awesome to top it off with such a crazy heater at the end of my day. Enjoy.



Here is a more realistic picture of a brontosaurus in case you didn't pay attention in 2nd grade.

Horse Handicapping 101:

Tip #1: Go to the $20 minimum so you don't have to wait in the long lines since you will definitely be making $20 worth of bets. Then, once the lady tells you it is a $20 minimum bet for each wager (as in only $20 exacta boxes and not a $4 exacta box totaling $24) pick one of the horses at random that you had planned to use in your exacta and place a $20 straight wager on the horse to win. Therefore, you will still avoid waiting in the long lines at the regular window and its not like you knew what you were doing in the first place. Here is the result:




The horse went off at 4:1 and paid me back $100 :)

Tip #2: After you make all of the bets you are going to make on the derby and the last race of the day ask yourself if you have enough action on the race. The answer will almost always be "No!" so march right back to the window and pick a number of very random horses and put them in some sort of exacta or trifecta box. I went with the additional $1 exacta box with 3 horses totaling $6. Here is the result:


Just like I knew it would happen; the 50:1 longshot, Mine that Bird (edited to the correct name of the horse thanks to "anonymous"), won in convincing fashion despite having speed ratings much lower than the rest of the field. Also, the two other random horses I picked somehow managed to run in 2nd and 4th position giving me the exacta for $1,030!

**Disclaimer: I have no idea what I am doing when it comes to handicapping horses and these tips should not be attempted with real money, unless you are a degenerate like myself and don't mind losing a few hundred dollars about 95% of the time.**

Here is the obligatory picture of me and Jessica in her derby hat complete with transvestite/cross-dressing/shemale in the background!



Here is the view of the derby from our seats as the horses ran by the first time.


Here is our view as the horses are being loaded into the starting gates.


I am still in Indy for now and have Derek's graduation to attend on Saturday, but I am looking forward to getting back home and back on the grind.