So it's been a while since my last post. Almost forever. I was feeling creative today so I entitled this post "Brief Update". What it lacks in creativity it gains in truthfulness. This will be an update, and it will probably be brief.
As you probably already know, it's summer. The sun shines, or at least it's supposed to. Not always conducive to getting motivated to play poker, hence my lack of play as of late. Especially when you're at a desk most of the day as it is, the window of opportunity to enjoy other aspects of life is limited. Too many things to enjoy, not enough time. However, I have put in a few real sessions since my last post, but nothing too spectacular happened. I had one where I was up a bit and made a final table, but was first to go, so nothing life changing. The others I've been down a bit, but again, nothing life changing. It almost seems I've been playing so seldom these days that I feel a bit rusty around the edges when I finally do sit down and play. I mean, I can still compete due to my natural ability to be awesome at things, but I haven't been too zoned on keeping a sharp game lately. As the summer winds down, I'll most likely ramp things up in this department.
September always brings the annual WCOOP (world championship of online poker) series on PokerStars (in addition to my birthday, which also occurs annually). I'll likely find some time to sharpen up and play in some of the great events they offer. There is always life changing bling up for grabs in these big tournaments. Last year I qualified for the $5200 2-day main event by winning a $150 qualifier. If I remember correctly, first place was just over 2 million big ones. I lasted about 6 hours in the main event (shy of the money) and had a nice little stack built up before I ended up on the wrong side of a couple coolers. It would sure be neat to qualify for that again. My bankroll doesn't quite justify buying into that tournament directly quite yet!
So there you have it. An update which was brief (sort of), as promised.
Cheers
Josh
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Poker Tidbits #1 and #2: Position, Starting Hands, The Gap Concept
So here we go, my first attempt to shed some light on a bit of poker advice for the average player. I'm sure my scattered advice will make all the experienced tutors out there quiver, if they ever happen to stumble upon it. I decided to combine #1 and #2 since they are closely linked. It's actually difficult to talk about many concepts in poker without talking about (or understanding) the importance of position. So what is position? Well, it's simply where you are at the table relative to the dealer. Since the dealer button shifts clockwise one seat after each hand, your position is changing each hand. Below is a screen shot of a PokerStars table I snagged from the web illustrating what is considered early position, mid position, and late position.
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Theoretically, you need stronger starting hands when you're in early position than in late position. Under the Gun (UTG) is the first to act pre-flop. On the flop, turn, and river the first person to the left of the dealer button who is still in the hand is first to act. When somebody has to act before you, you have position on them which is desirable. Having position on your opponents is extremely important to gain information in a hand. Since poker is a game of gathering information from your opponents through a series of betting, the more information you have the better off you will be to make wise decisions. The disadvantage to being UTG is that you do not have any information from your opponents yet, since you are first to act before the flop. You will also be out of position on later streets against any opponent that plays against you, with the exception of the small blind and big blind if they get involved in the hand. Typically, stronger hands should be played from UTG (big pairs such as 10-10+, A-K, A-Q). Hands like A-10 thru A-2, K-J, K-10, Q-J, Q-10, etc can be potentially dangerous playing from this position. These are typical "trap" hands. As you move into mid and late position, your starting hand requirements go down since there are less people to act behind you. When you're raising UTG or even UTG +1 with one of the "trap" hands, the likelihood of somebody calling you with a weaker hand becomes highly unlikely since they will tend to respect a raise from that position more than a raise from later position. This leads to the Gap Concept which basically states: It takes a stronger hand to call a raise then it does to make a raise.
Example 1: You're dealt K-J off suit in the cutoff position. The UTG player raises pre-flop. What do you do? Fold. The likelihood of them raising with a weaker hand is unlikely. Think of all the hands they could easily be raising with that you are behind: A-J, A-Q, A-K, K-Q, 10-10, J-J, Q-Q, K-K, A-A. Even all smaller pairs such as 9-9 thru 2-2 you are slightly behind (although it's nearly 50/50 if you were to see all 5 community cards)
Example 2: You're dealt K-J off suit in the cutoff position. Everyone folds to you. What do you do? Raise. Same hand, same position, but now we're raising instead of folding? Yes. Now you have more information. The 5 people to act before you all folded, and there are only 3 left to act behind you. Now K-J appears to be a stronger hand. The less players left to act, the smaller chance there is of them having a stronger hand. I don't like limping (just calling the big blind) there, seems like a weak play, plus you're giving the big blind a free look at the flop with 2 random cards if nobody else raises. If I open a pot preflop, I tend to raise. I will limp in on occasion, but it's generally a unique situation with other variables at play (such as trapping a very aggressive player, for example).
It's very typical for weak poker players to look down, see any 2 face cards or any Ace and just throw chips in the middle with complete disregard for all other factors. These players are just giving away their chips, and will eventually have a huge target on their head. It's important to keep in mind that the type of opponents you're up against are also a determing factor in your starting hand selection. If players are playing tight, loosen up your game and play aggressively against them since you're likely to pick up some easy and uncontested pots. If they're loose and aggressive, tighten up your game and punish their aggressive play with the strong hands you're dealt. Sometimes I will play weaker hands when in position against weak opponents just because I know I can outplay them easily post-flop and pick up some easy pots. I will talk more about labeling your opponents later, however.
As the number of players dwindles at a table (at a final table where people are being eliminated, for example) your starting hand requirements go down. The less players at the table, the less cards being dealt, therefore the likelihood of a good hand being dealt decreases. Say you're 4-handed, now a hand like K-J, or any 2 face cards and any ace are playable from all positions.
Now, all the above information is fine and dandy in theory, but what you have to keep in mind is that many of the players you play against also have this information. There are a lot of resources out there to learn how to play poker well, and I find that this causes trends in poker. When the online poker craze hit, people starting writing books on poker theory, started tutorial websites, etc. Now everyone you play against "knows" that you're only supposed to raise UTG with very strong hands. So a trend started of people raising hands like suited connectors UTG such as 6-7s thru 9-10s (The "s" just means it's suited). This in an effort to be deceptive, and have a well disguised hand if you happen to hit the flop hard. So now the UTG raise has lost some credibility because of this. So it's important to stay ahead of the curve and observe these trends, especially if you're a regular player. The most important thing is to mix up your game so you aren't predictable. Don't always raise suited connectors UTG, for example, but do it once in a while to keep them guessing. Then next time you pick up A-A and raise you're more likely to get paid than if you always play by the book. I'd be far more willing to raise UTG with a hand like 7-8s than I would, say, A-7 off suit. The thing about doing it with 7-8s is that you're looking to flop a big hand like a straight or flush, or a big draw. If you do, it will be well disguised since they won't suspect you of holding 7-8. If you hit top pair, it's easier to get away from if you have to. Playing A-7 you're more likely to be dominated by people playing stronger Aces. So if you hit a flop like A-6-3, which initially might seem good, it might actually wind you up in a lot of trouble since you're really only going to get action from hands that dominate you.
This was a pretty quick overview of position and starting hands to give the casual player a bit of a better grasp on what you should be playing from what position pre-flop. I'll leave it up to you to dig deeper if you so desire. The best way to learn is from experience as well. I'll talk more about position when we get into post-flop play.
Hopefully you enjoyed this little tidbit of information and it helps you crush some souls next time you find yourself in the middle of a poker game. I've barely scratched the surface (I think my car has more scratches than I just made), but it's important info to know about when tossing the chips around.
Cheers
Josh
Theoretically, you need stronger starting hands when you're in early position than in late position. Under the Gun (UTG) is the first to act pre-flop. On the flop, turn, and river the first person to the left of the dealer button who is still in the hand is first to act. When somebody has to act before you, you have position on them which is desirable. Having position on your opponents is extremely important to gain information in a hand. Since poker is a game of gathering information from your opponents through a series of betting, the more information you have the better off you will be to make wise decisions. The disadvantage to being UTG is that you do not have any information from your opponents yet, since you are first to act before the flop. You will also be out of position on later streets against any opponent that plays against you, with the exception of the small blind and big blind if they get involved in the hand. Typically, stronger hands should be played from UTG (big pairs such as 10-10+, A-K, A-Q). Hands like A-10 thru A-2, K-J, K-10, Q-J, Q-10, etc can be potentially dangerous playing from this position. These are typical "trap" hands. As you move into mid and late position, your starting hand requirements go down since there are less people to act behind you. When you're raising UTG or even UTG +1 with one of the "trap" hands, the likelihood of somebody calling you with a weaker hand becomes highly unlikely since they will tend to respect a raise from that position more than a raise from later position. This leads to the Gap Concept which basically states: It takes a stronger hand to call a raise then it does to make a raise.
Example 1: You're dealt K-J off suit in the cutoff position. The UTG player raises pre-flop. What do you do? Fold. The likelihood of them raising with a weaker hand is unlikely. Think of all the hands they could easily be raising with that you are behind: A-J, A-Q, A-K, K-Q, 10-10, J-J, Q-Q, K-K, A-A. Even all smaller pairs such as 9-9 thru 2-2 you are slightly behind (although it's nearly 50/50 if you were to see all 5 community cards)
Example 2: You're dealt K-J off suit in the cutoff position. Everyone folds to you. What do you do? Raise. Same hand, same position, but now we're raising instead of folding? Yes. Now you have more information. The 5 people to act before you all folded, and there are only 3 left to act behind you. Now K-J appears to be a stronger hand. The less players left to act, the smaller chance there is of them having a stronger hand. I don't like limping (just calling the big blind) there, seems like a weak play, plus you're giving the big blind a free look at the flop with 2 random cards if nobody else raises. If I open a pot preflop, I tend to raise. I will limp in on occasion, but it's generally a unique situation with other variables at play (such as trapping a very aggressive player, for example).
It's very typical for weak poker players to look down, see any 2 face cards or any Ace and just throw chips in the middle with complete disregard for all other factors. These players are just giving away their chips, and will eventually have a huge target on their head. It's important to keep in mind that the type of opponents you're up against are also a determing factor in your starting hand selection. If players are playing tight, loosen up your game and play aggressively against them since you're likely to pick up some easy and uncontested pots. If they're loose and aggressive, tighten up your game and punish their aggressive play with the strong hands you're dealt. Sometimes I will play weaker hands when in position against weak opponents just because I know I can outplay them easily post-flop and pick up some easy pots. I will talk more about labeling your opponents later, however.
As the number of players dwindles at a table (at a final table where people are being eliminated, for example) your starting hand requirements go down. The less players at the table, the less cards being dealt, therefore the likelihood of a good hand being dealt decreases. Say you're 4-handed, now a hand like K-J, or any 2 face cards and any ace are playable from all positions.
Now, all the above information is fine and dandy in theory, but what you have to keep in mind is that many of the players you play against also have this information. There are a lot of resources out there to learn how to play poker well, and I find that this causes trends in poker. When the online poker craze hit, people starting writing books on poker theory, started tutorial websites, etc. Now everyone you play against "knows" that you're only supposed to raise UTG with very strong hands. So a trend started of people raising hands like suited connectors UTG such as 6-7s thru 9-10s (The "s" just means it's suited). This in an effort to be deceptive, and have a well disguised hand if you happen to hit the flop hard. So now the UTG raise has lost some credibility because of this. So it's important to stay ahead of the curve and observe these trends, especially if you're a regular player. The most important thing is to mix up your game so you aren't predictable. Don't always raise suited connectors UTG, for example, but do it once in a while to keep them guessing. Then next time you pick up A-A and raise you're more likely to get paid than if you always play by the book. I'd be far more willing to raise UTG with a hand like 7-8s than I would, say, A-7 off suit. The thing about doing it with 7-8s is that you're looking to flop a big hand like a straight or flush, or a big draw. If you do, it will be well disguised since they won't suspect you of holding 7-8. If you hit top pair, it's easier to get away from if you have to. Playing A-7 you're more likely to be dominated by people playing stronger Aces. So if you hit a flop like A-6-3, which initially might seem good, it might actually wind you up in a lot of trouble since you're really only going to get action from hands that dominate you.
This was a pretty quick overview of position and starting hands to give the casual player a bit of a better grasp on what you should be playing from what position pre-flop. I'll leave it up to you to dig deeper if you so desire. The best way to learn is from experience as well. I'll talk more about position when we get into post-flop play.
Hopefully you enjoyed this little tidbit of information and it helps you crush some souls next time you find yourself in the middle of a poker game. I've barely scratched the surface (I think my car has more scratches than I just made), but it's important info to know about when tossing the chips around.
Cheers
Josh
Friday, June 10, 2011
Poker Tidbit Series
I've had a few requests to talk more about poker strategy, so I decided to start putting together a series of tournament poker tips to help out the beginner to average player. I'll try post about one or two per week, in addition to random progress updates and amusing life stories. Here are the exciting tidbits I plan to write about:
1. Importance of Position
2. Starting Hands and The Gap Concept
3. Pot Odds, Implied Odds
4. Flop Texture, C-betting, and Pot Control
5. The Float (sorry, not the kind with ice cream)
6. Daddy, does everybody have an 'M'? (Stack sizes and fold equity)
7. The Squeeze Play
8. Table Image and Labeling Your Opponents
9. Abusing the Bubble
10. End Game/Final Tables (not that mine is the best yet, but I'll try)
So, if poker interests you at all you will probably find these topics interesting and helpful to crush your buddies next time you find yourself in a home game or tournament. If poker does not interest you, than you can close my blog and go back to knitting slippers and I will not hold it against you :)
Stay tuned next week for what I feel is the most important fundamental concept in building a solid foundation to your poker game: position.
Josh
1. Importance of Position
2. Starting Hands and The Gap Concept
3. Pot Odds, Implied Odds
4. Flop Texture, C-betting, and Pot Control
5. The Float (sorry, not the kind with ice cream)
6. Daddy, does everybody have an 'M'? (Stack sizes and fold equity)
7. The Squeeze Play
8. Table Image and Labeling Your Opponents
9. Abusing the Bubble
10. End Game/Final Tables (not that mine is the best yet, but I'll try)
So, if poker interests you at all you will probably find these topics interesting and helpful to crush your buddies next time you find yourself in a home game or tournament. If poker does not interest you, than you can close my blog and go back to knitting slippers and I will not hold it against you :)
Stay tuned next week for what I feel is the most important fundamental concept in building a solid foundation to your poker game: position.
Josh
Monday, June 6, 2011
Big Sunday Recap...and stuff
Time to buckle up. Not because I rented another U-Haul, but because I put in a big session of cards on Sunday which I'm sure will also buck you off your seats with excitement. They shifted all of the big Sunday tournaments 2 hours earlier to target the influx of overseas players and the exit of US players. At first this made me feel a bit alone and afraid, but I've come around and am feeling good about the change. Basically it just means if I take a tournament really deep I get to bed 2 hours earlier than I normally would, or have an additional 2 hours in the evening to perform my victory celebration. I can't tell you exactly what my celebration ritual entails, but I can tell you that it involves lunges, ice cream, McGivor re-runs, a yo-yo and a top hat.
I hadn't put in a big session for a while, so I pretty much planned on entering every tournament on the schedule that wasn't a micro buy-in. It was going to be a big day one way or the other. The Sunday Warm-Up now starts at 9am, which is when I started my day. Actually I'm lying. I started at 9:30am since I decided last minute to go to Higher Ground for coffee before getting started. I only went there for coffee though, no muffins. I got home and registered late for the Warm-Up like a big shot, and got elimated shortly after. Oh. Over the next few hours I played in various other tournaments ranging from $22 to $109 buy-ins. If you have ever wondered why the buy-ins aren't round numbers, it's because the buy-ins include the entry + a fee. So, $22 is actually a $20 entry (goes into prize pool) + $2 fee (which goes to PokerStars). That's how they make their money. Bigger buy-in, bigger fee. Just for kicks, let's take the Sunday Million. $215 = $200 entry + $15 fee. Yesterday there were over 10,000 entries. 10,000 x $15 = $150,000....from one tournament. There are tournaments starting every minute. Not to mention sit n go and cash game rake. Oh wow. No wonder the US government wants a piece of this action. Well I digress. The Sunday Million kicked off at it's new fancy time of 12:30pm. I actually didn't even realize till about 12:50pm that it had started already. So like a big shot once again, I registered for it late only to be knocked out just over an hour later. Good. So at this point my day wasn't going very well. Actually it was going quite poorly. Some bad beats, compounded with some sloppy play and I was approaching 1K in entries as I moved into the afternoon wave of tournies, and no return on those investments yet. Sounds like a lot of money, and it is, this ain't no game of rummy down at the Lions Club, ya hear. It's all relative though, I won't risk more than 5% of my current bankroll in a given session. So I continue with my regular schedule, the $55 Sunday Special (200K GTD), $215 Second Chance (250K GTD), $215 80K GTD, $109 60K GTD etc....and managed to get my act together and cash in all 4 of those, and make pretty deep runs in a couple. Made for a +$1200 day overall, which doesn't warrant a trophy on my mantel (I'm just pretending to have a mantel), but I'm still happy that I powered through a rough start to play well in the second half of my day and muster up some results.
The way I exited the Second Chance was a bit frustrating. First prize for this one was 55K. You can get a lot of free hugs for 55K. However, I was eliminated in 25th-ish out of about 1600 entrants. Still good for over 1K. I was top 5 in chips for a long while when things started to unravel like a runaway roll of toilet paper. And once it starts to unravel, you can never get it rolled back on like it was originally, you know? Frustrating. Poker can be the same way. Anyway, one cooler (not the kind you load up with beer), then one bad decision and I was out. If you don't know what a cooler is, you'll soon find out. I got dealt Q-Q in the cutoff position (one before the dealer) and a mid-position player with about half my stack size raised. I re-raised which is pretty standard. He flat called and the flop came A-3-3. Blah, pretty ugly flop for me. He could easily have an A, obviously. He checks to me though, so I'm happy to check and see a free card. Just because he checked, I did not rule out the possibility of him having an A (like A-K or A-Q). The turn was a blank, say a 5. He checks to me again. Hmmmm ok, well at this point I'm happy just checking it down. He could have a hand like J-J and is also scared of the A. The river is a Q. I hit my gin card, and now certainly have the best hand. However, if he does have a hand like J-J I'm not going to extract any more chips from him. The only way is if he is holding an A and was slowplaying it. He checks to me again, so I have to bet to try extract some value from my hand. So I bet a small amount to try entice a call, and he raises...raises?! He flat calls pre-flop, checks the flop, checks the turn, then check-raises the river? The only 2 hands that beat me are A-A and 3-3. He doesn't have 3-3. I don't care how good you are, you can't put somebody on 4 of a kind and fold a full house, the odds of that happening are so small that it would just be silly. My first instinct was that he was just making a play at me, thinking I didn't have anything. I was just tickled to throw my entire pile at him....and he INSTA called me. When he called that fast, before his cards even turned I blurted out "darn" (or something less PG), and *drum roll*...he turns over AA. He slowplayed it the whole way, and it turned into a total cooler when I nailed the river. A cooler is when you lose with that hand that's impossible to get away from since it'll be the best hand, say, 97% of the time in that situation. Big hit to my stack but I'm still alive. Reflecting back on the hand, of course his checks make sense because with his hand and that flop he wasn't going to get much action unless I catch a piece on a later street (which I did, sigh). He could see 3 of the aces, so the chances of me also holding one were slim, and I obviously didn't have a 3. He played it well, he disguised the fact he had A-A by flat calling me pre-flop and not re-raising. Of course there is some risk involved in his play, but it can pay off big sometimes if you have the guts to do it.
My elimination hand I was dealt A-Q in early position. I raised and the player on the button, who was playing aggressively and had a MONSTER stack, re-raised me. I just figured he was being a bully so I re-raised all in. He snap called me with K-K and his hand held. A good percentage of the time my play is a profitable one, but I didn't think it completely through. With our stack sizes and the amount he already put in the pot, he was basically priced in to call me with whatever hand he hand, so even though my hand was fairly strong I'm taking a bit of a gamble knowing that he's going to call no matter what. It's called fold equity (having enough chips to make someone mathematically fold) and I didn't have it, but didn't think long enough to realize it. I'm still torn on the play, I think a good percentage of the time A-Q is ahead there since he'll be re-raising light with his big stack. It just deserved a bit more consideration at that stage of a big tournament.
The rest of the weekend was spent mountain biking, golfing, and playing guitar. The mountain bike trails were rather moist and I returned home covered in mud. Went out to Jumpingpound for an easy ride and got a bit more than I bargained for. The golf was good (except for the cold, wind, and rain), second round of the year and I hit the ball really good. I was 1 under through 7 holes but then my short game abandoned me and I made 6 bogeys stumbling in to shoot 77. Still an awesome day even though the score tailed off a bit. The guitar playing is slowly coming along. Still sounds like wounded puppies caught in a train wreck at times, but it's sounding more like music than it did 3 weeks ago when I first picked it up. Maybe I'll post a tune once I really master one...just to prove I've actually been practicing and not just carrying my guitar case around trying to impress chicks. Don't hold your breath though.
That's all for now, hopefully you've all been keeping fit and having fun.
Josh
I hadn't put in a big session for a while, so I pretty much planned on entering every tournament on the schedule that wasn't a micro buy-in. It was going to be a big day one way or the other. The Sunday Warm-Up now starts at 9am, which is when I started my day. Actually I'm lying. I started at 9:30am since I decided last minute to go to Higher Ground for coffee before getting started. I only went there for coffee though, no muffins. I got home and registered late for the Warm-Up like a big shot, and got elimated shortly after. Oh. Over the next few hours I played in various other tournaments ranging from $22 to $109 buy-ins. If you have ever wondered why the buy-ins aren't round numbers, it's because the buy-ins include the entry + a fee. So, $22 is actually a $20 entry (goes into prize pool) + $2 fee (which goes to PokerStars). That's how they make their money. Bigger buy-in, bigger fee. Just for kicks, let's take the Sunday Million. $215 = $200 entry + $15 fee. Yesterday there were over 10,000 entries. 10,000 x $15 = $150,000....from one tournament. There are tournaments starting every minute. Not to mention sit n go and cash game rake. Oh wow. No wonder the US government wants a piece of this action. Well I digress. The Sunday Million kicked off at it's new fancy time of 12:30pm. I actually didn't even realize till about 12:50pm that it had started already. So like a big shot once again, I registered for it late only to be knocked out just over an hour later. Good. So at this point my day wasn't going very well. Actually it was going quite poorly. Some bad beats, compounded with some sloppy play and I was approaching 1K in entries as I moved into the afternoon wave of tournies, and no return on those investments yet. Sounds like a lot of money, and it is, this ain't no game of rummy down at the Lions Club, ya hear. It's all relative though, I won't risk more than 5% of my current bankroll in a given session. So I continue with my regular schedule, the $55 Sunday Special (200K GTD), $215 Second Chance (250K GTD), $215 80K GTD, $109 60K GTD etc....and managed to get my act together and cash in all 4 of those, and make pretty deep runs in a couple. Made for a +$1200 day overall, which doesn't warrant a trophy on my mantel (I'm just pretending to have a mantel), but I'm still happy that I powered through a rough start to play well in the second half of my day and muster up some results.
The way I exited the Second Chance was a bit frustrating. First prize for this one was 55K. You can get a lot of free hugs for 55K. However, I was eliminated in 25th-ish out of about 1600 entrants. Still good for over 1K. I was top 5 in chips for a long while when things started to unravel like a runaway roll of toilet paper. And once it starts to unravel, you can never get it rolled back on like it was originally, you know? Frustrating. Poker can be the same way. Anyway, one cooler (not the kind you load up with beer), then one bad decision and I was out. If you don't know what a cooler is, you'll soon find out. I got dealt Q-Q in the cutoff position (one before the dealer) and a mid-position player with about half my stack size raised. I re-raised which is pretty standard. He flat called and the flop came A-3-3. Blah, pretty ugly flop for me. He could easily have an A, obviously. He checks to me though, so I'm happy to check and see a free card. Just because he checked, I did not rule out the possibility of him having an A (like A-K or A-Q). The turn was a blank, say a 5. He checks to me again. Hmmmm ok, well at this point I'm happy just checking it down. He could have a hand like J-J and is also scared of the A. The river is a Q. I hit my gin card, and now certainly have the best hand. However, if he does have a hand like J-J I'm not going to extract any more chips from him. The only way is if he is holding an A and was slowplaying it. He checks to me again, so I have to bet to try extract some value from my hand. So I bet a small amount to try entice a call, and he raises...raises?! He flat calls pre-flop, checks the flop, checks the turn, then check-raises the river? The only 2 hands that beat me are A-A and 3-3. He doesn't have 3-3. I don't care how good you are, you can't put somebody on 4 of a kind and fold a full house, the odds of that happening are so small that it would just be silly. My first instinct was that he was just making a play at me, thinking I didn't have anything. I was just tickled to throw my entire pile at him....and he INSTA called me. When he called that fast, before his cards even turned I blurted out "darn" (or something less PG), and *drum roll*...he turns over AA. He slowplayed it the whole way, and it turned into a total cooler when I nailed the river. A cooler is when you lose with that hand that's impossible to get away from since it'll be the best hand, say, 97% of the time in that situation. Big hit to my stack but I'm still alive. Reflecting back on the hand, of course his checks make sense because with his hand and that flop he wasn't going to get much action unless I catch a piece on a later street (which I did, sigh). He could see 3 of the aces, so the chances of me also holding one were slim, and I obviously didn't have a 3. He played it well, he disguised the fact he had A-A by flat calling me pre-flop and not re-raising. Of course there is some risk involved in his play, but it can pay off big sometimes if you have the guts to do it.
My elimination hand I was dealt A-Q in early position. I raised and the player on the button, who was playing aggressively and had a MONSTER stack, re-raised me. I just figured he was being a bully so I re-raised all in. He snap called me with K-K and his hand held. A good percentage of the time my play is a profitable one, but I didn't think it completely through. With our stack sizes and the amount he already put in the pot, he was basically priced in to call me with whatever hand he hand, so even though my hand was fairly strong I'm taking a bit of a gamble knowing that he's going to call no matter what. It's called fold equity (having enough chips to make someone mathematically fold) and I didn't have it, but didn't think long enough to realize it. I'm still torn on the play, I think a good percentage of the time A-Q is ahead there since he'll be re-raising light with his big stack. It just deserved a bit more consideration at that stage of a big tournament.
The rest of the weekend was spent mountain biking, golfing, and playing guitar. The mountain bike trails were rather moist and I returned home covered in mud. Went out to Jumpingpound for an easy ride and got a bit more than I bargained for. The golf was good (except for the cold, wind, and rain), second round of the year and I hit the ball really good. I was 1 under through 7 holes but then my short game abandoned me and I made 6 bogeys stumbling in to shoot 77. Still an awesome day even though the score tailed off a bit. The guitar playing is slowly coming along. Still sounds like wounded puppies caught in a train wreck at times, but it's sounding more like music than it did 3 weeks ago when I first picked it up. Maybe I'll post a tune once I really master one...just to prove I've actually been practicing and not just carrying my guitar case around trying to impress chicks. Don't hold your breath though.
That's all for now, hopefully you've all been keeping fit and having fun.
Josh
Monday, May 30, 2011
U-Haulin' It, Workin' It, Lassoin' It
So last weekend (the long but still not long enough weekend) was card free. I flew into Kamloops Friday to visit my Mom who lives near Salmon Arm. We had a fun weekend, and being the good son that I am, I took full advantage of her generosity by leaving her fridge dry and empty. She recently moved, and I turned out to be the lucky recipient of some pimp new to me leather couches. I rented a U-Haul truck to make the trek back. I had no idea what I was in store for. Turns out these lean, mean, V8 powered, AM/FM radio equipped machines are quite the hit with the female variety. I was overwhelmed by enthusiastic waves from ladies while they pressed their chests up against the window and whizzed by me in the passing lane. Even this silver fox in a motor home pulling a Ford Taurus took a shining to my ride. She blew me a kiss and flashed her tan colored brassiere. I played it cool though. I just gave her the "hang loose" wave out the open window in my bright orange Ocean Pacific muscle-T with Classic Rock FM cranking.
The U-Haul adventure did not end on the #1, however. Along my journey Katy sent me a text and asked how the big bad U-Haul was treating me, so I told her about my encounters along the TransCanada. Obviously, she needed to see this magical unit for herself. Once I got the couches unloaded with Q's help, and took my now ex-futon over to his place I figured I should swing by Katy's. I crept up slowly (with my lights off, of course) to her front door as she came out to meet me, and she was obviously impressed. Not having the will power to resist, she jumped in the cab before I was even able to come to a stop. We proceeded to cruise the alleyways of Kensington, running over any curbs we felt were an inconvenience and slowly creeping up on unsuspecting pedestrians. It's surprisingly difficult to dodge potholes when navigating the big V8 down alleys. It's a good thing we weren't delivering chandeliers.
Apparently it was monsoon season in Calgary last week. I think we got approximately 17 feet of rain, give or take. I only rode the bike once, and despite it being great poker weather, only got in one session of cards. Made a decent run in a $109 turbo with about 160 people in it. Finished 6th for just over $700, which didn't actually put me up a whole bunch overall so it's hardly blog worthy. Figured I'd just toss it in there since I'm lacking stories of poker glory in this post.
This past weekend I took in 2 birthday celebrations. On Friday was Darcy's. She was a trooper, and even gave her best effort at a muff dive shot. Well, at least she thought it was a shot. The sly waitress decided to leave the shot out, and let her fish around for it when really she was just getting a face full of whip cream. Good times were had by all. Especially this fella, who appeared to be a very eligible bachelor and was certainly not scared to work it out there. I took video so us guys can take notes:
On Saturday was Jenn H's celebration which also proved to be a very good time. Hit up the Local 510 pub on 17th. Was a good turnout, the section Jenn had reserved for the party got swallowed up fairly quickly by mobs of people. After shutting the place down, we headed down 17th in search of some healthy eats. Since the lineups at Tubby Dog and The Poutinery were far too long for our stomachs to handle, we continued on to find some grade C pizza. Along the way, we discovered what appeared to be some long climbing straps laying bunched up on the sidewalk. Naturally we were all intrigued by this discovery, so we adopted them figuring they would come in handy somewhere along our journey. Sean discovered in the pizza place that they were best suited for a lasso. After futile attempts to lasso a bottle of hot sauce from the neighboring table, he took his skills to the street in an honest effort to lasso us some cabs. He was briefly distracted by a young girl running across the street, and attempted to lasso her as well. As Sean explained it this morning, her friends across the street noticed what was developing and yelled "don't you lasso her!" as the infamous Saltwater Cowboy twirled his lasso. His efforts eventually paid off, and he lassoed us all some cabs.
Needless to say, I was a bit groggy on Sunday after the two late nights. Around 3pm I entered a few poker tournaments but I felt about as sharp as playdough. I did not last very long in these tournaments, and did not enter any after that realizing my brain was clearly not functioning properly.
Till next time, keep fit and have fun! (Advice credit: Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod)
Josh
The U-Haul adventure did not end on the #1, however. Along my journey Katy sent me a text and asked how the big bad U-Haul was treating me, so I told her about my encounters along the TransCanada. Obviously, she needed to see this magical unit for herself. Once I got the couches unloaded with Q's help, and took my now ex-futon over to his place I figured I should swing by Katy's. I crept up slowly (with my lights off, of course) to her front door as she came out to meet me, and she was obviously impressed. Not having the will power to resist, she jumped in the cab before I was even able to come to a stop. We proceeded to cruise the alleyways of Kensington, running over any curbs we felt were an inconvenience and slowly creeping up on unsuspecting pedestrians. It's surprisingly difficult to dodge potholes when navigating the big V8 down alleys. It's a good thing we weren't delivering chandeliers.
Apparently it was monsoon season in Calgary last week. I think we got approximately 17 feet of rain, give or take. I only rode the bike once, and despite it being great poker weather, only got in one session of cards. Made a decent run in a $109 turbo with about 160 people in it. Finished 6th for just over $700, which didn't actually put me up a whole bunch overall so it's hardly blog worthy. Figured I'd just toss it in there since I'm lacking stories of poker glory in this post.
This past weekend I took in 2 birthday celebrations. On Friday was Darcy's. She was a trooper, and even gave her best effort at a muff dive shot. Well, at least she thought it was a shot. The sly waitress decided to leave the shot out, and let her fish around for it when really she was just getting a face full of whip cream. Good times were had by all. Especially this fella, who appeared to be a very eligible bachelor and was certainly not scared to work it out there. I took video so us guys can take notes:
On Saturday was Jenn H's celebration which also proved to be a very good time. Hit up the Local 510 pub on 17th. Was a good turnout, the section Jenn had reserved for the party got swallowed up fairly quickly by mobs of people. After shutting the place down, we headed down 17th in search of some healthy eats. Since the lineups at Tubby Dog and The Poutinery were far too long for our stomachs to handle, we continued on to find some grade C pizza. Along the way, we discovered what appeared to be some long climbing straps laying bunched up on the sidewalk. Naturally we were all intrigued by this discovery, so we adopted them figuring they would come in handy somewhere along our journey. Sean discovered in the pizza place that they were best suited for a lasso. After futile attempts to lasso a bottle of hot sauce from the neighboring table, he took his skills to the street in an honest effort to lasso us some cabs. He was briefly distracted by a young girl running across the street, and attempted to lasso her as well. As Sean explained it this morning, her friends across the street noticed what was developing and yelled "don't you lasso her!" as the infamous Saltwater Cowboy twirled his lasso. His efforts eventually paid off, and he lassoed us all some cabs.
Needless to say, I was a bit groggy on Sunday after the two late nights. Around 3pm I entered a few poker tournaments but I felt about as sharp as playdough. I did not last very long in these tournaments, and did not enter any after that realizing my brain was clearly not functioning properly.
Till next time, keep fit and have fun! (Advice credit: Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod)
Josh
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Cards and Chords
Oh hi again. So I haven't played too many sessions since my last post. Two, to be exact. Both on Sundays, and both relatively uneventful so this should be a quick update. I've continued some pretty good play since my last post. I was actually really pleased how I played this past Sunday despite it being a break even day. That's just how it goes sometimes, didn't quite catch the breaks to take anything really deep. I've only played in one SCOOP event ($215, $1M Gtd), just the timing of the schedule hasn't worked out for me. I was actually building a neat little stack in that event until I got it all in preflop with a maniac who overplayed JJ and sucked out on me, catching a J on the turn to beat my KK. That was about 3 hours into the tourney, and since the SCOOP tourney structure is suuuuuuuuper slow we were probably about 5 hours from the money still so it wasn't too devastating. It's kind of like getting home on a really hot summer day and pouring yourself that last glass of cold lemonade from the fridge, only to spill it all over the floor. Does that suck? Well, yes. However, life goes on and you can always make more lemonade.
In other news, I purchased a shiny new acoustic guitar on Saturday. Or as the 3 year old version of me would call it, a "rictar" (my Mom or Dad may need to confirm the exact spelling). Yeah, when I was around 3 years old I had a pretty bad ass yellow plastic rictar. I'm going to be honest with you, it was a total babe magnet. I even wrote a song. I would put bandaids on and sing my famous hit "I got a bleed" as I strummed away. So here we are, 24ish years later and I'm back at it. I'm a little rusty with the chords required to play "I got a bleed" , but I'm working hard at it. Should be a fun challenge and I'm looking forward to it.
Well that's all for now, thanks for stopping by!
Josh
In other news, I purchased a shiny new acoustic guitar on Saturday. Or as the 3 year old version of me would call it, a "rictar" (my Mom or Dad may need to confirm the exact spelling). Yeah, when I was around 3 years old I had a pretty bad ass yellow plastic rictar. I'm going to be honest with you, it was a total babe magnet. I even wrote a song. I would put bandaids on and sing my famous hit "I got a bleed" as I strummed away. So here we are, 24ish years later and I'm back at it. I'm a little rusty with the chords required to play "I got a bleed" , but I'm working hard at it. Should be a fun challenge and I'm looking forward to it.
Well that's all for now, thanks for stopping by!
Josh
Thursday, May 5, 2011
An Early Morning Tale
It was very, very early Thursday morning, around 1:00am. It was dark and quiet. I didn't have any pants on. The sound of my slowly increasing heartbeat echoing through my chest was the only thing keeping me awake. I wiped a small bead of sweat from my brow. Then it happened. I found myself at the final table of the $320 Wednesday 100K Gtd. It was at that point I realized my first ever 5 figure tournament cash was well within my grasp. Nine people remained. Third place and up was what it took to get there. By about 2:30am, I was eliminated in 3rd place, taking in 11.3K, a new personal best by nearly 4K. Oh hi. At that point, after 8 hours at work, almost 2 hours on the bike to and from work, a few chores, and then 8 hours of poker I was too tired to show any emotion. I got up from my desk about as quickly as an arthritic 80 year old, and plunked down on my bed. Somehow I woke up 4 hours later, before my alarm, and biked back to work.
This was a very encouraging result. Not because of the money, but because of the quality of players this tournament attracts and the way in which I played to get a 3rd place finish. With the higher buy-in, it attracts generally strong players with bigger bankrolls. The eventual winner, "rivermanl", is a highly respected online tournament player who has stood the test of time in the poker world. He was victorious for one reason, he was the most skilled and experienced player at the final table. Was that 2 reasons? Anyway, he is so difficult to play against, he is very aggressive and has a way of always putting your back against the wall and forcing tough decisions on you. I paid close to attention to his style, not only to help me play against him more effectively in the future, but also to learn. So congrats to him on another sick score (20K) and a very well played tournament.
I want to talk about one interesting hand mid-way through the tournament where I did something that I rarely do, put all my chips at risk on a pure bluff. For those who don't care, you can skip to the bottom :) A player in mid-position, who was fairly active, raised pre-flop. I was on the button with A7 suited. Now, this isn't a great starting hand to be calling raises with, but since he was an active player who I had position on (having position simply means you are last to act every round of betting) I decided to re-raise, and hopefully pick up the pot pre-flop. If he comes over the top of me, I have to fold. If he calls, at least I have position on him and can outplay him more easily. He flat calls. The flop comes K-K-3. Clearly I whiffed that flop, and have nothing. I'd say the chance my hand is stronger than his at this point is about 2%. He is first to act (since I'm on the button in position), and he checks to me. The tricky thing about his check is that he is probably checking that flop every time, no matter what he has. If he has a K, he might slow play it, if he has air (like I have) he'll likely check, or even a smaller pair, say TT is likely to check-call if I bet, and then re-evaluate on the turn. I decided to throw out a small feeler bet, about 1/3 of the pot which could easily rep a K in my hand, or another big pair since I took control of the pot by re-raising preflop and showing strength. He goes into his timebank for a while, then throws in a re-raise, a little under 3 times my bet. So now I go into my timebank and think about what he could possibly have. Clearly he has me beat, but the pot was growing and I figured it deserved some serious consideration. He could have a K, yes. Probably not AK as he probably would have come over the top of me pre-flop. KQ, KJ, KT, etc would be kind of weak to flat a re-raise with pre-flop and out of position and I didn't have him pegged as a weak player. It just didn't feel like he had a K, and was just trying to represent a K. I put him on a hand like AQ, or possibly a pair like TT. Both of which dominate me, but hands I don't think he can call with. I figured if I shoved all-in over his re-raise that he wouldn't be able to call me unless he had a K, which I didn't feel he had. So with a complete garbage hand and the courage to trust my instinct for my tournament life, I shoved all my chips in the middle. He went into his timebank....I'm waiting....waiting.....waiting....sweating....possibly even screaming "FOLD!".....and he eventually did. He types in the chatbox "nice hand, I folded JJ". I did not tell him what I had. That ended up being a pretty big pot for having absolutely nothing.
Well, next on the agenda is possibly some SCOOP events. Starts this Sunday, but I'll play it by ear. Was sure nice to kick that dirty MTT downswing I was on with a big showing in this event. Good timing with some big tournaments to come in May. A little extra confidence never hurts.
That is my story.
Josh
This was a very encouraging result. Not because of the money, but because of the quality of players this tournament attracts and the way in which I played to get a 3rd place finish. With the higher buy-in, it attracts generally strong players with bigger bankrolls. The eventual winner, "rivermanl", is a highly respected online tournament player who has stood the test of time in the poker world. He was victorious for one reason, he was the most skilled and experienced player at the final table. Was that 2 reasons? Anyway, he is so difficult to play against, he is very aggressive and has a way of always putting your back against the wall and forcing tough decisions on you. I paid close to attention to his style, not only to help me play against him more effectively in the future, but also to learn. So congrats to him on another sick score (20K) and a very well played tournament.
I want to talk about one interesting hand mid-way through the tournament where I did something that I rarely do, put all my chips at risk on a pure bluff. For those who don't care, you can skip to the bottom :) A player in mid-position, who was fairly active, raised pre-flop. I was on the button with A7 suited. Now, this isn't a great starting hand to be calling raises with, but since he was an active player who I had position on (having position simply means you are last to act every round of betting) I decided to re-raise, and hopefully pick up the pot pre-flop. If he comes over the top of me, I have to fold. If he calls, at least I have position on him and can outplay him more easily. He flat calls. The flop comes K-K-3. Clearly I whiffed that flop, and have nothing. I'd say the chance my hand is stronger than his at this point is about 2%. He is first to act (since I'm on the button in position), and he checks to me. The tricky thing about his check is that he is probably checking that flop every time, no matter what he has. If he has a K, he might slow play it, if he has air (like I have) he'll likely check, or even a smaller pair, say TT is likely to check-call if I bet, and then re-evaluate on the turn. I decided to throw out a small feeler bet, about 1/3 of the pot which could easily rep a K in my hand, or another big pair since I took control of the pot by re-raising preflop and showing strength. He goes into his timebank for a while, then throws in a re-raise, a little under 3 times my bet. So now I go into my timebank and think about what he could possibly have. Clearly he has me beat, but the pot was growing and I figured it deserved some serious consideration. He could have a K, yes. Probably not AK as he probably would have come over the top of me pre-flop. KQ, KJ, KT, etc would be kind of weak to flat a re-raise with pre-flop and out of position and I didn't have him pegged as a weak player. It just didn't feel like he had a K, and was just trying to represent a K. I put him on a hand like AQ, or possibly a pair like TT. Both of which dominate me, but hands I don't think he can call with. I figured if I shoved all-in over his re-raise that he wouldn't be able to call me unless he had a K, which I didn't feel he had. So with a complete garbage hand and the courage to trust my instinct for my tournament life, I shoved all my chips in the middle. He went into his timebank....I'm waiting....waiting.....waiting....sweating....possibly even screaming "FOLD!".....and he eventually did. He types in the chatbox "nice hand, I folded JJ". I did not tell him what I had. That ended up being a pretty big pot for having absolutely nothing.
Well, next on the agenda is possibly some SCOOP events. Starts this Sunday, but I'll play it by ear. Was sure nice to kick that dirty MTT downswing I was on with a big showing in this event. Good timing with some big tournaments to come in May. A little extra confidence never hurts.
That is my story.
Josh
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