Back in the game

Despite the lack of recent posts here, I have actually been playing more poker lately. Full Tilt offered a "Take 2" bonus this month of which I took advantage. You had to play two or more tables simultaneously and earn at least one FT point between the two tables. You got bonus money at various intervals, up to a total of $50 for 25 days of play. I played PLO exclusively and collected the last of the $50 Monday night.

Aside from the bonus, the PLO was also reasonably profitable. I actually didn't track the money that closely, but I think I must have won at least as much in play as I gained from the bonus. Given my bonus chasing performance over the last few years this was a marked improvement.

Last night I decided to rejoin The Quest by getting back into the DoNTs at Stars. It was only one tournament, but based on a sample size of one, it seems my previous observations about these tournaments getting a lot tighter are still holding true. That's what I get for posting a bunch of lessons on how to play these.

I had some strong hands early and got up a good amount. Later on I got into a coin flip for most of my chips with my TT versus two big cards. My tens held and I could have coasted from there. I didn't, but I could have. I did end up winning. All in all, a nice return to The Quest.

The bankroll is up to $205. Hopefully I'll retain my interest for a while this time.

Five years ago today...

Five years ago today a guy who thought he knew how to play poker decided to take a chance on this online poker thing. Pacific Poker was the place. It was chosen because it was where his buddy George played online.

He started playing limit hold'em at a level that was way beyond his bankroll, or at least the amount deposited. And he got lucky. It didn't hurt that Pacific Poker was widely regarded as the site with the worst poker players online. That small initial deposit grew.

Within a fairly short period he began to realize how little he actually knew about the game, despite nearly a lifetime of playing poker at almost every opportunity. Books were ordered and studied. Shortly the initial bankroll had multiplied several times and the confines of Pacific Poker, rich though they were, began to feel limiting.

If memory serves, Poker Room was the next stop, along with a very nice first deposit bonus. Bonus? "Oh, yeah, this is sweet. All I have to do is be reasonably competent and do what I'd be doing anyway, and this site gives me money to do it."

It was about this time that everybody and their maiden aunts thought they could run a poker site, and they were happy to throw money away trying to build a base of players. The Cryptos were particularly sweet, most of them offering regular monthly bonuses just for playing. No special deposit required. And the tables were loaded with drunken Europeans playing way over their limit. The GBP tables were the sweetest. Must have been due to the pubs closing early or something.

Eventually the Poker Room network opened up and some extremely lucrative bonuses appeared. Ah, those were the good old days. Four-tabling $2/$4 limit. Watching the bonus money pile up. Cha-ching.

Never happy with the status quo, the Cryptos started offering micro-limit tables and the action at $1/$2 and above completely dried up. The bonus became very difficult to clear. Eventually it seemed hardly worth the effort.

At some point along the way, the siren call of tournament poker became too attractive to ignore. Bye-bye, limit. Hello, NLHE. Tournaments, tournaments, and more tournaments. The Wil Wheaton-hosted WWDN became a regular weekly stop. Then more blogger tournaments started to appear. If you go back and read the first entry on this blog you'll see it was started just to fulfill a requirement for entry to a blogger tournament.

Then came the day the poker died. Well, almost. I'll leave you to fill in your own Pythonesque skit here. The UIGEA was signed into law. It has so far turned out to be more nuisance than actual death, but it has definitely put a damper on things.

Like most episodes of looking back, it simultaneously seems like just yesterday and a long, long time ago that I sat down at the first virtual poker table. I played for at least an hour pretty much every day for the first couple years. I've been more on-and-off with it over the last three. I'll play regularly for three or four months, then I'll kind of lose interest and let it sit idle for a while.

This year has seen me go through a number of pretty major life changes. I've had three mailing addresses -- one on each of the coasts and one pretty much in the middle. I'm recently coming out of another hiatus that was due mostly to one of those real life changes. Things are settling into a regular pattern again and I find myself catching hints of that siren call just at the limits of my hearing.

I've been playing a bit of PLO the last couple weeks. It seems to be about where hold'em was five years ago -- full of players who have barely a clue what they're doing. You could fit my knowledge of PLO in a thimble and have plenty of room left over, but it's still a lot more knowledge than many of the players I've seen online. Of course, I'm still wading in the kiddie pool. Fun thing is, you can make some real money in the kiddie pool.

The last five years have not always been the greatest in my real life, but the poker has been fun. I've learned tons, made quite a few friends I've never met, and turned a pretty decent profit.

Something I never expected when I threw myself at poker was how much I'd learn about real life from playing a game. Poker has brought me patience I never had before. It has taught me that slim odds are not the same as no odds. One-outers do hit, seemingly far more often than the odds would suggest. It has taught me that the proper answer to almost any question is -- it depends.

I hope by the time I write my tenth anniversary post that the US government will have stopped wearing its ass for a hat and online poker will be legal in all states. I hope it will be regulated by some recognized, impartial party and this will give the average Joe faith that the game is honest and his money is safe (at least when it's not in the pot). I don't give this outcome great odds, but it wouldn't be the first time I've hit a two-outer at the river.

Suckout City

I just finished a DoNT that had to have a higher concentration of suckouts and re-sucks than any tournament I've ever played. It was both amazing and rather disgusting at the same time.

I played my normal ultra-tight game until blinds got to 100/200/20 and I had blinded down to 1280. (I had taken a couple very small pots prior to this.) I get AJo UTG. We're down to seven players. I figure a push is the only reasonable action here. I get one caller who turns over AQo. I'm already packing up my stuff and heading for the exit. That is until I flop Broadway. No jack comes to save the other guy. I double up and he's down to crumbs.

Two hands later it folds to me in the SB holding KJo. I'd like to see a flop so I call. The BB, who has about 1000 more than me, makes it 600 to go. There are four players with stacks less than half the size of mine and only two more eliminations, so making a strategic withdrawal is the only reasonable course of action here. I go to click on the fold button but somehow hit the call button instead. I guess even your button clicking skills suffer if you don't play every day.

Figuring I've just thrown away 400 chips, I'm shocked to see a flop of KJ8, rainbow. This is a hand that demands to be slowplayed, so I check. The BB pushes all-in. I probably should have folded, but I just couldn't see him having trips. I called all-in. He turns over AA and I'm already counting my chips. Then disaster strikes. The turn is an 8. I can't believe it. Again I'm packing up and heading for the rail.

Not so fast. The suckouts aren't over yet. The river brings a K and I re-suck to take it down. I'm now the BIG stack by over 1500.

A couple hands later the guy who had the aces pushes all-in with 99 and gets a call from another smaller stack holding KJo. The flop is TT9, handing a boat to the guy I almost knocked out. The other guy fills his straight on the river, but it's not enough.

A few hands later, one of the smaller stacks raises with K2s and gets a call from the BB. When the flop brings a K, the K2 guy pushes in. The BB calls and turns over KQs. Of course, the river brings a 2 and another suckout keeps the tournament from ending.

There's maybe ten hands with a bit of blind stealing and not much other action. Then somebody is forced all-in in the SB. I call from the cutoff with AQo. We don't see the cards at the time because not everyone was all-in, but the SB has K6o. The flop brings KK9, with the turn filling his boat with a 6. When the river brings a 9 I figure I'm going to take it with kings and nines, ace kicker, but noooooooo...

A few hands later a couple of the smaller stacks push all-in. One has AJs, the smaller stack has A3s. This should be the last hand. But wait, there's more. The flop is 337. We're not done yet.

A couple hands later I'm in the SB with Q7o. The BB has only 180 left after posting the blind. I call, hoping he has less than an average hand. He does, but that doesn't matter when the flop brings him trips. At least it only cost me another 180.

Next hand we get another all-in from a small stack and a call from somebody with only 185 more. TT vs 44, with the bigger stack having the tens. Again, this should be the last hand. Nope. The guy with fours hits his two-outer on the river.

Finally, we get to the final hand. The loser from the last hand is all-in in the SB. Big stack to my right calls. I've got KK so of course I call. BB checks his option. We check it down, my kings prevail, and it's finally over.

Maybe it wasn't the most suckouts ever, but it sure seemed like a lot of them in pretty short order.

Luckiest I've ever seen

I played a DoNT last night and watched as one of the other players combined incredibly poor judgment with unbelievable luck, the likes of which has not been seen since Danny Nguyen took down the Bay 101. I don't ordinarily like to put up lots of screen shots, but this is a special event well worth the trouble and the download time. If I were the paranoid sort I'd say the fix was in for this guy.

In the screen captures that follow, I've redacted the player names to protect the innocent. I'm in seat one. The luckbox of the night is in seat 6. I'm sure you'd have figured that out after the first hand.

Here's hand #1.



This makes perfect sense, right? I mean, seriously, who wouldn't limp from MP with 93o. You'd have to be crazy not to want to get into the action with a monster like that.



To get things going in the right direction, he connects just a little bit with the board.

I show hand #2 here, not as an illustration of luck, but just to give you a sense of the masterful grasp of tournament Hold'em possessed by our anti-hero.



What I missed in the screen capture here is that he did a min-raise with Q3s. The guy with A6o who called the min-raise isn't any smarter, so this should be a fun hand.



We see here that not all the luck ran toward seat 6. The truly amazing thing here is that A6o bet 40 on the flop and 40 again on the turn, each time getting a call from Q3s. On the river A6o bet 100 and got a call. The luckbox apparently felt his Q was good. Or this is really Dennis Rodman. (That's a Celebrity Poker joke, just in case you missed it.)

On to hand #3.



If you can raise with Q3 sooted from UTG+1, it seems only reasonable to call UTG with T9o. The poker gods, of course, clearly favor fools. Wait for it...



Another slight connection with the board. Let's do a quick recap. Three hands. Calls or raises with total trash on all three. Result -- four of a kind, a full house, and one small loss. And we're just getting started.

There's no screen cap of hand #4. Our anti-hero called all the way to the river and then mucked his hand. There was an ace and two kings on the board, so I'm figuring he had a powerhouse like 84o.

Hand #5.



An actual solid starting hand for our luckbox. This doesn't bode well. And it turns out not. Seat #5 pushes all-in on the flop and ends up with two pair. At least the other two in the hand just checked it down after they both completely missed the board.

Hand #6 was rather uneventful. Five to the flop. Check around. Check around again on the turn. Check to our man on the button who puts in a bigger than pot sized bet with four hearts on the board. Everybody folds.

Hand #7 was one of my few decent hands. I had AA and raised to 90. Three callers. The flop was J-high with two diamonds. I bet 330 into a 405 pot. One call from the luckbox. The turn brought my third ace and he finally folded to my bet of about half the pot. I was half hoping he would call.

Hand #8.



As should come as no surprise by now, our guy calls with junk.



And as should come as little further surprise, he connects. What I totally don't get is that he checks here. I realize trying to get inside this guy's head is likely to lead to the same experience Jennifer Lopez's character had in The Cell, but I still can't help trying. Does he not think top pair is likely good here? Is he slow playing? Is he really Dennis Rodman and actually has no idea what the little symbols on the cards mean?

It gets checked all the way down and the luckbox takes it.

Hand #9.



Four players see a flop of K22 with two spades. The cutoff bets 150. In what seemed to be a good move at the time, I called hoping to fill my flush, which would have lead to tragedy. Of course, the luckbox still has two cards, so he calls.

The turn brings an ace and it checks around.



As you can see, the river fills the cutoff's boat. He bets 150. I fold. The luckbox -- I swear he can't have any clue what the little symbols mean -- calls. Seriously, how could you possibly call with J6o on that board? This is why I'm writing this up. The obvious luck involved in this guy lasting more than a couple hands is very rare.

Hand #10. Hold on to your hats. This one's a real doozy.



The luckbox actually has a so-so hand this time. Can't fault him for limping. Well, some might argue he should have raised. With the way his luck is running, he's probably a fool for not raising. OTOH, he clearly plays better with junk. Anyway, five players see the flop.



Of course, our guy catches a piece. It checks to the cutoff who makes a pot sized bet. I'm guessing he has a queen and is trying to get rid of any flush draws. Silly wabbit. Hasn't he figured out there's no scaring away the luckbox?

Two folds, two calls. Given how hard I've been on the luckbox, I need to point out seat #8 makes a very stupid call here. At best he's got 7 outs. That makes him about 15% to catch his card on the turn and he's only getting 3:1 from the pot. Dumb call.



You saw this coming, didn't you? The luckbox bets 200 and it gets called around. Seat #8 is getting 9:1 from the pot this time so his call isn't quite so bad, though only if you figure his ace might still be good. Which it isn't.



The river doesn't help the luckbox or seat #8 and seems unlikely to have helped the cutoff. Things get really strange here. The luckbox puts out a miniscule bet of 50. It's a ridiculous bet, but what else can we expect? I can only guess that seat #8 thinks his bluff raise to 200 is going to move everyone else off this pot. Not likely.



The cutoff calls the bluff raise. We now discover that apparently the luckbox really can read the cards. He makes a teaser raise of 150. Seat #8 continues his folly of half-assed bluffs, this time making it 600 to go. It's unlikely he was ever going to succeed with this bluff, but if he had any chance at all he had to put some real conviction into it. Adding 250 on top of what's already gone into the pot isn't going to scare everyone away.

The cutoff finally realizes his queens aren't any good and he folds. The luckbox calls.

Hand #11.



The luckbox has two cards, so he calls. The flop doesn't help anyone so it checks around. The luckbox catches a card on the turn, but either doesn't read his hand right or is afraid someone is being very passive.



The river, naturally, fills his flush and he calls the weak bet from seat #5.

Hand #12 was taken down by the luckbox with an almost pot sized bet on the turn.

Hand #13.



The luckbox gets two cards, and they're sooted, so it's clearly time for a raise. The flop gives seat #5 top pair. Since we need a microscope to find his stack, he pushes. The luckbox, with no hand and no draw, naturally makes the call.



Words fail me here. Perhaps we should all just take a moment and contemplate in silence the awesome power of dumb, idiotic, borderline moronic luck.

Hand #14.



Seat #9, holding AQo, quite properly puts in a raise. I would have pushed right off the bat here considering his stack size, but I guess he was trying to be cautious. The luckbox is holding two cards so he calls.



The luck gets reversed in this hand. Our guy catches a piece of the flop and it completely misses seat #8. Nevertheless, he decides this is a good time to push it all in. As I said, this move would have made a lot more sense before the flop. Now it's kind of stupid. The luckbox has already checked so seat #8 could have seen the turn for free. But he pushes. Of course, our guy has bottom pair so he's not going to be deterred by a pot sized all-in.

Seat #8 lucks out and catches a queen on the river to double up.

Hand #15. Seat #3 and seat #10 both push all-in. Seat #10 takes it with a better kicker and seat #3 is down to crumbs.

Hand #16.



Luckbox has two cards, so he calls. Honestly, the way things are going for him I can't say as I blame him. I'd probably be calling with any two as well.



Luckbox again catches on the flop, but doesn't pursue it. They both check it all the way.

Hand #17.



Seat #3 pushes his crumbs into the pot. Seat #4 and the luckbox call, the BB checks.



The luckbox catches a T on the flop and everybody checks it down. Luckbox wins again. Seat #3 hits the rails.

Hand #18.



This one is somewhat uneventful. Luckbox calls with 83o. Who can blame him?



The flop brings seat #10 and I two pair. It checks to the river. Seat #10 puts in a min-bet. I call. Of course the luckbox, with an 8 high, calls. I think a chimpanzee is playing that seat. Seat #10 and I split the pot.

Hand #19, the luckbox raises pre-flop and everyone folds.

Hand #20.



The luckbox and seat #4 go to the turn. Luckbox bets, seat #4 folds. Yawn.

On hand #21 something remarkable happened. The luckbox folded to an all-in from seat #10. Somebody alert the media!

Hand #22.



Seat #8, UTG, pushes all-in for 545. Seat #10 and the luckbox call.



Seat #8 and the luckbox catch the same straight on the turn. Luckbox bets, seat #10 folds. Luckbox and seat #8 split.

Hand #23.



The luckbox, holding the never-to-be-fooled-with 53o, calls from the button. Who wouldn't? It checks all the way to the river.



Who could have possibly doubted? The luckbox bets 200 and seat #8 calls. Stupid call, especially with so few chips left.

Hand #24 is a huge surprise. The luckbox calls an all-in from seat #8 with the luckbox holding the Brunson and the luckbox loses! What is this tournament coming to?

Hand #25 we get back on track. Luckbox call an all-in from seat #4, this time holding A6s. Seat #4 was clearly desperate because he pushed with 98o. The luckbox catches a pair and seat #4 can't quite make his straight.

Hand #26.



This time I wake up with a playable hand. The luckbox calls with two cards and seat #10 calls.



I catch TPTK on the flop and bet a bit over half the pot. The luckbox still has two cards, so he calls. Seat #10 folds.



The turn brings both straight and flush possibilities. I check, knowing that if there's any way I can be beat, I probably am against this opponent. The luckbox checks. This could mean absolutely anything.

The river doesn't improve my hand so I check again. So does the luckbox. Seeing the cards it's obvious I should have bet, particularly since he was almost certain to have called. I take a pot that almost assures victory in this one.

The final hand.



The luckbox actually gets decent cards and limps in. Seat #10 violates a couple basic rules (don't risk chips when you don't need to and don't ever go all-in against the luckbox) and pushes all-in with 99. Seat #2, down to the felt, decides this is as good a time as any to go home and calls all-in. Naturally, the luckbox calls. Three to the flop.



You just knew that was coming, didn't you? Really, what other cards possibly could have fallen. Okay, they could have all been hearts. Short of that, though, this is the only possible outcome with the luckbox in the hand.



And the magic is finally over. This last hand is one of the few I think he actually played right. Maybe he was just trying to get into the groove.

Let's recap. Twenty-seven hands played. The luckbox bumbles his way to 15 wins and one split. In some ways I suppose the real miracle here is that he didn't piss away his chips on the other ten hands he played to the showdown.

If it wasn't for a few incredibly stupid calls, I'd have to suspect this guy could see not only the other players' cards but the cards that were yet to fall on the board. Maybe he could and the dumb plays were just his way of providing cover. Okay, not likely at a $5 DoN. Still, this is one of the most amazing runs of dumb luck having out over incredibly stupid play I've ever seen. And I've been playing poker a LONG time.

Another milestone

The Quest has passed another small milestone. The bankroll is now over $200. It's been quite a while since I started with that measly $5. The most notable jump has been since Christmas when I first started playing the Double-or-Nothing tournaments. Those have been incredibly lucrative, growing the bankroll by 66% in under two months. And that includes a couple weeks when I didn't play at all due to travel and lack of an Internet connection. (Which is also why I haven't been posting regular blog entries.)

Despite a few recent losses, my ROI on these is still over 21%. I'm not sure if that's really good or not, but I'm thinking about asking my financial advisor if DoN tournaments are an allowable investment for my IRA.

The competition at these, even in the shallow end where I'm playing, definitely seems to have tightened up recently. I'm seeing lots of players with VP$IP's under 20%. I suspect it's even worse as you move up the ladder.

I played one tournament today where I got absolute crap cards. The most playable hand I got was KQo, but somebody put in a big raise before it got to me and folding seemed the proper move. When I finally got an ace, I was in the SB and it folded to me. I had already blinded down to the point where I needed to make a move and this seemed as good a time as any. I pushed and, wouldn't you know it, the BB has pocket jacks. I make it all the way to 75/150 blinds, play one single hand the whole time, and run into a pocket pair. So it goes...

The other two I've played so far today went much better. I squeaked by in one and dominated the last half of the other. Somewhat surprisingly, or maybe not considering how things have tightened up, the last hand in the latter was played very well by one of the other players. The shortie pushes all-in for just a bit over 2BB. I call with something like K7o. (The shortie was UTG, so he could be moving with any two cards here.) One other bigger stack calls. We check it all the way down. The other big stack had QQ the whole way. Didn't raise pre-flop, didn't raise after the flop despite his queens being an overpair the whole way. It's refreshing to see it played correctly.

Double-Up Getting Tougher?

If poker has taught me anything, it's that one shouldn't attempt to draw larger conclusions from a small set of occurrences. It's one of the fallacies that allows the sharks to feed off the fishes.

That said, I'm starting to wonder if the sharks aren't beginning to swarm in the Double-Up pool. Until the last couple days most of the Double-Ups I've played have been heavily populated with players who clearly didn't have a clue about proper strategy.

Some of the ones I've played recently, though, have had a majority of players who weren't idiots. Play even in the turbos has dragged on for quite a while, with pressure being applied all around.

I'm playing one right now where the VP$IPs of the last six players are 14%, 4%, 12%, 7%, 18%, and the high of 32%. That's after 60 hands. These all appear to be decent players who know what they're doing in this situation. No rash moves. No panic from the small stacks. It's kind of scary.

I'm dearly hoping this is just a blip and not indication of a larger trend. These have been quite profitable for me.

In case you're wondering, the one I was playing finally ended. The guy with the VP$IP of 32% made a stupid move on the last hand, raising a dry pot on the river when one player was already all-in, but it turned out okay. He won the hand and I added another big $4.80 to my bankroll.

Addendum: I just played another one that went longer than any of the turbo Double-Ups I've played. The play was very, very tight, but a couple of these guys still didn't have a clue about strategy. Three times there was a player who had crumbs left after posting the blinds and this one bigger stack raised pre-flop. He raised! I couldn't believe it. One player left to eliminate. One player who is clearly going all-in for just a bit more than the BB. And this moron raises and shuts everyone else out of the pot. I was screaming at the screen.

There were a couple other times where there were obvious calls to be made and people folded. I recall one where the SB had about 200 more than the BB. (The amount, not the player.) I had a lot of chips so I called from the button knowing he'd push and the BB (the player, not the amount) would call. He pushed, then the BB folds. He's already in for 800 and he folds for 200 more. Oh, well. They may be tight players, but they clearly don't know beans about proper strategy.

Double-Up Object Lesson

Today I'm going to yet again ram home the point made in Secret #1a. Don't risk chips when there's nothing to gain. This happened on the last hand of a tournament I just finished.

Here's the scenario. Six players left. Blinds are 125/250/25. The SB has 180 left after posting the blind. Proceeding to the left, the BB has 6235, UTG has 1960, I'm UTG+1 with 3140, the cutoff has 1580, and the button has 1380. If you've been reading this series, you know I consider this to be the entire table vs the SB.

UTG folds. I've got AJo. I wanted to force the SB all-in, so I made a min-raise to 500. In hindsight, I should have just called. The raise was more likely to scare him away. Here's where the larger mistake occurred. The cutoff raises to 1000, leaving 580 behind. Huh? The whole point here was to get the SB to push in with his last chips. Okay, again, I should have just called, but this guy has now compounded my error and clearly violated Secret #1a. All he has to do is stay alive a few more hands, one round at most, and he's in the money. But now he's trying to add chips for no good reason. And he's made it clear to the SB that unless he's holding AA, his correct move is to fold.

Of course, it folds around to me. The correct action would have been for me to fold. But I knew the SB was about 95% to go out in the next couple hands and even if I went all-in against this guy and lost, I'd still have enough chips to survive. And I wanted an opportunity to punish this guy for his stupidity improper play. I know that probably sounds horrible, but his action annoyed the hell out of me. Plus, I could always end it on this hand. I call.

The flop comes AT7 with two spades. I check, knowing the other guy is going to push in and that I'm going to make the call, hoping he doesn't have me outkicked. Naturally, he pushes, which turns out to be an even dumber less optimal move than his pre-flop raise. I call. He turns over KK. The turn and river bring him no salvation.

I know it's hard not to take aggressive action with KK, but you still have to take the overall situation into account. If he'd just called pre-flop I wouldn't be writing this. Absolutely couldn't fault him for that. If he'd checked it down I wouldn't be writing this. He'd have still lost, but he'd be left with enough chips that he might outlast the SB. Re-raising pre-flop was risking chips he didn't need to and pushing all-in with an ace on the board is risking the whole tournament for unneeded chips. And he paid the price.

One can only hope the guy with KK learned something here.

Thus ends today's object lesson.