I'm a card rack

The first Bodog Blogger tournament was last night. Only 12 runners. With the Bodog-supplied bonus, the top 8 got bonus tournament dollars, the top three also got money. Pretty good overlay.

I did my best impression of Astin, getting the right cards at the right time. I couldn't tell you how many times I called an all-in and it ended up being pair over pair, with mine being just a bit higher. And holding. It wasn't all gravy -- I recall one hand where I came out on the wrong end of full house over full house -- but it was way more positive than negative. I ended up taking down the whole thing, personally knocking out all but a two or three players.

The first half hour or so I felt really out of it and disoriented. It was partly that I haven't played much at Bodog and their layout is a bit different than most other places. But I also think my couple weeks wading ankle-deep in the shallow end of the Hold'em pool has not done anything positive for my tournament game.

I kept waiting for a hand where six people would all limp into the pot and then check it to the river. Yeah, right, in a blogger tournament.

It's a good thing I've played so many of these blogger things before so I could almost run on autopilot through the first hour. I think I did finally get in the swing of things after a while, though I never did feel really on my game.

I wish I could say I played a great game, outsmarting my opponents at every turn. But that would be intellectually dishonest. I made a few good plays, but 80% of what got me the win was pure luck with the cards.

Thanks to whoever it was organized this. Hopefully we can get more pimpage for next week and get a decent field for the start. The tournament is open to anyone who writes or reads a poker blog, so, if you're reading this, you're welcome to join in.

New Blogger Tourney

Bodog has apparently gotten on the blogger tournament bandwagon. They are now offering a blogger tournament on Tuesdays at 20:35 EDT with a $125 added bonus from Bodog.

I've played Bodog before and have one serious issue with their software. The text is too damn small! The layout is real sleek and sexy looking, but most of the onscreen writing is so small my old eyes can hardly read it. They keep sending me emails telling me I still have money there. Each time I open their client, check out a couple tables, and then notice I can't read half the screen.

I complained about this a long time ago and was told I was not the only one who had mentioned the problem. I just opened their client and it looks like maybe they've increased the font size a bit. I'll have to try playing a bit tonight and see how it goes.

Anyway, if you're interested in playing in this new blogger tournament, here's the info (blatantly stolen from Biggstron's blog):

Bodog is pleased to announce it’s first ever Poker Blogger Tournament with added prize money courtesy of Bodog.

As a poker blogger, I am delighted to extend this invitation to you to play in this tournament, taking place starting on August 28, 2007.

Bodog is adding a total of $125 in bonus money to the tournament. If you are one of the last 5 players to be eliminated prior to being paid out by the standard payout structure, you will get your buy-in returned by way of a $10 bonus. If you finish 2nd in the tournament you will receive a $25 bonus. And if you finish first, Bodog will give you a $50 bonus.

This is a limited invitation-only tournament so the field will be comprised only of other bloggers and their readers. It’s Bodog’s way of saying thank you for acknowledging your contribution to the great game of poker.

The tournament will run weekly on Tuesday evenings and will require a password for entry that all invited bloggers can promote within their community.

Details of tournament:

* Start date: Tuesday August 28, 2007
* Tournament Name: “Online Poker Blogger Tournament” at Bodog
* Entry Password: bodogblogger
* Buy-in + fee: $10 + $1
* Payout: Standard Bodog payout structure
* Bonuses:
o T$50 bonus paid to 1st place finisher.
o T$25 bonus paid to 2nd place finisher.
o T$10 bonus paid to the 5 players that are eliminated prior to payouts.
+ These bonuses will be awarded within 24hrs of the tournament completion.
+ T$ = Tournament Credits. These can be used as a buy in to almost all scheduled tournaments at Bodog and have a ratio to cash of 1:1.
+ T$ can also be combined with cash to buy in to tournaments.
* Day of week: Tuesdays
* Start time: 8:35pm ET

Bodog has committed to run this tournament every Tuesday through October 2nd. If participation warrant’s it, we’ll be able to keep it running and possibly increase the prizes and/or turn this into a poker league with an ongoing leader board!

The Weekend Quest

For the first time in eight months I had some rather serious trouble with my internet connection on Saturday. And, wouldn't you know it, I lost connection after betting pre-flop with pocket kings and pocket aces. It was like some cruel cosmic joke. And, of course, since these were no-all-in tables, I was folded out of both hands. Talk about your poker nightmares.

I was still able to turn a very small profit before giving up for the night.

My internet was out entirely during the early afternoon today, Sunday, so even if I'd been inclined to play the WPBT, I couldn't have anyway. It also dropped once again tonight. Fortunately, that was before I began playing.

I played for about an hour tonight without connection incident. Again I made just a small profit. It would have been more without a couple idiot suckouts. Oh, well.

The bankroll stands at $27.18. I may need to go back to multi-tabling. This is going too slow.

The Quest, Session 20

Played two not terribly long sessions tonight. Nothing really exciting to report. Aside from a net $0.75 loss with my two pairs of pocket aces, I didn't catch a whole lot in the way of cards. No big triple ups or anything exciting like that.

I do think I need to figure a way to start padding the bankroll faster because playing at this level is going to ruin me for "real" play. There are far too many people who see about 80% of the flops and refuse to fold even if they have no draw.

In one hand tonight the flop came AAA. It checked to me holding Kx so I put in a small bet. One guy calls, as I eventually find out, holding 82. 82. On a flop of AAA. It's one thing to think I might be bluffing, but what are you going to do with 82? He made no attempt to play back at me; just called and checked to the river. It's brilliant play like this that gives me the feeling I need to get out of this neighborhood.

A small net win tonight leaves the bankroll at $26.09. Still a long way before I can really afford to move up.

The Quest, Day 14

I'm having a small internal conflict on how to number my Quest entries. This is day 14 by the calendar, but I've only played on half those days. I'll figure something out. Maybe I'll just switch to sessions since the graphing program will count those for me automatically.

Today was a good day, at least so far. There's still time to play some more if I'm so inclined.

I've been getting a bit bored with playing just one table. I always seem to find a table with one or two people who aren't paying attention and always take near the full available time on every decision, regardless of how trivial. So today I decided to play two tables.

As tight as I normally play, you'd think there would be few times where I'd be in active hands on both tables, but it happened quite a lot. Maybe I'll get used to it eventually, but right now I can't see how some of these guys can play 8 or 10 tables of NL at once. Limit I can understand, but NL requires so much more refinement. Maybe these are the guys who are always holding up the action on my tables.

I got off to a good start on both tables. Then on the first I was dealt KK. I made a reasonable raise. One caller and one guy who pushes in for about $0.50 more. I called and the other guy called. The flop brought the card I least wanted to see -- an ace. I checked and the other guy still active pushed all-in for $0.65. I knew I was all but dead, but I couldn't bring myself to fold it. Stupid, stupid call. One of them had AQ and the other AK.

Not too much later I got KK again. UTG+1 had raised it to 2BB and there were two callers ahead of me, so I raised to 10BB. All three of them called. The flop came K55. Payday! I checked. Somebody made it $0.32. I called. One other guy called. The turn brought a third heart and I just prayed somebody had two hearts in the hole. Check, check, $0.50, call, call. The river was a blank. At this point I only had $0.34 left in my stack so I pushed it all in. Two callers. I tripled up. The table broke up a few hands later.

At the same time on the other table I was dealt AA. Again somebody makes a stupid min-raise and there are two callers ahead of me. I make it $0.18 to go and get two callers. The flop is 9 high with two clubs. I bet $0.42, one call, one push to $5.28. I was afraid this guy had flopped a set. I'd seen him make this same play once before when he had a set. But I made the call and so did the guy behind me. Turns out the pusher just had TP and the other guy had a flush draw. Neither improved and I took down a $8.47 pot. Pretty juicy for $0.01/$0.02. This table also broke a few hands later so I decided to call an end to the session. Only played for half an hour but it was my best session so far.

The bankroll is now at $25.51.

The Quest, Day 11

Lost most of a $2 buy-in when I pushed with Anna Kournikova against a guy who was raising almost every hand. He actually had a pocket pair and turned a set. Bad luck for me.

I bought in again on another table. There was one big hand early where I ended up with tens full and the other guy had a ten so he was willing to contribute heavily. It's always nice to take down a big pot early in a session.

The rest of the time on that table were small pots and a few steals. I walked away from that table up $2.15, making it +$0.15 on the night. The bankroll is now at $16.60.

I've put a graph of my progress off to the right on Blogspot. It's a small hassle updating it so I'm not sure if it will always be up to date. I'll try to keep it reasonably current.

Quest, Day 10

The quest suffered a minor setback tonight. I ran pocket queens into pocket kings and dropped a $2 buy-in. Fortunately, two other up sessions of $0.68 and $0.66 softened the blow somewhat. The first negative day, but those are bound to happen.

The bankroll currently stands at $16.45.

Quest, Day 9

Played for about 90 minutes tonight. I caught a couple big hands, in at least one case entirely due to an opponent laying a trap and getting snared in it himself, but mostly I got crap cards that were just slightly better than everyone else in the hand. Tonight was the karmic payback for all those nights when PokerStars seems to be dealing nothing but coolers. I couldn't count how many hands there were where five people stayed until the end and ALL missed the entire board. And nobody even took a stab at the pot. (I would have, but I discovered early that some of these guys would never fold.)

Finished the night up $1.03, bringing the bankroll to $17.11. The play tonight was a bit more like what I've always expected at the very lowest rung of the NL ladder.

I recently started watching some Ed Miller videos on limit Hold'em. In one of the sessions he brings up what should be an obvious point but is often overlooked, especially by me -- don't expect your opponents to play the same way you do. There are many ways to be successful at Hold'em (and many more ways not to), so even if you and Phil Hellmuth are peas in a pod, it is still possible for someone to play almost exactly opposite and make a profit.

Tonight I sat with a number of people who played not remotely like I do. A couple were seeing close to 90% of the flops. Some refused to fold if they caught even the tiniest piece of the board or had a little pocket pair, regardless of there being obvious straights, flushes, and far higher pairs quite likely. People with hands I would have recognized as highly likely to be in the lead all the way would check it all the way down. It was very confusing and more than a little unsettling.

I'm a bit concerned this may be teaching me some bad habits. OTOH, each table seems different and I've been adjusting my play to fit the situation. Tonight, for instance, I quickly realized I needed a winning hand to go up against one of the other players because he refused to fold. It didn't always take much, but I knew I couldn't bluff my way to victory with him. So I could either come out of this a far more flexible player, or I could almost completely ruin my game.

Quick Quest Update

I moved The Quest to PokerStars tonight because they offer nano-NL. They also don't double the rake for the players in the shallow end of the pool like Full Tilt does. PokerStars takes $0.05 out of each $1 in the pot. Full Tilt takes $0.05 out of every $0.50 in the pot. I realize this is still pretty cheap entertainment, but it doesn't seem entirely right that those at the low end, who can least afford it (unless they're donks like me on some odd quest), pay 10% and those at the high end pay no more than 1%. Okay, that's my rant for the day.

I played $0.01/$0.02 6-max for about half an hour. The max buy-in is $5, but I figured with my $15 bankroll I'd do better buying in for $2.

I learned something surprising and totally unexpected tonight. It turns out the players at $0.01/$0.02 aren't all that good. Who knew? It wasn't the complete donkfest I was expecting. Very few crazy all-in pushes with junk. It was mostly people seriously overplaying their hands -- kind of like me playing limit.

It didn't hurt that I went on a mini-rush when I sat down. AA, KT that flopped trips, and A9 that won pre-flop with a small raise. With that nice 25% bump to the stack I just played it pretty tight from there on. Stole a few obviously orphaned pots, but nothing else all that risky.

Walked away with $2.98. For those keeping score, this brings the bankroll to a giant $16.08. I only wish my complete bankroll was getting that kind of ROI.

Quest Update

My big poker quest has not progressed markedly in the last week. I've been spending more time losing money at limit in my quest for Full Tilt Strawman status. I find limit extraordinarily frustrating. It seems the only way I've had any success at all is to play fairly passively and run away at the least sign of trouble unless I have the nuts.

I'm also noticing that my time at the NL ring tables and in NL tournaments has affected my limit game. Not so much in the way I play my hand, but in the way I perceive others playing theirs. After playing so much NL, I find I have a far greater tendency to think people are bluffing. In NL this is always a concern. In limit, at least for most players who are playing within reason, say VP$IP < 30%, bluffing is the rare exception, not the rule. I don't know how many times I've put in two or three big bets knowing full well the other guy caught his straight or flush, but being unwilling to accept it. Those single bets just don't seem big enough to chase me out after being conditioned to pot-sized bets in NL.

I'm going to push on with my Strawman quest this month. I just hope I don't deplete my bankroll before I make it.

On my other quest, to turn $5 into $5,000 at the NL ring tables, yesterday was the first time I've played in the last week. I caught a couple decent hands and managed to avoid falling into any traps. I was up $5.70 for the abbreviated session. This brings my bankroll to a whopping $15.10.

I've been thinking about moving my quest to PokerStars because they have the nano-tables where $15 is a lot closer to a reasonable bankroll (though still on the light side).

What is your favorite color?

A friend and I were discussing that freeroll tournament I posted about a week or so ago. As I did during my semi-live blogging, I was complaining about the minuscule prizes available. He replied that it was all for fun anyway, so what difference did it make.

I've been thinking about that, and have to admit that while I once kicked ass at the limit tables, something changed about two years ago and I've done nothing but lose at limit since then. More recently I've been playing close to even, but certainly not picking off fish like I once did. Exploration of the reasons for this change would probably fill many blog entries, so I'm just going to state it as a fact here and move on.

As has been discussed in many blogs of late, thanks to Miami Don bringing it up, the odds of making big money playing tournaments are very questionable. I said to one of my co-workers a while back, tournaments are like lotto where skill can get you a few extra tickets. (I read somewhere recently that Barry Greenstein stole that from me. Last time I pass my pearls of wisdom along to Barry.)

So that leaves NL ring. I am slowly coming to the realization that I may not have the cojones to play NL ring at the level required to make really good money at it. I am not a huge risk taker. One of the guys I work with went sky diving a few months back. He emailed everyone video of he and his wife jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. To me, that's borderline insanity. I clearly don't have the danger gene.

NL Hold'em at the level required to make real money still strikes me as very dangerous. Maybe I'll get used to it eventually, but, at the moment, I just can't bring myself to buy in for more than about $100, and even that makes me very nervous.

So, where does all this lead? It leads to the realization that if I'm not playing poker strictly for the fun of it, I'm deluding myself.

At least for the near future, I'm setting aside concerns about seriously growing my bankroll -- which is probably for the best since it hasn't moved significantly in a positive direction in longer than I can remember -- and going on a quest to have fun with poker. I've decided this quest shall be one of those rags to riches chases, and have therefore begun a seriously under-funded attempt to turn $5 into $5,000.

Okay, this maybe sounds like an attempt to do exactly what I just said I wasn't going to do -- grow my bankroll. I suppose it is, but that isn't the point of the quest. The point is to see if I can do it and how long it takes.

I've started with $5 at the $0.05/$0.10 NL tables. As I said, this was a seriously under-funded beginning. My first session made it look like it would be easy. I more than doubled up in no time. But then I took some bad beats and got stung by some idiots drawing against all logic and the odds at inside straights and hitting them at the river.

After five sessions I've grown my original $5 to $9.40. If I can double that up five more times I'll have enough bankroll to safely play at this level. Wish me luck. I'll post updates as the quest unfolds.

I'm also thinking of trying the Ironman thing at Full Tilt. I've meant to do it before but always forgot about it until the month was half over. This time I got started early, so I may make it. The only problem is that I can't multi-table NL very well, so I tend to play limit when doing point chases. I don't know if I can survive a whole month of playing a couple hours of limit almost every night. I'm not sure my bankroll can survive it. (The "quest" bankroll is virtual. I have a bit more than $9.40 in my Full Tilt account.)

NETeller came through!

I checked my bank account this morning and my NETeller withdrawal has already been processed and the money is in my account. I must have been at the head of the line.

I hope the rest of you have as much luck with this.