Double or Nothing

PokerStars has started a new type of SnG tournament they call "Double or Nothing". From what I can see on the games list these are all single table, 10-player affairs. Half the field doubles up, half hits the rail with nothing. They play, or at least should play, much like the ticket tournaments where the top X players all get the same prize. Except in these you only have to beat half the field.

I've played three of these at the $5 level and have cashed in all of them. They may play differently at the higher entry fee ones, but in the ones I've played I'm pretty sure you could practically fold your way to the money. Certainly playing nothing but premium hands until forced by stack size to do otherwise would appear a solid strategy.

While these are still young and many players are figuring out the proper strategy, I think I'm going to hit them up big time. The turbo ones play out very quickly. Neither of the ones I played lasted much more than 30 minutes. $5 profit in half an hour is better than I usually do at the $0.05 NL tables.

There are some frustrating moments, such as in the last hand of the last one I played. On the bubble, one player was down to less than 1BB and clearly had to just pick a hand and pray. He did, and three others called to see the flop. Since we're on the bubble and all but one win the same amount with the next elimination, the clearly correct strategy here is for everyone to check it down and hope one of us has a better hand than the guy who's all-in. I caught a small piece of the raggedy flop and checked like I should. But Mr. Big Stack figured this would be a great time to push in his huge stack. Idiot. He had top pair, but the short stack had a pocket pair. The all-in forced the other two of us out of the pot. Had I stayed I would have caught queens up and taken the pot. Luckily, the short stack's pocket pair was very small and the pair of sevens Mr. Big Stack caught on the flop took it down. The proper play here -- to check it all the way down -- seems so obvious to me I'm shocked when other players apparently don't see it.

Since I last wrote here I had another of those horrible sessions where I kept getting good cards that came in second. Very frustrating. I had one pretty decent session where I won almost two buy-ins. It didn't quite make up for the big loss, but at least I felt better.

With the help of the Double or Nothing SnGs the Quest bankroll has hit a new high of $131.06. As time allows I'm going to keep working the Double or Nothing tournaments. So far it's easy money.

Mid-week update

Tonight was one of those nights that make me want to walk away from poker and never look back. The idiots were out in force, making mistake after mistake and having the card gods sweep down to save them.

It started out okay. In an early hand I had AKs in the SB. Four limpers ahead (this is 6-max) so I make it 6BB to go. Three calls. One was okay, one was very questionable, one folded afterwards so I don't know.

This kind of thing was rampant tonight. A couple limpers, a large raise, and then everyone calls. It was like everyone really wanted to play craps. It didn't matter how big the raise was, at least half the table called.

The flop comes Q-high. Check, all-in for 2/3 the pot, and a call from the button. I wasn't getting quite the odds I needed to make the call, but it was close. I called. The checker folded. Three to the turn.

The turn paired the board but didn't help me. I check. Here's where I think the button made a mistake. He was betting into a dry side pot, but he's either very strong and trying to suck more money out of me or he's trying to force me out. He bets $0.10 with $3.82 in the main pot. What is that? If I just called a $0.80 all-in bet on the previous card, it would seem likely I'd call a bet considerably larger than that, so it doesn't seem like a bet for value and with the pot laying me 39-to-1 the only way I'm not calling is if I know to a certainty that I'm drawing dead. No way I'm folding.

The river brought my king. I was concerned one of the other two may have lucked into trips when the board paired so I just checked. The button again puts in a $0.10 bet. I just don't get this. Of course, I call. The button turns over AQ. Pretty strong, but considering I was the one raising pre-flop he should have been more aggressive to see where he stood. If he'd have bet $1 on the turn I'd have folded. He probably figured me for an overpair, but then why bet at all? Take the free card and be happy. The original all-in had pocket 6's so I was up $3 on my second hand at the table.

From there it pretty much went downhill. Three-outer at the river. Two-outer at the river. And another of the "I'll call any pre-flop raise with total crap and then luck out" hands. All of them from the same player. Very discouraging.

I also ran into several rather frustrating calling stations. This used to come up all the time in limit, but I've not seen it much in NL, even in the cheap seats. The player has a decent, strong hand, but refuses to bet it and refuses to fold no matter how much you bet.

I've had sessions that were much worse financially, but for some reason tonight was especially frustrating. Other than the one hand mentioned above, it seemed like nothing went right and lots went wrong.

The week in reivew

Last week I wrote about my trip to the Hard Rock casino and the rather poor results. I've been reflecting on that experience and have concluded it was just one of those sessions. One big loss due to somebody making a ridiculous pre-flop call and then getting lucky. Most of the rest of the time I just wasn't getting any cards. It happens. No reason to get discouraged about it.

I played a bit more on The Quest and am up $13 on the week. It may not sound like much, but when you consider that's a 12% increase in the bankroll, it's not bad at all.

I probably shouldn't get too excited since the vast majority of it came from one hand. It was one of those right place, right time, right opponents kind of things. I'm UTG with AQs. The guy in the cutoff has been playing extremely loose and aggressive. I've noticed that almost without fail when there are limpers ahead of him he'll put in a big raise. Of course, I want to raise here, but I figure I'll let him do my raising for me. I call, one fold, then the LAG, just as expected, raises to 5BB. The button calls, two folds, then I call.

The flop brings J97 with two of my suit. Figuring the LAG will again bet for me, I check. He does, though his almost pot-sized bet was a bit more than I would have liked. The button calls. I'm getting slightly more than 3-to-1 from the pot so I make the call. (I probably would have made the call even if I wasn't getting the right odds since I'm likely to stack one or both of my opponents if I hit.)

The turn is my card, the 6 of clubs. This couldn't be better. The board is now J high, so an overpair might still think he's good, and there are obvious lesser flushes, and a ton of straight draws. Sticking with my plan of letting others do my betting, I check. The LAG bets about half of what he has left, which is actually a rather small bet into this pot. The button calls. I figure one or both of the other guys will probably call a small raise here, so I make it a little more than double the original bet. The LAG calls for the rest of his stack. As you'll see in a minute, this makes absolutely no sense. The button also calls. We now have a $10 pot and the button still has $3.65 left. I have him covered.

The river makes things even more interesting. The 4 of clubs brings lots more lesser flushes into play and adds even more straight opportunities, though anyone playing those with four clubs on the board is an idiot. I decide not to be coy and just push in my whole stack. The button calls and sadly (for him) turns over the penultinuts. He had KK from the start, with one of them a club.

The LAG turns over ATo, with no clubs. As I said before, this makes his turn call of my raise look very stupid. He's got nothing but a gutshot draw, and even that is likely (and in reality is) drawing dead. If this was a tournament I might understand, but this is a ring game. When you know you're beat, it's time to fold, no matter how much you have invested.

A very nice $18 pot (at $0.02/$0.05 NL!) for a $9.73 profit. Not bad at all.

Two things struck me during the play of this hand and reflecting back on it later. First, the button played it poorly. He was in good position to (re-)raise both before the flop and on the flop. If he'd done either, I'd have probably gotten out and he'd have won the hand. This is $0.02/$0.05, so it's not reasonable to expect stellar play. I just point out the error for educational purposes.

Second, and this may tie into the first point as well, I realized after the fact that if I had been playing more than two tables it's quite likely I might have overlooked the tendencies of the LAG. PokerTracker would certainly have displayed the guy's 87% VP$IP and let me know he liked to play essentially every hand, and the other stats would have told me he was aggressive, but it's unlikely I'd have had time to dig through the stats to find his %PFR with limpers ahead of him, if there even is such a stat. That I had noticed his tendency allowed me to use it to my great advantage and completely disguise the strength of my hand. I don't recall how long the button had been sitting at the table or have any idea if he was playing multiple tables, but he's either very passive or was concerned that the LAG's pre-flop raise might indicate aces. If he'd been paying attention, he'd know the LAG's pre-flop raise indicated nothing about the strength of his hand.

Other sessions during the week were far less noteworthy. In fact, they added up to just about zero. One table accounted for the whole profit for the week.

I'm still learning about the new PokerTracker and what it can do. In the Reports section they have a sample "Fish List" report. Is it a bad sign that I show up on the fish list?

Poker Weekend

I took all of last week off work and had time to play more poker than I have been of late. The most interesting bit, poker-wise, was Friday when I went with my brother to the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa. They recently began offering Vegas-style table games and my brother wanted to play some blackjack. I, of course, went straight to the poker room. After maybe a ten minute wait they seated a new table of $1/$2 NL. State law allows a maximum buy-in of $100.

I got a couple decent starters near the beginning and took down some small pots. Then came a long dry spell. Fold, fold, fold, fold...

The guys at this table didn't seem quite the mix of idiots and okay players as I saw on the casino cruise. I suppose the $100 buy-in might have something to do with that. One guy was seriously overbetting at the beginning. It may have just been nerves. He calmed down after a bit and his raises were more in line with what I consider normal play. There was only one guy of the starters who seemed out of his depth. He was playing way too many hands and staying in with very mediocre holdings. Somehow he managed to win just enough to stay afloat.

My stack, on the other hand, just kept dwindling. If I tried to play a speculative hand cheap, somebody would almost always come over the top big. If I saw a flop, I'd miss it by a mile.

Then I had the misfortune of catching a hand. I get KK in the SB. Four limpers ahead of me. I'd like one or two callers on this one, so I made it 5BB to go. The BB calls, then all of the limpers call. I couldn't believe it. We haven't even had the flop yet and this is by far the biggest pot of the day.

The flop comes Q-high with two spades. There's $60 in the pot already, so I bet $40. The BB pushes all-in. It folds around back to me. I'm looking at the stack of chips the guy has pushed in. The dealer looks at me and says, "He's all-in." It was like he expected me to either fold or push all my chips in too. I finally had to ask him, "How much is there?" Turns out to be a $4 raise. Gee, let me think about this. $144 in the pot and it's going to cost me $4 to call? I don't know, that's a toughie. (I don't mean to go on about this, but the dealer's actions at this point just struck me as odd.)

Of course, I make the call. The BB turns over Q9 of spades. Okay, I get the push on the flop. He's got top pair and a flush draw. No problem. But how the hell do you call a 5BB pre-flop raise with a crap hand like Q9s? This is the kind of stuff that drives me crazy. Naturally, he rivers a spade.

I got KK one other time and also managed to lose a good chunk of my stack with that one.

After the first fifteen minutes of play I don't think I won a sizable pot the whole day. I know none of them were big enough that I felt I needed to tip the dealer.

In other poker activity, I played one of the new FullTilt "matrix" tournaments. I don't know if the whole concept is flawed or if it's just the way they've implemented it, but I thought it sucked. You play four tournaments simultaneously against the same opponents. Seating on each table is different, but it's the same players on all four tables.

They split the prize money so half goes to normal payouts on each of the four tables and half goes into the matrix pot that's awarded according to points. You get one point for each person eliminated before you on each table and two points for each player you send to the rails. The quicker among you may have realized this really means you get three points for each player you send to the rails, two for knocking the player out and one because you moved up a spot from the elimination.

I didn't care for it at all. It's too difficult playing four tournaments that are all in exactly the same phase at the same time. There are lots of delays due to players being busy on other tables. I think they're awarding too many points for eliminations. From the difficulty in getting one of these started, I gather there are a lot of other players who share my opinion.

I played Dr. Pauly's PLO tourney on Saturday. Not that I made much of an impact. I never got anything going and faded out somewhere in the middle of the field.

Sometime over the weekend I played in a normal SnG. I recall knocking someone out early when I slowplayed aces and caught a huge flop. Then I slowly redistributed the chips until I was back to my starting stack. I did that a couple times. I remember being on the good side of a couple horrible suckouts. In one of those I ran KQ into AA, catching one Q on the flop and rivering a third. I got to heads up with a 5-to-1 chip lead. The other guy was clearly not used to playing heads up. In these situations I try to keep telling myself, "Be patient." I did okay in that regard this time. I had the guy on the ropes at least three times. Each time he sucked out. Given that I wouldn't have been heads up if not for a couple sick suckouts, I suppose I can't complain too much. It's still very disappointing not being able to seal the deal when you've had the guy down to just a couple big blinds.

I played some cheap NL on The Quest, but had a run of just horrible cards. Considering how bad the cards were, I was probably lucky to only drop a bit over one buy-in.

Last night "60 Minutes" did a segment on the cheating scandals at Absolute and UltimateBet. Let me sum it up for you. Online poker is illegal (or so they allege). It's unregulated. It's virtually impossible to stop. Massive cheating has occurred. Nobody is serious about going after the cheaters. The end.

If you've spent more than ten minutes reading online about these scandals, you already know more than "60 Minutes" revealed in their story. I was rather disappointed that they simply said, "Online poker is illegal," instead of taking a few more seconds to note that this is simply the position of the justice department and not a matter of settled law. A fine point, perhaps, but now there are millions of people who believe online poker is absolutely illegal and all those playing online from the US are criminals. Of course, that aspect is probably second to the implanted notion that cheating is rampant and online poker is not to be trusted. This story could go further toward killing online poker than the UIGEA.

Weekly Update

I seem to be on a semi-regular schedule of weekly updates on Monday. No specific plan here, it's just happening that way.

When I got home from work on Friday I immediately joined a $2+0.25 two-table SnG at Full Tilt. I did reasonably okay, making the final table. Then some idiot with a big stack decides to throw his chips around. Two calls to me in the BB with AQs. I raise to 4BB. One call and then a push from the bigger stack. I correctly make the call as he turns over QJo, making me a 3:1 favorite. Of course, the flop brings a KT and he rivers a 9 to send me home. What got me was some clown not in the hand typing "nh" into the chat. Was that sarcasm or was he really so stupid to type "nh" when the guy hits a 15% shot on the river? Oh well, that's poker.

On Sunday I played another $2+0.25. Just a single table this time. I made one stupid move early and never recovered. I get AKo in the SB. There are three calls ahead of me so I make it 5BB to go. The guy in the cutoff, holding 34s makes the call. For the life of me I don't understand this. He puts in almost 20% of his stack on a real long shot hand. Of course, he hits it big when the flop brings 567. Assuming that flop had to miss anyone who called a 5BB pre-flop raise, I bet 2/3 the pot. The other guy naturally pushes. This is where I made the stupid move. Even assuming the guy missed the flop, if he pushes at this point he's probably got me beat. I'm getting 3:1 pot odds, but I think it was still a mistake to make the call. Well, obviously it was a mistake since the best I could hope for at this point was a runner-runner chop.

I hit a few hands after that, but I would have needed an incredible run of luck to survive after that hit.

Seeing how early I was likely to be exiting that tournament, I jumped into a $10, $15k guaranteed tournament. I never got any traction at all in that one. Then I made a stupid move with ATo and ran right into AA. I guess I was getting impatient because I wasn't getting much in the way of cards and when I got something halfway decent it never amounted to much. Didn't quite make the top half of the field in that one.

I played a bit of $0.02/$0.05 NL on behalf of The Quest. I had some decent sessions Sunday, earning $9.81 total. I'm taking all this week off, so I played a bit this afternoon, winning $2.63 in one session. The Quest bankroll is almost back up to the all time high. I shouldn't really be playing $0.02/$0.05 with this bankroll, but I'm willing to take the small chance in order to build the bankroll faster. If I start losing big I can always drop back.

The Weekend

I played a bit more poker this weekend than I have in a while. Friday I played a bit of ring NL at Stars on behalf of The Quest. I made one big mistake. I knew better, but I did it anyway. Ended the session down a few dollars.

Saturday I played Dr. Pauly's PLO tourney at Stars. My cards ran hot and cold. Fairly early it looked like I was on my way out so I signed up for a $3 rebuy satellite to the Sunday Warm-up ($750k guaranteed). Then I ran AA into AA and rivered a small straight to take down what should have been a split pot. Another AA victory and instead of small stack I was in third.

This was good news and bad news. Good news because I was still alive, but bad news because the rebuy started right about the time we went to the break in PLO. I have enough problems counting outs in PLO. Trying to do it while also playing a rebuy hold'em tournament is really more than I can handle. It was made somewhat easier by my getting absolutely nothing playable in the rebuy, even considering it was a rebuy.

I ended up rebuying a couple times and doing the add-on at the break, but I went out tragically early in the satellite. In Dr. Pauly's tourney I went out in fifth, I think, when I ran QQ into AA and we both flopped a set. Oh well... At least Pauly's tournament is always fun.

I'm taking off work all next week and have been considering heading to the Hard Rock in Tampa to play some live poker. My casino cruise experience has me thinking I could probably do okay at the Hard Rock. Perhaps I'll try hitting The Quest a bit harder this week to practice up.

Little Questing

I jumped into a cheap SnG on FullTilt yesterday on behalf of The Quest. This was the first tournament in my recollection where I had good success playing on almost entirely chutzpah. Until fairly late I got no really good cards at all. Suited connectors were the best I saw.

This was, however, a table full of people who were almost all obviously playing their cards, not the board or the other players. I stole pot after pot with impunity. I even was forced to show some of the total junk I was playing and still no one seemed to catch on that most of the time I was betting with air.

When it got down to heads up I was slightly behind. It took just a couple hands to correct that. I turned up the heat even more and my opponent clearly didn't know how to handle it. It didn't hurt that I actually started getting some cards. I think heads up might have lasted five minutes. If only they were all this easy. Add another $6.75 to The Quest bankroll.

My Full Tilt bonus chase is officially over. I cleared $20 of the $50 bonus and lost $170 doing so. Well worth the effort. (Where's that sarcasm emoticon?) This was not considered part of The Quest since I was playing way beyond my Quest bankroll on this.

I'm planning to take all of Thanksgiving week off of work. This might be a good opportunity to head back over to the Hard Rock in Tampa. It's been two years since I played the $275 tourney there on Thanksgiving. They've been offering $100 buy-in NL for over a year now. Maybe it's time to check it out. If it turns out to be anything like my recent experience on the casino cruise it could end up quite profitable.

Why, oh why...

Why do I always fall for these "free money" offers? Full Tilt sent me a "Free $50" offer. All I had to do was claim it, and then clear it as a regular bonus in the next two weeks. It's been long enough that I've done one of these that the many pitfalls have been forgotten.

I used to live for poker bonuses and was very good at clearing them. It became obvious long ago that at anything near the level I normally play, bonuses clear best at limit. So I used to play a lot of limit, and was pretty good at it. But then the bonuses dried up and I realized NL was a lot more fun, so I switched.

Now, along comes the Full Tilt bonus and I'm trying to play $1/$2 limit again. My first session of bonus clearing I lost more than the total bonus. I did better during my second session, actually winning some money, but didn't make up for what I lost in the first session.

Last night I sat down for what was intended to be a short session before going to bed. There were no tables immediately available, so I got on the wait list for several. After a few minutes they started popping up. Before I knew it I had four tables going. And the cards were coming like you wouldn't believe. AKs, AKo, AQs, KK, QQ, JJ, AJ. In the first five minutes of play I must have seen 20 premium hands. It was hard to keep track they were coming so fast, but I believe I won ONE hand out of the bunch. Before I could barely blink I was down $20 on three different tables. What stung the most was that in almost every case, the guy who won had no business being in the hand in the first place.

I would do far better to get nothing but crap cards that I can fold all night. Losing with a long series of premium hands just adds insult to the injury.

I recall reading an article a while back where the author attempted to scientifically prove that the schooling of the fishes was a fallacious concept. I don't recall all the details of his proof, but I'm pretty sure he overlooked some aspect of the real world conditions.

Party Poker was the ultimate proving ground for schooling of the fishes. I remember when I first started playing there. They had these "beginner" tables where only people in their first X days of play could sit at those tables. I joined Party long after I'd started playing seriously. I almost felt guilty sitting at those tables. Almost. For the first week or so it was literally like taking candy from a baby. These guys might as well have just transferred their funds to my account.

Then the tide turned. The schooling of the fishes hit with a vengeance. In most of the hands I played, I'd start way in the lead against any other single player, but when you get eight people seeing the flop and staying to the river if they caught even the tiniest bit, your opponents will collectively have the advantage on you almost every time. You aren't playing against a bunch of single fish, you're playing against the whole school. And the school will win the majority of the time.

To be completely fair, I'm probably dragging a number of non-applicable NL skills into the limit arena. I definitely read bluff far more often than is correct. With the exception of the very bad players, bluffs in limit are pretty much situational only. I need to keep repeating this to myself.

Or, better yet, I need to stop chasing these stupid bonuses. Nothing good ever comes of it. In the last three years I don't think I've made money on a single bonus.

Another tournament

I fired up PokerStars last night for the first time in ages and checked out their cheap SnGs. The rake at the low end seemed a bit cheaper than Full Tilt, but not by much. Except they had these "Double or Nothing" tournaments that paid the top five double their entry fee. The rake on those was only 10%, but you have to figure they're likely to last only 20 minutes or so.

I got into a $3+0.40. I should have saved the money. Card dead. Card dead. Card dead. AQo was the best I saw. Went out in 5th when somebody caught a runner-runner flush after I pushed all-in with TP on the flop.

On the plus side, I noticed PokerStars is apparently now offering Badugi. That should be loads of fun. I didn't see any Badugi tournaments in the list -- wasn't looking for them -- but I did notice it's listed in the tournament filter.

Tournament Time

Full Tilt recently sent me a please-come-back free money offer. While checking it out I again came across Chris Ferguson's article on his $0 to $10k project and noticed he had played some tournaments during the endeavor. This got me thinking that it might be fun to toss a few tournaments into the mix.

Checking at Full Tilt, I discovered they do offer SnGs for poor folk, but the rake is pretty steep. The 25% rake at the $1 SnGs is ridiculous, but at $2 it's down to 12.5%. Still higher than normal, but acceptable.

So, Saturday night, already tired enough to be thinking about going to bed, I signed up for a Turbo $2+$0.25 1-table SnG. The cards weren't terribly kind. With the rapidly increasing blinds I quickly found myself shortstacked. Then I woke up with AA. I put in a small raise and get one caller. Flop comes ten high. I check. Other guy bets more than half my stack. I push. He calls and turns over AT. Of course, he rivers a third ten and I hit the rail.

Sunday I decided to give it another go. This time I got into a non-turbo, so the blinds increased at the normal 6-minute intervals. This was a fairly typical cheap tournament. A couple people played it like it was a turbo freeroll. We got down to six rather quickly, but we stayed at six for a long time.

The tight play allowed me to steal quite a few pots. I even played the hammer a couple times. Eventually the blinds caught up and people started dropping off. I made a nice push back at the one other mildly aggressive player and he backed down, allowing me to take a very nice pot and the chip lead.

I had some trouble figuring out my opponent when we got heads up. I will often make a min-raise from the small blind as a way to put pressure on the big blind and to send a message that I think my cards are decent. Several times this guy came back with min-reraises, which really baffled me. I suppose he's making a statement, but I'm getting 5-to-1 on my call. Heads up I'll make that call with almost any two cards.

The other guy had the chip advantage going into heads up, but I quickly rectified that situation. I kept chipping away until he was in serious trouble. Then I find myself in the big blind with the Brunson. He makes a min-raise. I debated a bit, but eventually made the call. Then I got lucky. Flop comes 22x. Now I'm trying to figure how to get all his chips in the pot. I check, he checks. On the turn I get even luckier as a ten falls. Deuces full of tens. And there are three diamonds on the board. I'm praying he's got a couple diamonds. I make a small bet, he calls. The river brings another diamond. I again make a small bet, he pushes all-in. I'm sure he figured he was back in it as his king high flush was revealed, but, sorry, Charlie.

I'm not sure playing at this level is doing a lot for my skills, but it is kind of fun.

Live!

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. That's mostly because I haven't been playing.

Friday night my brother and I drove over to Port Canaveral and took the Sun Cruz casino tour. On the way to boarding they had a sign-up board for poker. They were offering a $60 sit-n-go that would start as soon as the ship cast off. All the other poker, and other gambling, had to wait until the ship passed the 3-mile marker. They can apparently start the sit-n-go because no money changes hands until the ship has crossed the gambling line. My brother and I both signed up.

Poker is on the top deck. Thankfully, the entire floor appeared to be non-smoking. They had eight tables, though only two were in use -- one for the tournament and one for what I think was a $1/$3 NL cash game.

Eventually eleven people sat down for the tournament. The mix of players was about what I'd expect at such a venue. A couple guys who had more than a clue or two, a couple complete novices, and a few who probably thought they knew what they were doing. I'm not sure exactly how long the levels were. We got about one full rotation in each of the first few levels. The blinds went 100/200, 200/400, 300/500, 500/1000, 1000/2000. The whole thing felt reasonable to me. Certainly not designed to be a long tournament, but not rushed to the point it was an all-in fest.

Not surprisingly, the novices busted out early. I got a couple good hands I was able to take advantage of and managed to build a comfortable stack. Once we had a bit more elbow room, the game tightened up. I grabbed the initiative and stole a few pots. One hand I woke up with pocket rockets, which turned into quads, but I couldn't get anyone to play back at me.

When we finally got to three the dealer immediately started pushing chop. I thought I was better than either of the other two so I suggested we keep playing for a while. Nobody seemed to care much one way or the other, so we played on. When we got down to two the other guy offered to chop, but I had him two-to-one in chips. Plus, I knew I was better than he was. Sadly, the cards dried up for me. The other guy ended up taking it, and then, being the good winner he was, rubbed it in that he'd offered to chop it.

They immediately offered a $40 "beginners" tournament. About all I recall about that one is that Mr. Good Winner was the first one out, and the guy who took third in the first tournament and I were the last two. We went back and forth for about 15 minutes. I was up by a few hundred and offered to chop it. The other guy agreed.

Another $40 tournament was immediately called. Willing participants were getting scarce. We only had six at this one. My largest accomplishment in this one was sitting around watching as the first three players were eliminated, not losing many chips while it happened. Then I managed to catch a hand and eliminate the third place player. Mr. Good Winner and I were the final two. Not wanting to have it rubbed in again if he lucked out, I agreed to chop it.

For the night it was one second and two chops with me ahead in chips. Total, adjusting for tips, +$200. My play was solid, though could have been a bit more aggressive at times. Only one suckout, and even that was only 2-to-1 against when the chips went in.

I was a little disappointed there wasn't more poker action on the boat. Just the one tournament table and one cash table. The cash table was full pretty much the whole time.

If this is the kind of crowd the boat is drawing, I can see why the other gambling cruise line went out of business. There is a new one that's supposed to open soon. They're advertising all sorts of free stuff, so it will be interesting to sail on that one and see what kind of crowds they get.

A fun hand

I was fooling around yesterday playing a bit of cheap PLO8 at Full Tilt. A couple decent hands had built my buy-in from $4 to $6.50. One of the players had been slowing the game and I was thinking about leaving the table when I got this hand.



UTG folds. UTG+1 makes a min-raise. The cutoff makes it $0.75. Button folds. This puts $1.10 in the pot when it gets to me. With action from two players and one yet to act, I figure this isn't a time to get greedy. I pot it for $2.55 with the expectation of maybe one caller, possibly ending the hand right there.

Then the BB pushes all-in for $1.45 more. UTG+1 calls all-in. The cutoff pushes all-in for another $1.60.

This sure didn't go the way I planned. I'm thinking one caller. Now it's $3.05 to me with three players already committed. Of course, I call.



I can understand UTG+1's action here. The other two were just, well, let's say they made less than optimal plays.

I don't think I've ever busted three players in one hand before. Oddly, the table cleared out after this hand.

I played in Dr. Pauly's PLO tournament last Saturday. I didn't realize until I read it in someone else's blog that the good doctor had added a buy-in to the Sunday Million tournament, which explains the MUCH larger than normal turnout. I signed up expecting to see the usual two or three tables of players. Turns out we had 55 runners at start time. I played very tight and managed to capitalize on the few good hands I got. Sadly, there just weren't enough of those good hands to get me through. I busted in 15th.

That's about it for me and poker over the last few weeks. Perhaps in honor of the 1st anniversary of The Quest, I'll start playing with some regularity again. We'll see how it goes.

Taking a break

Without specifically intending to do so, I've taken a break from The Quest and poker in general. We've switched to a four day week at work, which wouldn't be so bad if it was four 8-hour days. You wouldn't think it would make that much difference, but that extra two hours a day really puts a crimp in things during the work week.

By the time I get home, relax a little bit, and grab some dinner, it's often been well past 9:00. I find myself even more sleep-deprived than usual, so I don't feel like doing much other than vegetating on the sofa. Playing any of the blogger tournaments, which I hadn't been doing much of anyway, is completely out of the question due to the late starting time.

And, on top of all this, I've finally started getting into a computer game I got for Christmas last year.

Something had to give and it looks like it was poker. It wasn't planned that way; it just sort of happened. Not that I'm giving it up or anything. With having Fridays off I've given thought to heading over to the Hard Rock to play live. Now that they're spreading $100 buy-in NL it might be worth my while. Haven't actually done it yet, but I'm thinking about it.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll rejoin The Quest again soon. I just need to get used to this new schedule and figure out how to find the time for it.

1 in 649,740

It was once again not a very good night on The Quest, though the hand above definitely brightened my attitude. And not only did I hit a royal flush, I got paid for it. Not as much as it seems it should be worth, but given that these types of hands usually pay next to nothing, it was a decent payoff. Too bad Stars doesn't have a bonus for a royal.

I have to wonder a bit about whether the odds of hitting a royal flush have been calculated correctly. I got the odds in the title from some web page. According to that page there are 2,598,960 possible ways to make a hand in Hold'em. Four of those are royal flushes. So the odds of a royal flush are 1 in 649,740.

I know I've played at least 300,000 hands of ring Hold'em. It might be closer to 500,000. I've varied during my poker "career" from keeping very good track of every hand and not keeping track at all. Several times. So I don't have hard proof, but I'd guess I'm on the low side of 500,000.

This is the fourth (or is it the fifth?) royal flush I've had in online ring games. I know it's at least the fourth because I got two of them at a site that gives a 100xBB bonus for, as they call it, a "royal straight flush". (That just doesn't roll off the tongue quite right.) And I know I got another one previously because I was disappointed that I didn't get a bonus. There may have been one more in there. And none of this is counting tournament play, where I vaguely recall having hit a royal flush at least a couple times.

According to PokerTracker I would have a few more if I hadn't folded before the river. (These were hands where I held just one card of the royal and folded it before the flop because it came with a crappy partner.)

So here I am with less than 500,000 hands played and I've had at least four royal flushes, plus a couple more I would have had if I'd been stupid enough to play K3o into a pre-flop raise. I've never considered myself especially lucky at poker. Sure, I've had my share of suckouts, but no one has ever accused me of being a card rack over more than the time span of a tournament or two. If anything, I've had the impression that luck, if there is such a thing, is slightly against me. Knowing how far ahead I am on the royal flush curve, perhaps I should reevaluate that impression.

Speaking of the not very lucky department, despite the one really good hand, it was another down night for The Quest. I finished the evening with $4.46 less than when it started. I made one stupid move that cost me a fair bit, but otherwise the big losses were to idiots who called my big bets despite not being remotely close to getting the right odds. Nothing but an inside straight draw and one guy calls a 2/3 pot bet with just the river to come. I'm not sure if it's the bad luck or the rewarding of stupidity that makes me more upset.

I should also put in a good word for the Popopop Universal Replayer, which is what I used for the picture of the royal flush posted above. This is a great tool for reviewing hands during play and going over your play after a session. The chiclet scroller at the bottom of the screen is great for zeroing in on decisive hands. I've not made much use of the export feature, but it looks decent. And, best of all, the replayer is free!

Weekend Update

Since things were not going well with The Quest, I essentially took the last week off. The little bit I played was more of the goofing off variety, nothing serious.

In that vein, I've been playing a bit more PLO, and doing halfway decent at it. I still don't have a great deal of confidence, but I think I'm getting a better feel for it.

PokerStars is having a big "2X" promotion this month. The first week of July it was double VPPs. (Or is it FPPs? I've never been able to figure out their convoluted system.) Other than during the comparatively rare bonus chase at Stars, I've never put much emphasis on accumulating points. I do know it's virtually impossible to earn points in the shallow end of the NL pool.

So, with "2X" as an attractant, I decided I'd have a go this month at attaining one of the metal levels at Stars. Looking over the rules, it appears $1/$2 limit is the best compromise between points and minimum exposure to bankroll damage. I four-tabled $1/$2 limit for five or six hours over the long weekend. I'm happy to report that I need only 999,327 VPPs by the end of the year to reach Supernova Elite status. That's only 144 times the total number of points I've accumulated in the entirety of the four years I've been playing at Stars, but, hey, I still got a shot.

Actually, even hitting SilverStar level, the lowest level that requires something more than breathing to attain, may be in jeopardy if I don't play a whole lot more limit. Unfortunately, I've come to really hate limit. The inability to push somebody off a draw is such a handicap.

Plus, the limit tables at Stars have always been incredibly tight. When you see an entire table with a see-flop of 16%, you know you're in for a rough ride. On the plus side, play generally seems to go much faster. So you can get in lots of non-raked hands per hour.

I had a bit of trouble making the shift back to limit, but eventually started to feel comfortable, if not exactly happy. After a bit of up and down, I finished the weekend up $12. That's less than 1BB/hr. Not great, but not terrible considering how long it's been since I played much limit.

If I were to do this more, I would definitely be looking into doing a three or four screen arrangement and getting a dozen or more tables going all at once. While this may sound like I'm trying to become a MMIA, I'd at least be missing the I(nconsiderate) part because I'm sure I'd have little trouble keeping up with a dozen tables at once. With four tables going my attention was wandering well over half the time.

Last night I decided to rejoin The Quest. I got on one of those wild tables where players are making irrationally large raises for no apparent reason. One guy seemed to be a repeat lotto player. He wouldn't push on every hand, but any time he thought he might be in the lead, he'd push it all in. And then re-buy. And re-buy. And re-buy. I bided my time and when I was dealt KK, I bet in a manner I knew would induce at least one other player to push. Turned out I snared two. And my kings held. One hand, nice $8.50 profit, thank you very much. The table broke up just a few hands later so I called it a night. At least now I'm back over the 20 buy-in mark.

I've fallen and I can't get up

The Quest did not go well this weekend. I've been on a horrible dry spell as far as cards go. It's been a near endless stream of unplayable junk. If I get something marginally playable, either someone will raise and force me to fold before the flop or the flop will miss me completely. On the very rare occasion I get a real hand, it's almost certain it will be the only time in an hour that everyone will fold. On the even rarer times when I hit the flop, it seems some clown, against all odds and any kind of reasonable logic, will call to the river and suck out.

I haven't even tallied the damage yet. I was too depressed and pissed off when I finished my last session. If I stick with the bankroll management plan, I'm definitely back to $0.01/$0.02. Given the way things have been going, that may not be such a bad thing. At least the damage will be less.

Blowing off some steam seemed like a good idea after that session, so I found a really cheap tournament and was going to push all-in on every hand. It's a rather silly thing to do and is not exactly fair to the other participants, who may actually be taking this $1 tournament seriously, but I felt like doing it anyway. But I couldn't. First hand I get 32o. Next hand was something equally as bad. I finally compromised in pushing on any hand where it seemed to actually make some sense. If I would ordinarily make a big raise, I pushed. It worked, for a while.

This was an super-turbo with 3 minute levels. You'd think in a tournament like that the players would pay some attention and take their actions quickly. You, however, would be completely wrong if you thought such a foolish thing.

Anyway, despite the far more frequent pushing all-in, the blinds still caught up very fast and I busted in 5th or 6th. Even worse, the therapy value was very minimal.

I played in Dr. Pauly's PLO tournament on Saturday. Despite the continuation of mostly horrible cards, I somehow managed to hang on to finish 7th. And, no, we didn't start with 7 runners.

Friday was a down night, spent camped in front of the TV.

I'm torn between dropping back a level and hitting it hard, and taking a break for a while. Perhaps I'll just see what kind of mood I'm in tonight.

Bad, bad night on The Quest

Last night was the worst night yet on The Quest. If I'd had any sense about me I'd have quit as soon as I realized the cards were even deader than the night before. I got horrible cards, which is all the more frustrating when you're playing 6-max, and even that's shorthanded, and there are a couple aggressive players at the table. You know these other guys are stealing pots right and left, but you've got cards that are unlikely to beat even a bluff.

In all honesty, however, I can't put all the blame on the cards. Bad cards will often result in a down night, but you need some donkey moves or some really bad luck to make it a very down night. Part of the problem was it took me a while to realize I wasn't playing with the normal fish. One of the tables was filled with decent players. What's the line from Rounders? If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker. Last night, I was the sucker. I was trying too hard to make my crappy cards work.

The loss of three buy-ins pushes the bankroll down below my established minimum to play $0.02/$0.05. It's only a bit below, so I may risk one more buy-in tonight. If I lose that, it's definitely back to the shallowest part of the pool.

Not a good night

It was not a good night on The Quest. I fell victim to my old demon of seriously overplaying TP with a good kicker. In this case, it was against someone who inexplicably thought Q3s was worth calling a 4BB raise with ("But they were sooted..."), but the blame ultimately falls to me not listening to what his bets were telling me.

The result on another table was also not so good, but I fought back on that one to make it back to almost even. Combined with small positive results on a couple other tables it left me down a wee bit over a buy-in for the night.

Yesterday I got email from PokerPages about some new tournament software they're beta testing. If I remember correctly, a couple years ago I participated in a heads-up challenge that used something available through PokerPages to allow us to play heads-up tournaments for free. I honestly haven't paid any attention to it since then. The email said they were giving away free money as part of the beta test so I took a look.

After installing the software and signing up, they gave me T$1000 to enter tournaments. Allegedly you can get topped back up to T$1000 any time you drop below. I don't know what the deal is going to be long term, but it looks like they're setting up some kind of subscription thing. I gather this is to avoid it being an actual gambling site. They'll just have competitions among their members and award small prizes out of the subscription fees. At least that's my guess. For the beta they gave me a free weekly subscription. Not sure at this point if it will expire at the end of the week or if it will renew.

Last night I played a T$100 tournament. Winner got something like $32 plus a bunch of T$. T$10,000 starting chips, 50/100 blinds at level 1, ten minute levels. Only 55 runners. It looked like it should be easy. That was before I saw my cards. They went from bad to worse to could-it-get-any-uglier. And the play was even slower than on the Stars ring tables where everyone but me is a MMIA thinking they're cool because they can hold up play on 20 tables at once. I made a stab at a bluff that cost me a lot more than it should have. Then I dropped a huge part of my stack when some clown called my all-in with an inside straight draw and caught it on the river. Best hand I saw all night, TT, ran straight into AA and I hit the rail.

I'm sure it's just luck of the draw, but it always leaves a sour taste in my mouth when I go to a new site and come away feeling like I've been abused. I don't know if it's worth my time to go back.

New Weekly Total

The time vs bankroll graph has been updated with last week's results. Big move this week, almost $27, mostly due to moving up to $0.02/$0.05 where the prize values have more than doubled.

Last night I played for just a short time, but still added $6.64 to the bankroll.

Things are getting a bit more exciting with the increased pot values. I was a bit concerned that all my time at $0.01/$0.02 might make me afraid of the much bigger pots at the higher levels, but I seem to be adjusting okay. Perhaps all that time playing tournaments has helped in this regard.

Here's the bankroll graph for those using readers.

Weekend wrap-up

My plan to single table $0.02/$0.05 until I was totally comfortable with the new level went out the window before the day was done. It wasn't even a conscious thing. I sat down Sunday night and opened two tables without even thinking about it. Maybe this means I'm already "comfortable" at the new level. Based on results, I'd have to say that's the case.

Even with two tables open the play was horribly slow. I was getting very bored waiting to do something. This wasn't aided by the dearth of playable cards. My VP$IP was in the mid-teens range. My goal at this level and shorthanded would be closer to 30%, but I'm not playing total trash just to get there.

I was able to capitalize on a couple of the decent hands I got. The evening sessions added almost $8, bringing the total for the day to $12.93. Far and away the best $ day yet on The Quest. If I can keep close to the BB/100 rate I had at the previous level we should see very good progress on the size of the bankroll.

Rainy Weekend

Saturday I played Dr. Pauly's PLO tournament for all of eight hands. I Gigli'd on one of those hands where all you can do is shake your head in amazement at the way poor play gets paid off sometimes. I don't claim to be a PLO expert. I wouldn't even claim to be anything more than barely fair at PLO. But I still have to wonder about calling a pot-sized flop re-raise when all you have is bottom pair and an OESD. And then calling a pot-size turn bet that commits three-fourths of your stack with just the OESD and a very weak flush draw that could easily be beat. Sorry, it was one of those hands that I can't let go of. From my perspective, my opponent made absolutely horrible decisions all the way to the river. The only thing he did right was make me put in my last chip when I knew I was beat. Yeah, I'm bitter about it. So what?

On a brighter note, I cheated my Quest plan a bit and started playing $0.02/$0.05 when I was $0.36 shy of having the 20 buy-ins I set as a minimum. My first couple sessions went well, putting me up $5.05 on the day and moving the bankroll over the minimum to flirt with $0.02/$0.05.

Based on first impressions, I'm seeing more serious players at this level, but still enough total fish that a decent player can turn a nice profit. So far my BB/100 is even higher than at $0.01/$0.02, though it's obviously way too early to tell if that will hold. Sadly, play at this level appears to be as slow, if not slower, than at the lower level. I'm going to play just one table at a time until I'm completely confident at this new level, so the slow play may be just next to torture.

Mid-week update

The Quest proceeds on schedule, or maybe a bit ahead. Two or three more average nights and I should hit the 20 buy-ins I want before flirting with $0.02/$0.05.

I was tempted to jump the gun and have a go at it last night. When I checked the available tables I noticed the "see the flop" percents still looked juicy, but considerably less so that at $0.01/$0.02. Big shock, eh? It's not at all unusual to find a few tables at $0.01/$0.02 in the 60%-70% range. At $0.02/$0.05 the best I saw was 50%. I decided to stick with the plan and stayed with $0.01/$0.02.

On one table I doubled my buy-in, mostly due to players who couldn't let go of top-pair, no kicker. On the other table I mostly took smaller pots and slowly added to my stack. Both tables got off to a decent start, which I find much more comfortable than losing early and having to fight my way back to even.

Monday night was another slightly better than average night. I finished the evening up just shy of $3. Two more nights like the last two and I'm moving out of the shallowest part of the pool. Get the life preservers ready.

The Weekend

Friday night I got in the mood for Kat's Donkament by having a couple margaritas at dinner. The real kind, on the rocks, not those watered-down slushy things. Then I fixed a big gin & tonic when I got home. In the proper mood, let the donkery begin!

As is my habit, I did an immediate rebuy. If losing chips, might as well lose as many as possible. Very first hand I get QJs and figure that's good enough to join a 4-way all-in. Naturally, it was Julius Goat with the massive 92s who took down the pot with a full house. Rebuy!

And that was my last rebuy of the night. Next hand I catch QQ in another 4-way all-in. I was accused of playing unfair by going all-in with an actual hand, but so it goes around the virtual poker table. Three hands later I caught KK in another 4-way push-fest. Five hands into the tournament and I'm sitting on a 10k stack.

I don't think I've ever been the really big stack in one of these things, at least not in the very early stages when everybody is pushing on any drop of paint. Turns out there's a side benefit I'd not realized before. When your stack is way the biggest and you come in second place, you sometimes take away almost as much, if not more, than the winner. Good to know should you ever find yourself in this situation.

My cards rather dried up for a while. Sitting on such a big stack there seemed little point (other than the sheer fun of it) in pushing with nothing, so I did a lot of folding. Until Kat did an I'm-bored push and I sucked out a straight at the river. My stack was up to 18k.

A total nonsense hand, 63s, that I played cheap flopped the nut straight, eventually turning into a flush, growing the stack to 22k. JJ vs 88 took me to 26k. Another mid pair vs junk brought me to 29k as those remaining joined the final table.

My stack eventually grew to 44k before my AA fell to K2o. I should have seen it coming. I really hate it when I fall in love with those first two cards and can't give them up. And having it happen against the second biggest stack only adds to the injury. In one hand I went from chip leader to seriously short stack.

I hung in though, building my stack little by little, eventually moving back into second place with a river suckout against the big stack. Many hands later I bubbled on a straight over straight hand.

It may sound odd to speak of being proud of your play in a donkament, but I was quite pleased with the way I recovered from the big hit. Going from about M=6 back to second biggest stack and well in the hunt is not bad. Would have been nicer if I'd made the money, but so it goes.

The Quest was up and down and back up again over the weekend. Had a decent session at lunch on Friday. Then made the mistake of playing after the Donkament and had two disastrous tables. Play later in the day on Saturday got me almost back to even.

Sunday I played just one session, but it was great fun. Within the first few hands on two different tables I ran into lotto players while holding AA, and both held. On one of the tables I later ran into another of the one-card-too-late plays. I started with KK, had a few limpers ahead, so I put in a decent raise to thin the field. Two callers. Flop is something like Q73. I bet a bit more than half the pot and get one caller. The turn gives me a set of kings. Somewhat to my surprise the other player pushes all-in. I've got the nuts so, of course, I call. He turns over 77. My set holds and I leave the table with more than four times my buy-in. I finish the day up over $7, bringing the bankroll to $89.65. If things continue as they have I should be ready to start flirting with $0.02/$0.05 by next week this time.

Quest Update

Down night on The Quest last night. Played an early session where I dropped a buy-in on one table and won a bit on another.

Today I played for a little while at lunch and made up for what I lost last night. Most of it was the result of one hand where I called an all-in from a shorter stack. I had pocket queens, which ended as an overpair. It wasn't that strong to be calling such a big bet, but this was one of those hands where I just didn't believe the other guy. It felt like he was trying to push me out, which meant he had nothing or at best something that was vulnerable, like top pair on the ten high board. He had nothing.

Tonight is Kat's Donkament at Full Tilt. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make it, but I'm going to try.

Saturday is Dr. Pauly's PLO tourney at PokerStars. It kicks off at something like 16:20 EDT.

Decent, short night

I've been feeling under the weather this week and haven't played much. Monday I was still stinging from the weekend and decided it was best to take some time off. Tuesday I was really dragging. I slept my way through an evening of partially watched TV on the sofa. I think I started to watch three different shows and have no idea how any of them turned out.

Wednesday I got home a bit earlier than usual and sat down to play before dinner. I hit a quick double up and decided to bank my winnings and go get some food. My intention was to play a bit later on, but that never happened.

The double up hand was rather interesting. I get pocket sixes. The BB and I see the flop of 699. Chips coming my way, I can just feel it. The BB puts in a normal sized bet and I call. The turn is another 9. Great. My flopped boat can now be counterfeited and I can be drawing totally dead if he's got the case 9. Again the BB bets an amount that's not all that scary and I call. As if things weren't already interesting enough, the river brings the last 6, giving me quads. The BB pushes all-in. As I push the "call" button I'm wishing Stars had a bad beat jackpot. The way my luck has been running it's almost a sure thing the BB has quad nines. But, no! He turns over AQo and I scoop a nice pot.

If I'm really back to my winning ways I should be ready to move up fairly soon. Only time will tell if the bad run is over.

The Quest takes a small stumble

Friday night I donked it up in Kat's Donkament rebuy on Full Tilt. I think I only rebought twice, though I was doing doubles, so with the add-on I was in for $7+$1. I should write these up sooner as the details are already quite foggy. Oh, hey, whaddaya know, there's a tournament summary file here on my hard drive. It seems I bubbled. How did that happen?

Saturday I again played in Dr. Pauly's PLO tourney at Stars. I don't recall too many of the specifics, but I do recall I bubbled in that as well.

The Questing on Saturday was fairly successful, finishing the day up $4.09. Sunday, however, The Quest took a stumble. It felt a lot worse than it actually was, being one of those days when absolutely nothing went right. I got precious few solid starters and the few I got almost always missed. It was one of those nights when toward the end you just know the inside straight your opponent has been drawing for is going to hit on the river, despite the fact that you've been betting the whole way to deny him odds by a wide margin. It was a night of many "Sklansky wins" since my opponents made mistake after mistake, and still my chips ended up in front of them instead of theirs in front of me. Variance is a bitch. I finished the day down $4.45. I suppose it seems worse since I've been having so many good days of late.

I also noticed, thanks to PokerTracker, that several of the tables I was playing turned into tables that would have seemed tight at $2/$4 limit full ring bonus clearing tables let alone at 6-max $0.01/$0.02 NL. I don't think shopping for better tables would have helped on Sunday, but I may have to start paying a bit more attention to that. When I'm the "loose" player at the table, there's something seriously wrong.

Another good night on The Quest

Last night proved to be my second biggest night so far on The Quest. On my very first hand I was dealt AA and ran into someone who just didn't want to believe I could get a premium hand on the my first deal. The flop was all low junk and I couldn't believe he'd have called my pre-flop raise holding two of those type of cards. So when he pushed in all his chips it didn't take long for me to call. First pot of the night and I double up.

Sadly, I should have walked away from the table right then because that was my high point, though I still finished up almost $2 at that table.

The other table took a bit more work as I slowly built my stack. This was one of those tables with mostly passive players and I was able to steal a lot of pots.

Then, right before I left the table, I got into one of those hands where the other player was one card too late in his actions. I was dealt pocket nines, put in a small raise, and got one caller. The flop was J33. Check, check. Turn was a 2. I bet half the pot, he called. This was his mistake. The river brought my third 9. I bet about half the pot and he immediately pushed all-in. Pocket jacks or pocket threes were the only hands that had me beat, so it didn't take much thought to make the call. He turns over 22. Caught his boat on the turn but gave me a cheap shot at making my hand. I suppose it wasn't really that bad a move on his part since I only had four outs (not that he knew that), but it still ended up being one of those huge overbets that can reasonably be called only by someone who has you beat. Like me.

Finished the night up $6.29. The bankroll is now up to $82.80. $0.02/$0.05 is getting close.

Big night on The Quest

Tonight was the best night yet for The Quest. Early in the evening I two-tabled for about half an hour, finishing up $1.49.

After dinner I fired up three tables. That got a bit hectic. With that experience, I seriously doubt there's any way anyone could expect to play a dozen or more tables without knowing you'll be delaying action on more than a few of them on pretty much every hand. IOW, I was right on the money referring to these clowns as Massively Multi-tabling Inconsiderate Asshats.

Anyway, I took a very small loss on one of the tables and very nice profits on the other two. Most of the winnings came from two hands. The first was when somebody apparently just couldn't believe I had his queens beat, despite a pre-flop raise and a large flop re-raise. On a turn card that helped no one, he pushed in what he had left, about half the pot. The way the cards had fallen I found it very hard to believe he'd gotten any help from the board, so I called. My aces held and I made a nice $2.13 profit on the hand.

The other big hand was a three-way all-in in which my AKs prevailed over A4o and KQo for a $3.68 profit.

After that little run I decided to bank my profits and call it a night, up $9.49. A few more nights like this and I'll be flirting with the big action at $0.02/$0.05!

Bodogery

Smokkee's Bodog blogger tournament was last night. I was settled in for the evening in time to play this time. Not that it mattered much.

The cards were not especially kind. I got AA and KK once each, but both whiffed, taking down very small pots. There were a few other decent starters, but all I really managed to do was keep my head above water. After two hours my stack was still roughly the size it was to start with. Smokkee busted me out when I took A9 up against his QQ. I finished 19th of 42. Very lackluster performance.

I was a bit tired by the time that was over so I didn't do any Questing. I'm hoping to put in a few hours tonight.

Too many posts

This marks the 200th post for Patchwork. I'm not going to bother with any kind of retrospective because, frankly, I doubt I've said enough of significance in these 200 entries to fill a paragraph. It is rather remarkable, though, that what started as something strictly to get me into "blogger-only" tournaments has managed to last to the 200th entry. It's a good thing I find myself entertaining.

Some comments about the blog in general would probably be in order. In retrospect, I'm not so sure the name "Patchwork" combined with my poker moniker, Patchmaster, was such a great idea. Well over half the hits on the blog are from people looking for information about Scott's Patchmaster lawn seed or some "patch work" game that must be available online somewhere. I'd probably make more money selling grass seed online than I ever could from poker.

The number of people coming here not by mistake has increased since I joined Poker Weblog$. I hope that trend continues. It would be nice to know I'm not simply confusing half my readers.

I'm also quite surprised at some of the other Google searches that turn up Patchwork blog entries near the top of the results. My ranting about the horrible internet connection I had while living in a hotel for six months when I first moved to Orlando has made me #1 if you search for "guest-tek sucks", a fact I'm sure endears me to the hearts of Guest-Tek hotel services management.

The number of readers from countries other than my own also surprises me. I noticed this when I first started the blog, but back then I think these were mostly bored people just paging through the random blog circle at Blogspot. More recently these readers seem to be coming here on purpose. Well, at least those who aren't looking to spruce up their lawns.

I also should give some thanks to the fine folks at Blogger and Blogspot. I've never fully wrapped my head around how all this stuff works, but it does work, quite well most of the time, and I've been able to use it without understanding it. That says quite a lot about what a great job they've done. I can sit here and blather on about poker or bad hotel wireless internet or whatever else strikes my fancy and not worry my bloated head about how or why my words actually get read by other people.

Often while writing my blog entries I've thought I had some appreciation for how Allan Havey must have felt on Night After Night performing to his "audience of one". On the other hand, Allan knew at least one person was listening. When the occasional comment comes in I'm always shocked and amazed. People read this crap?

For those following The Quest, I've decided to alter my bankroll management rules to maybe kick this thing up a few notches. Until I hit the $25 buy-in level, I'm going to move up to the next level when I have 30 buy-ins at that level. I will allow myself to test the waters at the next level once I've accumulated 20 buy-ins for that level. Since I'm playing $2 buy-ins right now, I'll start flirting with $5 buy-ins when the bankroll hits $100 and officially move up when the bankroll hits $150.

I've adjusted the speedometer to reflect these new rules.

Tonight was a decent night on The Quest. I didn't play much last week and had been basically even on the week until tonight.

There was one amusing incident. It's not like it's the first time I've seen this, but it still kind of cracks me up when people whine about how you sucked out at the river when the reality is that they played their hand poorly and you actually had them beat before they even made a move.

In this case I caught bottom pair and four cards to a J-high flush on the flop. SB checks. I bet half the pot to build it a bit in case I hit the flush and to see if I can get any information. One fold, two calls.

The turn brings a J, giving me jacks up and still the flush draw. Now the SB decides to bet half the pot. He actually had top pair kings on the flop but was either afraid to bet them or maybe thought he was being crafty. With only a 7 kicker, I'd have bet them on the flop when the pot was smaller and got some info on where I stood. If I got resistance, I'd get out cheap with my weak kicker. If he'd done that, I'd have likely folded and he'd have probably won a small pot.

So he bets half the pot into my two pair at the turn. I come over the top with triple his bet. Other guy folds and it's back to the SB. He makes a min raise. This is another move that baffles me. If this was a table full of sharks I might be a little afraid of this bet because it looks like he wants me to call. But this is not a table of sharks and this bet just looks confused and weak. It's possible he's got a set, but there are two flush draws on the board. That's a very risky way to be playing a set. If I've got a set, I'm putting it all in the middle right here. I decide to just call and see what happens.

The river brings my flush, not to mention a Broadway straight possibility. Now the SB gets brave and pushes it all in, a bet slightly larger than the pot. I think for about two seconds and call. If he's got the ace or queen flush, good for him. Of course, he's got top pair, kings, and I rake in a very nice pot. And, the reason I launched into this story, then came his comment, "last card."

The SB was one move too late this whole hand. If he'd done on the flop what he did on the turn, he'd have won a small pot, but at least it would have been a win. If he'd done on the turn what he did on the river, there's a real good chance I'd have folded. Instead, he waited until the board showed two obvious possibilities he was beat, not to mention several set possibilities which were quite strong given the way I'd been betting. Maybe he figured me for a set and thought a big bet on that river would scare me away, though his comment leads me to believe otherwise. Anyway, his weak play early on got him into big trouble at the river.

I don't mean to just make fun of how poorly this hand was played. The more I got into describing it the more I realized it was classic mistake after classic mistake. I doubt any regular readers will learn anything from this, but maybe a new player may someday stumble on it and pick up a tip or two.

Well, that's it for the 200th entry. Hopefully I'll still be interested in doing this for another 200 entries.

Lost Weekend

No, I'm not referring to the TV show. I've never seen it and have no interest in it.

I usually try to recap my weekend play on Monday. As I was going over in my head the poker happenings of the last three days I realized most of it has faded away. I recall playing Kat's Friday night Donkament, and vaguely recall not rebuying 32 times like usual, but I have almost no recollection of the tournament at all. According to the tournament summary I found somewhere on my hard drive, I finished in 7th. I'll have to take the summary's word for it because I'm drawing a complete blank.

I do recall about seven hands from Dr. Pauly's PLO tournament on Saturday. Well, I recall two of the seven hands. In the first I tangled with Pauly. Don't recall what I had. Something worth playing but that missed the flop. I got the impression he was trying to either double up early or bust so I hung on longer than I should have and ended up donking off a third of my stack. In the first hand. Six hands later I get it all in with my AAxx vs AKKx vs QQxx. Flop brings a K and I go home far from repeating last week's performance.

Having exited the PLO tournament so early I signed up for one of the WSOP freerolls Stars is running every hour. This was the first time I found one that started less than 45 minutes from now and that still had seats available. All I remember about this one was getting it all in with JJ vs AK vs AQ. Flop is KQJ, making me 80% to win. Turn is a blank, making me better than 90% to win. Naturally, the river is a T, giving each of the other two Broadway and they split my stack. I know I played it right, but that just doesn't seem to make up for the huge sucking sound that came at the river.

While waiting for Pauly's PLO tournament I joined The Quest for a bit. Suckout city. I guess I've been fortunate of late to have avoided a long string of bad beats, but that's what I hit on Saturday.

I briefly considered going back to The Quest after my tournament losses, but I knew I was on the verge of megatilt, so I fixed some dinner and watched TV instead. I was still feeling a bit tiltish on Sunday so I didn't play at all.

So it's been a slow week for The Quest. I have been two-tabling of late, not that it has obviously improved my win rate. On Saturday it just increased the loss. But even two-tabling I didn't spend many hours Questing this week.

I've been reading some things that make me think my bankroll management plan for the lowest levels may be overly conservative. Rather than sticking with the plan of having 50 buy-ins before moving up, I may cut back to 25 or 30. When I hit $25 buy-ins I'll probably want 50 of those in the bankroll, but at $5 and under I think I can probably sneak by with less.

Cheating follow-up

Yesterday Ultimate Bet released the results of their investigation into the alleged cheating situation. Full text is here. Here's the short and not-so-sweet:

The investigation has concluded that certain player accounts did in fact have an unfair advantage, and that these accounts targeted the highest limit games on the site. The individuals responsible were found to have worked for the previous ownership of UltimateBet prior to the sale of the business to Tokwiro in October 2006. Tokwiro is taking full responsibility for this situation and will immediately begin refunding UltimateBet customers for any losses that were incurred as a result of unfair play.

The fraudulent activity was enabled by unauthorized software code that allowed the perpetrators to obtain hole card information during live play. The existence of this vulnerability was unknown to Tokwiro until February 2008 and existed prior to UltimateBet's acquisition by Tokwiro in October 2006. Our investigation has confirmed that the code was part of a legacy auditing system that was manipulated by the perpetrators. Gaming Associates, independent auditors hired by the KGC, have confirmed that the software code that provided the unfair advantage has been permanently removed.

If one is to take Tokwiro at their word, and I have no reason not to, they appear to be dealing with this in a very reasonable manner. It would have been nice to have seen a bit more due diligence on their part before buying UB in 2006. And it would have been very smart on their part to launch a full investigation immediately following the Absolute scandal. But I've made more than my fair share of mistakes in the business world, so it's hard for me to be too critical. If they carry through with making cheated players whole and complete all the security tasks they've outlined in the full news release, it would appear they've acted in good faith. I may yet take advantage of that free $100.

Not much happened on The Quest front this week. Tuesday I just felt like taking a break. Wednesday I was in a mood and experience told me playing poker would be setting myself up for mega-tilt. So instead of poker I watched that awful Andromeda Strain remake that was on A&E. Thursday I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up just in time to go to bed. I think I'm becoming my father.

I've been playing with the new Version 3 of Poker Tracker. The tighter integration between PT and the HUD is nice. The couple times I've tried it the display has worked well. The Table Tracker portion could be quite useful, though I'm a bit bothered that it will be a monthly fee add-on and that they haven't settled on pricing yet. Plus, it doesn't work at PokerStars and the details on when it might be working are a bit sketchy. I'd hate to become dependent on a feature and then have it become too expensive.

Tonight is Katitude's $1 rebuy donkament at Full Tilt. Saturday is Dr. Pauly's PLO tourney at Stars. If recent weeks' progression is any predictor, I'm due to win this week. If karma is involved, Change100 will bust me out in a horrible suckout before the end of the first level. Should be fun to see which is stronger.

Cheating

Dr. Pauly linked to an interesting thread at 2+2 today and suggested that other bloggers do the same so the story gets the coverage it deserves. Hard to imagine my link will pick up much that his misses, but I've posted it anyway because I want to comment on it.

I've seen the video of the Absolute Poker cheating. Even posted it here a week or two ago. I thought that pretty damning evidence.

Perhaps a video recreation of the Ultimate Bet situation would convince me as well, but I have to say that based on the statistical evidence posted at 2+2 I'm not convinced. Fewer than 3000 hands is insufficient to base any statistically valid conclusion. Of anyone, the folks who hang out at 2+2 should be among those most familiar with the long run consisting of hundreds of thousands of hands, not a couple thousand.

I believe I've written before about one particular guy I used to run into at Poker Room back in my bonus chasing days. I absolutely could not win against this guy. No matter what happened, if the two of us got into a hand together, it was about a 98% probability that he'd win. I don't have access to the Poker Tracker data, but I know this was over a several month period of me playing two to three hours a night. I'm sure I played well over 5000 hands against this guy.

This fellow was my number one nemesis. I lost more money to him, by a wide margin, than any other player in my Poker Tracker database. And here's the kicker -- he was a major losing player. He was bleeding money at an incredible rate, at least at the tables we played together. I must have been the only guy at the whole site that he was in plus territory against.

I wasn't losing to him because I was playing poor poker or he was playing great poker. As can be seen by his overall results, he was not a good player. I wasn't losing to him because I was seeking to even the score or because he was targeting me. I was losing to him because of variance, plain and simple. It just happened that when we got in a hand together, he would almost always end up with better cards.

I'm sure had he not wisely given up on playing poker, at least at Poker Room, I would have eventually evened the score and most likely taken a lot of money from him just like everyone else had.

All this said, some of the other things outlined in the 2+2 thread go a long way to convincing me that something not right was going on. The account name changes at very suspicious times, the deletion of accounts immediately after they've been outed at 2+2, the tie-in between Absolute and UB, all these make me rather glad I did not take advantage of the free $100 at UB. Not like somebody would be using super-user mode at the $0.01/$0.02 tables, but I don't want to play at a site where it appears systematic cheating is going on at any level.

Following my second place finish in Dr. Pauly's PLO tournament on Saturday, my poker karma had apparently not been properly balanced. I played a two-table SnG where I built up a nice stack early, only to bust out after back to back very bad beats. Monday I played a very cheap tournament at Poker.com, staying near the top of the pack much of the time, again to miss the final table due to a couple really bad beats. One of them was the type where all you can do is scratch your head trying to figure what the other guy was thinking when he pushed all his chips in, only to watch your chips heading in his direction when it's over. I profited a big $0.57 in that one. Well worth the three hours.

The Quest had some ups and downs over the weekend. The bankroll gained $5 this week, which seems to be about average since I rejoined The Quest in earnest. I'm going to have to find a way to step things up a bit. At $20 a month gain it's going to be another ten months before I have the bankroll to move up. I can't spend another ten months at $0.01/$0.02.

I suck(out) at Omaha

Dr. Pauly once again hosted his Saturday PLO tournament at PokerStars this afternoon. I just found what looks to be a pretty cool hand viewer program so we'll try to graphically display exactly how much suckage occurred.



I can't quite figure out how to make this look like I really want and I'm tired of futzing with it, so we'll just alternate pictures and text.

On the very first hand I get what look like decent openers, so when it folds to me in the cutoff I make it 3BB to go. boscodon calls and the blinds both fold.



The flop misses me completely, but I c-bet in the hopes it missed boscodon as well. He calls.



The turn misses me too so I decide to slow it down. I check, boscodon checks.



The river brings me an actual hand. I'm a bit concerned about the flush possibility, so I put in what's sort of a semi-post oak bluff. By betting small I'm trying to represent something stronger than what I actually have. But boscodon still calls.



And, as we now see, the suckage has begun. boscodon had me all the way to the river. In all fairness to me, however, if boscodon had just once bet like he was holding those cards I'd probably have run away.

I don't want to over do it with the graphics so I'll just post summaries from here on. The good Dr picked up a nice pot when his AKK4 turned into broadway. A while later I picked up a medium sized pot with pocket queens. Then I dumped even more when I made the classic blunder of betting the idiot end of the straight and USC55ND24 came over the top big time. I recovered from my blunder by walking away. It was a good move as USC55ND24 showed the top straight.

A number of seating changes later change100 and meeshelle moved to my table. This was particularly notable because meeshelle had 7500 chips. The next largest stack at the table was 2900.

Change100 put a bit of a dent in messhelle's stack when she slowplayed AAKQ, got it all in on the flop of TT7, and boated on the turn when the third ten came up.

Meeshelle eventually restored her stack to its former glory and boosted it even further when boscodon apparently decided to bluff at a connected board. Unfortunately, meeshelle was holding the nuts. Now, with a stack more than three times the next closest, the big stack bullying began in earnest.



Then came the first of two brutal suckouts against change100. I was very low on chips and actually couldn't have been happier when she potted it before it got to me. KKQT with a suited K is a dream hand when you're as low on chips as I was. I joyfully pushed in the rest of my chips. I wasn't quite so happy when change100 called and tabled aces. Since this all happened before the flop and this being Omaha I still had about 97 outs, but what happened was still pretty ugly.



On the very next hand came this. Change100 flops the nuts and I go runner-runner to take it away. Most of the money went in before the flop. I figured I was beat on the flop, but I was getting better than 4-to-1 and on the surface it looked like there were lots of ways to win this. In retrospect I'm not sure I had remotely as many outs as I estimated at the time. But, again, I sucked out and change100 hit the rail. It's probably small consolation, but your chips were put to good use, change.



Then it was time to suck out on meeshelle. Reviewing this hand I honestly don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I was just fed up with meeshelle playing big stack. Maybe I was getting hungry and figured it was double-up or dinner. In any case, I pushed all-in with a weak two pair and a really mediocre flush draw. Meeshelle called and I rivered my flush.

That hand significantly changed the situation. Meeshelle still had a lot of chips but no longer the way biggest stack at the table.

Soon after this we made it to the final table. I caught a couple decent hands and took medium sized pots with them. Then I went up against meeshelle with what I'm guessing looked a lot bigger at the time. Short story, I hit a very small flush that was big enough to take a very nice pot and make me the big stack by a factor of two.

The big chip lead didn't last long as on the very next hand the fates decided it was time to balance the karma. CSuave doubled up off me on a rivered two pair.



Two hands after that I sent meeshelle to the rail with this beauty. For once, I was in the lead right from the start.



CSuave sucked the lead away from me with this one. To be fair, he had quite a few outs, but there was still a bit of a sucking sound when the chips moved in his direction. More universal balancing.

More ugliness and karmic balancing followed and instead of having more than twice as many chips as anyone else I found myself in the middle of the pack.

Quite a few hands later I went on a bit of a rush, taking five out of six in a row. The highlight was the hand where I flopped broadway and sent Mr Nick UK to the rail. By the time the rush ended I was back on top by 7000 chips.

A few hands later Astin bubbled when bayne_s turned a straight and Astin was committed with just top pair.

Next hand everyone but Capt. Homer moved up the money ladder as his three pocket tens were no match for my flopped pair of aces. This gave me double the next closest stack. I tried to play big stack, but it was tough to get away with in this crowd.

The tide changed when CSuave outkicked me by one when we both rivered aces up. I was still well in it, but it's a lot better having twice the stack of the next closest.

Bayne was next to go when his pocket aces went down to my flopped two pair. At this point DrPauly was in the lead with 15.5k, me in second with 14k and CSuave in third with 11.5k.

The very next hand DrPauly and I mixed it up with me pushing all-in on the turn with top two pair and an inside straight draw. Pauly had second pair with 13 outs to a straight. He rivered his straight. Unfortunately for him, it was also the card I needed for my inside straight, and mine was bigger. I now had 28k, CSuave had 11k, and Pauly was on life support. CSuave sent the good Dr to the rails two hands later.

We started heads up with me having almost a 2-to-1 chip lead. We played 57 hands before the winner was decided. The decisive hand was about 18 hands into heads up. I know I said I'd only do summaries after that first hand, but this one deserves more than one picture.



As you can imagine, I'm thrilled to death with this situation. Pocket aces, one suited, with a Q kicker and CSuave has pushed all-in.



Here's an unexpected development. I'm figuring we're going to push and I'll still have a big lead.



I'm still thinking push.



It's my miracle card. I'm counting my winnings at this point.



Oh, cruel, cruel river.

I fought back to almost even, but never regained the lead. CSuave played it very tough, eventually putting me away with a one-two punch of a slowplayed flopped full house and a flush that was just a bit bigger than mine.

Congrats to CSuave on the win and thanks to the good Dr for hosting another great Saturday afternoon tournament.