Maybe I'll see you in the loser's circle

Right, I can’t think of any cogent theme or hook to hang this post on, so let’s just go for a ramble.

I was about to say ‘bring a hat and coat’, until I realised how much that would sound like Roy West in ‘Cardplayer’ magazine. Y’know, every column begins with the author inviting you in for some meal or other, and ends with him asking you to kill the light on the way out. I used to find it quirky, endearing and different - but I assumed that sooner or later he would ice this little pecadillo and do something else.

No chance. Here we are all these years and columns later and he still does it, and now it really pisses me off. Almost - but not quite - as much as Tom Bloody McEvoy and his ‘if you keep playing your Aces strong, perhaps we’ll meet in the winner’s circle soon’ crap. This little phrase ending each and every column without exception, fortnight after fortnight, year after year, makes me want to puke. Put it alongside the sickly grinning face at the top of the page and you just think ‘What a SAP!’

Well, I do anyway.

So far I seem to have been quite harsh on poker writers in this blog, but not as harsh as Matt of thepokerchronicles.com who has his own, quite amusing take on McEvoy.

I was away most of the weekend, but one way or another (God bless my laptop, and deliver me the funds to pay for it one day) I managed to play around seven or eight hours. I can’t be precise because I don’t keep records. I really will write about that soon, especially since I am going to resume records any time now.

It was the usual (for the moment) mixed bag of games. I played some $1/$2 five and seven card stud, some heads-up No Limit Hold ‘Em tournaments, some Pot Limit Omaha sit and go’s, and of course some’ bread and butter’ in the form of Pot Limit Omaha cash.

STUD: I cannot totally make up my mind about stud, as in ‘Do I like it or not?’ I know, I know, I described it as my new favourite game about a day ago! I think the problem is simply that I play with a lot of people who don’t know how to ever put a hand down, and so I am learning about the veritably vertigo-inducing variance vagaries of (low) limit poker all over again.

Not that I’ve even been losing. I seem to repeatedly go a bunch of bets down straight away, until catching something for a decent pot or two to finish moderately in profit. I guess its simply a case of getting paid off when I hit, whilst paying off less myself. (Ha, and they call Howard Lederer the professor!?) It does appear that my nascent stud game is a profitable one, at the $1/$2 level.

NLHE HEADS-UP: I played three of these on Saturday night, with a total playing time of fourteen minutes. Is that a record? I beat the first guy on the very first hand, making a pair on the flop and hitting a straight on the river. He re-raised all-in with King-high despite the Ace on board. I’m like, whatever! Next one took six minutes and was pretty easy. The third opponent was a bit better and I lost in six minutes, although I kinda threw my stack at the end because I needed to ‘talk’ to someone online.

I am considering playing a real mammoth session of these things, rather than playing the odd one in between other games. Partly because I wonder if heads-up might be a good hand/opponent-reading tuition exercise. Then again, how can you read some of these people, at the minimal stakes I play? The other reason is to see if I can make any sort of hourly rate at it. I’m guessing that would be tough, and I am probably being thrown far too much by getting through three games in fourteen minutes. I’m thinking, like, ‘twelve games an hour, sweet!’ But that isn’t gonna happen, is it?

Frankly, if I am going to play many of these heads-up tournaments then I really ought to move up to higher stakes. I have (blush) been playing $5 games lately, which is silly for several reasons. First, the poker room’s ‘take’ on those games is a higher percentage than at all other levels. Secondly, it is just too small for my bankroll, even though my bankroll is small. I play cash games where I can win or lose $100 quite easily, will happily put $20 or $30 or $50 into an Omaha pot, and yet I’m playing heads-up against weak players for five bucks? And sit and goes, where I know I have a positive expectation, for five bucks?

It is no wonder I consider myself basically a ring game player, when I play tournaments that make no material impact on my bankroll. Even more illogical, I am playing occasional multi’s with three figure fields, where the chance of not cashing for an extended period is obviously greater, for $10 or $15 buy-ins, yet won’t play a ten-runner game (usually with at least three or four clueless opponents) for that amount.

PLO SIT AND GO: I took two more thirds, making four cashes in a row. I have repeatedly been going into the final three spots in the same situation – two of us with small stacks, versus one huge-stacked chap who managed to quadruple up early in some stupid multiple all-in hand. I always take a shot at doubling up in this situation, as I want some chance of winning the thing, rather than hanging on grimly trying to sneak second spot. Still, the main thing here is that I must play higher. The play in these PLO single table tournaments is so bad, usually much worse than in equivalent Hold ‘Em games, that I should be moving up a notch or two to take greater advantage.

PLO CASH: A real fallow period, several shortish sessions of tiny wins or losses. Until Sunday lunchtime, waiting to go and catch my train home, when I dropped 73 bucks in an hour and a half. I’m not beating myself up too much, since it was one of those sits where nothing quite went my way.

I got a ‘Holy Grail’ flop of top set (AAA) with nut flush draw, versus the Swede I have played a few pots with lately. He’s not one of these frightening, whiz-kid Swedes, but rather a poor player. However, I didn’t improve and folded with ease when he made a very big river bet. He obligingly showed the runner-runner straight that he had hit. I got away with losing very little on the hand, but it rather set the tone for the session!

On Sunday night, back home, I did a bit of two-tabling at PLO. I have not done that for a long time. It has never really worked out for me in the past, but both tables seemed like quite favourable line-ups full of people on whom I have reasonable reads.

I only managed to turn a $10 profit though. I made two glaring mistakes: I raised with 678J or possibly 789J, and saw a QJJ flop. I got check-raised on the flop, and went all-in. Mistake since I was either drawing dead or facing a guy with a Jack and better kickers. I failed to get lucky, not that I deserved it. My $27 all-in re-raise should have stayed in my stack for a better situation. Vivid proof that money not lost is the same as money won.

I also threw away about $13 trying to bluff the river against six – yes, six! – opponents. OK, five had checked, but the last fella raised big and showed me quads after I folded. I don’t think he played the hand very well, but I was certainly tossing money into the wind with that needless bluff.

It is irritating that I keep making certain mistakes repeatedly, and not learning from them. Pot Limit Omaha, especially against weak opponents, offers up so many very, very good situations that it is simply not necessary to tank chips into the pot when there is a chance you are drawing dead or slim. Yet I still do it from time to time.

That bad stuff all happened on one table. On the other I won steadily, and an interesting thing occurred shortly before I quit. I made a throwaway chat remark about the succession of paired flops we were seeing, at which another player decided to say ‘Shame you’re doing your dough on the other table’. He proceeded to suggest I was over a hundred down on the other table, when in fact I was down about $30 at that point. He repeatedly laughed at my assertion that I was up over the two tables overall. He bugged me a little, although nowhere near enough to affect my game in any way whatsoever, and I couldn’t help remarking upon his own small stack.

All very odd, although it wasn’t entirely 'apropos of nothing' since I had a blazing row with this player a few months ago. I was in the middle of a terrible spell at the time, and playing late (and a little drunk) one Friday night I took another succession of beats and, frankly, I moaned quite a bit in the chatbox. This chap had a right go at me for complaining about my luck.

But what made this new confrontation odd was that I apologised to the guy a day or so after our previous argument and thought it was all straightened out. I observed the table after I left this time, and saw him tell another player that I was getting on his nerves, a comment that still baffles me. I do chat a little bit, on occasions, and I think I may have commented at this table – in the mildest way imaginable – on a couple of flukey hands that people had beat me with. So perhaps that was what riled him.

(Yes, don’t moan about somebody’s poor play, I know the drill. Sometimes I just can’t help myself, because I am competitive and hate losing so much. I don’t want to be a bad loser, but I also don’t want to be too good a loser either if you catch my drift. I do have my share of testosterone, I love banging heads a bit from time to time, and when I play football I often end up in the odd confrontation).

Anyways, I am torn between having no beef with the guy at all – partly because he is no threat as a player – and wanting to punish him. Not with any foolish over-aggression, but by making a point of studying his play intently so that I know his game inside out. Er, not that I don’t always study my opponents intently at all times, you understand…