Lousy stinking winner

My bet proved to be a miserable, lousy, stinking winner. England lost in a penalty shootout, but only after having a completely clean goal disallowed in the last minute of normal time. For American readers, imagine a last-second playoff-winning touchdown pass struck off by a call for a non-existent offensive pass interference penalty. For poker-playing readers (!) imagine you’re heads-up at the end of a no-limit tournament and get dealt Aces. The flop comes AAK and your opponent immediately moves all in. As you prepare to call the dealer picks up your card protector, grabs your cards and mucks your hand.

Pretty bloody sickening.

Luckily I don’t invest too much emotional capital in things over which I have no control, so I was swiftly onto the tables where I played a total of perhaps three hours and finished almost exactly even. Down two dollars, if you must know.

First up I played a $10 multi with 153 entrants. I followed a familiar pattern of playing well and then making one stupid move. Early on I was very pleased with my game, especially as I finally made a good pre-flop re-raise bluff – something I have wanted to add to my game for a while. I bobbed and weaved without ever really building my stack, until I benefited from a boneheaded play from an opponent to double up, which put me right in the hunt. That stack dwindled somewhat, until at the break I was in the lower half of the 48 remaining players (20 paid). My stack of just over 2000 equated to seven big blinds and I decided I was in double-up mode. However, I picked a completely terrible spot to do it, raising all-in in mid-late position with Ace Jack offsuit.

The fact that I got called by AA and lost is not really the point. The point is that I was very, very unlikely to get called by a worse hand, which leaves me really only hoping to pick up the blinds – which was not what I was seeking to do. 40th, no cash, live and learn. I am really struggling with the balance between trying not to end up truly short-stacked and having the patience to pick a genuine double-through opportunity. On one hand, I want to have a shot at the top prizes and not a measly return of twice my buy-in; on the other hand, you can’t win one of the top prizes if you don’t even get into the money.

Tournaments remain very much a marginal activity for me, but I am going to win one of the fucking things if it kills me.

Cash play was okay. I dropped some dollars in a $1/$2 seven card stud game before deciding that it wasn’t the usual soft lineup. Pot Limit Omaha went pretty well, in fact very well to begin with. I was right in the zone and getting some cards too, but I finished a 90 minute session winning only $22.

Main reason for this was that I suffered a moderately bad beat when I flopped the nut straight versus two players. All the money went in on the harmless turn card, and the river paired the board. I won a tiny side pot but felt stiffed on the $99 main pot, especially upon checking the hand history later and ‘doing the math’. Of 36 possible river cards, 23 were scoopers for me, 2 ties and only 11 losers. The winner hit a two-out full house, which combined with his slim flush draw made his turn call a break-even proposition, while the other guy was simply donating. I profit by 48 of those pesky theoretical dollars each time the money goes in on the turn there.

Losing a 64-36 shot is not hair-tearing time, but it is frustrating to play well and make the right plays, but miss out on the big pot that makes or breaks a pot limit session. Especially as the bad play I mentioned from my drunken session the other night proved to be no worse than a break-even proposition (and at least I raised that pot, giving myself an extra chance to win) but I failed to get lucky like this guy.

My other action for the night was, as usual, in $10+50c heads up no limit hold ‘em. I won two out of three, for five of my last seven, and enjoyed it very much as always. I did have one lovely opponent who repeatedly folded his button, pre-flop. You could play someone like that for eight hours a day and make a living I reckon, even in $10 games! I mean, if he folds 83 offsuit on the button, while I raise with it and he (invariably) folds, how many times can he beat me? I am going to have the chip lead – and hence be one hand from winning – more often than not.

A friend of mine called me a fool for playing these games, saying it was impossible to beat the rake. I am not sure that I agree. If one is going to play heads-up, surely a one-off rake fee of 5% of your stake works out better than paying rake on multiple hands. I don’t actually care too much, since I play these mainly for excitement and hand-reading practice, but I’m pretty sure they represent a good way of playing heads up.

Enough for today. Since Iggy is on hiatus I am going to link up a poker blog that I haven’t seen listed elsewhere. Patri Friedman cashed in the WSOP ‘Big One’ this year and plays some (very) high stakes PLO. His livejournal isn’t exactly packed with poker content, but I find him an interesting guy. In fact, we swapped a few emails debating gun-control a couple of years ago. I like living in a country where, as a rule, people don’t get shot.

Booze and lose?

A tough and important day at work yesterday, so having negotiated it successfully I treated myself to quite a lot of lager at the pub and a ton of quickfire sports talk. (England are in the European Championships quarter-finals tonight, if you didn’t know). I took the bus home still wondering whether I would play, or collapse into bed.

It was never really in question, I was awarding myself a blowout after work, and so a nice drunken poker session was the cherry on the cake, or the froth on the lager.

So – after playing with brain cells reeling as I sat into the early hours - I will have to check out a lot of hand histories tonight to see exactly how well or badly I played certain hands. I think I was quite aggressive at Omaha, and certainly made one bad raise – but I won a couple of other large pots which my hazy memory is hinting may have had something to do with a nice degree of aggression. So perhaps I lived and died by the sword.

I finished the night (and another cold bottle of beer) at 2am, winners by thirty bucks. I won at Omaha cash, lost an Omaha sit and go, and won three out of four $10 heads-up matches. Funniest of all, I had an experience that I guess all poker players should have at some stage; I bust out of a tournament on the very first hand!

It was a $15 multi table event, 156 entrants, and I came 155th. Dealt AK immediately, there was a fairly large raise in front of me. I decided that this was it, the beginning of the run of cards in a tournament that I have been waiting for, and I raised all-in. Quite honestly, I expected folders all round and a couple hundred chips added to my stack. Instead, a guy in the blinds called all-in, and so did the original raiser.

I don’t massively like either of their plays (and yes, I know mine was quasi-suicide) as the blind turned over pocket 7’s and the other doofus, I mean the other guy, turned over AJ. No help for anybody and I was out. Not sure why I got 155th rather than 156th – perhaps it was alphabetical. In which case, call me Arnie Aardvaark from now on.

What do you think? Which of us made the most idiotic move in this pot? I think it might be a three-way tie. Having said which, to engage in some self-justification, I re-raised a weaker Ace than mine and got an overcall from an A-grade optimist with a small pair. At least I had some ‘opponents folding equity’ in the hand. Quite why I raised all-in is another matter entirely, and I have written to the people at Carlsberg to ask for an explanation. Maybe I’ll get some vouchers or something.

So that was my evening. It was especially nice to win three of four headsup matches. I did a bit of data-mining (rolls on floor laughing) and these are clearly not profitable for me so far, but they are not big losers either and I enjoy them immensely.

I was going to muse over whether or not my poker game is too predictable. However, it is time to go home, I still have a slight hangover, and I need to focus on England versus Portugal. I have bought the Portugal shirt numbers on the spreads, because most of the Portuguese attacking players tonight wear very high shirt numbers.

Its one of those bets you hope to lose.

Pleasantville

I am getting a little concerned that this blog is turning into an endless succession of results and ‘notable hands’. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but I’d like also to be making dazzling insights and humorous asides. I guess I have to keep grinding, and let those big pots (of wit and wisdom) come when they come.

So, Thursday was a fun night of poker. Once again I did an extensive tour of pokerville, searching –always searching – for a good game and a weak opponent.

I found them at pot limit Omaha, where I feel totally comfortable these days. I know I will have losing sessions from time to time, but barring a run of truly evil beats I feel confident they will be rare. I won around $75 in three hours of unremarkable PLO.

I took a poor $10 heads-up player inside five minutes. What is it with these dudes that they want to put all their chips in with no pair on the end? They are always trying to blast me off a pot after I have shown strength on every street. Somebody should tell them that there are no style points in poker.

Most satisfying of all, I found a three-handed game of stud ($1/$2 seven-card variety) in which all three players were short stacked and immediately and obviously poor. Two were simply chopping their stacks down like lumberjacks with call after call after call, while the other folded at the first sign of strength. I was lucky enough to get a few cards and inside ten minutes the callers were bust, the folder was giving up and I’d made over $20. Making hay while the sun shines.

I lost money by playing my first multi in a couple of weeks or so. For once I didn’t even get close to the money. I cracked after over an hour with no cards and made a foolhardy move to bust out in 55th place. I can’t remember how many runners, between 150 and 200 I think. I am longing to experience a real rush of cards in a tournament. You see it in every event; somebody at your table has a half-hour or fifteen minutes where they get cards, flop big with them and accrue a beautiful stack in no time. Given that I have managed to get in the money with a workable stack several times recently, without ever having such a rush, I am looking forward to it happening to me.

I also lost money later on when I returned to seven card stud at an interesting table. One guy was ramping up a lot of the pots, but I could not build a hand or make one stick. I was actually down around seventy bucks inside an hour and seething somewhat, when I had a run of straight, full house, straight in three straight hands to finish only a few dollars behind. This is a consistent pattern in many of my stud sessions, early losses and a late rally. Perhaps I play too loose early on, I’m not sure at the moment.

After all the wins and losses, the swings and the roundabouts, the hits and the misses, I totalled $63 over four hours of poker.

And after all I wrote on Friday about keeping records, I had to laugh at myself after this session when I checked my banking history with my poker site. That little $66 to $1000 target I had for myself? I forgot about one of my recent withdrawals; I actually made the grand target over a week ago.

Two grand, here I come.