Thirteen hundred words

Before I forget, kudos to Double A’s (http://doubleas.blogspot.com/) for this perceptive comment:

“Loose Aggressive players like to outplay their opponents, but often fail to realize that folding is sometimes the best way to outplay someone by not paying them off.”

So, I have three days to catch up on. The house-sitting continues to be fun; the charming little cat I am also looking after is a pleasant bonus! Otherwise, a lot of life sucks. The debt management thing is underway, and I now have to deal with my creditors’ reactions to it; one arsey and one supportive so far.

And I simply cannot work out what is the right thing to do regarding The Girl. The following thoughts swirl around my head like national lottery balls: I don’t want to hurt her; I might hurt her more in the future by quitting when things get too serious; I should chill out and enjoy the sex; sex is over-rated; I like time to myself; I enjoy spending time with her; I want more freedom… And so on and so on.

What do you think – is sex over-rated? I told my mate the other night that a lot of the time I just find it nerve-wracking and sweaty - and he said it sounded like cycling to work.

Poker is tied up in my feelings and whatever decision I make about The Girl. I want to play as much as humanly possible, and my time with her impacts on that quite seriously. Generally, it rules out weekends, and since my socialising has to be done during the working week I end up often playing only in the early hours, then being tired in the morning.

Let’s catch up, anyway. I played Tuesday after work and later after drinks… and Wednesday and Thursday I was off work sick - although not sick enough to stop me smoking like a bastard - so I played some goodly hours. Over the three days I played something like 14 hours (hard to be precise because I don’t always record whether or not I was two-tabling) and made 95 bucks. That’s pretty disappointing, but it ought to have been at least double really as I will explain.

I won’t go day by day, but game by game. Heads-up limit hold ‘em has continued to be good to me, and is a game that I enjoy and am fascinated by. Since starting proper records on Saturday I have made $102 in 9 hours, playing 50c/$1. I think that is pretty good. I have suffered some beatings since I last wrote: one to a guy better than me, one to a guy I consider evenly matched who had an insane run of cards, and last night to a scumbag who hit two crazy hands and then immediately left! I have so far continued to play even when I have been up against people who seem closely matched or better than me… Why? Well, pride (which is stupid), a desire to learn from them (which is good) and a belief that I can adjust to their game (which has generally proved correct in that I have recovered some of my losses in almost all cases).

Of course, the bulk of the winnings come from playing markedly inferior players, along with little runs of good cards – it is amazing how hot you can run in a heads-up game at times. So, the trick is to put the hours in and learn what you can while shuffling chips with the decent players, and beat up good on the weak guys when they come along. I just hope the weak guys keep coming along! It really is a beautiful, almost zen-like feeling when you are playing someone crap; betting, raising, trap-checking, calling, folding occasionally, all at light-speed, knowing that barring one of those runs of cards you are going to bust your opponent.

Regarding speed, I’m not always the quickest player out there, and a couple of people have ‘ordered’ me to play faster. One guy kept it up so much that after responding by ordering him to play slower, I eventually quit on him (he was better than me but I was ahead so that was nice). The other chap was amusing – it took me 17 minutes to bust him out of his $18, but he left before I could say ‘was that quick enough?’ I tend to avoid responding or getting into verbal jousts in these games, because I think a pissed-off opponent will become more aggressive and that’s rarely a good thing in heads-up.

Finally, I trawled 2+2 yesterday but heads-up play is in a forum called ‘Heads-up and Short-handed’ and the posts are 99% about 6-max tables. Those that talk about heads-up usually mean play that has got heads-up on the flop in one of those games… so there’s basically no useful stuff on there.

My other games? Well, I have played two and a half hours of five card stud, winning 20 bucks. I have also idly played in another PLO sit ‘n’ go – and despite being short stack with 6 players left, I went on to win it quite comfortably, never feeling in any danger. That makes 3 wins in a row, 10 first places in 30 tourneys, 17 cashes. I feel it is fair to say that I am the KING of PLO sit and goes. I really must start playing higher in them.

Howeve, the turd in the otherwise gleaming toilet bowl has been pot limit Omaha cash. I have found good games all three days; no huge stacks, not many aggressive opponents. Tuesday and Wednesday I turned 70 dollars in two hours of play. Yesterday ‘should’ have been at least as good, but in fact I lost $45.

$45 is not a big loss in such a game, by any means, but in the two largest pots that I played I got royally shafted. It takes me back to the early days of this blog, when I had a run of these bad beats. Yesterday’s crown jewels: I have AA in the blinds and have not raised. Only $5 in the pot when the flop comes A26. I make a milky bet, get raised, rub my hands (worried only about the two-flush) and raise back HUGE. This gambling Swedish bozo calls all-in for a pot of $104 (after rake) and he has 3457 for a pathetic NINE outs. 5 lands on the river and I am mortified. Did the maths and I was 73% to win plus 8% to tie.

The other one.. aw, hell you don’t want to read bad beat stories for chrissakes. Suffice to say I got a doofus to go all-in on the flop, making an $85 pot, and again he was a 3-1 underdog and again he hit.

I’m not crying or wailing in agony – I am just reeeeeal frustrated because I know I am playing really good poker at the moment, with a really good attitude, just focussing on making good decisions in good games, and I can’t help feeling I haven’t quite had the rewards I deserve. I’m restricting my PLO play to genuinely juicy games, and winning even ONE of those pots (or even the coin-flip for $50 later on) would have felt like a real validation of what I am doing.

I have grown the (pretty paltry) bankroll by $200 since I made a deposit 8 days ago, which at my stake levels is not bad. I just cannot stop thinking that it couldashoulda been $300 or more. However, I MUST stop thinking that when I am at the tables. I anticipate there being plenty of weakies around on the headsup tables over the weekend, and I intend to plunder my share of their money.

Home game and heads-up

It feels like an age since I have written, thanks to a bank holiday yesterday. It has been an eventful few days too; the home game on Friday, moving into my friend's house for two weeks to cat-sit, another huge argument with the girl I am seeing and - of course - some online poker.

The home game was quite fun, mostly for the conversation which encompassed drugs at the Olympics, training spiders to fight, viagara, flak jackets, massage parlours and god knows what else. The poker was less fun, for me at least. We played three £5 tournaments (seven-handed) and I came nowhere, nowhere and nowhere.

In the first I played looser than usual to try to hit some unlikely flops, and succeeded to become chip leader. I proceeded to play a large stack really badly; I didn't use it to put people to the test, I didn't sit on it and wait for good opportunities, I just blew it in small increments by calling raises and so on.

In the second, I made an unwise call of A's all-in with 99. He showed QQ and I was the short stack after two hands. My call was mainly because A had blown half his stack in the first hand with a really bad play and looked likely to be making a silly move out of annoyance and desparation. I expected to see a weak Ace at best, but I was wrong. I wonder whether Andy played on the fact that we would think he was steaming, or whether he simply tanked all-in with two Queens. He was pretty drunk. Make that very drunk.

Third game, I hung on in without really winning any pots and was one of the last three (first two got paid), but with the smallest stack. G had a big stack, accumulated when he called two already all-in opponents, leaving himself with one chip, with A7. The other two had AK and KQ but G hit a 7. It irks me to see such a poor call rewarded - G is a good player, a betting machine, but that was a downright awful call.

Anyways, I flopped the nut straight on an all-clubs flop, with the Queen of clubs also in my hand. He check-called my flop bet, then stuck me all-in when the turn bricked. I called in an instant, figuring him for one club in his hand. Sure enough he had the King of Clubs and absolutely nothing else. Eight club outs, and it was gutting to have to deal the killer river card with my own hand! G went on to win the heads-up with A7 versus AJ.

I played a bit of five card stud and heads-up limit hold 'em when I got in at about midnight, finishing about $2(!) up before the alcohol and tiredness took me to bed.

Saturday was lovely. I woke in the empty house, threw on a dressing gown, fed the cat, made a cup of tea and booted up the lap-top. I played $1/$2 five stud for a bit, winning ten bucks after an annoying outdraw on the end when my (A)A was cracked by (5)532. Then back into heads-up, where I made over seven big bets in about quarter of an hour against four different players - the first three quit on me almost immediately, and I had to quit when facing a weak-looking dude because my girl turned up.

She went out on the town with a friend in the evening, so I had a mammoth session. The heads-up was fun, but in just over two hours I could only bring in four bucks! The first two guys were quite tough and I broke even. The third was pretty weak, and frustratingly I had almost relieved him of his whole $20 buy-in when he drew out on me and proceeded to play with a 'fuck it' attitude of reckless abandon. I was still better, but in the end he quit having only lost four bucks.
I joined a PLO sit and go during that last game. Those are perfect second tables, no matter what you are playing, because it is auto-pilot strategy stuff. I played well, and for once built a decent stack quite early - I went for it with a big straight draw on the flop against an aggressive guy who turned out to have nothing anyway. From there, it was a cruise into the money, and I had half the chips with three left and a 4-1 lead at the heads-up. I won it with ease, the best part being that I have now won two in a row for the first time ever. J from the home game reckons the $10 ones don't play much different, so I will certainly be playing those wherever possible - they just don't run as frequently.

Buoyed by that, I sat in a decent-looking stud game. First hand was (A)A. I had three callers of my bets and raises to fourth street, thankfully (miraculously?) nobody showed a pair on fifth, and I took a nice pot. From there I bobbed and weaved, played a couple more hands than usual, got further ahead but quit after forty minutes with a profit composed entirely of that pot. I quit because I was tired, which is something I have become better at doing lately - and that is all part of your poker game.

I also managed to get a little bit more heads-up in on Sunday; just over an hour of actual playing time, five opponents, four of whom left and one I busted. Total profit $30.

I will pull together the stats for my heads-up play very soon, but I know that considering I am playing 50c/$1 limit that it looks pretty healthy. Of course, it is a small sample size - but you do get in an awful lot of hands at heads-up. The stats on my site can't even cope and just say that it is over 120 per hour.

Anyways, I think I will be playing a lot more of it. It is great fun (on the whole), keeps you constantly involved and at the level I am playing at right now I have not once felt markedly inferior to an opponent. Another advantage is that there is almost no rake - they only start raking when the pot reaches $10 as far as I can tell, and in the games I play that is quite rare. (I expect in 'better', more aggressive heads-up play a ten big-bet pot is more common).

Having not felt outclassed is nice. There have been one or two players who have been challenging, and I have been tempted to simply run away like so many guys have against me after only a few minutes.But sticking around I have usually managed to adjust to their particular styles and get more or less even - in fact, the most I have lost to a single opponent is 4 dollars, and then he left. On the other hand, I have played numerous guys who were so downright weak that it was just a matter of how quickly would I take their money, not who would win. Really, playing a weaker opponent heads-up must be the most positive EV situation in all of poker, wouldn't you think?

So: I continue note-taking religiously on the people I play, be prepared to quit a game if I really do find myself outclassed (its bound to happen), read the '2+2' headsup forum, and aim to move up the limits I suppose - gradually!

The only downer about my very current games of choice - heads-up and five card stud - is that neither is viable for multi-tabling. Headsup would just be impossible (at least for this mere mortal) and the need to remember folded cards in stud renders that bad news for two tables also. Never mind.

In other news, I already mentioned me and the girl argued again. I am getting quite emotionally drained by it all. I don't want to hurt her, but I can't let myself get in too deep. I am such a selfish human being.