Homework Assignment

(1) Read the following 2 articles:

      (a) HDouble's "Climbing the Limit Poker Mountain"

      (b) Tommy Angelo's "The Worst Play Ever"

(2) No limit (NL) poker is supposedly about playing the player and not the cards. Extracting ideas from both articles, devise and test "moves" that are both profitable (positive expectation) and hero card-independent (you're the hero) in today's typical NL cash games.

(3) Are you able to implement these "moves" in live play with relative ease?

Charlie's Tournament

It was great playing in Charlie's tournament this afternoon. I was at the same table as Jason, Mr. Decker, Human Head and Derek together with some readers, before being teleported around according to the whims of PokerStars' software. Congratulations to sarahbellum for first place, and Mr. Decker for coming back from a short stack of $140 to finish second. I came 55th out of a total of 144 participants and, as illustrated below, I got my money in as the favorite in the last hand and suffered a horrendous bad beat. Oh well, under the circumstances it was all I could do, given the fickle nature of the poker gods. I'll sleep well tonight.



Big thanks to Iggy and BG for organizing this event. In a related matter, Joe Hachem, another Melbourne boy, took down the 2005 WSOP. Kudos, mate!

Pokernomics

I don't play online, but maybe there are others who might find interest in this project.

FFT

I was first formally introduced to the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) many years ago as a research assistant to a Professor of Statistics at a renowned Institute of Technology. His specialization was in Gaussian random fields and I remember using the FFT, then a few lines of FORTRAN code, as part of my work.

Today, FFT takes on a new meaning. Final Fucking Table. Yes, dear readers, the FFT of the WSOP main event is about to get underway. Mike "The Mouth" Matusow and 8 unknowns. I'm rooting for Mike and the Aussie, Joe Hachem. As per usual, get all real-time juicy details from Pauly and the other WSOP links on the right.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oy, oy ,oy!

Mikey, Mikey, Mikey, oy, oy, vey!

For Charlie Tuttle

CJ expresses it better than I can. See you Sunday.

A typical Friday night

"There is a time for playing cards and there is a time for playing."
- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Friday nights are reserved for playing. There can be no other way as the daily grind of live NL cash games exacts a hefty toll on my psyche. I need a diversion urgently.

Friday night, 9:35pm
One last look in the mirror. I tighten my belt one more notch, but there is no avoiding the Homer Simpson-like side profile. No matter, if this is the price I have to pay for maturity and a modicum of sophistication, then so be it. I fling the fur coat around my shoulders, apply a final spritz from a 30-year-old bottle of Aramis and slam the door behind me.

Friday night, 9:36pm
Bang frantically on the front door upon realizing that my keys are still on the coffee table. The banging stops when I remember that I live alone. My neighbor has a spare key and hopefully will be home when I return later from/with my conquest.

Friday night, 9:40pm
My cab arrives. I could swear some part of my clothing rips as I contort my way into the back seat.

Driver: "Where to, Sir?"
Me: "Bellagio."

I expect the crowd at the Light nightclub to be the pick-me-up I so desperately need.

Driver: "Aramis?"
Me: "Davidoff."

Let him call my bluff if he doesn't want a tip. I fart silently to confuse him further.

Friday night, 10:00pm
The cabbie drops me off at the Flamingo Street entrance and I nearly collapse as the hot 98 degree night air hits me. What's with this fur coat shit, a habit I can't seem to shake from my New York days, or should I say nights.

Friday night, 10:05pm
I am in the men's room, rubbing the soaked back of my shirt against the electric hand dryer. The place now reeks of Aramis. Luckily it's a young crowd.

Friday night, 10:25pm
The bouncer at the Light, for some unknown reason, doesn't want to let me in.

Bouncer: "It's a private evening, Sir."

Meanwhile everyone and their dog is being let in. I hate resorting to the old Benjamin Franklin trick, but he leaves me no alternative.

Me: "Maybe this will refresh your memory."
Bouncer: "Sorry, Sir."

At least he has the decency to return the crumpled up $1 note, which I immediately deposit into a nearby slot machine.

Friday night, 10:35pm
Me: "What's the list like for $2-$5 No Limit?"
Poker Floorman: "You'll be sixth, Sir. Aramis?"

2005 World Series of Poker

This will probably be my only post on the 2005 WSOP.

It's Party Time

This time it came in a USPS delivered cardboard box. Upon opening it, I found a PartyPoker hat together with a letter informing me that I had a $30 bonus waiting if I played 150 raked hands. Not wishing to repeat the same mistake I made last time, I threw Kelly and caution to the wind and immediately bought in for $25 in a $25 NL game. It wasn't long before I had $44.35 in front of me, and then the following hand transpired (my apologies, but bison's hand converter doesn't accurately reflect the side pots):

Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 7: Hero ( $44.35 )
Seat 5: mXXX ( $61.72 )
Seat 6: bXXX ( $5.3 )
Seat 1: wXXX ( $5.8 )
Seat 4: aXXX ( $23.55 )
Seat 2: EXXX ( $5.44 )
Seat 8: sXXX ( $11.05 )
Seat 3: BXXX ( $6.7 )
Seat 9: AXXX ( $19.95 )
Seat 10: cXXX ( $7.65 )
cXXX posts small blind [$0.1].
wXXX posts big blind [$0.25].

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Ah Kh ]
EXXX folds.
BXXX folds.
aXXX raises [$1].
mXXX raises [$1.75].
bXXX folds.
Hero calls [$1.75].
sXXX calls [$1.75].
AXXX folds.
cXXX folds.
wXXX folds.
aXXX raises [$2].
mXXX calls [$1.25].
Hero calls [$1.25].
sXXX is all-In [$9.3]
aXXX calls [$8.05].
mXXX calls [$8.05].
Hero calls [$8.05].

** Dealing Flop ** [ 9d, Kc, 6c ]
aXXX checks.
mXXX bets [$15].
Hero calls [$15].
aXXX is all-In [$12.5]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 5c ]
mXXX checks.
Hero is all-In [$18.3]
mXXX calls [$18.3].

** Dealing River ** [ Ad ]
mXXX shows [ Ks, Qc ] a pair of kings.
Hero shows [ Ah, Kh ] two pairs, aces and kings.
sXXX doesn't show [ Ts, As ] a pair of aces.
aXXX shows [ Qs, Qd ] a pair of queens.

Hero wins $41.6 from side pot #2 with two pairs, aces and kings.
Hero wins $36.7 from side pot #1 with two pairs, aces and kings.
Hero wins $42.35 from the main pot with two pairs, aces and kings.

To my dismay, rather than blowing my buy-in, I now had $120.65 plus the unused $5. So what next, the $50 NL tables?

WPT Kamikaze

For those who missed last night's WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars of Poker (actually played on March 11, 2005), it was one of the wildest final tables ever televised. It's down to 4 players and our two protagonists are Danny Nguyen, a San Jose poker dealer, and Shandor Szentkuti, a 36 year old amateur from Pacifica, CA.

Szentkuti, with $680,000 in front of him, has been playing tightly while Nguyen, with $545,000, has been involved in virtually every pot, trying to run over the table by bullying and bluffing.

Szentkuti, with A♠ K♣, decides it's time to put an end to Nguyen's madness and calls the latter's all-in bet of $545,000.
Nguyen has A♦ 7♦.

Flop: K 5 5 with one diamond.

Nguyen needs running diamonds or running 7's to win. At this stage, Szentkuti is a 96% favorite.

Turn: 7♣

River: 7♠

Needless to say, Szentkuti was crippled and went out the very next hand.

For Szentkuti, the emotional scars created will most likely manifest themselves in a combination of the following :

(1) Frequent and uncontrollable flashbacks of the hand
(2) Morbid feelings of self-pity
(3) Morbid feelings of wanting to strangle Danny Nguyen
(4) Deep regret at not winning a higher prize

The inevitable neuroses will only be magnified by the feedback loop of interaction with his perceived mass viewing audience.

Poker is becoming a dangerous sport. Make no mistake, this nationally televised suckout ranks right up there with the other life events (loss of job, illness etc.) and consequently Szentkuti is a prime candidate for some form of post-traumatic stress disorder.

What really happened....

For the previous 6 weeks, my raison d’être has been winning the WPBT tourney. I was in full training mode, observing a strict diet and abstaining from all forms of sexual activity (carpal tunnel). I had met with the staff at Aladdin and had instructed the dealers how, when and what to deal to me. Nothing could possibly go wrong. I had prepared a winner's acceptance speech that I could rattle off in my sleep and was already planning on spending the very attractive first prize.

There remained, however, one obstacle. Despite statements to the contrary, I had no good reason to believe that Bill Rini was actually going to change his bounty from last year's knee to the groin. So my gameplan was to avoid any direct confrontation with him - in fact the script had him going out in 3rd place with his cowboys getting cracked by CJ's suited jackhammer. I figured that after getting kneed in the junk by Rini, CJ would be in no position to pull off something unexpected, and it would be a cakewalk from there on. Why Bill and CJ, you ask? It was the least I could do to compensate Bill for last year's Gigli. And CJ had to be rewarded for all the time he put into organizing this event, for goodness sake!

And then it happened. I was dealt JJ in early position and raised all-in. Bill, who was preordained to get A4s and subsequently fold, called!!! Eight-handed and he puts his tournament life on the line calling an early position all-in raise with A4 sooooted!!! This was not in the script and to his credit, Davor, the dealer, did manage to find one of the jacks he had stashed away at the bottom of the deck for just this type of emergency, but somehow the second one eluded him. I knew that the only way I could lose this tournament was due to some unexpected move by one of my opponents, so I had reluctantly prepared a bounty together with a silly bust-out speech that I had no intention of uttering. Well, who woulda thunk it?

Thanks CJ

Just back from the WPBT Blogger's tourney at the Aladdin. Bill Rini, who eliminated me in 8th place thereby earning a well-deserved bounty, went on to win the event. What a great bunch of people I had the pleasure of meeting today.

Eye of the Tiger

I think it only fair to warn everyone that with the 2005 WPBT bloggers tourney at the Aladdin almost upon us, I am in full training mode. My typical daily regimen:

06:00am : First alarm

06:25am : Second alarm

06:26am : Jump out of bed

06:27am : Jump back in

08:30am : Slowly crawl out of bed

08:45am : Breakfast of Cheerios and cold milk

09:00am : Chip stacking exercises

09:30am : Isabel Mercier semi-smile and chip throw routine

10:00am : Anger management and breathing

10:15am : Lederer staredown practice

10:30am : Card reading techniques

11:00am : Card throwing techniques

11:30am : Hellmuthian whining

12:30pm : Peeking at opponent's hole cards

01:45pm : Neck massage and Visine application

02:30pm : Acceptance speech practice

03:00pm : Donkey braying and other animal calls

03:30pm : Esfandiari hand waving

04:00pm : Tony G taunting

04:30pm : Acceptance speech practice

05:00pm : Read 60+ poker blogs looking for weaknesses to exploit

11:00pm : Lights out

Thou shalt give it away

For living proof that it is possible to live in Vegas and not gamble, one need look no further than the excellently written blog of Grubby, a Ghandi-like ascetic leading a spartan lifestyle of meditation and fasting. It is amazing how he withstands the daily temptations thrown at him, which he generously shares with his readers. Self-denial notwithstanding, the one human pleasure he reluctantly allows himself is liturgical music, and his description of how his chant of the ancient Zoroastrian mantra "Give it away, give it away, give it away now" helped obtain a free ticket to The Mormon Tabernacle Choir nearly brought tears to my eyes.

Pat yourselves on the back

I would be remiss if I didn't dedicate a post to the poker blogging community of which I am a relative newcomer. I will not include hyperlinks or specific names - there are too many good people I would overlook. Our community caters to all tastes, ages and backgrounds. If you want nerdsville, you can find blogs that could be converted into top of the line poker theory books. If you're after psychology, there is no shortage of stories that could fill 20 self-help books. Humor, drunken blasphemy, information, pathos, bathos, online, B&M, human interest, literature, ego, the arts, sports, sex, adventure, fiction - if you know where to look, all can be found on the pages of our esteemed poker bloggers. Not to mention poker.

My reading is not limited to the blog list on the right. With a few rare exceptions, every poker blog I have laid eyes on has had something which, to a greater or lesser degree, appealed to me. I salute you all.

Zog, Bamf and tournament poker

Poker was introduced on Zog several years ago, and it was an instant hit. Unlike earth, Zog's intelligent inhabitants are not so widely-varied in their talents. In fact, when poker tournaments were first introduced, every tournament saw the same 300 players show up every time, and every one of these players played with EXACTLY the same ability!

Much to the surprise of Zoggians everywhere, there was one player who had actually won more than one tournament of the mere 15 that were played in the entire history of poker on that planet. Everyone thought, "Wow, the odds against a single player winning more than 1 tournament out of only 15 when there are so many participants must be astronomical! This player really must know more about the game than anyone else!"

[Math note: The probability that some player will win more than once out of 15 tries with a 1/300 shot of winning each tournament is actually better than 1/3, so it's not such an amazing event after all. Unfortunately, the Zoggians evolved to be no better at intuitively understanding the mathematics of seemingly unsual events than humans.]

The Zoggian who achieved this feat of course also believed that he must be a great player, so he wrote a book that everyone immediately bought. Now because of the tournament success and the book, this player became a celebrity among poker players, and immediately commanded respect at poker tables everywhere. The plays that he made at the table that worked out well were heralded as more signs of his genius, while his failures were soon forgotten, or more likely, were deemed to have been "too deep" for mere mortals to understand. The selective memory syndrome built him into a legend. In addition to this, the confidence he acquired from his early success (and his opponents' concomitant collective fear) served to actually (for the first time) cause him to play slightly better than his opponents, making him slightly more likely to win events than his counterparts.

As the fame of the Zoggian poker author continued to grow unchecked, another player won multiple tournaments in a short time, and it was not long before he was proclaimed the newest Zoggian poker genius. Like his predecessor, this fellow wrote a book, and he also began collecting financial backers for future events. His backing allowed him to play more fearlessly than before, and this, along with his notoriety, helped him to gain a slight edge on his opponents.

This same story played over and over, with new "heroes" emerging every so often by winning multiple tournaments in a short time. Before long, there was a whole pantheon of "superstar" players, that everyone on Zog agreed were the elite. These superstars were just as susceptible to selective memory as the rest of the planet, so they believed that their fellow superstars really were "the players to beat". Many of them split action with each other in tournaments, figuring that their group was a shoo-in to get most of the money at every event they played. Every once in awhile, an "outsider" won a tournament who, for whatever reason, was quickly praised by one of the established elite. The effect of this was to effectively extend the period of time allowed (from 15 tournaments to 30) for that person to win a second tournament such that he would be admitted into the elite. This had the effect of greatly improving the probability of these connected newcomers hitting it big, AND it served to make the uppercrust even a more tightly-knit group.

All this happened without a single player having any greater understanding of the game of poker than anyone else. Many of the superstars played marginally better because they played aggressively thanks to their misplaced confidence, but this adjustment was by no means a deliberate conscious decision based on a strategic understanding of the value of aggression. After their original hot streaks, any occasional win (however rare it might actually be) by a superstar player only served to reinforce his stardom. Typically this person credited his win with some adjustment he made that "put him back on track". When a superstar failed to win a tournament, no one took the slightest note, possibly because there was almost always some other big name player to watch at the time. When a player fell on hard times and lost a backer, he simply shopped around until another came along.

One day, a small group of inhabitants from the nearby planet of Bamf arrived on Zog in a spaceship, and they were amazed to discover how truly awful the Zoggians played the game of poker. With their superior analytical skills and their centuries of experience, the Bamfites possessed a much deeper understanding of the game than the Zoggians could ever imagine. After speaking with and reading the books written by the star Zoggian players and after sitting at the tables with them a few times, the Bamfites concluded that even the Zoggian "elite" were clueless about the game. For a variety of reasons, most of the Bamfites decided that tournaments are not the smartest or fastest way to win money, and only a few even bothered to participate in these events. Those few that did take part only did so occasionally, and expected to win maybe one out of every 150 or 200 tournaments. Although this was a much better probability than their Zoggian counterparts, these Bamfites never got admitted into the group of "elite" players, because their limited participation made it extremely unlikely that they would manage to win multiple tournaments in a short time. When a Bamfite occasionally let it slip in public that the Zoggian star players were actually not very good, they were dismissed as "jealous", or were told that they simply did not understand the game well enough to see how deep the plays of these Zoggian superstars really were.

By Tom Weideman, rec.gambling.poker

Still here

An extremely tight schedule (incarceration) has prevented me from posting as of late. I apologize sincerely to my loyal readers and vow to maintain the high level of penmanship (plagiarism) you have come to expect on a more regular basis (prune juice).

Curves

I have had a fondness for curves as far back as I can remember (Yikes! What's that white goo?!). A curve can be defined thus :


In topology, a curve is a one-dimensional continuum.

In analytic geometry, a curve is continuous map from a one-dimensional space to an n-dimensional space. Loosely speaking, the word "curve" is often used to mean the function graph of a two- or three-dimensional curve.

There is nothing more exhilarating than matching a naturally occurring phenomenom with a one-line mathematical function. And, dear readers, it is in the spirit of sharing that I present some recent revelations I have had.

The is the bean curve, a variant of the quartic curve. Or a poker table.




A whirl is constructed by nesting a sequence of polygons (each having the same number of sides), each slightly smaller and rotated relative to the previous one. It also resembles my sphincter after an all-in bluff raise.

A butterfly curve is a sextic plane curve. Think all-in bluff raise.

The division of the Fresnel integrals of a Cornu spiral yields the above, or my bankroll as a function of time.

The elliptic logarithm is a generalization of integrals of the form (t²+at)^-½. Also a good depiction of my sphincter after opponent folds to my all-in bluff raise.




And finally, the curve that needs no introduction :

The fish curve is a special case of the ellipse negative pedal curve.




Glue Factory

The temptation to aggressively parlay my $25 Empire Poker bonus into either $200 or the ground by playing $25 NL was offset by a less rational desire to play for more than 2 minutes, and so it was that I decided to try my hand at $0.50-1 limit hold'em. The swings were great, with my $25 first dropping down to $2, then back up to $44, and finally down to zero. The play was fishy and following is the hand which sealed my fate:

Empire Poker 0.5/1 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Qc, Td.

Hero calls, 5 folds, Button raises, SB calls, 1 fold, Hero calls.

Flop: (7 SB) Tc, 5h, 4d (3 players)

SB checks, Hero checks, Button bets, SB calls, Hero calls.

Turn: (5 BB) Qs (3 players)

SB checks, Hero checks, Button bets, SB folds, Hero raises, Button 3-bets, Hero caps, Button calls.

River: (13 BB) Jd (2 players)

Hero bets, Button raises, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 17 BB

Results:

Hero has Qc Td (two pair, queens and tens).
Button has As Kc (straight, ace high).
Outcome: Button wins 17 BB.

If and when Empire Poker are generous enough to send me another $25 bonus, I'll be going all-in on my first hand of $25 NL (as I should have done this time). Till then, it's B&M NL for moi.

For the times, they are a changing

Las Vegas Review Journal, April 10, 2005

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth

My views on online poker have, rightly or wrongly, been shaped by an unfortunate encounter I had with a $15-30 colluding pack late last year. I haven't played online since then except for February, when I quickly blew through a $25 bonus at, where else, a $25 NL table. Well, guess what arrived in my mailbox today?

Dear noyfb,

You have been awarded a bonus amount of 25.00 and the money has been added into your account. You are free to use this bonus amount to play at Empire Poker. However, if you wish to cashout the 25.00, you will need to play 300 raked hands before 25-APR-2005 EST.

If the above conditions are not met, your bonus will expire.

Almost identical to February's offer except then it was 175 raked hands. This time I'll start off with $0.50-1 limit HE, which effectively lowers my risk of ruin from 90% to 80%.