2006 on track for consistent year

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, 2006 looks like yet another consistent year for my poker earnings. My current losses amount to $15,571, so I should have little difficulty breaking through the $16,000 barrier by year's end.

  

Pitter Patter

Iggy, a well-known acolyte and dwarf, has moved shop over to Linda. Small step for Iggy, giant leap for mankind.

More dealerese

"Traddoo," announces the same young Asian dealer at the MGM.

"Rive traddoo."

Translation : Apparently someone has posted a live straddle.

Church and State

"Thanks for praying." - Young Asian dealer at MGM Grand.

Concepts in No Limit

Concept No. 11: A big bet is the most relevant and accurate information available.

Concept No. 50: If someone bets the flop and gets two or more calls, anyone who bets a significant amount on the turn should get respect.

From No Limit Hold'em Theory and Practice by Sklansky and Miller

MGM Grand $1-$2 NL. I have about $300 in front of me and open limp from UTG with 99. Five callers comprising EP, MP, button, SB and BB. The flop is

K 9 6 rainbow

SB bets $10, BB folds. I don't find this flop particularly threatening, so I smooth call my set. EP calls, MP goes all-in for $13, and button, SB, myself and EP are the only callers. However, before I call, I make the cardinal error of asking whether I can raise. I know the rule and the answer, of course, is that since the all-in was less than one and a half times the original bet, it cannot be raised. My inattention would cost me dearly.

Turn : 5

SB checks, I check, EP and MP check, and button after a brief pause goes all-in. He has me covered and I am perplexed by the disproportionate size of the bet. I haven't seen this player before and have no read on him. SB instafolds and I cannot help but think that if not for my stupid raise question, I would be facing a much smaller and easily callable bet. Still, I call almost instantaneously, not even thinking about his hand. EP and MP fold.

River : A

He turns over 87o for the nut straight. I reach for my wallet and rebuy in disgust, lessons learned.

Poker Hall of Shame

As a public service, I list some Las Vegas poker room staff that you should try to avoid. They are guilty of being either inept, stupid or spineless, or a combination thereof.

Tiffany (dealer, Bellagio)
Andrew (floor person, Bellagio)
Charlie (brush, Bellagio)
Bryan (dealer, Green Valley Ranch)
Terry (dealer, Venetian)

More to come.

Bob Lassiter RIP

Bob Lassiter passed away at 9:15am on Friday, October 13, 2006.

My deepest condolences to Mary.

Goodbye tampa, my good close personal friend.

Showing Your Hand

In a recent article in Card Player magazine, Barry Tanenbaum gives compelling reasons why you should show your hand :

• You might win.
• You might have misread your hand.
• You may get to see your opponent's hand.
• It speeds up the game.
• It's OK if people see your hand.

Had I read the article a few weeks earlier, it would have saved me a lot of anguish and a couple of hundred dollars to boot.

Where In The World?

Card Player magazine has a regular feature called Where In The World?, whereby readers are invited to send in photos of themselves in exotic settings, with an issue of the magazine prominent in the photo.

I now provide my reading public with a sneak preview of this snapshot taken during my afternoon siesta, which I recently submitted and am sure will be published in the not too distant future. Needless to say, the locale is Vegas, baby, Vegas!

September 11

The morning of September 11 2001 found me in my Queens, NY apartment, 8 miles from the WTC. I was at my desk watching CNBC when the regular broadcasting was interrupted. I could see the smoke from my rooftop.

The last time I had been to the WTC was a few months earlier, when I spent a couple of days visiting a trading firm on the 55th floor of one of the towers. A few weeks prior to that, I had also passed through the building twice a day for a full year, having taken the E train to and from Wall Street.

Things won't ever be the same again.

Phil Gordon in the 9 seat

I wandered into the MGM Grand poker room late Friday afternoon and put myself on the list for $1-$2 NL. They eventually opened a new table and I found myself sitting 2 seats to the right of Phil Gordon. He was filling in some time before a James Brown concert and, true to form, kept the table entertained. When I told him I grew up in Melbourne, Australia, he proclaimed it to be his favorite city in the world, this after spending 4 years travelling in 55 different countries. Phil is a nice guy with good taste.

Angle shooting at Green Valley Ranch?

$1-$2 NL at Green Valley Ranch, Sunday 5am. I have AsAc, there are 2 others in the hand and the pot is $200.

The board is J 5 9 K 9 with no possible flush. At showdown, one player declares "jacks and fives" and shows J5. The dealer (Bryan) pushes the J and 5 forward and announces "jacks and fives". For some reason (length of session, lateness of hour, general weariness) I believe I am beaten and muck my hand face down. Another player then corrects the dealer, pointing out that the winning hand should be jacks and nines. I suddenly realize my mistake and express my displeasure to the dealer for misreading the hand, but of course it is too late. I am sure that had the dealer pushed the jack and 2 nines forward, I would have been alerted to my 2 pair. From the corner of my eye, I discern that the floor (Bruce) prefers to keep a neutral distance.

This is the price one pays for marathon sessions and I only have myself to blame. Still, I know for a fact that Bryan and the player involved are friends and cannot put out of my mind that the player may have suspected an overpair and tried an angle with his declaration, with Bryan adding the final collaborative touch. Or maybe I'm a tad paranoid?

I will be more wary in the future and avoid playing when tired. As for the $200, I'll slowly get it back by regretfully withholding future tips to the mostly professional and friendly GVR poker dealers. Shouldn't take too long.

Schadenfreude? Hardly!

High Stakes Poker on GSN continues to dominate as the leading poker television show, leaving the others way behind. The only complaint I have is that the ratio of actual content to commercial time is about 50:50. Truth be told, I'd watch it if it were 30:70.

In a recent episode, Phil Hellmuth loses his stack to Barry Greenstein after the latter flops a set of deuces. The resulting tirade by Phil, together with commentary by hosts Gabe Kaplan and AJ Benza, provide for great comic relief.

Phil : He had a fucking set. I had him on his fucking small pair. I fucking quit.

Gabe : Phil in a reflective mood here.

AJ : Barry rakes in 150 grand while Phil busts out for the second time.

Phil : I should've fucking quit.

Gabe : More self-examination.

Running Bad - Part II

Using the Sklansky-Chubukov rankings as a reference, an analysis of my hand history shows that my dry patch wasn't that dry after all. In fact it wasn't even a significant deviation from "normalcy". This can partly be explained by the relatively high weighting given to supposedly crappy hands like K7o which, somewhat counterintuitively, ranks higher than the more playable T9s and JTo.

I can only shudder to think what really running bad feels like. But thanks all the same to Huge Junk, undream2 and Drizztdj for the sympathy.

Running Bad - Part I

I had the good fortune of receiving a $35 bonus from an online poker site which I recently played off at a $0.25-$0.50 NL table. Talk about being card dead, I have yet to experience such a dry run of cards in 4 hours of online play. I have the history file and will conduct a more rigorous study of the starting hands with a view to quantifying the extent of my misfortune. Needless to say, this should be viewed as an exercise in reinforcing the statistical nature of the game and nothing more.

A sample of the hands :

Qs Jc
9c Qh
4h Qs
2d 5d
9h Th
7s Qd
Jh Ts
5s Qh
Qc Jh
3s 2c
Qc Jc
5d 8s
Ah 7h
7s 8h
9h 7c
5c 7c
4d 8h
2s Qs
8s 4h
9s 6d
6c 6s
2s 2h
Kc Qh
Kh 7c
5c 8h
9s 8h
4c 3d
Qs 3s
5h 2c
9h Tc
8d Ah
Jh 6d
Kc 9s
3h Ks
4h 6c
9c 8c
Ks 3h
9d Ac
8h Ah
5s Kd
7h 2d
Ad 8s
Jh Qd
8h 5c
Td 3d
3d 6s
9d Ad
Qs 3s
7s 5c
6d 3s
4h As
7h As
9d 6c
9c Jd
Ts 6d
4c 5s
7c Qd
9c As
6c Qh
Kh 4d
3h 2d
Qc Ac
7d Kd
2c Qs
8d 8h
Td Jh
4h Th
9c 4d
4c 6h
4s 2s
7s Qc
Jd 9h
Ac 2c
9c Jc
7d As
2h Qc
9s Js
Ts 8h
4c 6s
7h 6h
Qs 3d
7h Ac
3h 4h
5s Ad
4s Jc
2h Js
6d 2d
9c Jd
5c Kc
3d Ad
Qd Kc
6c 5h
4c 2h
3c 6c
4h 6c
Ts Qc
3s As
5h As
6h 5d
Qd Ts
Jh 6d
7c Td
6c 8c
Jc 2h
Qs 3s
Qd 2h
Jd Kd
9h 5c
Jc Kc
9c 6c
Kh 7d
8c Td
6d 2c

Outclassed at the WPBT

From the moment I sat down, I knew I was dead money and even proclaimed such in a firm but subdued tone. I couldn't have drawn a tougher table :

(1) Stephan
(2) Me
(3) Blinders
(4) Jen Leo and then Mrs Head and then Dawn
(5) Empty seat and then Michael Craig
(6) Chad and then April
(7) Hoyazo
(8) F-Train
(9) Hoff
(10) Empty seat and then Human Head

I intentionally deferred my reading of Harrington on Hold'em, brand new copies of which I still have lying in my shopping cart, in lieu of a painstakingly slow study of Sklansky and Miller's new no-limit book. I have also reverted back to live NL cash games so my tournament play is very rusty. I believe I finished around 50th out of 113, much higher than I expected or deserved. Dawn cracked my A4 offsuit with her AK and received a 10-piece bed-set as my bounty.

Thanks to April for organizing everything, all those that helped her, all the speakers that volunteered their time, Caesar's for the wonderful hosting, InterPoker and Full Tilt for the extras and goodies, and finally all the remarkable bloggers that made this such an unforgettable experience.

And of course congratulations to F-Train for taking it down. Not surprising in the least.

Pauly's WSOP Coverage

Just a sample of what's waiting for you at Tao of Poker. To quote Mike Sexton, "Folks, it doesn't get any better than this!"

I'm in Las Vegas for a second year in a row covering the biggest event ever in the history of poker. I want to be at the Rio everyday and tell you what I see, hear, and smell. I'm not going to sugar-coat the poker coverage and tell you how awesome it is to be at the WSOP. I'm not going to write 2,500 words on how cool it is to see Gus Hansen and Jen Harman and Annie Duke play poker. They are degenerate gamblers just like you and me. They happen to be better at it than us but that doesn't make them rockstars and Gods among peasants.

Poker is a dark and ugly entity. The media has created an aura of nebulous sanctimony and the masses are flocking to it like it's the cure for the void that they have in their sad and empty lives. I should know. I fell for it too. For most of my life I was empty and sad. Poker was the light at the end of the tunnel. I bought the bullshit like everyone else. But unlike you, I got to see behind the scenes of the poker world for the last year. I peeked behind the curtain and saw the great and powerful Oz. And he's not great, nor powerful.

Poker is an old dirty whore. Poker is a $10 crack rock. Poker is an illusion and a momentary distraction from the harsh world that we live in.

Too much parry, not enough thrust

Aikido is a form of martial art that redirects the energy of the opponent to ward off an attack, rather than blocking it. It is the approach I adopt in no limit cash games and results in trapping aggressive opponents. While this style works for me, I believe I am lying in wait too much and not going on the offensive enough.

If I could comfortably switch back and forth between these 2 modes during a session, I believe my game would be elevated to an even higher level of mediocrity.

Gambler's Book Shop

Whenever the need arises, it gives me great pleasure to go downtown and spend some time browsing at the Gambler's Book Shop. Located in a decrepit area of downtown frequented by derelicts not unlike myself, the store is a cornucopia of books, magazines, CD's and DVD's on every conceivable gambling subject.

Acquiring a copy of the much heralded and just published "No Limit Hold'em Theory and Practice" by David Sklansky and Ed Miller was the purpose of my visit.

South Coast

Last weekend I finally visited the South Coast poker room. It is a typical Las Vegas low-limit room with a mix of locals and tourists. I played 2 sessions of $1-$2 NL and was pleased with both the results and my play.

I may put low buy-in MTT's on temporary hold while I attempt to capitalize on my recent good run in cash games.