WBCOOP

Played in event #1 last night on Pokerstars. Weird tourney. For the first hour and a half, I was playing at a table with 4-5 people "sitting out." These free promo tourneys are always like that. They shouldn't allow registration until an hour before the start of the tourney. I didn't recognize any bloggers, and when I looked up OhCaptain, he was one of the "sitting out" players and never made it to play. It was fun as people got home from work, or whatever, and popped up with their diminished stack. They would usually be all-in within a few hands and you could pick them off pretty easily if you woke up to any kind of moderately good hand. I finished in 125th place and got my $11 SCOOP ticket. I hope the main event is better. Maybe there will be a couple bloggers I recognize in that. By the time I got knocked out of event #1, practically my whole table was chatting in Spanish, including about 4 observers.

Does anybody know when Walmart started carrying life sized AlCantHang dolls? He looks in pretty rough shape. Maybe that's why they're only charging $6 for him.

MICRO MANAGEMENT

As I go up and down the micro stakes tables on PokerStars, I find (not surprisingly) that the skill level plummets the lower you go. This doesn't necessarily translate into winnings for a more sound player. You end up losing to inside straights hit on the river, 2-3 flushes crack your aces, and people stupidly call brilliant bluffs with bottom pair. Nobody folds when they are supposed to. No one is paying attention, or don't understand what a move means, so setting somebody up with clever deception is pointless. At the lowest levels you don't even get to size up an opponent because if someone wins a moderate pot they usually run away. Hit and Run for .45 cents?!? Weak.
My problem is that right now I don't have enough of a bankroll to even handle a 10 buy-in swing at the higher micro or low level stakes. Pretty sad, but cut me some slack- I'm unemployed right now. I don't know if I'm getting a good gauge of my abilities at the "blood clot" tables (that's the opposite of nosebleed, right?) People at higher levels make appropriate bets, slow play less, and fold when they should. The chat is a lot better too. Of course, so is the play, and that's the rub. I don't know if I am good enough to succeed at a higher level, and there is only one way to find out. Maybe I'll run that experiment when I get my tax refund.
Ugh. I better go study more if I'm going to do that.....

ANTICIPATION

"You're dealt a five and a ten in hold'em. What's the only straight you can't get by the end of the hand?"
-Trivia question an old timer asked me during a dealer change on my last trip to Foxwoods. Answer at the end of this post.

I'm getting really psyched for my upcoming Foxwoods trip. I'm going right after New Year's and got a sick deal on a room at the Twin Pines. I will definitely spend more money tipping the waitresses for tiny watered down drinks than I'll spend on the room! Online poker is fine, but it simply can't compare to live play. I'm also looking forward to playing Pai Gow for the first time and sitting at the video poker bar for a drinking session with some friends I haven't seen in awhile.
I've been reading all the updates from the blogger get together this past week in Vegas. Derek's recap is particularily entertaining. Can't wait for my first trip to Vegas. Maybe next year I'll make it out for the WPBT. It would be great to get to party with some of these crazy characters that I've read so much about. Vegas for the first time, and meeting that crew might be overload though!
Well, it's back to PokerStars in a few minutes. I've been playing like shit. Maybe some time off would help recharge the batteries. Sometimes it's easier to handle my poker addiction when I have a really bad session. It seems a lot easier to log off and do something productive like getting some writing done, or cooking, or even just watching a movie. When you're winning it's so much harder to shut the laptop down and do something else. After all, as Jefferey Tambor says in The Hangover, "You ....NEVER... leave the table...when you're on... a heater." Well that's the nature of the beast.

Trivia answer: You can't get the 5-9 straight because in that case you'd have the 6-10 straight instead.

THE PENDULUM

My love/hate relationship with poker has once again begun to swing towards hate. After a couple bad days at the online tables I am frustrated and dissapointed. Just when I thought I was getting my game on track, I had a few bad sessions and started playing like shit. Impatience is my enemy. Once I get a couple buy-ins down, I start to think about the money I need to make to get back to even instead of playing my cards and not taking dumb risks to try and double up.
Doyle Brunson said "You'll never be good at poker until the money doesn't matter." Although he didn't say that to me directly, it struck me very personally. I tend to think of poker as a route to money, not a fun clever game in which the score is kept with money. And while the financial risk/gain aspect is what makes poker poker (otherwise I could just as easily be addicted to Canasta, Pinochole, or Euchre), my best play is when the money matters least. To acheive this, I have taken to playing micro micro stakes to try and free my poker mind from it's fiscal shackles. Alas, while there are quite a few solid players at this level, there are also complete jokers and novices. By the time you figure out who is who, it's usually too late. Somebody else takes their money, or they leave the table. The notes on PokerStars are very helpful though, in case you run into them again. Unfortunately, I also tend to play down to the level of the stakes I'm playing at. I had more success when I played higher entry fee tourneys, because people would actually do what they were supposed to; fold when they should fold, bet a strong hand, etc. etc. Unfortunately, I don't have the disposable income to play in those tourneys for awhile.
Well, the bottom line is that the bankroll I started with a thin dime is still alive. I need to take a break and recharge the batteries. Start concentrating and playing smarter again. Every year I look back on the previous year and cringe at how bad of a poker player I was (even though at the time I thought I was pretty good). Hopefully next year I'll look back and cringe again.....

IT BEGINS

I guess I'm a little late getting into this blog thing. But that's my style. I was wearing a ton of flannel way before grunge, and I refused to stop wearing it when grunge was big just because people thought I was being trendy, and I kept wearing it well after people thought it was passe. I started playing hold 'em about six years ago, but have just started taking it seriously this year. I love chess too, but poker has a certain appeal. In chess, if you work hard and do everything right, you will win. Not so in poker. You can do everything right, study your opponent, set a trap, make the right read, get your money in good, and then the clown hits a one outer to win on the river. I find this to be a lot more like real life. Poker is a wonderful blend of psychology, strategy, execution, joy, and despair. Just like life.
I feel like I am embarking on an exciting new journey of discovery in poker, and you're invited to come along too. It might lead to disgust, burnout, and frustration, or it might lead to a new world of opportunity. And you can say you were there way back when.....
My new found devotion to poker is a funny story in itself. This year I moved to rural Maine to get healthy. Boredom is the number one cash crop out here. Thank god for online poker. I started playing quite a bit every day. My results were the same as they had always been. I would go up and down, but slowly and inexorably my account would dwindle to zero. A couple months ago, my friend Rob (who introduced me to hold 'em) sent me Action Dan Harrington's book on poker. What a revelation! I would read Harrington's book while playing at PokerStars and apply what I was learning. It felt like I was at a party and I had just been led onto a balcony where I could look back at all the other clueless partygoers. Of course, there's still the VIP rooms in back that I haven't made it to yet, but I'm working on it. Why did I wait so long to read a book about poker?!? Probably my natural stubborness. I'm the kind of person that wants to learn everything on their own. I worked my way up from dishwasher to executive chef. Fuck culinary school! I'm a self taught painter. Those pompous art school profs can shove their rules and trends up their asses! Unfortunately, I was one of the worst kinds of poker player: one who thinks he's good, but isn't. Very dangerous to your bankroll, that technique is!
Flash forward to Thanksgiving of this year. I'm a big fan of Tao of Poker, and Pauly was hosting the 3rd annual Turkey Cup. I had to play in it. So, I took my last $5 and popped it down on the tourney. It was a blast. Everyone was either a blogger or a fan, so the level of play was very good. It was nice to be at a table where people chatted and complimented each other, instead of criticizing and insulting. I busted out in 40th out of 84 after making a dumb pre flop call with 8's against BadBlood's all-in with kings. After I was out, AlCantHang moved into my seat and said he was worried about a contact high. How the hell did he know I was smoking?! Then Pauly said that I was fake GMoney (my screen name was GMONEY722 for lack of anything else being available. Are there really 721 other GMoneys out there?). I remember sitting there and thinking "Wait....I'm not really me?" Funny existential moment. I was too baked to respond in time. No wonder everyone was being so friendly and saying "hi" etc! They all thought I was their fellow blogger Gmoney. Anyhoo, the Turkey Cup inspired me to focus more, and try to move to the next level of play. After the Turkey Cup ended (congrats Joanne), I put my last 10 cents on a 180 S&G and came in third place, winning a whopping two or three dollars. I took that and ground it up on the micro micro table's to $80 as of writing this. FELT UP will be about my love/hate relationship with poker, how poker is life, and where that dime will take me..........