Not Playing again

Well that didn't last too long. Played over the weekend and managed to avoid finishing the weekend hung-over, but I think that was merely from anger burning up the alcohol at a faster than normal rate.

How do you know you are running bad? I know this is a question to which there is no answer and any attempt to offer demonstrations inevitably turns into a bad-beat whine. HOWEVER, one hand summarises my efforts lately. I call a smallish raise from loose, bad, utg player while on button with unsuited AJ. Flop comes J 10 4 rainbow. UTG leads for 1/3rd pot and I smooth call - I'm more than likely ahead, but the small bet from this player could also mean a flopped set or two pair - if he leads the turn then I'll know he has a big hand and I can get away. Dealer burns and then the card which should be the turn is "boxed - it is face up - which allows us to see the Ace of spades. House rules say a boxed card goes straight into much to be replaced by the next card, which in this case was another J (the case jack, as it turns out). UTG leads, I raise my trips, he pushes, I call and he tables J 10 for flopped two pair that, through the beauty of randomness, went from being miles behind my turned two pair to being miles in front of my turned trips. When a boxed card sets up this scenario - well, that feels like running bad.

On a different note, I took the Donkey Test. Apparently I should be mid-level winner (I think my score would have been higher but I was interrupted half way through so my quick calculation measure was lower than it should be).

Playing Again

Naturally all of yesterday's rumblings about folding and taking breaks made me realise it was time to end my current mini-break. So I took a guy from work down to my local and introduced him to our game. He had never really played before, was still pretty confused about the hands but said he was keen so I figured what the heck. I had previously bragged around the office that I could teach anyone everything they needed to know to beat the local low limit game (which is a 1-2NL with a capped buy in of $80) in the amount of time it took to walk to the room and he decided to test my theory. Naturally he won for the evening and then spent the morning in my office wanting more information - it was kind of sad because I could see him processing the information and getting worse the more he understood. Last night he ran over the table playing my first-timers ultra tight ultra aggressive strategy. The next time he goes he will get murdered as he tries to play "better". Oh well.

My game was great. Some old faces I haven't seen for awhile and some new ones. Table was really great - I will never understand the idea of a calling station in a $5-$5 NL game, but they exist. I will also never understand those who try and bluff these calling stations. But last night I had both at my table - fortunately for me the main calling station was directly on my right. So after he had successfully stacked two "good" players who tried to run him off hands I proceeded to run my own "how much will he call pre-flop while folding to a C-bet" experiment. The answer appeared to be $120 (yes folks, that is 24bbs). It could be more, but he ran out of the necessary supplies so I was unable to test further.

I'll go back tonight and for most of the weekend as work has suddenly gone quiet again. We'll see how it works out - if I end the weekend hungover and angry at the idiots it will probably be time for another break.

Also, I've added the Poker Grump to my list of linked blogs. His name the casino game always makes me envious but he said some nice things to me so I guess it is time to behave like an adult.

Folding

"Whether he likes it or not, a man’s character is stripped at the poker table; if the other players read him better than he does, he has only himself to blame. Unless he is both able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in cards, as in life." ~ Anthony Holden

Cardgrrl announced recently that she has folded her aspiration to be a professional poker player.

I suspect that the decision reflects, in the manner described by Mr Holden, sufficient self-knowledge to allow her to continue to make money playing cards.

The issue, I think, is the paradox of poker. Put simply, the more you learn the worse you get.

I have been thinking about this for awhile, and I have decided this is how our game plays. I know this sounds crazy, but think about it.

Think about the most fearsome player at the table - the one you hate to get into pots with. Is it the grizzled veteran who has been around, knows the odds and the angles? Or is it the 25 year old who appears to have worked out so much that what passed for his brain has been compressed to the size of a pea by all the muscle - who has demonstrated that AJ is a great hand to go all in with pre-flop - who's total aura of confidence is just as likely from the cocaine as the cards?

If you are like me you are more comfortable with the former - we have some idea where we are at. Against the latter we play our cards and hope for the best because it is simply impossible to get a meaningful understanding of where he is at - he doesn't know - how can we? But it changes as he learns. He studies some and, as a result, maybe understands how lucky he was to crush the game when all he had going for him was aggression and his girlfriend's bankroll. He begins to understand the nature of variance. His confidence suffers. We fear him less.

So the more he learns, the more he proceeds down the path towards understanding the vagaries of our game, the more comfortable we are playing him. He gets worse.

Taken to the logical extreme, it would seem that we are destined to continue to play, observe, learn -- and get worse. We hope for a moment of insight, a moment where all that hard work and thought will pay off in an epiphany of chips. But those pea-brained guys keep coming, those who bemoan the one time they fold because "I would have won you". It is unavoidable - relative to them we keep getting dumber.

Where does it end? I do not know. I know the cycles. We play tighter. We play looser. We play more aggressively in position. We bet marginal hands for value. We check behind. We practice pot-control. We read the latest in the hopes that this will have the trigger, the answer, the key. We adjust our game. We repeat.

Ultimately, we fold. A lot. Until it dawns on us that folding may be the only rational choice (even when we know it is not rational - but remember we continue to get worse by comparison - eventually we must fold all our hands). So we make the biggest fold possible - we get up and leave our game for awhile. How long that while is varies - for me the longest has been about three weeks but others may have learned more.

Good luck Cardgrrl.

A break or a breakdown

So, I decided over the weekend that I am going to take a break from live poker again. No real earth shattering reasons - just realised that I have been taking poor care of myself and this poor care is at least partially related to my poker game.

My local room is full of bad players who are there to gamble. This means that, on average, the best strategy is simply to extract value for your made hands as you will get it. But if you run bad like I have for a while now it can make the whole experience a bit soul destroying. Everyone plays different and everyone deals with playing different. When I have to sit for three hours surrounded by various forms of idiocy masquerading as male bravado while practicing my folding (right hand twist out of back of hand, left hand traditional, right hand traditional, repeat...) my coping mechanisms generally involve alcohol.

This coping mechanism tends to get a very serious workout when, after all that practicing at folding, I pick up a very playable pair of kings on the button and get called preflop, flop (K82) and all-in on the turn (a 5) by 64 off only to see the river 3 give my opponent a straight because "sorry dude, I just felt like outplaying you and I knew my hand would be good". I always try to compliment such play and avoid showing my hand if I can ("Nice hand sir. Me? Not much, certainly not enough to beat a straight. Well played"). But I'm human. Rather than vent all that outwardly I turn to the table beside me and consume what happens to be sitting there. Then the hot little French backpacker/cocktail waitress asks me if I want another. Boy, do I.

So I'm taking a break. Will probably last as long as I am really busy at work (most of September at this stage) but may only last for a day. I'm also going to play some on-line. I can scream at the players there.

Rivalries and Bad Play

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I spent the weekend in a different poker room. Ran atrociously bad (including another example of top set losing to four of a kind - but this was actually a running four of a kind instead of the set over set variety) so spent a fair bit of time at the equivalent of the 1-2NL tables drinking and trying not to spew beer over the table while laughing at various plays. This was made enjoyable by sitting with one of the few guys I consider a friend (he's from my local game and plays professionally - he is low key and happy to talk about poker so on the odd occasion we encounter each other outside the room it isn't too uncomfortable for either of us loner types) for several hours at the same tables.

Some of the play was literally laughable. Which is a bad thing as I drank too much and in this condition it is sometimes difficult to not laugh at laughable play. But the truly hard part to keep quiet about was the commentary after the laughable play - something that I think comes from the fact that this particular city has a decent card room but none of the low-level players have ever travelled. These players have learned the game from other testosterone-fueled idiots or on-line or by watching TV. Which means that in addition to being REALLY bad players, they have no sense of etiquette, take way too much time to make simple decisions, and generally are just plain rude.

Some random examples (keep in mind the blinds are $2 - $3 and the buy in is between $50 and $200 - yes this is seriously screwed up structure but I digress):

I'm on button with suited J10. I have $230 stack. 6 limpers to me so I make it $25 to go (Not a fan of J10, but want to see what happens). BB, Under the gun, mid position and cut off call, (yes folks that is four limps that call a bet of 8.5bbs. No, folks, I have no idea what anyone has either) and now there is $130 ish in the pot. Flop comes J54 two spades (which I don't have). Checked to mid position (has me covered) who bets $25 into this $130 pot. Cut off folds, I think for a minute and decide this bet is likely a flush draw or a middle pair bet (have seen lots of these middle pair bets) so I raise to $125 planning to put it all in on turn if I get called and brick comes. Folded to Mid who hems and then calls. We're heads up to see the turn of an offsuit 10. Mid checks again and push all in with my now top two. Mid calls and I roll my hand announcing that his set is good. He says he doesn't have a set and when a spade falls on river I figure he drew out, but no, he shows pocket kings and proceeds to yell at me for my J10. I quietly inform him that if he had executed his limp re-raise plan pre-flop he would have won the pot uncontested. Or if he had made a proper bet on the flop he might have won it there. He informed me he lost the last two times he had kings so he was trying to keep it small. But how could I raise with J10 when he had kings? "Sorry Sir, I just got lucky". And I heard about my luck for the next two hours.

Then there was the guy who called when I raised a straddle to $50 from the SB with 99 after 5 callers. His call left him exactly $7 behind. So I bet $8 blind and he calls after seeing a flop of 10 5 3 rainbow. I roll my hand and he waits for the turn and river to come running clubs before turning over Q7 of clubs for a running flush...

Last (ok there were dozens more, but this post is huge already) there was the guy who, having gotten himself in a hole on the river (He raised pre, was called by maniac, made a stiff bet flop that had two spades, maniac calls, third spade on turn goes check - check, River blank goes small bet - big raise by maniac) proceeded to spend precisely 13 minutes looking at his cards, talking, walking away from the table and repeating the process until someone at the table called time and a supervisor made it over to muck his cards. He spent the next hour threatening the guy who called time. "Look man, I play for money - what are you doing calling time, someone ought to give you a time, blah blah blah".

And so it goes.