Misanthropic Poker

By the way

2011-04-07T19:29:00.002-04:00

About a third of the cars going by my house are actually tractors and a good 10-15% are carrying hay.

Ahhh ramping up

2011-04-07T17:02:00.002-04:00

So the plan is to hit May and be on a schedule of playing four rush poker tables for four sessions of ninety minutes each. That would be about 6k hands per day and would bring in approximately four metric shit tons of rakeback.

So today I started my ramp up schedule with one session that lasted about 80 minutes. I'll do that again tomorrow and probably through the weekend then go up to two for a few days.

I'm definitely not playing optimally, I got a bit calling station-ish which as they say, aint good. But hey, working off the rust and all that.

I Don't Think Poker Wants Me Back

2011-04-05T18:33:00.002-04:00

I decide to play a little bit before making dinner (bleu cheese burgers and shrimp on the grill) and I dunno if I should take this as a sign.

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1264163

DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

SB: $24.85
Hero (BB): $25.00
UTG: $63.35
MP: $15.25
CO: $29.26
BTN: $128.99

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BB with K K
2 folds, CO calls $0.25, BTN raises to $1.10, SB raises to $3, Hero calls $2.75, 1 fold, BTN raises to $128.99 all in, SB calls $21.85 all in, Hero calls $22 all in

Flop: ($75.10) 9 7 J (3 players - 3 are all in)

Turn: ($75.10) 3 (3 players - 3 are all in)

River: ($75.10) 9 (3 players - 3 are all in)

Final Pot: $75.10

SB shows A A (two pair, Aces and Nines)
Hero shows K K (two pair, Kings and Nines)
BTN shows K K (two pair, Kings and Nines)

Hero wins $0.15
BTN wins $0.15
SB wins $71.80

(Rake: $3.00)

That's 2.9% equity for those of you scoring at home.

Holy Crap

2011-04-04T22:40:00.002-04:00

Anyone out there?

Didn't think so.

In September my wife and I made the decision to move to South Carolina. We moved in March.

We had three separate deals for our house up north fall through. Three of them. Holy mother of god.

Anyway, through all that time I wasn't playing much poker, just barely enough to not get completely hosed.

And now I am going to be working my way back in.

And on the off chance anyone still has me on a feed reader or whatever, I am going to be attempting to actually like post shit and stuff, y'know?

Oh Hai Guys

2010-10-06T00:41:00.003-04:00

It's official, we're moving to South Carolina, a dippy little town between Columbia and Charlotte. Should be moved in a few weeks and then the play and blogging should resume something resembling a normal schedule.

We've had some interesting news on my wife's health front. She has not one but two conditions that make it hard to have any energy. She can't absorb vitamin B12 naturally, and she's got an autoimmune disorder called Myesthenia Gravis which means her immune system is attacking her muscles. Both are eminently treatable.

Baseball's playoffs start tomorrow. It totally blows chunks that the Sox aren't in there but when you play for two months with four ninths of your starting lineup on the DL it's kinda hard to win.

The Yankees are playing like crap but they're better than the Twins. The Rays are better than the Rangers. The Phillies are better than the entire rest of the NL combined. I'll go with Rays and Phils and probably give the Phils the edge.

Oh and I'm probably going to start a blog about social and political crap once I get to South Carolina just to keep myself sane.

I Have Got To Write More

2010-08-18T18:50:00.002-04:00

I am very rusty. 50NL rush is kicking my ass somehow. Didn't think that was possible anymore. Oh well, I'll rub the rust off at 25NL.

It's a little pathetic actually. We've been estimating what it will cost to live where we're moving and I did some back of the envelope calculations and it could be possible to live off 25NL. On the one hand that sounds pathetic and soulcrushing but on the other hand I worked in a cube farm for the better part of two decades.

The only way poker could get that bad is if you're playing razz.

Adjusting to Rush Poker

2010-08-15T19:35:00.002-04:00

So I'm playing at Tilt for teh Rush Poker to get in hands and it seems to me that it's a hell of a lot tighter than regular 50NL. I mean, if you have an overpair and someone raises a low moderately coordinated flop it seems like it's always a set. I mean, I have a small sample and all but it seems that way.

Is it my imagination?

Prepare To Get An Erection

2010-08-13T19:29:00.000-04:00

Zork Online

Holy Shit Am I Rusty

2010-08-12T16:55:00.002-04:00

Hi guys, sorry for the tease, just when I thought I was going to be able to get back to playing regularly some house shit happened and I ended up going and looking at some houses in search of a place to live.

We've got a buyer for our house, we have a number of houses we're interested in but nothing is final as of yet.

And the last two times I've tried to sit down and actually play some of the pokerz I've just hemhorraged money which is pretty much completely bad. Shocking, I know, to hear that losing money is bad.

I've been playing 50NL rush with the intent of getting myself to 100NL rush when we move and holy mother of christ I'm getting reamed.

Some of it is simple cooler stuff, set over set, QQ running into AA in the blinds, AK losing to AA blah blah.

Other stuff, I dunno.

Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 857460
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $27.40
Hero (SB): $50.00
BB: $56.70
UTG: $89.55
MP: $19.50
CO: $20.00

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is SB with Q A
UTG raises to $1.75, 3 folds, Hero raises to $5.75, 1 fold, UTG calls $4

Flop: ($12.00) 8 T Q (2 players)
Hero bets $11, UTG raises to $83.80 all in, Hero calls $33.25 all in

Turn: ($100.50) 3 (2 players - 2 are all in)
River: ($100.50) T (2 players - 2 are all in)

I mean, here I'm thinking that 88, TT are possible, plus AcKc and AcJc but so are JcJx, 9c9x and any AK with a club.

Wow, pokerstove tells me I have less than 30% equity against that range.

Yeah, like I say, rusty.

Greetins Werms

2010-07-22T17:29:00.002-04:00

Hi there!

I'm pretty close to being back to playing regularly. Had a little long dark tea time of the soul thing there where some shit was going on in real life. I took a bunch out of my roll for real life stuff so I won't be playing back at 200NL for a long time, if ever.

My wife has been having some health problems. She's been in more or less constant pain for the past three years or so and we've been to almost every specialist under the sun. And a couple days ago we finally got a diagnosis and a drug that seems to be helping. Apparently there's a form of fibromyalgia that is just fucked up brain chemistry that makes you feel pain for no apparent reason and there's a drug called Savella that helps put that back to normal.

Of course, she fell a week ago and appears to have cracked a bone in her shoulder so whenever she lifts her left arm it's like stabbing her with a pitchfork...which I have done on occasion.

We're selling our house. I think I mentioned it before but we finally got an offer on it and will likely have to be moving out in a couple months which means we have to find a place to live and that's not easy with that we have to spend.

But once we get out of this house and into another house where we'll be staying for a long time, possibly forever, our expenses are going to be a lot lower and it seems my wife's health will be a lot better.

Seems things are starting to head in the right direction for a change.

Anyway, poker related stuff will follow soon, I promise.

Oh, and one final note, WTF with the Red Sox? The whole fucking team gets hurt at once. How the fuck can you even hope to hang in there with the whole goddamn team on the DL?

Hi guys

2010-07-16T01:15:00.001-04:00

I might just be back soon.

Confidence

2010-05-13T15:33:00.002-04:00

Mine is pretty much shot to shit.

I'm down about 3k this month and that's a pretty big hit to my roll. That 3k includes being about $2500 below EV which means I've been completely unlucky but also playing losing pokerz.

And you know what I think I'm going to do about it?

Play a different game.

Sometimes I get lazy when I play teh pokerz. It's bad. It's worse than bad. It's a recipe for suck.

It's harder to get lazy with a game you know you don't know well. So for the next week or so I am going to be playing PLO and PLO8

The Hits Just Keep On Coming

2010-05-06T14:08:00.001-04:00

Whiz Kid Robin Roberts passed away today.

There aren't a whole lot of the greats of that generation left.

Sigh

2010-05-05T17:35:00.001-04:00

I guess it was fuck Ras up the ass day in the variance household.

With about 2k people left I'm sitting with a slightly higher than average stack. We switch from limit to NL and a guy shoves the first hand. He's not got a desperation shove stack so I fold a crappy ace. Next hand, AQs. He shoves again. Well now I think he's got dinner plans and I call. He shows K5o and of course hits to knock me out.

Fuck him.

Hi There Again!

2010-05-05T16:08:00.002-04:00

What was it I said yesterday, that I hadn't had many horrible days?

Yeah, tempting fate, yada yada yada.

Variance assraped me today.

I don't think I played particularly well and I don't think I played particularly poorly. I deserved to lose a bit today but I didn't deserve to be $700 below EV.

The insta quit moment came when I four bet shoved from the button v a moderately tight villain in the cutoff. He tanks. Yay, I'm not fucked and I may be golden. He calls and shows AJ with the A of diamonds. Flop? Q J x of diamonds. A little lube would have been nice.

For some reason I decided to play the SCOOP mixed hold'em low level tournament. After two hours I'm still in and actually doing pretty well. Been in the top five or six hundred most of the day. Top thousand get paid, winner gets 19k.

Hi Guys!

2010-05-04T22:07:00.003-04:00

Been gone for a while.

Plan on being back for real soon.

Poker has been "eh" lately. I think the games on Stars are pretty much fucked. I also think my game has been very ragged. I think I am going to go through position by position and situation by situation and define my ranges better and define the reasons for varying from the standard better. I've been flying by my ass too much and flying by my ass leads to confusion which leads to bad decisions which leads to holy fuck honey I lost a fuckload today. Not that I have lost a fuckload very often. I did have a craptacular session the other night. I was up a few hundred on the day and managed to lose 900 in one long ass session. Shoulda been a shorter session. Didn't quit well at all.

The Red Sox are off to a crappy start. Pretty much everything that could go wrong has. David Ortiz looks like he's toast. We knew that was possible but it's sad to see anyway. The problem hasn't been the offense though, it's been that the pitchers were teh suck. They won't stay that way and, in fact, have already pretty much come around. Since a crappy start by Beckett in Toronto the starters have allowed 1, 0, 2, 7, 2, 4, and 1 run. The seven spot was Dice-K's return to the rotation and his schedule was a little screwed up so I think it's reasonable to expect better. And frankly if we don't get better we're probably screwed.

As it is, we've got an uphill climb to the playoffs. Obviously it's still too early for a single digit deficit to be a huge deal but starting with this Angels series we've got a stretch of 20 games out of 23 against teams that have reasonable playoff expectations (Angels, Yankees, Rays, Twins, Tigers, Phillies) and if the wins don't start piling up we could very well find us in a deep deep hole a third of the way through the season. With New York and Tampa in the division you can't come out of a deep hole.

That said, we've won the first two against the Angels. One of the next two, two of three v the Yanks and we're off and running. Just aim to win every series and come the end of August you're in the mix.

And guys, be nice to BTimm if you see him. Ernie Harwell passed away. He was the voice of Tigers baseball for two generations and I'm sure Brian has a ton of memories. And Brian, I hope you have tapes for the kids, maybe some nice Alan Trammel action or something.

Stars Buyin Changes

2010-04-12T22:52:00.001-04:00

We've been waiting for this for months.

Many USD currency Hold’em and Omaha games with No-Limit or Pot-Limit betting will be offered with new and different minimum, maximum, and default buy-in amounts. Most stakes of NL Hold’em and PL Omaha will be offered as follows:

20-50 bb, with default buy-in of 40bb
40-100 bb, with default buy-in of 80bb
100-250 bb, with default buy-in of 200bb and ante equal to 20% of the Big Blind

All tables will be labeled with the buy ins rather than as shallow, deep, or whatever. I think that's fair.

Also:

The amount of time a player must wait before returning to the same table with less money has been increased from 30 minutes to 60 minutes for all cash games of all types.

This is an extra little nugget of awesomeness.

I think I'll stick to the 100bb tables for now and mix in a few of the 100-250 ante tables at some point. I think that has interesting possibilities.

HEM TableScanner

2010-04-07T14:17:00.002-04:00

I like it.

They recently added the server side scanning which makes all the difference in the world.

My machine is kinda old and crappy and most table scanners just occupy too much of its available resources and make it pretty close to impossible to play while it's scanning which kinda makes it useless.

With the server side scan, the HEM servers do the scanning and you just query the server for the data. So much the better it's not funny.

Oh and

2010-04-07T12:03:00.002-04:00

It's fucking gorgeous here in the northeast. Absolutely gorgeous. Last year it was cold, wet, and miserable well into June where we had a week of spring a month of summer, and back into winter. Doesn't look like that this year. We've had a good week of nice spring weather and today it's supposed to be sunny and low 80s.

Could not ask for better.

Back To Poker SSNL Disease Ep 2

2010-04-06T08:58:00.003-04:00

I thought the first one on getting better reads was good. Looking for more poker awesomeness.

Episode Link

Again, the premise is to look at why talented players fail to advance beyond small stakes? The first episode was on getting good reads.

This Episode is on Turn and River Weakness.

Fewer hands reach each successive street so there are fewer options to get turn reads and fewer still to get river reads. And a lot of the study to get good at these situations needs to happen away from the table just because you don't see them enough.

Symptoms:

Sagging turn and river--an extreme decline in aggression from the flop to the turn and river.
Tapering aggression from flop to river.
Avoidance of marginal plus EV situations
Failure to plan in the hand
Failure to plan away from tables

Turn and river weakness can manifest preflop if you take the easier line rather than the max ev line. Most notably here is three betting hands rather than playing them. If we three bet/fold we're using it as a pure bluff when the hand has a bit more value than that.

Overall emphasis: Plan. At the table and away from the table, just plan to make a point to get comfortable with a situation. Flag icky situations and study the shit out of them later.

When you play a hand without fully engaging in the planning process you have a tendency to make spur of the moment emotional decisions that are generally bad ones.

Common Ways to Misplay the Turn:

Poor estimation of ranges when pure bluffing
Failure to barrel (high equity hands/ strong v weak range)
Too much pot control

When you're relying purely on bluffs your read is very important. If you can look at his range and yours you can make it work.

People aren't really check raising much on the turn so if you do get check raised you can get away easy.

At this point he goes into hand histories which I am not going to go through here but which you should watch.

River:

Too little follow through with bluffs
Worrying too much about exploitability
Calling too often on bricks
Folding too often on wet cards
Failure to have noted opponent tendences.

If you're facing a fold, don't worry that folding is making you exploitable. Calling too often on bricks is a subset of exploitability in that a lot of player just don't bluff bricks and you shouldn't be calling. Similarly, folding too often on wet cards...they're all bluffing wet cards.

Take good notes, be observant, you'll know their tendencies and ranges in these situations.

Okay, apparently I clicked publish when I didn't mean to. Oops. Here's the rest.

Oh and he immediately goes into hand histories which I didn't plan to include in any depth. Hmm, we'll see.

Notes from Hand Histories (which I think you should go through BTW):

Pay attention to bet sizes. Bet sizes that look careless or without a lot of though are often bluffs.

Yeah, guys, this is going to be a very good series. You should watch it. Several times.

More Suff Nobody Cares About

2010-04-05T16:54:00.003-04:00

One more point about the Beckett extension.

Beckett, Lester, Lackey, and Buchholz are all under team control through the 2014 season. If Buchholz takes the next step as many of us expect him to do we're going to have the best starting rotation in baseball for the next five seasons.

That, my friends, is how you anchor a team.

A Bunch of Stuff Nobody Cares About

2010-04-05T16:06:00.002-04:00

Baseball:

Opening day is always awesome.

Beckett looked like shit. Couldn't control the off speed stuff. We won anyway. Yay us, suck it yankers.

It may not have been evident if you weren't really paying attention to the game but there were at least two or three balls last night that would probably have been hits last year that were routine outs last night.

We're gonna win the world series, like totally. And a hundred games along the way. For the first time since 1946.

Josh Beckett today signed a contract extension for four years and sixty eight million dollars. That's a boatload of cash but he's a damn good pitcher. And why, pray tell, was it announced today? Because by announcing it today instead of two days ago they save money. Seriously.

First, they save the luxury tax on the five million dollar signing bonus. Second, if they had signed it two days ago it would be 16.42 million on the luxury threshold for 2010 and waiting until today makes it 12.1. Since the Sox are a bit over the luxury tax threshold it would be a nice chunk of change. Of course, this way there's a bigger luxury tax hit next year but there's 10 million coming off that number next year that's going to players not even on the roster this year and Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek are likely going to be gone for another 15 million. Chances are good this team can get back under the tax threshold for next season and that's a good thing.

By the way, if you ever feel like the Sox are just like the Yanks and spend spend spend, take a look at how much luxury tax has been paid by all the teams in baseball. The total for all of baseball is $190 million. The total for the Yankees is $174 million. The Red Sox at a bit under $14 million are second. The Yankees can typically eat the Red Sox payroll and add a few ten million dollar contracts. This year the difference is over seventy million which means there are twelve teams with payrolls less than the difference between the Sox payroll and the Yanks payroll.

Which is not to say the Sox are not one of the highest spending teams because they are and it's way cool for us that they can do that.

Basketball. Wait, what? Yes, basketball.

Dennis Johnson has been elected to the Hall of Fame. I love Dennis Johnson unconditionally. The first sports team I ever fell in love with was the Boston Celtics and it happened in 1984. Dennis Johnson was huge. I cannot fully express how well he fit that team. He never telegraphed his passes. He'd go from pounding the ball into the floor to having the ball in someone else's hands in a heartbeat. He got better as the game went along. With three seconds left in the game, down by two you obviously wanted Larry Bird to take the shot but if that wasn't possible then you wanted it to be DJ.

One of the iconic moments of the Celtics of that era is the one below where Bird steals the ball and the win from Detroit in the conference finals.

There's two things to point out about DJ in this. It's not just that DJ was the one that actually made the basket but that in the span of about three seconds he goes from defense to scoring the basket to immediately defending the inbound pass. He'd have been an excellent poker player. He was a grinder. He just played hard, paid attention to the details and let the big picture take care of itself. Larry Bird was the big picture guy. He was better than just about anyone at sticking a dagger in someone's heart at just the right moment.

I miss DJ terribly.

What Am I Talking About?

2010-04-03T13:01:00.002-04:00

It's fucking baseball.

And it rocks.

And the season starts tomorrow night and I am on a three day mini vacation.

It's spring and it's warm and we're gonna go drive and get fish n chips, pick up some ribs for tomorrow night, and Monday there's going to be baseball on my TV pretty much all day.

And we'll be in first place because CC Sabbathia strains a fat muscle and we score fifteen runs while no hitting them.

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

2010-04-02T18:37:00.002-04:00

So the season starts Sunday night against the Yankees.

I don't think I ever finished babbling about the Sox.

Here's the bottom line, the four best teams in baseball are the Sox, Yanks, Rays, and Phillies and the world series is highly likely to be the Phillies against one of the other three.

A couple things have happened in the past few weeks. Ryan Westmoreland has had brain surgery. It is unclear at this point whether he will ever play again though there is no particular reason to think he won't. This is relevant for the upcoming season in that he was one of the prime trading chips. If the Sox were talking major deal at the deadline, Westmoreland's name was going to come up. And now it won't. That means it's harder to make a deal just because there's not as much to give up.

The other thing is that Junichi Tazawa had Tommy John Surgery. He's out for the season of course and that is just a blow to the starting pitching depth. He was in the 7-9 range on the depth chart for starters so now that's a little thinner than before.

[Just as an aside, my cat is snoring]

The offense should be excellent with the pivot point being David Ortiz. We don't have an in house replacement to hit at a really high level so if he tanks for two months or just falls off the cliff due to age then we're hurting and needing to go out and get someone be it Adrian Gonzalez or whomever.

Anyway, here's the guys we're looking at this year either for their impact on the season, their impact on the next few seasons, or the overall health of the organization.

David Ortiz, as stated above.

Daniel Bard. Papelbon was a little off last year and while he's talking about using his other pitches more I tend to believe things when I see them. Daniel Bard is the heir apparent. He throws approximately a billion miles an hour and if Papelbon falters, Bard is probably the temp to perm fix.

Lars Anderson. He's a first baseman who came into 2009 with all the hype in the world and proceeded to suck donkey balls. You know that time you called off a stack with third pair against a tag? Yeah, that was Lars Anderson's 2009. He still has the talent he had before so it's a matter of putting it all together and producing. If he can do that we are less likely to made a trade for Adrian Gonzalez.

Josh Reddick/Ryan Kalish. These guys are both relatively close to the majors and while they aren't expected to be difference makers they are expected to be solid contributors who could allow us to let Cameron and Drew go and get a lot younger without a big dropoff in talent.

Clay Buchholz. With the apparently almost done extension for Josh Beckett we're looking at Beckett, Lester, Lackey, and Buchholz as the heart of our rotation for four years after 2010. Buchholz is in a position where it's time to put up or GTFO. He's had his preliminary successes, subsequent failures and a bit of redemption. If he puts it together and blossoms into the pitcher everyone thinks he can be then the Red Sox rotation for the next five years is going to be better than that of the Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz era Braves.

Jose Iglesias. This kid is being supremely hyped defensively. There are comparisons to OmarVizquel and Ozzie Smith. The question is whether he can hit enough to be a useful contributor at the major league level.

It's gonna be a fun season.

Fucking Root Canal

2010-04-01T13:58:00.002-04:00

So a little while ago I had this tooth pain. It was rather intense, and inflamed and generally all around bad. Literally if I breathed too hard, it hurt.

Root canal coming up on the 13th, how awesome is that.

Also, kill me now.

SSNL Disease Ep 1

2010-03-31T15:32:00.002-04:00

Episode Linky

The premise of the series is to identify the things that good small stakes players do/don't do that prevent them from moving into mid stakes successfully.

This episode is about the FAILURE TO ACQUIRE GOOD READS.

A read is basically anything about his play that you can identify that is different than normal. A read can consist of what he does, how the thinks, or how he views hero.

Symptoms:

General over reliance on HUD
Lack of note taking
Playing exclusively in the softest games

Failure is often driven by practical concerns:

Over reliance on HUD
Failure to take good notes
Overlooking the significance of events
Mass multi-tabling

HUDs capture one dimensional stats but often times a good read will be multi faceted or multi street. For example, someone check raising particular board textures, taking certain actions on the turn after certain actions on the flop and the like.

Sometimes the failure is due to technical concerns:

Over reliance on a particular HUD stat
Misapplication of HUD info
Failure to appreciate contextual clues
Poor understanding of game flow

Over reliance on a HUD
Everyone has been guilty of this at some point and it boils down to viewing your opponents as their numbers. They aren't numbers they are people (presumably) and the numbers are just reflections of the frequencies they do things. Understanding the reasons they do things is better than just understanding the frequencies they do things. You care how they think more than you care what they do because how they think will help you determine what they will do in response to what you do.

Your brain understands words better than numbers so if you can describe your villain in words--and not just shorthands like TAG, LAG, and TGDWSOOMATMM*--it will help.

*Total goddamn fish who sucked out on me and took my monies.

Failure to Take Good Notes:
This is a common shortcoming ranging from no notes to overly complex notes to useless notes.

Constantly ask yourself "What have I learned from this?" about your opponent, as specific as possible. Train yourself to do this all the time. All the time.

Come up with a shorthand system that works for notes that can convey the information that can be both written and read quickly.

You're looking for trends so don't assume that if you see something once you will see it a lot.

Don't make immediate conclusions. Someone who bluffs in a certain situation isn't necessarily bluffing all the time and they aren't necessarily not bluffing now that you've seen it.

Think of, and describe, their actions in poker terms.

Overlooking Events
Constantly ask "What have I learned?"

Practice observing and reflecting.

This is a habitual thing. Longtime readers of this awesome bloggishness will remember a previous discussion about some videos by Jared Tendler about the learning process and how we have to consciously work at something until it becomes something we unconsciously do. It's the old adage that amateurs practice something until they can do it right and professionals practice something until they can't do it wrong. Practice doing it right.

Pay specific attention to significant and unusual actions. You learn more from pots where someone has to act multiple times.

Make sure to note your own play and how they respond. Their actions always occur in context and the context is often key to the action.

Over Reliance on Specific HUD Info
There are times when situations happen and we refer to a HUD stat. It's important that we consider that stat in the context of the hand. From my recent play I think I had a hand where I did this pretty well. I had KQ, flop came Q high my c-bet gets called, turn checked around, I bet river and he shoves. His river aggression wasn't terribly high so he wasn't an inveterate bluffer but I reviewed the action and the board texture and concluded that a simple top pair was near the top of the range he likely put me on. I call and stack him because he turned a medium pocket pair into a bluff.

And in general, any time you're looking at a black and white stat to make your decision you're missing some of the color.

Misapplication of HUD Info
There's two sides to this, not recognizing the depth of information available to you in your HUD--three bet by position for example--and just plain using it wrong.

Failure to Note Contextual Clues
This is a big one.

Gameflow: What has happened historically and more recently? Anything in the session or even from before the session can be a factor. Context is complex. And remember we're looking for trends.

Position: Position is easily overlooked. The easiest example off the top of my head is three betting. A fair amount of people three bet relatively little from other positions but three bet like maniacs against steal attempts. If you see someone at 6 overall they aren't at 6 from every position they may well be at 14 from the BB and 3 from MP.

Also consider position relative to other players. Sometimes in situations where you can either call or three bet you choose to call because there is someone else you want to invite into the pot. Other people do this too.

Opponent: Note his competency and flexibility. Has he shown the ability to consider a lot of factors or not?

You: What reads would they have on me? Objectively speaking, what do they want me to do?

Evolution of a Read: You can't make a read based on a single instance of something happening. Look for multiple confirming actions or at the least no contradicting evidence.

And from there he goes on to discuss a hand which I thought was terribly helpful. Y'all should watch this video. It's good shit and I think the series is likely to be very helpful. I suspect I will be watching it now and watching it again in three or four months and again when I'm really trying to bust into mid stakes.

New DC Season

2010-03-29T12:48:00.002-04:00

I have been grossly derelict in my studies recently and DC has started their newest season just at the right time for me to get my ass in gear.

I just watched this video from a series called SSNL disease and will write up my notes later. The premise of the series is to identify the things SSNLers neglect that would enable them to move up. I think it has a ton of potential and the first video was pretty good imo.

Other series I'm looking at:

Coaching Kristy (8 episodes, weekly series begins April 5th)You want to learn how to crush beginning online poker? So does she. BalugaWhale heads to Vegas to meet up with PokerNews' lovely crackshot reporting ace Kristy Arnett and take her to school. An in depth look inside Andrew’s coaching program.

Yeah, that's good enough for me.

The Riddler (premieres March 31)DC is proud to announce the release of Dani Stern’s first official poker strategy series. Ever watch a strategy video and notice a coach glossing over preflop plays or river calls or 4-bet bluffs? No more, not with n0whereman looking out for you. He has the questions. Ansky has the answers. Riddle me this, riddle me that…

A Couple Things I'm Doing

2010-03-28T21:57:00.002-04:00

I signed up for two training things while you weren't looking. A Tilter's Anonymous thing with Joe Tall and a group thing with jk3a.

I just had the second session with Joe Tall. This is an interesting program. He basically took some Tommy Angelo and mixed it with some addiction rehab type impulse control stuff.

We've talked mostly about pregame routines, getting ready mentally and physically to play and tilt triggers which lead you down that primrose path to suck.

The jk3a thing doesn't start until Tuesday.

A Bit Of An Update

2010-03-28T21:23:00.003-04:00

I haven't been posting much lately, mostly because I haven't been playing much lately. The little woman and I have been looking at where we are financially and what the hell we can do and all that fun shit that adults have to deal with when life sucks.

And sometimes you just have to cut your losses.

So we're gonna move. Sell the house and move somewhere cheaper. We're not going to get back what we owe but if we wait until the market rebounds enough we may well be dead.

It really sucks. We built this place with the proverbial and literal blood, tears, toil, and sweat. We were supposed to live here until we were too old to live outside an old folk's home. We had plans and dreams that you wouldn't believe. Then my mother-in-law died. She was supposed to be living with us in an in-law apartment kind of thing. We've lost my father, my wife's mother, my wife's brother, and my mother moved to Florida. I've been laid off twice, my wife hates her job and she has developed some health problems.

So basically we have no desire to live here anymore and higher priorities than this house.

So what's this got to do with poker?

Well, I think it should take some of the pressure off. I can concentrate on getting better instead of playing a ton. Play fewer hands, pay more attention, study more, have days off where I don't have to feel guilty for not playing. I think it's a good thing.

I'm also thinking about trying to make more actual substantive posts instead of bullshit. How cool would that be?

Malfaire Is Right

2010-03-24T13:56:00.004-04:00

I know this is shocking to those that know him and wonder how someone who prefers buttocks to boobies can be right about anything but occasionally these guys pull something out of their favorite smooth round anatomical protuberances that doesn't smell like a cesspit.

I am spakething of this post.

I've noticed that there are some Truths to poker, namely in what it takes to be successful in this game. This has always been true, but I've chose to ignore it for some time.

The Three Pillar of Poker Success
1. Mental Game
2. Grind Ethic
3. Strategy

I don't know which one comes first and I suspect it differs individually because we all have different strengths and weaknesses but strategy is definitely third.

My mental game sucks and my grind ethic is pathetisad and that's what I have to conquer to live the life I want to live.

Are You Fucking Kidding Me?

2010-03-24T13:10:00.002-04:00

This is actually somewhat old news but I just heard about it.

Omar Vizquel is going to wear Luis Aparicio's number 11.

Let me make it clear. I don't give a shit about Omar Vizquel, the Chicago White Sox, or Luis Aparicio.

For a player, having their number retired is second only to the hall of fame as far as personal achievements go and of the two, from a fan's perspective, the number retirement is far more personal.

We appreciate the Hall of Fame. It's an acknowledgment that the player is among the very best of all time and we like it when our guys get recognized. But the number retirement is more personal. It's not just a matter of being great it's also a matter of being ours. The Red Sox for the longest time had the most restrictive number retirement rules just about in all of sports. That left us without a retirement ceremony for a long, long time.

That drought ended with Carlton Fisk's induction to the Hall of Fame and his number retirement later that year. It was awesome. I missed Fisk's Sox career but he was one of my dad's favorites. The induction and number retirement came shortly after my father's death which made it a little poignant but that's not really the point. He's ours. He belongs here.

It's like a marriage. Another team's player goes to the hall and you stand back and applaud and appreciate his greatness and it's like seeing some totally hot chick in the movies. Retiring someone's number is making the commitment that you're going to be there and they're still going to be yours fifty years down the road when their boobs sag and their ass is as big as a chevy.

Unretiring someone's number to give to some guy who comes in who is not going to be there very long--he's over 40 after all--is like ditching your wife of fifty years because you discovered viagra and the girls at the local Hooters think you're rich. It's a remarkably classless thing to do and you should ought to be ashamed of yourself if you do it.

So, More On The Red Sox

2010-03-14T23:43:00.002-04:00

Because we can't possibly have too much off topic conversation here.

So I think we discussed last time the global view that the Sox are going to be good and that the offense isn't going to be as bad as all that is cracked up.

Clearly we have improved the defense. Ellsbury despite his tools was bad last year. We suspect this is an aberration but we got Mike Cameron in who is damn good and who seems to have taken on the role of working with Ellsbury on things like positioning and running routes. This can only be good.

Ellsbury in left cannot help but be better than the boring white Canadian.

Adrian Beltre is simply one of the best at third.

With already good defenders in right, at second, and first, the defense will be solid unless Scutaro and Victor Martinez are godawfully deplorable which they won't be

The top of the pitching is pretty much awesome. Beckett, Lester, and Lackey could pretty much all win the Cy Young in any given year.

Wakefield is like a thousand years old, everyone loves him, and he's an adequate back end of the rotation starter.

The other candidates are of course DiceK who is something of an enigma and Clay Buchholz who has showed bits of awesome and if we didn't have DiceK or Wakefield he'd be in the rotation.

Chances are, all of them will be used a lot and all that really matters is bringing Buchholz along for the future and using the one who is hottest in the postseason. My money is on Buchholz.

In the bullpen we're in pretty good shape with Papelbon, Okajima, Delcarmen, and Dan Bard. No worries there.

The worries are with some individuals. First and foremost David Ortiz. Last year's start was pathetisad and it just looked like he was having a complete mental breakdown in terms of confidence and all that stuff. If you go up there confused it's hard to hit. He seemed to clear that up over the course of the season but he looks like total shit this spring too. Yeah it's spring and it's a small sample size but you have to understand everyone will be all over him if he starts off slow.

Who else are we looking at?

Buchholz. It's time for him to put stuff together and pitch well so we can get Wake his 18 wins and let him retire. Beckett extension talks are reportedly progressing amicably so there's the possibility of a rotation of Lester, Beckett, Lackey, Buchholz, DiceK for most of the next five or six years. That would rock.

In terms of replacements for the short termers (Cameron, Beltre, Scutaro) and the aging (Ortiz, Varitek) we have to look at the farm.

It is generally believed that Youkilis can flop over to third and play pretty well so finding a first baseman solves a bit of the problem. Lars Anderson was highly regarded then had a horrific year last year. If he bounces back this year he's in line to make a quick trip to Fenway.

At Short the Sox have just signed Jose Iglesias a 20 year old kid from Cuba who has everyone raving about his defense. He seems to be a hard worker and if he takes the right (read patient) approach at the plate he's penciled in to step in when the Scutaro contract is up. The other name here is Jed Lowrie who had the job last year until injuries pretty much crippled him.

That's three for the watch list, Lars Anderson, Jose Iglesias, and Jed Lowrie.

The offense has only one player signed long term and the names you hear there are Ryan Kalish, Josh Reddick, and Ryan Westmoreland. Westmoreland was ranked the Sox #1 prospect but is about to have brain surgery because they found some cavernous malformations in his brain stem. From what I understand some blood vessels go haywire and form cavities lined with cells that can bleed out into the brain. If they do that it's bad so if they find it they have to treat it. That means surgically going into the brain. That thought terrifies me. For an athlete I think messing with the parts that make your athletic parts do what they do would scare the ever loving piss out of me. We wish Ryan well and hope he gets back to be trackable in 2011.

Kalish and Reddick have both played some CF and both played at AA in 2009. Seems reasonable that they're going to be in the situation of demonstrating that they have what it takes to make the next step. At some point Drew, Ells, or Cameron will be out for a couple weeks and we'll see one of them.

Bottom line, we're gonna win 110 games, sweep the LDS, LCS, World Series, and if they let us the Little League World Series, Japan Series, College World Series, and your stratomatic league. Only about three weeks until opening day.

Another Book Recommendation

2010-03-14T23:36:00.003-04:00

If you're a fan of the fantasy genre I think you will like The Name of The Wind by Patrick Roothfuss.

It's less structured than much fantasy and is extremely character based. If you like knowing the characters like they're friends you've had for years, this is the book for you.

Signed up for a couple things

2010-03-14T23:31:00.000-04:00

One is a titlbuster series with Joe Tall. I think this has excellent potential as he is a known Tommy Angelo disciple and my main problem is focus.

The other thing is a group coaching thin with Jared. It's going to be more hours of coaching at a lower cost and a little less directed to my game in particular. I think it will be worth it.

And my wife is getting her physical therapy schedule settled in the next couple days.

Nomar Is Retiring

2010-03-10T17:53:00.002-05:00

I don't think people outside of Boston really understand the importance of Nomar Garciaparra to the Boston Red Sox.

For that matter, most people in Boston don't either.

Nomar first played a game for the Sox in 1996 before hitting full time in 1997. Pedro Martinez arrived in 1998. Together they built the foundation of what we have today. We're riding high right now and have for a while. The current ownership has been in place for seven seasons during which we've made the postseason six times, winning the world series twice and losing the LCS twice and the division series twice. And frankly if Grady Little hadn't made the worst single decision in the history of sports then we probably have three World Series wins.

Starting with the last two games of the 1986 World Series, the Sox lost fifteen straight postseason games over a decade. Fifteen straight postseason games. Two in that World Series. Four in the 1988 LCS, four in the 1990 LCS, three in the 1995 Division series.

There was a whole lot of struggling with mediocre teams, having everything go right for a season only to get bitchslapped in the playoffs.

Nomar and Pedro started to change all that.

In 1998 the Sox won 92 games, the Wild Card, and, shockingly, a postseason game.

In 1999 the Sox won 94 games, the Wild Card, and were down 0-2 in the Division Series with Pedro hurt. Win Game 3; Win Game 4. Game 5 is legend. Saberhagen starts but his shoulder is shot to hell. Derek Lowe relieves in the second inning and we're just wondering how the hell we're going to come up with enough pitching to make it through the game. Pedro comes in from the bullpen and immortalizes himself.

Those teams were pretty much Nomar, Pedro, and a bunch of fungible talent and Nomar and Pedro made enough difference to make those seasons exciting.

Those are the seasons that made the Red Sox relevant enough for a good owner to be interested in buying them. There was a lot of bullshit going on in the front office. Dan Duquette was a dick but he did a damn good job. The team improved, attendance climbed, and when they got an ownership that actually had the resources and the commitment to process that leads to winning, the teams improved and eventually won and are continuing to win.

And it starts with Nomar and Pedro being the most exciting players in Boston sports in the day.

Session Notes

2010-03-10T17:12:00.003-05:00

Just finished up my session with Jared.

There were a couple interesting things.

I had a couple hands where I was faced with all in preflop situations where flipping was likely but there was significant dead money. In the one case I had QQ and was fairly certain his range was very little more than AA, KK, AK and we stoved it out and found that shoving was about a ten dollar loss. In reality I shoved and lost to AK. The other one I had AQ and a guy back raised. It went UTG raise, call, call, fold, I squeeze with AQo, BB and UTG fold, and UTG+1 raises. It was pretty much stick it in or fold and since he was a little less likely to have AA, KK, AK and thus a little more likely to have JJ-88 it was a marginally profitable call. In reality I called and lost to QQ.

The thing that struck me is that there's just so damn many 60/40 situations and they're almost always going to be theoretically marginal while being big hands that have a big impact on our day to day results. I can hear Malfaire right now saying that's why we don't look at day to day results and then posting a picture of some well oiled buttocks.

I'm not valuing my overcard outs enough. There was a situation in a hand against a guy where he was relatively short and he check shoved on a Q52 board when I had AK. I was getting about 3:1 and folded. He has to never ever have anything I beat there for that to be even close to a fold. If he turned over QJ it's a call on my part. There were a few of these kinds of situations.

There were some bad calls. Some hands where there may be some value in there but it's so little and it's so rare there's just not really a point in chasing that value relative to the much more likely loss.

And, relating to the overcard thing, is stack sizes. Not always paying enough attention there.

I Found Something Interesting

2010-03-10T12:55:00.002-05:00

I was looking through my database looking for a bunch of hands to review in my next session with Jared and it occurred to me to look at how I was doing simply based on pot size. HEM doesn't do well with this so I exported a couple weeks worth of hands into Access (technically into a CSV file which I then imported but we don't want to be a pedantic weenie do we?) just to see what it looked like when I totaled the won/loss by pot size.

After we eliminate the blinds we look at big pots where one wins 90 blinds or more. Well, there's a small sample there and it's hugely profitable. I'm up 1269 blinds in the last two weeks in pots of 90 blinds or more. Obviously, it's very few hands.

The 50-90 blind pot range is also profitable. More hands, fewer overall dollars but then we're talking smaller pots.

What's interesting is the 10-50 blind pots or more precisely the 20-40 blind pots. I'm a loser there. I find that interesting. I can't think off hand of any reason why I would expect to be a loser there. It's a relatively small sample size since we're talking hands only taken from the past two weeks but it's what I am going to be looking into with Jared this afternoon.

Red Sox Preview

2010-03-06T21:18:00.002-05:00

Yay, more off topic stuff.

The baseball season is upon us and this means my thoughts turn to winning a whole bunch of games and how we're going to do it.

So, overall outlook, are the Sox any good?

Well, yes. I would find it difficult to believe that any credible commenter would say the Sox aren't one of the relatively few teams that have a legitimate chance to win the world series. The problem is, the same is also true of the Yankees and to a lesser extent, the Rays.

In the Central I think the Twins and Tigers are almost-but-not-quite in this category which is to say they have a chance to win it but they are unlikely to be a favorite in most projectable LCS matchups. Think about it, would either of them be favored over the Red Sox or Yankees? And if the Rays are there it's because one of the Red Sox or Yankees aren't.

Edit--News comes that Joe Nathan has a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament and is going to try rest and rehab before surgery. Surgery would derail him for a year and a half and take a big chunk out of the Twins playoff chances. Rest and rehab doesn't work to well on torn ligaments imo. So basically, go Tigers.

In the West I'm pretty close to saying nobody has a chance. I think the Rangers, and Mariners have improved but not really enough to make a difference. Oakland is probably still going to be putrid. The Angels lost Lackey and Figgins and replaced them with what, Hideki Matsui? I think the improvement in Texas and Seattle and the regression in Anaheim means that division is up for grabs and the winner is a likely first round loser.

The Red Sox are a bit different from last year. The popular question among people who are stupid is how are they going to score runs? Well the big offensive loss is Jason Bay and let's not kid ourselves, it's a pretty big loss.

Here's the thing that people don't really pay attention to. The Red Sox were gutwrenchingly horrible at short last year. I'm talking an OPS of .656. That's putrid. Marco Scutaro while not super awesome stud dude is dramatically better than that. His career average OPS is .721 and if all the talk we hear about him changing his approach at the plate leads him to hit more like he did last year, that was .789. Even the career average is a sizeable improvement.

The other thing is how putrid Jason Varitek was as a lefthanded batter. That's a .666 OPS ladies and gentlemen. We got 30 games out of Victor Martinez behind the plate last year. It will be 120 this year barring injury. That leaves Tek hitting lefties which he still managed to do pretty well.

I have seen some number crunchers make a convincing case that the upgrade in offense at short and catcher makes up for the downgrade from Bay to Cameron even before we account for the defense.

More to come later, I'm too tired right now.

I Think This Makes It Official

2010-03-05T23:46:00.002-05:00

The Catholic Church is the most corrupt organization in the world.

Pedophilia scandals in the US, Australia, Ireland, Germany, and well, pretty much every country that has Catholics, an official teaching that condoms exacerbate the AIDS problem, and now a gay prostitution ring.

I mean look, I don't care who you fuck as long as they are a consenting adult. I don't care if money changes hands. If you could demonstrate that they consented, I wouldn't care if you fucked a sheep. It's not any of my business and even if I would find it horribly distasteful (dude, seriously, sheep?)

But when you claim to speak for the almighty creator of the universe who can do no wrong and you dictate sexual restrictions then you damn well better live up to them. That means no touching yourself, people of the same gender, people of the other gender unless you are married to them and, literally, you're not even allowed to think about touching anyone. The word you're looking for is flaming hypocrisy.

And have you seen the Vatican? I have. It's parts range for gorgeous to gaudy. I tell people that the two things in the world that I have seen that live up to the hype are the Sistine Chapel and the Grand Canyon. And the artwork is astonishing. They have four rooms completely decorated by Raphael (my favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle).

I mean, the School of Athens, pictured below, is pretty when viewed like this. It has nice lines. It has nice colors. It's an excellent example of it's style and it's historically useful. It's not until you're standing in front of it that you realize it's 16 feet by 25 feet. It's not pretty it's jaw droppingly awe inspiring.

And I'm fucking rambling, I know.

Meanwhile the Pope talks about the financial scandal being caused by greed. True enough I suppose but when your assets could pay off every mortgage in the developed world and provide water and shelter to approximately a gabillion people in developing nations I'm pretty much not interested in what you have to say about greed. Or fucking sheep.

Sorry for the off topic ramble/rant.

How To Run Good

2010-03-05T18:31:00.002-05:00

Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 571973
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $57.00
BB: $98.00
UTG: $276.65
CO: $147.40
Hero (BTN): $200.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BTN with 3 3
UTG calls $2, CO raises to $4, Hero calls $4, 1 fold, BB calls $2, UTG calls $2

Flop: ($17.00) 5 T K (4 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, CO checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($17.00) K (4 players)
BB bets $8, UTG calls $8, CO calls $8, Hero folds

River: ($41.00) 3 (3 players)
BB checks, UTG bets $12, CO raises to $24, BB folds, UTG calls $12

Final Pot: $89.00
UTG mucks 4 5
CO shows K T (a full house, Kings full of Tens)
CO wins $87.00
(Rake: $2.00)

Oh My Fucking God

2010-03-05T17:07:00.002-05:00

If you don't listen to the 2+2 Pokercast you pretty much have to listen to the latest one. The interview with Phil Laak is insanely hilarious.

You Know What?

2010-03-05T13:58:00.001-05:00

There's nothing like a good burger.

Suck It, Bitches

2010-03-04T20:18:00.002-05:00

Beats the hell out of yesterday.

Yeah, I know, short term results posts.

I suck balls.

But not really.

Sigh...

2010-03-02T21:05:00.002-05:00

Wasn't playing terribly well early. By which I mean I was playing poorly. I think I righted the ship a bit and get kicked in the balls by variance.

The two big ballcrushers are AA v AK all in preflop and AK all in on a board of AJ88 v J5o. Throw in a few loose passive gentlemen hitting their hands and I'm down almost four buy ins.

Three News Stories of Varying Degrees of Interest for People Who Like Reality

2010-02-26T20:11:00.002-05:00

Jenny McCarthy says "Oops, my bad."
Jenny McCarthy who has been trying to kill children for years because she thought the MMR vaccine caused her sons autism now reveals that her son was never autistic in the first place and vaccines may not actually be the devil.

Thanks Mark.

Jenny McCarthy, you're a stupid fucking whore.

UK's NHS Wasted Money on Homeopathy

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee said using public money on the highly-diluted remedies could not be justified.

Well fucking duh. For those who think homeopathy is an umbrella term for all herbal supplements and remedies, you're wrong. Homeopathy is it's own specific brand of bullshit. Let's take someone with an insomnia problem who wants to sleep better. How does a homeopath treat this condition? First you find something that causes the condition so in this case you might use caffeine. Then you dilute it until there isn't any of it left (see also Avogadro's Number) and you give it to the patient telling them they'll be all better. Oh, and during the dilution process you have to shake it in a very specific way because that beats the memory of the medicine into it while somehow simultaneously beating the memory of everything else that has been in that water out of it.

I mean really, did we need a systematic review to know it's utter bollocks?

And finally:
Alex and Josh need to stop fucking the wildlife.

A virus that may weaken the immune system of koalas, similar to HIV in humans, is a new “wild card” among threats facing the species and nearly all koalas in Queensland could already be infected.

Discovered in 2000, the retrovirus is the latest in a series of threats facing the iconic marsupial, which include the sexually-transmitted infection chlamydia, habitat fragmentation, collisions with vehicles and the impact of feral animals.

Old Man's War

2010-02-26T04:12:00.002-05:00

I just finished listening to Old Man's War by John Scalzi.

It's good shit.

I've read a lot of science fiction and fantasy over the years. Some of it really good, much of it mediocre and in some cases just godawful. It seems that some writers, when writing in an alternate universe filled with space ships and aliens or dragons and wizards or whatever concentrate on the genre and making their readers comfortable that they're along for a ride in a place they've been even if they haven't actually been there. I think that's horseshit writing.

The thing about alternate reality stories is that they give you whole new ways of being human.

In Old Man's War a man joins the army at 75 and is given a younger, stronger, green body with cat's eyes. After a brutal crash he is rescued by someone who looks like his wife who had died years before. That brief, strained, strange relationship is not something we could experience in reality but Scalzi makes the characters react in ways that are very human.

Like I say, I've read a lot of science fiction and fantasy over the years and this is some of the best. I wish I'd read it earlier.

But On The Other Hand

2010-02-25T17:52:00.001-05:00

My wife is making a lasagna.

Aint dropping that shit off at the fire station.

One Fucking Time!!!!

2010-02-25T14:38:00.001-05:00

Per scotty on 2+2

Ratholing + Buyins for games has been the most active thread on the private VIP Forum. Survey has been sent this week and a decision will follow within weeks is my guess

We will likely raise the buy in and cut off the parasites at that time, thank you.

Also

Baby Safe Haven

2010-02-25T13:06:00.003-05:00

So every now and then I head out to the local dunkin' donuts for some not donuts. To get there I drive by the fire station and see a sign that says Baby Safe Haven in big letters with a bunch of small text below that.

Today I decided to pull in and read the small text so could know WTF they were talking about.

Apparently you can drop a newborn baby off at any hospital or manned fire station or EMT station with no questions asked.

What the fuck kind of world are we living in that such a thing is necessary?

Notes From Session--Squeezing

2010-02-23T19:56:00.002-05:00

So I had a session with Jared today. We went through a bunch of hands where I had questions and he pretty much told me I played them well.

Then we talked about squeezing.

Then we went through a bunch of hands where I could have squeezed but didn't and he concluded that my call button wasn't working properly.

Anyway, notes about squeezing:

Target bigger stacks, at least 60-70 blinds.
Target regs.
Look for high fold to 3 bet percentages.
Be much more willing to squeeze a late position opener than an early position opener.
Squeeze with the top of your folding range.
Make your bets about 4x-5x the original raise.

Also I have a new popup that shows three bet stats by position. This is like teh awesome.

Well That Was a Brutal Six Minutes

2010-02-23T19:36:00.001-05:00

Hand #1
Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 555051
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $32.70
CO: $200.00
BTN: $227.05
Hero (SB): $200.00
BB: $238.25
UTG: $45.50

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is SB with A A
UTG calls $2, 2 folds, BTN raises to $8, Hero raises to $26, 2 folds, BTN raises to $51, Hero raises to $200 all in, BTN calls $149

Flop: ($404.00) 6 7 3 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Turn: ($404.00) 9 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($404.00) Q (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $404.00
BTN shows K K (a flush, King high)
Hero shows A A (a pair of Aces)
BTN wins $401.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Hand #2
Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 555052
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $212.05
Hero (BB): $200.00
UTG: $111.05
MP: $197.85
CO: $200.00
BTN: $67.15

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with A A
4 folds, SB raises to $6, Hero raises to $20, SB calls $14

Flop: ($40.00) 9 Q 5 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $30, SB raises to $68, Hero raises to $180 all in, SB calls $112

Turn: ($400.00) K (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($400.00) 8 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $400.00
SB shows K Q (two pair, Kings and Queens)
Hero shows A A (a pair of Aces)
SB wins $397.00
(Rake: $3.00)

View all 2 hands

When Is Boring Not Boring

2010-02-21T18:37:00.002-05:00

Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 551353
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $200.00
BTN: $334.00
SB: $198.15
BB: $409.75
UTG: $181.15
Hero (MP): $492.10

Villain here was a gentleman with a wide calling range. Guy to my immediate right was another gentleman with a wide calling range so I was isolating rather liberally. Villain in this hand took exception to that and was coming over the top of my isolation raises and I was folding waiting for a hand I can go broke with because it was pretty clear he wasn't going to give my raises any respect.

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is MP with A A
1 fold, Hero raises to $8, 3 folds, BB raises to $14, Hero raises to $40, BB raises to $344, Hero raises to $492.10 all in, BB calls $65.75 all in

Flop: ($820.50) 4 5 5 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: ($820.50) 3 (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($820.50) Q (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $820.50
BB shows 8 8 (two pair, Eights and Fives)
Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Fives)
Hero wins $817.50
(Rake: $3.00)

I think this might be my biggest pot ever but I am not entirely sure.

Anyway, I'm up another $700 today and I think like yesterday I am going to bank the win. We talk all the time about just putting in the hands and grinding out your hourly rate but there's an underlying assumption there--that we're able to play the same throughout. I don't think I am. More to the point I think I completely overreact emotionally to the downswings and while I work on this I think it's somewhat important to keep my upswings from becoming downswings. It's pathetisad I know but I'm a little nancy boy at heart I guess.

Oh Well

2010-02-20T17:39:00.002-05:00

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make my hands this month. That's because I have decided to pack it in today after about 500 hands.

I'm up three and a half buy ins and the way things have been going the past few days the best thing for my mental state is to take the W and come back tomorrow so that's what I'm going to do.

I never did post the emo pitchers and catchers post I was thinking about. Here's the thing in a nutshell. Pitchers and catchers officially reported on Thursday the 18th. I happen to know that in 2000 pitchers and catchers reported on the 18th as well. The reason I know this is that it was the day my dad died.

That means I've been living without my father for ten years. I just find that incomprehensible. I'm almost forty which means I've been living without my father for a quarter of my life. Starting with my father, we've lost him, we had to put a cat to sleep, we lost an uncle, my wife's brother, my wife's mother, and an aunt. It's been a rough ten years. Hell, I've been laid off twice by the same company.

When he died I had never heard of internet poker and the thought of playing poker for a living had never entered my mind. I think, though, that he would get an enormous kick out of it. While understanding the tedious day to day bullshit I think he would absolutely love the cowboy gunslinger man against the world nature of it.

Goddamn, I miss him.

This Song Is Funny

2010-02-19T16:08:00.001-05:00

I Am Angry

2010-02-17T16:46:00.000-05:00

I am too goddamn angry at myself to play. I can't focus because I am pissed off.

And if I don't play I'm not likely to make my hands for the month unless I play my balls off completely.

I hate life.

Limp reraise

2010-02-17T15:46:00.001-05:00

What the fuck does limp reraise mean?

Does it not mean the guy has a fucking big pair a whole lot of the time?

OF COURSE IT FUCKING DOES!

God I fucking hate myself sometimes.

And this is one of those times.

Taking a Few Minutes

2010-02-17T13:29:00.002-05:00

I'm taking a little break to cool down. I was just at a table with this bloody retarded fucknuts moronic douchetarded asswipish god I wish he would be get aids jackass.

VPIP = 75, PFR = 2

Aggression by street was something like 55 54 58.

And here's the thing. I couldn't get away from AA and KK when he raised. He doesn't raise. He bets. He'll bet any crap. Bottom pair, ace high, whatever, he bets. When he raises he has the goods and in this case the good was trip nines three fucking times to cost me a bundle.

He was tilting me.

So I'm taking a few to cool off.

Chip Dumping?

2010-02-17T12:42:00.002-05:00

Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 542060
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

pobolero (UTG): $391.80
CVB182 (MP): $224.50
tonycapwest (CO): $683.35
Hero (BTN): $231.00
ash_freak (SB): $200.00
junkmail3 (BB): $200.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BTN with 6 5
2 folds, tonycapwest calls $2, Hero calls $2, ash_freak calls $1, junkmail3 raises to $14, tonycapwest calls $12, 2 folds

Flop: ($32.00) 7 9 7 (2 players)
junkmail3 bets $22, tonycapwest calls $22

Turn: ($76.00) Q (2 players)
junkmail3 checks, tonycapwest bets $38, junkmail3 calls $38

River: ($152.00) A (2 players)
junkmail3 checks, tonycapwest bets $50, junkmail3 calls $50

Final Pot: $252.00
tonycapwest shows 4 3 (a pair of Sevens)
junkmail3 shows A Q (two pair, Aces and Queens)
junkmail3 wins $249.00
(Rake: $3.00)

I thought this was suspicious enough to warrant alerting Stars. The question is, once you've done that, do you stay on the table and assume it's just someone being retarded?

Oh by the way

2010-02-17T00:03:00.002-05:00

After three winning days I lost today. There was some bad luck involved (K8 on a board of KKQx8 and he had KQ for a bit over a buyin) but mostly I think I was just not focused enough. I was focused in parts and not focused in other parts.

I mean at one point I had a relatively weak top pair hand, board was flush possible but he would have bet the flush draw when it hit so he didn't have the flush which left his bet being one pair hands and of those mine was pretty good so I called and won.

But there were other hands I wasn't paying attention.

Paying attention is my bugaboo.

Someone e-mailed me and paid me the compliment of saying I had a working brain to which I can only respond....some of the time I do but not all.

Anyway, down a bit over three buy ins, will have back at it tomorrow promising to concentrate better. And if I don't win, it will be back to 100NL for some concentration lessons.

You're Doing It Wrong

2010-02-17T00:00:00.003-05:00

I was just listening to this podcast and they were interviewing a scientist about sex amongst honeybees.

Apparently the male honeybee mates with the queen then not only dies but explodes leaving their genitals in the queen.

And you thought you had a hard time not fucking up Valentine's Day.

The 20/30 Thing

2010-02-16T11:07:00.002-05:00

In the post on Thin Red Line Episode 1 I mentioned a rule of thumb that someone betting 20% on the river is betting none of their missed draws and someone betting 30% is betting all of their missed draws and I said that rule alone has made me a bunch over just a few days.

Well here's one of those hands that I thought was a good illustration of the concept.
Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 4 players - View hand 540060
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $193.55
BTN: $187.50
Hero (SB): $200.00
BB: $343.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is SB with T A
CO calls $2, BTN raises to $4, Hero raises to $15, 2 folds, BTN calls $11

BTW steals 35% and folds to 3 bets 50% and four bets 8%. Well that 8% includes a ton of hands that beat me and very very few that don't so if he calls I am very likely to be ahead with a decent chance of dominating.

Flop: ($34.00) A 2 T (2 players)
Hero bets $20, BTN calls $20

Well that went well. Villain calls c-bets 67% of the time so I'm going to get value from any ace, any pair, any draw, and then some junk.

Turn: ($74.00) K (2 players)
Hero bets $49, BTN calls $49

Well now I'm not that thrilled because hands like QJ are in his calling range and there's a ton of suited stuff in his calling range. However, there are a ton of kings in his calling range so he may well have peeled with some random king and not want to fold it here. At the same time he only folds to turn c-bets 50% of the time so he's got a lot of draws he's going to call with too.

River: ($172.00) 2 (2 players)

Well that kinda sucks a little bit but not really all that much. The question here is whether he'll call a river bet. Obviously he will with everything that beats me. Will he with anything I beat? KT just got counterfeited by the 2 if I have an A which, let's face it, I do a lot.

Enter the river aggro number. It was 33. Apply the 20/30 rule and he's betting his missed draws and then some. Well shit, what does and then some mean in this context? It's KT, KQ, KJ and the like. Meanwhile his fold to river bet is 83%. He's definitely betting with a wider range than he's calling.

Hero checks, BTN bets $103.50 all in, Hero calls $103.50

And that was a snap call. The decision was made before the check. I called before his chips were in the pot. It was kinda awesome.

Final Pot: $379.00 (The text below is white, highlight it to read it)
BTN shows K J (two pair, Kings and Deuces)
Hero shows T A (two pair, Aces and Tens)
Hero wins $377.00
(Rake: $2.00)

Please...

2010-02-15T01:48:00.000-05:00

Go read the comment on the previous post and tell me what the fuck it means.

Thin Red Line Ep. 1

2010-02-13T23:01:00.000-05:00

One of the things I have been epically failing at the last few months is my continuing poker education in the form of studying videos. I haven't watched dick really and haven't really dug into anything in any depth. I suck.

I've decided to change that and over the past few days I've begun watching Grindcore's Thin Red Line series.

Why this series? Well it seems to me that the fundamental difference between being able to make dollars at 100NL and being able to make dollars at 400NL+ is the ability to win from those who aren't just going to pay you off when you hit a hand. In part, Grindcore agrees and he talks about that in here so why don't we just get to it.

Here's the link to episode one and frankly, it was one of the most densely packed videos I have ever watched. It's 90 minutes long and I found myself constantly stopping to scribble down notes and go back and listen again to make sure I was hearing what he said. It's good stuff.

A negative red line is not necessarily a leak. It's only a leak if you're losing more than you should be.
At microstakes you can basically make a hand and get paid off by someone with a lesser hand. Starting at 100NL and 200NL you have more regs with a solid base who just aren't going to pay you off as much so your winning shifts from simply bludgeoning them with showdown hands to winning without seeing a showdown.
Winning non showdown hands doesn't necessarily come from bluffing. Obviously it does to some extent but when your bluffs get called they become showdown losses.
Similarly when your value bets don't get called they contribute to non showdown winnings. Value betting thinner will improve your red line because you see fewer showdowns.
Bluff catching also contributes. When you fold it's a non showdown loss. When you bluff catch well you're going to have fewer non showdown losses and more showdown wins. Also more showdown losses but if you're doing it well the net green line impact is positive.
Your standard game is that you play against unknowns and average players. The series doesn't discuss the standard game but how to deviate from it to target specific player tendencies. Basically it's taking "don't bluff a calling station" and expanding upon it.
You can get away with a lot. At 600NL most folks are adjusting to you. Lower than that most players aren't.

Preflop:

Strong hands make big pairs. Pretty hands make draws.
Make adjustments based on player types. Pretty hands go up in value against weak tight players and strong hands go up in value against calling stations.
Bigger stacks add value to pretty hands.
The players most likely to call you (independent of VPIP) are the button and big blind. [Ed note, from my last session with jk3a if you're UTG and have a gentleman with a wide calling range on the button broaden your opening range a lot even down to something like KJo. Just be careful if others call you.]
If someone defends their blinds less than 20% of the time you can profitably raise any two even if you check fold all flops.

Calling & Three Betting

Your three betting range can be either polarized or de-polarized. Polarized simply means it's all value hands. De-polarized means it includes bluffs. Against folks who call three bets you want to be more polarized. Against folks who are more of the four-bet-or-fold type you should include more bluffs.
Many players play more four-bet-or-fold when out of position.
How do you develop your ranges? Instead of doing it by feel or some kind of random crap [Ed, raise your hand if you're as guilty of this as I am] you should instead determine what range you want to three bet all the time and what range you want to call with most of the time. Your three bet bluffing range is then the top X% of your folding range.
To elaborate, if you're raising with AK+, QQ+ and calling with JJ-88, AJ, KQ then your bluffing range is going to include AT, KJ, 77 and some lesser hands. The idea is to bluff with hands that have little to no value other than as bluffs.
If you aren't comfortable getting it all in preflop against a certain player then you are probably better off calling with a value hand. For example if a guy's four bet range is 1% and you don't want to commit a stack with JJ then don't three bet, just call. If his four bet range is 4% and JJ is fine to commit with then three bet it and call it off and you can call with the 99 or 88 and three bet bluff with something more like K9.
For 100BB stacks strong hands play better in three bet pots than pretty hands.

Postflop Deviation

Don't just make the standard play. Think about how your opponent plays and exploit it.
Thinking prevents robotism so do it.
[Ed, this is completely fucking true. I have found that when facing a decision, if I go through the process of thinking about hands he could have and would do this with and I can justify a call based on combinatorics, tendencies, or the orange juice stains on his sister's tits, I am much less likely to be tilted when he shows me the nuts.]

PD Strategy

Players can very generally be categorized as Honest or Dishonest. Honest players play their cards and Dishonest players fuck with your head. You can use this to devise a strategy to take all their monies.
When folks are too honest against c-bets you can c-bet more frequently on the flop while giving up your air on the turn.
You don't necessarily need to c-bet your smaller strong hands.
Sometimes pairs of stats can give you a profile you can use to exploit a player.
One example of the above is a low turn c-bet coupled with a low turn check raise. These guys are generally honest on the turn so you can call the flop c-bet and bet the turn when checked to. [Ed. I had a couple guys I simply abused with this yesterday. At one point I think I literally called raises and c-bets on three straight hands and stole them on the turn with absolutely nothing. Against the same guy. One guy, three straight hands, and I had at best ten high. I'm gonna be honest, I felt a little baller.]

Dishonest Players When We Are The Aggressor

To think of a strategy to exploit someone, think of what they want you to do and do something else.
For example, with someone who just bets bets bets what they want is for you to call flop, call turn, fold river. Combat this by either folding flop to calling river.
With 44 on say a flop of KT3 you can just check fold.
With JT on a flop of KT3 you can c-bet for value because sometimes they fold, check call the turn, and the river can go either way depending on all the various gazillion factors we all think about.
AK on KT3 you can c-bet, check call turn, check call river (or check raise if appropriate), scoop the monies. Checking is probably going to be more profitable than leading because he'll bet a bunch of the trash he'd fold.
QJ on KT2 you can c-bet flop and since they are bluffing the turn so often you can check raise the turn as it looks really strong and they're going to have to fold a ton of their range.
TT on KT2 you can c-bet then check call or check raise turn.

V TAG

Example, the CO raises with JT and we call from the BB. If they check the flop it is highly likely that they have a second pair type hand. They would c-bet all their top pair hands, draws, and a ton of their air. Checking only really makes sense for a hand that has showdown value in a small to medium pot.
Therefore when you make a top pair hand, even a crappy one, you can then bet the turn rather large because they're going to call with their second pair hand.
When you don't make squat you can bet the turn and get called and turn the river into a levelling war. Determine by observation whether they fold to small river bets or large river bets and make that kind of bet and get them to fold their second pair hand.
In order to combat having them do this to you start checking back some of your air. This has the side effect of strengthening our c-bet range without giving up that much value.

How HUD Stats Work Together

Donk bets. If someone does this 100% honestly his fold to c-bet is going to be very high because he's donking all his value hands and you're only going to be able to c-bet when he doesn't have a hand or you're OOP.
If a player has a high donk bet number and his fold to c-bet is low then he's donk betting with a lot of junk. The higher his fold to c-bet number the less credit you should give to his donk bets.
If a player's fold to turn c-bet stat is low then they have strong hands in their flop calling range. If his raising range is high then there have to be a lot of bluffs in that raising range.
WWSF is Won when saw flop. Someone who plays perfectly straightforward would be at about 35% and dishonest players will have a higher value.
If someone has a high WTSD and a high W$SD they aren't value betting thinly on the river so their river betting range is either very strong hands or very weak hands. There's more weak hands than very strong hands.
River Aggression. Someone with a river aggression frequency of 20% is not betting any of their missed draws. Someone with a river aggression frequency of 30% is betting all of them. [Ed. this last bit has made me a guesstimated three hundred bucks over the past couple days.]

Okay that's it. It's a very long ass post because it's a very dense video. It took me three days to watch and two days to write up and I am absolutely sure that I missed or misstated some stuff. This is one of those videos that you're going to want to watch more than once.

So Much For Running Good

2010-02-13T19:59:00.002-05:00

I ran good yesterday, no question. My hands held up blah blah blah blah.

Today, not so much.

I returned to 200NL and I was a little anxious about it to be honest but after playing poorly (read: unfocused) in my first session I pulled it together to play pretty well the rest of the way, ending up with three shiny sklansky buy ins to my name. In actual dollars I still managed to make a small profit which I consider a small success considering how hard that's been for me lately.

And I quit well which is a good thing.

Now I need to average about 2400 hands a day to make my hands goal and that's going to be hard as I am going to be taking at least one day off and maybe two. Oh well, all I can do is keep plugging away.

God For Fuck Balls

2010-02-12T18:52:00.004-05:00

I haven't been posting much lately and mostly that's because things have been going eh. I've been struggling with the right mindset and it's been well, a struggle. I mean, you play bad and lose so you take a break to clear your head and then you try to play better and you do and you win some and then you lose AK to QQ and KK to 66 after getting it all in on a flop of K64 and it kinda takes a little bit out of you.

Then today:

I really really needed that.

I finished Thin Red Line Ep 1 this morning and will have a post on it up either tonight or tomorrow morning. It's half written and there's just so damn much in there to talk about.

The bottom line though is that there's really one bit of advice that helped me pull myself out of my recent funk and that is the idea that you should look at what they want and do something different.

I think that is ultimately the key. In TRL he talks about how 100NL and 200NL are kind of a transitional level where you can no longer just make hands and beat people over the head you have to learn how to take advantage of player tendencies. I did that today better than I have in a long, long time. Throw in a little run good (even against shortstacking douchetards) and you have a seven plus buy in upswing.

On another note, Alex is hanging it up. It's kinda sad. I know he busted his balls to make it work and it has gotten to the point where being an office drone is not just more financially secure but more emotionally stable. Whatever you end up doing, Alex, I hope it works for the best. You helped me a ton and you deserve to have good things happen to you.

It's Truck Day!

2010-02-12T09:03:00.004-05:00

I haven't been posting lately. Things have been pretty meh, working on trying to rediscover my a game.

There really are no shortcuts in this game. You have to think about every hand. And when I say think about every hand I mean actually go through the process of putting him on a hand and think about how your hand relates et cetera and so forth and all that stuff.

I mean hell, it goes back to the process they talked about in Miller, Mehta, et al.'s first NL book the title of which escapes me. They called it the REM process for Range, Equity, Maximize. Figure out what they've got, figure out your equity against it, figure out what action maximizes that equity. Simple concept, hard to repeat three thousand times a day.

But whatever, it's truck day. Truck day for those of you who are idjits is the day the truck full of equipment leaves for Spring Training.

And it's today.

It will arrive in Florida in a few days, pitchers and catchers report on the 18th (probably going to be an emo post that day fyi) and the spring training games start early in March.

Goddamn I cannot wait.

Holy Crap The Tables Suck Right Now

2010-02-07T11:13:00.002-05:00

Yesterday there would be a handful of 100NL tables with VPIPs over 40 and a good fifteen or so over thirty.

Today there's a handful over 28.

I'll check again later but if that doesn't improve I am off today and will make up the hands later.

I have been doing much better at the volume thing. I've been over 2k hands every day this month except Monday which is supposed to be my day off and the day I dropped 1k. I think those are both legit reasons. I'm due for bout 2k hands today to be on pace for 55k this month. That's about three sessions, not a big deal.

Oh, and I have changed my sessions to two hours. It's more efficient. Two hours on and one hour off means I spend less time cranking up tables and less time running back and forth and more time playing and more time not playing.

The Fallacy

2010-02-06T20:19:00.003-05:00

There's a book called the Alienist by a guy named Caleb Carr. It's a good book about trying to catch a serial killer in turn of the century (previous one) New York. In it, one of the guys is a psychologist who berates himself for allowing himself to be trapped by the fallacy.

In his case, it's projection his own motivations onto his subjects.

In my case it's treating the worst player at the table like they're the worst player that could be at the table.

A 31/6 is not the same as a 45/6. There's actually a bloody ocean of difference. I have been isolating too wide against guys who aren't going to be calling wide enough to justify it. And I have been paying too much attention to the player when c-betting and not enough attention to the cards. A guy who folds to c-bets half the time is still going to fold to one on a board of Q44 rainbow than one who folds 65% of the time is going to fold to one on a board of 786 two tone.

I've scheduled a session with jk3a for Tuesday and I think I am starting to pull my head out of my ass, which is good because my ass doesn't smell good.

Also, truck day is less than a week away.

This Site Is Totally Awesome

2010-02-04T20:52:00.002-05:00

No, not this one, this one.

It's called Letters of Note and the tagline is "Correspondence deserving of a wider audience."

They post actual letters written by actual people to other actual people. Like this one:

February 25th

Dear Al-

This is the second fan letter of my long career.

It is prompted by your superb illustration on page 34 of the current Ladies' Home Journal.

It is simply extraordinary. Your amazing creativeness, taste and versatility.

While the rest of us are working knee-deep in a groove you are forever changing and improving.

You have brought more freshness, charm and vitality to illustration than any other living illustrator.

Now at last I have said it and I feel much better because I have been believing this for a long, long time.

Sincerely

Norman

Norman in this case is Norman Rockwell. I'm no artist but having someone with the reputation of Norman Rockwell gush about your work is kinda like having Patrik Antonius refuse to play you.

This one by Mark Twain is a boatload of awesome, mostly for this sentence: "The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link."

The Stupid Is Off The Charts

2010-02-04T19:37:00.003-05:00

At heart, really, I think I'm an asshole. I mean, sure, I'm polite to people and generally wish them well but well, I have a trigger and when that trigger is triggered it unleashes this vile torrent of shaudenfreudeliciousness. Okay, technically, I have two triggers but one only applies to baseball teams that play their home games in New York (and no, the Mets are not excepted from this, Gary Carter, Mookie Wilson go fuck yourselves I hope you die of bird aids).

The trigger is the stupid. When I see the stupid I want to just hold it up to the light for all the world to see and laugh until I lose control of all my bodily functions.

In that vein, I offer you Scientologists in Haiti. Okay so Scientology is a craze psuedo religion cum cult started by a drugged out science fiction writer as a money making scam. That doesn't make all scientologists bad people. Haiti needs help and damnit, the scientologists are going there to help. Good on ya dudes.

But here's the thing. They went to Haiti with no food, water, or medical supplies but plenty of money to buy that stuff when they got there. Insert facepalm here.

They went their to apply their healing method by touching people whose nerves have been blocked. See, it's like chiropractic but without the additional danger of stroke but with the additional danger of having your couch jumped upon.

They had nobody who spoke the language.

They gave food to people who were about to go into surgery.

So in addition to being evil litigious bastards the scientologists are stupid evil litigious bastards on an epic scale.

Catching a Ball

2010-02-03T19:42:00.002-05:00

Ever catch a ball at a ballgame?

I have.

First time I ever caught a ball was in 1994 at a minor league game in Norwich, CT. We were sitting on a grassy picnic area off the third base side. A career minor leaguer named Lou List, then playing for the New Haven Ravens fouled it off and it landed right next to me. I snake my arm out (catlike reflexes ldo) and grab the thing. Some little kid tries to pry my fingers off it and truth be told if he hadn't, I probably would have let him have it.

Lou List died of Hodgkin's disease in 1998.

The most memorable time came in spring training. My wife wanted popcorn, went to the concession stand, no popcorn. A couple innings later I go and still no popcorn. A couple innings later she goes, gets the popcorn, a soda and just as we're settling back into our seats, popcorn and soda wedged between us we hear the crack of the bat as it were. I look up immediately because well, that's what you do. I see the ball about three feet in front of my face.

It doesn't hit me in the face. Instead it smacks right between my wife and I, plowing through the soda and popcorn sending up a massive spray of wet popcorn. The game goes extras. Yeah, extra innings in spring training so some scrubs could pitch, wtf is up with that? Anyway my wife heads to the ladies room to wash the mess off her and I head down behind the plate because it's closer to the ladies room. In the ladies room a woman approaches my wife and says "You know, you're going to be known here as the popcorn lady forever."

I'm sitting out there waiting for my wife and some batter swings, breaks his bat and the barrel goes flying into the stands over the first section of seats and onto the concourse where it lands about one foot in front of my wife.

Fuckin' bastiches were trying to kill her.

There's this pizza place down the street. It's pretty decent for thin pizza. They have one very friendly delivery guy who recognizes us and always comes to us first so we don't actually have to wait 45 minutes or whatever.

His grandfather died today. That kinda sucks.

And Just Like That

2010-02-03T15:11:00.003-05:00

I'm down just shy of five buy ins today.

I dunno if this is going to work.

Maybe I am just fooling myself. Maybe I'm just not good enough. Maybe I don't have the discipline.

All I know right now is that I want to crawl in a hole and die.

Oh Hey It's February

2010-02-03T13:18:00.002-05:00

I'm putting in volume like I should so far. That's a good thing.

I'm down, which sucks, but I'm pretty sure it's mostly variance and I'm not down much. I still have to remind myself that at 200NL the buy ins are bigger than that 100NL and thus more dollars still means fewer buy ins. I know, I'm retarded.

I have also decided to reward myself. If I put in the volume this month--and I'm pegging that at 55k hands--I'm going to buy myself a new Red Sox hat. I haven't gotten a new one in years and the two that I regularly wear are really getting old and nasty.

I Post This Because It's Important

2010-02-02T23:13:00.003-05:00

It's not about poker.

It's about truth.

I'm sure most of you are aware that there are people who claim that vaccines (MMR specifically) are harmful to the point of causing autism. They generally point to a study published in 1998 in The Lancet by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that supported this notion.

Well today The Lancet retracted that paper (PDF).

Why?

Well the study was recently reviewed by Britain's General Medical Council's Fitness to Practice Panel which concluded that Dr. Wakefield acted dishonestly and unethically.

In short, he did inappropriate tests on children without the proper approval by parents and the ethics panel. He faked his data. And he did so because he was developing a competitor to the then current vaccine.

And here's the thing. The vaccine/autism link has been thoroughly studied and is completely and utterly nonsense. We don't know what causes autism. We do know it isn't vaccines.

Vaccines aren't perfectly safe. There are always people who have unforeseeable allergic reactions and there are other folks who have conditions that make vaccines unwise. But vaccines are remarkably effective. Take a look at the graphs on this page. When vaccines are developed the number of people getting sick and dying decreases dramatically.

And let me make this perfectly clear. The people who are spouting the anti-vaccine rhetoric are killing children. Children like Dana McCaffery. Dana McCaffery was four weeks old when she died of whooping cough. That's a horrible death folks, and it happened because not enough people were vaccinated.

We Excel On Ice

2010-02-02T11:09:00.001-05:00

If you like sports and you don't read Joe Posnanski, you should.

El Oh Elz

2010-01-31T00:19:00.001-05:00

Okay so I am perusing BBV for shits and giggles because well, what the hell else would you peruse BBV for?

Someone describes a tale where they are approached by someone looking for cash and end up giving them twenty bucks.

To which someone replied "You never give a beggar money because they will use it on booze, drugs or tournament buy-ins. Buy them food instead."

I not only literally laughed out loud, I laughed so hard it brought tears to my eyes.

I Am A Lazy Bastard

2010-01-28T23:38:00.002-05:00

I haven't been playing much lately and mostly I don't have a good reason.

I am staring failure right in the face and my gut reaction is to do nothing.

Pretty sure that makes me a complete failure at life.

I don't want to be a complete failure at life.

I was talking to my wife earlier. She was watching some Dr. Phil stuff about Haiti. We were both thinking that we'd love to go there and help. I want to live the kind of life where, when shit like this happens, I can just leave for a month or so to help.

I can beat this game. This game can give me the kind of life I want.

If I can't muster up the energy to sit here and play cards then I deserve to be a failure.

3k hands a day until the first Monday in Feb. when I resume my previously discussed schedule.

Well Hello There!

2010-01-22T23:30:00.002-05:00

I've always wanted to diversify my game somewhat for burnout control if nothing else and I always felt like it should be PLO but whenever I play PLO I just don't really enjoy it that much. PLO8 on the other hand, I have enjoyed but there isn't that much out there on it.

Until now.

Deuces Cracked now has an entire series starting on PLO8 and NLO8 called In A Nutshell.

Boo yah.

Things I've Been Working On

2010-01-22T19:28:00.002-05:00

So I've been working on a few things lately.

Well, two things really.

Not Looking During Sessions:
Since this post I haven't looked at my results during a session. I call that a success. The first few times I was concentrating on not looking I counted how many times I wanted to look and it was I think 15 the first session and 10 the second. That's in a 90 minute session. 90/15 = every six minutes. Holy fuck, y'know? This session I just played I only remember wanting to look once, after losing a big hand where I did something questionable.

C-Betting:
I know, it's a little bit retarded to be working on c-betting but I found I was just going apeshit with it to the tune of 79-80% which can't be profitable long term. That's been my focus the past few days and it's been much better, down to 63-65% which might even be slightly less than ideal.

So basically things are going well, 200NL is mostly being good to me and life is grand.

A Hand and A Question

2010-01-22T17:43:00.003-05:00

Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 491966
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $253.30
BB: $745.80
UTG: $221.05
Hero (MP): $200.00
CO: $240.25
BTN: $213.30

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is MP with 9 9
UTG raises to $6, Hero calls $6, 2 folds, SB calls $5, BB calls $4

Flop: ($24.00) J T 9 (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $16, SB folds, BB folds, UTG calls $16

Turn: ($56.00) A (2 players)
UTG bets $40, Hero calls $40

I thought this was very odd. If he'd had KQ the A would have made no difference so the A only makes a difference with something like AJ, AT, AA, or maybe an AdKd or AdQd. But really of all of those hands, which ones would he not c-bet? Granted, it's a highly coordinated board but he's going to be c-betting AA, AJ, AdKd and AdQd almost all the time isn't he? He c-bets 75%. And yes it's multiway but he's got outstanding equity against everything but made straights and sets and even against them he's not doing too bad.

River: ($136.00) 2 (2 players)
UTG bets $159.05 all in

So, what do you do?

And, the question. Imagine for a moment that you're in the Jesus seat but not just the Jesus seat but a double Jesus seat. The two guys to your right are both 40+ VPiP gentlemen with wide calling ranges. So when you're UTG they're in the blinds. How much are you expanding your UTG opening range?

Sklansky Bucks My Big Fat Hairy Pimpled Ass

2010-01-22T17:33:00.002-05:00

Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 4 players - View hand 491961
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $321.20
CO: $61.40
BTN: $196.00
Hero (SB): $232.65

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is SB with A A
2 folds, Hero raises to $7, BB raises to $24, Hero raises to $70, BB raises to $321.20 all in, Hero calls $162.65 all in

Flop: ($465.30) 2 5 3 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: ($465.30) Q (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($465.30) 4 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $465.30
BB shows K A (a straight, Ace to Five)
Hero shows A A (a straight, Ace to Five)
Hero wins $231.65
BB wins $231.65
(Rake: $2.00)

For the record, that's 93% preflop, 94% on the flop, 97% on the turn.

FT Updates

2010-01-19T16:19:00.002-05:00

Full Tilt has finally done their thing re shortstackers and it was to increase the minimum buy in while providing an alternate game with a lower buy in. Seems like a reasonable compromise to me. I've written Stars support and asked them to increase the minimum buy in as well and will be monitoring things over the next couple weeks.

If the game at Tilt look better, I may move.

But check out the Rush Poker thing. I played 83 hands in 13.9 minutes. That's like 350+ hands per hour. On one table.

Of course you're playing with new opponents every single hand so it's very very different, but interesting.

Here's The Problem

2010-01-18T00:41:00.002-05:00

With the special election for Senate in Massachusetts, where I live.

Martha Coakley, the Democrat is no friend of online poker.

Scott Brown the Republican refuses to comment on the issue.

They both suck.

It's times like this that I really wish there were a None of The Above option on our ballots.

Pardon Me While I Heave

2010-01-17T13:22:00.003-05:00

Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 481746
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $296.95
Hero (BTN): $310.30
SB: $54.90
BB: $311.65
UTG: $284.80

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BTN with 2 2
2 folds, Hero raises to $6, SB calls $5, BB calls $4

Flop: ($18.00) 3 5 2 (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $13, SB folds, BB raises to $46, Hero raises to $97, BB raises to $305.65 all in, Hero calls $207.30 all in

Turn: ($626.60) A (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($626.60) 9 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $626.60
Hero shows 2 2 (three of a kind, Deuces)
BB shows 5 5 (three of a kind, Fives)
BB wins $624.60
(Rake: $2.00)

I have been doing good at the whole not looking while playing thing but I'm finding myself trying to estimate where I'm at and I appear to be really bad at that.

I've played about 2200 hands at 200NL now and there's good news and bad news. I feel pretty comfortable there and I'm making .61 VPP/hand which I think is higher than what I used for my estimates so if I can get back on a decent schedule of volume I think I should be okay for goals and shit.

Bad news is that I'm down a buy in and a half and the really bad news is that I am c-betting 79% of the time. That's been a recurring problem with me. Every now and then I start c-betting like a retard and the consequences are simple, a c-bet success rate of 40.7%. When I c-bet and see the turn but don't go to showdown I am remarkably unprofitable.

So, the object of the game starting now is to c-bet properly.

This Is Interesting

2010-01-16T19:36:00.001-05:00

Linky

It's about comedy, social conventions, offending people and all that stuff. It's interesting.

Malfaire is Right

2010-01-16T19:01:00.003-05:00

Shocking as it is, I know.

Haitians need our help. We should give it.

PokerStars
Full Tilt
Cake Poker

Boywonder suggests sending a buy in. That's a good idea. If cash is a bit strapped I suggest going through your latest session and when you come across a hand where you just gave away money, donate that amount.

And while I'm at it, Pat Robertson is a sick evil racist fuckface.

I Am Almost At A Loss For Words

2010-01-14T23:49:00.002-05:00

There was a Weight Watchers meeting Wednesday night in some unpronounceable town in Sweden.

Apparently about twenty folks had come for a weigh in and, well, the floor collapsed.

No one was injured in the incident, the cause of which is still under investigation.

Thoughts on This Hand

2010-01-13T11:26:00.004-05:00

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 474322
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $100.00
CO: $11.50
Hero (BTN): $142.10
SB: $189.60
BB: $27.10
UTG: $120.15

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BTN with T T
1 fold, MP raises to $3, 1 fold, Hero calls $3, 1 fold, BB calls $2

MP here is a bit of a nitbag, 20/15 (11 while in MP) over 700 hands. His fold to three bet is 83 and I consider it but decide there's more value in a board with an A and a T.

BB here is one of the less bright shortstackers who calls flops and folds turns.

Flop: ($9.50) Q A 3 (3 players)
BB checks, MP bets $7, Hero calls $7, BB calls $7

MP C-bets 70% which seems a lot but considering how tight his PFR range is he's almost always going to have something on a high card flop. I think this was probably a mistake.

Turn: ($30.50) T (3 players)
BB checks, MP bets $24

Where do we go from here? We're behind AA, QQ, and KJ. MP doesn't have KJ but BB very well could. MP is also not barreling here with something like 99 or JJ so it's highly likely he has at least an A and while he probably barrels with AK, AJ, AT here I am not 100% sure.

There aren't that many players and that many situations where I'd even consider folding a set but this is getting into that area.

So what do we do from here? If we stick it in I think he probably folds everything we beat except maybe AQ. If we call what are we looking for on the river? If the river blanks--and really other than the case T what isn't a blank--and he fires are we calling? If he checks are we checking and seeing a showdown or pushing?

I haven't been in a situation with a set that I have liked less than this one in a while.

Also posted over at DC if commenting in that format is easier.

Frustrating Couple of Days

2010-01-12T22:35:00.003-05:00

I didn't get dick for volume in over the weekend because I got frustrated out of the right mindset so I am trying to put in volume on days when I normally wouldn't be. That's a little annoying in itself but not really a big deal.

Since yesterday I've played about 4500 hands and am up a little over two buy ins worth of sklansky bucks. In pay-my-mortgage bucks I'm down six dollars.

I haven't played perfect poker, I am fully aware of that but I have been playing fairly well. I'm c-betting a bit too much and I need to keep an eye on that but I'm not making most of the horrendous gutwrenching leaks I make when I get into money burning mindset.

I'm just grinding away playing maybe B+/A- poker and getting some bad variance. It comes with the job. It's like the office politics of being a poker player. It sucks and there's no way to avoid it and every now and then you just need to whine and get it off your chest. So that's what this is.

It sucks it's happening now because I just want to put in a few good days make a tiny bit more money and then head back to 200NL. If I were playing at 200NL and hitting my EV I would be right about on track to be where I want to be financially despite a couple crappy days and low volume. I guess I can take some solace in that fact but solace doesn't pay the bills.

I think I am going to have to be in hardcore grind mode for most of the rest of the month. I need to average about 2400 hands a day to get the volume I want. That means I'm going to be trying to hit 2500-3000 a day so I can have some days off. Five days of 3k = one day off.

Throughout history

2010-01-12T00:06:00.001-05:00

Every mystery that has ever been solved has turned out to be...not magic.

So says Tim Minchin. He's kinda scary looking but otherwise cool.

Holy Crap

2010-01-11T21:22:00.002-05:00

I just played for about half an hour.

On forty two tables.

No, not at once.

Forty two tables and I stayed at five of them for more than ten hands. Five.

I mean holy fucking crap that's a crapload of shitty tables.

I Mean Seriously

2010-01-11T19:01:00.003-05:00

First hand at the table.

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 469150
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $100.00
CO: $163.75
BTN: $131.10
SB: $63.00
Hero (BB): $100.00
UTG: $122.65

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with Q Q
4 folds, SB raises to $3, Hero raises to $9, SB calls $6

Flop: ($18.00) A A A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $10, SB calls $10

Turn: ($38.00) J (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $18, SB raises to $44 all in, Hero calls $26

River: ($126.00) 6 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $126.00
SB shows 3 A (four of a kind, Aces)
Hero shows Q Q (a full house, Aces full of Queens)
SB wins $123.00
(Rake: $3.00)

I dunno, maybe I can fold the turn but I figured he didn't have KK due to preflop action. I have no reads whatsoever. It's basically he has less than a full stack so he's likely a tard so he'll push here with any J.

I Think We Should Have a Contest

2010-01-10T22:19:00.003-05:00

I just noticed that I had twenty-one posts so far in January. This obviously, will be number 22.

It's a bit more than an hour and a half until the 11th of January starts in these parts. That means I'll have averaged 2.2 posts per day.

How many posts do you think I'll have over the course of the year?

How many do you think will be Actually Poker Related?

Winner gets, well nothing really.

I Have Found Malfaire's Theme Song

2010-01-10T22:07:00.002-05:00

It's called Confessions by Tim Minchin

Retardedly Frustrating Day

2010-01-08T21:48:00.003-05:00

Okay, just allow me to say this before I get into it. Fuck Joe DiMaggio he was not ever baseball's greatest living player.

Now, today was frustrating. I had some great positions on great tables and couldn't take advantage. One wanker to my left was playing 80% of his hands and hitting everything. I got so frustrated after another flopped flush I had to quit and take a long break.

Then I came back and there's another guy playing 70% of his hands and I'm two to his left. He's very aggressive and has a horseshoe shoved up his ass but I'm careful and I'm building a nice stack off him. He's taking money from others and it's really just a matter of time before we have a big hand and I win a huge pot off him.

Then I have 66 and flop J67. He donks, I raise, he calls. Okay, he has a pair. Turn 7, he checks I bet, he calls. This was his standard procedure and I'm pretty sure he has either a J or a seven and every silly 7 is entirely within his range. River 8. I shove my last $100, he calls and shows 78 and scoops a three buy in pot.

Instaquit.

A couple months ago t his day would have me down four or five buy ins. Today, a little over one so it was a lot better than it could have been.

I didn't look at results at all during play which is a huge step for me. I find that when I am not winning and I feel like I should be winning I get married to hands that "should" win which is a recipe for suck. I did a little of that today but much less than it could have been.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day.

Variance, Bitches

2010-01-08T11:39:00.002-05:00

Tsutomu Yamaguchi was visiting Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, the day an atomic bomb fell on the city. He survived.

Three days later he was home in Nagasaki when an American plane dropped an atomic bomb on that city, effectively ending World War II. Yamaguchi survived again.

Today, there's word that the 93-year-old man has died after a battle against stomach cancer.

Fuckin' seriously. Dude survives TWO atomic bombs and lives to be 93. I think that's roughly equivalent to bluffing into the nuts 17 times and hitting your one outer every single time.

It's Snowing Again

2010-01-08T09:32:00.002-05:00

Seriously, I've had enough for the season already. More is completely overkill.

Fifty Nine Seconds

2010-01-06T11:35:00.003-05:00

I recently started listening to the book 59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman.

It's a skeptical scientist's look at the self help movement not from the perspective of criticizing the vast amount of garbage that is out there but in terms of researching the real science and reporting on the quick things we can do in every day life to make ourselves more happy.

It's interesting so far. I don't know if it will have any poker implications but I suspect it might. If it does I shall report them here. And if it doesn't, it's probably a good read anyway.

A Triumph Over Wiseass Asshattery

2010-01-06T11:33:00.003-05:00

In Holdem Manager you can hide the tabs that show results so you cannot see your results merely with the unconscious habit of flipping over and refreshing your graph.

Leather Porn

2010-01-05T22:57:00.003-05:00

Okay it's really more like arm porn.

Goddamn can that man play some defense. And holy hand grenades that's a strong arm. Dude flips the ball underhanded like he's skipping stones and throws a seed.