A Poker Update

I believe in poker the way I believe in the American Dream. Poker is good for you. It enriches the soul, sharpens the intellect, heals the spirit, and - when played well, nourishes the wallet.

--Lou Krieger

Over the last few years I have started taking poker more seriously, at least from an academic point of view.  I study it with a focus that I wish I had been able to manage when I was in college.  I rarely get to put this study into practice, however.

When we lived in Atlanta I would periodically play in some home games, and when we go to visit my in-laws in Florida I'll play sometimes at the poker rooms in Jacksonville.  I've come away from these stabs at playing on the positive side more than I've come away negative, and I truly feel that if I had the time to devote to playing more often I would just get better and more profitable.

Getting time to play is hard, though.  When we are in Florida it means that I have time off from both of my jobs, and my wife wants me to spend that time with the family.  That's understandable, and I can't blame her. I want to spend my spare time with them as well.  I feel this calling to play, though, that I am unable to explain to her in such a way that she will excuse my absence with any degree of regularity.

That's why I'm so happy that she has agreed to give me two days around Labor Day to go do my thing.  The BestBet Jacksonville Poker Room is having their WPT Summer Series, and I'll be playing on September 2nd and 3rd.  I'm planning to play cash games on the 2nd, and possibly play a satellite to the main event the next weekend.  I will then be playing the $340 PLO8 tourney on Monday the 3rd.

A word about the new room in Jacksonville: It's freakin' huge.  And nice.  They took an old Garden Ridge store and converted it into a poker palace.  They have over 70 tables, with room for another 50 or so if they need them.  They hosted the spring WPT televised event in April of 2012, and without exception all the pros that I follow on Twitter talked about how nice the place was. And the games are really, really good.

I had a week vacation planned to go play at the spring series, but had to cancel it for personal reasons.  I really want to take a week and just play poker. I want to see if I can adequately supplement my income with my play. It would be so nice to be able to just go somewhere and play poker for a week and then be home with my family for the rest of the month, instead of having to go into work four nights a week and sleep during the day like I currently do.

Hopefully, I'll be able to put together this week trip for either the fall series in November or the big spring series next year.

A word about my last entry...

I have thought a lot about my last entry. One thing has been on my mind, and I wanted to clear it up. I made the following statement:

I can honestly say that last night I made no mistakes. I played every hand the way it should be played, and as a result, I came out on top.

I followed that up by relating how I called an all-in and a re-raise that put me all in with AJ of diamonds. Some would see this as a mistake. Here's my rationale, and you can then determine if it was a mistake.

The guy who went all in for 6000 at 1000/2000, I put him on a strong hand. AQ, AK, or a pair. The drunk guy who raised to 10000 I was not putting on a strong hand. He had called me down earlier on the river with no pair. I had also heard from other players how he had been raising with crap all night, but that he just happened to get lucky.

The thought process was, I can call myself all-in and be an underdog to the initial raiser. I was pretty sure that I had the drunk guy beat. So let's assume that I lose to the initial all-in but win against the drunk. I will lose 6000 and win 4000. I've already got 1000 in the pot, since I'm in the small blind, so basically, I'm out the price of the small blind (since it would take another 1000 to call the big blind, if nobody had raised). Basically, I'm paying 1000 to call a 4000 raise. It is almost as if the drunk had just slipped me the 4000, to offset the 6000 of calling the first all-in. I figured it was worth the price to take the chance.

As it turned out, the drunk had a hand, albeit a weak one. I don't believe I would have called an all-in with pocket deuces, much less raised to 10000 with them.

The point is that I don't consider this a bad play because of the thought that went into it. I was basically looking at losing only 2000 for the chance to almost triple up. I was already well into the points payout, so I was playing to win, not survive. Think about it, and I think you'll agree that it was the proper play given the circumstances.

Winning at the Loafing Leprechaun

My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose - somehow we win out.

--Ronald Regan

Last night was a great night at the tables. I managed to win the tournament at the Loafing Leprechaun! There were more than 44 people in the tourney. [There were 46. -JS] I'm happy more about the way I played than the fact that I won.

I can honestly say that last night I made no mistakes. I played every hand the way it should be played, and as a result, I came out on top.

There's really not a pivotal hand on which the entire tournament turned, but the closest hand was at the 1000/2000 blind level. Final table, 7 left and I'm in the small blind with AJ of diamonds. UTG goes all-in for 6000, and a drunk guy at the end of the table (who called me down on a K-J-8 board with 10-3 earlier) made it 10000 to go. I had 1000 in the blind and 9000 left. I called. UTG turned over pocket 7's, and the drunk turned over pocket 2's. The flop came A-A-10, the turn and river were blanks, and I had almost tripled up. It put me in very good position for the rest of the tourney, as it made me the chip leader. I never looked back.

I'm just happy with the way I played. I didn't get tired, I didn't make bad decisions. That's most of the battle of a poker tourney right there. The whole point of playing poker (for me, at least) is that I become the best player that I can. I want to know that i can play an entire tournament and not make a fatal mistake. If I make the correct decision, it doesn't matter to me whether the other guy draws out on me and puts me out. I just want to know that I didn't beat myself. Last night I didn't beat myself, and in the process I beat everyone else.

What a Call!

Here's a hand that happened at Buffalo Wild Wings last week. I am very proud of my decision here, so I'd like to share it.

I'm in the small blind. Stacks are as follows:

ME: 2150

BB: 1800

UTG: 1350

UTG+1: 2500

C/O: 3200

Button: 450

Blinds: 50/100

I'm dealt AA in the Small blind. UTG calls, everyone folds to me. I make it 300 to go. BB calls, UTG calls.

The flop comes J 3 J. Not ideal. I bet 200 to see where I'm at and the BB instantly goes all-in. UTG thinks for a while and folds. There is 1000 in the pot, plus the extra 1300 from the BB, for a total of 2300. I have to call 1300 for a chance at the 2300 pot. If I win, I have 3600. If I lose, I have 350.

**The resolution:

I thought about it, and decided that I was up against a pocket pair, but not jacks or threes. I figured if he had either, he would have raised, but the all-in smelled of a "please go away" bet. I finally called, and he turned over ... pocket 4's. The aces held up.

Royal Hold'em

Your best chance to get a Royal Flush in a casino is in the bathroom.

-VP Pappy

UltimateBet has begun spreading a new type of Hold'em called Royal Hold'em. The basic gist is that the game is played with a maximum of six players using only the 10 through Ace of each suit. This gives a 20-card deck. This is a very fun variation, and has been somewhat profitable, even with my admittedly small sample size. I had 68 cents in my UB account left over from my last cashout. I took it to the $0.01/$0.02 Royal Hold'em table and turned it into $2. From there, I stepped up to the $0.02/$0.04 table. Went from $2 to $5. From there, it was to the $0.05/$0.10 table, where I got my balance up to $10. I stepped up to the $0.25/$0.50 table last night, and was up to $19, but I dropped $11 when I had kings full of aces, and the only hand that could beat me was pocket aces. My opponent had the rockets.

This variation of Hold'em is interesting in that winning with two pair is as rare as winning regular Hold'em with seven high. If you flop a straignt, about the best you can hope for is for the board to make the same straight you hold and split the pot with the rest of the players in the hand. Most pots are won with a full house. It is not uncommon for a pot to be taken down with four of a kind. (I've had quads twice since I started writing this...) Royal flushes are not uncommon either. I had two last night, and I've never had one in a year-and-a-half of playing poker both on-line and live.

There is some humor in watching the chat for the unsuspecting regular Hold'em player who has stumbled into a Royal Hold'em room. Comments like "What's with these flops?" and "I've had the best run of cards ever, but I just can't win!" are priceless. It's interesting, since most folks playing in these rooms haven't figured out the optimal strategy. I guess that's why I could be up 2794% yesterday.

Another Second Place at BWW

There is no room for second place.

-Vince Lombardi

In a sense, that's true. But sometimes, second isn't all that bad. When you're competing in a points event, consistency is the key. Just look at NASCAR. The championship usually isn't won by the person who wins the most races, but rather by the person who consistently finishes close to the front.

We had just enough folks at Buffalo Wild Wings last night to place everyone in the second column of the points table. With the Braves playing a home playoff game, Georgia Tech playing at home, and the weather being crappy, we were eight regular players short, meaning we all basically started out at the final table. There were nine of us, and I finished second. Bryant's friend (and mine) Tommy finished third. I had the win in hand until my opponent sucked out on me twice in a row for the win.

I'll be back at the Loafing Leprechaun on Tuesday, trying to rack up more points. I may have to find a different place to play than BWW, because so far there haven't been enough folks there to make the points payout worth it. I need to find a tourney with 30-40 players, and BWW just doesn't have that kind of traffic.

The Beat Goes On

The single greatest key to winning is knowing thy enemy -- yourself.

-Andy Glazer

I played in another of the free poker tourneys last night, this one at the Loafing Leprechaun in Duluth. I think I had a pretty good chance to win, had I been able to lay down one key hand. But I'll get to that later.

FullHouseHold'em, the company that my brother-in-law works for, started their "Poker League" last night. The Poker League is basically a 20-week point gathering expedition in which players get points for finishing in the top eight in any tournament that FullHouseHold'em runs. At the end of the 20 weeks, the top points players will get together for a final tourney where the first prize is a paid entry to the 2006 World Series of Poker. All this is sponsored by Bluff Magazine.

Anyway, I decided that since you can play in any number of tourneys a week, that I'd start off trying to earn some early points. My best hand of the night came when I was in the big blind with pocket threes. The flop came 3-3-x. It was checked around, and the turn was a five. The small blind checked, I checked, and UTG+1 went all-in. It was folded around to me, and I called, blurting out "Can you beat quads?" before I could stop myself. The river was a blank, and I doubled up. During the break, I apologized for my rather dickish remark, and the guy said he completely understood. Quads are a very rare thing, except for last night. In this tourney, five sets of quads were hit. What're the odds? No, really, what are the odds? I don't know.

The hand I should have layed down came very near the final table. The blinds were 400/800, and I was in the big blind with a fair sized chip stack, and was dealt K-7 offsuit. It was folded to the small blind who completed, and I checked. The flop was K-x-x, two spades. The small blind checked, and I bet 1000. He raised to 2000, so I went all-in. He called with the nut flush draw, and hit it on the turn. This left me with 400 in chips with 11 people left in the tourney. Somehow I managed to hang around and finish sixth, so I managed to snag some points.

Ironically, my sixth place finish was worth more points than my first place finish last Thursday would have been worth, due to the small field last Thursday and the large field last night. Here's the chart that explains how points are awarded:

As you can see, the points are based not only on your finishing position, but on how many people were in the tourney.

I'm going to try to keep playing two a week, at the Loafing Leprechaun and at Buffalo Wild Wings, but I don't know how long that will go over with the wife. I'm going to try my best to rack up the points, though. I really want to be in that final tourney. I feel like my tourney game is starting to come around, and that I'm becoming a very good tourney player. I guess time will tell if that's really the case or if I'm just fooling myself.

Oh, and by the way, I entered the $5 Turbo on PokerChamps yesterday (the same one that I won on Sunday) and came in second out of a field of 40.

Interesting Exchange About Winning at Poker

The house doesn't beat the player. It just gives him the opportunity to beat himself.

-Nick Dandalos

I read several poker blogs on a daily basis, and one of them is by Bob Rotruck, aka MicroBob from the 2+2 forums, located here. He had a post today that I felt the urge to reply to, not because of his position, but because of the position of the person who he's having the disagreement with.

Here's Bob's post:

Certified Moron Status!!

That's how someone described the latest little exchange with 'online gambling expert' Stephen Katz regarding his claims that internet-poker is not beatable.

Somebody on 2+2 wrote to him and got a reply:

Basically, if somebody doesn't want to spend $2,000 of their own money (as well as time) to prove to HIM something that THEY already know they are successfully doing for income then he refuses to believe it exists.

------------------------------------------------------

After reading that little note, I send an e-mail to him. Very polite, not disaggreeing with his goals, just telling him he was wrong. Got a response the very next day, kinda funny and pathetic. Here is my e-mail and his response:

Just read a short article by Mr. Katz re online poker.

Unfortunately, Mr. Katz doesn't know what he is talking about. There are plenty of good reasons not to gamble. Gambling destroys thousands of lives and negatively influences the lives of millions more. However, making things up and/or lying about certain types of gambling is, in my opinion, counter productive to the cause of gambling prevention.

What Mr. Katz's piece offers is an incentive for people to find out more about online poker. Why? Because it is so obviously wrong. How do I know it's wrong? I support my family by playing online poker, and have done so for several years, as do many of my aquaintances.

Look, you can't just go around saying "you can't beat the rake!". Whether or not the rake can be beaten depends on the size of the rake relative to the game, and your skill relative to the other players in it. No matter how noble your motives, the ends don't justify the means, and in these case the means are counter productive to the desired end.

Just thought you should know


----------------------------------------------------------

Some of your comments are good and that is appreciated.

But unless you PROVE your claims of winning, anyone stating that they are winning money in the long-run playing online poker, is only a rumor. Don't take it personal - I say that to EVERYONE.

You probably realize that gambling income is taxable and so you have paid taxes on the money. So simply do the following. Post in a public forum, not to me because anyone can photoshop items, do it in a public forum whereby everyone can see it including the IRS which also canvases the internet looking for tax cheats. No one should ever publicly post a false tax return. To the best of my knowledge this is a federal offense.

So...post copies of your last years federal tax return. Post two years since you said "several years." Also post copies of your credit card transactions and documentation from the gambling websites regarding deposits and withdrawals. Before posting though, take all this documentation to a very reputable accounting firm and have all the information audited. They will matchup the documentation with your bank statements, etc. And also post a signed letter from this accounting firm regarding the audit and the accuracy of your documentation. Since you've been paying your taxes and have filed and previously calculated all these figures anyway, this should all be quite easy for you to quickly hand over to the accounting firm. The audit will probably cost you around $2,000 but since you are making all this money playing online poker, a couple thousand bucks should be peanuts to you.

Everyone who I have asked to do this has refused despite the simplicity. If you want to do it...fine, e-mail me back with the public website info after it is posted and of course I'll take a look at it. If you don't want to do it...fine, but the article stands as fact. We both know that there is not any formula for "proving" that online poker can be beat. The best hand doesn't always win - it can be bluffed out. So again...the only way to prove claims of winning money would be showing documented and audited proof of this income. You made the claims, so prove it!

Best Regards,

Steve

And here's my comment:

That's nuts. Saying that you can't make money playing online poker because you can't beat the rake is like saying Best Buy can't make money because they can't beat the electric bill! It's a cost of doing business, and it's certainly beatable.

However, arguing with a fool is pointless. Although, I will say that from his response, it looks like he knows the fallacy of his argument, and is trying to make it unnecessarily difficult and expensive for anyone to prove him wrong.

I fall into the social conservative group, but I do play poker. I play blackjack when I have the advantage (i.e., a bonus is involved), and I have the occasional drink. I believe in moderation in things, so I don't drink to excess, and I don't gamble where there is a large house advantage.

I consider poker a game of skill, not gambling. There is some luck involved, but that goes for golf, tennis, baseball, football, hockey, Scrabble, Monopoly and Tiddlywinks. But what separates poker from the rest of the casino games is that you are not playing against the house. You are pitting your skill against the skill of the other players. The rake is simply "rent for the space" to play.

I would say that I hope he comes around, but that'll never happen. He has his agenda, and even if someone were to provide the proof he asks, the very next words out of his mouth would be "That's an anomoly. One person winning doesn't prove anything." Sadly, it's blowhards like this that will end up getting the attention.

Perhaps it's time to form a lobbying group to look out for our interests.

My First Live Tournament Win, My First Online Tournament Win

Poker is a combination of luck and skill. People think mastering the skill part is hard, but they're wrong. The trick to poker is mastering the luck.

--Jesse May, from "Shut Up and Deal"

Well, I have had quite a week at the tables. In the span of four days, I have notched my first live tournament win and my first online tournament win. I will say that it seems that I have the best luck when I'm down to the felt with sky-high blinds. I was in that situation in both tournaments.

We'll start with the live tournament. The tournament was one of the free-to-enter bar tourneys that are held in the Atlanta area. This particular one was at Buffalo Wild Wings in Alpharetta on September 29, 2005. I finished second in the tourney on September 22, so having had decent luck I decided to return the next week. Two tables to start, with prizes of $40, $20, and $10 house cash for the top three finishers.

I started off playing my normal tight aggressive game, folding most hands and watching everyone get crazy with less than premium hands. I did have one great hand in the first half-hour. I held AK suited and with blinds at 20/40 raised to $200. I got one caller. The flop came with nothing higher than a ten. I bet $500 and got called. It was at this point I was pretty sure I was beat. I was putting the guy on AT or JJ. The turn was no help to me, so I checked. The other guy bet $1000, and I folded. I think I made the right read on this guy, and am happy with the decision that I made to lay my hand down.

I played a few other hands, never hitting anything on the flop. I was in danger of getting pretty short, with about 1400 in chips at the 50/100 level when I looked down and saw Aces. I was under the gun, and I raised to $300. Everyone folded around to the big blind, who called. The flop came K97 rainbow. The big blind checked, and I bet $300. She put me all in and I called in a shot. She showed K2 offsuit. I have to say that up until that point I had been pretty impressed with this lady's play. She always showed down strong hands, but I don't know what she was thinking there. She had to put me on a big hand, and even if I had K3, she was in big trouble. I won't complain, though, because it really got me back into things for the next hour.

Coming to the end of the next hour, I was getting really short. It was final five players, blinds at 400/800, and I had 1100 in chips. The break hit just as I was about to pay the big blind. When we came back from break, we had been colored up, and since they round up the chips when they color up, I had 1500 in chips with the blinds at 500/1000. I decided that I had to do something, so I just posted all-in blind. I got two callers who basically checked it down to the river. I had 72 of spades, and the flop came all spades. The turn was a blank club, but the river was the queen of spades. At this point I was sure I was beat, but the other two opponents turned over hands full of red cards! I had tripled up.

I folded until I was in the big blind again. There were two callers. The flop came K-Q-10, and I was holding J9! The small blind checked, I checked, and UTG checked. The turn was a blank. Again, the small blind checked, I checked, and UTG called out "All In". The small blind folded, and I called. He turned over K6, and I took it down. Over the course of the next ten hands, I flopped another straight to knock out one opponent, and turned a straight to knock out another. We were finally heads up, with me having about 20,000 in chips to my opponent's 2000.

Heads up only lasted three hands. The last hand had me in the big blind with QT. My opponent went all in and I called. The flop came KJA, and it was over. My wife had been sweating me all night, and she actually took a picture of me "WSOP-Style" with me standing behind the chip stack holding up my cards and the house cash certificates.

The online tourney was on Sunday afternoon. I was sitting in the living room watching the race and basically just killing time. I entered the 2:30 $5 Turbo tourney on PokerChamps. There were 39 players, for a prize pool of $195.

Just like the live tourney, I played a tight-aggressive game, but thought it was all over when I got my AK all in against AJ, and the guy spiked a jack on the flop. I was left with $54 at the 50/100 level. I managed to double up several times, always picking the best spots to put it all in. When we got down to heads up, I had a 25k chip lead. Several hands later, it was all over. To be quite honest, online play happens so fast that I rarely remember exact hands, so I don't even know what I won with. I did manage to take a screenshot of my success, though. Here it is:

The beauty of implied odds: The thoughts of a fish.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

--Albert Einstein

This is a reproduction of a post to the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup by Nick Wool. I thought it fit nicely with my post from yesterday.

This really happened at my table in VC poker, 3/6 NL cash game today. This is what the hero would have probably posted after the hand, if he posts at all.

UTG with a stack of 600 raises to 30, folds to me at button. I had 550 and held J2 spades. my hand had so many possiblities; quads, a flush, straights, 2 pairs, trips and two pairs, and with such a strong drawing hand, I can bust him if I hit. I flat called him, not wishing to scare the fish away because I wanted to suck him into the pot with my strong drawing hand, which gave me great implied odds.

Flop was Ts 2h 6c. I now have the possiblity of a runner runner quads, a runner runner boat, runner runner flush, as well as the possibility of two pairs or trips with the next card. Time to make a move. UTG checked to me, I bet 70, UTG reraise to 250. Gotta, you fish! Now I have him exactly where I want him.

I pushed all my chips to the middle. He called without hesitation and flips over AA (in VC, the cards are turned over in all ins, even in cash games). Turn was a 3 c, and river 2 h. I busted the fish with my J2 suited.

What a fish, how could he push with AA on a blank flop? I had so many outs, and for all he know, might have had hot a set! The fish was whining about my play, as fish usallu do after they lost a pot, but has he not heard of implied odds?

I kept quiet because I did not want to wise up the fish. The moral of the story? Call with any two cards, the implied odds are masssive.

BTW, the hero also busted another player with KK later in an all in preflop hand. The hero was UTG+3, raised to 30, LP and cutoff calls, KK at button reraised to 450 all in, heros calls without thinking, LP and cutoff folds. Hero flips over T8 suited. The flop? 679....

When asked why he called, hero replies 'I had strong straight and flush possiblities, and anyway, he might be have been bluffing.'

And to think with players like these playing for these stakes,. I am still down for the month.

Stupidity Abounds

You call...gonna be all over, baby.

--Scotty Nguyen

Examples of stupidity can be found every day. When you play poker online, you can pretty much count on being bombarded with high-level stupidity. Take the following hand that occurred in a special sit-n-go on Absolute Poker today...

########################################################
Stage #108507462: Holdem Multi ARP Tournament No Limit $50 [ 2005-04-13 11:58:17 ]
**** ANTE [dealer 9] ****
Seat 1 - JSAUND22 $3345 in chips
Seat 2 - GETSOME $2395 in chips
Seat 3 - HARPER420 $4390 in chips
Seat 4 - MRJACKASS $2985 in chips
Seat 5 - ACE_KILLER $1365 in chips
Seat 6 - TRAILBOSSTED $6065 in chips
Seat 7 - MERLIN_36 $5250 in chips
Seat 8 - HIGHSWR $5920 in chips
Seat 9 - ROLAND L $2505 in chips
JSAUND22 - Post small! blind $50
GETSOME - Post big blind $100
JSAUND22 - Pocket [4s,Qd]
HARPER420 - Folds
MRJACKASS - Calls $100
ACE_KILLER - Folds
TRAILBOSSTED - Calls $100
MERLIN_36 - Folds
HIGHSWR - Raises $100 to $600
ROLAND L - Folds
JSAUND22 - Folds
GETSOME - Folds
MRJACKASS - Calls $500
TRAILBOSSTED - Calls $500
**** FLOP [Jd,4d,Jh] ****
MRJACKASS - Checks
TRAILBOSSTED - Checks
HIGHSWR - Bets $1400
MRJACKASS - Calls $1400
TRAILBOSSTED - Folds
**** TURN [Jd,4d,Jh,5h] ****
MRJACKASS - Checks
HIGHSWR - Bets $1000
MRJACKASS - All-In $985
HIGHSWR - returned ($15) : not called
**** RIVER [Jd,4d,Jh,5h,8d] ****
MRJACKASS - Calls
HIGHSWR - Calls
**** RESULT ****
Total Pot($6720)
Board [Jd,4d,Jh,5h,8d]
JSAUND22 - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
GETSOME - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
HARPER420 - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
MRJACKASS - Total ($6720) All-In HI : ($6720)Flush, jack high [5d,2d - B:Jd,B:8d,P:5d,B:4d,P:2! d]
ACE_KILLER - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
TRAILBOSSTED - Folded on the FLOP
MERLIN_36 - Folded on the POCKET CARDS
HIGHSWR - HI:Two pair, queens and jacks [Qh,Qc - P:Qh,P:Qc,B:Jh,B:Jd,B:8d]
ROLAND L - Folded on the POCKET CARDS

Now, for those of you who can't read a hand history, here's what went down. MRJACKASS is to the right of HIGHSWR, who is one to the right of the button. HIGHSWR is holding pocket queens, while MRJACKASS is holding 5d2d. MRJACKASS calls the $100 big blind, as does TRAILBOSSTED. HIGHSWR raises to $600, and it folds around to MRJACKASS, who calls! TRAILBOSSTED calls also.

The flop comes Jd,4d,Jh and MRJACKASS checks. TRAILBOSSTED checks, and HIGHSWR bets $1400. MRJACKASS calls, with a baby flush draw (!!!), and TRAILBOSSTED folds.

The turn is the 5 of hearts, and MRJACKASS checks. HIGHSWR bets $1000, and MRJACKASS calls all-in for his last $985 (with nothing but a flush draw, with a possible full house on the board!).

The river is the 8 of diamonds, giving MRJACKASS a flush to beat HIGHSWR's two pair.

What's amazing is that this guy calls all the way, calls all-in, on just a flush draw where there's a possible full house. Here's a transcript of the chat that followed:

HIGHSWR: damn, shoulda known better
HIGHSWR: i managed to stay away from that river **** all game
HIGHSWR: this site just ******* lays in wait for u
MRJACKASS: i agree been beat way too many times on the river
HIGHSWR: that **** just happens here way too often to be random
HIGHSWR: vnh tho
MRJACKASS: yes it does...and ty
JSAUND22: i thought the only screwy part of that hand was that
JSAUND22: he called all the way with 5 2
JSAUND22: lol
MRJACKASS: suited
HIGHSWR: lol, the best hand in AP
JSAUND22: oh, yeah, sooted
HIGHSWR: top pocket pair wins about 10 percent of the time
MRJACKASS: otherwise i wouldn't have

The really funny part is that HIGHSWR thinks the site's rigged against him, and MRJACKASS thinks it's just fine to call all the way with a draw to what might very well be the second best hand.

But those folks are the ones that people who actually know what they're doing make their money off of.

Idiots. Gotta love them, if for nothing else than the entertainment factor.

A Good Night at the Tables

Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.

--Steven Wright

Well, nobody died, but I did have a pretty late night Friday night. I was playing in the PokerSourceOnline.com $5k freeroll on Absolute. The top 54 places paid, and there were 475 people registered when the tournament started. All I can say is I'm lucky to have survived the first hour, since I didn't see a playable hand the whole time. It was basically post blinds and fold for the first hour, and then for the next half hour after the first break.

I finally started to see a few good hands, and managed to work my chip stack up. I had about an average stack going into the second hour, and with blinds at 300/600, I found myself at an extremely tight table. This made it pretty easy to steal the blinds when I was on the button or one seat to the right of the button. All it took was a minimum raise when everyone folded around to me.

I did pretty well all through the second and third hour, keeping my stack at about average. Not too far into the third hour, I was in the money. The antes had kicked in sometime around the middle of the second hour, so I had to play a few more hands to pay the antes.

I had my sights set on position 36, which was the next step up in money, when the bad beat hit. The blinds were 500/1000, and I was on the button with KQ suited. Everyone folded around to me, and raised to 2000. The small blind folded, and the big blind went all-in. I had him covered by a couple of thousand, and he had been going all-in to steal anytime someone raised because he was short-stack at the table. I called. When the cards turned up, he had pocket 9's. The first card off on the flop was a King, and I was good to go. But when the river came up a 9, I was down to just over 2 times the big blind.

I never really got anything good to play after that, so I finished in 40th place, out of 475. Not bad, and I made $17.50 for my efforts. I figure that works out to $5/hour, since I played for about 3.5 hours. I was out of the game at 1am, and was really ready for bed. I was getting pretty tired, and I think it was about to start affecting my decision making.

All told, I'm happy with my performance, because I had every chance to bust out during the first hour and a half. I had plenty of bad aces and mediocre kings that many folks would have played, but I had the discipline to lay them down. I didn't chase any long-shot draws, and didn't siphon off my chips to the competition. So I feel like I scored a victory just by surviving as long as I did.

Of course, that $1250 first place payment would have been nice. Maybe later this month. PokerSourceOnline is having another $5k freeroll on Party. I guess I'll give it another shot. It doesn't cost anything but time, and since I'm going to play for free anyway, I guess I should at least play in a game that may pay.

Variance

It's not enough to succeed. Others must fail.

--Gore Vidal

At the moment, I'm the "Others" that Mr. Vidal was referring to. Another way of putting it for those who have studied the math behind poker is, "Variance is a bitch". I'm on the backside of variance right now. It seems that every time I get my chips in with the best hand, someone playing a hand that they should have folded pre-flop catches a monster.

Here's an example: Last night in the practice round for the freeroll I was playing, I was holding A9 of spades. I raise $100 (blinds are 10/20) and get two callers. Flop comes 4-9-6. I push all in, having top pair, top kicker with the undercards being cards nobody in their right mind would call my raise with. I get a caller, and she turns over 8-4. Turn is a 4, and the river is a 4. She caught four of a kind, and I'm out. I then find out that she had never played before last night. Great, just my luck to go heads-up with someone oozing with beginners luck.

But it's called variance bacause it does just that -- it varies. So I know that if I stick it out, my luck will turn around. But it's hard to deal with the downswing. More to come as this story develops, as the newshounds say.

Why I Play Poker...(and it ain't the money!)

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

-- Anthony Holden ( from "Big Deal" )

I'll confess -- I really enjoy playing poker. If my wife reads this, I'm sure she'll be rolling her eyes. She's not big on the whole gambling idea, and I don't really blame her. It's easy to get addicted to, and you can lose everything you own. It's happened to better people than me. That's why I don't play for money. I play at the freeroll tournaments that are being held in nearly every bar in the Atlanta area. No-Limit Texas Hold-Em Poker is the biggest thing to hit Atlanta since Sherman held his little barbeque.

So if I don't play for money, why do I play? It's a question that I'm asked often by my lovely and understanding wife. The answer is not as simple as it may seem. When I really think about why I play, several reasons come to mind.

The first reason is because I'm a geek, and I love the math involved. Odds, outs, percentages, they facinate me. It's one of the reason I love to watch poker on TV -- you get to see the players' hole cards and the percent chance they have to win the pot at any given time. I've always liked math, and the math involved in poker is more than basic, to say the least. It changes with every turn of a card.

The second reason is the psychological aspect of poker. At its most basic level, poker is a game of psychological warfare. The most important weapon is being able to read your opponent. Can you bluff them out? Are they holding the best hand? These are questions that you have to answer without the benefit of current information. You have to answer these questions for yourself based on past experience. Your observation skills and memory are your best friends in this case. You have to remember how someone plays. For instance, I played with someone who I found would fold his hand if you bet the exact amount he had in his stack. If you just went all-in, he was likely to call. Think I won a couple of pots against him with nothing? You bet I did. I took his weakness and exploited it. Psychological warfare.

All that aside, the main reason I play is because the game's just plain fun. It's a good way to get together with friends, aquaintances, or plain strangers and have a good time. Especially when you're playing in a freeroll tournament. It's very rare that someone will leave mad, because what did he lose? He paid nothing to enter. And where else can you have five hours of fun for free? Last I checked, the arcade wasn't giving away tokens for free.

I play because I enjoy it, and for no other reason. I don't have a driving desire to win, I have a driving desire to have a blast. And I do, even when I bust out early. I have found that playing for the sheer fun of it makes it easier to be a good player. When you don't feel that your manhood is riding on whether or not you get taken out by the guy (or gal) across the table, you become a much more levelheaded player, and thusly a much better player overall. When you take pride out of the equation, it allows you to assess your own weaknesses frankly and honestly, and your play moves up a level.

So for those of you who play, have fun at it. Don't let it become an obsession, but have fun. For those who have never played, give it a shot. You may find that you are pretty good, and you may have found a new pasttime.