Political commentary

I'm alive, just haven't been posting because I haven't been playing. I'm up visiting friends for a couple of weeks, and just haven't felt the bug to get that much poker in.

I don't tend to get political in this blog but I came upon something quite interesting:

Here is a commentary from Democratic political correspondent James Carville over at the Washington Post. The gist of the article is that New Mexico governor Bill Richardson endorsed Barack Obama for president, despite Richardson owing much of his political success to appointments made under Bill Clinton. For this "disloyalty", Carville went so far as to compare Richardson to Judas Iscariot.

Despite being a hyperventilation in a tone generally more reserved for the Ann Coulter crowd, I see two serious flaws in Carville's logic. The first is a fairly unique facet of this election that plays to underlying problems in our dynastic mindset as America. The second is a direct commentary on what's wrong with politics in America today.

The first problem with Carville's logic is his baseless assumption that whatever loyalty Governor Richardson owes to Bill Clinton should necessarily extend to Hillary. Unless you buy the cynical argument that Bill would actually be in charge should Hillary be elected (or that from '92-'00, Hillary was actually in charge), it makes no sense at all. Does the fact that Richardson owes some of his success to Bill Clinton make him indebted to the Clinton family for the remainder of his natural life? If Chelsea runs for office, is he required to support her? If you actually think about it, it's ludicrous. Hillary is not Bill.

But of course, that's not really how we tend to think in this country. It goes to show that we still think in terms of dynasties. Kennedy. Clinton. Bush. Their success across multiple family members has perpetuated the frame of mind that these are the only real players in politics today, and that everyone else must necessarily be a pawn in their game.

That seems an extreme extrapolation but it makes perfect sense. Carville's argument only begins to get off the ground if you make the assumption that Bill and Hillary Clinton, as a political unit, are one and the same. It's not true. They are independent as politicians and Hillary's potential rise to the presidency could mean very drastically different things for the country than Bill's did. The notion that loyalty to one necessarily must transfer to loyalty to the other bespeaks a very flawed mindset as to what Hillary represents as a politician, and is only really possible because we still think in terms of dynasties.

The other egregious flaw in Carville's logic is his bare assumption that loyalty *should* trump all other considerations when making an endorsement. It provides a piece of evidence to what really is a sad fact: the differences between Democrats and Republicans are not nearly as significant as many of us would like.

After all, isn't one of the most sticking complaints about the Bush administration the simple fact that Bush, in his eight disastrous years as President, has consistently valued loyalty over competence? It's been the driving impedus for at least two of his major scandals. That's why he had Alberto Gonzales fire all of those US Attorneys: they were by and large either pressing corruption cases against Republicans, or failing to progress corruption cases against Democrats with qutie enough speed. It's also, indirectly, why someone within his administration (my money's on Rove) unquestionably committed High Treason by outing the identity of an undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame. Her husband, a reporter, was saying nasty things about some Republicans and they wanted some petty payback. It could also be blamed indirectly for a portion of some other of the colossal Bush fuck-ups; Katrina comes to mind, what with his appointment of a frat buddy (rather than someone that might actually be able to manage the branch) to the head of FEMA. It's a mindset that led, if not to the Iraq War itself, to much of the fucked-up-edness of much of the postwar; bringing in every conceivable social conservative program to Iraq when what was actually needed was an immediate surge to quell the militias before they gained too much momentum. In each of these situations the mindset is much the same: to hell with the country, to hell with the results, to hell with finding an actual solution. Do as much as we can for our team.

So, in essence, Carville is advocating that Democrats must share that exact same mentality. That, rather than endorse who he actually, honestly feels would make the better President, Richardson should automatically (and thus mindlessly) endorse the team he should be a de facto member of. It says that Democrats are every bit as required to value loyalty over competence as the Republicans are.

Does anyone actually place any value on an endorsement that is given largely because it is expected to be given? For example, how many people do you actually think are going to vote for McCain because he got an endorsement from President Bush? How many swing voters will that shocking event really sway? If the answer is none, and it is, then that endorsement is worthless.

If Carville's priorities were followed to the letter, and people only made endorsements because of what they were expected to do, then all endorsements would be equally worthless.

And, interestingly enough, the fact that Barack Obama represents a change from that sort of mentality is exactly why he's getting my vote.

Un-fucking-believable

Dropped another four-and-a-half fucking buyins today, just in the most brutal way imaginable. Actually for the first time in months, I oversetted someone for a full stack (with a shortstack missing his flush draw for good measure), but still had one of my least lucky days ever. Had AA busted by 9Ks hitting a runner runner motherfucking flush, had TT vs 88 run into quads (my opponent disguised it well, I thought I was value betting for stacks at the end), had 99 vs TJ on a 789 flop (I missed), had JJ vs TT on a 24T rainbow flop (60bb stack smooth-called my flop value bet, left a PSBAI on the turn). The the following hand against a complete donkey moron.

FullTiltPoker Game #5680566352: Table Seashore - $0.50/$1 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:15:06 ET - 2008/03/18
Seat 1: BluRay ($98.10)
Seat 2: gdshaffer ($100)
Seat 3: KissMyAAss ($126.30)
Seat 4: atp874 ($24)
Seat 5: Manard69 ($79.40)
Seat 6: PokerxPro ($100)
Seat 7: Cav36 ($51.55)
Seat 8: RCM52 ($77.05)
Seat 9: watrwedoin ($152.10)
watrwedoin posts the small blind of $0.50
BluRay posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to gdshaffer [Ad Kc]
gdshaffer raises to $3.50
atp874 folds
Manard69 folds
PokerxPro folds
Cav36 folds
RCM52 folds
watrwedoin calls $3
BluRay has 15 seconds left to act
BluRay folds
*** FLOP *** [Qd As 2s]
watrwedoin checks
BluRay has been disconnected
gdshaffer bets $6 <---- I value bet my TPTK as a cbet.
watrwedoin raises to $12 <---- donkey opponent minraises as always when he caught any piece of the flop.
BluRay has reconnected
gdshaffer raises to $18 <---- standard. Fuck you.
watrwedoin has 15 seconds left to act
watrwedoin calls $6 <---- player is incapable of folding.
*** TURN *** [Qd As 2s] [7h]
watrwedoin checks
gdshaffer bets $30 <--- $40 in the pot. Pure value bet.
watrwedoin has 15 seconds left to act
watrwedoin calls $30 <--- I figure my opponent for either a FD or some weak ass ace.
*** RIVER *** [Qd As 2s 7h] [4s]
watrwedoin checks
gdshaffer checks <--- the flush got there, and I'm unsure how much more value I can get from weak-ass aces.
*** SHOW DOWN ***
gdshaffer shows [Ad Kc] a pair of Aces
watrwedoin shows [Ah 7d] two pair, Aces and Sevens <--- of fucking course. My opponent turned his 3-outer and played like a complete fucking retard from that point on.
watrwedoin wins the pot ($101) with two pair, Aces and Sevens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $104 | Rake $3
Board: [Qd As 2s 7h 4s]
Seat 1: BluRay (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: gdshaffer showed [Ad Kc] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 3: KissMyAAss is sitting out
Seat 4: atp874 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: Manard69 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: PokerxPro didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: Cav36 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: RCM52 (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: watrwedoin (small blind) showed [Ah 7d] and won ($101) with two pair, Aces and Sevens

Compare that with the hands where I won big pots:

The aforementioned overset.

AA vs. QKs. Idiot limp-RR'd me $20 with KQs from UTG. I smooth-called with aces, idiot pushed AI ($90 into $40 pot) on 89J flop. I called, saw his hand, said "if a ten hits I might motherfucking lose it". Thankfully it didn't.

Raise from MP2 with ATo, very weak player from UTG limp-calls. Flop: KT3 rainbow. Opp checks, I bet $8 into $10 pot, opponent calls. Crap. He paired up whatever bullshit K he has in his hand. Turn: 4. Check, check. River, T. Nice. Opponent bets pot, $26.50, I raise him all-in for $54.70 more, he calls. With K9.

Unfortunately the size of the pots that I won go way down from here, but I did have a ratholer limp-reraise me all-in with AQs against my QQ, whereupon I won a $50 pot.

So as I look at my hands, here as always, I see I'm losing stacks in situations that are either pure coolers, or questionable, perhaps marginally -EV spots where I nevertheless have a realistic holding. On the other hand, the spots where I'm winning stacks are situations where my opponents are behaving like complete fucking retarded monkeys.

Never fucking mind that every fucking cbet I make where I don't have it gets raised, and everyone I make where I do have it gets folded to. Shit like that just tilts me so fucking hard. Sometimes it feels like I'm playing against an entire table of superusers, except for the moments where they stack off like complete fucking retarded monkey muppets.

I'm running very, very bad right now. Like, seriously bad. My losing streak at 100NL has now encompassed 20 buyins, or $2000. I'm down $1757 for the month, with basically no bright spots. I have basically no hope left, I feel, of salvaging a profitable month, let alone hitting any goals for lifestyle sustainability. I can't say I'm playing perfectly, but fuck me. I'm not playing this bad. I'm certainly not playing much, if any, worse than I was in the 50k hands in which I built up my $4000 in wins at NL100, and now that I'm back down over half of it, it just...

...I don't know. I'm questioning this whole decision. Maybe I don't have the mentality for this shit. It's one thing to run bad, but when it gets you starting to second-guess yourself, you start making mistakes, and it just snowballs. I have basically zero motivation to play right now.

Down day, up feeling

I lost $67 today, but I can confidently state that it was largely a factor of luck, as PokerEV has me -$280 in all-in equity. I lost a full stack flip with QQ vs AK, and lost a stack with AcKc to 9hJh when a monkey decided to stack off on a 7dTcJc flop. I was a 60/40 favorite but missed. By way of explaining the decision to go all-in, my opponent said "I felt like gambling", which I know from experience is a coded way of saying "I am fucking retarded, tried to give away all my chips, and failed." The funny thing was he was quite literally in the best possible situation he could hope to be in with that trash hand vs the range of hands I was willing to go all-in with, and I still had 18 outs.

It's okay, though, because he later decided to stack off $125 to me when I had 33 on a board of 3s 5h Js 4s Qd. His hand? The monstrous Jd Kd, of course!

Afterwards, I felt like goading him to see if I could get him to stay, so I said:

Me: I just felt like gambling.
Him: You weren't gambling there, douchebag.
Me: Sure I was. I just chose a flop where I was a 50:1 favorite.

Unfortunately it backfired and he left. I wept.

However, today I played my newest all-time favorite poker hand ever!

Relative stacks of $100. I'm in the big blind with Ks 9s. My opponent, who I can only assume is named Jennifer Tilly, limps from MP2. It's folded to me. I check.

The flop comes Kh 9h 4h, giving me top two pair on a monotone board. I bet $2 into the $2.40 pot. My opponent calls.

The turn is the beautiful 9c, giving me nines full of kings. I think about it for about five seconds and check. I didn't think my opponent had much at this point, I figured him for some kind of decently-sized heart, and didn't want to scare him off with a bet. There isn't much that's paying me off, and I don't want to charge heart draws that are going to pay me big time if they hit anyway. Unfortunately, villain checks back.

The river is the beautiful Th, putting the four-flush on the board. I check again, figuring my way to get paid is either induce a bluff if he doesn't have a high heart, raise him for posterity and make him fold, or induce a value bet that I can check-raise and get paid off on when he calls or raises. A bet isn't likely to get me paid here.

Villain checks back. Well, crap. That didn't work. I prepare to collect the $6.20 pot and move onto the next hand when my opponent flips over Td Tc!!!!

For a moment or two I have trouble breathing. OMG. WTF just happened here? Villain rivered a bigger full house than mine and failed to bet it! Even a $1 bet from him and he takes my stack here. There's absolutely no way I'm putting him on tens full, so there's no point where I just call.

I can only figure my villain wasn't paying attention (or was retarded) and didn't realize that the board was paired. Either that or he was scared of KK, 99, or JhQh, lol.

Oh no, not again?

Nope, not again. But it was for a while. My God am I running bad. So, I open up the day with a blind steal with KTs on the button, an aggressive reg calls me from the BB. Flop comes 7TK, reg bets out, I raise, reg comes over the top, I say "fuck your AK" and push, reg instacalls, flips over 77. Argh. I miss my four outer.

Quite a bit later. I've been hanging around even after dropping that buyin, and on the same table a good LAG opens from EP. I call on the blind with 77. Flop comes 348 with two hearts. LAG cbets, I float. Turn: black 7. Nice :). LAG checks, I bet about 2/3 the pot, trying to make it look like a valiant float/steal effort. LAG instacalls.

I am now pretty sure that LAG has an actual hand and groan inwardly when the river hits an A. But he checks, and I feel like he has an overpair hand like KK-QQ that still may pay me off. I bet $40, near the full pot, and just about puke when he c/r's all in. Ugh. I'm getting like 4:1 and can't possibly fold, but it's just gross. I call and sure enough he flips over AA.

At my low point I was down $280, but I was able to make it all back and finished up $30 for the day, a major victory. I delivered one cooler with AAvKK, valuetown-stacked a donkey that was unable to let go of JJ on an undercard 444 board when it was obvious I had a big pair (I had KK again) and owned several 20bb and 40bb stacks for their buyins with good calls. I did make one complete donkey move, calling a $15 river bet against a good player with AK high when there was *no way* it was good. Still don't know wtf I was thinking.

And back down we go

Lost $400 yesterday. Yuck. This is getting old.

Much better

+$320 today, was +$400 but ran into two coolers in a row, KK against JJ with a J on the flop (I managed only to lose $33ish thanks to decent pot control, checking behind on the turn and calling a river bet on a halfway scary board), and a spot where I double-barrelled a guy that I'm 99% sure had a full house, given his sudden pot oop donk on the river. Board came like 3793Q, in retrospect I'm pretty sure he had 77 or 99. I had 44, which may not sound like much of a "cooler", but this was the sort of opponent you really needed to double-barrel: a bit fishy when calling c-bets but very weak when it came to making a stand on the turn. He called the turn bet and my brain went "abort, abort, abort!"; his river donk-out was a mere formality and actually I'm a little glad he made it, so I didn't have to show the rest of the table my weak-ass hand.

That's a minor blip on a good day, though. Actually pretty easy play all night; no really tough decisions, and my normal aggressive style paying dividends. It helps when you're actually flopping sets! I kept it short today, just over 1000 hands.

Another day, another red number

Dropped $125 in cash games today, frustrating as all hell because the entire day consisted of my owning people's souls with hero calls and then their proceeding to suck the hell out on me. Consider for a moment this hand, where his overbet can only mean a big draw, where my QQ is a 3:1 favorite, and where of course he hits. Or this one, where an overactive shortstack decides to get cute, proceeds to get owned, and sucks out. Then of course there's the standard AA losing to AK just for shits and giggles, a failed turn CRAI (I knew he was FOS on his flop raise) that lets someone suck out with a flush, 49o > AT.

That's all without being oversetted for 130bb in the biggest pot I played today. I did hit a set vs. overpair for a buyin, and was actually positive in money won w/o showdown. Nevertheless I'm just resigned to keep plugging away.

And it's not as bad as that, because I did win some money at Stars today, about $80 in tournaments, scraps from a 3rd in a satellite to a big tournament from finishing 3rd in a double shootout, and a minor cash in a 200+ entrant $10+1 (lost a race at a key point, and that was that).

I'm close to down $1k for the month and it's a fucking drag, but it's just something I have to work through.

FAWK

Well, I lost everything I won yesterday, plus another $100 to boot. 66 ran into AJ on a AA6J board, KK vs 777 where he just called down on a 679 board, and the aforementioned big ass bluff gone horribly wrong against that incredible idiot, were the major hands. This is getting fucking ridiculous.

What the FUCK?!

Why do I always choose to bluff only the biggest fucking idiots in the whole fucking world?

Just WHAT THE FUCK

Good session

Kept it short tonight, with 1,000 hands at $0.50-$1.00; a nice solid gain of $218, largely due to a hand that was close to a flip. KKd on the button, open-raised to steal, and the BB, a very aggressive player, 3bet me to $14. I flat-called and the flop came an ugly 678 dd. BB bet big, I pushed, BB called with Td Qd. I wasn't surprised at all to see him show up that weak, but it was a monster flop for the hand and I was just barely a favorite (about 1.5:1). My hand held for a full $100 stack.

I still couldn't flop any goddamn sets today. Actually I flopped 2, not bad for the 33 pocket pairs I saw the flop with, and both dragged the pot with a CBet. Oh well.

Hopefully I can continue to drag my way out of the hole I've put myself in.

One hand from last night

Here's one hand from last night where I felt like I made a very advanced play that paid off. Although last night was generally frustrating and I made quite a few stinkers, here's one where I really felt on top of my game:

I open-raise from MP1 with Kh Qh up to $3.50, it's folded to the BB who repops the minimum to $6. Relative stacks are $92 total, and I have position with a decent giant killer so I call.

Flop comes 7h 9c 8c, not a great flop, I'm prepared to fold, but the BB checks. Strange move given his preflop min-repop, meaning he either has a monster (AA would qualify) or he's getting cold feet with a hand like AK. Either way I'm not convinced I can push him off anything, so I check back.

Turn is the 4h, a good card obviously. BB checks again. I think that means he probably has AK, but I also recognize my opponent as being somewhat overcreative and suspicious. After checking the flop I have a hard time betting here, as he is likely to suspect me to have nothing here and is quite capable of coming over the top with nothing. With the heart draw I find it more prudent to play cautious, so I check back.

River is the Ah, for a board of 7h 9c 8c 4h Ah. I'm holding the stone cold nuts and suddenly my opponent fires out a bet of $8.

Obviously with the nuts I have to raise. But how much? The pot is $20 now, and my opponent has $78 behind. I take my time to think it over.

Conventional wisdom would be to give a small raise, one I think he has a high percentage of calling. Standard practice with the nuts on the river. But this situation is special, because I'm 99% sure he has some variety of AK here, and given that I checked behind twice, including once on a board that should have scared the absolute crap out of any made hand, there's no way he makes me for a set, straight, or goofy two pair. In fact he's going to have a bear of a time putting me on anything but AK as well.

So I push. A $70 raise into a $27 pot, highly uncharacteristic for me, but a play that looks for all the world like I have AK, I'm putting him on AK, and I'm figuring worst-case scenario is a chopped pot while maximizing his fold equity. He knows that I know he can't possibly have better than AK here, so he knows that my own AK isn't going to be scared. Which makes this, for him, a much more enticing call than TPTK ordinarily is in those situations where someone overbets you.

It's very hard for him to put me on the flush here since it was the Ah that rivered, and it's rare for someone to get involved in a 3bet pot with something other than a pocket pair or a hand with an ace.

My opponent called and showed Ad Kd; I scooped the $180 pot with the nut flush.

Obviously my opponent wasn't the sharpest spoon in the drawer and made several mistakes, the first of which was the donkish min-reraise preflop. Min-reraising pre is a stupid move 100% of the time, I'm convinced, unless you're in some kind of weird funky aggro game where you can do it with a wide range and still have an edge over your opponent's hand. It tables your hand, revealing it as something very strong, but offers your opponent just ridiculous odds to call and play perfectly from then on out.

Obviously, after that flop, he should have thrown out a continuation bet, which IMO should be standard practice after you 3bet without a VERY enticing reason not to. Why give your drawing opponent 4 cards instead of 3? In any case, after he fails to bet the flop, betting the turn is problematic, and that puts him in a very strange spot after he pairs up on the river, which in turn allowed me to capitalize.

Oof

So here is my lifetime to date NL100 graph. Seeing as how the massive downswing that you see at the end coincides almost exactly with the massive downswing of NL200 I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that this is just a normal downswing within the variance of poker. It's a brutal game and all, but this has gone on for long enough that I'd better start warming myself up to the possibility that I've opened up some serious leaks in my game.

Mostly I think it's just been frustration setting in causing me to stack off in situations where I know I'm beat. Not even just in overpair vs. set situations, which has always been a leak of mine, but in situations where I have top pair and I know I'm up against an overpair, or I have a strong starting hand like KK or QQ with an overcard on the board.

Of course, having set stats like the following doesn't exactly help either:



That's for the past four days, encompassing some 6k hands. That, my friends, is running BAD, and since so much profit running a 13/10 style at NL100 comes from sets, it's no wonder I'm on a downswing. Also note that in this timespan I'm actually down money in both set vs. overpair situations (the one time I had this was up against a 35bb stack who hit a runner-runner flush) and AA vs. KK situations (I stacked a SS and was stacked by a fullstack that flopped a K). Also of note is that my lone KK vs. AA was actually against a fullstack where I managed to lose only $30. The guy rivered a full house with his AAA, but played it just about as badly as aces can be played.

None of this is independent of my playing bad, though, and I certainly need to fess up to myself, at least a little bit. I need to shore up my game and get back into my rhythm, rather than playing bored, distracted, and/or frustrated. I played 2700 hands tonight and managed to break even (I won $29.45, same difference) and just kept digging myself into holes that I had to get out of with stupid plays.

On the bright side, every big bluff that I tried actually managed to work today. It was a nice change of pace, and I specifically only allowed myself to do it vs. players I knew were capable of folding. One was a beautiful triple-barrel, another was a wonderful river raise. Things of beauty.

In any case, handling this downswing and pulling out of it is something I'm just going to have to deal with by playing better and keeping my focus.

The brutality continues

NL100 appears to have abandoned me for the time being, with me dropping just shy of 8 buyins over the last 4k hands. Last night was particularly brutal, not just because of the $450 I dropped over 3k hands (indeed the previous 1k was much worse), but because of the 124 times I managed to see the flop with a pocket pair, I managed to flop a ridiculously low 6 sets. And then, of those 6 sets, I actually managed to lose about $50 with them. Insane. TT turned into a set 3 times for me. Once it won me a nonconsequential pot, the second time it ran into AA on an ATx flop (I managed not to stack off, as I realized pretty quickly I was likely up against AA), and the third time it ran into a JJ that managed a runner-runner flush. Unreal.

I actually thought that my play was quite good last night and I managed to keep a level head; the cards just didn't cooperate, and sometimes they have to.

The bankroll has been slipping but I'm still in the $5k ballpark, well-bankrolled for NL100, so there's nothing to do but keep grinding and work my way out of the slump.

Successful Recovery

No, not at the tables. But, my Rock Band bass pedal managed to break a couple weeks back, and not in the way that it seems to usually be breaking for most people. Rather than the actual pedal snapping in half, which apparently happens from the torque that people place on it, my entire base snapped in half, in the junction between the main base of the pedal and the prox switch at the front end. It's funny because it's not an area that should ordinarily be subject to any stresses, but apparently the carpet floor I'm playing on is subject to some flexing, and that flexing gave the base just enough torque to snap it clean.

In any case, I didn't feel like sending my whole drum kit back for a replacment as the pads are actually nice and sensitive, and apart from the structural damage the pedal worked just fine. What I finally managed was so simple I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner: a pair of picture hangers to span the gap, as the only thing I really need is a tension force. You can see the original crack, and the fix, in the pic:



Interestingly, the screws on the bottom side are actually puncturing several mm into the prox switch itself, but I've dealt with enough prox switches to know that a hole in the side of the outer case isn't going to hurt anything.

The new pedal plays great. I've also added a Metal Billet to the pedal itself to prevent any further mishaps, and because it looks cool and, with the additional weight, feels a bit more realistic is a bit easier to play.

.

So, no poker content. A little playing recently, and I just barely broke even for the month of February, not my best hour in that regard. But I'm just hanging out and having fun at the moment, so there's nothing wrong with that.