So, the career as a poker professional is officially over. Nothing too massive to report on that front, just a combination of an epic downswing with a lack of enthusiasm for the game, the grind, the variance, and the uncertainty. I began searching for a real job (i.e. one that utilizes my degree and experience) - "I decided it was time to get a grown-up job again" is my line to my friends and coworkers - and started some contract engineering work for a packaging company based in Canada. It's not the most scintillating of work - controlling a bunch of conveyors, mostly - but it pays the rent and is steady money, and still affords me decent stretches of free time. The goal is to get into full-time employment, but until then I'm in a pretty good spot. I've moved back up to the Fox Valley in Wisconsin, where I spent three years from 2001-2004, which I can say without reservation was the happiest I've been in my post-college life.
There are also a few casinos in the area, and in this most recent stretch of downtime, I found an opportunity to make the half hour drive up to Green Bay and sit in the $1-3NL game at a local Indian casino.
I've missed live poker. It's something that I pretty aggressively eschewed while I was trying to make a living at the game, since I didn't have the bankroll to play at any stakes that really could have made up for the slow rate of play and lack of multitabling, but I always did enjoy it. For one, the quality of play is just abysmal. Even the more competent players pretty much suck, and would get torn to pieces even at 100NL online.
So I get my seat at the table at around 1pm, seat 6 at the 1-3 table, buy in for $300, at take note of my opposition. Nothing to be worried about. Only the kid to my left, in Seat 7, a geeky-looking kid with a quiet demeanor, seemed to have any competence whatsoever.
Seat 1 was an absolute whale, a fat, jowly, quick-to-tilt businessman who was constitutionally incapable of folding any hand that made any contact with the board, for any price.
Seat 10 was a young, aggressive (read: maniac) Asian kid who berated Seat 7 for folding JQo UTG. "What are you waiting to play, aces?" he asked. I chuckled.
Seat 2 was another maniac, a young white kid, probably early 20's, with Ray Bans and an intense demeanor. Terrible player.
Seat 5, to my right, was a genial and intelligent man that was cracking whip-smart jokes and who was also an absolute calling station. Some people are just too nice for poker.
In any case, one of the first hands I witnessed involved Young Asian Kid 3betting Ray Ban to 120 from the big blind - he was a fan of enormously-sized 3bets. Ray Ban snap-called pre and called a $50 cbet on a K42 flop, checking behind on two more blank streets. Ray Ban tabled K7s. "King's good," Y.A.K. pronounced, a bit disgustedly. I could only chuckle. While there's some merit, at times, to floating a 3bet from position with the intent of stealing a pot from an aggressive player, and changing the plan once you hit some showdown value, it sort of loses its luster when the 3bet is 2x pot and for more than 1/3 of your stack. Everyone congratulated him on his good call. I salivated.
The whale in seat one won a $400 pot where he called down enormous value bets from Ray Ban on the flop and turn with bottom pair, rivered two pair, led out a tiny value bet (like $10 into almost $400), and cackled for being "paid off" when Ray Ban disgustedly called with TPTK. Ray Ban proceeded to go on complete and total monkey tilt and blow through nearly $1k.
I couldn't do much of anything as I was completely card-dead, calling with a few pocket pairs here and there to set mine and folding overcard flops. I drifted down to a $200 stack, then made most of it back on successive hands where I raised a limped pot from the button with 77, got 4 callers, and cbet an AKQr flop after everyone checked. They folded. I also took down a pot with AK, cbetting an ace high flop, getting me close to up to even.
The next interesting pot I was involved in was K6s from late position. The whale limped and everyone folded to me. I decided this was prime time to isolate, so I raised it to $20. Everyone folded and I was heads-up with the whale, who donked $15 into me on a K87 rainbow flop. I called. He donked $15 again on an offsuit deuce, and again I called, thinking he would certainly overvalue a lot of his one-pair hands and draws. The river was not pretty, a 9, and this time he bet $85. I reluctantly folded, thinking there was maybe a 25% chance he was value-owning himself with a worse one-pair hand.
That took me down below $200 and I rebought back up to 300. The whale left the table, up about $600, to everyone's disappointment. He was replaced by a young overweight player with a better-than-average grasp on the game, for the table at least.
Y.A.K., whose stack at one point had been over $1k but had dwindled to about $150, made it $10 from UTG, and every single player at the table called the bet including me on the button with Qd 9d. The flop comes 6d 5d 2s and he checked. The whale replacement in Seat 1 led out for $40 and I called, as did a player behind me. Y.A.K. then check-shoved for the remaining $100, the Whale Replacement called, the player behind me folded out of turn, and I knew I was hopelessly priced in if I thought my flush was live. I called. Y.A.K. had 63o (lol!) and the Whale Replacement disgustingly revealed 7d Td for the lower flush draw. Unfortunately the turn and river completely bricked out (a 6 and a deuce), Y.A.K's monster held and I won a tiny side pot with queen high.
My next big hand occurred when I was at about $265, there were two reluctant late position limps from weak tight players, and I made it $20 to go from the big blind with ATo. One caller, the button, and the flop came the beautiful rainbow TT5. I led out $35 and the button, who was a nondescript middle-aged weak-tight player, quickly called. I noted that he seemed very comfortable. The turn was an unhappy 9, but no card would have changed the plan of setting up a reasonable river shove. I bet $75, and the BTN sat back and pretended to think. I recognize a good Hollywood when I see it, and was only hoping he didn't flop the joint with 55 or turn it with 9T. Eventually he min-raised. I had about another minraise behind (I was covered), and declared "okay, let's get the rest in." He grumbled, "ace-ten?" which was a weight off my shoulders. He called and showed KT. The river brought a scary paint card, but it was only a queen, and I doubled up to a very healthy stack.
A few hands later I caught QTo on the BTN and was like the 45th limper into the pot. The flop came AKx and we checked around. The turn was another brick, it was checked around again, and I decided to take a $10 stab with queen high. Everyone folded except for the player in seat 5, who had replaced the genial station, who had gone broke. He had a $100 stack. The river came a beautiful Jack, giving me the nuts. He checked, I made it $40, he shoved, and I turbo-called. He said "your straight is good" and tabled AQo. WTF! I'm sure he felt very unlucky about that river. I wonder if it would ever occur to him that it would be a good idea to play the hand differently...
That brought me to a very healthy stack, but I proceeded to go completely card dead for the next four hours or so. Barely a single playable hand. I did manage to catch kings at one point, and shove over the top of an undercard flop against a middle-aged black woman that was a terrible calling station, but she didn't pay me off, nor did the station three seats to my right that balked after I turned the nut flush.
That didn't quite make up for the spec hands I was seeing flops with in huge multiway hands against players to whom any top pair is the immortal nuts, and whiffing completely.
Eventually the table almost broke - we got down as low as 4-handed, as a tournament started that I had wanted to buy into but was told I needed a membership card for that. I'll look into getting one the next time I visit the casino. Playing short-handed was great as I felt empowered to open up my game a bit and put pressure on my mostly weak-tight opponents.
And, as it turns out, sticking around in the 1-3 game as the tournament is going on is incredibly +EV, since the people who bust out of the tournament right away are a) more likely to be awful, b) very likely to be on tilt. The table started to fill back up and we got a taste of that right away:
The player to my left, who had replaced the competent kinda-nerdy kid, was acting as Table Captain, not so much in his play as in his commentary. He was one of those perpetually angry know-it-alls not playing so much for money as to demonstrate his own superiority.
To his left was a very, very, very well-built white boy who was maybe the worst poker player I've ever seen.
Yeah, that's a recipe for some fun.
Sure enough, Table Captain raised from UTG, Built White Boy called as did the rest of the table, including me with QTo. The flop came Ts 6d 5d and it was checked to a Very Large Black Dude (from his table chatter with the dealers, it appeared he was a personal trainer and a regular. He was a decent player, too. He led out for $20. Two players to my right called, as did I, somewhat reluctantly. Table captain immediately shoved for $200. The Built White Boy insta-called, as did a short stack on my right. I actually considered a call, as it seemed to me like Table Captain was on some sort of combo draw and because Built White Boy could have almost anything. Eventually I wussed out. Table Captain indeed had 9d Td, and Built White Boy has Ks 5s for bottom pair no draw (the third guy had a straight draw).
Needless to say a king came on the turn and we all braced for the Phil Hellmuth style rant.
Instead we got a much more sinister needling, with Table Captain incessantly asking Built White boy if he thought his five was good, if he's rich, if this is his first time playing, basically those three sarcastic questions for the next full hour.
Then, of course, Table Captain calls my UTG raise (bear in mind that I am the tightest player at the table BY FAR) with 8Jo, flops the second nuts on a 9TQdd flop (I had AK), gets all-in with two players. He whines incessantly about what was admittedly not an ideal turn (the 8 of diamonds) as nobody had turned their hand up yet, but still scooped the entire pot when the river bricked out and he was up against two players with two pair.
Then, even AFTER he scoops the pot, he's still berating the dealer for that crappy turn card! [i]Dude, you scooped the fucking pot![/i]
And then, of course, he immediately gets up and leaves. I guess if you're going to represent the worst there is about poker players - poor quality of play, atrocious table manners, incessant fishtank-tapping, hit-and-running, and general failure at life - you might as well go for the Perfect Storm.
I stayed for several more hours and eventually got pretty stuck. We were down to 6-handed when my next interesting hand happened. There was one limper to my CO, the decent overweight player in Seat 1, and I decided I was going for it this hand with 2d 5d. I made it $15 to go, the BTN called (a well-groomed guy in his late 20's with a very crisp goatee, who was quite a poor player) as did the limper. I was hoping to isolate it heads up against a player that can actually fold, but no such luck.
Still, the flop gave some hope with Ad Qd Jc. Interestingly the competent limper led out for $25. At this point I had a little over $200 in my stack, and his lead-out seemed kind of weak, so I popped it to $95 hoping to end the hand here and now. Instead, the well-groomed man on the button flabbergasted me by cold-calling! The competent limper had looked like he was ready to fold, but then the cold-call seemed to change his mind, and he called as well.
Suddenly, needless to say, I'm not looking so much for a diamond anymore.
The turn gave the 3s, and interesting brick since I now actually have a hyper-concealed gutshot. Limper checks, and I have $105 remaining with almost $400 in the pot. No way does either of them fold a draw here, I think, so the best I can do is check and hope for the best. The button quickly checks as well, and I notice him staring intently as the river card comes down.
It's an offsuit queen, one of the better cards in the deck for me I think, and the big blind looks positively disgusted at it. Not in any fake, performance way, just in his breathing, the way his jaw is positioned, and the glare in his eyes. He doesn't notice I'm staring him down.
The limper is doing a better job of concealing his emotions, but the two straight checks are a pretty dead giveaway that he's not particularly strong either, so on a wing and a prayer I shove my last $105 in. The button immediately folds and the limper thinks for a minute, playing with his cards and staring me down as I stare blankly at the board, trying to think of a name for a character in a short story I'm writing. The playing with his cards is a good thing. He doesn't ever really cut out any chips. Eventually his cards hit the muck and I'm back in black, baby. I breath an exaggerated sigh of relief and show the bluff face up. Everyone at the table is a bit taken aback.
The button is just staring at me, mouth open, shaking his head. "The queen was a good card to bluff," I said by way of explanation, meaning that it made my story a bit more believable, in that I maybe had QK or QT or some sort of flop semi-bluff. Obviously the button had diamonds (some people are just constitutionally incapable of folding a flush draw for any price), and I think the limper had either JT or JK, for a pair+gutshot, or possibly diamonds himself.
He seemed to take offense to my comment. "I don't mind the needle," he said, "it's part of the game, but karma's a bitch."
Damn. I was unaware that my actions were jeopardizing my karma. "I didn't mean anything maliciously," I clarify, but he's not interested. I decide to shut up.
There's not much more action until very late in the night, a pleasant woman has joined the table and moved to the "lucky seat" two to my right, where a few lucky double-ups have occurred. I chuckle. Two seats to my right, I venture a guess to myself, is not likely to be that lucky. The truth of that is borne out a few hands later.
The woman, who for her part was fairly competent, and at least would talk about how she was getting "three-and-a-half-to-one" on a call, limped, and I bumped it to $15 from the button with Ad 4d. Only she called. The flop came Ks Js 6d, she checked and I made it $25 to see another card. She obliged, to my disappointment.
The turn was an interesting card, the 8d, which was made even more interesting when she led out into me for $50. Such a bizarre card to take the lead on, and I'd been more and more active as the table got shorter, so it seemed like a fairly obvious bluff, and if it wasn't I had the backdoor flush draw to fall back on. I call, mostly to float.
The turn gave the Tc, not the greatest card, but a long way from a disaster. I felt like maybe she had 9T and decided to float the flop with a gutshot and lead out when it became open-ended. Now she checked, and a quick glance in her direction confirmed that she was apprehensive and would likely be unwilling to call a big bet. I cut out $150 and stuck it in. She grumbled to herself for a few seconds, but folded.
This one I didn't show, not wanting to be the asshole that just bluffed the only girl not just at the table, but in the entire poker room.
That hand gave me a measly profit of about $50, and I eventually took my leave. It was past midnight, and I had a half hour drive in front of me.
I'm definitely going back, and soon. Playing live is an entirely different atmosphere, and against these players it should be a nice little boost to my bank account in stretches where I'm not working.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Still alive
Some interesting hands, all at NL100 rush poker at FT.
Late position open from an 8/5 meganit. I'm in the SB with JJ and elect just to flat call. BB, who has nitty stats but seems to have fishy tendencies, calls also. All three players are ~150bb deep.
Flop comes TJK rainbow, giving me middle set.
I lead out for near-pot, and BB gives an insta-3x raise.
Opener then tanks and shoves.
I tank and fold.
BB insta snapcalls and both show AQ.
95% I made a correct fold. I don't see either player showing up with AK or a random spew hand, and even one of them having TT is unlikely. Interestingly, if I can see their hands, both of them having AQ makes it almost a call.
Hand 2:
UTG, a player who runs about 14/11 and is 100% fold-to-3bet over ~500 hands, opens to 3.5bb and I decide to 3bet to $12 from UTG+2 with 6c 7c. I felt like he was opening all pp from all positions and folding probably anything but AA/KK/AKs to a 3bet, so it should be a profitable move. May have been tilting a bit but the move is probably justifiable.
MP2 then COLD-MIN-4BETs me, a move I confess I've never seen before. Raises to $20.50.
The cutoff then COLD-CALLS the COLD MIN 4BET. WTF?
Both players are complete unknowns.
Original opener folds and I'm left with an $8.50 call into an over-$50 pot, all three players full-stacked at 100bb. Easy call. Plan is to flop trips, two pair, or a straight, and stack off any flop that doesn't have an ace or a king, because it really feels like I'm up against AA/KK.
Sure enough flop comes 668 with spades. I do a little dance and check, MP2 bets like $20, CO shoves, I call, MP2 calls. They show AA/KK, I drag a 300bb pot. Well played good sirs.
Late position open from an 8/5 meganit. I'm in the SB with JJ and elect just to flat call. BB, who has nitty stats but seems to have fishy tendencies, calls also. All three players are ~150bb deep.
Flop comes TJK rainbow, giving me middle set.
I lead out for near-pot, and BB gives an insta-3x raise.
Opener then tanks and shoves.
I tank and fold.
BB insta snapcalls and both show AQ.
95% I made a correct fold. I don't see either player showing up with AK or a random spew hand, and even one of them having TT is unlikely. Interestingly, if I can see their hands, both of them having AQ makes it almost a call.
Hand 2:
UTG, a player who runs about 14/11 and is 100% fold-to-3bet over ~500 hands, opens to 3.5bb and I decide to 3bet to $12 from UTG+2 with 6c 7c. I felt like he was opening all pp from all positions and folding probably anything but AA/KK/AKs to a 3bet, so it should be a profitable move. May have been tilting a bit but the move is probably justifiable.
MP2 then COLD-MIN-4BETs me, a move I confess I've never seen before. Raises to $20.50.
The cutoff then COLD-CALLS the COLD MIN 4BET. WTF?
Both players are complete unknowns.
Original opener folds and I'm left with an $8.50 call into an over-$50 pot, all three players full-stacked at 100bb. Easy call. Plan is to flop trips, two pair, or a straight, and stack off any flop that doesn't have an ace or a king, because it really feels like I'm up against AA/KK.
Sure enough flop comes 668 with spades. I do a little dance and check, MP2 bets like $20, CO shoves, I call, MP2 calls. They show AA/KK, I drag a 300bb pot. Well played good sirs.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Greenlight!
To GRRM: we must know
Is this series thing really a go?
Even if we must wait
'Til 2008
We all now must get HBO
There's a Limerick I posted over at westeros.org in about 2005, when the news first broke that HBO was optioning George R. R. Martin's fantasy series (and official Best! Books! Ever!) A Song of Ice and Fire for a potential series. It wasn't the favorite of my ASOIAF-inspired Limericks. That would be a tie between:
Having harried the Harrenhal host
Brave Beric breathed boisterous boasts:
"We wither like wind
And attack once again
Gallant Gregor is gunning for ghosts!"
and
Lady Cersei, well she's quite the prize
(Though she's never been overly wise)
She's gaining in girth
But at least knows the worth
Of the weapon she has 'tween her thighs
and
King Robert, the monarch of steel
To whom all Westerosi would kneel
Said "Ruling is boring,
I'd rather be whoring.
Just give me a wench and a meal."
The first because of the gratuitous alliteration, the second because it's a good encapsulation of the character of Cersei Lannister and because, like all the best limericks, it turns dirty at the very last word, and the final, because it again perfectly encapsulates the character of King Robert without making any sacrifices to the metre of the poem.
Now the first one is my favorite, because HBO has now officially motherfuckin' greenlit Game of Thrones for a full season. The one Production Still they've released so far looks like everything I thought it could be - you can feel the cold radiating from the picture, of the forests north of the Wall, where Ser Waymar Royce meets his unfortunate end in the prologue - even though you know that the extras on the ground must have been unbelievably warm, as nothing is more uncomfortably hot for an actor than bundling up in warm clothes and lying down in fake snow, which is essentially like being underneath a blanket of styrofoam.
I want to see Bran climbing outside the walls of Winterfell, to stumble on Jaime and Cersei; I want to see Tyrion in the sky cell at the Eyrie, contemplating the jump; I want to see the duel between Bronn and Ser Vardis Egen; I want to see Daenerys, scared shitless on her wedding night, surrendering Khal Drogo's touch; I want to see Viserys Targaryen crowned with molten gold; I want to see Arya in the cellars of the Red Keep, stumbling upon Illyrio and Varys; I want to see Littlefinger deliver the line "I did warn you not to trust me, you know." As a particular girlfriend would communicate to me when a particular activity was about to commence, "I want."
I've been giddy at the news for the past several days now. I can't ever remember being this geeked out.
Is this series thing really a go?
Even if we must wait
'Til 2008
We all now must get HBO
There's a Limerick I posted over at westeros.org in about 2005, when the news first broke that HBO was optioning George R. R. Martin's fantasy series (and official Best! Books! Ever!) A Song of Ice and Fire for a potential series. It wasn't the favorite of my ASOIAF-inspired Limericks. That would be a tie between:
Having harried the Harrenhal host
Brave Beric breathed boisterous boasts:
"We wither like wind
And attack once again
Gallant Gregor is gunning for ghosts!"
and
Lady Cersei, well she's quite the prize
(Though she's never been overly wise)
She's gaining in girth
But at least knows the worth
Of the weapon she has 'tween her thighs
and
King Robert, the monarch of steel
To whom all Westerosi would kneel
Said "Ruling is boring,
I'd rather be whoring.
Just give me a wench and a meal."
The first because of the gratuitous alliteration, the second because it's a good encapsulation of the character of Cersei Lannister and because, like all the best limericks, it turns dirty at the very last word, and the final, because it again perfectly encapsulates the character of King Robert without making any sacrifices to the metre of the poem.
Now the first one is my favorite, because HBO has now officially motherfuckin' greenlit Game of Thrones for a full season. The one Production Still they've released so far looks like everything I thought it could be - you can feel the cold radiating from the picture, of the forests north of the Wall, where Ser Waymar Royce meets his unfortunate end in the prologue - even though you know that the extras on the ground must have been unbelievably warm, as nothing is more uncomfortably hot for an actor than bundling up in warm clothes and lying down in fake snow, which is essentially like being underneath a blanket of styrofoam.
I want to see Bran climbing outside the walls of Winterfell, to stumble on Jaime and Cersei; I want to see Tyrion in the sky cell at the Eyrie, contemplating the jump; I want to see the duel between Bronn and Ser Vardis Egen; I want to see Daenerys, scared shitless on her wedding night, surrendering Khal Drogo's touch; I want to see Viserys Targaryen crowned with molten gold; I want to see Arya in the cellars of the Red Keep, stumbling upon Illyrio and Varys; I want to see Littlefinger deliver the line "I did warn you not to trust me, you know." As a particular girlfriend would communicate to me when a particular activity was about to commence, "I want."
I've been giddy at the news for the past several days now. I can't ever remember being this geeked out.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
GRRM, fandom culture, and the "Finish the book, George" mentality
Like most fans of good literature that are familiar with it, it seems, I am a tremendous fan of George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire." Much of my youth was spent reading books that were sequestered to the "Fantasy" aisle in the bookstore, of which I became quite familiar. Most was bad, some was good, but all of it, bad and good, was attached a label that was synonymous with "Young Adult." Much of it was rather puerile geek wish fulfillment trash, some of it was amusing but had the depth of crepe paper (Dragonlance and Eddings come to mind), some of it was shamelessly derivative trash (I still have some Dennis L. McKiernan books floating around in my house), but by and large, in retrospect, the label was not entirely inaccurate.
As years passed, I did the Robert Jordan thing, and gave up at around Book 11 (good god that man could simply not make choices in his writing - he was compelled to include EVERYTHING), before finally giving up on fantasy for some 5+ years, focusing on other forms of entertainment.
Then I found George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, which effectively rekindled my interest in the genre. This was what I'd been looking for those past several years, fantasy that wasn't about the fantastical; low fantasy, a gritty, realistic world that pulled from history on more than a whimsical basis, where good and evil were not so conveniently defined and where things were messy and happy endings were not a foregone conclusion. Some time around 2001 I picked up A Game of Thrones (in a fit of poetic karma, I picked up Wizard's First Rule in the same trip to the bookstore, having heard good things about it from a friend whose literary taste I no longer put any faith in whatsoever; for years I used as a signature quote "Testament to my fortitude: I made it 87 pages into Wizard's First Rule before I began to bleed profusely from the eyes).
I devoured that motherfucker and needed more. Books 2 and 3 of the series were out, though A Storm of Swords was not yet out in paperback, so I eagerly picked up the hardcover. The two novels were devoured in a matter of days, and as I closed the novel, tingling with anticipation at the beautiful - not cliffhanger, per se, but simple game-changer - of Merret Frey dangling from the noose as a pair of eyes we'd previously thought dead stared up at him. I immediately started a reread, and then another. I became active in the online community. I discovered that one of my best friends, Chris, separated now by several states, had picked up the books on his own accord and that we had each independently contrived the theory that Jon Snow was in fact not the bastard son of Eddard Stark but instead the son (perhaps legitimate) of Ned's sister Lyanna and her supposed captor and rapist (more likely consensual lover, possibly eloped-with husband) Rhaegar Targaryen. We discussed the minutiae of the books, went online and discussed it with the crowd at Westeros, and waited for the 4th book.
And waited. And waited.
When Martin announced in his not-a-blog that he was scrapping over a year's worth of work, abandoning the now-infamous five-year gap plan, and starting over from scratch, I was disappointed, but the quality of the first three novels left me with the good faith leaning that this guy knew what he was doing.
Finally, at last, the 4th book came out, in 2005; I picked it up immediately and devoured it. Like many, I found it something of a disappointment at first, but like many, over time it's truly grown on me. After the orgy of action and cataclysmic action surrounding the final 1/3 of volume 3, we were due something of an adagio interlude, and that's exactly what we got. It was setup for what's to come, particularly in Dorne, the Iron Islands, and King's Landing, and I realized after my first reread that it was beautifully done.
George wrote, now somewhat infamously, that he hoped that A Dance with Dragons, volume 5, would be released the next year. And as everyone familiar with the series now knows, five years later, we're still waiting.
Many other factors have no doubt contributed to the delay. The announcement, and GRRM's involvement with, the HBO series (still hoping for a greenlight on S1 in March) no doubt put a delay in the writing. His writing of additional Dunk and Egg stories, the prequel novellas set in Westeros, took another bite. Side projects, his editing of compilations, signed volumes, swords, and miniatures more frequently accompany updates to his Not-a-blog than does progress reports on Dance, and that has left for some antsy fans wondering if the book would ever be completed.
Sometimes that fandom gets way out of line, though, and it certainly has over at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist where his Exclusive Excerpt from "The Mystery Knight" brought the trolls of the woodwork and, well, lines were crossed.
I hate to be the one to drag out dead horses, and I'm far from the first to do so regarding this conversation, but the spot-on accuracy of Neil Gaiman's now-famous George R. R. Martin is not your bitch rant strikes truer than ever.
There are, really, two schools of thought when it comes to the creative process. One is that deadlines are to be met, no matter what, and that their importance is such that nothing else matters.
The other is that shit is done when it is done, it will be as good as possible, and that anyone waiting for it is just going to have to wait.
Followers of the first philosophy include basically any of the producers of garden-variety, stupid derivative crap of any medium in history. Pick a movie at random, and understand that chances are very high it was written on a very strict deadline by an overstressed writer with no emotional attachment to the project other than the paycheck it grants him. Pick that same movie again, and you'll see something of no particular creative note whatsoever that nobody remembers and nobody cares about but for a few actors with hopes of a single reel clip and a few executives that hope to scrounge a bit of profit.
Followers of the second philosophy include GRRM, Tolkien, most every major author whose name you actually know, James Cameron, and video game developers Blizzard, Bioware, and Valve, who have between them produced about 95% of the video games actually worth playing in the past two decades.
It's interesting to see, though, just how quickly fans can turn. In a way it is reminiscent of a stalker mentality, where an imbalanced positive obsession (at least in the mind of the stalker, who inevitably sees it as "love" of a sort) turns ugly at perceived "betrayal".
Maybe the obsession with Martin hasn't gotten that bad, but in some cases it seems close. People want to have their cake and eat it too; they want the next book to come out, but they want it to be as good as what's come before it, and so few of them fail to realize that those are contradictory desires. Good art takes time. If you want your books to come out like clockwork, you'd best stick with Harry Potter.
The book will be done when it's done. Acknowledgment of that fact does not make one a "sycophant" nor a "bootlicker" nor any of the infantile names we're getting called. It simply makes us people that have not fallen victim to the instant-gratification craze that if seen to its logical conclusion would deny us much of what is good entertainment to begin with.
As years passed, I did the Robert Jordan thing, and gave up at around Book 11 (good god that man could simply not make choices in his writing - he was compelled to include EVERYTHING), before finally giving up on fantasy for some 5+ years, focusing on other forms of entertainment.
Then I found George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, which effectively rekindled my interest in the genre. This was what I'd been looking for those past several years, fantasy that wasn't about the fantastical; low fantasy, a gritty, realistic world that pulled from history on more than a whimsical basis, where good and evil were not so conveniently defined and where things were messy and happy endings were not a foregone conclusion. Some time around 2001 I picked up A Game of Thrones (in a fit of poetic karma, I picked up Wizard's First Rule in the same trip to the bookstore, having heard good things about it from a friend whose literary taste I no longer put any faith in whatsoever; for years I used as a signature quote "Testament to my fortitude: I made it 87 pages into Wizard's First Rule before I began to bleed profusely from the eyes).
I devoured that motherfucker and needed more. Books 2 and 3 of the series were out, though A Storm of Swords was not yet out in paperback, so I eagerly picked up the hardcover. The two novels were devoured in a matter of days, and as I closed the novel, tingling with anticipation at the beautiful - not cliffhanger, per se, but simple game-changer - of Merret Frey dangling from the noose as a pair of eyes we'd previously thought dead stared up at him. I immediately started a reread, and then another. I became active in the online community. I discovered that one of my best friends, Chris, separated now by several states, had picked up the books on his own accord and that we had each independently contrived the theory that Jon Snow was in fact not the bastard son of Eddard Stark but instead the son (perhaps legitimate) of Ned's sister Lyanna and her supposed captor and rapist (more likely consensual lover, possibly eloped-with husband) Rhaegar Targaryen. We discussed the minutiae of the books, went online and discussed it with the crowd at Westeros, and waited for the 4th book.
And waited. And waited.
When Martin announced in his not-a-blog that he was scrapping over a year's worth of work, abandoning the now-infamous five-year gap plan, and starting over from scratch, I was disappointed, but the quality of the first three novels left me with the good faith leaning that this guy knew what he was doing.
Finally, at last, the 4th book came out, in 2005; I picked it up immediately and devoured it. Like many, I found it something of a disappointment at first, but like many, over time it's truly grown on me. After the orgy of action and cataclysmic action surrounding the final 1/3 of volume 3, we were due something of an adagio interlude, and that's exactly what we got. It was setup for what's to come, particularly in Dorne, the Iron Islands, and King's Landing, and I realized after my first reread that it was beautifully done.
George wrote, now somewhat infamously, that he hoped that A Dance with Dragons, volume 5, would be released the next year. And as everyone familiar with the series now knows, five years later, we're still waiting.
Many other factors have no doubt contributed to the delay. The announcement, and GRRM's involvement with, the HBO series (still hoping for a greenlight on S1 in March) no doubt put a delay in the writing. His writing of additional Dunk and Egg stories, the prequel novellas set in Westeros, took another bite. Side projects, his editing of compilations, signed volumes, swords, and miniatures more frequently accompany updates to his Not-a-blog than does progress reports on Dance, and that has left for some antsy fans wondering if the book would ever be completed.
Sometimes that fandom gets way out of line, though, and it certainly has over at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist where his Exclusive Excerpt from "The Mystery Knight" brought the trolls of the woodwork and, well, lines were crossed.
I hate to be the one to drag out dead horses, and I'm far from the first to do so regarding this conversation, but the spot-on accuracy of Neil Gaiman's now-famous George R. R. Martin is not your bitch rant strikes truer than ever.
There are, really, two schools of thought when it comes to the creative process. One is that deadlines are to be met, no matter what, and that their importance is such that nothing else matters.
The other is that shit is done when it is done, it will be as good as possible, and that anyone waiting for it is just going to have to wait.
Followers of the first philosophy include basically any of the producers of garden-variety, stupid derivative crap of any medium in history. Pick a movie at random, and understand that chances are very high it was written on a very strict deadline by an overstressed writer with no emotional attachment to the project other than the paycheck it grants him. Pick that same movie again, and you'll see something of no particular creative note whatsoever that nobody remembers and nobody cares about but for a few actors with hopes of a single reel clip and a few executives that hope to scrounge a bit of profit.
Followers of the second philosophy include GRRM, Tolkien, most every major author whose name you actually know, James Cameron, and video game developers Blizzard, Bioware, and Valve, who have between them produced about 95% of the video games actually worth playing in the past two decades.
It's interesting to see, though, just how quickly fans can turn. In a way it is reminiscent of a stalker mentality, where an imbalanced positive obsession (at least in the mind of the stalker, who inevitably sees it as "love" of a sort) turns ugly at perceived "betrayal".
Maybe the obsession with Martin hasn't gotten that bad, but in some cases it seems close. People want to have their cake and eat it too; they want the next book to come out, but they want it to be as good as what's come before it, and so few of them fail to realize that those are contradictory desires. Good art takes time. If you want your books to come out like clockwork, you'd best stick with Harry Potter.
The book will be done when it's done. Acknowledgment of that fact does not make one a "sycophant" nor a "bootlicker" nor any of the infantile names we're getting called. It simply makes us people that have not fallen victim to the instant-gratification craze that if seen to its logical conclusion would deny us much of what is good entertainment to begin with.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Closing on Busto
So, the month of January ended poorly. Not poor as in, meh breakeven, but poor as in, I experienced an uninhibited freefall the likes of which I've never even imagined. Feb of '08 was bad. This was much, much worse. On top of that, I found out I owe $2400 on a car I thought was paid off (don't ask). When it rains it fucking pours. Dropped down to 50NL at the moment, trying to rebuild the tatters of my bankroll. Ugh.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
One week
Not much going on this past week in teh pokers. Been playing a lot of CoH ... up to level 12 in 2v2 americans, and holding steady @level 10 in 1v1's. Getting better.
Had to get up at 6 this morning to drive Brian & Cam to the airport. Okay, I wasn't actually their ride there, but I was their car's ride back. Replaced my shovel for the driveway, so I can clear that out at some point, and finally went shopping post-Florida trip.
Rerolled a new character in Dragon Age, a city elf rogue. I think I'm gonna try a main group of rogue x2, tank, healer. Should be interesting.
Had to get up at 6 this morning to drive Brian & Cam to the airport. Okay, I wasn't actually their ride there, but I was their car's ride back. Replaced my shovel for the driveway, so I can clear that out at some point, and finally went shopping post-Florida trip.
Rerolled a new character in Dragon Age, a city elf rogue. I think I'm gonna try a main group of rogue x2, tank, healer. Should be interesting.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Freeroll!
Cashed in the gold level freeroll, then got knocked out with TT against 67 on a 58J4 board. Knew I should have repopped him pre. Low skill tournament, really - very fast levels. Some jackass at my table was stalling from 210 players (180 spots paid); it was pretty sweet knocking him out in 182nd. Won't complain about $50 from a freeroll, though.
Played about 6 games of CoH today. Won all but the first, including a standard 4v4 where I had double anyone else's score (buncha noobs! nobody retreated anything!) and a 2v2 on Rails and Metal where my opponent whined about how I "spammed" rangers (I had 4 squads). Well, gee, the dude on my side built nothing but PG's with the first rifle upgrade and tank hunters, both of which upgraded rangers act as a hard counter to. Finally towards the end of the game he builds a single IST (yay for counters) and then sends it directly into my blob (d'oh!). It gets two shots off and gets raped by my 8 bazookas. Then he starts whining, to which I say "I'm sorry I was able to out-produce you", almost getting around to mentioning that I might not have spammed them if he had actually built an effective counter.
Time for Einherjar, and then my first limbus in quite some time.
Played about 6 games of CoH today. Won all but the first, including a standard 4v4 where I had double anyone else's score (buncha noobs! nobody retreated anything!) and a 2v2 on Rails and Metal where my opponent whined about how I "spammed" rangers (I had 4 squads). Well, gee, the dude on my side built nothing but PG's with the first rifle upgrade and tank hunters, both of which upgraded rangers act as a hard counter to. Finally towards the end of the game he builds a single IST (yay for counters) and then sends it directly into my blob (d'oh!). It gets two shots off and gets raped by my 8 bazookas. Then he starts whining, to which I say "I'm sorry I was able to out-produce you", almost getting around to mentioning that I might not have spammed them if he had actually built an effective counter.
Time for Einherjar, and then my first limbus in quite some time.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Travel day
Woke up at 8am after 4 hours sleep, managed to get myself semi-conscious, and caught Doug on the way out, thanking him for hosting and feeding me for the past 18 days or so. Missed the girls, but they knew I was leaving and we'd said tentative farewells the previous night.
The day went pretty much as expected: two flights, a 90 minute layover in Memphis (stopped in a restaurant for a burger and a Sam Adams), an hour wait, a bus ride, picked up at the bus stop by Camille, dropped off at about 7:15 pm. Immediately logged in to Dynamis, which went very smoothly right up until the point where we got Brian's fragment with 3 minutes left in the run and realized, to our horror, that one of our attendees had gone AFK and couldn't pass, meaning the fragment was lost and Brian's relic will have to wait another week. Fucking stupid drop distribution system, but equally stupid of this particular member not to realize what he was risking.
Played 4 sit and go's, 3 @$30+3 and one @$24+2. Cashed in all three of the $30+3's, 1st 3rd 3rd, for a total profit of something like $90.
Went to bed, didn't get up 'til noon, not playing hardcore poker today.
The day went pretty much as expected: two flights, a 90 minute layover in Memphis (stopped in a restaurant for a burger and a Sam Adams), an hour wait, a bus ride, picked up at the bus stop by Camille, dropped off at about 7:15 pm. Immediately logged in to Dynamis, which went very smoothly right up until the point where we got Brian's fragment with 3 minutes left in the run and realized, to our horror, that one of our attendees had gone AFK and couldn't pass, meaning the fragment was lost and Brian's relic will have to wait another week. Fucking stupid drop distribution system, but equally stupid of this particular member not to realize what he was risking.
Played 4 sit and go's, 3 @$30+3 and one @$24+2. Cashed in all three of the $30+3's, 1st 3rd 3rd, for a total profit of something like $90.
Went to bed, didn't get up 'til noon, not playing hardcore poker today.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Grrrr
Stupid ghetto ass cab driver service can't drive down as far south as Johnson's Creek to pick me up at the bus stop there. "We can't leave Watertown." It's a 10 minute drive people. Luckily Camille was susceptible to bribery, and will be picking me up tomorrow. She thought she was picking me up at the airport at first, so after I told her "oh, no, I only need you to drive 10 minutes, not 90" she felt like she was getting a deal.
I didn't like asking her, particularly since Brian had said he didn't want me to (or more specifically, that he wasn't going to obligate her to do so, which I suppose makes a bit of a difference), but she was more than happy to, so I don't feel too bad. That is, after all, what friends do for one another.
Not much last night. Played some CoD-MW2, discovering that the Capture the Flag games are substantially more brutal than the Domination games - they require more teamwork, and are less forgiving of stupid deaths - and got spanked pretty good. Tricia's dad and mother-in-law announced a surprise visit roughly 16 hours in advance, which stressed the fuck out of Tricia. Lots of cleanup, vacuuming, etc. They're here now, and Trish is feigning enthusiasm with the best of them. I think they wanted to see Chris more than anything, and Chris is at school, with double dance recital afterward, meaning they'll likely get to see her for all of 20 minutes before she collapses tonight.
No poker today, probably gonna start a game of Civ 4, maybe log into FF, play some MW2 tonight after the girls have gone to bed. Jocelyn is showing off for the grandparents and is bouncing off the walls so she'll likely collapse early.
The good news is that this vacation has shifted my sleep schedule back a couple of hours, and I've been staying up pretty routinely until 3 in the morning, which is good because hopefully once I get back up to Wisconsin I can stay up after events and play some poker, where there are more fish at the tables than there are at my more regular 11 in the morning times.
I didn't like asking her, particularly since Brian had said he didn't want me to (or more specifically, that he wasn't going to obligate her to do so, which I suppose makes a bit of a difference), but she was more than happy to, so I don't feel too bad. That is, after all, what friends do for one another.
Not much last night. Played some CoD-MW2, discovering that the Capture the Flag games are substantially more brutal than the Domination games - they require more teamwork, and are less forgiving of stupid deaths - and got spanked pretty good. Tricia's dad and mother-in-law announced a surprise visit roughly 16 hours in advance, which stressed the fuck out of Tricia. Lots of cleanup, vacuuming, etc. They're here now, and Trish is feigning enthusiasm with the best of them. I think they wanted to see Chris more than anything, and Chris is at school, with double dance recital afterward, meaning they'll likely get to see her for all of 20 minutes before she collapses tonight.
No poker today, probably gonna start a game of Civ 4, maybe log into FF, play some MW2 tonight after the girls have gone to bed. Jocelyn is showing off for the grandparents and is bouncing off the walls so she'll likely collapse early.
The good news is that this vacation has shifted my sleep schedule back a couple of hours, and I've been staying up pretty routinely until 3 in the morning, which is good because hopefully once I get back up to Wisconsin I can stay up after events and play some poker, where there are more fish at the tables than there are at my more regular 11 in the morning times.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Year's End
It was a bad year overall and I'm not going to go into much more detail. The final 6 months of the year were simply not great.
One of my goals for 2010 is to keep a more up-to-date record of how I'm spending my time as a whole, how I'm running, and various other things going on in my life. To that end this blog is doing a bit of a transformation from poker content only (or, to be realistic, no content, period) to more varied content including poker, and the other things which are consuming my time, which include but are not limited to other video games including my MMORPG of choice, Final Fantasy XI (which I put far more time into than is reproductively recommended) and the activities going on in the linkshell that I help to run.
I've been in Florida for the past 2+ weeks now, visiting with my brother and sister-in-law, playing with my nieces, and catching up with the parents, who came in for about an overlapping week of the same time period. I fly back on Wednesday, and need to figure out how I'm getting home from the airport as I had a friend drive me to the nearest bus stop (10 or so miles away) when the time came to fly out, and that same friend will be out of town on business this week. Given that there is only one other soul in that town that I actually know (said friend's wife) and she's taking care of 2 month old twins, I can't impose on her. I suppose I'll see if the local cab service can pick me up that far away. Either way it was more cost effective than trying to park for 18 days.
Did some crafting in FFXI, 26 elemental beads for a somewhat pathetic +0.2 to my goldsmithing, bringing me up to 84.7. Slowly but surely working my way up.
Been playing a lot of Modern Warfare 2 (the abbreviation MW2 will forever in my brain be Mech Warrior 2) on my brother's PS3, and had some good matches the other night, including one where I went 20-4 in a Domination game.
Been spending quite a bit of time with my oldest niece, Chris, who is 6 and thus actually of an age to remember these yearly visits of mine. She's a lot of fun but can be a little grating; she's a nonstop chatterbox (as my sister-in-law puts it, she simply has no understanding of the concept of an internal monologue), but so far above and beyond where any kid of that age has a right to be in the academic sense that you can't help but be impressed.
Poker on the vacation has been sporadic and uninteresting. I haven't had a losing session while on vacation, but most of that has been running significantly +EV and a few of those sessions were basically breakeven, sub-$10 wins. I think I'm up $400 or so on the trip, which pays for the trip and then a little bit but isn't setting the world on fire.
And that's about it.
One of my goals for 2010 is to keep a more up-to-date record of how I'm spending my time as a whole, how I'm running, and various other things going on in my life. To that end this blog is doing a bit of a transformation from poker content only (or, to be realistic, no content, period) to more varied content including poker, and the other things which are consuming my time, which include but are not limited to other video games including my MMORPG of choice, Final Fantasy XI (which I put far more time into than is reproductively recommended) and the activities going on in the linkshell that I help to run.
I've been in Florida for the past 2+ weeks now, visiting with my brother and sister-in-law, playing with my nieces, and catching up with the parents, who came in for about an overlapping week of the same time period. I fly back on Wednesday, and need to figure out how I'm getting home from the airport as I had a friend drive me to the nearest bus stop (10 or so miles away) when the time came to fly out, and that same friend will be out of town on business this week. Given that there is only one other soul in that town that I actually know (said friend's wife) and she's taking care of 2 month old twins, I can't impose on her. I suppose I'll see if the local cab service can pick me up that far away. Either way it was more cost effective than trying to park for 18 days.
Did some crafting in FFXI, 26 elemental beads for a somewhat pathetic +0.2 to my goldsmithing, bringing me up to 84.7. Slowly but surely working my way up.
Been playing a lot of Modern Warfare 2 (the abbreviation MW2 will forever in my brain be Mech Warrior 2) on my brother's PS3, and had some good matches the other night, including one where I went 20-4 in a Domination game.
Been spending quite a bit of time with my oldest niece, Chris, who is 6 and thus actually of an age to remember these yearly visits of mine. She's a lot of fun but can be a little grating; she's a nonstop chatterbox (as my sister-in-law puts it, she simply has no understanding of the concept of an internal monologue), but so far above and beyond where any kid of that age has a right to be in the academic sense that you can't help but be impressed.
Poker on the vacation has been sporadic and uninteresting. I haven't had a losing session while on vacation, but most of that has been running significantly +EV and a few of those sessions were basically breakeven, sub-$10 wins. I think I'm up $400 or so on the trip, which pays for the trip and then a little bit but isn't setting the world on fire.
And that's about it.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Wow, it's been a while
Poker's been rough the past couple of months, pretty much ever since my tourney win I've been struggling to break even. I've changed over to non-deep tables for the time being because the deep tables were more and more becoming littered with regs, which is even worse than the shortstacks I have to deal with at the 100bb max tables.
Anyway, it's been working so far, and last night I hit a fun hand that gave me most of my profit:
I'm ~200bb deep in MP and pick up pocket jacks. A tight, 13/9 player that I don't have any other real read on opens from UTG+1 and I flat call, so as to not eliminate all but the top end of his range. A new player (0/0 over 3 hands, 100bb deep) calls 2 seats to my left and the big blind calls as well. We see the flop 4-handed.
Flop is 8TJ rainbow, giving me top set on an otherwise scary coordinated board. BB checks, original raiser pots it for nearly $15, I make a mandatory raise up to $49.
Usually when there's a cbet and a raise in a multiway pot, the other players can't possibly wait to get rid of their hands, but the late position player goes into the tank, really using up his timebank. Eventually he shoves for his 100bb!
BB folds and it gets back to the opener, and he shoves over the top for his remaining nearly 200bb!
I have to double-check that I did, in fact, flop top set.
Now, I think it pretty much impossible that the original raiser flopped a straight, and is instead likely spazzing with AA or has an underset. I thought the late position guy probably had 79 or even 9Qs, for sure, but it's still an obvious call since I'm basically freerolling here so long as the opener didn't flop a very unlikely set.
So I instacall.
Opener turns over AA, and the guy who overshoved my raise turns over AQo!
Um, thanks for the 300bb I guess! My top set holds against the double gutshot and overpair, and I remark that you almost never see postflop play that bad even at the deep tables. I think I'll force myself to deal with the shorties for a time.
Besides, I play better shortstacked poker than the vast majority of them do anyway.
Anyway, it's been working so far, and last night I hit a fun hand that gave me most of my profit:
I'm ~200bb deep in MP and pick up pocket jacks. A tight, 13/9 player that I don't have any other real read on opens from UTG+1 and I flat call, so as to not eliminate all but the top end of his range. A new player (0/0 over 3 hands, 100bb deep) calls 2 seats to my left and the big blind calls as well. We see the flop 4-handed.
Flop is 8TJ rainbow, giving me top set on an otherwise scary coordinated board. BB checks, original raiser pots it for nearly $15, I make a mandatory raise up to $49.
Usually when there's a cbet and a raise in a multiway pot, the other players can't possibly wait to get rid of their hands, but the late position player goes into the tank, really using up his timebank. Eventually he shoves for his 100bb!
BB folds and it gets back to the opener, and he shoves over the top for his remaining nearly 200bb!
I have to double-check that I did, in fact, flop top set.
Now, I think it pretty much impossible that the original raiser flopped a straight, and is instead likely spazzing with AA or has an underset. I thought the late position guy probably had 79 or even 9Qs, for sure, but it's still an obvious call since I'm basically freerolling here so long as the opener didn't flop a very unlikely set.
So I instacall.
Opener turns over AA, and the guy who overshoved my raise turns over AQo!
Um, thanks for the 300bb I guess! My top set holds against the double gutshot and overpair, and I remark that you almost never see postflop play that bad even at the deep tables. I think I'll force myself to deal with the shorties for a time.
Besides, I play better shortstacked poker than the vast majority of them do anyway.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
I are teh champion!
Finally played in the last match of the SSNLFR HU tournament at 2+2. Somehow I managed to bumble my way to the finals (the semis were over in just over 60 hands) and was matched up against a very strong player by the name of AlexB182s. He played a very different style than anyone else I'd been matched up with, running 54/47/6.4 for the match but playing largely a small-ball style, not 3betting a gratuitous amount, not cbetting much (I think he ran 55% for the match), and generally playing a very smart, very controlling game where he constantly put me to gross decisions (though mostly in small-to-medium size pots).
At the other table, a smallish pot developed that set up a very interesting dynamic.
That pot caught my eye because he didn't bet the flop, where most people would, which was actually a very nice spot to do it. Then a groan-inducing flush card comes for him, which he respects, and quickly snaps off two bets with trips top kicker. Very nicely played on his part imo, even though I won a medium-sized pot.
A bit later, on that same table.
Then a bizarre hand happened.
Luckily at that same table I caught back up. He had a 2500/1500 lead at both tables going into this hand and I evened one of the tables out. Basically I raised K5s, flop came K53, and I got 3 streets of value against KT. Pretty standard hand, put us back to even on that table.
I felt good about the next one.
At the other table, the one where I ran 33388 into 888JJ, we got all in preflop with my QQ against his JJ and I held, doubling up to 1434, making that a more competitive match. 50 hands later we saw our next flop (not really, but there was a LOT of preflop sparring going on in very small pots).
Still, in a HU match it can be nice to establish that you're willing to call down a couple streets with Ace high on the right board, and I felt pretty good about that hand.
We chatted about that pot in AIM for a bit, and I was able to play a nice little metagame head game by pointing out that I knew that he knew that those were good barreling cards, at which point he confessed that he wouldn't know if those were good barreling cards in the future.
In the next 75 or so hands the preflop dynamics seemed to adjust significantly. He started 3betting more, and it felt like he was injecting a little amperage into his game overall. This led to the following hand.
We start up a third table and continue dual-tabling our match.
On the other table, the one where I was still behind, I defended w/A9o and check/called turn and river bets on a JA768 board, taking a decent pot from QQ, and establishing that I was balancing my check/call range from OOP with weak bluffcatchers and hands that were taking advantage of his propensity for taking thin value.
Weird hand. At our new table again, he raises his button and I defend with Kc Jh. Flop comes 4c 5h 8c, we check check. Turn is the Tc, giving me the backdoor 2nd nut FD, I bet 40 he calls. River bricks with the Qh, I check, he bets 45 into 140, and I decide to make a random river CR, making it 260. He folds, and we laugh about how neither one of us had crap, and that he really should have 3bet bluffed me.
We hit a very long stretch of hands - about 100 or so - where nothing happens, and our biggest pot is 65 chips. 1st place in the tournament is $1500 and 2nd is $900, so we're both willing to be patient.
At our new table, where I've crawled back into the lead with several small pots, I raise my button with 77 and he 3bets to 105. I call. Flop comes 4c 5d Qd and he CBets out 125. I call. River bricks, the 2c, he bets 275 into 460 and I call again. River is the 5c, he checks, I check, he shows 8d Kd for the missed diamonds. I take down a nice big 1000 chip pot (I put him on exactly what he had, missed diamonds).
Finally, at the new table again, I'd ground him down to 1360 in chips, and raised my button with QKo. He 3bet, I called, and the flop came 36K with diamonds. He bet 115 and I called, the turn came the Jd. He checked, I bet 280, and he CR'd me all-in, which made me want to puke, but had TP2K with nearly 2:1 outs against an aggressive opponent that could have just picked up a ton of draws, so I called. He had Ad Ts for 32% equity, a ton of outs, and the river bricked off the Jh for my win.
So, that's $1500, and a substantial amount of pride for having bested a field of 32 very strong regulars in a format intended to maximize the skill factor moreso than almost any other tournament you'll find (with no blind increases, playing 200bb deep against a good player HU is EXHAUSTING).
Although I joke about my Jamie-Gold-esque heater on the forums, I'm proud of how I played and feel that I was a substantial favorite in most of my matches (probably 3/5 I felt very good about). This one I felt was just about even, and perhaps even weighted against me skill-wise. It's impossible to navigate this field without some luck bouncing your way, and I was very fortunate, but also very happy with my game. HU NL is a sick game, very tough, where adjustments are everything and the psychology factor is massive. GG to all that were involved.
I think I'll go buy a new computer.
We hit a gross hand early. He raised the button and I defended with 3h 3c. Flop comes 8A3 rainbow, just about perfect. This was early in the match and I hadn't really set up anything, but he had already shown he wasn't robotic in his cbetting so I decided to donk out, betting 50 into 60.
He calls. Turn is the 8d, boating me up. I continue, betting 120 into 160, and he calls again. Now I'm putting him on a hand around AT, maybe as low as A2ish, or something 99-KK.
River is the Js, which seems like a brick. I bet 290 into 400 and he snap raises to 775.
Oh, holy crap. I mean, I have a boat, but that river raise is so goddamn strong. I tank, trying to figure out what he could have if he's telling the truth, and I focus right to JJ, a slow-played AA, possibly a slow-played A8, 8J, and maybe AJ. Of those I only beat AJ, and it's very possible he can let that go. He could also be bluffing, of course, or making a huge mistake with a hand like AK, so I can't bring myself to fold, but I had dismissed shoving early. I called, and he showed 8J for the better boat. Sick. I was 98% on the flop.
At the other table, a smallish pot developed that set up a very interesting dynamic.
He raises his button to 30, I defend with 5h 7h. Flop comes Kh Ks Qh. I check he checks. Turn is the Th, giving me a flush. I bet 40 into 60, he calls. River bricks (2c), I bet 120 into 140, he calls. He shows As Kd for flopped trips, my flush takes down a 380 pot
That pot caught my eye because he didn't bet the flop, where most people would, which was actually a very nice spot to do it. Then a groan-inducing flush card comes for him, which he respects, and quickly snaps off two bets with trips top kicker. Very nicely played on his part imo, even though I won a medium-sized pot.
A bit later, on that same table.
I raise JJ from the button, he defends. Flop is Ac Ks 7h. He checks I check. Turn is 9c, he bets 35 into 60 (he favored that sort of small bet), I called. River is 2c. He bets 55 into 130, I call. He shows Js Kh. Analysis: he pwned me hard. Very nice thin value.
Then a bizarre hand happened.
Same table. I raise my btn with 6s 9s, he defends. Flop is Ts Kh 4h. He checks, I bet 40 into 60, and he raises to 115. His flop CR rate was something like 60% at this point so I decided to make a stand, got fancy and called. Turn was 7d, a brick, and he bet out 165 into 290. I raised to 430, he thought for a few seconds and called. River is the Qd. He checks, and I pussy out and check behind with 9 high. He shows Jh 8h for Jack high, with the missed flush draw. FUUUUUCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!! I could have bet 100 into that pot and blown him off of that hand. But it felt like he just had something like KQ and was giving me enough rope to hang myself. I had a decent enough idea, and then lost my nerve. Awful.
Luckily at that same table I caught back up. He had a 2500/1500 lead at both tables going into this hand and I evened one of the tables out. Basically I raised K5s, flop came K53, and I got 3 streets of value against KT. Pretty standard hand, put us back to even on that table.
I felt good about the next one.
I raise my button with 5s 9s (feeling a bit frisky, he'd been folding a lot preflop). He defends, flop comes 8s 7d Jd, giving me an almost-impossible-to-read double gutshot. He checks, I bet 20 into 60 (hoping to throw him off his usual CR pattern). He raises to 44, barely more than a minraise, and I call (metagame psychology I presume). Turn is Ks, giving me spades in addition to my FD. He bets 125 into 148, I tank and call. River pairs the J, and he bets 175 into 398. His hand felt a lot more like diamonds or like A8, 99, TT, or a complete airball than anything, which led to me raising to 480. He snap folded. I felt like I had a hand like JQ repped quite nicely and could have easily pushed him off a weak K, if he had something like K9 of diamonds.
At the other table, the one where I ran 33388 into 888JJ, we got all in preflop with my QQ against his JJ and I held, doubling up to 1434, making that a more competitive match. 50 hands later we saw our next flop (not really, but there was a LOT of preflop sparring going on in very small pots).
He raised his button and I defended with As 8d. Flop came Td 4d 5c. I check, he checks back. Turn is 7c. I check, he bets 35 into 60. I call. River is the 2s, I check, he bets 85 into 130, and I called him with Ace high. Once again he pwned me for great thin value with Kh 7h. Wow. I felt like he'd picked up clubs on the turn and that I had a lot of equity.
Still, in a HU match it can be nice to establish that you're willing to call down a couple streets with Ace high on the right board, and I felt pretty good about that hand.
At the table where I was ahead, he raised his button and I defended with Th Qs. The flop came 3h 4c Qd, giving me top pair with an OK kicker. I check/called 35, the turn came the Kh. I check/called 85 as I felt like he would recognize that as a superb barreling card. River came As and I check/called 125, as it was once again a superb barreling card and he offered me very attractive odds. He showed Jd 8h for the pure bluff start to finish, and I raked in a nice pot.
We chatted about that pot in AIM for a bit, and I was able to play a nice little metagame head game by pointing out that I knew that he knew that those were good barreling cards, at which point he confessed that he wouldn't know if those were good barreling cards in the future.
In the next 75 or so hands the preflop dynamics seemed to adjust significantly. He started 3betting more, and it felt like he was injecting a little amperage into his game overall. This led to the following hand.
He's down to 1400 chips (starting stack 2000). I raise 7d 8d from the button and he 3bets to 105. With a nice spec hand I can always flop something, but my primary plan is to find a likely flop to take down a big pot without a showdown. I call.
Flop comes 6c Th Jc. This strikes me as a somewhat marginal flop, as most of his range hit something, but I do have a gutshot and I don't think he's going to be in a mood to commit the majority of his stack on an unimproved turn with his AK-AQ strength hands that have gutshots+overpairs on the turn. My plan was to float steal, and indeed he cbet out 125 into 210. In that spot I actually have decent implied odds to chase my gutshot by itself, but mostly I was looking to take the pot away. I call.
The turn changes my plan by spanking me with the 9d. He tanks for 10s or so and checks, I bet 280, and he shoves. I instacall and he shows QQ, a hand he was never letting go of, and against which I got insanely lucky. River misses his 7 out sweat by giving me an ace, and I win match 1.
We start up a third table and continue dual-tabling our match.
On the other table, the one where I was still behind, I defended w/A9o and check/called turn and river bets on a JA768 board, taking a decent pot from QQ, and establishing that I was balancing my check/call range from OOP with weak bluffcatchers and hands that were taking advantage of his propensity for taking thin value.
He raised the button on our new table and I defended w/Ad Jh. I checked, he bet 35 on a K32r board. I called. Turn is a J, I check he checks. River pairs the 3, I try my own hand at thin value betting 60 into 130 and promptly get spanked when he raises to 199, repping a pretty thin range of strong kings, random 3's, and bluffs. I tank and fold.
Weird hand. At our new table again, he raises his button and I defend with Kc Jh. Flop comes 4c 5h 8c, we check check. Turn is the Tc, giving me the backdoor 2nd nut FD, I bet 40 he calls. River bricks with the Qh, I check, he bets 45 into 140, and I decide to make a random river CR, making it 260. He folds, and we laugh about how neither one of us had crap, and that he really should have 3bet bluffed me.
We hit a very long stretch of hands - about 100 or so - where nothing happens, and our biggest pot is 65 chips. 1st place in the tournament is $1500 and 2nd is $900, so we're both willing to be patient.
At our new table, where I've crawled back into the lead with several small pots, I raise my button with 77 and he 3bets to 105. I call. Flop comes 4c 5d Qd and he CBets out 125. I call. River bricks, the 2c, he bets 275 into 460 and I call again. River is the 5c, he checks, I check, he shows 8d Kd for the missed diamonds. I take down a nice big 1000 chip pot (I put him on exactly what he had, missed diamonds).
Finally, at the new table again, I'd ground him down to 1360 in chips, and raised my button with QKo. He 3bet, I called, and the flop came 36K with diamonds. He bet 115 and I called, the turn came the Jd. He checked, I bet 280, and he CR'd me all-in, which made me want to puke, but had TP2K with nearly 2:1 outs against an aggressive opponent that could have just picked up a ton of draws, so I called. He had Ad Ts for 32% equity, a ton of outs, and the river bricked off the Jh for my win.
So, that's $1500, and a substantial amount of pride for having bested a field of 32 very strong regulars in a format intended to maximize the skill factor moreso than almost any other tournament you'll find (with no blind increases, playing 200bb deep against a good player HU is EXHAUSTING).
Although I joke about my Jamie-Gold-esque heater on the forums, I'm proud of how I played and feel that I was a substantial favorite in most of my matches (probably 3/5 I felt very good about). This one I felt was just about even, and perhaps even weighted against me skill-wise. It's impossible to navigate this field without some luck bouncing your way, and I was very fortunate, but also very happy with my game. HU NL is a sick game, very tough, where adjustments are everything and the psychology factor is massive. GG to all that were involved.
I think I'll go buy a new computer.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Some NL100
I had a good start to the month, but some of the EV karma I've been cashing in on so far this year (in February I was pretty significantly above my AIE) has been catching up to me, and I plummeted down to almost even for the month. Because I needed to withdraw $2500 to cover upcoming moving expenses, leaving my bankroll well below where I'd like it, I decided to step down and play some NL100.
It was like whiffleball, and I had a nice 3BI win for +$100/hr. Running hot I guess, but some of the more fun hands:
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EP player limps, I iso to 4.5bb with Ad Qh, folds to him, he calls. Villain is a 24/10 who thinks postflop but overvalues hands, calls down light, and generally has FPS. Probably read a couple of poker books, but definitely not a great player at all. Were 200bb deep.
Flop comes Qs 9h Qd. Villain checks, I fire out 8bb, he calls. Turn: Kc. He checks and I make my biggest mistake of the night by betting 16bb. He c/r's to 42bb and I call. River he insta-bets 85bb and I turbo muck. He asked me what I called him with, says he'll tell if I do. I say no need to tell, you had TJ, he says no, I said 99 then, he goes wow how'd you guess.
The turn card sucked in that hand since pretty much every hand except QJ/QT that I'm beating just caught up. Should have checked behind to induce and then called river, instead I get trapped for a raise that I feel I have to call because I can stack him very often when I boat up. A lot of players would say to fold to the turn CR, but that's still a hand where most players lose a lot more.
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UTG+1 pot raise from a decent-enough-seeming 17/13, I call on his left with 8d 8s. A 45/21 donkey to my left calls and we see the flop 3-handed. Raiser is 108bb deep, I am 240bb, donkey has us both covered.
Flop comes Th 6s 5h, raiser checks and I bet 9.5bb into 12. Donkey calls, opener folds. Turn: 6c. I bet 19.5bb into 31, donkey calls. River 7s, I check, donkey checks and shows Ah 8h. So many people miss that turn value bet. I was calling anything he put in on the river.
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Nit opens for 3.5bb in EP, button calls, I call from the SB with Ts Th. Button is someone who picked up the "be aggressive" advice from someone somewhere and is a garden variety overaggro monkey. Flop comes 6h 7s Qh. I check, opener checks, btn bets 8bb. I call, the opener folds. Turn bricks, the 6c, I check, monkey bets 22bb, I minraise to 44bb, he turbomucks.
Nonstandard line but not without advantages. I don't think this guy has a hand; his betting reflex seems pronounced and he seems to be of the "keep betting until they fold" mentality. I certainly don't think he has a PP JJ+, he could have a set, a draw, or air. The raise was for value, gaining the max out of draws while making the air easier to play against than playing the check/guessing game on the river. A river bet is going to be another 50bb minimum and am I really calling and letting him own me with whatever QJ bs he's overvaluing? Better to end the hand here imo, rep the 77 or 56 or even the AQo while still getting money in as a favorite against hearts and 89.
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UTG raiser from a guy who's 31/13 over 40ish hands. We're 115bb deep. I call on the button with 8c 8h. BB calls also. Flop comes 2s 8h Kc. I don't know about you but that's just about the most beautiful set of 8's I've ever seen in my life. It's impossible to get a dryer board.
Villain insta-pots 11bb and I call (BB folds). Turn: 4d. Villain pumps 24bb more in. I call. River Ks, villain pops his last 77bb into 81, I call, villain shows A9o for the pure start-to-finish bluff. Oops.
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Unimaginative 12/9 nit opens from MP and the FPS dude from hand #1 calls. I call from the CO with 5h 7h. Button also calls, 4-way to a Qd 6d 3c flop.
Opener bets 10bb into 15.5 and FPS man floats. He floated like it was his job; over 500 hands (exactly) on him his fold-to-cbet rate is only 36%. Ideal spot here IMO even though I've just got a gutshot. I raise to $40 and everyone turbomucks.
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54/4 whale open-limps in MP, I iso from the btn to 4.5 with 3s 3d. He calls. Flop 6h Kh 5h, he checks, I bet 8bb just to end the hand if he has absolutely nothing, because even this guy will fold on this board with air. He calls. Turn is 4d, giving me an up-and-down I don't particularly care about, he checks, I bet 18bb into 26.5, he calls. River Jc, he checks, I bet 35bb into 62.5 and he turbo-mucked.
The play a lot of people miss there is the turn bet. Because villain could have ATC it's tempting just to see the hand to showdown with a weak-ass pair that has some value. That's not wrong, but I think it's better to build the pot, because most of the time the villain will have some weak-ass one-heart hand and is constitutionally incapable of folding anything they perceive as a draw for a "reasonable" bet. The downside is that it commits us to turning our hand into a bluff on the river to get rid of all the bullshit 5xXh, 6xXh, and mid-pp's-with-a-heart hands that have us beat but that he's unlikely to call that last street with. The turn bet makes the hand.
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AJo in UTG+1, but because of new players in LP seats we're 7-handed. I open to 3.5, 53/27 whale calls, everyone else gets out of the way. We're 94bb deep. Flop is J55 rainbow, I bet 6.5bb into 8.5, he calls. Turn: 4h. I bet 15 into 21.5, he calls. River 2s, I bet 40 into 51.5 (he has 66bb left), he hems and haws before finally making his "hero fold" stating that he has pocket 7's. Heh.
Super standard hand and any experienced player reading this will wonder why the hell I included it, but I see so many people butchering their hands in these spots that it's worth a mention. People have advice drilled into their heads so much saying "don't go broke with top pair, it's not a premium hand!" that they forget that there are plenty of spots where they should absolutely be going broke with TPTK, particularly when oop against an idiot calling station on a super dry board. Such maxims are totally worthless imo. You put someone on a hand based on your read and their behavior in the hand, and you act appropriately given what you think their reaction to your actions will be. Here my hand is almost always going to be good, I knew it, and so I went for three streets of value. EZ game.
It was like whiffleball, and I had a nice 3BI win for +$100/hr. Running hot I guess, but some of the more fun hands:
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EP player limps, I iso to 4.5bb with Ad Qh, folds to him, he calls. Villain is a 24/10 who thinks postflop but overvalues hands, calls down light, and generally has FPS. Probably read a couple of poker books, but definitely not a great player at all. Were 200bb deep.
Flop comes Qs 9h Qd. Villain checks, I fire out 8bb, he calls. Turn: Kc. He checks and I make my biggest mistake of the night by betting 16bb. He c/r's to 42bb and I call. River he insta-bets 85bb and I turbo muck. He asked me what I called him with, says he'll tell if I do. I say no need to tell, you had TJ, he says no, I said 99 then, he goes wow how'd you guess.
The turn card sucked in that hand since pretty much every hand except QJ/QT that I'm beating just caught up. Should have checked behind to induce and then called river, instead I get trapped for a raise that I feel I have to call because I can stack him very often when I boat up. A lot of players would say to fold to the turn CR, but that's still a hand where most players lose a lot more.
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UTG+1 pot raise from a decent-enough-seeming 17/13, I call on his left with 8d 8s. A 45/21 donkey to my left calls and we see the flop 3-handed. Raiser is 108bb deep, I am 240bb, donkey has us both covered.
Flop comes Th 6s 5h, raiser checks and I bet 9.5bb into 12. Donkey calls, opener folds. Turn: 6c. I bet 19.5bb into 31, donkey calls. River 7s, I check, donkey checks and shows Ah 8h. So many people miss that turn value bet. I was calling anything he put in on the river.
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Nit opens for 3.5bb in EP, button calls, I call from the SB with Ts Th. Button is someone who picked up the "be aggressive" advice from someone somewhere and is a garden variety overaggro monkey. Flop comes 6h 7s Qh. I check, opener checks, btn bets 8bb. I call, the opener folds. Turn bricks, the 6c, I check, monkey bets 22bb, I minraise to 44bb, he turbomucks.
Nonstandard line but not without advantages. I don't think this guy has a hand; his betting reflex seems pronounced and he seems to be of the "keep betting until they fold" mentality. I certainly don't think he has a PP JJ+, he could have a set, a draw, or air. The raise was for value, gaining the max out of draws while making the air easier to play against than playing the check/guessing game on the river. A river bet is going to be another 50bb minimum and am I really calling and letting him own me with whatever QJ bs he's overvaluing? Better to end the hand here imo, rep the 77 or 56 or even the AQo while still getting money in as a favorite against hearts and 89.
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UTG raiser from a guy who's 31/13 over 40ish hands. We're 115bb deep. I call on the button with 8c 8h. BB calls also. Flop comes 2s 8h Kc. I don't know about you but that's just about the most beautiful set of 8's I've ever seen in my life. It's impossible to get a dryer board.
Villain insta-pots 11bb and I call (BB folds). Turn: 4d. Villain pumps 24bb more in. I call. River Ks, villain pops his last 77bb into 81, I call, villain shows A9o for the pure start-to-finish bluff. Oops.
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Unimaginative 12/9 nit opens from MP and the FPS dude from hand #1 calls. I call from the CO with 5h 7h. Button also calls, 4-way to a Qd 6d 3c flop.
Opener bets 10bb into 15.5 and FPS man floats. He floated like it was his job; over 500 hands (exactly) on him his fold-to-cbet rate is only 36%. Ideal spot here IMO even though I've just got a gutshot. I raise to $40 and everyone turbomucks.
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54/4 whale open-limps in MP, I iso from the btn to 4.5 with 3s 3d. He calls. Flop 6h Kh 5h, he checks, I bet 8bb just to end the hand if he has absolutely nothing, because even this guy will fold on this board with air. He calls. Turn is 4d, giving me an up-and-down I don't particularly care about, he checks, I bet 18bb into 26.5, he calls. River Jc, he checks, I bet 35bb into 62.5 and he turbo-mucked.
The play a lot of people miss there is the turn bet. Because villain could have ATC it's tempting just to see the hand to showdown with a weak-ass pair that has some value. That's not wrong, but I think it's better to build the pot, because most of the time the villain will have some weak-ass one-heart hand and is constitutionally incapable of folding anything they perceive as a draw for a "reasonable" bet. The downside is that it commits us to turning our hand into a bluff on the river to get rid of all the bullshit 5xXh, 6xXh, and mid-pp's-with-a-heart hands that have us beat but that he's unlikely to call that last street with. The turn bet makes the hand.
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AJo in UTG+1, but because of new players in LP seats we're 7-handed. I open to 3.5, 53/27 whale calls, everyone else gets out of the way. We're 94bb deep. Flop is J55 rainbow, I bet 6.5bb into 8.5, he calls. Turn: 4h. I bet 15 into 21.5, he calls. River 2s, I bet 40 into 51.5 (he has 66bb left), he hems and haws before finally making his "hero fold" stating that he has pocket 7's. Heh.
Super standard hand and any experienced player reading this will wonder why the hell I included it, but I see so many people butchering their hands in these spots that it's worth a mention. People have advice drilled into their heads so much saying "don't go broke with top pair, it's not a premium hand!" that they forget that there are plenty of spots where they should absolutely be going broke with TPTK, particularly when oop against an idiot calling station on a super dry board. Such maxims are totally worthless imo. You put someone on a hand based on your read and their behavior in the hand, and you act appropriately given what you think their reaction to your actions will be. Here my hand is almost always going to be good, I knew it, and so I went for three streets of value. EZ game.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
200bb pots
I'm running amazingly badly in $800 pots so far this month. I've only had two; one was discussed in my last entry (lost to a 4-outer on the river with a set of 4's), and one from yesterday afternoon, where a maniac shows up at the table and within 15 hands I've seen him all-in preflop four times. The two times he was called he showed up with KQo both times.
So I pick up pocket queens in MP and raise. He 3bets from the SB, I 4bet to $85, he shoves, I instacall. He has As Ts and wouldn't you know it, there's an ace in the door. I fail to improve and the monkey ratholes with his profit. Thanks Martingale.
Thankfully, in part due to an overset for 100bb (omg that makes 2 in a row without an underset somewhere in between!) I still managed to churn out a $275 profit for the day.
The good news is that the same dude showed up at another one of my tables a little later and I was able to extract at least some partial revenge, particularly when I overbet $125 into $69 with 8d 9d on a 6h 5d 8h Kd 7d board (he called with Kh Qh) and on a hand where I 3bet an EP opener with QQ and he min-4bet out of the SB. I elected just to call this time and he insta-potted $84 on a 3s Tc 8c board. I called, the turn was the 9h, and he check-folded to my $131 bet (into $252).
I also managed to win in round 2 of the SSFR HU tourney, defeating Jason in an epic 2-1 come-from-behind that was peppered with suckouts from start to finish. Jason was either playing like a genius, was catching incredible cards, or had impeccable timing, or any combination available choosing from 2-3 of the above, because he was playing like an aggromonkey from hell but every last time I looked him up he had some kind of monster. Thankfully I sucked out on him for almost all of his chips with a straight draw + one over vs. his JJ overpair and eventually finished him off. One more win and I'm in the money baybee!
So I pick up pocket queens in MP and raise. He 3bets from the SB, I 4bet to $85, he shoves, I instacall. He has As Ts and wouldn't you know it, there's an ace in the door. I fail to improve and the monkey ratholes with his profit. Thanks Martingale.
Thankfully, in part due to an overset for 100bb (omg that makes 2 in a row without an underset somewhere in between!) I still managed to churn out a $275 profit for the day.
The good news is that the same dude showed up at another one of my tables a little later and I was able to extract at least some partial revenge, particularly when I overbet $125 into $69 with 8d 9d on a 6h 5d 8h Kd 7d board (he called with Kh Qh) and on a hand where I 3bet an EP opener with QQ and he min-4bet out of the SB. I elected just to call this time and he insta-potted $84 on a 3s Tc 8c board. I called, the turn was the 9h, and he check-folded to my $131 bet (into $252).
I also managed to win in round 2 of the SSFR HU tourney, defeating Jason in an epic 2-1 come-from-behind that was peppered with suckouts from start to finish. Jason was either playing like a genius, was catching incredible cards, or had impeccable timing, or any combination available choosing from 2-3 of the above, because he was playing like an aggromonkey from hell but every last time I looked him up he had some kind of monster. Thankfully I sucked out on him for almost all of his chips with a straight draw + one over vs. his JJ overpair and eventually finished him off. One more win and I'm in the money baybee!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Emotional victory?
So I was cruising around at even last night when, at a deep table, I raise from EP with 44 and am 3bet small by a tight MP player. Relative stacks are 200bb and this guy's seemed very active, so I call. Flop comes 45J. I lead out for something like $42, he snapcalls. Turn is a Q, which I didn't like, but I lead out for $100 or so and snapcall when he insta-shoves. He shows AKs and the river spikes his ten. He said later that he put me on AJ and was just trying to push me off of it. Terrible play.
At the same time I catch 22 on a 237 flop as the preflop aggressor and bet into a guy from oop on the flop and turn, before the river makes the board 23457 with a possible flush. I desperately try to block for $88 or so and fold to an insta minraise.
With some other natural variance I'm down $800 very early.
Over the next 3 hours, I manage to build my way up, step by step, to the point where I'm only losing $160. Finally exhausted there, I call a halt to the night and felt good about it.
I think most people, even many experienced poker players, have no idea how much money gets passed back and forth in non-skill pots.
At the same time I catch 22 on a 237 flop as the preflop aggressor and bet into a guy from oop on the flop and turn, before the river makes the board 23457 with a possible flush. I desperately try to block for $88 or so and fold to an insta minraise.
With some other natural variance I'm down $800 very early.
Over the next 3 hours, I manage to build my way up, step by step, to the point where I'm only losing $160. Finally exhausted there, I call a halt to the night and felt good about it.
I think most people, even many experienced poker players, have no idea how much money gets passed back and forth in non-skill pots.
Monday, May 25, 2009
LOL Donkament
Played round one of my match in the 2p2 SSFR HU tournament the other day; it was interesting to play HU for a $100 buyin shootout, a format I don't get a lot of. Very much a bragging rights type thing, but the money would be cool, too.
My first opponent was Robert Fripp, a very aggressive player from South America who threatened to run me over from the get go. The first meaningful hand, he'd been 3betting up a storm, I raised to 30, he 3bet to 100, I called with Ah3h, which was a monster against his range. Flop came Q24dd, I check-called 150, turn 7s, I check-called 360, river Tc I check-folded 1190 all-in into 1220. In retrospect it was a clear call as he was bluffing without a doubt, but my balls weren't quite in place yet. This dropped me down to an early large chip deficit.
I made some of it back when I raised KK OTB, he called, flop came 59Jr. He check-called 40 on the flop, turn was an ace, he checks I bet 110, he raises to 300. I tanked a bit to make it look like I was contemplating a fold, when in reality I'm never folding here (as he'd made it clear he was 3betting any ace pre). My only real option was between calling and 3betting and I chose to call. He gave up on a river 9 and I checked behind against his polarized range. He had 7h 5h and I dragged a nice-sized pot.
The very next hand I defended w/QhTh and took a pot down with a CR on a 26Khh flop.
I took another 100 when I 4bet TT pre with the intent of getting it in, then another 190 when I defended w/A7o and check-called 2 streets on an AQQ2 board before he finally gave up on a river T, showing 9Ts.
Later, with my stack at 1335 (starting stack: 2000) I defended w/QTo and the flop came 89J rainbow, lol. I check-called the flop, turn was an ugly 7, check-check, river king, I bet 120, he raised to 300, I shoved and he tanked and folded, saying he folded K8. This took us back to almost even.
Another interesting hand, I defended 5h7h, flop came 2h5s8c, I check-called the now-standard cbet of 40. Turn Jh, I c/r'd a bet of 100 up to 310 and he folded.
Then came the hand where the match really changed. I defended w/TcJc, flop came Jh7h7c. I check-called 40, turn 9c. I check-called 100, river 8d giving me the straight. I led out 310 into 340 and my opponent raised to 980. WTF!! I tanked for a bit and asked him if he'd boated up, which was obv what he was repping, and against a straightforward player this is such an obvious fold, but this guy had been such a monkey that folding wasn't really an option. I called and he showed Qd 4d for the stone river bluff, LOL. This gave me an almost 2:1 chip lead.
That turned the first match in my favor and I never ceded the lead. Later I defended w/A8o and check-called 40 on a 339r flop. Turn 8, I c/c'd 110, river 7, I c/c'd 240, he showed Qd 5d.
Thr first match ended w/me raising AQo, he defended. Flop 3d5dQc, I bet 40, he cr'd to 120, I called. Turn 4h, he checks, I bet 200, he CRAI's to 680, I instacall, he shows 2h 3h for bottom pair+OESD, river bricks.
His stats for the match were something like 61/54/15.8 - yes, an AF of 15.8 - and didn't appreciably change. My defense was easy - play about 55/45/0.9! I just slow-played everything and he only really started to adjust after it was already too late.
The second match was over very quickly, something like 32 hands. We donked back and forth a small bit. Finally a huge hand hit when I had JhKh, opened to 30, he defended. Flop came 2h4h8c for overs+2nfd. He checks, I bet 40, he cr'd to 120 as he always did (his c/r percentage was over 70% for the match). I 3bet to 420, he 4bet to 1040, I shoved for 920 more, he folds!!!!! Yes ladies and gentlemen that is a postflop 4bet-fold.
The sick thing about that hand is that I knew I had FE. He had been 3betting me so much that I figured he was going to try to stay a level ahead and on a board like this, relatively innocuous, he knew I might try to come over the top with air, and pre-planned a 4bet in advance. His 4bet was way too fast. Obviously my overs+FD are the nuts, but against a player like him it's ordinarily more profitable to wait until it hits, unless you get them to 4bet-fold.
Final hand was sexy too, I had 22 and defended, flop 23Q, noice! I check-called 40 despite a FD being on the board, turn is a 2!!! I check, he bets 100, I call. River is a 9, I check, he bets 270, I CRAI 625 more, he puke/calls off his last chips with Q5o. Not horrible on his part actually, and he knew I was defending him so light that he had to keep v-betting TPNK, and he has to be conscious of my potentially coming over the top w/missed clubs or w/e. Poor guy goes to all this trouble to set up a maniac image, finally gets to vbet thin, and runs into quads. Not his day.
Next match I'm up against a very good 2p2 regular who I've played against quite a bit at 1/2 on FT, so we'll see how it goes ... suffice to say that I expect the match to be less about exploitation and more about unexploitability.
My first opponent was Robert Fripp, a very aggressive player from South America who threatened to run me over from the get go. The first meaningful hand, he'd been 3betting up a storm, I raised to 30, he 3bet to 100, I called with Ah3h, which was a monster against his range. Flop came Q24dd, I check-called 150, turn 7s, I check-called 360, river Tc I check-folded 1190 all-in into 1220. In retrospect it was a clear call as he was bluffing without a doubt, but my balls weren't quite in place yet. This dropped me down to an early large chip deficit.
I made some of it back when I raised KK OTB, he called, flop came 59Jr. He check-called 40 on the flop, turn was an ace, he checks I bet 110, he raises to 300. I tanked a bit to make it look like I was contemplating a fold, when in reality I'm never folding here (as he'd made it clear he was 3betting any ace pre). My only real option was between calling and 3betting and I chose to call. He gave up on a river 9 and I checked behind against his polarized range. He had 7h 5h and I dragged a nice-sized pot.
The very next hand I defended w/QhTh and took a pot down with a CR on a 26Khh flop.
I took another 100 when I 4bet TT pre with the intent of getting it in, then another 190 when I defended w/A7o and check-called 2 streets on an AQQ2 board before he finally gave up on a river T, showing 9Ts.
Later, with my stack at 1335 (starting stack: 2000) I defended w/QTo and the flop came 89J rainbow, lol. I check-called the flop, turn was an ugly 7, check-check, river king, I bet 120, he raised to 300, I shoved and he tanked and folded, saying he folded K8. This took us back to almost even.
Another interesting hand, I defended 5h7h, flop came 2h5s8c, I check-called the now-standard cbet of 40. Turn Jh, I c/r'd a bet of 100 up to 310 and he folded.
Then came the hand where the match really changed. I defended w/TcJc, flop came Jh7h7c. I check-called 40, turn 9c. I check-called 100, river 8d giving me the straight. I led out 310 into 340 and my opponent raised to 980. WTF!! I tanked for a bit and asked him if he'd boated up, which was obv what he was repping, and against a straightforward player this is such an obvious fold, but this guy had been such a monkey that folding wasn't really an option. I called and he showed Qd 4d for the stone river bluff, LOL. This gave me an almost 2:1 chip lead.
That turned the first match in my favor and I never ceded the lead. Later I defended w/A8o and check-called 40 on a 339r flop. Turn 8, I c/c'd 110, river 7, I c/c'd 240, he showed Qd 5d.
Thr first match ended w/me raising AQo, he defended. Flop 3d5dQc, I bet 40, he cr'd to 120, I called. Turn 4h, he checks, I bet 200, he CRAI's to 680, I instacall, he shows 2h 3h for bottom pair+OESD, river bricks.
His stats for the match were something like 61/54/15.8 - yes, an AF of 15.8 - and didn't appreciably change. My defense was easy - play about 55/45/0.9! I just slow-played everything and he only really started to adjust after it was already too late.
The second match was over very quickly, something like 32 hands. We donked back and forth a small bit. Finally a huge hand hit when I had JhKh, opened to 30, he defended. Flop came 2h4h8c for overs+2nfd. He checks, I bet 40, he cr'd to 120 as he always did (his c/r percentage was over 70% for the match). I 3bet to 420, he 4bet to 1040, I shoved for 920 more, he folds!!!!! Yes ladies and gentlemen that is a postflop 4bet-fold.
The sick thing about that hand is that I knew I had FE. He had been 3betting me so much that I figured he was going to try to stay a level ahead and on a board like this, relatively innocuous, he knew I might try to come over the top with air, and pre-planned a 4bet in advance. His 4bet was way too fast. Obviously my overs+FD are the nuts, but against a player like him it's ordinarily more profitable to wait until it hits, unless you get them to 4bet-fold.
Final hand was sexy too, I had 22 and defended, flop 23Q, noice! I check-called 40 despite a FD being on the board, turn is a 2!!! I check, he bets 100, I call. River is a 9, I check, he bets 270, I CRAI 625 more, he puke/calls off his last chips with Q5o. Not horrible on his part actually, and he knew I was defending him so light that he had to keep v-betting TPNK, and he has to be conscious of my potentially coming over the top w/missed clubs or w/e. Poor guy goes to all this trouble to set up a maniac image, finally gets to vbet thin, and runs into quads. Not his day.
Next match I'm up against a very good 2p2 regular who I've played against quite a bit at 1/2 on FT, so we'll see how it goes ... suffice to say that I expect the match to be less about exploitation and more about unexploitability.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Back in stride?
April was rough, essentially a breakeven month where I endured a $1500 downswing. It was a mixture of bad-ish play and running bad, I think. Lots of coolers one way, no coolers the other, but I think I took the LAGgish tendencies I've been developing over the past couple of months and took them a little too far, playing more like a maniac. I learned to start chilling on my cbets a bit, as nobody observant was giving me any respect, and I wasn't hitting the hands to make that profitable; meanwhile I was bleeding a lot of money in small pots.
Thus month I've calmed down and have been running about 19/14, which is about in my comfort zone. I had to deal with a ~-$800 session about a week ago, but have followed that up with four straight winning sessions, including a $1030 day today, the first $1k day I've had in a while (I put together two in March, none in April). Notably, I was up over $500 in non-showdown pots today, which is extremely weird for me.
Thus month I've calmed down and have been running about 19/14, which is about in my comfort zone. I had to deal with a ~-$800 session about a week ago, but have followed that up with four straight winning sessions, including a $1030 day today, the first $1k day I've had in a while (I put together two in March, none in April). Notably, I was up over $500 in non-showdown pots today, which is extremely weird for me.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
New biggest pot ever...
...by a lot.
So I'm sitting at an NL400 deep table. I've started mixing in some NL400 to my game on the juicier nights, because the volume of fish that play that high certainly justifies the increased risk and because my BR is in a good spot. NL400 is still pretty much a hornet's nest compared to the relative softness of NL200 (NL100 to NL400 is by far the biggest 2-step jump in poker) but on a Friday night all the fish seem to want to play a bit higher than normal, and I'd be a fool not to follow them.
I'd done well at the table and in the first rotation increased my $800 buy-in to over $1k, and saw it swing between there and $1200 for most of the night. Until this hand.
The funny thing was, this particular villain didn't strike me as one of the megafish until here. His stats were on the loosey-aggro side, and I had a feeling that he was maybe getting bored and was about to pop, but coming over the top like this? That's unpossible!
I'd played a hand not long ago where I'd c/r'd his cbet with a draw and he dumped the hand instantly, to which I had a chuckle and said to myself "wow, he really doesn't want to play around with our stacks." Maybe he had the same thought, decided that made him seem like a pussy, and felt the need to validate his manhood. Or maybe on a Friday night he had friends/his girlfriend watching him, and wanted to show off his big balls in putting $1k into the middle.
Or maybe it was a misclick. LOL.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to call. I didn't, like, use up my whole timebank or anything, and it was 0% slowroll, I just took a second to process the move and knock my brain out of the mode the bet put it into, which was something along the lines of "holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit". When I'm calling off a cool thousand, and there's two hands that beat me, I need to work myself through the full extent of the logic that says there's no way he has one of those two hands.
I gotta say, though: having over $2k at a NL200 table? Pretty pimp.
I started off well last night but the wheels came off not long into the session, dropping $1k (from +$500 to -$500) with alarming alacrity. This hand made me unstuck :) Won about $600 last night all told, a good $400 below my EV.
So I'm sitting at an NL400 deep table. I've started mixing in some NL400 to my game on the juicier nights, because the volume of fish that play that high certainly justifies the increased risk and because my BR is in a good spot. NL400 is still pretty much a hornet's nest compared to the relative softness of NL200 (NL100 to NL400 is by far the biggest 2-step jump in poker) but on a Friday night all the fish seem to want to play a bit higher than normal, and I'd be a fool not to follow them.
I'd done well at the table and in the first rotation increased my $800 buy-in to over $1k, and saw it swing between there and $1200 for most of the night. Until this hand.
Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com
Mammola (UTG+1): $957.00
Zockermicha (MP1): $176.00
dewshy (MP2): $269.15
mikeymike1384 (CO): $1059.25
The_Tuz (BTN): $997.00
Hero (SB): $1023.85
T80085 (BB): $735.30
Mrsfields99 (UTG): $639.00
Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is SB with 8c 8s
4 folds, mikeymike1384 raises to $14, 1 fold, Hero calls $12, 1 fold
Flop: ($32.00) Qc 8h Ah (2 players)
Hero checks, mikeymike1384 bets $30, Hero raises to $82, mikeymike1384 raises to $1045.25 all in, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $927.85 all in
Turn: ($2051.70) Ks (2 players - 2 are all in)
River: ($2051.70) 8d (2 players - 2 are all in)
Final Pot: $2051.70
mikeymike1384 shows 2s As (two pair, Aces and Eights)
Hero shows 8c 8s (four of a kind, Eights)
Hero wins $2048.70
(Rake: $3.00)
The funny thing was, this particular villain didn't strike me as one of the megafish until here. His stats were on the loosey-aggro side, and I had a feeling that he was maybe getting bored and was about to pop, but coming over the top like this? That's unpossible!
I'd played a hand not long ago where I'd c/r'd his cbet with a draw and he dumped the hand instantly, to which I had a chuckle and said to myself "wow, he really doesn't want to play around with our stacks." Maybe he had the same thought, decided that made him seem like a pussy, and felt the need to validate his manhood. Or maybe on a Friday night he had friends/his girlfriend watching him, and wanted to show off his big balls in putting $1k into the middle.
Or maybe it was a misclick. LOL.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to call. I didn't, like, use up my whole timebank or anything, and it was 0% slowroll, I just took a second to process the move and knock my brain out of the mode the bet put it into, which was something along the lines of "holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit". When I'm calling off a cool thousand, and there's two hands that beat me, I need to work myself through the full extent of the logic that says there's no way he has one of those two hands.
I gotta say, though: having over $2k at a NL200 table? Pretty pimp.
I started off well last night but the wheels came off not long into the session, dropping $1k (from +$500 to -$500) with alarming alacrity. This hand made me unstuck :) Won about $600 last night all told, a good $400 below my EV.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Fascinating hand
I posted this one at 2+2 and feel the need to post it here. Played a crazy hand at a deep-stacked NL200 table.
Villain is a good regular player, a pro, who I have at about 14/11 and who is capable of impressive aggression at times, although his overall AF isn't that ridiculous.
Effective stacks are $400.
I raise from MP2 with Ad Kd, making it $7 to go, and villain cold-calls me from the button. Everyone else folds.
Flop comes Qc 9c 5s.
That's a good enough board for a cbet, so I fire out $13 into the $17 pot, pretty standard. Villain raises me to $46.
Ordinarily that would be the end of the hand, except that I had a read that this villain was feeling exceptionally frisky today, based on some of his play. He's going to be capable of raising any draws, of course, but also I felt, pretty much any pocket pair and quite a few weak queens to "figure out where he's at".
So I reraise him up to $105. Probably pretty spewy in hindsight but with the 200bb stacks to play with, I felt like I had a lot of wiggle room as far as how hard I could push. The bluff felt justified because any drawing hand would have to feel the pressure of the implied turn bet to go along with it.
Villain calls. Well, crap, that didn't work.
Turn is the 2s, putting the 2nd flush draw out there. I check. Villain checks back.
Well isn't that interesting. I began to wrack my brain for the range of hands that villain would be checking behind on the turn, and it was very narrow - pretty much limited to draws and MAYBE the occasional weak Queen, on a hand like QKs, that just flat out didn't believe me on the flop and was now praying for a cheap showdown.
The turn paired the 9 on the board, the 9s. It felt pretty safe, even though it put the backdoor flush out there it felt like he would have bet Ts Js, which is the only spade flush hand I could have seen him having.
Now I've got a bit of a predicament. My turn check belied my weakness, but so did his; there's NO WAY he's checking back that turn with a strong made hand like a set. Too many draws - he knows that TJs is in my own opening range from MP2 and knows that I'm not the sort of FPS player that would go for a suicidal turn C/R. At the same time, I know the same of him. Each of us knows that each other's range is pretty weak, and yet, there's $227 in the pot up for grabs.
I considered a $105 or so bet, working it as a blocking bluff, which should generally be enough to push him off TJs. Yes I know I'm ahead of TJs, but the purpose is still to push him off of it because I'm in a bit of a pickle: I can't call a shove. I'm not that good; I'd adjust my read and second-guess the information from his turn-check if he came over the top of me. At the same time this player is perfectly capable of coming over the top of a weakish river bet with air, given the weakness I've shown myself. Maybe a master could bet/call, but if I bet, I'm folding to a raise.
So instead I chose to shove, an overbet of $288 into the $227 pot. I like this play best, I'm convinced, because:
- It's no worse against drawing hands that villain has decided not to put another cent into the pot with - it wins me what is in the pot without having to show down my flop bluff
- It has the benefit of pushing him off of almost any single pair hand; this particular player doesn't really have the balls to call off 140bb with a hand like TP2K or a pair below TP. His read on me isn't going to be THAT strong despite the flop bet
- It absolutely prevents him from bluffing me off the hand himself.
It felt like a 90% valuebet 10% bluff, maybe getting him off a weakish queen but certainly getting him off of 100% of what he could realistically be holding.
In this case it worked. Villain folded, and later confirmed on 2+2 that the best hand did in fact win. Which means he either had TJ and/or clubs.
Interesting hand din a very nice day yesterday: ~$1150+. My monthly graph looks a lot better now, not that it was bad before.
Villain is a good regular player, a pro, who I have at about 14/11 and who is capable of impressive aggression at times, although his overall AF isn't that ridiculous.
Effective stacks are $400.
I raise from MP2 with Ad Kd, making it $7 to go, and villain cold-calls me from the button. Everyone else folds.
Flop comes Qc 9c 5s.
That's a good enough board for a cbet, so I fire out $13 into the $17 pot, pretty standard. Villain raises me to $46.
Ordinarily that would be the end of the hand, except that I had a read that this villain was feeling exceptionally frisky today, based on some of his play. He's going to be capable of raising any draws, of course, but also I felt, pretty much any pocket pair and quite a few weak queens to "figure out where he's at".
So I reraise him up to $105. Probably pretty spewy in hindsight but with the 200bb stacks to play with, I felt like I had a lot of wiggle room as far as how hard I could push. The bluff felt justified because any drawing hand would have to feel the pressure of the implied turn bet to go along with it.
Villain calls. Well, crap, that didn't work.
Turn is the 2s, putting the 2nd flush draw out there. I check. Villain checks back.
Well isn't that interesting. I began to wrack my brain for the range of hands that villain would be checking behind on the turn, and it was very narrow - pretty much limited to draws and MAYBE the occasional weak Queen, on a hand like QKs, that just flat out didn't believe me on the flop and was now praying for a cheap showdown.
The turn paired the 9 on the board, the 9s. It felt pretty safe, even though it put the backdoor flush out there it felt like he would have bet Ts Js, which is the only spade flush hand I could have seen him having.
Now I've got a bit of a predicament. My turn check belied my weakness, but so did his; there's NO WAY he's checking back that turn with a strong made hand like a set. Too many draws - he knows that TJs is in my own opening range from MP2 and knows that I'm not the sort of FPS player that would go for a suicidal turn C/R. At the same time, I know the same of him. Each of us knows that each other's range is pretty weak, and yet, there's $227 in the pot up for grabs.
I considered a $105 or so bet, working it as a blocking bluff, which should generally be enough to push him off TJs. Yes I know I'm ahead of TJs, but the purpose is still to push him off of it because I'm in a bit of a pickle: I can't call a shove. I'm not that good; I'd adjust my read and second-guess the information from his turn-check if he came over the top of me. At the same time this player is perfectly capable of coming over the top of a weakish river bet with air, given the weakness I've shown myself. Maybe a master could bet/call, but if I bet, I'm folding to a raise.
So instead I chose to shove, an overbet of $288 into the $227 pot. I like this play best, I'm convinced, because:
- It's no worse against drawing hands that villain has decided not to put another cent into the pot with - it wins me what is in the pot without having to show down my flop bluff
- It has the benefit of pushing him off of almost any single pair hand; this particular player doesn't really have the balls to call off 140bb with a hand like TP2K or a pair below TP. His read on me isn't going to be THAT strong despite the flop bet
- It absolutely prevents him from bluffing me off the hand himself.
It felt like a 90% valuebet 10% bluff, maybe getting him off a weakish queen but certainly getting him off of 100% of what he could realistically be holding.
In this case it worked. Villain folded, and later confirmed on 2+2 that the best hand did in fact win. Which means he either had TJ and/or clubs.
Interesting hand din a very nice day yesterday: ~$1150+. My monthly graph looks a lot better now, not that it was bad before.
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