some more poker, MOP

Haven't been playing a hell of a lot recently. Ran bad/played bad tonight but only ended up stuck like half a buy-in.

I noticed something strange on UB today. I've spent most of my poker playing the past month or so on FTP because of UB's stupid upgrade that stopped letting you save hand histories (or rather, more than four at a time; they fixed it but at the end of my session a few hours ago it seemed like the problem was back. Fucking ridiculous.) Anyway, I played on UB for the first time in a while. The play was SO fucking horrible.

Take for instance this hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?716101

Hand #37040068-96710 at Downey (No Limit Hold'em)
Started at 05/Jan/07 06:30:32

themffulton is at seat 0 with $173.40.
BigBruin007 is at seat 1 with $201.65 (sitting out).
eje63 is at seat 2 with $278.50.
Matthe is at seat 3 with $25.85.
laxlax is at seat 4 with $124.95.
conjenrick is at seat 5 with $91.60.
The button is at seat 0.

eje63 posts the small blind of $.50.
Matthe posts the big blind of $1.

themffulton: Jd Kc
eje63: -- --
Matthe: -- --
laxlax: -- --
conjenrick: -- --

Pre-flop:

laxlax folds. conjenrick folds. themffulton raises
to $3.50. eje63 calls. Matthe folds.

Flop (board: 4d 6h 3c):

eje63 checks. themffulton bets $4. eje63 calls.

Turn (board: 4d 6h 3c Kh):

eje63 checks. themffulton checks.

River (board: 4d 6h 3c Kh 6c):

eje63 bets $16. themffulton raises to $32. eje63
calls.



Showdown:

themffulton shows Jd Kc.
themffulton has Jd Kc 6h Kh 6c: two pair, kings and sixes.
eje63 mucks cards.
(eje63 has Ah 3h.)


Hand #37040068-96710 Summary:

$2 is raked from a pot of $80.
themffulton wins $78 with two pair, kings and sixes.

The value-raise on the river looks thin as hell, right? Well, it was a misclick. I meant to just flat-call. Maybe not making raises like this against these kinds of players has been costing me a little. You're really, really unlikely to be up against a bluff here, because so few hands are putting in another bet here for value you're going to see even fewer people trying to push you out.

But again, I digress. This wasn't even atypical for the dozen or so people I was playing against (3 tabling). It was all sick, maniacal play. People were betting pot-sized on every street, raising and reraising so many hands preflop and calling down with shit like ace high on a regular basis. Granted, people who play in the .5/1 game aren't usually the greatest players. In fact, most of them are idiots. But this was above and beyond some of the things I had seen and couldn't figure out why it was so prevalent.

Then I read the name of a guy up 7 buy ins at my table: PrtyPokersGay. Oh yeah. All the fish there had to migrate, and they've found me at UB. Good.

Getting further in Mathematics of Poker and am reaching a point where I understand it less and less. I've started to actually ignore decent amount of the math because it's way too over my head and instead just try to glean some information from the results that they find. It makes me feel like I'm cheating on a test or something, but even without understanding a lot of what Chen/Ankennman are talking about, it is still easily one of the best poker books ever written.

Since Christmas, I've had this fancy new laptop that works so hopefully I'll be able to play a lot more in the future. Work lately has put me on a really fucked up schedule (it's 8 a.m. and am planning on being awake for another 12 hours; and I didn't go to bed last night) so it makes it hard because I've been trying to avoid playing while tired, because I think that's when I'm the most likely to play with a "fuck it, let's gamble" mindset. I also started playing guitar again with some friends which has taken up a lot of my post-midnight time which is when I was previously playing the bulk of my poker.