Indy and Politics

Before I go into my past weekend at the +1 meet in Indiana, I wanna bring up what Massachusetts Senator Barney Frank is doing in Washington. He has announced that he's proposing a bill that would lift the ban on online poker. If you sign up here, there is an automated message that you can send to your Senators, along with any personal comments you'd like to add. It only takes a couple minutes to sign up for the page, so this isn't something that should be put off.

Anyways, on to Indy.

I drove from Akron to Eminence in a little over five hours-- cutting the trip time by a half hour, even including the one rest stop I allowed myself. I walked into the basement and the game had already started. I sat down and we played some shorthanded HOSE, and I ran like god and managed to win about $100 in a .25/.50 game.

The rest of that night mainly consisted of drinking, eating, and playing a ton of poker. I lost a decent amount of my profit from the HOSE game back when I kept trying to bluff a very inebriated sucko. I switched gears a little and cut out any continuation bets when I was in heads up pots against him, and managed to take down a couple big pots before crashing on the floor.

The next couple days are a bit of a blur. A few highlights from the trip, though:

• Mark(Flipfish), Ty(Drome) and Sucko laid me 2-1 on a bounty in a tourney we played Friday night. Sucko was also propping against Drome for $20 on whether the flop would bring a majority of red or black cards. Because of this, on one hand he limped the button with 9s5s just to ensure that he could see the flop and hopefully hit 2 red cards to beat Ty. I checked the BB with T9 and flopped T97. I lead out and sucko called. A 9 rolled off on the turn, I bet again, he jammed and I busted him, earning the bounty from him and knocking him out of contention from the tourney (10+10) and two or three last longers. He still managed to profit in that tourney because of his prop bets with Drome. It's sick how good he runs.
• I got roped into playing Screw Your Neighbor again, but only played twice this year. The second time I was let in for a 40% discount (while at the same time playing stud hilo at another table) and managed to still lose. Live multitabling is really hard, by the way.
• I lost a $400 pot playing a .25/.25 pot limit game of hold'em with draws. The game works like this: preflop is like regular hold'em. The flop comes, you bet, and then you have the option of trading a card or staying pat. This happens again on the turn. There's no trade on the river. Anyways, very first hand I limp-- as does everyone else-- with JTo. The flop comes AK8 and someone bets a dollar. Everyone calls, as do I. Most people trade, but I and another person (cbal, I think) stay pat. The turn miraculously comes with a Q. Someone leads out and there is a caller or two in between. I raise the pot and sucko comes over the top. At this point, there probably wasn't enough to get all in, but we just shove all the chips in anyway. I was assuming that he'd made the same hand as me, but then he asked "do you have JT?" I thought it was pretty obvious. He traded the flop to draw QQ. Meanwhile, Chris says he folded a Q and Mark folded A8. The river comes an 8 and I managed to have a -80,000bb/100 hand "win" rate. What an awesome game.
• Ty has the worst pants ever made.

I'm sure I'll think of lots more to add later.

+1 Indy Meet Tomorrow

Driving out to Indiana tomorrow to go to the +1 Indy meet. I had an awesome time last year and in AC last Fall, so it should prove to be an awesome time.

Everyone thinks they're going to be the one to bust me on this trip. Hopefully karma will be an awesomely cruel bitch and I'll end up a big winner.

Tales of degeneracy to come in the next week.

Hypothetical Poker

It's important to keep in mind that no single hand should dramatically affect your poker results over your lifetime. Going one step further (or backwards, or sideways, as the case may be), it's also important to remember that once the money is all in, the actual outcome is effectively only negligibly significant. What is important is whether or not the correct (most profitable) play was made.

You can use this knowledge to console yourself in light of a bad beat. Remember, when your aces get all in preflop versus someone's sixes and they river a straight, you're still rich in Sklansky dollars. Go ahead and console yourself with this. It's okay. Just remmeber that whenyour hand holds up against those same sixes, you now owe the metaphorical Sklansky a moderate sum.

Sklansky dollars is a term (derived from the 2+2 forums, I believe) with a meaning synonymous to EV. But much like Sklansky's Fundamental Theorem of Poker which has been shown to be slightly too results oriented by certain game theory models*, simply looking at your EV in a single hand doesn't quite go far enough. This article which was linked to on +1 gives an awesome overview of a lot of concepts that a lot of people (including myself) overlook far too often. The article is a little heavy, but it's definitely worth the read.

*Most notably (at least in my opinion), the Jam or Fold game. Ex: jamming 10BB with T8o from the SB and then folding the T9o in the BB are both optimal plays, although FTOP makes folding look atrocious, even though it isn't

As a side note, because the link is on ESPN's website, I kind of assumed before reading it that the author of it was some Michael Craig or Steve Rosenbloomtype; the kind of guy who knows a little bit about poker and writes well, but isn't necessarily someone reliable in regards to poker theory. After reading it and still not recognizing the author's name, I was frustrated that some ESPN journalist can think about the game in such a complex yet lucid way while I barely even attempt to put this kind of work into my game.

I felt a little better when I checked the article again and learned that Phil Galfond is high stakes no limit cash player OMGClayAiken (which also has to be one of the best online handles).

And briefly, I wanna mention to all Cardrunners members that this weekend, the Brians Hastings and Townsend (I went to HS with a kid named Brian Hastings, but I doubt it's the same guy) played each other heads up at 5/10 pot limit omaha. I watched Townsend's first, and then watched Hastings' while streaming Townsend's so I could see both players' hole cards. These are two amazing videos, so definitely check them out, even if you don't play omaha.

Clearly an exaggeration, but...

...I can't help but laugh at this and wonder if this is the road we're going down. Like Prohibition and drug laws, the restrictions on online poker are bound to fail in the face of those who are truly dedicated to continue indulging (even if it does result in a big pain in the ass).

It has sound, if you happen to be watching this at work...

Didn't play much today. I get off of the night schedule after 7am on Monday, so then I should start to readjust, and hopefully stop feeling so lethargic day in and day out. Indy is in a week and a half, so I'll probably try to get in 5k hands or so by then. I know I'm going to get roped into some sick games with some tough players, so I want to make some money before I go and plug as many leaks as possible. If I can run like I did last year, the trip should be moderately profitable.

What Is And What Should Never Be

When I started playing poker online, even before I played no-limit, my general MO would be something like this-- have a good session, have a good session, decent session, great session, and then blow almost all of it at once.

It's good to see things haven't changed.

I shudder to think how much bigger my bankroll would be if I could just purge a few days from existence.

I think I've been playing really well the past couple weeks for the most part. I've been employing a much more consistent raise-or-fold strategy (for the most part, at least) which I think has picked up a ton of small pots that I probably didn't deserve to win. Specifically, I've been taking a lot more pots away from people who donk bet into my preflop raises on the flop. I've been fighting back against that move much more aggressively and liberally as of late and it seems to be paying off pretty well.

Still, though, I keep making stupid mistakes that aren't even necessarily strategy related. Like working a 10-hour night shift, getting home at 8 in the morning, and then deciding that now would probably be the best time to attempt 6-tabling for the first time.

I know. I'm a moron. I've since made up for that slightly costly debacle, but it never should've happened.

I've been watching a ton of Cardrunners videos the past few days. I've watched all of Brain's videos twice, and I've gone through about a dozen of Taylor's videos. It's disgusting how smart these guys are. This, like Poker Tracker, PAHUD, and playing poker in general (both live & online) is something I wish I would've gotten into earlier, because I feel like I've robbed myself of a lot of potential knowledge.

Indy is in less than two weeks. Should be fun, especially if I don't lose/play SYN.

random thoughts at 7:30 a.m.

It's unclear if this is particularly good news, but it certainly can't be bad news that the WTO ruled against the U.S. regarding the online poker ban. I doubt it means much of anything, but hopes are high.

I've been on the night-shift schedule since Tuesday. I'm working Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday night, and then again next Sunday. I hate admitting it, but it's definitely having some effect on me. Timewise, it's roughly early evening for me right now, but I'm exhausted right now. I've also had little to no social interaction the past few nights. It's a little sad.

Anyways, tomorrow night I'm working for 12 hours, but from about 11 til 6, everyone will be asleep, so I plan on spending that time watching copious amounts of cardrunners videos.

I haven't played any long sessions the past week or so, which is atypical for me. I've also only played SNG's the last two nights. I've actually done very well in them, although I've run really well, too. I played four tonight, taking down three of them. Not too shabby.

I feel like I'm playing much better in SNGs after having watched a couple Green Plastic videos. I've slowed down a lot short-handed, not trying to steal so often. That's something that I think has cost me a lot in the past. Clearly, it still has to be in the arsenal, but I've slowed down a lot. In the past, I had a tendency to either build up really high, or bust out relatively early in the SNG. These past few days, though, I've played much more solid (which is the direction that my game's been evolving towards, strangely, when you compare to how LAGgy I used to play) and chipping away at the smaller pots when possible.

Of course, the biggest factor was just running lucky, or more specifically, not getting UNlucky. Almost all of my all-in confrontations held up today, and even if I'm getting it in as a dominating favorite, it feels good to see the chips pushed in my direction instead of my opponent's after the river hits the board.

Okay, that's all for now.