Is this a pattern...?

This past Tuesday night was the weekly freeroll at a local establishment here in town and I was stood up by my buddy who wasn't feeling well. I went anyway and really didn't feel like playing but once everything got started it was all good.

My first hand was A3 offsuit and will typically fold this hand but the blinds were low and it was a good opportunity to test the players at the table. I limp in as does about everyone else at the table. The flop comes 3-3-Q which hits a low set for me but I figure with the Ace kicker I am sitting with the best hand. QQ would have raised preflop and so I am betting I am good. Checked to me and I raise it 2xBB which was 40. I get three callers which leaves 4 in the game. Next card is a 6 and I bet 40 again. One caller and the other two fold. I figure this guy either has two pair or is chasing a straight draw. Last card is 10 and I bet the pot. The guy calls it and flips over a six. I show the 3 and grab the pot.

I become Mr. Foldy for the next 6 hands due to no cards AT ALL. Best hand was 84 suited. I am finally dealt a descent hand of KJ of spades. Not a great hand but good enough to limp in with. Flop comes with two spades and a King so I bet 50 and the button goes all in. I call him and he shows pocket Aces. I never get another King or a spade so he takes the pot.

This guy was pretty good, and I knew to put him on a strong hand but I figured he didn't have the two Kings and the chances of him having a spade draw was not that great. He said that it was a good call since I had the pot odds and he was correct.

Two hands later I get Pocket Kings. I am the SB so when the bet gets to me I raise it 600. Same guy calls in late positions me as does the button. Flop comes with 3 clubs (Q-10-3). One of my Kings is a club so I am not looking too bad but I check to see what happens. The LP (late position) pushes all-in and the button calls him. OK, so if I were to analyze this correctly I would have to put both of these players on a flush draw. I would imagine that LP has the nuts and the button may be Jack high. I push all-in forcing the button to call my additional raise. I am betting that I am losing to the LP hand but will come back with a win against the button. At the flip I show my Kings and LP shows A-4 of clubs having the nut flush. The button shows a Qh8c offsuit giving her a pair of Queens and a flush draw. Turn card is a 6 clubs and the River is a 4 clubs. I lose the LP pot but win the button pot. Button is left with 200, I am at 1700 and LP is now at around 2400.

Two hands later I get AK on the button and bet 1500 after table is limping in. I try to portray a pot steal and the BB raises me all-in and I call. He panics when he see's my big slick (name for AK) and he shows J9 of spades which gives me a nice advantage. To make a long story short, hit pairs up his nine on the turn and beats my hand which sends me home early.

I lost two hands with very powerful hands and took a large pot with a marginal hand. This is what you get when you play freerolls and low limits. There is no incentive to play well rather than just follow everything to the river and hope you get a good hand.

It is still a lot of fun and it doesn't cost me a cent so I will continue doing this, but this type of game does more damage than good if you think that you are getting really good because the cards come your way. That is a prescription for disaster in the long run.

Good Luck!

Jacks are better!

Last night we had the inaugural NWA Poker club tournament and it was a great start of what should be some really good poker in the future!

As in my prior posts, I have been swimming in some pretty bad cards and some terrible beats lately. That apparently ended last night!

There were two tourneys last night. The first was a $20 buyin with 21 players. I was at table 1 (of 3) and since I had never played with any of these people before I decided to play very tight. On the first hand there was a three way all-in with the button, small blind and big blind (did I say that this was the first hand?) It started with large preflop bets, and after the flop all three went all in. The button and BB both showed pocket Jacks, and the SB showed pocked 7's. SB hit a set on the flop and put both of them out. Did I mention it was the first hand?

After that hand, it seemed that there was a Jack on every single board for the rest of that tourney. I won at least 7 pots by keeping a Jack and hitting high pair or a set on the board. Pocket Jacks showed up 8 times and only one once (mine of course), but people were winning with a single Jack. It was almost surreal how the Jacks captivated the table. I folded a Jack a few times and threw away a winning hand.

I busted Aces with a Jack hand. Pretty good night.

In the first game, I made it to the final table and eventually came in second.

And it couldn't have come at a better time!

In the second game, the cards came a bit quicker. I loosened up a bit, and that aggression worked well enough to get me to the final table again. There were two hands that defined my second game performance. In the first hand I was in the SB and was dealt KK. I raised into the BB with a 2xBB raise and BB folded and the button called all-in. I was able to pull back half of the bet because the button was short stacked. He showed Aces and they held up! Nice hand.

The second hand was with the same guy. I have about 1400 chips and he is at about 2200. I am dealt 10/10 and I push all-in. He calls and flips over 9's. He catches a miracle 9 on the river and puts me out. I made it to fourth place in that game.

First of all, I had a great time and relish times like this very much. Last night verified to me that my game is relatively sound which means nothing other than I can substantiate the win with the acknowledgment of hard work. Second of all it was very nice to win a little money to cover the cost that buy-in's.

I want to thank Chris Peplinski and his fiance Chrissy for the wonderful job that they did in hosting the first tourney. I met some really nice people like Rance, Don, Tom, J.Bo, and Cake Boy which makes the experience that much better!

I am looking forward to the next one!

This just goes to show you that in whatever you do there are times when things go your way and times when they don't. It is in those times when they don't go your way that you learn and mature to be better.

Good Play...Bad Cards...

My online drought has continued...

...and it has been pretty bad!

I played a SNG today in which over the first 14 hands I failed to get an Ace, face card, pair or connectors. WOW.

When I finally got a descent hand, it was pocket fours. I played them and BIG cards came out on the flop so I had to fold them.

I have read online about the significance of these periods of not winning and it can be very difficult at best to endure. One good thing is that I am having to learn a managable way of playing lesser cards. I don't know how good that is for me as a strategy, but it is helping in my ability to sniff out aggressive players that tend to bluff with nothing.

I have a local game tonight so I will let you know how I do. Hopefully the cards a nice to me for a change.

I won every hand I folded!!!

Rail Birds.....?

Last night I met up with a friend of mine and we went to a local establishment where they hold a weekly freeroll tourney. This atmosphere is much different than the one online primarily because when someone starts bugging out over a hand you can't mute them.

The very first hand I am dealt Qh (Queen of hearts) and a 3c (Three of clubs). I am in middle position which means that I fold this hand. With eight people at the table, the odds of this being the winning hand are very slim. Well needless to say that I would have won this hand with a full house! The very next hand I was dealt 6h/3d. I fold. The flop comes 3/6/10. The turn is another 6. The river is a King. Two folded full boats!!!

That is the way my game went all night. The only pocket pair I got were 3's which I folded, and 5's that I pushed all-in with and went out on. I stole a few pots here and there, but I never got the cards.

Although the cards never came my way last night, I have to say that I had a lot of fun - and my friend came in 5th place.

Bad...and getting worse

So I have read in many magazines that winning and losing is just part of poker, and I have already submitted a post concerning losing. My problem now is that I am in the middle of a string of misses that is really starting to affect me. I call big pots with nut flushes only to lose to a 8/6 full house (and it took both the turn and the river to hit it!). I am losing every coinflip, and since I am on this streak I can't play aggressive because the odds are against me hitting the cards I need. I have didn't play for a few days, then went back to the basics. Still lost all of my draws. My bankroll is down to it's lowest point it has ever been.

Last night was the first time in a week that I made it in-the-money (ITM) and I quit right afterwards to make sure I didn't lose my winnings.

I am re-examining my play and I can't find too many flaws considering the talent level that I am playing. I will take it slow and build up my bankroll again and see where it goes from there.

Poker and Football

I played very little poker over the past weekend because of the NFL playoffs. Football takes a priority over poker (most of the time). There were some really good games and I learned to dislike Randy Moss even more than I thought I could, and it's not because of the end-zone celebration (mooning incident) either, it's because all this guy can do is deep post and slat routes. If he isn't in the play, he is useless. He is an overpaid thug that helps Dante by giving him great numbers. Dante is not that good of a QB either. But I digress.

I have learned to respect Peyton Manning as a QB. I have never believed the hype about how good he was, and he wasn't that good at Tennessee. His little brother isn't all that either. They are methodical players that NEED good players around them. QB's like Vick, Favre, and dare I say McNabb all can make things happen on the field with lesser talent. Tom Brady is a great QB as well. Bulger is getting there if his O-line can give him time. Pennington and Rothlisberger (sp) both are pretty talented, but they are young with talent around them.

This being said, I enjoyed last weeks games and am looking forward to the games this weekend.

OK....Now for some poker

I played in a freeroll tourney last night at a local establishment and I had a lot of fun. Since most of my poker experience is online where I can scream and yell and whine without affecting the table - real live poker is different.

I wanted to play this tourney just for a change of pace for one thing, but I also needed to working my skills of reading my opponents. I have not even begun to master this art and I assume that I will have to read a book to get more info.

I did play rather well in the tourney making it to the final table, but went out first in 9th place. I was pleased with my play since I didn't know anyone there. There were a lot of lucky beats and I played pretty tight considering.

The first hand I actually played was a huge pot for me. I am dealt 10/7 in the BB. Fold, call, call, fold, fold, call, and I check. Flop comes 10c/3d/7d and I catch two pair. SB bets 200, I call, next player raises it to 300, fold, SB calls and I cap it at 300. Turn card is 4d. SB checks, I check and next guy checks. I am putting SB on top pair and I have put MP on a flush draw. River is a 10d. I am hoping that someone hits the nut flush, so I place a T1000 bet to get some action. My new friend in MP asks me for a chip count (woo hoo) and puts me all-in. SB folds and I call. He flips over the Ace of diamonds and starts lauging until I show him the boat. It was a nice way to more than double up and that is exactly what you want when you draw a hand like that.

Another hand in the game had me pinned up against who I thought was the best player at the table. I was dealt Qs/Js and it turned into a heads up between the two of us. The flop was As/3d/10c so I was drawing to the nut gutshot straight. I had about T8000 chips and he was at about T5000. He had been pushing aggressively all night and really bullied the people at the table, and he tended to push all-in without too much of a hand. So with this flop he bets into me for T2000. The odds are against me here for the straight, and if he has the ace I can't touch him but I cannot let him think that he can bully me here so I raise him all-in. This wasn't that bad of a bet, Doyle Brunson says that you should always make someone play for all of their chips as often as possible. That may be a bit outdated, but there is a lot of truth to that position, and I felt like enforcing it tonight. This guy starts looking at me for a tell, and I look at him and ask him if he wants to see my cards (with a grin) and he says "yeah"...so I tell him that it will only cost him some worthless chips! He smiles and pushes in and shows Ad/10d. I flip over my QJ hand and he looks back at me and starts shaking his head. He said that I only have 4 outs and I told him that was all I was going to need and everyone kind of chuckled and then the turn card came out with a King! I had hit my straight, but he still had 4 outs to hit is full house. So he says that it is his turn to get his four outer, and I tell him that lightening had already struck this table and the river was a 4h. He gave a very professional nod my way and I went over and shook his hand. I heard him tell someone near another table that he thought he had a good read on me with a middle pair which I could see because of the way I was betting. I was lucky with the turn.

I went on to get T24000 in chips, but when they had the last table change I was next to a guy with T65000 and he stole everything at the table. I called him on a bad hand and took him for about T8000 but then went out two hands later on a semi-bluff.

All in all I had a very good time.

....and introducing....The Kimminator!!!

So we had a very fun couples night last night in which we played a $5 Texas Hold'em tourney. We had some good friends over and all together there were 3 couples. This was the first time my wife had ever played, and she was doing this to humor me because she really didn't want to play - but being a great wife she participated like a real trooper.

The game had rebuys, and we usually never have more than one or two a game so the game was going to be more fun than intense. I actually figured my wife Kim would be out within the first hour which would give her an excuse to stop playing. It was only thirty minites into the game and I was rebuying (no comment) along with one of the other wives. That was fine, I intended to win it all back.

The problem with having some experience playing poker is that you are typically playing against people that understand the in's and out's of how to bet and some of the more advanced card play tactics. You learn how to read your opponents, put them on a specific hand and utilize strategy to win the hand. You have to literally throw all of this out of the window on couples night.

I was folding quite a bit after my rebuy because in games like this you have to have a very good hand to play because everyone was playing all the way to the river and catching lucky cards to make their straights and flushes. I would play medium hands in the small blind and big blind and typically play big hands regardless of position (because no one knew what position was anyway).

So Kim is basically playing as a calling station. I don't think that she raised a bet all night. She would check or call...that's it. Most of the time she would have a great hand. She pulled down 6 full houses, it was getting to the point where if she was still in the hand and there was a possible FH on the board that people would fold. It was really funny.

There was one hand in which I was playing against my wife and another lady and I had two pair one of which was an ace. By the end of the hand, Kim basically pushed her hand face down and said something like "I don't have anything" and of course I said "Oh you never know, show us the cards!" Well she had a diamond flush which took the pot. She was winning hands and she didn't even know what she was doing.

We had a lot of fun. And she came in third place!

The Joy of Losing...?

Every poker player goes through it....the peaks and valleys of your bankroll. At least in the low-limit arena the big swings in my bankroll are $15-$30 in a single day and not hundreds or even thousands in cases of other poker players that I have spoken with. (Don't these guys have a house payment?)

Well tonight was a swing toward the valley...

I was beat out of a $5 sng in fourth place (one place out of the money!), then I lost in a $10 sng. I decided to play some heads up sng's in which turned out to be both a losing venture as well as a learning experience.

Heads Up SNG's
(By the way...sng stands for Sit and Go tournament which means that you pay $5,$10 or $20 to get 1500 chips and play until you either win or run out chips. You typically play against either 1 person (heads up) or 8 others (standard) with the winners getting a share of the pot.)

My first heads up sng was against a player called vanhalen1. I only remember this because I remarked about how that was a great album and I got a great response back from him and I quote "yeah". I was keeping up with mr vanhalen1 and pulled ahead a bit when the following hand came up where I was dealt a Qc/Jc. Soooted!!! I tripled the BB bet of 40 making the bet to him 120. He called. The flop came out QQ6. Woo Hoo!!! I Bet 360 (remember this isn't real money!) and he called. next card was a 4, and I check and he checks. Last card is a 10 and he pushes all in and I call which left me 80 chips left. The cards flip over and he has a Queen and a 6 giving him a full house.

...That's Poker! You know that you are going to lose a few of these every once and a while...and if Murphy's law is invoked that means that this will happen to you a bunches and very close together.

I came back somewhat then lost that game.

I entered another heads up sng, and I lose that one in almost the same way. I have trip sixes and he has trip eights. Go Figure.

Then the last game I figure that I will play knowing I am going to lose it and study my opponent. It must be understood that in a heads up game, the way you play and the cards that you should be willing to play are considerably different that if you were 6-8 handed. Back to the game. The person I was playing was about my skill level which only means it took much longer to lose this game than the other two.

I made the conscience effort to study my opponents play and watch for weaknesses. I found them, but unfortunately the cards did not agree with me. Of the 14 coinflips that I was in today/tonight I only won 2. That is a trend that I will hopefully not repeat for a while.

My KQ was being beat by 5/6. I never got Aces. I never got a pair better than Jacks. I actually had A10 suited in spades and lost a flush draw to a straight flush (Oh the humanity).

Oh yeah...what is the malarky about the JOY of LOSING? Here it is. Sometimes all the skill in the world doesn't change the fact that sometimes you aren't going to get the cards, and you still have to learn how to win without them. Use this time to learn, because if you just kick the dirt and whine you will be in the same place a year from now. Still Losing!

Online Whiners....

I just got finished beating an individual in a heads-up NL Hold'em game on Full Tilt and I was so pissed that I had to leave the site.

Here is the situation:
This guy has been projecting his blind steals all game. He milk's it hard when he is strong and bet's hard when he has a small pair or and Ace in his hand.

I am dealt 9h 10c in the BB. Blinds are 40/80 and he calls the bet and I check. Flop comes out 9c/Qc/10s. He checks and I bet T320 (2X pot value). He immediately calls. Next card is a 4c. He pushes all-in. I figure that he is weak and just trying to steal the pot with a projected flush draw, and with two pair I felt strong enough to at least take him with rough odds of hitting the boat. I call him and he shows Kh 2d. The last card is a rag and here it comes. "You dirty SOB, how could you call that bluff?". "I hate playing bad players!!!" and the best one was "I don't get those calls in the $100 Heads Up SNG." ...Sure you don't.

Wah Wah Wah....

I have sand in my panties and I am going to tell!!!

Nice Hand......?

Since I live in Arkansas, it is extremely difficult to find live poker games let alone a casino within 200 miles. This is one reason why internet poker is just so dang appealing.

There are some drawbacks to this appeal one of which is the fact that any idiot can create an account and play poker. It is hard to learn the game let alone enjoy it when the game goes from being No-Limit Hold'em to No Fold'em Hold'em. This frustration is complicated by the fact that everyone wants to start an argument when they lose a hand or catch a bad beat. And most of these players are kids too.

Let me say for the record that going all-in before the flop with AA or KK when you are the short stack on the button does not require any comment after the hand. Although you have the percentages on your side to win the hand, there is no real tactic to this move other that trying to steal the blinds with brute force. I don't need some 17 year old railbird throwing me a "nice hand" comment. Just shut up kid!

A nice hand is when I have 8/5 offsuit (85o) and I raise, re-raise before the flop and push after the flop knowing that I don't have anything. Better yet, getting someone with pocket jacks to show them and then fold! That is a nice hand.

I play on Full Tilt Poker almost exclusively. The play on that site is very good, and many of the players are above average in terms of internet players. I also play on Party Poker some, but you never know what you are going to get. And even though FTP has very good players, there are plenty of idiots there as well!


And then there are Bad Beats

I have not been playing very long but I already have an amazing collection of bad beat stories. I guess every good poker player has some of these, and in many ways these are the growing pains that either teach you to be a better poker player or drive you away from the game.

If you don't know what a bad beat is, google it.

Most of my bad beats have come online, most of which were due to stupid lucky players. In most of those cases, I was able to get my money back from them plus some but it will drive you nuts and usually leads me to find another table somewhere else. Although most of my beats come online, the worst ones always come in live games with friends.

One of the worst hands (which wasn't a bad beat by the way) is in one of my other blogs, but here is a nice bad beat that I like to call Skrizewed!

One three day weekend a year, a group of about 10 guys goes out to a friend's summer home on the river and we do nothing but fish, golf, watch football and play lots of poker. It has been traditionally called "Guys Weekend". This past Guys Weekend was the first one where No Limit Hold'em was played. Typically we would play dealer's choice, so the nature of our poker games changed somewhat. Anyway we were playing a $5 buy-in tourney and all of us were in. We had two tables: one with 6 and the other with 4 players. I was at the table of four. After about six hands, one of the guys started getting restless and wanted to stop playing which wasn't really uncommon for this guy because he wasn't much of a card player and he grew tired of games very quickly.

Anyway, after a few more hands I am dealt KK. Unknown to me at the time, another guy at the table is dealt JJ. I plan to slow play the Kings since these are newbies and wouldn't call a large bet that early in a game when my impatient friend decides that he is done playing and asks what to do. I told him to go all in and turn his cards over every hand until he is out. So he does! He pushes all of his chips into the middle of the table and flips over his cards.....A 3 of diamonds and a 2 of diamonds!!!! WooHoo for me!!! My friend calls the all in, and I follow doing the same. So the flop some 10/7/3 rainbow. No Jacks!!!! The turn is a Queen. Just one more card....no Jacks please. The river card is a 2 and I am elated that it wasn't a Jack. That is when I realize that my impatient friend's 3/2 held up for two pair and beat out not only Jacks but my Kings as well. Well needless to say the impatient one had a change of attitude with his new found wealth and went on to rant about his poker prowess for the next hour. I ended up coming second in the tourney after a necessary rebuy.

I have had other beats like this one, but I had to listen to a friend rant about how he beat Mr. Poker's Kings with a 3 and a 2. It was just unbearable.

That is all.

Prologue

Like I said in my initial post, this blog is almost entirely about Poker. I may throw something about pro football, music or my kids in the mix - but it will generally be about Poker.

I first realized that I was interested in learning about this poker thing while watching the World Poker Tour (WPT) on the Travel Channel. I said to myself that this can't be that hard, and for crying out loud look at how much money these guys are raking in....! I got an online account with Party Poker and played very successfully with playmoney (which is an option for those that are either too scared or too broke to play with real money). After about 6 months of playing with playmoney and a bankroll of over a million playmoney dollars (I was feeling pretty confident!) I rushed out to the city library and checked out as many poker books that I could get my hands on.

As I read these books, I learned two important things:

1. People that write books about Poker intend to make it seem much more difficult and complicated than it really is...and

2. I was a lot better off not knowing all of the particulars about poker.

The second statement is not entirely true, but I can say that the experience was not very pleasant. I literally had to re-learn how to play poker, and I was dreadful for a while.

All of my experience was online, and I realized that much of the mechanics of poker had to do with learning to read people and interpret how they are going to play and react in each hand. I needed to play with humans, only because my two dogs are really good at poker and they stopped playing with my long ago.

I bought a really nice set of clay poker chips from someone on ebay, and began hosting a monthly game with people that I knew. They all thought it was for fun, but it was only a mechanism for me to use them as learning tools and take all of their money (evil laugh here!) ...and they were ripe for the picking!!!!

There were eight of us, and $10 to buy-in - 50% to the winner meant and nice chunk of change for my newly created bankroll. One of my good friends brought his wife to the first game I hosted, and she had never played before (haven't heard that one before!). Anyway to make a long story short, she won it all, and my friend came in second. I broke even, but felt humiliated because how could a person that never played before beat me....I mean come on....it's ME!

I learned a valuable lesson. Much too difficult for you to understand right now (only because I probably cannot put it into words!).

Here is a hand that I played in that could represent my entire evening in a nutshell:

I am dealt 10/10 in the Big Blind (which means that I have already automatically pushed in the minimum bet to start play). A few call the bet including my friend's wife (we will call her Eunice to protect the innocent). The flop comes out 4/6/10. I am sitting here with three 10's now and am trying to get as many people to stay in the pot!!!. Eunice bets first with a pretty high bet, and I call it. Every one else folds. Next card is an 8. Eunice doubles her first bet, and I double it with a raise. She thinks about it for a second and then calls that bet. Hmmm. I figure that she may have a straight draw working if she has a 7/9 in her hand, but all of my poker books say that she should not be playing that hand...and those books are always right! The river card is another 8. I hit a full house!!!! Eunice bets heavy, and I go ALL-IN!!!! Eunice doesn't even blink, she just pushes all of her chips into the middle. Poor Eunice, just doesn't know the genius that she is blessed to rub elbows with this particular evening. I grin and show my beautiful 10's and she starts giggling like a little kid. Must be her defense mechanism. I have her beat. Only one hand beats it.... She shows the other two 8's making four of a kind. I had never seen that before in my life...well my poker life.

I grinned, said nice hand and rebought some chips to continue playing.

I spend the next two weeks discecting that one hand. Where did I go wrong? What could I have done differently. I spoke online with another semi-amateur that I know(much better than me) and his answer was frustratingly simple:

"That's Poker!"

Well as much as I hate to say it, he is absolutely right. I can memorize all of the percentages and calculations, but nothing guarantees me a winning hand until the hand is over.

Well, in an effort to bring this full circle. We had another "Poker Night" in which I won everything and I was on the right side of all those good cards and as I was walking out of the door to go home Eunice could here me saying "That's Poker!!!!"

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