StudioGlyphic

I feel strange if a day or two goes by and I don't play poker. I feel guilty if a few days go by and I don't post about poker. I feel like a godless babykiller when I write a shitty post like this one. More later.

Just got back from Commerce. It's 5AM and thus way too late to write up a report right now, but I thought I'd share the funniest thing Felicia said all day:

"You're much funnier in person than you are on your blog."
--Felicia Lee to Bill Rini

God bless Felicia Lee. Send her some mojo for tomorrow's (today's) satellites.

Great.

I don't mind driving in the rain, but rain in Los Angeles always causes clusterfucks like this:

Big red diamond #1:

5-6 Vehicle Traffic Collision Blocking Car Pool, #1, 2 Lanes
1 Vehicle is Blocking East Rosecrans On Ramp to North 405 Per 79-60
Roll Ambulance Required

Big red diamond #2:

Solo Vehicle Traffic Collision into Right Shoulder Wall-Red Sedan
Driver of Vehicle on Ll * is in a Red Ford Escort, Struck Right Shoulder Wall, Advsed Accident (Property Damage) Only She is not Hurt

Hope this clears before I head home.

PokerProf just let me know that the dinner break on Saturday will be at 7PM, so that's probably when we'll all be able to get together, tournament players and cash players alike. Apparently there's a "lovely Vegas-style" buffet and a regular coffee shop type deal, so those will be two of the options. There's also a sports bar where we'll likely find Al before and after the tourney. Come get some.

Not too much to report on this end... I haven't played much online poker due to the birthday night festivities and the weekly home game, though I did sneak in a quick session at Empire for triple my buy-in. It was life-affirming. Well, maybe not that, but it felt pretty good at any rate.

The LA Poker Classic gathering is slowly growing in size, with Al Can't Hang, Grubbette, PokerProf, Jeff, and Joe making it out to the Commerce Casino this weekend (and beyond?) for all the fun and games. There's a rumor that Grubby himself will also make an appearance. I've promised myself to kick his ass for all the money I've lost playing the hammer, though now that I've gone through PokerTracker and filtered it for times I played it voluntarily, it appears that I've made 6 cents a hand. I guess I owe Grubs a stick of Bazooka Joe.

For those of you who can't make it out to LA, or don't like the idea of meeting a bunch of random people at a casino, sign up for the next blogger tourney, set for this coming Wednesday:

Feb 2nd, 9pm EST
PokerStars
$20 buyin, NL tournament
Password: thehammer
Listed under the Private Tournaments tab.
Open to bloggers and readers.

Finally, go get yourself a piece of Al (free shipping!) and wish him luck in this weekend's tourneys.

Thirty feels a lot like twenty-nine. Have a good day, everyone. It's on me.

It's been a while since I've read the Bible, but I remember enough of it to be completely disgusted by public statements by those who profess themselves to be Christians, and yet are some of the most hateful, uncharitable persons to be given their 15 minutes. I suppose that the self-congratulatory smirking and strutting of the Christian Right following the election has been weighing on my mind, since, well, they're still talking about it. I've also been disturbed by the tone taken by talking heads regarding the recent execution in California. Lots of things along the lines of "Why did it take so long?" and "There's still a big backlog of people to kill." I don't oppose the death penalty because I'm a Christian. I oppose it because I distrust the State. But I find it odd that the Christian Right (and Libertarians, for that matter) have allied themselves with a political party that is supposedly "tough on crime."

But I digress.

Here's today's Bible passage:

The Pharisees are like any dogmatic bureaucrats, and we enjoy the fact that Jesus ignores them completely and keeps writing. It's like Peter walking right past Lumbergh in Office Space. But more important than giving the Man the bird, Jesus tells us to have compassion and empathy for our fellow man. Even... and I want to make this absolutely clear... even if they do say, "Jehovah."

Commerce has the LA Poker Classic tourney schedule up on their site. For you no limit hold'em players, there's a $250,000 guaranteed tourney starting next Saturday the 29th at 3PM. $291 entry + $9 toke + $30 fee. $330's a bit much for my miniscule bankroll. Besides, I hate Hold'Em. Check out the schedule to find your event of choice...

As I've mentioned before, there'll be a small get-together on the 29th. Stop by!

Some of us will be playing in the Classic:

Felicia Lee - http://felicialee.blogspot.com/
Poker Babe - http://www.poker-babes.com/

Others will be watching from the rails and relieving bust-outs of the rest of their cash:

Bill Rini - http://www.billrini.com/
FHWRDH - http://www.fhwrdh.net/home.php
HDouble - http://cardsspeak.servebeer.com/
Will - http://www.allnpoker.com/
Lance - http://any2cards.blogspot.com/

And some of us are still deciding:

The Film Geek - http://pokergeek.blogspot.com/
Absinthe - http://absinthesparks.blogspot.com/

Ooh, and there's also a rumor that we may be graced by the presence of someone special.

Best of luck to the tourney participants!

Double buy-in last night and probably every week hereafter. 10BB wasn't really working out with our spread limit game.

JC +$2.35
ER +$3.35
CR -$5.35
PC -$2.75
JB +$4.10
EM -$1.70

Yeah. I lost set over set to JC (55 vs. JJ) early on and that accounts for most of that negative number there. Also lost a small bet with top pair vs. set before I folded the turn.

I tried to recruit ER for Party Poker, but CR quashed that idea immediately. Something about her losing his money. Heh.

"And every so called meeting with his so called superior
Is a humiliating kick in the crotch."

It took me a couple days, but I've finally caught up on my limited poker reading. There are definitely other blogs out there that are worthwhile reads, but I think I'm running out of hours in the day to devote to reading blogs. I used to multi-task between reading and playing, but I've been trying to do a better job of focusing on the game at all times.

I think there's also more content these days. I don't remember for certain, but I'd say it started with three things occurring around the same time: 1) Iggy going pro, 2) the nightly NL table, and 3) the Vegas trip. So, okay, there were more frequent uber-posts and quickies, tales of the hammer taking down huge pots, and 30-odd trip reports posted as multi-part series. But I think Vegas was also the catalyst for gelling the "poker blog community" into a more coherent idea. Suddenly your audience had a lot more faces and shared experiences to go with the names, so you felt the compulsion to post more frequently and write better posts to impress and measure up to your peers.

I didn't go to Vegas. I don't have to impress or measure up to anyone.

---

Not a whole lot of online poker this weekend. Friday night/Saturday morning at Commerce shot my Saturday in the ass, and then I headed out Saturday evening to Hustler with CR and ER from the weekly game. HDouble and his buddy showed up a bit later. This being CR and ER's third live casino experience (I guess I'm a veteran with seven), we sat at 3/6, hoping the rake and tokes wouldn't make it too much of a -EV proposition.

I sat at a table with CR and stayed in a holding pattern for most of the night. A few pots here and there left me at even or a bit above even, but I wasn't getting cards or catching flops for the most part. Then I started getting dealt big pocket pairs and watched them go down to 56 (flopped a boat), J9 (top pair on the flop, two pair on the turn), AX (I had KK and the flop had an ace), etc. I also completely misplayed two or three hands where I failed to raise to protect my hand. Welcome to weak-tight city. Population: one. By the time we got up to eat, I was down 7.5BB. I felt okay about that since I'd lost 2-4BB a hand with the big pockets. If I was only down 7.5BB, I must have been doing something right.

As was the case in Vegas, ER went on a big run from being 10BB in the hole to being 17BB in the black. Great job. CR was up just over a big bet. He could have posted a bigger win, but he lost several big bets by bluffing to the showdown with 92o in LP. He also left too many bets on the table with winning hands--like checking the turn and river with trip Aces (?!).

The food at the Hustler is cheap and fairly decent. Poor service, though. True to form, I ordered their beef dip sandwich, which isn't nearly as good as the Texas Beef Dip at Bun Boy in Baker and nowhere near as good as the Prime Directive at Mandalay Bay's Raffles Cafe. I'd say the primary problem is that they skimp a bit with the beef.

CR and ER took off after that and I went over to check up on HDouble. At one point earlier in the evening I saw him turn the nut boat after some idiot had flopped trips with 46. There were a lot of yellow chips headed HDouble's way as Mr. Junk Trips complained about the 2-outer catch on the turn. Can't say I felt bad for him. After the meal, HDouble was still up, but not quite as much as he had been with the boat.

I went off to play the 2/5 NL game. I think I won only two pots. Once when I shut out everyone with my two pair on the turn, and another where I flopped a boat (44 with AA4QX board) and managed to extract some value from a Fossilman wannabe (no glasses, though) who called preflop, bet the flop, and check-called the turn and river with... Q4. I made a mistake with this latter hand by underbetting, but this was partially due to my not being accustomed to keeping track of no limit pots in live play and, more importantly, not trading all my whites for yellows when first sitting down (I still had $20-30 in whites). I underestimated the size of my stack while betting, and therefore did not bet enough to get to that fine line between getting paid off and doubling up. After that I missed some flops and got blinded down a bit before I decided to get up with my $80 profit. Between that and my 3/6 results, I barely covered my food and drink expenses for the night. But that stuff comes out of my discretionary cash and not the bankroll, so ... a win's a win, even if it's less than minimum wage.

It's amazing how bad some of these players are in both the limit and no limit games. There's definitely money to be won in limit, but at the low limits I was playing, any wins would barely offset the combined effect of the beats, drops, and tokes. I'd have to be really on my game to make it worthwhile, and after four or five hours with a sore ass, it's hard for me to be on my game. No limit's a bit better for offsetting these other factors, though it does put your stack at risk. I think I'll have to resign myself to playing no limit at the B&M's until I get the bankroll up to handle 6/12. This will take a very, very long time.

---

After two nights of live poker, I was beat. I ended up watching a movie when I got home from the casino, then slept for 11 hours and shot Sunday in the ass, too. You can guess what happened this morning. 3 for 3.

At some point Sunday evening I started jonesing for some online poker action. I'd emptied the Empire account with the expectation of being able to IGMPAY into Party for the $750,000 Bad Beat Jackpot, but Party locked me out for "inappropriate chat" and so I forgot about it for the weekend. When I finally decided to reload at Empire, IGMPAY was having technical issues. So I watched the chat at the NL Blogger table wistfully while trying to get IGMPAY to do my bidding. I even took advantage of PokerRoom's Neteller Insta-Cash fee-free transfer to try to use the backdoor to fund Empire. Didn't work. Finally IGMPAY decided to stop being a bitch and actually let me deposit some money into Empire and I was set. By this point most of the Bloggers had already left. Won two big pots that had me all-in (one was a lucky 2-outer on the river, one was a good calldown of a bluff) and got up with 5x my buy-in. That hasn't happened to me in a while, and it felt pretty damn good. I should rename this blog Two Big Pots.

Oh. Could this post get anymore boring?

So I've come to the realization that either I'm not comfortable playing live poker, or I can't talk and play at the same time. This is terrible for my table image, and certainly kills the camaraderie aspect that is key when sitting at a table half full of bloggers. If you're going to sit at a -EV table, you should have fun, right? Eh. I'll have to work on this at the LA Poker Classic.

On January 29, the City of Commerce won't know what hit them. A team of elite bloggers will take on the live poker world for every last chip, and there will be much rejoicing in the blogosphere.

Five of us went on a preliminary mission tonight to locate key access points, the cashiers, and most importantly, the men's room. It also happened to be the Film Geek's birthday (Happy 24th!), which was the perfect excuse for some live casino no limit action.

Who was present? The usual suspects: The Film Geek, HDouble, Bill Rini, FHWRDH, and moi.

Check with the others for reports on the no limit home game tourney that started off the night; I decided to get in some nap time before heading out. But I did manage to sit in on a no limit cash game with some of the busted tourney players, beat flopped trips with trips on the turn, and walked out of there with an extra 20BB (it was dime no limit).

At 12:30 in the morning, we figured we'd catch the tail end of the profitable drunken fish phenomenon, but it turned out that we just missed it. I knew that getting a no limit table with five open seats was just too good to be true, and it was. The fish had been gutted, scaled, and deep fried by the time we sat down. Film Geek remarked at one point that it was a bad sign when the players at the table all had been doubled up by the suckers whose seats we inherited. In our short discussion afterwards, we agreed that these guys weren't necessarily good, but they were fairly good at punishing draws and weren't willing to pay off your monster hands. And that's really a recipe for losing your blinds and minimum calls without getting the requisite payoff to get you back in the black. Which isn't to say that it wasn't possible. It's just more work.

I'll let the others report on the hands they played, won, and lost. For the record, Bill Rini dropped the first hammer, and HDouble dropped the second. Success both times!

Very briefly, here were my significant wins: tens full (on the turn) to double-up, pocket tens with a Q9XJX board, flopped set of nines for 15BB with two scary draws on the board. My best hands were KK (won the blinds), TT, 99, AQ (folded to 3x overbet by smug guy on AT9 flop), AJ (folded to HDouble on QTX flop--he showed AQ). Most of my suited and offsuit connectors flopped gutshots or crap, or were folded to pot-sized bets (maybe I had implied odds, but then again...). My small pockets were outflopped by bigger cards. My non-Ace Broadways flopped an ace and/or a board pair. Blah. Still, I ended up in the positive (half a buy-in), so my bankroll and I are grateful.

By 4AM, we realized it wasn't going to get any better. It's like those NL blogger tables: -EV unless you can delta yourself into some unexpected profits. But for the most part, without any contributors willing to go broke with TPTK or second pair, it's the house that wins. So we cashed in our chips and headed out.

It's better to hang with the bloggers than play against 'em, but either way, getting together on the 29th should be a lot of fun.

Oy. Me and ER busted out early.

JC +$1.95
ER -$5.00
CR -$0.35
PC -$5.00
JB +$4.25
EM +$2.65
MT +$1.50

I didn't feel up to buying in again and fighting my way back. I think it had something to do with the six beers I consumed. But I did hop online and more than doubled up at a NL table, thanks to Casino Gosain. Also got Hiltons twice and won both times, so that was nice.

The most damaging hand was flopping a set with MT flopping a bigger set. There was a four-flush on the board and I kept betting, but MT made the right call every time. Once the board paired, I had no chance of betting him out of the pot.

This happened again later when JB decided to call with his flush draw against my straight draw. We both paired up on the turn and he called me down to the showdown.

Most of the other hands were wholly unmemorable.

Or how I learned to recycle other people's content.

Iggy briefly expounded today on the loose-aggressive nature of poker at Party Poker, how it translates into greater variance, which translates into greater potential profits. In other words, you can't break the bank at a table full of folding stations.

This segues into today's topic quite nicely.

As I've said before, the 6-max games tend to be full of aggressive little monkeys, which makes one wonder if playing the Broke's Lament can be as profitable as it appears to be for a monkey with the Rage. Well, perhaps if I were a better player, I could play any two cards well after the flop and win lots of money. Since I'm not a better player, I'll stick to the fundamentals.

But here's an example of where I've adopted some wisdom from a blog.

When you're sitting on the big blind, the monkeys will almost always take a shot at stealing the blinds. If I'm holding utter junk, I'll go ahead and fold to these raises. But if there's a decent chance of flopping a big hand or a big draw (small/medium offsuit connectors and one-gappers), I'll call the raise. If the raiser is a confirmed monkeyboy, I'll call with worse hands, especially when there are other people in the hand. As Iggy said by way of HDouble, "You are getting 3.5-to-1 on your call."

Excellent advice.

Now, I think it's possible to extrapolate this incorrectly to calling anything in the small blind in an unraised pot. Sure, no hand is that much of a dog, but there are two key differences when calling for one small bet in the big blind:

1) With the preflop raise, the pot is laying better odds for your draws on the flop. Calling from the small blind in an unraised pot raises the bar for the strength of your draws.

2) With the preflop raise, you can count on the aggressor to bet out on the flop and the turn, and possibly go to the showdown with a dominated hand. The implied odds are enormous!

On the other hand, if you're limping in from the SB with a hand that you wouldn't even play on the button with 4 limpers ahead of you, then where are you? First to act with complete junk.

So here's an example of where I called for one small bet and caught the upswing of the variance cycle:

On a related note, I believe if you can figure out that a particular player wants to leave, you can make a killing with reduced risk. This is particularly true in no limit, where a player has ~30% of a buy-in and goes all-in preflop. Almost any pair, any ace is strong enough to call. Just don't tango with the table rock.

I know I read a related post by Abdul on RGP about this, but let me throw this out there:

What are the key differences between poker in California, poker in Las Vegas, and poker online?

All three are characterized by terrible players, but there's a different quality to the horrible play in each arena. This English major can't adequately describe what that is, but it's there.

So given the premise that the games are different, and that several of the ideas and strategies that we find in Winning Low Limit Hold 'Em and Abdul's postings at RGP and PosEV are primarily based on their experiences in California's No Fold 'Em games (4-way showdowns!), what adjustments, if any, are necessary for the transition to the tourist-filled poker rooms of Vegas and the doubly-abstracted, ever-shifting poker rooms of the Internet?

I'll be thinking about this over the coming year, but if any of you have any ideas, archived posts, or hidden RGP gems on this topic, I'd be quite grateful for a pointer.

I leave you with this: Being ahead when you are actually behind by Andrew of RPS Consulting. "Always keep 12 big bets at the table when there is a 4 bet cap. You may need them." Amen.

Some time in mid-December I caught the upswing at Party's 5/10 6-max tables and at Doyle's Room's NL tables. Between those sessions and the multiple bonuses I managed to finally break the four figure mark. But in keeping with tradition, I managed to piss away a lot of it by playing above my limits in 2/4 and 5/10. Oy.

Happily, I'm not a complete idiot and managed to check the roll into the ICU before it was too late. I added some padding to take full advantage of the Empire reload bonus and have limited my play to the 1/2 6-max tables. At 80-90 hands per hour per table, clearing the 1400 hands should require very little time.

I'm getting back to basics for the New Year, so here's some basic stuff for anyone who's trying to grind it out at the micro-limits.

ABC Poker

I'm usually a pretty straightforward player. Now that I'm partially playing with non-poker money until the bonus clears, I'm especially tight-aggressive/straightforward.

Part of my rationale for playing it straight is that as the new player at the table, most of my opponents have no idea what hands I play, how I play them, etc. There's something about the short-handed tables that encourages loose-aggressive play or attracts those types of players, so the default assumption is that any aggression on my part does not represent the best hand. So if I have what is likely to be the best hand or even a monster, I'll just go ahead and bet/raise. Lots of players will happily call, trying to catch me at a bluff or with the same kind of junk hand they're holding.

Once I've established my image as the guy who wins showdowns, that's when I start raising pre-flop with big aces, though usually not in the blinds or UTG. I want position with this hand because I need to figure out if I can drive out players/earn a free river card if I miss the flop. Any significant action on the flop and I'm out of there. Sure, if my opponent is bluffing or betting middle/bottom pair with no kicker, I'm forfeiting ~3BB, but paying an extra 2BB with only overcards (or one) does not seem worthwhile in most cases. I'll call players who show down more than the occasional bluff, but that's about it. There's going to be 79 other hands in the next hour, and I'll be the favorite in several of those, so that's where I'll put my money.

Except at the very best of tables, eventually the others catch on that my hand is going to beat theirs and they stop paying me off. This is the point at which I can start stealing pots or raising my smaller pairs, but it's also usually the point where I'm looking for an opportunity to leave so I can collect the big bets instead of the small ones. One bad hand and it's going to take several of these small pots to make up for the big loss. There're always multiple tables going on at Party, so there's no reason to stick around.

Swimming with the maniacs

The biggest difference between micro-limit Party Poker and small stakes B&M poker has to be the maniacs. These loose-aggressive players will raise pre-flop with 78 suited, QJ offsuit, K4 suited, etc. from any position. They'll bet first in on the flop with second pair or third pair. They'll raise with high card no kicker. It's a high variance style of play, and as often as not, you'll see the maniac first triple his buy-in then bust out over the course of an hour. It's often hard to resist the temptation to play your weaker hands against them to catch them with 9 high (they 3-bet with 97s), but most maniacs are just aggro-fish who help me build my pots, so I don't deviate too much from the Small Stakes Hold 'em standards. The bets I win here and there by "out-playing" the maniac probably won't cover the cumulative losses of being in pots I have no business being in.

So I usually let my blinds get stolen for the first couple orbits until I have a better read on my opponents, then defend the connectors and one-gappers that have the potential to flop big. With the right board, a check-raise on the flop or turn will usually stop the blind-stealing. I'll also defend the trash hands if it's going to be 4-handed. Once you've beaten the hell out of a maniac on a couple pots, they usually either go bust or turn into meek calling stations with the same trashy starting hand selection.

I love bad beats

It's true. I do. I'd rather give than receive, 'cause I'm generous like that, but I've finally reached the point in my development as a player to enjoy the bad beats. Tables where you start off with one or two bad beats/river suckouts can earn you some of the bigger profits, since your two losses put the idea in the mind of your opponents that you are beatable. Most of them won't notice you were ahead on every street until the river. After this, they'll usually be willing to pay you off more often than if you sat down and just began winning hands from the start. Ride out the variance and let them make those unprofitable calls/bets until they're broke.

6-max!

Despite my newfound love of bad beats, one thing I really like about the short-handed tables is the fact that they reduce the suckouts, since there's less implicit collusion. This is where multiple opponents call to the river with weak hands (bottom pair, top pair no kicker, small pockets, gutshot low straights, weak backdoor flushes) and one of them manages to suck out a win at the end. Individually they don't have the odds to call, but collectively they do. There have been several times when I've dropped an entire buy-in playing full-ring due to river 2- and 3-outers. The individual behavior's the same at the short tables (and in some ways, worse), but the very fact that it's short-handed seems to reduce the number of suckouts.

Furthermore, since you play so many more hands per hour, it's easier to stave off the boredom. Provided that you get your fair share of decent cards and flops, the fact that you pay the blinds every 6 hands instead of every 10 doesn't tend to get in the way of making money. With the increased tendency to call to the showdown with Ace high and the maniacal pot-building, the short-handed tables can be more profitable than full ring.

This is micro-limit?

The interesting thing that I've noticed is that there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the 1/2 and 5/10 6-max tables. Same game, different stakes. You'll get the same mixture of solid players (1), maniacs (2-3), and fish (1-2), leading to the same number of river suckouts, fishy calls, etc. So provided that I'm adequately bankrolled, I have little reservation about playing the higher limit tables. But that bankroll's important. If I get two bad beats or suckouts in a row at the 1/2 table, it won't hurt me. Dropping $25 in two hands with a $1000 roll is not a big deal. Dropping $125 without the corresponding $5000 roll is.

Mixing up your values and your free cards

We've read our Miller, Sklansky, Izmet, and Abdul, and we all know that when you've got the nut flush draw, two overcards, and the runner-runner straight draw on the flop in a loose game, you should ram and jam the pot. On the flop, you're the clear favorite to win the hand against many other hands.

Hdouble doesn't approve of this play since he thinks you will win bigger pots when you make your flush by keeping people in. I have to disagree with HDouble on this one, since I also want a chance to win those hands where I don't make my flush. Also, in my experience, making your flush is usually only highly profitable against a dumbass with a weaker flush. In fact, raising the flop with the draw and making your hand on the turn is usually good for an extra big bet since the flop raise partially disguises your hand. Saving your raises for when a three-flush hits the turn usually turns the others into calling stations, giving you a maximum added profit of 2-3BB on the turn and river. So if you can win a high percentage of the hands where you don't make the flush by forcing out other draws and hands like low pair ace kicker, then you've easily made up for the lost profits.

Ram and jam. On the flop.

The turn changes everything. It's now twice as expensive and there's only one card to come. Be ready to throttle back.

In EP, unless you actually pair one of your cards, fill your flush, or get one more card to the open-ended straight draw (an overcard to your kicker is more dangerous), or have a good enough read on your opponent to know he'll fold to a bet (maybe you should reread that game theory bluffing chapter to randomize your bluffs), you're probably better off check-calling. After all that flop action, you have a big enough pot to profitably call, but why risk paying 2BB to see the river with your 33% shot of beating pocket deuces (flush draw with overcards, no straight draw)?

In LP, just check-behind if the turn hasn't improved your hand. Remember that one of the goals of raising the flop with your great draw, in addition to driving out other draws (the straight for instance), made hands with weak kickers, and other overcards, is to get a free card on the turn. You pay an extra small bet to save one big bet, and as they say, a bet saved is a bet earned.

A lot of people don't know when to turn the aggression off, and it leads to unprofitable plays. Remember, the two bets on the turn and river usually cost you more than what you bet preflop and on the flop, and even if you have 21 outs on the turn, your hand is still a slight dog to a pocket pair held by a calling station who calls because you might have "nothing." Yes, his call is often unprofitable since you'll usually have top pair top kicker or two pair, but we're not talking about him now, are we? I'm not saying you shouldn't call; I'm saying you shouldn't bet if you have no expectation of your opponent(s) folding since your pot equity has been significantly reduced (note that it's much higher now that you've isolated your opponent than if this were a multi-way pot--ram and jam the flop!).

As a side note, one of the biggest mistakes I've seen is when someone who called on the flop with overcards and the backdoor flush draw suddenly raises the turn with his flush draw. Talk about -EV plays! He usually barely has odds to call on the turn let alone raise!

Last thoughts.

At the point where you pause in your one long session and take stock of where you are, it's good to see that you've been directly rewarded for playing well. In my very small sample of 700 1/2 6-max hands since the tail end of December, I've seen a win rate of 7.38BB/100 hands. By the time I actually get through this reload bonus I expect to see that drop to a more reasonable 3BB/100 hands. But I feel very good about my play so far, and I feel that I am reinforcing the foundation upon which all my future growth must stand. That's a good thing.

If you slogged through all of this, congratulations. I expect that most of you will be nodding your heads and thinking, "That StudioGlyphic's such a beginner!" Well, that's okay. I am a beginner.

I wish you good luck, good cards, and most of all, good plays.

First weekly game of 2005, and notable for the fact that CR, ER, and EM had to rebuy. Wow. I can't remember the last time, if ever, that ER has had to rebuy.

JC +$1.35
ER -$7.30
CR -$5.80
PC +$10.75
JB +$0.85
EM +$0.15

Ladies and gentlemen, I ran amok. Mostly due to some good cards combined with some good flops. However, I was able to extract relatively large sums from JC when I flopped trip aces and CR when I flopped a boat, threes full of Jacks with pocket threes. Both hands were marked by check-raises on the double value turn and payoffs on the river. After beating CR's trips with my boat, CR threw his JX across the room. I don't think we've ever seen that before.

Considering the fact that EM had to rebuy in the first hour or so, her comeback into positive territory was pretty damn good. On one hand she made quad sevens on the river after making a set on the turn. I was away from the table, so I can't really say what the action was on the flop, but I think JC made a barely more than minimum bet on a flop that featured two Broadway cards and two to a flush. I guess EM put JC on a draw or something.

JB had the honor of showing down and winning with the hammer after 3-betting preflop. Woah. CR's ace high couldn't stand up to JB's paired 7 on the turn. Or was it the 2? Either way, it was a nice play.

This was also the first weekly game where 4 of the 5 smokers did not smoke. Something to do with New Year's resolutions, I think. I continued to suck away at my cancer sticks, but I'm going to join them in giving up the smokes. For the record, I am not quitting. I'm just not smoking until all four of them fall off the wagon. Considering they all have a 6 day head start on me, I guess technically I am not smoking until a week or so after the last of them gives in and lights up. Oh, that reminds me... I forgot to suggest betting on who was going to go out first and who was going to last longest. Next week.

Good lord that's ugly.

Subaru's inviting current owners to come by and check out their latest crossover vehicle at the LA Auto Show. Subaru pretty much invented the crossover with the Forester, which is a very tall wagon with ground clearance marketed as a mini-SUV. Much better than most SUVs when it comes to handling, with enough cargo space to compete with the ones at the small end of the scale.

I think I'll go check it out; I'm planning to go to the auto show anyway, so this will be a good opportunity to go on Subaru's dime.

I'm just in the beginning stages of planning, but I'm trying to round up a contingent of bloggers (LA-based and otherwise) to meet up at the LA Poker Classic at the Commerce Casino. This is a WPT event, so it's sure to be packed with pros, celebrities, and my favorite, dead money. Felicia will be in town for the tourneys, and Hank and FHWRDH have expressed interest so far. Given the fact that Commerce will be busy with all their events, I doubt we'll be able to put together anything like the Sam's Town tournament; this will be more of a low-key, put a face to the blog, hoist a pint, check-raise the fish kind of thing.

I'm thinking January 29 and/or 30, since that'll be smack in the middle of the time that Felicia will be here.

If you're interested, let me know in the comments or by email and I'll broadcast more details as I get them.

PokerStars is raising money for the Tsunami Relief Effort and will match donations dollar for dollar. All funds will be donated to the International Federation of the Red Cross.

Furthermore, PokerStars is asking participants in their Caribbean Adventure event to donate one percent of their winnings to the relief effort. Again, these donations will be matched dollar for dollar.

Finally installed MT-Blacklist tonight. Let's hope it lives up to the hype and stops the comment spam dead in its tracks. I'd only had a few instances of comment spam until New Year's Eve when I noticed about 80 comments advertising porn and celeb photos littering the back-entries of StudioGlyphic. Since then I've been deluged with hundreds of comments. It got so bad I turned on comment moderation. Now that Blacklist is installed, comments are back to being unmoderated. If I'm still hit with the spam, I may have to invoke the input code thing that WWdN and Bill Rini have on their blogs.

Not sure how this came about, but we decided to play poker into the New Year.

JC +$4.60
ER +$0.75
CR -$1.35
PC -$1.70
JB -$9.30
EM +$7.00

I don't really remember what time we started, but this session lasted quite a bit longer than our normal sessions. We also doubled the buy-in (to a whopping $10) in honor of the occasion.

The biggest pot of the night involved a KJT flop. I had KQ, so I had top pair/open-ended straight draw. ER checks, I bet, JB calls, JC raises, ER calls, I call, and JB calls. Turn is a rag, it's checked to JC who bets, and we all call. River is a K, it's checked to JB who bets, JC raises, and ER folds.

When JC raised the flop I put him on two pair. Not sure which two pair, but two pair. So there was a good chance that he'd made a boat on the river, but I decided to call with my trips because the pot was large and there was the slimmest chance that JC could have been betting with JT. JB folded immediately. My trips lost to JC's boat (kings full of tens). It turns out ER had QX and also had the open-ended straight draw, which explains all the calls. Not sure what JB had, but I suspect Q9 for the flopped straight, slowplayed until he was outdrawn. All in all, I think there was $7 in that pot, $2 of which was my contribution to the JC poker fund.

The largest pot I won was when I caught the anti-christ. No slow-playing this one. There had been a pre-flop raise and some callers, indicating some Broadways out in the field. With possible flush and straight draws on the flop (KJ6), I had to get my chips in while I still had the best of it. The turn was a worrying A, but I bet anyway. I slowed down on the river when a 10 hit and ER bet into me--any Q would have made the straight, and AQ was a distinct possibility. But she just had AJ for two pair and MHIG. Thank you, Dark Lord.

Other than the Anti-Christ, I don't think any of my pocket pairs made trips. Nor did I get any pairs larger than nines. Never got slick. Rarely got suited aces. Yeah, I was kinda card dead. Thankfully I was able to get some decent flops/draws with the cards I did get, and I guess that's better than getting the tier 1 starting hands and being outdrawn/flopped.

EM had a very good session despite an early loss when I spiked a better boat on the river. However, it could have been better. For whatever reason, EM seems to have a problem with betting her hands for value. Had she maximized her winnings with her good hands, she probably would have doubled tonight.

JB had a very bad session. The poor guy got the hammer 7 times! He managed to bluff with it successfully on at least two occasions, but was never granted a good hammer flop.

All in all I had a good time, and with the exception of going to a casino to play poker, there's probably nothing else I could have done that would have been as nice a way to enter the new year.

My memory's going fast. If I don't post these things the night of or the day after, I forget anything of significance. At least I can post the night's results:

JC +$4.70
ER +$6.40
CR +$2.80
PC -$6.05
JB -$10.00
EM +$2.15

Oh, I do remember this: I played a couple hands blind, calling, betting, and raising without knowing what I had. One of these went well and the other went very badly. That would explain a large part of the loss of my first buy-in. On some other hands I felt like calling down to the showdown to possibly suck out a win on the river. Both strategies were half-intended to tilt the weekly game and half-intended to stave off boredom. Sadly, the game remained untilted and somewhat uninteresting.

I went back to boring play with the second buy-in and didn't get much of a chance to make back anything with the hands I was dealt. Ah well.

ER and JC are the only ones in positive territory among the regulars. JB runs the risk of overtaking EM for the greatest cumulative loss.