StudioGlyphic

I call him Colonel Tseng.

Not sure what kind of Toyota it is; it looks like a cross between an early nineties Celica and a mid-nineties Camry, so I'd say it's probably something from that era that we never got stateside.

This post brought to you by the PokerTrackerGuide.

Two hands I won last night on Empire's 3/6 tables with stuff I remembered from Hank:

Still, I'm on thin ice on this one. There are two flush cards out there, and it's easy to go broke drawing to the sucker end of a straight, especially if someone out there has already made the better straight. The better play here might have been to check-raise the turn.

It's a thin line between relying on implied odds and being a fish. :) The beauty, though, is that showing down garbage hands like this, even in the blinds, helped me get action for my big pairs and better draws later on.

And now, a word from our sponsor:

Probably better than Episode III.

You've gotta love big short-term results. My flight leaves in less than 24 hours, but I'm happy to report a 70BB profit for the last poker I'll play on American soil for a while. I caught some big pairs that held up, flopped well, made a number of draws, and got paid off. Which reminds me... I should take a deck of cards with me to China. I've never bet in yuan before.

One class to go before I officially get my Master's Degree. This one's in Beijing:

While this is ostensibly an academic exercise (the class is entitled "The Future of Xidan Beidajie: Transit Oriented Urban Village in the Beijing Mega-City"), I don't think any of my classmates are kidding themselves about what we'll end up doing.

For those of you who visit StudioGlyphic for poker content, there will likely be none until I return in July. However, I'll have all sorts of gadgetry with me, and will likely post occasional images and blurbs about traveling in Asia.

All images copyright photographers 2003. Source: Lonely Planet World Guide.

You see some of the worst poker at the casino sometimes.

Insanity is...

There was the woman who raised with pocket queens in EP who checked when the flop came AT9. One of the many cold-callers bet at the flop and she called. The turn came a rag and she checked again. The flop bettor reached for his chips and the woman announced, "I know you have an ace. So go ahead and bet." The river came with no help and she called once again. The bettor flipped over AT for top two and the woman flipped over her queens and said "I knew you had an ace." She turns to the player in seat 2 and complains, "It's just my luck, I get queens and an ace comes." She knew she was drawing to 2 outs, didn't get lucky, and still paid the guy off. Wow.

What's his tell?

A man replaced the woman in the 2 seat and won a hand at showdown when he called down the preflop raiser with KK on a board full of rags. At no point during that hand did he raise. Amazing.

The same man cold-called my UTG raise a little later. The flop came 884. I bet with my queens and he called, while everyone else folded. The turn brought an ace. I bet and he called. Now I was a little worried. The river brought a king and with two overcards on the board, I figure I'll check and see what happens. He bets, and remembering how passive he was with the kings, I opted not to pay him off. I asked him later if he had an ace or a king. "No, I had a flush." Really? "Yeah, I had 57 suited. I knew you had a big pocket pair, and was going to fold, but they were suited, and then the flop was 84 so I could get the straight." He probably had odds to call that flop bet, by the way. Especially with that backdoor flush. But I bet he didn't know it!

Every rebuy is a little death

God bless the woman who paid off my quad aces with sixes when the board came A253A. There's no way her hand is good against any legitimate hand, but hey, it was her last six chips. Now she can rebuy for another 5BB. It's just too bad Hollywood Park doesn't have the high hand jackpots you see at the Aladdin and other Vegas casinos. Those jackpots can be good for $500 or more.

That same woman paid off my QQ earlier as well. I'd seen her go to the showdown with a wide range of hands, so I put in a value bet despite the 3-flush on the river.

The worst mistake I made at that table was not raising with KQ in MP. The board ended up being KJ9Tx and I chopped a pot with the woman who paid off my aces and queens when she hit her gutshot with Q5s. The raise would have knocked her out preflop or added another 3BB to the pot. Either way, not raising was anywhere from a minor to a major mistake.

Blogger table

When that table broke, I got up with my 12.5BB profit (hourly of 2BB/hour including smoke and beer breaks) and wandered around, alternately sweating HDouble at his table and Absinthe and Bill at their table. Absinthe and Bill had a great table. One and a half maniacs, two calling stations, a fish, etc. After a while, HDouble sat and I figured I'd sit as well and gamble with my profits.

Unfortunately for Bill and Absinthe, HDouble replaced a calling station (the same woman who paid off my aces and queens--she's everywhere!) and I replaced the table maniac (he got up with a couple hundred dollars). Still, the guy in the 1 seat seemed pretty fast and loose with his chips and the guy in the 5 seat was the mother of all calling stations (MCS, not to be confused with MC5).

Oh really now?

MCS won a pot with a decent hand at one point--a hand which he actually bet on the turn. As he stacked up his chips, he announced, "See? I don't put money in unless I have something." Let me offer a definition, which some of the other hands he showed elucidated:

Main Entry: ¹some thing
Pronunciation: 's&m(p)-thi[ng], esp in rapid speech or for 2 's&m-p&m
Function: pronoun
1 : runner-runner straight draw
2 : low second pair, weak kicker
3 : pair draw

Color commentary

HDouble's a good guy to have at the table at 4 in the morning:

HDouble rakes a pot after he bets the turn on a T2xx board: "Super/System."

I raise pre-flop with JJ after mucking most of my trash hands: "Woah! Who's this guy?"

HDouble raises in EP: "Okay, I've got a good hand this time. Everybody call."

I win after capping the flop with second pair, ace kicker and the nut flush draw: "That was straight out of Abdul!"

Fun stuff.

5AM rolled around and I was up an additional BB. Time to call it a night.

I am officially over-educated.

Not to put anyone down or anything, but it seems like there's an excess of melodrama out there. Which isn't to say that content theft, art vs. commerce, idiot strippers, huge suckouts, quitting poker, poor table manners, etc. aren't worth talking about, but when something seems to crop up every two months to get this or that blogger riled up, it starts to look like a familiar formula with new dressing. Y'know, like a Goobernator movie. And that's enough to put anyone on tilt.

Ultimately, none of this shit really matters all that much (and I say this even if some of this stuff pissed me off at the time). So take a step back, clear your head, and hit the tables. The come back and share your thought processes and experiences. Help me become a better player by writing about your own games.

One more thing to think about: It might be a sign that poker blogging's jumped the shark when you get post after self-referential post about the "community." Not that it doesn't exist, or that it's a good or bad thing, but sometimes it's just a little over the top.

A few weeks ago I said "[Facty's] not really a poker blogger, but she's an amusing read, and that's almost as good, and sometimes better."

Well I should have kept my trap shut:

ScurvyDog's guide to casino whoring is helping me offset my poker losses. Thanks Scurvy! I'm such a degenerate. Ask Absinthe, he can tell you:

This happened last year, too.

Generally speaking, I'm making fewer mistakes than my opponents, but the mistakes I do make still rankle.

I'm not sure what my plan for dealing with the slide is going to be. I'll probably still keep playing, but throw in more PokerStars MTTs to fill up the time. Those guys are nuts!

I received this phishing email yesterday:

It looks like an official email. I actually clicked the link, but Eudora alerted me that the URL I was clicking on was different from the one listed. That didn't throw up any red flags because lots of companies use third party emailers, but for whatever reason, I decided not to continue on and just typed "ebay.com" into my browser. It was only then that it occurred to me that this might be a fake email. Some signs:

1. The email address they sent the message to is not the address I use with ebay.
   
2. The mailer is a program called The Bat!, which I believe is a bulk email program.
   
3. My name isn't eBay.
   
4. That credit card number's completely wrong.
   

Grubby tells us he's enjoyed his week of theater and workshops and had a decent session at Hustler:

Not sure if my half-joking arguments had any effect, but...

$20+2 SNG with 6 minute levels on FTP. 3 places pay.

Blinds 40/80

I'm in the SB with JJ.

SB: T1600 - StudioGlyphic
BB: T1600 - Probably my weakest opponent
UTG: T2800 - Solid player who is capable of stealing
Button: T7500 - Solid player who's caught some cards

UTG minimum raises to T160. Button folds.

What should I do?

Here's what I did:
SB raises to T500. BB folds. UTG calls T340.

Flop: A-x-x. Pot is T1080.

What should I do?

Here's what I did:
SB bets T300. UTG calls T300.

Turn: x. Pot is T1680.

SB checks. UTG bets T800. SB folds.

Ugh. This puts me in a bad situation. Fortunately I stay alive with some all-in steals and double up when the big stack takes a stand with QT against my KT (his gutshot straight started to worry me, though). Eventually the other short stack goes out and I make the money. I get no traction and go down with second pair to the big stack's top set.

But clearly the hand above is the point at which I blew my chances of finishing higher. What I believe I should have done on the bubble with 20xBB left, bad position against the raiser, and a hand that stands to be the favorite 4-handed, is re-raise all-in and make UTG decide whether he wants to take his chances in a coin-flip.

The question is... if I missed the opportunity of pushing preflop, should I have pushed on the flop, or check-folded on the flop?

...I'd have known it was National River Week.

I took a shot at a 1/2 $200 NL game on Full Tilt and found myself seated with three aggro players. Standard m.o. was to raise the pot pre-flop and bet the pot post-flop. Finally I called with a pocket pair, saw the ragged flop, and put the aggro to the test with a check-raise (not a minimum raise, either). He min-raised me, and I considered my options. It was possible that he had a bigger pocket pair, but unlikely. I called. The turn was another rag, and I put him all-in. He called, getting perhaps 3:1 from the pot. He flipped up overcards and was drawing to six outs, one of which came on ....

So that makes three $300 pots I've lost this week to river beats. Which should make me the poster child for something.

Bankroll management dictates I step down in limits (it's boring down here) and that goes for live play, too. Which is too bad, because the 1/2 NLHE game seemed a hell of a lot more interesting than the .50/1 and .25/.50 NLHE games. But I just can't afford those swings.

And if I were to do that, I'd build my own:

Free TiVo: Build a Better DVR out of an Old PC

Thanks to Geek Goes Meow for the link.

We met up with Wil Wheaton briefly after the show.

At my first table last night, the guy in the 9 seat was on his second or third buy-in since I sat down. He raised to $15 in late position preflop and got a couple callers, including the big guy who'd river'd his gutshot straight against me (Mr. Bad Beat). The flop came up all rags. It was checked to the 9 seat and he immediately moved all-in. It folded around to Mr. Bad Beat in seat 5, who was sitting behind $500 or more and was trying to decide what to do. The 9 seat looked straight at Mr. Bad Beat and pleaded, "Please. No more bad beats. Just fold."

Mr. Bad Beat folded and the 9 seat flipped up his pocket queens for the win.

When you've got what is most likely to be the winning hand against a loose caller who can double you up and you're begging him to fold, you should get up from the table.

Well I just lost two buy-ins at the $100 NLHE tables at Hollywood Park. But the funny thing is that I feel pretty good about it. I got my chips in with the best hand and lost 'em on the river.

I call with 6c 7c in middle to late position (seat 6) when it's raised behind me to $15 (5xBB). Three people call in front of me, making the pot approximately $63. I figure getting better than 5:1 is good odds and call. The flop comes 367 with two suited cards. The 4 seat bets $25 and seat 5 calls. The pot is now $125 and I have $85 left. I raise all-in, there are two folds, and seats 4 and 5 call. Uh oh. Seat 4 shows T7 for top pair, no kicker, drawing to 3 outs + the runner-runner straight and backdoor flush, and seat 5 shows 65 for second pair and the gutshot, drawing to 4 outs + running fives. Turn doesn't improve anyone's hand and the river's a 4.

Rebuy!

I follow HDouble to Grubby's table with $85 after an orbit or two and sit down in the big blind. I'm dealt Q3 and get to see the flop for free. Flop comes down Q32 and I bet the pot--$10. HDouble calls in seat 8 and Grubby makes Baby Jesus weep in seat 5. I raise to $40 and HDouble folds. Grubby calls. Turn comes a K and I bet $20. Grubby makes some comment about my stupid two pair in the big blind and folds with a grin. I turn over my cards and take the pot.

I get dealt JJ in late position and raise to $15. Seat 2 calls, as does Grubby. Damn it, Grubby, stop calling my bets! It's checked to me on the Q high flop, I bet $30, and everyone folds. Now I'm sitting on $170 or so, and feeling pretty good.

I'm down to $150 when I get dealt two black aces on the button. Sweet. A few limpers come in and the cutoff raises to $14. I smooth-call the $14 (the table had appeared to be somewhat tight), but HDouble and two others call, making me a little worried. The flop comes 89J and I'm wondering how much I need to raise to chase any tens out of the pot. The pot is about $70 and the preflop raiser bets $50. Once again, I smooth-call, figuring $50 is too pricey for anyone to call (odds be damned). The rest of the table folds. The turn brings a 10 and all of a sudden I'm thinking I might have slowplayed my aces to death. My opponent bets $50 again, I think for a while, and figure I'm probably still ahead and raise all-in for $86. He calls with KJ, and is drawing to 9 outs. The river brings a K and I'm out another buy-in.

No rebuy this time. I wonder a little if I could have chased him out on the flop, but I don't think so. He was new to the table, but few people at these casinos make good laydowns.

But like I said, I feel good about my play, which is a lot better than how I've been feeling for the past week or so. If my hands had held up, I'd have over six times my initial buy-in. It's just too bad live poker is rigged.

By the way, if you want to hear Hank grousing all night, sit at a low-limit NL table with him with a bad blind structure. :)