Just Poker Talk

Well, the Warriors are one win away from upsetting the Mavericks and moving on to the second round to face either Houston or Utah. I’m rooting for Houston in that series, because Yao Ming is just too slow to keep up with the Warriors, and the only way they’d win is if Luther Head, Shane Battier and Rafer Alston hit their threes, which is very possible considering that they will be wide open a lot. Anyway I’m more excited about the Warriors right now than poker to be honest. But I guess that’s what happens during a losing streak. I just can’t bring myself to play at the moment, because I’ll donk it away for sure.

So yeah, I promised not to mention the Warriors again, since this is a poker blog, and not a Warriors or basketball blog. But I just read the latest entry on Phil Hellmuth’s blog over at Cardplayer.com. He talks about going to the Warriors’ games over the weekend, Friday and Sunday, and he talks about his experiences with Don Nelson, how Nellie used to ride tractors all over Wisconsin to raise money for Farmers.

It’s a pretty interesting blog entry, and it makes me like Hellmuth a lot more, with the exception that he’s also a Laker fan, which is just traitorous in my opinion. You just can’t be both. There’s no way around it. There’s no excuse for that bullshit. Anyway Hellmuth may be called the Poker Brat, and it’s fun to watch him blow up after a bad beat, but he sounds like a nice guy. I’ve said that a few times about a few other poker players, and I think that’s true of most. I’d like to think that all people are good people.

Here’s a small excerpt from Hellmuth’s blog entry:

The Warriors are just plain fun to watch, with Baron Davis, J-Rich, Biedrens, Stephen Davis, and Monte Ellis running the court like madmen, dunking, alley-ooping, fast breaking, and firing threes. Biedrens and Ellis are only like 21 years old, so the Warriors may be great for a long while. Don Nelson is one heck of a coach. I first went up to Nellie over 10 years ago in Hawaii (when I was at Lakers training camp, and he was just hanging out) to tell him, “Thanks for all of the great work with Farm Aid in Wisconsin� (I’m sure that he didn’t know me from Adam.) Back in the 1980s, Nellie used to ride tractors around the state of Wisconsin helping to raise money for the farmers, and that impressed me. Then about two-and-a-half years ago I did a charity event in Dallas for the Dallas Children’s Hospital through the Texas Stampede organization, and Nellie showed up to play. Of course, I had the microphone all night, and I was teasing him!

You can read the rest at Cardplayer.com.

Golden State Warriors, Dallas Mavericks, NBA, Phil Hellmuth

Here is part 2 of the of the 2002 World Series of Poker.

poker, World Series of Poker 2002, Robert Varkonyi, Julian Gardner, Ralph Perry, Scott Gray, Harley Hall, Russell Rosenblum, Tony D, John Shipely, Minh Ly

The 2002 World Series of Poker is where my interest in poker began. I know Varkonyi got lucky, but his victory definitely made me influenced me, made me feel that I could win at poker too. This was also the first year where the viewer was able to see everyone’s cards and that really helped make poker entertaining for me to watch. Anyway here is the first part of the 2002 Final Table. I hope it inspires some people to play poker, like it did me.

poker, World Series of Poker 2002, Robert Varkonyi, Julian Gardner, Ralph Perry, Scott Gray, Harley Hall, Russell Rosenblum, Tony D, John Shipely, Minh Ly

Whenever I come upon a Daniel Negreanu article, I always take a lot of interest in reading it. And I also always hope to gain some knowledge to improve my game, which I admit needs improvement, despite my being a winning player. I’m under the impression that most players can be a winning player, especially at the lower limits, but it takes a lot more skill to be a true winning player, someone that can take on the best and come out ahead in the long-run. Negreanu has an article from the Falls Church News-Press about betting and check-raising.

The topic actually goes well with my last post about playing out of position, because that certainly effects when you want to bet or check-raise. In fact one of the criteria that Negreanu suggests that a player take into account, is table position. Here is what he had to say on that:

From Falls Church News-Press:

Table Position and the Number of Players in the Pot

This is an extremely important. Obviously, the more players there are to act behind you, the more likely it is that one of them will bet. So, if you’re in the small blind with a powerful hand, and there are five players behind, checking is a smart move. One of those players will likely take a stab at the pot; then you can pounce with a raise.

However, if you have that same hand but are the second to last player to act, going for a check-raise would be extremely risky. You’d be counting on the last player to bet. If he doesn’t, all of your opponents get a free shot to beat you on the next card.

This is solid advice, which I should have listened to when I was playing last week. Granted, Negreanu is only detail a situation when the player has a strong hand, rather than nothing. Mainly, I was the guy that Negreanu is referring to who will take a stab at the pot. And sure enough I got raised quite a few times last week.

You can read the rest of the article at Falls Church News-Press. The advice is solid. The hard part is implementing those ideas during game situations.

Negreanu, bet, check-raise, poker

Last week was rough in terms of poker. I took two big losing session before quitting for the week. One of the problems I encountered was that I neglected the importance of position.

My tilt didn’t help matters either. I wasn’t thinking at all. I mean I was thinking, but not thinking thoroughly. I was playing with a one tract mind. My only goal was to win back what I’d lost. Basically I wanted to continue playing bad, even worse poker, to recoup the money I’d lost by playing bad in the first place.

Position is important in poker and allows a player to outmaneuver one’s opponent without a hand in some cases, depending on one’s read. That is, of course, if one has position on their opponent, if one acts from a later position than their opponents. Acting later allows one to get a better read on their opponent, while, on the other hand, acting earlier, one has less information to work with, and it is not wise to bluff much from early position or even bet with a marginal hand.

Bluffing out of position was what I did a lot of last week. I didn’t even pay attention to the cards on the flop, if they made logical sense; I just bet the pot whenever I was playing three handed or less. My success rate was not high, and I ended up getting called every time.

I’m not saying that bluffing out of position in a three handed hand is negative EV all the time. It is also important to take into account an opponent’s aggressiveness. Passive players fold to big bets pretty often. Aggressive players may call with any pair or a draw. And even more daring players may call with nothing, hoping to catch a hand or to bluff on the turn if a favorable card comes up.

Sometimes, things just aren’t going right and everyone is hitting against you every hand. You should keep in mind that you can’t get passive and start checking in hopes that everyone will do the same. But you also shouldn’t be aggressive just to be aggressive, ie. don’t bluff out of position, especially when it’s not logical to do so.

Previous Poker Tips:
Poker Tip #6: Cheaper is not Alway Better or Worse Depending on how You Look at it
Poker Tip #5: Flash Back to the Schoolyard Dynamic
Poker Tip #4: The Lay Down
Poker Tip #3: Faith in the Rush

poker, strategy, position, tilt

OnlineCasino.org is reporting that South Africa is the latest country to legalize online gambling. They join the likes of the United Kingdom, Singapore, Poland, Spain, Italy, and others.

From OnlineCasino.org

SOUTH AFRICA � As reported by the South Africa Herald: “If you can’t beat them, join them . . . or at least regulate them. That is the attitude that the government has adopted towards the rapidly expanding online gambling and online poker industry. “Having learnt from the United States that outlawing online gambling and online poker does little to solve the problem, the government is now on course to legalise online casinos.

If you consider online gambling a problem, there are two things a country can do. The first is to make it illegal. The second is to make it legal and regulate. The US has chosen the former, so it will be interesting to see how other countries, with legal online gambling, will fair.

poker, online poker, gambling, South Africa

Bluffing is my favorite aspect of poker. I’m not always successful, as it’s not easy to bluff players at the micro limits. It’s something that I can’t seem to learn, and I always end up trying to bluff players who call me anyway. Granted sometimes that is because I make irrational bluffs and get called for good reason. Bluffing keeps the game interesting to me and I love the mind games that come with playing a more deceptive and unpredictable style.

The psychology is what interests me. Sometimes I admit that I over think the craftiness of players and end up beating myself, but that’s all part of the process of improving my skills. I’m going to take a lot of hits along the way, and as long as I stay mentally tough through the losses, I should be able to adjust and be successful with a more deceptive style.

One thing I like to do is watch how other players bluff and try to figure out what they were thinking when they attempted a bluff. Here are the best bluffs from the 2003 World Series of Poker.

Sam Farha, Chris Moneymaker, poker, bluff, World Series of Poker

Our regularly scheduled poker-related posts will be back Monday. I apologize for this, but I’ve been rooting for the Golden State Warriors for the last ten years and they’ve finally made the playoffs, so I feel that they deserved a post in anticipation of Sunday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks.

I’m at a loss for words to express how excited I am about the playoffs. But here’s a video that expresses my excitement and anticipation. Here is a playoff preview video and another video of Jason Richardson and Baron Davis highlights. Both were made by Five Ten Entertainment.

The videos are awesome and after watching them, I just feel more pumped up about Sunday.

Golden State Warriors, Dallas Mavericks, NBA, Playoffs, Five Ten Entertainment

ESPN announced that this year’s coverage of the WSOP will be broadcast in HD. Maybe this is not exciting to most, but this is excellent news to me. I’ve been clamoring for HD coverage of the WSOP for two years, so I’m pretty excited about this news.

From tvweek.com

ESPN’s popular summer coverage of the “World Series of Poker” is being upgraded to high-definition, sources familiar with the decision said.

Starting in July, 32 hours of coverage will be presented in HD for the first time. The coverage will include the main Texas Hold ‘Em event as well as other World Series events. The tiny “hole-card cam” that briefly shows what each player is holding most likely be unconverted.

The upgrade makes “WSOP” the first regular poker series to be produced in HD.

The rest of the article can be read at tvweek.com

HD, ESPN, WSOP

Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund

April 16, 2007, will be remembered as one of the darkest days in the history of the Virginia Tech community and the world beyond.

To remember and honor the victims of those tragic events, the university has established the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund to aid in the healing process and generate financial support.

The fund will be used to cover expenses including but not limited to:

• Grief counseling
• Memorials
• Communication expenses
• Comfort expenses
• Incidental needs

If you plan to give, please click the link below:

1997 World Series of Poker, Stu Ungar, Gabe Kaplan, Mel Judah, Bob Walker, John Strzemp, Ron Stanley, Peter Bao

Onlinecasino.org has an interesting article about students paying tuition by playing online poker. The articles gives the example of two students who have made a significant amount of money playing online. One has made $8,000 by playing six days a week for the last ten months, and another has made $6,000 playing six hours a day for the last seven months.

The problem with the article is the bias in favor of online poker. The article relates online poker to a part-time job waiting tables or doing office work. Making a living playing poker is much riskier than a waiting tables.

For most players, online poker is a real grind, often requiring that the player play more than two tables. Otherwise the income is meager and not enough to live off.

The article fails to mention that not everyone wins at poker. It’s not as simple as deciding that you want to make a living playing poker. A part-time job waiting tables at least ensures a base income plus tips. There’s no way to lose money. In poker there’s always the possibility that the player will end up losing money in the long-run.

In my sophomore year of college I had a roommate who played online poker. That was also my first year playing for real money online. I won’t get into how I did, but I will say that I played nearly the same amount of hours, if not more, only to win about a thousand dollars in three to four months. After that I flamed out and lost five hundred dollars in two weeks.

My roommate played pretty high stakes poker for a college student. He was playing 2/4NL and 3/6NL. To make things worse he was playing out of his bankroll, using money from his parent-backed credit card, continually reloading every time he lost.

A few weeks before Winter Semester was over, he won $400 dollars. He hit a real hot streak and decided to try his hand at 5/10NL. During this session he was playing well until he took a bad beat and lost his bankroll. He had a flush and lost to a full house on the river. After that he decided to take a leave of absence for the Spring Semester. He wasn’t getting his school work done and he was losing hundreds of dollars playing poker.

I have no problem with students playing poker. I do so myself, but school work comes first. Making some cash playing poker is time consuming and requires a lot of effort, about as much as working a normal job. Of course there are always going to be the success stories, but it’s good to keep in mind that that’s not the case for everyone.

poker, student, online poker, pay tuition

I finished with classes last Friday, so I hope to play more poker. I started my return to poker with two sessions. Yesterday I won a meager $10 in about two hours, and today I lost $39 in three.

The losing session was inevitable, and I’ve been waiting for it, expecting it, almost embracing it. Now that I’ve lost and don’t feel invincible anymore, I feel horrible. At the end of a losing session I always feel that way. I’m rusty after playing sporadically for two months. Not even sporadic, to be honest, more like not playing at all, save for three one-hour sessions. It’s a shame because I got into a great groove at Doyle’s Room the last week before they moved to the Ipoker network. That was the best week of poker I ever played, even though I’ve won more money during similar one week runs.

Since I’ve been playing at Full Tilt Poker, my play has been reckless. The problem was that I was winning. Every move I made was the right one. Every bluff I made was successful. No one hit anything on me. I saw 35% of the flops and won 18% of my hands, mostly off bluffs. I got paid off with my big hands, which came often. My pocket Aces and Kings didn’t get busted. I knew I was playing too reckless, but not in that I was playing too many hands, more that I was making a lot of marginal calls, which, when successful, I attributed to my stellar reading skills.

Tonight was the end of my good luck, and I’m thankful for it. I needed a reality check, however I wish I quit a bit earlier, before I lost $18 in six minutes, losing $12 going all-in with 7-2 off suit. There was no doubt that I was tilting for most of the session, but the blame also goes to making too many marginal calls, being over aggressive, not making good reads, and basically playing like a complete donk out there.

My first few hands sums up how I played tonight. On my first hand I had pocket fours and bet into someone with two pair, then on another table I called someone with a pair jacks and ended up rivering another jack to beat someone’s cowboys, but a few hands later I lost to someone’s aces full of fours versus my tens fulls of fours. Though I have to note that both players limped in preflop, which was puzzling.

Something I’ve noticed about poker lately is the propensity for winning hands to be distributed unevenly. What I mean by this is that certain people will catch cards all night and then others will catch nothing. I’ve noticed this when I play home games too, but usually those are against three to four players versus nine when I play online. Maybe it’s bad shuffling, but when I play home games, there always seems to be one player that wins almost every hand, while the others get cold carded.

Tonight I was cold carded, and every time I tried to bluff, someone had strong hand, which made it an easy call for them. Bluffing is a big part of my strategy, but it doesn’t work when people are hitting big hands left and right and when I can’t catch anything. Obviously I have to play through those sessions and maybe tighten up, but I’m wondering why those kind of hot and cold streaks are so prevalent for me. Is it product of my play? my mentality? the cards? Full Tilt Poker’s random card algorithm? Most likely all four, but I also think that for me to be successful, I have to have the right mentality, and that’s what a losing session does for me.

*******

I was trying to incorporate this into my post about losing, but I’m uninspired tonight, too bummed about losing and just plain tired. Anyway, I wanted to mention that the Golden State Warriors are playing the Dallas Mavericks tonight. If the Warriors win and the Los Angeles Clippers lose to the Phoenix Suns, then the Warriors will be in the playoffs for the first time in twelve years. It’s exciting and I wish I were in the Bay Area right now to root for them. I hear the atmosphere at Oracle Arena has been amazing. I’ve followed the Warriors since the year Sprewell choked PJ Carlesimo. Can’t remember what year that was; all I know is that it’s been a long time.

In a way, it’s a lot like poker; I lose fair my share, but I keep playing and working at it. I’m still waiting for that moment where everything clicks, that moment where I reach the next level. Once I get there, I hope it feels as great as listening to and watching the Warriors make their run at the playoffs this year.

****

I guess I’ll leave with some Monta Ellis highlights from the 2007 Rookie Sophmore Game:

poker, Full Tilt Poker, losing session, Warriors, NBA, Mavericks, playoffs

Today ESPN announced the events that they plan for their coverage of the 2007 World Series of Poker. For this year’s coverage, there are two noteworthy changes.

ESPN plans to expand their coverage of the Main Event to 16 hours, about four or five hours than last year. This makes sense due to the expected increase in participation at the Main Event.

The $50,000 buy-in HORSE tournament will also be covered, with six hours of coverage to be televised. The inclusion of the HORSE tournament appears to be a compromise for the lack of variety in the past two years’ lineup, which featured No-Limit Hold’em exclusively.

This differed from three years ago when ESPN covered Razz, Omaha, Omaha 8, Seven-Card-Stud, and Limit Hold’em. ESPN’s coverage that year was my first introduction to the other variations of poker, and, admittedly, it was difficult to follow some of the games at first, but it did not take long to pick up and understand how the games worked, however I can see why ESPN decided to focus on No-Limit Hold’em in subsequent years. It’s hard to enjoy a watching a game that the viewer does not understand how to play. Unless, I guess, the competitors are all scantily clad women, or whatever your preference. Another reason, I suspect, is that viewers began watching No-Limit Hold-em, and that’s what they want to watch. The problem is that, sooner or later, the game will get stale.

The following is a schedule of when the events will be played, not when they will be televised. It should also be noted that coverage of selected events are subject to change. The “OR” means that either the event above or below will be televised, not both, at least that is my interpretation of the schedule.

From Business Wire

The schedule of events ESPN plans to cover includes:

• June 1, Event No. 1: Mixed Hold ’Em World Championship, $5,000 buy-in.
• June 2, Event No. 3: No-Limit Hold ’Em, $1,500 buy-in.
• June 3, Event No. 4: Pot-Limit Hold ’Em, $1,500 buy-in.

OR

• June 4, Event No. 7: Pot-Limit Omaha, $5,000 buy-in.
• June 5, Event No. 8: No-Limit Hold ’Em, $1,000 buy-in with re-buys.
• June 8, Event No. 13: Pot-Limit Hold ’Em, $5,000 buy-in.
• June 17, Event No. 28: No-Limit Hold ’Em, $3,000 buy-in.
• June 18, Event No. 30: No-Limit Hold ’Em Six-Handed, $2,500 buy-in./
• June 19, Event No. 31: No-Limit Hold ’Em Heads Up, $5,000 buy-in

OR

• June 20, Event No. 33: Pot-Limit Omaha with Re-buys, $1,500 buy-in.
• June 24, Event No. 39: HORSE World Championship, $50,000 buy-in.
• July 1, Event No. 50: Pot-Limit Omaha World Championship, $10,000 buy-in.
• July 6, Event No. 55: No-Limit Hold ’Em Main Event, $10,000 buy-in.

World Series of Poker, ESPN, television, No-Limit Hold-em, HORSE, Main Event

Add John Kasper to the list of legislators that are in favor of legalized online poker. Kasper’s stance is not surprising, as, even before the UIGEA was passed, he has been in favor of instituting legislation in North Dakota that would allow licensing and regulation of online poker in the North Dakota. Kasper’s interest, however, is purely monetary. He understands that there is money to made through regulation and licensing fees. He has told Gambling911.com that he plans to pursue legislation again. Whether that means working to repeal the UIGEA or to legalize online poker in North Dakota is unclear. Logically, though, the repeal of the former is necessary for the latter legislation to move forward. But either way, any support is welcome, especially when it comes from politicians.

Last week, the PPA held a webcast with Senator D’Amato. Unfortunately I have not had time to watch the webcast yet, but Shamus at Hard-Boiled Poker has written a recap along with some excellent commentary on the webcast, so check it out.

Here is the first ten minutes of the thirty minute webcast for those who missed it.

poker, D’Amato, John Kasper, Barney Frank, PPA