Category: Online Poker

Online Poker Tournament

A few weeks ago I felt I could do no wrong playing poker. Now I feel I can do no right!

Poker is amazingly fickle. Skill controls some, luck controls more. And, like a baseball player in a slump, it’s possible to slip into bad habits.

With my recent run of bad luck and skill, I thought I’d write tonight while I’m playing in a tournament. There is a rule of thumb for me: The earlier I have to be up in the morning, the later I am held in the tournament. In this case the tournament has been going a little over four hours.

My investment was small, only $9. Originally there were 666 players. Now we’re down to 44. Of those, 31 will be paid $215 and the 32nd will get $70.

Numbers 33 through 44 will get nothing. At the moment I am 33rd.

In fact, as I am typing, I have just pushed all my chips to the center with an Ace/King.

Everyone folded. Now I’m 28th.

If I end up in the top-31, I will feel good and write about it later. If I’m out before then, I will curse loudly.

Back to 32nd of 42. I hate this part.

Now 36th of 41. It’s only $9. Why am I sweating?

Poker Tournaments

I would be doing much better at poker if I didn’t play any multi table tournaments. Of course they’re very enticing because it’s possible to win a lot with very little at risk. On the other hand, it’s really tough to make it to the few who get paid. Even then, the payouts are heavily weighted to the first three finishers.

It doesn’t happen often… certainly not for me.

For the past three nights I’ve been playing in a $3 + rebuy tournament. It looks like it should only cost $3 – and it could. Realistically it costs $9. For many people it costs even more.

As long as you have the $1500 in tournament chips (what you’re given to start) you can rebuy another $1500 in chips for $3. So, as soon as I start, I rebuy. That way, if I should win the first hand, making me intelligible to rebuy, I’m already set.

At the end of the first hour you can ‘add-on’. That’s $2000 more in tournament chips for $3.

In tonight’s 11:59 PM tournament 646 entered. There were 1305 rebuys&#185 and 367 add-ons for a total prize pool of $6,954. That number is in real dollars, not tournament chips.

Unlike most tournaments, in this one the prize, which went to the top 32 finishers, was an entry into another tournament. The entry is valued at $215 in a weekly tournament guaranteed to pay out at least $350,000!

These tournaments are interesting because there are waves of different play as the field is whittled down. If you’re in 25th place with 35 players left, do you dare risk busting out… even with Aces? There’s really no advantage to finishing high once you’re in the money.

Tonight, I played for 4:31, squeaking in and winning one of the 32entries. It was tough play and I was tempted more than once toward the end to go in with a good hand. I resisted.

As exciting as the $350,000 tournament sounds – it’s a bit rich for me. I’ve already taken the $215 entry fee and put it back in my account where it will pay for a lot of much smaller games.

&#185 – If you bust during the first hour, you can rebuy. Because of that, a lot of people play recklessly in the first hour, hoping to double or triple their chips..

Haven’t Talked Poker In A While

I was speaking to a friend yesterday – someone on his way to Las Vegas next week. We talked a little bit about what he did there and how much he would win or (more likely) lose. I told him he should learn to play poker.

At least with poker he’s got a fighting chance.

I continue to play online and it amazes me how much I play – nearly every night. It also amazes me how well Helaine and I have done since we deposited $250 in August 2003.

When I say how ‘well,’ I don’t mean we’re running out to buy a new car. We’re up from the $250 – and that’s enough. To put it in proper perspective, we could use the winnings for a few fancy dinners.

I find, much like a baseball player, my play goes through streaks. Some of them, like a terrible run last spring and fall, are because of bad play. I buckled down and became more focused and disciplined&#185. My latest bad streak has been luck induced. Hey, stuff happens.

Helaine has said in the past she feels the online games are fixed. I read people complaining constantly about bad beats in online games – the implication being they’re crooked.

If the games were crooked, could we be playing this long on the house’s money?

Every time we play a game the house gets something. I’ve been playing $20 + $2, single table, sit and go tournaments lately. That means every time I sit down (and the tournaments run anywhere from an hour to hour and a a half) the casino makes $2. The fee the house takes is called a rake.

Over the last year and a half we have paid thousands of dollars to the house in rakes. They’re coming from someone… just not us.

We’d actually be doing even better if I could resist the temptation to play in 1,000+ player tournaments. The payoff for a win in those is amazing. I’ve been in some where the winner walked away with over $10,000. Unfortunately, the payoffs are structured so a huge percentage of the pool goes to the top three finishers.

Skill aside, the odds of being one of those top finishers is minuscule.

If there’s one part of my game that has improved over time, it’s how I play in these sit and go tournaments when we get to the last two or three players. Since the winner gets 50% of the pool versus 30% and 20% for second and third respectively, placing well becomes as important, maybe more important, than just placing! Third place makes a net profit (after the rake) of $14. Coming in first brings a net of $78.

Maybe I’m making a mistake by playing at the $20 tables. If the competition is less at $5 or $10 tables, I might make more over the long run. I’m just not sure.

In the meantime, it’s fun. I enjoy the analytic aspect of it.

The is one poker truism. I read this somewhere, and it struck me as correct at the time and seems even more correct now, that poker players never remember their winning hands and never forget what they were holding when they lose.

I guess that’s because a decent player doesn’t stick around in pots where he thinks he won’t win. An ugly loss is much more unexpected than an ugly win.

&#185 – This might be the first time in my 54 years on the planet that I have been referred to as focused and disciplined. Admittedly, even then it came from me.

Poker Observations

Earlier this evening, while I was out at the Gateway Community College Hall of Fame Dinner, a woman stopped me to say she had been reading my website. “You write about poker a lot,” she said.

That reminded me. I really haven’t written much about poker at all recently. Let me change that.

Our poker playing had become hot as could be over the summer. The original $250 stake had rolled itself to well over $1,000. I was feeling good and maybe a little too confident.

My play started to suffer. I took foolish chances. In poker parlance, I was on tilt. Before long – actually last week – we were back to that starting $250 and still sinking.

I knew my play was poor, yet was unable to play correctly.

It’s the strangest thing. I knew my moves were foolish as I was making them. Everything I knew about the math behind risk/reward in cards was out the window. Maybe it was a desire to rapidly leverage my winnings or the thought that I was such a good player I could do no wrong?

As I realized I’d soon be out of money (and it seems foolish to want to send more to Costa Rica under these circumstances), I took a long hard look in the poker mirror. Changes were necessary.

First, I made a vow to play conservatively. There would be no chasing or bluffing. My biggest, hardest losses had come when I was too aggressive.

Second, I stopped playing in turbo games. In these games the blinds (forced bets) go up in value very quickly. If I was going to be conservative, I’d have to have enough time to wait for the right cards to come. Slow play, not turbo was what I needed.

Even where I had good cards, I wouldn’t try to take it all at once. That’s a sure strategy for failure in a game where you can win a zillion small and moderate hands and bust out with one single loser.

So far I have been playing this way for over a week. I am a much more consistent winner than I had ever been before. I’ve made up the deficit and am well over my original stake.

Helaine, whose play remains steady and dependable, is also moving the needle upward.

Now, the question is, can I avoid this temptation again? If I got up a moderate amount, will the small incremental wins I’m getting be enough to make me happy? It was my undoing before. Maybe I’ve wised up?

What’s the Opposite of I won?

My poker tournament experience has ended. I didn’t win. That’s not to say I didn’t have a god time or I didn’t play well. Except for one small move early on, which I now question, I was pretty happy with my play.

I got to bed early (for me) last night. Sleep was not very good and I was up just after 6:00 AM. I left the house around 8:00 and drove the 70 minute trip to Foxwoods.

Though the roads around the casino were reasonably busy, I realized as soon as I got to the valet parking area that Thursday morning was not prime time. Mine was the only car there and a nice young woman quickly walked up and gave me a parking ticket.

If you’ve never been to Foxwoods it is a world unto itself. The complex is immense. It was, and may still be, the world’s largest casino. As big and bold as Foxwoods is, the area surrounding it is the opposite. Surrounded by the town of Ledyard, there is still plenty of farmland and low density housing and businesses in the area. As you approach from the north, the high rise hotels dominate the rolling terrain of eastern Connecticut.

I got to the poker tournament desk at 9:26. I know this because it’s on my receipt. I said hello, paid my cash, chose between a hat, t-shirt and $10 in food coupons (food – though not used) and headed toward the tournament.

How fitting is this for a seniors poker tournament, we were in the Sunset Ballroom!

I walked into the ballroom. It was a breath of fresh air because I felt, I looked, I (probably) was the youngest person in the room. I’m used to being the oldest at work. This is more fun.

I scouted the room and didn’t see anyone I knew. Then I spied Jimmy Christina.

I have described Jimmy here before, so let me be brief. Jimmy is not tall, though he easily stands out in a crowd of people. His gray hair is pulled back in a ponytail. He has a Southern New England accent&#185 delivered in a voice reminiscent of a gravel road. Standing in his tuxedo, he is the absolute height of incongruity.

When I grow up, I want to be Jimmy Christina.

There’s one more thing about Jimmy. If you watch him from afar, you will see a constant stream of people coming up to him, saying hello. All of them are smiling. Jimmy is smiling. He is charming.

I moved to my seat at table 30, seat 8. The room was filled with long, narrow, Texas Hold’em tables. Each was set to comfortably seat nine players. The dealer sat in what looked like an executive’s office chair. I am told they hate it because it has no back support.

This tournament was ‘sponsored’ by “Oklahoma” Johnny Hale. Johnny is old school poker, back when it was all guts and instinct. It was the era before mathematicians quantified the game’s nuances into a series of odds and ratios. Johnny introduced some other older players, shilled his own line of merchandise and books and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. He is everything you expect from someone who goes by the name Oklahoma Johnny.

In a poker tournament, you buy in for a fixed amount and then get tournament chips, in this case $1,500. They’re not good anywhere else, just in a tournament and can’t be turned into real cash. You keep playing poker, hoping to survive as more and more players bust out.

Today’s tournament had 295 players. The top 25 would win money, starting at $777 and going up to better than $40,000. The goal in tournament play is survival. Survivors are paid. Winning is of secondary importance. I hope that makes sense.

Since the game was No Limit Texas Hold’em, anyone could bet all of their chips on any card. It didn’t take long until someone did – and walked away the first loser. I was one player closer to the cash.

Compared to online play, live poker is very slow. And compared to online play, I’m not multitasking. The game at hand gets my undivided attention.

With forced bets and a few cheap peeks, I quickly turned my $1,500 to $1,350. I was somewhat uneasy, though it didn’t affect my play. I was very self conscious. I didn’t want to be out early. I didn’t want to look like I didn’t know what I was doing.

At the far end of the room a big screen TV displayed the current stats. What were the blinds (forced bets for two players each round)? How much time was left at this limit? How many players were left?

Table 30 was one of the first to get broken up. As players leave, and some tables have empty seats, tables are combined to allow everyone to sit at tables with a similar number of players. I was sent to Table 8, Seat 1.

Around me, the room was alive with the sound of cards being riffled and chips clinking. It is a steady castanet sound which permeates the room. It is actually reassuring to hear. I looked down at the stacks of chips in front of each player. Already there were huge differences with some players close to busting out and others amassing fortunes.

Life at Table 8 didn’t go much better. Slowly, as if I had a leak, chips were disappearing from my stack. Before long I was down to $320.

With a forced bet of $75 and a number of players already calling in front of me, I went all in with a pair of 4s. Being dealt a pair is good – but 4s… well even a pair of them… is no bargain. If anyone else matches any card other than a two or three (unlikely they’d be played anyway) you’re dead meat.

On the fourth common card, ‘the turn,’ a third 4 was dealt. I had a set (three of a kind) and was now back to nearly the $1,500 I started with. A few more good hands had me up to $2,000.

Meanwhile, on the TV screen the numbers were changing. As tables were consolidated the player count went down – 225, 200, 175, 150. My chip count had me below the middle of the pack, but I was still playing.

And then, I drove into oncoming traffic at full speed.

The limits had gone up to $100/$75. A few players limped in with minimal bets when the action got to me. My cards – two red Aces. In Hold’em there is nothing better to have than a pair of Aces. I raised to $300.

A few players dropped out and then, across the table, another player pushed his chips toward the center. He was all in. In order to play my Aces, I’d need to match his chips.

I had Aces. There is nothing better.

I pushed my chips in as we both turned over our cards. He showed another Ace and a Jack. This was wonderful. Additional Aces wouldn’t help him. He needed two Jacks or some ridiculous out of the blue miraculous one in a million shot… and there would only be five common cards with which to accomplish this.

The dealer rolled three and then one and then one more. Of the five cards exposed, four were 7, 8, 9 and 10 (the 8 coming on the last card, know as the River).

I still had my Aces. He had a straight!

I was left with a few hundred dollars. It didn’t take long to lose that when my King, Queen was beaten by a Queen, Jack.

I had played four hours and fifteen minutes, finishing 102 of 295.

Good play can get beaten. It is, after all, gambling. Yes, there is skill, but skill tempered by chance.

I’m glad I played. I enjoyed the tournament. I wish I would have come home with some more money.

&#185 – Usually limited to far Eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island, this regionalism makes a Boston accent sound soft and gentle.

Playing Poker

A very short entry at this very unusual time for me to be awake. I’ve taken a day off from work and am going to Foxwoods to play in a reasonably large poker tournament.

To say I’m apprehensive is an understatement.

Online play has been excellent practice, and this tournament is for seniors (designated at 50+ years old), a group not as likely to play online. Still, one good hand gone bad and -poof- you’re gone.

Later this afternoon or evening I’ll try and post my results. The later I post, the more likely this story has a happy ending.

A Night For Numbers

I’m in a very mathematic mood – if such a thing is possible. I got home late after Monday Night Football, sat down and played some poker online. I haven’t written about poker too much lately. Maybe that’s because of how poorly I’ve been doing for nearly two months.

Some of it is bad luck, but the majority is bad play. I see the trend, which is too much aggression on marginally winning hands. If you go all in four times and win only three, you’re gone. I have to be more conservative in that way. Keep my neck off the chopping block.

I have moved down in stakes and reined myself in. So far I’ve done OK against lesser competition. We’re still up since August 2003, but much of our winnings have been squandered by me.

I have to maintain discipline. I can’t play on tilt. Bluffing is a good plot technique in a novel, but a losing strategy in real life poker.

Like I said, I was really into numbers tonight. There was poker and before that my new found infatuation with the ridiculous traffic this site had on Monday. With more traditional, higher ranked sites now on the Ashlee Simpson story, I’ll soon be relegated to the third and fourth page in the Google results and my traffic will tail off.

My final numbers play was looking at the latest election polls. It is too late to look at the popular vote. Analyzing raw numbers is a fool’s game since it isn’t how we elect a president anyway.

I looked at state by state polls on the three sites I’ve grown to enjoy for this: The New York Times, Slate&#185, and my new discovery RealClearPolitics.com.

I love thumbing through the charts and maps on each of the sites and reading their analysis. This is definitely like predicting the weather… actually predicting a snowstorm. I say that because predicting snow is inherently difficult. There are parameters that interact with each other and the data is never as complete or as well initialized as you’d like.

The wild card in this election is voter turnout. Most of the major polling companies limit their surveys to likely voters, and they are qualified based on historical criteria. It seems to me, and this is gut not science, that the turnout for this election will be higher than historical norms. That would mean there will be more voters than the surveys take into account. Will those additional voters vote the same way as the likely voters surveyed?

If the election does draw a heavy turnout, will lines or delays at the polls send people home without casting a ballot? Will those people correspond proportionally to the survey results?

I don’t know. But, it stands to reason, the more unknown variables that are thrown in, the less likely it is that the election will be accurately called.

Just as each individual forecast has a separate degree of difficulty, so too do elections. This one is incredibly tough to call, but is fascinating to look at piece-by-piece. And, unfortunately, just because I have lots of pieces to look at doesn’t mean I will understand any more.

&#185 – Last week I wrote about Slate’s state-by-state polls showing Kerry ahead. Tonight that is reversed with President Bush leading 276 to 262.

If You Play Poker Long Enough

We continue playing poker – having fun. Things were better a few months ago, I’ll admit. Still, we’re up and haven’t put anything in our account since the first deposit in August 2003.

As you play over longer periods of time, you end up seeing some improbable things. I was playing in a $15+$1 tournament when the following happened. The tournament chips referred to are sort of like points, not dollars. The top three finishers win real money… but not in the thousands.

PokerStars Game #750408265: Tournament #2933737, Hold’em No Limit –

Level VI (100/200) – 2004/10/07 – 03:45:01 (ET)

Table ‘2933737 1’ Seat #7 is the button

Seat 1: growlers (6940 in chips)

Seat 2: coolhandluck (906 in chips)

Seat 5: oneheadlight (2689 in chips)

Seat 7: ctwxman (2965 in chips)

growlers: posts small blind 100

coolhandluck: posts big blind 200

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to ctwxman [4c 4h]

oneheadlight: calls 200

ctwxman: raises 200 to 400

growlers: folds

coolhandluck: folds

oneheadlight: raises 200 to 600

ctwxman: calls 200

*** FLOP *** [2c 4d Ks]

oneheadlight: bets 400

ctwxman: raises 1965 to 2365 and is all-in

oneheadlight: calls 1689 and is all-in

growlers said, “wow”

*** TURN *** [2c 4d Ks] [Kc]

*** RIVER *** [2c 4d Ks Kc] [4s]

*** SHOW DOWN ***

oneheadlight: shows [Kh Kd] (four of a kind, Kings)

ctwxman: shows [4c 4h] (four of a kind, Fours)

oneheadlight collected 5678 from pot

coolhandluck said, “lol”

*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot 5678 | Rake 0

Board [2c 4d Ks Kc 4s]

Seat 1: growlers (small blind) folded before Flop

Seat 2: coolhandluck (big blind) folded before Flop

Seat 5: oneheadlight showed [Kh Kd] and won (5678) with four of a kind,

Kings

Seat 7: ctwxman (button) showed [4c 4h] and lost with four of a kind, Fours

In case that was tough to follow, I ended up with four of a kind! Unfortunately, so did someone else. His were Kings which beat my Fours.

Luckily, when I went ‘all in,’ the guy who ended up with the 4 – Kings had a little less money than I did. So I had $276 in tournament chips after this hand. I was able to hold on and finish 2nd and win a few bucks.

A Year of Online Poker

It was about a year ago that, like an idiot, I went to Stop and Shop, bought a Western Union Money Order, and sent it off to Coast Rica! That $250 was our stake to play a little poker. Who would have thought, a year later, it’s still there – and larger than when we began?

It’s time for the backstory. I had been playing poker very infrequently for 20 years or more. I thought I was good. I was awful. Since I didn’t play often, I didn’t lose much. It was harmless fun.

With two casinos in Connecticut, I was invited to a Press Poker Tournament for charity. It was the kickoff to Foxwoods’ World Poker Finals. Somehow, entirely by luck, I came in near the top and won $1,000 for Blue Jeans for Babies.

I am not being modest. It was luck – blind luck&#185.

As the day progressed and the tables were consolidated, I found myself playing with Jan Fisher of Cardplayer Magazine. I had no idea who she was, but when I found out I wanted her to tell me how I played.

I was waiting for some nice words of encouragement – but she said nothing. She thought I played poorly, but was looking for a way not to say it.

Jan Fisher turned me around as a poker player. She doesn’t know she did, and I’ve never thanked her. If you see her, tell her.

By the time August of 2003 came along, I had tightened up my game enough to break even. Considering the house takes a cut of every pot, that’s not bad.

It didn’t take me long playing online before I realized I’d have to tighten up and be even more disciplined. I did. Though to this day, my biggest losses still come when I lose my sense of discipline.

With a computer, it is possible to play hundreds of hands of poker a day – often while doing other things at the same time. This is the kind of experience that good players used to take years to get.

We now sit with $900 of profit (could be more or less – I’m playing now). I won’t quit my day job. I have to believe that’s as good or better than 70-80% of the other people playing online. The online casino has collected thousands and thousands of dollars in fees while I’ve played. They were taken from me, but replenished by others.

The most important part is, I still enjoy the game. I get frustrated when I play poorly. I enjoy being strategic when it helps me win.

&#185 – As I got closer and closer to placing in the money, I became more and more nervous. Playing for big stakes, even when it’s not your own money, is nerve wracking.

It’s Tournament Time

Though I had done well at casinos recently, my online poker playing had been pretty poor. In fact, since returning from Atlantic City I have only won $9 in a $5.50 ($3.50 net profit) tournament and then lost and lost and lost.

This afternoon while Steffie and Helaine were away, I decided to play in my favorite Pokerstars tournament. It is an $11 buy-in with a $10 rebuy and $10 add on.

OK – it’s obscure. I’ll explain.

In simple language, you buy in for $11 and get $1,500 in tournament chips. Then, as soon as you go below $1,500 (like after the first blind bet), you can buy in for $10 more and get $1,500 more tournament chips. After the first hour, if you’re still in, you can buy $2,000 more chips for $10 more. So, $31 gets you $5,000 in tournament chips.

Today 454 entered with 725 rebuys (you can rebuy more than once leading some players to be very aggressive during the first hour when rebuys are available) and 256 add ons. That’s $14,550 in prize money. The winner would get $3,637.50.

These tournaments pay off in a very non-linear fashion. The top 45 finishers get money, but the top three get as much as 4 through 45 combined!

I was up and down. At one point I was crippled when my Jacks over 4s full house was beaten by 4 – 4s! Still I managed to fight back. With around 120 players to go I was all in and nearly busted out. Then things turned.

The farther into the game I went, the more conservative I became. In a tournament the goal isn’t to win. The goal is to not lose.

I played over five hours, making it to the final table of nine. My last hand was an Ace King up against the player to my right who had two Aces. Oops.

Pokerstars Tournament #2157567, No Limit Hold’em

Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00

454 players

Total Prize Pool: $14550.00

Tournament started – 2004/07/31 – 16:30:00 (ET)

Dear ctwxman,

You finished the tournament in 6th place.

A $654.75 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 174.91 tournament leader points in this tournament.

For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at

http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html

Congratulations!

Thank you for participating.

We’re back around our high water mark and still winners since last August.

Losing At Poker

A few weeks ago, I hit it big at Pokerstars. I turned $3 into $966, winning a 1296 person tournament. I felt as if I were on top of the poker world. Since then, I’m not sure if I’ve won a hand!

OK – that’s an overstatement. Still, the poker fortunes have decidedly turned. It’s not that I’m playing badly (I’ve really worked hard to avoid going into tilt). It’s just a really long run of bad cards – and it’s driving me a little nuts.

If there’s a way to lose, I have found it. This past weekend, playing in the same tournament, I finished 128th. Only the top 81 were getting paid. I played my Kings against another player who had 2s. Of course the third two turned on the last card.

That in and of itself isn’t unusual. Bad beats are a part of poker. It’s just I’m getting ‘bad beat’ all the time.

Last night, with a King, Queen in my hand, I watched 2 more Kings come up. I bet them hard, all the way to the end, only to see my competition turn over King, Ace.

Helaine has hit the same rut too! She just told me about her loss this evening, playing Kings against a lower pair and losing when her opponent made trips on the river.

It can’t last forever. Well, actually, it can. It shouldn’t – but it can.

Rather than squander my money away, I have moved down in stakes, hoping to gain some advantage by playing less savvy opponents. Still, we’ve given back a few hundred dollars of our winnings.

Right now it’s frustrating.

Oh – one more poker note before I go. Last night, one of our reporters interviewed the winner of the 2004 World Series of Poker. Greg Raymer. Though he’s physically built like a poker player (don’t ask, but think about all that sitting), he seems a sharp contrast to last year’s big winner Chris Moneymaker. Raymer is an attorney from nearby Stonington. He’s well spoken and seems well liked. And, he plays at Pokerstars and Foxwoods Casino – the two main places I play… just for a whole lot more money.

My Mom Says Don’t Be a Gambler

I speak with my mom nearly every night. I call her from the car on my way home from work. Though my dad is sleeping – he’s sleeping without his hearing aids, so it’s not really a disturbance.

She says she’s awake, and most of the time she probably is, but I know there are nights I must wake her up. She likes the calls and I do too, so she doesn’t complain.

Every once in a while we’ll talk about poker. She doesn’t know the game at all. She does, however, have poker advice for me.

“Geoffrey,” she will say, “don’t be a gambler.”

I think she means don’t bet a lot. Don’t bet money which is important to your life or lifestyle. Don’t risk your family’s well being. She is right.

The kind of gambling I do is penny ante stuff. And, at least for the last nine months, I’m winning – which makes it a little less threatening. Still, she has a point and I will heed her.

I have tried to explain to my mom that poker is a game of skill, with a fair amount of luck involved. You can be good enough to win over the long run – to beat the players and overcome the rake. There are pros who make their living at the tables. But, for short spurts, anything can happen.

Recently I have been getting the impression that, even if only by dumb luck, I stumbled into the best way to learn – concentrated online play. I read a blog entry yesterday that confirmed and enhanced what I had been thinking. I have no idea who the author is.

The results of the 2004 WSOP Main Event has made it dramatically clear that learning to play no-limit online has become the quickest way to become proficient. This realization is currently slamming the faces of a lot of poker pros at this very moment. Poker pros who are still experiencing shell shock at how well the “dead money amateurs” have been able to read them like open books, and in the process were able to neutralize their bluffs with calls based on very good reads of their “betting patterns”. Some of these pros will go into denial by blaming luck and ignorance on the part of the “dead money amateurs”. If you are one of these pros, you can continue to do this at your own risk.

He’s talking about the World Series of Poker, now nearing its conclusion in Las Vegas. His World Series of Poker read is similar to my recent impressions at Foxwoods.

Almost immediately I found an inner peace I had never experienced at a poker table before. Everything was crystal clear. I was totally confident. I watched as players went in and out, betting, checking, folding. I knew what they had… or was pretty sure.

I’m playing online tonight, honing my skills, as I type this.

I’ve made a promise to myself to tighten up my game another notch. Since Sunday’s tournament win, I have played too many hands – to my own detriment. I can’t be scared to fold. In the little sit and go, single table tournaments, I play (in fact in any tournament), the goal is not to win. The goal is to outlast and survive.

In my first tournament, it didn’t help.

Nor in the second…

Nor the third.

You’re Not Going to Believe This

I played poker tonight. This past week hadn’t been my best. A little up, a little down. Without Helaine, the week would have been a loss (both in poker and life in general).

I played a few small tournaments Saturday. In one that paid to 45th place, I was out at 47th! With another, I got tired around 2:30 AM and just played stupid (on purpose) to get it over with. It was a very small tournament – either $1 or $3 entry. I can’t remember.

Tonight, at 8:00 PM, I decided to play in another. It’s a tournament I try to catch every week, if I’m around. It’s only $3 to play, and though I seldom get my $3 back, it’s cheap entertainment. Since I hadn’t been doing well, the $3 seemed like the right investment.

I played fairly consistently – made a bad move in the first hour that hurt me dearly – and went to the bathroom break in the middle of the pack. By hour two, I was in the middle of those left. And then, I started to hit.

My cards tonight weren’t particularly good. I did have some nice hands, but wasn’t able to maximize them. I would characterize my night as grinding it out. Nothing fancy. No spectacular steals.

If you’ve never played in a tournament, here’s how it works. The house collects an entry fee and a fee for running the tournament. I guess these $3 tourneys are a way to entice new players, so with these the house takes nothing. All the $3’s are put in a pot. Tonight, that pot was $3,867.

With 1,289 players, the last 99 standing would win some cash. It wasn’t until 7th place that the $100 prize mark was reached. Then the numbers went up a little faster until $204.96, $251.36, $348.04, $541.39 and finally $966.76 for coming in first.

By 11:30 PM I was still rolling along. In fact, I had made it to 2nd place. There were still plenty of players. Going out there would have only won me $17.41. And, my grasp on 2nd was precarious to say the least. With $170k in my kitty, only $7,000 separated 2nd from 5th.

As the tournament progresses, the stakes increase. Those left playing end up with more money, but the price of playing goes up too. Players were dropping with regularity – tapped out. I played on.

At 12:16 AM, over 4 hours into the tournament I went into first place. Oh my God! I was coming to the realization I might bring home some real money (Actually, I was already home – but that’s another story).

There were 14 left. Tournaments become very volatile at this point. Pots are huge as players try to intimidate those with good, not great, hands out. I was guaranteed $35 on my $3 investment. I was a happy man.

Twenty minutes later, I had sunk to 4th, but then hit a big hand and was back to 1st. What had begun as 144 tables was now just 1 – and I was playing on it. I saved a screen capture of the game summary at this point.

I fell to 6th, then rebounded to 5th and 4th. Players had become more conservative. There was less bluster and bravado. Everyone was waiting for a quality hand.

By the time we were down to 3, I was back to 2nd. Then, I took down the third player and with his chips moved to first.

At 1:02 AM, five hours into the game, I was heads up, playing against Mo888 from Glenwood Springs, CO. I didn’t think about it at the time, but this series of hands was worth over $420 by itself – far more than I had ever played for before.

Even without that pressure, I was beginning to sweat. I wondered whether to wake Helaine, sleeping in the next room. I continued to play – and play conservatively.

I had over $1,200,000 in tournament chips out of the $1,933,500 on the table. Slowly I whittled away until I got dealt an Ace and small card. I called from the small blind position and he raised. It all went so quickly. He went all in, and I followed. When all the cards were dealt, I had a pair of Aces, he had less.

It only takes a few seconds to get the email from Pokerstars. I’ll let you read it, as I did. And, please remember, my entry fee was only $3!

PokerStars Tournament #1627931, No Limit Hold’em

Super Satellite

Buy-In: $3.00

1289 players

Total Prize Pool: $3867.00

Target Tournament #1626940

9 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started – 2004/05/23 – 20:00:00 (ET)

Dear ctwxman,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.

You qualified to play in Tournament #1626940 and are automatically registered for it.

See Tournament #1626940 Lobby for further details.

In addition a $966.76 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 542.81 tournament leader points in this tournament.

For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at

http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.htm

Congratulations!

Thank you for participating.

At this moment, the $250 we deposited in August is $1,472,78.

I can’t believe it either.

Big Boys Playing Poker

I am watching the 2003 World Series of Poker on ESPN 2. This is… oh, maybe the ten thousandth time this has been on TV. I know who won, and have seen much of the action before, but still enjoy watching. The reason is, TV has added an angle to the game which never existed before.

Let me backtrack a second. I was in Las Vegas, playing at a $3/$6 Texas Hold’em table at the Mirage Hotel. Two players were head-to-head. The first raised and the second paused, thought and then folded. As the cards were being mucked, he asked the winner what cards he had. The reply, “This is a pay-per-view game.”

It’s true. Unless you pay to see them, the winner’s hand is never shown. Was he bluffing? Did he have the nuts? You’ll never know unless you pay for the privilege. That is major power for a poker player. Without his hand being exposed, his true strategy remains a secret.

Enter TV. Now every hand is exposed from the deal. There is no secrecy. The play of a master can be dissected and understood. The huge advantage that a very good player might possess is gone.

Of course TV has brought so much new blood (and money) into the game that it isn’t quite a pact with the devil. Still, the curtain has been parted.

The players at the WSOP level aren’t that much better than those I’m playing with… but they are better. Every time I sit down (online) at a low stakes, one table tournament, there’s guaranteed to be someone who really doesn’t know what he’s doing. Yes, that person can win – Kenny Rogers was right in saying “Every hands a loser. Every hand’s a winner.” But over the long run, he’s going to get drained.

I am fascinated to see the odds displayed on the screen as the games plays out. Calculating pot odds is something I should be better at. I have a sense of where I stand, but if I could really make the calculations of my chances versus the pot, it would make me stronger.

Meanwhile, Helaine and I continue to do fine playing our online games. At last check we are up about $300 since August 2003.

Over the course of this weekend, I will try and play in some of the larger tournaments available (larger in participants, not stakes). Though the payoffs can be large, it’s unlikely I’ll cash out in any given weekend.

This Can’t Be Real

I read an article online recently about the type of poker tournaments I play in. I wish I could remember where I read it, or who wrote it, because it has had a lot of influence on me these past few weeks.

These tournaments pay the top three finishers out of nine who start. It’s not like a ‘normal’ game where your fortunes ebb and flow with each hand. And so, the article said, the goal is not to knock other players out – but to survive.

The fact that someone didn’t follow that advice in a tournament I played earlier tonight was what allowed me to finish in the money. I had very little cash left and was forced ‘all in.’ Though he had two bad cards, a 2 and 4, he stayed in, hoping to eliminate me. The little I won from him allowed me to stay in through another round of blinds, and that allowed me to outlast the player who went out 4th!

I have been doing well of late. Maybe some of it is this strategic advice. I’m sure a lot is the luck of the deal which does enter into poker over short periods.

I started tonight playing a $15+$1 ‘turbo tournament.’ Whatever the reason, these suit my style of play and I’ve done very well with them. I came in 2nd.

I had won some money, so I decided to up the stakes and played for $25 +$2. This was the tournament of survival I just wrote about – and I came in 3rd.

Now I was up over $40 for the evening, so I decided to do something daring – a $50 +$5 tournament. I had never played at this level before.

For the first time, I noticed a difference in the quality of players. They were tighter – probably more savvy. I felt my way through the first few times around the table. There were a few deals where I had good cards, but they didn’t improve after the ‘flop.’ I was slowly bleeding money. Of 8 players left, I was 8th.

I was following the sage advice I had been given. I avoided conflicts when I wasn’t assured of winning. That meant throwing away a lot of early bets as I folded. As the ante’s rose, all this betting then folding was crippling me.

And then, the cards turned. I started getting great hands. This isn’t the norm, but luck is luck. I’d much rather be lucky than skillful!

Before long the table was down to five, then four, then three. I was in the money.

I won this little nine person tournament when I went in with an Ace against the other players Ace, but with a higher kicker. He was gone. I hadn’t won as much as I’d survived as others fell around me.

PokerStars Tournament #1556707, No Limit Hold’em

Buy-In: $55.00/$5.00

9 players

Total Prize Pool: $495.00

Tournament started – 2004/05/06 – 02:31:56 (ET)

Dear ctwxman,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.

A $247.50 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Congratulations!

Thank you for participating.

We’re now up nearly $500. I remember a few months ago we had turned our $250 into less than $20. Now poker fortunes have changed. This is our high water mark.

I won’t stick at this $50 + $5 level. Much too scary. Much too expensive. Tomorrow, it’s back to the smaller games. But, if I get a few wins, I might be back.