Tag: player

Yikes – Poker’s Good

We slept in pretty late. It was late enough that I missed my friend Barry, who decided to go back to Philadelphia early because of the bad weather.

My breakfast, at the Metropolitan, was strawberry pancakes. Not bad, but not special. Breakfast was fine.

Afterward Steffie and Helaine set out to see the new outlet stores. I headed to our room where the Phillies / Cubs game was in progress on TV. I wouldn’t have stayed but Eric Milton was on his way to a no hitter.

Unfortunately, in the 9th the no hitter went bye bye. In fact, Milton was pulled with the score tied 2-2. I left to play poker and watch the end. By the time I got downstairs the Phils had won 3-2.

Poker had been pretty good to me. I had won all three times I sat down to play, so I decided to go up in stakes. I put my name on a list and in a few minutes was playing $10/$20 Texas Hold’em.

To me, this is scary territory. These pots can hold significant cash and require a significant investment. Right away I promised myself to play tight. Unlike the lower stakes tables I normally play at, there is no rake here. Instead each player is charged $5 every time the dealer changes (every half hour).

It didn’t take long before I won my first hand. The afternoon went very well – not perfect. By the time I cashed out, I had made another $915.

This has been a significant poker event for me. Discounting the tournaments I played (because the payoffs are so concentrated in placing high), Las Vegas wasn’t too bad for poker either.

I think I am now a good poker player. Not great. Not excellent. Just good enough to hold my own in mid stakes ring games. That’s a heck of an accomplishment and I’m happy about it.

I’m going now to play a little more.

More Power on the Internet

I’m not sure if I’ve told this story before. This goes back to Steffie’s grade school days, so at least 6-7 years ago – possibly longer. She was doing a report on Emperor Penguins and needed to know about their sleep habits. She could find (which means we could find) no data.

So, I sat down and scoured the (at that time) very new World Wide Web. I came upon a site maintained by a university professor, wrote him, and before I woke up the next morning a response had hit my in box.

I forget the exact wording, but the professor basically said, you’ve come to the right guy. There are only a few who’ve done research on the sleeping habits of Emporer’s, and I’m one of them. And then he went on to answer Steffie’s question in a much more thorough and learned fashion than a grade schooler would need.

Steffie wasn’t impressed, but I was, partially because of the answer, partially because he was writing from Hobart, Tasmania in Australia!

That was the “Eureka”&#185 moment for me. I had tapped the real power of the net, reaching the right person with the right knowledge.

In the interim I have corresponded with Nobel laureates, presidents of television networks, the past two executive producers of Good Morning America and other luminaries. With a little sleuthing, it’s often easy to guess at the proper email address (though the New York Times is a particular pain in this regard as it’s an email free-for-all).

Where are we going with this?

In Las Vegas I saw the coolest slot machine… and I wrote to the person responsible.

To Anthony Baerlocher at IGT

Hi Anthony,

I remembered your name from the New York Times Magazine article. I am a small IGT stockholder and have just returned from a week in Las Vegas. In real life I am a TV weatherman.

On my last night at The Mirage I stumbled onto the new Wheel of Fortune machine. The only reason I’m writing is because I was so impressed by what I saw. It is by far the sharpest looking machine I have ever played (I’m talking about gameplay here, not the exterior packaging). The video of Pat and Vanna and the graphic animations were excellent (though neither Pat nor Vanna should make a point of waiting for an Oscar – they were both really stiff)

Luckily for me, the random number generator was in a generous mood, and I did fairly well. Unfortunately, that allowed me to see what I consider a few shortcomings of the game. Every time I entered the bonus round I was slowed down by seeing the same video of Pat and Vanna. It was cool the first time, but I went to the wheel four times. It started to get old.

Couldn’t you look for a pause in the action, or the addition of cash, to determine if there was a new player and limit the number of times a particularly long animation would play for one person?

I also would have liked seeing some different cuts when Pat or Vanna appeared during ‘normal’ winning.

Finally, I was confused about how the bonus game worked. I understood that I’d have to choose letters, but beyond that, it wasn’t until trip four that I began to get it. Even then, I’m not sure of all the nuances.

I wouldn’t be writing at all, except I was blown away. It looked so good on the screen. I hope you don’t mind the comments.

All the best from Connecticut,

Geoff Fox

Last night I got this back:

Mr. Fox,

Thank you for the note and the compliments, it is always nice and helpful to hear from our players. I will pass your comments along to my team.

What you observed is some of the power of our new platform, the AVP. It offers more memory, colors, and multi-media capabilities than our older product. For the next few years, we will exclusively use it for our high-end participation games where we charge a premium to the casinos. Since it is a new platform, we are still working out some of the pitfalls, one of them you encountered – the annoying intro videos that you have to watch. Our design specification requested that the player be able to ‘snap’ through it by touching the screen or any button. However, the software code was not set up to handle that and we decided that it was a better decision to release the product to market rather than wait a couple extra months for the feature to be implemented and tested. The good news is that it is already in the next Wheel of Fortune game as well as our other AVP products – so in future games you can either enjoy the videos or quickly move on with the game.

As more players become familiar with video slots, we are advancing the bonus rounds and trying new idea to try to give the players something they have never seen before. This bonus round is very unique but not exactly intuitive. While there is no skill involved, adding a little complexity seems to keep the player from becoming too bored too easily and hopefully play longer. The bonus itself is really easier than it appears. Three puzzles each have a color and some missing letters. Each time you find a missing letter, the multiplier for that puzzle increases. This continues until you pick a pointer with either 1, 2, or 3 colors on it. The colors on the selected pointer are the ones you win on your spin. The value on the wheel for the selected pointers are then multiplied by the multiplier for that color from the puzzles in phase one. It can lead to some really large wins.

Thank you again for writing and be assured we are working hard and for many hours daily to drive the stock price. Hopefully you have been an owner for at least a year or two and not just the past couple months.

Respectfully,

Anthony Baerlocher

Director of Game Design – IGT

Here’s why he asked when I bought the stock. Over the past five years this company has been positively buoyant – and though it’s well off its highs, it’s still 8-9 times what I paid for it.

It’s not Earth shattering stuff, but the kind of entr

It’s All About the Water Pressure

About this time in every vacation, though I say I will keep the blog up, I start to fall a little behind. That’s bad, because I want to stay current. It’s good because it means we’ve been busy.

My sister and brother-in-law remain sort of AWOL on this trip. They have been making sales calls for their business, meaning they haven’t been around. Other than 2 minutes when we first got here, we haven’t seen them. They have been busy with sales calls for their business, which is a good thing – so it’s certainly defensible.

I think I’ve already established that I love this hotel. There are many reasons… well known reasons, and at least one more esoteric reason – water pressure in the shower. I believe every hotel can be fairly judged by the pressure of the shower water and the size of the towels. That’s how Mirage became a 5-star hotel to me.

We had heard about the $12-$13 million rebuild of the buffet, now know as Cravings. This was our night to try it.

I’d been a fan of the original Mirage Buffet, and one night years ago when I saw Steve Winn (then the owner) sitting there with his family, went and told him so. I still like the buffet, but I’m not sure it’s with the same passion.

There is no way to know that this buffet was even built in the same space. There’s nothing left from the position of the food stations to the shape of the room. The dining area itself is immense. The old room was more segmented and split up. This is wide open.

Lighting is diffused and comes in through gold colored louvered fixtures on the ceiling. They’re very pretty.

The food was excellent. There was sushi, shrimp, prime rib, pizza – anything you can think of. And there’s the desert section which has cakes and pies and other baked goods.

After dinner, Helaine, my parents and I went to see David Brenner. He’s playing as the ‘house act’ in the David Brenner Theater at the Westin Hotel on Flamingo. The hotel is low key and subdued which is a weird juxtaposition against the small casino which sits in the center of the entry area. In design, it’s tough to have a casino look right without having over-the-top decorations. That doesn’t necessarily mean garish – though garish usually works.

Brenner was great. Helaine and I had seen him before. He’s very bright, very much in control and confident on stage. He worked a solid hour and a half and had the audience every step of the way.

It’s a small theater, and even then it was less than half full. He made a reference about 100 people, which sounded about right. With promotion and good word of mouth, this guy should be packing them in. It’s a shame. I’d see him again in a second.

We headed back to Mirage and I sat down to play poker. I spent about 5 minutes at $3-$6 until a seat opened up at $6-$12. It was a good table. I recognized one player from earlier trips, and she was doing well. I did well too.

If you’re a poker player you’ll recognize these hands, otherwise feign excitement. I flopped a straight flush and I flopped a full house. The full house didn’t win me much but the straight flush was very nice. I ended up +$162. So, I’m pretty close to even now at poker, which is fine.

This morning, we were supposed to go ballooning over the Nevada desert, but the winds weren’t cooperating. It will have to be rescheduled later. It’s a shame… except for the fact that the phone didn’t ring at 4:00 AM

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.

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.

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.

Foxwoods

We spent yesterday, and a significant part of today at Foxwoods. Helaine and Steffie both wanted to see Rick Springfield perform. I wanted to play poker with real people.

Though Foxwoods is only about 1:15 away, we decided to spend the night. The hotels on-premises are beautiful and quite pricey. This isn’t Vegas. Still, it was a good idea because we weren’t under the restrictions a drive home would require.

Check-in was a breeze and we ended up on the 21st floor of the Grand Pequot Tower, overlooking the woods of Eastern Connecticut. The room was spacious by hotel standards and the bathroom immense, with big towels and strong water pressure (the two criteria by which I judge all hotel rooms). There is no high speed Internet access and the dial-up connection wasn’t very good, and quickly disconnected.

Though Foxwoods is the largest casino in the world, it is in a part of Connecticut that had languished in obscurity for deades. If you think of Connecticut as the “Gold Coast” of Fairfield County, you are not thinking of Eastern Connecticut. If it weren’t for the casinos, Fairfield County residents wouldn’t know this area existed.

Near Bozrah and Occum, not far from Uncasville, Foxwoods is surrounded by the town of Ledyard (Foxwoods itself is in the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation) . Without Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, I’m not sure what the economic state of Eastern Connecticut would be. I do know, with these two casinos, people working in service industries can have jobs with benefits… including insurance. In Eastern Connecticut, a working family can own a home.

I headed to the poker room and got on a list to play, then joined Helaine and Stefanie in the coffee shop. Again, this is a beautiful place, but not Vegas. It was a little more expensive for similar food.

After lunch, while the girls schmoozed with the cult members (Rick’s fans), I went and played cards. I sat at a $5/$10 fixed limit Texas Hold’em table and bought in for $100. Unlike the tournaments I favor on the computer, I’d be playing live cash. Every bet was real money – win or lose.

Almost immediately, I faced one difference between online and brick and mortar poker – the dealer wasn’t perfect and the players weren’t saints. An older man at the opposite end had ripped into the dealer for a minor transgression which put her on tilt. For the next 15 minutes she was awful; once beginning a deal without shuffling!

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.

My game is very tight. I only play ‘premium’ cards, and only play under specific circumstances. I had no trouble folding hand after hand after hand as the action went on around me. As tight as I was, the players at the table were the opposite. Of the 10 players, often 6 or 7, sometimes more, would see the ‘flop.’

Compared to my online games, things went slowly. But, I wasn’t bored. I had ample opportunity to take in the game and the players. This is something I had never been able to do in the past. I knew how I’d play my cards almost as soon as they were dealt, so I watched them play my opponents play theirs and started to form opinions about their style and technique.

I have been thumbing through poker books for years. The authors always talk about doing things like this, but I had never been savvy enough. At times, it was as if the other players were moving in slow motion with their cards exposed to me.

OK – Hold on a second. Let me stop patting myself on the back. I am going to tell you I won, but make no mistake about it. Just because I won tonight doesn’t mean I will be a consistent winner. But, as I wrote before I went, I thought I’d end up with a pretty good idea of my skill – win or lose. It was fun to realize all the computer games I’d played had sharpened my skills.

I played through the early evening at $5/$10 and won $112. I was beat on a very big hand when my pocket Kings didn’t hold to pocket Aces, or I’d haev won more. Poker players always remember their beats more than their wins.

When my cellphone rang around 10:15 I picked up my chips and cashed in. Steffie had called from the concert, asking me to bring more memory for the camera. She didn’t think the 200+ pictures available would hold her when we went backstage after the show.

I got the memory and headed to the theater. I was lucky enough to see someone who knew me and was let in for the last 20-30 minutes. Helaine and Steffie were out of their seats in the first row, pressed against the stage. Steffie had my camera against her eye and was snapping away.

I moved down to see them, then said hi to Mark Davis, our chief capitol correspondent, who was there with his wife Betsy. From there I moved to the back of the theater. I have seen Rick Springfield before. His fans really are cult-like in their fervor. It is fun to stand back and watch him perform and them react. And, it’s fun to see Steffie and Helaine having such a good time side-by-side.

After the show the three of us and the Davis’s went backstage to say hello and take some photos. It’s really a spectacular theater, with great acoustics and better lighting. Backstage was the perfect spot for the meet and great (last time it had been in a basement stairwell). As he had been in the past, Rick was gracious and took time with those who had come to see him.

It’s obvious he enjoys the adulation his fans give him. How many other rockers will have a career that spans four decades?

We took Steffie upstairs to the room, then joined Mark, Betsy and two friends of theirs in a very nice lounge on the 24th floor. They were driving home, so the night didn’t last long, and Helaine and I were soon back in the casino.

The $5/$10 table I favor wasn’t available, so I tried a weird no limit game with $1/$2 blinds and a buy in limit of $40-$100. If it sounds confusing now, I can assure you it was extremely confusing then!

It didn’t take long to give back $50, and I’m still not quite sure how. I stood up and walked away.

This table is obviously there to cater to folks who’ve watched poker on TV or played on the Internet. The math involved when one player goes all in against another player with less money makes the action unwieldy. On top of that, it’s slow. I could never get into the rhythm of the game, if there even was one.

There were still no seats at the $5/$10 table, so I sat down at $10/$20. This is way over my head. I had never played at stakes like this before. My thought was, even with the $50 I’d just dropped, I was up. I’d take my winnings and another $100. Whatever would happen, would happen.

The $10/$20 games was very similar to the $5/$10 – loose. It didn’t take long to win a pot and I recouped the $50 from no limit and a little more to boot.

This table was expensive to sit at. If you folded an entire round, not playing a card, it would still cost $15 for the blinds!

I held my ground and played tight. I gave back what I’d just won and a little more before winning again. The pots were large – often well over $200. My night was not spectacular. But, I felt really good about how I was playing.

Dealt two 4’s, and with little action before the flop and then a third four with the flop, I quietly sat back and watched my 3-4’s turn into 4-4’s! They had been played so silently, on a table where others could be depended on to do the raising, that when the river came, another player bet into my four of a kind. I gladly bet back.

On the hand I decided would be my last, I took an AK all the way to the river without pairing. The others at the table, having seen me fold hand after hand, respected my final bet enough to let me steal the pot.

Not every hand was played correctly. I slow played two Queens, even after I caught a third one. When I checked, it allowed a player to stay in and make his straight, taking me out. Had I bet the three Queens, he surely would have folded to me.

I cashed out $265 ahead, which with my earlier winnings put me up $377.

Was I lucky? Probably. Will I always win? No. Consistently? I’m not sure, but it’s certainly more likely than ever before.

Before I went to play, I had written in the blog that win or lose, my goal was to judge my competence at poker. I am confident in the fact that my skills have greatly improved thanks to the thousands of games I’ve played on the Internet. I think that will translate to profit… at least I hope it does.

I can’t wait for Vegas this summer.

Poker Philosophy

Poker is such an exceptionally intricate game. It has elements of skill and elements of chance. On any given hand, chance can turn a losing hand into a winner. Over the long haul, the effect of chance is greatly diminished.

It is fascinating to play. I am surprised that there are people who find it fascinating to watch on TV.

Last week I wrote about a streak of bad luck that had brought our stake from +$200 to -$25 (or so). It was frustrating because I was losing consistently while playing well. I lost with Aces. I lost with Kings. I lost to someone who stayed in with 7-2 off suit (statistically, the worst two cards you can get) and drew a full house!

Since that time we’ve come back. In fact, we’re a little under +$200 again.

Poker philosophers talk about going into ’tilt.’ That means you let your emotions get the better of you and play with a vengance… almost as if you had a grudge against the cards. Going into tilt is something losers often do. It is something a good player should watch for and take advantage of.

I often see players on tilt, winning big early in tournaments. I’ve gotten to where I can often predict their final outcome. They nearly always bust out.

I tried my best not to go into tilt while we were down, and I think I succeeded. Just to make sure, I even stepped down in stakes – going back to $5.50 tournaments.

Luck changes – or at least it disappears over the long term.

I was reading while playing last night and came across some poker philosophy which might help me be a better player. In the tournaments we play in, the top three finishers get paid. That’s very different from playing in a ‘live’ game where each hand means profit and loss.

The article pointed out that busting other players was not an obligation or even objective of playing. Players busting would take care of themselves. My goal is to survive.

This philosophy comes in to play toward the end of tournaments, where a player might be hanging by a thread and so will go ‘all in’ on hands which he might not have played earlier. Instinct says, if you have a lot of cash, keep him honest by calling. It’s everything to them, and much less significant to you. That’s a bad move… or so said the article – and I agree.

Often, going in will stake that opponent and allow him to play on. I have done that in the past and had it bite me in the tush. I will attempt to restrain myself in the future.

In the meantime, I’ll be playing against real people at Foxwoods this weekend. It is something I seldom do, but look forward to. The games will be much slower than what I’m used to online. I have no idea how the play will stack up, though I anticipate the game having more better and more worse players with fewer in the mid skill level. I will be playing against some people who are earning their living.

It will be interesting to see how I fare. Even if I run into bad luck, I think I understand cards well enough to gage my play.

Meanwhile, as I typed this I was also playing in a $16 turbo tournament. A little run of bad luck at the end held me to third, for $27 or $11 net profit.

Blogger’s note: If you’re interested, all my poker entries are chronologically strung together by this incredible blogging software (all the way back to sending my money to Costa Rica) and can be read by clicking here.

How Goes Poker?

More than once, Helaine and I have commented how amazing it is that we put money into the poker ‘kitty’ in August and we’re still playing in April. In fact, we’re back to being up around $200 (above our original $250 stake).

Recently, Pokerstars introduced an additional type of no limit Hold’em tournament.

It’s $15 to play with $1 for the house. The structure of the game makes it play much faster – maybe half the time of normal tournaments. I also think it’s brought in more wild players who are often gone quickly and are always very volatile.

A quick explanation of these tournaments for non-poker players. You enter by paying a set fee. All the money (minus the house’s share) is put into a pot and divided by the top players. In these nine player tournaments, it’s the top three who cash out. When I talk about betting in a tournament, it’s ‘tournament dollars’ which aren’t convertible to cash and only go to decide who will collect the pot of entry fees (which is real money).

Have I made it more confusing?

I like this new structure and maybe it’s only because Helaine and I have been very successful in it. Yes, there is lots of luck to poker. But, over the long run skill will win.

I think the lower house percentage will work to our advantage. Now, instead of 9% going to the house, it’s 6.25%, which is a huge difference.

We don’t know anyone else who plays online, but we’re sure these casinos wouldn’t exist if everybody won. There’s always money flowing to the casino. The fact that we’re above water, working against that tide, astounds us. And, we think we’re much better players than we were when we began.

How Goes Poker

I haven’t written about our poker playing in a while, and this seems to be a good time. At this moment, we are up $.11 since August!

Not long ago, we were up to $500 in the bank, meaning up $250. Oh well. It comes and goes.

There’s no doubt I’m hooked on poker, and obsessive gambling is a problem. On the other hand, is it a problem if all we’ve spent is time?

Part of the reason I’m only up $.11 is because I’ve got $6.50 tied up in two games in progress. One is a 9 player $5.50 tournament. There are four left and I’m second.

The other is a $1 tournament with 1334 entrants. There are 811 left, but I’m way back at 682.

Sunday at Foxwoods

Stefanie has been away for this entire week. So, Helaine and I have been taking it somewhat easy at home as temporary empty nester’s.

Earlier, Helaine had asked if I wanted to go to Foxwoods for their brunch. Foxwoods is a casino – the biggest in the world – and it’s about an hour’s drive away in Eastern Connecticut.

There are certain givens when going to a casino.

1) You will gamble

2) The food experience will be over the top

I had worked Saturday night (unusual), but didn’t stay up as late as usual and was out of bed by 10:30 to shower and make the drive. Our reservations at Fox Harbor were for 1:00 PM, so we’d have plenty of time.

Today was a spectacular winter’s day. The sky was blue with some high, wispy cirrus clouds. Even as we left home, before noon, the temperature was approaching 50&#176 (and got to 53&#176 at Willimantic, CT, not far from Foxwoods), well above the late December average.

I was apprehensive as we drove because normally light trafficked areas on I-95, The Connecticut Turnpike, were moderately loaded with cars. It was the last day of the Christmas holiday, and for many ‘going home’ day. As we passed the first entrance for valet parking, I realized this traffic hadn’t gone to the casino but was just passing through.

Originally there was poker at both of Connecticut’s casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. A few months ago, Mohegan Sun’s room closed (about a day before the huge new interest in poker began). Foxwoods is now busy day and night. Today was no exception.

I headed into the poker room before heading to brunch. I knew it would be smart to get on a list early, and did just that. There must have been 50 names for the half dozen tables at my limit.

While walking through the room I ran into Jimmy Christina, one of the floor bosses. Jimmy has been at Foxwoods since they opened their doors. He has the kind of gravely voice that shrieks of whiskey and cigarettes… and a ponytail that is seldom seen by people who wear suits. When I grow up, I want to be Jimmy Christina. I have no idea what his official title is, but he wields power and settles disputes and is a poker room fixture.

Brunch at Fox Harbor was no disappointment. When we eat at a buffet brunch, Helaine and I know it will be our one meal of the day. This was perfect. I started with clams and shrimp then added lamb chops (incredible). After a few trips through the line I had sampled crepes, pasta, more lamb, and baby lobster tails like I had never seen before. And then there was desert!

We waddled out of the buffet and headed toward the poker room. Poker and Fox Harbor are at the opposite ends of the casinos… but we could have been walking to Las Vegas and not walked off this brunch.

I quickly sat down at a $4-$8 fixed limit Hold’em table. I hadn’t played poker at a casino since we began playing online in earnest. The casino was going to be slower and any ‘tells’ I had (hidden while I play online in my pajamas) would be obvious to all who watched. I pulled out 5 – $20 bills and bought chips from a neighbor at the table who had obviously done well over time.

It’s true. You do play more hands per hour online. On the other, the conversation was reasonably good and I had a nice time. Before long, I slow played a well hidden straight, check bumped one of the other players, and won somewhere around $75 on one hand. This was my high water mark. Unfortunately, it didn’t last.

Before long Ashley Adams came up to the table and said hello. Ashley had been our union rep from AFTRA (The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) at the station. Though now repping teachers, I had sat alongside him during contract negotiations and knew him well. And, of course, I knew he enjoyed playing poker as much as anything else.

For years, Ashley has been an active participant in the Usenet group dedicated to poker and is recognized as an expert. Now, he pulled out a paperback book, and I realized he had also become the author of “Winning 7-Card Stud.”

Currently 62,418th on Amazon’s sales list, Ashley won’t be able to quit his day job just yet, but the online reviews are excellent. Five reviewers, and each gave it the 5-star maximum!

I’ve been skimming through it, and though 7-card stud is not my game of choice, it reads very well. If you miss losing one hand because of what he says, the book has paid for itself, even at very low limit tables.

Meanwhile, at my table the cards were not coming. In fact, during 4-5 hours of play I can’t remember being dealt a pair of face cards or Ace/King once!

My Waterloo came when I was ‘blinded in’ and flopped 2 pair, Aces and Jacks. I felt pretty good and started betting, only to have another player return and re-raise my bets. By the time all was said and done, I had invested well over $60 in my two pair, only to face 3 – Aces.

You want the odds? If I have Ace and Jack, and the flop turns up another Ace (and Jack), then there are 47 cards I don’t know about, with 2 Aces remaining. It’s 2 chances in 47 for him to have gotten an Ace on the first card and then 1 in 46 to get the second. All in all, his two Aces against my hand comes up less than 1 in 1,000 (.000925069)!

By the time the day was over, I was down $132.

I didn’t play poorly. Once, I peeked at my hole cards on a flush draw – tipping off my hand. Still, that was the exception, not the rule. I lost, mostly, because of bad cards. And, because my cards were so bad, and I looked so tight as a player, when I finally did go in, everyone knew I had a made hand and folded, reducing my win.

Helaine spent the afternoon playing blackjack, and left with some cash in her pocket.

On the way out we played some slot machines. Foxwoods seems to have less machines featuring licensed concepts, like TV shows or characters, than you see in Las Vegas. We played a Dick Clark Bandstand slot and quickly walked away. Monte Hall treated us very nicely at Let’s Make a Deal. We left the slots about even.

One more comment before I go.

Both Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun cater to a large contingent of Asian client

My First Tourney Payout – Not Much

The online casino I play poker at is loaded with tournaments. Usually I play one table affairs where the last three standing cash out. But, that’s not the only way they’re dealt.

Every day, there are open tournaments. Pluck down the entry fee and you’re in! Some are free – with a cash prize. Others are satellites, qualifying you to play in more expensive tournaments without paying any more money. When it comes to these massive tournaments, I never look above the $1 or $3 level. It’s just a way to kill time.

Tonight, I entered a $1 tournament along with 1167 others. Someone was going to go home with over $250 on a $1 bet. Most would get nothing.

The game was Hold’em, no limit. Each player gets $1,500 in chips and plays from there.

I set my computer up with the tournament table over the ‘lobby’. I positioned the screen in such a way that I could watch the countdown as players started getting knocked off.

For the first few minutes it was slow. The first out in these tournaments is usually on the first hand… and usually someone who will later say, “Bad cards don’t kill you. It’s good cards that will do you in.” My guess is, a lot of players retiring early are doing so with a pair of aces that didn’t hold.

I watched the numbers ratchet through 1,000 and then 900 and 800. I was playing well but always below the middle of the pack moneywise.

The ante rose every fifteen minutes and there’d be a spurt of players tapped out. “Conservative,” I kept saying to myself. Not losing is more important than winning.

By the time we got down to 250 players, I was looking at what the tournament paid. Yes, the winner gets paid well, but it’s like falling off a cliff after that. By the time you’re at number 10, you’re down to $10.52.

I didn’t care. I wanted to make money. How much wasn’t important.

The numbers continued down. 200, 150, 130, 120. I looked at my stack. I had enough to break 99, where the payouts started, if I just sat and folded. I wasn’t getting anything to play anyway.

110, 109, 108, 107… the numbers were moving slower. No one wanted to be the last out before getting something. 106, 105, 104, 103. It struck me that I’d have to do something stupid at this point to get blown out.

102, 101, 100, 99, EUREKA!

A text message flashed on the table. At this point, all the tables would be synchronized. We’d play hand for hand. God forbid someone would play s-l-o-w-l-y and make an extra few cents.

There were prize breaks at 81 and 61. I blew by both and had nearly $30,000 in chips. And then, it happened.

I went in with a good hand and met up with a spectacular one. I lost, all-in, to a pair of Aces.

After playing 3:15, I finished 50th!

I had outlasted 1118 others and had won… this is going to sound so stupid… I won the grand total of…. hold on, here’s the email:

PokerStars Tournament #657810, No Limit Hold’em

Super Satellite

Buy-In: $1.00

1168 players

Total Prize Pool: $1168.00

Target Tournament #624430

9 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started – 2003/12/13 – 23:30:00 (ET)

Dear ctwxman,

You finished the tournament in 50th place.

A $2.92 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 53.02 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.

I have no clue what 53.02 tournament points gets me. You can be sure, however, it’s not as good as that $1.92 net profit! Ah, the sweet smell of filthy lucre.

Playing Poker – 2 At a Time

I tried something a little different tonight. I played two games of poker at once. Helaine told me she had heard about others doing it… usually managing to slow down either or both of those games in the process.

With that in mind, as a goal to avoid, I entered a $5.50 one table tournament and the $1 affair that begins at 11:30 PM.

It is a little unnerving to play two at a time, but doable. At the beginning of a game, when there are 9 at your table, things are slow. Often you can set your action before the bet gets to you. Let’s face it, most of the time you’ll be folding and you’ll know that as soon as you’re dealt your first two cards.

The $5.50 game started about 20 minutes before the $1 tournament. So by the time the tournament began, the $5.50 table had lost a few players and was moving at a much swifter pace.

Pokerstars software brings a table’s window to the top of your stack if action is called for. That comes in handy. There were only a few times when both tables needed me at once. I don’t remember playing a live hand on both tables at the same time. If I did, it wasn’t much of an overlap.

I did make the decision that the $5.50 table would take precedence if things got hairy, and I found myself watching that table more than the larger tournament. It was a strange game once we got to six. We were tightly bunched. In fact, we were tight enough to go from worst to first on a single win. That happened to me and probably others as well.

By four, one player was totally dominating the chips. He had over $10,000 with the other three splitting the remaining $3,500. The leader broke the fourth player, so we went to three with two of us nearly tapped out. By that time the antes were $400/$200.

Number three went in a few hands. By that time I didn’t even have $400 for the big blind. I won two in a row going all in before the flop. Finally, on the third hand, I went down too.

So, $5.50 invested and $13.50 returned for an $8.00 net. And, I was still live on the $1 tournament… but only barely.

I never really got excited in that game, probably because I never had cards. In a tournament like that, you need to be skillful and lucky. I did make one tactical error early, going in on a hand I should have folded. From there on in it was downhill.

I ended up finishing 444th out of 1068. No one above 99th was getting paid. Even then, if you outgunned 967 others to get paid it would only be $1.60, or 60&#162 net!

The ‘real’ money goes to the top-5, with $267.01 to the grand prize winner.

I haven’t mentioned where we stand recently. We had gone up $10 over our original stake and then, the wheels fell off the wagon. No matter what we got, no matter what we played, we lost. Earlier this week we had gone down nearly $150 from our original buy-in. As of tonight, we are down $102.40.

Considering we’ve been doing this since mid-August and the house takes 10% of each one or two table tournament entry we make, I think we’ve had some pretty cheap fun.

I’ll say this much… I am very much looking forward to our yearly trip to Las Vegas. I have more table time in the last three months than in the rest of my poker playing days. I was always able to hold my own at the low stakes tables in Vegas. I never won over the long run, but I never got hurt. It might be different now. I am much more disciplined and much better able to read the table, though still not the other players.

The Geek In Me Speaks – IV

Overnight, I downloaded the Mandrake Linux distribution. It was around 1gb!

Today, when I went to burn the three ISO files onto CD-R’s, I noticed two were bigger than the CD-R capacity of 700 mb. That couldn’t be? So, I burned away and made five coasters before realizing something was dreadfully wrong.

I posted on Usenet, looking for a solution, and was told I was doing something wrong. After resetting a number of the parameters I’ve never needed to touch in Nero (my CD burning software) and telling the program it was OK to overburn, or put more that the stated capacity on a disk, the ISO’s took.

Now, to install them on the laptop.

I booted from the CD, saw the first screens and then… failure. Mandrake’s installation program told me it wasn’t seeing my CDROM player. Of course it saw the player to get this far, otherwise it wouldn’t know to tell me it couldn’t see it now.

In a situation like this, you’re on your own. So, I went to the Mandrake site, and started searching for my model of laptop. Sure enough, there was a string of messages with the same exact problem and a fix!

Just add a switch with the boot that said ide=nodma (I believe this means the drives don’t use direct memory access, meaning they’re older/slower). But, how does one add a switch? I tried a few different tacts until it finally took.

As far as I can tell, Mandrake is installing. I know it was clueless to my Robanton wireless networking card. I sort of expected that. Supposedly, it will sense other cards as they’re plugged in and install them on the fly, automatically. Sure – whatever.

I am persevering because I’m pigheaded. What I’m experiencing is totally unacceptable if Linux is to become mainstream.

Stuff About Poker I Will Never Understand… Never

Tonight, after work, I decided to play a little poker. With Helaine’s help we’ve crawled back to even. Tonight, I added to that.

A quick recap. On August 12, I deposited $250 at pokerstars.com. We’d play until the money ran out. After a few weeks we were down around $150. It wasn’t going to last all that long.

My game tonight was a 2 table, 18 player tournament. Entry fee $5.50 ($5 into the pot, 50&#162 for pokerstars). Someone was going home with $36. Three others would win lesser amounts.

I played nearly 30 hands before going in the first time. After a few small wins, I drew one player all in to get fairly flush with chips, and then spent the rest of the game being cautious and protective. My finish was second, good for $27.

The winner was nearly out long before the final four. His miraculous save came by winning a lucky hand, filling in a straight with a 5 after he had gone ‘all in.’

As he and I played head-to-head for the top spot, a player who had been in the game started typing on the chat screen. He was ranking my opponent because he had won lucky. Truthfully, he was cruel and abusive.

But why? Because he was beaten in a $5.50 game? Where is the perspective in this man’s life?

Can the $5.50 really matter that much? And, even if you do lose to someone you consider an inferior player, over the long run, you’ll get your money back.

I want lucky players at the table, because their early luck only encourages them to chase for winnings, and hopefully, I’ll end up with some of their cash. When I play in these little tournaments, I assume that there are 3 or 4 players who have no idea what they’re doing… maybe they’ve seen poker on ESPN… and are getting educated.

But why was this busted player going after the chip leader?

In a brick and mortar casino, a manager would already be talking to him, letting him know that one more outburst would get him tossed (and they really will do that). Maybe it’s the perceived anonymity of the Internet… or he’s just an ass.

Actually, that’s more likely.