And the river runs dry...

The Pokerholics hosts flaked on us and all the rest of my games have dried up. I've got no avenue for poker... Maybe I'll head into the mountains sometime soon.

Vegas and Blogs

Back from Las Vegas and wanting to revive the blog... Again.

Here's hoping I can find some consistency this time.

Need... more... poker...

Why is it so difficult to find / get into a weekly poker game?

Maybe I should network more on places like 2+2...

Poker Drivel: Not Good Enough

I found myself in another relatively large stakes (for me, anyway) invitational tournament and busted out only 3 hands after the add-on, before the lunch break, when pretty much everybody had LOADS of chips to play with. Here's how it went...

Raiser in middle position makes it 2BB. Everyone folds to me; I call with 9Tc on the button. I'll often lay this down, but I've got position and this player has been relatively tight, though he does seem to overvalue his hands sometimes. The blinds fold also.

The flop came 7c8d2c...

Our raiser bets just below the pot, which I expected him to do almost no matter what came. I double his bet. He doesn't hesitate much in doubling THAT bet. I think for awhile... I have the OES draw, flush draw, and this guy ISN'T betting with a draw so I'm good if I hit either one. He's likely on an overpair or a set; I'd give equal odds to either.  With two clubs on the board, he's certain he's ahead for now but would prefer not to see another card. I call. Here's where the real trouble begins...

The turn is 8c...

I get a little starry-eyed for a couple of reasons... I hit the flush, for one, and I've now got the straight flush with EITHER the Jc or 6c. (You guys already know where this is going...) He shoves for about 2x pot and I call far too quickly, too caught up in my cards to think clearly about what's happening here.

Of course, he did have the set on the flop... 77 for sevens-full on the Turn. I have to hit the straight flush now.

River's a blank and I go home 34th / 40, before the lunch break...

Everybody shook my hand and said there was nothing I could do, but I disagree strongly... I need to be good enough to keep my wits about me, remember what I've got the other guy on, and keep the hands in perspective. I could and SHOULD have gotten away from that hand and used my remaining chips to rebuild.

I'll remember that hand for a long time, especially when I start feeling like I'm pretty good. I need to remember the time I was not good enough.

It gets really old...

...to delete all the non-sense comments in Chinese. What's the motivation behind leaving such contentless crap on random blogs?

Sometimes we forget...

I get busy with work, gym, and life and I forget... Forget to play poker, forget to keep my blog friends in the loop... I occasionally think I would forget to breathe if not reminded by the eventual burning sensation in my chest.

I will make an attempt to resume play tonight and, if something happens that seems noteworthy, I'll definitely tell you all about it.

Poker Drivel: Patience

I went through a good, long stretch where I knew more about poker but my overall play wasn't as good as it had been when I knew less... Whether or not they realize it, I think this happens to a lot of players on their journey from relative beginner to middling. As the newness and initial excitement of the game wear off, we get a little jaded and lose a certain edge that seriously affects our game as a whole. The difference?

Patience.

As I (in my estimation) find the keys to push through the upper borders of middling and into the journeyman range, I find the ultimate key is long-term patience, even temper, focus, and walking away when I feel myself losing grip. I know it sounds obvious when it's spelled out, but I don't think most players in this situation even realize how often their mind is drifting or they're loosening up due to impatience. It takes a lot of focus to realize when you're losing focus.

I now play a lot of poker on Facebook, which I would NEVER have done before... Every time I start to slide into the bored, "doesn't matter" mindset I kick my own butt, refocus, and force myself to take it seriously no matter how donkish the play around me. It's been quite effective discipline training.

No time for poker

Still here and still interested in keeping the blog going, though I'm not sure anyone's reading it anymore. That's what you get for announcing it's closed, I guess... People figure there's no reason to go there anymore. LOL.

Well, anyway, just wanted to let all you folks know out there in interwebs-land that I haven't played for a bit due to work and gym demands. Things should settle down after our trade show next week and hopefully I have time to play some poker again soon.

It's official

We've seen it coming for a long time... Now it's for sure. The announcement just came down that my company is being moved to New Orleans.

Poker Drivel: C-Bet No Evil

Usually I write a new Poker Drivel post when I've observed something relatively new (to me, at least) that seems to make my poker game better. This post, however, is more of an open observation and an invitation for comments... Please feel free to contribute.

I'm terrible with detail when it comes to where I've seen or heard something, but I'm relatively confident that I've read from reputable sources that one should always C-Bet a preflop raise, especially when you're in position and it's checked to you. In thinking and observing, though, I'm not sure that's absolutely true. I'm sure this is the best policy most of the time, but consider the following situations:

• Say you've raised with AK. You're playing tight, so the table has reasonable expectation (whether or not they're actually paying attention) to put you on a strong hand when you come in with a preflop raise. When the flop comes small, a lot of players are going to be relatively certain you've missed and will call a C-Bet with a lot of different hands, including many that have you beat (weak pair with the board, small PP). In this scenario, you gain very little information when they call and, to my observation, all you've really succeeded in doing is growing the pot with a weak hand. You might be setting up a bluff on the Turn or River, yes, but is it really effective to do this every single time, given the downsides?
• What if you have a solid read on a player in front of you and it looks like he's hit a hand. Do you C-Bet into him, throwing money into the pot and setting yourself up to lose more on his subsequent value bets? I suppose this one partly depends on your confidence in your ability to read hands.
• How about if you've raised in late position with something like TsJs and the flop comes 8s9s2h? The flop has technically missed you, but you've got draws out the yin-yang. Do you C-Bet and potentially set yourself up for being raised or do you take the free card? I'm likely to bet here personally, but I can see strong reasoning for opting to see the Turn.

Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?

Poker Drivel: Upward and Onward

I think the best way to rejuvenate this blog is to start by telling how and why it died and what has caused its resurgence... It's not exactly a discussion on tactics or methods, but I think it could be of use to the struggling, burn-out poker player to hear the path I have walked and why, after swearing I never would, I have returned to it.

I'm the type who's decent at almost everything I decide to pursue... I'm a reasonably bright individual and I learn quickly at first, but my interest almost always wanes once the learning curve gets steep, so I've established a pattern of dabbling but never dedicating, meddling but never mastering. I've left a dozen relatively serious pursuits in my wake from music to writing, poetry to game design; while all of them still cling in various states of disarray, none ever really stuck.

When I put many of these pursuits aside to take up poker, I made myself a promise: I would take this one seriously. I would wade through the hard parts, pay my dues, struggle, strive, and work until I was the best damned poker player anyone had ever met. (Problem #1: Setting goals too lofty and too subjective.)

I started by playing Stud and Limit Hold 'Em at card clubs and casinos in California and Colorado. When I decided to take it seriously, I also signed up online at Pokerstars. I was loving every minute of it, playing 5+ hours every single night and doing reasonably well for a beginner... In my first year, I ended up slightly behind in live play but way ahead online. It wasn't until halfway through my second year that I hit my first serious slide, giving back about three-quarters what I had won online (essentially breaking even overall) in a series of bad cards, bad beats, bad play, and bad attitude. (Problem #2: Allowing early success and general arrogance to set expectations far too high.)

I steamed for a couple of weeks, almost deciding to quit, before I remembered... I was here before. This was the point at which I was irritated and didn't want to go on, the point at which I had always quit, and I had promised myself to forge on this time. So I started searching online for poker guides and training software, stumbling across a package called Poker Academy Pro in the process. It was $129.99, far above its competition, but the reviews online were quite good. I did the math, realized I had lost more than that amount in a moment based on bad play and decided to pick up a copy as an investment, intending to play against AI bots in WSoP-type structures until I could consistently beat them. (Problem #3a: AI bots suck at No Limit, even those lovingly crafted by Poker Academy.) (Problem #3b: Overestimating the maximum extent of my patience with AI bots that suck.)

I saw right away that Poker Academy had an online mode, but I'd spent enough time on the free sites to know that was useless. (Problem #4: Assuming that playing against complete donks with no respect for the game or their "money" was useless or a waste of time.)

Eventually I broke down and decided to just mess around in the online mode and, entirely by accident, stumbled upon a community of people with the same basic objective as mine... They were all relatively serious about improving their poker skills and, though they were playing for fake money, they treated the game more seriously than most people playing $1/$2 NL in Las Vegas. I was instantly back to playing 5+ hours every night, only this time against the same basic group of people over and over again. My poker game made many leaps and bounds during this time, but in my competitive drive and desire to be the best and to win, I'd already started to lose my grip on why I picked up poker in the first place... I started to forget entirely that poker was a game and that I should be able to have fun playing it. (Problem #5: Letting ambition run away with my heart.)

I'll summarize much of the middle of my journey as it currently stands by saying that, during the next couple of years, I cycled further and further down a bored, jaded, disillusioned path, always pushing myself forward because I'd promised that I would become great at something for once in my life. I completely lost sight of anything that resembled enjoyment at the poker table and my game suffered for it. This only made matters worse... The more I pushed myself, the worse my results became until finally, after a mind-numbing series of bad beats and extreme tilt (though I denied it at the time), I came to a final conclusion that I wasn't cut out for poker. I officially gave up, publicly denounced it, and decided, while I would still play the occasional game with friends, I was done with it on any kind of serious level. (Problem #6: Deluding myself into thinking that any given decision is absolute.)

I continued to play in friendly and semi-friendly games when invited by various groups with which I was still in contact through the remainder of 2008 and all of 2009. I probably played a total of 6 - 9 poker tournaments during that time, essentially breaking even or lagging a little bit behind. I don't know exactly because I stopped keeping track. But I apparently did well enough to be invited a high-buyin, two-day invitational tournament with a private group here in Denver. Partly because it was invite-only and I felt honored to have been included, I agreed to play - instantly regretting that decision the moment I pulled the money out of the bank. (Problem #7: If you've resolved to stay away from something, continuing to dabble even on a friendly basis is a recipe for a full-blown return... Sounds something like an addiction, doesn't it? *coy grin*)

That tournament to any level that I cared about ended just over 16 hours of play later when the top 3 decided to split the pot, playing out the final hands just to determine who took home the trophy. I was chip leader when we decided to split, so I generally tell people that I won... The final tally said I came in third because I jammed every hand and was called by pocket tens, but that technicality doesn't change the way I feel about it. In my heart, mind, and soul, I won that day, and I went home feeling the best about myself than I *ever* remember feeling at any previous point in my life. I was hesitant to admit it, but I basically knew... poker was back.

For me, even better than the financial result, was all the feedback I got at the table. People who had also played well enough to earn a spot in this tourney (not donks) were routinely referring to me as dangerous and specifically staying out of pots with me. They were having a hard time getting a read on me and consistently either winning a little from me or losing a lot. They (not all, but many) were afraid and I was eating it up. All my time spent at the tables in the past wasn't wasted after all.

Shortly after this event, I started playing poker a lot on Facebook... Yeah. Facebook. Something I realized, once I was seeing clearly, is that I never really learned how to play successfully against complete donks with no respect. I always lost patience and ended up giving away my chips because the whole thing seemed pointless. I was, in essence, sinking to their level... Even worse because I knew better. But not this time. I played tight and patient, exercising proper bankroll management and walking away from the table when I got annoyed, and I (so far) turned a couple chips into 3.5 million, more than many of my friends who had played for a year or more. It was good timing, because the Ben Kramer Memorial / 2010 Poker Academy Meetup was in mid-March and I was just hitting the prime of my poker return...

As most of you already know, I continued a decent run during that Vegas trip. I was definitely aided by a few sessions where drunk clowns were "throwing money at me" (per Pokergirl), but I had my share of dry sessions also. The proudest moment, for me, was grinding out a profit of $19 over a 6-hour session at $1/$2 NL. The table was full of drunk idiots and arguing, enough to put me on definite tilt, and I was card dead and unable to capitalize on the mistakes they were making for the majority of the time, but I managed to pull off some key bluffs and leverage what meager cards I did have into a positive session when, in the past, I guarantee I would have self-destructed and given away my stack by loosening up and playing the donkey game right along with them.

So here I stand, ready and proud to declare my official return to serious poker... But not before I provide answers to the problems I've illustrated above, for my benefit and yours:

----------

1. My goals are now defined against myself, not against others. I have no control over how good Daniel Negreanu or Joe Schmoe are at poker. I can only strive and aim for the best *I* can be at poker. At the very least, I have confidence that I can achieve a level worth achieving.

2. Pure humility and even temper. Don't gloat, don't beat myself up, truly work on treating every single hand as a new adventure and a new opportunity to learn. Shed the emotional inertia and just chill... No one moment is going to define me.

3. Using the top 2 points as my guide, continue to play against donks and loosey-gooseys. Stay comfortable with playing people who are very bad at the game. At worst, it's a good exercise in patience.

4. See 3. It's not a waste of time. Sometimes your best opportunities for making real money at the poker table are against complete morons and you have to log playing time against these people to learn how to get the absolute most you can out of them.

5. Once you measure your success against yourself, as in Point #1, treat any session in which you've learned something as a success. These tidbits have a habit of adding up.

6. Don't be silly. Poker and life are both fluid. No matter how accustomed you are to swimming upstream, you also have to learn to go with the flow sometimes.

7. All's well that ends well. The only difference between an addiction and a true passion is whether the user maintains control.

And the dead shall rise...

Many of you know this already via Facebook or hearing it from me personally in Las Vegas this week, but I took down a large invitational tourney recently... That, combined with an extremely successful and productive Vegas trip that completely covered all of my expenses plus a little to put aside for a rainy day, has catapulted me directly back into poker.

It's as exhausting and frustrating as it ever was, but there's something about it that keeps drawing me back into the fold... And I'm once again certain that I have a real talent for the game. I'm not the best in the world... or the country... or the state... or the city... but I feel I'm good enough to justify the time I've spent in the pursuit, which is all I've ever asked of myself.

I don't know how much I'll post, hopefully enough to make it worth coming back for the various people who have expressed an interest (far more than I imagined), but I'm comfortable in saying that my blog here is resurrected...

This too shall pass...

If anyone is still checking this blog, if anyone still cares, they could probably have predicted this post would be coming... Perhaps not in exactly this form, however.

The fact is, I'm giving up poker as any kind of serious pursuit. I'll play on occassion as a hobby, but that's as far as I'm now willing to go with it.

The stupidity of the whole thing has finally sapped my spirit. I can't find the energy any longer to pick myself up.

For all of you PA'ers, please continue to keep me in the loop if you're going to Vegas. I'll still play occassionally and I still love Las Vegas... So I'll probably try to attend at least a portion of any rendezvous that may or may not happen this year.

That's it. I'm done.

Thanks for listening.

I'm sorry for not posting...

Life has not been cooperative.

Even now, I find myself in tears... Michael Shanahan was a friend of mine and I am broken hearted that Pat Bowlen has treated him in this way.

Please bear with me folks, I really am going to try and keep this blog going.

Gone away...

The blogger you have tried to reach, SandMan, has been disconnected or is no longer in service...

Actually, to be more accurate, he's fighting with an ill defined project that has no real chance of any kind of success... Oh, and he's in New Orleans. Yuck.

Squeezed in a few minutes of poker last night and happened to be in the right place at the right time when I turned the nut flush and the loosey goosey to my left decided to represent... the nut flush. It's almost enough to make variance worth it.

Almost.

Poker Drivel: Eschew Egregious Obfuscation Addendum

So... I wrote and rewrote the "Eschew Egregious Obfuscation" post several times, having a hard time expressing my thoughts on keeping one's poker game simple. I knew there was a core truth in there, but I was having a hard time explaining it succinctly.

Then, yesterday, I signed up for a premium membership at DeucesCracked.com and got busy watching some really good players go at it... When out it comes...

He says he very rarely bluffs or makes a move, beyond the basic C-bet when the flop likely favored him more than his opponent (like when he raises with AKs, opponent calls from middle pos and the flop comes 729)... He feels there's no reason to get particularly fancy or overcomplicate your game at this level. Sure, making moves and outplaying your opponent is both fun and can amount to some brilliant poker when you get good at it, but why open yourself up to making potentially costly mistakes and maybe even get into a habit of playing above your skill level (if only slightly) when making money at a given level doesn't require it?

He bets when he really feels he has the best hand and he's fairly quick to lay it down to a raise. He admits this play style would get him killed at anything past 100NL, but it works well at the micros and allows him to build a bankroll at the early stages, hone the basics, and cuts down on variance.

Exactly, I say, thank you...

Eschew Egregious Obfuscation (Addendum)

Noted Poker Authority: Playing NL Hold 'Em With a Plan

One of the best articles I've read in a long time...

http://www.notedpokerauthority.com/articles/playing-no-limit-with-a-plan.html

Get it while it's hot.

Poker Drivel: Eschew Egregious Obfuscation

What the heck is "Eschew Egregious Obfuscation", anyway?

That's my favorite geek-humor, tongue-in-cheek way of saying "don't make things more complicated than they need to be", more literally translated (from Middle Dorkish) as "avoid needless complications ".

You see, we as ambitious human beings have this habit, especially when we start to get good at something... We're naturally curious and we want to explore the concepts and practices to their very fringes, honing the finer points and developing a skill in the subject of which we can be truly proud. While there's nothing ultimately wrong with that, we can get our heads so firmly planted in the details that we forget the basics.

I've spent a lot of time honing the finer points of a bluff and learning how to put an opponent solidly on a hand... I've played around with the right size of bet to feed into chasers to maximize my profit when they don't catch and minimize my losses when they do. I've explored the art of Texas Hold 'Em down to the nitty gritty and found myself occassionally losing sight of the ultimate measure of a successful poker game... Profit.

While I'm sure there are players out there who are truly good enough to play a dazzling poker game full of complexity, access every trick from their repetoire without hesitation or flaw, and constantly maintain focus... That's not me. And it probably isn't you either.

So, while you're reading the various blogs and learning finer points, remember this also... Relax. Work these things into your game slowly. Especially when you're on an emotional or mental edge for some reason, sometimes it's best to keep the tricks and traps in a bag and simply play solid, tight poker.

Eschew Egregious Obfuscation.

Down, down, down...

What's happened to Poker Drivel?

That's a very good question and it begs a good answer... The answer is, I've been on a slide that has really shaken my core foundation and made me wonder why I ever played this game and why I should continue.

Flop two pair with big slick. Bet. Get Raised. Re-Raise. Opponent goes all-in. Call. He's got pocket T's. Turn is a T.

Very next hand. I have Aces in late position. Raise significantly pre-flop and am called by big blind. Flop is junk. He bets pot. Don't figure him for a set or he would have bet less or not at all on flop. I raise. He calls. Turn is also junk. Potential straight, but he'd have to be playing something like 5-7. He bets pot. I raise. We're getting thin behind and pot is getting very large. He raises all-in. I call. He has pocket K's. River is a K.

I don't post these to whine about these specific hands or seek sympathy on any level... Only to wonder allowed how I can have stretches of days, even weeks, where hands like this are the norm. I fear hitting a really good hand because I know, given my current run, I'm a solid 75% to lose it.

It boggles my mind, beats me up, and really makes me want to throw the countless hours I've spent at the poker table and all the experience I've gained in the toilet. Screw this game.

Who needs it?

Had turned a 300% profit on intial buy-in at FTP in 2 months. Dropped down to a 30% loss in a week of complete inability to win a worthwile hand no matter how I played it. Now I'm at about 10% profit after I took down a random SnG last night.

I find myself wondering if I should start over or just walk...

Lots and lots of talent...

...and, incidentally, cute as a button.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gn5r8wVWgU

Only real critique I would have is that her vocal range seems quite limited. But still, she's got a great sound and a catchy tune, especially for a girl of probably... 16?