Sorry about the length of time between posts.  A lot of work lately and the next two entries are going to be hard to keep my supper down as I walk you through them (if I haven’t given them away already)

7:15 p.m. tournament
Taj Mahal, Atlantic City
Buy-in $50 + $15
59 players

First off, let me tell you about the latest joker.  This kid who sit’s at my first table is going on and on about how he has won 4 tournaments in the last week…  he’s the best thing Atlantic City has ever seen…..  His uncle pimps out his aunt on the 2nd Sunday of every month (ok..ok  that’s not true…  he said he won 3 tournaments  lol).  Now after all this he gets to heads up with some girl and she has A-4, he has 8-6 of spades and says he was the favorite before the flop.  That takes us to our first notable hand….

Blinds at 50-100 I raise from the button with A-Q to 550.  Three callers.  Flop is K-J-5 rainbow.  Everyone checks.  Turn is a 7.  A check and a bet of 1250.  I flat call intending to bluff the river into the idiot we just talked about previously.  Now heads up, river is the ace of hearts.  He bets 1250 again and I flat call.  He shows Q-J and goes insane when I turn up A-Q.  I told him that I thought I had 8-6 and couldn’t fold an open-ender on the turn.  If you look up “monkey tilt” in Webster’s Dictionary…  you’ll see this kid’s face. Then he has the balls to offer me a “last longer bet”.  Although somewhat self-explanatory, I will explain.  He wanted to bet that he would last longer in the tournament than I did.  He has about 5500 left, I had about 16,000.  So I politely had the dealer stop the action at the table and made the following announcement…  “Since it has come to my attention that you have won 58 tournaments in the last 5 hours, you must be up a substantial amount of money, so peel off a dime and let’s do this or shut your fuckin mouth” and I peel off 10 benji’s and hand them to the dealer.  Needless to say, he shut his friggin trap and was dismissed soon after.

The reason I dragged that on is because I went rediculously card dead for the next 60 minutes and nothing special happened until after the first break.

Blinds now 500-1000  100 ante.  Fold to me on button with 9-5 diamonds and I try to steal with a raise to 3500.  BB defends and we see a flop.  Flop comes 10-4-2. Turn is a 5.  River Pairs the 10.  It’s checked all the way and his A-K falls to the 9-5 I sheepishly now have to show him.  A mistake not to bet the turn here.  I could have gotten the same result without having to show down.  I pick up 5000 and now have about 14,000.

Raise from early position and I ship it with A-K spades for a little under 16,000.  He calls and shows jacks.  Ace on the flop, nut flush by the river. Now up to 35,000.

Down to 19 players with 6 making the money I raise from EP with A-J.  Shove by the BB.  I call and he shows A-10.  Flop has a ten and I am down to 13,000 heading into the second break.

Back from second break with blinds 1500-3000  500 ante.  Raise from mid position with A-4 called by BB.  Board reads Q-J-8-8-3.  Checked all the way down and ace high holds.  Now up to 34,500.  Should I have tried to steal this pot?  Hindsight being 20/20…  Of course.  But since my stack wasn’t sufficient enough to make a meaningful bet and not commit myself, I was stuck hoping I would get a free pass.  A bigger mistake on my opponents part.

Right before third break I double up an A-Qs calling it with A-Js.  Down to 16,000 heading into third break.

Nothing but steals after third break and get bounced 13th when my A-J shove is called by pocket 4’s and don’t improve.

Overall, I think I played well.  No major mistakes were made as far as I can recollect, bluffs were timed right, no unnecessary chances, just couldn’t win the coin flip.  A couple of 3-to-1’s didn’t go my way but I highly doubt that even if they did, the outcome would have been any different.

Sorry part 2 took so long..  Took  me a while to remember the details.

12:15 a.m. tournament
Taj Mahal, Atlantic City
Buy-in $50 + $15
95 people

This is the first time I am taking part in the midnight tournament and I like it better than the 7:15.  No ante’s, the pace is much slower, more time to play and more people which means more places pay.  But there are your share of characters.

Level one, blinds 25-50, I am in the SB.  3 limpers in front of me so I complete with K-6 off.  5 players to a flop of 10-6-3 with two diamonds.  Everyone  checks.  Turn is the 7 of diamonds.  3 checks, I fire 200, one caller.  River 9 of spades.  He checks, I bet 400 and drag the pot.

Nothing much until level 3, blinds 100-200, from middle position I raise to 650 with pocket 10’s, both blinds call.  3 players to the flop which comes 10-8-7 with two clubs.  I am first to act now and given the fact that the two players in the blinds have been pretty aggressive up to this point, I took a read that with the texture of the flop, one of them was going to bet at it so I check.  They both check behind me.  What the hell was I thinking.  Even with that type of read, you can’t check this flop EVEN IF YOU ARE 100% SURE your opponent will bet it.  Too many draws can beat you and if your opponent commits him/herself, you’re gonna sweat.  Turn is the 4 of diamonds…  an irrelevant card.  Time for me to try and correct my initial mistake.  I lead out 2300.  SB folds but BB calls.  The river (of course) is the worst card in the deck…  the 6 of clubs.  NOW WHAT?  I check, the BB bets 6250.  WONDERFUL.  I played this hand like a typical rookie.  Now with 3 clubs and a 4-card straight on the board, what the hell do you do with top set?  I went into the tank for literally 5 minutes.  He played the hand like a typical flush draw.  Check the flop, flat call the turn, bet out the river when the club hits.  I am not worried about a non-club 9..  It wouldn’t have made it past the turn unless it was something like a 10-9s and with me having 3 of the 4 tens tied up, that’s highly improbable.  Looks like an easy fold…  except for one thing…  the one thing every poker player argues with from time to time…  instinct.  Something in my gut just simply told me this guy had absolute crap.  The call was about 80% of my stack.  After the time I took, I decided that I really didn’t care about losing the hand..  If I did, it’s a lesson learned but I wasn’t gonna be bluffed off of this hand…  so I called it.  He turns over the Q-J of diamonds.  Exactly what I thought…  CRAP!!!  He told me afterwards that he misread his hand and thought he had a straight.  I told him that I misread MY hand and though I had four sevens.  Even though I misplayed this hand miserably, it worked out for me in the end.

Nothing to talk about until after the first break.  I am at about 23,000.  I am on the button and half the table is late returning from the break.  The BB is in the pot for 800 and only has a total of 2200 left.  So I told him that if the action was folded around to me, I would move in in the dark and give him a chance to double up.  Stupid, yes…  but for 2200, I would probably have tried to steal the blinds with anything 10 high of better.  Si it folds to me, I move in dark, he calls dark.  I turn over 10-2 clubs, he turns over ACES!!!  Can you say running clubs for a club flush?  Dirty…  so dirty.

Same level, I am first to act with A-Q and raise to 2800 after stealing the blinds last hand with the same raise.  BB calls.  Flop comes A-2-4.  I  bet 2800, BB raises to 7000, I move in, BB insta-calls and turns over A-10.  I make an unnecessary aces up on the river and dismiss him putting me at a little over 50,000.

Blinds now at 1000-2000.  A couple steal attempts go bad then from mid position I pick up two jacks and raise to 4500.  Only caller is the BB who only has a total of 5500 and ships it.  Obvious call and he flips A-6s.  I tell the guy next to me two things…  ONE  I HATE jacks.  TWO, This is usually where the ace of hearts screws me.  Off comes the flop and the window card is….  Good guess!!  The ace of hearts.  BUT, the jack of spades is also in the flop and my set holds up.  Back to 50,000.

Now on the button, folds to me with K-Q hearts.  Two blinds with short stacks behind me, I ship it.  Called by SB with J-10 spades.  Jack on the turn and I am down to about 40,000.

Last hand before the second break.  I raise in EP to 5000 with A-10.  BB calls.  Flop is J-6-6.  She checks, I fire a standard continuation bet of 6500.  She thinks and ships it for about 15,000.  Nice way to donk off 12,000 right before the break moron!!

I head into the second break with 31,000.  Blinds at 1500-3000 when we return.  Without antes, I have a revolution before I have to play two-card poker.  Not desperation time yet but it’s not too far away.

Before the revolution completes I pick up pocket jacks again.  I raise to 8,000.  Three seats to my left ships it and has me covered.  GOD I HATE COIN FLIPS..  But I am in no position to even consider mucking these jacks.  I make the call and he turns up A-K.  I haven’t won a coin flip since 1989!!! And this would be no different.  Flop comes off K-Q-8 and I am sent packing 26th.

A bitter pill to swallow playing for three and a half hours and having nothing to show for it.  But poker really isn’t about winning or losing, it’s about making the right decisions.  Right decisions have the numbers in your favor.  How do you think casino’s make their billions?  They have good days and bad days but the numbers always work out in the end.

Next action scheduled for March 30th at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.

Welcome, one and all, to my brand new blog section.  It’s going to be a diary type entry blog, and action weather online or live, tournament or ring game, will be posted here and analysis taken.  Comments are always welcome, suggestions are always welcome.  Maybe at some point I will encounter a problem that you see in your game and will be able to give you suggestions on how to fix your problem.  I will try my best to update my blog once a week, even if I don’t have any action.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I will be glad to help you.  In the meantime, my new blog section starts…….  RIGHT NOW!!!

March 9th, 2009
Taj Mahal, Atlantic City NJ
7:15 p.m. tournament
Buy-in  $50 + $15

This is the first action I have seen in a while, decided to take some time off and roll through the vast library of literature I have collected on the game of Texas Hold-Em.  Something just wasn’t right and I couldn’t figure out why.  Was it my hand selection?  My attitude?  Wrong strategy?  For whatever reason, last year was my first losing year since 2001. (Not that I am a professional)  Smallish tournament, only about 55 players.  Haven’t done a tournament in ages so it felt pretty good to go back to my roots.

I saw a video maybe a week prior where Daniel Negranu went over what they call “Small Ball Poker”.  Through all my readings my main goal was to improve my post-flop play so this short video was right up my alley.  Very first hand of the tournament, folded to me in the cutoff (one before the button) with 9-7 of clubs.  Blinds 25-50 I bump it to 125, 3 folds, first pot is mine.  Good start.

About 5 hands later a man sitting 4 seats away from me on my left, now under the gun, raises to 1000.  ARE YOU SERIOUS?  I guess the fact that he just came off a hand where some rookie made him look like a fool post-flop made him decide to play 2-card poker.  And as luck would have it, of course, I look down to find pocket queens.  So I simply call the 1000.  Why?  Well..  Two reasons.  First, I took a read as him having a big pair or A-K, his play thus far wasn’t that of a crazy maniac but that of a tight player who was not very good at post-flop play.  Second, it’s just way too early to risk more than 10 percent of my stack on a hand that, even though looks good, can be easily dominated or flipping a coin.  Add the fact that the 1000 preflop bet means that if the hand makes the river, one of us is going broke, why risk it now.  If he simply wants 75 in blinds and waste a monster in the process, be my guest.  How many times do you think you are going to pick up kings?
Back to the hand..  Heads up, I am in position, flop comes K-10-6 with 2 diamonds.  He leads out with 3000, I insta-muck my queens FACE UP.  He tells me he had trip kings, and I called him an idiot for pounding the nuts out of position and not letting me hang myself.  A mistake by him that saved me.

Last hand of the first level, I call a modest raise in middle position from the first to act.  Flop comes 8-7-4 rainbow.  First to act leads out with 600.  I raise to 1600.  He thinks…  then flat calls.  Turn is the 5 of spades.  He checks, I fire 2800.  He goes into the tank for a moment then tells me that he puts me on a 7 or an 8 and says he is gonna let me have one and mucks queens face up.  I told him that the odds on him catching a queen were slim to none and turned over the queen of spades.  ( I had Q-J of spades for those wondering.)

Level 3, about an hour into the tournament.  I have been up and down for the first hour and stand at about 8,500 of my original 10,000 and have been catching flack from the table about how reckless I am playing.  I love when a plan comes together.  Blinds at 100-200 25 ante, I am on the button with Q-8 hearts.  Folded around to me, I bump to 525, called by the BB.  Flop comes A-7-2 with 2 hearts.  Both of us check (yes, I intentionally checked the flush draw after having bet the last few of them with no success).  Turn is the jack of hearts.  BB leads out 2100.  I put on an oscar-winning performance and take about 2 minutes to flat call him.  River is a black 10.  BB moves all-in.  OOPS!! I, of course, beat him in the pot and double up to a little over 17,000.

Not much happens for the next two levels until the first break.  I head into the break with just shy of 20,000 chips.  Not too bad.  Blinds now 300-600 with a 75 ante.  I am the cutoff -1 and its folded to me with A-J clubs.  I pop it to 1400 and bet called by the BB.  Flop comes A-K-8.  I lead out with 2600 and get insta-raised to 7000.  Now this guy hasn’t yet recovered from the flush I threw at him ( For those wondering, the river 10 in that hand turned his K-Q offsuit he was bluffing with into broadway).  After going into the tank for a few minutes, I mucked the A-J.  Bad move.  Bad, bad move.  I was playing my hand and nothing else.  Rookie mistake.  Was I beat?  There was a possibility.  But at least the mistake was on the conservative side instead of the reckless side.  Still, a mistake is a mistake.

As level 8 starts, blinds jump to a rediculous 800-1600 with a 300 ante.  Forget about Hold-Em,  now we are playing 2-card bingo.  Now anyone who knows me knows I am not a very lucky person.  Good, yes…  lucky..  NO!  Since I have gone on long enough here I will make the rest short and sweet.  I play 3 hands from here on out.  Call an all in with Q-9 spades against a short stack, he shows Q-10…  0 for 1.   Next I call another short stack move with pocket 6’s, he turns over J-10 suited.  10 of clubs on the turn…  0 for 2.  Last hand I am so short stacked I am forced to move with
9-7 offsuit, get called again by Q-10.  I flop a 9, turn is the queen of diamonds…  0 for 3 and go out 21st, no money.

All in all, I wasn’t too dissapointed with my play.  When blinds get that big it’s a crapshoot.  The only real big mistake I made was mucking the A-J, at least I think it was a mistake.  In the end I don’t think it would have altered the final result much, I couldn’t hold a lead and couldn’t outdraw anyone near the end.  On a scale of 1 to 10…  Maybe an 8.5.  A couple “courtesy double ups” that could have been avoided and the A-J didn’t sit well with me.

No action this week, some personal business to take care off.  Next scheduled play is Monday the 23rd of march at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic city.

So until next time just remember…  It’s not about what you know, it’s about what they DON’T know.

This year marks the 10 year anniversary of the inception of online poker.  Back in 1998, planetpoker.com offered us the very first opportunity to wager real money against human opponents from all over the world.  Since then, the steamroller hasn’t lost a step.  Millions of people every day log on to their favorite site with the hopes of hitting it big.  Millions more are getting their “feet wet”  with the ultra-inexpensive games online sites offer.  Weather you are the fish or the shark, every single poker player has dreamed of finding themselves at the final table of a major poker event.  Dreams of millions of dollars, sponsorship opportunities, television appearances, and so on.  But in order to achieve this goal, at some point you are going to have to play some live poker.  You are going to have to show your face, feel the cards, feel the chips, be at the table, and thrust yourself into the world of brick and mortar poker.  Those who play both live and online won’t see a problem here and, for the most part, neither will the “test tube babies”.  The main problem will be when a “test tube baby” is identified at a live table.
These players stick out like a sore thumb to the trained eye.  Couple that with the fact that the online game is a much quicker pace and filled with inexperience and a “test tube baby” is going to find it very difficult to survive in the real world…  that is unless he/she makes the necessary adjustments.  Now the adjustments I am going to talk about here have nothing to do with actual game play, hold-em is hold-em,  but about the way an online player should “disguise” themselves as to not make it evident that he/she solely plays online.  Believe me, in a live game, players play “test tube babies” much different than they play their B&M counterparts.  So let me quickly give you a handful of suggestions as to what the online player should do to ease their transition into the B&M world.

1.  PRACTICE LOOKING AT YOUR CARDS.  You are going to have players very close to you, practice looking and covering up your cards as to not give any free peaks to your neighbors.  This may sound silly but if you have never played live before, you won’t think of it.

2.  PRACTICE WITH CHIPS.  This is the biggest giveaway in my opinion.  I can spot a test tube baby a mile away just by the way they fumble their chips.  Practice cutting and placing bets with your cheques (chips).  Fumble around too much and players are going to assume your inexperienced and play you accordingly.

3.  WAIT YOUR TURN.  You don’t have to worry about this online, just click the auto-fold and go to one of your other 50 tables.  Not here.  You are giving away valuable information by letting your intentions of folding be known.  Wait your turn before mucking your cards.

4.  WATCH THE OTHER PLAYERS.  It’s not too difficult to pick up on little silly things if you pay attention to the table, even when you aren’t in a hand.  Picking up tells is not as difficult as it’s claimed to be if you know what your looking at.  Remember, this isn’t online, you don’t have 50 other tables to worry about, all your winnings come from one table.  Maximize your potential.

5.  WATCH YOURSELF.  Remember, when you can see other players, other players can see you.  They are looking for the same things you are.  Just practice CONSISTANCY.  Always cut your chips the same, bet with the same speed, take the same amount of time on your hands, always look at the same place when in a hand (I personally cap my cards with a chip and stare at the chip until the betting round is over regardless of the circumstances).

6.  STAKES DON’T MATCH UP.  What did he say?  Let me explain what I mean.  When a new player starts online, he/she will usually start with the smallest stakes they can find until they gain some confidence.  Most sites have games starting at nickel/dime or less.  At your local casino, you rarely find stakes below $1/$2.  So in the live atmosphere, the newbies are all playing $1/$2.  Online, the $1/$2 games are very strong because there are likely 5 or 6 different games with stakes lower than this where the newbies will hang out.  In the casino, they are all at $1/$2.  So remember that the $1/$2 game live is going to have the same talent or skill level as a quarter/half game online.

Before dipping their toes into the shark infested waters we are so accustomed to, most beginners will watch some sort of poker on television. Be it the World Series, the World Poker Tour, Poker after Dark, or what have you. Except for High Stakes Poker which can be seen on the Game Show Network (not sure about outside of the United States), they will be watching tournament play. Since the only way to win a tournament is to collect every chip in play, one needs to take a plethera of chances to be successful. More times than not, a newbie will see this style of play work on television and think that this is the way the game should always be played. However, most do not understand that tournament play and cash game play are two completely different animals. This leads me to a question I hear quite often from many players. Can this style of constant aggression be successful in the long run in a cash game setting?

In my opinion, constant aggression CAN be a very successful style of play. The reason the word “can” is in caps is because you have to know when and how to use this style in order for it to be successful. At a very tight table, constant aggression can play big dividends if used properly. If nobody is going to get involved unless they have a monster, constant agression will pick up uncontested blinds and usually get you into a heads-up situation preflop where, even the biggest piece of garbage you can find, can be as little as a 3 to 2 underdog given the right circumstances. If the table is this tight, you will also pick up many pots by leading out on “orphan flops” (an orphan flop is a ragged flop such as 9-5-2 where no decent hand could possibly hit it. This act is called “adopting an orphan”).

Now from what I have seen, the main problem is this. Most players can’t seem to find the line where CONSTANT aggression turns into RECKLESS aggression. If there’s no rhyme or reason to your agressiveness and you simple do it because you heard someone say you need to be agressive to win, you are being reckless. If you raised with J-8s in early position because you saw Johnny Chan do it on GSN the night before, you are being reckless. Now if you are good enough to set a gameplan to exploit a tight image you set for yourself and raise with J-8s, that’s a whole different story. You have a reasonable explanation for your action (it still may or may not be the best move in the world but you have an explanation.)

Even for those who do keep their agression under control, they have a hard time stopping. Any good player knows that if you don’t mix up your play style you are a dead duck. It’s simply human nature to keep doing something if it works. Don’t fix what don’t need fixing right? Think about it….. If you walked up to a money machine and put a $100 bill in, hit the return button, and got back $105, how many times would you repeat the process? Until the maching stopped giving you the extra 5 spot right? Who wouldn’t? But what happens if this works 5 or 6 times and then the machine takes your $100 and gives you nothing? How did you make out? Not very well right? Same with poker. If you don’t quit while your ahead, someone is going to pick you off and leave you with nothing.

Now I am not going to go into the money aspect. I am going to assume we are all smart enough to undererstand that, although it may be more difficult for some to play constantly aggressive when the stakes are higher, aggression at higher limits, in my opinion, seems to work a lot more efficiently.

FINAL THOUGHT….. When it comes to agression in the game of poker, it’s a necessary tool to be successful. In the words of the Roman poet Virgil— audentes fortunas juvat (fortune favors the bold). In my personal opinion, constant agression isn’t about sheer agression, anyone can play any two cards. It’s about knowing when to change gears properly before constant agression becomes reckless. As far as it being profitable, in the right hands, yes, a smart player would more than likely profit more from being more agressive than to just wait for cards and increase the luck factor.

MY TIP…. If you are a tighter player experimenting with a looser style of gameplay I would suggest 2 things. First, and probably most obvious, drop in stakes a little bit. This will be unfamiliar waters for a tighter player. You can do what I did… I went to the 1/2 cent No-Limit tables on Pokerstars and just went balls-to-the-wall with a couple of $1 buy-ins. Just try to get used to the feeling of being a maniac. Second, you need to remember not to tip off your monster hands in the process. If you are raising like a madman and all of the sudden limp in, you might as well staple the aces to your forehead. Remember, raises and re-raises won’t show as much strength when you constantly use them. Keep the amount of your raise the same, trust me, your opponents will only remember the 8-6 you re-raised with, not the aces.

Let me start this blog by introducing myself. My name is John (although most people call me “bigdaddy”) and I have been playing poker for almost 10 years. I started playing the 1-3 stud games in the casinos in Atlantic City. I spent a lot of money learning the ins and outs of stud poker but after a while, the investment was well worth it. The inception of the “poker boom” sent me looking for the greener pastures they label “The Cadillac of Poker”. By this time poker had surfaced online and I wasn’t exactly confident with online poker for my own reasons, so it was another investment learning the ins and outs of Texas Hold-Em in Atlantic City. Luckily, I was able to catch on much quicker than I did playing stud, so after turning a decent profit in the first 12 months, I decided to try it for a living. That lasted for a little over a year. What happened? Two words…. Bankroll Management. I knew how to play, but didn’t have separate funds put aside to pay the bills, everything came from one place. Needless to say, every losing session hurts that much more when you put yourself in this type of position. I didn’t handle the downswing very well and eventually called a quits before I completely destroyed myself. Since then, I have been playing semi-professionally (been about 4 years now). I don’t play for extremely big money (usually no higher than 3-6NL) and I don’t play much online (maybe 8-10 hours a week).

So why do I think my advice will help you? Because I have done a little bit of everything. I have played Hold-Em, Stud, Omaha, Draw,and many split games proficiently. I have played as a hobby, professionally, and semi-professionally. I have succeeded, and I have failed. No matter what game I have played for whatever reason, I have learned something every step of the way. Am I the best player in the world? No. But after 10 years I am still here with a pretty decent profit to show for my efforts. I am a little old-fashioned and on the conservative side, still living by the “penny saved is a penny earned” motto. So I think I can help you out if you have a question or two you need help with. You may agree with me or disagree with me, there are always more than one way to skin a cat, but give me a chance. I can promise you won’t be sorry.