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.

When playing in one of my regular cardrooms recently I was noticing the, once again, poor turnout for the evening’s tournament. I started asking the staff about this, and they told me that nowadays 20-30 was about the usual. This is well down on 3 or 4 years ago. There are certainly more cardrooms around now than there were 6 years ago, so the numbers aren’t that bad, but it’s well down on what I consider to be the boom time of 2-3 years ago.

One thing’s for sure, people are still heading to Loss Vegas. I was sitting next to an experienced player called Paul recently, who told me about the last time he was there. Unfortunately it’s bad news for the Brits. Yes once again we have the habit of getting drunk and insulting the locals. This British guy was totally tanked, and at the same time losing a ton of money. Then he starts mouthing off about how all the bastards are cheating him, and no one stands a chance because it’s all so crooked. Soon he was the centre of attention for everyone, including security. Paul was saying how embarrassed he was. He took the brave step to go over to the guy and try to calm him down.  He said “look, you’re in a foreign country. Try and respect that and not get into trouble cos you’re a long way from home.” Of course security then approached him, thinking he knew the other guy. “No I was just trying to calm him down, cos he’s so clearly getting out of hand.” They accepted this.

I groaned and said “you should have pretended to have been from Ireland or Australia. That’s the best thing to do. They can’t tell the difference you know.”  Security then asked the guy to just keep quiet, which made him worse. He starts ranting and raving about how he’s with the hotel and paid for his room so the cheating bastards can’t kick him out. At which point they picked him up, one on each arm and each leg, and removed him. That’s the reason I like Texas, Arizona, and South Carolina. There are no British around to screw it up for the few of us who do decide that the US is a great place to visit. The aforementioned idiot got himself banned from every casino in walking distance of the hotel. Mainly because so many of them are owned by the same people. Now if only Paul had thought to explain to the guy, carefully and calmly, the basic principals of standard deviation…

Well, I’m still playing badly. However I believe you can still learn from your mistakes, which will help you to improve in the long run. Here’s a tournament I played a couple of days ago. It’s a £30 triple chance freezout with 3×2500 chips. Starting blinds of 25/50 for 30 minutes then 50/100 for 30 minutes then 20 minute blinds. After the first two levels you receive your full allocation of chips. If you lose the first 2500 in the first two levels you can call on the next 2500.

I played for 3 hours and made two bad mistakes. That’s two too many.  In the 3 hours of play I saw 99 twice, KQo twice, A4 suited and A5 suited. They were my best hands. I won 3 hands early on with blind hands. On one of them I got paid off by a drawing donk.

I found A5 suited in early and limped in. It was not a particularly aggressive game and people were getting away with limping. A very good player next to me raised the 50 BB to 300. There were 2 callers and I considered I had the odds to call. The flop comes A J 9. I bet 500. If I’m the only one with an ace I want to know now rather than guess. The raiser looks at me and says “were you playing ace jack and hit two pair?” I say nothing. He calls looking worried. He knows I don’t have AK.  But I could very possibly have two pair. An offsuit ten comes on 4th. That board looks dangerous, I check. He bets the last 850 of his first 2500. I know there’s a lot in the pot but I know I am behind, because I know he knows, and I know he knows I know how he plays. He could be bluffing. I really think this is unlikely. I say “donks play this hand and make tons on it all the time, not me, not ever, I never make money on this hand. I know you only raise with good hands generally, but you know I play tight and only play good hands, but you know I play weak tight and know you can push me off the hand, but if you’re not bluffing you have me well beaten. I can’t beat anything you have.” He says “I think you’re over analysing, I didn’t take that long to raise.” I folded. I turned over my A5 and he turned over AQ. Despite the amount in the pot I knew I was almost certainly drawing to 3 outs, that’s if they were any good.

I had 99 in middle position with the blinds 25/50. It was raised in early followed by a reraise. I folded my nines. I realised I was drawing to hit a 9. It hit on 4th. Frustrating, but it would not have been a good call.

After the break we received our full allocation of chips. I was just ahead with about 9000. Blinds were 100/200. I saw 99 once again. I was under the gun and raised to 500. It was passed all the way round to the BB. She is a tight aggressive experienced female player. She jokingly says “you looking at me from under all that hair!?” “Yeah but I’ve got a bald patch developing.” “We noticed,” shout the rest of the table. The woman is looking smiley, happy, and relaxed. She reraises and I know my nines are dog meat, and if I play them, so will I be. I folded and glanced down to see her hand as she peeks at them. I see the kings. “Pair of kings?” I ask. She turns them over. “Nice fold,” says the player to my left.

Trouble is you cannot fold your way to victory. If you could, I’d be world champion. Nearly every hand I make is borderline and against someone else who has better. Any hand I play at the moment seems to require a high amount of analysis, and because I am playing badly I am not analysing well.

Blinds are up to 150/300. I have about 7000 chips. There are 3 callers and I am in the SB with QKo. I consider this is probably the best hand. If I just call there will be 5 for the pot. I can’t have that. I raise to 1200. That folds out everyone except one. My original thinking (incorrect), was that he had a pair of 7’s 8’s or 9’s. The flop comes 4 J 9 with 2 clubs. I bet 2000. My opponent calls. There’s an offsuit rag on 4th. I check, so does my opponent. The ace of clubs comes on the river. This is where I make the mistake. If he has an ace and made 2 pair, or he’s just chasing a big or medium ace, I’m dead. But I shouldn’t be thinking like that. There’s the flush and the ace on board so a good bet has a chance of getting through. I try and take the easy route. I bet 1500 to try and make it look like a payoff bet. But if I’d bet the last of my chips it would have asked him a really big question as the extra 2000 plus would have put him in a precarious way. He thought a long time, but after an age, made the right call. I played it badly. I should have had more class than to make a comment about “nice call preflop with the king jack.” His reply was “well if my opponent has AK or AJ and I hit my other card  I am going to make some chips.” FFS! And no – I don’t have more class than to comment on the call. I should have just kept quiet, after all, he’s the one with all my chips. If I’d have played real poker I’d have gone all in, and taken down the pot.

The damage was done, but I still made one more mistake. Blinds were 300/600. There was a caller under the gun. I sort of guessed he had a rag ace. Typical calling hand for some players. It was folded all the way round to me in the SB with only 1800 left. Previous hands I probably should have just pushed all in with 62 T6 76 or J2. In the BB I had seen 23 previous hand. It was raised every time it got to me. In the SB I should have pushed with K8, but I didn’t have the heart. I hate going in behind, but sometimes you have to. The SB called and it was checked down. Ace high under the gun won the hand. An 8 hit on 4th. Couple of hands later there was a caller to my right and I pushed with QKo. It was immediately reraised and I hoped my opponent had JJ rather than something really bad. Funnily enough the way things have been running I guessed he had KK. He did. But if I had played the K8 correctly I would still have been in the tournament.

Maybe I will eventually learn enough from all this to start playing well again.

There is one addition. The reason calling a raise with KJ or AT is such a bad play is because you don’t know where you are. Okay I shall define that, because you never know where you are, for SURE. You could have aces and some idiot calls a massive raise with 22 and hits trips or a suited connector hits. Or maybe you have KK against AA. Very hard to let go. What players really mean when they say you don’t know where you are is, consider the NUMBER of hands that could have you beat or have you beat if you hit. The higher that number is, the worse your position is. That means the chances of you not knowing where you are, will be higher, the weaker the hand you play. This is why KJ and AT are such lousy hands to call a raise with. You never know where you are for SURE, unless you have the absolute nuts, but the poorer the hands you play, the more chance there is of a hand out there that has you beat, even if you hit.

I have been exchanging some ideas with Luvdoinit. We are always talking about poker. A number of things he has said have set me thinking about the mindset of some of the people who play poker. He described how he has seen people in Las Vegas put their last few hundred dollars, or whatever, into slot machines on the morning before they leave. He said it is as though they have allocated a certain amount to lose, and just can’t bear to go home without losing that fun money. This is “slot machine mentality.” It comes from losers. It’s okay to be losers. We all are in our own way.

Putting another perspective on it, there was a documentary on British television about Las Vegas. One of the characters featured was an elderly doctor who went through millions sitting in a chair, just putting hundred dollar after hundred dollar into slot machines. She was asked about whether she was worried about losing so much and isn’t it bad to go through so much money like this. Her reply was that she enjoyed it, and she had plenty of money left anyway.

If you think about it, there are plenty of people in Vegas, Florida, or any affluent society, who have yachts and spend millions on expensive hobbies. I guess if you look at things like this, and treat poker as a hobby that you enjoy, then losing that money isn’t so important if you enjoy playing the game. It depends on how much happiness that money buys you. This is what I meant about us all being losers. We all spend money on hobbies. We don’t need to. We just do so because we enjoy them. It is about how much enjoyment we get from spending that money allocated for unimportant, fun things.

If you think of poker as a way of having fun, then fine, I have no problem with that. As Luvdoinit has suggested, if you do look at the game in this way, then allow yourself a certain amount of money to spend on the game per month, spend it, but no more than that. In this way you can protect yourself from losing too much and have fun at the same time.

But if you look at the game as a way to make money, you just cannot afford to have that attitude. I was sitting at the table with someone a couple of months ago who made me think about this. He threw in his last £30 on a JK all in, when there was very little in the pot. He was only going to get called by a much better hand and he knew it. He wanted to double through and was willing to take the worst of it to do so. It was a £25-£100 buy in with blinds of 50p/£1. He got called by someone with a better hand, but hit 3 kings on the 5 card flop and doubled through. “That’s the problem,” he said “I keep going up and down. When I’m down I keep making some back, but never enough to go in front.” I said “that’s okay to just break even. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Then when you get a run of cards you end up in front.” But I knew he wasn’t going to listen. When he got down to a certain amount of chips he was going to throw them all in as underdog, and hope to double through again. It was almost inevitable he was going to lose his money. That’s what happened. But he didn’t seem too unhappy about this.

The same seemed to apply to nearly everyone at the table. They all HATED to leave with any chips. They were more than happy to just throw them all away with a 30 times the BB raise in the hopes of doubling through. I have been running really really badly lately. I drop down to the lowest level I can when this happens. I bought in for £50, which is not enough, but that is all I’m willing to risk when things are going badly. I played for over 2 hours and won one hand. I decided when the next table charge came around again, I was going to get up and leave with what I had left. That was £21.50 out of the £50. So I had lost £28.50. £10 of that was table charges), and as I got up to leave, an Asian standing behind me said in a surprised tone “you leaving?” “Yes that’s it,” I replied. I think he was stunned that I should play so long, lose so little and be satisfied with picking up what little I had left, and leave. He had been up and down for a while, had hit trip sixes at one point and built his stack to over £250. Yet he lost it all. He was more than willing to mix it up with borderline hands and not be bullied by massive raises. This either wins you a lot or loses you a lot. Generally I think it loses a lot. People lost several hundred in a few hours. This is quite normal. It isn’t as though the game is very fast and loose. It really isn’t that bad. It’s just people are willing to gamble a lot of money on borderline hands, which build big pots when the blinds are ony 50p/£1. They refuse to be “bullied” by massive raises and therefore go into pots with sub standard hands, and then can’t let that hand go beause the pot is so big. I have seen people even go through more than a thousand at that small level.

I practice what I preach. I play very safe. I consider what you don’t lose today you don’t have to win tomorrow. I understand why people have that mentality where they just HATE to leave chips on the table, but personally I hate it. I like to win. That’s the one reason I play. I HATE to lose. I don’t mind sitting through hours of total and utter boredom never playing a hand, because I know that when I do start to hit hands, I don’t have to win too much to be in profit. It is not a style that makes me a big winner or a champion. I am not. But it does make me a winner.

When you are running bad there is an almost supernatural aura that surrounds you. You usually get to the turn and someone shouts out the one card that your opponent needs to hit on the river, or they say “drawing dead” (incorrectly), and it’s guaranteed your opponent is going to hit that one card they need. You see the negative look in your opponent’s eye. The shake of the head. The “oh I’ve got no chance,” followed by total surprise and delight. After all they must be terribly unlucky to call a reraise with KT only to run into AK from the tightest player at the table. Then there’s only the river to come but you know it’s going to hit feeling. No doubt. The look and the relief. “Oh how lucky I am, it’s a miracle” sort of look. No it isn’t a miracle, it’s just the magic of poker, that means no matter how bad they get their chips in against someone running bad, they will hit that miracle card every time. I wish I could bestow such luck and cause such pleasure in real life. But oh no, it’s only at the poker table. I think I have won about 4 all ins out of the last 20. Most of those I was 70 per cent favourite. It doesn’t take long to even out, in fact I had a great run last year so I can’t complain too much. But when you go through even a mini phase of being unable to win any really big all ins at vital moments, it is soul destroying.

I had a reasonable start in my last tourney. Then I got all my chips in with AK and A K 3 and two diamonds on board. Naturally my opponent was drawing to a flush, naturally they had the odds to call, and naturally they hit. At least it hit straight away on 4th that time. The tourney before that it was all in with AQ against AT and the ten hit. So here is tonight’s sorry tale. I’m not saying I played particularly well. In fact, at the moment I am playing particularly badly. But if you continue to get your chips in good and your opponents continue to hit, it does mean you are running badly. In fact I would use this as a definition of running badly. No matter how good or bad you are, or how good or bad you are playing is irrelevant. If every time you get your chips in good, and you lose the majority of them, I think you can say you are running badly. So it isn’t really about good or bad play in my opinion. Running bad merely means you are getting outdrawn a lot on the hands where you are getting your chips in with the best of it. It’s that simple.

£50 freezout. 5000 starting chips. 30 minute blinds. 25/50 starting blinds. I am under the gun and raise for the first time this evening with AK. I raise to 200. I get reraised to 800 in middle position by someone who hasn’t put in a pre flop raise so far. Maybe he has me down as weak tight. Maybe he is correct. Maybe he is an idiot (in which case I’ll catch him later). Maybe he has AQ. I ponder a bit. Some would reraise here, some would just call. I fold. If you want to call this poor play and weak tight, go ahead. I do think AK is the most overrated hand in poker. I am not risking my tourney on a drawing hand at the start. If you have a bad feeling about any hand, follow your instincts. I did. Later on I didn’t, and that’s what killed me. Once around the table and I’m sitting on QQ in the BB. The same opponent raises to 275 from middle position. He probably has me down as weak tight. I raise him another 600 and he folds. I had the hand to do it. Would I have tried it with A3 or ATC?  Probably not. It’s why I’m not a top player.

I limp in with 8h Th in early position. There’s also a call from the same opponent and an oriental TAG player in late. The flop comes 7 9 J rainbow. I flopped the straight. There are 3 others in the pot so I bet 200. There’s a minimum reraise from the oriental. The BB folds. There’s a 5 on 4th. It’s the second club on board. I bet 1000. I get called in 2 places. There’s a 5 on the river. I did not want to see this. I decide to check. If someone has the house then I’m out anyway. I decide to check and call because I decide it’s unlikely anyone has trip 5’s. They may have a house, so it’s unlikely I’ll get called by any hand that is second to mine. It’s checked down and the other 2 muck.

Blinds are 50/100. My early opponent is down to a little over 2000 in chips. There are 3 calls and he moves all in. I know he has a hand of some sort. The table idiot decides to call with Kh 7h “well I thought I was against a small pair,” he said afterwards. They’d have to be fu**ing small to creep under that 7 I thought. Naturally the king hits. He was a nice enough young lad, but he did seem to be hitting every rubbish hand he was playing. Later on he also called another big all in from one of the tightest players at the table. The tight player had A9 and the idiot thought QK diamonds was a great hand to call this with. Well I’ve seen worse I suppose. The A9 was no match and another player was done.

The next hand was my undoing. I should have followed my instincts, although I am starting to think my instincts aren’t worth shit at the moment. I have about 8000 in chips. I limp in early with Ah 9s. Okay maybe I should be raising, but with those sort of hands in early, I like to limp as I can get away from them if there’s a raise. If you think it’s bad play, take it up with TJ Cloutier who also has said he likes to limp with hands such as AT or AJ early in tournaments, as he can just fold them without costing too much. There is one other caller and the BB to my right checks. Flop comes 9h Th Jh. (Omigod it’s an internet flop, you see about one of those a tournament.) The BB bets 200. I call. The other player calls. Js comes on 4th. The BB bets 400. I call and the other player folds. This is all very dangerous. There is the straight flush very clearly on board. How many outs do I really have? The Kh comes on the river. The BB puts in her last 2600. I agonise for minutes over this one. I keep saying “straight flush? I know you got the staright flush, you have to have the straight flush.” You see, there was no raise pre flop so I didn’t fear quads or a full house. It was the queen of hearts that I feared my opponent had. Since the king hit, she needed to have the queen of hearts for the straight flush. I went against my instincts and called. She turns over Jd Qh. She’d had trips by 4th and made the straight flush on the river. It’s a hand I probably should have got away from, but everyone else was saying I had to call as I had pot odds etc. I was unhappy and said “if you want to play the game to win, you have to be good enough to get away from those.” Either way I knew that was it for me. Here I did not get my chips in good. I was behind all the way and when I hit it was the second best hand. It was poor play.

I got down to about 2 or 3000, went all in once or twice, hit a pair on a couple of occasions, but never enough to keep me going for long. I finally had AK when I was down to just 2000 in chips. Got called by KJ. I knew what was going to happen. This was the first all in decision all night. I was resigned to my fate. Flop came A Q J 4 T. Yes, someone called “ten” before the river, so I knew it was hitting. It gave me the straight too, but quite honestly I just wanted to get out of there. The game just feels bad at times.

Had A9 in the BB. The table idiot raises double the BB in early. I considered reraising all in. Probably should have. Flop comes T 9 2. A few minutes earlier the guy had hit 2 pair playing T 2. I bet 500 from my 3000 in chips. I got reraised another 1500, so it’s basically all in. I felt I was behind. I folded. At least he was sporting enough to turn over a ten. When I’m in the BB with just 2000 left and 400 of it is in the BB the table idiot raises double the BB again. From a great player this could be a massive hand, but this guy has been doing this all night and then folding on the flop or hitting rubbish hands like he is the chosen one. Okay it’s all in with my KT. I am probably behind, but I’m dying out there. He turns over AQ. Well I can’t win one at the moment where I go in as 70 per cent favourite, there’s no way I’m winning this one.

Game over. Okay this is a big whinge. But I am posting it simply because if you play long enough you will go through these phases where there seem to be supernatural forces conspiring against you. It does turn. It takes a while, but it does turn. You go through this phase where not only do your big starting hands get mown down all in, but you also find your opponents hitting those miracle cards on 4th and river, and at the same time you do find yourself actually hitting a hand, only for it to be second best. You are so desperate to get anything going you go with it. I have seen far better players than myself face these almost supernatural forces. It’s a good enough reason to watch poker on tv too. The game doesn’t single anyone out. It’s just phases we all go through. The worst feeling at the moment, is that whenever I get my chips in good, rarely do I win the decision. That’s just poker. But it is also affecting my judgement badly, as it did tonight. I knew my opponent had the straight flush. Worse than that, I was chasing. If you chase knowing that if you hit it may not be the best hand then it is poor play. I failed to follow my instinct. On the river It was an odds call rather than a gut instinct call, but I played badly overall tonight.  

As a late addition, yes I know I should have bet the straight, even with two 5’s on board. There was no preflop raise, therefore it is highly unlikely that someone had the house. But if a player had a pair, and the 5’s meant they had two pair, or they originally had two pair and the 5’s meant their 2 pair was counterfeited, they may well have made a crying call on the river. Another example of how badly I am playing. I am so used to being sucked out on, that I am fearing those demons under the bed far too much. I was waiting to see what could possibly arrive on the river to stuff me. I feared a card that may make a better straight for one of my opponents. It didn’t arrive and I still didn’t value bet because I didn’t have the absolute nuts. I have to break out from that sort of mentality.

There’s a player who for all intents and purposes is completely mad. He does just what you are not supposed to do. He is the sort who will have most poker players pulling out their hair. He makes massive bets into a board of Ah Kh Th Ks then after his opponent folds, turns over 3d 7c with a smile on his face. Then he just calls with aces or kings in any position. Sometimes this means he gets into all sorts of trouble. I have seen someone in the BB read him for exactly kings or aces and be spot on. The BB had hit 2 pair but there was a flush and straight possibility on board. After questioning him, the BB decided his 2 pair was ahead, and he was right. Ali had slowplayed his aces just for kicks, but it cost him.

Sometimes slowplaying the aces works and he makes a ton of chips. Out of all the players I have played with, I don’t think I have seen anyone hit hands in quite the same way that Ali does. I have sat there and seen him hit about 7 prime hands in half an hour, and also hits trips with his medium pairs. Now I can’t think of anyone who has ever hit hands like this guy. The rest of us have sat there, dying in a desert of no hands, no luck, no chance, no hope, just total despair, while he hits hand after hand. He then bluffs with absolute rubbish. When someone finally calls him he turns over trips.

Sometimes we just laugh or scream, or a mixture of both. Some people hate him. They just can’t wait to see that smug smile wiped off his face. But you know, after playing with him for some time, I actually find him quite amusing and entertaining. I’ll say one thing in his favour. He never bad mouths anyone or taunts anyone. All he does to wind people up, is to turn over totally mad bluffs. This is his entertainment. Maybe he’s lonely and playing poker is his one way of interacting with people. He is middle aged and short, with a moustache. You wouldn’t give him a second glance walking down the street. But he is one of the strangest, wildest, aggressive players I have ever seen.

He is one of those adrenalin junkies, but unlike the kids who get their kicks from playing 12 tables at once and pushing all in on every hand without a second to draw breath, he gets his kicks in the old fashioned way. From playing all sorts of rubbish hands, and sucking out with them, or turning over aces played slow just to see the looks on people’s faces.

I was starting to think maybe he is a genius. Maybe Gus Hansen has something to worry about. This guy just kept hitting the river when I watched him play. I have never seen anyone hit the river quite like him. Then I saw a board of Qs 4s Ac Kh and his opponent bets half the pot from quite a short stack. Ali proudly turns over As Ts to everyone’s astonishment, including his opponent who was well behind. “But but but but….” Finally everyone picked their jaws up from the table and said “you’ve got the nut flush draw, an inside straight draw, top pair, a zillion potential outs, and a ton of chips and your opponent hardly has any.”

But whatever it was he was doing, whether you agree with it or not, there was a period of a few months where he just kept winning. He couldn’t lose. If he was part of any religion I wanted in. I’m an atheist, but I would try anything. I’m that desperate. I ended up quite liking him. I know I shouldn’t. I hated him at first but I just couldn’t help but be entertained. It is always fun when he is at the table. Mainly I think because of the reactions he gets from all the other players. Luvdoinit would probably wait for him outside. and whack him over the head with a baseball bat. I know several players who want to do just that.

I guess he was just on one of those runs. It was the sort that just makes you laugh and cry. When he is on one of those runs I am thinking, “but I haven’t seen ANY hands. NONE. NOTHING. Just give me one hand like Ali’s. Just give me ONE piece of luck like ALI. That’s all I need. ANYTHING. FFS. ANYTHING!” I have seen him in tourneys, amass huge stacks of chips and then throw them away as though they were nothing. But when they are all gone, he leaves without barely a flicker of emotion. He leaves as quietly as he arrives. Once he’s out no none notices him. Until next time.

I am always finding comments made by people that have absolutely nothing to do with poker, but can apply to the game. Here is one I heard in a documentary made about Darwinist, Richard Dawkins. He was questioning an expert on major companies and why they are successful, and relating it to Darwinism. The expert had this to say…

“The press loves to play up company CEO’s and entrepreneurs as these heroes, and in many ways they are, they work incredibly hard and they’ve made sacrifices, but the myth is that they were these great visionaries, these people who could predict the future and drive an organisation toward that future. The reality is economic systems just like biological systems are hugely complex, and being able to predict what’s going to happen in the long term is extraordinarily difficult or even impossible, and what some companies do is rather than try to outguess where the market is going they’ll create some notion of variety within their company and then let the market choose, let customers decide which products and services they’d like best.”
Dawkins : “So these legendary moguls…is it sort of luck that they’re the ones who’ve just, they just happened to get it right, and with hindsight you could say they got it right, but that’s all, it’s just hindsight?”
“Well not to take away from the talent that these individuals may have, but if you imagine a room full of people flipping coins, if the room’s big enough, one of them is gonna to get ten heads in a row, and then if you ask that person “what did you do?” they’ll say “well I’m an expert coin flipper I got my risks just right,” and we see the same thing in business.”

This relates perfectly to those who go on a run of winning just about every 50-50 and every 30 per cent decision. Yes you have to win some heads up battles. But being on a run where a player wins virtually every heads up, makes him look a lot better than he is. He may also make the mistake of thinking he is a lot better than he is. He may win a tournament or even more, but working out how much of this is due to great play, and how much is due to just plain old good luck is sometimes hard to analyse.

Here’s a comment that I find applies to my life – just about every day…

“Some days in the poker world, the biggest mistake you can make, is to get out of bed.” (Padraig Parkinson)

Here is one that is quite often misquoted as “football is more important than life or death.”

“Someone said – “football is more important than life and death to you,” and I said – “listen it’s more important than that.” (Bill Shankly, manager of Liverpool FC 1981)

I am not a subscriber to that line of thinking as far as something as unimportant as sport, or a game like poker is concerned. However, poker is a business and is either the sole source of income or a partial source of income to many people. It has to therefore be treated seriously. If you put a lot of study and hard work into the game, it will pay off in the long run.

I think poker will teach you a lot about life and life will teach you a lot about poker. The game does sometimes seem to exist in its own little cocoon, with reality seeming far away. But what has been said about the game being “a people game” is as true as ever. If you are a good reader of people, and can pick up on why people do things, and know a lot about life, this really does help you at the poker table. Poker can also teach you an awful lot about life, and the nature of luck.

The game does not exist in a vacuum. It is why I believe internet multi table players do not improve their game. I hear of these players doing exactly the same thing over and over, which may well be good enough to take the money but means their game does not evolve. How can it? If one of these players decides he is going to push if he has top pair on the flop, no matter what, it may take the money in the long run, at that low conveyor belt level, but it is almost the antithesis of what the game is about at the higher and better levels. If for instance, the flop comes 2 3 6, and the player holding K6 reraises all in to a huge reraise no matter what player he is against, because he always moves with top pair on the flop, it shows there is no learning process at all. If you are against a wild hyper aggressive player, it may be correct to do this. But what about the tightest player at the table?

These multi table players, play so many tables they don’t even know who they are playing against or how these people are playing. It isn’t a computer programme but it may just as well be. The computer doesn’t learn, it only knows what you feed into it. If the programe is well written, the computer does what you want it to, but it doesn’t learn. These players do not learn or interreact with other players in any way, or learn to adjust their play based on what their opponents are doing. It’s why you find a lot of kids playing multi table poker. They don’t know much about life and they don’t really care. They don’t know much about poker either, beyond the small confines of the computer screens and a video game version which is only a small part of what the game is really about. Can they earn money at it? Yes of course they can. I’m not saying they cannot win money. You can win money on the lottery or bingo. It needs more skill than that to play online poker, but their poker skill does not develop, just as the computer programme does not develop beyond what is put into it.

In poker as in life you make your own luck – to a certain extent. Anyone who suggests that you make all your own luck and that your fate is entirely in your own hands does not have much of a grasp on reality, or the nature of luck and what life is about. Sometimes those gurus who charge thousands to suckers just to tell them that all you need is a positive attitude are just conmen ripping off the suckers. In fact poker and odds can teach you something here. It is true with something as simple as a coin toss that after a few tosses you can have all heads or all tails. It is true that the more times you toss that coin the more the results will resemble a 50-50 split. But what you also must realise is the more times you toss that coin the more unlikely it is that the split will be exactly 50-50. If you toss the coin a million times the odds are astronomically high for the result being either an exact 50-50 split, or all heads or tails. Luck evens out over the long term to a certain extent but does not even out exactly.

Think of some Olympic sportsman or woman, who trains, gets the diet and everything else right, and is in perfect form leading up to the big event. Then some madman drives straight into their car as they wait at a pedestrian crossing and injures them badly. All Olympic hopes gone and that event only comes around every 4 years. They did nothing wrong. They were just unlucky. Or look at some young kid who is taken on a flight by their parents and the plane crashes. the kid did nothing wrong. He or she had no say over whether they take the flight or not. They were just unlucky. I am just saying something here that should be painfully apparent anyway. Bad luck happens. It isn’t fate, it’s just the way the odds play both in life and in poker. Some people are just more lucky than others.

All you can do is prepare yourself the best you can, this includes preparing yourself for the unexpected. Sometimes things happen that are entirely out of your control. You have to accept this too. Tell yourself you did the best you could, and that’s all anyone can do. Anything outside of this you have to let go, and accept it was not under your control. This gives you the best chance of all. The people who do the best in life as in poker are able to take these outside events, accept them, and not let themselves be affected. Those who do not let those unexpected bad bits of luck that are entirely are out of their control, affect them, will have the advantage over those that do.

I would say to anyone who wants to give the game a go, fine, go ahead. Study books and other players and try to give yourself the best chance of winning. But if you lose continually there comes a time when you may have to accept that you are not good enough to win at the game. Then you have to decide whether you want to play poker as fun, and lose, accepting it as an expense like any other hobby, or give it up. It is being able to decide how much luck you think has been involved in your results. Some people can run incredibly good and therefore think they are great players, while those who run bad think they are awful and blame themselves. Judging how good you are can be very hard, and expensive. Try and be as objective as possible. In poker and in life, the most talented will win eventually.

If some of you have never played in a live tournament, this is an example of what it is like. Here are a few hands from a recent one. I am really struggling to find anything playable at the moment. You just have to make do the best you can. I will try anything. Live poker is not internet poker. If you look at the following, and what I tried to do to win some chips, you will see why live is so different. Here are my best opportunities, and I have demonstrated what I tried to do to win.

Blinds are 50/100. I have about 6000 in chips. I have 82o in the BB. There are 2 callers. The flop comes 9 T J. I ever so slightly suck in some air and blow it out. I very very slightly shake my head and bet 300. I throw my chips in using that “oh I’ve got nothing but I may as well bet” sort of way, that signifies a massive hand. The first player looks at his cards, mucks them, and suggests what a massive hand I have. Thankfully this makes the other player think twice about calling and he folds. I do not show my “massive hand.” This is another thing you can do live if you have some experience. You just have to hope that your opponents have read up on tells and think they can read other players. If one of those players had any of that flop, of course I was in trouble. But it is the sort of flop that if players do not have any part of it, they do not want to get involved.

I had an AK in late position and a short stack player in early position had gone all in. I most definitely did not want another caller. The player to my right was fingering his chips. You cannot yell “DON’T CALL” although the temptation is there. But I started counting out the call amount from my stack. Thankfully the other player seemed to notice this and folded. Fingering your chips is sometimes a sign that you do not want a bet from your opponent, but this was a different situation. I just wanted to let the other player know I had a big hand.

Blinds are 100/200. I have a stack of about 6000. I’m in the big blind with T2o. There are two callers. The flop comes J J 2. I bet 400. Chances are I have the best hand here. There has been no pre flop raise so it’s unlikely someone has a pair. Thing is, I want to find out if I have the best hand. If I don’t, someone will soon let me know. If you bet your hand, you can choose the price for finding out the information. If you just check, first of all it shows weakness so it encourages others to bet. Secondly they are the ones who are setting the price for you to find out where you are. Not only that, you still don’t have any information until you reraise. By the time you find out, it can become very expensive. They both fold. Here is the advantage of being a tight player, that a lot of players don’t mention. If you play like this, when you bet, you are sending out a signal that you are strong. When you do this it gives you a much better guage for judging your opponents’ reactions.

Blinds are 50/100. I have a 5000 stack. 4 players limp in and I have 88 in the small blind. I raise it up another 350 and get one caller. A jack and two rags appear on the flop. I bet 800 into a pot of just over 1000. I get a call. Another rag comes of on 4th and I bet 1500. This shows I am pretty much committed to the pot and think I have the best hand. If I check it gives a free card. If my opponent bets I don’t know if he is doing so because I showed weakness or because he has a better hand. But I am looking at the guy and to me he doesn’t look like someone who thinks he has the best hand. This is one advantage that experience of playing live can give you. After looking at him I have a good idea I am ahead. He folds.

From the last 12 to reduce to 10 took over an hour’s play. Blinds went from 300/600 to 400/800 to 500/1000 to 600/1200. During this time I had a stack size between about 12,000 to 2000. I had AK 3 times and lost 2 to 8T hearts and AJ. I won one against 89 diamonds. I called an all in with 99 when we were playing hand for hand which would have sent us all to the finals table. The young lad was showing impatience and went all in under the gun. I had 99 in the BB. I could have folded but I decided I really couldn’t and still call myself a poker player. He turned over JQo and the jack hit on the second card of the flop. I went in once as underdog with AT against a short stack with AJ. I went all in with AJ and got called by T9. The 9 hit on the flop but I hit my jack on 4th. This still gave my opponent a ton of outs but I survived. It is really hard to get to finals tables when it runs like this. The second from last hand I played was when I had about 7000 in chips and called an all from the guy who had called my AJ all in with T9. He had gone all in with AJ and I don’t blame him for doing so. It was the right move but I had AK spades and really had to call. 4 blanks hit on the flop and the jack hit on the river. It left me with about 400 chips and no chance. Even my last hand all in of K5 was up against the chip leader with A5. It was just one of those nights.

To be successful in tournaments you really have to have a reasonable run of the cards. I lost 2 decisions where I was 70 per cent favourite. I lost the one where I was 30 per cent underdog and I lost the 50-50. If I had won just one of those it would have knocked out a player and meant we all go to the finals table. I won 2 of the hands where I was favourite, but they were when I was low on chips. It is really hard to win money with that sort of win rate so I was the last one out before the finals table. The really big ones though were the hands I lost, where I could virtually double through, knock out an opponent and make the finals table. I don’t think I made too many big mistakes. I consider the guy who called my all in raise with 9T to have made a mistake. He was the one that knocked me out eventually. Sometimes you can make mistakes and still win, but you cannot win in the long run if you play that sort of poker.

It was a really hard struggle all night. Out of the 12 or so hands I won in over 4 hours, there was not one single time where I was better than one pair. I won all my hands with one pair, a semi bluff, or an outright bluff.

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.