Wall Street Poker

Dead pool update

2009-12-16T15:14:00.000-05:00

I'm working on the blog posts for my Arizona trip which I got back from this past Sunday. But in the meantime, I thought I'd mention that my Wall Street 2010 Dead Pool is still a going concern. I hadn't been pestering you guys for a while because of my mom's passing, but now that all the hubub has died down, it's time to ramp it back up. Because of the delay, I'm going to push the dates of the pool back two weeks from January 1st, 2010 through January 1st, 2011 to January 15, 2010 through January 15, 2011.

Please have your lists to me no later than midnight January 15th. The money ($30) can be sent via Paypal or any other form you'd like by January 30th.

If you have any questions, let me know at (F r i t z l e) AT (g m a i l) DOT (c o m). No parentheses in my email.

P.S. Check the link above for dead pool rules.

Rising from the ashes

2009-12-04T10:49:00.002-05:00

Tonight, I make my way to Phoenix for my Arizona poker trip. I leave tonight, Friday Dec. 4th and return Sunday, Dec. 13th. It will be a long trip, with 18 poker rooms on the agenda. There will be a lot of driving on this trip, including a few 3+ hour legs on single lane roads through mountains and deserts, but I'm leaving myself a fair amount of time to spend at each location. Contrast this with my Vegas trip from two years ago, where I darted around to nearly 40 rooms in a week, spending barely 45 minutes in each location. That was a tiring trip. This one should be a bit more rejuvenating.

I'll be doing a lot of contemplation in the stark and beautiful locales, I'm sure. I have a lot of things to work out in my mind and my life is rushing ahead at a frenetic pace at the moment. I'm making peace with my situation, as much as possible, and spending some quality time alone will be good for my head. On Thursday, I'm going to be joined in Phoenix (after I make a huge loop around the state) by Viv and Chris. I'm super-psyched to spend time with them, and anxious to see what the poker rooms in the greater Phoenix area are like. If there's anyone reading this who know what I should expect, please give me a shout.

In other news, Ali and her two girlfriends are going to Vegas for Spring Break! It's a girls-only trip and I most definitely wasn't invited. That's a shame, because seeing as I have free time, I was hoping to go to Vegas to finish up the 20+ rooms I still have to get to in that vicinity. But I was told not to be anywhere in the city during that week. So I've spent hours and hours looking over possible poker itineraries for that time period (Mar. 12th - Mar. 19th). After contemplating many choices that included Oregon, Northern Nevada, Oklahoma, Colorado and New Mexico, I decided on California. The simple reason for that is that California, after Nevada, has the greatest concentration of legal cardrooms in the country. Washington State and Michigan, believe it or not, run a close second on the list but Michigan they're too cold for me for a March trip and their "cardrooms" are often nothing more than bars with a single table.

I'm running into a dilemma with my poker room quest in that I still haven't come up with a satisfactory definition of what a "card room" is. Casinos with poker rooms obviously qualify. California cardrooms qualify because they're main business purpose is gambling. Dog tracks and Jai-Alai Frontons and the like that have poker rooms qualify for the same reason. But what about those small bars in Montana, Washington and Michigan? Is it really a "poker room" if it's nothing more than a single table stuck in the back of a bar that happens to be legal. It's one thing if it's a real casino, with slot machines and table games, that happens to be dominated by a bar. That was the case for a card room in Laughlin that I went to once. But if the main purpose of the facility is drinking, not gambling, it seems more iffy.

I normally wouldn't care to distinguish these things, but after I run out of casinos, dog tracks and the like, do I really want to spend my precious time driving 1500 miles criss-crossing Montana to visit every dive bar in the state? For poker games that probably don't run until 6PM? If they get off at all? That would be the worst trip of my life.

{Sigh} Quests are hard.

Oh, so where was I? Oh yes, California. Yeah, after looking at the possible itineraries, I settled on hitting up the coastal region. I got a sick airfare too. $280 all in to fly into Los Angeles, drive up the coast, go east past Oakland, deep into Napa around Clear Lake and then swing back into San Francisco to fly home. This trip will be way more frantic than my Arizona trip. 34 poker rooms are on the agenda there, in 7 days! Fortunately, though there are many more rooms to see, they are spaced much closer together. I'll have one 3 hour driving leg and then my longest leg will be about 90 minutes. At this point, I can do 90 minutes standing on my head! BTW, if you haven't driven in California (outside of the cities), it really is a treat. Beautiful mountain vistas and rolling hill to the East, sweeping plains and flat deserts to the South and breathtaking Oceanic views to the West. Really something to behold.

One last thing, Ali is studying for law school finals this week (which is why I have time to travel) and her laptop has been acting badly. So as a backup, I'm leaving my own laptop with her so she can work uninterrupted. What this means, unfortunately, is I will probably not be able to post updates from the road, which blows chunks. I will try to take as many notes as possible by hand so I can reconstruct the postings when I return home.

Funeral and Shiva arrangments

2009-11-23T19:25:00.002-05:00

Mom will be interred at New Montefiore Cemetery, in West Bablyon, Long Island, on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 10:30am. Those wishing to attend are asked to arrive by 10:15am at the office inside the cemetery where we will gather and then proceed to the graveside for the service.

The family will be sitting shiva immediately following the service, and all day Thursday and Friday (until sundown), at my brother Eric's home. The address is 79 Prospect Avenue South, Lynbrook, NY 11563.

We will also sit shiva at my Aunt's home on Saturday (after sundown). Her address is 409 Madeira Blvd., Melville, NY 11747. She lives in a development called The Greens.

All who would like to attend are welcome. Please call me on my cell phone, day or night, if you have any questions. The number is 917 912 4452.

Thank you all, most sincerely, for the outpouring of love, support and empathy I've received in the last 48 hours. Your kindness is most welcome and a necessary part of the support mechanism keeping me and my family moving forward.

Heartache and Loss

2009-11-22T03:26:00.003-05:00

My mom passed away early this morning, just after midnight. After 2+ weeks of fighting bravely against pneumonia brought on by chemotherapy, her frail body simply gave out. My grief is tempered by the remembrance of her wonderful life and the knowledge that her legacy of loyalty, tenacity and family won't soon be forgotten. She was a special woman to the many that loved and admired her and I will cry tears in the coming weeks not just for my own loss, but for the world's.

Thanks to all of you who have sent me messages of love and compassion in the past few weeks. Your support has been invaluable to me.

This is my favorite picture of me and my mom together and captures in a single frame what I would spend a lifetime trying to put into words:

Chart of Degeneracy

2009-11-16T15:49:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking lately about how people fall into the spectrum of gambling and gaming. I've come to categorize these people in this way:

(In order of degeneracy, from least to worst)

1. The Teetotaler - These are folks who, for reasons religious or moral, absolutely refuse to participate in gambling activities of any kind. They believe that any form of gambling is sinful or leads to such moral ruin that they feel compelled to warn you against it every chance they get. They also believe that anything involving chance is 'gambling' and don't make distinctions between games of luck or games of skill. If there's money on the line, it's gambling pure and simple and in their eyes, bad. My parents, and many other people I know, fall into this category.

2. The Scientist - People who refrain from gambling because the math doesn't work out in their favor. This person knows the odds of every scenario you can face in games of chance and, almost never having an edge, will abstain. Blackjack, Craps, Roulette and such are anathema to the Scientist. But games of skill, he is more likely to partake in. Games like Chess or Backgammon, where each move is known to each player and skill is the predominant factor are his pursuits whenever he wants to risk his hard-earned paycheck. The Scientist, however, is more interested in the intellectual pursuit of these games of skill, makign the most perfect play possible, and is far less interested in the money aspect. As such, the Scientist usually wagers little or nothing and is content to play for his personal advancement.

3. The Hobbyist - Also known as The Gamer. This person loves games of any sort and he's knowledgable enough to know when skill trumps luck. The Hobbyist tries to learn as much about a game before risking his money and tries to get it in with the best of it at all times. However, common sense dictates the this person isn't going to do this for a living and usually risks low to moderate amounts on each wager. This aversion to risk prevents the Hobbyist from losing a lot but also prevents him from winning a lot. The Hobbyist plays mostly for fun, rather than money, and doesn't harbor hopes of giving up his day job. He has the tools to be a great player but not the drive or the appetite for risk that would be required.

4. The Professional - The Professional risk taker is an expert at games of skill and will ruthlessly maximize his advantage whenever possible. Wagering large amounts of money is not out of the question for the pro, but he will only do so knowing he has the best of it. He can make a living at 'gambling' because he understands that Math never lies and he'll profit in the long run as long as there enough suckers to take the losing end of his propositions. He has the bankroll, the vision and the calm nerves to succceed. The Professional has the best mix of degeneracy and self-control in this whole group.

5. The Gambler - A Gambler is one who knows a lot about the games they're playing and even excels at games of skill. But the Gambler has an impulse that will drive him to take larger risks than is called for, albeit sometimes calculated and sometimes not. Even getting the worst of it, and knowing it, the Gambler will risk moderate to large amounts of money. The Gambler's variance is higher than the Hobbyist and it's always hard to know where his bankroll is at. He's a wild player and unpredictable which makes him a most dangerous opponent.

6. The Degenerate - This person is consistently risking large amounts on losing propositions. As such, he may have lost his relationships, his assets and his job because of his passion. The thrill of the chase is what propels him and his winning or his losing are largely irrelevant. He's not propelled by rational thought but he's predictable in the way he tosses good money after bad.

Most of the poker players I know fall between the Hobbyist and the Professional. I consider myself to be somewhere in between, probably leaning toward the Hobbyist side as my appetite for risk is rather low. The Backgammon players I play with are mostly of the Gambler type, though some are Degenerates, taking nearly any cube, no matter how dire his situation.

Somewhere in this list is a a formula that can be derived taking into account factors of skill, risk aversion, bankroll and nerves to place a person here, but I haven't quite worked it out yet.

New pursuits

2009-11-16T15:39:00.001-05:00

As my mind hasn't been on poker much, I've only been dicking around a bit online. At the moment, I'm not running particularly well and I've been card dead in my last two tournaments of Omaha. But it's only a distraction. I've tried to shift things up a bit by playing more Backgammon, which is growing more fascinating to me by the day. It helps that not 200 feet from my front door is an active community of Backgammon players that play daily, Monday through Friday, in the community lounge at 60 Wall Street. The group, comprising about 30 regulars and an odd assortment of floaters, such as myself, play money games of Backgammon and Chess. The guy who runs the games, whose name I'd rather not mention, has been really nice to me, introducing me to the players and talking strategy with me every chance we get. He's also an avid poker player, so there's lots of talk about that as well.

The players themselves are perfectly nice people, once you get to know them, though they're pretty crusty and ornery. These people are gamblers, pure and simple, but that's not necessarily the worst thing in the world. Some of them are pure degenerates and others are highly intelligent people who are deeply involved in their games of choice, arguing minutatie of strategy and studying the literature.

I've been doing a little bit of studying myself to try and bone up on my Backgammon game and at least start to be competitive with these Jackals. For those of you who don't know, Backgammon is a skill game. Period. It looks like luck plays a factor, and it does, but just like Poker, it's the skilled player who wins out in the long run. After starting to play these guys for $5/point, and losing with great frequency, I now play for $3 a point. I've been memorizing the standard opening plays and trying to develop my understanding of the different types of games (running, blocking, gammon, etc...) to adapt to the different rolls of the dice. Playing speed chess with these guys is out of my league, but I believe I can improve myself enough in Backgammon to make it a worthwhile pursuit.

Already, with just a few weeks of training (concurrently with good books and with GnuBackgammon open source software), I've built up my game enough to bring my win rate up significantly. I'm still a losing player against these guys who play every single day for hours a day, but I'm winning enough to boost my confidence. The key is in the doubling cube. Knowing when to double your bet, when to take your opponent's double and when to give it up, is crucial in winning points. The other day, I had taken a double when I thought I was only moderately behind early in the game. Twelve rolls later, I had seized a significant advantage, making a five point prime with three builders on points 4 through 8 on my board and having two of his runners on my inner board. All of my runners were safe and I was threatining a six prime. Foolishly, I doubled and he immediately declined. An onlooker admonished me by saying, "bad cube", and he was right. I had such an overwhelming advantage that playing for the gammon was the proper play. These are the things I'm learning by playing more experienced players and what excites me about the game. There are lessons to be learned and, just like in poker, knowing when to cube (roughly equivalent to bet sizing in poker) is a large part of it.

If there is a poker analogy here, and there is, it's like learning how to play Limit Hold'em by playing $.25/$.50 stakes against players who normally play $25/$50 and having them critique your play as you play! Basically, I'm getting a very very cheap education in how to play the game properly. In time, I'll play as well as them and maybe even overtake them. This will allow me to be at least a break-even player against these guys, but a monstrous favorite against your average man-off-the-street.

Just gotta grind it out...

Preoccupied

2009-11-16T15:33:00.001-05:00

I haven't blogged in a while, or played much for that matter. My mind's been on other things, like my family. My mom is in the hospital in Florida, having contracted pneumonia from a compromised immune system due to chemotherapy administered for the treatment of lymphoma. Yeah, it's a mouthful, but the bottom line is she's in pretty bad shape. I'm going down to Florida tonight to be with my Father. This will be my second trip down there in less than two weeks. Thankfully, my mother is stable, but still critical and breathing with the aid of a respirator. I'm hoping the coming days will see more steady improvement on her antibiotic treatment regimen. All I can do now is pray and help my brothers hold us together during this trying time.

If you've got a healthy mom, now would be the time to call her up and tell her you love her. It's a gift.

Thursday morning managing

2009-11-05T16:01:00.001-05:00

The Yanks won, and I'm pretty happy about it. It's always good to see New York City up on the top of the heap where it belongs, even if it's not my beloved Mets. And let me be clear about this AGAIN, I am a fan of New York City. That means I am a fan of any of the New York Teams. My allegiance lies with the Jets, Knicks, Mets and Islanders but that doesn't mean I won't be happy for the Giants, Nets, Yankees or Rangers.

Which leads me to the reason for my post, and that's to question Joe Girardi on a small point. In the 7th inning of last night's World Series Game 6, reliever Joba Chamberlain was in a sticky spot. He had just given up two baserunners (a hit and a walk? Two walks? I don't remember), with two outs and the lefty Chase Utley was coming up to the plate. At this point, the Yankees were up 7-3, but a home run by Utley makes it a one run ball game and would have demoralized the Yanks to the point where I think they would have ended up losing. Even a long double would give the Phillies a decent shot of catching up.

So Girardi wisely chose to pull Chamberlain, who was waning and is a righty, and bring in fresh blood in the form of lefty Damaso Marte. Marte ended up making the biggest strikeout of his career by shutting down Utley who, incidentally, could very well have been voted MVP of the series even though his team didn't win.

So far, all well and good. Girardi even left Marte in to start the 8th inning and he struck out the first batter. Then, Girardi made what I believe was a mistake. Granted, it all worked out in the end, but I believe it was a mistake none-the-less. In poker terms, the mistake is on par with betting the river with bottom pair when it's been checked to you. Yes, you may win, but your opponent could raise and then you will be forced to throw away your hand (ok, that's a stretched analogy, I know).

So what was the mistake? Girardi brought in Mariano Rivera to close out the game. But you're saying to yourself, "Rivera is the best closer in baseball history! Why wouldn't Girardi want to put him in? Especially as he's a righty and the second batter was right handed."

Well, here's the thing. With the Yankees up by 4 runs, there was a comfortable enough lead for Marte, who was pitching spectacularly, to finish out the 8th inning. Then you can bring Rivera in to close the 9th. The danger is that if Rivera starts giving up runs in the 8th and the 9th, who do you have to go to? If you have to pull out Rivera because he blows the lead, who else is left on the bench?!? Gaudin? Or do you have C.C. Sabathia warm up and take over, in which case, who're you going to use to start Game 7 if needed? AND, if Rivers blows the save, he probably will have pitched out his arm enough to make him vulnerable for Game 7 being played the next day!

So that's my gripe. I think Girardi brought in Rivera too early with Marte pitching so nicely and introduced a risk that wasn't necessary. It turned out fine, though. I guess he won his 55/45 flip (another poker analogy, FTW!).

What do you think?

Shockingly Obvious

2009-11-02T17:11:00.002-05:00

Two posts ago, I posted an innocuous hand where I was playing in a $1.20 PL Omaha/8 tourney and got busted on a ridiculous two-outer. Nothing to write home about, normally, but I got two Anonymous comments that were troubling. At 3:24am, some tool decides to write:

"lol. you are a fucking fish"

AND

"you are -ev in any game you play--ring or tournament"

The identity of this waste of human life is irrelevant, and normally I don't respond to such inanity. But in this instance, I felt the need to retort so here goes:

1. I am not a poker pro. I do not make my living from poker. I do not choose to make my living from poker. This is why I am playing in a $1.20 buy-in tournament. I make an excellent living from my primary profession, thank you very much, and I have no desire to give that up so I can play all night, sleep all day and pretend that I'm 22 again.

2. I am an online fish. This is something I've posted about many times before. I have an online leak of massive proportions, yet another reason I don't play for higher stakes online. For this reason, I keep my online play to small stakes so I can kill time, enjoy myself, and maybe try out new strategies. I could care less what my EV is online. More importantly, I could care less what *YOU* think of my EV online, or live for that matter. I don't play to impress you.

3. Poker is a *hobby*, not my life. I do not derive my self-esteem from my poker skills. This is why you won't find me skulking around other people's poker blogs anonymously, dropping insults with no constructive feedback. People who do that are douchebags, yourself included. There are a ton of great poker bloggers I know who form a meaningful community of players and helpfully criticize each other's play in an effort to improve themselves and others. You are not one of these fine specimens. You are a dick.

I've now disallowed Anonymous commenting for this blog. I may still receive screeds from Heywood Jablome and Hugh Jazz, but that should cut down on the stupidity factor a bit.

Wall Street 2010 Dead Pool - Now taking submissions

2009-10-28T11:37:00.002-04:00

I am running a "Dead Pool" this coming year and we are now taking submissions. If you're unfamiliar, the concept of a Dead Pool is that you pick a list of famous people and track them throughout the year. Each time one of the people on the list dies, you receive points. You receive additional points if the person is in the younger age brackets. Each participant puts up $30 and the top 3 winners split the prize pool in a 65/25/15 split.

Here are the rules:

1. The Wall Street Dead Pool (WSDP) for 2010 shall run between Midnight, Dec. 31st, 2009 and Midnight Dec. 31st, 2010. Eastern Standard Time will be used as the standard of judging when the year has started and stopped and for any other timing issues.

2. Persons' deaths will be considered to have occurred on the publicized date. If there is a discrepancy between sources, Wikipedia will be the final source considered. As information becomes clearer during the year, the date may be amended. What Wikipedia reports at the end of the contest will be the final source.

3. Each person/team must forward me a list of up to 25 famous people no later than midnight on Dec. 15th, 2009. If one of your list members dies before the start of the contest, you will receive no points and have the option of forwarding me another name to replace that person BEFORE midnight of Dec. 31st, 2009.

4. "Famous" people, eligible for the list, will be defined as:

A. Human
B. Famous enough to have general name recognition
C. Famous enough to have a substantial Wikipedia entry.
D. Famous because of something they've done, not their relation to other people. For example, David Letterman is eligible but his mother, even though she's been on his show, is not. Tom Cruise is eligible. Suri Cruise, despite general name recognition, is not. Paris Hilton is eligible due to her record albums, films, TV shows, etc...
E. People who are famous simply for being old (e.g. the oldest person in the world) are not eligible.

I will be the final judge on what is defined as "Famous". If a submission isn't deemed famous enough to be eligible, the entry will be rejected and the applicant notified in time to give a new submission.

5. People who have artificial organs or have had organ transplants at the start of the contest shall not be eligible. Only the "Major" organs are in consideration here. For example, persons who have had heart transplants are not eligible. Persons who have had heart valve replacements are.

6. People who have terminal diseases at the start of the contest are not eligible.

7. People who are scheduled to be executed at the start of the contest are not eligilble.

8. People who are hostages or abductees at the start of the contest are not eligible.

9. Each person/team must forward to me, no later than midnight on January 15th, 2010, the entrance fee of $30. Acceptable forms of payment are Cash, Check, Paypal.

10. I will do my best to keep up with the news, but if you see that a person on your list has died, it would be appreciated if you could forward me the relevant information so I can update the scoreboards.

Scoring
1. Each applicant/team will receive 10 points if a person on their list dies in 2010.

2. Additional points will be awarded based on the age of the person at the time of their death as follows:
A. 0 - 9 years old will be awarded an additional 20 points
B. 10 - 24 years old will be awarded an additional 15 points
C. 25 - 39 years old will be awarded an additional 10 points
D. 40 - 54 years old will be awarded an additional 5 points
E. 55 - 64 years old will be awarded an additional 3 points
F. 65+ years old will be awarded no additional points.

3. Additional points will be awarded based on specific categories:

A. The Princess Diana Bonus - 5 additional points will be awarded for anyone who dies in a car accident.
B. The River Phoenix Bonus - 8 additional points will be awarded for the person/team who has the youngest person to die in the contest.
C. The Paul Newman Bonus - 5 additional points will be awarded for the person/team who has the oldest person to die in the contest.
C. The Notorious B.I.G. Bonus - 10 additional points will be awarded for anyone who is murdered by gunfire.
D. The Lizzie Borden Bonus - 10 additional points will be awarded for anyone who is murdered by a bladed weapon.
E. The John Belushi Bonus - 5 additional points will be awarded for anyone who dies from a self-inflicted drug overdose.
F. The Michael Jackson Bonus - 8 additional points will be awarded for anyone who is murdered by a drug overdose.
G. The Kurt Cobain Bonus - 8 additional points will be awarded for anyone who commits suicide. Suicide must be the coroner's final proclamation.
H. The JFK Bonus - 20 additional points will be awarded for anyone who is assassinated for political purposes.
I. The Jack LaLanne Bonus - 50% of the buyin will be refunded to the person/team who don't record a single death during the contest.

4. Participants in the contest who murder or otherwise arrange the death of anyone on their list (or anyone else's list), shall forfeit their buyin, be removed from the contest and be reported to the proper authorities.

Submissions, questions, payments, etc... can be sent to Fritzle *AT* Gmail *DOT* Com

Why I don't play for real stakes online

2009-10-27T20:11:00.003-04:00

A $1.20 PL O/8 tourney online. Single table. I'm barely 4th in chips with 2,435. 4 players left. Blinds at 150/300. I'm dealt 8♣ 9♣ 9♠ T♥ in the SB. UTG folds, Button calls, I limp in the SB and the BB calls. 3 players to the flop and it's 7♣ 7♦ T♠. I pot it for $900 and the BB folds. The Button, who's the big stack at the table due to his donkey-ish ways, calls my pot bet. Turn is J♠. I go all in for $1,235 and the button insta-calls. He shows:

5♥ 2♥ T♣ 5♣

WTF?!?! There's a paired board, no low draw at all, and he calls my all in with middle pair and a five kicker?!?! OMG.

River: 5♠

WOW. I'm out and shaking my head yet again.

Online sucks. Live Poker Rules! End. Of. Story.

Slowhand? Slowliver.

2009-10-27T19:02:00.002-04:00

At age 64, and after well-documented drug and alcohol addictions, Eric Clapton has canceled a concert appearance due to Gallstone surgery.

WTF? I drank a couple of beers one night and went into the hospital. This bastard destroys his liver and never gets Gallstones? The world is *not* fair.

The State of the Quest

2009-10-27T16:23:00.001-04:00

I haven't written in a while because, frankly, I haven't been playing a lot of poker. Domestic bliss is the state of my affairs these days and poker, while still a great hobby and a wonderful distraction, is less the focus of my life. Spending time with Ali is genuinely fantastic and I get more satisfaction out of just sitting on the couch with her, watching "Say Yes to the Dress", than I do from playing a random tourney.

Ok, I'm lying just a little. What I meant to say was, I really like to play an online tourney on my laptop while I'm sitting on the couch with Ali, watching "Say Yes to the Dress".

Whatever!

Anyhow, this month almost went by before I realized that it's the two year anniversary of my poker quest! More precisely, it was two years ago this month that I started traveling to far away destinations specifically in pursuit of my stated goal of seeing all of the legal poker rooms in the Continental U.S.

After 24 months of traveling as often as I could, I have seen or played in 135 poker rooms located in 13 different states. Come December 4th, I'll be traveling to Arizona to add another 14 rooms to that total, and 3 more in California, bringing the grand total to 152 poker rooms by the end of the year.

That's 152 rooms in 26 months for an average of 5.8 unique poker rooms a month. That's a pretty nice pace, and one I wish I could keep up. Alas, the aforementioned domestic bliss is forcing me to go to places like Paris instead of Oklahoma. Poor me. :-p

After Arizona, my next weeklong poker trip will most likely be during the summer of 2010. Ali will be studying for her bar exam around that time, freeing me up to get the hell out of her hair! I anticipate Oklahoma (I wasn't kidding) or possibly California. There might also be some long weekend (3-4 days) trips. New Mexico comes to mind and maybe Reno/Tahoe. Also, Ali and I might be going to Vegas when she graduates in May 2010. She's never been and I would love to go for a week and show her around. There won't be a whole lot of poker playing if I go with her, but if I can get her some spa sessions, I might be able to visit the dozen or so poker rooms in Vegas that I missed my last trip there.

In other, slightly distressing news, my poker table (the nice one) is being sold tonight. I was going to wait until the end of the year to sell it, but I got an offer I couldn't refuse from a guy who's opening up a new room in downtown Manhattan near where I live. The combination of the excellent price he's willing to pay combined with the thought that I might still be able to play on it is too good to resist.

They come tonight to pick it up. What this means, of course, is that for the first time in nearly 5 years, I no longer have a poker table in my apartment and can't host games anymore. This is the official end of my hosting duties (Sorry Christine!).

But I'm keeping my chips! Those go with me to the grave.

One and done

2009-10-13T00:35:00.004-04:00

I was a little wired after last night's very exciting, but unfortunate, Monday Night Football game. So I decided to fire up FTP for a quick $2.25 Turbo Pot Limit O/8 tourney. My first hand is K♥ 5♣ 4♣ 2♥ in the cutoff. It limps to me and I call. Flop comes a *sick* 3♥ 5♠ 5♥. The BB pots for $150. I repot for $600. He calls. Turn is J♦ and he checks. I move all in for my remaining $870 and he calls. He shows 5♦ K♠ A♥ Q♠. By my count, I have 6 hearts to make a flush for the scoop, 3 fours for the boat and a scoop, 3 deuces for a boat and a scoop, 2 Kings for a chop, 3 sixes for a straight and a scoop, 3 sevens for the low and half the pot, 3 eights for the low and half the pot or 3 Aces for the low and half the pot.

So by my reckoning, that's 26 cards that will give me some or all of the pot, 15 for the scoop, 2 for a chop and 9 for half the pot. And that's only with one more card to come!

The river: 9♣.

One and done. Thanks for playing!

O/8 goodness and a lapse of concentration

2009-10-07T23:08:00.004-04:00

I went to Tuna tonight to play in the $5/$10 Omaha hi/lo game. My primary purpose was to pick up $255 that W owes me from selling my poker table. This was the original table that started the Wall Street Poker league, so it's a little bittersweet, but I can't let that get in the way of business! I chose to pick up the cash on Wed., so I could partake of the juicy O/8 game.

I did very well, scooping some very nice pots, including getting paid off with flopped quad Queens and not having to chop for low! I peaked at +$325, but finished shortly afterwards with +$242 due to a lapse of concentration.

Here's what happened. The game had switched to dealer's choice early on, meaning whoever was the button could choose between Omaha hi/lo or Omaha high only. But that was slowing down the game so we all agreed to make it a rotation game, one round of each. The game would change every time the button got to the 1 seat.

So far so good.

On my last hand before the dealer push, which is when I told myself I was going to leave, I picked up a so-so hand on the button. The game was Omaha high and my hand was K♣ 5♣ 7♥ 6♥. The flop was a craptacular 5♥ 9♣ 3♥. I had flopped a meh flush draw, a double gutshot straight draw, a decent backdoor flush draw and an inside straight flush draw. When it checked all the way around to me, I checked, because I only had a four card draw to the nut high. The turn was a trouble card for me, 5♠. Now I had trip 5's. It checked to the cutoff, who bet it out. I called and everyone else folded. He said, "Uh oh, how badly am I beat here?", and then bet the river blind. Unfortunately, the river was the A♥, so I was forced to call with my flush and he tabled 5-9 for the boat.

That wasn't the lapse of concentration I was talking about. I decided to leave the table because the new dealer was pushing in and the guy who had just beaten me said, "You can take a courtesy hand". And then I lost concentration. Because the dealer had pushed, I made the mental error of thinking the game was now Omaha Hi-Lo, when, in fact, it was still Omaha high! I took my courtesy hand of 2♠ 5♥ 6♥ K♠. It limped around PF and the flop saw 8 players. The flop was 2♦ 4♦ 8♠. I've got a double gutshot straight draw, and my mind is telling me that I also have a decent low draw! WTF myself?!? It's high only! To make matter worse, I had a talker in my left ear and the dealer was seriously fucking things up. It was raised on the flop and the dealer collected the whole pot and almost dealt the cards before me, and another player called the raise. Then, he dealt the turn Q♣, but never burned! So then he burned the Q♣ and dealt the real turn, the 3♦. This gives me the nut straight, but with 3 diamonds on board, isn't great in a multiway hand. However, I felt good about my 65 low! Whoops. The turn was bet and then raised and I called both bets. Both players were going high, I felt, and when I check-called the river (4♠), one player showed the Ace high flush and the other player showed 8's full. I checked for their lows and tabled 65 low, and was dismayed when I had to be told my last hand was Omaha high only!!!!

Grrrr.... #concentrationfail

Still, I left with $242 in profit and another $255 from the sale of my smaller table. So a good night altogether. Also, I laid 10-1 to a dealer in the top of the 7th that the Yankees would take the first game. He took the bet for $5 and I won that bet, but tipped him the $5 anyway. #niceguyswin

Cheerleader cash in MTT

2009-09-27T01:56:00.001-04:00

I placed 8th out of 839 runners in a $3.30 MTT tourney on FTP last night. It took 4.5 hours to get there, but I cashed with a not too shabby, but far from awesome, $54.11. The payouts are insanely top weighted, but I still managed to make 16.4 times my buy-in, an accomplishment in any measure. I really wanted to make the final table here and I got tripped up when I got raised on the button by a LAG player whom I'd seen call off a third of his large stack with KTo. He raised to $20,000 on the button, with blinds at $4,000/$8,000 and antes at $1,000. I was in the BB with KQo. This was a 6-handed tourney (something I'm even more proud of because I normally don't do well with high aggression games), so KQ is definitely something I can race with short handed. I pushed for $140,000, hoping to double through a light call or even willing to race against a small pair, but he quick-called with AK and I was toast. Other than that mistake, I played pretty well. I was frustrated when one of the weaker players at the table managed to fol PF 4 different times against me when I re-raised him with KK or AA (!). Not once did he come over the top with his original raise. All the time, he was min-raising and it was too dangerous for me to flat call, so I made a small re-raise and he folded. Every time. Four times! These hands don't come easily, so it hurts not to get paid off on them.

Towards the end, I could feel my lack of aggression starting to hurt me, as my blinds got stolen more frequently in short handed play. Most of the game towards the end was PF play, so I have to work on my aggression to finish off these deep runs I make. Otherwise, I'm never going to make the big money.

Aaaaand it's gone

2009-09-14T19:05:00.004-04:00

I wrote a post a little while back about how awesome Mint.Com is. Yeah, well today Intuit, the makers of Quicken, bought it. Why? Because it was awesome and a threat to the crappy personal finance software that Intuit has had a monopoly on for years and years. Guess what? When big companies have a business model that works, they don't buy smaller companies and tell them to keep doing everything they were doing before. They try to make them conform to their existing model (See Clear Channel, Microsoft and dozens of others).

So what's the over/under on Mint.Com sucking ass?

The title of this post comes from this awesome South Park clip (Watch and laugh):

Talent

2009-09-14T18:52:00.004-04:00

By now, this is pretty much a music blog along with a poker blog scattered with personal matters, so I feel I can share this with you.

I watched a documentary a few days ago called "Before The Music Dies". The film is about how the music industry got into the sad state it's in, and how it can redeem itself. There are dozens of interviews and performances that are noteworthy. The best lines come from Erykah Badu, who looks stoned out of her mind when she's on camera, but is probably the most heartfelt and memorable.

But what really blew my mind the most was the first two minutes of the film. It's a clip of an old Ed Sullivan show. Ray Charles on piano and Billy Preston on lead vocals doing a short, but blistering, cover of Edwin Starr's "Agent Double O Soul", from 1964. Billy Preston is a revelation, with fantastic vocals and dance moves that come from outer space.

Watch it. It's the craziest cool two minutes of your life.

Oh, and note to self: Check to see if Hulu.Com has the movie you want before you buy it off of ITunes!

Must read post

2009-09-14T18:38:00.002-04:00

F-train has a great post about taking losses into context. You have to read this if you're a poker player.

Um...you *are* a poker player, aren't you?

Omaha kills profits

2009-09-14T12:25:00.000-04:00

I love Omaha. I'm a bonafide Omaholic, thanks to CK and her cracked out ways. But I'm having an issue with Omaha at this present moment. Namely, I suck at it.

Big time.

Now, if you sat with me at an Omaha table and watched me play, you wouldn't think I was that bad. My hand selection doesn't seem too off (more on that in a second), I'm betting when I'm ahead with big draws, and I'm folding with the worst hands. So my fundamentals seem sound, to me at least, but my historical records tell me a different story. I'm a solid loser at Omaha games, losing most of my sessions and making only meager profits when I win. I'm a big believer in not getting emotional about the game of poker and trusting in the math. So if the math is telling me I suck at this game, it must be true.

So where's my leak, if my fundamentals are ok (an iffy assumption but let's run with it for now)? I think it has to do with my starting hand selection. I'm starting to get the feeling that I'm being TOO tight with my starting hands. In Hold'em, this isn't too much of a problem, because your premium hand selections, when bet properly, will most often win the pot, assuring you a small but steady profit. But in limit Omaha, your premium starting hands will only win about half the time, or less, owing to the fact that you can't get people off their hands in limit and Omaha hands are easily counterfeit-able. So I'm starting to be of the opinion that I need to widen my hand selection a bit. For example, at this moment, I'll only play these hands:
Any A2
Any suited pairs, Jacks or higher (by suited pairs, I mean a high card with another card of the same suit, not two Queen of Diamonds!)
A3, 23, or A4 with two face suited cards
Any combination of high Broadway cards

But maybe, just maybe, I can add a few more selections to my repetoire. What about:
3,4,5 with a high suited card
A45 by itself
89TJ (high straight possibilities but no Broadway)

And maybe there are other possibilities I haven't thought of yet. One thing's for sure, for the sake of my bankroll I have to stay off of Omaha until I can figure out what's going on. I should be crushing the game at the Borgata, but I'm getting my as handed to me my donkeys. So my new mission is to tighten up my game by reading at least two Omaha books and then attacking the game online at low limits to test out the theories. Then, and only then, will I be playing Omaha at any level above 2-4.

Of men, ladies, pink chips and bubbles (Part Two of Two)

2009-09-14T12:23:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning, we all got up at a decent hour for the 11am Ladies tournament start. Not me, though. I had taken two Simply Sleep pills (thanks Tylenol!) and woke up just enough to babble to Wendy before falling back asleep at 11:00 and not waking up again until 3:30p! Keep in mind that I had fallen asleep the night before at 2:00a. I guess my body really needed that.

I was getting text messages from Chris and Wendy about the state of the tournament and they seemed to both be doing pretty well. Good chip stacks, bad players and ~270 runners in a nice field. Wendy asked me to bring her some caffeineited teas, so I got showered and dressed and brought her what she needed. We chatted about the tourney and how she was doing and she broke the big news to me. There were at least two guys playing in the Ladies tournament that day. One was a transvestite, and no one seemed to have a problem with a man who thought of himself as a woman playing in the tournament. The other, however, was a bonafide man. And not only that, but a professional player with $650,000 of tournament winnings in his career.

It's unseemly to me, on it's face, to have a man play in a tournament designated for women. There's been a lot of talk on the 2+2 forums about this with the camps being divided into:

A. This is a Ladies tournament for, you know, ladies.
AND
B. Why should there be any discrimination at all? If a Ladies tournament is valid, what about a Jewish tournament? Or a tournament for people over 6 ft. tall? Let the guy play.

The fact is, the law requires the casino to let men enter, so they did, but with lots of vocal opposition. They tried their best to make the guy feel like shit about it and he didn't care. In the face of all the opposition and a room full of women who wanted to bust him, the guy won.

He fucking won. The Ladies tournament. Oh, best part, the woman he beat heads up for the win was playing to raise money for her breast cancer surgery recovery in a few weeks, when she'll be getting a double masectomy.

So, to recap for the moment, a professional male poker player entered a $300 tourney so he could beat up on women who tilted at the sight of him and tried his best to take money from a woman who's getting her tits chopped off so she can survive cancer.

WHAT. A. DOUCHEBAG.

He says he's going to donate his winning to charity, but I'll believe that when I see it. The truth is there were plenty of other tournaments running that day, with higher buyins and higher payouts, and the only reason he got into this one was because he saw an opportunity. He figured, hey, there's lots of dead money in this tourney. Why not play the edge? And that's what makes him a douche. Women poker players, on the whole (not individually), are not as good as men. And why should they be? There's far fewer of them and the game has historically been played by men, with women not even given the opportunity to play except in the last few years. And the bottom line is, it's good for the game as a whole for women to have their own "thing", so to speak. For a guy to come in and ruin that is demoralizing for women playing poker. Even moreso that he won, giving the "men are mentally superior" crowd some false grist with which to gin their mill (how many idioms did I cram in there?). So the guy's an asshole and that's the end of that rant.

Chris busted out in about 80th place, but Wendy made a strong showing and busted out just short of the money by trying to make a 11xBB shove with a suited Ace and ran into KK. Her play was aggressive, but defensible. Her style is to play to win, not just to make the money, but my feeling is that with 11BB, you're most likely not going to win anyway. Personally, I would have waited for at least another orbit before trying to shove, and then when I was in later position. But that's just two different styles. If she had won that pot, she would have had about 14 or 15 BB's and might have made a much deeper run.

In the meantime while this drama was unfolding, I was downstairs in the poker room playing more Pink Chip Omaha. This time, I was getting slaughetered. I took about 4 hours, but I lost a rack and another hundred dollar buyin for a $350 loss. I wasn't happy about it in the least. I took a break to see how Wendy and Chris were doing in the tourney and then went back to the tables for some 1-2 NLHE. I did a lot better, but it wasn't easy. I was at a pretty sharky table, with maybe two donks that I could identify. The whole room was hopping with Borgata Open tournament players and it made the level of play higher, or at least wilder, than normal. I tried to adjust but it wasn't easy. I went down $80 quickly on a couple of missed flops and then I managed to get a T♠5♠ in the BB and it limped around to me. The flop was T♦8♠2♠. Top pair and a flush draw? I bet $15. It folds around to an action type player who pops me to $30. I put him on a naked top pair and I shove for $105 more and he insta-calls with T*h8♥. Ouch. My two pair draw is counterfeited and I can only win with a spade, which naturally doesn't come. I rebuy for $160 and manage to grind it all the way down to $30 when Chris comes over to tell me she busted out. She rails me for a while, urging me to rebuy some more in case I hit a big hand but I decide to see where this short stack will take me.

All the way to the promised land, evidently.

I get 44 on the button and a guy raises to $10, another guy calls and I shove with $30. Both players call. Flop is A♠8♥5♣. I figure I'm dead to the Ace and start hoping for another 4. But it goes check-check on the flop! Turn is 3♣. Now I have a wheel draw too. Check-check again! River is 9♠. Check-Check one more time. They show down KQ and KJ, respectively and my pocket fours scoop! Yay! Back up to $90, I get JJ and raise to $15. A guy shoves for his last $80 and I call. He shows TT and the flop is J55, locking it up for me. Turn and river are meaningless and now I'm back up to nearly $200. An hour later, feeling better about my situation and with my stack at about $240, I call a pf raise to $10 with QTs. There are four other people in the pot and I flop the joint. 89J, rainbow. It checks around and the turn is 3♥, putting a heart flush draw on board. I bet out $30, get one caller and then a raise to $100! I re-shove, the middle guy gets out of the way with what he said was J8, and the raiser calls with JJ for top set! I dodge a paired board on the end and just like that I'm at $530 after stacking my opponent. I play for another two hours, peaking at $610 but endind the session at $503. My opponent was on major tilt after that and I managed to take a nice pot off of him by making a good read, sending him on Super-Uber tilt (he was in for at least 5 buyins). The situation was, I had ATo in the BB and it limped around to me. I check and the flop is AJ3. I don't like the board and I check. It checks around. Turn is a 5. It checks to Tilty McTiltster, who bets $15. I call and everyone else folds. River is a 4. No flush on board. I check, he pauses and bets $60. It was such an outsized bet (2X the pot) that my instincts immediately said, bluff! Now, a good player would know I thought he was titlting and made that bet with the nuts or two pair, but he wasn't a good player. He was actually tilting. I called, showing top pair-ten kicker (oohs and ahhs from the gallery) and Tilty mucked. He was a dangerous opponent after that, overbetting quite a bit and you never knew where he was at. I didn't tangle with him after that and he managed to build a $500 stack before blowing it yet again.

It was 4:30a when I picked up and my table was still super action-y and raucous fun, but I was tired. I stopped by to pick up Wendy, who reminded me that the rollover was happening in 15 minutes and I might as well stay for that. The rollover, for the uninitiated, is the time in the early morning when The Borgata automatically clocks out all of their poker players. They do this do you don't build up comp points while not actually playing. Normally, comp points are built up at the poker table for every hour of play, but the room is too chaotic to keep track of every player, so they tend to rely on the players themselves to get clocked in and out from the floor. But if you clock in at a table and the just leave the casino, you're still building up points even though you're not playing. The points get added to your card when you clock out. So the rollover prevents people from clocking in on Monday and clocking out on Friday. BUT, if you're present at the rollover, you get clocked out and then clocked back IN for the next day. So we just stayed to the rollover, left our tables and slept, making beautiful comp points while we slept. Mmmmm...Comp Points....

Though we got into bed at 6:30a, I managed to get up at 11:00a and prepare myself for another day of poker. No Omaha today, just 1-2NL. My table today was even sharkier than last night! I went around the table with my eyes and couldn't identify even a single donater. For two hours, my stack stayed exactly even and I was getting any hands at all. It was brutal. I was about to ask the floor for a table change when the three big stacks at the table got up simultaneously and were filled in by much fishier players. Whew. I stayed at the table, still not getting hands and ground it out for another two hours. Just when I was ready to give up, I called a PF raise to $12 with 3♠4♠ in middle position with 4 other callers. The flop was a beautiful A♥2♥5♠. Yay wheel flop! I checked and the raiser bet out $25. Ok, I know he has an Ace. Probably a high ace like AK, AQ, justifying the PF raise. My goal now is to stack him. I called the bet (everyone else folded) and prayed for him to improve on the turn. Please god, put an Ace, King or Queen on the turn. Just this once. I'll sing your praises forever (or at least in my next blog post).

The turn: A♦

Hallelujah and praise his name! Back up the Brinks truck, we're gonna need a wheelbarrow here!

I check again and he bets $30. At this point, I'm representing a weak Ace or a flush draw. If I were him, I would have bet for value higher than $30 because a donkey player isn't giving up trip Aces. But he bet $30 and the river was an 8♣. I was now 100% sure I was good. I needed to figure out how to stack him and decided that if I checked, he was going to fire. I checked, he bet half his stack and I went into the "tank". Not really, but I had to make it look good. I finally put him all in and he looked dejected. I guess he figured I might have made an A8 boat, but he called and was shocked to see me table a straight. Double up! I was at $440, where I stayed for the next few hours. Chris was taking a beating at 2-5 and when she finally gave up the ghost it was 6pm. I was about to leave my table, playing my last UTG hand when I looked down at 8♠9♠. I was kind of praying that I didn't have a hand to play, but I had to see a flop. I limped and the next player popped it to $12. I would have called if it hadn't folded around to me, but I'm not playing heads up out of position with 89s. Sorry, Homie don't play dat (trip down memory lane anyone?). The thing is, I had all red chips in front of me, ready to rack and go, and I had broken one to limp for the $2, so now I had $3 in whites sitting in front of me. $3 in Whites = a big blind and a small blind and look at this! It was my turn to be big blind! I anted up and got 73o. Boo, poker. It limped around as I prayed audibly for someone to raise me out of this hand. No one did, but I had the woman to my right in hysterics with my antics. She'd been there before, trying to leave and not get stacked on your last hand of the weekend. The flop was A76. Despite my praying, I hit the flop and it checked all the way around! Oh, shoot. The turn (please don't hit me, please don't hit me) was a 3. Oh darn. I bet $12, got one call, and then a raise to $35! I said to the woman, "You see where this is going, right? I'm not leaving here with anything." She smiled and nodded knowingly. I looked at the board, A763 and thought about what kind of hand would limp PF, check on the flop and raise the turn. I came to the conclusion that he either had 45 for the nut straight, A3 for a better two pair or was semi-bluffing with 85 for the up and down draw. I was out of position and didn't feel like playing a big pot with a hand that was behind most of the scenarios I could think of, so I flashed to the woman to my right, said, "I'm playing such scared money right now" and folded. Middle guy folded too and the raiser was about to muck when I flashed my cards to the woman and she said, "Are you retarded, folding that?" I showed the table and the raiser showed 76 for a flopped better two pair! Good read Jamie. Knowing my luck, the case 7 would have hit the river and I would have been felted. So I got away, not even playing the SB and left the table with about $420.

The ride home was unbelievably smooth considering it was Sunday night and we left at 7pm. Not a single lick of traffic and we were home in 2 hrs. flat. Coolio.

A great weekend altogether but it's only got me jonesing for more. I'm going to have to put a lid on it for a while and deal with online poker. Maybe I'll use the time to read some of my Omaha books. December will be my uber-awesome Arizona trip and I'll probably have one ore two more AC weekends in between then.

Gotta find me a good home game...

Of men, ladies, pink chips and bubbles (Part One of Two)

2009-09-14T10:39:00.000-04:00

Oh man, what an interesting weekend I had at the Borgata. As some of you may know, I'm having revision septoplasty surgery on Sept. 23rd, which will put me out of commission for about a week. And my October weekends are more or less booked up with weekend getaway trips with Ali, so I won't be playing any poker for a while. Which is why, during a dinner with Paulie, Christine, Ali, Myself, Liezl, Viet and the lovely new Luna, I was excited to hear that Ali was actually cool with me taking the weekend off to play in Atlantic City. After a wonderfully zany time getting Wendy to take the number 9 bus down to the Financial District, Christine, Wendy and I took off from the city and got down to the Borgata in a sharp 2hrs and 15 minutes.

The excitement was building inside me as we checked into the room. I couldn't drop off my stuff fast enough and we all headed down together. What was I excited about? It was only poker after all, and I had played it a thousand times before. But this trip was special for one reason. Two words: PINK CHIP!

A bit of background first. When I was a young pup, just learning the game of poker, in a time before all of this no-limit hold'em nonsense took hold, the game of choice was 7-card stud. And the first full fledged poker room I ever played 7 card-stud in was The Tropicana in Atlantic City. For years, that was the only room I went to when I found myself in AC. Those were the bad old days when I would also play table games like Carribean Stud and Let It Ride. What was I ever thinking? Not too much later, I was introduced to Hold'Em and played in the little 2-4 and 3-6 limit games, also in the Trop. Whenever I played in the room, there was always one table in particular that seems to be having the most fun, making the most noise and had the prettiest chips in the casino. It was the Pink Game, so called because the game used $2.50 chip, colored pink by New Jersey law. The game was $7.50/$15.00 limit Hold'em and only the pink chips were in play. The dealer would call out the bets and raises in numbers of chips rather than denominations. For example, a call and a raise would be "Three chips...Six chips...", rather than "$7.50...$15.00...". It was all quite exciting to watch and made even more magical by the fact that the table was the focal point of the room, placed front and center at the entrance, and spoken about in nearly mythical tones by the players in other games. It was my dream to work my game up to the point where I could sit at that game.

Finally, after months of building conifdence, I sat down at the game with a rack of pink chips, $250 all told, and got slaughtered. It wasn't even close. All of the limit games I had played to this point were fun affairs with very few raises and no re-raises at all. When people bet, you knew what they had and there was no such thing as bluffing (at least it never worked). But the Pink Chip game (capitalized for proper respect), was totally different. It was the first time I saw people bluff successfully, three-bet pre-flop, make great reads with middle pair, bet for value, etc... In other words, real poker. And real money could be won or lost. More than once I saw opponents with stacks of chips in four tiers at the table. Sometimes twelve or thirteen hundred dollars in front of them. The game attracted wild, loose players and tight players too. It was chatty and congenial but tough, and I met some really great players along the way. Dealers too. One of the dealers even asked me out once (Paulie can vouch, he was there)! After a few months, I finally got used to the game and even got good at it, and when I started going down with the Wall Street crew to Atlantic City, almost 5 years ago now (!), the Tropicana was one of our regular stops. This was pre-Borgata times. While they would all go play no-limit, I would crack out at the Pink Chip game and have a blast. The money involved at the Pink Chip game would set me up to be very comfortable at 1-2 NL Hold'em, which made a great transition for me.

Sadly, the Pink Chip game at the Trop died a few years ago. It wasn't a sudden demise, but it was quite noticeable. If I had to guess, I'd say the opening of The Borgata poker room was what ultimately did the deed. Once all the No-Limit players moved to the much nicer Borgata, the Taj started to up their ante with the limit players. Both of those rooms sucked out all of the Trop players, and I blame the room management who did absolutely nothing to keep those players. The final nail hit when the Trop closed up a portion of their poker room last year and replaced the tables with slots. The poker room still exists, but it's much smaller than it was with almost no action these days. so sad...

Ok, that's the background. The foreground is that the Pink Chip game has been revived, at the Borgata! Sort of. Officially, there are lists for Pink Chip Omaha/8, Hold'em and Stud/8. And while I heard the list for Hold'em and Stud/8 being called this weekend, those games never got off. Omaha/8, though, was a different story, with 3 different tables of Pink Chip O/8 running at the same time. I got into the game post-hast upon my arrival and did pretty well for an hour or so, stacking about $100 in profit when I ran into the cooler that sent me on tilt. My hand was QQ23 double suited and I called a raise, going heads up with one player who had just sat down. The guy had the look of action player to him and raising his first hand pre-flop was a good indicator. The flop was excellent for me, KQ5 rainbow, but both of my suits on the board. I led out and he raised! Pocket Kings? Possibly. I slowed down and called. Turn was a King. Now it's harder to put him on KK, so I led out again, he raised again! I called again. The river was meaningless and I check-called the river and he showed down AK45, single suited for Kings full of 5's. Ouch on the two outer! It's plays like this guy made that have me scratching my head about Omaha. Raising PF with that hand? And then raising top and bottom pair? Yeesh. Of course, this sent me tilting and tilting even a little in Omaha is bad. I left the table after going from +100 to -100 in an hour. I had had enough.

I found a 1-2 NL table and managed to get hit by the deck in the first 5 minutes. My second hand at the table was 8♠5♠ (suited gap connectors, what?) and the flop was 885. Helllllloooooo boat! Unfortunately, no one had hit any of that. I checked the flop with 3 players and the turn was a Queen. I bet it and everyone folded. Boo. But my very next hand was A9o. I limped and called a PF bet to $10, alonf with 4 others. Flop was 999. DQB! (Dems Quads Bitches!) I flopped the nut hand and checked, naturally. Everyone checked along. Turn was a 4 of spades, putting a spade draw on board. I was first to act and checked again. Everyone else checked. I was waiting for a high card that would give somebody a big boat. The river was what I wanted: K♠. Not only a high card, but a flush as well! I sprang my trap, trying to represent the flush. I bet out $25 (half-pot) and got popped to $50 by another player. I went into Hollywood mode and tried to figure out what he'd call. I figure he beat my "flush" with his King but he'd get suspicious if I went all in. So I put $100 on top and he looked deflated. "Quads? Really?" Finally, he made the call, flashed the King and mucked to my quad 9's! Yay! My Omaha losses were erased in one swift hand (my theme for the weekend). After another hour, I was up just a little for the day ($40) and was getting tired. Wendy and Chris both wanted to play the ladies tournament the next day and Wendy went to bed at about 1:00a, which is a record for her. I followed shortly afterwards, but not before winning $50 playing craps (a record for me!). Chris, played the role of Wendy by staying at the tables until at least 4:00am. It had been a long, but exciting day.

Progress

2009-09-11T11:33:00.003-04:00

It's been a busy week for me poker wise. Not so much playing, though I did get a live session in last night, but in planning.

My Arizona trip for Dec. 4th - Dec. 13th is a go. And there's going to be a lot on my plate. I still can't post the full itinerary yet, because I'm not sure where I'll be staying in Phoenix, mostly because Christine hit me up with the great news that she might be joining me for the tail end of my trip! Evidently, she has a friend in Tucson and can mix the two things together. I've never had anyone join me for these poker sojourns, so the company would be most welcome. But if we're going to split a hotel room for a few days, it'd be good to have her schedule locked down before I can book it. Hence the pause in posting my full schedule.

But here's a small preview of what's in store:
Dec. 4th - Fly into Phoenix and drive halfway to Tucson before spending the night

Dec. 5th - Drive to Tucson and hit up two poker rooms. Drive northeast about 80 miles to another poker room and spend the night in Globe, AZ

Dec. 6th. - Drive Northeast another 80 miles to hit up a room. Drive 65 miles west to hit up a room in Payson. Drive 60 miles Northwest to play in a room in Camp Verde, AZ and spend the night.

Dec 7th. - Crazy time. Drive to Prescott airport, about 90 minutes away and take a plane to Farmington, New Mexico. Rent a car and drive 90 minutes to a casino in Towaoc, Colorado, in the Southwest portion of the state. Spend the night.

Dec. 8th. - Drive back to Framington, New Mexico, drop off my car and fly back to Prescott, Arizona. Play in a poker room in Prescott. Possibly do some photography near Sedona. Drive to Parker, Arizona at the western border of the state and play in a room there. Drive down to Blythe, California to play in a bar there and spend the night. Lots of traveling on this day!

Dec. 9th - Drive down to El Centro, California, near the Mexican border. This is prime Photography day because I can't play in the room in El Centro, CA until 5:30p, because that's when the games get started (it's a bar). I might head up to Salton Sea and take some photos there. Or maybe just wander in the desert and see what I find. After I play in El Centro, I hit the road and go east to Yuma and spend the night in a casino resort there (yes, there's a poker room as well).

Dec. 10th - I get up early and drive into Phoenix, where I will spend the rest of my trip. There are 6 casinos in the Phoenix area, so I will use the 10th, 11th and 12th to hit them all before I fly home on the 13th.

All in all, there will be 18 poker rooms on this trip, four plane rides and two different rental cars. Certainly my most ambitious trip to date. I can't even begin to say how excited I'm getting for it. My trip through the midwest was awesome for me, but there wasn't as much to see in terms of natural beauty. I expect, traveling across the mountains and valleys and deserts of Arizona, that I will get to see a lot more. Cacti, anyone?

Back to the home games

2009-09-11T11:33:00.001-04:00

For the first time in a long time, I played in a home game last night that wasn't mine. There is a game I've played in ocassionaly in midtown but I haven't had the time or energy to go to that one lately. But an opportunity came to me when I got an email from Weikei, a player in the Wall Street Game, that his regular home game was looking for players. They normally play limit Hold 'Em, and sometimes Omaha, which is right up my alley. I have kind of a tempestuous love affair with limit poker. I grew up playing it so I'm used to the rhythms of it (that is to say, how slow it is). I'm also used to the incredible suckouts suffered in limit. What I'm having a hard time gettings used to, though, is how badly I do at it. I hardly ever seem to do anything more than break-even at limit poker, which is frustrating to me. I seem to play all-right, but after all the swings are taken into account, I'm hardly ever up more than a few blinds. Even though I play far fewer hands in no-limit, I prefer the idea that I can protect my stack, boring though it may be. In limit, there are too many situations where you have the worst of it but are obliged to call because you're getting the right pot odds.

I arrived at the game at 7:30p. The location is not what I'm used to. It's an office in a Tribeca building with a little round snack table and a table cloth over it. At least the cards and chips were good. The people who played are perfectly nice, and fairly good players. I drew an awful seat, with the two loosest and craziest players directly on my left. Only 7 players played, which is also not my style. I prefer a full table when I play ring games, so I be more selective with my hands without the blinds whipping around so often. The game was $4-$8 limit. There was a $1 rake taken at $20/$40/$100 to pay for a dinner or freeroll or some such. I had no problems with that at all.

Last night was a typical up and down limit session for me. I went on a card rush early, which in limit doesn't mean much if your starting hands don't stand up! But mine were holding up early on. At the end of two hours, I was up about $150 on a $200 buyin. Not bad at all. I was getting tired at about 10:00p, but I had already been told that given the small number of players, leaving early wasn't allowed until 11:30p. Since I had already been told in advance about it, I couldn't argue.

So there I was, with a nice profit, when I pick up KK on the button, for about the fourth time today. I had won twice and lost twice with KK, but I wasn't playing them any differently than I should be. I raised on the button and got calls from the BB and UTG. These two players were the loosey-goosey crazies. I had been calling light with them and winning, so I couldn't put them on anything here. The flop is 9♣ 8♦ 2♠. BB checks, UTG Bets and I raise. BB re-raises (!), UTG folds and I call. At this point, I put him on A9, or an overpair. A set of 8's or 9's certainly crossed my mind. I made up my mind to call his turn and river bets regardless, making a note that when I had called down his aggression in an earlier hand, he had shown Three high on the river! The turn was the 8♥. It was a bad card for me. At this point, all I'm beating is a stone bluff or a semi-bluff (Ten Jack?). But I put the bets in regardless on the turn and river (a blank) and he showed me 82o! WTF?!?! He's in the blind, sure, but how often do you flop a winning hand with 82o? Holy crikey!

That hand set off a chain of events that ensured I lost al of my profit. Not always to bad play. Our host was nice enough to bet into my Jacks with A♣ 4♣, flop garbage, and then go runner-runner flush for the win. And I flopped bottom two on a board of A56, and the tightest player at the table led out. I raise, he calls. Turn is an Ace. He leads and I fold. Disgusting.

So I left the game at 11:30p at -49, BUT I had paid $25 for dinner with chips, so really I was -24. That's fine for a little home game, but my frustration and simultaneous love of limit poker continues.

I feel a bit like a battered wife whose husband hits her brutally for four hours straight and then is crying in his living room chair an hour afterward saying he's sorry and telling me he loves me. Why do I stay with you, Limit Poker? Why?

P.S. I know the gender roles are mixed up in the above analogy, but there aren't too many battered husbands. Just deal with it.

When you come to a fork in the road...

2009-09-04T08:10:00.002-04:00

...take it.

I saw a movie last night that I'd been dying to see, "It Might Get Loud". The movie is a documentary about three guitarists, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds and others, The Edge of U2 and Jack White of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs. The director of the film invited the three generations of rock guitarists to a summit of sorts where they would talk about their influences, music and maybe jam a little. On the way, the film has segments featuring the three guitarists in the different locales where they grew up and started playing. There's a segment of Jimmy Page in his hometown in England along with a trip to Headley Grange, where Led Zeppelin recorded much of the Led Zeppelin IV album. The Edge has segments in Dublin along with a great trip to the school where he and the other lads formed U2 as teenagers. Jack White has segments in the rougher areas of Detroit where he started.

Interspersed amongst all of this is archival footage of the guys as young men, before they were famous. Jimmy Page is featured in a wonderful film clip where he is playing skiffle music on an English TV show. He must be about 14 at the time, many years away from fame and fortune. When the TV host asks him what he'll do when he grows up, his answer is "Biological Research". Jack White, who used to apprentice at a furniture upholstery shop, explains from photographs how the shop owner used to jam with him after the workday was over. White is shown extensively throughout the film tinkering with instruments and you can see the direct connection between his work with furniture and his obsessive crafting of guitars and other sounds. One of his guitars has a vocal mic on a wire built right in so he can take it out during a concert and sing right into it. Like a power cord on an old vaccuum cleaner, the mic zips right back into place inside the guitar when he's done with it. The footage of him using it is raw indeed.

The film had amazing promise, bringing three different generations of guitarists, all of whom stretched and expanded their instrument's boundaries. But the film wanders aimlessly quite a bit and never seems to find real focus. It's almost like the filmmaker, in obvious awe of the legends he's gathered, is content with filming a reality show and forgets he's telling a story. But there are some great moments in there, if you're interested in this kind of music. Most of the best moments come from Jack White, who I'm convinced is this generation's best musician. His honesty, abilities and hauntingly scorched vocals always bring me back to what music is supposed to be. He spends a good deal of time in the film discussing why he thinks honesty in music is so important. As he plays a record of the Delta Blues musician, Son House, who's doing nothing more than singing and clapping on a record, he nearly tears up at the emotional intensity. No instruments on the record, just a mic, a clap and a vocal. This is his favorite record, he says. "People know when you're being honest. They know when you're telling the same joke onstage between songs that you told last night in Poughkeepsie." White also has a great throw-away line at the end of the movie. His car is going down a back-alley, behind the studio, on his way home, and they nearly hit a guy walking in the alley with a suit on and a cell phone to his ear.

"We nearly hit a suit with a phone," he says, turning to the camera. "I bet he was saying something with the words 'totally organic' in it."

White's disdain for all that is fake and processed is searing and jarring. And beautiful. He's only concern is to expose the true emotion of his feelings, or any feeling, and that's what makes him a fantastic artist. I always get the feeling that he could absolutely care less how many records he sells, just so long as he satisfies his need for expression in a manner which he can live with, artistically. Almost like he's making that point, he picks up an old guitar in his attic, starts an old reel-to-reel machine and starts making up a song to some lyrics he had jotted down earlier. He records for maybe two minutes, winds the tape, and then hands it to a guy off-camera saying, "that's it".

But the biggest jolt for me came in a scene with The Edge. As he's touring around his old grade school, you can see the shock of recognition on his face as he's remembering how this juggernaut of a band he's in got it's start. He goes to the classroom where they used to practice. He stands on top of the impromptu concrete stage where his band played it's first 'gig' in the schoolyard and the wave of nostalgia and memory washes over him. He remembers the details of where he stood and says, "I was on the right over here next to Bono. In fact, that's where I've stood ever since." The film is driving home the point that what we do in our youth is what we end up doing quite often as adults.

As he's leaving the school he looks wistfully at the old corkboard in the hallway where his bandmate, Larry Mullen, first put up the ad that got the band together. "If I'd never answered this," he says, "I wonder if I would be doing what I'm doing now. Probably not. I'd probably be working in a bank somewhere."

And that's what hit me the most. *I'm* working in a bank somewhere (ok, an insurance company but it's the same for the purpose of this conversation). And I started to ask myself, did I take all the right paths in my life? Have I made the most of all the opportunities that presented themselves? Why aren't I a rock star right now? Am I really happy doing what I'm doing?

The fact is that life is a funny game sometimes. People make it big, or they don't, and quite often it's complete luck. If The Edge hadn't answered that ad, the band might have gotten an inferior guitarist and they may never have made it and we would have been without U2. If I had had more luck in my life, I might be in a different spot. Or maybe I've been very lucky and made the most of my opportunities and this is just as far as I could have come at this point. Dawn had an interesting post a few days ago where she talked about Robert Frost's famous poem, "The Road Not Taken". Are we really all the victims/beneficiaries of the roads we travel? And is it our fault if we choose one path over another? How are we to ever know if we chose the 'right' path?

I prefer to think that life is a random collection of events, the interactions of which end up determining what happens to us. In other words, it's more or less luck. But we have an amazing ability granted to us as thinking individuals. We can absolutely make the most of our circumstances. We can live life to the fullest, we can recognize being fortunate and take happiness in what we've achieved. If you live your life in comparison to others, you'll never truly be happy. There is always someone more talented, more handsome, richer, happier. Your only hope to come out of this world better than you came in is to make sure that YOU are as happy and satisfied as you can be. You need to please yourself.

I want to be a rock star. I do. But I'm not upset in the least that I'm not. I recognize the reality of a 37 year old man, with limited ability, breaking through to the big time. So instead of putting it all on the line to chase a one in a million dream, I am very happy tasting the smaller triumphs of my own life. I'm making the best with the gifts I have and not regretting the roads I've traveled. They've gotten me here, and that's not a bad place at all. Not at all.