Patience is a virtue

I was patient tonight, and was eventually rewarded with a modest plus side gain. Playing on New Year's Eve, I had the feeling that a lot of my opponents had had a bit too much to drink; unfortunately, that didn't exactly work in my favor. The thing about alcohol is, it reduces inhibitions, which is a great thing for poker players (up to a point). People were betting like there was no tomorrow. To protect my stack, I had to basically be a folding machine most of the night. I hovered around the $1,200 mark for much of the time. I finally got on the plus side of the ledger again with a straight, and ended the night right there. After roughly 50 hands, I knew I wasn't going to do any better.

delta: $404
balance: $264,322

Slump

There's no denying it, I'm in a slump. Counting tonight, four of my last five sessions have been losers. That hasn't happened to me before. Here's hoping it's an aberration. One bright spot about tonight's loss is that it wasn't due to poker blindness, but rather to the vagaries of the poker gods.

On the last hand of the night, I had two pairs (queens and deuces), and went all in on the turn. I was ahead in the hand the whole way until the river. The river card was an eight, giving the board two pairs, deuces and eights. I lost to a full house, eights full of deuces.

delta: -$2,000
balance: $263,918

Total blindness

Tonight I didn't have my normal powers of concentration. Unlike last night, I have no desire to disobey my self-imposed stop loss rule and continue playing. I'm sure if I did, I'd just be throwing good play money after bad. There's no excuse for the total blindness I had on the river of my last hand of the night. After no quality hands the whole night, I was finally dealt one -- a big slick. There was a king in the flop, and I ended up betting preflop, on the flop, on the turn, and on the river. I made trip kings on the river, and went all in. The only problem was, the river king was a diamond, making four of the five community cards diamonds. All I could notice about the river card was that it was a king, not that it was another diamond. If I'd seen the extreme likelihood of one of the other two players still in the hand having a diamond flush, I would have folded. That would have left me with $350 and the ability to continue playing without breaking any of my rules.

This underlines the extreme importance of determining how the community cards can hurt you before you even start thinking about how they can help you. This is analogous to determining the best reply your opponent can make to your proposed move in chess, before you make it. It's such a simple precept, but one that's surprisingly hard to follow at times.

delta: -$2,000
balance: $265,918

Vindication

I knew in my heart I wasn't as bad a poker player as my last session indicated, which is why I decided to break my own rule and keep on playing. My very first hand on a new table, I almost doubled my money. After that, I had to be super patient, but was quite willing to be. Eventually, I was able to recoup everything I'd lost on my first session of the night, with some extra to spare. As luck (or fate) would have it, the hand which put me into the black on the night was a two pair, which has been my bane of late. My sevens and sixes beat sevens and fours.

delta: $3,639
balance: $267,918

Hell in nine hands

I got crippled early again tonight. On about hand 6 or 7, I had 3 aces, but lost to a flush. To tell the honest truth, I didn't see the flush possibility on the board; that's how blindly I was playing. That took me down to $100. I hit the felt a couple of hands later.

I know it's not a good idea, but I can neither fathom nor stomach ending my night this way. I'm going to disobey my own rules and continue playing at another table, starting with the maximum of $2,000 again. If my prior theories are correct, this will only end up losing me another $2,000. I'll post again later with the result of this emotional decision.

delta: -$2,000
balance: $264,279

Old habits die hard

History repeated itself again tonight, as I again fell too much in love with a two pair, to my detriment and chagrin. This time, I lost to a flush. I could and should have backed off when the flush possibility showed up on the board. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. One thing that made me hang in was that the player I was up against had shown some erratic play up to that point. The loss of that hand took my chip stack down to $181, at which point I was essentially crippled. The only way out at that point was for lady luck to smile on me, and let me double up a couple of times. She didn't. I hit the felt about 5 or 6 hands after the big blow.

I had the discipline not to replenish my chips, but not the greater discipline not to have made the bad call in the first place. The more I play, the more I realize you have to be policing yourself all the time, and running a bullshit meter on everything you're thinking to yourself. It's all too easy to convince yourself to stay in a hand when you really have no business staying in it. You have to respect what the betting patterns of your opponents can tell you. I realize I don't do this enough. I rely too heavily on straight odds. The really great poker players are the ones who are able to fold very strong hands when the betting patterns of their opponents indicate they have better hands, odds be damned.

It's very good for me to get these doses of humility fairly regularly, where I lose $2,000 and am done for the night. As long as my long term trend line is upwards, I should treat these nights as great learning experiences. To really know your own weaknesses is a great strategic advantage; I'm sure that one of these days, I'll finally wise up and get gun shy about the two pairs I love so much. I should probably fold the next one I get purely on principle!

delta: -$2,000
balance: $266,279

trips twice

Another lucky night; short and sweet. About ten total hands, and I had trip aces on my first and last hands. Very easy to play! A nice Christmas present. The first hand I won without a showdown; the last hand, I beat two pair, aces and fives.

What one has to guard against most sedulously is a feeling of invincibility. I have that feeling now, but had the good sense to end my night after more than doubling my money.

You have to realize that you'll have both ups and downs in poker, and be completely ready to accept (if not embrace) both. If you can actually embrace the times when you lose as an inevitable part of your poker life, you'll not only be at peace with your poker self, but you'll stand a much better chance of maintaining the mental equilibrium essential to success. You can't afford to be stupid, but you also can't afford to be afraid. When all else is stripped away, what remains is your elemental poker radar, and you must believe what it's telling you, whether or not you know why it's telling you what it's telling you.

delta: $2,384
balance: $268,279

98% of my decisions tonight were good ones

With this title, it's impossible to know without reading the post whether I won or lost, for it's entirely possible for one decision in fifty to be disastrous enough to lose you all your chips. I played a little over 50 hands, and only made a bad decision on one that I can recall. I made a straight on the turn, and didn't bet it aggressively enough. I got greedy, and tried to reel some more chips in by slow-playing it. If I'd bet it out on the turn, it probably wouldn't have gone to the river. Actually, now that I think about it, I made more than one bad decision on this hand. The other bad decision was to bet the pot on the river, without ascertaining whether or not there was a hand out there which could beat me. You guessed it, there was. My wheel (ace to five straight) lost to a two to six straight, which my opponent made with the river 5. Losing that hand took me down to about $1,200.

I eventually built it up above $2,000 again, and was waiting for a big enough hand to end my night reasonably on the plus side. I finally got it with a jack high flush, beating two pairs for $1,460.

I got some good practice dealing with an aggressive player tonight. He routinely raised pre-flop, almost regardless of what he was dealt, and his stack was fluctuating wildly. I had to resist the impulse to play as aggressively as he was, and was rewarded when his aggression eventually got the better of him and he hit the felt. Coincidentally, my session ender occurred just a couple of hands after that.

delta: $1,126
balance: $265,895

Impatience and patience both rewarded

It seemed I couldn't buy a hand for the first hour of my session tonight. I was seeing every flop, just not hitting any. To make matters worse, there was a player at my table who was getting a time warning practically every time it was his turn to act. I finally got sick of the delays, and left the table. I made sure to note the current value of my stack before I left, though, so I could start with that amount at the next table. I did that to ensure that my maximum loss for the night would be the initial amount I'd put at risk -- $2,000. Here endeth the "impatience" part of this post.

Now for the "patience" part. I'd only won one hand in about the first thirty, but on the hands I lost at showdown, I'd only gone to showdown when people had checked to get there. So although my winning percentage was pitiful, I was only down about $1,000. Then in the space of under 10 minutes I had 3 premium hands, and won them all. The biggest was the second one -- my eights full of fives beat fives full of fours. I'd been dealt a pair of eights on that one, and won a monster pot of $3,950. If I'd followed my "stop gain" philosophy to the letter, I'd have ended my night right then, but decided to play a couple more hands, and was rewarded with another nice pot of $1,980.

delta: $2,980
balance: $264,769

Not quite that simple ...

Tonight, I ran across someone who was writing comments all in caps. When I questioned the player about this, he/she immediately downgraded to lower case, and never went back to caps again while I was at the table. Such is the power of suggestion!

This same player claimed that poker was actually a simple game, as easy as ABC. When I countered that the game had much more subtlety than that, the player just wouldn't be persuaded. I eventually was able to make my point by taking a large pot from this player, by virtue of a better kicker (an ace, the best of all possible kickers).

Since I'd more than doubled my starting stake of $2,000, you know me well enough to know by now that I ended my night forthwith. You can't amass a million dollars in play money by failing to consolidate your winnings when you have the chance!

delta: $2,150
balance: $261,789

Rivered

If you're scientific about poker, which I claim to be, you realize that if you play long enough, you'll be dealt "unbeatable" hands which nonetheless not only can be beaten, but will be beaten. When this happens, you must simply tip your hat to the poker gods and realize that no one can win all the time they "should" win. That happened to me two nights ago. Since it was late at night, I went to bed without writing a blog entry. I knew I'd still write about the session, just a bit later than usual. I'm not bitter; in a way, it's a backhanded compliment from the poker gods. They're saying to you, "If you can take this type of misfortune and still come back for more, you have the right stuff in you, and we'll see that you're amply rewarded in the future".

I seriously thought about titling this blog post "Oliver Hudson-ed", in reference to the $10,000 hand which actor Oliver Hudson lost to poker pro Sam Farha. Oliver was dealt a pair of tens, and Sam was dealt an ace and a ten. The flop came ace ace ten, giving Oliver tens full of aces and Sam aces full of tens. At that point, Oliver was drawing dead, even with an "unbeatable" full house. He bet it out as most humans (including me) would, and hit the rail.

In the end I decided that the circumstances weren't similar enough to use that title for this post. Like Oliver, I flopped a full house. Also like Oliver, I lost to a better full house. Unlike Oliver, however, I was never drawing dead. In fact, I was ahead the whole way, until an unlikely river card did me in. That's why I decided on "Rivered" for the title of this post.

I was dealt 4 5 offsuit. The flop came 4 5 4, giving me a full house, fours full of fives. The turn came a 5, giving me a full house, fives full of fours. The river came a 9, giving my opponent, who was dealt a pair of nines, a full house, nines full of fives. I ate felt. By rights, the way I was betting, there was no way my opponent should have hung in. However, he did, and lucked out on the river. It happens.

I'm not discouraged, however. I think I'm due for some monster nights! In case it wasn't clear before, I love this game.

delta: -$2,000
balance: $259,639

The two pair blues

My friends, I suffered a bad case of the two pair blues tonight. It was a very short, and very unsweet, session. I took a big hit early on -- my two pair of tens and threes lost to a two pair of tens and sixes. And yes, it was the kind of two pair I'm addicted to -- I wasn't dealt a pair, but both cards matched a card on the board. I felt so good about it, I was willing to lose around $1,700 (and did). Of course, the winning hand was the same kind of two pair, so it was hidden from me, as mine was also hidden from the rest of the players.

My night ended on another ineffectual two pair. My kings and fours lost to a straight. One bright spot of this early exit is that I'll have a little extra time to read on my Kindle tonight. I'm currently rereading "Moby Dick", which I last read in college roughly thirty years ago.

delta: -$2,000
balance: $261,639

Revenge is sweet

Sometimes you run up against someone who you just can't seem to beat. That happened to me tonight. I lost three hands in a short period of time to the same player, when I had great hands myself. First, my straight lost to his flush. A couple of hands later, my jack high heart flush lost to his queen high heart flush. What really hurt about that one was that we were both dealt two hearts; the odds against that were pretty strong. The very next hand, I had another flush which lost to his better one.

I almost ate felt shortly after that, but managed to survive by winning some side pots. And then I was finally able to beat my nemesis -- my two pair of kings and deuces beat his two pair of kings and deuces since I had a better kicker. That felt sweet!

There was one aggressive player who kept losing all his chips and immediately replenishing them. He finally gave up after going down for the third or fourth time. I was glad to see him go, because you never know when such players actually have a good hand (since they pretty much bet with anything, even rags).

My night ended with a monster -- I made a straight on the turn, and went all in on the river. I didn't have any takers at that point, but had built up the pot up to a nice amount by then.

delta: $3,235
balance: $263,639

A better straight

The more I play poker, the more it gets driven home to me that patience is a virtue. You just can't go all in on a whim. Certainly not on a gutshot, and very very rarely on a flush draw. If you want to be successful, you must know how and when to cut your losses. In fact, you must cultivate the state of mind where you feel just as good about folding your hand in a situation where you should fold as you would about raising in a situation where you should raise!

Your state of mind should not be centered around your stack size and whether you're making money; rather, your state of mind should be centered around whether you're making good decisions, regardless of the outcome of your hands. Trust me, if you're making good decisions, over time your stack size will grow.

Tonight, I felt I was making excellent decisions. My showdown win percentage at one point was 80%. When a big hand went against me, and put my chip stack down almost to where it had started ($2,000), I didn't despair. I knew I was in the "good decision" zone. The only quality you need to have in order to do better than your opponents is to be more patient. This is a bit of a simplification, I admit. In order to be more patient, you have to realize when it would be foolish to be more patient, which means you must really at all times have a good idea of where your current hand stands in the range of all possible hands. You just have to be brutally honest with yourself. For instance, the more players that are in a hand, clearly the more likely it is that one of them has a hand that can beat yours. Don't kid yourself about this. You'll only be hurting yourself. Don't fall in love with your hand, unless it merits it! So when does your hand merit your falling in love with it? That's the $64,000 question! Here's a paradoxical finding: if you have 2 pairs, my experience is that you're more likely to lose that hand than if you have a high pair. Don't ask me why this is, I can't explain it. I just know that that's the "poker truth" which has been revealed to me thus far, over the thousands of hands that I've currently played.

I went up about $1,300 early on tonight, but wanted to keep on playing. Then I dropped back down to just a tad over my starting stack. Eventually, I hit an ace high straight, and milked it for its full worth; one opponent had a king high straight, luckily for me! When I raked in that hand, I knew I could exit my night with both chips and honor.

delta: $4,675
balance: $260,404

A kicker in my favor

I haven't kept a record of hands I've lost or won by a kicker, but I'm pretty sure I've lost more of them than I've won. The lesson to be learned from that is that you shouldn't fall in love with a high pair, or even high trips, when your kicker is shit. I realize this goes counter to my advice of seeing the flop as much as you can. Why see the flop with a high card and a shit kicker, when you might get outkicked? It just goes to show you, there are only rules of thumb in poker, no hard-and-fast rules.

Tonight my session ender was a monster. I was dealt a jack and a king, and the flop was jack jack some other card I don't remember. I slow played it at first, but found a bettor and kept reraising him. Turns out, he had the fourth jack, but a shit kicker (a 5). Luckily for me, no 5 came on the turn or the river.

delta: $2,320
balance: $255,729

Fatal attraction

If you play long enough, you'll end up learning where your weaknesses are, and also where your blind spots are. One of the biggest weaknesses I've identified in my game so far is falling in love with two pair on the flop. By that I mean, when I'm dealt two different cards, and the flop matches both of them, with some third card which matches neither. The odds of winning such a hand are quite good. Not only that, your odds of winning a larger pot than normal are good, since your two pair is hidden -- no pair at all is showing on the board. Other players won't be scared off by a board like that, so you can slowly and stealthily build up the pot.

I also know what one of my biggest blind spots is -- not always realizing that there's a straight draw on the board. By that I don't mean four of the five cards to a straight, but three of them, and when they're not all contiguous.

The deadly thing about weaknesses and blind spots is that they bring out the best (i.e. the worst) in each other. I'm much more likely to be blind to a straight draw when I've fallen in love with my flopped two pair. That's what happened to me in the penultimate hand of my night. I had about $2,300 at the start of the hand, and about $410 at the end of it.

The cruel addendum was that the very next hand, the player whose straight beat my two pair got another straight (on the river, I believe; the hand before he flopped his straight) and took out my high pair (kings, I think). There was nothing in front of me but felt.

But as you know, I didn't replenish my stack. I just called it a night.

There are some real parallels between falling in love with a person and falling in love with a hand; both kinds of love cause you to be blinded in some way and to act irrationally. You have to be ready to dump a hand when the betting patterns of your opponents dictate it, no matter how much you love it. I didn't do that tonight, and it cost me. However, I'm not down about it; I just need to make sure I learn my lesson, so I'm less likely to make the same mistake again. If anything, lessons like this make me love poker more, not less!

delta: -$2,000
balance: $253,409

Another quick double-up

Tonight, I only played about 8 hands and was able to more than double my money and get out of Dodge. My monster hand was a full house, tens over kings. I was dealt two kings.

I got cute again on an earlier hand and didn't see the flop when I was dealt a king and a four. Of course, the flop had both a king and a four in it.

delta: $2,850
balance: $255,409

Big slick

Poker is a very colorful game. Green felt. Chips of many colors. Cards of red and black. Face cards of multiple colors. Colorful players. And last but not least, colorful names for starting hold'em hands. One of my favorites is "big slick" (ace and king). I was dealt a big slick on about my fourth or fifth hand of the night, and was able to use it to double my money. I was dead lucky, since there were two other players at showdown, and all I had was an ace high. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good!

delta: $2,000
balance: $252,559

The busted flush

I wish I'd done a little better at heeding my own advice tonight! Against the counsel I gave in my last post, I got cute on one hand and folded a 2 6 offsuit, reasonably (?) thinking the best I could do was a straight, which since it constituted a triple gutshot (my own coinage, as far as I know :-) was vanishingly unlikely. Of course, wouldn't you know the flop had two 6's in it, which would have given me trip 6's if I hadn't been such an "expert".

Actually, I fouled up on two of my tenets tonight. Fairly early in the session I went up about $1,300 on my $2,000 stake (that is, my stack was at $3,300), and by rights I should have ended my night right there. But playing is fun, and I kept playing. Now would be a good time to say what I should have mentioned before -- these days I exclusively play the $5/$10 (small blind/big blind) tables, which have a maximum starting stake of $2,000, and I always start with that maximum. I sometimes see people join the table with the minimum $300 stake, but that makes less than no sense to me. You don't want to constrict yourself that way; you need breathing room. I should have explained before that due to this choice of table and its associated maximum stake, the maximum I can lose in any one session is $2,000 (as long as I adhere to one of my other tenets :-). Actually, astute readers may already have inferred this, but I wanted to state it explicitly.

I'm now here to reveal tonight's killer session ender. Lest you get the mistaken impression that I have an eidetic memory, the pokerstars site has a great feature where you can grab info on the last hand played. Of course, it won't tell you anything you weren't informed of at the time (for instance, it w0n't tell you the hole cards of players who folded, or the hole cards of players who made it to the showdown but called to get there, mucked, and didn't have the "show cards" feature turned on), but it's nice not to have to rely on one's memory all the time. The killer session ender was what I'm calling "the busted flush". Those of you readers (and who am I kidding, you don't exist yet; I'll have to figure out how to drag you into existence, if only through sheer dogged persistence) who are of my vintage (50 years old at present) and are avid readers of detective fiction will immediately catch the reference; for those of you who aren't and can't, I leave it as "an exercise to the reader" to figure out what I'm referring to. You have no idea how delighted I'd be to receive comments telling me you're stumped, and begging me to enlighten you; it wouldn't be because you were stumped, but because your comments would be proof that I'm not just spouting poker nonsense into the ether!

But I digress. Here are the sorry, sordid details of tonight's session ender:

I started the hand with $1,815 in chips. Only $185 less than my starting stake! So auspicious! :-)

I was dealt a 5 and 10 of diamonds. The flop came A of diamonds, 9 of diamonds, and 3 of diamonds. I flop a freakin' flush! Life is good! I bet a whopping $10 on the strength of that (I love to slow-play).

One other player was betting heavily, and I faced that player down until I was all in. At showdown, that player turned out to have a king of diamonds and a 6 of diamonds. Another flush, and one which beats mine with a stick. Hence, the title of this post.

Here's the thing -- I actually don't feel bad about this outcome at all. You have be philosophical about such things, grasshopper! (By the way, that's a more recent pop culture reference than the post title, but you still might not get it, you callow hypothetical reader, you, who I'd pity if you actually existed!). You just have to chill and know you can't be lucky all the time. What, do you want to live forever? (yet another dated pop culture reference!)

delta: -$2,000
balance: $250,559

The importance of seeing the flop

The more I play, the more I appreciate the importance of seeing the flop. Poker is a game played with limited information, and seeing the flop gives you a lot more information and allows you to evaluate your chances much more accurately. If you get too cute and decide your hand just can't win before you've seen the flop, you can end up kicking yourself.

I think a good rule of thumb is that you should see the flop about 75% of the time. Of course, that number adjusts up or down depending on the aggressiveness of the other players at the table. But even with very aggressive players, I think you should still see the flop about 60% of the time. Otherwise, you're just not giving yourself enough chances to win.

Tonight's session didn't really have a monster hand. But I can't complain; I made a decent amount and have now had four winning sessions in a row. Speaking of which, since I started recording my stats on pokerstars, I've had 35 losing sessions and 76 winning ones. That's another good rule of thumb -- you should aim to have at least twice as many winning sessions as losing ones.

delta: $1,620
balance: $252,559

Offline and online poker

The company I work for had its holiday party today. As they've done for the past several years, they had a play money casino, with the feature attraction a No Limit Texas Hold'em tournament. That reminds me, I forgot to mention it before, but the flavor of poker I play exclusively on pokerstars.com is Pot Limit Hold'em. When I first got an account on the site, I tried No Limit for a very brief period, but quickly realized I could minimize my damages and maximize my learning by switching to Pot Limit. Now it just feels familiar, cozy, and right, similar to how the Ruy Lopez opening feels to me in chess.

I first played in the company's Hold'em tournament at last year's holiday party. There was a lunch beforehand, and I got to talking and didn't get up to the room where the tournament was being held until about 45 minutes after the tournament had started. The organizers were very nice about it and let me join a table in progress. I hit the felt pretty quickly, not winning a single hand. My last hand, I went all in on two pairs. Not one, but two hands were better than mine -- a three of a kind and a flush.

I improved this year -- I actually won 3 hands. I went all in again on two pairs (jacks and queens) and lost to trip queens. I found out that the player who took me out had won the tournament two years before, so I was pulling for him to win again! There's no shame in being taken out by the eventual winner. He made it to heads up, but lost to a river four which gave his opponent a pair. Neither of them was dealt a pair, and his high card (king) was higher than his opponent's high card. Bad luck!

One thing I found fascinating about the way the player who took me out played heads up -- he always waited and watched his opponent's reaction to his hand before he even picked his hand up. It could be that I didn't pay enough attention when I was at the table and that this was actually how he always played, regardless of the number of players at the table. I got the sense that he really trusted his people-reading skills. I have none to speak of, and certainly can't gain any by playing online! Also, I'm pretty sure my poker face leaves a lot to be desired.

That's all I have to say about the offline poker part of my day. Online, I had a third day in a row which ended with a monster hand in my favor. Several posts ago, I talked about having a "stop loss" strategy. I think it's just as important to have a "preserve win" strategy. Whenever I've at least doubled my chips on the night, I seriously think about ending my session. If it's late at night, I'll almost certainly end it then. If it's early, I'll see how frisky I'm feeling. Tonight, my session ender was a full house, kings full of fours. I was dealt a king and a four.

delta: $2,750
balance: $250,939

Another monster

I lucked out again tonight. I only played for half an hour, and hit a monster hand at the end. I was dealt 6,7 offsuit, and flopped quad 7's. I've found that half the luck of hitting a monster has nothing to do with the hand itself, but rather with another player having a very strong hand that they won't give up in a hurry. That was the case tonight. There's nothing better than someone betting into your quads! I kept doubling the bet, and finally went all in. The other hand was a full house, sevens over queens.

delta: $2,550
balance: $248,189