It hasn't forgotten me

Yesterday I played online poker for the first time in a couple of years, I think. Just an easy $15 single-table sit-and-go.

This is what happened:

Deuce-Four still awesome

Today I played in the seniors tournament at Harrah's Cherokee, part of the WSOP-C series.

The Deuce-Four did more than its share of work for me in the first couple of hours.

First time I had it, I raised, got a couple of callers, flopped a gutshot, and hit the wheel on the turn.

Second time, I flopped a pair and a flush draw, raised the initial bettor, and won the pot.

Third time was the big one--a full double-up. 2h-4h. I raised, got a couple of callers, flopped a flush, busted a guy with the same size chip stack who had flopped top pair/top kicker.

And finally, I must report that I overheard somebody at the table behind me saying, at one point, "I folded deuce-four. I woulda made the nuts." Some people are just too dumb to play poker right!

I made the money. There were 513 entries, 54 got paid. I finished in 33rd place for $530. Shoved my last 9 big blinds with AJ in late position, called by the big blind with A-10. Flop was 10-10-5, and that was all she wrote. If not for that, then, as Marlon Brando famously said, I coulda been a contender, instead of a bum, which is what I am.

Full day of poker

Yesterday Nina and I went to Harrah's Cherokee to play in the second WSOP-C seniors event. (The first was April 17.) I did decently well in it, going out with about 150 left out of 568 entrants, but not well enough to make the money (last 63). As is often the case in such things, winning instead of losing one 50/50 race would have made all the difference.

Next I played in a cash game for a while. It's actually been three years since I played a $1-2 NLHE cash game with chips and a dealer instead of PokerPro machines. I kept forgetting to tip the dealer when I won pots. I started well, but eventually made a bad all-in move and lost my buy-in. The game was already breaking up, so I decided not to start over.

But they were assembling a 10-player, $125 sit-and-go for $1100 cash, winner take all. I don't think I've ever done a tournament format like that. The closest I've come has been some WSOP single-table satellites. I figured I had a couple of hours of good poker left in me, so I signed up. Nina came by when there was just one seat left, and I persuaded her to take it.

I picked a seat card at random and ended up sitting next to a blog reader, who lives in Durham. He recognized me and introduced himself. (Hi, Matt!) It wasn't too uncommon to run into readers at the poker tables in Las Vegas, but this is the first time it's happened since I moved to North Carolina.

I started the tournament epically card-dead. Just could not pick up a real hand to save my life. And every time I thought a good steal opportunity was coming my way, Matt, on my right, beat me to it.

The structure was fast. 2000 in starting chips, blinds going up every 15 minutes, starting at 25/25, then 25/50, 50/100, etc. The whole thing took less than two hours. So after losing some chips to blinds and speculative hands that went nowhere, I had to do something. When there were a few limpers but no raise, I decided to shove with A-3 offsuit and hope for the best. It worked. Matt thought a long time about calling, but finally folded with the rest of them, and I was back to my original stack.

Then card-dead again, until I finally made a stand with pocket 8s, flopped a set, and tripled up. Then I finally had enough chips to start really playing.

We had four women starting this event, and three of them, along with me, were the final four. That's right--I was the last man standing.

One got knocked out and it was down to me, Nina, and an odd older woman. She looked rather like a caricature of everybody's grandmother, including a hat that looked like it was meant for gardening. She was impossible to figure out--not because she was particularly skilled, but because she was so random. She would show up with hands that made no sense to have been playing in the spots she was playing them, and she made bad calls that somehow worked out almost every time.

Nina went out in third place, and I was left heads-up with Grandma. She wanted to chop the prize money. I gather that chopping the last two, three, or four places is pretty much de rigueur in these events, but I politely declined her repeated offers to do so. I wanted the whole $1100, I started heads-up play with more chips than she had (1200 to 800), and I was absolutely certain I was the better player. Besides, the tavern poker league I've been meddling in for the last year or so has given me a decent amount of experience heads-up with weaker players at the end of fast-structured tournaments. As long as I didn't do anything too stupid and didn't get too unlucky, I should be able to win.

And I did. The final blow came when I had pocket queens on the button. She called my raise. The flop was all low, uncoordinated, perfectly safe-looking. She checked, I shoved, and she insta-called with king-high, no pair. That was all she wrote.

Grandma shook hands politely, but walked away muttering something about my unwillingness to chop.

I liked the format. Not a huge time commitment, not too much of a financial investment, but a handsome payoff. It felt good to win.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Today I went to Harrah's Cherokee today. Got a seat right away in a $1/2 NLHE game at one of the PokerPro electronic tables. I bought in for $200.

On my third or fourth hand, I had 3d-6d one off the button. I raised to $8, because The Spanish Inquisition is awesome. The button called (sitting on $450 or so), as did the big blind (short stack).

Flop: 3s-7c-3c. Yahtzee! BB checked. I bet $12. Button called. Big blind check-raised all-in for $22. It wasn't enough to reopen the betting, so I could only call. Button called, too.

Turn: Qh. The pot was about $90. I bet $60. I was surprised when the button called. I didn't think most people would call that with a flush draw. I thought his most likely holding was a medium pair--something between 8s and jacks. If so, he was calling only as a bluff-catcher.

River: 7d. This was problematic. If the button had called me on the flop and turn because he had a 7, he had just backed into a bigger full house than mine. But I decided that was relatively unlikely, and I should stick with my read that he thought I was bluffing with something like A-K, and therefore might call again. The pot was now about $210, so I threw my last $110 at it. Sure enough, the button called, though not as quickly or eagerly as I thought he would have if he had a 7.

I was sort of right: He had been slow-playing pocket aces. Ouch! Sorry, sir, but your three pair do not beat my treys full.

The BB had As-5s, so he was just going for the flush draw.

I think it's safe to conclude that neither of them expected The Spanish Inquisition.

I kept getting hit by the deck. I raised with 7h-8h, and got a 7-7-10 flop. I raised with Q-K off, and got a Q-Q-J flop. Won them both with a continuation bet. In fact, during this session I won every single hand in which I put in money on the flop and/or turn.

The final example of the poker gods' kindness to me today was this one: I raised to $9 from the button with Qc-9c. Two callers. Flop: 7-8-J rainbow. Checked around. My only hope was really a 10 for the straight. Turn: 10 of the fourth suit! Nutterific! First guy bet $10. Next guy raised to $25. He immediately became my target, because if he's raising here, with me still to act, he might be willing to get it all in while I'm holding the nuts. Besides, I don't want to have to make a horribly difficult decision if the river pairs the board. He had about $115 left. I shoved. First guy folded, second guy called. He had J-8. He had flopped top two pair, and was probably planning a check-raise on the flop, which got foiled when I checked behind. He was springing his trap one street too late. River was a deuce, I think. I'll take that virtual stack of chips you were playing, sir, thankyouverymuch.

I folded a couple more hands, then logged out. I was up $395 in 35 minutes, and it kind of felt like I had used up more than my fair share of good luck, so I took the money and ran.

That turned out to be the shortest session I've ever played at Harrah's Cherokee.

Utah home game

I just got back home last night from my annual trip to Utah to visit family. My father lives there with my sister and her husband, and my brother and his wife flew out from Minnesota so we could all be there together for a few days. This year, for the first time, Nina came along with me.

We did something else new and different: We went to a home poker game. When I was a guest on the "Top Pair" podcast, which focuses primarily on home games, the hosts each invited me to drop in on their games if I were ever in their neighborhoods. One of them lives in Israel, so that's probably not happening anytime soon. But the other, Bruce Briggs, is in Salt Lake City. I emailed him a few weeks ago to see if the offer still stood, and he was gracious enough to contact some friends and put together a game night when Nina and I could attend.

It was a delight. Friendly people, crazy games, and low stakes--what more could one ask for in a home poker game? Well, I guess one could ask to win, but since my losses totaled exactly $1, I'm not complaining too loudly. Where else can you get almost five hours of that level of entertainment for a dollar?

Some of the participants are pictured above. One had already left. Bruce is second from left. Our husband-and-wife hosts are in the middle. Nina was on the other side of the camera, so you'll have to flip your computer around 180 degrees to see her.

I think I'll have more to say about the interesting game selection in an upcoming PokerNews article.

The old saying was entirely applicable here: A good time was had by all.

Deuce-Four rides again!

From the same tournament as the previous post:

Finished up in third place, $76.

Deuce-Four update

It's been quite a while since I wrote about the Mighty Deuce-Four, so I thought I'd tell you that it's still working. I just played this hand in a HORSE tournament:

Of course I made a flush. And of course it beat the other guy's straight.

LDO.

Winner

The epic last hand:

Remember: it's a skill game

I drove out to Harrah's Cherokee today--first time in a couple of months. It was one of the wackiest, up-and-down, roller-coaster sessions I can remember ever having.

I started with $300 in play. Within 30 minutes that was down to $95 because of a nasty one-two punch. One was being on the bad side of AA versus KK. Two was flopping top set (queens), versus the nut flush.

I rallied back to $280 with a few small pots, then trapped a guy for all his chips on a flop of A-Q-x with my A-Q against his A-K.

Lost some with my A-J versus a short stack's A-Q, all in before the flop, flop jack high, looking good for me, but then he rivered a four-flush to beat me.

Lost about $100 more with Kc-Ks on a flop of 5c-6c-10c, versus a young woman's 5d-6d. All-in on the flop when we were both almost exactly 50% to win. I didn't catch.

Just as I was texting Nina to whine about my rotten luck, I had 9-4 offsuit in the big blind, unraised pot. Flop 9-9-4. A guy with a bigger stack and A-9 in his hand called my flop and turn bets, thinking he was trapping me, then raised me all-in on the river, giving me a clean double-up. That put me up to $356. (Flopping a full house is an advanced skill. I've been honing my technique for years now. Please don't try this at home.)

Finally, the same young woman whom I had raced before gave me her whole stack of nearly $200. I had Ac-Kc. Flop had three more clubs. (Yay, crubs!) She check-called my bets on the flop and turn with a straight draw, got there on the river and paid off my all-in bet. Only six river cards win me her stack there--it had to complete her straight but not put a scary fourth club down.

The whole session was just crazy luck, some of it good, some of it bad, but just enough more of the former than the latter that I left with $547, a $247 profit.

Probably the most skillful thing I did was walk away before the roller coaster took another plunge.


Addendum, July 11, 2014 

The flopped full house hand became the jumping-off point for a whole post from Rob: http://robvegaspoker.blogspot.com/2014/07/to-slow-play-or-not-to-slow-play.html 

Rusty

I played in a home game last night in a top-secret location. Not even the NSA knows about it.

I put in a lackluster performance, to put it the kindest possible terms. I ended up a small winner for the night (+ $140), but only because I lucked out in the biggest pot of the night--around $800. It was all in pre-flop, with my AK versus KK (making me about a 2:1 underdog), and I binked not just one but TWO aces on the board. I was not proud of myself.

That may not have even been the worst of it. I lost my whole first buy-in on a shove over another guy's raise in a situation in which--as I realized about a microsecond after announcing my all-in--he would only call with a better hand than mine. Which he had. Specifically, quads to my full house. I could have saved a decent chunk of money by just calling.

My physical actions were not nearly as consistent and unreadable as I like them to be; I felt like I was a tell-box, announcing what I was doing loudly and clearly to anybody who was paying attention.

I failed to pull the trigger in a couple of spots where I had a strong sense that it was the right thing to do, and was proven correct after folding.

I was disregarding position to a dangerous degree.

Now, any one of these things I might have done just as badly on any given night back in Vegas. But to cluster them all together in one session is pretty painful to watch in myself.

The trouble is compounded by the difficulty of leaving. It's quite a drive to get to the game, and it's only held occasionally. It's not like in Vegas, where I could realize I wasn't playing my best, be home in 15 minutes, and return fresh at my leisure the next day.

This is all quite disconcerting, and I'm not sure what to do about it, other than stew for a while.

Superb Owl poker (conclusion)

I finally decided to call. I can't give you even a lick of math to justify it, but my sense was that the number of ways I could be ahead, the number of ways I could catch up if I were behind, and the size of the pot made it worth the further investment.

Our hole cards were revealed, and he had almost the worst possible cards: J-10. (The worst would have been 9-9, which would leave me with 8 cards for a chop, just 1 for the win.) So he had, in fact, done what I had quickly concluded he almost surely had not done--paid $25 for just a gutshot straight draw. Of course, they were soooooted, which explains his pre-flop call.

The odds were, obviously, not in my favor at this point. The Poker Pro table stats showed him at 77% to win, me only 23%.

But once in a while, the good guys win in spite of blundering. A beautiful, beautiful 6 hit the river, giving me a full house and my biggest pot of the night--about $375.

More actual poker

I again woke up feeling like playing some poker, so once again I traipsed to Harrah's Cherokee. I lost $200 quickly though a combination of sub-par play on my part, better-than-average opponents, and bad luck. But then the better players left, and I started the long slog to rebuild my stack. It took another four hours, but I left ahead by $252. Because of the weird psychology of poker sessions, this actually felt like a $450 win.

Sadly, again this week there were no hands that struck me as sufficiently interesting to recount in detail.

I did very much like the screen name for the Poker Pro tables chosen by the player next to me, though you'll probably have to have seen the movie "Rounders" to get the joke:

I think I might have to do this "poker" thing more often. It's fun AND profitable! Who knew?

MLK Day poker

I woke up today feeling like I needed a dose of poker, not another day of my usual work. So I drove out to Harrah's Cherokee and played for about four hours, taking home several $100 bills that had not been mine when I arrived.

In one hand, it really paid off to have been keeping track of my opponents' patterns. One older gentleman across the table from me just adored under-representing his big hands, then letting another player do the betting for him. I lost about $50 to him in a very early hand because of that. But once I adjusted to what he was doing--i.e., the fact that if he stayed in a pot he usually had a significantly stronger hand than he was letting on--it was pretty easy to handle him. And about two hours into the session, it led to an opportunity to double my money.

I had Q-9 of diamonds on the button. Several limped in ahead of me (it was a chronically passive limpfest), so I raised to $8. (All dollar amounts in this post are approximate; I did not take notes.) Mr. Passive was my only caller.

The flop was Qh-8c-3h. He checked. I bet $11 into the $21 pot. He called.

The turn was another queen. Excellent. He checked again. I bet $22. He called. This mostly ruled out the possibility that he was on a flush draw. He might pay to see one card, but he was too tight to pay to see the river if he had nothing but a draw--even a good one. There were no hands that would have flopped two pair that he would have played from early position, especially after my raise. So I could pretty much narrow his holdings down to an overpair (A-A or K-K, and yes, he would play them in this odd way) or a queen. If he had a queen, he had me beat, because I was confident he would not have called my pre-flop raise with anything less than a jack kicker, and probably not less than a king kicker.

This meant that I would have a potentially tricky decision on the river: Do I assume he has an overpair and will pay off my trips a third time, or do I assume he has a queen with a better kicker, and hope to just check it down?

Just as I was wrestling with this problem, the PokerPro table flashed the nine of hearts for our final board card, giving me the nuts. It was perfect. He probably wouldn't put me on a flush draw, and if I had been wrong about his drawing propensity, he had just gotten to the hand he wanted, not knowing it was now a loser. If he had an overpair, it probably didn't change anything. But if he had been slow-playing a bigger queen, he was sunk.

He checked again. The pot was now about $85. I had about $160 left, and Mr. Passive had me covered by just a few bucks. How much would he pay off?

Well, another factor came into play. I had twice gotten lucky after playing speculative hands aggressively, with the hands shown. Once I raised a short-stacked opponent all-in on the flop with just a baby flush draw and got there, besting her top/top. Another time I did it with my suited connectors having only flopped second pair, and the other guy called me with top pair, only to see me hit trips on the turn. So I knew that Mr. Passive might be looking to catch me trying to blow him off of a decent hand with an all-in bluff. That was the deciding factor: I was going to go for the gold and hope that he read me as being out of line again. I can no longer remember who it was, but a blogger I used to read, who played mostly online, loved the phrase, "Overbet for value," and that was screaming inside my head. It's pretty rare that I'll shove double the size of the pot on the river, but this seemed like a damned good time to make an exception.

I tapped the "all in" and "confirm" buttons, and less than two seconds later he had registered his call. He had A-Q, and had been well ahead until my lucky three-outer on the river.

Maybe the surgeon general should issue a stern proclamation to be posted in poker rooms around the country: "WARNING: SLOW-PLAYING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH."

It's the little things that count

The little cards, that is.

Last night I was playing at Aria with my friend Poker Lawyer, who was in town for a few days. Shortly before the events described herein transpired, we were also joined by another friend, Stump.

I had 2c-4c on the button and called a raise to $15 from a middle-position player. PL was on my left in the small blind, and reraised to $45. I called, and it was just us to the flop. I don't remember what hit, except that it was completely uncoordinated and had a 4. Which, of course, was plenty of reason to call her $50 flop bet, knowing that I either already had the best hand (if she was playing A-K), or would improve to it with two pair or trips on the turn or river. Turn card was a blank. She checked. I moved all in for my last $110 or so. She folded. I showed. She said, "Every trip to Vegas I lose $100 to you when you have that hand!"

She is, apparently, learning, however. She won a big pot with 2-4 when I was away from the table on a phone call.

Not long after that 2-4 hand I had 6s-3s. The 6-3 is a hand that my friend Grange95 and his other Iowa poker-playing friends call "The Spanish Inquisition," because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. (I have written about this a few times before. See here.) I raised to $13. The guy to PL's left called. His play was a completely straightforward, conservative, ABC style. (He also bragged to us about his niece the porn star, but that's another story.) Flop: 6-3-6 with two diamonds. OK, that might be good for me.

I was surprised that Porn Star Uncle led out with a $20 bet, but I was happy that he had a hand that he liked well enough to do that with. I was guessing a medium pair, 7s or 8s or 9s. He tended to reraise pre-flop with 10s or higher. I didn't really think he had a flush draw, because he was not the type to take over the betting lead with a draw. I also didn't think he had a straight draw, because even if he had called me with a 4-5 (presumably suited), I didn't think he would lead out with it. I hoped against hope that he had 3-3 in the hole, though this seemed unlikely. I called.

Turn was 4d. This time he bet $35. He was not one to lead out betting twice without a hand that he liked a lot, so I felt confident now putting in a raise to $100. He rechecked his hole cards before calling. Aha! He probably has a big pair with a diamond, and he was playing it more cautiously pre-flop than most people would. I don't think he would call that raise with just an overpair unless it included a big diamond, hoping for a flush. I mentally joined him in hoping that he would get there.

He did. The river was the 7d. Now, this put a four-card straight flush on the board, which gave me a bit of pause. But he checked to me. If he had the 5d, I didn't think he would take a chance on missing a value bet if I got scared by that board and checked behind. I also didn't think he would have bet out on the flop with just a gutshot straight-flush draw. Furthermore, since both the 4d and 6d were on the board, he couldn't have started with suited connectors that included the 5d, and I didn't read him for being somebody who would play gappers after a pre-flop raise. And, finally, if I flop a full house and lose to runner-runner straight flush, well, them's the breaks, and I'm going to feel like I just got ridiculously unlucky, not that I played badly. However, failing to value-bet a full house when I think my opponent has just made a big flush, because of "monsters under the bed syndrome," would indeed be playing badly.

So I shoved. He called instantly and flipped over pocket queens, including, of course, the Qd. I showed the full house. Judging by his facial expression and sputtered words, I think it's safe to say that he did not expect the Spanish Inquisition. Our chief weapon is surprise.

Frankly, I'm still puzzled by his call. He should have been worried that I had Ad-Kd or Ad-Jd when I raised the turn, or that I had an unsuited big ace with the Ad that beat him on the river. He had seen me bluffing before, but never for anywhere near this amount. Maybe he didn't notice that those had been much smaller pots.

Anyway, he had me covered just barely, and I ended up doubling up with that $680 pot. Nice work if you can get it.

PL and I told the table about our strange Iowa friends and their love of the Spanish Inquisition. The next hand I played was again a 6-3. I raised, bet the K-4-5 flop, got a caller. Turn was 2, giving me the nuts. I bet and the other guy folded, his face registering obvious suspicion. I showed again.

Within five minutes, I had S.I. a third time. This time I just called somebody else's raise. Flop again had a 4 and 5, so I called. Turn 7. He checked. I bet. He folded.

By this time, everybody knew. It was no longer true that nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, everybody was fully anticipating exactly what I had, and they were right.

Lesson: A hand that nobody expects has diminishing returns as they learn to expect it. Which, of course, means that you move on to other hands that they are not expecting. In big-bet poker, a disproportionate share of your profit will come from hands that are outside of the range your opponents will think you are playing in a given situation.

One player joked to me, "I see you winning with 2-4 and 3-6, and I feel that I'm learning the wrong poker lessons here." I corrected him: "No, you are finally learning the truth about which hands are actually the strongest. The books you've read have it all wrong."

A tip o' the hat to Grange95 for cluing me in to the power of the 6-3. It's no 2-4, but clearly it will do in a pinch.

Deuce-four has not forgotten me

It's been several weeks since I played online. Josie was kind enough to indulge me in some joint play tonight. We did three single-table sit-and-go tournaments. I cashed in all three, TYVM (2nd, 3rd, and 2nd).

I guess the Mighty Deuce-Four has been patiently waiting for my return all this time. First I cracked the AK (top pair/top kicker):

Later I caught runner-runner for a straight: 

While not nearly as exciting, I also manage to wrangle something worthwhile out of a measly ol' A-A:

Life update

I have some work I need to do here at home, but had a technical malfunction that is temporarily halting the process. I'm waiting for a fix that I hope will come through any minute, so thought I would kill a little time by telling you about some things that nobody could possibly care about.

1. Poker has been going great, though, unfortunately for the blog, without much good story material. August and September were two of my most profitable months in a long time. Which is nice, after having just made the biggest expenditure of my six years in Vegas....

2. I brought the new car home Friday and sold the old one Sunday. It was sad to say good-bye to the car that has taken me everywhere for the last 20 years, but overall I know that it's a change for the better. The new one doesn't have the speed or the handling of the old one--to say nothing of its character and memories--but it wins hands-down in economy, reliability, flexibility, and practicality. That's a trade that I finally not only became willing to make, but realized that I had to make.

Here it is, just before I drove it home from the dealership:

3. My bike rides have gradually been getting longer and more ambitious. Today, for instance, I went 13.3 miles, starting at--get this--7:29 a.m.! The old Honda could not carry a bicycle unless you first ran it through a metal shredder, but the new one accommodates it easily. This means that I will no longer be restricted to rides that start and end at my apartment building, which will allow me to branch out and explore more interesting rides than are accessible from downtown. This consideration was, in fact, one of the final things that pushed me off of a couple of years of teetering indecision and to the new-car purchase. I'm enjoying my rides, and don't want to be confined to what's immediately around where I live.

4. I found a great Android app for my phone: Velodroid. For $3.09 it elegantly handles GPS tracking of bicycle rides. With a couple of clicks, you can then upload the resulting data to the free RideWithGPS.com site, which spits out lovely, detailed graphic/numeric analyses like this:

That strip along the bottom doesn't need to look so cluttered; for this screen shot I had it overlay elevation, speed, and grade, which makes it too busy, but you can look at any one or two of those parameters at a time. Moreover, you can mouse along that strip and a blue dot retraces your route on the map while you get a read on the elevation, speed, and grade at that point. Very cool. Yes, there are free apps that do basically the same thing, but I tried a couple of them and found them unintuitive or maddening or unreliable or otherwise badly designed. Velodroid is easy to use. It does everything I want and basically has no extra complicating, cluttering features that I don't want. It's damn near perfect. 

5. I am a mechanical dunce. Nothing about the way things work comes easily to me. Nothing is obvious. I'm about as quick a study as you'll ever meet in nearly anything I put my mind to, but the workings of machines is a glaring exception. So when I tell you that I have now learned how to remove the wheels from my bike, remove and replace the tires, and get the wheels back on (including that tricky rear derailleur), you might think, "So what? Most 10-year-olds can manage that." But I'm telling you that for me this is a major accomplishment, which took way more hours and boneheaded mistakes and false starts than a supposedly smart person should require. I started with the most highly recommended guide book on bicycle maintenance and repair (this one), but found that even with its dumbed-down approach, it assumed more basic mechanical competence than I possessed. So I gritted my teeth at the insulting title and purchased this one, which has helped, though incredibly I still need some things spelled out in more painstaking detail than either book does. Sigh. It's hard being stupid. 

6. My friend PokerLawyer sent me a copy of Maus, which, I'm now embarrassed to say, I don't think I had ever heard of before. That's embarrassing because I have come to understand what an important piece of art/literature it is. I don't know how it escaped my attention all these years. Mine is a "complete" edition that P.L. bought while in Germany, and which does not appear to be available in the U.S., unless I'm overlooking something. I finished reading it night before last. It's terribly sad and painful, but at the same time amazing to see what horrors people can survive. The elder Spiegelman's resourcefulness is really astonishing. At various times, he only escaped being sent to the ovens because of being able to speak English, or translate between Polish and German, or mend shoes the way he had observed professional cobblers doing, or garner favors with police or guards, or because he had made previous social connections that he could exploit. It's a story that would be important to tell in any medium, but his son's choice of a graphic novel with the characters drawn as animals somehow makes it feel more universal, even though it's obviously a unique set of experiences. 

7. Remember this adorable little thing? It now hangs from the rear-view mirror of my new car. It's not like I really need googahs to make me think often of Cardgrrl, but it nevertheless gives me pleasure to have this tangible reminder of her affection in my field of vision.

8. I saw this license plate Sunday and liked it: 

9. For old times' sake, here a "Guess the Casino" picture for you from a session Saturday night: 

Well, the techno-fix I had hoped would come is not going to, so I'm throwing in the towel on any more work from home for the day. Off to the tables. I hope that I can bring home not only the mobneys, but a good tale or two to share. 

You don't see this every day in a poker room

I spent from about 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Tropicana poker room, trying to win a share of the $16,000+ they had to give away in free drawings before closing permanently today. I had calculated last night that each person in attendance had an expected value of over $250 just for keeping one of the seats warm for eight hours, which I thought made it worthwhile.

In the early afternoon, Vegas experienced a real gully-washer of a storm, and it even came into the poker room. The table you see here had to be closed down because the water came in, collapsing a ceiling tile, which you can see on the floor in the second photo. Drama!

I didn't win any of the giveaway money, sadly. But I did make $136 from the poker. I know that's not much for eight hours of work. However, I ask you to temper your judgment with two considerations:

First, my table was incredibly nitty. They were there to occupy the seats for the drawings, not for the poker. The poker was just something the rules required them to do to pass the time. I have probably been at tighter tables briefly, but I sure would never have stayed at one for so long if I had the option to move to a better table. People were literally lined up dozens deep waiting for a chance to sit in one of these games because of the drawing money, so there were no openings to move elsewhere. How tight were these players? They spot-welded their chips to the felt, lest they be overcome with a spasm of recklessness and toss one into the pot with less than pocket aces.

Second, within the first hour or so, I dug myself a hole one buy-in deep when I was on the bad end of one of those horrible set-over-set situations. I had 7-7 versus Q-Q on a Q-7-2 flop. I thought I was most likely trapping an opponent with A-A or K-K, given her pre-flop three-bet. But nope--I was the one with the hook in my mouth this time.

So on paper it doesn't look like much, but I consider it to be an accomplishment worthy of a bit of pride. Besides, $136 profit is, as the old saying goes, better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who has been present at the closing of the Tropicana poker room on two separate occasions--once in November of 2008 and then again today.

By the skin of my teeth

After my success in Friday's HORSE tournament at Orleans, I decided to take a crack at their $100 Sunday night version. I have tried this one twice before, with nothing to show for it. But since then I've had the extra experience of three of the tough MGM Grand Tuesday night HORSE tournaments, plus the two Friday ones at Orleans, which I thought gave me enough additional practice at identifying live opponents' playing styles in the non-hold'em games that I might be due for a little success.

Things started off just the opposite of Friday. I sank like a stone. I was playing the same tight-aggressive style, but I had a never-ending string of missed draws and strong but second-best hands. We started at 7:00 with 10,000 chips, and by the first break I was down to 590o. At 8:50--4100. 9:00--2500. 9:10--2000. 9:30--1600. I think that was less than three big bets for that stage of the game.

But time after time when I found a spot to get all the chips in, my hand held up. By 10:00 I was up to 5000. 10:35: 6900. 10:40: 15,100, and above my starting stack for the first time all day.

By that point, the original 41 players had been whittled down to just 18, so I was still well below the average stack size of about 28K, but things were moving in the right direction.

Then at 11:00 I hit a monster, an ace-high crub flush in stud against two opponents, and zoomed up to 47,700 with 13 left, my first time above the tournament average.

At 11:40 I badly misplayed one stud hand, spewing half my chips on a draw that I should never have been chasing, but at 12:05 I got them all back when another club flush gave me the nuts in Omaha--back to 63,000, when the average stack, with seven people left in, was about 58,500. Next hand I hit something else that I didn't jot down, and was up to 87,000.

I stayed at about that stack while two more players were eliminated, and the final five of us were in the money.

The best player at the table was not me, but the guy on my right, who had an overwhelming chip lead. He was being smartly aggressive. Everybody was letting him run over them, because the other four of us had pretty much equal stacks and I assume we all wanted to climb up the pay ladder. He was appropriately taking advantage of our excessive caution.

I decided to play back at him, and doing so pushed me up to my peak of 116,000 at 12:50.

At that point, I should have backed off, changed gears back to tight, and let Mr. Big Stack knock out one or two of the shorties. But I didn't. I kept pressing it too long and too far, and paid the price. In quick succession I played two big hands where I was basically just playing on my table image, but--oops--was up against real hands (one against the guy on my left, and the coup de grace delivered by the big stack), and I was out.

So I'm unhappy with my end game, but very pleased that I exercised appropriate patience and spot selection when I was down so short. Fifth place brought me the minimum cash of $295, which is basically tripling my buy-in, and works out to about $32/hour for the six hours it took. It's far from life-changing money, but given how dismal things looked for me for so long, I deem the outcome an absolute success--nearly a miracle. Of course there is the question of what might have been, had I not overdone the aggression on those last two hands. But that's a lesson I can tuck away and remember for next time, without letting it defeat my pleasure at having snatch at least a partial victory from the jaws of defeat.

That was a close one

Today I played the weekly Friday noon tournament at Orleans, which is a $75 equestrian event--i.e., HORSE. I tried this for the first time last week, and though I went out mid-pack, I got the clear impression that this should be a hugely +EV event for me. With a handful of exceptions, the players are easily lumped into two categories: The uber-nits who fold everything except premium hands, and the passive, loose calling stations who play nearly everything they're dealt, and keep calling when there is any hope of improving. That makes playing against both types incredibly straightforward. Against the former, you stay out of their way when they proclaim themselves to have a real hand. Against the latter--who outnumber the nits something like 5:1, you play a significantly tighter starting range than they do, and value-bet the hell out of your hand as long as it appears you're good. Easy peasy.*

Note how different this is from the Tuesday night HORSE tournament at the MGM Grand. I've done that one three times, and you're lucky if you get one player per table who is so easily pigeonholed and conquered. That thing is mostly populated with the city's best lower-stakes mixed-game connoisseurs. I am not alone in this assessment. My friend Brad Willis, a.k.a. _Otis_, played it a few weeks ago. After a short time in the game, he tweeted, "It appears I grossly underestimated the quality of a $120 weekly HORSE tournament." A little while later, he added, "And I mean GROSSLY underestimated." As Bill Clinton might say, I feel his pain. I have never felt that I have any edge at all in that event.

The Orleans Friday noon, though--well, let's just say that it's a HORSE of a different color.

I started off like gangbusters today. I had a tricky tactical situation, with three of the passive calling stations on my right, but one of the rare ultra-aggro young guns on my immediate left. They called for completely different approaches, and when both were in the hand, it became challenging. But Mr. Aggro went away fairly early, after I got most of his chips in a razz hand in which I made a wheel while he had a 7-perfect. (His style was terribly ill-suited for the opponents he was up against. Trying to bully calling stations into folds is to commit tournament suicide.)

I was also getting clobbered by the deck: quads, flushes, wheels, etc. So 45 minutes in, I had doubled my starting stack, and I had nearly tripled it by the first break. That isn't terribly uncommon in big-bet games (no-limit and pot-limit), but in limit? Unheard of. This was the proverbial running like God.

But all good things must come to an end, and that 3x-stack benchmark seemed to be my upper limit. I couldn't exceed it for another two and a half hours. (When playing a tournament, I amuse myself by jotting down my chip count every ten minutes or so. It makes an interesting record of the ebbs and flows.) By then, I had long since stopped being chip leader, and was just a little above average with ten players left out of the original 25. That dropped to a little below average with eight left.

Then with just five left, disaster hit. I made a straight in stud and raised a guy who had been getting out of line more than his demographics would suggest likely. But he reraised me with a pair showing on 6th street. He could see my 6-7-8-9 plain as day, and it did not faze him in the least. I reluctantly concluded that he would only do this with a full house, and that I was therefore drawing dead. It hurt like hell to do so, but I folded, after having invested two-thirds of my stack. He gave me the courtesy show that I had been correct.

That made me the shortest stack with just five players remaining, and only three spots were to be paid today. It looked gloomy for me. I had that awful feeling of foreboding that I was going to be either bubble boy or bubble to the bubble.

I clamped down tight on starting hand requirements. With the blinds becoming huge relative to everybody's stacks, the chip lead was bouncing around the table, except for me. Finally, two huge hands collided, and one big stack knocked out another, putting us on the bubble.

At that point, somebody proposed a $75 save for the bubble boy; i.e., whoever went out next would get his entry fee taken out of the prize pool and returned to him. My stack was much, much shorter than the other three at this point, so I readily agreed to it. I would not ordinarily do so if I had a dominant or even reasonably competitive position, with somebody else's stack as crippled as mine was. Poker is not a game in which showing mercy is rewarded.

But I was not the one to take advantage of the save. I picked a couple of good spots to get the chips in and doubled up twice. Then I was the one to bust the bubble boy on my left, and we were in the money.

It was not immediately obvious who was ahead. All three stacks were comparable to a quick visual inspection without an actual count. We could guess that we all had between 60,000 and 70,000, and the limits were now 8,000 and 16,000--meaning that we all had around four big bets remaining. That in turn meant that it was almost purely luck as to who would go out in which position if we kept playing. I might get the $650 for first place, or the $390 for second, or the $260 for third, all with approximately equal likelihood.

With that understanding, we all quickly agreed to an even chop of the prize money. We decided that whoever had the biggest stack by actual count would get the odd extra dollar. That turned out to be me. I had 68,500 and both of the others were in the low 60s. So I'm just gonna go ahead and say that I won the tournament. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I got $434, the other two $433 each. We each put $20 into the dealer tip pool.

It was quite a ride, going from hitting everything early, to stagnant for a few hours, to critically short, to a miraculous rebirth just in time for the payout. It was kind of like, oh, I dunno, riding a bucking bronco?

I'm not about to commit to making this a weekly affair. But I'm pretty well convinced that there is a lot of value to be mined, if one can tolerate the large variance due to the luck factor, and I think I will keep it in mind for semi-regular sampling.

*Given the venue, the type of game, and that description of the most common players, you might form a general impression of the typical player demographic. You would be correct. At age 51, I was easily the youngest among the final five left in the tournament, and there were no women among the final ten or so. This is a geezer game.

Hey, I'm on Sharkscope!

Navin R. Johnson: The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here!

Harry Hartounian: Boy, I wish I could get that excited about nothing.

Navin R. Johnson: Nothing? Are you kidding? Page 73 - Johnson, Navin R.! I'm somebody now! Millions of people look at this book everyday! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity - your name in print - that makes people. I'm in print! Things are going to start happening to me now.

[the Sniper points to Navin's name in the phone book]

Sniper: Johnson, Navin R... sounds like a typical bastard.

The Jerk, 1979

It dawned on me today to look at Sharkscope and see if I'm there. I guess I didn't really have any reason to think that I wouldn't be, but I hadn't ever looked to see if I was, either.

Now I just have to be on the lookout for snipers.