01.27.10
0-7
posted by Absinthe | 4:11 AM
It’s hard to write well about losing. For one, it’s hard to write well at all; two, writing about your losses means reflecting on them, dwelling on them, generally not having much fun. When you’re deep in tournament mode, and you’re not a sick gambler who love love loves every second of the action in the game, time off is better spent thinking about something else.
Also: not much fun. Possibly even less fun than the losing itself, if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t kick and scream at every bad beat, but instead raps the table, gathers his belongings and slips away to call his wife to talk about the day. It turns out that this is the kind of person that I am, and am I glad for that, because lemme tell you, it has been ugly out there.
Zero for seven is not the best way to start a tournament series. That’s my result at the LA Poker Classic thus far (follow link for dry but fairly exhaustive chip counts and tourney results, if you can bear not seeing my name at all). The worst thing about a shit run like this is that I can’t complain. I’ve been playing well, getting my money in good and giving both math and instinct their due. The tournament structures are great, and Matt Savage has put together an interesting schedule. (Though, Matt - it’d be a lot easier to justify playing a $545 2-7 TD event with all the iffy players that would draw in, than $1k for an event with a stronger field.) Everything is going well except for the tiny little minor detail that I’m not winning anything. Not even a min-cash to break the ice, though I was tantalizingly close on Saturday before my 95%-to-win hand died a cruel, pointless death. (”Not like this,” I said, to no one in particular. “Not like - oh, come ON.”)
A while back, in a tourney at the Bike, I got moved next to an amiable fellow who liked to compliment other people’s play. There was no undercurrent of sarcasm to it, at least not that I could detect, but it tilted some players anyway. The only person he didn’t say anything nice to for quite some time was me, because I wasn’t playing any hands, because I wasn’t getting any hands worth playing. I’d had something like T23k when I moved to the table, and watched it shrink by at least half, fold after fold after fold, orbit by orbit. Eventually the action went raise, reraise, I looked down at AJs, and tossed it into the muck. I don’t know if I flashed him my cards or if he just couldn’t bear not saying anything nice to me any longer, but after he folded as well, he turned to me and said, “I admire your patience.”
I gave him a what-can-you-do shrug and said thanks, then got back to folding.
I’m a pretty patient guy. But I’m starting to get hungry. Tomorrow - er, that’s today - I’m going to sleep until I wake up, and then go find a game at Commerce. It’ll either be no-limit hold’em or Stud 8, depending on the clock, and I’m going to do exactly what I do every day in these things: look for opportunities. Get it in good. Steal when I can. And - note to self, here - don’t worry about the little counter on the board that says “Players remaining”. All you need is chips in front of you and the ability to make good decisions, right?
And a little luck. Fortunately, the law of averages isn’t on anybody’s side.
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Topics: Poker | No Comments »
12.09.09
Northeastward Ho
posted by Absinthe | 1:22 PM
I haven’t set foot in Las Vegas for almost three years. Not exactly by choice; I’ve missed the gatherings of just about the only club that would have me as a member. But I haven’t missed Vegas for itself, that shiny, dusty, desperate temple of excess.
I ride in tomorrow expecting that for the first time ever, I’ll have changed more than the city. Not cosmetically - a little less hair run through with a little more gray isn’t much of a change compared to all the implosions and new monstrosities. But Vegas is going to want the same things it’s always wanted, and my new life, viewed from a vantage point a mere thousand days back, is unrecognizable.
By which I mean to say, thank you to everyone I’m going to see there, because I wouldn’t be going without you. I’ll enjoy checkraising the cowboys and calling shenanigans and hoisting a pint or two (but not three), and I won’t look askance at any free money that drops into my stack, but all of that is icing on cake. You are the cake.
A few caveats: one, our son is joining us on this trip. Don’t be offended if, in his presence, I let fly with a Super Soaker filled with Purell. It’s nothing personal. Two, please don’t be shocked if I actually have the hand I’m representing instead of the Hammer - baby needs a college fund. Three, if I look a little sleepy or talk with you for several minutes without using your name, don’t be surprised - I was never good with names to begin with, and the parental permanent sleep-debt has taken its toll. And last, if you are an experienced babysitter who can pass a breathalyzer, well - too bad. The job is taken. See you all on the flip.
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Topics: Poker | 1 Comment »
08.03.09
Baby’s First Missteps
posted by Absinthe | 2:14 PM
It happens like this: He’s running. Something catches his eye - a flash of light, a previously unseen dog. It doesn’t matter what, and nobody will ever know what it is. Maybe he’s just looking over his shoulder to say, mommy, look at me, I’m running. He looks back and there is a shift in angular momentum. And then a stumble as he veers toward the guardrail of the boardwalk, and his feet do not cooperate, and the stumble turns into a trip. It’s an unlikely set of circumstances, a one-in-a-million shot or worse, else we’d all be walking around looking like he does today.
And it’d be nothing more than a knee-scrape anyway but for the perfectly placed metal box. The box is blue and grilled, a housing for an air-conditioning unit or the like. It is maybe two feet high, and it is the only sharp-cornered metal object for 50 yards in any direction. Its continued presence in a park-playground area is testament to its unlikelihood as an engine of misery. To injure yourself on it, you’d need to be less than three feet tall, be running and stumble going a particular direction, miss a guardrail and hit the edge or corner of the box at a nearly right angle.
If that happened - if all those conditions lined up - then you would suddenly find yourself sprawled on the ground with blood in your eyes, your stricken mother enlisting those nearby to call 911 and help keep pressure on the gash halfway between your right eyebrow and your hairline. You’d shake and cry and hyperventilate, but somehow retain enough awareness to tell the strange men (who look like policeman but act like doctors) that yes, you hurt, and what hurts is the area that you are pointing at on your head. But for the stack of paper towels (and the hand of your father, who came upon this scene unawares, returned from a quick supply run and expecting to pick up wife and son and go on to the grocery store), you could reach up to the wound and touch the shiny whiteness of your skull.
An ambulance ride, a long wait in the emergency room. No one has eaten, the child because he may need to be sedated for surgery, the parents because they are afraid to leave the room for a single second. The child wants to eat, to go home, to feel better; the parents want the same. The child is not only unfed but unmedicated - cut to the bone and without the solace of so much as a milligram of Tylenol. The child, at this moment, is his father’s hero, despite his occasional bouts of tearful frustration and rage.
Finally a plastic surgeon arrives, and the child endures the incomprehensible indignities of monitors and IVs and bright lights and people inspecting his now exposed wound. Then his parents endure half an hour of a ketamine-addled boy calling out “mama, mama” over and over. And then another three hours of waiting for release, during which the mother rallies and finds a new book that delights the awakening boy. The father, meanwhile, finally succumbs to the adrenaline and spends most of an hour dry-heaving in a distressingly septic bathroom.
Everyone smiles all the way home.
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Topics: Human Interests | 5 Comments »
02.10.09
What I Hate More Than Anything Else
posted by Absinthe | 5:52 PM
… is getting it in bad.
Except that’s not quite true. When I’m playing a shortstack I’m indifferent at worst to the notion. Cold-decked, I can handle that too. What I really hate is getting my par-or-better stack in and discovering that I’m either dead or drawing very, very thin.
Naturally, the last two tournaments I’ve played, this is exactly what I’ve done. So I hate that a little. What I hate even more, it turns out, is this: I’d do it again.
$545 NLHE
The guy in the 1 has been catching miracles for the last hour. Once he checkraises all-in on the turn with nothing but a gutter draw, the other time he cuts out the middleman and just open-shoves. Catches both times. They’re crazy plays - he’s moving in on pots that aren’t small, against players who are tight enough that they’re not in the pot with nothing. The only reason he’s alive - and has enough chips to bust me - is the unusually cooperative dealer who’s peeled off two river four-outers for him.
The blinds are 200/400 with a 50 ante, meaning that while my stack - just a hair shy of 12K - is still healthy, I can’t sit on my hands. I get QQ in early position and raise to 1500, getting one caller just to my left, and the guy in the 1 comes along for the ride.
892 flop, rainbow. Just about perfect - the straight draw is the only thing I’m really worried about. The 1 seat checks and I think about the right amount to bet. There’s a little over 10k in my stack, and the pot’s about half that; I figure 3k is a good price, enough to get good value for my hand, leaving myself enough behind to make a solid turn bet to hurt anyone who sticks around and chases. Guy to my left folds, 1 seat calls. Dealer burns and turns a 9.
The 1 seat blinks a bunch and for a moment I wonder if I’m going to win the hand on account of a seizure. Finally he announces he’s all-in. (With the accent, it comes out “Ow een”, but the meaning is clear.)
I lean back and go into the tank. Against any of the other 8 players at the table, the only thing I’d be thinking about is whether to muck my hand face-down or face-up. Normally I hate showing I can be blown off a hand, but with a 7k stack and these blinds I want people to think I’m only coming in with a good hand.
Anyone else at the table. I’d think the play was a little strange - a check will win them more on the long run than the bet - but I’d sigh, say “nice hand”, and move on. But against this guy I can’t do it without going through it in my head. I start ruling out hands. AA and KK are out, or he’d have squeezed preflop - otherwise he’s out of position against two players, and while I think he’s crazy, I don’t think he’s stupid. Obviously I’m not frightened of QQ, nor JJ or TT. I can’t see him playing 99 that way, and the only reason for him to shove 88 or 22 there is if he thinks I have a 9 - otherwise it’s easiest to just checkraise or call me when I bet the turn. And frankly, the only hand with a 9 I’m raising with from around back at this stage just made quads, so I should have such problems.
So either he’s got the 9 or I have him crushed. From what I’ve seen him do I know he’s capable of playing the same way with JT, QJ, 67, even 78 or A8. It’s a dodgy turn card and a good opportunity to take the pot away from a tight player, and when you’ve proven you’ll do it with as little as four outs …
I replay the action. Raise, call. Bet, call. It’s unfortunately not much help - he’s equally likely to be drawing or doing the ol’ “I put you on ace-king”.
I have no fear whatsoever of playing a shortstack. Folding now doesn’t cripple me by any of the definitions I use. The safe thing to do is fold and move on. But I have to put the puzzle together before I do.
So ultimately it comes down to the math. What kind of price do I have to be getting to make it a good call? After the flop bet-and-call there’s about 11k out there. His bet, matching my 7k stack, makes it 18k. 2.5 to 1. Can I fold, knowing I could be drawing to two outs, but having seen him get out of line so much recently?
Alas, I can’t. Alas, he has T9. Alas, I am not the last one out, and hence will neither be turning out the lights nor getting paid.
And, alas, I’d do it again. Same cards, same players, same position, same actions.
Later on I decide that the pause before he moved all-in was the important bit of information that I couldn’t decode. Hindsight says the hitch in his giddyap was because he’d thought his pair was good on the flop and planned to move in on the turn all along - a plan I would have been happy to get behind - but when the 9 hit he had to stop and think about it, got confused, and decided to follow his original line. I’d bet that’s what happened, and give myself the same odds of being right as I would have the call that got me into trouble: just good enough to play, not good enough to win this time out.
$1065 NLHE
“So I’m in early position with king-queen offsuit …”
Yeah, that’s how the story begins. I’d like to say I have nobody to blame but myself, but this time I think there’s enough to go around.
I’ve been playing tight, the blinds are 75/150, and I have about 6k - up a little from my beginning stack, but nothing special. And I have KQo in early position. Usually I’m tight enough to just let that go and wait for something better to come along, but my image is good and I think I have a good chance of taking the pot with a continuation bet on a ragged or ace-high flop; if I don’t, I have an easy fold with no real harm done. So I raise to 500.
Cutoff calls, small blind calls. Small blind and cutoff just tangled in the last hand, with cutoff making about the dumbest play possible with pocket threes and sucking out on small blind and a recently-eliminated player. Like this: eliminated player raises to 550, cutoff calls, small blind raises to 2500, eliminated player goes all-in for like 1100 more, cutoff says “well, it’s my chance to triple up” and puts in all of his chips. Cutoff, as mentioned, has 33; eliminated player has AQo; small blind has 77. Queen-high flop, blank turn, river 3.
When I get called twice I’m already picturing the gentle arc my cards will follow when I pitch them into the muck on the flop. “Anything but a KQx flop and I am outta here,” I’m telling myself. So the dealer obliges me, rolling out a king, a queen, and a ten. Rainbow.
Top two on a scary board, but the only hands I’m liable to fear are AJ, TT and J9. Small blind checks, I lead for 850 into a pot of 1575, cutoff calls, small blind goes away. Dealer burns and turns a 7.
The 7 can’t possibly have hurt me. Still, cutoff’s range is wide - at the top end, there’s the flopped straight and the set of tens (mental picture: cutoff lifting me off the ground, Darth Vader-style, choking the life out of me), and near the bottom, a host of pair-and-a-draw or two-pair combos that I have absolutely crushed (mental picture: me, cigar clenched in my teeth, laughing and riffling through a pile of fresh, crisp Benjamins). If I fear the monster I can’t get value from the mouse. I think I’m ahead but obviously very vulnerable, so the question becomes how much to bet.
I have about 4600 in my stack and the pot has swelled to just over 3200. This presents a conundrum; bet too little and I’m pricing in a draw while out of position, bet a reasonable amount and I’m leaving something behind for a draw to win (and even without a draw, I have to surrender if any ace, jack, ten or nine hits the river), bet too much against a hand that beats me and I’m sticking in my stack with the worst of it. Again.
My read is that cutoff most likely has a jack and a pair to go with it. Yeah, AJo is a possibility, as is a set (of tens, kings or queens being very unlikely). I think I have the best of it, and what tips it for me is the likelihood that a lot of hands I’m well ahead of make for very reasonable calls on my opponent’s part - I don’t think he’s liable to fold JT or QJ to a big overbet. So I go all-in. He calls with TT. I miss the four-outer on the river. I go home. Again.
And, why, yes, I would do it again. Whether the fault is in my stars or in myself remains to be seen.
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Topics: Poker | 1 Comment »
01.25.09
Matters Commerce-ial
posted by Absinthe | 12:39 AM
Three tournaments into my run at the LAPC and feeling good about it. Today was something of an abomination but at least the conversation was nice, though as usual I was at a loss for words when everyone else at the table started waxing rhapsodical about the wonders of marijuana. (I don’t begrudge anyone the habit; there’s just nothing I can possibly add to conversations on the subject. At least when it’s sports I may have accidentally seen something relevant in the last week.)
There are some changes to the tournaments and their trappings this year, mostly for the better. I’d have said differently fifteen minutes into the first event, when my table - packed with people who by and large showed up early to register - still lacked a dealer, chips or cards, three fairly significant elements of any tournament experience. Was about five minutes from asking for my juice back, at a minimum.
But everything else has been pretty smooth. Breaks have been extended to fifteen minutes, which makes the crush at the bathroom much less tense, and the earlier start time means that the dinner break comes after a reasonable amount of play. Better yet, food vouchers now allow for the possibility of something other than the godforsaken buffet or the daily steam-tray special at the deli - I’ve eaten well every day.
And the blind structures are smoother, since they don’t now double one level after the introduction of the antes. At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about the change - I was used to the old structure and could build a game plan around other people not adapting fast enough - but having played past level 9 a couple of times now I’ll give it a big thumbs up.
F-bomb penalty: not exactly gone, but pretty much nerfed out of relevance. You gots to fuck up bad to get one. This is obviously a good move, as it was way too arbitrary in the past to be remotely fair, but I’ve spent so long training myself not to curse at the table that it’s hard to find my inner sailor.
(Also: Matt Savage is clearly a biologically engineered organism from the future, sent back to ensure the sanctity of poker tournaments. Friendly, charming, approachable, authoritative - gave two guys a one-round collusion penalty on the bubble without the eruption of a shouting match.)
If you’re still reading this, you’re obviously way too interested in poker, so here are some vaguely memorable key hands from the first days’ play:
$335 NLHE
25/50, couple limpers, I limp on the button with AsKs, everyone sees a flop of 743, two spades. Big blind leads for 200, one caller, I say, “self, you have overcards and a flush draw, this seems like a good time for one of those hemi-bluffs you’ve heard so much about,” pop it to 800, BB insta-insta-insta ships for about 1900 more. If he’d waited a little longer I’d have given more thought to folding; he put his chips in so fast I thought a set or flopped straight was unlikely, though there’s a good chance I’m behind. So I called, he had Ac7c for TPTK, I had eleven outs twice instead of fourteen, spade on the river. Yay me. A garrulous fellow I’ve played with before repeatedly calls it a “real Chris Moneymaker call”, a nebulous insult I’m prepared to live with.
I worked my way up to about T7k by having a medium pair hold and taking down some small pots with position bets, then this happens at 100/200: I’m big blind with kings, thirty-five people limp, I raise to something ridiculous like 2000, an early-position limper goes all-in for an equally ridiculous 350 more, thirty-four people fold, I call and he has KQs. Which is an expert move because, you know, if I have 23o and he tables aces I still have to call. Q on flop, another Q on turn. I take the beat with a goodnatured shrug and a wan smile; mentally, of course, I’m hunting down every dog the guy has ever loved and giving them a solid kick to the ear. Because, you know, he looks like a dog person.
The rest of the day is a blur of pushmonkey poker. I win one race, with 99 against KQ, holding up versus a guy who just couldn’t win a hand all-in. Get bounced from table to table. Suck out with 9To against aces, then grind my way back up to about 7k at the dinner break, but that isn’t going to last long at 400/800/100. First hand after the break a fellow shorty who has me barely covered goes all-in UTG, I have 99 and put my stack in. I have reason for optimism when I finally look at his face - he seems downright embarrassed, and the first words out of his mouth are “I’m in so much trouble.” Which he is, having 9dTd, but he flops a flush draw and it comes on the river, a development for which he apologizes profusely.
Two days later, in fact, he tracks me down again to say he’s sorry for the suckout. To which I say no problem, that’s the game, it happens. And truthfully - and it’s probably a good thing that nobody sitting at today’s table believes me when I say this - in his position, with his stack and those blinds, first hand back from the dinner break, everybody still settling in, well, I’d have done the exact same thing with that hand. No apology necessary, sir: in my mind, your dogs remain unkicked.
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Topics: Poker | 3 Comments »
01.20.09
Boss Haiku 2: Electric Basholoo
posted by Absinthe | 3:38 PM
It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks - cross-country twice, and I’m about to make my annual run at the LA Poker Classic at the Commerce Casino. But I have not forgotten my sacred duties.
Polygonal face Lasers go into the eyes Slippy is no help
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Topics: Bleep Bleep Bleep | 6 Comments »