Sergeant Rock

Lady Luck Smiles on Me. Again.

2012-01-15T23:26:00.000-08:00

Some days, everything you touch turns to shit, but some days it all turns to gold. Yesterday was a Golden Day. Played ‘til 5:00 am the night before, and it was past Noon before I could even drag my ass out of bed. But then I got to Diamond Lil’s just before 2:00 pm, and took the last open seat in the 20/40 game. A forecast of snow later kept lots of people home, and it was really slow for a Saturday afternoon, with just one game at each of the 4/8, 8/16, and 20/40 limits. Eventually, things picked up. Way up. I bought in for $1,000, and cashed out $7,502 seventeen hours later. I’ve won more than that at higher limits, but for 20/40, I think this was my best-ever session win. I’d like to say I played really good, but the truth is that I flopped sets, made flushes and straights, and had Aces and Kings, and AK, and especially AQ, hold up WAY more than usual. In other words, I got lucky. REAL lucky. Repeatedly. And maybe I did play well in a couple spots, but for sure I also got stupid a few times, here and there. Again. One time the UTG player open-raised, and I, right behind her, mucked AQ. One time the UTG player open-raised, and I, right behind him, 3-bet with KT. Offsuit. Showed to down to take the pot, too, then heard about it, repeatedly, for the next couple hours. :-) Traffic Stop I’ve played 20/40 with Steve nearly 20 years. Right before New Years we were in the game, and he was table-talking to the other guys about his nightclub in a neighboring town, where hostesses entertain the male clientele. He emphasized again (I had heard this from him before) that his “ladies are very clean.” OK, fine. Snap. Got the picture. He also mentioned that his hostesses were from overseas. We’d recently watched some shows on MSNBC about such things, and this ugly buzzword was fresh in my head, and, well, sadly, my big mouth got away from me. Again. So I jumped in and asked: “Wait, there isn’t any Human Trafficking going on here, is there ??” He didn’t seem to hear me, or to understand, not sure which. But Dealer Doug did, gave me a WTF look, and said “Eeeeew, how can you even say that?” Couple other guys groaned too, as if I had asked a Scoutmaster taking his troop into the woods if anyone was gonna be molested. I felt about an inch tall, so I STFU, and tried to shrink down in my seat and be invisible. Last week I even talked to Doug about it, and told him how bad I felt about that comment, and some other smartass remark I had made another time. Guess I’m not friends enough with Steve to apologize to him, even if he had heard me. But I respect Doug’s opinion, and feelings, and it seemed the remark put him off. I felt like I had probably crossed the line, and wanted to make it right, so I apologized to him instead. I think he forgave me. At least he said he did. Then, last Friday, I had to go back to Doug, and un-apologize! Turns out last Thursday came the FEDERAL bust, and Friday the FEDERAL grand jury indictment, apparently charging club owner Steve, and seven others, with exactly what I said, plus a few other unsavory crimes that might tend to put one away for many many moons. News from a couple days ago said “held without bail.” Hey, maybe they’ll get real good lawyers, or plead way down, or at least make bail; who knows? But my money says orange jumpsuits love you long time. These remarkable events were, or course, the main topic of talk at the table, if not throughout the room, all the time I was stacking chips during that mega-rush yesterday. = = = = = If you're reading, will ya please leave a comment and let me know there's an audience out there? Thanks.

The Perfect Storm

2012-01-10T14:29:00.000-08:00

($20/40 Limit Hold Em at Diamond Lil's, Renton, Washington) Late Saturday night, well, actually early Sunday, like 3 a.m. or so, and it's a wild game. Seat belts are mandatory, and be sure to take some Dramamine, or whatever other anti-puke pharmaceutical seems appropriate. Betting is often capped before the flop, even when players' holdings don't justify it. Big Al, for example, just capped with ten seven offsuit, and now is busy smiling, and stacking an XXL pot. The guy with AK flopped top two, but the river made Al's flopped pair of sevens into trip sevens. And yes, he happily took LOTS of heat (called several raises) along the way. Even put in a couple raises himself.This is the kind of game we all say that we love to play in, and some come a long way, like from Portland, or B.C., Canada, and points in-between. One guy even flies in from Boise now and then. But before you come into these pots with, well, with pretty much anything, you gotta be willing to go four bets, cuz likely as not, that's what's gonna happen, and with, on average, 5.853 players seeing the flop. Give or take. So it's scary. And if, like me, you're trying to be Performance-Oriented, then it's often hard to know what the best Performance is, or what the best plays are. And if you're Results-Oriented, then beware, because playing in this game could actually make you lose your mind. That's not a problem for me, as I have mine backed-up on a 2GB USB thumb drive, with room to spare. But if you come to play it, well, watch your ass. On the next deal, I 3-bet with AK, but Saejin caps it right behind me. Four of us see the flop: 222. Saejin raises my bet, and the other two fold. I’m thinking he has a pocket pair, don’t quite know how big, and I may respectively have 0, 3, or 6 outs, if he has AA, KK, or some smaller pair. Yes, I forgot that one other out, and was immediately notified of my oversight, like a slap in the face, when . . . Bang! The case deuce hits the turn, and it becomes The Perfect Storm. Seen other guys with this hand a few times, but don’t think it ever happened to me before, to hold that nut Ace, when the board makes quads. I’ve counted 14 Royal Flushes over the years, but never that hand. Randomness works in strange ways. Then I blow it, and bet right out. He expresses some disgust, but politely, and folds immediately. Right away I was sorry I didn’t check, and give him an opportunity to put in some more chips. I mean, why should I bet? So I promised myself that next time I’m in that situation, I’ll just check. And I hoped that I wouldn’t have to wait another nineteen years for the opportunity. All this happened a couple weeks ago. Then, last weekend, it actually came up again. This time I held an Ace, and two 10s came on the flop, then two more, on the turn and river. This time I was last to act, so I had to bet the River. The other Perfect Storm that I’m still waiting for, is to be heads up with some guy, where you both make Broadway straights on the turn, and have a raising war at a place like Bellagio, where there’s no cap on heads-up betting. And he puts in a whole bunch of raises without realizing that you are freerolling the nut flush draw along with your straight, and, well, you know the rest. This almost kinda sorta happened to me once, but he ran out of chips, and my flush didn’t come in, so the pot was split after all. Another Nightmare Laydown I open-raise with Aces from middle position, and this rather Clueless Stranger calls right behind me. Will Kagen calls from the small blind, and we see the flop three-way. The board comes : Q57,9,6 I bet the flop, Clueless Stranger raises, I re-raise, and he calls. Kagen is in there calling everything, too. I bet the turn, and they both call. At this point, Clueless Stranger is all-in. Then I really have to stop, and think about it, when Kagen bets out on the river. Hit the pause button a minute, and let me tell you about this guy. He’s a little older than me, and been playing way longer. Smart, and long on experience, cunning, and card-sense, but short on class, couth, discipline, and self-restraint. Doesn’t have much to say, but talks loud and incessantly anyway. Plays lots of hands, and so he takes big swings. Most importantly, he almost certainly knows how to play way better than he does. This is probably true for most of us, but for him the condition is particularly acute. And when it comes to sex, this guy is something of a legend. I mean, everyone knows he does it better, and way more, than anyone else his age. All he needs now is a partner. Anyway, he’s totally capable of any kind of bluff you might imagine, and even a couple you never thought of. So just because that scare card hit the river and a straight looks likely, I still want to call him. Sure, he might have 34, or an 8, for the straight, or two pair, or spiked a set; who knows? But with Kagen it’s equally likely he’s betting just because it looks to him like a real good bluffing opportunity. Except we got Clueless Stranger all-in right behind me, he can’t be bluffed out, and the side pot is tiny. I think about that a moment, and am convinced that Kagen MUST have a hand. I muck. Kagen announces “Straight!” and turns over pocket fours, then expresses great surprise when it’s not a straight after all. Claims he misread the board. Clueless Stranger has KQ for a pair of Queens, takes the main pot, and I sit there dumbfounded a minute. Did he really misread his hand, or is he just saying that? Did he deliberately bluff me out just to give the pot to the other guy? That sounds crazy, but with him, all or any of those things are quite possible. I posted before about a wacky call on the end with absolutely nothing, heads up, big pot, just for the odds that the bettor is bluffing, and will muck rather than show down. I’ve considered that call a few times, and actually made it ONCE, with 54 suited, no pair, and took the pot, when the tilted bettor did indeed muck. So now, on the end, do I also need to consider the possibility that the bettor is misreading his hand? Probably not, happens too rarely, but damn, I never before imagined how that scenario could trick me into folding the best hand. Being outplayed is bad enough, but when it’s an accident? Ouch. Funniest. Website. Ever. And maybe also the crudest, rudest and lewdest X-rated textual site you ever saw, too. So if you don’t want to see college kids’ uncensored and often quite nasty texts about sex, drugs, alcohol, booty calls & hookups, FBs & BJs, etc., then DO NOT visit textsfromlastnight.com and do not click on Best (or Worst), and pick All Time, or you will find 2300 archived pages under both those categories. I’m sure it speaks badly of me, my character, and my worth as a human being, but damn, I just couldn’t stop reading this stuff! Blew much of my ten day holiday break reading a couple hundred pages into both sections. If you do go there, and after you read some, and see what it’s about, search on keyword “rollover” to see the funniest post of all.

2011-01-02T23:34:00.000-08:00

Cheap Thrills, and Another Brilliant Business Model

Saturday night, and I'm listening to my favorite radio show, and playing 20/40 at DL. Most NPR stations around the country play Classical music in between the news and views, but here in Seattle, NPR on KPLU at 88.5 FM, it's Jazz and Blues instead. Saturday and Sunday nights is "All Blues" from 6:00pm to midnight. I just love, and rarely miss, this show. It's streamed, and you can check it out at http://kplu.org

So I'm minding my own business when this younger smartass player, JT, points at me, and says "Is that a Walkman? Damn, Sarge, you still use a Walkman? Hey, look, he still uses a Walkman!"

Yes, had the headphones plugged in to a 10 year old Sony Walkman Cassette/AM/FM player. Well, the radio is digital, not analog, so not THAT ancient, but still. And it reminded me how some other smartass kid had made fun of me over the exact same thing at the Muckleshoots, about 4 years ago. The implication then, and now, was that the old fart is laughably behind, still living in the yesteryears of technology, not even into the new millenium yet. Well, this time I just wasn't gonna take it. Can't deny the old fart part, but . . .

"Look," I tell him, producing the Sprint HTC EVO from my innermost t-shirt pocket. "Here's my 4G phone & mobile hotspot." Then, from another shirt pocket, "And here's the corporate BlackBerry."

Then I hoist the clear plastic (security-friendly) small backpack with my Sony VAIO mini-laptop, and various accessories, from the floor at my feet: "And you know I got half of Radio Shack in here. So WTF you talkin' about?" All this got a good laugh from the table, as well as a look and a gesture from JT, that said I had successfully redeemed myself. Fine.

Just about then the dealer starts pitching cards for the next hand. I'm UTG, and I don't have time to put the EVO back into the t-shirt pocket, so I set it on my chair, and kind of "tuck it in" to hold it there, until I can play this hand.

In other words, I'm half sitting on my phone, and look down at pocket Eights. I limp. The guy right behind me limps too, but then a raise from late position. Both blinds call, and I call too. But then the guy between me and the raiser 3 bets, then raiser caps, both blinds still calling. Well, shit, let myself get trapped good this time! I call. 20 bets in the pot.

Flop comes 446, two hearts, blinds check, I bet, and it's three bets when it gets back to me. I cap it. You might think that preflop action should scare me, make me think someone has a bigger pair, and I'm just just burning chips. Yeah, maybe. But with these guys, it's just as likely they're all betting and raising draws or overcards. So what really scares me is the two more board cards yet to come.

Nobody folds, now pot is 40 bets, and the radio is playing Janis Joplin, Piece of My Heart, from the Cheap Thrills album.

Dealer brings the turn: 9d. SB checks, BB goes all-in for $20, and Janis sings: "I need you to come on, come on, come on, come on and TAKE IT ! "

Before continuing, I should mention that my phone, which I have in the heat of battle forgotten that I am sitting on, is always on vibrate. And did you know that it's actually the battery that does all the vibrating? And the EVO is a notorious battery hog, so I got the double big, double capacity extended battery in mine. Point is, just as I'm contemplating Janis' advice, and considering putting a move on this pot, my honey texts me, and it was one of those times that the carrier's text server, or maybe her phone, decided, for whatever reason, to break her message into two parts-- you know, (1/2) and (2/2).

So my phone vibrates twice for each part, four times in all, rapid succession, and I get a totally unexpected Cheap Thrill, while listening to Cheap Thrills. Well, if that's not a sign, a signal, that yes, it's time to make my move, I don't know what is. Plus, when those surprise jolts arrived, I kind of involuntarily twitched a little, maybe squirmed in my seat some too, enough that a couple opponents noticed, and looked at me questioningly. Seems like I have, quite accidentally, given off a fake tell that says I *really* like that turn card.

So I ask the dealer, "How much can I make it?" I know damn well I can make it $60, but I want the table to hear me ask! I make it $60, and everyone but the BB folds! 42 bets in the pot after the dealer pushes my raise back to me (cuz nobody called it.)

So now heads-up, the dealer puts the Jack of Spades on the river, and my all-in opponent just mucks! Dealer pushes the pot to me. Mikey and the crew are just dying to know what I have. Should I show it?

Probably not. Keeping it a mystery would be best. But my opponent should have shown, and made me show, and yet he didn't. So I was overcome somehow by the idea that, in all fairness, the table was entitled to see my hand. Yeah, I know, this surprises me too. Fairness? In Poker? Don't make me laugh.

But I did turn it over. One guy groaned-- folded his Jack on the turn. Results-oriented thinking. Mikey says "You raised with just pocket eights?"

"I didn't play just pocket eights," I tell him, perhaps saying too much. "I played THE SITUATION."

Cost, Chance, & Payback. This time the $40 Cost of that turn raise was small, compared to that BIG $800 Payback, and the Chance seemed good enough.

Taking that pot down was nice, but even sweeter is the dynamite business idea inspired by this whole episode of "surprising new application for a phone on vibrate."

Have you ever paid money, maybe put a charge on your credit card, for Phone Sex? No, of course not. Me neither. Shoot, I don't really quite know what the hell Phone Sex even is, or why anyone would want any. What's the deal? You pay to talk on the phone with some supposedly hot young babe (but who probably is actually a 62 year old Grandma in hair curlers) and she says sensual things to get you excited? I don't get it. What good are words, without touch? Where's the tactile sensation that real sex is all about?

So my new startup company, Vibraphonexxx.com, will coach clients to use a bluetooth headset for the voice part, then put their phone on vibrate, and SIT ON IT throughout the encounter. This way, the operator can punctuate all the sexy things she says with brief but frequent texts, thus augmenting the erotic dialog with actual physical stimulation, at exactly the right moments. Can you say "Leaves the competition behind, buried in the dust" ??

Yes, I know you are completely in awe of, and overwhelmed by, the sheer genius of this entire concept. Thankyouverymuch. Sometimes I do come up with ideas so clever, so brilliant, that I amaze even myself. This was one of those times. Patent Pending, and © Copyright 2011 Sgt Rock/Ada-Z Systems.

But I also like to share, and so for you, my readers, I offer a special opportunity. Would you like to ride this gravy train along with me, and make a bundle too, like I will? If yes, if you want to get in on the ground floor, and invest in Vibraphonexxx.com, just give me a call.

Better yet, text me. I'll be waiting.

2010-12-31T23:41:00.000-08:00

Diamond Lil's here in Renton, WA, is still THE place to find really good $20/40 limit Hold Em games every day.  Really good games.  At least one game until the wee hours, or often overnight, two games most afternoons and evenings.  Sometimes even three.  And did I mention that they're really good games?

A week ago Saturday night I open raised with QTc, three callers, flopped a Royal Flush, and bet right out.  One guy kindly called me all the way to the river.  In addition to the pot, I also won a $1900 progressive Monte Carlo and the $200 High Hand, and even got a voucher for a free dinner.  What a country!

Afterwards I thought about it a some, and was surprised by how relatively simple it seemed to calculate the probability of flopping a royal, when you hold suited broadway cards.  Unless I got this wrong, it should be one time in:


 50         49       48
————   x   ————   x ————   =  19,600  (19,599-to-1 against)
 3          2        1

But my rare event was nothing, compared to what happened to Eileen, the DL daytime cashier, about a year ago.  I've been trying to think of, or imagine, something else that, in the course of random events we see in the casino, could be more rare than what happened to her.  I keep coming up empty.

Eileen was dealt QTh, and made a royal.  Nice hand! But then, on the very next deal, she got QTh again, AND MADE A ROYAL AGAIN !

The only thing I ever heard of that comes close is a supposedly documented hand at the Sahara, Las Vegas, something like 40 years ago, where two guys both made royals.

Before you call that impossible, and me a dummy, I should mention that it was a 7 card stud game.  They didn't play Hold Em in Vegas 40 years ago.  So who you callin' a dummy? :-)

If I had time to kill— and I don't, barely finding time for a blog post— but if I did, wouldn't it be interesting to figure out which of those two is the rarest event?  Been considering that, but find my math skills inadequate to the task.   Might be able to figure it out, by really working at it, but so far just thinking about it makes my head hurt.

Anyway, just guessing, my money's on Eileen.

I mean, whatever the odds are against back-to-back royals, multiply that by the odds against getting identical starting hands in 2 consecutive deals, which is just another way of saying probability for any two specific cards— say QTh, or black Aces, or whatever— in a given deal:


 52         51
————   x   ————  =  1,326  (1,325-to-1 against)
 2          1

Natural Talent vs. Philosophical Poker

Some people are born with a natural talent for playing the piano, or the violin, or for playing baseball, or maybe tennis, exceptionally well.  Some have natural talent for acting, painting, singing, dancing or maybe even for lying convincingly.  And certainly there are people with a natural talent for playing poker.  Indeed, I think that Mrs. Rock must be one of those, and even has some of whatever it is that people like to call "card sense."

Me?  Talent?  I score a solid zero on everything mentioned so far.  Nada.  Zip.  My only real talent is: "Communicator," which is really just a polite way to say Bulllshit Artist, and, no bragging, just telling the truth, I truly do excel at that.  But BS never won me any money.  Maybe it did help me land a job a time or three, but that's not the point here, and let's not get too far off track, ok?

Thing is, Natural Talent is NOT the only possible path to winning Hold Em.  At least not in the $20/40 limit games I play here, where so many opponents are hopeless chasing wannabe suckout artists, or morons who think it's all about Luck, or over-aggressive chip burners, or some combination of the three.  Being completely bereft of any talent whatever, I must take a philosophical and scientific approach to the game.  For the last couple years, now that I have it developed a little better, this has actually done as well as, if not better than, than Mrs. Rock's talented play.

The other day I thought of a new way to describe my approach: "Try to imagine how Mr. Spock might play, and do that."  I mentioned this to someone, and they said "Oh, you mean like instantly calculate the odds for everything, down to the 9th decimal place?"

No.  He might be able to, but that's not what I mean at all.  I mean to do everything in that analytical, logical, and dispassionate Vulcan way.  But since Spock is half-human, there's also room for some imagination, maybe even a little creativity, now and then.

So when the flop comes down, would Spock's eyes be glued to the board, like everyone else?  No way.  After analyzing *everything* about the game, he would decide to watch the players, not the cards.  And he would know the pot size at all times.   And he would not get angry when someone sucks out on him; he'd just smile (the human side), and await the next deal.  And he . . . well, you get the idea.  He would think long and hard to identify the best +EV for every action, every decision, and do whatever that turned out to be.  And when up against the kinds of players I face in my game, he would do very well.

Is that talent?  I don't think so.  If you have enough talent, you might not need to even think about those things; you might just "do the right thing" instinctively.   And if you have just *some* talent, then those instincts and your play might be just pretty good sometimes, but maybe not as good as it could be from a thorough Philosophical, Scientific and Analytical approach.

The Scientific part refers to poker math, of course, but also to the Psychology.  Lately I'm an amateur psychologist wannabe, or at least am reading some and studying the topic.  Example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microexpression:

"A microexpression is a brief, involuntary facial expression shown on the face of humans according to emotions experienced. They usually occur in high-stakes situations, where people have something to lose or gain. Unlike regular facial expressions, it is difficult to fake microexpressions. Microexpressions express the seven universal emotions: disgust, anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise, and contempt. They can occur as fast as 1/15 to 1/25 of a second."

"Fascinating," as Spock would say.

Below is a short list of some of my Philosophical Convictions for poker.  But first— Most people who already looked at this weren't familiar with that ± symbol.  So in case you aren't either: It's just a minus sign ( - ) moved down to the bottom of the line to get it out of the way ( _ ) and then a plus sign ( + ) superimposed, to become plus and minus signs together ( ± ).  You read this as:

"Plus or Minus"

And that's just what it means.  Could be plus, could be minus.  Depends.  For example, suppose you're a poker dealer who plays a couple hours after a shift.  Your net income for the day will be:

(hours worked x min. wage) + Tips - Tax ± poker play result

It has to be "Plus OR Minus" the poker play because, hey, who knows if you will win or will lose?

OK, so here, then, from those Philosophical and Scientific viewpoints, are some basic "Beliefs" that become the foundation for my game:

1. Result = Performance ± Luck. In terms of what they think about, focus on, most players are mostly Results-oriented, but also somewhat (or sometimes MAJORLY) Luck-oriented.  Forget all that, and be strictly Performance-oriented.

2. Random is Random.  Any "pattern" or "trend" observed in random events is meaningless; thinking it will continue is stupid, and acting on such thoughts even stupider.  Streaks happen, but that's history; you are never "on" a streak, never "running bad" (or good.) The next deal is random.  Period.

3. My goal: ~~Win The Pot.~~ No! My goal is to make the best decisions I possibly can.

4. Every decision comes down to: Cost, Chance, & Payback, and the Expectation ( ± EV) derived from those three factors.  If (I think) it's +EV, put the chips in.  If not, don't.

5. "Chance" is the factor where Psychology comes into play.  Most times, trying to run over these guys is a big chip-burning mistake.  But paying close attention to their play, and to everything they do, can help a lot with fine-tuning #3.

6. My Delta— "The Difference between me and them." Find it.  Create it.  Know it.  Exploit it.  Love it.

A funny thing is that nothing said above is particularly original or profound.  Nothing new; most of us already know all that stuff, don't we?  And yet too often we act (perform) like we don't.  Too often we may call for a draw when the odds aren't really there, or make the aggressive raise that was a real good play yesterday, but obviously not this time (overplay), or make that crying river call even when it's hopeless.  What, you never do any of those things?  Then why are you wasting your time reading my blog?

My Self-assessment for 2010: I performed fairly well 91.23% of the time, was inspired, creative, or particularly insightful, and impressed even myself 4.15% of the time, and got inexcusibly stupid the other 4.62%.  Approximately.

Those stupids cost too many chips! Tim asked the other day what my main poker goal is for next year, and after thinking some I told him "Get stupid less often!"

Maniac Play

Waited until New Years Eve to make my craziest play of the year.  Hao open raises in middle position, I 3 bet two seats behind him with AJ clubs, and Tim caps from the button.  Both blinds in there calling too, so 20 bets.

Flop comes 722, one club.  Capped again, nobody folds, now 40 bets.  How can I call 4 with nothing?  Easy, I can't.  So I wasn't calling, I was raising.

Turn is 5 of clubs, Hao bets, I raise, Tim, Hao, and one blind call.  So now 56 bets in the pot.

3 of clubs on the River makes my flush, and Tim and Hao both call my bet.  Three guys say "Oh my God" when I turn it over.   Of course they both had me big time on the flop and turn, and the runner-runner suckout, while jamming it with nothing at every opportunity, suggests that I probably ain't gonna get much respect from these guys for a while.  :-)

Lucky Me

2009-10-18T02:49:00.000-07:00

"...when it comes to hold 'em and stud, I already know everything there is to know..."
-- Mason Malmuth, renowned author/publisher & veteran professional know-it-all, 2+2, 2002

"...I know everything there is to know about luck..."
-- Sgt Rock, obscure poker philosopher & novice amateur know-it-all, rec.gambling.poker, 2001

We used to fly 866 miles, or drive 1150 miles, and pay big bucks for nice hotel rooms, to play 20/40 at the Mirage, then 30/60 at Bellagio. Now we drive 2.1 miles from our home to Diamond Lil's, both in Renton, WA, and play what today are probably the only daily 20/40 games this side of Vegas, LA, or the SF Bay.

Nowadays there's poker pretty much EVERYWHERE, but so much of it is No Limit, or Spread Limit, or tournaments, and we just have no clue about any of that stuff. And of course there's Low Limit all over too, but I've explained before, in detail, why I can't afford to play games like 4/8.

So am I lucky to have the 20/40 game I want to play so ridiculously close to home? Yes. EXTREMELY LUCKY.

The day, lo those many years ago, that I first met Mrs. Rock, a chance encounter, is another, even better, example of getting EXTREMELY LUCKY. And we got hitched way too quickly, barely knew ourselves at that age, much less each other, and had different nationality, race, culture, language, different every damn thing. So the initial probability for our marriage to survive? Low.

But it all turned out way better than I ever deserved. It's like I put up a live straddle, was dealt pocket aces, and even hit the flop. More extreme luck.

Those are examples of Getting Lucky when a single major life event or circumstance has profound effects, maybe for years and years. Bad luck can come that way, and be that profound too. Like if Soccer Mom is driving through an intersection, and gets T-boned by a cement truck that ran the red light at 50 MPH. Ouch. REALLY bad luck.

In a gambling venue like the WSOP Main Event, getting lucky can be a one-time life-changing event too. I mean, let's face it, some of the World Champions who won that bracelet over the years had lots of talent, and earned it, but more than a couple are just bozos who got real lucky that week. And took home millions.

In the daily grind of playing limit Hold Em, luck does not have any such long term effect. The examples above are all single random events with far-reaching impacts, but the daily game is a series of many independent random events, and no one of them should effect more than a single pot.

I've posted before about how "running good" or "running bad" are such bogus concepts, and how fascinating is is that the average player seems to be so clueless when it comes to luck and randomness.

We know that a pocket pair will flop a set around one time out of eight. Yesterday I was dealt pocket nines three times, and pocket Queens twice. Played them all, and each one of those pairs hit a set on the flop, and won the pot. Most of them filled up. Lucky, huh?

We also know that Pocket Aces and Pocket Kings will each come to us once in every 221 deals, on average. This summer I played 30/60 at Bellagio during WSOP, and for the first five days played maybe 12 hours/day x 34 deals/hour x 5 days = 2,040 deals (conservative estimate) and never saw either of those big pairs in the hole even once. Bad luck.

So was there some special significance to those streaks, something I should have done in the midst of them, some adjustment maybe, to maximize my win or minimize my loss? No. Nothing. "In the course of random events, streaks happen." Those particular streaks were a little deep, so were slightly remarkable, but certainly not *amazing.*

What is *amazing,* at least to me, is all the guys who believe that they can be ON a streak, and if they flop a set five times in a row, or don't see those biggest pairs five days straight, like me, that HISTORY influences the likelyhood of (probability for) those events on the next deal. You would think I should have gotten over this by now. I realize that I should have gotten over this, and just come to expect it, by now. But no, I still just can't for the life of me understand why the amazingly simple concept of RANDOMNESS is so difficult for so many players to grasp or to accept.

But just because I can't understand it doesn't mean that I don't love it. I do. I deeply love that so many players in these games embrace superstitious beliefs, find imaginary "trends" in random events, and even think they can benefit by exchanging one bucket of random numbers for another (different!) bucket of random numbers. Change the deck!

In the second example above, in addition to not seeing Aces or Kings, I was just plain "card dead" those entire five days. Didn't get beat up too badly when I did get a playable hand, but got one so rarely, that it was a struggle just to win enough now and then to cover the blinds that kept coming around. And that's basically what happened; I went pretty much nowhere for nearly a week.

And ya know what? Being card dead is actually a good thing. Huh? WTF is he taking about?

Well, look at it this way. When you go hours and hours being dealt agonizingly few playable hands, remember that the same thing happens to everyone else just as much as it happens to you. So it's a Performance Delta Opportunity. Delta as in Difference.

Inevitably, your opponents will experience those same streaks of crappy starting hards that you do. If you can maintain discipline and resolve anyway, where they get impatient, maybe tilt a little, and make poor preflop decisions, play hands they shouldn't, if only out of boredom or frustration, then that is your Delta. It's your chance to play (Perform) differently (better) than they do.

OK, so maybe I don't exactly rejoice when dealt 7-2 offsuit nine deals in a row. But I do smile inwardly, and remind myself to patiently wait for the run of real good cards that's going to come sooner or later. And remind myself also that my opponents may, in this situation, be less patient, and how that's a Delta that can potentially help me beat them over time.

If you think I'm wacky to call being card dead a good thing, try this on for size: I also like to "suffer" bad beats. The badder the better. Lay it on me!

Say somebody chases a shitty draw against me, like a 2 or a 4 outer, getting bad pot odds, but they get lucky and suck out anyway. Should I get upset? What, like I wish they would play better and not do that next time? If I were RESULTS Oriented, then yes, that would be an unhappy Result. But being PERFORMANCE Oriented means not only trying to optimize your own Performance, but also, well, *liking* it when the other guy's Performance is bad, no matter the Result.

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The Book

If beats and bad luck don't annoy me, there's still a few things that do. One is writing usenet or blog poker posts, but then having to censor myself. More than once I've written something, then looked at it and realized, hey, have I said too much here? Do I really want to share this with my opponents? Some of the guys I play with read my blog.

So I try to just be entertaining, tell some jokes, maybe get philosophical or thought-provoking some, but nothing too deep.

OK, fine. But what about those strategy gems that beg for discussion? Can't. Frustrating.

So I started putting all those things into an unpublished draft document, and now it has grown to become kind of an outline or skeleton for what could maybe be a book. Lots of rough and unpolished, but real, content. Do's and Don'ts, Tips and Tricks, Q&A, Concepts, Strategies and Secrets, all trying to be real and serious "Beat the Game" information. Some if it may even have a little value. I'm not sure.

Trouble is, I wouldn't want The Book published until after I'm dead, or at least DONE playing.

I mean, imagine this: You write the bare-your-soul tell-all poker book, hold nothing back, explain everything you know, or think you know. Then one day you sit into a game, and there's some guy you never saw before, with a big stack, and upon seeing you he points, and smiles, and says "Hey, I know you! I read your book!"

Sheesh. Guess I'd have to get up and leave.

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A Golden Oldie, eight years old. Worth repeating?

Character and Psychology for Everyone

Everyone's true character shows itself sooner or later in the poker game. Good, bad or ugly, every opponent will eventually show you what they're really like, deep down inside. You may not like what you see. If you're there to win money, then you're there to take advantage of the other guy's character flaws, his tendency towards denial, his emotional instability (tilt), and sometimes, his simple stupidity. This is why Abdul advises us to "Surround yourself with idiots."

Everyone knows that poker is a combination of math and psychology. Most think that the "psychology" part pertains to your opponents— reading them, deceiving them, psyching them out, and defending yourself when they try to do those things to you. Yes, that stuff is important. But even more important is understanding that the player who can do the most psychological damage to you, your game, and your bankroll, is the one you see when you go to the restroom and look in the mirror.

-- Sgt Rock on usenet:rec.gambling.poker, May 2001

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Pucker Factor

Do you know that slang expression? Basically, it tries to quantify how severely the anal sphincter involuntarily constricts, when one is under extreme stress.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pucker+factor

I heard it a lot in the Army, but not so much any more. Back then we used to say that the ultimate PF maximizer was: Landing a jet fighter, on an aircraft carrier, at night. I guess being shot at was way up there, too.

Mrs. Rock didn't know the expression, never heard it, but came up with a pretty decent ESL equivalent of her own, without hardly even trying.

We drove round trip to Vegas for WSOP this year, June 12 thru July 12. I do most of the driving, but she switches in for an hour or so now and then.

Thing is, she's a little acrophobic, and gets freaked out driving on a highway with a steep drop over the edge, like along a canyon rim. So I do those roads, but this time, on the way home, I inadvertently let her drive, and took a nap, forgetting that were approaching Yakima, WA, where there is just such a road.

After a while I wake up, and look over to see her with a two hands white-knuckle grip on the wheel, staring straight ahead, not daring to look to the side, and maybe even perspiring a little. Uh oh. I look to the side, and yeah, we're on the edge of the mountain, sheer drop, and I just know she's not liking it at all.

"You OK?" I ask.

She's concentrating too intently to answer right away, but after a long pause she manages to say:

"My rectum is tingling."

And that, friends, is Pucker Factor.

Power Play

2009-09-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

(20/40 Limit Hold 'Em @ Diamond Lil's)

I wish I could say the hero of this hand was me, but it wasn't. I mucked preflop, and was just an observer. The hero was kid named Caine, or Cain, or Kane; I'm not sure. But, hey, let's just call him The Man. He earned it.

And the other guy I'll call Coffee, as that's close to what they call him, and I'm not sure quite what his name really is, or how it's spelled. An older gent, though not quite so old and decrepit as me, and I'd guess he comes originally from someplace East of Italy, and West of India. Kind of a Groucho Marx look, wire rim glasses, thinning hair combed straight back. Nice dresser. Big talker, even though he never seems to say anything meaningful. He did say he's an engineer and works for some Chinese company in Texas. Or something.

Coffee is a wildman. Plays 80% of his starting hands, marathon sessions, cold calls 2, 3 or 4 bets with anything, gives up his blinds, well, never, and makes some of the wackiest bets, raises, and even FOLDS, that you ever saw. He's one of those few opponents where I have to pass on that concept of "trying to get inside the other guy's head," because, well, this guy is out there where the busses don't even run.

He's also kind of a PITA (Pain in the Ass), because the dealer always has to tell him when it's his turn to act. If he's talking to a waitress, or masseuse, or on the phone, or buying chips, or stacking a pot, or babbling on to nobody in particular about why he did what he did on the last hand, or scratching his ass.... WHATEVER, the action stops dead when it reaches him, and he needs to be prompted to act. Often more than once. And he always seems to be doing one of those things at those moments, and tends more to keep doing it, wants to finish, before finally acting on his hand. Somebody probably woulda killed this guy by now, if he weren't such a Producer.

He likes to get the $1/minute massage, for 30, 40, 50 minutes, then again an hour or two later. The other day, seated beside me, he inexplicably offered to treat me to a massage! WTF?

"Me?" I asked him. "In public? With my clothes on? Not happening," I said. "But thanks anyway." The masseuse laughed.

Anyway, in this Power Play hand, the Play of the Day, maybe Play of the Month, The Man bets the river, on a board with all small cards, and Coffee raises him. The Man doesn't hesitate at all, and re-raises.

How often do you make a River Bluff Raise? You know, raise on the river with nothing, hoping to make the bettor fold a better hand. Now that's REAL poker. Against a tough opponent who is capable of making the laydown, a River Bluff Raise should be a powerful play. Right?

But in the games I play, my opponents generally are anything but tough, and most times they don't give it up when they should. If they flop top pair and get raised on the turn, you almost always have to show them a hand on the river to take the pot. They just don't lay down. In fact, some of the worst chip-burning mistakes I've made in these games, repeatedly, was trying to run over guys who aren't going anywhere; aren't gonna lay down. So maybe the RBR should be part of my toolkit, but it really isn't. I keep looking for an opportunity, but every time I think I may have one, then consider it, the chance my opponent will actually fold seems too close to zero.

Coffee, however, won't hesitate to bet the river, or even raise it, with nothing. Gets caught all the time, too, but that doesn't slow him down much.

So like I say, he raised the river here, but got re-raised right away.

Coffee shows his Ace Ten -- Ace high, no pair, and mucks it. Caught bluffing again.

Thing is, Coffee was bluffing with the best hand, but he didn't even know it! The Man shows 76, a worse no pair, a busted straight draw, and takes the pot. How often do you River Bluff RE-RAISE??

Wait, let's put that question differently: how often (in a LIMIT game) do you see ANYONE raise the river, get re-raised, and fold? Almost never happens, right? The river raiser is almost always gonna call a reraise, unless he was bluffing in the first place, and for The Man to read that, and successfully RE-BLUFF, seemed quite remarkable to me.

He didn't seem to think so. The other players loudly expressed their surprise when he even showed the re-bluff, but he just said...

"C'mon, who didn't know he [Coffee] was bluffing? You all knew, didn't you?"

It was just awesome, and won my instant and complete admiration and respect.

===

The Man put a little hurt on Mrs. Rock in a different game a couple days later. Open raised UTG with pocket deuces, and flopped a set against her unimproved pocket Kings. Ouch.

=== === === ===

Fun With Statistics

Do you keep any kind of poker log, and record your sessions? Some players do, and some don't. I do now, but there were times, not long ago, that I didn't, just because it was too painful.

If you do keep records, what do you track? Just Date and Win/Loss? That's nice, but how about hours played? And how about drop paid (number of raked pots won), and how much came off your stack for tokes, food, drink, massage, whatever.

Actually, that last category should be subdivided into two columns: costs that you DO, or DO NOT, consider to be "part of the game." Either way, count all chips that leave your stacks, because that's more that you would have cashed out. In other words, that, plus the drop, is the difference between your Gross and Net result.

Sound like too much trouble? Waste of time, tracking all that stuff? Maybe, but when I recorded all those things on Excel spreadsheets, and crunched some numbers, a very interesting statistic fell out. So interesting, in fact, that it helped me understand what I needed to do to improve my game, and cash out more chips. Do I have your attention yet?

Again, what I record in columns across a spreadsheet, and with one row for each day/session, is Date, plus:

A. Buy In Amount
B. Cash Out Amount
C. Number of raked pots won
D. Money off my stack- Game Related
E. Money off my stack- Non Game
F. Hours played (start & stop times)

Then, from the TOTALS on each of those columns, some Excel formulas tell me:

1. Cost of playing (D + (C x 5)) [drop in my game is $5. YMMV.]

2. Net Win/Loss (B + E - A)

3. Gross Win/Loss (B + D + E + (C x 5) - A)

4. Pots won per hour (F / C)

Are you getting bored yet? OK, enough detail; let's cut straight to the payoff. The surprise that came out of all this was when we compared my stats to Mrs. Rock's, and saw a similar trend repeat itself, over several sample time periods. We saw that her hourly rate was better than mine, often way better, even though I was consistently winning more pots per hour than her. OK, now stop, please, and read that last sentence again, unless you already picked up on the significance.

Now let's sidetrack a minute, and talk about my friend, G.A. Joe. He used to be G.I. Joe, but the Army kicked him out, and then he joined Gamblers Anonymous.

Joe is the worst player ever. He NEVER folds. He goes to the river with EVERY starting hand. Any time Joe could catch runner-runner for a straight or flush, or spike a set of deuces on the river, or even call a bluff and win a showdown with seven high, he does win that pot. He never misses an opportunity to get lucky, and wins every pot he possibly could win.

So Joe makes two-pair, sets, straights, flushes, whatever, more often than anyone else, and wins more pots than anyone else. And Joe loses his money faster than anyone else, too. He will go broke chasing down everything in sight. The thing that defines Joe as such a horrible player is that he plays so many hands that he shouldn't, takes the worst of it so often, and puts chips into the pot with a Negative Expectation so much.

This concept is easy to grasp, once you think about it. But even then, even after they "get it," MOST players continue to think, and act (perform) like they DON'T get it.

And that's what I was doing, just a tiny little bit, but enough to make a difference. I wasn't chasing everything, completely out of control, like Joe. But I was— believe it or don't, up to you— WINNING TOO MANY POTS! Just a few too many, because I was playing maybe more than just a few too many hands. And while some of those "extra" hands came through and won, too many of them didn't. Net result: minus.

This was a real surprise, hard to accept, because anyone you ask would probably say I'm the tightest player in the game. So which hands was I playing that I shouldn't?

My last couple posts talked some about that cutoff raise against a weak limper with, for example, a ragged Ace, and trying to get heads up, or maybe have just a couple callers. Doing that indiscriminately, against a field where more likely several will play, was one mistake, and was the first place I tightened up. I was already starting to understand why I should be making that play way less often. After a while, and a lot of thought and discussion, we identified a couple other places where I needed to tighten up. And also a couple where I had to LOOSEN up, too, but that's a whole 'nother post.

It's been a couple months now, and some small changes seem so far to be improving my rate. Too brief a sample period to be sure, but I'd like to think that my game improved just a little. Maybe enough to soon challenge Mrs. Rock's first place spot on our leader board. So what to do now? Find ways to improve it more, of course!

The Alien Hand

2009-02-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

Does this ever happen to you? Even while your hand is putting chips in the pot, your brain is yelling "Hey! What are you doing? Are you nuts??"

I call it the Alien Hand. It's almost like it has a mind, and a will, and a plan of its own. I just hope he knows what he's doing!

It happened again Friday night, when a guy open-limps early, and I raise right behind him, with Ace Ten offsuit. The good old hope this ain't a chip burner isolation play. And my brain didn't really yell, just kinda smart-ass commented, something like "Hey, didn't you do a blog post about this just the other day? Something about Breaking Bad Habits? What's wrong, you got a short memory??"

Again, I didn't think enough about who the blinds were, and in this case Big Blind was not likely to give it up; he's more like a guy who likes to call, then sometimes check-raise you on any flop, whether it hits him or not.    He's also the only guy I know whose name is both an acronym AND a palindrome. Think M*A*S*H

So he calls, and the limper calls, and the flop comes rags: 378. The Big Blind does indeed check-raise, and the limper folds. So I raise his ass right back, with nothing, and he calls.

I might have bet the turn, too, except it came a six, making me a gutshot draw.   So if he checkraises me again there would be 18 small bets in the pot, and I'd be getting 9-to-1 odds to chase an 11-to-1 draw. Not good.   Of course I may have more outs than that, but still, I'd just hate to get raised and have to lay down, even when I'm thinking he's putting the move on me, or call to draw when getting shitty odds. So when he checked the turn, I checked too. If I were a better player, maybe I could make more sophisticated decisions than this, and might play differently, and cash out more chips. Maybe if I bet here and got checkraised, and thought he had nothing, or even if he had something, I should reraise anyway. Maybe. Guess I don't quite play at that level.

So anyway, the river is a Jack, and he bets out. Now I'm getting 6-to-1 odds that he has nothing, and that my Ace high is good. One time out of seven? This guy? HELL YES, I tell myself, and call. Funny thing was, he turns over Ace Nine, and so it turns out my Ace Ten IS good. Once again an opponent has made a river bet that, in retrospect, makes no sense at all. Well, at least not to me. That's really confusing, because this guy is the best player in the room― if you don't believe me, just ask him― and so of course I'm trying to study him, and learn from him, and pick up on some of those advanced strategies. But, sadly, I still haven't learned how make value-betting Ace high into a winning play. Maybe someday. Or maybe not. :-)
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The Dog

Saturday night 20/40 at Diamond Lils. Main game, after midnight, I'm the sole ethnic minority at this table, and these guys are gambooling, for sure. No blind stealing or chopping going on, and rarely less than five players seeing the flop. Sometimes a raise or two, but just as often not.

So I limp in on the button, after several others, with K9. The Dog. Flop comes 984, but by the time the action reaches me, it's already three bets !

In many games in this situation, against most players, I'd probably want to just let it go, and figure somebody must already have a real hand. But not against these guys. With only the tiniest voice in my head whining that it might be a little over aggressive, I cap it at four bets. I think there's a good enough chance that I have the best hand. Everyone calls.

Turn is a 3, and now a backdoor flush draw on board, and I'm also worried someone out there is slowplaying a set, or maybe top two. Checked to me, I bet, and they ALL call. Yikes! Where am I at in this hand?<

A 7 on the river, checked to me again, and I can't think of any reason to bet now. I check, and two guys, both the flop aggressors, turn over Ten Jack for the nut straight, and split the pot.

If I my poker philosophy was Results Oriented, then I should be unhappy about this outcome. But since I am devoutly Performance Oriented, I was just fine with it. Did you ever see my essay about that, and the secret philosophical poker equation?

       Result = Performance ± Luck

That essay is here: Part I & Part II.

Sure, they sucked out on me [luck] , but I made them pay the max [performance] , and then when they got there [result], and both of them tried for the check-raise [performance-them], but I didn't take the bait [performance-me]. So even though the result was unfavorable, I'm happy with performance, and that's all that really matters.
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If I Ran the Room<

Isn't it funny how many players try to tell the houseman or the dealer how to run the room or deal the game? And some players really like to do that, don't they?. Sometimes they give ORDERS to the dealer, and TELL him what to do. Not me. No way. It's their house, I'm a guest, and it's not my place to do more than maybe make a polite comment, or at most a suggestion now and then.

But here, on my own blog, I can sound off a little, right? Hope you don't mind.

1. No more small chips! 20/40 is a RED CHIP GAME. When a player goes all-in, isn't it silly to make him, or even let him, put in those last two dollars? If he has five $1 chips, then fine, that equals a Redbird, so put it in. But odd amounts? Forget it, and stop wasting time making all that small change for the side-pot.

And when it's a split pot, stop wasting time breaking the odd $5 chip down into $1 chips. It's a RED CHIP GAME, so just give the odd red chip to the entitled player, and be done with it.

2. No more curiosity viewing! Every room as a rule saying something like "Any player at the table is entitled to see a called hand." So when two guys jam it to squeeze you out, then after you fold they just check it down, and on the river one guy shows one card and the other guy starts to throw away, you can tell the dealer "Both Hands, Please!"

This is a good rule, useful for detecting or discouraging collusion, and in that "squeeze play" situation, it makes sense. In fact, when two guys do that to me, and it does happen now and then, I do ask to see both hands.

But more often the player asking to see a hand on the end has no reason to suspect any hanky-panky, and is simply being curious. Now that's just wrong. But it's difficult, if not impossible, to base a rule on what a player is thinking, or what their motivation is, for asking to see a hand.

So if I ran the room, when a player asks to see a hand, the floorman is called, and the requestor has to explain why they're asking. If they can make any kind of case beyond "I'm just curious," then fine. Otherwise, forget it. After this happened a few times, players would come to understand the difference between game-protection and curiosity, and would stop asking just because they're curious. Wouldn't that be a good thing?

If you asked the cardroom to consider making those changes, they'd probably tell you they can't, because of State Gambling Commission rules. I think they'd just say that, and that the Commission people don't know enough, or pay attention enough, to make rules like that. Not long ago the house rule changed to let a player "Buy the Button." Did that change get approved by the Commission? Are you kidding me? Do you really think anyone there has even half a clue what "Buy the Button" means, or that they specify rules and regulations to that level of detail? Maybe so, but I kind of doubt it.

The other day I was in a hand, 3 way action, I'm in the middle, and the button bets the turn. The guy ahead of me calls, and at that point I didn't like my chances, and folded. Then the river comes, and the first guy just throws away. Well, in that case I immediately asked the dealer "Both hands, Please." I didn't so much want to see that hand that folded with no bet to me, as the guy who took the pot without even having to bet or show, when he should have had to do one of those two things.

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Nightmares

It was a week ago, but this hand is still keeping me awake nights. I've described times that my opponents made mistakes, and maybe blew off a few chips, betting or calling when they shouldn't. Bad enough. But this time it was me that screwed up, and it cost me the whole damn (large) pot.

I'm in seat 8, as usual, and right after me in 9 is this 20-something kid who will call raises and/or chase to the end with just about anything. Fine. But he is also Mr. Maximum Slow Play. If he flops or makes 2 pair or better, he will always wait until the turn, or more often the river, before doing any raising. One time he smooth-called my preflop raise with pocket Kings, and waited for the turn to raise. Every other time he raised the turn or river and showed, he had at least two pair. Always.

So...comes this hand where he's on the button, several people limp in ahead of us, and I raise King Queen Diamonds from the cutoff. Max, both blinds, and all the limpers call.

Flop comes Jack, Ten, four, rainbow. Open ender, two overcards, in a volume pot. I like it. Checked to me, I bet, Tom-Tom checkraises from the blind, and I 3 bet. We lose a couple, but it's still four way.

This guy in the blind, Tom-Tom, is even older than me, and is always there in fresh, clean blue or green one-piece shop-suit coveralls. He is another who will play just about anything, and is often quite unpredictable. For example, he called my 3 bets on the flop, didn't reraise, but now he bets out when a five hits the turn. What does that mean? He likes the five, made him two pair? Hard to say. Like I said, unpredictable.

So at this point I'm not raising any more, just calling with my open ender, good odds, but then Max raises behind me. Shit. Tom-Tom calls. I call.

The river does not make my straight, but is a King, giving me top pair. We let Max bet, and Tom-Tom calls. What do I do? Overcall?<

Remember we said said how Max never raised the turn or river with less than 2 pair? And what did Tom-Tom bet out with, then call that raise with, on the turn? 37 bets in the pot, but I decide, too quickly, that one of these guys must have me beat. I fold.

Tom-Tom calls, though, and Max turns over Ace Jack. Tom shows Queen Jack. So they both flopped top pair, and I sucked out on the river, but didn't even know it. I been watching Max all day, thought I had his number, but I sure didn't have it this time, and it sure did cost me. So, just how dumb, how terrible, was my laydown? Pretty damn bad, I'm afraid. I mean, to give it up in that spot you have to be really, really, sure you are beat.

Then another mistake: I told Mrs. Rock about this disaster, and now she keeps looking at me with what appears to be pity, while sadly shaking her head. And I'm also telling it to you, my readers, even though you may laugh at me over it. Why? Because I want to remember this hand, painful as it may be, so next time I'm faced with this situation, where I think I really know the guy, maybe I can think more carefully, and make a better decision. The decision I made this time really sucked.

=============<

Breaking Bad Habits

2009-01-19T23:18:00.000-08:00

(20/40 limit Hold Em, Diamond Lil's, Renton, WA)

Smith limps in early, and I raise from the middle with AcTs. That's the bad habit I'm talking about, right there.

If the blinds were tiny, say just one small blind, then you should only come in with the biggest hands, right? And if the blinds were huge, for whatever reason, then you should be much looser about what you come in with. Right?

So when a loose player limps in early, and he's the kind who plays a lot of hands but raises with his big ones, I kind of see that as the blinds getting bigger.

Then, if I can isolate him, get the blinds in there as dead money, and hope I hit something, or he hits nothing, or maybe puts money in drawing, but never hits, and my Ace wins. Lots of ways to win, hopefully right on the flop. Seems like a reasonable plan, doesn't it?

Trouble is, doing this too often, against the wrong guys, can be a dumb play, and cost a lot of chips. Smith isn't the kind to flop nothing and meekly fold. Well, maybe sometimes, but sometimes he will play back at you with nothing. What I'm saying is that making this play against him may have been a poor decision. :-(

And those two guys in the blinds aren't the kind to give up easily, and I didn't think enough about that, either. I just saw that open-limp go in the pot, looked down at AT, got excited, and raised.

So this "isolation play" may be a good one at times, in the right situation, but doing it too often, indescriminantly, is probably a chip burner. This was one of those times that it probably was not a great idea, but I did it anyway, and, again, that's the bad habit I'm taking about. In this case I got lucky, and it turned out well.

Small Blind, Big Blind, and Smith all call, 8 bets in the pot, and the flop comes Q86, all Clubs. Checked to me, I bet, small blind checkraises, call, call, and I three bet. Wouldn't you? Everyone calls. Twenty small bets in the pot.

Turn is pretty much a blank, 4d, unless 5-7 is out there against me. With these guys, anything is possible. They all check to me. I have the Ace of Clubs, nut draw, but not much else. What should I do? What would you do?

There's 20 small bets in the middle, so a bet would get 10-to-1 pot odds that they all fold, and I don't even have to get there. Is there better than a ten percent chance they'd all muck? I don't think so. Probably closer to zero percent. :-)

And if I bet and get raised, then I have to call, and will wish I hadn't bet. Wouldn't you? Then if an Ace or Ten comes on the river I may have to make a crying call again. Screw that. So I tell the dealer: "Free Card!"

Ka-ching. King of Clubs. Check, check, then Smith agonizes a long time, kinda mumbling to himself, reviewing the action, analyzing the situation, then, finally, he bets. No Hollywood, I just raise right away. He's the kind of guy who can know he's beat, but has to pay off and see it anyway. So he pays, then I show, and stack the chips.

Afterwards Smith tells me, a couple times, that my check on the turn confused him. "I never saw you check like that!" Huh? I don't get it. Before the flop my play, perhaps foolishly, tried to run over the game a little. But once that flop came, everything I did was based on the math, not psychology, and wasn't trying to be deceptive. Seems like his thought process, trying to put me on a hand there, failed completely, but, hey, don't blame me! :-) And what the hell did he have, anyway? I dunno.

I liked telling about this hand, and maybe this story makes me look good, but only because I got lucky on the end. It's was better than three times more likely that no club would come, and then I wouldn't even be telling this.

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

More Fun Things to Say

Back in the day, before Blogs, I used to post "Trip Reports" to usenet:rec.gambling.poker. In a 2002 WSOP Report, I wrote about a handful of Fun Things to Say (FTTS) in a Hold 'Em Game; things like:

-- "You're Not Gonna Check-Raise Me, Are Ya?"

-- "Sorry, I Got Excited..."

-- "All That Practice Really Paid Off"

-- "I Can't Call You..." (then raise)

-- "Six Titties!"

-- "I Didn't Know What To Put Me On"

-- "Keep Looking, Maybe You'll Find Something"

You can read those old posts here, or just that '02 TR describing those original FTTS in parts, here: Part I, Part II and Part III.

Here are some more of my favorite newer FTTS.

1. Say the pot is raised from early position preflop, and I'm behind the raiser, middle position, with something like, for example, A4 suited. Especially Spades. :-) Impulse says call, but of course I cannot. So while mucking, I might say:

"Damn, I wish I was on tilt, so I could call you with this!"

2. When betting or calling (or especially when raising) a completely rainbow turn:

"Flush Draw!"

3. I could have, maybe should have, bet the river, but didn't. I win, and now that the showdown is over, we see that I would have been called. Missed a bet. BFD. But while the dealer pushes the pot I might say:

"Is it too late to bet?" -- and then maybe --
"Just gimme twenty, and we'll call it even..."

4. These are rather cruel ones, for use only on someone you don't much like.

-- When they end a long session and declare that "I finally got even!" you can ask them:

"For Life?"

-- When he says that "I just want to win back 'my' chips..." that he lost earlier, you can politely point out how they really aren't his chips any more.

5. No bet on river, then a player ahead of you just mucks. Or maybe he bets, you call, and then he mucks rather than turn over:

"I can beat that!"

6. A scarecard hits the river, I'm last, the other guy(s) check to me, but I'm not betting either, so just shake my head and tell them...

"I wouldn't bet now with YOUR money!"

7. Ran bad, and have to rebuy. So hand over the cash, but also tell the cashier or floorman:

"That last rack I you sold me was defective. Please have 'them' credit my account."

8. You win a couple pots and are busy stacking chips, then you get another hand, there's a raise, you have garbage, and are folding.

"I'd call you if I wasn't running so bad."

=============

Doc, Can I Get a Prescription? Please?

I wasn't really paying attention, wasn't looking, and just heard part of the audio on this TV commercial. It was for a drug called Mirapex, to treat "Restless Leg Syndrome," or RLS. You know, like that guy in your game who nervously jacks his leg up and down 300 times a minute. No, wait, I guess that's not really what it is. Thing is, the voiceover ended with "...side effects may include increased gambling or sexual urges." No kidding, that's what they said! Now I don't really know what the hell RLS is, but, seriously, I WANT THOSE MEDS! Who wouldn't ??

=============

Who's The Dummy?

A weak and way too loose player open-limps in early position, could have just about anything, and I raise in middle, well, *almost* late position, with 66, trying to isolate him. But Jesse calls out of the small blind.

Flop comes something like J53, two clubs, and they both check and call my bet.

Third club on the turn, and they both check again. I hold the 6c, but, gee, I hate to chase a flush with anything much smaller than a King. :-) I do bet, tho--- not so much because I have that tiny club, but because I hope they both have no club, and might even fold a Jack or a seven, or not be there to hit some overcard on the river. Limper mucks, but Jesse is still calling.

Then the river puts a fourth club on board, and he bets out. Well, shit, he must have a bigger club than me, and I need to fold, right? Well, yeah, if I'm wearing that hat that says "weak-tight." But wait a minute. What if he's betting with the hope that I AM THE ONE with no club? You know, just like I did against him a moment ago, on the turn.

I don't try to count dollars in the pot to figure odds. Instead, I count "small bets," in $20 increments, even on the turn and river. Makes pot odds mental math way easier.

In this hand, preflop, then on the flop and turn respectively, 7+3+4 small bets went into the pot. Plus 2 more he just put in makes 16, and it would cost me 2 small bets to call this showdown. So I'm getting 16-to-2, or 8-to-1 odds.

Is there better than 8:1 odds, aka "one chance in nine" that, for whatever reason, Jesse has bet with no club all? Just one chance out of nine? Put differently, better than an 11% chance? I think about this for a couple seconds, decide HELL YES, probably two or three chances out of nine! So I call.

Jesse turns over 5s4c, and my 6c wins. Funny thing was how the other players watching all this, his buddies, reacted like they thought his was a bold river bet, and my call was weak and wimpy. I still like my call, and don't like his bet at all. If he had bet a big club for value, or no club at all as a bluff, that might make sense. But with that tiny club, well, seems to me that either check-fold, or maybe check-call, are his only plays. YMMV.

=============

Feedback Appreciated

Turns out I never really configured this blog, and it was set to only allow comment postings only by registered members, or something. Sorry! I just didn't know better. Now it's set wide open, anyone can comment, and I'd love to hear from you, so please do comment. After all, why write a blog unless you can see that somebody is reading?

New Years Resolutions

2009-01-15T02:04:00.000-08:00

New Years Resolutions. Yeah, we're already half way thru January, but it's not too late, is it? I've finally made a few:

1. Play MORE Hold 'Em, specifically $20/40 at Diamond Lil's. Last year I played maybe 2 or 3 times a week, but this year I don't want to stay home more than 2 or 3 days a week. So far I've played nine of the eleven days this month. On track.

2. Play BETTER Hold 'Em. Specifically, focus on that one particular weak part of my game-- the one I've known about and struggled with for a long time-- get it fixed, and turn it from a weakness into a strength. Finally I am actually doing better with this the last couple weeks. If you ask in person what the hell I'm talking about here, I'll explain it to you. Maybe.

3. Finish the year with a better poker win record than Mrs. Rock. That has never, ever, happened before-- not even close-- but this *could* be the year.

4. Post more on this blog. Bring it back to life. Try to be entertaining.

=============

Misread the Board, Call with 10 High, and Win the Pot.

I don't think I'd ever seen his stranger before, but I sure hope to see him again. About my age, thinning wavy hair combed straight back, kinda looks a little like that old movie actor, Melvyn Douglas. On a bad day. Wears wire-rim glasses with thick lenses, but the prescription must not be right, because when he gets his cards he leans in with his head down right by the rim of the table, gets his face within a couple inches of the hand, and takes a good look. It's pretty funny to watch.

So anyway, I'm in seat 8 when this guy sits down in 9, and tells everyone that "I've been playing this game for a long, long time, so you guys better not try to run over me!" Then he proceeds to play more than half of his starting hands, and make bets, calls, and even a couple raises, that, well, just made no sense at all. And it doesn't seem like he's particularly trying to be deceptive; more like he has no clue what he's doing.

Then comes this hand where The Stranger and two other guys limp in, and I get a free play in the Big Blind, with Ten-Three. 4 players, the flop comes 8, Jack, Queen, two suited cards. I think a second about betting my gut-shot. What's the chance I can win right now, don't even have to get there? Fugedaboutit. The Stranger had limped in UTG, could have anything, the other two guys are likely to call, or raise, if they have even a piece of that flop. So I check, and, long story short, nobody bets the flop and nobody bets the turn, a blank.

Then a 9 on the river makes my straight, but makes that possible flush too. I check, The Stranger bets, and the other two guys fold. Small pot, but good odds this guy has nothing at all. I call. He hesitates, doesn't want to show, but finally turns over some nothing like five deuce off. Just as I'm tabling my hand to show my straight and claim the pot, I look at the board again. Holy Shit, that isn't Jack Queen out there, it's two Jacks! I don't have a straight. I don't have anything. But my Ten does have him high-carded, so I win. A couple other players who have been watching, and Vicky, the dealer, all look at me in surprise, trying to decide if I'm an idiot or a genius. I could have explained that I had misread the board, but admitting that would ruin the illusion, and take them-- rightfully-- to that "idiot" conclusion. So I don't say a word. :-)

Note to self: Look at the board more carefully. Twice. And maybe go see that optometrist who sent a postcard 2 years ago saying it's time for a checkup..

====================

Another Bad Play

Just got done saying "Play Better," but here's a mistake I've been thinking about for a week.

I open raise in late-middle position with Queen Ten suited, get a couple callers, and flop A94, with two of my suit. I bet, and get those same couple callers.

Turn is a Ten, and when the Big Blind check raises me, I raise him right back. I'm thinking that I can check behind him on the river, unless I make that flush. This plan starts unraveling right away: He caps it. Oops.

But then the River brings another ten, and he checks. Without enough thought, I bet, he calls, and I show my trip tens. Then he shows his pocket fours, making him fours full of tens, and takes the pot.

Then he tells me that he had to put me on Ace Ten, and didn't bet the river for fear I had filled up with a better boat than he did. Yes, of course. Thing is, I should have given more thought to "what does he think I have?" based on the action, and figured that out myself, after he four-bets the turn but then checks on that particular river card.

So my river bet was really flakey. Should have known better where I was in that hand, and saved those chips!

=============

Checking the Nuts on the River

Don't you hate it when you go for a check-raise, and nobody bets? I sure do. Especially on the River, when you turn it over, and everyone laughs. How humiliating! :-)

So I almost never take that chance, checking the nuts at the end, but there are exceptions, and against this guy was the one. I'll just call him The Feeler.

He came into my game a couple days ago, don't think I ever saw him before, and within a couple minutes of sitting down into seat 9, he reaches over and pinches the dealer's ass. No kidding.

She didn't much like that, told him "Don't!!" and also kind of half-seriously called out for Security. Then, a minute later, he does it again! Again she tells him "Don't do that !!" and calls out for security, sounding more serious this time, but the security guy apparently heard her the first time, because now he's standing right behind and looking right at this player. And yet he does nothing, and says nothing. Go figure.

I may be wrong, but it seemed to me like the dealer was so bothered by all this that she was almost ready to burst into tears. I just couldn't understand why the security guy was watching this behavior but doing nothing about it.

So I get my cell ready, planning to, if it happens again, call 911 and find out if doing that to a lady in this city is a criminal assault, like I *think* it is. Yes, I was ready to call the cops and make a complaint myself, even if the "victim" and the house weren't taking any action. Ya think they would have laughed at me, or would they take it seriously? I'm not sure. But although he never did stop running his mouth, The Feeler kept his hands to himself after that, so I didn't make that call, and didn't find out.

Can you tell that I don't much like this guy? Well, guess I do like him in my game, if not personally, and he was there again tonight, when I found Ace-King Hearts in the small blind. Several players, including The Feeler, limped in, and I raise. Flop comes two hearts, I bet, and get two callers. Turn comes a blank, I check, they check: free card.

Deuce of hearts on the river makes me the nuts. Normally I hate to check here, take a chance that nobody bets, but I already checked the turn, showed apparent weakness, and feel confident The Feeler will try to pick up this pot, if I let him. I check, and he does not disappoint. Didn't call my raise, just threw his cards in disgust. Felt sooooo good.

=============

Your Brain as a Noise Canceling Circuit

Ever used noise-canceling headphones? They have a tiny microphone on the outside that picks up the same environment noises that you DON'T want to listen to, apart from your music, then they generate and "play" an OPPOSITE of that noise, to cancel it. This can be very effective.

Well, if you're in a noisy cardroom talking to your honey or your homie on your cell, but can't hardly hear them for all the noise around you, there's a little trick that might help. All the noise is coming in both your ears, and also into your cellphone's microphone, and mixing with the voice that you're struggling to listen to.

The cellphone's mic is probably just a tiny hole at the bottom; if you COVER that with a fingertip, then your telephone ear doesn't get all the noise that the other ear gets, and your brain should step in and separate the two, and you *should* be able to hear better. Satisfaction guaranteed, or double your money back. Offer void where prohibited, or if your brain is defective.

Remember to uncover the mic when you want to talk. This may take some coordination and manual dexterity, but, hey, you can shuffle stacks of chips with both hands, right? So you should be able to handle this. :-)

====================

Superbowl Sunday at the D.L.

2008-02-11T00:24:00.000-08:00

Got to Diamond Lil's somewhere around the first quarter of the ballgame. Not that it made any difference to me; I personally have little interest in college or pro sports, and you'll sure never see me going to a stadium or arena and paying big bucks to watch a bunch of millionaires play ball with each other. Hell, THEY should pay ME to come watch! They can afford it way better than I can. And besides, the only sport I'm really into is: Co-Ed Wrestling. And NOT as a spectator!

The parking lot and the room were both half empty, but there were two 20/40 games going. I landed sixth on the list, but it moved quickly, and soon I got a seat, then didn't move an inch for the next seven hours. Well, my stack moved— downwards— in spite of a truly wonderful lineup. A sixty something Chinese lady sat next to me all that time, and timidly went to the river with nearly every hand, making rebuy after rebuy. The one time she actually made a bluff, then proudly showed it, we all clapped and cheered for her. Well, not the guy she knocked off the best hand on the river, but everyone else.

Hadn't seen Singapore John for, like, a year or more, but there he was in seat five, his old favorite. Said he's moving back there, just in town to sell his house, and leaving tomorrow. So I guess this was his Seattle Poker swan song. Too bad, as he's a fun guy action player who likes nearly every starting hand too.

The rest of the lineup had just a couple slightly rough spots, but otherwise was nice and soft. Kinda like Charmin. It also included this one incredibly stoic guy, a regular I won't name, who can sit there for hours, never say anything, passively play nearly every hand, and rebuy, rebuy, rebuy. After a while he may curse some very quietly, under his breath, but otherwise never says a word.

So it was a great game, but I sucked, and couldn't do much. Oh well. At least they play here every day, so plenty of opportunity to get revenge.

---
How Low Can You Go?

No, we're not talking about dancing the Limbo. This ties in to an old Sgt. Rock quote (see the archives) about how "Everyone's true character shows itself sooner or later in the poker game." We're talking about those players who get beat, then "punish the dealer" by deliberately mucking their hand AWAY from the center, instead of towards the center.

Sometimes they are actually able to inflict physical pain on the poor dealer who has to reach and stretch to retrieve that low-life's cards, even when she already has an aching back, or shoulders, or worse, from the repetitive motion stresses and strains of dealing the game every day. And that doesn't even begin to talk about the arrogance, the attitude, the insult, the disrespect, conveyed by this despicable gesture. I guess this is why I could never be a dealer; first time some asshole pulled that shit on me, I would surely say or do something that would get me fired right away.

And how about the utter stupidity of blaming bad luck on the dealer in the first place? If she really had any control, wouldn't she put her sister and both her cousins into the game? What kind of pathetically immature personality does it take, what kind of "denial" to you have to be in, to hold the dealer responsible for which cards, shuffled by a machine, come off the deck?

And ya know what's really frightening? These same people, with this same broke-dick defective reasoning, get to vote in the presidential election. Or if you or I were to somehow be arrested for something and put on trial, innocent, these same brain-damaged people could be on the jury, deciding our fate. Scary!

---
To Catch a Thief

Even worse is a player who steals chips from the pot, and this next part is posted as a public service. I thought I saw a something wrong in the D.L. 20/40 the other day, and it reminded me that I thought I had maybe seen the same thing from the same guy at the Mucks last year. I'm only 82% sure I saw what I thought I saw, so I cannot name this guy. I'll just say that he's younger than me, and English is not his first language, but he is not Asian. He's not a regular at D.L., but I see him there once or twice a month or so. That narrows it down some, so if you play or deal in Seattle, well, keep your eyes open, and try to catch and bust this guy if you can. Here's what I thought I saw:

A bet and one or more raises have been called. The betting round is over, maybe the showdown has occurred and our boy has lost, or maybe it's just the turn. Our boy has some loose chips on the cloth in front of his stack, near his hands, and then his bets and calls are stacked out in front of him. The dealer has already verified that all the bets are "out there," correct number of chips everywhere; the pot is right."

But then our boy "helps" the dealer bring in his bets, even when no help is needed. Some players help sometimes with the edge of their hand, or fingertips, or maybe "clear" their hand after helping, to show that nothing went South. Not this guy. He pushes them out with his palms, smearing them into the cloth, breaking the neat stacks into a loose pile of chips, just in time for the dealer to take that pile to the pot. Then he drags his hands, palms still down, back over the aforementioned loose chips in front of his stack, grabs some of those, and puts them on his stacks. Got the picture?

I saw this three times in a session last week, and was thinking that there is no reason to do this-- handle your chips and bets in quite that way-- unless you wanted to steal, and every reason to do it, exactly that way, if you did want to steal. But I'm slow, and didn't figure all that out until the third time I saw it. Shortly after that, the alleged perpetrator racked up and left.

So to bust this guy, you would have to catch the dealer the moment she has taken that pile, but before she can bring it into the pot, and have her stack it back up again, and show that what just a moment ago was 16 chips, is now only 14 or 15 chips. And I damn well better be right, or face some extreme embarrassment, or worse.

---
My Worst Play This Year (So Far)

I open limp under the gun with pocket deuces. Now that may seem bad right there, and it usually would be. But this is the late night game, 5 or 6 or more players seeing nearly every flop, usually for one or two bets, so I feel just fine about the limp.

Shauna raises right behind me. Oops. Can't like that much. But then she gets a few callers. OK, that's better.

And it flopped real nice, too: Q 4 2. I checkraise, and Shauna calls.

Turn brings another Queen, I bet, she raises, and I just call. I have to put her on three Queens, or a big pair, and still think my boat is best. I'm vaguely planning to wait and see that the river isn't too threatening, maybe raise her then, but not yet.

And I was damn glad I didn't, too, when the river brought yet another Queen! I check, she bets, I call, and she shows me four Queens.

So that's that's my worst play so far this year: The last call on the river. A moment ago I had a big hand, but now I have shit. What can I beat? I needed to take a moment, take a breath, accept the suckout, fold, and save some chips. But instead, almost by reflex, and as if "in denial," I quickly made that truly moronic call. Sick.
---
MegaTell

After the house rake, Lil's drops another $2 per hand, to fund the bad beat and super bad beat jackpots, plus they give a $500 cash bonus for the highest Hold Em hand, every two hours. So whenever you make a big boat, or especially quads or a straight flush, you're wondering if someone else in the room already hit a higher hand, or if you have a shot at the five bills. The highest hand (so far) is recorded on the big whiteboard up front, right beside the waiting lists. You can always look up there to see what you gotta beat. And if you're in the 20/40 Main Game, you're at Table 1, very near that board.

If this isn't The Mother of All Tells, then I don't know what is. A scare card hits the turn, or river, and the player looks up at the board, to see what the high hand is. Five times out of six that I've seen someone take that look, it turned out that they had indeed just made the monster hand. And when I made quads on the river the other day, I really had to fight the urge to look.
---

See also my old posts to rec.gambling.poker at:
http://sgt.rock.home.comcast.net

More Weekends at the DL

2007-11-11T14:43:00.000-08:00

I'm still playing 20/40 at Diamond Lil's 3 or 4 days a week, usually sessions of 12 hours or more. The games are so good I'm kinda wishing I could go there every day. Sometimes having a real J-O-B is SO inconvenient. :-) I'd retire tomorrow if I didn't like the web programming work (and the paydays) so much.

State law doesn't allow 24 hour operation, so Lil's games shut down from 6:00am to 10:00am daily. I used to try to get there right at ten, to start the 20/40, then play until mid-evening. But lately the second and third 20/40 games are starting sooner, so I'm coming in afternoons, and staying later. Where the day game is real good, the late night game is, well, awesome.

The swings can get kinda big in these games. Oftentimes it's a rammin' jammin' thing where some guys and even girls will raise or cap preflop with some the really wacky hands, because, "Hey, nobody is ever gonna put me on this !!" :-)

So you hang on, and play good hands, and keep reminding yourself what a huge chip-burning mistake it would be to try to run over these people. Instead, you let them try to run over you, then try to help them run into a wall (when you have a big hand), or maybe just a speedbump (when you have just a decent hand and they have nothing.)

And they WILL keep betting, without regard for whether or not they have anything. Have you ever called a heads-up river bet with absolutely nothing, like 45 suited on a draw that never got there, just for the pot odds that the bettor might muck his hand when you call? What? That sounds crazy, doesn't it?

But that very situation presented itself the other day. I had been studying the guy for some time, he had already "bet then mucked" three times within an hour, and I really felt like I could *tell* that he was about to do it again; after he bet, he was uncomfortably squirming the same way he had those other times. So I called with 5 high, the bettor mucked, and I stacked the chips. I roughly estimate this to be a situation that will occur about as often as a lunar eclipse.

-----

Friday night I came in on the button with Jd Td for five way action. Considered raising, but looked like the blind might raise, so I just limped, and, sure enough, she did raise.

The flop came with Kd and Qd, giving me a straight draw AND a flush draw. The blind raiser checked, and someone bet early. I just called, expecting the blind to raise for me, and again she did not disappoint. So I 3 bet, and she capped it. Still five way!

Both my draws got there on the turn: 9d! We capped it. Then we capped it again on the river. She had the A high nut flush, and kept raising me back with no hesitation. Either she didn't see the possible straight flush, or else just refused to accept that she might be beat.

In addition to that really nice pot, my straight flush also won the bi-hourly $500 High Hand cash bonus. The next night Mrs. Rock made a Royal, so she took down a $500 bonus too.

--------

Franklin

This guy is a wildman. I mean, look up "Maniac" in the Poker Dictionary, and you'll see his picture in there as the example. When the mood strikes him-- and it usually does-- Franklin will call or raise or cap, with just about anything.

Couple days in a row recently, he sat beside the dealer with a huge stack, sometimes over seven thousand, and ran over pretty much everyone. For a while. Eventually the wild play catches up and the stack dwindles (doh), but along the way it's quite a ride. Everyone has a real good time.

My man Franklin made a play the other night that was, well, just remarkable. It was mid-evening, and the barmaids had been kept really busy for a couple hours. In other words, several players, especially Frank, were severely hammered. No shortage of rammin' and jammin' in this game.

In this hand the pot is capped 6 ways before the flop, then on the flop is bet and raised by the time the action reaches Frank. He three bets. No surprise yet.

It takes a while for the action to get back around to him, and by this time it is capped again. Then, for some reason, Franklin is taking forever to make his decision to call. He's just sitting there in his wrap-around shades, "thinking," and it takes about 30 seconds before the dealer and everyone else finally realize that, between the time he three bet and now, Franklin has fallen asleep. It was one of the funniest things I ever saw in the game.

Sadly, Franklin got himself 86'd about a week later. A new policy said that waitstaff will decide when an intoxicated patron should be "cut off," and that doing so also means they will be "picked up" from whatever game they might be in. In other words, if he's completely toasted, let's get him outta here and back on the road, where he belongs. Brilliant. And if there's some guy in the game you want to get rid of, and if he's drinking, just slip the waitress a big toke, get her to declare him cut-off, and, poof, he's gone. Sweet, huh? :-)

Same day this new "policy" starts, Frank shows up, and starts chugging. Next thing you know they cut him off AND tell him to cash out. He doesn't appreciate this, starts loudly expressing his unhappiness with liberal and non-stop use of some language that is not allowed in the cardroom. So then "go home for today" expands to include "and don't come back!" Tragic! I miss him already.

That policy changed within a couple days. Now they've found a way to circumvent the need to cut anyone off; instead, they "slow him down" by saying they can't serve him another drink "for a while," like an hour or so.

-----

Talk Dirty To Me

Sometimes the good laugh comes from someplace you wouldn't expect. Alex is a Southeast Asian transplant ESL kind of guy, nice friendly kid, always smiling, but kinda quiet; doesn't usually have a lot to say. Well, the other night there was this young Asian woman in the game who was going out of her way to impress everyone with how frequently and loudly she could say the F word. I guess the dealer is supposed to say something, but he didn't. Me? Couldn't care less, one way or the other. If anything, I guess I found it "amusing."

After a while, though, Alex pipes up and tells her "Miss, please watch your language. There are gentlemen present." :-)

But all these players throwing around the F word, and various other taboo letter-words, are kinda pathetic, and are just amateurs. They don't get it; they don't understand that a real professional knows how to talk dirty-- maybe even filthy-- without actually using any of those words that can get you in trouble. Here's an example, and we leave it as an exercise for the reader to imagine the reaction this outburst produced:

Shauna is a tough aggressive player, and a slender, sexy, bright and sophisticated young woman, with kind of a pixie look. She's in the game (or the 50 games at the Mucks) most days.

Recently she got her short dark hair tinted with some red accent streaks, and it came out real nice.

Next day she's in the game sitting next to me, with red fingernails and toenails to match the hair, and this guy comes over and starts, well, not really "hitting on" her, but just saying how much he admires the coordinated new look. Then, in a suggestive way, he asks "Is *everything* colored red?"

Shauna is not particularly shy. "Oh," she responds, "Are you asking me if the carpet matches the drapes?"

Hey, they started this, not me. I mean, I'm not gonna go there on my own, but they brought it up, and a crazy-good riposte immediately popped into my (admittedly somewhat twisted) head, and how could I resist? So I jumped right in, and said:

"Wait, can I guess? I'm gonna go with hardwood floors."

[Editor's Note: Almost immediately Sarge was told - but NOT shown - that he had guessed correctly.]

Weekends at the D.L.

2007-09-18T01:16:00.000-07:00

Last Friday night we made history at Diamond Lil's, here in Renton, Washington. (Renton is to Seattle as Henderson is to Las Vegas. South end..)

For the first time ever, just about midnight, they spread a FOURTH $20/40 Hold 'Em game. They'd been peaking at three games most nights for a couple weeks, and that in itself is noteworthy enough. But now they're pretty much the only Washington room spreading this limit, and Lil's has established herself as *the* place to play 20/40.

So I've had a clear choice to make lately. Always great to have options, ain't it? I can drive 15 miles to the huge Muckleshoots tribal casino in Auburn, Tuesday or Thursday, and play in a $50/100 game that sometimes features a couple ding dongs, but pretty much always includes several of the toughest players in Washington, guys that I would, well, just as soon not see in my game.

Or I can drive 2 miles to Diamond Lil's any day, and play their $20/40 Party Game. Well, it starts out half-serious in the morning, but by early evening the liquor starts flowing, and the players start tilting, and you know the rest. These are 'fasten your seatbelt' games. These often are 'matchstick' games, where, hey, no matter how late it is, or how tired you are, can't afford to leave, so prop your eyes open with matchsticks if necessary, and play on!

Our state law changed last Spring, and now allows this higher limit outside the tribal rooms. I think it was around that same time Lil's started paying $500 for high hand every 2 hours Mon, Tues and Weds, and $300 other days. They also have both a bad beat jackpot and a harder-to-hit super jackpot. So they rake $3, then drop another $2 to fund those "incentives." This means that in their $4/8 game, they're dropping 1.25 small bets per hand! In the 20/40 it becomes 0.25 small bets, somewhat more overcomeable. Is that a word?

Ego says that I should want to play in the bigger game. My years of experience, and (what I should like to think is) my reputation in the local poker community, says that I should want to play in the bigger game. Yeah? Well, screw that. Sure the Mucks' 50 game is 2.5 times bigger than Lil's 20 game, but I actually think that, for me, potential expectation, bets per hour, may be more than 2.5 times better at Lil's !

Last night I raised there with 2 red Queens, and by the turn I was head up with a drunken maniac, while the King and two other Diamonds were on board. We both checked. Then another Diamond hits the river, and he checkraises me and shows me Ah 5h, for a pair of fives, then seems surprised when it doesn't win the pot. Huh? Thing is, this is not unusual in these games. Daytime games are sometimes medium snug, but nearly all the tighties leave by dinnertime, and the evening and late night games are just awesome!

Meanwhile, I hear the Mucks rarely spreads any limit between that twice-a-week 50/100 and their now weak 10/20 game. As is so common everywhere, their big thing now is the spread limit game, and that is strong, with a couple tables of a couple levels going daily. I sure would love to learn how to play no limit, or spread limit. Great potential, I'm sure. But currently, I have no frickin' clue how to play those games, how to size my bets, how to not lose my whole damn stack to one stoopid mistake. I accept that PL and NL games are the "Real Poker." I understand how limit games were invented by cardrooms to prevent the suckers from going broke instantly, and to keep them around, paying rake, longer. But until I get a clue about the spread games, I have to stick to limit, and right now I'm just loving Diamond Lil's.

Often times ALL the other players are ESL folks, and especially evenings and late night, I'm often the ethnic minority at the table. But we all know each other all too well, and get along great, with just a couple notable exceptions. There's lots of animated but friendly trash talk in the game. There also are cliqués of friends who don't bet against each other once they get heads up, and the "English Only" rule -- three signs posted -- is mentioned frequently by staff, and ignored universally by players. 98% of the time someone speaks a particular Southeast Asian language during a hand, it's completely innocent. The other 2% of the time, it's an intolerable cheat, where they tell their friend(s) what they hold. But these things don't happen often enough, and are handled so ineptly when they do happen, that I think of it more as an annoyance than a serious threat.

The Turncoat

One morning I arrived to start the game and ran into Treebark, a seasoned player I wrote about in an RGP post nearly 10 years ago. This guy is about my age, but has been around the game at least twice as long as I have. Anyway, he had been there all night, just finished breakfast, and was tired and headed home. We chatted a couple minutes, and he stood up to go, but I asked him to listen to something first, then go away and think about it.

"Next time we're both in the game with these guys who seem to think that poker is a team sport, let's do what they do," I tell him. "Let's show them what it feels like."

"Let's each take half of the other, and I'll see you later in the parking lot."

"And if we're both in a hand, we'll jam it to knock the other guy out, then just check it down once we get heads-up ."

"After the hand we'll give each other back a bet or two, essentially 'chopping up' what 'the other guy' lost."

I guess we both knew that I was just venting a little, and wasn't quite serious. I laughed, and he laughed, and he went on home.

Couple days later I'm in the game and Tree comes into the room. As soon as he sees me, he comes right over.

"Hey, remember what you were talking about the other day?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Well forget about it," he tells me, with a perfectly straight face. "I can't do it. I'm with them now."