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.  :-)