Poker! Part Deux

Day 2 was both eventful and uneventful. I believe in duality.

I played a few hundred hands of sit-and-go; on most of the tables, I would hover around my buy-in, but usually was down a little bit.

One concern with playing optimal poker is being at full tables. With 9 people sitting, the blinds come around at the slowest possible rate, which gives you more chances to get a good hand in relation to your table expenditure.

Unfortunately, when people leave the table, the vacant seat often goes unfilled. If the table is particularly slow, people will often leave in search of a faster table. (Or, in the alternative, they'll harangue the slow players with "HAY hurry upp geez" or the incredibly clever "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz". This usually prompts me to wittily say "OMG so-and-so has a broken keyboard! Help him!")

I know I've sat at several tables where it's dwindled to 5 or 6 players within a few hands; not paying attention to this and switching aggressively to a full table is probably costing me money.

I discovered that Full Tilt doesn't have $0.02/$0.04 tables; their low limit is 5 and 10 cents. I thought there might not be a lot of difference, but it's suprising how you notice the money bleeding away faster.

The high drama of my day was the decision to play a little Omaha hi/lo. I consider myself an above-average Omaha player; I've done a lot of reading about it, and I've seen some truly wretched performances at the play-money tables. I've seen people say that Omaha8 is truly "the softest game online today," and with that in mind, I sat at a pot-limit Omaha8 table (the only active table) on FTP with $10.

Well, I don't know what happened exactly, but I got burned. I was throwing money into losing pots, getting hosed with 2nd-nut-low, everything that could go wrong. At one point, I was down to about $0.90 in chips. But after some tight play and halving a few pots, I got back up to around $4. After a big win with a wheel (the A-2-3-4-5 straight, which is always the best low hand and often wins the high), I got back up to $9.15. Determined not to lose it all again, I tried playing tight, but didn't catch very many good hands and didn't win the ones I played. A few hours at the table later, I finally cashed out with $1.65.

That's a big loss -- 85% of my buy-in to the table. I was pretty frustrated and scared of what this might mean. I hadn't had nearly as big a swing at hold 'em, but given my performance, I figured it might only be a matter of time.

To try to help my ego, I decided to jump into a couple of SnGs. I figured I had always done well in them -- I did have a 67% ROI after all -- and I might be able to recoup some of my lost money.

Well, I lost there, too.

In my first one, I played tight, but eventually went out in 10th. I won't post full histories since my posts are already too long, but I was severely shortstacked (900 chips to the chipleader's 13k with 200/400 blinds and a 25 ante). I got A6o, and figured that was the best hand I was likely to see at my 5-person table while I still had a few chips. I pushed, got called by Q8 of spades, who got a Q on the turn. No biggie. I was close.

In the second, I wrote "HORRIBLE JACK BEAT" next to my ledger notation. I don't even remember what place I went out in, because I was so pissed off at this truly awful beat. As the 4th stack or so (1,500) at my table (table leader was 12k) with 75/150 blinds, I raised once preflop with KK and got one caller. I bet out on the 67T (2 diamonds) flop, and homeboy raised me all-in. I figure a diamond draw or maybe an open-ended straight draw (and, dear Lord, not a pocket pair). Turns out he had QhJd -- great news for me. Even if he pairs up, I've got him overcarded. He'd have to catch runner-runner for a diamond flush or a straight. Instead...

*** TURN *** [6h 7d Td] [Jh]
*** RIVER *** [6h 7d Td Jh] [Js]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Seat 2: poKitKowboyz (small blind) showed [Qh Jd] and won (3010) with three of a kind, Jacks
Seat 3: Grey IV (big blind) showed [Kh Kc] and lost with two pair, Kings and Jacks

Holy shit. I was so pissed. Adding insult to injury, this assface's screen name was "pocket cowboys" -- that is, the nickname for pocket Kings. The hand I was holding. I'd love to know these fucking odds.

Third SnG, came down to a coinflip. I'm holding about 1k in chips at a 100/200 blind level with the table leader at 17.5k. I get an offsuit AK, and push. Got called by pocket JJ, and I'm out. No big deal, really. (Though, of course, I know my two big cards NEVER EVER beat pocket over pairs. EVERY FUCKING TIME! I NEVER GET LUCKY! Not really. Whatev.)

So I'm down $3.60 in buys-in at this point, but what the heck, I haven't really played bad. Suffered a really horrible beat and a couple of coinflips. I go for one more to finish out the day. I don't remember that many specifics -- I know I got a couple of lucky breaks to stay alive (mostly with my overcards flopping pairs or others' 10-out draws not coming in), and my blind-stealing seems to be working quite well for some reason.

So I'm easily afloat into the final table, my first one where I am not totally anemic-stacked. But it being the final table, I'm playing supertight -- I'm fairly sure I folded AT suited solely because I was out of position, which is not a good final table play, but I'm determined to move up the cashout ladder as much as possible. I make it to the final 5 with a comparably tiny, tiny stack. I have 2k, the chipleader has 30k, and the other stacks are 16k, 10k and 8k. The blinds are now insane, at 600/1200 with antes of 75. I look down at A6 (again) and that looks like gold to me. I push preflop and the 16k stack calls me with 83. Offsuit! I feel fucking great at this point. What a stroke of luck!

*** FLOP *** [8c 3s Jc]
Grey IV said, "Give me a break"
*** TURN *** [8c 3s Jc] [8h]
*** RIVER *** [8c 3s Jc 8h] [5c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Grey IV: shows [6c As] (a pair of Eights)
thahutchster: shows [8d 3s] (a full house, Eights full of Threes)
kiefdaddy said, "lol"
Grey IV said, "You're killing me, Smalls"
thahutchster collected 4145 from pot
ccmax said, "bye"

But rather than gnashing my teeth, pulling my hair and re-examining my reasons for living, I handled the whole situation in a very classy manner and simply called the guy a "giant cockface". Then I was accused of being a "poor sport". Geez!

For my troubles, I cashed out a cool $4 -- a sizzling 233.3% ROI. So over the 5 SnG I've played, here's my payout:

#1: $1.20 buy-in NLHE tourney -- $2.00 out / + $0.80 (7th place)
#2: $1.20 buy-in NLHE tourney -- $0.00 out / -$1.20 (10th place)
#3: $1.20 buy-in NLHE tourney -- $0.00 out / -$1.20 (HORRIBLE JACK BEAT)
#4: $1.20 buy-in NLHE tourney -- $0.00 out / -$1.20 (AK vs. JJ ... overcard please?)
#5: $1.20 buy-in NLHE tourney -- $4.00 out / +2.80 (A6 vs. 83 ... flop 83x, turn 8)

Profit: $3.60
Loss: $3.60
Net: $0.00

C'est la vie.

Feeling good, though, I decided to face the demons and return to the Omaha8 table. I bought-in for only $5, telling myself that if I doubled-up, I would leave the table:

After two separate stints at the same table at 4 a.m. (separated, of course, by a run to Waco's newest all-night fast food destination, the I-35 Burger King), I cashed out two separate $5 buy-ins at $11.15 and $10.10. Not bad. That covered my other losses, leaving me up $2.55 at FTP.

Both session ups were the results of pretty humongous hands. The former was the wheel, whereas the second one...

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Woodshed [3s 7c 9c Ks] (in the big blind; I only checked this mediocre-ass hand)
*** FLOP *** [7h 6h 6s]
*** TURN *** [7h 6h 6s] [Kd]
*** RIVER *** [7h 6h 6s Kd] [Kh]
Seat 2: Woodshed (big blind) showed [3s 7c 9c Ks] and won ($9.80) with HI: a full house, Kings full of Sevens
Seat 8: tallguy603 mucked [4d 6d 4h 9h] - HI: a flush, King high

What can I say -- luck, man.

I'm itching to do some new posts that aren't play- or result-specific: on my bankroll theory, what's +/- EV psychologically, and my unreasonable expectations. Hopefully, nobody's too bored with this shit yet.

I don't anticipate playing again until Sunday because of other obligations & work. I'll try to write those other posts tonight at work, provided I don't waste too much time on:

a) irate phone callers
b) DT 5.5
c) high school football (the Trib's Web site has a Flash score ticker now -- ooh sexy! Guess who gets to upload the XML to the FTP server 150 times a night?)
d) the NASCAR page

Net profit: $3.76 (FTP $2.55, Stars $1.21)