After listening to the Nick Rainey interview, I felt like I had to try multi-tabling SNGs. I’ve played a good number of SNGs in the past, but never en masse and never with a particular strategy. Nick made me a believer that if you’re smart and deliberate, you can make a good deal of money this way. I have never been a great cash game player simply because my native lack of aggressiveness leads to me folding too much in marginal situations. I think that in SNGs, this is less of an issue–you are putting yourself into less marginal situations in the first place, and even when there is one, it is correct to fold more often than in cash games, since losing the hand also means busting out of the tournament. Given the stacks and blind structures at FTP, the decisions are pretty cut-and-dry. And a strength of mine is being patient and meticulous in sticking to the prescribed strategy.

So far, so good. I’m doing well getting to the end of the tournament, but probably not quite as well with my end-game play (although it’s gotten better). Of the last 25 SNGs I’ve played, I’ve made the money in about 15, including 9 of my last 12 (despite a stretch of 7 early bust outs). Not statistically significant, but still feels good, especially considering there was only perhaps one time when I busted out before the money when I didn’t get my chips in good. I’m pleased. We’ll see what happens.

Made about $75 in a .25/.5 home game today, 5-handed.  Nothing too spectacular, especially because I would have been in the red were it not for a lucky river. I completed the SB with 9cTs, and the flop came TT4 rainbow. I checked and it was checked around to the button who bet $2. I raised to $7 and was called by MP. Button folded. Turn is a blank and I bet $12, and MP raises all in. I call, and he immediately says, “I have you out-kicked” — a bold statement considering he had QT. But he was right. Luckily, the river was a 9, and I dragged a $100+ pot. I felt bad, but didn’t apologize–I never do anyway, but I don’t see how I could get away from it especially considering the fact that I could have had him outkicked based on the crap that was being played and how aggressive this game was.

But here’s the hand I really wanted to discuss:

In limited time (about 2 hours/day), I’ve been doing well getting acclimated back to the game. I’m happy, if for no other reason, because I have yet to do any studying, and feel like I’m slowly regaining my old knowledge anyhow. But I’m skittish about moving up to $50NL (which I’ll soon be fully bankrolled for) until I’ve earned my free Stox/CR membership and can watch some videos.

Some observations:

1. I was doing really well at least reading hands and picking off weak players. Since I moved from 4 tables to 6, it’s been substantially harder. I wonder if I can actually make more profit with 4.
2. $25NL is not nearly as aggressive as I remember $50NL being. I am being 3-bet, 4-bet and squeezed substantially less.
3. I’m using my old PokerTracker setup, but am having trouble remembering to look at the stats to help me make decisions while I’m in hands. I remember having trouble with this before as well. Also, since you can no longer data mine FullTilt, it’s very difficult to get usable sample sizes and so far I’ve only rarely played against the same player on multiple occasions.
4. Lots more Europeans than there were 6 months ago. Sometimes I am the only American player at the table. I wonder how this affects the most profitable hours of play.
5. I promised myself that when I played, I was going to be free of distraction to maximize profit. So far, so good. I’ve yet to open a web browser in the background while multi-tabling. Occasionally I’ll listed to Mediocre Poker Radio or a PokerRoad show in the background, but will pause it when things get complex.

All right, off to bed. In the next post, I’ll try to do some hand analysis, as doing so and typing it out (in a sort of internal monologue type of way) seems to really help me think things through.

After a 6+ month layoff, I’m getting back in the game.

Here’s what happened. I got a job and started working full-time at the beginning of June. By the time I would get home and eat, it was almost time for the daily baseball game to begin. As addicted as I am to poker, I am more addicted to the Orioles–don’t ask me why. I no longer had time during the day, nor did I have time at night. Something had to give, and I chose baseball over poker. When the fall semester started, I moved to a part-time work schedule, but I was taking 18 credits and they kicked my ass (in fact, the semester ended two weeks ago and I still have two papers to turn in). In all, both the summer and fall were eventful–I made time to hang out with friends and get my work done, but nothing else.

Things are changing. Next semester, I’ll only be taking essentially 10 credits. Baseball doesn’t start until April. I want back in.

Last week, I was at the Borgata over Christmas (did I mention I go by the name “JewfroJerome”?). I got the fever again. I felt like I was out of practice–obviously, I hadn’t seen a flop outside of a rare home game in over half a year–but still felt comfortable. Were it not for a few bad bluffs and a few tough beats, I would have done quite well. Overall, I was happy with my play. On the way home, I listened to the previous two Mediocre Poker podcasts. The Leatherass interview was a bit inspiring. As a result, I have adopted two new mantras, that I repeat over and over again while I am playing:

1. He doesn’t have shit.
2. F you, I raise.

Aggression has always been my issue. Hopefully I can now address it. We’ll see what happens.

Well, it’s hard to say that I’m running good considering the small sample. I’ve been table-selecting, playing tight and aggressive, and avoiding marginal spots. Moreover, since I have an income source now, so I don’t stress too much about maximizing my win rate, and instead just do what comes naturally. It’s been working. Then again, it’s a small sample.

This weekend, I’m rolling down to AC for a night to hit the tables there. I think I’m going to check out the Trop for a change — the Borgata is just too crazy… you have to put in $10 to see most flops (at the $200NL game), and the play is so over-the-top that the variance is just ridiculous. And when I’m planning on only playing about 200 hands, I don’t particularly like the idea of variance.

So of course, after getting Verizon on the phone and them ready to act as soon as they confirmed that my connection was problematic, my connection suddenly becomes issue-free.  So I put in a session tonight without interruption.  Playing only a few hours a week makes it difficult to focus on particular concepts such as value-betting, 3-betting, 3rd-level thinking, etc.  But at the same time, it’s strangely refreshing.  Sort of like how some baseball players don’t even pick up a bat during the off-season, and show up to spring training with a clear mind.  In some ways, I think that this helps me–but of course, since I’m not putting in the hours necessary to analyze my play, it’s hard to say for sure.

Here’s an interesting hand from tonight:
Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 150120

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (SB): $51.95
UTG: $20.95

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is SB with Q Q

UTG calls $0.50, 3 folds, Hero raises to $3, 1 fold, UTG calls $2.50.  Standard.

Flop: ($6.50) 8 A 6 (2 players)

Hero bets $3.75, UTG calls $3.75.  UTG is a 33/0/0.3 over 25 hands, so his range is pretty wide here.  With an overcard and straight and flush draws, this isn’t the best flop, but I think it still warrants a c-bet, because he still has a ton of hands in his range that totally whiffed. (No fold-to-c-bet stats on him yet.)  I bet small because I doubt he’s really a thinking player, and if he’s going to fold, he’s going to fold, and if he’s going to call, he’s going to call, regardless of if I bet half-pot, full-pot or somewhere in between.

Turn: ($14.00) 9 (2 players)

Hero checks, UTG checks.  So this is me giving up.  The other option is to prepare to fire three barrels, which I’m not prepared to do against this guy.

River: ($14.00) T (2 players)

Hero checks, UTG bets $5, Hero calls $5.  All right, so he insta-checked the turn.  I’m thinking he may either be on a draw, or have something weak, like a 98, that he wants to get to showdown.  He clearly didn’t even think about betting the turn.  I thought seriously about betting here for value, but decided that it was too thin, especially with 4 to a straight on the board, and instead give him an opportunity to bluff at it, and evaluate based on his bet size.  Getting almost 4-to-1, I made the call.

Final Pot: $24.00

Hero mucks Q Q

UTG shows T A (two pair, Aces and Tens)

UTG wins $22.80

Hard to have put him on that, but I think I played it right.  I also don’t think I could have pushed him off of it.

This has been a busy weekend due to the exhaustion from my first week back at work and a number of varied social obligations.  I found time to squeeze in a few hours on the tables, but not as much as I would have liked.  I suppose that if I have so much going on in life that I can’t find time to play recreational poker, that’s probably a good thing.  But my play has also been hampered by a terrible Internet connection — every few minutes, it has been hiccuping, resulting in disconnects and missed hands.  Finally, I decided to call Verizon tonight, and managed to talk to some relatively competent support reps, despite the fact that it was after 11 p.m.  Personally, I think that this terrible cable modem I have is just busted, but after taking it out of bridge mode (and taking my D-Link router out of the equation) and resetting everything, I think it might have solved the problem.  Perhaps being on continuously for 9 months without a reset got it a bit tired.  So right now I’m killing some time on FullTilt “testing” it out until I get my return call from tech support at 12:45 a.m. to check in on me.  Then… through the pillow I go.

Edit: I take that back.  The problems still seem to persist.  And I somehow missed my callback (stupid cell phone).  Screw it, I’m going to bed.

Tomorrow begins my return to the workforce after my first full year of grad school and general unemployment (save for a short stint with a part-time job that I quit soon thereafter).  I’ll be working 4 days a week, which should be a nice balance between earning money to pay the rent and having enough time to do the social (and cultural!) things I want to do this summer.  When I got back into poker this winter, I thought it could be a financial solution to not having a job, but unfortunately it hasn’t turned out to be that way just yet, as the learning curve for NLHE was much steeper than I expected.  (This is partially because, in my opinion, NLHE is a much more intricate game than LHE, which I played quite proficiently years ago, and because you now have to play better in general to beat the games than when I last played seriously, pre-UIGEA.)

Regardless, due to not playing regularly for the past week and a half for the reasons described in previous posts, my game has definitely fallen off a bit.  When I sat down late this afternoon for an hour-long session, I never quite felt comfortable.  I felt that I had regressed to weak-tight poker (also known as “Cakes poker”), and that I was thinking only on the 1st level.  Luckily, I ran well enough to come out about even.  Tonight’s first session (my second probably being after I wrote this post) was a tad better, but am I beginning to see the difference between being a player that plays 35-40 hours a week (as I have been for the past few months) and a player that plays 12-15 hours a week (as I probably will be for the foreseeable future).  As with most things, when you are not entirely mentally focused on the task at hand, you will not be at the top of your game.

The question is: Even if I can’t play my best as a part-time player, can I play well enough to both turn a profit and continue to find the game enjoyable?  We shall see.

In the meantime, here’s an interesting hand.  Commentary contained within.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $0.50 BB (6 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($48)
Hero (Button) ($58.60)
SB ($82.70)
BB ($48.90)
UTG ($53.55)
MP ($54.05)

Preflop: Hero is Button with K, K
UTG calls $0.50, 2 folds, Hero bets $2.50, 1 fold, BB calls $2, UTG calls $2

Flop: ($7.75) 8, 9, 4 (3 players)
BB bets $3, 1 fold, Hero calls $3

The villain is brand new to the table, and thus unknown.  I think about popping it here.  The board, however, is not terribly scary.  There are a few scare cards that could come off, but chances are that he is drawing to relatively few outs.  Considering how wide my button opening range is, this is a flop that could have very easily missed me.  By flatting here, I’m representing a hand with missed overcards.

Turn: ($13.75) Q (2 players)
BB bets $9.50, Hero raises to $53.10 (All-In), BB calls $33.90 (All-In)

This was one of those few scare cards that could have hit, given the likelihood of him holding JT.  In fact, based on his small flop bet, there is a chance he is on a draw.  However, I usually see donks min-bet with their draws and bet slightly larger with weak made hands to “stab” at the pot.  The turn bet is disconcerting–he definitely has sets and two-pair hands in his range–but I have to remember how weakly I’ve played thus far post-flop.  Based on that, I decide that I want to commit to the hand.  I felt that the best value came from shoving, because it polarizes my range: I either have a monster here or no hand at all (perhaps a draw at best).  It also gets the money in before a scary river card could hit, which is many given the straight and flush possibilities now.

He thinks for quite some time (always a good sign), and finally makes the call.

River: ($100.55) J (2 players, 2 all-in)

Results:
Hero had K, K (one pair, Kings).
BB had A, 8 (one pair, eights).
Outcome: Hero won $97.55

So that was a good result.  But most important is the fact that taking strange, unorthodox lines kept my opponent off-balance, which ultimately led to him making a pretty bad call.

Well, after missing last weekend due to being out of town, I chose to again skip out of town this Thursday and Friday, to head back to Maryland to celebrate my birthday with my family, and to catch the major league debut of Orioles star prospect catcher Matt Wieters.  Although Wieters failed to achieve his first MLB hit, he called a great game, with young pitcher Brad Bergesen pitching into the 9th inning, giving up only 2 runs in a 2-hour 15-minute drubbing of the Tigers.  During the game, Luke Scott came up to bat with the bases loaded.  I announced that I would like to cash in my birthday presents right then and there, during his at-bat.  Sure enough, he clubbed a grand slam into the flag court in right field.

I took the train back to New York after the game and was asleep by 3 a.m.  Today, I managed to squeeze in three short sessions during the afternoon (this evening is my birthday party).  And it looks like FullTilt has given me a birthday present to go along with Luke Scott’s: up over 4 buy-ins for one of my biggest days in a very long time.  After only putting in a few hours this past week, I felt refreshed, at ease, and focused.  In fact, I had downloaded a bunch of videos to watch on the train, but never looked at them, choosing instead to listen to Junkies podcasts.  Considering how bad I’ve been running (and actually, it continues, still running 300BB below All-In EV this past month), I think perhaps I needed to clear my head a bit.  I don’t believe in the power of position thought (i.e., that positive thinking alone can produce positive outcomes), but I certainly believe that one’s attitude can affect one’s play.  If you play believing you’re going to lose, then you’re going to play scared, and you won’t play well.

It’s hard to say if I had been playing poorly in the past few weeks.  I’d like to think I was just running bad.  Then again, now that I had a good day, I’d like to think the opposite: that it was not “running good”, but rather playing well.  Funny how that works, huh?

I was out of town from Saturday to Monday for a friend’s wedding in Buffalo and to visit other friends in Toronto.  So I went three entire days without playing, or really even thinking about poker.  And it was great.  It was like having a load off my back, much in the way one feels when taking a vacation from their 9-to-5 job.  Instead, I spent some time playing with my new camera, hanging out with friends, and even caught a minor league baseball game (I just love the smell of the grass).  The weirdest thing, though, is that usually when I am not playing, I am at least thinking about the game.  This weekend I really did neither.

I will put myself back into the grind later this afternoon, but am a bit skeptical.  I have pretty much just struggled to stay even for the past two months.  Every time I go on a nice run, I give it back soon thereafter.  I have run well below expectation the entire time.  I find it hard to put in the number of hours (perhaps 8-10) on a daily basis that is necessary to be a true grinder, and thus these short-run problems extend themselves over a longer horizon, time-wise.

At the same time, summer is finally here in New York City, and I am thrilled that I chose to remain here for the summer instead of getting out of town.  So far, socially, things are off to a good start, and there will be no shortage of fun activities and events for the next few months.  Assuming that I get a summer job offer this week (cross my fingers), I wonder how much, if any, time I’ll have left for poker after taking care of my professional and personal obligations and desires.  We shall see.