Rhymes with Joker

Ah Is Duh Champ-een o' Oh-mee-haw!

On a lark, I entered a $5+$1 “multi”-table Pot-Limit Omaha tournament on Intertops Poker tonight. This was a cash tournament, so there was no overlay opportunity, but exactly four people signed up. Kind of takes the “multi” out of multi-table, doesn't it?

I recognized one of the names from earlier playing of Holdem tournaments:

Of course, by the time he'd typed the last entry in that conversation, the first hand was over, and AK had gone all-in preflop with 5679 rainbow, and got called by AA3Q. When the board came TT892, not only did no low qualify, but AK's ridiculous Omaha hand had made a straight, and since no low qualified, he had not only doubled up on the first hand, he had knocked a player out. And so, without so much as posting a blind, I had made the money.

Okay, that wasn't that thrilling. With four players in the game, the top three paid, and the only one who would actually profit would be the person who placed first (for a whopping $10!) In fact, the tournament was a big coup for Intertops, because even though they made only $4 off the tourney, their hardware would get used for maybe half an hour to determine the winner.

It didn't take much longer to determine that AK really did have no clue. I don't have a clue either, about Omaha, but AK really didn't have a clue. And so I considered the game to essentially be between me and the other remaining player.

As it happened, I was wrong. The other player (let's call him “BS,” mainly because his name really did start with “BS”) had picked up a few small pots, and I had picked up a big one off of AK, so on the 37^th hand I was sitting with 2403 chips, with 807 for BS and 790 for AK. I'm on the under the gun button (three-handed is great), with A346, and so of course I raise the pot-limit, which both other players call. When the board flops Q24, I like my nut low draw, even if I don't really have a high hand, so after BS bets the minimum and AK raises the pot limit, I reraise the pot again, which puts both other players all-in. (This might not be optimal play; it strikes me that to raise with a draw is kind of an advanced play even for holdem, so it might also have been wrong in Omaha.)

Both players ended up calling, so we see the turn A and river 6 come out in a hurry. The Ace fouled my nut low, but I still had an A2346 low, which one would think would be a good low, three-handed. But, of course, AK had been playing with a stellar QJ53 for a six-high straight (for the high) and an A2345 wheel for the low.

This killed BS, and left me at a 2730–1670 chip disadvantage. But, with AK playing ridiculously, I still liked my chances. We chopped a few times, with me making a high and him making a low, or vice-versa, until the 51^st and final hand came. I was dealt A47T, and called the big blind, whereupon AK checked. The board flopped 237, giving me the nut low. I decided to pump this, because I figured I could expect a split at worst, if he made a high, and I could still make a high myself. The turn is a 3 and the river a 7, and I bet the pot after each, and he calls after each. My A2347 holds up for the low, and my 777 holds up for the high, and I've won. Strangely, he turns over A56J, making me wonder what he thought he had. He had an A2357 low, and who knows, headsup maybe I would have thought I was good, too. But for a high, he didn't even have the two pair that was on the board. So, I conclude, he just wanted the game over, because he really didn't understand what was going on. He admitted as much beforehand, remember?

And so I find myself, at 25 minutes past midnight, the Grand Ultimate Super Final Champion of the Entire World If You Only Count the Four People who Entered of Omaha, and I can hold my $4 profit high, and shout something like people do at the end of dramas, like “I am somebody!” or something. Of course, I might wake someone up.

Week Sixteen Wrapup

This was, to put it in short, one weird week.

I essentially broke even this week, eking out a $50 profit, due to a couple of really bad days. Those days are within expected variance for the day, but they hurt. What hurts more is that I don't seem to have as many killer days as I have horrid days. I know why this is; I essentially have an unconscious stop-win set. If I've had a decent day, then I don't feel like I need to put in any more hours, and so I have very few huge days. Contrarily, when I have a bad session, I feel that I need to put in another session to make up what I lost earlier. So, the effective result, is that I have a stop-win set, but not a stop-loss. Should I be surprised that I have more big down days than big up days?

This week was the first time I played extensively on a site other than PartyPoker. Okay, yeah, it was a skin of Party, so I was playing against the same group of people, but I noticed that I was doing a bit better than usual when I was on Intertops. Eventually, I decided that I was hiding behind a new handle, and so while anyone who reads this site would recognize my Intertops handle if he saw it, the other money-farmers on the $3/$6 tables don't read my site. At least, most don't. And so, to them, I was an unknown quantity, and (I've decided) my new handle is/was able to take a few more pots off the players who've played several thousand hands against “LordGeznikor”. Now, this all might be hogwash, but I did well the first while on Intertops, and I can't possibly lay running good at the feet of simple variance, can I?

I attempted to continue with $5/$10 in my mix of tables, but ended up noticing that I was losing my shirt on the $5/$10 tables, while doing OK at the $3/$6. Well, then, dumbass, why not stick with the $3/$6? My thinking is that the $5/$10 takes a bit more concentration, because nearly all of the $5/$10 players are decent players. Therefore, no 4-tabling with $5/$10. On Monday I two-tabled some $5/$10, and it seemed to basically go okay, but I still lost a bit of money. Well, if I can four-table $3/$6, that will have a better expectation than two-tabling $5/$10 anyway, so for now I stick to $3/$6.

As I mentioned yesterday I made an experiment with five-tabling $3/$6. I lost rather a lot of money, but I really think that had little to do with the fact that I was running five tables, but rather that it was simple variance. I even think I could add another table to the mix, but for now I'll stick to four tables. Maybe I'll try five again, but I'm in no hurry.

The weirdest thing about this week happened late Monday night. I was resigned to having only a break-even week, a few bucks in the red. But, while waiting for a friend to bring me some Arby's (which he never did), I sat a table of 50¢/$1 seven-card stud. Now, truly, the only strategy I know about stud comes from the scene in Rounders:

Mike. Alright, here's the thing. You want to play premium hands. You only start with Jacks or better split, Nines or better wired, three high cards to a flush. If it's good enough to call, you've gotta be in there raising, all right? I mean tight, but aggressive. And I do mean aggressive, that's your style, Professor. I mean, you've gotta ... you've gotta think of it as a war.

Professor. You are officially never invited to our game again.

But that turned out to be enough. Astute readers might remember that I've tried this before, but that it didn't go well. (I lost $14⁵⁰ in about an hour.) One of two things must be true: Either I got horrible cards that earlier time, or I got great cards last night. My thinking is that my cards the other time were exceptionally bad; in that hour I don't think I got any hands at all that fit Mike's opening requirements, and so I was ante'd down far enough that I started playing a lot looser than he suggested.

People who closely follow the poker blogosphere recall that a week or two ago, Felicia had a crisis of confidence in her game, to which she responded by taking up Razz. That seemed to do it for her; she liked the game again, so much so that she entered a Razz event at the World Series. After yesterday, I feel the same way about stud. My crisis of confidence was a bit less pronounced; I was still OK with my game, but I was less convinced that I should be playing against all of the other $3/$6 holdem money-farmers on PartyPoker. I'm sure they exist at stud, too, but I'm not to the point of playing $3/$6 stud yet, anyway. But suddenly I want to get there.

Okay, enough; here are week sixteen's numbers.

Five and Alive?

I tried five tables (one on PartyPoker, four on Intertops) for the first time, last night. Truly, it wasn't much different than four tables, as far as the amount of attention I had to give to each table. But on four of the five, I lost money. I don't know, yet, if I was just running bad (I am running bad), or five tables really is too much.

But five didn't give me a brain aneurism, which four tables nearly did the first time I tried that. So maybe, finally, I have this game on autopilot.

[Edited:] The point of this post was simply "I tried five tables, I lost money but I didn't pop a vein." But wow, it's been a long time since I've seen a post with so little literary merit. There are some blogs I no longer read because they're written like the first two paragraphs of this entry. Let's see if I can parody those blogs:

after school i went and had some wendys, and then i started pp 4 some holdem action ... i got my aa busted four times but i still made 1.80, damn i love the fish ... theirs a tournament i want in 2night at 8, the $33 is kind of steep but the top prize is like three grand, so wish me luck ... my buddy asked me when u gonna win some real doe, i told him when r u gonna play against me? lol, he thinks im a bad player, but hes afraid to play me, the coksucker ...

Actually, there is a blog I have in mind with that parody, but even he's not that bad. I don't want to be either, though, and so when I only have a quick point, from now on I will post the quick point without any halfhearted embellishment, and be done with it. Promise.

Week Fifteen Wrapup

Nothing particularly confounding, astounding, or profounding about this week. A number of small wins, and one big win in Detroit, balanced out the one significant loss I took to add up to a decent week.

The odd thing is that I never really during this week felt solid, like I was assured a good week. Maybe that's to be expected when I have a week barely above my goal. For example, week sixteen is ⁵/₇ over and I feel assured of missing my goal, and perhaps even having a down week. But of course, one good day can change that, and I've sat down for an evening session this night so that I can earn my way back to a positive day.

Hdouble recently posted his take on how a poker player develops. The comments to his article are filled with testimonials from players placing themselves late in phase two, which in so many words is someone who thinks he's an OK player, but still makes a lot of big mistakes. I had trouble placing myself in his heirarchy, because I don't make the mistakes he attributes to a phase two player, but neither am I as sure and smooth as his description of a phase three player. I decided only today to classify myself as "early phase three," or somebody who actually is an OK (winning) player, but who still makes a lot of small mistakes. One's progress through stage three, by my definition, is the elimination of more and more of those mistakes, and the addition of additional "artful" plays to one's repertoire. (No, wait, not "repertoire," that sounds too French, but to one's, humm, "arsenal." Strange, "arsenal" is ultimately Arabic, but we still like that word better.)

Anyway, here are this week's numbers.

The day's best poker news:

• Iggy's Poker Blog

Fellow Michiganders' poker blogs:

• Gambling Blues (BG)
• Gadfly's Buzz
• Dispatches from the Culture Wars
• On Hiatus:          
• Royal Poker
• Ralph Nader's Poker Jam

Other poker blogs:
(People who whined about no link)

• Up for Poker
• The Cards Speak
• Chicago Phil
• Poker Index

Play poker online:

• PartyPoker
• Intertops Poker
• Doyle's Room
• Full Tilt Poker

Or in the casino:

• Kewadin Shores (1)
  in St.Ignace, Mich.
• Little River Casino (2)
  in Manistee, Mich
• Soaring Eagle Casino (3)
  in Mt.Pleasant, Mich.
• Greektown Casino (4)
  in Detroit, Mich.
• Motor City Casino <4>
  in Detroit, Mich.
• Harrah's (5)
  in E.Chicago, Ind.
• Trump Casino (6)
  in Gary, Ind.
• Leelanau Sands Casino (7)
  in Peshawbestown, Mich.
• Point Edward Charity Casino (NP)
  in Sarnia, Ont.
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