Harrington is Here!

I was surprised to see a parcel waiting for me when I got home on Friday.  It was Harrington’s Cash Books, which I wasn’t expecting for some weeks yet, given that Amazon had indicated they had a big backload to fill and I had a mail from them saying expect it sometime in May.  Have only had a brief skim at this stage, but it seems like they are written in the classic Harrington easy to read style.  Having read some of the early reviews, I’m a bit divided on how useful they are going to be.  On the one hand its Dan Harrington, and noone conveys poker information and concepts like Dan.  On the other hand they seem to be focusing on deepstack full ring cash – something I never play anymore, focusing on six-max like the majority of the online community.  Still, I think there will be plenty in there, plus its a must read for another reason – every semi decent opponent I’ll play will have read them!

Despite the fact that results wise its been a so-so year, I’ve also decided to start dabbling back at 100nl.  My first experience (about 7.5k hands) at this level was quite painful … a mixture of bad beats and bad play.  But I’ve got my roll back to a point that would indicate that I should be looking to move up again.  I’ve been a bit gunshy of doing so, esepcially when I’m doing things like running KK into AA all the time – but thats just a mental hurdle that needs to be overcome.  So I’ve had a couple of sessions and nothing to significant so far – slightly down, but nothing more than the usual rhythm of the game.  At this point I’m feeling comfortable playing one table at 50nl and one at 100nl, we’ll see how that travels for a while.

 

I Seen it But I Don’t Believe It …

…well anyone that is even semi-regularly reading my blog will realise by now I’m trying hard to avoid the bad beat stories.  It has to be the most tempting thing in poker, to cry to the world how if only you just ran normal, then your winrate would be awesome … and yet noone wants to hear it, becuase everyone struggles with variance to some extent.

So with that out of the way … I’m not really going to tell a bad beat story – more of a cooler story.   Becuase in the last 72 hours, I have run KK into AA no less than SIX TIMES.  Yep 6 … in what could not be more than 1000 hands of poker.  5 online and one live.  What are the odds of that ???  I’m getting to the point where I flinch when I see the first K dealt!  Fortunately the last one I sucked out and hit a K on the river, or otherwise I think my mouse might have been in danger …

Despite what it fairly obviously just a horrendous short term run of variance, it is more interesting becuase I have been playing more and more on UB where the average VPIP of games is usually over 50.  This means the games are ultra juicy but the swings are obviously going to be way bigger.  I have trouble giving 55+ VPIP players for a hand, I get three or four bet and assume that because they are mega loose their range must be wide.  I think I need to start realising that this isnt necessarily the case in raised or re-raised pots.

Rebuy Fun

Over on the private forum I am a member of, called the Plus One, back in January I ran a series of tournaments which proved quite successful.  The most entertaining of these was the $2 Rebuy, with 26 entrants we managed a prize pool somehwere in the region of $1500, total degeneracy!  Anyway given it worked so well I organised another which was played last week.

We only got ten starters this time which was a bit of a disappointment, however there was still a lot of rebuying I managed to take it down for $222, not bad considering I was in for only $15.  I had a set of nines cracked early but then had a few hands hold up to mean I didnt need to rebuy a lot.  Two big hands helped me on my way, once I had TT on a T88 flop where my opponent held an 8, and then when 3 way I made the nut flush with AdQd and my opponent made a smaller flush.  Heads up went for well over an hour considering how many chips were in play, thats the other difference with these rebuys … you end up with enormous chipstacks relative to the blinds if you actually go deep.  A lot of fun and that puts my limited tourney record for the year into the black.

In other news my “How to Read a Book” book arrived yesterday.  Having looked at the opening chapter I think it is going to be quite valuable.  Interestingly it was first written in 1940!  Subsquently revised in the seventies, it still looks good and relevant today.  Amazon says my Harrington books are going to be delayed, I assume due to the demand, so that should work out by giving me time to read the current tome and try and absorb the content.  How ironic … here I am hoping I can learn to read the book about learning to read effectively!

A Small Break

I’ve taken a few days off playing this week.  I think I’d started to feel the grind a little, the constant up down swing and not feeling like I’m making any progress.  Having looked at pokergrapher, this year has just been one big rollercoaster so far without making great progress.  Here’s my graph for the year to date:

As you can see its been a tough time, terrible downswing in the middle, battle back to profit, hit the skids again, and now back to break even.  Adding on the last 15k hands of 2007 leaves about the same position.  All in all it just goes to show how tough poker can be mentally, you can go through long periods of not seeming to achieve much at all.  Career wise I’m still running at about 3bb/100, so I’m confident that this is just one of those inevitable swings.  But it really can be longer than you think.

So by the end of last week I was feeling jaded with the whole thing.  Battling back only to run into some more coolers and slump again.  I think the toughest part is when you feel you put people on a decent range, decide you are ahead of that range, and play strongly – only to find that their hand was at the top of that range   Of course this is going to happen, the mental challenge is not altering your game when you go through a run of sessions where the villians always seem to be at the top of the range.  This is certainly what occurred in that most recent slump – running hands like QQ into AA when the villian’s stats are like 30/20/5.

In other news I have decided to make a purchase from Amazon – a title called “How to Read a Book”.  One of the things I have been groping for is a really good METHOD to learning from books.  It’s all to easy to read a good poker book, like the concepts, but how much really sinks in?  This new book is supposed to teach a method for efficiently absorbing the contents of an instructional book, and actually understanding the information that is written.  It’s currently in transit, I have high hopes for this title. I will post an update and review once its arrived and I’ve had a chance to have a decent read.

Betting Mediocre Hands on The River

Read an interesting article by Mike Caro in this months edition of Bluff Australasia, which I thought was really relevant to my play.  Essentially, it was a simplification of scenarios to demonstrate why you shouldn’t bet mediocre hands on the river.  If I recall correctly, it goes something like this.

 Assume we are playing a game of poker using a deck with only three cards … As, Ks, and Qs.  We get dealt one card each, and no draws.  Lets say we get Ks, and the question is should we bet.  Ignoring bluffs for the moment, the answer should always be no – becuase the As is always calling as the best possible card, and the Qs is always folding as the worst possible card.  Hence there is no value in betting.

Obviously bluffing would come into the equation – perhaps the Qs may check raise for deception now and again to get the Ks to lay down, but in the long run the implications of this are pretty clear.  So extrapolating this principle out to the full deck, its pretty clear why you shouldnt bet marginal hands on the river.  It’s an interesting concept, becuase I think the river is my weakest street – I think I lose value in a lot of situations and perhaps overplay in others.  A useful concept to keep in mind.

Finally Got Around To It …

… I pre-ordered the Harrington on Cash Games Vols I and II yesterday.  My poker library is fairly extensive, but I’m really looking forward to these ones.  Harrington’s Tourney Editions were my first real reads – I had Theory of Poker, but when I got that I just wasn’t ready for that level of detail   I think Dan Harrington manages to convey the game in plain English better than anyone else around.  Apart from the fact that they should be good reading – its going to be essential to read these as every other half serious player will be as well.  I need to know what they will know.

In other news I am trying a lot harder to incorporate Pokerstove analysis into my post session review.  It’s a great tool, but I think I am not so good at putting villians accruately on ranges yet.  That’s a critical part of it of course – if the range analysis is skewed then the analysis isn’t real flash.  Would be interested to hear if any other readers use this approach regularly and how they go about it.

 Talking about readers it seems people are starting to drop by here more and more regularly now.  Hope you are enjoying it … feel free to stop by the HPC Forum and join up if you are keen, its a much better place to chat than just the comments field here.  Please post a comment though to say you intend to sign up – I’ve had so many spam users there I’ve had to make it pretty hard to register

A Great Poker Story

My second post of the day – I have to write this one.  A few weeks ago I was home unusually early on a Monday night so I tuned into the final table of the Stars Sunday Million, and an entertaining table it was.  There was a fellow Aussie going great guns by the screen-name of S0Stndrd.  After a battle and a two-way deal, he eventually took the thing down.  I noticed he was posting on 2+2 and sent him a congratulatory PM … we got to talking and he’s since given me the link to his site.  I was going to tell his amazing tale but he of course tells the story best, so you have to visit http://www.acehighwine.com/  to check it out.  Simply the best story of your local poker enthusiast making it huge on the online world’s biggest stage.

Congrats S0stndrd, an inspiration to all those low level grinders out there who one day dream of hitting the big one.

Confessions…

Although not a religious person, I need to make confession this morning   Last night I committed one of poker’s great sins, so I’m going to talk about it here to make sure I get it out of my system and don’t do it again!

 I was playing my regular 50nl game and had found a good table with some mediocre players and one total donk, playing at about 80 VPIP.  Trouble was this particular donk was hitting hands with regularity.  He stacked me once with a set vs straight situation, bit of a cooler.  But the trouble began when the other people drifted away and somehow we ended up heads up.  And here’s where I committed the sin – I was determined to “get even” for the session – so I continued to play this guy, certain I could take it all back of him.  I committed the great error of treating the session as something I HAD to come out positive – instead of just taking it hand by hand and trying to make good decisions.

Result – I kept getting decent starting hands, raising, getting called, then missing the flop, cont betting, getting called, then having to give up the hand when it was becoming obvious he wasnt folding.  As I mentioned earlier, he was on a hot run – so I eventually lost three buyins.  I just didnt believe he could be hitting all the time but he seemed to be … I finally got top pair with KQ, Q on board and decided to go with it … he of course had AQ.  The other buyin was just from a series of hands where I had to give up.

So the point is – I’m disappointed, not becuase I got outdonked, but becuase I put myself in the situation in the first place by being so determined I could recover my session loss by running over this donk.  Poker just doesn’t work like that.  It really is one long lifetime session, and it is more than counter-productive to try and “win” a particular session.  While intellectually I knew this, emotionally I’ve just had this lesson reinforced the hard way!

Interestingly, I’m now about to have my first session since last night.  It’s an interesting challenge to clear the mind and not have last night’s loss lingering in the mind.  It’s easy to get defensive not wanting to incur further losses.  Of course playing scared is likely to actually facilitate poor sessions.  I’m curious to hear though, any readers out there, how you  mentally refresh yourself after a particularly bad session or sessions.

Live vs Online, What a Difference

Went interstate for work yesterday and had a four hour session of live poker at Australia’s premier card room at Crown Casino in Melbourne.  I don’t get this opportunity very often – while we do have a casino in my home town it only offers a 5/5 nl game, with $200-$500 buyin.  The Crown offers a 1/2 nl game – or rather it did, as this now appears to be discontinued and the 2/3 nl game is now the cheapest available.  $50 min – $200 max buyin. 

Unfortunately things didnt go so well for me.  Continuing my rule against telling bad beat stories lets just say I was severely damaged after getting AA and AK in the first orbit, and getting stacked with the AA. Ground out for the next four hours but never really recovered.

However thats not the point of the blog entry.  What this really demonstrated to me is just how different live poker is to online for so many reasons.  In this version of the live game, play is generally awful,  with little positional play, many limpers, and many callers of re-raises.  Given that most people dont buy in for the max, its very likely if you have a hand that you will end up all in, or at the least one of your opponents will end up all in.  Take my AA hand for example.  I was fortunate that UTG straddled to $9, and two more callers came for the ride.  In the hijack seat I bumped it to $40, and got one caller – this was pretty rare, usually there was more.  So the pot was approx $100 preflop, and the flop comes K 9 2 rainbow.  Excellent flop for my hand and its a no brainer move in there.

Again though the point is there’s precious little poker to be played in those scenarios.  Alternatively, for the rest of the night I saw multiple callers of $15 raisers, and people calling with hands like T3, 69, and the like, especially suited.  Once you got some callers almost everyone else is priced in. So effectively I was reduced to a strategy of set mining – hoping for a pair, calling along with the crowd, and praying to hit.  Its pointless raising becuase you cant thin the field a lot, and the majority of the time a continuation bet wont scare the opponent off.  So your AK-AJ type hands are worthless if they miss the flop.  The other option of course is to hope you can limp some crap in late position and hit the flop hard. 

The other noticeable difference is the speed of play – I played four hours and would be surprised if I saw 125 hands, with many people grandstanding and agonising over decisions.  Back in my hotel room I was disappointed to have a losing session but thinking about how few hands I really saw, I realised just how much of a gamble a thon those live games are. Contrast this with online, where even two tabling you’ll see this many hands in an hour.  So what this all means is that the variance is magnified live – less hands, worse play, and of course a smaller bankroll which (for me at least) affects the way I play – online knowing I have 30+ buyins for my level gives you freedom to play well and be aggressive – live with only three or four bullets and knowing that most times you’ll get called makes you play totally differently.  Mind you if you get hit by the deck its payout time

I’ve always relished the opportunity to play live, and the purists (of which I am usually one in most areas) will tell you this is the “real” game.  Yet more and more, I feel uncomfortable in these live games – they are gamble fests, not much better from roulette or blackjack.  Online gives you more hands, better games, more appropriate stakes. Nothing beats the pure atmosphere of the felt, the chips, the dealer and the feeling of confronting your adversary.  But if growing the BR is the objective, online to me seems far and away the more +EV decision.

Many Things

Another break between posting, lots happening at the moment.  In the broader poker world, great to see Phil Ivey finally crack it for his first WPT win.  Interesting stat that he has eight cashes in the WPT – and has made the final table every time he has cashed.  I think this is a good demonstration of what a fine player he is … he really seems to switch on when it gets serious.  Stories abound that he finds it hard to stay focused early in the tournaments – and when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense for someone who can make tons more money in side games to go hard or go home early in tournies.  It will be interesting to see if he continues with the WPT events or now he has that elusive title in his resume if he concentrates more on the cash games.

In terms of my play February was a good month,  coming out of the horrible time that was Dec-Jan.  Unfortunately the turn of the month into March has blown all that away, I’ve had a terrible weekend with several coolers, but also looking back at the hands I think I overplayed them to some extent.  Something I need to work on is a tendency to play hands to hard after I’ve had a series of small bleeds – the standard raise in position, make a cont bet, and then have to let it go when I meet resistance.  Often I notice half a buyin or more will go that way after 100 hands- then I’ll hit say TPTK with AK against a 60 VPIP donk and think this is my chance to stack him.  I got caught with this yesterday – raised AK, called by the big blind.  Board comes something like 8 7 5, I bet, get a call. Then the turn K comes, so I continue, end up all in and of course the 60 VPIP has flopped a straight with 9 6. 

That’s probably not exactly how it happened, rather a good example though of (maybe?) overplaying.  Possibly a cooler, and its always the risk playing people with high VPIPs. At only 100BB deep too what are you going to do when your card hits on the turn?  If you make a standard bet you’re committed, but a check for pot control on that board allows a free card for the straight if he hasnt already made it.  I need to be careful not to use results oriented thinking here and assume because he flopped an unlikely straight the play was bad, and again I’m not really complaining about the result per se, just using it as an example of how I think I get overcommitted sometimes in these hands.  Perhaps its unavoidable in many cases though.

In any case – this weekend has wiped out virtually all the gains of Feb in one swoop, down six buyins in one swoop.  About to do some analysis to have a look whether there was anything I could do differently.

One more thing though, reiterating a previous point – Full Tilt just seems to be getting harder and harder to find a good table. I do like their new update to their software though – the auto top up feature is simply awesome.  I like to ALWAYS have a full stack, so I used to rebuy even after paying the blinds.  Now I can just forget about it and it happens automatically.  Much, much better and allows more focus on the play rather than missing part of the next hand with the rebuy.