Friday Night Not Alright for Me

Friday's have been a nightmare for me the last few months. I just can seem to get off on the right foot. I decided last Friday to test my luck again, and unfortunately I had the same shitty results. I got down there to see a short $50/100 game. Good for me I thought. Last Friday I went down and could not even get into a game, so at least I got a seat right away. It was a 4 handed game, and as soon as I sat down, one person quit. 4 handed still ok, even though the lineup sucked. Three decent players, no real easy spots. Then I proceed to make second best hand for about and hour. I play K,10 on the button for a raise, it comes 10 high and I bet and get raised and payoff only to see A,10 in the blind. That lasted until I was stuck $2000. I then looked at the other players and said are we gong to keep playing? I did not want to rebuy if one was going to quit and break the game as it looked like no one else was going to show to fill any seats. Everyone said they would at least give me an hour, except one who said that sounds about right. So what happens, I play a few more hands lose $600 more and the guy quits which of course breaks the game. Shit, I hate when you can't trust someone. I should know better to trust a poker player, but the guy who lied was someone I thought I could trust. Not anymore.

The game breaks and I don't feel like going home yet, so I look for a seat in a $20/40 game and there is not even a game. What? Friday night and the next biggest game is $10/20. So I go sit in that game as most of the guys in the game want to play $20/40 and we could get it converted. I thought I could at least get a little money back but that did not happened either. I ran horrible all night, played a few too many stupid hands, and just kept on losing. I could say that I took some bad beats along the way, but they were hands I should not have been in to begin with so I deserved to lose. This was just a bad all around session, played poorly, ran shitty, and deserved to lose. Friday night has not been alright with me for a while. I am going to take this Tuesday off as I am pissed at myself for the way I played, and I am going to NYC the weekend so I can't play Friday, which is probably a good thing. I will play again in a week from tomorrow. Hope you are doing better than I last week. Net for the night -$3,949.

As for the comment from the last post about playing K,Q. I would never fault someone for playing K,Q suited. That is never a donkey hand. It may be way behind in the face of a raise and a three bet, but hey if you want to call and see a flop that is an alright play in my book. I would almost never make that play, and I almost never call in early position with K,Q off in a big game, but you also have to look at who you are playing to make that determination. Also, you have to look at HOW it is played. I took the lead, raised from middle position as the first to enter the pot, got cold called behind me, bet the flop, got called, and then only on the turn did I get pressure. I then had to make a decision if I wanted to call based on the pot and what I thought I was up against. I was getting the right odds to call the turn raise so I did. I got lucky yes, but that does not change the fact that the hand was played in my mind correctly based on the reaction of the other player. It would have been a completely different thing if I had just limped with the hand first, got raised, then called, then missed the flop completely(which I did), check, called a bet, saw the turn, checked again, called again and then made the straight on the river. That is donkey poker in my mind, BIG difference, do you see why? It would also have been different had he three bet before the flop. I would have check folded that flop. If I had continued and made the straight then you could call that lose and fishy. Aggression is a huge factor in winning poker, if you can only win by making a hand then you need luck to win, I for one do not like to rely on luck. I would rather be lucky than good yes, but it always helps if you can be good and get lucky, because sometimes you are not lucky and you have to make shit up to win. If all you do is call, you take away the way to win from being aggressive. That can be the difference between a losing and winning session. Had that player shown aggression he would have won the pot. That would have been the difference in my booking a win that night or not. It can be that simple sometimes. He chose to slow play a big hand. That does work most of time, but then you have to fade luck, he could not, I won, that's poker. Talk to you soon..SJ

Waste of a good Poker Night

I had the ability to go play on Friday night last week so I jumped down to the Muck only to find that the place was just jammed. All 18 tables full and they had messed up the tables so that one of the three high limit tables had a $10/20 game on it and they could not even spread a high limit game there. For those that don't know the Muck card room has only three class C licenses which allows them to run games bigger than $10/20 only on those three specific tables. If they put a game of lower limit on it they can not move to another table and start a bigger game. Given the fact that all 18 were in use they did not much care anyway to start a bigger game as they get the same rake from a $10/20 game as they do a $20/40 or higher. My options were to sit around and wait, or jump into some lower limit stuff and wait there. They had two $20/40 going and no higher, and the list was a mile long, so I chose option B.

I sat around and talked to people for about 45 minutes then decided to play something I never play, but should, to work on different games. I jumped into the 1-4 stud game. Whoo Hoo $4 max betting. At least I can't get hurt much while I try to get better at the game. I dorked around in that game for an hour and then moved to the $10/20 game about $30 lighter for the fun. I love to play in the lower limit games just to get a feel for what is coming up the food chain. I forget how many poker lessons you get a lower limit tables. It's funny in bigger games no one talks about how poorly you played that hand, or insults bad play. It is encouraged, and a highly desirable trait in that game. It does happen every once in a while, but they get told to shut up pretty quickly. In the lower limit games there are all kinds of pro's telling people how to play or making insulting comments to players that just got lucky. People, leave them alone, you want them in your game, why do you want to chase them off? Why do you want them to get better right now? They probably won't get better anyway so don't give out the lesson they don't want to hear. They are loosing money, maybe not that hand, but they will, don't change their play or insult them off the table. They might just be learning the game and truly don't know how to play. Why do you want them to have a bad experience and maybe not come back? Poker players can be pretty dumb sometimes. Would you rather have me sitting at your table, or the old man drinking having a good time and playing poorly? I take the later all day long. Rant over.

I played in the $10/20 game going mostly nowhere all night. The $20/40 games looked great but the tables were not turning. I could not make any money in the game I was in. You pretty much have to play ABC poker in $10/20. It still plays like a $4/8 game, lots of multiway flops and the best hand on the river will win, even if that means 3,5 sooooited. Don't bluff as you will be called down. I finally got to the $20/40 game at 1:00am. Too late for me to play but I was still stuck $100 bucks so I wanted to go for a quick hit and run. I sat down and looked at a few hands and then picked up K,Q spades about middle position. I was first in so I raised. I got cold called from right behind me. No one else called and we took the flop off heads up. Flop came 10,8,3 no suits. I bet out as I wanted to see where I was. I got called. Turn came a J, now I have the open ender. I was pretty sure I was beat at this point but the guy behind me had shown no aggression yet so maybe he had a small pair I could chase out. I bet, and he raised me, ok now I know I am behind, but let's gamble heads up with two over cards and an open ender. River an A, perfect. I bet out as I am not sure if he will bet with that card, not only did he bet but raised me, I three bet it, and he capped it. Crap, I thought, all that work and we had the same hand. Not so fast, I rolled over my nut straight and he showed me pocket AA's. How unlucky was that guy, I was just about drawing dead and got there. That is why you should slow play AA's before the flop very carefully. Granted he had me dead to rights, and the slow play would have worked perfectly except that he would not have gotten a call on the river if I missed, but he definitely would have made more money played that way than not. He just got unlucky, it happens, that's poker. A three bet before the flop and a bet on the flop and I am gone. He wins my $60, instead he looses $280. Cool for me. I get my money back plus a profit of $121 for the night and I head home.

All in all a pretty good waste of a good night to play cards. O well you can't always get in the game you want. I also will not be playing this Tuesday as I have to travel for work this week. So I guess I will update you all next week. Have a winning week, later..SJ

Dumbass Post, New Blogs

I know that some of you reading the last post picked up on the fact that the first hand I described had 6 community cards. You are saying SJ you dumbass, how does this guy win if he can't even keep track of the cards. I would agree. I was trying to put together how the hand went down. I fixed that hand to the best of my memory. I know the K hit on the turn and could make a possible straight and there was a one card straight on the river. I think I got it right now. I am feeling stupid that I did not pick up on it when I wrote it. YOU DUMBASS SJ.

I also picked up a few new blogs based on some recommendations and the other from one I read a while ago and liked but lost and found again today. It is from a high limit player in Vegas. I tend to like the live play blogs that play or talk about some of the bigger games. I am not really interested in online blogs as I don't really like online play that much and I have not found one that talks about playing high limit on line yet. All you get is tournament results or hand history stuff, some of them do talk strategy and can be interesting. I may change my mind and add them later. Good luck and hope you are all winning, except if you are at my table. SJ

Welcome Back to the Game Sir!

I came back from my self imposed exile from poker last night to make it down to the Muck. I was happy to see a $50/100 game going again and it looks like this is going to be a permanent game on Tuesday. Perfect. Unfortunately I did not get there early enough to get a seat right away so I had to sit in the $30/60 game and wait for a seat. This was not that bad as it allowed me to ease back into the game and grab a few chips to take over to the bigger game. Today was one of those days where I did not look back. I hit a few decent hands in the $30/60 game and moved an hour or two later to the $50/100 game. This was a great game. There were at least 5 soft spots in the game, and Pete the normally aggressive great player was running so poorly he was demoralized and passive. We have all been there, you just enter every pot knowing that you will lose. He just could not win a hand. Here is how bad he was running. I had Pocket KK's in the SB. Pete in middle position raises with pocket 99's and no one else calls. I think about it for a little then just cold call the raise. I was hoping to keep the BB in for at least the raise but he folded anyway. Flop came 10,9,6 rainbow. I check hoping to check raise as I have not shown any aggression yet in this hand and I did not know what he had. He checked behind me to try and trap. The turn was a K. I bet out this time, he raises I three bet and he caps. That was kind of a scary card as it can make a J,Q straight which was not one of his likely holdings but still a possibility. River was a 7 I checked this time as he just capped it and he checked behind me and rolled over a set of nines to lose to my set of KK's, now that is running bad. He hits the flop with a set and I catch a two outer to win on the turn.

When you are running poorly and have a really negative attitude, it is best to quit if you can't change your attitude. If you think negative, negative things will happen and you do change your game usually to the passive side. That is the kiss of death in an aggressive game with good players. The rest of the table does pick up on this and you become a victim to be crushed. This can be a very brutal game. The weak do get eaten. We are friends, but I will take your money if you are in the game with me. I will show no compassion, as I will get none in return when the shoe is on the other foot. After they quit I will feel badly for them and even tell them that, but I will still take the money. One other point I will highlight today is that you should never play soft against friends or be nice at the table to people and tell them when you have a good hand. You would be surprised how many people do this, especially in lower limit games. Sometimes they lie, but then you can just ignore the info the next time, most of the time this is just a bad habit that people get in to. I think they must feel guilty to take money with the nuts, or they are just so proud of their hand they want to tell you. VERY BAD HABIT. This came up in a decent size pot I was involved in. We went to the river and I was a caller the whole way through as I had third pair and a straight draw that never got there. I checked with the intention of mucking to a bet, but then when I did check and there was a bet I sat there for a moment. The guy I was looking to lay down to usually tells me on the river what he has and he was dead silent. This is a bad habit that he had, and it did not show itself this time, but it was the first time I really was aware of it on the river. So what did I do, I changed my mind and called. He showed me A high and I took the $600 pot. I was nice enough to him at the end of the night to tell him why and that he should change that habit. Let's see if he does next time but last night he paid $300 for that lesson, I think that was a fair trade.

The night just continued to be a run of decent cards and good play on my part. I gambled a bit when it was appropriate as the game was staying pretty passive. Lots of limpers and mutiway pots. I did take my share of bad beats. I lost with AA when I three bet an early position raiser and got cold called out of the BB by 5,7 off. The flop came 7,10,K, and I bet the whole way until the river which was a 5 and we both checked. I rolled over AA and he showed me 5,7 off for two pair. Catch bottom pair and go from there? Nice hand sir, I was thinking to myself, but put it in the muck and keep your mouth shut. That man will go broke before we are done.

Biggest pot of the night for me, and the worst hand I played from a starting hand position by choice, worked out perfectly. As I said this game was passive which allowed you to speculate on a few hands. I limped in middle position with 5,6 hearts. I get raised behind me and then a loose aggressive player on the button three bets. The BB calls cold, and I know the other player will call so I gamble up a bit and call here getting 5 to 1 on my call. If I miss I can get away easy, but if I hit I have a well hidden hand. Flop comes K,10,7 two hearts. BB checks, I check, middle position bets, button calls, BB now raises, I call cold with the heart draw. A bit loose on my part but I still felt hearts would be good for me. Turn a nice looking 4. Not hearts, but now I have the open ender with my heart draw. BB now checks, I check, middle now bets again, button calls, BB calls and I call. River was the nuts for me, a 3 of clubs. I now have the perfectly concealed nut straight and I get bet right into from the BB of course I raise here and the other two players muck. I get called and send the $1,800 pot my way. Wow that hand could not have worked out any better, I did not even have to fade if 6 high hearts were good, I just made the nut straight and took the pot.

I kept on playing pretty well, and the game stayed passive and loose, I gave back a little from the high but still ended up booking a $5,514 win. Biggest win of the year, feels good to get back the money I dumped in the last session I played shorthanded.

On a side note I am going to drop Matt Dean's blog as he just does not update. I may add some others that I read occasionally. If anyone has any suggestions of a good blog out there send them my way. Hope you are having as good a fall as I am. Talk to you soon. SJ

So Close

Damn, so close but not a win for the Irish. I guess I have to be happy we made such a good game out of it. The Irish are back and will be even better next year. Good to see us playing at a high level again. I will be playing again tomorrow night so I can actually write about poker on weds. Talk to you soon..SJ

IRISH

Found out today that Snake over at wicked Chops poker(see link on left) is a Notre Dame Grad. I too am a grad, '91. I was there that last time we beat a Number 1 team at home. Greatest football game I have ever been to, ND 31, Miami 30. Beat them when they went for a two point conversion at the end of the game and failed.

Spooky reasons why the Irish will win tomorrow.

#1) Last time we played a #1 at home(Miami '88) we had lost to Miami by a combined total of 93 points the previous three games. We have lost to SC by a combined 93 points the last three games.

#2) It was the first season at home for a new coach (Lou Holt's first year '88) Weis this year.

#3) They had just refinished the Dome in '88. They just refinished the dome again this year.

Coincidence, I think NOT. IRISH WILL WIN.

And I thank wicked Chops for this Great Picture.

Thud!!

That was the sound of my streak coming to and end last Friday and my poker playing getting curtailed because of my personal life. The session itself looked like a good spot for me. A three handed $50/100 game with one bad player and two good ones. Of course that night the loose bad player won all the money. He hit everything. If he called with the worse hand he got there. If he played the best hand it held up. This went on for about 5 hours until he took all of our money and decided to quit us so he could go eat Lobster. He actually said that. He had to go get some Lobster before the restaurant closed that he wanted to go to downtown. That sucked as we were likely to get our money back. I did not want to play the other good player heads up so I took my lumps and went home. Net for night -$4,256. Just a little under what I won last Tuesday for a net zero week. O well it had to end sometime.

Also, I did not play last night, and I am also not going to Vegas today as I fucked up in my personal life and need to fix it. I will get back to playing in a week or two. I will post poker stuff if I can come up with something besides playing. Hope you had a better week than I did. Talk to you soon...SJ

Wow Comments

Wow, the last post actually generated some comments. I didn't think anyone even read this blog except for a few of my close poker friends. Cool. Thanks for the comments. I did link up a new blog. Go check it out on the left. I have not been reading it but will start. Local guy, who is going to move to Vegas it looks like.

As for the cardroom comment, New York does not have legal poker rooms in the city, thus the need for the rooms. Also, they have a much larger pool of people to draw from with money to make it work. Have never played in NYC, but they do have some pretty close casinos.

Last, I don't normally let anyone take a piece of my action unless I am going to play in a really big game and that is to lay off a piece of the risk. When I say big I mean for me like $300/600 or 1/2k in Vegas or LA. I have only done this twice so it is not like it happens all the time. Most of the guys that would even do that would play in the game themselves so why do they need me. In Seattle I have never done that as the game is not big enough to need to lay off a piece. Plus I would feel bad if I lost anyone else's money. I feel bad enough when it is my own, I don't want someone else to feel bad on top of that. If anyone does want to come sweat me in the game feel free. I usually am wearing an orange shirt and blue sunglasses. Orange if my favorite poker color. I do go by the name John at the Muck so go ahead and come by and say hi. I am going to be there this Friday night after dinner with the family so I will be there at around 9:00pm. Talk to you soon..SJ

Poker Gods Keep Smiling

The poker gods keep smiling on me. I took my usual trip down the Muck last night. I did not get there until after work at like 6:20pm. That is usually a bad thing as the games are full and I may have to wait a while. I did. They run a tournament that starts at 7:15pm and that usually turns the game over as at least a few people get out of the game to go play. There was a $50/100 going again yesterday. I hope this turns into a regular Tuesday thing, and by the sound of the talk at the game it probably will, at least while the high limit regulars are in town. The game was full when I got there, but I was first up. The game turned over a bit for the tournament and I got a seat at about 7:30pm. There was not much of a list, as this size game is at the upper limit of what Seattle can sustain. As I mentioned last week, you need a decent size bankroll to play $50/100 on a regular basis. If you go by a common rule of thumb of 200 BB you need $20,000. Now Seattle has some money, but not that many of them play poker. Add to that the need to play it well, or at least really enjoy it, because if you are not a winning or break even player you will lose $10,000 or more per month if you play regularly. This game will break a lot of people. I think if we keep this game up we will lose a few regulars quickly as there are some people dropping $15,000 in the last two weeks. Ouch, that will leave a mark. Seattle is just not that deep for high limit players.

So to the game. It stayed partially full all night. We never had 9 players at the table while I was there, and for the most part we had 6 or 7. Perfect for me as my favorite game is 4 handed. The game only had two of the good regulars in it and the rest were weak tight players, or gamblers. I was able to push the table around almost at will. I was reading well. Running ok, not hot, but my timing was perfect last night. When I sensed I could steal a pot I did, and it worked almost 90% of the time. I was winning a lot of pots without a showdown, and had some big hands match up with some good 2nd best hands to make some big pots. I was not chasing, and I knew where I was almost at all times. I am feeling really good about my game right now. I have a ton of confidence, and that really translates into good poker and table image. I heard one players make a comment that I was the luckiest guy at the table. I love when I hear that. I am lucky sometimes, but when you win with the best hand or make the correct calls with draws that do get there over time at their percentage you will win. It is when you get drawn out on at a higher percentage than you should, or chase, that you lose money. I had my percentage of best hands get beat on the river, I just lost the minimum when I did, and I don't whine or show the hand so people just forget those hands. That is a key point, NEVER show your hands if you don't have to, unless you have a reason. Why do you want people to see that they can suck out on you, why give them the confidence? The had will just disappear from memory. There are some times when showing is good. If you are trying to create a table image of strong, then show some big hands that don't get called. If you want to put someone on tilt, that is prone to tilt, or to set up a play in a later hand, then show the bluff. HAVE a reason however, don't do it just because, or to make the other player feel good about his laydown. Leave the doubt in their mind so they know that they will have to pay you off to see the hand. If they know that if they lay down you will show anyway you will lose those river bets. Those $100 bills can add up fast. I also maximized the best hands and got lots of extra bets out of my hands. Those add up in a hurry too. I stole a lot of pots last night with what I am sure was not the best hand at the time. People see those pots but did not see the hands. They were assuming that I had the hand. It IS good to be lucky, but it is better to be good and have the table think you are just lucky. You get paid off a lot more with that image. It is not luck to win 8 straight sessions and 9 out of ten over that last month and 1/2. I am playing really well and I am getting results that reflect that. But feel free to call me Mr. Lucky if you would like.

Let me relate one fun hand that happened last night three handed to show how the day went. I had pocket 66's in the SB. Button folded, I raise out of the small blind. Why? I most likely have the best hand heads up, I am out of position so I want to show strength, and set up a bluffing opportunity if I miss. You always want to take control of the hand and be the aggressor. You can win two ways instead of one. I can bluff when I miss and he folds, or I can hit the best hand. If you don't raise you don't give your opponent the chance to lay down. Make THEM see the ghosts. If you are just calling, you can only win with the best hand. I did not miss. Flop 6,K,Q, rainbow. I bet out and get raised. I just call as I am pretty sure I have the best hand and want to get the extra bet on the turn when it is worth more money. Turn a 9, I check hoping for the check raise. He checks behind me, crap I just missed a bet I thought. However, I now know he has 2nd pair, I also know he has not put me on a hand yet, if he thought 2nd pair was good he would have bet. River a perfect Q making him trips and my boat. I bet right out. I had a feeling he would raise, and if he just put me on a K or under pair he would feel good about his hand. He raises me and I three bet him, he calls. I drag the pot. I probably did miss a bet here however. If I bet the turn he most likely calls with 2nd pair heads up, and he most likely raises the river anyway and calls the three bet on the river. O well I guess they all can't go perfect.

So after all that verbosity how did I do? I ended up the day $4,561, a whopping 45.6 BB and a win rate if 11.4 BB an hour. HUGE day, feels good, the poker gods keep on smiling at me. I hope this continues into next week as I head to Vegas on Thursday for the Bellagio tournaments. I hope I get deep in one or two.

On a side note I said that I would respond to an e-mail that I received on underground poker in Seattle. It does not exist. Why? A couple of reasons. #1, we have good legal poker in the Seattle area. You can play as high as you would like in Seattle at both the Muck and up at Tulailup(SP?). There is not enough demand to play any higher than $50/100. People just don't have that kind of poker money around here. The $50 game only goes one or two days a month here, and it is mostly $30/60. You need a sustainable amount of high limit players to make a club work. You are not going to have a club that spreads $4/8 or even $10/20. There are a billion places in Seattle with those games, why would you risk playing in an illegal game to win $100 bucks. There are only three of us in Seattle that can play any higher than $100/200 on a regular basis. I only play one maybe two days a week. Also, we want to win. If we just played each other there would be no edge, we need the other people who can afford to play $30 or $50 but lose to be in the game. #2) It is illegal and not the safest place to play. Do you really want to bring $20,000 to a place that is illegal? If it gets raided they will take your money. The people that play there might carry weapons, and be people of questionable character. There are a number of drug dealers and pimps that play in these bigger games. If they can't go to a home game or club they will come to the casino. I much prefer the security of the casino to an illegal club even if they did have a bouncer. There is enough to think about in these big games, to have to worry about weather or not you are going to get beat up or worse when you take their money is not one more thing I want to think about. Because I will take their money over a few session and they do get mad, even in the casino. They just can't do anything about it at the casino. There are home games here, but they are mostly tournaments or just for fun. Sometimes the stakes can be big, I mentioned that I play in an executive NL games sometimes. But never big enough to replace a win at $50/100. Hope you are all winning, talk to you soon..SJ