Poker Moth

Long time, no post. Several reasons for this;

1. I’m heinously busy with non-poker work, so I’m not playing all that much, and when I am, I’m feeling guilty about looming deadlines. Finding the time to post on here is tricky, I guess I shouldn’t complain about having too much work on in the current financial climate, but… while it’s nice to have reliable work coming in, I wish I had more time for poker.

2. When I do decide to post, I keep trying to write something about the late Cryptologic network, which closed its poker operations last week. This always ends up with an interminable ramble where I chart the entirety of my poker career over the last five years, and even I’m able to see that no-one wants to read that. (You might, possibly, think you do, but believe me, it’s bloody tedious). So, I’ll get it out of the way here: farewell, Crypto. You will be missed.

3. The Wordpress site has gone a bit mental.

4. Other weak excuses (fill these in later)

Anyway, I won a tournament today, which was nice. Nicer still that it was a relatively clean win; my only suckout in the entire 5 hours was when we were down to three players, and I won a 40/60 preflop race against the very-shortstack. Barely a suckout at all, in fact, but that was the worst spot I won from, and it’s always satisfying to take down a tourney without too much help from the dealer.

Nice to win the money too, of course. Anyway, the main thing is, I’ve cleared that Crypotologic-post blockage. More posts soon!

Back on the Ante-Up horsey today, and I managed my first cash (at the fifth attempt). Final table, in fact; I just got bumped out in 7th, running KQQTss into a slowplayed AA33, SAD FACE. I very nearly didn’t play, as I was on the verge of quitting for the night, but when I saw that Stars had added Ante Up MTTs in no-limit Omaha hi/lo, it became clear that I had no choice. Ante-up tourneys in NLO8? New BEST THING EVER!

Yeah, I made the final table at my first attempt, so I’m obviously going to say that, but they really are fantastic. Ante-up is a beautiful structure in bog-standard hold’em, but you still need to hit the occasional flop. In Omaha/8, that’s not so hard to do, and it’s… gorgeous. I was chipped up for most of the tourney, although there was one point where I came perilously close to being knocked out; a turdjuggling flump called my pot sized bet on the flop with a gutshot wheel draw, then called my mahoosive overshove after he completely missed the turn, (and I still had the nuts with top set), but he obviously hit one of his four wheel outs on the river to scoop me. That took me from being among the chip leaders to a perilous shortstack (often a fine line in Ante Ups) which was deeply annoying, as I’d have been all but untouchable if I’d won that pot, but hey. I managed to finaigle my way back into contention with a couple of races, although I never fully recovered, and things took a turn for the worst again around the final table bubble, where I ended up pretty flop-dead, and frequently out of position against a totally unbluffable chipleader, which meant I had to batten down the hatches for a while until the bubble burst. That took about four hours (approx), and by the time it did, I was running on empty. Probably my own fault for being a bit too passive/payout conscious. Oh well.

Anyway, it ended up being a healthy (if not spectacular) payday, but it was also the funniest tournament I’ve ever played. I was in actual, factual fits of laughter for huge portions of it, largely because of a table expert who was slagging off all and sundry for playing “loose”, while he was folding 75% of his hands preflop despite getting odds in excess of (for instance) 500-1 on the limp. And then there were hands like this one (from the eternal final table bubble) -

Seat 3: dermoth (32750 in chips)
Seat 4: Seat 4 (16340 in chips)
Seat 5: Seat 5 (42962 in chips)
Seat 6: Seat 6 (171337 in chips)
Seat 8: Seat 8 (37823 in chips)
Seat 9: Seat 9 (22170 in chips)
dermoth: posts the ante 800
Seat 4: posts the ante 800
Seat 5: posts the ante 800
Seat 6: posts the ante 800
Seat 8: posts the ante 800
Seat 9: posts the ante 800
Seat 9: posts small blind 5
dermoth: posts big blind 5

That’ll be 4810 chips in the pot to begin, then.

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to dermoth [Ac 9s Ts 8d]
Seat 4: calls 5
Seat 5: calls 5
Seat 6: calls 5
Seat 8: calls 5
Seat 9: checks
dermoth: checks
*** FLOP *** [As Qs 7c]

Not a great flop; top pair and ropey runner runner straight possibilities versus almost guaranteed flush and low draws.

Seat 9: checks
dermoth: checks
Seat 4: checks
Seat 5: checks
Seat 6: checks
Seat 8: checks

Things had got very trappy by this point. Seat 6’s enormous stack and loose betting range, combined with the payout structure (which at this stage offered a 10% payout jump for tenth place, followed by a 33% one for reaching the final table), meant that people were checking a lot of strong holdings on the flop, and check-calling with draws. Anything less than an overpot bet was likely to be called, and my hand certainly didn’t merit that kind of strength.

*** TURN *** [As Qs 7c] [Th]

I make two pair on the turn and pick up a straight draw, but I’m out of position, and all an information bet is likely to tell me is that I’ve got four decent outs and am very, very vulnerable. If I make my straight, I’m not happy; it will either complete a low draw or 700 different broadways, depending on which end hits. Check!

Seat 9: checks
dermoth: checks
Seat 4: checks
Seat 5: checks
Seat 6: checks
Seat 8: checks
*** RIVER *** [As Qs 7c Th] [7h]

Lows and flushes miss, but I’m still losing to AQ, KJ, AA, QQ, TT, and now any hand with a seven in it. So I check and hope for a free showdown.

Seat 9: checks
dermoth: checks
Seat 4: checks
Seat 5: checks
Seat 6: checks
Seat 8: bets 5

No, that’s not a typo. This is the kind of thing that happens in Ante Up tournaments. Seat 8 bets 5 (five) chips into a pot containing 4810 (four thousand, eight hundred and ten) chips. It’s worth remembering that we’ve been in this tournament for three hours at this point, and the original field of 250+ runners is now down to just 11. And one of those eleven survivors – theoretically one of the eleven best players in the tournament – has just made a bet on the end, into five players, offering them odds of 962-1 on their call.

Seat 9: folds
dermoth: calls 5

OK, yes, this looks like an extremely passive response, but I’m not fond of making raises that will only be called by hands that can beat me, which limits my options in this spot to calling, folding, or making a similarly pathetic raise, to, say 275, or something. I’m obviously not folding with odds of 962-1, and I don’t fancy any kind of reraise because a) there are still three players to act behind me, including the chipleader, b) my hand’s pretty weak, and c) how can a minbet possibly be anything other than an attempt to keep the action alive and provoke someone into reraising? So, yeah. Just a call.

Seat 4: calls 5
Seat 5: folds
Seat 6: folds
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Seat 8: shows [6s 9d Ad Kc] (HI: two pair, Aces and Sevens)
dermoth: shows [Ac 9s Ts 8d] (HI: two pair, Aces and Tens)
Seat 4: mucks hand
dermoth collected 4845 from pot
No low hand qualified
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4845 | Rake 0
Board [As Qs 7c Th 7h]
Seat 3: dermoth (big blind) showed [Ac 9s Ts 8d] and won (4845) with HI: two pair, Aces and Tens, and then fell off his chair laughing.
Seat 4: Seat 4 mucked [4d 6c Td Qh]
Seat 5: Seat 5 folded on the River
Seat 6: Seat 6 folded on the River
Seat 8: Seat 8 (button) showed [6s 9d Ad Kc] and lost with HI: two pair, Aces and Sevens
Seat 9: Seat 9 (small blind) folded on the River

I am aware that this kind of funny will only appeal to the nerdiest of poker nerds, but my god, I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire poker career.

Dear PokerStars;
Please run this tournament ever day. Ty,ty.
Moth.

My mind is made up, I’m down on my luck, I’ve run out of bullets again

I was on the verge of quitting today. Alright, I wasn’t really, but I was having a good old whinge to the Poker Hof about my miserable luck this afternoon, and I may have mentioned my desire to take up… knitting? Something else, anyway. My bankroll was ruined, and my luck had been abysmal; it’s easy to exaggerate these things, but I have no doubt that it was one of the worst downswings I’ve experienced in five years of playing the game, and probably THE worst. No fun.

You can probably guess where this is going (the screenshot below will give some clue), but after I’d finished off some proper, paid work, I decided to play a 180 man SNG. I ran a bad bluff early on, lost half my stack, said hello to the familiar feelings of inevitable failure, started recalculating my bankroll strategy, and then – BOOM – deck/face conflict. I doubled up on two successive hands, and suddenly had my table covered. Not long after, the cards started coming. And coming. And coming. For about ten minutes, I either had aces or kings, or flopped huge. Usually both. And I was getting paid off. Even when the ridiculous spate of big pocket pairs stopped coming – I think I had three pairs of aces, and kings four times, although I lost with one KK and only took the blinds with another – nobody was interested in looking me up. When they did, things like this tended to happen. (All-in on the flop, I bet out, he pushed…)

Overkill

(I choose to remain anonymous for two reasons: a) I’m slightly paranoid, and feel that if I reveal too much about my game on this blog AND announce my Stars screenname, it may be detrimental – which I know is ridiculous – but more importantly b) I have a really fucking stupid screenname, which I can’t change).

That pot burst the bubble, and it was the last big starting hand that I had, but by that point I had what scientists refer to as “fuck-you chips”, and it really didn’t matter what I was holding any more. Two further hours of nice, controlled aggression later and I had won the thing, and more than doubled my bankroll in the process. Not a moment too soon, frankly. I was due, to put it mildly. In fact, I’m still due, but…

I FEEL BETTER, NOW.

Hello! It’s Sunday, it’s almost 8.30pm, so that must mean – the 200kliveblog!

Only, there’s a bit of a problem with that. You see, I’ve had to take drastic steps to try and correct the rather severe downswing that I’ve been ENJOYING of late. These are known as The Rules Of Engagement, and they are rather strict. Under normal circumstanes, this means NO TALKING IN THE CHAT BOX, and more importantly, NO WEBBROWSER. Total concentration is called for at all times. Distractions will not be tolerated.

And so far, this has worked rather well. However, a weekly feature is a weekly feature, so I’m going to have to bend The Rules a bit. But not much; I will not be updating at my usual pace. So, with that in mind -

8.30pm. We’re off. So far, Victor Ramdin is the only Team Pokerstars member to sign up.

8.45pm: Alexandre Gomes has joined us. Meanwhile, my table is only seven handed, despite there being 28000 people in the tourney. Pokerstars seems really laggy, for some reason.

8.55pm: Presumably because this tourney wasn’t big enough before, Stars have expanded the player cap to 35000 runners. Just over 30000 have signed up so far. Do they leave registration open until it’s full? Could take a while at this rate. Meanwhile, nothing of interest has happened to me at all.

9pm: Nope, they close it after half an hour. 30286 runners. There are no new TP entrants, so it’s just Gomes and Ramdin for me to beat (which I don’t care about; they’re both a lot better than Ray Rahme, so it won’t be embarrassing if they outlast me). In other news, my table has filled up, finally, and I still haven’t seen a starting hand of note. Pinched a couple of pots out of the blinds, though, so I have slightly more chips than I started with. OTOH, blinds are now 50/100.

9.15pm: I won 1500 chips after hitting top pauir with 98s in a multiway raised pot earlier. As tradition dictates, I’m TOTALLY card dead. I call a minraise from the BB with T2o, flop comes down T high, I checkraise a couple more BBs out of the stealer. I’m due a rush of cards, as per usual.

9.20pm: In lieu of proper updates, I will ocassionally post some of my notes on the players on my table. e.g.

200k – ran an incredibly inept bluff with K high on A board. bet flop and river, looked weak, was weak. —- bluffs 600 at shortstack, folds to all in raise of 260 more. Srsly.

9.25pm: 55 minutes in, I get my first opening hand – KQo. I take the blinds. Meanwhile, Gomes is out.

9.29pm: I pick up KQo again, this time in early position, and (emboldened by my earlier success) I make a standard opening raise. The big stack on the table calls behind, and the shortstack BB goes all in over the top. I shove to isolate, the stack goes away, and I lose to QQ.

FIRST BREAK! Trad. arr. – I have had precisely no pairs, no ace better than A8, and KQ twice. I have just shy of 4000 chips, which I feel is quite an achievement, considering. Gomes finished in 20372nd place, Ramdin is currently 2670th, and I’m about 10000th of 16371 remaining. I hate to be predictable, but COULD I HAVE SOME FUCKING CARDS PLEASE DEALER?

9.38pm: First hand after the break, I get ATs. They look like aces. Nonetheless, I fold to a ton of action before me, and see QQ beat AKo and 77. Sigh.

9.39pm: Think about shoving on the button with 72o. Y’know, for a laugh. Decide against it. Board comes 77A25. I am going to have to make a move soon.

9.43pm: Pick up QQ in early position. Limp. I get minraised, then the SB minreraises. I shove all-in, he’s in no way pot-committed, but calls anyway, with AJo. You can guess the rest.

I could whine about my luck, but it wouldn’t do any good. I don’t think I could have played it any better, which is all you could ask. I wonder if I should have got involved with the KQ in early position that ended up losing to QQ, but I’d been so carddead that i needed to make something happen at some point in the first hour, and once I’d opened the pot, I had to at least call.

Not my day today. I’m beginning to think that I’m going to avoid this tournament in future; the blind structure is just too fast, and you need cards or luck to survive, and at the moment, I’m short of both. We shall see.

Annoyed that my streak of beating Team Pokerstars is over, too. Grrr.

Just seen this pop up on Twitter -

Donald Trump explains why he “selected”… Annie Duke to appear on USCA.

Annie Duke! US Celebrity Apprentice! ANNIE DUKE! US CELEBRITY APPRENTICE!

I’m off to have a lie down.

A trio of teaser trailers for HSPS5 have appeared on Pokertube. Observe! With your eyes!

(Clearly, if you don’t want this stuff spoilered, don’t read).

CLIP THE FIRST: In which Kaplan and Benza kick things off by reminding us that the show’s really about their hilarious double act. Then, Tom Dwan and Peter Eastgate play a fairly dull pot, and Doyle Brunson pretends to be surprised that they are playing weak hands.
http://www.pokertube.com/Movies.aspx?movie=9254

CLIP THE SECOND: In which Eastgate and Dwan play a more interesting pot where “Ice-Gate” demonstrates the skills that made him World Champion, and Tom Dwan pulls a funny face.
http://www.pokertube.com/Movies.aspx?movie=9224

CLIP THE THIRD: In which Phil Laak flirts with Patrik Antonius.
http://www.pokertube.com/Movies.aspx?movie=9208

So, what have we learned? They’ve increased the blinds. Presumably that means the minimum buy-in is higher. We see several usual suspects, plus everybody’s favourite maniacs, Durrr and Ziigmund, Peter “World Champion, no, really” Eastgate, and, err, Sam Simon?

Oh, lol. According to his Wiki page, Simon used to be married to Jennifer Tilly. I do hope he’s playing with Laak.

I AM MORE EXCITED THAN I WAS BEFORE, WHICH WAS VERY EXCITED. YES.