Next Time I'll Take a Screen Shot

I was playing a few tables of 3/6 LHE this morning which is always a very juicy game. At a 6 handed table you will usually find nothing but loose/weak European or Russian players. There are a few players whose game I have respect for but I have detailed notes on how they play their hands.

Then you have one other type of player who will be there some times and when he is, the game is great. This player is the drunk/tired west coast player who has been up all night. Usually I only see this on Saturday or Sunday mornings but today there was a player from New Mexico who might be the worst player I've ever seen at a 3/6 online table.

He had a stack of about $470 and was 3-betting every hand pre-flop, calling raises and re-raises cold, and showing down with bottom pair and ace high. Of course this means he was getting paid off on every big hand and he was running like Usain Bolt.

Then the following hand took place.

UTG he raises as he'd been doing every hand. Everyone calls behind and on the Button I 3-bet with JsTs because it has great value there. Both blinds fold and everyone else just calls.

The flop is 7s 8s 9h.

Southwestern Psycho leads, UTG+2 raises, folded to me and I 3-bet. SwP caps and we both call.

The turn is Ad and the same action takes place - lead, raise, 3-bet, cap, call, call.

The river is Kd and this time it goes check, check, bet by me, call, call.

SwP had a set of nines and UTG+2 had As6s. Pretty big pot for a 3-6 game. After it was done is when the fun started in the chat box.

Him: F.ucking donkeys
Him: JT nice play fish
Him: No wonder u dont have a real stack

First, el oh el at him thinking stack size matters in a limit game. Second, I usually don't ever do something like this but it was time for me to go to work anyway. I sat out and clicked on the dealer to add more chips, then made my stack at the table $15,999. Then I sat back in.

Me: Sorry, is this better?

He left on the next hand, and so did I.

Soft Game Alert and Bodog Nostalgia

This is probably old news to some.

The 2/4 and 3/6 limit hold em games on the Cake network are softer than all other poker sites. Not only is the percentage of flops seen greater on this network, but your opponents also call down with Ace high or weak hands at a far greater ratio than other sites I have played - Full Tilt, Poker Stars, and Bodog.

Note: My own Bodog experiences are about 8 months old at this point, but some of my online poker playing friends have commented that the traffic is terrible and the site is no longer worthy of any consideration due to this and their increased tournament fees/decreased guaranteed prize pools.

That's a real shame. Bodog used to be the site for all your donkey needs. In 2006 and 2007 I made a killing at 2/3 NL and 2/4 NL. I still see some of the same players kicking around at these same stakes, but for the most part the well has run dry.

Back to the Cake network.

I highly recommend the LHE games there. I haven't played 5/10 or 10/20 yet so I cannot speak to those, but I observed a 5/10 game for a bit and it played aggressively with most pots being 3-bet pre-flop so proceed with caution if you are rockish by nature.

The tournaments also have good value. The $20,000 Guaranteed is soft. My girlfriend and I decided to team up so she could ask me questions about strategy and hand selection and I think we took 13th place even though I haven't been thinking about poker lately.

The only catch to re-buy tournaments on the Cake network is the fact that no one seems to play it like a re-buy. In other words, what you'll find is that everyone takes the immediate re-buy to get to 3,000 chips and then it's played like a freezeout. This can be advantageous, though. If you decide to gamble for a stack, the other players will usually assume this is your normal playing style and you'll get paid off every time after the break.

Either that, or I really am a maniac and haven't figure it out yet.

All Done

This blog will probably live on in one form or another, but I picked a weird point in my poker life to start it.

I've scaled way down in terms of both playing time and stakes when it comes to poker, and it's due to no other reason than pure boredom. While I never reached the status of being a 25/50 reg, I managed to pretty well for myself over the past few years and it's clearly time to move on to something else.

At the end of the day it's just money and I get no enjoyment out of it except for the odd Sunday major where I manage to make a deep run.

But the fact is I have lost the will to play because I'd much rather take those hours each day and spend them with my girlfriend as we continue to build up our apartment, explore the city, and try new things together.

I've always been socially introverted, cynical, and a creature of habit. She forces me to step out of my comfort zone and try different things. In a span of 8 months she's managed to change years and years worth of stubborness and reticence. And stubborn as I might be, she knows how much she's done and how much I appreciate all of it.

It would feel like an insult to her hard work and love if I wasted my time sitting at a PC every night, frittering my time away just to grind out a modest profit.

This isn't me standing on a soap box and telling other players to give it up - far from it. But I think at some point in our lives we all luck into or create a good opportunity for long-term happiness and have this decision to make.

Faced with the choice between this beautiful, funny, and smart girl who loves me unconditionally or a card game played over a computer, there isn't a choice at all.

A, each morning I wake up and tell myself to always deserve you.

And if anyone comes looking for me to play in a home game - sorry, can't. I had to see about a girl.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I have really scaled back the amount of online poker I play for a couple reasons:

1. I also sports bet and am producing far greater profits there, which in turn requires a lot of my free time researching trends and tracking line movements, but the bigger reason is
2. Online poker has really dried up.

It was only a matter of time, really. I admire the business sense of people like Taylor Caby, Johnny Bax, Phil Galfond and other people who run poker training sites - but the reality is they've killed the game.

You'll notice how the majority of the people who run these training sites barely play the game anymore. They're more content to stake others and reap the profits of a site that has no overhead costs. Galfond is the only exception and he plays nosebleed PLO. Caby is all but retired, Townshend is a multi-accounting cheat, and Bax and Sheets either don't play much anymore or they play and fail to put up strong results.

A few years ago you could play $200 NL and $400 NL and crush it against donks would would stack off with top pair, weak kicker or worse.

Now it's to the point where it's borderline unprofitable to set mine because even as low as $100 NL you're finding players capable of laying down pretty good hands - not too mention everybody now knows about 3-betting light and the value of semi-bluffing hands.

I'll still play online tournaments because I have a 90% ROI on the site I choose to play at, but the value of cash games has taken a turn for the worse. There is a mathematically correct to play your hands in most situations and the more people who learn this, the less money can be won. Now it's just a game of set over set hands or Aces versus Kings AIPF. Yawn. I'll find another hobby, thanks.

If you choose to play cash games, make Pot Limit Omaha your game of choice. There is still plenty of dead money out there, but make sure you're properly bankrolled and can handle horrid swings because you will rarely get it all in the middle being more than a 55% favorite in any given hand.

Our only hope is that poker gets regulated in the United States and brings in an influx of bad players who were too scared to make accounts when it was all being run offshore, but maybe that's just a pipe dream for the mid-stakes grinder. My advice? Keep ahead of the curve.

Running Bad

I have a couple theories on running bad.

The first one is that it's simple variance that happens to everyone, everywhere. Easy enough, right?

The second one is more complex. I think some people can become psychologically affected by normal variance to the point where it causes them to remain in run-bad purgatory even once the cards have started cooperating again.

An example of this would be checking a Turn you'd normally bet and missing value, or worse, letting someone get there for free, just because chasers were previously getting there even when you bet. Another example would be folding a drawing hand even when getting proper calling odds just because you haven't been getting there lately.

A lot of people will take a break from playing when they start getting cold decked. I used to be of that camp, but I'm starting to think the solution is just to keep playing. If you play professionally (or just play a lot) you're definitely in for those days when all the money goes in on the Turn with you getting the best of it and all the money being slid over to your opponents after the River card comes.

But if you're not tilting, or if you can recognize tilt and only stop playing then, why wouldn't you want to just power through it? As long as you are using sound bankroll management (I'll probably do a short post some other time about this) you will never go broke during a period of running bad. This is because you'll drop down to lower stakes if necessary to keep your risk of ruin a static number - close to zero.

And who knows how long this period of running bad could last if you limit the number of hands you play? Sure, you'll be decreasing your odds of a downswing but you're also decreasing your odds of an upswing by the same amount.

So like Tony G says, "On your bike."

Identifying Tilt

The majority of money in a cash game is won, and lost, during periods of tilted play. That's just common sense.

I can't even count how many times I've been playing a normal six handed cash game online when all of a sudden the table turned maniacal after a bad beat pot.

Here are some ways to tell that you're on tilt:

• You use the chatbox to question someone's play or berate them (obvious one)
• You start clicking and typing bets harder than usual (semi-obvious)
• You act faster than usual when action is on you (this one is more subtle so pay close attention)
• You make aggressive calls (unsuited connectors from the blinds, overcalling with weakish hands like QTo, etc. Again, subtle)

You can reduce your chances of tilting using a couple different things. Gay ass Blogger won't allow me to make a second bulleted list because its interface likes to be face fucked by moose cock, so you'll have to settle for line breaks.

Music: Whatever you listen to, listen to the softer side of that genre. Listening to frenetic music from experimental and noise-rock bands will make your mind race and will affect your game.

Sleep: Get enough of it. Playing tired leads to bad decisions which leads to going on tilt because you're pissed off that you decided to play while tired.

Water: Drink it. Keeps your mind alert and water will give you a lot more energy than caffeine ever can.

Coffee: Don't drink it. The caffeine will make you jittery and it takes over two hours for it to exit your system, but only about 10 minutes to fully kick in.

In the end, though, it comes down to how you're hardwired. Some people are more even keeled than others. The key is recognizing when you tilt and having the discipline to walk away.

Have A Plan

"I'm gonna outplay this guy. I'm gonna outplay this guy, this hand."

-Mitch McDermott, Rounders

Anyone who thinks like this is a fucking moron.

Yes, I know it's a movie.

I also know that I see it happen in tournaments and cash games all the time. I don't even know why. People just spaz out at random points and double or triple barrel bluff into a monster on a bad board to run a bluff - an example of a bad board to run a bluff is a really dry board like 3 7 K rainbow. If you fire and get raised or flatted, you're almost never getting floated by air at lower stakes games. This is an easy check/fold on the turn unless you ran a semi-bluff and your hand improves to the best hand or a draw to the best hand.

Yet time and time again I'll see someone double barrel or triple barrel and run into AK, KQ, or a set in these spots.

Stop overthinking things. Your opponents aren't that great. Unless you see them showdown weak hands or bluffs, they're probably value betting and value calling you all these times. You can't fucking represent what the other guy is holding if you stop and think for a minute.

It took me many online sessions at $100 NL and $200 NL to realize there aren't as many crazy bluffers out there as you think. The online world is mostly filled with call stations these days. Keep that in mind and you'll do just fine.

Have a plan for your raises and bets - if you stop and ask yourself what you'll do on the turn or river if you raise and get called and can't come up with a good anwer, chances are you shouldn't make that raise or bet to begin with.

You're Not 3 Betting Enough

I know for a fact you aren't. If you were, you'd have better success.

To be successful at online MTT's you need to ramp up your aggression more. This means 3 betting hands that aren't in the top 2%.

A good place to start is 3 betting suited connectors against a late position raiser when you're in the CO or have the Button. You also need more than 30 BB's to do this, because raise/folding with a 30 BB stack means you're retarded and do not deserve to ever win anything. Ever.

Hands like 89s and JTs flop well and you'll have position against your opponent for the remainder of the hand, which will rarely last past the flop unless your opponent connects in a big way.

Remember, many opponents will play aggressively pre-flop but a staggeringly low number will continue to play aggressively on the flop and turn.

Important Note: You must also know your opponent here. If you do this every time against every type of player, you've become The Spewtard.

MTT's aren't bingo like every loser likes to claim. There's a degree of skill, a degree of calculated risk, and a degree of luck. If you put skill and reading ability at the forefront, you'll seldom find yourself in more than just one or two spots where you need to "get lucky".