tp's table talk

Well, today has to have been the biggest rollercoaster ride I’ve experienced in my short poker career.

I started off this morning catching up with all the poker blogs and I noticed that Lord G had pointed out that Party Poker was offering a 15% reload bonus up to 100$ (code RELOAD). This is what I’ve been waiting for since I ran my bankroll down at the 1/2 tables. So, I threw in the 307$ I had in my Neteller account and got cracking.

I have been noticed that my attention tends to wander, even when playing 2-3 tables at once. I tend to put a movie on or read web pages as I play. So, to try to focus a bit more, I decided to play 4 .5/1 tables at once. I figured that pace should make it impossible for me to pay attention to anything else.

And I was right. With 4 tables open, I couldn’t go 5 minutes without a few playable hands. I only had trouble keeping up with on odd occasions, when I had 3 or more hands to play at the same time. But my progress was fairly steady. I went up 20BB pretty quickly and then bounced between there and 50 for the next couple hours. I hit a bad -12BB run just before dinner to finish up only 27BB on the afternoon. But, I’d also unlocked my 46.05 worth of bonus in the 650+ hands I’d played. That helped to offset my big loss on Wednesday.

After dinner I decided to hit the 1/2 tables again. I’ve been having a bit of success there the past couple nights, and had a good short session this morning to convince me that there was money to be made there. Also, I wanted to move back to fewer tables so I could watch a movie I rented (Timeline, which was even more mindless than I had wanted for the evening). It started well, with a couple early wins. But then things took a turn for the worse. KK went down to AA for a big loss. My flopped straights (and yes, there were more than one) went runner-runner flush for my opponents as I bet it the whole way. And countless other suckouts, some where people had the pot odds to call; most of the time they did not. But I still ended up paying. In less than an hour and a half, I managed to drop a catastrophic 35BB. I was not amused. There had gone my profit for the day.

So, in what was perhaps an ill-advised move, I decided to hit the PL25 tables to see if I could quickly make that money back. Any time you want “to make your money back” you know you are heading to the poker table with the wrong attitude. Still, I have never lost money at the PL/NL tables at Party/Empire – knock on wood. And even if I do manage a winning session, how quick can it possibly be.

An hour and a half later, i’m up to 62.65 at one table and 88.45 at the other for over 100$ of profit. I don’t know why I ever go anywhere but these tables. Good play gives you such a huge edge playing NL and PL. I’ve always been leery of the large swings that are possible, and I know that a big loss can have a negative impact on my game, so I try to avoid it. But the pickings are just too good, and obviously the swings I need to avoid are at the 1/2 tables.

Of course, I just lost 55 bucks to a flush over flush beat, so my mood is suddenly not quite as positive. But the table is starting to get crazy. I just need to bide my time and I can get paid off.

It’s been a while (10 days, according to my spreadsheet) since last I sat down at the online poker tables, but with one work deadline behind me and the Montreal Canadians with the game well in hand, I decided I was past due and logged into Empire for a couple .5/1 to regain my sealegs, so to speak.

Things start slowly, but as the cards kept being dealt, I begin to feel the familiar rhythms. Fold, check, bet, raise. Then I pull a pot, just a small one, but with it came that small rush you get as the chips are pushed towards you. I fold for a while, lose a couple hands, and then I pull a huge pot with a set of threes. I’m in the poker zone and I can’t figure out why I stopped playing in the first place

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to ride it out for very long as before I knew it the hockey game was over (5-1 for Montreal, and finally a point for Souray for my pool) and I needed to held to bed. I’ve been fighting a cold all week, so I had to try to get to bed relatively early. Still, in 70 hands, I managed to pull 30BB, which I owe entirely to the fish at Party. It always amazes me the cards they’ll call down with. I’ve seen a lot of bloggers complaining about the bad beats they’ve sustained by people who don’t play “proper” poker. All I can say is “What are you complaining about?” It can hurt when they hit one of the not infrequent suckouts. But, when you can make 20-30BB in one hand off some players calling you down, and even raising, when they are drawing entirely dead, you have to like it.

The good news is the 30$ puts my backroll back over 600$, which sets a new high point. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting on a portion of that to come back out of Choice Poker. It’s been two weeks now and I’m just about lost faith in ever seeing my money back, which is quite disheartening as it will end up chopping the legs out from under my bankroll.

Later in the evening I played 3 tables of .5/1 and though I was barely keeping even for the first hour, I managed to go on a run after that to add another ~30BB to my tally for the day. Combined with my earlier win this more than made up for my big loss on Sunday, so my poker spirits are again high. So far my short-lived no 1/2 strategy is paying off, but I’ll have to give it a couple weeks before I can call it a success. The only problem is that I was considering playing some 1/2 over at True Poker to accumulate the rest of the points I need to play in the 1000$ freeroll. True doesn’t seem cursed in the same way as Party/Empire for me, so maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. Did I mention that I managed to drop the rest of my Party bankroll last weekend? I’d withdrawn most of it beforehand, but still managed to go through 90$ in a few days. I plan on leaving that account dormant until they offer my a reload bonus.

Well, let’s start this off with the finishes from yesterday’s PJK Tourney. Congratulations to stinky, Roy, Rick and Jason. And huge thanks again to Felicia for setting this thing up. After my exit I was counting on hdouble to take the tournament, but he let me down.
1) stinkypant – $228.00 (Dogs Playing Poker)
2) RoyCooke – $114.00 (Planet Poker Cardroom Manager)
3) RicksCafe – $68.40 (Rick’s Cafe)
4) JsonHoldEm – $45.60 (Poker Odyssey)
5) gpoker (Genius of the Poker)
6) hdouble (The Cards Speak)
7) DOMIT aka Felicia (Felicia Lee’s Poker Journal)
8) Paulburbon (Paulsburbon)
9) PaulyMcG (Tao of Poker)
10) minorthird (Down to the Felt)
11) DontPokeMe (Don’t Poke(r) Me)
12) shftleft (Tight Pocket
13) Mckormick (Diary of an Online Poker Player)
14) dbGrinder (Internet Poker Grinder)
15) tpfelt (tp’s table talk)
16) Mean_Gene (Mean Gene’s Poker Blog)
17) chrisdhal (Chris Halverson’s Blog)
18) whiskytown ()
19) _chainsaw_ (The Fat Guy)
20) StoneKillr (2+2 Forums)
21) AlCantHang (Dead Money = AlCantHang)
22) EOS (Go All-in Forums)
23) boygza aka. Boy Genius (random thoughts and thoroughbred selections)
24) MaudieB (Poker Perspectives)

Apparently Shftleft didn’t actually show up the table and simply folded his way into 12th place. Makes me feel even worse about my finish.

I actually played the first hour of the tournament pretty well, flirting with the chip lead on a few occasions. Of course, I was firmly in the chip lead when I made my big mistake. KTs, UTG+1, I make a minimum raise (we were at 75/150). I’d had a lot of success so far with infrequent early position steals. I had been playing so few hands that often no one wanted to challenge me. stinky re-raised me T150 and everyone else folded. I thought he was just trying to scare me off a bluff. So I came back over the top for another T500. He quickly called and the flop came TAx. Not great, but I bet at it anyways, another T500. At best it might generate a fold, at worst I’m paying to try to maintain an image of playing strong cards. stinky calls and the turn comes a K. I’m thinking that there’s a good chance I’m best with 2-pair here, so I lead out with another T500. stinky comes back over the top all-in. Now here I should have figured he had at aces-up, probably AK…but in the short time I had available to decide, I managed to convince myself that all he had was an ace. I called and he flipped over AA and I was drawing dead. And I’d gone from the chip lead to a short stack. And I doubled stinky up to put him in very good position (which he turned into the win) A few hands later I’m in the small blind and I call a bullying all-in bet at an AKQ7 board to have my 67 lose to 78. In the span of just 5 hands I was out of the tournament.

Three key mistakes, all in one hand. First, playing KTs at all. I was reminded by multiple people afterwards that it’s not a great hand, especially in a tournament. Second, I assume that the re-raise was to scare me off a bluff. The re-raise wasn’t horrible, as I wanted to maintain the image that I was playing only strong hands, but abandoning the small raise would have been the wise mood with the hand I had. Third, the all-in call. There’s no excuse for that. It was just wrong, wrong, wrong.

I then proceeded to hit the 1/2 tables at Empire to try to redeem myself and managed to go on a terrible run. Coldest of cold cards compounded by some poor play and I managed to return all the money I’d made in the afternoon and then some. The less said about that session the better. I talked to Iggy (we miss your posts, buddy) a bit afterwards and he gave me some helpful pointers a little cheering up, for which I was very grateful. The worst part is I know what mistakes I’m making, almost as I’m making them. But I can’t quite seem to shake them.

Only 30 minutes to go until the big show. I’ve already got trash talking messages from Felicia and hdouble today. I’m not too sure that I can top my fourth place finish from last week, but I’m shooting to at least make the final table again. *knock on wood* Of course, I think I may have used up my quota of good cards last Sunday and this past Friday, so I’m not holding my breath. Looks like 24 people are signed up, so we’re up a few bodies on last week.

Well, my foot is feeling better today, but I still can’t step on my heel without some pretty serious pain.

Friday was my bi-weekly PLHE tourney and I was stoked to play. I’ve placed in the money 3 out of the 5 tournaments I’ve held, but never better than third and I really wanted a better finish this time around. I just finished reading Caro’s Book of Poker Tells this week and I was hoping his advice would give me another edge in the tournament.

A bigger edge came in the form of some good cards, for the first time since I’ve begun these tournaments. And I was playing well, choosing my moments to steal and getting people to pay off my good hands. Unfortunately someone else at my starting table (we started with 2 tables of 8) was lucking into some even better cards and managed to take out a few people early (including busting AA on the fourth hand) and amassed a huge chip lead that he was able to maintain through most of the tournament. The good news was that he was a bit transparent and liked to bluff pots, so there were opportunities to take some chips off of him. The bad news was he kept catching cards like a fiend to keep in the hands. Worse of all, he was terribly obnoxious and would crow about “another victim” and pound the table with every player he busted. And nothing that frustrates me more than someone boasting about their good play when they are getting lucky.

He wasn’t the only one busting a number of players, however, as I was pushing them all-in when I felt I had the best of it and my hands were holding up for a change. I managed to build myself a pretty good stack and was even in the lead for a while with about T5000 (everyone started with T1000) when we got down to the final four. But then I listened to old Caro and ended up paying for it. I was keeping a closer eye on players’ reactions when the flop came and that had been helping throughout the night. I ended up heads-up on a hand with Mr. Obnoxious and I saw that he wasn’t happy with the KJx flop. It had missed my AQ but I bet T500 into the T800 pot anyways, knowing that the flop didn’t help him. He continued to look unhappy, but called the bet. The turn came another blank and I bet out with another T500 bet, not wanting to overbet and have him suspicious of a bluff. Still unhappy, but still calling. Another blank on the river and there are no straights and no flushes possible, so I bet T1000. He thinks it over for a long time before he calls and turns over J9 for second pair. This is followed by more thumping and yelling on his part and more frustration on mine. I had read the situation correctly, but wasn’t able to push him off of his hand. And the loss left me short-stacked at about T1500. Typical late game impatience and over-aggression from me, but at least I wasn’t betting at a premium hand.

Later on he was gloating about knowing my tell when I was bluffing. He claimed that someone else had told him what it was and it had proved accurate all night. Of course, this revelation immediately followed a hand where he was berating his brother for not having called my pot-sized pre-flop bluff raise when I had JJ. Now, maybe this player is a lot more sophisticated than any of us believed he was and was playing me like a fiddle, but I think the general concensus of ignorant and obnoxious was probably more accurate.

I was able to hang on as the other short stack the table slowly hemorraged chips. When he was down to about T1000 in chips he made a stand under the gun but unfortunately he ran into a better hand and I was guaranteed at least third. But my chip position was awful and I was stuck between two brothers. So, I decided to turn on the aggression.

I started making pot-sized raises pre-flop two out of every three hands. And they kept folding to me. They kept talking about not caring about their blinds and how only the big hands mattered, but meanwhile I had built myself back up to T3000 in chips at the 100/200 and 200/400 levels. Occasionally they would call the raise to see a flop, but I hit enough of them that soon a medium sized bet at a scary flop would cause them to fold. It was funny to listen to them bitch about me not seeing the flop and “playing real cards” and how I was constantly bluffing. But they didn’t do anything about it and I was able to chip away at their stacks quite successfully.

But then I did the one thing you should not do in this position. My usual raise was re-raised back at me. I had KJs and for some reason I managed to convince myself that he was just betting back at out of frustration, and probably didn’t have a great hand, and even if he did, he’s been running scared most of the night. Truthfully, I figured him for a weak ace, which I shouldn’t call, but thought I would be able to get him to lay down. And the clincher was that the guy just pissed me off. So I came back over the top of him for the rest of my chips, which was another T1700 into the T4000 pot. He reluctantly called and was exuberant when he flipped his AQo against my KJ. No help came and I was out in third.

Out in third and incredibly pissed off. What a completely bonehead move on my part. And to such a marginal player and unpleasant person. And after a lot of very hard work to build my stack back up to a competitive level. I could have just bided my time and taken advantage of mistakes later on. But again my impatience prevents me from winning a tournament. Mr. Obnoxious ended up hanging out to beat out his brother for the tournament victory, so it just made the whole thing even more frustrating.

But, I did manage to get in a better mood, winning some money in some cash games after the tourney was over. And after all, I had finished in the money for my 4th out of 6 tournaments, so I must have been doing something right. Of course, my good mood was short lived as I managed to cripple myself on the way home. But that is another story. My mood wasn’t helped by the ridiculous Senators loss last night (though it means very little) and the fact that one of my picks for my playoff hockey pool was injured in the game. But some winning poker earlier this afternoon and some cheering up from Felicia on IM might just be enough to get me in the right frame of mind for tonight’s PJK tournament.