Legal Live Poker in Texas?

Damn, it's been a long while since I've posted. I haven't done much poker playing lately.

I did make one trip over to Louisiana to play a live tournament. I got busted by a retard playing a retarded hand. I had some pocket nines and the board came all low cards. I was out of position, but knew I was ahead, so I decided to push it hard. I made a pot-sized bet into three-way action. Middle guy called, and the retard raised me. I sat there for about three solid minutes, thinking. He had to either have top pair with an ace (having played some trash like A7 or A6) or a good draw. The middle guy had no business calling my first bet and I knew it. Either way, I couldn't let the hand go on, so I shoved in all my chips. He called, and had nine total outs, and hit the river.

He did have about a 1 in 3 chance of winning the hand when he called. But after I shoved, he had to call 9500 chips to win about 15,000. He wasn't getting the correct pot odds to call. I also think his semi-bluff raise was craptacular. I thought I had signalled sufficient intent to play the hand hard. If you're bluffing, don't raise into someone who's going to shove his stack in on you!

I was expecting a fold, because of the stakes of the game. I was happy to see that I was well ahead when the cards were rolled up. I like it when someone is willing to chase for a stack (mine was above average, his was even more so). It just pisses me the hell off when they luck out on me.

In retrospect, I should have overbet the pot instead of just betting the size of the pot. My opponents weren't thinking in those terms. The size of the pot was too small for a pot-sized bet to get any respect. Online, that bet would have gotten a lot more respect. Maybe if I had bet bigger, middle guy would have dropped straoight away and the other guy would have just called, giving me the option to open-shove the turn, for the win.

Anyway, yeah, it sucked travelling to a place five hours away to take a crushing like that. I really, really hope this bill passes. Live poker close to home would just rock. Seems unlikely, though.

WCOOP #17, $1050 Limit Holdem

So far, so good! As we reach the end of the first hour (the end of the second, or 30/60, level), Ive chipped up by 1000 (over the starting 5000). The deck has been running over me. And there are two huge fish at the table, playing any two cards in any position, just giving away their stacks.

So far, it's all good! I'll update this page each hour with a quick update that includes my stats thus far.


End of Hour 1 (Level 2):
During current Hold'em session you were dealt 82 hands and saw flop:
- 2 out of 10 times while in big blind (20%)
- 3 out of 10 times while in small blind (30%)
- 13 out of 62 times in other positions (20%)
- a total of 18 out of 82 (21%)
Pots won at showdown - 6 of 8 (75%)
Pots won without showdown - 5

Stack: largest 7265, smallest 2220, average 5000
Your current position is 56 out of 695
Time bank balance is 120 seconds
in 29 min stakes 100/200
For more information see Tournament Lobby

(My stack size is 6080)

During levels 3 and 4 I chipped up a little bit, then lost more than I would like to have on some questionable plays. Players started busting out shortly after Level 4 started. I'm surviving!

End of Hour 2 (Level 4):
During current Hold'em session you were dealt 152 hands and saw flop:
- 8 out of 18 times while in big blind (44%)
- 5 out of 18 times while in small blind (27%)
- 20 out of 116 times in other positions (17%)
- a total of 33 out of 152 (21%)
Pots won at showdown - 8 of 12 (66%)
Pots won without showdown - 8

Stack: largest 20040, smallest 570, average 5241
Your current position is 434 out of 663
Time bank balance is 120 seconds

(My stack size is 4280)


Well, I got a little healthier and the field is being winnowed down quickly. Still hanging in there!

End of Hour 3 (Level 6):
During current Hold'em session you were dealt 231 hands and saw flop:
- 14 out of 27 times while in big blind (51%)
- 6 out of 27 times while in small blind (22%)
- 30 out of 177 times in other positions (16%)
- a total of 50 out of 231 (21%)
Pots won at showdown - 13 of 20 (65%)
Pots won without showdown - 12

Stack: largest 30785, smallest 640, average 7331
Your current position is 287 out of 474
Time bank balance is 120 seconds

(My stack size is 5884)


Hello, card rush. You should come visit more often.

Hour 3.5 (End of Level 7):
During current Hold'em session you were dealt 274 hands and saw flop:
- 15 out of 31 times while in big blind (48%)
- 7 out of 32 times while in small blind (21%)
- 39 out of 211 times in other positions (18%)
- a total of 61 out of 274 (22%)
Pots won at showdown - 19 of 28 (67%)
Pots won without showdown - 13

Stack: largest 28877, smallest 180, average 9417
Your current position is 3 out of 369
Time bank balance is 120 seconds
in 29 min stakes 600/1200

(My stack size is 24784)


In the last half of the fourth hour, I chipped up to about 31K then dropped back down a little. I spent a glorious 2 minutes or so as the chipleader of this whole shindig.

End of Hour 4 (Level 8):
During current Hold'em session you were dealt 322 hands and saw flop:
- 16 out of 36 times while in big blind (44%)
- 9 out of 37 times while in small blind (24%)
- 42 out of 249 times in other positions (16%)
- a total of 67 out of 322 (20%)
Pots won at showdown - 20 of 30 (66%)
Pots won without showdown – 16

Stack: largest 46396, smallest 1135, average 12822
Your current position is 23 out of 271
Time bank balance is 120 seconds

(My stack size is 24584)


Well, over Levels 9 and 10, I more than doubled my stack. I'm a bit ashamed to admit I did it by dishing out some bad beats. I should have a stack that is maybe a little over average size, and instead I'm solidly up there in the top ten chip counts for the whole tourney.

Now, I'm not too ashamed. :) Sometimes you take the bad beats, sometimes you dish them out. Thankfully, I got to be on the giving end of that here in the middle of this high-dollar tournament.

We're approaching the bubble. 60 or so more eliminations don't win anything. The top 90 win cash.

I want to be at the final table, though, have no doubt. The 9th place prize is over $10,000.

End of Hour 5 (Level 10):
During current Hold'em session you were dealt 416 hands and saw flop:
- 19 out of 47 times while in big blind (40%)
- 13 out of 48 times while in small blind (27%)
- 48 out of 321 times in other positions (14%)
- a total of 80 out of 416 (19%)
Pots won at showdown - 24 of 35 (68%)
Pots won without showdown - 24

Stack: largest 84345, smallest 3240, average 23965
Your current position is 7 out of 145
Time bank balance is 120 seconds

(My stack size is 58248)


At about 15 minutes before the end of level 12, we passed the bubble. I'm in the money, babe! Minimum payout is $1,668. This level has been bad to me and my stack is now average size. I'll update again when the level is done.

Well, the other shoe dropped and my good run of cards turned bad. I'm not in terrible shape yet, but I'm not on top of the world any more either. Here's hopin' things get better agains soon.

End of Hour 6 (Level 12):
During current Hold'em session you were dealt 505 hands and saw flop:
- 26 out of 58 times while in big blind (44%)
- 16 out of 59 times while in small blind (27%)
- 56 out of 388 times in other positions (14%)
- a total of 98 out of 505 (19%)
Pots won at showdown - 26 of 40 (65%)
Pots won without showdown - 31

Stack: largest 147545, smallest 7568, average 46333
Your current position is 53 out of 75
Time bank balance is 120 seconds

(My stack size is 26603)



And...it's over. I just couldn't get things moving again. I finished 66th, in the bottom payout tier. I just won $1600, but for some reason I don't feel that great about it. I wanted to go DEEP!

Oh, well.


During current Hold'em session you were dealt 521 hands and saw flop:
- 27 out of 60 times while in big blind (45%)
- 17 out of 60 times while in small blind (28%)
- 60 out of 401 times in other positions (14%)
- a total of 104 out of 521 (19%)
Pots won at showdown - 27 of 44 (61%)


(My stack size is 0)

I Run Better!

I have played in two WCOOP events so far, and used most of the rest of the W$ I had accumulated playing satellites to other events. I played the $215 HORSE event, and later played the "Second Chance" HORSE event. I lost in both.

In the first HORSE event I was worse than card-dead -- I lost a lot of chips in the first Omaha round with some nice starting hands like A234 in pots that were capped multiway preflop, that completely missed the flop. In the first Razz round I stayed even. During Stud, I was completely card-dead and a small chunk of my stack got anted away. I went out in the first Eight or Better round -- I basically decided that I needed to chip up then or go out, and I stupidly chose my weakest game to try that.

I shouldn't have even bothered playing in the second -- I wasn't in the best state of mind and basically the only way I was cashing in that one was if the deck ran over me. It didn't.

So, I ran bad for several hundred dollars worth of satellites. Mostly I was having a go at the double shootout sit-and-go tournaments, and mostly I was busting out when it got heads up in the first round. For more than half of those bustouts, I was ahead when it got heads up, and I am also happy to say that the vast majority of the time I lost out because the other player caught me by catching some very lucky cards.

Yes, much as it sucks to lose that way, it sucks more to lose when you're the one shoving chips in when way behind.

SO! How the hell is this "running better"? Well, I'll tell you:

Tonight I won a satellite to the $1050 Limit Holdem WCOOP event. It was a turbo Limit Holdem rebuy, and I paid a total of $46 in entries (buy-in, one rebuy, one add-on). So, that win was pretty sweet.

Tomorrow I play the tourney. Tonight I'm actually going to fire up my copy of Poker Academy Pro 2 and simulate the event. These WCOOP events are deep stack tournament poker -- you start out with a boatload of chips and the blinds go up at half the speed as normal tournaments (one sixth the speed of the turbo satellites I've been playing). I have to SLOW THE HELL DOWN if I want to cash in this thing, and in order to do that I need to practice playing normal, non "shove and go" turbo donkey tournaments.

Wish me luck!

I Run Good!

Last year I mentioned wanting to play in some of PokerStars' W.C.O.O.P. events, and then basically did nothing. I did try a few satellite tourneys and lost them, and was generally having a rough go of it, so I didn't even play a single event.

Well, it's that time of year again. The satellites have been running for weeks, and the first week of actual W.C.O.O.P. events is in full swing. This year, I've won about $1,200 worth of tournament entries from an overall investment of about $400 in cheap satellite buy-ins. I've been running very well!

I particularly love that Stars spreads cheap turbo satellites. You buy in for $11 or less and the blinds go up every 5 minutes. They generally play fast in a hands per hour sense. But, you're basically playing one orbit of the button every tournament level, so the pressure to win pots ramps up quickly.

Playing these things is an exercise of balancing solid play versus gambling.

Because they are cheap, the odds are long on making the money. For example, in an $11 satellite that pays out in $215 tournament entries, the odds against you are 20.5:1 of winning the prize assuming equal skill for all players. With odds like that, you need to double up four or five times to win.

I frequently find myself in these gigs with a flopped top pair and facing an all-in reraise. I'll usually call these. Sometimes, my opponent has flopped a better hand, but more often than not, they are on a draw and are less than 40% to win the pot. They catch a lot of the time and beat me, but when they don't, I have a whole magazine of new ammo, ready to fire away. Playing these thin edges is absolutely necessary.

You have to play with no fear here, but that's easy to do because the stakes are low and there's always another one starting up if you do go bust.

Because the blinds go up fast, you can't wait around for good hands. You have to play any speculative hand you can get in cheap with. You have to steal the blinds with crap whenever you can. You have to defend your own blinds. No fear.

In playing these games, I take a lot of bad beats. I also dish a lot of them too. These tourneys are more about luck than ones with a slow structures. If anything, they'll teach you how to shrug off a bad beat, and they'll teach you how to see that solid play beats gambling in the long run. It's one thing to know intellectually that flopped four-flushes only get there 1/3rd of the time, but it's another thing entirely to see it in action.

Players in these tournaments complain all the time about the "horrible suckouts" -- but when you really see those hands go down in flames with the correct frequency over hundreds of tournaments and thousands of hands, you welcome the opportunity to double up off of 'em!

Tourney Time

Every now and then you have a very memorable hand that you'll never forget. I just had one, and I want to share.


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

• Hero (t5695)
• UTG (t1559)
• UTG+1 (t18420)
• MP1 (t4290)
• MP2 (t7180)
• MP3 (t4576)
• CO (t1809)
• Button (t4781)
• SB (t1130)

As the above shows, my stack size is about typical for the table, except for "UTG+1" (which means "One seat to the left of one seat to the left of the big blind"). UTG acts first preflop and UTG+1 acts second. "Hero" is me, and I'm in the big blind, which is a pretty crappy position to be in every day of the week.

• Preflop: Hero is BB with 5s, 5d.

So, I have a marginally playable hand, but I'll throw it away if there is too much preflop action. For this hand to be playable post-flop, it needs to make a set or a straight draw, both of which are pretty unlikely. The Big Stack makes a minimum raise, the button calls, and now there's 1100 in the pot with me needing to call 200 more. That means I play the hand.

• 1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t400, 4 folds, Button calls t400, 1 fold, Hero calls t200.
• Flop: (t1300) 7s, 5h, 9c (3 players)

That five on the flop is like finding money laying on the ground. Rare, but valuable. That's a pretty ragged board. This means it's safe to slow-play. Big Stack raised preflop, so I check it to him, and feel comfortable just cold calling the inevitable "continuation bet".

• Hero checks, UTG+1 bets t400, Button folds, Hero calls t400.
• Turn: (t2100) 4c (2 players)

Now there are two clubs on the board and I should be scared to continue the slow-play. But, to be honest, at this point, I'm still basking the warm glow radiating from my beautiful SET OF FIVES to notice. I should have tried to take the hand down right there with a huge bet. But, no, I continue the slow-play, and top it off with a too-small checkraise. Can you say "Fancy Play Syndrome"? I thought ya could.

• Hero checks, UTG+1 bets t600, BB raises to t2000, UTG+1 calls t1400.
• River: (t6100) 5c (2 players)

Holy hell, quads. These are the mortal nuts.

By now I notice that the board has flush possibilities. And at this point I start hoping deep down that Big Stack called my turn checkraise because of the flush draw, or because maybe he had a set of his own. At this point, I know my checkraise tipped him off that I have a monster. There's no point in betting out. If he has a strong hand, he will bet. If I bet out, he's folding two pair or less. The only way I'm getting more chips is to check...

• Hero checks, UTG+1 bets t1600, BB raises to t2895, UTG+1 calls t1295.
• Final Pot: t11890
• Hero has 5s 5d (four of a kind, fives).
• UTG+1 has Ac 7c (flush, ace high).
• Outcome: Hero wins t11890.

So, there you go. Any other club on the river and that runner-runner flush would have had its way with me. Not only did I dodge a bullet, but I doubled up at the same time.

It's always better to be lucky than good.

Pokerstars Blogger Championship 2

PokerStars is doing it again! This time they have an even nicer set of prizes, including trips to the Big Game. Here's the banner I need to display to register:

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 6664866

In other news, I've been enjoying the benefits of being a PokerStars GoldStar VIP. I've picked up a little bit of money in their weekly freeroll tourneys, but no big wins.

Also, they've lately been running VIP freerolls for WSOP packages. The odds in those are very long, so even with two chances per weekend it's not very likely I'll win one. But that won't stop me from trying. The GoldStar level of these tournaments tend to have about 600 people playing for $33,000 in total prizes (a WSOP ticket plus $1000 cash to the top 3 finishers), so it's basically $55 in equity for everyone who signs up. It's a very nice offset to the amount of rake you end up paying while maintaining the GoldStar status.

Plus, I can also play in the SilverStar versions as well.

I think that in order to get to PlatinumStar, I'm going to need to play more hands and/or higher stakes, neither of which I can do right now.

I'm also planning a brief weekender to Tunica coming up Real Soon Now. It'll be nice to play some live card room poker again.

Dear Comedy Central

Dear Comedy Central:

Die in a fire.

Sincerely,
Mike

Wow, 6-Max!

One of the variants of Holdem available on most poker sites is Six-Max -- tables limited to six players instead of the usual nine or ten. I've always been a little loath to play it, because there is a lot more uncertainty in the game. The play is faster in both senses: people bet more often with worse hands, and you play more hands per hour per table.

You'd think that would increase the luck factor a bit, and therefore increase the size of your bankroll swings (called variance in the lingo). More variance means it's harder to measure your success through the random noise of card quality. It also increases the likelihood of tilting because of large swings of bad or good luck.

But, as things so often are, the theory and perception usually don't match reality, mainly due to lack of complete information.

I recently started playing six-max on Poker Stars, and now I'm wondering why I only stuck my toe in that swimming hole before, instead of diving in headlong months ago. It's easier to beat, less frustrating, and more fun to play, all at once! And now I know why:

You only have to keep track of 5 other opponents. This makes a huge difference. It's much easier to keep everyone straight in your head -- the guy who'll call you down with second pair every time, the guy who makes bluff checkraises with nothing but draws, the guy who you can checkraise for value because he can be counted on to bet every time it's checked to him, the one who will play almost any two starting cards, the guy who plays strong hands passively thinking that will trick you into betting, the guy who understands attacking the blinds and blind defense, and (more importantly) the guy who doesn't understand attack and defense of the blinds quite as good as you do. At any stakes above the so-called "micro-limits", it's important to identify exactly what kind of player each of your opponents is, accurately, and quickly. You have to adjust the way you play every hand based on how the other people in the pot with you play. Whether to checkraise, bet out, or check and call; whether to get aggressive early in the hand or wait until the river; even what kinds of starting hands you enter a pot with, all depend on accurately predicting how your opponents will play. If you only have to keep track of half as many opponents, the task is half as difficult!

Sure, they play more loosely. They chase more, they bluff more, and it's harder to tell a real hand from bottom pair and a gutshot straight draw. But as long as you recognize that, and take it into account, and keep better track of your opponents' play habits, none of those things make the game higher variance or more luck-based.

But it sure is nice knowing that so many of the other players in there like the 6-Max variant specifically because the games are faster and looser. As it turns out, I like the games because they're faster and looser too. Not because it's fun to gamble it up with any hole cards, but because a lot of the other players in those games think they can get away with playing crappier cards just because the odds of someone holding a premium starting hand each time are lower.

Don't get me wrong, I like to gamble. But the more experience I get playing poker, the less like gambling it is. The rush of backdooring a straight when you were betting your top pair has faded. It happens, and sometimes the other guy hits a miracle river card too. But now, instead of immediately jamming chips into the pot with joy, I just smile to myself and think about exactly what is the best way to take the other guy's money with it. And when they back into something that takes a way a pot I had already figured was mine, I don't give a shit any more. I know that their bit of good luck will make them feel a little more easy, loose, and willing to gamble the next time they're in a pot with me, and I'll get their money next time.

I recently moved up to the $2/4 6-max at Poker Stars. I'm comfortably bankrolled there with 225 bets, and 75% of my sessions so far have banked wins. I find that stakes level and game format is a really great one -- the games are full of players that I can easily get a bead on and beat, and the Frequent Player Points rack up at an astounding rate of about 0.5 per hand on average, before VIP Club bonuses. Platinum level is quite attainable at that rate, where doing it at $1/2 would require a daily hand rate that would be a challenge for almost anyone to maintain.