Me in Oceanside, CA

Ahhh, California...

My brother Chris and I, hiking Runyon Canyon above LA

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably either a poker player or fan of the game in some fashion. You know that the games in Las Vegas are plentiful on any day of the week. The weekend crowd consists of tourists from all parts of the US escaping their routine lives for a few days in the desert. During the week, the player ratio skews more towards Europeans on extended holiday, mixed with the company conference crowd and conventioneers. There are always locals in the game and during the daytime, they can represent 50 percent or more of the table lineup, even at Strip properties.

At nighttime the ratio shifts more towards the out-of-towners, but where the tourists are, there will always be local regs scattered about.

It’s so fun playing a heads-up tournament. You get to play every hand… what more needs to be said?

As a poker player and/or fan, you might’ve heard that while Las Vegas is the gambling epicenter of the US, when it comes to poker, the true Mecca is actually located in Los Angeles. And after a recent return visit to my old stomping grounds, I was quickly reminded of that fact. The LA cardrooms are different in so many ways from their Vegas counterparts in everything from the atmosphere to the feel of the cards to the player makeup to what’s comped and what isn’t. At any one time in the Commerce, Bicycle, Hustler or any other casinos that occupy very non-glitzy East LA districts, you won’t find more than 1 percent of the player pool designated as “tourists”. No tourist is going to take time out of enjoying gorgeous Malibu or exploring the weirdness of Venice Beach to grind Commerce Casino. These places are packed with locals who love poker, love gambling, and very much love action. They absolutely have to… how else could you explain these folks braving horrific Los Angeles traffic to get to Bell Gardens to play $2/$3NL midweek? It’s true, you do get comped food from a rather impressive menu at the Bike, as opposed to free cocktails a la Las Vegas. But I have to assume it’s more than that. Poker has become a real part of several cultures that make up Los Angeles’ diverse demographics. It’s been that way for decades now, before the no-limit era and now well into it.

You might be thinking, why would I want to play amidst a sea of local regs? Aren’t the tourists the ones who make the games playable and beatable? In Vegas, yes. In other parts, that just isn’t the case. In fact, if I could replace all the tourists in Vegas with the current makeup of players in the LA cardrooms, I would probably do it. Of course, who knows if they would play the same way if they didn’t have to drive through LA traffic on their way to the poker room. (I’m serious, I think this has something to do with it. It’s impossible to travel two miles in LA without experiencing at least some level of tilt.) But in any case, there is unbelievable, inexplicable poker action in LA. I often wonder why my friends who play 5/10 regularly live in Vegas because if it were me, I’d probably spend the majority of my time elsewhere. The cost of living in Las Vegas is nearly unbeatable, but if I were earning enough to support a comfortable lifestyle in, say, Manhattan Beach, I would have to jump on it.

That all being said, you still have to run good. Not only that, there is an adjustment period when playing these manic California poker games coming from Las Vegas. I’m pretty sure you should be nitting it up, because when people finally arrive at their LA cardroom of choice, they aren’t in a folding mood. You should raise bigger for value and then just pound away for more value. After that, it’s in the gods’ hands as always. And the gods were not smiling upon me on this trip. I will spare you the bad beat stories (all in on the turn 3 ways 82% favorite $800 pot wtfffff!) and give the cliff noted summary of: it was a losing trip. However, it is always good to be back in LA. I absolutely love it there. I hiked Runyon Canyon with my brother, made it to some bars in Silverlake, and came back to Vegas recharged.

I drove back into the desert the night before St. Patrick’s Day. I really wanted to come back by then because I had an idea for one of my ChipTracker session reports, which you can find here. For me, especially lately, it’s been much more enjoyable playing with more of a purpose than simply winning money. Whether it’s writing one of the session reports, or doing longer write-ups in blog form, I’ve been a lot more inspired to work when I know there will be more to my efforts away from the grind itself. I’m starting to get more heavily into what I guess I could call “other project” mode. I’m really trying to find ways to use poker (both my playing and the time that my profession provides me) to fuel other endeavors, whether they are artistic or business minded.

I played a few sessions, did some writing, and mostly broke even in the cash games upon my return to Vegas. I played a PLO tournament with no results but I didn’t have high hopes, as I left my chips on the cash game table to return to post-bustout. There was another tournament I had my eye on: the $130 heads-up NL, 64 player max at Caesars. I had actually won this tournament before, and it stood as my only title on my official poker resume. So I bought my way in the night before the tournament to make sure I was in under the player cap.

It’s so fun playing a heads-up tournament. You get to play every hand… what more needs to be said? Each player starts with 15k in chips at the 100/200 level, which means not an incredible amount of play but not completely horrendous by any means. My first match went relatively smoothly. My opponent took an early lead and was actually ahead 2/1 in chips, but he found an unwillingness to fold QJo twice all-in preflop vs. my A10, and I was able to hold both times for the win. My second match was a blur, but my third match was interesting. Heads-up is easily, for me, the most interesting poker format. I’ve played more heads-up PLO hands online than any of my friends by far, and had pretty good results. You start out making small jabs to get your oppenent to reveal him or herself. Heads-up play forces your opponent’s poker soul to be on display, and the trick is to simply adjust accordingly vs. that player type. It’s very similar to ring games where you adjust to the table dynamics and then to your opponent(s) in a specific pot, but you have to try and find out what type of player you’re up against quickly and only with your own chips, whereas at a full table you can gather info by observing other players battling each other. Add to this the aspects of how your opponent is handling winning/losing, and then tells on top of that, and you have layers upon layers of a poker match.

The really fun part comes when trying to figure out how thinly to value bet and when to call off with A high. Some players make it extremely easy, bombing away with their strong hands and checking no-pair type hands. Such was my third opponent, raising to 500 preflop and c-betting 5000 on the flop for fear of getting outdrawn. My fourth opponent was the opposite type, playing far too weakly, limping in too often, never floating c-bets and allowing himself to get run over. My final two opponents were good players. They both played unpredictably and didn’t give too much away. I ran good in the semifinals, grinded my opponent down below 10bb’s, then shipped a suited connector and was able to get there for the win.

The final was best two-out-of-three. Earlier in the day, my buddy Jaymes thought it would be humorous to tweet his prediction that I would take second place in the event. I was feeling great after winning the first of our finals matches, and feeling pretty annoyed after losing the second when I flopped top two pair vs. my opponent’s flopped straight. I was pretty exhausted at that point. If you think playing poker for 10 straight hours is draining, try playing a heads-up tournament for that long where your attention is demanded every single hand. I forced myself to bear down and took an early lead in the third match, and committed myself to grinding my opponent down without giving anything away. I had a bigger than 2-1 chip advantage and had my opponent below 10 bb’s again when I limped A5 on the button to induce a shove. He had done so a couple of times previously where I probably shouldn’t have limped in the first place and was forced to fold. My opponent obliged with another shove from the big blind and the A5 held up for the tournament title.

It’s always gratifying to be the last man standing at the end of a tournament. This win was especially gratifying for me because of my previous HU tourney title. Any one person can win a single no limit tournament, and you only need to look at the countless number of amateurs to bink a bracelet or other big score and to never find another win on their resume. Having booked a second win in the same tournament format really felt like it legitimized my first win.

This was THE nit festival of all nit festivals. Your normal hourly rate simply does not translate when you remove the fun-loving, didn’t-come-to-fold tourist factor and replace it with the game-has-obv-passed-me-by-but-I’ll-still-sit-here-and-fold-for-$10/hr-zomg-dreams-do-come-true jaded older Vegas reg. I mean, it was truly miserable.

Las Vegas is awesome. We all know about the availability of booze and gambling 24/7, and the ability to keep whatever sleep schedule you desire. As cash game poker players, we never have to endure the pain of an alarm clock’s rouse, as Vegas embraces daywalkers and nightowls alike. The cost of living is relatively low, especially considering the quantity and quality of entertainment options available as compared to other cities with similar offerings, such as LA, San Francisco, Miami. If outdoor adventure is your thing, you can find plenty of that at places like Red Rock Canyon; hikes such as the Gold Strike near Hoover Dam, which takes you all the way down into the Colorado River; and weird natural beauty like the Valley of Fire. And for those less willing to leave Clark County, there’s the peaceful Summerlin suburbs, and the increasingly interesting downtown Vegas scene.

But as much as I love Las Vegas and as great a fit certain aspects of this city are for my personality, I can only go so long before an excursion out of town becomes necessary. I’ll be heading to California for a good couple of weeks and am really looking forward to it. As a low stakes grinder I can’t really afford to just take an entire month off from playing. Well, maybe I could, but it would be a guaranteed whack to my bankroll and I don’t think I need a vacation that much. I just want a change of scenery for a bit … so San Diego and Los Angeles, here I come. I’ll be doing more of the ChipTracker session reports while in CA and should have plenty to write about from the LA cardrooms.

As for my poker results since my last full blog post, I can happily report that things took a nice turn for the better around the middle of January. The night that I wrote that update was definitely a low point. Seeing as such, I decided to change my gameplan, which at the time was (as it is now) to play cash games wherever I felt like playing that particular day. I took a day off to make sure I was composed mentally, and then, at 11am the following day, parked myself in what I would discover were the most miserable $1/2NL games I’ve ever played in: the Tropicana day shift.

You may have heard about a few of the poker rooms around Las Vegas that have started offering cash back to players who play a certain number of hours per day or per week. At the time the Trop was giving $10/hr if you played all 8 hours between 11am and 7pm. When you’re losing every single day for almost two weeks straight, this seems like a fantastic deal. I knew I was running bad, but I still had a decent hourly rate overall and figured if I added $80 per day, well hell, how could I go wrong? The problem is that these games take away the number one weapon a professional poker player living in Las Vegas has in their arsenal, in my opinion, and that is game selection. This was THE nit festival of all nit festivals. Your normal hourly rate simply does not translate when you remove the fun-loving, didn’t-come-to-fold tourist factor and replace it with the game-has-obv-passed-me-by-but-I’ll-still-sit-here-and-fold-for-$10/hr-zomg-dreams-do-come-true jaded older Vegas reg. I mean, it was truly miserable.

However, there was one very important lesson that I needed to be reminded of while grinding out the Tropicana games. It was that I’m not doing this to make fancy plays to keep myself entertained at the table, or because it’s some glamorous job like a lot of people who don’t play poker might be led to believe. It’s to sit down and grind out a paycheck at the end of the day, so that I can drop it into my bank account, so that I can pay my bills. And that’s done by playing solid, don’t-get-out-of-line poker. I played a handful of days at the Trop booking very modest wins, but more importantly, tightening up some screws in my game that were coming loose. I branched back out and into my other regular rooms around town and from the middle of January and for at least a month straight, keeping that lesson in mind every single day, it resulted in booking a solid win at the tables almost every single day. Yes I was definitely running better but I was playing much more disciplined poker–the kind that keeps variance minimized and decision-making simpler. I put together a great string of wins and moved back up to $2/$5NL at the Bellagio, where I continued my rungood for a few sessions.

Unfortunately, over the last week or so, my upswing has hit the breaks somewhat. But it has to be expected at some point I suppose. Even though I think I have less ego than a lot of other full-time players, it’s always tough to go back down to smaller limits. It makes it twice as hard to stay disciplined when you’re playing for about half the stakes, but it’s always vital because the lower you are on the ladder, the more important it is to just play an ABC-style game. It is what it is though. Once I string together a few wins at $1/$3NL I’ll take another shot at the next level. Hopefully I’ll find that next uptrend in California.

Here’s a recent session that took me from Aria to the Palms.

Buy In @ 4:15 PM Amount: $300 Starting a sesh at the fabulous, luxurious and unrivaled Aria Resort Casino Hotel and Spa Destination Location Sensation. Gl me.

	Chip Count @ 5:34 PM Stack: $293 No hands to speak of for myself. Seat 9 got stacked and is tilty. Jorge moved to seat 2. A lady took his spot.
	Chip Count @ 6:06 PM Stack: $288 I had A10, made trip aces. It was AWESOME!

Player Opponent Board	Hand Details @ 6:22 PM Player $280 Opponent $400 Two limps and I raise QhJh to 16. Two guys on my left call, tilty kid shoves for $59, I call and the two guys call too. I bet $85 to commit myself on the flop. First guy folds and second guy calls. I shove ~$120 on the Td turn and he calls. The river bricks off and 68o scoops vs me and tilty kid. Other guy said he folded AK to my $85 flop bet.
	Chip Count @ 6:27 PM Stack: $282 Rebuy. Yay.
Player Opponent Board	Hand Details @ 6:40 PM Player $280 I open JTcc for 12, Jorge calls in the sb. He leads 15 on the flop, I raise to 50 and he calls. He checks turn, I bet 100, he thinks for a while and folds.

Player Opponent Board * * * * *	Hand Details @ 7:16 PM Player $340 I raise my third hand in a row to 12, a new player in seat 9–older guy wearing an old school Hard Rock Poker Lounge jacket–calls. I bet 17 on the flop and he calls. I decide to check the turn and he bets 35. I don’t really like this spot. I think betting is probably better than check calling. I take the latter route. I check the river and he quickly bets 85. I feel better about it now obv and call. He says “good call” and I win. Guy on my right says my turn play is bad. I say he’s probably right.
*	Chip Count @ 8:05 PM Stack: $395 Not much happening. Decent action on my table but just kind of whittling away, whiffing flops.
*	Cash Out @ 8:32 PM Amount: $384 Mehhh, rack it up. Every time I do one of these “live” blogs it doesn’t go as planned. Oh well. Moving onto the Palms! Pokerati game time.

*	Buy In @ 9:43 PM Amount: $400 Ok starting the Pokerati mixed game at the Palms. $1/$2 NL/PLO. Off we go! PS I won $130 in $1/$3NL while waiting for this game to start. Yay.
*	Chip Count @ 9:55 PM Stack: $480 Set-over-setted this poor sap. He played it well though, check calling 3 streets.
*	Chip Count @ 10:18 PM Stack: $400 Setting up an anti-flu wall because this cat on my right was full on infected. So wack.
*	Chip Count @ 10:20 PM Stack: $400 Here’s a pic of the contagion carrier. Damn, son.
*	Chip Count @ 10:57 PM Stack: $385 Was up to 500 but Dan got revenge. ~Starting stack.
*	Chip Count @ 11:30 PM Stack: $300 Flopped a wrap that didn’t materialize. Tried to set my own price on the turn and that backfired. Rabbit hunted the river which was a brick.
Player Opponent Board * * * * *	Hand Details @ 12:07 AM Player $320 Opponent $200 Button straddle is on. Cutoff makes it 17, I call and button calls. My preflop call is pretty meh but the raiser is average at best. I check the flop, cutoff bets 20, btn folds and I call. I check the turn, and the cutoff bets 45. It seems really weak with 2 flush draws out there. With my hand equity plus fold equity I make it 150 and he folds.

*	Chip Count @ 12:29 AM Stack: $390 Boy am I hungry. The only quick options here at the Palms is McDonalds. Which is very tempting…
*	Chip Count @ 12:33 AM Stack: $390 Dan has also expressed his current state of hunger. I’d just like to say how proud of him I am for not only showing up to his own game tonight, but for not leaving and potentially breaking his own game.
*	Cash Out @ 12:49 AM Amount: $359 Game broke. Pretty even keeled Pokerati session for me, never passing $100 in either the + or – side. Onto the next one! Thanks for reading, all. I love you.

Crushed, beaten, annihilated, squelched, wrecked … you feel helpless and empty and start questioning what you’re doing with your life and why you’re wasting so much money.

A new year is supposed to be a time when everyone is feeling the most hopeful and positive and have the brightest outlook on what the next 12 months may hold. I try to put a positive spin on everything and especially the things I write on twitter and in this blog with an audience in mind. I’m sure there are some people who take joy in other people’s down times because it makes them feel better about their own situation. But I just think it’s a better EV play to try and inspire people rather than give them something to wallow in.

I wish I could follow my own advice, but today I don’t see how.

We can at least start off at the highest point, which is right before the calendar turned a page to 2012. Following the win streak that I wrote about last time, I went through an extended break-even stretch that lasted through early/mid December. There were lots of ups and downs and I never gained any traction for about a month straight. A win followed a loss which followed a win followed by a loss, over and over. Finally, and without even really realizing it until after Christmas and just before New Year’s Eve, I strung together another double-digit win streak and took my total winnings to their highest point since I took my two month hiatus. It wasn’t a ton of money, as the vast majority of all my sessions played are $1/$2NL, $1/$3NL, and $1/$2NL-PLO. But I was proud that my results showed such a nice overall uptrend, and was able to break out of a couple of sideways movements on my graph.

Things could not have taken a more drastic turn as they have in the year 2012. I’ve played almost every day, and have posted a grand total of one winning session. And none of the losing sessions have been small losses. Pick any word with a negative connotation, and then break out your thesaurus and go through the list of synonyms for that word: crushed, beaten, annihilated, squelched, wrecked … All these words weigh on me and make me hang my head and stare at the hideous carpet of various Las Vegas casinos as I make my walk of shame to the valet. It’s infinitely worse than a break-even stretch because it piles and compounds on itself so quickly — you feel helpless and empty and start questioning what you’re doing with your life and why you’re wasting so much money.

I don’t bombard twitter with bad beat stories because we all know the beats need to happen in order for poker to exist. There needs to be a luck factor in order to attract casual players and for us to be able to make a living playing the game. I know this, you know this. My buddy Jaymes knows this. But I don’t give a fuck as I bombard his text message inbox with beat after beat in an effort to release the pain.

KK < AT aipf

JJ < A8 T64 guy floats flop and magically finds an A.

You get the idea.

To crawl out of my hole, I was grinding at Treasure Island the other night. If you play 60 hours in a week there, they pay you $599 cash back, and I was putting in some hours after a long session earlier in the day. I had already dusted off one buy-in thanks to a superfish waking up with AA vs my JJ on a board that made it difficult to get away from.

I had about $250 in front of me when the action folded around to my button in our 5-handed game. I opened the action for $10 (which was a smallish raise for this game) with 3h5h looking to bring in the weak player in the big blind. The small blind, who was the only other decent player at the table, reraised to $25 and I made the call after the big blind folded. I’m looking to connect hard in some sort of pair/two pair/combo-draw fashion or else I’m dumping the hand, as I know the sb isn’t looking to waste time getting into a leveling war when there are 3 fishy players at the table. The flop comes A35 rainbow, and he checks. I don’t know why but he likes to check for deception more often than he should, in my opinion, and I already know that all the money is going in at some point. I check back and the turn is a 7. We waste little time; he bets $30, I raise to $75, he snap shoves. Just after I make the insta-call he asks, “Do you have AK?” which immediately defines his hand as AQ. I hold up my cards so he can see them and I say “Two pair…” just before the river falls, which I quickly follow up with “…no good” as we both identify the Ace.

I’m sure it was written all over my face before that last hand even started. The start of 2012 was the worst 1.5 weeks of poker in as long as I can remember, with every session ending deeper in a darker hole. Grinders know never to say “sorry” when they beat someone in a hand because it was exactly what they’re trying to do and will try to do it again the next time. But when that ace fell on the river and I immediately got up to leave, the guy who won the hand patted me on the shoulder and said “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t have it in me to say “It’s ok” or even anything at all. I just put on my backpack and trudged out of the poker room, head hanging and eyes staring at the casino carpet. Wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do.

I went into a bit of a breakeven stretch over the following four sessions. I have only myself to blame for this because I failed to use any sort of anti-jinx methodology. For example, say you send a tweet talking about how hard you’re crushing a game or how amazing you’ve been running at the tables. I usually don’t like to write such tweets because over 50 percent of the time they carry the jinx-virus, which will abruptly halt any and all rungood and stop it dead in its tracks. That being said, it is possible to tweet such thoughts to the twittersphere, but it would be foolish to do so without using anti-jinx protection. You’re simply putting yourself and your bankroll at risk without strapping on a hashtag along the lines of #plsdontjinxitkthx at the end of your happy tweets.

I don’t know why we call the poker gods, Gods, but we do. They seem more like a bunch of high school dropout, weird uncle, goofball idiots to me. When they abandon you, it is the filthiest, loneliest feeling you can imagine. But when they reflect their light on you for any kind of extended stretch, you feel, well, enlightened. Chosen. So in tune with everything you can hear the hum of the earth.

I somehow managed to sneak a $117 victory past the jinx-bouncers playing $1/$3NL at the Rio on the 1st of the month. But the next day when I ventured into the Palace of Caesar, his games of $1 and $3 were not so kind. I left @CLVPoker $400 lighter in the pocket, and followed that with a small $85 loss on the 3rd. My spirits were quickly risen on the very next day, which was a Thursday. Thursday evenings, as you should know by now, means Pokerati game night. The PLO/NL mixed game has treated me really well since its incarnation @PalmsPokerRm (#nojinxnojinxnojinx) and this particular Thursday brought happiness in the form of a $520 win, erasing losses from the previous two sessions. Unfortunately the breakeven stretch continued another day; on Friday I played a long, 10-hour session at the Rio dropping about $700 in frustrating fashion. Actually there was a pretty interesting hand from said session…

It was early on, and I had noticed that the middle-aged man with a WPT hat and a beer in his cup holder directly to my left was playing every hand, and raising almost all of them. He also had a lot of chips. I decided to switch seats after he stacked a player and was sitting across the table from him when I raised to $18 with KQ after 3 limps. There were three callers including WPT guy and I had position on everybody. The flop came 643, and WPT guy led for $20. I had seen him donk-lead like this with a flush draw in a previous hand and this situation felt very similar in that he could have some sort of a straight draw. It folds to me and I decide to call. The turn is a 3 and he leads for $50. It feels like a good card as it doesn’t seem to change too much, and if it hasn’t then I think a lot of the time I have the best hand. I call again. The river is an A, and WPT guy pauses for a while. He starts eyeing me and saying things like “Hmmm, that’s not a good card,” and is really taking his time. He eventually bets $220. I tank and say, “You could be bluffing with the best hand” and he laughs. I’ll post the results in the comments below later and if anyone wants to give input on all streets, please feel free.

The next day I demoted myself to $1/$2 and hit Planet Hollywood, which I keep in my regular repertoire of offices. The games are insanely soft, which is partly due to the fact that if you self-park upon arrival, you have to walk all the way through the Miracle Mile shops. It’s insane far, and as a result, most locals/regs/nits don’t bother playing there. Trying to valet is a gamble in itself; the attendants can be pretty meh. One of them even took my car key home with him at the end of his shift! I had to wait 20 minutes for him to drive it back to the casino. Arguably worth the wait, I booked a $465 win at PH and followed that up with a similar sized win at @RedRockPoker two days later, erasing the Rio debacle. Things were really looking up when my next session earned me $710 at the Palms the next day. And $430 two days later, followed by $515 the following day.

It was around this time that I realized what was happening. I don’t know why we call the poker gods, Gods, but we do. They seem more like a bunch of high school dropout, weird uncle, goofball idiots to me, but the community has dubbed them gods and who am I to question the community. Anyway, when the poker “gods” abandon you in that dark corner of the room, it is the filthiest, loneliest feeling you can imagine. But when they use their watch they stole from Walgreens to reflect the light of the sun on you, for any kind of extended stretch, you feel, well, enlightened. Chosen. You are in tune with everything around you and you can hear the hum of the earth.

Everything was flowing naturally. I would make plays that were always correct and opponents would make plays that would have me texting my friends to tell them about it, OMG. I flat a bet with the nut flush draw, someone behind me raises, I shove, he calls off with a worse flush draw. I raise 99 on the button, get three callers, flop 9-2-2, someone donk-ships all-in with a flush draw. A guy misreads his hand and shoves into my made flush. It’s the type of stuff you wish could just always exist, as all the stress of poker would just fall into nothingness. Before I knew it I had racked up 13 straight wins for one of, if not my longest win streak ever. Now, as far as the stakes go, it’s nothing whatsoever to brag about. This is low-stakes grinding at its finest and I haven’t stepped back up the ladder. (Side note, Matt Marafioti aka ADZ aka @adzizzy has currently racked up 20+ straight wins playing high stakes NL. Sigh…) But it’s a beautiful thing nonetheless and a pretty sweet upswing to pad the bankroll.

If only it could last forever. Today at Caesars I played in what could possibly be the best $1/$3 game I’ve played all year, and that’s saying a lot. But I must’ve felt a need to pay that dark corner a visit to get reacquainted. The very first hand, I donated $400 to a guy that definitely does not need it, 3-betting with AQ, barreling the flop and barreling all in on a blank turn. I somehow found a way to leave with $800 less than I walked in with, which secures my last few sessions as another breakeven stretch or small downswing. If I could mirror the last sequence and go on another 13-game win streak that’d be, um, nice, but that’s asking a bit much I suppose. And so the small-stakes ride continues.

Guided by the gods, of all people.

Life as a professional poker player has been a massive learning experience, of which the strategy and theory is only a small part of the process. You have to learn how to LIVE as a poker player …

My story was a cross between the last two situations. I lived in Los Angeles for about 4.5 years, trying to make it in the music industry. I play the drums but I wasn’t looking to perform; I worked in promotion, representation, marketing, and other behind-the-scenes type of endeavors. I spent a very brief time working at the William Morris Agency. For those of you who are Entourage fans, it was very much like Ari Gold’s agency… except nobody was filming it and it wasn’t funny. Really super intense environment. My last actual job was with a very cool, very small marketing agency. The main problem at that place of employment was that some projects that were supposed to come through for me to be working on, didn’t. Thus I was left with a light work load at a company where a sizable portion of my income was commission-based.

For most people, this would be really bad. I was loving it, however, because not only had I discovered online poker, but after a couple years of being a fish, I started to take the game (and my game) more seriously. I was reading hand discussions on poker forums and my results were showing. I had lots of time to read and think about what it takes to be a successful poker player, and after swearing to a strict bankroll management system, I started to move up the stakes ladder. When my boss wanted to have a meeting to discuss a more freelance type of business relationship, I was all for it. I had started at the micro stakes of online poker, and climbed my way to the $5/$10NL rung, being very comfortably bankrolled along the way.

So what the hell am I doing grinding live $1/$3NL games now, you may ask? As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, and as I’m sure just about everybody knows, life as a professional poker player is a massive learning experience, of which the strategy and theory is only a small part of the process. You have to learn how to LIVE as a poker player, and that is something that I feel I’m getting a better grasp of these days. I feel like I’ve found myself in a groove, having booked a win in 11 of my past 14 cash sessions as a result of some nice rungood mixed with what I hope is some good, patient play. Tournaments continue to confound me but what can you do. So long as I’m paying for the buy-ins via cash game wins (and not taking tournament tilt to the cash table!) then eventually the tournament gods will be forced to smile upon me. (Right?)

My uptrend could be summed up nicely by some hands from my Halloween day session. Having been sick all weekend with some lame virus and a 101+ degree fever, I had no time to shop for a costume. Thus it only made sense to throw on the cowboy hat that was part of a costume I wore a couple years ago, added some shades, and made my way to the Caesars poker room. Somehow nobody realized I was in costume and I’m not sure what to make of that, but whatever. First hand I’m dealt in my $1/$3NL game: 55. A middle position raiser makes it $15, I call, and we’re heads up.

Flop: 7h7s5h

This is an above average flop for my hand, in my opinion. My opponent checks and I bet $15, an amount that I almost never bet and that I hope looks weak. It seemed to have worked as my opponent promptly raises to $40. I see no point in raising, and call quickly.

Turn: 5c

This is a decent turn card for my hand, in my opinion. My opponent decides to check and I assume he’s probably given up. I quickly say “check’s good!”

River: Js

My opponent apparently has not decided to give up and quickly bets a handful of chips, which turns out to be $55. I pause for a bit, saying a silent prayer to the poker gods hoping that they blessed my opponent with 77, which would trigger the mini bad beat jackpot that Caesars runs, and make it $155. But my opponent quickly mucks his Nothing. I show the quads so that I can get paid the extra $100 in bonus high-hand money. This is an above average first hand to start my session, in my opinion.

Time went on as I played underneath my cowboy hat as the only player in costume in the entire poker room. Soon I picked up 99 and opened for $12, which only the Canadian in the big blind calls.

Flop: KsTs9s

For some reason my Canadian opponent announces to me that he has no spades, and then checks. I bet $20, and he calls.

Turn: Ad

My Canadian friend now leads out for $50, and I’m not sure what to make of him, really. I could see several made hands taking this line, at first worried about additional spades coming off on subsequent streets and now betting for protection. I decide to just call.

River: Ac

My opponent bets $50 again. It looks pretty weak and blockerish/valueish, but I’m not sure what a raise would accomplish at this point. I really don’t see him calling with a straight; I guess he could call with a flush but it seems unlikely as well. I just decide to flat the river and my opponent announces he has nothing.

I win some hands and lose some hands over the next couple of hours and nothing really noteworthy happens aside from more people sounding surprised when I tell them I’m in a costume and in no way am I really a cowboy. I go to a new table when mine breaks and work on my folding technique for a while. The final interesting hand develops when I raise 5h6h to $14 from under the gun. A decent young player on the button calls as does the big blind.

Flop: 5c4s2c

I couldn’t ask for too much better of a flop and after the big blind checks, I bet $25. The button makes it $80 to go, and the big blind folds. We’re relatively deep at this point; he started the hand with approximately $550 and I cover him. I have the best hand here a large percentage of the time. The times I don’t are when he flops a set or two pair (less likely with me holding a 5), has a slowplayed big pair… and not much else. To me a flush draw just seems like his most likely holding. Being deeper stacked I don’t really like reraising and decide on a call.

Turn: 9d

I check and my opponent checks. His check basically confirms my initial read and now he’s taking the free card.

River: 5s

It’s a great card for my hand but I can’t just fire into what I perceive as a missed flush draw, so I check to induce a bet. My opponent kindly obliges with a $120 river bet and I snap call. He announces Q high and I scoop the $440 pot.

I played a couple more rounds before calling it an end to my session and booked a $1050 win; a really nice $1/$3NL Halloween session. Seeing as how none of my fellow poker players at Caesars decided to dress in costume that afternoon, and I at least needed to get a fix of some Halloween madness that evening, I walked across the street and perched myself on the Margaritaville balcony: the quintessential people-watching spot for such an evening. If you’re a Halloween fan, I highly suggest coming to Las Vegas at least one year in your life, solely for the people watching. It’s pretty epic. The venue wasn’t even playing Jimmy Buffet tracks on the outdoor speakers, so my rungood must’ve spilled outside the poker room.

When a person decides to leave a job for the life of a poker player, the scariest thing is not having a guaranteed paycheck. That stress remains at the top of the list throughout a career, and it’ll remain there for me. It’s funny, you jump head first into this profession looking forward to the excitement of doing what you want, whenever you want, for the chance to ride the rollercoaster and do something different with your life. As time goes on, all you crave is some consistency. But you can’t have it both ways and I’m just happy to be on the sunny side of that hill for now. Hopefully I’ll stay there for a little while and if so I’ll be jumping back into the $2/$5NL waters sooner than later.

I’ve torched a lot of money being irresponsible … Vegas definitely has a way of seeping into any crack in your guard wall and blowing it wide open.

If you think that low stakes live poker games tend to be pretty soft, you should check out some of the tournament series that are running this month and next around Vegas.  You’ll see things that will make your head shake and leave you feeling good about the future of poker and its draw to the casual players.  However, these are tournaments we’re talking about, which means you’re a bit handcuffed in regards to how much manipulation of tourists you’ll be able to partake in compared to the cash games.  The structures for a lot of the events are pretty good, but variance is still a bitch.  I won’t go into detail about some of the ridiculous beats I’ve taken over the past week to send me on a walk of shame toward valet.  I’m gonna keep plugging away though with a healthy mix of the series, and cash games when there isn’t an event to my liking.

After I busted out of the AVP tournament at MGM last Saturday, I couldn’t help but notice a plethora of tourists all over the property with Hawaiian shirts and leis on, tropical drinks in hand.  I asked a dealer what type of nonsense was being celebrated in Vegas this weekend but she didn’t know either.  I recalled reading a story about the Margaritaville Casino opening that weekend, which would be attached to the Flamingo.  I don’t know if Jimmy Buffet himself was in town for this grandiose gala of tackiness and vastly overrated music (I fucking hate Jimmy Buffet) but there were a hell of a lot of his fans about.  I decided that I needed to just get it over with… Even though it was basically just a section of the Flamingo, it was like there was a new casino on the strip.  I’d have to go walk through the damn Margaritaville Casino.

I parked at O’Sheas and made the walk across the drive, where there had been set up “the world’s biggest margarita” and entered Margaritaville.  I guess they plan on playing Jimmy Buffet music in there 24/7, which is expected, and which also means I may never go back.  I took a look at the It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere Bar, threw up in my mouth a little bit, and decided to go check out the poker room at the Flamingo, hoping some parrotheads (zzzzzzz) would spill over.  It was actually pretty quiet when I sat down, and all of the players seemed surprisingly sober.  That is, until this guy sat down and instantly announced (slurred) a bounty on another dude at the table:

Here was your standard tourist enjoying himself and who knows how many free drinks, and once again he had found a way to plop himself into my game. It’s a scene that is set nightly in one card room or another around Las Vegas and I almost always find it entertaining in some fashion.  But it really got me thinking. When I look back over my past 3 years playing poker, there are a few leaks I can point to.  Not having poker-playing friends for a long time to really dissect hands and strategy has definitely hindered my development as a player.  I now have some great friends that I can go to anytime I want input, but I wonder where I’d be if I had a coach when I started.  Boredom at the tables is also up there on my leak list.  If I’m card dead, I have to constantly remind myself not to make stupid plays with stupid hands just to keep myself entertained.  But if you want to know what leak has directly cost me the most money, it’s not even close.  That would be playing after drinking.  It’s pretty embarrassing and really dumb, but I’ve torched a lot of money being irresponsible, both online and live. In the past I was really good at grinding up online bankrolls, moving up through the limits with proper money management, and more than once, bombing my account after coming home from being out all night.  I blame myself entirely but Vegas definitely has a way of seeping into any crack in your guard wall and blowing it wide open.

I feel like a very different poker player now than before I took a couple months off.  I’m more patient and things seem clearer.  I obviously will always have leaks and losing sessions but I’m taking more accountability for my own actions and focusing on just playing well. If the cards would cooperate in one of these tourneys that’d be spectacular, but until they do I’m just gonna keep grinding away.  And even though I still love drinks with friends and you may even catch me with a beer at the table once in a while, I plan on leaving the majority of the in-game indulging to my tourist opponents.  As fun as that can be sometimes, these days it feels better to just pick up the pieces when they shatter themselves with Q7o vs your TT on 553T8:

We had high hopes coming into the 2011 football season but to see them run out to a beautiful 4-0 start is outstanding. And the Tigers are up too! As I write this they currently hold a 2-1 series advantage over the Yankees after stealing home field advantage in NYC. One more win and they advance to the next playoff round. Life is good these days for my hometown teams.

Little did I know that the hole would only grow bigger and deeper as the day went on, culminating with me somehow losing with KQ vs 55 after c-betting a K-6-4 flop. I booked a 4-figure loss and called it a day.

As for me, I find myself in a nice little losing streak. Four straight sessions of posting a loss has me feeling not so outstanding. I’ve been playing for about a week and a half since the end of my two-month break and even though my returning session at Red Rock didn’t go so swell, I was able to shake it off and recoup the loss pretty quickly. I put in a two-session day, booking a win at the 1/3NL game at the Palms followed by a small win in a short Bellagio 2/5NL session. In between sessions I drove out to Summerlin to root on my girlfriend as she ran a 10k race. (That’s kilometers, not thousands, for you lazy gambling degens.) The next day I went back to the Palms and won a little more than two buyins in the 1/3 game.

With my confidence back and really feeling excited to be rounding the Vegas cardrooms again, I made my way to the Bellagio and jumped in a 2/5 game. The table makeup seemed to be what I expected for a Monday afternoon game, consisting of some older gentlemen, your standard well-dressed Euro tourist, and maybe one or two decent youngish players. I was dealt into my 2nd hand when one such youngish player put a straddle on and it somehow folded all the way around to me in the small blind. I looked down at AdKs and raised it to $35. The straddler called.

Flop: Qd-Jd-8h

It’s a super wet board that my opponent could have connected with in myriad ways. I c-bet $45, though, because A) I have equity against lots of hands, B) I don’t want to give up the lead and allow my opponent to take the pot with a worse hand when I also get some better hands to fold, and C) I don’t want my hand to be face-up. My opponent calls.

Turn: 8d

It’s unlikely that this card helped either of us, and since I have the lead and additional equity with the nut flush draw, I bet $85. My opponent calls. At this point he seems most likely to have some sort of pair/combo draw hand, and I’m unlikely to have the best hand at this point. But I have several options available going into the river.

River: Ac

This looks like a good card to me as I assumed it unlikely my opponent would be drawing to a straight on a 3-flush and paired board. I’m beating most pair/combo hands and I can go for value, hoping my opponent views me as betting a scare card. I bet $105 and my opponent calls rather quick. I show and he goes to do the same, which is never a good sign, and reveals the AsJs. His flop call is standard and he made a good call on the turn, knowing what I knew regarding the 8 being unlikely to change anything.

So while we both played the hand well and it was relatively standard, that put me in a hole right off the bat. Little did I know that the hole would only grow bigger and deeper as the day went on, culminating with me somehow losing with KQ vs 55 after c-betting a K-6-4 flop. I booked a 4-figure loss and called it a day.

I was able to put in three wins out of my next four sessions, stepping back down to $1/2NL and $1/3NL to lick my wounds for a while. I think it’s important to not feel like I have to immediately win back what I lost in a particular session, especially as I’m still finding my groove again. I put in a long session at the Pokerati PLO/NL game — damn it was good to see 4 cards again — and though I was stuck early, I grinded out a modest win. I followed that day up with another win at the Palms, but that would be the last of my winning ways for the next 4 days. Tonight I even discovered a way to lose after getting all-in on a Qc8s2s flop with 22 vs KcQs.

I’m heading to Michigan this weekend for a college friend’s wedding and am really looking forward to getting out of Vegas for a long weekend. Hopefully I’ll be watching the Detroit teams continue their winning ways with my hometown compadres. You know what else I’m looking forward to? When the days of this Full Tilt drama are behind us and I can possibly picture someone finding this blog interesting instead of salivating in anticipation over the next bullshit press release.

(The shorter version of that story is “I went broke.”)

I was making too many mistakes away from the felt and living a lifestyle that just wasn’t sustainable on my “salary”. I definitely wasn’t going super crazy or ballin’ out of control by any means. But similar to the way a small preflop error can compound on itself and become a large, costly session-killer, smaller mistakes away from the tables can quickly add up and drain a poker player’s bankroll. This shouldn’t be news to any poker player, but when you live in a city like Las Vegas and you like being social and experiencing what the city and life itself has to offer, you have to constantly check yourself.

I look down at 6s7s for my first live hand in two months. Forget that I’m in early position, I can’t help it… the suited connectedness was overpoweringly sexy.

The two biggest realizations I had during my time away were my need to stay humble and my need to stay balanced. Humility has multiple benefits: you’re happier with less, you’re less wasteful, and you end up appreciating important things such as people’s company more than, say, an overpriced cocktail from a tourist-trap of a casino bar. Don’t get me wrong, drinks with friends remains one of my, if not my number one, favorite pastime. Have you been to the Mandarin Bar inside the Mandarin Oriental hotel at CityCenter? Phenomenal venue. But pricey. It’s for sure one of my favorite spots in town, but it’s just a bad idea to spend a large amount of time there drinking $22 glasses of wine. Although you do get complimentary Wasabi peanuts and other snacks with your cocktails. And the restroom is beyond tranquil. Anyway…

I needed the hiatus to show me how unbalanced my life was. I was spending too much time in the casino and around the Strip, putting in too many hours on the grind and draining myself of my alertness and my desire to play well… and my results showed. Balancing your “real” life with your poker life is more important than balancing your 3-betting range. I found a real appreciation for Summerlin, which for those of you who don’t live in Vegas, is a suburb with real grass and trees and, like, only a couple casinos. Just getting away from the madness is essential to staying fresh and keeping my mind interested in what I’m working on and want to excel at. I’ve also been hitting the gym much more regularly over the past couple months, and plan to continue that. I’ve always been a pretty slim dude and have no intentions of winning any lifting competitions, but just seeing some type of results in that department and feeling more fit in general can only help me be happier both at and away from the tables.

Another thing that I really want to start focusing on is finding a way to incorporate some sort of charity into my playing career. I have a couple different ideas and will probably write another blog with more thoughts on this and how it came about.

I don’t mean for this to sound preachy, and a lot or all of it I’m sure has been said before in poker forums and other players’ blogs. I’m not saying you, the reader, should be doing more of this or less of that. In fact I usually have a tendency to think that most people are better than me at all sorts of things in life. I’m just trying to better myself and hopefully putting it in writing will hold me accountable.

So with newfound poker/life weapons in my arsenal, and being super fresh, I was obviously going to crush my first session back from hiatus. I cruised over to Red Rock and got on the short list for $2/$5NL, and jumped in an open seat at a $1/$2 in the meantime. I was stoked to be back in action and my nerves reminded me of when I used to live in LA, when I had a “real” job, and would drive to the Hustler Casino with a gameplan in mind for that night (lol fish). I’m immediately dealt in and I look down at 6s7s for my first live hand in two months. Forget that I’m in early position, I can’t help it… the suited connectedness was overpoweringly sexy. I limp, and a middle-aged Asian fellow in middle position makes it $8. I call after the small blind comes along too.

Flop 8h5s4h.

Unreal. The poker gods had clearly foreseen my return to the ring and arranged a special ceremony in my honor. The small blind leads out for $10, I flat, and the original raiser makes it $32. The small blind calls and it’s time to jump out the window. I make it $90 with the nuts, to which the Asian man asks for a count, and decides on a call. The small blind practically flashes his cards to the entire table and does in fact tell the entire table that he guesses top pair is no good here, and finally folds.

After the dealer half-heartedly does his duty of reminding the $1/$2 players to not talk about hands in a multiway pot, he places the 2h on the turn. This is far from my favorite turn card, especially after the way the Asian man had asked for a count of my flop raise. But I only had a half-pot sized bet left behind, and after all, this was my ceremony, hand-delivered from the gods themselves. I waste little time in moving all-in and the Asian man wastes even less time calling with the nut flush.

And just like that, on hand number one after a two month hiatus, I am reintroduced to the ultimate emotional rollercoaster that is poker.

I picked up KK in the first orbit of NL in late position, raised and picked up the blinds …

While at the dealership today I read through 944 magazine a bit.  If you happen to live in a city that 944 covers, and you like going out, doing stuff and checking out new things in your city, I highly recommend picking up a copy. I also highly recommend they pay me for this advertising I’m giving them but that’s probably not going to happen. There are always so many things changing in the city of Las Vegas–new restaurants, DJ appearances/residencies, happy hours, special events–that it is nearly impossible to keep up.  It’s fun to try though, and it’s obviously tough to get bored here.

After VW, it was that time: 7pm on a Thursday, which means Pokerati 1/2 PLO/NLH at the Palms.  When I got there around 8 there was a full game up and running and Danielle was already on the waiting list.  It took about 15 minutes before we had enough people to start a second table.  Pretty impressive, I must say, but not entirely surprising.  The half-and-half nature of the game is just so much more interesting and entertaining in my opinion, that I think you’ll eventually see it spread elsewhere more regularly.  This coupled with the fact that the WSOP is in full swing means there’s no shortage of players around.

I picked up KK in the first orbit of NL in late position, raised and picked up the blinds.  That was pretty much the only hand of note for me before this one: we’re playing PLO 9-handed and there’s a button straddle.  Danielle limps, Randy Dorfman limps, I look at Ac Kd 7c7d and limp along.  The pair is on the low side in this hand that I don’t love, but I do love the AK double-suited and want to bring in lots of players that I dominate suit-wise.  Pauly limps, Merchdawg raises in late position to 20.  I immediately put Merch on QQxx or JJxx or something similar at best, just by the way he raised combined with my A and K blockers.  All of us limpers plus the button call.  

Flop Ax7s3s.  

It checks to me and thinking back I kinda like leading in the hopes of Merchdawg bluff raising, but I checked and it ends up checking through.  I was definitely going to check-raise a c-bet from Merchdawg and go with it if he reraised, assuming he has a flush draw.  The turn brought an offsuit 8 and it checked to Randy who bets pot (120).  I took a quick look around the table to gauge other people’s interest and there didn’t seem to be much.  If there was I would’ve shoved for 130ish more.  As it is, Randy is never folding whether he has draws, a set, or two pair, and I figured flatting gives him a chance to bluff at a blank river, whereas I could possibly get away from a river spade based on my read.  I’m not sure, that could be flawed.  The river is the As which looks like gin to me.  Randy pots it and I call all-in for less.  AT98 is good, Mr. Dorfman.

I just decided to bail after that.  I’ve been getting pretty pounded for the majority of the past two months, with a couple highlights here and there in between.  It’s really not that much fun, I must say, especially now that we’re smack in the middle of the WSOP when all poker players hope to be reaching the peak of their run-good.  But what can you do?  I never have that moment of agony when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, and I get to play cards every single day, if I so choose.  So it could be worse.  I could’ve been driving a car with fewer safety features that one night in West Hollywood.