Archive for May, 2008
Dealers at the WSOP
Are really bad. I am the first person to stick up for the dealers and I take good care of them, but it is tough when they make mistakes on almost every hand!
In the three days that the Convention Center has been open to action, I have had no less than five dealers tell me it was their first day ever dealing live poker. One poor dealer’s hands were shaking non stop for the half hour he was with us - we probably saw about 10 hands during his down.
How do I get myself into these situations?
So last Tuesday I am sitting in a bar waiting for a business contact to show up. The idea was that we meet at the bar and discuss doing business together. Afterwards we would take part in the free poker game that the bar offers. To be clear the person I am supposed to be meeting with owns the bar that I am sitting in. As the hours go by I order a little dinner and I play in the first poker tournament of the evening. I lose as I go all in with pocket 10s and I get called by pocket 8s. After I get busted out I decided that the owner is not going to show and I get ready to pay my tab and leave. Reaching into my pocket I realize that I have no cash on me. The next logical step was to use my check card to pay the bill. As luck would have it using my check card was impossible.
What makes the Poker Economy Chug?
I’ve recently switched my primary playing location from from one major poker site to the other; let’s call the one I left the Full of multi-tabling TAGs site, and the other one hopefully will be a Moneymaker in the long run (Pokerstars, obviously). These two sites are the big players in the US market and aside from PartyPoker, probably the biggest sites in the world.
Technically, the sites are quite similar: both offer smooth-running clients for multiple operating systems, with all of the attendant abilities to tile and cascade tables, automatically set buy-in preferences, locate “friends” on the site, and quickly contact support. As far as the interface, there’s not too much difference between them, although I think Pokerstars has the better client and I get disconnected far less frequently.
I (almost) hate floppin’ the nuts in Omaha
I got into a huge hand with my old professor, Jim McManus, at our home game a few weeks ago where I should have laid down the nuts on the flop. The notion of laying down the best band sounds crazy to hold’em players, but it’s something that you have to be willing to consider in Omaha.
At our home game, we play alternating rounds of $5/$5 no limit hold ‘em and pot-limit Omaha. In a big family pot that had been raised preflop, the board came down 9h 7s 6s. It had checked around to me on the button, which made me feel pretty safe. I bet the pot with my 8 10 straight, hoping to take it down right there, but then Jim reraised the pot.
Working on a new way to play…
My poker game has been evolving lately. I got a little burned out on poker and also had some personal issues that I have been dealing with and this has affected the amount of poker I have been playing.
I was one of the tightest players anyone has ever seen, no matter the position not matter my stack size. I now focus on where I am in relationship to the button, and what my stack size is in relation to the rest of the table. I am also betting more…… I am not afraid to push with any two cards especially if I feel there is a better then 50-50 chance my opponents will fold. I realize the need to make sure that my stack does not get too small. In addition if I have 2 smaller cards that are live I am only about a 45% dog (give or take).
Moving on Up
It’s been quite a hiatus from writing, but I’m hoping to get back into a regular posting schedule in the next few weeks. I’ve been playing a lot, and I’m playing at five times the stakes I was at the beginning of the year. This still isn’t much, of course; I was playing the micros before and I’m hardly making a living from poker, but moving up is quite a satisfying experience. In the past I took shots on really thin bankrolls and it never worked out for long, so I finally just took the slow-and-steady route. What a surprise, it actually works.
WSOP Plans Anyone?
So is anyone going to the play in any of the events of the WSOP this year? I more than likely won’t be playing due to the fact that I start an intensive grad school program June 2nd and won’t have much of a life for the next year. I’ve been the last two years and had a blast.
What a Week for Online Poker
If you haven’t already, you should read this thread from 2+2
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=208114
It’s a summary thread for those of you that don’t know about the cheating that has been going on at Ultimate Bet. Looks like someone stole over a million from the users on that site.
There’s also a thread about pokerroom being used for money laundering or credit card theft/fraud in the region of a couple hundred thousand bucks
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=204850
Not Afraid to Look the Fool, Another Difference Live/Online
Poker is a game of incomplete information, and the more information you can accumulate and process, the better you will do. One thing that actually hurts a lot of players in this regard is ego. I have a pretty big ego internally, but externally I will very rarely talk about my accomplishments or show my big laydowns, bluffs, etc. at the table unless I am doing it to set someone up for a play later on or get information.
Drama with a smart/dirty player
At the casino this past weekend, this guy named Lucas randomly told me, “I keep my nails really short because when they’re longer I get tempted to mark cards.” I’ve learned from teaching kids that guilty people usually admit to things that are a little less worse than what they actually did. If a little girl told me that she took three pieces of candy that were off limits, she probably took five. Since this guy was looking for an opportunity to tell a perfect stranger that that he had such a strong desire to mark cards that he had to take physical action to stop himself, I knew he wasn’t afraid to play dirty. Then, a little later, he proudly told the table that he had once won an $800 pot by saying he had two pair at showdown when he didn’t. Saying this made the other guy prematurely muck his hand, and thus forfeit the pot.
