Author Archive
Negative EV Hours
I listen to all of Bart Hanson’s Cash Plays podcasts on pokerroad (most are pretty good - check out the Samoleous interview if you haven’t), and one of the shows had him discussing the idea of negative EV hours with a psychologist.
The basic gist of the idea was that a lot of poker players focus on logging hours no matter the circumstances, when oftentimes playing when you’re in a bad mood or when there are no good games going is giving you diminishing returns to the point where you would actually make more money by just not playing.
1994 Main Event Champion Russ Hamilton a Cheat?
Well, that’s the allegation in 2+2. Big news, the superuser account on Ultimate Bet is highly suspected of being 1994 Main Event champion Russ Hamilton, along with some other co-conspirators. Russ has been known to angle shoot before (gaining weight for the 1994 silver bonus during the ME, hosting a fake $100k televised UB tournament), and it appears that his reputation is at serious stake right now. Here are some cliff notes posted in 2+2: (the thread is like 100+ pages long)
—-excerpted from 2+2—–
Congrats Johnny Neckar, John Phan
Aaargh sooo tilted right now I was grinding stupid $2/5 cash today while 50 feet away from me a FT was happening with a poker acquaintance that I have sweated and played with before.
Johnny Neckar finished 2nd to John Phan today in the $3k NLHE tourney - it was a marathon heads up match and I could hear the screaming from my table. Unfortunately, I was too stupid to check it out and missed out on seeing this kid. After sweating his $5k mixed limit cash, I told him I’d sweat him if he went deep again but I missed it and just found out that he FTed after I came home and checked out pokernews.
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.
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.
Waiting to Run Hot
I like to think I have pretty decent BR management - I definitely don’t want to be playing mid/low stakes my whole life and am not afraid to take a shot, but I set aside a certain portion of my roll and wait until I have enough to lose before I try to jump to the next level (I use the Kelly Criterion for this - If you don’t know what this is you should familiarize yourself with the concept).
I have been trying to jump into the $5/10 NL games in Vegas twice now, and it is incredibly frustrating. Both times, I built my roll up to $20k+ and set aside $5k to blow in 5 buyins for the $5/10. Every shot I’ve taken at $5/10, I’ve either gotten sucked out on or coolered. I can not put into words how frustrating it is to feel that I am probably good enough to beat this game but to run just so bad that I can’t just stay at $5/10.
Poker is Fun Again!
For all of you microstakes online players out there who are looking to build your bankroll, I have a strong recommendation - learn how to play microstakes HORSE.
There are usually 2 or 3 .25/.50 games going on Full Tilt, and not only are they really fun, but they are ridiculously easy to beat. I am not a good HORSE player at all - I barely know the rules for some of the games and have easily read less than 1000 words of strategy on Razz, O8, Stud, and Stud8, but as long as you research starting hand requirements and are familiar with basic poker concepts, you should be a winner in this game.
The Sun Setting on an Old Pro
I was playing at the Wynn’s 1/3 No Limit game last Thursday night when an interesting player came into our game.
“Is this seat taken?” A gentleman asked in a Forrest Gump-esque Southern drawl. Curly grey hair, a boyish grin, and a slightly receding hairline, the man peeled off a couple of hundreds from a stack in his pocket. The face looked familiar, but where had I seen it?
Bellagio Sucks
I don’t know why the Bellagio is considered the preeminent poker room in Vegas. It is true that it has the best game selection, but the floor in general sucks, especially the day shift.
I’ve been playing there pretty regularly in the $2/5 game the past couple of weeks, and it is ridiculous how much differently they treat their regulars compared to the tourists or other randoms in the game. First of all, they give all of their regs hidden food comps, which you have to ask the floor for in the secret back office. If they don’t recognize you, they’ll tell you that they’re all out but if they know you’re a regular, they’ll write one right up. Bellagio is the only room I know of that doesn’t offer an hourly comp rate for food but rather just hands them out completely randomly based on who they like.
