I go to dip my toes back into the world of poker ... and I get cut off at the ankles.

Apparently the poker gods are still unhappy with me - I hope it's not just because I mix metaphors, badly - as things continue to go poorly. After taking a couple days off, the sjambok of the poker gods, the Full Tilt random number generator, administered yet another beatdown last night. I got home too late to play the Bodonkey or Skillz Series, so I jumped into a blogger cash game for a couple orbits.

I shouldn't have bothered.

Looking at things positively, I have noticed that my prediction skills are improving. I've been able to call the exact card that will come and hose me with deadly accuracy of late - to the point of saying "river King" out loud as soon as cards were flipped up on my one big hand of the night: My AQ on a KJT flop against Evy's KT.

King comes, buyin goes. Like Fuel says, flopped straights never win.

Oh, well. I definitely think that taking a couple days off was a good thing. I didn't get the least bit excited or upset about the hand - I simply stood up, shut down and did what I was going to do shortly anyway - get some sleep. I'm on a much more even keel. I'm not obsessing over the hand - really, it played itself - and it is what it is. Just another loss. It's okay.

Life goes on.

That doesn't mean that this slide is enjoyable. The fictional online bankroll has reached its lowest point since the early days of this blog and that fact is going to push me onto the sidelines for a while. I may hit up a friendly microstakes game or pushfest from time to time - and I have to remember to play my Stars Step 2 soon - but for the most part I'm out of the game. I'm just not interested in playing any lower.

It's a good thing that spring is more or less here and there are other things to do...

Since I had a few minutes this afternoon and because poker sucks, I decided to take buffalo66's suggestion and play around with the PokerEV beta software. I had downloaded it once upon a time, but gave up when I couldn't get it to load any hands. I finally figured out that I had to point it to a different user name (same spelling and all that, somehow different between networks) and it loaded up some hands for me.

I only had it load up recent Omaha hands, but I think that was enough to show how I run. Legend removed because it's depressing - the top line (postive, duh) is expected value, the bottom line (way negative, duh) is actual results. It isn't the biggest sample size - I'll probably crunch some more numbers later - but it's sufficient to say that this sucks.

On a positive note, I think I've decided that I need to find some kind of heavy base so that I can use Kat's beautiful knit donkey as a card capper. Until that time, he's taken up residence on one of the prongs of my wireless router. Hopefully he will help block out donkeration when I start playing again... which knowing me won't be long.

Edit: I actually looked at my Poker Tracker Omaha numbers and was surprised that I'm positive on Full Tilt even after the most recent beatdowns (and a long slide earlier this year). Not as surprising was the determination that I'm getting annihilated at all levels playing 6 max. I'm positive at full ring. Uh, yeah, I don't play 6 max any more.

I ungraciously busted Katitude recently in the special anniversary edition of the Dollar Donkament.

Instead of a lecture, I received this:

I can't even begin to describe how incredibly cool it is. Thanks, Kat!

Oh, and yeah, that's Saturdays with Dr. Pauly in the background. Not long after taking that picture I got donked by a guy calling a pot preflop raise out of position with T832 double suited and then calling a near-pot-sized shove on a Q76 flop with no suits. River 9 for the smoooooth four outer.

Yeah.

I continue to run good and will be going back on poker hiatus, at least for the rest of the weekend.

Have a good one.

Please to be going to congratulate F-Train and CK on their impending adventures, which include leaving the practice of law and spending the summer in Las Vegas. F-Train today had a nice backgrounder on how those plans have come about.

I love this paragraph:

After two and a half years of corporate lawyering I had again reached the point where I just didn't care. It was a combination of factors. Most of all I think I'm just really not terribly interested in what I do. That's a problem in a world where people expect to be able to reach you at all hours of the day and where you can't go home until the task is done. It creates a resentment that builds to a point where eventually you're going through the motions for the sake of cashing a paycheck every fifteen days. That's no way to live, even if it *is* a comfortable life. Which brings us to today.

If I'd been the one writing it, it would have looked like this:

After twotwelve and a half years of corporate lawyering I had again reached the point where I just didn't care. It was a combination of factors. Most of all I think I'm just really not terribly interested in what I do. That's a problem in a world where people expect to be able to reach you at all hours of the day and where you can't go home until the task is done. It creates a resentment that builds to a point where eventually you're going through the motions for the sake of cashingpraying that enough clients pay their bills so you might get a paycheck every fifteen daysonce in a while. That's no way to live, even if it *is* sometimes a comfortable life. Which brings us to today. At least it's Friday and I have the weekend to look forward to.

Not all that different, really, except I'm not going anywhere.

Good luck!

I'm fairly stumped as to what I'm doing wrong.

I'm not playing great poker. Much of the time I'm not even playing good poker. But I'm getting killed doing things that I have always believed are correct - that is, when I do play good poker.

Cash games. Are you not supposed to get as much money in the pot as possible when you're a 3-1, 4-1, 10-1 favorite? In situations like that I am just spewing chips right now and it's making me crazy.

Variance is normal. Variance is part of the game. Even as a 3-1 favorite you lose 25% of the time. I understand that. I accept that. That's a big reason why I play the levels I do - so that I can (at least in theory) handle the swings.

This isn't standard variance. It just isn't normal to lose 70%, 80%, 90+% of the time in those "big favorite" situations where I'm way way WAY ahead - and that's exactly where I am right now. Losing, losing and losing some more. It also isn't normal to lose a huge number of "coin flips" - the 50/50 or 60/40 situations. I haven't kept tabs on those, but I know I'm not running at expectation there either. And I'm not even referring to hands where I'm an underdog. Don't ask. Just don't.

I know that I should be thrilled when my opponents do retarded stuff - like, for example, they want to commit their entire stack on the turn with top set when I have the nut straight and the only flush redraw. I should PRAY for action in those spots. I don't want to become some kind of shell-shocked poker zombie that ends up just calling the turn in hopes that the board doesn't pair on the river - and then cursing and folding when it does. I want to maximize seriously +EV situations, not to minimize risk. "To get action you have to give action" - and I should want to give and get action when I'm ahead. Especially when I'm way ahead.

Except I always end up way behind. Poorer. Angrier. Frustrated.

Putting up - and possibly making your eyes bleed - lousy blog posts is super therapy. I always feel better once I've spewed my venom into the 'tubes, and last night was no exception. I slept just fine despite the massive beatdown. I'm calm. I'm collected.

I'm taking a few days off.

Time off never hurts. It may not change much - it certainly won't undo yesterday's results, for one thing - but it never hurts. So I won't win a BBT3 seat in the Riverchasers tonight. So what? In my current mental state I'm not capable of winning a $1 heads up sit 'n go.

Time for a brief break.

I'd like to say I'll be out there living life this weekend, but who am I kidding. I might squeeze in some golf but mostly I'll be doing work around the house. Maybe if I work on my attitude I might even convince myself that I enjoy it. Stranger things have happened - I mean, I once won some money playing this stupid game.

Poker sucks.

Brought to you by the
Online Poker Room Full
Tilt Poker and the
Dead Money Poker Blog by
AlCantHang

why the hell does the Full Tilt random number generator hate me so much?

[Edit: You might want to avert your eyes, this post is growing sicker by the minute]

PLO game. I get AKKJ double suited in position. There's a raise before me. I three-bet.

A notorious shortstacker four bets all in. I'm the only caller.

He has T876 double suited - in the same two suits that I have. NO FLUSH OUTS FOR YOU.

I mean ... fawk.

Hey FTP, I know I'm only a 61/39 favorite, but could you at least wait to the river card to hose me? While you're at it, what's with the all-paint boards when I've got 4 low runners and vice-versa?

Sheesh. I just had a hand check down to the river. Not surprisingly my 7653 unimproved didn't make a winner.

Better shut down before I owe y'all millions.

Oh, wait, here's another joyous one: Shortstacking donk shoves all in on the turn. He has top set, but he's a 3-1 dog because I have broadway plus a flush redraw and he has NO FUCKING REDRAWS except a prayer for a full house or quads which he hits goddammit I am so tired of this CRAP. Every single FCKING TIME.

Can you tell that I haven't won many hands tonight? Man does this suck.

Edit again: And a standard setup - KK into AA 20 minutes into the Mookie.

I am ON FIRE.

Edit one more time: Again, fucked. Dumbass has top set no redraws. I check raise his ass on the turn - I have a straight with a redraw to the nut flush. He shoves over the top. Of course he fucking hits his boat. That's three for three on that exact same setup tonight.

On the positive side, I did break a string of hands where I had KKxx and an ace hit the flop - only 4 times in a row before a break.

STILL RUNNING GOOD.

Once again I fail. Nice job taking those chips all the way to 2nd place, NB.

I will continue to treat these events as nothing more than entertainment. I have no chance, so to create unrealistic expectations would only lead to frustration, tilt and stuff being broken. When I play it will be for fun and only for fun.

M00kie tonight. 10PM ET, pw vegas1, Full Tilt. I prolly won't play, but who knows.

Lee Jones is leaving the EPT and becoming COO of Cardrunners.com. Read his eloquent goodbye post here.

While you're at it, be extra sure to read Footnote 5.

Super light post today.

I had my best day in a while on Thursday, picking up a couple "buyins" at the PLO tables while slogging my way to a middle of the pack finish in the Riverchasers limit (argh) event. Other than a bit of cash and an appearance at Friday's Dollar Donkarama, that was it for weekend poker. Golf tournament + no internet connection on Sunday = FAIL.

Note to self: Turning on automatic rebuys can really skew your perception of how much you're spewing at a cash table.

It looks like the belated arrival of spring and the need to focus on some other things is going to seriously crimp my poker playing time for a while.

That's life, I guess.

Also before I forget, there will be a special guest Bodog Pro playing the Bodonkey tomorrow night. Hit up the official site for all the details. I'll be there if I remember to preregister, and if I am there I will be playing like a superaggrotiltmonkey because it won't be much before 10 PM.

Impatience +1.

I went out 27th in the Mookie when I managed to run into not only AA but also KK in the same hand. 88 no good. I should know by now that a min-raise UTG a couple hours in when the blinds are getting up there always means aces. Really. I wasn't paying attention, thought that it smelled like a medium ace and it's not like I expected to have one of the blinds wake up with kings. Oh, well. Impatience, that's all it was. No reason to shove there.

Otherwise, the evening was full of retarded good fun. Won a pushfest. Laughed hard at Katitude destroying the field in another pushfest and at the idiots railing Fuel's 25/50 NL cash game.

If you can't be good at poker, at least you can have fun.

Tonight is the Riverchasers, the latest event in the ongoing BBT3 series. If you're not checking out at least a couple of these events you're crazy. Free WSOP seats being given away. If you have any luck skillz at all (I don't LDO) these tournaments are full of dead money. 9 PM ET, Full Tilt, pw riverchasers, be there.

So I never took Latin. So what? It could be a word.

Little action last night. I got home too late - golf league season is upon us - to play the Bodonkey or the Skillz Series. I see that Hoyazo won the Skillz and that it was Stud/8. Do the words "skillz" and "stud/8" belong in the same time zone, let alone in the same sentence? Anyway, congrats Hoy. I think I'm going to have to start pre-registering for the Bodonkey - with that great structure it really doesn't matter if I miss most of the first hour.

I did fire up the machine in order to donate in a couple of pushfests - it's oddly fulfilling to be seated with three other bloggers, get a suited king on the first hand, flop a flush draw and be able to yell "heart ... heart ... DAMMIT!" at your computer. Maybe it's just me.

Also donated a stack at the microlimits. I was curious as to whether my aces were cracked by ten-rag or some random hand with a two on an ugly double paired board. (Answer: QTo). While the revelation was worth five bucks, the fact that it was well after midnight and considering that I could no longer see straight led to an immediate shutdown and crashing. Today will be interesting.

Anyway, tonight the BBT3 rolls on and your latest chance to go to the Word Series of Poker for FREE involves playing the M00kie. 10PM ET. Full Tilt. Password vegas1.

Until next time, I will be working on my argumentum ad hominem. Suckas.

How to final table a blogger donkament:

1. Chip up 50% or so early by cracking AAxx with random rags.
2. Lose your internet connection (I dislike my $%^&* ISP) about 30 minutes in.
3. Never get reconnected.

Apparently doing that was good enough for sixth place in Saturdays With Dr. Pauly, which is better than anything else I've "accomplished" lately.

Go figure.


Otherwise ...

For the second week running, I was completely owned by one player in the Riverchasers. This week's player-who-is-better-than-me was CndyCarr10 or something like that. His/her stack was fluctuating like crazy. I picked up a couple thousand chips early with some solid play and then with the blinds in the 25/50 range and 5000 chips or so I picked up KK. I raised from late position. One caller, CC10 from the big blind. Flop is 9 high. I bet. Call. Turn is a 6. More chips go in. River is another 9. I know I'm hosed and safely check behind - I'm not good at hand reading but even I could see that CC10 was holding something like 96s. Which he/she was. Back down to 2000 chips.

I know you need to be aggressive to win these stupid things, but my timing stinks. So, for that matter, does my bet sizing.

Anyway, I went kablooey again at the hands of CC10. After watching him/her play a wide range of hands (and win with most of them), we checked a hand to the end and I figured my rivered TPTK with the suited jackace was probably good. Nope, the same card made a straight - which I admit I didn't see - out of 98s. Bad time to jam.

The usual lineup awaits this week. I probably won't play the MATH, may or may not be around for Tuesday's events and we'll see how things go later on. It's going to be brutal at work coming off vacation.

***

In case you've been living under a rock, another payment processor - ePassporte - has shut out U.S. players under pressure. I never used ePassporte, largely because of fees but also because I haven't initiated a financial transaction in either direction since the UIGEA. Still, this is not a good thing.

It does make me wonder, though, how many layers of separation would be required before a transferring offshore entity would be sufficiently insulated from U.S. government authority? For example:

1. U.S. player --> transfers money into an account at Offshore Bank (account is titled in the name of the U.S. player, so this transfer is kosher as long as any necessary paperwork such as a TD9022.1 is done).

2. Player --> transfers money from his account at Offshore Bank to Middleman Co. (Middleman Co. is a financial services outfit/transfer agent, but is not itself in the online gambling business. You can set up some kind of legal fiction - this is a purchase of gift cards or something legitimate in whatever jurisdiction this is in).

3. Funds are transferred from Middleman Co. to online site.

This is essentially the model we've had, but Middleman Co. has caved under U.S. pressure. Is it possible to have a Middleman Co. that's entirely offshore and simply won't care about U.S. government actions?

Would you need to insert additional layers of middlemen before the funds would be "safe"?

I assume that you would need to use at least one level of middleman because of the ease of which the U.S. government could shut off transfers to Offshore Bank if they were an obvious sham or front. I am also assuming that it would be difficult to find a bank that was willing/able to remain entirely clear of U.S. jurisdiction.

As a practical matter, I think it's obvious that the more middlemen that are required, the less likely it is that the casual player will bother, which explains how the U.S. government may yet strangle online poker simply through frustration.

Curious. Something to ponder, anyway.

* NOTE: This is purely an academic and theoretical exercise. To the extent that anything along these lines would be considered money laundering or otherwise illegal, I don't advocate doing so.

File this under speculation.

Back in ye olde days of online poker (i.e. more than 18 months ago), I played regularly at a number of sites belonging to the Crypto network. Interpoker was the largest of the bunch.

With the passage of the UIGEA, all of the Cryptos promptly banned U.S. players, presumably - and I could be wrong about this - because their software provider, WagerLogic, was a publicly traded company.

For a number of months now, I have been receiving "player newsletter" type emails from PokerPlex, one of the old Crypto sites. I've hunted around their website and haven't really found a straight answer on their U.S. player policy. I suspect it's buried somewhere in their terms & conditions document but I haven't really been motivated to dig further.

This week, I received a similar email from Littlewoods Poker. I think this the first one I've received from them since the day of death. Interestingly, it noted my former user name and showed a balance of player points (MPP). Could it be that they've retained information on U.S. players in anticipation of re-opening? I looked at their website, and they have the following statement regarding U.S. players:

I think I'll dig up my password and see if my account is still active. If so, I'll look and see if they have any MPP freerolls - I'm really curious now to see what's permitted.

Anyway, this is speculation and only speculation, but I do wonder if these are signals that the Cryptos would reopen in a flash if the UIGEA were repealed or watered down. I certainly do miss those bonuses.

Back from vacation. Four days of golf, five and a half rounds - it would have been six and half but it was really wet and muddy in Greensboro on Sunday and five hours of carts paths only is enough for one day. 30 some hours of driving. No internet. No poker. Almost no work. It was great to break out of the routine. Life couldn't be better ... it's such a shame that reality will be administering a hearty bitch slap as soon as tomorrow.

Because this is a poker blog, not a travel blog, I'm going to just hit the highlights list style:

1. First up, poker content. This is the public service portion of this post. If you happen to be in Marietta, Ohio, you can find live Texas Hold'em at the Comfort Inn, just east of the interstate, on Tuesday nights. On Thursdays, play at the Holiday Inn just across the street. I was there on Wednesday, so I can't vouch for the quality of the games.

2. Ahh, there is nothing quite like coming home to 1,531 unread posts on Bloglines, 71 emails (and counting), five newspapers and a three inch stack of junk mail.

3. If I had allergy problems, I think I would be dead right now. I've never seen so much pollen in my life. I'm not exaggerating - my car was literally green. I was going to take a picture to prove it, but we hit rain somewhere near the Ohio line. If it's not already, Claritin should be the official state drug of North Carolina.

4. Speaking of Ohio, I'd like to extend a hearty fuck you to the Ohioan in the Ford Fusion who ran me off the Interstate just north of Toledo this afternoon. Check your mirrors before you change lanes next time, you moron. We're both darned lucky that nothing bad happened.

5. I'm off to go sign up for tonight's Riverchasers. I've got a few bottles of Bell's Oberon and plan to keep the vacation theme rolling for a least a couple hours longer...

6. I thought you could find a Waffle House in any small town in the South. It appears that I was wrong and that Waffle Houses are mainly found along the interstate. That just seems wrong.

Speaking of which, did anything happen while I was gone? Hell freeze over? Did Waffles win something?

7. Last, but not least:

Here are at least 20 people that I am smarter than:


It was about fifty degrees with a cold wind.

There is not much skill to these BBT3 tournies, unless you count patience as a skill. I’m still trying to figure out the right frequency for stealing when the blinds get huge. Of course there is always the chance of running into a big hand end bringing things to a crashing halt. Unless of course you can master the art of the suck out. I haven’t won a lot of tournies, but the events where I have done well have always included winning two or three hands where I was [a] dog.

-- biggestron

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Things are getting a little better. Still not good, but better. I haven't mastered the art of the suckout, but I have been winning some of my coin flips. That by itself makes a huge difference.

Still, I got completely owned (er, I mean pwn3d) by Tuscaloosa Johnny in last night's pot limit hold'em edition of the Riverchasers. He read me like a book. Let me set it up for you.

We're better than two hours in, about 35 players left. I just chipped up to a hair over 10,000 and into 6th place after busting a guy. I drop about 1500 trying to pick off a shorty who ends up having KK, so I'm at about 8500 chips. Blinds are in the 300/600 range.

I get a decent hand in middle position. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it would have been AJo, AQo, KQs, KJs or QJs. I raise. Johnny is a couple players behind me, I think on the button (otherwise in the blinds). He re-raises. I fold, not wanting to commit more than half my stack preflop with a potentially dominated hand, coinflip at best. (I think it was QJs).

Next orbit. Same scenario. Exactly the same. I have a marginal hand - which as it turns out I should not have raised duh - and wish to steal. TJ squeezes, I grumble and dump it. I am too loose and then too tight.

A couple orbits later, I'm hanging on with just under 4000 chips. The blinds continue to go up and my M is at about 4. I fold and I fold and I fold. Junk. I need a hand.

I get one. KK. Middle position again. I try to mimic my previous actions exactly. I raise.

Right on cue, Johnny reraises.

How about that, I got action on a monster.

I'm thrilled to jam in the rest of my stack.

Okay ... not so much when he flips over AA. Of course.

No help and I'm out. Not a bad beat - there were certainly a lot of those, but not this time. Definitely a setup. I wait and wait and wait for a decent hand and I run it right into freaking aces. Jeez. I think this is a terrific time to go off on vacation.

Stayed up and played the Mookie. I doubled up early through Otis when I turned a set and the river game him trips and me a boat. After that, nothing much happened.

I got AA once and busted a shorty. I folded AQ twice when people were all in for at least 60% of my stack before the action got to me. I might be playing too tight. I got KK once and took the blinds. I won my first two coin flips to stay alive. I stole enough blinds to more or less maintain my "stack", but it never grew above 5,000 chips. Eventually the blinds and antes caught up and it was pushmonkey time. I get caught with one of the weaker hands I shoved (AJo) when leftylu woke up with QQ. Out about 22nd, which I think means I picked up a couple meaningless points. No money, though. Congrats to Wwwwwonka for taking it down.

Riverchasers tonight, 9 PM (pw: riverchasers). I have a ton of stuff to do before vacation, so I dunno if I'll be there. Probably, since it'd be my last chance to play a BBT3 event for a week or so - I don't think I'm going to bring the laptop with me this time.

Donkeration continues. Blew out of both the Bodonkey and the Skillz Series well short of the money (and also short of the points). Mass quantities of fail. It's a very good thing that this is just entertainment.

I know I suck at Omaha/8, but I just had to chuckle at the way I busted in the Skillz. This is not a bad beat story. I got into a war with another short stack (I think it was pushmonkey72 but the hand history is at home). I'm thrilled to get it all in on a disconnected flop of two low cards (including a two), two hearts and one diamond. I have (I think) AJ34 or (AJ36?) double suited with the ace suited in hearts, giving me the nut flush draw in hearts, a backdoor flush draw in diamonds, a straight draw, (as it turns out) two clean overcards and a clean draw with many outs to the nut low. The villain had A2xx for a pair of twos and not much else. Brick. Brick. Neither card helps either of us. Pair of twos is GOOD.

Maybe you had to be me but I LOL'd.

Stupid game.

Thankfully I sucked out early and often to win a pushfest. I'm not sure what's more fun - winning money or completely tilting people who are there to play seriously in a 50 FTP SnG.

It was also educational watching (and listening, courtesy of Buddy Dank Radio) to Fuel play a 5/10 NL cash game. Apparently there are morons who will stack off with top 2 pair at that level too. Maybe they only boat up when they play me.

Don't forget to play the M00kie tonight, 10:00 PM eastern. The BBT3 rolls on and on.

I think April started early.

(ooh, that sounds like the start of a particularly bad joke, sorry)

After two plus months of absolute misery, I managed to cram an entire lifetime worth of running good into an hour and a half. Too bad it was in a dollar rebuy and not at a high stakes cash table, but whatever. I flopped sets. I took out two of my favorite (and the hottest duh) Canadian chick female bloggers ... both times while holding AA. I built up a massive stack. It was kind of fun having a "M" of over 200.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't win. Some luckbox did. Some drum-tight Okie also lasted longer. Don't care. It was very very late (especially for me). Focus was lost.

It was a cash. After subtracting several double rebuys I still came out ahead for the evening, something which hasn't happened much lately.

And that's no joke.

Reminder: The ever-loving Bodonkey is tonight, 9:05 ET. Skillz Series (part of the BBTreeofdeath) is at 9:30. I think I read somewhere that it's Omaha/8. Dunno if I'll be there, since I have a lot of work to do before going on vacation next week.

Also, since I feel compelled to post this at least once a week: