Res Ipsa Poker: January 2009

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Looming Charity Shortage?

The economy may be in the dumps, but poker and gambling is still going strong around here. Two new native american casinos are either opening or cleared for launch and another could be built just around the corner in the not too distant future.

Charity poker is what's really hot, though. It looks like another charity poker room (fixed location, rotating charities) has opened up just a few miles away near the local mall. This is more convenient than the two existing ones, which are 20-30 minutes plus in the car. A fourth room, closer yet, may or may not ever happen. I think they have held at least a couple events, but I haven't seen much in the way of publicity. I may be tempted to go give the new room a try - less of a drive in the winter is a good thing.

I have to wonder how long this will go on, though. Charities are limited to hosting only a couple hold'em events a year, which means that the charity room organizers have to line up quite a few charities to rotate in. How many charities can there be? Enough to support 3 (or 4?) poker rooms?

Monday, January 26, 2009

WSOP Schedule Out

Hard to believe, but it's only a couple months away.

Lots of changes this year. No rebuys. A mega $1,000 NLHE tournament to really get things kick started. The "November Nine" final table delay is back as well. Should be interesting. One of many places you can check out the details is at Pokerati.

If I were ever to play an event, it'd probably be Event #5, $1500 PLO. I'd also consider the $1500 HORSE and the low buyin NLHE events.

But since it won't be happening, I'll have to be content cheering on those who do get to play.

Friday, January 23, 2009

I Has A Question

Someone explain this to me. Please.

$1/$2 PLO 6 max. 5 players.
(All "dollar" amounts are in play chips as usual)

UTG ($11) limps with Ks 3d Js 2d
I ($51.60) raise pot to $9 with Ac As Jd 4c (meh but this is 5 max)
Button ($252.55) folds
SB ($48) who just sat down calls $8 with Ad Qh 7s 6h
BB Full Tilt ~~Enormous Donkey~~ Red Pro raises all in for $22.05 with 8s 8d 7d 7h
UTG calls all in for $9

I re-raise all in. The pot is now $90.05.

SB has $39 behind to call. All of that is at risk against me, who raised initially and just FOUR BET ALL IN.

My question is this: WHO %^&*Iing CALLS THERE WITH Ad Qh 7s 6h?

Do you think your potential third nut heart flush draw might be good? That you might pair your ace against THREE other players, one of whom just four bet, and THAT might be good? You might make a straight with your 76? You might be the only one with AQ and could make broadway?

Help me, please. I don't get it.

And no, this post isn't about the Full Tilt RNG being out of lube this evening. That's not it at all. I just want someone, anyone, to tell me why you call with that ... that ... that GARBAGE.

UTG is a retard too, but I'll excuse that as a stupid short stack play. The Red Pro, unlike their usual form, actually made a solid decision and had pretty decent equity. The SB, as near as I can figure, just emerged from the primordial ooze.

I just don't understand idiots. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I suck at poker.

Cascading Without Beats

Wicked Chops Poker hosted a freeroll last night for an entry into a big tournament at the Borgata in Atlantic City. Since I was signed up, I played. And by played, I mean I basically paid no attention. I was just, you know, there.

For variety, I had four tables of PLO up as well. No, that's not the variety - the variety was I tried cascading the tables instead of tiling them. I have always tiled. Even when the tables were not resizable - you know, back in the dark ages - I would tile and overlap. I am a creature of habit.

Now, I don't know that the cascading had anything to do with it (I'm not that superstitious), but I finally got to see what it feels like to run good. I mean, I ran like Bayne instead of like, well, me. I got cards. Sometimes they connected with the board. And held up. Which, if you read my drivel, you know never happens. I even had the good fortune to have a couple of readable aggrodonks who were happy to stack off with non-nut hands. Sniff - life is so beautiful.

Maybe poker doesn't suck after all.

Btw, I didn't win the freeroll. It wasn't exactly hard to outlast 90% of the field, but I got bored.

Edit: I didn't get a chance to stack my favorite Full Tilt ~~GIANT FUCKING DONKEY~~ pro, as that pro was playing up a level. I may have issues, but playing PLO where a full buyin is half my "roll" is not one of them. As always, all references to money are to play chips only.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

It Is

Pot Limit Omaha is the devil's game.

I played a bunch of PLO this weekend, not having any desire to do anything, you know, productive.

Saturday night was good. Up 3 or 4 buyins.

This afternoon, not so much. Down those same 3 or 4 buyins. And I didn't even donate any of it to the terror of the PLO tables, Bayne.

I think I ended up net plus four imaginary dollars or something.

I even got to play above my "roll" for a while, stalking the biggest DONKEY amongst the Full Tilt red pros. Alas, said donkey was stacked but not by me. And no, it's not Jim McManus.

Tilt control was good today. I received ****ty cards. It took two hours (playing 4-5 tables) to see my first AAxx. One buyin lost was the result of disbelieving that a new player could have AAxx for the second time in three hands since sitting. He did, and my KKxx was no match. Another buyin vanished when a subsequent AAxx ss went down to something like 8754 ds. And 8754 three bet to isolate (which partly failed btw)! A brilliant move. (edit: actually, now that I think about it, Mr 8754 four bet. I limp-reraised from early position.)

It's a stupid game and I'm not very good at it.

Otherwise, I intended to donk off my $109 Stars ticket, but decided to pass. I'll probably get to that some time this week.

Poker sucks.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Captured on Film (w/ Audio Or So I Hear)

The gentleman on your left is the Garthmeister. Craps guru and crusher of charity tournaments. Also now a contributor to the Tao of Pokerati podcast*.

The guy on your right? Uh, well, he is:

A. Checking out Garth's guns
B. Checking out Garth's tip wad
C. Checking out Garth's package
D. All of the above

Take your pick, I can't tell for certain. Definitely leaning "C", though.

Downtown Las Vegas is a scary place sometimes.

* which I admit I have never listened to, not being a podcast person. If I ever did listen to a podcast, I'd probably start with this one.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Off Tilt

I think I'm finally off tilt. That last session sent me over the edge. It ended in a crescendo of simultaneous soul-crushing beats. Poker sucks. I needed a few days off. I didn't even burn my Stars tickets over the holiday weekend like I'd planned. Total poker abstinence.

And I'm back.

I've been wasting a lot of time reading the forums lately. With the new year, there's plenty of chat about people wanting to make Supernova Elite status at Stars. 1,000,000 VPPs to get there. Especially entertaining are the guys that play 1/2 limit and are trying to get there. That's right, 1/2 limit.

Just for kicks, I played an imaginary hour of 1/2 limit. I got in 72 imaginary hands and won a purely hypothetical $5.75 against a bunch of nits. During that time I earned 16 VPPs, or 0.222 VPPs per hand.

At that VPP earn rate, I would need to play 4.5 million hands to get SNE status. One tabling, at 72 hands per hour, that would take 62,500 hours - 2,604 days. Just a bit outside the December 31 cutoff. As for the grinders, they play 24 tables. At that VPP earn rate, they could make it (barely) by averaging 50 hours per week. Wow. And I think my life sucks sometimes...

Real content to come. Some day.

Friday, January 02, 2009

Vent

Stupid Red Full Tilt Pro lucksack suckout f'ing donkeys.

You did not have odds to call that flop bet.

You did not have implied odds to call that flop bet either.

I'll give you that you did have odds to call that turn bet, but only because there was so much money in the pot. You were still a 4-1 dog.

And while I was typing this you sucked out again.

Poker is EZ when you're a pro.

Edit: And again with the suckout. JFC.

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Happy New Year

{alt hed: This sort of thing is why PLO is awesome}

Sometimes even donkeys get paid. As always, the "money" in play is purely hypothetical. I know that unconverted hand histories suck, but deal with it. It's not like this is a regular feature.

FullTiltPoker 2008/12/31
Seat 1: lizzypooh11 ($48.30)
Seat 2: CLOVIS8 ($58.60)
Seat 3: leecherry ($25)
Seat 4: chaselle ($19.90)
Seat 5: donkauffman ($11.45)
Seat 6: bigbird68 ($26.65)
Seat 7: on_thg ($91.75)
Seat 8: I Like Pajamas ($23.80)
Seat 9: NickNitro69 ($20)
CLOVIS8 posts the small blind of $0.25
on_thg has been disconnected
leecherry posts the big blind of $0.50
5 seconds left to act
NickNitro69 posts $0.50
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to on_thg [Qh Ac Qc 5d] {sweet sweet semi-garbage}
chaselle calls $0.50
on_thg has reconnected
donkauffman calls $0.50
bigbird68 calls $0.50
on_thg calls $0.50
I Like Pajamas folds
NickNitro69 checks
lizzypooh11 folds
CLOVIS8 calls $0.25
leecherry checks
*** FLOP *** [Qd 3c Jh] {top set but let's not get carried away}
CLOVIS8 checks
leecherry checks
chaselle bets $3.50
donkauffman calls $3.50
bigbird68 calls $3.50
on_thg calls $3.50
NickNitro69 folds
CLOVIS8 calls $3.50
leecherry has 15 seconds left to act
leecherry folds
*** TURN *** [Qd 3c Jh] [3d] {oh, baby}
CLOVIS8 checks
chaselle has 15 seconds left to act
chaselle bets $15.90, and is all in {donkey 1}
donkauffman calls $7.45, and is all in {donkey 2}
bigbird68 calls $15.90
on_thg raises to $87.75, and is all in {will he fold with six bucks behind? Nah. Rrrrrraise!}
CLOVIS8 folds
bigbird68 calls $6.75, and is all in {donkey 3}
on_thg shows [Qh Ac Qc 5d]
chaselle shows [2d Qs 8d Kc]
donkauffman shows [As 2s Ah Js]
bigbird68 shows [6h Ad 9d Kh]
Uncalled bet of $65.10 returned to on_thg
*** RIVER *** [Qd 3c Jh 3d] [6c]
on_thg shows a full house, Queens full of Threes
bigbird68 shows two pair, Sixes and Threes {I LOL'd}
on_thg wins side pot #2 ($13.50) with a full house, Queens full of Threes
chaselle shows two pair, Queens and Threes {I LOL'd again}
on_thg wins side pot #1 ($24.85) with a full house, Queens full of Threes
donkauffman shows two pair, Aces and Threes {ZOMG, I LOL'd so hard that I've fallen and I can't get up}
on_thg wins the main pot ($48.30) with a full house, Queens full of Threes
chaselle is sitting out
donkauffman is sitting out
bigbird68 is sitting out

That makes up for quite a few of the annoying beats I took playing PLO in 2008. Here's to a similarly donktastic 2009.