The Followers

I found myself again in a rut.

Not only had I not played a single hand of poker since the SFPT finale, it seems like I hadn't been interested in even reading or watching about the game, much less playing.  I'm not sure why. 

But, unlike the last time, I had confidence that I would be able to climb out of feeling that way. How it would happen I wasn't sure; I figured it would be the act of actually playing some hands, or coming across some coverage on TV that sucked me in.

I did NOT expect what actually happened.

Any time I am in one of these ruts, the one aspect of my poker playing/fandom that does NOT go away is keeping up with Twitter.  I follow any number of poker players, along with God-knows-how-many poker news outlets, media members, and the like.  Only rarely do I interact with anyone I don't know; I can probably count the number of times I have done so on one hand.  I've been trying to branch out with that recently, and in doing so I got a huge surprise.

Searching through my timeline a few days ago, I saw a post from online pro Katie Dozier, which promoted a book she had co-authored called "The Superuser".  I checked it out on Amazon, decided it looked cool, and added it to my wishlist.  As a wannabe author, I know how much even the slightest bit of positive reinforcement can help my psyche, so I fired off a quick tweet:

Imagine my surprise when a few minutes later, Dozier "Favorited" the tweet.  Hey, cool - unexpected for sure, and nice of her to acknowledge.

Then, the shocker:

Wait, what?  I'm still confused as to why she would follow me - there's nothing in my profile or tweets that would be interesting for a poker player, I don't think, except for MAYBE the list of people I follow.

Either way, very cool, and somehow, I feel motivated to get back in the game.  I now officially have the eye of a legit poker pro, and while I don't know if it'll last, it's cool.  (People clean out their "follow" lists all the time for many reasons.)

Some reading of "Bluff" this morning at the gym enhanced that feeling.  I was hoping to play some online today, but work isn't letting me.  Damn it.

I will get to it before Turning Stone in a little over a week, and while there, I want to remember to tweet some results so I have some legit poker in my timeline, and see where that brings me.

Poker Mentality

With the next SFPT event looming on Saturday and not having played much since the August tournament, I decided to pop back on to Full Tilt both yesterday and today for a couple tournaments.  Both went pretty well: yesterday I finished 2nd in a 250, 1-table SNG, and today won a 6-handed 1-table SNG. 

In the 9-handed event, I was barely paying attention, but in this case that isn't a bad thing.  I was able to play the math, and let my subconcious mind work picking up trends, patterns, etc.  This isn't new for me, but using that information in real-time is.  I was able to do so, and got my chips in with the advantage, only to have the math bite me once again.  No big deal.  From that tournament, I also took away the fact that if I can play that well not paying attention, I have a lot of upside for when I actually do focus.

The 6-handed event today comes with a huge astrisk.  One player was eliminated on the first hand, and two others were sitting out almost from the beginning.  As soon as I recognized this, I loosened up my play, knowing in reality I was only playing against two other opponents.  I was able to KO one of the others not too long after, and though the second guy was a much bigger challenge (I couldn't really put a read on his betting patterns), I was victorious over him as well.

The hand that finished him off is one I am proud of, not because of how it turned out, but because of how I processed the information.  I raised 4x the big blind pre-flop with 8/8, and was called.  The flop was 4/7/5, and I c-bet half the pot.  A snap call, and turn J.  Here's where I processed what was in front of me: an over pair to all but one card, a straight draw, and a better than 2:1 chip advantage against an at least semi-aggressive player acting after me.  I shoved all-in, and was called with Q/10.  River 6, straight, and to quote Hawk Harrelson, "he gone".  The other two were still sitting out, and the result was a formality.

Which leads me to why I'm really blogging today.  That sequence of events illustrates an area in which I've made great progress over the past few months.  There were any number of hands which could have had me beat, or at least had me behind in terms of what we were drawing to, but I absorbed all of the information available to me and took a calculated risk.  That is the essence of poker.

It's also the essence of life.  Very rarely is there a situation in life that is black and white.  Gray is the new black; there is always ambiguity in every situation you face.  The ability to process incomplete information and make smart decisions is one of the factors that separate the successful from the unsuccessful, no matter your definition of success.  Nate Silver once said that poker players are the best he's seen at evaluating situations correctly.  I'm not sure if that is because of poker, or if people of that nature are drawn to poker and find themselves successful in part because of that attribute.

Either way, there's a very strong parallel.  Mel Levinson and I always talk about "Baseball Mentality", which we have loosely defined as taking a situation as it comes, reacting calmly and without undue angst.  Even the best of all time will fail in their objective six times out of ten.  In that spirit, I am ready to officially christen Poker Mentality: taking all of the information available to you, processing it in relation to the situation, and making a decision based on what you know without being overly concerned about what you don't know.

Poker Mentality shall become one of my attributes - at the felt, and in life.

Trying Something New, and Something Old

For a long time, I have been a fan of the idea of "learning by osmosis".  I'm not sure if I heard that term somewhere or made it up myself, but I feel like the idea is a sound one.  Basically, what I mean by that is that I feel I can gain knowledge of something by just having it around me.  This is one of the reasons I like to have the TV on a science or history program while I am working on something else,because I can learn a little bit of something even if I am not really trying to do so.

In that spirit, I have decided to forgo listening to the radio while I am working, for the most part, in favor of watching YouTube training videos and other poker-related content.  There's plenty of it out there, and more produced every day, so it's not like I am going to run out of videos to watch any time soon.

I have started with Jason Somervville's Run It Up series, and also delved into some of his other videos.  Today, I watched one where he went over the hands of his first ever online final table, in 2007.  I feel like I learned quite a bit about how the game has changed from then to now, as he kept talking about how he couldn't believe he played hands certain ways and would have done it differently today.  From those specific hands, I compared to my play, and saw how I can play hands (and more specifically, situations) differently.

That was the new.  Now for the old:

Inspired by actually seeing poker played in that video, I decided to log on to Full Tilt for the first time since August second.  I had a step three ticket and decided to use that right off the bat.

Right away, I applied a lesson: keep the hammer down: I missed a flop, but c-bet the flop and turn and got three folds on a stone-cold bluff.  That was good, as were a couple of pots where I actually hit a flop but could have lost to draws, but bet people out before showdown.

The bad: four-handed, I shoved with trip queens, got called with 8/9 off, and the guy hit a straight.  A few hands later, I shoved with the king high flush draw, got called with two pair, and couldn't hit.  I finished fourth and won another Step 3 ticket.

Not wanting to go out like that, I cashed in that ticket following a break for lunch.  I lost some of my motivation (read: got distracted), and took a big hit when I gambled to take out a player and lost with AhQh to KK.  After getting some back, I lost another chunk in a similar situation when I didn't hit an open-ender and lost to queens.

At this point I figured it just wasn't my tournament, but before I knew it, I was chip leader again.  That lasted all of about 10 hands; soon I was short stacked again, shoved, and lost with K/Q off to Q/6 off when the turn was a 6.  Oh well.


Playing: 1 hour online
Reading: I started the September issue off "Bluff" the other day, but only glanced.  More to come later on that.  I have been reading the articles that Mike Caro tweets out on an almost daily basis
Watching: So far, two of Jason Somerville's videos, a total of a shade over 1 hour

10k update: 84.25 online hours, 233.50 total hours

GES Day 24: Warming Up

Back to the virtual felt for one tournament yesterday, and I tried to focus as much as possible in prep for this weekend.  I guess it worked, though once again I got lucky in a couple spots.  I ended up finishing third in the 27 person tournament, good for 1080 off my 250 buy-in.

I do remember one hand in particular: pocket queens, pre-flop raise got two callers.  I flopped quads, and now what do I do?  I bet, but not too high, and got one person to call.  All the while I was hoping that the board would show a flush draw, and while I didn't get that, the turn was an ace.  First to act, I shoved all-in, and the guy snap-called with A/K.  I took the hand, and it set me up for my run to the final table.

So, I guess I played it well.  I also feel like that hand showed what I have learned to a certain extent, because in the past, I would have either shoved after the flop, or slow-played with a check - nothing in the middle.  I think by doing what I did (pre- and post-flop raises, followed by the turn shove) I was representing A/Q.  If that's what my opponent thought, he shouldn't have called, but he might have put me on A/lower, in which case the call was a good move.

Playing: 1.25 hours
Reading: 1 article on Caro's site, which was interesting because it talked about drinking while playing.  It actually went along with what I have experienced, that 1-2 drinks helps.  In his case he was talking about table image (you should drink to give the appearance of drinking and therefore being a loose player, but not so much you are drunk and you actually are).  In my case, I have found that 1-2 drinks helps me loosen up and not take the game so seriously, and take some chances I really should take.  Kind of the same effect, but in a positive manner.  Not that I am going to start drinking every time I play.

10k Update: 1.25 online, 82.75 total online, 217 total hours

The previously mentioned TS weekend is now just a couple days away.  In an interesting coincidence, the Empire State Poker Championships are this weekend, and there will be a film crew there putting together material for a new show, Poker Night in America.  The only downside is that the regular poker room schedule may be screwed up (no daily tournaments), and with so many extra people around, it may be hard to get a seat in a cash game.  We shall see.

Day One of The Education

Off to a decent start - I spotted some WSOP coverage on ESPN and at the same time played a bit on the Kindle.

Playing: 30 minutes, WSOP app
Reading: none
Watching: 2 hours 2102 ME coverage on ESPN

While watching, I came up with a couple items I need to work on, and which I am going to work on during the next SFPT tournament (which I consider to be a step closer to reality than playing online for fake money). 

10k update: 71.75 online play-money hours, 201 total hours

I have decided that when I am permitted to play online for real money, this will constitue a separate column in the 10k spreadsheet.  It may be that once that day comes (probably years from now), I stop playing for play money altogether, but who knows.

An aside: I do have some hope that with NJ set to go live with real-money poker in the fall of this year, NY might not be too far behind.  One of the state reps (King) is known to be a proponent of online poker, and there is also (I'm hoping) a bit of the big brother/little brother dynamic that won't allow Little Brother to have something Big Brother doesn't have.  Additionally, since the governor has long been in favor of brick and mortar casinos (making him clearly NOT anti-gambling), there is chance he may be swayed in favor of online gaming by the revenue it could bring.