Book recommendations for a buddy

A friend of mine recently called to ask if I would recommend some books for him. He wanted me to recommend good stuff that he was probably supposed to read in high school, but didn’t. He also mentioned that he wanted to read stuff that might be be fodder for allusions and pop-culture references. Finally, he’ll be listening to these books on audio books, which he’ll borrow from the library. Here’s what I recommended:

  • Animal Farm – Very short political allegory about the Russian Revolution.
  • A Prayer for Owen Meany – Long, but an excellent, excellent story. Occasional language, but not much at all.
  • Catcher in the Rye – Medium length, good, classic story. The language is occasionally kind of rough because it’s written from the perspective of a teenage boy.
  • 1984: This is a pretty long book, but it’s referred to a lot (both directly “Man, that’s straight out of 1984!” and indirectly, “That’s totally Orwellian!”). It’s very interesting, but dry reading.
  • Fahrenheit 451: Shorter book, and a pretty interesting read. It’s about censorship and how governments try to control people… I think one of the more interesting aspects of this book was that it was written in the 50s as a futuristic book, and some of the author’s predictions into future technology are spot-on.
  • Scarlet Letter: This is prototypical “Early American Literature”. It’s a medium-length book, pretty dark story. This is alluded to pretty frequently (I just saw it referenced on a TV show a couple nights ago).
  • Catch-22: This is a very, very funny book. Heller’s sense of humor is almost exactly like mine (very dry, sarcastic), and he’s a fantastic writer to boot. It’s basically a satire of the American military. It’s pretty long, but very good. I think there may be some mildly “dirty” content… it is about soldiers after all!

I was careful to let him know when a book might contain cuss words or otherwise risqué language because he has two young kids and I’d hate for him to be cruising along with his two-year old, listening to Catcher in the Rye when Holden drops an F-bomb, dirtying up junior’s vocabulary forever.

That is all.

Freakanomics

A friend recommended this book, so I thought I’d give it a read. I was really impressed with the spirit of the book and I’d definitely recommend it. I felt like there were two themes to the book:

1) Correlation does not imply causality. People often find a correlation between two or more things and assume that correlation demonstrates a causal relationship between those things. This isn’t necessarily true and there are often many other factors that need to be considered.

2) Asking “Why?” can help us discover very unusual and interesting things. Accepting opinions and hypotheses without scrutiny can lead us to false conclusions and rob us of genuine understanding. Repeatedly asking “Why?”, even when the answer seems obvious or at least trivial, can help us uncover interesting relationships between seemingly unrelated things.

It was a pretty quick read, but it helped me see that I should probably be thinking deeper and more critically than I typically do.

$70 tourney recap

I don’t typically do my recap immediately after a tournament, but this one will be so short, I might as well get it out of the way.

During the first two levels, my table was doing a lot of limping, so I joined the party. I made trips twice (once with A8o on a board with two Eights, once with A4s on a board with two Aces) and won medium pots with both of them. I also flopped a lot of big draws (two nut flush draws, two OESDs to the nut straight) in big, multi-way pots, but didn’t hit any of them. I turned a double gutshot straight draw once and bluffed the river, but got called by second pair. I was just below even after the first two levels.

Blinds were 100/200 and I was in the CO with KQs. MP1 raised it to 600 and I flat-called. Everyone else folded. Flop was JT9 with two spades. He checked, I checked. Turn was a 6. He checked, I bet 700, he called. River was a 6. If he bet, I would just call since I thought it was possible he was slowplaying a set. Instead, he checked, I bet 1K, he called. He said he had AJo. This hand put me up to about 16.5K.

Blinds were 100/200 and I had TT in the BB. Three people limped (all very loose players), the SB completed and I raised it to 1200 total. The first two limpers (MP1 and MP2) called and everyone else folded. The flop was A8x. I hated to see that Ace as I was sure at least one of my opponents had an Ace. I decided to check and see what happened. I basically planned to fold, but I was open to other options. MP1 checked, MP2 bet out 1K and it was back to me. I took a read on MP2 that he was weak and it looked to me like MP1 had a weak Ace and that he didn’t like MP2’s bet. I decided to check-raise bluff to 4K total with the intention of getting MP1 to fold he scared Ace and MP2 to fold because he was bluffing. Sure enough, MP1 folded, but MP2 called. I’m done with the hand if no Ten comes off. Turn was a Queen and we went check, check. River was another King and we went check, check. He showed down A9o. I was pretty shocked that 1) he called pre-flop for 6 BB and 2) that he called a large check-raise on the flop. He was obviously looser than I thought. I was down to about 10K.

A few hands later, we went on our first break.

I played one hand in the 200/400 level. Everyone folded to me in the CO and I had A3o. I raised it to 1200 and only the BB called. The flop was AQ9 with two clubs. The BB checked, I bet 1500, he check-raised to 4500 and I folded.

Blinds were 300/600 and I was UTG+1 with AQo. UTG limped, I moved in and everyone folded.

Blinds were 300/600 and everyone folded to me in the BB with KQo. We took our second break a couple hands later.

First hand after the second break, the blinds went up to 500/1000 and we were playing eight-handed. Everyone folded to me on the button and I moved in for about 6000 with K2o. The BB was extremely short-stacked and should’ve called with any two cards, so I normally wouldn’t have moved in in this situation. But, he was a very inexperienced player, so I knew he’d fold most of his hands. Sure enough, he folded and I stole the blinds.

We were seven-handed and the blinds were still 500/1000, I got AQo UTG and moved in for 7400 total. UTG+1 took a couple seconds and said, “I’ll call you.” Everyone else folded to the BB who reluctantly folded (I think he had a small pocket pair). UTG+1 showed ATo. Unfortunately, the flop was KTx and I didn’t improve. I busted 23/33 without ever getting my stack over 16.5K.

I had one pocket pair–TT–and had AQo twice. Other than that, I basically had no cards. It was a very frustrating tournament and I was kind of glad it was over, although busting with AQo vs. ATo isn’t my ideal way to go out. As I think back on the tournament, my biggest enemy was probably the fast blind structture. We started with a generous 15K in chips, but we skipped a lot of blind levels. We started at 25/50 and it went 50/100, 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, 500/1000 and then I busted. So, we skipped the 75/150, 150/300 and 400/800 levels. Starting with 15K chips is nice, but the starting stack is only meaningful in light of the blind structure, which was very fast for this tourney. The only hand I think I might’ve played differently was the TT hand. But even with the 4K chips I check-raised into that pot, I only would’ve had 11.5K before the last hand, which would’ve been an M of almost 8.

$75 tourney recap

$75 tourney recap

I played in an oddly structured tourney tonight. Initially, it was billed as a $50 tourney with a single $25 rebuy, available if a player went broke. We started with 6K in chips and the rebuy was for 6K and was available for the first hour (three levels). It didn’t take too long before a few people were allowed to rebuy a second time, although no one went crazy or anything. After the first hour was up and the rebuy period had ended, we decided to do an optional $25 add-on for 6K more chips.

We started with 20 guys and the final prize pool was about $1650. The top four spots were to pay something like $700, $500, $300, $150.

At the end of the first hour, I had almost exactly my 6K starting stack, so I took the rebuy, which bumped me up to 12K. I knew I had to buckle down since there were a lot of chips in play and this was likely to be a long tourney. Tightening up wasn’t too difficult since I was totally card dead for the first couple hours.

I’ll do a more detailed recap soon, but it basically came down to five people and I was the chip leader with about 1/3 of the chips in play. The blinds were escalating quickly, so we all decided to chop. I proposed that all five of us take fourth place money and then divide the remainder according to chip stack. After about 6.5 hours, I ended up getting $450 of which $20 went to the dealer.

My best hands were as follows: AA, KK, 99, 77, 44, 33(2), AKs, AQ(2), AJ, KQ, KJ, KT. My best made hand a straight at my first table.

First or second hand of the tournament, I was in the BB with 54o. A middle position player, who I know to be pretty loose/aggressive pre-flop, raised it to 3 BB. A couple players called, I called and the flop was 67J. I checked, the pre-flop raiser bet half the pot and only I called. The turn was a 2. I checked, the pre-flop, checked. I had decided he was on a couple big cards and I was going to bet the river if a card Ten or lower came off. The river was an Ace, so I checked and he checked. He showed KQ and took it down with King high. In retrospect, I played this hand a little passively. I really think the correct play is to check-raise him on the flop here since I figured he missed the board. I was in the BB and he knows I’m a tricky player, so I’m pretty sure he would fold without a pair there. As it was, I decided to play it to keep the pot small.

I was getting pretty short-stacked when I picked up AQo UTG+1. I made a raise to 3 BB and the SB called. Flop came down Q93 with two diamonds and the SB checked. I bet out half the pot, he check-raised to three times my bet and I moved all-in. He quickly folded. Another guy at the table made the sounds of a fishing line that just got a bit and he began reeling in his (my) fish. I think I probably moved in a little quickly. I might’ve gotten a call if I thought for a little while before moving in. I think I was just trying to discourage any straight or flush draws from coming along because the pot was already pretty big (relative to my stack) and I just wanted to take it down right there. Anyway, this hand got me a few chips.

A bit later, I got 77 in middle position and raised it to 3 BB. (I should note that I went with 3 BB because the table was playing pretty fast and loose and I knew 2.5 BB wasn’t going to ever steal the blinds. Also, these guys were a little crazy, so I didn’t want to play multi-way pots with them since I had trouble reading their hands. Finally, since we were never going to have antes, the bubble benefit wouldn’t be there for 2.5 BB.) The guy to my immediate left called (he calls a lot and is generally pretty passive) and everyone else folded. The flop came down AKx with two diamonds (I had the seven of diamonds, so at least both of my sevens were live). I hated this flop, especially against this opponent, but I threw out a c-bet anyway. He called pretty quickly and I knew 1) I shouldn’t have c-bet and 2) I was done with the hand unless I made a set. The turn was an offsuite Queen and we both checked. The river was a six of diamonds. I checked, he moved in (for about the size of the pot) and I folded. I was mostly unhappy with myself for c-betting, but I felt I played the rest of the hand ok.

A few hours into the tourney, I was pretty low on chips (as I had been all night) and I got 78 in the BB. Two or three players limped and I checked my option. The flop came down 569r giving me the nut straight and no flush draw onboard. I checked it, an LP, aggro player bet, I called and everyone else folded. The turn paired the board with a 5 (not a scary card for me at all) and I checked it, but the aggro player checked behind. The river was a Ten, I moved in for about the size of the pot and he folded. I normally would’ve value bet, but I figured he either had something like A9o or absolutely nothing. I figured a regular value bet was about as likely to get called as an all-in, so why not maximize value by moving in.

My best hand at my first table was 99 and I just took the blinds with a standard raise.

By the time we got down to the final table, I was pretty short on chips. I think I had around 11K chips and the blinds were 500/1000. That being said, the blind structure was moving slowly (next level would be 600/1200, then 700/1400, then 800/1600), and there were no antes, so I wasn’t feeling too desparate. Also, we had just moved from five-handed to ten-handed, so I had some room to breathe and didn’t feel any pressure to make any crazy moves yet.

Second hand of the final table, I was in the BB. CO and button limped and the SB completed. These are three of the looser players I’ve played with and I knew they could literally have almost anything. I looked down to see AQo and moved all-in. Immediately, they all started hemming and hawing about how automatic that move was and how they saw it coming, sort of implying they thought I could make that move with almost any two cards (which is certainly true). I realized this was a good opportunity to do a little advertising, but not the kind I would normally do. I mucked my hand and, as I raked in the pot, said, “Man, you guys are just makin’ it too easy. I just about doubled-up there!” I wanted them to think I made that move with nothing so I could get action on my big hands if I got them. Because the table was a relatively loose, aggressive table, I knew I’d probably have to catch some cards to get chips, and I wanted to make sure they called me if I hit big. This hand would prove to be pretty important later.

In reality, I had added about 3K to my stack and I was now at about 14K. Two hands later, I was on the button with KQo. Two or three people limped before me and I decided to just call and take a flop. If my stack had been bigger or shorter, I probably would’ve raised, but with an M of about 10, I felt like calling was right. If I missed the flop, I could just fold. If I hit it, there would likely be a bet in front of me and I could move in and get some chips. The SB completed, the BB checked and the flop came down JTx. I decided immediately that my chips were going in the middle, and I hoped someone would bet in front of me to sweeten the pot. Sure enough, The hijack bet out a little more than half the pot. I thought for a second, said, “I raise…”, counted out my chips, threw in his bet amount and then declared all-in. Everyone folded to the original bettor who griped a little before folding. By now, people were starting to joke about how I was moving in a lot. I was thinking about how I had more than doubled-up in four hands at the final table and I hadn’t shown a hand yet.

Next time I was in the BB, I picked up T2s. The button limped, the SB completed and I checked my option. The flop was something like Q54 with two of my suit. I checked, the button bet out, the SB folded and I moved in. The button folded showing K5 (for middle pair). This is pretty standard for me given the situation and the stack sizes. My thinking is as follows: the board is pretty dry (except for the flush draw, which I have), my stack is small, but not tiny

A few orbits later, I was UTG, and picked up Aces, by far my biggest hand of the night (next best was 99 a few hours earlier). I raised it to 3 BB (I’m at a pretty loose table, so I’m not worried about everyone folding and I want as much value as possible from my hand), and got a call from a late position player and the BB. The flop came down A95 with two clubs. Against some players, I’d slowplay this, but I bet out 3 BB instead. Here’s why:

I’ve played with the late position player a lot, and I specifically remember a very similar hand where I raised in early position with AA, flopped a set and slowplayed it. The late position caller in this hand had seen that hand and had even commented on it after it was over. I knew that by betting out, he would at least think it was possible I was weak, whereas he might’ve been cautious if I checked it. I also had a read on the BB and I know that 1) he over-values weak Aces, 2) he will check-raise bluff with nothing or sometimes bottom pair and 3) he doesn’t seem to put enough emphasis on position, so I thought it likely he would not give me credit for Aces or even a big hand. In short, I thought there was a great chance I’d get action (especially from the BB) if I bet out, so why not build the pot?

So anyway, I bet out 3 BB (intentionally under-betting the pot to look weak), the late position player folded and the BB started talking: “Six thousand, huh? That’s a little small… Do you have an Ace? I don’t think you have an Ace.” He asked me how much I had left and I did a little acting (you know, sad and pensive) as I counted my chips and reported that I had 18K total. He thought for about 30 more seconds before he said, “I’ll put you all-in.” Of course, I beat him in the pot and flipped over the nuts. He immediately mucked and said, “I’m dead.” meaning he had a weaker Ace. I now had about 50K chips and could play some poker.

As it turned out, I wouldn’t be playing all that much poker. I reverted to mediocre cards for quite a while. I tried to steal once with A7s, but got two callers and gave up on the flop (flop was QJTr, not a good flop for that hand). I made a few successful steal attempts, one with AKs. Basically, my chip stack sort of dwindled for about 90 minutes as I played few pots and mostly got blinded down and missed flops.

We were down to seven players and I was a medium stack. There was one big stack, one very, very short stack and the other five of us were medium stacks. I proposed that we chop because the blinds and antes were very large and we were just about to start gambling instead of playing poker. I’m very comfortable with short-stacked poker, but I don’t like leaving the prize pool distribution up to the poker gods. Also, we’d been playing for six hours and only four spots were going to pay. I proposed that we split the money evenly except the short stack just got his buy-in back and the big stack got the remainder of his portion. The five medium stacks would get the same average amount. The big stack declined and I said, “Ok, we’ll just play it out then.” We decided we would play out the next level (2K/4K and there were only 280K chips in play, making the average M less than 7) and then chop it up.

Two hands later, I was in the BB. The CO raised it to 10K, the button called and the SB folded. I looked down at two Kings. I thought for a few seconds and finally moved all-in. The initial raiser didn’t take too long to fold, but the button didn’t seem to want to go away. He asked what I had left, so I counted it all out and put it in the middle. I think it’s important to note that this is very similar to that first hand at the final table where I moved in with AQ after a few limpers. I didn’t show my cards, but I said, “You guys are makin’ it too easy!” as I raked in the chips. The button in this hand was also in that hand and I know he was thinking about that hand as he made his decision. Also, he’s the player I check-raised all-in with my ten-high flush draw earlier (I didn’t show the hand, but I’m sure that he thinks I might be pushing him around by now). He said, “Well, you’ve probably got something, but I know you could be making a move here.” Basically, I got the idea that he wasn’t sure if I was bluffing and he was tired of playing. He called and showed QJo and I busted him. I now had about 75K in chips and was pretty close to the chip lead.

Immediately after the hand, I proposed a chop again. Same as before, but everyone wanted to play out the level.

Next hand, I was in the SB with 73s. Everyone folded to me and I looked at my crummy cards and almost mucked ’em till I realized who was in the BB. He’s probably the tightest player I know and he was extremely short stacked (he started the hand with about 2 BB in front of him). He had just been hanging in there for a couple hours. I literally had almost mucked my cards when I pulled them back, asked what he had left and then put a stack of chips in the middle to set him all-in. He showed 43o and mucked. I showed my 73 and made some joke about having him dominated. I shouldn’t have done that and I wouldn’t have showed my cards, but the guy to my right had seen them when I picked them up to muck them and I felt like I had to show the table. I was mostly interested in stealing the blinds and not in making a fancy move. I just knew that the BB wouldn’t call unless he had a monster, so I realized it didn’t matter what I had.

A couple hands later, the ultra-short stack busted, leaving us with five players. Again, I proposed a chop. This time, my proposal was a little different than before: we all take fourth place money ($150) and chop the rest of it according to chip stacks. Still, everyone wanted to play the level out. By the end of the level, I was chip leader with 94K (of 280K chips in play) because it was obvious people were just hanging out and waiting for the level to end so we could quit. Why not steal some blinds? I asked if anyone had any other proposals and no one did, so we chopped by chip stack. The reason I changed my proposal was that the super short-stack had busted and there were two of us with most of the chips on the table (second place had about 75K).

Poker and diminishing returns

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while, but every time I start to write it I suddenly have an upswing and I chicken out. (Un)Fortunately, I’m on a post-downswing hiatus, so I have a few days to get this right. Here’s the basic idea:

The more poker I play, the more I need to take a break, regardless of how well I’m playing.

Every time I play poker, I make several investments–money, time, attention, etc. Each player only has so much of each commodity to give. I sort of envision a poker player as a combination of all these things (and others), much like racing games where the player can choose a car based on its aggregate of several different attributes–acceleration, top speed, handling, etc. I think everyone knows that if a player is in a cash game and is playing a long session, then the longer he plays past a certain point, the poorer his performance. For some players, their performance worsens after only a few hours, while other players can play their best game for many, many hours and sometimes days.

I saw a fantastic example of this on a recent episode of High Stakes Poker on GSN. Mike Matusow had been playing for several hours and was obviously becoming very fatigued. He told the table that he could feel his play slipping and he knew it was time to quit. What did the table do? They offered him $4000 to continue playing. Mike accepted the bribe (or investment, depending on one’s perspective) and proceeded to dump about $100K, most of it to Phil Laak. Mike is a very good poker player, but he ended up stuck because he continued to invest time and money when his attention had run out.

Each player has a limit to what he can invest before his results stop reflecting his actual poker ability. A good example of this would be multi-tabling cash games online. For a long time, I was 4-tabling low-limit hold ’em games. I was earning just shy of 3BB/100 hands with a sample size of something like 12,000 hands. This is considered pretty good and I figured if I could make 3BB/100 4-tabling, why not bump it to 5 tables and make more money in less time? As it turns out, I’m simply awful if I try to 5-table. I felt rushed, stressed and generally overwhelmed. My results were terrible and I quickly dropped back to 4-tabling where I went back to showing a nice profit. Some players play 8 to 12 tables simultaneously and they show a huge hourly profit. Even for those players, their BB/100 numbers take a hit as they play more tables.

I find that I typically lose the most after I’ve won a lot. A couple weeks ago, I went on a 10-day run where I cashed in 9 of 20 tournaments and made 6 final tables and had a 267% ROI (all of these tournaments had between 180 and 2,000 entrants and cost between $4 and $55). Since then, I’ve played 11 tournaments with 0 cashes and a -100% ROI. I’ve had two near cashes, but generally haven’t even been close. I was tempted to chalk this up to normal variance, but I know that’s not the problem. The problem is that I have gotten bored and I’m having trouble focusing. I’ve invested too much time and my attention span is slipping. I’ve been opening too many pots, playing marginal hands, discounting positional disadvantages and generally getting out of line. I’ve realized that I play very good tournament poker with a big stack and I’m starting to gamble too much as I try to acquire that stack early. Subsequently, my tournament results have suffered and I’ve donked off about 15% of my winnings from my 10-day streak.

So, what’s the point? The point is that, as with other forms of gambling and investing, poker is affected by the Law of Diminishing Returns. I have a very subtle leak in my game–I’m not taking time off when I start to get bored. As I look back over my records, I can see clumps of black where I had a series of nice wins; but after most of those black clumps, there is an extended red clump where I dump off my winnings through poor play. This leak has cost me several hundred dollars and will continue costing me money until I correct it. That’s why I haven’t played in a couple days and I don’t plan on playing again until a live tournament on Friday night. I need a break to allow myself to focus and play my best game.

Geometry Wars!

Rick: “Dude, have you played XBOX 360?!”
Me: “Nope.”
Rick: “Man, there’s this really awesome game called Geometry Wars!”
…
Me: “Go on.”
Rick: “If you played this game on LSD, your head would explode.”

Amazon knows me oh so well!

I just got the following e-mail from Amazon.com:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We’ve noticed that customers who have purchased books by David Sedaris often purchased books by Nora Ephron. For this reason you might like to know that Nora Ephron’s newest book, I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, is now available . You can order your copy at a savings of 40% by following the link below.

Sincerely,

Amazon.com

I think I’m gonna’ pass on that one.

2.5 is the new 3! (follow-up)

I’ve been using the 2.5 BB standard pre-flop raise for a few weeks now and I’ve got a good idea of its benefits and drawbacks. First, the drawbacks:

Whether I can use this raise seems highly dependant on the table climate. A table full of loose/passive opponents will call too frequently, creating multi-way pots where I’m often playing out of position. This can be frustrating because these opponents’ calling ranges are typically very wide, so I’m out of position, often playing speculative hands and I have no idea what my opponents have. Of course, I’m often making raises with suited connectors and other hands that actually play well in multi-way pots, so I get paid off in a big way when I hit my hand. That being said, I’ve found that if the table is too loose, the best thing to do is revert to a standard solid game and just play good cards against these opponents.

Because I’m opening more pots, people will play back at me more often with re-raises. Here’s an example of a couple hands:

I’m in middle position and make a 2.5 BB raise with QTs. The player to my left flat-calls (he’s been doing this a lot and he’s been doing it with junk). Everyone else folds. The flop is all under cards, I c-bet half the pot, he calls. I know he has nothing, but I also have nothing. Turn is a blank. I check, he checks. River is a Queen, giving me top pair, medium kicker. I bet, he raises, I call. He showed Q9o and I took it down.

Next hand, I made a 2.5 BB raise and everyone folded.

Next hand, I made a 2.5 BB raise with AQo. Everyone folded to the BB who moved in for about five times my initial raise. I insta-called and he showed A9s.

This player was a decent player who had been playing solid poker, but he’d seen me show down a QTs a few hands earlier, then steal the blinds the previous hand, then raise again this hand. After the hand, he told me he didn’t think I was that strong. Unfortunately, he would’ve been correct pretty often. I find myself having to fold to a lot of re-raises from astute players. The good news is it’s only costing me 2.5 BB instead of 3 BB.

Astute players in the BB will often call my raise and bet out almost any flop. I think this is a combination of them noticing I’m playing a lot of hands and the good pot-odds they’re being offered to call my pre-flop raise. This reduces my opportunities to steal, but it also increases my chances of picking off their bluffs. Over time, it becomes obvious that they’re employing a sort of stop-n-go/re-steal move, which is beatable by simply calling with good hands, raising with decent hands and sometimes raising with junk.

And now the advantages:

The biggest advantage is typically on the bubble, after the antes kick in. Even the loosest players begin to tighten up as everyone starts to try and eke into the money, and this is my queue to start raising more liberally and build my stack (even when someone calls my raise, they’ll often check/fold if they miss the flop). In this situation, the 2.5 BB raise gets fantastic odds (there is a level in PokerStars tourneys where a 2.5 BB raise is actually getting paid better than even money because of the ante) and people aren’t generally concerned with the pot-odds when they decide to play or fold.

I think the most important thing I’m learning is this: I have to be able to recognize when it’s ok to raise 2.5 BB and play a lot of hands, but I also need to recognize when that style just ain’t gonna’ fly. I have to be able to change gears depending on table conditions. Yesterday, I was playing a $50+5 tournament on Party Poker and we were just about to hit the bubble when I got moved to a new table. I had an average stack and I really needed to accumulate some chips. I forced myself to tighten up (rather than just trying to steal blinds and antes right off the bat) so I could get a feel for how my new table was playing. Turns out the table was playing fast and loose and there were two or three to the flop almost every hand. Trying to raise and take it (for 2.5 BB or any other amount) just wasn’t going to work. It was frustrating, but I had to buckle down and take what the table would give me. I tightened up, made some good plays and made it down to 37th (of 538) before I finally busted (after maybe being a little aggro with 99 on the button).

A few of the advantages are inherent in the disadvantages I listed above. For instance, people will often play back at me with junk, but I will have a hand and bust them sometimes; I just have to be able to figure out when I’m ahead, so I can call, and when I’m beat, so I can let it go. Also, people will call my pre-flop raises more often because they assume I’m raising with a lot of medium-strength hands. They’re right, except that they go too far in calling with hands like Q9, J8s, etc. If I hit the flop when they do, I’ll often get paid off well if I have them dominated. Also, as I mentioned earlier, I’ll sometimes be playing hands that actually play well in a multi-way pot. When I raise in middle position with 87s, I don’t mind three or four people calling me because I won’t have any trouble dumping the hand if I miss the flop, but my implied odds against that many opponents are huge if I hit the flop hard.

All things considered, I still think the 2.5 BB standard raise is a very effective and useful strategy in many situations. The tricky part is to recognize when it’s a good situation for a smaller pre-flop raise and when a tighter game with larger pre-flop raise is in order.

Another good showing in an online MTT

I played a $5+.50 MTT on PokerStars tonight. I played well, got lucky at the right times, rarely got unlucky and generally had things go my way.

Anyway, this is my biggest cash in an online freeze-out MTT so far. Hopefully I’ll get a win soon.

PokerStars Tournament #28500040, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50
1272 players
Total Prize Pool: $6360.00
Tournament started – 2006/07/28 – 20:10:00 (ET)

Dear JoshNjuice,

You finished the tournament in 5th place.
A $286.21 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

315 hands played and saw flop:
– 3 times out of 39 while in small blind (7%)
– 19 times out of 40 while in big blind (47%)
– 32 times out of 236 in other positions (13%)
– a total of 54 times out of 315 (17%)

Pots won at showdown – 19 out of 23 (82%)
Pots won without showdown – 45

Basketball team improves to a mediocre 2-4

We’ve had two more games since my last post. The first one, we led until just a few minutes left in the game, when our team basically just ran out of gas and couldn’t convert on offense. It was a very frustrating game because we outplayed the other team, but they had a big size advantage and the refs allowed them to beat up on us throughout the game. In the end, they simply wore us down and ended up winning by three (we’d led by as many as 12 in the second half).

This week, we got our second win and it felt pretty good. As with most of our games this year, we jumped out to an early lead by playing efficient offense and very good man defense. We didn’t score many points–30 on the game–but we only gave up 20 points total, eight in the first half. Personally, I had a good game on the “intangible” level, but I only scored two points. I was very tired before the game and I never really had my legs under me. I took a few three-pointers, but it didn’t take me long to realize it was going to be tough to hit them since I was so flat. I started head-faking a lot and that allowed me to dribble-penetrate into the paint and get easy looks from close-range or dish out to an open teammate. I typically chose to pass because I wasn’t having much luck with the inside shots. My only points came on a head-fake where I drove all the way to the hoop and laid it in. It took me too long to realize that I should’ve been dribbling one more time and going for a lay-up rather than pulling up to shoot. Their 2-3 zone was soft in the middle and I wasn’t taking as much as I could from it.

Anyway, we got a win and we’re up to 2-4. We can still finish the season ranked third and get a decent seed in the playoffs if we win out.