All Things Poker

A Las Vegas Poker Experiment

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Learning to Dance (Again)

October 9th, 2010 by Centurion Prime
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I hate pucker. I don’t mind playing tight, but I hate playing scared. When I think back to my old way of playing poker (I haven’t played seriously in about a year), I “remember” that I used to be somewhat aggressive. But I also realize that I might be remembering what I wanted my play to be like, not what it actually was. Combine all of that with my recognition that I need to play more aggressively even if I do remember my old style accurately and you have this bipolar poker player trying to make moves while trying to pucker up. To quote Alan N. Schoonmaker in his book The Psychology of Poker “tight-aggressive style is not at all natural”

So that was me at the beginning of my second session, trying to be aggressive, but fighting tooth and nail not to be. Then one of the best things that could have happened to me occurred. I real tight-aggressive sat down at the table. Initially I was not pleased. I recognized that he was a better player, aggressive, and difficult to read. But after several hours of watching him, I knew what I could be. I knew with practice, patience, and perseverance, I could be that type of player. While I usually pucker up even more when a good player is at the table, his tightness allowed me to enter into pots he was not interested in going after, and experimenting with my own brand of aggressiveness. While no where on par with his, or where I need to be long-term, it was a great trial for me and let me experiment. It was like having a mentor at the table that I didn’t have to pay (we stayed out of each other’s way).

What I gained in lighting the aggressive fire, I lost in a poor quitting decision, leaving the casino at 2 AM. I know I am continuing to make these poor decisions, and I need to stop it. Hopefully, no matter what the next session brings, I can quit at a better point in time.

Stats:
P/L: $30.00
Hourly Rate: $4.61

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Grand Opening

October 2nd, 2010 by Centurion Prime
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Session one of my grand Las Vegas experiment was a mix of excitement, pucker, and then eventually dry, low-level suck.

The poker table I was seated at had one very belligerent, loose-aggressive player at it. He obviously was the envy and ridicule of the entire table as everyone had a comment about him, and he had a comment about them. I do have to admit however, that he was good. He had fine hand reading skills and a way of making just the right comment to bring out the worst of his opponent, a trait he admired about himself I am sure. He was, for me however, a great source of entertainment and delight. I loved it when he scared people out of hands or sucked out by the river to crush the opposition. Even when he lost he could make the winner feel as though it wasn’t worth it. I loved this guy! He was funny, aggressive, and he was going to give it all back eventually.

In explaining what happened next though, I am going to break one of my new cardinal rules: To never blame my failure or success on luck or variance (can it really be a cardinal rule if you break it?); I was card dead. No good or even drawing hands. Nothing. J-2, 10-5, 7-2, ad nauseam. The only hand I got, played and hit with was 7-7. The loose-aggressive raised pre-flop (nothing new), and I called in the big blind. The flop is Q-7-5 and I check, he bets, I call. The turn is a J and I check, he bets, I start acting (my poor play at work) and then I raise. He makes a comment about me hitting my second pair by playing Q-J, and he folds.

The rest of the night was fold, fold, fold fold, and then make an extremely poor quitting decision by leaving at 3 in the morning. My explanation for this night (without excuses) is this: I continue to make poor quitting decisions. I should have recognized my lack of cards, and gotten up, and went home. But because I was marginally “behind” I stuck it out trying to get “even”. Which means I also forgot (or rather ignored) the rule “you are always even”.

End result: 7.5 hours and $20 down.
Stats:
P/L: ($20)
Hourly Rate:  ($2.66)

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The Scenery has Changed

September 30th, 2010 by Centurion Prime
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A lot has happened since my last experiment and where I am now. When I wrote before, I was in the central Illinois area. I started community college and didn’t have time to play poker, blog about it, study, have time with the family. Now I am in Vegas baby! I moved here about four months ago and the dust from the move is starting to settle. I am not going to college, and I have the time necessary to focus back onto poker. Besides, if you are going to have a social experiment where you try and go semi-pro, Vegas is the place to do it, no?

So, some lessons learned, and some new rules:

  • Last time I had a starting bankroll of $400. It affected my play and the pucker factor associated with it was not a positive effect.
    • This time I am starting with $2,000.
  • Last time I said anything over $4,000 would be used to pay bills.
    • While I am not sure I won’t follow through on that, I might just decide to let the bankroll grow to be able to move up in level. In Illinois $1/$2 was pretty much it. Sometimes there was a $2/$5 table, but it was spotty at best. Now I have unlimited levels available to me, and I don’t want to stay at $1/$2 if this starts working out for the best (obviously I am being optimistic, but what else do you want me to be?).
  • Last time I had only one casino to play at. While I might keep to that out of comfort or convenience, I now have the freedom to go where I want. So despite the fact that I have chosen to play primarily at the Bellagio, expect some details on other casino’s and their action.
  • I didn’t study many poker books or sites. Expect that to change along with a “recommended reading” or “currently reading” section somewhere on the site soon.

So, I am a year older, hopefully more wise and seasoned, and I have a better starting bankroll. Cross your fingers and wish me lots of luck!

Winner winner, chicken dinner! Chant it with me!

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Session 8: The Great Call

May 15th, 2009 by Centurion Prime
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My self confidence had returned. I was primed and ready to get my money in the middle. Early on in the evening I noticed a player who had about $600 in front of him. He was playing almost every hand and calling almost every flop and turn bet. If the board got scary or the initial bettors slowed down he would bet the river a hefty amount and most of the time he would win the pot. As I am trying to decipher if he is good or exceptionally lucky, I get AK suited in the small blind and raise it to $10. I get two callers of which the floater is naturally one (he is in the cut off seat). The flop comes all low and rainbow. I c-bet for 3/4 pot or about $20. The middle caller folds and the floater calls. the turn completes a possible straight and gives me the possibility of a backdoor flush. I bet $50 into the $70 pot. The floater calls. The river makes 4 to a straight and doesn’t complete my flush. I check. He bets $50 and I have no choice but to fold. The floater wins again. Considering he calls 80% of the time preflop he certainly could have hit that board. I know he didn’t have the straight, but any pair has me beat. More importantly he knows I don’t have the straight and that I couldn’t make that $50 call on the river.

Not too much later I end up flopping a set against the floater. He checks the flop, I bet, he calls. The turn is unimportant, he checks, I bet, he calls. The river is unimportant, he checks, I bet, he folds. Now I am up to a little less than my initial buyin. All the while I am watching this guy go from $600 to $350, up to $700, down to $500. His method of poker is very high in variance but I come to the conclusion that he knows that he is doing. He knows his style well and he seems to play very well after the flop and especially on the river. It is obvious that most of the time when he bets close to pot on the river he doesn’t have it and is trying to steal the pot, which succeeds most of the time at this table.

And then my AK comes again, only this time I have position on him. I raise to $10, and get two callers, and the floater is one of them. Again, a low board comes. The first caller checks, the floater checks, I bet $20. The first caller folds, he calls. The turn is a queen, the floater checks, I bet, he calls. The river is a two and pairs the board. He reaches for his chips and puts out $50. I know what he is doing. I know that he could have any hand here and touched the board in any way. I also know his $50 river bet is a sign of weakness not strength. The question I have to ask myself is “did he touch the board?”. I sit and contemplate that for a while, and while I am thinking he seems uncomfortable with the idea that I might call. So, I do. “Nice call” he says. “Seven high, that’s all I’ve got”, and then he mucks. As the dealer is pushing the pot to me I flip over AK showing that I missed the board as well. I don’t normally show cards when I don’t have to, but I did as a future “tilt device” against the floater. I wanted him to stop playing his game against me. I wanted him to believe I knew what he held in his hands, and I figured since I got a lucky read on him one time, maybe I could exploit the advantage I had into future hands if I made him nervous.

That call was an epiphany for me. It substantiated for me that I could put $50 into a pot on pure intuition. It also solidified for me, that yes, I can actually read people sometimes, and that my guesses have some substance. As the night progressed, I began to realize that most, if not all of the money I was winning was coming from the floater and that no one else at the table was really playing all that poorly. This concerned me as an ideal table is going to have at least 4 bad players and because I just seemed to tangling with with Mr. Floater, I was probably in at the wrong table. Despite this thought, I played on until midnight when I finally called it quits. So even though it was a winning session monetarily and I made some decent reads and plays, I still made a bad quitting decision by playing so long at a table with only one “ATM”.

Stats:
P/L: $274
Hourly Rate: $39.14

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Session 7: The Pucker Factor

May 12th, 2009 by Centurion Prime
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Session 7 started off pretty well. I was still riding the “self kudos” from the last session and I was hopeful and even expecting to win. Within 2 hours I was up $150 and feeling good. However at this time I think I had lost some focus and I was operating on auto-pilot. Unfortunately this cost me several hands that took me back to my initial buy-in. After that I woke up, and puckered up. I stayed puckered most of the night. Not losing many hands but not winning many either. I stayed late in the evening trying to make up “my” lost $150 eventually scrounging up a win of $72 for the night.

This night, while not particularly awful financially speaking, was a horrible experience for me. It was a very dry poker night where I kept kicking myself for not leaving earlier, than staying later to at least have something more to show for it. This was a lesson in “You are always even”, and “Make better quiting decisions than your opponents”. Although I suspect I haven’t completely learned my lesson (I have a thick head I guess), if nothing else I can look at this night when trying to talk myself into staying later than I should.

Stats:
P/L: $72
Hourly Rate: $8

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Session 6: The Pisces

May 5th, 2009 by Centurion Prime
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Despite session 5′s losses, session 4 showed me that if I could be disciplined enough with the proper focus, I could make the correct decisions and stop some major gaps in my game. So I entered the poker room with a calm confidence. within minutes of sitting down at seat 7 I could tell that both players in seats 3 and 4 would call almost anything to the river and that both of them were seeing the flop 80% of the time. Seat 3 was a woman who sat down with $200 and because she could not miss a flop and consistently had at least two-pair by the river made her way to $600 within the first hour. The man in seat 4 was a slightly better player in that he seemed to know he was playing loose but was looking to get paid for the action he brought to the table. He too was sitting with a large stack, seemingly because he was willing to make the hero calls and improve by the river for the draws he had. So began my decision making: They are going to bleed out all of that money. I need to play ABC poker, raise with good hands, value bet, value bet, value bet. Well I did that two times before I lost my initial $200, primarily because seat 3 was on fire and kept getting her 2nd pair hit. No problem thought I. I am making good decisions, I am not upset about the loss of the first buy-in, I can make tones of money here.

Well my second buy-in shrank to 80 before I was able to triple up with kings. One of the people that helped pay me off left the table and I took the seat change to seat 5 just to the left of the giant stacks. I was able to count at least five people at this table with less discipline and confidence that I seemed to be exhibiting that night so I felt I was making a good decision to stay. I seemed to be winning most of the large pots and getting out of the way when I was behind. I had gotten my stack to $600 as seat 3′s luck was fading and seat 4 although doing better than his female counterpart was waning as well.

About this time I am texting with a poker player friend of mine who knew that I had given up KQ for lent. The rough text conversation went this way:
me: I am doing well here and have folded KQ three times. They all would have lost by the river.
him: You aren’t playing them in any position?!
me: Hell no! I hate hate that hand.
him: You don’t even play it on the button?!
Ok, I guess I saw his point. loosen up in later position and be willing to entertain KQ and play it with position. Wouldn’t you know that as the button got to me here shows KQ of spades (they knew I was talking about them and they came to mock me). I raise, get the standard 3 or 4 callers. Oh look, the flop is K, 5, 2. They all check to me, I bet $30. The Big Blind calls. The turn is a 7. He bets, but bets weak. Hmmmm… I really hate this hand, I call. The river is a blank, he bets weak, I *really* hate this hand, I call. He turns over K7 for the two pair, I muck and curse my friend for talking me into playing this lame hand. He owes me $75. He’ll give it to me one way or another!

Despite losing with “The Ugly” I proceed to soak up some more cash before it’s time to go to bed. It was a good evening filled with good decisions and calm resolve.

Stats:
P/L: $340
Hourly Rate: $58.32

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Session 5: The Good Read, the Bad Bet, and the Ugly Hand

May 1st, 2009 by Centurion Prime
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Apparently making poker decisions is harder than recognizing that you need to make them. I started this session with a bang when my first hand, pocket 5s hit a set and got me a caller until the river and a $50 profit. After that small whirlwind hand I took the opportunity to look closer at stack sizes, and any familiar faces. I was in seat 5 with two large ($600+) stacks on seat 7 and 8. There was also a large stack on seat 3 and an aggressive and creative player directly to my left. I should have put in for a table change, but you know me, why make a good decision when you can make a bad one? I opted to stay where I was.

The Good Read: Seat 8 (former big stack) had taken a bad beat or two and was down to $400. He wasn’t a crazy player and didn’t step out of line often if at all. It is his small blind when I pick up kings and make it $10 to go. The button (seat 7), Seat 8, 9 and 10 call. The flop comes 6, 4, 3, and the small blind freezes. He takes so long to make a move that the big blind checks, and the under the gun position motions to the small blind. Seat 8 finally checks, as does everyone else so that the action is on me. Now here is the good read. I knew the small blind was strong. I suspected he had hit his straight, possible two-pair. So, I need to confirm it. I bet $45 into this $50 pot and only the small blind calls. Yep, he’s got the goods I suspect he does. The turn comes a jack. He checks.

The Bad Bet: Unable to act on my read, I push all in (that will get him to fold right?). He calls, and flips over pocket 6s. The river is a jack. I re-buy. Here is the beginning of the end for me mostly because I know I have made another myriad of bad decisions. I knew I should have put in for a table change, I knew he had the goods against my kings, I knew that I should not have pushed, I knew that if I was making all these bad decisions that I shouldn’t re-buy, but I reiterate: Why make a good decision when you can make a bad one?

The Ugly Hand: KQ. I hate that hand. I don’t say that because I lost with KQ in this session. I say that because I lose with it *every* session. I have long struggled with how to play that hand. It is so easily dominated. On coordinated boards it is so easily “two paired” (ie dominated). I can’t make money on that hand and it’s frustrating to always lose with them. Their presence mocks me. They know I hate them. They show up just to tease me, to tantalize me with their “top 10 status” only to pull the rug out from under me. They are the white whale to my poker game, only I am not out to get them, I have decided my goal is to run away from them. Big stack in seat 3 raises in middle position when I pick up “The Ugly Hand”. I call. The flop is K, J, 5. He bets, I consider raising to find out where I am, but I call. The turn is a 9. He bets, I consider that he either has AK or I have him beat. I call. The River is a king, he bets. Crap! Why did it have to be a king? I was willing to lay it down if he bet again. I briefly consider raising (because only a better hand will call right?) and a ray of sanity keeps me from that action. I call. He flips over KJ for the boat. Well of course he wins, I had The Ugly. At this point I concede that I am tilted beyond repair and leave the table immediately. Fricken KQ. My new promise to myself after that session was to fold KQ outright, every time I see it.

Stats:

P/L: ($316)
Hourly Rate: ($97.23)

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Session 4: The Blog

April 27th, 2009 by Centurion Prime
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I knew before I went back to the casino that I was going to have to rethink what I was doing. My father, who passed away two years ago, used to say something to me as a child that I thought was inappropriate (and still do), but sometimes it can be a motivating mental picture. Now father of the year award material this isn’t, but sometimes I still see him standing there, with an angry expression, looking down on me, yelling at me to get my head out of my ass. Parent / child relationships are weird. I have always been upset with him for that tendency of his, but it is what I “run home to” when as an adult I need to get past something. I tell myself to get my head out of my ass, a mental picture of my father shows up, I concede that he is right, and I look for a way to move on.

So my search for head-ass-removal brought me to the idea that I needed a place to vent. Somewhere to express what was going on in my head to an audience (real or imagined) that would understand what I was talking about. It also had to be a place that I could revisit to gauge where I had been and therefor where I was going. Hence the idea for this blog was born. So before sitting down for this Monday session, I spent my late Sunday night putting together and formatting this site. I even wrote the first post and although no real session information was conveyed, just knowing that my place to vent was ready for me allowed me to get my head out of my ass, and back into the game. So onto the session…

I made a firm commitment to myself that I  would start playing methodically when I next sat down for a variety of reasons. Step one of my “methodical makeover” would be looking to the player on my left, and forming a decision about his action prior to looking at my cards and making a decision for myself. I have to admit, I couldn’t have picked a better time (or a better person to my left) to start that methodology. I sat down at a table where the three players just to my left were all friends, at the casino together, two of which it appeared had hardly ever set foot in a casino before. The player to my immediate left consistently telegraphed every call, fold, or raise with plenty of time for me to examine my own cards and position. The player to my immediate right had never been at a casino before by his own admission, and it was obvious he wasn’t bluffing about that. He was greener than grass. I was back to being confident, and in control. I had decent reads on most people at the table and I had enough winning hands at showdown that I was able to pickup uncontested pots with little difficulty. My largest pot came when everyone limped to my big blind. I flopped two pair Jacks and Sevens and it turns out one of the three friends had limped preflop with pocket aces. We got it all in by the turn and the board failed to pair for him.

Coming up on the two hour mark the three friends started talking about how they had to leave in the next ten minutes, and a new and aggressive player sat down across the table. I was up quite a bit and decided the table dynamic was about to change for the worse. At this point the idea of booking a large win and getting to see my wife was more appealing than grinding it out here for another four hours. Additionally, I think I really needed to book a win from an emotional standpoint and I firmly believe that recognizing that need and leaving was a good quitting decision.

Stats:
P/L: $390
Hourly Rate: $195

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Session 3: The Mouse

April 24th, 2009 by Centurion Prime
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This session was a continuation of session 2. I was so gun shy from my last mistakes that I was unwilling to bet for value or to make a real stand of any kind. Additionally my mindset was not focused on the current session, it was mired in the idea that I had to get back to “even”. Add to these issues that I recognised what was going on and that I was playing poorly and poorly focused. Yet I still continued to play. So the night could be summarized as follows: bad quitting decision, bad mindset to play poker, gun shy, timid, mouse-like, squeak squeak. I wish someone would have given me my slice of cheese and told me to go home.

There were no major pots to mention, no spectacular plays or horrendous blunders, just general, low-level suck. Additionally, my level of play was hampered by a key factor, something I knew I would have to get lucky to overcome: I was playing outside my bankroll. I had $800 in my bankroll when I sat down, and I had another buy-in in my pocket, so I was keenly aware that half of my bankroll was sitting with me at the casino. If there is something that will make you pucker up faster than a prostate check, its playing outside your bankroll. I had heard it preached all the time from every poker site to every poker book: bankroll management. I was always able to ignore that though because I had always played micro-stakes, so what did I care for bankroll management? However, going into this project I knew I was woefully underpowered in that department and that I was going to have to shine to get my bankroll to a respectable level (which is why I am trying to get to 4k before pulling out any money for bills). So the combination of the previous session’s blunders mixed with poor bankroll management allowed me to continue my level of suck.

If there was any advantage to being a mouse that evening it was that I didn’t get a lot of my money in the middle and therefor didn’t lose that much. In fact I essentially broke even (or beat the rake if you want to think positively) and was down $15 for a seven and a half hour evening.

Stats:
P/L: ($15)
Hourly Rate: ($2)

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Session 2: The Fish

April 21st, 2009 by Centurion Prime
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In stark contrast to how well I ran on my first session (despite myself), this session was placed before me to remind me that I am not God’s gift to poker, and that I had a lot of work to do before even considering myself on the right path to poker aficionado / non-donkey.  If there was a bad decision to be made, I made sure to make it. If there was a voice inside my head, screaming at me to stop playing like a fish (and there regularly was that voice), I managed to ignore it. For every chance to play better I made sure to take twice as many opportunities to suck. This night was a combination of bad decision after bad decision with some less than optimal variance thrown in for fun.

First, when I was given a seat at the only open table I knew I was at the wrong place. I should have put in for a table move right away. It was a table with six people at it while the other three tables were full with ten each (the poker room staff is still working on how to manage a poker room). I don’t tend to do that well at shorter stack tables. I am still working on my “ABC Poker” and shorter tables force me to play outside my comfort zone until I have been there for some time and have meshed with the overall table dynamics. As it was I was being asked to sit down “cold” with a new table. Additionally even though I had never played with anyone here, I could tell right away that three of the players were aggressive and loose, and that one in particular had command here as he was quite comfortable and had a stack of $700 in front of him. Everything about this table screamed table change and that little voice was saying “go talk to the floor and put your name down for another table”, but what does that voice know, so I ignored it and sat down to play.

My next mistake came when the first hand I decided to play was KsQh on the Big Blind. One of the loose aggressives raises to $10. Mr. “big stack” calls as do I. The board comes KcJh6c, and I bet $20 into the raiser. He min-raises me so now there is $90 in the pot and it is $20 for me to call. I figure he is on a draw or a middle pair with good kicker and I can’t get myself to play back at him despite the fact that is precisely why I bet into him. I end up folding (sigh) and then mentally kick myself for the next half hour (another mistake). He later admits to having had the nut-flush draw to his buddy the big stack. Now it may or may not be true, but that was my read and even if it wasn’t, I bet into him with a plan in mind, and I didn’t follow through.

The next mistake came about this way: About an hour into the evening a new young buck player sits down. You know the type, “young, dumb, full of cum”. Its all about aggression and position with him. He doesn’t care who he is playing against, just so long as he can think of himself as the aggressive guy everyone is afraid to tangle with. Only this guy is super loose and it is obvious he doesn’t have it most of the time. My plan: wait for a hand, call to him, let him raise, re-raise him. As an added bonus he is sitting just to my left and he likes to hold his cards perpendicular to the table with one hand so that I can see at least one of his cards almost every time. So here comes the hand, I get AcKc in the cut-off with him on the button. I limp only because I know he is going to raise. Well of course he does, and he makes it $10 to go. The big blind calls (deep stack guy) and I re-raise and make it $40 to go (coincidentally I have $100 behind me, it will become important). He pisses and moans and finally folds (tada!) and then a horrible thing happens, the big blind calls! Now I quickly determine that there is $90 in the pot while the dealer is taking their sweet time getting to the flop, and I figure at this point I am married to the hand. I am playing against a loose aggressive and my hand is likely to be better than his *and* considering how much is in the pot, I feel pot committed, so I take the remainder of my chips and put them out there blind (yes, before the flop). Now stop and consider position for a minute. Didn’t I say Mr big stack was the big blind? Doesn’t that mean he goes first and that I just bet out of turn? Yup, it sure does! I was so busy being afraid of the big stack and why he called a $40 re-raise, I totally forgot whose turn it was! So the flop comes 5s4s2s and he says “well, I have to look at my cards one last time to figure out if I am gonna call you”. He takes a peak and says “well, you aren’t going to like this, I call, oh, and I have the nut flush”. He then flips over AsKs.

Now after the litany of screw-ups I have made, you would think I would accept my defeat and leave the poker room. Well that would be a smart thing to do. That would be a good quitting decision, and I have already mentioned I couldn’t make a good decision to save my life, so I bought back in and continued to play another 6 hours until 1:30 in the morning. I finally gave up on my attempt to turn the evening around and cashed out with my second buy-in intact. A total loss of $200 for the evening.

Stats:
P/L: ($200)
Hourly Rate: ($25)

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