Guess I really am addicted…

So I’m on a poker break. No poker playing (although I kept on reading the awesome ‘Poker Pro Europe’ and ‘Online Poker Pro’, my newly received book ‘Earn $30,000 Per Month Playing Online Poker’ and watching some poker on YouTube and ‘The Poker Channel’) for these few days. I needed it. Now I might get back into action during or after this weekend. I can’t wait. Guess I really am addicted… This doesn’t mean I won’t be posting anything on this blog though. I’ll still be posting some interesting things I find or hear or see. I just won’t be playing any poker.

In the mean time here‘s a little food for thought in the form of a great movie and a beautiful lass… hope you enjoy it and remember: Never hold on to dead hands. A top pair when there are flush, straight or full house possibilities is shit. Lay it down!

And, just in case you think this blog is getting too dramatic, here‘s some funny shit for ya. Remember: On the table, we are all equal. OK maybe not the fish, they’re just there to give us money. But everyone else has a shot. All you need is a chip and a chair.

Until next time,
Good Luck and Good Skill
deBulletMan

I blamed it all on luck, slammed my fist on the table, pushed the chair away and almost threw my laptop out the window. Frustration is the enemy of many poker players, causing them to ignore long-term goals and focus on immediate gratification. Frustration can lead to panic and doubt about one’s ability to win.

The past two days … part 1
I’ve been having a pretty bad run of cards over the past two days. It’s like I’m stuck in a rut and I can’t get out. See I know it’s part of the game, the huge variance, especially when you’re playing on a somewhat limited bankroll (just $15 to start with) but when it hits you it hits you big and you burn through a whole lot of your bankroll in a whole lot less than it took you to build it up in the first place.

The past two weeks
But let me take you a bit back in time. Over the past two weeks that I’ve restarted playing poker I’ve finished ITM (in the money) a good 30% of times. I played 50 tournaments, finishing first 13 times. My gross winning amount was $197. I was happy. I had managed to go from $15 to $95. But the cardinal rule of bankroll management is to not withdraw profits instantly until you’re ready to move up a level. So I kept it there and started playing $5 and $10 heads-up tournaments and shoot-outs.

The past two days … part 2
Then it happened. A massive bad streak of cards. River after river put me from favourite to loser and I quickly burnt through $50 to fall back to $40 in two days. That’s more than half my bankroll. I blamed it all on luck, slammed my fist on the table, pushed the chair away and almost threw my laptop out the window.

“What the fuck??” I screamed. “What the hell is this player doing??” Over and over again I replayed the hands in my head and every time I saw myself winning that heads-up shootout as opposed to what had actually happened: I got gunned down on the river and lost all my chips to a lucky draw. “The idiot kept calling and calling. Fuckin call station. How the hell can I win if players can’t even look at the board and put me on a fuckin hand?” I stormed and steamed and found little comfort in the hands of my girlfriend who kept insisting I was just on a bad luck streak.

A clearer head
Now today I got a book from play.com. It’s called ‘Earn $30,000 per month playing Online Poker’. I didn’t really believe the $30,000 part because that heavily depends on what limits you’re playing, but the reviews were good. As soon as I got it I had lost a big hand to a lucky draw (yet again) and I had to find something to immerse myself in. I flipped a couple of pages and there it was, one of the first few articles. It was entitled (as if the author Ryan Wiseman knew what I was going through) ‘I Got Rivered’. It was the first article I read from that book. And there’s these two sentences that really struck me deep: “Frustration is the enemy of many poker players, causing them to ignore long-term goals and focus on immediate gratification. Frustration can lead to panic and doubt about one’s ability to win.”

Now I could see it. What had happened?

The problem
What happened to me was that the bad run of cards had struck me hard, eating at my bankroll one lucky river after another. Heads-up tournaments are a monster, you either win all or lose all and a bad run of cards can really take the fight out of you. My problem was this: I was trying to stick it back to Lady Luck (whoever that is). I was calling everything, with sub-standard hands. Hands I used to fold when I was running good where now good enough hands to call a pre-flop raise with. I know, it’s stupid, but it happens to the best of us.

So what was a bad situation suddenly got worse and my bankroll took a big hit. What’s worse is that I went against the cardinal rule of bankroll management: When you’re losing drop down a level until you’re back to a comfortable level. What I did instead was, I moved UP a level hoping I hit big and get back the money I lost. This obviously didn’t happen because I was playing badly and I lost more.

The solution?
I don’t know if this is the solution but it probably is my best plan right now.

1. My bankroll has taken a big hit and I’m feeling the pain. I need to better manage my bankroll from now on keeping track of what’s happening and not letting anything deviate me from that plan.
2. Every day is a new day. I will put my losses behind me and play as if I’m winning. Confidence and patience is key and I can’t let my losses influence me in future games as much as I can’t let a big win influence my decision making in other games. Every game is a different game and I have to approach it as if my life hangs on the outcome of that one game.
3. I will stop when I’m taking a beating. What usually happens is that when you lose one, you play another one instantly to win the money back. The problem with this is that you will probably lose that game too since you’re playing worse now, more reckless… gambling. I can’t let that happen to me again.
4. Bankroll management. See 1.
5. Bankroll management. Just in case.

How losing affects your decision making
I’m in an SNG and I pick up Qd Js. I raise pre-flop on the SB after everyone folds and the BB calls. So now I’m in first position with a slightly marginal hand. The flop comes 9c Jd 7d. I make the pair of jacks and check. The BB bets half the pot and I call. The turn comes an [9c Jd 7d] 8d. I check, my opponent bets half the pot, I push over the top and he insta-calls. He flips over Td 7c. I’m happy I got the better hand. The river comes another 7h and I’m out. I look in disbelief at the monitor as my opponent sets the Sevens and I close the table. But not before I jotted down the hand so I can write it in this post under ‘Bad Beat Stories’.

Now I’m looking at the hand and I’m thinking What the hell was I doing?!. First I check the flop with top pair instead of opening myself. I let my opponent put the decision on me, but not being in a good state of mind I wasn’t really making any decisions so I call putting him on a 7. Hey I was right… so far. Then the turn an 8 of diamonds. I check my opponent bets half-pot. PAUSE. FOLD!! All the red lights and alarms should have been blaring in my head. 1. Straight possibilities 2. Flush possibilities 3. Two pairs 4. Pocket over-pairs … I didn’t even see he already had the straight!! I thought I was ahead even after we flipped over the cards!

I thought this was a bad beat story for my blog. I thought he had sucked out on the river with just two outs. Instead I should file this under bad fuckin play and go cry in a corner. But I won’t let these hands ruin my game. Tomorrow’s another day.

Until next time,
Good Luck and Good Skill
deBulletMan

He had the nuts for the whole hand and they got cracked on the river making a losing hand into the winning one. Sometimes you play the hand correctly and things like this happen.

What the hell???!!
Well, a lot of players talk about bad beats they have at the tables. Sometimes they’re not really bad beats, they just seem like bad beats at the time of play because whenever we loose a hand it’s a bad beat for us.

You go all-in with pocket aces, the other guy calls with AK suited, he draws to a flush, hits and you lose. You’ve just been beaten, badly beaten. But that’s not really a bad beat. That is not what we mean by bad beat. That’s just the variance in poker, the thing you either hate or love, no in-between. I personally love it, especially when I’m on the receiving-the-money-and-chips end. It makes the game interesting. Sometimes I hate it, especially when I’m playing solid poker and I lose to a better hand.

But you got to question yourself, did I do the right play here? Did I really give him enough pot odds to allow him to draw to the flush? Because sometimes we bring these beats onto ourselves.

But…

…sometimes it’s a real bad beat, no questions asked. A couple days ago I was playing with my gf and 2 friends of mine… just chips, no real money… just our way of killing a boring night. My friend (Mark) has pocket 7s and my girl-friend (Krissie) pulls pocket 10s. Mark raises from the button to 3x BB, I fold on the SB (with 9-2 may I note) and Krissie on the BB calls.

The flop comes 7-J-J rainbow giving Mark the Full-house and Krissie the two pair. Krissie checks, Mark decids to slow play this and bets 2x the BB which Krissie instantly calls.

A 2 of clubs on the turn helped no-one and they both knew it. Deciding to slow play and trap each other Krissie checks and so does Mark. This was a particularly good play from Mark since he already had a full-house and letting an opponent draw to a club flush and maybe hitting that flush would ultimately result in Mark doubling up.

On the river comes a 10 of spades, a disastrous card for Mark and the exact opposite for Krissie. Krissie goes all-in and Mark instantly calls with what he thought was the best hand. As Krissie flipped over the full house (Tens full of Jacks) Mark went berserk. His full house (Sevens full) had been cracked by the better full house and he lost all his tournament chips.

Analysis

What can I say? That’s a REAL bad beat. He had the nuts for the whole hand and they got cracked on the river making a losing hand into the winning one. Sometimes you play the hand correctly and things like this happen. But that’s poker. On closer analysis one can see that this was a good play.

Until next time,
Good Luck and Good Skill
deBulletMan

Poker players aren’t going to change: There’s something unique about this game, and the relationship probably isn’t going to work if you don’t understand that.

Wise words
This is an article I found on askmen.com. The original article can be found here. I thought it would be a good idea to post it here as a lot of people rarely understand what a poker player goes through and believe that the anger their significant other is showing is directed towards them, when in reality they’re nowhere close.

1. If your future rock star walks through the door looking a little gray, don’t ask, “Did you win?” Just back off and give some space. I promise you, your loved one simply needs to analyze what happened and replay a few hands in his mind. The last thing he wants to do is disappoint you.

2. Poker players aren’t going to change: There’s something unique about this game, and the relationship probably isn’t going to work if you don’t understand that. Andy Bloch, for instance, has to have the most supportive girlfriend (soon-to-be wife) in poker. This gal is smart, because once she started dating Andy, she realized that she had to get on board and travel with him if they were going to make it work. So you know what she did? She started a website called PokerWire.com. She travels everywhere Andy goes, and reports on chip counts and interviews players.

3. If your poker pro doesn’t come home until 5 a.m., you can take it to the bank that he was stuck in some game or a sucker walked in the door right as he was about to leave. Most poker players are honorable people. They might bluff an opponent at the table, but they don’t bluff in life — we are weird that way. So, give him the benefit of the doubt, unless your guy has given you reason to believe that he is up to no good. I’d say he is probably sick enough to really be at that poker table for 36 straight hours.

4. As players, we can never choose the day that a sucker turns up at the table, so sometimes we will need to play on Thanksgiving, Christmas or your birthday. If we get that phone call that “Ramin’ Jamin’ John” is in town, there’s nothing that can stop us.

5. If you want to learn how to play the game, your partner may not be the best teacher: He will have less patience with you than with anyone else. It can be difficult and frustrating to teach someone completely new to the game. Get some books on poker and start with that. Then play online at the lower limits to put into practice what you have learned.

6. After your rock star wins the big one… spend the money!

Until next time,
Good Luck and Good Skill
deBulletMan

Common Sense of the Day: Between losing all your chips and losing your small bet, you should choose the latter when you neither have the nuts nor the odds to call!

The Scenario
Player A: Bets $100
Player B: Re-raise All-in to $2100
Player A: Immediately calls

They flip their hole cards, Player B has a set, Player A has a straight draw.

What The Hell?

Player A: “Oh man… I’m so unlucky sometimes.”
Player B: “Unlucky?”
Player A: “I thought you were stealing my bet.”
Player B: “Stealing your what? What the hell?”
Player A: “I could have won.”
Player B: “Yeah, you had like 10% to win… Good call.”

That’s Online Poker For Ya

This happened to me countless times, last time was 5 minutes ago. I have trip Qs (Hole cards: QQ) and the other guy (Hole cards: 67) is on an open-ended straight draw waiting for a 9 or a 5 on a board of 8QA with the flop and the river still to come.

Just Let Go

Sometimes it’s best if you let go. This is especially true if YOU HAVE NOTHING! Why are you calling an all-in, knowing that if you lose you’re getting out of the tourney. This is also especially true if you know that your opponent is a tight player. If you haven’t seen this player raise once in 20 hands and now he’s raising all-in the probability is : HE HAS SOMETHING! Even if he doesn’t… neither do you! Let go!

Common Sense of the Day: Between losing all your chips and losing your small bet, you should choose the latter when you neither have the nuts nor the odds to call!

Until next time,
Good Luck and Good Skill
deBulletMan

Even though I was lucky I do not put the blame on luck… Instead I put the blame on the player, slow playing to the extent where he let me outdraw his great heads-up hand. Why giving a free card can be your doom.

How many times have you heard it?
“I had you! Lucky river!” Best if it’s shouted at you… not so good if you’re on the wrong side of it. It’s one of those plays that costs you a lot of money (or chips in a tourney) when you could have won the pot right there and then, no questions asked. This happens a lot when you hit a good hand, two pair or trips and slow-play them. What follows is this: the turn and river hit your opponent big, you deny the fact that you’ve been outdrawn, and keep calling even in the face of big bets. That is when you loose that big pot.

A couple of Sit-n-Gos ago I was on the better side of it and took down a huge pot.

The Flop
We’re heads-up, with the blinds 200/400, stack of 5725 and I’ve got A2 offsuit in the small blind. I call and my opponent with a stack of 7125 checks. The flop comes down K 3 4 rainbow. I check and my opponent checks through. So now I’m thinking, he got a King and he’s slowplaying me? Or maybe he has an Ace or a Queen and didn’t hit.

The Turn
The turn comes a 9 with the board being K 3 4 – 9. I check not wanting to waste any chips heads-up on a draw. See if he was slowplaying a pair of Kings I needed to hit an Ace or a 5 on the river which puts me at about 15% to win. Not good enough to be betting here with nothing. And he checks again.

The River
A 5 hits making the board K 3 4 – 9 – 5 and making my straight. I bet big, 4x the big blind, he raises twice as much. Hmm… so he was slow-playing a good hand. But what? Maybe 6-7?? That would have given him the nut straight.… I raise all-in and he calls.

The Showdown
I flip over my cards, a 5-high straight and he flips over his. Pocket Kings! He made the set on the flop! Damn right he was slowplaying me. But I managed to outdraw him. I rake in the chips putting him a big underdog in this headsup with just over 1000 in chips and 200/400 blinds.

The Analysis
It felt good really, to manage to make that hand on the river with nothing on the flop and with my opponent holding a set of Kings. But what can I say really? It was a bad play from his side. See when the flop hits with straight or flush draws I never slow-play a made hand because in a game with so much variance someone will make that straight or flush and kick you out of the game.

Thing is, I was lucky hitting that 5 on the river and was even luckier that my opponent had a very good hand. Even though I was lucky I do not put the blame on luck (whether I’m on the giving or on the receiving end).

Instead I put the blame on the player, slow playing to the extent where he let me outdraw his great heads-up hand.

Running the hand through Card Player’s Odds Calculator I see how much of an underdog I really was.

Until next time,
Good Luck and Good Skill
deBulletMan

You move all your chips to the center hoping to in the pot or that your King holds, he flips over Pocket Kings and you’re out. How PokerTracker could have saved your tournament life in this situation.

You’re sitting with 1200 chips on the BB…
…with blinds at 50/100. Everyone folds to a middle-position player who raises it up to 400. The rest up to the SB fold and it’s up to you. You look at your hand and see King-Ten offsuit. You wonder what your opponent can have to raise from middle position. You do not have any particular information on him, especially since online you see a myriad of players on the table. You move all your chips to the center hoping to in the pot or that your King holds, he flips over Pocket Kings and you’re out.

What Could Have Been Different?

Picture the same scenario. Action’s on you and you look to see King-Ten offsuit. You look over to the raiser’s avatar and on top of that you see a black overlay:

This is PokerTracker’s overlay for each player. Next to the player’s name (iPlayTight) the rest of the information translates as the following: Out of 250 hands, this player has paid to see the flop with 8.3% of his hands, raising pre-flop only 4% of the time.

Why does this information help you? Because 1. we can put this very tight-aggressive player on a very good hand, probably a high pair like JJ or AK, KQ and 2. (with the help of a free poker software calleed PokerStove) we know that King-Ten offsuit falls in the 15% mark of hands which is quite far from the 8.3% the opponent’s playing.

So you can easily fold this hand giving your opponent the benefit of the doubt.

On the other hand if the player’s overlay displayed something like:

We obviously know that this player has a very low standard of starting hands playing cards like Six-Four suited (PokerStove again), and raising quite often (with Pocket Deuces, for example). We have no reason to be suspicious about whether our King-Ten would hold up against his hand so you should naturally push all-in. Surely it could be this time that he’s holding the Bullets but there’s a very big chance that we’re ahead.

Overlay Description

• Number of Hands: This is the number of hands that PokerTracker is basing its data on. Obviously the larger this number the more accurate the data you’re seeing and using is.

• VP: Also known as VPIP this is the “Voluntarily Put In Pot” percentage. This is a measure of looseness vs tightness since the higher this value, the higher the percentage that this player has paid to see the flop, hence the player is a loose player. If the player has only VPIP with 5% of his hands you can be sure that this player has nothing less than pocket pairs 9-9 up, or A-J suited upwards.
• PFR: Pre-Flop Raise percentage. This is a measure of aggressiveness pre-flop. Call stations usually have values such as: VP: 80 / PFR: 0… on the other end tight-aggressive players have values such as: VP: 20 / PFR: 15.
• AF: This is a value displaying the Aggression Factor of a player throughout a hand rather than just pre-flop. The larger this is, in addition to PFR, the more generally aggressive a player is.

Anything Else?

Well PokerTracker has a very large amount of options, settings, reports and data sorting, actually too much to go into here. I covered the most important aspect of it, the overlay during play, but there’s so much else. PokerTracker keeps track of every hand you play, every player you meet at the tables, and every tournament you play, keeping records of your winnings and ROI (Return on Investment) values.

The other very awesome feature is the hand playback system. It allows you to play back a hand or a whole tournament for you to analyse. It gives you the option to hide/show your opponents’ hole cards so you can analyse your play better at a future date when you’ve forgotten the bad-beat that donkey laid down on you and you can finally see the cards with a clearer frame of mind.

Until next time,
Good Luck and Good Skill
deBulletMan