The doctor is in

For a record setting third post in a day. Fresh from some gratuitous pedantry on Fuel55's recent post, it's time to mount another one of my hobby-horses.

I've just been watching the final episode from the Aussie Millions on YouTube. So let's get this straight:

You all saw and heard Joe Hachem's cheering section at the WSOP. "Aussie" is pronounced as in "Ozzie and Harriet", not as in "osseous", or the middle two syllables of "velocity". Ok got it?

While we're at it, it's Brisbun and Melbun. You can get away with Sydney, though Sinney is more common -- I won't even try to explain Perth or Adelaide, the latter of which sounds like some rather nasty medical condition. The resort in North Queensland (Cairns) is pronounced as if it were the place where the film festival is held (Cannes) by someone who doesn't realize that the terminal S is silent in French.

The whole subject of "R-detection in Australian English" is probably worth a book of its own.

And finally, in Wagga Wagga, the second Wagga (or is it the first?) is silent.

Sometimes you're good and ...

sometimes you're just lucky.

UTG, extremely loose aggressive, raised to $0.75. Folded to me in the BB, I held A♦K♦. I was tempted to raise and try to push him off the hand, but of course if he called and then I missed the flop it would make life difficult. So I called, hoping to catch a piece of the flop and then make him pay for it with the rope-a-dope.

The flop was just a bit better than I really wanted -- A♣K♠K♣. I checked, though I did consider a weak lead. He checked too. Turn, the 4♥. Now, I made the weak lead of $0.50 into the $1.60 pot. He called. River, the J♣. Little did I know that this was almost my gin card. I bet $1.50, he raised to $3, I reraised to $6 and he showed some semblance of sanity by only calling with Q♥T♥. A shame that the river completed the flush really, I don't think he was putting me on the boat.

Here we go again

Traveling that is. I'm off in two days time for three weeks. This time I'll try to keep up with blog posts at least sporadically. It's mostly an academic trip so I will occasionally have time on my hands and, more importantly, access to the internet.

I'm starting out with a long weekend in Brisbane (one of these days I'll get around to explaining why I keep going there). Then I'm off to Cambridge to work with my friend Imre Leader for a few days (jealous of his Wikipedia entry? Me? Never.)

The central part of the trip will be to the 2007 conference on permutation patterns in Saint Andrews. Have a look at the PDF slides of my talk if you dare. Sorry, but if you want to hear the jokes (except the lame one about six degrees of separation) you'll have to turn up.

If you look at the conference programme you'll note that I'm speaking in the last slot on the final day. Those of you unconnected with the academic world may not be aware of the significance of this. It means one of two things:

• I'm a real pain in the butt, and a terrible speaker, so they're giving everyone the chance to skip out early, and humiliating me in the process; or


• I'm a well organized and entertaining speaker who can be counted on to wrap up the conference well, tying together some of the threads left loose by previous speakers. That way, no one will be tempted to skip out early.

Since I'm staying on another week to work with the fine folk there, I certainly hope it's the latter.

Horsing around

Shamefully falling into a "bank your wins" mode after my first very good sessions in some time at $25NL last night, I played a couple of the old $3.40 SNG's (bubble/2nd), and a HORSE freeroll (despite the fact that even had I qualified I wouldn't have been able to play the tournament of which it was a satellite). Still, I was fairly happy to finish 86/2000.

Particularly so considering that my immediate right hand neighbour was playing "bet/raise everything" and had the chips to do it as he kept luckboxing his way into big hands starting with trash. As a result I was essentially forced to wait for good to premium hands then get everything in (when every pot is capped on every street you get all in pretty fast.) The problem was that those cards weren't coming. In one round, I played the first hand of O, then folded my way through to the middle of the next H.

And my exit hand? UTG at Omaha I have A♦2♣K♣K♦. Three quarters of my stack was in five ways pre flop. The 68T flop contained two diamonds, and I had visions of a scoop as the rest of my chips went in. But, no more diamonds, nor low cards arrived, and once again I saw my neighbour rack it up with his 579J.

Signs of spring?

No, far too soon for that. But at least some green in the record books. Of course it helps when the deck is hitting you hard ($25NL as usual):

• KK with position on QQ, flop turn and river all random low cards.


• KK against shortstack A7 who decides to call my preflop raise, and then push over my bet on QQ9 flop. Yes I'll pay off a Q here. I'm a calling station.


• AK on the button against QT in the cutoff. Flop of K74 gives him a flush draw, he bets 1/2 pot, I raise enough to kill the immediate flush odds. Turn an offsuit 10. He checks I bet 3/4 pot. He calls again without odds. River K! He bets! I push! He calls! (That's about as excited as I get.)


• AQ in the SB with a big pot preflop (four in for $2.75 each -- I'd called $1 and then had odds to call the BB's raise). Flop comes QQ6 rainbow. I break with habit and check. Mister 67 offsuit decides he must be good and bets $3. I check-raise, teasingly, to $9. That looks weak to him and he takes the bait and pushes.


• AK wins a race against $10 stack's QQ.

But it wasn't all beer and skittles (nor should it ever be of course). I overplayed a couple of AK's (a leak of mine, which I'm working on). I had a lovely 33 hit a 357 flop, and a 5 on the turn, only to lose to mister 57 offsuit! And finally, another AK hand:

UTG+1 raises to $1.5 over UTG's limp. Folds to me in the SB and I call with AKo. Heads up on the flop of 569, two clubs (I have A♣). I try to knock out another AK with a $2 bet, called. A♦ on the turn pleases me. I bet $4 also called. I'm pretty sure now that I'm up against a big ace. River is a slightly worrying T♦, except I don't think AT makes the initial raise, though TT might. I check to induce a bet (and secondarily control the pot). He bets $5 and I call, to see the big Ace all right -- AA. Oops.

What a good blogger am I

That was supposed to be the title of this post. When I sat down to an early evening session I thought that my previous entry, where I mentioned "card dead" without whining about it had earned me some karmic credits.

Within three or four hands of sitting down, I picked up QQ, UTG+1. UTG min raised, I tripled his bet, he min raised that to $2.50, I raised to $5, and he called. He then pushed the remainder of his $14 stack on the J53 flop. No Presto this time -- he had AK, and I had a nice pot (even rubbing salt in the wound with a Q on the river).

But then ... not so very long later at the same table.

I have 99 in the SB. UTG raises to $1. There is one caller, I call, and the BB calls. Flop is Q♦9♦5♠. I bet $2.50 into the $4.25 pot (there was a poster who didn't take part in the action). Immediately I thought, "perhaps with four in the pot, a pot sized bet would have been in order." It turned out not to matter. The BB raised to $6.25 leaving $16.50 behind. The other two folded and I pushed. He called, not entirely unreasonably with K♦J♦ (PokerStove says he needs to be getting 2:1 which, as it happens is almost exactly what he is getting.) The 6♠ on the turn wasn't too bad, but the 10♠ on the river certainly was.

And now, salt in my wounds, sometime later on the same table, playing AK against a small stack, I forced him all in (well, he forced himself all in) when he led with a c-bet on a 346 flop. His hand? A7 no flush draw. River 7. Sigh.

Must be time for some rice pudding and bad TV.

Presto is, unfortunately, gold (with extra bonus hand!)

Yes yes, still donking away at $25 NL. I'm in the middle of a card dead session, but am actually slightly to the good owing to a couple of flush hands. Unfortunately, it's hard to get these to pay off big as one of the graduation criteria between $10NL and $25NL seems to be the ability to recognize that three suited cards on the board is perhaps an indication that caution is order. But, I digress ...

A tight aggressive player with a $6.35 stack limps from UTG+2. I have A♣Q♥ on the button and raise to $1. The blinds fold, and the annoying small stack limper now pushes all in. This of course screams small pair, and I have the odds to call. Other hands are certainly possible, but I think that I'm extremely unlikely to be dominated and am either racing against a small pair, or perhaps dominating a painted suited connector that decided to get frisky. In that range there is of course only one hand that dominates me, Presto!

PokerStars of course maintains the suspense in cash games. The flop of Q♣J♣2♦ was pretty good for me. But, the turn was 5♣ and I knew it was all over. There would be no club on the river, or if there was it would be the 2♣. In fact the 10♦ came on the river adding more two pair worries. But, you know what he had.

My other big losing hand in the session was my own fault, though you're more than welcome to tell me otherwise. UTG I picked up A♣K♦ which, in my card dead state, certainly looked like the nuts. I raised to $1 (I've bumped my standard raise to 4BB -- this seems to be a psychological barrier for some players, and I find $1 gets multiple calls much less frequently than $0.75 does. But again, I digress.)

My semi-loose neighbour called, as did the rockish BB. The flop came A♠Q♣3♥. BB checked and, though worried about AQ I decided not to imagine monsters, and bet $2. This disposed of my neighbour, but the BB called once more.

The Q♦ turn lessened the a priori odds of AQ in his hand, but added KQ to the hands that I was behind (QJ a bare possibility for this player). He checked. I checked.

Finally, the J♥ came on the river. He bet $4.75 into the $7.10 pot. Leakishly I called, and he turned over the not unexpected AQ.

Oh yes, I too held Presto once in this session. What happened? Four of us saw the JT9 flop, and that was more than enough for me.

Acey-Deucey

$25 NL as usual for the moment. I'm at a pretty passive table and pick up A♠2♠ in the cutoff. There's one limper in front, and I'd normally fold this I think (not having enough potential victims in the pot if I hit big), but I decide to call. The button comes along, as do both blinds.

When the flop comes K♠Q♣8♥ I mentally consign my $0.25 investment in this hand to the dustbin. But, it's checked around. Interesting.

Things get even more interesting when the 4♠ turn is also checked around (I see no point in betting my draw since I strongly suspect there was at least one painted-pair out that won't fold, and the river cards that complete my draw are obvious ones.)

So, the river arrives, the J♠. And now when I have the nuts, the betting begins. The SB bets $0.25 into the $1.25 pot. The original limper raises to $1. I have to decide how big my reraise should be. Feeling that only another flush can possibly call, and that nervously, I reraise to $2. And they both call!

Q♦J♦ in the SB failed to lead the flop (probably fair) or the turn (probably a mistake) and called on the river (just unspeakable), and 6♠7♠ was just unlucky (though, even getting 6:1 on his final call, it's not clearly correct is it?)

A peculiar discovery

A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of a bad run, I consolidated my meager bankroll on PokerStars. I had played most of my cash games on UltimateBet, but decided to abandon them after changes to the bonus system, and also because their whole atmosphere was somehow going bad.

My bad run continued. I shan't bore you with the details because, unlike families according to Tolstoy in Anna Karenina, "unhappy poker players are all alike, every happy poker player is happy in his own way" (which presupposes the existence of a happy poker player, a point which is certainly open to debate).

Obviously, something needed to be done. So I sat down and concentrated, only two tabling, and without distractions. And it got worse.

Finally, a key piece of wisdom from my days of acing multiple choice tests made itself heard -- "never trust your second thoughts". And even more to the point: "never give yourself a chance to have second thoughts". So, back to four tabling with random sports on TV. And it's all good. Well, so far anyway. Stay tuned.

Will the real Gigli please stand up

I think that I'm going to claim that dubious honour in the latest edition of kat's Friday night donkament. Though technically I wasn't the first person knocked out, I was the first person knocked out after the rebuy period. And after all, being knocked out of a rebuy before the end of the rebuy period doesn't mean that you're a bad poker player, just that you're stingy.

Our table failed to keep up its end in the drive towards 200 rebuys (which fell just short). I don't know what the excuses of my tablemates were, but in my case it was a simple symptom of my account balance on FT being in the low single figures at present.

So, I arrived at the second hour with something in the vicinity of 5.5K in chips -- while the average must have been well north of 10K. Soon thereafter I picked up AKs in one of the blinds. One of the few stacks shorter than I raised from LP, there may or may not have been an intervening call (I hate trying to dig hand histories out of FT), I pushed, and we were off to the races (against TT). No joy for me, and I was down to 10BB, "back to my comfort zone", I quipped at the time.

Unfortunately, I was not given a long time to enjoy it, as on my next trip through the blinds I picked up 88. Over Acornman's late position raise, I pushed. Unfortunately, he had some silly hand like KK. I mean really, who raises with that eh?

Today's agenda is to sit tight and hope that the house doesn't fly away in the first of our winter gales. You know, one of those where any small bird foolish enough to take to the air discovers that it can't get back to its starting point on the wing.

Back to level 1

Playing like this is certainly going to stall my progress through the limits. It's so embarrassing that I'm going to have to start with a raw hand history.

Seat 1: mchllbrt ($24.15 in chips)
Seat 8: Villain ($60.15 in chips)
mchllbrt: posts big blind $0.25
NPC: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mchllbrt [A♣ K♥]
NPC: checks
Villain: calls $0.25
mchllbrt: raises $1.25 to $1.50
NPC: folds
Villain: calls $1.25
*** FLOP *** [5♥ 3♠ K♣]
mchllbrt: bets $2
Villain: calls $2
*** TURN *** [5♥ 3♠ K♣] [J♥]
mchllbrt: bets $5
Villain: raises $9 to $14
mchllbrt: raises $6.65 to $20.65 and is all-in
Villain: calls $6.65
*** RIVER *** [5♥ 3♠ K♣ J♥] [A♥]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
mchllbrt: shows [A♣ K♥] (two pair, Aces and Kings)
Villain: shows [3♦ 3♥] (three of a kind, Threes)
Villain collected $46.25 from pot

Some of my mistakes (feel free to point out others)

• Despite having marked villain as the best player at the table besides me (ha!), I played him to be a complete donkey.


• Limp then call is frequently a small pair.


• I went broke with essentially TPTK.

The only serious question is whether I should slow down and not lead on the turn, or fold to the turn raise. Sigh.

Realized that I missed an opportunity with my last post -- my 128th. That's the hammer if you're a CS geek.

The scourging

It is time brothers and sisters. Yes, it is the time once again for the great scourging. I know that even I have been weak and allowed troubles to multiply. But no more. And so I beseech you all to join with me, lest you fall into greater peril.

Take yourselves into your kitchens, and open up the drawer wherein are kept a multitude of plastic containers, be they Tupperware, Rubbermaid, or of any other tribe. And take from there all those that are lidless, and cast them away into the darkness.

The Great Deceiver will tempt you. He will whisper in your ear: "Could you not use that other lid? It almost fits." Or perhaps "A piece of plastic wrap will do just as well." But I tell you these are lies and deceptions. For is it not written: "Whosoever shall fall into the error of plastic wrap, he shall soon be cleaning pumpkin soup from the shelf and the floor"?

Some among you may well find lids that have no containers. These too should be scourged. However, the council of Pittsburgh did agree in 1995 that, provided there is resident in the house a child of less than six full years, or a dog still young enough to fetch, these may be kept for they serve well as playthings, but must be segregated from the lidded and pure.

Different song, same chorus

$25 NL again, a good table is breaking up and we're down to five handed. With a full stack, I pick up black tens under the gun. I raise to $0.75 and attract an unwelcome three calls -- one from the cutoff, and two from the blinds.

The flop of T♥9♥2♠ goes some way to alleviating my worries. When the blinds check, I bet $2 into the $3 pot. This shrugs off the cut off, but both blinds call.

The turn is the A♠ and I now entertain some thoughts of raking in a fairly big pot. The small blind opens with a ridiculous $0.25 into the $9 pot, which the big blind duly calls. With two flush draws and plenty of straight draws out, I can hardly do less than raise to $5. And they both fold ... I seem to be setting my bets to better draws than my opponents are actually holding.

I'm just sayin' ...

Something ...

All the usual apologies for not posting more. We'll see whether I can muster up the determination to keep this going on a regular basis. If not, a retirement party will be announced. In the spirit of not trying to run 10km on your first return to running after a 10 year layoff, let's just start with a fairly humdrum hand.

Playing $25NL I picked up J♠T♠ in middle position. The table had been a bit of a limp-fest, so I happily limped over two others in early position. The best laid plans duly went awry, when the cutoff raised to $1. What a silly raise though -- even the first caller was going to be getting 3:1 odds, and they'd improve thereafter. All the limpers, myself included duly called.

The flop was pretty good for me: 4♠9♠Q♦ giving me the famed OESD plus flush draw. Inevitably, the first two limpers checked, so I bet $3. The raiser folded (AK? TT?). One of the two limpers called, so it was HU and I had position.

The 2♠ completed my flush on the turn. Limper, quickly it seemed (as far as one can judge online), bet $3 into the (roughly) $10 pot. Now comes the decision about which I'd like comments.

I raised to $9 on the grounds that I wanted to take away drawing odds from the K♠ or A♠. He'd be getting 11:3 and might well be tempted to call, but I knew that there were fewer outs left than he might have thought he had (go on parse that -- I dare you). When he folded quickly, I was left with the feeling that perhaps I might have collected a bit more.