Riding the Hippocamp

He's back?

2008-01-01T10:33:00.001+13:00

Well perhaps, if even for only a moment, to wish you all a Happy 2008, from 2008. Gotta take advantage of that date line thing when you can.

Anyhow, early 2008 resolution is to post a bit more regularly (like that's gonna be hard.) The blog may get a bit of a rebranding, as I'm not expecting to be playing much poker, but we'll see how it goes.

2007 is in the books as the year I learned that I shouldn't really play cash. I'm just not temperamentally suited for it I think. So, back to the sit and go arena, and the occasional MTT.

In 2008:

May all your bluffs succeed,
Your value bets be called,
And you river your one outers.

Unless of course, you are at my table.

Merry Christmas to all and to all ...

2007-12-19T11:26:00.000+13:00

Yeah, yeah, I'm a bad blogger. No posts in almost two months.

What can I say?

End of academic year, paper deadlines, conference to organize, academic and social visitors, no poker, blah blah blah.

Anyhow, off to Brisbane tomorrow for a couple of weeks, and will reevaluate the future, or lack thereof, of this blog in the new year.

Meanwhile, have fun everyone.

Four too, two four, whatever ...

2007-10-25T16:35:00.000+13:00

Following on from Kat, and Fuel, various fours for me. Partly to avoid an embarrassingly large overlap with the latter, I'll go the "low culture" route for the most part:

Four jobs I've held:

Lawn mowing
Undergrad research assistant
Maths lecturer
Computer science lecturer

(Sigh, not very exciting, I know.)

Four films I could watch over and over:

Brazil
A Knight's Tale
The Incredibles
O Brother, Where Art Thou

Four TV shows I watch:

Dr Who
Heroes
CSI X
Absolute Power (if it ever comes back)

Four places I've lived:

Penetanguishene Ont
Oxford UK
Pittsburgh PA
Dunedin NZ

Four favourite foods:

Coquilles St Jacques
Venison goulash
Almond croissant
Brötchen with butter and apricot jam

Four websites I visit daily: Too dull (not the topic, the answers.)

Four favourite colours: Mu

Four places I'd love to be right now:

Arran
Wanaka
Toronto
Actually, it's not too bad here

Four names I like but wouldn't name my children: that would be tempting fate in more ways than one.

Four favourite books:

Ok, so food and books stretched the definition of "low culture" a bit in places. Live with it.

Veeery scaaary stuff ...

2007-10-23T08:02:00.000+13:00

23Skidoo of Compromising Anonymity left a comment on my "best pop songs ever" post, pointing me towards a performance of Radio Radio by Elvis Costello (and the Beastie Boys) on SNL.

Thanks to teh magik of teh interwebz it was only a matter of moments before I found it on YouTube:

And, the really scary thing is, it looks like Elvis is related to Mike Matusow.

Hmm ... just found

and now I get the joke at the beginning of the other one. Ah, wheels within wheels.

Sit 'n fold

2007-10-18T18:58:00.000+13:00

There's certainly a lot of bridge reading to catch up on, or rather to review, as I've yet to acquire any new books. Regardless, it's left little time for poker. But, I had an hour or so to spare with a stew in the oven, as well as some radio listening to catch up on, so I fired up a turbo SNG.

It seems to me that more people are catching on to the "tight early" strategy, which is a bit worrisome. No one was eliminated from this one until the blinds were 50/100. There were a couple of fairly loose players, but they were sticking to small ball and handing chips around among themselves.

Stayed in my usual shell, including folding AQ suited on the button with a raise and reraise in front of me (the reraiser eventually took down the pot after the flop, so I don't know whether or not I was right). Then got AQ suited again UTG at 15/30. A raise to 100 brought two of the loose players and one other along. So, I felt I had to bet out (300) on the A63 rainbow flop. The two loosies dropped, but the other fellow called. Seemed AJ, AT (maybe), AQ (possible), and AK (unlikely) were his probable hands (or I was near dead to a set). I checked the 5 on the turn, and he bet a ridiculous 120 into a 1045 pot. I called (figuring I was ahead, but aiming to control the pot size just in case) and we both checked the 9 on the river, with my AQ just squeaking out his AJ.

Time for the turtle to pull his head in again. At 25/50 I was forced into a call preflop with T7 suited, a min raise and two callers in front. No joy on the flop, so that was that.

Down to 8 at 50/100 and I got 99 UTG+1. My raise (300) was called by the BB only (one of the loosies and down just under 1000). The 987 rainbow flop looked pretty good to me. He checked, I bet half pot, he pushed, I called, he showed A7. Sweet. Until the board straightened on the turn and river. Sigh.

Tried a steal with 87 suited on the button. Big blind called. I followed when he checked the A42 rainbow flop, and he folded. What an easy game. More folding ensued as we approached the bubble. AT suited in the BB, the SB completed, I raised, he folded.

On the bubble, I'm second in chips with 2300! We have a monster stack, and a 1900 and 1300. Still need to concentrate.

Again I try to steal (at 75/150) from the SB with 74 suited. The BB calls, and the flop is A73 rainbow. I check, intending to fold, but he checks. The turn brings another 7. I bet a suspicious looking "conserving my stack" 350 into the 900 pot. He pushes. I call -- he has 55. We're in the money!

At 100/200 I get AQ in the SB with the button raising. My push sends him packing. I take a bigger hit than necessary with KJ offsuit on the button. My raise is called by the BB. Flop comes AKQ two diamonds. He checks, I bet, he calls. For some reason on the 9 of diamonds turn I feel the need to bet again -- he calls. The river is a truly ugly 6 of diamonds, and I have none of those. He pushes, I fold, leaving myself with about 1700 chips (against 9000 and 2800).

I squeak into second when the big stack pushes over a raise from the button, and is called. They race, TT against KQ and TT holds up.

So, we start heads up with me outchipped by about 8:1. I push J9 offsuit on the first hand, called by 72 offsuit (sorry, this wasn't a blogger game, so that just can't be right ...) Two nines on the flop, and I can hear destiny calling. We trade small pots for a while and then I win a race (22 vs KQ) so the chips are almost even.

Well anyhow, we bounced around for a while as one does, and then with stacks almost even agian at 200/400/25 I got 66 in the BB. He completed, I pushed and he called with K7 suited in spades. A race, but a pretty bad call in my opinion (I suspect a "let's get this over with" call). The flop had a 6 for me, but two spades for him. And the turn completed his flush.

Perhaps that wasn't destiny calling, but a siren. Oh, ye of little faith. The board duly paired on the river, and I mopped up his few remaining chips (less than 2BB) with A9 v 32 on the next hand.

I wonder what he meant by that?

2007-10-09T08:42:00.001+13:00

So, my last post on pop music having been such a raging success (cough), let's try another variation on that theme:

Your favourite lyrics that sound really impressive, but which you've never been quite sure of the actual meaning of.

And, to kill any possible suspense, I'll start with three of my own.

Number 3: The Invisible Man (Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Punch The Clock)

Crowds surround loudspeakers hanging from the lampposts
Listening to the murder mystery
Meanwhile someone's hiding in the classroom
Forging the books of history

I always thought that last line was "Polishing the books of history", which both scans better and is less obvious. And I've just listened to the song three times, and I'm still not sure. Costello can be like that, creating some really interesting double entendres by fudging on pronunciation in places (the best one I can think of is in Red Shoes, where in "chasing after vengeance" the "v"-word could be any one of: vengeance, visions, virgins. The latter works particularly well in conjunction with "punctured" in the next line.)

Number 2: The Call of the Wild (David Byrne, Rei Momo)

Albert Einstein wrote equations
God told Noah "Build an Ark"
Johnny Mathis sings Cole Porter
To bring light into the dark.

Slightly fish in a barrel as you could pick just about any verse of any given David Byrne song and use it.

And at number 1, from my favourite obscure Canadian band

Number 1: Wrong Kind of Right (Doug and the Slugs, Wrap It)

Tie it all up (tie it up, tie it up!)
With a piece of hemp from a hang man's memory
We'll attempt to redefine geometry

This time the official site no less claims that it's "Add it all up" and "the hang man's". But, my ears do not lie (at least not yet -- despite advancing years, they at least still seem to be working adequately.)

Probably no accident that two of my choices deal with mathematics in some way. What are yours?

Update on "best pop/rock song ever"

2007-10-08T11:42:00.001+13:00

It's not too late to vote or make suggestions! See the original post, if you don't know what I'm talking about. (Remember the basic criterion: must have received significant commercial air time without dropping into the "I never want to hear that again" category.)

Fuel55 weighed in with an enormous list. But, his first suggestion (Bowie's Young Americans) is certainly right up there. I'd want to include some other Bowie classics from that general era as well: Changes, Suffragette City, Space Oddity.

Mr Subliminal was more restrained, putting up Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven (sorry, for me at least, it's in the too long and too overplayed categories), and the Stones Sympathy for the Devil (excellent, and of course there are plenty of other Stones candidates as well.)

I'd like to put some songs from The Who or Queen on the list, except I'm afraid that overexposure through CSI "insert city name here", and relentless playing of We are the Champions at sporting events (when it wasn't really much good to begin with), as well as the excessive length of Bohemian Rhapsody probably disqualify them. Well, perhaps except for My Generation, which for some of us at least is starting to acquire a nice ironic ring. I'm acquiring a collection of My Generation covers on my iPod -- would appreciate pointers to any new ones (so far I have the original, Green Day, and Patti Smith.)

Tangentially, does anyone remember The (remants of the) Who doing Won't get Fooled Again at one of the post 9/11 benefits (Madison Square Garden I think). Talk about irony.

How to win at Sit and Gos

2007-10-07T10:57:00.000+13:00

This morning, having an hour to kill before the kick off of the event of which we will never speak again (la, la, la, la, ..., I can't heeeeaaaaarrrrrr you!), and not being willing to watch the pregame show without some diversion, I fired up a turbo Sit and Go on Stars. Which I won. And as a result of which, I can now share the three word secret to winning at Sit and Gos:

Be a luckbox.

I had no hands in the early levels, and we were well into the 75/150 level before the first elimination at the table occurred. Down to 1200 chips I then picked up KK in the cutoff. All folded to me, and with a small stack in the SB I decided to try a minimum raise for tactical reasons (and, because anyone who had just seen me fold a zillion hands in a row would be unlikely to call anything else). The SB came along (he had less than a full call), and then the BB doubled my bet. I raised all in of course and was delighted to be facing KT in the SB and TT in the BB. No disasters on the board and I was up to 2,500 chips.

At 100/200 I got AA on the button. One limper in front, but he and the blinds folded to my raise to 600. So far, a fairly normal SnG. But, the card deadness returned.

I drifted down below 1500 again when I felt I needed to take a small stab at a paired flop in a blind v blind limpfest. Unfortunately, my co-blind had a flush draw and an ace and wasn't going anywhere.

On the bubble now, but truly on life support, with only 600 remaining after posting the SB, I pushed with A7 after two folds and collected the blinds and antes. And then the luckbox factor kicked in. On the next hand, from the button (200/400/25), I pushed with K4 suited. The small blind, A6 suited called. The flop came 578. The turn paired his ace. And the river two paired him, hitting my gutshot.

Pushed TT from UTG on the next hand, and collected blinds and antes. Suddenly, I was actually second in chips (but a long way back of first). Next hand, the bubble popped. UTG was all in for less than a full blind with KQ against my mighty 96. I paired, he didn't. Next, my A5 lost to the remaining small stack's A9 making me the small stack, but I returned the favour with A8 beating his A6, making a gratuitous full house. Split pot with my AK against the other big stack's A5 (double paired board, sigh.)

The small stack made his exit when his K2 suited couldn't beat the other player's T6 offsuit (Broadway straight on the river), and we settled down to heads up. With the blinds already at 300/600 it was basically a pushfest. After a few exchanges in his favour I was outchipped almost 3:1. But JT was good enough against A6 for a double up. Then, after drifting off a bit again, I essentially ended it with T9 against A7 despite a J73 flop. The T on the turn was nice, and the other one on the river, unnecessary, but even nicer.

It was then of course a formality that my 87 would win the next hand against T4 (all in for less than the BB preflop) despite a T64 flop. The 9 on the turn was surely inevitable. So, there we have it. Not actually as lucky as I remembered it, but I certainly won more than my share of 35-40% hands.

There was no joy in Mudville (RWC VI)

2007-10-07T10:25:00.000+13:00

France 20, New Zealand 18

As I'm going to have to suffer through the post mortems to the All Blacks quarter final loss to France until the next World Cup in 2011, I thought I'd get mine in early and then go invest in a large pair of noise canceling headphones.

There is no doubt that the better team lost. But, they weren't beaten so much as they failed to win. One of the persistent failings of the All Blacks is a certain arrogance in their play. When it's clear that they are winning the close physical battles, the war of attrition, they persist in trying to land the knock out punch. Of course, to stretch the analogy to breaking point, that opens up their defenses, and gives the dominated opponent the chance to retaliate.

It's an unfortunate Kiwi tendency to blame the referee for every loss, and one that I try very hard to resist. But, in this case, there's no doubt that he played a huge part. Rugby, more than any other competitive sport, is a game where the referee is very influential, partly because the rules, particularly those governing the ruck (that bit where everyone is on the ground scrambling for the ball) are hugely technical. And the refereeing in this game was, to put it kindly, inept. In the first half, he persistently penalized the All Blacks in the breakdown, taking away their dominance there. Then, in the second half he gave a 10 minute penalty to Luke McAlister because a French player ran into him and then did an Oscar-worthy dive. Short handed, the All Blacks were threatening the French line, and the French were persistently offside on the blind side, not called. And finally of course, the pass that set up the winning French try was blatantly forward. And that's not all.

But, enough about the referee. The All Blacks seemed to have a pretty good game plan in the first half, aiming at playing for territory and using their (surprising) superiority in the lineout. But the kicks weren't reaching touch, so for the most part it came to naught. With a decent advantage, that knock out punch mentality took over. Silly passes, silly kicks, and the French got a heartening penalty to finish the half.

Enough of all that, time to go wash the ashes out of my mouth.

Didn't see that one coming (RWC V)

2007-10-07T06:40:00.000+13:00

Quarter finals: England 12, Australia 10.

Only such a parochial and jingoistic organization as the BBC could call a 12-10 victory "thrilling", but certainly "surprising", "stunning", and "what is the world coming to" could all be applied.

It's presently 0640 on Sunday here, and I'm up waiting for the kickoff of the All Blacks - France match at 0800. More on that later ...

Just so the pipes don't freeze.

2007-10-06T07:20:00.000+13:00

Nominations for "the greatest pop/rock song ever" please. Main criterion is that it must have received significant commercial air time, but that when it comes up on your iPod your reaction isn't "I never want to hear that again sober" (e.g. Hotel California), but rather "maybe I'll hit skip/back when it's finished so that I can hear it again".

For me, there can't be any doubt, it's Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits. Various songs by Elvis Costello (Radio Radio and Chelsea to name two), and Talking Heads (Psycho Killer, Once in a Lifetime, Life During Wartime) come close; but there's just something about that upbeat drum/guitar intro that hooks me every time.

So, what say you?

And I might even take a day off work to do it

2007-10-03T12:36:00.001+13:00

Gotta love freerolls, and of course PokerStars is "my" site.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 2137979

Back from Hamilton

2007-10-01T12:47:00.000+13:00

I just returned from a week at the 22nd national NZ Bridge congress, and am predictably tired. Trying to get to sleep day after day after three hours of intense concentration finishing about 11:30 pm is no easy task, so I usually didn't drop off until 2:00 am or so, and was often up by about 7:00 am (stupid body clock.)

My results weren't great, partly because I was playing in unfamiliar partnerships, having left my decision to play until the last minute. The other reason of course is that I haven't been taking bridge seriously for a number of years now, and am more than a little rusty. I did get a few articles published in the bulletin (see links at the site above) including a couple of rather dodgy poems. And they were kind enough to give me a couple of bottles of decent wine for my contributions. So, that was nice.

But what was even nicer was rediscovering the sheer joy that bridge can provide. A large part of that comes in the endless post mortems with your friends and peers, analyzing hands from the bidding through the play of each card and trying to learn and profit from that learning (profit of course, purely in the abstract sense -- we're not talking about real money here.) This is something that doesn't really happen much in poker, for a couple of reasons. The glaringly obvious one is that you don't play the same hands as others (though I see that an attempt has been made to introduce duplicate poker) so they can't offer fully informed comment on your play, nor do you necessarily want to share your thought processes and techniques.

And then there are purely sublime moments that occur at bridge, which I at least have never experienced the like of in poker. The closest I can come to it in poker is the feeling that comes after you've carefully misrepresented a monster and dragged someone into an all in pot, massively behind. Times when you profit not from the mistakes of your opponents (which is also in bridge where the large part of your profit must come from) but from your own skillful play. And in bridge it can be a matter of pure skill -- of spotting an opportunity because of the combination of the 26 cards you can see and the 26 that you can't and exploiting it. Or, of using the ideas and features of your own bidding system to arrive at a good contract that won't be found elsewhere.

On Saturday morning there were three such hands in a 26 board session. I'm still not entirely down from the high that they produced. That may be a juvenile and inappropriate reaction but it's taught me something: I'm a bridge player, not a poker player.

I'll probably keep playing a bit of poker. If nothing else it's a method of relaxing and enjoying ones self for an hour, with the possibility of a bit of profit on the side. When I do, I'll probably blog a bit about it here, but updates will be even more irregular than they have been until now.

I might start a bridge blog too ... or maybe not ...

The police are at the door (RWC IV)

2007-09-19T08:44:00.000+12:00

And they're asking questions about my failure to post concerning the All Blacks/Portugal game. Well, as expected it was pretty much a non event, the All Blacks 108-13 win representing roughly an expected score (some local optimists had been talking about 150 or 200 but realistically that was never going to happen). To their credit, Portugal put in a pretty good 15 to 20 minutes in each half, before exhaustion set in and the AB's scored at will.

Just watched Scotland beat Romania 42-0. A fairly workmanlike but not entirely convincing performance. Especially if, as expected, Scotland rest some of their top players against the AB's, their match this weekend may not have much to recommend it.

Ah, it's not the police after all, it's my taxi. I'm off to the North Island for 10 days of bridge. Probably no updates at this end over that period.

How not to play aces (3)

2007-09-15T13:48:00.001+12:00

An exhibit from yours truly for a change.

I'm deal A♠A♥ in the big blind. UTG limps, and a poster checks. The SB folds. I always raise, generally pot, in this position. But, the UTG limper was a habitual limp-folder, and the poster was an incredibly tight player. So I elected to check.

When the flop came 4♦4♣J♦ I didn't want to bet because I was worried that both players would assume a big blind special with a four in my hand. So I checked again, and it was checked around.

Things didn't get much better on the turn, which was the 2♦. Finally, I decided I needed to bet, and bet the minimum $0.25 which UTG called.

The river brought the Q♣. I bet the minimum again, and now UTG put in a minimum raise. Knowing what I'd see, I called. Sure enough he showed Q♦T♦ for the flush.

I'm so embarrassed.

Swing low, sweet chariot (RWC III)

2007-09-15T12:07:00.000+12:00

England's rugby chariot must be riding low indeed after an inept performance by the current world cup holders resulted in a 36-0 drubbing by South Africa. In fact, it wouldn't be surprising to see them miss the knock out phase of the competition as they are by no means a lock to beat Samoa.

Fundamental, schmundamental

2007-09-12T08:43:00.000+12:00

Possibly the most over-hyped theoretical principle in poker is Sklansky's "Fundamental Theorem". All it really says is: "Poker is a zero sum game". What makes it worse is that it says it in a way that makes it easy to misinterpret. Now that's not directly Sklansky's fault (except inasmuch as he maintains the incredibly arrogant position that clear expression is less important than good ideas) but it does mean that it's not uncommon to run across howlers like the following from Barry Tanenbaum:

...if you raise with a hand what your opponents are correct to call, and they do call, you lose ...

from which he then infers that the raise was incorrect.

That's just so wrong. It can be correct both for you to raise, and for your opponent to call. Here's a simple example. There's a $10 bill on the table. We're going to draw one card from a shuffled deck. If it's an Ace through seven I win, if not, you win. Obviously I have a 7/13 chance to win. The catch is that I can raise the stakes, putting an extra $20 into the pot. You either have to match this or fold.

Am I correct to bet? Certainly. If I don't bet, my expectation is 70/13. If I do bet and you fold, I win $10 and am better off. If I do bet and you call, I still win that $10 seven times in 13, and I win our $20 sidebet seven times in 13 at even money.

Are you correct to call? Let's start you out with a $20 bill in your wallet. If you fold it's still there. If you call, then seven times in 13 your wallet is empty, and six times in 13 it contains $50. Since 300/13 > 20, you're better off calling (unless that $20 is very very important to you!)

Sure this is a simplified situation, as opposed to the one Barry is considering (what to do on the button preflop if one or both of the blinds never fold to a preflop raise). His conclusion, that it may be correct to limp with some hands, is certainly defensible (if nothing else, it lends authority to subsequent continuation bets on hands that begin with a raise), but it has nothing to do with the fundamental theorem of poker.

Where there's muck there's brass

2007-09-11T19:45:00.000+12:00

Or, just for a change, how not to play KK.

Two limps to the small blind who holds KK. He completes. I check my powerhouse 96 offsuit in the big blind. The flop comes 992, two suited. He checks. I bet 1/2 pot ($0.50) which clears out the limpers, and he calls. My worry about the flush draw goes away on the turn, which is a 6. Again he checks. I bet a little more than 1/3 pot ($0.75). Now he min raises.

Not sure what I should do here, but I min-reraise, trying to represent a poor overpair (but of course we know I was unlikely to have checked preflop with T's or better.) He seems to be getting the message and just calls. The river is an 8. He returns to his checkered ways and checks, I bet a little less than 1/2 pot, and he calls.

Not bad for a hand I would have laid down preflop to even a min raise.

Side note: I was listening to some of my "back issues" of the CBC radio Comedy Factory podcast (I've fallen behind on my radio listening, but the return of "Fighting Talk" reminded me to get going again) and they managed to slip into the dialog of a sketch:

"Oh Canada, you homely naive land."

Hmm ... perhaps you have to be a Canadian ...

Say it isn't so ...

2007-09-09T17:19:00.001+12:00

I may actually be suffering from football overload. This weekend we have had:

The opening of the rugby world cup (8 matches total)
A significant round of matches in the domestic rugby union competition (7 matches)
The first round of playoffs (four matches) in the National (that is Australian, with one NZ team) rugby league
European qualification matches in "association football" (or just football, or soccer)
The first round of playoffs (prior to the oxymoronically named "preliminary finals") in Garthmeister's favourite game, Aussie rules (two matches?)
Oh yeah, there's that other game ... gridiron (I did actually watch some of the Colts/Saints)

And no, I haven't watched them all, but that's not entirely for lack of trying.

Too easy (RWC II)

2007-09-09T09:49:00.000+12:00

All Blacks: 76
Italy: 14

I have a confession to make.

I watched this game on tape delay. There are a lot of things I'll do that start at 2345, well some things, well perhaps a few things. But, it turns out that watching a game which was always due to be a blow out in favour of the All Blacks isn't one of them.

The worrying thing is that Italy are the second or third best team in New Zealand's pool, so it looks like the All Blacks won't get any sort of a reasonable test until the quarter finals. However, that said, they put out a pretty well disciplined performance, only getting a bit care free and sloppy late in the second half.

Row, row, row

2007-09-08T14:04:00.000+12:00

One of these boats comes from the perspective of the figurehead, the other one from the other head ...

UTG+1 I get 8♥8♣ and limp. A player in MP and the blinds come along for the ride. The flop is a lovely Q♥8♠2♥. The SB checks and the BB leads for $0.25 into the $1 pot. I raise to $1, which folds out the other two players, but the BB calls. The turn is the 2♣

"Oh please please please have a two" think I.

It seems that my prayer has been heard as he leads for just less than the pot. I call. The river is the A♥

"Oh please please please have A2" think I.

Another near pot sized bet comes out, and I reraise him all in. Sure enough, A♣2♠. Glad to have the gods smiling at me for a change.

In the other hand, I'm in the big blind with J♦2♠. I get to see a free flop with just one MP player and the BB. The flop of J♥J♠9♦ looks pretty good to me. To my surprise, the SB leads with a pot sized ($0.75) bet. I call, and the other player folds. I'm not sure I care a great deal for the turn which is the 10♠. However, the BB leads with a probish looking $0.50 so I raise to $2.00. He min-reraises to $3.50 which now worries me a bit (KQ?). However, I'm getting 5:1 on my call at this point and can hardly do less. My boat finally arrives on the river (how appropriate) which is the 2♦. He leads for $3 into the $9.25 pot, and though I'm well aware I could be losing to JT or J9 I reraise an additional $6 to put him all in (I have him well covered of course). He calls, and shows 9♥9♣.

Ruby World Cup I

2007-09-08T10:53:00.000+12:00

Blogging from New Zealand as I do, I am actually under a legal obligation to cover the Rugby World Cup in detail, regardless of the notional subject of this blog. So, here we go:

The Rugby World Cup kicked off today (I should further mention at this point that part of the obligation requires me to use cliches/hackneyed phrases wherever possible) with the traditional cringe inducing opening ceremony. Fortunately, as this began at 0600 local time I only caught the last few minutes of it prior to the first game of the tournament.

That game pitted the hosts, France, against Argentina. Ever since Argentina scrapped their policy of not selecting players based overseas they have been improving steadily. The French have been picked by some as second favourites for the tournament, but are famously consistent only in their inconsistency.

It was the Mr Hyde version of the French team that turned up today, with an error ridden performance, lacking entirely in the offensive flair for which they are famous. To be fair, the Argentinians applied the pressure with constant high kicks, and determined defense. Final score: 17-12 to Argentina, in an entertaining match even if it wasn't of the highest quality.

That puts the pressure on my friends from Ireland who play in the same group. With only two from the group to qualify, France will certainly be determined not to lose another game. New Zealand kick off (can I use that again?) their campaign tonight (local time) against Italy in what should be a walk in the park.

For a more professional description, featuring yet more of your favourite sporting cliches, see the New Zealand Herald.

Drip, drip, drip

2007-09-06T16:29:00.000+12:00

That's the sound that has been coming from my bathroom faucet for some time, so today I thought the time had come to repair a leak. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far with it. In common with most Kiwi houses, there's only a single cut off valve for the water -- a tap in a hole in the sidewalk, where the main pipe comes in to the house. And evidently it hasn't been used for a while. In fact, I was quite unable to fully turn off the water. I could manage to restrict the flow so that if I ran the tap in the tub, then I didn't get water at the sink, but I wasn't very happy with that as an assurance if I started to take the hardware apart. So, no joy on that front.

But, when I sat down to play a bit of poker, I was happy to find out that apparently without any conscious intervention on my part, at least one leak had been plugged. In the past, in card dead sessions I had a habit of losing much more than I should have. On the rare occasion that I actually did get into a pot, I tended to be unwilling to fold. Today, despite cards that had my "voluntarily put in pot" percentage in the single figures at four different tables, I managed to avoid that.

And, just to make sure that I appreciated the lesson, the poker gods rewarded me with two hands that were enough to lock in a moderate win for the session. The first "a draw too far":

PokerStars Pot-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with Q♣, A♥.
UTG calls $0.25, Hero raises to $1, 2 folds, MP3 calls $1, 3 folds, BB calls $0.75, UTG folds.

Flop: ($3.35) Q♥, 8♣, 5♣ (3 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $2, MP3 folds, BB calls $2.

Turn: ($7.35) 6♠ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5, BB calls $5.

River: ($17.35) A♦(2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5, BB calls $5.

Final Pot: $27.35

Villain had A♣9♣ so I guess the river made me some money. But if he thought he was getting any implied odds from me if another club hit, he would have been surprised.

And the second was a classic set under set cooler for my opponent. I'd limped from early position with pocket 8's. The flop came A♠8♠3♣. The blinds checked and I put in a half pot sized bet. The button called, as did one of the blinds. At this point, and based on some reads, I actually thought the button was on a decent ace and thought he had me outkicked (or, remembering back, a spade draw). The Q♣ on the turn looked good to me as I hoped for a two pair hand now. Still, I had to make the spade draw pay for the privilege of seeing the river (especially as the pot was still three handed). So, I led $1.50 into the $2.50 pot. A min raise from the button was good news, and cleaned out the blind. I reraised to $7 and he just called. The 9♥ on the river was a problem only if he had precisely T♠J♠ (no other JT was consistent with the previous action), so I led fairly confidently with $5 into the $16.50 pot.

Had I known about the set of three's, I might have tried a bit more. But, showing some discipline, he just called.

If only the other leak could have been so easily taken care of ...

I wasn't finished, 99

2007-09-05T11:45:00.000+12:00

The hand from yesterday's sit and go that stuck in my mind was the 99 hand from the button, three handed. I had a few comments about it from Fuel, and I also posted a thread on 2+2 which (amazingly) generated some sensible replies. So, here it is again, together with some summaries and further thoughts.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (3 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

Hero (t3600)
SB (t4853)
BB (t6547)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9♦9♠.
Hero raises to t600, SB calls t500, 1 fold.

Flop: (t1400) K♣, 6♣, 5♠ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t800, SB raises to t1600, Hero ???

As played

This is a difficult decision -- a simple call is out of the question, so it's fold or all in. Fold leaves 2200 chips behind, and of course all in has me playing for my tournament life (I can assume that the SB won't fold getting better than 3:1 odds). For geeks like me, at this stage of a sit and go you need to think about more than just chip equity -- you need to use the independent chip model. Fortunately (after the fact) there are handy calculators for this, and, using one of them, I can work out that we'd need to be winning the pot about 35% of the time for a shove at this point to be a break even move. As all my estimates are going to be rough ones, I'll take that as a guideline, possibly padding it a bit on the high side since I feel I have a bit of a skill advantage over my opponents (always!) so there's a premium on staying in the game.

If I'm already behind at this point (to a king, a pair tens or higher, or a set of 6's or 5's) I'm basically drawing to 2 outs and have 8% equity in the pot. If I'm ahead, my opponent likely has at least six outs (two overcards or underpair plus overcard), and possibly many more (flush draws, combo draws etc.) So my equity, if ahead, is something between 50% and 75%. Call it 70% for optimism.

Basically that suggests that I need to believe that I'm ahead a little less than 1/2 the time (if my estimates are correct and I'm ahead 1/2 the time then I have a 39% chance of winning).

As we know, at the time I folded, and I'm relatively happy with that. I don't think that my opponent's raise in this game, and under these circumstances, is a bluff or semi-bluff (or underpair) half the time.

Reflection

The main difficulty in the decision is caused by the fact that the bet sizing to this point left me in an all in or fold situation. There are two ways around this: bet more (i.e. everything) preflop; or bet less.

Shoving certainly merits consideration. If I assume a relatively tight calling range (true at the table I believe) of something like TT+, AJ+, KQ then I'll only get called about 1 time in 14 by either blind individually, so 1 time in 7 collectively. When I'm called my equity against that range is 33%. So, 18 times in 21 I'll gain 300 chips, 1 time in 21 gain a bit more than 3600, and 2 times in 21 lose 3600. The gains certainly outnumber the losses but ICM might have a bit to say about this (in fact it seems to suggest that pushing is about the same as folding preflop). But, the wider we make the opponents' calling range the happier we are.

What about the other approach? Limp and give up on all but the best of flops (containing a 9 or three low cards)? That seems a bit peculiar but perhaps worth considering if only to vary our play.

Finally, I think the winner is a smaller preflop raise. For the sake of argument let's look at a raise to 400 i.e. 2BB and suppose the hand plays out similarly to the original example. The SB calls, then checks. I bet 500 into a 900 pot and he raises to 1000. The pot is now 2400, and I still have 2700 behind. A push at this point actually leaves me in effectively the same position we discussed originally but probably has some fairly significant fold equity -- including folding a number of hands that beat us at present (e.g. TT, JJ, KQ, possibly KJ). Furthermore, some drawing hands that would have been able to call correctly originally are now not getting the correct odds.

Conclusion

In short handed games with an intermediate stack (15-20 BB) and a decent, but not premium hand on the button, consider a smaller than normal preflop raise.

It's been a while

2007-09-04T19:12:00.000+12:00

Since I played any sit and go's, and of course a bit longer since I won one. But tonight, the $25 tables all looked extremely rocky (last night of a holiday weekend in N. America -- I guess everyone had had enough, or gone to bed early for work tomorrow). So, with the Antique Roadshow in the background, I fired up a couple of the one table $3.40 turbos on Stars.

Exited in a coinflip in 7th place on one (my tens against AK). But, the other went relatively well...

Did my usual lurk between 1000 and 1300 chips as the first few players busted out, and then as the blinds went up entered pushbot mode. At 100/200 with four players remaining I was down to 800 chips in the BB with Q8s, and the SB just completed. I thought about pushing, but chose to see a flop -- AKQ rainbow, with one card in my suit. The SB led for 200 into the pot and I decided that an ace would certainly have raised preflop, and a king might have. Besides, a king would have a hard time calling a push here. On top of all that was the quite reasonable possibility that his bet was a simple bluff. So I pushed, and collected a bit of breathing room when he folded. I actually think that this was the critical hand for me

Next hand I had KQo in the SB, folded to me. I pushed (7BB) of course and picked up another 200 bringing me to 1600. And then, the very next hand, with perfect timing, I got AA on the button. I pushed again, and sure enough one of the blinds decided that I'd really lost it and called -- to be fair, he was the big stack and had KQo so not such a ridiculous call.

We burst the bubble when someone else tried to play AA -- SB completed, the BB with AA raised to 3BB, SB called. On a 762 flop the SB pushed, and the BB called. Well ahead of 87o, he unfortunately lost to the runner runner straight.

Next button I had 99. But, with 18BB to my name now, too much to push. I put in a standard raise, called by the SB. The flop was a two tone K65. He checked, I bet 800 into the 1400 pot and he min-raised. I folded. I'm not sure about this bet -- perhaps I should just try to get out of the hand cheaply. Down to 11BB, and definitely the smallest of the three stacks.

I got lucky when one big stack took his two paired 63o up against a slow played set of aces belonging to the other big stack. He tilt pushed on the next hand with K5 offsuit (actually with 8BB on the button, not at all a ridiculous push), and I found 99 in the BB and cleaned him up.

So, I entered heads up play at a 7:2 chip disadvantage. After 35 hands the positions were reversed. After 40 they were back to the original. Fought back to even, then back down again at 48 hands. On this hand my opponent raised (as he had been doing very aggressively) from the SB for about half my stack. With K6 offsuit, I felt I had a marginal overpush and did. He called with 87 suited, hit a 7 on the flop, but I was rescued by a king on the river. From there I hit a few flop and pushed up to a 4:1 chip advantage.

After 56 hands, an eternity in a turbo sit and go, it was all over, as I took the final hand in a coinflip with 55 vs Q7.

The brownie diaries, pictorial edition

2007-08-31T15:46:00.000+12:00

I promise that this is the last brownie related post -- even I can see that it's getting a bit obsessional. But, just in order to convince you that the whole "baking brownies" thing wasn't some sort of sad literary hook for the previous posts, here's the pictorial evidence. After all, we know that pictures never lie.

Sadly, not taken with a Brownie box camera, but with the modern equivalent, an extremely cheap and cheerful digital camera (at least it's a Kodak)

Batches one and two and the chocolate bits supply.

Batch three cooling, and butter melting for batch five. Batch four is in the oven, but not having Alton Brown's kitchen, I can't show you a picture of those. (More celebrity chef namedropping)

State of the kitchen -- not too bad really.

The brownie diaries

2007-08-31T13:56:00.000+12:00

Unsurprisingly perhaps I can't seem to stop thinking about brownies at the moment. So, what better to do than to subject you my dear readers to those same thoughts. We'll start with the recipe, but even if you're not interested, I suggest you read on as I'll follow with my usual discursive and amusing ramblings (which is what you're here for right?)

Captain Kirk's Brownies

Ingredients

2 cups sugar
225 g (8 oz) unsalted butter (melted)
4 eggs
4 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cups (about 215 g) flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup cocoa
1 cup chocolate chips

Method

In a large bowl combine the sugar and melted butter
Beat the eggs lightly, and stir them into the sugar/butter mixture along with the vanilla
Mix in the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa) stirring just until everything is combined
Stir in the chocoate chips
Pour into two 20 cm (8 inch) square pans (or equivalent) and spread out fairly evenly
Bake at 180 C (350 F) for about 30 minutes

Now it's time for the discursions.

The name: We got the recipe from a friend named Kirk, and I suppose the "Captain" part was a fairly automatic addition. No actual Star Trek connection that I'm aware of.

Ingredients: There are a number of issues to address here -

In the matter of nuts. Certain people, myself included, feel that the addition of some chopped walnuts (say about 1/2 cup) to a brownie batter is a fine thing. Even pecans, or hazelnuts (marginal), but certainly not peanuts. Others though feel equally strongly that nuts in brownies are an anathema, on a par with peas or mushrooms (or, shudder, both) in plain rice. And of course when making industrial quantities of the brownies for some event or another there will inevitably be those who have, or believe they have, an allergy to nuts. So, on the nut front, it's up to you.
I did not hear anybody mention raisins.
If you must use salted butter, then reduce the salt a bit. How much? How should I know? I've never bought salted butter except by accident or when there wasn't a choice.
Real vanilla essence please. I can't imagine I have any readers who would think otherwise.
And likewise of course cocoa. I shudder to think what might ensue if one tried to use Nestle's Quik or similar product.
And most important of all, chocolate. Now there's an unfortunate recent trend for the chocolate manufacturers to sell chocolate chips, which they specifically advertise will hold their shape when baked. You don't want these! The whole point is for the chocolate to melt and contribute to the luscious gooiness of the brownie centre (... mmmm .... brownies .... mmmm .... oh, where was I ...). So, if your local grocery is unable to supply such chips (or bits) you have a few choices. The easiest, is to buy chocolate buttons which are designed to melt (but are too large to be used whole in this recipe). Run them through a blender or food processor briefly to chop them down to size (you could try actually melting them -- but I'm not sure that would give the right effect). Alternatively, you could go all Jamie Oliver and go down to the nearest pretentious and overpriced chocolatier, buy a 1kg block of some ridiculously expensive chocolate, and chop bits off yourself. Your call.
It should go without saying that you can add more chocolate than the recipe calls for. My default amount is nearer to 1 1/2 cups than 1 cup. Adding extra cocoa is probably ok, but some care might be required here because of the liquid/dry ratios.

The method: Again a few points to raise --

You can make a half recipe (but, duhh, why?) However, it's probably best not to try to increase the quantities significantly owing to the issue of mixing (see below), unless you're a trained professional (with access to a professional's equipment.)
Sifting the dry ingredients into the wet ones is suggested. It's a bit of a pain, and means one more item to wash, but it does make a difference to the texture (and makes it easier to mix.)
At each stage the mixing should be gentle, and just until everything is combined. Hand mixing is strongly recommended. Obviously, you don't want stray bits of flour, cocoa, or pockets of melted butter about, but overmixing leads to a tough brownie.
I did mention you could add more chocolate right?
If you have non-stick pans then there's no real reason to grease them. However, given the desired consistency of the end product (see below), any sticking is a disaster. So, I usually adopt a belt and braces approach and grease the pans in advance (besides, you have all the wrappers from the butter to do it with).

The baking: This deserves a section all of its own.

It must be admitted that (except for the mixing bit), the baking is the one part of this recipe where things can go awry.

What, after all, is the perfect brownie? The perfect brownie can be held in the hand without sticking, but is sufficiently soft, gooey and luscious on the inside that you're always worried that it might stick.

On the one hand that suggests a hot oven in order to get a crispy outside without overcooking the inside. But, on the other hand, brownie batter is quite dense and so in order to get the inside cooked without burning the outside, a less hot oven would be indicated. What a predicament!

The perfect solution perhaps would be to go with a hotter oven, let the edges and corners overcook slightly, and then trim the overcooked bits away. As well as being fiddly, that seems wasteful (though, you could crumble up the edge bits and mix them with vanilla ice cream ...) The temperature and timings suggested in the recipe seem to be "right" for most ovens. But, you will need to allow for variation and be prepared for one or more less than perfect batches as you narrow down the "sweet spot".

Determining whether the brownies are done is also a bit of an art rather than a science. The toothpick test is no good, since if the toothpick comes out clean, the brownies are already too dry. Basically the middle of the brownies should be just slightly elastic when you press it.

An alternative solution, to the whole baking dilemma, available only to those of us who are not resident in third world countries like the U.S.A., and who don't therefore have to worry about salmonella is simply to dispense with the baking altogether and eat the batter with a spoon.

If things go wrong: There are really only two things that can go wrong. You might undercook the brownies, or you might overcook them. In computer science parlance, undercooking is a feature, not a bug. O.k. you need a spoon or something to eat the brownies, but that's not a big problem. And, if they're not cut up into regular pieces it's harder for onlookers to notice just how many you've eaten.

Overcooking is a more serious issue. But, don't panic -- there are many fine things that can be done with slightly dry brownies. The simplest, alluded to above, is to chop them up and mix them with ice cream (or whipped cream if that's your thing). A slightly more sophisticated approach, which relies on having a few extra ingredients handy is to make a sort of mock Schwarzwälder Kirsch Torte. Split the brownies in half making two thin slices (or if you're greedy, just use two brownies). Spread on some cherry conserve (or other fruity jam), along with some whipped cream. Make a sandwich of the result, and add some whipped cream and a cherry on top. Finally, if the brownies are to be served to adults, a little dash of rum will moisten them up nicely.

I'm sure that you can come up with variations of your own ...

Next time, photographic evidence.

Got me (cont'd)

2007-08-31T12:16:00.000+12:00

Chocolate shock averted. But, it's a mortal sin not to lick the bowl right? And, even if you've made the recipe dozens of times before without mishap, you still have to test (each batch?) when they've baked right?

Anyhow, third batch is cooling and fourth batch is in the oven. We're in the home straight.

Exhibit C comes straight from the "I'm a donkey calling station" files. In late position I receive K♣J♣. UTG min raises ($0.50) and a MP player, myself, and one of the blinds call. The flop is J♦3♦3♣ giving me top pair, decent kicker and the backdoor flush draw.

UTG now bets ($1.00), a little less than half the pot. MP calls, as do I, and the blind folds. I don't really think I can fold here -- I can't even be sure that I'm behind. On the other hand raising seems a bit over the top.

The turn is a brickish 6♥. UTG again leads just under half the pot. This time MP goes away, but for some reason I elect to call again (I did tell you!)

Finally, the river brings the A♠ and another half pot sized bet from UTG. Which, showing consistency if nothing else, I again call. Losing to the ladies. I wonder if I could have played the hand any more poorly.

Exhibit D is of a slightly different character than our preceding ones. In MP I receive Q♦Q♣. Over one limper in front of me I bet pot ($1.10) which is called by the BB only, the limper folding. The flop is 5♠9♠T♠. The BB leads ($1.00) into the $2.55 pot, and I raise ($3.00), which he calls. The turn is a very ugly A♠. The BB checks and I check behind. Finally, the river card is 4♦ and the BB bets ($1.00) into the $8.55 pot. This looks like a blocking bet with a small spade, or no spade and a pair of aces, but I can't bring myself to pull the trigger and put in a big raise. Instead, I just call, and lose to a pair of ducks including the 2♠.

And there ends this particular sequence of tales. You may choose to believe that the reason for this is:

I only misplayed four hands in the last few days; or
I'm worried that I've already tried the patience of you my dear readers (or is that reader?) and had better quite while I may still be ahead; or
The final batch of brownies are in the oven and (after cleaning the kitchen -- ugh) I will soon have more productive things to do with my time (like playing poker instead of writing about it).

However, I'd rather you kept your choice to yourself unless it happens to be number 1, in which case I have some real estate that you might be interested in ...

Got me!

2007-08-31T11:02:00.000+12:00

I'm in the midst of baking five batches of brownies (the chocolate sort, not the other kind) so have a few minutes here and there to review some of my play over the last few days. In the interests of preemptively appeasing the poker gods, as I'm conscious of having written about some of my successes lately, here are a few samples where, well let's say, things did not go quite so well.

Exhibit A At a short handed table (only five players at the moment), I'm in the BB with K♠5♠. All fold to the short-stacked ($7) button who open limps ($0.25), the SB folds, and I check. I pick up third pair plus the backdoor flush draw on the A♦Q♠5♣ flop, but check intending to fold to a bet. However, the button checks behind. The turn is a seemingly exciting 5♦. I bet a daring $0.25 into the $0.60 pot, which is called. The river is the 7♠. I start with a near pot sized bet ($1) which is raised ($3.25). I pause to think. It seems to me that the river may have completed a two pair hand (A7 or Q7), so I reraise enough to put him all in. He calls -- with AA.

(And yes, I know, this is an instance where playing AA "poorly" got paid off -- though not so poorly as all that, the preflop limp ensures some action and with a relatively dry flop checking behind is reasonable. One might suggest a raise on the turn though ...)

Exhibit B Also at a slightly short handed table (6 players), I get A♦K♥ in the BB. UTG+1 raises ($0.75), the cut off calls, and I elect to call as well.

AK offsuit from out of position is a problem hand for me (and for many others I gather), so any comments on the preflop action would be welcome. With many limpers I will tend to put in a significant raise to narrow the field, but here it seemed that at least one of my opponents was likely to have a medium to big pair and would correctly call. So, I chose to see a flop, hoping for a K (an A would be ok too, but not quite as good).

Indeed, the flop contained an A, specifically: A♠6♣6♥. I led ($1.50) into the $2.35 pot. The initial raiser folded, but the cutoff called. The turn brought the T♣. Perhaps I should have slowed down at this point hoping to check-call reasonably cheaply to the river, but for some reason I led ($4.00) into the $5.35 pot. This was called again.

Finally, the message began to get through to me, but not it seems clearly enough. I checked the 3♦ on the river, but called the cutoff's bet ($5.50 into the $13.35 pot). I can't really explain that one, since my betting prior to that point had surely represented at least top pair, top kicker, and yet the cutoff was making a value bet.

But after all, even a source as authoritative as Fuel55 has recently told me (and I quote) "Top pair, top kicker is the nuts". What's that you say? Irony? Geez, I wish people would tell me these things before it costs me money.

More later if I haven't collapsed from a chocolate overdose.

How not to play aces (2?)

2007-08-31T10:47:00.000+12:00

Perhaps I'll make this my "signature" story. We'll see ...

Anyhow, in the present instance UTG+2 open limps ($0.25) with AA. Next to him, I hold 88 and call. A late position player makes it $1.25, folding the blinds. The original limper calls (!) as do I (stacks are full, and we're heading towards the mines ...)

The flop is T96 rainbow. Mr. "I slowplay Aces" bets $0.25 into the $4.00 pot. At 17:1 I almost have direct odds to call for my set value alone, never mind the gutshot. I actually give some thought to raising, and almost certainly would if the pot were heads up, but, with the original raiser still to act, choose to believe that discretion is the better part of valour and simply call.

The original raiser now bets pot (it's pot limit). Finally Mr. ISA wakes up and reraises pot. My third pair plus gutshot no longer look so good, and I fold. A raising war ensues until all the money is in.

Turn and river are more or less irrelevant (except for not being an A) as the pot is shipped to the original raiser's set of 9's.

"Of course" says Mr. ISA. The entire table shows remarkable awareness of the importance of not tapping the glass, and refrains from adding further comment.

So, what do we learn from today's episode boys and girls? It may be important to vary your play and occasionally limp AA (though I think that even that is debatable unless you are consistently playing against the same opponents), but having done so and having obtained a raise behind you, dare I suggest that a significant reraise is in order?

Deep in the set mines

2007-08-30T12:22:00.001+12:00

The following hand took place just a few minutes after I'd sat down to play at a new table. In a strange sort of way I don't like to win a big pot early as I find it hard to play my normal game after that. But, I'll always take the cash ...

PokerStars Pot-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (7 handed)
Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

Button ($24.65)
BB ($34.85)
Hero ($24.75)
Preflop: Hero is MP1 with 2♠, 2♥.
1 fold, Hero calls $0.25, 2 folds, Button calls $0.25, 1 fold, BB raises to $0.75, Hero calls $0.50, Button calls $0.50.

Flop: ($2.35) T♦, A♠, 2♦ (3 players)
BB bets $0.75, Hero raises to $2, Button raises to $9, BB calls $8.25, Hero raises to $24, Button calls $14.90 (All-In), BB calls $15.

Obviously this is the interesting point of the hand. I don't read the BB for TT (probably not a raise initially from this particular player), but of course AA is possible (though, with the ace on the board, we might see a slow play there). My initial raise with bottom set is actually a bit too small, since diamond draws are being more or less priced in. When the button raised, again I didn't put him on TT (he would have raised preflop with that), and I actually thought AT was his most likely holding. When the BB just called that, I ruled out AA. My best guess now was that the button had AT, and the BB AK or AQ possibly with a diamond draw (though perhaps not -- again the BB might have reraised with that rather than just calling the button's raise).

So, I read myself as being ahead, and got all the money in. Sometimes it's nice when a plan comes together ...

Turn: ($74.05) Q♦ (3 players, 2 all-in) (I'm a little worried by this card)
River: ($74.05) 8♠ (3 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: $74.25

BB: A♦K♣
Button: A♥T♣

Playing aces can be easy

2007-08-29T15:03:00.000+12:00

I'm UTG+1 with a $35 stack, the only player at the table with a larger stack is UTG.

UTG: Limp
Me: Pot
Random MP player: Call
(Rest fold)

UTG: Pot
Me: Pot
Random MP player: Fold

UTG: Pot, all in.
Me: All in.

No prizes -- he had KK (it was that or a tied pot).

Doing the funky chicken

2007-08-29T11:15:00.000+12:00

And other sorts of moves ...

A hand came up a few days ago that I simply can't get out of my head -- it's not a huge pot, nothing terribly exciting about it, but there's just something about it that worries me. So, in a carthatic spirit, here it is:

$25 pot limit hold'em.
I'm in the cutoff with a full stack and get T♦T♥. A mid position player who has yet to make an impression on me limps. The next player, on a short stack of $1.50, also limps. Now this player has certainly made an impression. He plays any two cards and calls raises with any two cards. I've been looking for the chance to isolate him for some time, and though it's hardly worth while at this point given the size of his remaining stack I follow through with a pot-sized raise to $1.35.

This gets folded around to the BB who, holding 8♣9♣ elects to call. I can just about see this -- he can be sure that our any two cards friend will call (or more likely commit his last $0.15 to the pot), and if the previous limper does so as well, his suited connectors are getting nice odds. Even if the first of the limpers folds it's not too bad, and because of the small amount of cash remaining in the short stack it's impossible that he'll be facing a true reraise when it comes back to him.

And that's pretty much how things turned out, the first limper folded, any two cards put the rest of his money in, I called (not being allowed to raise) and we all saw the flop:

K♣Q♦4♣

Enter the funky chicken. With his flush draw and undercards, the BB bet $3 into a $5 pot. I folded of course, a club came on the turn, but another came on the river, so mister any two cards picked up the pot with A♣5♥.

Postscript What I simply can't understand is what the bet on the flop was meant to accomplish. In order to win the pot, even if I fold, he must believe that he as to improve a bit (even against mister any two cards, 9 high is not a great hand). With an all in and a dry side pot, my continuation bet (if I make it) will likely be smaller than normal and so a check-call line (which might well be a draw, but could also be something like KJ, AQ ...) is likely both to build the pot and to cost less when the draw fails to hit.

Furthermore, the big problem with the bet on the flop is that it just spews money if I elect to raise (as I promise you I would have with any of AA, AK, KK, KQ, QQ). Facing a pot sized raise, you're going (in principle) to have to let the flush draw go (because you will not be given implied odds on such an obvious draw).

The iPod meme

2007-08-27T17:15:00.000+12:00

A.k.a running well, so I don't have many stories from the table. I'm not sure whether I'll do the full twenty first verses, as that seems a bit excessive and I do intend to cheat slightly by using shuffle play on "M's favourites" rather than the full library, but, with those provisos, here goes:

If you gave me a coin for every time we say goodbye
Well I'd be rich beyond my dreams, I'm sorry for my weary life
I know I'm not perfect but I can smile
And I hope that you can see this heart behind my tired eyes

Well we know where we're going
But we don't know where we've been
And we know what we're knowing
But we can't say what we've seen
And we're not little children
And we know what we want
And the future is certain
Give us time to work it out

Welcome to real life
Welcome to real life
I've come to realise it's no game
No one is the same
There's so much more to life
Than meets the eye

You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
You may find yourself in another part of the world
You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
You may ask yourself; Well...How did I get here?

Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away
If you can use some exotic booze
There's a bar in far Bombay
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away

Stop this world, let me off
There's just too many pigs in the same trough
There's too many buzzards sitting on the fence
Stop this world, it's not making sense

People try to put us down
Just because we get around
Things they do look awful cold
I hope I die before I get old

We were at a party
His ear lobe fell in the deep
Someone reached in and grabbed it
It was a rock lobster

Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine
meltin' in a pot of thieves
wild card up my sleeve
thick heart of stone
my sins my own
they belong to me, me

I was tuning in the shine on the light night dial
Doing anything my radio advised
With every one of those late night stations
Playing songs bringing tears to my eyes
I was seriously thinking about hiding the receiver
When the switch broke 'cause it's old
They're saying things that I can hardly believe
They really think we're getting out of control

And that's probably more than enough.

It's deja vu all over again

2007-08-21T15:47:00.000+12:00

The reasons for my recent obsession with sets and their redraws became clear today:

PokerStars Pot-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

MP3 ($14.75)
CO ($4.80)
Button ($14.65)
Hero ($25.50)
BB ($62.20)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 7s, 7d.
4 folds, MP3 calls $0.25, CO calls $0.25, 1 fold, Hero completes, BB checks.

Flop: ($1) 4s, 7c, 6h (4 players)

There's that flopped set again, and top set too. Someone said to bet your sets so:

Hero bets $0.5, BB raises to $1.5, MP3 folds, CO folds, Hero raises to $4.5, BB calls $3.

Now that's a bit odd -- he checked preflop, raised my flop bet, and then called my raise. What's he got? Two pair? Another set? Flopped straight?

Turn: ($10) 4d (2 players)

Unless it was 44, it doesn't matter any more. Now how much can I get into the pot?

Hero bets $4, BB calls $4.
River: ($18) Qh (2 players)
SB bets $10, BB calls $10.

Final Pot: $38

And indeed he had 58.

Redraws redux

2007-08-20T08:14:00.000+12:00

For no particular reason, I've been thinking about redraws in hold'em a bit lately. Here's another illustrative example:

Consider two holdings:

5♣5♥ (chosen in honour of guess who)
6♣7♣

on a board of 5♦8♦9♥. In both cases your opponent holds A♦K♦.

The set, with its redraws to a boat, has a 75/25 edge, whereas the flopped straight, which is dead if the diamond flush hits, has only a 63/37 edge.

In practical terms, the A♦K♦ hand would be correct to call a pot sized all in bet if he felt that he was up against the flopped straight, but not against the set.

In case you'd forgotten ...

2007-08-19T15:56:00.000+12:00

Why it's a bad idea to limp with AA (especially if shortstacked):

PokerStars Pot-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

Hero ($25.70)
UTG+1 ($8.85)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 5♣5♥.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.25, 2 folds, MP3 calls $0.25, CO calls $0.25, 1 fold, Hero completes, BB checks.

Flop: ($1.25) 5♠K♥3♥ (Bingo!)
Hero bets $0.75, BB calls $0.75, UTG+1 raises to $2.25, MP3 folds, CO calls $2.25, Hero raises to $10.95, BB folds, UTG+1 calls $6.35 (All-In), CO folds.

I made the pot sized reraise (this is pot limit) both for value, and in order to make it wrong for anyone chasing the heart flush to come along.

Turn: ($21.45) 8♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($21.45) 8♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)

I worried about the heart at first, but then realized it gave me my boat. Oops.

UTG+1 mucks A♣A♠

Too close (not) to call?

2007-08-18T13:37:00.000+12:00

About 1/4 of the field remain in a large, low buy in, MTT. You've been playing well, getting some cards, and have been blessed with a fairly passive table, and as a result have the chip lead at the table, with about 50BB. The average stack at this point is 20BB.

UTG+3 with AJ offsuit, you raise to 3BB (with blinds and antes, pot was 2BB before the raise). This folds to the small blind who pushes his 12.5BB into the pot. The SB has been with you at this table since the beginning of the tournament, and has been playing a very tight game.

So, do you call?

Under the circumstances it's a pure pot equity decision. If you call and lose you're still well placed, and if you call and win you're a bit better placed. The remaining field is still so large that knocking out a single player isn't an issue. Right then, what odds do you need? Your call is 10BB, the final pot will be 27.5BB, so your break even point is a 36% chance of winning the pot. Time to decide a hand range for the SB.

Let's start with a "tight" range, consistent with his previous play, and the fact that, while somewhat short stacked he had no particular need to make a play at exactly this moment. Say, TT+, AQ+. Since his unpaired hands mostly dominate yours, and his pairs are so good, your equity in that case is a pretty poor 28%. In order to get your 36%, if the unpaired hands aren't changed, you have to expand the paired range to 22+.

But changing the unpaired hands makes a big difference. If we add all KQ's, then suddenly the odds are right. Likewise if we leave the KQ's out but expand the Ax range down to AT.

So, too close to call or not?

The importance of redraws

2007-08-14T12:20:00.000+12:00

A reasonable rule of thumb when contemplating an all in after the flop is that each out is worth about 4% equity. But, it may be important to keep in mind the redraws that your opponent has. Here are a couple of illustrative cases:

You have T♠9♠, with a flop of 5♥7♠8♠. You're contemplating calling an all in from an opponent.

Discounting your overcard outs entirely it looks like you have 15 outs: any spade, any jack or any 6. So, on the rule of thumb basis, you're actually a favourite on the hand and are delighted to call.

But, the two cases where your opponent has a set, or an overpair are actually quite different. When he has the overpair (assuming that it's not JJ) then if you improve you are practically certain to win the hand (particularly if he doesn't hold a spade). It turns out that in this case you are actually about a 57:43 favourite.

However, when he has a set, the odds are virtually reversed, and solely because of his redraws to a boat. With more than 40% equity it's still probably correct for you to call (unless the all in bet is much bigger than the pot), but don't be tempted to think that the two situations are equivalent.

Back to basics

2007-08-10T08:56:00.000+12:00

With extra emphasis on the "back". I know, I've been a bad blogger (or a good non-blogger), but it's largely due to having been away at the Mathematical Olympiad where New Zealand did just fine (at least by our standards). But (perhaps) more on that another time.

Let's return to the meat and potatoes of this hear blog -- a painstakingly pedantic deconstruction of a routine poker hand. I know, I know, you can't wait.

The scene is $25 PLHE on Stars. I've found the game selection here remarkably good recently, and the bankroll has been thanking me for it. However, last night I was having one of those sessions where nothing seems to quite work out. It culminated in the following hand:

On the button, with more than a full stack, I was dealt 4♣3♣. UTG+1 who was new to the table, but already showing loose tendencies, and playing a shortish stack limped in. I decided to limp along and see a flop, and the blinds joined us.

The flop was Q♣T♣6♣, giving me a, let's say, rather vulnerable, flopped flush. The pot is $1 at this point, and loose limper led for $0.50.

First occasion for a bit of analysis. I think it's actually unlikely that he's also flopped a flush (people love to slowplay in that situation). He may just be randomly c-betting, or (more likely) has some piece of the flop, with or without a club behind it. It's clear that I should raise to protect my hand (and for value). However, I made a rather elementary error here and just min-raised. This cleared out the blinds, but getting 4:1 on his call it was clearly correct for loose limper to stay in the hand, and so he did.

Realizing my mistake, I expected to be punished by a fourth club on the turn. But no, it was the 2♦, a complete brick if I ever saw one. This time limper checked to me, and I bet $2 into the $3 pot. He called.

Now I'm moderately certain that he doesn't have a club flush to beat me. But what does he have? Set of 6's? Two pair? AT with the club ace? What a puzzle. We await the river with some anticipation.

It's the 6♥. Our dear opponent instantly pushes his remaining stack into the pot, almost exactly a pot sized bet. Oh my fur and whiskers ...

Is this a premeditated move, pushing the busted club draw on any sort of scare card? Did he just make quads?

Despite the general passivity of players at this level, and because I was on "depression tilt", I called, and was not entirely surprised when he turned over T♠6♠, having hit his four outer on the river.

Now here is a question: suppose, that along with my bet on the turn, I had exposed my cards and promised to call a push by him on the river regardless of what card hit (that is, I had guaranteed maximum implied odds). What odds would he be getting on his turn call? Effectively, 6:1. So, it was still a mistake!

Anyone know where I can spend some Sklansky bucks?

Reads or results

2007-07-10T19:21:00.000+12:00

It's always hard to remind yourself not to pay attention to the results of any one particular hand, but rather to analyze it according to the information available to you at the key moment. Case in point, a recent hand at $25NL.

In the BB I picked up TT. Folded around to the cutoff, a habitual raiser in late position who raised to $0.75. I reraised to $2.25, not particularly wanting to play TT from out of position. Here is where it got interesting -- he reraised all in, but because he was a short stack, I was getting between 2:1 and 3:1 on a call. I called without hesitation, and lost to AA.

In retrospect I was annoyed with myself, but then I realized that I'd probably played the hand pretty well. At the key moment (the final call) the least favourable (to me) range I can put him on is JJ+, AK. Against that range, I win 1/3 hands, so the call is clear. I actually think that his range is much wider than that, including some lower pairs, and more coin flip hands.

Of course what really stung was that it turned a small win at that table to a small loss. Ah well, shortly thereafter second pair on a Q74 flop decided to pay me off all the way to the river, when the Q on the turn convinced him that I didn't have one.

Picture dump

2007-07-07T15:14:00.000+12:00

Just a few photos from a walk out to Victory Beach on the Otago peninsula today. So called, because the wreck of a 19th century steamship, the Victory, can be seen there, rather than in commemoration of any event.

Last night was very cold, and there was still a fair bit of snow around on the hills. The air temperature though would have been about 8 or 9 degrees C, and there was little wind, so it was quite comfortable for walking. As you can see, the beach was extremely crowded. We first saw other people as we were returning to the car to come home.

Online poker is not rigged

2007-07-02T07:13:00.000+12:00

I can officially announce that it's time for everyone to put away the tin foil hats. I have definitive proof that online poker is not rigged. And the proof is that old mathematical favourite, a proof by contradiction.

For, it is clear that if online poker were rigged then certain things would follow. For instance, someone returning to a poker site after an absence of a month or so would be rewarded with a nice session or two. Nothing extravagant, but enough to make sure that the hook is once again well and deeply placed. Above all, such a person would be protected from precisely the sort of events that would lead a more susceptible personality to become convinced that online poker is rigged.

Well, it certainly hasn't happened that way, and therefore we can conclude beyond a shadow of a doubt that online poker is indeed not rigged.

QED

The transience of memory

2007-06-28T07:24:00.000+12:00

Brought to you today with a full helping of digressions and a bonus serving of nostalgia.

Three p.m. yesterday found me in my office, searching for toothpicks to prop my eyelids open as I waited for a four p.m. examiners meeting. In my defense, I had been at work since before seven a.m., and was still suffering from the previously discussed "not really jet lag, but there's no better word for it". The prospect of an examiners meeting is hardly something to set the pulse racing either. Basically, these consist of discussions where we all agree that our colleagues have graded their exams correctly (based only on a list of marks) and they do likewise for us.

So, in search of diversion I fired up PokerStars and prepared to do a bit of kibitzing. Does one kibitz in poker? I suppose so, though I associate the term more closely with bridge. Pause to consult the interweb. Gosh, who knew -- here's a rather nice discussion of kibitz, which certainly indicates the wider sense, in fact the first example refers to poker. Anyhoo ...

I spotted Fuel at a short handed 5/10 table and dropped in to wish him luck at the WSOP Main Event as well as to watch the fireworks. And fireworks there certainly were. Chips were flying everywhere. Three way all ins seemed to be the norm. It got so crazy that at some point I felt compelled to remark: "Why am I thinking of Lewis Carroll: 'You don't have to be crazy to play here ...'".

And then that annoying little man in my head started clamouring for attention:

"Just what Lewis Carroll quote is that please?"

"Oh come on", I replied, "you know, the Cheshire cat says it to Alice before she goes off to the Mad Hatter's tea party."

"I think not. Would you care to have a little wager on it? If I'm right you have to blog this sordid little tale, if you're right I won't bother you for a week."

Those were certainly excellent pot odds, or so I thought. Thus, off to the interweb it was to prove that silly little fellow wrong. You'd think I'd know better by now. It pains me to admit it, but apparently the phrase "You don't have to be crazy to verb here, but it helps" is the sole province of stupid signs on desks and coffee mugs, and has nothing to do with Lewis Carroll. I did find one other similarly confused soul somewhere on a motorcycling discussion group (complete with the Cheshire cat reference) but the little fellow said that didn't count, and really I can't argue. It just seems to be a play it again Sam thing, though now I suppose that "quote" is more famous for being "not a quote" than otherwise.

For the record, the passage from Alice in Wonderland that I seemed to be thinking of comes from towards the end of Chapter 6:

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. `What sort of people live about here?'

`In that direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, `lives a Hatter: and in that direction,' waving the other paw, `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

Tenniel's illustration of that scene featured on a much derided math freshman T-shirt in my second year at Waterloo (with the caption "We're all mad here" as I recall.) My frosh shirt just had a big empty set symbol on it. The highly commended next frosh shirt (I wonder who had a hand in its design) featured π to several hundred digits.

Bonus geek points for spotting either possible reference in the title.

And we're back

2007-06-27T07:43:00.000+12:00

Paying due respect to my jet lagged state (but see below), I decided to minimize my financial risk at the poker tables last night, entering a $2.20 MTT and a $1.20 9-table SNG. I almost couldn't cope with the excitement ...

Discovered that I play passive when tired, and towards the end of the first hour (25/50 blinds) of the MTT was down to about 900 in chips. In late position I got 77 and decided to push over two limpers, just hoping to boost my stack a little. I hadn't been playing many pots, and I really didn't expect a call from either one of them. Unfortunately the BB woke up with AK and won the race. Hey it happens.

The exit from the SNG was a little more interesting. Still relatively early, I got JJ in the SB. Three limps (50 each) in front, so I (1285) raised to 300. Two of the limpers called, making a 1000 chip pot. The flop was a pretty dry T75 rainbow, and I simply pushed, hoping to pick up some money from a TPGK hand, and otherwise to avoid having to see the turn, while willing to take the chance that one of the other two had hit a set. After due reflection, the first of the limpers decided his T7 offsuit was worth a call. Welcome back to donkeytown. Let's just rewind a little ... oh never mind.

About jet lag. I actually don't think that the condition one suffers after crossing half the world's timezones should be called jet lag. Classic jet lag is when your body clock tries to stay on its "home" setting after crossing a few (three to six or so) time zones. It's hugely annoying, and can be nearly impossible to beat. After crossing twelve time zones, even your body clock realizes that something rather unusual has taken place and generally throws up its hands in the air and says "So all right, you tell me what time it is." But typically one gets about six hours of broken sleep in a 48 hour period during the trip, along with too much bad food, petty annoyances, stiff joints, etc. So it's not surprising to find that one is a little tired and grumpy for a few days after arrival. And I guess "jet lag" is as good a name as any for that.

The odyssey

2007-06-26T10:38:00.000+12:00

I thought about doing this post as a retelling of the real thing, but that would be a bit lame and probably impossible in a state of incipient jet lag and besides, it's been done very well indeed, and that would be hard to live up to.

Statutory warning I: This is a thinly disguised bad beat story. But, like at least some of that genre, it contains amusing and/or instructive moments.

Statutory warning II: This post violates Rule 23.1 of blogdom, which requires that blog entries should fit on a single screen.

Non statutory warning: Proof reading facilities may be temporarily unavailable or unreliable owing to jet lag.

So, when we last heard from our hero (that would be me) he was contemplating a 40 hour journey from Scotland to New Zealand. Let the tale of that journey begin.

I'm an experienced traveler. But, until I've actually checked in for my flight(s) at the airport, I'm always nervous. After that, if anything goes wrong it's the airline's problem and they can deal with it. So I tend to arrive for my first flight early. Besides, I'm rather tall -- not basketball tall, but tall enough that when, perforce, I'm flying economy it's vital to be able to get an aisle seat and highly desirable to get bulkhead or exit rows. This explains at least in part why I was at Edinburgh Turnhouse airport at 1430 for a 1720 flight to London.

At Edinburgh I got boarding passes for the flights as far as Christchurch which I could see were aisle seats, and which, I was assured, were exit rows. I didn't trust the latter claim because the row numbers looked wrong for the 747's. But, I was hardly in any position to climb over the counter and investigate on the computer myself, much as I might have liked to.

Having supplemented my supply of reading materials with the Saturday Times, I proceeded through to the departures area. I glanced at the departures monitors, and noted that my flight was listed with a "15 minute" delay. Other experienced travelers will know how bad this is. If you have a 1720 flight, and the departure is listed as 1735, that's fine. It usually means that the incoming flight is in the air with a known arrival time and there's going to be a 15 minute delay. But, when they say "15 minute delay", it means one of two things. Either the incoming flight isn't off the ground at its origin yet or you already have a plane on the ground but there are technical problems. In either case it's more of a "don't say we didn't tell you it was going to be late" message, as opposed to any sort of reasoned judgment about an actual departure time.

A little detective work revealed that all flights coming from the southeast of England were experiencing delays. That suggested weather problems there (consistent with information from the newspaper, and the fact that Wimbledon would soon be starting.) Sure enough, a while later "15 minutes" was changed to "45 minutes", and some time after that to "1 hour 30 minutes".

That estimate almost held. The incoming flight arrived, we got on, and were told we had a runway slot at 1855. But, we had the classic "one checked in passenger not on board" situation. I've got every sympathy for people who are unavoidably detained by a late connection or whatever, but how can you fail to board a plane on time when said plane is already 90 minutes late? Anyhow, we missed that runway slot and as a result didn't take off until 1920. At least I had an exit row seat.

That had us on the ground at Heathrow around 2030 and amazingly at a gate by 2045. My Sydney flight was due to take off from terminal 4 at 2200. An hour and 15 minutes is ample time for a person, particularly one in reasonably good physical shape and experienced at Heathrow, to get between terminals 1 and 4, but I had a pretty strong feeling that my luggage would not be up to it.

I was not impressed to find that my Qantas flight to Sydney was actually being run by British Airways, with Qantas as a code share. The quality of service on BA has, in my experience, ahem, let's just say, not been of the highest standard. I'm actually still a bit perplexed by this, since my travel agent knows, and shares, my preferences, and there was a "real" Qantas flight at almost the same time. I'll have to check what happened.

Anyhow, BA decided to try an experiment: whether or not a full load of 747 passengers could be rendered more docile by cooking them prior to take off. Somehow, we got disconnected from the external air conditioning unit (or it broke down, it was never clear) and then with the inevitable "we're waiting for some cargo" delays got to sit in sweltering temperatures for over an hour. I'd not be surprised to be told that they got above 35C. An hour late at takeoff, not a big deal on the long hauls because it can usually be made up, and also because the scheduled ground time in Bangkok at almost 3 hours was far longer than actually needed to clean, refuel and restock the plane.

Oh yeah, I had an aisle all right, but not an exit row. Also it was in the poorest possible position relative to the food serving area -- that is, near it, meaning that I would be nearly last to be served and would likely have to take whatever menu item had been least possible (again, on long hauls, Qantas and Air New Zealand have frequently gone with the policy of serving the main meal on the second leg in the opposite direction to that on the first leg, but I've never run across this simple and admirable idea on other airlines.)

And then, the real fun began. In seat on demand entertainment systems are the greatest boon to long haul flights since, well, since ever. And like all such boons, they quickly set themselves in your mind as an indispensable part of the whole process. We took off, they turned the system on. I started to watch Eragon, just the right sort of mindless junk for the situation. A chorus of "dings" revealed that only about 1/3 of us actually had access to our systems. There followed a series of system shutdowns, waits, reboots, etc. Each had the effect of making the system available to about 1/3 of the passengers. Not always the same third, but always about 1/3. Eventually they gave up and switched over to the more robust scheduled programming mode. Sigh. I suspect that some vital part of the system hadn't responded well to being cooked prior to take off.

Bangkok was a pleasant surprise. It had slipped my mind that, when last I passed through what was then a rather dingy and unpleasant airport, there had been a great furore about the fact that a brand new one was due to open soon. So, it was the new one we were at. While not quite up to Singapore standards (more glass, which is nice, but which makes the climate control a bit unreliable), it's nice enough. If you're passing through, check whether you can reach your departure gate from Level 3 where most of the frequent flier clubs are, rather than Level 4, the main shopping concourse. There were long queues at Level 4, but you could just walk right up to security on Level 3.

Quite a few people on the flight, who were continuing to Sydney, got caught by the new security regulations there. They'd picked up duty free liquor in London (a poor decision in any case, since you can buy it more cheaply on landing in Sydney and then you don't have to carry it). The plane had to be cleared completely in Bangkok, but then the liquids couldn't come back on board since we had to clear security again and the 100ml rule applied. Much grumbling about not having been told about this in advance.

Off we go from Bangkok, back on schedule. The entertainment system continues to crap out and is essentially unusable for most of the flight. I managed to see about 20 minutes of Gangs of New York, which I was really enjoying, though it was a bit heavy for airline fare. Then I randomly got access to Men in Black which I thought had aged rather poorly. This time they gave us all "We apologize" forms to fill out. No doubt, any compensation offered will be completely useless to me.

Sydney was nothing much. I was fairly much in zombie mode by that point in any case. The gate staff were in an extremely grumpy mood and, in particular, were being gratuitously rude to various Asian passengers who were nervously checking whether their boarding passes were o.k. (they were), and then were having difficulties following quickly delivered instructions in broad Australian accents.

And on to Christchurch. Sure enough, no sign of my luggage. I did all the usual stuff at the baggage inquiry counter. Both pieces were already registered in the system as not having made it on to the flight (that was certainly news to me!) The system further indicated that one had been placed on the same flight the following day. The other, well, the other was apparently dispatched two weeks ago. Heathrow must be trying out a new time machine as a solution to the late luggage problem. We'll see where they get with that. I was a bit worried to be asked rather pointedly whether I had travel insurance (as it happens, I did, because I was traveling on university business).

The lost luggage had one unfortunate side effect. When I do need to check bags, I'm a strong believer in taking only the essentials in my carry on. So, in particular, my checked bags contained my sweatshirt, polar fleece coat, and GoreTex jacket. I'd been planning to pull all of these out in Christchurch prior to going on to Dunedin where rain, sleet and snow featured prominently in the forecast. Instead I would have to face it in a light shirt and suit jacket (I still dream of random upgrades.) Face it I did, especially as the shuttle driver had to drop me at the top end of my street owing to ice. Brr.

Switched the hot water heater on, and was looking forward to a nice shower after dinner, and catching up on the final two episodes of Heroes before an early bedtime (I got home about 1800 local time). So, at about 2030 I went to take a shower. No hot water. What??? And then I remembered ...

Hot water systems in NZ frequently feature ripple control. This means that for load balancing purposes, especially in cold weather, they're frequently shut off. Ooops.

Oh well, I got a good night's sleep and a hot shower this morning. Exams are graded, and I'm feeling remarkably chipper, despite, or perhaps because of, having had to walk to work as my street was an ice rink on an 8% grade. Now, we'll just have to see about the luggage.

Wish me luck ...

2007-06-23T20:44:00.000+12:00

40+ hour journey ahead.

St Andrews - Leuchars (Car)
Leuchars - Edinburgh Haymarket (Train)
Edinburgh Haymarket - Edinburgh Turnhouse Airport (Bus)
Edinburgh Turnhouse - Heathrow (757-200)
Heathrow - Bangkok (747-400)
Bangkok - Sydney (747-400)
Sydney - Christchurch (767-300)
Christchurch - Dunedin Airport (Aerospatiale)
Dunedin Airport - Dunedin City (Shuttle)
Bed ...

In the "small things are the most annoying" category comes the fact that the train actually passes through Edinburgh Turnhouse, but when that airport was being developed none of the clever people involved thought it might be a good idea to include a train station.

And, oh yes, this is what I have to look forward to when I get home.

Quick update from St Andrews

2007-06-19T20:28:00.001+12:00

Our conference last week went off well. I didn't see any of you in the audience at my talk, but rest assured that the jokes weren't that good. The temporary computer accounts that we were assigned worked only on student computer labs. In some fit of administrative overzealousness, these blocked all cookies and hence prevented blogging, or even submitting blog comments. Hence, an enforced silence.

Last week's weather here was more reminiscent of what I'd expect to see in Dunedin at this time of year -- cold, wet, and windy. Just the right sort of conditions for doing mathematics.

Four more sleeps before I head back to NZ, and the chance to play some poker!

Angels wept

2007-06-09T21:43:00.000+12:00

I was lucky enough to be invited to dinner at High Table in Trinity College last night. The wines on the table were a sauvignon blanc from Touraine, a Loire appellation which I was not really familiar with; and a red (pinot noir of course) Chassagne-Montrachet. The latter was superb.

And why did the angels weep? At a guess about 1/4 of the wine on the table was drunk. I can only hope that the remainder was consumed in quiet appreciation by some of the staff.

Up, up and away

2007-06-05T11:00:00.000+12:00

A few hours to go before the Brisbane-Heathrow flight. Over the last couple of weeks it's amused me occasionally to read bloggers (you know who you are) complaining about "long" flights within the continental USA. Well, let me tell you ... (Monty Python fans, feel free to imagine the "When I were a lad" sketch here).

There are three internationally recognized ways of measuring the length of a journey involving air travel(*). From shortest to longest these are: initial take off to final landing, door to door, time from waking up at start to going to sleep at destination. My trip "today" (which is actually relatively short by the Australasia-UK standards) comes in at: 25 hours, 29 hours (UK traffic willing), 48 hours (if I can manage to keep my eyes open until some sort of reasonable hour for going to bed).

So, don't come whining to me about your 6 hour flights. The "best" journey of this sort I ever had was a few years ago when I was traveling from Dunedin to Turku, Finland. Just before takeoff, I called my family who were about to start a day's skiing in Wanaka. From Copenhagen, with a 3 hour wait in the airport plus a short hop to Turku still to go I called them again as they were sitting down to dinner after skiing -- for the second time.

(*) I just made that up.

Getting paid with quads

2007-06-04T15:50:00.000+12:00

Just another from the "$25NL files":

UTG limps. With J♥J♣ in the cutoff, I raise to $1. Everyone folds, except UTG who calls, and the flop comes a very promising A♥Q♦J♠. UTG checks. Fully expecting to be check raised, I bet $1.50 into the $2.35 pot. UTG disappoints me (a little) by just calling. On the check raise I'd have reraised of course, taking my chances on the immature feline.

The J♦ comes on the turn giving me quads. UTG checks again. I read him as extremely passive, and I don't expect a river bet if I check. So $2 goes into the $5.35 pot. He duly calls. The river is the K♥. He checks again (dancing with the girl who brought him), and, hoping against hope for a check raise (AK, AT ...) but basically resigned to a certain fold, I bet $5 into the $9.35 pot.

Which he calls again, in effect his fifth call of the hand (counting the initial limp), arguably even his eighth call (including the checks). I did mention that he was extremely passive didn't I?

His hand of course is more or less immaterial, but is in fact: A♣8♠. Well played sir, you're welcome at my table anytime.

Time to kill

2007-06-02T09:32:00.000+12:00

Waiting for the airport shuttle ... so time for a little venting.

I ran across a post by Bill Rini, which referenced a New Scientist article, allegedly concerning a breakthrough in bot research. It seemed like exciting stuff, more so when you read the first paragraph of the article:

IMAGINE being up against a poker player who can calculate the exact odds of a hand being a winner, play it with a straight face, and if necessary bluff with the best of them. Such a player exists, but you won't find him wearing a Stetson or hiding behind a pair of dark glasses. This player lurks within a computer, created by a pair of academics who have succeeded in making a software agent that can bluff just like a human player can.

The body of the article contains the usual unsubstantiated claims from "experts" such as: "Given the current state of poker bots, if you are losing to them you should be ashamed". Aside from the fact that there seems to be lots of evidence that this is not true -- should one really expect that those people who might be in possession of winning bots would advertise the fact? That is, aside from academic groups like those at the University of Alberta. These groups are handicapped by not being able to test and develop their bots in real play, as it would violate the terms and conditions at most sites, which I have to add is fair enough (though I think they should be allowed to play freerolls, with some provision for not actually collecting prize money).

Anyhow, my olfactory sense was further offended by the smell of bullshit when I read a quote from one of the authors of the original academic paper on which the New Scientist article is based:

That's because the bots now playing poker can't bluff convincingly. "Computers are programmed to perform the best strategy, but bluffing is based on unexpected, illogical actions," says Evan Hurwitz, a computer scientist at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Now that's just so wrong. For most poker style games, bluffing is provably part of a "best strategy" (however you wish to interpret that phrase). The quote implies that incorporating "unexpected, illogical actions" is impossible in a program, when really it's simply a matter of making a few judiciously placed random number choices.

I was pleased that the original article was also referenced, so I went to have a look at it. Seriously underwhelming. The first point is that it has nothing to do with poker, contrary to the claims in the first paragraph of the New Scientist article. Then, the paper itself is just a train wreck. Here is a selection of a few of the things I found to disagree with or be annoyed by. Some are mere annoyances, but several are substantial:

The abstract and introduction make out that the bluffing result is the main part of the paper, when in fact its mentioned in a short section at the end.

The authors couldn't be bothered to learn how to incorporate graphics without nasty gray backgrounds.

Even if they had, the only graph that can reasonably be interpreted contains no information. The ones which might contain information have differently coloured or shaded lines that can't be told apart (ye old paste from Excel bug), and don't support the claims made about them in the text. They have no legends, axis labels, nor explanatory captions. In a high school science project they'd be given a 0 for that part of the assessment.

The game considered has absurd extra rules (it may well be a commonly played game in South Africa, but for an academic paper it could really be stripped to its essential form).

The modeling ignores what would be a key feature in actual play (basically, in poker terms, that there would occasionally be "kill" pots).

Finally, the example of bluffing behaviour would come down in poker terms to folding KK in the BB because of a late position raise. That is, it's an indication of the stupidity of the folding agent, not the cleverness of the bluffing one.

And one final point -- the description of the actual bluffing scenario in the New Scientist article is substantially different (and a better story) than that in the actual paper. Perhaps that's the way it actually happened, but an unpleasant odour lingers.

Toilet humour

2007-06-02T07:33:00.000+12:00

England-Brazil friendly at Wembley. Everyones favourite stock Irishman Tommy Smyth says "Steve Gerrard is doing a great job of sticking to Kaka". Funny, usually the problem is to keep kaka from sticking to you.

Eh?

2007-06-01T19:26:00.000+12:00

One doesn't expect much of the players at $25NL, but tonight, between bouts of packing, something happened, which left me scratching my head even at this level.

Three limpers to me on the button with A♠J♦. I just limp too. Flop is A♣8♦4♥. There are not many hands that I'm worried about, just A4, A8, 88 and 44. When everyone checks to me I bet the pot hoping to drag along a weak ace and avoid his kicker. Everyone folds except the last of the limpers who makes baby Jebus cry with a check min-raise. He's shown distinct maniacal tendencies in the time I've been here, so I'm not too worried. Nevertheless, I simply call.

The turn is the glorious J♠. He checks, I bet $4 into the $7.50 pot. Baby Jebus cries again, when he once again check min-raises to $8. I reraise to $16 which coincidentally is exactly enough to put him all in. He calls, and I resign myself to a split pot (or a loss to 88 or 44). The Q♦ on the river adds another bit of worry, until he turns over K♣6♥.

Eh?

Even if he thought the check min-raises were a clever way of pretending to be strong, what on earth is going on with the final call?

The doctor is in

2007-05-31T20:37:00.000+12:00

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 ...

2007-05-31T19:40:00.000+12:00

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

2007-05-31T17:05:00.000+12:00

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

2007-05-31T08:57:00.000+12:00

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?

2007-05-30T17:15:00.000+12:00

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

2007-05-29T20:00:00.001+12:00

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!)

2007-05-29T18:24:00.000+12:00

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

2007-05-29T07:10:00.000+12:00

$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

2007-05-28T07:42:00.000+12:00

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

2007-05-27T10:36:00.000+12:00

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

2007-05-26T11:11:00.000+12:00

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

2007-05-25T07:01:00.000+12:00

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

2007-05-23T20:53:00.000+12:00

$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' ...

2007-05-23T09:28:00.000+12:00

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.

Just to keep the pipes from freezing

2007-04-30T11:05:00.000+12:00

I moved into the new house over the weekend. Photos when I manage to borrow a camera from someone. Still lots to organize, along with yet another brief trip to Australia at the end of this week. So, updates here will continue to be sporadic.

"It's an easy game" OR "44 is the new 55"

2007-04-13T20:00:00.000+12:00

Playing .25/.50 NLHE, I have slightly more than my original $50. Over two limpers, the player two seats to my right bets pot. He's a solid, winning, player at these levels, and probably has AK or QQ+ (possibly KK+). I have 44.

Fuelishly I call (despite being short a spot). We wind up four ways to the flop, including the button, so I don't quite have position. On a flop of 442 it quickly becomes clear to me that position is not likely to be a factor. Original raiser bets pot, (I might have preferred a check from him, so that I could put in a probe sized bet trying to keep as many people as possible in the pot) I call, the other two fold. The pot and our stacks are now roughly equal. The turn is a J, so I figure that I'm not being runner-runner over-quadded (I know there's no such word, but I couldn't resist). The raiser now checks.

I make a small $15 bet, slightly under half the pot, in order that my push on the river (assuming he calls) will only be for 1/3 the pot. He calls, and calls the river (5) too, showing KK.

I think he could have gotten away from that, since he's beaten by all of 22, 44, JJ and AA (plus 55, but that would be inconsistent). Even JJ would be a little odd, except his pot sized bet at that point was with four in the pot, so could have been a strong continuation move with AK on what looked like a dry flop.

On the other hand it has to be said that, in the long run at these levels if you adopt a policy of never folding KK under any circumstances you will be well ahead of the game.

AAPP v.1 n.1: Abridged version

2007-04-12T09:41:00.000+12:00

Cutoff flopped a king high flush and I flopped a set of 5's. Turn brought me DQB and I stacked his sorry donkey ass. BwaaaaHaaaHaaaHaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Editorial note
Submissions to the Annals of Anecdotal Poker Perusal are welcomed. Full paper submissions, with or without abridged versions, are preferred. However, an abridged submission may be considered, and expanded to a full version by the editors, if it is of sufficiently general interest.

Apologies
The editors would like to apologize for the inclusion of the final sentence in the Introduction and Methods sections of the full version of this paper. This was undoubtedly someone elses fault.

Annals of Anecdotal Poker Perusal (v1.n1)

2007-04-12T09:05:00.000+12:00

Concerning the vulnerability of strong hands post flop.

Abstract
We investigate the proposition that certain very strong hands post flop are, contrary to popular belief, in fact quite vulnerable. Results are presented and discussed.

Introduction
Other authors have previously observed that flopped straights, an apparently strong hand, are in fact quite vulnerable. This observation has been referred to variously as “Rule 45” or “Flopped straights always lose.” The intention of this study was to investigate whether or not this proposition also applied to stronger flopped hands.

A controlled experiment was carried out and all the relevant data recorded. Owing to various circumstances beyond the author's control (see Methods), only one hand met the criteria to be included in this study. This did however support the position that strong flopped hands (in this case, a king high flush) may in fact be more vulnerable than heretofore believed. While the statistical significance of these observations is problematic, the outcome is so surprising and of potential importance for the community of poker players and researchers, that we felt early publication was in order. Besides that, we have a promotion case coming up, and needed some new publications.

Methods
The investigators three-tabled at NLHE .10/.25 on the PokerStars site. The limits were chosen to ensure that the study remained within budget, although in fact the research resulted in a profit of $45. A total of N=317 hands were recorded, and for exactly Q=1 could it be determined that one of the players had flopped a flush or better. This hand is discussed in detail below. Pressures to publish, and threatened onset of insanity from playing at these limits on this site precluded further data collection.

Results
Eight handed, we were on the button with 5♥5♣.UTG limped, UTG+1 min raised, and all but one MP player and the blinds saw the flop of Q♦5♦7♦. A MP player bet $0.50 into a pot of $2.85, raised to $1 by the cutoff. With our set, we reraised to $2. MP folded and the cutoff called. The turn was the 5♣. The cutoff bet $2 of his remaining $7.50 into the $7.35 pot. We simply called, and then reraised the $2.50 river bet to put him all in. He had flopped a flush with K♦T♦.

Discussion and conclusions
As noted above, our data are somewhat limited, so it would be somewhat premature to draw any strong conclusions. In particular, another author has proposed that 55, also called Presto, is a hand of special signficance in that it wins with improbable frequency against apparently stronger hands. A check of our database (which we could not report in the body of the article, because the data was not gathered under controlled conditions) shows that on one other occasion 55 overcame a flopped top full house (JJ on a J55 flop), but it is unclear whether or not this would fit the parameters of the study in any case, as the JJ hand was already behind on the flop. Arguably, to support our tentative conclusions, a further J would have had to arrive on the turn or river.

Nonetheless, it seems that a trend is emerging, in which very strong flopped hands frequently lose. This was first observed concerning straights (and perhaps also by the previously mentioned author and ourselves concerning top two pair, though again this situation was discussed in the context of being behind already on the flop). If indeed it is the case that stronger and stronger hands are being run down, to use the vernacular parlance, then this may be an effect analogous to that by which industrial contaminants work their way upwards through the food chain, and is certainly of great significance.

Pollyanna poker

2007-04-11T11:03:00.000+12:00

It's always nice to have a Pollyanna or two at the cash table with you.

Over one limper, I completed the SB with A♣9♣ and the BB checked his option. The flop was not unattractive: T♣J♠Q♣ leaving open the possibility of the six card royal (granted, I'd need runner-runner for that, but still ...). I bet $1 into the $1.50 pot. The BB folded, but the limper called.

Turn was the K♠ giving me the (possibly split) nuts, with redraws to the nuts (but also to a spade flush which would be sad). So, I bet $2 into the $3.50 pot. The limper called.

The river was a small club. So, ... I bet $3 into the $7.50 pot (I couldn't resist the 1-2-3 sequence). The limper called, on a board showing four to broadway and a three flush, with ... wait for it ... K♦7♠ i.e. top pair with the board as kicker.

Abdication of the kings

2007-04-10T18:37:00.000+12:00

Just to finish the story from yesterday. Both private and public comments seem to agree with my fold (if you're new to this one, I have black kings and have led pre-flop, and into two opponents on the flop and turn. The board is 2357 with two each of the red suits. Over my 3/4 pot sized bet of $10 on the turn, one player has raised to $23 and the next all in to $26, I folded).

So imagine my surprise, as they say, after a black ten on the river, when:

Mr “Definitely on Tilt” the original raiser, turns over A♦2♠ for bottom pair, gutshot, and an over card
Mr “Normal until Now” BB, turns over 4♥4♠ for underpair, open ended straight draw.

My jaw dropped ...

I guess, when you play with the donkeys you've got to expect the occasional kick to the shins (or other, more sensitive, parts of the anatomy).

Will I fold next time? I don't know. In any reasonable construction I'm massively behind chasing zero (made straight), one (made set, flush draw for the other) or two outs (two made sets?) If I allow for optimism and just put both players on flush draws, with some straight possibilities, I'm certainly ahead, but not massively so.

More cash game fun

2007-04-09T21:02:00.000+12:00

I managed a series of profitable short sessions at the cash tables today, thanks largely to a few big hands (I know, it's taken me this long to learn that's how you make money at low stakes no limit hold'em ...)

But here's one where I decided that discretion was the better part of valour. Was I right? I'll leave you to think about it.

In EP, I ($90) pick up K♠K♣. I raise to $1.50, called by the player two to my left ($70) who may be tilt-calling me. Early in the session I doubled against him holding TT to his JJ on a QT9 flop, and ever since it seems that he's in every pot I am. The BB ($28) who has not previously done anything remarkable also calls.

The flop is 2♦5♥7♦. The BB checks, and I bet $3 into the $4.75 pot. This again is called around. The turn is the 3♥. The BB checks again, I bet $10 into the $13.75 (minus rake) pot. Mr Maybe-Tilt raises to $23. I am planning to push over this (I think), but the BB now goes all in for about $3 more. So, $16 for me to call, about $69 in the pot, and my neighbour still has about $40 behind.

Oh my fur and whiskers ...

I fold. What say you?

Gloat while the gloating is good

2007-04-09T14:31:00.000+12:00

I've been playing some poker while on holiday. Not a lot, and not in long sessions, so I've been concentrating on the continued development of my cash game. My current level of choice is two-tabling .25/.50 NLHE on UltimateBet.

I was having one of those sessions -- if my first card was paint, my second was a deuce, three or four of the opposite colour. If I got a monster hand like 88, the flop would come AKT all of one suit. I was in serious risk of going on card dead tilt as the blinds, occasional limp, and occasional raise dribbled away. It didn't help that the previous session had been much the same, nor that the blinds from whom I was most likely to steal were calling stations of the highest order.

So, when I picked up AJ suited in the hijack seat with no action in front of me, it certainly looked like a monster, and I put in my normal 3BB raise. This was called only by the SB, a player on the maniacal (and losing) end of loose aggressive, on whom I also had the cryptic note: "bluffed with a min raise of a continuation sized bet".

The flop came KQx, with one card of my suit, and he bet $1 into the $3.50 pot. That seemed rather suspicious to me and so, for various reasons, I raised to $3. First of all, he might well be full of fecal matter, and this would take the pot down. Secondly, he might well have an underpair (my image at this point would have been very weak tight, so this would not have been such a ridiculous move), leaving me with lots of outs (or taking the pot down). Thirdly he might have a K or a Q, call, and I'd probably be able to get a free card. So my main hope was that he would fold, but if he called I wasn't too upset. Call he did.

The turn was another blank (not in my suit) and he checked, so I simply checked behind. The river was a glorious ten, giving me the nuts. To make it even better, he now bet $5. I raised to $10 (putting my note to good work -- if he used the min raise as a bluff, he might read min raises as bluffs), he reraised to $30 and I re-reraised all in (for not a whole lot more, having started with $49). I did contemplate just calling, trying to avoid paying extra rake on what I anticipated would be a split pot, but in the end decided there was enough chance that I was actually good that I might as well go for the throat.

He called, and showed QQ.

Now boys and girls your homework for today is to suggest at just how many different places in this hand he should have done better.

Apologies

2007-04-03T09:35:00.000+12:00

To my two loyal, and three disloyal, readers for the recent lack of activity in this corner of the blogiverse. No exciting excuses, just a lack of inspiration/material. I'm off on holiday for a couple of weeks, but may well be playing a reasonable amount of poker this time 'round, so we'll see whether the muse returns.

If not, I trust that you're using some form of RSS feed and not bothering to check in directly.

Kats have birthdays too?

2007-03-28T07:40:00.000+12:00

In the words of the great bard “bee there or bee a rectangular thynge.”

Note to self: Remember to buy vermouth.

Turbo two

2007-03-26T15:41:00.000+12:00

Finally completed my second set of twenty single table turbo sng's (11 at $3.40, 9 at $6.50).

ROI: 35%
ITM: 45% (5/11, 4/9)

Cumulative ROI is 54%.

Next set is 6 at $3.40, 14 at $6.50 (pocketing half the winnings as usual).

This time around I wasn't freerolling until the final two. I've got a general impression that the games are definitely tightening up, though perhaps my time zone selection wasn't as good. In my sole 10th place finish this set, the blinds were already at 75/150! I also have a feeling that I was relatively unlucky over this set -- more so than I usually feel when luck has in fact been normal. In particular I seemed to lose a lot of consecutive coinflips. Not going to make much of that though.

Running review: Brighton Beach

2007-03-24T14:28:00.000+12:00

Length: 8 km (Parking lot to west end, back to estuary, back to parking lot).

Pros:

Beautiful flat sandy beach (little camber)
Generally unoccupied
Wildlife: at the estuary end, plenty of bird life; occasional seals on the beach proper
Other life: local harness racing trainers frequently exercise their horses on the beach
The "out and back and out and back" pattern means that you can sensibly quit half way through if the conditions are poor, or you're not feeling well

Cons:

Twenty minute drive out of town
Fairly exposed, and lots of loose sand, so avoid in the wind
Wildlife: occasional sea lions (you don't want to mess with these)
Other life: popular dog walking spot (usually not a worry -- sometimes the sheep dogs think you're a runaway sheep though)
The "out and back and out and back" pattern means that you can be a wimp and quit half way through if the conditions are poor, or you're not feeling well.
No decent alternative routes if the tide is wrong (so -- you didn't check? Silly you.)

The beach continues for some distance east past the estuary, but to get there you'd have to get your feet very wet indeed. Conceivably you could run up the estuary to the bridge (just visible above) and then down the other side, but I've never bothered. One more image:

(Second image from DenisWilford.com -- taken in 1964, but it hasn't changed a bit)

The sweet 16 has nothing on this ...

2007-03-23T14:35:00.000+12:00

Police hunt Woolmer's murderer

The risks of coaching a cricket team knocked out in the first round of the World Cup by Ireland (as Garth said “To put this in perspective, this is like a Div II College basketball team beating, say, Kentucky.”)

But this story really has everything, including a link to match fixing allegations.

And at the risk of plumbing even greater depths of tastelessness, what's the over/under before we see this as a storyline on CSI? Not about cricket obviously ... college basketball/football coach found dead in casino hotel ...

Middle aged moan

2007-03-23T11:37:00.000+12:00

It's no secret, and in any case would be easy to discover, that I'm in my mid-40's -- middle aged by any sensible definition (though I guess still slightly pre-middle of my adult life -- whatever). And there's one part of it I hate (no, not that one, get your mind out of the gutter). So, herewith a moan.

I was out running yesterday. I came to a small wire barrier (so that teenage drivers don't cleverly drive their cars onto a rugby pitch), which I routinely hurdled, as I've done a hundred times now probably. But, I caught my trail foot on the wire and went down on the grass in an undignified heap. (Cue laugh track)

In my 20's, things would have progressed as follows: I would have said “oh bother”, or words to that effect; looked around in embarrassment to see if there were any witnesses; and then picked myself up and run on. A slight sting from the graze on my elbow would have been the only consequence.

Now, things start out in much the same way. But, when I get up to run on, I discover that I've somehow managed to strain a calf muscle in my left leg, my hamstring in my right leg, and my left shoulder (which is not even the one I landed on) is absurdly sore.

Moan, moan, moan. Just another bad beat.

Pot, shot, potshot

2007-03-19T10:55:00.000+12:00

I've been playing more cash NLHE at UltimateBet lately, gradually building my bankroll and moving up through the limits. Since this isn't my real bankroll, I've been ignoring Chris Ferguson's 5% rule (don't buy in for more than 5% of your bankroll) in favour of a 25% rule. My general pattern is to two table, playing about 50 hands per table, before taking a break. So, I'm not grinding out thousands upon thousands of hands per day, but perhaps 1000 a week, more or less.

The following hand pushed my roll over the next tipping point. It felt fairly fishy on my part at the time, but I'm starting to think differently. Anyhow, you be the judge. We're playing $0.10/$0.25 NLHE, I was up a bit to $29.10, and the SB had $16.80.

In the cutoff, I was dealt Q♥Q♣. Folded to me, I bet pot ($0.85) just because it was easier than typing in a 3xBB bet. In turn, the SB bet pot ($2.80). It had been a fairly passive table, but cards had been running my way, and my image was probably looser than I was actually playing. Based on that, I expected, to be significantly ahead of the SB's range at this point (in fact against AJ+, 77+, which I'd consider moderately tight here, I have 60% pot equity). So, I raised pot again ($8.65). At this point the SB went all in, which was a raise of $8.15 over and above my previous bet.

A tad better than 3:1 odds to call.

The first question is: what range do we assign to the SB?

If just KK and AA, then our odds aren't good enough (we'd need 4:1). Adding the one remaining QQ hand wouldn't change that any, but adding JJ certainly would (we'd be up to 40% pot equity).

What about AK? Let's think about matters from the perspective of the SB holding AK. The initial pot sized reraise makes sense. What about the position after I pot again? It's much the same story. If he feels my range there is QQ+, AK (and he might well suspect that the pairs go lower and the aces down to AQ), then he must at least call (he's getting 2:1 and has 40% pot equity). But, if he calls, he's more or less committed to c-bet any flop, for the rest of his stack, lest he fold AK on a dry flop to a c-bet from me on a hand that he ties or beats (this should really be factored into the computation of the odds above -- since we're now assuming that if he calls, he's playing for his stack regardless -- this changes his odds from 2:1 to 3:2, which is exactly borderline if he is giving me QQ+, AK). Furthermore, he also knows that I'll fold to that c-bet only if I'm beaten. So, it makes more sense to put the money in immediately.

Thus, it feels like AK should or could bet like this. My QQ has 40% equity against KK+ and AK, so a call getting 3:1 is clear. Even if we don't give the SB this much credit, and say reduce the AK options to AK suited (not because suitedness is so important, but because this just conveniently represents betting AK this way only 25% of the time), then a call is still mathematically correct (pot equity around 27%).

And, at these levels, I've seen this betting pattern with hands like T3 offsuit occasionally -- never mind pairs ten or higher and AQ.

So, I now feel that the call I made in a flash (well, a little slower than a flash), was better than it felt when I found out that my opponent had KK. But, to my delight, the board finished up as: T♥9♠J♣K♥6♠.

Some may sneer at pre-flop poker, but I think the discussion above shows that there can be some subtlety even in these reraising wars. So c'mon, take your potshots at this pot shot.

Tin foil hat time

2007-03-18T12:24:00.000+12:00

Three times in less than 100 hands, I've seen a flop of 666. That's just weird, and more than a little scary (and as I type this I've just seen 88A8).

Once I was actually playing 76 suited in a five way limped pot. I should probably have bet the flop since I was in second last position and it might have been interpreted as a steal. Instead I checked, hoping for some action cards on the turn or river, which were a 2 and a 5 respectively. Sigh.

The second time I wasn't in the pot.

The third time, I held 99 and managed to get AJ to call half pot sized bets on both the flop and turn (a 2). When the river was a Q I just checked it out.

DON'T PANIC

2007-03-14T19:41:00.000+13:00

We all carry with us certain extremely strong memes. To most of them our parents say “Call that a meme? Why in my day we had real memes, not these namby pamby memes you see nowadays.” Come to think of that, our children say much the same thing too. But I digress.

One of my memes has The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy at its centre. And it's a very lucky meme to have, because it contains two words of invaluable advice (as well as a lot of other very funny, albeit a bit silly, words --- “42” Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!)

Of course those words are (in case you haven't guessed)

DON'T PANIC

And it's very important that they should be in upper case like that.

Excellent advice for almost any situation that you might encounter in life, but recently I've become increasingly aware of just how important this advice is for single table turbo sit and gos. Let me repeat:

DON'T PANIC

Your M is 3 and there are still six players left? DON'T PANIC
Oh it's 2 now? DON'T PANIC
You're about to be all in in the big blind? DON'T PANIC

But above all, DON'T PANIC.

I started my second set of 20 turbos tonight with a $3.40 and a $6.50 (unlike other forms of poker, your performance in a turbo SNG will probably be enhanced if you multitable and listen to some music or radio on the side.)

Let's just walk through one of them with a couple of words in mind. Which words? Oh, grow up.

($3.40) Fold ten hands. Blinds are now 25/50 and two players are already out. You get 99 in the BB. A limp from EP, and the button pushes 125. You raise to 300, taking out the limper, and beat his 43 suited. Can anyone tell me what he did wrong? I knew you could.

Fold another 13 hands, you're in the BB again, we're up to 75/150 and only six players are left. You get A♦Q♦. All fold to the SB who completes. You raise to 500 and he folds. Are you upset not to win more on the hand? Relax -- DON ... oh never mind.

Ok, three hands later, only 5 remaining now. You get A8 offsuit in the cutoff. You raise to 450, and the BB who covers you pushes. DON'T PANIC. Just fold. What? You're worried that you're down to 1200 chips and are the short stack? You don't want to be pushed around by the BB? That's ok, you'll get it back so long as you DON'T PANIC.

Fold your way through the blinds. We're at 100/200 now, still 5 left, you're on the button. You get A♠7♠. UTG calls, and the cut off min raises. You have been paying attention right? He's got nothing. You push your paltry 970 chips in and are far from surprised to find him holding A5 offsuit. Now your hand has to hold up, but there's nothing you can do about that. It does. You move into fourth place.

Comes the next BB, still at 100/200 and you get A♥K♠. The SB completes, you raise to 600 (you had 2440 to start -- push is possible, and perhaps better, that's ok, you're allowed a few mistakes so long as you DON'T PANIC) and he calls. Flop comes QJ8 and he bets 400 into a 1200 pot. Genuinely tough, perhaps you should fold, but, getting 4:1 you call (push is an option, but has a hint of that bad five letter word that begins pan about it). Turn is a 7 and he pushes. Fold. Oops, down to 1440 and back in fifth place again.

You get A9 on the button, push over one limper, and gain 500 chips. 33, UTG, push and pick up another 300. You get K4 offsuit in the BB. You get to play it for nothing. Time to put the rest of the players on your Christmas card list, especially when the flop comes 844. Check, check, check. Hurrah, the turn is an ace, and the SB leads for 600. You call (time to be a bit greedy). The river is a king! He bets 600 again, you push your remaining 1340 into the pot, and he folds. Heavens. Sure you were exceptionally lucky here -- but you were still here to be lucky. Why? Oh figure it out for yourself.

Next you pick up QQ in the SB. The button, steam coming out of his ears from the last hand, raises to 800. You push, he calls with QT. Good heavens. Suddenly, on the bubble you're the dominating chip leader.

I'll just stop there (no, not because I suddenly fell apart and went out on the bubble -- I won, but the remainder is not nearly so instructive or amusing.) I could tell virtually the same story about the $6.50 (2nd), but I suspect that I've tried your patience already.

Will this wondrous advice still work as well at higher levels? Probably not, but I'll be very surprised if it's not of some use.

Except when they don't

2007-03-14T07:36:00.000+13:00

Don't what? Don't lose. What don't lose? Geeez, pay attention will ya -- flopped straights. You'll be wanting me to tie your shoelaces next.

For a change of pace I played a couple of MTT's last night. Lately I've been playing almost entirely one table SNG's, but I find these get a bit tight and boring early in the North American week. In the first one I was knocked out just before the first break when my QQ was no match for 44. So it goes.

The second one started poorly, when, after the mandatory couple of orbits of folding, I decided (at 50/100 holding 1200 chips) to push from the button over a single UTG limper. The small stack small blind called with 55, and I was happy to see both an Ace and a Queen on the flop. But, not so happy about the 5 that accompanied them.

After my next run through the blinds, I was down to just 470 chips at 75/150.

Oh how embarassing, just realised that I was reviewing the hand histories from a different tournament. No wonder I couldn't remember that bad start. On to the real story.

After the mandatory couple of orbits of folding -- oh wait, I said that. Anyhow, with A♦K♦. UTG+2 at 10/20 I made a daring raise to 80 over one limper. The BB and the limper called, and we saw a flop of 7♣4♦3♣. Checked to me, I bet 200 into the 250 pot, called by the BB. The thought of flopped straights was in my mind. On the K♥ turn, he checked again. I bet 350 and he pushed. I almost let it go, but decided that this smelled more like a club flush draw with the king, than a flopped straight. Certainly it couldn't be two pair given the initial pre-flop call right? Wrong. K4. Not even suited. But RiverStars was there for me with a 7. Donkeylicious.

Wasn't this supposed to be about flopped straights? Ok, ok ...

Just a few hands later I've (2730) been moved to another table and with the blinds at 15/30 find 9♣6♣ in the small blind. Six of us in a limped pot see a flop of T♠8♦7♣. In case you're still not paying attention, that's a flopped non-nut straight for me, with a backdoor flush draw to boot. So the pot is 180, and I'm thinking about what to bet. My normal bet with say 4 players in the pot would be about 120, but I might just increase it a little. However, muscle memory has done its thing and I've already typed 120 when I have this thought. Just a tiny involuntary spasm of the fingers follows, and I look down to see that I've bet 1200 into a 180 pot. Overbet for value indeed. I'm resigned to winning a small pot when mirabile dictu one of the limpers calls. Now I'm seriously worried about a better straight instead, but of course a set is also a real possibility. So, I push the K♦ turn (since I'm not going to fold), and mister K♠9♠ calls! No chop for him on the river, and suddenly I'm sitting very pretty indeed.

I bounced around between 5K and 7K for the rest of the first, and all of the second hour. Then at the beginning of the third hour I hit a little rush of cards and moved up over 20K. Again, I bounced around a bit, and approaching the end of the third hour (or perhaps just at the beginning of the fourth), sat midfield of about 35 remaining on 25K. With the blinds at 1K/2K it was time for a big move, or time for bed. Pocket 4's on the button with a min-raiser UTG+1 looked ok to me (and I had a reasonable read that this wasn't an AA or KK min-raise). He, with a stack that just barely covered mine, chose to call with A♠T&spades, but the wrath of Hoy failed to make an appearance, and a KQJ flop killed most of the suspense in the hand.

For the record, against my range here which I put at AQ+, 22+ he's a 6:4 dog. I think that those were almost exactly the pot odds. If he was also in “go big, or go to bed” mode (with more justification than me -- assuming hartford is the obvious one, it was 5:30 a.m. there), then the call is reasonable. He went on to finish 9th.

What he said.

2007-03-13T16:00:00.000+13:00

Villain is at seat 1 with $28.53.
mchllbrt is at seat 3 with $36.47.

mchllbrt posts the small blind of $.10.

mchllbrt: 8s 7c

Pre-flop:

Villain limps, I complete, BB checks. Pot $0.75

Flop (board: Td 6d 9h): R'oh r'oh, flopped straight and a two flush on the board.

mchllbrt bets $.50, BB folds, Villain calls

Pot $1.75

Turn (board: Td 6d 9h 2h): No flush yet, no draws completed.

mchllbrt bets $1.75. PSB with one card to come, make the flush draw pay.
Villain calls. Of course.

River (board: Td 6d 9h 2h 5d): Sigh.

mchllbrt checks, Villain bets $1.50, mchllbrt calls. (Boo-hoo, but have to call these occasionally to avoid being floated.)

Villain shows KdJd. Ok, so he had 13 outs rather than 9.

BloggerPods report

2007-03-12T15:48:00.000+13:00

The rescheduled ,bloggerPod tournament went off without a hitch today, which saved me from having to buy another house or something similar. Before I embark on my report though ...

It appears that there were a number of non-bloggers who entered. Of course the password mechanism that regulates entries into these tournaments is hardly secure, but whatever, their presence reduced the normally high standards of decorum and wit that one has come to expect from blogger gatherings. Now normally I am violently opposed to using regulation as a tool to attempt to encourage appropriate behaviour, but it seems to me that the poker sites have just missed an obvious software solution here.

Basically, the organiser of a private tournament should have admin privileges (to use a bit of geek speak). Two obvious routes suggest themselves. One is that the organiser supply a list of eligible players to the site (and that this list can be modified). Then if an outsider attempts to register he/she simply gets a message saying “contact admin”. The alternative, slightly less convenient solution is to allow arbitrary registration, but each registrant has to be approved by admin. Neither of these imposes any inconvenience on legitimate players, and as nearly as I can judge would be trivial to implement.

Ok, so on to the report.

Folded for a while. Limped suited connectors. Folded to a bet on flop. Folded some more (the final table of EPT Dortmund was on webcast, so this wasn't quite as deadly dull as it might have been).

I (1365) Picked up KK in MP at 20/40. Raised to 100 (I'd decided 2.5BB was going to be my standard raise in this tournament). katitude (880) called, as did the BB (3825). Kat and I had been chatting about when she was going to come to Dunedin for a visit -- she said, when she raised a stake for the trip in online poker. On a J44 flop with two spades (I have spade king), I bet 240 into a 320 pot. katitude went all in with top pair top kicker, and failed to improve. She said, “looks like it will be a while”. Now what I want to know is where she was planning to get a trans-Pacific flight for $8.50. Heck, I even want to know if it was the cash equivalent for an iPod!

Fold some more. Then I (2305) pick up A♥3♥ in MP. Somewhat randomly, I raise again to 100, getting called by jessehjesseh (2340) and the BB (3845). The flop was a not unpleasant 2♥4♥7♥. Even I slowplay this one, and we checked it out. On the 2♣ turn, I took a blatant stab at the orphan pot, betting 200. jesseh pushed over the top, and, though I suspected a misplayed hammer (simply calling my original raise rather than reraising), I felt I had to call. Nope, it seems that I'd successfully represented a weak hand as I was facing A♠K♥.

At 25/50 I opened with a raise holding TT on the button. Called by the BB who also called by 200 continuation bet on the K77 flop. We then checked the Q turn, and he led with a near pot sized bet on the river 5. I folded. What a wimp.

Then I had a rather embarrassing moment. I (4250) limped T9 offsuit over Schaubs (2200). The two of us and the BB see a flop of T52 rainbow. I make a pot sized bet, which eliminates the BB, but Schaubs calls. The turn is a 7, and my bet of 350 into the 520 pot is check-min-raised. For some reason I call. I'm tormented by a 9 on the river, and call the 2/3 pot sized all-in. Set of 7's.

AA, no action. Chips are dripping away.

At 50/100, I'm down to 1380 and get 88 in MP. I raise to 250, and my immediate neighbour tharley61 raises to 900. All fold back to me. If I'm going to call, I might as well push, so I do. He has AK offsuit and I win the race.

Fold some more, and then more than double up when I get a free play in the big blind with Q9 offsuit, which makes top two pair on the flop. I check raise over two minimum bets, get one call, and then push on the J turn. Called by K9??? No disaster ensues.

My AK offsuit is run down by a micro-stack's J3.

At this point I have a slightly better than average stack of around 5K. I pick up KK, UTG+2 at 100/200. My raise to 500 is met by a 2150 push from wwonka69. I call of course, and he shows AT offsuit. The 982 rainbow flop doesn't look terribly threatening until followed up by a 6 and then a 7.

AA, no action again.

Now my turn for a bit of luck. With 2500 remaining at 125/250/25, I pushed from the SB (no limpers) on AJ offsuit, only to find the BB with AQ suited. Fortunately, a jack on the flop sent the chips to me.

My QQ got a call from HighOnPoker, but no further action after a J85 flop, which I bet out of position. Perhaps should have been a bit more greedy there.

With the blinds increasing there was the usual amount of bouncing around, but I was hanging in reasonably well in 7th to 9th place. Until ...

At 150/300/25 on the button, I (7250) have AK offsuit. fulltiltpkr07 in the cutoff, has me covered, and pushes preflop. I call of course, and am delighted to find myself up against KQ suited. Except the flop delivered two cards in his suit and a queen. No subsequent help for me, and I go home in 13th place.

Had fun though.

Sick

2007-03-11T15:54:00.000+13:00

Just finished my first set of 20 single table turbo sit and goes. These were all $3.40's on Stars. In the money, 60%. Return on investment, 81%. That's sick and unsustainable, but I can't deny it's nice. Breakdown by position: 1st (4), 2nd (5), 3rd (3), 4th (1), 5th-7th (6), 8th-10th (1).

Being a wuss, I'm banking half my profit, and putting the rest back into the next set, which will therefore consist of 11 $3.40's, and 9 $6.50's. I used my mad Excel skillz to randomise the order that I'll play them in (I couldn't find a deck of cards to pull out 11 reds and 9 blacks, which would have been easier.)

Did I learn much from the first set? Not a lot, other than that the play at these is very very very bad indeed. But, it's not always the same kind of bad, so exploiting it isn't entirely trivial. Table characteristics do seem to depend on time of day/week, though I wasn't recording that data so it's purely anecdotal (and in any case the sample is far too small to be drawing conclusions from).

There was one very interesting hand in the last one of these that I played:

Blinds at 25/50, three players have been eliminated (it was a very active table).

UTG+1, I (2950) have A♣T♦. I'd often fold this hand, but down to seven handed, raised it to 150. My immediate neighbour (2950) called, which meant absolutely nothing. The SB (1400) also called.

Flop A♠K♣5♠. SB bets 200 into a 500 pot, which smells like a flush draw (or maybe a king). I call, awaiting developments, and my neighbour calls as well.

Turn is the T♣. SB bets 200 again making the pot 1300. I raise to 800. My neighbour calls. The SB folds.

River is a very nasty K♦ counterfeiting my second pair. I check, and my neighbour goes all in. We started with identical chip counts, so I'm faced with calling 1800 into a 4700 pot.

I've marked him as a lunatic and he's made big bets on a number of previous hands with very little. Against that, I'm calling to a chop against any worse ace, a loss against AJ or AQ, and a loss against any K or QJ. Basically, I'm only beating air (or a busted spade draw).

I folded. Thoughts?

Postscript: After the hand, there was some cursing from the SB (to his credit he kept quiet until then), which leads me to think he had a K. And I went on to win.

That was fun

2007-03-10T16:32:00.000+13:00

Well, actually I'm just a bit sore ... well, perhaps more than a bit. But the weather was absolutely perfect here this morning and I really did want to get through the 15km barrier. As you can see I overdid it slightly. It may help with the resolution to open the image in a separate window. If I'd known it was going to be 17.94km I would have run the last 100m back to the car instead of starting my stretching and warming down at the corner! Then again, I'm going to claim 18km on the grounds that lots of the straight segments shown in the path aren't actually completely straight, I'm sure there were at least 60m in wiggles.

The funny little step pattern in the northwest corner of the run was a result of preparations for the Royal NZ Pipebands Association National Street March. And no, I wasn't trying to avoid it -- I was trying to see as many bands as possible in their warmup. Though it has to be said that the combination of the pipebands and my iPod was sometimes a bit peculiar.

In poker news, I've been trying one of those "20 SNG ladder" things, starting with the $3.40 turbos on Stars. I've played 15, and was freerolling after 12. Since then I've had another first, a seventh, and a bubble fourth (annoyingly having an all in with KQ called by a big stack on J3 offsuit -- had I doubled up I'd have been second in chips, but we know what happened).

Reasons to like NZ

2007-03-09T09:19:00.000+13:00

Aside from the obvious ones ...

Part of the process of buying a new house is getting a title and permit search done through the local city council. I was a bit worried when there was a big sign in the office reading “Expedited searches not available at present due to demand”. So, I had to settle for the “standard” search which might take up to two business days (still plenty of time, as I had a week to confirm the contract). Less than six business hours later, the council ring to tell me that the material is available (oh yeah, the cost for this service --- a whopping NZ$40).

Likewise, arranging my mortgage, a grand total of two phone calls consuming about 30 minutes of my time, in spite of the fact that there were some complications requiring changes to bank account details etc. (oh yeah, “By the way, we'll waive the processing fees, and pay your solicitor's costs for the settlement”). The other thing about this aspect of the deal is that after 20 minutes of research I knew that, however much shopping around I did it would make at most a difference of one tenth of one percent on the interest rate. So, I was happy to deal directly with a bank with whom our customer relationship has been excellent, without any worry that I might be costing myself significantly.

And I know that when the time comes to change the insurance cover that will be a 10 minute job too.

It's just nice to live somewhere where you can confidently assume when dealing with “service” industries that: a) no one is trying to rip you off; b) no one will assume that you are trying to rip them off; and c) there's a pretty good chance that the person you're dealing with will actually “think” and come up with a suggestion to your mutual benefit.

There endeth the sermon ...

Twilight turbo's

2007-03-08T08:23:00.000+13:00

I've rediscovered the joys of single table turbo sit and go's. And their frustrations too of course, but that practically goes without saying. So, submitted for your consideration:

(50/100) A9 offsuit on the button, 1300 chips, 7 players remaining. One limp in front, I raise to 500, BB who covers me pushes. I forget to be wary of the wrath of Hoy and call. Twilight zone indeed (he had TT -- I didn't suck out).

(10/20) A8 suited in MP, 1500 chips, 10 players remaining. I open limp (doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo), the button calls, the SB folds, the BB check. Flop is Q95 with two of my suit. BB min bets. I make a huge mistake and just call. Button calls. Turn is an Ace. BB min bets again. I make a slightly smaller mistake and bet 90, leaving the button to call 90 into a 240 pot. He does, as does the BB. River is an 8 giving me two pair. I bet 200 into the 400 pot, button pushes. With a flick of my long ears, I call. Of course he has JT - what else could it be?

On the positive side, I think that had I made those two obvious folds it's quite likely I would have been in the money in five out of five of these suckers.

Haven't mentioned radio for a while. Fighting Talk continues to be a favourite, as does Definitely Not the Opera which is absolutely superb.

Keeping the lights on

2007-03-07T09:21:00.000+13:00

Between purchasing this fine property and being convinced by various friends to play far more bridge than is really good for me (3.5 hours on Thursday and Monday nights, and about 12 hours over the weekend), not much poker has been happening.

Still, in these days of doom and gloom, it's important that we not let the lights go out. So, in order to generate some material, but judging my attention span well, I sat down in a little 1-table turbo SNG last night ($3.40). The material hands (all hands prior to heads up where I won or lost chips over and above losing the blinds):

Second hand, I get QQ in LP. Blinds at 10/20, there's a raise to 100 in front of me. I reraise to 300, and we play heads up when he calls. Flop is 993 and he folds to my 2/3 pot sized bet.

At 15/30 with one player out, I get to play T5 offsuit from the big blind with two limpers and the SB. Everyone checks as far as the river, by which point the board reads 62544 with a possible club flush. I bet 30 on the river, and get called by AK. Yawn. Lemme see, he limped AK then didn't bet on a 625 flop. Time for a note.

At 25/50 with two out, I raise to 150 from LP with JT offsuit (basically a steal). The BB calls, and then makes a pot sized bet on the A86 flop. I fold.

Same blinds, I try again from the button with Q9 suited. This time, the SB min raises. I have to call (100 into a 450 pot), and take it down on a Q77 flop. Up to 1950.

Three down, blinds at 50/100, I have J6 suited in the BB. Button limps, SB min raises, I think for a moment, but call, and button calls. Flop is 962 with two of my suit to go with the middle pair. SB min bets, I consider raising, but just call. Button calls. Turn is a J, giving me top and middle pair. SB min bets again, making the pot 1000. I raise to 700. Button folds, SB calls leaving 665 behind, which worries me a little (set of 9's)? The 9 on the river counterfeits my second pair, but alleviates my worries about a set of 9's. But, when the SB checks I decide just to check it down in case I'm up against some lunatic with AJ or similar. He turns over TT, and I take a nice pot, up to 3200.

Still seven left, at 75/150, I get 22 UTG+2. Following Fuel's advice, I raise it up. The short stack BB pushes for an extra 150, and I call. He turns KQ suited, so life is not too bad. However, the JJTT5 board counterfeits my pair and makes his flush for good measure. Down to 2500.

Five remaining at 100/200, a 4xBB raise UTG with AT (increased the raise slightly so that the bet was larger than the BB's stack) is uncontested. Then, four handed the same happens with a raise from the button with A3 suited, from the button again with 55, and from the SB with A9. Up to 3000.

The bubble bursts, and I pick up KQ offsuit in the BB. Button is a big stack (over 8000) and the SB covers me by about 600. SB min raises, I push. He calls with 87 suited. Eh? I make trip kings and then a flush of my own to beat his unimproved hand.

From there, it's not worth reporting further action in detail (don't say it). I busted the small stack after he called my raise from the button with 66. Fair enough, I had A3. Unluckily for him, I made a straight and he didn't.

Heads up didn't last too long -- the key hand being a raise by me from the SB with KT suited, followed by a push from him. I'd been raising fairly routinely and suspected that the push was simply a resteal attempt, so called for all my chips. He showed K9 and my cards held up.

Couldn't get on for the blogger freeroll so ...

2007-03-05T16:18:00.000+13:00

I bought a house instead. And to think I was worried that I wouldn't have some big and interesting news for my 100th post.

A bridge too far

2007-03-02T08:35:00.000+13:00

My partner and I had a 68% game in a 30 table field at the bridge club last night. That's, oh I don't know, doubling up twice in an orbit on awesome reads? Except for one early hand when I bid like a pussy, and one late hand when I basically forgot the contract I was playing in (how embarrassing -- that's like not noticing that you have a flush) I was “in the zone” as was my partner throughout. That the opponents fell over themselves taking questionable actions, to put it as kindly as possible, didn't hurt.

There was one interesting hand which reminded me in retrospect of the idea of “levels” in poker (you know, level one players just play the cards they have, level two players try to play the cards they have and the cards that others are representing, etc.)

I was playing a hand in hearts, holding eight hearts missing the jack and ten between my hand and dummy. On the first round of the suit, my right hand opponent played the jack. Now, on the surface, this is a situation where bridge players apply what they call the principle of restricted choice, but which rather less pretentious people refer to as the Monty Hall problem.

The relevant holdings (apparently) that RHO might have are singleton jack or doubleton jack ten. In the latter case, she might equally well have played the ten (when you have picked the right door, Monty might freely choose between the two wrong ones), so the weight we assign that holding is halved (we assume that her choice was restricted - you should always switch).

So, playing someone whom I knew to be a level one player, I assumed a singleton, which turned out to be correct, and made an extra trick. Not perhaps as satisfying as winning a buy in, but we bridge players have to take our pleasures where we find them.

Where does the level one, level two stuff come in? Well, a level four (or thereabouts) player in this situation would have realised (from the bidding) that we had exactly eight hearts. Such a player, holding three hearts to the jack ten, would have known that it could never cost to play the jack or ten on the first round (seeing A92 in dummy, and with the dummy leading the 2). This opportunity for deception could be used to make it incorrect for me to assume that the play of the jack or ten represents a singleton.

It's actually a really interesting situation, because the reason to play jack or ten from jack ten third is not to pick up a free trick when you have that holding, but to protect your partner's four card holding when you have a singleton. Just like the reason to “vary your play” occasionally is not so much for the possible return on this particular hand, though if it happens, that's nice, but to protect your action on your otherwise predictable holdings when you do have strong hands. And that's why, before you decide to vary your play, you have to think about the level of your opponents.

Oh my head hurts.

That SNG

2007-03-01T09:15:00.001+13:00

Just reviewed the hands from the SNG I mentioned in my previous post and really some further comment is required.

Summary:

I won chips in five hands (details below); I lost the blinds in 23 hands; I lost more than the blinds in two hands.

My two losses:

Blinds 10/20, I (1500) have TT under the gun, and limp. UTG+1 raises to 80, one player in LP calls, as do I. On a 773 flop I bet 150 into the 270 pot, UTG+1 min raises. I fold. Weak? I guess so.

Blinds 75/150, three handed I (1440) am in the BB with J♦7♦. The SB (7000) raises to 300. I call. Flop is JT9 with one diamond. The SB bets 300 into the 600 pot. I push, he calls with 86 offsuit, and hits his open ender with a 7 on the turn. No resuck for me and IGH.

My five wins:

(15/30) Get a free play from the BB with T5 offsuit in a four way limped pot. Flop is Q55. I check, first limper bets pot, two folds. I min-raise. He folds. Maybe should have tried to milk this one a bit more with a flat call.

(25/50) I'm (1300) in the BB with AJ offsuit. One limper, and the SB completes. I raise to 250. The limper (4000) calls, the SB folds. Flop is 994, with a backdoor to my J. I push, he folds.

(50/100) Won a battle of the blinds with J8 in the BB on an 852 flop (he folded to a min bet).

(50/100) Three handed(!) pushed for 1020 UTG on A5 suited. All fold.

(75/150) I (900) have QJ in the BB (three handed). UTG (5000) bets 450, I push, he calls with KJ. I suck out.

What a difference a day makes

2007-03-01T08:22:00.000+13:00

They're installing some new fibre optic cabling in our building (of course, we've finally been given new space to move to later this year, and now they're getting around to upgrading our network, but I digress), and one of the junction boxes is in my office, as a result of which there was much moving of desks, drilling of holes etc.

I took this as a sign that I could leave work early. It was a beautiful, crisp, early autumn day, so I went for a run through St. Kilda and St. Clair. Tide was high, and I couldn't run on the beach.

After I showered, I put together a French style stew for dinner (I'd call it boeuf en daube, but that would be pretentious), and left it cooking as I sat down to two tables of 25NL. Got up again a total of 100 hands later, $30 to the good.

Had stopped in at the university library earlier in the day, so I did some reading on Zen, Edmund Wilson's autobiography, and a bit of Evelyn Waugh, while in the background Delia Smith chattered away about traditional British puddings.

Folded my way into third place in a SNG. Knocked out in a bad beat, but was severely short stacked in any case. Even with a double up I would have been the short stack.

Put on the potatoes to cook, and donked it up a bit at low stakes triple draw, where I ran into somebody slumming.

Enjoyed my dinner. Read some more.

Oh yeah, there was still a bit of bad television.

How low can you go?

2007-02-28T09:29:00.000+13:00

Found myself deep in a foulie yesterday. The usual cures are:

exercise, but a howling southerly was blowing;
a decent meal, but I had leftovers that needed to be finished up; or
a good book, but I've read The Fourth Bear four times in the last two months, and I certainly wasn't in the mood to go to the library.

So I played some poker instead. This is not a recognised cure for a foulie.

I realised relatively quickly, and with remarkable good sense under the circumstances, that the cash tables were not a good place to be, since one symptom of the mood was a fatalistic need to call any and all bets with any sort of a piece of the flop. So, I found the lowest buy in multi-table SNG's available, popped a couple up on the screen and went at it, starting new ones as necessary.

In the money? A predictable 0%.

Exit hands?

KJ v min-raised AA on KQT flop (37/45)
AT 9BB push, called by 99 (6/18)
AT 8BB push, called by 88 (16/45)
AJ 9BB push, called by QJ (7/18)

At which point the dubious pleasures of that exercise palled, and I retreated to the last resort at such times, bad television.

Nothing to see here

2007-02-26T08:32:00.000+13:00

Terrible day yesterday at both sit and gos, and multi-table tournaments. Largely of my own doing. Then I won all my losses back, and then some, in half an hour of cash play. I really wish that I found cash play more interesting, it's certainly a lot more lucrative.

Just to show how poorly I was playing (and to check out some new suit symbol codes I just discovered), here's a very early hand of one of the sit and gos:

In the SB I'm dealt 6♢6♣. Five players limp, I complete, the BB checks. Flop is J♠T♠6♡. I bet 80 into the 140 pot. How lame is that on such a coordinated board? I either need to overbet the pot, or try and get in a big check raise. Everybody calls. Pot is now 700. Turn is the 9♢. I bet 400 into the 700 pot. That's my second mistake at least, since I must be beaten at this point. Certainly, I should check and hope to see a free or cheap river which might pair the board. This time, I get one call, and then the button pushes all in. Mortified with my play to this point, and aiming to punish myself for it, I call (mistake number 3). He shows Q♢8♣. The board fails to pair on the river. and I'm left with 10 chips, which I actually manage to work up to 150 before busting out.

Wow, at least three mistakes in one hand (arguably I might have raised pre-flop). And so it went.

I promised

2007-02-25T10:34:00.000+13:00

A write up of the $4/180 from yesterday in which I placed third. But, reviewing the hands, there really isn't much to say. So, just a few highlights.

First off, an episode of serious donkery from yours truly. At 75/150 I (5500) had 99 in LP. Folds to me and I raised to 450. Folds to the BB (4300) who min-raised. I reraised to 2100 and the BB called. Flop QJ8 rainbow, and he checked. I pushed my remaining chips into the 4200 pot, and he called with his final 2300, and turned up KK. Ooops. Fortunately Riverstars was there for me with a 9 on the river.

That hand actually had quite a good effect on me. As well as giving me a comfortable 50BB stack at that point, I was also so embarrassed at my play that I really turned up the concentration a notch. Not sure that's the best way to reach such a position though!

Fast forward to the final table. I hadn't been able to make any progress in the period from the bubble down to the FT, and my chip stack was just around 17K and 7th of 8 remaining. With blinds at 800/1600/75 it was starting to get a bit tight. So, I was happy to see QQ UTG+2, with two folds in front of me. Having just over 10BB and with the antes and the blinds already in the pots, I could have pushed, but I decided that I wanted to be a bit more ambitious, so I started with a raise to 4000. I was not impressed when this wound up getting three callers. Fortunately, the flop was a two-tone 874, and I just pushed my remaining 13K into the 17.5K pot, taking it down.

Some chat ensued (it was a friendly final table) and I inferred that several players thought my push there had been a move. Two hands later, now UTG, I picked up JJ. With about 30K now, I started with 4000 as usual. Again, I was not impressed to pick up three callers. But, completing the parallel, the flop was kind: 864 rainbow. So, I put in 12K. My neighbour (70K) min raised, knocking out the other two callers. I chose to consider myself pot-committed, and also that he might think I was making a move “again”, so I pushed. He called the paltry additional 2K or so, and showed 22. No runner runner straight, or a 2 appeared on the turn or river, and suddenly I was the chip leader.

And just a few hands later, I was now in the cutoff, and picked up TT. All fold to me, and I put in the usual 4000. This time just the BB (20K) called. On a K75 rainbow flop he led with 4800 into the 9500 pot. I had a pretty good feeling about his range, ruling out AK or an overpair to me except possibly JJ because he hadn't raised preflop (though a stop and go of a sort is an interesting tactic from the BB in this situation). So, the only hands I was worried about beating me were basically KQ, 55 and 77. Against that, there were a lot of hands that might c-bet this flop (AQ, AJ, AT, lower pairs). So I pushed, he called after some thought, and he turned over AQ. This time RiverStars was his friend, delivering a Q. Even more annoyingly, he went on to win, combining a couple more lucky breaks with some good play.