Unexpected Win

I was just fooling around last night in front of my PC, surfing for NBA news which were relevant to my fantasy basketball team when I saw a $1.5K Guaranteed $10+1 buy in tournament about to start in Cake.

As most of you who follow my blog know, I haven't really been playing any serious online poker the last few months. Just a few SNGs here and there. But I decided, what the heck, let's register since it's positive EV for me as the tournament appeared to have some overlay.

Right from the start, I was extremely lucky. I kept getting AQ which I raised, and the Q for some reason always flopped. The payoff came somewhere around the middle of the tournament. I got AQ for the upteenth time, raised it up in early position, chip leader decided to 3 bet me, I just shoved everything in and he called. AQ vs 99. Flop came with 2 Queens and just like that I was chip leader.

With a good amount of chips, I pretty much just raised everytime I got an Ace or was in position and this allowed me to stay in the top 3 in chips and cruise to the final table. There was another instance where I had another AQ, somebody shoved all his chips. Insta call and he showed KQ. Hyuk. Donkey poker all the way.

Final Table, I shifted gears and went tight. Not so much, but around SNG tight if you know what I mean. Just play premium hands and wait for the low stacks to bust out since the money concentration was in the top 3 places. In this case, the low stacks are pretty loose since everybody was already ITM and you can sit around with your good stack and wait for the bust outs to happen.

Final 4 was an international group, 1 Russian, 1 player from China, 1 American and me. Artificial bubble. The Russian player and the American player were butting heads all throughout the final table and this time was no different. Chip lead kept changing between the 2 of them and finally Russians busts out the American and he types something like "America sucks" in the chat table. Heheh. Sounds like a remnant from the Cold War.

China player had the shortest stack and he pushes all in almost every hand. I wake up with JJs. And iso-shove. He shows K-8 or something and I bust him out.

Heads up. Russian had a 3 to 1 chip lead over me. But he plays passive for some reason which allowed me to catch up. I kept raising and showing him junk hands. Eventually he kept calling and I was lucky enough to catch a straight on the river for a big pot. I now had a slight chip lead over him.

Final Hand. He calls my blind. I see A 10. I raise it big. He just calls. Flop goes A, 8, 7 with 2 spades. I bet half the pot. He insta-raises all-in. Whoops. I tank and I was thinking what the fuck does he have. He can't have 88 or 77, otherwise he would have raised me from the start. An Ace rag is possible but again, heads up play, wouldn't you automatically raise? I didn't think he was trapping with AK or AQ since from what I observed, Russian was not a sneaky player.

So finally, I decided with the massive overbet that he was trying to scare me away with some kind of draw. I called and he showed 2 spades in his hand. Flush Draw. I was chanting No Spades, No spades and waddya know. My hand holds up for the win.

Phew! And to think I wasn't even serious about the MTT from the start and the poker gods decide to grant me an early Christmas git. It was nice to know that I still have the chops to win one of these donkaments.

Again, I have observed that whenever I play without any pressure to win. I end up doing well. It just goes to show that the old adage about Scared Money never winning is so true and every poker player should always be reminded about this.

Long Time

I know I haven't posted in my blog for a long time and the reason is pretty simple. I haven't really been playing poker. So no poker, no entry in the poker blog. Heheh.

I don't know what it is. But my desire to play has been really low this October and November. It's not that I'm losing and my bankroll is also quite healthy. It's actually been stagnant in the same level for the past month due to non usage.

I just find that the usual desire to play is not there. I've been using my spare time tinkering around with my fantasy basketball team and reading books (not about poker). I've also been watching quite a few of the new seasons of the shows in US TV like Glee, Californication, Big Bang Theory, Entourage and looking forward to Chuck and Breaking Bad which are about to start soon. So I'm actually relaxed and enjoying my free time.

A few nights ago, I did manage to play a few sets of the Step 1 SNGs in Pokerstars and I parlayed those into a Step 3 and Step 4 ticket. The Step 4 ticket worth $215 I'm reserving for a crack at the Sunday Million. So I believe I'm not too rusty even with the extended break. But even these recent wins have not given me any kind of excitement.

I'm not too sure how long this poker malaise will last. I'm thinking its probably a case of burnout and I need some time off. As to how long, heck, your guess is as good as mine. =)

Bluffing with Nothing

I am sure most of us has seen the PBA (Philippine Basketball Association) incident where a player by the name of Arboleda pummeled a fan who was verbally abusing him. I would like to chime in with my take on the matter. Let me just qualify this by saying that I have no vested interest in any side. I have not watched the PBA games for a long time. I do not know anybody in Burger King and I certainly am not remotely acquainted with the Katigbak guy who was assaulted.

Simply put, I think both guys deserved what they got.

1. Fan being pummeled. If you are going to verbally abuse someone in whatever setting. Then you have to be prepared for the consequences. I'm sure it went something like this. By what I saw, Arboleda did this fake falling down but actually making sahod to the Smart Gilas Player. Katigbak is livid and shouts something to the effect of "Put...ng Ina mo, arboleda, gago ka talaga" Arboleda hears him, has had enough of the abuse since it was not the first time the guy said something abusive, and starts walking towards the fan. I am pretty sure the fan thinking he is safe within the confines of his front row seat does the fake taunt that everyone does when faced with this kind of situation. "Oh ano, laban ka" or some similar phrase. Arboleda vaults the divider to the utter surprise of the fan (you can see it in his face) and starts raining kicks and punches down on him. Fan cowers in fear and covers up his face.

You are rude and obnoxious to somebody who was just doing his job. You get punched in the face. Karma. In poker analogy, you're like the guy with the big stack who keeps pushing players around by going all in, but then somebody decides to call you and you show a 6-3.

2. Arboleda being banned for a year without pay to the tune of around 2 million pesos. Quite extreme, but you assaulted a paying customer. No matter how abusive or haughty the guy was or how hyped up you are with anger. A player has no right to physically engage a fan. It simply cannot be done and tolerated as you are essentially harming the reputation of the whole league you are in.

You violate the rules and cross the line. Fined 2 million pesos. Karma. You decide to call the poker bully with your A-3 and delighted to see his 6-3. Until the flop comes and its 6 6 K. You lose your stack but at least you feel you made the right move and showed that you were not going to be pushed around.

See if it had ended here, then you just say. Both guys got what they deserve and leave it at that. But in a sudden twist to this incident. Lawyer of fan writes the PBA and wants Arboleda banned for life. Now this is just plain pathetic. I am sure that the Katigbak guy's ego was crushed. All his grandstanding and he ends up in the fetal position cowering like a girl. I mean I symphatize with what happened and we all know that Arboleda is bigger. But you could have at least tried to throw out a weak kick or something to save your pride. But you didn't do it and the damage is done. Threatening somebody's livelihood doesn't put back the inches in your dick.

Actually, legally, it was the best thing that could have happened. Trying to retaliate would have made his case weaker and Arboleda might be slightly justified in his actions. But if this was caveman times, the fan would be like the cave guy who ends up sweeping outside the cave while the alpha cave man bonks your girl with his club and drags her inside his cave. You cannot solve the problem by complaining to the elders and having him evicted from his cave. The only way is to pick up your club and battle to the death. LOL.

Fantasy Basketball Season

OK, it's fantasy basketball season once again. This is one of my other hobbies besides poker. If you have zero to little interest in NBA basketball, then feel free to skip this post as it has nothing to do with poker.

This year, I joined 2 leagues with live drafts. Both are 14 team Head to Head leagues counting 9 categories under the normal yahoo system of having PG, SG, G, SF, PF, F, C, C, UTIL, UTIL and bench as positions.

The first league is a local money league. Everybody puts in a certain amount and cash prizes go to the one who finishes with the best regular season record as well as prizes for finishing in 1st, 2nd and 3rd after the playoffs. The 2 teams who finish in last place are also required to pay an additional amount that goes into the pot. (This was done to prevent last place teams from colluding and trading their stars for scrubs in exchange for some favor)

I drafted 7th in this money league and here are the players that I got in the order that I got them. The number inside the parenthesis is the overall draft position

1.(7)Kevin Durant SG,SF
2.(22)Joe Johnson PG,SG
3.(35)Brook Lopez PF,C
4.(50)Nene Hilario PF,C
5.(63) Mo Williams PG
6.(78) Charlie Villanueva SF,PF
7.(91) Eric Gordon SG
8.(106) Greg Oden C
9.(119) Louis Williams PG,SG
10.(134)Courtney Lee SG,SF
11.(147) Brandon Jennings PG
12.(162) Nenad Krstic PF,C
13.(175) Antonio McDyess PF,C

Overall, I was pretty satisfied with this draft. Durant as a 1st round pick is quite good as he will absolutely explode this year in Oklahoma. Some experts were picking him as high as no 4, so getting him at 7 is good value. Eric Gordon at the 7th round 91st overall is an absolute steal. I took a risk with Oden at the 8th round even though he's been injured every year, because he's tearing it up this pre season and I see a lot of upside as long as he stays healthy. Louis Williams inherits the starting point guard position in Philly with the departure of Andre Miller to Portland and he should be in for a big year. Courtney Lee takes the place of Vince Carter in New Jersey, so that's another pick with a lot of upside.

The 2nd league that I joined is a champions league. The managers are screened. If you don't have a fantasy gold trophy in your yahoo profile, then you cannot join. This assures everyone that it is a very competitive league even without money involved as there is some pride at stake of being the best among the best. It is composed of players around the world who love to trash talk and the live draft was one of the tightest ones with lots of nasty comments. Everybody knows their basketball and draft steals were harder to get.

I drafted 12th in this league and here are the players that I got

1. (12)Dirk Nowitzki PF
2. (17)Joe Johnson PG,SG
3. (40)David Lee PF,C
4. (45)Kevin Martin SG
5. (68)Russell Westbrook PG
6. (73) Jeff Green SF,PF
7. (96)Greg Oden C
8. (101)Mike Conley PG
9. (124)Thaddeus Young SF,PF
10.(129)Samuel Dalembert C
11.(152)Al Thornton SF,PF
12.(157)Drew Gooden PF,C
13.(180) Terrence Williams SG,SF,PF
14.(185) Steve Blake PG

This is just a fair draft for me. Good picks were Nowitzki in the 1st round and Kevin Martin in the 4th. Oden at 7th was too early but this was caused by a dropped connection. Conley at 8th was also a bit early as TJ Ford was still there and I missed drafting him. The only steal I think I got was Thaddeus Young at 124th overall. The rest were just average picks and not so much upside. Again, as I said, everybody knew their stuff and all the players I were targetting were coming off the boards before my turn.

Oh well, I've been playing long enough to know that fantasy leagues are won through free agent acquisitions, so I'm hoping for a good pick up during the course of the season to bolster the team.

For those poker players interested in fantasy basketball, comments about the teams above would be appreciated. Thanks for reading.

I made 2nd by folding AA

Just finished playing the above tournament. 271 players with 504 rebuys and 126 addons. Buy in of only $3.30. These are the kind of donkaments one tries to avoid playing for the sake of maintaining one's sanity. But sometimes when luck goes your way. It's still a good return on a $6 investment.

Played basically ABC poker. Doubled up on my KKs and AAs in the early part. Went into the money (50 players) with a short stack. Then proceeded to play aggressive short stack poker. Got lucky once when I pushed Q6s in the dealer position. SB called with JJ. The Q flopped and allowed me to survive.

Went into the final table with an average stack. Then went into a heater of AQs and AJs and eliminated a guy to bring my stack up to around 300k which was 2nd in chips at that point. Then this hand came up when there was 9 of us left.

I got AA in early position. Raised 3xBB. Got called by chip leader at BB. Flop is K J 9. Chip leader checked. I made a 1/2 Pot bet. Villain called quickly. Turn is another J. Vilain bets pot at this point which was ringing alarm bells but I made the call. River is a harmless looking 5. Villain puts me all in and he's got me covered. I had about 140k left behind. Blinds were still at 4k-8k. So still a lot of poker left with my stack. I tanked then decided to fold.

I actually think it was a wrong read on my part as succeeding plays with the guy showed me that he was actually a fish overplaying top and middle pairs. But I made the fold and it allowed me to finish in 2nd place. The villain chipleader busted out in 5th if I'm not mistaken.

So all's well that ends well. =)

Fast Withdrawals Make My Day

As I've previously mentioned in this blog, Cake Poker has one of the most convenient and fastest withdrawal methods available. I am not pimping Cake because I play there. I am just stating a fact. I know a lot of Pinoy players have a difficult time withdrawing online funds because of various requirements that are in place. But seriously, the way Cake does it is just ridiculously easy and you wonder how come the bigger sites cannot do it the same way.

Once a month, the site allows you to make a withdrawal request (minimum $500) by cheque and they will send this to you by courier free of charge. Any additional withdrawals for the month will get charged the normal courier fee of about $30. For recreational players who don't really withdraw that much, once a month is just perfect.

The other great thing is that the cheque that they send is a local cheque. It is not a US Dollar or Euro check which takes ages to clear in our banks. It is a local cheque for pesos that is addressed to your name that clears in 2 days. Seriously cool.

I made a withdrawal request last September 25, 2009 right before Ondoy hit. The Fedex envelope containing the cheque was in my office on October 1. Not counting Saturday and Sunday. That's just 3 freaking days. I'm sure there was even some delay caused by logistical problems due to the typhoon.

In terms of exchange rate, its not too bad. Right now, the official rate is about 47 pesos to US$1. The rate that they gave me in their conversion less whatever bank fees is about 44. So about a 6.5% deduction to cover bank fees and exchange rate spreads. I think that's quite acceptable.

So from your online poker account to your bank account in about 5 working days and in pesos to boot, ready to be used. No hassles. Just a simple, fast and efficient procedure.

This really leaves you wondering about the procedures of other sites. If a small site like Cake can do it, I'm sure the bigger sites can do it better. It just adds to the conspiracy theory that they are deliberately adding layers of red tape to delay your withdrawal. I think this is primarily being done for 2 reasons : (1) It conditions your mind about the negativity of doing withdrawals. This obviously works to their advantage as you would just tend to play with the money and delay your withdrawals or do it less often. The more money you have in your account, the more playing time you spend and in the higher limits which earns them bigger rake. (2) Any delay that they cause means more interest earnings. Let's just say average withdrawal requests for a day sum up to about US$100K. Just delaying its transfer by 3 days earns them a few hundred dollars in interest earnings alone. Multiply this by the number of days in a year and you can imagine the thousands of extra dollars they earn by simply delaying your withdrawal. Quite unethical but financial institutions have been doing this for ages and poker sites are no different.

Again, since online poker is pretty much unregulated. We just accept and make do with whatever crappy procedure is currently in place. The only protest we can do is to take our business elsewhere. But then, other sites are even worse. So wala ka ring choice. Heheh....

The Great Flood

I'm sure each of us has our own unique story of where we were during the great flood. As for me, I was pretty much stranded in my office since we have work on Saturdays. I tried to get home but had to turn back because traffic was at a standstill.

Good thing our office had electricity, internet, food, water, TV and clean toilets. So I pretty much spent a relaxing evening just doing some extra work, playing online poker and chatting with officemates who decided to also stay put instead of stupidly braving the flood.

A lot of my officemates did try to make a go of it, but ended back in our office a few hours later, describing horror stories of how high the floods were.

I ended up sleeping in a conference table with my jacket as a pillow and eventually managing to get back home in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

All in all I believe I was one of the lucky ones. A lot of my friends got stranded in the middle of flooded streets where water was slowly seeping its way inside their vehicles. My cousin's wedding which was scheduled Saturday had to be cancelled because both groom and bride were stuck in their respective areas and couldn't get to the church on time.

A common theme in the stories that I've heard were sob stories of people's home who never flooded before, but was now suddenly experiencing heavy flooding. These are homes that were not in low lying areas like Marikina or Valenzuela. But parts of the Metro where there was never any flooding before.

This is kind of scary. I know that the meteorologists are saying that what happened was a once in a lifetime thing where the amount of rainfall for that day was equivalent to the supposed amount for a month. But still, you cannot help but wonder if global warming and the higher water levels had anything to do with it. Not to mention the antique drain system of Metro Manila which are clogged with garbage. Just imagine how much worse it could be in the future if we don't clean up our act with regards to the environment. Brr....

I just hope that everyone's OK. Material things are just things. So what if your Civic turned into a submarine. As long as you're alive and kicking, we should already consider ourselves lucky and be thankful.

Downswing Buster

After a good August where I managed to increase my online bankroll significantly, September is starting out sluggish.

Probably because after I cleared out my bonus in Full Tilt. I now shifted to playing in Pokerstars to clear out my other bonus there. Unfortunately, the SNG turbo blind structures are different between the 2 sites and it takes me some time to get used to the slower speed of play required. After playing for 1 whole month in FTP, I find myself going to push fold mode too early in the Pokerstars SNGs.

Or I could just be rationalizing and I'm just into one of those downswings that happen every once in a while to every player. Oh well, I'm thinking that I can break the curse by writing about it in my blog. Heheh

I did manage to play in the $200+15 PS Sunday Warm Up the other week when there was a long weekend. I played pretty well I think but was really not catching anything. About 2 hours into the tourney, I had to go into one of those 50-50 showdowns between my AK and another player's pocket pair. Unfortunately, was not lucky enough to catch my cards and busted out.

Hoping the cards turn my way soon. Looking to earn some extra moolah these next few months. Trying to save up for an extended vacation and hoping to use 100% poker funds. =)

14,832 Players

I qualified for a $50,000 freeroll at Full Tilt due to a recent Sit and Go Madness promotion. But there were also 14,831 other players who qualified. What the Fuck ?

Tournament starts in those wee early morning hours, 3,600 players get paid. First place is $4,750. Quite a good chunk of moolah. But still, slogging your way through 14k players is kind of numbing to think about. 1801 to 3600 gets a measly $3.

I am seriously thinking of just skipping the whole deal. If only poker sites allowed you to transfer freeroll tickets to other players. =)

Newbie Blues

I have been encouraging some of my friends to try online poker. I really believe in the fact that if you follow certain basic concepts and practice good bankroll management, it is actually an enjoyable way to earn some extra money. I have given them some basic guidelines to follow, asked them to read some books and basically given them a sort of starting map.

For some of them, it has been like a thrilling roller coaster ride. They would sometimes text me with stories of how they spiked the Ace in the river to beat out a donkey. Or tell me bad beat stories of 2 outers. But generally, they feel that it is something that they want to continue because they do see some positive results.

For some, it has been a frustrating experience. Even following sound poker techniques, they seem to be losing more than winning. When I ask them about certain hands, they seemed to have made their decisions based on correct math. But I look at their ROIs and it is in the negative.

I don't really have the time to give them actual coaching. What with my full time job, my family and my own playing. I have no spare time as it is. I definitely do not see any free time to squeeze in some coaching lessons.

I was kind of pondering this playing correctly but still losing phenomenon. And then I went back and looked at some of my graphs when I first started playing online poker and realized that I was actually also a losing player in the beginning.

I decided to attach these initial graphs in this blog just to assuage newbies that in some cases, you just need more experience. Knowing the correct move is easy when you're reading a book. But in actual play, there are so many scenarios that happen, that it actually takes real hand experience to know how to react and play appropriately.

The 2 graphs shown above are from playing SNGs. So it is games played against total profit earned. I have circled in yellow the relevant part. These are basically graphs from the first poker sites that I played in when I was a fishy beginner. You can see in the first graph that it took me almost 500 games before I started earning something. In the second graph, even though I was winning at first, I eventually lost everything and it took 200 games for the graph to trend continously upwards.

When I started playing online poker, I also read a lot of books. And I followed some of the advice given religiously and played correct poker. But I still lost. It took a certain amount of experience (in this case around 700 SNG games in total) before I could play well enough to make consistent money.

I'm not saying that the books are wrong. Because they are obviously giving correct advice. Proof of this is that even though I was losing, I wasn't losing much. You can see from the above graphs that my losses never exceeded 100 dollars. Parang slightly negative but still kind of breaking even.

So the point I am trying to make is that Nothing Beats Experience. After I gained enough online experience, there was no looking back. All my remaining graphs trended upwards immediately. Again, I would like to point out that I am not a pro or any kind of expert player. I am just like you. I work a full time job and play a couple of hours at night and some on weekends. That's it. No special coaching or lessons. Just reading some and playing some.

So my advice to newbies who seem to be having a hard time getting over the hump. Don't get discouraged. If you are playing correctly and following good BR management, it just takes time but eventually good things will happen. As Kevin Costner put it in Field of Dreams "If you build it, they will come". Heheh

Up

Up as in the Disney movie "UP". And not up as in "I'm up in poker".

I watched UP with my 7 year old daughter yesterday at Galleria. Wasn't really expecting much. More of the same Pixar grand adventure happy ending kind of movie with lots of special cartoon effects thrown in. Was pretty much contented to just spend a lazy Sunday afternoon relaxing with my kid.

But I have to say I was quite surprised at how good the movie was. Yes, it was the same feel good formula that Disney uses all the time. But there was something about Mr. Fredricksen and Russel that really pulled your strings. It was hilarious one second, then suddenly became touching and deeply affecting at times. At the danger of being called a wimp, I laughed out loud numerous times during the film. And during the sad moments, I really had to try very hard to keep a poker face. . Lest my daughter see me burst into tears and ruin my tough daddy reputation. =)

In short, it is one of the best movies I've ever had the pleasure of watching. A lot of people may disregard the movie since its an animated film designed for kids. But its an awesome piece of cinematic magic. And heartily recommended to kids and adults of all ages.

Wanna Bet ?

Last week, my account in JBET Poker had a few cents in it. I decided to transfer $40 from my other accounts with the express intention of just playing the $10+1 APT Macau Qualifier. The first night, I did pretty well. I think I was in the last 20 until this hand came up. Someone with around 8xBB went all in. I sensed weakness and looked down at AQ. I had about 12 BBs left, so I went all in to isolate. Guy shows A9. I believe the river was a 9. Next hand I had 33, go all in. Got called by KJ. A jack flops and that was it.

The 2nd night was a fiasco. There was this Korean guy who kept going all in almost every hand. I believe he rebought more than 20x in that first hour span. Actually that was fine with everyone in the table as everybody just waited for premium hands and doubled up. Unfortunately it allowed this Japanese guy to accumulate a ton of chips. I don't remember the actual hand but he killed with me one suck out. I rebought and after a few hands got KK. Went all in, got somebody to call with Ax and the Ace flopped. And I was out.

This left me with around $10 in my JBET account. I was tilting from the KK suckout so I just opened up the JBET Blackjack window with the express intention of just betting it all and clearing out the account.

After a few minutes of winning and losing, I had it up to $50. Hey, not so bad, I got back all the money I lost in poker and then some. I was pretty much just using basic Blackjack strategy. My logical mind was telling me to stop. But the gambler in me wasn't in the mood for any sissy moves that night. So I played some more, then suddenly it was up to $100.

Now I was torn. $100 is quite good. I could just withdraw it and spend it buying a new shoe or something. Imagine the regret you'll feel if you end up losing everything back and looking at your shoeless foot.

OK. My mind was saying. One last bet. See if the luck holds. $100 is not bad, but $150 is certainly better. Even if you lose $50, you'll still have $50 left which was the original amount you wanted to stop with in the first place.

And so I bravely or stupidly (depends on how you look at it) bet $50 on the next hand of blackjack. I got 19 if I remember it correctly. I was jumping with joy because dealer was showing a 5 (one of the worst possible hands in Blackjack) until he flops 20 with 2 more cards.

AAARGGHH! Fucking cheating Lameass computer program!! In a mindless red haze, I immediately bet the remaining $50. Just wanting to get back at the smirking blackjack program.

OK, we all know where this is going. I certainly deserve to lose the remaining $50 with my greediness. But lo and behold. I flop 20 the next hand and dealer gets 17. The balance was now back to $100. I bet another $50 and look down at 5 and 6 with dealer showing a 4. I press double. And a 3 comes out giving me a measly 14. But dealer luckily busts out with a 24.

The balance is now at $200. And here finally, my logical self prevails and I stop, giggling at the sheer absurdness of it. From $10 to $200. I immediately withdraw $100 out of the account just to lock it in and make sure that the new Nike Free trainers will be paid for by stupid gambling money.

The balance I keep in the account for a future night of blackjack craziness and who knows if I get lucky again. Har Har Har.

Please do not try to replicate this. I was extremely lucky this one time. Blackjack is negative EV and as poker players, we should know better than to engage in these kinds of games. You will lose more than you win in any casino game where the house always has an advantage. I wrote this only to share the fun, but know that I have in the past lost quite a bit in Blackjack. And that was certainly not fun. Some of the hands above may not be accurate as I am blogging from memory, but the sequence and the final result is all true. =)

Full Tilt Bonus

Just in case you're hiding in a big rock somewhere and are not aware, Full Tilt is currently offering a bonus simply for playing the game. No deposits required.

This is to entice players to try out their new software. I've already tried it and nothing really major. Just some new snazzy interface in the lobby and new filters on what tables to show. The actual playing table remains the same as far as I can tell. The one significant thing is the ability to cut a deal at the final table in tournaments which was not there before.

The bonus is quite significant, at least $100 to be cleared in 30 days in $10 increments. Not too shabby especially if you already have rakeback in the site.

For an SNG, the bonus is equivalent to about 42% rakeback. Combine this with your normal rakeback of 27% and you'll be essentially getting almost 70% rakeback. It would be criminal to play at other sites at these rates.

So expect to see me mostly playing in Full Tilt the next 30 days trying to clear this bonus. See you around.

Dabbling in Omaha

Lately, I've been incorporating a lot more PL Omaha into my usual games. Usually I'd open 1 table of a Double or Nothing Omaha SNG and mix it with my normal Holdem sets.

It's a refreshing break for a holdem addled mind and gives one different angles of thinking. Some common mistakes that would happen to me are as follows:

1. Mistakenly thinking that I already have the straight on a coordinated board. I always have to remind myself that I can only use 2 cards out of the 4 that I am dealt. A rookie mistake I know, but it takes some time to get the right frame of mind especially if you played holdem exclusively before.

2. When the board pairs up, you have to be very careful even if you have the nut straight or flush. A full house is entirely possible and probable. I have learned this lesson the hard way in a couple of big hands.

3. Bluffing is harder to do especially after the flop. Usually opponents would hit some kind of draw and would call you down.

4. AAxx and KKxx are still good hands much like holdem. You just have to remember to bet them aggressively preflop and after the flop. If there are still multiple callers, then be wary of possible straights or flushes.

5. The equivalent of suited connectors in Omaha are coordinated hands which are double suited. Hands like JT98 where let's say JT is hearts and 98 is spades. These hands are excellent beggining hands and should be played.

6. In an Omaha SNG, the concept of pushing all in when your M is low, first in vigorish, having fold equity appears to be much more effective. Players are very hesitant in calling with semi-decent hands. I think this is because it is harder to compute the odds of certain hands being ahead.

I've only read one section on PL Omaha strategy so far but its working out okay. I seem to be winning more than losing. But at this stage, I'm not too concerned about my bottom line. I just want to learn to play it better.

Going where the Sharks are

I recently made a blog entry advising beginners to choose their poker sites wisely and avoid the sites where the good poker players hang out to increase their profits.

I would now like to make an exception to this rule. If you are already a somewhat experienced player. Sometimes, you would actually prefer to play with experienced players. For 2 main reasons: (1) you can pick up new tricks/betting patterns from better players. (2) you can anticipate the moves of better players and react accordingly.

No. 2 is quite important especially near the bubble of an STT. The correct push at crucial times will mean the difference between ITM and a big fat egg. Let's say you're in the dealer position with A-x or a small pocket pair and the action is folded to you. You have about 6 big blinds left in your stack. Automatic push for you. But you don't necessarily want the call from the blinds, a fold is just fine because there is no risk involved and the blinds are already significant during the bubble.

With good players in the SB and BB who hold mid level stacks. Holding hands like K-10, Q-10, J-10 or K-J, folding would be an easy thing to do. They'd usually look for better spots to make a stand especially if they can still afford to. They'd correctly assume you hold some kind of A-x hand and they'd gladly get out of the way with their K-10 as they know they're behind and they can afford to fold.

But if you happen to encounter a fish/beginner in the SB or BB, K10 is an insta-call. Not even seriously thinking about it, just seeing the guy with the moustache and sword makes their teeny-weenie penises go hard and folding is not even an option that they would consider.

You might say, so what? You are still ahead with your A7, but its only around 57-43. Holding a small pocket pair like 5-5. The odds would be 52-48. Almost close to a dead heat. This means that almost 1 out 2 times, you'd get beat. I would rather just steal the blinds.

Do you understand what I mean ? I won't put complicated math into the scenarios regarding the equities of calling and the equities of folding. I'm just simply pointing out that playing against experienced players, you can usually anticipate how they think and make the correct move or response especially with some kind of tracker data in your hand.

Playing against fishes, you're in limbo. You're constantly guessing. There is sometimes no logic in their calls. Obviously, you'd be happy if they called with Q2 suited. But consoling yourself with the thought that you were way ahead with your AJ doesn't really mean squat once they luckbox the 2 in the river.

Berating them via chat doesn't do any good. They're happy just to be lucky because they don't realize how stupid the move was.

If its not too obvious, I'm actually ranting about some bad beats and disguising it as a poker lesson. Heheh. Thanks for listening.

Hiatus

Not really playing that much poker. For two main reasons.

1. Got sick for about a week. Developed some persistent low grade fever which was eventually traced to a wisdom tooth infection. Decided to just have it extracted. Dentist found some other problems with other teeth. So recommended oral surgery under general anesthesia. Went under. Had all the problems fixed in one go. Did not realize how hard it was going to be. Couldn't eat for a week. Only soft foods and liquids. Lost 10 freaking pounds !!

2. When I eventually recovered, our phone line now goes busto and obviously the DSL that goes with it. So I haven't played any kind of serious poker for about 3 weeks now. Which is kind of a record for me. It's refreshing in a weird sort of way. I don't really feel like an addict who had to go cold turkey. It's more like a persistent itch that I couldn't scratch.

Anyway, am on my way to full recovery and I'm so glad that I can eat semi solid stuff again. I am now salivating at the thought of ordering a big juicy steak at my favorite resto which I plan to do the moment the dentist gives the go signal.

Amazingly, I am looking forward to the steak eating more than the poker playing. Heheh.

A Rare Quadruple Win

Just for posterity's sake, I decided to post this result in the blog. I would usually play STTs in sets of four and it is quite rare for me to finish ITM in all 4. I guess the moons where in alignment last night or my fever was making me light-headed and playing at my best. Heheh.

Going where the fishes are ...

One of the aims of an online poker player is to find ways on how he can improve his game. He will usually read books about poker strategies. He will study hand histories and use various software to analyze his game. He will discuss hands with fellow poker players for advise and validation.

All these things he does just so he can play better and earn more money.

But there is usually one overlooked aspect that a player can do to improve his online earnings significantly. And this is simply to go where the fishes are.

I am not talking about choosing the correct tables, although this is also proven effective. But more on choosing the correct site.

Simply put, there are sites where the game is easier. Much, much Easier. Now the reason behind this is quite obvious. The pros or the pro wannabees would usually choose sites where they can multi-table so they can maximize their profits per hour. They would by logic, gravitate to the more popular sites like Pokerstars, FTP, Party and the like where anytime of the day, a table of their choosing can be found.

The smaller sites are not too interesting because it takes forever to fill up a table, much less talk about multi-tabling. But for the beginner poker player who only plays one table anyway, it doesn't really matter. You are doing yourself a great disservice if you insist on playing on the more popular sites. You're like a guppy who is suddenly thrown into a raging river filled with piranhas, you may evade them for a while, but you will eventually get shred into pieces.

Wouldn't you like to be thrown into a nice, quiet, placid lake with fellow guppies where you can swim calmly to your heart's content.

I know the metaphor's not too good. But I'm sure you get my point. You may say that you only play in the low limits anyway and the players there are not too good. That may be true. But in the fishy sites, even the players in the higher limits are not good.

And I am not talking about finding a random fly-by-night site where your online bankroll is at risk. But more on choosing the less popular, but steady sites like Carbon or Cake where there is a regular stream of players.

The advantage is not only in the lower skill level but also the quantity of people in the guaranteed tournaments. Which would you rather play ? A tournament with a guaranteed $1M but you have to compete against 8,000 other players. Or something with a 50K guaranteed but there's only 200 of you playing. The rakeback is pretty much the same and sometimes even higher because the less popular sites need to attract more players.

I am not claiming this from my personal experience alone. It is a fact that given the same number of games played, you will earn more money in the fishy sites. It is just logical dictated by the harsh truth that you are playing against less experienced players.

You might say that your skill set will not improve if you constantly play against fishes. But let us not kid ourselves. Your primary objective in playing poker is to earn money. Fuck personal improvement. =)

So the next time you lose your bankroll for the upteenth time in Full Tilt or Pokerstars. And you are thinking of quitting poker once and for all. Do yourself a favor and try out one of the smaller sites. You just might surprise yourself and discover that earning steady money playing poker is not so hard after all.

Turning Points into Dollars

The other night, I happened to check my FTP points and I saw that I had around 5,000+ pts accumulated. Every game you play earns you a couple of FTP points and some might think that these points are no use since FTP doesn't really ship any of their items to the Philippines.

But there are actually ways to roll the dice with these points and get some dollars in return.

For an SNG player, the best way in my opinion to try and turn these points around is to play the 1,800 FTP points 9 man turbo SNG where top three get a $24+2 token. You can then use this token to enter an STT or MTT depending on your preference.

This was what I tried to do. I had about 5,200+ pts, so I was still missing around 200 pts to make it 5,400 which would allow me to play 3 sets. So first I played a 50 pts turbo SNG to the Daily Dollar tournament. The guys who usually play these are totally crappy since they're basically scraping the bottom of their bankrolls. Top 2 get the dollar or 200 pts. I had no intention of playing the dollar donkament. I just wanted the quick 200 pts. As I said, easy win, just wait around for the premium hands and suck somebody in.

So now I had 5,400+ pts and it was time to play the 1,800 FTP points SNG. To make a long story short. I managed to get 2 tokens for the 3 games that I played.

So now, the 5,400 pts has been converted to two $24+2 tokens or $52 imaginary dollars. But its still just tokens at this point. You now need to convert it to real dollars.

I now used one of the tokens and entered a 45 man SNG where top 6 was paid. You could also enter just a 9 man SNG or even a guaranteed MTT. There are many tourneys being offered round the clock where the token can be used. But it was already getting late and I wanted one that finished in around 2 hours.

Well as luck would have it. I finished 3rd in the 45 man for a cool $170.

Heheh... so 5,400 pts turns into $52 which now turned into $170. And I still had the spare token left.

The purpose of this post was not really to brag about the win. Well OK, maybe just a little. I mostly wanted to get the point across to beginner players and maybe even experienced players to not underestimate the value of the pts that you accumulate.

One lucky streak and you do get a good return for these seemingly useless points. =)

Shark Bait

I'm sure most of you guys are aware of Sharkscope. Its basically a site that allows you to check a specific player's online poker tournament results. There's usually 2 uses for it.

One, you can use it to check you own stats. This allows you to determine whether you are making money playing online. The number of games you've played, your ROI, your average profit, even total profit.

Second, you can use it to check your opponent's stats. This enables you in limited ways to determine if he or she is a good player. You can then adjust your play accordingly. But more than this, I actually use Sharkscope as a tilt breaker. What do I mean by this?

Sometimes you play a hand perfectly, raising when you have to, betting the flop hard to scare away the draws. Getting your money in way ahead. But then, there's this guy who just keeps calling and calling. Eventually, he rivers his gutshot and takes away a big pot. It is times like this that make you want to tear your hair out and beat the living shit out of the guy. Instead of steaming and ranting, just relax, type his screenname in sharkscope. And revel in the knowledge that this same guy has already lost a few thousand dollars playing small stakes poker and is destined to lose more.

It gives you great comfort and some closure knowing that the poker gods are fair and fishes will be fishes, even though they do get lucky sometimes.

What is irritating about Sharkscope is that it only allows you 5 free searches a day. If you want more than this, then you have to pay a monthly fee which is quite steep and unnecessary. The other sites naman like officialpokerrankings track mostly MTTs and not STTs.

I've recently discovered another site called Top Shark (just google the name) which basically offers the same service but is actually free of charge. Meaning there is no limit to the searches you can do and it tracks both MTTs and STTs. You can even filter it by date or by the type of game (MTT, SNG or HU), by limit and even by buy in. There is also a ranking system. Just so you can see how well you stack up against other players. The other cool feature is you can display your stats in other websites like a blog or forum by pressing "get player graph link"

The only drawback with Top Shark is the number of poker sites that they cover. It is significantly less than Sharkscope. But the major ones like Full Tilt and Pokerstars are there. The other is the coverage date. It only started tracking data around end of 2007. So data prior to this date is not included in their stats. Sharkscope's date coverage extends up to early 2006.

Now for those people who think their privacy is being violated by these online tracking sites. You always have the option of blocking your name. But you should be aware that nothing screams donkeyplayer more than a blocked name. I know that sometimes it is embarassing to see your stats and knowing that everybody can see just how fishy you are. But one should treat it as some sort of constructive criticism and as an incentive to get better.

So the next time you're playing donkey style and you hit your 3 outer in the river, and the other guy types "Yeah, nice call, lifetime -32% ROI loser". Don't scratch your head wondering where he gets his data. Heheh.

ICM

Last night, I decided to play 2 STT games simultaneously with the express intention of loading the hand history into SNG Wizard to analyze my bubble play. I don't normally use any kind of ICM calculator during actual play, since it takes a long time to set-up. And I am of the belief that even though it helps you earn some money, it also acts as a crutch and you tend to rely on it more than you have to. Its better to rely on your own ICM knowledge and then compare results afterwards with the software. Analyzing hand histories every once in a while using an ICM calculator is critical to figuring out your wrong moves and leaks.

In the 1st game, I finished 1st. I loaded the hand history into SNG Wizard. And waddyaknow. It turns out that I did not make one single mistake. A perfect ICM decision game and I end up 1st. Hmmmm...

In the 2nd game, I finished 5th. Same software. But this time SNG Wizard told me I made 4 mistakes in the ICM pushes that I made. Or rather the ones I didn't make. 3 of the mistakes were me being in the small blind with a hand like J2 and Q7 which I folded. But the software was asking me to push. The other mistake was actually a borderline push on my side. I pushed with A8 in the cutoff+1 and the software was asking me to fold, but A9 was already a push. So I'm ok with this decision.

I am actually aware of this "SB not pushing" leak in my game. But for now, I just cannot wrap my mind around the concept of pushing from the small blind when it is folded to you with a very wide range of hands. I do push loosely when its just SB vs BB. So hands like Kx or J9 or Q9s, I would push. But still iffy on the crappier hands even if the math says otherwise.

To conclude of course that playing perfect ICM will allow you to ITM everytime is fallacious. It is entirely possible to play with no ICM knowledge but still end up winning the game. And on the opposite side of the spectrum, you can play and make perfect ICM decisions and still not end up ITM.

To put it simply, ICM is just a mathematical model that allows you to make the correct push fold decision in the latter stages of an SNG or STT. It compares the equity of folding and the equity of pushing. And whichever is higher is the decision that you make. Actually, it is a little more complicated than this. But this is the easiest way to understand it without making it seem like mumbo jumbo to the average poker player.

ICM is not the end-all of SNG play and it is not perfect. It relies a whole lot on the hand ranges that you think your opponents will push or call with. Wrong assumptions will result in wrong decisions.

But one thing should be clear. As you mature in the game and you increase in limits, the only way to make consistent money if you are an SNG player is to know when to push or fold during the bubble. And the only way of precisely measuring this decision is thru ICM. Mastering ICM will enable you to make positive expectations decisions everytime and obviously this will lead to profits in the long run.

Say Cheese

I'm sure by now, everyone and his brother has seen the Haydengate videos.

Some random thoughts:

1. The girls in the video seem to be genuinely unaware that Hayden was filming the whole thing.

2. Say what you want about the immorality and depravity of Hayden's act. The red-blooded male in me cannot help but shake my head and admire Hayden's taste in women. Those 3 girls are HOT.

3. The most important question everyone is asking is who released the videos to the internet ? I am sure it was not Hayden Kho himself because that would be the epitome of stupidity. If you know your filming fetish is illegal, you'd do everything in your power to keep it a secret. I've even heard some rumors that Hayden was being blackmailed by somebody who got the videos and was demanding money in exchange for not releasing the videos.

OK. Enough Cheese. Back to Poker.

Breakthrough

Woohoo. I know its just 3rd place. I know its just $255. But heck, after a really bad April, I'll take anything. Besides, my total investment amounted to the ridiculous amount of $6. The original buy-in and one add-on.

The short break and the realization of some leaks allowed me to tighten up my game. I was also heeding my own advice to just play without any pressure. Hence the lowly $3 tournament which I don't normally play.

I tinkered a bit with my playing style and my adjustment basically amounted to being more patient in waiting for the premium hands and trusting my instinct to fold when I know I'm beat. I realized when I checked some of the poker tracking sites that I'm basically seen as an aggressive player preflop and I think that some of the other donks could be subscribing to these and playing back with nothing. So toning down a bit on the steals was part of the plan.

And it worked. Well except for the last hand. Chip leader and me both flopped top pair and all the money went in. He outkicked me. I raised with 7-3. He played 7-9. LOL.

For the love of the game

I'm currently in semi-hibernation mode when it comes to my poker playing. Not stopping completely, but basically just playing whenever I feel like it and not forcing myself to play every night just to earn extra money.

I've come to realize during my self imposed break that poker playing has become some sort of required activity that I do as part of my "breadwinner" role in the family. So I play even when I'm tired. I play during my rest days. I play on Sundays and holidays. I even force myself to wake up in the wee hours of the morning just to play. I realized during the short break just how "forced" my poker playing has become.

So instead of being the fun activity that it originally was, it's now become some kind of chore. Of course, the money is there for the taking and some would say that its a wasted opportunity if I reduce my playing frequency. But I think its worth it in the long run in terms of improving my total well being and allowing me to spend more time with my family.

Its true that the money's quite good, but I don't really need it to provide for my family. It was just a supplement. Yes, it paid for the last HK trip. Yes, it paid for some fun stuff like the Xbox360 and a netbook. But I could easily have paid for these things from my regular income.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy playing poker anymore. I firmly believe that I will be a poker playah the rest of my life. But I think I will enjoy it more if I approach it the way I did before. No expectations of regular monthly winnings. No forcing oneself to play because of the possibility of a big win or because I got a free ticket. But just playing for the sake of enjoyment and for the love of the game.

You could say that its hypocritical to disassociate poker with the money. Because in poker, more than any other game, money is the ultimate litmus test of one's skill. I'm sure that none of us enjoys playing with play money except probably for the weirdos in facebook. By the way, what's with that gig ? Lately I find myself talking to people who when I say I play poker, they would immediately say they also play and brag about the thousands of dollars that they've accumulated in Facebook.

I'm like, ok, so what can you do with your facebook dollars ? Can you exchange it for things or some sort of benefit ? And they'd look at me funny as if I was the one going bonkers and say that its like some sort of prestige thing to have mucho money in facebook poker. Uhm, yeaah, riiiight, I get you. =)

Going back to my topic. I'm just saying that poker is more fun when there's no pressure to earn big money. I used to treat it like a hobby which gives me free money whenever I win. But I think I kind of lost my way and lately was treating it as some sort of money making venture which made losing and variance harder to accept. And this was the reason why I was tilting easily.

So now I need to go back to the previous mindset. No expectations. No pressure. Just playing the game and beating the hell out of the fishes.

A Few Days Off

I've decided to take a short break from poker playing. Nothing too major. Maybe a week at most. I've been analyzing my play for April trying to figure out some of the leaks to explain why I seem to be losing more than winning this month.

Well, basically, my own analysis tells me that I have been far too impatient with my online tournament play. I've been willing to gamble with coin flips early in the tournaments and sometimes even calling when I already know I'm behind.

Now this impatience seems to be a result of some kind of tilting. The 1st quarter of the year was ok with positive profit but the first 2 weeks of April were kind of bad and I attributed this mainly to variance. I know that I played optimal the first few weeks but the results were not there. This is quite normal and will happen to every poker player. But this has resulted in me being in semi tilt mode and I may not have realized it.

So just to be on the conservative side and to make sure that I don't waste any more of my bankroll playing catch-up. Let me just take a short break with no poker to clear my head. I've been playing almost everyday in one form or another the past year so I guess some burnout is to be expected.

Again, for those people who have been following my blog and who know me personally, its actually no big deal. I am not busto. My poker bankroll is actually quite healthy. But relatively speaking, the amount I lost from end March to April is significantly higher compared to any losing month before. And considering I only play a couple of SNGs and MTTs a day.

For some, the amount may just be a small blip on the radar, but since I did not increase my playing levels. I find it highly unusual. I pretty much play the same buy ins and frequency that I played last year. So the only logical advise that I can give myself is to take a short break just to refresh my mindset a bit. I cannot really advise myself to lower my playing levels since I did not increase it in the first place. I'm also playing in the same poker rooms with the same sharks and donkeys for the past year or so. In short, nothing changed except I can't seem to win. =(

May 2 will be my self imposed deadline. I'm hoping the break will do me good and enable me to play better come May.

Rebuy 101

I've been playing a lot more online Rebuy tourneys lately and I've realized that there are some unique aspects in the game that are worth discussing in a post. Let me just share some of my thoughts and some of the things I've read and up to you if you find it useful.

Just for reference, the rebuy tourneys I refer to are the normal "buy in with unlimited rebuys during the 1st hour and one add-on after the 1st hour" tourney. These are the most common ones I see around and these are the ones I refer to in this article.

The 1st and most important issue in rebuys is with regards to buy in management. How many rebuys should you spend for it to be cost effective? Should you just keep on rebuying if you bust out until the rebuy period ends ?

The answer to this question is a qualified NO. There is actually what I would call the "break even" point for lack of a better word. The standard budget you allocate should only be something like 3x to 4x the buy-in. Anything beyond this is no longer cost effective because the poker sites actually use this rough guide to determine the last place cash.

An example would probably illustrate this better. Let's say the buy-in is $10 and the tourney starts with around 180 players. So if you follow the rough guide of buy in management I have stated above. The most that you should spend is around $40. This is equivalent to one buyin, maybe 1 to 2 rebuys and finally the add on.

How is this relevant? Well, if you would apply it to the 180 player tourney in the above example and assuming that 40 places get paid. You will notice most of the time that last place cash meaning places 31 to 40 will pay you slightly above $40. YEP.

Of course, I would like to reiterate that this is not a clear cut rule. Some sites may offer some varying amount. But I have noticed that this is the most common payout. In rebuy tourneys, last place cash is usually a little bit more than 4x the buy in. So in order to avoid negative wins (this is where you ITM but you actually lose money), then your total buy ins should be below that range. Sounds logical ? Of course, if you have cash to burn and you're aiming for 1st place anyway, then feel free to rebuy 10x.

OK. Now that you know how much budget to allocate. The other common question is should I take the add-on ? The answer is yes. Unless you're like the bad-ass chip leader with a humungous stack. Otherwise, always take the add on. Why ? Because it usually offers good value for money. Whereas a rebuy is the same amount as your starting stack. The add-on is usually something bigger in amount. Also, you need all the weapons you can get as the real tourney starts after the add-on period. There is no reason not to take it since you've already allocated it as part of your budget and you will be automatically disadvanatged if you don't since everybody gets it.

The other important aspect in rebuys is your play during the 1st hour. You should be extremely tight and play only premium hands. This way, you take advantage of all the loose play, calling stations, and hail maries that go on. Everybody is justifying playing stupid because they always think that they can rebuy anyway. Take advantage of this retarded thinking by playing tight ass poker. Your objective is to pad your stack before the rebuy period ends by playing basic poker and finding a spot where you're way ahead and then double or even triple up.

The worse thing that could actually happen even if you play no hands is you rebuy and you add on and you would actually find yourself still with an average stack after the rebuy period ends. This is true and that is why tight play is correct. One valid strategy that I actually see is players only buying in during the 1st hour break to conserve buy-ins and avoid all the mayhem. It's quite a good tactic but you should be well-versed in short stack play to pull it off.

After the rebuy period ends and the tournament resumes, then you can just play it like a normal freeze-out. Find your spots, be aggressive, etc. I would still advise patience as because of the rebuy, there are still tons of fishes remaining in the tourney. You wouldn't want to bust out because you thought you could bluff stupidjoe out of the pot and he kills you with middle pair against your busted flush draw.

And that's basically it. Rebuy 101. Thanks for reading.

Seat of the Pants Blogging

Lately I find myself blogging just for the sake of blogging. Meaning I don't really have a good poker topic in mind. It's just that I haven't written for a while, so I make a new post without really knowing what I want to write about.

This post is a very good example of this kind of blogging. I am just winging it from whatever weird idea that's currently swimming on the top of my head. Hehehe. Let's call it seat-of-the-pants blogging for lack of a better word.

Actually, I think the reasons behind it are quite simple. April for me is a busy month both in terms of the things that I have to do in the office, the trips abroad that I have to make, plus the fact that April is also the period where we would usually schedule family and company outings. So it's just less time for everything.

I would also blame the evil XBOX 360 for some of this lethargic writing. I'm currently in the middle of Resident Evil 5 and its taking quite a chunk of the usual time reserved for poker and blogging. (DIE ... you motherfucking zombies). Add to this the fact that my brother would also suddenly drop by for extended NBA 2k9 sessions.

So less poker means less poker stuff to write about.

Anyhow, the Pokermanila regulars seem to be of the consensus that April is a bad month in terms of poker playing. I have heard numerous sob stories about variance rearing its ugly head this April. And for me it's no different. Haven't really won anything significant this month. Just when I think I'm on a roll and on my way to a final table, some weird thing happens. You know what I mean. Getting Aces and having them cracked by somebody who played Q2. Getting your stack way ahead and runner runner flush kills you. Mind boggling events that make you want to tear your hair out and punch a hole on the LCD monitor with your fist.

And so it happens to the best of us. We always feel we have enough skill to beat this silly 2 card game, but we still end up eating some donkey shit every few months or so.

So how does one deal with it? The obvious and most common answer is of course Bankroll management.

Bankroll management is an easy concept to understand and I'm sure most of you have read enough that you don't need another nerdy blogger like me lecturing you on it. Do not play beyond your means. Always make sure you have enough buy-ins to withstand variance, blah blah blah ..... It's been discussed to death by pros, semi-pros and pro wannabees. Nobody denies its effectiveness and there are different rules advocated from making sure you have 50 buy ins to staking only a small % of your bankroll.

Everybody knows it, everbody is trying to adhere to it, everbody believes its one of the golden rules of effective poker playing. But why do good players still seem to lose their bankrolls?

I think its because some poker players (me included) have big egos. After a certain number of years playing this game and more often showing good results, one tends to develop this kind of high and mighty ego. So even if you're losing big, you still think you're just being outdrawn. It never crosses your mind that you're actually being outplayed by smarter & better players.

And sometimes what's worse is you may say to yourself that Bankroll management is for sissy beginners. You're already too good to be affected by something as common and pedestrian as variance. So instead of realizing that you're way in over your head and humbly going down levels. You insist on playing at a level that in your mind you should be beating. But in reality is way above what your bankroll dictates. And much worse, it could even be beyond your skill level.

You may think you're good just because you won a big tournament before or cleaned up the same cash game level last month, but long term results is what eventually matters. You cannot proclaim yourself to be the best player in the world but show squat in your balance sheet at the end of the day.

So that's basically my convoluted point. A good poker player is humble enough to know when they're beat and will show willingness to go back to the drawing board to plug the leaks. More than bankroll management. Sometimes, it's actually more ego management that is needed by most of us.

Quickie lang

I know I know ... haven't blogged for a while. So trying to make that up by writing a quick one. Let's do a top 5 things that happened during the time of my last post until now.

1. Played the $100K Guaranteed at Cake last Monday. Holiday so it gave me the opportunity to use the ticket. Should have stayed in bed as I busted out early when my pocket KKs faced the donkey god who played A10 suited and who then proceeded to luckbox the flush. I did make a huge mistake here as I had an opportunity to fold after the turn but I was too damn sleepy at 5AM and was not in the correct mindset. Heheh ... excuses excuses.

2. Also in the same time frame, played the $50K Guaranteed at Pokerstars and I did manage to ITM this one. Unfortunately, I was short stacked once we reached the money, and I busted out shortly thereafter when I made an all-in bluff in the big blind with K8 with 2 limpers in front. SB called with A9.

3. Couldn't resist a great deal that was offered to me on an XBox 360. Some guy won it in an office raffle and just wanted to convert it to cash. So I basically got it at almost 40% off retail. GTA IV, Resident Evil 5, Street Fighter 4, Karaoke Revolution. Enough said.

4. Just came from a 4 day trip to Hongkong with the wife and kids. Did the usual things there, HK Disneyland, Ocean Park and Shopping. And just to reiterate again why I play poker. All our expenses for the trip were sponsored by the Equus africanus asinus over at Cake, Pokerstars and Full Tilt. Thanks again guys. Sa uulitin. (click the link if you don't undertstand latin)

5. Finally, will be going to my favorite beach hang out this holy week so I might not be able to play any poker. In the years past, I would usually cram a lot of tournaments during the holy week holiday. But this year, my cousin got the early booking. So off to the beach we go. I'm definitely looking forward to the down time. The HK trip was supposed to be a vacation but with the kids in tow. It was more hectic than anything else. Now if I can just resist the urge to bring the laptop and the Smart Bro modem. =)

And with that I end another edition of Poking Fun at Poker. Seeya next time!

Nerds and Gamblers

I was reading thru the posts in Pokermanila about how different people got their starts in online poker or what they spent their time in before they got addicted to poker. Some were Counterstrike players. Some played Ragnarok and other MMORPGs. Justin Bonomo and a bunch of others came from Magic the Gathering. There was a different group of people who where exposed to gambling games early on in their childhood whether it was pusoy or blackjack or sabong.

As I clicked thru the different posts, it was like looking at eerily similar backgrounds. And I came to the realization that poker seems to have a tendency to attract 2 kinds of people. The Nerds and the Gamblers.

I know I'm generalizing a bit, but work with me on this. Next time you play poker, please look at the people around you. I am sure you can easily categorize them into one of the two groups I mentioned above. They're either middle aged men/women who were casino regulars before who have now migrated to poker - GAMBLERS. Or they're part of the new generation of guys who were weaned on computer games and tried poker and got hooked - NERDS. Some were exposed to poker at a young age either by an uncle or a father who played - could be a NERD or a GAMBLER. Foreigners who have money to burn and call with anything under the sun - GAMBLERS, well dumbass gamblers but they still fall under gamblers. =)

One way or the other, they're either Nerds or Gamblers. And when I say nerd, I don't mean the usual negative connotation of a guy with glasses covering half his face, wearing high waisted pants, with ballpens in his pocket and stutters when he's talking to a girl. The updated wikipedia definition actually sounds correct.

"Nerd refers to a person who passionately pursues intellectual activities, esoteric knowledge, or other obscure interests rather than engaging in more social or popular activities. Stereotypical nerd qualities have evolved in recent years, from awkwardness and social ostracism to a more widespread acceptance and sometimes even celebration of their abilities. This is largely attributable to the rise of the computer industry, which has allowed many "nerdy" people to accumulate large fortunes and other measures of social prestige. Some measure of nerdiness is widely considered desirable, because it suggests a person who is intelligent, respectful, interesting, and able to earn a large salary. This evolution has dovetailed with waning emphasis on the social awkwardness of nerds, with more attention placed on their intelligence and academic enthusiasm."

In a way, its actually now socially acceptable to be a nerd. Attractive girls now prefer going out with the school nerd because he has the potential to be the next Bill Gates rather than the jock who will most probably end up behind the counter at Mcdonalds.

So what's my point ? Basically I am saying that if you love poker. You either love the rush of going all in with your gut shot straight draw and winning that big pot of cash which makes you a gambler. Or you are part of that other group who is intelectually challenged with figuring out the correct odds and gets intense satisfaction out of making the mathematically correct move which makes you a nerd.

Some people might say that they love to play poker but they're definitely not a nerd? Why ? Because you go to the gym and you dress cool. Heheh. Sabi ko nga. If you think you're not a nerd but you enjoy playing poker, then you're a gambler. It's either one or the other. There is no such thing as a successful non-nerd non-gambler poker player. You win big because you play using the correct math or you were willing to risk everything you owned in that 2 outer and you got lucky.

Looking at it the other way. If you're not a nerd and not a gambler then you will definitely not enjoy poker. Simple as that. You may be part of that group of people who try out the game since it is gaining popular recognition among your friends. But you will eventually drop out of the game because there is no satisfaction involved for you if you are not a nerd or a gambler.

As for me, I am a self confessed nerd. Ever since I was a child, I loved playing video games and my favorite subject was Math. Sure, I could be considered a semi-jock since I played high school ball. But given the choice back then, I would rather jump and bonk my way into the castle to save Princess Peach from Bowser than go out in the hot sun and practice my jump shot.

Note : if you know who Princess Peach and Bowser is, then you're definitely a nerd!

Bugged Out

I came down with some kind of nasty flu last week, hence the lack of updates. I was coughing and hacking and my temperature was in the 39s. It was so bad that I didn't even have the strength to play too much onlike poker. And that's saying a lot.

Do you notice that as time goes by, illnesses take longer and longer to go away. Where before, you'd usually just shrug off a cold or maybe take a day off and the next day you'd be all hunky dory. Now I was totally incapacitated for 4 days and even now a week later, I still have this persistent cough that doesn't want to go away.

It's like its getting harder and harder to kill the bugs that invade our immune system. Some people blame it on the use and abuse of antibiotics and I really think they have a point. The bacteria just develop immunity to the antibiotic and no longer respond. Even if the drug companies come up with stronger and stronger antibiotics. We all know that this is not sustainable and eventually a SUPER BUG will come out that will be resistant to all known antibiotics and then we're in big trouble.

Anyway, I did manage to play a little bit during the latter part of my illness. And I was lucky enough to get 2 qualifying tickets. I got a $200+15 Pokerstars ticket thru the steps qualifiers so now I'm ready to take another crack at the Sunday Million. I also got a $150+15 ticket to the 100K Guaranteed Tourney at Cake.

Both of these big tourneys fall on those godawful early Monday morning skeds our time and I don't see any long weekends or holidays coming up, so I may need to skip work one Monday to play these tourneys simultaneously.

By the way, oluaris over at Pokermanila was asking the other time whatever happened to my objective to play in more live tourneys this year. Well, believe it or not, I was actually going to do something about this lack of live play experience. I was seriously planning to play the Metro Perfect 10. Yep. I had my buy-in prepared (cashed out some online profits) and was already preparing a leave form for Mar 12-14. And then last week I find out that our China supplier decided that they will visit our office on those days. Since I am essentially the point man for some of these joint projects, I cannot be away when they come. And that's pretty much the end of that.

I don't know if I should be disappointed or relieved. Disappointed because I've been itching to play a really good live tourney for quite some time now. Relieved because I think I save myself 25K as I'm pretty sure I will probably bust out early on some donkey ass play. =)

My wife knows more about poker than me ...

I was playing the 3K guaranteed Rebuy over at Cake last night. I did my usual buy in only after the 1st hour routine and was lucky enough to triple up early on using short stack poker strategy.
So now we're near the bubble and I had about 11K in chips. Blinds were already up to 800-1600. I get dealt 10 10 in middle position. One limper in front. So I push all in. Everybody folds except for limper who insta-calls with KK. Fug... the limp trap with monster hand. Flop comes and it shows a 10 to complete a miracle set for me. Woo hoo. Limper had about 10K in chips so I bust him out and double up in the process.

A few hands later and I got moved to a different table. I now had about 20K in chips when I get AJ in late position. Blinds were now 1K-2K. Again one limper in front. So I push all in. SB and BB gets out of the way. Limper tanks for a while. I had him covered by about 1k. He then eventually calls. Guess what he shows. QJ. Dominated hand.

Flops comes Q rag rag. Another Q on the turn. And that essentially cripples me and I bust out on the forced all in on the next hand. I scream and rant at the screen shouting all kinds of stupid names that I can think of at the donkey caller who couldn't hear me anyway.

My wife who managed to observe this whole sequence of events was bemused. She understands the basics of holdem as she sometimes plays in house games. So she asks me. "Hon, why are you so upset ? Isn't that the same exact thing that happened a while back when you had 10 10s. You were the one that dealt a bad beat to the other guy. That was even worse because you only had 2 outs".

I answered quite rudely since I was still steaming. "It's totally different. In the first hand described, I was the aggressor and my M was pretty low. So a push there was the correct move. 7 out of 10 times I would have stolen the antes and blinds which was worth a third of my stack. 2 out of 10 probably I would get called but my 10s would be good. Nagkataon lang in this case, Limper 1 was trapping with monsters and obviously was going to call. He just got unlucky. If I had busted out there, I would have accepted it graciously knowing I made the correct move in that situation. It was just poker fate that doubled me up.

In the 2nd situation, it is totally different. I was still the aggressor and trying to steal the blinds thinking limper had a marginal hand. I blew my top because limper was a total donkey and the poker gods rewarded him. He was presented with a situation where he had to call all of his chips and his tournament life on Q fucking J. And he did it when the correct move was to fold. He has no read on me since I just got moved to the table. So you can't say he was trying to stand up to my aggressiveness. There is no plausible reason except that he is a total donkey."

My wife shrugs .... and says "It sounds like the same to me". =D

Basketbol - Noon at Ngayon (Finale)

Now armed with new basketball shoes, and wearing my lucky boxers (the one saying World Series of Poker on it), I was ready to rock this fuckin basketball tourney.

Our next game was on a Thursday and by Thursday morning, I was hopping up and down with excitement. I take a look at the bulletin board and check who our next opponents are. Hmmm... it says logistics department. I don't seem to know anybody from there. And does our company even have a logistics department ? I mused while scratching my head.

Game night rolled around and the place was rocking. Well, not really. There were a few staff people watching but it was pretty much an empty gymnasium. I sat down on our side of the bench and gleefully pushed my feet into the Lighstpeeds. Ahhh.... feels like my feet got swallowed by this soft cocoon. I could feel the adiprene watchamacallit working already. I jumped up and down a few times and stretched. The referee blew the whistle and it was game time.

It turns out that the aforementioned logistics department is composed of delivery drivers and pahinantes. If your company has these kinds of employees. Then you probably know what we're up against. Pretty much short dark guys with "bato bato" muscles and who run up and down the court like bunnies on steroids.

I look at my team composed of pale, pasty faced, limp armed programmers and some senior supervisors and managers with love handles and I knew we were in for a looong night.

First play of the game and I was designated point guard. Not because I dribbled like chris paul, but because the only other guy on our team who could dribble worth squat had to go home. His wife did not allow him to play that night bec. of some petty quarrel. Mweheheh.

I dribble slowly past the mid court line and I see a teammate flash to the middle holding his hand up. I quickly whip the ball to him expecting a turn around jumper or maybe a strong post move down the middle. He dribbles once, bounces the ball off his foot and straight into the waiting arms of an opposing player. And it was off to the races as I suddenly find myself running backwards while 3 players are coming down fast. I commit to the guy dribbling and a quick bounce pass to the guy on the wing and swoosh. 2-0.

Won't bore you with the exact game details but suffice to say, we were run out of the courts. It was fastbreak galore for the opposing team. The first half was close just because I made a couple of outside shots (ehem) and we had this guy on our team who played commercial league level before. I basically passed him the ball every chance I got and watched him make his move. But eventually he also got tired and by the 2nd half, we got creamed pretty good.

Final score 53-42. I scored 10 pts. The commercial league teammate scored 26. And the other 6 pts was shared between the pathetic losers we call our basketball teammates. Yes, I'm referring to you programmer guys. =)

Did the shoes help at all ? Heheh .. well, I still couldn't dunk. I don't think I jumped any higher or ran any faster. But I thought it offered better support and traction. I know its all mental, but it did help my confidence a bit and I think that's the reason why I made some of those jumpers.

The game was obviously played differently from when I was in HS and I knew I was going to wake up the next day with muscle pains everywhere. But basketball is basketball. All pinoys love to play it and I was surprised to note just how much I enjoyed it and how much I missed the game.

I'm thinking for our next game. I need to get one of those DRI-FIT shirts from Nike. The ones which wick away the sweat to the outside so that it evaporates faster. With new shoes, I scored 10 pts. Imagine what I could do with these babies. (grin)

THE END

Next : Enough about basketball, let's get back to POKER

Basketbol - Noon at Ngayon (Part 2)

Having decided that I needed new basketball shoes. It was time to go shopping. But first, I decided to set a budget. I am a highly impulsive buyer and sometimes when I see something that I like. I don't necessarily look at the price anymore and end up paying an unnecessarily big amount. So in this case, I put it in my mind that I was only going to spend around 3K for a basketball shoe. Spending more than 3K for something that may just end up in our shoe cabinet gathering dust didn't sound like a good investment.

I first checked out the Nike store in greenhills and although there were some models that I saw which fit my budget. There were these 2 shoes that absolutely spoiled my taste. The Lebron 6 and the Kobe 4. Seeing these 2 models made the other shoes look downright shabby in comparison. Seriously, the Kobe 4s were supposed to be the lightest basketball show ever made weighing in at something like just over 11 ounces. While the Lebrons were simply beautiful. See pics

Dangnabbit. Sabi ko na nga ba eh. I didn't even want to look at the price tag of these babies. But I had to know. The Lebron 6 were 7K++ while the Kobe 4 was 6,995. Arrrrgh!! More than double the amount that I had in mind. With a loud sigh and with much regret, I placed both shoes back in their stands and grudgingly walked out of the store. I didn't even want to look at the other Nike models anymore. I knew that if I stayed any longer, I would be tempted to just say " Aaah, fuck it" and tell the saleslady to bring a size 10 of the Lebrons. Heheh.

Next stop was the Adidas signature store. And here I was surprised to see a new selling concept for basketball shoes. It seems that Adidas has decided not to release exclusive signature models for their basketball endorsers anymore. They would release the same signature shoe for everyone except that it came in different colors and slightly different designs. So before, they used to have the TMACs for Tracy Mcgrady and the GilZero for Gilbert Arenas. Now it was the Bounce Commander and your choice was Garnett, Howard and Duncan. The basic shoe was exactly the same for all 3, the only difference was the colorway. See pic.

I think the concept is similar to what Converse did before where Magic Johnson and Larry Bird wore the same shoes except they were different in color. In any case, the bounce commanders were still way off my budget retailing at 5,495 if I remember correctly.

Grrrr .... I was starting to think that there was a conspiracy going on and these marketing geniuses at Nike and Adidas really knew what they were doing. If I really wanted something nice and with somebody's name on it, then I had to pay up. I think the Adidas saleslady sensed my apprehension and belatedly told me that they had last year's signature models on sale and pointed them out to me.

As it turned out, last year's models were quite nice. They were called the TS Lightspeed and they were at 40% off. Original price was also 5,495 but now selling for only 3,200. Ahhh... I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Well to make a long story short, I found a color that I liked and Cha-Ching. The lady swiped my mastercard and I am now the proud owner of brand spanking new TS Lightspeed basketball shoes TMAC version. Obviously, they weren't as nice as the Lebrons or Kobes, but what's important is I stuck to my budget and got some nice signature shoes although old model lang nga. Heheh. Ang daming drama just for a basketball shoe. But that's just for blog purposes, the actual shopping trip took only an hour at the most.

Next : How I did in the next basketball game with new shoes

Basketbol - Noon at Ngayon (Part 1)

If my memory serves me right, I was a decent basketball player back in high school. I had a fairly good medium range jumper. I could jump. I was fast on my feet and I had good basketball IQ. I am about 5 foot 8 inches tall. So I would usually play either shooting guard or the small forward position in my high school team.

After high school, I seldom played basketball on a competitive basis. College was pretty much a hectic affair with girls being my first priority. My studies were a far second. And basketball. Well, let's just say that aside from the once in a while pick-up game in the gym. It was pretty much forgotten and put aside.

After college. I don't think I ever played basketball again. It was kind of hard getting a group together to play 5 on 5. But I engaged in other sports like badminton when it suddenly became popular and badminton courts sprouted like weeds in every corner of the city. Also, I did keep up with what's happening in the basketball scene and watched NBA games on a fairly regular basis aside from playing fantasy basketball on the PC.

A couple of weeks ago, the company I worked for had its yearly basketball tournament among the different departments. I don't normally join this tournament. But this year, a new team was formed and being short handed, I was coerced to join. I thought it was going to be one of those events where severely unfit guys from each department huffed and puffed their way down the court with their beer bellies sticking out and people taking a break every 5 minutes.

I was dead wrong. It turns out that its a highly competitive affair complete with referees and wooden courts, where people dive for loose balls and gave elbows to your gut when the referees were not looking. I also found out that I couldn't run fast anymore and my vertical jump was pathetic. Heheheh. There was a 50+ year old guy from the sales department who outhustled me every time there was a loose ball. I still had my outside shot but it was woefully inadequate and our team lost by an embarassing margin during our first game.

Obviously, I wasn't going to take this kind of humiliation every week. So being your average normal guy, I came up with the brilliant conclusion that my failure to run fast or jump high was caused by my ratty, old cross trainers which were not fit for basketball. I remembered wearing these really cool Converse Hi Cut Shoes back in high school and doing pretty well. (If I remember correctly, they were similar to what Magic Johnson wore) So I decided then and there that I was going to buy a new pair of Basketball shoes before our next game to bring my game to the next level.

(to be continued)