All You Need is Luck ?

When non-playing people find out that you play poker semi-seriously, I am often asked the question "Hindi ba swertihan lang yan ?".


To which of course I vigorously reply the negative, and give an answer similar to the following "Actually its more skill than luck, blah blah blah" and then I try to explain about probabilities and pot odds and bankroll management. After about 30 seconds, I get the glazed eyed look that tells me he's pretty much lost interest in the topic. So I tell him how much I've won so far, and he then perks up and is now asking me about details on how he can try it.


Of course, I gleefully help with the details, even volunteering to transfer some money to help him get started. In my mind, its my way of contributing to the growth of online Philippine poker. Getting rich fishes into the ocean is not a bad idea if you know what I mean.


But kidding aside, is it really all luck ?


Well, we all know its not. But its certainly a very big part of it. Case in point is the recent Pokerstars Sunday Million. I managed to catch the replay of the final table & the headsup match between hockeystud and dunk.


When they were down to 2, they agreed to chop the pot based on chip count so that one got $136,000 and the other $112,000 (rough figures). They then played for the final $30,000. Even before the headsup, there were numerous bad beats from one end of the table to the other.


Huge Payday. More than 5 million pesos for each of them for roughly 12 hours of work. I know the APPT winner took down $179,000. But remember this one is only a $215 buy in tourney


The interesting thing is if you check out their stats in official poker rankings for the pokerstars site and take out the win. You see that Hockeystud is a marginally winning player at around +4K. Dunk on the other hand was a marginally losing player at about -$3K.


You will also see that both these guys play a lot of the big online tourneys and the swings in their bankroll is quite large. But note that before the big 6 figure payday, they weren't really winning that much considering the buy-ins they were putting in.


Of course this is only for Pokerstars, and the data is limited from late 2005 to recent and it may not be complete. Also from the data, they appear to be regular MTT players and the variance is huge if you play exclusive MTTs. No SNGs for these guys if you believe sharkscope.


But I think you get my point and its certainly something to think about ........


One lucky night plus a good bankroll is all it takes ?? Heheh .....

Omaha Story atbp

In no particular order:


1. Accidentally entered a Pot Limit Omaha Hi SNG. Thought it was NLHE. And folded my way to ITM. Did not play one single hand except for the big blind and the table just busted itself out. I played my first voluntary hand when there were only four of us left. So 2 really big stacks, one small stack and me. The small stack was quickly eliminated. And then there were 3. Immediately noticed that one of them was already disconnected and was just folding away. But for some reason Big Stack villain#2 did not notice, so I stole a lot of blinds and got myself up even to him. Then a pivotal hand where I got the higher straight on an initial board of 6 7 8. Big stack villain #1 never returned and it was the easiest 1st I ever took. Low limit Omaha can't be that easy ? Will play some more games and see what happens.


2. Bubbled out in 2 NLHE Tournaments. One was an 8th place finish where top six gets paid. And the other was a 7th place finish where only Top 5 got paid. One was a bad beat where my set of Jacks got flushed on the river. The other was a bad push on my side, although was ahead preflop A-3 vs K-10. It was bad because I think I could have played that differently and kept myself in that game.


3. For some good news, I took down first in an Ultimate Bet $5.50 MTT. A case of "Last Money never dies". If you remember the UBE from my previous entry, I conducted an experiment where I was going to see how far I was going to go with the $1.50 I had left ($98.50 was lost to a drunken night of Blackjack) ala Ferguson. This abruptly ended when I realized that it was a semi waste of time. But I had actually gotten it up to a few dollars higher playing micro SNGs. That was a few months ago and I completely forgot that I had some money left in UB. Well, UB decided to remind me and also added $10 to my inactive account. So I decided to just play out the money and of course I immediately win an MTT to push my account over $100 and belatedly fulfill the objectives of that experiment. Mweheheh ....

Okay ... I know this is unscientific and has no basis at all. But have you ever noticed that whenever you have a small amount of money left and say "fuckit, i'll just play it out to close the account", you tend to win. This has happened to me twice already. The first time was during the early stages of my online playing when I had around $18 left in Poker.com and just played it all in a $15 MTT. I took down second for a little over $400.

Yep ... bullshit theory. But I just wanted to see if anybody had the same kind of experience.

Malaysia Quick Trip

I was in Malaysia the past 3 days for a quick business meeting. On paper, it was supposed to be 3 days 2 nights. But I was actually only there for 1 day. I arrived around 10 PM tuesday, had a meeting the whole wednesday, and went back to Manila on a 12 noon flight on Thursday.

Consdering the 3.5 hour flight and all the airport lags. Wasted 2 whole days just on travel and transits.

Anyway, here are the things that caught my attention in the short span of time that I was there.

1. Beautiful Airport. I would say on par with the Hongkong one. Yep, all the countries I have visited in Asia already have state of the art and modernized airports. Tayo na lang yata ang sputtering along on the decaying Terminal 1. I can imagine the dismay and disappointment of foreigners/investors when they arrive in our airport. We have to get our act together and at least try to get Terminal 3 open. Terminal 2 for PAL flights is OK, but Terminal 1 has to be torn down and rebuilt ASAP.

2. Cultural Diversity. Here you can actually see a good mix of Malays, Chinese and Indians living harmoniously together. They've sort of achieved a balance. So when you go to the mall, you'll see a chinese girl in a short mini-skirt and a moslem lady covered up from head to toe with only her eyes showing walking side by side talking animatedly.

3. Pic attached is the facade of the Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel where I stayed. Really nice. Has a shopping mall right beside it, a theme park and if I'm not mistaken some sort of small animal sanctuary. And the hotel rate considering that its peak season was very reasonable.

4. Malaysia will be celebrating 50 years of independence from the British this coming Aug 31. So Kuala Lumpur, the capital, is really geared up for this big celebration. You can see Malaysian flags flying everywhere. The hotels and malls are decorated with all sorts of designs and they have all sorts of gimmicks and sales.

Overall, I would say a good place to visit. English is widely understood and spoken by everyone. Certainly cheaper prices than Singapore for everything from food to gas to shopping stuff. Traffic in the streets is OK. The flight schedule is erratic for Malaysian Airlines but if you're on a budget, go to Clark and take Air Asia.

I always get a nostalgic feeling of sadness when I take these trips and see our Asian neighbors and realize how far they have progressed. Sobrang layo na rin ng Malaysia sa Pinas. In terms of natural resources naman, we're at par with these countries, so its not that they have some kind of advantage. All the people i've spoken to agree on one thing. Philippines has the potential. We just need discipline from the people and a strong leader.

Oh well.... back to poker. Heheh ....

Bad Beat Central

Hahah ... just had to get them out of my chest. Busted out on the first hand in 2 tourneys one right after the other.

1. $5.50 buy in. UTG. First hand and I get AAs. Blinds were 5-10. I raise it to 50. Somebody reraises to 90. 2 callers before it gets back to me. Raise it again to 350. Guy who originally reraised calls. The 2 others fold and we see a flop. The flop was K 5 8 with 2 hearts. I go all in. Without any hesitation, villain calls and shows A heart 10 spade. Lol ..... yep. I was jumping in joy until he turns and rivers 2 hearts for the flush.

2. $11.00 buy in 1.5K GTD. First hand I get K9o late position. Blinds were 10-20. Two limpers and then 1 guy raises very high to 215. Fully intending to fold but I was playing an SNG at the same time and I click call by mistake on the wrong table. So I see a flop and its the miracle flop. Q J 10 giving me the straight. The guy who raised throws out a small bet. I of course go immediately all in. He calls and shows 10 10 for the set. Yeah baby. River was the Q to give him the fullhouse. Ouch.

Luckily I took down the SNG for some consolation. But still, ugh! . What can you do? You get your chips all-in when you're ahead. The essence of NLHE play. Can't do anything about the luck part. =)

Poker is like a Strip-Tease

After bagging that 1st place finish in the short-handed MTT, I was lucky enough to reach 2 more MTT final tables in the last couple of days. Although everything was just low buy-in with the cashes not exceeding $150, it was still nice scores that padded the bankroll

So now I'm strutting around, boasting to my wife that I've got this MTT game licked. I was licking my chops, just waiting for the chance to play another tourney.

Well, I think the poker gods decided that I was too confident for my own good and fucked me around by making sure I got a calling station in the MTT that I played last night. I raised AQ preflop and pot betted the flop with a Q showing and of course the caller had a gutshot straight draw that got made on the turn.

When he raised all in prior to the river, I knew I was in big trouble but as usual I assumed my poker opponent had rudimentary poker intelligence. Because the board was safe. No flush draw, no pair on the board with a Q showing. The only thing that could beat me was a set which was highly unlikely with his betting pattern. Or a 6-7 for the made straight. I gave him the benefit of the doubt that nobody would be stupid enough to play that hand with a strong pre flop raise and more so with the pot bet on the flop. So I called.

I couldn't be more wrong as he did chase his gutshot straight to the turn with the 6-7.

Arrgh ! ..... when will I learn my lesson? It's low buy-in, you get all sorts of players who think differently than logic would dictate or somebody who just wants to gamble. Read the bets, no matter how unlikely the situation may be. I need to realize that some players will play anything. I would have been low stacked but still in the running if I folded to that all-in.

The thing is, I've doubled up in similar situations lots of times before with the same raise all in play by guys who played KQ, QJ or Q 10. So what to do ?

Strip-teasing our minds. Poker is. Just when you think you've seen it all, that last piece of clothing always hides something unexpected.

Off to a Good Start

My 2nd year of playing online got off to a rousing start as I managed to take down 1st in a $5.50 buy-in short handed MTT over at Poker.com.

The critical suckout hand I will describe below :

Middle Rounds. Got AKs in late position. I pop in a raise for around 3.5x BB. One caller, don't
remember if it was the SB or the BB. Flop comes K 5 5. Good flop for me. The caller who is a player from China checks, so I bet out 3/4 pot and gets cold called rather quickly. At this point in time, I thought to myself, he can't have played an A5 with the raise. Even more unlikely is the 5 5. So I put him down on something like KQ or KJ which I dominate.

Turn is a 2. China guy checks again so I pop out another 1/2 pot bet. China guy thinks for a while, then suddenly reraises me all in. Alarm bells start to ring. Did he really play an A5?

If you've played with players from China before, you will notice that they're pretty fearless and will bluff at a lot of pots with midpair or draws. This was the only reason and the fact that I got him covered by a small amount that I called.

Guess what he showed ? 5 effing 6. Yep he played a 56 with the preflop raise. This completely threw me off. Good thing the river squeezes out another K (2 outer). And my full boat Ks over 5s beats his 5s over Ks to bust China guy out.

Man! Talk about lucky. After that, had good stack and just played ABC poker to make it to the FT easily. Final Table was straightforward as I got some good hands which paid off. Heads-up was against a pretty passive player who got lucky a couple of times. He called my KJ all in with his QJ. Rivered his Q. My DSL connection got cut for about 5 minutes which allowed him to steal a lot of pots.Managed to fight back with some aggressive play to gain a slight chip lead. Finally got him to commit an all-in with his A-rag against my pocket 3s. No improvement and that was it. 1st place. Woohoo .....

The cash was not really that significant but being the last man standing certainly feels good. =)

One Year and Counting ...

August marks the 1st year anniversary of my online poker odyssey.

Much like any other relationship, it has had its share of ups and downs. Some days you feel invincible as nobody can touch you, other days you bang your head on the table and just want to throw your laptop into the toilet as you can't seem to catch a break. Hot streaks and bad beats come right after the other with no logical reason. It is the ultimate love-hate relationship.

But overall, I have to say that I am quite satisfied with the way things have progressed so far.I know that my game has improved since last year. Better hand selection, better post flop play, better feel for the game. I also managed to pick up a few tricks along the way and have even learned to play Omaha and Stud. But I also know that I've only scratched the tip of the iceberg in terms of poker learning.

Luckily, my donkeyness has led to a decent positive ROI so far. From what I read, only 30% earn money playing poker, the rest are losing. My net profit playing online poker for the past year has been modest but fairly good. I would not have thought one year ago that I could earn that much extra money on the side playing what is essentially just a computer game.My bankroll has also increased significantly along the way. But my choice of limits and games has pretty much stayed the game. Still NL Holdem with some Omaha thrown in every once in a while. Still playing mostly low buy in SNGs. The main difference I would say is that I now play MTTs more often. Just ones up to $25 buy in max, But I have won a few here and there and that is also some validation of my improvement.

So what's next for me ?In a past post, I have outlined some goals that I would hope to achieve including playing in the WSOP, earning 1 million pesos, etc. I know some of them are long shots, but it's worth having some long term goals to look forward to.

For my next playing year, I'm pretty much set in my priorities. This will still be a hobby kind of thing for me. I will continue to play a few SNGs per night plus the once in while tourneys during the weekends. I will try to increase my limits some since my bankroll can already handle it. I would also like to try a few of those big Sunday guaranteed MTTs and maybe try to qualify for a WPT or WSOP tourney thru satellites. Some live tourneys in the Metro will also be a possibility depending on my schedule.

The most important thing is that I need to realize that I have a long way to go. Sometimes I get impatient when I read about these online poker "wizards" who earn tens of thousands of dollars every month. But one must understand that these guys play poker exclusively with thousands of games under their belt. I haven't even breached the one thousand game mark yet.

Slow but Sure. That should be my poker mantra. No need to risk my bankroll trying to go for the BIG win even though I'm basically freerolling with the amount that I have right now. I should be more critical about my play and always analyze how I could have played a hand better. Do not just attribute losses to bad donkey plays by opponents that suckout. In most cases upon further analysis, you could have avoided these coinflips altogether.

Burning out is also a concern as working the whole day 6 days a week, trying to be a good father to active toddlers and playing at night does takes its toll. Sometimes I have no energy or drive to even open my PC for poker. Taking a break for a day or two usually does the trick of recharging me. But again, once you start winning some, its like you feel sometimes na sayang yung opportunity if you don't get to play.

I guess it's all about keeping a sane perspective as to what poker is to our lives. It is not the end-all. It is just a highly entertaining competitive game that you play for fun which just happens to give you some side income. So I cannot be too stressed out if I bust out early or I get sucked out or missed some tourneys that I already qualified for because I couldn't wake up early enough.

I earn a comfortable living without poker and I can certainly live without it. But I am also highly competitive in everything that I do and working hard to be good at poker or anything else is something that I cannot help. It's always been in my nature. I'll probably die early due to some heart ailment because of this personality trait, but what can I do ? heheh

Well that's about it for my one year retrospective. I look forward to another year of playing poker and certainly hope to see some of you guys around. Good Luck to everyone.