Sometimes poker sucks, but you have to take it in stride

Last night, I had the most miserable live session of poker that I can remember. Looking back on it today, I'm disappointed, but actually feel OK about it, since I think I didn't cost myself extra by bad play. Bad cards were unfortunate, but I know it's going to happen. I will say that I was pretty discouraged and made a few comments at the table. I wish that I had the attitude and demeanor then as I do now. But, I am learning. A while ago, I would have gone on tilt and done some stupid plays, making a bad situation worse. At least I had the presence of mind this time to not let my emotions affect my play (much, anyway), even if I didn't act well.

The problem is that even though my play was OK, I still detracted from my table image. I think that made people totally unafraid to push me around, which had I been in more marginal situations would have made it tougher on me. For the most part, my hands were pretty hopeless, not really marginal at all.

Playing 6/12 at an absolutely killer table -- people playing tons of hands, calling down if they have less than 2 pair (except for the guy who raised everytime, except when he had a good hand), yada yada yada. One guy who raised and capped preflop with pocket fives check/called down the preflop 3-bettor with 3 broadway cards on the flop, and a fourth one on the river! And me? I played for a touch over 5 hours on that table and I won exactly 4 hands, and one of those was on a stone bluff from the big blind.

I didn't win my first hand for an hour and a half, the fourth dealer I saw. The only good thing is that for the most part I was getting such bad cards, it only cost me the blinds or I could get out on the flop pretty easily. I couldn't usually take much advantage of a tight image because there was really not much bluffing going on -- just about every hand was shown down, a lot of times by 3 or 4 people. I only had 2 pots where I lost a lot, and only one of those was more than I should have. That one I flopped the top end of an open ended straight draw on a rainbow board, but was caught between a guy with top pair, and another guy with two overcards who wanted to make sure he got all in (he thought it was lucky to be all in -- LOL). It probably should have been clear to me on the flop that I was going to be squeezed, and the short stack was able to get the turn to a 3-bet before he was all in. Of course, the straight draw didn't come in.

The other big hand was when I had pocked kings which I got to 3 bet preflop, and had a few people go to the flop. It was a low flop, probably something like 973, 2 spades. The preflop raiser bet into me, I raised, everyone folds except a lady in the big blind, who cold calls (she also cold called the preflop 3 bet). The turn was inconsequential. It was checked to me, I bet, the lady called, and the other guy folded. The river was another 7 to pair the board, and the lady checkraised me. It may have been the first time she'd raised (and this was a few hours in), and was definitely the first time she checkraised, although she then did it to someone else just a little bit later. I figured she had just hit trips, but I couldn't find a fold. She had K7 :(. That knocked me down to a little over two racks in the hole, and I played a few more orbits and took off.

The last several times I've been out to the cardrooms or online, it's kind of gone like that. Maybe not so brutal, but certainly a lot of bad players making their bad plays, and getting there. I'm able to see all the stuff they're doing wrong, and I feel like I'm getting my money in with the best of it, and getting away with the worst of it (early), and generally playing pretty solid. But the chips aren't sliding my way. So, definitely not as fun at the table as being on a heater when I didn't really know so well what I was doing. But away from the table, I actually feel pretty good, even though I'm losing. I've still got enough that I don't have to drop a level, and I'm clearly seeing what my opponents are doing wrong, and my mistakes are not as costly as they have been in the past. I just need to get that attitude ingrained while the game is going on, instead of the next day thinking it over or writing a blog entry!

OK, off to a kid's soccer game -- second one today :). Here's hoping to better luck at the tables and getting some of the big mo back in the game!

A little about my poker part II

Yeah, OK, so I'll try to keep the rest of my poker background short. No one really cares, since I don't play for massive money or anything like that. As I was starting to search around for poker strategy on the web, I came across all the banners for online poker sites, and as well came across links to poker forums. The biggest poker forum is 2+2 (www.twoplustwo.com), and the biggest poker site is Party Poker. I signed up for both of those, and jumped into the online poker world. I won't say I buried myself in it, because there are people who play and post on the forum as much in a week as I do in several months. But in the context of my world, I jumped in full force -- reading through posts between meetings and emails at work, playing after Wife goes to sleep, Theory of Poker replacing some Dark Tower book on my nightstand, etc.

I don't start that many new things in my life anymore because when I do, I know I'm going to have to commit a ton of time up front -- quickly -- to not feel incompetent. Whether it's golf, poker, a new job, investing, even joining a new forum, I am a little obsessive about coming up to speed. But one of the really great things to me is the rapid learning and progress.

I was playing on Party mainly to practice. I started out on their lowest level, so the money was inconsequential to me in a life sense. But having stakes of any kind does change the play a little bit, so even the lowest stakes are a lot better than the play money to practice. It turns out that even the lowest stakes on Party can prepare you for more significant stakes in live play. More on that later. Being (too) competitive, and also because it's how most new players measure progress, I savored the wins and bemoaned the losses, even though the total amount of dollars was never more than what it costs to take the family out to a cheap Mexican dinner and a movie. For me, it was all about the learning.

By the time the next home game rolled around, I had the best of it in Hold'em, except against the one guy that inspired me to start getting better. By the time the game after that one rolled around, I didn't even want to play other games -- quite the switch from wanting to play any game except Hold'em. The cool thing (from a competitive standpoint) was that I think I had an edge in all the stud games we were playing. But I was really into learning Hold'em, and realized that I didn't know all that much about the other games.

Well, that home game kind of died out more than a year ago. I've replaced it with occasional (couple times a month) trips to local card rooms. And the online poker (playing and the forums) have continued. I've moved up from the very bottom of the Party ladder to the upper end of the small stakes, the $5/$10 limit game. I don't play a lot of hands, and will move up with less bankroll than I probably should, but that's counteracted by the facts that I calculate my bankroll through only money earned playing (not bonus and rakeback), plus I'll move down quickly (had to go back to $2/$4 from $3/$6 a couple times) if I hit a mini-downswing.

Limit hold'em is a pretty high-variance game, and it can get frustrating to hit a downswing. I'm getting better about taking them in stride, but they're still no fun. Plus, the rate at which I'm learning is slowing down (I'm sure there's a lot more still to learn, it's just that the pace is slowing down). I've dabbled in Omaha (hi/lo), and am thinking about giving no-limit hold'em a shot. For both, the idea is to find something with a little less variance, and to get the learning cranked up again. I just need to think about how the live availability of those games in the card rooms near me stack up, since I don't play enough to be on top of my game for multiple games. More thoughts on live play and different games later.

A little about my poker, Part I

I guess I should give a brief (hopefully) background about my poker playing, given the title of the blog. There's not really much to tell, actually. Other than 4 years of goofy dealers choice games in college for nickels, dimes, and quarters, my poker playing began in the fall of 2004 in a monthly home game with my golf buddies. We still played dealers choice (blend of 7 card stud-based split pot games like hi/lo, Chicago, with some 5 card draw thrown in there). About the extent of my strategy knowledge was a nugget I remembered from a book I'd glanced at years ago, which said that the average hand that wins in 5-card draw is a pair of jacks, and the average hand that wins in 7-card stud is 3 eights.

I guess I'm naturally conservative in most things. In this game, I was playing not to lose, as opposed to trying to win. I didn't enter many pots, folded to any aggression without having a hand, and didn't bet or raise myself without a really strong hand. Pretty easy (although maybe not fun) to play against, but you can keep yourself out of much trouble with that approach. I was probably a small winner for 3 or 4 nights (months), and noticed one guy was the consistent big winner. Now, we weren't playing for huge stakes ($60 buyin, $2-max bet/raise), but I'm (too) competitive, and I wanted to be at the top. But I didn't do anything about it.

One night, someone suggested we play Texas Hold'em. I'd never even heard of the game, and wasn't crazy about playing with a disadvantage (again, too competitive). Well, I had no idea what were 2 good cards to come in with, and I'm sure I played way too many hands. I stunk it up that night, and had a month to think about it before the next game. So, the next day, I started searching for poker strategy on the web. I don't remember all the sites that I came across, but I did get some decent advice, and started to read about the different online rooms.

Coming up....the beginning of my online play.

My son's first year of soccer started last week. Although I don't really know much about soccer, I'm going to be an assistant coach. I did the same with my daughter's basketball team last year (although I know a bit about basketball, since I played in school), and I really enjoyed it. We try to go to all their practices and games anyway, so I don't see it as that much more of a commitment in terms of time. I like being involved, and (I think) the kids like having me out there.

The only thing that I don't like about it is that kids seem to listen to the coaches, except the coaches' own kids. I don't know how many times last season my daughter woudn't do a drill in practice or something in the game when I asked her, but as soon as the coach asked her, she did. Same thing with the coach's daughter, until I asked. Oh, well.