BBT5 Invitational Part 1

Wherein I play some hands good, some hands bad, some hands mediocre, and bust out just a little out of the money. For my non-pokery readers, this is a heavy poker post. If you’re not into that, read an archived post for a little while.

So last night was the first BBT5 invitational tournament, and I was both happy and disappointed with my performance. Happy that I went deep, busting two out of the money in a tough field, and disappointed that I pissed away a big chip lead in two really poorly played hands. Of course, there was some debate that I acquired the chips in poorly played hands, so that’s only fair I suppose.

Let’s start with two hands that I played (in my mind) well, that built my stack up huge in the middle going of the tournament. In my mind, where I am a good poker player (which, sadly, only is true inside my head, but it’s my blog, so deal with it)these two hands exemplify how my game works when I’m on my game. And for a little while during this tournament, I was on. In the first, I laid a huge suckout on Lucko to double up and grab a bunch of chips. In the second, I won a coin toss against Bayne and pretty much played it as well as I could to get a bunch of his chips. Later on, we’ll go through the steps of the courtesy double-ups I granted Doc Chako and Julius Goat to show that I know when I suck as well as having a few delusions about when I play gOOt.

In the first hand, I was in the small blind with Lucko directly to my right. Lucko had been there for a while, and what I know from his game is that he’s a solid, experienced, aggressive tournament player. He had done some fairly predictable things in the orbits since he sat down, raising in late position almost every time it folded to him, and I surrendered my blinds every time like a good little donkey. In this hand I decided to defend my blind with 9s-3s, mostly planning to (a) call, then fold if I missed the flop entirely, setting up a chance to call and check-raise later with a monster or (b) call with trash and if I hit my baby flush or something stupid like a pair of nines on a non-paint board to snap off a steal by catching my garbage. My thoughts on his range were – 40% any two big cards, 40% any pocket pair, 20% any two napkins with the button. Of course I didn’t break it down that coherently in my conscious thoughts, it went more like this in my head “Lucko is a good player, he likely has a real hand. If I hit my trash and he misses his real hand, I might get a pile of chips out of him.” He had me slightly covered, but we were both pretty deep at this point.

The flop came down A-2-4 in some arrangement of suits, no flush draws. Now I’m thinking he probably hit his Ace, but if I peel one and hit my gutshot I can almost certainly get a bunch of chips, and maybe even double through Lucko here. So I check, he makes a fairly decent-sized c-bet, maybe 2/3 or 3/4 pot, and I peel one off. The turn brings my 5 to give me the wheel, and I check my straight, pretty sure that if he has an Ace, he’ll fire again. He fires again, and I put out a healthy raise. Lucko thinks for a moment and moves all in over the top. I snap-call, he shows AK and is drawing dead. Lucko’s crippled, and goes out a little while later, but not before griping in the chat about how these are the “worst tournaments ever,” and making a few snide comments about bloggers. Now let me make it clear, I am not a good poker player. Most days, I’m not even mediocre. And I think Lucko is a better tournament player than me by a mile. Which all combined to let me double through him in that hand. I may not be a good poker player, but I play with some very good poker players, and I have only stayed alive by learning how to match up against a better player – figure out what they think you should do, and do something different. I couldn’t peel one for the gutshot against BadBlood or Special K, because while they are good players, they have enough hands logged against me to know that I’ll do that, and I would never have gotten a turn bet out of them, much less the re-raise. With Lucko and I not playing each other very much, I used his solid game against him for a double up.

Now, am I saying that taking a card off drawing for a gutshot was a mathematically correct move? No. But was it really a very bad move? Also, I posit the answer is ‘No.” Of course I didn’t go into nearly as much detail thinking through the hand in progress as I did explaining it here, but that’s what thin-slicing is all about. And if you’re not familiar with the term, read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, which every poker player should read anyway. It went more like “He’s stealing my blind again, I need to defend. This hand is easy to get away from if I miss, and if I hit, it’s unlikely to help his hand. I call.” Then something like “He probably hit the ace, so the only way I pay off another bet is if I make my straight, but if I get there he’ll fire again, and I might get him to call a raise, too. I call.” Then “Got there. If I check, he’s almost guaranteed to bet. I check.” Then “Got him. Now let’s see if he’ll call my raise.” Then “Wow. If he really has 3-6, then he’s way, way more creative than I give him credit for, and he deserves all my chips, but I’m almost 100% sure I’m good here. I call.” Then “well, that went well.” So, that’s a long-winded way of saying if you insinuate in the chat box that I’m an idiot, you’re stuck with a long-winded explanation of why I just flat outplayed you.

The next hand pretty much played itself for both of us. I had the button with T-T, and put in a 3xBB raise, which was the identical raise that I made any time I opened a pot all night. Bayne was in the SB with A-J, and called. Reasonable action all the way around. Flop came down X-J-T, and We both checked. I thought I was being all sneaky, and so did Bayne. Tricky poker players :). I don’t remember the turn action, but I think Bayne bet and I raised. The river was another Jack, and I think Bayne checked and I bet about 1.3x the pot, or maybe a little more. I remember pressing the pot button and starting to scroll down, and then I thought “waitaminit, this would be a really good time to overbet. If he folds, I don’t lose out on anything, but if he has a Jack, it’s gonna be hard for him to not call me. So I overbet the pot, Bayne called, and I showed my boat. That one kinda played itself, but I was really happy about adding a level to my thinking on the river bet sizing.

Then I got moved to a new table and donked off all my chips. First I was in either late position or a blind with A-Q, and Chako raised preflop. I thought about three-betting, but decided against it, then the flop came down X-Q-K. Doc led out, I put in a big raise, and he went all in. I called to see his K-Q, and felt like the moron that I was. No Ace for me, too bad, so sad. I could have easily gotten away from that hand with second pair, top kicker, especially when I thought to myself that he had started behind and outflopped me. But sometimes we get in the habit of wanting to fabricate bad beat stories, and that’s what I subconsciously did there. I wanted to be able to whine about Doc’s preflop hand and him catching up and all that shit, but I really can’t, because I played it bad. It was absolutely one of those self-creating bad beat moments, and I gave away a bunch of chips in the process.

I did it again a few hands later when I called Julius Goat preflop with Ac-Jc, and then raised him on the Ace-high flop. I could certainly have gotten away from his re-raise, but I wasn’t quite smart enough, and was trusting in my suckout mojo too much. He showed AK, and I had given away 60% of my stack in two hands. I never really recovered, and although I could have probably folded my way into the bottom tier of the money, when I flopped 2nd pair and the up and down straight draw on a T-Q-K board holding QJ I decided that it was time to double up or go to work on the PokerStars blog. I went to work while JJOK went on to win the thing. Congrats, dude! And thanks again to Full Tilt Poker and AlCantHang for putting this together! I had Dave from Poker from the Rail at my starting table and it was fun playing with him for a while. I’ll be back next week to try and play a little better, and without the distraction of a work assignment that evening, so maybe I’ll do a little better.

Hmmmm…

Sitting in the car waiting for Suzy as she goes into the bowels of Hell (Wal-Mart on a Saturday). We’ve been out running errands for an hour or so now, and that’s only resulted in one brief fight, which is pretty good for us. I’m checking out the WordPress app for iPhone and it’s not bad. Of course the auto correct on the spelling has been my saving grace so far…

Did a short reading last night at Just Do It at Theatre Charlotte, and that was well-received. Sold a book, which is always good, and when I got home I realized that now I REALLY have to order more, because I’m down to less than ten copies. So I’ll make that happen sometime this week, as well as publishing the free shipping coupon that LULU sent me this week. So if you’ve been holding out to see me in person to buy the book, now you can get it shipped to you free (and probably more promptly than I would).

So there’s a minipost from the phone and I don’t think I backspaced much more than in a normal post, so maybe it’ll be an option. Especially if I break down and buy an iPad tomorrow.

And somedays it pays to be an old-timer

And not just because I’m creeping ever-closer to the free sweet tea at Hardee’s.

Once upon a time I had a poker blog. Some days this spot here even masquerades as one, but those days are few and far between, kinda like my winning sessions at the poker table. Maybe if I sucked less, I’d write more. And maybe if I wrote more about my game, I’d suck less. It’s entirely possible that it’s something like the antithesis of the vicious cycle, but who knows?

Anyway, because I occasionally write about poker (and have you ever noticed that occasionally is one of those words that NEVER looks right the first time and you always have to go back and take out an “s” in the middle to get that stupid little red line to go away (thanks, Richard, bane of my existence)?) the fine folks at Poker from the Rail have invited me to be part of the BBT5.

If you’re not a poker blogger and are still reading this, what’s wrong with you? No, really, here’s the deal. The Battle of the Blogger Tournaments started life as a fun series of tournaments hosted by friends who wanted to get together and give away some cool prizes. Then more people started playing, and the prizes and prize pools got bigger, and the tournaments attracted the attention of some cool folks with prizes to add. Then Full Tilt Poker stepped up huge and started adding WSOP seats to the mix, so some of the tournaments got a little less blogger-centric, then a LOT less blogger-centric, and more competitive, and what started out as kind of drunken chatroom fests with a poker tournament happening in the background turned into real poker tournaments with a few drunks playing but a lot of serious players. Then some old farts decided not to play because it wasn’t like the good old days (and get off my lawn!) but it was still a wildly successful series of tournaments that put some bloggers and readers into the WSOP Main Event and some side tournaments, too. For the record, I didn’t decide to not participate because of any of that, I just am usually broke online and have stuff going on when the tourneys are running.

But now, because I’ve been around for a million blog years, and still sometimes write about poker, I’ve been invited to be part of the BBT5, which includes two open tournaments each week for the next six weeks, and one invitational tournament each week. I’ll be playing all the invitationals, which could be bad for me, because I suck, but since they’re freerolls, won’t be too bad. And since a bunch of my friends have also been invited, it’ll be like old home week, with chips! The top two finishers each week get seats in the Tournament of Champions, and the top 5 folks in the TOC get WSOP seats to either the Main Event or a preliminary event, depending on where they finish. So that’s way cool. I get six freeroll shots at a Main Event seat, which there’s no way I’d pass up. So for the next few weeks, I’ll be on Full Tilt (with the terribly original screen name of Jhartness) playing for my shot at poker glory (or at least $10K to throw at credit card payments). Go here for more details on the BBT5, and give Al a big smooch from me when you see him!

Now here lies my dilemma – if the seas part and all seven seals unlock and I manage to win a seat, do I play? There’s no question that I’m not a very good card player, but I do have some history of success in well-structured tournaments (Venetian, Casa de Blood, etc.). The structure of the WSOP Main Event is nice and deep, and I might have a shot to crack the money (top 10%), which would double my “buy-in.” And since the buy-in is not coming out of my pocket, that’s $20K in free money. Then the upside potential is in the millions for a final table appearance. The flip side is $10K cash in hand, which wipes out all my existing credit card debt and leaves me a little on the side. Our finances took a hit last year when PokerNews restructured and no longer needed my services, so between that loss of revenue and a couple of weddings and some frivolous spending, we’ve accrued a little debt that I’m working to get rid of. So, I ask you, dear readers (if anyone actually made it this far) – if you considered yourself no better than 40% to make the money, thus walking away with at least $20,000, would you play the Main Event or pocket the ten grand? Obviously this debate is so far into the future as to be laughable because I first have to win my way into the TOC and then finish in the top two spots there to even qualify, but it does make for interesting conversation, because I do plan to be in the TOC. After all, I was invited, and what’s the point of showing up at a party if you’re going to leave early?

Really? 20 Years? Oy, somebody get me a Geritol…

So after attending the 20th anniversary tour of the brand new record for 1990, They Might Be Giants’ brand new album, Flood, I shoulda known that it was getting to be that time in my life. The time that I am once again reminded that I’m getting old.

There were a few seminal albums for the beginning of my college life, and depending on who was around, that determined what was in the CD player (or tape deck, or whatever). Here are a few, with some associations –

Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes: There were so many resonances on this album it’s just silly. My whole passel of friends owned this record and I think most of us played the grooves off the CD at least once.

They Might Be Giants – Flood – Knew. Every. Word. Churchill and Indy were even worse, and so was Steve. When we all piled into the Impala and went to see them at the 1313 club I think we had 8 people in that stupid car.

Concrete Blonde – Bloodletting – I was never really that goth, but I played one on TV. Nah, I didn’t even play too goth, but this album was in the rotation. Saw them in 1993 with my friend Liz. Saw the tour announcement today – they’re doing the 20th anniversary tour, and playing Bloodletting track by track. Closest stop is Atlanta. Good for me I work in Atlanta some weeks. June 16th is one of those weeks :). See you there?

Indigo Girls – self-titled – I blame this on Shana, who turned me onto the Indigo Girls.

Nine Inch Nails – Pretty Hate Machine – smoked weed and ate leftover spaghetti right out of the fridge in Jason Mann’s house in Alabama on a ridiculous road trip over Fall Break my freshman year. Not sure how we didn’t end up in jail.

The KLF – The White Room – although later theatrical experience with a certain self-styled “Goddess” (really long story involving a lot of baby oil and a rolling suitcase that’s more innocent and still more annoying than it sounds) ruined this album for me, we played it over and over again during marathon D&D/booze sessions in Jason and Fuller’s room.

What were your seminal college albums?

Challenge continues

Won’t be hard to keep up with my Poem a Day challenge this week, since I signed on for another month of Just Do It at Theatre Charlotte April 16th. If you’re in town, you should check it out. It’s $5, and a whole fun mishmash of different written stuff, poetry, spoken word, theatre and whatever comes out of the crowd that night. This will be the third one I’ve participated in and I have a great time. The theme this time around is “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.” This is one of the pieces I came up with for the evening. I’m gonna try to come up with three total. I always try to write stuff fresh for the event because as we’ve discussed before, I’m worthless without a deadline, and this gives me another deadline. Lemme know what you think in comments, this is still a work in progress. At least for 11 days, then I perform it.

Apologetic Antecedents

Sorry seems so hard
because it’s just the beginning.
There’s never a “sorry”
then a yank,
a little blood,
and “all done”
like pulling a tooth when you’re eight.

It’s always something painful and awkward
like “sorry I was a dick and screwed your sister
on the washing machine at Thanksgiving
while you were in the kitchen making cranberry sauce”
just to give a possible,
yet completely fictional
example.

Sorry is always the precursor
to something that sucks,
but has to be done,
like putting iodine on a cut,
or breaking up with the girl
that cheated on you with your brother
and his wife
even though she’s all kinds of a freak
and does that thing you like
in bed.

So it’s not the word that’s hard,
it’s what follows.