Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Tournaments...sigh
nclwiueght;ajbs;giu9238...tournaments are frustrating.
I played the $100 tournament at RiverRock tonight. It has a decent structure with 2500 starting chips with 20 minute levels. First hand I'm dealt AKs raise, get two callers, make a continuation bet on a 10 high flop and then give up on the hand. I also lost pocket 10s on the fifth hand or so in and was down to 1500. I finally hit a few hands getting my stack up to 6000 at the 75/150 level. From there it was pretty basic poker, playing my position and opponents. I had three weak players to my left to I picked on mainly. The only other interesting hand was when I was dealt AJ UTG+2 with UTG+1 limping in in front of me. I chose to limp with my 7K stack and see how the action progressed behind me. A weak player to my left also limped in and I had seen him limp in with hands as weak as 10 2s, so I wasn't worried about him. It folded around to the big blind who went all in for an additional 550. The UTG+1 player called and I made a simple isolation play pushing all in for 7K. The UTG+1 player and the player to my left both folded leaving me heads up in a 2600 pot. The big blind turned over A8 and I won the hand. I got a few looks from the table for puching all in with AJ but to me it seems like a pretty simple isolation play against a hand I could have easily nominated. From there I played well and chipped up each level to stay above 10 times the big blind. With 21 people left the blinds were raised to 500/1000 with a 150 ante and I was dealt AKo UTG at a 7 handed table. I pushed and it folded around to the big blind who called with his 15K stack and 10 10. Obviously the door card was an A but a 10 was two cards below it and I was out. I lasted 3 hours 45 minutes and finished somewhere around 21, 22. With 1st place being $4.4K. Tournaments and especially live tournaments are very frustrating near the final table. The blinds and antes get so huge you are forced to play preflop poker. There's certainly no sophisticated plays being made on the turn or river and rarely on the flop. It basically comes down to you picking up a big hand and getting called or pushing on someone's raise you feel is weak.
I really struggle with whether I enjoy playing tournaments. I played for almost 4 hours and made nothing, but was one coin flip away from making the money with a decent stack. I just get frustrated because I make it deep in a lot of these live and online tournaments only to lose my first all in situation which I try to avoid in the first place. I give props to anyone who can play live tournaments day in and day out as they honestly make me want to break something every time I get knocked out.
I'm not one to complain about my luck, but I truly believe that I am on the unlucky side of the bell curve that is luck. It seems like I can make it deep in a good percentage of tournaments only to lose that first crucial all in. The other day I played in two Stars tournaments and lost pots that would put me in the top five with 50 people left to a two outer and one outer. But life goes on and I will continue to play tournaments even though I don't think they're good for my health.
For now I'm not going to put tournaments into my hourly wage and treat them as a fun break form the cash games.
:-):
-Kirk
I played the $100 tournament at RiverRock tonight. It has a decent structure with 2500 starting chips with 20 minute levels. First hand I'm dealt AKs raise, get two callers, make a continuation bet on a 10 high flop and then give up on the hand. I also lost pocket 10s on the fifth hand or so in and was down to 1500. I finally hit a few hands getting my stack up to 6000 at the 75/150 level. From there it was pretty basic poker, playing my position and opponents. I had three weak players to my left to I picked on mainly. The only other interesting hand was when I was dealt AJ UTG+2 with UTG+1 limping in in front of me. I chose to limp with my 7K stack and see how the action progressed behind me. A weak player to my left also limped in and I had seen him limp in with hands as weak as 10 2s, so I wasn't worried about him. It folded around to the big blind who went all in for an additional 550. The UTG+1 player called and I made a simple isolation play pushing all in for 7K. The UTG+1 player and the player to my left both folded leaving me heads up in a 2600 pot. The big blind turned over A8 and I won the hand. I got a few looks from the table for puching all in with AJ but to me it seems like a pretty simple isolation play against a hand I could have easily nominated. From there I played well and chipped up each level to stay above 10 times the big blind. With 21 people left the blinds were raised to 500/1000 with a 150 ante and I was dealt AKo UTG at a 7 handed table. I pushed and it folded around to the big blind who called with his 15K stack and 10 10. Obviously the door card was an A but a 10 was two cards below it and I was out. I lasted 3 hours 45 minutes and finished somewhere around 21, 22. With 1st place being $4.4K. Tournaments and especially live tournaments are very frustrating near the final table. The blinds and antes get so huge you are forced to play preflop poker. There's certainly no sophisticated plays being made on the turn or river and rarely on the flop. It basically comes down to you picking up a big hand and getting called or pushing on someone's raise you feel is weak.
I really struggle with whether I enjoy playing tournaments. I played for almost 4 hours and made nothing, but was one coin flip away from making the money with a decent stack. I just get frustrated because I make it deep in a lot of these live and online tournaments only to lose my first all in situation which I try to avoid in the first place. I give props to anyone who can play live tournaments day in and day out as they honestly make me want to break something every time I get knocked out.
I'm not one to complain about my luck, but I truly believe that I am on the unlucky side of the bell curve that is luck. It seems like I can make it deep in a good percentage of tournaments only to lose that first crucial all in. The other day I played in two Stars tournaments and lost pots that would put me in the top five with 50 people left to a two outer and one outer. But life goes on and I will continue to play tournaments even though I don't think they're good for my health.
For now I'm not going to put tournaments into my hourly wage and treat them as a fun break form the cash games.
:-):
Good luck at the tables.
-Kirk
Getting caught up
I'm going to use this blog to keep records of my life and live play this summer in Vancouver. I was going to start this at the beginning of the summer, but I'm too lazy. In fact I'm not even typing, I have a very nice personal secretary named Myia Archer, who owns. So Vancouver is pretty cool, you only have to be 19 to play legally in the casinos. My goal this summer was to make at least $5000, however the first day of summer kind of made that goal seem a little silly as I won $3600 for 1st in a Full Tilt tourney for frequent customers. Here is an image of the tournament lobby:
After the win I cashed out a total profit of $4000 for the day and took that with me in cash to play live in Vancouver. Thus, I was already 4/5 of the way to my goal. Since then, I have scouted out and found all the poker games in Vancouver. This amounts to a 1/2 NL game at the RiverRock Casino (they also have a 3/6 NL game, but I don't have the balls for that yet) and a 10/20 game with full kill at the Holiday Inn. Since I'm starting this blog in the middle of the summer, I don't really know where to start. All the information up to this point pretty much amounts to my first week of summer before I started playing live in Vancouver. It is hard to catch up because I've played a bunch of sessions and have a multitude of stories. First I guess I will post my results so far:
So I've played a total of 17 sessions. I have funny stories or have learned poker lessons from each of the sessions. For now, we'll talk about the figures and one of the stories. In later blog entries I'll try to catch up on all the stories. So after getting my feet wet and losing my first session at the 1/2 NL, I've gotten the hang of it and have beat that game for a decent amount of money in the short amount of time I've played in it. One of the quickest things I've learned about live play was how fucking slow it is. When you're playing 1/2 NL with all red $5 chips and people with stacks from $40 to $1000, it can take a minute or 4 to play a hand. 4 when the sequence of betting between two people with $400 goes raise and reraise preflop then bet, raise, reraise, all in on the flop and at that point the hand is already taken over 2 minutes and now I have to watch the mind numbing task of the dealer breaking down the money. After the dealer has done this, he deals the final two cards and has to push all the money to the winning player, that is if the two players don't get into a "you show your hand first" argument. Now you see why it takes 4 minutes? Really makes you appreciate online poker where this whole process would have taken 30 seconds with no tip to the dealer.
Now that I've finished that rant, I'd like to say that I love playing live poker. You get a real adrenaline rush when you push that 50, 100, all in bet and wait to see if your opponent will call, as he stares you down. The NL game has gone a lot better than the limit game has gone for me. I started off that game as a $600+ winner over 4 sessions, however as you can see in the records the fifth session wasn't pretty. All winning poker players go through it, you can't win a hand, you can't hita flop, if you do you get rivered, you bluff they call, you bet the nuts they fold, etc. etc. and that -$1000 night was that and more. I think about $600 of it was me getting unlucky and varience kicking in and the other 400 me playing like shit. Since then I have not played the 10/20 game as that lost stung me quite a bit. I would compare the play at that table to be on par with a 2/4 game online. It is certainly beatable and I believe I can beat it, I just need a break from the grind that is limit.
It's funny that people always told me that limit was such a grind and I knew it kinda was but not until I started playing it live. We were playing at most 3o hands an hour, less that half of what you'd expect to play online, and of those 30 or so hands most will be unprofitable to play. Thus I sit there for an hour to play 3 or 4 hands and when those 3 or 4 hands start to get cracked, you start to have nights like my last limit session. So for now I'm just playing NL. Playing limit vs. NL in Vancouver, and maybe anywhere, is like night and day. When I play the 10/20 game it is in a casino underground in a poker room that only has 6 tables with a bunch of unsocial people. When I play the NL game it's in a vibrant 30+ table room on the third floor of the casino. The players are nicer and more interesting and it is where I've gotten all my stories from this summer. So now I'll tell you one or two stories from my NL game.
So it's the first night of live poker in Vancouver for me and I've been sitting in a 1/2 game for 4 hours. I am in seat 7 and I see out of the corner of my eye a guy rolling up in a wheelchair. I think nothing of it and look straight ahead. All of a sudden I see a bare foot on the table and turn to realize the man has no arms whatsoever. It wasn't like he had two little stubs, it was completely flat where his arms should be. So we began to play, no one trying to make too big a deal out of it to emarass him or to be rude. He would pick up the first card between his big toe and his second toe, look at it, then slide it under the secon card and pull both of them up. After which he would flick the cards with his big toe at the center of the table or grab chips with his big toe. It was inspiring to see and I for one did not mind at all as I too would want to play even if I lost my arms. After getting to know the players in seats 10 and 8, they would help him stack his chips when he won a pot though sometimes he would do it himself. The only thing that bothered me was that he trimmed one of his toenails at the table with the only tool he could use, his mouth.
Overall he was a nice guy and it was a funny enough experience that I didn't mind dealing with him. On the other hand, one old asian guy approached the table having the choice between seat 1 and seat 10 while the man's foot was not on the table. The man with no arms was behind the dealer as he approached and the asian man chose seat 10 out of his own desire. As the first hand began, out came the man's foot and the old man just sat there stunned and turned to the dealer, looked back at the foot, looked at his cards, folded, and moved to seat 1, and left soon after. Another guy came to seat 10 and didn't mind the man and ended up raising the no armed man on the river in a hand, but didn't raise as much as he knew he could have because he felt bad for the guy. I certainly wouldn't have gone easy on him and taken all him money if I could have as he ended up losing it all anyway. He was a nice gentleman and wished us all good luck as he left.
So that is my story from my first session of live poker this summer. I hope to keep this blog updated if Myia will keep typing for me as I dictate it. I hope it stays interesting and if nothing else will keep me honest about my results.
Here is my funny pic for the day:
I play with so many asian people eveyrday being on the west coast for now, but I havnt played with this guy yet. However, if I did I dont know if I would be able to stop laughing.
Good luck at the tables.
-Kirk (Myia)
After the win I cashed out a total profit of $4000 for the day and took that with me in cash to play live in Vancouver. Thus, I was already 4/5 of the way to my goal. Since then, I have scouted out and found all the poker games in Vancouver. This amounts to a 1/2 NL game at the RiverRock Casino (they also have a 3/6 NL game, but I don't have the balls for that yet) and a 10/20 game with full kill at the Holiday Inn. Since I'm starting this blog in the middle of the summer, I don't really know where to start. All the information up to this point pretty much amounts to my first week of summer before I started playing live in Vancouver. It is hard to catch up because I've played a bunch of sessions and have a multitude of stories. First I guess I will post my results so far:
| Date: | Stakes: | Time (hours): | Result: | Total-Time: | Total: | Wage: |
| 5/16/2006 | 1/2NL | 6 | $ (165.00) | 6 | $ 835.00 | $ (27.50) |
| 5/17/2006 | 1/2NL | 4 | $ 415.00 | 10 | $1,250.00 | $ 25.00 |
| 5/20/2006 | 10/20L | 4 | $ 260.00 | 14 | $1,510.00 | $ 36.43 |
| 5/21/2006 | 10/20L | 2.5 | $ (30.00) | 16.5 | $1,480.00 | $ 29.09 |
| 5/21/2006 | 1/2NL | 4 | $ 465.00 | 20.5 | $1,945.00 | $ 46.10 |
| 5/24/2006 | 1/2NL | 3.5 | $ 157.00 | 24 | $2,102.00 | $ 45.92 |
| 5/25/2006 | 10/20L | 5.5 | $ 310.00 | 29.5 | $2,412.00 | $ 47.86 |
| 5/27/2006 | 10/20L | 8 | $ 136.00 | 37.5 | $2,548.00 | $ 41.28 |
| 5/30/2006 | 1/2NL | 3 | $ 20.00 | 40.5 | $2,568.00 | $ 38.72 |
| 6/1/2006 | 10/20L | 7 | $(1,000.00) | 47.5 | $1,568.00 | $ 11.96 |
| 6/5/2006 | 1/2NL | 5 | $ 1.00 | 55.5 | $1,949.00 | $ 17.10 |
| ????? | 1/2NL | 3 | $ 380.00 | 50.5 | $1,948.00 | $ 18.77 |
| 6/9/2006 | 1/2NL | 16 | $ 51.00 | 71.5 | $2,000.00 | $ 13.99 |
| 6/15/2006 | 1/2NL | 3 | $ 521.00 | 74.5 | $2,521.00 | $ 20.42 |
| 6/17/2006 | 1/2NL | 2.5 | $ 410.00 | 77 | $2,931.00 | $ 25.08 |
| 6/19/2006 | 1/2NL | 1 | $ 203.00 | 78 | $3,134.00 | $ 27.36 |
So I've played a total of 17 sessions. I have funny stories or have learned poker lessons from each of the sessions. For now, we'll talk about the figures and one of the stories. In later blog entries I'll try to catch up on all the stories. So after getting my feet wet and losing my first session at the 1/2 NL, I've gotten the hang of it and have beat that game for a decent amount of money in the short amount of time I've played in it. One of the quickest things I've learned about live play was how fucking slow it is. When you're playing 1/2 NL with all red $5 chips and people with stacks from $40 to $1000, it can take a minute or 4 to play a hand. 4 when the sequence of betting between two people with $400 goes raise and reraise preflop then bet, raise, reraise, all in on the flop and at that point the hand is already taken over 2 minutes and now I have to watch the mind numbing task of the dealer breaking down the money. After the dealer has done this, he deals the final two cards and has to push all the money to the winning player, that is if the two players don't get into a "you show your hand first" argument. Now you see why it takes 4 minutes? Really makes you appreciate online poker where this whole process would have taken 30 seconds with no tip to the dealer.
Now that I've finished that rant, I'd like to say that I love playing live poker. You get a real adrenaline rush when you push that 50, 100, all in bet and wait to see if your opponent will call, as he stares you down. The NL game has gone a lot better than the limit game has gone for me. I started off that game as a $600+ winner over 4 sessions, however as you can see in the records the fifth session wasn't pretty. All winning poker players go through it, you can't win a hand, you can't hita flop, if you do you get rivered, you bluff they call, you bet the nuts they fold, etc. etc. and that -$1000 night was that and more. I think about $600 of it was me getting unlucky and varience kicking in and the other 400 me playing like shit. Since then I have not played the 10/20 game as that lost stung me quite a bit. I would compare the play at that table to be on par with a 2/4 game online. It is certainly beatable and I believe I can beat it, I just need a break from the grind that is limit.
It's funny that people always told me that limit was such a grind and I knew it kinda was but not until I started playing it live. We were playing at most 3o hands an hour, less that half of what you'd expect to play online, and of those 30 or so hands most will be unprofitable to play. Thus I sit there for an hour to play 3 or 4 hands and when those 3 or 4 hands start to get cracked, you start to have nights like my last limit session. So for now I'm just playing NL. Playing limit vs. NL in Vancouver, and maybe anywhere, is like night and day. When I play the 10/20 game it is in a casino underground in a poker room that only has 6 tables with a bunch of unsocial people. When I play the NL game it's in a vibrant 30+ table room on the third floor of the casino. The players are nicer and more interesting and it is where I've gotten all my stories from this summer. So now I'll tell you one or two stories from my NL game.
So it's the first night of live poker in Vancouver for me and I've been sitting in a 1/2 game for 4 hours. I am in seat 7 and I see out of the corner of my eye a guy rolling up in a wheelchair. I think nothing of it and look straight ahead. All of a sudden I see a bare foot on the table and turn to realize the man has no arms whatsoever. It wasn't like he had two little stubs, it was completely flat where his arms should be. So we began to play, no one trying to make too big a deal out of it to emarass him or to be rude. He would pick up the first card between his big toe and his second toe, look at it, then slide it under the secon card and pull both of them up. After which he would flick the cards with his big toe at the center of the table or grab chips with his big toe. It was inspiring to see and I for one did not mind at all as I too would want to play even if I lost my arms. After getting to know the players in seats 10 and 8, they would help him stack his chips when he won a pot though sometimes he would do it himself. The only thing that bothered me was that he trimmed one of his toenails at the table with the only tool he could use, his mouth.
Overall he was a nice guy and it was a funny enough experience that I didn't mind dealing with him. On the other hand, one old asian guy approached the table having the choice between seat 1 and seat 10 while the man's foot was not on the table. The man with no arms was behind the dealer as he approached and the asian man chose seat 10 out of his own desire. As the first hand began, out came the man's foot and the old man just sat there stunned and turned to the dealer, looked back at the foot, looked at his cards, folded, and moved to seat 1, and left soon after. Another guy came to seat 10 and didn't mind the man and ended up raising the no armed man on the river in a hand, but didn't raise as much as he knew he could have because he felt bad for the guy. I certainly wouldn't have gone easy on him and taken all him money if I could have as he ended up losing it all anyway. He was a nice gentleman and wished us all good luck as he left.
So that is my story from my first session of live poker this summer. I hope to keep this blog updated if Myia will keep typing for me as I dictate it. I hope it stays interesting and if nothing else will keep me honest about my results.
Here is my funny pic for the day:
I play with so many asian people eveyrday being on the west coast for now, but I havnt played with this guy yet. However, if I did I dont know if I would be able to stop laughing.
Good luck at the tables.-Kirk (Myia)
