The Poker Chronicles

On a positive note I did have some IM conversations with Iggy about the whole blogging community thing, and while nothing of import really came out of that he did give me one usability tip for blogging here, which is to put an extra line break between my paragraphs. Brilliant! That just goes to show you the power of Guinness. It’s good for you. Seriously though, looking back on some past posts it can be hard to tell where one paragraph ends and another begins. So hopefully in the future this will be a little easier on the eyes for all of you.

As far as poker goes I spent most of today with my girlfriend and decided that I would start off the work day by playing in the $226 Party million semi-final at 11 p.m. That turned out to be a poor decision, as I went all-in on the first hand and lost to some monkey who hit his straight draw on the river. I raised KQ preflop to 45 and a couple people called, putting 160 in the pot. The flop came Q 10 something (7 I think), I bet 150, and the clown right behind me shoved. I had a pretty good idea what I must be up against there. Since we all started out with 1k in chips I was now getting about 3-2, so I had to call, especially since I thought that he must have a straight draw to play that way.

Even if I gave him KJ, QJ, Q10, AQ as his possible hands I am about a coin flip, so getting 3-2 odds so I have to call. Against what he actually had I am almost a 7-3 favorite. I played around on PokerStove later and couldn’t come up with a reasonable range of holdings that would make it correct for me to fold, given that I didn’t know the guy. The worst I could come up with made me a 3-2 dog, which would be a slightly unprofitable call due to chip devaluation but probably still a good call given hourly rate considerations, since by going broke I allow myself to go play some ring games.

In any case it was an easy call for me, though I don’t like flipping for my stack on the first hand. Still if it must be done it must be done. Somehow though I didn’t even get to be the first person out of the tournament, as someone actually managed to get eliminated before I did. What a bummer. Some day I hope to earn that distinction.

This reminds me of something funny from the Super Bowl yesterday. They had these commercials by careerbuilder.com where a guy goes into work and all of his coworkers are monkeys. He sits at a big table with 8 or 9 of them and they are doing all sorts of silly crap, as monkeys often do, and the employee is obviously frustrated and in need of a new job. Well, I can't relate to him on the wanting a new job (or any job for that matter) but as far as working with monkeys goes, I know how he feels. I go to work and sit at a table with a bunch of monkeys every day on Party Poker. Every time now that I take some silly beat I just picture a monkey in front of a computer throwing bananas and clicking his mouse and I can't help but laugh. I really think I might try to Photoshop the stock avatars that come with party into some cartoon monkeys just to save myself the effort of imagining it. What great fun that would be.

So later I decided to play a little of the old 6 max and see what was going on. I was a little nervous that I would just get blasted, as I often seem to do as of late, but it actually went pretty well. I was up about 1,500 as the one hour mark started approaching and I was on the fence about just getting up and calling it a night. I'm really not a proponent of hit and runs or stop losses, as I think that in the long run they just cost you money. But when coming off of a bad streak sometimes I think it is good to hit and run for posterity.

When I have a bad streak and then take a little time off I always come back with your emotional equilibrium a tad bit off. Sure I could probably handle a loss, maybe even a big one, just fine. And I certainly never can’t handle a win. But I think the worst thing that could happen to me is to get a big lead and then blow it. And that is what often happens to me too, because I get up a decent amount and the irrational part of me starts saying “take the money and run man”. But the rational part of me that knows hit and running is stupid says “Come on man, this game is good. Look at all these monkeys. You can't leave now, this is a goldmine.”

And I usually stay and play. I know for a fact that this is just selective memory but it seems that I often end up losing it all back too. So today I was considering just quitting up ahead a decent amount, just to book that win. I was really on the fence for a bit, and then the deck decided for me, when in three consecutive hands I took two two-outers (from the same guy) and a gut shot straight to the dome. All three of them were very expensive hands, and combined with a couple rounds before hand my win was now only at about 1k. So I finished out my round and took a win.