The Poker Chronicles

nothing came out of it because of yer inability to think about anything but yourself.

Actually nothing came out of it for 2 reasons. A) Your preconceptions of me and complete inability to believe that anyone other than Paul Phillips might know something you don’t. And B) the fact that you view the poker blogging community as a revenue stream whereas I view it as a gaggle of nits. I have ever since the Stripper By Night incident, when it became apparent that the “community” (a.k.a. sewing circle) consensus was that it is perfectly OK to flame Felicia post after post but not OK to point out that people’s fascination with the hammer is unprofitable. It is like a group of old ladies, 90% of the whom have little poker or writing talent, and all of whom take themselves far too seriously. Forgive me if I don’t really lie awake at night worrying about what the “poker blogging community” thinks of me.

And btw, you win the award for biggest nit (or as you would say in your pseudo-intellectual jargon “uber-nit”) by simultaneously telling me in instant messenger that you “had my back” and waging a campaign to remove my links from everyone’s site, including your own. All because of an incident incited by my trash talking that you requested. If you want to remove my link that’s fine, but as Judge Judy would say, don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.

I find that a of people mistake confidence for arrogance. Apparently believing you're better at something than 99% of other people must always be arrogance even when it's obviously just a statement of fact… Anyway, I don't see arrogance or ego when I read your posts.

Thanks!

Don't take this wrong, but you don't need to justify yourself. I am surprised that you seem so bothered by the "blogger communities" opinion of you. You deny that you are bothered one second, you relish in their distain then next, but you then proceed to spend hundreds of words explaining your actions. Why?

Definitely not bothered, just wanted to explain myself to my readers, not the nits. Let y’all know where I'm comin’ from. But the comments show that a lot of people already know.

What makes your blog great is that you write in an unadulterated flow of conciousness. You are expressing real emotions, thoughts, and real opinions about poker. You don't hold back. Your real ego, your real anger, your real reactions to your opponents always come through. It's brilliant. So don't justify, just keep it up.

Thanks! Glad to see somebody gets it.

You said it yourself that you need confidence to play well.

You certainly do. I have seen many excellent players lose a few days in a row and completely give up. Without confidence when the cards start running bad you start thinking things like “Am I playing well? Do I suck at poker?” If anything you have to develop the thick skin, realize that everyone feels as if they are playing terribly when the cards go bad, and try to hold off making any drastic changes in your game until you can see things a bit clearly. All of which is impossible without self-confidence.

Congrats, you are earning your "most hated" award for 2005 already! Keep up the good work! Told you we were in the same camp. At least I put my name first, lol.

Well, I was a 3-1 favorite before the year began. The Stripper, whose biggest perceived insult to the community as far as I can tell is not flaming you but rather saying that shoving with 2 7 offsuit is a bad idea, is tough competition. Have to keep a leg up on the stripper. That time the (bad) pun was intended.

The reason I read your site is because of your unchecked bravado, never change. But you gotta stop writing about this boring ass battle you had with Mr. Nickel & his sidekick Dime Time. Go bust some more chumps already. Sorry, but it had to be said.

Point taken.

Actually, Matt, I didn't miss your point.

Actually, CJ, you completely and totally did, as evidenced by both of your comments being completely off the mark. Reread a few times, comment if/when you do get it.

It is the hallmark of the asshole to claim that he is misunderstood. You are not misunderstood. You are a jerk.

A misunderstood jerk though.

Yeah, I got that you were screwing around with the table when you were posting "blogger this" and "blogger that." It was even fun to insult you in the chat because I usually try to restrain myself. When you started insulting the play of the rest of the table, you crossed the line.

The million dollar question though is where is this line and who determines its location? It certainly wasn’t me, because I thought it was all in good fun. I didn’t realize how seriously you all took yourself, and how low everyone’s self confidence was.

After the last blogger tourney Iggy and others requested I cross your line. I assumed that all line drawing would be done by the host of the tournament, but apparently each person, other than me of course, has the right to draw their own line and get angry at anyone who crosses it. When I do it then it is wrong. How dare I have a line!?

Was it right to call the push with A8o? Possibly. Did all of your bully-raising put you in a position where you would have to call off a significant piece of your stack with a middling hand like A8o? Yes. A9 was just as likely as QJ in that spot and you know it. Pretend to omniscience all you want but you tied your own hands on the play; that you got sucked out on is karmic justice if not poker justice.

Not possibly. Yes. The call was correct. End of story. There really isn’t anything to debate about that question. The hallmark of poor players is the habit of making easy decisions into hard ones, don’t fall into that trap. The only bad play in the whole equation was the shove with QJ, which seems to go unmentioned.

If you think there is anything even remotely debatable about the call or the preflop raise then you don’t understand an aggressive style of play. Read Super System or its sequel, it is laid out for you there. The premise (and Doyle states it far better than I could so give it a read) is that the aggressive player does exactly what I did, steals a ton of chips then sticks all of those stolen chips in the pot against someone. Often when the chips go in the aggressive player is taking the worst of it, but it doesn’t matter, they are stolen chips anyway. Eventually they will stick all of those stolen chips in and suck out. Combine that with the penchant everyone at that table had for underplaying their hands preflop and overplaying them after (allowing me to repeatedly flop two pair with junk and get all in against a 3 outer, though unfortunately I lost one) it makes me a huge favorite to come out on top by playing that way.

As far as omniscience goes none is necessary, though if I were omniscient I would have folded and avoided the beat. I knew that the player was a weak one who was prone to shoving at me and not knowledgeable enough to realize that I am just going to call him and have him slightly beaten or dominated. I had that gut feeling that he had junk, and that one is wrong at most a couple percentage of the time. I play by that feeling 100% of the time, it rarely lets me down.

You are correct about the A9, though it isn’t really relevant. Giving him the range of hands I did, which couldn’t have been very far off of the mark given that he had QJ, it’s an easy call. Weak players always react to bullies by shoving with anything they can find, even when they are obviously going to just get called by a better hand, so I gave him a wide range of holdings. The suckout may be karma, but the shove was bad and the call was not even remotely debatable.

Yes, that is exactly what it means, but you are taking a very narrow view. It was a +EV call after a -EV raise. And is it as +EV if the guy is holding a bigger ace? A medium pair? He got lucky (philosophically, of course) that the guy was holding only QJ. He pats himself on the back because of the wide range of hands he thought the guy might have. Bravo. That makes the call look great in Poker Stove but not so much if you take a more realistic look at the guy's probable holdings. QJ was a lot less likely than hands that would have left him shaking his head after the call.

So trying to blind steal with A 8 on the button is –EV? Talk about weak-tight. No wonder you don’t understand an aggressive style.

All that matters is what it looks like in Poker Stove. That’s it. In fact I will say it again. All that matters is what it looks like in Poker Stove. See the entry a few down where I linked to an article on the pokerstove.com site about being behind but really being ahead. If Stove says I am a coin flip against the range I figure him for then I am, from my perspective, a coin flip no matter what he actually has. Whether he rolls over AK or QJ or 66 is entirely irrelevant if the range I put him on was accurate and I acted correctly according to it.

If you disagree with my range of holdings, that is one thing, but given that he flipped over QJ (which is very close to the bottom of the range, only two hands below) I think it is fair to say that I was very accurate. He would have shoved any ace, any pair, any broadway. Even if you take out lower aces, low pairs, and some of the weaker broadways its still a good call.

You can't look at things from a results-oriented perspective. You are right that the fact that he turned over QJ in and of itself doesn’t make the call good, but by the same token the fact that he could have turned over AK doesn’t make it bad. Let’s suppose you are playing heads up and are dealt KK and you have only 5 big blinds. Your opponent raises you your whole stack, you call, and he rolls over AA. Does that make your all-in call with KK bad? Of course not. You put your opponent on a wide range of hands, most of which are a dog to KK, one of which isn’t. The fact that your opponent had AA doesn’t make your call with KK bad because in the long run your call with KK will show a profit, as he will usually not roll over aces. Your KK was a favorite over his range of holdings and you were getting over 1-1 odds so you called and were correct to do so. It’s the exact same with my A 8. It was about a coin flip against his range of holdings, but I was getting almost 2-1. Its not as profitable as KK, which is probably about 4-1 against any range of holdings, but its still profitable and therefore has to be made.

I don’t pat myself on the back for making that play, it was easy. I play against a lot of weak players like the guy who shoved QJ (do you think that was correct btw?) and know how they operate. Putting him on the range that I did took me no time at all. You may not believe this but I win a lot of money at poker (won 6 figures online last year) and the ability to do that is a large part of why. If you want to improve at poker you should try to understand fundamental concepts like how to use your opponents’ range of holdings and learn to apply them. It applies to tournaments and ring games, and if anything it is easier to apply to ring games because you don’t have to factor chip devaluation in.

ah, starting off the work day at 11pm. must be tough cranking out a living during the graveyard shift.

Well I woke up around 5 pm. The night shift is cool, but the tables break more and you have to do a bit more hopping. Still the games are better, if such a thing is possible, so its probably the best time to play.

There is such a thing as being right and wrong at the same time....and your play in the tournament was a classic example. Sure, you were reasonably sure you had a "pot odds" edge, but playing all-in on small edges is a sure way out of a tourney. In other words, definitely a no-brainer in a ring game, but awful tournament strategy.

You are wrong without any semblance of right. You must be one of the people who subscribes to the “Gus Hansen is just a lucky maniac” theory. He repeatedly puts in all of his chips with underdogs, and is correct to do so. Again read Super System’s no-limit hold'em section by Doyle Brunson for an explanation.

You subscribe to the Phil Hellmuth school of poker thought. If you would like to see a mathematic refutation of many plays Phil endorses read back through Paul Phillips’ blog. He shows points where Phil is giving up a lot of money, which may be why he hasn’t won a tourney since 1982, and why he is far from the most profitable player on the circuit.

Still Phil’s logic has its merits in tournaments with good structure. He could fold a hand that has a small edge and get more of an edge later by just stealing a lot of pots. For the most part his strategy has a lot of potential, though he often takes it to dangerously unprofitable extremes, in the $10k buy-in events. Folding what you know is a 4-1 favorite is never correct, no matter what the circumstances but folding small edges in a tournament where the stack sizes are deep can be.

This strategy however is entirely useless on Poker Stars in all but the first couple rounds. The blind structure doesn’t allow for enough post-flop play. You rapidly approach the point where the average stack is just a few big blinds and any action pot-commits you, making the game almost entirely a preflop one. I didn’t have the option of waiting for a bigger edge because the structure doesn’t give me the option. And I didn’t have the option of trying to steal a lot of pots because any raise preflop is liable to get shoved at, so I have to play much more carefully. In the early rounds of the WSOP it might be correct to fold 6-5 shots for your stack getting 13-10, in the middle rounds of a Stars tournament it isn’t an option.

Also if I simply let him push me off the hand it makes it much tougher for me to steal raise in the future. By calling him I am telling him and anyone watching that if they decide to play a hand it will be for their whole stack. This puts them in a very tough spot and me in a very profitable one. They now have to continue just letting me steal, or do something dumb like shove with QJ. They can either forfeit me their blinds or go in with a hand that is going to be an underdog. If they pick up a real hand like AK, well, its time to stick in all of the chips I stole and hope to get lucky with them. Rinse, repeat.