after some relaxation, time to get serious

the title says it all for this one. my sister's been in town for a surprise visit for the last couple days, so i haven't been playing any cards. my mind's become nice and clear again, though, so it should be high time to get my ass in gear and hit a self-imposed 1k+ goal for results before i depart for vegas next wednesday.

unfortunately, i've also found out that i won't be getting the 3k bankroll infusion from my research assistantship until later than expected, which means i'll be playing lower in vegas than i'd like. i'm going to have to stick to cash games in the range of 5/10 limit games and 1/2 NLHE, which kind of sucks, but i'm still expecting to make my trip worthwhile in the side games.

as for other vegas fun, i've decided to bring my golf clubs with me, so if any fcpers want to hit the links before august 10th, let me know.

in other news, it looks like another prospective apartment in chicago fell through, so the search is still on. if any of my (two or three) faithful readers should happen to know of a sweet 2-br deal in wicker park or the ukranian village, shoot me an email, ok?

what a goddamn day

wow, i haven't had a day like this since february. is there some sort of scientific analysis for determining whether one is truly cursed?

my results for the day from hell:

3/6 6max, party (in the morning to warm up): 100 hands, of which i won ONE (fun hands here was a 2 card k-flush that rivered a str8 flush over my 2 card a-flush--yay one outers!--along with a rivered set and runner runner gutshot)

and a bunch of tourneys:
aq down to a6 preflop
9s full down to 8s full on the river when the case 8 falls
the vintage KK into AA mess
losing with a set of aces vs AT who turns the flush HU after calling my gigantic preflop reraise (or, since he called, if he misses or i boat up, i'm chipleader near the bubble of the 20k on ongame)
22 going down to two donks calling off 1/2 their stack with AJo (making me the bubble boy, ah...)
QQ down to AKo on a T26 flop (instacalled my 2xpot all in, of course, and turned the K)
and the best of it, my 22 dollar sng barrage on party poker (i play these with a very simple strategy that is basically set peddling): 12 buyins, 1 cash (3rd place)

and that, honestly, is everything i've played today. i haven't not taken a retarded beat in any little bit of play today. and nothing except for the sngs happened early in a tournament, either. with only one exception, they ALL happened as the bubble was in sight.

and friday was nearly as bad, but i won't recount that again or i'll sound fucking pathetic.

i honestly think that this is the worst i've ever run in my life, including the run from hell a few months ago, since i'm really playing better this time around and not letting it affect my game. my shit really needs to turn around sometime before a week from wednesday or i may just be psyched out too badly to play my best in the series. i'm going to take tomorrow off (yes, another day off, ugh, but some things are necessary) and then hit the tables hard again on tuesday. this shit has got to turn around.

anatomy of a bad session

subtitle: how to waste four hours, in two parts.

1. go to brantford charity casino, sit at 5/10. notice table is too tight to overcome the rake, change tables to the new one opening up up front. smile at the 80% to flop average for the first 20 minutes. then start catching cards only to have queen high draw out on you not once, but twice, maybe three times if you're lucky. proceed to win a total of 3 pots in four hours without making a single discernable mistake. smoke a cigarette, kick a puppy, lose 36 big bets before feeling the tilt coming on, even just a little, and get up and leave.

2. enter the 20k on the ongame network. rebuy immediately, play 2 hands in the first orbit (JJ, AQ, fold the latter to a raggedy flop checkraise), then proceed to get zero legitimately playable hands until the end of the second hour. steal with utter air to stay afloat, and add on in the process. go on a brief but wicked run of cards, going from a stack of 3500 to 17k in three hands (QQ, AQ, AA) by getting paid off on each. recommence stealing, work your way up to the final two tables playing pretty brilliant poker including folding top pair in a blind battle to a read on a flush draw that got there, then proceed to go card dead and steal 55 into JJ for a 181 dollar payday in a field of horribly weak/tight idiots.

ok, let's reflect a bit. in the first bad night, i can see some good things and some bad things coming out of all that mess.

good: noticed when a table got too tight, noticed that the night crowd, which is always much worse, was forming a new table, and left a table where i was up slightly to join the new, better table. noticed tilt coming when they started just mopping the floor with me with their three outers and left before i started playing anything less than my best.

bad: to be honest, it's terrible that i let myself tilt at all in such a juicy game as that one. by not keeping my head in line, i probably lost out on at least 30-40 big bets over the course of a night. i really need to work on making myself go out for a smoke or some such thing when i take a vicious beat, taking a brief walk, and clearing my head so that i can laugh those sorts of things off. like, really.

as for the second night (that being tonight), well, there's not much to say other than that it felt very, very good to finally feel like i was at the top of my game for the entirety of a 5 hour tournament, especially as i gear up for my world series events in a couple weeks. i've been working on getting back the same, relentlessly aggressive style that i utilized during my run of 2005, and to be honest, tonight was the first time that i really felt like i was running on all cylinders again. i've still got to get better, though, if i'm going to go anywhere in those wsop events.

and let's try some hand discussion, shall we?

this wasn't a very important hand in the grand scheme of things, but it was one that i think i played differently than i have been over the last couple months--and in a good way.

ongame 20k, blinds 600/1200, about 70 runners remaining just after the bubble

hero (t60,000, give or take) is CO with AhTh.

all fold to hero who raises to 4000. button (t16,000-ish) cold calls, sb (t30,000-ish) reraises to 7300, hero calls, button jams for 16000, sb calls, hero calls.

now here, i KNOW i'm in serious trouble. the button has pulled this cold-calling on me before with a big pair (the only time he's ever tried to defend against my LP raises, which i'm doing every time it's open from the CO, button, or SB) so i'm probably drawing dead to an ace against him. but then there's the big blind, who's probably got my ace dominated the other way. he probably DOESN'T have another big pair, or he would have jammed after the button did so. my thinking, then, is this: since the button is already in, i'm really only calling a flop bet if i hit a ten, draw, or a straight or flush. if an ace falls, i'm out. discipline.

sure enough, the flop comes all rags, and the sb jams (guess i misread him, whoops, i think at the time). even though i'm looking at calling only 13k in a gigantic pot, i am still sure that i need 2-card help to get at the main pot, so i toss pretty easily and keep a stack of just over 35k. sb flips up AdQd for a flush draw, button shows KK, and i breathe a sigh of relief. nh, me. (button takes it down on a bricked turn and river)

why is this hand important? well, i think it illustrates a sort of situation that a lot of people (including myself circa 2 months ago) would try to avoid--getting into a huge pot, even with the proper odds to do so at every step of the raising way, with a marginal holding. now before, i would have probably tossed to the button's push considering my read on him. but tonight, i was actually EXCITED about getting into a situation where i might make a huge score and end up with a chiplead of nearly twice second place, and if i miss, well, i'm still in the top ten. those are the sorts of risks that it takes to win tournaments, and they're not the sort of risks i've been taking lately, until tonight at least.


and another hand, the only one i really think i messed up during the tournament:

blinds 800/1600 (i think--maybe still 600/1200), about 50 runners left.

hero (t50,000-ish) open raises MP3 with KcQd for 5000. CO (t27,000, same guy as button above, cold calls again, bb (t15,000) calls as well (an odd play from the bb, but he's terrible, so whatever).

flop comes Tc6c7c. bb open jams for a little under 10,000 more.

now here's a spot where i REALLY wish that the ongame network gave you more than 15 seconds to make a fucking decision. here i am, sitting with the second nut flush draw and two overs, and i've got to think about what's going on pretty intensely. now, if this hand is heads up against the bb, i've got a pretty easy call against what could pretty much be any two cards that caught any piece of the board. but what i'm worried about is the cutoff, who has not done anything to show me that he's calling with anything less than a big pair. now here, i'm really just thinking in terms of what is going to happen with the cutoff, since i've already determined that i have to call the big blind's open push. so let's play it safe, and say that the cutoff has a big pair. KK and QQ are unlikely considering my cards, so let's say he's got JJ, TT, 99, or AA (at this time in my thought process, i timed out and folded, fucking bastards--give me a time bank). with any of those cards, he's probably calling, and the only one that makes a call here a terrible one is AA with the ace of clubs. now if i had had the time to think all that through, i probably end up calling here. but i time out and fold, and the hand plays out.

the cutoff instacalls, the big blind flips up 89o for a flopped straight sans flush draw, and the cutoff flips up QQ with the queen of clubs. sure enough, the turn comes the 4c and i lose out on a gargantuan pot to the lack of a time bank. thank you, ongame network. my read was generally correct here on the cutoff (though of course, i didn't think KK or QQ was likely since i had one of each), but i was pretty much flabbergasted by the play of the big blind, as i had been all night. oh, well, back to stealing blinds.


but really, there was a lesson in all of this, maybe even two: first, that aggression really fucking pays off; and second, that trusting your reads and taking the time to think through hands pays off as well. all night long, i was open raising absolutely any two cards (unless i had utter trash and had raised the two hands prior) in the CO, button, or SB, and that relentless stealing had allowed me to stay in a tournament through two long periods of having seriously no cards to speak of. raise preflop, continuation bet 1/2-2/3 pot if it was HU, and fold to a raise. i was fortunate to be at a weak/tight table for most of the tournament, but regardless, this was a good sign for my tournament game as i gear up for vegas. and of course, my reading ability is coming back, perhaps even better than it ever was when i was running so well in 2005. i was pretty much spot on in my reads on almost every hand that mattered, and i acted in accordance with them when ongame allowed me the time. let's try to keep that up.

sea change

well, as most people who would be reading this probably know, i've made a pretty big decision in the last couple days, one that became the impetus for starting this "blog" thing (the culture surrounding which, btw, i have little to no knowledge of, so do help me along, kids, eh?). that's right, ladies and gentlemen, checkymcfold, jamie, however you might know me, has withdrawn from graduate school to begin a life of smoke-filled casinos, ringing slot machines, and everything else that comes along with a lifestyle most often perceived as somewhat degenerate by the general public. i, to put it in more direct terms, have chosen to become a poker player.

and thus, our hero enters the blogosphere.

without really knowing how one properly begins these sorts of endeavors, i will use this first, relatively lengthy entry to talk a bit about who i am, where i've come from, and where i plan to go:

i'm 25 years old, grew up in the mountains of southwest virginia, and moved to iowa to complete a BA in physics and philosophy at grinnell college. i remained in grinnell for one year after college, taking a philosophy seminar while bartending and figuring out (trying to figure out?) what the hell i wanted to do with my life. i thought i came to an adequate conclusion when introduced to mcmaster university's religious studies graduate program, one which allowed me to address "religious" (whatever that means) questions, but from a standpoint strictly philosophical in nature. although i wasn't sure that i wanted to be an academic, i had always done well in school and it seemed to be a logical extension of my past pursuits, which had strayed distinctly from my mathematical aptitude and toward that life of the mind thing you've heard about. i wasn't sure that i wanted to be an academic, but enrolling in an MA at mcmaster seemed to be a good way to figure out if that was my ultimate direction in life.

whoops.

to be honest, i think i made a mistake there, because what i've come to realize over the last two years is that graduate school is NOT the time to figure out WHETHER one wants to be a lifelong academic. indeed, i've realized that one really should have that decision made pretty strongly before setting out to do graduate study in the manner it's meant to be done. graduate school is a stressful place and time, to say the least, and without a firm desire for the PhD goal (or whatever aim one might have that requires the experience of grad school), it's pretty much unbearable. of course, i'm speaking entirely personally, here. some may have the constitution to bear the onslaught of deadlines, schedules, theses, etc. without that desire, and more power to them. i simply did not, and after two years of coursework and 7 months of 8-10 hour days spent working on a thesis that ran into obstacle after obstacle, i simply crapped out. i don't quite know the reasons precisely, but i can pinpoint the moment exactly. i was packing for a conference in italy that i was to attend and present during, i received an email from my department telling me that one of my colleagues had passed away suddenly. i did not know this woman very well on any personal level, but i knew her well enough for this to affect me. those reading this who remember the 2nd semester of 2002-2003 at grinnell will indeed identify with this sort of experience.

my first reaction to this email, in very stark contrast to what i and many others went through at grinnell, was one of complete dismissal. i had two days to prepare my paper for presentation. i had two days to finish packing for my trip to italy, and i simply didn't have the time to attend a funeral, go to department services, etc. but then, a moment of self-realization. was that really the type of person that the stress of graduate school had made me? so determined by deadlines and obligations that i could gloss over the death of someone so easily? and in all honesty, the fact that graduate school had indeed made me such a calloused and unyielding person would become my impetus for withdrawing from the conference, and in turn, from graduate school. i've never been that kind of person, and i hated even the possibility that two years of grad school might have changed me so profoundly that i could react to somewhat similar situations so differently. some of you will know what i mean by this, some of you will have no clue what i'm referring to here, but suffice it to say that i decided over one sleepless night to tender my resignation from a place that played such a great role in changing my relation to the people around me.

ok, we're getting too introspective for the internet here. what to do? well, as many of you know, i was playing poker to pay my way through grad school since i wasn't allowed to get a job outside of school while in canada. i had gotten serious about the game out of necessity--i simply couldn't eat without winning at it--and had spent about 10-20 hours a week playing cards throughout my 2 years in canada. and more importantly, i loved the game. i remember telling my parents at one point last year that i had had intimations of the same feeling i used to have playing baseball in elementary school: that if, somehow, i could really play this GAME, which was SO FUN, for a living, then i'd really never really need anything else from life. and so when i needed an answer to that "what now?" question about 5 days ago, i had an answer pretty much set out for me.

so now, a bit about my poker background:

i made a pretty good amount of money from poker last year, and long story short, i finished 2005 by playing 25/50 LHE on the ongame network to the tune of 2.13BB/100 (for those outside the poker world, that functionally means a little under 100 dollars an hour), and 5/10 PLO8 on ultimate bet for a pretty good clip as well. i was riding high, winning more than 10 tournaments outright for the year, highlighted by winning a 300+20 for just over 15,000 dollars. i felt invincible, but with 2006 and the stress of the impending thesis, my 10-20 hours of poker a week became much less, and i was living off of my bankroll while school was in my head and making me play much more poorly than i thought possible. 2.13BB/100 became worse than -1BB/100, and about 4 months, 10,000 hands, and 3 limits down later, i was sitting with a 700 dollar bankroll, no confidence, and bills to pay around the middle of may. after paying off all my debt in 2005, i was again living off a credit card while using my teaching paycheck to pay my rent.

time to suck it up and do some poker-related soulsearching right alongside its life-related counterpart. and suck it up i did, going back to the 5 dollar all-in-fests and getting my head in gear enough to go on a pretty good run of tournament play which saw me final table 3 in a row at one point and win 2 outright in the same day at another. sometimes in spurts, sometimes grinding it out at 1/2 through 3/6, june saw me claw back from 700 dollars to my goal of 3k and 5/10 again just in time to go to italy for that conference.

oh, wait, there was another option, too. during the downswing from hell (which, i now freely admit, was largely due to a problem with my mindset and confidence), i got an email from one of the other winning 25/50 players saying that he wanted to "take advantage of my bankroll problems" and stake me in a couple of smaller world series of poker events this year. at the time, i had to turn him down because of the conference in italy, but after my decision to withdraw, i shot him an email asking if his offer was still good. it was, indeed, and i'm headed to vegas for 3 1500 dollar events and those amazingly juicy side games in a couple of weeks.

so this, gentle readers, is where i stand right now: i'm stuck in canada for another month at least, forced to play nothing but poker on a 3k bankroll (which, i know, is not a responsible way to begin a professional career, but i have no choice), and gearing up for 2 weeks of vegas before my move to chicago at the end of august. i might have to get a "real job" when i get there in the beginning, i might not, we'll see.

but enough about me. now the blog has officially begun, so i'll say a bit about what i envision it to be:

i'm both a philosopher (yes, still) and a poker player, so you'll probably find entries related to both, sometimes concurrently, sometimes not. regardless, i will try to make at least one entry every other day or so, about whatever happens to be on my mind, poker-related or otherwise. it should be a good way to keep me analyzing both my game and my life, so it's probably good practice for me to make myself get on some sort of schedule with this thing. as with all things, we'll see how that goes.

and a final note which i hope ties this long first entry together:

in all honesty, i view my coming life of poker as an avenue of retaining--or regaining, perhaps--the benevolence that i always admire in others, and aspire to myself. i've always believed that with financial stability (and sometimes, excess) came a sort of test: would one hoard one's wealth or use it for good? and in times where this question is pertinent, i've always done my best to emulate the words of andrew carnegie, which i'll now recount:

“This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community /the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.”

as i understand them, these words place upon one who has the ability to do good in the world the profound duty to do so to the best of one's ability. i hope that i should find this duty placed upon me in the coming years, and also that i fulfill that duty as best i can. i hope, also, that poker allows me to do so in a way that academia could not.