had fun in vegas

Well I went to Vegas this past week and had a really great time. A poker friend of mine up here in Seattle sat through a Time Share presentation to get free tickets, and I slept on my friend Demetria's couch, so all and all, it was a lot cheaper than most Vegas trips. I hung out with my friend Jon a lot, and got to see Demetria when she wasn't working or at school, and I went to see some friends from my college days who are still good friends and really fun to hang out with. I played poker much less than I had hoped because my friend Jon took a bunch of days off work for my arrival and I couldn't very well just leave him be when he took the day off specifically for me! It really was great though to spend time with all my friends down there.

But I did get get in about 8 hours of live play total for week. The first five were at Bally's because that was the easiest place to get to when I was getting a ride to the strip and I didn't feel like walking anywhere else. They had a $65 tourney at 11a.m. which I busted out of, but played really well. The blinds go up somewhat fast but mainly you just don't get many chips to start with, so after about 45 minutes, it's a shove/fold fest for about 3/4 of the players. And they were HORRIBLE at it. I got all in 7 times, 6 as a 2:1 favorite or better, and once as a tie (KQs vs. KQs). I split twice, won once, and lost 4 times. And the guys who were calling were shorties too. The SB for example called off his stack with K8o. And I saw them doing this earlier, so I wasn't shoving very light, just waiting for an above average decent hand like AT or 66 or something half way reasonable (it was a full table), and then just shove once or twice a round. For as light as they were calling, I did manage to pick up the blinds quite often, which is why I was able to get in 7 times and lose so often and still be in it to shove again. Alas I finally busted my AJ against an A3 that hit a wheel. Oh well.

I then played in the 1/2 game that was soooooo easy. It was SOOOOO easy. These guys were loose, passive, horrible at post flop play, and played dominated hands and junk hands preflop as often as possible. Most good regs at a game like that would just tighten up and get their good hands paid, but I decided to just abuse position, since the three OK but way too tight (and scared of me) players were directly on my left—so I had the button 2-5 times per round, and just abused the fish every single hand. They knew I was playing too loose but they had no idea what to do about it, so they just called down light. This of course means that the “reciprocal value” of the game is HUGE. By “reciprocal value” I mean that if our hole cards and positions are switched, I make much more and lose much less than they do in that same spot with those cards. I played for about three hours, won no more than $100 in a single hand, and swung between $200 and $500 up most of the session, finally cashing out $250 ahead in the game. The other poker I played, was about 3-4 hours at my old favorite hot spot, the MGM 2/5 NL game. I didn't buy in short, but I wasn't going to reload either, since playing in this game was already a bit of a “shot” given my current roll. I lost two medium pots and about a fifth of a stack from calling PFR's with a pocket pair, not setting, and not being able to steal. However, even though I lost, the game was very very soft—I just happen to not run too well. The only hand I won was a preflop re-steal. 9 handed, UTG (awful, likes to raise to ten and fold a lot) opens for a min-raise to $10, one call, an OK reg re-raises to $35 (small to isolate but not commit too much—i.e. has a wide range of mostly mediocre cards and almost never a great hand), call, call, I re-raise to $140 with 94o, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold.

The next hand of interested was with AJo against a bad player who has the wonderful and obvious tell of “bet size equals hand strength”. He limps, it (surprisingly) folds to me in the HJ+1 (MP??) and I make it $25 to go. An OK player OTB calls, as does the fish. Flop is Ad 6h 2d. The fish bets $25, about 30% pot, so instantly I know he's got a weak ace or a flush draw. I very seriously considered raising there, but I felt that the player OTB would be more tempted to ship me if I raised than if I flatted, and since I had such a good idea of where I was at with the fish, I decided it would be better overall to see what the good player did and wait till the turn to raise the fish. So I called the small bet, and thankfully the player OTB folded. Turn was a 3c, and the fish again bet $25. I raised him another $125 to $150 total, which I thought was right on the line between what he would call and what he wouldn't—the perfect amount! He tanked and tanked, and finally called. The turn was the 9c, and he grabbed for his chips, but then looked at me and checked. I was confused, and I couldn't figure out what was going on, and even thouhg I was fairly sure I was ahead, I didn't think he'd call a river bet with a worse ace (or a flush draw) and a bet would have to be my entire stack just about, unless I make a suck bet, which is certainly do-able. But since I didn't think I'd get called by worse, I checked, and he turned over the reason why he flinched on the 9c river, he had A9o. And now I feel like I'm going to throw up...

The next hand came shortly after the AJ when I had a little less than half a buy in in front of me with black tens. A bad player made it $15 UTG, another bad player called, and I made it $55 with my tens. That way, I can easily get my half stack in on the right flop, but I can also give up without much thought if AJ7 flops and they bet. All fold except those two bad players, so I have position. The beautiful 7s4c2s flops, and BP1 (bad player #1) bets about $30. BP2 who has about the same stack I do, shoves. Though I'm slightly worried and not thrilled, I shove too. BP1 tanks and calls, having us both covered. BP2 was on a steal and turned over Ah6h, BP1 had Ac5c for a backdoor flush draw, gutshot, and they both thought they had 3 aces. So we're all all-in, and the turn is a wonderful Jh, but the river is a 3c giving BP1 a wheel and the pot. And now I feel like I'm going to throw up...

So even though poker-wise, for the trip, I'm down $315 for the week, that was because I happened to get unlucky during my shot at the “big game”, and I really feel like I just raped the games while I played. I think I have ginormous (I'm declaring “ginormous” a word.) equity in that tournament I played in, I killed the 1/2 game, and played in a 2/5 game where I was able to magically make a $750 with TT on the flop and have 70% equity in it WITH TWO OTHER PLAYERS IN.

((0.7*750)/250 – 1 = 1.1)

So it's basically 110% ROI on the hand, well actually probably a little less since some money went in preflop when I was only about 63% equity. Still, that TT hand makes more money than getting AA in against any hand preflop makes HU. (It's a wash between TT postflop three-way in the spot above and AA preflop three-way against random hands—the two spots have roughly the same equity.)

The most interesting thing that I found for the week was how I felt when I was in Vegas. Before I left, I was super excited, and of course I was anxious like I always am, but when I got to Vegas, I was just completely calm. I wasn't overly happy or excited; it was like I had taken Prozac. I was just mildly happy and completely relaxed and felt like I had no worries in the world, which was a very surprising feeling, both in that it's not how I thought I would feel and in that I didn't realize until then just how worked up and crazy I've gotten since I moved back to Seattle! So even though I wasn't jumping for joy when I got to Vegas, I am still very sure (more sure, now) that moving back there is the right thing for me to do. It's not that it's the most wonderful place on Earth, it's just that it's my home, and I feel like I'm in the right place when I'm there.

So the next few months, I'm going to grind grind grind online and see if I can get enough to move down there. It was truly relaxing to be there and great to have friends close by. More updates next week...

-Max

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yay I'm going to Vegas!

Well there were some goods and some bads about this last week poker-wise. The goods were that I put in two different sessions of about a thousand hands each, during which I played 8 tables. I played well and did not feel rushed or bothered by the number of tables, so I'm optimistic that I've finally worked my way up to being to 8-table comfortably, although I (obviously) don't have tons of experience at it, yet.

The bads were that during the few shorter sessions I had, I think I played miserably! All and all, this week I think I made three AWFUL call-offs of my stack, for a total of about $250 that I shouldn't have lost in those short sessions. I also ran poorly in the week overall, both in terms of losing all my flips and in terms of people having the top of their range in spots where they have a fairly wide set of hands, and so many of my re-steals failed. It is conceivable that they are just getting more aggressive and 5bet bluffing and 3bet bluffing the flop or shove-bluffing the turn, but given my history with these players and my history at 0.50/1 in general, in fairly confident that they were just showing up with hands in spots where their stats say they won't be very often.

So given how poorly the week went, and even though I didn't play much (given that two sessions represent about 2K of the hands), the fact that I'm still up a little over a buy in after all that makes me all the more confident that the games are as easy as I tend to think they are.

I'm leaving for Vegas in about a half hour, and I can't wait! I'm very much looking forward to seeing my friends, going to the weekly poker meetings, and playing poker live in an actual casino for the first time in a while. Given how much I crushed the live games before I started learning to beat online, I am interested in seeing how much easier the live games will be now! Perhaps an Angel Largay winrate of 20-30 blinds an hour is within reach!! I guess I'll find out, that is if I don't spend all my time hanging out with friends...

In other news, I got a very kind letter from the IRS saying that if I didn't give them $3,700 within the next month, I would be fined even more and they would come to collect. As it turns out, my 2006 tax return failed to mention about twenty grand in stock sales! This was news to me! In reality, all that had happened was I didn't know about some stock my parents had in my name and had cashed out to help pay for college. I also hadn't been able to get the W2 from dealing at the WSOP that year, so I made a rough guess on my taxes and didn't mention anything about the stocks that I didn't know about! And somehow the IRS didn't accept my return... go figure!

Given that I grossly underestimated how much I'd already paid in taxes form my wages (I got my W2 this past week, after many calls to the Rio.) and the cost basis from the stocks sold, Turbo Tax told me that I owed the IRS an additional $1. So I filled out my amended return, attached a check to the US Treasury for $1, and also attached a letter explaining that the check was not a joke! I of course also included copies of the statements from the stock sales and my W2, so they will see that the math adds up, but I thought it was quite funny that I was so close on my original return given that I left so much out and just guessed. It was all true to the best of my knowledge! I just didn't have any knowledge!

In the future, I'll have to make sure I don't miss anything—this was too much of a scare and a hassle to do more than once per year!

Next week I'll have updates on my trip to Vegas.





-Max

Winner!

Well that was at least the major victory that even though I thought it was likely, I still had fears in my stomach that it wouldn't happen. I was (am...) very ready to pack up and move to Sweden, or possibly Australia now that the AUS$ has fallen so much do to the mistakes of the USA, and is affordable to live in for somebody on my very low budget.

I had three other concerns this election, which do not look to be panning out well, but the happiness over a competent, smart, able, and inspiring President is dwarfing those at the moment. They are California's Proposition 8: the ban on human rights to happiness (similar to what Nevada did in -- either '02 or '04, I forget which year), Al Franken's race for the Minnesota Senate, and Washington State Initiative 1000: the right to choose how you're going to die if you're going to die soon anyway.

With 48% precincts in, it's not looking good for gays in California to the tune of 53% to 47%. With 95% precincts in, Al Franken is 1500 votes behind incumbent Norm Coleman, with a tie at 42% a piece. Franken needs to get these last votes to win it, and I'm hoping he does; he's a good and decent person with a proper perspective, and he has the ability and the will-power to get shit done. (Edit: I just checked before I'm off to bed, and it looks like California has officially regressed to pre-enlightenment thinking. Also, with 98% precincts in, Al Franken has pulled ahead by about 950 votes. But those last 2% are worth a lot, since Franken's lead is less than 0.09%. It's a dead heat, I will certainly have to check it when I get up tomorrow... Now off to bed! ) (Edit 2: With all 3 million votes in, Al Franken is behind by about 500. Coleman, his opponent has not officially won yet, as a recount is obviously being done. It's not looking good for Al Franken, but we can hope!)

And finally, good news for those with less than 6 months to live!... You can end the pain earlier if you'd like, thanks to 58% of Washingtonians.

On the poker front, I've been playing SNG's a lot still, but I've managed to get in a few hands of cash game play. And if play cash regularly again, I can save some money thanks to a CardRunners promotion--they are giving away free membership months simply for earning Full Tilt points, with no strings attached.

I posted a graph below my stats which is a graph of my total winnings (green line), my profits from hands that went to showdown (blue line), and the money from hands that did not get shown (red line). I'm not spectacular at post flop play, but I'm practicing, and I can see how just a little better postflop play can REALLY increase profits, because you get better at winning the small pots, and they come up often, so even a small extra edge in them is worth quite a lot. I also have found once again, despite my big loss at it earlier, that 0.50-1 NL games are easier for me than 0.25-0.50 games online. 50NL is much more straightforward and you just have to grind and play more solid than the next guy, and make some moves in the right spot. 100NL OTOH, everybody is making moves on everybody else, so you get a lot of light 3betting and lots of floating and flop raising, and all the standard "steal" moves that are the first deviations one makes from ABC play at 6-max games. So by identifying which spots are more likely steal spots and by having stats on players (read: datamining), I can make a ton of light 4bets preflop, light flats in position, floats for my stack, and other moves that may cost a lot, but work such a high percentage of the time that they are more than worth it.

It will be really interesting if I ever hit 1-2 because based on what I've watched, they are again one level up, and can spot the 4bet re-steals, so you get people who are 5bet shoving with a range of KK+, AK, 65-98, 84o, A3s, A5o and maybe some other random garbage in there, so they are far less exploitable in the direct 4bet re-steal sense.

Before I move up there, I'll have to figure out how to counter them. The first things that come to mind are 3 and 4-bet less, and 3 and 4-bet larger, make open-raises smaller, ship (or re-raise a committing amount) any and all (half way decent) draws on the flop to a raise that is likely a steal, prefer bet/raise-folding the turn and (less frequently) the river over calling down light like I can (and do) to players now. But we'll see what happens. I'll datamine and watch the games for a bit, and if I ever get the roll or feel frisky one night, I'll see how I do.

Sp here's my stats, my graph, and a picture of a place I dearly miss and am heading to next Tuesday!









-Max