Live PLO: Good, My Month Overall: Bad

Last week they ran live $1-2 Pot Limit Omaha games at Planet Hollywood four nights in a row. I really enjoy playing PLO, more than I like playing NLH at the moment. One night I won a sick pot that broke the game around 5 am and I cashed out close to $1,300.

But in NLH I've run terrible this month. When it comes to holdem, this is honestly the worst run of cards I've ever had. I am getting it in with the nuts and feeling awful about it because I'm just waiting for my opponents' outs to come, and sure enough they do. Earlier tonight I got it all in on the turn with the nut straight vs a mediocre two pair for 300 bb, and I'm just shaking my head when I see his hand on the turn because I know he's going to fill up. Unless things turn around this will be my first losing month at poker. And things have to turn around in the next couple days, because while they say luck evens out in the long run, that makes no difference if you go busto in the short run. Is Highwaytime going to have to find a J-O-B? Let's not think such cruel thoughts just yet.

Sylar is Back

Hey, what's up. I just took two of my shattered Excedrin pills and am in too much pain to play cards or go out. Let me tell you guys what's been going on.

I have two months left in my Vegas lease. I will probably leave the city at the end of January unless I have a bankroll to start playing $2-5 NL live games, which for me means about $10K. Looking over my records, I notice that I've never played 200 hours of poker in one month, so that's my goal this month and hopefully it will go a long way towards reaching $10K in disposable poker capital by late January. So far this month I'm running like the plague and am only up like $100, but I still have over 170 hours to go.

Sylar got his powers back on the last episode of Heroes, so that bodes well for me. Looking back, I ran good for most of the first season and started running bad right after the final episode of season 1 where he was defeated. I don't know about you but I thought last season's episodes were better, overall.

Possible LA poker trip later this month or early next month with the crew (Carolina John and Todd). I think I can promise John there are Ukrainian girls there.

Then a Colorado ski trip late January, for which I am already equipped against the weather with a new goatee.

Like what I've got down in my other writing project, almost want to say excited about it, but it's going to take months to finish. Still in its infancy.

Thanksgiving Sidebet Challenge, Final Results

Opponent Knockout Tally
Highwaytime: 21
Carolina John: 20
Patrick: 0

Biggest Chip Stack
Carolina John: $1,245
Highwaytime: $1,103
Patrick: $320

So I split the sidebet challenge with daytrader John. I am in Virginia for Thanksgiving weekend at the moment. John is still in Vegas and texted me a half hour ago that he just broke the $2,300 mark in a $200-cap $1-2 NL game at Planet Hollywood (confirmed by Steve aka the Gambling Duke, who is also in the game). But since the sidebet challenge is over, this feat does not go in the records and if not for this generous note would be condemned to oblivion.

On Wednesday, Steve came out to play for the first time in months. The poker room changed since the last time he played. Planet Hollywood held a BET poker tournament last weekend and spruced up the room. Photo portraits on the wall of Dennis Rodman, Steve Martin and Michael Caine in their Dirty Rotten Scoundrels toast, and of Michael Madsen at a urinal. Electronic board showing jackpot hand payouts. Flat screen TVs actually showing sporting events as opposed to running casino promos like before. Steve was having a nice short session, up about $150 over a couple hours, when he looked at the clock on his cell phone and told me he was going to leave in two minutes. It should be obvious to any experienced poker player what happened next. He was a victim of the Curse of the Last Hand. He lost a big pot right away and then he stayed and lost about $500 over the next half hour. My advice, and sorry if it sounds like a zen puzzle, is to never play the last hand.

Quick Update

Thanksgiving Sidebet Challenge, Days 1-3

Opponent Knockouts
Highwaytime: 10
Carolina John: 5

Biggest Chip Stack
Highwaytime: $1,103

Todd couldn't make it to Vegas, and Patrick has been MIA so far.

Thanksgiving Week Sidebet Challenge

To commence Friday the 17th of November

The Actors' Names

Highwaytime, inaugural sidebet champion
Carolina John, defending sidebet champion
Todd S, a villain
Patrick, a famous drunkard

Junior, a volleyball champion
Steve J, Ombudsman

The Duke of Serutan, and courtiers

Kenny, a motorcyclist, leader of "The 411"
Marco, a Kindergarten teacher

Nurse to Todd S

Citizens of Nevada; several Gentlemen and Gentlewomen; Torch-bearers, Strippers, Real Estate Agents, and Futures Traders.

Scene: Planet Hollywood poker room

Quick hits

Playing on Stars. Making some moneys.

On Friday players coming in from across the country. Live action poker. Another sidebet challenge. Patrick wants in.

Threw an Excedrin bottle against the wall after getting sucked out on. Lid flew open and capsules, mostly cracked in half, all over. Impact such that some capsules powderized and settled into carpet.

John has thousands of hits on his blog since he started it late last month. Lost over $120K trading last week. He told me he wants to win it back in $1-2 NL when he's here T-giving week.

Personally watching almost no TV these days but want to catch HSP on Monday to see if Patrick Antonius stacks Jamie Gold for a million dollar pot, or vice versa.

bitterness and denial aren't
realistic ways
to deal
with something that happens again and again
never to know exactly when
but that the only stop is not to play.
but to play
that's the thing.
shut up and deal

"Shut Up and Deal" -Jesse May

Online poker insults

I went back to UB despite the Absolute Poker scandal (Absolute is another site and the company that bought UB) where a former executive was using a superuser account to see opponents' holecards. Not much in poker is ironclad, even, actually especially, the integrity of the game. The thing is, I get rakeback at UB, and if I play online without getting rakeback I am leaving too much money on the table.

I withdrew my money from Full Tilt and used some Full Tilt points to play a single table tourney, the winner of which got into another tourney. I won the single table and then cashed in the tourney.

Online poker chat is like the drainage bin of public discourse. You get these frustrated individuals not even playing cards who are online just to fuck with people. I don't talk smack to anyone w/o provocation. With a 9-to-1 chip lead in the single table tourney, a guy pushed all-in and I called with 93 suited because of pot odds. He types in, "Great read moron," tabling J4. I turn the flush and type, "ty come again" and he unleashes a barrage of vile. The cool part is that he has been eliminated so his chat is now in a different color. It's in an off brown, instead of in blue like before. I think most players on ftp have at some time relished the bitter brown type of a guy they just busted.

Value shoving air

Carolina John aka DJ Johnny has a new blog that's mostly about his sicko daytrading exploits. He said if he was doing well enough, he would take a shot at a bigger game next time he's in Vegas (T-giving), and he is doing great so far, so all I have to say is, "Welcome to the Bellagio, Sir. Can I tell you about our high hand jackpot?"

In my second-to-last post I linked to some hands showing how some guys can play so badly against me and still get rewarded. So to be fair and balanced I expose myself value shoving with queen high.

And with jack high.

I guess you could argue about them being bad plays but definitely high variance and probably -EV plays against calling stations, and I was tilting at the time.

So value shoving with air reminds me of Bill Fillmaff's famous "I value call my nuts." If you haven't watched the vids on this site, they are Hellmuthian spoofs but I only recommend downloading the Chapter 1 vid as the others get lame.

TTYLFTP

I've been playing on Full Tilt and yesterday I got in the black for October. That was nice considering I lost $1,200 in about two seconds of live play to begin the month and then lost more online.

I made a withdrawal request of Full Tilt poker and was surprised that it came back declined. I've made about a dozen Full Tilt withdrawals in the past six months. They no longer have phone support so I emailed them to find out what was up. They told me my account was suspended for having multiple accounts.

Some background: About a year ago I made a second Full Tilt account in addition to my original "Highwaytime" account on Full Tilt. The second account was called ElHajjh, and I set it up because I wanted a rakeback account. A rakeback account is where you get a percentage of the house take, or rake, taken by the site by setting up an account through an affiliate of the poker site. But when I tried to withdraw using ElHajjh, they told me I couldn't have multiple accounts. So I withdrew my balance and closed both accounts. Then a month later I set up a new account under "SevenCities." I spoke to Full Tilt staff on the phone who told me that this wasn't going to be a problem since this new account did not coexist with any other existing account of mine. And since then I've made lots of withdrawals from that account.

So today I explained all of this in emails to Full Tilt but to no real avail. They say they will reopen my original Highwaytime account if I want but will not let me play under any other screen name. I told them to just cash me out, so now I'm waiting for them to send my money to EPassporte and considering where to take my business.

I have a rakeback account on UltimateBet, but that site is owned by Absolute Poker and I don't want to go there right now for obvious reasons. I think I'm headed to PokerStars.

So tilted...

I hoped my bad run wouldn't carry over to online play. And it's true that my opponents on FullTilt have been trying really hard to give me money. But they're usually not succeeding.

Here's a great hand against a player whom the Russians might say has been "touched by the angels."

And another against the same guy.

A hand against a player who wanted to gamble for 300 big blinds preflop with Ace-rag.

By God, why not??? Why not, I say!!! Just instantly go all-in over the top on the turn.

Checkraise with nothing on the flop and then call for all your chips on the turn.

If you didn't know K6 was the nuts, you better axe somebody. I may be about to...the progress of my bankroll has been SLOW.

"Wow, I'm not even mad! I'm amazed!"

So the past week has been the roughest stretch I've had in live action poker. It was bad karma for me to boast two entries ago how I couldn't lose. That's where I went wrong. Especially the past three days have been brutal, where I've played about 12 hours a day. It's been a mix of being hideously card dead ("have you tried these new flop-resistant cards?") combined with disaster striking on the rare ocassions I've made a hand. Never once did I see pocket aces in that time, and the three times I made sets I was shown a better hand on the river. Once I saved some money when I folded my set face-up on the river and as a courtesy my opponent showed his made gutshot. The second time I was up against top pair with a backdoor flush draw and it went runner-runner diamonds. On the very last hand of cards I played, I flopped middle set on a J72 board and got all my money in on the flop in a three-way pot to see a final board of J72JJ, so I got counterfeited to a higher pocket pair.

So I'm not gonna go on and on about this. Just trust me that it has been pretty remarkable. If it wasn't happening to me, I would be fascinated by it the same way a mathematical wave theorist could be fascinated by watching a huge aberrant wave develop, as they sometimes do, in the middle of the ocean, in calm waters. Right now, like Will Farrell in Anchorman after Baxter ate the whole wheel of cheese, "I'm not even mad, I'm just amazed.

Quick Update

I've played a lot of PLO in the last six months but rarely found myself a 62.5% favorite over a set when I have nothing and there's one card to come.

Todd won the Sunday tourney at his new home base casino in Tucson, AZ. He tipped "a dollar for each dealer involved." This would be a good time to mention that Carolina John's mom, when she won the 2 pm tournament at Planet Hollywood, tipped $500 out of an $800 prize. This was a casino record. Probably not coincidence that Larry, one of the poker room managers, offered to drive her to the airport.

I have never played Halo and don't play video games anymore, but this commercial came on a couple nights ago and it was the best use of Chopin in a vid game commercial I've ever seen.

I'm off to the office.

On a Heater

Can't lose this month. Made more in my first 10 hours at the tables than I did all of last month, when my earn rate looked like I worked at Del Taco. But now I am winning every session. Live action no limit, online pot limit omaha hi/lo--doesn't matter, just ship it.

Of course I was due for a rush after Carolina John and Todd left town. Hopefully we can get more blog updates from Todd, or as he now has proclaimed himself, the "Pied Piper of Cool." Because as for myself I haven't been posting a lot lately and that will continue as I have started a new writing project.

The Starbucks Sidebet

Thoughts of leaving Las Vegas. Don't want another Summer here. Get out of your car to pump gas and get back in sticking to your clothes. A climate for scorpions and the expansion of various yeasts. An ex-girlfriend's sister the only one I know besides myself with a bookshelf full of books.

Not sure where I'll go. Suggestions?

Returned to PH today for poker action. MTV VMA awards and Wisconsin/UNLV football game this weekend, so a busy time. The Duke sometimes calls me up to tell me about certain conventions coming into town, and how it'll make for great action at the tables. Like the rodeo is in town so let's play with crazy cowboys. But sometimes his suggestions don't make a lot of objective sense. Like the technology convention is in town so let's go play with the intelligent, patient(Duke:over-analytical, trying to unwind) players, or there's a poker bootcamp at MGM Grand (seriously, he said this) so let's go play with the guys who just got lessons from Lederer and Esfandiari (Duke: overly-tight and conventional) players.

Before I leave Vegas I want the Duke to follow through on the sidebet I challenged him to take. The Starbucks outside the poker room at PH is, according to casino employees, one of the busiest Starbucks locations in the world. The busiest time is the morning around 8 am. The line is like 40-deep. I want him to go there with a clipboard and hardhat, go to front of line, say, "Okay, folks! I'm gonna need everybody to take TWO STEPS BACK (making authoritative hand motions)!" Then get in front of line and order. Complaints? Bark back: "Hey, you got a problem? You can talk to Chalmers in 302!"

August Challenge and the $2K coffee

Carolina John won both categories of the August Challenge.

He had the biggest chip stack at approximately $2,300. He also had 43 opponent bustouts, which about doubled my tally and edged out Todd at 38.

I ran well below expectation for the 10-day period. That could have been corrected very quickly at 3 am Saturday morning but instead I lost the biggest pot of my life.

I had made a big call with QQ against a player who checkraised all-in on the flop for $350 more on a T82 board with two spades. He had JJ and after that pot I stood at over $800. It got the adrenaline flowing and I took a walk and got a cheese danish at the gift shop downstairs. When I got back to the poker room I ordered a coffee with cream and put the danish aside.

John was sitting to my left, and to John's left was an Asian woman named Too. She had about $1,000 in front of her. She had made half of it by calling an all-in on the turn with a gutterball and flush draw against her husband. I'd been playing with her all weekend and knew she was a really loose player who was running hotter than the sun.

I still hadn't gotten my coffee when I picked up AQ of clubs on the button and raised to $12. John called, Too called, and the European in middle position with about $400 in front of him also called.

The flop came KJT with two hearts, so I flopped the stones. John checked, Too led out for $20, the European called, I called, and John called.

Turn came the 9 of diamonds, putting a four card straight out there. Too led out for $60, the European pushed for $370 (with a bare queen), and I insta-pushed over the top for $800.

Too goes into the tank. She thinks about it for so long that by the time she calls I am pretty much putting her on what she has, a queen for the second-nuts along with a flush draw. A ridiculous call, but one I would expect her to make at least half the time.

River is the nine of hearts and I throw my danish clear out of the poker room and into a row of slot machines. I take a walk for a half hour asking myself why I run so fucking bad and why I had to lose that pot instead of having $2K on the table.

By the time I get back, though, I'm not really mad. I'm more in a sort of spaced out zone where I don't care about the money anymore. I sit down and put on my ipod and ask if the cocktail waitress came by with the drinks yet. I'm told she did not. She comes by fifteen minutes later and doesn't have my drink.

She asks if anyone wants anything.

"Yeah, I ordered a coffee with cream about two thousand dollars ago."

So that was that, and by the way Too lost everything she had on the table over the next 10 hours or so, plus several rebuys. She lost a huge chunk of it to John in a $2K+ pot where the hands never went to showdown. During that same session I actually busted her twice after she busted me, but for nothing close to the amount that was at stake during our first hand.

Coolers

Been taking it easy the last couple days in anticipation of a week of non-stop poker.

The Duke gets to keep his title as he came out and played the other night. I got coolered a couple times, like when I ran Ace-high into a set of threes, and then getting colddecked with Seven-high versus pocket aces. I doubled up my opponent both times, but what are you gonna do? On some hands you are just destined to lose money.

Then the tables combined and I had a conversation with Kevin about appropriate aggression levels for small stakes no limit games. I got unstuck and then up a bill or so when a guy open raised for $100 when I had limped with King Kong.

Shortstackers

Took myself to the Strip and sat at a table with Ason, the self-proclaimed "Pro's Pro."

Ason is in from LA and shortstacking it like a live version of Mark Vos on FTP. Not that he has to shortstack, he just likes it like that. If the Duke had Ason's bankroll he would be at Binion's sitting behind a rack of green.

If the Duke does not play tonight I demote him to Constable or Ombudsman.

Santa Barbara

I figured it was time to pay the piper so I took my coupe to the shop. I hate that fucking piper guy. Condo in Santa Barbara, he's bragging about, while I shell out close to $1K in twenty dollar bills.

The first live session of the month was a hit-and-run 1.2 bi winner.

Today was all about the swings. Played an hour in the morning, then a couple 2-hour sessions later in the day. All three- or four-tabling:

morning session: even (nlh)
session 2: -4 bi (nlh)
session 3: +6 bi (plo)

I had kind of a realization about my real leak that has been holding me back in this game to some degree, which is that I have been outcome oriented instead of process oriented. May get into it more in future posts, for now will just say I will play hours and not worry about results cause the results will be there at the end of the month. Peace.

Swings of PLO

When I feel myself start to tilt, I gaze at the painting from Goodfellas.
---
Cashed out most of the FullTilt moneys to give myself a live bankroll. My plan: to play at PH but also play a few hours online each day to get rakeback and Ironman freeroll points.

After the cashout I went on a heinous run in PLO where I lost like nine straight 60/40s for stacks. My play was not the best as I was continuation betting too liberally and playing too loose when I got popped. When you are running bad you tend to think people are constantly making plays at you, and when you are really, really running bad you want to call just to see how they got you this time.

Good thing I'd started mixing in NLHE into my online mix. During this run my PT BB/100 for the past month went from 12 to 7 in PLO, and from 4 to 11 in NLHE. In like three days.

August Challenge

Carolina John is coming to town August 17th and will be here for a week. I would like to see a rematch of the May Challenge, which featured sidebets between John and Todd and myself, but it looks like Todd has given up poker to work for his wife in her insurance office.

R.I.P. Re-Bet
1980-2007

UPDATE: According to an obscure text message unearthed by Egyptologists, he may be still alive and coming to town on the 18th.

I'll Get You, Spiderman! Just You Wait!!!

So my poker month basically got destroyed by that 24-hour period a week-and-a-half ago where I almost busted my bankroll. The irony is that almost all my other sessions have been winners.

I have been in an online poker cocoon the past week, grinding it out. I have been dissing friends, withdrawing from social life, ignoring bills and incoming phone calls and generally just not being an upstanding mensch.

I finally went through my mail yesterday to discover I had forgotten to pay my car insurance for my Saturn SC Coupe. Before I take care of that I am going to get the car looked at to see how much repairs will cost. I might be better off getting a new ride, though that is hardly practical right now.

So with all the trouble I feel like a villain in a superhero movie who has been defeated but not killed. He vows revenge. Cause I have never been busted, and I will come back strong. I am resorting to cheap corporate sales manager type motivations to help me, like making this possible auto upgrade, the new Lancer Evo X, my desktop background.

UPDATE: I stacked AJ! Which is my death hand, for those who don't know--for the past two years, I can never win with it or beat it. My opponent's screenname was SpiderAA (a coincidence? refer to post title).

And again.

July to-date: $2,053

Actually, July won't be my best poker month ever

I pretty much figured that out when I had a $300 bankroll halfway through the month.

I continue to play PLO online and it's going fine, but at these stakes it's hard to make real money.

But there is good news, albeit not involving myself. My friend Carolina John just made $18,000 from Apple shares he recently bought.

If you're into it, check out underage Scandinavian poker phenom Annette_15 winning a 180-player tourney without looking at her cards. You have to register to watch but it's free.

July to-date: $1,746

Well, that sucked

Checked into Imperial Palace on Friday night. Not where P-Diddy stays when he's in town, nor in fact where Paris Hilton stays, despite what some would have you believe.

My first reaction, actually, was that I was going to need a tetanus shot. The girl at the counter wanted a $500 security deposit from my epassporte card. I refused. I was already paying $300 up-front for the room. I could go in there with a Gatling gun and a can of spray paint and not do $800 damage to an Imperial Palace hotel room. So she went to a manager and they made the deposit $100.

As for the poker, I guess it could have gone better. I lost over three buy-ins within 24 hours in a variety of ways. It finished at the Venetian when I got it all-in preflop with rockets:

Villain: Ooh, I flopped a set!
Highwaytime: Yeah, you did, didn't you.

Suddenly I was out $1,000 that I had possessed only the day before. I was seriously short on roll. So instead of risking it all at once I went home and put $300, which was all my poker money, on Full Tilt.

The good news is that I have run that up close to $1K in the past few days playing low-stakes PLO. I'm probably going to stay online for the rest of this month at least and see how far I can take it.

July to-date: $1,591

Goodbye for now

It's Imperial Palace for me next week. This is my last post until I get back, at which time I plan to be rich.

I leave you with an MSPaint drawing depicting the table lineup I don't want to see.

July to-date: $1,515

You can stop me, but you can't...never mind.

No running water this afternoon cause my complex had a leak in the main line. Afternoon, by the way, is when I wake up recently. So after I finally took a shower, I drove to the Sprint Store to pay my $180 phone bill, and my car is just--well, I looked in the Owner's Manual and the mechanical term is "fucked up."

I don't want to be driving it back and forth to the Strip. I will get it fixed up later this month, but not now. So instead of playing live, I did that Internet thing.

I plan to get a player's rate at one of the hotels next week and actually stay there from Sunday through the weekend. Probably the Castle. And just play like nonstop.

July to-date: $1,478

A Short Break

I was under the weather and my car was making weird noises, so I took a couple days off from the Strip.

Yesterday I lost two bills playing PLO on Full Tilt. I made $50 back online today, plus I went down to PH and won $260 playing NLH for a few hours against WSOP Main Event bustouts plus a couple guys still in the dance.

On one hand the aggressive preflop guy who had put up a live straddle popped it to $35, and an early position limper who was sitting next to me muttered, "Fucking jackass," and mucked his hand.

It's definitely the case that different personality types play poker differently. But if someone is objectively raising too often or to too high an amount, then that is an error and can be exploited. For non-poker related reasons I have told someone at the table to STFU, as the Duke can testify, but I have never gotten pissed about the way somebody played. If you do, it's a sure sign you're looking at the game the wrong way.

July to-date: $1,245

Crazy Action

The table action was just nuts today. Something about the main event of the WSOP coming up seems to put players on monkey tilt. I noticed it last year, too.

It was the scene at PH today, what with the Grinder's $5K-entry Chinese Poker tourney. Kristy Arnett, the cute Asian chick who does vids on cardplayer.com, was in the house, but she was mostly sitting behind her boyfriend in a $1-2 NL game from what I saw. A cameraman was on duty and a hot redhead did tourney exit interviews.

At my table the action was driven primarily by two players: one guy raised between $17 and $25 on about half the hands dealt but played okay after the flop, and the other guy just outright played super-loose. I found myself in the game for $500 but made a comeback and cashed out close to $900 in about five hours at the tables.

Just as importantly, I dominated the sidebet action with Carolina John's friend Chapin, who is in town for about a week.

I would have stayed longer but I'd told T I was going to play in his homegame. It was T, Karl, Chico, Nick, and myself. We played two $20-entry tournaments, dealer's choice NL Holdem and Omaha High. I chopped both times when it got heads-up with Karl.
--
One of my less useful talents is that I can make almost any question seem sincere. Yesterday the board was A4Q9 and the turn action went check, bet, call between two players. Thr river was a 3 and the action went check, bet, raise, call. The checkraiser had 25 for a wheel. The other guy mucked, and I asked that guy, "Did you have him beat before that?" He cracked up and my whole side of the table went into hysterics. Anyway, I was told I had to put that in my blog but I kinda feel like you had to be there.
--
July to-date: $1,132

Florida Dreamin'

Effective July 1st, no limit poker is legal in the Sunshine State.

This has got to be so juicy right now.

---
July to-date: $556

July Will Be My Best Poker Month Ever

I told a family member earlier this year that I was giving myself until the end of this calendar year to see if I could really make something happen in poker.

I've supported myself, but that's about it. I've made money playing cards every month for a few years. No losing months at all, and yeah, that's nice and all. But the problem with playing low limits for a living is that it's very difficult to make so much money that a period of bad luck or laziness won't put you back in a spot where you need money again, and fast.

Poker is the most capital-intensive business, so you are constantly eating away the tools of your trade by paying bills, rent, and buying the things you want. The way to get out of that treadmill is either by playing a hell of a lot and living like a monk, which I don't want to do, or by moving up in stakes. Of course it's dangerous to move up too fast. You need enough of a bankroll so that a bad day or two won't take you out of action.

So I want to build that bankroll, and I may have to sacrifice in the short term by playing a hell of a lot to get it, but it will be worth it. I'll make more money this month than any other month I've ever played. I don't care if I don't run particularly well. I just got sucked out on in two big pots at the end of my session tonight at PH, but I still won and I won't stop.

Like I told Re-Bet, "You can stop me, but you can't hope to contain me...Wait, I mean..."

He goes, "Fine. I'll just stop you, then."

I know it's possible. Walking through the Amazon Room at the Rio earlier this month, in the cash game section at the World Series of Poker, I saw Motorcyle Matt playing $10-20 Pot Limit Omaha--Motorcycle Matt, who I used to play with all the time in the $100-cap no limit game at Excalibur when I first got to Vegas two years ago. And Matt is a solid player but I wouldn't put him in my toughest table of $1-2 NL live game players I've gone up against. Here is that table, listed in no particular order:

seat 1--YJ(aggressive Asian guy who plays at Excalibur, sicko calls)
seat 2--Angel Largay(poker author who used to play PH and MGM, moved to LA)
seat 3--Carolina John(sicko extraordinaire, least aggressive player at this table)
seat 4--Adam(Sandviper23, gone to Sweden, stopped blogging)
seat 5--The Chinese Connection(don't know his real name, more sicko calls at Excal)
seat 6--Kevin (young tricky, aggressive player at PH)
seat 7--Kenny (very aggressive Asian guy in the motorcycle jacket at PH)
seat 8--Todd aka Re-Bet(when he's not tilting aka not June 07)
seat 9--Anna Wroblewski (winner of a 5-diamond Bellagio event, moved up to $5-10NL)
seat 10--Steve aka the Gambling Duke(when he has a stack of $800 or more, which curbs all his donk tendencies)

So I won't be posting all my results this month, but when I do post I will make a note of the monthly total. It's not to be crass, it's just that money is how you keep score in poker.

----

PH, $1-2 NL (July 1)
+ $280

PH $1-2 NL (June 30)
+ $20

July to-date: +$280

Re-Bet's Bad Run

Re-Bet has been running bad. He was down for his trip to Vegas, which just came to an end. Here are some of the lowlights:

1) He entered a $330-entry tournament at the Venetian. The field was around 600 players. About two hours into it, and with an average-sized stack, he got it all-in preflop with AA vs. AK and KK. The flop was all blanks, so AK was drawing dead and KK was drawing to one out, which hit on the turn.

After the hand was over, an old man at the table shook his head ruefully and with an air of hard-earned wisdom said, "People always overcommit with aces."

2) He lost a $700 heads-up pot in a $1-2 NL game to a performer in Stomp, one of the shows at PH, who was playing before going on stage. The guy was all-in on the turn with bottom pair and no draw, after calling a $45 reraise preflop with 3-4 offsuit. Re-Bet just had second pair, but it was good until the river.

3) Discouraged, he decided to leave Vegas. He was on the highway, driving through the desert past Kingman, Arizona and hit a deer. He got out of the car and the deer was gone, but the car's front end was ruined.

The car was still driveable so he kept going. Not an hour later, he got pulled over by a cop and got a ticket for driving with only one working headlight.

-------

PH, $1-2 NL
+ $205

Excalibur, $1-3 NL
+ $120

PH, $1-2 NL
- $200

Produce Head, Proceed to Bang Against Wall

Bellagio, $2-5 NL
- $200

PH, $1-2 NL
+ $235

PH, $1-2 NL
- $210

PH, $1-2 NL
+ 190

Patrick's Big Blind Special

So this hand happened a few weeks ago...

Patrick is a local player in his twenties, a regular at PH. He told me he had been on a bad run of cards, or otherwise getting bad results, and these bad results happened to coincide with his making Red Rock casino his home base. I told him that Red Rock was the reason.

Red Rock is a locals casino out in Summerlin. You probably have some of the toughest $200-capped NL live casino games in the world spread at Red Rock. Playing at Red Rock is kind of like going into a poker bootcamp. Just like with bootcamp, they deprive you of your worldly possessions. At the end of the month, you have no bankroll whatsoever but your game is so strong you can crush any player who has not also been through the Red Rock initiation.

So finally he came back to PH, which was good. But he got drunk, which was not so good. Patrick sober is a pretty solid player, and you will seldom hear word one out of his mouth. But when he drinks his play opens up and he treats his chips like a pyromaniac in the desert with a fresh box of grenades. He also becomes the most easily offended man on the planet.

So in this game with me and Patrick there are also a couple European kids sitting next to each other. I want to say they are Czech but that is probably wrong--but they are speaking Czech or whatever language it is they speak to each other between hands. A drunk Patrick is an openly suspicious and contemptuous Patrick, and whenever they speak something besides English I think he is going to ask the floorman to come over and throw them out for possible collusion.

So there is a limped pot, with Patrick in the big blind. The flop comes down 763, with two diamonds. The small blind checks and Patrick bets like $10. It's folded to Czech kid #1, who pushes all-in for like $100. Then Czech kid #2, right behind him, pushes for almost $200.

Patrick is sitting there thinking for the longest time. "I know they're working together," he says.

Finally another guy at the table says, "Clock, please." The dealer announces that Patrick will have one minute to make his decision.

"Who called clock," Patrick asks. He was so caught up in his decision that he didn't notice who it was. When the dealer tells him who it was, Patrick turns to the guy and says, "Hey, fuck you!"

He turns over his hand. It's 6-7 for top two pair. "This is what I'm thinking about, okay?"

He mutters, "I know they're working together."

With about 10 seconds left to make a decision, he goes, "I call!"

The turn and river blank off. Czech #1 turns over 89 of diamonds for an open-ended straight and flush draw. Czech #2 shows AT of diamonds for the nut flush draw. They missed everything and Patrick takes the pot.

Patrick shouts, "Fuck 'em!"

He gets up and staggers around, drunkenly pumping his fist. "I know they're working together."

The Czech kids are looking at each other forlornly, deciding whether or not to rebuy, and Patrick is still walking around and shouting, "Fuck 'em!"

It was like something out of the Middle Ages.
--------

I haven't been playing much the past few days, just for like five minutes on UB this morning while my coffee was brewing.

UltimateBet
$.25-.50 PLO/$.25-.50 NLH
+ $55

Monster Win

Planet Hollywood, $1-2 NL
+$50

Another Hit

PH, $1-2 NL
-$580

WSOP Satellite

Today I went down to the Rio along with Re-Bet to play a $125-entry World Series of Poker satellite.

The play at these things is atrocious from what I have heard. I don't really like playing single table tourneys that much, cause they are a boring form of poker and cause there is a lot of short-term variance, but Re-Bet thought our edge could be big. When I started playing for a living, all I did was SNGs on PartyPoker.

The players at the Rio, especially in the smaller buy-in satellites, are mostly tourists and amateurs taking their shot at a ticket to a bigger dance. I was kinda surprised to see Doug Lee registering for a $525 satellite.

So, it was good. Todd and I both made the final three and we chopped the prize pool at that point. Normally the winner gets $1,000 in tourney chips plus $120 in cash. Since Todd had fewer chips than myself and the other player, I split the cash with the third player and we all split the chips evenly.

At this point, there isn't a big-name pro alive who has a better record than me when it comes to cashing at the WSOP. One-hundred percent, baby. As T.J. Cloutier would say, I'm as pure as the driven snow.

Starting in about a week I plan on hitting these things pretty hard. I'll basically be living at the Rio and playing satellites full-time.

Rio, WSOP $125 Satellite
+ $265

Taking a Hit

Planet Hollywood
$1-2 NLH
- $420

Return to the Castle

Planet Hollywood
$1-2 NLH
- $20

Excalibur
$1-3 NLH
+ $210

Daily Net: + $190

The Stomach of a Champion

So today was the Burrito Challenge, and Todd ate the first burrito in eight minutes. I took a $100 save bet after that, which meant that he did not have to eat the second burrito and I only had to pay him $100 instead of $200.

The waitress said it was the fastest she'd ever seen anyone eat it. She kept looking at his empty plate, then at him, with a gleam of amazement in her eyes.

Yesterday he let me know that he'd won several competitive eating events, including a hot dog eating contest and a pie eating contest where he downed five whole cherry pies. But when he told me this, I felt that it was too late to honorably back out from the bet.

But I was too depressed to play poker in the aftermath.

Update: We now have a new bet on the ABC reality show which is something like Driving with the Stars. Celebrities racing stockcars. We drafted three celebs each with a bet riding on the highest combined finish. My picks were Ty Murray (rodeo champion), Laird Hamilton (surfer), and Bill Cowher. His picks were William Shatner, John Cena (pro wrestler), and Jewel. Nuff said.

I will be in Florida this weekend and will resume posting when I return.

The Mirage

"I want him to think I'm contemplating a call, but all I'm really thinking about is Vegas and the fucking Mirage."

--Rounders

I played poker at the Mirage today for the first time since I moved to Las Vegas. I hadn't booked any huge wins at Planet Hollywood this week, and Todd felt like he was in a rut and wanted to try something different, too. So I just thought: The Mirage.

Just before I moved out from DC a few years back, I took a trip to Vegas scoping out a place to live. On that trip I played limit holdem at the Mirage and lost. So I kinda had a bad feeling about the room from that, and when I moved to Vegas the only no-limit holdem games they spread were $2-5 blinds and higher. But they now spread $1-2 NLH.

Steve and Todd decided to go along for the Mirage experiment. I sat down at a table without them and just felt like I was playing my A-game from the start. I got stuck $100 by calling an all-in on the flop in a 3-way reraised pot on a Queen-high board holding pocket jacks. My call was correct as my opponent had a flush draw and hit the river.

But it was all uphill from there. I played for about four hours and cashed out exactly $1,100 from a $200 buy-in plus a $100 reload. The biggest pot of the night came down as follows:

Seat 2: Solid, Tricky Asian Kid, $550 stack
Seat 3: Me, $600 stack
Seat 6: Crazy LAG European 1, $350 stack
Seat 7: Crazy LAG European 2, $200 stack

Preflop, dealt to Seat 3, 8h7h
Seat 2 calls $2
Seat 3 raises to $10
Seat 6 calls $10
Seat 7 calls $10
Seat 2 calls $8
Comments--I haven't raised for a about an hour at this point, and I haven't raised all session with a suited connector. I am not thrilled with two LAG players calling behind me in position. I will only continuation bet if it's a dry board, it looks like it helped me, or if it really is favorable to me.

Flop, 776 rainbow
Seat 2 checks
Seat 3 bets $20
Seat 6 calls
Seat 7 calls
Seat 2 calls
Comments--I guess if I choose to bet, this is too small even considering how hard I hit it.

Turn, Q
Seat 2 checks
Seat 3 bets $60
Seat 6 folds
Seat 7 folds
Seat 2 raises $60 to $120
Seat 3 reraises $100 more to $220
Seat 2 calls $100
Comments--I know he respects my game to some degree at least, and is putting me on an overpair. He also knows that I respect his game to some degree and that if he raises here I will put him on a big hand. He either has trips, a boat, or a bluff. I think he probably has something similar to what I have, but even if he has a boat he has to be afraid I have QQ when I reraise. So I am actually thinking about pot control when I reraise, because I don't want to have to face a huge bet on the river because I haven't let him know I have a big hand. I will probably check if I don't improve.

River, 8
Seat 2 checks
Seat 3 bets $160
Seat 2 calls with 97
Comments--"Nice river, Sir."

The Mirage, $1-2 NLH
+ $800

The Burrito Challenge is On for June 6

After some furious negotiations, I have reached an agreement for a sidebet with Todd (Re-Bet).

He must eat two El Campeon burritos in the space of two hours. I am giving him 10-to-1 odds on a $20 bet. In other words, if he wins, I pay him $200, plus the cost of our meals. If I win, he pays me $20, plus the cost of our meals.

Some obvious stipulations like he cannot purge at any time, etc.

Now those of you who eat at Chipoltle or Baja Fresh or whatever your favorite Mexican place happens to be, are probably thinking I am making a bad bet. But you have to understand, these burritos are huge. Well over a pound each, with double tortillas. I ordered one like a year ago and couldn't eat it at the restaurant. I took it home and ate leftovers for a week. La Salsa has their own promo that if you eat one of them plus a big margarita, you win a free T-shirt or something.

But the two burrito challenge is more ambitious. No normal untrained human can do it, in my opinion. Todd can eat like a horse, though, which has me a little nervous. But I still think I have a good bet going.

Anyway, it's tomorrow at 4 pm at La Salsa in the Miracle Mile shops at Planet Hollywood.

June 4
7 pm torney
-$60

$1-2 NLH
+135

Daily Net: +$75

The Chico Suave Open

Got disgusted with a bad run of cards in the cash game. Decided to play the 7 pm tournament, which I almost never do, mostly cause I couldn't stand sitting there any longer.

Good thing I did. Eighty players and I took second.

June 3
Planet Hollywood, 7 pm "Chico Suave Open" tourney , $60 entry fee, 80 players
2nd place, +$505

Planet Hollwyood, $1-2 NLH
-$300

Daily net: + $205

Konich Takes 8th

After my session at PH I headed to the Rio and watched dealer John Konich take down 8th place in the Casino Employees event at the WSOP for $8K.

June 2
Planet Hollywood, $1-2 NL
+ $170

World Series of the Pokers Has Arrived

I'm going to update this blog more regularly and track my results here this month.

June 1
Planet Hollywood, $1-2 NLH
+ $195

That's it. Post over. Blogging virtuosity.

Casino Arizona

I just spent a week in Phoenix playing $5-150 spread limit with a $350 capped buy-in. It started out great with a $1,700+ cashout my first night. But then I ran bad and played blackjack, which I never do and for good reason since I have not won at blackjack since I moved to Vegas. So I ended up winning like three hundred dollars for the trip.

World Series of Poker is like a week away. Re-Bet and myself have a plan. This is going to be interesting, exciting, scary, and I hope really profitable.

May Challenge, Day 7 and Final Results

Total Profits
Highwaytime: $2,130
Carolina John: $1,641
Re-Bet: $1,366

Biggest Chip Stack
Carolina John: $1,571

Opponent Knockouts
Carolina John: 46
Re-Bet: 32
Highwaytime: 29

So it's Sunday morning at Planet Hollywood and we've been playing all night. This is our last May Challenge session. Some guy sits at the other end of the table with a $200 max buy-in. He scans the table, looking at the other players and their chip stacks.

Re-Bet, Carolina John, and myself are sitting in the 2, 3, and 4 seats, and when he scans our end of the table he loses his cool and does a cartoonish doubletake. The look of confusion and consternation on his face when he sees our chips stacks is beautiful. We are all chip shuffling $100 black chips.

It's a good session overall. At our high point we all have over $1,100 in front of us and each of us cover the rest of the table combined.

The last two days I am known as Sylar to some players in town for the weekend. Carolina John said something at the table how I looked and acted like him, and at first I argued but it occurred to me it's a good poker personae to be the guy that takes your chips and steals your brain. You don't really want to fuck with that guy.

Carolina John wants to claim overall victory in the May Challenge because he won Opponent Knockouts and Biggest Chip Stack, but in reality I took down the big elephant by winning in the most important category, Total Profits.

And I won the "9-high Ship It Challenge." To win you had to--

(A) Show a 9-high bluff
(B) Say, "Nine High. Ship it!"
(C) Get pushed the pot

So the week was fun and profitable, but I don't think I've ever played so much in one week. I'm going to take the day off.

May Challenge, Day 6

Total Profits
Highwaytime: $1,510
Re-Bet: $1,016
Carolina John: $835

Biggest Stack
Highwaytime, $1,480

Opponent Knockouts
Carolina John, 33
Highwaytime, 25
Re-Bet, 23

I am about to share with you the secret of my comeback in the May Challenge.

I took a break from the tables a couple sessions ago (Day 4) to get something to eat with Re-Bet. After we ate, we were walking back to the poker room through the mall that adjoins the casino. On our way, we encountered a store with the classic animatronic fortune teller Zoltar. I bought a fortune for a dollar, kept the printed wisdom, and since then everything is working.

May Challenge, Day 5

Total Profits
Highwaytime: $1,099
Carolina John: $895
Re-Bet: $486

Biggest Stack
Highwaytime, $1,480

Opponent Knockouts
Carolina John, 26
Highwaytime, 20
Re-Bet, 16

May Challenge, Day 4

Total Profits
Re-Bet, $894
Highwaytime, +$337
Carolina John, +$181

Biggest Stack
Highwaytime, $1,480

Opponent Knockouts
Highwaytime, 17
Carolina John, 16
Re-Bet, 15



Thirty-two hours of poker. Started out way in the hole but cashed out almost fifteen hundred. What a sick session.

It's funny how people view you as a wild and aggressive player when you accumulate a big chip stack. Don't get me wrong. When I'm sitting behind a thousand dollars or more in a $200-cap game I won't be playing timidly, but I'm not going to be trying to outplay the entire table every hand like some guys want to think I am. Last night I moved to a new table with a $1,400 stack. I hadn't been there for a whole button round when a hand came up where a lot players were limping into my straddle pot, and the player next to me said, "Wow, look at all these limpers. Everybody wants to play for four dollars. Of course knowing you, when it's your turn it'll suddenly be a hundred!" I had never seen this guy before and had played only one hand at his table, in which I was not out of line. But he was dead serious.

I won a lot of my chips in no limit crazy pineapple against the player known as Big Marietta or Crazy Town. He is a cheerful chemist who constantly looks like he just stepped out of a shower. Throughout the session he would lose hundreds at poker and leave the room and return a few hours later with blackjack winnings. Apparently he cannot possibly lose at blackjack. For a while it was three-handed crazy pineapple with Re-Bet and Big Marietta, and it was a bloodbath.

The crazy pineapple came to an end when the shift manager was called for a decision and realized for the first time that there was a no limit crazy pineapple game being played in his house. He said, "There is no such thing as no limit crazy pineapple," and told us that this would be the last hand. He gave an explanation why, basically that it is a game where players control too much of the action and a lot of disputes will arise, too many for a no limit game where whole stacks are at stake. I didn't agree but I didn't see any point in arguing. Other shift managers knew about it and allowed it and I will just play it again on someone else's shift.

So if we look at the scoreboard now, what do we find? The results are quite interesting, yes?

May Challenge, Day 3

Total Profits
Re-Bet, +$594
Carolina John, +$309
Highwaytime, -$233

Biggest Stack
Re-Bet, $1,205

Opponent Knockouts
Carolina John, 12
Re-Bet, 7
Highwaytime, 6

Sucks when you are completely card-dead, then flop top set and get all the money in on the flop and lose to a two-outer on the river. Meanwhile you are watching Re-Bet putting it all in with two outs and hitting and laughing maniacally.

Things got a little better when we switched to no limit crazy pineapple. One thing I really like about the Planet Hollywood room is they will spread pretty much whatever game you want as long as you have a few players who want to start a game.

No more messing around. I am putting on the "conductor hat" and bringing my iPod. It's all over but the crying.

May Challenge, Day 2

Total Profits
Carolina John, $114
Highwaytime, -$53
Re-Bet, -$106

Biggest Stack
Carolina John: $1,125

Opponent Knockouts:
Carolina John, 11
Highwaytime, 4
Re-Bet, 4

Just to show how bad I was running for most of this session, I made a $5 bet with dealer Chico that he couldn't shut up for his entire down except to speak to facilitate the flow of the game in his capacity as dealer, and I lost the bet. I was down about $600 at one point but managed to keep it respectable by session's end, which was about eight in the morning.

Carolina John had a swingy session but as you can see from his KO and stack size numbers the hat is back and in full effect. When he was at one of his low points, Kevin, after catching a two-outer against John on the turn, challenged him to a heads-up session. I was walking by their table when this happened and I couldn't believe he was seriously calling John out like that. I later asked John about it, and it turns out Kevin was indeed serious.

Todd was on his way to another spewy, disastrous performance before he turned it around big time, so congrats to him. The high point was his self-described "courtesy check" on the flop with trip tens against John's AA. It's unclear how courteous it really was since he checkraised to $300, but the Gambling Duke would understand.

My friend Roland, who is almost exclusively an internet player, came out to eat with us and afterwards he decided to sit down in the game. We got a rotation PLO/NLHE game, which was good since we have both been playing a lot of PLO lately. He had a rough session but hopefully we will see him come out again and book a good win.

As a final note, Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, along with his brother Robert, Mark Gregorich, and some other high stakes players have been playing $100/point Chinese poker the past couple days in the back of the Planet Hollywood poker room. It is rumored that The Grinder will be an official sponsor of the room.

May Challenge, Day 1

Total Profits
Highwaytime: $147
Carolina John: -$140
Re-Bet: -$166

Biggest Stack
Carolina John, $580

Opponent Knockouts
Highwaytime, 1
Carolina John, 0
Re-Bet, 0

John claims he was at a disadvantage this session because he forgot to wear his special black baseball cap to the poker room. It is an indispensible part of his poker arsenal and without it he was generally out-of-sorts and not himself.

Calm Before the Storm

So I haven't been playing too much the past few days, just putting in some online hours here and there. Been mixing in NLHE with the PLO. My opinion is that < 200 max NLHE on UB is easier to crush than on FT, whereas conversely I think the PLO games are tougher on UB than on FT at those stakes. My BB/100 is about 10 for both games on UB this month.

This hand is not exactly representative but is crazy enough to post.

Yeah, K7 dude insta-called the flop for almost a full buy-in with an ace on board after two guys pushed in front of him. He was the preflop 3-bettor and when he called so fast I was like, fuck, top set? Err, no, actually it's no pair and no draw.

These few days are really the quiet time. These next two months may be pivotal for me as a poker player. Re-Bet and myself have a plan for attacking a soft spot in the WSOP this year, but to be properly bankrolled for it I need to have a solid May.

Fortunately Carolina John and Re-Bet will both arrive in town in a few days, which should fire my competitive instincts. I'll be playing live pretty much all day and every day while they're in Vegas.

We haven't worked out all the sidebets yet, but be assured we will have several.

Brett's One-Liner

Today I was playing $1-2 NLHE at Planet Hollywood with the Duke.

Brett was dealing and had put out a fourth diamond on the river. The pot was heads-up between the Duke and an action player, but when the fourth diamond came down the guy slowed down and checked. The Duke bet the size of the pot and then tried talking to the guy into a call, saying he knew the guy didn't have a diamond since he checked, and that he, the Duke, hadn't even looked at his own holecards this hand.

This went on for a while, and eventually the guy said, "I think we're probably chopping."

I looked at the board. I didn't see how a chop was anything but a remote possibility. It's not like this was a double-paired board where if they both had bare aces it would mean a split pot. The board contained five distinct ranks, with four diamonds. But it was obvious from this guy's tone that he was completely serious. He was really agonizing over his decision.

"You might have a diamond," he said, "but I don't think it's higher than anything on the board."

Okay, so now at least I knew how he was confused. He had misread the board and thought there were five diamonds on board, even though the other card happened to be black.

But it was clear that the illusion under which he was operating was quite complex. Because one of the diamonds on board was the deuce of diamonds. So even if there had been five diamonds out there, if the Duke had a diamond in his hand he beat any sans diamond hand.

The guy eventually folded. I couldn't help myself and confided to him, "Yeah, my read was you guys were chopping."

"Yeah," he agreed.

Brett was shuffling the cards for the next deal. When it comes to playing cards, Brett may be the best of the Planet Hollywood dealers, and he had on his poker face when he said, "Part of me died during that hand."

Anna Wroblewski and a World without Justice

Things can go really bad in poker, and they can go really, really good.

Like pummel-me-with-a-tire-iron-just-to-let-me-know-this-is-real type good.

As I write this, Anna Wroblewski is among the chip leaders at the end of Day 2 of the $25,000 buy-in WPT Championship at the Bellagio. First prize is $3.9 million.

Her main games are the $1-2 NL games at Ballys and Paris Las Vegas. I say they are her main games but that may change after her recent score. I've played with her a half dozen times. She's a 21-year-old self-described "crazy Asian girl." At the tables she is joking, flirting, playing mind games, drinking. She probably doesn't break 100 lbs. on the scales, so she gets drunk fast. She has a dangerous, spewy playing style. She went broke recently and had to wait tables. But she got together a bankroll (with or without help from friends, I don't know) and took a shot at a $3,000 buy-in preliminary event a week ago. She felted Barry Greenstein and Shannon Shorr in a single hand with a two-outer on the river. Then she won the whole thing. The score? Close to $350K plus entry to the WPT Championship. Sweetness and light.

Re-Bet played with Anna just once and his opinion of her game is such that when he found out about her recent success he asked, "Is there no Justice?" Yes, he said it with a capital J.

Carolina John told me today that I reminded him of Sylar from the show "Heroes." So I was trying to think of who he reminded me of and I realized that Danny Nguyen not only plays like him but looks like him.

Sidebet Challenge, Final Day

Total Profits
Highwaytime: $1,337
Re-Bet: $1,327

Biggest Stack
Highwaytime, $853

Yahtzee!

Sidebet Challenge, Day 6

Total Profits
Highwaytime: $1,072
Re-Bet: $959

Biggest Stack
Highwaytime, $853

Scoreboard!

Sidebet Challenge, Day 5

Total Profits
Re-Bet: $861
Highwaytime: $547

Biggest Stack
Re-Bet, $849

Short session today as we met up with the Duke and his girl Steph at the 51s baseball game. Serious session tomorrow.

Sidebet Challenge, Day 4

Total Profits
Highwaytime: $505
Re-Bet: $871

Biggest Stack
Re-Bet, $849

Finished an early afternoon session ahead $260, which is fine but it could have been much better since I was up $450 at one point. I started taking beats in rapid-fire succession. Feeling myself steam I decided to rack up and leave, even though it was a good game and I had position on a deep-stacked mega-calling station.

Todd was in the hole for quite a big number when I left, so as of this moment I am ahead in the total profits sidebet. But despite wanting the sidebet bloodmoney, I have to root for him to make a comeback and he is a huge overdog against that lineup. Will update later.
----
Update: He didn't need to make that much of a comeback.

Sidebet Challenge, Day 3

Sidebet 1 (Total Profits)
Re-Bet: $666
Highwaytime: $245

Sidebet 2 (Biggest Stack)
Re-Bet, $770

Bubbled in tournament, and both times I picked up KK in the cash game I was up against AA. Still got a $65 profit on the day, but ugh. Time to put on the rally cap, or maybe even the "conductor hat."

Sidebet Challenge, Day 1-2

Todd is in town for about a week and I thought we would make the rivalry more interesting by having a couple sidebets going. The first is total profits, and the second is on who accumulates the biggest chip stack during his trip. Here is how it stands after a couple days:

Sidebet 1 (Total Profits)
Re-Bet: $422
Highwaytime: $180

Sidebet 2 (Biggest Stack)
Highwaytime, $490

Of course this sidebet action is all just a dim foreshadowing of what will happen in a couple weeks. What happens in a couple weeks? Well, Re-Bet comes into town again, but also arriving will be the nightmare-maker known as...no....yes!!!...Carolina John.

Return to the Strip

I cashed out $1,100 last night from UltimateBet to give me something of a live game bankroll. After cashing out I played a little and cleared more bonus money--I thought the rest of the bonus would be voided by my withdrawal but apparently that's not true.

Re-bet is getting into town today, too, so I'll be easily found the next week or so in the Planet Hollywood cardroom.

Witches' Sabbath?

I was walking to my car from my apartment and heard a noise. Passing the tennis courts, I looked inside. I saw a man in street clothes, not tennis clothes, and wearing a bright blue-and-yellow rubber mask. If he'd had the jumpsuit to go with it he'd have passed for an overweight superhero. It was the kind of mask you saw a lot of in late '80s pro wrestling. He was unlocking the tennis courts for two guys in white shirts and black slacks. I recognized them. They're evangelists and I often see them bicycling around my neighborhood with their huge backpacks and always wearing the same slacks and white shirts.

When you see something like this, you just keep walking. You do not pass Go, you do not collect $200. I got in my car and drove off.

If any of you are skilled in interpreting signs and portents or just otherwise have excellent insight into things, what the hell do you think this means? Mind you, this was broad daylight and I'm sure of what I saw.

In the meantime I'll get my mind off it by reviewing raw data, specifically my PokerTracker Omaha stats for April.

Okay, for the month I've made a profit of about 120,000 Yen on UltimateBet, not counting bonuses and rakeback. The rough equivalent of $1,000.

I'm running at +10BB/100 hands.

I thought I was losing money playing heads-up and shorthanded. I find I'm actually slightly ahead playing heads-up but down like $400 playing 3-handed and 4-handed. Hmm. I feel like I've been getting run over shorthanded and/or choosing bad spots to play back. Strangely the numbers are better on 6-max tables overall than on full nine-handed ring games. My highest profit is when there are specifically five players at a table: I'm up about $750 there. I think my technical challenges right now for PLO are learning to manage hands as the aggressor, since I've been doing more preflop raising, and adjusting my play shorthanded.

That's it for now. And again for any of you with interpretive powers, help us out here.

Triple Draw Rush

The plan to change my schedule was just a moderate success, at best. I woke up at 2 pm today. I go to my computer and check my IM's and see one from Re-bet saying he busted on UltimateBet.

We get on the phone and I find out he's not actually busted, he has like $40 on there. I'm like, that makes all the difference! Empires have been created from less. So like a good friend, I offer to help him get healthy again by playing him heads-up in some of the obscure poker games featured on UB. One of those games is A-5 Triple Draw, which I have played only once, in a dealer's choice home game, and the rules of which I don't even remember.

Well, I must have won about the first 15 hands. It was pretty sick. I got dealt a pat A-5 as my starting hand one time and got paid off. Finally I had to hit the "Sit Out" button cause I was laughing so hard. There is no way to evaluate my triple draw game based on that session, because the deck completely hit me in the face. I could have been playing anybody in the world and it wouldn't have mattered. In a way it's annoying cause I wish that would happen when I'm playing a live $2-5 NL game instead of when I'm playing a friend for kicks at micro-stakes triple draw. Anyway, we stopped while he still had some money, and I am glad to say he is now up to over $300 on UB.

Highwaytime Becomes "That Guy"

So I've been thinking about getting down to the Strip for some exciting live action no limit holdem poker, like the kind I saw on the TV...

But I'm having something of a problem, cause I placed my entire bankroll minus $500 or so online, and that cash is really for me to live off. My roll is on UltimateBet and Absolute, and the problem I'm having is that these sites have deposit bonuses that are voided if you withdraw funds before they're cleared. You clear them by playing a certain number of raked hands for enough money.

I'm thinking about just taking my $300 off Absolute and saying screw the bonus, cause their software is so ugly and they don't have many players, anyway. But I've been playing on UB and I have a good chunk on there now and I intend to clear that bitch. So my goal this week is to play there as much as I can so I can finally withdraw and put in some live hours later this month.

But it'll have to wait. Today I won't be playing cause I'm sick of waking up when the sun sets. It's 9 am here and I haven't gone to bed yet and don't intend to til late tonight, and I don't want to play sleep deprived. Plus there's the Sopranos tonight and I gotta watch that.

So last night I finally became, as The Gambling Duke likes to call him, "That Guy." I went onto a $50-max PLO table on UB and just ruined it inside of 10 hands with some really loose play, highlighted by this hand where I was up against two players who both had AAxx. My cold-call of the pre-flop reraise is laughable, but I had good enough equity in a three-way pot given the actual hands I was up against.

The very next hand one of the guys goes on monkey-tilt and reraises me when I pick up AAxx. Honest012 goes on a rant after I take him to the felt but I don't really know what he says cause UB turns obscenities into ***** in tablechat. I don't think he likes me, though.

Here I get bad-beat on another table when I'm a 7-3 favorite. Yeah, I know I have no pair but how do you call that with top-and-bottom pair in Pot Limit Omaha? If I could play against you every day, thelittleguy, I wouldn't have to work. Oh, wait...

Links

Just gonna post some links today you might find fun or useful.

Think you're just unlucky? Take the donkeytest.

A good article. It's written by a shipithollaballa who plays $200/400 NL on FT as OMGClayAiken.

Two of the best blogs in North America, for different reasons: Daut and Brian Townsend.

Two Ivey hands, one where Brad Booth gets street cred for life, the other with some Aussie pro annoying the shit out of Ivey by talking in the middle of the hand.

And so I can continue my tradition of thinly veiled brag posts, a fun PLO hand.

The New Room

I drove to Planet Hollywood today to check out their new poker room.

The old room was on the mezzanine between the high-limit area, guest check-in, and the convention halls. It kind of had a big space to itself in the middle of it all, which I liked. It didn't feel like playing in a casino so much as playing in a hotel lobby.

The new room is downstairs between the main street entrance, Starbucks, and the table games. Its location is good cause more potential players will see the room and make their way to the games. The downside to the location is that it's noisier, especially given the cabbage patch of slots planted on the Starbucks side. But it should be noted the back wall is specially sound-proofed with the kind of insulation used to dull background noise. The entire room is partitioned with a sloping chest-high wooden barricade, the only foot entrance being over a speck of marble floor. Overall it's kinda themeless in its style, relatively minimalist for a casino like most of the new Vegas builds where they've figured out adults don't want to gamble in kitchy theme parks. Lots of wood paneling and support pillars. I especially like Table 5 and Table 8 cause they are at the back, walled in on three sides and isolated from the main casino. A secret door leads to a staff office.

They don't have the plasma screens and card-reading comp system set up yet, but I am told they soon will.

As for my play at PH, I got in a hole early when my top set of 9s lost to runner-runner flush. Then a hand came up where the Duke, after losing the previous hand, raised to $15 on the button, and after the SB called I repopped it to $50 with QQ. The Duke came over the top, making it $150 straight. I mucked, and the shortstacked SB called and his 8-7 clubs made a straight vs. the Duke's KK.

I did turn the session into a decent win, but I was annoyed at myself for playing in the first place since almost my entire bankroll is online right now and I don't really have a live game bankroll.

La Pura Verdad

Thank you, Sir. I think I'll do that.

The Hazards of Free Speech

In his latest post, Monsterholdings lets fly a bunch of spurious lies. I won't dignify them by answering directly, since it's pretty obvious he's doing this to draw attention to himself and provoke a reaction.

I don't ask anyone to flag his content to blogspot for containing objectionable content. Repeat: I do NOT. This is America and he has a right to his "opinions."

He does point out one item of interest: both of us now have a program called Camtasia, which allows users to record, among other things, their online poker play with real-time or post-event commentary.

Just to test it out, I did a 6-minute video playing a 6-max table of Pot Limit Omaha on UltimateBet, and I added audio commentary afterwards. I may post vids in the future. For now just let me know if you're interested in seeing it cause the file is small enough to email. It's eventful enough for six minutes cause I doubled a guy up about two minutes in and busted him on the last hand.

I plan to really put in the hours in the weeks ahead, to run really well, and to make April my best month ever.

Moving On

Having successfully extricated my funds from FullTilt, I signed up on Absolute Poker (Highwaytime) and UltimateBet (SevenCities).

Playing the small PLO games on UB, the overall quality of play is about the same as on FT. There are more decent and good players on UB, but there are also more ridiculous maniacs and true donators.

On a different note, who do you think was out of line here?

Online Poker Cashout Rant

When you deposit money into an online poker site they don't give a damn how you do it. Prepaid credit cards, virtual visas, offshore bank accounts, phone cards, third party vendors, doesn't matter. You can rob an elderly couple at gunpoint outside the poker site's offshore offices in Antigua while they watch yukking it up from the windows of the employee lounge. They will smile and give you the thumbs-up. Welcome to the party. Ready to poker.

But try to take some of your money off their site, and suddenly these same people turn into anal retentive lawyer-banker-ombudsmen, looking for any excuse to fuck you up:

Site1Rep: "Oh, you know that service we let US players use to get money in and out of the site, which you used?"
Me: "The one I used when I signed up just two weeks ago and which your site instituted only a month ago?"
Site1Rep: "Yeah, that one. We decided to cancel that service the week after you signed up. So your money is, like, stuck online."

Or...

Site2Rep: "Hey, you know that account you set up to get rakeback? The one we let you load funds onto and cleared with your rakeback site?"
Me: "Of course, what about it?"
Site2Rep: "Yeah, well, we decided not to let you do that after all. We want you to have only one account, so we're suspending the new one. And oh, also we're not letting you withdraw that money you wanted to take off. Just letting you know. Have a nice day!"

The Infamous One-outer

Can't remember ever doing this before.

Five Water Pump

Played at Planet Hollywood yesterday and made a couple hundred bucks. Most of my earn is still coming from live play.

On FullTilt I've been playing PLO and it's going good. I'm still at around 40 BB/100 hands and I passed the $1K mark for the ElHajjh account today, to go along with a lump sum rakeback payment coming next month. No big deal I know, but this is how we get there. I'm looking to live off my casino play for now while not withdrawing anything from FT, just letting it build up and moving to higher stakes once I hit 20 max buys for the level I want to play.

I met the Duke's girl Stephanie today. A shout out to my readers in Spokane.

By special request, ElHajjh's greatest lines from FullTilt tablechat:

"cj, you have little chip. i have big chip."

"dabadbeat, because of player like you i buy five water pump for my village"

"you see? you must not try to bluff ElHajjh. it is a thing of fantasy. a dream of madmen and prophets."

"yes we go now, we have funtime pokertime"

"the time has come for ElHajjh to take his rest"

Nice Flop

When I heard that Steve (dabadbeat) and Todd (monsterholdings) were sitting at the same PLO table, it sounded like too much fun to pass up.

In regards to a question on my last post, the guy would have flopped a gutshot straight-flush draw and you couldn't drive him out of that pot with a dumptruck.

Our Friend the Randomizer

Back to live poker. Planet Hollywood, $1-2 NL.

I go on a good run and am kinda in the zone. I am insta-calling with AQ-high for $150 preflop because I know it is good. My hands are holding up. I am up to $800 off my $200 buy-in within a couple hours.

The main action in the game is a kid from Oklahoma. A $2-5 NL game is starting and Oklahoma is going to it, along with a local player who just got to the room, a textbook calling station, a European who resembles a poor man's Pancho Villa. I don't want to play $2-5 cause my bankroll isn't there yet, but Todd says the game is too good to pass up and offers to go halves with me in the game to decrease the variance. I agree to this but my instincts tell me it's a mistake.

As suspected I play weak-tight in the $2-5 NL because I'm sceered to lose a big chunk of my bankroll. Fortunately this is a game where playing weak-tight is no disaster. Nobody except Oklahoma is being aggressive, and most of the time you can just call preflop for cheap and get paid off when you hit. I am up a couple hundred when the following hand comes up.

I limp with JJ in early position, Oklahoma makes it $30, Pancho Villa calls the $30, then a guy who just does weird random stuff makes it $60. I am considering what to do when I see Oklahoma sitting behind me, $1K deep at this point, taking a couple more stacks out to reraise. I muck my hand. Oklahoma makes it like $250, Pancho Villa mucks, Randomizer2000 pushes for $400 and gets called. Randomizer2000 has A2, Oklahoma has AK.

I would have flopped quad jacks and won a huge pot if I'd stayed.

But that's just part of the story. See, if Randomizer2000 hadn't decided to reraise with A2 and reopen the betting, I actually would have lost almost my entire stack because Pancho Villa would have made a straight flush with the 78 of hearts.

I love live poker.

The Vienna Debacle

The past week I've been sick and so I haven't played live. But today a useful doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics, and I'll find my way to a casino soon.

In the meantime I've been on FullTilt playing PLO. I've been experimenting with a strategy Rolf Slotboom discusses in his book, called the "Vienna Strategy," which basically involves shortbuying and then doing a lot of limp-reraising and checkraising while sitting to the immediate right of an aggressive player. Well, I figured I would give it a shot as I am trying to give myself a thorough education in this game, even if I knew this was not the way I wanted to do things in the long-term. I guess it didn't go so well. It seemed like every time I got it all-in with AAxx preflop, the other guy made a straight, and every time I got it in with QJT9-ds, the other guy had AAxx and made Aces full. Over 5k hands can this really happen again and again? Apparently so.

So reviewing my Pokertracker stats I did way, way better when I just bought in for full. How much better? Well, I was + 60 BB/100 hands when I bought in full, and -5 BB/100 hands when I went "Vienna." That little experiment is now over.

This isn't to say that Rolf's book sucks. It's actually really good. I think I just got unlucky employing that particular strategy, which is just one tactic he outlines at the beginning of the book, in addition to big stack strategies he later describes.

So why have I been playing almost exclusively Omaha when I play online? Couple reasons. First it is a change from the constant NLHE cash game grind, which I think I needed. Learning a new game could help me think about poker in new ways and ultimately make me a better NLHE player, anyway.

Second, I can tell you for sure, having stopped playing online for about a year and just having got back into it, that the online NLHE games are tougher than they used to be. I'm not saying they're unbeatable or that a good player shouldn't make money, but the edge is not as big as it used to be. So I am looking for a new edge and am trying to get good at this game. Omaha is a deceptively complicated game and you need to develop your card sense for it as well as learn the tricks. There's a reason that if you go on FullTilt you will see David Benyamine, under one of his aliases, crushing the $200-400 PLO on a regular basis. It's not unusual to see him with 10 buy-ins in front of him, having destroyed the top online pros at this game yet again.

The Pilgrimage

Pot Limit Omaha players on FullTilt were shocked this morning to find sitting at their tables....no....yes!!!...ElHajjh.

I think Saruman summed it up when he said, "There will be no dawn for Men."

-----------
Addendum: I just kinda liked the sound of ElHajjh and it gives me an excuse to say things to assholes in player chat like, "We are pleased to welcome you the poker play."

I was hoping it didn't actually mean anything in any language, but I decided to check it out today.

Oops.

I doubt I'll be offending anybody because devout Muslims don't play poker.

Still, though. This account was set up for rakeback, so if it goes through for that purpose I don't want to ditch it.

Full Tilt: "Learn, Chat, and Play with the Donks"

The past couple days I've been playing PLO on Full Tilt (sn Highwaytime). I've found the games to be fishier than on Prima network and my results have been good so far, running at about +25 BB/100 hands.

Todd was also on FT last night (sn Monsterholdings) and we decided to go halves in the $12K-guaranteed tournament with 560 entrants. Early on I was down to 400 chips when I got my KK cracked but I made the famous comeback and finished in 12th place.

Kevin's Rush & The Duke's Demise

There's an aggressive local player who frequents Planet Hollywood named Kevin, an Asian guy in his late twenties. Every other local I've talked to hates playing him. Actually some say they hate him personally, because of the way he plays cards. This shows he's doing something right.

Tonight he went on the sickest cardrush I've seen in a long time. It started when he isolated a bad player with an AK reraise. Then the table went crazy with calls and pushes behind him. He caught his ace and more than tripled up from his original $200 stake. Then he played AT in a raised pot and checkraised the QJ9 board. His opponent pushed for nearly $200 more with JJ, and Kevin decided to gamble and rivered a K for the nut straight. Then Kevin raised with JJ, the bad player bet into him on the rag flop and he raised to $200, another deep-stacked player behind him pushed all-in for close to $300 more on top, and Kevin eventually called the deep-stack's 88 bluff. Finally the bad player, who had won a couple big pots in the interim, went broke with top pair against Kevin's set for another $500. When the dust settled from this run of hands, which transpired within the space of an hour, Kevin had close to $2K in front of him.

Meanwhile I was up a couple hundred in the game, but the Duke was struggling. He was in the game for $400. He was actually down to $20 when he tripled up and then went on a rush and had $300 in front of him. He was satisfied with the comeback and planned to leave when the blinds hit him. With two hands to go before having to post his blind he picked up my favorite hand, pocket nines. He limped with it, and when a shortstack raised behind him, he decided to play the hand heads-up and raised enough to put the guy all-in. The guy had QJ and rivered a Jack.

The very next hand, the Duke went into a full-blown Tony G routine. Feigning extreme tilt, he shouted, "Go ahead, take it all!" He pushed his remaining $250 across the felt, knocking his stacks over in the process. "You want it? It's yours! You think this is a joke? Take it all! I'm tired of this!" I knew he had a monster even before he turned to me and said, "I have King Kong." The bad player called and showed T9. The flop was all blanks, but then the turn was a 10 and the river was a 10. Runner-runner for trips and the Duke says he's done playing for a while.

All Hail Re-bet

Today was the final day of the Monte Carlo Freeroll Tourney and I drove down to the Strip to watch "Re-bet" Todd. I had a third of his action so it's fair to say I had a strong rooting interest.

After a couple naysayers got busted, the remaining field made a deal to take $1,200 each and play for the other half of the prize pool.

Re-bet played great and was actually the chip leader until donking off a lot of chips making a preflop play with pocket deuces. He still made the final table, though, where everyone agreed to a chop. The chip leader got $10K and everyone else got $6K. After taxes and a three-way split between Re-bet, the Gambling Duke, and myself, it came out to $1,300 each.

The Duke had come stright from a baseball game and was still in uniform, and we all ate a celebratory Sbarro lunch in the food court. Then I drove home to play an internet freeroll tourney I qualified for on Intertops. I won a couple races when I needed to and I placed second for $240. Not a bad day when you've made over $1,500 before dinner without putting a dollar at risk.

The key to getting Re-bet to loosen up and play well was our hilarity over recently viewed Tony G YouTube videos. We agreed that the Duke should embrace and incorporate the Tony G style, since it works well with his pre-existing super-aggressive preflop strategy and penchant for confrontational table-talk.

February is Really Over

I bust out of the Monte Carlo Freeroll when I run my beautiful KQ of diamonds into two black Aces. Re-bet is through to Day 2 and I have a third of his action. The Gambling Duke plays his Day 1 tomorrow and I have a third of his action as well. Team Holdem: "You can't stop us, you can only hope to contain us."

Planet Hollywood. I forget to bring my bankroll, wtf. New rolling chairs for the poker room and I lounge in one until Todd rolls in and spots me two bills. I quickly build up to a $300 stack when the following hand comes down.

A reasonable-looking but very aggressive preflop player makes it $12 and I call with 4-5 of hearts on the button. The big blind says, "I raise with my Charlie Murphy chip," and throws in a call. He only means to call, but the dealer, Mike Manchester, holds him to his verbal commitment to raise. So the three of us put in another $12 each.

Flop comes KJ3 with two hearts. BB checks. Preflop raiser leads for $20. It's a weak bet and I think there's a good chance of catching him on pure air, plus I have a draw with position, so I raise to $60. BB cold-calls the $60 and then the preflop raiser calls, too. I don't like my hand. The cold-call set off alarm bells, and with the overcall I'm not 100% my draw will be good if I hit. I have a draw of questionable value along with position and a camouflaged hand.

Turn is an offsuit 6, giving me an OESD to go along with my 5-high flush draw. It's checked to me. Do you guys push here? There's $240 in the pot. If you push AI there's a good chance you get a better draw to fold, and usually only a good made hand will call, against which you have many outs. The thing is, I really feel like I'm going to get called. I take the free card.

The river is an offsuit 7 and I am in shock because I have the Royal Brass Brazilians. All I am thinking is how February must really be over because this kind of thing never happened last month. BB leads out for $50. Preflop raiser mucks. I shove it all in for $140 on top and he calls with K3 for a flopped two pair. The preflop raiser says he had A8 of hearts for the nut flush draw.

Wow, I got really lucky. If I'd pushed the turn I'd have been in terrible shape but I might have stacked them both, because the BB was going to call with his two pair, and with all the money in the pot the nut flush draw might make the overcall.

For the coup de grace, I win a free commemorative Aladdin coffee mug for filling out a questionnaire describing my reaction to the new leather-bound slot machines (not a fan).

Captain Slowroll and the World of Tomorrow

Played a session at Planet Hollywood today and made $500. Netted about $2K in the past five days, which makes my February mediocre, but mediocre is an improvement over how my month looked last week.

I was too caught up in the variance, in my bad run of cards, to be much of a writer this month. A couple things I'll mention now.

Played with the most prolific slowroller ever. He was Gutshot Man from my -$1,240 PLO/$2-5 NL session. A better name for him is Captain Slowroll. He loved to make the second nuts, get called, and then shake his head sadly, tap his cards against the felt, say something like, "Damn. You got me. Your 8-high straight is good." Then the other guy, a supernit who raised to $30 preflop and couldn't possibly have an 8-high straight, would flip over something like pocket Aces, and Captain Slowroll would show the 7-high straight and say, "I thought if you called me there you had to have me beat! Wow!"

He bluffed so often, betting almost every hand to the river, that about 75% of the time he said, "Ya got me," the other guy really had caught him bluffing. But 25% of the time Captain Slowroll had made a straight or two pair somewhere along the way.
----
Playing at the Tropicana I witnessed the most unprofessional hour-and-a-half of poker dealing I've ever seen at a casino. One dealer told us, "I don't want to be here," and looked at a player like he was an idiot when he explained why he'd pushed all-in. Another dealer failed to see a flush and pushed a big all-in pot to the wrong player. I saw it and wanted the donkey with the backdoor flush to win, but he didn't see his flush either, and I believe in the saying, "One man to a hand," and that it's unethical to point these things out during a hand, so I didn't say anything until after it was over. Of course it was too late by then.

The best, though, was the hand where a player was all-in preflop for about $20 and two other players called. The flop action was bet-and-fold. The dealer, an Asian woman who spoke little English, forgot about the all-in player and placed the flop cards in the muck and pushed the flop bettor the pot. The all-in player complained and showed AT while the flop bettor showed 99, which was the best hand on the pre-existing flop. The dealer, realizing her error, grabbed five apparently random cards out of the muck and turned them faceup. No burning, no turning. Re-bet says he believes she found the correct three cards for the flop, but I thought one of the boardcards was one of my mucked holecards. "Pocket nine good," she said, announcing the winning hand after the five "boardcards" were out. The guy with AT seemed kind of at a loss and walked away. To this day all I have to do is say, "Pocket nine good," and Re-bet just loses it.

Upswing

Today I played a couple sessions at Planet Hollywood and won $725.

Things may be turning around. Gotta keep going.

Huge Overdog

Planet Hollywood. One table going. Mike Manchester and the Gamblin Duke sitting. They look up at me shaking their heads about how good the game is and how bad they're running.

Manchester is a dealer who takes down a lot of tournaments when he's not in the box. His cash game play is kinda rough IMO but in this game he's still, as Bill Fillmaff would say, a "huge overdog." A rich girl vaguely associated with the fashion industry has distributed over a G around the table, betting crazy and calling $100 river bets with the nut low--I'm completely for real.

The Duke gets flushed out for his last buy-in and I get his seat. Fashion girl loses her last chips, doesn't rebuy, and I'm like, "Fuck."

I flop Kings Full, and after checking the flop a stack pushes against me, and I'm like, "Sweet."

A decent little session of which I need a couple more before month's end since for the moment I can't get at the $1,500 or so I have on Intertops.

Check out "Re-bet" Todd's poker blog.

Stranded Cyberdollar

Intertops
1 hour
+ $306

Aladdin $1-2 NL
3 hours
+ $50

I got on the phone with Trucard customer service to find out why I hadn't received a debit card. They told me the merchant (Intertops poker) is no longer using their service. I shot an email to Intertops and they confirmed this. I won't be getting a debit card, and I won't be able to use Interpay to get my money in or out.

I can probably get them to send a check, but I have a couple problems with that option right now. So my money is stranded in cyberspace, I kept thinking, and I logged on to Intertops and sat at like four $200 cap PLO tables and just played uber-aggressive. I mean, what difference does it make? I have no immediate prospects of getting my money offline, anyway.

Let me take a shot at building a huge fortress of meaningless cyberchips that I can stack in meaningless cybertowers.