Gonzo

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Never ever

Ahhh here we are, a week or 12 days or whatever it is later. How did my free $20 on Party Poker work out? Actually, pretty well. I was able to turn it into around $90 by playing in a few tournaments. Since we were in need of some cash, and the minimum you can request to cash out is $50 AND the $20 bankroll was still "in play" and could not be removed, I took out all but $35 - that being the entry fees for 3 tournaments. I figured, if I could not get anything in those 3 tournaments, then no big deal. It was reasonably tough to win with my free $20 but for the most part things seemed pretty normal, unlike last time I played with real money on Party Poker. However, after I cashed out, the story changed - again. Just as it had the first time I took something OUT of Party Poker, it was like I was "switched" into a negative mode. I was repeatedly taking bad beats, players playing 50 to 1 long shots were getting me over and over again. At first I thought, you know, this is typical of Party Poker and was not upset particularly. I really figured the $20 I got was never going to get out of there anyway once I took anything from it. I played the same poker, the same varying strategies, the same calculated plays and was beaten by worse hands over and over and over. And I don't mean I had AA cracked by KK. I mean, I had AA about 6 times since cashing out - and lost with it EVERY TIME. And that's just AA, that doesn't count how many times I was beaten with a high pair (KK,QQ) with someone else playing complete garbage like 7 - 2. It isn't "Negative Variance" when it is like someone throws a switch. The only pots I was able to win were the ones where I outplayed the other person. If I went all in, I got cracked with a premium hand. If I slow played, I got cracked with a premium hand. If I set a trap, the one hand that could beat me would beat me at the showdown. Hell, in one game I had what amounted to a 99.5% chance of winning a hand AND IT GOT CRACKED. Let me warn you of one thing - if you want to play poker for money seriously (in other words to actually hope to win), do not, ever, under ANY circumstances play on Party Poker. There is something seriously fishy going on with that site and I don't mean that in a good easy-money fish kind of way. I mean that the random number generator does not appear to be random. The more I see the more I suspect they have written some kind of poker software that intentionally pits closely-matched hands against one another to generate action. I have heard people say "but why would they do that", hell I have even struggled with the question myself but I think I have to now believe they do rig the games. By making money fly around and making it tough for the strong players, they keep the poor players sucked in. By keeping poor players artificially lucky, they increase the bets and therefore they increase the rakes they take. By frustrating the strong players in tournaments, they make sure that the tournament ends faster by preventing really strong players from making up a final table that could last several hours. It really smells bad over there. I am just glad that my total from Party Poker is actually in the black - I am up a total of about $30-40 all told after playing there. DO NOT make the mistake of thinking that you can do a lot better, at least not in the lower dollar value games. Who knows, maybe in the games with high stakes they don't fuck around but I will never know because I will NEVER take the risk with my own money there again. I might play Freerolls for practice from now on, but if I ever get $50 in winnings or more it will come out right away. After my 3 sit-n-go fees got sucked out on, I used the few dollars I had left to enter some of the big $1 entry fee tournaments. Even in those, I was repeatedly hammered by bad beats over and over. In two of them I was able to get into the top 200 players which meant I recovered my entry fee plus a few cents and that allowed me to try a half a dozen of those tournaments until I finally got fed up. I used up all my Party Poker points to enter a couple of other events as well and the same crap continued. It's like they were just trying to get me to make a deposit again to "feed the addiction" I must have since I keep playing. Ha! Fat chance. Poker IS gambling. There are always risks. However, strong players should be able to minimize risk and maximize skill. I don't pretend I am the next WSOP main event champ, but I am not a bad player. On other sites, I am not seeing the kind of bullshit that goes on at Party Poker. Granted, PP has the largest number of players so there are that many more people to complain, but the complaints at poker not only consist of the typical complaints about online poker but very specific descriptions of things like the nearly instant "negative variance" that occurs as soon as you make a withdrawl or demonstrate an ability to win a little too much. The fact that a premium hand always seems to come up against another premium hand just smells of something planned, not random events. I'm not an idiot. I have taken my free bankroll on Titan Poker, and after going up and down and up and down hovering around the starting amount I have managed to slowly grind out a profit. At one point on Titan Poker I DID have a "negative variance" streak (it was also a period where I was sick with the flu and very much off my game) and was down to the very last $4 of that free startup fund I got, but I have since multiplied that more than 20 fold. Maybe tomorrow I will have another bad streak - I have had a couple, but it is to be expected. I've never felt like something was inherently wrong with the way hands played out on Titan, however. Coin flips pairs vs overcards are coin flips, a truly dominant hand usually wins at about the correct rate of probability and betting following pot odds actually is not suicidal like it seems to be on Party Poker. I know I have a lot to learn still. I know I have so much more I want to read. I am in the black for playing poker online so far, but not in a way that if I was not already disabled and at home playing from bed that would make it worth playing. It is hardly "quit your job and make a living playing poker" rate of winning but for the $30 odd dollars in my own money that has gone in I have about 5 times that amount that I have won. Poker saved our butts last week because I needed $40 to make sure our bank account didn't go into overdraft and I was able to win it without risking any of our own money. Whatever the case may be in terms of how MUCH I make, it is actually kind of fun, and unlike other online games I have played over the years I am actually getting a small financial benefit out of it. That is, its fun except when playing on Party Poker. In case you didn't get it before, don't play there. Unless you really really want to try it out - then let me refer you so we both can get a little bonus and I can try and get more free cash out of them.

Whoo-wheee

Wow. Its been a while. Suffice to say, I got horribly discouraged after the tilt incident with Party Poker. I basically lost all of my "profits" and actually was down about $20 from my original deposit when I decided I needed to stop. Party Poker, it seems, is a bit strange. And rather suspicious. I can't say I have played millions of hands of poker but certainly by now it is in the thousands, and when I play on Party Poker there is a funny smell in the numbers. Hands like flushes should be relatively rare - that's why they are ranked 4th in the available hands. Only a full house, four of a kind or a straight flush can beat a flush because only those hands are rarer. In the last few days, I have literally seen dozens of flushes in approximately a thousand hands played. The math says there should have been only a little over a handful. There are also a lot of "power hands" head to head coming up, creating showdowns. If someone has pocket aces, they should win most of the time - but they are often drawn out by sets and the like. That should happen a few times, sure, but the aces should win, mathematically, MOST of the time. Not on Party Poker. To make a long story short - I quit Party Poker. Just cashed out my money and left. It was driving me crazy. I was getting nailed by bad beats constantly. Take a few, sure, but when every tourney you are in you are turfed when you have the best start hand, again and again? It wasn't for me. Thing is, as I studied more I read a lot of stuff online and found out an important fact - if you play ADVANCED strategy against the truly BAD players, you will get killed until you adjust. They just don't "get it" when you bet after something hard that it is not sensible to keeping chasing a draw. When someone busts your Aces full of Kings on the flop with runner runner deuces to make 4 of a kind after you went all in - you are playing some seriously bad players. I was really trying to play too smart for my own good at Party Poker. So, I took some time off and studied more poker, and I got a free bankroll from Titan Poker. Started with $50 which I can't cash out but I can play with as I choose. Trouble is, Titan Poker is very quiet. On Party Poker you can barely get into a Sit'N'Go tourney - on Titan you have to wait and wait and wait sometimes. I quickly turned my $50 bankroll into $40 and then floated at that level. It seemed I could play endlessly winning enough to cover my fees but never going above the first $50 until I hit D-Day. What was D-Day? D-Day was the day I was down to my last $7 after winning NOTHING something like 6 times in a row. I was just getting HAMMERED all over the place, although playing technically good poker. I was making few mistakes but the cards were killing me - the Poker Gods were apparently trying to teach me a lesson. So, I took $5.50 of my last $7 and entered another tourney. I played virtually the same game - and won. So, then I went in a $2+fee tourney and finished second. The next day I went in and finished in the money in another $5+ tourney and I had most of my bankroll back, where it is hovering right now. However, I didn't play on Titan Poker again in the following week because I got an interesting email proposition. From Party Poker. They gave me $20 to come back and play again. So... I figured I would go over there and give them back their money. This story has one of those things we are seeing a lot on TV right now - end of the season... TO BE CONTINUED.

Holy Tilt

Well, today I learned what it really means to go tilt. Tilt in poker is when you get so upset you get totally out of control, emotionally or otherwise, and are unable to think clearly. I guess I have to look at it as a lesson learned. Basically, it started when I went in to play casually and accidentally went into a limit game - which is exasperating. I didn't realise I was in a limit game until it was too late and I had been caught in a betting cycle. When you enter a room you automatically need to post a big blind bet to begin, but then the next 2 hands were the other blinds. I lost the first hand on a horrible bad beat and then was into a second big blind before I could say What The Fuck. Walking into a room and losing a couple bucks right away was no big deal under most circumstances because I know I usually can get it back to at least even if I am patient. However, I wanted to get out of the limit game and get into the kind I prefer to play. Considering the loss I took was on a bad beat, I figured I could stay around for a bit and win back to my initial deposit without taking any big risks. Next thing I knew this quiet little corner with only 4 people playing was a full table with 10 people. Then, I could not get a playable hand. Alarm bells were going off in my head to just get out of the room, but I had considered playing limit to learn so I decided to play. Big mistake - the cards were killing me, and with no way to make the one or two good hands I had really pay off or push anyone out with a big bet to avoid bad beats, I was in over my head with people who obviously play Limit Hold'em all the time. They weren't actually GOOD at it, they just kept betting on every piece of crap they had and no one would fold out. I was just playing and trying to keep my cool, won a hand, and thought I was more settled. However, I played only 3 of the next dozen or more deals and got beaten on the river all 3 times... I decided Limit games, or at least at this table with all calling stations, was NOT for me so I put my tail between my legs and took off. Now, I wasn't out of control then - I was upset at being unable to read anyone at that table, and I was annoyed that I had played the odds every time and lost - but I figured oh well, no big deal. Intellectually it bothered me to have "the cards against me" or "bad luck" because it just isn't mathematically reasonable. That creates an internal conflict - play longer so the stats even out or get out and change the scene - and I got caught in the middle of that. So, I poked around looking for a ring game of No-Limit to just casually play for a little while. I wandered into a room to get started and found myself in a nightmare. I coudln't get a decent hand. One player obviously was one who considered what he was playing to be virtually play money because he would throw out bets of insane amounts on hands like seven-deuce unsuited, trying to bluff almost EVERY pot. That's fine, as long as the odds play out and you actually get some hands that are decent to play. When I got cards, I couldn't get a decent flop, but mostly I never got cards, which meant to prevent huge losses against the calling station from hell I had to get out. ON top of that, anothe rguy in the room was one of those people who buys in, wins a small amount, leaves the room and buys in for his tiny little amount again, never actually putting anything on the table to play against. He just kept throwing in his little pile in All-In, and when it worked he squirreled what he got out of the room. Basically no one else at the table mattered because these two were just impossible to devise a strategy against when you have no decent deals. So, my brain is screaming at me that this is almost impossible and sooner or later things have to even out, my little tiny superstitious portion is telling me I am just having bad luck and I should quit, and the competitive part of me is telling me to stay around and learn how to play these guys. Complete inner conflict. Then, I got slammed on two bad beats when I had very good cards.After losing 80% of my initial stake - but watching a whole lot of money leave the room with Mr. Squirrel - I got fed up with waiting for decent cards and decided to find someplace else where people were actually there to play poker and not be assholes. I found another table and was pleased to find a nice game with a couple of players there to play poker. I enjoyed myself and was calming down, but after 5 minutes the two good players LEFT - must have been lunch hour, because no one was getting slammed except a couple of foolish noobs who threw in all-ins with nothing and lost their little stakes. I figured, hey, ok, I am sure someone else will come along... big mistake. All of a sudden the room was full which was too many players for me to learn at once. I tried sitting back but once again one of the players was someone who threw huge bets in before the flop to bluff all opening bets/blinds every hand, and another was a calling station with money to burn. I couldn't get a card better than one pair of jacks, and a lot of horrible unsuited rags, so I was just contributing blinds and opening bets. When I started folding almost everything, cards were blurring around the room and people were coming and going so fast it wasn't funny. After falling down to almost nothing trying to ride out the storm I decided enough was enough and got the hell out again. Found one more room, upset that I was doing nothing but paying blinds in for nothing. At this point I probably should have taken a breather because my mind was racing, but having lost what I had lost I wanted to just have a chance to at least start working back to even for the day. No such luck... another room of really bad players, and I started getting down on funds AGAIN - when I got an absolutely Primo AA hand. I was on the buttin with only half my stack left, so I figured, all these guys have thrown in, this is worth an All-In... and went ahead. 3 folded, and two people STAYED IN going all-in as well! I thought, well, that's good I guess unless something goes very wrong. The cards turned over and I saw one had gone in with an unsuited 4-6, and the other had gone in with unsuited 7-J. I thought, score! These guys thought I was bluffing, and I will probably win. The flop was 8-2-4, the turn 10, and the river 9. My AA had been kicked in the balls by a hand that should NEVER have been played, and that was it for me in that room... rather than recash I logged out and buggered off, in an absolute uproar. I didn't know whether to scream or cry, I couldn't figure out what I did wrong, and wehn I reviewed it over and over, looking at hand histories, I could not have played it any different. I had just been beaten by purely extremely unlikely sequences of events - and that just made it worse because my intellect was imploding with trying to calculate the odds against it. Virtually on the edge of a nervous breakdown I went downstairs to try and talk to the wife about it to reason it out in my head, and was greeted with being shouted at because I was upset. It was like throwing gasoline on a fire and I just exploded, and stomped back upstairs. After a few minutes she followed me up, and I tried to explain to her this insane thing, but it just was not explicable. I was a bit calmer although very upset and I decided the best way to cool down is to find some rational people to play against. I went into a room and the whole cycle started again. I could get no better than the very bottom hands, I could not even get 2 cards of the same suit, and on the rare occasion I got a playable hand I was up against someone betting far more than the value of the pot and was forced out for the sake of not losing everything. I then lost on ANOTHER bad beat on the river and was starting to get upset again. I knew I needed to get out. I didn't want to go out losing again, though, so I decided a couple more hands to at least see what happened. I got KK and was in alone against the guy who had got the bad beat on the river. I decided slow play was best and when another K came on the flop I was pretty sure I was going to win. I bet modest bets, and got back more than he had taken the first time, and when the cards were revealed I had won and gained 25% over my initial buy-in. That was it, and I left. I decided I was not playing for money any more today, other than entering a freeroll tourney. We'll see how that turns out (edit: 261 out of 2500). Valuable lessons learned, though. I tried to lay down and have a nap and my guts were just churning with stress. Then I remembered seeing a Phil Hellmuth video where he said he had a friend who was playing online and lost $35000 in an hour, and got so furious he threw his laptop out his window and into his swimming pool. Apparently he had made over $250K dollars on the same site up to that point. In the big scheme of things, it was a minor bump for me - I had already won 5 times what I lost today in the last 48 hours so it wasn't like I was actually DOWN, and obviously it just happens sometimes to everyone. The best players in the world will lose 100 days out of every 300 they play. I just didn't expect it to kick me in the head so soon.

Long Night

After spending the whole day out Friday, I didn't get to do much of anything with poker. I played a little for play money very late that night and then found out I could set up a real money account in only a few minutes even without a credit card, so I went ahead and did it. I felt like there was little I could learn continuing to play for play money - I was seeing the same hare-brained stuff again and again and taking advantage of it gets old. I figure, if I am going to play in these situations, I might as well play for something. So, I made a deposit. Then I played a couple of play money tournaments and won one and came in second in the other. I figured I was ready to try something for real, but it was in the wee hours of the morning and I was tired in spite of a nap earlier. I ended up 4th in the tournament after pulling a bonehead move... all in all I was having pretty bad luck the whole time anyway, but finishing as bubble boy shook me up. I was so ANGRY at myself for not backing off when I knew I had to. Every instinct was screaming fold and I just killed myself. So, I was pretty unsure of any success. The next 15 hours I was asleep, I was worn out from the trip out Friday and the stress of the game and a lot of other things. I decided I would play a couple of play money games again before a late supper (around 10pm), and see if I felt confident enough to get back into it. First, I played some small-stakes ring tables. Those little 5 and dime and .10 to .25 games can be fun without making your guts curl up too much worrying about losing it all. I won back what I had spent on the tourney the night before, but then lost it back to my buy-in +50 cents again. I wasn't on a loss for the day, but I got very antsy when I dropped down after that to only 1/3 of my buy-in. In a classic example of the need for patience, though, I slowly worked my way back up to my buy in and a bit beyond, and then finally got some good cards and tripled it. I had won back my lost tourney fee, plus double it again, giving me 2 "freebies" to try again. I played 2 more tournaments and finished second in one and third in the other, all positions which are better than break-even. I felt a lot better but not like playing another tourney so I went and played some more ring games, figuring I could get out any time and go to sleep since it was getting late again. It went well at first and then I pulled another boner and lost 80% of my buy-in plus all my winnings on ONE HAND in a five and dime ring game. This got me thinking I should go play the limit games, which is probably true. Then I considered the table I was at - in spite of it being a beginners table, several strong players were there. Also, I like playing a little short handed but that table kept filling up (probably due to the high "per hand" average showing on the tables list due to some hefty pots including the one I surrendered). I decided it was stupid to sit there playing at a disadvantage and for the second smallest bets when I really wanted to play for more. If you overbet on the smallest tables people fold and it is no way to gain anything. So, I went back to the slightly higher .25 and .50 Blind tables, and in 15 minutes won back all of what I had lost. Then I doubled it again and decided I would go to sleep. I tried to relax but couldn't - something told me to play one tourney to try and get my confidence stable since I was still feeling unsure. It was a tough one, many good players but no great ones. They all had a weakness that they showed at some point or another, mostly being too reckless - overplaying hands and bluffing too often. I took it easy and played strong when I had cards (which wasn't often), but it got me a modest chip lead so I could cruise. By the time there were 4 left at the table I knew I was pretty secure to get at least 3rd place unless I did something stupid. By the time we were down to 2 people, the 20000 total chips on the table were split about 70-30 in favour of the other guy. I was fortunate, though, because I had been watching them play so I had a good idea what I was up against. I had a bad run where I got down to only about 3000 chips and was getting a bit worried when I managed to double up with a strong hand. After winning a couple more hands, he threw an all-in at me when I had AA and I was able to basically switch positions. It took quite a few hands but eventually I was up with about 15000 chips, and we kept swapping around 1000 chips back and forth. I was biding my time, because I knew that sooner or later he would go all-in when I had a hand because he had tried it half a dozen times already. I finally had a pair of 10s and when he pushed all his chips in, I figured it was go time because I had him covered for chips. If I HAD lost I would have been back where I had been when I was down to 3000 chips, so I didn't see it as giving up the game. When his cards turned over and I saw he had Q4 offsuit, I knew all I had to do was dodge a Queen and unlike the runs of bad luck earlier, I was fortunate - the board cards helped neither hand and I had won first place for the first time in a money tournament. After this all-nighter the funds are modest, but I increased my total by 50% over my initial deposit to my poker account. It wasn't an exceptionally lucky day, nor was I very sharp with how tired I was, but the outcome was very good. I got really walloped on a few bad beats - more than my fair share, I felt, and I am keenly aware that it could have been much worse, but also buoyed by the thought that if it only went this well for a week it would pay for our groceries. For us, that's a seriously big difference. Hope it works out.

Hmmm

Well, been at it again. Tonight I have had the worst streak of bad luck I think I have ever had, at least when it comes to playing cards. I entered a few tournaments to practice. I think a total of 6 Sit'N'Gos... I won 2, came 2nd 3 times and 3rd once. 2 of the seconds I was just having such bad luck that I decided to just throw all in on a weak hand to get it over with, since every time I gained ground I would get no playable cards for 8-10 consecutive deals afterwards. It was just brutal... and when I say unplayable, I mean unplayable rags. Unsuited stuff, 3-8, 2-7... and the occasional face card would be a J or Q accompanied by an unsuited deuce or 3. I saw those cards over and over and even played a couple of the face cards since we were heads up or there were only 3 at the table. But, basically, if you can't win one hand in 5 it is almost impossible to break even. Frustrating! The interesting thing was the worst of the bad luck streak came in the middle of a tournament I decided to enter. It was a "Freeroll" tournie, but listed under the play money section of PartyPoker so I am assuming the $250 payout was play money as well. Earlier ones in the evening had had 6000 players. but the one I went into at 1am had 5183. It was an interesting experience... I managed to finish 251st in it, which is in the top 5%. Considering the run of cards I got, I can't complain - if I had had anything good in a run of about 22 straight deals I likely could have cracked the top 100. I am really starting to wonder if I don't play aggressively enough. I have prided myself on trying to be unpredictable, and not bluffing often. I have controlled my losses and gained most of the time but when luck runs bad, I wonder if I should press or just hope for a turn? Heck, I am not even sure I believe in luck really but mathematical probability says I should not have streaks that are so bad for so long. I guess I should be happy with the progress. After only a little over a week of learning, I seem to be good enough to beat 90% or more of the people out there and I guess that means I will win more often than not. I definitely found a few tougher opponents today though. Which is surprising, considering the reputation of Party Poker for having some really juicy lame opponents. Well... its very late. Time for one more round.

Tournies

Today, I did something new. I have been playing online with play money, trying to get lots of experience. I read something, and then go on and try to apply it. There is a problem - I have no idea how representative play money is of how people play for real money. I am assuming that many will play a much looser game since "it's just play money". I actually have been trying to avoid those people like the plague, because I am not learning anything from someone who can throw 1000 bucks around and not take it seriously as at least a way of scoring. Last night, I was reading some things and watching some videos and I found there was some advice out there I hadn't yet tried to follow: Play in Sit'N'Go tournaments, because although some don't take it seriously there are enough that take pride in winning that when the table gets short handed you should be up against some decent players. This serves 2 purposes - you learn to play short handed and head-to-head, a skill which is different from playing with 10 people around a table, and it better represents how people would play if playing seriously (a.k.a. for real money). I played a total of 5 tournaments today. How did I do? I won 2. I came in 2nd once. I came in 3rd once. And in the last I came in 4th. Only top 3 finishers in these small tournies get money. So, 4 out of 5 times I would have won something. For example, had I been playing in the $6 PokerStars games, I would have paid $32.50 to play and I would have made $81. Of course, what I actually earned was something like $4050 in play money, which does not buy a lot of groceries - but hey, maybe the potential is there?