This is Why I'm Hot

Shout Out

I came across a great tip today courtesy of Poker on a Mac.

Apparently you can read a lot of information from various poker books at Google. This is a great option for someone who wants to see what they are getting before they go buy a book or for someone like me who normally only gets 1/3rd through a poker book before they get bored.

Here's the link to Poker on a Mac's tip.

Incompetence at Spirit Mountain

Normally when I hear about people acting out of line at a casino, it is followed quickly with comments about how the dealer and casino did not properly handle the situation. This was not the case last night. The only incompetence came from my fellow poker players.

Hand #1:

I look down at Ace-King off under the gun. We are playing limit Hold'em so I pop it up. The guy directly to my left calls. A loose passive chick calls from middle position. A solid but hyper-aggressive player calls on the button and the big blind who is just killing time till his buddy gets knocked out of the tournament also calls.

The flop is K-Q-J with two hearts. Big blind bets out with confidence. This looks like a dangerous board. However, the guy on my left and the girl in middle position could have anything. The hyper-aggressive player would have re-raised preflop if he had two face cards. So all I'm really worried about are players on drawing hands and the big blind. I raise to put pressure on the draws. The guy behind me calls. Middle chick and the aggressive guy fold. The big blind calls.

The turn is a miss. Big blind considers betting but in an obvious sign of weakness he chickens out checks. I toss in a bet and both players call.

The river is the 9 of hearts. It's the worst card in the deck. Big blind may have had a pair and a draw. The guy behind me could have had anything. Big blind checks and I check too. The guy on my left bets. The big blind calls. I take my time with my decision. Is there any way I can fold the hand? Why would big blind just call if he hit a draw? What could the guy behind me have to bet with?

I've probably been thinking for ten seconds when the guy on my left announces that he can't win the hand and tables ace-5 of diamonds. He was just bluffing at the scare card on the river. I still haven't called but he made my decision really easy. I have to be ahead of the big blind. However, before I'm able to place my call, big blind tables his hand too. K-2. Top pair crap kicker. I call and take down the rather large pot. People can be so dumb.

Hand #2:

I would have had the best hand if I had played and could have diffused this entire situation. However, I didn't so here's what went down. It is heads up at the river. The board shows Q-J-3-7-2. There's no possible flush. Once again the guy on my left is involved. The other guy is really loud and aggressive. He's kinda a prick. The guy on my left was on the button and the loud guy was the big blind. Big blind bet out on every street and the guy on my left called him down.

After the final call, the aggressor says "Good call. I only have a pair of threes." He flashes his cards so quickly that I didn't get to see them and then he mucks his hand. The guy on my left didn't know what to do. In his defense, he was a really nice guy but he just didn't know anything about playing poker as was the case here. He had ace-king high and couldn't beat the threes but the other guy mucked. So he just placed his cards down, face up, and looked around for help. The dealer immediately pushes the pot his direction but he doesn't start picking up the chips.

Big blind looks surprised that the chips aren't being picked up right away. Then he looks at his opponents cards and notices for the first time that he mucked the best hand. He blows up. The dealer says that you have to table your cards to win the hand. The guy tells her to fuck off. She calls the floor over who explains the same thing and awards the pot to the ace-king guy. The guy with threes immediately leaves, still complaining and kicks over some dude's cane on the way out. What an ass.

Ego Boost.

I recently took an online "Poker IQ Quiz," and let's just say my results were less than stellar. It was around like 50 questions about different poker scenarios, and was supposed to test the way you think about poker. I was pleased to do rather well in certain aspects (such as small/medium pair play, recognizing betting patterns, use of logic, and computational speed) but a little puzzled that I didn't do so well in other areas I generally consider my strengths (like tournament play, bluffing, understanding of pot odds, and aggression). It seemed pretty strange to me. Either my understanding of my own game is pretty off the mark, or the test is quite flawed.

My overall reaction to the thing?

"Whatev."

I didn't put too much stock into the results. I have hard data that proves that I'm nowhere close to a "break-even player in home games and a slow loser at raked casino tables." I'm definitely much further along than that. In addition, I took the test during a spare 10 minutes at work, while chatting with Billy, listening to music and having a mid-afternoon snack. The test is designed to be taken in 30 minutes. So I wasn't reading the questions all that carefully and generally didn't take the thing seriously.

I know, I'm making excuses. The truth is, while I really didn't care that much about the results, it still rankles a little bit to be called "average" under any circumstances. Call me a pro, call me a donk, but don't label me the hated "A-word." I don't know, for some reason I just find mediocrity irritating.

I decided to take that irritation out on Connor's home game.

Connor's game is interesting. As I've mentioned in an earlier post, they play a $20 Sit n Go, sometimes with a rebuy period and sometimes not. What's interesting to me is that there are definitely some good players in the mix, but that I always find a way to win. And it's not like I don't lose my share of big hands. I can share my secret to success in a later post. For now, suffice it to say that they usually only pay 1st and 2nd place and I've walked out a bit richer every time. Out of the four tourneys I've played there, I've taken three 1st's and a 2nd (including tonight). And the one 2nd place, I got it all in with A-K suited vs. pocket Jacks preflop when the guy had me just barely covered. What can you do?

Anyway, tonight was another win. A cool extra $120 in the pocket for two hours of work. Not an amazing amount of money, but enough to pay the gas for a couple weeks. I'll take that. And it's definitely enough to get my ego back where it belongs ... high up in the sky and swollen like a hot air balloon. Chalk up another one for the good guys. And f*ck IQ tests. I hate the number 102.

March Madness and NBC Heads Up Poker

I love the holiday season. March and April are the best two months of the year and there is no better way to kick off the festivities than by filing out a bracket for NBC's heads up poker championship. Without further ado, here are my first round picks.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pHPKIFJDO2nzx3K1oMWpWAA

I'll work on getting the full bracket up on GoG over the weekend.