It’s been nearly four years since my good friend Charlie Tuttle died. Since he left us, it’s been impossible to miss that his presence is still here in the form of all the people he touched.
With that in mind, I’m putting together a gathering of all the people who loved Charlie at the site of his funeral outside Nashville on Sunday, June 21st - the day before the fourth anniversary of his death. We’re going to do potluck food, there’s a pool to swim in, and at sundown we’re going to launch another Viking ship with some messages for him.
If you’re interested in attending, log in to Facebook and look for my Charlie Tuttle Day event. If you can’t attend but would like to pass a message along to be read to his friends and family or to be put on the ship for the sundown ceremony, get in touch with me on Facebook or by email (jason -at- jasonkirk -dot- net).
I won’t be in Vegas for this year’s WSOP - the first time since 2003 that I haven’t been around for at least part of it and the first time since 2005 that I won’t be working there. I do have a lot of friends on the ground in Vegas, though. I’ll be following their work on these websites:
There are also going to be a ton of people posting on Twitter. You’ll probably get a fair number of updates on the more interesting moments from the sites listed above, but if you want to get your news firsthand you should check out @FollowPoker on Twitter. Jay Newnum, another oldskool poker media man, put together this account that follows a very large number of poker people.
As a fan of poker, one of the disappointing things about working at the Series is that there’s very little time to actually play the game, so this year I’m going to take advantage of my considerably lightened schedule by getting some time in at the tables. Full Tilt Poker is running its Mini Series of Poker again this year, with buy-ins 1/100th of the corresponding WSOP event, and since that suits my meager bankroll well I’m going to play all of the PLO events as I can. I’m also planning to play the PLHA (pot limit hold’em/PLO mixed) event and probably a few hold’em events here and there. If I were to do well in one of the other events I might consider playing some of the other limit and mixed events, but for now I’m sticking with the games I know best.
Happy Memorial Day to everyone out there. When you’ve got a spare moment today, check out this article about Rachel’s show with fellow APSU alum Brad Reagan in Clarksville, TN. It’s too bad the Leaf-Chronicle didn’t get to it earlier, since the show will be coming down at the end of the week, but if you’re in the area I suppose you’ll still have a chance to get up there and check out her work.
Today is my last chance to run good - at least, to run good for a free $1,500 WSOP seat from PokerListings. The final installment of the Run Good Challenge WSOP Edition will play out in less than an hour at PokerStars. Twice as many seats are up for grabs as last week’s Run Good Challenge WSOP event, so all I have to do to have a reason to go to Vegas this summer is repeat my second-place finish from that tournament. Much easier said than done, of course, but I do have the benefit of knowing how mostofmyopponents play.
Come on out to PokerStars and rail some of poker’s oldest-skool bloggerati this afternoon (or morning for you West Coasters) at PokerStars. Go to Tourney -> Private and look for “PokerListings Run Good Challenge Event 3″ - and expect a bunch of heckling from this group of wiseasses if you ask for the password! :-)
The lads at PokerListings.com have set up another Run Good Challenge, this time with a two-event schedule with WSOP goodness at the end of the rainbow. Today is the first event, with the winner walking away with a $1,500 WSOP seat and everyone else holding on to fond memories of chat box hijinks. Next week the top two will take down $1,500 WSOP seats.
Unfortunately I won’t be able to play in the second one, but I will be playing in the first one this afternoon at 1:00 p.m. CDT. If you’re feeling frisky, stop by PokerStars and rail me as I try to take down a who’s who of the poker blogging world en route to the WSOP. (Go to Tournaments -> Private and look for the Run Good Challenge.) You can get a preview of the event here.
UPDATE: Well, I definitely had a chance today. I entered heads-up play facing a pretty big chip disadvantage against Poker Grump, but managed to hang in there for a while. Then he flopped bottom two pair, I turned second pair with a gutshot draw, and the chips all went in. Any ace, king, queen or jack would’ve done the trick, but none of them came and Grump is going to the WSOP. GL to him! And thanks to my friends for the rail support. :-)
The PLO cash games continue to go well for me. I’ve begun sticking to the full ring tables since that’s where I’ve enjoyed the most success, actually winning rather than just breaking even. The last two days have been my best back-to-back in two months of playing, taking 11 buy-ins off the tables thanks to players who continue to think that getting their money in as 4-to-1 dogs (or worse) is a winning strategy.
Of course, no matter how many times you get your money in way ahead of the mope chasing his fourth-nut-straight draw, there are always going to be times when those players get lucky. The good news for me is that I’m catching those unlucky breaks more in tournaments than cash games - good because a) I play them much more rarely than I do cash games, and b) they never cost me more than 2.5 cash game buy-ins. The last MTT I played, just this morning, saw me last all of seven hands, getting my entire stack in the middle as a 9-to-1 favorite with one card to come:
(If you’re wondering about my play here: in this spot on the first level of a low-buy-in, double-stacked tournament, I will limp in with this mostly one-dimensional hand the majority of the time, hoping to flop a set if the table plays as passively as I expect it will yet fully ready to toss my cards in the muck if I get raised.
When I flop the set on this draw-heavy board, I choose to bet instead of checking for several reasons: a) I do currently have the nuts, b) I’m guessing I’ll get a few callers and build the pot, c) I can’t count on the players behind me to do the betting for me and let me get in a check-raise, d) given the low skill level in these events, one of my opponents might be willing to lump it all-in right here and now with a bare flush or straight draw, and e) I still have outs to beat any straight or flush an all-in opponent might manage to hit on the turn.
I don’t think the 3h on the turn helps my opponents at all. If they’re chasing straight draws with a flush draw on the board, chances are it isn’t the complete sucker straight; I see T-8, 9-8, and 8-5 as the most likely straight draws these guys would be on. Besides, the turn card gave me the flush draw to go with my set, so I now have two ways to beat such an unlikely straight if indeed someone has made it. Again, I can’t count on the two players behind me to do the betting; also, betting anything less than the pot offers good enough odds for some of the possible combinations to call me profitably. So I bet pot, and lumping it all in the middle was the only real choice once Mr. Bottom-Set-and-Gutshot-Draw decided to get happy with two flush draws on the board.)
If that hand had come at a cash table at the wrong time (e.g. when my opponent and I are both particularly deep-stacked), it could’ve cost me more than the buy-in and a half that it did. Also, I busted on the seventh hand of the tournament, so I have the same result but more free time than if I’d made a run and then gotten unlucky later on. So, when looked at the right way, I guess I’m lucky to be unlucky - at least, to be unlucky in one particular situation instead of another. (A little perspective never hurt anyone.)
For a long time I shied away from PLO because I heard over and over that you have smaller edges in PLO than you do in NLHE. I wish I’d started playing earlier, because what I had heard all that time is a load of crap. The edges are, in fact, smaller preflop than they are in hold’em. But in PLO, you can’t get your stack in the middle before the flop without a lot of effort - the majority of the action comes after the flop. Once you get there, the expanded number of card combinations means that people’s tendency to chase draws only gets magnified; the difference is that most of those draws are mirages, because they’re not the nuts. If you give donkeys more chances to hit a draw that more often than not can’t win the pot, you’re going to make more money. If that’s not a beautiful game, I don’t know what is.
When I want to play poker lately but don’t want to sit at the cash tables, I’ll pull up a pot limit Omaha sit and go. I like the Matrix tourneys on Full Tilt since I get to play four tables at once. I also enjoy the heads-up matches. At the lowest buy-ins, which is where I’m spending my time learning PLO, the players are about as poor as I’ve found at any level of any game online in the last five years; they’re exceedingly easy to read and willing to call off their stacks on second-best draws and the occasional lone pair.
My favorite game against these players is the four-player heads-up shootout, in which one player gets everyone else’s money for winning back to back matches. It’s a nice ROI for beating two single players, and given the skill level (slim to none) and temperament (raging infant) of the average opponent I figure my chances have to be pretty good. And it seems like they are - I’m showing a small profit on all my HU matches so far, and in more than a few of them where I’m not winning I’m getting my money in well ahead.
I played one this afternoon to kill some time while waiting to do an interview. In my first match it takes me all of about three hands to figure out that my opponent is the sort who won’t call a bet without something approaching the nuts. That’s bad news for him; I grind him down and finish him off to get to my second opponent. Within the same three-hand window I determine that this fellow is the exact opposite of the last guy: he’ll fire out pot every time it’s checked to him. The best way to play a guy like this is to let him do all the work, so I make that my game plan.
On the fourth hand of our match I limp on the button with Kc-Qc-9s-7c and flop queens full of sevens; he bets pot, and I take it down with a reraise. He pauses for a moment before folding. I’m pretty sure he thinks I was just making a play at him, but he happened to have complete air this time around and hadn’t seen me get aggressive yet.
Two hands later I limp on the button with Ad-Jd-8c-5c and call his raise, only to flop a full house again. It’s an underfull this time, eights full of jacks, so I’m more vulnerable than before. But when he bets pot again I have no good reason to think I’m behind, so I reraise pot myself. He thinks for a good bit and then makes the call. The turn completes a harmless straight draw, which I hope he’s been drawing at; he checks and I move all-in, since the pot is just a little greater than my stack.
dumbass, he types in the chat window, obviously convinced that I’ve decided to try to out-aggress him regardless of my cards since he thinks that’s what I did to him the first time around. And he keeps thinking. Normally I don’t say anything to my opponents other than the occasional nh, but this time I know I’m way ahead and I really want him to call. So I type, just fold.
It’s not three seconds before he calls with Qh-Qd-3d-3c for nothing more than a bare pair of queens, leaving himself only 80 of his 3,000 starting chips behind. Then he spikes another Q on the river for the bigger full house, quickly types frack you, and takes all the mobneys.
The good news:
I keep getting my money in good
I’m showing enough profit in the cash games that my results in these little diversions are irrelevant
Without saying anything to provoke them, I have the dumbasses calling me “dumbass”
Speaking of fun in chat boxes, I saw my favorite English-as-a-second-language online poker of the moment this afternoon when I sat at a full ring PLO game. A player from Indonesia was running over the table by raising pot preflop and then betting pot any time the action checked to him. Another player, this one American, didn’t seem to care for the Indonesian’s strategy and decided to play sheriff.
After doubling up once, the American got his whole stack in the middle on the flop in a later pot, putting his Indonesian friend to the test. The Indonesian’s response: type i suck you in the chat box and make the call with no pair and a backdoor flush draw. (He didn’t get there.) I think I know what he meant…and I’m pretty sure he’d have been surprised if the American had felt like taking him up on his offer.
I count myself lucky because I’ve worked pretty steadily since I first started writing for a living in 2005. All that time I’ve been able to avoid Cubicle Hell, where I worked before and aim to never see from the inside again. The last year was my best year yet, as I earned enough for Rachel and I to erase all our debt (aside from student loans). The extra income also helped to finance her applications for art shows around the country, which can be pretty costly if you cast a wide net. Most importantly, I got to spend more time with her in 2008 than any other year since we got married.
This year hasn’t been nearly as good so far. My main client slashed my workload by about two thirds at the beginning of this month, which looked pretty scary until more work (from a highly unexpected source, no less) came knocking on the door two days later. The new gig won’t completely make up for the loss of revenue from the old one, since it pays less, but having it does mean that I get to continue working from home for the foreseeable future. I’m also unsure that I’ll be working the WSOP this year, since it appears that the poker media industry is imploding faster than an ancient casino in a prime location. Staying home in ‘09 would mark the first time since 2003 that I haven’t spent at least part of my summer in Las Vegas.
All isn’t doom and gloom on the work front, though; sparkling potential is on the horizon. Rachel is applying for teaching jobs all over the country and has a few interviews lined up this week. Her application materials are stronger than they’ve ever been, including a beefed-up show record over the last year, and as she continues to gain experience she just gets better at what she does. We’ve got our fingers crossed that she’ll land a job and give us a little bit of security. In the meantime we’re taking it one day at a time - because really, is there any other way to go?
Learning to Love, Loving to Learn
I really enjoyed poker when I started playing in 2004. That hasn’t been the case the last few years, though. While thinking about this little conundrum at the beginning of the year I figured out what my problem was: somewhere along the way I stopped playing cash games and sit-and-go tournaments, which had always been my main moneymakers, and started focusing on multi-table tournaments. A return to the cash tables was in order, but my limited experience in the last year or two has been that the players are much better than they used to be at even relatively low-stakes hold’em cash tables. If I wanted to enjoy the game again, I was going to need to start playing another game that people don’t know quite so well.
Late last month I started playing small-stakes Pot Limit Omaha cash games on Full Tilt Poker. I know that fewer players have a good idea of how to play the game well compared to the hold’em, and after reading through Jeff Hwang’s book Pot Limit Omaha Poker I felt like I had a fairly good grasp on the changes I needed to make coming from a hold’em background. With rakeback factored in, I figured I could at least break even for a while by playing tight while I gained experience. So far I’ve logged about 7,000 hands at stakes between $.01-.02 and $.05-.10, mostly in sessions of a few hours at a time, a few times every week. Even before taking rakeback into account I’m showing a small overall profit, so I’m doing better than I had hoped.
It didn’t take very long to get comfortable playing up to four tables at a time. I’ve played equal amounts of full ring and six-handed, with my results at full ring generally being stronger. In the beginning I made some pretty big mistakes, with the biggest being a start to my experiment at the so-called “cap tables” on Full Tilt where you can only lose a designated amount on each hand; once I got my bearings in the game I switched to the no-cap tables and I’ve seen much better results since then. I also learned to focus on PLO and stay away from its Hi/Lo cousin, as I seem to be worse at reading players there than at the high-only tables.
I’ve gotten my money in really, really bad four or five times and gotten lucky enough to drag a big pot, though the frequency with which I find myself in such spots has dropped drastically over the last few weeks of playing. I’ve also been on the receiving end of that sort of situation many more times, and what I’ve found is that my determination to keep playing only grows every time someone hits an improbable card. Even though the preflop edges between hands are smaller, the average bad player in PLO seems to be at a much bigger disadvantage against a moderately skilled player than in a similar game of hold’em. I chalk that up to the fact that all the action in PLO comes after the flop, when people are much more likely to become married to their sucker draws. (If you don’t believe me, just ask the guy who paid off my royal flush with his nine-high flush.)
The enjoyment I’m getting from playing isn’t from winning a lot of money, because I’m certainly not doing that at this point. What keeps me coming back is the feeling that I’m actually making progress at something where I started from zero. I feel like I learn a lot with every session, regardless of the end result. I’m going back over hand histories on a regular basis before I play to refresh myself on the best and worst aspects of my game, I continue to go back over Hwang’s book here and there, and I’m doing my best to make decisions based more on information than fear. That last point is really the most important one of all, especially if you take the view that poker is just a microcosm of life.
Let’s Be Still
Other than work and my little poker experiment, I’ve mostly been tuning the rest of the world out as much as possible. Our little house on the hill has become an oasis of reason since we got rid of our television service late last year. No more screaming heads arguing over which puppet is the best. No more news tickers that don’t give you news. No more advertisements with louder volume than the program you’ve been watching. No more promos for the same show fives times every half-hour. Living without television has been a very pleasant experience.
I also stopped paying attention to the daily news in November. I can trace that back to a day not long after Obama’s election when I had CNN Headline News on in the background all day while I worked. Unlike a lot of people, I know I’ve never been the sort to keep cable news on in the background. When I was stressed and agitated and a little depressed at the end of the day I had to point the finger at the so-called news. I also had to wonder if people like feeling the way I did at the end of the day, since so many of them are apparently addicted to freaking out over things they can’t control. I realized in the days afterward that reading daily news had the same affect on me, so that habit hit the trash pile, too.
Thanks to these changes I’ve had more time on my hands than in the past. I’ve managed to use some of that time to start doing a little bit of writing for myself again. More often than not I would rather think about writing than actually write, so it’s been a slow journey so far. But part of that journey was returning here to document what’s been going on in my life since January, something I’ve avoided for quite a while. I figured it was time to just sit down and do it, so here it is.
I plugged an antenna into my television so I could watch the inauguration today. As a student of history, I realize it’s a pretty big moment and I figured I’d be lax if I didn’t watch.
For the first time in my life, I’m ecstatic to see a US president leave office. George W. Bush has been an unmitigated disaster as the country’s chief officer. Undoing all the damage he’s either caused or turned a blind eye toward is going to be next to impossible. So just for today I’m celebrating the fact that any future decisions he makes will no longer impact the entire world.
Don’t take my happiness about the old boss’ departure as a ringing endorsement of the new boss, though. I watch Barack Obama with a skeptical eye. I think he has a lot of positive qualities, and I think he understands the importance of diplomacy, so I’m hopeful that things will be better than they have been the last eight years. But I also worry that under his watch, his party will try to put the stamp of its most radical fringe on this country. That’s exactly what’s been wrong with the other party since 2001 - fringe elements controlling the fortunes of 300 million people.
We don’t need a key change, we need a song change. I have no idea whatsoever if Obama is the bandleader that everyone’s saying he will be. Honestly, I doubt it; he has too many hopes pinned to him to ever fulfill them all. But I also doubt that he can be as bad at his new job as the man who’s leaving it behind. For at least one day, I’m thankful for that.
Hey everybody - my good friends in Agua Trip can use a little bit of help tonight, and it won’t take much of your time. They’re trying to stay in London Garcia’s Music Boxx for the next quarter. Here’s how you can help them:
Dear Friends,
We still need a few more votes before midnight pacific time tonight (5 hours left!). If you haven’t already voted, please do so now. Thanks to all of those who already voted! PLEASE DO NOT VOTE MORE THAN ONCE.
HOW TO VOTE: Send an email to this email: hollaback@londongarcia.com with the following in the subject line: MUSIC BOXX Q12009 vote for AGUA TRIP. This MUST be in the SUBJECT line, NOT in the content in the email (the content can be empty).
This will ensure that we stay in the Music boxx for another quarter. For more info about the Music Boxx, go to: http://www.londongarcia.com/musicboxx/
Thanks again for supporting us and Happy holidays
Sincerely,
-Agua Trip
Any help that you can give would be greatly appreciated. And remember - don’t vote more than once!
There’s been a lot going on lately so I haven’t had time to write on the blog. I have been writing an awful lot for PokerListings, though - you should check out the Year in Review series I’ve been writing for the news section. Here is the July article, and you can link to the rest from there. I have to write up the rest of the year, too, so keep a watch for the last five installments if that’s your kind of thing.
I bought a Blackberry Storm to replace my old 8703e of two and a half years. It’s a little buggy here and there but I like it, and I think they’ll work out the kinks by next summer. I also added the tethering option to my account so I could get internet access and then ditched the WildBlue/DISH Network satellite internet scam package. We had 3 months left on our initial contract, and I happily agreed to pay the early cancellation fee just to be rid of them. We cancelled the TV service as well. If you’re thinking about doing business with these people, keep in mind that you do so at your own risk. Despite the occasional drop requiring a reconnect, my tethered cell phone internet access is already 100% more reliable than the satellite connection ever was.
Rachel and I went to Vegas for the blogger gathering and got to see so many old friends…it was great. We even got to meet some new ones. There was dinner at Tom Collichio’s CraftSteak, three meals with Mean Gene, late night heads-up mixed games with the Rooster, music talk with Professional Keno Player Neil Fontenot and G-Money, playing the Run Good Challenge Super Happy Grand Final on the party bus heading to Gracie and Sweet Sweet Pablo’s wedding (I bubbled on the right side of a coinflip against Change100), the actual wedding with about 40 of our friends in attendance, bluffing Maigrey out of two pots in limit badugi, drinks with AlCantHang, teaching SSP and friends a few things about craps, catching up with Human Head, blackjack in the IP Champagne Pit with Iggy, a bit of quality time with Derek, a fantastic deep stack blogger tourney, and lots of Twitter updates. I’m sure I’m missing out on something. It all runs together. But we had a blast.
My 32nd birthday came and went last week. I spent it at home with Rachel. Quiet = good. :-) I also got way more happy birthday wishes than I’m used to, thanks to the wonder that is Facebook. For a military brat like me to be able to keep in touch with old friends - and newer friends who live around the world - is a dream I never thought I’d see realized. Yes, I love technology.
I bought myself a black Jasmine by Takamine acoustic/electric guitar for my birthday. It looks gorgeous and sounds just as good. After years of not having a functioning guitar in the house, my fingers hurt like hell the first two weeks I played it. Now I’m basically back to where I can play for hours at a time. Surprisingly, I remember a lot of the stuff I used to enjoy playing. I’m going back now and learning all the music I love that’s come out in the intervening years. Rachel broke out the keyboard last night and we played together for about an hour. I think there will be a lot more nights like that in our future. She had no idea that I knew how to play. The things you learn about your partner!
This week I played in most of the PokerStars blogger freerolls. I managed to win a seat in the final in the Pot Limit Omaha/8 event by finishing 37th. Then, just a few minutes ago, I finished in 126th place in that final when my QQ couldn’t hold up against AQ. Only 100 got prizes, so I’m on the outside looking in again. Still, I had great fun playing with some old friends along the way, and I got a Step 2 ticket for my PLO8 finish. Hooray for freerolls.
Xmas is around the corner and we’ve bought some really cool gifts for friends and family. I’m looking forward to seeing their faces when they open them up. Rachel already got her gift - Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3. She loves it. I couldn’t move like that if I tried.
I think that just about catches you up on what’s been going on in my life the last few weeks, dear reader. What’s been going on in yours?
Only three spots in the RGC II final are open, so I need a good finish today to lock one of them up. I’d prefer to take it outright, but if I tie again at least I know I’ll have a shot at breaking it to score a seat.
Well, I didn’t end up locking up a seat outright on Sunday. Once again I proved that one thing I haven’t learned how to do in five years of playing poker is win coin flips, busting out in 5th place with A-T against Kid Dynamite’s 8-8. That earned me five points to go with the four I got in Event 1, leaving me in the running for the Final with a total of nine points.
I would have my way into the Super Happy Grand Final without a playoff if KD hadn’t gone on to win the whole thing, since he had 0 points in two events. But his nine-point score for winning Event 3 tied him with me and Pauly, so for the second straight time the Run Good Challenge had a sudden death match for the last seat at in the final - and for the second straight time, I had to play it.
In just a few hours I’ll be playing the third and final tournament of the PokerListings Run Good Challenge II. I’ll need to run good for the first time in either installment of the RGC in order to get into the final, as I failed to earn any points last week.
Last Saturday I got the worst seat at the table. I then lost an early coin flip with Dan Skolovy - on my first hand, in fact - when I raised on the button with 8-8 and he moved all-in from the small blind. Dan’s a very skilled player, and I could see him reraising me with a higher pair, but his all-in move suggested I was ahead. Needing a big result to secure my spot in the final, I decided to make the call and he showed A-K. All was good until the ace on the turn. I was bummed, but made up for it by cashing in Saturdays with Dr. Pauly (in my first time playing the venerable PLO series, no less).
Only three spots in the RGC II final are open, so I need a good finish today to lock one of them up. I’d prefer to take it outright, but if I tie again at least I know I’ll have a shot at breaking it to score a seat.
This PokerStars tournament is a No Limit Texas Hold’em event exclusive to Bloggers.
Registration code: 840255
I didn’t play in the last one for some reason or another. But this time around PokerStars is offering all kinds of excellent prizes. The structure is different than in the past, too, and looks promising. Hooray for freerolls!
June 4, 2009 
Posted in Not Poker 
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