Hayduke's Hold'em

2006-05-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

Feb Results

2006-03-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

Well February came to an end a few weeks ago and I tallied up my poker results for the month. Let's say that things worked out much better than expected. Actually, things worked out better than any other past month (excluding the month of my big tourney cash). I played mostly 3/6 and 5/10 limit in Feb and things started to come together in my game. So much to my chagrin we now have to spend my winnings on furniture.

February winnings totalled ~$4600... YIKES! I'm witholding $1500 for taxes but the rest will go to furniture... does a $1000 WSOP buy-in count as furniture?

When do you know?

2006-02-10T08:18:00.000-08:00

If you're truly honest with yourself about your poker game when can you blame an entire downswing on variance? The answer to that question varies quite drastically with the individual player, but for me I am a long ways away from that point. The cards have run ugly the last couple days and I have seemingly started misplaying a number of hands. I can look at my hand histories and see some bad beats, but I can also see where I probably should have saved a bet here and another bet there. Those bets add up! True, I would still be losing money over the last two days had I made all of the correct plays, but the downswing would not be quite as pronounced.

So far though, it has been a good month.

Poker Stars: +$446
Party: +$1230
Noble: +$518

For a grand total of +$2194

Now if I could just have that grand back that I've given away on Stars the last couple days...

The stars have alligned...

2006-02-02T21:16:00.000-08:00

Two days into the "Poker for Furniture" event and things are off to a flying start.
Here are the tallies from the different sites.

Party +$527
Poker Stars +$493
Noble +$20

Total +$1040

Despite talks with the missus she is now budgeting $15K for furniture... ??? Since the cards are falling nearly perfect I can't imagine that the next five days will bring similar results, but only time will tell.

February is National Play Poker for Furniture Month

2006-01-30T20:50:00.000-08:00

Work on the all-consuming thesis is starting to wind down and poker playing is winding back up. Well that's not quite true, as I have been playing quite a bit of poker over the last couple months I just couldn't blog about it because when I felt guilty writing for pleasure when I knew I needed to plow through 100+ pages of thesis.

So how's the game you ask? Nah, you didn't ask, but I have steadily been improving (at least I think I have) and have been concentrating on limit poker over the past 3-4 mos. I've been playing substantially (for me) higher than in the past and it has really helped my focus and learning curve. I've even been making a fairly steady amount of money. So the obvious next question is what to do with a little bit extra money?

Answer: February has been declared National Play Poker for Furniture Month.

That's right every cent I win or lose in February will go to buying new furniture for the Hayduke family. Let's hope I win so that we don't have to sell anything :) Currently there is some old and uncomfortable furniture that occupies space in our house, but hopefully after this month we'll be able to afford a whole new set of folding chairs, and if I can keep the suckouts low maybe even a folding table to boot... Wish me Luck!

I'll keep the blog updated with the $$ amount.

Over one month

2005-11-13T20:07:00.000-08:00

Aww yes, it's been over a month since I posted anything on this blog. Poker playing has slowed down and thesis writing has heated up. A rather nasty turn of events if I do say so myself. Now I feel like I'm slacking off if I'm writing on this blog or my family blog instead of writing or working on my thesis.

So what has been going happening on the tables? I've started playing less time but slightly higher limits. I probably should have moved up a while ago, but always pushed it off until another day while I grinded away at low limits. Now with less time to play I like to play for slightly more meaningful stakes. I'll sometimes play a single 3/6 table while trying to compile my works cited page or add figures to a chapter.

Where is my poker playing heading? That's a good question. I need to set some short/medium/ and long term goals about what I'd like to do while playing poker in the future. Perhaps I should concentrate on winning an entry to a large tourney, or moving up in stakes in my limit game. Maybe I should take some runs at large tourneys again or work on my cash NL game. I could even learn how to play a whole new game (7-stud or Omaha) to a semi-capable level.

Lots of options, but no real agenda...

Getting Stuck

2005-10-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

Lots of work to do on my thesis, but I somehow find reason after reason to put it off. AHHH, just a few minutes of poker won't hurt, I'll head to the computer lab right after that. Well maybe I should eat some lunch before I go. Wal-Mart's on the way I'll just run in and pick up a few things I need.

Look at the time, not much use heading to the lab now. I wouldn't have time to get anything done!

Unfortunately my poker game is in the same boat as my thesis work. I'll read more about that tomorrow, play smarter tomorrow, one loose call is no big deal, etc... Part of my particular problem is that I am playing at a level where the money doesn't make me think. I've got accounts all over the internet and like the idea of bonuses and free money. I haven't moved up levels because the money has been easy to come buy at the lower levels. Stagnation! I've cut down my poker playing time, and have hit a pretty big rut over the last month. Perhaps a slow couple of months will be just the remedy that I need.

I plan to hit the boat a few times in the next month and perhaps learn a new poker game when SS 2 arrives on my doorstep shortly.

In good news that relates to poker, I've opened a College Savings plan for my 2 mos old little boy by taking 25% of my bankroll out of poker circulation and investing it in his future... See poker is good!

2005-10-03T08:52:00.000-07:00

I have registered to play in the
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This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 1144951

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Why is it I can't leave a table..

2005-10-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

I'm losing terribly right now at a 2/4 table yet I won't get up. I've lost two buy-ins, haven't hit a draw all night, and every 3 flush has turned into the real deal. I've flopped a set a few times, only to have everyone fold. They'll call to the river with J high, but won't think of calling with Ace high when I have a hand.

I'm now playing terrible, and I need to leave the table...

I did it. I'm out. $250 later and I got up from the table. What a Train Wreck. Notice the capital letters, maybe there should be more.

I almost had myself convinced that I didn't really go on tilt any more... Well that is wrong.

After losing the 8th straight hand to complete garbage I officially went on tilt. Luckily the bad run had taken most of my money so I only tilted away the last $40.

Back Home

2005-09-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

The Hayduke family arrived back home a few days ago. We had a successful and fun trip to the Great North Woods. The highest points in MI, WI, and MN were all visited and no casualties were suffered. Upon my return home I fired up the "Internet Poker table" and proceeded to play more passively than normal. Yes, that was very strange for me.

Normally after a hiatus from the imaginary felt I play hyper-aggresseve and crave the action involved with fast moving games. This time was different though. For some reason I thought more about my plays and why I was making them. The action wasn't near as important as the thought process behind it. Perhaps my game is maturing... Nah that can't be it.

However I don't feel quite as excited about poker anymore. I still love the game and all of the strategy involved, but it doesn't quite have the 'crazy gamble it up' feel anymore. I now understand a lot of the strategy and a little bit of the odds behind many of the proper plays, so it isn't quite intuition and black magic, but instead it is applying knowledge that has been learned and practiced. Nothing fancy or crazy, just the practice of making sound decisions based on staticstics, possibilities, and players.

The more I know about poker the more I realize there is to learn. But I also realize that making the right plays all of the time will win money. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but in the long run it will.

**** Note: I still have a long ways to go in my poker playing. I can't start blaming bad runs purely on cards yet. I know I still make mistakes, and trying to cover them up by claiming it is the ugly side of variance is only creating a facade that makes it easier to not accept responsibility for bad poker plays. Study and apply, variance happens but smart play greatly reduces it.

Off chasing highpoints

2005-09-13T19:22:00.000-07:00

I'm heading back to Peoria IL to visit my folks and introduce little Hayduke to friends and family. After 5 days in Peoria the Hayduke clan is heading north to the highest points in MN, WI, and MI. Poker is a strange hobby to some, but highpointing is stranger to many more. It's a hobby I picked up in New Mexico that started with an attempt to reach the highest point in all 50 states, and has sense digressed to visiting the highest points in different counties as well.

This trip to the North Woods involves attempting the highest points of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. All of them are somewhat trivial hikes, but the driving and logistics will be interesting with our 6-wk old boy in the car. If succesful I'll only have 7 of the CONUS states and the two outlying states left in my quest.

We'll probably visit a cheese factory, winery, and cardroom (hopefully!) along the way and hopefully return to Dayton OH in time for another quarter of school. Hopefully the cards will run hot and the pizza won't burn the roof of your mouth.

-Hayduke

The Boat

2005-09-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

You may remember reading Iggy's blog and hearing him talk about heading out to the boat to gamble. Well I hit up the same boat this weekend. It happens to be in the middle of nowhere and isn't signed from I-71... but first...

Cincinnati puts on quite a fireworks display every Labor Day weekend. Since I'm a new arrival to Southern OH this was my first chance to see the festivities. We drove down to 'Nati, stuffed the remaining 12 beers into our cargo pockets (Note: The shorts I have fit three beers perfectly into the each side cargo pocket, American engineering at its finest) and headed down to the levee for the show. Drinking beer (in a coozie for max disguise) the whole way we arrived to find about 40K other people to share the moment with.

Two elephant ears between the three of us later, and the show began. There was a couple of barges parked in the middle of the river where most of the fireworks were launched from, and it was amazing how fast the workers could run back and forth lighting all of the fireworks so that they were perfectly timed with the musice!

We then enjoyed more fun at the local Hoffbrau House and when they threw us out at midnight we decided to go gamble. Two of the three of us had never played live poker, and the third (me) had succeeded in losing $400 in my only attempt. After a one hour Taco Bell drive-through adventure we were headed south on I-71. We figured out our mistake and eventually arrived at the boat at about 2:30. Still 6 tables playing. There were 3 seats at a 3/6 game so we decided to join up.

Three hours later I had not won a single hand and $200 was turned into one interesting memory. Part of the memory involved being accused of string betting when I raised by putting 11 chips out instead of 12 then had to grab another chip from my stack to fill out the bet.

Player, "That's a string bet, he can't do that"
Me, "What are you talking about?"
Player, "I'm not complaining, and I don't care. But I was told you can't do that"
Me, "Sounds to me like you do care, otherwise you wouldn't be complaining"
Dealer, "The bet is fine"

Hands: Me (AA) Him (95) ... After string bet incident, river pairs his 9 for two pairs and he wins the pot.

Me: Steaming!! and hoping 8am comes fast so I can buy another beer.

Bad beat story below:

My last hurrah consisted of a 3-bet pre flop 4-way (I had 88), limped, called a raise then a re-raise. Not ideal but okay. Flop comes with my beautiful 8 right between a K and a 6, all uncoordinated. Nice! Flop betting is capped 3-ways. Turn comes 9. It's bet and I raise. Better just calls and the other player folds.

River comes a 2, no flush. Better checks and I bet my last $6 only to see the better turn over an unsuited 10,7 for the straight, that he didn't bet after he hit it.

End bad beat story

Anyways it was a fun time, and I feel more confident about my ability to beat low stake live games even though I didn't win a single hand over a three hour stretch.

Why chase away the fish?

2005-09-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

I've seen this over and over again at tables around the web. A bad player (sometimes this person is me, often it is not) comes to the table and begins to lose money. This player continues to lose money by playing dumb poker, but occasionally sucks out on someone or lands a monster (which gets plenty of action). The other people at the table continually make fun of the bad player and eventually force him to leave because they continue to badger and insult him.

Now as best I can tell poker is about making money. So then doesn't it seem exorbitantly stupid to chase away people that are willing to give there money away with very little fight? How is this concept difficult to understand?

I joined a 3/6 5 person max table at poker room last night where one of the players raised and re-raised every flop. Then raised throughout the hand if they hit any pair or had any draw. I quickly lost $300 over about 45 min as I went card dead and lost to 3 rivered gutshots (pots of 100+ each). Yes, that sucked! However I reloaded for the second time and after another 1.5 hours on this table I had won back $220 of the original $300 that I lost. The variance was huge at the table, but playing smart I knew that I could destroy the table over time.

The problem was that two of the other players continuously made fun of the Hyper-aggressive player and badgered him to death. Yes, they experienced some suckouts too, but don't they realize that Hyper is exactly the type of person you want to play against... if you want to make money. Apparently these folks didn't want to make money, or play poker in a different style of game. They felt that it was "below" them, and the hyper was ruining the game.

I can't imagine a belief that is further from the truth. So please if there is a bad player at the table feel free to chase him off of your table so that he can join mine. I don't mind at all. I'll compliment his good hands and make conversation, because I want him at my table. No matter how many 4 outers he hits in a row against me I will still want him at my table for as long as he is going to play!

Red, White and Crue

2005-08-30T16:52:00.000-07:00

That's right my friends, Dave and I had the unforgettable experience of attending a Motley Crue show this past Sunday in Cincinnati at the Riverbend. I spent a portion of my high school years listening to the Crue and their riffs, so I remembered most of their songs, but the real joy of the event was the people watching. Every single mullet category was proudly displayed!

I was surprised to see Tommy Lee still in the band, as I had heard that he was headed to college. Maybe it's still summer break for him, who knows?

Let's just say that the years have not treated the Crue's appearance very well, but they can still play Dr Feelgood and Wild Side better than anyone.

In other news I'm working my way back to the 2/4 level in the limit challenge, I had my biggest rakeback month ever at Absolute, and my bankroll is about 4x what it was 4 months ago. Playing a lot of limit HE has really helped my confidence and game. I now realize that I can beat the 3/6 game and don't shy away from them when there are good tables up and going.

Faulty Reasoning

2005-08-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

Earlier this summer I hiked the Knobstone Ridge Trail (KT) in southern Indiana. It's about 54 miles and it runs through a pretty scenice area, given that it is in Indiana. I parked my car at the southern trailhead Friday morning and Mrs Hayduke was scheduled to pick me up at northern terminus on Sunday afternoon, after 3 days of hiking. My body didn't hold up quite as well as I had hoped it would, but overall it was fun trip and a welcome respite from the city/school life.

When Mrs Hayduke arrived at the park entrance where the northern terminus was located she asked the state park employee where the KT trailhead was located. He wasn't quite sure where to point her, so while looking at a map he asked if she was going hiking (not too likely since she was 8 mos pregnant) or picking up a hiker. She replied that her husband (that's me!) started hiking on Friday and planned on finishing today (Sunday).

To this statement the attendant replied, "Well Miss, that KT it's a five day hike so your husband won't be done until Tuesday".

Slightly confused, Mrs Hayduke responded, "Well he was planning on hiking ~20 miles a day, so he should be done today"

"I'm sorry Ma'am, that trail takes five days no matter how fast you hike"

Perplexed even more Mrs. Hayduke responded, "Well if it was the fifth day, where would I be able to pick-up my husband"

I find this same type of faulty reasoning employed by other poker players (I am included in that general statement) at the poker table on way too many occasions. "Well, pot odds don't really apply here, because I "know" a spades is going to come on the river"

I'll take the odds over psychic powers any day of the week!

Essence of Tilt

2005-08-27T09:31:00.000-07:00

"The strong point in poker is never to lose your temper, either with those you are playing with or, more particularly, with the cards. There is no sympathy in poker. Always keep cool. If you lose your head you will lose all your chips"--From The Gentleman’s Handbook on Poker by William J. Florence

How easy is it to try to win all of your money back in one hand? Say you're playing limit HE and you've bet and raised every street. Pre-flop was capped and so was the flop. The small blind had to call 3.5 small bets to enter the pot, and he did. He must have a good hand. You have pocket rockets (Ah Ac) and the board shows Ah 10d 4c. Three aces to go, no straight or flush draw. Turn comes 7h and it is three bet. River comes 2h and things look good for your set of aces. You bet the river, and are raised. Hoping against everything you know to be true and right you call the bet and pray there aren't two hearts in the yahoos hand.

Sure enough the yahoo turns over Jh 4h for the runner runner flush and the win. Why was he even in the hand? What an idiot! But now his stack dwarfs yours, and you're pissed. The next hand comes A10, you raise all the way to river unpaired only to lose to an 89 that paired up on the turn. Normally you wouldn't have played A10 so aggressively, especially unpaired. So to make up for an atrocious beat you decided to up the aggression and lose more money.

Deep breaths, long pauses, analyze the situation, and make the play that you know is correct. Emotion is a powerful tool, use it to channel your energy into playing better poker!

Easier said than done.

Actual results may vary. Hands and players are fictional and any resemblance to real people or hands is purely coincidental. :)

Sign-up confusion

2005-08-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

There may be nothing worse than attempting to play a NL tourney and signing up accidentally for a limit tourney. Those first 3/4 rounds of limit tourneys just don't mean anything.

Well I've had a couple similar experiences trying to play WCOOP events on poker stars. Since the poker nerd started talking about the events I've tried my luck. Well, I haven't qualified for anything in 3 or 4 tries, but I did get myself involved in a limit R&A tourney that took forever! I also mistakingly tried to qualify for the $200 + 15 Rebuy and Add-on WCOOP event. That would be great to qualify for, however I would then be forced to rebuy (probably once) and add-on in the main event. So even if I won a $215 seat it would still cost me another $430 or so just to give myself a chance to win (my poker playing skills nonwithstanding). That was a bad idea.

Poker playing has been cut down recently due to the impending NFL season. Along with the NFL comes fantasy football. I'm not sure why it is that I like fantasy football so much, I really don't like football that much. I grew up playing soccer, and have never played football with pads on. I'd still rather watch and definitely play soccer over football, but fantasy football is a totally different beast. It keeps me entranced for 17 weeks every fall.

The strategy and wagering are the obvious reasons, and maybe that's all there is to my fascination, but I have also developed a much better understanding of the game and now actually enjoy it and all of the intracacies that help make quality teams and plays.

I'm playing in 6 leagues this year (probably too many, but I can't say no), and the drafts for three of them started this week. So now instead of staring at poker tables, I stare at an electronic draft board for hours on end.

Wish me luck!

Good weekend

2005-08-21T23:18:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to play on Interpoker this weekend for about 1000 hands while they their Pocket Kings promotion going. Every time you are dealt pocket kings you get $10. Out of 1000 hands I figured I'd probably get pocket Kings maybe 500 times right?! There are 4 kings in the deck right? Well I only need two of them, so 2 out of 4 is 50% and 500 is 50% of 1000...

Well you guessed it, variance reared its ugly head and I only got them 4 times. That's not very many considering I was expecting 500. Well, that's the way it goes

Wheels are coming off

2005-08-19T22:45:00.000-07:00

As I type I am an a virtual freefall through the levels of the limit challenge. Out of 3/6, out of 2/4 and on the lower bubble of 1/2. The wheels have come off, the transmission is at least a mile behind me, and the car has a small flame that has just engulfed the entire backseat. Don't worry I think if can pull over to a rest stop I may be able to salvage my tire iron and jack from the trunk.

I'd love to tell bad beat stories, but those aren't even any fun to tell anymore... and they are much worse to read or listen to. Fact is I get my full table limit game mixed up with my shorthanded game and KAPLOOEY there goes all the money. At least my rakeback will be bigger this month because of all the money that disappeared playing at those higher limits. YIPPEE

Empire Limit Challenge

2005-08-17T22:33:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in an earlier post that I commenced the limit challenge on Absolute and another site. The other site is Empire Poker. I always believed that the level of play on Empire (Party Network) was quite low and my results only solidified that belief. I made my money in the .5/1 level over ~1500 hands. I then stepped up to 1/2 and won the $170 in under 900 hands. Things were rolling, and I planned on completing the limit challenge in a about another week. 2/4 took a little longer because Empire doesn't offer 6-max tables for 2/4. I'm not sure why, it seems strange to me.
I played the full tables for my 2/4 level and saw my bankroll balloon to $550 over the next 1500 hands. No problem. Limit is easy! I then stepped up the 3/6 and back to the 6 Max tables. Empire doesn't have 4/8 which is part of the challenge so I decided that I would stick at 3/6 until I hit $915 which is the bottom of 5/10 in the chart.
800 hands later I was sitting at $800 and things were going great... Then all four tires blew, my transmission dropped, and I ran out of washer fluid at the same time. 500 hands later I reached the 3/6 stop loss and was demoted back to 2/4.

What happened? Lack of discipline, pure and simple. Betting my AK on an unimproved flop, then again on the turn, and why not once more on the river... hopefully they'll fold. The true measure of a poker player is how they perform when the cards are running bad. I routinely gave away bets at times I wouldn't have even thought about it if I was running well.

Trying to compensate for bad cards only makes things worse. The cards will come. Save your bets for when they do.

I'll be back at the 3/6 level soon hopefully.

My Biggest Limit Mistakes

2005-08-14T20:59:00.000-07:00

My son, Cade, and me (Can you tell who is who?)

I only post this so I can show pics to fellow students easier... and I'm really proud. LOL

I have been having some good luck recently playing Limit HE. The Limit challenge has forced me to think through parts of my game and adjust accordingly. Today I'd like to post some of the major/minor mistakes that I feel I have been making too often in Limit games. I talked about a few earlier, but I'd like to expand.

- When at a loose-passive table with lots of calling stations I take my bluffs one round to far. I'll raise pre-flop with AK and the flop comes J, 7, 3 rainbow. I then usually (~80%) bet post-flop no matter the flop, but sometimes I push the issue even further when I don't connect on the turn. This is a losing strategy against callers. They will stay with anything, and I end up paying there 4 7 off when we both check the river.
IN A NUTSHELL: Recognize your opponent and play each one differently

- I still get in trouble by raising too much out of the blinds. I picked up this in No Limit, but it has generally been trouble in Limit. I need to limit (no pun intended) my raises from the blinds to top 5% of hands or so. KJ suited, not good enough... actually not even close

- Paying attention to number of people still in the hand. Bluffing with 4 or 5 people in the hand simply does not work. Betting to limit the field can be useful, but don't expect all of the folks to fold. Won't happen, especially at the limits I'm playing.

- The first mistake above also has a different flavor. I need to recognize the call, call from a tight aggressive player to mean that he is drawing for a straight or flush. Then when the river hits a dangerous card and I don't have a monster I can check it down, as opposed to betting and getting raised. This is a somewhat tenuous situation, because often times the value bet is correct, however against certain opponents checking is more correct. (er... correcterest).

Limit Challenge

2005-08-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

Alright I just tracked down the lineage of the Limit Challenge. To the best of my knowledge it originally came from Double A's Blog, (I tried to find the original post for 15 mins, and couldn't find it, but there are various references throughout the blog). I believe I originally saw the idea on DNasty's blog and High on Poker also has talked about it.

Enough lineage, as I am sure nobody really cares. However I don't want to take credit for something that isn't my idea.

So what is the Limit Challenge. Basically you start playing at low limit Hold'em tables. As you make money (hopefully) you move to higher limits. Repeat the process until you are playing at high limits. There is a stop loss level at each limit that when reached pushes you back to the previous level. The spreadsheet above is pretty self-explanatory, but if you have any questions please feel free to ask.

I decided to undertake the limit challenge because I want to improve my short sided limit game. Short sided (5 or 6 players) games involve more action and capitalizing on small edges. I like that idea. However I haven't played in these games very much because most of the poker literature I've read concerns full size tables. The Challenge also offered me a tangible goal that I could strive to achieve. I thrive on goals and progress, so the idea matched my personality. Off we go!

I started the limit challenge at two different sites. The first site was Absolute poker. Because you can't clear their bonuses efficiently playing less than .5/1 I decided to start at that level. So I started with $100 and a lot to learn. Well it only took me ~5800 hands to earn the necessary $115 (2.72 BB/100 if you were wondering) and move up to the next level ($1/2). I was playing way too aggressive and hermoraging money away, until I finally realized that you also had to play smart, not just aggressive.

I then stepped up the $1/2 6-Max tables. Since moving up I've slowly lost most of the money earned working so hard at the lower level. I am now at ~$140, which is an improvement from the $104 that I was at not long ago. The good news is I've also cleared ~$500 worth of bonuses while attempting this. I'm slowly figuring out the game, and the best piece of advice I've heard is to play like it's a full table and everyone in front of you has folded. This keeps me from playing stupid offsuit J8 and other crap I may decides is good enough to see the flop, "because it is short sided".

I have had better luck at the other site where I started the limit challenge, but will save that for my next post.

An Ultimate M&M Challenge

2005-08-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels. Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world. Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointer, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment. When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd.

Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc.,Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 USA, along with a 3x5 card reading, "Please use this M&M for breeding purposes."
This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this "grant money." I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion.

There can be only one...

Empire VIP Points

2005-08-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

Because the Empire frequent player program is so damn goofy I've decided to track my points on the side of this blog. There program rewards you less for playing more... Huh? you ask? I speak the truth.

However I do have a rakeback deal there and it is on the Pary network so I have been playing there fairly consistently. I also like the idea of player loyalty programs. I used to drive 10 minutes out of my way to go to Subway just so I could get a stamp on my card. Yes, it's somewhat dumb (possibly really dumb), but loyalty programs inexplicably draw me to things. So because I can't ditch my loyalty addiction I will glorify it by keeping on the side of my blog.

Look over there --------------------------->>>>>>>

Getting started in Omaha

2005-08-07T14:42:00.000-07:00

Having totally mastered the game of Texas Hold'em (wink, wink, giggle, cough) I've decided to learn how to play some Omaha. On the surface the two games seem pretty similar in one you get two cards and the other you get four... how much different can it really be? Well in order to make it even more difficult I've opted for Omaha hi/lo where the pot can be split between the highest hand and the lowest hand, but only if three cards eight or below hit the displayed cards (flop, turn, river). There are some additional rules and variations that are very important to understand, so it's important to read and understand basic strategy and rules before starting. Therein came the problem for me. I don't own any books with Omaha sections and the poker sites "rule" sections leave something to be desired. So I went searching on the internet, that broad source of knowledge that can lead you anywhere that you desire. Sign on and ride the wave of information>>>

Texas Vs Omaha: A comparison of the two. Is a short article that highlights the different styles of the two games.

Pokertips.org has a good intro page and some basic strategy for pre-flop, flop, turn, and river. It also talks about Pot Limit Omaha, which is the variation I'm looking to learn.

Low Limit Omaha Strategy and Tactics is exactly as the name would have you think and you can't help but like the rhino.

Mike Greenberg's Top Omaha has some more advanced Omaha strategy and is a great site. After learning the basics of Omaha Mike's site will offer some very sound advice for aspiring players. Probably the best site I've found so far!

The 2+2 forum always has some good information and it always has some other posts

These are the main resources I've used so far, and I haven't lost any money after 400 hands. That's a good thing, and hopefully will continue. I've been playing on Party/Empire at the PL $25 Omaha games. Even my high level of Omaha ignorance is often surpassed at these tables.

Short handed

2005-08-05T23:28:00.000-07:00

I've been attempting to play short handed limit games more, however the results have been less than encouraging at times. I've had extremely good luck on the Party network. The six max tables at Empire and Party are extremely loose and even w/o the best 6 handed game I've been able to prosper. However I've not been quite as good (read that as BAD) while playing at Absolute. The level of players is totally night vs day at the different sites. I believe that Absolute attracts many more bonus whores that play decidedly tighter. Since they offer reload bonuses thrice a week you will never run out of bonuses to clear, and hence the games are much tighter and require a more disciplined approach in order to win.

Unfortunately I did not possess that disciplined approach when I first started, and I probably don't have it now either... although I hope it's getting better. Short handed play is very similar to full ring games, and not as different as many people proclaim it to be. I've looked for good resources and recently found a great post by ev concerning shorthanded play. A number of great links and resources for the aspiring player. Check it out>>> short handed play

What is it about a challenging game? At times I would rather play at the 6 max Absolute tables even though I'm certain that I'll make less money there even with the bottomless bonus. The reason is that the players are better and I feel much more rewarded when I play well there. I know people aren't giving money away at Absolute like they are at Party or Empire, so when I have a positive session I feel much more satisfied. The pocketbook doesn't always agree with me, but luckily he is an inanimate object and has trouble putting his thoughts into words.

I really feel that if I can consistently beat the Absolute 1/2 six max games that I can probably beat the party 3/6 games. The problem is that although I have the bankroll thanks to the $6900 Bodog win I currently don't have the confidence. I have so far to go, and the more I learn the more I realize that I don't know very much about poker.

That said I do that I'm getting better every day and I plan to play at a WSOP circuit event when it comes w/in 3 hours of Dayton this fall. Check the schedule to see if there is an event coming to a locale near you.

I don't expect any miraculous finishes, but I took third in a medium size tourney the other day on party that netted me a decent sum. Once the tourney ended I noticed that the Party Poker Million was going to start w/in 40 min. I had won enough money to cover the entry fee and leave me a little extra so I debated whether or not to enter the Party Poker Million which incidentally had a prize pool of over $1.2 M... Yaow! I finally convinced myself that I would enjoy an entry to a WSOP circuit event much more, so I decided to set the money aside for one of the smaller WSOP events. I think there are usually $200 and $300 buy-in events near the start of the tourney. I'm looking for something like that. If anyone has more information as to the way these things normally run I would appreciate it. I can't seem to find a lot of information on the website.

Until the keys are struck again.

Daddy?

2005-08-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

The first born son's plight has been chronicles throughout written and biblical history (two entirely different things). He carries on the family name, offers hope for a new beginning, and is taken away be evil no-gooders.

When I first heard from Mrs Hayduke that we were having a child, after I picked up the plate of food I dropped in the living room, all I could think about was the adolescent years of my son's life. I think every father that grew up playing sports wants to see his son do some of the same things that filled his own youth. So as the Missus grew out I thought about coaching soccer teams, playing ping-pong, climbing peaks, backpacking, and the like.

I look forward to all of those events, however it's kind of hard to imagine them right now. Duke Jr. has an amazing propensity to shit and can't even control his own head. Unfortunately these two skills aren't directly applicable to the basketball or snowboarding. Don't get me wrong I would like to spend my whole day with my 6 day old son but I'm just realizing the hugeness of the task that we have just commenced.

They say the years go by terribly fast for your children, so I plan to enjoy every minute of my late night comforting sessions. Nothing better than rocking your first born son to sleep while getting amazing cards on Empire Poker... THAT'S WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!!!!!

Can't wait for football to start. Go Pack!

And the 2005 Big Ten Champ will once again be the Iowa Hawkeyes. Let's make it 3 for 4 shall we? That is a little know fact. Iowa has shared the Big Ten Football title two of the last three years. Not bad for a bunch of farm boys.

Next step

2005-08-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

I need to write a post on the "Limit Challenge" that I have undertaken and explain some of my reasoning and thoughts. However one of the graphics I want to use is at home, and I am currently at school. So it will have to wait... The problem with that is that whenever I'm at home I just want to play poker, not write my blog, so inevitably the writing gets pushed off as the virtual tables begin to multiply on my screen. I've found that it's pretty difficult for me to write a quality post while playing even one table. (Hell, it's difficult for me to write anything of quality even if all of the stars align and I'm stroking my lucky rabbit's foot). So I end up writing short posts while I'm at school and should be studying.

I've been contemplating moving up in limits. I have been playing some 2/4 lately and when on top of my game I think I can easily beat that level. However I tend to lose focus and make some dumb plays at the end. A couple examples that tend to re-appear more than they should in the 1/2 or 2/4 games that I have been playing.

- An extra raise on the river that costs me two bets when I don't see the runner runner flush that just showed up
- Betting the river when in position with high pair low kicker (I feel this should be checked)
- Overplaying two high cards when I miss the flop and there are 4-5 people in the pot
Expansion of this topic: Let's say I have AQ and raise pf. The flop comes J 9 4. I have normally been betting this since I raised pf. However with so many people in the hand it is very rare that everyone folds (probably < 10%), and I am most likely behind. An occasional continuation bet definitely has a place, but I should check this hand more often especially when I am in position and acting last (almost last).

The second two mistakes have probably been costing me 1-2 BB/100 recently. You'd think that since I realize that they are mistakes I would be able to correct them. We will see if that's the truth.

Putting them into words will hopefully help me to remember better while playing and therefore improve my game. I feel that these kinds of mistakes will be exploited more at higher limits and they need to be corrected ASAP before moving up.

Back in the swing

2005-07-29T21:25:00.000-07:00

Yeah I know, 4 days isn't really that long. However every time I take a break from poker for one reason or another I come back to the game and play in a way that is totally different than the winning ways I was previously using. It doesn't matter if the break is 2 days or 2 weeks, I sit down at the cpu, fire up a table or two, and proceed to play way too aggressively. I want action and I want it now.

So this time I knew that I couldn't stop this from happening so I played at slightly lower limits for the first couple of hours, and yes I lost money during that time. Complete self control huh? Since I can't stop my over-aggressive actions I just move down and deal with them until they slowly disappear.

Things are going well this month for my poker bankroll. Obviously the 6900 that I won at Bodog doesn't hurt the bottom line, but I'm also improving my limit game and have won consistently at the 1/2 level. I have even decided to move up to the 2/4 level with pretty decent results over a fairly small sample size. I realize that I am moving up awfully slow. My bankroll is big enough to support much higher play, but I don't think my game is quite there yet. Part of the problem is that I don't want to lose money. I know it's a trade-off, and that inherently goes against my pension for gambling. What can I say.

I'm trying to improve my short handed by playing the six max tables at Empire and Absolute. The tables at Absolute are decidedly harder than the corresponding limits at Empire. It's not even close. .50/1 tables at Absolute have better players than the 2/4 tables at Empire, go figure. Why don't Empire/Party have 6 Max 2/4 tables? Doesn't make sense to me. They have 6-Max tables at .5/1, 1/2, 3/6, 5/10 and so on, but not at 2/4... Go figure

New poker pupil

2005-07-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately he fell slept through nearly his entire first lessson in online poker playing. Probably a good thing though, because after spending 3 days in the hospital I was a little to jacked up to play good poker. However there are more important things in my life right now, so a couple of bad plays and a couple of unlucky river cards didn't even phase me tonight. I just wanted to put my pinky finger in his little hand and feel him squeeze it.

Just sittin' around

2005-07-23T22:15:00.000-07:00

The in-laws are in town because our first born was due 6 days ago, but still refuses to release the ribcage of Mrs. Hayduke. So here we are.

I don't want to play too much poker in fear that the in-laws will think I'm addicted... Which there is absolutely no truth to. It's just ridiculous to even think that. I stop playing every day to go to school and every once in a while to eat. I probably only miss three meals a week because of poker. And my grades are barely suffering in school. I don't care at all about my classes, but that's because they are boring, not because I think about odds all class long.

Lots of bicycle riding recently. It provides a nice escape after work and allows the mind to wander freely as the body works.

Due Date +4

2005-07-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

A title like that usually means that there is already a baby born and the sleep deprivation has begun, however that is not the case here in Dayton, OH. We're currently four days past the random mark on the calender that says "Have Baby". So that means I can still stay up late playing poker in an attempt to condition myself for a the joys of the soon to be released baby boy.

The in-laws arrived a couple days ago in time for Reds v Cubs game in Cincy and some barley pops at the famous Hoffbrau house across the river from the "Put your corporate name here" stadium where the Reds play. Some bean bag tossing was done (I refuse to call the game cornhole, for obvious reasons) and a good time was had by all.

I've got a test on Monday in Orbital Determination, so for obvious reasons I'm hoping little Cade is born this weekend. Wish us luck!

Baby?

2005-07-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Hayduke has now reached the end of the normal gestation period. That's right, today is the due date for our baby boy and the missus is more than ready for little Cade to begin his life outside of her body. But there haven't been any signs of labor yet, and we're still playing the waiting game. Apparently there is not a set of pre-labor signs that occur and labor can start at any time at all. It is more or less a random event, not unsimilar to the cards I'll play when drinking my fourth glass of Maker's Mark.

I bring this up because I'm sure everyone who reads this blog (read: myself and Mrs. Hayduke) has a keen interest in the arrival of our first born. But also because I played in the Bodog $100K tourney this weekend. Yes, this story is getting confusing let's start from the beginning.

Recently I've been grinding away at low limit HE tables clearing bonuses and attempting the Limit Challenge (see future post for detatiled description) on both Absolute and Empire. Sometimes it goes well but other times it is quite a grind. For example on Absolute I've played about 4K hands at 6 max $0.5/$1 tables and my BB/100 is at 1.85. The goal is to start with $100 and play at $0.5/$1 until you get to $215. Well it is definitely taking a while on Absolute. The players on Absolute at this limit are head and shoulders above the players on Empire at this level, big surprise I know. I plan on explaining the Challenge in more detail shortly so stay tuned (I feel like I'm talking to myself :).

Given the grinding on Absolute, I wanted to play a couple MTT tourney this weekend to experience a little of the WSOP big tourney fever. In my first tourney I busted out near the bubble in the $7500 guaranteed tourney after a couple of miserable suckouts. As expected this experience did not satiate my thirst.

So given the results I decided to play in the $100K tourney. Note: the entry was $100 +9. I've never played in that big of a MTT, and the shitty ending to the last tourney put me in the perfect mood to enter.

None of the above can pass for good reasoning, and I totally realized that at the time. However I wanted to take a shot at a bigger prize tourney. Plus Bodog usually has to overlay the tourney with between $20K and $40K of their own money. So it does have +ev, however that was probably discounted by my state of mind.

Fold, Fold, Fold. That's the way it goes in these big tourneys. Then three straight hands hit me. Two sets on the flop and suddenly I'm the chip leader with $30K chips, but there are still 200 people of the 780 entrants left. Only top 64 get paid.

Chip up little by little. Not much doing. Finally the bubble is busted and we're all in the money. I still have a big stack and proceed to suck out on pocket Kings with my A8. I then play back at a maniac (on the button) who's been stealing my BB all game with an A2. Flop comes 962. I bet 50% of the pot and maniac comes over the top for all of his chips. I hit the think tank. Eventually folding, but losing 60% of my chips.

I'm still middle of the pack so things aren't desperate yet. 88 comes my way two off the button with one limper in front. I push all-in only to see KK on the other end. Flop comes K45, ouch not looking good. Turn is a J, and river is an 8 to give me the pot. Hell yeah! Suckout City! 2-Outer on the River, Life is good.

Back as a big stack. Down to two tables (18 left) Second nine get an $1100 payout which will be my biggest cash yet. But that's not the goal. Win, Win, Win, are the three words that keep crossing my mind. At this point Mrs. Hayduke enters the room and exclaims that her water just broke and we need to head to the the hospital... After a couple seconds of silence she quips, "just kiddin' ". VERY FUNNY PREGO! Up and down go the chip stack, another suckout works wonder for my chips, only to be countered by an some morons idiotic call of two all-ins with A2. I have AKs, and the short stack who originally pushed has KQo. Flop comes AA7. Nice! Blank for the turn then despite my howling protests the river comes as a mighty Duece!

Moron quickly loses his chips as do a couple others and were down to the final table. 9 Players left. Back and forth the chips go. There is a hyper aggressive player at the table that will raise with anything in later position. Thus there is a lot of action and the table whittles down pretty quickly. Suddenly we're down to 4 players and I'm the chip leader.

KTs of spades in my BB comes up. Hyper AG raises 2.5x from the button. I re-raise to 5x the BB. He calls. Flop comes J92 with two spades. I bet the pot. Hyper calls for all of his chips. He turns over 94. I'm a 62 to 38 favorite with two overcards and a flush draw, but nothing doing. I'm now prettly low in chips @ 3x BB and eventually am forced into playing my BB with 24. No luck there and I go out in 4th to win $6900.

In retrospect I should have re-raised larger pre-flop so as not to give him such good pot odds. He had been capable of folding when he was played back at strongly. My raise wasn't enough to push him out. However I did get my money in the pot as a 1.63 to 1 favorite and in all reality he shouldn't have called my bet after the flop for all of his chips. I hadn't played many hands for the past 30 mins and they had all been of high quality.

I hate not winning, but as a little more time passes it's starting to sink in a little more and I'm pretty pumped about the 4th place finish and my biggest cash (by FAR!).

Enough about me, here's a cool article on poker bots and a recent competition between robots playing poker.

Apologies in advance

2005-07-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

UMMM, Yes and Yes

Tired of looking at poker odds tables...

Lance vs Fossilman

2005-07-12T22:01:00.000-07:00

Here's to hot chickadees playing poker. Photo taken by Flipchip and stolen from Pauly's blog. Keep up the good work fellas.

The golden child of cycling is back in front after a dominating performance today in France. Lance used horsepower usually reserved for a Caterpillar machine to power up the Alps and once again retake the lead at the tiny ski station Courchevel. Kudos to the Discovery team who set a blistering pace early in the race to punish the opposition. Three days ago the Discovery team melted down leaving Lance to fend for himself, but they seem to have pulled it back together. Hopefully they can keep up the pace over the next few days.

Greg Raymer is also cruising toward the final table at the WSOP. There's a long ways to go, and luck will certainly play a large role, but Fossilman has been hitting cards and has a large stack of chips guarding his empire.

Just ordered a copy of Small Stakes Hold'em. We will see how much money this book will lose me as I try to digest the material. Hint of sarcasm. My game suffered after reading the Super System section on NLHE because I get too aggressive and failed to finish the section before applying some of the concepts. Doh!

Not a whole lot

2005-07-11T08:18:00.000-07:00

The July Party reload was a success. In June I decided to clear the reload bonus playing $50 NL and I did succeed in clearing it, however I also lost money even after including the $100 bonus in my stats. So you might say it wasn't all that successful. Edit: You WOULD say it was not successful.

Given my stubborn streak and an inability to learn from my mistakes I decided to attempt the same thing in July. I circled the wagons and hit my head against the wall a few times before starting the session all the time thinking, "Don't make stupid calls with a single pair!" "Think about what hands could beat you in this situation!". Past NL fiascos have been mainly due to calling a couple big bets with questionable hands. Play well for 2 hours, make one dumb call, lose all my money, repeat.

During my bonus clearing sessions I generally followed this advice (the earlier advice, not the "lose all money" advice). I made a couple of good laydowns and played more conservatively when the times called for it. Bottom line I won ~$50 over the 700 raked hands not including the bonus.

The Party $5 Re-buy and add-on is a gold mine. There are so many re-buys that the prize pool gets monstrous! I played in one yesterday afternoon where there were 3x as many re-buys as there were original buy-ins. After the add-on stage the prize pool had reached ~$25000. All of that on a $5+1 tournament. I spent my original $6 and then added on to make a total of $12. I scraped my way into the money (top 180) after a couple of coin flips landed wrong, and managed to stay alive for a few more orbits. I eventually busted out after making a decent comeback when my KJ lost to a J7 that hit a flush. Dominator turned to dominated. Finishing 64th out of 1798. It paid ~$65. Not a very good hourly wage, but a fun time.

Scratch that

2005-07-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

Limit game is not improving. I was destroyed last night on the crypto sites playing 1/2 pound tables. At least I was losing pounds... (bad joke, apologies). It may have been a one night event, it may have been bad poker, it may have been stupid player sucking out on me twice for a combined 50 lbs, it may have be that I'm bitter, or it may be that I'm typing this entry to avoid doing my homework.

Yes, school has started up again so expect posts to be more frequent as an attempt to avoid homework. I'm taking an Orbital Determination class and an intro to biometrics class. In addition I start my thesis research this quarter... one more big reason for procrastination. Right now I need to learn how estimation operators work, yeah that sounds fun!

Good news from the multi-table tourney front. First I hate re-buy and add-on tourneys. Second I accidentally entered two of them over the past two days. No, I apparently do not learn from my mistakes. Yes, I am a bozo. However I placed in both of them despite putting in 3x the original buy-in. The first one was a $50 +5 where I finished 4th out of 70 and lost on an AK (mine) vs. A5 (pokidiot) pf all-in. It was a decent payout but 3rd, 2nd or 1st payed so much more...

Then last night I entered Empire's 10K guaranteed event not realizing it was a rb ao. Good luck again as a I came in 13th of 220. A questionable play at the end caused my demise.

I believe the true make or break part of these tourneys is when you reach 2 tables and people start to get eliminated. Suddenly your looking at a table with only 6 or 7 players and you need to adjust your game for that. At this point you can make a big move either towards a large stack or towards the exit. Last night it was folded to me on the button. I raised 2.5x big blind with A3 and was re-raised all-in by the short stack in the small blind. The short stack had only 6x the BB so I called and lost to 55. Now I'm short stack with 4x BB.

In hindsight I probably should have let this go. However the game was short sided with only 6 player at my table. Small blind was short stacked and getting desperate, I thought. I'm still not sure how I would handle the situation in the future. Depending on the situation and players involved I often will not bet the A3 in this situation, however the blinds were both very tight and I thought I could steal the blinds. Then pot odds dictated that I call the reraise... or did they?

The pot holds my 2.5 BB, 6.5BB from better and 1BB from big blind. That's 10BB and I need to put in 3.5BB more to make the call. Therefore the pot is giving me almost 3:1 odds. If I assume he has a pair then he has 2.33:1 odds of winning, justifying my call. If he has A K or A (something higher than my 3) then I he has 1.94:1 odds of winning. In this case I did have pot odds to call, however in a tournament I don't think it is always a pot odds argument. Your survival is also at risk.

I think I would probably do the same thing again in a similar situation, although it's pretty close. I will probably fold the A3 more times now than I would have before this hand.

How does your game change?

2005-07-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

During May I was playing a lot of poker, and I was playing pretty well (at least by my standards). The bankroll continued to grow and I became more confident in my Limit game. I was playing 1/2 and winning about 3BB/100. Not killing the game by any stretch but definitely doing well. However as my winning continued I gained more confidence. This extra confidence somehow made me feel like I was better than the other players at my table no matter what cards I played... I think you can see where this is going. My game started to change slowly and it mutated away from the profitable game that I was playing during May. June started off decently but as my big head made me think I was a good poker player I started to lose money.

The confidence I had built up by playing solid by the book poker had caused me to change my game from that style. The very reason I was winning gave me confidence that then changed my game from a winning formula to a losing formula. A circle of events that was not helping the scorecard/bankroll.

I ended June up overall, but only because of the bonuses that I accrued. My poker playing showed a red result. Not good!

I think I'm starting to correct my game such that it will return to a profitable state, but over my year long poker playing career it has been difficult to maintain a consistent game. Some of the losses were due to variance, however after studying my PT stats there were also some differences in my play. VP$IP was up 1-2% and I was making a lot more continuation bets. This was costing me money. I sometimes get too aggressive and attempt to bully people out of the pot even when all I have is AK after the turn shows 10, 2, 6, Q. Sometimes this works (further increasing my confidence), but overall I think it is a losing strategy for me to continuously bet on the turn with just two overs.

In addition I get excited about playing poker and don't maintain the required patience necessary to be profitable.

Words to Live By: There's plenty of time to sleep when you're dead!

Cat Lovers

2005-06-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

I think I originally saw this picture as someone's icon on www.bonuswhores.com

KT Hike

2005-06-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

I just recently finished up my two week break from school and started class up today again. UGH, the first day of school is always a sobering moment for me as I realize once again how little I really know. But I digress.

Over my two week break I took a chance to hike the Knobstone Trail in Indiana. The Knobstone (KT as it is known) is a ~50 mile trail through southern Indiana that spends most of its time going up and down knobs of the region. The trail gains more than 10K feet over the whole trail and winds its way through the Knobstone Escarpment. I've hiked and backpacked a fair amount mostly out West. So I wasn't really concermed with the hike.

I planned to do the hike in about three days and arrived at the kickoff point around noon on the first day. The plan was to make 15 miles the first day and 20 miles the second day to set me up for an easy third day. Everything went well for the first 3 miles (of ~50) or so. Then I started feeling a hot spot on my left foot. Yes, I had my first blister with ~45 miles to go and it was getting bigger every moment.

The next 45 miles consisted of a death march to the finish. The scenery was tree after tree and lots of little streams with short climbs and descents. I enjoyed the trail and it gets better every day since I've finished.

When Mrs. Hayduke came to pick me up 52 hours after I started the hike she asked the entry guard where the KT trailhead was located and explained that I should be finishing my hike today. He then told the Mrs. that the KT was a five day hike no matter how fast one hiked. So even though the trail was only 50 miles no matter how far you hiked each day it couldn't be done in less than five days. Good Reasoning there! So she then stated that I may have started 5 days ago so if that was the case where would she pick me up.

Luckily she found me and brought some cold beer and a great pic-a-nic dinner and instantly my blisters and sore body felt better. There's something about spending a few days in the woods that always brings a better perspective to my life. Gotta have the escape!

Poker Reading and odds

2005-06-26T18:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a table comparing all of the different starting hands in Texas Hold'em. As you can see NO TWO CARDS ARE THAT MUCH BETTER THAN TWO OTHERS> Therefore beats where you have a better starting hand are going to happen constantly. That is Hold'em!

Poker books have greatly helped my overall understanding of poker. They offer insight and different perspectives on points of view that I may not have considered previously. David Sklansky's Theory of Poker was the first poker book I ever bought and it has changed the way I look at poker. In addition I've read parts of Doyle's Super System and Lee Jones' Winning Low Limit Hold'em. They have both offered new thoughts on my game play and changed aspects of my poker game.

However I generally don't turn to poker reading except when I'm having a bad spell on the tables. I'll pick up a poker book after I lose a buy-in on the tables or make a couple of bone-headed plays. Isn't that the way it goes... when things are going well I don't make a big effort to improve myself or my game (both in life and in poker), but when things suddenly take a bad turn then I go back to the improvement cycle.

Trying to improve my game should be continuous and not just become important when I'm having a run of bad cards. Reading books, perusing blogs, and studying my past hands should be part of my continuous poker improvement cycle.

I've read many recommendations for the Small Stakes Hold'em (SSHE) book. So I believe when I place my next amazon purchase it will be part of the shipment. But the problem isn't in a lack of information that is available to me, rather in my commitment to applying the information.

Geocaching

2005-06-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'm out in New Mexico at the moment, and quite excited that my passport didn't get checked as I crossed the border. I feel like I really snuck one by the border guards! I've also been visiting friends and hunting down geocaches. More information about geocaching can be found at www.geocaching.com but in two words it's a "treasure hunt". At the aforementioned site there are thousands of lattitude/longitude pairs that represent the location where logbooks and various trinkets are hidden.

Basically you put the coordinates into your GPS receiver and drive/hike/bike until you are at the desired coordinates. Then you hunt for the cache. Sometimes they are really difficult to find and other times you see them right away.

Anyways I took a couple friends out for a some caching yesterday and we found six different caches. They ranged from an ammo box in the desert to a fence post that had a fake top which contained the log. Pretty good stuff!

NL Spanking

2005-06-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

So I went about clearing Party's June bonus by playing $50 NL. However I wasn't so much playing poker as I was impersonating an ATM. WOW! I made some bad plays and my NL skills weren't as good as they could have been. That said, when I looked at poker tracker it shows me losing $158.50 when I had full houses.

Aw well. The bonus almost covered the loss... at least it was of the same order of magnitude anyways!

I'm off to NM for a week to visit family and climb some mountains. It'll be nice to leave the OH humidity for a few days and be treated to the desert.

Happy Hold'em

The Power and Curse of Aggression

2005-06-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading Doyle Brunson's Super System book, and the primary point of his NLHE section is to play aggressively. Aggressive poker is a key component of winning at the game I can see that from my limited amount of play. However aggression has also ended a number of my SNG games too early.

Whenever you start the betting you are putting pressure on the players behind you. You need a stronger hand to call than you do to bet.

Let's look at the ways you can win a poker hand. There are only 2
1. You have a better hand then the other players
2. Everyone else folds

By betting first you have the chance of winning the hand in either way. On the other hand if you only call then you only have the option of winning in the first manner. So it is well understood that betting first (or showing aggression) offers you a better chance to win. At what price though?

By betting first you are also putting more of your money at risk, not knowing what the people behind you still have to play. Therefore you are risking more of your money in a situation where you may not have the best hand.

The key to winning poker is balancing the aggression that enables some winning hands with the patience that keeps you out of dangerous situations. I tend to swing back and forth wildly on the patience vs. aggression continuum based on my mood and results during a given session. When aggressive play is working correctly it is absolutely wonderful. However when it backfires it becomes harder and harder to make those bets. It leads to bigger variance and more action.

At the moment I can't adjust my style very well based on the composition on the table. Any tips on how to change gears at different tables would be appreciated. Sure when there are maniacs at the table tighten up and play only quality hands, but it's always frustrating watching other people take money from the maniacs and the fish. I want their money.

Those are probably the exact thoughts that go through my tablemates' minds when I leave after losing my second buyin.

BoDog Tourneys

2005-05-30T20:55:00.000-07:00

BoDog is without a doubt the best place on the net clear bonuses by playing tournaments. You get 200% of your tournament entry fee back in bonus money. That, my friend, is a great deal. It takes 3 Bodog points to release $1 of bonus money. You acquire 6 BoDog points for every $1 in tourney fees that you pay. Poker Stars also clears bonuses with tourney play, but the rate is much lower. On Poker Stars you get 5 FPP for every $1 in tourney fees paid, but you need 5 FPP to release $1 of your bonus. That is a 100% return, which is just slightly less than 200%.

Q: But what do I do when I run out of bonuses to clear at BoDog?
A: That's the beauty of it. Currently BoDog is running a bottomless 20% bonus. So you can deposit as much and as many times as you want and always get a bonus.

Now if I could only start winning money in the SNG tournaments this would be a gold mine. My first go at it I doubled my deposit. The second two deposits I have made have not gone quite so well. I've lost all of the bonus and a few dollars of my original deposit. This is because of a few instances of playing as Mr. Dumas. NL sessions and tourneys all revolve around a few key hands, which is completely different than limit games that are a compilation of good/bad plays throughout session. Keeping it together constantly is essetial in NL, and I've got to keep my patience.

My wife and I are due with our first child in 7 weeks, maybe the patience required to deal with a small child will improve my game!

Good Luck to all of the bloggers in Vegas. I look forward to seeing your faces for the first time at the final table!

Bourbon Update

2005-05-25T12:47:00.000-07:00

Taken from: http://www.straightbourbon.com/history.html

As with French-appellation wines, there are strict laws governing just what a Bourbon must be to be labeled as such. For example, at least 51 percent of the grain used in making the whiskey must be corn (most distillers use 65 to 75 percent corn). Bourbon must be aged for a minimum of two years in new, white oak barrels that have been charred. Nothing can be added at bottling to enhance flavor, add sweetness or alter color. Though technically Bourbon can be made anywhere, Kentucky is the only state allowed to put its name on the bottle. And as Kentucky distillers are quick to point out, Bourbon is not Bourbon unless the label says so.

What is Bourbon?

2005-05-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

I've often wondered how bourbon, Scotch, Canadian, and Irish whiskey differ from each other. As I have time and I learn for myself I'll post brief blurbs about the different types.

Since bourbon is my personal favorite, we'll start there.

BOURBON
According to Federal regulations, for an American whiskey to be labeled as bourbon it must be made from a mash containing between 51% and 79% corn. If the corn content is higher, the product must be designated as corn whiskey. Bourbon is a straight whiskey and, according to the law, must be distilled at 160 proof (80% alcohol) or less and must be aged a minimum of two years in new charred oak barrels. As a practical matter, though, most bourbon is aged at least four years and often longer. Since it is a straight whiskey, no blending is permitted and there are no additives, with the exception of water to reduce the proof.

Most bourbons are marketed as 80-proof products, but some, particularly the newer boutique, small-batch, single barrel and barrel proof products are much higher in alcohol content. By law, bourbon can be distilled anywhere in the U.S., but the vast majority of it is produced in Kentucky, where it must be distilled and warehoused for at least one year in order to carry the "Kentucky Bourbon" designation on the label.

While touring the Jack Daniel's distillery in TN, I was told that whiskey can only be labeled bourbon if it is produced in Kentucky, similar to Champagne which can only be produced in Champagne, France. The legitimacy of this claim has yet to be verified, but makes a good party fact nonetheless.

Poker options

2005-05-23T20:41:00.000-07:00

For the first 7 mos of my online poker playing I explored all of the different options in the Party Poker SNG NLHE table section. Yes, I was a well versed player that felt capable of winning even at the $200 SNG level. No, my feelings of competence did not translate into tangible results... Let me rephrase that statement. The results were definitely tangible but it's hard to call an empty bank account tangible because it is an absence, a void, a gap in the space-time continuum.

Why I thought I could win at poker with little to no experience is a different issue that will possibly be explored in a later post. Possibly arrogance and too much Gentlemen Jack played a role in a few sessions.

Fast forward a few months and I've discovered the ideas of bonus whoring, poker book reading, poker tracker, and blog reading. My competence level has theoretically increased, but I can't seem to win at the SNG NL tables anymore. I'm hesitant to bluff/semi-bluff large portions of my stack. I now retreat to 1/2 tables where the variance seems to be mitigated to a large extent. If I play solid poker for a couple hours I will win money a high percentage of the time. Granted I still have a low sample size, so this could be simple good luck.

It's difficult to make the switch back and forth from aggressive NL style back to measured Limit play. I am failing miserably at the moment... I mean this exact moment, as I just busted out in 4th in a SNG and lost 13BB in a limit game over the last ten minutes. Yes, I broke the rule from yesterday's post.

Do other bloggers/players concentrate on one specific part of the game or do you switch back and forth? I like the idea of changing games. I've even started playing some Omaha 8 for variety. However I currently have a problem making the instant mental switch from one game to the next. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Positive note my Absolute acct is above even now thanks to improved limit HE play.

I'm leaving for a wedding in Jersey City on Wednesday night. My Lebanese buddy is marrying a Polish girl. Only in America. God Bless America, and thank you for your dedicated service Jack Bauer!

Recipe for disaster

2005-05-21T23:31:00.000-07:00

When playing 4+ tables do not mix and match NLHE tables with Limit HE tables.

I must remember this advice, lest I continue to make dumb plays such as the inconsequential raise in NL.

Ups and Downs

2005-05-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been playing a boatload of poker. I'm talking way too much. Normally my life is fairly balanced (at least I try to tell myself that), however I pulled my hamstring in a soccer game two weeks agoa, and haven't been able to to any running or biking. In addition I developed tendenitis in both shoulders from rock climging, so I haven't been able to climb for a little over two months. Normally my classes would keep me busy, but for some reason this term we haven't had anything to do.

What diversions are left in my life... 1. Whiskey and beer 2. Poker. So I've taken what's left and milked them for every last once of enjoyment. The problem is that when I have a bad poker session I feel that it affects my life much more than it ever has before. When my interests are too concentrated there is nothing to temper the inevitable highs and lows.

You guessed it the only reason I'm writing this is because I had a rough night on the SNG tables at Empire. At one point the guy to my right went all-in pre-flop three times out of ~10 hands. I called him each time, and here is what happened:

Lucky SOB Holds 9 6o 34.8%
Hayduke Holds A Qs 65.2%
6 comes on the turn

Lucky SOB Holds A4o 30.7%
Hayduke Holds 77 69.3%
Ace comes on flop

Lucky SOB Holds 10 6o 48.5%
Hayduke Holds 22 51.5%
7 comes on the river

The odds of Lucky SOB winning all three of these hands are 19 to 1. If I would have one any of those hands I would have made the money of the SNG. C'est La Vie

There are lots of stories concerning bad poker playing that could be attibuted to a lack of poker skill, however those will be saved until I'm in a better mood.

Gametime+

2005-05-19T07:44:00.000-07:00

Thank you dear world of bloggers!

Thanks to the blogging community I was turned onto the gametime+ program. WOW! what a useful program. I've been data mining on Party for a couple months, so I have a little bit of data on players. The problem was determining how to use that data. It isn't convenient to switch back and forth to poker tracker looking up players all the time, and is time consuming when multi-tabling. Enter Gametime+...

Gametime+, for those unfamiliar, provides a heads up display on the poker table with all of the stats you have acquired for people in your poker tracker database. So as I'm sitting at the table I see the rock to my left and a maniac to my right. I can adjust my play accordingly w/o having to learn these traits through trial and error.

It's a free program and it has already won me at least one BB. Therefore its return on investment is infinite... That's good!

Absolute Revenge

2005-05-17T16:19:00.000-07:00

I joined Absolute because of the huge bonuses that they offer, and since the bonus was so big I decided I would try to work on my limit HE game. I started at the $2/4 tables only to lose conistently while clearing only $20 worth of the bonus... Let me re-think my strategy.

At the moment I'm down (not including the bonus) $155, and I have every intent of winning that money back. I'd like to blame the problem on bad beats and lucky opponents, but I believe it was really my play more than anything that did it. Hopefully I'll figure it out and start crawling toward the light (which is breaking even, before the bonus)

Bad Beat Stories

2005-05-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

Don't you always remember the bad beats where you lost more than the ones where you won? I do, and although there were 6 all-in ~80%-20% bad ones last night, there was one that went the opposite way.

I was playing $0.50 NLHE on Party and had just suffered a bad beat on a $170 pot so I was slightly tilting. It's an interesting phenomenon and no matter how you try to avoid the "Tilt" it happens to one extent or another. I was dealt pocket 10s and raised the bet to $3, another called and then the BB went all-in for $40. I sat there contemplating, knowing damn well that the correct play was to fold my 10s right there and play some more hands. However as I watched the timer count down I couldn't hit the fold button, it had an invisible force field that forced the cursor towards the "Call" button. Not wanting to upset the Gods I called and hit a 10 on the river to win the pot.

Likely not divine intervention, but rather dumb luck

Chasing bonuses in Limit HE

2005-05-15T20:16:00.000-07:00

My original online poker playing was all NLHE. It's what I saw on TV, is there even a different type of game? Well apparently there is and all of the poker sites want you to play the ring games for some reason. On most sites you have to play ring games to clear bonuses. BoDog and Poker Stars being the two primary exceptions that I play that actually clear bonuses at a decent rate with SNGs.

Back to my point. So I've recently become addicted to chasing bonuses and thus need to play some ring games. I've not played very many ring games, but it can't be that much different... I read "Winning Low Limit Hold'em", and the limit section out of Super System. Then I started playing. Everything went well until I started getting aggressive... well nobody folds in low limit limit hold'em, NOBODY!!!

Long story short my bonus chasing in limit games is pretty pointless. I usually break even after clearing the bonus. Time for more studying and learning how to play the game. Perhaps I'll tighten up and look up blog posts on limit strategy.

Tourney Time

2005-05-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of playing in the blogger tourney last night, only to fold 40 straight hands then lose on a two outer... The last part is true, however I was a big dog preflop when I went all in with AJ of diamonds and was called by Pokernerd's QQ. I hit an A and a J on the flop only to be decimated by a Q on the turn... Out I in 44th out of 81 (Or somewhere in the mid 40s).

The chatter was good and I was introduced to some new blogs to read.

What's up with Empire's Frequent play program? They award points based on the square root of the number of hands you play. That seems counterproductive to me. So if you have 20 points already that day from ring games and you want to get one more point you need to play 41 more hands. But I'm sure everyone knows how the square root function works, so I won't digress any further.

The problem, from Empire's standpoint, is that they are encouraging shorter sessions and therefore less rake. They are also making the journey to their VIP club very long. Maybe that's part of the point.

Here's the problem from my point of view. I can become obsessed by certain goals and numbers. Witness Poker. Now I just recently started playing at Empire and saw the VIP club web page. Obviously I've got to get into that! Why you ask? Actuallly there isn't a good reason, only this magical floating number of 5000 FPP and entrance into the VIP club. What will this do for me? Nothing of significance, but I latch onto goals like these and have a hard time letting them go.

I love what is happening in Philly to T.O., that is how all teams should treat whining players. Damnit he signed a $49M contract, and he should have to suffer through living on only $7M a year until this contract is over.

The Beginning...

2005-05-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

I started playing online poker about a year ago. However at that time I was living in Utah and had a laundry list of other hobbies that took precendence over a silly game involving 52 multi-colored rectangular objects. Since then I've moved to Dayton, OH and away from any type of vertical relief. Unfortunately vertical relief was the one essential component for most of my hobbies (i.e. snowboarding, skiing, rock climbing, peak bagging, hot spring soaking, mountain biking, etc... continuing will only increase the pain!)

So now my free time doesn't have near the competition it once did. I started playing a little more poker. I started NOT losing money. I started becoming more interested in the game. I bought a couple of poker books. I read some 2+2 posts.

Reader interjection (purely hypothetical as I don't expect to have any readers), "So enough garbling (may not be a word... but it will be considered proper English throughout my blog), why are you creating a blog?"

According to Dictionary.com Garble: To mix up or distort to such an extent as to make misleading or incomprehensible

Answer: Along with playing a little more poker I also had more time on the computer while I was folding my 5th consecutive 27o. However I had never heard of blogging until somebody did a presentation on blogging in one of my Information Systems classes. They even mentioned Iggy's blog by name http://guinnessandpoker.blogspot.com/ . So when I went home that night and lost for the second time in a SnG with pocket aces, all-in pre-flop, I decided that I needed to stop playing poker for a few minutes and searched for Guinness and Poker.

I wasn't prepared for the garbling, but I was definitley amused! 3 months later here is the beginning of my humble blog. More to come as I fold hands on various poker sites!