The blog… I used to enjoy writing little articles for
this basically unread blog. Haven’t done
it for quite some time … a bit over five years to be more precise. Had a bad day at the poker table today and
figured I’d share my sorrow. No better
way to do that than post it on a blog that nobody reads, right?
First off, a
bit of background to explain exactly why I was sitting at a poker table at the
Bellagio here on this Tuesday after Labor Day:
You see, it was close to a year and a half ago that I decided to do
something quite daring; something rather adventurous; something a decent amount
of people want to attempt but never actually pull off … something freaking
stupid – I moved to Las Vegas (Henderson, actually; although I am only a
15-miute drive from the infamous “strip”…) and became a self-proclaimed professional
poker player. There were multiple
reasons that contributed to this decision although I really do need to admit
that, after all is said and done, it appears to be no more than the mid-life
crisis so often heard of but rarely believed.
Doesn’t matter much now how this happened – the fact of the matter is
this is where I am…
Been doing
this for quite some time now. So far it’s
not quite working out the way I was
hoping.
In fact, it’s just not working at all.
I burned completely through my initial poker bankroll about a month ago –
completely. Any poker I now play is
dipping into “my” money. Yeah, I realize
that the bankroll I started with was also my money; however that was accounted
for separately from the money I have been using to live off. It – the bankroll – is gone now. This has changed everything. The hours of poker that I now play are
miniscule compared to what I was doing with the still intact bankroll. It’s extremely difficult to justify risking
money after seeing what became of the bankroll I began with. But it’s poker. I know poker.
I’ve read the books, seen the shows (oh, by the way, watching poker on
TV is going to do nothing but hurt your actual game … few realize this…) and am
quite proficient at calculating hand odds.
Hell, I’ve got a Bachelor of Science in engineering. I know probability and statistics. That, unfortunately, just doesn’t seem sufficient
to get around this bastard concept known to many as luck. Take today’s play as an example…
I bought
into a standard $2/$5 no-limit cash game for $500. Interestingly enough, this is the cap on the
$2/$5 game at the Bellagio. It’s also why
I play the $2/$5 game at the Bellagio.
You see, you can play a $2/$5 NL game pretty much anywhere in
Vegas. Even the jackpot houses
(basically all casinos except for the main four poker casinos – the Aria,
Bellagio, Venetian and Wynn) offer a $2/$5 NL game although it’s rare to see
them running apart from weekends at these casinos. The main four always have $2/$5 NL games
running. The buy-in cap (maximum amount
of money a new player can join a table with) for most $2/$5 NL games is
$1000. That even includes the jackpot
houses although I never (well, very rarely) play jackpot houses to avoid paying
larger rakes to cover jackpots that I’m never going to win – I stick with the
main four and play only for the poker winnings.
The Aria and Venetian cap their $2/$5 NL games at $1000. The Wynn caps it at $1500. The Bellagio, unexpectedly, caps their game
at $500. It’s personal taste, but I
prefer playing a game where the rich (and there are a LOT of rich people in
Vegas) can’t sit down with a stack advantage just because they’re rich. At the Bellagio, you need to earn your stack
advantage.
But, once
again, I’ve gotten off track a bit. Back
to my poker story…
The dealer
then dealt the turn and river – an A on the turn which scared the crap out of
me and some useless river that I don’t even remember. My opponent than shows his hole cards – J-8. I then turn over my cards and double-up my
stack. Not a bad start to my day. This all happened within the first 15 minutes
of my sitting down. Just like that I am
now the table big-stack by around a 2-to-1 margin on all other players. This, unfortunately, is also when things
turned on me and my far too often bad luck came roaring back in. That was the last hand I would win today…
I basically
lost all of the near $1,000 I was then sitting with in three hands. They weren’t three hands in a row – there were
several hands that I didn’t play or just lost minimum bets with – but these
three losses are what killed me.
All-in-all I was sitting at that table for slightly less than one hour
in total so the rapidity of these beats should be apparent. A quick double-up and a complete bust in less
than an hour. I swear I’m cursed!
The first
hand I’m not really that upset with. I
lost this hand with bad play. It came
down to me holding a straight & flush draw on the turn. My opponent was betting, so I knew I was
behind. I also knew that he was getting
low on chips so I pushed all-in. This is
pretty much what I was talking about earlier with the “big stacking”. If my opponent lost, he would be out of
money. If I lost, it would bring me down
to around $650 at that time. Also,
considering my outs, there were 9 cards that would make my flush and 6 that
would make my straight (that’s 4 cards for the top-end of the straight, 4 cards
for the bottom minus the two that would make my flush) giving me 15 outs or
approximately a 30% chance of hitting what I was pretty sure would be a
winner. It’s what’s known as a
semi-bluff. I wanted him to fold, but
still had an opportunity to win if he called.
He called. I missed.
That was me
playing a bit looser than usual. That’s
why I call it bad play. The problem
there was that I don’t know the financial situation that my opponent lives
with. He looked to be retired, and the fact
that he was playing poker in the middle of the day on a Tuesday just supports
that; but this tells me nothing. When I
pushed, I believe he was sitting with about $250 that he could have lost. Who knows, this might be nothing to this
guy. If he had lost, he may have just
shrugged it off and re-bought for another $500.
Guess we’ll never know now…
Bottom line here was that I was now sitting with about $650. Still more than I originally bought-in with,
but I was a bit upset with myself…
The second hand
in this trifecta from hell came shortly afterwards… I was dealt K-8 off-suit. A better hand than the one I doubled up with,
but that’s insignificant. The flop gave
me an 8 but no K. The other two cards
were both non-royalty although I don’t remember what they were precisely. Two of the flopped cards were hearts
though. Didn’t help me much as neither
of my cards was a heart. One guy bets
$30 and I call – it’s now heads-up. Turn
comes – insignificant, not a heart. My
opponent bets $100 into about a $75 pot – signaling to me that he does not want
me to call. I think about this bet for a
bit and come to the conclusion that he’s probably semi-bluffing a flush draw
making my pair of 8’s likely the best hand.
If I am correct, I’m currently sitting as a 4-to-1 advantage against his
flush draw so I decide to make a stand and push all-in. This is very similar to the semi-bluff play I
mentioned above with the roles reversed.
If, however, I was correct in my reasoning; my opponent this time had
about 10% less probability of making his hand than I had above. He calls and I discover that I actually was
correct – all he had was a flush draw.
The river comes – a K! Unfortunately,
it was the K of hearts… Boom! Just like that I’m down to $150…
The final
hand of the day is the worst yet. I’m
dealt a “Big Slick” (A-K) and flop an A-K-4.
Dude bets $30, I raise to $100, dude calls. Turn comes – nothing important. I check, dude checks. That’s basically where I screwed up as I
should have bet; however I’m pretty sure the end result would have been the
same as I wasn’t going to get this guy to fold 2-pair with my measly stack… River’s shown – a 4. I push all-in – a whole $50 or so – and am
instantly called. My opponent turns over
his A-4 and takes the rest of my money.
Now, if you were paying attention there, you would realize that I lost
that last hand by having my opponent hit one of only two cards that would save
him on the river – a less than 5% chance of happening!
Now if any
one of those three hands went my way, my day would have gone completely
differently. Most importantly are the
first two as winning either of those would have stacked me up quite well. The third was just adding insult to
injury. The worst part about this is
that, hind-sight being 20/20, I played the last two hands perfectly and just
got very unlucky. It’s even arguable as
to whether or not I played the first of these three losers correctly although,
as I explained above, I think I messed that one up.
All I know
is that I completely understand how this damn poker game is often described as
the hardest way to make money easily…
bis später,
Coriolis
