It Ain't Easy

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…

I sat down at a full table (9 people) with $500 in chips.  The table apparently had not been running long as nobody was sitting with much more than $500 in their stack.  I took this as a good sign – nobody was going to be able to push me out of a hand by “big stacking” me.  (“Big stacking” is what I call it when a very large stack pushes a smaller stack all-in, sometimes holding nothing, counting on the small stack not wanting to go broke.  It’s a dangerous play, but you’d be amazed at how often it’s attempted – mainly due to people watching too much poker on TV…)  I noticed that the current big stack – had slightly less than $600 – was playing rather loose.  That basically explains why he was big stack at that point as loose play can sometimes work to a player’s advantage but rarely brings in more than stealing the blinds.  Whatever the case was before I came to this table, I made note of this guy’s play and basically watched him dwindle back down to near $500 before I got into a hand against him.  I was sitting on the button and got dealt a Q-8 off-suit.  Not a great hand, but not a bad hand either – one hand better than the “Computer Hand” (Q-7) which is, statistically speaking, the weakest hand that has an advantage in heads-up against any other random hand.  I was able to limp-in with my hand (nobody raised pre-flop) and see the flop – Q-J-8.  The guy that was playing loose then bet $30 and everyone else folded to me.  I raised to $60.  The loose player thought for about 10 seconds then pushed all-in.  This, of course, would put me all-in if I called – a total of $470 counting the $60 I had already bet.  After little thought, I called.  Yeah, he could have flopped a set if he were holding J’s in the hole; but, due to the play I’d witnessed thus far, I put him on a Q-A.  I was wrong, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t holding wired J’s.

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