Why Do I Play Poker?

February 12, 2010

Full Tilt Poker — I Banned Myself

Filed under: Bad Beats, Full Tilt Poker, Poker — Tags: , , , , — WhyDoIPlayPoker @ 4:00 am

It used to be that I would put $100 in my FTP account and have a good time. Play a few sit-n-gos and win or lose, it was entertaining.

Wait, what the fuck am I say­ing? I NEVER and I mean NEVER have really felt that way. I am com­pet­i­tive to the bone and every fiber in my body always wants to win. $1, $5, $100, I don’t care. I want to be the best and I want to win. Ok, I got that off my chest.

So 2 days ago I put $100 into Full Tilt and got ready for some sit n go action.  First 2 go well, a first place and a third place. Then, I hit the skids. In the course of 2 hours, I played 6 multi table tour­na­ments.  I play my usual game — tight early on, then open up as the blinds get higher in order to steal blinds, then when it gets to the bub­ble stage I either push or fold.  It usu­ally comes down to coin flips and as every­one knows, you gotta win the flips if you’re gonna win the tourney.

I have come to accept that I am going to bust out before the money this way fairly often. It’s a bit­ter pill to swal­low when it hap­pens, but when I win the flips it is sweet per­fec­tion. This is a win­ning style of poker.….unless.…..

You lose every fuck­ing coin flip.

You see, on this par­tic­u­lar night I was run­ning really well pre-flop. I was catch­ing good cards, mak­ing the right folds and push­ing when I had the best of it. Only prob­lem was none of my hands would hold up. Don’t get me wrong, I am not cry­ing bad beat here. It just sucked to be kicked in the balls over and over. I was at worst a 60/40 win­ner in 7 coin flip sit­u­a­tions and didn’t win one of them. I got 2 outed, 3 outed and 4 outed over and over.

I’ll admit it. I titled. I steamed off $20 in a sit n go by push­ing on the flop with a queen high flush draw. Of course I got called by the Ace high flush draw. Just one of those nights.

In the end, I real­ize that on line poker just isn’t for me. Call me crazy, but I did the most extreme thing I could think of.

I BANNED MYSELF FROM FTP, permanently.

Instead of donat­ing money to unde­serv­ing poker play­ers, I have decided the next time I want to waste $100 play­ing online poker, I’ll just send a check to Haiti and then go play with my son.  Bet­ter use of time. Bet­ter use of money.

I play ONLINE poker to remind myself to never again play online poker.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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February 5, 2010

Winning Poker Formula:Play Against the Weak. Losing Poker Formula:Play Against the Strong

Filed under: Commerce Casino, Full Tilt Poker, Hollywood Park, Poker, Texas Hold'em, The Bike — Tags: , , , , , , , — WhyDoIPlayPoker @ 4:00 am

I’ll just come out and say it: I play poker to win money.

Just like any other poker player, I will take money from my friends, my ene­mies, my neigh­bor, the fathers of my son’s pre-school friends and even my wife.  Hell, if my grand­mother would sit down with me I would try my darnedest to take her money as well.

In order to win more money at poker, I have done what any true poker player does: study.

I study a lot.

I buy the books: Sit ‘n Go Strat­egy, Har­ring­ton on Hold ‘em, Online Ace, etc. I under­line impor­tant parts, take notes and imple­ment the techniques.

I take inter­net courses:  Deep­stacks Uni­ver­sity, the online inter­ac­tive course endorsed by Mike “The Mouth” Matu­sow. (great site by the way!)

I have dis­cus­sions with fel­low poker play­ers about strat­egy, odds, etc.

You’d think with all this dili­gent work my results would be bet­ter.  Online I am a break even player. Home games:winner.  Casino games: loser. To be hon­est, I am an over­all loser in poker. Not huge num­bers, but enough to irk me. Make me want to crack the nut.

After all this study­ing, prac­tic­ing and play­ing, I have come to real­ize there is only one REAL win­ning for­mula for poker: Play against play­ers that are worse than you are.  Sounds sim­ple, but it’s true. This is a preda­tory sport and the strong feast on the weak.

You want to beat the game, look for the table full of losers.

Top 10 Traits of a Los­ing Poker Player:

10.  He has a short stack. A good player knows that to win, his stack has to be replen­ished. Oth­er­wise he’s not play­ing poker. It’s called play­ing bingo.

9. A big talker, giv­ing lessons = BIG LOSER.

8. Looks like he’s been up all night. Prob­a­bly try­ing to get even. Win­ners go home when they are los­ing and cut their losses.

7. Com­plains about back beats.

6. Goes to the ATM. Def­i­nitely means he is going beyond his intended bud­get and prob­a­bly not using good bankroll management.

5. Plays almost every hand: loser

4. Tries to ver­bally intim­i­date the other play­ers. LOSER!

3. Talks about how much he won last night. LOOOOOOO-SER!

2. Throws his cards at the dealer.

1. Makes quick over-sized bets.

I am prob­a­bly not telling you any­thing new. But how many of us truly abide by these rules. It ain’t rocket sci­ence, but it works. In fact, it works way bet­ter than read­ing, study­ing or talk­ing about poker. To para­phrase Texas Dolly: Poker is a game of peo­ple played with cards.

I play poker to win money from the weak.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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January 30, 2010

Free Online Poker — a safe way to be on full tilt

Filed under: Bad Beats, Full Tilt Poker, Online Poker, Poker — Tags: , , , , , , — WhyDoIPlayPoker @ 9:01 am

I am not a fan of free poker. It’s an oxy­moron. Poker by its very def­i­n­i­tion needs to be played for money. If it doesn’t hurt to lose, it’s not poker.

That said, I have come to real­ize there is a time and place for the free online game.

In order to win in poker, you have to be con­trolled, dis­ci­plined, smart and lucky. As we all know, you can be at the top of your game, do every­thing right, and still lose. That’s one of the most frus­trat­ing things about poker. Do every­thing right, but still lose.

After a week’s worth of los­ing, either due to bad play­ing (prob­a­bly) or bad beats (unlikely) I really want to say “fuck it” to good play.  This dis­ci­pline, con­trol and smart play hasn’t got­ten me any­where, so I think.

Enter FREE ONLINE POKER.

Talk about going all in with impunity. This is the place. 9–2 off UTG, sure. All in. Flop is A-A-K and I have pocket deuces. Fuck it. ALL IN!

This is where I go when I just can’t take it any­more. I can act like a jack ass. Push with junk. Call with junk. Act like a don­key. I get all of this out of my sys­tem. Wel­come to the don­key farm.

Truth­fully, I’m not happy until until at least six peo­ple are wish­ing can­cer on me in the chat win­dow. “What?  You want to play real poker? Get two nick­els to rub together, ass­holes!”  I’m here for a pur­pose. This is free poker and I’m going all in every hand until I damn well feel and or play better.

Besides, I don’t feel as bad mak­ing a bunch of jerks hate me as I do after kick­ing the dog or punch­ing a wall.  Ouch.  For the record, I never punched my dog. I did call him a douchebag once.

After 15 min­utes of being this poker maniac, I feel bet­ter. The best part is I worked out some frus­tra­tion and my bankroll is still intact.

I occa­sion­ally play free on-line poker to shake off the shit and stress from my real game.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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January 29, 2010

Full Tilt’s Rush Poker — A lesson in focus.….I think.

Filed under: Full Tilt Poker, Online Poker, Poker, Texas Hold'em — Tags: , , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 5:00 am

I wish I could tell you a sure­fire strat­egy to beat the online poker site’s new game.  But I can’t.  Not even close. I have no idea how to win in that game.  I think it starts with a raise and then I’m not sure where to go from there. Maybe a lit­tle patience might give you a leg up.  What do I know?  I’ve logged in for forty five min­utes and played more hands than my first six months of poker combined.

The thing that hit me most about Full Tilt’s Rush poker is how impor­tant it is not to look back.  In Rush, there is no way to see how the hand would’ve ended.  You’re whisked away to another table.  You have a new deci­sion to make. You don’t have time to think about what went right or wrong in the last hand.

Unlike reg­u­lar poker, in Rush there is no “What if?” because the hand really doesn’t exist any­more. There’s not even a way to see “What if?” Actu­ally, this is great, because if there ever were a shitty game, it’s  “What if?”   It’s a sub­tle vari­a­tion on the time­less clas­sic “Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve.” Actu­ally, it’s the same game with a dif­fer­ent title.  Kinda like play­ing NYC Monop­oly or Grate­ful Dead Monop­oly.  Same game, dif­fer­ent theme.

Now I’m not say­ing there isn’t a place for reflec­tion about your game or your life.  It’s essen­tial.  Just not at the table.

I always have to remem­ber to be in the moment at the poker table. That’s the only thing that mat­ters right now. Who cares if my KQ would have made a straight? Think­ing about it only dis­tracts me from the hand at hand. It’s a recipe to com­pound my losses or, if I’m bask­ing in the glory of an amaz­ing play, min­i­mize my wins.

So I’m going to keep play­ing Rush. Stay focused and try to avoid writ­ing blog posts while I’m doing it.  Because at  300 hands an hour, it’s damn near impossible.

I play poker to help me stay focused in the present.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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January 24, 2010

Some things don’t go well together. Connectivity and sit-n-go bubble strategy come to mind.

Filed under: Bad Beats, Full Tilt Poker, Online Poker, Poker, Texas Hold'em — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 4:00 am

There have been all sorts of things that keep me from play­ing my best poker online.   Mad at my boss.  Look­ing at too much porn. You get the picture.

Well, the other night was the first time my com­puter got the best of me.

I played a $24  + $2 Turbo 90 per­son tour­ney with a KO bonus of $4 per vic­tim.  What the hell?  Seemed like fun.

Well, It was fun until I started get­ting dis­con­nected every other hand.

Frus­trated, I tried to dump my chips with A2 under the gun but I spiked an ace and knocked out my oppo­nent. My first KO bonus. $4.  Cool.

I get dis­con­nected again.  And again. And again.

I recon­nect  and to my sur­prise I have aces and action.  Two guys are going all in.  It’s my turn to act.  My hand gets auto­mat­i­cally folded.

Fuck.

Fuck you com­puter!  They would have held up too.  I would be the chip leader by a fuck­ing mile.

I’m pissed. You have to take advan­tage of those spots.

We’re get­ting close to the bub­ble.  The guy I would have knocked out pushes.  He has me cov­ered.  I have KK. We’re really close to the bub­ble, what to do?

I don’t have to tell you what hap­pened .

Okay, I will. Out on the bubble.

I could’ve of waited, but I thought I was owed one because of those aces.  Where are my extra 40K in chips? I played like I had a rain check for a big win­ning hand.

It doesn’t work that way.  I let my com­puter put me on tilt. Sure, it sucked that I was hav­ing con­nec­tiv­ity issues.  But I should have to reminded myself that my strat­egy for the end of the tour­na­ment had noth­ing to do with my con­nec­tiv­ity issues.  Irra­tionally, I thought I had one in the bank. And I didn’t. Even though it felt good to blame my com­puter, it had noth­ing to do with why I lost that tournament.

I play poker is for the big scores.  It just eluded me last night.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

P.S. I played another one the next night and pulled a 4th.  I’ll take $200 in profit. Gotta love the KO Bounty pay­ing your buy in. No con­nec­tiv­ity issues either.

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