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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February 3, 2010

At first I thought I was playing poker.

Filed under: Poker — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 4:00 am

This post was going to start with me fum­ing on the car ride home after a dis­mal night at the casino.  But after a lit­tle reflec­tion, I real­ized the bad night wasn’t the point, it was my bad thinking.

It started with me sit­ting at a $100 NLH game. There was this drunk guy, so drunk the dealer had to help him count his chips drunk. He was sit­ting in front of a pile of chips and rais­ing every, and I mean every, hand.  It looked like easy money.  In a pro­nounced slur, he would tell any­body who lis­tened that he had racked up over a $1000 in less than half an hour.

It was obvi­ous this guy wasn’t walk­ing out of the casino with one dime of this money.  I fig­ured, why not be a pal and help him part with it.  Why wait for a great hand? This guy’s drunk, why not help myself?

I pick up a very mar­ginal hand. It’s an insta-fold against any­one but this guy. He raises and I’m happy to get it all in.  He’s happy to call.

I have him dom­i­nated.  He catches.  Re-buy. No big deal.

Soon, I’m against him heads up again.  He puts in his auto-raise.   Once again, I fig­ure I’m ahead and I call.  Turns out I’m right again, but moments later,  I’m out another buy-in.

This hap­pens a few more times.

Get­ting the pic­ture?  Of course you do. At first glance, I was out­raged I wasn’t win­ning.  But then I started think­ing about it.  I may have known where I was, but truth­fully I was barely ahead. At best, no more than 70/30.

I never con­sid­ered there was a good chance I could lose four times in a row.  In my excite­ment to take down the King of Coro­nas, I didn’t fac­tor in the grim real­ity:  he had the chips to weather the storm and I didn’t.

Big mis­take.

So now I real­ize that I didn’t even play poker that night.  I gam­bled on a few expen­sive coin flips.

And from now on, that’s not why I play poker.

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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January 23, 2010

Gung Ho or Don’t Go

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

You can’t have ambiva­lence when you play poker. You are either gungho rock out with your cock out, or don’t play. Poker play­ers sense weak­ness. If you dis­play any soft­ness, they WILL eat your balls. Trust me, it hurts.

Some­times my fam­ily sched­ule opens up on a night when I am com­pletely tired. It cre­ates such con­flict for me. The uni­verse con­spires to give me a free night, I should rally the troops and seize the free time. How­ever, I don’t feel up for it. Herein lies the rub.

In truth, I can’t bear to pass the oppor­tu­nity to play cards, even if I’m exhausted. I sud­denly have the feel­ing that this will be the last time. If I don’t go now, I’ll never again expe­ri­ence the exhil­a­ra­tion of poker’s body drench­ing adren­a­line rush. (That sounds gay).

Nine times out of ten I go, and nine times out of nine, I lose. Not only that, I start off losing.

After 2 buy-ins, I buckle down. By 2AM, I have actu­ally ral­lied back to even. I con­sider leav­ing, but 2 things cross my mind. First, I hate the idea of play­ing poker for 6 hours and break­ing even. It sounds stu­pid, but I would rather lose than break even. At least I have some­thing to show for my time: an empty pocket. Sec­ond, if I leave now I will never ever in my whole life have the time, energy or means to come back. This will DEFINITELY be my last time ever play­ing poker. Since this IS my last time, might as well go out with a bang. A poker binge, if you will.

On these nights, I don’t leave until the absence of chips states the obvi­ous. Pal, you’re done. At 4AM, I am $400 poorer and ask myself why the fuck I even went in the first place. 3o min­utes later I am home. The moment I step through my front door, I won­der if I have any time next week­end to go back. Instantly I catch myself. What the fuck am I thinking?

If I wait until next week­end, life will get too com­pli­cated and I’ll never get there. Bet­ter go back tomorrow.

I play because I have the bug.

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

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January 22, 2010

Sometimes I need a break from Dockers and fat free salad dressing.

Filed under: Commerce Casino, Home Game, Online Poker, Poker, Winning Streak — Tags: , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 9:21 am

A man can not be sus­tained on good, whole­some fam­ily life alone.  Or, at least, I can’t.  On a reg­u­lar basis I like to head to my local casino, Hol­ly­wood Park.  It’s not just for the poker either. The place is a real melt­ing pot and I get to rub elbows with peo­ple from walks of life I may never have the chance to otherwise.

I know a lot of peo­ple that are alarm­ingly sim­i­lar.  CPAs, den­tists, and an ass­load of regional man­agers. As you might guess, this gets bor­ing.  The casino, on the other hand, is full of char­ac­ters that you would prob­a­bly would never meet any­where but the casino.

I love it.

Play­ing with peo­ple from all walks of life is what makes poker great.  I can’t think of a bet­ter com­mon denom­i­na­tor. I learn more about human­ity at the table than I would at a life­time of Neigh­bor­hood Watch meet­ings.  Okay fine, I don’t go to Neigh­bor­hood Watch meet­ings. That’s what regional man­agers are for. Where else can I hear from an ex-gangleader the way to make money is buy­ing fore­closed homes from HUD, Hous­ing Urban Devel­op­ment or some­thing like that.  Dude was a mil­lion­aire.   Or maybe he was lying.  Either way I don’t care.  I’m def­i­nitely not going to meet the rock tight porn direc­tor at one of these sushi rolling par­ties my wife tells me we’ve been invited to.  Actu­ally maybe I would.  But at the sushi party he’s not going into the details of the girl on girl scene gone bad because one of the actresses had some bad ceviche for lunch.

I play poker to meet peo­ple I nor­mally wouldn’t.

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

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January 20, 2010

Poker is a dream maker

Filed under: Bad Beats, Commerce Casino, Hollywood Park, Home Game, Poker — Tags: , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 4:00 am

At some point in your life, you have to let go of some of your child­hood dreams.  Still 5 foot 3? You can put your NBA dreams to rest. Still play­ing pony league in your 20s? Prob­a­bly won’t go to the MLB. Fail your med­ical boards for the 5th time? Surgery career out the door. Don’t get me wrong. I am fan of “any­thing is pos­si­ble”. I’m a poker player, right? But let’s get real, some­times you can tell things will never happen.

For me, I had a pretty good run as an inde­pen­dent musi­cal artist. I played for some pretty large crowds, basked in the glory of the stand­ing ova­tion and heard my music on TV, film and radio. How­ever, when I turned 30, I could see the writ­ing on the wall. I was never going to be a rock star. 10 years later, the only thing I miss is hav­ing that dream of being a star. Enter poker.

Poker is the dream that never dies. It doesn’t even dis­crim­i­nate. There are sharks of all ages sizes and shapes. 90 year old rocks, wheel chair bound chip slingers, and even the occa­sional blind man with a see­ing eye sweater. You try walk­ing into the Super Bowl all suited up demand­ing your shot. It’s not going to hap­pen. But if you have $10,000 or were lucky enough to suck out on me in one of the bajil­lion satel­lites I played to get into the WSOP, all the power to you. You’re in and get your chance to join the elite ranks of the poker greats. What’s even more entic­ing is that the vast major­ity of WSOP bracelets are won by unknown play­ers. It’s like Rocky every sum­mer in Vegas.

Most of us will never bat against C.C. Sabathia or catch a pass from Brette Favre. But for the rest of our lives, poker play­ers will have a chance to feel like a pro. If you’re   ballsy (and rich), I’m sure a vari­ety of pros from Doyle to Durr would be happy to meet you at Bobby’s room. Prob­a­bly at this very moment. Who knows, you might even beat them in a pot. If that’s big­ger than your poker bud­get, you can go for the glory by chas­ing a bracelet. It’s a more afford­able way to get the rush of play­ing with the pros. And if that isn’t enough, remem­ber you always have a chance to be the “lucky bas­tard” to put Phil Hell­muth on tilt. Poker is truly a dream maker.

I play to keep the big dream alive.

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

For more about mak­ing it big in poker read the fol­low­ing article:

http://www.pokerdownloadlink.com/how-to-win-at-poker/

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January 18, 2010

The Host Gift

Filed under: Home Game, Poker, Texas Hold'em, Wednesday Night Game — Tags: , , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 4:00 am

I finally get an invite to the home game I’ve been sub­tlety lob­by­ing to get into.

This is a group of the cool dad’s from my son’s pre-school. I casu­ally let them know I play poker, and then patiently wait to be invited into the inner cir­cle. It’s like dodge­ball in ele­men­tary school. I des­per­ately want to be included in the fun, but inevitably feel like the last one chosen.

Now that I have the invite, my next con­cern is what to bring for the host gift. This is after all, a friendly game. After too much delib­er­a­tion, I set­tle on a bot­tle of wine. Not the good stuff of course, I want to be gra­cious, not stu­pid. Does this make me a bad per­son? Prob­a­bly, but I’m just try­ing give the right gift for the right sit­u­a­tion. It’s like try­ing to read an oppo­nent. In this sit­u­a­tion I think the B minus wine is enough to drag in the pot.

I arrive at the game, offer my wine to the host and take my seat with other guys. Tonight is going to be good. I am def­i­nitely going to fit in here. Until I don’t.

The guys start com­ment­ing on the wine they are drink­ing. Tan­nin this, vel­vet that. Uh oh. My okay wine is now a tick­ing time bomb ready to expose me as Mr. Cheap. Now I know I am fucked.

I silently accept defeat. I was out­played at the wine game. No big­gie. Just like when I take a lick­ing at the poker table, I do some eval­u­a­tion, make some adjust­ments and try not to repeat the same mistakes.

Thank­fully, these guys aren’t nearly as judg­men­tal as I am. A cou­ple quips about my wine being sub-par, I’m off the hook. And the best news is that while these guys know wine, they don’t know shit about poker. But tonight, I don’t really care. I’m happy to just make new friends. It’s just gravy that these new friends will call a big raise with J8 in early posi­tion.

Even though the game is juicy, I’m just play­ing to make friends and drink (some­one else’s) good wine.

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

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