June 2004

For those of you who read 2+2 on a regular basis there have been several threads started over there by people who have set a goal and document their progress. The one I have followed for quite some time is David Ross’ attempt to make a living playing poker while he waits for job opportunities to become available. Well, why be original when you can copy the success of others?

Here is my sixty day challenge for myself:

Playing a modest ~250 hands a day at $2/$4, generate $2000 in profit over the next sixty days.

I know it doesn’t sound exciting but I started out with $100 in my account and playing .50/$1 and $1/$2 games built that up to $600 or so over several months playing here and there when I got a chance. Sure, I could have given myself a bigger initial bankroll and started out at $2/4 or even $3/$6 (I play $2/$4 and $3/$6 at B&M casinos) but I’m not sure I would have learned as much. Scratching and clawing to turn $100 into a bankroll that you can play higher limits with brings a certain degree of personal achievment.

That sort of brings me to the self-challenge. Although there’s a certain degree of satisfaction to scratching and clawing, I’m looking for something to inspire me to get in front of the screen and play. Something that makes me get serious about taking my game up a notch. I’ve reached that point where it’s starting to feel a bit like a grind.

I picked $2000 because that’s a nice starting bankroll for moving up to $3/$6 and . . . it’s a nice round number. I picked sixty days because I think averaging 250 hands a day is a pretty good pace. Anything more aggressive and I risk going off track the first day I slip and have to make up a previous day’s worth of playing. Here’s how I figure it: $2000 / 60 days is $33.33 a day profit. $33.33/$4 (size of the big bet) = 8.33BB a day. If I can average 3.5BB per 100 hands for sixty days that’s about 238 hands a day. Averaging 3.5BB per 100 hands over 15,000 hands might sound low to some and high to others but with the right tables I don’t think it will be that difficult. Besides, since my goal is not BB/HR based I can always crank up the number of games if I start to fall behind.

So with that . . . here’s the first night’s results:

I played two tables for the first 150 hands and then played three tables for the last 100 or so hands.

Table 1: +$76.25

Table 2: -$25.00

Table 3: +$2.00

Total: +$53.25

That puts me $19.92 ahead of pace. Not spectacular but a nice start.

I guess the funny part was that Table 1 was probably the toughest of the three tables. There were some good players and I had to really keep on my toes and ram and jam the good hands. Table 2 I never seemed to show any good starting hands and I got involved in a few draws that never panned out. Table 3 was just up and down the entire session. Up $20, down $10, etc. The table was a little too tight to make any real money off of.

Well, I’ll keep plugging away. . .

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Despite my less than spectacular performance earlier this week at the Bike NL tournament I wanted to give it another shot. I entered Friday night’s $25 +$5 NL Hold ‘Em tournament. I was a little surprised to see so many people. Final tally would be just shy of 200 players. I came nowhere near placing in the money so I will spare readers the tale of my dramatic battle but I almost made it to the second break which is two hours in so I wasn’t doing too poorly either. In fact, I did no rebuys before the first break and only did the double add-on at the break.

What I did want to share was a wild, wild evening. First off, I walk in and I see Chris Karagulleyan sitting a few tables away. I knew who he was because I had watched him take first place in the WPT Legends of Poker tournament last year. Uh, I’m not liking my chances at this point :-) Actually, I would have loved to have been seated at his table. . . especially condidering the company at my table.

There were two main players who deserve special attention; Angry Asian Guy (AAG) and Older Woman (OW). AAG was a good player but he had no patience for the dealers or even other players. He was grabbing chips out of split pots before people could even count the stacks and the dealer would say “Whoa!” and then AAG would start screaming about how he was correct and . . . he was. But the zen like moment of the evening was when AAG’s female friend came over while he was playing. The lady started making comments in another language while standing to the rear of the players. After the fourth or so comment the dealer politely said “Please, English only at the tables.” AAG goes ballistic. He starts yelling that he hadn’t said a word. Of course, the dealer and several players had to point out that AAG’s female friend is standing behind other players and then making comments to him in a foreign language. He is yelling and screaming about how he was made to feel embarrassed by the dealer’s comments and so the dealer calls over a floorman. “English only!” says the floorman and that ends that.

Older Woman (OW) was, well . . . just not that good. I’m not even sure how describe her. It was obvious that she was playing out of her league. She seemed to play like it was her first game but instead of admitting it, it seemed like she was trying to come off as a more experienced player. She couldn’t follow the game very well, constantly asking how much to her and seeming confused by routine action. She soon became the target of quite a bit of frustration and jokes due to her sometimes headscratching play.

Here’s one of her more famous moments:

Check to her, she raises up to $100, everyone folds except one guy who goes all in with his monster stack of $110 and she folds. Yes, you read that correctly. She folded to a $10 re-raise. The dealer even sat there staring at her and waited quite a long time before mucking her hand just in case she came to her senses. Finally someone broke the silence and said, “Hey, why did you fold to a $10 re-raise?” She answers back “$10? Oh, I thought he raised more.” People were telling that one to their buddies at the break.

Now put AAG and OW at the same table and the fireworks start to fly! AAG is constantly getting into it with her because she’s not quick enough to keep up with the game. She starts to become defensive which only pours more fuel on the fire and pretty soon other players jump in and start yelling at her too. At one point during a heated exchange between her and three or four other players this younger kid at the table says “I’m at a table full of angry old people.” There was a long pause and then the entire table burst out laughing.

But the action didn’t stop there. During the break two players from another table almost threw fists. I’m not sure what the argument was about but there were a lot of accusations of homosexuality.

All in all, I think I played well but I just couldn’t grab any sort of lead and eventually fell victim to the gradual drip of my stack into the blind and ante pool. I will have to say that I did learn a lot about my NL play though. I learned that I suck. Actually, I learned that I need to do some more study. I play it too much like limit poker. Time to hit some $5 SnG NL games online and get some practice in.

Also, just a note about the $25 +$5 game at the Bike: Earlier in the week I played the $20 +$5 and everything doubled in the $25 game except the chips. Rebuys were $10 for $400 in the $20 game and it was $20 for $400 in the $25 game. You can do a single rebuy anytime you have less than $600 and if you have less than $200 you can do a double rebuy. Since they only give you $200 everyone can rebuy the second the tournament starts which leads to a mass call of rebuys before the first hand is even dealt. The guys in the blinds wait for the first hand and then do double rebuys. So, really, even though it’s a $20 or $25 game, you really can’t compete without rebuying. I’m not a huge fan of this structure and I probably won’t be playing the $25 tournaments as they seem like a rip-off compared to the $20.

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