2011 poker goals

Well its about time for the annual poker goals. I did ok on my 2010 goals.

This year was really held up by lack of playing time. Even more than other years. So the main goal for 2011 will just be to sort out the distractions and get focused and play more.

Live I did ok. I'm pretty well established at $1/$2 live. Hopefully I can play more live. It would be great to be able to take a shot at $2/$5.

Online I hardly played at all after May. So try to get reestablished online. I ran well when I did play. Online was just a casualty of everything that was going on. I would like to play some heads up online and I may have more to say about that in the near future.

I'd like to get some reading in. Reread no limit hold 'em theory and practice; and at least one new poker book. I have a few in mind I'd like to read.

customer service in government run poker

I wanted to sign up for PlayNow to score the easy 100% sign up bonus at the time. Alas it is BC residents only, I'm in Nova Scotia. Oh well, I did notice on their site though they said they would be launching poker and could play against people from coast to coast.

So from the web site I asked about poker and when it would be ready from coast to coast. I might be interested in getting in on this. So check out the exchange.

From: Consumer Services
Date: Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 2:33 PM
Subject: RE: can I play in Nova Scotia? [ ref:00D8bj6y.5008Ck5Gz:ref ]
To: "Rob"


Hello Rob:

Thank you for contacting BCLC with your inquiry regarding ePoker. We regret the delay in responding.

We are mandated to ensure that players who register for PlayNow.com are 19 years of age and residents of British Columbia.

Information surrounding ePoker will be released to the public as it becomes available. Please refer to www.bclc.com for more details regarding the lottery jurisdictions that will be participating in ePoker.

We appreciate the time you have taken to contact us, and thank you for your interest in PlayNow.com.

Consumer Services, BCLC
74 West Seymour Street
Kamloops, BC V2C 1E2
T 1 866 815 0222 F 250 828 5646
consumerservices@bclc.com
bclc.com



--------------- Original Message ---------------
From: Rob
Sent: 30/09/2010 6:31 PM
To: consumerservices@bclc.com
Subject: can I play in Nova Scotia?

It looked like the poker link said from coast to coast could play on playnow. I'm in Nova Scotia, can I sign up?

Thanks


Consumer Services, BCLC
74 West Seymour Street,
Kamloops, B.C. V2C 1E2
T 1-866-815-0222 F 250.828.5646
consumerservices@bclc.com
bclc.com


ref:00D8bj6y.5008Ck5Gz:ref

Did you see that!? 33 days to reply with a canned response to a completely standard question. Welcome to government monopoly online poker. DMV, take a number.

home poker

I played in a home game for the first time this weekend. A guy at work had a game with some of his friends and he was light a couple of players. Somehow he heard that I play so he invited me.

It turned out pretty well. It was a tournament a $10 SNG with rebuys. There were 7 of us. I managed to take it down without having to rebuy. I made $70 profit woo hoo! The play was about what I expected at a home game, less tough than $1/$2 NL at the local casino.

I tried to be friendly my first time out [well except winning it of course lol] and I let a lot of stuff go i.e. string bets, people talking about the hand in progress, people checking cell phones for messages while in a hand, people talking and inattentive that it was their turn. I'm not sure if I'll be invited back oh well, maybe as a spare player if the host doesn't have enough regs.

I had a good time. If I play again in this home game I will insist we play with my Kem cards. The host had common cards and after I've been using the nice casino quality Kem cards you'll never want go back to ordinary playing cards.

PokerStars WBCOOP Blogger Freeroll

All right another blogger freeroll. As usual I'll endeavour to play. I haven't played online much of late and also cut back on live slightly. I've been trying to work on some other projects and get them moved along then I'll be able to play more again.

government run online poker

Some bad news out of Washington State recently. Players there can no longer play for money on PokerStars. Not a good development, especially considering similar type developments in France, Italy, Belguim etc. I would not be surprised if most or all of the remaining US states also move to shut out Stars, Tilt, UB etc. to favor local poker monopolies.

Maybe it was inevitable that this great thing we had going, our global community of players, would be ruined and shut down by governments around the world.


In Canada I'm not looking forward to the government taking over online poker. This is what us players will have to look forward to in a government monopoly.


Ontario lotto insiders accused of stealing $12.5M ticket

Ontario lotto insider steals $5.7M ticket and gets 1 year jail

Play with other people's money on PlayNow in BC


I expect government online poker will be exactly the same. Self dealing, lax security, light to no penalties for cheating insiders and their accomplices, turning a blind eye to reports of cheating and abuse, "take a number" DMV attitude to service. I'm not looking forward to what looks like the coming era of government monopoly online poker.

flush jackpot

At my local card room there's something called the flush jackpot. I never really paid much attention to it. I understood there was a ballot or something.

Anyway the way it works is if you lose flush over flush and both cards play for both players then the losing player gets to put his name on a ballot. Then from Sunday-Wednesday at 6, 8, 10, 12 PM there's a draw and if you are in the room at the time your name is drawn then you win. If the drawn name is not present then the jackpot for next week at that time increases by $50. If the jackpot is won then next time it resets back to $50.

So I ended up with a ballot for the first time. On the hand I limped with 87cc on the button in a multiway pot. The flop was 6c 9c 2c I believe. There was a bet and raise before me. I made it $110 with $80 behind. The original better in EP went all in for his remaining $65. The middle position guy then moved all in; he had me covered.

I thought about it for a bit and decided to call. I figured if I called preflop I have to stack off on this flop and I was always drawing live with an open ended straight flush draw. If the other guy had a set then we would be drawing live to crack the super bad beat jackpot for $80K at the time.

After the money was all in we showed and the EP guy had Kc 5c. The middle position guy who moved all in had Ac 9 for top pair and the nut flush draw. As it happened blanks slid off and EP took the main pot. Luckily EP was short and I still made around $70 profit in the side pot. Plus since I lost the main pot flush over flush I got a ballot.


Looking at the flush jackpot board I noticed the Tuesday 10 PM was $650 and the Wednesday 10 PM draw was $500. The other times were pretty low. So I went there Tuesday and Wednesday for short sessions. As it happened I didn't hit, but I was fortunate to win a bit at the tables while I was there. On the Tuesday the winner was a likable woman regular who hit the $650 so that was all right. I don't think I'd been there on a Tuesday or Wednesday before. It was quieter than on Friday-Saturday but still there were 3-4 tables going.

Straddle

I recently straddled for the first time.

I was thinking of doing the occasional straddle. The way it works in my poker room at $1/$2 is it is a live straddle to $4 and you can raise if you wish on your straddle.

I was thinking of when to straddle. In general I don't mind if people straddle although I've had to think about how it is different than a $2 blind. It's safe to say that I seldom straddle myself.

So I figured this is about right. If the table is loose and friendly with a good amount of banter; if 3+ people are straddling every round; if I'm up at least $100 then I'll straddle once.

Last time out it was all in place so with some trepidation I put in the $4 from UTG before the cards came out. I was dealt T5. Luckily no raise and 7 of us saw the flop. The flop was ten high. I bet $20 into the $28 pot. 1 caller and everyone else folded.

Then before the turn one guy who was talkative finally noticed that I had straddled. It caught him by surprise and he made a comment. I made a little joke about me being so friendly and talkative and outgoing that I naturally wanted to straddle. That got some snickers.

Back to the hand the turn was a low blank and it was checked through. The river was an Ace. I felt that was a good card for me and I bet $35 into the $68 pot. Opponent quickly folded and luckily I won a nice pot with a trashy hand I'd never normally play in early position.

randomness in the cards

I've been thinking some about randomness lately and how it occurs naturally.

For example in hold'em there's a lot of randomness just in the cards. I don't mean that the shuffle is clean and your hand is random. I mean kind of within the hand.

Suppose you decide you want to vary your use of continuation betting on the flop. You decide that instead of cbet 100% of the time you'll cbet 75% of the time. ok, now how to determine the 75%.

Well that's where your cards come in. In hold'em there's the two cards. You get one first then the next one. Let's call the second card the "top" card.

In the top card of course there are 4 suits. So you could randomize your flop cbet by using the rule "if the top card is a non-heart then cbet". That's pretty easy and when playing live it's useful because you've already put your down cards into your memory. So you don't have to remember some additional second hand off a watch or something.

It works with the distribution of pocket pairs as well. Suppose you decide you are going to LRR with Aces some amount of the time in early position. ok, well there's 6 ways of course to make AA. Of those there's 1 way to make the black aces. So 1/6 about 17% of the time you could LRR with the black Aces. If this seems high you can cut it in half by using black aces with the top card the ace of spades. Now you're down to about 8%.

In addition to your cards there are other natural sources of randomness. On PokerStars and other sites there's a hand # in the top left corner for each hand. Well you can use the last 2 digits of this number as a percentage random number.

When playing live your seat number is typically random. It's just the open seat at your table when you arrive. So half the time you're in an even seat 2,4,6,8,10 and half in odd 1,3,5,7,9. You could use the hour of the clock time which is also even or odd to determine a match half the time. For example 10:25 in seat 4 is a match. 10:25 in seat 7 is not a match. 11:33 in seat 9 is a match. Using the example above with AA you could use + seat match to cut your LRR frequency in half again black aces + top card spade + seat number match comes out to about 4% of the time if you want to do something pretty infrequently.

Caro's Book of Poker Tells

I recently read another poker book. It was Caro's Book of Poker Tells by Mike Caro. I'd heard good things about it from other authors. It was a good book. Although I've found playing I haven't been able to apply too many of the concepts. It does remind me of some stuff that I should work on and be careful about. Lately though playing live I've been trying to observe my opponents more closely to pick up some cues if they are strong or how they feel about their hand. I feel like I've gotten a bit better at it.

The book was interesting. It was written before the hold'em boom. Caro is recognized as among the best draw poker players in the world. So a lot of the examples were draw. But that's fine getting away from hold'em helps to think about the poker concept so it's good for that.

I admit I'm from the Moneymaker era. Before my poker time though the most popular games were different. Many of them are still played. here's How to Play 7 Card Stud.

Playing Pot Limit

A nice thing about playing $25 NL on PokerStars is that's the first level where pot limit is also spread. I've been running quite hot at $25 NL so it's great to start out on an upswing. I noticed from the lobby that the PL games often have a high flop percentage so I wanted to mix in some PL too if there's a game that looks good.

So I found a table and I'm off to a good start. This was my first hand at pot limit.

PokerStars Pot-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (9 handed)

MP1 ($25)
MP2 ($4.75)
MP3 ($4)
CO ($18.65)
Button ($5.85)
SB ($3.50)
Hero (BB) ($25)
UTG ($9.75)
UTG+1 ($16.10)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Jc, Js
4 folds, MP3 calls $0.25, 2 folds, SB bets $0.50, Hero raises to $1.75, 1 fold, SB raises to $3, Hero raises to $4.25, SB calls $0.50 (All-In)

Flop: ($7.25) 9h, 4s, 8s (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($7.25) 4h (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($7.25) 9c (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $7.25 | Rake: $0.35

Results:
SB had Qs, Ah (two pair, nines and fours).
Hero had Jc, Js (two pair, Jacks and nines).
Outcome: Hero won $6.90


yay, off to a good start! I could get used to this pot limit thing, small sample size though.

And for some more pot limit here's How to Play Pot Limit Omaha.

online poker coming to the Canadian provinces

I saw a story recently where Loto-Québec is going to launch online poker. I also read that Ontario is thinking of launching a similar site.

To some this might seem like a good thing. It would seem to legitimize online poker more.

For me I'm concerned about it. Right now things are pretty good for online poker players in Canada. You can deposit money to the sites easily, [I'm told] you can withdraw your money easily and the banks will take the cheque no problem, we can play on whatever sites we choose for real money in the privacy of our homes without being hassled by the government about it. While online we can play against other Canadians or anyone in the world for that matter in cash games of any stakes or in play money, small buyin, and up to High Stakes Poker Tournament.

Here's what I'm concerned could happen if the Canadian provinces attempt to muscle in on the online poker scene. First the lotto corp declares legal monopoly rights over online poker. They make it illegal to play online for real money and pressure ISPs to block access to PokerStars, UB, Full Tilt, etc.

With only being able to play on the provincial lotto sites players would be required to enter their SIN number to be able to play. This becomes important below.

With a legal monopoly and a government agency running it and a limited player base the sites, games, security, software, support etc. will all suck. Rake will be prohibitive and it will be exactly like lotto tickets - the only people able to win will be favored insiders whose blatant cheating is disregarded.


Speaking of rake, with player SIN numbers the lotto will treat won pots as T4 taxable income while disregarding money lost at the tables. It could play out something like this.


A casual player sits down at $25 NL with $25. He then loses down to $10. Then he gets all in on the flop with a flush draw and catches on the river to double up to $20. He then leaves down $5 right? No the $10 he won in the all in is sent on a T4 in January as raw income and he has to pay $5 tax [at 50% tax, standard in Canada]. So he really lost $10. By requiring players to give their SIN number to play they can basically make it a raw cash grab from the captive players.


So all in all I hope this doesn't happen. Right now things are pretty good for Canadian online players and we don't need some government bureaucrats coming in to take it over and ruin it. A lot of bad could come of this and not much good.

on acid? uh no

I was playing $1/$2 at the local casino last night. It was around 11:30 PM or so.

So between hands, this guy two seats to my left asks me if I'm on acid. what the?? First I asked if he was talking to me. He said he was. He said he'd been at the table for two hours and during that time I hadn't played a hand or spoken. I guess he thought probably jokingly that I must have been spaced out on an acid trip to act like that.

Alas he was incorrect. I wasn't on anything. I do play tighter than most of my $1/$2 live opponents. Although at 25 hands an hour live that's only 50 hands without being dealt anything. Anyone who plays on the Internet knows you can go card dead for considerably longer than 50 hands. Although I'm sure I was involved in a couple of hands the previous two hours, he just didn't notice.

It's true I usually don't jump into the ongoing table banter. I'm not unfriendly, but I'm not real talkative. A lot of the regulars know each other well and so I'm not really part of that clique. And that's fine. I do talk, we got talking about pro football, pro hockey, where to buy Kem cards locally in Halifax, and my card protector [it's a New York Jets challenge coin I got on ebay]. I guess he just missed it.

He was pretty good natured and I didn't take it personally. Although the drug chat continued among some of them; and the guy to my direct left was going on for around an hour about how he'd like to go out for "a smoke". I don't know why he just didn't step out if he wanted a cigarette. I'm a bit slow on the uptake since as I was about to leave he and the guy two seats to my left did leave for their smoke. He asked me if I wanted to join them for a doobie. I politely declined and said I was leaving shortly and would be driving. lol


I don't normally talk about bad beats on this site. After all nobody cares about your bad beats. But this one I put on a guy last night at the casino was pretty bad. I'm dealt KK in the big blind with around $275. A loose kind of spaz player made it $5 in early position. Around 3 people call. Small blind who has around the same as me raises it to $25. I reraise to $75. Everyone folds and SB shoves for over $200. I didn't really think and quickly called. I've never folded kings preflop. We roll and of course he shows AA, lol.

Then an Ace flops and I'm thinking well I just dropped a buyin. The turn is some blank and the dealer mentions that I now have a flush draw. Of course the river is another diamond and I win the nearly $600 pot with runner runner flush lol. Horrible, an Internet hand. I felt bad about it but what can you do. Before the flop I was thinking I'd lost three times in a row preflop all in to overpairs [always to short stacks] so maybe I'd get my 25% here. Opponent said nothing and just stormed out, perhaps to the blackjack tables. That was a mistake. I would have quickly reloaded full if I was at a table where I could get it all in preflop with Aces.

smart poker players

I can`t think of a prominent poker player who is clearly dumb. But I can think of some smart ones. Action Dan Harrington former competitive chess player. Chris Ferguson PhD in math. Ed Miller worked at Microsoft. The great man David Sklansky is clearly a genius; which is why playing poker is clearly a game of skill.

k I`m lazy and taking the path of least resistance here. But I`ve always dreamed of taking a shot. $22 is over my bankroll so I'd love to have a chance.


I have a  new computer plugged in after my old PC died. My Dell inspiron is running pretty well so far. Lots of poker stuff to download and install including HEM (had to install postgres first and separately because of windows 7 install glitch); PokerStars (was able to re-import my old notes, sweet); UltimateBet (now that my Stars reload bonus has expired I should play at UB again); pokerstove (I calculated that 72o vs KK has 12% equity, that hand came up playing live last weekend; 72o has 11% equity against AA, I guess because it's harder to make a wheel).

One issue is my new PC doesn't have MS office. I tried OpenOffice and that's fine for the spreadsheets but my old Access poker MDB won't load. I got a 60 day trial of office so that buys me a bit of time but I need to come up with some scheme. I may just use HEM only for results and put my live results just into a big spreadsheet. So basically get by without Access.

PokerStars blogger championship

The blogger freeroll is running again this year. I missed it last year. It looks like a week long event this time so I should be able to find time to participate. This is traditionally a very good freeroll with large overlay. The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 877925