Seeking Sequels

I began the week going to see a sequel (George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead). Then yesterday I wrote kind of a belated sequel to a post I’d written long ago. Today I’m still in “follow up” mode, wanting to continue to discuss various items that came up during the week.

On Tuesday, I wrote a post called “A Heads Up for the WSOP (Courtesy the L.A. Poker Classic)” in which I commented on how over at the L.A. Poker Classic they had followed an interesting double-elimination format for their $10,000 buy-in heads up tournament. I noted that I thought the World Series of Poker might consider following such a format as well since doing so tends to lessen the overall effect of giving players byes, something that becomes necessary if the tourney is not capped at some exponent of two (e.g., 64, 128, 256, 512, etc.).

I heard Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar, winner of the LAPC heads up event, interviewed a couple of times this week (on PokerRoad Radio and the Two Plus Two Pokercast). I’d heard Rajkumar interviewed before -- a very likable, smart guy for whom it is no surprise to hear he had a lot of friends and fans pulling for him on the rail.

On one of the shows he was asked how old he is and he answered “22 and a half.” Childlike? Nerdy? Who cares? I personally am a fan of making note of the half-year.

Rajkumar’s win pushed him up over the $2 million mark in career earnings already (he won the WPT Borgata last September), so not only is he likable, he’s obviously a player. On the Two Plus Two show he explained how he made his way through the losers’ bracket at the LAPC to win the sucker, and pointed out how those over on that side had to win more matches than those who managed to stay in the winners’ bracket. That meant by the time he faced Chris Moore in the final, he’d already won nine or so matches while Moore had only had to win six to get to that point. And, of course, Rajkumar had to beat the previously-undefeated Moore twice to take the title.

Sounded like besides reducing the relative significance of byes, there were other ways the double-elimination format further tempered the luck factor -- especially welcome when the event has a $10,000 buy-in (as is the case for the WSOP heads up event this summer). Also sounded like there were some complaints at the LAPC about the unwieldy nature of the event, which took three long days to complete even though only 111 players competed. That latter problem makes me think there is little chance the WSOP will bother with trying any sort of double-elimination format (since they’ve only allotted three days for the tourney). Understandable, but lamentable.

(The pic, by the way, is from a thread on 2+2 celebrating his win -- Rajkumar has lots of friends/fans over there, for sure.)

On Wednesday, I wrote in “What Do the Numbers Show?” about one statistically improbable session of limit hold’em I had played this week. Had another highly unlikely event occur yesterday while sitting at two six-handed LHE tables ($0.50/$1.00).

I had roared out to a fast start, and in fact was up over 30 bucks within just 100 hands, thanks in large part to having had the good fortune of sitting across from some especially poor players. (The river is no time to bluff check-raise, dontcha know.)

It was right about then when I was dealt in the cutoff at one table. Then, at the other table, I received in the big blind. Just twenty seconds apart, say the hand histories.

At the first table, I open-raised and had both blinds call me. The flop came . The SB bet, the BB raised, I three-bet, and only the BB called. The turn was the , and the BB -- now down to just $1.75 -- check-raised with the last of his stack. The river was a five, and he turned over to take the nearly ten dollar pot.

Meanwhile, at the other table a late position player had raised and I reraised with my pocket rockets from the BB. He called, the flop came , I bet, and he called. The turn was a queen, and we ended up capping it. (I think I was a little agitated from losing at the other table -- not much reason to think I’m good here.) A five came on the river here, too, and I check-called my opponent’s bet. He showed pocket sixes for the flopped set, taking the $13.75 pot.

Nutty stuff. Had a bit more misfortune after that (flopping a set with pocket queens, then losing to 7-4 when he chased down a gutshot), but ended up climbing back up close to my previous high mark for the day before quitting.

February is going pretty well, all things considered. Not as well as January, but still winning. And made Silver Star on PokerStars, too, meaning I’ll have an additional cash bonus to claim once I get to 5,000 FPPs to go along with that deposit bonus I wrote about last week.

(Guinness Book of World Records fans might recognize the above picture -- that’s Roy Sullivan, the U.S. forest ranger who survived being struck by lightning seven times. Quite the occupational hazard, eh?)

Then on Thursday, I was once again “Speaking of . . . Online vs. Live.” There I was soliciting others’ thoughts regarding the different skill levels one encounters online versus live. Got a lot of very thoughtful and enlightening comments from several live game players on that one -- check ’em out.

The general consensus appeared to confirm Bart Hanson’s claim that the play at live games is much, much less tutored than what one normally runs into online, with most saying his suggested 10-to-1 ratio rang true. That is, according to Hanson, a live $5/$10 no-limit hold’em game plays about the same as a $0.50/$1.00 online NLHE game in terms of how savvy one’s competitors tend to be.

Interesting, for sure. I have a Vegas trip planned in April, during which I’ll surely try to play some. It’s hard, though, to imagine just jumping into a game the stakes for which I’m not really mentally prepared to play. When one plays live as rarely as I do, one doesn’t want to go drop a large chunk then have to live with that for several months before going back.

(The above graph from GraphJam, natch.)

Finally, while we’re on the subject of continuations, the ongoing saga of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show should be revived here very soon, with episode 14 just around the corner. Will give a shout here & on the show’s blog when that happens.

As they say, to be continued....

Speaking of . . . Online vs. Live (Part II)

I mentioned here before occasionally Bart Hanson’s podcast Cash Plays which ran for about a year over on PokerRoad Radio. Hanson left PRR back in December and moved his show over to the online training site Deuces Cracked, picking things back up there in mid-January.

Hanson is calling the new show “Deuce Plays” (a title which I’m not too sure about), and it follows pretty much the same format as his previous show, with Hanson having lengthy interviews with various guests. He may be primarily interviewing Deuces Cracked pros and instructors on this new show, but as was the case on PRR, the show is still focused on middle and higher stakes cash games.

(Incidentally, it appears PokerRoad will soon relaunch the Cash Plays show with a new host, Jeremiah Smith.)

As someone who plays almost zero no-limit hold’em (particularly cash games) and certainly doesn’t even come close to playing the stakes Hanson and his guests usually play, I probably shouldn’t find Hanson’s show as interesting as I do. I always somehow find the shows compelling, though, and I think I probably pick up certain tidbits that are of use now and then.

The most recent show (the 2/24/09) features poker pro and coach Tommy Angelo, author of Elements of Poker. I believe it is the first of a two-parter. Some of you might have heard Angelo on the Two Plus Two Pokercast back last August (episode 36), where he was a big hit. If you haven’t read his book or heard him before, you might check out the new show as a good introduction to some of Angelo’s ideas.

Anyhow, like I say I shouldn’t really care for Hanson’s show but I do. Case in point: A couple of weeks ago Hanson had Sean Nolan on as a guest (the 2/10/09 episode), and about 20 minutes into the show the pair were discussing the relative merits of 20-tabling $5/$10 full ring NLHE games versus playing four $25/$50 six-max. tables. What business do I, a guy who generally sticks to playing just two or three limit hold’em games at once, have listening to this debate?

Still, like I say, I’m listening. And frankly, several of the factors that Hanson and Nolan focused on in their discussion -- variance, relative skill levels of opponents, theoretical differences between short-handed and full ring play, and so forth -- are relevant to all of us, no matter what limits or games we’re playing.

One other interesting item came up on that show with Sean Nolan -- really, this was the whole reason I decided to mention Hanson’s show. At the very beginning, Hanson talked about how six months ago he was struggling a bit at the $10/$20 no-limit hold’em tables at the Commerce Casino (in Los Angeles, where the LAPC is currently winding down). In order to “retool” his game decided to move back down to the $5/$10 NLHE tables (a 150-big blind capped game), which he found “a world of difference” with less variance and, apparently, less difficult competition.

“Then I watched your videos,” he told Nolan, referring to the instructional vids Nolan had created for Deuces Cracked, “and then I put in about 80,000 hands at $0.50/$1.00 full ring (which is 100NL).” That’s when Hanson said something I found fairly provocative:

“I think that a $0.50/$1.00 game [online] is way tougher than $5/$10 no-limit [live].”

He asked Nolan for his opinion and he essentially agreed that 10-to-1 ratio sounded “about right” when comparing the relative toughness of online and live play. I recall Isaac Haxton making a similar claim on PokerRoad Radio -- I believe it was last January (the 1/5/08 show) -- where he also suggested something like a 10-to-1 ratio between the skill levels online and live.

I wrote a post a good while back concerning the whole online-vs.-live thing, so I thought I'd make this one a sequel. As someone stuck in a part of the country with no live poker, my live experience has been quite limited and thus I can’t comment with any authority on this issue at all. Additionally, there are differences between the way limit games and no-limit games are played that would likely make it problematic simply to apply the same 10-to-1 ratio over on the limit side.

But are these guys right? Is the difference in skill levels that huge? Are $0.50/$1.00 games online as tough as $5/$10 live?

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Busy, busy, busy. I mentioned last week how I’m helping out with the live blogging of PokerStars’ World Championship of Online Poker. Worked the last four days straight, covering four different events.

Thus far I’ve partnered with fellow bloggers Drizz (Nickle and Dimes), April (This Is Not a Poker Blog), Tuscaloosa Johnny (Poker Nation), and Otis (Up for Poker). All cool cats with whom I’m very glad to be working.

Was kind of a late one last night, so I expect I’ll be dragging some today. Fact is, I’m essentially working two full-time jobs at the moment. I like ’em both, though, so I ain’t complainin’.

Speaking of living out multiple existences, I wanted to share one small observation today inspired by something I heard on Bart Hanson’s Cash Plays. In the car yesterday I happened to listen to Hanson’s interview with Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler from a couple of weeks back (the 8/27/08 episode). Not gonna get into Kessler’s character or anything really having to do with him -- although he is certainly an interesting case. Rather, I just wanted to share something he mentioned about Phil Ivey that caused me to brood briefly over the issue of self-identity and poker.

Kessler played with Ivey back in Atlantic City in the early 90s, mostly Stud/8 and Omaha/8. Hanson asked him some questions about those days, including asking Kessler what he thought of Ivey’s game back then. “He played great,” said Kessler without hesitation. “He always played great?” asked Hanson, a note of incredulity in his voice. “Or do you remember when he was bad?”

Kessler said no, he didn’t remember Ivey ever playing badly, at least when he played with him (when Ivey was in his early 20s). “No, I don’t remember…like I don’t remember him as that ‘Jerome’ or any of that stuff. He must have already been past that.”

The reference to “Jerome” there is, of course, to the pseudonym Ivey played under when he was legally too young to play in casinos. In order to play, Ivey used a fake ID with the name “Jerome Graham,” and he has talked in interviews about how everyone in Atlantic City knew him as Jerome until he turned 21. Hanson’s questions seem to imply that “Jerome” wasn’t the consistently stellar player Phil Ivey is, as does Kessler’s reference to those earlier days (before he played with him) as perhaps corresponding to what Hanson was alluding with his follow-up question.

It occurred to me hearing Kessler refer to how Ivey had “already been past that” earlier phase in his life and poker playing career in which he was known as “Jerome” that every poker player goes through similar phases in his or her development. In other words, we all have memories of earlier versions of ourselves as poker players, and in most cases those earlier versions are probably much different from the idea we have of ourselves today.

And, at some point, we probably all had to get “past that” earlier self in order to improve -- or at least endure -- as poker players.

What do you recall of that former self? Wouldn’t it be great to play him or her heads-up?

Levels of Difficulty

Was listening the other day to the latest episode of Bart Hanson’s Cash Plays (8/20/08) -- a consistently smart & interesting podcast, in my opinion -- which includes a good interview with cash game pro Gabe Thaler. Among other topics covered in the show, Hanson asks Thaler a question about playing deep-stacked no-limit hold’em.

The question actually follows up on something discussed in an earlier episode of Cash Plays and concerns the relatively rare situation of having to fold a set in no-limit hold’em. I won’t go through the entire question, but essentially Hanson asks Thaler how he feels about the argument that in order to play deep-stacked, high-stakes NLHE, one has to be able to fold a set if the circumstances warrant doing so.

I love Thaler’s response: “My feeling is that I don’t like to play in any poker game where people fold sets. I try and find other poker games, ’cos that’s just too f*cking good.”

Thaler brings up the same point a couple of other times in the interview -- that basically it is silly to play in games against tough opponents if there are other, less difficult games available.

Like most of us, I’m miles and miles away from the stakes of the games Hanson usually discusses on his show, but I still think I get something from the discussions. And that advice from Thaler -- that one really should seek out weaker opponents and avoid tougher ones whenever possible -- makes sense no matter what the stakes. Had a short little session of pot-limit Omaha on Bodog yesterday that confirmed the idea, in a way.

I’ve been wanting to play PLO on Bodog more often, but haven’t all that much of late for a couple of reasons. One is that I have some sort of firewall issue happening on my laptop which prevents me from being able to log on to Bodog.

I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled and still get the same error message. I phoned their support -- who I have to say, was very, very supportive, taking an inordinately long time with me trying to figure out what my problem was -- but we couldn’t resolve the issue. Most other programs work fine (including other online poker sites), but there are a couple which are behaving similarly, so I’m sure it is something on my end. I’ll figure it out one day, perhaps with the help of my tech-savvy brother.

The other reason I haven’t played that much on Bodog is that usually there aren’t too many PLO tables running at my preferred limits ($25 and $50 max. buy-in). I don’t play in the evening that often, so it’s usually daytime when I log in to find at best two and often just one table of PLO25 running -- six-handed, no less, and usually full.

So often I’ll just log in, take a look around, then log out and head elsewhere.

Yesterday I had just a short while to play -- a half-hour, max. -- and so took a peek over on Bodog to see what was happening. Again, just two tables of 6-max. PLO25 (both full), and a single table of 6-max. PLO50 (also full). Meanwhile, there were four tables of PLO10 running: three 6-max. & one full ring, all mostly full. So I took a seat really just out of a vague desire to play a hand or two on Bodog.

Stepping down a notch stakes-wise is often difficult for most of us. In fact, it might be one of the many paradoxes of poker that good players step down in stakes all the time, while poor players don’t (and/or move up when they shouldn’t).

As a part-time, recreational player, I’m tend not to be possessed by ambition to move up in stakes (although being human, I do contemplate the idea now and again). I know, however, I don’t want to move down -- at least not to the PLO10 tables -- and so as I took the first few hands was considering the exercise a strictly temporary, “special occasion”-type event. I was also preparing myself mentally to be frustrated. Not that the tables at PLO25 and PLO50 are necessarily dominated by brainiacs (doubt I’d be there, if they were), but I did figure to encounter a slightly higher-than-average amount of less tutored play at the lower level.

A windy preamble to what is essentially the story of a single opponent and two hands. In both hands, I’m playing from the blinds and manage to luck into hitting the nuts. So both presented me with the challenge of trying to get paid from early position with a big hand.

In the first hand, three others had limped, and I had in the big blind. I checked, and the flop came . The small blind checked, and I went ahead and bet the pot (a measly forty cents). Now what I’m expecting here is for the player with the set -- or in some cases, two pair -- to call (or, maybe, raise), and the guy who also has Broadway to raise it up. Or, perhaps, everyone to fold -- which would not be bad at all. As nice a flop as that is, it is not the most comfortable spot to be in when acting from early position.

Anyhow, I get two callers (the small blind went away). The turn was the . I was still good, but now there’s the spade flush to worry about as well. I went ahead and pumped $1.60 (a pot-sized bet) in the middle. I’ll admit I’m influenced here by the relatively small stacks. I only had $12.45 when the hand began, so there was not much reason to be cute. Again, both of my opponents just called. One could also have Broadway here, but I’d have expected a raise if so. Pot up to $6.40.

The river was a good one -- the . Worst I can do is chop. In these Bodog hand histories, there’s a timestamp for every single action, so I can tell you with confidence that I waited exactly ten seconds before acting on that river card. That was deliberate. I then bet one dollar.

Now I’m thinking this is the most transparent sort of value bet imaginable. No one is gonna buy this, are they? But to my delight, the player to my left called my bet two seconds later. Then the other guy -- ShowMeMoe -- waited twelve seconds before raising the pot with a bet of $10.40.

Oh, well. So I will be chopping. I called, of course, and the player to my left folded. I showed my nut straight, and ShowMeMoe turned over . Wha? He’d flopped a pair of aces (and a pretty hopeless straight draw), turned a flush draw, then rivered a jack-high straight. I won the $28.05 pot -- a nice one by my standards, never mind the stakes.

About ten hands later I was in the small blind with a pretty good holding -- . Three limped, I completed, and the big blind checked. The flop came . I wasn’t too interested in this one, but when ShowMeMoe bet a quarter into the fifty-cent pot and no one else came along, I decided to take one off. The turn brought the . How do you do? Broadway. Nice to meet you again.

I paused just a bit (six seconds this time), then bet the pot. ShowMeMoe took two seconds to call. Pot $3.00. The river was the and again I had the good fortune of ending the hand with the nuts. I took four seconds to bet the pot, and ShowMeMoe took half that long to call me. His hand? . Top two and another busted flush. $8.95 to Shamus.

Up over $20, I folded a few more hands then took off, wondering how much less I’d have made if I’d played those exact same hands at a higher limit. In both hands, the only “subtle” play I made was the dollar value bet on the end of the first one, and to my way of thinking, that was almost pathetic in its blatancy. Even making the nuts in both, I really shouldn’t have made more than a pittance given the other hands’ having come up short (not to mention my being out of position).

Of course, I’d planned going in to keep it simple. Which frankly ain’t that bad of an approach in PLO25 and PLO50, either.

In the end, the stakes you play don’t matter nearly as much as the ability of yr opponents (relative to yr own, that is). So find those ShowMeMoe shmoes -- or PLO games in which players try to bluff you off yr obvious nuts -- wherever you can. And if they’re folding sets in yr NLHE game, do like Thaler and find another table.

Landed; or, the Calm Before the Storm

I’m here. And I’m connected.

Vera dropped me off at the airport yesterday in the a.m. No fun leaving her behind, though she’ll be coming out for a week later on. Cell phones and the superfast interweb makes being away a little less difficult as well.

As I checked in I saw signs regarding extra cost for heavy baggage. Up to 50 lbs. was fine, but go over and you start paying ($50 for 51-70 lbs.; $100 for 71-100 lbs.; and no bags over 100 lbs. allowed at all). I tried to gauge the one bag I was checking -- a mammoth unit in which I think I myself could fit -- then fretted for a moment when I saw the scale climb up over 50. The agent didn’t charge me, though, I think because I might’ve bought the ticket early enough to escape paying that new, hefty travelers’ rake.

Settled into the very back row of the huge 737 with a printout of James McManus’ CardPlayer columns in which since late 2006 he’s been serializing his history of poker. (The completed book is due in 2009.) My neighbors were a friendly, middle-aged French couple, and I spent idle moments trying to decipher some of their conversations. Might’ve raised an eyebrow when just after we’d crossed the Mississippi she surprisingly gave him a fairly throrough-looking manicure -- clipping, filing, and moisturizing. Huh. Don’t see that every day.

That was right about the time I was reading about how the French game poque had made its way to New Orleans at the turn of the 19th-century. Poque was that 20-card game with four players, each of whom was dealt five cards from a deck that was essentially just the A, K, Q, J, and 10 in each of the four suits. McManus symbolically dates poque as having arrived on July 4, 1803, the date Thomas Jefferson learned that Napoleon had agreed to terms regarding the Louisiana Purchase. (The 52-card deck would come a few decades later.)

By the time we’d flown over the area for which Jefferson had successfully negotiated, I noticed a dark-haired boy with glasses standing next to me, patiently waiting to get the attention of the stewardesses gossiping behind us. I looked at his purple T-shirt: “Mrs. Davis’ 2nd Grade.” Finally the adult noticed him, and he meekly asked “Ma’am, are we going to fly over the Grand Canyon?”

Glad to say for his sake that yes, indeed, we did. And not too long after that I made my way through McCarran International, reunited with my monstrous bag, and grabbed a cab to my new digs.

Ended up over at the Rio for awhile later in the afternoon, really just scoping the place out. Lingered for a moment at the Poker Room near the entrance. Was tempted to hop into the 3/6 LHE game, but decided I was too mentally wound up for it. Instead just made my way through Carnival World and Ipanema Court and headed back toward the spacious convention rooms where the WSOP will be staged. All deserted for now, save a few Rio personnel flitting about. Brightly lit and eerily quiet. A stark contrast to smoky roar of the casino and sportsbook through which I’d just traversed. And, of course, to the bedlam that we’ll all be witnessing later this week.

Have some preliminary stuff with PokerNews here in the next few days. Not sure yet what my schedule will be once things get crankin’, though I’m certain I’ll be working either Friday or Saturday.

This year Day 1 (Friday) only has a single event scheduled, the World Championship Pot Limit Hold ‘em event whose $10,000 buy-in likely means the field will be limited to just a few hundred. Saturday is when the real insanity should start, with the first of those several $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘em events (Event No. 2), for which they’ve actually scheduled two “Day Ones” in anticipation of a huge field. I heard Bart Hanson over on Cash Plays say he thought there could be as many as 5,000 entrants into that one. Seems hard to imagine, but he may be right. (Here’s the full 2008 World Series of Poker schedule.)

Will be running around today meeting up with various peoples, including some of that Pokerati crowd. Wouldn’t mind playing a little low limit Hold ‘em at some point today, if I can manage it. Probably be a good idea to try to get some of that in before week’s end, I’d think.

I know by mid-June I’ll probably feel differently about everything. But sitting here in this tranquil moment, a few days before the WSOP tsunami crashes over us all, I go ahead and admit it -- I can hardly wait!

Is PLO the “Game of the Future”?

Recently listened to online whiz Brian “sbrugby” Townsend interviewed on the 4/29 episode of PokerRoad’s Cash Plays. During the last part of the interview, host Bart Hanson asks Townsend some questions about pot limit Omaha, and the discussion is a good one. Definitely worth hearing, if you’re a PLO fan, I think.

The pair address a number of PLO-related topics, including playing aces, short-stacking (how to play & how to combat against), deep-stacked play, bluff-raising, full ring vs. 6-max play, folding after flopping the nuts, freerolling, and even PLO/8. They also touch on that myth about PLO being a game of coin flips. Regarding the latter, Townsend sounds as though he agrees with Jeff Hwang’s observation in Pot-Limit Omaha: The Big Play Strategy that PLO “is not a 50-50 game” and that “it is a pure fallacy that you have to be in a gambling situation when the money goes in.”

Near the end, Hanson asks Townsend what he thinks about the notion that “PLO is the game of the future.” This is an idea that Bob Ciaffone was suggesting way back in the early 80s shortly after the game was first formulated at the Golden Nugget by Robert “Chip Burner” Turner and -- as Ciaffone tells it in Omaha Poker -- that “Oriental lady from the Seattle area named Gwen” (nicknamed the “Dragon Lady”).

Hanson, of course, is referring more directly to recent buzz surrounding PLO, with new interest in the game being perhaps most directly influenced by all of those ongoing high-stakes ($200/$400) games occurring on Full Tilt Poker. (That photo above shows Townsend taking down a $430K pot in one of those games vs. David Benyamine and Tom “Durrrr” Dwan.)

“I think PLO is a beautiful game,” is Townsend’s reply to Hanson’s question. Hanson chuckles in response. “It’s a lot more interesting that no limit Hold ’em,” he adds.

“Really?” says Hanson, a bit incredulous sounding.

Townsend goes on to explain that in his opinion, “no limit Hold ’em really needs antes,” especially online. He notes that one finds such games in live play quite often, and that it adds an extra layer of strategy that makes the game much more fun for him. He doesn’t elaborate, but I think he also is implying that antes would force people to play more (and different) hands in different positions, thereby adding some of those “nuances and subtleties” to NLHE that Townsend was remarking upon earlier in the interview as characteristic of PLO.

“PLO doesn’t need antes because it has that deceptive factor that you think you can play so many hands when in all actuality you can’t.” It is, as Ciaffone dubbed it long ago, the “action game.”

Funny how the “deceptive factor” to which Townsend refers (if I understand him correctly) in fact concerns how one can deceive oneself more easily in PLO than in other games, not to the strategy of trying to deceive others. Although that’s a big part of the game, too.

Dunno if PLO is the “game of the future” or not, but anecdotally-speaking I do believe it has risen in popularity over the last few months, as I am routinely seeing more PLO tables running when I go online these days.

Which is good for me. ’Cos I do like the action.