Comments from the Peanut Gallery

This has been the week of making something out of nothing for your humble gumshoe.

Told you on Monday about winning some minor scratch after scoring free entries into a couple of tournies on Carbon Poker.

I also mentioned a week ago how I’d jumped into a freeroll on the relatively-new fantasy sports site, Draft Day. Thanks in large part to that offensive outburst by New Orleans on against the New York Giants on Monday night, I snuck into the money in that one, too, meaning I now have another tiny roll ($9) over there with which to try to learn a little more about the fantasy thing.

Then yesterday I hopped into one of those “Fast Fifty Freezeout” tournies on Hero Poker. I had not been faring too well over there of late at the nickel-and-dime cash tables, I’m afraid. Meanwhile, I’ve accumulated a ton of free tickets into these tiny MTTs and so decided to ensure at least a break-even day by trying one of those.

There were 108 entered into the Fast Fifty, called such because of the relatively fast structure (five-minute levels) and fifty-cent entry. As it happened, I went deep and in fact had a great shot at winning but came up short to take runner-up.

Given how the last hand of heads-up went -- I raise-shoved a nine-high flop with top pair, got called by 10-5 for middle pair of fives, then watched tens come on both the turn and river -- it would be tempting to say I deserved to win but fell victim to bad luck. In truth, though, there was a hand earlier in which I’d folded middle pair to my opponent’s flop shove, then he showed he was drawing to a flush. Woulda shoulda coulda.

Still, earned a few more bucks to add to the small Hero roll. Pure profit! Infinite ROI!

I continue stubbornly to add entries (handwritten) into my little ledger of online play. Yesterday I did what I have done at the end of every month since I started playing online back in 2004, tallying up the month’s total and writing that figure down as well. Then I turn the pages back and chuckle when I compare current totals to what I was playing for before.

Not that I had ever really moved higher than low limits previously, but I’m having to make a conscious mental effort now to make the amounts seem meaningful to me. Or “real,” even, given the somewhat theoretical nature of the idea of cashing out. Whereas before, when I’d slowly accumulate and cash out from time to time, such an effort wasn’t needed.

Had an exchange on Twitter a few days ago in which someone referred to having a little bit on these sites with which to play as an “itch scratcher,” and I said I thought that was a good way of describing it. Passing the time is what we’re doing. Just snacking.

Still, it’s fun to play, not to mention win. Even when it’s just for peanuts.

Crashing the Free Games

You might have heard something about two weeks ago about how the Las Vegas-based South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa had started an online poker site where they planned -- among other offerings -- to run some freeroll qualifiers to next year’s World Series of Poker Main Event.

I looked into the site a little last week prior to its official launch yesterday. It’s actually on that same Zen Entertainment Network on which one finds Rise Poker, UFC Poker, WWE Poker, the National League of Poker (NLOP), and others. That meant that since I already signed up for a Rise account before, I didn’t need to again in order to log into the South Point Poker software.

All of these sites not only share player bases but the same software, too, so I really didn’t need to download the South Point Poker client at all as the only difference between it and Rise was “SP” on the backs of the cards. But I did, anyway.

Last night I noticed some tweets about South Point Poker finally going live and that first WSOP ME satellite freeroll happening, and so I ended up registering and playing. Was kind of fun for a while, then more than a little frustrating. But the frustration part was mostly on my end (I explain below).

I’d played a little on the Rise Poker site before. Also earlier in the evening, before the tourney started, I messed around on the South Point version, too. I chatted with players to discover they were logged in via Rise. So I was already somewhat familiar with where things were.

Those of you who’ve taken a look at the Rise site know that it’s not the greatest interface, especially when compared to what a lot of us are used to. But it is somewhat manageable. The ads around the sides of the table aren’t really that distracting to me, nor are the commercials they run during breaks. (Sucker does seem to use a lot of computing power, though, when compared to the PokerStars client or others.)

The slider for betting is a little awkward to use, and it is actually hard sometimes to tell how much others have bet. Particularly for the player sitting in the seat on the left side of the table, near the “Rise” logo (which appears even with the South Point client).

For instance, here’s a shot of a bet in which the total was obscured by the logo. You can kind of count the chips here, but there was one hand later on last night when this design flaw posed a genuine problem for me.

I had opened with a raise from middle position and it had folded back to a relative short stack in the big blind who like this guy reraised all in, and I could not tell how much his bet was for. The total pot amount is displayed at the top of the table, so I guess I could have done some math to figure out the total of the shove, but I didn’t and just ended up letting the hand go.

Speaking of this whole freerollin’-ZEN experience, I mentioned a few months back that I knew someone who had a lot of fun playing on the NLOP site. She’d won a couple of tourneys and had checks for $10 or $20 mailed to her, which added to her enjoyment. I could see perhaps spending more time on the network and exploring a bit more, especially if the software were more palatable.

This is making me think a bit of the posts Kim of Infinite Edge Gaming is currently working on regarding the “de-gamification of poker.” I was reading through his latest installment in the series last night prior to playing in the South Point Poker tourney, including looking at the very cool and informative presentation by Sebastian Deterding called “Pawned. Gamification and Its Discontents” which Kim recommends along the way.

I don’t want to sidetrack this post too greatly, so I am not going to get into everything Kim is talking about. Also, I am still pondering Kim’s observations about the way those who have run online poker over the last decade gradually managed to take the “game” out of the game and make it something else. (Read his posts -- Part 1 and Part 2 -- and maybe that last sentence will make more sense.)

But I did want to note that I think Kim is onto something... both in his analysis of what has happened in the past with online poker and his ideas regarding what should happen in the future when the whole industry is remade here in the United States. As Kim notes, the game has to be fun, despite the fact that more than 90% of those playing aren’t going to be consistent “winners.”

Which brings me back to last night’s tournament. Like I said, it was free to play. Or actually, it “cost” 500 pts. to play, but you get 1,500 or something just for signing up. (And it isn’t hard to win more points, if you need them.)

And there was a real prize there at the end, an expense-paid trip out to Vegas next month to play a live one-table satellite the winner of which gets a seat in the 2012 WSOP ME. By the way, the freerolls are continuing nightly all week -- click here for more details.

Also, folks finishing in the top 120 or so did win points that can be used in other tourneys and sit-n-gos on the network. I’ve played a few of those before. There are a number of free events one can play, but more that “cost” points with prizes consisting of either more points or even actual cash. And, of course, if you get the $20/month thing you are allowed to play even more events with real money prizes. (Upgrading like that also allows you to change your avatar and do other stuff, too, I believe.)

The tourney had a fast structure and we only began with 1,000 chips, so as might be expected it was super-gambly early on. Took me a while to realize play was eight-handed, not nine. I hit a couple of hands during the first few orbits, then kept chipping up before winning a big one. I’d opened with and had a couple of callers, then the big blind reraised small and we all called. The flop brought three diamonds and all three of the others were happy enough to put their stacks in with me. My hand held, and just like that I was first with 800 players left.

I was either first or second over the next hour or so as the field got trimmed down to less than 200. Then I finally fell back a little to the bottom of the top 20. That’s when my computer -- a desktop PC running Windows Vista -- shut down unexpectedly on me.

I say “unexpectedly” because there is no warning beforehand the shut down is going to occur, but I have experienced the problem occasionally in the past. I am pretty sure it is a driver-related issue -- in fact, I think it began not long after I bought a new keyboard some months ago. Could also be a temperature thing, but I’m not really sure. (That will be one of the puzzles I try to solve today.)

In any case, I rebooted and rejoined the game, played a few hands, and had another shut down. Went through the same sequence and by the time I was logged back in I found I was 33/74. It happened a couple more times, though, and so eventually I fired up another desktop we have, installed the client, and got back in just in time to play two more hands with what had become a less-than-3BB stack. Finished 31st, for which I won a few thousand more points with which to play other tourneys and sit-n-gos.

Setting aside my computer troubles, the tourney was fun enough, especially for that short stretch where it looked like I might actually be positioned to make a run at winning the thing. Might have to take another shot in one of these WSOP ME sattys. And like I say I think I am reasonably intrigued enough to try to negotiate that schedule of tourneys and sit-n-gos to see what else might be on offer.

Would love to be able to play on my Mac laptop, though. That thing always works.

(EDIT [added 10/25/11]: Feel obligated to add a note here regarding those crashes I experienced while playing at South Point Poker. I’ve noticed others referring to the Zen Entertainment client using a ton of computing power, with some also reporting encountering the dreaded “blue screen of death” while playing. While I have no idea whether my problems were entirely related to running the SPP program, I eventually had to replace my hard disk as I could no longer run anything without the crashes occurring. I may have just had a hard drive go bad on me, but I am now somewhat reluctant to load the Zen program back onto my newly installed hard disk.)

Freerolling

Over the last couple of weeks I have actually been playing online poker for real money. That followed a full month away from the tables, when like most American players I found myself without a site on which to play.

A few sites do remain available to us, though, and I mentioned here before how I’d manage to win myself some cabbage playing freerolls on Carbon and Hero Poker, both skins belonging to the Merge Network. (Hero has actually stopped taking U.S. sign-ups this week, although they continue to allow those of us who got accounts beforehand to play.)

On Carbon I played in one of the five daily freerolls Merge offers, each of which has $200 prize pools, although in truth most of that prizepool (all but $46 worth) is in the form of entries to other tourneys. The freerolls generally draw around 2,500 players with only the top 24 spots making anything, so the odds of success are fairly slim. Somehow, though, I weaseled my way into a min-“cash” in a H.O.R.S.E. freeroll, finishing 23rd to earn a $2.20 SNG ticket. There I managed to finish second and win a whole dollar with which to play on Carbon.

That’s half a typical roll of nickels, which I have read is what patrons in Las Vegas casinos were sometimes given back in the 1950s upon arrival, which is where the phrase “freeroll” allegedly originated.

Meanwhile, on Hero Poker I played in that May 15th freeroll tournament for U.S. players that featured the generous $30,000 prize pool. A little less than 1,200 played, I believe, with top 300 finishers each receiving $100. I managed to get there in that one, too, and thus got myself a hundy on Hero without having to make a deposit.

I haven’t really played a lot over the last couple of weeks, although it has been nice to be able to jump into games now and then.

On Carbon my choices are severely limited with my teeny weeny total -- less than the minimum buy-in for most of the available cash games. I managed to start out squandering most of the original dollar fighting the crowd at the $0.02/$0.04 limit hold’em tables, dropping to just 14 cents at one point. But I won back some in a couple of six-cent tourneys, then tried a few of these $0.11 turbo SNGs where my ROI has been good enough to push my roll up to a whopping $1.24!

Yeah, I know... sick brag.

On Hero I’ve been mostly playing shorthanded PLO, trying to practice sound bankroll management by sticking with the max-$10 buy-in nickel-and-dime games. There I’ve done okay thus far, too, hovering around $115 for the last week or so. I’ll probably start exploring some of the lower buy-in MTTs with guarantees, as I think a few of those are having some nice overlays.

It has been kind of interesting to alternate between a site in which my bankroll is mere pennies and another where I have 100 times that with which to play. (Since Carbon and Hero are both skins of the same network, I necessarily can only play on one site at a time.) Has kind of demonstrated to me how the significance of money in poker can be wholly relative, with my winning or losing a nickel on Carbon giving me a similar “high” or “low” as I get winning or losing five bucks on Hero.

That said, whatever emotions I’ve felt while playing over the last couple of weeks have been somewhat muted, a detachment I attribute directly to my not having any real, concrete thoughts at the moment about actually cashing out funds.

You could say I’m “freerolling” in a couple of ways here. Not only did I win the cash with which I’m playing via freerolls, but while playing I’m weirdly “free” of the various thoughts or feelings necessarily associated with playing with a knowledge that the result will involve tangible gains or losses.

That’s not to say I’m playing all that differently than I would otherwise (e.g., more loosely or aggressively). At least I don’t think that’s the case. In fact, I’d say I’m actually playing a tighter game, for the most part, fearing the “risk of ruin” which in my case would mean having to leave the cash tables altogether.

The freerolling has been fun, though. Way better than free falling, anyway.

Dazed and Confused; or, My Introductions to Omaha and Seven-Card Stud

Still keeping an eye on that H.O.R.S.E. event at the WSOP. They’ve finally whittled the original field of 143 down to the final 9. Gotta love that final table, with Doyle Brunson and T.J. Cloutier still there. Talk about a couple of tough “horses" -- a couple of 70-plus-year-olds making it through that ungodly 19-hour second day. Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch, Chip Reese . . . should be a great finale. A shame that they will now play it out as a no-limit hold ’em event, but I’ll still be checking in to see who survives.

Again, as a nod to the H.O.R.S.E. event, I wanted to make one more non-hold ’em post and talk a bit about Omaha and Stud. I used to play both games quite a bit, especially Pot Limit Omaha (high only), though not so much for the last six months or so. My introduction to Omaha was kind of interesting. I had only been playing for play chips on PokerStars for a month or so when some of the friends with whom I had been playing recommended giving Omaha a try. After only a few hands at a ring table, I entered one of those Sunday afternoon freeroll tournaments Stars regularly runs, a fixed limit Omaha (high only) tourney with over 6000 entrants. I searched around on the web a bit just before the tournament began and found what looked like a reasonable, simple little chart explaining how to rate Omaha starting hands by assigning certain points -- e.g., AA gets 30 pts., Ace & anything suited gets 10 pts., connectors get two points, etc. If your hand totalled 10-15 pts., you could call the BB. If you had more, you could call a raise. Even more and you could raise yourself. I propped my chart on the keyboard, loaded Led Zeppelin’s eight studio albums into Winamp, and watched as the first hand was dealt.

Now these huge freerolls tend to attract a lot of less-than-serious players, and in the case of an Omaha tourney, I’m sure they also bring in a significant number of folks who aren’t even clear about the rules of the game. (I at least knew the rules, even if I didn’t have much of a clue about strategy.) I followed my little chart pretty closely, which I soon realized only permitted me to play about 10-15% of the hands. Such a super-tight approach allowed me to survive the first couple of thousand casualties pretty easily, although my stack wasn’t growing very much. Then somewhere around “Gallows Pole” I caught a rush of cards and found myself among the top hundred. I continued to limp along. A couple of hours later we were down to 800 and “Achilles’ Last Stand.” Then there were 300 left -- “Hot Dog”! Finally came the last, drawn-out chords of “I’m Gonna Crawl” . . . an appropriate title, as I had become one of the shorter stacks clinging for dear life. The music stopped and I looked up to see I was sitting at 9th out of 12 remaining. Then 9th out of 11. Then 9th out of 10.

The “prize” for the tourney was only for those who made the final table (top 9) -- an entry into the “Weekly Round 2” tourney the following Sunday (a freeroll with a $100 prize pool). I remember being dealt something like and actually folding it, nervously eyeing the guy on the other table who only had a single big blind remaining. Finally, after folding a few more hands, I watched as he was bounced. “Congratulations, you have made the final table!” The very next hand was an all-in fest, and I happily went out in ninth place. Ninth! Out of over 6000. I was starting to think I might like Omaha.

Only later did I realize that I had misread the chart I had used -- it was designed for Omaha 8-or-better (or “high-low”), not just Omaha high. So that’s why it awarded 15 pts. for having a deuce and a trey in your hand! (Shamus smacks forehead.) Still, somehow, I’d overcome even this self-imposed handicap to get through five-plus hours and thousands of opponents. Have to say, for someone who’d yet to make his first deposit to play real money games, this was some serious fun.

I checked the schedule and saw the following Sunday’s “Weekly Round 2” was actually a limit Stud tourney. I didn’t realize at the time that Poker Stars allows you to bank tourney entries and use them whenever you wish, so I thought I had one week to learn yet another game. I picked up a copy of Roy West’s 7 Card Stud: 42 Lessons How to Win at Medium & Lower Limits -- not necessarily the best way to learn how to negotiate a stud tournament (although there is a section in the back by Tom McEvoy about “Tournament Tactics”), but definitely a nice introduction to the game. I read through the entire book, took lots of notes, and made up a chart that compiled West’s recommendations for starting hands and fourth-, fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-street play. Whereas I had prepared a total of ten minutes for the Omaha tourney, I had probably put in at least 15 hours getting ready for my big Stud debut.

What happened? Not much. I busted out within the first hour. None of West’s recommendations seemed to work as described. I was placed at a table where five of the eight players had neglected to show up for the tourney, so it was just me, the five “sitting out” zombies, and two extremely aggressive players who appeared ready to cap the betting on every street. I couldn’t keep up at all, and thus received both an early exit and a short-lived prejudice against Stud.

Eventually I came to appreciate Stud and played the ring games every now and then. Omaha I liked even better, and for a time played nothing but PLO on Stars (nothing above the $0.05/$0.10 tables, of course). I did reasonably well in a few PLO SNG’s, and I even made another final table in another Omaha freeroll, finishing ninth again out of another field of thousands. I gravitated back to hold ’em, however, where I’ve been mostly camped out ever since.

I’ve been leafing through West’s book lately and occasionally sitting in on a few rounds of Stud. I’d like to get my hands on a good Omaha book, also, and get back into that game as well. I’ve seen recommended Ray Zee’s High-Low Split Poker (which covers both Stud and Omaha) -- I may pick it up. (Can anyone who has read it tell me what they think of that one?) Even if the WSOP has decided now that we’ve reached the final table of the H.O.R.S.E. event that these other games are no longer interesting, I’m still curious. Would hardly be a self-respecting detective if I weren't . . . .

Image: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin (1969), Amazon.