Knock Me Down With A Feather

I entered the WBCOOP 8-Game Mix tournament without any expectations whatsoever. Hey, free is free, right?

My strategy for the game was simple: press my edge in the games I know well, and play super-duper tight in the ones I don't. That, and catch some cards occasionally. (Poker is all skill, baby!) The turning point for the evening was getting paid by two opponents when my full house improved to quads. The coup de grace came in a stud rotation when I ran into three full houses in quick succession. THREE!

To my astonishment, I nevertheless managed to finish in fourth place, and grab myself a $215 ticket to a SCOOP event sometime in the future. I was the short stack when the six-handed final table started, but I was able to pull even before I met my boaty waterloo. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't feel particularly outmatched as the field narrowed. I guess there just aren't that many 8-game whizzes in the blogger world.

There's something particularly satisfying about taking $0 and making something of it. How cool would it be if my freeroll rush extended to the next event as well?

Speaking of which: does anybody know whether I could register for a SCOOP event and then unregister and take the $T? On the other hand, I'm wondering whether the weakness of the field in the 8-Game Mix would extend to a similar tournament in the SCOOP. If so, it might be worth trying my hand at that instead of the more familiar NLHE format.

I Wanna Play!

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 095798

All the cool kids are doing it, so I want to too! Besides, with my new relaxed attitude my results are bound to be better, right?

What A Rush

I've been playing much less frequently, and generally enjoying it more. Despite starting with a below-average stack, I managed to claw my way to fourth in the A League's end-of-quarter tournament. I hadn't played a lot of games during the season, so the fourth place freeroll finish gave a nice little boost to my ROI.

I joined another tournament series based in Arlington, mostly made up of folks I originally met playing pub poker (and some B Leaguers). I was really pleased with the way I played this game, and had I won my coin toss I would have been well-positioned to make some noise in the tournament. It was a rebuy, which isn't my favorite format. Other games are not rebuys and should suit me even better. I cheerfully recouped my investment in the tournament by playing in the cash game that broke out alongside.

I made returns to both the Capitol Hill and Crime Scene games, where I have achieved modest profits. All in all, 2010 results in live play have been satisfactory, and I've been having fun with it ~ which is the name of the game for me now.

Online, the massacre of horribleness continued. For my own amusement, and to prove that it's not all in my head, I've been taking screenshots of the insanely bad beats I've been dealt. Originally I planned to post them to the Book of Bad Beats, but I don't have the heart for it. It's too depressing. Maybe one day I'll do a massive dump (and I use the word advisedly) of all of them.

But then the heavens opened and angels sang and Full Tilt delivered its latest Spawn of Satan: Rush Poker. Rush Poker is multi-tabling without the multi (although if you're an insatiable action junkie you can indeed multi-table rush tables… cowabunga!). Here's everything you need to know about Rush Poker:

• You see around 300 hands an hour.
• You can play all of your hands in position if you want to.
• Your HUD software may not be as useful, but if you play long enough you will start to recognize some of your opponents in the pool.

Long story short, I was truly down to my last $5 on Full Tilt when I started to play .05/.10 Rush Poker. In two sessions of about an hour and a half each, I have built up to about $60. SIXTY DOLLARS playing 10NL. It took me a little while to make the strategic adjustments needed, but I gotta say, for a quick, ADD-addled hit of profitable playing, Rush Poker is the 'nads. (Well, until the doomswitch kicks in, anyway.)

There are a couple of annoyances in the software, chief among them being that even if you select the "check/fold" or "fold to any bet" options in the big blind, you don't get whisked automatically to a new table unless you click the "Quick Fold" button too. That's just dumb, since the big blind is a timewaster in this game. I also worry that Rush Poker will cause the bad players to go broke quicker, give up, and never come back. I can only hope that Full Tilt has done some studies that show people are more likely to reload in this format than in others.

Looking ahead, I expect to make a trip to AC in February and I'm heading to Las Vegas again toward the end of March. The Vegas trip should be a Trifecta of Fun: PAO Meet-Up, AVP Meet-Up, and precious time with the Grump.

And finally, we're hearing that Charlestown WV will be opening their poker room in July (or thereabouts). That's just a couple of easy highway hours away, much less grueling than the trip to AC and definitely doable as a day trip. Sweet!

The Joy of Poker

Those of you following along on my tweets already know the outcome of my trip last weekend to Atlantic City: a big steaming pile of break-even.

And you know what? That's just fine with me.

I had a little mini-revelation on this outing. Despite my decision to let go of the pro-poker dream, I was still playing as if my livelihood depended on it. Now, generally, one might think was a good thing. Discipline, etc. And that's undoubtedly true.

But playing professionally is also notoriously a grind. It's especially a grind when things have not been going one's way for a protracted period of time: the bad results are depressing, and bad results often lead to bad play, which leads to more bad results. It's the most vicious of vicious cycles.

My first day was a downer. Lose lose lose lose. Bleah. No fun. Lots of folding, discipline aplenty, then one dubious decision and buh-bye stack. At day's end, I vowed to myself that I would play my A game in the Circuit tournament. My one and only goal was regret-free poker.

And I did. I played for six hours without making a single error. I watched glumly as the correct folds I made would have turned into table-stacking monsters, but I made the right choices. I was colossally card-dead most of the time, and was presented with very few viable stealing opportunities. More than six hours in, I still had a starting stack, and it was shove-or-fold time. I won a few blinds and antes. I folded KJo to a raise and re-raise in front of me and missed the flopped boat (d'oh!). I finally shoved with pocket 8s and lost to AK behind me.

I was now $700 in the hole for the trip. But I was feeling pretty good about the way I'd played in the tournament, and I wasn't especially tired. I decided that, since I was unlikely to be back in AC in the near future, I might as well mix it up in the cash games again and this time try to actually enjoy it. I took $1000 to the table and promised myself that I was going to play well and have fun: no scared money here, no ubernitiness. I brought out my cheerful, social persona. I was going to have a good time no matter how the cards fell.

And I did, oh yes I did.

My hand selection criterion became: will I have fun playing this hand (in this position, for these stakes, against these players)? My folding, calling, betting, or raising criterion: which action will be most fun?

And because I consider winning money more fun than losing, this didn't change my gameplay a great deal. What it did change was my attitude.

I proceeded to play for six more hours, during which time I completely recouped my loss and made a few bucks to boot. I began to remember why I got hooked on poker in the first place. I rediscovered my inner recreational player.

So that's me, now: I'm a recreational player, and that's okay. In fact, I like it! A great psychological weight has been lifted. My little hobby more than pays for itself, plus I get free hotel rooms and food too. And I now have license to play JUST FOR THE SHEER FUN OF IT. Wheeeeee!

Which one is me?

My friend JK sent me this photo this afternoon. It pretty much sums up the way I feel about my game at the moment. I haven't posted much lately because all I've been doing is losing and not having a whole lot of fun. (The good news is that the rest of my life is getting more and more interesting.)

I'll be heading to Atlantic City on December 5th, and plan to play in at least one Circuit Event.

Poker Laughs (6): Poker Face

Christopher Walken is the nuts.

Real Motivation

Run, don't walk to read this post by Listening. A sample:

Hey — I like respect, too! We all like to have self-respect. We enjoy the respect of others. But if these things are the primary objective, instead of the natural result of your poker efforts — you've started a step behind and you'll never catch up. There is nothing for anyone to achieve to be worthwhile: you have value because you exist. And your value exists irrespective of anyone else's opinion of you. If you don't know this, you lack self-respect. If you lack this, you cannot respect your opponents. When you show this in play, you simply demonstrate your own weaknesses to your tablemates and make yourself exploitable.

Who knew you could learn this playing Razz! (I kid. Poker is poker.)

Do You Feel Lucky? Well, do you?

I ran across this article about people who describe themselves as "lucky" or "unlucky," and a researcher who says he's identified traits and behaviors that are consistently associated with each category.

To feel luckier, notice more opportunities, and be prepared to take advantage of them try:

• Relaxing and being more open and flexible in your behaviors and habits
• Widening your field of attention and observation
• Listening to and honoring your intuition
• Cultivating optimism and resilience.

Hmm. Sounds very much like most mindfulness practices.

I think the applicability to one's poker game is pretty clear.