Another year has come and gone, and for me and poker - 2012 has been fairly amazing indeed.
My game has yet again grown leaps and bounds. I truly feel comfortable playing live - both in someone's home and in a card room and typically feel like one of the better players at any given table. And while the game of tournament No Limit Hold-Em is ever evolving, I'd like to think I've worked reasonably hard at keeping up with it and have been rewarded for my efforts. The rewards have not necessarily been financial, see below, but I have excelled at learning and loving the game despite it's frequent sickening setbacks.
The largest leap in my game by far in 2012, and for that matter in my entire amateur poker career, has been that for the first time EVER, despite my previous solemn pledges, I have kept strict track of my results. No, really, I have.
And at the end of 2012... drumroll please....
I'm down $1680.
I played almost exclusively tournaments in 2012 and I played WAY more than I ever have before in my life. 122 to be exact. Out of 122 I cashed 28 times, just over 20%.
My cashes added up to $6845. All told I spent $8525 in entry fees. Tournaments are a tough nut to crack, no shit.
I never thought I would divulge all of this info on a public blog, but there it is. I really feel in poker, as well as in most of my life, a very strong desire to be as open and as honest as I can with just about anyone who cares to listen.
When I mentioned working really hard on my game, I didn't specify that the one area I've worked the hardest on is letting go of the anger that the game can bring about. Three outers? I've had plenty. Two outers? Yep, probably just as many. And that delightful one out sting to the heart? Oh yeah. More than a few times in 2012.
I've finally, finally ALMOST gotten to where these things don't matter. I say almost because the other night, on 12/21/12 at the Monte Carlo in Vegas (you can find it on the grid) I stomped away from the table without saying a word to the kid who slow rolled me with kings.
He was a classic case of d-bag meets loser (yes I did say I wasn't going to be insulting on this blog but he really was) who fancied himself the table captain. I had quietly man handled him in a couple of pots to which he just laughed and swore he would get me back - I was the only reason he didn't have a mountain of chips about an hour in to the tournament.
But this was a turbo - and soon I had to get it in. I had 11 bigs, it was folded to me and I shoved from the SB with A4 - standard, and another player, the BB, called off his tournament life with Q4, which of course binked a lady on the turn.
I was crippled, maybe 3 bigs, and happy to stick in the rest of my chips from the button with a suited King. The table "captain" who was a player or two to my right and had limped, called my shove and waited for me to show before he flipped up his kings. He cackled in delight as the board ran out harmlessly for him.
"Nice slow roll" I mumbled as the blank river hit. He whooped and hollered and as I rose to leave he stopped himself, goofball that he was, and extended his hand. My back was already turned and I was out the door. "See ya Philly!" he shouted after me. (My Phillies hat had earned me that moniker at that table). "Fuck you fucker." is all that came into my head as I left the room.
But it was I who was truly a fucker. I had let the goofball win by letting him get to me, and even though he was a savvy enough player to know what he did was way out of line - I should have been bemused and tapped the table and shaken his hand. I had already cashed that night for Christ's sake. Who cares if this guy thinks he's on the WPT? He's just another traveler, though I doubt very much he's a television director who has traveled to 33 countries and lives with a fantastic wife and beautiful daughter in a lovely home in Burbank. In fact based on his boorish behavior he very likely has scars that I can't see, and tough as it is, I really needed to dig deep and remember that. Oh well.
The negative number at the end of my balance sheet is a concern for my game, but it's down the list of what I know is important in poker. Dealing with tools who are actually sad is my top priority - for I find that when I do handle them well I find myself having fun and everything else tends to fall into place.
Having fun is definitely the number 2 goal to keep working on and improving. It's closely related to dealing with a-holes, but is in itself it's own pursuit. When my cards are cold, cold, cold and the table is super aggressive - I need to simply relax and focus on the other hands unfolding around me; soak up that information so that when I do wake up with queens I have a good idea how to play them against specific opponents. And in the meantime enjoy myself. There's no point in being miserable at the poker table - I'm paying good money to sit amongst these fine fellow travelers and play a game! Why not be loose and a bit silly?
And yes, finishing out of the negative in 2013 will be very important to me as well. There are a few ways I can better achieve this.
1) More volume. Alas, this is the one I don't think will be possible. Playing poker on over 100 days in 2012 was probably pushing it a bit in the first place. If I can even approach this number in 2013 I'm afraid I'm playing too much. Still, if the opportunities present themselves, I'm afraid the degenerate in me will win out. But no way am I playing MORE poker.
2) More cash game - less tournament. Alas, again, I don't know if I'm up for this. I love tournaments so much, for many reasons, all of which I have gone on about at length on this blog. And cash games pretty much bore me. Oh they can be fun, but they seem like so much more of a grind (both at home and in a card room, but way more so in the latter). It is especially true with me, that at a card club I can't seem to shake the feeling that rent money is at play. (Not mine, but those travelers out there that I'm trying to find love in my heart for.)
3) Tournament style - GO FOR THE BIG CASH. This approach and attitude is something I've worked on steadily for the past few years, and I'm going to tackle it with even more vigor this year. In 2012 I played in more than a few "big" events with six figure guarantees. I look back now and recognize that in these events I needed to be far more willing to get my all chips in, with even the smallest edge. A single four or five figure score would easily wipe out all my losses and could have put me firmly in profit. As it was I was often timid when I needed to be bold, simply because I perceived the stakes as so high and my opponents as so tough. I need to let go of these fears, because in the end (save for one score at Hollywood Park, my biggest cash of the year at $900+) it made no difference that I played timid. Sure I might have squeaked a min-cash here and there, but I know if I had really gone for it earlier and more often (not reckless or spewy, but aggressive at the right times) I could very easily have been in the black this year.
I have to remind myself - in every tournament I play. I'm NOT playing to cash. I'm playing to finish FIRST. Period. I found this a lot easier to do in my own $40 home game tournament or similar events in other garages and living rooms, and thus had better results in them. I got a bit chicken shit when I plunked down a 3 figure entry fee. I really need to remember that I should have no difference in the way I approach different buy ins. The goal is to bring the A-Game and that means be ready to embrace flips early on so I can chip up and get deep so I can make use of ammo to keep accumulating through aggressive small ball even when the deck is cold.
So I guess this last point is my big poker resolution for the year. But even bigger than this approach, more revolution than resolution in my poker thinking this year - is the idea that I can play this game with an open and honest heart.
Now don't get me wrong, when I'm on the felt - peeking at my hole cards or pondering a three bet, I will still keep it all close to the vest. But when a non-poker conversation erupts at Commerce, I won't be shy about joining in. And when I'm at my home game or others, I don't even mind talking about the game or previous hands. It's way too fun not to, and as I've said here before, I'm not worried about damaging my results against the vast majority of other home gamers who are just like me and not playing first and foremost to make money. They are poker players because they love the game - and I'm going to embrace that to the fullest.
As part of this openness, I plan on sharing this blog with my home game and link it directly from it's website. I'm not going to make a big announcement or big deal about it, but I want the players in my game to be able to see what I've been up to - and how I approach the game if they choose. Stupid? Probably. But frankly I don't care. I like almost all of them an awful lot, and would enjoy feedback on all this work that I've been putting in here over the past several years. After all, if a tree falls in the forest by itself does it make a sound? Who knows. But I know if you have a blog and no one reads it, then WHAT'S THE POINT?
I hope more than a few will read and enjoy, and hopefully forgive the handful of times I trash talked about them over the years. I've mended my ways on this point, and if they read recent posts they'll see that.
I also plan to make my crazy poker library available to them. I have over 40 poker books just sitting on a shelf collecting dust in my house. I need to move them out into the garage and loan them out so they get read and used. Probably more than half of the books have dated advice, but almost all of them are worth a look-see, and there are also quite a few non-strategy books that are highly enjoyable.
Yep, I feel good about this open book (so to speak) approach. Because I know I'll likely never be a Phil Ivey or even a Jerry Yang - but that's not what this journey is about. It's about trying my best to be sure, but first and foremost it's about indulging my love of the game. And the best way for me to do this and not get beaten down into a bitter gambling degenerate, is to approach my fellow players with an open heart and occasionally an open mind.
Up next on the horizon for me - the wife and kiddo are visiting grandpa up north, so Imma take the opportunity for a couple of days to get some serious poker playing in. First and foremost I want to take a shot at the WSOPC which is arriving at The Bike on Jan. 2nd. I'm very excited to be playing in at least one "Ring" event. It's $365 which is a higher 3 figure buy-in than I'm used to, but the guarantee will be pretty massive no doubt - plus there's the allure of scoring a ring (the World Series of Poker Circuit equivalent to a bracelet). That would be pretty flippin' cool if I could luckbox that!
If I don't cash in this I'll probably stick to a regular daily or two at Commerce or HPC, plus I've scheduled a cash game at home for Friday night. Hope I run and play good, but even more I hope I have fun!
