So you might have noticed the post below, where I go on and on about my waning interest in hosting elaborate poker tournaments in my garage, and my growing hunger for a more meaningful goal in the game of poker.
Well, that all has changed, yet again.
I have another blog, manzoniman.blogspot.com, that deals with personal stuff and also includes my views on politics. It's a much better outlet than Facebook for getting my opinions off my chest. But right now the most recent post deals with my personal vices, and first and foremost on that list is poker. I still very much love the game, but if you read the post, you'll see that I've finally recognized the unhealthy side of the game that has encroached into my life - thanks in no small part to a medication that I'm taking to deal with my weight issues.
The medication, it turns out is part anti-depressant and part anti-addiction medicine; and as I say on my personal blog, it has changed my perspective on poker, among other issues that I'm dealing with.
The good news is, I am now aware that sneaking off to play poker in southern California card rooms at every chance I'm given, is not a healthy choice. And I'm able to finally be honest with myself, that my priorities for the last five years or so, despite my rationalizations, have not been in the correct order.
Now, with this medication and this new perspective, it has kind of dawned on me that I need to lower poker on the list and make sure it stays firmly below family and work. I've always proclaimed righteously on this blog that this is so, but if I'm being totally honest now - there have been times when I have lied to myself and to you dear reader.
But as my white hot lust for this game has now finally cooled, I can truly and joyfully say - I have very little interest in playing poker as often as I can. I still have a love for the game, but it is now subdued deep in my brain and heart; my daughter, my wife and my livelihood (editing, directing) are now front and center as they should be, and this is a great thing.
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But, as this is a poker blog, I would still like to very much on occasion, relay here what is going on with me and the game that I still love, though maybe I love it a bit less.
I had my physical on November 9, two days after a multi-table tournament in my garage. I started taking my weight loss medicine a few days later - and miraculously, I haven't played poker since until this last weekend. I know that's only just 4 weeks, but trust me, it's pretty much a miracle that I didn't find time in my garage or at another home game or at the Bike or Commerce in that stretch - I have played poker every other week at a minimum for the past 5 years, and this is my longest stretch without poker in a long, long time.
I feel good about this, and the only reason I played poker this last weekend is because I had scheduled this tournament months and months ago. It was my annual Tournament of Champions free roll in my garage. This year, if you follow pepperstreetpoker.com, you can see that I won three tournaments, so I had locked up my seat for the event plus another 10K in bonus chips.
Even better, there were only a few other players in the event who were going to make it tough on me. My oldest and bestest poker playing buddy Sven, and another regular from our game who is kind of a character and fairly outspoken at the table; we'll call him Jim. And finally, Janice, a good poker player who has been a regular at my game for years, who has a natural poker playing ability that would be basically unstoppable if she would ever emerge from her perpetual haze of marijuana.
Other than that, the remaining 6 players were all less experienced than I, and I felt pretty comfortable about going up against them. All friendly, great people that I am fond of - but as poker opponents, I was feeling great about doing battle.
I have long been a believer that the longer one goes without playing the game, the rustier he/she becomes. It is kind of like a bicycle, in that you don't actually forget how to do it, but it is also more like doing crossword puzzles, in that if you take a long hiatus, you don't slip back into a rhythm as quickly when you return.
Thankfully, as this was a large tournament for my garage (with $500 up top for 1st place) I found that I was very comfortable as the cards and chips started to fly.
One of the players, was unable to make it, so we started out 9 handed. The good news, the missing player was a fairly experienced fellow who though rock-ish, is capable of bluffing in the right spots and has had very good results in my garage.
For the first two hours, I played extremely tight, so much so that Jim couldn't help but remark that I wasn't my usual aggro self. But I knew two things that would keep me tight early on. One, that the structure was incredibly deep, with half hour levels - making risking my equity much less necessary. The average stack after 2 hours was still upwards of 80 big blinds.
Second, I had started the game with a 10K chip advantage - so there was really no point in trying to chip up early, as I had in effect already done so without playing a hand.
After 3 hours or so, after we'd had a couple of bust outs, I finally began to shift gears and get more involved. Specifically, I targeted the two players on my right, both of whom were very very inexperienced and both of whom had lucked into a lot of chips.
Because they were so green, I knew that neither of them were capable of bluffing beyond a weak lead out or small continuation bet - which made it very easy to get away if they showed strength. I also knew that they both hated to fold to aggression, especially from someone like me who has a pretty maniacal image in the game. This would make both of them very profitable in value bet situations.
The player on my immediate right, Billy, if I had to guess I would say that he has literally probably played less than 20 poker tournaments in his life. He is the sweetest dude, but he has a propensity to ship his entire stack out of the blue if he feels he has the best hand, with very little regard to what his opponent might have. In other words, he often will put 50 big blinds or more at risk with moves where only a weaker hand will always fold and only a stronger hand will call. A very unprofitable proposition.
And that was how he had gotten a mountain of chips early on. Against Janice he ripped all of his stack, nearly 100 big blinds, into the middle when the turn came a third heart and he held the nut flush. Janice tanked for quite awhile before making an absolutely horrific call with a set of jacks. She said out loud, "I don't think I'm capable of folding this" before she did. Janice, I feel you on that, I've often said the same thing out loud when I have a biggish hand, but in this instance - I really think that a less 'medicated' Janice could have found a fold.
This is especially true when I think back to another hand that she had with Billy in the tournament in the summer that she ended up winning. Billy turned a King high flush on the turn, and indeed shoved his entire stack, which was well over 100 big blinds and Janice had to double check her cards before calling with the ace high flush.
What did this tell us? That when Billy out of the blue puts his entire stack at risk, a big stack early on, he has either the nuts or very close to it. What could Janice's middle set beat in this instance? Not a flush, not a straight, not top set. Only 2 pair and top pair - which Billy would never jam with.
At any rate, Janice was crippled and shortly thereafter out - Billy now had effectively doubled up. As the third hour passed, I made it my mission to flat every one of his opening raises. Then he would either check or meekly c-bet the flop. If he checked I would simply bet, especially if there was an ace or a king and he would often fold. If he c-bet meekly I would flat and fire the turn if he checked. Sometimes he would bet tiny on the turn, and I would either flat planning to take it away on the river or simply raise him right then and there, which often worked.
I was however, cautious about getting to out of line with him. Like many inexperienced players, Billy has a tendency to be a disbeliever and feel like everyone is trying to bluff him. I used this propensity to great advantage a couple of times by absolutely value betting the shit out of him when the flop did hit my hand.
Once in a blue moon he would hit the flop hard, and when he did it was the easiest thing in the world to get away from, because all of the sudden his bet sizing would inflate to almost pot sized or even sometimes bigger than the pot. It was like he was literally playing with his cards face up.
This oversized bet tell also applied pre-flop, he would go from a 3x opening all the sudden to a 6x or larger - this meant he had a premium hand, either AK or QQ, JJ, 1010. And when he limped pre-flop, more than once this past year, this was a giant red flag that he might have aces.
At any rate - I believe Billy busted out in 5th, and then it was bubble time. The bulk of his stack unfortunately went over to Sharon on his right, the other less experienced player at the table. Sharon does have more experience than Billy, but her game still suffers from a lot of the same bet sizing tells and the same emotionally driven propensity to think that everyone is bluffing her.
Sharon, unlike Billy, will actually check if she blanks completely on the flop - or occasionally she will fire a small c-bet when she whiffs if she thinks she still probably has the best hand, like AK or some such.
Her pre-flop betting size tells are monstrous though, way bigger than Billy's. She will literally bet 10x with queens or jacks. She also increases her bet size with AK, which is not that common with other newer players.
We got tangled up in a big pot as the bubble approached, I knew very clearly in my mind where she was at when she led out at an A 9 x flop, and then followed up with another bet of the same exact size when another ace rolled off on the turn.
I called this bet and then started to murmer out loud after a blank river hit and she checked to me, "I know you don't have an ace, what do you have? Do you have a nine?" The normally talkative Sharon was mum. I replayed the hand in my head. I had led out from under the gun, 4 handed I think we were with Jd10d. She had defended her blind. She then led out on the A9x flop.
She leads out a lot, and I commented on this. "You're leading out again?" What does that mean I wondered - well my guess was that it meant she had hit the flop, either top or middle pair.
That she bet smallish on the ace on the turn, pretty much told me that it was very unlikely that she had an ace. She would have either checked or bet big there if the board had been wet. So then she had to have a 9 or a medium pair. I went with this and counted up my chips, all the while mumbling that 'your 9 is no good' and then shoved my whole stack, which at this point was about 2/3 of the bloated pot.
She tanked briefly, but I knew she couldn't call if my read was right. It would be a giant hit to her fairly large stack - she had enough chips behind to get away, and mercifully she did.
In hindsight, I'm glad my bluff worked out, but I think I made a mistake overall in mixing it up with her with very little equity in my starting cards after the flop. Sharon, and Billy, and others who are just starting out - have very little incentive to fold when they haven't played enough hands to learn that it's correct sometimes to get away from a hand that has hit the flop.
To be fair to Sharon, she probably has at least 2 or 3 times the experience Billy has, which is really the only reason my bluff worked.
As I dragged the pot, I made sure to show her and everyone else, that I had bluffed. Jim was aghast, and Sharon furrowed her brow looking for my strong hand that didn't exist. I had now planted it firmly in everyone's mind, the old Chris was now here and I could literally have any two cards in the hole.
Jim ended up bubbling. At one point it had looked like he was a sure thing to cash or even possibly win the whole thing with a big stack but he donated a lot of his chips to Sharon in a badly misplayed hand that he himself continued to lament out loud a good hour after it had occurred. I don't remember the specifics, but again, Sharon's bet sizing had given him all the information that he needed - that she was very strong, and he pretty much ignored it because he had flopped 2 pair or something similar.
So we were 3 handed, and the third player, James, a solid player but a bit on the tight side - had managed to squeak into the money with his short stack that eventually succumbed to Sharon's mountain.
As heads up started Sharon had a 3 to 1 chip advantage over me, but I still had almost 50 big blinds. There was a lot of poker left to play, and I knew this and didn't panic.
I min-raised every button for awhile, she almost never folded but frequently folded to my c-bets. In this way I was able to grind up in about a half hour to where our stacks were almost even.
Then a bunch of folks arrived for the 7pm cash game I had scheduled. Shortly after they got going at another table, I managed to lose a big chunk of my stack with a stupid bluff.
I was on the button and raised it up, Sharon came along and then led out with a biggish bet on a J56 flop. My mistake was right here, I called instead of letting go, because I had total air, and her mid to large size bet told me everything I needed to know. She had hit the flop, most likely she had a jack or maybe even 2 pair.
A second jack hit the turn, and she fired again, only the bet was again the exact same size as her lead out on the previous street. At this point I deduced correctly that she didn't have a jack, so I prepared myself mentally to bomb the river if she were to check, which she did.
It was a big bet on my part into an already big pot. She quickly cut out the chips and threw them in.
Sigh. I turned up my ace high. She flipped up 65.
I was a bit aghast and couldn't help but show it, I wasn't sure at that moment how she had found a call with a naked pair of sixes. But as I sat and collected myself and she dragged the chips, I thought about it. In her mind, she flopped 2 pair, a big hand and she bet the flop big. She's experienced enough to know that the jack was a dreadful card for her on the turn, but she also knows it's very likely that she's still ahead which is why she bet - though the sizing gave away her disappointment.
It took a lot of chutzpah on my part to try and bluff her again, after the earlier bluff which I had shown her - I honestly don't know what I was thinking. Even if I had jammed, she was very likely to still call off with 3rd high pair. It was for sure a mistake on my part to bluff the river, and now we were basically back to where we had started when heads up play began.
Thankfully, with half hour levels, I still had barely enough bigs to still raise pre-flop and have some room to manuever (though not a lot) post-flop.
Little by little I grinded back, only this time I stopped trying to continue with air unless she showed extreme disinterest. She gave me a lot of walks, for sure too many, as well - and this helped me chip up.
Then there were two or three hands close together that basically sealed the deal, culminating in one of the best bets I've ever made in a tournament.
The first hand, I hit my ace on the flop, and bet fairly big on the flop and the turn before finally checking the river, she couldn't beat my top pair and I dragged the chips.
The second hand was similar, this time she had led out, but I had flopped top pair. I bet the turn when she checked and again we both showed down. More chips for me.
Finally, I had it figured out. I raised pre-flop with QJ, she came along. She checked the flop which was KxJ, I c-bet my usual half pot and she called of course. She checked the turn which was a blank. I fired nice and chunky, she called without hesitation. There was 4 to a flush out there now. The river was another king that I believe completed the flush. She checked with very little enthusiasm.
In the past, I would simply just turn up my cards and be happy with the big pot that was already out there. This time, I cut out a monster set of 5K chips, nearly 3/4 of the pot, and slid them out. I knew I was good, and I knew if she had anything at all, bottom pair, 3rd pair, a middling pair in the hole, she was going to pay me off - because I'm the bluffingist bluffer who ever lived in her mind.
She didn't take long to count out a big portion of her stack and splash them in. I fast rolled my 2nd pair and she clucked her tongue. "Didn't think you had it." she sighed and quickly mucked in disgust.
This was where my mistake in bluffing with air less than 45 minutes earlier, really paid off huge. I know I was going to get big value from her from my image, but also from her lack of experience and the disease that most new recreational players have - the same disease that a legendary donator in our game, Emily, had for her entire tenure with us - "I don't believe you. I have to see."
Cha-ching.
It was a crippling blow to Sharon's stack, and now she was well under 20 bigs. I whittled away at her some more, she had regressed to binary mode on the flop and then to binary mode pre-flop. I had changed from raising every button to simply calling and seeing a flop. If she had big cards, she was likely to shove pre, which she did indeed and I could release for less. If she hit the flop, she would also let it rip, so it was equally easy for me to get away with minimum damage.
Finally, I looked down at AQ on the button and flat called once again. She stuck her chips in and I snapped. She had a very live J8 suited, and was 100% correct to jam, but I flopped trips and then filled up on the turn - it was over and I had taken down the TOC, the bracelet, my name on the wall and $500 in cheddar.
It felt great, it felt wonderful. The cash game players applauded for me, in a very sweet way so as to not hurt Sharon's feelings too much. It was a great, great afternoon and early evening.
Sharon pocketed $300 and I think was happy enough with her showing. She should indeed be proud, she beat out a lot of other players this year in the garage. I have no doubt that if she applies herself and studies the game and talks with players that she respects, she has more than a good chance to go far.
So there it is - though medicated and now cognizant that poker can't be the most important thing in my life, I've still found enough enthusiasm in my heart to pound all of this out. On the other hand, I will likely not play again until the second Saturday in January, over 30 days from now. Before the medicine known as Contrave, that would not have been possible.
I am grateful that I have my compulsion under control - and I have no doubt that this will in turn make the game a lot more enjoyable; as I can play with a clear conscience that I am doing right by my family, and also play with a more casual and less dire approach. It no longer matters really at all my results, I guess I'll still keep track of them, but really I don't need to. Playing once a month, or even less will be just fine with me. And this is a very good thing.
