What an interesting night this last Saturday evening. My Saturday was filled with mundane life things. I got home from my Friday night session around 4am and go to sleep and wake up around 10:30 am. Wife does her workout with her trainer and I need to drop my car off at the dealership for some maintenance and recall issues to get fixed. After lunch with the family get home and nap a little while the baby naps and the wife spends some time with the middle daughter bonding.
Dealership service guy is supposed to call me at 4pm to let me know status of my car. Instead I get roused by my wife around 4:45pm and I realize that the service adviser never called me. I am of course slightly annoyed and call him instead to find out the status of my car. Fortunately, my car was done and I was still able to get over there before the place closed.
After picking up my car, the wife and I decide to go to Saturday evening vigil service at our church. I like going to Saturday evening mass. It makes Sundays a bit easier to deal with, but my favorite mass is actually Sunday evening, since that's when they have the best music. But it's tough with the kids, since they have school the next day and it makes dinner unusually late and gets them in bed later than normal.
In any case, I get a text from Andy during mass that the 40/80 game has gone overnight from Friday night well until Saturday! CC the poker playing animal played well over a 36 hour session and simply cleaned up. Turns out the game played through Friday evening into Saturday morning until lawyer David showed up and started playing the 40 game with Cecil and I believe it was JA. As it turns out they kicked it up to 80/160!
Now I don't normally play Saturday evenings anymore since there is usually no game on Saturdays, but after getting this message from my bird, I sweet talked my wife into letting me go.
I did ok in the the 80/160 portion of my night. I won 1k, was up more, but gave some back after David rage tilt felted quit, playing 3 handed with CC and Andy. I did get to 5-bet David with the nuts holding QT on a J893 two diamond board on the turn. He had a set of eights and the river was a the ten of diamonds and he check/called my river bet and then went super tilted and started mumbling to himself.
Eventually he quit, after he short bought for $100 so he could play his button. He folded and then his under the gun hand, he went all in and I tried to 3-bet the AT but since he didn't have enough for a "complete" raise, I only got to complete the bet, which meant that CC was going to able to come in. Not to worry I flopped top pair and a gutshot draw on a AKJ rainbow board. David quit, and the three of us continued to play, as it is bad etiquette to break the game as soon as the fish quits. Plus David has been known to "quit" and come back within 20 minutes plenty of times. Playing 3 handed I lose 2 racks of my 3 rack profit to break the game up only 1k.
Cecil eventually succumbed to the bodily need for sleep and went home looking much worse for the wear. Not sure how that guy can repeatedly do that to himself. It's really not good for your health and its really hard on your body, particularly your heart.
After Cecil quit, Andy and I kicked the stakes down back to 40/80 and played heads up for about 3 hours. I won a little over 2k before Andy needed to go home since he had an early am flight this morning. Was an interesting heads up session, and I ran well and won the first meaningful hand where he raised the button with QQ, and I defended with KJs, and proceeded to flop top pair. I check/raised the flop and bet turn and bet river. There were some hands where Andy played a bit unconventionally that I don't necessarily agree with. Andy for sure defends his big blind a lot more than I do (he got me with 32o on a 764 board when I had 65s, and he check/raised the flop!), and opens his button relentlessly.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Summer Wrap Up
Well summer is over and I am back in to the swing of things with kids and school. Plus I have started my new project at work and am busy with that. I got to play a lot of poker from Memorial Day through Labor Day due to the many visitors we had, plus a scheduled vacation, and the family going to Minnesota. Now that the family is back into its school routine, my poker hours are going to see a significant reduction. I will be back to my semi regular schedule of pretty much just playing Friday late afternoons/evenings.
I am a little worried about the state of the limit holdem games at Oceans-11. With the new management, and the policy of no longer giving a drop reduction when the game gets short, has really had an impact on the number of players willing to play, especially at the 20/40 level. We used to be able to keep a 5 or 6, or even as short as 4 players game going pretty consistently, but a number of players that used to be willing to play short aren't willing to do it, plus some of the more marginal regulars (either break-even or slightly losing players) are no longer even willing to sit in the game unless it's super good. The regulars need to realize that if they aren't willing to keep a game going, that pretty soon there won't be any game, as the occasional recreational players aren't going to even bother to show up if they can't get a game. Not sure what's going to happen with the prop players either. If there is no 20/40 game for them to prop, there is really no reason anymore to employ them, which is not good for their future prospects.
Here's a summary of my major gambling activities over the summer:
So excluding my blackjack results which is mainly due to my implosion at Aria over my weekend Vegas jaunt, I basically crushed it at poker winning 32.7k over 490.5 hours for an hourly rate of $66.67 per hour, while getting crushed at blackjack. The blackjack is obviously not a large enough sample size to do it justice, but you can see the variance in blackjack is just huge. I can easily make that up in a single good session of blackjack. I have won over 20k in blackjack in a single session over 15 times in the last year alone, and over 40k in 7 sessions. It just goes to show that blackjack has a huge variance, and you really need to put the hours in before it all starts balancing out. Advantage blackjack play is all about getting the hands in, particularly when the count is good and you have the edge.
Don't know when I'll get a chance to play some more serious blackjack. Barona is being very strict with me. I went out there with a buddy a little while ago, and I was sitting at the table with him watching him play, when I topped off one of his bets with some of his chips when the count was good, and within 30 seconds I got a tap on the shoulder and was told that I was not allowed to sit with my friend while he was playing, nor touch his chips or his wager. Sheesh.
Barona is still sending me promotional offers in the mail. The August promotional offer was good for $250 in cash, which I made sure that I went in to get. However, the September mailer was only good for $30, so I'm not sure if they are trying to send me a subliminal message or what. I'm guessing that their offers are determined by some formula based on the amount of action you have given them in the past 90 days, and since I haven't been playing there much my offers have gone down significantly. When I get the October mailer, I'll be curious to see how much it is worth.
Well that's about it for this update. I'll try and post more often, but with my increasingly busy schedule, not sure how many interesting gambling stories I will have to tell. On a personal note, my 8-year daughter went out on her first "date" with a boy. We ended up getting our two families together for dinner at a local Korean BBQ restaurant, because my daughter and the other family's son wanted to have dinner together. It was cute, and every time I ask my daughter about her boyfriend she gets embarrassed. It's funny.
I am a little worried about the state of the limit holdem games at Oceans-11. With the new management, and the policy of no longer giving a drop reduction when the game gets short, has really had an impact on the number of players willing to play, especially at the 20/40 level. We used to be able to keep a 5 or 6, or even as short as 4 players game going pretty consistently, but a number of players that used to be willing to play short aren't willing to do it, plus some of the more marginal regulars (either break-even or slightly losing players) are no longer even willing to sit in the game unless it's super good. The regulars need to realize that if they aren't willing to keep a game going, that pretty soon there won't be any game, as the occasional recreational players aren't going to even bother to show up if they can't get a game. Not sure what's going to happen with the prop players either. If there is no 20/40 game for them to prop, there is really no reason anymore to employ them, which is not good for their future prospects.
Here's a summary of my major gambling activities over the summer:
| Game | Result | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Blackjack | -37.8k | 29 |
| 8/16 kill | 3.8k | 53.75 |
| 20/40 | 23k | 286.75 |
| 40/80 | 9.5k | 122.25 |
| 2/3 no limit | -0.25k | 0.5 |
| 5/5 no limit | -3.35k | 27.25 |
| totals | -5.1k | 519.5 |
So excluding my blackjack results which is mainly due to my implosion at Aria over my weekend Vegas jaunt, I basically crushed it at poker winning 32.7k over 490.5 hours for an hourly rate of $66.67 per hour, while getting crushed at blackjack. The blackjack is obviously not a large enough sample size to do it justice, but you can see the variance in blackjack is just huge. I can easily make that up in a single good session of blackjack. I have won over 20k in blackjack in a single session over 15 times in the last year alone, and over 40k in 7 sessions. It just goes to show that blackjack has a huge variance, and you really need to put the hours in before it all starts balancing out. Advantage blackjack play is all about getting the hands in, particularly when the count is good and you have the edge.
Don't know when I'll get a chance to play some more serious blackjack. Barona is being very strict with me. I went out there with a buddy a little while ago, and I was sitting at the table with him watching him play, when I topped off one of his bets with some of his chips when the count was good, and within 30 seconds I got a tap on the shoulder and was told that I was not allowed to sit with my friend while he was playing, nor touch his chips or his wager. Sheesh.
Barona is still sending me promotional offers in the mail. The August promotional offer was good for $250 in cash, which I made sure that I went in to get. However, the September mailer was only good for $30, so I'm not sure if they are trying to send me a subliminal message or what. I'm guessing that their offers are determined by some formula based on the amount of action you have given them in the past 90 days, and since I haven't been playing there much my offers have gone down significantly. When I get the October mailer, I'll be curious to see how much it is worth.
Well that's about it for this update. I'll try and post more often, but with my increasingly busy schedule, not sure how many interesting gambling stories I will have to tell. On a personal note, my 8-year daughter went out on her first "date" with a boy. We ended up getting our two families together for dinner at a local Korean BBQ restaurant, because my daughter and the other family's son wanted to have dinner together. It was cute, and every time I ask my daughter about her boyfriend she gets embarrassed. It's funny.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Crush Club
1st rule of crush club: You do not talk about Crush Club.
Yep, I jinxed myself of course and got absolutely destroyed in the 40/80 on Friday night. Must remember the rules of Crush Club, otherwise I am going to get expelled.
On a side note, I may need to inaugurate a new member of Crush Club. CC (his initials), seemed to have a very good night, and if he broke the 100 big bet barrier in under a 24 hour session, is welcome to join.
Admission Criteria to Crush Club:
Yep, I jinxed myself of course and got absolutely destroyed in the 40/80 on Friday night. Must remember the rules of Crush Club, otherwise I am going to get expelled.
On a side note, I may need to inaugurate a new member of Crush Club. CC (his initials), seemed to have a very good night, and if he broke the 100 big bet barrier in under a 24 hour session, is welcome to join.
Admission Criteria to Crush Club:
- Must win 100 big bets in 24 hours or less, from buy-in to cash-out.
- Can't be prick or someone I don't like.
- Doesn't count if you double or triple dip, or if the game breaks and then restarts later and your combined win exceeds 100 bets.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Year to Date
Looking only at the limit games I play, I am simply destroying the game this year, particularly here in the last couple of months. It's starting to get a little ridiculous, I must say even for myself. Everyone says that I am running good, and while that's probably true to some extent, the way I like to think about it, is I give myself every opportunity to win, and am unafraid to push small edges, particularly in the 20 and the 40 games. The 8/16 I play much differently, since the aggression level is much less, and the number of multi-way pots is much greater.
In any case here's the year to date stats:
8/16 Kill 231 bets in 42 hours
20/40 460.875 bets in 345.5 hours
40/80 262.7 bets in 92 hours
By any stretch of the imagination, I don't think this level of winning is sustainable, but heck you never know. I do know that I have been playing very well lately, and seem to make that extra value bet when I should, and make the correct folds when I should as well.
Hope, I just didn't jinx myself for the rest of the year.
In any case here's the year to date stats:
8/16 Kill 231 bets in 42 hours
20/40 460.875 bets in 345.5 hours
40/80 262.7 bets in 92 hours
By any stretch of the imagination, I don't think this level of winning is sustainable, but heck you never know. I do know that I have been playing very well lately, and seem to make that extra value bet when I should, and make the correct folds when I should as well.
Hope, I just didn't jinx myself for the rest of the year.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Learning to Ride
I've played limit holdem for a very long time. I'd like to think that I'm pretty good at it. I have been a consistent winner for many years, and consider myself an excellent short handed and heads up limit player. However, I would like to make myself a well rounded player, and have started to delve into no limit a bit. I've mainly played the 5/5 no limit at Oceans-11, and I usually buy in for 200 big blinds, although occasionally I will buy in full for 300 big blinds.
However, this creates a dilemma for me. Since I am still learning this game, I am for sure not a winning player yet, unless the game is full of droolers, which is usually not the case. So I am giving up both real dollars and opportunity cost by sitting in this game instead of a limit game when one is running. So I need to consider, what is the overall cost, and what is the future expected value I can expect by eventually becoming competent, and a winning player in that game. Can I expect to win more than $60/hr consistently in that game? I don't know. I'm not sure what a reasonable win rate is to be expected in that game for a competent winning player.
So I have been back from Vegas for a little over a week, and got in a quite a bit of poker play since then. I am still in between projects at work, and my work load has been considerably lighter than normal. I start my new project in earnest next week.
Here's a list of the sessions I put in last week:
8/16 Kill +20 15 minutes
5/5 NL -5000 8 hours 20 minutes
20/40 +1920 3 hours 24 minutes
5/5 NL +63 10 minutes
8/16 Kill +376 14 hours
5/5 NL +735 2 hours 10 minutes
20/40 +3385 7 hours 10 minutes
5/5 NL -145 20 minutes
8/16 Kill +314 25 minutes
20/40 +455 8 hours
40/80 -800 7 hours 30 minutes
And thus the dilemma is revealed. In the limit games I played, I won $5,670 in 40 hours and 44 minutes of play for an hourly rate of $139.20. However, in the no limit games I played, I lost $4,347 in 11 hours of play for an hourly loss of $395.18. Now granted I had a huge loss of $5,000 in an absolutely horrific 8 hour session, but unfortunately, sessions like this are going to happen, and in terms of real dollars, they count.
I read a poem recently by William Ernest Henley, that I think is particularly inspiring, and I think also is apropos for me with regards to my poker playing, and I think can also be applied to virtually any part of your life.
However, this creates a dilemma for me. Since I am still learning this game, I am for sure not a winning player yet, unless the game is full of droolers, which is usually not the case. So I am giving up both real dollars and opportunity cost by sitting in this game instead of a limit game when one is running. So I need to consider, what is the overall cost, and what is the future expected value I can expect by eventually becoming competent, and a winning player in that game. Can I expect to win more than $60/hr consistently in that game? I don't know. I'm not sure what a reasonable win rate is to be expected in that game for a competent winning player.
So I have been back from Vegas for a little over a week, and got in a quite a bit of poker play since then. I am still in between projects at work, and my work load has been considerably lighter than normal. I start my new project in earnest next week.
Here's a list of the sessions I put in last week:
8/16 Kill +20 15 minutes
5/5 NL -5000 8 hours 20 minutes
20/40 +1920 3 hours 24 minutes
5/5 NL +63 10 minutes
8/16 Kill +376 14 hours
5/5 NL +735 2 hours 10 minutes
20/40 +3385 7 hours 10 minutes
5/5 NL -145 20 minutes
8/16 Kill +314 25 minutes
20/40 +455 8 hours
40/80 -800 7 hours 30 minutes
And thus the dilemma is revealed. In the limit games I played, I won $5,670 in 40 hours and 44 minutes of play for an hourly rate of $139.20. However, in the no limit games I played, I lost $4,347 in 11 hours of play for an hourly loss of $395.18. Now granted I had a huge loss of $5,000 in an absolutely horrific 8 hour session, but unfortunately, sessions like this are going to happen, and in terms of real dollars, they count.
I read a poem recently by William Ernest Henley, that I think is particularly inspiring, and I think also is apropos for me with regards to my poker playing, and I think can also be applied to virtually any part of your life.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
I like this poem so much, I am thinking of getting a framed copy of it so I can put it up in my office to read each morning when I come into work.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Burned!
I arrived on Thursday around 11:30 am at McCarran airport, and the limo was waiting for my arrival. I checked into the hotel, met my host, got my massage at the spa all arranged, and got my bearings all situated in the hotel room. I stopped by Julian Serrano's for lunch at the bar by myself. Had a shrimp tapas and the seared tuna salad with sherry vinaigrette. I've had this salad before, and forgot about how briny the olives were. The addition of the olives completely unbalances the flavor profile and I of course had to pick them off.
After lunch, I shuttled over to the craps table, and proceeded to go on a massive heater and picked up a nice package. Then it was off to the spa for my massage. Massage was nice and relaxing and I was feeling very good about this time. I went back up to my hotel room changed and hit the blackjack tables in the high limit room.
I played for about 4 hours, picked up a small little package, and by this time two of my buddies had shown up, and I made dinner reservations at Jean Georges Steakhouse. We had an excellent meal here. We ordered the chilled seafood platter and hamachi sashimi for appetizers for the table. After that, I started my meal with the cream of tomato soup, and for my entree I had 8oz filet along with grilled asparagus. Everything was excellent with the exception of the asparagus.
After dinner we headed out to the petting zoo. A good time was had by all, and by this time another buddy finally made it in from San Diego after driving through the night. We left there, and at the hotel, my buddy and I played the IGT heads-up limit poker machines. I beat it, while my buddy kept losing to it. No wonder, I always beat him whenever we play heads up.
I finally hit the bed at around 6am in the morning, and as usual, I can't sleep in strange hotel beds and I am up by 10:30 am or so. I shower, change, and head down to the craps table. I met a girl I know from Oceans-11 at the craps table, and we proceed to blow through a bunch of cash. Eventually I end up having lunch at Lemongrass with two of my buddies. We proceed to order a buffet of food, although I think the best thing was the soup that I ordered.
After lunch, I decide to play some more craps, and I ended up about even, although I did hit a 1k eleven, that paid me back 15 dimes!
At this point, I am extremely tired, so I decide to head off to the room for a nap, prior to going to the 2+2 Vegas meetup, like I had planned. I never made it there unfortunately.
After tossing and turning for 15 minutes, I decide that I can't fall asleep and will go kill some time playing blackjack. Little did I know what was in store for me.
I kept swinging like a yo-yo, getting massively stuck, then even, then up a little, then massively stuck again. Eventually I quit with a mid 5 figure loss. The rest of my crew picked up another hitchhiker and we had a nice meal at Blossom. Best bite I had in Vegas was the Peking Duck in the steamed bun. I was so focused on playing blackjack that I told my buddies to order without me and let me know when the food showed up. Fortunately, or unfortunately, my getting felted at the blackjack table coincided with the food being delivered for the most part.
After dinner, I played the heads up machine a little more, and then crashed early at about 2:30 am in the morning and finally get a reasonable amount of sleep, and I am up around 11 am. I put some more time in the blackjack tables and only get stuck further.
Eventually we have lunch at Julian Serrano's again, and I notice that the menu in the main restaurant versus at the bar is completely different! This again was an excellent meal, with probably the 2nd best bite of food I had this trip being the traditional Spanish chicken croquetas. They were simply awesome, and I will be sure to order these again next time I am in Vegas.
After lunch, I put in a last ditch effort to salvage something from the trip, and ended up winning back 5k of my losses to put a small dent into the ditch that I dug for myself.
In all, I had a fun trip. Wish I would have quit the second blackjack session after I had gotten myself even, but in the world of advantage play, there is really no reason ever to quit playing, unless you are making mistakes, which I was not. It seemed like every time there was a good positive count and I was firing out large bets, the blackjacks ended up on the wrong side of the table. I'm sure that the Aria would love to have me back, and have me pegged for the biggest blackjack fish ever. I am now on a mission to get all of my money back plus some from Aria. I give myself two years to pull this off. I may be going to Vegas every free chance I get now in order to accomplish this, but I will do it, unless they wise up and back me off prior to that.
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