Dealers watch out!

I probably can give Anguila a run for his money as worst poker blogger out there, but I thought I would make a feeble attempt at a post for those thousands of readers I have out there whose lives are empty without a blog posting to read (which one is the dripping-with-sarcasm font?).

I was reading a Life as a Central City Floor post about a player who feigns not to understand English when trying to shoot an angle. While not totally related I was reminded of an incident while playing a tournament at Caesar's a while back. I don't know why I felt so strongly about this then but it obviously bothered me enough at the time to say something and still is in my memory months later. This incident probably has less to do with poker than with my broader belief system and values and sense of fairness.

We're all familiar with the English-only rule at the poker table and how the level of enforcement varies from card room to card room. Normally I'm not bothered by two people exchanging a few words in another tongue if it's fairly obvious that they aren't discussing a hand in play. At some point in the tournament I heard a discussion at the table behind me. The dealer was trying to enforce the English-only rule with a player and two of his friends who were sweating him. It caught my attention not only because of the dealer's raised voice, but also because he tried to warn the players in both English and then German. It got to a point where the TD was called over and after straightening things out the TD went so far as to make an announcement over the PA system to all the players.

Flash back to sometime during the earlier stages of the tournament, an older gentleman sat down to play. I definitely remember it was early in the tournament because he didn't last all too long. This gentleman was a jovial, friendly man with longish, silver hair and an obvious accent. His play was terrible but he managed to dole out some suck-outs to accumulate some chips. Sometime during the course of play the dealer and player somehow determined that they shared a common (native?) language. I couldn't place the language but the conversation seemed to be of the "where are you from?" "do you still live there?" "business or pleasure?" vein. It was fairly brief and soon enough the dealer got pushed.

Honestly I didn't think much of it and I most definitely didn't think that in any way was the dealer trying to give the player any information that would give him an edge in the tournament. But after the incident with the Germans I felt like I had to say something. I mean, if the TD is going to go so far as make an announcement to all the players, then the dealers can't be sending out mixed signals by conversing in other languages with the players. So at the next break I pulled aside the TD and told him what I had seen at our table. The TD took a very serious interest when I related the story and immediately went to our table to look through the dealers who had dealt at our table to identify the dealer in question. Something about the way the TD looked after he figured out who it was told me that this probably wasn't the first problem he'd had with the dealer in question and briefly made me question whether I had done the right thing.

Unfortunately I probably should have focused more on my own play than worry about dealer infraction because I played like a donkey and busted out shortly after the break.

Meh

Out around 30th out of 92 runners. Not much I can do when the BB decides to call my EP All-in with AJo against my Queens. I got my money in good which is all I can hope for. With blinds at 500-1000 and a 50 blind and me with around T6,000, I think all in was my only move. Even if I bet half my stack I have a feeling he would call and then call me when the flop comes T-K-blank. I mean, if you're the kind of guy who calls T5,000 with AJo I'm sure you're going to call with a gutshot.

Luckily the table games were kinder to me and I was able to win my buy-in and then some. A little extra gambling money for Vegas.

My buddy LPC worked his ass off only to get 15th, which won exactly as much as I did. Especially unfortunate because we had swapped a quarter ourselves. Oh well.

Going to the show

I tried to start this long, literary post about my upcoming trip to LV; I even had a little snippet of movie dialog to start off with, but sadly I am no Pauly. The title of the post comes from Bull Durham, where Crash (Kevin Costner) is talking about his 21 days in "the show" (the major leagues). I remember how people around him in the bus stop to listen, hanging on his every word.

For poker players, the WSOP is "the show." Of course, the main event is the show of shows, but to play in any event-- even a $1,500 buy-in event-- is enough of a dream (or at least the first step) for many. To be able to say that you played in the WSOP, even if it's just for a few hours, is something you will have for the rest of your life.

But do I want to spend a majority of my bankroll on one event? I think it's pretty safe to say that the answer is "no." Especially when Caesars and the Venetian will be running their Mega Stacks and Deep Stacks tournaments respectively and I can play in 2 fairly big, deep-stack events for about two-thirds the price. I might take a stab or two at winning a satellite to the $1,500 but I just can't see buying in directly. Of course, if I go deep in my first tourney I would consider buying into the WSOP event, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Until then, the dream of going to the show may just have to wait a little longer.

Tips for the WSOP newbie

Pauly has a great primer for food options at the WSOP. Although I've never played myself, I thought I'd throw in a few of my own general Las Vegas/Poker Tourney tips.

Much as I am maligned for doing so, I have a man purse that I use almost exclusively when in Las Vegas. It's a sleek little black Diesel bag that's a throwback from my metro days. If you are insecure about a man purse a backpack would do just as well. Here is a list of things of obvious and not so obvious things I carry in it.

1. a light jacket. for some reason I always get cold in casinos and poker rooms, but not when I'm walking around or outside, so I keep this folded up for when I need it.
2. drugs. another thing that often happens to me is getting headaches. I don't know if it's the dry air or the copious amounts of alcohol often consumed, but I get bad headaches in Vegas. Sure, I could go to the gift shop and buy some, but I'd no doubt pay way too much and I'd also need to leave the table, so instead I just carry some Tylenol at all times. I also have some claritin if my allergies act up.
   
3. candy. We've all been there. You've been up all night and haven't brushed your teeth. Your breath stinks and you know it and the others at the table know it. That's why I carry an assortment of mints and hard candies. Those melting strips are also nice. And if you like gum bring your own. Good luck finding that in the gift shop. I think someone once told me that the casinos don't sell gum because the don't like having to pull it out of the carpet and from the bottom of tables. Also, offering candy to others at the table makes friends, which might be especially nice if you're playing next to Liz Lieu or Jennifer Leigh.
4. water. I know it's "free" in most places, but sometimes you are stuck at the table from hell with the cocktail waitress who comes around every hour if you're lucky. Also, I actually like to walk around the Strip when I'm in Las Vegas so it's always nice to have some with you when you're not at a table. Usually I'll just take a bottle with me from the table and fill it with water fountain water or a big bottle in my room.*
5. Snacks. Pauly touched on this in his blog, but I think this is especially true if you're in an all-day tourney. I personally don't function well when I'm hungry so a couple of energy bars in the bag are good emergency food.
   
6. Misc. Stuff. iPod, note pad, pen, card protector, tournament structure sheets, stripper flyers, whatever (Liz Lieu's phone number after you give her candy...). I guess you could just stuff your pockets, but I'm not a big fan of the bulging pockets look.**
   

On thing about a man purse or back pack is that after sitting at a table for hours on end, it is very easy to forget it's there and walk away without it (especially if your last hand was a brutal, soul-crushing, two-outer suckout on the river). Although it's always been there when I've gone back, it's still a pain to have to go all the way back to the poker room to get your bag. For this reason, also, I wouldn't keep any money or my wallet in the bag.

* thoughts on water. I'm not a miser, but I just can't bring myself to pay $5 for those bottles of water they have in the hotel room. As I said earlier, I like to walk around in Las Vegas, so one of my first jaunts is down to the Walgreens (?) on the strip. I go down and pick up a couple of liters of water and the above mentioned candy and snacks. I usually do this in the evening when it's a little cooler and the walkways aren't as crowded.

** If it's my bankroll that's making my pockets bulge, so be it, but unfortunately I've never had that problem.

Poker tip #1

I am, if anything, a break-even poker player. I realize that I have much to learn when it comes to poker. My game is nowhere near the level of bloggers like Focault, and so I do not even attempt to dole out poker advice. But this one time I will deign to give a little words of wisdom: Don't talk smack if you don't have game to back it up.

Today I jumped on FTP to play a little poker. Due to the amount of free time, I decided to play a heads up sit-n-go. Things didn't start out so well when on the third hand I made a bad call

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, 10+0.50 Tournament, 10/20 Blinds (2 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

The Russian (SB) (t1560)
Hero (Button) (t1440)

Hero's M: 48.00

Preflop: Hero is Button with 3, K
Hero bets t60, The Russian calls t40

Flop: (t120) 6, 2, K (2 players)
The Russian checks, Hero checks

Turn: (t120) 7 (2 players)
The Russian bets t100, Hero calls t100

River: (t320) 9 (2 players)
The Russian bets t333, Hero calls t333

Total pot: t986

Results:
Hero had 3, K (one pair, Kings).
The Russian had 4, Q (flush, King high).
Outcome: The Russian won t986

Tried to get a little tricky with my top pair and paid the price when I didn't thing about the possible crubs (this guy must read the BWoP).

After that, the guy starts calling me every variation on donkey (donkey, super donk, donk etc.) whenever I made a laydown to a big bet. Maybe he was bluffing, but I never had a hand to look him up. Twice I battled back from a short stack to take the chip lead only to be whittled down again. All the while, suffering his little jabs.

Never giving up, I just continued to pick my spots until this hand came up.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, 10+0.50 Tournament, 20/40 Blinds (2 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

The Russian (Button) (t1807)
Hero (SB) (t1193)

Hero's M: 19.88

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10, K
The Russian bets t120, Hero calls t80

Flop: (t240) 2, J, Q (2 players)
Hero checks, The Russian bets t160, Hero calls t160

Turn: (t560) 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, The Russian bets t333, Hero raises to t666, The Russian raises to t1527 (All-In), Hero calls t247 (All-In)

River: (t2386) 5 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t2386

Results:
The Russian had Q, 10 (one pair, Queens).
Hero had 10, K (straight, King high).
Outcome: Hero won t2386

And then suddenly all the needling stopped. Not a peep out of him for the rest of the match. I couldn't help myself and had to throw one little jab in there and wrote "how to you say "donkey" in Russian?"

After realizing that this guy was weak sauce I just decided to sit back and wait for him to make a misstep, which didn't take long:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, 10+0.50 Tournament, 25/50 Blinds (2 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

The Russian (Button) (t774)
Hero (SB) (t2226)

Hero's M: 29.68

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8, 9
The Russian bets t150, Hero calls t100

Flop: (t300) 9, 6, 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, The Russian bets t624 (All-In), Hero calls t624

Turn: (t1548) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t1548) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t1548

Results:
The Russian had K, A (high card, Ace).
Hero had 8, 9 (straight, nine high).
Outcome: Hero won t1548

How to win a 45-man SNG

Get hit in the face by the deck. Hard. Win coin flips.

Last night on Full Tilt I had AA 3 times (in 4 hands), AK 3 times, KK twice and QQ once. And they all held up. Having nearly 50% of the chips in play at the final table I was able to steal with impunity. I only lost the chip lead when we got heads up but then this hand came up:

FullTiltPoker Game: $10 + $1 Sit & Go, Table 2 - 800/1600 - No Limit Hold'em -

Seat 1: Opponent (39,020)
Seat 9: tanksj (28,480)

Opponent posts the small blind of 800
tanksj posts the big blind of 1,600

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to tanksj [2c 3d]
Opponent raises to 4,200
tanksj calls 2,600

*** FLOP *** [2s 8d 3c]
tanksj checks
Opponent bets 7,000
tanksj raises to 24,280, and is all in
Opponent calls 17,280
tanksj shows [2c 3d]
Opponent shows [Td Tc]

*** TURN *** [2s 8d 3c] [6h]
Opponent: lol

*** RIVER *** [2s 8d 3c 6h] [Ac]
Opponent: nh
tanksj shows two pair, Threes and Twos
Opponent shows a pair of Tens
tanksj wins the pot (56,960) with two pair, Threes and Twos

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 56,960 | Rake 0
Board: [2s 8d 3c 6h Ac]
Seat 1: Opponent (small blind) showed [Td Tc] and lost with a pair of Tens
Seat 9: tanksj (big blind) showed [2c 3d] and won (56,960) with two pair, Threes and Twos

You know you're running good when you win with 32o.

Random Facebook encounter

I have to admit that I am a bit of a voyeur when it comes to Facebook. When I see a friend tagged in a photo I often follow the link and check out the album. There are people out there I don't know but whose wedding pictures I have seen. People on the beach, lots of drunk people, you put it in an album and tag someone I know and there's a good chance I've seen it.

And so I found myself going through an album of a friend of a friend. Now the mutual friend has since moved away so I was curious to see what she was up to. So I'm going through the pictures and some across one that has a comment by "Mark Seif." A close look at his profile pic and his profile and there's a very good chance that this is Mark Seif, the professional poker player. Now there's a very good chance that my friend has never even met Mark, but what a funny, small world it is that he is friends with a friend of a friend.

Happiness is ... (II)

Getting it all in on the turn with your opponent drawing dead.

Middle stages of the 11:00 AM Saturday tournament at the Snoqualmie casino. I'm in late middle position and look down to see pocket rockets. One limper with whom I've played one hand against since he got moved to our table (In the previous hand he called strong bets on the flop and turn with Ax9c with aces and the club flush draw). I raise about 4 times the BB and all fold to the limper who calls. Flop comes Ac 7c 9?. He bets (thank you!). No sense in getting cute here. I know he's not going to go away if he has an ace and I want to make him pay if he's chasing a flush draw so I raise about the size of the pot and he calls. Turn is a 4 (not a club) and he puts me all in and I call. There are times like these when your opponent will flip over something like Kc 9c and you have to sweat the river but thankfully this was not one of them. He shows A7 and I can sit back and watch the meaningless 4 fall on the river.

I had a good time at the Snoqualmie. Their tournament is your typical "draw them in so they'll play cash games" fast tournament. The rounds are only 15 minutes but they use shuffling machines and there wasn't a lot of hollywooding so we got in a fair number of hands in at each level. Maybe it's because the number of players is capped at 80 and the buy-in is only $60 but there didn't seem to be as many pro wanna-bes as the Tulalip Saturday tourney with a $90 buy-in and sometimes over 150 players. There was one guy who I played a little pai-gow with while waiting for the tourney to start who I prayed wouldn't be at my table. The way he bitched and moaned about every hand I just knew he would annoying. Luckily I never had to find out as I saw him leaving before the first break.

This was the first hand at our table. Folds around to older gentleman (OG) in MP who raises to about 3x the BB. He gets called by asian woman on the button (WoB). Flop comes 4 5 6. OG bets out maybe half the pot and gets called by WoB. Turn comes 3 and OG bets and gets called again. I forget the river but it doesn't pair the board. OG goes all in and gets called by WoB. OG has 77, WoB has 44. After the woman leaves we all sit there in disbelief. OG comments on how the WoB never raised him and let him catch his straight for cheap.

At one point during the tournament we had back-to-back quads at our table, something I can't ever remember seeing before. In both instances, a shortish stack shoved all in (the first one with 66, the second with 77) only to be called by AK. In each hand, the pocket pair improved to quads by the end. The next hand after that I'm in the BB with 5c7c and see a flop of 2c 5d 7d. I check-raise-re-raise-all-in an early position bettor only to have him turn over 5h7h. Sadly my free-roll didn't result in the flush and we chopped.

Overall I played pretty tight and used that image to steal a few pots here and there. Except for one mis-step, I think I played pretty solid, straightforward poker and only got it in with the worst of it a couple of times and even then I wasn't a big dog. When our table got broken and we were down to two tables I had about T11,000 in chips with blinds at 1,000/2,000. After stealing the blinds once I caught AdKd on my BB and tripled up against KJo and JJ. A short time later I busted a small stack with QQ against his 88 and from that point coasted to the final table.

I arrived at the final table as one of the top 3 biggest stacks and was able to sit back and let the little stacks make desperation shoves. Down to three the blinds were 10,000/20,000 and we were pretty evenly stacked so a chop was proposed. As is my MO, as soon as the deal was agreed upon I played like a donk and shoved from the button with 6d9d only to have the SB wake up with AQo. The flop gave me a flush draw but that was as good as I got and I busted out in third.

You talking to me?

Now, I have to tell you (actually, I have said this a few times before, but it bears repeating) that most poker blogs are crap, as far as I'm concerned. (Of course, their keepers might say the same about mine, but that's how tastes and opinions go.) Most of them just talk about specific hands and sessions, whining about bad beats, blah, blah, blah. I find them unreadable after about 30 seconds. Moreover, they tend to butcher the language and rules of writing the way I'd expect from a typical middle-school student. At a bad school. Who had flunked English. Twice. Poker Grump

Now I didn't flunk English but this is exactly the kind of blog the Poker Grump is talking about. I'd like to think that I keep the whining to a minimum but it is my own little self indulgent space. Plus I get to play in a freeroll here and there.

I haven't been playing a lot of poker lately so not much to report. It's amazing how much of a time sink a toddler can be. By the time he's down for the night and things are cleaned up I don't have any energy to play online. Not that I really mind; I'll take spending time with the little one over playing with jackasses and donkeys any day.