Other than a short run about a year ago, I haven’t played much poker at all in general since I went to the WSOP in 2006.  At the time, I transferred all of my winnings to a more cut-n-dry form of gambling, stock trading.   It seemed like a good idea at the time as I didn’t have the time or motivation to play much poker and investments have always intrigued me.  In another life, I think I would have liked to have been a stock broker.

I recently got around to watching the WSOP Main Event coverage on ESPN from this year which wrapped up about 2 weeks ago.  As always, that has stoked my interest in poker again.  In addition, most of you have probably noticed the economy is not doing so well.  My investments, funded w/ my poker winnings, have taken a hit along with everyone else.  Tell me again how online poker is gambling but stock trading is not?  Perhaps I should have stayed away from stock trading and focused on the less risky business found in gambling.

Speaking of Risky Business, I did indeed name this article such that I can have a reason to post possibly the best television ad ever: Risky Business.

With a little self-reflection this weekend, I’ve decided I must be addicted to frustration.  In particular, I seem to seek out and immerse myself in activities that can drive me crazy.

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A few days ago, I was playing poker again and really having a bad run.  I hopped into yet another game I was predestined to get sucked out on but a strange thing happened while I was playing.  Another person at the 6-handed table starting asking me some pretty random questions.  At first, I assumed it was someone who recognized my username from when I played on PokerRoom.  That site was my preferred poker site until it left the US market.  I was pretty well known player on that site as I had tremendous success there.  After a few minutes though, it became apparent the player knew me personally somehow.  I was a little leery and didn’t really want to get involved in a conversation with some random person who somehow knew me so I was a bit cagey with my responses — given then I usually refrain from talking at all, it was surprising I responded at all.  It was fortuitous that I did though.  When he asked if I still played spades, I did a double-take on the username of the player and realized exactly who it had to be.  It turned out to be my best friend from high school, Joe.  My sister Amye once tracked me down online but I knew she played so that was just a funny coincidence.  My friend and I hadn’t spoken in years and I had no idea what he was up to.  It was the most incredibly random meeting yet.

I unexpectedly found myself home alone all evening and ended up playing some poker for most of the night and then finishing The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass. I had been speaking with Brian earlier in the day about tournament poker and, as talking about poker always does, it got me motivated to play. When Christina told me I would have the evening to myself, I went online to see if there were any interesting tournaments to play. As luck would have it, there are a nice lucrative tournament with a signficant overlay guarantee. It was a 1 rebuy/1 add-on so the field is also small relative to the payout - There were 128 players with 15 paid. I didn’t really have much to work with throughout the tournament but I held my own and consistently sat in the middle of the pack even as the field continued to shrink. Three hours in, we were down to 20 and I was sitting at 22k in chips in 15th place when my bustout occurred in a brutal river suckout.

Blinds were ~300/600 with 50 antes. Early position player raised a standard 3x blind to 1800, one of the chip leaders to my right flat-called, and I raised it to 7500 with KK. Initial raiser folded and big stack immediately pushed all-in. I insta-called. I wouldn’t have folded anyway but the pusher had been playing quite aggressively the whole time I had been seated at a table with him. In addition, in the previous 3 or 4 hands, I had played back at him twice and won two good-size pots off of him so I’m sure part of his push was just to bully me. Needless to say, I was a heavy favorite to his AQ (though you always dread seeing Ax when you have KK) and even more of a favorite on a flop of J 7 3. The turn was an ominous 10, giving him 2 more outs — any of the aces or two remaining kings would give him the win (~10-12% chance to win for him). In truly sick fashion, I made three of a kind on the river K and gave him an Ace-high straight. Surviving that sick beat would have put in the top 5 in chips and set me up for quite a nice payday. Moments like that though are why I would never recommend anyone play poker for money — you have to be able to take these brutal beats and move on. Finishing just 5 places shy of a payout is soul-crushing.

After I relaxed in front of the TV for about 15-30 minutes to blow off some steam, I wandered upstairs and played The Phantom Hourglass on the Nintendo DS the rest of the evening (and into the morning). I ended up beating it and, without a doubt, that was a superb game. I’ve been playing it mostly on vacations and flights for the past 9 months and it is definitely a must-purchase if you own a DS.

The Word Series of Poker 2008 began in Vegas a couple weeks ago and its now the second year in a row I’m not there. Just a few years ago, I remember calling Brian telling him how I had won a satellite seat into a WSOP satellite (a satellite to a satellite) and how crazy it would be if I somehow won a trip to the WSOP. Two consecutive trips to the WSOP later and it now feels odd if I’m not going…

I played my first poker SnG tournament in over a month last night and came away with a fairly easy win. I played a slightly lower level than my usual and it was almost anticlimactic as I steadily just stole chips left and right from my opponents without any chance of being outplayed.

Getting away from poker was actually quite relaxing and I’m planning on keeping my play time modest for awhile. It’s such a time-consuming hobby if I get too involved and I’m focusing on my other endeavors at the moment. On the other hand, there are so many weak players just looking for a way to give me their money, I feel not playing is like losing money. Unfortunately, the nature of the game leads to swings and my incremental gain is relatively modest so it takes a significant time investment to make it “worthwhile”. In addition, as bad as most of the players are, the typical player is better than they once were. I think this is due to the poker boom having worn out its welcome (in the US, at least). The players who have stuck with it have that much more experience and so make my grinding even less rewarding.

While I didn’t make an effort to go to the WSOP this year or last, I hope to make it back sometime in the future. I have a Vegas trip planned with some friends for my birthday but it’s so much nicer when someone else pays for it!

I was inspired to do some googling this afternoon and determined that my legacy on the internet is essentially Twitter and poker as only my Twitter page came up along with a few poker results. My chip stack on Day 1 of the 2005 WSOP tourney was a lively reminder of the brutal beat I took on Day 2, the blog entry on PokerRoom about my bubble in the PokerRoom Poker Pro tournament is the story of my life, and there were a few other references to placing in multi-table tournaments. I don’t play many MTT events so there weren’t too many of those last ones but it was still interesting to find my name out there. There was even a blog post about a hand in a tournament that I wasn’t involved in but was sitting at the table where it occurred. I’ll take this as incentive to keep playing the MTT events so I can become even more famous ;-).

Those 5-table MTT tournaments?  Played another one last night.  Bubbled again.  I have an amazing propensity to bubble — A few years ago, when I was playing poker at a much higher level and much more often, I bubbled out of so many tournaments, I started keeping track of them as they would be almost comical, if they weren’t so painful. Last night, I was solid in chips, 3rd or 4th out of 7, but when I pushed w/ AK, I turned to Christina and told her, “I’ll probably be the bubble boy because someone will wake up with Aces.”  Big blind almost made me 100% right, calling with KK.

Perhaps the two most painful bubbles were in a WSOP Satellite and in a tournament PokerRoom was having for the WSOP players they had sent.  For the latter, PokerRoom had setup a tournament for the 60+ people that had won a seat to the WSOP.  The top 8 (top 10?) people would all win a trip on a cruise and finish the tournament there.  The winner would become a “Pro” for a year, sponsored by PokerRoom.  I was one of the shorter stacks when it got to the bubble so I don’t know if I would have won the whole tourney but I certainly would have liked to win the trip.  I pushed w/ K J from SB and got called from BB with A-3.  No improvement for me and I bubbled as I have so many times previously and since.

I’ve been preoccupied with poker recently. I’ve been steadily building up my bankroll only to give in and take a few hits as I get too “greedy”. I’ve been called out for my excessive patience in most situations but recently, I’ve made several mistakes due to impatience. I believe it to be a poker-only phenomenon as I don’t seem to be losing patience in other aspects of life so I’m working to identify what is driving me to make bad plays in these moments where I lose focus.

Went to see The Grand at the E-Street Cinema in DC yesterday with some friends and it’s definitely worth seeing. It’s a mockumentary style movie about poker and it plays up the stereotypes very well. Additionally, though it’s a movie about poker, it doesn’t really have all that much poker actually in it so it should appeal to quite a few people who otherwise would skip it. Anyway, if you like mockumentary style movies like Best In Show, you would probably enjoy this movie. Poker aficionados just get a bonus with the numerous cameo appearances by the notable poker faces.

Recently, I’ve been intrigued by 5-table tournaments on Full Tilt.  These 45 player tourneys fills up very quickly and provide a decent return if you place in the top 3 (top 6 paid).    I’ve played about 6-8 of them and haven’t finished worse than in the teens — Sadly, I can’t seem to finish strong and my best finish was 5th.

A truism among people in general is that when you’re winning, you tend to keep winning and when you’re losing, you tend to keep losing. However, people hate to lose so what happens is people who have hot streaks, tend to stop so they can "go out a winner". Even worse, people who are losing tend to keep playing until they win — they think they’ll eventually win. This is particularly dangerous when someone is gambling.

Last night, I fell into the same trap. I tend to play well below my skill level right now as I’m building my bankroll up and as a result, I dominate most tables I’m playing on. However, even the best player can lose to a weak player if the cards fall just right. Over time, the better player will overwhelm the weaker player but in a particular hand or tournament, things can go awry very quickly. Last night, I had a brutal stretch of bad beats ranging from 60-40 favorites to 90+ favorites losing to the weaker hands. Twice, I had someone down to a single big blind and have them come back and win because they were catching everything in sight. At one SnG, I ran over the table and had a commanding chip lead until the short-stack doubled through me three times in three consecutive hands as a 70:30 underdog.

My gameplan is generally to play anywhere from 1-3 SnG tourneys a day until I build up my bankroll. Of course, I violated my own rules and played over and over again to try and reclaim my losses. I finally stopped playing but having lost even more.

 Today, Christina and I planned to do some projects today before we went over to her grandparents house for fondue.  She’s doing some little things around the house and doing some of her schoolwork.  I was either planning on designing a project for my future business or messing with my Mindstorms or something else constructive.  As she said, "I don’t think poker counts as a project."  Yet I decided to play a small SnG and won it.  My friend Brian was also playing a small SnG and so I watched him play and win his table as well.  A good morning.