PGP

The geek bloggers out there may think the title of this post refers to something else.

However, it does not refer to a commonly used encryption scheme. It stands for Play Good Poker.

While this may seem all too obvious to many of you, I have to confess to losing sight of what the goal of my poker sessions should be. You see, I've been carrying this albatross of online poker losses around my neck since March of this year. Eliminating that big minus sign in front of my current career online earnings has held too much of my focus.

I've been guilty of recalculating that number mid-session, almost on a hand by hand basis. It's the curse of a mind that is good with numbers. (Aside: As a Little Leaguer from the ages of 10-12, I used to calcuate in my head my batting average after every at bat. It got so bad that one time (no, not at band camp) after a hit, a fellow teammate would say, "What's your average now?")

To combat this obsession, I've refocused myself. PGP is my new mantra. Each hand is its own opportunity for me to PGP. My current bankroll and my current monetary standing at the table are no longer factors in how I play a hand. They never should have been, but I confess to being guilty of that sin.

Where I work, we used to embrace a variation reduction methodology known as Six Sigma. One of it's trueisms is that you get what you measure, meaning by whatever measurement you use to gage success, the focus will evolve into improving that measurement.

Perhaps monetary status is the wrong measurement. If I "drilled down" (shoot me now for using that terminology) to find out what measurement best describes PGP, it would not be monetary status, i.e. wins and losses. The correct measurement in this case should be the decisions you make because that is truly what you control.

I've only seen one other blogger do it before, but I firmly believe that going back over hand histories and determining how well you made your all-in decisions, either calling or betting, is a great idea.

My next project is to do just that and "report out" (shoot me again if you missed before) my findings. I may just update my blog template to reflect the measurement of my all-in decisions rather than the results of those decisions. We shall see.

10% of Nothing is Nothing

Like I figured, Otis outlasted me in the tournament. I believe I went out either 36th or 37th. The structure of the tournament was, at best, poor.

Starting chips were $85 and the blinds were $1/$2. No problem there really. But the levels were only 20 minutes. At a table of 10, that's 1 orbit per level, a la Party Poker. The blinds progressed to $2/$4, $3/$6 then $5/10.

At the first break after level 3, I'm exactly even at T85. I pay the blinds one time through and then I'm dealt the best hand I saw all night, A,T hearts. I limp for T10 with about 5 others. The flop is Q-high, 2 hearts. Pretty easy move right here, all-in. I get called by someone holding A,Qo and don't see the heart I need. Buh-bye.

Meanwhile, Otis is surviving the blind increases, but only barely. He gets to play much longer than me and as I suspected there's a flurry of people busting out in the $10/$20 level. I believe Otis finished in 13th, which is pretty remarkable.

Cash games ensued and I made back my buy-in relatively quickly at a $1/$2 NL table. J,J and A,K suited won me big pots. But alas, I gave most of it back when my A,8 suited that turned top two pair lost to a rivered 4-outer gutshot straight draw. That was a big $100+ pot. Then I went card dead and basically broke about even for the cash games.

People started leaving and I was one of the final 6 to keep playing. But unfortunately, it wasn't poker. It was a game resembling poker, but all you basically did was get dealt 2 cards and someone goes all-in. After about 2 hands of this garbage, I packed up and left pondering if I'd be playing in these types of tournaments again.

I'm not a big fan of crap shoot tournaments where you don't really need a bunch of skill to stay alive.

And yeah, I had Otis' back the whole night.

Me 'n Otis

Tonight is a big night. 50-player $75 buy-in NLHE tournament. I forwarded information about the tourney to Otis so that he could get a chance to play more live poker, as he mentioned he'd like to do.

Since we're very close to being world class players in our own right (*cough* who said that? *cough*), we thought it would be neat to exchange stakes in each other, just like the pros. It's only 10% though, basically enough for a small profit on our buy-in's if one of us cashes.

I've got a good feeling about Otis' chances in this thing, don't ask why, I just do. I'm in one of those "everything I predict has come true" modes and this is just another one of those hunches. He's been a bit off in his predictions about me for the Blogger tourneys, but I'm blogging this entry right now to prove my prognostication ablities are right up there with that Nostro-whatever guy.

Wish me luck, Otis won't need it, I will.

There's No Crying in Baseball

For those of you who are tired of non-poker, Red Sox-based content, please come back tomorrow.

My phone rang at about 12:18 AM this morning. I knew who it was. My dad wanted to congratulate me for being alive to see the Sox win the World Series. You see, there are millions of people who've cheered for the Sox their entire lives praying that one day it might happen. And there are millions of people who didn't get to see it.

My grandmother, my only surviving grandparent and a huge Sox fan, was six when they last won. She was born the same year Fenway Park opened and used to always describe for me how my late grandfather listened to the Sox games his final years before MS took his life. She would remind me of the time one of my uncles threw the radio through the window after Game 7 in 1946. The window wasn't open at the time.

Perhaps I'm placing too much importance on such a relatively minor event. I'm open to that possibility. But for me, someone who's invested over 30 years of emotional energy on a team that had been cursed (yes, cursed) for decades, it was an amazing experience.

That they won is huge in and of itself. How they won is amazing. The Sox-Yankees rivalry is the most heated in all of professional sports. To have come back from a 3-0 deficit was borderline miraculous.

It need not be said that I'm a huge baseball fan. My kids names are Morgan (daughter) and Jackson (son) - it's only a partial coincidence that those are the names of MVP award-winners from the 1970's.

I have the entire game on TiVo and plan on getting it to DVD eventually. I can't wait to watch it with my kids and pass down to them the feelings of watching the Sox win a World Championship.

For any sports fans reading this, I honestly hope you get to experience this once in your lives, I'll never forget it.

Bring It

An email graced my inbox this afternoon:

According to SLAYER fan site SlayerSaves.com, SLAYER have announced the cities on the group's upcoming Jägermeister Music Tour that will include an effect dubbed the "Wall of Blood."

At select shows (determined by each venue's technical specs) during SLAYER's classic song "Raining Blood", the band, their instruments, and the stage will be drenched by a downpour of "blood." The "Wall of Blood" will rain more than 150 litres of theatrical blood over an area measuring from 32-feet to 40-feet wide (determined by the size of the venue's stage), 25-feet high, and six-feet deep. The device is a dedicated truss and sprinkler system that utilizes a unique pump technology, and was designed exclusively for SLAYER by U.K.-based Hangman Productions.

SLAYER first used the "raining blood" effect last July in Augusta, ME while filming their brand-new DVD, "Still Reigning". The Dean Karr-directed DVD, due on November 2, opens with the the band's 1986, 28-minute benchmark album "Reign In Blood" performed live in its entirety by SLAYER's original line-up — Tom Araya (vocals, bass), guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman, and drummer Dave Lombardo, who permanently rejoined the band in 2003.

SLAYER's Jägermeister Music Tour itinerary (* denotes "Wall of Blood" dates):

Nov. 25 - Tabernacle - Atlanta, GA *

Brothers in Arms

Got to get in a couple of hours at Party w/Pauly's bro' Derek last night and much fun was had by all.

Derek saw me lose my first buy-in thusly: Holding A,A I raise pre-flop to $3 and get 2 callers. The flop is K-high and had 2 of the same suit, so I go all-in. One folds and the other thinks. I know he has a K and am half-hoping he'll call. Be careful what you wish for. He had K,Q for top pair. Runner-runner K's. Ugh.

So I click to re-load. I double up with a K-high heart flush after I semi-bluffed when an A hit the turn. Someone called my all-in w/A's up, more than likely thinking since I bet the A that I had just top pair. I'm pretty sure that's when Studio_Glyphic hit the rail.

Not too long after, I'm dealt A,A again. Raise to $3 again and again get 2 callers. This time the flop is K,K,Q. It's checked to me and I check too, third player follows suit. The turn is a J and the EP caller bets $4 into me. I call and other guy folds. River is a 9 and the guy bets $14. I couldn't call. Any K and any T beat me. I had to lay down the rockets.

But that's OK, because Nicky and Paris showed up twice in 3 hands helping me get back to over $60 and kept me "up" for the evening.

We spent much of the night harrassing a religious freak, vin_vegas79. I took most of his money on a suckout in the following manner. I raise in EP w/A,Ko and vin_vegas claims "I need the lord's help if I'm going to call you with this hand." The flop is Axx - all hearts. I have top pair and nut flush draw and respond back "Did you get your help?" I bet $4 and he raises me to $8. I go all-in and he calls. Poor bastard did get help, he had 3,4 hearts and flopped a flush. Too bad for him the turn was another A and the river was a K, giving me a boat. Derek told him he should be praising BadBlood now. I was forced to agree.

Going to Battle With G-Rob

For those who haven't read about him before, G-Rob is a local player who works with Otis. I've played a few times with him before in a couple of tournaments and home games and have noticed that he generally has a monster stack in front of him. To classify his style as aggressive would be an understatement.

He made it to my home game (see below) and was able to use his aggressiveness to build his stack quite effectively. Let me analyze a couple of hands I was in with him to demonstrate his effect on my play.

I limp to a modest G-Rob pre-flop raise with A,9o. Missouri Josh follows along with a call and the flop is 3-handed. With about $10 in the pot, we all see 3 spades, J-high I believe. As I'm holding the A of spades, I like my hand so far. G-Rob bets out $5 and with Josh yet to act behind me, I feel a call is appropriate. Even though pot odds don't dictate it, implied odds with Josh acting behind me and the potential for the nut hand justifies it in my mind. Josh follows through and calls. The turn is a non-spade rag, and with the pot at about $25, G-Rob bets out $20. Great bet here. Not only is it sufficient to make my draw to the nut flush a bad call, but with Josh yet to act behind me, I had to fold. So I did. Josh called the bet and got to see the river spike a 4th spade to the board. No board pairs, no straight flush opportunity - I folded what would have been the winning hand. But as I suspected, G-Rob held Q,T spades for a flopped flush. Missouri Josh held the K of spades and took down a pretty monster pot. But at the time of my decision, I suspected that I had 6 or 7 outs which made a $20 call into a $25 pot an easy fold.

In another hand, I'm UTG holding A,Ko and raise the .50 BB to $3. G-Rob calls and everyone else folds. The flop is a great one for me: A,K,2. I gladly bet out $5 and am immediately raised to $10 by G-Rob. I am puzzled and taken aback, but call. Thoughts of him having a set go through my mind, but with him, it's impossible to tell for sure. The turn is a rag and I take a pause. If I check here, he's sure to go all-in. At this point in the evening, I had built my stack to back over $100 and G-Rob outchipped me. I was honestly not sure if I could call an all-in bet from him. So, to avoid a check-all-in, I bet out $15. G-Rob raises to $30. I'm intrigued now, more than anything since he'd most likely go all-in at this point with a set of 2's. But I just call. The river is another blank and I'm feeling better about my hand. Enough to bet $20. This time, G-Rob just calls and shows me his K,2. We both flopped 2-pair and he put me on just the A.

Luckily I won that hand, but not without fear of losing. I couldn't tell if G-Rob had the goods (a set of 2's perhaps) or not and literally would have had a tough time calling an all-in bet from him.

I look forward to playing more hands with G-Rob and can now TOTALLY understand Otis' reluctance to sit to his left.