Hit The Showers Kid

To put into perspective how I currently feel about the potential elimination of online poker, consider this scenario.

You’re 14 years old and just made the varsity football team in high school. You’ve been playing since you were 8 in youth leagues and seemed to always find a way to perform well enough to start and be a solid contributor to your team. You have no idea what the future holds, but you hold close to yourself thoughts that if you continue to do well, you just might get a football scholarship to a Division 1A college. And then, who knows? Perhaps you continue to do well and just maybe, you get drafted by an NFL team. You know that it’s silly to think that far ahead, but at this point you can only hope. Those plans don’t occupy a large part of your thoughts, but from time to time, you like to dream a little. After all, you’ve managed to do well enough thus far and there’s no real indication that you won’t continue to do so. The opportunity is limitless.

Then one day your high school football coach calls a team meeting after practice. He regrets to inform you that due to unforeseen circumstances, the football program has been cancelled indefinitely. Go shower up.

****

With that said, I don’t want to come across as someone with professional aspirations. What I do want to say is that at least the opportunity was there. I have been making steady progress over the last three years. Progress has been slow, but I figured I had all the time in the world. There was no need for me to try to accelerate it; I’m a husband, a father of two, and have a more traditional career to worry about. But progress was undeniably steady.

Now I feel that there’s a chance I may never grow to my full potential whatever that might have been. I could be stuck a $200NL player for the next 10 years or I could be on a growth path leading to the $2000NL games 5 years from now.

I may never know. And that is most disappointing.

Imagine

Sometime in the future….

“Hello sir, welcome to the Bellagio.  Can I help you?”

“Yes, I have reservations and I’d like to check in.”

“Last name please?”

“Blood, that’s Bee, El, Oh, Oh, Dee.”

“I see we have you down for 4 nights Mr. Blood.  How would you like to pay for your stay?”

“I’ll be using my Bellagio FPP’s.”  Hero hands cashier his Bellagio FPP card.  Cashier swipes it through card reader.  Beep, beep, boop, beep.

“Excellent sir.  Here’s your key.  Enjoy your stay and good luck at the tables.”

****

Our hero walks up to the poker room…

“Hello, do you have any open seating at $2/$5?”

“Yes sir, right this way.”

Hero sits down and the poker room manager asks, “Can I get you a rack?”

“Yes please.  But use my online balance.””No problem sir, please just enter your account name and password here,” as he hands me his wireless tablet.  Beep, beep, boop, beep.

“I’ll be right back with your chips.”

****

“Hi, I’d like to register for your daily tournament.””Excellent.  Our buy-in is $1000.”I hand the tournament director my card.  “I’d like to use one of my tokens please.  I won a $50+5 satellite back home a few weeks ago.”

“Not a problem.”  Beep, beep, boop, beep.  “You’re all registered sir.  We begin at noon.”

****

Some day, I believe that’s where this is all going.  How we get there?  I don’t know.  But right now, the big B&M casinos have the money and the incentive to become a powerful lobbying force in Washington.  Getting a “poker exemption” to the bill that just passed will hopefully be step number one.  How can anyone in say Harrah’s or MGM’s position turn away from the type of money that’s available?

Who wouldn’t love to pay for their room with FPP’s, or buy into a tourney with a token?  There’s just too much, and I shudder to use this word, synergy.

The online poker situation just got real cloudy.  But it’s not over.  While it may take a while, even years, to settle back into stability, if you can weather the storm, you’ll come out the other side a better player ready to reap the rewards of Poker Boom v2.0

****

Back in the hotel room after taking down the Bellagio $1000 event, our hero logs onto the FPP store.

Merchandise…no.  Clothing…no.  Ah, here we go.  “Other.”

Nice, that one looks like Jenna Jameson.  Click.  Beep, beep, boop, beep.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

First, the good.  I did play on Friday night, and even after losing a $400 pot with AK vs QJ vs JT I finished in the good for almost a buy-in.  Amusingly, everyone was asking me where G-Rob was.  I told them it was his wife’s birthday and they spent the evening together.  Nobody believed me.  Multiple people said, “I bet he’s just tired of losing all his winnings to you.”  Interesting table image I have there.

Speaking of which, a few new faces were there Friday, including a young 20-something Furman University student who had recently taken down a Party Poker $162 MTT for over $20k.  I managed to bluff him off of pocket K’s on a board of Q742.  Yes, at the Spring Hotel someone laid down an overpair to me, claiming I flopped a set of 4’s.  I mucked and told him he made a very impressive laydown, one that I couldn’t make.  Table image rules.

****

Second, the bad.

Anything happen this weekend with respect to online poker?  All I have to say to one Mr. Frist is “-radio edit-.“  Kid Rock fans know what I mean.

The implications are huge.  From my perspective, there are four financial transactions that impact US-based players.  Bank to middle man, middle man to Poker Site, and the reverse.

For winning players, the cash-out path is the most concerning.  Just this morning, logging onto Neteller provoked a new “terms of use” agreement pop-up.  It says I cannot use the service for any illegal activities, blah, blah, blah.  So it would appear that my ability to make timely cashouts might be adversely affected.  I’m not sure which part of the transaction will be monitored, poker site to Neteller or Neteller to my bank.  I would imagine Neteller would find it easy to block a transaction from Pokerstars to my account simply by knowing I’m a US-based player.  It appears however, that the physical check option is still viable based on statements by Lee Jones on 2+2.  I would hope my bank would still honor a check from a foreign bank.

For losing players, the process of depositing may have just become enough of a hassle such that they simply don’t do it.  And that’s not good for the winning players.

****

The ugly.

I am certainly pretty bummed.  I’ve got live poker to fall back on, but the convenience of its online counterpart was impossible to ignore.  Over the past couple of years, I’ve made some progress as a player and was really looking forward to continuing to do so.  Granted, the progress was slow, but it was steady.  I’ve become a steady winning player at the $200NL games and online, the growth path is nearly limitless.  Offline?  Not so much, even in the hotbed of G-Vegas.

Right now, nobody can say what will happen.  In fact, it’s not so much what the law says, but how the companies we deal with react to the law.  I’ve seen reports that Party Poker will no longer let US-based players play at its real money site once the bill is signed into law.  If other major sites follow suit, it makes the language of the law irrelevant.  We are at their mercy.

****

Long live the Spring Hotel.

Convince Me

When my parents rolled the dice to determine my Constitution, I think I scored a seven.  Sure, they made up for it with Strength, Intelligence and Charisma; but it’s that pesky low scoring attribute that ruins me for days after events like the Bash.

(For those of you nodding your heads knowing exactly what I mean, go put away your Level 12 Magic User)

The Bash wore me out.  In college, I could never drink on consecutive nights.  I still can’t.  But at the Bash, I did and when I got home I paid for it.  I’ve been under the weather for a few days and am just now emerging from the sickly haze that overcame me on Tuesday.

I’ve been so tired, that I missed out on Wednesday’s drink-and-shoot-the-shit-first-then-play-poker-and-win-big-cash-later adventure.  G-Rob and TheMark had to put aside their Monday disagreement and ride together.  Word on the street is that GucciRick came along, a rare occasion indeed.

So now it’s Friday.  My energy levels are back up, and I’m most likely hitting the gym.  I’ve got lunch with the Axeman to look forward to and maybe, just maybe, I may head down to the Spring Hotel solo.  Otis is WCOOP’ing for the 34th consecutive day, TheMark is hitting up the lake (sadly we have too much soccer this weekend to go with him), and G-Rob is actually spending time with Mrs. G-Rob.  He may have a fever.

It’s 9:00AM as I write this.  I’m still seesawing about whether I should go.  So I’m asking you, yes you, the readers to convince me.  I’m comment whoring, that’s true.  But still, give me a creative reason to go to the Spring Hotel by myself tonight after my workout.

If I win, perhaps I’ll give the most creative comment a no-prize.

Final Main Event Thoughts

Does this sound absurd to you?

“Welcome back to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals.  Those of you who happen to be astute viewers will realize that the score is now Calgary 5, New Jersey 3.  During the second intermission, the zamboni driver found two extra pucks inside the New Jersey net and the officials have credited the Devils with two goals giving them the lead.”

Yes?

Then why not this?”The more mathematically inclined will realize that these chip counts total in excess of 2 million additional chips in play.  The error is believed to have occurred during a color-up of lower denomination chips.”

And that’s it.  Swept under the rug.  The pinnacle of your sport and a gross error is made and ESPN gives it five seconds.

****

I watched all of ESPN’s coverage of the Main Event.  Nobody is ever as good as they think they are when they win.  Jamie Gold will realize that eventually.  Did he push some of his table talk too far?  Maybe.  Is the lawsuit that contests the other half of his 12 million dollar prize unfortunate for the game of poker?  Yes.  Is Jamie Gold a bad person?  I don’t think so.  Maybe it was contrived, maybe it was sappy, but the final few seconds of broadcast footage showing him talking to his dad about his victory outweighs anything negative he may or may not have done during the tournament.  But that’s just me.  I’m a sucker when it comes to family.

Moderation of Aggression

Getting dealt one of the three best starting hands used to give me an instant adrenaline rush.  A cash game, a tournament, it didn’t matter; give me AA, KK, or QQ and my eyes lit up.

As I’ve mentioned recently, I’m still having trouble with overvaluing AA.  But I’ve recently made some progress with playing the other two big pairs and in doing so, I’ve come to a conclusion of sorts that may help me with the biggest pair of them all.

KK and QQ are inherently vulnerable.  On their own, there exist other starting hands that dominate them.  But not only that, any Ax against KK or Kx against QQ is only a 2:1 dog.  Because of that vulnerability, I’ve been able to exercise caution playing those hands.  In fact, whenever I get dealt KK or QQ, my first thoughts are “don’t go broke.”

But until recently, AA hasn’t given me that first thought instinct.  I think for me, it’s primarily due to the fact that you know, with 100% certainty, that you have the best hand pre-flop.  So before the flop, that starting hand is not dominated by any other hand.  That over-confidence has led me to ruin recently as I’ve failed to recognize flops that diminish the strength of AA.

A quick hand example, but with QQ.

It’s 6-handed and I’m on the button with QQ.  Folded to me, I raise 3.5x and the big blind calls.  The flop is 89J rainbow.  This flop is certainly coordinated; any ten has a big draw albeit with two fewer outs.  The big blind checks, and here’s were my cautiousness comes into play.  I check too.

The turn comes and I hit my set.  But also, it gives the big blind a straight if he was drawing to one.  He checks.  I’m prepared for a check-raise here, but I’m going to give my opponent a chance to make a mistake.  I bet 2/3rds the size of the pot.  Like I predicted, my opponent does check-raise.  But it’s a min check-raise.  I call knowing I’ve got 10 outs to a better hand if in fact the big blind has hit his straight.  Min-check raises at the $200NL game are still many times just weak bluffs.

The river pairs the 9 and I know I’m good.  If my opponent has his straight, he’ll go broke.  He bets out just over half the pot and I raise him all-in.  He folds.  The turn min check-raise was indeed a bad bluff, followed up with another weak bluff on the river.

I played it cautiously for sure.  From my perspective, the check on the flop made this hand more playable than it would have been otherwise.  The pot was kept smaller, it let my opponent bluff at it easier, and had I not hit my full house, I would have an easier chance of letting go of the hand.  I was willing to fold the set there given appropriate pressure.  That is of course opponent dependent.

Aggression is certainly a key factor to NLHE success, but I maintain that moderation of aggression, depending on flop texture is an imperative consideration as well.  Depending on the situation, you can win more money and at the same time give yourself a chance to lose less.

As always, comments are welcome.  I’m interested in opposing viewpoints on this hand, especially from the perspective of me playing it weakly.

Bash Report Bullets

Well it wouldn’t be a BadBlood trip report without some kind of travel-based snafu, now would it?  Note to self:  Do not schedule a return trip from the Bash at the Boathouse at 8:40AM the following day.

I awoke at 6:30AM (feeling, shall we say, less-than-fresh) and got out of the hotel with all my stuff before 7:00AM.  It was roughly a 45-minute drive to the airport and I was pretty confident that I had enough time to get there, check-in, go through security and catch my flight.

One thing I didn’t consider was my compromised brain capacity on 4 hours of sleep/passed-outed-ness (now an official word).  I had printed directions from the airport to Malvern and for the return trip, simply had to reverse them.  Same highways, different directions.  Pretty easy, huh?

Things started off well.  I navigated Routes 29, 202 and 76 successfully.  For whatever reason, when the time came to trackback onto highway 476, I followed my printed directions to the letter, gleefully driving the wrong direction away from the Philadelphia airport.  Fifteen minutes later, something in my subconscious must have noticed something was wrong.  In my best impression of Derek Smalls, I asked myself a most practical question:  “What fucking direction am I driving right now?” (“No we’re not going to fucking do Stonehenge”)

I should have realized something was amiss when I had to pick up a ticket from a toll booth, something not required on my journey there two days previous.  Making matters worse, this section of highway had a concrete barrier separating the north and southbound lanes.  There was no chance to make an illegal u-turn.  I had to immediately find the next exit and change directions.  Of course, the next exit was miles away.  I got my rented PT Cruiser past 90mph and gave it my best shot.

It was 8:25 when I tried to e-check myself in.  No go.  The lady at the ticket counter refused to print me boarding passes for my originally scheduled flight and I had to rebook.  This time, I looked at my final destination just to make sure it wasn’t Greensboro, NC.  Luckily it was correct and after delays upon delays, finally made it home at 5pm.  For those of you mathematically inclined, that’s 10.5 hours travel time.  I could have driven home in less.

****

As usual, I had an excellent time.  I’ll try to remember some details, but here are some highlights:

• Meeting some bloggers for the first time – Veneno, Kat, Jordan, Pokerwolf, Slb, brdweb, and more that I have probably already forgot.


• Live blogging the charity tourney was a blast


• Playing Gavin Smith headsup for $100.  I didn’t just win, I dominated.  Granted, he was probably at 25% capacity, but so?


• Playing the beer pong tourney with Brandon Schaefer.  We dominated early, but lost in the finals.  I choked by going 0-fer in the last game.  I hung my head in shame.


• Seeing all the cool peeps again. You know who you are.


• Watching Bobby Fucking Bracelet roll.  The guy is a legend.


• Sharing a king size bed with Drizz.  Who said that?


• Word to the wise, do not let Eva make your drinks.  Eva+drinks=memory loss.


• StB


• Heather, who grabbed the gunz the most.  I was going to retaliate, but wised up. (


• Getting to shoot the shit with Maudie for a while.  We’ve officially retired steel chair jokes.


• Having Carter use my Full Tilt card-protector and taking it to 2nd place on Friday.


• Having a chance to hang a bit with the McGrupp brothers.


• Being CJ’s beer-bitch during the charity tournament and having him suck out with the hammer and then winning the whole thing.  Good cards late, I kept repeating to him.  Good cards late.


• And of course – TheAlCantHang Experience.  The person, not the band.