Where things can get pretty igry ...Rick's Cafe Americain

Instead of starting with the lessons learned, I’d like to start with the hand that I will never get again, and I didn’t play it when I had the chance.  In the big blind with J♥-5x, I was able to check to the flop.  The flop came Q♥-K♥-x.  With a bet and two calls after I checked, I grudgingly decided that I had to lay down my cards.  I wistfully thought about the draw for a flush, but what were the chances ...  T♥ on the turn.  Ha ha! Very funny, poker gods!  You got me!  Maybe I should have stayed in after all! No, I’m just jok ... A♥ on the river.  And so there it is: my phantom royal flush.  I know in my head that I played it right (at least two of the players had better pairs than me after the flop), but I will always look back and wonder what might have been ...

Of course, all that might have been was a 5th place finish.  It was early in the game and there wasn’t a lot of money in the pot.  It is hard not to romanticize a Royal Flush though.  (I’ve only had one natural Royal before. In a freeroll, the board was A♠-J♠-Q♠-T♠-K♠.  Damndest thing I’ve ever seen.)

Back to table image.  The first hand was perfect. I was dealt 88 on the button and played it into an early win. Half the table limped around to me and I raised preflop to knock the hand down to three players.  The board was all rags and while nobody was betting, all three were calling.  I knew my snowmen would stand up, and they did.  My next few preflop raises didn’t go as well.

A quick review of my stats said that I won 5 of 6 showdowns. You would think that meant that players would start to respect my raises, but you would be wrong.  I waited for good starting hands - JJ or QQ or KQ♣ - but without fail I got callers, and without fail the board always showed at least one overcard.  When the table respects your raises it is possible to reraise and steal back the pot.  When everything you bet gets called, it is time to take your second best hand and muck it.  And muck it.  And muck it.  Flop after flop kept killing my raises.  It was nice that the players kept calling eachother to the river - I got to see that my hand wouldn’t have improved (and would have lost every time), but it was still frustrating to keep folding my good pairs to what I knew was a hand like K4offsuit.

In a sit and go, of course, just outlasting the stragglers is part of the game and I was getting no help from the hand of fate.  The rest of the table just kept trading money back and forth as I was slowly bleeding to death.  I watched two players get blinded all in a total of seven times without losing.  I only survived once - when my pocket aces held up.

I lived through one rollercoaster in the interim. I limped in with A♣7♣ on the button.  The flop came 7-9♣-9.  The short stack raised, I reraised and put him all in and he called with J2o. (Don’t ask me why.) A J on the turn gave him a short lease on life, but a third 7 on the river filled me up and knocked him out of the tournament.  It was a short lived success, and that was the only time that the river was my friend all night.

And so it goes.  I didn’t bet once when I didn’t have the best hand and I got sucked out over and over.  For a while I thought I should just show my cards instead of mucking them so I could get a little respect for my raises.  Or maybe I could just scream “I’m playing tight, you bastards!” in the chat. 

So when the board came up T-8-5 after my desperation all-in preflop raise holding 66, and the other two all-ins were holding T8o and J8o, and I was passed by two players who hadn’t really made a decision to play a pot in the last thirty minutes, I didn’t even give myself the catharsis of a Dean scream in the privacy of my own home. I just sighed and watched another fin drift away. 

Don’t listen to my brother when he says that I cursed at the computer. A lot.

Forgive the Orwellian rechristenings of my poker colleagues; I can’t turn down a request from a friend.  The Churchwarden and I sat down with Helmut Newton and Leo Bloom.  Rick had to work again and a sixth player bailed, so we were playing at a short table once again. The Churchwarden and Leo took a fairly severe pounding the last time out and were looking for redemption.  I was looking to recover from the pounding I took in the No Limit Debacle.  Helmut had done his share of winning lately, so even though I could insist to him that playing loose would eventually cost him he was in a position to disagree.  Strategy, says he.  Piffle, says me.  But the only place to settle this dispute was at the table, so to the table we go.

I would have made a better argument had I not started playing junk.  Not total junk, but semi-junk. K5, Q8 - the stuff I know that I’m not supposed to play.  What can I say?  We were playing 4 handed 1-2 hold ‘em and I confess to getting a bit bored since there was very little conversation.  I confess that I am a fan of coffeehousing at the table, as long as the people out of the hand don’t start theorizing about the hand in progress.

Like I said, it was a quiet day.  Helmut came out gangbusters.  He took down the first five hands - 2 straight wins, a river and 2 times the table folded to him.  10 minutes after we first started dealing and he is running away with the table.  Time for bourbon.

I really don’t remember the rest of the night.  What I do know is that Churchwarden started playing tight and solid, and I refused to respect a preflop raise from Leo to my peril.  (My 55 didn’t stand a chance against his cowboys.) After that solid start, Helmut spent the rest of the night pissing away his chips.  Two hands from his slide to the bottom stand out and both involve me.

I have A6c and am head to head with Helmut.  Flop comes Kx-6x-4c.  Helmut checks.  I’m not a particularly good reader of people, but I know that my sixes are strong.  I bet, he calls.  Jc on the turn. He ain’t got no J and now I have the nut flush draw. I bet again, he calls again.  8x.  He checks, I bet, he calls. And turns over ? 85c. So he called me with a draw to a gutshot straight after I opened three times. Would you have guessed that I had a K?  I sure would have.  Man did I want a club to come on the river, but Mick knows the deal.  Does revenge come? Yes, yes it does.

Holding 67o in the BB, Helmut calls from the SB and we are head to head.  Flop is 2-4-5 rainbow. Helmut bets.  Even though I figure he has a low pair - those are the hands he plays - I call.  Between the open-ended straight draw and (I thought) 6 additional outs, one bet seemed reasonable. Turn is a 3. Jackpot!  Now I have the stone nuts and we cap the betting.  River is useless, he checks, I bet, he calls and turns over 46.  And made some noise about me getting lucky.  I concede that my draw was a little lucky (and if a 6 had hit the board it would have cost me a lot of money), but what was he doing calling pre-flop with 46?  Or refusing to respect 2 reraises?  I have no regrets. If Helmut is going to live by the chase ...

The tally is strange.  In the final accounting, I wish I had lost an extra quarter to Leo and Churchwarden.

Churchwarden +$45.25
Leo Bloom +$45.25
Ugarte +$0.50 (Yes, that’s right four bits.  For four hours.  I could have been stitching Nikes.)
Helmut -$91.00

Here is the part where I honor those that came before me.  I have to give multiple shoutouts to those who have shouted in my direction:

Hello back to Pauly at Tao of Poker.  You can also check out his general blog Tao of Pauly.  Pauly’s a New Yorker, so I figure that we’ll play eventually.

London Froggy of Vagaries is, well, in London - so I doubt that we’ll play any time soon.  But who knows.  It might be fun to lose sterling instead of dollars.

Grubby at Poker Grub is running the Hammer Challenge.  Are you man enough to win the extra prize in Round III? Is grubby in NY also?

Iggy at Guiness and Poker is ... I don’t know where Iggy is.

Felicia Lee runs a yahoo group about her play out in Nevada. Not on Yahoo? Go here.

Finally, it took so long to post this that in the interim my cash cleared the pokerstars account.  So I played for a little while at the 1-2 table at 7am yesterday.  Stupidest $20 I ever threw away; did it in about a minute and a half.  Next time I’ll play when I’m awake so I don’t have to bury it at the back of the grovel.

Simon hosted the game, and he invited four of his friends.  I, dear readers, was the fly drawn into the web this time.  I should have known that playing with five loosely connected strangers was a bad idea, but this was merely the first in a string of gruesome mistakes.  I would turn this into a game in which you, the reader, could count my mistakes if I could count them myself.  Alas, too much of the evening was a blur to recall everything I did wrong.  I remember nothing from my first buy in to my first taste of felt.  $60 down the chute and I don’t remember a thing.  I think the denoument involved a flop to the bottom two pair for a pre-flop caller (Peter) with rags when I caught the top pair.  Then I blacked out as his improbable two pair morphed into a flush with running diamonds.

In any event, mistake #2 was to decide I was OK with a game of 2-4 NL hold ‘em.  The players at the table were Simon, Nash, Gabe, Peter, Joe and yours truly.

Wait a second, Ugarte.  Rewind that back.  Did you just say NL?  As in No Limit? Yes, I did say “no limit.” More importantly, are you talking to yourself? Yes, I am talking to myself, but I think it is indicative of the state of mind I was in all night.  Consider playing under those conditions mistake #3.

Actually, I’ve gotten way ahead of myself. We need to restart the mistake count.  The night was full of omens and portents.  Signs that a merciful god exists and believes in me, even though I don’t believe in Him - and he tried to keep me away from this game.  The bad weather came overnight, screaming at me to go home, build a fire and give myself some much needed sleep.  Simon cancelled the game twice for want of a full table, practically begging me to make alternate plans.  The 3 refused to go further than Chambers Street, but I walked crosstown to the 5 and continued on to my doom.  Then He mostly gave up and let free will reign.  Not that he didn’t keep screaming from outside for me to leave. The wind whipped and the snow swirled up from the ground, only hinting at what He wanted me to hear.  $160 later, I know what he was saying. (Seriously, Dude.  Just learn English.  I know it is easier to learn a second language when you are young. I know that You are infinite. But it is clear that I will never learn your language, so the burden is on you.)

It didn’t help when I flopped a baby straight when I got 36o in the big blind.  My modest raise on the turn got everyone to throw away their cards. It didn’t help when I was dealt QQ because the flop came A-K-x.  It didn’t help when I was dealt JTs and the board came T-x-x because I ended up betting into QQ.  (Confession: I should have seen that coming.  Nash raised preflop and read me as top pair after as if my cards were face up.  Note to self: Shit. Second note: Why, exactly, did you call that preflop raise?) However you slice it, that QQ broke me for most of what remained of my second $60. It left me enough to give the rest of my chips to Nash to pay for dinner, since I had no intention of playing anymore that night.  I spent the next hour dealing the cards for the table and learning ... nothing about the rest of the table.  I learned nothing so well that I dipped into my wallet for another $40.  Cue the violins.

Most of that money went away on a hand that I should have bet differently (though much of it was a victim of some severe tight-weak on my part).  Holding Th8h, I limp in hoping for some of the flop magic I have been witnessing all night to come my way.  The flop comes Ah-8-3 with one heart. Nash (the only other player, and the BB) checks to me.  I make a modest bet ($5).  I am sure that my middle pair is the best hand at this point and I am surprised when he calls; I figure him for two overcards to my 8s.  A low heart comes on the turn and we both check.  A fifth heart (again, small) comes on the river, he checks to me again and I go all in with the AT flush.  I am badly outchipped, and with less of his stack on the line, Nash makes the call with Jh2h, saying “King or Queen?” Damn that check on the turn.  I knew my 8s were still good and his odds weren’t good enough to risk drawing to the river for the runner-runner flush.  There goes the last of my chips and with it just a little more of my pride.  As it turns out, it goeth right along with the fall sometimes.

Actually, to say I didn’t belong is a bit of an exaggeration.  Nash is really the only guy at the table clearly out of my league (despite what you will soon read).  The shocker here is that Nash didn’t come out the big winner.  Peter - who spent the night ramming and jamming - blew away the table.  He caught a couple of great flops with rags early in the night and used his stack see almost every flop and then to steal the preflop bets when the board showed low.  Lest this be seen as a criticism, it really isn’t.  He was in a position to profit from being a bully and he profited from being a bully.  Kudos to him.  More kudos than I thought I would ever give to someone in one stinking night.  Gabe spent the night treading water and Joe dug a deep hole and almost made his way to the surface.

Were I to make a modest defense of myself, I would say that my cards sucked all night.  But it wouldn’t be much of a defense.  I deserved at least 75% of the beating I took, and one can only hope for the future.

Once again the math doesn’t add up and I fear that it is because Simon doesn’t keep track of how often he buys in.

Final, gruesome tally:

Peter: +315 (Yes, you read that correctly.)
Nash: +69
Gabe: +7
Joe: -4
Ugarte: -156
Simon: -160 (reported), but my addition skills say it is closer to -230. Sorry, friend. You hit some very rough seas early in the night.

Lesson learned? Not exactly. But I really have to play limit against these guys until I figure out what the fuck I’m doing in the world of No Limit.  The Churchwarden’s game is on Monday, and I really need to get my head on straight before I sit down or it could be another long night in a rough neighborhood.

Once again Ferrari drew flies into the web via Craigslist.  (These particular flies played with Ferrari in the past, but they were new to me.) Current count of craigslist players to win at a Ferrari-hosted game?  Ask the Babylonians.  I doubt this will last, but have no regrets so far. 

Coworker Coach brought his friend Swish to join the staff of Rick’s (absent Sam).  Simon and NotForProfit of craigslist filled out the table.

You would think that enough shocks would make even the bravest rat wary of the lever delivering the food pellets.  You would be wrong.  Of course rats are not the only creatures vulnerable to the lure of rewards produced at irregular intervals.  Swish and NotForProfit kept riding the river over the falls to their peril.  Wise’s first pre-flop fold came after more than an hour at the table, and he apologized for betting out of turn.  “No problem,” said I, “Fold whenever you want.  It’s like witnessing a comet.”

Swish’s day grew longer still when he couldn’t find his hat.  He must have felt that life was mocking him, as Simon was sporting the same hat (albeit in a different color) on his head.  Swish was left to go out into the cold New York night with nothing to warm his head but the warm dreams of next time.

The table spent the day tilted toward Ferrari, but Coach and I were able to catch some of the runoff.  Rick will once again have to take solace in tax advice.  Simon spent most of the night close to the felt, but caught a big hand to close the night and finish roughly even.  This left Swish and NotForProfit to fund the pot.

I think I detected a tell in my own game. I hope nobody else noticed.  I will probably sit down again twice in the next week or so and report back.

Final tally:

Ferrari: +~170 (!!!  This is the most I’ve ever seen won.  Well, except for TT.)
Coach: +~60
Ugarte:+~30
Simon: -/+0 (-2, to be exact; gotta separate the winners from the losers.)
Rick: -~30
Swish: -~100
NotForProfit: -~130 (This seems like too much.  I am forcing this to make the math work, since I didn’t ask him about his final total.  I think that there was probably more rebuying or betting with cash than some of the other negatives recall.)

My first online experience was in simulated No Limit Texas Hold ‘em satellites. Everyone starts with $2000 in monopoly money and plays until one person is left standing.  I quickly learned that free satellites are the saddest of the freeplay jokes.  The first hand is inevitably a player going all in with 8-9o and getting 4 callers.  I can respect the nerve (if not the wisdom) of betting all-in with rags, but calling all-in with Doyle Brunson is just stupid.  And it happens all the time.  A new satellite starts every five minutes, so there is no consequence to losing. By the second hand of every satellite the table is six-seated and one guy has $10,000.  Feh.

Ring games are much closer to live game play than the satellites are to tournaments.  PokerPages gives you $1000 to play with, allows you to keep your winnings in the bank and only allows you to refill your bank every 24 hours.  If you lose all your money here, you can’t just start playing again. Still, are there many card rooms where people sit down to play a 10-25 game with $200,000?  I grant that these players earned their stacks starting with the same $1000 that I did, but it is also clear that they shrug and play drawing hands without account of pot odds because they aren’t risking real money.  I’m up to ~$20K and I feel like I am learning about how people play but the ersatz money is really corrupting of discipline (for both me and the opposition).

Tournaments are the best part of online poker; even the free ones have a realistic feel.  There is a lot of Satellite Syndrome early, but most of those players are cleaned out quickly.  If you don’t earn the table’s respect, a lot of all-in’s catch up to you right quick.  The better players want to win strictly for pride, so there is a lot of smart, disciplined play.  My initial forays into tournament play were met with quick dismissals, but I started playing much more disciplined and it paid off.  13th out of ~175 in limit 7-card stud and 11th out of ~250 in NL hold ‘em. 

As much as I wanted to win before, now I really have to play smart: my aforementioned friend in Islamabad, Mustardman, has registered with Poker Pages also.  In the two tournaments we have played in together, he finished 10th to my 26th out of ~180 at limit h/l omaha and 15th to my 14th out of ~180 in pot limit 7-card stud.  Mustard has good instincts for someone even more novice than I am, but he mostly lasts deep into tournaments by playing extra-tight and coasting. By the time he makes it to the final few tables he is so short-stacked the blinds eat him alive and he has no real chance to win.

My games have gone better than I would have expected.  I was chip leader for a long time in the Omaha tournament but I followed a bad beat (that didn’t even cost me all that much) by going on tilt.  In the space one cycle of the button I managed to blow all of my chips in a painful death spiral.  I have nobody to blame but myself.  On the other hand, I busted out of the last stud tournament on a hand that would only have happened without money on the line.  (Once again, the lack of financial consequence rears its head.) A big stack called my all-in raise (with jacks up) of +180,000 with nothing but a low pair, an ace and three cards to come.  He caught that ace on the river to win.  Frustrating, but the final placement was still a good feeling. 

Now I have to make a damn final table.  Then I can start playing strangers for money.

Wednesday’s game was my monthly game. Most of the poker I play has its moments of frivolity, but the laughter is a facade.  Underneath the smiles, the game is sullen and competitive.  From the first deal until we go to collect our coats, I think we actually hate one another.  (Of course, we like it that way and keep going back.) But perhaps I am projecting.

My monthly game is a respite from that.  We take the poker seriously, but it is a relaxed affair involving various whiskeys and cigars and a lot of laughing.  The core of the game, Churchwarden and Sean, have been playing together since time immemorial.  Leo Bloom, another longtime player, invited me into the game a year ago.  I brought in Rick and Helmut when the game roster was the real casualty of an internecine squabble regarding the office space in which we play.  (No, I won’t give you the details.  But I will say that continuing to play puts me on the side of justice, truth and light.)

This game, despite the short table had all the marks of the usual cheer, bolstered by Helmut’s contribution of 12 year old bourbon and egg nog.  To egg nog, I say: the goyim can keep it.  To bourbon, I say: between the contributions of this and tobacco I think Kentucky gets a very bad rap. But we are here to discuss poker.

Today when the cards fell, they fell hard, and they fell hard primarily on the Churchwarden.  Tom was in the middle of a successful run, but he came down with a serious case of Second Best Hand, and it ended up costing him his whole stack.  Plus 50 cents.  It turns out that felt-burn is a frequent side effect of Second Best Hand.  He lost a lot of this money to Sean, who finally hit the big time after a year in which the game would only have been useful for him had we incorporated as a charitable foundation. I had a bad inverse-Rodney problem.  If I raised, the table folded, and while I am still winning, I’m running break-even after the cab to Brooklyn.

It has become clear that a river runs through Helmut.  Most of his success owed to some good old fashioned aggressiveness.  Churchwarden and Leo were playing uncharacteristically weak, calling Helmut on drawing hands all the way to the river and then folding when Helmut made the expected final bet.  And then Helmut nailed me good when he called me to the river.  My A-9 looked pretty good when the first four cards were 8-9-10-9, but Helmut hung in with his 7-x, got his J on the river, and took a decent pot.  I’m sure Helmut did his share of bluffing, but calling him Wednesday brought only pain.  The final reported tally (which somehow doesn’t add up):

Helmut +$64.75 US
Sean +$34.25
Ugarte +$13.25
Leo Bloom - $45.75 US
Churchwarden - $60.50 US

There is a tournament on Sunday, but I don’t think I am going to play. (Interesting.-ed.) I’ll report if I change my mind.

Monday’s game at Ferrari’s apartment, my first game since my meltdown at The Tournament of Which I Promise Not To Speak Again, Or At Least, Less Frequently started slowly.  Despite promises of seven to eight players by Ferrari, most of the prospective players—including Rick and Sam—begged off on gameday claiming work commitments.  Ferrari panicked and solicited players to fill the table on craigslist, but only drew in one more player.  So with only four people expected, and Brother of Ugarte likely to show up only to watch football, we resigned ourselves to playing at a short table. 

The games I typically play in have a buy in around $60.  People rarely lose that much.  With a high buy-in, relative to the low stakes we play for, we avoid having to slow the game down for people to buy more chips.  Upon reflection, that is a wise decision; we really could have used a cashier.  While we waited for the stragglers to arrive, Ferrari, Helmut (friend of Rick’s and host of TTOWIPNTSA,OAL,LF, henceforth TT) and I figured a little lowlowlow stakes action ($1 max raise) meant that a low buy-in was appropriate.  So we bought in for $10, figuring that we couldn’t lose money so quickly.  A plan quickly scuttled by Helmut, who decided that every hand was worth seeing to the river.  The quick burn led us to quickly change the buy-in to $20. Ferrari bought $30 so he could bully the table before the next card fell.

Our craigslist friend, Christian, eventually arrived and was also bit by the short-stack bug.  Despite evidence that he played often and with enthusiasm, he had a rough night.  He shared Helmut’s passion for seeing all of the cards but lacked Helmut’s good fortune (Did I mention that for Helmut the third time was the charm?  After investing $60 to play, he cashed in $100.) After draining his third $20 buy, Christian bid us good night.  I think we will see him again.

Brother of Ugarte chose to play, and as the most novice of a table of novices held his own, though how well he held his own depends on whether or not he was paid back for dinner.  Ferrari started strong, but faded late and finished either barely down or barely up, depending on whether he paid back Brother for dinner.  Ferrari’s reputation and character were allowed to override the failure of anyone else to recall the payback. So the night finished:

Helmut +~40
Ugarte +~20
Ferrari +~3
Brother -~3
Christian -~60

Come back, Christian.

I play again tonight, so another report will follow anon. 

With all of those caveats out of the way, I should set the scene.  A friend of Rick’s Cafe hosted a No Limit Texas Hold’Em tournament over the weekend.  $50 buy-in, with rebuys.  Winner take all.  12 players guaranteed a pot of $600, but five rebuys (including me) meant the winner would walk away with $850.  The level of play ranged from the awful to the mediocre. Although some players (including, sometimes, me) overrate their own ability it was not a very talented table, so it was no surprise that the winner was much luckier than she was talented.  But I wasn’t upset that I lost (really!) or that she won (really!) - but I did have something of a meltdown and I sort of stormed out of the apartment at the end of the game.  And it all comes down, ultimately, to etiquette - poker and otherwise.  If you can’t be bothered to care, all of a sudden I care a lot.

Act in turn.  Keep track of what the blinds are.  Make a note about the denominations of your chips; you shouldn’t have to keep asking.  When you are in the big blind, don’t throw in an extra bet unless you really intend to raise. If a misdeal is called, just redeal.  After you muck your cards you may not “take a quick look.” If you have thrown your cards away, don’t react (and especially don’t shriek) if the flop happens to improve the crappy cards you were dealt.  If you win a hand after a dubious call, show a little humilty.  Specifically, if you win a hand with a card on the river, don’t call your significant other from the poker table to giddily gloat when the person you beat is still sitting right in front of you.  (Incidentally, don’t do it even if you played with extraordinary skill.) And don’t, if you have a single drop of humanity in you, just don’t - when already taking the dubious step of asking the fallen to gather for a picture - say “I’d like to get a picture of all of the people I beat.”

Maybe I’m the crazy one, but I don’t get mad often, and I was steaming on Friday.  Two things made me feel better.  First, a cab driver was driving around at 2:00 AM with his “Off-Duty” light on.  He does this so that he can pull over, decide that he doesn’t want to go to Brooklyn, and say “I’m sorry.  I can’t go to Brooklyn - I am at the end of my shift.” So I was happy that he got tagged by a cop when he drove away after trying to pull that shit with me.  At 2AM.  In the freezing cold.  I hope it is an expensive ticket.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go call our poker host and apologize for being something of a turd in the punchbowl; even if I feel my behavior was justified (I do) it is still poor form to act out at someone else’s house.