Saturday, 29 September 2012

Lesson #2

It's a mild, late Saturday evening at about 7PM and I am just about to take myself out to play a little more live poker. Friday and Saturdays are the best days to do this because you simply get more fish and chancers at the tables. One of the first decisions I have to make, even before leaving the house on these occasions, is which establishment to attend.

There are six main places to play cash game poker in London. Places on the outskirts exist, like Bluff @ The Mint (at South Kensington), The Western Club (at Acton) and Big Bluff (at Palmers Green), amongst an assortment of others, but these are relatively out-of-the-way places that often don't have cash games running and which are not within easy access of the main hub of places that exist in the centre.

In the centre you have (1) The Fox which caters mainly to the tournament player. This place has recently run more meaningful MTTs of between a £100-£250 buy-ins but they also have a full schedule of small buy-in tournies as well. They run cash games but mainly only £1/£1. (2) The Empire is the king of the cash games in central London which runs £1/£2 games and, more recently, a £2/£5 game that kicks off on a Friday or Saturday night if there is interest. (3) The Hippodrome, on Charing Cross Road, is a bit hit and miss but if you catch it on the right night can be busy and can have some terrible players at the tables. (4) Golden Nugget sits nearby these four and has a comparatively smaller room where a small tourney is held followed by a few £1/£1 cash game tables.

The Vic, in Edgware Road is a well-established venue where you'll get more choice of stakes and where you'll always get a game from £1/£1 up to £5/£10 and well beyond. It's reliable, the most spacious and comfortable and very well-run but a short trip out to Marble Arch Tube is required. Aspers in Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford is the last of the six. A longer journey right out to the end of the Jubilee Line is required but it's a new, comfortable venue that might be worthwhile if you need a change of scene. They mainly run £1/£1 games.

Lesson #2 - There are no "soft" venues.
Of these places, and based on my own experience, none can be said to be particularly "softer" than any other. Posters on the 2+2 forums often delight in telling you how X is ridiculously soft but in my experience table strength can vary wildly depending on who happens to be sitting down at the time. I've been at equally super-tough and super-soft tables at all venues; you can happen to have a table of sharks just as likely as a table of many casuals and drunken revellers out on the town for a good night.

That, then, is Lesson #2 that I give to y'all. However, the only comment I will make is that The Fox, being exclusively a "poker club" (and not open to those who wonder in from the blackjack and roulette tables), does tend to have more people who know their stuff. But again, this is only my experience and there are still some poor players who go there as well.


Lesson #1

In the build up to my next "experiment" that will kick off in 2013, I've decided to explore the important lessons that I've learned while playing live poker. As I may have hinted at before, live poker throws many different scenarios at you and the reason why it can be so addictive is that you learn something new each and every time, making you want to return and to build on that new knowledge next time you're at the table and to become an even better player.

As I say, unfortunately I've not hit the heights of a professional and am only too aware of my limitations. The live game has now become much more aggressive than it was even two years ago and I know that my game is dangerously close to lagging behind. On the plus side, although I freely admit that in the last 12 months I have just about scraped break-even, I know that I can still sit at a live poker table and play with confidence and enjoy the game for what it is, without it costing me money that I can't really afford to lose. That's not such a bad thing.

My "experiment" then, hereafter referred to as "The Experiment" is not coming at you from a consistent, winning professional poker player who can show you graphs that indicate profits of thousands of dollars every month (I wish) but just a bloke who has an enthusiasm for the game, thinks he might be half-decent (but is a little in doubt about that at the moment) and who just loves to sit down and play. It will actually be about the whole process, enjoyment and buzz of playing live poker that I will be writing about. Before all that, though, I'll be giving an outline of some strategies that work well for me. Most of these lessons are already known by many but are not always adhered to so they're worth jotting down, just for the record.

Lesson #1 - Walk away from a tough table.
When I think back to a lot of my winning evenings at the poker table, I invariably realise that money won has come from the poor, inexperienced player (or "fish" for short). It has rarely, if ever, come after playing at a table of good solid players. The conclusion from this should be obvious: walk away from a tricky table and get on a table with as many fish as possible. It's not rocket science.

For this lesson, I'll draw on last nights' experience..

I arrived at The Empire at 9PM and managed to get seated at a table straight away. It consisted of mainly unknown players but there was zero talk and the atmosphere was generally serious. I sat down with the maximum (£400) and made a few late position stabs but was played back at both times. I then played a hand badly in early position by failing to raise the turn when I had two-pair, allowing both my opponents to improve to a better two-pair and their flush on the river, which I bet at from early position. My real mistake though, was to briefly reveal my hand as if to say, "look at how unlucky I am" but it just revealed the passive way I had played.

The good players to my left then proceeded to strongly raise my bets almost relentlessly whenever I decided to open the betting! This was enough to tell me that I would be up against it but I stupidly played on regardless. The guy two seats to the left of me continued playing his very loose/aggressive game. I slowed down while my stack slowly but surely dwindled. A few more hours in I looked down at AK and raised it up preflop only for Mr Loose/Aggressive to raise it up again to about £40! He had about £180 in front of him so I announced "all of it" and chucked in my £300 stack whereupon I was insta-called and shown the AA!

 I topped up another £200 and played on but every hand ended up being against the aggressive players to my left where they had position on me. In one hand I remember betting £7 with 56s preflop and that being raised up to £25 which I then stupidly called. I checked the K K x flop and the inevitable raise had me fold. The final straw came when I raised KJ pre and got two calls by the usual suspects on my left. With an A J 10 flop Mr Loose/Aggressive two seats to my left just wouldn't go away and when he raised the river (when I hadn't improved) I mucked my cards and he showed me the A 10. It was nice of him to show but this was NOT going to be my night. £300 worse off I upped and left.

The upshot? If you're getting beaten up bad, it aint no shame to walk away from a tough table. Do it sooner rather than later.

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Happily for me, the postscript to this story is a fortunate one but which also re-emphasises the message of the lesson. One club sandwich, one pint and one ponder later, I decided to try my luck at The Hippodrome. With £400 laid out in front of me I played at a table with a fairly average bunch of players. My stack stayed fairly stable but then at around 2AM the drunks entered the fray. 

Under-the gun and looking down at 85o I completed the betting in the small blind. The flop came down 6 7 x. Mr Drunk #1 raised a little which was called by Mr Completely Clueless Drunk #2 so I decided to call and hope to finally hit a hand. Joy of joys the 9 came on the turn and (joy of joys) Mr Drunk #1 plopped in £25 while Mr Completely Clueless Drunk #2 elected to call the £25. With two spades and two clubs out there, along with two drunks out to have a good time (and a pot of about £100), I decided to go for the all-in approach. Drunk #2 then went into the tank.

Now here is a little tip when you want a call from a terrible player. Talk to them! With my customer umm-ing and arr-ing, I looked over and asked him what he might have and then went through possible hands that he might have. In addition, I told him I had the flush!! I know, a flush isn't possible but it was my intention just to look stupid in front of him to make him think that I was a clueless player. (If you look stupid in front of a bad player, or often a very drunk player, they will often call you just to "teach you a lesson". You just need to give them a nudge.) I know there was another player in the hand and I shouldn't have said anything but I just pretended I didn't realise. 

Anyway, after a while, I was happy to see his £250 stack cross over the line to signal a call. Mr Clueless Drunk #2 mucked, a club hit the river but it didn't help him and my stack grew to £700! After a few more hours of play and a few more of my hands finally seeing some decent flops I was able to rustle up a few more chips and I cashed out at about 5AM for the princely sum of £833 and a tidy profit of £133 for the evening.

The Upshot? Stay on a soft table. Do not get up and walk away but just wait for a good hand and you are likely to get paid off for it.      

Thursday, 27 September 2012

...And The Blu Ray Films

I was a bit sceptical about blu-ray at first and had a kind of "yeah, whatever" attitude towards them initially but after buying my first blu-ray player and watching it properly for the first time I became a convert. Buying a handful of blu-ray discs became a no-brainer if only to appreciate the step-up in quality and audio. DVDs can hold up to about 4.5gb of information whereas blu-rays can contain up to around 25gb!! That's a lot of extra pixels crammed in!! However, not all blue-ray discs are created equal; you only have to visit this site to realise that there is a big difference in the actual quality out there.

With this in mind, I decided to go buy me a few films on blu-ray - mainly to really check out the picture quality (PQ). This list may contain a few films that may raise a few eye-brows (I certainly wouldn't ordinarily buy 300 or Speed Racer) but after reading various forums, I was convinced that these had to be purchased. Here are all the films I bought...



13 Assassins
300
Baraka
Coraline
District 9
Inglorious Basterds
Matrix Trilogy
Minority Report
Pan's Labyrinth
Speed Racer
Thin Red Line
Up
Wall-E

Of these films, I have only watched Inglorious Basterds thus far (and the first Matrix film ages ago on DVD) and the opening scenes to this film, of the rural French countryside in the 1940s, in comparison to DVDs, is miles ahead. Similarly, Baraka, the first ten minutes I watched by way of a "sneak quick peek", looked incredible.

Anyway, possibly missing from this list is Black Hawk Down which I've heard is supposed to have superior audio quality to pretty much anything else out there so I may add that to my list this weekend. Any recommendations (TV or film) would be gratefully received.

Catch ya later....

Wobble.

P.S. Oh yeah, before I go I just need to mention, for the record, the "miscellaneous" blu-ray and DVDs that I also bought for those cold winter evenings...

First up, this...



No collection should be without it. And these...




Daring, one-of-a-kind, deadpan comedy that can give you wings. Not for everyone but check this out...

Books


New TV for a New TV

Let it be known that I'm not really a TV kinda guy. The missus and the two daughters (when back from Uni) watch plenty between them and my viewing pretty much includes what they happen to be watching when I'm in the room at the same time. Needless to say, I've been bombarded with a lot of shite in my time.

Over the summer, I was in the enviable position of having a bit of surplus cash that needed spending and so my mind turned to getting a new TV. Now as most TV shows are pretty awful, I decided that I'd research all the decent TV series that have been on over the last ten years or so and (along with the new TV) actually buy a load of DVDs to keep me entertained over the long cold evenings this winter. So out went the 19" DMTech that the missus had bought five years ago from Tescos and in came a 32" LED Samsung TV with a built in freeview HD tuner. Further, while researching, blu-ray players caught my eye and so I decided to give one of those a spin as well.

A visit to Currys and a few clicks on Amazon later and I was fully kitted out with the inevitable upgrade and a full library of acclaimed TV series' to get my teeth into. The thing is, my research extended far and wide and I may have gone a bit overboard. Below, I've compiled the twenty TV series that I intend to watch. I reckon I've got enough to last about three years or so. The entire series of The Sopranos I've already watched but felt I had to put it down on the list as it would be conspicuous by its absence. I've also nearly watched all of Cracker and threw that in for the hell of it. I think it's quite a good mix:



1.   Battlestar Galactica - Season #1(Blu-ray)
2.   Band of Brothers - (Blu-ray)
3.   Breaking Bad - Season #1
4.   Cracker - Complete Collection
5.   Deadwood - Complete Collection
6.   Dexter - Seasons #1, #2, #3, #4, #5.
7.   Fringe - Season #1 (Blu-ray)
8.   Game of Thrones - Season #1 (Blu-ray)
9.   Lost - Complete Collection (Blu-ray)
10. Mad Men  - Season #1 (Blu-ray)
11. Oz - Complete Collection
12. Psychoville - Season #1 (Blu-ray)
13. Rome - Complete Collection (Blu-ray)
14. Sherlock - Complete Collection
15. Six Feet Under - Season #1
16. The Sopranos - Complete Collection
17. Treme - Season #1 (Blu-ray)
18. The Walking Dead - Season #1 (Blu-ray)
19. The Wire - Season #1
20. 24  - Season #1
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I know, do you go for Season #1 and see how you enjoy it or do you take the plunge and buy the entire collection? It's a tough call. I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy Breaking Bad and, possibly, The Wire but I'm really not sure about some of the others. The Walking Dead is definitely just a bit of fun where I think zombies getting killed in all sorts of ways in HD might be a blast for one season but might become old hat over a few seasons. Game of Thrones has had incredibly good press and I have high hopes for that; especially on the blu-ray version. (I've checked it for picture quality and it's amazing!)

Deadwood, Fringe, Mad Men, Six Feet Under, Treme and 24 were all complete unknowns before I did my research but all, besides Treme, have had almost universally good reviews. Treme, by the makers of The Wire, is a bit of a gamble and was really bought to appease the missus who mentioned she'd might like it when I was doing my research. I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy Oz, Rome and Psychoville

Of those I've watched, I'd recommend the entire series of The Sopranos. Season #1 of Dexter was good - if a little far-fetched; the first two episodes of Sherlock are good; Cracker is good as well, if not a little melodramatic in the later stages. Finally, after four episodes of Lost I'm intrigued but the pacing can be a little slow and there do seem to be a LOT of unanswered questions - I just hope it doesn't frustrate. 
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And there you have it. I might do a review of each season just for the fun of it but in my upcoming posts I'd like to write about the six decent poker rooms to play cash game poker around London.

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

The Ball Didn't Really Roll...

...Well it did (and it still is) but just not in the direction in which I'd hoped.

Here I am, 12 weeks after my last post about how I was going to report on my live sessions... and... nothing!

Yep you've guessed it, those first sessions of July were out and out failures. Not only the one or two just after that post mind you, but three or four big fat further regrettable failures that followed also. Thus causing me to be thoroughly pissed off with the game and kinda making me not want to write one jot about the ruddy game of poker at all. One truth I've learned: it's much easier writing about poker when you're winning! When you go through a series of one losing session after another, the last thing you want to do is write about the whole bleedin' experience; especially when you make some lousy, incorrect decisions which I certainly did. Agreed, it's good to write about losses in a way - for self-therapy and for dealing with the defeat - but when you've made some real crappy decisions as well, you don't really want to start the journey off on such a swampy and shitty road.

Thankfully, of course, balance has generally returned to the force and a good few sessions have ensued over the month of August and September. However, truth be told, I've still had my fair share of losing sessions sprinkled within that time and this has really made me question whether I'm still really as good as I think I am. I'm actually down a good few hundred over the year!!

This brings me to where I am now...

Live poker easily remains the best form of entertainment for me in all sorts of ways. I still think you can learn so much about yourself (and others) by playing live poker sessions - and the fact that each experience is different makes it all the more rich and exciting. Even though the game has been coming at me at a small price during the middle part of this year, I'm still very hopeful that I can get my old form back. In fact, I reckon I can not only get firmly back on the saddle but can ride off majestically into the beautiful and sunny land that awaits as well!! My intention really IS to report on my live sessions come what may but, dear reader, I just need a few more months to prepare myself mentally for the proper journey... which will begin at the start of 2013!!

The GREAT thing about this latest venture that I've planned is that rather than coming at you with graphs of my monumental success, I'll be entering the fray on the back of a much more modest, more break-evenish footing. As such it'll be a more experimental, uncertain and even cautious way forward. It is NOT 2010 anymore and the games are getting tougher so I really think I'll be entering unknown territory this time round and I'm under no illusions that there is an even bigger chance that things will go tits up. 

As a poker player you have to prevent good players from catching up with you and prevent the better players from overtaking you  - and the only way to do that, besides killing them all off, is to get better at the game yourself. My blip, over the last 3 months or so, has told me that I'm probably getting lazy and that I'd better bloody well get better over these next few months. If not, I'll not only have a losing year overall BUT I'll be dead in the water at the start of 2013 and not even stand a chance.

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That's all set for 2013 then. I'll try to bring you the excitement, dynamism and the joys and despair that you can feel when you step onto the mental roller-coaster ride of live cash game poker. Hell, I might even take notes while at the table to make sure I (and you) get all the juicy details on the strategy, the tells, the psychology of the game and the different variety of personalities that assemble around a table. In the meantime, I'm going to just type up a few posts about how I think I am improving at the game (such as it is), how I'm getting on in general with life and maybe even write about a few live cash game sessions that I'll have from now until the end of the year.

It's feeling good to be back boys and girls.