Fear not my fellow loyal blog readers . . .what? I don't have any of those? OK, well then fear not my fellow occasional drop-by-when-you're-really-bored-and-there's-nothing-left-to-view-on-youtube readers. I have not abandoned you! I have, however, vacationed from you. And for that I apologize. I promise to do better.
Well my poker streak finally ended, but not before I cashed out $1400. Of course, I've since lost the remaining $200 I had in my account and have dumped another $50 in, but I'm currently up to $108 so maybe it's the start of a new streak! See how the mind of a degenerate gambler works?
I also finally got around to updating the movies and books I've seen and read recently, so there's that. Definitely was a big fan of Inception, although I could tell as I was watching it that it was the kind of movie that some people would praise for being absolutely genius and other people would claim was completely incoherent drivel. I'm somewhere in the middle, although more towards the side of genius.
If you're bored (and I assume you are since you came here) I'd highly advise you to read this article on the MARS turbine. It's an awesome prototype of a wind generator that floats in the atmosphere rather than being anchored to the ground. Once they get the price down (like way, way down) it might be possible someday soon for consumers to own their own wind generators.
OK, that's it for the moment but I promise that I'll be back in less than 3 weeks with things that are more interesting and or stimulating.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Poker? I Don't Even Know Her . . .
Would you believe that I stared blankly at the title bar for 10 minutes trying to think of a way to NOT use that as the title of this poker-themed entry?
In any event, before I go into this story I want to make one thing very clear: I lose money at poker (as I do at all my gambling). Not a ton (that's relative of course) and I don't have the detailed records for it but I am quite confident in the fact that in my gambling life, which stretches back more than 20 years now, I am in the red overall. Non-gamblers hear that and think "oh, so you're admitting that it's stupid" and nothing could be further from the truth. I view it as entertainment and view it in the similar vein of spending money to see a movie, or buy a video game, or having a night out. The key difference is that when I pay money to see a movie I know exactly what I'm purchasing (roughly 2 hours of entertainment) but when I put money in my poker account I don't know how much I'm getting. I might be gone in the first hand or I might be able to play for 30 hours over the next month. But in the end, my expectation for both is the same. When I put down money, I'm not expecting to get it back. That doesn't mean that I'm not trying to win or don't get upset when I lose, it just means that I'm a realist about it.
I use all this as a preface so you will understand why I choose to play the types of games that I do. Since I expect to lose most of the time, I want the few times that I win to be memorable. As such, I tend to play in really large tournaments where the odds of cashing are small but the payouts are large. I also like to play in "Satelite" tournaments - these are tournaments where the buy-in is pretty low and the "prize" is an entry into a much bigger tournament with a much bigger payout.
Every week at Full-Tilt (I swear I'm not doing a commercial for them) they have a $220 buy-in tournament that has a total of $750,000 in prize money. The winner gets $130k. Not bad. Well I don't exactly often have a spare $220 lying around, so every once in a while I like to play in $22 Satelite tournaments where the top finishers get entry into the big tournament. Over the last year or so I've managed to get into it 5 or 6 times but until a couple weeks ago had never cashed. Well I finally ended that streak early last month, finishing in 180th place (out of 3600) and cashing $375. I cashed $250 out and then lost the rest over the next week(naturally).
Since that time I've put back in roughly another $125 and lost it (again, naturally). But every time you play in one of those tournaments you earn "Full Tilt Points" which (like carnival tickets) you can use to buy useless crap or to play in special tournaments. So on Tuesday night, not wanting to put anymore money into my account, I used all of my poker points to play in a tournament where the top 5 got entry into a big $22 tournament on Sunday and I finished in the top-5. This one only has a $200,000 total prize pool but it's still cool. I'll let you all know how I do in that one. In any case, that proved to be unsatisfying because even though I'd "won" I didn't have any money to show for it and now I didn't have any more poker points so I'd have to wait till Sunday to play again. So I put in $15 and played in a tournament where the top-20 finishers earn a token to play in any $75 tournament. Again, I finished in the top-20 and "won". So I went to bed on Tuesday night having "won" two tournaments but with a total cashflow of -$15.
So last night I used my $75 token to play in a 45-person game and ended up winning it. Actually, when it got down to two of us we just decided to split it. Total payout: $984! Although in practical terms I really won $750 because that's the amount I cashed out and I have no doubt that I will flitter the rest away in the next couple of days.
Now what's particularly crazy about the whole thing is that at one point in the $15 Satelite I thought that I had been eliminated. I got beaten but it turned out that I had 25 chips more than the guy that beat me so I was still alive. At that point the blinds were 200/400 with a 50 chip ante: I didn't even have enough to cover the ante! I was literally down to "a chip and a chair." But I won the next hand to get to 225 (still below the big blind) and then I won the next hand to get to over 1000 and then I had a tiny bit of breathing room and got a good run of cards after that to climb back into it and eventually get the $75 token which ultimately led to winning almost $1000. That means that if, at the pivotal moment early on, I had just 25 less chips or if that guy had had 25 more, I'd be $1000 poorer right now.
Furthermore, in the $75 tournament only 6 people get paid. I had been doing well for most of it but had hit a bad run of cards and by the time it was down to 12 players I was in last place. Needing to make a move, I pushed all-in with pocket 4s pretty much hoping that no one would call me and I could steal the blinds. Unfortunately, the player behind me had pocket Queens and called me instantly. For those of you not totally into poker (who for some reason are still reading this) that makes me about a 4.5 to 1 underdog, definitely not where you want to be with your tournament life on the line. But lo and behold I hit a 4 on the flop for three of a kind and go on to win the hand and I'm still alive! A little while later we're down to 7 people and since the top-6 get paid the next person eliminated will be the final person who doesn't cash (the aptly-named "bubble boy"). I'm not involved in the hand but for the two people who are all-in it's pocket Kings versus pocket Aces. Again, the lower pair hits for trips as a King comes on the flop and the Aces are eliminated. I can't think of a more agonizing way to have your bubble burst.
One final little tale from the tourney. When we got to heads-up (i.e. the last two people) I had the chip lead and was an eyelash away from winning it outright. I got dealt pocket Jacks and he went all-in with what turned out to be Ace-5. No Ace comes out but 5 spades do and, since neither of us has a spade, we both have flushes and split the pot. A couple hands later we had roughly equal stacks so I offered to split and he took it.
I take from all of this 2 things:
1. No matter how good or bad you are, luck is always going to play a role and you're always going to need to get insanely lucky at least once to win a big tournament;
2) The next time you're on the small blind with crap cards and think "it's only another 25 to call, why not?" realize that you might be making a bigger decision than you think.
In any event, before I go into this story I want to make one thing very clear: I lose money at poker (as I do at all my gambling). Not a ton (that's relative of course) and I don't have the detailed records for it but I am quite confident in the fact that in my gambling life, which stretches back more than 20 years now, I am in the red overall. Non-gamblers hear that and think "oh, so you're admitting that it's stupid" and nothing could be further from the truth. I view it as entertainment and view it in the similar vein of spending money to see a movie, or buy a video game, or having a night out. The key difference is that when I pay money to see a movie I know exactly what I'm purchasing (roughly 2 hours of entertainment) but when I put money in my poker account I don't know how much I'm getting. I might be gone in the first hand or I might be able to play for 30 hours over the next month. But in the end, my expectation for both is the same. When I put down money, I'm not expecting to get it back. That doesn't mean that I'm not trying to win or don't get upset when I lose, it just means that I'm a realist about it.
I use all this as a preface so you will understand why I choose to play the types of games that I do. Since I expect to lose most of the time, I want the few times that I win to be memorable. As such, I tend to play in really large tournaments where the odds of cashing are small but the payouts are large. I also like to play in "Satelite" tournaments - these are tournaments where the buy-in is pretty low and the "prize" is an entry into a much bigger tournament with a much bigger payout.
Every week at Full-Tilt (I swear I'm not doing a commercial for them) they have a $220 buy-in tournament that has a total of $750,000 in prize money. The winner gets $130k. Not bad. Well I don't exactly often have a spare $220 lying around, so every once in a while I like to play in $22 Satelite tournaments where the top finishers get entry into the big tournament. Over the last year or so I've managed to get into it 5 or 6 times but until a couple weeks ago had never cashed. Well I finally ended that streak early last month, finishing in 180th place (out of 3600) and cashing $375. I cashed $250 out and then lost the rest over the next week(naturally).
Since that time I've put back in roughly another $125 and lost it (again, naturally). But every time you play in one of those tournaments you earn "Full Tilt Points" which (like carnival tickets) you can use to buy useless crap or to play in special tournaments. So on Tuesday night, not wanting to put anymore money into my account, I used all of my poker points to play in a tournament where the top 5 got entry into a big $22 tournament on Sunday and I finished in the top-5. This one only has a $200,000 total prize pool but it's still cool. I'll let you all know how I do in that one. In any case, that proved to be unsatisfying because even though I'd "won" I didn't have any money to show for it and now I didn't have any more poker points so I'd have to wait till Sunday to play again. So I put in $15 and played in a tournament where the top-20 finishers earn a token to play in any $75 tournament. Again, I finished in the top-20 and "won". So I went to bed on Tuesday night having "won" two tournaments but with a total cashflow of -$15.
So last night I used my $75 token to play in a 45-person game and ended up winning it. Actually, when it got down to two of us we just decided to split it. Total payout: $984! Although in practical terms I really won $750 because that's the amount I cashed out and I have no doubt that I will flitter the rest away in the next couple of days.
Now what's particularly crazy about the whole thing is that at one point in the $15 Satelite I thought that I had been eliminated. I got beaten but it turned out that I had 25 chips more than the guy that beat me so I was still alive. At that point the blinds were 200/400 with a 50 chip ante: I didn't even have enough to cover the ante! I was literally down to "a chip and a chair." But I won the next hand to get to 225 (still below the big blind) and then I won the next hand to get to over 1000 and then I had a tiny bit of breathing room and got a good run of cards after that to climb back into it and eventually get the $75 token which ultimately led to winning almost $1000. That means that if, at the pivotal moment early on, I had just 25 less chips or if that guy had had 25 more, I'd be $1000 poorer right now.
Furthermore, in the $75 tournament only 6 people get paid. I had been doing well for most of it but had hit a bad run of cards and by the time it was down to 12 players I was in last place. Needing to make a move, I pushed all-in with pocket 4s pretty much hoping that no one would call me and I could steal the blinds. Unfortunately, the player behind me had pocket Queens and called me instantly. For those of you not totally into poker (who for some reason are still reading this) that makes me about a 4.5 to 1 underdog, definitely not where you want to be with your tournament life on the line. But lo and behold I hit a 4 on the flop for three of a kind and go on to win the hand and I'm still alive! A little while later we're down to 7 people and since the top-6 get paid the next person eliminated will be the final person who doesn't cash (the aptly-named "bubble boy"). I'm not involved in the hand but for the two people who are all-in it's pocket Kings versus pocket Aces. Again, the lower pair hits for trips as a King comes on the flop and the Aces are eliminated. I can't think of a more agonizing way to have your bubble burst.
One final little tale from the tourney. When we got to heads-up (i.e. the last two people) I had the chip lead and was an eyelash away from winning it outright. I got dealt pocket Jacks and he went all-in with what turned out to be Ace-5. No Ace comes out but 5 spades do and, since neither of us has a spade, we both have flushes and split the pot. A couple hands later we had roughly equal stacks so I offered to split and he took it.
I take from all of this 2 things:
1. No matter how good or bad you are, luck is always going to play a role and you're always going to need to get insanely lucky at least once to win a big tournament;
2) The next time you're on the small blind with crap cards and think "it's only another 25 to call, why not?" realize that you might be making a bigger decision than you think.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
