Archive for July, 2006
digesting
if this past week taught me one thing, it’s that there are some really interesting ways to make a living out in this world. i’m not just talking about poker players and dealers either. as ivy and i stood in the taxi line at the venetian last night, we realized that the Taxi Dude (guy opening the doors) makes BANK. at a clip of around 3 cars per minute, he was being tipped around $240/hour. yeah, you read that right. not to mention that he was being paid to stare intently into female, um, eyes to ask questions as insightful as “can i take your bag?” and “where are you headed today, miss?”
so let’s make that lesson #1 from vegas: if you’re a single guy out there, you might want to pursue the taxi door-opening opportunities in las vegas. at best you can sneak in a smile. at worst you’re cashing over $200/hour.
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En Vacacion
- shawarma sandwich (near wrigley)
- three bud lights at the sports bar across sheffield from wrigley
- two ‘old style’ beers at one of the country’s most beautiful ballparks
- a ‘wrigley dog’
- three hoegaarden’s at jonny o’hagan’s in wrigleyville
- a two-piece chicken meal at ‘Harold’s Chicken Shack’
- a rainbow cone, courtesty of pseudostoops
- pita chips and hummus dip at La Casa de Stoops/Pseudostoops
- a boatload of mussels, sandwiches, and fries
- a nice variety of belgian brews from Hopleaf
what’s left on the list? a nice corn-fed dry-aged rib eye. chicago-style stuffed pizza. a dining experience at some place called Mr. Beef. a trip to this mythical Wiener Circle…
and i wonder why chicago seems to have a larger percentage of overweight people than anywhere else i’ve been in the world.
after chicago, i’m heading to las vegas on monday morning. i’ll be camped out in the city of sin playing LOTS of poker and generally trying out ‘the life’. i’ll sleep at a decent hotel, eat as cheaply as i can, write often (lucky you!), and try to have some fun. more writing and pictures later. talk to you soon…
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Friday friday…
jack: “hi *shake hands*, i’m a product manager with customer data management. i’m doing a recording at 8am.”
technician B: “hi *looks confused*, i don’t actually see you on the schedule. lemme call someone to ask…. (he calls larry, or president bush, or the olsen twins, or someone equally important). sorry, i don’t see you on here. i think your recording got cancelled and no one told you. sorry about that.”
jack: “that’s awesome. i love my life.”
technician B: “great.”
and that is why i’m sitting in my cube at 8:15 writing instead of speaking into an oversized microphone.
i’m honestly not irritated, though i probably will be when i realize at 4pm that i’m insanely tired. when you work at a large LARGE company, sometimes strange things will happen and there will be no justification beyond a shrug and a smile. maybe sipping this green tea will help.
much more irritating however, was wednesday afternoon, when i jetted out of work at 5:10 sharp to head home and make the 6pm $69+$6 full tilt tournament (still trying to win a seat to a bracelet event). i’ve discovered lately that the traffic on 101 south seems to be getting worse, which is of course why i left myself a whole 50 minutes to get home. clearly you know how this story ends. as i walked in my apartment door at 6:03pm, i was able to take solace in the fact that in just a few hours i would get to dust off my chips in the 9pm $200+$16 tournament and then take a bad beat for a LOT of chips in a cash game. awesome!
i think the particular bad beat story is worth telling not for the sympathy that it will garner from scores of kind souls (because no one ever cares about bad beat stories), but just to note how ridiculous the hand was:
on the button, i found KhKc. as two players had limped around to me, i raised to 3x the BB. this might look like a tiny raise that isn’t sufficient to drive out limpers, but i always raise to 3x the BB, whether i have KK or 97 suited. the small blind folded and the big blind IMMEDIATELY moved all-in for 50x the big blind. yes, 50. that’s about 8x the entire pot.
it was pretty clear that the player had a medium-sized pair that he was afraid to play after the flop out of position. he probably also thought that my button raise was a steal (a huge mistake by online tournament players when playing cash games). figuring he has the best hand, he doesn’t want to get played off of it when an overcard hits the flop. it turned out he had ThTs.
as i waited for the two limpers to fold so i could call, i considered how ridiculous this play was.
- he hadn’t seen me play five hands, so he really couldn’t have an idea of how i played.
- by raising to 50x the BB, he was forcing out every single hand that he was a big favorite over. i certainly wouldn’t call 50x with 99 or 88.
- by raising to 50x the BB, he was going to get called only by hands that dominated or raced with his tens (AA, KK, QQ, AK, AQ, JJ).
- there’s no way i could actually be stealing in that position. with two limpers in front of me, how could i be trying to steal the blinds with a raise to 3x the BB?
as i watched the inevitable T spike on the turn, followed by a very kind exclamation in the chatbox (“send it!” which is roughly equivalent to those cheating, flopping italian soccer players), i couldn’t help noticing that all the money would have gone in on the flop anyway. with a 7-high flop, there was no possible way either player would get away from the hand. i just wonder whether the other guy knows how insanely he played the hand. judging by his response, i would guess not.
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Hooray! He’s making lots of manure…
“Right now, he’s happier,” Richardson said. “He’s got a normal heart rate, normal temperature, he’s eating like crazy. He’s very hungry. He’s making lots of manure.”
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Inducing bluffs…
lately though, i’ve noticed online that there are many situations to induce a bluff out of a reckless opponent (of which there are certainly MANY online) when you have just a semi-strong hand. last night i observed the following hand in a $1-$2 NLH game on full tilt:
player A was a reckless maniac on the big blind. the kind of player who makes huge bets at unreasonable pots, playing hyper-aggressively. he had shown little ability to slow himself down. he had about $150 in front of him. player B seemed to me to be a solid player who was making good decisions and playing tightly. he was on the button and had about $250.
all the players folded around to player B, who raised to $6. a standard play from the button, he really could be raising with many hands. even for a player as tight as he was, i could imagine a raise with any decent ace, KQ, JT, etc. and any pair larger than 66. (it turned out that he had AcTc)
player A was the only caller. as i noted, being a maniac means that he would defend his blind with a call with really any hand. he would re-raise with most any decent pair or overcards (maybe even all-in), because (of course) he is a maniac. also, player B could be fairly certain that the maniac would throw out a huge overbet of the pot after the flop no matter what. it turned out that he had 8h5h. it’s important to note right here that defending his blind with a hand like this is really not all THAT unreasonable, even against a tight player on the button. it’s very likely that he has two live cards and the pot is laying him better than 2:1. what he did next, though, IS unreasonable.
the flop came AsKs2c, and player A immediately bet out $27. now leading out with a $27 bet into a $13 pot should really never happen. against hands that can’t call, a $10-$13 bet would accomplish the same thing. against hands that can call or raise, you’re just giving away money. it’s also idiotic because the flop hit so many hands that player B could have.
now the natural reaction if i was player B, would be to raise. the only hands that i could imagine the maniac having to beat me right now are A2, 22, and K2, none of which he would bet that way. considering that information against the flush draw on board, i would be inclined to raise.
but there are a couple of factors to weigh here:
- if he has a flush draw, he’s a maniac and will either call without pot odds or re-raise all-in, putting me at a tricky decision. and while the odds would probably dictate a call, who likes to gamble against a flush draw? against a maniac you can still make a lot of money (on this hand or later hands)
- there are lots of hands much worse than mine that he would fold or re-raise all-in with.
when you add all of these things up, it makes a lot of sense to just call and control the pot size. it also adds some deception to your hand. this is exactly what player B did.
on the turn, the 3h came off the deck. and player A checked. now here’s where player B induced the bluff. after calling on the flop, he checks behind on the turn. a normal player would probably then put player B (as a tight player) on a weak ace hoping to check the pot down, but certainly willing to call a maniac. the maniac sees this as a chance to rip at the pot. and when the 6c falls on the river, player A puts in an overbet of $100. player B makes a relatively easy call, given the action and has successfully induced a ridiculous bluff by the maniac.
now i don’t know whether this method of inducing bluffs is really the correct way to play. the majority of the time i would prefer to raise on the flop and take the pot down with a hand like AT. but it certainly turned out to be the perfect play for player B in this particular hand and it deserves some thinking over. instead of gambling with the maniac, he was able to control the size of the pot until he was fairly certain he had the best hand and induce a bluff out of the maniac player with no outs. that sounds like a pretty good way to play poker to me…
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Go for the better story…
the golden rule? always go for the better story because someday you’ll be sitting in a rocking chair with only those to tell your grandchildren. make sure they’re good. 
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What would you bring?
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