I thought I would do my year end early, not because like MBK I won't be playing much poker, but just to get it out of the fucking way. As I have a lot to say, my usual artful prose will be replaced with semi-random bullet points:
Ennui. For me poker and ennui have always been familiar bedfellows, but fuck me. I could seriously give it up. Maybe.
It's been a good year. Not in the scale of MBK or Wint, but considering my all-round amateurishness I'm moderately pleased. I won just about twice what I won last year. Thank you 6 max NL.
I could and perhaps should have won more. But I spent all my winnings and never really moved up. Goddamn you high on the hog uber-extravagant lifestyle you!
Rolf S's book is by far the best book on PLO. This isn't saying much but is true. Most of the short stackers who have appeared on places like Stars have seemed to have completely misunderstood what Rolf was writing about.
On the subject of Stars, I tried their NL 6 max games and they were much tougher than their old days Crypto equivalents. There were lots of VIP 20, PFR 20 types and the squeeze or thin 3 bet was very common. Bye, bye again Stars.
Betfair – what a fuck up. I mean what a serious fuck up.
If you're not following my blog by a feed reader, you need to. I suspect this will be about as active as GROAN's blog. This could very well be the last post. Then again it might not either. But don't hold your breath.
High Stakes Poker. By far the best poker tv show. Mostly because Gabe Kaplan's commentary is so good. Funny, and occasionally even perceptive.
Danny Boy on said High Stakes show. Man, he was bad. Some bad beats of epic proportions but many, many times he would say “I can't believe you've just so obviously hit a monster and now betting. So unreal. So obvious. But I call anyway.” In comparison Phil Laak looked v v good. And I liked his T-shirts.
One final point, which at first seems obvious, but I've not seen it explicitly said. At the very highest stakes the skill differential is so small you are competiting on bankrolls and the ability to weather variance and emotional control. If all your Foes have 5 times the tank you have, ceteris paribus, you are going to need to be lucky to survive.
Merry Christmas, and Ho, Fucking, Ho.
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17 comments:
You are a far better NL player than I am, Dave, but, of the High Stakes Poker episodes I have seen, Phil Laak struck me as something of a tight ABC player. Maybe I'm just "in his zone", but I thought that most of the bets he made represented his hand rather too clearly. Or is "no tricksiness" good? Maybe it is.
I mean, he wasn't as tight-assed as some of the "wait for Matusow or Hellmuth or Hansen to blow up" (welcome, Antonio) but I wondered about some of Phil's plays. One that I recall involved an AQ OOP, where he seemed to get himself into an awful lot of unnecessary trouble.
I also thought that he was a bit guilty of seeing shadows, but, since that's one of my major faults, maybe I shouldn't criticize.
I hope that most NL players don't watch this, because it shows in many cases how conservative the top level players are when it comes to cash games. Note, for example, the number of check-downs on turn and river.
PJ
It was a long time ago now Pete. I liked his betting patterns. I liked his bet sizing. As to whether he was tight or not, well I presume we dont see *all* the hands. He certainly got more action then he seemed justified in receiving. I guess I thought he would be the usual tourney fuckwit but it was clear he could play. I especially liked the calling down of Matusows stack.
gl
dd
Sorry for boring you Dave. Thanks for the reply.
Kevin
Gerg,
MBK is milkybarkid.
Kevin,
I'm sorry I missed your comment. This is hardly a high volume blog and its far from the centre of my world of late. And I almost never engage in private correspondence with commenters, especially around hands and stuff. Your best bet is to post it on 2+2.
cheers
Dave
I'm sure I've read someone, it might even have been Sklansky, say that the edge of the better players in The Big Game (TM) was about 0.1 BB/Hr when they were playing limit, and so even the winners needed some humungous theoretical bankroll that probably only Ivey actually has.
As for Danny, Greenstein's comment that his real strength is extracting the max from bad players rings very true. As BG says, Danny can mostly only do this in tournaments. Except when Hellmuth shows up on HSP :-)
HFH to you too !
Andy.
Hi Dave,
Regarding your last paragraph and the comments above by AndyW, while you are correct that in a bad game the better rolled player will have a bigger chance of surviving, the simple fact is that it is a bad game and thus represents an error in game selection to sit in it, unless you have reason to believe a big donator will come along.
And please don't threaten us with not posting anymore just because Rolf has you exerting your energies elsewhere :).
Best wishes to you and your family and the regular readers here for the Christmas season and new year.
BluffTHIS!
Andy & Bluff,
I agree with you both. Its just strange that the top pros havent thought of it as a competitive advantage, with maybe Spirit Rock as the exception. Bluff, I dont think it is bad game selection. For the uber big stakes, there is almost no game selection. And they're too proud and dumb to move down.
gl
dd
Nice blog. My first visit, but not my last. I'll actually contribute something next time I comment :)
Peace.
Randy
Just what I search for today. I think this is an excellent reason for people (like you and me) to stop fearing the big stacks... and to stop bullying the small stacks. It was quite useful reading, found some stuff in here to use, - Thanks!
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regards (your old time lurker)
dD
And another ones gone, another ones gone, another one bites the dust.
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Dave, whats your email address, do you still look after this blog?
Al
I'm still here Al, why do you ask?
Dave
Cool, well I'm also from the glorius town of Oldham. I'm study maths at Cambridge btw. Anyways I'm new to the poker scene, started playing a couple of months ago. Almost crossed the $1000 milestone (from $50) on stars, which is nice..
I was just wondering if there are any good live tournament venues near us?
Oh and have they come to a conclusion about the supercasino yet? (I never get to see the news during term) Just outside man city football club... mate it will almost be a freeroll :)
Al
Sorry Al, my email spam filtered you're response :( I'm no guru on live games any more, its been too long. Jumping on a UK forum is prolly the best bet.
cheers
dd
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