The Pain of Poker

Jay Kang has a gambling problem.

Twelve thousand dollars lay wadded up in the glove compartment. I was trying to decide if I had what it took to drive home. To help delay a decision, I remember turning the radio to a Dodgers game. I don't know how long I sat there listening to Vin Scully sing his nasally song of balls and strikes, which, even in the age of digital radio, still sounds as if it is being transmitted through a tin of victory cabbage. I remember thinking some nostalgic, self-pitying thoughts about my younger days. I forced myself to say out loud, "You are a degenerate gambler," but doing so only made me giggle. I opened the glove box, pocketed the cash, and walked back through the sliding doors of the Commerce Casino, back to my table in the Crazy Asian 400 No-Limit Game and to the eight friends at my table who had kindly managed to save my seat.

Some time later, I drove home. All the money, of course, was gone. As I drove home through the network of highways that tie up a concrete bow just east of downtown Los Angeles, I felt no compulsion to slam the Outback into a guardrail. In fact, losing almost all the money I had in the world in six hours stirred up only a cold, scraped-out feeling of knowing-the calm that freezes out your brain when you watch someone younger make the same mistakes you made at their age. Staring out at the empty skyscrapers, I tried to figure out what might be the right reaction to losing $12,000. At the 7-Eleven on Venice and Sepulveda, I bought a bottle of Nyquil, drank half of it in the parking lot and drove the rest of the way home in a warm, creeping fog.

/via kottke.org

Cake Challenge III

Adam had posted about how he was targeting the $1000 bankroll figure and that got me interested in targeting that goal as well. He was thinking a challenge like Cake II where there would be a certain deadline. I was proposing a race to $1000 instead since I think it would enforce better bankroll management than having a set date. Case in point, when Adam went for broke (the first time, around June 1) because that was the *only* way he could have a chance to win the Q2 prop bet.

There are pluses and minuses to both but I was trying to think of a different mechanism. *Assuming* that the challenges are about bankroll management, then there are many options that could be used to help enforce that notion.

* Make it mandatory that certain bankroll management rules are followed like not exceeding x% of your roll on a table at any one time. The first person reaching $1000 without breaking BRM rules would be declared the winner and that would prevent players from taking excessive risk in order to try to win the prop bet.

* Lowest negative variance. Not sure how this would be done but I have to think there is a statistical measure which would allow us to determine who had the swingiest chart without penalizing positive upswings from big tourney cashes, RB payouts, bonuses, etc.

* Smallest negative downswing. Could just say that the person with the smallest (or smallest 10 or whatever) downswings percentage-wise would be the winner. That would allow for unlimited huge upswings and only measure negative bankroll movements.

I'm sure there are many more ways we could structure it to keep BRM as a defining factor in the challenge. Or it could just be a no holds barred race if we don't want to make BRM such a factor.

Bottom line is that I know that I do much better when there is a carrot in front of me to chase after. Ever since the April 1 deadline came and went I have lost focus and incentive to play well or manage my bankroll well so I would welcome some sort of competition to get me over the $1K hump.

Death of Cake

Well it looks like a good run has more or less ended for me. I plan to cash out most all of my remaining balance on cake after a rough run post WSOP. The final straw was not being able to fire up any O8 tables and then having to multi table $1/$2 PLO with Wind Tunnel at my table.

Wind Tunnel is an exceptionally good player who typically plays the highest stakes available on cake. I would typically see him at $5/$10 and $2/4 and even $25/$50 when it used to run.

Everyone rousted him for playing so low to which Wind Tunnel responded "Come on guys there is nothing running". I then asked him if he was up for the year. He said he was about even after being down $100K earlier. If a player like Wind Tunnel can't make any money then I had to ask myself what I am doing here.

I plan to more or less stop playing on line for the summer and then will evaluate the options available in the fall. I can't beat the game on Poker Stars and am not motivated enough to try to make Supernova this year. The game has clearly evolved from the 9 high callers on the river who thought they had a low in PLO8 to 24 tablers in PLO and PLO8 ( I have now met 3 people who claim to do this profitably).

In any case. I am most thankful for an amazing journey and an amazing run.

For the stat junkies out there, here are the stats on player traffic at cake and other sites:

Poker Traffic Article

Reminder to handle only your own cards and chips

I know that I mentioned this before in the etiquette email but I think it bears repeating that you should only handle your own cards and chips.

Last weekend there was a significant error in the size of the pot which was only detected due to the two players being all in and having identical stacks since the session had just started. In that hand a player had made his own change from the pot. Money in the pot no longer belongs to the player and should not be touched except by the dealer. Though it may take longer for a strap to be changed out for stacks of chips it is done to help eliminate pot errors such as the one that happened Saturday.

Also, you should not touch another player's cards as this 2+2 thread so eloquently demonstrates.

Just a reminder that the etiquette protocols are there for a reason and not just so I get to play OCD rules nazi. Thanks in advance for everyone's cooperation.

New seating procedure

Since the weeknight game has bigger with two tables becoming more and more common there will be a new seating procedure which should speed up and simplify breaking into two tables. This supersedes the previous seating procedure.

* Everyone gets a seat card assigned to them. Players without a personalized seat card use the Guest cards which are assigned alphabetically with Guest 1 going to the person whose first name is earliest in the alphabet.

* All cards are randomized so that everyone is equally likely to sit to anyone else's left or right.

* The cards are spread to establish the seating order for that session.

* The first nine players will start at the main table.

* When the tenth person arrives they will take their spot at the table temporarily then every second player, starting from the immediate left of the dealer, will move to the second table. All players moving to the second table will keep their same relative positions to each other.

* Tables will be kept balanced to within one player whenever the number of players changes.

* The next player to show up sits at the table with fewer players or at the larger table if tables have equal amounts. They will sit in between the two other players as dictated by the original seating order for that session.

* If a group of players show up all at once their order will be based on the alphabetical order of their first name.

* We will combine tables if we get down to seven or fewer players. If we get down to eight or nine players the floor will decide if we combine depending on how much time is left in the session.

This new procedure should streamline the process of handling the larger groups of players we have been experiencing lately so we can spend more time playing and less time managing seating.

Hold'em Derby blinds format

Last weekend's tourney introduced the latest incarnation of the T4000 deep stack blind schedule. In this latest revision I flattened out the curve a little and shortened the blinds slightly to compensate. The tourney had 15 runners across two tables and though the result was a chop between the last two players it still ended sooner than estimated.

I have always felt that the deep stack format allows for adequate splashing around early on and permits a miscue or two while still remaining viable and I think the new schedule supports that as well. I don't think anyone felt that they *had* to go with ATC and everyone was pretty much able to exit on their own terms which I think is a trademark of a good structure. The shallower jumps also takes some of the bite out of getting hit by an increased blind since it is not as drastic between blind levels.

One factor that I feel contributed was playing 8 players or less at the tables and combining at 7. That allowed for many more hands/hour than a full ring would have and therefore more action for everyone.

I think the only change I would make for next time is to bump up the round lengths to their initial lengths of 30 minutes before the first break and 20 minutes after the break.

Any input on the format is welcome. For your reference, both the latest blind schedule and the previous one are listed below.

Latest blinds schedule:
5/10 (first three rounds 25 minutes)
10/20
15/30
15 minute break - color up 5s
25/50 (this and all other rounds 18 minutes)
50/100
75/150
100/200
150/300
10 minute break - color up 25s
200/400
300/600
400/800
600/1200
800/1600
10 minute break - color up 100s
1000/2000
1500/3000
2000/4000
2500/5000
3000/6000
4000/8000
5000/10,000
6000/12,000
8000/16,000
10,000/20,000

Previous blinds:
5/10 (first three rounds 25 minutes)
10/20
15/30
15 minute break - color up 5s
25/50 (this and all other rounds 20 minutes)
50/100
75/150
100/200
150/300
10 minute break - color up 25s
200/400
300/600
500/1000
700/1400
10 minute break - color up 100s
1000/2000
1500/3000
2500/5000
4000/8000
7000/14,000
10,000/20,000

HOHA format

So the topic came up last Saturday about the HOHA format. As you all know it is currently one orbit of Hold'em, one orbit of Omaha hi/lo, another orbit of Hold'em, then finally an orbit of Omaha hi only. Adam had suggested that we go to two orbits of Hold'em in between Omaha rounds. After the table was queried the results ranged from supporting two orbits to indifference to opposition of two orbits. As some of you may recall the original format was AHO with one rotation of each game before repeating until the second rotation of Hold'em was put in.

I spoke with Adam afterward and the crux of the issue for him was shifting gears back and forth. And as we all recognize, Hold'em orbits go faster than Omaha and especially Omaha/8 orbits.

So I'm opening the floor to discussion about what we want to do. SOME of the options are below:

* HOHA - leave it as is.
* AHO - switch back to previous.
* HHOHHA - proposed double Hold'em format.
* AHHO - put both Hold'em orbits back to back so there are only three game changes each cycle instead of four.
* AHHHO - Compromise between HOHA and HHOHHA.
* Timed rotations - 20 minutes of Hold'em, 20 minutes of Omaha, 20 minutes of O/8 (or 30 minutes, whatever)
* Blocks of the evening - First third of the evening is Hold'em, second third is Omaha, final third is O/8.
* Omaha then Texas - First half of the night is Omaha and O/8, second half is Hold'em.
[Edit to add:
* HHOOHHAA - two orbits of each per Jeh's suggestion.
]

I'm sure there are other options as well so feel free to contribute any other ideas you may have.

Seven-Deuce payoffs

NOTE: the rules below have been superseded by the revised rules.

Now that the Seven-Deuce game has become a fairly regular addition to our cash games I feel the it would benefit us to implement a little order to the process especially after last night where we had chips being thrown off the table. So in order to make sure that no eyes are put out and that all payoffs are properly accounted for, please place the chips owed in front of you as though you were paying an ante and the dealer will handle the rest.

So for future reference, here are the house rules for the Seven-Deuce game.

* The Seven-Deuce game is on by default for the midweek Hold'em game. It is optional at any other time.
* Any player may opt out of playing. They would not owe anything if losing to 7-2 nor would they win anything if they win with 7-2.
* It is not necessary to have unanimous participation for the game to proceed. If there is not unanimous participation it is the individual player's responsibility to know who is or is not playing. In accordance with the "one player per hand" rule no one else may assist a player asking if an opponent is playing 7-2 while in the middle of the hand. If a player asks his opponent directly the opponent may answer with whatever response he wishes regardless of its accuracy.
* Any player winning any portion of the pot with Seven and a Deuce as hole cards is owed a bounty by everyone else at the table who played cards in that same hand. It does not matter if the Seven and Deuce are suited or off-suit.
* The bounty for scooping a pot with 7-2 is $2 from each person.
* If a player holding 7-2 chops the pot with anyone else they receive $1 from each person.
* Winning an uncontested pot with 7-2 due to the rest of the table folding qualifies as winning the hand.
* The procedure for a 7-2 hand is the following: After all betting action has completed, if a player with 7-2 wins any portion of the pot and shows the hand to the table then every player who is playing the 7-2 game and took action in the hand puts the appropriate bounty size ($2 for a scoop, $1 for anything else) in front of them. The dealer will sweep the bounty chips to the winner(s) first then award the pot. Do not throw the chips or splash the pot with the 7-2 bounties.

Thanks in advance for everyone's cooperation.

Heads up tourney wrap up

As requested by Marshall, here's the post-morten thread about this year's HU tourney. I made some changes to this year's format and I'll give some background on the rationale since I'm sure it will come up.

* Deeper stacks/more blind levels - We started with T5000 instead of T4000 this year and more levels were added before capping. I'm trying to increase the skill factor and made a slower schedule to try to achieve that.

* 100/200 > 200/400 jump - This came up more than once and it seems like inserting a 150/300 level in between would smooth out the transition.

* Wild card spot - This was new this year. The idea was to offer a spot in the bracket round based on a hybrid of skill and chance. The better that someone did in the preliminaries, the higher chance they will get into the bracket round if they did not qualify. However, everyone still had a chance to get in regardless of their performance. This is intended to provide incentive for everyone to do as best as they can at all times so that players don't tank it in their last couple of games. Previously I tried to achieve this by offering game money but I think a lottery approach is preferable because the game money depleted the bracket prize pool and it offers a shot at something potentially more valuable than a few bucks in game money.

* Time limit - This didn't really come into play at all. It was put in this year in order to address last year's issue of some games taking much longer than others and pushing back the entire schedule. So in order to make sure that the bracket round started at a reasonable time I put in a 20 minute cap.

* Six person bracket round - Also new this year. I assumed we would get somewhere around 12-14 players for the tourney and felt that sending eight players through would be too many and four would be too small so I settled on six which was actually top five plus wild card. Having six players go through also provided byes to the #1 and #2 seeds which guaranteed them at least 3rd/4th place money as a reward for doing well in the prelims.

* Stopping the prelim games after the blinds cap - The idea here was to add a skill/strategy element. In a winner take all affair the short stack has nothing to lose by shoving with ATC as the blinds near the end of the schedule. Crediting a player based on chip count at the end of the schedule was intended to prevent kamikaze play by short stacks since they would be jeopardizing getting at least partial credit for the game. The secondary benefit of this was to create a tie breaking criteria since people would likely end up with an odd chip count along the way.

* Blind schedule escalation - Bumping up the blinds each orbit instead of by time has been a staple of the HU format. It is designed to allow for many more games than timed blinds would while also allowing games to happen at start independently of each other instead of using a mutual clock for everyone. I feel that having everyone go through eight games of low/middle/high blind escalation in the prelims is a better indicator of HU performance than a standard single elimination bracket format where someone could get knocked out in a cooler.

* Diversity exception - Any player who could not start at the beginning of the tourney was given a modified schedule of playing only six players instead of all eight. The two player he would have played ended up playing each other instead so that everyone else still played eight games in the prelims. This was also why the format was changed to average scores instead of point totals so that six game and eight game scores could be compared on an equal footing. However, the high score of the six game schedule was dropped and the remaining five scores were added together in order to not allow someone playing fewer games to benefit from not being in attendance for the while event. Dropping the high score dings the player but is nowhere nearly as severe as forcing them to take losses for two games. Having the two opponents play each other prevents them from benefiting from a forfeit and throwing their numbers off too much.

* Payouts - I bumped spread the 1st/2nd place money out a little more this year from 40/30 to 45/25. As it turns out they last two players chopped it up so it didn't matter but I made the payouts a little steeper this year to put a little more on the line. Generally though I favor flatter payouts and perhaps the chop is indicative that the difference between 1st and 2nd was too great.

* Antes - In order to continue adding pressure to the blinds in the bracket portion of the tourney I added in antes after the blinds capped. The antes started off small but they would eventually force an end to the game since they would ultimately end up equaling the BB. I felt that adding in antes would be a softer hammer than having the blinds continue to escalate. If people don't like the blinds capping in the prelims then maybe adding antes would address that.

I think that's all of the news for this year. If anyone has opinions on any of the aspects of the format then chime in and I'll incorporate feedback into the next HU championship.