No Limit, Again

The new Sportbook.com poker is more visible when maximized.  Sportsbetting.com poker did not switch to
the new slick format and has the one the the human cartoons.  The older format, that Sportsbetting.com still has, is easier on the eyes and a game can be played without maximizing it. 

The new slick format has many fancy features - more than Pokerstars or Full Tilt.

Having recovered from the downturn, the King is thinking about playing in some freeroll NL Hold 'em tournaments.

Another Bad Beat Blog

Alan N. Schoonmaker wrote in one of his books - "Your Own Worst Enemy" that if witnessing a table of players that most people would not be happy with their results.  He said that scene were a workplace, that there was a serious morale problem. 

Another poker blogger starts of his blog with - this is not another bad beat blog. All this is funny because the King started off the month with a downturn.  With hopes of making his yearly earning goals, the King moved up to the nickel and dime games and lost a few rolls of pennies. 

Overall the higher stakes are more aggressive in that there is more raising to narrow the field. With tighter play, at the showdown, the tighter player with higher cards wins the pot.  The adjustment was to aggressive play was a shocker.

Loose Aggressive Player - Big Buy-In

In heads-up play money games, the loose aggressive players typically buy-in for about three times the minimum buy-in.  Whether it is luck or skill remains unknown but it is quite amazing to watchsome loose aggressive players play heads-up and make money. 
The big buy-in reflect to big variance of their style of play.

50 Billion Hands at PokerStars

The King got a little caught up in PokerStars 50 Billion Hand milestones.  This promotion is endless and requires no skill to win.  A table gets chosen and everybody on that table wins.  The first table everyone won a $234 each and a little while later another table got chosen and everybody won $155.

Normally, at this time of day there is about 40 tables of full ring penny poker games going, but with this promotion (that never stops) there are several hundred penny poker tables going.  At every level, the site is overflowing with games.

PokerStars several times an hour is giving several hundred and up to several thousand dollars away free, just for playing, unbelievable.

No Thinking Involved with Rules

Studying the rules, there is no thinking involved.  Thinking in the sense of decision making is not required, but thinking of all possible situations is necessary. So, initially the King will go thru all the hands and categorize how the pot are awarded and split for each hand.  Later, after this project is over, he will add situations as they happen.

The Rules of Poker and Half Juice

Yesterday was day two into the next project of the rules of poker and specifically the winning of pots and split pots rules. Turbo Texas Hold 'ems software is going to be used to create the different scenarios.
BetEd Poker has a 10% rake at the microlimits for limit poker, and this is higher than other places which have 5% rake.

Sportsbook.com has half juice on Fridays which is great for sportsbettors.

Gamber's Anonymous

1 Did I lose time from work due to gambling?   No
2 Has gambling made my home life unhappy?  No
3 Did gambling affect my reputation?  No
4 Do I feel remorse after gambling?  No
5 Do I gamble to pay debt or am financial strained?  No
6 Does gambling decrease my ambition or efficiency?  No
7 Do I have return to win back my losses?  No
8 After winning, do I have an urge to win more?  No
9 Did I gamble until last dollar was gone?  No
10 Did I borrow to gamble?  No
11 Have I sold anything to gamble?  No
12 Reluctant to use gambling money for normal expenditures?  Does not apply because the bankroll is so small. The bankroll for a 2-4¢ hold 'em game, that should last forever, is $12. 
13 Did gambling make me careless of my welfare.  Yes, The King has been eating more junk food to spend more time studying.
14 Have I gambled longer than planned?  Yes, when losing
15 Have I gambled to escape worry, trouble, boredom or loneliness?   Yes
16 Have I done illegal things to finance gambling?  No
17 Did gambling cause sleeplessness?  No
18 Do arguments, disappointments, and frustrations create an urge to gamble?   Yes
19 Do I have an urge to celebrate by gambling?  No
20 Considered suicide because of gambling?  No

Compulsive gamblers answer yes to at least seven of these questions.  The King has answered yes to several questions, but this hobby is profitable, barely, in fiscal year three, month one.

No More

After days and day of losing, the King widthdrew his money from PokerStars.  After over two hours at the 5-10¢ tables at Full Tilt and more losses, he decided to pull out of there too.  Playing this first month of fiscal year two for 68 hours and making practically nothing was just to futile.

Maybe he will renew his interest and play no-limit or 5 card draw or no-limit freerolls.

Coming out of the Hole

After doing well, the King gave playing one level higher a shot and caught a lot of trash cards and bad beats.  Retreating back to the lower limit and looser tables, most of his losses were recovered.  It was a long and tiring session playing over 10 hours continuously.

Taking a day off from game playing and making voice memos for instructional purposes on a Ipod gave the King a break. 

Returning to the tables after the break, it was quite amazing to see several showdowns in two handed pots with players showing trash hands - there is hope.

Finally, after breaking an old computer with Windows XP, the next project the rules for the game was started.  Turbo Texas Hold 'em will be used to determine the rules for split pots and for winning pots.

The Eight Month Project is Over

The strategy guide is finished and is being used for decision-making in games. 
Any future work with this guide will be for making it uniform and compressed.
The guide is divided by the five positions: early, middle, late, small blind and big blind. 
Each position is divided by the hand type: pairs, suited and offsuits. The problem with excessive categorizing is found at the early position where not many hands are played. Compression means to reduce the guide, because when referring to it, time is limited (and even more so in fast games).

The Starting Hands Composite Strategy Sheet is Done

It took eight months to do this "little project" and initially it was expected to be completed very quickly.  The King has been using Hilger's strategy sheet and it has been helpfull even tho it is for tight games.  To wrap things up, for this project, another short day will be spent compiling the acronyms and notes used for this strategy sheet.

The next project has to be split pot rules (and rules of what makes a winning hand) an area that needs attention.  Together with this project, another project to do would be to do a Lou Krieger style chart of the starting hands broken into 4 charts instead of 2.

Raking in the Pennies

Another great session at the penny tables and the King dominated them, to an extent.  The calling stations do not fold and the bluffers called their bluffs at opportune times - they set the course for the tables.  There were three river calls, that seemed hopeless and just a pay off, but they weren't.  In each case, the bettor had a terrible hand and because the pot was big enough the King resigned himself to paying them off.  Interesting reads, especially the section on bluffing, the book, "The Theory of Poker".

Good Score

The King scored seven pots in 80 hands. Again it is a time of good luck. The way it has been done is this: if the King made a score, he would devote some time for studying before the next playing session.  Sometimes, the good luck streak runs for weeks and the King accumulates a lot of study sessions.  The studying comes to a stop when he loses and keeps playing till he gets even - which can take hours.

Relieved

Session One was a little over an hour, just before work, so session time was set at an hour.  Playing three tables at once, getting crappy hands and winning just two pots was just terrible. The way people think is that if there are 10 players, they should win 10 pots per 100 hands or even more if they are aggressvie or bluff.  Winning one pot every 10 hands has been a disaster for the King.  But playing tighter for 118  hands and winning just two pots was just bad luck.

Without getting good, or even halfway decent hands, meant not even contesting the pot so it was mostly the blinds that chewed up his buy-in. The King's only possible mistake was not playing a pocket Kings hand more aggressively preflop.  Knocking out one or two players could have made the difference between winning and losing.

Session two after work was just a half an hour long and a big success. The pots the King won made up for the previous session's small loss and three other sessions that were long and not the norm in catching good cards. So in this session the King caught some good cards, played aggressively and won some big pots.  Worn out from the other sessions, the King stopped after just 30 minutes and rested.

Another long session of ring games is over.  DrCh@ch@ was a memorable character on one of the tables.  He was from Russia or Eastern Europe and was having a winning session. He played loose but folded quickly if things went wrong, and during an hour of play, his hole cards did not indicate that he played too loose.   

Another Exhausting Session

It was another tiring day at the tables, where hand after hand got cracked by loose player playing trash hands - calling stations.  Calling stations go all the way to the river and one of them, in each game, catches that miracle card that completes a big hand like a flush or straight. The King caught many big pairs and sets which are strong hands, but these just did not hold up much. It was like the other session, where like the western movie the white men, fighting the indiams, preservere until the cavalry comes. If all  the sessions were like today, it would not be worth it.

But there are days where luck smiles at the King, and he can do no wrong, and win pot after pot with no effort.  Even playing loose, he wins many pots and feels like he could walk on water.

Todays session, even if it ended with a small winnings, if it were always like this , would not be worth it. To lose an extraordinary amount of pots brings in doubt and depresses the soul.

Multi-Tabling

Multi-Tabling went better today and yesterday.  Putting the monitors at the same height and as close as possible helped a lot.  After doing these two things, a third window could be viewed in the middle with half of the window on one monitor and the other half on the other monitor. 

The third screen was the online poker site's lobby where all the stats for the present games were displayed.