Some thoughts on running bad live

Date: Mon, Jun 23, 2008

Just re-read a lot of The Poker Mindset and kind of cleared things up a bit after that depressing last post lol. There are 2 errors in my thinking that are causing me to be frustrated with poker at the moment.

Bankroll
My bankroll seems shallower when I'm across here. I brought across $6k poker monies, and have $1k online at FTP out of my total $13k bankroll. I remember railing a session with Brian and Dice a few weeks back where Brian pointed out that he classed your bankroll as the amount of money you have instantly available (in that case he was talking about online on FTP) rather than your entire poker bankroll.

I disagreed at the time but now I think my current situation illustrated why he's right. At the moment I have $6k in Vegas, of which I've lost $2.5k. That sort of variance is completely normal at the games I'm playing and is fine within my $13k bankroll. However in Vegas I'm looking at that loss as a factor of the $6k cash bankroll I have here, so I feel frustrated. Not only that but I feel anxious about losing another $2.5k and busto'ing my Vegas roll. It's the same case at the moment on FTP where I only have $1k online due to the lame $1.5k per week deposit restrictions.

So there are a couple of solutions to this... the most obvious one is to move down and play within my Vegas roll requirements. This would mean playing from a $3.5k bankroll, so basically playing $200nl and $300nl. I really don't want to do this as I feel comfortable enough skill wise to kill the $1000nl games let alone $500nl which I'm currently playing and obviously want to profit as much as possible while I'm across here.

So the best solution for me is to find a way to make the remainder of my bankroll available to me in Vegas. I'll figure out the best solution for this today.

Short Term Results
I've lost count how many times I've blogged about short term results now. It's the main thing that continually tilts and frustrates me, however not running well live is definately a lot different than not running will online.

Firstly you don't get nearly as many hands in live as you do online, when you only play 200-300 hands in a 5-6 hour session (you could play 2k hands online in that time) variance is huge. So the results of a 200 hand session have a high luck element, it'd take weeks or months of live play for variance to even out and get a rough idea of how you're doing. One unlucky hand or suckout in a live session will likely kill your entire session.

When you spend 6-7 hours playing live at a table where the players are mostly awful it doesn't feel good to book a losing session, let alone booking a string of 3-4 losing days. It certainly has affected my confidence and put me on a bit of a downer. So it's important to accept that in the short term (which can mean a week, or even a month live) poker is largely a game of luck. It would certainly take months of play live for the skill element to show.

Most important thing for me to do is to prevent tilt and keep myself sane is to accept that the day to day results do not matter, and focus on constantly improving my play. I'll probably remove the day to day results thing I put at the left hand side too.


So with the mindset sorted out... lets gooooooooo. Crushing time.

Also, thanks for all of the comments so far! :)

Vegas #4

Date: Mon, Jun 23, 2008

Kind of a really frustrating last few days poker wise. I really want to book some decent wins here but can't run well.

Running 0/6 in the wsop sats killed $2.25k of my $$$ roll here in Vegas, and seeing as I'd be really annoyed if I continued to run bad then I've got to sit out of them for a while. This really frustrates me as they're so soft and I know I can crush them. I'm sure my expectation in at least $150 per STT.

So I've moved to playing $2-5 for a bit, really aiming to grind out a lot of hands and recoup a couple of k before moving back to tourneys and STTs. Unfortunately I just can't seem to get things going, I feel like I'm playing well and the games are great but I'm just not running well. I understand I need to be patient but I'm getting frustrated at being across here and not being able to beat up these soft games.

Played an online session tonight and booked a 2 buy-in loss, just continued run-bad. I bet it's because I didn't play from the pool... damn. Wish I could get stuff going right now as it's kind of depressing me from a poker point of view. Really my outlook on the situation is just a bit messed up. I'm simply running bad at the moment but I guess I'm not used to running bad live, it sits with you more. Gonna read over The Poker Mindset a bit tomorrow.

As for other stuff going on umm...

Been eating out with ppl quite a lot, the food here is just SO DAMN GOOD. Ate at Noodles at the Bellagio which was easily the best chinese/asian food I've ever sampled. The noodles/dumplings were on another level, if you're in town... make sure to go there! Also been at The Cheesecake Factory at Caesars Palace which was good although we ended up having to get most of the food bagged as the appetizers were so big and we were filled up on cocktails. Flying Gorilla FTW. Sushi buffet restaurant tonight, huuuuuuge selection so tried a lot of different things, supremely delicious. The food here really is just top class.

Went to see The Incredible Hulk tonight too which was good, although nowhere near as good as Iron Man. Kind of a solid 5/10 Marvel film.

Will probably take the day off tomorrow, do a bit of study and get down to some drinking.

Vegas #3

Date: Fri, Jun 20, 2008

Started playing WSOP single table sats today as they're real soft. Buy-in is $325, with $3000 being awarded to 1st place in wsop tourney chips, but it's almost always chopped 2 or 3 way. Unfortunately I've not chopped one of the damn things yet despite always feeling like the best player at my table. I dropped $2k today, variance imo.

Anyways, here's some tourism from the Rio today... the sharp eyed will spot Doyle, Hellmuth, Ivey, Harman, Boatman, and more. There were some STACKED tables at the $10k Omaha Hi/Low where I took the pics. One table had Tony G, James Mackey, Howard Lederer, Annie Duke, Dario Minieri, Andy Bloch and John Juanda!

Other news... I ate a Baconator for dinner, how do you beat that? A fucking BACONATOR. Matt arrived today too so gonna go hang out for a bit. I've bust my cash roll now, so I'll be cashing in some travellers cheques tomorrow.

EDIT: Made $380 on full tilt while chilling drinking in the pool with the guys. I run so damn hot from the pool. Shipppp it.

Vegas #2

Date: Thu, Jun 19, 2008

Some of my family/friends and folks are after updates on what's up, so I'll post some more lifey stuff here too and they can check it out. Saves me relaying the same stuff to lots of people.

Caesars Palace
Didn't bother playing the $330 tourney at Caesars Palace yesterday, instead headed out there after lunch and played cash as Pete was playing the PLO tourney there. Awesome casino, couple of quick pics...

The cardroom is reeeally comfortable and the play at $2-5 is absolutely terrible. Kept raising a couple of old guys on my table to the point where 2 of them left lol. Lots of fun/interesting players there too. A couple of guys at the table blatantly had escorts, one guy had a really hot asian chick turn up, he then bought her in for $500. She promptly blew him off a $300 pot and showed air, then jizzed her chips off on a huge bluff the next hand... he didn't buy her in again. :) I finished the session up around $100.

40/40 Club
Headed out for food to the 40/40 club with Graham and Pete. The place was pretty damn baller, we think it's owned by Jay-Z? Got some sweet seats outside just off the strip, but seperated by fountains and stuff... ate a ton of great food and watched the Lakers-Celtics playoff final. Couches and TVs outside is where it's at. Played a bunch of pool and I freerolled the $150 beer+food bill, pool skillzzz. They have some pics of pretty much exactly where we were at on their site...


Venetian
Was gonna head home after this as I'd had quite a few beers but ended up heading to the Venetian with Pete and playing poker 'til late. The Venetian is absolutely stunning, the scale of it is just huge. It's a really beautiful place both inside and out, will need to take some pics. $2-5 games were pretty poor but I made about $50 running a bunch of bluffs as my image was real tight. Most players were decent though so I dropped down to $1-2 for a bit where the play was a complete trainwreck. Was up around $150 there, then lost 2 $500ish pots... one AA vs flopped set and one where my 60/40 didn't hold.

Walked back up to Caesars, the strip is awesome at night, still really buzzing with nightlife, and the temperature is really nice, around 85c at around 2-3am. Lost a $10 sidebet on what level Pete parked at in the carpark. Beat.

Rio wsop sats
This morning I got up pretty late and headed into the Rio to play some WSOP sats. Played the $330 and bust 18/100 after running QQ into KK when I was about average stacked. Top 3 prizes were $10,000 main event seats. Won a $50 last longer with Dan though, wheeeee. There were a ton of big pros in the same tourney room as our satellite as it was the 2nd day of the $5k stud event.

Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson were sweating my table for a bit while they were on break which was cool, don't think I quite did enough to gather their interest to make me a FTP Pro. Also saw Hellmuth bust out and the almost knock some old boy off of his seat while storming out of the room lol.

There are some pretty interesting people playing in these things, was sat next to a real nice woman today from Texas who had lost $23k in slots over the last week, and hummed Johnny Cash songs throughout hands! Also I can agree with Ryan's observation that the women in Vegas do have the fakest breasts ever, however to balance that out there are a lot of suuuuperhot girls... which is nice.

The Palm
Went out for steaks at the Palm in Ceasers Palance with the guys from our house and the guys from Martin/Steven's house. Good times and awesome shrimp and steak. We played credit card roulette for the (just under $1k) bill. For those who don't know what that is, we basically give our 9 credit cards to the waiter and he draws them 1 by 1 and the final one out pays the bill. Naturally this leads to a lot of rowdyness while we sweat the waiter - who did a great job of slowly picking out the cards. The guys at the nearby table unpolitely requested that we shut the fuck up lol. Martin ended up losing after putting his card back in when it got to 4-way to ensure that noone could chop it, crazzyy.

Shipppp the 2nd beer+dinner freeroll. Pics of me regretting sharing a desert with Dan, Martin paying, and a group photo...

Also, they have a place called the Cheesecake Factory in Caesars. I must go there. I love the cheesecake.

Just been chilling at the house since, hung out in a pool for a while, drunk some more beers, listened to music and played some poker until the laptop battery died. Finished up around $140. Managed to blog half of this post from in the pool. :) Will have to post some house pics, this place is pretty sick.

Life is good, poker is good, now if I could just start winning plz?

Trip so far: -$550

hummmm

Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008

Here, alive, etc.

I'm in super-chilled holiday mode right now, getting settled in, getting to know folk a bit and stuff. Dan/Pete are cool, the house is awesome, and Vegas fkin rules... so it's all good here. :)

Random things done so far:

• Got held up almost an hour at customs due to bringing a bag of money into the country
  
• Got ripped off by a taxi driver
• Lost heads up to Dan for the master-suite, how degenerate
• Bought a cellphone, essential
  
• Ate a delicious cheese steak sandwich
  
• Played cash at the Rio, and mississipi straddled
• Got sunburned in the 40+ heat
• Bought some sweet Oakley shades
• Seen the strip lit up at night, awesome
  

Tomorrow I'm up for some griiiinding, as I've really not played enough poker since getting here. Think I've been a bit more in tourist mode that poker mode. Gonna play a $330 tourney at Caesars Palace then probably some cash there. The idea is to play at each of the big casinos.

Almost falling asleep writing this so I'm done. Will maybe post some pics or something soon, and trip reports or something, who knows.

Trip so far (poker): -$125

Fly out tomorrow night

Date: Fri, Jun 13, 2008

Finished up at work today for the next 4 and a half weeks. Ridiculously excited... wish I could fly out tonight instead of tomorrow!

Have to get up at 3am Sunday morning and fly from Edinburgh to London, then flying from London to Vegas at about 10am, arriving 2pm Sunday Vegas-time. No idea what I'm going to do about sleep lol, prob just gonna try to sleep in 'til real late tomorrow as I doubt I'll be able to sleep before getting up at 3.

The climate change might take a bit of getting used to... when I get the flight it'll probably be around 12 degrees, and when I get off it'll be like 40.

Edinburgh
Las Vegas
I'm dead. :)


Pretty much good to go. I hate long flights so I've got my iPod loaded with pokerroad/2p2 podcasts, will be taking the Nintendo DS too. Flying with Virgin so can hopefully catch some decent films on the way.

Next post will be from the US. LETS GOOOO!

Erica Schoenberg

Date: Wed, Jun 11, 2008

is awesome