She Plays Poker

Not much happening at my usual $5/$10 game on Pacific this morning, just a couple of tables and little action so I took a peek at the $10/$20. There really are people in this world who just don’t like money. Yes, there were a couple of TAGish players (tight-aggressives - the type you don’t want around), but also a bunch of guys I’d beaten up on at lower limits in the past who obviously thought that by playing higher they could make it all back quicker. Good for them.

The bankroll manager in me hated it. The gambler in me loved it. Pot sizes that you can really care about got a touch of adrenalin flowing for what seemed like the first time in weeks.

Played only two tables, instead of my usual three or four, concentrated on the action and never really felt out of my depth even having a set of 5’s cracked then wired aces and a one dude’s turn raise that forced me out with what turned out to be the easily the best hand.

Still, there was enough flowing around to leave me up $400 or so in a couple hours without hitting any really good hands. A good way to end a sometimes tortuous month. Oh, and that rambling stuff about moving to no limit the other day? Forget it. For now, anyway.

Posted by nick jacob at 02:33 PM | Permalink |

It’s axiomatic to the professionals that leaving when the game is good just because you’re up a few dollars is unforgivable. But today I’m doing just that. Out at the top and leave hundreds of dollars unliberated in the hands of chip-spewing fools.

Why? Nicholas Taleb makes the point beautifully in Fooled By Randomness: Losing hurts a hell of a lot more than winning gives joy. Pain and pleasure are processed in different parts of the brain and are by no means symmetrical. Don’t keep count is Taleb’s mantra, at least, keep count as rarely as you can get away with. He gives the example of a hypothetical dentist-turned-retired stockholder. While his portfolio might grow 10% over the course of a year, its value will fluctuate daily. If he monitors its every second, he will receive a huge number of ‘bad’ shocks which will outweigh a slightly greater number of ‘good’ shocks. Look every week and the ratio might be 30/22 good to bad, but still 22 weeks of despondency. Once a quarter is better, once a year might be best.

Similarly in poker, you are forced to constantly monitor your stack and take decisions that, the majority of the time leave it slightly smaller than it was but are still long-run profitable …. value raising AT suited with five limpers, calling a turn bet into a 10BB pot with six outs, bet-folding a rivered ace against a rampant TAG. Got to do it, but it keeps hurting. And it has been hurting so much that I start to wonder if I can keep making those paper-thin value bets - which means I’m wondering if I can keep playing profitably.

So after seeing so many good sessions turn bad I need to refresh my memories of successful play, so as to have something to hold on to next time things go bad. Get out with a profit. Don’t try maximising, just settle for what’s there and keep slowly building the bankroll. Psychologically that’s got to help create a feeling that won’t disappear the next time a session turns ugly.

Posted by nick jacob at 01:26 PM | Permalink |

Variance is the killer at limit 6-max, so bad that you never know if you’ve got the game beat. But how big can a downswing be, and how quick can you turn a winning session into a losing one? On Wednesday I turned $767 into -$669 in around 500 hands playing $5/$10 on Pacific. I will always cherish the single round in which one 66% VIP, 35% PFR madman beat my QQ with Q2-offsuit, and followed up by beating my AA with A2-offsuit.

Then today I turned +$999 into -$74, again in 500 hands. No memorable bad beats this time, though dim recollections of a couple of flopped sets disappearing into the big-bet chasm and a motley collection of 2- and 3-outers hitting against me in monster pots.

It’s all left May looking bleak. Over 23,000 hands so far, just a day to go, and only $470 made at the tables. Rakeback and bonuses have helped - I’ve cleared just over $2200, but even factoring in the week’s holiday I took and the two articles I wrote this is quite obviously Not Enough.

So where to next? Persevere with 6-max - when it’s good it’s very, very good, and when it’s bad it’s horrid? Mix it up with a few Sit-n-Go’s? Yikes, I couldn’t take the stress. Back to full-ring, and desperately trying to find a game where I can get rakeback and not get screwed by the TAGs? Or finally make the move to No Limit which might finally force me start studying properly. I guess I answered my own question. Time to take a firm hold of my balls and jump right on in there…

Posted by nick jacob at 05:07 PM | Permalink |

Posted by nick jacob at 07:21 PM | Permalink |

What is it and where do you get it? This article, which I wrote for the The Sportsman newspaper (May 21 2006) should help. The guys I interviewed for the piece have since been good enough to set me up as a sub-affiliate so if you sign up with them using the links at the bottom of the article and mention ShePlaysPoker, I'll get to share the commission. I might not reach the highest standards of journalistic ethics but at least I'm honest. Right? Sword of truth and all that.

Posted by nick jacob at 07:47 PM | Permalink |

Posted by nick jacob at 07:42 PM | Permalink |