Well I'm back from a long trip to Las Vegas, and by the end it did turn out to be a long trip. I have lots to recap for all my loyal readers anxiously awaiting the report.
The TournamentThe reason I was out there was because my buddy Erm won a seat in the
$25,000 WPT Championship event. He battled nerves, dead cards, and an awkward table draw
that found him with 2 aggressive maniacs on his right and Daniel Negreanu on his left to survive day 1. He got off to a fast start against a much easier table on day 2 only to bust out on a brutal bad beat within the first hour (flopping top set with pocket 9s and getting a player with pocket tens to push all-in... and catch his 2-outer on the river). Congrats to Erm for surviving a day in his first ever big live event.
Unfortunately, the way the event was set up I wasn't able to watch much of his play on day 1. The event seemed beyond the Bellagio's capacity, which I didn't understand at all. They had to split the field into 2 different "day 1" days, and the room was too packed for anyone but players. On Erm's second day, he luckily drew a table in the main poker room where I could have watched, but my plans to camp out on the rail after a quick breakfast were shattered by the painful early exit.
I got a good flavor for the whole tournament scene though, and it is definitely a unique and fun atmosphere. I'll have to get out to Vegas during the WSOP in 2007 maybe.
My Poker Results - SummaryI'm disappointed with the way my poker results worked out.
I played about 40 hours of mid-limit hold'em and lost about $700. I lost another $600 between some drunken low-limit shenanigans and a shamefully unfocused delve into a small no-limit game.
$15/30: 8 hours, +$100
$20/40: 15 hours, +$318
$30/60: 19 hours, -$1088
For the first time in my poker career, I played with someone else's money under a staking deal, and from the way I handled myself, I probably don't deserve another shot. I'm not basing that on results, as I put in 37 hours and lost about 10 big bets while being staked. Even if I generously assume 35 hands dealt per hour, I didn't even play 1300 hands, so the results are almost meaningless as an assessment of the quality of my play. That being said, I have plenty of criticism of my poker play and general decision-making on this trip. I'll get to that.
Relevant info - detailed recap, commentarySaturday:
Got into town, and found a seat in a good $20/40 game at Mirage around 9:45pm. Played for 6 hours and lost $450.
Sunday:
Played in a very good $30/60 game at Bellagio from 6pm to 1:30am. After dropping $1,000 very quickly, I went on a nice run to finish up $1450.
- I don't recall exactly why I left this game, but I think I told myself it was a combination of feeling tired and the game getting tighter. I've always had a tendency to play less when I'm winning and more when I'm losing. It is a psychological defense mechanism: make the good feeling of winning last a long as possible, and fight off the bad feeling of losing. But of course this tendency is exactly backwards from what I logically should do, which is play more when I'm winning and quit when I'm losing. I'm not sure if wanting to book my win was a factor here, but it probably was.
Monday:
Starting around 5:30 that evening, I blew $180 goofing around at $3/6 and drinking whiskey sours with Erm. We
proceeded to a party where we got hammered, offended everyone, and I lost my credit card. (I had to call my girlfriend at 4am eastern time to have her find me the phone number to call and cancel the card. I suck.) At one point Erm knocked
Full Tilt pro
Gavin Smith to the ground. That was after Erm challenged him to a $5million last-longer bet. Gavin had agreed to a series of bets escalating up to half a million, but balked at the $5,000,000 figure. "That's out of my price range... I could maybe get backers though." Eventually they shook hands on a $5,000 bet that neither of them had any intention of honoring.
- Here is where wanting to hold on to the win was clearly a factor. Instead of jumping back into the $30/60 and trying to keep making money, I wasted an entire day just slacking off. This was completely irresponsible. I had a good time and all, but this was a major mistake.
Tuesday:
I was hung over all day. Sat in a decent $15/30 game for 2 hours and won $300. Took the rest of the night off from poker.
- So basically I lost 2 days to the combination of wanting to hold onto the feeling of a big win and the bad decision to drink too much.
Wednesday:
Watched Erm play from about noon to 3, but then it got too hard to see the action. Lost $300 in an hour at a $15/30 table while waiting for a seat in a $30/60 game. Won $700 at a decent table, then quit for dinner around 9pm. Around midnight I took a seat in a wild $30/60 game at the Bellagio and left after 3 hours down $1800.
- I don't remember exactly how I lost in the $15/30, but I do remember thinking I had made 1 or 2 questionable plays. They weren't obviously terrible mistakes - it might have been something like calling a turn raise and a river bet with a good top pair hand that I should have known was beaten. But I think maybe I let myself get a little sloppy in the smaller stakes game after having a successful session at higher stakes.
- The 2nd $30/60 session of the night was disappointing, because the game was so good. There was a drunk Canadian next to me who usually played $4/8 who was giving some crazy action, and then an old guy on my left who called any number of raises with ace-rag and always called until the river with any semblance of a hand. Unfortunately he kept catching weird 2-pairs or backdoor straights against me, and my stacks melted away. I felt like I played fairly well, but just was unlucky. So it goes sometimes.
Thursday:
After Erm busted out of the tournament, I took a seat in a weird $20/40 game at Mirage. It had a couple very soft spots, and the rest of the players were obviously regulars and total rocks. I had a nice run of cards though, and quit when the soft spots left around 6pm, up $600 in 4.5 hours of play. I took a seat in a $1-2 no limit game around 9pm and blew through a pair of $200 buy-ins in under 2 hours. I moved back to an excellent $20/40 game, and played about 3 hours and lost $200.
- The first 20/40 session was one of my best poker performances of the trip. The Bellagio poker room was full because of the tournament, so this was the best game I could find that afternoon. I played very well for a few hours, won and lost some huge pots, and left the game at the right time based on game conditions, in spite being on a $1,000 downswing (I was up about $1500 at my peak in the session). I was particularly proud of the way I adjusted my strategies to changing conditions in this game - one or two players coming and going made a huge difference.
- I followed that up with an atrocious performance in my only no-limit session. I twice put my whole stack in with strong 2nd best hands that I knew were second best. I was very disappointed with my play here, and I think it influenced my decision to leave the excellent $20/40 game too early.
- That game featured a player with a stack of $20k in front of him (most of it in gold $1,000 chips) who played every hand to the river and only raised with an overpair to the board or better. There was also a player who had just busted out of the Bellagio tournament and was playing limit hold'em for the first time. I'm not sure who was a worse player, but they both seemed to have no regard for money, which didn't seem fair because they were the only ones winning any. I guess the emotional rollercoaster of the day - playing well in a tougher game, playing terribly in an easy no-limit game, and then not cashing in on the juicy game - was too much for me, and that's why I decided to leave the game.
- Choosing to leave a good game is always a tough call. I don't regret leaving the great $30/60 game the night before - I had lost 30 big bets, so my table image was weak and my confidence had to be a bit shaken, the drunk Canadian was racking up his chips, plus it was 3am and I was pretty tired. That isn't a recipe for poker success. But leaving this $20/40 game was a different. I was about even at the time, the table respected my play, I wasn't too tired, and the bad players showed no signs of slowing down.
Friday:
I sat in a pretty good $20/40 game and took down a few quick pots to win $500 in under an hour. I left the game to grab a bite with
Luke, and then we both took seats in a terrible $20/40 game. We played mostly shorthanded with a few other good players, and decided to leave after about 2 hours. I was lucky to only lose $100 there. I grabbed a seat in an excellent $30/60 game at Bellagio around 8pm, and left it at 2am after losing $1400.
- I only played the shorthanded game for the social value of hanging out with Luke for a bit, and because the floor let us play without rake because he knew none of us really wanted to play such a tough game when there are much easier games to be found.
- My 6 hour session in the $30/60 game was my other best performance of the trip, in spite of the terrible bottom line. I made excellent decisions, and I detached myself from emotion better than I ever have before. I'm really hoping I can bring that back with my to my online play.
- In regards to the results, I just didn't have the cards, and at a table with a maniac and 3 to 5 calling stations, you just have to have cards to win at limit hold'em. But I made the most with the few hands I did win - making some good reads and thin value bets with marginal hands. And with one exception that I recall, I minimized the damage when my few big hands got cracked. Basically, I don't think an expert high-limit player could have lost much less than I did this session.
- The one play I remember not liking was calling a turn raise and a river bet with top pair/top kicker. The maniac, who had been raising with any suited cards and making flush after flush, raised in late position and everyone folded to my small blind. I hadn't played a hand in hours, and I reraised with As-Ks. The big blind, a woman who obviously playing with her husband's money and couldn't fold anything, called, along with the maniac. The flop was a King and some rags, all diamonds. I bet and they both called. I bet a blank turn, the lady called, and the maniac raised. We both called the raise, and check-called his river bet. Maniac had 9d-3d for the flopped flush, and the woman yelled at him because she though her Kc-Qh should have won. I should have folded to the maniac's river bet, if not his turn raise. He was loose and wild, but he wasn't an idiot. He knew I hadn't played a hand in a long time, so his turn raise definitely said that he wasn't afraid of A-A, A-K or even K-K. There was just no way my pair was good, but I paid it off anyway.
- The only hands I played after that were pocket Queens and pocket Aces, both of which lost the minimum on threatening boards.
Saturday:
The sore throat I noticed worsening all day Friday turned into a full blown bronchitis crapfest. I was tossing and turning all night with a fever, and playing poker just wasn't an option on Saturday. I stayed in my shitty hotel room all day, sleeping and watching the NBA playoffs while doped up on cold medication. This was the worst day of the illness, but it slowed me down for the rest of the trip, and I've still got a painful cough and sore throat right now (6 days later).
Sunday:
I felt significantly better after day of rest, but still far from 100%. I sat in a rather crappy $15/30 game at the Bellagio for a few hours and won about $300.
- There were 2 crappy $15/30 games going, and 5 good $30/60 games, but because of a bunch of weird circumstances, I figured it would be better for me to stay in the smaller game. First, my staking situation was questionable - my staker was on a plane heading home so I wasn't in touch with him. I didn't have a lot of cash on me, because he had unexpectedly needed his cash back before he left. We had planned for him to stake me for my whole trip, but he had suffered some losses of his own, so I wasn't 100% sure that he was still comfortable with the arrangement. But even if he was still planning to honor the staking deal while I was playing with my own cash (which he was), I wasn't thrilled with the idea of throwing my last few thousand dollars into play, especially since I was on a $3200 downswing in the 30/60 game, and I was still fairly ill. Basically, jumping back into the highest limits I had ever played seemed like a bad idea.
Monday:
Still feeling pretty crappy, and not wanting to risk a huge loss on my last day, I decided to check out the Wynn's poker room. I sat in a terrible $15/30 game for 3 hours and lost $160. After 9 days in Las Vegas, I decided to do some non-poker gambling, and I bet on the Chicago Bulls +7 over the Miami Heat, which ended up a push. And I didn't think I'd be able to sleep before leaving at 4am to catch an early morning flight, so from about midnight to 3am I played casino blackjack for my first time and lost $225.
- While it was good that I left the bad poker game, I really should have known to leave a lot earlier. It was obvious right away that the game was terrible. Also, why the hell was I betting sports and playing blackjack?
Discussion -I realized that this trip basically highlights several factors that have limited my success in a year of playing poker full time. Faults include prioritizing, discipline, adjusting to changing conditions, and a touch of bad luck.
Bad Luck
Let's get the bad luck on this trip out of the way first, because it is the least related to my long-term struggles and I whine too much already. I should also point out that "you make your own luck" and maybe there were ways I could have avoided the unfortunate things.
Obviously it was unlucky that I got sick and missed out on the Saturday action, which probably would have been the best action of the trip. On the other hand, if I had taken a little bit better care of myself, maybe my immune system would have worked better. I had a night where I drank way too much, and I probably wasn't eating particularly well or staying well-hydrated for most of the trip.
It is unlucky that my backer lost some money and needed his cash back. On the other hand, if he and I had planned our cash situation better, maybe I would have been in a better situation to sit in bigger games towards the end of the trip.
It is unlucky that when I was booking hotel for the trip, none of my friends had been able to commit to meeting me out there. So I had to plan under the assumption I'd be paying for everything, and so I bounced back and forth between 2 hotels to keep my costs down. So I saved some expense, but that left me at inconvenient locations (and in one of the cases, an amazingly crappy room). It turned out that 2 buddies were able to meet me out there, so we would all have been better off splitting a more expensive room in a better location.
And it is unlucky that I didn't win in good games, especially at $30/60. Every one of those games I sat in was excellent, and while I've got a lot of room for improvement, I have no doubt I was a strong favorite at every table I sat at that limit. On the other hand, I was out there for over a week and I put in less than 20 hours at 30/60, playing less than 600 hands probably. I could have given myself a better chance to win by playing longer. More on that in a bit.
Priorities/Adjusting/Discipline
I really lost sight of my priorities on this trip. When I was planning, I had very clear and simple priorities in mind:
1. Support Erm in his tournament
2. Make as much money playing poker as possible (subpoints - pick the most profitable games, play a much as possible but not so much that I burn out, get enough sleep to play well)
I did fine with #1, but I ended up putting a lot of other things ahead of poker, and I think the main reason is that as things changed, I didn't adjust my plans to keep me on target with my priorities. Aside from lacking the vision to notice changing circumstances, I fell short on having the discipline to keep myself on track.
A few years ago I spent 8 days at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. I basically woke up, played poker all day, and then took the elevator back to my bed and slept. By about the 5th or 6th day of playing 12-16 hour days, I was totally burnt out and my play started to suffer. I had that in mind when I was planning this trip. I knew Erm's tournament was starting on a Tuesday, and potentially continuing until the following Monday if he survived that long.
So I figured I'd fly out on Saturday to catch the weekend action, and then the tournament would provide me with a break so I wouldn't get burnt out like before. I knew that
Paradise Poker, where Erm won his seat, was hosting a party for their players on the Monday night before the tournament started, so I figured I'd hang out there for a little bit that night, and then get to bed "early" so I could be ready for Erm's noon start.
That was a reasonable plan, and hanging out and having a few drinks made sense under that schedule. But when I found out that Erm wasn't starting until the 2nd "day 1" on Wednesday, I should have changed my plans. I had played well Sunday night, and now I didn't have Erm's tournament on Tuesday, so wasting Monday evening on a party didn't make sense any more. I should have hit the $30/60 again. So in this case I put partying and preserving the feeling of the win above making money.
Another way I confused my priorities was that I tended to hang around the casinos where my friends were playing, even if I knew I could probably find a more profitable game somewhere else. I had plenty of time to catch up with my buddies during meals and other times I wasn't playing. And its not like they were pressuring me too hard to hang around. They would have certainly understood, and its not like I often give in to peer pressure on anything anyway. I've got unprecedented access to enough cash to comfortably sit $30/60, and I'm wasting my time playing like a jackass in a $1-2 no limit game? So stupid.
Similarly, I tended to want to leave my game at the same time my friends were leaving their games, either for social reasons, or in some cases because I wanted to split the cost of a cab back to our hotel. Seriously, I'm sitting in a wild $20/40 game where a moron is playing with $20,000 in front of him, and I'm worried about splitting a $10 cab. What the hell is that?
These are so similar to problems I've encountered throughout my poker career. There have been times that I've suddenly realized that I'm playing without any purpose. I allow distractions like TV, email, IMs, or surfing the web to sneak into my playing routine. Or I find myself playing too long when I'm losing and quitting too early when I'm ahead. I don't want to take 20 minutes to review some hand histories and try to improve my game, but I'll spend an hour browsing through the
gossip forums on 2+2. Or I'll keep logging heavy hours in a game without recognizing that something changed and made it less profitable for me.
Then by the last day of the trip, my behavior was barely recognizable as my own. I started out thinking I should play as much as possible in the best games I could find, and by the end I was playing a just a few hours in bad $15/30 games, and betting on sports and blackjack. Chicago +7 in game 2? WHAT THE FUCK?! Like losing Udonis Haslem is a crippling blow.
I wish I could blame it on the illness, but I have to think that spending so much time in Vegas just beat me into submission. Shit, if I had stayed out there for an entire month, I'd probably be alternating nights of snorting lines of cocaine off a hooker's ass while betting my house at the craps tables and reading scripture and singing in the church choir.
I like to think that strategy is a strength of mine. But a strategy is useless if you don't follow it, or if you don't adjust it as conditions change. Too often I lack the discipline to keep me on a course I know is best, or the vision to identify changing circumstances so that I can adjust to them. And apparently after a while I just break down and do really weird things.
To sum up, I should have taken much better advantage of my time on this trip. With 10 full days out there, and with a stake freeing me up to pick the best available games, I should have played as high as possible for as long as possible. Hopefully I learn from my mistake on this relatively short trip, I apply the lesson to my day-to-day life.
The trip had its ups and downs, but I've mostly discussed the downs because I hope that being self-critical is productive. I'll close this entry with a goofy moment that made me laugh.
Amusing Anecdote: "The Poker Diva"
While I was sitting in the $30/60 game Sunday night,
Liz Lieu came over to talk to a friend sitting at my table. I assume she had just arrived for the tournament, because they exchanged excited hugs like they hadn't seen each other for a while. I've been hearing a lot about her lately, but I wasn't sure if it was because of her poker prowess or because she's got nice boobs and a bellybutton ring.
Her tournament results don't seem too sexy, as opposed a royal flush neatly tucked into her waistband.
Anyway,
after she was talking for a while, a few more of her friends came over and one of them handed her a magazine. She exclaimed "oh! is that my magazine!?" and began furiously flipping through the pages.
I couldn't quite figure out what was going on until she turned to a different angle, revealing her face on the cover of the magazine. I just found something funny about that image of a girl standing next to me, excitedly looking through a magazine featuring her on the cover.
By the way, I didn't find her display to be obnoxious or conceited. She just seemed like a normal girl who was genuinely excited at achieving some level of success, and like any girl I've ever known, she wanted to see if she looked good in the pictures.
I imagine this poker boom has produced many moments like that one.
She must have taken this picture the next day:
And now I'm back to the online grind.
But just in case my girlfriend gets jealous that I posted 3 pictures of some other cute asian girl, I probably ought to post at least one picture of her. So here's yet another image of her being way more attractive than me.
She's always been supportive about everything I've done with poker, and she was awesome about letting me fly off to Las Vegas for 10 days, leaving her all alone in the house, especially with all the confidence-inspiring "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" propaganda. She didn't even get very mad when my stupid drunk ass woke her up to get my credit card company's phone number. She's way more understanding than I deserve. Actually she's way more everything than I deserve. I might have had a little bad luck in Vegas, but that is nothing compared to my good luck in coming home to her.
