Old Time Poker

What Is Poker? Can A Rich Man Ever Truly Play The Game?

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:31:00 +0000

Can rich nerds like Gates and Buffet ever know what it's like to play real poker?

I posed myself this question the other day: "What is poker?" See, it might seem an easy question to answer with a stock reply such as "It's a card game where gambling is involved", or "a card game involving both luck and skill" etc... But this sort of answer would lump poker in with the other games of our world, when it is in fact a game that stands alone. It's not just a game of cards, it's the money game.

Let's get a little abstract. Is playing 1cent-2cent poker with a $1 buy-in, poker? Simple answer is yes, obviously. Yet, if I was playing such a game I would feel it devoid of some of the elements I deem fundamental to the game. Namely, the prospect of winning or losing sums that are significant to me. I wouldn't be "gambling" because I couldn't win or lose anything. It wouldn't feel like real poker. Playing poker for no money just isn't poker in my book. It's a mock version of poker played for fun that doesn't retain the most important aspect of the real game, which is that sums of money which are significant to the player can be won or lost.

At a kitchen table game with a $5.00 buy-in things swing drastically in a different direction as people with small net worths are now competing for spendable cash. A winner likely earns enough for a round of drinks, and still has some left over to afford a decent meal. Surely, this type of a game is a real poker game... But how do you think Phil Ivey would feel playing in it? With the swings of the game being completely inconsequential to the player, he or she becomes removed from the game. I don't think you're playing poker if you don't have "something" on the line, a stake that means enough to you for the game itself to have meaning. Perhaps this lays bare the truth of my lack of surety about what poker really is. If the game has no meaning to the participant, than it just doesn't feel like real poker.

If Michael Jordan tosses a crumpled up piece of paper across the room into a waste-paper basket, and nobody even sees it, is he really "playing basketball"? I think it's reasonable to conclude that when the game is stripped of intended meaning it isn't really the same game anymore.

Many people reading this right now probable think I'm wrong, and that "poker's poker". But let me ask you something, is video poker, poker? Is the Caribean Stud Jackpot house game, poker? They use the same hand rankings, yet, they are not the same game. If you played poker with a monkey who was trained to raise every bet would you consider that poker? Defining what real poker truly is, is a question with a bit more depth. Not only is there the consideration of skill, but also the issue of perspective.

I'm not saying that if a serious pro player sits down with a rich guy to play heads up holdem that it isn't a real poker game. Quite the contrary, the pro would in fact be playing one of the realest of the real forms of the game. His business, his income, his LIFE are kinda in the balance here. A huge score in such a game could boost his confidence and his bankroll enough for him to genuinely increase his station in life, and to improve his career prospects (bigger bankroll = bigger games with more earning potential). That's real poker. But what about the business man? Is he playing real poker?

The businessman may be getting a kick out of the game, and even taking it seriously. Still when it happens that people play so far below their means that the financial outcome of the game bears ABSOLUTELY no significance, the game changes shape from the perspective of that particular player. Let's say our businessman is worth 1 billion, and the buy in for the game in question is $5000, so 0.0005% of his net worth. From his perspective, it ain't real poker, it's just messing around playing cards. The game might as well be Parcheesi. For him to truly feel what it feels like to play poker, he would have to call up Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and the boys and fire up a $50k-$100k NL game with a 10 million dollar buy-in :)

REAL POKER: Professionalism At The Table

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Mon, 30 May 2011 23:16:00 +0000

I was planning on waiting until I suffered a brutal downswing in my regular $4/8 kill limit holdem game before posting a new blog here. You know, so I could vent and try to carve out some wisdom about how to deal with a frozen wave of cards like you fuckin' read about. But this hasn't happened yet, and I'm mildly inspired to rant about a completely different topic: professionalism at the poker table.

Before discussing my main topic I'll recap my results of late: My bankroll stands at $6750. My rate stands at $21.57/hr for my first 195 hours of 4/8 kill. So, I'm actually making MORE money in that game than I was when I last posted. I've considered playing more small stakes NL, or PLO, or this juicy $4/8 kill Omaha high/pineapple they've got here. But really limit holdem is my best game, and my philosophy comin' back has been if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Also, I get to look over at the goings on of the local $20/40 kill game and scope out when the game is best, who's winning, and when I'll want to schedule my sessions once I get my roll back up to snuff for that game (10-12k). It's especially tough playing low (lower than I've ever played before by a longshot) when there's a great $20/40 game right there on the next table. But getting in the hours has certainly been made much easier by my stellar results.

On a sidenote, this may come off as cocky, but I feel like sticking a disclaimer out there for any new or young players out there who think that they're hot shit or what not: I'm a battle-hardened $20-40 to $40-80 limit holdem winner (with hundreds of +EV hours logged in bigger limit games, and mid stakes NL as well), and I'm winning this much money in the small game because I have a lot of experience. I don't want some 21 year old kid who plays a bit of poker thinking that they suck if they can't make $20/hr in a friggin' $4/8 game! It's bloody hard to do it, and I'm also convinced I've received above average cards. For a serious noob, to earn $6-8/hr in a $4/8 in the long run (what with the brutal rake effect and all), would be both a great accomplishment, and a result indicative of an adequate skill level to play higher (like say $8/16 or $10/20). Personally, I'd be stoked if I could maintain a rate of 2 big bets per hour in the long run at $4/8.

Why does professionalism matter at the poker table?

I can see the gears clicking in a lot of 20something players' heads when they see me cavort and constantly shoot the shit with all of the other players. They must think: why the fuck is that guy being so social?! Afterall, they've come up playing online poker (and can still play here in Canada because we've yet to suffer the repercussions of an overly self-interested government like you unfortunate suckers in the US), and consequentially many have a poor understanding of the social aspects of the game, or the reasons behind keeping the mood light and fun at the table. In fact, many of the young players I've encountered lately lack any sense poker etiquette or respect for the game. Even experienced players who know that a happy game is a good game for all, often still miss the point because they too have little respect for the game itself. If you truly understand poker, and love the game, then you'll never berate a player again for drawing out, or making a funky play that beats you, or anything like that. In fact, you'll do your absolute best to be as courteous and entertaining as possible to every player in your game at all times, no matter how many tough beats they deliver to you. This is in part because as a pro, before you ever snap and/or tilt, you'll just leave the game. Part of being professional is striving to play your absolute best in every pot, and recognizing that when you can't do this anymore it's time to take some rest.

But enough with the obvious stuff. So a game where the players are talking and having fun while they're gambling is more profitable for a pro, duh. And by chatting with players you can get a read on them and figure out some subtleties about the way they think and in turn use this information against them in the betting, duh. And we all know that letting your opponents see your frustration only works to your detriment because it instill them with confidence as it builds up the idea that you're unlucky and/or playing worse, DUH. This stuff is really just the tip of the iceberg:

Poker is a beautiful and complex game that's still got a bit of a bad name. Online poker companies and the newfangled "poker media" have fueled all sorts of lies about how anyone can become a champ overnight and win a bunch of money. In reality most unskilled gamblers honestly have a WAY BETTER chance of turning a significant profit by playing slot machines then they do at this game of skill. Yes I said it, poker is a game of virtually pure SKILL. Obviously there are a few oddball cases of rank amateurs who make big money in the game ("God Bless Chris Moneymaker" - M.Matusow 2003 ), but over time there's a very small percentage of players in the overall poker economy, likely only the top 5-10% of them (with the top 1% making a majority of the money) that end up with almost all of the money. Also, I have personally known 2 20something poker millionaires who have blown their bankrolls. One of whom literally went from a 2.2 million USD bankroll, a 150k sports car, and a penthouse apartment just off the Las Vegas strip, to living in his parent's basement, completely busted. Now if the house rakes were lower, there would be a greater chance for a higher percentage of players to be winners. Alas, casinos must charge something, and this 'something' makes a lot of decent and otherwise small winning players into small losers. But I digress, my point is just that poker is a skill game that in the end has a very strong tendency to reward the players with the highest levels of intellect, heart, and perseverance.

Poker's just like any other sport or skill game, and I wish that the poker media industry would work harder on billing the game for what it truly is. Misrepresenting the game is very unprofessional and passé, and I'm anxious for the day when the same will be said about poker tournaments as well. In my opinion, they are a whole load of silliness, and they diminish the relevance of many of the skills a true pro must possess in order to thrive. In poker we keep score mostly in private, in dollars, not in trophies. Your score is for you to ponder. A heroic triumph or an epic fail are only measurable in metrics that you construct for yourself. Being a tournament winner means little, being a winner in life means everything. And if you don't believe me that tournament players are generally weak, just go ask ANY group of high stakes cash players if they'd like to see a "tournament superstar" added to the roster of their poker game. They'll be licking their chops at the prospect. And the reason for that is because they know that they are more skilled at poker, plain and simple. Take those same cash pros and put them in tournaments and they'll utterly dominate, the whole time wondering what's going on in the real games in the next room. Poker tournaments are to poker as mini-golf is to golf. They just don't encompass the true spirit of the game.

So I've tried to elaborate on why it's important to be polite at the table, and I've given some comments on poker in general. It's time to talk about professionalism in it's purest form. There are tens of millions of poker players, and they're all supposed to be allowed to play the game however they want, and that's the beauty of the game of poker. Let that sink in for a moment. Now, let's talk about "the pros". Are you really a true professional if you somehow try to infringe on another player's right to play however they want to play, to gamble however they want to gamble? Obviously, if they play poorly then it's money in your pocket, we covered that earlier, duh. So the very thought of being aggravated by another's play is a complete waste of mental energy. Also, displaying such aggravation immediately shows that you're an amateur, a pretender, or quite new to the game. If you happen to berate another player for a play they make, sure, you're obviously directly costing yourself a little bit of money, but also you're disgracing the game you're supposed to love. If you can't keep it together and focus only on playing your best and being cordial, then you aren't a pro and you need wisen up. Otherwise you'll always be just a donkey in a horserace, staring at what were your chips as they now sit in the stack of a smiling professional.

It's Vegas Baby

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Wed, 11 May 2011 06:24:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

My next few entries will likely be dispatches from Las Vegas Nevada. I'm planning to stay here until late March and build up my bankroll to tackle some bigger games than the ones I've been playing in for the past year...
It's been over a year since I last made it down to Las Vegas and let me tell you there was a hell of a buzz in our car yesterday as we rode in over the southern mountains from Boulder City into the epic lights of the city at night. Finally catching a glimpse of the Vegas skyline was almost as exhilirating as seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, something I did earlier that day. My girl and I rode in her 1993 unregistered Subaru Impreza from Toronto all the way to Las Vegas. We took our time seeing the sights as we passed through the cities of Buffalo, Columbus, Indianapolis, St.Louis, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Albequerque and Flagstaff. I think the most fun we had was in the smaller towns though, Tucumcari for example, was like a time warp into the Old West. I got my family who live back home in Ottawa, a few pieces of Navajo Indian jewellery at a trading post. The second half of the trip really got me in the mood to gamble.

Now that I'm back in the entertainment capital of the world my attention is focused (or will be focused tomorrow after the Super Bowl) on my goal of playing some serious poker and turning the 6-7k I have in my front pocket into stacks and stacks of chips and bricks and bricks of cash money. I have another 7k sitting in a bank account to back me up if I run bad. I'm still not sure if I will play NL or limit, I've been playing 20/40 limit holdem lately exclusively, so I might just stick to that game and try to move into the higher games, but I also like Omaha. I'm happy to be the kindof player who can play and wants to learn various forms of poker. This way I can scope out the room and find the very best game almost all the time. But I think limit holdem is my best game at this point for sure.

I hope the $30/60 games are good at the Bellagio. If I run good in that game I can make some serious cash and It'll be my ticket to the bigger action. But word on the street is there is good action at the Venetian, Ceasar's, Wynn and Mirage as well as the Bellagio. With the middle limit action spread out like this it becomes really important to get prepared to walk up and down the strip each day in search of the best games. I think it's one of the keys to winning in Vegas at the middle limits, seeking out that juicy tourist filled mulefest. Sometimes the game you're in just ain't any good and you have to have the discipline to take a walk whether you are up or down for that session.

In my next entry I'll give you the scoop on how the action is in Vegas right now and tell you how I'm running. Also, I'll likely figure out when and if I'm heading out to the Commerce Casino in LA to take in some of that world renowned LA Classic side action.

Updates From The Land Of Cheap Games

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Sat, 07 May 2011 00:32:00 +0000

If you've been following me on twitter (@oldtimepoker) you no doubt are aware that I've returned to poker in a big way. And by "big way" I mean, I'm playing a lot, not that I've made any sort of splash. In fact, I'm starting WAY at the bottom, and playing in games smaller than I ever have before. Why? Because I'm playing on a 3.7k bankroll. That's why :)

The aforementioned games include the "staple" 4/8 kill limit holdem, the "crazy game" 4/8 kill Omaha/Crazy Pineapple mix, $1/2 NL with a $100 buy in, and I played one session of $1/2 PLO no max buy-in (that game was actually too big for me I'd say). You can find all of these fine games plus 20/40 kill limit holdem and some much bigger NL and PLO action here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

In the past the smallest game I've ever played with any sort of consistency has been $15/30. I have a lot of stats on my $20/40, $30/60 and $40/80 game, but hardly anything for low stakes. Now, looking back, it's kinda funny to have all of these sustained good results over a 4.5 year period (since I started using the stat tool on cardplayer.com, which by the way is pretty handy because it can spit out excel spreadsheets for you). I made $33.50/hr at 20/40 (Toronto, Commerce and Calgary), $42.40/hr at 30/60 (Bellagio mostly), and $34.70/hr at 40/80 (Commerce), over several thousand of hours of play. You'd think it would maybe be hard for a semi-hardened limit holdem veteran like me to step way down to 4/8, but honestly, it's been awesome.

BUT, the #1 concern I had right out of the gate was: Can I even win any real money in a game this small? I've heard all kinds of old timers say that a game that small has too significant of a rake to be beatable. My guestimation is that I win around 2.7 pots per hour and that they are raked an average of $3 each (not including the optional bad beat jackpot drop, which here in Alberta is actually a zero sum proposition). So, I'm guessing here, but I think I'm getting raked around $8/hr, and losing out on a total of $10.70/hr when I don't hit the jackpot. Relying on the jackpot isn't a good policy, so let's just assume that I'm getting raked $10.70/hr... That's 1.33 big bets per hour! Daunting to say the least. But how does this really affect my bottom line?

In $20/40 I figure every pot is max raked and I win around 2.8 pots per hour, so it's easy to say that I'm out $17.00/hr, and that if I can beat the game for 1.5 big bets per hour, I'm totally in the clear earning $60 minus $17 for a profit of $43/hr. This is a normal result for me when I'm in an average game and playing well (which in the past was not always the case as I practiced very poor game selection in my 20s, alas, I digress.). So, if I could only beat the 4/8 game for 1.5 big bets, things would look like this: $12 minus $10.70 = $1.30/hr profit! HORRIBLE! My wife played 4/8 for 200 hours awhile back and her results looked only slightly better than this. When I first did these calculations, I got a little afraid, but then I realized something crucial. $20/40 is WAY TOUGHER than $4/8!!! OMFG these people can barely play! Many of them don't even appear to want to win?! OF COURSE I can make more big bets per hour in 4/8 than I can in 20/40. The question then becomes: how many more?

Well, I can't answer this question without a lot more stats, but I'm proud to say that in my first 85 hours I've been on the plus side by a margin of $16.07 per hour. This means that I've been beating $4/8 for approx. 2 big bets per hour more than I would estimate being able to win in a normal $20/40 game. Not bad at all. If I can keep my rate above $15/hr for 4/8 I'd be thrilled. My guess is that I've been running slightly above EV (winning an extra kill pot or two) and that $12 or $14 is probably as good as I can hope for long term. But I'll try and prove that wrong. And I'll keep you updated on this blog and via twitter as to how things shake out.

Everyday I look over at the 20/40 game, oftentimes licking my chops. But you can't play 20/40 on a 3.7k roll, I have to earn my way up the ladder this time, and do things right. I'm sick of my life being on the wire, and I'm sick of squandering my talent chasing the dream of making a huge score. In poker, the winners are the guys who think long term, and don't quit. I've been the most erratic player for the past 7 years, frequently taking weeks off, road tripping allover the place incurring high expenses, starting all sorts of other ventures and barely playing poker, never sticking to a solid, easy game to rebuild, etc... It's a losing philosophy. If you want to be successful, you've gotta play A LOT, and also, make sure to keep eating slices of humble pie on the regular.

Running Bad Or Playing Bad?

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 06:24:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

Lately, I've been taking a look at my results and asking the age old poker question. Am I playing bad or running bad?
I just hit one hundred hours of play in my new regular limit holdem game in Calgary. The stakes are a modest $15/$30, but with the inclusion of a full kill, occasional over buttons and many players belonging to the "loose and clueless" category, there is more than enough reason to believe that a serious player can make his bones in this game. And that's what I've been trying to do for the past 100 hours, with less than stellar results.

I've played in this game in the past. Eighteen months ago I spent five weeks in Calgary playing full time hours and crushed the game for $100/hr. It often seems like you can't lose when you are running real hot. But lately I've had to ask myself one of the fundamental questions every serious player must occasionally ponder, am I running bad or playing bad?

The truth is, I turned a corner last night and won over $1000 to bump my rate up to $19/hr for my first hundred hours. That's not really all that bad for a game of this size, but I know I should and could be doing a lot better. What circumstances have led me to earn less than I hope to make in this game in the long run? While I never like to blame poor results on luck, I think it's important to analyze the effect that luck has.

When you first sit down at the table you may win or lose in the first hour or two of play, it doesn't really matter how good you play, your win/lose ratio after this first short chunk of a session will end up being close to 50/50. Skill has little to do with a result subject to such variance. Now, pretend each session is like a story that is actively being written as you play. The introduction may be happy or horrific, you have little control in the matter. When the story starts out with the train derailing, it a may be harder to get the train back on the track and gain that significant edge you will have when you are winning.

There are two emotional and skill based reasons for this that hinge on the luck factor in the game. For one, poker players will always take more shots at and play confidently against a player who is losing. In my opinion this shrinks your edge and makes it harder to maintain a 'normal' earn rate. Don't get me wrong, if you can normally beat the game then you should still turn a profit in the face of sharper, more bloodthirsty opposition. It's just that it will be slightly less of a profit. Secondly, no player plays as well when they are losing as when they are wining. For some players the difference is small, but it's still there.

For me, maybe the worse than average results I've been dealt in the early hours of recent sessions has affected my rate. My job as a pro now becomes to curb these negative statistical features of poker by limiting my emotional reaction to losses and better recognizing what my true table image is. I haven't lost any money, in fact I'm up two grand, and I'm anxious to start doing some serious winning in my new regular game.

One Million Donkeys

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 06:24:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

Whenever I run sour playing a biggish game, I like to try and remind myself that it'll be allright. I know I'll be allright because there's always a good game, live or online, there are a million donkeys out there.

Depending on who you ask, taking shots is not always thought to be an advisable strategy for ascending the poker ladder. Many pros advocate taking it easy and trying to get comfortable in a cheap game. Gradually moving up in stakes over long periods of time, one little jump at a time. I try to do things this way, but the truth is, if you are in this game you must both love to gamble and to challenge yourself. If you play too small as a pro, to quote the legendary Mike McD " you're whole life can become a f%*@ing grind".

I don't want to come off like I advocate taking shots and risking blowing your case money. I'm just writing this piece to address the obvious reality that many people do take chances and wind up with their noses open. Especially pros who are in what Doyle Brunson considers the 'young players' category (under 35).

When you have no dependents, when you are single, or when you have a tendency to get real ripped on liquor, situations are going to come up where you decide to really gamble, and sometimes you are going to lose. Although it might seem like the end of the world, it's really no big deal. Losing is part of the game and there is always a reason to get back on the horse when the smoke clears.

There are one million donkeys out there, just shovelling there chips into the pot in all of the low limit games of the world. It doesn't matter if you play limit, no limit, pot limit, tourneys, cash, they are everywhere, like locusts. So, don't despair my fellow serious poker players. In the greatest game in the world, you can always rebuild.

Kicking It Up At The Commerce

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 06:49:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

My girlfriend Amy and I decided to head to the LAPC.
Well I promised I would keep you all abreast regarding my trip and seeing as I'm a little hungover from all the caffeine and long sessions I've been playing lately I guess this morning is the right time to pen some of my recent experiences.

I left Vegas after winning a few more dollars in the $30-60 holdem game. We wanted to head down to LA to catch the LAPC action (most players agree, it's the best action in the world) and I thought that if I was going to take a shot in a bigger game I would rather do it there. Vegas is sometimes home to great games in the higher stakes, I know, but more often than not the $100-200 game seemed to be filled with the same old gnarled faces of the daily grinder pros, and I don't like that kind of game. The civilized tigh-assed 'play it by the book' Vegas style limit holdem isn't the best game right now, the best game is in LA.

Before I even sat down to play I knew I had made the right decision to come here. The place has been jumping non-stop and all the games are great. I won my first day at $40-80, and since I have been running so good I decided to kick it up to $60-120 the next day. That is where I had one of my biggest wins ever. The game was off the hook, there were always a few tourists in the game and they would just keep reloading. That's a huge plus, when the fish are getting slammed AND they just wanna keep playing all night long. They play even worse than usual. The game wasn't really too much tougher than my regular $20-40 back home. I've seen a few good players here and there but for the most part I see players who know the game, and have a lot of good set plays in their memory banks, but don't have the natural knack for poker that I think must be necessary to move up in stakes. I'm not an accomplished high stakes player, I don't even have a bankroll! But I see a lof of weakness at the tables and I think I've been one of the biggest winners in the $40-80 and $60-120 games since I rolled into town. I'm playing with a ton of confidence and I seem to be making a lot more super-plays, steals and good thin value bets than I am making mistakes.

I should correct my above statement, where I said I had 'no' bankroll. For the past year and a half I have been in the red, playing on my good credit and making ends meet without really being able to take any shots. But today, I do have a very small bankroll to call my own, FINALLY! It feels friggin' great! Now I can build... now I can win.

The Big Show

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 06:24:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

How the Bellagio $30/60 limit holdem game is different from my local game.

It's funny you come from some small game in a small town in Canada (referring to my regular $20/40 holdem game in Port Perry Ontario) to one of the poker action capitals of the world, and you play in one of the biggest games going in the city, the Bellagio $30-60 holdem game, and barely anyone at the table can even play a lick. Ok ok I'm exagerating, I've seen a few great players so far, but I have to say that overall the level of play has been pretty weak. But it's tougher than the game back home because the players are less predictable. Back home, I know how people play and eveybody tends to play a similar style, I guess you could call it the Toronto style, where people like to gamble more on the early streets and barely make any moves on the bigger bet rounds. This is largely a function of the pots usually being so damn big they are protected and bluffs/semi-bluffs don't really have much value. I don't make too many moves on the later streets back home because there's always some donkey who has to look you up even if he feels he's beat for sure. Here at the Bellagio things are a little different than back home.

I guess I'll go ahead and list some of the differences I've encountered in the games so far. The main differences betweeen my local $20/40 game and the Bellagio $30/60 are :

1- The players came to Vegas to gamble and they want to make moves. This is the "big show" as far as most people are concearned and whether they have a clue about how to win or not they want to make the advanced play. Whether it's a reraise or a surprise laydown you can see some pretty fancy stuff coming from donkeys who have no shot turning a profit in the long run.

2- Extreme desperation is more common. This must have to do with the extreme sums people are losing in Vegas and the dejection one can feel when he/she is stuck much more than they should be. I was having so much fun with this guy from Philly two nights back, but last night, when he was stuck deep and is likely losing more than an acceptable amount on the trip, he was playing bad and being a real jackass to me. Maybe he was mad because I kept three betting him with better hands and taking the pots away? That's probably it.

3- There are so many pretenders here and some of them likely even win money. I call them iPod guys. Back home people are more honest with themselves, I think here a lot of the regulars think because they win a little in the long run in the $30/60 game that they are super-champs at poker, they have the haircuts and the iPod but most of them don't really know the game and can't handle swings the way real pros can. You have to be pretty jovial to be a good pro I think, think Farha, Brunson, Elezra, Benyamine, can you imagine them berating someone's bad play at the table or trying to dissuade a man from gambling and playing loose hands. Personally, I get a warm feeling inside when someone cracks me in a sick way with a garbage hand, a warm feeling that reminds how much I'm gonna win over the course of the next couple weeks, and I'm already up over $5000 ($159/hr) in the game so wish me luck, I'll let you know next time if I've taken any shots at higher limits.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 07:24:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

When taking a shot you just might get burned. Is it worth it?

I lost three racks in a $100-200 game yesterday. One of my biggest loses ever. Since I got back a to Vegas a little while ago I've been holding my own, so I decided to take a shot. Right now I'm just trying my best to look at the brightside.

$7500 isn't that much, I know, and I've been winning a lot of money lately so I can afford take a shot. I thought that there would be positive equity in the long run whether I won or lost in the game, because even if I lost I might learn some things that will serve me well down that line. I feel good about my decision to play the game, because even though I got blasted by the deck, I went out properly, keeping my cool and playing my game. Did I make a couple of donkey mistakes? Sure. Did I make a few bad calls on the river? Sure. But these are things I do all the time, everyone makes mistakes. My point is that I played my best game even under added pressure, so I learned something about myself. I learned about how I've evolved as a player. In the past when stuck and playing high I've ended losing confidence and played below my abilities. This time, that didn't happen. I lost because the cards ran bad for me and I'm sure now that I can beat the game in the long run. There are too many exploitable weak spots in the game. But, in order to beat any game you have to adjust, and I never got that chance playing the $100-200. Maybe if I win another buy in or two before we leave Vegas in a couple weeks I'll take another shot, but I'm not in a rush. I think I'm a better player for having taken a chance, I've improved my game a little bit and I'm anxious to get back to work in the $30-60.

I take solace in the fact that I am still winning $77 per hour since I arrived in Las Vegas five weeks ago, and that rate is probably fairly accurate at demonstrating where I am in terms of skill and experience. I'm not ready for the big time yet, but I think I'm close.

Back In Action

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 07:24:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

Sure, sometimes you might feel a little rusty after a layoff from poker, but it sure feels nice to be back in action.
I'm back in Vegas scoping out the action at the W.S.O.P. I haven't been playing much poker for the past 2 months and feel a little rusty. I thought I'd write a bit about what the experience of playing my first session was like, and discuss some of my strengths and weaknesses that became apparent.

I opted to play $20/40 limit holdem because it is usually the type of game I can consistently succeed in even given adverse circumstances. To put it another way, I find $20/40 limit players are generally easy to beat because they are a bunch of donkeys.

The game was good. Although I was surprised to notice a few sharks in the game, there was also a boisterous, Italian, action junkie who was straddling twice per round. They allow a Mississippi straddle at the W.S.O.P by the way, and it really makes for a better game. When someone is willing to gamble that much in limit game, I don't think a real pro can lose. All you have to do is sit back and wait for the right hand at the right time. You can't forget to be very aggressive with your biggish hands and play off your tight image to eliminate as many opponents as you can when you enter a pot. Those straddle bets are really, really juicy for two reasons: 1- It's dead money in the pot as it's not backed up by the value of a genuine hand like yours is, and 2- The guy posting the straddle is likely a loose player who will go too far with the hand, either paying you off or trying desperate bluffs. So, you have positive equity in the value of your hand plus better than average implied action.

I felt sharp when it came to realizing how to handle these situations. In other words my analytical poker mind was still intact and close to peak form. The weaknesses I noticed were in my focus. I wasn't dealing with all of the distractions of the W.S.O.P the way I usually can, I was having trouble buckling down and paying attention to my opponents. I'm usually a keen observer of all the little things going on during the game. I pride myself on being able to pick up on more of the subtle expressions and tells than my opponents. In this regard, I was definitely much weaker my first session back.

All in all the session went well, I played well, and I'm anxious to get back to the game. If I win a few bets at $20/40 I'll likely jump up to $50/100. Regardless of how it goes down, I'll recap the trip in my next blog.

The Tight-Loose Approach

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 07:24:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

I play a lot of live $20-40 limit holdem. This game is my bread and butter and has been for awhile. I've played so much of it that I've come to create my own style or philosophy of play I sometimes call " tight-loose". I know at first that sounds kind of ironic and stupid, but I assure you, it's a style that has made me a lot of money and kept my rate over one big bet per hour for a very long time.So I'm talking limit holdem here, a game that loose donkeys love, but also a game where tight play is probably optimal at most tables. Semi-sophisticated players know that tight is right so they remain solid, but of course, the donkeys thrive on the excitement of playing all kinds of hands. So, when I sit down in a salt and pepper kind of game like this I know it's time to implement a tight-loose style. The best way to a slaughter a donkey is to get into the donkey pen and play with him first, befriend a fish and catch him later, in the long run, with superior post-flop decision making. In other words, when the fish are in I let the fun begin and play all kinds of hands, sometimes even total garbage like the nine-deuce, to make sure they know I am a gambler and that they have to play every pot with me. Obviously, I can't play that way against the solid players, so the game to me becomes a balancing act of being as loose as possible against some opponents and relentlessly value conscious against others.

Benefits

1-You improve your game this way, getting to see more flops in good spots and always trying to get reads. You get dealt just as many hands as a tight pro, but you PLAY more hands and I think that has some value, learning how to play junk properly.

2-Everyone likes to gamble with you, they enjoy themselves and to a lot of people that's all poker is about, entertainment. So in essence, simply by mixing up your play you are being a better person, or at least more of a consummate professional. Of course, I wouldn't ever loosen up if I didn't think it would increase my profit.

3- The solid players will play badly against you because they won't fully grasp what you are doing. It may set them on tilt when you keep turning over solid hand after solid hand against them and you might even develop what I call a 'nightmare image', the most profitable image in the game, which is: as far as the fish are concerned, that of a wild gambler who just can't lose but must be stopped, and to the solid players a super-genius you don't ever want to tango with.

Drawbacks

1-I used to try and remain tight all the time at the table, and force myself not to loosen up even though some of my opponents where ridiculously loose.
I would tell myself that in the long run I was gonna get the money and that was all that mattered. Also, I may have been defending against tilt, whether or not I knew it at the time. Playing a tight-loose strategy is not something that anyone should try that is at risk of tilting if they lose a few big pots in a row. You simply must be totally confident to open up your game and still be playing well, and a few tough beats can wreak havoc on a good tight-loose player's judgement. I still tilt when I get stuck deep in a game and I find the only remedy is to take it easy and tighten up until I start winning.

2-Once in awhile you have to take a big loss, you can't have a stop loss of 20 or 30 bets for a session and expect to take full advantage of the loose action in your game. You have to think long term and just buy more chips, who cares about a few stacks when you are trying to build skyscrapers in the long run.

New Jersey Will Become First State to Legalize Online Poker

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 22:01:00 +0000

Where the Federal Government left off in late 2010 is where the State of New Jersey picked up in 2011. On January 10th, the New Jersey Assembly (NJ's version of the House of Representatives) approved a bill that permits Atlantic City casinos to create online brands that can be promoted to NJ citizens. Since the NJ Senate has already given their approval of the bill, all that remains is a signature from Governor Chris Christie.

Here's some additional information.

Crafty River Plays

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 07:40:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

What really seperates the men from the boys in many forms of poker is the ability to pick up a nice pot pot on the river now and again with nothing. Also, winning those nice extra big bets on the turn or river with marginal hands makes a big difference in the long run. Don't get me wrong, bluffing and ruthless value betting aren't the cornerstone of 'good game', but are an important element of winning play that is in some ways overlooked by many otherwise solid winning players.

Lately I've been working extra hard to get the call on the river. Chatting guys up, giving them reasons to doubt that they should or shouldn't dump their hands on the river. I've earned two big bets this week I would never have earned before because I'm starting to realize that on the river I sometimes have to open up a dialogue and really earn that last bet. Poker is a people game afterall, it ain't all about the cards.
What happened in the first hand is straightfoward, a young player had gotten poor turn and river cards for his flopped one pair hand and he was facing me betting into him ( I had hit the turn in a big way). On the river, just as he's about to muck his hand I tell him: " I was sooo sure you were bluffing the flop " This stopped his fold in its tracks and made him think for just a second before easily calling me. What was funny was that he didn't even seem interested in my hand, I think he knew he was beat, but he turned his hand over proudly to show me that he had indeed flopped the best hand and that he hadn't been bluffing on the flop, well congratulations on a good flop kid, but I've got your money.

The second hand some people might think is a little more sly because I played on a player's trust. The guy to my immediate right had been chatting with me for a couple of hours, talking about his kids, cartoon movies, life in suburbia, how he forgot to turn off his pool heater etc... All talk about him and his hands and his life. This guy was a big fish, needless to say, but I still had to really work to get him to fold this particular river. I knew he had flopped something weak so I decided to try and steal from him seeing as I had a nice draw. But the stealing wasn't going too well, he had called me to the flop and turn, and when I fired on the river into a very scary board he reached for some chips. When he went into the tank for a second before his typical insta-call I knew I had a shot at a steal, I just had to somehow make him think it was ok to lay down. So I told him : " I got it buddy, save your bet, I'll show you" This play on familiarty and trust worked perfectly, he layed down without a second thought as I whipped over nothing but stoned cold air.

This may be the only improvement in my game lately, a higher comfort level dominating the banter etc... and it has earned me two big bets this week. That might not seem like a lot of money but as you move up in the limits it really is, every bet counts, so good luck winning those extra bets!

7 Resolutions for 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 07:24:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

It's that time of year again when many people serious about improving their lives write down a list of things that they can improve upon over the next 12 months. Since I am a serious poker player I suppose I should play the New Year's resolution game and jot down a few of my intentions. Lord knows I have some issues with how I played this year and I know I can do way better. I'm hoping that making a list of resolutions right now, in December, will help my get my head straight and improve my game a lot over the course of next year and beyond. I'm sure many of you have been making the same mistakes as me in poker and I hope this article will be mutually beneficial.

Poker Resolutions for 2008

1- No more long losing sessions. Several times this year I played marathon sessions in an attempt to win back large sums. Often I get my money back , once, in a wild $20/$40 game I actually crawled back from a near $4000 loss to a $2000 victory, yet I am more likely than usual to lose in the game once I am already tired, stuck and steaming. At the tail end of a 36 hour session most people can't even see straight let alone play solid, pro-level poker. Even though I've made some really nice comebacks this year, the bottom line is that when you are playing a middle limit or small limit game there is no need to over-exert yourself trying to be a hero in one day; the game will likely be just as juicy tomorrow. Even if the game is a little better than normal it's just not worth going too deep and playing too long when you really don't have to. In the long run of life in poker I believe it's way better to just get centered, get some rest and kill them the next day and that's what I'm going to do in 2008. On the other hand, if I happen to be winning big in a great game, I don't think quitting should be an option for me until I'm really, really tired.

2- Avoid the 'shaky knees' feeling. I've played so much $20/$40 and $30/$60 limit holdem that I never get nervous when I sit down. Even though I've had a very tough year due to some personal issues and I have no bankroll to speak of, I'm still a shoe-in to win at those limits and I have a few years of success and stats to back me up on that. But when I play bigger, say $50/$100 or $100/$200, something bad happens, I get nervous. Now, inside myself I know I can beat those kinds of games, I have no doubt, but inevitably I play poorly due to what I call the 'shaky knee' syndrome. Nervousness and being too concerned about the stakes is like a poison to a poker player and it should be avoided at all cost. I have to make sure I have the dough to take a shot in a bigger game next year and as soon and I feel nervous about the stakes of the game I'm in, I have to pick up. I'd easily be $15 000+ richer after this year if I had had more of my wits about me when I played higher.

3- Play more/many Tournaments. I'm sick of hearing about some 17 year old kid who just made 9.8 million in tournament poker, I wanna be that kid for once (albeit 10 years older). Of course, the tournament circuit is tough and it's hard to be a pro in tournaments and chances are if you really have the skill you can make more in the cash games than you can in tourneys anyways. But fuck all that, I want a windfall once in a blue. The bottom line is that the tournaments are loaded with donkeys, there's gotta be some juicy +EV in there for a guy like me who actually has a great tournament record even though I barely ever play them. In 2008 I'm gonna strive to play as many tournaments as I can and even make trips explicitly to play in them as long as I'm assured there will be good side action.

4- Make some real money online. The bottom line: I have never built up a substantial bankroll online and I have to change that. The times that I have done really well in the past I have cashed out before a trip or something. I had a bad year this year and didn't really amass much of a roll. Also, I only ever had real money on 2 sites in 2007. I have to prove to myself that I can really win online, my edge feels like it's razor thin and that shouldn't be the case. I need to put in more time and be more dedicated. In 2008 I want to build up decent bankrolls of at least $5 000 or $10 000 on at least 4 of the most popular sites and NOT cash them out right away. Also, I want to start posting on forums and getting more involved with the online poker community.

5- Take poker more seriously. I'm a goofball sometimes, honestly I don't take the game seriously enough. I've been a pro for going on 4 years and I just started keeping stats this year. I don't play enough hours and I don't do poker in an orderly fashion. I'm very competitive but I lack an innate sense of organization that many more successful players than me likely take for granted. I'm also a musician and a philosophy student and I think there's a part of me that doesn't want to accept that I'm a pro-poker player full-time. This holds me back. If I really want to excel, and I do, I have to make poker my main thing all year round. I can make records or go to school when I have a big bankroll to sustain me for a year sabbatical.

6- Work on my physical fitness. This resolution doesn't apply as directly to poker as the other ones on this list but I think it's very important to me personally. I have always been into athletics and when my fitness slips and/or I'm not getting a basic level of exercise in my day to day routine my mind tends to get cloudy. When I have the benefit of fitness from regular exercise in my life I make better decisions at the poker table. It's a booster. Also, I need to eat a little better but I think that matters less to my performance.

7- Be tighter and be more aggressive. This last resolution is a bit of a cliché but I need to address this issue. I get sloppy when I play loose starting hands in holdem. If JT is playable in a certain spot, well that doesn't mean that J9 is. Just because I might be able to squeeze $1 out of a garbage starting hand in a weak/loose game I should still fold. Opening up your game can be a slippery slope. When I loosen up I let my guard down and that can make me tilt, lead to shaky knee syndrome and even a big losing session.

'ROUNDERS' In 10 Mins

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:46:00 +0000

The Tortoise Gets The Cheddar

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 07:39:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

Posted by Salvatore Delle Palme 17/03/07

Last night I played a few hours in my regular $20-40 game, booking a win of $500. There were some real characters in my game, have you ever heard the holdem hand 6 9 referred to as dinner for two before? LOL! Regardless of the fun times my heart just wasn't in the game, if you've read my previous blog you understand why, but I managed to play my A-game for the whole 4 hours and was rewarded. My girlfriend played well and also made out ok in her $5-10 game, although after the session she was claimed she was only playing her B-ish game. We later talked about the different levels of competency or proficiency an individual goes through when playing poker. It can really vary quite a bit over the course of a session between what we narrowed down to be 4 main groups or states of mind at the table.

First, we have the all-potent A-game. Play your A-game in a good game and you will make a lot of money, maybe 2 big bets per hour (when you get up to a skill advantage over your opponents that allows you to make more than 2 bets per hour in the long run, I'd try looking for a bigger game). Next is the B-game, the idea behind this category is that you are playing acceptably well overall, playing a balanced game although not really focused. Maybe you are playing too tight because you are catching sports highlights on the screen, maybe you are thinking too much about things in your life unrelated to the game etc... When you play your B-game in a good game you should still make money, but maybe only a fraction of one bet per hour, let's say 0.5 big bets per hour on average. Now here's where it gets interesting, categories 3 and 4. When you are in 'Tilt mode' you just can't play good poker, you'll fumble your chips, you look all around the table but never seem to gain any information at all, you worry what your opponents are thinking about you, can they tell that you're emotionally perturbed, are they going to target you in some way because you're on tilt? It's a tough state of mind to play in and sometimes the only cure is to go home for the day or to take at least a few hours off. Bad players seem to want to stay in the game indefinitely while on total tilt and they also never seem to get over it. That will account for a large portion of their loses in the long run because when you are on 'Tilt mode' you are probably dusting off like 3 big bets per hour. The final category I like to think of as 'Turbo Tilt', it's when someone is just going totally bonkers in the game, raising everything, seeing every river etc... Some players do this type of thing often, while solid players very rarely do, maybe only when they've been drinking or are really pissed off and usually only for a few hands in that case. Needless to say when you play like this you lose a fortune. Even though in the short term players on turbo tilt may win stacks upon stacks of chips, in the long run I think they could dumping as much as 8 big bets per hour while in this most ravenous and delirious state of the poker mind.

So what does all this tell us? Well, I like to break scenarios like this down into equations. This time my purpose is to illustrate why being solid is the most important aspect of winning poker in the long run and that a balanced mind gets the cheddar. See, if you are a capable yet eratic poker player who spends 30% of the time playing their A-game, 30% of the time the B-game, 30% on tilt and 10% on Turbo tilt, you will get pulverized in the games, you're rate would be about -1 BB per hour. Even if you manage to keep things to your A and B games almost all the time with only a touch of tilt, say 50% A game, 40% B game, 5% Tilt, 5% Turbo Tilt, you will still only make 2/3 of one big bet per hour, pretty shabby if you ask me, when you consider that you are capable of making 2 big bets per hour when playing your best. This is a good illustration of why it might be worth more than you think to take a walk away from the table, go to lunch, or quit early for the day.

To finish off today I'd like to try to hit home my biggest point of all: being solid pays. A player who can make 3 big bets playing their A game but frequently slips into tilt mode will make WAY less than someone who can beat the game for only half that amount on their A game but stays solid all the time. This was a lesson that took me a long time to learn and I'm still trying to fully understand it and incorporate into my mindset/strategy the impacts of the scenarios I created above. When I first turned pro I thought it was all about 'no guts no glory' but that type balls to wall attitude never really got me anywhere. Truly winning at poker is like that old Greek fable about the tortoise and the hare, but instead of 'slow and steady wins the race' it's 'balanced and solid gets the cheddar', although in my heart of hearts I still will always believe there's a little room for that insane gambler in all of us.

Conquering The Poker Desolation

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 07:24:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

Posted by Salvatore Delle Palme 11/02/07

Sometimes I feel like just smashing the poker table when I take a beat. Usually, it's either right after I have just called off or bluffed off money I shouldn't have or that I got sucked out on in a sick way. There is no doubt that this feeling of anger, even if you are afflicted by it for only a moment, is a serious weakness. I frequently psycho-analyze myself in an attempt to iron out my problems, find my weaknesses and get tougher and I think I have the answer to this problem of lack of emotional control.

I'm making $35/hr at poker this year so far and things are looking up. I might not be in the greatest of financial situations at this moment, but I'm young, I have a great girlfriend and a bright future ahead of me. Hell, I've even taken $500 and turned it into just over $15 300 over the past two months as part of a personal challenge, which is definitely a better result than I expected. So why the hell do I get so mad? A week and a half ago I wouldn't have gotten so mad, but this week is different, I've been running bad. When I'm up $500 at the table and I'm up $3000 on the week, some schmuck can hit a one outer and beat me out of a $1000 pot and I could care less, because I know I'll take his money over the course of the game. I'm a shark, I can play long hours with these fish and always come out on top, I'm a winner, a champion. Well, that was 10 days ago, when I was on a winning streak of 12 wins out of 13 sessions. Today, I'm about break even for my past 50 hours of play, it's quite gross, and those longshot draws coming in against me are really starting to hurt. I don't feel like I'm gonna make a million bucks over the next 3 years anymore, I feel more like I may be headed back down to the $10/20 limit I thought I had just outgrown, or worse. It may be totally unwarranted but I feel what I like to call 'the poker desolation', i.e. the feeling that you WILL NOT WIN. Whether your feelings of the poker desolation apply to only one hand, one evening or if they are slithering their way into your psyche over a longer expanse of time they should be addressed immediately, they are extremely dangerous to the professional player, to put it midly.

I'll talk a little bit about a poker playing buddy of mine to further illustrate my point. I'll keep this player's identity secret and just call him Jerry. Jerry is just over 30 years old and has been playing poker for a living for around 10 years. Finally, in 2004 he had built himself a 'nice' bankroll of about $250 000, mostly by playing high stakes online, as well as grinding local $20-40 and $50-100 limit holdem games for a steady profit. He told me he had been a steady winner at the $100-200 limit online for quite awhile and that's where the majority of the money had come from. He probably could have kept earning at that limit and maybe even become a future superstar if it wasn't for the poker desolation. You see, Jerry made a big mistake, he played a really, really big game online, $400-800, and he got his brains bashed in for fifty large. That's a lot of boxes of ziti, to quote' The Sopranos'. To an optimistic or uneducated onlooker Jerry's predicament may not look so bad at this point, I mean he still had a healthy $200 000 bankroll ( minus the $35 000 he had just forked over for brand new car ) and plenty of good games to play in and rebuild his confidence, but it's not so easy when you fall victim to the desolation. Everything you worked so hard for, over months and months or even years vanishing before your very eyes in the big game, with every suckout your blood boils and boils and boils right over as you finally turn to the darkside of the poker desolation. It can best be understood to the layperson as a temporary form of dementia and/or psychopa. Now, I'm hyperbolizing for the sake of entertainment here, but still, for Jerry it was quite serious. Needless to say, he started playing sub-standard poker, long-term, he lost over fifty dimes the next month and gradually dumped off the rest of his roll over the course of that year. Ten years as a professional poker player still couldn't save my poor friend Jerry from going broke when he absolutely didn't have too. All he's got today to show for his run at the big-time is a brand new car, a micro bankroll ($10 000 maybe?) and a smile, after over ten friggin' years of grinding it out. He even told me after divulging his entire tale of woe, that he hated poker now, that it was just about the paycheck and if he had a million bucks he'd never play another hand.

I've never had a serious bout with the poker desolation, I guess I love the game too much at this point, but I've had plenty of minor spells some of which are definitely the cause of me being broke at present. I can remember this one time I found myself playing $100-200 with John Phan and Liz Lieu, but that's a story for another day. I like to think I am too tough and too solid of a player to ever fall victim again, but I am young, I've only been doing this for a few years so I can't know for sure what the poker gods have in store for me, or to put it more scientifically, how my future runs of cards will affect my morale. What I know for sure is this, you have to keep your head up high. If you don't truly enjoy playing then you shouldn't play, you should question why you play in the first place. Take a break from the game to analyze yourself, your game, your goals and do some of the other things you enjoy in life and see if that brings you to a new horizon. If you're a real gamer like I believe I am, you'll likely do what I do which is watch TV for a day or two in a bathrobe, workout a bit, have a few nice meals and jump right back in the game.

Family Must Comes First

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 07:24:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

Hello all you smartgamblers out there I hope things are going well for you in your lives because they are getting pretty rough for me, and it's got virtually nothing to do with poker. I'm sorry to do this to you guys, I really wanted to just keep this blog light, entertaining and informative but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do and this is gonna have to be a quasi-serious blog * bows head apologetically *. You see, early last year my father, Natale Delle Palme, was diagnosed with a very serious cancer of the bladder and they operated very quickly on him removing his bladder completely and giving him a 'neo-bladder' made from his own intestinal tissues, it all seemed very 'sci-fi' to me at the time but I thought "mheh" the miracles of modern science I guess. In the past he would have lost his bladder completely and been forced to piss through a tube for the rest of his life (a fate that probably sounds worse than it is for people in his situation, needless to say the option he did choose provides him with increased mobility and freedom in life). So, in April of last year my father was deemed cancer-free and seemed to have snagged a new lease on life. However a few weeks ago some complications arose from the novel 'neo-bladder' procedure forcing him into hospital for a what was supposed to be a short while, of course things are a little worse than they suspected and he had to have minor surgery to fix the complication (which was blockage in the intestine FYI). I guess it's Murphy's Law or something like that that states that if things can get worse they will? Well, during the whole ordeal of dealing with the complications from his previous cancer surgery they uncovered something everyone had hoped they wouldn't, the cancer has spread and my father, baring some kindof miracle, is likely to be diagnosed with terminal cancer.

For the past week and a half I was back home in Ottawa helping out my mom and two younger sisters who are both in their later teens. I played virtually no poker the whole time, a grand total of twelve minutes of $3-6 limit holdem online, made a big score though, $33, lol. I don't think it wise to play when you are under emotional stress and you have other things on your mind as strong as I currently have. Today, I am back at my own flat in Kitchener and I feel balanced enough to kick ass again at the tables, but I am glad I took time off and I am looking at the next few weeks or even months as quasi off-time. I'll be heading back to Ottawa very soon, where the only game is online and there are a ton of distractions. So it sucks but I gotta say that I don't expect my 'Zero to Hero' challenge to progress for the next little while, but I'll continue it and keep you all updated. Family is the most important thing, I've heard Barry Greenstein say it, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson and on and on. I believe that when you are doing your best for the people you care about you are given strength, and that IS the same kind of strength you can take to the poker table and use to decimate the games. On the other hand, if you neglect the ones you love I suppose it would eat you up inside and shrivel you up into a little wuss at the poker table, and eventually you'd lose all your money. That will never happen to me.

I don't wanna leave you all on such a downer so I thought I'd make a total 180 degree spin with this article and recount something that happened to me a couple years ago that has absolutely nothing to do with my present situation. Three years ago, right after I quit my job to play poker for a living and travelled to Los Angeles to play in the LA Classic, I met these two young Scandinavian punks, Andreas Raattamaa Orjan Gronmo (here's a pic of them from that trip, click)and they can vouch for my story. I suppose we hit if off because we were all in similar stations in life, same age, not American and just looking for some action. We ended up renting a car and heading to Vegas for a weekend of big action and it was, at least in my game. For some reason I was playing $10-20 no-limit (I actually had never even played no limit holdem in my life up to that point lol) and the boys who said they mostly played NL were playing limit poker? There was an event happening at the Light nightclub in the Bellagio that night and all these movies stars were in and out of the room because Leonardo Dicaprio and Toby Maguire were playing poker in my game rather than schmoozing. Believe it or not I actually came back to my seat after using the restroom or something and Paris Hilton was in my chair, and I actually told her to take a hike and give me my seat back! it was all a very surreal experience. During all of the craziness of one of my oddest, most interesting and profitable weekends of poker ever (I made $7500 or something over 2-3 days) the following hand went down. Middle position player makes a nuisance raise to $40 and one player calls in front of me. I find myself on the button with 10 9 suited. Normally I would just call here and check out the flop in position with a sweet speculative hand, but I decided to re-raise because I sensed a lot of weakness in both players and I judged I had the right table image and chutzpah working to take the pot down on a later street, I made it $160. Now, guess who comes out of nowhere and cold calls the bet from the big blind, Leonardo Dicaprio. I know that Leo is a tight player and VERY capable of laying hands down on later streets without a thought about the pot size or whether his opponents might be making a play at the pot, he's a nitty fish really, so while I know he absolutely must have a beauty of a starting hand I'm not so worried about my bluff failing quite yet. Both limpers surprisingly folded, leaving $410 in the middle. We took the flop heads up and it was Q Q rag and he checked, well I automatically fired out, but only for about half the pot, I didn't wanna lose too much if he actually had something. I couldn't really get a good read on him, maybe I was really nervous playing such a famous person or maybe he just hides his emotions well (come to think of it that was probably the strongest part of his game) but overall I can say I sensed weakness and the bet was easy enough. He mucked it, I picked up a nice little pot and he looks up towards me and the players at our end of the table and kind of tries to confirm with everyone that I did indeed have the Queen. The Queen?! It's funny I can still hear him in my head "he had the Queen, he musta had the Queen to bet" kindof chatter, and I'm sitting here with my cards in my hand and they are total air! So I wanted to show, but I couldn't really figure out a reason to do it, I guess I might have gestured subtly that I wouldn't mind showing because he said something else like"c'mon, show the Queen man, we know you have it" lol, ok Leo, here it is, 10 high, how you like me now, hehe, everyone at the table kind of gasped and then laughed, cause they knew I probably had shit in that spot, and Leo just kind of smiled.

How Can I Get Better?

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 07:24:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

Posted by Salvatore Delle Palme 29/01/07

Well, it finally happened, the unthinkable, the super-natural even... I took a loss. I don't know if I thought I would win every session I played for the rest of my life, but I was a little in shock when I left the $20/40 limit holdem table after playing 24 hours straight still stuck almost three racks. I had been stuck $2500 at some point and managed to cut the loss to only $1470, so there's a bright side. I can talk about the hands that went bad, the gutshots that got there on me for $800 pots etc... but basically it is all easily summed up as 'bad run of cards' and 'too many mistakes'. I keep thinking today, the day after, that I am lucky to play in games that are soft enough that I can play as bad as I do and still win, hehehe. That's not to say that I play bad, that's not really what I mean, and actually there are alot of good players in southern Ontario, but it's just that after every long session I play I have this really long list of things I did wrong, and I'm STILL up like almost $40 per hour this year. What I need to do now is elevate my game, I am stagnating a little bit because I am getting too comfortable and this is leading to sloppy and loose play; I need to take all those mistakes on my list and fix them, so I'm gonna try and sort some of them out in this blog.

Before I dive into critiquing myself I'll just mention my overall stats for those of you who are interested in my 'zero to hero' challenge. My overall bankroll sits at $14460, I've had 31 winning sessions and 9 loses and my rate is $26/hr. I've been making 35% more money in the live game compared to online and that's why I've been concentrating on it. I prefer live also and feel I have a lot to learn about live poker before I can achieve my long term goal of beating $50/100 and higher. Also, we'll likely be seeing in the coming weeks and months what I can do by adding a little no limit action into the mix, there are some $5-5, $5-10 and $10-25 blind NL games in Niagara Falls that I should be checking out.

I guess I'll just make a list of each item and discuss it independently :

My rate suffers overall because I always play long sessions. I should play long sessions sometimes of course, but only when the game is really good and I feel good, I seem to just be playing 20 hours + all the time, that's not healthy and probably a mistake. Some days I should just put in 8 hours or something, like a normal person.

I too often play when the game is bad. I have to consider a table change or even the $10/20 when the game isn't very good, I have nothing to lose but everything to gain by making this type of decision. I'm really glad I've had the chance to play in a few tough games lately, to sharpen my skills and meet some of the serious players and figure them out a bit, but this isn't gonna help my bank balance. The other day I played a 4 handed game with three of the best players in Canada probably, lol, I know can hold my own, but that's not the point. I think I should save messing around for when I'm financed for it.

I limp in too often. I'm often in games where limping in early position with weaker hands, such as small to medium pairs and suited connectors is a good play, but not always. I tend to try to play these hands when the game conditions don't really warrant it. Maybe 30% of the time it's a good play to limp a 98 suited UTG and I've been playing it like 55% of the time probably. When every one wants to gamble huge and they are capping everything preflop I seem to always want to get in there UTG with these hands. The problem is that my position is bad, I think cold calling a CAP in an 8 way pot from the button with a medium suited connector is a better play than limping in UTG in that type of game, but I think both plays are too loose to be included in the arsenal of a solid pro (the exception should always be when you are running over the game and you know they will give you extra action later in the hand). Next, when the game is straight forward and the players are sensible and aggressive, ALL marginal hands must be layed down UTG, I can't lie to myself about what the game conditions really are any more.

Also, with regard to the nutty gambling games that come up now and again where every few pots gets multiway capped, I must learn to lay down more hands in early and middle position because I will get fooled too often into chasing and potentially eating multiple raises later in the hand with very poor winning chances (drawing dead is my nightmare). QJoff and marginal cards like that aren't really the type of hands that get the money in those games, their negative implied odds are too great out of position. Also, when you are in position with these hands the bets are usually raised and re-reraised anyways so in effect you should barely ever be playing cards that weak, give me KQsuited or AJsuited and we'll gamble.

I talk too much. I think that friendly banter here and there is good for the game and can be profitable as you gain info on your opponents in exchange for being conversational. The pros out weight the cons, a little info from you and you really can gain a lot. But I give a little bit of extra info here and there. Not about the strength of my hands when I'm in hands, I'm not an idiot, but I do let many players know a few things about me when I don't have to, overall. A poker game is not the place for sharing your life story, if you are a serious player you should give them almost nothing, just let them guess about your level of experience in poker and your background etc... If you are getting along with a certain player at the table maybe you can kindle a friendship away from the table and talk about hands and experiences in an appropriate environment. The exception is always when the big fish asks me a direct question, I always answer all of the fish's questions, I'll buy him a drink, I'll tell him he played a hand well, he gets the full package from me and maximum entertainment value as well.

I clash with the good players sometimes. I don't need to make my regular game into any kind of blood match, but a few players here are really competitive as am I and I can feel some serious matches on the horizon. For now, I need to just concentrate on completing my challenge as quick as I can, I don't wanna be at 75k in 2010 playing $10/20, I wanna be in Monte Carlo.

I have alot more weaknesses of course but I'll stop myself here for today and get back to my $3/6 short handed games online. I'll round up the month by saying that January is when I made the transition from $10/20 to $20/40, which I was really looking forward to, and it was a great month overall because things actually went according to plan. A few more months like this and I'll be debt free, a maybe 6-12 months more after that and I'll have finished my challenge.

Long Sessions: Pros & Cons

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 07:23:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

Posted by Salvatore Delle Palme 15/01/07

Hello Smartgamblers, I hope everything is going well with all of you so far this year. I know my friend and fellow Smartgambler blogger Lars E. (a.k.a. Lars Vegas) has been having some trouble lately in some online cash games and I would like to commend him for writing an excellent blog all about running bad. It's really tough to write when things are going terribly, I know this from personal experience. You don't wanna have any contact from the outside world when things go bad, don't wanna talk to anyone, it's like you wanna just crawl into a hole and die. I think it is due to our competitive drive and desire to win that we don't want to share that things are going bad because they could still turn around. Why let someone know you are losing at poker when you are still playing, maybe you'll lose 300 bets this week but win 400 next week, why not just wait til then to tell anyone how things are going, that way you can always appear to be a winner, right? Wrong, I mean, every day is a new day in poker, who cares about the past, win some lose some , it's gambling. If you are so preoccupied with how your statistics look over a certain length of time or number of hands then it will undoubtedly affect your game severely. Lately, I've been personally getting better at just looking at it for what it is, gambling, we can't control the cards, we can only control ourselves and it is by losing this control that a great many poker players have lost their bankrolls as well. Don't worry Lars, you are one sharp MF, you'll be allright.

As for my results lately, well they are quite reasonable yet not spectacular. I've managed to bring my rate up to $26/hr since November 9th, where it was recently at only $18/hr, also my live rate 2007 is so far around $55/hr a great start for me. I'm hoping to make over $40/hr playing poker in 2007, but I know I have a chance to make much much more. Lately I've been playing alot of live poker for three main reasons. One is the bottom line, I just seem to make more money live than online. For example, my rate in my regular game, $10-20 limit holdem after 79 hours is $60.17/hr, I can't seem to crack the nut at online poker and make money like that and with so little risk. The second reason is I enjoy it, not only because I am winning, I just like live poker better. I've met some cool people, witnessed some incredible things at the table and came out of my techno-shell and socialized a little bit as well. Third, I think I learn more playing live, it's like a do or die thing, learn or lose. The skills I am trying to build are the ones that I hope will have me playing $200-400 one day, maybe higher, and I just don't think online helps me that much at this stage. Maybe when I have a real bankroll of my own, when I finish this challenge maybe, I'll be able to play higher online and learn some of the more refined skills you need to play big and win on the screen. Zero to Hero results overview: As of today the 15th of January my online bankroll sits at $3053, with $300 in pending rakeback, and my live roll is up to $7125. So, I've built my $500 starting bankroll up to $10 478 so far, I can almost taste the $100 000.

Something I did recently is play a ridiculously long session, 36 hours. I started at $10-20 for 12 hours and moved into the $20-40 when the game looked great and ended up staying another 24 hours. I thought I would bring this up because I know it is an interesting point of discussion. Should you play long sessions like this? I don't have a general answer but I think it's right for me to do it for the following reasons:

I'll list my reasons as pros first and then look at a few cons:

You get to make bigger scores in shorter periods of time, I occasionally win over 150 bets playing over 24 hours (i.e. a huge cash infusion in only 1 or 2 days). For various reasons it's just easier to win in a long session, it would be incredibly rare for me to win 50 bets three 8 hour sessions in a row, over a period of three or four days.

I find I get into the zone more easily after having played a minimum of 8 hours. By 'zone' I just mean a state of mind that is pure unadulterated focus, without any concerns about the money, table image, girlfriends etc...

I get a better handle on my opponents over time and maximize my hands.

I rarely ever lose a marathon session, but like I said above I occasionally win huge and always seem to pull out a decent score. I've had many big comebacks that have really helped me build my confidence by giving me a sense of invulnerability.

It builds endurance, the more you play and the longer you play one day, the easier it will be to repeat the performance in the future and this is how you start to really crack a game over periods of weeks and months. I'm looking forward to having the bankroll to challenge my local $50-100 limit holdem game because I know I have the iron will to take their money faster than anyone else can in this city.

Now here are a few cons:

You risk burning out, and certainly can't get back to the card room for an extended period of time afterwards, even if there are juicy games going at that time you will be too tired to return and play (although you should already try and keep marathon sessions to when the game is best).

You sacrifice a 'normal' routine. tough to keep up a schedule if you have anything else going professionally in your life, or school etc... It can also be a strain on relationships with ones spouse/family/girlfriend etc... These types of stresses can mess with your game over time.

Physical problems can occur, I mean it's just not the most healthy thing to do, play poker for 36 hours straight I mean, especially if you aren't used to it. Posture problems, digestive problems, even mental problems maybe? lol.

I took a little advice about playing long sessions from listening to Chip Reese on a radio interview show, he said it's important to eat well, and not eat very much, as well as avoid sugar, and avoid coffee. I would also like to add that keeping hydrated is crucial, if you are dehydrated you will lose focus and get cranky and after being up so long you might not really realize why.

Many of the top pros disagree about whether or not one should play very long sessions, I am obviously in the endurance camp because I think it suits me well. But my personality was like that before, I mean I used to be a competitive runner and train all the time and take long runs, when I was younger I used to love to play video games and play all night long, or play my guitar into the wee hours of the night until I got a part down the way I wanted it to sound. If you are the type of person who needs their rest each day and solid routines then maybe long sessions aren't for you. Every poker player is different and there are many different ways to win.

A Fresh Start

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 07:23:00 +0000

This is an article in the series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

Posted by Salvatore Delle Palme 05/01/07

Hello all of you smartgamblers out there and happy new year! This is gonna be a great year for poker and hopefully we can all improve our game and make serious profits. I've been playing live lately and reconnecting with my roots. It was back over three years ago that a series of trips to Ontario casinos, my first taste of live middle limit holdem and a bunch of nice wins convinced me that I should just quit my job and go for a career as a poker player. Now, I'm finally back playing live in those very same games and making some good money, I feel like I've come full circle and my new years resolution I guess, is loosely just to keep my passion for the game alive while continuing to broaden my skill. Also, I need to get out of debt this year, I quit my job three years ago with 10k and went to Los Angeles to play in the L.A. Classic, it went great, I won big and came home with a 40k bankroll which proved to be enough to sustain me for three years through the purchase of a car and music gear and computers, at least 20 poker trips to Vegas, Foxwoods, Atlantic City, L.A., San Fran, Calgary etc... I've had a great relationship going with my girlfriend for over two years and we've spent countless extra dollars living well, eating in nice restaurants and all that fun stuff. But I'm broke, more than broke I'm in debt and that sucks, I haven't been able to make anything happen in poker because I have never given myself a chance to build up a nice enough bankroll, I just spend and spend and never play enough, but not this year!

I'm all business now, and my 'Zero to Hero' challenge is going very well. For those of you who haven't read my past blogs, I'm referring to a personal challenge I made myself on December 1st to turn $500 into 100k playing short handed and head up holdem online and I've since grown and split the bankroll into two one for live play and one for online. Let me give you the run down of how things are going one month in to my challenge. I've had three nice wins taking my live bankroll up to $5177 and my online roll sits at $1435 with $1700 in pending rakeback payments, so I've turned $500 into $8312 in just over a month. Of course I have expenses, to keep up with all my bills etc.. I need to make $3000 a month or so and I will be withdrawing from the bankroll whenever I want and splitting it up however I want and this will btw have no effect on the challenge, 100k is just around the corner I can taste it.
I thought for the new year I would write some blogs about my reminiscences of playing with well known pros and discussing what I learned from them. I'll start it off with Gavin Smith. He's a Canadian pro who's hometown is actually like 15mins away from where I live now and he had a bunch of success on the third season of the WPT. His lifetime tournaments winnings are over $ 3million. I played with Gavin just before he broke onto the scene in a big way in a $1500 buy-in Pot-limit holdem event at the Bellagio. I didn't know him and I was to his immediate left. My first impression of him was that he was an obvious maniac because he played every second or third hand that was dealt to him and seemed unafraid to make rather large calls on the later streets at the first level. Some of his calls were good some were bad, he took some beats, he won a nice pot etc... His active style had him sitting with a much larger than average chip stack 2 hours into the event meanwhile my tight ass is still sitting there to his left, short-ish stacked waiting to pick up a hand so I can hopefully double through him. What I didn't know then was that he wasn't gonna let me double through him very easily, he was too smart for that, and at that point in my career I was the perfect victim for a player like Smith. He plays a style he calls 'Smallball', a small pot poker style in which he attempts to manipulate the pot size in such a way that he never has to really risk too high a % of his stack to win a decent pot. Small raises, lots of limps and small bets on the flop etc... but never anything out of line, never anything too risky. That day before I knew it I was busted but I had learned a valuable lesson from Smith, although I didn't really understand the full value of his style at the time I did understand this : To beat your opponents out of their chips you have to play pots, not just wait around for the perfect situation, you have to deceive them and tilt them and eventually it'll come around for you as it did for Gavin Smith.

My Gameplan and The Squeezer

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 07:27:00 +0000

This is the first article in the my series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga'

Posted by Salvatore Delle Palme 22/12/06

I really love to play live poker, that's one thing I forgot to factor in when I set up my 'Zero to Hero' online personal challenge. Sometimes I think the best thing for me to really get better at poker would be to play live exclusively, I can, I have action nearby, so why not right? Last week I decided to split my online bankroll from the challenge into two chunks one for playing live and one for grinding online. This way I can include ALL of my play in the challenge and I can blog about all of my experiences as I move through the challenge. I split the bankroll at $3200 leaving $2200 online and $1000 for the live games. Currently my respective bankrolls stand at $1500 for online, $2508 for live play and $1400 pending rakeback on my Smartgambler account, for a total of $5408. As much as bad downswings have hurt my pride I think that this is a good result overall.
The seasons have changed, it seems like it's dark all the time here in Ontario (although I know it's much worse for you Scandinavians out there) and I've been a little bit depressed about varied results grinding online. I've tried a few MTTs with buy-ins ranging from $25 to $150 and fanned them all. Overall I played 30 000 hands of $5-10 and more or less broke even ( - $150 in the games actually but over $1300 in rakeback). It is really emotionally draining to play poker for a living without a bankroll. I have to win $3000 a month or so just to keep my head above water and the pressure of bills and everything sometimes really gets to me. That's why they say not to do this for a living, and if you must try it that you should have ALL of your bills paid for 6 months in advance and a 'nice' cushy bankroll of 300-500 big bets for your regular game, I didn't used to think about this crap but it honestly is kinda nice to have a touch of security in this crazy world of gambling (which I don't have btw). Since Nov 9th my winning rate is only just over $20 per hour, it's a decent start but not exactly the stuff dreams are made of.

My gameplan for the new year is simple, play a lot and play of poker in the right games, specialize and stick to the same games and keep expenses low. In the past I've always tried to be a hero and often play the biggest game my bankroll can support, this strategy has failed me overall because bad luck in a bigger game is like a sledgehammer to the face, it can put you into a profit comatose for days after the fact. If you have a bankroll go ahead and risk a bit of it taking a shot from time to time, it will improve your game and it can't sting too bad if you miss. If you don't have a bankroll I personally don't think the idea of taking a shot should exist in your mind, all that you should think is grind and grind and grind.
I thought I would close with a little annectdote from the 17 hour overnight session I played in last night in a loose $10-20 live limit holdem ring game. Some of the players were skilled, some of the players were not and then there was the squeezer. This guy fumbled his chips, acted a bit like he was overtired and played quite a passive game. Also, he was the tightest player you could play with in a 100 years, he barely ever opened a pot. At first glance you'd think naturally that a squeezer like this couldn't beat a 1cent 2cent game if his life depended on it, no way in heck he could beat this loose aggressive $10-20 game, or could he? I analyzed his play all night because I found it fascinating. He would occasionally do seemingly ridiculous things, once he was first into the pot, limping from the cutoff and later folded PREFLOP after the button raised and the SB and BB both called the raise?!? How can you limp and then fold with 7 to 1 pot odds in that spot? I mean what the heck did he have? I was very curious because it is my nature to want to put the puzzle together, this guy's play was quite tight and anomalous. But you know what, I don't think anyone else at the table really noticed or cared about how he was playing. I don't think they noticed how he ALWAYS held powerful cards and wouldn't be afraid to go all the way once he committed to a hand preflop. The following hand exemplifies why I think this guy was actually beating the game or at least breaking even in the long run. A loose guy limps UTG so I limp with KJoff behind him in middle position, the squeezer now raises us, everyone folds to the SB who reraises (he had only A5suited), UTG calls, but I just fold fearing the squeezer who also calls. To make a long story short the squeezer had a big edge in the hand and bet all the way with his AKsuited until the A5suited spiked a flush on the river (you gotta love limit holdem hehehe) and won only 1 bet on the river. So this hand just begs the question, if you are only gonna play premium hands and whenever you are in a pot they are still gonna give you juicy retarded action how can you possibly lose in the game?

My Zen Poker Mantras

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 07:22:00 +0000

This is the first article in the my series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga' [from 05/12/2006]

I've been playing short handed $5-10 for over 8000 hands now, and things are 'ok'. The bankroll stands currently at $3400, but it feels like it should be alot more ( I had it at $4300 at one point and fell backwards. Also I've lost some overall in some heads up matches at $3-6 and $5-10) because I had two really bad sessions. For the past 25 hours of play I'm actually stuck over $800, which is a feeling I don't think I could have imagined when I was playing smaller limits. While moving up from $2-4 and $3-6 I was making over 3 big bets per game per hour, usually sitting in 3-4 games, and so far at $5-10 I'm only making 1.1 big bet per game per hour and I'm sitting in fewer games on average to try and improve my focus. Of course I feel I've had some really bad luck lately, but there are other, more practical reasons I haven't done all that well too. Here are some poker Zen mantras of mine to explain further:

Steaming is Losing
Phil Ivey said " There is no such thing as bad luck, just bad play". When I steam I give an edge to the fish who can only normally beat me by getting lucky. I beat myself effectively. Lately, I have been steaming more than I usually do, and this is a big part of why my bankroll hasn't grown.

Play a tough game, often lose

The higher you play the closer your wins will be in proportion to your loses and closer your win percentage will be to 50%. The best players in the game must suffer huge downswings since their edges are so small, but dealing with these small edges is what makes them great. $5-10 limit ain't a sharkfest, but it's a tougher game than $3-6, there are more skilled players in the mix and it takes time to identify them and figure out their weaknesses. Also, it is a trickier limit than maybe any other limit in one sense: every player type plays there. You have total fish with $500 bankroll or less playing like nits, you have super-aggressive $2-4 winners moving up, you have $20-40 players just kicking back and being solid and smart and my favorite player type from the smaller games, the total ridonkculous fish who will 'call' raises with 8 deuce off from the small blind in a heads up pot. $5-10 is a mess of all these and more player types which can render the game difficult to get a handle on at times.

Move up in limits, move up in emotions
I have been more emotional about each and every beat. I played a little bit of $2-4 limit yesterday just to cool down and I wasn't emotional at all even though I ended up a small loser.

Play marginal hands, flop marginal hands ( or 'Play loose, lose' )
Taking an A 7 up against a bad player's K 9 when you are out of position just isn't profitable. What makes him a bad player is the amount he loses when you hold a dominating hand in this situation, like AK. To win, one must stick to stronger edges against weak opposition, also this builds good habits.

The Button wins
Playing good position is crucial, a great hand like AKoff really isn't worth much when you are UTG in most holdem games (6 max or full ring). Of course I would never lay it down, but IF I chose to fold UTG it wouldn't be a severe leak in my game.

Play good with the bad
When a game is full of loose aggressive fish, stay solid and beat the living daylights out of them. I just gave you the magic formula, that's the key to success in poker. If you notice a game is full of solid players, jump to the next table.

The Long run is long
Everyone has times where they adjust poorly, everyone has steaming sessions, and everyone has sessions where they catch terrible cards, it's all part of the game. 10 000 hands is not an accurate picture of what you can expect your results to look like long term, 100 000 hands may be, and the more short handed the game the more vicious the swings will be in the short term.
So, as far as I'm concerned $5-10 is harder to beat, simple as that. I haven't won much because I haven't adjusted well yet. Should I just keep playing the same way and be content to make 1 big bet per hour per game? Hell's NO! I've been playing like a donkey lately and that is where the trouble lies. It's time for me to improve my game through some careful analysis. I'll let you know about my conclusions about what it takes to really crush $5-10 shorthanded in future blogs.

The Donk Bet And The King High

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 07:19:00 +0000

This is the first article in the my series entitled 'The Smartgambler Saga' [from 05/12/2006]
Well I'm doing it, I'm headed for the bigtime with my $500 bankroll! Actually I've already turned it into $1075 playing heads up and short-handed $2-4 limit holdem. That's a great start because I didn't expect to make this much so early in this mission, but I'll take it! There are some really bad players at this limit and very few players demonstrate any higher level thinking. Also, the players that do tend towards playing a tricky and aggressive style (the type of style that tends to win the money in bigger games) typically have a very hard time keeping their composure. I've seen a a lot of players play pretty much as good as me for 10 minutes or something until they take a beat or make a bad decision and then all of the sudden they become major donkeys in the game. So that was the first point I wanted to make in this post, being solid always pays. Even if you aren't really a naturally talented player I think just being solid ALL the time would be enough to beat the heck out of the lower limits. This Italian guy I know, a $20-40 pro from Atlantic City named Carlo used to play with Phil Ivey when he was coming up and he told that the kid, Ivey, never played a 'F-ing' hand, that he was the most solid player in the game ALL the time.

The real point of this post though, was to point out two specific weakness I have noticed and profited by lately. The first one I call the 'King High'. It seems that there are some players who thinks K3offsuit has some kindof of heavy duty edge in heads up play. I'm sorry to burst all of you fishes bubbles, but that hand pretty much sucks, even head up. It has very little equity advantage over ANY hand (55% to 45% favorite over 7 5offsuit) but it is a serious dog against many of the stronger holdings in holdem (73% to 21% dog against KQsuited). Basically this means, if you are playing heads up and your opponent plays strong your hand is very weak. Don't get me wrong, K3 is still a great hand to play overall, but you have to pick your spots. My point here is that when I raise in position, I find I often get reraised by a weak King and what happens next is even sicker. It's not enough for these over-aggressive donkeys to put a little bit of money in bad preflop, they then proceed to call me down all the way with only KING HIGH! If I was playing like a total maniac this would usually still be a terrible play, but considering that I actually play a fairly controlled style, at least in the early rounds of betting, it's an unthinkably bad play. I win 100% of these pots because I know they call down so often, so I only bet big ace highs or better, but I bet them strong.

Next is 'The Donk Bet'. I see this in full ring games as well as short handed. It usually happens on the later streets in a heads up pot when you have position, you have been betting the whole way, and it should be painfully obvious to your opponent that you have a good hand. Then all of the sudden, out of nowhere, the guy bets into you? Nothing has changed on the board, you have no reason to suspect that his hand somehow beats you now, so of course you call, and inevitably your opponent shows some kind of weak and ragged hand or busted draw. This has been happening to me ALL the time, and of course I rake in the pot with top pair of whatever legitimate hand I called with. I call this the 'Donk Bet' or the 'Donk Bluff'.

Now don't get me wrong, the river is a great time to bluff in holdem, you get the most bang for your buck when you succeed, but let's look at two scenarios to really try and better understand when to bluff. In both cases the pot is medium sized, let's say 5 big bets and you have missed a draw:

1 - This first case you have raised preflop and bet the flop and turn with the nut flush draw. Your lone opponent has called all your bets on a board like 9h 8h Ks 5s Jc, then checks the river. Here, you should fire one more bullet with a hand like Ah 7h because it is possible that your opponent will fold any 9 or 8, a tight player might even lay down a Jack if his hand was J T. My point is that you have a reason to bluff, the pot has 5 big bets in it, this gives you 5 to 1 on your money to make a bluff and you have represented a good hand the whole way. Your opponent can only beat a bluff and given the way you have played this pot a bluff isn't very likely.

2- For the second example let's just reverse the first case. Now, you are in the BB with the Ah 7h and call the raise, check call with the nut flush draw on the flop and turn (this is a very weak passive way to play this hand by the way). Don't come out betting when you miss, this is the 'Donk Bet'. If you want to make a bluff, do it earlier in the hand while your holding still has a good amount of equity. Actually, I nice check raise on the turn in this hand is a very balanced play with regard to fold equity (he might muck) and pot equity (you might hit the river and get paid off if he calls the turn). 'Donk' betting the river into an opponent who looks like they have something good is suicide. The pot is offering you 5 to 1 on your money to bluff, and I wouldn't hesitate to estimate the rate at which your opponent calls is upwards of 95%. You are even vulnerable to a re-steal (very rare but it does happen).

The moral of the story is play in position and play good hands strong all the way and call the other players bad bets rather than make them yourself. You should justify to yourself every chip you place in the pot, don't just bet out in desperation. The two easiest ways to lose money are calling all the way with a weak hand (the King High) and betting out in hopeless situations (The Donk Bet).

The Smartgambler Saga

noreply@blogger.com (Salvatore W. Delle Palme) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 06:49:00 +0000

A couple of years back I was commissioned to start writing blogs for smartgambler.com. A friend had gotten me in touch with them, and it seemed like a good opportunity at the time. I was playing a ton of poker and I had lot of poker ideas on my mind.

In the end I wrote around 15 blogs for them, and although the owners of the site had agreed to pay me $100 per blog, they changed their policy without telling me and paid me only for most of the articles. I guess the idea was that I was going to be promoted to the country manager for all of Canada, but since the company sort of floundered in the meantime I ended up with a shit sandwich.

I figured that instead of simply letting those blogs die on some fail site from Sweden, I'd republish them here and maybe give them a new life. My next several blog posts will be a series of poker strategy articles and blogs that were originally published on smartgambler.