The Men Who Stare At Graphs

Christmas is a strange period when you’re a pro poker player. You go through all the annual festivities – drinking and eating with my girlfriend’s family for Christmas Day before driving up to Chesterfield to drink and eat with my family on Boxing Day – and it’s generally great fun but at the back of your mind are all the drunk fools online waiting to give money away while you are busy socialising. 

While I probably missed out on a ton of value over Christmas, the enforced week-long break from poker served to get me hugely motivated for the new year. Since I started playing again on December 28^th I’ve put in some heavy hours, 45,000 hands, and had decent results too. As of January 12^th I’ve won $8,000 in that period and really played well on the whole. After a demoralising final quarter of 2011 the timing couldn’t be better. My love for the game has never really gone away but these last few weeks have really reminded me how it felt the first time I learnt the rules of Hold’em eight years ago and all I wanted to do was play every hour of the day. 

It’s not always like that. Poker has a strange ability to severely mess up your mind when things are not going well. Though I’ve made decent, steady money in the last two years any sustained downswing always makes me question my abilities. When it’s been going really badly for a month or more my confidence will be completely shot, even though in theory I understand the massive fluctuations in variance that poker brings about. The damaging aspect of this mindset is that a loss of confidence brought on by variance usually results in you not playing as well as you can also. For me, that means I 5-bet jam air at the wrong times or just generally make decisions that aren’t rational. 

One of my major goals for 2012 is to try and distance my play and mindset from results more than I ever have in the past. A poker friend of mine once taught me a good tip to use every time you are in the midst of a crisis of confidence; load up your entire career graph on Hold’em Manager and stare at the (hopefully) upwards-curving line. If you look closely at the graph’s deviations it becomes clear that most winning poker players have been through this a host of times before and came out the other side in more profit eventually. The 2012 mindset is all long-term, the short-term is for losers. 

Some decent results from 28th December 2011 to Jan 5th 2012.

I played my first live tournament as a Black Belt Poker sponsored pro a few weeks ago, a £330 event at the Fox Poker Club in London. For my column in PokerPlayer magazine I wrote how I was looking forward to sticking on the Black Belt patch and representing a site that’s shown faith in me. 

On the day I definitely had that sense of pride yet it was also surreal and strange too. I don’t feel like I’ll be fully comfortable as a sponsored pro until I’ve had some good results (or at least played great and got unlucky) and repaid that faith shown in me. The Fox tourney wasn’t the grandest of debuts – I was KO’d inside three hours. Still, while I was competitive with Audley Harrison in so far as quick exits go, I was generally happy with my play and unimpressed by the majority of the field. It bodes well for similar-sized events in and around London in the future. I did play one hand that I regret which I posted on the Black Belt forum. 

You can check it out in more detail here: http://blackbeltpoker.com/groups/white-and-yellow/hand-analysis

The next two events I have lined up are a £550 Asian Poker Tour the last weekend in January (again at the Fox Club) and the first UKIPT of the season in Galway which conveniently coincides with my birthday in mid-February. Hopefully I’ll get to meet the other Blue Belts and above at Galway too.

I’ll just leave you with a few hands from a pretty crazy $5/$10 heads-up session I played this week. My 6-max game online is far more solid than my heads-up and I shouldn’t really have been playing versus this villain, who specialises in heads-up. Still, it all started well… 

Seat 3: MrStarch ( $1974.00 USD )
Seat 6: ElJardi ( $1104.00 USD )

ElJardi posts small blind [$5.00 USD].
MrStarch posts big blind [$10.00 USD].

Dealt to MrStarch [  6h 4h ]
ElJardi raises [$20.00 USD]
MrStarch raises [$75.00 USD]
ElJardi calls [$60.00 USD]

I’d won a buy-in right away when he 5-bet jammed Js-Ts on me when I had K-K and definitely had the momentum in the match. While 6-4s isn’t the best hand in the world it’s cool to 3-bet with occasionally, especially when you’re in control of the match and it’s unlikely to be dominated ever. 

** Dealing Flop ** [ Jh, Th, 2d ]

MrStarch bets [$100.00 USD]
ElJardi calls [$100.00 USD]

Standard c-bet with the flush draw. His range can still be pretty wide here. He’s going to call with any T or J, all pocket pairs and a lot of Ace-highs. He’s rarely going to just flat K-Q, or two pair combos here and he’d just have 4-bet TT, JJ, AA, KK and QQ so I feel likle his range is going to be vulnerable to me barrelling all streets.

** Dealing Turn ** [ Qs ]

MrStarch bets [$225.00 USD]
ElJardi calls [$225.00 USD]

Pretty sweet turn card to barrel as I can very feasibly have AK in my range and he cannot. When he calls I’m planning on shutting down a lot of rivers. 

** Dealing River ** [ As ]

MrStarch bets [$1564.00 USD]
ElJardi folds

But not this one. It’s going to be super-difficult for him to call me with anything but a straight now. I suppose if he thinks I’m not sophisticated enough to value bet a set or two pair here (not sure if it’s +EV or if I would actually) then he can make a hero call with his Q-T type stuff but that seems unlikely. I’m glad that he folded :)

 

MrStarch wins $819.00 USD from main pot

After that it all started to go downhill though, starting with me losing a big $3,500 pot in what was essentially a cooler. I then played this final hand really poorly and logged off. 

Seat 3: MrStarch ( $1103.00 USD )
Seat 6: ElJardi ( $3290.00 USD )

MrStarch posts small blind [$5.00 USD].
ElJardi posts big blind [$10.00 USD].

Dealt to MrStarch [  Kc 8c ]

MrStarch raises [$15.00 USD]
ElJardi raises [$70.00 USD]
MrStarch raises [$185.00 USD]
ElJardi calls [$125.00 USD]

The 4-bet is fine. I wasn’t expecting to get flatted very often as it was the first time I’d seen the villain do this instead of just shove or folding. I think I completely misread his range here and perceived him as strong when I should have known he was more likely to be set-mining or attempting to crack a big pair himself. 

** Dealing Flop ** [ 5d, 6s, Qd ]

ElJardi checks
MrStarch checks

Terrible check, I need to bet here. It doesn’t even have to be big – anything between $180-$220 will do. 

** Dealing Turn ** [ Jd ]

ElJardi checks
MrStarch bets [$228.00 USD]
ElJardi calls [$228.00 USD]

I should just give up at this point but no… 

** Dealing River ** [ 7s ]

ElJardi checks
MrStarch bets [$670.00 USD]
ElJardi calls [$670.00 USD]

Horrible….

MrStarch shows [Kc, 8c ]
ElJardi shows [6c, 7c ]

ElJardi wins $2205.00 USD from main pot

I guess it would have been interesting to see if he would still call if the river hadn’t given him two pair. Still, I should either bet flop and turn or river or just give up completely. This check flop, bet turn and river line is pretty weak. The honourable Nik Persaud is taking charge of a 1-2-1 Enlightenment with me this weekend where we are going to go over a ton of heads-up hands so I’m really looking forward to that.

Finally, I took my girlfriend Hattie to Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner for her birthday right before Christmas and it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had – highly recommended! The meat fruit (a piece of chicken liver parfait dressed up as a tangerine) is probably the coolest starter I’ve ever seen. Poker simply has to go well in 2012 so that I can keep up with my penchant for eating out in nice places. Good luck at the tables everyone.  

The amazing meatfruit starter at Heston's 'Dinner'.

Neil Channing's Golden Ticket

In early November, a golden envelope covered in glitter and sparkles dropped through the letterbox with my name on it. This doesn’t usually happen. Immediately, I thought I’d done it – I’d finally got an invite to look around Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory! When I opened it I was initially a little disappointed that no chocolate was inside but instead UK’s poker own Wonka-like figure Neil Channing was inviting me to a mysterious night out at the Ritz Hotel to discuss Black Belt Poker.

As I used to work on PokerPlayer magazine for a few years I know Neil a little from various interviews and chats at live events. Having interviewed most of the big-name pros in the world he’s definitely a favourite, the highlight being when he described how he pulled off a big bluff at the WSOP because he was eating sushi at the time and suspected his opponent would believe him due to the stress of breaking away from tending to his Japanese lunch. However, I hadn’t really seen Neil since I’d left PokerPlayer to play cash games professionally online just over a year ago so I was surprised, and honoured, to be one of a group of 50 young UK pros that Black Belt announced they’d like to sponsor throughout 2012 if we put in the hours to become Blue Belt by January 1^st. 

The night at the Ritz was great. I’d never been inside the grand palace before and it was quite the spectacle. Ginormous priceless artwork covered every wall, London’s posh set enjoyed £70 cream teas and a throng of Americans were attempting to take photos inconspicuously. Finally, in a separate room around the corner was a worldwide first: a large group of online poker players dressed respectably in a suit and tie. Though I don’t play much on the live circuit yet I recognised quite a few faces such as Sam Grafton, Sam MacDonald, Rob Angood and all of the current Blue Belts like Jamie Burland and Kevin Williams. 

Channing and Warren Wooldridge gave a presentation on the benefits of being a sponsored Blue Belt to us all and I was left feeling it was just the sort of fresh start and challenge that I wanted. My first full year playing online has been pretty good – I play anywhere from $1/$2 up to $5/$10 on PKR – but I was in the middle of my first major downswing and was struggling to find motivation. Despite never getting involved I’d always been a fan of the community aspect of Black Belt Poker and knew this was something I could really benefit from. I’ve made my own way in poker without much help from friends at all – none of my ‘real life’ friends really play or understand poker. It’s always been something that I’ve wanted to address as I know that probably the fastest, most effective way to get better at the game is just through talking about it with players that are on your level or, ideally, better than you. Joining a ‘team’ as such like Black Belt is perfect on that front. Also, I play a lot less live poker than I’d like to. 


Unlike most online grinders I actually enjoy playing live and think I may be a better live player than online (as much as I’d love that to be reversed!) so the opportunity to play in a ton of live MTTs next year is great. From my limited experience I’ve already had some relative success, and a few close calls, so I’m confident I’ll be able to do well in 2012. Also, the amazing Ritz canapés and constant supply of pricey wine helped convince me Black Belt was worth a shot too.
 

After about five weeks of solid 12-table grinding I’m nearly 75% of the way to becoming a Blue Belt so I should reach it just in time for Christmas which would be a nice present. I started out playing $1/$2 but hadn’t foreseen how differently the games would play on iPoker to my usual site and I got absolutely clobbered for a week before I started to adjust. Day after day I would lose four or five buy-ins and have no idea why. It took me about $3k to realise that the games were just so much tighter preflop than what I was used to. In the PKR mid-stakes games it’s quite normal to be 5-bet jamming 9-9+ and A-Q, and for it to be pretty +EV. On iPoker though I was just running into A-A and K-K literally every time. As I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes it took me a while to work out that some players literally don’t have a jamming range outside of these two hands. I feel like I’ve finally adjusted pretty good now and am having some consistently good sessions playing $100NL at the moment. 

I wrote out a small list of poker goals at the start of the year that I really wanted to achieve. I made them quite ambitious on purpose so I may not have achieved them all but if you achieve all of your goals then what more do you have to strive for so I’m not disheartened at all. Here they are and how I got on; 

1)  1) $80k total profit including bonuses etc
I started 2011 just playing $1/$2 so this was definitely the most ambitious target of all. At one point in September it looked like I would have a decent shot at making it but then I went on a $10k downswing unfortunately. Still, it was a decent year and I ended up making around $53k excluding all my part-time journalism work.

2)  2)  Stop being so nitty with bankroll management

I used to play $1/$2 off a $20k bankroll which was pretty ridiculous in hindsight. I’ve definitely took some decent strides in moving up to higher stakes this year, playing 100k hands of $400NL and 5k at $1000NL. Happy with this one.

3)  3)  Play 500,000 hands online

Completed this one pretty soundly, and am up to about 620k hands so far for the year.

4)  4)  Play the WSOP Main Event

This didn’t happen. There’s always next year…