Analyzing my leaks, crazy hand, and some nonpoker stuff

Ok, let me start with this warning... This post is going to be all over the place. So, just to quickly break it down, these are the things that you will see in this post: Mookie, my cash game leaks based on PT, crazy crazy hand I witnessed, and some nonpoker stuff, mainly sports related. I am probably better off breaking this up into multiple posts but you know what, I'm in the mood to ramble on so that's what's gonna happen. Since this is a poker blog, I'll put the nonpoker stuff at the very end.

Chapter 1: Mookie ad

So, first thing's first. Come out tonight for the Mookie! Hopefully, I'll do better than my most recent performance in MATH and our home game dubbed PAPT.



Ok, now that I've done my part for advertising the blogger tourney (which given the traffic I get, really almost unnecessary probably but still wouldn't hurt... I know some of you nonbloggers play so if you want to join in on the tournament, you know you're always welcome).

Chapter 2: Analyzing my leaks and using PT

Ok, now on to the main topic. I've always been a big advocate of analyzing my play, looking back at hand histories, and using Pokertracker for that purpose. However, recently, Hoy has been posting some solid commentary based on what he's seen on his PT stats so I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon. But just to show that this isn't something that I totally ripped off from Hoy, here are few of the links to my older (it's obv not that old since I did start this blog only 5 months ago) posts to show that I have been advocating this... so if you care to see those or just to rehash your memory, click here or here.

I think in one of my posts, I talked about how I love points. Actually, I probably mentioned that in quite a few of my posts. Keeping score, having points, etc is always something I like... and I'm a sucker for. Reward points on credit cards? Great, sign me up! Wait, better rewards on this card? I'm there. (I'm actually not as bad as I make it sound but I'm pretty bad). Which is why I am personally a big fan of the whole points thing on BBT. Again, I don't think having the most points on BBT will mean you're the best tournament player but that argument to me is pretty worthless. And that's for a different post (yes, even I have limits). Anyways, so points is a big deal. What does that mean? That means that those stupid iron man challenge thing that full tilt does? Yeah, I'm totally a sucker for it. I swear... those stupid FTP points and the iron man is probably the biggest -EV thing for me. For example... there are nights I'm not in the mood to play poker. Rare, but it's there. But I fire up my laptop, open up a few tables and start grinding... why? Because I need to get my damn 200pts each day (or 25 days out of the month) to qualify for the Iron Man freeroll (which btw, is the best deal tournament... I mean what other tournament do you know that you can freeroll into and 1 out of 3 entrants get paid a minimum of $80 all the way up to $5,000???). They now started this thing where depending on the the number of consecutive months you maintain your level, you earn different sets of points as well where you can use those points to purchase bonuses, tournament tokens, etc... aaaaaah, more points. Ok, so what does all this rambling mean? Well, I got my 25 days of 200+ points so I don't have to play for the rest of this month unless I want to. Thus, last night, instead of playing, I decided to fire up PT and take a look at which hands I was losing the most money out of... and this is what I got... which took me by surprise:




These are filtered to only show the hands I played in 2007 just because I've had PT since last year and I wanted more recent information. I then sorted by the "net amount" and the clear net gainers were AA, KK, QQ, AK, etc... pretty predictable. There were couple of surprising ones amongst the top 10 money makers such as KJ and KQ which I tend to fold in EP... actually, I'm shocked that KJ was in top ten since I almost always fold that garbage...

Well, even more shocking for me was what you just saw above. The losses and where they are coming from. And being how consistent the losers are, my biggest leak is apparently the most obvious one also. I mean think about it. 67s, 68s, JTo, 78o, 89s, 89o, J9o, 64o, 9-10o, 78s, 65s... oh, and pocket nines. See a familiar trend? Aside from J9o which is pretty garbage but for some reason my favorite hand (yes, yes... please, spare me the "dangerous to have a favorite hand" speech, I've heard it a million times before), the suited and unsuited connectors and one gappers are my biggest leaks. CONSISTENTLY. This was actually shocking to me. I mean, most of us who take poker seriously tend to love these suited connectors right? You can get paid off very nicely when you hit it big, right? They are generally well concealed, right? I mean who doesn't like 89 sooooooooted, right???

So, after seeing this shocking revelation, I decided to do a little more research. I started looking at the hand history to see what was causing these to be my biggest leaks... And there was one consistent theme which is probably obvious just by looking at the stats. I'm not getting paid off when I actually hit it big. In other words, I lose a small pot when I don't hit. But I win a small pot when I hit it big... what does that mean? Well, more often than not, I'm not gonna hit it hard and since the idea behind these connectors and one gappers is to get paid off nicely when they do hit, I'm basically going one step forward and taking two steps back. When looking at how I play them, I don't hate my play preflop. So it's not like I'm playing them out of position or limping with them every time. I mix it up nicely but again, it's the post flop play that I'm crippling myself with with these hands. I need to go back and further analyze where I'm betting too soon (without giving someone a chance to catch a piece... ie, why bet if I have 89 and the flop comes 5-6-7 and it's checked to me?). I thought I was a decent cash gamer, only based on the money I was making but these stats really opened my eyes and I'm really shocked at what I found. This is definitely an area I'm gonna study up on and have to improve for my long term success in the cash games, esp if I want to move up levels.

Chapter 3: CRAZY HAND

Well, I always joked that I'd love to be in a situation where we're all deep and all the money is in the middle when I have AA and the two other guys who are all in both have KK... essentially eliminating any chances of them winning (yes, I understand a possible 4 flush but again... let's be real... you'd sell everything you own and put it on the line in this situation). Well, I was observing this low stakes NL table cuz my friend JT was playing in it and I was just chatting it up (and actually was surprised to see some of the play at this level was probably better than 1-2NL... SOME). Well, I couldn't get screen shots as this developed but it was a crazy hand. So instead of posting the hand history, I'll lay it out for you:

Full Tilt Poker Game #2541570786: Table Tyndall - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:07:05 ET - 2007/05/30

This was 7 handed: UTG min raises to $1 and MP reraises to $3. CO calls the $3, both blinds fold, and UTG then reraises to $7. Watching this, I immediately thought, alright UTG clearly has aces but it's so obvious he might get stacked here if the other two knew what they were doing. Well, the MP reraiser calls and so does the CO. At this point, I figured all three of them had pocket pairs. But I did not know the extent of what I was about to witness... NO, they didn't all have aces! FTP is not THAT rigged. :)

Flop comes 10-6-6. Innocent looking flop, I figured the aces (ie UTG) should take it down... UTG bets $8 into a $22 pot (obv trying to string people along on this safe looking board), the MP reraiser goes all in for $22 (your kings are f*cked dude), and here was the shocker... CO cold calls! UTG pushes his stack all in which was $26 and naturally, the CO calls the extra $4... and this is what they flip up:



Turn and the river obv didn't matter since the two pocket aces had no outs. Now that's a good way to rake in a $100 pot...

Chapter 4: Nonpoker content

Phew... I have to admit, I'm losing steam. When I first started this post, I was pretty fired up but now I feel like I typed as much as I can... but I wanted to throw a few things out there. First off, any of you Hokies reading this, how proud are you of the Vick family... wow, what a quick fall from stardom to... well, dumb-dumb? I mean there's the little brother Vick with his dirty leg stomping, bird flipping, gun waving under golden arches antics... and everyone thinking, wow, how far could the apple fall from the tree??? Well, apparently, the tree wasn't where we thought it was huh? It wasn't that Marcus was a bad apple that rolled off the hill far far away from the tree... it appears the tree itself is f*cked up. I mean even the superstar older brother has some serious issues... I still remember his miraculous comeback scramble against WVU down the sidelines which surely just the thought of it sends shivers to most Hokie fans but I also vividly remember seeing him flick his fans off in his own stadium, caught (and in his defense, later dropped, I believe) in an allegation that he had marijuana in his water bottle, and now, he's a big player in the illegal (read: felony) dog fight ring. I mean really? I know this isn't breaking news or anything but I just thought it was interesting. Roger Goodell (NFL commish) has been making some serious statements by dropping very severe penalties on players who are constantly surrounding themselves with bad publicity (Adam "Frogger" Jones... errrr "Pacman" Jones out for 16 games - that's a Vick from noCal reference... yeah, his no show during Smack Off sucked but I'm still on his bandwagon) and Chris Henry (stupid Bungles... suspend all of them) for 8 games... I don't know what Goodell is going to do with Vick but I can't imagine him not doing anything.

And how p*ssed off is Kobe Bryant? Boy, he sounds like a guy who's been holding it in for so long and now he can't take it... he's unleashing his fury on his media tour by ripping the lakers front office. And not that I care much for Kobe but I hear what he's saying and I agree. Kobe, whether you like it or not, is one of the best players out there, playing in his prime, and Jerry Buss needs to stop playing poker and put his money towards reloading that team with talent that could do some damage. I mean come on...

Now as a token Japanese, I feel that I need to throw this out there. Hey, any Sox fans out there? How do you like Dice-K?? Kind of a weird thing, it seems to me. And personally, I'm a big big fan of Daisuke. I didn't get to see him in high school but when I went back to Japan, during my brief stay, I caught some of the games he pitched in his rookie year and I remembered thinking this kid was nasty. I thought when Boston ended up with him that he would be a tremendous asset... maybe not like a Curt Schilling or a Randy Johnson in their prime but definitely a solid solid #2... And he's putting up results. 7 wins through today ain't bad. Hell, that's actually pretty good... the only question is his relatively high ERA. I'm surprised that he's actually getting hit quite a bit.

Ok, I'm clearly starting to flame out, so I'm out.