Visit to the U Club Ends February

[shipitfish]

The O Club and The I Club have been merged into a single new club in a new location, which I'll be calling the U Club. This is my new favorite spot to play for a number of reasons that will go in my review (yes, I'm really going to write those reviews RSN). I visited on Tuesday night to play for a few hours after work. I arrived and found a single full NL $1/$2 game, for which I added myself to the list.

While I waited, I took a seat in the $10/$20 limit HE game run by the T.E., the proprietor of the I Club. This was a tough game. I made the sixth player in this short-handed, aggressive game. I knew nearly all the players from previous visits to the I Club. T.E. himself was playing, as was M.S., who is a pro-ish poker player who co-ran the O Club and now helps run the U Club. I can beat M.S. when he's off his game, and he tilts pretty easily, but there was no indication he was there yet, as the game had just started.

I picked the seat that seemed to put the most aggressive players on my right, although, as it turned out, I still ended up with a very aggressive player in my left. I didn't really want to be in this game. But, I didn't want to wait to play. Also, I don't want T.E. to feel he can't draw people into the game at this new club, as this $10/$20 game can get really good. Thus, I don't want this game to stop running for lack of interest. I'm of course not going to stay in a bad game for a long time, but giving it time to keep it going while waiting for another seat seems like a reasonable long-term investment.

I quickly lost $200 by trying to muscle the aggressive players a bit, which was probably a general mistake. I work much better in short-handed limit games like those online, where there are hyper-aggressive people who take flops a bit too easily. Instead, I was surrounded by mostly tight-aggressive players who knew tons about the game.

I picked up my best starting hand in my half hour in this game when I caught K T in the cut-off. The tight player to my right raised, but I had noticed he'd been attacking the blinds pretty hard. I felt that he didn't necessarily have a hand that beat mine.

Calling would have been foolish; I had to clear the field and decided to three-bet. I was mortified when M.S. called cold from the SB, and was sure I was beat in at least once place. I felt better when that tight player just called. At this point, I had him on probable medium pair or a reasonable ace-high. If he had me dominated, it was by KQ specifically, I thought. But, meanwhile M.S. was the big concern.

The flop came Q-high with two spades. The two checked to me, I bet, M.S. called and the tight player raised. I obviously needed to catch to win, so I just called. M.S. tossed his hand quickly, and I was hoping that maybe we had cleared a K from the field and given myself two additional outs. The turn hit the draw with the A.

The tight player bet and I just called, which I realized was a silly move. I doubted after calling that he'd bet the river, because if he had only a pair, he would be too afraid of the board. OTOH, I suppose raising right away might get a fold from a Q, whereas that Q might check-call the river if I only called the turn. Regardless, I was unhappy with my mere call as the river came.

I was surprised when he bet again. I raised and got paid off. He mucked what he said was two pair, and was a bit unhappy that I played KTs in that spot, but I am still pretty happy with the play from start to finish, save the mere call on the turn.

A few minutes later, I surprisingly discovered that this player was none other than brettbrettbrett! A few minutes later, Dan from the old I Club and River Street showed up. He reminded brettbrettbrett of a goofy hand where I bluff-raised Dan on the river after misreading the board on the flop and getting in deep with no way to win. brettbrettbrett decided that given that loose play, he surely should have three-bet with two pair in our spot just a few minutes earlier. Too bad Dan hadn't shown up a few minutes earlier to give brettbrettbrett that advice. :)

With Dan joining the game, it was getting even worse. I was walking away down just $2, and I was glad to see that enough people had shown up to get a second $1/$2 NL game going.

I was also glad to see the new game included a number of regulars from the old O club. Mostly, they were tight-weak players who overplay one pair. At the other end of table, were two players — a woman and a man — who had showed up together, and seemed like they must have been O regulars, but probably from the late period just before the bust since I'd never seen them before. I never caught the fellow's name, but heard the woman, K.A., tell many people her name.

Indeed, it was hard not to hear her. She gave a running commentary of every hand to her friend, cagily trying to cover her mouth as she spoke. This is the moment where I really love the Bose headphones. So many people think I can't possibly hear that well with them on, when, in fact, it is the best way to hear people whispering across the table because they filter out the noise in-between.

Not, however, that there was anything that interesting being said. Her analysis was obvious and lacked insight. She also got amazingly frustrated by the most minor of things. It was as if someone acting out of turn was a personal affront to her sensibilities. She started to get on my nerves.

As my annoyance rose, it brought something about my own play to my attention. From time to time, I used to be a player who wasn't all that different from K.A. Surely I have “been her” at the table more often in the past than I would like to remember. I realized that her ego and self-importance about how poker worked was part of my edge in the game. I'd been there before; I'd made that selfish mistake of thinking the game was there for me, and now I could see her doing the same thing. I had the same edge against her in the game that others used to have against me.

I unfortunately didn't gain a moment against her to use to my advantage, but her money moved around the table enough as she played too obvious of a game, failed to bet out with top pair and bemoaned that those who had called her preflop raise with junk had hit a higher pair on the turn. Generally, she played in that “tight but uninformed” style that I've come from prefer in players. It's amazing to see people who learn enough about the game to not be total fish then just stagnate. People just don't seem to realize that anything worth doing requires a lifelong endeavor of learning to keep pace.

Indeed, the game reminded me about the need for constant vigilance in poker. I made an horrendous call with the nut straight on a runner-runner flush board that was checked around on the flop. I rivered the straight after calling a small bet on the turn, and then made the classic widow poker mistake of not being cognizant that shared cards mean a card that helps you can often help your opponent more. And, after all, straight vs. flush is the easiest of all examples of this concept.

That $82 lost, and being $250 down by then, I looked at my clock and decided I'd leave that game even or better. Now, it's not usually good to set goals that confined in a time frame, since there's often not enough time to recover. But, I felt at that moment if I put some pressure on myself to truly play a better game than all of my opponents, I'd succeed.

I fortunately didn't disappoint myself. I trapped a hyper-aggressive chronic bust-and-rebuy player for his whole stack when we both turned a flush and mine was the nut-flush. (I'll put more about that hand in a post this weekend.) Once I got that stack, I had to tighten up and avoid drawing hands as two reasonable but beatable players were on my left with bigger stacks. I hoped to trap them and double through in a big way, but instead I picked up a pretty good pot by out-kicking a JT with AT against a passive player on my right. I was $100 up as the hour of my departure rolled around.

Sometimes, it's worth looking at a weak game and setting a goal for the night for yourself.

(I took obligatory stack shots.)

Comments

[roryk.livejournal.com]

If your goal is to pro in ten years, it would be good to start practicing being a pro. I think you are the type of person who once you got it in your mind that you wanted to act like a pro you could have a lot of fun doing it. It is really fun to be disciplined and to take care of yourself, to look out for yourself and to constantly be playing your best and making the best possible decision for yourself and your pocketbook. There is no point in thinking about how to play a hand right and agonizing over cold calling here or reraising or should you have folded here and what not if you are also not simultaneously thinking about how to pick the best games, when to play and how to make sure you are playing your best. Those last two things are way more important than any technical skill or how to play a specific hand by far if you want to play as your job. Picking a game, picking which seat to sit in, calming yourself down, choosing when to play and when to go home are decisions that come up every single time you play. Playing a specific hand or a specific kind of situation might come up one in a hundred times you play. It is far more important to teach yourself and discipline yourself to choose good games, choose good spots, play when you feel strong and steady and like you are going to win and get up and leave when you feel bad than to think about how to play slightly better. It would be better that every time you got 97o and T8o that you cold called any number of bets preflop with them than if you decided to sit in a bad game. You could have that glaring hole in your technical game and it wouldn't matter as much as those other things because those things don't come up very often.

Don't sit in bad games. Ever. Let the other "pros" do that. They will be broke eventually and you won't. Save your energy and time for when the games are good. I have used the same excuse you used, that I just wanted to make sure the game would keep going, that I was doing the guy running the club a favor. I was being a nice guy. Really, your first statement was the right one, you just didn't want to wait to play because you drove all of the way there to play. I used to do that all of the time too and then I got stung bad a couple times being stupid and doing that so I stopped. One day, when you get wise, you will drive all of the way to the club, and you will look around and see all of the games suck, or you will look into yourself and you will see you are not ready to play that day, and you will take yourself off of the list and go home without having played a single hand. And that will be an awesome day for you because that is what it takes to really win huge at the end of the year, making great poker decisions like that. Try it out, you will see how awesome it feels to say to yourself, "I am going to make good decisions about how I invest my money and time." You will feel so powerful and confident. You don't have to play. You choose to play. You look at the game and decide to play. You are free to do what you want to do, you don't have to play just because you came there. If people say anything to you you don't have to do anything. You have this quiet kind of confidence and are your own person. If you practice it it will hit you all at once one day and you will never go back to the other way of playing.

[brettbrettbrett.livejournal.com]

Rory,

The game wasn't really that tough at all, I don't think. It may have seemed that way to Bradley, as limit hold em isn't his primary game, but both guys who worked at the club/played can be counted on to both miss bets and pay off. No, it wasn't a great game. And it didn't become one til about an hour later. But, Bradley has a positive expectation in that game, whether he knows it or not.

Your comments about "the best hand I've seen in a while" are right on. Three-betting me with KTs is most often going to put him in a bad spot.

brett

[shipitfish.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about T.R. M.S. is actually a very good limit player when he's on his game. It's often hard to know when he is or isn't on his game. Friendly advice since you've given me the same in my journal and I owe you one: Don't underestimate M.S. As for whether I had positive EV, it may have been true, but I was certainly skeptical about whether I did or not.

[shipitfish.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. The situation with NYC poker is somewhat complex right now, and there is a certain justification. I want T.R. to believe that players are going to show up and play in that limit game, and that sometimes he'll draw a NL player in at least for a while. That game is a good game when the “right” players show up. The right players are only going to show up when they know the game goes off every night and has enough people interested in it. It's an exception to the rule in NYC poker to have a club that spreads both NL and limit at the same place. I would like T.R. to believe his deal with M.S. and others will work and he'll get a few time charges from people who usually play NL (as I am one of those right now). My long term limit vs. NL live game selection in NYC has a huge boom if I know I can show up at the U Club and examine multiple games quickly to find out if the action is good. (Since I'm not actually a pro yet, I often can spare only four hours to go play live, so quick game evaluation and selection in one place can make those four hours more profitable.)

Without this as a factor, no freaking way do I sit in that game with that line-up, even with no seat in the NL game. I sit for 45 minutes and listen to This American Life on my audio player and see if some weak folks show up for a NL game or get a sit in the hopping NL game that was running. Yes, my desire to play was a factor, but it wouldn't been enough to put me in the game by itself. BTW, you once told me, roryk to play in tough games sometimes. I'm trying to reconcile that advice with this one. What am I missing?

I'm way ahead of you, BTW, on leaving a club (walking in, looking around, and walking out) when the lineup is bad. I've done it twice at NYC clubs in the three months (the games are actually usually good). I've also played as low as $4/$8 at Foxwoods when I really showed up to play $10/$20 because the action at $10/$20 and $5/$10 weren't good that day. (AFAICT, you can nearly 24/7 find a good $4/$8 game at Foxwoods, although occasionally you get that weird tough $4/$8 table and just get a table change and move.)