Gapping downward

by BSN

Taking a couple days off from the tables. I've been really streaky lately. Run it up, crash it down, run it back up even higher, crash it down even lower. The lack of consistency is telling me I'm not playing very well. I know when things are trending downward, I'm ignoring the gap concept.

If you don't know what the gap concept is, I play at Full Tilt Poker under the screen name 'BigSlickNut'. I'd be happy to teach you.

Funny Screen Name

by BSN

This is the funniest screen name I've seen, since my own:

It's time for the World Poker Crown

by BSN

What do you get when you mix four Canadians, three Dutchmen, one German, one Italian, and one Pole?

If your answer is World War II, you couldn't be more wrong. These are the finalists for The World Poker Crown Final Event at Perlada Castle in Barcelona, Spain between May 8th to May 10th. The final event will be broadcast live on television and the internet, and you can watch it at the World Poker Crown website.

You and I have a chance to win, also. The folks at 888.com are also giving away four tickets to the WSOP including a $10,000 buy-in to the 2008 WSOP Main Event, the 888.com Qualifiers' Welcome Party, $2,500 for travel and $2,000 spending money, and 10 days’ accommodation in the Venetian.

So how did these lucky bastards poker players get the opportunity to play in the final event? They were the final players of an online tournament, and now they're going to be playing for $1,000,000 in a world-televised tournament. Not a bad gig, eh?

That "eh" was for those four Canadians. There are no Americans so we're going to have to adopt some of these folks. Canadians are almost American, right?

Ahem.

So, head over to the World Poker Crown website and check out the entry requirements to win your trip to the WSOP, and watch that tournament because with a million dollars at stake anything can happen.

Lucky grinder

by BSN

I can't tell you how many times I've been dealt T5o in the past week. Unreal.

But, the poker grind is going ok. Still up and down, but long term the slope is positive. I can't really say it's going well, though, because I've made a couple dumb moves where I've smacked my head and said 'what are YOU thinking'?!?!?!

Better lucky than good, though, knowwhatimean?

Nope, it's not April Fools' Day

by BSN

I checked the date on this article, but it said May 1 and not April 1.

WTF?

WSOP final table to be held in November, 4 months after the WSOP

Card Counting does not work in online blackjack

by BSN

By now, I am sure that most of the people reading this blog have either read "Bringing Down the House" by Ben Mezrich or seen "21", the movie based on the book about the MIT blackjack teams. These were teams of card-counters that won millions from the casinos by applying advanced math capabilities on the fairly simple math involved in card counting. The real skill in card-counting is to have the concentration to keep an accurate count and the discipline to employ the proper strategy based on the count.

A common technique in blackjack card-counting is the Hi-Lo method. The statistics say a deck that grows richer in high cards results in improving a player's odds, while a deck that grows rich in low cards favors the casino. Brick-and-mortar casinos counter this by using up to 6 shuffled decks at a time, setting random shuffle points, and utilizing dealers that move the cards and game at a fast pace to make it difficult for card counters to keep an accurate count.

Backgammonmasters.com and Gammonish.com, online backgammon sites that also have poker and blackjack games, have invited the members of the MIT Blackjack teams to pit their card counting skills against the online game. However, I am going out on a limb and say nobody will be able to count cards in online backjack.

Why?

B&M casinos use 6 decks so they don't have to shuffle as frequently, thus increasing revenue per hour at the tables. Online casinos have the advantage of computing power, so their "decks" are shuffled between every hand. Thus, the cards displayed in one hand have no mathematical bearing on the following hands.

So, how do players improve their odds? The best way online is to employ "basic strategy". The edge for a casino in blackjack is actually small compared to games like roulette and craps, and playing perfect blackjack as represented by basic strategy makes that edge as small as possible.

The online backgammon sites I mentioned earlier provide basic blackjack strategy calculator, allowing players to easily arrive at the optimal strategy during play. I didn't think backgammon sites would be the place go for someone to learn basic strategy, but we learn something new every day.

It's an up and down life

by BSN

I need to find a poker game in Huntsville. I've asked at work but nobody seems to play. Too many evenings are being spent with Ryan and Simon and Paula and Randy.

Ugh.

My family flew up for a visit last weekend so we could nail down living arrangements. We were getting pretty frustrated finding a house to rent and were about to put a deposit on a small apartment when we drove around our preferred neighborhood one last time to check for rental yard signs. My 6 year old said "I think we should rent a blue house" and we turned a corner and there was a blue house for rent that was perfect - just renovated, big yard, cottage-style, nice neighborhood, good school, etc.

I told my wife to call right away because God just talked to us. You agnostics and atheists just keep your mouths shut on this one. It was too spooky to ignore. besides, this is my blog and I don't preach on yours.

Anywho, I played a little poker online this week, did very well, but then Friday night was 2-outer-winner night because I got lanced by 3 in a row. Made a tiny bit of the loss back last night with a win, but nowhere near enough to recover the prior night's loss.

Seriously, people that play on the weekend at Full Tilt really think QTo is a hand worth calling off all their chips with. Fishy waters, indeed.

Poker versus Backgammon

by BSN

A lot of top poker players are also excellent at other games like chess and backgammon. Gus Hansen, for instance, is a world class backgammon player and Dan Harrington won the 1980 World Cup of Backgammon. While the two games are very different, the analytical and risk-assessment skills required to succeed at both games are very similar.

Online backgammon operators are taking a page out of the book of some of the online poker sites and coming up with some unique and high-profile promotions like a site where players can play free or real money backgammon, Backgammon Masters. These guys have come up with a promotion where they are inviting the Guinness Book of World Records to certify what I assume will be the largest backgammon tournament, with "largest" referring to the size of the playing field and dice. Yes, playing FIELD: The match will be played on a 1-acre field and 3-foot dice will be dropped from a helicopter.

How else are online poker and backgammon similar? Well, you can get bonuses from online operators of both games. Online operators also collect rake from both games, and they also provide free games and tournaments for novice players to learn the game in a low-risk environment. Players can multi-table in both games, and finally, both games have turbo versions so skilled players can increase their earn rates.

Something to mix things up and check out on those days when the grind gets to be too much to bear.

Grinding through life

by BSN

I've been busier than I've been in years for the last month. Made it through a couple weeks of pretty useless training and was handed a program with some significant challenges. There is a small, pinhole light at the end of the tunnel, though, and I came up for air long enough to play one $20 SNG in the past 3 weeks.

My wife and kids are visiting me in Huntsville this weekend. We think we've found a home to rent, so another item is crossed off the list. Rent sucks, a mortgage payment would be cheaper, but we're just not back far enough from the brink for that. Step by step, doing the life-grind, but always making forward progress. We'll get there.

If I can keep my eyes open long enough this week, I might try to show up for a Mookie. I thought moving to the Central time zone would make it easier for me to participate, but I've been up at 4 am every day to get an early start at work and I can't keep my eyes open at night. Hopefully, I'll be able to start sleeping in until the blessed time of 5:30 am, and then I might be able to get the rest of my life back.

Getting my mind right for poker

by BSN

I enjoyed a nice run over the weekend that came to a screeching halt on Sunday. I logged off after only two SNGs, just because I didn't feel like I was playing well.

I moved from the Turbo SNGs to the standard SNGs on Full Tilt late last week. I do this from time to time when I feel like I'm not playing patiently in the early stages of a SNG. While you have to take a lot of coinflips in Turboes, they don't have to be in the early stages when there is just T100 in the pot. From time to time I lose perspective and start fighting for those pots, when I really don't have to. Yes, later in the SNG it's all coinflips and push-and-pray, but so many people suck at playing these that there's no reason to do so early. When you can reach the bubble 90% of the time by simply being patient, the odds are that you'll make money in the long run.** I wasn't doing that.

Stepping over to standard SNGs helps me get my mind right. There's a decent amount of play (although, truthfully, these things are still quick), and I cash at a higher rate. I don't know why I go back to the Turboes, except they're like crack for the action junkie.

Anyway, I diagnosed that I was the problem yesterday pretty quickly and while playing well within my bankroll. So, that's progress.


** Another in a long series of made-up statistics.