The poker scene in southern California is good and you can play 1 or 2 tournaments every day. For example I can drive to Hollywood Park for the 11am tournament on Monday, then to Hawaiian gardens for the 1pm tournament or Crystal Casino for the 2pm tournament. I can get to Pechanga for the 6pm tournament and the next day go to Oceans 11 for the 10am tournament. These tournaments are not too expensive ($20-$50) but the commuting is a killer and the gas prices can double your expense. If you are somewhat successful in the tournaments you might play one tournament for 6 hours before getting knocked out or winning it. And I was getting knocked out normally in the last 3 or 4 tables. Eventually this gets to you - you drive in crappy traffic, pay your entry fee, grind through the various levels and just miss the money. Then you drive somewhere else and do it again. Then the next day you do it again.
This was not my idea of happy unemployment. Even though I am training to become a poker player I do not feel I am learning much by playing all these tournaments and consistently not getting any better. I needed more practice, less driving and a new approach. Enter online poker.
I signed on to Full Tilt poker and Pokerstars and wow - what a great way to play poker. I practiced by playing 5 tournaments in a Day without even leaving my house. Suddenly I am back to working from home. Life is fantastic again. I am so happy!
I decided I still needed to go to a real tournament at least once per week to determine if I am improving or not. But basically the online poker has given me the ability to practice different approaches to tournaments with minimal expense. I know from working with computers knowledge is only great if it is combined with experience and the online poker will give me that experience.
One of my worries is the legality of online poker. I did some research and as far as I can tell there are thousands of online poker players in America. It looks like the Federal government is worried about sites that may enable money laundering but are not out to prosecute individual players and have no laws to do so. It looks like they defer to the state. In California it appears to be a grey area as far as I can tell. I cannot find any articles stating it is illegal in California and cannot find any evidence of a player being prosecuted for playing. Based on my research I am going to assume it is legal but this is just my opinion - do not base your defence on my opinion because it might be wrong.
Another worry is the tax consequences of winning a huge prize. I smile as I write this because its a problem I am happy to cross when it happens. Seriously I am and have always been very honest and straightforward with the taxman and will continue to be. If I win money I will declare it and pay taxes on it. I will discuss with my accountant how this works and if I should declare myself as a "professional poker player". I suspect this will be next years problem as this year I do not think I will make any money from poker. If anything I hope to learn enough to break even.
So I will write some articles on my online poker experiences including another massive step in my learning process courtesy of an online professional at Full Tilt poker (not that he knows it).
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Lesson - tournament play
With a basic understanding of starting hands and positional play I now started researching tournament play. This is how I approached tournaments and how I applied my new knowledge to tournament play.
Step 1 - Initial strategy - I played my starting hands and positional play knowledge in tournaments in Southern California and had varying results. Sometimes I would progress through several tables towards the final table and sometimes I would go out within a few minutes of the tournament start. Then I read an article which made complete sense. Tournaments are full of fish and beginner players who can knock you out by playing any 2 cards and getting lucky. Of course, prior to learning about starting hands and positional play I was probably one of those fish. The best way to avoid the fish is to not play any hands for the first hour or so of the tournament (obviously the time depends on how many players enter the tournament). I read more on this and it seems to be a common approach to only play AA or KK and sometimes AK in the early part of the tournament. The idea is to let the fish play each other and knock each other out, then when you start playing your game there are less fish left in the tournament likely to knock you out. Also the fish remaining might have a lot of chips and it should be easy to take those chips away from them. This strategy had a massive impact on my game and I went from being knocked out of tournaments early to making the last third of players on a consistent basis.
Step 2 - Too tight - I was consistently being knocked out of tournaments in the last third. If there were 120 players I might finish 35th. I was running low on chips waiting for my Great hands (as listed in my starting hands article) to be dealt to me. Eventually I would be forced all-in because my stack was so small I had no choice and often I would lose. In a best case scenario I would win one or two all-in situations but would soon be back to the short-stack and would eventually lose. This happened time and time again and often I would lose to what I thought were lucky players. For example I might have 10-10 and the lucky player 7-6 and he would hit a straight or a set of 7s at the showdown. It took me a while to figure out why a "good" poker player like me kept getting these "bad beats". Then one day a kind older man who I had seen make the final table a few times explained to me that I was "too tight" or "not aggressive enough" and I would never win any tournaments playing like I was until I learnt to become aggressive. This sent me on a new phase of research - what is an aggressive player.
Step 3 - Too aggressive - if you read the books and Internet articles you soon learn that "every good tournament poker player" is very aggressive in their play. They fire bets off on 7-6 off suit, pairs of 3s, A-4 off suit etc. If you watch the World Series of Poker final tables on television you see bets going in with Q-4, any Ace, even 10-2 off suit. What is going on - my starting hand strategy appears to be completely wrong. I entered a few tournaments playing my tournament strategy with an aggressive stance. I would play for an hour or so really tight just playing aces and kings and then change to aggressive and play a whole range of hands with big bets. I continued to lose but this time I went out of the tournament even earlier. I would fire a bet with 10-9 suited and not hit my hand so another players pair would knock me out. Or I would go all-in with 8-8 and watch someones A-J become a big pair. My aggressive play was wrong but all the books told me this was what I had to do to win tournaments.
Step 4 - the pros view - I did some research on top pros about aggressive play and they seemed to be a little more selective saying words of wisdom such as 'Only play good starting hands or hands with potential but when you decide to play a hand play it aggressively". Some pros emphasized position over starting hands - one article claimed that a player actually won a tournament without looking at their cards at all. They fired off bets based on their position and the betting patterns of the other players in the tournament. This almost suggests the position is MORE important than the cards - something I understand but struggle to utilize effectively.
Step 5 - my own style - I tried to apply as much of the different wisdom as I could to my game. I still slow played in the first third of the tournaments, then as my chip stack started getting low in relation to to the increasing blind amounts I started to play a little more aggressivey. I still believe in my starting hands but played more positional plays especially with OK hands. I played more small pairs cautiously trying to hit a set after the flop. I played A-x and K-x flush possibilities cautiously hoping to get 4 cards to a flush after the flop. These are a new category of hand which I will call "Growing hands" - they have the potential to grow after the flop into Great hands. I also started playing more suited connectors (10-9, 9-8, 8-7) in late position trying to hit a straight. This style started to pay dividends and I started to get into the last 3 or 4 tables of tournaments. I figured it was just a matter of time......
I will update the tournament strategy in a later article because it took a fair bit of effort from going to Step 5 to a consistent tournament winner.
Step 1 - Initial strategy - I played my starting hands and positional play knowledge in tournaments in Southern California and had varying results. Sometimes I would progress through several tables towards the final table and sometimes I would go out within a few minutes of the tournament start. Then I read an article which made complete sense. Tournaments are full of fish and beginner players who can knock you out by playing any 2 cards and getting lucky. Of course, prior to learning about starting hands and positional play I was probably one of those fish. The best way to avoid the fish is to not play any hands for the first hour or so of the tournament (obviously the time depends on how many players enter the tournament). I read more on this and it seems to be a common approach to only play AA or KK and sometimes AK in the early part of the tournament. The idea is to let the fish play each other and knock each other out, then when you start playing your game there are less fish left in the tournament likely to knock you out. Also the fish remaining might have a lot of chips and it should be easy to take those chips away from them. This strategy had a massive impact on my game and I went from being knocked out of tournaments early to making the last third of players on a consistent basis.
Step 2 - Too tight - I was consistently being knocked out of tournaments in the last third. If there were 120 players I might finish 35th. I was running low on chips waiting for my Great hands (as listed in my starting hands article) to be dealt to me. Eventually I would be forced all-in because my stack was so small I had no choice and often I would lose. In a best case scenario I would win one or two all-in situations but would soon be back to the short-stack and would eventually lose. This happened time and time again and often I would lose to what I thought were lucky players. For example I might have 10-10 and the lucky player 7-6 and he would hit a straight or a set of 7s at the showdown. It took me a while to figure out why a "good" poker player like me kept getting these "bad beats". Then one day a kind older man who I had seen make the final table a few times explained to me that I was "too tight" or "not aggressive enough" and I would never win any tournaments playing like I was until I learnt to become aggressive. This sent me on a new phase of research - what is an aggressive player.
Step 3 - Too aggressive - if you read the books and Internet articles you soon learn that "every good tournament poker player" is very aggressive in their play. They fire bets off on 7-6 off suit, pairs of 3s, A-4 off suit etc. If you watch the World Series of Poker final tables on television you see bets going in with Q-4, any Ace, even 10-2 off suit. What is going on - my starting hand strategy appears to be completely wrong. I entered a few tournaments playing my tournament strategy with an aggressive stance. I would play for an hour or so really tight just playing aces and kings and then change to aggressive and play a whole range of hands with big bets. I continued to lose but this time I went out of the tournament even earlier. I would fire a bet with 10-9 suited and not hit my hand so another players pair would knock me out. Or I would go all-in with 8-8 and watch someones A-J become a big pair. My aggressive play was wrong but all the books told me this was what I had to do to win tournaments.
Step 4 - the pros view - I did some research on top pros about aggressive play and they seemed to be a little more selective saying words of wisdom such as 'Only play good starting hands or hands with potential but when you decide to play a hand play it aggressively". Some pros emphasized position over starting hands - one article claimed that a player actually won a tournament without looking at their cards at all. They fired off bets based on their position and the betting patterns of the other players in the tournament. This almost suggests the position is MORE important than the cards - something I understand but struggle to utilize effectively.
Step 5 - my own style - I tried to apply as much of the different wisdom as I could to my game. I still slow played in the first third of the tournaments, then as my chip stack started getting low in relation to to the increasing blind amounts I started to play a little more aggressivey. I still believe in my starting hands but played more positional plays especially with OK hands. I played more small pairs cautiously trying to hit a set after the flop. I played A-x and K-x flush possibilities cautiously hoping to get 4 cards to a flush after the flop. These are a new category of hand which I will call "Growing hands" - they have the potential to grow after the flop into Great hands. I also started playing more suited connectors (10-9, 9-8, 8-7) in late position trying to hit a straight. This style started to pay dividends and I started to get into the last 3 or 4 tables of tournaments. I figured it was just a matter of time......
I will update the tournament strategy in a later article because it took a fair bit of effort from going to Step 5 to a consistent tournament winner.
Lesson - positional play
While researching starting hands on the internet and in magazines I become aware of positional play. Some top players stated that position was even more important than the cards you hold. This seems to be a huge part of the strategy of good poker. My understanding of position is very basic but quite effective. Here is my beginners guide for a 9 person table:
Early position - this is the small blind, big blind and one seat to the left of the big blind (seats 1, 2 and 3). In this position I only play 'Great hands' (as listed in my starting hands article) and I play them strong with a 5x big blind raise or all-in depending on my chip stack and (when I am in the blinds) how my opponents have bet in the first round. I do not get sucked in with other hands that will cost me a lot of chips.
Middle position - this is seats 4,5 and 6. In this position I will play 'Great hands' and 'Good hands' strongly but rarely go all-in. I will sometimes limp in with OK hands but only if my chip stack is large. The nice thing about the OK hands is they can turn into 'Great hands' after the flop if I can get to see it cheap. Often though a late position raise will force me to abandon the OK hands before I even get to see the flop. With good hands I want to call a late position raise unless it costs me half my stack or more and then I might fold. I always call with 'Great hands' but will often re-raise all-in.
Late position - this is the last 3 seats (seats 7,8 and 9). The button (seat 9) is the ultimate late position and the best seat on a poker table. Except for the first round of betting the late position player is one of the last to bet and can get a feel for how all the other players view their hands. For example if I am in late position and a few players before me just CALL the big blind they are probably not that strong. If one player before me had raised 3-5x the big blind he probably has a Good or Great hand depending on HIS position. With a few callers before me and the blinds to bet after me in the first round of betting I can often steal the pot just by putting in a 3x big blind bet regardless of the cards I hold. However I like to have at least an OK hand before I try to steal the pot UNLESS I have a large chip stack and can afford the blinds calling me and getting lucky. Often even with useless cards I can limp in with a call when in late position just because it is a powerful place to play the game after the flop. For example if the flop is A-x-x where x is any card and no-one bets much before the action comes to me I can fire a half-pot or pot-sized bet and often win the pot right there even if my cards are rubbish. This is because everyone else at the table will assume I have the Ace and will fold. This is true for any flop that shows a high card, a potential straight or a potential flush combination. Other weak players are always scared I have made the hand and will fold. I am always careful of a call or especially a re-raise from an early or middle position player who might have slow-played their monster hand. Sometimes I try to steal the pot from late position after I see the flop and get called by one of the earlier players. It is interesting how most players seem play the 4th and 5th cards. If I bet big on the flop it is often true that the calling player will then check on the 4th card and allow me a free bet. Or the calling player might make a very small bet allowing me a cheap call. Often they are very worried about the strength of my hand because of my bet on the flop. In this situation, I can take another stab at stealing the pot here by firing off a strong bet OR I can check it down and wait until 5th street until I fire my strong bet. If the 4th street and 5th street cards LOOK like they might have made me a stronger hand I can often make a strong bet on 5th street and avoid the showdown, especially if my opponents check to me at this point. This is the great advantage of late position - I always get to see what the other players do before I do anything. The only thing I think about before I make my move is 'be careful - is the other player trying to trap me'.
One final word on blinds - many players in seats 1 and 2 like to protect their small and big blind. It is ok to try this once in a while but for the most part I just give it up if I have bad cards. When I am a small or big blind I know it is a terrible position to play from post flop because I am the first to act and everyone can make a play on me. The only really effective bet from this position is the massive raise but I often get caught out when I do this unless my cards are one of the 'Great hands'. So I tend to fold a lot of my blinds. The only time when blinds are really important are in the later stages of a tournament where they are very large in relation to your chip stack - at that point I try to protect them but in normal play I just give them up.
Early position - this is the small blind, big blind and one seat to the left of the big blind (seats 1, 2 and 3). In this position I only play 'Great hands' (as listed in my starting hands article) and I play them strong with a 5x big blind raise or all-in depending on my chip stack and (when I am in the blinds) how my opponents have bet in the first round. I do not get sucked in with other hands that will cost me a lot of chips.
Middle position - this is seats 4,5 and 6. In this position I will play 'Great hands' and 'Good hands' strongly but rarely go all-in. I will sometimes limp in with OK hands but only if my chip stack is large. The nice thing about the OK hands is they can turn into 'Great hands' after the flop if I can get to see it cheap. Often though a late position raise will force me to abandon the OK hands before I even get to see the flop. With good hands I want to call a late position raise unless it costs me half my stack or more and then I might fold. I always call with 'Great hands' but will often re-raise all-in.
Late position - this is the last 3 seats (seats 7,8 and 9). The button (seat 9) is the ultimate late position and the best seat on a poker table. Except for the first round of betting the late position player is one of the last to bet and can get a feel for how all the other players view their hands. For example if I am in late position and a few players before me just CALL the big blind they are probably not that strong. If one player before me had raised 3-5x the big blind he probably has a Good or Great hand depending on HIS position. With a few callers before me and the blinds to bet after me in the first round of betting I can often steal the pot just by putting in a 3x big blind bet regardless of the cards I hold. However I like to have at least an OK hand before I try to steal the pot UNLESS I have a large chip stack and can afford the blinds calling me and getting lucky. Often even with useless cards I can limp in with a call when in late position just because it is a powerful place to play the game after the flop. For example if the flop is A-x-x where x is any card and no-one bets much before the action comes to me I can fire a half-pot or pot-sized bet and often win the pot right there even if my cards are rubbish. This is because everyone else at the table will assume I have the Ace and will fold. This is true for any flop that shows a high card, a potential straight or a potential flush combination. Other weak players are always scared I have made the hand and will fold. I am always careful of a call or especially a re-raise from an early or middle position player who might have slow-played their monster hand. Sometimes I try to steal the pot from late position after I see the flop and get called by one of the earlier players. It is interesting how most players seem play the 4th and 5th cards. If I bet big on the flop it is often true that the calling player will then check on the 4th card and allow me a free bet. Or the calling player might make a very small bet allowing me a cheap call. Often they are very worried about the strength of my hand because of my bet on the flop. In this situation, I can take another stab at stealing the pot here by firing off a strong bet OR I can check it down and wait until 5th street until I fire my strong bet. If the 4th street and 5th street cards LOOK like they might have made me a stronger hand I can often make a strong bet on 5th street and avoid the showdown, especially if my opponents check to me at this point. This is the great advantage of late position - I always get to see what the other players do before I do anything. The only thing I think about before I make my move is 'be careful - is the other player trying to trap me'.
One final word on blinds - many players in seats 1 and 2 like to protect their small and big blind. It is ok to try this once in a while but for the most part I just give it up if I have bad cards. When I am a small or big blind I know it is a terrible position to play from post flop because I am the first to act and everyone can make a play on me. The only really effective bet from this position is the massive raise but I often get caught out when I do this unless my cards are one of the 'Great hands'. So I tend to fold a lot of my blinds. The only time when blinds are really important are in the later stages of a tournament where they are very large in relation to your chip stack - at that point I try to protect them but in normal play I just give them up.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Lesson - starting hands
Even basic poker players soon learn that some hands are better than others. My friends 10 year old son knows pocket aces are brilliant and also gets the concept that some combinations of 2 cards are awful. There is a large range of hands in the middle though that would confuse him - is K-6 better than J-9 or is Q-10 unsuited better than 6-5 suited.
I did not start taking much notice of this until I started playing tournaments. I would win a few hands but would sometimes get criticized for being lucky or being a fish. The "experts" playing these tournaments range from young to old, fat to thin, men and women and they all seemed to be in on a secret agreement as to what hands should be played and what should not. And if you played the hands that you should not and you got lucky and won, you were due an insult and some name calling.
To learn this secret I looked on the internet and read some of the poker magazines. Arguably the most useful article for me was in Bluff magazine where they printed out a simple chart of good starting hands. From my research I began to understand that there is a lot of opinions of how good each starting hand is and when you should play it. I used the Bluff chart to help me in my tournament play and it paid huge dividends. Here's how I categorized hands at the very start of my training - note I have made several adjustments since but this was my starting point:
Great hands
AA, KK, A-Ks * note the little s means suited - anything without a little s means unsuited
Good hands
A-K, A-Qs, A-Js, K-Qs, K-Js, QQ, Q-Js, JJ
OK hands
A-10s, A-Q,A-J,K-Q,K-J,Q-J,J-10s,10-10
NoGood hands
all other pairs, all other combinations
Note as I progress through the training. I will explain more about the NoGood hands and why some of them might be good in certain circumstances but this list was my starting point. By only playing these starting hands and betting hard on the Great hands I got much better at tournaments. When I only played these hands in cash games I would often win the pots. The disadvantage of these hands is they do not come up very often which means you have to be very patient in your play.
I did not start taking much notice of this until I started playing tournaments. I would win a few hands but would sometimes get criticized for being lucky or being a fish. The "experts" playing these tournaments range from young to old, fat to thin, men and women and they all seemed to be in on a secret agreement as to what hands should be played and what should not. And if you played the hands that you should not and you got lucky and won, you were due an insult and some name calling.
To learn this secret I looked on the internet and read some of the poker magazines. Arguably the most useful article for me was in Bluff magazine where they printed out a simple chart of good starting hands. From my research I began to understand that there is a lot of opinions of how good each starting hand is and when you should play it. I used the Bluff chart to help me in my tournament play and it paid huge dividends. Here's how I categorized hands at the very start of my training - note I have made several adjustments since but this was my starting point:
Great hands
AA, KK, A-Ks * note the little s means suited - anything without a little s means unsuited
Good hands
A-K, A-Qs, A-Js, K-Qs, K-Js, QQ, Q-Js, JJ
OK hands
A-10s, A-Q,A-J,K-Q,K-J,Q-J,J-10s,10-10
NoGood hands
all other pairs, all other combinations
Note as I progress through the training. I will explain more about the NoGood hands and why some of them might be good in certain circumstances but this list was my starting point. By only playing these starting hands and betting hard on the Great hands I got much better at tournaments. When I only played these hands in cash games I would often win the pots. The disadvantage of these hands is they do not come up very often which means you have to be very patient in your play.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Commuting to poker rooms in California
Its killing me. For years in my computer job I worked towards avoiding the California traffic. I got to the point where I worked 90% from home with very occasional office or client visits. Since my decision in mid-September to become unemployed for a few months and work as a poker player in training my closest friends have laughed at my driving battles getting to and from the card rooms and casinos. I have put more miles on my car in the last 6 weeks than I had in the 6 months prior!!
Oceans 11 have got it right. The tournaments start at 10am in Oceanside which is a 40min drive for me outside of the rush-hour. Of course, that's still 40 minutes more than I used to drive and is each-way. Driving to Inglewood to Hollywood Park casino kills me at any time of day. It is a one hour drive for me in non-rush hour and way longer in rush-hour. Pechanga and Morongo are 1.5 to 2.5 hours drive. Hawaiian Gardens is about 40 minutes drive as is Commerce casino. Basically I have to drive a LOT to train in my new career. And in southern California where we have roads like parking lots it is NOT fun. I love visiting the casinos and card rooms and playing the tables - I just hate getting there and getting home again.
One solution to this is online poker.
Oceans 11 have got it right. The tournaments start at 10am in Oceanside which is a 40min drive for me outside of the rush-hour. Of course, that's still 40 minutes more than I used to drive and is each-way. Driving to Inglewood to Hollywood Park casino kills me at any time of day. It is a one hour drive for me in non-rush hour and way longer in rush-hour. Pechanga and Morongo are 1.5 to 2.5 hours drive. Hawaiian Gardens is about 40 minutes drive as is Commerce casino. Basically I have to drive a LOT to train in my new career. And in southern California where we have roads like parking lots it is NOT fun. I love visiting the casinos and card rooms and playing the tables - I just hate getting there and getting home again.
One solution to this is online poker.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Where to find tournaments in southern California
My new fun hobby is to enter poker tournaments and train myself to become good in poker. To do this I need to find and enter tournaments. Here are the resources I used:
- Oceans 11 in Oceanside - this was the first casino I played a tournament in so I have to mention it. They have flyer's showing the daily tournaments they host (mostly at 10am). They are located really close to the freeway in an ok area (fyi - a lot of casinos seem to be in really dodgy areas).
- Poker player magazine - I picked this up at Oceans 11 and it told me the time and location for a load of tournaments in Southern California and also what type they are - this is an invaluable source of info.
- Cardplayer magazine - monthly magazine with adverts for tournaments and also lists similar to poker player magazine showing where and when tournaments are playing and the buy-in etc. Between this magazine and poker-player you have a pretty good list of tourneys to enter.
I like to enter the Weds tournament at Oceans 11 for $60 and have done since mid-September when I started playing more regularly. The Tues and Thurs tourneys at Oceans 11 are cheaper. There is a nice $20 re-buy tournament at Hawaiian Gardens on Mondays at 1pm. Hollywood Park is a nice casino close to LAX airport and they also do a $20 re-buy Monday thru Friday at 11am.
To anyone like me who is still in training I recommend keeping your entry costs down and entering the cheaper/smaller tournaments before throwing your money away in the big ones.
- Oceans 11 in Oceanside - this was the first casino I played a tournament in so I have to mention it. They have flyer's showing the daily tournaments they host (mostly at 10am). They are located really close to the freeway in an ok area (fyi - a lot of casinos seem to be in really dodgy areas).
- Poker player magazine - I picked this up at Oceans 11 and it told me the time and location for a load of tournaments in Southern California and also what type they are - this is an invaluable source of info.
- Cardplayer magazine - monthly magazine with adverts for tournaments and also lists similar to poker player magazine showing where and when tournaments are playing and the buy-in etc. Between this magazine and poker-player you have a pretty good list of tourneys to enter.
I like to enter the Weds tournament at Oceans 11 for $60 and have done since mid-September when I started playing more regularly. The Tues and Thurs tourneys at Oceans 11 are cheaper. There is a nice $20 re-buy tournament at Hawaiian Gardens on Mondays at 1pm. Hollywood Park is a nice casino close to LAX airport and they also do a $20 re-buy Monday thru Friday at 11am.
To anyone like me who is still in training I recommend keeping your entry costs down and entering the cheaper/smaller tournaments before throwing your money away in the big ones.
Work - it gets in the way
I've always worked hard. Never been unemployed. I started as a trainee and worked my way up to a highly paid consultant. Then I started my own business and won some contracts. Its been very very busy. My personal life started to suffer because I was working too hard. Something changed in late 2006 and I starting scaling back a bit. Then in 2007 it got really busy again. Even though I mostly worked from home I was getting burnt out. Eventually in August 2007 I decided I needed a break. From the years of success I had saved a bit of money. It was time to be "unemployed".....at least for a little while. so as of mid September I stopped working.
Of course poker was part of the reason for this. I had decided that I needed to master the game and work was getting in the way. I needed to enter more tournaments to get some practice. I needed to read some books. I wanted to understand why 50-100 players were so damn good. And I am an entrepreuner - the good players are all releasing books and stuff and making loads of money. Poker is on a huge surge of popularity which is leading to bigger and bigger tournaments. I want to see if I can be a part of it but my work in getting in the way.
So how long to be unemployed for? I figured I needed 3-4 months to train and see if I could become good at poker. Remember my definition - good == positive cashflow. If I fail I will go back to work and have no regrets. But I hope to succeed. And I can measure my success by how far I get in the tournaments I enter.
So it feels good to be unemployed. Nobody is paging me. I have no responsibilities to anyone else (Except my wife). I have a massage a couple of times a week and have booked in some travel. All my friends think I am crazy.....but are also maybe a little interested. Being a trainee professional poker player is definately more of an ice breaker than working with [boring] computers.
Now I can concentrate on learning poker and practicing in tournaments.
Of course poker was part of the reason for this. I had decided that I needed to master the game and work was getting in the way. I needed to enter more tournaments to get some practice. I needed to read some books. I wanted to understand why 50-100 players were so damn good. And I am an entrepreuner - the good players are all releasing books and stuff and making loads of money. Poker is on a huge surge of popularity which is leading to bigger and bigger tournaments. I want to see if I can be a part of it but my work in getting in the way.
So how long to be unemployed for? I figured I needed 3-4 months to train and see if I could become good at poker. Remember my definition - good == positive cashflow. If I fail I will go back to work and have no regrets. But I hope to succeed. And I can measure my success by how far I get in the tournaments I enter.
So it feels good to be unemployed. Nobody is paging me. I have no responsibilities to anyone else (Except my wife). I have a massage a couple of times a week and have booked in some travel. All my friends think I am crazy.....but are also maybe a little interested. Being a trainee professional poker player is definately more of an ice breaker than working with [boring] computers.
Now I can concentrate on learning poker and practicing in tournaments.
Casinos and Card Rooms
I love casinos. I like to gamble - something I have done since being a little kid. Fortunately I have always had a good enough income that I can afford to continue my enjoyment. As a kid in England I played slot machines at fairgrounds and carnivals. When I got older I played slot machines in snooker clubs and pubs that had bigger jackpots. Then in my twenties I would go to small English casinos and play blackjack and roulette. I bought books on these games and educated myself on strategies but always knew the casino had the edge and you would probably lose all your money.
I came to the USA in 1994 and in 1996 lived close enough to the casinos in Atlantic City to visit there occasionally. The books suggested CRAPS had the best odds for the player so I watched that game for a while and figured out how to play it. For me this is the most fun you can have in a casino - throwing dice on a CRAPS table. I also visited Foxwoods casino several times and played the slot machines there. Eventually I took a trip to Las Vegas and loved it. When I moved to California I started making trips to Las Vegas 2 or 3 times a year and always had a great time. But the drive was a slog - surely there was something closer to home.
In 2005, I drove past the Commerce casino on the 5 freeway with its bright lights and glamorous exterior. I had finally found a local casino and decided to visit. When I went in the room was huge and full of poker tables. There were loads of Asian players with huge stacks of chips on the tables. I only had $500 and everyone else in the casino seemed to have thousands of dollars worth of chips. I was intimidated beyond belief. I understood that not all casinos would have slots, roulette and craps but a casino with ONLY poker tables - how pointless was that! Everyone was so much richer than me I was obviously out of my league. So I left. I was disappointed and had left without gambling a penny.
I started hosting a small home poker game for my friends in 2006 and enjoyed it immensely. I thought I was ok at poker and when my brother came to visit we suggested trying to play in a game at a casino. I was convinced it was too rich for us (remembering my Commerce experience where everyone playing seemed to be rich beyond belief) but I still wanted to try it. After researching on the internet we decided to go to Oceans 11 in Oceanside. This is much smaller than Commerce and less intense. We watched players for a while and then found courage to join a game. We played the lowest limit possible and had a fantastic time. Of course we lost all our money! A few months later I visited Oceans again with some out of town friends and played on the same tables. Again I had a good time. This led to us all entering a tournament where for $50 I played for 2 or 3 hours, ate some really good subsidized food and generally had a great time. I was hooked - poker tournaments were to become my new fun hobby.
My younger brother came to visit me early in 2007 and we decided to play some poker in a bunch of other casinos and card-rooms in California. So we entered tournaments in Oceans 11, Hawaiian Gardens, Pechanga, Commerce and other local California casinos. We had a great time but never won anything. Also we met some arrogant players who repeatedly criticized our play and told us how crap we were at poker. I started to pick up on a whole new language of poker terms without knowing what they meant. I decided to do some research on the internet to understand what these other players were talking about. Also in the card rooms there were poker magazines available for free to read. So I read some of these articles trying to learn the lingo. I also started to watch the poker on television - again mainly to understand the terms players were using. However I learnt something else as well.
I concluded from the magazines I read and the television I watched it appears there is a small set of 50-100 players who dominate this game and win massive amounts of prize money. It appears this is a game of skill that can be mastered. The prizes in tournaments seem so huge when compared to the entry fees. What is special about this small group of people? And how do I join their club.....
I came to the USA in 1994 and in 1996 lived close enough to the casinos in Atlantic City to visit there occasionally. The books suggested CRAPS had the best odds for the player so I watched that game for a while and figured out how to play it. For me this is the most fun you can have in a casino - throwing dice on a CRAPS table. I also visited Foxwoods casino several times and played the slot machines there. Eventually I took a trip to Las Vegas and loved it. When I moved to California I started making trips to Las Vegas 2 or 3 times a year and always had a great time. But the drive was a slog - surely there was something closer to home.
In 2005, I drove past the Commerce casino on the 5 freeway with its bright lights and glamorous exterior. I had finally found a local casino and decided to visit. When I went in the room was huge and full of poker tables. There were loads of Asian players with huge stacks of chips on the tables. I only had $500 and everyone else in the casino seemed to have thousands of dollars worth of chips. I was intimidated beyond belief. I understood that not all casinos would have slots, roulette and craps but a casino with ONLY poker tables - how pointless was that! Everyone was so much richer than me I was obviously out of my league. So I left. I was disappointed and had left without gambling a penny.
I started hosting a small home poker game for my friends in 2006 and enjoyed it immensely. I thought I was ok at poker and when my brother came to visit we suggested trying to play in a game at a casino. I was convinced it was too rich for us (remembering my Commerce experience where everyone playing seemed to be rich beyond belief) but I still wanted to try it. After researching on the internet we decided to go to Oceans 11 in Oceanside. This is much smaller than Commerce and less intense. We watched players for a while and then found courage to join a game. We played the lowest limit possible and had a fantastic time. Of course we lost all our money! A few months later I visited Oceans again with some out of town friends and played on the same tables. Again I had a good time. This led to us all entering a tournament where for $50 I played for 2 or 3 hours, ate some really good subsidized food and generally had a great time. I was hooked - poker tournaments were to become my new fun hobby.
My younger brother came to visit me early in 2007 and we decided to play some poker in a bunch of other casinos and card-rooms in California. So we entered tournaments in Oceans 11, Hawaiian Gardens, Pechanga, Commerce and other local California casinos. We had a great time but never won anything. Also we met some arrogant players who repeatedly criticized our play and told us how crap we were at poker. I started to pick up on a whole new language of poker terms without knowing what they meant. I decided to do some research on the internet to understand what these other players were talking about. Also in the card rooms there were poker magazines available for free to read. So I read some of these articles trying to learn the lingo. I also started to watch the poker on television - again mainly to understand the terms players were using. However I learnt something else as well.
I concluded from the magazines I read and the television I watched it appears there is a small set of 50-100 players who dominate this game and win massive amounts of prize money. It appears this is a game of skill that can be mastered. The prizes in tournaments seem so huge when compared to the entry fees. What is special about this small group of people? And how do I join their club.....
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)