Mind Games

Wow this is quite interesting,
I never saw that second models of phones in my life!

It was a "party line" -- basically everyone's phone was on the same circuit.
If you picked up the receiver and heard someone talking you were supposed to put it down.

We were also cautioned never to say anything private on the phone, since not everyone followed that rule.

When the mine closed in '58 my Dad started to do books for other business so we had money to live on until the mine re-opened, so he applied for and got a private line.

About a couple of years later, all the party lines were gone.

again
So far this SCOOP season I have lost count of how many SCOOP tickets I've won from watching PokerStars' streamers, random draws, 2nd-chance freerolls and woteva.

This is an $11 ticket, and tomorrow is the 5-Card Draw event.

I'll be streaming starting at 18:15 UTC on http://bit.ly/maugr1s

See you there!

I didn't even know the SCOOP was still going...

I better join the 5CD as well, then.

Oh pooh!
I went to warm up this morning for the $11 5-Card draw SCOOP event by playing a satellite.
I ran well: See https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3142096#post3142096 and https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3142099#post3142099

I was dealt QQ33x in my first first hand in the main game, raised pot, got called, but folded to a Squeeze 3Bet.
The hand went to showdown, and the winner had 8866x

I never had a better opportunity.
The few hands I entered after that got outdrawn.
<sigh>

When I got home from shopping yesterday, I saw this on my lawn:

Note: The picture I took sucked, but the one shown was remarkably close

I played the SCOOP $5.50 HORSE event today, and did reasonably well -- lasting all the way through to the end of late registration
That is the first SCOOP tournament where I lasted that long this year, and was so keen on having a good run, but PLO8 did me in.

Anyway, these two consecutive hands brought me from the brink of elimination back into the hunt.
At this point, the average stack is about 44K
Hand #1
Feral Cow Poker
PokerStars Limit Triple Draw ($4.90+$0.60) t1750/t3500 - 6 players

UTG: t49,126
UTG+1: t30,225
CO: t57,432
Button: t33,458
SB: t20,384
BB: t19,964 (Hero)

Dealing Hands: (t2,625) 9♦:K♦:8♥:2♣:5♠: (6 players)
UTG folds, 2 folds, Button raises to t3500, SB folds, Hero calls t1750

First Draw: (t7,875) (2 players)
Hero discards 2, Button stands,
8♥:2♣:5♠: || 3♣:4♥:
Hero checks, Button bets t1750, Hero raises to t3500, Button folds

Hero collected t11375

Hand #2
Following this hand, villain put "fffffffffffffffff" in chat.
I'm not sure what language that is, but he did seem frustrated

beware the feral cow packs. they hunger.
PokerStars Limit Triple Draw ($4.90+$0.60) t1750/t3500 - 6 players

BB: t49,126
UTG: t30,225
UTG+1: t57,432
CO: t28,208
Button: t19,509
SB: t26,089 (Hero)

Dealing Hands: (t2,625) 2♣:7♠:5♠:4♠:5♣: (6 players)
2 folds, CO raises to t3500, Button folds, Hero calls t2625, BB folds

First Draw: (t8,750) (2 players)
Hero discards 1, CO stands,
2♣:7♠:4♠:5♣: || 7♣:
Hero checks, CO bets t1750, Hero calls t1750

Second Draw: (t12,250) (2 players)
Hero discards 1, CO stands,
2♣:7♠:4♠:5♣: || T♦:
Hero checks, CO bets t3500, Hero calls t3500

Third Draw: (t19,250) (2 players)
Hero discards 1, CO stands,
2♣:7♠:4♠:5♣: || 3♥:
Hero bets t3500, CO calls t3500

CO mucked 5♦:9♥:2♥:6♦:3♠:, Lo: 9,6,5,3,2
Hero showed 2♣:7♠:4♠:5♣:3♥:, Lo: 7,5,4,3,2
Hero won t26250

Here is the bustout hand

A very frustrating day on several fronts
 I had an $11 SCOOP ticket that expired today, so I reg'd to SCOOP-121-L. 1hr 34 min into the tournament it froze -- both tables and lobby. No word on what would happen for over 5 hours, then the tournament just disappeared. I had double average stack, and 3 bounties. This is hold'em I'm talking about!

 I have a script I'm writing that does a bunch o' stuff, and one of them automagically unmutes my mic after 5 minutes if I forget t unmute it when I get back from break. The function kept putting the wrong value in the box -- and in over 5 hours I couldn't think of how or why or where that wrong number got there. Fortunately, I wasn't playing poker at the time (see the first point)

I know why the server crashed, and I let PokerStars know. If proven correct, I'll post my thoughts and evidence here.

It wasn't all loss.
The tournament was "rolled forward"

Roll Forward (No Players in the Money): If a tournament is cancelled and we do a "roll forward" before the players are in the money, we refund each remaining player his tournament fee (and knockout bounty if appropriate), and then divide up the prize pool based on the following formula: 50% of the award pool is distributed evenly among all remaining players, and 50% of the award pool is distributed proportionally according to the chip count.

Nice to know...

Cheers,
VS

Follow-up.
I kept the 3 bounties -- they're credited to your account at the time you win them.
The roll-forward payout was 35.77
In the hand history audit the entry is tagged as "Good Will Credit (Admin)"

I'm satisfied. It would have been far better if a staff member could have posted in the table chat at some time letting players know that the game was dead.

That is odd, it's the first time I heard about a tournament crash liek this, but it makes sense I guess, it is online poker after all, I can understand your frustation tho, at least you still got money in the end.

I suppose I'll never get confirmation that my guess was right.
The crash happened when the lobby showed exactly 65,535 players registered.

This is exactly the largest value that a 16-bit integer can hold without rolling over.

In my career as the IT manager of a printing plant I saw such errors crash systems a few different times.

I don't think that is is coincidence. I know that PokerStars has had much larger fields in the past, but I suspect that they have special versions of the server side software for the large-field tournaments, and somebody used the wrong version.

The lobby said maximum 105K entrants, but clearly not.

(and with hands that you hadn't chicken-folded preflop)

I found myself delightfully deep stacked ITM with 3 to go to the first ladder
I had won the $5.00 BI in one of the daily freerolls, and it had to be used today.

Given my tournament and table position, I widened my normally tight range[1] , and had a bit of fun playing table bully.

Pacific Poker - 1200/2400 Ante 300 NL - Holdem - 7 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 28,960
SB: 38,095
Hero (BB): 82,464
UTG: 75,830
UTG+1: 38,435
MP: 84,363
CO: 45,329

7 players post ante of 300, SB posts SB 1,200, Hero posts BB 2,400

Pre Flop: (pot: 5,700) Hero has T♠:8♠:

fold, fold, MP raises to 4,800, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 2,400

Flop: (12,900, 2 players) Q♣:T♥:J♦:
Hero checks, MP bets 4,257, Hero calls 4,257

Turn: (21,414, 2 players) 7♦:
Hero bets 7,066, fold

Hero wins 21,414

To see how the tournament ended up, see https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3146351#post3146351

The downside is that with rungood like that, I'm honour-bound not to whine about luck for a week

[1] At this point in the tournament, my VPIP/PFR is 13/10

but not to see the wizard...

My brother lives 120km from here and tomorrow I'm to take him to hospital for some minor surgery.
The problem is that he has to be at the hospital at 08:00

So my choices are:
A♠:  Leave home at 05:00 to get him then get back to hospital
2♠:  Spend the night at his place and leave at 06:30 to get him there on time.

I'll take 2♠: please Alex...

Oh -- and did I mention that I gibbled my back last week?
Getting in and out of my '94 Civic is a pain in the ass.
Literally.

<sigh>
VS

When our opponents are tight, we loosen up, when they're loose, we tighten up <== Adjust ranges
When our opponents are aggro, we let them build the pot for us, and when they're passive, we build the pot for ourselves. <== Adjust aggression

But how do you adjust your entire attitude?
I've discovered that I hate losing.
What's weird about that?
Well nothing, really, but it can really affect a poker player in seriously negative ways...
 If you fold too many hands to avoid losing small amounts, you'll lose a big amount over time.
 If you avoid playing higher stakes -- even though your BRM can afford them -- then you are losing money even though you're a "winning" player.
 If you are passive when you don't need to be to balance an aggro opponent, they you lose all the money that could have been won with a bet OTT or OTR

I'm sure I'm not alone.
In the past week I've run deep in several tournaments that I never expected to do well in at all -- primarily because they were NLHE.
Because I didn't really expect to win, and because I had won the entry, the loss-avoidance attitude didn't come into play, and yes, maybe I got good cards, but I played more aggressively than usual (especially post-flop).

I was stunned to find that people fold post-flop. They fold a lot post-flop actually, especially if you have a) a big stack and b) a tight image.

I need to work on this, but I'm not exactly sure how...

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I've discovered that I hate losing.

That does surprise me a little to hear, because you usually seem very calm and collected when I see you on stream, no matter if things are going well or not. But I guess that rather than implying indifference, that just means that you're good at keeping a stiff upper lip.

And yes, I can relate to the other things you've mentioned, except for the BRM bit, since this doesn't really apply to mixed games tournaments, where you can only pick from a handful of possible games anyway.

The key to winning at poker is basically just to minimize losses with inferior hands, and to maximize winnings with superior hands. And while the former can be achieved with a cautious playing style, this can seriously hurt your success in the latter. As you correctly pointed out, this is a leak, and it can be a big one. Not just in cash games, where your entire success is essentially measured in the chips you take from the table, but also in tournaments, where the rising blinds virtually apply a "time limit" of sorts. Either way, you only get a limited supply of good hands. It is critical to make them count.

All of this sounds much simpler than it is, as much of the real skill lies in correctly determining when you're ahead or behind, but once you have sharpened those skills, it is important to learn to trust them. One term I have seen many people (including you) use is "embracing variance", and I think it really hits the nail on the head. By playing too cautiously, we might reduce the impact of variance, but what good is that if it only leads to variance-free net losses compared to the more variance-heavy route? What good is avoiding a 50% chance of busting before ITM if it leads to an 80% chance of getting blinded out and a 20% of securing a mere mincash?

I remember a sports equipment commercial from around the 2014 FIFA World Cup that said "There is no greater risk than playing it safe", which illustrates this quite nicely. Obviously, it is also possible to play too recklessly and lose value that way, but for me personally, erring on the side of caution has usually been the bigger problem.

Of course, we all know how painful it can be to lose that big stack after much grinding at the cash table or shortly before the bubble in a tournament, especially if it keeps happening to us within a short period of time. Nevertheless, if it really is the best course of action, we must have the courage to follow it if we want to be successful. I guess this is where the "stiff upper lip" comes in again.

The calmness when I lose a big hand comes from this principle:

I just lost a big pot. That is a problem.
If I lose my cool about it, that is another problem.
One of those I can control

I first noticed I had this ability in the summer of 1986.
We owned a car. A 1980 Chev Citation that we had won in a raffle in 1980.
To this day, it is the only new car we ever owned.

My wife was terrified of crashing it, since she figured I would blow my stack.
I was rather afraid of the same thing, to be truthful about it.

She crashed it.
When she called me I realized I cared about her, and my son who was also in the car.
Nothing I could say could un-crash the car.
I realized it didn't bother me, and this surprised my quite a bit.

I've applied that principle many times in many situations.

but I still hate losing
VS

Hey Napoleon,
Thanks for stopping by,
If you would read this blog from the beginning, you'd realize that I have spent a lot of time analysing my mental game.

Yes, a large part of it is ego.

 I don't think I tilt much -- although every poker player does from time to time whether they admit or not.
 Other player's insults are amusing, but nothing more.
 If I lose 20 bucks in real life, I look for it. On the other hand, I no longer bend over to pick up coins.

All the best,
VS

Had a great stream today, other than I played too passively in the $22 PL Badugi PKO

See: https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3150421#post3150421

Thank you Barry Greenstein!

Pacific Poker - 125/250 Ante 25 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP: 6,544
Hero (MP+1): 6,299
MP+2: 2,291
CO: 2,521
BTN: 5,050
SB: 2,796
BB: 7,188
UTG: 2,624
UTG+1: 5,190

9 players post ante of 25, SB posts SB 125, BB posts BB 250

Pre Flop: (pot: 600) Hero has A♥:A♠:

fold, fold, MP raises to 6,519 and is all-in, Hero calls 6,274 and is all-in, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold

Flop: (13,148, 2 players) K♠:K♦:2♣:

Turn: (13,148, 2 players) T♠:

River: (13,148, 2 players) A♦:

MP shows T♥:T♦: (Full House, Tens full of Kings)
(Pre 19%, Flop 8%, Turn 91%)
Hero shows A♥:A♠: (Full House, Aces full of Kings)
(Pre 81%, Flop 92%, Turn 9%)
Hero wins 13,148