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Originally posted by deralte71
miss this blog:f_drink:
Yup, one of the classics.
I'll still watch it though — ya never know...
I forgot to reply to these posts, but I did actually go down to Dusk till Dawn to play cash at the weekend and came home with a few more £s than I started with, so I thought I should write something. I last played there the week before lockdown started, so almost exactly two years ago. It doesn't seem to have changed much. I didn't play at all during lockdown, not even online. I have played a lot of bridge, and did manage to improve from 'laughably bad' to 'bad' over the course of two years, so well done me. I've been Director of Teaching here since August 2020 (all the professors line up - the slowest to take a step back gets the job - fml), which has been massively stressful because of all the last minute changes to cope with online teaching and assessment and has used most of my mental energy. I've decided to try to retire in three years time if I can afford it (retiring before I get 60 has always been an ambition). Maybe I'll play some more poker then.....who knows.
Anyway, I may make some posts about stuff that happens when I play live if I can think of anything interesting. Maybe I might even meet some people from Pokerstrategy at DTD again so that I can disappoint them with my dull real life persona.
Originally posted by jbpatzer
I forgot to reply to these posts, but I did actually go down to Dusk till Dawn to play cash at the weekend and came home with a few more £s than I started with, so I thought I should write something. I last played there the week before lockdown started, so almost exactly two years ago. It doesn't seem to have changed much. I didn't play at all during lockdown, not even online. I have played a lot of bridge, and did manage to improve from 'laughably bad' to 'bad' over the course of two years, so well done me. I've been Director of Teaching here since August 2020 (all the professors line up - the slowest to take a step back gets the job - fml), which has been massively stressful because of all the last minute changes to cope with online teaching and assessment and has used most of my mental energy. I've decided to try to retire in three years time if I can afford it (retiring before I get 60 has always been an ambition). Maybe I'll play some more poker then.....who knows.Anyway, I may make some posts about stuff that happens when I play live if I can think of anything interesting. Maybe I might even meet some people from Pokerstrategy at DTD again so that I can disappoint them with my dull real life persona.
Hey JB — good to hear from you again...
I avoided bridge during university — people I knew that were far brighter than I flunked out by putting too much of their time in bridge, and not enough in actual work.
Cheers,
VS
Routing for retirement before 60 - otherwise You have to clean out the local Poker Place.
Here's a quick update from my adventures at Dusk Till Dawn. I'm trying to go down there after work every Friday night and play £1/£1. I've managed 13 sessions in the past five months, so it looks like I manage it more often than not. Current results are below. I save what happens in a phone app then download and plot in Matlab. I've assumed I get about 25 hands per hour, so that's about 60 hours of play. I'm obviously on a massive heater, although I suspect I have a decent edge, which can best be characterised by the rule, not observed by my fellow players, 'Play less than 75% of the hands dealt to you'. Having four-tabled Zoom in the past, getting 1500 hands in five months is obviously a slightly different pace, but I really enjoy it. Most people down there are pretty friendly and the only time I've seen any argy bargy at my table is when a couple of Americans turned up to play and started having a pop at each other. Very funny.
I'll try to update with interesting hands now that I'm trying to play every week. Sadly, my memory is not great, and who can be arsed with the whole 'writing down interesting hands' thing. I can't imagine that's really socially acceptable at the table anyway. I'll just try to remember hands that make me look clever, but there may be a long wait. I'm not into the whole 'continuous improvement' thing that characterised my approach ten years ago. I'm just going to play live and put what I've learnt over the years into practice.
Hi jbpatzer,
Great to hear from one of the zimmers!
£1/£1 sounds like comfortable stakes — the best I can find around here is $2/$4
How many at the table? The only time I played $2/$4, there were 8 of us at the table, and almost every hand there were 7 players to the flop in an unraised pot — so I got to see a flop on my BB, I made almost enough to cover the parking.
More so than the poker, I envy you your matlab license...
Cheers,
VS
Glad to see yr still crushing. Time to hide the winnings from the pesky children, or You will be the proud sponsor of clothing You didn't even knew existed.
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
How many at the table? The only time I played $2/$4, there were 8 of us at the table, and almost every hand there were 7 players to the flop in an unraised pot — so I got to see a flop on my BB, I made almost enough to cover the parking.
More so than the poker, I envy you your matlab license...
It is 8 handed, and looking at the current exchange rate, $2/$4 is about £1/£2, which you can also play at DTD. I prefer £1/£1 because (i) you aren't allowed to straddle, which I think is very civilised, (ii) when players bust out of the MTT that's usually running, they often come and sit at a £1/£1 table with fairly small stacks and carry on playing as if it's a tournament (for which apparently the correct strategy is to limp a lot, call a lot, try to make hands and fold if you don't - an approach not without flaws in my opinion, but what do I know.....). And they carry on the same even if they win a few pots, so you can find yourself playing 200+ bb deep against players who think they know what they're doing but mainly don't. I am happy with this situation.
Limped pots are indeed interesting. I have started experimenting with limping my whole range from the first two positions if I think there's a good chance of it not limping all the way round (depends on who's at the table). In one memorable hand after I had just won a big pot with AA in the big blind, I limp reraised A5s UTG and got a full set of folds. The dealer said 'No way was that aces again' and, to my shame, I couldn't resist showing, which I usually try to avoid.
Matlab licence is handy, but you can do most things in a similar way in Python or Julia nowadays, and they're free.
I had a disappointing night at DTD yesterday. I hit my stop-loss limit of -£300 after four hours and went home. One small piece of background is that I had gout in my right toe on Tuesday, my first ever attack of gout (so exciting!). Hello old age. 
After some consultation at work, I found out that this mainly seems to affect the grandparents of my colleagues and PhD students, which is pretty miserable. I got the magic pills from the doctor, which reduced the pain from 'I want to cut my toe off' to 'I have a sore foot' within 24 hours, which was not fast enough to let me get to DTD on Friday, so I went yesterday (Saturday). This may have factored into my miserable evening.
The theme of last night was 'what do you do when you're card dead'. If you're four-tabling Zoom, the answer is pretty obvious. If you're playing 25 hands an hour live with a lot of fish who play 75% of their hands, the answer is less obvious, because there's a social aspect. I think I play about 20% of my hands, so I should be playing, on average, about 20 hands. I think I had three playable hands last night. I had KJo in the hijack, which is close to bottom of range there (I did win a pot with it), 86s from the CO and AA UTG+2. Live poker is unimaginably boring in situations like this, particularly when everybody else is playing away, shaking their heads at the pitiable rock playing no hands. For two hours, I coped fine and still had my starting stack. Then I cracked. I think the arrival of two tournament players who sat on either side of me and proceeded to talk across me for the rest of the evening, along with the after effects of the gout just tipped me over the edge. I started playing some hands that I shouldn't, I think to my credit mainly three betting them, and got set mined three times. It couldn't really have gone much worse. And what happened when I had AA I hear you ask? UTG blind raised to £3 (no straddling allowed at the £1/£1 tables), UTG+1 three bet to £11 and instead of flatting, which given my image at the time I absolutely had to do, I four bet to £33 and everyone tank-folded. The fact that I would have done that with QQ+. AK and A2s-A5s as well is not the point. I find it so hard to make adjustments like that. Anyway, lesson learned. If that happens again I will change seat, change table or just suck it up and carry on playing my game. The edge at this particular game comes from having a stronger range and making better hands than people playing insanely weak ranges, with the occasional judiciously chosen bluff thrown in. It's an exercise in resisting peer-pressure. Just say 'no' kids. Somebody at my table did win £250 on the spin the wheel promotion and bought everyone a drink when he got back to the table. I asked for a nice cup of tea. Tells you all you need to know about me. 
I thought an update might be in order. As you can see from the graph below, I've been rather bumping along for the last few sessions. Last night was very frustrating. It was one of those tables where almost everybody was playing close to any two cards, and calling any initial raise. At one point I open raised to £15 and got 3 callers (remember this is £1/£1). This is fine, but you don't win unless you can make some hands as bluffing into four people is not generally a good idea. Value, value, value, and don't pay off, as a wise man once told me. Speaking of not paying off, here's a hand from last night that I have been fretting about since I got home.
I'm in the big blind and UTG opens to £4, getting four callers, including SB. I have 55 and call. Flop is K77 (don't remember the suits, but I don't think there was a flush draw). It checks round. Turn is a 5. Bingo! SB bets £15 into a pot of £20, I call, hoping for some more callers, but everybody else folds. I started with about £200 and SB, who plays almost every hand, covers me. River is an A, making the board K775A, and I have 55. SB bets £15 again into a pot of about £50, and I raise to £45 (probably too small with hindsight, but I'm targeting a K or a 7), and am feeling very happy until SB jams all in. It's £140 to call with about £250 in the pot. This required me to give it some thought. The problem is that I never have AA, KK or K7 here, so what value hands can I have? Just 55, 77 and 57, and possibly A7s (not calling with A7o preflop. Top tip kids - stop playing raggy Aces OOP and your results will improve, whatever pot odds you're getting). Sadly SB can have A7, K7, 77, 57. My feeling was that, from a theoretical point of view, I have to call, but he has to be capable of taking Kx and turning it into a bluff. I asked him whether he had A7 and he said 'You've got A7?' and looked genuinely worried. This tipped it for me as unless he has the one combo of 77 or an unlikely K7, I'm good, I called. He showed me K7o. Fml. And the worst thing is that my first thought was that nobody here check raises all in on the river without a better full house than mine. Anyway, on we trundle. I'll be back next Friday, then we're going to Scotland for a week off.
It's a new year, so I thought I should do an update. The fact that I've started winning again is also a strong motivator. I haven't had a losing session since November. 
Completely mental session last night. Within the first hour I had made three sets, including twice making top set with KK, and lost to a straight each time which left me £400 down. I should probably have gone home there and then, but I didn't feel like I'd made any mistakes and the table was a fantastic combination of deep stacked, confident that they knew what they were doing and incredibly fishy. Four hours later I was £400 up. At one point I had £900 in chips on the table (max buy in is £150), and I know that taking a photo of my stack is exactly what a complete nob would do, but whatever. I've never had such a big stack before so I wanted a record.
One thing that I have learned since I started doing this regularly last March is that all that stuff you learn about playing heads up pots goes out of the window. If you open UTG, you're going to get at least three callers, and if you don't either make a hand or flop some serious equity, you just have to give up. The odd bluff here and there, the odd bit of bluff catching if nothing makes sense or, as I had last night, if Villain is playing 70% of his hands and always betting. The basic strategy is to make hands and get paid off, which requires some patience, but the cards will come in the end.
A classic example from last night. UTG, who is a complete nit opens and I call in UTG+1 with JJ. Three more callers. Flop comes down AJ5r, which is probably the nut best possible flop for me. UTG cbets, I call, BB calls. Turn is a blank. UTG bets, I call BB raises, UTG folds, I jam, BB calls and shows A9o for top pair and no kicker. Poker is not dead, at least not low stakes live poker anyway.
Ho There jbpatzer!
Good to hear you're doing well at live poker.
Wishing you all the best for 2023
VS
Having now been playing at DTD for more than a year, I thought I should post another update. As you can see, I'm doing alright. I tried to use Excel to plot it this time, but it's done it upside down, so to view the graph properly, please turn your phone upside down or stand on your head. Either way, it mainly goes up, and I can't be bothered to correct it. In fact, looking at it again, it seems to have taken a random set of points and put them between £0 and £2.7K, so I'm not sure any of it is right. But whatever.
If I can get above £3K, I'm going to have a shot at £1/£2, which allows straddles and plays scarily large. The players on the 1/2 tables seem to be of two types (i) competent and (ii) mad, and sometimes both. If I can get there I will have a good look before doing anything to outrageous.
A hand from last night. I open to £4 in the hijack with 5c7c and get three callers, including both blinds. The flop is Ac2c8c. Hurrah! Check, check, I bet £11 into £16 , fold, SB check raises to £25, BB folds. Of course, I can't fold, and I think with hindsight, calling and re-evaluating on the turn is the best approach. Having watched SB play for a bit, I doubt whether he has worse than a set and is heavily weighted towards flushes. Maybe I should fold? Idk. I was bamboozled, so I just jammed for £100ish. He called and showed 3c4c. Can't help thinking I was a tad fortunate, but I HAD A FLUSH!! Calm and logical, as usual. 
Originally posted by jbpatzer
Having now been playing at DTD for more than a year, I thought I should post another update. As you can see, I'm doing alright. I tried to use Excel to plot it this time, but it's done it upside down, so to view the graph properly, please turn your phone upside down or stand on your head. Either way, it mainly goes up, and I can't be bothered to correct it. In fact, looking at it again, it seems to have taken a random set of points and put them between £0 and £2.7K, so I'm not sure any of it is right. But whatever.
So you're clearly using Excel correctly then.
I've been using Excel since before Windows 3.1 and always managed to get it to do what I wanted.
Then I tried to generate 10 million data points of a distribution, and found even the latest Excel can only handle 1 million rows in a sheet.
So I dove into the dark side and used numpy — but wait! — numpy doesn't have a mode function.
Then I find that Excel can find the percentile of a z-score from a population given its mean and standard deviation — but numpy cannot.
I'm glad I know nothing about math(s)