Harrier's Blog - Mixed Games & Mixed Drinks

Originally posted by Kyyberi
It's not enough to play 99% of times your best game, if that 1% kills your profits.

Very true, and the example you gave is from a cash game perspective. In tournaments, it might be even worse in some situations. You can pick up pot after pot and be straight on the road to FT, but if you then go on tilt and somehow blow it before ITM, you get nothing. And if you're playing multiple tournaments at the same time, going on tilt because of something that happened in one of them can end up affecting all of them. I did experience something like that sometimes in the last few days.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
The most common strategy I see in the PL 5-Card Draw and NL 5-Card Draw tournaments is "limp any pair and hope to hit", coupled with "call with any flush or straight draw and hope to hit"

I noticed a lot of open-limping from the SB as well, especially in the later phases, in both the WCOOP side event and the regular tournaments I used to play. It clashes with my standard practice of minraise stealing, which got me a few much needed BBs at the higher blind levels, but also made laydowns more expensive. I still think the benefits of minraising outweigh the drawbacks, but I wondered a few times if there is some merit to limping and seeing what BB does, as so many other people tend to do.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
The real difficulty in playing against those is that you need a strong hand -- Raising AA UTG won't cut it because unless you are the one that hits, it won't stand up.

Well, unless they don't hit either, of course.

Tournaments are horrible mental game wise. The worse your condition is, the bigger the decisions are. And in the FT where monetary value of a decision is huge, you are most tired and gathered negative influences for the whole tournament. It is very rare that you make your best decisions late in a long session.

Originally posted by Harrier88

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
The real difficulty in playing against those is that you need a strong hand -- Raising AA UTG won't cut it because unless you are the one that hits, it won't stand up.

Well, unless they don't hit either, of course.

The odds of improving a pair to at least 2-pair are 2.48:1 ~29% That applies to you and the 5 callers.
So there is a 71% chance villain did not improve either.
With 2 villains, the chances of neither improving are 0.71 * 0.71 or 51%
for 3, it is 36% chance of no-one improving
for 4, 26%
for 5 18%
Lurking in that "at least" are improving the pair to a full house (97:1) or quads (359:1) -- I've done both and both done to me.

The above assumes that no villain kept a kicker.

Originally posted by Kyyberi
Tournaments are horrible mental game wise. The worse your condition is, the bigger the decisions are. And in the FT where monetary value of a decision is huge, you are most tired and gathered negative influences for the whole tournament. It is very rare that you make your best decisions late in a long session.

One bad hand can destroy a whole tournament.

After messing around in some Stud cash games to get a feel for this game, I decided to add Stud tournaments to the schedule for now, in order to learn this game a bit more. I don't expect a ton of potential in those tournaments per se, but getting good at Stud could help my overall plan a lot, so I'm willing to pay a little tuition fee. My first game didn't go all that bad either. I didn't cash, but I finished 18th or so with 11 players played.

Other than that, terrible session. Only got a mincash without bounties in the Badugi which doesn't even cover the buy-in in that game. Terrible results, terrible mental game, and most of the profit since I restarted playing this month is gone now too. Things aren't looking good right now.

It's not even just poker, my mahjong profit from this year, once at over $50, is now almost completely gone as well.

Maybe patience is key in situations like this, but I believe some things need to change too. One thing I can think of is my bad sleep cycle, which still hasn't really recovered from the many night shifts I had to do at my old job. A little more exercise could help too, which is a related issue, since I usually did much of my exercising after getting up - but if I wake up after noon already, then my mind is on lunch instead, considering that grocery trips take about an hour for me.

There are a lot of things to do, but let's take them one at a time...

Sure, poker and a few other things aren't looking too good right now, but there is more pleasant stuff to talk about.

Remember my post about the Blue Gin Kinley? As I mentioned, the recipe came with the box of hurricane glasses I once bought, but there is also a second recipe on it, simply called "Poison":

As you can see, it has a pretty long list of ingredients, including a few less common ones, some of which I didn't have yet when I got the hurricane glasses. By now, my home bar has been expanded quite a bit, so I do have everything on hand, but I still never got around to serving it, mostly because I strongly suspected that it's not a drink I would like. For instance, I strongly dislike pineapple juice, so I don't usually keep it at home unless I know that I will get visitors who will have a craving for it, and it's one of the main ingredients.

However, I was still always curious about this drink, if nothing else just because I like my hurricane glasses and I don't have too many drinks yet that go with it. So with some guests coming over this weekend, I decided that it's time to make it. As with the Blue Gin Kinley, the recipe only lists the ingredients, but not how to make the drink, so I had to come up with my own way. Instinctively, I decided to shake all the non-fizzy ingredients - that is, everything but the sparkling wine - with ice in a shaker, strain it back into the glass, and then just top it up with sparkling wine and give it a final light stir.

After shaking and straining, though, I was surprised at how little it filled the glass, and I wish I would have taken a picture so you could see what I am talking about. I guess it filled up to about the point that you can see in this picture of my Blue Gin Kinley preparation. or maybe slightly higher, but not much. I could have just discarded the rest and filled it up with sparkling wine, but I didn't know about the ratio and feared that the sparkling wine might become too dominant in that case. Eventually, I just decided to pour all the contents of the shaker, including the ice, back into the glass, and then fill it up with a small amount of sparkling wine.

The first question that come to my mind was "is it supposed to be this foamy?". And no, most of it was not due to the sparkling wine, which was simply added on top. The rest of the drink had already come out of the shaker looking about this foamy.

I decided to just stick with it and went to serve it, and the drink was very well received. It looked really lovely in that light in the picture below too, which was taken after the foam had subsided a bit and a few sips had been taken as well:

As an alternative, I guess I could have just poured all the ingredients into the glass to begin with and simply stirred it, which would have resulted in a lot less foam. And while the picture on the box looks a little photoshopped to begin with, the yellowish tinge does suggest that maybe a larger portion of sparkling wine should have been used. Nevertheless, I decided that I kinda liked the foamy head, and I took a little sip from that drink to try it too. Surprisingly, I kinda liked it, even though I usually wouldn't touch something that contained such a large amount of pineapple juice. It has a sweet and quite Caribbean-like exotic taste, with its blend of many fruit flavors and even a hit of coconut thanks to the Malibu. I don't know if I would want to drink an entire 500 ml hurricane glass of it, but I'll happily sip along.

Instead, however, I just made myself a Fernandito yesterday. 50 ml of Fernet Branca filled up with Coca-Cola in a Double Old-Fashioned glass, a surprisingly good fit.

But if you think that those drinks were to blame for my poor results at the tables last night, I doubt it. There had been plenty of time between having those drinks and hitting the tables. If anything, I would blame the fact that I didn't have a single bit of meat to eat that day instead.

That must be the reason: no meat! Absolute No Go! :facepalm::rage:

Originally posted by Harrier88
But if you think that those drinks were to blame for my poor results at the tables last night, I doubt it. There had been plenty of time between having those drinks and hitting the tables. If anything, I would blame the fact that I didn't have a single bit of meat to eat that day instead.

Well you kinda did -- https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/one+man%27s+meat+is+another+man%27s+poison
Perhaps it works the other way around

I often have meatless days, but I'm supposed to have protein with every meal.
Finding palatable protein for breakfast and lunch is often tough...

I'll mix hemp hearts in with my cereal, but they're hard to find in most stores...

Vegetarian meals every now and then are fine for me, but after a while without meat, I really start to notice that something is missing. Besides, vegetarian cooking always makes the house smell like some Sociology student's dorm...

Had a very productive day today, made really great progress with the cleaning at home. It started when I just wanted to clean the ledge next to me for a bit because I noticed that it was filthy, but then I saw other things to do while I'm at it and ended up basically cleaning the entire kitchen. The amount of dust to be cleared was insane, some live spiders had to be escorted outside from some forgotten corners, which also had to be cleaned of cobwebs again, of course. And I was wondering why my laptop monitor collected dust so quickly in that room...

This is actually an important step, because as I pointed out the other day, there is a lot of stuff for me to get in order. And getting things in order can be tough to do when not even your home is in order. It really can affect a lot of things around you.

Didn't take any pictures of it this time, but I did take some pictures of the long overdue haircut I did at home shortly thereafter.

Before:

After:

Looks really good, Harrier (I mean the REAL Harrier)! ♠_thumbsup:♠_cool:

I desperately need a hair cut as well, but I haven't decided yet on which hair...

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I desperately need a hair cut as well, but I haven't decided yet on which hair...

I like that long beard on you, Vorpal. Suits you very well. It´s rare that a man looks good with long beard, but you do! ♠_thumbsup:

Originally posted by Primrose6789

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I desperately need a hair cut as well, but I haven't decided yet on which hair...

I like that long beard on you, Vorpal. Suits you very well. It´s rare that a man looks good with long beard, but you do! ♠_thumbsup:

Awww thanks!
I did get a hair cut yesterday, but it was one of the ones on the back of my head where it won't be so noticeable.

Happy Birthday, Harrier! :heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart:

:heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart:

Awwwwww, thank you so much, Primrose.

As the Grindette has so kindly pointed out, I am turning 32 today.

It may be the worst possible starting hand in heads-up Hold'em, but who cares about those inferior poker variants?

I will have some pleasant dinner some time this weekend, but as for today, not much is planned. There is some stuff to do, the car needs to be checked and I'll need to help with some work at home. There is a pile of demolition waste in our backyard that we have been gradually carrying off for clean disposal every Wednesday including today, so strong backs are needed for that. There will also be practice in the evening, and as much as I'd enjoy to have a slow relaxing evening at home instead, birthdays are no reason to skip practice, but a very good reason to bring some beer.

So there will be no poker tonight either. How did it go recently? Not great. Had a pretty good session on Sunday with a good ITM run in the 8-game and a 5th place in the Badugi, but yesterday was terrible. We're quite a bit behind for this month now again, not to mention that we have a lot of losses to regain from last month as well.

A few decisions have been made. For starters, in order to re-evaluate whether or not Five Card Draw tournaments should be part of my grind, I decided to play $1.50 SNGs instead of the $7.50 MTTs, which I believe was a good move. That way, I could try applying my tournament strategy while risking significantly less money on it and even being able to get a greater volume in each evening. Unfortunately, my doubts had been confirmed. A lot of success really seems to depend on those cooler spots, where both you and your opponent have a good reason to go all-in with your hand and it's mostly down to luck who has the better one. Many of my successful runs this spring had me on the right side of this, many of my bustouts had me on the wrong side. Apart from that, I don't think there is much of an edge to be had by playing better ranges, because not many players seem to have any significant leaks in that area. Again, it mostly seems to come down to multiple perfectly playable hands squaring off against each other, with much resting on the luck of the draw and little information being available to get ahead based on strategy.

So FIve Card Draw is off the grind, I just don't see a big enough edge to be had in there. Instead, I will officially add 8-game to the schedule, and I will adjust my spreadsheet soon to reflect those changes. Right now, the only available tournament I can comfortably play is the $1.10 one which doesn't have a lot of potential for returns, but almost all of my recent runs showed some promise, even if not all of them ended up cashing. 8-game is an interesting format, and if I keep improving, I think it could potentially become a good earner for me as well.

As I mentioned before, I will also keep trying to get into Stud, eventually Stud8 too. Whether or not the dedicated tournaments for those formats will have much value for me, mastering it could significantly improve my chances at 8-game and potentially open the door to HORSE and other mixed games too. I made it a point for now, though, that I should not play the Stud tournaments unless I have done some studying on it the same day and therefore have any concepts to implement, because my current Stud skills simply won't get me very far. I tried once this Sunday, it wasn't very pretty.

So those are some of my plans for the grind. We got a lot of catching up to do, but we'll get there. I have certainly come back from a lot worse.

Originally posted by Harrier88
As the Grindette has so kindly pointed out, I am turning 32 today.

You don't look a day over 31!
Oh wait, you look exactly a day over 31!

Best wishes for today, and many more birthdays!

Am I the only person in this world who kind of enjoys putting together IKEA furniture? I might be. I almost tend to think of them as LEGO sets for adults.

My mother has this lovely area overlooking the backyard in her sort of indoor patio where we would often sit and maybe enjoy some drinks I made whenever I was visiting, and she decided to order some nice armchairs to make it even more comfortable. The first one wasn't a big deal to set up, but the other one was a piece of work today...

Luckily, I brought my anti-tilt mindset and we persevered. Not the best mechanical job maybe, but the chair is standing securely and it is nice and comfy. Why not get some good drinks to sip during our inaugural lounging, I thought.

My mum got a Tequila Sunrise, but I thought it was a bit too summer-like for the lovely dark autumnal weather we would see outside. Since we had some 'mussgo' cream anyway, I instead decided to make me a White Russian.

The White Russian is essentially just a variation of the Black Russian, which consists of 50 ml of vodka and 20 ml of coffee liqueur stirred with ice in a lowball glass. The only difference is that for the White Russian, you would also float some heavy cream on top of it at the end. How much exactly? Well, the official recipe on the IBA website only suggests to "float fresh cream" on top without an exact measurement, while a recipe on the official Kahlúa website recommends using all three ingredients in equal measures. I just balanced the ingredients a little and eyeballed the amount of cream to be floated (which is done by carefully pouring it on top off the back of a spoon).

I've seen some photos which looked like they featured a diffrent ratio of cream, but I thought it was quite nice.

I later stirred it a little with my straw to create this kind of effect:

It was my first go at the White Russian (made the Black Russian a few times before), but I was happy with the result. It was a nice first use for the brand new lounge area too, where the second photo was already taken.

Nights are getting cold in the UK so time to get some Irish coffee's on the go.

Ingredients
1/4 cup chilled heavy cream
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 oz (3 tablespoons) Irish whiskey
3/4 cup hot strong coffee

Nice one, Reds! I definitely plan to make some Irish Coffee this winter. Did you take the photo yourself or is that an online picture for reference?

It seemed like my poker downswing was slowly approaching crisis levels, but tonight, it looked like the winds may be starting to change. While the more expensive tournaments have unfortunately bricked, I managed to outright ship the 8-game! Again, it's just the $1.10, which means that the 1st place is worth "only" $45.04, and I even had to take a second bullet this time, but it does pay for some of the losses of the last few days, where my bankroll lately appeared to be in free fall mode.

But apart from that, it gives me more reasons to feel bullish about 8-game in general. I've been keeping track of my results, of course, and so far I have recorded 27 games this year, 10 of which have been cashed and two of which have been outright shipped so far. Profit and ROI are pretty irrelevant at such a small sample, but especially the two 1st places do suggest some potential, which is quite welcome in these times where I find myself re-examining a lot of my grind.

Hopefully I can keep the momentum from this bink going to start clawing myself out of this downswing, but I mostly look forward to try some new drinks tomorrow. I hope I will be able to present some pictures and possibly some guides too.

There are those tropical cocktails that call for "cream of coconut", which I have heard is not the same as coconut cream, which in turn is not the same as coconut milk.

If that's not confusing enough, there is also the added danger of having some details of this getting lost in translation if I look for this product in the stores over here. A brief look on eBay for reference also suggested that it may not be all that cheap if I do find it.

So instead, I found a recipe online to make my own cream of coconut at home. Luckily, it's just about as easy as making simple syrup, which I have shown before. This time, we'll just use a 400 ml can of coconut milk and a whopping 375 g of sugar, as well as a 1/8 teaspoon of salt (I guess that's about a pinch?).

As with the simple syrup, we will then simply combine the ingredients in a pot and heat it to dissolve.

That really seeems like a lot of sugar, but I'll go with the recipe for now...

...and after it's done, simply pour it into a bottle that you had prepared.

I guess I should have allowed the mixture to cool down first, but whatever, it's cooling down now.

There are a few drinks we could make with this, but let's wait until it cooled down first.