Harrier's Blog - Mixed Games & Mixed Drinks

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I went several months without a deep run in 2-7 SD Then I had several FTs in a row, with 2 2nd's and a bink.
It all comes out in the wash. Fear not

Happened to me several times before in various formats too, of course.

I always try to evaluate whether my lack of success in any particular game was due to bad luck or bad decisions (and also the other way around with my successes, to a degree). I'm not always all that fair to myself, however. For example, I tend to blame losses in mostly card dead games on my decisions, because I then figure that I should have done better with my bad cards. Poker is a money game with cards rather than a card game with money, after all.

What worries me, especially in the 5CD SNGs, is the overall trend, not just in results, but also in the way I see the dynamics of the games, if that makes sense. Sure, people draw out a lot and there are coolers, but I also feel like I don't have such an edge over the player pool anymore. There is a possible reason for that, since Russian players got banned at around the time when I started doing worse in there. Of course, that was also when I started with my full-time job. Still, it's possible that this big shift in the player pool (there were quite a few Russians in there) could have cost me a big chunk of my edge.

I'm a little more optimistic about 8-Game, but as I saw yesterday, it's not the time to get complacent. Badugi shouldn't face too many problems either, I just didn't get a lot of chances to play, and those few games simply didn't always go very well.

Originally posted by Harrier88
I always try to evaluate whether my lack of success in any particular game was due to bad luck or bad decisions (and also the other way around with my successes, to a degree). I'm not always all that fair to myself, however.

Okay, honestly, if I'm losing like I did tonight, there's really nothing I need to beat myself up over:

PokerStars, $1.76 + $0.24 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 100/200 (20 ante) - 4 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG (Hero): 1,805 (9 bb)
BU: 1,190 (6 bb)
SB: 2,675 (13 bb)
BB: 3,330 (17 bb)

Deal: (380) Hero is UTG with 8♣ T♠ 8♠ T♦ T♣
Hero raises to 400, 1 fold, SB calls 300, BB 3-bets to 600, Hero 4-bets to 1,200, 1 fold, BB calls 600

Draw One: (2,880) 8♣ T♠ 8♠ T♦ T♣ (2 players)
BB draws 2, UTG (Hero) stands pat
BB bets 2,110 (all-in), Hero calls 585 (all-in)

Total pot: 4,050

Showdown:
BB shows A♥ A♦ A♣ J♥ J♠ (a full house, Aces full of Jacks)
UTG (Hero) shows 8♣ T♠ 8♠ T♦ T♣ (a full house, Tens full of Eights)
BB wins 4,050

Pretty ridiculous stuff... got out in 4th place there and got a 3rd place finish despite a good chip lead in the other game, after setting up a good all-in check/call spot against a flush draw by a bluff-happy opponent - who happened to hit the flush that time. Then I later failed to double-up back into the game against an opponent nailing a straight draw after going all-in.

This, exactly, is how 5CD losses that are entirely down to bad luck look like.

At least I picked up $1.77 in $0.10/$0.20 FL 5CD cash games - despite losing a big pot early on with predraw trips running into drawn better trips... while discarding the wrong kicker and thereby missing the full house that would have won me the pot instead, and probably at least one extra bet.

Those results aren't what I need right now at all, but let's be real, they were just very unlucky this time. I think I played well. 8-Game tomorrow again, maybe.

My goodness! What a cooler! :f_o::f_o::f_o:

Luckily, I do have something "cooler" today.

Caramel Frappuccino - revisited

Last year, I tried making a Caramel Frappuccino by combining some milk, espresso, caramel sauce and crushed ice in a blender. It was very well received, but I was way off with the measurements. There were loads of extra servings, and I also made a huge mess in the kitchen. Besides, I had to use up a full bottle of caramel sauce...

Still, this summerly drink was so well received that I thought I should keep it in mind and revisit it some time. I already came up with some adjusted serving sizes back then, which I used today. I also came across this:

Caramel syrup by Monin, which is usually a solid choice for syrups of all kinds to put into your mixed drinks. It's even sugar free... I was curious how this frappuccino would fare with this in place of the caramel sauce I used last year.

I tried it out today: 1 shot of espresso, 110 ml milk, 140 ml crushed ice and 70 ml of that new caramel syrup. I tossed it all in a blender and remembered to use the correct setting this time to avoid another devastating tornado in my kitchen like last year.

Those amounts were still enough to fill about a third glass rather than my intended two, but that's not really a problem - I considered it leftovers. The drinks were very good yet again - and even sugar free, apparently, apart from that extra whipped cream I added on top.

I'm sure I'll make those again. Especially because they are pretty simple to prepare.

Originally posted by Harrier88
I'm sure I'll make those again. Especially because they are pretty simple to prepare.

We have no access to espresso at Vorpal Manor, nor caramel syrup, nor whipped cream.
I'll drink black coffee and pretend. After an hour so of playing poker or reading forum posts, the coffee is stone cold.
This is as close as I'll get

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
We have no access to espresso at Vorpal Manor, nor caramel syrup, nor whipped cream.
I'll drink black coffee and pretend. After an hour so of playing poker or reading forum posts, the coffee is stone cold.
This is as close as I'll get
No access to espresso??

Trolls, we need to chip in for Vorpal...

Originally posted by Harrier88
No access to espresso??

Trolls, we need to chip in for Vorpal...

If I understand correctly, we would need an additional appliance.
There is no room on our scant counter space for one.
If there is a way to make espresso some other way, it would be worth a try.
We have one of these:

But I'm pretty sure it would not do for true espresso.

So I looked here:
https://www.amazon.ca/Manual-Espresso-Machines/b?ie=UTF8&node=6647633011
from about 30 bucks to over 2,000 — but I suspect that one isn't "manual"
Seems a lot for something that would be used only occasionally

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
If I understand correctly, we would need an additional appliance.

Not sure about genuine espresso, but what I'm using at home is this:

It's a capsule-based coffee machine, where you'd open up the latch and insert a capsule for the drink of your choice. What I'm using most often is espresso, but there are all kinds of other capsules available. There are other types of coffee, of course, including ones for bigger cups. There is decaf, cappuccino, macchiato (several flavors), café au lait, chai latte, hot cocoa, hot milk, and also tea, among other things. And of course, there are various different kinds of espresso etc too.

I've tried a lot of different stuff, except the tea, because I didn't see the point. I don't have tea very often unless I'm sick and it's really easy to prepare anyway. Maybe I should try it once, just to see what it's like.

It may be pleb, but it's really convenient and the espresso is perfectly fine, as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't even dare to try waking up a few minutes before 5 AM for my early shifts without a double espresso shot...

There was some poker today too. I did play the $7.50 8-Game, but I think my performance was unimpressive. No ITM, of course.

Did I make the correct play here, at least? It was near my exit hand later on, where I believe I made a good preflop all-in, but didn't get lucky:

PokerStars, $6.69 + $0.81 - Omaha Pot Limit (8-Game) - 75/150 - 4 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG (Hero): 4,108 (27 bb)
BU: 3,260 (22 bb)
SB: 6,445 (43 bb)
BB: 3,737 (25 bb)

Pre-Flop: (225) Hero is UTG with T♦ 2♦ 7♠ A♠
Hero raises to 300, BTN calls 300, 1 fold, BB calls 150

Flop: (975) 7♦ 7♣ 4♦ (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 550, BTN calls 550, BB calls 550

Turn: (2,625) 3♦ (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 1,200, BTN calls 1,200, BB calls 1,200

River: (6,225) 6♦ (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, BTN bets 1,210 (all-in), BB calls 1,210, UTG (Hero) folds

Total pot: 8,645

Showdown:
BU shows K♥ K♦ A♦ 4♠ (a flush, Ace high)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 68%, Flop: 29%, Turn: 75%, River: 100%)

BB shows 2♥ Q♦ 7♥ J♥ (three of a kind, Sevens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 32%, Flop: 71%, Turn: 25%, River: 0%)

BU wins 8,645

As for 5CD... it went better. I got pretty lucky especially in one situation in my first SNG, where it was my turn to draw a full house against trips, but as we saw yesterday, it's all part of the game. Four games today saw two 1st places and one 2nd place for $9.43 in profit, my best result for a day since February. FL cash picked up a few chips too.

There will probably be less poker tomorrow, but as long as it's good poker, that's all that matters.

Hmmm,
My daughter-in-law who currently lives in our basement has a capsule-based machine.
I wonder if it does espresso

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Hmmm,
My daughter-in-law who currently lives in our basement has a capsule-based machine.
I wonder if it does espresso

If there's one thing it does, it better be espresso.

Originally posted by Harrier88

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Hmmm,
My daughter-in-law who currently lives in our basement has a capsule-based machine.
I wonder if it does espresso

If there's one thing it does, it better be espresso.
I've not really been a fan of espresso before. Once in a while it is wonderful — every day maybe not so much

Yakuman!

I don't play a lot of mahjong anymore, but getting hands like this is always worth posting about:

This hand, which is referred to as "Thirteen Orphans" in the description here (otherwise known as "Kokushi Musou"), is surely one of the most spectacular hands available in the game. You need one of each wind tile, one of each dragon tile, the 1 and 9 tiles of every suit, and one additional tile of any of those to make a pair (it was the white dragon for me here). Trying to go for this hand goes against pretty much any convention you'd have during "normal" gameplay, where you would usually seek to get trips and sequences, but when you do get this hand, it's worth celebrating.

Still ended up finishing only a little better than break-even over four mahjong games tonight. My poker tournaments completely failed, but Five Card Draw went all right. Got a 2nd place in the one SNG I got running, and I managed to come back from a terrible first cash table where I lost more than 8 big bets to finish a little over break-even in there too.

Not really a financial success tonight, but I think my confidence is slowly starting to come back in 5CD. Also, we got that cool Kokushi today.

I'm sorry, but the suckouts in tonight's Badugi, both of them shortly before the bubble, were just so ridiculous that I simply had to post about them.

PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - Badugi Pot Limit - 300/600 - 7 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 7,075 (12 bb)
MP (Hero): 10,949 (18 bb)
MP+1: 11,117 (19 bb)
CO: 8,717 (15 bb)
BU: 18,460 (31 bb)
SB: 6,694 (11 bb)
BB: 8,544 (14 bb)

Deal: (900) Hero is MP with 8♥ 7♠ 3♦ 6♣
UTG calls 600, Hero raises to 1,500, 2 players fold, BTN calls 1,500, 2 players fold, UTG calls 900

Draw One: (5,400) 8♥ 7♠ 3♦ 6♣ (3 players)
UTG draws 1, MP (Hero) stands pat, BU draws 1
UTG checks, Hero bets 3,600, BU folds, UTG raises to 5,575 (all-in), Hero calls 1,975

Draw Two: (16,550) 8♥ 7♠ 3♦ 6♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)
UTG stands pat, MP (Hero) stands pat

Draw Three: (16,550) (2 players, 1 all-in)
UTG stands pat, MP (Hero) stands pat

Total pot: 16,550

Showdown:
UTG shows A♦ 2♠ 5♥ 3♣ (a Badugi: 5,3,2,A)
MP (Hero) shows 8♥ 7♠ 3♦ 6♣ (a Badugi: 8,7,6,3)
UTG wins 16,550

A few hands later:

PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - Badugi Pot Limit - 300/600 - 7 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 8,117 (14 bb)
MP: 18,460 (31 bb)
MP+1: 6,394 (11 bb)
CO: 7,644 (13 bb)
BU: 16,550 (28 bb)
SB (Hero): 3,274 (5 bb)
BB: 11,117 (19 bb)

Deal: (900) Hero is SB with 3♥ 5♠ 4♣ K♣
UTG calls 600, 4 players fold, Hero raises to 2,400, 1 fold, UTG calls 1,800

Draw One: (5,400) 3♥ 5♠ 4♣ 6♦ (2 players)
SB (Hero) draws Kc, UTG draws 2
Hero bets 874 (all-in), UTG calls 874

Draw Two: (7,148) 3♥ 5♠ 4♣ 6♦ (2 players, 1 all-in)
SB (Hero) stands pat, UTG draws 1

Draw Three: (7,148) (2 players, 1 all-in)
SB (Hero) stands pat, UTG stands pat

Total pot: 7,148

Showdown:
SB (Hero) shows 3♥ 5♠ 4♣ 6♦ (a Badugi: 6,5,4,3)
UTG shows A♥ 5♦ 6♣ 3♠ (a Badugi: 6,5,3,A)
UTG wins 7,148

What a shit day...

So that was pretty crap, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I got the chips in good - very good, in fact - and my opponents sucked out on me twice.

In other formats, however, my terrible results cannot all be blamed on bad luck. I'm talking of course about Five Card Draw.

It should not be too hard to guess that week 10 was the first week of March, where I started working full time, and where the player pool on Pokerstars got severely cut down by suspending all Russian players (maybe that happened in week 11, not sure, but it doesn't make much of a difference anyway). Ever since then, I could hardly put a foot right in those games.

My few cash tables didn't help much either, with no clear edge to be seen.

We could discuss how much more time I should give those games - one week, two weeks, a month... but it's getting increasingly apparent to me that the time to drop those games might be right now. There is not much point in continuing to blow money on those games based on prior successes alone.

Whatever the reason for it may be, it seems clear that I do not have an edge in there anymore, and I don't see any reason why this trend should magically reverse all of a sudden. Unfortunately, my late work shifts next week won't allow any time for MTTs either, so SNGs and cash games are really all that's available to me (apart from mahjong, I guess). If I won't be able to find any other games, maybe 5CD will still have to do on those days, with maybe one or two SNGs per day, which could give me one last chance to keep this format in the grind. There will have to be results by this weekend, however.

Badugi and 8-Game are going poorly right now too, of course, but I still see some potential in them, though I really need to learn to keep it tight in the later Stud phases in 8-Game.

It was a pretty bad weekend for me in general. I really don't want to go to work tomorrow...

Ugly.

Busy week... in fact, it will continue to be busy, with another football game early tomorrow followed by another week of early work shifts.

Haven't had much time for poker. At least there was some minor success in the few SNGs I managed to play, including one Courchevel SNG, but I think I can pretty much forget about FL Five Card Draw cash by now. Sure, I've been pretty card dead and there were the usual coolers and suckouts, but I don't think it's working out at all, I feel like those standard ranges that I've been using all this time are too tight. Can't say I'm too motivated to come up with a new way to make it work when the format seems so gambley and there are only some few $0.10/$0.20 tables with terrible traffic available.

In any case, my profits from the few games this year in this format are just about gone now. Maybe I can get something going in the SNGs, at least, where I'm still sitting comfortably on the winnings from January and February.

However, there is a bigger problem. Check out the traffic at around 18:30 CET today - normally a good time for grinding, especially on a weekend:

That was the cash lobby. Now check out SNGs:

When you try to start a table, it can sometimes take 30 minutes and longer to get it filled. Are you missing the Russians yet?

Compare this to the lobby at my mahjong network at the same time:

Yes, mahjong has much better traffic than poker at the moment. (What do you mean, "there's also Hold'em and Omaha"? Are those even card games?)

Seriously, though, I think I will actually focus a bit more on mahjong for now. I've been usually a break-even player in there in the long run, but yeah, the traffic really is much better. Also, it should be noted that I did finish with slight winnings in there last year, and while I lost a little money in 2020, that was mostly due to a bad run I had when I took a shot at higher stakes.

Poker will stay, obviously. In fact, I miss the grind a lot, I really do. It's too bad I don't have much time for it, and while I'm constantly on the lookout for new job opportunities that may dramatically change the situation, it's possible that things will stay that way until the end of summer or so. In the meantime, I'll try to make the most of it and look for new opportunities there too. My stats in those Courchevel SNGs so far, for example, are actually a lot better than I remembered them to be.

And I can't complain about my mahjong progress so far either. I just got another one of those today:

I explained what this hand was about the other day, so no need to go over it again, but it's pretty cool to receive two of them in such a short time.

Traffic is weird.
Yesterday there was a table of NL 200 5-Card Draw running — sadly it was full, and by the time I had time to play, it was gone.

I can dodge whatever bullets are called in Japanese, baby!
Note: Since I'm sure some of you are curious now, I believe bullets are called "dangan" in Japanese. The Kanji would be 弾丸.

Still extremely busy, but things should calm down this weekend. Nothing is scheduled until Monday apart from another early work shift tomorrow, fingers crossed that it stays that way. I should post an update about my poker plans eventually, including some more stats for April. (Hint: They're not very good)

The Mahjong grind goes on, and I'm still in break-even territory for this year, actually with a small loss now. I'm playing $0.50/$1 and $2/$4 games, and the lower one does have a quite impressive ROI so far, but it's all destroyed by the higher games, which obviously carry a lot more weight being at quadruple the stakes.

We managed to get some cool Kokushi Musous last week, those super expensive non-standard hands involving all 1s and 9s and all special tiles, but like in poker, there is more to the game than just winning hands, sometimes you simply need to get out of the way and avoid big losses.

I had a decent points lead in this hand, where I was one tile away from hitting a Tenpai (i.e. "ready" hand, one that only needs to complete one final draw in order to win). Late in the hand, I drew another East wind tile, which had been played twice by me already (the tiles above my hands are my discard pile), and which had also been discarded by another player early on. In other words, the tile was completely dead - there are only four of its kind in the game, and I just drew the fourth one, there was no possible way for another player to hold another one.

Normally, this would be a clear discard of the East wind. It's useless for my hand, it allows me to keep drawing, and no player could win of it, unless... one of them is going for this rare Kokushi Musou hand, and they are waiting on exactly this East wind, and they are completely ready right now - in which case I would have to pay the price in full and surely lose the game. What are the chances of that?

Without any additional information, they are very low, but look at my opponent's discards:

Discarding a bunch of middle tiles right at the start? Very odd, since they are the most versatile. In fact, they kept discarding those middle tiles, until the last few discards - which makes it even more suspicious, they may have hit their ready hand at that point. Those kinds of discards strongly suggest a Kokushi draw. Better not discard any 1s, 9s, winds or dragons, in this case.

Time to fold, then. I discarded my Bamboo 4, normally an important part of my hand if I was still going to complete it. The reason for this tile in particular was that both of my opponents had discarded it already, thus making it impossible for them to win off it.

The hand ended without a winner soon after that, and guess what...

It was a Kokushi Musou draw. And it was waiting on the last East wind. This would have been crazy expensive for me... but I CAN DODGE BULLETS, BABY!

Actually... viewing it through the hand replayer, which is where I got all those screenshots, revealed that my opponent didn't hit their ready hand until right after I chose not to discard that East wind there, so no, they wouldn't have won off it - in fact, discarding it there would have been a nice troll, since I would have wasted their one remaining miracle tile right before they would have hit one of the best possible hands in the game with it. Also, I ended up finishing 2nd with a small loss in that game anyway. Still, I had the right hunch here, and credit where it's due, right? I did mention something about taking satisfaction in the small victories the other day, I believe.

Also... we did get a Yakuman after all last night!

This one is a Daisangen, or Big Three Dragons. While getting this hand is of course very rare, the concept behind it is very simple: Just get triplets (or quads - they're interchangeable here) of all three dragon tiles in the game and complete any qualifying hand with it. Once you do, you get another Yakuman, which means that it's worth exactly as much as that Kokushi Musou, for example.

If that makes you think that mahjong is going brilliantly for me right now... it's not. But there definitely are some highlights recently, and as I pointed out before, the $0.50/$1 games, which is where this hand happened too, really are going very well so far.