Harrier's Blog - Mixed Games & Mixed Drinks

TGIF... and today, I have even more of a reason to celebrate, because it's not only the weekend, but also the end of those accursed late shifts - hopefully forever.

Only one more week of the much more tolerable morning shifts, then it's time to start my new job, which should always have me return home in time for lunch. In addition to that, there are some further opportunities opening up for me on the horizon right now, but I'll get to those when the time is right.

I'm getting ready for a full poker grind starting some time next month if everything goes according to plan. In the meantime, I should already be able to add a couple of SNGs, though Badugi will still stay relegated to the weekends for now.

I have grown to like OFC quite a bit too, despite a very bad session at higher stakes just now, which, among other things, had me at the receiving end of a straight flush twice. These games will continue, but they are no longer my only choice.

It's good to be back.

Very tough day at the tables in general yesterday. I guess I was too eager to jump straight back in, having finally found some time for poker.

I should try to take it easy until next month, when the grind can hit full force. Otherwise, I may put myself under too much pressure.

The last few months have been pretty exhausting overall. Mentally, physically... spiritually, if you will. I noticed that I could use some more exercise, and I'm missing organized sports in particular. With only one more week to go at my old job, and no more work in the evenings, I could already start looking for new things to try. A more active lifestyle will bring many benefits in all areas.

I have already been swimming earlier today, and I noticed how good it felt. We finally have some snow here too, so the walk to the pool and back was very pleasant as well, and I always loved swimming indoors when there is snow outside. Also, there are finally no restrictions anymore when it comes to swimming. You still need your membership cards because it is not a commercial pool, but there are no more masks and no limits on how often and how long you may swim. Not that it matters a lot, because the time limit was quite generous to begin with, and I only went swimming on the weekends anyway, but it's still convenient that you can come and go whenever you like, without requiring a registration first.

The left side of the pool was crammed today with kids having some ball games in the water. Looks like they were very happy about their unrestricted access now too.

Tonight started out with a much needed 1st place in a 5CD SNG, briefly putting me back in the black for this month/year, but it was followed by another unlucky 3rd place bubble finish - which is sadly still my most common finishing position this year so far.

As Primrose, who is usually the first to hear about my results, can surely confirm, I still don't have my tilt issues under control in these situations, so they can easily cause a ripple effect. My performance in Stud8 has declined sharply in the last few games.

There are still some good news. I've been playing a longer session of OFC, which eventually became a three-handed game, and together with another reg, we really took that third player to the cleaners. The result was a session with a massive 377 points profit. Even at a quarter of a micro bitcoin per point, I think this would currently amount to about $1.89 - and bitcoin is not nearly as strong as it used to be. It easily offsets my losses from yesterday, that's for sure.

We also now passed the 1K points mark in profit for the year - 1.2K points, even. It was quite a jump. A profit of 316 micro bitcoins is also nothing to sneeze at, bringing us closer to our goal for the year already.

Today's OFC Study Point: Figure out when to go for a flush with the starting deal.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Today's OFC Study Point: Figure out when to go for a flush with the starting deal.

This is a quite common decision to make with the initial five cards, and the source of many beginner's mistakes, so it surely deserves some study.

I may be mostly talking to myself here because hardly any of my readers play this game, but I found it useful for me to write these things down when I did it last time with the two pair dilemma. If you are a random Google user reading this, here are the free OFC strategy tips you've been looking for - now go switch to Brave Search.

Let's consult my study material again for the most common situations, starting with made flushes. All of this assumes no further information about dead outs that may call for a different course of action.

1. A made flush, J-high or lower J♥:8♥:6♥:4♥:3♥:

Our move: Put it in the back.

-
-
J♥:8♥:6♥:4♥:3♥:

Reason: It's a useful hand in the back, earning decent royalties and providing a good base for the middle and top hands, and there is not much else we can do with these cards.

2. A made flush, K-high or Q-high K♥:8♥:6♥:4♥:3♥:

Our move: Put the K or Q on top, put the 4-card flush in the back.

K♥:
-
8♥:6♥:4♥:3♥:

Reason: Even with dead outs, the flush should easily arrive with that many draws left, and the K or Q on top improves our chances of making it to Fantasyland, which should be our goal in most hands.

3. A made K-high flush that contains a Q K♥:Q♥:8♥:6♥:4♥:

Our move: Put the Q on top, the K-high flush draw in the back.

Q♥:
-
K♥:8♥:6♥:4♥:

Reason: The Q on top once again gives us a good shot at Fantasyland, while the K-high flush draw is a good draw that should beat most other flushes when made. Breaking both the K and the Q would waste too many flush outs.

4. A made flush, A-high A♥:8♥:6♥:4♥:3♥:

Our move: Put it in the back.

-
-
A♥:8♥:6♥:4♥:3♥:

Reason: Putting the ace on top or in the middle would rely on too many specific draws to considerably improve our chances of making Fantasyland. An A-high flush in the back will allow us to beat most other flushes there, and possibly allow us to draw for a smaller flush in the middle.

5. A made flush that contains a straight flush draw J♥:8♥:7♥:6♥:5♥:

Our move: Put the straight flush draw in the back. A remaining K or Q will go on top, all other cards in the middle.

-
J♥:
8♥:7♥:6♥:5♥:

Reason: A straight flush or Royal Flush is valuable enough to go for at least one more draw. You can still bail and go for a regular flush or straight if it doesn't arrive.

Four card flush draws coming up next...

Four Card Flushes

1. Any standard 4-card flush and a dangler J♣:8♥:6♥:4♥:2♥:

Our move: Put the 4-card flush in the back. A remaining K or Q will go on top, all other cards in the middle.

-
J♣:
8♥:6♥:4♥:2♥:

Reason: Good draw, not much else to do with those cards. K or Q on top helps with Fantasyland.

2. A 4-card flush that contains KK or QQ K♣:K♥:8♥:6♥:4♥:

Our move: Put the 4-card flush in the back, the other K or Q on top.

K♣:
-
K♥:8♥:6♥:4♥:

Reason: Same as above, and the K-high or Q-high flush should perform well against many other flushes. Putting KK or QQ on top is not a huge mistake, but generally too risky to be worth it.

3. A 4-card flush that contains AA A♣:A♥:8♥:6♥:4♥:

Our move: Put AA in the middle, the remaining 3-card flush in the back.

-
A♣:A♥:
8♥:6♥:4♥:

Reason: AA performs great in the middle, acting as a solid base for Fantasyland cards on top while allowing for a broad range of hands in the back. You could even go for a two pair in the back if the flush draw is not looking good anymore.

Three card flush draws coming soon - possibly not tonight...

Three Card Flushes

Got to them after all - those may be the most common and crucial decisions to make out of all the flush draws.

1. A 3-card flush with two small cards J♥:8♥:6♥:3♣:2♦:

Our move: Put the 3-card flush in the back, the other two cards in the middle.

-
3♣:2♦:
J♥:8♥:6♥:

Reason: The flush draw is the best option in the back unless most outs are dead, and the small cards won't help much on top. Try to make a two pair with them, or leave them dumped there with a better pair.

2. A 3-card flush, a small card and an A, K or Q J♥:8♥:6♥:A♣:2♦:

Our move: Put the 3-card flush in the back, the small card in the middle and the big card on top.

A♣:
2♦:
J♥:8♥:6♥:

Reason: K or Q on top helps with Fantasyland, and so may the ace on top, which may also help us win the top hand unimproved. A single ace in the middle would be too weak to act as a solid base for FL cards on top here. We will try to fill the small card up in the middle, but we can leave it there as a dangler if we draw anything better.

3. A 3-card flush and a pair JJ or lower J♥:8♥:6♥:T♣:T♦:

Our move: Put the 3-card flush in the back, the pair in the middle.

-
T♣:T♦:
J♥:8♥:6♥:

Reason: The pair forms a solid base that will often improve to a two pair, and even trips are possible if we make our flush.

4. A 3-card flush and KK or QQ J♥:8♥:6♥:K♣:K♦:

Our move: Put the 3-card flush in the back, KK or QQ on top.

K♣:K♦:
-
J♥:8♥:6♥:

Reason: The big pair on top is risky, but putting it in the middle would waste too many precious Fantasyland cards. Two pair or better should arrive often enough in the middle to be worth it, and we could even get just AA to support our top pair.

5. A 3-card flush and AA J♥:8♥:6♥:A♣:A♦:

-
A♣:A♦:
J♥:8♥:6♥:

Reason: AA performs excellently in the middle, as explained in the previous post. We can still draw for Fantasyland cards on top now without risk.

6. A 3-card flush and AA, KK or QQ as part of the flush draw A♥:8♥:6♥:A♣:2♦:

Our move: Break the pair. Put the 3-card flush in the back, the big card on top and the small card in the middle.

A♣:
2♦:
A♥:8♥:6♥:

Reason: We would have to rely on multiple two pair draws in order to make it to Fantasyland if we kept the pair. We will not hit all of them often enough to make this a winning strategy, and our made hands may be easily beatable. Drawing to a flush in the back with a big card on top still gives us a decent chance of making FL. Putting the big pair in the back trying to draw for a full house would waste too many FL cards.

7. A 3-card flush and a pair JJ or lower as part of the flush draw J♥:8♥:6♥:J♣:2♦:

Our move: Break the flush draw. Put the pair in the back - the arrangement of the other cards may vary wildly depending on circumstances.

-
8♥:6♥:
J♥:J♣:2♦:

Reason: The non-flush card of the pair will now have little use on top, and putting it in the middle will already take one of its outs for a two pair or better away. With no Fantasyland cards being wasted now, it's better to put the pair in the back, drawing for at least a good two pair, but ideally trips or a full house.

8. A 3-card flush that contains two or more Fantasyland cards A♥:K♥:8♥:3♣:2♦:

Our move: Break the flush draw. Put the lower FL card on top, the higher in the middle. Arrangement of other cards may vary once again.

K♥:
A♥:2♦:
8♥:3♣:

Reason: We need those Fantasyland cards, using them all for drawing two to a flush would be too much of a waste. Better to go for basic two pairs or better, trying to get a cheap FL trip that should pay off later.

Missing the Forest for the Trees

Oh my word! I was racking my brain trying to find a way to incorporate trip Kings at the top here, before eventually deciding on QQJ on top of A2345 on top of KKK66 instead. Luckily, I didn't submit my hand yet after having arranged those cards, because I was missing something very obvious with this kind of constellation.

Still Hungry for Chinese?

My SNG results have been mostly disappointing so far this year, but there has been remarkably consistent success at the OFC tables. We are currently sitting at over 1.5K points in profit over just 41 tables and 23 days played. Our bankroll has climbed to over 800 µBTC, having just about doubled so far this year.

Apart from the results, I have also become pretty confident in my decision-making in this game, so I figured that I might as well take another look at that other crypto site that offers it, which is based on Tether instead. I still have a small bankroll there that had been funded by some clutch freeroll winnings there last year.

That Tether site has much better traffic and stakes, but I never liked the gameplay there very much compared to SwC, where I usually play. It's just way too slow, partially because my opponents just often seem to be annoyingly indecisive, but also because the animations there take longer, there doesn't seem to be a quick function to just place your cards down immediately with a click like on SwC, it looks like drag & drop is the only way to go there. The biggest killer for me, though, is that when one player is in Fantasyland in a 3-handed game, everyone will first have to wait for that player to be done with their hand (which can take a while with 14 cards and plenty of decisions to make), and only then start taking turns to build their own hands. It really drags the games out needlessly, these things all happen simultaneously on SwC instead.

Another factor is that there are no dedicated heads-up tables, and unlike the OFC tables at SwC, they do tend to fill up pretty quickly, once again resulting in those slow-paced games. I already submitted some feedback in which I requested heads-up only tables, maybe I will mention the snail-paced Fantasyland thing as well, but I wouldn't expect much except for some generic "thank you for your suggestion" messages.

Anyway, it may have some tilt-inducing annoyances, but with that kind of traffic, it should really be worth checking out if I intend to make some progress at OFC - and yes, I am slowly developing an appetite for this game after all. Besides, not everyone there appears to have a solid clue how to play. Whenever I censor someone's name like in the case of that Pikachu guy, that usually means that they made a very questionable move.

But now that I mentioned it... it really has been a while since I had some Chinese food...

Oh no you don't!!

Good, he didn't...

But yes, he did have the stones to draw for double quads here.

I had a tough session on SwC tonight. Bad cards, and I was later up against a pretty solid opponent. Still almost break-even there for the day now, but some decent winnings from earlier today are gone.

What I forgot to mention about my short Tether-based action is that this session went very well, I picked up 133 points there - in part thanks to Pikachu above.

I've had bad results on that site last year, so a session like that was a good sign.

I have returned home from my final day at my full time job. Frankly, I don't think it ended a moment too soon.

I remember having referred to this kind of work as "contract work" before, not sure if that's the right term. Basically, you sign up at a company as a worker to be rented out, and the company then finds employers to sell your labor to. Those employers pay your company with some kind of markup, and they in turn pay you.

While it was an excellent way to get your foot in the door and find some work on short notice, I'd say it has been a negative experience, all things considered. It was all right at my first station, from February to August. The commute was manageable, there was plenty of work to do, and seeing all those finished palettes you prepared to be shipped out felt satisfying. Then I was pressured to leave for another employer starting in September, and things went downhill from there.

I was promised better pay, but the extra amount was negligible and basically fizzled down to nothing if you take commuting costs into account - and in the end, I made less than before, because we were constantly being sent home early because there was just nothing to do. Workers were being treated in a really disrespectful manner, and the little work to do felt pointless and tedious. Technical difficulties caused hours of delay, an entire day's worth of pay was lost due to theft, and the long commute made the regular poker grind impossible in week's with late shifts too.

My latest destination was a little better, but the commute may have been even worse, as well as the work hours, which tended to start 30 minutes earlier, so you can forget about doing some proper cooking before. The work itself required little skills beyond grade school level math and felt possibly even more pointless than before. Loads of idle time almost every day. The morale on the team didn't seem to be the best either, I heard constant complaining about this and that all the time - and now I'm doing the same here.

It was really time to look for something else. I quickly learned not just from my own experience that as one of those "cheap" blue-collar laborers, you are expendable, replaceable and exploitable. I heard many other stories, and I'm still in touch with some of my former colleagues. The average dog gets better treatment, your role is more akin to a farmyard animal. And just like a hen would be only good as a source for hot wings after she had laid her final egg, my boss clearly seemed to think that my emails, phone calls and text messages were no longer worth dealing with after I announced my upcoming departure, even though there are still some important unresolved matters to deal with which will likely now have some legal consequences for him.

Anyway, that's done. What happens now? Just a few days of a break, then it's time to start at my new job on February 1st. Still some standard warehouse work, but no more evening shifts, much shorter commutes, and I'm finally in charge of my own labor again. Unless I get into a desperate situation - in which I was at the beginning of last year - I will certainly avoid those companies that rent your work out to others. Also, I will try to do some freelance work as a side hustle.

Opportunities abound, and that is also true for poker. The grind should be just about unimpeded soon. But first, I will need to allow myself some time to get settled into everything - and to get some rest in the next few days.

Onward and upward!
Those labour pool type jobs are a great resource while job hunting, but you're right — they're not good long term

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Onward and upward!
Those labour pool type jobs are a great resource while job hunting, but you're right — they're not good long term

Yes, that is exactly correct. Great to get started, but staying there longer than necessary in my current situation would be pretty much masochistic.

I can still always fall back to it if I were to fall on hard times. As long as I can avoid any serious injuries or getting into big trouble with the law etc, I'd expect that while I may become unemployed again at some point, I should never become unemployable.

Playing Solitaire 'til Dawn...

It was OFC, but that's pretty much competitive solitaire anyway. I knew that I had a week's worth of sleep to regain on last night, and made sure not to reg any MTTs that could last later into the night, because I figured I wouldn't be able to stay focused. And yet, I stayed up until 3 AM, because there was a super fishy OFC table on the Tether website that I just couldn't pass up.

Other players usually leave after a bad round in there, and some of them go on to avoid me entirely from that point on, but these two players kept on and kept on, no matter how much they lost and how long they played. And they even kept playing with each other when I finally did go to bed. The result was an outstanding session with 775 points in profit. Even at those nano stakes where one point corresponds to ₮0.02, this led to a profit of over ₮15, putting my bankroll there, which was funded through rare freeroll winnings, to almost ₮70 now.

This already enables me to take some careful shots at the next highest stakes, where every point is worth ₮0.05 instead - the stakes seem to follow the same pattern as the common Hold'em and Omaha cash limits. OFC was one of the biggest gambling disappointments for me last year, but if things continue like this, it may turn out to be one of the biggest surprises of this year instead. So far, I made a combined profit of over 3K points across both crypto sites this month.

My SNGs, meanwhile, continue to fail. After some bricks in Stud Hi-Lo yesterday, I am now in the red in both formats, and the Stud Hi-Lo SNGs are on a seven games losing streak. It's true that grinding conditions weren't ideal this month, and that my focus shifted to OFC, but this must really improve if these games are to stay in the lineup. Maybe I will give them another month.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Playing Solitaire 'til Dawn...
...with a deck of 51[1]

[1] Smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain Kangaroo

It's nice that I finally had a mini-vacation that really did feel refreshing. First day at the new job tomorrow, let's see how it goes.

This wasn't the ideal month for poker, obviously. My 5CD SNGs are sitting at a loss of $8.07 for the year after 27 games, for an ROI of -14.94%. Stud8 SNGs had a better start, but after the most recent losing streak, we are now also facing a mini-loss of $0.43 there too after 15 games.

Hardly any MTTs at all so far, with only two Badugis and three casual "HORSE Races" with Primrose as part of our Troll Challenges. The only thing coming close to a success was a bounty-less mincash in one Badugi, putting my overall MTT loss at $9.94 so far.

My OFC experiment, meanwhile, is showing a lot of promise, and this is also where I put most of my energy when it comes to poker. At the bitcoin-based SwC site, we finished at 1,468 points in profit for the month over 28 days of playing, amounting to 372 µBTC in profit - which, incidentally, should amount to about $7.44 right now. That's 52 points and 13 µBTC per day.

My focus in this format shifted to CoinPoker recently, which uses Tether, or USDT instead. We have played for only 9 days, but already made 1,887.90 points there, for a profit of ₮38.31. That's 209.77 points and ₮4.26 per day. If this keeps up, OFC really may have a place at the table when it comes to my poker grind. Plus, the traffic is actually a lot better, believe it or not. With OFC on CoinPoker, you can generally expect to find a game soon enough when you're willing to play. This is not the case at all with my mixed games SNGs (or cash games, for that matter) on Pokerstars, where I have sometimes kept the lobby open all afternoon, and hardly even had any players joining, let alone enough to get a table going.

To what degree OFC really will find a place in my grind will remain to be seen, depending on many factors. This includes my future performance both there and in my other games, as well as the kind of poker/work/life balance that I'm going for.

I'm not trying to make too many plans right now. For the time being, I will mostly try to get settled into the new job, try to do well there, and see how much time it will allow for other projects. I will also try to get into sports more and already contacted a few people yesterday, I think we can expect an update there soon.

More stats coming up eventually. I've been meaning to get to some of them a lot earlier and I have collected a bunch of new ones, I hope I will finally be able to present them later this week.

OFC still seems to me a lot like Calvinball
I think that when younger, I might have had a shot at it, but as age increases, my ability to retain large quantities of stuff seems to have diminished.

I bought two pharmacist-recommended supplements that are supposed to help with memory, but I keep forgetting to take them

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I bought two pharmacist-recommended supplements that are supposed to help with memory, but I keep forgetting to take them

Well, at least that means you have an excuse.

OFC is certainly not for the faint of heart, the variance in there cannot be overstated. It is common in many forms of poker to sometimes go for correct draws where all-or-nothing success rides on a >50% shot (or even less in multiway situations). In OFC, you are building three hands at once, and all of them, possibly including some already made hands, may rely on one of those draws. If that one cornerstone card doesn't arrive, even if it was a good draw and the correct decision, all of your hands collapse like a Jenga tower.

Not only that, but any of those crucial draws may also come with a ripple effect due to the importance of Fantasyland. Make that draw, and you won't only win with your big hand, but also unlock Fantasyland on the next deal, earning yourself an excellent chance of scoring another big hit - and possibly another one later on too, if your deal was particularly good. Miss that draw, and your otherwise great hand suddenly becomes worthless, and the potential Fantasyland winnings are gone too. What would have been a series of huge winning pots may now have become a series of huge losing pots instead - all because of that one draw.

It works the other way too: Your opponent may go for some extremely nonsensical draws, but simply get those miracle cards, while your better draws go begging. That happens in all other forms of poker too, but here, your opponent may now also have earned a trip to Fantasyland and set up a massive winning combo, all because of some terrible backdoor runner-runner draw with tons of dead outs.

Big wins and big losses can truly be a hair's breadth apart from each other in this game, I don't think I'm aware of any form of poker where it is that extreme.

That being said, if you do find opponents who have no idea what they are doing, you can gain a massive edge despite the occasional Troll draws - hence my 775 points session last Friday. Against an opponent who plays a similar strategy as you - let alone a better one - it often really becomes pure gambling instead.

Originally posted by Harrier88
That being said, if you do find opponents who have no idea what they are doing, you can gain a massive edge despite the occasional Troll draws - hence my 775 points session last Friday. Against an opponent who plays a similar strategy as you - let alone a better one - it often really becomes pure gambling instead.

Well, speaking of which... I just had a new record profit from a single round, with 172 points earned (out of a possible 200).

Players buy in to OFC tables at this network with 100 points stacks, so losing 100 points at any time during a round is considered busting out, forcing the unlucky player to sit out the rest of the round. It happened to one player here, while the other one lost 72 points against me. Maybe I could have gotten his full stack too if I had made it to Fantasyland in that final hand here - I was drawing live for it.

Stakes were ₮0.02 per point, so nothing big, but ₮3.36 is still quite nifty for one round there. It helped bring our bankroll to over ₮80, and we have now earned over 2K points at this network over 10 days of playing.

Oh, and I even managed to ship a 5CD SNG on Stars, though we're still chasing some losses there this year. Still no success in Badugi - we came close to collecting some bounties, at least, but not close enough yet.

That was close...

Sometimes, the kicker does come in handy.

PokerStars, $1.76 + $0.24 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 25/50 (5 ante) - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 1,185 (24 bb)
CO: 4,235 (85 bb)
BU (Hero): 1,530 (31 bb)
SB: 1,520 (30 bb)
BB: 530 (11 bb)

Deal: (100) Hero is BTN with A♠ 2♠ 7♠ 3♠ K♠
UTG raises to 175, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets to 400, SB calls 375, 1 fold, UTG calls 225

Draw One: (1,275) A♠ 2♠ 7♠ 3♠ K♠ (3 players)
SB draws 1, UTG draws 1, BU (Hero) stands pat
SB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets 1,125 (all-in), SB calls 1,115 (all-in), UTG folds

Total pot: 3,505

Showdown:
BU (Hero) shows A♠ 2♠ 7♠ 3♠ K♠ (a flush, Ace high - higher flush)
SB shows 8♣ 6♣ 2♣ 3♣ A♣ (a flush, Ace high)
BU (Hero) wins 3,505

I broke the bad 5CD SNG streak with a 1st and 2nd place this week, but there is still work to be done. I also managed to play some Badugi MTTs, still no success there. By the end of the month, we better see some success on Pokerstars.

OFC, meanwhile, has just seen a bunch of swings in both directions in the last few days.

Those pat hands vs drawn flushes can get scary. Nice hand