Harrier's Blog - Mixed Games & Mixed Drinks

First bounty this year in Badugi tonight. The fact that this is considered anywhere close to a success shows how poorly things are going at the moment. I also came close to cashing once again before getting coolered. Again, this is not normally supposed to be a success, far from it.

5CD has picked up a little, but there is still an annoying amount of bubble finishes. I briefly got back into profit for the year - which, again, is not my standard for success - but we're back in the red by now, continuing to float around the break-even mark.

OFC has stagnated too, only showing some wild swings in both directions.

What good is there to report when it comes to poker? Mostly just the fact that I do, in fact, now have time for it. I am also currently in the process of filling up the rest of my new daily schedule with other useful activities, which should help me to take the lack of success at the tables a little better too.

Ohhhhhh, we got a straight flush! Come on, 5 of Spades! 5 of Spades! Let's go get that double straight flush!

Ah, our opponent had it. Still, we got our flush, so it's all good. Certainly a more than adequate defense against my opponent's Fantasyland.

I usually consider playing against a Fantasyland deal "penalty killing", the goal is mostly just to keep your opponent from overwhelming you, just trying to get something to fight back. But sometimes, like that time, you may even be able to turn the tables. Like scoring a shorthanded goal, so to speak.

Note that I absolutely needed an ace, a five or any spade on that last draw, or my whole hand including that straight flush would have been useless, resulting a scoop against me with a double flush for an 18 point loss. That's the big variance I have been talking about the other day.

Straight flushes are rare enough, but two?
If I wasn't feeling so lazy I would try to calculate the odds of two straight flushes in a group of 17 cards.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Straight flushes are rare enough, but two?
If I wasn't feeling so lazy I would try to calculate the odds of two straight flushes in a group of 17 cards.

The worst (from my point of view) I have seen so far were quads on top of a straight flush in one of my opponents' hands one or two weeks ago.

I ran into a fair share of Royal Flushes recently, and got at least one myself. I remember one instance about a week ago where I was in Fantasyland with quad 2s, and one of my opponents managed to get a backdoor Royal, starting out with only two suited broadway cards. Still, it wasn't as unlikely as it first seemed. I had 14 known cards myself in my Fantasyland deal, and saw 13 other open cards in my other opponent's hand. 11 open cards were in the hand of my first opponent by the time of the last draw, which already only leaves 14 unknown cards to draw from.

In addition to that, my opponent who was drawing for the Royal had discarded three more cards by that point, which surely wouldn't include any of his Royal Flush outs unless he was forced to discard them (because he had drawn them along with two other important cards). The second opponent had made four more discards, and they were not too likely to be among the RF outs either, as those broadway cards tend to be useful and end up being played more often than not. If we include these cards, that only leaves seven more cards to draw from, and with a live draw of three cards, even a one-outer is almost a coinflip, and not even backdoors look so hopeless.

We're back

At long last, a proper success in those Badugi tournaments that I'm able to play now again. Got the chips in good for a >$10 bounty at the final table too, didn't get that one. I don't mind the heads-up loss, I entered it with a huge chip deficit after all, I was very glad to even make it there.

This brings us back to about break-even in MTTs so far this year. We had a lot of ground to make up already.

It was an important cash, I was getting worried that I may have lost my touch in this game after the long break. Badugi is coming home again.

Five Card Draw went well tonight too, so here's another close one with a pat hand:

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

UTG: 1,723 (9 bb)
BU: 4,081 (20 bb)
SB (Hero): 1,570 (8 bb)
BB: 1,626 (8 bb)

Deal: (380) Hero is SB with T♦ T♥ 6♠ 6♦ 6♥
2 players fold, Hero raises to 400, BB 3-bets to 600, Hero 4-bets to 1,550 (all-in), BB calls 950

Draw One: (3,180) T♦ T♥ 6♠ 6♦ 6♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)
SB (Hero) stands pat, BB draws 1

Total pot: 3,180

Showdown:
SB (Hero) shows T♦ T♥ 6♠ 6♦ 6♥ (a full house, Sixes full of Tens)
BB shows 5♣ 5♠ 5♥ Q♥ Q♦ (a full house, Fives full of Queens)
SB (Hero) wins 3,180

Originally posted by Harrier88
Five Card Draw went well tonight too, so here's another close one with a pat hand:
Total pot: 3,180

Showdown:
SB (Hero) shows T♦ T♥ 6♠ 6♦ 6♥ (a full house, Sixes full of Tens)
BB shows 5♣ 5♠ 5♥ Q♥ Q♦ (a full house, Fives full of Queens)
SB (Hero) wins 3,180

he would have had to hit the 5♦: to beat you.

Here's another "what are the odds of that" I would like to look into.
Assume you have any pat hand, vs any player drawing 1, what are the chances of being outdrawn?
Like anything in poker, it depends — If I'm they guy with the pat hand, opponents chances of beating me go waaaay up

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
he would have had to hit the 5♦: to beat you.

Assuming that he started with trips 5s, of course. QQ55x is another possibility, which would give him two outs for a better full house instead.

At least he had no bad reverse implied odds here after hitting the 5 for the weaker full house, since he was already all-in before the draw.

Originally posted by Harrier88

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
he would have had to hit the 5♦: to beat you.

Assuming that he started with trips 5s, of course. QQ55x is another possibility, which would give him two outs for a better full house instead.

At least he had no bad reverse implied odds here after hitting the 5 for the weaker full house, since he was already all-in before the draw.

As far as I can tell, for the past year or so, PokerStars has displayed the drawn card at the end of the held cards. I think (but cannot be sure) that this change came along with Aurora Graphics. I was fairly sure that it wasn't like this before, but once again, that is just my impression

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
As far as I can tell, for the past year or so, PokerStars has displayed the drawn card at the end of the held cards. I think (but cannot be sure) that this change came along with Aurora Graphics. I was fairly sure that it wasn't like this before, but once again, that is just my impression

That's interesting, I should pay attention to that.

Originally posted by Harrier88
That's interesting, I should pay attention to that.

One day it would be fun to get 6 players (or even less) to do an experiment.

Pipped

Fellow Five Card Draw players may be familiar with situations where the second, third... possibly even fourth kicker had to decide the winner of a hand.

Here, we have an interesting variation of this in OFC. We are currently defending against a Fantasyland deal, together with another player. We have aces locked up in the middle and we are drawing to an A-high flush in the back. There is a King on top, and ideally, we would like to draw another King to get to Fantasyland in the next hand, but we absolutely need a club for the flush first, the King is optional.

We didn't get it... but wait, there's an ace! Will it help us? Unfortunately, not quite, as you may have seen already.

The ace would have been very useful if we could successfully fit AAxxx on AAxxx, it would fulfill its main purpose of supporting KKx on top to get us to Fantasyland. But alas... our third kicker is just ever so slightly too low for this to work.

The way I understand the rules, even tying with the middle hand would have been good enough. Oh well, not this time...

Overall, it's still looking good, though. After my latest session, we now passed ₮50 in profit on CoinPoker this year for the first time. Not bad for just 19 days of playing.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Pipped

Fellow Five Card Draw players may be familiar with situations where the second, third... possibly even fourth kicker had to decide the winner of a hand.

I hate it when that happens!

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I hate it when that happens!

Unless we're on the other side of it, of course.

No Badugi tonight due to early tilt. It has happened a lot this year: I get a very good stack in a Five Card Draw SNG, but simply can't close the deal. The shorties just won't get out, and I eventually run into a cooler or suckout that instead puts me into a shortie position myself. Either that, or I "learn" from all those instances and decide to be really tight, in which case my stack just dwindles down while the shorter ones keep doubling-up against each other, and I still end up as the first person to go.

It has happened to an annoyingly high degree already. In tonight's variation, the player in 2nd place did a re-steal with a lower pair than mine and hits a two pair. When I eventually got out, I recognized it as the first tilt domino and cut things short. There was only one Stud8 SNG left, which also ended up bubbling.

I'm starting to have serious doubts about SNGs as a side game, where I'm currently just floating around break-even for the year. Right now, they offer neither the profits nor the traffic nor the enjoyment to make them worthy filler material - in fact, they are currently very weak in all three of these points. The problem is that without them, most of my long-term goals for this year go out the window. I wanted to keep building my bankroll to get ready for shots at 5CD and Stud8 MTTs, which have relatively high buy-ins. How am I supposed to stand any chance in there if I am doing so poorly in the SNGs?

Probably best to stick to Badugi for the time being, even though I'm really over-bankrolled for those games if they are more or less the only thing I'm going to play. I could try to get back into 8-Game, but I don't feel so confident about that either.

I'm not sure what to do, and I'm not sure why I'm feeling so stressed lately either, there is really no reason for it. The new job is going fine so far.

On a positive note, OFC is still going strong. Maybe those games can replace the SNGs, but I think at least Badugi should stay, it has too much of a legacy.

FT in Badugi tonight, finishing 7th for $13.44 including bounties. OFC looked very good too... until that very last session, which wiped out almost all of my profits for the day... Very unlucky...

It's okay, we're still doing well in there overall.

Let's see what next week brings. I think I may be coming down with something, which isn't good, but so far, I don't think it's anything that should prevent me from working.

Originally posted by Harrier88
I think I may be coming down with something, which isn't good, but so far, I don't think it's anything that should prevent me from working.

Yeah, Harrier might have Covid... and nobody cares. The infamous pandemic is now not even a reason to miss work anymore, or to avoid going to the grocery store and getting your bare hands over everything.

We've all been there, I don't even need to point out to what extreme lengths we were expected to go in the last few years to protect ourselves from this virus. You may even remember my Covidissey from just a little over half a year ago. And now that I eventually did get it (possibly), it's hardly worth mentioning anymore, I'm still expected to work and all?

If this was all supposed to be a joke, then I guess you got me - but I'm not laughing.

Of course, I only have this little test to go by, I haven't been to a doctor or so to confirm it - but why would I, if nobody cares anymore? I would still need to keep going on my regular schedule anyway.

I would say that it's time to rest and heal... but honestly, I'm fine. I simply have that feeling of "slowly coming down with a cold". It doesn't even feel like a regular cold. So apart from skipping my trips to the swimming pool this week, I guess things will just carry on like normal.

Now it´s your turn, Harrier! to the club of the "survivors" of that common cold, called Covid.

Originally posted by Harrier88

Originally posted by Harrier88
I think I may be coming down with something, which isn't good, but so far, I don't think it's anything that should prevent me from working.

Yeah, Harrier might have Covid... and nobody cares. The infamous pandemic is now not even a reason to miss work anymore, or to avoid going to the grocery store and getting your bare hands over everything.

I suggest that you wait a day or so then test again. These things occasionally give false positives, and the 2nd line looks rather weak.[1]

On our trip and since I've taken about 10 of these tests, and never once positive. I was quite worried when I had a cold last week, but still OK.

Any we do care — get well soon!

[1]

Thank you for caring. As I said, though, I'm feeling fine. It's not even on a the level of a common cold for me right now.

It's true that the second line is pretty weak, but according to the instructions, any visible marking in this spot should be considered "positive". In the post I linked from last year, it was a tiny shade in that area, likely caused by excess liquid, that started off my "Covidissey".

I could test again tomorrow, or visit a doctor, who should be able to determine these things more accurately. But as I said, it wouldn't matter - even if I do have Covid, I will have to go to work, and nothing changes. The only reason to check it again would be plain curiosity, and I don't think it's worth the effort, and certainly not the time to visit a doc. It really doesn't matter a lot either way.

Besides, I would actually prefer to keep going to work. I like the job, and I'm still very new to this, so I wouldn't want to stay home without a very good reason. It's important to leave a good impression early on.