Harrier's Blog - Mixed Games & Mixed Drinks

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Have you ever thought of using something Duolingo to learn Japanese?
I'm currently learning Spanish. They say "for free" but it is worth the $ just to avoid the ads, and the 5min/day the quote just won't cut it. But it would be fun (at least I'm enjoying Spanish) and for you it might even be useful.

Yes, I have considered using Duolingo before, also for other languages. I had a look around for possible privacy concerns and similar stuff, which can be an issue with websites like that which offer services for free, and while I found some stories about things that are not that great, I don't think this website is significantly worse in that regard than many other sites we are all already habitually using, so it should be fine.

I haven't looked too much into their paid premium services before, maybe they could be a way to circumvent some of those issues.

Apart from that, I had a look for a course at the local adult learning center, and there was one, but I think this one was mostly online via video conferences and took several months, so I decided to skip it. Maybe I would have been fine making a commitment like that for a few months if it had been a normal in-person course, but if it's all just online anyway, I thought I might as well look for stuff I can do at my own pace.

Back on the Poker Train

All right, the little Japan trip was fun, and it will continue with the odd cash game every now and then, but other than that, it's back to poker.

I already used the long weekend to collect last month's stats. I also used it get my old Lego train ready, because my nephews will be visiting again next weekend.

Those were the sets I had back then: The Load N' Haul Railroad (4563), the Manual Level Crossing (4539) and the Cargo Station (4555), with the associated vehicles. Also a bunch of rails, of course. The only thing that's missing is one railway wagon, but for such a small track, I think the train is long enough. Most importantly, it is all still working.

Both Lego and electric trains are timeless toys, in my opinion, so if you put both of them together, how could you go wrong? There is a lot of playability with those three sets alone. Just watching the train should be interesting enough for a kid, and with the additional stuff, you can also load and unload containers, and pretend they're going somewhere else.

Anyway, I will be back to dealing with real freight tomorrow, but I will also be back at the tables. The question is, at what tables? SNG results were bad enough last month to make me consider dropping out. But let us look at the long-term stats again:

Five Card Draw is up quite nicely overall, the recent downswing is hardly noticeably in the grand scheme of things - it's nothing compared to the big one in mid-2022, at least. Also, while the high amount of bubble finishes is frustrating, that fact that I'm finishing over 68% of all games in the top half should mean that I am doing something right, especially combined with the overall still good results.

Even if I am not going to play those SNGs anymore, maybe MTTs could be an option after all? Again, I must be doing something right in here.

As for Courchevel, maybe I really was on a heater - but it was a massive one. And there definitely was some bad variance lately. Sure, the heater must have involved some good variance too, but all of it needs to be taken into account, both the good and the bad. And if we add it all up... maybe we could be looking at a small edge after all?

I'm still not sure. Any input on this is more than welcome, but right now, I think I should at least keep giving 5CD a chance.

...What?

Finally got heads-up in a 5CD SNG again. My stack didn't look so good here, but still plenty of room for maneuver if I can get a good hand.

PokerStars, $1.76 + $0.24 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 150/300 (30 ante) - 2 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

SB: 6,640 (22 bb)
BB (Hero): 2,360 (8 bb)

Deal: (510) Hero is BB with Q♣ 2♦ 4♣ T♥ 3♠
SB calls 150, Hero checks

Draw One: (660) Q♣ T♥ T♣ T♠ Q♦ (2 players)
BB (Hero) draws 2d 4c 3s, SB draws 3

All right, we hit a full house against one heads-up opponent drawing 3. Time to punish limpers.

Hero bets 330, SB raises to 900, Hero raises to 2,030 (all-in), SB calls 1,130

Total pot: 4,720

Awesome, we're playing for stacks. Let me just go back to my Discord chat for a second, then let's try to get the rest of his chips too, now that we're in the lead.

Wait, what?? Why didn't I get any hands, and where is everybody? "Close table?" What? You don't seriously mean...

Showdown:
BB (Hero) shows Q♣ T♥ T♣ T♠ Q♦ (a full house, Tens full of Queens)
SB shows J♠ J♥ J♦ 8♠ J♣ (four of a kind, Jacks)
SB wins 4,720

Oh, you have got to be kidding me...

Still, a 2nd place to break the bad streak was good, and I managed to follow up with a 1st place. Badugi only got a $1 bounty without cashing.

Here's a Japanese lesson I would have rather avoided. You see that bit of text above my hand, to the right of the symbol with the "x1" next to it?

It means "Furiten", which is a rule that prevents ready hands from winning off an opponent's discard if you are waiting for a tile you have discarded or turned down before. In this case, I have an open wait for a 6 or 9 of circles, and I have discarded the circles 6 before. I should have paid more attention...

The only way to win at that point is to draw the winning tile yourself, so there is still a chance, but you severely reduce your odds. It didn't go well for me here, and while I broke even in two of my three quick games tonight, I had my first loss by bustout in the other one, costing me $4 and putting me easily in the red.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Showdown:
BB (Hero) shows Q♣ T♥ T♣ T♠ Q♦ (a full house, Tens full of Queens)
SB shows J♠ J♥ J♦ 8♠ J♣ (four of a kind, Jacks)
SB wins 4,720

I so hate it when that happens!

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Originally posted by Harrier88
Showdown:
BB (Hero) shows Q♣ T♥ T♣ T♠ Q♦ (a full house, Tens full of Queens)
SB shows J♠ J♥ J♦ 8♠ J♣ (four of a kind, Jacks)
SB wins 4,720

I so hate it when that happens!

I'm glad that I didn't hit "close table" by accident, as it had happened a few times before. I was really curious what in the world could have beaten me here. Normally, even trips are more than good enough in the heads-up phase. Hitting a good "disguised" full house after drawing 3 should have absolutely sealed the deal. Ideally, my opponent would have been the one drawing trips against it and putting his stack in. Turns out he did a little better.

If I had closed the table before finding it out, I probably would have still wondered today about what he had.

That's more like what I expected in that previous hand:

PokerStars, $1.76 + $0.24 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 75/150 (15 ante) - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 1,175 (8 bb)
CO: 2,580 (17 bb)
BU: 1,076 (7 bb)
SB: 1,459 (10 bb)
BB (Hero): 2,710 (18 bb)

Deal: (300) Hero is BB with Q♣ Q♦ Q♠ 8♠ 6♥
UTG raises to 300, 1 fold, BTN 3-bets to 1,061 (all-in), 1 fold, Hero calls 911, 1 fold

Draw One: (2,572) Q♣ Q♦ Q♠ 6♥ 6♦ (2 players, 1 all-in)
BB (Hero) draws 8s, BU draws 3

Total pot: 2,572

Showdown:
BU shows A♥ A♣ J♣ 2♦ A♠ (three of a kind, Aces)
BB (Hero) shows Q♣ Q♦ Q♠ 6♥ 6♦ (a full house, Queens full of Sixes)
BB (Hero) wins 2,572

And here's another clutch full house, this time from my opponent - which was good, because I couldn't get past a 2nd place anyway.

PokerStars, $1.76 + $0.24 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 100/200 (20 ante) - 3 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

BU: 3,900 (20 bb)
SB (Hero): 3,059 (15 bb)
BB: 2,041 (10 bb)

Deal: (360) Hero is SB with 3♥ 5♣ 9♣ 8♠ Q♠
BTN raises to 400, SB (Hero) folds, BB 3-bets to 1,300, BTN calls 900

Draw One: (2,760) (2 players)
BB stands pat, BU draws 2
BB bets 721 (all-in), BTN calls 721

Total pot: 4,202

Showdown:
BB shows A♦ 8♦ Q♦ 3♦ 5♦ (a flush, Ace high)
BU shows 4♦ 4♣ 4♠ A♥ A♣ (a full house, Fours full of Aces)
BU wins 4,202

Another 1st and 2nd place tonight, which puts me on my best streak so far this year. Badugi bricked, but if I could only have one thing, I guess I would prefer to have the SNG wins at the moment. In MTTs, a single good finish can undo a lot of losses, it takes a lot longer in SNGs. They are also in more need of rescuing right now - not that Badugi is going all that great either so far.

As another Japanese lesson I would have rather missed, tonight I encountered the message that appears when your internet connection commits sudoku in the middle of a game. I lost the screenshot, but it doesn't really matter anyway.

At least I got a pretty cool draw earlier today, with pairs of all three dragon tiles. I managed to get trips of two of them, but couldn't get the third one in time. Had I succeeded to do it, it would have been one of those awesome yakuman hands that get the maximum payout.

I actually played quite a bunch today. Heavy swings in both directions, just as expected, and in the end, I'm just a little above breaking even overall. That's not bad, considering that I had some minor losses to recover from before.

No poker yesterday... but I got destroyed pretty badly at mahjong.

Primrose was railing. She was very supportive, as always, and pointed out the impact of variance once again. I appreciate her support very much, but it should be mentioned that unlike in most versions of poker, I do not have long-term success in mahjong cash games.

How is it going exactly? Let's just take a look, here are all the mahjong games I have played since 2020:

What do we see?

The bad points are that I'm losing overall, and that I have been freefalling since at least early 2022, and to a degree since late 2021. The big dip in mid-2020 should not be overestimated, as I was taking shots at higher stakes there, so it looks worse than it really was.

The good points are that apart from those bad stretches, we can detect some upward momentum, and that I had a particularly good run in 2020, right before the failed shots that wiped most profits away again.

In conclusion, it is not looking good, but not hopeless either. And I think that it should be pointed out that even without the now all-Japanese software client, mahjong is a bit of an uphill battle for westerners like me. The game has been studied in Japan for decades, but remains a curiosity at best over here, with a considerable barrier for entry. There is material to be found to learn the rules and some basic strategy, but other than that, you're mostly on your own. I remember once searching online for strategy advice on three player mahjong in particular, and the first few links led me to my own blog here (an older one).

A bit of a case of "never fight a land war in Asia"? Well, it is true that I do not expect the kind of profit I want to see in poker. In fact, any kind of profit would be a good accomplishment. But even though the odds may not be in my favor here, I think I should stick around, for various reasons.

Firstly, it's a matter of pride once again, like with OFC, where I was also losing pretty badly when I was starting out. That time, I even managed to turn things around - the results are not amazing, but I have long-term profit there. Secondly, the traffic is surprisingly good at certain hours - much better than my poker SNGs at times. And lastly, I think this game could be a good mental game exercise. First and foremost in poker, but also in general. Mahjong comes with its own unique mental challenges, which can be difficult to master - but once I pull it off, I should be ready for most things poker throws at me too.

The last point is something that could be elaborated on at a later point, but for now, let's just say that I intend to continue to stick around in this game, at least to some degree, and I will continue to track my progress. And I even have a new series for it in mind here, also to be revealed later.

Finished 4th in Badugi last night for $19, unfortunately without any bounties. I didn't get around to posting it then because the game went on for much longer than what I was ready for, and I had to urgently hit the bed afterwards.

Five Card Draw SNGs went terribly. The cards just weren't coming, resulting in three losses.

What is going even more poorly is mahjong, where I decided to play some lower limits but still keep getting destroyed. While this is a bit humiliating, let me take this moment to introduce that new series I mentioned:

Simple premise: I just keep tracking my games and compare how they are stacking up against each other. The East has mahjong, and - if it ever returns - Open Face Chinese Poker. The West has all forms of "regular" (i.e. non-Chinese) poker. I plan to do evaluations at the end of the month, as part of my monthly review, with updates along the way.

Making a distinction like this is debatable, as Badugi is said to have origins in Asia - either Korea or Vietnam, depending on the theory, and I heard that OFC has origins in Finland, though it is based on regular Chinese poker, which actually does come from China, as far as I know. Still, I wanted to make it essentially "poker vs. the rest".

Most likely, this will not be an even playing field, and I certainly have much higher expectations of poker than of mahjong, but who knows... if those SNGs are going as poorly as in April, the Eastern games may have a chance, if only by losing less. Of course, I'm rooting for profits in both camps.

East sure has a lot of catching up to do, with it being -$12.24 in the red so far, while West is up $13.92 thanks to last night's Badugi winnings. In fact, this could be a short-lived series if I can't get my act together in mahjong and decide that I'm better off staying away from it altogether. But let's give it a try at least. This is not really about it being a competition anyway, I'm trying to apply some of the things I learned in one game to the other.

Two worlds collide... but hopefully, they can both prosper.

Mahjong could use some help, it seems. Luckily, I discovered another freeroll, which was held at 11 AM today. This is the description in the tournament lobby, which was thankfully copyable, and thus translatable:

The relevant info is that this freeroll is held every Saturday at this time, and that not only one, but two players from each round advance, which should give me a realistic chance at some prize money - albeit a small one. The payout table can be found below, it's like one of those daily freerolls at small poker rooms:

And apparently, the tournament is called the "Flower and Bird Wind Moon Cup"... might as well be the "Word Salad Bowl" from the sounds of it, but it looks like the flower-bird-wind-moon combo is some kind of Japanese phrase for the beauties of nature. If nothing else, this game has been educational so far.

With only four hands to be played in each round and two out of four players at each table advancing, the strategy is usually to just get some quick and cheap hands before everyone else and move on. For this player, however, that wasn't good enough, and he casually used one of those four hands to pick up a yakuman - one of those rare and super expensive hands that I mentioned.

The hand was a so-called Suuankou, which consists of four concealed triplets and a pair. It may sound simple, but concealed trips are not that easy to get, let alone four of them.

So this guy was pretty much through to the next round already, and another opponent had a winning hand before too. Both me and the other losing player went on the attack in the last hand, but our opponents wisely avoided playing into our hands, knowing that all they had to do was to defend their lead. And perhaps ironically, we both waited on the exact same tiles, we had the same draw.

This means another third place bustout in the first round, and no help from this freeroll for the struggling mahjong grind. This seems like a good tournament to play, however, even if I were to eventually give up on the cash games or possibly even go broke at this site. It's fun to play, and it keeps me from oversleeping after a tough week of work, so I can hit the local pool right after the game and make more out of the rest of my Saturdays.

No luck in last night's poker games either, just a mincash in a small $1.10 8-Game MTT that I wanted to try, hoping to possibly get back into this format eventually. I have floated this idea before, but I think that I may really be well-advised to either take poker-breaks on Saturdays, or at least limit my volume on those days. I don't think my mind was in the game yesterday.

For some off-the-felt news, it has been confirmed a few days ago that tennis practice will start for me next week, it will take place on Wednesdays from 6 to 7 PM. I'm excited to see how it goes, and I am looking forward to finally get back into organized sports.

I will continue to take my little aqua gymnastics course on Thursdays, severely reducing the average age in that group, so I guess Wednesday to Thursday will be my scheduled sports days, together with the swimming I intend to do on Saturdays after that new mahjong freeroll. Now that I finally have a schedule like that, I can also try to introduce some more informal exercise sessions during the week. But first, let's get settled into the new stuff.

It's not looking so good after the first week. Here is the current graph:

Maybe I can get a few things going today, but the mahjong trend needs to be corrected if I am to stay in these games, my bankroll there is limited and very difficult to replace. Obviously, it's still very early, but it is not a good start. Poker, of course, is behind expectations in general this year so far, so that one will also need a push in the right direction.

Originally posted by Harrier88
No luck in last night's poker games either, just a mincash in a small $1.10 8-Game MTT that I wanted to try, hoping to possibly get back into this format eventually. I have floated this idea before, but I think that I may really be well-advised to either take poker-breaks on Saturdays, or at least limit my volume on those days. I don't think my mind was in the game yesterday.

I did poorly on Saturdays in the past as well, but even though this past Saturday sucked, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
I realized that the population tendencies on Saturday are different than on other days — in general, players are both "better" and "worse".
The number of better players and the number of worse players both increase. The trick is telling them apart

On Sundays — at least on PokerStars the "better" players are off playing the good tournaments, leaving the weaker pool at the cash game tables.

Sundays tend to be among my better days when it comes to MTTs. I have had some success on Saturdays, but more often than not, I noticed that I'm not on my A-game when I'm playing on Saturday evenings. That is the reason why I consider either taking those days off or only stick to a few certain games.

The entire weekend has been pretty demoralizing when it comes to poker. I'm still struggling to find a good approach for the long run. Badugi will stay, but I am still not sure about Five Card Draw... SNGs are not going very well so far this year, but I have good long term results. MTTs would be interesting, but they are expensive, and I am currently not very well prepared to handle any big swings.

Courchevel will be out, however. I don't think I am much more than a break-even player in there. It may be a better decision to read into Stud Hi-Lo once again, try to regain a foothold there, and then possibly get back into 8-Game too - though I need some serious help in FL Hold'em.

It is a challenging situation, but I better figure something out.

This is how things are going right now:

PokerStars, $1.76 + $0.24 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 15/30 - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 1,650 (55 bb)
MP (Hero): 1,570 (52 bb)
CO: 1,650 (55 bb)
BU: 1,505 (50 bb)
SB: 995 (33 bb)
BB: 1,630 (54 bb)

Deal: (45) Hero is MP with 5♦ 4♠ 6♦ 7♠ 3♠
1 fold, Hero raises to 75, 2 players fold, SB 3-bets to 120, 1 fold, Hero 4-bets to 330, SB 5-bets to 995 (all-in), Hero calls 665

Draw One: (2,020) 5♦ 4♠ 6♦ 7♠ 3♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)
SB stands pat, MP (Hero) stands pat

Total pot: 2,020

Showdown:
SB shows 8♦ 9♦ 5♣ 6♠ 7♦ (a straight, Five to Nine)
MP (Hero) shows 5♦ 4♠ 6♦ 7♠ 3♠ (a straight, Three to Seven)
SB wins 2,020

I think a case could be made to drop the SNG grind entirely. It has too big an impact on my mentality in my other games, and lately, the results aren't there either. But even if things were going okay, there is not a lot of profit to be expected from them anyway. My goal for the year, assuming things were going well, was $200 in profit across all SNGs. So far, I have about $20. That's not a lot over 190 games, it corresponds to a very modest ROI of only around 5.4%.

The SNG was the least of my worries tonight, though. Badugi had a good start with $3 in bounties and a good stack, and then a nasty exit where I committed an even bigger stack to the pot while holding a smooth 8-Badugi while he was drawing 2 - a superb situation, except that he immediately hit a 6-Badugi. I forgot to save the hand before closing the table.

That leaves 8-Game, how did that go? I received this hand during the NL Hold'em part a few places before the bubble:

PokerStars, $0.98 + $0.12 - Hold'em No Limit (8-Game) - 200/400 (60 ante) - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 15,688 (39 bb)
MP: 27,512 (69 bb)
CO: 8,239 (21 bb)
BU (Hero): 5,622 (14 bb)
SB: 9,200 (23 bb)
BB: 24,130 (60 bb)

Pre-Flop: (960) Hero is BTN with K♥ K♠
2 players fold, CO raises to 1,600, Hero 3-bets to 5,562 (all-in), 2 players fold, CO calls 3,962

CO shows Q♥ Q♠

Flop: (12,084) 6♣ 5♣ 9♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (12,084) Q♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (12,084) A♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: 12,084

Showdown:
BU (Hero) shows K♥ K♠ (a pair of Kings)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 82%, Flop: 91%, Turn: 5%, River: 0%)

CO shows Q♥ Q♠ (three of a kind, Queens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 18%, Flop: 9%, Turn: 95%, River: 100%)

CO wins 12,084

It was a challenging situation before, and it didn't get any easier tonight. I can comfort myself knowing that mahjong is going even worse. At least I think so, I actually made a mini profit there today.

Oh boy!
I have been there! Coolers, suck-outs, junk hands. Every poker player has been there. Downswings can be soul-crushing!

Yes, it is tough. I think I should mostly treat SNGs as a testing ground for tournament strategies, which I may then apply in a slightly modified version in MTTs.

I will try to do some reading on Stud Hi-Lo today.

A Visitor!

Completely off-topic, but I was helping my mum move a tomato shelter for our backyard this afternoon, when I stumbled upon a visitor:

It's a raccoon!

What a cutie! Might be a baby raccoon too.

I say it was a lucky raccoon! The downswing will be over now for sure.

Oh, and here's the tomato shelter:

Cute raccoon indeed.
When we first moved here, we had raccoons on our porch every night.
I suspect that the previous occupants fed them.

I haven't seen one in ages.

Rabbits, yes, squirrels, yes — but that is the extent of mammalian wildlife here.

Really: What a cutie!

I got out my copy of the Super System and read up on Stud Hi-Lo today, as intended. It has been a while, so I had to take a few minutes first to refresh my memory on the notes I have taken so far, and the previous sections that I had read before.

I still have to get to the stuff for 4th street and beyond, but just doing strategy reading at all has helped with my mindset, I believe. Normally, it's all results for me, I could have read just about anything about poker theory, I assume, and it would have helped me.

So I was ready to start... but my opponents weren't. The closest we got to a game all night long was when 6 out of 8 players had registered. Eventually, I forgot that I even still the lobby open, but it didn't matter, because a few hours later, only two players were left, including me. Hold'em players - if you think your site has bad traffic, think again.

The $1.10 8-Game MTT should be a better place to practice, and not just for the Stud-based games, but also for the rest. The tournament is not really worth it, but for practice, it will have to do, and the low entry fee can make the almost pointlessly small prize pool tolerable during a downswing like this. Practice, exploration and damage control are the keys now, and for that, this game is good.

Unfortunately, I got far, but not far enough in there for a cash. Putting the chips in good once again in Badugi was also still not enough to make it past the bubble, I got out a few places before it.

Well, keep going...

Off the felt, it will be time for my very first tennis practice tomorrow evening - and I have been informed earlier today that it will even be one-on-one coaching, because all the other players in my group are on vacation right now. Well, all the better.

I have put in a lot of effort in the past trying to find a way to win in games like Badugi, Five Card Draw, OFC and all kinds of other versions, and apart from bad stretches like this, it tends to work somewhat well in general. Maybe I can find a way to win in tennis too, like Andy Roddick in this commercial: