"I get phone calls from big TV stars..."

Curb Your Enthusiasm

The snowstorm kept the tables light at the MHPP tonight--the entire back room was empty--which meant I finally got to start playing 1/2 NL at a decent seat. To my left was a fat Korean kid with a noticeable double jowl--the worst fate for the moon-faced asian male-- who was on horrible tilt when I sat down. He had this hideous stubble sprouting out of his neck in very sparse patches and seeing how much it resembled my own facial hair made me want to shave immediately. The seat to my right was empty, meaning that there was someone in it, but that person only had about $40 in chips and looked like an idiot. The only big stack at the table was some chachi asshole in a black sateen shirt who probably was the worst poker player I've seen at the place. I sat down, waiting for my stomach to calm down, and began folding a bunch of terrible hands.
About twenty minutes in, Richard Kind of Spin City, Mad About You and Curb Your Enthusiasm fame sat down next to me with only $50 in chips. I haven't watched more than a couple episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but apparently Richard Kind is one of the auxiliary characters. I guess he must live in the Upper West Side because a couple months ago, I saw him in front of the filthy Gristedes on 100th and Broadway. Anyway, he was a horrible poker player-- you can't sit down at the 1/2 table without at least $200 in chips, unless you're playing the poker table like a slot machine, hoping to get dealt a massive hand that will pay out big. He played the typical chump role--fidget a lot, frown, limp into pots and then quietly fold when you miss the flops.
The only thing he said to me was, "you sure do mutter a lot to yourself. Is that cause you're good?" My response was to smile nervously.
At some point, he got a phone call on his busted-ass Motorola green-screen phone. He said some things about Los Angeles and golf. When he hung up, he announced to the table, "See guys, I get phone calls from big TV stars..." Which was a really fucking weird thing to say. Everyone already recognized him and the chachi in the sateen shirt had already asked him a bunch of questions about the use of improv in the filming of Curb.
A couple hands after Mr. Kind busted out, restoring order to the table, I picked up A-10 on the button and raised the bet to $7 after the table limped to me. Two people called, including the guy four seats to the right of me. The flop came A-7-9. The first caller checked and the second caller bet $10. The bettor had been limping into every pot and consistently betting the flop, so I thought that he might be representing a 9 or maybe even a middle pocket pair. At best, I thought I had a decent chance that I had him outkicked, given the hands he'd been showing. I re-raised to 40 total, and much to my annoyance, he called. The turn, though, was a great card for me-- a 10--giving me top two pair. The second caller bet $40 and after some acting, I raised him to $80, which was about half of my remaining stack. The second caller paused, looked at his cards and threw all his chips in the pot. I called immediately, thinking that I probably was up against AK or AQ. The dealer dealt the river before we had a chance to flip: a J. The second caller called out his 2 pair and threw A-7 on the table. I turned over my higher two pair, which caused him to curse loudly and punch the table. I took down about a $520 pot.
*-a quick note: the only reason why this was a reasonable call was because I'd been watching the guy for two hours and thought that he'd have just slowplayed a set on the flop the entire way. The $10 bet made me think that he probably had an Ace, at best. I was wrong to raise his bet on the flop, but if he had come back strong over me, I would have immediately folded. I hid a lucky card on the turn and got him to commit all his chips. I'm not saying I played this hand particularly well, but I do think I properly thought it through, given the player. If it had been anyone else at the table, I probably a) wouldn't have reraised the $10 bet and b) would have strongly considered folding the all-in bet, even with 2 pair.
There wasn't much action for the rest of the night. I won 2 pots in the next 2 hours-- one was a top pair on the flop that no one else hit and the other was a steal, probably my best play of the night, when I re-raised sateen shirt with nothing, because I was pretty sure he had missed his flush on the turn. I left at 1 AM up $388.

I suppose if there's any lesson learned over the past week of winning at the MHCC, it's that Hellmuth's book isn't really that bad. I've been playing extremely tight, waiting for big hands, and when I get to see a flop, I usually have the respect to steal if the pot size and my reads are right. I think I probably re-raised at least 4 times tonight, so it wasn't like I was playing passively and just waiting for monster hands to hit. Anyway, I suppose that for this week, at least, my motto is "tight and aggressive..."

winnings: $388
Semi-semi Pro stats to date: $735

2 Hours Hit and Run

This past Friday night, after being on the red end of a violent Scrabble thrashing, I met up with Ark in Union Square and took the subway back up to the West Side poker room. After taking $200 out of my lucky Korean grocery ATM, I sat down at a 1/2 NL table in the back of the main room. The only open seat was to the right of the dealer--a spot that I absolutely hate--especially at an unbalanced table. The three best players, as far as I could tell, were seated in a row to my left, two terrible calling stations were to their left and a couple of young college kids filled out the table. I spent the first few hands contemplating whether or not to get up and try another table, but felt much better after my eighth-or-so hand when I busted a kid out of his last $50--my K-10 diamond flush versus his two middle pair. The kid got up and I sat down in his seat, directly in front of the dealer, with an old, vaguely Eastern European man on tilt to my right (I recognized him from my first trip to the UWS Poker room, when he misread his hand against me, mistaking a diamond for a heart...) and a college kid with a big stack to my left.

For the next hour, I picked up one playable hand (Q-10 S/on the button) which hit Q-9-6 on the flop. The horrifically obese big blind raised to fifteen dollars and the rest of the players folded to me. I did my usual hemming-and-hawing routine, where I grimace while looking at the cards and shoot nervous glances at the other guy. I hadn't played a hand since this guy had sat down, so I didn't think he'd call a raise, especially with the hand I put him on, K-Q or J-Q. There was about $50 in the pot already, so I raised to $45 total. He folded.

A half-hour later, I limped in with 33 in the small blind. The guy three to my left raised to fifteen. Four people called his bet, making it around a $85 pot. I owed $13 into it, which, for a bottom pocket pair, wasn't quite making odds. But I was bored. The flop came out 8-3-J rainbow. With 4 callers of a $15 bet, I knew that I was probably looking at one or possibly two other pocket pairs, so checking could give someone a free shot at their 2 outer. (and a 8-3-J flop had a high chance of checking around, especially at a tight table...) I wanted to chase out other small pocket pairs, hoping to isolate myself against A-J, K-J S, AK or AQ. I bet $10. The pre-flop raiser called. The turn was a Queen. I checked, hoping that the pre-flop raiser had picked up 2 pair, which would force him to re-raise. He raised to $40 immediately. Given his bad position $15 raise pre-flop, I thought this $40 bet meant that he wasn't trying to trap me on the flop, which probably meant AQ. I did a little more acting when the bet came around, before raising to $100, leaving about $50 behind me, and he immediately called. The last card was a 4. After grimacing for effect, I threw the rest of my chips in the pot. The big blind shrugged and called. I flipped over the threes, he flipped over AQ. In retrospect, given the size of the pot and the fact that the Big Blind was a pretty good player, I think this was the best hand I've ever played. I put him on the correct hand and made the right bets to not represent the little set. I wanted him to think that I had hit A-J or K-J on the flop, which, given the betting, is what he thought I had.

ARK and I were already running late, so I decided to just stand up and leave at that point. But I had the button and thought I'd play another hand while I stacked my chips. I looked down at a pair of wired Aces. There were a couple of limpers to the Old Eastern European man, the one who slightly resembled Sam Watterson, who raised to $20. He had about $30 behind him and had gone all-in at least 5 times since I'd sat down, so I thought I'd just put him all in, hoping that some of the players at the table would think I was the type of streak-riding chump who opens way up after winning one big pot. I raised to $50. The table folded to Bulgaria's McCoy, who threw all his chips in. I flipped over the Aces. He had K-J suited. We both missed the flop, the turn and the river. I packed up my $485 in chips and left, forgetting in my haste to tip the dealer.

It's occurred to me here that it's difficult to write well about poker. While the activity has a certain glamour to it, those peripheral details that could be exploited and conflated--the degenerate lives of the players, the clacking of chips, the video cameras everywhere--are not of any interest to the semi-addicted semi-pro. All that seems relevant are reads and math, two subjects that I can only explain in simple, terrible language. I would describe the other players in more detail, but in all honesty, poker is one of the only activities--basketball is the other--where all my observational faculties shut completely off. So, I apologize...

Winnings: $285
Total Semi Pro winnings: $347

REAWAKENING

After some deliberation, I have decided to dedicate this blog to the following four topics: American Idol, poker, squash and fantasy baseball. These four activities have come to consume an embarassing amount of my time; and I've found in the past that writing through some of my stranger obsessions can often be the path to recovery. But first and foremost, it will be a forum for me to complain.

2/23/05
Self-appointed semi-semi-pro status:

At 9:45 last night, I split out on the last ten minutes of the Idol results show to head downtown to the weekly Wednesday UCB Poker Tournament. After purchasing 2 hotdogs and a Mountain Dew at Chelsea Papaya, I headed up to the UCB office, only to find that the tournament had been canceled for the week. Frustrated and bored, I sat down at a bench in the 23rd street 1/9 station and had the following conversation with myself.
"I really wanted to play poker."
"But you have a free night now. You should go home and work on your increasingly failing novel."
"But I had already slated tonight to play poker, so it somehow seems wrong that I don't play poker, actually, perhaps there is a moral element to this, certainly Boethius would disapprove, he would send Lady Philosophy to come down light a fire underneath me, a gambling fire. Also, according to the Bhagavad Gita, if you feel as if it is your duty to play poker tonight, which it is, then you should allow no circumstance or sentimentality to interfere with your duty."
"Yes, you are right. Let's take out $200 and go to the Manhattan Poker Players Club."

The talk around the 1/2 No-Limit Table was mostly about Macaulay Culkin's recent appearance at the club, to participate in one of the club's nightly rebuy No-Limit Hold-Em tournaments. I sat directly to the right of the dealer, a position that I hate because I have terrible eyesight and have trouble reading the flop. Ideally, I like to sit in one of the corners, and from the little that I've observed of the semi-pros at the club (a term which I'll discuss later...), they tend to sit in these positions as well. Everyone at the table looked to be between the ages of 18 and 30, which is usually a good sign that you're going to be up against tight, methodical players. The largest stack at the table was this kid who was a dead ringer for Dustin Diamond. He had about $400, but the rest of the table was sitting somewhere between $50-$300, which meant that my $200 buy-in was relatively well-protected.

On the third hand of the night, after missing a AhKh flop, I was in the big blind with 8-4. The flop came up 8-4-7. The small blind checked and I bet $7. There was one caller, I think, and the guy to the right of the button raised to $15. I put him on A-8, K-8 suited. Had had about $40 behind him, so I pushed him all in. The next two cards were J-J, two horrible cards for me, because they counterfeited my pair of 4s. Of course, because I am a prideful and oftentimes stupid man, it didn't occur to me at the time that I was, at best, looking at a split pot, and more likely, at a situation where I was out-kicked. So, when the kid at the other end of the table blurted out, "I just boated you," and flipped over his J-8, I yelled, "That was a terrible call on your part," and was officially went on tilt.

On tilt, I started playing terrible cards K-Q, A-7, etc. and kept missing flops. After an hour, with only $90 left in front of me, a pro at the club who I will only refer to as The Answer, came and sat down directly to my left. There are several personalities at the club, including the overweight autistic man I played with last time, but few are as compellingly bizarre as The Answer. He is a tiny Chinese man, probably 5'6", 90 pounds, with long, shamanistic hair. At times during the night, he would sit perched on his chair like an owl, with his feet flat on the sitting surface (there must be some better term for this) and his shoulders squared directly over his knees. He hardly said a word throughout the entire time we played, but steadily increased his stack in the true fashion of a patient grinder: someone who has the reads and can play agressively, but would rather just take advantage of bad players.

On the third hand dealt after The Answer's arrival, I was dealt JJ in the cut-off position. I immediately raised to $20. The Answer gave me a quizzical look--if I were Plimpton writing about the great Sidd Finch, I would have called it the look a master Yogi might give his pupil when posing the classic koan question, "How do you get the goose out of a bottle?"--cocked his head back and forth a couple of times, and promptly re-raised me to $50. The rest of the table folded. I deliberated whether I should just push in my remaining $70, but didn't, because the only hand he could have been representing there, in which I would have been ahead, would have been AK. I didn't put him on AK, so I knew I was probably slaughtered. But I called the bet anyway, because I had no idea how this guy played at that point, except that he was a pro, and I was worried that he might be bullying me off the best hand. The flop, of course, came K-Q-7, which is probably the worst flop that can come for pocket jacks against a re-raise. I checked, The Answer bet $50 and I folded. A few hands later, I went all-in on pocket 7s. When a guy in late position called me--after about 2 minutes of deliberation--I thought I at least had a race, probably 77 vs. A-Q. But--not that it really mattered--my read was wrong as he flipped over pocket 10s, busting me out of my first $200.

I took a walk around the block, already knowing that I'd hit up the ATM in the Korean grocery downstairs, but as I turned the corner on 71st, I realized that I had never really gotten off tilt from that first bad beat. At a 10 person No-Limit table, my style is generally to patiently wait for a top 10 hand, to sit for at least 2 hours to get a feel for the players at the table, and to start betting bigger once I feel confident about my reads. But after getting "boated" by someone who hit 2 out of his 3 outs, I immediately went into "scared and angry" mode. The correct play against The Answer would have either been to fold or to push all-in. If I pushed, I would have at least gotten him off a bluff. At worst, if he had an overpair, I'd be drawing 4:1 into a pretty decent two-way pot, which, given my chip stack at the time, probably wasn't as bad as it sounds. By just calling his re-raise and then checking the K-Q-7, I was basically just giving up my $50 pre-flop bet. If I weren't scared, I would've pushed. If I weren't angry, I would have folded when he re-raised.

When I got back to the table, a corner position had opened up on a side of the table that was filled with young college kids. I changed seats and was immediately dealt pocket Aces in bad position. I raised to $6, hoping to entice a re-raise. The guy immediately to my right re-raised to $25 and after some acting--I kept checking my cards and grimacing, as if I had some tough decision to make, an act which I hoped would cause him to think I was sitting on AK--I re-raised to $50, hoping that he had pocket Kings and would push all-in. When the button called my re-raise, I pretty much jumped out of my chair, anticipating 3-way action and a massive pot. The guy to my right folded his AK, meaning that he didn't buy my whole act. The flop came J-8-4 and I pushed all in. The button shrugged his shoulders, said, "what the hell," and pushed all in as well, slipping over a K-9 suited. The next two cards were rags and I took down about a $360 pot. After that, I started playing much better, was much more confident in my reads and built up another $100, leaving at 4 AM with $460, or $60 above my buy-in.

Anyway, the whole experience convinced me that I probably have a gambling problem--had the club not closed at 4, I would have stayed until 6 AM. And the fact that I, who am unwilling to pay 25 more cents to have plantains added to my $4 rice and beans lunch special, would be willing to wager 1/3 of my total worth at a poker table suggests a deepening addiction and a loss of rationality.

But (to quote Mark Slouka, that ass...) here's the thing: I think I'm a pretty decent poker player, at least for someone who has played somewhat sporadically for only a year. And given the long hours I put in staring at a computer, trying to save my novel from its imminent failure, I feel as if I need some sort of adrenaline release. And Idol 3 times a week just doesn't quite cut it.

So, with all this in mind, I declare my semi-semi-pro poker status, meaning that I will play in my Monday $10 game with Jewmanji, on Wednesday nights at the UCB and once every two weeks, I will either go to the Manhattan Poker Club, or I will play in a 3/6 limit game. I will be using this blog to track my semi-semi-pro status, and because I am feeling OK about my comeback last night, I'll afford myself the luxury of starting my stats with last night's win. So...

Semi-semi pro career earnings to date: $62