I am back home.  And by home I mean a spacious Brooklyn apartment, which I shared with Janeen for the first time last night.  After a month away, I had forgotten what a major life improvement laid in store for me back home.  🙂

I decided to cut my WSOP trip a little short, which I think was a good idea.  I was burned out in Vegas and probably needed a break from poker more than I realized.

Compared to most players, I am pragmatic about my poker.  My tournament play is a business, and I treat it as such, down to recording the exact number of minutes I’ve played as part of a document that is the fucntional equivalent of a detailed profit & loss statement.  This pragmatism is somewhat irregular in the poker world.  Most players, including other professionals, fly by the seat of their pants and might therefore be a little less self-aware than I am.  While the upside of my practicality is obvious, there is a downside too.  Ignorance is bliss when it comes to a negative bottom line, and I am anything but ignorant of my recent results.  I went to Vegas to make money and didn’t succeed.  Keeping accurate records makes it pretty hard to ignore these things, and I am naturally disappointed that the most important business month of my year didn’t go well. 

On the plus side, I ended the trip with a flourish.  On the final day of the trip I did what I felt should have come naturally all along:  I won two of the last three single table satellites I played, which stemmed the bleeding nicely. 

I’m now at the point where I’m evaluating my play over the past few weeks, and I can find fault in perhaps one general aspect:  I tended to opt for the conservative play in certain spots where a high-risk maneuver could have arguably succeeded.  In other words, I maintained a “low variance” style of play, which may have been ultimately incorrect.  In many of the spots–typically postflop–where it occurred to me that a bluff might work, I preferred the safer course of action, particularly against opponents who I felt were inexperienced.  I may have been too focused on getting my money in good rather than collecting every chip I could, even in marginal spots.

The annoying part about all of this is that if my AA holds up in the money of the $2500 Event, I would be writing a blog entry about how I cooled off after another big score in the WSOP instead of a series of entries trying to rationalize a cold streak.  That was a really crucial hand to lose.      

And now a word about WSOP preliminary events in general, especially the $1500 and $2000 buy-ins:  how in the world anyone cashes in six or seven of these things in the same year is beyond me.  With 3000 chips to start, you MUST win one or two pots early on or you cannot survive.  I doubt the tournament directors will change anything about the structure of these things in the years to come, but they should consider it.  No fewer than three properties on the Vegas strip were offering alternative tournaments with much better early structures, but the WSOP is the WSOP, and that’s where the most dead money was, so that’s where I played the most.  Still, it was incredibly frustrating to have to resort to short stack mode after losing a single pot in these tournaments.  I just don’t see a way even the most expert player can accumulate chips in a $1500 Event other than by running good early.

Oh, and I’d also like to say thanks to everyone who said “keep at it!” to me over the past month.  I appreciate the support of those close to me, many of whom have a better sense of my talent than I do.   Independently, the same words were spoken by several people, and they’re words of wisdom:  many of you said that “this is the life [I’ve] chosen.”  And for all the retarded losing streaks and uncertainty I have to endure, I still wouldn’t think of changing my life around, not for anything.  I love poker and I love that I can make a living by playing it. 

When I first started doing this for a living, I had a trick that made the pain of a big tournament elimination fade quickly from memory:  all I had to do was conjure up the feeling of all-encompassing hopelessness I once felt when working a late night in my old midtown office, shuffling through piles of stupid paper.  Getting bounced from a poker tournament felt pretty damn good in comparison!  Now, I’m so far removed from my old jobs that I don’t even think of them anymore, so that mechanism for healing after a bad loss is gone.  I need to remind myself more often that I worked towards and chose this life for myself.  So thanks to many of you who reminded me.  Even a bad WSOP isn’t such a big deal.

That’s all for now.  I’ll be enjoying myself in NYC until I leave for the Main Event on July 5th.   

That book I mentioned a couple of blog entries ago, the one written by Mlodinow, discusses a curious human tendency.  The brain is designed to detect patterns.  Present a person with a random string of fifty numerals, and that person will automatically attempt to decipher a pattern in the string.

The book also mentions that in any long string of random trials, seemingly anomalous results are actually quite natural.  For instance, flipping a coin ten million times will almost certainly result in discreet strings of forty consecutive “heads” within the long string of results.

The combination of those two topics is giving me a small measure of solace during what has now become the worst financial downswing of my professional poker career.  (For the record, last year’s hair growth slump was longer in duration, but this recent stretch is my largest monetary downswing thus far).

This trip to Vegas was designed to be a step up for me.  Never before had I planned such a long attack on the tournament circuit, and never before had I brought along so much ammunition (in the form of tournament entry fees).  I’m almost three weeks into the mission, and it’s been a dismal failure.

As the book states, it’s human nature to try to detect and explain patterns.  And so, looking at my hideous tournament results for the 2008 WSOP, I have been grappling with the notion that I am either playing poker poorly or that my poker playing style is somehow easily exploitable.  I’ve thought about these topics a great deal.  In the end, I don’t think either of those notions are accurate.  I am just running worse than I ever thought was possible.  The sheer number and improbability of the beats I’ve taken in these tournaments is amazing.  Amazing, and if (like most of us) you enjoy laughing at other people’s misfortune, comical.  I’m not going to even get into all varieties of beatdown I’ve suffered, but suffice to say that the list is long.

I’m in Vegas all by myself losing my freakin’ shirt.  But I’m hanging in there.  I’ve given a lot of credit for this to Mr. Mlodinow, but probably the bigger shot in the arm came from reading the 2+2 forums a couple of days ago.  I’m a frequent lurker on that message board, and it’s an amazing place.  The best poker players in the world discuss strategy there daily, and anyone who participates or even just reads along like I do is virtually guaranteed to improve their game.  The kids on 2+2 are destroying this year’s WSOP; every final table has one or more 2+2’ers at it.  But not all of them are tearing it up out here.  I recently learned that many of the most respected members of that community–some of whom are indisputably great poker players–are having terrible a terrible WSOP just like I am.  These things happen.

I’m not alone.  That’s good to know.

Oh, and this profession is not for people who appreciate sanity.

I love playing poker and would not trade my life for anyone else’s, but playing these tournaments can be dejecting when you’re in a cold spell.  My experience and wisdom on the tournament trail does not immunize me from the despair of repeated failure, and that’s how I feel right now. 

The WSOP is a great opportunity for me and other pros because there is so much less talent, on average, in these tournament fields.  It’s donkey heaven out here.  This makes my single cash so far even more frustrating that it would otherwise be.  It’s especially confounding because I earnestly believe I am playing very well and I don’t believe I have been overmatched by anyone at any time.

Also, I’m lonely.  This is a long trip and being by yourself in Las Vegas, on a weekend night especially, is strange and isolating. 

Recognizing that I needed them, I recently took two days off and returned to action yesterday feeling refreshed.  Alas, I could only muster a about 400th out of 2,700 players in the latest massive $1,500 Event.  I was undone, somewhat ironically, by the arrival of a donkey at my table.  Despite the relatively late stage of the tournament, he began splashing around in every pot, completely unafraid (or unaware) of the consequences.  He made for a rather confusing opponent, and he stumbled into a couple of spots where I donated a bunch of chips to him, and that was that.

All I can do is play well and keep plugging away.  I am an expert at separating my emotions from my poker (Sug D doesn’t tilt), but I’m not above admitting that the WSOP grind is bumming me out right now.

I now have my first cash of the trip, but also my first heartbreak.

Unlike every other tournament I’ve played out here so far, I opened Wednesday’s WSOP $2500 NL on fire. By the first break my 5,000 chip stack had grown to 15,000. And despite bluffing off half of those chips to Can Kim Hua in Level 4, I regained my footing and made Day 2 of the tournament with a healthy stack, despite drawing a very tough table with John Phan and Dustin Woolf later in the day. I was poised to make the money and potentially go deep.

During this tournament I employed a popular tactic of mine. It’s one that doesn’t take much effort, all I have to do is sit there quietly being myself. Here’s how it works.

Anytime I’m sitting at a table with younger players, they automatically do the same thing I do: they presume older guys are fish until proven otherwise. Since I’m a relatively unknown older guy in the youthful world of tournament poker, I am often mistaken for dead money for several orbits, sometimes even several hours.  During this time I have an easy time stealing the blinds, especially from middle and early position, before something happens to blow my cover. Then I do something like reraise out of the blinds and show down suited connectors, or call a short stack’s all in with queen high and the jig is up. Once the jig is up, it always unfolds the exact same way. During the next deal, a young kid sitting next to me, now feeling a newfound kinship with the scruffy old guy, perks up and asks me “hey, do you play online?” It never fails.

So in Day 2 of the $2500 Event I drew a great table, filled with players who were desperate to make the money in WSOP Event. Unfortunately the bubble period didn’t go that well, thanks in part to a player violating tournament rules by outwardly advising a short stack to call one of my raises. I was annoyed but I’m not the type of guy to report the violation to the tournament staff, so I let it go. Then the bubble burst, we were down to around 80 players, and I lost the following big pot.

Blinds are 1500-3000 with a 400 ante. I have roughly 50k. I pick up pocket aces and decide to openlimp since a couple of 20k-ish stacks are in late position, and I figure they might shove with a wide range. It is folded to a kid in middle position with 47k in chips and he makes it 14k to go. I am thrilled with this development, and I’m already imploring my aces to “please hold!” in my head. Then, it is folded one spot to another player in late position, and he insta-shoves for about 30k. This is a wet dream scenario for my aces, and now I’m chanting “hold, hold, hold, hold!!” in my head. When it is my turn to act, in order to ensure action from the 47k kid, I have the dealer count out both raises and pretend to mull things over a bit. Then I say “okay, I’m all in.” The 47k kid shrugs and calls.

There’s 140k in the pot, (and with all due repsect) I’m the best player at a table that is not breaking, and winning this hand would put me near the top of the leaderboard in a WSOP Event with a three million dollar prize pool and a first place prize of $667,000. I turn over my aces and say–aloud this time–“HOLD.” The 47k kid has JJ and the 30k guy has 55.

The flop is 10-2-2 rainbow. The turn is… the jack of diamonds. No ace on the river.

Ouch. I cash for $7,000.

I”m homesick for my fiancee and new apartment, but back to work today.

Welp, Janeen’s brother’s wedding was quite nice.  The celebrity nuptials went off without a hitch.  It was a somewhat low-key party, hosted by a good friend of the groom at his strange expansive house in Chicago.  The bride and groom chose to eschew a lot of the typical formal reverie; there was no cake cutting, no first dance, no grandparents being hoisted in chairs, no glass clinking or any of that.  It was just a nice relaxed get together for family and friends and it was a terrific party.  I had a great time and had the opportunity to meet a lot of new faces and also the chance to get familiar with a lot of other folks who are about to become my in-laws.  I am admittedly not particularly adept at making small talk, even on my best day, and by the time I boarded my flight to Vegas at the end of the weekend my limited repertoire of topics had been fully exhausted.  I’ve probably been exposed yet again as “Janeen’s fiancee–nice guy, but he doesn’t have much to say.”  So it goes.  It’s better than faking it, right?

Unfortunately, Chicago is where the fun ends.  My World Series, through the very early stages, has been lousy.

I started the Vegas leg of my trip on a very positive note.  Psychological clarity and what I like to call “perspective refreshment” are things that I find vital in my profession.  Every now and then, I personally need to be reminded of what exactly it is that I’m trying to accomplish here.  This is harder than it might sound because it is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees in my chosen life; you tend to get bogged down in  day-to-day struggles when you’re constantly playing cards.  My memory is way too short when it comes to self-assessment.  So when I randomly purchased a book in Chicago, I was happy to find that reading it changed my mental state for the better.

It’s called The Drunkard’s Walk:  How Randomness Rules Our Lives, and it’s written by a guy named Leonard Mlodinow.  It’s a book about math, specifically the laws of probability and the history of their study.  In poker circles I’ve always aigned myself with the “non math guys,” and in school math was always my least favorite subject.  But this book has made it clear to me that I am in fact a “math guy” at heart.  It was the math problems, where numbers are calculated for the sake of calculation, that were and remain a big turnoff of mine.  The theoretical, almost philosophical side of mathematics fascinates me, and I’ve always been a natural at solving practical probability problems, because I enjoy them.  Although this book does not purport to have anything to do with poker, I think it’s a good read for all people who deal with luck on a regular basis and have trouble quantifying it.  And according to Mlodinow, there are more people in that category than you think.  He convincingly argues that luck plays a bigger role than anyone realizes in numerous realms, and he fiercely contradicts the popular Branch Rickeyism that “luck is the residue of design.”  According to Mlodinow, luck is just luck, and it is visited most often not upon those with the most brilliant plans, but upon those who simply persevere.

This book really resonated as I read it on the plane on the way to the World Series.  I was already aware that June would be a make-or-break kind of month.  But I was unaware of how little control I have over which one it might turn out to be.  All I can do is maximize my small edge by playing as much as possible and hope my number is eventually called.  That’s tournament poker, and according to this author, it’s a lot of life, too.

Alas, my newly-acquired booksmart serenity lasted all of two days.  But it wasn’t a bad beat that sent me over the edge. 

I am trying to save as much as possible in the way of expenses on this trip.  I am out here to work–not play–and I knew ahead of time that all the usual Vegas trappings would be of little interest.  And it’s true:  I’ve had no desire to do anything other than play poker and sleep so far.  Even the mere sight of your basic Vegas nonsense has turned me off, I’ve tuned it all out.  With my profit margin alone as priority number one, I selected a hotel situated to the West of the Strip, just like the Rio, and ended up booking a room at the Orleans for $30 per night.  And instead of exposing myself to $40 per day in cab fares, I chose to rent a car for around $20 per day.  I was quite proud of my thriftiness until last night.

I’m not very good at navigating the terrain West of the Strip.  Some of the roads connect Tropicana (where the Orleans is) with Flamingo (where the Rio/WSOP is) and some do not.  Last night I attempted to drive to the Rio and found that I missed a couple of important turns, so I was forced to take the Strip over.  This sucks, because from a car, the Strip is just a long traffic jam with a lot of flashing signs.  So I made my way very slowly to the corner of the Strip and Flamingo and got into one of the two left turn lanes that led to the Rio.  As expected there were something like 20 cars lined up, and I didn’t make it through the light the first time it turned green.  The second time it turned green, I found myself beneath it as it began to change, so I turned left on yellow.

Apparently this is illegal in Las Vegas, because I had not yet completed the turn when I noticed flashing lights in my rearview mirror, and I was pulled over maybe 20 yards out of the turn by a cop on a motorcycle.  The summons, which I had no chance of talking my way out of, pissed me off to no end, and it will cost me $300 if I don’t choose to show up in court.  So much for saving on expenses. 

Some might find it it funny that I get bent out of shape over a $300 ticket while I have no problem spending $2000 on a tournament buy in, but there is a big distinction in my mind, and the fact that I distinguish between the two probably says something about how good my bankroll management and leakless personal spending habits are.  I hated getting the ticket, especially because I am innocent.

The bottom line is that the ticket REALLY pissed me off and took me out of my book-induced happy place.  Immediately after collecting the ticket I went to play a sit ‘n go at the Rio, and when some old douchebag busted me with Q7 suited against my pocket tens, the zen was officially gone.  I stormed back to my hotel (making sure not to run any yellow lights, of course) and had a fitful night’s sleep.  I was grumpy for most of the day today, and busting in Level 2 of the $2000 tournament left me briefly disconsolate, but I think I’m coming back around.  I needed a nap, which I took, and to regain some perspective.  Deep breaths.

Oh, by the way:  So far I’ve whiffed on 1500 Pot Limit and 2000 No Limit at the WSOP, and I made a good showing but didn’t cash in a Caesar’s Megastack event.  Incidentally, the Caesar’s structure in a $300 tournament blows away the WSOP’s tournament structure in a 2k.  If you don’t make a hand early in a WSOP tourney, you are through.  Period.  The WSOP needs to fix this in my opinion.