It's On

I believe in cash games. There are about to be wolves in the throne room.

Across The Table

If I had to estimate, and poker players are professional estimaters, I would say I have spent an average of five minutes outside per day this week. It has been severely cold in Atlanta, and I have been busy. It is family time anyway, so I can't complain.

I have finally sent off my first wave of applications for MFA (Masters of Fine Arts) graduate programs. For a solid two months I have been carving away at a fiction manuscript to accurately represent how well I am capable of writing. Now comes the exhalation of the process. All I have to do now is tailor my manuscript to program requirements, pay the fees, and wait. I apologize for boring you with the details, but these particulars have been, well, my entire life for a few months now.

Poker, for the first time since high school, has served me more as a distraction than a job, as I have toiled away at my writing. Of course that means I have had plenty of time to try to lose money online. But try as I might, I am showing solid profits online. On. Every. Site. Something just started to click for me one day, I suppose. Perhaps it is the disciplined lifestyle I have forced upon myself of late.

My game of choice has been heads-up no-limit, although I exclusively play tournaments all day every Sunday. I've been having more deep runs in tournaments than I used to as well. I attribute it to a confidence in my online game and the discipline to never ever ever spaz out in a pot without a very good reason. This does not mean I've been nitting it up. I play as many hands as I can justify early on in tournaments, and it's working well. Compared to the heads-up cash game regulars, even the low stakes ones, your average online tournament player is far behind the curve. They play poorly, but in just the opposite ways as live cash players. Online, they just want to bluff me every hand. The problem is that on Full Tilt, my 'Fold' button mysteriously disappears after the flop comes out. I've been meaning to contact Full Tilt about this, but like I said, I've been busy. As is, the situation has been working out so I don't mind.

Lately, I've been reflecting on the heads up matches I play every night. They are unlike any other kinds of sessions online or at the casino. At times you play just a few hands with an opponent before they quit you or 'hit and run', then other times you end up playing someone on two to four tables all night (I haven't had much of this lately). Having played heads-up semi-regularly for about a year now, I think about the format wildly differently than I when I started.

Heads-up is far more psychological than any other form of poker. You derive your edge from being able to understand how your opponent plays his entire range of hands, how those tendencies change or remain static, and sensing when you have broken the spirit of your opponent (at which point he or she either tends to give up or go fucking nuts, at least at the lower stakes). I began playing heads up as sort of an ego thing. Those regarded as the 'best' players in the world were those who reigned at the top of the heads-up ladder and would play anyone. Heads-up always made for the best stories of the poker world, too. First Durrrr, Galfond, Ivey, and Antonius (am I forgetting anyone?) wore the crowns. Then Tom Dwan issued the Durrrr Challenge and the fireworks really began. A year or so later, along came Isildur1 and dethroned Durrrr at Hold 'Em then lost millions playing Omaha. Now it seems we have a new champion in Jungleman12. Being a very competitive person, I felt the need to test myself. I wanted to see how far up the ladder I could climb. It has taken a year to climb the first rung, and beyond, who knows? I feel confident in my game, and driven to keep at it. I will surely update you as I continue on the quest.

When I play these heads up matches, I find myself wondering who my opponent is. You can't see them, which something I'm still not used to because of my background playing live cash for so long. Heads up can be an intensely personal game. My opponents have wished death upon me countless times. Usually I respond with politeness. Last night my opponent I had traded stacks back and forth for a couple of hours. Neither of us was winning much, if any. He began to ask me what I had on big hands, to which I responded, "Right, like I'm going to tell you what I had." This was after he had to fold to my shove on the river. Then, out of nowhere he began to berate me every hand, after playing calmly and solidly for two hours. His words rarely made sense. I would reply, "Huh?" He replied, "Don't listen to me." It was a strange encounter.

The part of it that sticks with me is that he played well for a long time, and if he kept it up, I wouldn't have beaten him out of too much in the long run. But skill level isn't everything in poker, and this concept becomes that much more exaggerated in the heads-up format. In the end, it really isn't about the cards, but about who sits across the table, from both ends. If you know your opponent, and also know yourself, poker becomes much less frustrating.

I'm heading to Biloxi next month for the tournament series. I'm sure I'll see some of you there. Now to finish these infernal applications...

New Orleans, My Home

New Orleans has taken me back again, and I don't know why. It needs another college grad turned poker player like it needs another hurricane. Yet here I am, wondering what the city has in store for me now, at age twenty four.

There has been no shortage of offers to move elsewhere. Florida, ground zero for a whole new wave of live poker revival. Vegas, which will always be there. Los Angeles, which intrigues me every time I visit. Yet, I stay in Louisiana, where most of my friends have gotten stuck like flies on flypaper. I would hate to end up a fly.

There's something else to the equation. Lately, poker has taken me on quite the ride: swift, sharp upswings followed by severe downswings. My variance had never been this catastrophic before. Finally I decided to step back and take a semi-hiatus of sorts. I haven't played live cash in over a month. I've been hitting the online tournament grind on Sundays, and some online cash here and there.

My break from day to day poker has been a mixed bag. It's given me perspective that is hard to see when you're living the grind. I realize poker has afforded me the ability to travel, make and spend money, and meet some of the most eccentric people on the planet. I've seen the dark side of poker and gambling, how it can change people. I've also seen countless success stories, mostly with regard to young ambitions people who probably would have risen to the top of any field they decided to enter. I can't go a single week without hearing about one of my friends winning tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands.

The time away has given me more time to write, compose my MFA applications. My stress level has fallen, as I'm not required to perform at the table, and I don't have to spend long days in the casino, truly an awful workplace environment. But now the stress is starting to creep up. Money is tighter than I'm used to. Most of all, writing lacks the instant gratification reward of poker. For the most part, I'm feeling old and unaccomplished. Boohoo. I know.

 So I've been looking hard around the bars, college campuses, parks, and broken avenues of New Orleans trying to figure it all out. Each year seems to bring a new turning point in my life, which I probably should not complain about. At least my life has not gotten to be watching sitcoms, bitching about politics, and raising a family. For this I am thankful.

Poker has not seen the last of me. I still play regularly, and that will not change. But for now, it is time to construct some balance and stability in my life. It is time to write, perhaps to teach.

John Dolan

Hello again,

I've been busy for the last month or so. I relocated to New Orleans for the umpteenth time and have been putting in the hours trying to correct my financial situation. Europe and Vegas proved very expensive, so funds have been low. Things are turning around now anyways.

Before I start blabbing about all my recent ups, downs, and crazed wanderings around the country, which will come later this week, let me introduce you to a friend of mine: John Dolan.

John and I lived together this summer in Vegas, along with a dozen or so other players depending on the week. Some of you may have seen his face on ESPN. He is a killer at the table and he's about to PLAY THE FINAL TABLE OF THE MAIN EVENT OF THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER IN A MATTER OF HOURS!

Good luck, John. You deserve this as much as anyone.

Good Riddance, You Awful Desert

Well...I'm leaving Vegas tomorrow. Off to California to play at the Commerce and then to San Diego to see some old friends. A week without poker is all too welcome.

Vegas was a bust. It always seems to turn out that way. The cash games eventually turned around for me, but not enough to pull me out of the hole. I still stand by the decision not to play a single tournament. Only one or two of my roommates had much of anything to show for tourneys here, and they're all heavy hitters.

George Steinbrenner died this morning. I never paid much attention to him, and can't sit through a baseball game; but I happened to catch several clips of his bio throughout the day. Apparently, he just decided one day to buy the Yankees and put together a team of venture capitalists to purchase the team for $8.8M, or something to that effect. I guess that's how it happens if you want something in life.

Now if I could just figure out what I want. I've made some guesses, and have started to shape a few ideas in my mind. Articles of this plan include putting in lots of poker hours, online and live, while creating a home environment where I can totally escape. I've entertained notions of moving to Florida, the so-called site of the next 'poker boom', but to do so would smother myself. I need writing. I need music. I need old friends who have never played poker in their lives. I need a break.

Fast Forward to WSOP

It seems I have gone astray. I lost myself somewhere between Rome and the inhospitable desert basin of Las Vegas. Allow me to fill you in.

Europe is too far removed from here and now for me to even attempt to describe, hopefully I'll find some time in the future to compile my recollections. I will tell you that, from above, the Alps are like craggy islands amid a cloudy sea.

Only know that there were long rides on rails and wings stretched out like smooth taffy in the fabric of time. Then all of a sudden I fell off that last tongue of transit, a short hop Chicago to Atlanta, and everything came back into focus. Almost as if Europe had been an extended daydream. Things definitely get strange in a foreign country, alone.

A week of down time with the parents then I started West. I slept on a couch in New Orleans during the WSOP circuit event, playing mostly cash games and launching into a serious downswing. I managed to dig myself out somewhat by the main event.

Ryan, James, and I left NOLA one evening late in May. We drove through the night and day didn't stop until we reached California, to stay a week in Commerce. The 5/10 NL action kept up 24 hrs a day and I made a good bit of cash until I lost a preflop all in with AQs to T4s. I've been running poorly ever since. But I did catch a front row seat to witness Bill Chen pick up a chick at the casino pub, so it's not all bad news.

Now in Vegas, I've been grinding my ass off day in and out. Ryan and I have a running bet that we each have to play 8 hours a day or pay the other $100. It's a small sweat but keeps me motivated at a time when I can't ever remember running worse. I've lost with AA, KK, QQ, and AKs all in preflop more than I have in the last 12 months. In response, I've dropped down in limits and have been putting in the hours.

I've got some money on the line for World Cup and the US Open (Christ Phil, get it together!). I'm sweating all my soccer matches on this extremely large, though remarkably crappy TV at my new place. By the way I'm living with about 15 other people in an 8 bedroom mansion, and it's way way too packed. We've got pool and ping pong tables, hot tub, pool, personal chef and all the more mundane amenities. But despite how clean and open the house comes across at a glance, there's a cheap tacky veneer slapped over all of it. My room flooded yesterday. I lucked out to only have a heap of wet clothes to bitch about.

Everything is hectic and hot here in Vegas. The women are more cutthroat than I am, and it's impossible to find a quiet moment to write. I'll update more once my cash game results start turning around.

-BT

Amsterdam

My first taste of hostels. This means lockers, weird showers, dealing with roving packs of screaming European children on a field trip, and rooming with strangers. My particular strangers turn out to be four computer science grad students from Germany (at least the hostel arranges the rooms by age group). Two are faceless German lightweights, too incapacitated by Dutch reefer to ever formally introduce themselves to me. Another is a straight-edge Russian girl, along to babysit zee Germans. Delightfully simple-minded, she can't fathom why I would devote myself to something as "useless" as fiction writing (you can bet I keep my mouth shut about poker this time around). A geek from Chicago, happening to be studying abroad, completes the group. He and I get along well and discuss his beloved "theoretical computation" studies over a few pints in the hostel's own bar. On my last encounter with said geek, he encourages me to take a strong dose of hallucinogens and sit alone in a dark closet. I reply, "You really are an evil little leprechaun with bad ideas. I think I'll go to the Van Gogh museum instead."

Amsterdam accepts me with only a few hours of foreboding rain each day. Within three days I walk the entire length of the city, cross stitched with canals. Every few hours I stop into a coffeeshop (CS) and partake, deeply, then am on my way again with a fruit juice and more ground to cover. Everyone in Amsterdam partakes. I encounter a varied, colorful, often giggling cast of travelers in the bowels of many a CS.

I make friends with Marco and three other Italians from Naples, none of whom speak much English. The two girls sit there laughing and being gorgeous while Marco pushes his new hash on me. He displays for me a smoke contraption which I have never seen: a hollow wooden popsickle with something like the fat end of a golf tee inserted into the orifice to form a seat for the plant matter. Damn innovative Italians. Marco eventually surges forth into the depths of the psychoactive unknown, finishing his hash when everyone else declines. He becomes comatose, his only connection to the outside world being the word "Isolator", which he mumbles over and over. I promise to look them up in Naples then with wonderful difficulty climb a ladder out of the CS basement.

The last night in town, I wander into the Holland Casino and find a soft little 5/5 No Limit game. The Dutch turn out to be generally amiable table personalities, and don't mind losing money. I play for a couple hours, mostly bluffcatching, and pick up a couple buy ins without any big dramatic pots.

I'm back out into the city by midnight and wind my way around alleys til I find a packed little bar where the Bucket Boys perform. I buy a local brew served in an oblong flask and sat in something like a paper towel mount for a handle. It does the trick. An hour in, I'm shooting the shit with the bassist, who plays a broomstick and string tied to a dirty old water jug. At intermission we discuss land, music, and travel. He informs me that Amsterdam was originally a swamp, which engenders a new sense of affinity for the place. Sometime after screaming along the lyrics of "Beer, Marijuana, and Wine" (That's all we can find!) I meet a trio of locals who drag me to THE bar, where they claim all THE locals go, especially those who work in the CS's all day.

It's a little hole in the wall I would have never found on my own. Sure enough everyone looks like they just got off work and need a little slump time on the bar. A couple guys make the rounds peddling reefer and hash. The main attraction in the bar is a pair of pool tables in the back, around which floated slow thick plumes of smoke, nightclub lighting, and plenty of girls done over in what I like to call dirty-classy. Real hot. But I'm far too drunk to even attempt spinning game. I'd rather just gamble.

I arrange a pool match between two douchebags who act like they're the Amsterdam Billiards Gang, and myself and a local I showed up with. They won't play for money, just drinks. Like I need another fucking drink. My state of mind at that moment is something like "whatever. competition? gogogo."

The first game is an absolute slaughter. My partner makes two balls and I knock in the eightball after they had already sunk all their solids. Somehow I end up buying four drinks. I finish mine and am halfway through the one my buddy didn't want when douchebag #1 approaches me for a rematch, 1v1. He wants to put 20 Euro on it too. Game time. I spill my drink trying to set it down, at which point I insist we add a drink to the wager, and I give the 40 Euro to a girl to hold because I'm just barely sober enough to spell escrow.

He breaks. Nothing. I scratch. He makes three balls. I make five balls. He makes three balls. I run the table out. Dutch beer please, thank you. I collect my spoils, take one sip of the beer before hiccuping and realizing I need to head for the hostel. Now.

Outside I do the classic spin-around off balance and shout for a taxi maneuver. Somehow it works. I almost lose it in the cab, but arrive just as I was about to roll down the window and hold it until I reach my toilet. I get the room to myself tonight but could care less. Five hours til check out and hungover travelling, hurray!