Sensei’s Poker Dojo

Howdy folks, in an effort to consolidate things a bit and take advantage of the sweet new blog system that we’ve built at DeucesCracked, I’ll be moving most of my blogging over to this new address. I’ll keep SenseiPoker up and possibly post some things here and there, but they’ll most likely be nonsense or otherwise not at all related to poker. So if you’re into that sort of thing, feel free to keep checking in, but for the most part you can expect way more posts over there.

Sorry I’ve been so bad about posting, but I’ve been on a lot of little “vacations” lately. It has both made it difficult to find time to write in here and also had a deleterious effect on my overall motivation levels. In any case, here’s whats up:

In late October I took a trip to Colorado to visit my girlfriend. We played some ultimate up in Ft. Collins, got dumped on by a sudden snowstorm, and enjoyed some surprisingly good sushi in downtown Boulder. We then flew down to Sarasota, FL for the UPA club national championships. Neither of us actually got to play, unfortunately, but we volunteered and got to watch some really high-quality ultimate. I took the opportunity to use my new camera (and my new lens!) to take some action shots, which you can see here. Congrats to my friends on Fury and Chain Lightning for bringing home the gold!

After returning from Florida I was only home for a few days before flying out to Hawaii for another ultimate tournament, which was a glorious time as expected. We nearly won the tournament too, going 7-1 and only losing in the finals to a team that seems to be composed of the best players in Hawaii. Naturally we enjoyed plenty of beach time and some excellent partying, and I have a pretty nice tan to show for it.

Upon returning from Hawaii, I found my motivation to grind severely diminished. To compound this effect, the Duke basketball season¹ and the winter league ultimate season have both begun. Additionally, several awesome new video games (Batman: Arkham Asylum, Modern Warfare 2) have come out. Long story short, I haven’t really played a whole lot of poker since then. Fortunately, the few sessions I have played have gone well (to the tune of a few G’s each). I hope to start focusing more on heads up PLO in the near future, so I’ll try to post some interesting hands.

As for the group coaching, we haven’t had enough interest yet to put together a full group. Its a little surprising since I think we’re offering a great deal, but I guess there aren’t too many players in our target market (who can afford $500 for coaching but also are at the level of play that we’re catering to). We have had some enthusiastic signups though, so hopefully we can fill up a group soon. Feel free to advertise to your friends who want to improve their PLO skills (or even just get a good primer to start learning the game) for a great price!

My PCA goal is unfortunately not going to happen, but it is because I’m going to Australia in January for the Aussie Millions! I think I’ll consider that one a win . More details to come about that trip, and I’ll be sure to post full and awesome reports from my time down there!

1. I’ll probably write a full post about that soon [↩]

(Crossposted from DC Forums)

Hey everyone, John and I have been working hard to put together a group coaching program that will enable us to teach a number of aspiring PLO players at a reasonable price. Details below:

Each course will consist of two 2-hour sessions, and each session will begin with a lecture/discussion on important topics, followed by a hand history review, and end with a live sweat of either John or myself playing. The course will be tailored primarily to beginning PLO players and those transitioning from NLHE. (We have plans to host a more advanced group in the near future) While we have things prepared fairly well already, we are happy to adjust the course to suit the specific needs of the particular group. The course will cost $500 and include personal help during and after the sessions.

There will be up to 3 groups running on the following dates/times:
Group A – Mondays at 7PM ET, 4PM PT (11/23, 11/30)
Group B – Tuesdays at 7PM ET, 4PM PT (11/24, 12/1)
Group C – Wednesdays at 7PM ET, 4PM PT (11/25, 12/2)

If you are interested, please email me at djsensei@deucescracked.com with your name, the group(s) you are interested in, and any other requests you might have. We will get back to you with a more comprehensive survey to allow us to tailor the course as specifically as possible to your needs. If these times do not work for you, feel free to email me with your interest and let me know which times do work, and we will see if we can set up a group at a different time.

My poker career has never been very goal-oriented. I’ve always simply played as much as I cared to play, and let the results be what they may. Occasionally I’d set a monthly goal, or get halfway through a month and decide to press for a certain amount of winnings, but at the end of the month, win or lose, I’d look back and realize that it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. A month is nothing more than an arbitrary 30ish day period when you play poker cash games for a living, and I’ve trained for years now to keep my eyes on the long run. That being said, I’ve decided in the last week or two to set some goals for myself as 2009 draws to a close:

Goal A: Win $100,000 from October 1 to December 31.
Between a sizeable downswing I ran into around April, a rough WSOP summer, and periods after both where I didn’t put in much volume, my results this year haven’t been as good as I’d like to see. So I want to buckle down and grind more than usual in the next few months and win a hundred grand. I expect to do so playing mostly PLO, with tripledraw and mix games added in depending on game selection. I’ve gotten off to a decent start so far, winning a little under $9k in about 3500 hands. I’ll need to keep putting in plenty of hours to have a shot, but running good in some bigger games wouldn’t hurt.

Goal B: Organize and execute group PLO coaching sessions with KasinoKrime.
I’ve only occasionally done group coaching sessions in the past, but I think that it offers a good opportunity to offer better value to students without losing much quality and individual attention. John and I have put in some work planning it out and I expect it to be awesome. We’re going to offer group coaching together, focusing on small to midstakes players who are looking to either add PLO to their skillset or take their game to the next level. There will likely be multiple levels of long-session groups (2 sessions of 2 hours each, hoping to cover a lot of ground and make significant progress fast) and a few more specific topic offerings (playing cap PLO, transitioning from NLHE to PLO, etc.) that we’ll offer as a single session. I think we’ll be set up and accepting students within the next few weeks, let me know if you’re interested!

Goal C: Qualify for PCA.
I’m not sure how many shots I’ll take at it, seeing as how I dislike tournaments in general and the best satellites are on Sundays when I usually have something more social/outdoorsy to spend my time doing. It was a blast last year though, so I’d like to win a seat and return in January if I can. It sure would be nice to kick off next year with a seven figure score!

Full Tilt Poker $5/$10 $400 Cap Pot Limit Omaha Hi – 5 players – View hand 323216
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Kelly Kim (BB): $568.00
ASAFI12 (UTG): $522.50
Hero (CO): $3005.50
Rivalz (BTN): $400.00
lakky (SB): $658.00

Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is CO with A A A A
1 fold, Hero raises to $30, 1 fold, lakky calls $25, 1 fold

Flop: ($70.00) 3 J 7 (2 players)
lakky checks, Hero bets $50, lakky calls $50

Turn: ($170.00) Q (2 players)
lakky checks, Hero checks

River: ($170.00) 6 (2 players)
lakky bets $170, Hero raises to $320, lakky folds

Final Pot: $510.00
Hero shows A A A A (a pair of Aces)
Hero wins $507.00
(Rake: $3.00)

And then he insta-left the table.

Last week I took my semi-customary fall trip to the east coast to visit friends in DC and Durham. It was an excellent trip as usual, revolving primarily around the Durham beer festival. My college friends and I have been to several of these festivals in the past; what better way to spend time with old friends than a sunny afternoon sampling dozens of delicious craft-brewed beers from around the country?

Saturday morning I armed myself with my new moleskine notebook¹ and my new camera, intending to chronicle the event as well as possible before the charge of the afternoon naturally lead to memory loss. Unfortunately I still haven’t figured out how to shrink and upload my pictures, so I can’t share them. The primary contents of the album are faces and shirts greased with barbeque sauce from turkey legs, boisterous group photos, and some shots of us scheming to hop a barrier and run the bases before we were stared down by the young volunteer security guard who was clearly on to our plan. (Fun fact: the event was held on the outfield of the old Durham ballpark where Bull Durham was filmed.)

The notebook, on the other hand, was used to its fullest potential. I used it to chronicle a list of all of the beers I sampled, also rating them between one and five stars. I have listed those ratings below, accompanied by what more specific memories I have of a beer when relevant. I used a half-star interval, which I came to regret halfway through but which may have been a good decision up until that point. The names of Breweries or beers may not be entirely accurate due to haste. Samples were intended to be 2 oz, but most brewers poured more than that.

1 star – Undrinkable (ex: Bud Ice, Schlitz)
1.5 stars – Only if there are no better options (Budweiser, Bud Light)
2 stars – Average (Stella Artois, Pabst Blue Ribbon)
2.5 stars – Slightly interesting (Blue Moon, Dos Equis)
3 stars – Good beer, would drink again
3.5 stars – Quite good (The best beers of many microbreweries will fall in this category and the next)
4 stars – Very good beer, excited to see it
4.5 stars – Memorably delicious
5 stars – Transcendent

Brewery Beer, Rating

• Ska Blonde, 2.5
• Holy Mackerel Golden, 3
• Fort Collins Chocolate Stout, 4 – My bias towards stouts, porters, and IPAs may become apparent as you read on
• Dale’s Gordon Red, 3.5 – Dale’s (more accurately, Oskar Blues) makes some of the best canned beer in the country.
• Widmer Drifter, 3.5
• Sweetwater IPA, 3
• Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout, 3.5
• Tibet Lhasa Lhasa Lager, 2 – I was compelled to try this beer because it was of Tibetan origin, but, as expected, it tasted like most light American lagers.
• Saranac Pumpkin, 3.5
• Peak Organic Nut  Brown Ale, 3
• Blue Point IPA, 4.5
• Blue Point Oatmeal Stout (cask), 5 – An amazing beer, they had just opened the cask before we sampled it. Perfectly balanced, smooth, and delicious, even at lukewarm temperature
• Duck Rabbit Marzen, 4
• Duck Rabbit Baltic Porter, 3.5
• Foothills Double IPA, 4.5 – Maybe the most well-balanced double IPA I’ve ever had (watch out Dogfish Head 90 minute!)
• Foothills Porter, 3.5
• Highland Kashmir IPA, 3.5
• Highland Gaelic Ale, 3.5 – Perhaps my most nostalgic sampling of the day. This beer and I spent a lot of time together on Thursday nights my senior year at Duke.
• Asheville Amber, 3
• French Broad Wee Heavy, 3
• Kind Beer Belgian Red, 3.5
• Kind Beer Pale Ale, 3
• RJ Rockers Bald Eagle Brown, 3
• Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye, 3.5
• Bosteels Tripel, 4
• Great Divide Yeti, 4
• North Coast Brother Thelonius, unrated (previous referenced in this post)
• Left Hand Smokejumper, 4
• Malheur 12, 4
• Dogfish Head Punkin, 3 – I was disappointed both by the Dogfish Head offerings (only two modest beers) and the flavor of the Punkin. It was certainly good, but not as good as other pumpkin beers I had tasted earlier.
• Blowing Rock Winter Ale, 3.5
• Victory Baltic Thunder, 3.5
• Mother Earth Wit, 3.5
• Mother Earth IPA, 4
• Blueprint Rastafarye, unrated – My handwriting at this point is clearly deteriorating, and I have given up on rating beers, opting instead to try as many as I can before we have to leave at 4.
• Fort Collins IPA, unrated
• Holy Mackerel Mack and Black, unrated

Upon reviewing my ratings I noticed a greater amount of variance early in the session, when my taste buds are fresher. In the middle segment the ratings cluster around 3.5, both because my palate was overwhelmed by delicious beer and because my selections tended more towards beers I expected to be very good than beers located the closest to my glass²

The standouts of the session were clearly Blue Point and Foothills. I had not heard of Blue Point before the festival, but their beers were astoundingly good. The brewery is located on Long Island, surprisingly, but their website was too poor for me to obtain useful info from so I gave up. If you see some beers of theirs somewhere, you should try them! Foothills was also new to me, though it had been hyped up by my friend Sam. Apparently located nearby in Winston-Salem, they had a wide array of top-notch offerings.

On the whole, it was an excellent afternoon. I got to see many old friends, enjoy some excellent southeastern fall weather, and sample all of those beers. The only downside was that the hangover kicked in around 9 PM (but I was back at full strength for Sunday brunch!)

1. Apparently moleskine notebooks are associated with hipsters? I had no idea, otherwise I might have avoided it. It is a pretty fantastic notebook. [↩]
2. Actually a plastic cup. They used to give out a glass. Lame. [↩]

While this will probably be of no use to most of my loyal readers (thanks for being DC members, woooo!)¹, DeucesCracked is offering our videos for free viewing by anyone between now and October 4th. So if you aren’t a member yet and want to watch some high-quality poker videos, gogogo! I hope you see how awesome the videos are and decide to upgrade to a premium membership.

Free Flash Weekend!

If you’re not a poker player (Hi mom!) but are curious about what I actually do for a living, then you’ve got your chance! Our poker strategy videos may seem boring and confusing to you, but we’re definitely the best at what we do.

1. Although actually it is a good chance to remind you of the refer-a-friend program which can net you some free months! [↩]

Introductory notes for those of you who don’t play online poker: When you play a large number of hands online, poker sites will give you “frequent player points” because you are contributing many dollars in rake. Similar to comps in Vegas, you earn more points for playing more hands, and the players who put in the highest volume are rewarded with additional VIP promotions. Additionally, the sites have stores where you can spend these points on various items ranging from t-shirts and other branded trinkets to flat-screen TVs and even fancy cars. See Full Tilt Store, PokerStars Store.

Now most of the items in the store are things that I wouldn’t want, and of the remaining cool things (mostly electronics) I already own most of them. I don’t need another flat-screen TV, computer monitor, laptop, Xbox, or iPod. So my points tend to just slowly accumulate over time. However, one thing that I did not have was a nice camera, and so I spent a small portion of my points on this one:

I’ve never had an SLR camera, nor do I know the slightest thing about photography, but I figured it was about time to change both of those things. So now I’ve got one, and I’ve been asking all of my friends who have interest in photography to help me out, and I’ve started to learn some things. It is nice to have a camera capable of taking high-quality shots, and I’m enjoying learning how to use all of the intricate little features and settings to produce exactly the shot I’m looking for. Previously the largest impediment to my getting into photography was the idea that I’d be that guy behind the camera instead of the fun-having people in front of it, but I feel that with a more capable machine to work with those concerns are lessened. I’m still very much a beginner though, so if you have any useful advice on books I should read or anything else related to digital SLR photography, please let me know!

Today I invented a new poker term. Well, invented may not be the correct word. I did not actually create the term itself, I simply chose a pre-existing term from soccer that seemed to apply perfectly to a unique situation in poker.

In soccer, stoppage time is the last few minutes of a game¹, added to the clock at the referee’s discretion to make up for time lost by injuries and other delays. So in poker, stoppage time is the short series of hands that you play after the last fish leaves the table but before you have to pay the BB again. Most players probably tighten up during those hands to avoid losing any of their profits, or if they happen to be stuck (but still wise enough to leave the table when the fish are gone) they might loosen up to try and win some of it back. When I have already posted my big blind and the dead money leaves, I’ll post the SB too so that I can see whatever free hands I’ve got coming until it comes back around.

This afternoon I was fortunate enough to win decent pots in both of the 2 stoppage time hands I played, thus inspiring me to coin the term while I was relaying the results to Krantz. Huzzah!

PokerStars Game: Triple Draw 2-7 Lowball Limit ($200/$400 USD)
Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: Wrasse ($16796 in chips)
Seat 3: jmonnett ($3165 in chips)
Seat 4: DJ Sensei ($15125 in chips)
DJ Sensei: posts small blind $100
Wrasse: posts big blind $200
*** DEALING HANDS ***
Dealt to DJ Sensei [As 8s 2c 4d Ad]
jmonnett: raises $200 to $400
DJ Sensei: calls $300
Wrasse: folds
*** FIRST DRAW ***
DJ Sensei: discards 2 cards [As Ad]
Dealt to DJ Sensei [8s 2c 4d] [4s 9c]
jmonnett: discards 1 card
DJ Sensei: checks
jmonnett: bets $200
DJ Sensei: calls $200
*** SECOND DRAW ***
DJ Sensei: discards 2 cards [4s 9c]
Dealt to DJ Sensei [8s 2c 4d] [Jc 3c]
jmonnett: discards 1 card
DJ Sensei: checks
jmonnett: bets $400
DJ Sensei: calls $400
*** THIRD DRAW ***
DJ Sensei: discards 1 card [Jc]
Dealt to DJ Sensei [8s 2c 4d 3c] [Ts]
jmonnett: discards 1 card
DJ Sensei: bets $400
jmonnett: folds
Uncalled bet ($400) returned to DJ Sensei
DJ Sensei collected $2198 from pot
DJ Sensei: doesn’t show hand

Seat 1: Wrasse ($16596 in chips)
Seat 3: jmonnett ($2165 in chips)
Seat 4: DJ Sensei ($16323 in chips)
Wrasse: posts small blind $100
jmonnett: posts big blind $200
*** DEALING HANDS ***
Dealt to DJ Sensei [6h 9c 4s 2d Qh]
DJ Sensei: raises $200 to $400
Wrasse: folds
jmonnett: calls $200
*** FIRST DRAW ***
jmonnett: discards 3 cards
DJ Sensei: discards 2 cards [9c Qh]
Dealt to DJ Sensei [6h 4s 2d] [4c 3d]
jmonnett: checks
DJ Sensei: bets $200
jmonnett: calls $200
*** SECOND DRAW ***
jmonnett: discards 2 cards
DJ Sensei: discards 1 card [4s]
Dealt to DJ Sensei [6h 2d 4c 3d] [Qc]
jmonnett: checks
DJ Sensei: bets $400
jmonnett: calls $400
*** THIRD DRAW ***
jmonnett: discards 1 card
DJ Sensei: discards 1 card [Qc]
Dealt to DJ Sensei [6h 2d 4c 3d] [3c]
jmonnett: checks
DJ Sensei: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
jmonnett: shows [5d 3h 5h 7d 2c] (Lo: a pair of Fives)
DJ Sensei: shows [6h 4c 3c 2d 3d] (Lo: a pair of Threes)
DJ Sensei collected $2098 from pot
DJ Sensei is sitting out

1. or, more accurately, a half [↩]

Finally, the long wait is over and real sports are back! No more boring baseball or unwatchable WNBA clogging up my HDTV. I can’t say I’m particularly optimistic about my Jaguars this year, but they have a chance. I just hope they get off to a good start and don’t suffer any serious injuries. As for my fantasy team, I am much more optimistic this year than usual. For one, I watched Joe Tall’s video on fantasy football drafting and thus had a better idea of what I was actually supposed to be doing. I actually participated in the draft this time too, instead of letting the computer auto-draft for me because I was off doing something else at the time. For your consideration, here is my team (in the order that I drafted them):

LaDainian Tomlinson, RB, San Diego*
Clinton Portis, RB, Washington*
Terrell Owens, WR, Buffalo*
Brandon Marshall, WR, Denver*
Philip Rivers, QB, San Diego*
Jonathan Stewart, RB, Carolina
Owen Daniels, TE, Houston*
DeSean Jackson, WR, Philadelphia*
Ben Roethlisberger, QB, Pittsburgh
Donald Driver, WR, Green Bay
Philadelphia Defense/Special Teams*
Neil Rackers, K, Arizona*
Sammy Morris, RB, New England
John Carlson, TE, Seattle
Chicago Defense/Special Teams
Josh Scobee, K, Jacksonville
(* – week 1 starters)

Feel free to heckle my team, but I probably won’t be able to hear it behind my massive championship trophy or above the cheers of my adoring fans.