Sensei’s Poker Dojo

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 [↩]

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!

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. [↩]

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!

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.

Earlier today I learned of the existence of a restaurant in Spain called el bulli (Official website here). Apparently it is commonly regarded as the best restaurant in the world, which piqued my interest even further. I read a full report here (You should read it too if you like delicious and interesting food!). The most obvious feature of most dishes in their 30 (!) course meal was that they were completely ridiculous and rarely resembled food the way that you or I know it. I was mildly familiar with the concepts of molecular gastronomy because there was a student at Duke a few years younger than me who was an aspiring chef of the style and the Duke Magazine featured him in an article. It had been some time since the concept was brought to my mind though.

Now, it being a relatively slow business day¹ I did some followup research, which led me to a list of the top 50 restaurants in the world. As it seems, nearly all of the very highest-rated restaurants in the world use MG concepts in their dishes, which surprised me. Have we² come so far as to claim that traditionally prepared and cooked food is no longer in consideration as the best food in the world? I guess now I have to go find out for myself. Perhaps I must send myself to Europe for a gourmet vacation!

On the up side, my research also led to the discovery of a few restaurants in SF that I now want to go try.³ On the down side, I was so pumped up about fancy gourmet food that my actual dinner, delivery Indian food, couldn’t quite satisfy me in the manner which I was hoping for, even though objectively it was perfectly good. And on the business side, I stacked up plenty papers today, so that was nice too. But clearly you came here to read about crazy food, not some boring internet-style poker.

1. I was only playing a few tables intermittently for most of the afternoon. [↩]
2. well I guess just food critics [↩]
3. Though they are not MG-style, just regular-type. [↩]

Earlier today I ran slightly bad at the tables, so I took a break and played some Dominion¹ online. After a few games I glanced back at the stars lobby to discover that one of my favorite tripledraw fish was playing at 100/200. I hopped on the table without a wait, and the pots were heading in my direction pretty quickly. To sweeten the deal, our guest of honor joined some other tables and I followed suit.

Typically when I play tripledraw, I’ll only play a few tables. It requires a lot of mouse-clicking and attention span when you’re in a pot, so multitabling is more difficult than other games. To account for the unused brainpower which normally would be devoted to another 5 or 6 tables of poker, I will often put on a video of some sort on the other half of my massive 30″ screen. Tonight’s videos of choice were the last few episodes of Tommy Angelo’s video series The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment, which may well have the finest audio track ever created to accompany a poker session.²

So I kept running pleasantly hot, the videos were perfectly relaxing and soothing, and to top it off Jenny was kind enough to curl up in my lap for a little nap³. There were no traces of tilt or stress left in me whatsoever, and I booked a nice 70-bet win when our fishy friend finally left for the night. Sure, it might be 5 AM now, but I don’t have anything scheduled tomorrow, so I plan to sleep in nice and late. Ahhhh, summer.

Also, here’s a fun bonus hand that ordinarily would be rather frustrating but at the time was just amusing:

PokerStars Game #31765431978: Triple Draw 2-7 Lowball Limit ($100/$200 USD) – 2009/08/18 4:30:01 PT [2009/08/18 7:30:01 ET]
Table ‘Musca IV’ 6-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: oogee ($2803 in chips)
Seat 2: DJ Sensei ($8764 in chips)
Seat 3: Zacpacker ($3583 in chips)
Seat 4: GrowingPains ($2933 in chips)
Seat 5: vui-qua-di ($5908 in chips)
Seat 6: TRIPAS ($3368 in chips)
oogee: posts small blind $50
DJ Sensei: posts big blind $100
*** DEALING HANDS ***
Dealt to DJ Sensei [7d 2h 4h 5c 3s]
Zacpacker: folds
GrowingPains: folds
vui-qua-di: folds
TRIPAS: folds
oogee: folds
Uncalled bet ($50) returned to DJ Sensei
DJ Sensei collected $100 from pot
DJ Sensei: doesn’t show hand

1. The most recent board/card game addiction among my friends and I. I’d highly recommend that you give it a try if you like strategy games. [↩]
2. We also offer a plain MP3 version on DeucesCracked for this reason. [↩]
3. I’m a firm believer that the best prevention of online poker tilt is a lap cat. [↩]

I didn’t play in the main event this year. I was lazy and procrastinated registering for it before I went to Seattle, and then I got back to Vegas Sunday night and went straight home, planning to head over and register in the morning. When I arrived at the Rio Monday morning around 11, it was mobbed (to be expected) but particularly around the entrance to the registration room. The security guard indicated that registration was no longer open. My compatriots in the angry mob confirmed that fact, and we collectively spent a few hours milling about and hearing rumors until finally some officials came and confirmed that they were at capacity. It turned out to be a rather big issue that a few hundred people weren’t let into the main event, but on my end it was just a frustrating and disappointing drive back to the house.

I stayed in Vegas a few more days and visited the 2 Months 2 Million house with the rest of the DC crew. It was a fun evening, though I guess I can’t tell you what happened on account of non-disclosure agreements and such. Suffice it to say that the house was ridiculous and after having been there I don’t really want to be filmed for a reality show ever, heh.

Wednesday I flew home and immediately became rather sick with what is jokingly referred to among poker players as the “Vegas aids” but which was more accurately confirmed by a doctor to be “influenza A”¹. Anyhow, I was laid up with that for the better part of a week. Fortunately my job allows me virtually unlimited sick days, so I was able to loaf around for a few days without sweating it. I played no cards during these days, as I learned long ago not to play poker when I was quite sick.² Once I recovered from the illness it was back to the regular grind, more or less.

I spent a long weekend in Boulder playing ultimate and hanging out with my lady friend and such. I got to play 9 holes of golf with my friend John³ and learned that the ball travels much further at altitude. I hit some amazing iron shots and some horrible tee shots, but overall it was a great time. It has been too long since I played golf, even though I have my clubs out here in SF.

Since then I’ve basically just been chillin and grinding at home. I’ve been playing a lot of triple draw and mixed games and have been crushing it quite consistently. It has been a long time since I had a stretch like this of consistent wins, but I’m enjoying it immensely. One of the best parts about playing tripledraw and mixed games is that you can really only play a few tables at once, so you can do something else at the same time. In my case, that something else has been rewatching The Wire. I’m through the first three seasons now over the last few weeks, and will presumably devour the last two just as quickly. I could probably go on for a while about how awesome it is, but I’ll just say you should watch it if you haven’t already.

1. probably swine flu [↩]
2. When your brain functions are working below capacity, you can quickly become a losing player. [↩]
3. KasinoKrime on DC [↩]

A few years ago, Jay (Krantz) and myself began working with an aspiring director and poker player (Ryan Firpo) to produce a documentary film about online poker professionals. Our budget was modest by most film standards, but large enough to shoot the film professionally, in high definition, and in a few different locations (Vegas, San Francisco, Madison WI). It took us much longer than expected to finish the film, and it went through a number of changes in style, but it is finally complete! You can view it here. Let me know what you think!

Originally our intention was to produce a more general film, featuring a number of online players, but once we realized how interesting Greg’s (Captain Zeebo) story was, we decided to focus the effort on him in particular, and to hopefully produce a series of short films about other players in the future. Our grand scheme is to raise funds for a full-length feature doc that we can release to the general public, perhaps earning some gold as well as showing the uninformed public what the real deal with online poker is. Worst case scenario, we’ve put together a pretty cool little film and had some fun doing it!

Its that time of year again, when every poker player’s dreams turn to Vegas. Fish as far as the eye can see, big piles of cash, and chips stacked so high you can hardly see over them. I am getting excited myself, on account of the first event¹ starting today and my own trip coming up soon. I’ve got a house with WiltonTilt and jk3a and a few other folks from June 8 to July 8, so I’ll probably be spending much of June down there.

The tournaments I’m likely to play include:

• Event 19: 2500 NLHE 6max, June 8
• Event 30: 2500 PLO, June 14
• Event 35: 5000 PLO, June 17
• Event 40: 10k PLO championship, June 20
• Event 55: 2500 TripleDrawLowball, June 29
• Event 56: 5000 NLHE 6max, June 30
• Event 57: 10k NLHE main event, July 3

I’ll be posting updates and whatnot as they come, of course.

1. The 40k high rollers NLHE. I’m not playing it, of course, but I’ve got some friends who are and I’m rooting for them from my computer [↩]