Sensei’s Poker Dojo

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.

First, this hand happened:

Pokerstars $600.00 No Limit Hold’em – 8 players

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $67.65

SB: $639.75

Hero (BB): $600.00

UTG: $234.00

UTG+1: $363.00

MP1: $627.00

MP2: $271.00

CO: $227.75

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is BB with T 9

4 folds, CO raises to $18, 2 folds, Hero calls $12

Flop: ($39.00) 7 8 J (2 players)

Hero checks, CO bets $48.00, Hero calls $48

Turn: ($135.00) 3 (2 players)

Hero checks, CO bets $161.75, Hero calls $161.75

River: ($458.50) 6 (2 players)

Final Pot: $458.50

Hero shows T 9

(CO mucks AcJc)

Hero wins $455.50

Then my vanquished opponent proceeded to berate me thusly:

MetzGaleer: why do people call 18 dollars with caca caca suited
MetzGaleer: why
DJ Sensei: its my lucky hand!
MetzGaleer: why are online players such ******s !
FordKnocks: to take down the monsters
MetzGaleer: im done with online gambling
DJ Sensei:

MetzGaleer: too many idiots
MetzGaleer: AJ suited losing to 89
MetzGaleer: ridiculous
FordKnocks: dude u didn’t raise that much…and AJ is crap…to raise..
MetzGaleer: AJ suited is not a crap hand,….89 suited is
MetzGaleer: preflop probaly 80 20
DJ Sensei: 82/18¹
MetzGaleer: there you go
MetzGaleer: ******s

And then he wandered off to whatever home game/casino he crawled out of. Ahhh, the joys of online poker!

1. this was my favorite part, heh [↩]

Early in my PLO career, after learning about the nature of the game and the merits (or lack thereof) of blockers, I decided that if I were ever dealt quad tens (by all normal measures a terrible PLO hand, since it has zero room for improvement beyond a pair of tens¹ ) that I was going to play it and hope that the board had a straight possible (involving a ten, of course), then bluff the hell out of it knowing that nobody else could have that straight. Once everyone folded, as they naturally would do, I would gloriously show my hand and chat about how my quads were so good. The reason for choosing tens as my quads of choice is that every straight requires either a 5 or a T, and obviously the straights with the T are the best kind.

Today I finally got my chance!

Full Tilt Poker $25/$50 $2000 Cap Pot Limit Omaha Hi – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $6418.00
Browndog19 (UTG): $5656.75
Boosted J (CO): $16896.50
20 Buck Spin (BTN): $12159.25
FinnishNightmre (SB): $6931.50

Pre Flop: ($75.00) Hero is BB with T T T T
4 folds

Final Pot: $50.00
Hero wins $50.00

Sigh… I guess I’m on pace for my next chance about 11 months from now. ²

1. Well I guess it can make a full house on a board with trips, which is occasionally useful [↩]
2. Side note: It seems like I get dealt quad deuces way more often than any other kind. I’m pretty sure quad deuces are the consensus worst hand in PLO, but I probably wouldn’t play them for laughs unless it was at low stakes, or in a live game. [↩]

Well, I never thought this day would come. I thought that I was immune from the sort of massive debilitating tilt that plagues so many poker players, but apparently that is no longer the case.

It began when I went down to Lucky Chances on Friday and discovered that they were spreading a 50/100 game for some rich dude who was in town and wanted to gamble. He was wearing a ridiculous watch on both wrists and had some serious gold chains on. He was one of the worst players I’ve ever seen, and he ran hotter than the sun against me. I got 15k in preflop with KK within the first hour, and his A9o binked trip 9’s. I rebought for every dollar I had in cash, and built it up slowly for a few hours before this hand: the monster fish limped with about 30k behind, I covered with 34k and iso-raised J9ss to $400. The BB called and the fish overcalled, of course. The flop came out Ts8c3c, they both checked and I bet $1000. The BB called and the fish overcalled. The turn was a beautiful 7s, the BB checked, and the fish donked out $5000. I hollywooded a bit before raising to $15000, and he insta-shipped. I snapcalled and flipped my hand, which I wouldn’t ordinarily do but this was a monster pot. He was unfazed, and when the river was a 7h he casually turned over 73o as if he expected it the entire time.

I managed to regain my composure after a short walk around the casino, and resolved to do what I could with my remaining stack. Instead of beginning an epic comeback, I had the luxury of watching the fish dump his entire stack off to a few old nits in some equally terrible pots, then get up and leave about as pleasantly as anyone could after such a downswing. The rest of my stack went in with AK and failed to outflip pocket 4’s. I returned home in a dark cloud, my thoughts muddled and racing at a speed I’m unaccustomed to. When I arrived home I immediately signed on to FullTilt and Stars and looked for seats in the biggest PLO games available. The rest of the night was shrouded in a terrible haze.

I awoke on Saturday with a pounding headache and little recollection of the events of the prior evening, though they immediately became clear when I realized that my 30″ monitor had been augmented by a mostly-empty whiskey bottle through its center. The Lucky Chances game was the next thing to flash through my memory. I grimly opened my laptop to assess the damage. My account balances had both been decimated, unsurpisingly. How could I let something like this happen? I still don’t know, but even thinking about it leads me into a terrible depressive state.

So now what? Well, I’ve got about enough money in the bank to pay my taxes and maybe a few months rent. I might have a little money in some other poker accounts that managed to avoid the catastrophe, but I’m pretty much cleaned out. I guess I should start looking for stakes, or something. Maybe I should get a real job and just give up on the whole poker thing. Sigh. Don’t let this happen to you!

On the plus side, at least its April now!

Think this is the first time I’ve pulled one of these off in PLO:

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

UTG: $622.00
Hero (CO): $1260.00
BTN: $487.25
SB: $1198.00
BB: $955.00

Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is CO with 5 Q Q 5
UTG calls $10, Hero raises to $45, 3 folds, UTG raises to $150, Hero calls $105

Flop: ($315.00) T 5 8 (2 players)
UTG bets $315, Hero raises to $1110 all in, UTG calls $157 all in

Turn: ($1259.00) A (2 players – 2 are all in)

River: ($1259.00) 5 (2 players – 2 are all in)
Hero says “snap”

Final Pot: $1259.00
UTG shows 8 2 A A (a full house, Aces full of Fives)
Hero shows 5 Q Q 5 (four of a kind, Fives)
Hero wins $1256.00
(Rake: $3.00)

moar funny pictures

I couldn’t bring myself to deliberately botch the spelling. Hopefully that doesn’t prevent it from succeeding in the LOLcat popularity contest.

Left: Serious Cat. Right: Yang Tae-Young, Korean Gymnast

Bah I don’t know how to widen the middle section here… if you want to see it without stuff overlapping, click here.

(Plus I won a nice pot with it!)

It would be one of these: Tesla Roadster. Oh man are they hot. But I don’t have a garage to put it in, and I don’t really need a car anyhow, so I guess I’ll just have to dream about it. If I make a whole lot more money (likely) and move to the suburbs (unlikely) I’ll probably get on the list for one. Racing green, of course.

This is pretty much how I feel about poker, so I reckon he’d do pretty well for himself. Assuming that he could finish an orbit without kicking somebody through a wall.