Sensei’s Poker Dojo

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 [↩]

But you probably already knew that. As of this afternoon I’m 0-4 in tournaments, and haven’t even made a dinner break yet. I played really well in the 5k PLO before getting it in with top set and losing a 67:33 against an overpair and weak flush draw. I played well in the 2500 2-7 tripledraw as well, but just ran consistently bad. I never made a 7 while my opponents turned over wheel after wheel. It was especially frustrating because I had really high hopes going into that event. It was probably my best shot at a bracelet too (not that I really care about winning a bracelet any more than winning lots of $$$).

Today I played the 5k 6max NLHE, and built my stack up a little in the first few levels with some well-timed aggression. Level 3 was cruel to me though, as I made a few second best hands to lose close to half of my chips before losing it all in a stupid cooler spot. I was BB with like 11k at 100/200. The SB opened to 650 and I called with 87cc. The flop was 775hhd, he bet 800 or something and I raised to 2k, which he called. The turn was the ace of hearts and he led into me for 1650 or some such amount. I was pretty confident that he would have just shipped the flop with a flush draw given stack sizes, and there was enough money in the pot that I wanted to protect it against whatever kind of draws he might have, so I just shipped my last 8k and change, and he super-snapcalled and flipped AA. I failed to spike my one-outer and that was the end of another frustrating tournament.

So I’m down to the main event now.¹ I assume I’ll probably make it to day 3 before busting on the bubble or something, but I guess there’s a chance that I’ll have a good run of it. It is the softest tournament of the year, after all. But before that I’m headed up to Seattle to play at Potlatch, one of the greatest ultimate tournaments ever. An excellent way to spend a few days before the main event.

1. If ever there was a tournament to save my rungood for! [↩]

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!

I flew in early on Monday, went straight to the Rio and played the $2500 NLHE 6max event. My table draw wasn’t that great, the only real fish busted pretty quickly to another player and we were left with 4 dudes who seemed like internet pros, one Men the Master, and one non-terrible amateur (on my left). I picked up a few strong hands but didn’t win much with them, and my stack dwindled to short by the first break. Somewhat early in the 3rd level (75/150) I was down to 2300 or something and stuck the rest in with AT and ran into Men’s AK. Meh. I went over to the Amazon room and played some cash games, winning about half of my buyin back in a nice soft 5/10 PLO game. WiltOnTilt came and picked me up and we rolled back to the house. Its a pretty nice place, though a bit far away. The pool is sweet and theres a big grill out there, so I expect plenty of grillin and chillin!

Tuesday I spent most of the day playing cash games at the Rio, mostly 25-25-50 PLO. My first session varied between a juiced up gamble-game and a nittier one, depending on whether or not Devilfish was in the game. I went and ate at naked fish with my friend Jordan (24offsuit) and watched the end of game 3 (go Magic!) and headed back to the Rio to get back to work. I ended up in a few of the worst games ever, which basically consisted of a who’s who of online 25-50+ PLO regulars (Eric Liu, applsgirl, Harrington25, Rollover2k, colson10, and several others who I didn’t know but who were obviously young pros) waiting to get into the main game. Eventually the game broke because a few people left and the rest didn’t want to play against each other anymore. I got into the main game later, but it wasn’t really as great as I had hoped, so I didn’t play too much longer. I ran pretty bad, too, hardly dragging any significantly large pots all day. So it goes.

Today I ended up going back to the Rio and getting into a 10/25 NL game which proved to be much softer than the 25-25-50 PLO, and booked a decent win. I played a few sick hands:

With a straddle on the button, I limped 53cc UTG. CO, a super-LAG middle-aged dude wearing sunglasses and playing basically just with a stack of bills, raised to $125 (curiously small, especially in a straddle pot. Maybe he didn’t realize there was a straddle.) The button called and I called as well. The flop was 984ccx, and I donked out $300. CO called, indicating that he didn’t have much of a hand, and the button folded. The turn was an offsuit 2, giving me the sweet backdoor OESD, and I decided to check. He quickly bet out $800 in bills and I thought for a while before calling, deciding that my implied odds were pretty good and that I could find a fancy way to win the pot if needed. River paired the 8 and I tanked, playing with chips and pulling out my wad of bills before checking. He counted out $2200 and I placed a little stack of chips on top of my 5k bundle, raising to $6000. He snapfolded and I obviously tossed my hand face up on the pile of money that now belonged to me. The old dudes at the table proceeded to praise my ridiculously awesome play for a few orbits, while simultaneously needling the CO about how he would have won the pot with any two cards if he had just checked it down. Obviously the CO was the type of dude who was very prone to tilting after a pot like that, so the next orbit basically consisted of every pot being a raised pot between myself and him. Good times.

The next huge pot was between a young Finnish guy and myself; I opened UTG to $100 with 75ss, and he 3bet me from the BB to $375. We were both very deep, almost 15k effective, so of course I called. The flop was 875 with a club draw. He bet out $450, I raised to $1250, and he 3bet me to $3250. At this point I decided that I was pretty much going to go with it, barring a bad turn card, because he was Finnish and it would require a pretty sick cooler for him to have a better hand on this board. So I called, and the turn was an offsuit Q (a fine card for me). He bet out $4000, and I tanked a little while before announcing all in for another $6950. Once he also tanked, I knew my hand was good (unless he had exactly 87 and was thinking about it). He asked me where I was from, to which I responded “America”, getting a laugh from the rest of the table, and eventually he called it off. He informed me that I was ahead once he knew my hand, but we ran it twice since it was a massive pot and I knew he had outs. The first river was an ace and the second was a 9, and his AQo chopped the pot with me. A long run for a short slide. Would have been nice to win a 29k pot as a 4:1 favorite, but at least I didn’t lose it!

I’ll probably not be playing any events over the next few days as none of them appeal to me that much, but hopefully I’ll grind more cash games and win many gold pieces!

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 [↩]

Yo, I know its been a while since I rapped at ya, but I’ve been putting in some pretty solid hours at work on my new DC series, aptly titled ‘Ringmaster‘. Its a movin-on-up style series about midstakes full ring NL. Most players these days hear ‘full ring’ and are immediately averse to it, but there are actually some pretty nice benefits of playing FR games that stand in stark contrast to PLO: The variance is much lower, perhaps among the lowest of any popular form of poker. Of course, the maximum winrates attainable are lower as well (or are they?!?) but its somewhat made up for by the fact that you can play many tables at once. I normally don’t play more than 6 tables of most games, but I’ve been playing 9-12 fullring games comfortably. Partially due to the challenge I’ve laid out for myself in the series, and partially because I’ve found it reasonbly easy to do so, I’ve been putting in some pretty solid sessions the last month or so. Multi-hour, several-thousand hand sessions, the likes of which I haven’t played in a long time!

I won’t spoil the results of my progress, on account of it featuring in the series itself, but I’ll post a few entertaining hands I’ve encountered so far along the way:

Party Poker $400.00 No Limit Hold’em – 8 players

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
MP2: $400.00
Hero (CO): $623.20
BTN: $841.50
SB: $776.20
BB: $413.10
UTG: $400.00
UTG+1: $124.00
MP1: $727.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is CO with T T
2 folds, MP1 calls $4, MP2 raises to $16, Hero calls $16, 3 folds, MP1 calls $12

Flop: ($54.00) K 6 T (3 players)
MP1 checks, MP2 bets $40.00, Hero calls $40, MP1 raises to $140, MP2 calls $100, Hero raises to $340, MP1 raises to $711, MP2 calls $244 all in, Hero calls $267.20 all in

Turn: ($1652.40) 6 (3 players – 2 are all in)

River: ($1652.40) 4 (3 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $1652.40

MP1 shows 6 6
MP2 mucks KK
MP1 wins $342.60
MP1 wins $1203.00

Party Poker $400.00 No Limit Hold’em – 8 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Hero (BTN): $413.60
SB: $414.00
BB: $412.00
UTG: $233.00
UTG+1: $755.40
MP1: $183.10
MP2: $297.05
CO: $603.90

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with 4 6
5 folds, Hero raises to $12, 1 fold, BB raises to $42, Hero calls $30

Flop: ($86.00) 2 T 3 (2 players)
BB bets $50.00, Hero calls $50

Turn: ($186.00) 8 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $140.00, BB raises to $320, Hero calls $180

River: ($826.00) T (2 players)

Final Pot: $826.00
BB shows 9 7
BB wins $823.00

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 [↩]

So I was watching ‘The Departed‘ today on cable TV. The first time I saw it, I wasn’t a huge fan, due to the frequent occurrence of dudes shooting other dudes in the head at point-blank range. I like violent movies as much as the next young American male, but for some reason that particular kind of violence just rubs me the wrong way. The storyline is pretty awesome and the cast is very good though, so if they were to just take out all of the short-range headshots it would be a great movie. Anyhow, part of the reason I turned it on today was curiousity about how they’d censor it for cable.

The censors did a pretty average job of turning all of the ‘fuck’s and ’shit’s into milder oaths, which was to be expected. However, it appears that they left almost all of the visual violence intact. The vast majority of this involved gunshots clearly impacting people and blood spraying realistically from the wounds. Additionally, they allowed the uncensored use of the word ‘faggot’.

I find these adjustments to be completely absurd. Presumably, the reasoning behind censoring R-rated movies for TV is to prevent kids from seeing and hearing things that are inappropriate for them. But how in the world is it reasonable to show terrible violence and specifically hateful expletives, but censor out the classic curse words which really aren’t all that harmful or offensive? If I had kids, I’d rather hear them drop a hundred aimless F bombs than a single hateful epithet. And to an even greater extent, the last thing I’d want them to see on television would be such blatant and terrible violence.

So yea, that got me all riled up. Like many such things, I wish there was a way that I could fix it, but I doubt theres anything I can do. Oh well. That reminds me, if you also are offended by this sort of censorship, you should watch “This Film Is Not Yet Rated“, a documentary about how stupid and powerful the MPAA is. Its good.