Movin' up in Limits/Stakes

Among other things, poker's a game of awareness, prediction, calculation, reaction, decision, and commitment. Sure you could say anything else worth doing shares the same characteristics, but hey, when you've got lotsa your bankroll riding on a hand, all the above become heightened, compressed, simply more stark.

We've started playin' for bigger stakes at one of our regular games. The table is usually shorthanded, populated by folks with varying bankrolls and skill levels, and usually, varying stages of sobriety and inebriation. Actually, the others are usually sober and I'm usually in a state of progressive san mig fog.

But that's an early digression.

I've noticed a few things about some of the playuhs who've sat that game.

1. Some play like i've always seen them play cuz they stakes are still not material to their overall rolls.

2. Some tighten up cuz they realize that moving that chip in means you're risking ten times more than you've ever risked at your previous stakes.

3. Some weaken significantly - get passive, play scared, and make decisions they wouldn't otherwise make at the lower stakes.

4. Some get flustered at situations that wouldn't faze them otherwise at smaller stakes.

5. Some spot all this and feast on it.

I've always believed that moving up in stakes, even with sufficient bankroll, requires a lot of thought and introspection about yourself, the particular game you play, the make-up of the game, the personalities and skills you'll face. Of course, the number 1 consideration is bankroll - it always ought to be when moving up. But if you've just destroyed the lower limit game, have a bankroll, and feel you can move up, first do a lotta introspection.

How will you react when the wagers comin' into you are multiplied by ten?

Will you be able to maintain the aggressiveness that made you as profitable as you currently are?

Have you sat and thought about your game and how you'll react to the psychological warfare some might employ against you when the villains are workin to wrangle 20K off of you in a session?

Remember, even when someone's smilin' atcha, they're tryin' to take your chips. Bigger stakes will often tease out the trickier moves in the bad guys' bags o' tricks.

A good friend of mine, a 100/200 player in Vegas, said to me a few weeks ago, "When I'm at the table, I'm a gladiator...I see myself as a gladiator."

Money-gettin's war. Be a warrior, be a general. Don't play the bigguh games if you're gonna get timid. Learn a whole hell of a lot about the game, your game, and scout the opposition prior to committing.

The Day Big Vegas came to town. Mr. Binion's entourage was nice enough to have cocktails and take some pictures with us schmucks. Thought I'd post the shot here to errr...show off. It's not every day you get your pic taken with a dude named Sonny Nevada... 

Why is the dude on the right grinning like a giddy schoolgirl, and why did he vow never to wash his right hand again? Well, it's not every damn day you get to shake the hand of the legend/billionaire/poker god/WSOP/king of the poker biz Jack Binion in Manila! damn. A real treat, and a fine gentleman. I'm talking about Mr. Binion. Not me. 

Milestones (or Kilometrestones)

Dudes, ladies, things are afoot in this here town. I can't drill into all the details now, cuz i don't have them all, but I'm lucky enough to have been informed of the broad strokes around a few developments. Here they are:

1. There is a pokuh legend in town this week. No, I'm not talking about Big Wally, I'm talkin' bout somebody even bigger (Hint: horsehoes). Dunno exacty why his group is here, but his mere presence makes me real hopeful.

2. The Philippine-Asian Poker Federation has been formed. Yours truly is on the board. Why am I on it? I don't know. Why is the Fed around? We'll publish the details of the mission and goals soon, but the broad idea is to internationalize and standardize the local scene to align it with what's goin' on worldwide. So that means we can start to rank RP-based players, run IPF-recognized events like satllites and stuff, send playuhs to WSOP and WPT. yeehaw.

So form clubs or join clubs now. Individual members join the Fed through a recognized club. If you need a list of local clubs that will be pioneer members of the Fed, comment here and I'll let you know.

3. There's a North American company that's in town to do a buncha business, one of which is to propose the provision of online pokuh for this market. Again, yours truly will be workin' on this project...

4. MOST IMPORTANT NEWS! My wife, Barb, and my three kids, Alex, Nat and Juliana, are comin' home after three loooong months in North America.

Things are good.

Peace. More news and details as soon as i'm able to share.

Cheers.

An auspicious coffee? Well anyway, the four signatories pictured above are celebrating the formation of the Philippine-Asian Poker Federation, which will help move Philippine poker onto the International scene. The card geeks pictured above from left to right: Wally S., Richard T., Nickg, Eduardo U., Marco A. More news coming from this motley crew real soon. In this shot, we played a variant of rock-paper-scissors to see who would pay for the americanos. Pardon the crappy green line.  

Watch your SMS inboxes, folks

We have a tourney this sat. Aug. 27. Put on by the Halo Poker Club and assisted by A55. gonna be another doozy.

This time I get to play...

Watch me as I maintain my horrid 10-day run of stellarly LOSING pokuh.

gotta shake it off.

Do some diao gung.

Talkin' it through

the A55 crew sat down at the old "bahay kubo" at the Jennie and Jackie V.'s residence last night. It was nice. An evening away from hardcore money poker and grindin' it out till 630 in the am.

We sat around the old poker table, busted out Old Man "L"'s chips, grabbed a deck of bicycles and proceeded to play for no money.

That's right, chips with no monetary value.

Weird eh?

What we did was talk through every hand. Deconstructed plays, talked about decisions as each person had to make them.

We group-learned.

Best damn way to pick up concepts in a group setting, and to remind ourselves of things we've taken for granted. even identifying bad habits we'd individually fallen into.

It was great. It was friendly. I learned a buncha stuff.

Highly recommended. Grab your friends, grab some cards and chips, help each other learn. The best thing you can do for your buddies' bankrolls.

Big Wally doin what he do best 

Joey the B(l)each mackin' the dealuhs 

Free Jack!!! Yeah boyyyy 

Another Bird's Eye View of Skyland Classic 

From the Skyland Classic - Aerial View of the tourney 2 in progress. 

Firsts

Je suis désolé pour être en retard. That's french. It means "I'm sorry for being late". It doesn't mean, "I'm sorry for being a retard".

Although I wouldn't be so wrong in apologizing for that too, I suppose.

Been busy, hectic, sleepless. Unable to get to the comp. In fact, I'm so late in doing the mundane stuff that Sky Cable called this morning threatening to cut my my cable internet off if I didn't pay my bill soon. LOL. I'll just go to Drei's place and leech off his Wi-Fi.

Anyhoo...

The Skyland tourney(s) last Saturday. je suis très heureux. I'm real happy. It went well. I won't go into any self-congratulatory details, but I will focus on the "firsts" I noticed at that event. The signs of a growing scene.

Firsts:

- This was the first time we held an event seating more than 50 people (76 played in the tourney(s) proper, and more sat the ring games.

- It was the first time we held two concurrent tourneys. Watch out, WSOP

- It was the first time we had players play two tourneys at the same time. Hats off to Jun and Homecourt Neil for walking the equivalent of the Boston Marathon just to play a few hands of poker. I almost wanted to hire some dudes to man water stations for those guys. And Jun won one and finished 3rd in the other. Not only can that man play cards, he has great aerobic prowess.

- It was the first time I looked at any field of players and saw "dead money". Players with little chance of moneying. The skill gaps were that obvious in some respects. We now have a community that is big enough and "time-lagged" enough to have noticable skill differentials in any given field.

- Another first, House music kickin on speakers to keep our adrenaline up. This was my first poker rave.

- Sponsors: free Jack Daniels and Holy Kettle Corn popcorn. And Slimmers World Gift Certificates. Now that's cool cuz if you're gonna play like Jun and Neil, you'll need to hit those treadmills, kids.

- This was the first time we had a free all-you-can-eat buffet for playuhs. Damn fine food too, Drei. Want more of that? Go to CCW Cafe on Guijo street. Tell them poker sent you ;)

- Popcornsexuality: this was the first time I heard anybody say they wanted to make love to popcorn. Duke, I dunno about you man, remind me never to share a tub o' popcorn with you in a dark movie theater.

- This was the first time I got drunk before level 5. JD and vodka bull just goes to my head.

Damn that was fun. Waiting for the photos to be shipped my way so I can post.

Stay tuned for the next round of action. GG all, till the next time the cards are in the air.

The 30,000 foot view = freedom?

I was talking to Kath, Migs's girlfriend and a good player, the other day about my oft-repeated theories about women players and the intangibles that might make them superior as a group to men. We got to talking about what those things might be if my theories had any bearing to them. I think one of the biggest things yor typical male lacks, and i risk grossly generalizing here, is the ability to take in the big picture, the whole shlemeil, because frankly boys, we're mostly self-centered, inward-looking bastards.

Then I remembered a passage i read in the poker novel, King of a Small World by Rick Bennett. I remembered a passage that resonated with me when I first read it. So I dug the thing up, found the passage, and here it is below. Not just for women, that was just the segue into it. It's about taking the macro view while in the situation - a hand, a game, a tourney, whatevuh. It's about feeling the big picture while being aware of the true nature of the granular details that you do catch.

The best poker I've ever played has always entailed peace. A relaxed comfort. Eyes open, ears open, radar up. Absorbing my opponent's every message. Taking them as they come. Not mixing what those messages are with what I want them to be. It's like an aerial view. A view from above the myriad luck-dependent reactions of those many people who never gain such a peace.

And when you gain that view, that peace - when you'd rather have the truth, no matter how disappointing, over a false hope, no matter how desirable - then you're a player. The hand you're on slips into a stream of thousands of other hands, no one of which, because of your lofty view, seems unduly important, no false fearful emotions rise within you.

When you gain the peace of lofty perspective, you're a player, and when you're a player, you're free.

Let's play some good pokuh, kids.

Ever here of Phil Laak, "the Unabomber"? Meet the Tunabomber 

Home Court Does it on Home Court

Saturday. Some of you may remember that we were planning an Aug. 6 boutique tourney; bigger buy in, smaller field.

Well, we had to cancel that...

But Derrick reaaally wanted to play, so we called up a good buddy, Neil "Home Court" A., and asked if we could do a gig at his place with the same field and half the buy.

Home Court said yes.

Great Turnout!

Pitboss and his crew out of wack wack, the A55 crew, Big Wally, the regular Alabang crowd and more.

20 players, decent pot.

Here's how it ended:

1st: "ZZ"
2nd: Home Court
3rd: Kermit P.
4th: Marty A. aka "Marty Shakes"

Great jobs to you all. Your bankrolls are padded.

And hey, remembuh to pre-reg for the Twin Towers event this Saturday. You simply must be a part of that one.

Two in one...join the fun

Twin Tourneys at the Twin Towers
Date: Saturday, August 13
Time: Registration at 5, Deal at 6pm
Place: Comment here for details
Game: NLHE No Rebuy
Buy-in: Tourney 1: text me or comment here for details
Maxplayers: 50 seats each tourney
Places paid: Number of tables + 2
Payout percents: TBD, 7 places per tourney max

two tourneys running concurrently in a multi-storey marble atrium, great food, drinks, and more. Managed by A55, so you're assured a quality time. Entertainment, Food and Bev is delivered to you by the great folks at TPCM. Reg ASAP to reserve ur seat. Comment here for details

Am I comin' back down to earth?

Bankroll performance review.

Did I do well, boss?

Do I get a raise?

Are things as they ought to be?

A few weeks a ago i posted my baseball card, which had my player stats, no photo or gum attached, but my vital statistics...

My geek sheets at the time revealed a far-too-good-to-be-true ITM and ROI rate for my SNGs (>55% ROI, 3/5 ITM i think - too lazy to go back and look at the damn thing).

Overall profitability of 20-something percent.

I stated that the numbers that were buoying my aggregate results were not possible, that something had to give.

Well, for the next coupla weeks i went on a tear, won a couple of small multis, maintained a crazy good record in my SNGs, and stayed above water in my rings. I cracked the crazy 50% ROI mark as of mid last week!

the diao gung was starting to pay off.

I thought i was invincible. Had reached Oz. I was gonna make that downpayment on that new condo in the Fort.

Well - as of today, i've come back down to earth. Played well still I think, but started to witness more bad beats, cold runs of cards, etc. Dived back down to the 25% ROI mark from a lofty 50. My MTT is negative (but i have moneyed in 2 out of 10, with profits being obliterated by variable buy-ins), my ring is now at a stratospheric 2%! LOL.

However, The SNGs continue to roll along...i'm still at a freakish 60+%. and a 56% ITM rate. That there's Frankenstein level stuff. Can't last.

Hope it does tho, don't wanna dip below 20%.

but i'm likin' it right now. Where I should be.

Just need more ring game hours...