“Awesome. I think he’s gonna die.”

After insisting to my wife and friends that the flu bug that’s savaged everyone I know would leave me untouched, I was immediately hammered by same. I’ll be honest, I felt it coming on and thought I could brush it off with Contac and cough drops, but after a lunch meeting at the Commerce in which all I remember was fighting to stay conscious, I dragged myself home and resigned myself to ridicule.

My wife would have been well within her rights to let me suffer, but instead she responded like Clara Barton possessed and spent the next 24 hours pelting me with Tylenol and antibiotics and serving up a foul round of cough medicine shots every four hours. Our living room looked like a Civil War field hospital and the cat had a strangely satisfied look on his face.

“In seat 9…providing the overlay…EdmondDantes”

Forty-eight hours later, I’m happy to report that her strategy worked and I’m feeling 100% better, just in time for a crazy session lakong and I have planned with the folks from Live at the Bike, now known as PokerNetcast. On Monday night, we’ll be hosting a $1K buy-in single table tournament with hole cams, video, commentators, the whole shebang. The current line up includes: Adanthar, nath, Shaniac, SirWatts, shaundeeb, Jose Canseco, Thayer. The flu knocked out two of the scheduled players, so we’re still scrambling a bit but I’m pretty sure we’ll round the table out. As a last resort, LakeofFire or I will fill in the final spot.

In a few weeks, we’ll be posting this dark comedy, access to the LATB archives and providing some videos with commentary which we'll segue into some new instructional content. It should be some interesting and entertaining viewing, and we’re pretty excited about it. In any event, I’ll post after the completion of the sit-n-go and let you know how it went.

Edmond

Just a reminder, the LA Poker Classic starts tomorrow (Thu, 1/24). I won't be playing the first events but will play a few the 2nd week and a couple of satellites for the final event. If anyone's in town or needs info, let me know!

For handy reference...

Guide to the LAPC

Schedule of events

Commerce tournament page

Edmond

A few weeks ago, I posted on a heads up match I had with a spider in a rented car. I'm happy to report that I've returned the car in question to Enterprise and picked up my new rig, a Lexus RX400 hybrid. It's a little soccer mom-ish but it's quiet, surprisingly quick and doesn't beat the crap out of the planet. Plus the folks at Lexus gave me a stupid good price...





Hope everyone had a good holiday!

Edmond

So I check my calendar late in the day and realize that I’m supposed to be at a concert/fundraiser at the Japanese consulate here in LA in a little over an hour. I contemplate blowing it off, but I know the host is expecting me so I resign myself to the gig. As it turns out, I didn’t have a suit on so I needed to jam home from my office, change and make it back across town, in traffic, by 6:30 or so.

Anyway, I make my way home, pull on a suit and head back out. Now my car came off lease a couple of weeks ago but I haven’t had a chance to find a new rig, so I’ve been rolling around in some rental car that Enterprise dropped off. Anyway, I’m moving along the 10 freeway and I flip down the visor to check my tie. Bam! A gigantic spider drops into my lap and scampers down my leg to the floor. Holy crap!

Ok, this was not some Little Miss Moffet spider…not some daddy long legs “I can run across the surface of water” whisper of a spider…no, in fact, this monster was just slightly smaller than a tarantula I once saw while hiking in Big Sur. Big brown body, furry legs…straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I have no idea where he came from or how the damn visor even stayed in place with this beast on top of it, but in any event, he was now milling around the floorboards.

I grew up in Maine and am not a city boy—I’ve had plenty of critters in between me and where I’m headed—but when you go to check your look and a spider the size of a small dog drops in your lap in a dark car at 60 mph, it’s unsettling. It’s like having the Starbucks girl tell you your coffee is ready and tossing a live snake at you instead of your nonfat latte. WTF!

I’m in traffic in the fast lane, so I turn on the interior lights, work my way over to the shoulder, pull over and jump out. I look back in and hunt the beast down. Ok, there he is staring at me from the console like Kong on the Empire State Building. Whatever, dude, I’m tight for time—I sweep the shaggy bastard out of my car with the rental agreement, collect my wits and head on to the consulate.

Later at the consulate, I’m sitting at a table with one of the artists for the evening, the head of a local bank, a newspaper rep and, as it turns out, some hitter from Lexus of Southern California. After a couple of speeches, a brief series of performances by three young pianists (all cute Asian girls, btw) and some pretty amazing sushi (it was the Japanese consulate after all), I recount my rental car/spider story to my tablemates. The Lexus guy was like “Uh, call me tomorrow and we’ll hook you up.” Ok, you know what, maybe I will. Did I mention my wife’s car is off-lease in two months’ as well?

It’s all about table draw and seat selection, boys!

Well, it’s been crazy busy lately, and it seems like the days just run together. I’ve had a couple of trips back to New York (the day job), I just got back from the Global Gaming Expo show (aka G2E) in Las Vegas, I have a meeting in Orange County tomorrow and then on to Fresno tomorrow night to pick up my winner’s bracelet in the 3rd Annual Ace of Diamonds tournament at Club One Casino. Next week, I'm heading back home to Maine for the holiday week. And after that, I’ll be hosting a home game at the Commerce Casino to take that service for a testdrive and report back. In any event, lots going on.

Global Gaming Expo (aka G2E)

I wanted to post the results of a recent effort I undertook for the benefit of some of the guys out there trying to build bankrolls, but first, a word on G2E. G2E is the largest gaming show—it’s held in Las Vegas and pretty much every vendor to casinos is there pitching their wares. I was out there researching player tracking systems for a project I’ve been working on. A few minutes after I got there, I noticed a forum discussion starting with Gary Loveman (CEO of Harrahs), former Senator Alfonse D’Amato (now head of the Poker Player’s Alliance) and Terry Lanni, the head of the MGM/Mirage. I sat in and listen for about a half an hour. There were no major insights from the session, but the consensus was that legalized online poker is coming.

Walking the show, I noticed at least three vendors (maybe four) of automated poker tables. Lederer and Ferguson were pitching one of them (Lederer was looking particularly freakish, weird and not very young) and there was activity at all three or four booths, but from what I’ve seen locally in Southern California (Hollywood Park et al.), the early results with automated tables are nothing special. I think there’s a role for them in a smaller 2-3 table club or in larger clubs for single-table tournaments (satellites) or heads up play. But, for the most part, it’s still early in the game for the automated table guys.

Overall, it’s clear from looking around that poker is still the red-headed afterthought of the gaming industry. The show is still all about the slots and financial services (ATMs, cash advances, etc.), although technology is taking more and more floor space every year. Oddly enough, relatively few web services are on display and given the generally poor state of casino websites and how much more important the web is to all companies marketing plans, that’s bound to change. It’s amazing to me how many casinos will acknowledge that 1) their website is lousy and 2) acknowledge it’s the first place visitors go when planning a trip…yet do NOTHING to improve it. Even sophisticated marketers seem to whiff their site. See, for example, www.wynnlasvegas.com. Steve, tell us about the restaurant again…no, please, we want to here it again...flash is fine…

A few thousand hands at low stakes NL

Anyway, on to the "few thousand hands" part of the post. I’ve read a number of blogs in which guys are trying to build a bankroll but suffer swings and get discouraged. I may be being a bit harsh here, but I’d argue that a lot of those “swings” are actually the result of erratic play. You can, in fact, grind out a decent earn and build a nice little bankroll through aggressive, but thoughtful play. Even on Full Tilt.

Post-UIGEA, I withdrew most on my online bankroll (call me a little old lady) but still had a few dollars in my Full Tilt account. I had some IM chats with Landlord79 in which I critiqued some of his plays and figured it would probably be more compelling if I logged a few thousand hands and posted the results.

I started with about $100 overall and sat admittedly underrolled in $.10/$.25 NL playing very basic TAG strategy. After I had a few hundred dollars, I moved up to $.25/$.50 NL to bang out another 10,000 hands. The results:


PT Stats



Graph




In most simplistic terms, my strategy could be summed up as follows:

Respect early position raises.

Raise pre-flop in position and continue if 3 or fewer players.

Avoid stacking off with over-pairs to limp/callers.

If I think I’m beat, fold.

Repeat ad nauseum.

Of course, I had my share of mental lapses and dusted off my stack light. See hands 8500-9500. I’m telling you right now those weren’t so well-played. I also had my share of brutal two outers, runner runner suckouts and not so brutal but nauseating nonetheless 2:1 favorites getting turned or rivered. I think I played great between hands 11,000-13,500 but, as you can see, had nothing to show for it.

As a practical matter, all the hands were played in full ring on Full Tilt. A fair number of the hands were single or double table play while doing other things. At most, I multi-tabled 8 tables, but those were relatively short focused sessions. I can play pretty well at a rate of about 300 hands per hour. Above that, it’s hard to say.

In any event, the point is I managed to build up a what would be a workable bankroll from a modest amount of starting capital. It’s not a huge sample size, and I'm not saying it's a great living, but it’s enough to show that a lower stakes player can build a bankroll without wild swings. You just need to stop spewing and start thinking. And raise in position, please. Note: if anyone wants more PT details or wants to comment, feel free to post me.

Anyway, that's it until I report back from the Club One event. Before I sign off, though, I’ve seen the new TwoRags home and blog pages. Very, very nice. I haven’t been this excited since the Patriots put the Colts on season tilt two weeks ago. Ha!