OMG!  I can't believe it's been over a week since I blogged.  That must be some kind of record.  I've been super busy the last week because of the holidays, and now I'm waaay behind on my posts.   You can read about my adventures at the second biggest church complex I've ever been in (other than the Vatican), and how I let a short Asian man rub me down in the nude.

Oh, I'm going to have some big news next week...  :-)

(and it's not that I turned ghey, in case you are wondering what the deal with getting naked with another dude is all about).


A Xmas joke to tide you guys over...  the kind of joke that I would find funny, but Mrs. Fly would not.

A couple was shopping at a packed mall on Christmas Eve. Walking through the mall, the wife looked up and was surprised to see that her husband had disappeared. She was very upset because they had much Christmas shopping to do.

Using her cell phone, she called her husband and asked him where he was. The husband, in a calm voice said, "Honey, remember the jewelry store we went into 5 years ago - where you fell in love with that diamond necklace that we could not afford, and I told you that I would get it for you one day?" His wife, crying, said "Yes, I remember that jewelry store."

"Well," he said, "I'm in the bar next to it."

A few weeks ago, someone noob posted this on 2+2:

Just wondering how long do you give it. I was just playing 5/10 live the other day and after 1 &1/2 hours of seeing 62, and my small and big blind raised when I have 73. i just left. i realized it was not happening for me. do any of you have a time limit? 

My response was this...

1.5 hours in a live game? What is that, like 50 hands? So basically, you played 50 hands and decided it wasn't your day?!?  [As an online multitabler, you can play 50 hands in under 4 minutes. So the post was basically saying... "I didn't get a hand for 4 minutes..."] And in your other thread you mentioned you sometimes drive 2 hours to get to the casino?

As my good friend Vito Corleone used to say, "you can start by acting like a man!"

Not being a troll/hater, just if you want to seriously play live for a living, you need to suck it up. It's like if you were a baseball pitcher... sometimes you don't have your "A" stuff. But if this is your job, you need to suck it up and try to get through it. (Unless you're terrible and will lose money with anything but your "A" game - in which case you need to find another job).

FWIW, If you play online, you can just take a break and try again in a few hours. 

Which I think brings up an interesting point... should you play at all when you are not "feeling it"?  I think I've heard several "poker coaches" say NOT to play.  But my view is a little different.  I think if you are playing poker FOR A LIVING, you need to get in a certain number of hours a week.  Otherwise, you end up like those "pros" who only play like 30-40 hours a month - probably when the tables are really good and (coincidentally?) they feel on top of their games.  Yeah - their win rates are spectacular, but they don't make much money.  Last time I checked, most restaurants take AMEX, Visa, Mastercard and Cash.  They don't accept Win Rate.

Have you ever talked to one of those "old timers" who talk about the golden years of online poker (between 5-10 years ago)?  They always say something like "if I wasn't so lazy and put in some more hands..."  Well, the games aren't getting any easier, and the legislative environment is more uncertain.  Can you be sure *you* won't be saying the same thing yourself 5+ years from now?  You can say the games are getting tougher, but they are still pretty good.

I guess my PTR is going to take a beating, throwing in all those long sessions where maybe I do a little better than break even.  But you LEARN how to get by when you're not at the top of your game, which is an acquired skill.  Some people just start falling apart when it "not their day".  The last time I checked, the WSOP occurs at a certain time, so does that high stakes poker game at the Playboy mansion you're supposed to show up to.  If you are not ready to play, it's going to play without you.  Knowing how to make the most of your days where you don't have your "A" game is a good skill and mindset to have.

Some of my best sessions have occurred when I wasn't "feeling it."  And on top of it, I still make like $40 an hour in rakeback, so it's not like I'm being unproductive.  Over 1,000 "B" hours a year, that's a lot of Chanel purses for Mrs. Fly, and more future bail money for G and D.  At the end of the day, that's just time I would have otherwise just been sitting on my ass surfing the net for more horse porn anyway.  That's what the DVR is for.

Have you ever wondered why certain states get certain stereotypes?  I thought I would confirm / deny the Texas sterotypes...

* everyone wears 10 gallon hats.  DENY.  I have yet to see one, other than in the historic district.  And the guys here don't look like Yosemite Sam... well, most of them.

* everyone owns a pick-up truck.  CONFIRM.  I wouldn't have thought I would have noticed a difference between one major city suburb and another, but for some reason, most of our neighbors own a pick-up truck... and we live in one of the nicer parts of town.  The only people who owned pick-up trucks in CT were the landscapers.  But you need one if you want to schlep your boat, camper, dirt bikes, etc.

* everyone owns a horse.  SOMEWHAT DENY.  There are probably a half dozen houses outside of our development that have horses on their property.  Rumor has it that you get some kind of tax break.  Or maybe these folks were super-saavy about the recent FDA decision to remove it's ban of funding horse meat.  Horse is the new cow, ldo.

* everyone loves George Bush.  CONFIRM.  I drive by the President George Bush Turnpike like once a week.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's "HW" (the dad) and not "W" (the son).  But they are both pretty popular.  I also walk by the Rick Perry alley once a month, when I can remember to.

* everyone carries.  CAN'T COMMENT...  thankfully.  But I can see where this stereotype gets started (later post)

* everyone is a bible beater.  OMFG!  (later post)

So you may be wondering how my staking has been going.  I have two stakes - a part time NL50 player (staking 100%, let's call him "Ace") and a full time NL100 player (staking 50%, let's call him "Big slick").  The "good" news is that ev-wise, they are a combined +6.13 over 54K hands in November.  Sadly, that is dollars and not win rate.  Thank god for rakeback!  The BAD news is that they are a combined -$1,504.16 in actual dollars.  Playing NL50 and NL100?!?  LOL?  Is anyone running good out there ?!?

As I was going over their big hands on the replayer, I actually found some of the bad beats pretty funny.  I think I would have been agonized and annoyed if it happened to me while I was playing, but something about it not happening to you (even tho it's still your money) kind of makes it more entertaining.  LOL!  Runner-runner flush.  Masochistic, I know (as does Mrs. Fly, eh hem).

But I figure this is only month 1, and their PTR graphs were mostly flat when I met them.  I feel good about the value I'm adding to their games.  I'll go over their DB and send them a few things a week to think about and go over their big hands to see where they could improve.  Assuming they are taking my suggestions seriously (and my emails aren't going straight into their recycle bins), I think we'll start seeing better results in the coming months.  Quads was looking for a stake, but where's the fun and challenge in staking a 4ptbb winner?  Stay tuned to the next monthly report.

So here's a tip I recently shared with Ace.  Ace is a laggish player who hadn't played in 6 months.  The thing that's different now than a year ago is that players are now defending much more aggressively vs cbets - whether it's floating (sometimes multiple streets) or bluff raising.  So you can't open wide, cbet and expect to take the pot down.  Ace's EP flop cbet success rate was 35%!  Assuming your flop cbet sizing is 2/3 pot, you need that to work like 40% of the time (very simplified - the actual calculation is a lot more complex).  So "raise-cbet flop-take the pot down" is not a good formula for today's games.  You need to start adding more creativity to your game.

Anyway, I might be looking for 1 more stake - I can't be saturating the tables with my stakes, lest I incur the wrath of Vini (possible later post, if I ever get caught up with my post backlog).  So if you are a higher volume break-even-ish grinder, preferably someone who with a (soon-to-be?) family situation, send me an email.  I did say I was a masochist, didn't I?