Through The Looking Glass

The yearly carnival that is the World Series of Poker is going strong in Las Vegas during the summer of 2007. An armada of top professionals, strong amateurs, online qualifiers and tourists of all descriptions begin their annual pilgrimage for what is the greatest poker festival on earth. 

They all possess various goals and ambitions from actually winning a bracelet to getting to a final table or perhaps a more mundane goal like cashing in a world series event and to go home with bragging rights. Many of course do not even bother playing in the events at all and simply concentrate on the mouth watering cash game action that is going on at this time of year.

But while all of the hysteria was happening across the Atlantic which culminated in Jerry Yang winning the main event and all of the millions of dollars that went with it, an ever increasing army of internet professionals prefer to stay at home and make money on their computer.

The world of poker sure looks a whole lot different in your own living room when compared to the glitz and the glamour of being somewhere like Las Vegas or Aruba or maybe Australia, unless you just happen to be lucky enough to be playing online poker in any of those locations of course.

The lure of the greatest poker festival on earth is not strong enough to make hundreds of European online pro’s drag themselves thousands of miles and with the potential to be thousands of pounds down over the space of the trip when everything is taken into consideration.

Air fares, hotel expenses and tournament buy-ins all contribute to the trip being a significant financial commitment. Let’s face it, the chances of cashing huge in the world series are reserved for the lucky few who just happen to hit their cards on the day. As the final table of the 2007 world series of poker $10,000 buy in event gets under way, it is time for one such internet pro to fire up his computer or “cash machine” as he likes to call it and go to work.

The glitz and glamour have no allure for this dedicated cyber shark as at a rate of eighty hands per hour and the facility to multi-table then why does he need to travel thousands of miles for a decent cash game?

So just who is this denizen of the online felt? Well I happen to know him quite well although he can be an annoying egotistical fellow sometimes…..it just happens to be me!

Sitting alongside anyone who does something for a living would be educational but having said that, I don’t always do the correct thing as is well highlighted when I scream at the monitor,

“JESUS…..just how many ******* cards is this guy going to hit today”

Bad beats used to get to me years ago but I have thankfully out grown that now with help from the mystical far east and Zen. There is an awful lot to be learned from such cultures and true enlightenment is something that I am sure has an enormous impact on ones life. Although don’t anyone ask me what that actually is because I sure as hell haven’t found it yet.

Today I am playing in my usual game of $10-$20 NLH at the 6 man tables. I sit down with $2000 after having watched the game for a full 45 minutes. This is something that I have done for quite some time at the bigger no limit games. $2000 may not be a massive buy in by many players standards but some of the people who I know don’t even earn that in a month so that kind of puts it into perspective somewhat.

The telephone rings, I ignore it. I really should get into the habit of turning the ringer off but never do. I always like the phone to be live in case of emergencies. I answer the call when it rings again only to find that it is a call centre from some far away land trying to sell me something. I am abrupt but polite and they get the message and the conversation ends.

“Come on now Carl” I say as I mentally fire myself up. This is no limit hold’em and it only takes one mistake to lose my entire buy in. I don’t recognise any of the players and have not played with any of them before although it has only been a week since I joined the site and I haven’t played much no limit hold’em as I have been concentrating mainly on my new love which is Pot Limit Omaha.

Although results have not been going too well recently and I lost another $1500 yesterday playing $5-$10. I wait for the big blind and see 8h-3c. It is folded to the button who makes it $70 to go and I fold, they are probably raising light but there is no point getting all macho about it on the first hand.

I want these guys to respect my later action and folding allows me to build up the right image when I will be getting involved for much greater amounts of money later on in the session.

These days I am much more varied in what games I play. Back in 2002 when I first turned professional then limit hold’em was the only game that I ever played. But over the years, a combination of boredom and no limit games being potentially more lucrative led to me switching games. Over the past two years I have also dabbled in SNG’s and more recently Pot Limit Omaha.

Just as I am about to open raise with my Ad-Js after it is folded to me in the cut-off, I get a reminder of the tournament that is just about to start somewhere else on the site. Many people have asked me down the years why I do not participate in online poker tournaments. Well the answer or answers in my case are not straight forward.

Firstly I don’t like the structures in online tournaments and think that most of them are crap shoots. I know that some players have done very well in online poker tournaments but they are in the minority to say the very least. Online tournament poker is very tough these days, in fact online poker is tough full stop.

You need to be dedicated and prepared to work very hard on your game if you have any desire to make the game pay. It is my personal belief that the best avenue for players to make money online is in cash game poker and especially games like Pot Limit Omaha.

Another problem for me personally with regards tournament poker is that I tend to suffer from lapses in concentration whenever I have been playing for several hours. This is fine of you are playing cash games as you can just switch off but in tournaments, you are locked in until the end.

But back to the game, I have been drifting which is very easy to do in online poker. I am thinking of too many things that are not connected with the game….I seriously need to stamp out these tendencies.

The big blind thinks for a while and folds and I win the pot uncontested. Over the next couple of hours I am bouncing either side of breaking even, getting a little in front and then a little behind. But there has been a really aggressive player on the table for the past hour or so who has been stealing my thunder. It is starting to get to me and I know that emotion has no part in the game but yet it is happening anyway.

I am in the cut-off with the 8h-7h and it is folded to me and I open raise to $70 and Mr Aggressive who is on the button immediately re-raises to $240. I am fairly certain that he does not have a hand and am pondering whether to flat call and continuation bet the flop regardless of what comes or re-raise him to show him who is boss right here and now.

I re-raise and he immediately moves all in for $2500 and I cannot call……damn it! Was this the time where he really had a hand? I have lost a large chunk of money all because someone’s behaviour had got to me….I should be far too experienced for that. I mentally tell myself to concentrate and then give myself a good pat on the back when I click the “sit out” button.

I can feel myself losing my mental equilibrium and in a game as big as $10-$20, that can be very expensive. I used to have a serious issue with tilt a few years ago and while I did not play this hand badly, I still became upset. However a few years ago I would have played on whereas now I will sit out or leave the table altogether if I feel that I am starting to lose it.

I think that the major problem is that online poker has become such a chore, it is too much like a job. I know that this may sound silly and perhaps it is because that is exactly how I should be treating poker. But I have never really properly got my head away from the fact that poker should be fun. This is how it had all started out years ago when I used to play in small games with my friends round at my house.

Back then, I don’t think that I was overly concerned about winning and losing, Sure…I liked to win just like everybody else. But it slowly but surely became something far more serious and I woke up one day and realised that I was now in a world where poker was no longer fun. I still play the odd live game and this is what I really miss about poker.

Talking and interacting with people, bluffing and reading bluffs face to face and all the rest of it. Although to be quite honest, the slow pace of live poker really does get on my nerves these days but it just goes to show you that you cannot have everything.

Just then I see a name on the waiting list for the $10-$20 game and it is one that I know from a couple of weeks ago. He had tilted badly on that occasion but he had also played badly as well. This was someone who I had to play with and despite my current mental state, I new that I not only could outplay this player but I also knew that he had the capacity to drop a large amount of money and hopefully I would be the recipient once again.

Well several hours later as I am logging off thinking “what the hell happened to all my money”, I reflect on my bad losing session. My target had viciously outdrawn me in two huge pots and left me with a $4800 loss for the day.

After making myself a coffee, I enter into my usual routine of going through the hand histories and analysing just how I played during the day. I have always felt that this is a crucial part of the process in the levels that I play at. I want to know not just how I have played but also if there are areas of my game that need an overhaul.

Despite the fact that I lost my composure earlier in the session, I thought that I played pretty well throughout. I do not always play bad poker when I am upset and I seem to instinctively do the right thing even when I am upset. At the end of my analysis I am pretty happy with how I have played overall, the only black cloud was the daily result but that’s poker and I know that I was only a couple of fluke river cards away from having a good session.

The margins between winning and losing sessions are wafer thin sometimes and in cyberspace, no one can hear you scream when you lose. Although I suppose that I am lucky because I can get to write about my losses in poker magazines and why shouldn’t you be forced to listen to my tails of woe? Besides, it may just prevent you form making the mistakes that I make.