I.so.wish.I.could.escape.writing.this.post.
But alas, I cannot; 'we do what we must do'. So here goes nothing.

2008 is no more... And, I curse through my teeth my only too common human nature and that stupid 2-hockey-period-timespan-memory of ours, which, at the end of the... year, puts me right in that famous spot: "I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking of how I lost it" (Mike McDermott, Rounders, 1998, John Dahl). Hehe. I also hear Knish's voice sometimes, going "It happens to everyone. Time to time, everyone goes bust" (ibidem). But that's the thing now, is it; I get myself all worked up like that and I haven't even gotten busto. What does that tell me about me, I wonder... Time to take a fscking hard look at meself in a mirror, I think... And what better than a quick wrap-up of 2008.

Maybe I'm focusing too much on the last few weeks, but I must say I feel I failed in 2008. Thing is, I always sucked big time at setting and reaching personal objectives... The irony is, of course, that I am nevertheless quite introspective... And thus, last January, I found myself caught up by the notion that I might had overgrown this flaw of mine, and overblew it a little with this humongous list of goals for 2008:

• Play at least 50,000 hands of online poker
• Play way more live, and find a personal comfort zone
• Settle at NL10, then NL25 and NL50 by the end of the year
• Develop a proficiency for another game (Razz, Stud or Omaha)
• Start dabbing at split games
• Win a tournament
• Pull a major stone-cold bluff
• Hustle some poor schlob in a pub or hustle myself a date :P
• Visit every Montreal poker room
• Take a week-end trip to Atlantic City
• Run a tight blog :P
• Keep the mailing list/discussion group alive
• Stay aggressive, uncompromising and unapologetic at the tables, while remaining affable, lighthearted and zen
• Create myself a slick avatar
• Create a Poker course
• Keep taking bad beats with the reverence and awe of a devout
• Write my Poker & Self-Enlightenment piece

I only managed to crush and achieve one, namely playing at least 50k hands. Actually played in little over 100k online cash game hands in 2008, which is pretty satisfying to me. Among the other numerous objectives, I think I can still say some of them are half-successes;

• I believe I kept a somewhat tight, entertaining blog;
• I probably pulled a very decent bluff, and probably much more, as a matter of fact, but must say I now consider this one the fruit of my Hollywood-based upbringing and that romantic notion that bluffs must be for all the marbles, in a life and death situation, or something... lol bluffaments :D!
• I did not play more than 40ish tournaments, mostly Sit'nGos, in which I kept a positive RoI%.
• The mailing list and poker course thingy might have taken a new bloggish form (to be continued)...
• And lastly, though I had to step back from NL50 at the stroke of midnight, almost, I did get to NL20 and then took a roughly half-decent shot at it, so I can't really rule that one as a total failure.

Still, lots and lots learned... hopefully ;-). And while I do remember I suck at setting up objectives and fighting to accomplish them, I will try and refine and mature from this last year, and manage to set better targets for 2009. I'm thinking: broader... And a lot less of them ;-).

"Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up."

Man, did I draw the table! Was basically the only one who had decent understanding of the game and could actually explain it to a bunch of criminologist ladies. Of the lot at my table, 2 guys kinda knew about Holdem, like, the rules... somewhat. One of them arguing with me that the board was dealt one card at a time, including the flop... That's right, you read right... What the fsck do you say to a guy who looks you dead in the eye and claims rather firmly that you do not deal a 3-card flop??? WHAAAAT!! I was about to call the floor when it dawned on him, and he dropped the expected "Oh, no, you're right... my bad!". LOL. And what a let down when I discovered the dude was NOT an action junkie ;-)...

Anyway... I didn't want to be doing the de facto dealing, but couldn't really help myself with such a table, and my temperament... No dealers in a fundraiserament is a big no-no, in my opinion; no-limit donkaments inevitably bring the numerous split pots, and those will dramatically increase in numbers with newbies AND rebuys, and can one seriously hope a newbie to cope and deal those situations effectively?!?!? I think not, ldo. So, I ended up doing all the work, surprisingly enjoying it :P... And I'll confess I sheepishly tried to let the n00bs have a good time rather than sharkishly attack there inexperience and lack of basic odds understanding. I am not that big of a shark either, I guess, but I do believe this was not the place for that kind of behavior, although the 1500$ payout for first place was indeed kinda juicy ;-).

Ok, so the donkament itself... Wow. Not.That.Great.Actually.
No Felt: Sucks
No Dealer: Sucks
15-Minutes Level: Sucks
No-Dealer + 15-Minutes Level + Newbies = Not.Quite.Poker.

Cards and chips were, to my utter astonishment, quite decent; clean Copag decks with cut card (although I'm guessing some tables might not even have used them :P), and very nice chips that I didn't take the time to properly identify (sorry Nic :P), even though there were cheap, lousy plastic thingies in the mix. First hour 20$ rebuys for 1500 chips, and 3 types of add-ons at the first break (20$ for 2k, 40$ for 5k and 60$ for 10k... but I didn't bring enough dough... nerf me).

All in all, a somewhat typical fundraiserament, with all those incredibly juicy pot odds!! LOL. As for my play, I grinded my way to table chip leader early on, but couldn't grind any decent-sized stack considering my newbie opponents tended to fold every time I raised :S. I got picked up, twice back to back (lol), after the break, and ended up shoving dark from the button against queens and hit 2 pairs, which brought me back to a whooping M of 2.5 :P. Looking down a the KJ of spades the very next hand, I shoved again, ready to go on with the near 2 hour drive back home... Was called by Cowboys (ouch) and Ax of spades (double ouch), and hit the rails, with an opponent going "he can't leave"... Funneh.

In the end, I must admit not being quite satisfied with my take on it all, because I sincerely feel I could have gotten way deeper in this... But, my table draw didn't help I think, with a bunch of passive newbies (not a single action type in there... I was the action junkie, actually, and that's saying a lot :P). And, a circumstance outside of my control also dictated things a little bit, as I could very well might have been left stranded in Lachenaie, with no means of getting back home, other than a rather costly cab ride... Anyway, I can comfort myself with the karma points I got for being there, giving money to a bunch of kids who just want to play hockey, and the thought that maybe, just maybe, someone from my table found a new hobby :).

You want to know why I play almost exclusively cash games? You sure you want to know? Because, as much a cruel and unfair bitch as cash game poker can be, it could never measure to tournament poker's sadistic twists and turns. Be it only because of the mere fact that you have only one life, so to speak, and the deeper you go in a tourney, the more you put it on the line, literally. And when things go awry, it's all over. Period. Cash game poker is, on the contrary, a little like one's life, ironical ly enough; it never ends, until it does. Death is what ends one's life, of course, but only one's will to quit the Cash Game, to simply stop playing, can ever end it for that particular individual. Especially as long as there are penny games and micro stakes out there, the bankroll is not really an issue anymore!

Anyhow, having theoretically deposited on TitanPoker in the last 4 weeks, and having collected enough titan points, I got invited to the New Depositors Monthly Freeroll. So I figured I'd give it a go, mostly because of the rather small field: 333 entrants, 40 places paid. And a lot of sitters!! Things were going very well, starting by doubling up on the very first hand with Rockets. Then, something a little unexpected happened. A sitter, blinding his or her stack away, ended up all-in on the big blind, but survived. I didn't make much of it at the time, but when it kept happening, I got a little puzzled, and tried remembering other tourneys I had played... I am still not sure, but if I recall correctly my time with the Railbirds (thus, tournaments on either PokerStars or FullTilt Poker), if a sitter is short to pay the big blind and a player raises, the sitter's hand is folded and he or she is then eliminated. I'm actually really not sure about that, since I don't do donkaments that much, and when I do, I play mostly donkagos... I'd be curious to know whether this is indeed how sitters are handled on those poker clients, as well as in live tourneys, but I must confess not being very keen on the (read: my) general winrate at donkaments, and therefore do not really feel like doing the research :). In any case, on TitanPoker, sitters have a shot at every single pots or side pots created, and, thanks to variance, I must have witnessed at least a dozen hands where a blinded-out sitter survived.

Which brings us to nearing the bubble, when I remembered a little more clearly the tourneys I have played, strategically as well as rules wise. Then, it hit me: where the hell were the antes!!!! Blinds were 200/400 by then, just as another sitter (andreaXX, actually...) survived; antes are there for a couple reasons, one of which is fairness, in my humble opinion. Folding one's way in the money is something, something one can only do after some winning poker, at least, but with online poker and the zillion tourneys starting every single minute, some people tend to abandon their short-stack after bad beats and/or bad plays, which is fine by me. But it is still my honest opinion that a tournament structure should actually take care of these situations; those players should, in fact, simply go like Broomcorn's uncle, to use Doyle's old saying (Super System, of course for the curious).

Anyway, it also seems Poker Gods are meaner sons of bitches during donkaments; andreaXX and at least 3 other sitters made the money, while I put out a decent tourney performance and evidently did not.

And of course, all that to bust out on this humongous runner-runner suckout, 3 places shy of the money!!!! Fscking donkaments!!!!

Titan No-Limit Hold'em, Tournament (Titan HH Converter by Kreatief)

BB ($14,785.00)
UTG+2 ($6,840.00)
Villain ($13,800.00)
MP2 ($27,040.00)
Hero ($2,552.00) (Hero)
CO ($36,800.00)
BTN ($13,726.00)
SB ($12,690.00)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with K♦K♣
1 folds, Villain raises to 2600.0$, 1 folds, Hero raises All-In $2,552, 4 folds,

Flop: 7♠ 2♣ 2♣ ( $6,352 )

Turn: Q♠ ( $6,352 )

River: T♠ ($6,352 )

Final Pot: $6,352.00

Results:
Villain has K♠, J♠
Hero has K♦, K♣
Outcome: MP1 wins $6,352.00

Ok. Last year around May, we found the Team Canada freerolls, which created the Canadian PokerStars team to be sent to Vegas for the 37th WSOP. While I did try those freerolls, I didn't fare that well, mostly unaccustomed to the turbo blind structure.

Well, this year, Stars is again offering sweet sweet WSOP packages, and I figured I'd give it at least a decent shot. Having some relative problems with my cash game and my roll, I decided for trading my hard earned FPPs to give 3 tries to the WSOP Step 1 Sit'nGo (Donkago... actually, Turbo Donkago :P)... Quick wrapup of the first 2 tries: played uber aggressive, with the moto 'build a momentum and a stack'; shoved with A8s vs a shortstacker with a presto and lost the coin flip, which left me pretty much crippled. Ended up shoving with some bordeline painted hand that I don't remember... Aaaah yes, an offsuit big slick... Which didn't hit squat, busting me in 8th place :S. Second one, same strategy, same hand gets me busto, but it was my first shove so if it would have hit, I might have gotten through. That was in 5th place by the way, which is kinda the bubble (4th place pays a whooping 1,50$, 3rd gets a new buy-in to Step 1 and 1 and 2 move on to Step 2). That kinda pissed me off and got me on tilt AND on an open Vendetta against Donkaments all together :P... But, while talking about it with Nic, I reviewed my strategy and buckled myself in my 3rd try with the survivor mantra : "I got my fist, I got my plan, I got survivalism" [lol! NIN, Survivalism, Year Zero (2007)]. And then this happened:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (4 handed) Poker Stars Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

Hero (t1270)
Button (t6600)
SB (t1890)
BB (t3740)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 8h, 8d.
Hero raises to t1270, Button calls t1270, SB raises to t1890, 1 fold, Button calls t620.

Flop: (t5250) Tc, 6s, 9s (3 players)

Turn: (t5250) 3s (3 players)

River: (t5250) 4s (3 players)

Final Pot: t5250

Results below:
SB has Ad Kh (high card, ace).
Hero has 8h 8d (one pair, eights).
Button has Jh As (flush, ace high).
Outcome: Button wins t5250.

Busted in 4th, just out of the loop. Now, I don't really want to whine and bitch about the fact that I was the favorite, but since it might actually be my last 'WSOP-related' moment of 2008, I will simply paste the equity calculations I got from my Poker Stove :P.

Before the flop:

	equity	win	tie	pots won	pots tied
Hand 0:	46.016%	45.89%	00.12%	+600k	1669	8d8h
Hand 1:	20.157%	19.29%	00.87%	+260k	11898	AsJh
Hand 2:	33.827%	32.96%	00.87%	+45k	11898	AdKh

After the flop (that one hurts):

	equity	win	tie	pots won	pots tied
Hand 0:	65.227%	65.23%	00.00%	589	0.00	8d8h
Hand 1:	16.888%	16.39%	00.50%	148	4.50	AsJh
Hand 2:	17.885%	17.39%	00.50%	157	4.50	AdKh

And finally, just before the suckout :P:

	equity	win	tie	pots won	pots tied
Hand 0:	64.286%	64.29%	00.00%	27	0.00	8d8h
Hand 1:	26.190%	26.19%	00.00%	11	0.00	AsJh
Hand 2:	09.524%	09.52%	00.00%	4	0.00	AdKh

Yeah, there is some luck involved in poker... I must not kid myself...

Woot!!! Quick post to mention my second money finish in a Railbirds Freeroll. On Stars again :( ; can't wait to get a bankroll on FullTilt and start playing some Razz lol!

Anyhow, I finished 80th out of 1299 in Limit Hold'em RB freeroll. 1st limit experience ever, not counting the HORSE event of a couple of weeks back :D !!! I found something rather interesting in Limit poker, something I'm afraid I cannot quite put the finger on right now but, all in all, it reminded me of one of my buddy ncaron's comments: he onced said he had the feeling I might have a knack for limit play, mostly because I'm grossly tighter than him. Will keep you posted, off course ;-).

Quick notes during first break of this Sunday's PokerStars freeroll. I made it to the break with a slightly more than average stack, and am thinking this should be my special pre-Railbirds freeroll mantra: "Make it to the breaks with an average stack". lol.

Now, just keep your head clean.... Here we go...:eek: lol

Ok.. Just doubled-up to a very decent 18k with snowmen and a board of 3-3-5 on which I moved all-in. All that after waiting, prowling in a corner with half the average stack. Now, I wanna get into the money!!!

5 players to go before the bubble bursts and your very own BubbleB0y is sitting on a nice, slightly bigger than average stack... Very tight everywhere suddenly... Like some deserted far-west town lol

3 to go...

Hand-to-hand play... The short-stack, with not even a big blind, asks why is every hand taking so long...

IN THE MONEY!!! Woot!!! Feels good, not for the 20 cents, not by far :P! Rather for the mere fact that i have been doubting myself a tad this week-end :P.

Second break with a bit bigger than average stack :). Now, I'm on a doubling-up quest if I want to make some real money :P

Oh well, it's over!! lol! 121th out of 1435 is pretty darn good and after the second break, I had set myself to be really aggressive, on a chase for any doubling-up opportunity because the new objective was 1st place (or at least a final table), and did just that on the 3rd hand iirc :P. Woke up with A♣4♣: and flat called the 1200 blind figuring I'd test whether the table had tightened up or not. BB raised to 8200 and I went in the very quick tank, the one you should avoid imho :D, and shoved thinking he might be trying to steal mine and the button's limps, who folded. He did think for a while, about folding I hope, but finally called, covering me about 2 to one and must have figured I wanted to bully the table or get into a race with a short stack and flipped A♦K♣.D'oh! Bald and somewhat clumsy - perhaps lousy - move, especially since it was against the table's chip leader, but I definitely prefer the feeling of a good gamble than of blinding myself out of a tourney :), which I do O so often :p.

Now, to a short movie break and some long overdue cleaning (thanks to Railbird's freeroll and my legendary laziness - hey, who in its right minf would take cleaning over poker, right?)! And then, FullTilt's freeroll :D lol !!

Did my first Real Money Ranking tourney yesterday - which is a fancy way of saying there's a buy-in but the tourney is private and counts in a ranking. I also figured it to be the way Poker Stars and FullTilt Poker make their money with us railbirds.

Finished 30th out of 196, which is pretty good and is way above the 50%-of-the-field mark I had set for myself :). Objective reached! But I think it might be just shy of the 15% mark and thus shy of getting me any points in the above mentioned ranking, right?? Anyhow, very interesting to be in a decent size tourney with only 196 players :).

Caliber seemed a little better to me. In my case, I played some decent smaller ball even and found out I might not be cut out for the swings lol!! Not in cash games that's for sure...

On the P.S. side: I did see something quite weird, which, weren't I indulging myself in a near blind faith in random algorithms, could make me lean towards the "Poker Stars is rigged" perspective. Long story short, I'm in seat 1 and the guy right to me, in seat 9, catches pocket rockets twice in row, showing them both times when getting no action at all for his raises (actually, he caught them on his blinds, and ended up raking the small blind the second time). The funny thing is I caught the rockets right after and, when the first card of my following hand was an ace again, I started to think it was some kind of rotational glitch or something lol. Off course, my next card was a lousy 4 and everything went back to normal lol!

My good and so far only poker buddy Nic found out about www.railbirds.com and their invite-based private freerolls, and we both registered and started goofing around on the site to get invites. We got two, one in the afternoon, impossible to attend for this working class hero and the other for Friday nite. Waiting for the tourney to start, I found the dedicated forum and read the single post there; some guy was complaining that his last 2 endeavors with railbirds freeroll had been disastrous, stuck that he was with degenerate 10 year old junkies, as he so eloquently put it. Restraining myself from 2 very opposite replies (either: "what do you expect with a freeroll?" or "I'm about to do my first and you're kinda worrying me..."), I played lousily a NL10 cash game to pass time.

Well, my first impressions are good; no more degeneracy than my usual micro-stakes, a somewhat better than your average PokerStars freeroll caliber with such a smaller field. Off course, 1400ish players for 200 bucks is not that juicy but it allows, amongst other things, to try new or different stuff, which is always great in a learning process. In my case, I was trying some real small ball, around 80% of the pot, but could barely managed to play around half my hands; I definitely developed some patterns that I must fix :-).

Anyhow, couldn't crack the 50%-of-the-field mark; 770th out of 1 428, but yesterday was, in the end, a shitty poker evening :)! Thus, I'll try this again for sure :D!

Dude, I'm on fscking fire!
Well, afraid I might have been since I busted another bubble two days ago, when I first start realizing The Streak, and finished 5th late yesterday evening. Talk about Murphy...

Still, I feel my SitnGo game finally showing promise, as I have, at long last, managed to bring my ROI% above zero!!! Woohoo!! Currently standing at 5.98%!! Granted, I am only talking about my 1$ SitnGo stats (nevertheless standing for 67% of all my tourneys), but still, it's a definite good sign, which is encouraging; I'm might not be blowing my cash game earnings on tournament poker for nothing, after all, lol!

Now, while I haven't been playing loads of cash game poker lately. Roughly a mere 270-something hands in the last month, plus maybe 75 hands for our weeklyish home game; let's say 350 hands... Nothing to call home about! And, come to think of it, most assuredly the sole reason I feel stuck at the stakes I've been playing for a while now. No wonder...

Albeit, I truly believe cash game to be the real absolute true nature of the game (sometimes, I am a purist that way), especially no limit off course, since faiths can swing like the proverbial pendulum. Still, even a limit cash game can felt a player enough to get him hitchhiking his way home, if it's still his. And although I seem to be having my share of a somewhat natural hang of it (overstatement here - yet, my puny 4 000ish cash game hands wielding 50ish bucks profit at micro stakes kinda speaks for itself, I think. Does not mean I'd fare as well at higher stakes, though; not at all!), there is a profound, unmistakable and probably unshakable feeling of security in playing a tourney. Be it humongous fields or simple heads-up matches, one always has the absolute unquestionable certainty that the most money one can lose, in the worst case scenario, is one's buy-in. Very very limited risks involved. Which probably explains a lot of the goofing around you find in the early stages. Limited in the return on investment as well, mind you, but the "pot odds" are always remarkably enough; just think of Moneymaker's 39$ to win WSOP's Main Event and 2.5 millions! These kinda odds always make gamblers drool; well, they do get me drooling lol.

Anyhow, a word on the streak. I probably have jinxed it already by talking and writing about it; I'm 0 for 2 actually since I first took notes for this post (though I believe superstitions to be unlucky ;-)... Little gambler classic joke here :P). Nevertheless, I did go 8 money finishes in a row in 1$ SitnGos. Always nice to feel in control. I remember great plays and especially very good contextual decisions, stupid moves which cost me but keeping my composure afterwards, well-timed suckouts, and, all in all, a general feel of purpose and confidence. Which is exactly what I need to focus on now that I can admit it's gone and feel the fear of the cash game creeping back, mostly for too much play in this safest of poker environment... That's a lousy pernicious side effect of playing lots of tourneys; the Fear of the no-limit cash game!!! Yup, this is probably gonna make its way into the Poker and Self-Enlightenment series, if it ever is... In the meantime, time to go check if I can start myself a brand new streak :P...

Friday nite, heading home with some excitment, eventhough I had to bail on something. Indeed, I was supposed to go to the CPR with my poker buddy (still no nickname, so he shall remain nameless for the time being :tongue:), but, early in the afternoon, my oldest lady friend told me she was going to have some drinks after work with some peeps. I asked who, hinting at the single woman my friend had mentioned a couple of times in the past, a movie buff whose allegedly perfect for me... Therefore, I got torn apart most of the afternoon between the "gotta see about a girl" and the poker nite scheduled for a while now... And then it happened; my friend's boyfriend invited me to his poker homegame, which was to occur at the girl's place (since her roommate his a poker player)... Then, I definitely wanted in... And my poker buddy gave me his blessings to bail on him... So, I accepted the invite, a tad late though. And the proverbial shit the proverbial fan...

I get home, sit at my desk and login to PokerStars. I play a single Hold'em low limit table to past the time until 6h30, when my friend is going to call and give me the game's location. So I play and spent my time. 6h30 comes and pass and I kinda get the idea of calling myself, but then get dealt Rockets in the hole in position. My concentration doubles and I utterly forget I was thinking of calling my buddy... I win a decent sized pot... 7 o'clock hits and I say to myself "They must be arguing about something... The call'll come real soon"... And the demon is starting his jiggle "you'll end up here all nite... you'll end up here all nite... you'll end up here all nite... ". Sure as an egg is an egg, I never get the call, get pissed off a while cause I could have been playing poker for a couple hundred bucks instead of missing a double opportunity and ending up home alone on a Friday nite... This passes though, as I click the "Tourney" tab of my PS client and see a 5-table Omaha SitnGo almost full. Woohoo!!! Jackpot, I register and end up playing my first Omaha tourney. But that's not all; around 8 o'clock, still on the first few blind levels, I get an email from my friend's boyfriend with the adress of the game and everything... Annoyed, I look at the header and realize that the dude was alright all along, emailing me around 5h30 with these infos... How in the world did I received it almost 3 hours later??? This is still puzzling me to the day...

But, then I rake a good pot with top two pair against a drawing dude paying too much for any draw... Life is better suddenly... Even more when, about 10 hands later, I make THE nuts on the turn and get paid for it, almost doubling up (this is Pot Limit Omaha, needless to say). The high is cut short in the span of 3 hands that get me broke with 2 stupid hold'em plays before the killing hand. Final rank: 17th out of 45. And I still think I could (maybe even should) have won that thing "smirk:...

Very fun first experience. Loads of newbies and clueless peeps. Just like me! The pace is a bit faster since more players take more chances, going at a whim often enough. Makes it a little more crapshoot like, but I think one with good starting hand judgment could do real good getting paid a lot by many Hold'em players looking for a good laugh. Only downside is the rarity of 45 Omaha players registering... I hope the Poker Train eventually picks up on the other games, cause for the time being, peeps do not seem that interested by anything else than Hold'em...

Went to a live tourney yesterday, and once again, some kind of prescience hit me about half an hour before the tourney started; I was going to burst the bubble.

Played what I think was solid poker flirting dangerously with a rocky tightness. I just could not switch gear, intimidated that I was by all this live action (ironically enough, not at all by the big Mike Matusow wannabe sitting in front of me and annoying almost everyone in the club). And, off course, eventually, my inability to efficiently switch gears seemed to have cost me the money. Thrice, following a "battle of the blinds", I thought to myself "now is your chance to build up something" but just could not find my balls :P!

Might be worth mentioning the best hole cards I got all nite: a Gretzky!!! Got pockets ducks twice and, I think a little slick but I'm not even sure :). Considering this, I'm pretty satisfied to have reached the final table.

Final rank: 8th out of 43.