AMT's blog

Was clearing out my inbox and found an old email that I thought I would share after a few requests. 

Short context: About 7 months ago, I was moving into a new place and moving halfway across the country (US).  Instead of trying to organize an elaborate move, I did what any degen would do- order new stuff.  Needed a desk and chose the great value at walmart.com!  Really they have some decent furniture for good value...obviously nothing fancy, but it works. That is, if you can get them to give it to you. 

I ordered a desk fitting of my needs. A week or so later, a box arrived. It had a picture of my desk on it.  I took the heavy ass box upstairs and opened it.  Much to my delight, it was not a desk inside at all. It was a bike rack.  You know, one of those bike racks that fit on the back of your car, designed to carry your bikes on trips.  With no evidence of a desk in the desk box, I decided to inquire.  The short of it is, they gave me the run around, telling me I had to return the mistaken shipment before getting the correct package, had to take the box to a store/post office and they wouldn't pick it up, etc...  After reasoning with them to a satisfactory degree, that was it. I got the desk soon thereafter, and after a few weeks, took the bike rack to the post office.

Several days after I shipped off the bike rack, I got a third email from them regarding the time limit surrounding my bike rack return.  I will start with that email. 

March 2011-

==============================================
from    Walmart.com Help help@walmart.com
subject    Your walmart.com order

   
Dear Alex,

We have not yet received the Allen Sports Five Bike rack carrier that you recieved instead of your 3-Piece Glass Computer Desk, Black/Black in order 376006980253 into our returns center.  Please verify (how/when) item was returned.  If item is not received by March 18, 2011, you will be recharged.

If we may be of further assistance, please email us at help@walmart.com.

Sincerely,
Walmart.com Customer Care
==============================================

I really didn't like getting yet another reminder of their failure to properly serve me. 

==============================================

Hi Walmart,

I'm sorry to hear that you haven't received the Bike Rack that you mistakenly sent me. I was told I would get a label in the mail to attach for return, but that never came.  As such, approximately 1 week ago (perhaps longer at this point), it was shipped using the printed return label from the automated emails.

To ensure that you believe that I have sent this item in for return from the specified location, I provide you with the following pieces of evidence:

1)  This is the closest post office location to where I am located, and I am one lazy asshole, so let's face it...I'm not taking it anywhere else.  You couldn't pay me to go to another post office location right now, and there are few or no buildings in between this apartment and that post office.  Doubt I'd want to carry that thing any further than Walmart has already forced me to.

2)  I don't have a car.  What on earth would I want with that bike rack?

Below are the details of the post office from which it was shipped.  I had a lovely conversation with a portly female poster worker there, who told me that I put the sticker on the wrong part of the box (on the side, instead of on the flat front surface).  She drew an arrow to the sticker using a permanent black marker (I can't remember the make of the marker, it was one of those long, thick permanent black markers with a fat base- know which one's I'm talking about?)  She confirmed that I could ship the item from that post office location (Details below), and then sent me on my way.  Afterward, I stopped by "Dunkin' Donuts" for an egg and cheese on a plain bagel, toasted, with a large black coffee (#5 FTW!).  It was delicious, but as usual, I was hungry 3 hours later for my daily "Art of Pizza" run.  I wish I remembered what the dinner special was that day.  I'll get back to you on that.

Anyways, I hope this is sufficient, and I hope you all receive that bike rack in due course.


Very truly yours,

-------------------------------------

Post Office™ Location - GRACELAND POSTAL STORE

3024 N ASHLAND AVE

CHICAGO, IL 60657-3012

(800) ASK-USPS

(800) 275-8777

(773) 248-8495

Fax: (773) 404-6936

TTY Service

(877) 889-2457

for hearing impaired


===============================================

A few hours later.....

================================================

Dear Alex,

Thank you for contacting Walmart.com regarding having returned the bike rack.

We have updated your account to show that the item has been returned to us. You will not be recharged for this item. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

If we have not fully answered your question or you have additional questions, please reply to this email.

Sincerely,
Walmart.com Customer Care

================================================

I thought that was the end of it, but then I got an automated email confirming that the warehouse actually received my bike rack 9 days after the above email was sent to me.  #winning.

What a weird year.  It's been 6 months and it feels like one giant blur.  So much has happened.  I moved from DC to Chicago on a whim. I made a killing early in 2011, combining 'real life work' with 'the grind', seemingly successful with both thus far.  I feel like I'm just one in the crowd now, trying to figure out the next step post-BF.  So many options and I really don't know which ones I like. All I know is I'll likely be leaving Chicago soon, and am going to _______. So little time to make decisions.  I think I'll go to Vegas for a while.  

So in an effort to spice up the strategy around here just a bit (not that it isn't always hot n spicy!), I figured I'd share a hand real quick and share some thoughts. 

This hand occurred in the daily $69 Superstack (Early Antes) 15k grt. on FTP.  Villain is a generally aggressive regular.  I'm pretty sure he comes from a heads up SNG background so he probably is a better hand reader than a lot of random mid stakes regulars.  We don't have a ton of history, but we've logged several hours playing together (probably have 500-1k hands with him).  

Full Tilt Poker No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t300.00/t600.00 Blinds - 8 players - http://www.handconverter.com/hands/998665
The DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: t14274.00         23.79 BBs
SB: t54721.00         91.20 BBs
Hero (BB): t30137.00         50.23 BBs
UTG: t46632.00         77.72 BBs
UTG+1: t19014.00         31.69 BBs
MP1: t17475.00         29.12 BBs
MP2: t8906.00         14.84 BBs
CO: t17596.00         29.33 BBs

Pre Flop: (t900) Hero is BB with Jd 7d
6 folds, SB raises to t1500, Hero calls t900

Flop: (t3000) 9c 2h Js (2 players)
SB bets t1800.00, Hero calls t1800

Turn: (t6600) 6c (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: (t6600) Kc (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t2635.00, SB raises to t9999

So, up until the river I think everything is pretty standard.  Some might fold pre, but this deep in position I felt pretty comfortable defending a fairly wide (but playable) range.  I think there's also some merit to betting turn, but mainly didn't because I didn't want him folding a ton of marginal low one pair hands and wasn't sure that I could get 2 streets of value from them either/wasn't too worried about most rivers as far as betting a lot of rivers for value when checked to etc..   

While this isn't the greatest river card, I still felt it was a pretty good spot to value bet.  It's definitely kind of thin for a couple of reasons in that a) Coming from a HU background and being a decent hand reader, he probably is capable of checking a king here sometimes and b)  I might value cut myself vs. a hand like JT type hands that also aren't necessarily leading the river here.  Being a proponent of thin value, I still felt like there was some chance he could call with a hand like Jx (though not that many of them, I thought he was opening a wide range in the SB with the stacks) or a lower pair.  Didn't think he'd call a very big bet with them, hence the sizing. 

Of course, when he check raises, the first thing that goes through my head is "Wtf".  In the end, I thought there was some chance he could do this with a king, although he'd have to know that I like to bet Jx here for value (which is certainly what my sizing looks like IMO).  Once I felt comfortable enough to assume that he could do it with a king, I didn't love my sizing because of how transparent it was to someone of his abilities obv!, but at the same time, I wasn't nearly as confident that he would call with a hand like J2s, TT or 9x (although with Jx or TT he may have barreled the turn some % of the time).  Because I didn't think he'd call with those worse hands anymore, and felt he also might barrel a hand like QT on the turn or lead the river at least sometimes if not often, it was tough to determine if he would just fold those hands or turn them into a bluff in an attempt to get me off of Kx or Jx.  If I had bet the river bigger I think folding is more clear cut, because of the sizing's effects on range perceptions and hence probably bluff frequencies with the lower end of his made hand range.  That, combined with the fact that I didn't think it was *that* likely to find someone who can do this with Kx and also not be capable of turning 9x into a bluff (I guess it's possible, but the two didn't really seem to fit with this guy from what I had observed of him). 

River: (t6600) Kc (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t2635.00, SB raises to t9999, Hero calls t7364

Final Pot: t26598
SB shows 5s 9s
Hero shows Jd 7d
Hero wins t27198.00
(Rake: t-600)

I just felt like my sizing on the river combined with his c/r sizing (he made it pretty damn big!) made it look a loooooot like he wanted a fold, and since I felt like 9x was in that bluff range but a better jack was basically never, I just gritted my teeth and clicked call hoping to not see a king/weird sets or some QT hand that didn't barrel or lead river (given that I expected to see a better jack take this line almost never without much more extensive history and reads).  My thought process was all over the place in this hand because of trying to find out what level we were really on with each other knowing he was probably a solid hand reader, combined with what was probably a bad river bet size vs. someone as competent as him (but a great size vs. a lot of opponents IMO).  I make a lot of light calls that I'm wrong about, but second guessing myself and going with my read in the end that he was not polarized here saved my neck! 

Cliffs: Heroes gonna hero. 

So, it was definitely a different summer here.  Normally, I spend 4-8 weeks in vegas, live with other poker players, and play a few live events, a few live cash game sessions, and do a bit of partying.  This summer, however, I lived in a big house with just one friend who lives out in vegas full time, with a non-poker job, and a crazy dog. 

I must say, it was relaxing.  I got a lot of time to just focus on playing a few tables on the laptop, watch a few poker videos and produce a short one as well, and go out for some nice dinners (notably, SW steakhouse at the wynn, and Musashi, a japense grill/sushi place that was fantastically delicious).  I didn't play any live with the exception of one short 1/3NL session waiting for kleath to bust out of the shootout.  I was really disgusted with the preflop rake and increased rake caps imposed on the cash games at the rio this year, but I guess I can't say that I'm too surprised.  At least I got my healthy dose of epic FT sweats as I try to get every year, whether for myself or for a friend/colleague.  This year it was Manchild, Chancescards, phwap/bonafone, ansky, and as usual, Peter "Apathy123" Jetten.  Congrats to everyone who FT'd a WSOP event including those I've left out of the list that I've made acquaintances with.

Now, it's time to return to D.C.  I'll be grinding hard for a few weeks (before heading to Israel for 10 days for a good friend's wedding), something that I'm partially looking forward to.  On the one hand, a post made by a friend on his blog (post located here) really struck me recently, and is often how I feel about MTTs and sometimes about my poker game as a whole.  A lot of what he writes, says and feels about the market really applies to a lot of things in poker, how the industry runs, even down to people's attempts to "Beat the games" in both industries, so to speak.  On the other hand, his passion for continuing to study it, to learn to beat it, to put in the hours towards reaching his goals despite his self-proclaimed failures is similarly inspiring, and is definitely still how I feel about poker.  I plan on continuing the MTT grind, and also working some PLO cash games back into my regiment.  It's what I think I'll enjoy, and what I feel most comfortable with (especially coming off by biggest day ever on July 4th, with wins in the stars $55+r and FTP early $163 for a ~70k day and my personal best day of poker to date. /brag.) I'll also be working to develop more ideas and plans for MTT content for DC and perhaps a video series in this realm, though I have no intentions to produce said content in the immediate future with my somewhat volatile august/September plans.    

Hope everyone had a great summer and an enjoyable WSOP for those that came out to Vegas.  Good luck to everyone playing the Main Event. 

-A

Yeah so, I ordered this baby About a month and a half ago. I’m still waiting. It’s really annoying but it looks like I have a shot at getting it next month. Stupid delays.

I’ve also been running pretty terribly lately. Bunch of other BS to go along, but to keep it to this week, I finished 12th in the sunday mulligan, 16th in the 200 turbo today and this happened with 14 left in the $129 KO also today, of course with a red pro spewing, an active big stack and a mediocre player doing weird stuff behind him:

Full Tilt Poker $35,000 KO Guarantee No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t1500/t3000 Blinds + t400 – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: t191003 M = 27.68
CO: t115010 M = 16.67
BTN: t34230 M = 4.96
SB: t279669 M = 40.53
Hero (BB): t93875 M = 13.61
UTG: t27752 M = 4.02

Pre Flop: (t6900) Hero is BB with Q Q
UTG raises to t27352 all in, MP raises to t57870, 1 fold, BTN calls t33830 all in, 1 fold, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to t93475 all in, MP calls t35605

Flop: (t252032) 9 J 8

Turn: (t252032) 4

River: (t252032) 8

Final Pot: t252032
MP shows A A (two pair, Aces and Eights)
BTN shows K A (a pair of Eights)
Hero shows Q Q (two pair, Queens and Eights)
UTG shows 6 K (a pair of Eights)
MP wins t119290
MP wins t19434
MP wins t113308

At least the caps whooped ass today without Ovi. Here’s the hit if you haven’t seen it.. Any thoughts? Deserved suspension?

I feel that KasinoKrime has something good going with his song-of-the-day/post theme in his blog, so I’m definitely going to hijack that for now. At least until John finds out and gets pissed about it :)

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/F+H+H+Feat+Jakki/14665955

In other news, we’re getting nailed again with a big snow storm—-could be another 1-3 feet easily. Luckily, FTOPS starts tomorrow night so, between that and taking last week off post +35k weekend (it’s my blog, I can shamelessly brag while leaving out all beats whenever I want!), I’ll have plenty of reason to grind these next couple of weeks. High volume, no mercy. Plenty of more wins on the way in 2010 I hope. BIG YEAR ONE TIME!

To those of you planning on taking some FTOPS shots, good luck! And to those of you stuck in the snow, god speed.

Just came back from Los Angeles. Spent a few days there with my brother. I’m considering a move out west and finally got a taste of that Cali air (all the while, perfectly scheduling around the blizzard here!) Granted, the economic climate is shit just about everywhere still, but the place is really something else. I’ve done a solid bit of traveling around the world, but have lived on the East Coast for the vast majority of my life. I don’t know what it is exactly, but there’s definitely a more relaxed vibe out west that I’d love to taste more of. I might be headed back out in the near future to lock down a place to live for a while (or to check out other parts of the state). Time to get this DCer out of D.C one time!

I really think that aspiring MTT grinders should let this sink in for a moment. I’ll have more to say about the topic in future posts, but for now, I’ll acknowledge that MTTs are fun and awesome. After all, you get to play at all stack depths, against all player types, and you get the adrenaline rush of deep runs and final tables when you happen to get some luck running your way. But there’s another side to it.

In the end, if you are determined to select just one type/structure of game to grind, for big field MTTs, the negatives outweigh the positives. Variance in MTTs is unequivocally worse than in any other form of poker. The meat of it is, your big downswings come across as a series of 10, 20, 30, 50, 100k equity losses at a time. You will make tons of final tables and go out 9th and 8th over, and over, and over, and watch thousands slip out of your grasp because you just couldn’t win that last coinflip. You will watch grinders that are pretty clearly playing worse than you are, that are ranked and have made hundreds of thousands more than you, more because they’ve had a rush of positive variance at the most opportune times. You will have to put in a lot of long, losing sessions, every single month. This is what you have to look forward to in the MTT grind.

The fact is, the vast majority of people that exist in the world are not able to deal with this. Every single person would have the biological makeup and natural given right to be upset when this type of thing happens, but when it happens the way that it does, in the extreme nature which it does, it’s just going to be too much for most people to handle. To shake off and come back to the tables the next day playing a 6-12 hour session of your “A” and “B” game at worst. After all, people play this game to make money, right? It’s almost psychologically counter intuitive when it comes to thinking about the time and effort that you spend losing at your job. I’ve battled this with my 3rd multiple-final table session over a 2 week period where I have yet to make anything happen.

This is why it’s really, really important, in my opinion, to maintain some other interests within poker if you aspire to put in time at MTTs. Whether it be SNGs of some variant, or certain cash games, I think that there are a couple of extreme benefits that should not go unrecognized:

a) Playing the one game will help you to play the other one well-

The strategic benefits of studying and practicing more than one poker structure/game have been emerging time and again. Tons of good players play PLO and NL, LHE and NLH, or NL specialists that master all structures and facets of the game, be it tournaments, cash games, short handed, full ring, etc… Playing one is just going to make you think harder and play better all around, and also expose you to tons more information about the games.

b) Balance is healthy

Leaving one game for short periods leaves you less prone to burnout. Juggling 2 or more games really forces you to keep balance in your study and play habits for all of the games of interest. You’ll keep putting in volume and studying and keep an interest in one game or another, leaving you on that continuous cycle toward poker excellence.

c) Networking

Forums are amazing. Videos help. But the fact is, I owe everything to my thinking and playing of poker well to others in conjunction with my own hard work. I’ve made tons of friends in passing and contacts in the poker community, and I have to say, I’ve probably learned something from every single one of them at some point or another. Some more than others, but it just seems that every single new perspective on anything poker related is so valuable, even if it turns out to be completely misguided or just plain dead wrong. Knowing how or why others think the way that they do, again, even if you disagree with it, just sheds light on every angle to every facet of this game….and who knows? You might actually figure out that you were wrong about something. I know that I have, and I know that I wouldn’t have met half the people that I did if I didn’t step outside of my tournament world for a minute or three every now and again.

I guess my parting words are, if you want to dig into MTTs, keep it within a balanced regiment of whatever other game(s) of interest lie in your poker realm. If you love the game, you’ll put in the time…but hopefully without quite as much of the mental (and yes, even very physical) anguish that an 80 hr/week MTTer puts themselves through. Good luck on the grind!

Also, in case you felt that this post was not worth your time reading, here’s a fun hand that I played against a reg in one of the $163 freezeouts I FT’d this week (double grt. week on FTP ftmfw):

Full Tilt Poker $120,000 Guarantee No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t1200/t2400 Blinds + t300 – 8 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: t99765 M = 16.63
BB: t55286 M = 9.21
UTG: t102909 M = 17.15
UTG+1: t43270 M = 7.21
MP1: t62243 M = 10.37
MP2: t87550 M = 14.59
CO: t50788 M = 8.46
Hero (BTN): t121323 M = 20.22

Pre Flop: (t6000) Hero is BTN with 8 K
5 folds, Hero raises to t5835, SB requests TIME, SB calls t4635, 1 fold

Flop: (t16470) 4 6 J (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t7860, SB requests TIME, SB calls t7860

Turn: (t32190) 4 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero requests TIME, Hero bets t17125, SB calls t17125

River: (t66440) 9 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero requests TIME, Hero bets t90203 all in, SB requests TIME, SB folds

Final Pot: t66440
Hero wins t66440

Yeah, so, this hand came up. It definitely is not a particular spot that has come up for me often if ever before. This occurred in the Saturday $320 100kgrt on stars. Villain is a competent regular, but I don’t know much beyond that. Without going too much into detail, I couldn’t figure out what worse hands were calling a river bet, and I couldn’t place any specific bluffing hands in his range either. I basically felt like this was a full house very often. I’m not feeling overly confident about it but I don’t [yet] hate my river line, as dirty as it felt. I’ll also say that a year ago I don’t think I’d have hated getting it in nearly as much in game (in terms of my strategic approach, not necessarily factors relating to game-play timelines).

Poker Stars $300+$20 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t25/t50 Blinds – 9 players – http://www.thehandconverter.com/hands/437613
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: t2840 M = 37.87
Hero (UTG+1): t2795 M = 37.27
UTG+2: t3260 M = 43.47
MP1: t7248 M = 96.64
MP2: t2443 M = 32.57
CO: t3375 M = 45
BTN: t2685 M = 35.80
SB: t2965 M = 39.53
BB: t3534 M = 47.12

Pre Flop: (t75) Hero is UTG+1 with Kh Qs
1 fold, Hero raises to t150, 1 fold, MP1 calls t150, 5 folds

Flop: (t375) 7s Kc Ks (2 players)
Hero bets t200, MP1 calls t200

Turn: (t775) 3d (2 players)
Hero bets t425, MP1 calls t425

River: (t1625) 5s (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets t6450, Hero folds

Final Pot: t1625
MP1 wins t1625

Folding trips on the river on the weekends sucks :(

Rough. The weekends are unequivocally softer in all respects for most all MTT fields, both high stakes and lower. It’s great because you can afford to add tables on/detract from your attention span a bit in the name of your hourly rate, and not feel like you’re giving up much playing against generally terrible competition. I gave myself the birthday gift of taking Friday off, and proceeded to put in a reasonably solid 20 hours over Saturday and Sunday. It felt good to put in a healthy weekend of work. Not so good to drop 5k in buy ins.

I can safely say here, as ‘official coaching advice’, that one of the most crucial aspects to recovering from rough MTT patches is sleep. We all talk about exercise, eating, and the aspects of actual strategy approaches that are of course crucial, but sleep is right up there at the top. No matter how awful I’ve felt at the end of a long, bad session, I’ve always felt infinitely better after a full nights rest. You need sleep to recuperate thought processes and organize new information within your brain. Your brain and your body need a certain amount of sleep to maximize efficiency the next day. And, without REM sleep , you’re as good as dead.

Further, your chemical levels are lowest at the end of a losing day. You’re tired, and you feel defeated. Testosterone and adrenaline are at their lowest and you’re also at your least-rested point of the day. I know people who have and continue to battle these bouts of tiredness during downswings, and even during upswings, through the use of drugs. I’m not going to share my thoughts on any specific drug use in poker here, but I will say that replacing sleep time with any drug is just not the way to go. You’re going to crash harder later, and any stimulation or involvement that you’re experiencing now will come to a halt in a matter of time.

You wouldn’t leave your tables and chip stacks so that a mindless drone could take over your seat and robot-off chips, would you? So, why would you leave yourself vulnerable to the same risks by playing in a sleep-deprived, drug induced stupor? Do yourself a favor and get your 6-8 hours. You’ll thank yourself later for it.