Tao of Poker

Sunday Morning Fish Fry

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves. - Shakespeare

A non-poker playing friend of mine recently asked me, "What is a fish?"

I answered, "An inexperienced poker player otherwise known as dead money."

"What's dead money?" she quickly responded.

"Who the fuck are you? Buddha? What's with all the questions Blondie? I didn't know you were working for Homeland Security."

The moral of the story: Don't ask me questions while I'm watching college basketball.

Anyway... I always have a spring in my step after playing online at Party Poker. It's the largest online poker room in the world with over 40,000 players and on the weekends, the fish come out to play. Man oh man. Normally, I can only play on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings... heavy non-peak fish times. But on the weekends, the murky waters on Party Poker are filled with schools of cash-heavy fish. In the last few days, I have been cleaning up playing $25 buy-in No Limit ring games. To this day, I must thank HDouble for turning me onto those loose tables. This morning, while some of you were in church or still in bed, in my first fifteen minutes on Party Poker, I tripled my buy-in and took down a $77 pot!

Hand of the Week: Big Slick

It was a hand that I had been waiting for all week. $25 buy-in, NL ring game on Party Poker. I'm in middle position with A-K and I raised to $3. Two called from behind me, including the button. Five way action in all. The flop: A-9-K. Nice. Two players checked to me, I bet $3, and Mr. Fish Fry to my left raised to $10 and the button went all-in. The other players folded to me and I went all-in with $24. Mr. Fish Fry called the rest of his money. I figured one guy had an medium ace, but I was hoping that no one had pocket 9s or K-K or A-A. Alas, after two rags came out for the turn and river, I discover that the button had two pair with A-9 and Mr. Fish Fry turned over K-7. He tried to steal the pot on the flop with a pair of Kings. What was he thinking? I wanted to walk away but stayed for another forty minutes and won $63 total. Not a bad Sunday morning, eh?

For the week (seven sessions of 20 hours), I have been averaging $13 an hour playing NL ring games on Party Poker. I plugged some leaks in my NL play (thanks to some chats with Felicia) and played more patiently but I also got great cards. However, I must say that my Party Poker account was down to $3 on Monday morning. Since then it's grown to over $153. I was forced to grind my way out of futility by playing 50c/$1. It was the true winter of discontent, with snow falling upon my city in mid March. As the flakes silently fell on my city, I bought into a SNG and won it all. I slowly built up the bankroll over the week cashing in on several SNGs. I dropped a good $50+ on tournament entry fees, but made a few bucks back on some solid play and five money finishes. My only bad session of the week happened on the $1-$2 tables. I corrected my game selection and hit the NL ring games. I had small wins almost every day. Now, I don't mean to brag about my play this week. Shit, Grubby dropped a grand playing $5-10. I'm psyched to squeak out a positive week! The money doesn't mean that much to me. Rather, I'm more excited and pumped that I did not have to dig deep into more credit card debt and deposit more funds into my Party Poker account. I'm still playing with free money after cashing out my initial deposit last month.

OK, the $63 today win means that I have enough funds to cover my next two weeks of playing in WPT Championship ($22 + 2) qualifiers and 2004 WSoP ($36 + $3) qualifiers. I intend to play at least one each a week... until it's all over. The WPT Championship at the Bellagio event is in April (the day I leave Vegas, it starts!) with qualifiers twice a day and the WSoP qualifiers run 24 hours a day through May on Party Poker.

This week, I'll be working on the new issue of my blog-zine but will find sometime to hit the tables. Signor Ferrari moved his Monday game to Tuesday night this week. Of course, I'll be sure to make fun of Ugarte, who's team Don't Mess with Ugarte is in 20th place in my March Madness Pool, battling Haley & Jenna's team Shaved and Barley Legal for the last place prize of $10... a full refund of their entry... for having the worst team in my pool.