Keep HFL Free

11:33pm: Poker can be brutal sometimes. No, scratch that: poker can be down right evil at times. The cards don’t care if you just got two outered 3 times in a row, or if you’ve just lost 9 consecutive coin fliips. This is because the cards have no memory. They also have no mercy. Many have lost tuition, cars, homes, or even families because of the cruel nature of the game.

We all know It can be a pride swallowing, ulcer-inducing siege. Ever go through a stretch where it seems like not a single pocket pair will hold up when your opponent shoves his chips in and flips over two overcards? Ever go through a stretch where you consistently get your money in as a decided favorite, only to take a dagger in the heart when the river card strikes?

Are you losing faith in the percentages? In the game?

If this sounds like things you have thought recently, there could be multiple reasons:

• Taking too many coin flips
• Not putting in enough volume to let things “even out”
• Failing to practice “pot control”
• Our tendency as human beings to remember with greater frequency and accuracy the times of extreme misfortune rather than the times that the percentages held true.

Whatever the case, there’s no mistaking the fact that it doesn’t feel good when these times fall upon us. So how is one expected to cope in these situations? It’s definitely not easy. It takes an extremely mentally tough and mature person to endure these times.

Something that usually helps is to think of casinos. If a casino set up a blackjack table, and only dealt hands for one hour a night, it is entirely possible that the casino could have a losing night. Fortunately for them, that’s not the case as casinos have anywhere from 5-50 blackjack tables running at any given times, each dealing 5-6 hands at a time. They do this because they have to. The edge in blackjack isn’t significant enough over the course of 1 hand, 10 hands, 100 hands, or even 1000 hands to be able to say for sure that the casino will profit. However, you can say with relative certainty that after 100,000 hands that the casino will be in the black.

This is the beauty of heads up, and specifically — the beauty of playing multiple tables. When you only play one game at a time, you have to play twice as long for your variance to even out as you would if you were playing 2 tables (provided that there is no significant drop in quality of play from the added load of another table). So while poker can and will be overly brutal to you at times, no matter how you cut it - if you’re a skilled player with a significant edge over the average player: you need to at least give some serious thought into increasing the number of tables you play. Otherwise, you may not stand a fighting chance against the brutality.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

2:40pm: I get a lot of questions about whether it’s a smart decision or not to use the chat feature while playing heads up sit n gos. Personally, I think it’s completely a matter of personality and how you react to it. If you feel like you’re giving away more than you’re getting in return then I wouldn’t suggest doing it. On the other hand, if you feel like you can use chat to successfully manipulate your opponent into playing the way you’d like them to play, then by all means go for it.

Some people say “gl” before every match, but do they really mean it? I’m as polite as they come as far as table etiquette and manners are concerned, but I truly believe anyone who wishes someone good luck in a heads up poker match is only doing so because they are wishing karma will reward them for being nice. Therefore, saying “gl” doesn’t really mean “good luck”, it means “I’m doing the right thing by wishing you luck so that maybe by some off chance karma will return the favor and throw the luck to my side instead.”

Anyhow, this goes much deeper than “gl,” I’m talking about play breaking, time consuming chatter designed to throw you off your game. I’m talking about when you have a dead on read on someone, call them with King high, and then see the blue letters light up in the chat box. You know they’ve said something referring to the play, and there’s a good chance it’s negative. The real question is: Should you look? Should you even have chat on at all?

To be honest, 90% of the time my chat is OFF. That’s not because I feel like I give away more than I get in return. Rather, it’s a result of me feeling uncomfortable even entertaining the idea of being friendly with someone with whom I have intentions of taking their money. I do feel a little bad that in keeping chat off I may be perhaps rejecting extended “arms of handshakes” in cyberspace. But as I always say, this is a business. This is about money. Every choice I make is to maximize my profit, and to make me feel as comfortable as possible in doing so.

… and I feel comfortable with chat off. Most of the time anyways.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

5:10pm: First it was free internet hot spots are Starbucks, then Barnes and Nobles, and eventually every major fast food joint caught on. Almost everywhere you can go with your laptop, there’s somewhere you can go to put in a poker session. What are the costs and benefits of this approach?

1. What are EVDO Cards?

Finally, you can have wireless broadband internet access to your Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux laptop without the need for a hotspot! Insert an EVDO Card into your laptop and, seconds later, you are connected to the internet at DSL-like speeds (500K-1,000K) - - - you are your own hotspot!

EVDO or Evolution Data Only/Evolution Data Optimized (often abbreviated as EVDO, EV-DO, EvDO, 1xEV-DO or 1xEvDO) provides fast wireless broadband (3G) internet service directly to your laptop. You take the internet with you and surf the web in your car, on the train, in the airport, at a convention, on the road in your RV…

The broadband-speed 1xEVDO is currently available in most metropolitan U.S. cities (Verizon and Sprint are both continually upgrading their service areas to Revision A - the newest development in EVDO that provides dramatically increased upload speeds averaging 300-400kbps). If you are unsure whether you have EVDO coverage in your area, please visit EVDOMaps.com and see the results EVDO users across the country are experiencing in their area.

Update: Verizon’s EVDO network is now 100% Rev-A

EVDO is based on the 1xRTT standard, which is available in almost all cell phone coverage areas and provides Internet speeds of about 2-3 times that of dial-up (about 60K-100K). If you go out of the 1xEVDO broadband coverage zone, you will automatically be switched onto the 1xRTT standard, which means that you can still access the Internet almost anywhere your travels take you! learn more about 1xRTT vs. EVDO here!.

Currently, EVDO is available on the Verizon and Sprint networks. Verizon was the first provider to offer EVDO, but Sprint has been rolling out EVDO coverage very rapidly and their coverage is catching up to Verizon’s.

2. OK, I understand What EVDO is. Now, who offers EVDO?

Verizon Wireless and Sprint are currently the leading providers for EVDO coverage. There are multiple EVDO Cards (in PCMCIA, Expresscard and USB formats) that are available:

On Verizon:

• Novatel USB720 (USB)
• Novatel V740 (Expresscard)
• Sierra Aircard 595
• Sierra Aircard 595U (USB)
• Novatel USB727 (USB)
• Audiovox PC5750

On Sprint:

• Novatel U727 (USB)
• Franklin CDU-680 (USB)
• Novatel EX-720 (ExpressCard)
• Sierra Aircard 597E (ExpressCard)
• Merlin S720
• Pantech PX-500
• Sierra Aircard 595
• Sierra Aircard 595U (USB)
  

I would also like to mention that there are a number of these cards available for FREE, as long as you sign a two year contract. If you choose not to be under contract, it will cost you anywhere from $150 to $400 for the card, so that’s something you’ll have to balance when deciding if this is right for you.

3. Are they reliable for Poker?

Yes, but not AS reliable as land based cable connections. I’ve played probably 10 sessions since the fire, and I have yet to experience any kind of lag on my end by using my EVDO card. I got mine for free at Verizon (with 2 year contact). Here is a picture of my unit:

Just to give you an idea of what to expect:

• Average Download Speed: 125kb/s
• Average Upload Speed: 25kb/s
• Average Connection Time Before Service Drops: 4 hours (note: even if the service drops, you can be back online within 45 seconds). Just make sure you are in a relatively populated metropolitan area, and you may have no problems at all.
• Multi Table Capabilities: YES
• Noticeable lag between poker servers and verizon servers: MINISCULE, if any
• Can download things while playing poker: DONT RECOMMEND

All in all, I’d say that anyone who has not invested in an EVDO card should at least give it some thought. How many times has your home internet connection went down, and you knew you were being blinded out but there was absolutely nothing you could do about it. Having a back up internet connection method would be a great safety net for to take comfort in during all your sessions. The service is usually $60/month. But to that, I say that if it even helps you win one more match that you would have normally disconnected on, then it pays for itself.

10:29am: I’m not sure what it is about this that kind of annoys me, but it does. I should actually be rejoicing that this happens, but I don’t. It really confuses me when people play me multiple times. This isn’t to be cocky, conceited, or anything egotistical but I truly feel from a very strictly objective standpoint that it’s not a smart business decision for the other player. Not so much like right after we play the first time - I can totally understand that. Sometimes ego gets in the way, and/or tilt and people feel they have to right the ship. I’m talking about like if I play someone today, and tomorrow they decide to play me again (I register first), and then maybe 2-3 days later they decide to play me AGAIN. I think I’m probably assuming that more people sharkscope their opponents than actually is the case, however I still don’t understand why someone would find my playing style profitable for them AT ALL. As of this exact moment, I win 60.824% of my $50 heads up matches with a sample size of 1,700+ games. Would you sit down at a table game in a casino where the house had a 61/39 edge over you in the long run? Then again, sometimes people don’t think about mathematics as relates to gambling and/or poker at all. Some people have lost their homes and destroyed families because they couldn’t stay away from a blackjack table, and blackjack’s house edge is relatively small, using basic strategy (50.6% to 49.4%, house to player). I just don’t get it. By the way, all of the house edges for casino related games can be found here.

The only theory of mine that makes any remote sense is that people really don’t sharkscope their opponents. Think about it objectively (provided you only play a heads up sit n go when someone registers first): if you sharkscoped people most of the time before you played them, then theoretically it would only be profitable to play people who had lower ROI’s than yourself. It would be MOST profitable to play people with only negative ROI’s. If everyone (or even most of everyone) thought like this, I would never be able to get a game. By this way of thinking, having impressive sharkscope stats is, in a way, one of your most valuable assets.

If someone sharkscopes their opponents, it implies that they are at least practicing smart game selection, which implies that they aren’t just “gambling” when they play poker. Anyone in their right mind would not play anyone who won, say, >55% of their heads up matches. Therefore, the only people who would decide to play someone such as myself are those who dont (a) sharkscope their opponents or (b) sharkscope their opponents, but are dumb enough to play someone better than them. In either case, that’s the kind of person I’d like to be playing. However, it only bothers me when people do the latter. Why? I don’t know. I guess I shouldn’t take it so personally, it’s just confusing as hell.

On the flip side, there are some occasions where someone plays me with better statistics than myself. During these times, I have to smile because I know I am the “fish” in this particular case. Events such as this can be humbling experiences, but it’s all part of the cruel food chain in poker. The difference between me and everybody else though is that I recognize that there is even a food chain to begin with, and I objectively know where I stand in it.

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I never quite got off the ground yesterday, finishing 7-9 overall. I did manage to gain some ground after starting 2-6, however 7-9 is definitely less than desirable results. However, today is a new day, as should be the mentality any professional should take into any occupation they choose. More later…