Thursday, November 23: 1 WSOP buy-in down the drain
Bodog rakeback
I typically try to keep this blog free from affiliate/rakeback stuff, mostly because I'm weaning myself from the RB-business...ever since I moved up to higher-stakes games last year, I found that it just wan't worth my time to track and pay players...but I still get quite a few emails asking about it (I think in one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that I was an affiliate.) I've also got quite a few emails from Americans since the US legislation, asking about US-friendly sites that still offer rakeback.
So although I'm loathe to talk about it, I thought I'd mention a particularly cool little offer for Bodog, which is one of the sites that has taken a staunch pro-US stance and remained open to Americans. A good friend of mine is an affiliate there and offers 25% rakeback, but the cool thing is that even if you've already got an account there (on which you're not getting RB), he can switch you to his affiliate account, provided you're not currently tracked to an affiliate. That's a big "if". You may or may not have signed up under an affiliate when you originally opened your Bodog account...in fact, you may not even remember...but if you did not, it's cool that Bodog has allowed him to just transfer you into his affiliate account so you can start getting rakeback there. He just moved me over to his affiliate account last week (i wasn't currently tracked to an affiliate), and he's got a website with online tracking, and all that good stuff.
Email me at everywherejim at hotmail.com if you're interested. The info I would need from you is:
1. Real first and last names
2. Email address associated with your Bodog account
3. Bodog account # and screename.
I then have these sent to the Bodog affiliate manager who will say one of two things:
i) "Great, that player wasn't linked to an affiliate, so we switched him!", or
ii) "Sorry, that player was already linked to an affiliate, so you're out of luck."
Alright, enough with that, on to more interesting things.
Single biggest losing hand ever
I'm happy to say that I've gotten quite comfortable at the $2,000 and even the $5,000NL tables. I've been stacked a few times for the full $5,000, but this hand really obliterates that prevoius "best": after buliding my stack up to almost $14,000, I took a nice little $9,300 hit. I'd been running over the table this particular session, and I knew that a lot of my opponents were getting sick of my aggression; this session, I'd guess my stats were areound 35/22, which at a full table is pretty darn LAG. A few of them had started playing back at me...the SB in this hand was the only other somewhat aggressive player at the table, and he had come over the top of my raises a few times already. He made a quite strong play here, re-raising an UTG raiser from the SB, which typically screams strength. I almost folded, but his LAGgy image, combined with my having position on him, and both of our big stacks led me to call. I'm very happy with the way I played the rest of the hand. There was only 1 hand I had to be worried about, and several (AA, and all the AK combinations) that were likely going to pay me off here. Of course, that sense of self-satisfaction isn't going to bring me back the WSOP buy-in that I lost on this hand.
I typically try to keep this blog free from affiliate/rakeback stuff, mostly because I'm weaning myself from the RB-business...ever since I moved up to higher-stakes games last year, I found that it just wan't worth my time to track and pay players...but I still get quite a few emails asking about it (I think in one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that I was an affiliate.) I've also got quite a few emails from Americans since the US legislation, asking about US-friendly sites that still offer rakeback.
So although I'm loathe to talk about it, I thought I'd mention a particularly cool little offer for Bodog, which is one of the sites that has taken a staunch pro-US stance and remained open to Americans. A good friend of mine is an affiliate there and offers 25% rakeback, but the cool thing is that even if you've already got an account there (on which you're not getting RB), he can switch you to his affiliate account, provided you're not currently tracked to an affiliate. That's a big "if". You may or may not have signed up under an affiliate when you originally opened your Bodog account...in fact, you may not even remember...but if you did not, it's cool that Bodog has allowed him to just transfer you into his affiliate account so you can start getting rakeback there. He just moved me over to his affiliate account last week (i wasn't currently tracked to an affiliate), and he's got a website with online tracking, and all that good stuff.
Email me at everywherejim at hotmail.com if you're interested. The info I would need from you is:
1. Real first and last names
2. Email address associated with your Bodog account
3. Bodog account # and screename.
I then have these sent to the Bodog affiliate manager who will say one of two things:
i) "Great, that player wasn't linked to an affiliate, so we switched him!", or
ii) "Sorry, that player was already linked to an affiliate, so you're out of luck."
Alright, enough with that, on to more interesting things.
Single biggest losing hand ever
I'm happy to say that I've gotten quite comfortable at the $2,000 and even the $5,000NL tables. I've been stacked a few times for the full $5,000, but this hand really obliterates that prevoius "best": after buliding my stack up to almost $14,000, I took a nice little $9,300 hit. I'd been running over the table this particular session, and I knew that a lot of my opponents were getting sick of my aggression; this session, I'd guess my stats were areound 35/22, which at a full table is pretty darn LAG. A few of them had started playing back at me...the SB in this hand was the only other somewhat aggressive player at the table, and he had come over the top of my raises a few times already. He made a quite strong play here, re-raising an UTG raiser from the SB, which typically screams strength. I almost folded, but his LAGgy image, combined with my having position on him, and both of our big stacks led me to call. I'm very happy with the way I played the rest of the hand. There was only 1 hand I had to be worried about, and several (AA, and all the AK combinations) that were likely going to pay me off here. Of course, that sense of self-satisfaction isn't going to bring me back the WSOP buy-in that I lost on this hand.
I have made a decision that these next couple months of posts will be this blog's swan song. It's been almost 2.5 years, and I always wanted to go out on a high note, so to speak; e.g. to end this blog before the quality of posts started deteriorating...and I don't think I've quite crossed that threshold just yet, which is a good thing. There were a few other times where I thought about ending this thing, but each time I was persuaded not to because of a few factors:
- first off, I was still having fun...I still found posting here to be a therapeutic outlet for poker-related angst that just didn't lend itself easily to expression in the 'real world.'
- Secondly, I was still getting a few emails each week from people telling me that they found my story inspiring and helpful vis-a-vis their own situation, which in turn inspired me to keep at it...to paraphrase a somewhat-corny old U.S. army recruitment slogan that I've always identified with: "if someone wrote a book about your life, would anyone want to read it?" And perhaps it just plays to my own feelings of insecurity, or the universal human need to feel that one's life is relevant or significant, but you know what: I do think my life, to this point, has been quite an interesting trip, and keeping this blog has played an integral part in reminding me of that fact, at least with respect to the last couple years.
- Lastly, I could never quite bring myself to stop posting, because...well...I always felt like I still had more to write about. I nearly ended things at the end of 2005, and then thought about it again in May of this year, when I finished my second-to-last semester of law school and decided to do this whole Australian junket. But each time, something told me that I hadn't quite tackled all the things I wanted to talk about, and I knew that there was still value in those unexpressed thoughts. And I'm grateful that I've kept posting this year, because I think some of the more important concepts have crystallized for me during that time, such as my thoughts on what I called "Poker Opportunity Cost", which is something that continuously informs my life and the decisions that I make, and my entry here about how the psyche of a successful poker player might differ from that belonging to an individual who was born into wealth. It was never a struggle to come up with new material, because there was always some nagging issue that I wanted to find some expression for. But things have changed in the last couple months; I've found it harder and harder to come up with new topics; frankly, I've found that I've just plum run out of things to talk about. I've covered a hell of a lot of ground in my journey from a 2/4 grinder, to a $5,000 NL regular. I'm sure there are stories left to be written about where Fortuna will take me from here: I think I'll take a good run at playing in some WSOP events next year, since it's clearly a feather I want to have in my poker cap, irrespective of how I do. But after a few years of writing about my poker travails, I wonder just how relevant my future exploits will be to my present audience. It's been really strange to meet people who have read my blog and have them know more about my life, and more personal thoughts, goals,and insecurities than some of my best friends (since I share this blog with so few of them.) I've met some really interesting 2+2'ers, some cool, many not-so-much, and it's kind of jarring to launch into some poker theorum only to have them say "oh yeah, I remember reading that in your blog a little while back
posted by Blog Administrator at 5:07 AM
14 Comments:
I was actually your opponent in that hand :) - Great blog btw.
/foxy
Grrr....enjoy tha monies!
Oh mmaaaannnnnn....
....after 2 years you finally announce that you are going to the WSOP and then say that you are not going to blog about it(!!!)? After two years you announce that you are going to get on with the rest of your life....are we to take it that you are not going to blog about that? Mate, I respectfully suggest that you get with the program.
YOU ARE ONE FREAKIN' EXTRAORDINARILY TALENTED MAN.
And as you and the astute readers of this blog well know, I'm not just talking about your poker playing. The need-to-maintain-quality argument, as postulated by you in this post, is really only a misstep reflective of a malaise that confronts talented people as they make their way through life; how do you meet or exceed your current, substantive goals and how do you ensure that your prospective goals are going to adequately and satisfyingly test the limits of YOUR abilities?
I submit, however, that the decision about whether or not to continue blogging should not be limited to being an expression of the writer's vanity about quality issues. I can assure you that your ideas and your writing embody the quality of quality in its quintessence. Your motivation to produce quality work is palpable and I merely expect that from a man who is, amongst other things, a graduate of the Harvard Law School. Quality is not just a relative concept. You would concede that it has some absolute components and you must try to take ownership of the fact that you can and will deliver what are exceptionally satisfying results by any measure. Quality is not really the issue here.
Nor would I expect you to continue blogging out of a sense of obligation to yourself or your readership. While it is undoubtedly gratifying for you to know that you have brought pleasure, both simple and complex, to the lives of possibly tens of thousands of people via your blog, I am sure that you have not blogged because you possess the psychopathology of an attention seeker or the noblesse oblige of an old fashioned intellectual. Duty, or for that matter compulsion, is an intensely personal matter that need only seldom inform the results of creative endeavour.
In a comment to a previous post I noted that “you jettisoned SOME of the generosity of spirit that you have otherwise demonstrated throughout your blog”. Aside from your intellectual gifts Dan, your willingness to dissect existential issues (in addition to the cruder aspects of success and failure in poker) with humility and grace makes your blog very special. Almost entirely absent from your blog is the intelligent, literate, egotistical bitching and personal insults of, say, Matt Maroon in his Poker Chronicles.
I implore you to continue blogging, as both a practical result of and as a demonstration of the rich tapestry of your mind and your life. Allow yourself and your readers to revel, nay exult, in something that you have created that is as unique as it is beautiful.
I do not anticipate that you will, however, whine like some 14 year old mall-rat.
” Poker blogging! I’m soooooooo over it. Its like, y’know, soooooo 2004.”
Touche!
Holy cow! Thanks!
i, like many others here, regularly check your blog.. the quality of writing and variety of content keeps me coming back.. i definitely understand that every good chapter comes to an end..
one request though, maybe you can share your real name by the end? it'd be fun to follow you on tv while you're at the spotlight table..
I know from experience it's tough to blog when you don't feel like you have a lot to say.
I've followed your blog for the past year or so and I've enjoyed the experience greatly. Not only is it well written and informative, more importantly to me, it is encouraging. It's tough to make money playing poker, especially with with all the superlag noise you read on 2+2. It's helped me psychologically to hear a more reasonable voice.
In the future, even if you don't post significant info, I'd still like to see monthly results posts. I imagine you're not totally comfortable posting just results-I know I get uncomfortable posting results when most don't understand-but, I'm always interested in how your doing.
You could also turn it into more of a travel blog. I think most would fird that interesting.
Good luck in the future. It's been fun.
Why don't you become a writer?
I'm not to your level of poker play, and I haven't played high stakes yet. But, I was wondering about your thought process for that hand. I know you usually don't post that sort of thing, but it seemed odd to me the way it played out.
Understand that I usually play small stakes where a preflop reraise often means AA, KK, QQ, or AK (more often the AA or KK, with the QQ or AK calling at times). I understand at higher stakes tough opponents will reraise preflop with a wider variety, but AA and KK still should be kept in mind as hands here, no?
His bet on the flop could mean anything, but then he calls your reraise. Anyway, when he check-raises you all in, I can't see calling with the set. I don't think he would make that move with AK. At small stakes, I wouldn't put my opponent on a preflop reraise with AJ, but an opponent might do that at high stakes, but less likely out of position. But your action indicates pretty clearly you hit the set, so I don't know what other hand besides KK he could push with on the turn. I don't believe he would push with KJ or anything lower, for fear of your AJ.
I was curious if you saw it another way, which you apparently did with the call.
Thoughts?
Some great supreme court justice said something like "the law is experience, not logic"; and out law gets determined, even contract law, on a case by case basis with only slightly differing factual situations giving results which can not necessarily be devined or deduced beforehand even by Philadelphia lawyers appearing before the Supreme Court. Part of your 6 million dollar analysis could consider the history of similar verbal statements by poker players to split winnings being honored to the point of the casino having available, believed to be the relevant, IRS forms available to honor the 6 million dollar split which 50% split was fairly common knowledge prior to Gold winning the tournament. Perhaps you will consider my life experience which screams when Gold doesn't publicly recognize Leyser's 50% share right away on the spot at the casino, by writing or otherwise, then he is 100% going to welch....In the same vein, wouldn't you conclude, if you, law school student, think that Leyser's lawyer by early on seeking an injunction to hold the 6 million in court escrow made a bonehead move, that the lawyer probably knew this also and had no other choice? What's bondhead anyway, the money is in escrow and not gone to Gold, so to speak. And, You are wrong if you conclude that the judge's injunction ruling has nothing at all to do with case merits. If the judge had only heard from Gold, So sorry for you Leyser, I made promise with fingers crossed, then there would be no court escrow of the 6 million. You could read Dutch Boyd's blog as the straight talk express on the Gold case and perhaps consider a prior comment in your blog to get on with your life.
Wow that was an amazing post. And thats pretty crazy that your opponent posts on your blog as well!
Great post. I really wish you would have done better at the WSOP, but at least yuo had fun.
keep up the good poker blog
Excellent post about the Bodog poker room.
Your stuff is nice to read. And it creates some ideas on rakeback stuff
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bird.lavonne
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