Check. Raise. Bluff.

I was doing some investing the other day, because that's apparently what business majors do, and I ran across this interesting stock tracking website called Stockalicious .

So if you were looking for a way to track your stock investments and also wanted to put a widget showing your mad stock profits then check them out.

Earlier today the PokerTracker 3 leader programmer posted this screenshot to a 2+2 thread.



You can check out the whole thread here.

I didn't hear about this back in 2007 according to this article from a San Antonio paper there is legislation being brought up that would make poker a legal form of gambling.

If that happens I might make it a point to visit home a lot more often!

- Neteller disables your account without notice.
- You contact Neteller to find out why and they tell you to send updated security documents.
- 3 days later they haven't responded to your documents and you find out they have lost them.

If the UIEGA gets repelled I hope someone comes up with some serious competition to Neteller.

A reader asked me what happened to my pictures of life in Japan. I had originally taken all of my pictures down to save on bandwidth costs, but since people enjoyed them I will put some of them back up. I'll also try to take some of all the festivals this summer since those are some of the best shots. More on that soon.

"Some people, pros even, won't play No-Limit. They can't handle the swings." - Rounders

Never have a struggled so much with the game of poker as I have been lately. Learning how to play no-limit has been a very interesting experience.

I've always been pretty good at games. Not necessarily the best, but it usually doesn't take me long to be able to easily beat average play. A friend of mine recently introduced me to the game "Go" and by the third game he said, "I'm not giving you a handicap anymore or you might actually beat me." He's quite an accomplished player too.

Thus my biggest mistake at no-limit was quite simple. I'm sure I am not the first person to have made it before. I assumed that because I am a winning limit player that I already knew how to play no limit.

Anyone that has played no limit has seen this one before. New player to no limit gets AK in middle position. So they raise to 4BB. The button calls and everyone else folds. The flop comes K73 rainbow. Our new guy just got top-pair top-kicker but he wants to get some money so he checks to the button. The button bets 1/3rd of the pot and our new guy thinks, "What a small bet! This is great he doesn't know what a great hand I have!" and decides to push all-in. The button calls instantly.

I guarantee that if you asked a no-limit player what the button has 95% of them will answer something like: "A set of course".

The button calls with his 77. A blank on the turn and a K on the river just to dig the knife in a bit deeper.

Mistakes like that cost me a lot of money. Pushing TPTK too hard. Not realizing the disaster of calling a bet on the river when someone bets the pot after they rivered their flush. Not respecting people's reraises. Not noting the preflop action as the hand progresses and betting into made hands. In limit you can recover from most mistakes because you only lose a bet or two. In no limit it costs you half your stack or more.

So the education was tough, I managed to get down 20 buy-ins at the $25 level while learning and clearing some bonuses. However there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I dropped down to the $10 game and immediately and consistently started beating it. Hopefully that means the excessive bleeding has ended!

I've also started a private wiki to help document all of the great information that is out there on the internet. Next time I'll share some of problems that people have when they move to no limit and point out a few misconceptions people have.

... but I am too busy playing poker.

I guess a more correct statement would be that I am too busy filling what little free time I have left with playing poker.

First of all I purchased Harrington on Cash Games Vol. 1 and 2 on Monday. Much to my surprise they arrive at my door before 5pm on Tuesday. I will never know how newly released poker books written in English were available in Japan for same day shipping. I think it's part of the same mystery that causes fish to bet you on a river when they are playing the board ...

So I bought some new poker books. Between playing craps while on blogger Vegas trips and buying the latest poker books I've actually become a little bit negative in the poker game. I think the fact that craps is really the problem here has been well documented though.

I've been wanting to learn no-limit for a long time. I tried it out a few times and was horrible at it. Within the several pages of HCG I finally understand why. I always thought top-pair top-kicker was a great flop! Yet for some reason I was always getting into these huge pots and getting beat by strange straights, small flushes, and sets! (If any of this has happened to you then the $70 on this book set will be well spent.)

There is one problem with reading poker books though. It kind of makes you want to play poker. So I log on and jump on to a $10 NL table and start clicking fold. I try to keep the pot low when my hand is weak and build it up when it was strong. Guess who started taking down huge pots with trip-kings after the AKs guy pushed all-in?

I ended up staying up half of the night and getting through half of volume one. It's really well written. Also if you've tried to read 2+2 books before and couldn't make it through one I highly recommend you give Harrington's books a try. He is a much easier writer to read than Mason and Sklansky yet constantly refers back to their most important points.

So maybe this is a bit of a mega post after all.

Too bad I don't have any interesting pictures for you ...

So how about a little poker update. My Neteller account was approved finally so I am now back in business. It's nice to be able to quickly transfer money between poker sites again. I hope all of you US players are jealous! It does cost a bit more here though. Between the bank charges and exchange rate fees I paid about 3.5% in fees to get that money in there. I'll have to pay about that much to get it back out too. Assuming I never go bust I will only have to pay the outgoing fees from now on, but a 3.5% cut off winnings that were already raked is still a bit depressing.

I'm basically a completely new player as far as all of the poker sites are concerned so I get to really rack up the bonuses and freebies. I signed up with Poker Source Online since I can convert their points into useful things like poker accessories, Amazon gift certificates, and cold hard cash. I'm also going to chase down all of the sign-up bonuses on the major sites. I don't really plan to become a major bonus whore, but I want to get my initial investment back a bit quicker and for me it provides an extra incentive to keep playing when the cards aren't running my way.

So far I'm running at a net break-even. My foray into 6-max has been a little bit bumpy so I'm down about 45BB. The no-limit has been a bit better and it covers about a third of those losses right now. The bonus cleans up the rest. Total net loss right now: $0.07. I'm not really sure why, but that amused me somewhat.

I will end by linking you to information about the new Tokyo Tower which is scheduled to begin construction next month.

In reference to this CNN article:

A few people have already asked so I'll just answer it here. No I wasn't there, but I heard about it almost instantly since it ticked across the news banner on my phone. On my way home from shopping there were quite a few people on the train talking about it too.

This ought to give me some interesting ammo for the "guns are scary" and "America is scary" conversations though.

In any case I could have been there. Akihabara is a pretty popular place to go on a Sunday afternoon and there are always big crowds. They close the streets and so I assume that is one reason he was able to be so "effective".

I'm curious what the reaction will be to this. I don't think you can make truck rentals illegal. It's also illegal to carry knives in public here, even a small pocket knife. It would be nice if this increases the amount of mental care available in Japan but that's just wishful thinking.

Update (1:43am JST):

The CNN article hasn't been updated yet, but this just came across my phone. There are now 7 dead. Six males: 19, 74, 47, 29, 20 and 33. One female: 21. 10 people are still listed as injured.

Many of you probably already know, but last year PokerStars started the Asia-Pacific Poker Tour. Season 2 has been announced and since the first two events are close to me and during my school vacation I thought it would be a good idea to try and qualify.

Of course the real question is how ...

PokerStars has several qualifiers and I happened to be playing when they announced a $2 + $0.20 2x turbo re-buy satellite to a $475 qualifier. What I didn't know, or maybe I just forgot, was that "2x turbo re-buy" is poker speak for gamble! The first couple of hands are played like normal poker, but the blinds go up every 5 minutes so after a few rounds you pretty much just find two cards you really like and push.

Any two cards of course!

At one point I tripled up by pushing when I flopped a straight draw and a flush draw. (The flush came on the river.) However about 30 minutes later the antes and rising blinds had bled me a bit and I found Queens in the hole. Two people push in front of me, which I knew wasn't good, but these things are decided by some heavy luck so I went in with them.

My opponents had 79 and 7J. I was pretty happy.

The flop was 799. Suddenly not so happy.

There was no Queen for me.

I decided not to rebuy since I would have had to push and win twice in a row fairly quickly to even have a chance at keeping up with the blinds.

It was an interesting experience, but I don't think I'll be spending my money on that kind of satellite again. It's easier just to earn the full $475 buy-in the old fashioned way.

If anyone has any suggestions for how to qualify for one of these events I'd love to hear it!

This semester I am taking two Japanese literature classes. They both require a lot of reading and since midterms are this week I've been reading and re-reading all of the material so that I can hopefully write a competent essay for the tests.

In any case I sort of realized that all of this reading also allows for a bit of poker. It's pretty easy to keep up with one limit table since most of the time I just have to look up briefly to see the complete trash I got dealt and click the fold button. When a playable hand comes up I just take a break really quick and play it out. I also find the chip sound effects quite calming.

There is one particular hand I will probably post later, but for the most part the mistakes were obvious and were honestly the same sorts of mistakes I was making before I took my long break. I have rusted a little, I can't really remember the actual odds for various draws, but I think if I looked back at my decisions I would find I remember them somewhat instinctually. Plus I'm not seeing many no-fold'em hold'em games so you aren't often able to draw profitably anyway.

Oddly enough the fact that I still knew how to play wasn't the biggest surprise. The thing that really shocked me was how badly I was playing.

I think some of it stems from playing a lot on Party Poker in the glory days. I was only playing $0.5/$1 and $1/$2 back then and there was a lot of ramming and jamming. The sheer number of loose/aggressive players meant you could do it profitably since they would often show-down the second best hand. (Usually a Ace or King with a weak kicker.)

The other problem is that I never really had to learn how to play any better. Online there were tons of fish, plenty of great games, bonuses galore and tons of money for the taking. Live casinos, which probably haven't changed much, were also flush with new players and plenty of regulars who were more than happy to give their money away each month. (I made it a habit to play the first weekend of every month. Yay for payday!)

So now I'm still a winning player, but probably only marginally. I also have a lot lower risk tolerance now. I guess it's finally time to evolve my game. 'Cause we all know quitting isn't an option!

According to this article on cardplayer.com PokerStars has just opened a new poker room in Macau.

Since Macau is the closest live poker destination for me that's quite a birthday present!