High On Poker

Let’s kick this off with a small taste of humble pie and a big congratulations to 1QueensUp1, who won the Mookie after beating me heads up in the Skillz game. Through his back-to-back wins, 1QU1 effectively shut my trap hard about my 1st place May leaderboard position by smacking me down to an irrelevant 2nd place by a 20 pt margin. Thank god I didn’t post the Mr. May post that would’ve extolled my greatness. I’ll sell you the post for $5, 1QU1. It looks like I’ll have to make the points in the Big Game on Sunday. Any word on whether the Sunday Brit Bloggerment is going, or whether it counts toward BBT4 points?

But the stays of execution that are really killing me are entirely unrelated to poker. Rather, they are the stays of execution I am suffering in three upcoming trials. The world of litigation, particularly personal injury litigation (which encompasses medical malpractice, products liability, construction accidents, car accidents, etc.) is a world of conflicting forces. On one side, you have plaintiff attorneys, like me, who are paid on a contingency basis. The only way my firm sees a dime is if we settle a case or successfully bring it to verdict and win for our client. Otherwise, we see nothing.

Our firm thankfully specializes in higher value cases, meaning I don’t have any of the slip-and-fall or soft tissue injury (ow, my back hurts) cases. But that also means that our cases are expert-intensive, usually requiring an expert to explain to the jury what went wrong, one or more experts to explain to the jury the injury, and sometimes multiple experts to explain other aspects of the injury, like future lost wages or the cost of a life care plan. And all those experts get paid BIG money. It’s probably one of the best rackets going. A testifying doctor could demand upwards of $10,000 a day for his appearance at trial. Less bold experts still demand $8,000 or so. And, they are 100% necessary. You cannot bring a medical malpractice action unless you have a doctor willing and able to testify about what the standard of care is and the deviations by the defendant doctor resulting in the plaintiff’s injury. So, if every expert demands $5,000 or more, you’re going to pay $5,000 or more or lose the case.

So, we have a system where my firm pays out decent money out of pocket for experts, not to mention other expenses like Court fees or fees for Court reporters, and doesn’t see a dime until the case has been concluded. This is a great system because it allows lower income people to secure top notch representation (provided they shop around and have a decent case). NYC attorneys routinely charge upwards of $500/hr., so without a contingency fee arrangement, most people could not afford counsel. Plus, it keeps everyone’s goals in line. The plaintiff and the plaintiff’s attorney want the same thing: a speedy resolution with the best possible outcome for the plaintiff.

The conflict comes when you look at the world of defense. Now, not all defense firms work this way, but many of them do. I should know. I spent a year doing defense before I switched over to what some people idiotically call, “the Dark Side.” (Side note, the woman who made that comment was the defendant against me in a child molestation case. Just to put it all together, I was representing a molested kid and I was the bad guy.)

Most defendants have insurance coverage, which chooses and pays for the defense attorney. Usually, the insurance companies have favored or contracted firms, who have agreed to significantly lower rates than the $500/hour previously quoted, because they know that a good relationship with an insurance carrier means lots of casework. So, the defense counsel’s rates are a mere fraction of the plaintiff counsel’s rates. The insurance company doesn’t want to pay out any money on claims, and the longer they can wait the better because that money is earning interest in an account owned by the insurance company. If a defendant can put off paying $1,000,000 for a year, and the interest rate is a modest 2.5%, that insurance company has effectively earned itself $25,000. Of course, there are countervailing risks, but still, it is usually to the insurance company’s benefit to delay trial and in doing so, delay paying. Meanwhile, the defense attorneys are paid hourly, unlike contingency-fee plaintiff’s counsel. So, the defense attorneys are all too happy to drag a case along because every time something is adjourned, it just means another court appearance and more money in the defense firm’s pocket. Attorneys in that structure are often under pressure to bill a certain amount of hours a year, either through a straightforward requirement, a bonus system, or social pressures within the firm. So, delaying the case gives them more billing hours.

In the end, the plaintiffs (and their attorneys) are trying to get through litigation as quickly as possible, as long as everything is done thoroughly; the defendants want the case to take as long as possible.

Now, with this framework, allow me to discuss the frustration of these stays of execution. It’s not my execution that is being stayed. It is the litigations’, or perhaps, if I am hopeful, the defendants’. I have three cases all ready for trial, two in NJ and one on Long Island, and each have been calendared for trial on at least 5 occasions…and each time, they get adjourned. There is nothing worse than anticipation turning into disappointment. And ironically, up until Wednesday of this week (the same day 1QueensUp1 broke my heart), I expected two of them to start almost simultaneously.

But guess what happened? One was a pure fluke. As we were about to start picking a jury, I received a telephone call from my expert doctor, who was to testify about what went wrong during the delivery of my infant client. It turns out that his wife is good friends with the defendant’s wife. Shit! So, last minute, he decides he can no longer be our expert.

This effectively required us to delay trial. No problem, I thought. I have two other cases ready for trial in NJ. That is, I had two other trial ready to go forward. Then I got a call from one of the defendants that the Court accepted their 9th request for an adjournment because one of their experts is on vacation for the entire month of June. Fine, then. I have one case ready to go to trial, that is, until this morning, when I received an email from the same Court informing me that my one last case is adjourned as well. And this time, there was no reason given. It could’ve been that the Court was just too damn busy to deal with us right now.

Wah! I can’t go to trial. Wah!

The pain is that each time, it’s like prepping anew. If you want to do a trial right, you need to know the case cold. So, there is a lot of prep work. And even though I did most of the prep work already, I have to go over it anew each time. And there is no benefit to me, the firm or my clients. The clients don’t get their money fast, the firm doesn’t get paid fast, and I’m running on a legal treadmill.

And….end complaints.

Now, all I can do is focus on Sunday.

Until next time, make mine poker!

Julius Goat‘s animated series of interviews with poker hands is ridiculously hilarious. Top quality work from a top quality goat. So, just in case you haven’t seen them yet, go to Julius Goat’s site, or for the most recent episode, click HERE and don’t forget to backtrack to his earlier episodes.

Until next time, make mine poker!

I stated in the last post how Stud is not a game that should be played in tournament format. Well, the exact opposite is true with PLO High. It’s not that Omaha is a game that is designed for tournaments; rather, the appeal is from the fact that most PLO online tournaments are chock full of TERRIBLE players. I mean TERRIBLE! Worse, by far, than the donkiest of NL Hold’em tourneys. Why? Most likely, it’s because of lack of experience combined with the gambling nature of PLO in general. Regardless, it’s a beautiful sight.

Here’s the hand that exemplifies the stupidity of some PLO online tourney players. This was a $5k Guarantee tourney, with a buy-in of $26 or a token. My guess is that these donks used tokens.

With blinds at 40/80, I had already accumulated 5,310. UTG folds, and UTG+1, whose name is LoverKid (KidLover?) raises pot to 280. KidLover has only 2,850. With AKKQ with two spades, I re-pot it to 920. It folds to McLovin who has 23,585 and is in the SB. He calls. The action is back to KidLover who re-raises all-in for 2,850 total. I decide that my very strong hand is likely ahead and has some decent draws if I am behind. But I don’t want McLovin in the hand if I can avoid it, so I re-push all-in for my full 5,310. McLovin, though, is emboldened and calls the nearly 5,000 more. I assume I am screwed and likely behind AAXX. In reality, these are what my opponents held:

KidLover: QJT9 with two clubs.
McLovin: Q993, doubled suited hearts and diamonds.

These are both terrible hands. KidLover was nuts to raise in the first place, but to re-raise all-in was just pure suicide. He must’ve known that one of us would call, at which point he’d have to cross his fingers and hope for the best.

While McLovin had chips, his play was pretty crappy as well. He was obviously playing for the flushes, but a Q-high or 9-high flush is hardly the nuts in PL Omaha.

The board was Js 7d Ah 2d Ac at showdown, so for good measure, I hat three of a kind Aces, good enough to beat KidLovers two pair (Aces and Jacks) and McLovin’s two pair (Aces and Nines).

Man, what donkeys.

Until next time, make mine poker!

So close, yet so far.

I took 2nd place last night in the Skillz Game, which just plain sucked since I was hoping for my fifth BBT4 win. My last hand was absolutely atrocious, but I think fatigue set in and I was so short that I had foolishly decided right away to keep raising until I was all-in. That was just awfukkit poker, which is never a pretty site. But before then, I was on FIYAH!

TripJax has been writing about luck lately, and last night exemplified one of his main themes: I made my own luck. After a while, I could psychically feel the growns of my fellow players as I “got lucky” time and time again. And for a decent amount of those times, it was true. I won my fair share of coin tosses and hit my fair share of strong hands. In fact, when I was about out, I turned quads to triple up and put me back in the game. Later in the evening, I was down to a few blinds and doubled up, back-to-back, to put me right back into the thick of it.

But, there were other times when I made my good luck. Mostly, it was through relentless aggression when I had enough chips to weather a loss. It was also through making tough decision, like the hand we are about to discuss.

So, we are in the Skillz Game, playing a Limit Stud tournament. Let me state once again that I do not think Stud games should be played in tournament format because once you weather the useless early stages, you are essentially waiting for the late stage push-fest. Last night, I came up with what I believe would be a fine solution to the shortcomings of Limit Stud Game tournaments: a timed tourney with flat blinds. Essentially, it will be who can win the most chips in X amount of time rather than who can get lucky in the late stages. Of course, an even better solution would be to leave the Stud games to cash tables.

The blinds are 300/600 with a 50 ante. We are 7-handed. I have 5,887, in 3rd place for the table. There were a couple of shorties with 1,758 and 2,001. It is worth noting that this is a knockout tourney, which pays cash for each player you knock out.

I am dealt 5c 6s/As (i.e., 5 and 6 in the hole, with the Ace exposed). Cardgrrl (6,593) is the bring-in for 100 with a 3c showing. Four players fold (with a Jack, Ace, Queen and Ace showing, respectively) and I complete to 300. At this point, I have to assume that Cardgrrl has jack squat. The only other player left to act was BoneDaddy, one of the shorties with 1,758. To my surprise (and delight) he raises to 600. He has a 6c showing. That effectively squeezed out Cardgrrl even if she was thinking of calling me light. I call. He has less than 1,200 left and I have more than 5k.

On fourth street, these are our cards:

HoP: 56/A9
BD: XX/68

I have diddly squat. The pot is 1,650 or so. I check. BD bets. I take my time. Here, it seems like I have to be beat. He definitely has a pair AND I don’t even have many good over cards. The Ace is ok, but two Aces are already out of the deck. The nine isn’t that mighty either, since BD could easily have a better pair in the hole. HOWEVER, look at the situation. I can only loose so much AND I stand to take a bounty. Even if he has a pair, there are a lot of cards to come. Perhaps others fold here, but the deciding factor for me was the pot odds. I figured out the math and realized that I had to bet 1,200 to win about 3000+. Add in the bounty $ and the fact that I had enough chips to weather the loss and it seemed like a no brainer. So, once I decided that I wanted to take this to the river, I raised. Why? Because I want to see the final 3 cards so I might as well pay the toll now. I raise to 600. BD re-raises me and I cap. BD is all in and we see our actual hands:

HoP: 56/A9
BD: 6K/68

I’m clearly behind, but it’s still worth the gamble.

After 5th Street:

HoP: 56A9T
BD: 6K682

After 6th Street:

HoP: 56A9T7
BD: 6K6829

On the river:

HoP: 56A9T78…or a straight to the Ten
BD: 6K6829T…or a pair of 6s

Now, I have no illusions about this hand. I got lucky. But I made my luck by (i) accumulating enough chips earlier that I did not fear losing, and (ii) recognizing the pot odds were favorable when combined with the bounty $.

With my 2nd place finish, I may have locked up the May Leaderboard. I can only hope. Congrats to 1QueensUp1 for the win. At the end, when we were headsup, I realized that we both already had TOC seats. I considered offering a chop, but really, it just didn’t feel right. Of course, losing in 2nd didn’t feel much better.

Until next time, make mine poker!

Hey peoples. As you may recall, a while ago, I suggested some WSOP Prop bets. One idea was a pool, and 9 players total (myself included) each put up some casheesh, and picked three players in a draft. The pool works as follows: 1 point for every final table and 3 points for every bracelet (win). That’s 3 pts total, not 3+1. So, without further adieu, the various rosters.

I also have an over/under bet with CEM for $10. I set the line for Main Event participants at 7103 and CEM took the UNDER.

I also have a series of prop bets with Ingoal. They are as follows:

Main Event Entries ($5) – I set the over/under line at 7123. Ingoal took the under.

Bracelet Race ($10) – Most bracelets from a stable of three horses. I chose Phil Ivey, John Juanda, and Scotty Nguyen. Ingoal’s picks are Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein and Phil Helmuth.

Player of the Year ($5) – I picked Beltrand “Elky” Grospelier. Ingoal picked Negreanu.

Bubble Boy ($5) – I chose Negreanu for the double whammy. Ingoal picked Michael Matusow.

Good luck to all participants in the pool, as well as my competition in the individual prop bets.

If you would like to make a prop bet with yours truly, hit me up with a comment or email ASAP.

Until next time, make mine poker!

The BBT4 has really given me a shot in the arm. After winning a couple of events and running up the leaderboard with not even 1/2 of the games played as my contemporaries, I decided to actually make an effort to climb the May leaderboard for a chance to win the $2,000 WSOP prize package awarded to the #1 spot. After my win on Monday, I finally catapulted myself to the #1 position on the leaderboard, and the nail biting has begun.

On Wednesday, I played in the Mookie and went out in the middle of the field when my QQ ran into AA preflop. The person who felted me was none other than qrs1, the #2 spot on the May leaderboard. That is clearly the worst case scenario.

Meanwhile, Tuscaloosa John, in the #3 spot, was still in the tourney too. As I went about doing other things, I kept an eye on the tournament. Thankfully, John was out not too much later than I was, but when I finally decided to go to sleep aroun 12:45am, qrs1 was already at the final table, in probably 7th place.

This morning, before shitting, showering, or shaving, I was online checking qrs1′s results. He placed in 7th out of 75 people. GULP! I kept an eye on the May Leaderboard today, probably refreshing it dozens of times before it was updated. To my amazement, I still hold the #1 spot with 539.1 points, but qrs1 has closed the gap in the #2 spot with 524.2. If he had placed one spot higher in the Mook, he’d probably be in 1st.

So, what does this mean? I guess I’ll be playing every event possible for the rest of the BBT4, which is fortunately only one more week. I’ll be biting my nails the entire time in a hope to keep qrs1 and Tuscaloosa right where they are.

As for the casheesh I’ve won in these events, well, I cashed out a decent chunk (by regular mail) because, frankly, online poker still sucks compared to live poker and based on my Win/Loss ledger, online poker wins only count if I cash out. Any deposit online is an immediate loss, because to me, the only real win is the type you can fold (or, I suppose, jingle, if the game is small enough). It might stop me from playing a bit higher stakes online, but that’s more of a positive than a negative.

In other nail-biting news, I have three cases ready for trial and one finally will start in the first week of June. The other two might start at the same time though. Just fucking lovely. It’s feast or famine, people.

Until next time, make mine poker!

Another fine blogger tourney win, brought to you by High on Poker!

How could I forget to mention one of my favorite lines of my interaction with Chipmunk. After he slowrolled me, he asked me what I had. I was incredulous. Lord knows I wasn’t going to give up free information after he slowrolled me. So, I did what any mature individual would do. I gave him the middle finger.

“I had one of these, okay?! Even better,” I acted as though I was reaching into my pocket with my other hand and pulled out another middle finger. “There. I had a pocket pair. Fucker.”

Tee hee.

Until next time, make mine poker!

“YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID, COCKSUCKER!”

The kid looked back at me like the lovechild of Hiro Nakamura and Cory Haim. His round face was comically accented by the fly-catcher mouth, as though his jaw was too weak to take the full weight of his cheeks. I continued,

“you SLOWROLLED me!”

He did. That little cocksucker slow rolled me. It had already been a long day at the tables, and the last thing I needed was this mongoloid chipmunk slowrolling me. He had a stack of easily $1,800 at a table where the max buy-in was $200. I, meanwhile, was handing over all but $50 of a stack that was about $250 just a moment before.

I had no business being in the hand in the first place, with 23s. I was UTG and it had been a card dead day. I started off at the 5/10 LO8 table with Craig, wifey Kim’s friend’s fiance. We were in town for a bridal shower for Kim’s friend, and since Craig loves poker as much (or moreso) than I do, we decided to spend the day at Turning Stone. I love some LO8 action, so I was more than happy to play the game when we arrived at the casino. We were at the table for a good 2 hrs or so (including a break to get a great turkey burger patty melt at the Turning Stone’s foodcourt), and the old farts were just too nitty to make the game interesting. I was down $180 after a couple of hands where I was drawn out, and decided to transition to NLHE as a way to get a bit more control over the cards.

When I arrived at the NLHE table, I was placed in the 10 seat. I could see, though, that the serious chips were in the 1 seat, where the Asian Chipmunk was perched. As I neared the table, I noticed a fat white guy in the 2 seat chatting to the Chipmunk. He said, “Maybe he’ll liven up the table.” I guess calling his Chipmunk tablemate a cocksucker livened things up a bit, but that wasn’t going to happen for another 2 hours.

In that 2 hours, I remained card dead. In fact, for the entire session, my best hand was 77 (once), with AQ once or twice. I knew, though, that I was not going to force the action, so I did my best to remain patient. Of course, I failed on one account. I got more than my fair share of suite connectors, and if I could get into the pot for cheap, I was happy to play them. In hindsight, that’s what got me into trouble in the 23s hand, but we aren’t quite there yet.

I also planned on getting better table position, since it did me no good sitting in the 10 seat where I was to the immediate right of the two largest stacks at the table, and, not coincidentally, the only two players worth worrying about at the table. I moved three times, finally ending up in the 4 seat with a straight view of the Chipmunk. All the while, he was catching extremely lucky, raising with crap hands like T9o preflop or K7, only to hit major hands, usually on the river. In two such hands, he went runner runner with his K7 on a AK5 flop that ended up AK577 against another player holding A5 for a flopped two pair. In a few others, he hit inside straight draws to take down pots unexpectedly.

Even though he was playing crap cards, it was clear that Chipmunk was in control of the table. And I was happy to let him take control. I just wanted my shot and after 2 hours, we came upon the hand that ended in the C-S word.

I limped UTG with 23s hoping it would be a multi-way limped pot. Hell, for $2, I could easily fold without concern, but if I hit right, it’d be a well-hidden hand. Of course, this is all just justification. In reality, the limp was marginal at best, but terrible after a bunch of limpers were met with Chipmunk’s late position raise to $11 or so. Without thinking, I called and then remembered that I did not have 22, like I for some reason thought, but rather 23s. In some ways, I would’ve rather been playing for set value, which is a lot easier to get away from if you miss. With 23s, I could easily get trapped into playing a bad flush draw. There was maybe one more caller and we saw a flop: A4x. Lovely. I had an inside straight draw and decided that the best course of action was to simply check. My two opponents followed suit. The turn was a 5. I checked again, knowing that Chipmunk was likely to take a stab. When it checked to him, he bet out and I raised. Amazingly, the other guy over-called and Chipmunk followed suit. The river was another 5. My only concern, then, was that someone was playing an odd combination of cards that gave a full house. Other than that, I was golden. But when Chipmunk bet $50, which was less than my last raise, I decided to just flat call. Something about the development of the hand led me to decide to hold onto my last $50, just in case. When the other guy folded, it was just Chipmunk and me. I waited for him to show.

I should mention here that Chipmunk was slowrolling a lot, but I kept my mouth shut because it wasn’t me he was doing it to. I could’ve said something earlier, but I wanted to be a non-entity at the table until I was ready to take down a big pot. Most of the time, he’d just wait for his opponent to show first, but sometimes when he would show, he would show one card at a time. Fine, I thought. Let him try that on me.

He did try. At showdown, I waited patiently for him to show his cards. He just stared at me with his Mongoloid mouth agape. “What you have?” “You sure first, boss. You were the aggressor.” He waited a tad longer and started to flip up his cards, one at a time. “I have a 5.” For a moment, a good several seconds, I was relieved. He just waited and I insisted, “And the other one?” He slowly peeled off an Ace, for a full house.

THAT SONUVABITCH! I thought. “What the hell was THAT, man?!” I asked as much as yelled. “What?” he looked at me as though he were confused. Moments before, as he peeled off the Ace, though, he looked to my neighbor on my left and smiled as though he was proud to be pulling one over on me. And that brings us to the first quote of this post.

“YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID, COCKSUCKER!”

I was enraged, in a sense, but I was also very much in control of my actions and emotions. I wanted to put the fear of god in him because up until this point, everyone was putting up with his bullshit. I wanted him shamed and I wanted him worried for his own safety. All of this is my way of saying that I wanted to tilt him or at least throw him off of his game enough so that he started making errors. After all, for all of his crazy play, he definitely knew what he was doing and he was running the table from a position of fear. Everyone fears the “lucky” player.

He just looked at me like the retard he was: “I don’t understand. What did I do?”

A sloppy fuck in the 7 seat chimed in. “He didn’t do anything man.” This same fatso was trying to buddy up with the Chipmunk earlier, joking that they were the two Asians, even though fatso was as white as a Klan uniform. He joked about how he played with enough Vietnamese to be an honorary member.

I turned to fatso and set him straight. “You don’t know what the hell you are talking about man. That’s a slowroll.” He replied, “I bet all he needed to win was the 5.” “First off, you have no fucking idea what I was holding and I’m sure as shit not going to share it with you. Second, I don’t give a fuck what he needs to win. He slowrolled his fucking cards either way.”

The Chipmunk looked back at me with scared eyes: “I don’t understand.” I responded, “Don’t pull that shit with me. I’ve been watching you for hours and you know exactly what you are doing. Ever hear of a slowroll, mother fucker.” He looked scared but clearly was putting on a front, “What’s a slowroll?” I answered, “It’s in the fucking title. SLOW. ROLL.”

By now, my neighbor to the left, leaned into me and offered some kind advice. “Don’t even get into it with him, man. He knew exactly what he was doing.” I thanked him but I knew what I was doing, too. I wanted the Chipmunk to feel fear. I even considered one of these two lines before I decided that it was not worth getting thrown out of the casino: Line 1- “We can finish this conversation when you leave the room later.” The other one was even better. Line 2- “I wouldn’t be pissing people off if I had to walk to my car later with $1,800 in cash.” See how those might get me in trouble?

Ironically, thoughout all of this, the dealer didn’t let out a peep. I expected a warning. After all, I skipped right over the F word to use the C-S word. Maybe there was no C-S bomb rule, but the F-bombs came out shortly after.

Surely, I was livid, but as I calmed down I ended the conversation with this simple truth. “I don’t mind losing the pot. I just mind when the winner acts like a little fucking bitch!”

A pot or two later, I got lucky on a rivered flush to double-up and then some. Soon, it was time to leave and I racked up.

I lost $274 on the trip, $180 at LO8 and $94 at NLHE. It was a good trip regardless, and as Craig and I walked to the parking lot, I let out one last truth: “I’m glad I had words with that little cocksucker. Now I have something to write about besides losing $274.”

Until next time, make mine poker!

With the advent of Full Tilt’s site-wide tournament breaks every :55 to :00, I wonder how many porn sites and the like get a sudden infestation of socially inept online poker players every five minutes to the hour? Sundays must require extra bandwith.