So live poker isn't 100% skill after all

My second attempt at live poker didn't go quite as well as my first. I didn't get many decent hands and flopped badly with the hands I played. Just like in my first live tournament I only won one hand before ending up all in, not long after the first break. A monster stack raised; I went all in pre-flop with my AJ. My opponent had QT. The flop came J-8-something, the turn was a king giving him an open-ender and a ten-outer which he duly hit when an ace came on the river. I still found the experience a little unnerving and wasn't unhappy with my early exit. Only this time they had a turbo second chance tournament; happily it didn't take me long to bust out of that one as well.

Online has been a bit of a mixed bag; my bankroll is currently $2583. Here's an interesting single draw hand from last night. I'd got involved with this guy twice before in this session and was on the losing end both times. The first time I four-bet small (to $7) with my pat 98432, he called out of position, then patted and bet just $3 into me. I called; he had 97532. The second hand was immediately before this one. I drew one, he took two, I made 44752 and bet, he unsurprisingly called me with T7.

PokerStars Hand #85113657472:  Single Draw 2-7 Lowball No Limit ($0.25/$0.50 USD) - 2012/08/23 5:10:32 ET

Table 'Wendeline III' 7-max Seat #7 is the button

Seat 1: popaionut ($38.10 in chips)

Seat 2: Uchenik717 ($10.22 in chips)

Seat 3: TATJANA19896 ($5.29 in chips)

Seat 4: Bale777 ($10.37 in chips)

Seat 5: rubin323 ($52.58 in chips)

Seat 7: plutoman20 ($18.53 in chips)

popaionut: posts small blind $0.25

Uchenik717: posts big blind $0.50

*** DEALING HANDS ***

Dealt to plutoman20 [8d 7h 5d 4h 2h]

TATJANA19896: folds

Bale777: raises $1 to $1.50

rubin323: calls $1.50 Good.

plutoman20: raises $4.25 to $5.75 Right, I'm short, I've got a big hand, let's see how I can get my whole stack in.

popaionut: folds

Uchenik717: folds

Bale777: folds Damn.

rubin323: calls $4.25 Good.

rubin323: stands pat

plutoman20: stands pat on [8d 7h 5d 4h 2h]

rubin323: bets $3

plutoman20: raises $9.78 to $12.78 and is all-in He might not respect my raise here. At least that's what I'm hoping.

rubin323: uses up his entire time bank. Do I want him to call? Of course I do! I've got number twelve for god's sake. Eventually he calls $9.78

*** SHOW DOWN ***

plutoman20: shows [8d 7h 5d 4h 2h] (Lo: 8,7,5,4,2)

rubin323: shows [9d 4d 8c 6d 5h] (Lo: 9,8,6,5,4)

plutoman20 collected $37.54 from pot

*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot $39.31 | Rake $1.77

Seat 1: popaionut (small blind) folded before Flop

Seat 2: Uchenik717 (big blind) folded before Flop

Seat 3: TATJANA19896 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Seat 4: Bale777 folded before Flop

Seat 5: rubin323 showed [9d 4d 8c 6d 5h] and lost with Lo: 9,8,6,5,4

Seat 7: plutoman20 (button) showed [8d 7h 5d 4h 2h] and won ($37.54) with Lo: 8,7,5,4,2

Going live

Last night I experienced live poker for the first time. Like most new things that involve, er, real people, this was seriously scary for me. It was a weekly $10 buy-in tournament at the Cambridge Hotel pub. One bloke looked like he was running the show; I asked him if he was the poker guy. "What does it look like?" OK, be like that. He took my ten bucks and gave me a card which they stamp each time you buy a drink; each stamp was exchangeable for 500 chips. I just had two beers - hopefully they would relax me.

You could sit down at any table in front of any 6000-chip stack. Everybody seemed scary to some degree; I tried to pick the least scary table. The tournament started; cards and chips were flying around and it was all a bit intimidating. I quickly let the rest of the table know that I'd never played live before. I knew about burn cards but had no idea about cutting the cards before each deal or that funny yellow plastic card which stops people from seeing the bottom card in the deck. And as for that fancy shuffling, forget it. I made every mistake imaginable - forgetting to post the blinds, not knowing when it was my turn to act, dealing cards too high up (so people's eyeballs are a centimetre from the table when the cards are dealt?), trying to deal more than two cards to each player (perhaps wishing it was badugi), forgetting to burn, and plenty more besides. The chips were effectively foreign currency to me (what's black again?) and sometimes I put in the wrong amount. I had to concentrate so hard on the mechanics of the game that I was glad to be dealt mostly crap in the early stages.

I won my first pot when I flopped a flush draw with AQs and semibluffed the turn. Then just before the first break I got sucked in with KTs, calling off a fair portion of my stack before folding to a smallish river bet in a sizeable pot. He showed his rivered full house; I hadn't even got a pair. I was short and soon after the break I got all in with QJo, half-hoping I could just go home. My shove was called and I was heading home until a jack came on the river. Being unaware of poker etiquette I apologised profusely for my suckout.

I managed to accumulate chips after that. On one hand I got a free look in the big blind with (I think) Kd 6d. We went four-handed (at least) to the flop which came out all diamonds, including the ace, giving me the nut flush. I just checked, as did everyone else. The turn was basically a blank. Again I checked, this time there was a bet and a call, and I went all in. They folded but it was still a useful pot. People seemed to drop like flies and by the second break I found myself at the final table.

I still got pulled up for one or two things. The blinds were 800 and 1600 when I pushed out four 1000s followed by four 100s and announced "four-four". But no, I had to take back my 100s and only raise to 4000. It seems I tried to make a "string bet" (when a player uses more than one forward motion to put chips in for a raise without verbally declaring the raise first) but I wasn't to know. With maybe six players left and the blinds at 3000 and 6000, I had only 20,000 or so. I was in the big blind with Th 9d and nobody raised. The flop came 9-4-3, all hearts. I just checked, the (pretty good, I thought) woman opposite me went all in and had me covered. I had no real choice but to call with my pair and flush draw. She flipped over 4-3 for two small pair, the turn was a nine and I survived once more. I guessed I was slight underdog, maybe 55-45, but Twodimes actually makes me a 51-49 favourite. There can't be many times in hold 'em that the worst hand on the flop is actually the favourite. Soon afterwards she got short and shoved J2o; I happened to have KK and she was out.

They didn't have a payout structure; everything depended on deals. With five left we agreed that everyone would get $10 back from the $350 pool; with three left we decided to split the remainder $175-$75-$50. I thought I was likely to finish second because I had a good stack but heads-up isn't my forte, so I didn't like that split much but hey. When we got heads-up I had the chip lead. A few people stuck around to watch and one woman (who was particularly cowgirl-like) wanted to know my online handle. She was also desperate to know whether I had a jack on a particular hand in which I went all in. We swapped the chip lead three times, he survived with KK against my A8 on an eight-high flop, then I hung on with my pocket eights against two overcards but the end came for me with he rivered a nine to beat my K2s. The nerve-wracking tournament (the nerves had nothing to do with winning or losing) lasted a little over four hours.