Rising Star, or Those Who Can't...
Life is good. I’m writing this on the way back from London, where I have just been for the PokerStars Christmas party. I spent the best part of yesterday on the train, and arrived at the office just in time for some champagne (I’m going to be optimistic and say champagne rather than sparkling wine, since I can’t actually remember) and to hear that I’d won first prize in an office raffle – a travel voucher to the value of £600.
I haven’t decided where to go yet, but the first place that popped into my head was Las Vegas, of course. I’m almost certainly going to the World Series this year, so why not have a practice run in March, round about my birthday time? I’ll take a few grand and see what I can turn it into – it’ll be the ultimate test of whether I’m ready for the challenge.
Anyway, the party was part good, part bad. It became quickly apparent that PokerStars is a much bigger company now than it was when I joined, and as a result most of the people there were complete strangers to me. In addition to that, some of the people that I know best from prior trips and MSN conversations weren’t there at all. I got chatting with a few new people, and had a fun time before and during the meal, but once the music started and the dance floor was filled with drunken simpletons, rendering intelligent conversation impossible, I had to leave.
On a different note, my second article in Inside Edge magazine was published, about common bet-sizing mistakes in big-bet games, and received positive feedback almost instantly. On the internet, there were forum posts complimenting me for challenging some of the ‘givens’ of modern poker strategy (which to me, sounds much more grand than what I actually did). In the following issue of the magazine, the letters page had a short message (given the wonderful title ‘Great Scott’), where a reader complimented my article, and the editor responded saying this:
Alex is indeed a rising star in the world of poker strategy writers and we’re glad you've noticed.
As I read it, I was gearing up for one of the local tournaments, and it gave me the confidence to achieve one of my highest finishes in that cardroom to date (I still haven’t won one though). It was nice to receive some positive feedback, especially considering my track record – I once wrote an article where it seemed every reader missed the point, and which, with the help of some nasty troublemakers, turned into quite a controversy on no less than two internet forums.
My goal is to write more often for the magazine if possible. My next one, due in the February issue, is about playing the river, and the one after that is about Fold Equity – an idea I think is often misused, but which I think can be useful when properly applied.
Moving on again, I have decided not to take the job with Full Tilt Poker. I discussed it a lot with family and friends, and one point that kept coming up was ‘a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush’. I am happy at PokerStars, and both myself and my manager see a career for me in the company. I’m extremely happy about living in Edinburgh, which I still think is the city closest to being perfect I’ve ever been to. I have friends here and I wasn’t too keen on living in Ireland, with it’s majority Catholic population, crazy abortion laws (hey, you never know), and expensive accommodation!
Of course, two other factors also kicked in. I couldn’t get to the interview (I can’t fly for two or three months after my operation, and I don’t drive), and wasn’t prepared to take the job without seeing the city I would be living in and the office I would be working in. Secondly, the CEO of PokerStars had some words with the CEO of Full Tilt, encouraging him not to poach his staff. Evidently, I wasn’t the only person that was offered a position.
There’s an old saying – those who can’t, teach. For me, that seems particularly appropriate at the moment. Although I spend all day writing about poker, either for PokerStars, Inside Edge, or on an internet poker forum somewhere, my actual results have been pretty poor recently. They’ve been better since I came out of hospital, but not as much as I had hoped. Of course, bad luck has played it’s part, with players catching two-outers and flush draws a plenty, but for the most part I simply haven’t been playing my best game.
This became quite apparent when I was playing HORSE on the internet the other night, in one specific Omaha Eight or Better pot in particular. I’d limped in middle position, then called a raise in a multiway pot with something pretty marginal – J-J-10-7 or something along those lines (not a strong play by any means), and flopped top set with two low cards on the board. I bet into the preflop raiser hoping he would raise me and knock out some of the draws, but he did not comply, and we saw the turn with five players. Although the turn brought a blank (I still had the nuts, and there was a lot of raising), the river came with an absolute disaster card, making several straights and a possible low. I then messed up big time, putting in four bets in a capped pot and being trapped between a player with the nut low, and another with the nut straight and the nut low.
Thankfully, I won most of the money back with a couple of nicely timed Razz hands and half of an enormous Stud Eight or Better pot – in which myself and an opponent managed to trap a third player between my lock low and his lock high – but I still finished the night a few hundred quid down.
Moving on again, since coming out of hospital I’ve been on a bit of a mission to get out more. I’ve joined the gym and made a real effort to go regularly so far – I even have an exercise routine worked out by one of the personal trainers. I’ve put on a little weight since the operation, but it seems to be mainly muscle (I no longer have the wrists of a five-year old girl, but I can still fit into my old suit trousers), and I’m going to try to keep it that way. On top of that, the pretty girl that I talked about in my last post doesn’t seem to have gone off me yet, despite my claims that she is both a terminator and a closet Satanist, my inexplicable taste in European gothic metal music, and my complete lack of knowledge of the difference between a pony and a horse.
I’m going to Sheffield this Friday for the Christmas period, to spend time with my family and hopefully some old friends. I’d have liked to have stuck around a bit longer – to spend more time with my new horse-riding cyborg friend, play a couple more home games with my mates (which I genuinely believe are amongst the most fun and most difficult in Edinburgh), and finally learn an entire Rush song on bass. But family from afar is visiting Sheffield this weekend, and I don’t want to miss them – seeing them will make it all worthwhile.
If I get bored, I can always just play Omaha Eight or Better online and blow a few hundred more.
