Bloom

Yesterday, we had our first home-grown salad: Tomatoes and lettuce, with a sprinkle of (our own) parsley and then cheating a bit by adding some store-bought olive oil and garlic. I can honestly say that I'm not sure I ever want to buy tomatoes again. If you've never had home-grown tomatoes, you don't know what tomatoes taste like. I kid you not. There's just such a huge difference in sweetness, texture and aroma that it's not comparable. The best analogy I can come up with is comparing Heinz Ketchup to a really old bottle of generic ketchup mixed with two parts of water.

There's another thing that's in bloom and maturing wonderfully, and that's Sean Gibson's career as a poker reporter. Sean and I go back a few years from CardsChat, but I got to meet him last year in Las Vegas, when he was trying to break into the world of poker reporting. He had some various writing jobs, among others for PokerTableRatings, but at the time (if I'm not mistaken) his future was pretty much up in the air. I got the feeling that he wasn't sure if it was going to work out or not.

Fast forward one year, and we have who I can honestly say I consider the best on-camera poker reporter in the world right now. To combine the two traits of actually knowing what he's talking about and at the same time keeping the interviews light-hearted and being able to connect with the interviewee and make them feel relaxed is, I think, unprecedented in this (admittedly so far relatively small) field. Privately, he seems to have changed as well; more relaxed, much more confident and overall having that look of someone who's really, really enjoying his job and his life, and that's just awesome.

Sean, my friend, you're the home-grown tomato of poker reporting. Keep it up.

Next Stop: Vegas

Heading out tomorrow morning, and should be at the Venetian around 11:30, by my calculations. Taking only a carry-on and checking in online cuts the airport time down to a minimum, which. Is. Awesome. I really don't like airports. To me, they're buildings with thousands of people who can't wait to get out of there, which makes the overall mood in the place pretty damp. Whatever, I'll have my book. Or books, rather, seeing as there's three of them in my bag.

Once in Las Vegas, I'll be meeting up with Debi almost immediately for lunch. After that, I have exactly zero plans - and that's how I like it. Will I play poker? Who knows. Maybe. I'm bringing some change just in case, but I don't expect I'll be spending a ton of time at the tables, unless for hanging out with friends who want to play.

I'm excited about going there, I'm excited about coming back and doing a truckload of shopping, I'm excited about going to my parents after that to get back to my cats, and I'm excited about going home a few days later still. Once home, I'm excited about going back to work for the first time in 6 months, and I'm excited about grabbing my poker career by the horns and turning this year into my best one yet. I'm overall very excited about what's happening in my life right now.

Did I just jinx it? Let's hope not.

Oil.

Two random observations:

1. I'm under the impression that oil is used for a lot of very specific things, among them making plastic. It's a really neat substance. I don't know how much of the "stuff" we have today in which oil is a necessary ingredient, but I'm guessing it's a whole lot.

2. Also, oil is probably one of the most rare substances in the universe, based on the fact that it's what happens to organic lifeforms after millions of years. We don't know any other planet on which it exists.

And we're burning this stuff?

Bwin Blows (and blost a bcustomer)

There's a ton of stuff I could put into this post, including quoting all the emails that have been sent back and forth, but I'll keep it as short and to-the-point as I can (which is still pretty long).

Basic timeline:

Wednesday, June 9th: I open an account at BWin. I deposit $5,000 (their maximum deposit), which is probably a lot for most people, but not exactly an outlandish amount if you're planning on playing the midstakes. I play about 150 hands or so, figuring out how their software works, configuring Holdem Manager, yadda yadda. Some quirks I'm not happy about, some features I wished they had done differently, but game selection looks pretty good and there are no deal-breakers in how their software is built. I'm reasonably content.

Thursday, June 10th. I log a more substantial session, something like 600 hands, trying out what multitabling is like and how I can tile the windows and stuff like that. I win a buy-in or so.

I don't log in on Friday.

Saturday morning, I can't login. Says my password is incorrect. I thought that perhaps I didn't remember it right (I obviously use new and different passwords for all sites, and they're random strings of numbers and characters; easy for my memory to play tricks on me), but I go through their password recovery procedure and have a new password emailed to me. Try to log in. It won't work.

"What the hell?"

So I go back to their webpage and try to log in there - maybe there's something wrong with my client? Success! I can log in on their webpage! Except now there's a little information box that tells me that my account has been closed.

What the hell?

I browse around. No information available as to why my account has been closed. I check my GMail spamfolder; no email from Bwin. I email them, but when I hadn't gotten a reply in the afternoon, I called them. Turns out that their security team have closed my account because they were doing a "routine review." In order to re-open the account, I have to supply them with the customary passport/utility bill combo.

Do you see the problem here?

The problem, of course, is that they closed the account without notifying me. Without telling me why they did it, or for that matter that they HAD done it, and I had to contact them in order to find out what they needed from me. I think that's outrageous. Blocking my $5k without telling me why is not a good way to handle a new customer.

Now, if this was the matter of just an individual security team member accidently forgetting to send an email to me, I would have shrugged it off. On the contrary, though, I was informed (both over the phone and in writing) that this is in fact standard procedure: They do NOT inform customers when they close their accounts. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. What kind of weird rationale could possibly be behind this? I can't think of any. And trust me, I've tried to think of one.

Either way, within minutes of having been told that I need to upload a photocopy of my passport and a utility bill, it's done, and a few days later (Tuesday) I get an email saying that they've re-opened my account. Here's where things really turned sour. Basically, my confidence in how they handle their customers was already shot to hell, and so I went ahead and ran the "cash-out test". That's to say that I wanted to find out if they were the kind of company that would put up a fuss in order to prevent people from withdrawing.

And they were.

"It has come to our notice that you requested a pay-out before having wagered the total amount you paid into your account on our website. Please note that pay-outs generally can be made only from obtained winnings"

At this point, I asked for a supervisor to call me. I was called back a few minutes later, and was told that this rule (about "waging the total amount I paid into my account") was stated in their Terms and Conditions. I told her that it wasn't. She told me that she was certain that it was. I told her that she could keep repeating that all she wanted, and while probably almost no one ever reads the T&C for these things, I'm that one pesky guy who does (my mom is a lawyer and has taught me well) and I then proceeded to bring up their Terms and Conditions and started reading them to her over the phone. After a minute or so, she told me that I didn't have to read all of it to her. So then we were at an impasse: She claimed that there was a rule that was "clearly stated" (her words) in a text where this rule was nowhere to be seen.

She promised, however, to email me a link to the rule in question. Turns out that it was in the FAQ, not in their T&C (quite a difference, if you ask me), and its wording is:

"- If you request the withdrawal of the amounts you paid into your account instead of using them to participate in our broad line-up of services, bwin is entitled to cancel such requests instead of paying out the money as requested. "

I repeat, emphatically, that their T&C does not state anything of the kind. This information was available in their FAQ under the heading of "Why Is My Cashout Not Processed?" or something of that nature. I think it's fair to require customers to read the terms before depositing. I don't think it's reasonable to require them to read through the entire FAQ as well.

--

At this point, quite a few more angry emails (some of them less-than-totally-polite from them as well) ensued, but I did finally get my money back. It's impossible to say exactly what caused them to change their mind, but I'm betting that me informing them that they pay to advertise on my blog might have had something to do with it. I assume they don't want bad press in a blog they pay to advertise on. And yet, here this post is. Why? I got my money back, at last, possibly specifically in order to avoid this post being written - is this me being vengeful and petty?

Actually, no. I'm not above being vengeful and petty, but this post was written because of a very specific suggestion of mine that was summarily dismissed: Namely that they change their Terms and Conditions to reflect the policy that they enforced on me. If they have a rule in place that you have to wager a certain amount before being allowed to cash out, they should really state that. That's all I asked. Update your T&C. I have to wager $5,000 in order to cash-out - how much of it had I wagered when I requested the cashout? I don't know. It doesn't say anywhere. The supervisor lady on the phone couldn't find out either, she had to send a request to a separate department to find out and they were going to get back to me about that (they never did).

So, Bwin:

For closing my account without notifying me, for blocking my cashout in reference to something in the T&C that isn't there, and for ignoring a simple request to update your T&C to reflect what is apparently a well-known rule internally, you officially suck.

--

I'm back at Party Poker. The contrast was made very explicit when I emailed Party and asked if I perhaps would be allowed to come and hang out for a little while in their VIP lounge at the Rio when I arrive in Vegas, and they explained that although that lounge was intended exclusively for those playing in the WSOP, all I had to do was ask for Sinead when I arrived; she had been informed that I might be showing up, and it wouldn't be a problem.

Thanks, guys.

Back in the saddle

After a few weeks of licking my wounds and contemplating what I want out of poker, I'm back in the saddle with a great deal of enthusiasm and am enjoying the game again. Unfortunately, I only have a few more days of enjoying it before I go away for three or four weeks, during which time I probably won't be able to play at all - at least not online. I might play a little during my brief stop in Vegas, but my online accounts will lie dormant.

But that's a fairly convenient problem to have.

I'm trying to hook up with Taylor to talk over hands as often as we can - although time zones, babies and life in general makes it a little tricky to find an hour of the day when we're both available. Still, we chatted for 90 minutes yesterday and some of the stuff we talked about will be a pretty major step forward if I can just incorporate it properly. I might save a few of the hands we talk about and post them here along with a brief summary of the our discussion.

On top of that, I'm working diligently on watching (and learning from) DC videos. In terms of mid-stakes content, they're a few notches above any other site I've tried out. Learning what I've yet to learn is a huge part of what's making me enthusiastic; if poker is reduced to just grinding out money, I'd... I don't know if I'd quit, but a very large part of the appeal of the game would be gone for me.

--

Pet-peeve time! Note to the world: Chimpanzees do not have tails.

That is all.

Summer Plans

Summer is approaching rapidly, and while a lot of my summer plans are more or less set in stone, some aspects of it are in flux. Among them, how I'll get any poker played at all. The problem, if you can call it that, is that I won't be spending a lot of time in front of my computer in the upcoming months. Step one is leaving for Karlstad (where most of my family lives) a few days after Lori's students graduate and she's off for the summer. Once there, we'll drop off Bennie with my parents and head up to a spa for three days, after which we'll return to celebrate midsummer - a very significant holiday in Sweden. And a few days after that, we'll be leaving for Minnesota to visit Lori's parents, and for a few days during that two week stretch and I'll hop down to Vegas to meet up with some CardsChat friends.

So, I'll be out of town for half of June and half of July and in all of this I want to try to get some poker played. My plan, as it stands right now, is to make sure I wrap up Palladium VIP at Party (similar to Supernova for you Stars players) and then try out another site for awhile. I've mentioned before my preference to have multiple sites my regular ones, the reason being game selection. I can't always play when the games are good, so I want a lot of options in order to make them good for myself. The last network I tried was IPoker (specifically WilliamHill) which was OK, but not everything I had wished for. Next stop: bwin. I'll let you know how it works out. I'm having a little bit of difficulty figuring out what my effective rakeback would be with their "binside" VIP program, but first and foremost I'm looking for game selection and site quality.

--

Now that Taylor's set-up in his new place, we're trying to make our tiny discussion group (that would be him and me) a more frequent occurrence. We'll see how that goes; we have the time zones against us, but we'll find a way. After talking to him for an hour yesterday, it's readily apparent that I've developed some bad habits in the last few months, and I'm pretty excited to get those sorted out.

Progress or Regress

I remember reading (and I've probably said it myself several times) that when it comes to poker, you have to stay ahead of the curve. Everyone's studying and getting better, and if you're just sitting around and not learning new things, your opponents will overtake you. This is one sense in which it's true that you're either progressing or regressing. However, there's a much more direct way in which it's true, too.

If you made a list of all the things you know about poker, how long would that list be? Hopefully pretty long, but also pretty fuzzy - what counts as "something you know?" Let's be a bit more specific: If you made a list of every situation you know how to play, how long would it be? Still, hopefully, pretty long. I'm not sure I can even estimate it, but there are certainly hundreds of situations I've figured out, like

- Nutflushdraw versus reg with wide range OOP
- TPTK on dry flop in the blinds versus standard button open
- Weak top pair OOP on the river after the turn checks back

... etc. Clearly I could be more specific in regards to stack sizes, reads, hand strength and so on, but the point isn't so much what the list contains, but the fact that it's long. And here's the thing about a long list of knowledge: If you don't maintain it actively, it will deteriorate. I used to be able to cite the entire list of Swedish monarchs that I learned in high school. Not anymore. I've forgotten large parts of it - that's what happens to stuff we commit to memory.

The point, which I hope is becoming clear, is that all the things you know today about poker may not be something you know a month from now. Some of it will start get blurry. Some situation you worked out in painstaking detail a year ago might be a little confusing to you now - should you bet for value here? Or is it a check/call? And what's happened is that you've regressed.

I notice this in my own game when I go back and review some hands I wasn't sure about. Some of them seem eerily familiar, and I realize that I've worked these things out before but couldn't get to the knowledge when I needed it. Seems like bad news, but the coin has two sides. Let's expand on the bad news first:

The fact that I'm forgetting or getting worse at situations I used to have a really good grasp at means that I don't need to just work on new aspects of my game, but I need to actually rehearse some situations. It seems like something that should take care of itself, doesn't it? I mean, if I've worked out the situation at one point and came up with the "right" play, doesn't that mean every time I'm in that situation at the table, I'm rehearsing it? Only, and this is important, if I consciously say to myself "right, and here I'm going to bet for value because ." Otherwise, I'm not reinforcing the knowledge - because the outcome will. In other words, my brain will register how the play worked out (success or failure) and then create some kind of emotional association to it. This is also one of those things that doesn't sound like a problem on the surface, but it is. Because emotional associations aren't necessarily weighted by profit, but by... Other things.

Take the case of check-raising all-in on the turn with a big draw. When it works, I'll be a little bit happy. When it doesn't work, I'll be very sad. The little bits of happiness don't add up the same way that the dollars I make on the play do, because I'm risk-averse: I hate losing more than I enjoy winning. So, given time and repetitions, my brain will gradually start to associate that play with bad feelings, despite the fact that I'm making money off of it. If I don't consciously reinforce it, I'm most likely ending up someday simply not doing it anymore. I might - consciously, whatever that means - want to do it, but I don't get to make that decision before my subconscious has already gone ahead and clicked the fold or call button. Only afterwards might I think "wait, wouldn't this have been a good spot to shove?"

So that's the bad side of the coin. There's an upside, though: This, presumably, happens to everyone in one form or another. Unless they actively rehearse and maintain their game, they will slip into bad habits. And that's good, because that means that despite competition becoming tougher and tougher, there's still a way to outwork our opponents, still a way to stay ahead of the curve even though we're perhaps barely advancing at all in some objective sense. The games are definitely getting harder to beat, but this is not a trend that can go on forever. And the trend will slow down WAY before any kind of "optimal" poker is being played, because we will all build up longer and longer mental lists of "stuff we know" and they will become harder and harder to maintain. Somewhere, I guess, there's an equilibrium between how good we are and how much we work on our game. We work on our game, we learn new things, but we don't really become better. So perhaps our goal should be to have our equilibrium higher up on the learning scale than our opponents.

(A brief related note: If you know whether you're risk-averse, risk neutral, or risk-seeking, you can use that knowledge to examine plays you feel you're in danger of losing due to emotional reinforcement. I was going to say more about this, but not today.)

So, in a nutshell: progress or regress. At some point, we're like Alice in Wonderland: Running as fast as we can to stay in one place. That place needs to be further along than that of the guy we're playing.