Grand Adventure

I’ve been trying out play money stud hi-lo. Doyle Brunson’s Super System poker bible has the most clear and concise strategy chapter on how to play this version of poker I’ve ever read. (and I’ve read a LOT of poker books lately). It’s so good, I guarantee you will increase your fake chips if you follow his system.

The format of Stud is what you’d expect like you play at home. Fixed # of cards, some dealt down (first two, last card) and 4 cards are dealt up for all to see. Three cards are dealt at the start, two of them down. Most Stud Hi-Lo is a limit game. If you are to a hand you’ve got to bet, and hope people raise you to build the pot.

Doyle has very sound advice: Try to win both the High and Low pots. Simple enough. He says this is because if you just split the pot you are essentially just winning what you put in back. Note: this is probably most true when you are playing against real Stud Hi-Lo pros…less so online at the ante and Blinds I would play. If there are multiple people in the pot, who are chasing either a high or low hand (perhaps both, but that’s rare) then they are building it up for you to scoop.

For the low hand, it must be 8 or less with no pair to qualify. Here’s where people forget: flushes and straights don’t count when considering the low hand. I see a lot of players going after the high hands and winning. But mostly just half the pot. And that will only incrementally increase your chips. You are better waiting for a good starting hand that can be a strong hand both high and low.

I like Stud Hi-Lo because the pace is pretty stately. Way less stress than No Limit Hold Em. Nobody can make a huge move forcing you to agonize over folding or not. You are more likely to stay in pots longer than you should but that will rarely break you (i.e. you can recover from bonehead moves…and we all make them). A disciplined player who sticks to the system (i.e. much less luck/variance in Fixed Limit, Stud Hi-Lo) will come out ahead because the system works. I can’t even say that about 2-7 Single Draw (even though I play that passably well).

Some tips:
1) Go for LOW HANDS. A 4-8 straight is a strong hand for high, and qualifies for low too. Examples of good starting hands are 7 or lower non-pair. A baby pair + and 8 or later. For more refinement than that pick up Doyle Brunson’s book.
2) If you hit “paint” on your fourth card or greater, you should toss in the hand unless that paint gives you a dominant high hand. At that point, forget about making low, and pay attention to see if your hand will get beat. If it is beat, dump.
3) If you have two cards greater than an 8 already, you are pretty much beat. Sometimes I will hang around to see if I keep getting low cards but if that third card > 8 pops out I dump. This has served me well because so many new players will stick around for their high hands. Only stay in if your high hand is dominant. (check other’s up cards…you can often tell if you are drawing dead, or all your outs are pretty much covered).
4) DO NOT chase both high and low simultaneously. You will probably get burned. If you do this you did a poor job in your hand selection at the start.
5) A low three card straight is a solid starting hand.
6) Remember that Aces are both high and low. Trips Aces is a really good starting hand because you know that few others will have a good chance at the low end, and you already have a very strong high hand.

Hi-Lo is a nice change of pace, and expands your skills beyond the run-of-the-mill NLHE. And it’s much more like the “real thing” with play money than NLHE is with play money unless your blinds are much higher level. Lots of get-rich-quick guys at NLHE play money tables playing like they’ve seen on TV. Its frustrating if you are trying to play a straight game. So…try out Hi-Lo if you need a break.

Played in two tournaments tonight. Both No Limit Hold Em (NLHE). As I’ve posted before, I have an affinity for 2-7 Single Draw but it’s darn hard to find a Sit-n-Go match (short tourn format, 1-multiple tables that start when filled). Not for the buy ins I want.

So, I usually play one to three of the .10 multi-table tournaments (MTT) for NLHE. They start about every 10 mins depending on how many people are online. The skill level varies, but mostly beginner level until about 2/3 of the players are cleared. This is fine by me. I’ve placed in the money a few times (about 1 in 10) and even made it to the final table bowing out at 5th place (for a $2.20 payout). Lest this impress you, Brady has placed first in a MTT clearing almost 6 times that. Considering he is playing with Pokerstars.com’s money, that’s truly truly cool.

I had played one time before the .02 (yep, that’s two cents) game. What a hoot! The format is referred to as “hyper-turbo”. In regular mode the blinds move up a relatively stately 10 mins. This favors tighter play especially in the beginning of the tournament when your chip equity is such that a preflop all-in that may lose your stack is just plain dumb. Better to wait until you have an absolute premium hand to make your move. When you play turbo mode, the blinds bump every 5 mins. That’s the normal mode I play in because the rake the house takes is much lower for the S&Gs…you pay more to have more time to analyze your hand. These tournaments can take 3-4 hours to get to the final table and finish things out.

So, tonight to pass the time during the wait for good hands in a .10 MTT I played in the hyper-turbo .02 MTT. 990 players to start, only $500 in chips and the blinds start off at 25/50 so your stack gets whomped hard early and the pace never lets up because the blinds double every *3* minutes. The strategy for this game is simple: you are hyper aggressive to go with the hyper-turbo. If you don’t double up in a few hands you will face a sure increase in the blinds. You must double up again soon after that. And the antes kick in crazy early. It makes pot stealing moves a must, but you essentially have to go all in to do so because everybody else is just as deparate. The last piece of the strategy is blind dumb luck. Playing this aggressively means you are making big moves with medium to weak hands most of the time. And praying to hit any sort of piece of the board to improve your chip stack.

I won’t give a play by play but suffice to say I won the hands I needed to…until the very last one of course. Out of 990 players I took second and earned $3.30 for my effort. Screenshot below:

The first time I played I didn’t like the pacing. Too frantic, and the obvious issue of needing a bit o’ luck to build enough chips to play “normally” somewhat. I only got a reprieve for about 5 mins of the whole hour the tournament took not counting the scheduled break at :55 of the hour. Although its easy for me to say I now like this format (which is only partially true) since I won money tonight I will probably play it again in the future. It’s a laughable two cents to play, but I recommend you don’t build too many habits by playing this tournament format much. Too fast, unrealistic card selection is common and necessary.

The sure thing is that you won’t be playing this MTT very long because of the insane pace and how the pot builds just from antes and huge blinds.

The final guy and I had about 500,000 in chips between us. During heads up the lead changed twice then he hit his cards when I made a move. Heads up is like that, and you can’t be timid when you have a bettable hand or you’ll get butt handed to you. Since there was over $70k in chips in the pot before the betting even started when we were heads up you should think about playing any two cards and only fold the dogs.

It’s back to the cash tables for me for a bit. The pacing there is MUCH more to my liking. But I had fun tonight. (If you wonder how I did in the .10 tournament: I missed the money by one place. That’s called being the “Bubble Boy”. That’s poker. I more than made up the difference from the measly .02 tournament!)

I’m not much into New Year’s Resolutions, for all the reasons those of us aren’t. I simply don’t do well keeping them, and that can tend to have a negative effect.

Those of us in the military have a real incentive to stay physically fit. In a literal sense, our jobs are on the line. Twice a year I trudge out and take a physical fitness test. Back when I was younger, and serving in line (combat) units it wasn’t a major issue because daily we exercised with our troops. The higher up you go in the structure, the less you are in direct supervision of troops and the more diverse your responsibilities are making a fitness routine more challenging. Make no mistake, some of my colleagues thrive on implementing an invididual fitness plan…and some of most in-shape 40+ people I know are in better shape now than I was in High School.

Shelley and I started doing step aerobics around the first of the year together. Pretty cool for us to do that, a first in our marriage. The sad part is having all the 55+ women in the class make me look like a exercise doofus and someone who would really benefit as a contestant on The Biggest Loser. Really…some of those ladies have the muscle tone of 25 year olds.

Shelley was gone the last two weeks and I purposed to start back up my personal exercise regimen. I have a fitness test in April and there isn’t much time left to get back to a base enough level to where passing the test won’t put me six feet under. (this isn’t a big exaggeration…my blood pressure isn’t what it should be and medication isn’t lowering much yet). With that test, and plenty of alone time on my hands as catalysts I started back up. For me, running seems to be a best bang-for-buck activity.

We’ve been taking McKinley for walks in the evening most nights, and interspersing chunks of jogging stretches. While Shell was out, I extended those legs of jogging longer and longer, and doubled up some days time on the treadmill at home. Concurrently, I must improve on my core fitness as the Army fitness test involves a 2 mile run (for time obviously), 2 minutes of doing pushups (min standard of XX pushups based on age and gender) and 2 mins of situps (same as pushups). You do the pushups first, then the situps, then the run. Up to 10 min breaks in between events. I’m pretty confident I could pass both the pushup and situp events if I had to do them tomorrow. But the run is problematic (note: I used to achieve max points on the run portion when younger…it is a ego killer to know how far I’ve slipped and old my knees have gotten).

The key thing is to not try to make up for months + of slothfullness all in a week or so. That’s a sure recipe for losing your motivation. Since I’ve started back up, I’ve lost 2 lbs and gotten much more tone. Increased the mileage of what I’m running at a chunk to 3 miles (about every other day to give my knees a rest) and do the minimum amount of pushups and situps required for my age back-to-back with no break in time. That’s a good sign. Here’s a recipe for overall success that’s playing out for me well.

1) Again, don’t try to overcompensate with how much exercise you are doing for months of inactivity. Do something each day, or every other day. You should have a good, relaxed feeling afterwards for the first week and not hurting or aching all over.

2) Look at other aspects of your lifestyle that will improve your feeling of well being. At some point I will modify my sleep cycle to go to bed earlier, but mostly because I will be kicking in a “daily double” mode of evening/night treadmill stuff with early morning standard Army fitness mode.

Some things besides getting good sleep: a) hydrate more. I will admit to being a mid-week beer drinker. Come home, eat dinner then have a couple of beers to “cut the edge” off of the day. The problem is that sometimes that morphed into more than a couple of beers. Instead, I now have a large 64oz cup of diluted koolaid, sometimes two of those. Yep…makes you want to pee a lot. But I am feeling much better. My experience with hands on medical care in combat units is that many of us are partially hydrated nearly all the time. So…drink more clear fluids (koolaid is way cheaper than gatorade or that kind of stuff). b) Change your mental script about what your motivations are, who you are, and why you are doing this “new” exercise stuff. No, I’m not saying to look into a mirror each morning and say outloud to yourself “You are a MAGNIFICENT BASTARD, and an ADONIS!” And don’t take off your clothes and use your body image to create a self-loathing motivator. Be matter of fact that you are over 40, that you are going to improve your health overall and build on that. c) Improve your diet choices. Don’t go overboard here early. You are exercising now like you haven’t in months (maybe years) and the body will need time to adjust a bit. Pay more attention to what you are eating, how much, and when. I think you will naturally either forgo bad food choices, or at least consciously dive into that Stouffer’s French Bread pizza slice. Start taking a daily All-in-One vitamin to help the body slowly get back to getting the nutrients you’ve been lacking.

3) Do as many of these things you can with a buddy, your wife, etc. Here again, for me especially, don’t go overboard or you’ll lose that other person who can help motivate you when both the spirit and flesh are weak. I’m very proud of Shelley, because she never was into jogging/running. When we were a younger couple I tried to convince her to work out with me but the couple of times she actually did I’m sure I was too intense for her. Now she does a bunch on her own, we do some things together and she’s really getting fit. She finished her first 5K run last month (I was on a business trip) and it was a huge motivator for her to continue. We will run in one this Saturday together for the first time in 22 years of marriage. Very cool.

4) Don’t get discouraged if you don’t improve fast enough for your tastes. You want to change your habits and lifestyle and that takes time. Physiologically, you will likely lose some weight early on to a certain point then gain a little back as you are putting back on muscle in place of fat. You will plateau at times in how far/fast you can run, or how many reps you can do or how heavy you can lift. That is a natural thing. Just keep plugging away and you’ll move on from that log jam.

5) Rest your body. A 7 day regimen can be more harmful than helpful. Every other day is fine but if you are on Day 3 with no planned activity start gearing up your mental dialogue to do something exercise-wise. I also think rituals help us get in that mode mentally, so I have a set of workout clothes that I suit up in. Do that, and just go for a walk for 20 mins. That purposeful activity will get you over the hump mentally and you’ll be back to your regular routine the next day or even that night.

I believe the above strategies are going to be very successful for me and anybody else like me. And I hope to sustain them.

When I first started the online poker hobby, I started with play money (of course) then pumped a little bit of cash into an account to play for real money.  The reason for the second phase was that play money is just too artificial: you could have the best hand and never get the other knucklehead to back down.  Things were an All-In fest or “Poker Chicken” to see 1) who thought they were and actually were the luckiest, and 2) who would back down first.  Both are not why I started to enjoy poker.  To me, poker is like chess with some gambling/chance introduced but mostly a mental game internally.  There must be meaning and consequences for betting actions.  Only real money provides that.

I started out in cash tables, even with fake money, and did reasonably well.  Note: After I had to be reseeded several times with the free 1000 in fake chips from the site.  When I thought I was ready, I moved to penny tables with real money.  Here is where I was grossly mistaken.  I carried over habits and concepts of what constituted a good hand from the fake money play into real money play.  Stone cold bluffs are not the way to go.  Ace-4 not suited is really a bad hand.  And so on.  Because (unfortunately) I had initial success at the lowest blind level (.01 for SB, .02 for BB) I bumped to .02 SB and .05 BB tables.  Big mistake.  I began a downward spiral in my money in my account and only caught myself from the freefall about $40 later in loss after a few days of trying to save the Titanic. 

I explored the Sit and Go tables to try them out, and found the format to be just like I play on Xbox.  A familiar environment, and I started to do well there.  (I still do, breaking about even in winnings to losses…for my level of skills that’s acceptable I think).  But recently I tried back at cash tables to play just a little bit then sign off.  I was playing much better, and winning more than losing.  I realized a couple of things.

1) My reading of my purchased poker books helped considerably in understanding what was going on.  While my skills in counting outs, calculating pot odds and implied odds, and post-flop hand strength still lagged, I generally was starting to visualize what each player probably had in their hand by their betting and position on the table.  Things feel less foreign to me now, so I’m making better informed play decisions (thought not always the best or more profitable).

2) Tournament style, even including single table Sit-and-Go, has a certain rhythm to it.  It rewards more the aggressive player (and of course the more experienced player) because the clock is ticking.  Blinds go up, you have just your initial chips (usually about 1500 regardless of your buy in amount) + what you earn, and you want to get into the money.  Your losses are capped to whatever your buy in amount is, which can be a positive thing if you have a bad hair day.  The pace starts off relatively benign, but builds to a crescendo where people are going all in and playing chicken with folks to call.  Generally the top three are paid out.  The rest get nada.  Double-or-nothing tables mean you get into the top 5 of a 10 player table and you double your money but that’s it.

3) Cash tables are an “ebb and flow” pace.  Blinds are set, and don’t escalate.  A distinct difference is that chip values ARE money values.  Here the tight player can be a factor because they can wait for a premium hand (high pocket pairs, down to 10/10 pocket pairs, AK suited or not suited) then pounce.  Because you only lose .03 cents a round going around the table (with .01SB, .02 BB), you can see many hands with little loss until the big one hits you.  At the lower tables there are players who’s concept of what constitutes a strong hand is faulty, and you can take advantage of that. 

I now mix up S&Gs with cash table play.  If I am feeling in a groove I play at a cash table because, per minute of play, the payouts currently are better than S&Gs.  Even with the same quality of play on my part.  The trick to cash tables is to stay disciplined, which is very hard to do when you’ve folded 6-10 times in a row and now see Q-10 offsuit and want to jump into the fray.  Q-10 will win many hands at lower tables, but will also put you into really tough situations on the Turn and River cards to where you can lose a lot of money sticking with it. 

S&Gs are still nice because I know my losses won’t exceed the buy in amount, regardless of how long I’m there (or not) in the running.  And because of the XBox factor where it feels comfortable to me.

I stumbled on a poker format that suits me pretty well. A while back I wanted to branch out into other game types rather than No-Limit Hold ‘Em. I still enjoy playing NLHE, but the pacing and “on the edge” required betting at times can result in a tense evening. As they say, you must be willing to die in order to live in NLHE.

The games I’ve played on line have a few things in common. 1) There absolutely are no wild cards. This is probably what distinguishes “real” poker with home-style play. Wild cards favor the casual player who doesn’t want to think about their hands too much, and increase the gambling/luck factor significantly. 2) Each game type and even the betting structure has a significant impact on how to play. 3) Bluffing is a real and important aspect of the game. When/how much varies but make no mistake: EVERYBODY BLUFFS IN EVERY POKER GAME TYPE at some point. There are some thought processes and skills that can cross-boundaries (reading your opponents, your general mind-set about aggressive or non-aggressive play style, etc).

But my foray into 2-7 Single Draw Poker presented a new way to think and play. I entered a tournament not really knowing what 2-7 Single Draw was. It was a play money tournament that only had a $100 buy in (remember: monopoly money…I wasn’t jumping into the unknown using real $$). My first hand was very funny. I stayed in to try to get the best traditional poker hand. And, I dare say, I would have won it under those parameters. However…2-7 is about the *worst* hand. Too funny. Luckily, I noticed what everybody else had after the showdown. Its fortunate that I didn’t get hyper-aggressive and go all in or something.

After my initial goof, I had to completely relook what I was doing. It was good that I was in a tournament (about 2700 ppl entered) because I could relatively sit back and adjust my game. Needless to say, I took about 260th place and was in the money (4 hours later…whew!) but not too bad for my first tournament. Since that time, I’ve never not placed in the money for a 2-7 Single Draw tournament (4 for 4 of making it in the money, highest placement was 26th of a ~ 1500 person tourney). Kind of scary really. Let me review how the structure is set up.

1) You can play Pot Limit, Limit, or No Limit on the betting structure. No Limit generally gets more people but some prefer Limit (the blinds and betting allowances never change for the entire time) and some like Pot Limit (the bets vary based on the pot size).

2) 5 cards are dealt initially. Then there is a betting round.

3) You determine how many cards you wish to discard. I believe you can discard up to all of your hand without a restriction (i.e. 4 cards require keeping an Ace). I’ve actually seen guys bet in the first round then dump their entire hand for 5 new cards. Talk about gambling!

4) There is a second (and last) round of betting after you get your new cards. The player who stays in that has the WORST hand wins the pot.

Let me share a few things. You can easily avoid a flush, but other hand types are possible depending on how many cards you discard and reseed your hand. Most commonly of hands other than X-high, you will hit a pair when you get your new cards. Believe it or not, two pair is harder to hit than a straight. I’ve never hit trips after receiving my new cards but that has to do with my techniques for playing. As I share my techniques (and to spell things out) the best, i.e. worst, hand is 7-5-4-3-2 that is not all in the same suit. This is akin to a Royale Flush (but easier to get mind you). Any hand that has 7 high is very powerful, but others would need a 7-6-4-3-2 or other variations. The hands are compared highest to lowest just like you would comparing flushes heads up.

Pre-betting play. The general principle I follow is if I have to discard two cards or greater to get my hand to where 9 is the highest card, I’m probably going to fold. If I am dealt trips, high straight, or two pair I’m almost certainly going to fold and not bet in the first round. If I already have 9 and lower (not paired, not suited, not straight) I’m in very good shape and will bet hefty in the first round of betting. Same with 10 as my highest card. The reason is I’m going to “stay pat” and try to beat the others with what I was originally dealt. The “stay pat” is important and I’ll come back to that.

I modify this concept of play in a few situations. If I’m one of the blinds and the pot odds are too juicy to pass up (mostly a factor later on in tournament structure where I’m also in “protect my BB/SB” mode). The table is playing very tight, and I think I have a chance to scare people off. I’m on the button and dumping 2 cards makes sense. I have a top pair that can be dumped and will get me close to a 9 high. And I will occasionally dump trips dealt to me, discarding 3 cards. Okay…maybe it’s more than a few situations. They don’t kick in over the life of a tournament much. And I want to stress that this is not a formulaic approach to playing my hands. Even with online poker play you can get reads on your opponents’ play style. That’s a factor of how loose or tight I invoke my developed “rules”.

After you have chosen which cards you will dump, in my case it will almost always be card/singular, your betting should be commensurate with what the tone of the table is. It is also somewhat important to track your other cards. The thought process is as follows: Assuming I don’t pair up when I get a new card, what will my next higher card be? If that card is an 8 you may want to be less aggressive in the first round of betting. An 9-8-x-x-x hand will be beaten by 9-7-x-x-x. The best hand is 9-5-4-3-2 with 9 high if you are following my system. But I’ve seen many times an 8-high hand on the table. Even if a guy drew 3 cards. If that happens against your 9-x ’stay pat’ hand you just have to chalk it up to the poker gods.

So, to review, if you have 9-high already before the betting starts you should probably be aggressive. Less so somewhat earlier in the tournament because you will have guys who will call anything or plain just don’t know what their hand means. (the slang name for a player who calls just about anything is “Calling Station”) *This advice is contrary to what some pro’s would tell you and they are right…assuming you can do the cacluations like a pro can of pot odds, hand strength, implied odds, etc, then you WANT the crazies to join you in betting. I’m not that good so I avoid the “luck o’ the Irish” players early and stick to my system. Later I loosen up because more chips are at stake and my play is more likely to be recognized for what it should be: I’ve got a very good hand and you should fear calling me

Let’s say you’ve got a hand that only requires one discard to meet my 9-or-below framework. The betting is now complete and everybody is lined up to draw their cards. What you need to do now is very important and you need to pay attention. You need to track how many cards the other players dump. Get in the habit of doing this. For online play you can review how many cards they dump in the chat window (dealer dialogue for PokerStars.com includes this, but not bet sizes…a future blog posting maybe). Some will only discard one, most about 2, a small amount will discard 3, and on rare occasion you’ll see 4 or even 5 cards dumped. Pay attention, over time, on how many cards the other players dump routinely.

Your opponents who discard one are most likely to have decent/bettable hands. Even more so the “stay pat” guys. I make the assumption, until I can get a read on a player, that the opponent who stays pat has a 9-x-x-x-x hand. It’s a good rule to follow. It doesn’t mean you fold right away, but you should proceed with your betting accordingly.

If you hit a pair when you discard your single card, you’ve got bad luck. Unless it is a low pair or your table is extremely tight in their play you’d best fold and not bet anything at all. There are nuances if you lead out the betting (i.e. are “in the gun”) or are on the button (i.e. will have position against the rest of the table for that betting round) but its safe to say you probably don’t have the winning hand. You should also factor in that a guy drawing 3 cards can also hit a 9-x-x-x-x hand or better too. I’ve seen that happen more than a few times.

If you didn’t hit a pair, then bet. I bet somewhere between 1/3 to 2x the pot, depending on multiple variables. If I’ve got good players at the table I will push things a bit if my hand actually improved below the 9-high I was shooting for. I’ve gotten 8-x and 7-x before and then I’m off to the races.

If you are dealt 8-x-x-x-x or 7-x-x-x-x before the draw round, a pre-draw All In move is almost certainly going to win. You won’t get many callers, so I advise against going AI before the draw phase. When you have this type of hand you WANT many people to join the party so you can take more chips. If it is later or late in the tournament pre-draw AI is a more of a positive strategy to steal the blinds + antes (I have a love-hate view of antes depending on my stack size

One powerful, but stone-cold, bluff is to not draw any cards regardless of what your hand has. This is because most players are tracking how many cards their opponents drew. I’ll admit I’ve not tried this bluff yet mainly because my system allows me to generally outplay others at the table. This bluff seems to work best when the table is tight, and earlier in the game. I know that some bluff this way because a few just can’t help themselves and like to show their hand after they took down the pot.

Well, that’s about the total of my major points to make for 2-7 Single Draw. The other important things I’ve alluded to apply to most all poker games. Know the pot odds for if a call makes sense (4:1 and I’m calling with most any hand). Know that position is important here too. Protecting or conversely stealing the blinds/antes is important. But if you follow what I’ve shared above you will probably do well.

Alright, one day after I posted about my newest hobby I’m back to pass on some feedback.  First, I’ve purchased some books on how to play poker from Amazon.  No, I’m not thinking of wanting to make cash flow from playing online poker.  But…I do hate losing (whether it’s real money or fake) so I need to educate myself on how to play better.

One simple, simple thing I’ve changed is that I’m betting way-less than I used to.  Except for on the blinds where I’ve already got money invested, I’m folding hands on a level I never did before.  The more I do this, the more comfortable it feels to do to where I don’t think I’m missing something.  I’ve got to acknowledge that this is a no-brainer step in improving my game.  But, I’ve developed bad habits playing on XBox Live for fake money.  There your chip stack is solely about bragging rights.

I jumped into a freeroll XBox game last night to see how I stood against Brady (he’s ahead of me, of course) and to shake out the cobwebs of my Xbox account that layed dormant for 2+ weeks.  I thoroughly trashed the Sit-n-Go format table I was at.  I will admit that one hand I had good fortune, but the rest I actually played I felt completely in control of the environment.  (Other than a drop-out prior to the first hand being dealt, I personally knocked out all of the other players at the table).

Feeling good, I played  a little bit on my computer.  First 1 cent/2 cent blinds table, then I moved up to a 2 cent/5 cent blind table.  I played fairly solid on the first one, but left when a player continued to whine about bad beats he got and continued to curse at the guy who he lost to.  He whined about how the guy called him with “no brain” (he had A/Q offsuit, the other guy had K/J, all in, A & K in the flop, J on the river…”lesser” hand won).  I pointed out that the other hand was pretty good, and the pot was only about $1 anyways.  He said “I expect people to have a brain when playing”.  I responded with “And I expect people to play without emotion”.  Then ended with telling him if he was that good of a player…why was he playing the penny game??  After that, he stopped whining but I had had my fill.

The 2/5 cent blind table is deceptive.  Pots can get up to $10, though that is rare.  I ended up doubling up my stack by playing less hands, and hitting it hard to protect top pair/pre-flop pocket pairs.  Although I hadn’t read much of the books to help me learn playing techniques, my mind set to play less hands + start being a formal student of the game really helped.

I look forward to reading some more this weekend, and improve upon my hobby.  I used this technique for my woodworking hobby with solid results.  Or at least I’m not as intimidated to take on a woodworking project.  I hope the same improvement curve happens for playing a game I enjoy to do.

I’ve acquired a new hobby, and like all things I do in this manner I’ve started “studying up” on how to be more than a novice.  Last summer I purchased an XBox 360 when the price dropped by $100.  I did this to help fill time since my new job at Fort Sam was shaping up to be quite normal.  (this in contrast to my most demanding, yet rewarding, assignment in command of Wounded Warriors). 

One of the games on XBox Live (it’s online play capability) is a simple Texas Hold Em game.  I got hooked on playing this game at the LaPine House earlier in the year during a visit with Brady.  I played blindly that trip, not really knowing hand strength or anything yet still did passably well.

When I got my own XBox I tried this game out.  I was especially nervous about online play with unknown people.  It took Brady (who is a exceptional player) holding my virtual hand through a couple of tournaments to get over the fear.  On my XBox my game time is split roughly 60% Texas Hold Em and 40% all other games.  Kinda scary.  I play it for stress relief (that’s ironic now to me) because the pacing is what I determine.  v. a Shooter where you are very active, or some of the puzzle games where there is a lot of thinking.

So…while snow-bound in LaPine the last two weeks I wanted to keep playing XBox or some sort of poker.  I have three different poker/gambling games for my original Xbox.  None of them are great, though one teaches and reveals to the player about pot odds.  None could connect to the internet (2-6 yr old games)  and the artifical intelligence of the players was maddening.  I had gotten too used to playing against real people where patterns can get predictable.  (Even in online play you get a sense of the player’s style).

I decided to try out one of the online poker sites to play for free.  And got immediately hooked on this mode of playing.  What I was surprised to find out is that you can play for real $$ even being located in the US.  Online casinos are blocked in the US, but poker is an exception.

Over the last two weeks I’ve placed “in the money” in two tournaments.  It’s been a fun mental challenge with some competition to liven the spirit.  I’ve deposited a minimal amount of real funds to try that level next.

Recently I’ve found out the results for my promotion board  will be released next Wednesday.  Let’s hope for the best.  I also just finished up my requirements to achieve Fellow status with the American College of Healthcare Executives.  That’s been a goal for me, as it is an outward demonstration of the hard work I’ve done over the years.

These two events got me to thinking…how did I get to this point in my military career and life?  Certainly, God’s grace and Shelley’s support are the two top reasons.  But there are others.  My post today is a rehash of an article I wrote for my previous blog on the Radioland weblog site, before blogging was cool and ubitiquous.  It’s some of my musings about leadership, with a few updated comments.  You will learn a lot about who I am by reading them.

Intro: At a certain level of leadership you stop primarily being a doer of things, into an architect of sorts.  What got you to that point was expert execution of your job, in the individual sense.  But now what will save the day is not your execution but those around and working for you.  Simply stated, you cannot do everything yourself and you must trust your subordinates to pull things off.   In many cases you will be more qualified or have advanced skills than the subordinates you trust with that mission, but you must resist the urge to tackle it yourself.   (The old adage “You are only qualified for the job you just left” is true, so don’t fall back into doing that job because it is more comfortable)

*Ensure your folks know and have internalized the mission, vision, and scope of the organization.  In this respect I’ve spent much more time talking about what we were *about* than how we accomplished things.  This is critical because the tendency is to slip back into the ‘how’ because that is what you know personally.  Forget about being the star player and even forsake coaching over pure cheerleading if you don’t have time or the skills.  Coaching is harder than you think, but cheerleading we all can do.

*Make sure your folks have the following two things: 1) A sure sense of ownership of the mission with the responsibility AND authority to pull it off, and 2) The resources to pull off that mission.  Too many times we expect people to somehow absorb ownership of the mission because you gave them the task to accomplish.  Think about the successful projects you’ve been on, and I bet you weren’t motivated by ‘this is something being forced on me’ but because you decided it must be done…and so you did it.  That’s owership + responsibility + authority in action.  Don’t buy into the buzzphrase “do more with less”.  Or as I’ve recently heard “design to failure”.  You must resource the mission/project so it will succeed, and the prime resource I think being your personal attention.  Don’t forget that much of the costs/time/resources will be expended upfront before the mission even launches. 

*Don’t be afraid to push people to achieve tough goals…but make sure you are with them the entire way.  I have had a reputation of asking the moon from my teams, but I can tell you I wasn’t pushing them any harder than I expected of myself.  And that showed to my people.  Amazing things come out of the push to excel.  1) People stretch their personal understanding of what their limits are and gain confidence.  2) Most people *want* to be stretched.  I’ve not met a Soldier who went to field training exercises or the combat zone who enjoyed sitting around all day or playing cards most of the time.  Good units and Soldiers train hard, back off for a bit, then ramp back up to a newer high peak of performance.  And they understand this cycle, embrace it.  3) The byproduct of this sort of ‘adversity’ is often some wonderful moments of teamwork, stories to brag about to their fellows, and an extreme sense of accomplishment. 

*Leaders must be adept at finding good junior leaders, giving those leaders more responsibility, and spend their time mentoring and nurturing these folks.  This is vital for several reasons.  1) You ain’t Da Man anymore, remember?  Your job is more looking into the future, visioning where your organization should go and a little bit of how to get there.  You can’t do that slugging it out in the trenches.  2) You have a responsibility to train up the next generation of leaders to fill your shoes.  3) They will feel empowered, because they are, and carry the torch for the organization. 

*Look for opportunities outside your normal mission boundaries.  When you merge this with an organization used to making miracles happen, taking on missions outside of your normal scope is healthy.  Important to develop a more comprehensive portfolio of what your organization can accomplish.  It also improves the sense of pride as they now know they can take on things outside their comfort zone.

*Make time to get together outside the work environment.  I’ve said to my folks that a good shop seems to enjoy getting together outside the workplace.  It’s a byproduct of the challenging environment you work in, to where you will naturally want to extend that team feeling into a social setting.  This becomes a synergistic loop, because what you do outside the environment spills back into the workplace.  Great units I’ve been in don’t mind working hard, so long as they can do it together.  And you will get no better feedback from your folks than when you are in an informal/social setting.

*Don’t take yourself too seriously.  You should give due credit for your success, and if you followed the above you know that somebody *else* made things happen for you.  Not you.  I also think a great sense of humor can go a long ways to ease tension, bring off-track conversations back to the task at hand, and make for a more fun workplace.  One of my techniques is having fun nicknames for people.  This can backfire (don’t go the route of Michael Scott in the Office!) if not done right.  But if the timing is good, and the nickname funny enough it has often stuck or been a way to have a lighthearted conversation when that’s needed.  The important thing is that people feel comfortable enough around you to laugh at absurdity, or even poke fun at you.  This is especially fun for them, and you should go along unless it gets mean-spirited or downright disrespectful.  If your subordinates feel comfortable enough to laugh at/with you when you are around you are probably in a healthy organization.  If they do it behind your back then something is dysfunctional.  There is a great article in the Harvard Business Review about humor in the workplace written by Fabio Sala.  Do a search to find it.

*Reflect often on how you are doing as a leader.  One of my orientations is to be the type of boss I’d want to work for myself.  Be a reflective-practitioner of leadership, and know that you will never “arrive” as a leader.  I don’t see this as second guessing myself at all, nor do I lack confidence to lead in tough situations.  I just want to keep improving, and I fully acknowledge I have blind spots in my leadership approaches.  Some I know about I never intend to fix because I mitigate them in other ways.  But mostly I try to look at myself as raw as I can stand in order to improve.

*People sense a phony, and respect genuineness.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve validated this with my subordinates or with my superiors.  I’ve been fortunate enough to work for people who’ve appreciated my candor.  I believe an authentic person engenders trust, and that trust is more important especially with bad news or a negative situation.  I’ve had to tell people some quite difficult things but by speaking in a frank and honest way with them they have appreciated it more.  It doesn’t make the bad news better, but it does build a strong tie between you and your subordinate.  Even when disciplining them I’ve had subordinates provide feedback that their appreciated knowing how things stood rather than me shirking away from telling the hard things. 

*You can say *no* with as much force and strength with a quiet voice and politely.  Some people are grossly mistaken about my beliefs at times, because they mix up me smiling as I say clearly “NO” to something.  As if I am a pushover because my tone is polite and maybe even quiet.  In fact, I take particular joy in quietly standing my ground.  And I’m not the type to passive-aggressively implement office politics.  Not me…I’m not going to stab you in the back, I will do it in your belly while I look at the surprise on your face.  Much more rewarding that way   This leads me to my final point about confrontation…

*Conflict is natural, but can and should be set aside in the interest of accomplishing the mission.  I could share hours about this topic, because conflict and conflict resolution is a key element of life.  Look at music, movies, theater, and even the visual arts and at the center is conflict and conflict resolution.  Confrontation-avoidance bosses can be deadly.  Obviously in a literal sense for the military.  But things just don’t operate in a world where “Why can’t we all get along??” is a reality.  I believe personalities have only a small place in the office, and even then should not get in the way of getting the mission done.  Don’t fall for the visceral/it-feels-good mode of crushing idiots around you if it will damage your reputation or hinder getting things done.  Those good feelings are like a sugar-high you get on, only to be dropped hard later.  Focus on the mission and your people, and let the knuckleheads around you figure out their own approaches.

As Brady so kindly pointed out recently, I’ve not posted here in a while so an update is in order.

We are pretty much settled in to our house in SA.  It’s in a new neighborhood, and that makes things interesting.  Since we’ve moved in about 3 weeks ago 4 more homes have been started and two of them finished off.  Impressive work…except when you see some of the shortcuts the builder takes.  It reminds me of Iraqi construction codes at times, even in our rental home.  Our home is spacious and we’ll get by fine over the next few years we are here.

Shell is waiting to search for employment in earnest after a trip back to the NW.  She’s put some feelers out and I’m confident she will get some bites in a few weeks.  The challenge is that we are unclear how long we’ll be here.  She’s the type of person and employee every business should salivate over.  Her concern is that we may move next summer (again) and feels its not fair to get a job without letting the employer know she could be yanked out of SA in 12 months.

My work is, well, just a paycheck at this point.  In a non-bizarro world (i.e. the real Army) my title and position would make me one of the critical leaders on all of Fort Sam Houston.  I don’t live in a non-bizzarro world so I’ve got to eat the crumbs off the table as they come.  The good news story is that I’m building coping mechanisms that are healthy and things I’ve wanted to do for a while.

One of these mechanisms is taking nightly walks with the Macster and Shell.  We bought him a harness (v. just using the collar) that helps control him while walking.  No more him dragging us, choking/coughing, and it makes the process so much more enjoyable.  One of the positives of our neighborhood is that there are plenty of places to walk pretty safely since all the homes aren’t built yet.  Shell’s even taken to jogging a few of the stretches with Mac and I when we feel frisky (HE feels that way each time…I sometimes just want to walk).

The price of XBox 360’s went down about $100, so I took the plunge and got one.  I figured it would help pass the time since my work will not be as hectic.  It’s been fun to play some of the latest games, especially on a high-def TV and surround sound.  Shell has a new TV upstairs for her shows, and the only time there will be conflicts is when she’s got something DVRed.  My current favorite games are Fable 2, Shadow Complex, Texas Hold-Em poker and then Oblivion.  Each one has one or two aspects that draw me back.  I’ve also got Halo 3, Command and Conquer 3, Perfect Dark Zero and a host of demos I’ve downloaded.  The poker game is fun during multiplayer (not for real $$ btw) and my skills have gotten better playing others online.  Assuming the others are not 1) drunk, 2) stupid 3) new players or 4) all of the above, you can really predict the flow of the game up until the River card. 

I’ve already had to put some carpentry skills to work around the house.  Hanging up things, shoring up the fence in the back yard, and making shelving extensions for some of the kitchen cabinets.  When Shell is gone I will tackle some wood ramps for the back porch that helps keep out of the mud when it rains.

Another project we are taking on is reseeding grass, especially in the back yard.  It was just a bunch of dirt for most of the backyard.  This project will not only beautify our house, but will reduce mud on McK and make things better than when we moved in.  The owner should thank us.

In the military (and civilian sector to an extent) it is common to walk into a leader’s office and see all their awards and gifts posted around them. It is jokingly referred to as a “love me” wall, perhaps because being surrounded by all those accolades boosts your own ego.

I made a decision a long time ago to not post things on my walls in my office. For a variety of reasons. People gain impressions about you when they read your stuff. In a way, the more you have up the more negative I take it when I’m in someone’s office. Its as if they are trying to overwhelm the visitor. I worked for a guy that had his doo-dads put up, plus “tastefully” placed “important” books…to show off his intelligence and suggest you should read those books too. Pfaugh!

The plan once we got the LaPine property was to put my stuff up in the pole barn/shop. The pic below is about half of the gifts and things gathered over 20 years of service. Not pictured is the wind sock that flew over my hospital in Tikrit. That’s on an adjoining wall. Interestingly to me, some of my favorite gifts were either made by a Soldier for me, have a joke or fun story behind them, or have meaning because of who they came from. And its not based on cost either (though some of the costlier gifts are cool too).

On the shelving to the left are mostly from my last unit in Washington: Task Force Phoenix. The Warrior Transition Battalion (sometimes referred to as a “Wounded Warrior Unit” but that’s not completely accurate). If you come by to visit us at the house, ask me about the story behind each thing displayed, including the shelving unit itself. I’d love to share the fun behind each one.

By the way…one of the reasons I don’t put stuff up on my work walls is because we move so often in the military. Lest you think I’m totally principle based, it also has to do with not wanting to put stuff up just to have to take it down. Makes for a quicker exit!