The Royal Sampler

Oh yes, another poker blog. But there's something that makes this particular blog that makes it infinitely more rewarding that the multitude that now populate cyberspace. Can you pick it? Well, it should become readily apparent, but for the impatient, indifferent or slow I will reveal the difference at the end of this post.

The term, Royal Sampler, is of course a Simpsons reference. It was the Stonecutter episode where Homer is revealed to be the head of the Stonecutters. The other Stonecutters, out of deference to their new-found leader, let Homer win at poker by calling his hand, which had nothing - no pair, no straight or flush or even a draw to one - the 'Royal Sampler'. Thus, if you get, for example, an Omaha hand with no pair, no connectors, of all different suits, and no picture cards, you may call it a Royal Sampler.

This is not to say that I am a Simpsons fan. These days the show is shithouse - a shadow of its former self. It's fair to say the show is predictable, self-indulgent, and painfully unfunny. The show's creators should be dragged out to mainstreet and summarily struck about the groin and temple areas with a hatchet for their crimes.

However, this blog is not a review of popular culture, it is a poker blog, so to poker we shall ride.

And what do I know of poker? Very little, it would be fair to say. I have been playing for little over a year. At first poorly, then after awhile, better than poorly, and now, alas, poorly again. I must confess my online bankroll, which had risen to unimpressive heights, has recently been reduced to laughable lows. My live results, too, have experienced a comparable downfall. I have also recently tried to branch out from hold 'em into the world of 7-card, Omaha, and both their hi/lo versions; a decision, I suspect, that has played an important role in my ever-diminishing bankroll.

But I am infatuated with the game. I read on it, I play, and I think about the damn game just about every waking hour, and most of my sleeping ones. I talk about it with uninterested passers-by, regale my girlfriend with bad beat stories, sit in Casino lounges and receive couselling from fellow players, I've memorised just about every line from Rounders, imagined my victory speech after winning the main event at the WSOP, once I even cut up two small rectangular cards at work and drew K in black ink in the corner of each and pretended I had been dealt pocket kings. Every now and again I would flip up the corner and let out a satisfied sigh.

So sad, so very sad.

To be specific, the main games I play are N/L online cash games and tournaments, and N/L live tournaments. I play limit hold 'em live and online, although it's fair to say limit hold 'em is a stupid, donkey game that gets me so mad it makes my teeth hurt. For lower limit players such as myself, limit hold 'em is the ultimate destination for the aspiring masochist. I mean, let's face it - bad beats are the norm and the game is just fucking dumb. You may have a positive expectation in the long, long run - but the damage done to one's emotional stability and psychological wellbeing simply doesn't makes up for that 2bb/hour in on the 2/4 tables. I mean, what percentage of low limit players either a) suffer serious psychological damage from being repeatedly beaten by long-shot draws, b) crack their monitor by hitting it repeatedly with the keyboard, or c) require marriage counseling after being asked to put the dishes away by their partner after having your aces cracked for the third time and you turn and howl at them in an incandescent rage and they fear you are either possessed by satan or spinning out on a crystal meth high or succumbing to the relentless voices in your head that demands you kill kill kill all the donkeys at Party Poker.

Phew.

My cost/benefit analysis, therefore, for low-limit, 'limit' hold 'em would be - don't do it comrade: your measly monetary profits will quickly lose their lustre when compared to the damage done to your sanity.

I'm really not sure where I am going with poker. I'd like to get better, sometimes I think about quitting my job and trying to grind out a living (reality however, intrudes on this count and carefully slaps me across the face) , I also wouldn't mind getting into the Aussie millions next January.

For the time being, however, I will try to recount what modest gains I do make on the path to poker greatness (or perhaps I should say poker greater-than-average-ness), strategies I figure out for improving my play (or more precisely, strategies I steal from other players), the occasional hand analysis, the frequent bitch about the gibbering swarms of chimpanzees at PP, and bad beat stories by the bucketload.

That will do for the moment. I played in a tournament last night at the local casino and won - so I will recount this feat in my next blog (I started writing this a couple days ago before the tournament, so, within the breadth of this entry, I have gone from the darkness of bad beat despair and now can see, in the distance, the shining light of the poker gods).


Oh, and the difference between other blogs? Well, none really. My poker observations will be just as inane, my bad beat stories just as predictable (' and then he got a runner-runner flush!!!'), my occasional digressions from the world of poker into other realms equally as ill-informed. Sorry to get your hopes up.

...

OK, OK I'll allow one difference: THIS BLOG WILL MAKE YOU IMMUNE FROM BAD BEATS FOR 24 HOURS AFTER BEING VIEWED.

There you go. Happy now?