Beat? Brag? Variance? Story of TanShuiWen, by himself. WARNING - LONG

AndyatSD · #1 07-15-2007, 09:04 AM

WARNING - IT'S VERY VERY LONG. DON'T HATE THE ESSAY.

Story of My Gambling Life. Or, how I went from a 3/6 Indian Reservation Casino limit donkey to currently dabbling up to the 500/1000 and 1000/2000 limit hold’em games. Oh, and I bet 10k a hand quite liberally at the Bellagio pits too.

Disclaimer - I am not a professional poker player. I’m writing this from the perspective of someone who holds a fairly respectable position in the corporate world and sees that as a better route than poker - yet loves the game as a hobby and believes that he plays winning poker. Oh and a word to the TL

R crowd - this is going to be long. Very long. I can't even do a cliffs note version, because even that would be too long.

I’m 25 now. Backtrack to winter of 2000; I was a freshmen attending UCSD (University of California, San Diego). One night a few buddies from the dorm dragged me to Viejas, a local Indian reservation casino. I had my first taste of Blackjack there, and was devastated when I lost $50 betting $5 a hand. I phoned home to tell my parents the tragic news, and my mother’s response was ‘It’s ok Andy, go withdraw $300 from the bank tomorrow and win it back’ - and I did just that. I came from a family where my father is a mathematics PH D and my mother loves to play slot machines. For better or for worse, I picked up the love for gambling and not so much the passion for mathematics. I was instantly addicted to Blackjack. Despite there being so much to do in college, I think I spent more than fair share time at the Indian reservation casinos. Sometimes I win, and sometimes I lose. I overheard dealers talking about ‘the book’ and one dealer recommended Wizardofodds.com. That’s when I learned about basic strategy and applied that for the next several years. I heard about card counting, but never bothered to learn how. I mostly flat bet and as time went on the bets got bigger and the swings got larger. $10, $20, $50, $100 a bet. My parents didn't care whether I got a job during college except for summer resume building internships, and they allowed me to live comfortably with a healthy allowance. In between that allowance and the extra money my parents would deposit for me when I tell them I lost $ or came up with other bs excuse for needing money - I estimate that I donated about $3k per month to the casinos.

Things stayed the same until Junior year (2002). I had been going with a college buddy, Arthur, to Sycuan Casino. He plays Poker and I play Blackjack. One day, he convinced me to try to play poker. I didn't know the rules, but I wasn't afraid because I had just read the first three chapters of 'Playing Poker Like a Pro' by Phil Hellmuth, and was armed with the knowledge that 77 is one of the ten best hands in hold'em. I didn't really know what the blinds are or mean, and I didn't know whether the ace could be used as the bottom end of a wheel. But that's ok, because I got dealt AA 3 times the first hour and a total of 7 times in a 4 hour session. Easy game. I Ended up 7 dollars and became addicted to poker as well. The same night I got back I finished Phil's book. For the next 5 consecutive nights I went to Sycuan to play in the 3/6 and 4/8 games. Luck runs out, and I got crushed for about $500. In terms of amount of money, this isn't very much to me as I had already been numbed by Blackjack. This is when Arthur told me about TwoPlusTwo and I start reading what used to be the 'General' and lower stakes forum. I didn't think the forum did me much good. It did, however, lead me to purchase a copy of Sklansky and Malmuth's Hold'em for Advanced Players, which to-date I still consider the Holy Bible of Poker foundation. I read through the book, played more, continued reading, learned from some of the more seasoned veterans at Sycuan (only one day understand to completely disregard their advice), and life went on.

A major turning point was 5 months later when a high school friend, Ryan, who happened to also go to UCSD heard about my love for poker. He has been around the scene relatively longer than me, and invited me to go to Ocean's 11 together. I had been afraid of going to Ocean's 11 - hearing that it's for hardcore and/or professional card players only. So when someone more experienced was willing to take me along I jumped at the opportunity. Ryan drove, and in the car I heard this other guy talking all big about playing 20/40, 40/80, and 80/160. I was thinking to myself 'who the hell is this guy talking so big'. This is the day that I met Wayne in person. I say in person, because I later found out that I actually had already played many games versus him in Starcraft, where his alias 'SoSo' - was much more recognizable to me than 'Wayne'. Wayne changed my gambling life forever, but more about that later. At Ocean's 11, I played 8/16 for the first time, and went on an unbelievable rush. It was 8/16 with a kill, and I killed something like 14 consecutive hands - making ragged two pairs on the turn or river none stop to crack overpairs and such. Easy game.

A few weeks later Ryan introduced me to PartyPoker - otherwise known as the Internet Poker. He let me play his account, and I played 1 table of 2/4. In about 15 minutes, I was two-tabling 3/6. Within the first hour, I was 4 tabling 5/10 full ring. 6-max was nowhere near as popular back then, and in fact I don't think even existed until shortly after so I played only full ring. I absolutely loved internet poker. I quickly set up my own account and deposited $500. For reasons unknown to me I felt that short stacking 15/30 is the proper move. Remember, 8/16 was the highest I ever played. I don't even know what short stacking meant back then. I remember going down to 8 dollars. Eight. I was the big blind next hand and that put me all-in. I quadtripled up or something like that. I tripled up the next hand, doubled up the next. An hour later, I had $8,000. This later became known among friends as the '8 to 8,000 run'. From then on I 4 to 8 tabled Party 15/30 and never looked back. I for sure sucked, but for those of you that were fortunate enough to be around during the Golden Age, the majority of Party Poker 15/30 players sucked more. Ran up to about 20,000, and things were good.

Concurrently to this all happening is Wayne introducing me to card counting. Starting with a simple high low split, I found that my ability to memorize every single card that is out helped a lot in counting. Wayne and I formally partnered up, and we begin studying from BJ21.com. Wayne kept track of the running count and the insurance ratio, while I kept track of each card that is out to be able to properly apply more advanced deviations and calculations on the spot relative to the scenario. We didn't really have sufficient funds in the beginning - and we would take $5,000 or $10,000 shots at Barona's true single deck Blackjack game, and go Blackjack busto due to variance or lack of skill. Eventually, we went with Omega II as our counting system of choice, and built up enough cash from assorted means such as Wayne's Starcraft winnings, money we made from live poker, allowance, paychecks from New York Life, and whatnot. We also added a third member, David, to our Blackjack team because every Blackjack team needs a token white guy. For a good short while we enjoyed crushing the Barona Blackjack game. Other than Mesquite, that is the best Blackjack game in the entire United States. True single deck (Blackjack pays 3:2), surrender available, dealer stays on Soft 17, split 4 times, double down on any 2, etc. Other than resplitting aces, this baby had it all.

Time went on, and we finally over-did it. On the 7th night in a 8 day period, we were greeted by 6 of Barona's executive staff when we entered the high limit area. They cordially invited us to enjoy a nice dinner at the steak house, and said the magic words 'you are welcomed to any game in the house other than Blackjack'. By this time Barona was already our home base of operations for Poker as well, so since we were in good standing with them I was able to negotiate a 'flat-bet' standing as opposed to flat out ban. The game is still slightly +EV for us because there are so many deviations that can be easily applied to single deck. With the table max at $10,000 a bet, one of the executives said they calculated our EV to be about $330 per hour per person. Kind of off, but good guess, but that also means they don't know everything we were doing. Buying up insurance, when appropriate, for the table and offering even money to other players when they were to otherwise take it from the house are the obvious stuff - which nowadays we don't do anymore because that gets us too easily marked. Barona kindly advised us to work on our smoke screen, and could care less if we were to go hit up their competitors. In fact, they seemed to have encouraged it. This was the first casino we were banned in, and we were proud of it. Years later and much wiser, we regret no longer to be in action with Barona. But hey, people make mistakes.

So by now I'm happily 8 tabling 15/30 on Party and it's as good as it gets. Sometimes I would get to play the 30/60 but back then there were only two tables of it and the wait list is always like 56 people. I don't attend classes anymore because my life is really just revolving around Blackjack and Poker now. I go the first day to pick up the Syllabus and go on days of the midterm and final. I dropped out of the Economics Honors program at UCSD because I didn't want to write my honors thesis. I abandoned a research project that I was working on for publish on the American Economic Review. I rather dedicate the time to gambling. It's safe to say that at that stage I was 100% degen. I made a lot of money, but my life wasn't going anywhere. My GPA dropped to something like a 3.0, and my parents were getting very worried. I didn't care. My family was going through hard cash flow times because we had so much liquid assets tied up in real estate and the stock market and the later was crashing down and margin was calling, but I didn't care. I was a bad son, and I didn't care. I still think back to those times and feel so bad - and I guess the saving grace is I do recognize how bad I was during those times.

Ironically, the worse the broad economic situation looked, the better I was running on PartyPoker. I learned about things such as PokerTracker and PokerAceHud. I begin to analzye my #s, seeing which hands I was winning or losing with, and try to figure out if I lost I was the donkey or got out-played. At this point, Wayne told me if I was serious about poker - he can introduce me to the right people. I was, and he did. I met two people, Ken and Kaine, and they analyzed some of my play. I still remember what they said to me. 'You're probably a winning player 15/30 - somewhere in the neighborhood of .8 BB/100. We can make you better. A lot better'. So with that, I enrolled in Ken and Kaine's School of Poker. I wouldn't say it's well-known as they are very selective with their students (Wayne is one of their graduates), but it's produced some of the winningest cash game limit hold'em players that I know of today. Tuition wasn't cheap and it varied per person. I got in on a good rate due to Wayne's referral and my gaming past (I was a top Starcraft/Warcraft III/MMORPG/Street Fighter Series gamer). 60k stake deal, so when I graduate, I would have made them 30k.

Thirty thousand dollars isn't chump change, and when I first made the decision I was hesitant. However, this has been one of the biggest positive decisions of my life. Ken and Kaine fixed so much holes in my game, and more importantly taught me the mathematics behind the game and provided me the foundation to understand the fundamentals and factors to be able to self-refine my game in any circumstance. I was fortunate to have learned from one of the greatest poker teachers and one of the greatest limnit hold'em players in the world. Even today, my biased self look to Ken as the single best cash game limit hold'em players. I've played almost everyone at one point or another except for the guys who are only willing to play 3,000/6000 or higher, and I truly believe Ken is the very best. I was worried that writing this would kill him or my action, but I've come to learn that those people who think we are donkeys will always think we're donkeys - so it really doesn't matter. I think technically I completed the stake deal in about 4 months. After poker school gradutation I think it was around the same time that I also graduated UCSD. At this point, I accepted a position as a Financial Advisor with a Wall-street firm, and put poker on the side. I play poker every now and then, but it's not often as I kept a 80 hours per week schedule. I also took a 6 month break from Vegas as 'the real world' and a job kept me too busy and too tired to vacation.

A year later I resigned for health reasons. Doctor basically said 80 hours a week isn't good for you and is the cause of a number of different potential concerns I was having over my health so that was that. My brother was currently working for a prominent software development company in Los Angeles, and he invited me to come interview. I did, and I joined the Engineering Group of said company. I was promoted into management in a company record-breaking 4 months, and was on my best behavior the first half a year. Eventually, the itch to play poker started getting stronger and stronger. The happiest place on Earth and the goldmine known as Commerce Casino is just so close that I couldn't help wanting to go and PartyPoker was just a click away. I gave in, and started playing poker regularly again.

Back during College several of my roommates also played on PartyPoker and were 15/30 regulars, so I was constantly locked out of a # of games as we all 8-tabled. So this prompted me to start a new screenname. My now-God-sister [she wasn't at the time] picked a name for me, and TanShuiWen was born. Basically, I deposited $500 into PartyPoker with this account and ran it up. I've detailed my run up extensively in other writings, so I won't repeat it here. I went all the way up to 100/200 and felt very comfortable with the game. There was only 2 tables at the time, so I usually just 2 table 100/200, 2 table 50/100, and 4 table 30/60. I play a lot of hands. For the first half a year my win rate was 2.6 BB per 100 at 100/200, .35 at 50/100, and 2.81 at 30/60. Yeah that's right. Although many people have told me that 50/100 was the softest of all party games during that era, I always found myself beat in the game. I used to always theorize that the 2nd highest limit is the toughest game in the house because the highest game has all the rich fishes in there. Why would rich fishes play the 2nd highest game? So the 2nd highest game is full of the grinders and those that are too conservative to tackle the highest - so it's a bad game. Time and again I've seen database and pokertracker evidence from other successful players that prove my theory wrong. Oh well, I just sucked it up at 50/100. After a full year I think I stablized at about 2.1 BB / 100 for 100/200, .5 BB /100 at 50/100, and 2.6 BB / 100 at 30/60. My net winnings across multiple screennames and various other stuff was over a million dollars. I know someone had tried to put together a huge database for Party's higher stakes games and had TanShuiWen as one of the biggest winners. It was a little off and it didn't include some of my other screennames, but hey I'm sure everyone has multiple names anyway. The inevitable quesion - but how much did I lose? For tax purposes, let's just say it was a lot. It's complicated, and I let my CPA handle it to figure out how much I owe Uncle Sam.

At the end of the PartyPoker days, the cap for # of 100/200 tables was lifted and I got to briefly enjoy 8-tabling 100/200. In fact, the last week before PartyPoker closed down was the juiciest the 100/200 ever got. Everyone wanted to take a final shot at the higher stake games before PartyPoker becomes the place of yesteryear. I remember taking a week off of work just to play because it was too juicy to pass up.

After the days of PartyPoker I carried the screenname over to PokerStars. I remember I did this because I met quite a few people in 2006's WSOP that I wanted to keep in touch with and they associated me with TanShuiWen far more than 'Andy'. Same story with Pokerstars - deposited $500, and ran it up. This time deliberately short stacking 15/30, and soon enough was playing 1/2. During this time I had to adapt to 6-max because that's what everyone played. I actually didn't do much thinking when I started with 6-max. I just pretended like it was a full ring game but the first 4 people always folded. It was a good beginners perspective at 6 max, but it really didn't do the trick at higher levels. So it was back to the drawing board and I started thinking and analyzing the 6-max game. I remember one particular thread on TwoPlustwo that helped a lot. It was something like 'Coherent Opening Standards for 6-max' and it was a long thread. I still think of that as the only strategy thread I have ever benefited from because I believe many other threads usually already contain obvious things that can be reasoned out with intuition and not a message board discussion, or was full of different point of views that were probably rightly justified because so many dynamic elements are usually left out when people post a hand they want discussed.

At some point, Pokerstars opened up 200/400 tables. I was excited. I received access and played it, and became one of many victims to BabyHan. The 'pump up at 1/2, get crushed at 2/4, re-pump at 1/2' happened about 3 or 4 times. At some point I decided to not try 2-4 again, and smooth sailed for quite some time on 1/2. I still play mostly on TanShuiWen.

January of 2007 I accepted another promotion and transferred from the Engineering Group into Marketing as one of the Directors. To excel in my new position, I once again took 4 months off of Poker to concentrate fully on work. In early May, I started clocking in massive hours in anticipation of this year's WSOP. I not only played a ton of poker on Pokerstars, but did a lot of live poker playing at Commerce. Some of the 100/200 live regulars recognized me from years ago, others was wondering where in the world I popped out from. I had a 200k May, which I think is pretty impressive for a part-time player. June was good to me too. During this run I ventured back into the 200/400 world again, and this time since there was no BabyHan, I didn't get brutally killed in 2 hours. I feel very comfortable in both the 100/200 and 200/400 games on Stars. There is about 5 people on my list of people I don't really like to tangle with, but usually the games are always good. One thing I always like to do is play early Monday morning. Again and again you can count on the winner(s) of the Sunday Million to show up at the highest stake games with their new fortune playing way above what they are used to. Most of them actually go play high stakes NL cash games, but a good chunk of them also try limit hold'em.

A few weeks before the WSOP I was feeling pretty good and in the zone, and I played the 500/1000 a few times when it wasn't going HU. Booked some small wins, and nothing serious. Prior to this the highest I played live was 300/600 at last year's WSOP. I felt pretty comfortable though, and enjoyed the thrills more so than 100/200 or 200/400. On July 3rd, I started my two weeks of vacation and headed on over to Las Vegas for the WSOP. To my disappointment, 200/400 live was rarely running, and nothing higher than it ever ran while I was here. I did ok in the 100/200 game, but I ended up spending a lot of my poker time on Pokerstars because there were so few games. For the first week things were good - I was up about 100k or so combined from live poker, on-line poker, and Blackjack.

I played on Day 1D of the Main Event, and I busted out some time shortly before midnight. During the dinner break though, I had dinner with Mark Newhouse, aka Newhizzle. We've been playing in the same games since the PartyPoker days when he was Newsketch, and clocked in a ton of hands on Pokerstars with him as Newhizzle. We also played 200/400 live at Commerce and that's where we first met in person. I don't need to put in here Mark's story because it's widely spread in NVG. Long story short - I think he's just going through tough times, bad luck, and he's a genuine good guy. Not many has the ability and willingness to pull him out of his current jam, but I do and am trying. I entered in a staking arrangement with Mark and provided him with 100k to play on PokerStars or live poker. I'm not really trying to make money off of him. I just want to help him out since in many ways I see how similiarities between him and myself, and I don't want him to go down.

So anyway, fast forward to this week and what prompted me to make this post. Earlier this week I played a long 200/400 session with HC_68. This was the game that Schneids already made a post on, and let's just say some of the people I considered the top 200/400 players were absolutely crushed by HC_68. I think I dropped 45k? 65k? I can't even remember now. I just remember I went downstairs and made it all back in Blackjack in 20 minutes so it felt better. But you still have to make back money where you lost it. I don't keep more than 100k in my Pokerstars account. Anything in excess I either cash out or transfer out on a weekly basis. Money flow was especially frequent during WSOP, and I transfered out 80k that week so after I got crushed by HC_68 I didn't really have much left. For the first time in my life (but soon to be second if you keep reading) - I had to buy Pokerstars money and TanShuiWen went on-line busto (sort of). Tommyboy hooked me up with 20k, and I ran that up to 92k in one day. I did a bit of research on HC_68, and found out that he is the best Poker Player from Austria (or at least that's what sources claimed), plays 200/400 PLO on Full Tilt under a different screenname, and is a very good chess player. If memory and logic serves correctly, no good chess player suck at poker. But it didn't matter if he is the best player in the world - I am stubborn about trying to win my money back exactly where I lost it. Most of my 72k day came from HC_68, and that felt good.

After that session I was repumped and saw Unassigned (Terrance Chan, I believe) sitting at 500/1000 waiting for challengers. I sit too. Played about 4 hours, and was just taking beat after beat after beat. I've really never seen anyone hit as many gutshots as he did except for maybe HC_68. I wanted my money back faster, so I asked to kick it up to 1,000/2,000. He says he has to IM some people, and after a bit he said ok and we moved to 1k/2k. He hit a few hands immediately and I was in danger of all-in. Then I hit some hands, and at one point I had him to his third buy in with me at 120k and him all-in. Except on that hand his QJ vs my Ax spikes a Q on the turn. He does that a lot. I went all the way down to near busto again and then at the 56k mark he had to go which puts me at stuck 40k that session. He definitely didn't hit and run me as we played a good four hours. I was just sad because I felt like if we played some more I could make my money back. He said we can play tomorrow, so I was happy. Newhizzle sweated me during this time, and afterwards he went to sweat me a Blackjack session. I made 63k from that Blackjack session. Nowadays, I take 0 heat. In Mark's words - I play the role of DOnkey to perfection. He really thought I was tilting. I think the last time I seriously tilted was years ago.

So why does this all matter? Because today after dinner I lost 103k in Blackjack, and then I went upstairs and played 5 way 500/1000 with Unassigned and others, and then played Unassigned HU again. Today's net loss came to about $167k. I didn't bother doing the exact math, but I think this made me down 30k for the trip, and it's the most I've ever lost in one day (stocks doesn't count and even if it did I don't know this may still be the biggest, I guess). I am nearly out of Stars funds, but Tongni offered to hook up some funds on Monday so I'll have on-line bullets again. But the reality of the loss still stands, and prompted me to be more level-headed and quesion whether I should be playing that high. I'm not questioning if I do or do not have an edge, but rather if I should even play that high in the first place with such sickening swings. For whatever reason, I thought that typing out my gambling story would help clear my head and think. It did. Although this definitely won't be the last time Unassigned sees me at his table, I'm not going to make myself a regular of that game. The 100/200 is soft enough that I don't need the additional sighs and emotional duress from 500/1000+. I need to calm down from Blackjack too. The session I dropped 103k, I played on the same Blackjack table as John Juanda. Interesting enough, he and Sammy Farhad were discussing Aba / Brian Townsend. Anyway John leaves and I continue playing Blackjack. At some point I get to one of those shoes where I just have to table max every single hand, and that drew a crowd. There were some interesing personalities in this crowd and they cheered for me while I battled Bellagio. The crowd got bigger when I was down 60k, the amount of chips I had brought with me, and waited as the dealer counted 40k in cash to change it to chips. At one point I got to just -10k, but lost a juicy double down at table max and eventually went down to -103k. I still had about 20k on me, but decided I was now too short stacked and continue to play would be just giving the house free money. Bow to the crowd - and the TanShuiWen degen show comes to an end. I hope.

In closing I think there really wasn't a point to this post. Not much except to let Newhizzle know my gambling background, and to help me think things through. Is this a brag? Well, I did make a lot of money and enjoy some of the perks and comfort that comes with that. Is this a beat? Losing 167k in a session sucks when you're not one of those nosebleed NL players. And even then - losing 167k would still suck. Winning 130k+ during the WSOP and then turning that into a losing session the day before you leave also sucks and is a beat. Is this Variance? I don't think I even know what that word means, so that's the variance.

When it really comes down to it, I also want to say that for those that aspire to maintain a stable job and enjoy moderate success in poker - I'm an example that it can be done. It should be theoretically sustainable since I have played more than enough hands to have confidence in my statistics, but you never know I could be on the 6th order of Standard Deviation or something like that. And I also want to say that having stable income and a job that helps pave the path to a far brighter future than Poker is more important than the immediate income. With that, it's time to take my own advice and concentrate more on my job and put poker back to its leisure hobby place. Thanks for reading, I'm impressed for those of you that didn't skip down to just here.

~andy
TanShuiWen

monkover · #2 07-15-2007, 09:10 AM

r u sirious? we are supposed to read this?!

WuTank · #3 07-15-2007, 09:19 AM

... wow.
WC3/BW screename?

SmokeyRidesAgain · #4 07-15-2007, 09:26 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I phoned home to tell my parents the tragic news, and my mother’s response was ‘It’s ok Andy, go withdraw $300 from the bank tomorrow and win it back’

[/ QUOTE ]