Gone walkabouts ... Playing with the Pros in Auckland

... but looking forward to getting back in the online saddle.

I've been lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel to Auckland NZ for 10 days with work. I took the opportunity to try the other side of poker, live. Being away from home, I was able to play virtually every evening. I really enjoyed it, but as a profession it would get very frustrating / boring as a breakeven or losing player.

I think that the game may be relatively unbeatable long term given the rake which was 10% with a cap of $10 on the $60/$100 capp $1/$2 NL game. There wasn't the option of Limit play which I would have preferred.

The tables were full of the same regulars all of the time with very few recreational players. The standard of play amongst the regulars seemed lower than Crown in Melb and Star City in Sydney, but the absence of recreational players certainly meant that there was no easy money to be had.

As you might have guessed by now, I was a losing player at approx -$5 / hr. Well within variance limits and what seemed like a high number of bad beats, but I'm not so sure.

Occassionally the preflop raise would be $7, but the norm was $15 to $22 and sometimes more. With small stacks this meant that the money was often going in on the flop. As I don't like to gamble, I was playing very tight and then finding myself up against multiple callers on draws. I was rarely on draws as I was playing only premium hands. It was all quite frustrating when used to playing relatively deep stacked online.

Clocking up a reasonable amount of hours, the pace was still very slow compared to online. I'm looking forward to getting back to 4 tables and constant action.

The highlight though was four satellites on Sat/Sun to qualify for the $3300 Play with the Pros. I got through easily in the two $80 qualifiers to the $330 Satellite (top 20%) on each day. The afternoon was a different story, with only 10% getting paid, I didn't adjust my game early enough. I played well and possibly over cautiously in the first few rounds, then the blinds rose rapidly and I found myself hovering on the average stack, then all of a sudden I was short stacked without losing a hand hardly. Ah well, all good experience.

I had the privilege of getting very close to the players in multiple tournaments during the week. The most impressive was the analysis of an Omaha hand before calling a river bluff light by an Aussie Pro Eric Assadourian http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=42739.

It will lose in the translation, but with 5, 2, 7, T, 7 (rainbow +1) board, he told his opponent who'd bet that he was sorry but that the bet just didn't make sense. He went on to go through every reasonable hand combination and analyse why it didn't make sense. He eventually called with a lone T giving him 2 pair against total air. I've got so much to learn!

Today, Joe Hachem was playing in day 1B. He too was extremely impressive. What I liked was that he paid attention constantly. He'd occassionally reach for his chips while watching the players to his left, he'd watch guys on a decision when he wasn't in the hand and he'd continue to watch pot winners with no showdown as they pulled in the chips and stacked them.

Greg Raymer was very accessible and played the early rounds extremely patiently. We are lucky to have an interest in a sport that the best in the world are so accessible. Only a matter of time until I find myself at a table with them :-).

Finally an apology, between work, play and lack of Internet access I haven't kept up with this blog. To those that dropped me an email, much appreciated, hopefully I'm back. Now I need to catch up with how you've all been traveling.

Cya!