Hi kids.  Nothing too exciting has happened this week, but I've played a ton of poker and have a few fun things to get out of the way. 

First off, as a curiosity thing I ran the numbers for KK vs. a range of AA, KK, and AK.  Check this out:

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

 154,107,360  games     0.005 secs    30,821,472,000  games/sec

Board:
Dead: 

    equity     win     tie           pots won     pots tied   
Hand 0:     47.293%      43.79%     03.51%           67479612       5402286.00   { KK }
Hand 1:     52.707%      49.20%     03.51%           75823176       5402286.00   { KK+, AKs, AKo }

KK, even though it's running into AK more than half the time, is a dog vs. that range.  Crazy eh?

Secondly, it was Raymond Davis that paid in all $20's.  He ended up final tabling and getting the 2nd biggest share of the last longer to Miami John.  I believe they chopped the 4k four ways with variable payouts. 

That's a much better result than first out. 

Thursday I played in the $1k.  Got sucked out on twice, sucked out twice, and then spewed 40 bb's in one hand in very un-glorious fashion.  At 300-600/75, I have 24k, there's about 50 left and the money is at 36.  Folds to my small blind, I make it 1800 with 66, get snap called by a gentleman over 50 who I've never seen before or played any hands with.  I've been at the table for like ten hands so have literally zero information beyond stereotypes. 

The flop comes J44r.  I check, thinking that he's betting any hand better than 66 and checking any other hand behind.  By that logic I should have bet the flop because he's not going to do anything creative on the flop.  Dumbass.  Check-check.

Turn a jack, great card for my hand, and I bet 2625.  He snap makes it 6k.  Now, since he's 50+, he's prob not calling me pre with a 4 other than A4 or perhaps 45/46 sooted.  I decide that I have the best hand and don't want to give him a free draw, since there's like 17k in the pot if I call and I have about the same behind.  I grab my chips to stuff, start to move them forward, and before I've committed myself he basically beats me to the pot.  I stuff anyways.  Dumbass.  He snaps and I lose to 43o.  I was pretty pissed at how poorly I played that hand.  And the curse of four-three off continues. Poker Videos

Move on to Friday, Shelley gets into town, and I play the $1500.  This time I double early, build steadily, get sucked out on, and then play this silly hand, this time at 100-200/25.  I'm kicking back in the full relax in the six seat.  Folds to the small blind who looks at his cards.  I see a black king.  Nice.  He makes it 700, I'm like 9k deep he covers, he's also a young, good, thinking player.  I find AQo in the BB.  If I re-raise, I'm getting stuffed on by AK, KK, and perhaps KQ, and he's folding everything worse.  May as well play a flop, I call. 

Flop Q73.  He bets 900, for the same reasons as above, I just call. 

Turn 3.  He checks, I bet 1600, he stuffs, I think for much longer than necessary because I've seen one of his f-ing cards.  Whatever if he has KK nh, I call, he has K3ss.  Sigh. 

Anyways, I go meet Shelley and Angie, we get some apps at the sports bar, and eventually head back to my buddies house.  We had been invited to a wine and cheese party hosted by a 21 year old kid who was in my first class as a youth minister.  I've stayed in touch with him and several other kids from those first two classes over the years.  We went and had a really good time.

I received this comment last week:

Devo,

Went back and read some of your old blogs from 04. Totally different tone to your blogs then. You talked about being a youth pastor, and having great times with your students. Now all you talk about is getting drunk, with a few tidbits of poker thrown in. Times have changed huh. One of the things I respect most about Doyle, is he manages to somehow balance his poker life, with his faith. I'm not judging you man, I can just tell from your blogs that your priorities are in a totally different place than they were a few years ago. I'm not sure that's such a good thing.

It's been on my mind since I first read it.  Couple of things come to mind - first, it's a totally different audience that I'm writing too now than it was then.  I first started my blog as a way to be open and transparent to the kids that I was working with.  I was working part time at a church in Colorado Springs, being paid $900/month for "20" hours of work per week. Party Poker pretty much took care of the rest of the bills.  Because of the crappy stigma that many in the church have on gambling, I never really talked about it.  From there I left to Minnesota to get married after a final summer on the river.

I went to Minnesota , married a youth pastor, and we planned on moving to Colorado after the summer of 2006.  Meanwhile I gave poker a full time effort for the first legitimate time, playing online and live limit, stakes usually in the 15-30 range.  When my ex was looking for positions in Colorado, preparing for our move, to make a really long story short they rejected her because of my occupation. 

Since then I haven't known how to blend a Christian life with a poker life.  Not because poker players are anti-Christian, in fact the best feedback I ever get is on any of my blogs that talk about faith.  I think it's unfair that you insinuate that I've lost my faith, because that's far from true.  But the fact of the matter is that, even though things have changed for the better in the last few years regarding the church's opinion on online poker/gambling, and even though I have many Christian friends who are strong supporters of me, I don't know how to blend the two:  because the church has never accepted me as a poker player. I didn't decide to drop out of college to play poker.  I dropped out to be a missionary, that road took me to Minnesota where I played full time, and that took me to the 2006 WSOP.  Then I took 2nd in the first ever WSOP event I play, and can you really blame me for pursuing this poker career?  Every year has been better than the last,  I've succeeded on and off the felt, and I feel like I am a very positive influence on a lonely poker community. 

I know that it is going to take effort from me to get back involved.  I've been talked to by several people about churches in town that sound very good, but frankly I'm really quite scared.  I'm afraid of being rejected by the church, judged for my occupation.  I still have dreams of starting a camp, and poker truly is the only reasonable manner in which I can make enough money (besides fundraising/support obv) to pay for such an endeavor. 

/ramble.  Saturday was Valentines Day.  Shelley and I slept in left around two, and met Fuller and Angie on the Venice boardwalk.  Always an entertaining day there :).  We had dinner at El Cholo after C&O Trattoria was full and the hostess declined $100 to get us sat.  Went and saw the Independent or whatever that Clive Owen is named.  It was fun, nothing special, but had one of the sickest shootouts I've ever seen in a movie. 

Took Shelley to the airport this morning, played online all day, pretty meh - had several runs that all fell short, think like 2 small cashes.  I'm still in the Full Tilt HORSE, 4/153 remaining, so this should be a good practice for tomorrow's $10k HORSE at the LAPC that starts at 3pm PST. 

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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