Updates & Trip Report - Celebrity cruise from San Juan to the Southern Caribbean islands

It's been awhile since the last post.  First, a few updates:

• Life is going well.  I continue to excel in school, with 5 classes now under my belt in pursuit of my MBA at Johns Hopkins.  Last semester was one of the more useful classes, Corporate Finance.  Net Present Value (NPV), Future Value (FV), Free Cash Flows (FCF), NPV of annuities, etc. was very useful.  I'm in fact using it to value investments I'm considering in the form of purchasing real estate in the Univ. of Maryland / College Park area.
• Segue to the investments.  I'm considering purchasing a small condo in the College Park area as I alluded to above.  The price is fairly cheap, but getting a loan for an investment property is apparently incredibly difficult.  I'm running into funding issues.  Moreover, it seems that even though 25% down is required for the loan, investment purchases in Prince George's County, where College Park is located, require quite a bit of up-front escrows in the form of taxes.  I'm looking at about 25% + ~15% in closing costs alone.  I was considering partnering with my brother-in-law, but I think he's uncomfortable with the net cash requirements.  Anyone out there know how to get real estate investment loans?  Any suggestions for contacts?
• I've been toying with the idea of starting an investing blog.  It would be nice to have a place where I can convey my thoughts about ideas I have for investments.  I have been on somewhat of a buying binge (since February), when I was able to roll out prior 401(k) moneys that had been rolled into my current job's 401(k) when I joined my current company.  I've purchased a few companies, and have done well thus far: MAKO Surgical (MAKO) @ $36.21 & $35.58, Corning (GLW) @ $12.95 & $13.53, Jinpan International (JST) @ $8.42, Microsoft (MSFT) @ $30.21 & New York Community Bancorp (NYB) @ $13.23.  Would love to go into my rationales for purchases, but am happy I'm up around 8% collectively.  Problem I have is that the S&P500 is up ~6.9% over the same period...  are my returns simply beta from the market?  I'm confident in my investments, but I'm never sure as to how to properly measure them.
• Bodog / Bovada is shutting down its business to residents of Maryland.  No big loss here; I wasn't playing all that often since they stopped publishing names of players.  However, this leaves me without an online poker home.  Any suggestions for U.S. facing sites that I could deposit?

Celebrity cruise trip report:
I got back from a cruise with my wife, originating from San Juan and hitting: St. Croix, U.S.V.I., St. Kitts, Dominica, Grenada, St. Thomas, and back to San Juan, Puerto Rico.  It was a fun time - beautiful ship, the "Summit" - and they naturally had a poker table.  It seems that every ship I've been on has at least one table, and this ship did not disappoint.  The table was a PokerMate table consisting of 8 player seats with 8x ~17" 4:3 touchscreen displays, coupled with a ~30"16:9 display in the center to show bets, community cards, blinds, etc.
I've played on this type of table prior, and the interface remained identical.  Once you get the hang of protecting your hole cards by pressing in a location on the screen, it is similar to playing online poker with the exception that your opponents are sitting in front of you.  You can set up preferences for you session (i.e. auto-muck, auto-post, etc.), and change languages.  Other than that, the game plays like a regular poker game - bet / fold / raise / etc.
The play was ridiculously soft; I would love to be trapped on a ship with these turkeys as my captive audience.  Besides the one other player who knew what he was doing, the rest of the players fell into two types: ones that were happy to take gambles for the entire stacks with any pair and others who would meekly fold to significant action.  Figuring out each player type was fairly easy, and it became as simple as waiting for a hand to stack the calling station types (who would call all manners of pre-flop bets as well - didn't matter whether I 3-bet or initially raised big), or pre-flop raise the meek who would usually call and fold to a cbet.
The primary problem with the poker on board the ship, though, was the arduous task of getting enough players for a game in the first place.  I refused to play the sit-n-gos that they scheduled (twice nightly, but at inconvenient times - during dinner and the show), so I was relegated to cash games.  Gathering up enough players at the right time was such an ordeal that I played a total of 3 one-hour sessions before the game broke up.  The first session, I ran poorly and dumped ~$70, but the next two I would wind up winning for $170, making my 3 hour poker foray a profitable one.
The secondary problem with the poker on board was the rake.  It is a miracle that I beat the rake, a hefty 10% up to $15!  Highway robbery, anyone?  I get that the Celebrity Cruise Line needs to make their nut, but come on - you want games to play, so why not encourage them?
The nicest part about the tables, in addition to the personality of each player who, by the way, were in vacation mode and super happy to be gambling, was that the casino would offer us a round of drinks whenever we got a cash game together.  At least "some" money was "rebated" back to us.


At any rate, I have a quick hand history for you:
$200 effective stacks around.
EP raiser who was semi-loose / solid raises to $6 which was fairly customary for the table.  MP (loose / bad player) flats and LP (tight / bad player) flats around to me with AKo.  I jack it up to $25 which folds the blinds and gets EP to flat, along with MP and LP.
Flop comes a very coordinated 4♣ 5♣ 6♣ - all clubs - giving me the nut flush draw holding the A♣Kx.  Checks around to me and I lead into the big pot with $40.  I get instantly check/raised from EP to around $80, with MP flatting and LP flatting.  I'm getting GREAT odds and sit there for a minute to figure things out.  While I'm contemplating my move (which skews heavily towards a shove for my remaining ~$160), MP shakes his head and says, "you're not going to believe this."

What would you do?

Click to see results

I folded my cards. I couldn't imagine any scenario where I was ahead, and had huge floating visions of straight flush, once the loose / bad MP started yammering. I knew that I was beat by the EP at the moment; was pretty sure he flopped a set (solid though straightforward player as he is). I had no clue what LP was doing in the hand, but my main concern was EP... Why are EP & LP flatting to a check-raise instead of getting it in? Things were not adding up for me, and I conceded that even though I'm getting great odds, I have to fold here. The turn, natch, was a club and the river a blank, netting me the nut flush. However, on the reveal, EP shows a set of 5's, LP shows a Q high flush (Q♣Qx - no preflop 3bet / 4bet / etc.) and MP shows ... 7♣ 8♣ for the flopped straight flush and the sweet triple up. Needless to say, I was patting myself on the back. Probably the only time I've folded for a read of a straight flush.

Quick follow-on: same player who called my 3bet would sit down 2 nights later with ~$100 and go broke on the third hand of that night to weird action he called my $8 PF raise with A2 vs. my KQ on the button.  The flop was 2 x Q - an EP caller led $10, he flatted, I raised to $30, EP folds, he raises to $60 and I shove (he calls).  See what I mean?  Bad players abound...

The HU beats sting just as bad as the FR beats...

I hate not having a HH converter...  Stupid Bodog / Bovada.  Here is a link to the hand if you care to laugh at me.

Yup... Heads-up is pretty cool

I wish I could capture a few hand histories, but wow...  there are such polarizing players in heads-up play.  To my experience (limited to 4 days), I've taken note of three types of players: the solid, well-rounded hand reader, the gambler, and the tilter.

• The solid, well-rounded hand reader
  Buys in full, 100BB.  Tops off his stack whenever he falls below the 80BB threshold.  Can fold and raise his button, and absolutely folds his blinds to raises.  His range is somewhat predictable meaning that it will take somewhat of a cooler to stack him.  He is capable of calling with Ace high if the situation warrants.  Raises his button about 66% of the time.
• The gambler
  Buys in for 25-50BB.  Plays any two cards.  Primarily relies on getting lucky and calling down whenever he hits any piece of the board.  Once he gets stacked, he's done.  If he's on the doubling end, he's gone as well, happy to take his double-up.  Rarely raises, bets only when he has top pair.  Loves to min bet (WTF is with that!?!??!).
• The tilter
  More rare but very lucrative.  This player is similar to the gambler in his buy-in habits and pre-flop ranges.  However, he'll continuously rebuy for his standard 25-50BB and look out if he gets stacked back-to-back!  For example, I had a guy who I was pretty sure went through his entire bankroll last night.  He bought in twice for 35BB and then rebought for the nice round number of $17.94 at a 25NL table.  Pretty sure I busted his roll.

I'm currently playing with ranges and gaming the game.  For example, since Bodog / Bovada has anonymous tables, does it make sense to try to steal blinds at the higher stakes?  In other words, if I sit & wait for a player and raise his blind (getting him to fold), if I drop the table afterwards, is it profitable?  Not saying that this is acting in good faith because it isn't, but how long before people start doing that on Bodog / Bovada?  Why shouldn't it be me?

As an aside, Bodog is offering $15-$30 per week as part of their Cash Per Suit promotion for the next month.  Play 25 points for 4 out of 7 days and make $25.  Play 25 points for 7 out of 7 days and make $30.  Seems to me that the 4 out of 7 days sequence makes the most sense.

Look for me on the tables!  I'm "Player 1."

Figuring it all out... A change in games within the Bodog structure

For the past 2 months, I've been dealing with the stupid changes that Bodog / Bovada made to their poker tables - primarily making the player names anonymous.  To me, as a grinder, that is the stupidest move they could have made; it makes the action at a full ring table simply impossible to follow.  How can I possibly keep track of whether player 4 got up and a new player 4 is sitting in his place?  I need to be placing my full focus on that particular window in order to have a chance of noticing - and probably not be involved in a hand at the time.  Expand that to the maximum 4 tables that Bodog allows, and keep tabs on players coming & going becomes very difficult at best.

From a business perspective, I can understand why Bodog has done what they have done.  Simply put, poker is less profitable to them than Blackjack or slots.  When you have an online casino which offers the full gamut of games, you don't want your gambler's money on the poker table where the casino becomes a partner with the winning poker players, taking a rake instead of outright taking the gambler's money.  You want that gambler sitting at a Blackjack table, or a Roulette table, losing their money directly to the house.  The question I ask myself, though, is why wouldn't Bodog / vada shut down their poker altogether?

Regardless, in dealing with the frustration of no longer being able to play full ring poker under anonymous circumstances, I've thrown in the towel on online poker.  I don't want to join Black Chip Poker, or some other third-rate site; I already have money on a third-rate site where I'm comfortable getting money off (they pay out immediately, and conveniently).  My understanding of the post-Black Friday poker world is the withdrawals have gotten far more difficult than even pre-Black Friday, with some players going to the extent of trading 80 to 90 cents on the dollar in order to get their money off those sites.  To grind online with an immediate 10 - 20% deficit like that, in addition to the cloud of DOJ looming at any minute, I'll take my chances with Bodog.

Back to the point of the article, though: changing my game.  I've thought long & hard about the solution to my inability to follow full ring games with anonymous players, and come to the decision that heads-up poker makes the most sense for me.  I'm not putting in hours like I used to - I have my graduate school to contend with now - but when I do, I can easily and quickly follow the action when I only have to deal with a handful of players.  I put in a few hours over the weekend and have had positive results at 25NL.  Either I'm incredibly lucky, or the players there have no idea about pre-flop hand ranges or when to play for stacks.  I've been coolered once, with a flush over flush, and sucked out on once to a chop, but other than that, I've been DOMINATING the play.  Playing against a single player, I'm able to focus on their play, and immediately notice a sit out or stand up.

The only problem I'm seeing now is the wait for a game to start and the high rake.  Basically, I have to sit down at an empty table and wait for a player.  Sometimes this can take 5 minutes.  The rake is quite costly as well - I think Bodog takes full rake from the heads-up tables.  However, in the appox. 2 hours of play that I've put in, I'm up about 3 buy-ins.  I expect it to continue.