Day 6 of the Pokerstars double point promotion was a total disaster. I ended up losing about $2,600 and I didn’t make it to my daily goal of 10,000 points.
The day started off poorly, but it was a slow drain. I found myself down $1,000 after a few hours, but wasn’t feeling too bad about it. I was losing, but it was a combination of not much in the way of good cards for me and plenty of good cards for my opponents. That kind of losing is easy for me to handle.
The type of losing that I have trouble with is when I’m getting great cards, making big hands and losing to garbage hands that miraculously connect with the board cards. Or when people are bluffing on flop and the turn and I’ve decided to call them down with a marginal hand and then they improve just enough to beat me on the end.
For example there was a hand where I raised with 88 and got called by the big blind who had 97. The flop was K 5 3, he checked I bet and he called with no pair and no draw. The turn was a 2 and he check raised me with no pair and no draw and then the river came a 9 and he bet and I called. There were plenty of other hands in a short span that had a similar script.
As a result I went from irritated to angry to super duper mega pissed off over the course of about 20 minutes. During that span I played about 250 hands, took 26 to the showdown and lost 20 of them (normally I’d expect to win about 15 of those hands instead of 5). The thing that’s critical about pots at showdown is they are almost never small pots. In the games I’m playing in you can just about always expect a raise before the flop and at least one bet on every betting round. So in a $10/$20 game that’s a pot size of at least $140. If I win 15 of those pots instead of 5 I’ve got at least another $1,400. Smartly I decided in a fairly reasonable amount of time that I was in no state of mind to keep playing and quit for the day.
While the day was a real disaster, the week was a moderate success. Luckily since I’d overshot in point production on the early days of the week even though I didn’t make it to 10,000 on the last day I did manage to surpass my goal of 60,000 points in the 6days. And although I lost about $600 in the actual play I still made a few grand as a result of the insane number of points I earned. I took the past two days off and I'm ready to get back on the horse tomorrow.
In other news my good friend Matt Lessinger has made it through day 1 at the WSOP main event! There were a total of 6,844 entrants at this years main event who all in one way or another put up $10,000 to play. Given the massive number of players the first day of play was split into four groups who played on four different days. Matt played on Day 1D (which was Sunday, with Saturday being 1C, Friday being 1B and Thursday being 1A) and of the 2,461 players who started that day 1352 made it through. After starting with 20,000 chips Matt was up to about 45,000 at the end of his first day of play. Today was day 2A where everyone who survived on day 1A and 1B came back for their second day of action. Matt's second day will be tomorrow (Wednesday). Anyone who makes it through day 2A and 2B will be back on Thursday and the players who make it about half way through that day will be in the money. Good luck Matt!
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Halfway to Glory
During my double FPP extravaganza I've crossed over the 500,000 point mark for the year meaning I'm a little more than half way home! In fact at the end of Sunday in order to be on pace I need to be at 513,661. I expect for the first time since January 1st I'm going to be on pace to make my goal.
In the five days I've played so far I've managed at least 10,200 points a day and I'm ahead about $2,000 in actual game play. With only one more day left I plan to have my biggest production day ever and then take a few days off! Looking back Sunday will be the 22nd day in a row that I've worked! But since I've made about $12,000 in that time I guess it's been worth it.
In the five days I've played so far I've managed at least 10,200 points a day and I'm ahead about $2,000 in actual game play. With only one more day left I plan to have my biggest production day ever and then take a few days off! Looking back Sunday will be the 22nd day in a row that I've worked! But since I've made about $12,000 in that time I guess it's been worth it.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
2X FPP's Day 2 & 3
So far this double points stuff has been great! On day 2 I managed 10.600 points and a moderate but not insignificant profit of $225.
Today I blew it out with a profit of $1,800 to go along with 10,200 points. Amazingly I felt like I was getting my ass kicked all day, but I had a few 10 minute bursts where I got crazy hot and at the end of the day it all added up to a nice win.
So far in 3 days I've put 32,000 points toward my year end goal. That's the eqivalent of about 2 weeks of moderate effort. It's also generated FPPs worth $1,682 to go along with my $3,000 in winnings. While the effort required has been draining, so far it's completely worth it. This is shaping up to be a very profitable week!
Today I blew it out with a profit of $1,800 to go along with 10,200 points. Amazingly I felt like I was getting my ass kicked all day, but I had a few 10 minute bursts where I got crazy hot and at the end of the day it all added up to a nice win.
So far in 3 days I've put 32,000 points toward my year end goal. That's the eqivalent of about 2 weeks of moderate effort. It's also generated FPPs worth $1,682 to go along with my $3,000 in winnings. While the effort required has been draining, so far it's completely worth it. This is shaping up to be a very profitable week!
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
WCOOP 2008!!!
They announced the schedule for the World Championship of Oniline Poker (WCOOP) today. Last year there were 23 events up from 18 the year before. This year there are going to be 33 events!
In addition to ramping up the number of events they've added a few HUGE buy in events. There's a $10,000 NL hold em, a $10,000 HORSE event and an insane $25,000 heads up matches tournament! They've guatanteed a 1.6 million dollar prize pool for the $25K which means they'll need at least 64 players. A tall order for the biggest buy in event in online poker history!
Of course there are a slew of $215, $320, and $530 events that I plan on playing. At first glance I think I'm going to be playing at least 15 events this year. More to come on the WCOOP as we get a little nearer to the start date of Sept 5th.
If you want to see the full schedule here it is http://www.pokerstars.com/wcoop/
In addition to ramping up the number of events they've added a few HUGE buy in events. There's a $10,000 NL hold em, a $10,000 HORSE event and an insane $25,000 heads up matches tournament! They've guatanteed a 1.6 million dollar prize pool for the $25K which means they'll need at least 64 players. A tall order for the biggest buy in event in online poker history!
Of course there are a slew of $215, $320, and $530 events that I plan on playing. At first glance I think I'm going to be playing at least 15 events this year. More to come on the WCOOP as we get a little nearer to the start date of Sept 5th.
If you want to see the full schedule here it is http://www.pokerstars.com/wcoop/
Quick Update (2X FPPs Day 1)
I managed to play more hands today than I've ever played in one day before. I played 5,046 hands today and earned about 11,200 points (I played a mix of four $5/$10 games and two $10/$20 games). If I could earn this many points whenever I wanted it would only take me 89 working days to make my yearly goal of 1,000,000.
Those points translate into 39,200 FPPs which are worth $589. Not bad for one days effort. I also made just over $1,000 in actual winnings so it was nothing short of a great start to my week. I'm certainly tired, but feeling a little better than I expected. It's looking like this double FPP madness is going to take me all the way to back on pace for the year!
My goal tomorrow is to play at least 5,047 hands!
Those points translate into 39,200 FPPs which are worth $589. Not bad for one days effort. I also made just over $1,000 in actual winnings so it was nothing short of a great start to my week. I'm certainly tired, but feeling a little better than I expected. It's looking like this double FPP madness is going to take me all the way to back on pace for the year!
My goal tomorrow is to play at least 5,047 hands!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Some Unusual Good News
June while still somewhat profitable turned out to be my worst month since January. A big reason for that was the minor loss at the WSOP and perhaps more importantly the 9 days I wasn't playing online. But there is good news!
First of all my good friend Matt Lessinger won his was into the WSOP main event in a $55 with rebuys direct qualifier! Congrats Matt! Of course I am insanely jealous. But, happily I had 10% of his action, so for a relatively small investment I now have 10% of his action in the main event (a $1,000 value). Hopefully he'll do something big!
Second, pokerstars is running a promotion offering double FPPs from now until July 6th! This means for doing the same stuff I would be doing I'm going to earn double points towards my year end goal as well as double FPPs to be cashed in for dollars. This is HUGE. Right now I'm at 443,000 points for the year and since we're at the exact half way point I should be at 500,000.
I am going to go TOTALLY BANANAS this week. Don't expect to see or hear from me until July 8th (on July 7th I anticipate being a drooling zombie blob if my brain has not actually exploded). My goal is to knock out 30,000 points which will then be doubled to 60,000 points. Those points alone will be worth $3,152 without even factoring in progress towards the year end goal! Clearly with dollars coming in at that rate FOR BREAKING EVEN I need to do as much as I can. I'm hoping I can find the mental strength to do even more that my above goal, but I'll be happy if for once I can hit a goal I've posted on this blog.
Wish me luck! I won't keep you posted until after the fact since every second I spend in front of the computer will be spent playing!
First of all my good friend Matt Lessinger won his was into the WSOP main event in a $55 with rebuys direct qualifier! Congrats Matt! Of course I am insanely jealous. But, happily I had 10% of his action, so for a relatively small investment I now have 10% of his action in the main event (a $1,000 value). Hopefully he'll do something big!
Second, pokerstars is running a promotion offering double FPPs from now until July 6th! This means for doing the same stuff I would be doing I'm going to earn double points towards my year end goal as well as double FPPs to be cashed in for dollars. This is HUGE. Right now I'm at 443,000 points for the year and since we're at the exact half way point I should be at 500,000.
I am going to go TOTALLY BANANAS this week. Don't expect to see or hear from me until July 8th (on July 7th I anticipate being a drooling zombie blob if my brain has not actually exploded). My goal is to knock out 30,000 points which will then be doubled to 60,000 points. Those points alone will be worth $3,152 without even factoring in progress towards the year end goal! Clearly with dollars coming in at that rate FOR BREAKING EVEN I need to do as much as I can. I'm hoping I can find the mental strength to do even more that my above goal, but I'll be happy if for once I can hit a goal I've posted on this blog.
Wish me luck! I won't keep you posted until after the fact since every second I spend in front of the computer will be spent playing!
Thursday, June 19, 2008
A Tale of Two Sets
I started today by getting my ass kicked just about every way you can imagine. In fact there was one pot that I won, but it felt like I'd lost about $120 on the hand. I'm sure you're all thinking "How can that be?!?! Dave must have hit the Grand Mariner before writing this post!"
Let me explain. I was playing four $10/$20 games this morning and one of them was a spectacular game (especially for a Thursday morning). There were these two goofs in the game who were playing all kinds of garbage hands and going nuts with them. And they were both killing me. Whenever I was in it seemed like they were nailing their hands. Then the following hand came up. Goof 1 raised from the button, goof 2 three bet from the small blinds, I called from the big blind with 88 and goof 1 capped it.
I wasn't really sure where I stood, but when the flop came down 8 4 3 I started to drool. "Ah ha!" I thought triumphantly. "Now these goofs are going to pay! I'll cut them to pieces with my mighty set of eights!" Then to my total shock and horror goof 2 (who was first to act after the flop) timed out and folded (In the games I play in you have 14 seconds to act on your hand or you're out - it's kind of a brutal format, but it keeps the games moving quickly)! I couldn't believe it. I was thinking I would get AT LEAST $70 from him no matter what he had and instead I got zero.
After goof 2 folded I bet, the flop, turn and river and goof 1 folded to my river bet meaning I only made $30 after the flop. While I was trying to convince myself that maybe I wouldn't have gotten that much out of goof 2 he typed in the chat box "Thank God! I had KK and was so pissed that I folded!" BASTARDS! I'm guessing I would have gotten $30 or $40 from both players on the flop, $60 or $80 on the turn from goof 2 and $20 on the river. Even though I won the pot that hand sucked.
Now on to a much better hand. I was losing $2,200 by lunch today (I was just thinking to myself this morning how it had been a long time since I'd had a really big loss - now why would I tempt the universe by thinking that?) which also sucked. After lunch I thought I might play a little $15/$30 along with my normal $10/$20 games in an attempt to get some of my money back, but the games were loaded with regulars and pros.
Just for fun I decided to see who was playing $30/$60 even though I wasn't going to play. A few of the games looked OK, but one looked great. There was no one I recognized except for one guy who is a big loser at the $10/$20 games. I decided to take a chance and bought in for $3,000 (I was also in for $1,000 in each of three $10/$20 games). After about 18 seconds I was down to $2,500 in the $30/$60, not doing great in the other games and stuck about $3,000 for the day. SHIT!
But then I picked up AK three times in about 20 hands and won with all three. I was back to about $3,400 and I'd determined that the game was even better than I'd hoped. There were three guys who were constantly just calling before the flop which is a sign of real suckers in a short handed game.
Then I picked up TT on the button. Sure enough the first player to act just called $30 another player called behind him and I raised as I was thinking how great the game was. The big blind called and the original caller made it $90 to go. This made the alarm bells go off big time (ALERT! ALERT! We might have pocket aces!). The vast majority of the time people just call before the flop and then reraise it's AA in their hand. I called as did the other players and we took the flop 4 way.
While I was thinking about how sure I was that that one player had AA the flop came down T 3 3 and all of a sudden I was desperately hoping I was right! I almost couldn't believe it. I had to slow play a little here so I checked. To my insane delight the big blind and the original caller went to war with a bet, a raise, a reraise and a cap while I just called along! I thought to myself "Holy shit! I've flopped tens full against pocket aces and trip threes in an F-ing $30/$60 game! Yeah Baby!"
The turn was a Q which wasn't a great card, but I was pretty sure anything but an ace or a three was safe. I checked, the big blind bet $60, the other player just called and I raised to $120. Now the big blind went all in for a total of $175 which was great because it got the money in, but if he'd had more there's a chance the other player would have folded. Since it wasn't a full bet I couldn't raise again, but I did bet the river and got called. Sure enough I was up against AA and 7 3! I'd like to give the guy with 73 a little shout out and thank him for not folding before the flop (and for the $385 that he donated to me)! That pot was about $1,300 when it got pushed into my stack and I left the $30/$60 with a $1,400 profit in that game.
While I was done in the $30/$60 (the busted player and one other softy left and were replaced with some real players) I kept playing my other games and managed to cut my days losses all the way back down to about -$450. While I started the day with a win that felt like a loss with the set of 8's I finished they day with a net loss that feels almost like a win.
Let me explain. I was playing four $10/$20 games this morning and one of them was a spectacular game (especially for a Thursday morning). There were these two goofs in the game who were playing all kinds of garbage hands and going nuts with them. And they were both killing me. Whenever I was in it seemed like they were nailing their hands. Then the following hand came up. Goof 1 raised from the button, goof 2 three bet from the small blinds, I called from the big blind with 88 and goof 1 capped it.
I wasn't really sure where I stood, but when the flop came down 8 4 3 I started to drool. "Ah ha!" I thought triumphantly. "Now these goofs are going to pay! I'll cut them to pieces with my mighty set of eights!" Then to my total shock and horror goof 2 (who was first to act after the flop) timed out and folded (In the games I play in you have 14 seconds to act on your hand or you're out - it's kind of a brutal format, but it keeps the games moving quickly)! I couldn't believe it. I was thinking I would get AT LEAST $70 from him no matter what he had and instead I got zero.
After goof 2 folded I bet, the flop, turn and river and goof 1 folded to my river bet meaning I only made $30 after the flop. While I was trying to convince myself that maybe I wouldn't have gotten that much out of goof 2 he typed in the chat box "Thank God! I had KK and was so pissed that I folded!" BASTARDS! I'm guessing I would have gotten $30 or $40 from both players on the flop, $60 or $80 on the turn from goof 2 and $20 on the river. Even though I won the pot that hand sucked.
Now on to a much better hand. I was losing $2,200 by lunch today (I was just thinking to myself this morning how it had been a long time since I'd had a really big loss - now why would I tempt the universe by thinking that?) which also sucked. After lunch I thought I might play a little $15/$30 along with my normal $10/$20 games in an attempt to get some of my money back, but the games were loaded with regulars and pros.
Just for fun I decided to see who was playing $30/$60 even though I wasn't going to play. A few of the games looked OK, but one looked great. There was no one I recognized except for one guy who is a big loser at the $10/$20 games. I decided to take a chance and bought in for $3,000 (I was also in for $1,000 in each of three $10/$20 games). After about 18 seconds I was down to $2,500 in the $30/$60, not doing great in the other games and stuck about $3,000 for the day. SHIT!
But then I picked up AK three times in about 20 hands and won with all three. I was back to about $3,400 and I'd determined that the game was even better than I'd hoped. There were three guys who were constantly just calling before the flop which is a sign of real suckers in a short handed game.
Then I picked up TT on the button. Sure enough the first player to act just called $30 another player called behind him and I raised as I was thinking how great the game was. The big blind called and the original caller made it $90 to go. This made the alarm bells go off big time (ALERT! ALERT! We might have pocket aces!). The vast majority of the time people just call before the flop and then reraise it's AA in their hand. I called as did the other players and we took the flop 4 way.
While I was thinking about how sure I was that that one player had AA the flop came down T 3 3 and all of a sudden I was desperately hoping I was right! I almost couldn't believe it. I had to slow play a little here so I checked. To my insane delight the big blind and the original caller went to war with a bet, a raise, a reraise and a cap while I just called along! I thought to myself "Holy shit! I've flopped tens full against pocket aces and trip threes in an F-ing $30/$60 game! Yeah Baby!"
The turn was a Q which wasn't a great card, but I was pretty sure anything but an ace or a three was safe. I checked, the big blind bet $60, the other player just called and I raised to $120. Now the big blind went all in for a total of $175 which was great because it got the money in, but if he'd had more there's a chance the other player would have folded. Since it wasn't a full bet I couldn't raise again, but I did bet the river and got called. Sure enough I was up against AA and 7 3! I'd like to give the guy with 73 a little shout out and thank him for not folding before the flop (and for the $385 that he donated to me)! That pot was about $1,300 when it got pushed into my stack and I left the $30/$60 with a $1,400 profit in that game.
While I was done in the $30/$60 (the busted player and one other softy left and were replaced with some real players) I kept playing my other games and managed to cut my days losses all the way back down to about -$450. While I started the day with a win that felt like a loss with the set of 8's I finished they day with a net loss that feels almost like a win.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
A Fe w Comment Responses
First of all thanks to those of you who post comments. I love feed back on my posts as well as questions.
A while back now my sister asked:
I have 2 questions: First, when you went to the 1st WSOP, I remember you talking about being pretty nervous. There was a guy in the elevator with you who looked like he might crap his pants, if I remember correctly. Are you nervous this time around? Or is this getting easier and easier?
Second, since you play online mostly, you don't have to worry about tells. Are you worried about that at all now, or is a poker face easier to hold when you're only playing one hand at a time versus eight? Or does that have nothing to do with it?
Great questions! The most nervous I've ever been in my entire life was when I read a poem that I wrote for a girl to her as a way of asking her out when I was 16. About a third of the way into it I could tell by the look on her face that she was NOT receptive to my advances and was trying to figure out what the hell to say to me when I was done.
A close second was the first time I played a big buy in tournament. It was a $1,500 tournament at the L.A. Poker Classic in 2004 and before that my biggest tournament ever was a $215 buy in. I got pocket kings on the second hand and if you had a heart rate monitor on me I'd bet my pulse was around 175! While I was pretty nervous at my first WSOP after an hour or so I felt pretty comfortable and since I made the money in my first event ever I'd say the nerves didn't get the best of me.
This year I wasn't nervous at all. I think part of that is this was my fourth year at the WSOP and I've played close to 50 tournaments with buy ins over $1,000. I feel like I belong in those games, I know I'm good enough, and I expect that eventually I'll nail one of these babies for big money! It doesn't hurt that I've been having a strong year in the cash games so I wasn't really sweating the money.
As far as tells go, I'm always surprised how I get back into the groove after a long time away from in person games. It's hard for me to detect how much information I'm giving away, but as far as picking it up goes, I feel like I had great reads on my opponents for my entire stay at the WSOP. I'm always amazed when I play in person how much information people are giving away. If only I could play 500 hand an hour I'd play in person all the time!
Now on to another comment topic: the one Sunday I spent in Vegas. While I glossed over it originally I would like to say that it was great fun hanging out with my sister in law Kristen and her boyfriend Matt. While there were so many good times during that day that I could hardly mention them in one blog post I will point out the one major highlight which E.B. alluded to in his comment.
After I don't know how many hours of Pai Gow, Kristen, Matt, E.B. and I moved over to the craps table at the Paris. After a few bad shoots it was time for Kristen to roll the dice. For those of you who don't know anything about craps essentially one person keeps rolling the dice until they roll a 7. The longer a shoot goes on the better it is and the more numbers 4-10 that you repeat the better it is.
Before they pushed the dice to Kristen she warned us that it was going to be an amazing shoot and only a fool would do anything but bet more than they normally would. E.B. took this advice and instantly decided to double all of his normal bets which are already pretty sizable. I also decided to go from reserved mode to full out mode and since I'd been getting my ass kicked at Pai Gow and craps I was ready for a big turn around. That's exactly what I got.
Kristen then proceeded to roll 4,5,6,8,9 and 10 AT LEAST 3 times each (some of them hit 7 or 8 times) without ever rolling a 7. Given that there's a 16% chance of rolling a 7 on any given roll and it is the most likely roll this was a pretty amazing feat. Good work Kristen!
As as result of this shoot and the fact the E.B. won 9 out of 10, $100 bets that he placed on Kristen's hand at the Pai Gow table he's promised her a free room in Vegas any time that he's in town. Given the comps that E.B. gets at just about all the hotels in Vegas this amounts to the owner of a deli offering a free ham sandwich, but I know it's still appreciated by Kristen.
Thanks for the comments!
A while back now my sister asked:
I have 2 questions: First, when you went to the 1st WSOP, I remember you talking about being pretty nervous. There was a guy in the elevator with you who looked like he might crap his pants, if I remember correctly. Are you nervous this time around? Or is this getting easier and easier?
Second, since you play online mostly, you don't have to worry about tells. Are you worried about that at all now, or is a poker face easier to hold when you're only playing one hand at a time versus eight? Or does that have nothing to do with it?
Great questions! The most nervous I've ever been in my entire life was when I read a poem that I wrote for a girl to her as a way of asking her out when I was 16. About a third of the way into it I could tell by the look on her face that she was NOT receptive to my advances and was trying to figure out what the hell to say to me when I was done.
A close second was the first time I played a big buy in tournament. It was a $1,500 tournament at the L.A. Poker Classic in 2004 and before that my biggest tournament ever was a $215 buy in. I got pocket kings on the second hand and if you had a heart rate monitor on me I'd bet my pulse was around 175! While I was pretty nervous at my first WSOP after an hour or so I felt pretty comfortable and since I made the money in my first event ever I'd say the nerves didn't get the best of me.
This year I wasn't nervous at all. I think part of that is this was my fourth year at the WSOP and I've played close to 50 tournaments with buy ins over $1,000. I feel like I belong in those games, I know I'm good enough, and I expect that eventually I'll nail one of these babies for big money! It doesn't hurt that I've been having a strong year in the cash games so I wasn't really sweating the money.
As far as tells go, I'm always surprised how I get back into the groove after a long time away from in person games. It's hard for me to detect how much information I'm giving away, but as far as picking it up goes, I feel like I had great reads on my opponents for my entire stay at the WSOP. I'm always amazed when I play in person how much information people are giving away. If only I could play 500 hand an hour I'd play in person all the time!
Now on to another comment topic: the one Sunday I spent in Vegas. While I glossed over it originally I would like to say that it was great fun hanging out with my sister in law Kristen and her boyfriend Matt. While there were so many good times during that day that I could hardly mention them in one blog post I will point out the one major highlight which E.B. alluded to in his comment.
After I don't know how many hours of Pai Gow, Kristen, Matt, E.B. and I moved over to the craps table at the Paris. After a few bad shoots it was time for Kristen to roll the dice. For those of you who don't know anything about craps essentially one person keeps rolling the dice until they roll a 7. The longer a shoot goes on the better it is and the more numbers 4-10 that you repeat the better it is.
Before they pushed the dice to Kristen she warned us that it was going to be an amazing shoot and only a fool would do anything but bet more than they normally would. E.B. took this advice and instantly decided to double all of his normal bets which are already pretty sizable. I also decided to go from reserved mode to full out mode and since I'd been getting my ass kicked at Pai Gow and craps I was ready for a big turn around. That's exactly what I got.
Kristen then proceeded to roll 4,5,6,8,9 and 10 AT LEAST 3 times each (some of them hit 7 or 8 times) without ever rolling a 7. Given that there's a 16% chance of rolling a 7 on any given roll and it is the most likely roll this was a pretty amazing feat. Good work Kristen!
As as result of this shoot and the fact the E.B. won 9 out of 10, $100 bets that he placed on Kristen's hand at the Pai Gow table he's promised her a free room in Vegas any time that he's in town. Given the comps that E.B. gets at just about all the hotels in Vegas this amounts to the owner of a deli offering a free ham sandwich, but I know it's still appreciated by Kristen.
Thanks for the comments!
Monday, June 16, 2008
Non Poker Vegas Recap!
While the main purpose of my recent trip to Vegas was poker, there was a lot more going on during my stay.
I got to Vegas on Tuesday, played poker Wednesday and Thursday and after my money finish Thursday night I hooked up with my good friend (and original gambling mentor) E.B. at the Rio. My plan was to have one beer and play $25 a hand Pai Gow for about an hour or so before calling it a night. That plan lasted about 45 seconds.
While I did manage to have that one beer, I followed it with a shot of Grand Mariner every 15-20 minutes for the next few hours. Of course that whole $25 a hand business went out the window just as quickly and before I knew it I was drunk as a skunk with $200 on each of two hands! Amazingly I kept the damage to about -$500.
This was the beginning of what if things were going poorly you would call a massive Grand Mariner fueled bender. I gambled straight from late Thursday (or technically early Friday) until late Sunday (or technically early Monday) only stopping to eat and sleep. It was a pretty amazing thing to think back on and the only reason it went on like that was I was actually winning!
On Friday I checked into the Bellagio and met up with E.B., Jake, Chrissy, Jean, Chrissy's brother James, and eventually Jen. We spent most of the day playing Pai Gow and craps and everyone had pretty break even luck but lots of fun.
Saturday on the other hand was one of my top two or three of the 50+ days (it might be as many as 75) that I've spent in Vegas. After a late breakfast (still at the Bellagio) the ladies all went shopping and the men made their way to the Let it Ride table. Let it Ride is one of those games that the house has such a huge edge in that you can almost feel them sucking the money out of your pockets. But it's fun to play and if things go well they can go well in a hurry. They did and I picked up my first $500 of the day which was pretty amazing given it was a $10 table!
After a few hours of Letting it Ride, we jumped one table over to play black jack. I've played about 5 hours of black jack in my entire life so this was a little out of character. While black jack doesn't have a huge house edge it moves VERY fast and a streak in one direction or the other can leave your head spinning. Luckily I had a streak in the right direction betting between $25 and $75 a hand and left with another $500.
Then it was on to Pai Gow. This is our group's favorite casino game and we parked it there for quite a while. About 8 o'clock we started to think about dinner and decided to go big. By 8:15 we had a 9 o'clock (what are apparently hard to come by) reservation at Prime which is the steak house at the Bellagio.
The pit boss who'd made the reservations then told us that there was a dress code which was no tennis shoes and a collared shirt. Chrissy's brother (who was there because it was a gift from Chrissy) is a casual guy and had only tennis shoes and T-shirts with him. Also given the fact that he makes $8 an hour he was not in a position to run out at the Bellagio and buy himself some shoes.
But given that I was ahead about $1,700 on the day at that point and had been betting between $50 and $250 on single hands of Pai Gow for the previous 100 hands or so I decided I was going to buy James some shoes and a shirt. If nothing else I was sure he would remember where he got those shoes!
So we went off on a mission with about 40 minutes to find shoes and a shirt and make it to Prime by 9:00. E.B. and Jake came with us since for moral support and also because Jake needed a shirt as well. After a short jaunt into the Bellagio shops it was clear that they weren't going to suit our needs. While I was feeling generous we weren't going to find anything in our price range at Armani, Gucci, or Louis Vuitton.
So it was off to the Forum shops at Caesar's! After walking into a men's shoes store where the first pair of shoes I picked up cost $1,100, we decided to ask for some direction. Eventually we made our way to a place called The Walking Company where we found a wonderful sized 10 pair of shoes for $80 and after a quick trip over to the Gap for a $20 shirt we were in business.
By 9:05 we were all at the table at prime looking sharp. The steak I had there was maybe the best I've ever had which is saying something given how many steaks I've had in plenty of very nice restaurants. I guess that's what you get when you pay $60 for a fillet!
After dinner it was time for guess what? More gambling! We made out way over to the Paris and hit the craps table. Some amount of time later which could have been 1 hour or 4 hours, between Jen and I were were up $2,300 and I was up $3,900, a pair of shoes and a shirt on the day!
Sunday was another fairly break even day which in Vegas when you gamble all day is a success. The rest of the trip was uneventful, but costly as far as non poker gambling goes. I'm very good about keeping things in check when the luck goes south so I didn't blow back too much, but a good chunk of that $3,900 didn't make it home with me.
What's great is I pumped A TON of action through the casinos. Contrary to popular belief when they're giving out free rooms and other comps they don't care if you win or lose. They're only interested in your average bet size and the duration of your play. They know they're going to get you in the end so all they care about is how much you're willing to risk. I'm hoping to have a pretty nice train of free rooms lined up for the foreseeable future.
While it wasn't a profitable trip per se, it could have been much worse and I'm happy with the results. I now have 3 WSOP cashes in 19 tries and every time I go back I like my chances more and more. Thanks again for all of the good luck wishes and support from my friends and family!
The next big thing on the horizon is the WCOOP in September which will no doubt lead to a flurry of blog posts. For now it's back to the online cash games. I picked up a nice $1,200 win today so I'm actually feeling pretty good about getting back to my normal schedule. I'll try to keep you posted on any interesting happenings in my poker life!
I got to Vegas on Tuesday, played poker Wednesday and Thursday and after my money finish Thursday night I hooked up with my good friend (and original gambling mentor) E.B. at the Rio. My plan was to have one beer and play $25 a hand Pai Gow for about an hour or so before calling it a night. That plan lasted about 45 seconds.
While I did manage to have that one beer, I followed it with a shot of Grand Mariner every 15-20 minutes for the next few hours. Of course that whole $25 a hand business went out the window just as quickly and before I knew it I was drunk as a skunk with $200 on each of two hands! Amazingly I kept the damage to about -$500.
This was the beginning of what if things were going poorly you would call a massive Grand Mariner fueled bender. I gambled straight from late Thursday (or technically early Friday) until late Sunday (or technically early Monday) only stopping to eat and sleep. It was a pretty amazing thing to think back on and the only reason it went on like that was I was actually winning!
On Friday I checked into the Bellagio and met up with E.B., Jake, Chrissy, Jean, Chrissy's brother James, and eventually Jen. We spent most of the day playing Pai Gow and craps and everyone had pretty break even luck but lots of fun.
Saturday on the other hand was one of my top two or three of the 50+ days (it might be as many as 75) that I've spent in Vegas. After a late breakfast (still at the Bellagio) the ladies all went shopping and the men made their way to the Let it Ride table. Let it Ride is one of those games that the house has such a huge edge in that you can almost feel them sucking the money out of your pockets. But it's fun to play and if things go well they can go well in a hurry. They did and I picked up my first $500 of the day which was pretty amazing given it was a $10 table!
After a few hours of Letting it Ride, we jumped one table over to play black jack. I've played about 5 hours of black jack in my entire life so this was a little out of character. While black jack doesn't have a huge house edge it moves VERY fast and a streak in one direction or the other can leave your head spinning. Luckily I had a streak in the right direction betting between $25 and $75 a hand and left with another $500.
Then it was on to Pai Gow. This is our group's favorite casino game and we parked it there for quite a while. About 8 o'clock we started to think about dinner and decided to go big. By 8:15 we had a 9 o'clock (what are apparently hard to come by) reservation at Prime which is the steak house at the Bellagio.
The pit boss who'd made the reservations then told us that there was a dress code which was no tennis shoes and a collared shirt. Chrissy's brother (who was there because it was a gift from Chrissy) is a casual guy and had only tennis shoes and T-shirts with him. Also given the fact that he makes $8 an hour he was not in a position to run out at the Bellagio and buy himself some shoes.
But given that I was ahead about $1,700 on the day at that point and had been betting between $50 and $250 on single hands of Pai Gow for the previous 100 hands or so I decided I was going to buy James some shoes and a shirt. If nothing else I was sure he would remember where he got those shoes!
So we went off on a mission with about 40 minutes to find shoes and a shirt and make it to Prime by 9:00. E.B. and Jake came with us since for moral support and also because Jake needed a shirt as well. After a short jaunt into the Bellagio shops it was clear that they weren't going to suit our needs. While I was feeling generous we weren't going to find anything in our price range at Armani, Gucci, or Louis Vuitton.
So it was off to the Forum shops at Caesar's! After walking into a men's shoes store where the first pair of shoes I picked up cost $1,100, we decided to ask for some direction. Eventually we made our way to a place called The Walking Company where we found a wonderful sized 10 pair of shoes for $80 and after a quick trip over to the Gap for a $20 shirt we were in business.
By 9:05 we were all at the table at prime looking sharp. The steak I had there was maybe the best I've ever had which is saying something given how many steaks I've had in plenty of very nice restaurants. I guess that's what you get when you pay $60 for a fillet!
After dinner it was time for guess what? More gambling! We made out way over to the Paris and hit the craps table. Some amount of time later which could have been 1 hour or 4 hours, between Jen and I were were up $2,300 and I was up $3,900, a pair of shoes and a shirt on the day!
Sunday was another fairly break even day which in Vegas when you gamble all day is a success. The rest of the trip was uneventful, but costly as far as non poker gambling goes. I'm very good about keeping things in check when the luck goes south so I didn't blow back too much, but a good chunk of that $3,900 didn't make it home with me.
What's great is I pumped A TON of action through the casinos. Contrary to popular belief when they're giving out free rooms and other comps they don't care if you win or lose. They're only interested in your average bet size and the duration of your play. They know they're going to get you in the end so all they care about is how much you're willing to risk. I'm hoping to have a pretty nice train of free rooms lined up for the foreseeable future.
While it wasn't a profitable trip per se, it could have been much worse and I'm happy with the results. I now have 3 WSOP cashes in 19 tries and every time I go back I like my chances more and more. Thanks again for all of the good luck wishes and support from my friends and family!
The next big thing on the horizon is the WCOOP in September which will no doubt lead to a flurry of blog posts. For now it's back to the online cash games. I picked up a nice $1,200 win today so I'm actually feeling pretty good about getting back to my normal schedule. I'll try to keep you posted on any interesting happenings in my poker life!
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Double Event Recap!
Sorry for all the massive delays on my blogging. I really did have a tough time with the Internet once I left the Rio.
I am currently sitting in the airport waiting for my delayed flight out of Vegas. Given that fact I'm guessing you can figure out how my last tournament went. But for those of you who are still interested even though the drama is now over I'll give you a brief recap.
Let me start with the $1,500 shootout. This event was limited to exactly 1,000 players who all started 10 to a table. Each group of 10 played amongst themselves until only 1 remained. The 100 players who won their first table were then put at 10 tables of 10 where they repeated the same process. The final 10 players then came back the next day to play for the title. Winning your initial table was worth about $5,500 and that was my goal when I sat down.
I got stuck with a tough table. It was clear that 4 of the players at my table other than myself were poker pros who were in town to play a slew of tournaments. Luckily 3 of those players were the first three out!
I managed a quick double up and once most of the tough players were gone I was feeling pretty good about my chances. But then I lost a few all ins against short stacks and found myself back to about even.
About two and a half hours into the tournament I made a bold play that didn't work out. There were 6 of us left, the blinds were 100/200 and a player who had been raising very frequently raised to 500. I was in the big blind with about 3,000 chips and decided to put in another 300 to call with 67 of hearts.
The flop came down T 8 7 with one heart. I checked and my opponent bet 325 into the 1,100 chip pot. I thought for about 10 seconds and then moved all in for 2,500 expecting to win the 1,425 in the pot without a call. I was hoping he had big cards or even a pocket pair below 7 since I would be way ahead against both and would almost certainly win the pot right there. I'd been thinking about check raising all in no matter how much he bet and I thought that the 325 bet looked very weak. Also even if I was up against a hand like AT I'd have almost a 40% chance to win by making two pair, a straight or a flush.
Sadly my opponent had JJ and instantly called. This was a bad hand for me to be up against since a 9 (the one card I was almost sure would make me the best hand) would no longer make me a winner. I couldn't find a 6 or a 7 and I was out.
Now on to the $2,000 limit event! I started this tournament feeling extremely confident. All I've been doing for the past 6 months is playing limit hold 'em and my game felt really sharp. Another reason why I felt good was I knew no one hand early on would be then end of me and I'd have a chance to see plenty of hands before my fate was decided.
I started off at a GREAT table. No one there could play at all! I couldn't believe it. It was a weird combination of people that flat out hand no clue and a few others who I suspected were probably no limit players and were having trouble adjusting to the structured betting. Or maybe they were just all morons. Even though I got terrible cards for the first few hours I did make a flush and a top two pair and got crazy action on both.
At my best I was up to about 7,000 from my 4,000 chip starting stack. Around that time (about 3 hours into play) I got moved to a new table and discovered I was sitting right next to Phil Hellmuth!
Phil is arguably the most successful person in WSOP history. In addition to being the youngest world champ ever (he won the main event in 1989 at the age of 24) He has the most bracelets (11), the most money finishes (over 60) and the most final tables (an astounding over 40). This means that of all the WSOP events that have ever been played (a little over 600) he's made the money in 10% of them made the final table in about 7% of them and won about 1 in 60 of them. That is totally insane. He didn't even start playing until at least 14 years after the WSOP started and can't have played more than half since then!
Anyway while you never want to see skilled players at your table it's cool to play against one of the worlds best and see how he does things close up. I beat him out of one small pot, but other than that I never really got involved in a pot with him.
As soon as I got moved to that table I went totally card dead. I only saw one flop in 2 hours (about 70 hands)and I didn't fold anything that was even close.
About 5 hours into play I got moved again and found myself back to my 4,000 chip starting stack. The blinds were up to 150/300 and I finally found an hand. The button raised and I made it 900 to go with AQ in the small blind. The big blind folded and the flop came down 7 5 3. I bet and my opponent called. The turn was a 9 and I bet again. My opponent called again and the river was a J. I checked and he bet. I didn't have anything, but there was so much in the pot and it was only costing me 600 to call so I hand to do just that to police a bluff. My opponent flipped over A9 and took the pot.
If anything but a 9 comes on the turn I almost certainly win right there and there was only a 1 in 15 shot of a 9 coming on the turn. I waited 3 hours patiently to get my money in with the best of it and I feel like I succeeded even though I didn't win the pot.
After losing that one and going through the blinds again I was down to about 1,500 when I picked up AJ of diamonds on the button. The player to my right just called (a weird play), I raised and the small blind three bet. The first player just called and thinking I was pretty much committed I decided to make it 1,200 to go. Of course they both called and the flop came down 4 5 6 with two spades. The small blind checked, the other player bet, I went all in for my last 300, and the small blind called. The turn was an 8 and the action went check, call. The river was a ten and the action went check, bet, fold. My one remaining opponent turned over T7 of spades for a straight and I was out.
I have no idea why you would just call with T7 suited at this stage of the tournament and then call after a raise and a reraise. It made no sense. I don't know what the other player had and there's a good chance I would have lost all of my chips anyway, but it still sucks to lose to someone who has no clue.
I feel like if I played this tournament 100 times I'd have at least 30 finishes in the top 10%. I might have to focus on hitting some more limit tournaments in the near future.
Of course there was some other Vegas drama on the 3 days between tournaments. I'll fill you all in on that in my next post which should be sometime tomorrow or the next day. I'll also include a general recap of this years WSOP and give some final thoughts.
For my backers I'll send you an e-mail letting you know exactly how much money you're getting back in the next day or two. I lost $4,135 playing poker and I certainly used my $1,000 allotted for expenses so you'll all be getting back 60.5% (That's $7,865 which is what I had left of my $13,000 bankroll plus expenses divided by $13,000) of your investment. Not great, but better than zero. Thanks again for taking a chance on me!
I am currently sitting in the airport waiting for my delayed flight out of Vegas. Given that fact I'm guessing you can figure out how my last tournament went. But for those of you who are still interested even though the drama is now over I'll give you a brief recap.
Let me start with the $1,500 shootout. This event was limited to exactly 1,000 players who all started 10 to a table. Each group of 10 played amongst themselves until only 1 remained. The 100 players who won their first table were then put at 10 tables of 10 where they repeated the same process. The final 10 players then came back the next day to play for the title. Winning your initial table was worth about $5,500 and that was my goal when I sat down.
I got stuck with a tough table. It was clear that 4 of the players at my table other than myself were poker pros who were in town to play a slew of tournaments. Luckily 3 of those players were the first three out!
I managed a quick double up and once most of the tough players were gone I was feeling pretty good about my chances. But then I lost a few all ins against short stacks and found myself back to about even.
About two and a half hours into the tournament I made a bold play that didn't work out. There were 6 of us left, the blinds were 100/200 and a player who had been raising very frequently raised to 500. I was in the big blind with about 3,000 chips and decided to put in another 300 to call with 67 of hearts.
The flop came down T 8 7 with one heart. I checked and my opponent bet 325 into the 1,100 chip pot. I thought for about 10 seconds and then moved all in for 2,500 expecting to win the 1,425 in the pot without a call. I was hoping he had big cards or even a pocket pair below 7 since I would be way ahead against both and would almost certainly win the pot right there. I'd been thinking about check raising all in no matter how much he bet and I thought that the 325 bet looked very weak. Also even if I was up against a hand like AT I'd have almost a 40% chance to win by making two pair, a straight or a flush.
Sadly my opponent had JJ and instantly called. This was a bad hand for me to be up against since a 9 (the one card I was almost sure would make me the best hand) would no longer make me a winner. I couldn't find a 6 or a 7 and I was out.
Now on to the $2,000 limit event! I started this tournament feeling extremely confident. All I've been doing for the past 6 months is playing limit hold 'em and my game felt really sharp. Another reason why I felt good was I knew no one hand early on would be then end of me and I'd have a chance to see plenty of hands before my fate was decided.
I started off at a GREAT table. No one there could play at all! I couldn't believe it. It was a weird combination of people that flat out hand no clue and a few others who I suspected were probably no limit players and were having trouble adjusting to the structured betting. Or maybe they were just all morons. Even though I got terrible cards for the first few hours I did make a flush and a top two pair and got crazy action on both.
At my best I was up to about 7,000 from my 4,000 chip starting stack. Around that time (about 3 hours into play) I got moved to a new table and discovered I was sitting right next to Phil Hellmuth!
Phil is arguably the most successful person in WSOP history. In addition to being the youngest world champ ever (he won the main event in 1989 at the age of 24) He has the most bracelets (11), the most money finishes (over 60) and the most final tables (an astounding over 40). This means that of all the WSOP events that have ever been played (a little over 600) he's made the money in 10% of them made the final table in about 7% of them and won about 1 in 60 of them. That is totally insane. He didn't even start playing until at least 14 years after the WSOP started and can't have played more than half since then!
Anyway while you never want to see skilled players at your table it's cool to play against one of the worlds best and see how he does things close up. I beat him out of one small pot, but other than that I never really got involved in a pot with him.
As soon as I got moved to that table I went totally card dead. I only saw one flop in 2 hours (about 70 hands)and I didn't fold anything that was even close.
About 5 hours into play I got moved again and found myself back to my 4,000 chip starting stack. The blinds were up to 150/300 and I finally found an hand. The button raised and I made it 900 to go with AQ in the small blind. The big blind folded and the flop came down 7 5 3. I bet and my opponent called. The turn was a 9 and I bet again. My opponent called again and the river was a J. I checked and he bet. I didn't have anything, but there was so much in the pot and it was only costing me 600 to call so I hand to do just that to police a bluff. My opponent flipped over A9 and took the pot.
If anything but a 9 comes on the turn I almost certainly win right there and there was only a 1 in 15 shot of a 9 coming on the turn. I waited 3 hours patiently to get my money in with the best of it and I feel like I succeeded even though I didn't win the pot.
After losing that one and going through the blinds again I was down to about 1,500 when I picked up AJ of diamonds on the button. The player to my right just called (a weird play), I raised and the small blind three bet. The first player just called and thinking I was pretty much committed I decided to make it 1,200 to go. Of course they both called and the flop came down 4 5 6 with two spades. The small blind checked, the other player bet, I went all in for my last 300, and the small blind called. The turn was an 8 and the action went check, call. The river was a ten and the action went check, bet, fold. My one remaining opponent turned over T7 of spades for a straight and I was out.
I have no idea why you would just call with T7 suited at this stage of the tournament and then call after a raise and a reraise. It made no sense. I don't know what the other player had and there's a good chance I would have lost all of my chips anyway, but it still sucks to lose to someone who has no clue.
I feel like if I played this tournament 100 times I'd have at least 30 finishes in the top 10%. I might have to focus on hitting some more limit tournaments in the near future.
Of course there was some other Vegas drama on the 3 days between tournaments. I'll fill you all in on that in my next post which should be sometime tomorrow or the next day. I'll also include a general recap of this years WSOP and give some final thoughts.
For my backers I'll send you an e-mail letting you know exactly how much money you're getting back in the next day or two. I lost $4,135 playing poker and I certainly used my $1,000 allotted for expenses so you'll all be getting back 60.5% (That's $7,865 which is what I had left of my $13,000 bankroll plus expenses divided by $13,000) of your investment. Not great, but better than zero. Thanks again for taking a chance on me!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Another Update From Jen
I just got a call from Dave so I figured I'd write a quick post in case anyone is checking how he's doing tonight.
Today's event was a $2000 limit Hold'em and it started at 5pm, so they'll be playing pretty late to get down to the money. As of 9:30 Dave has turned his original 4000 chips into about 7000. The average stack is 5000 so he's doing pretty well. There are 380 players left out of 480 who started. Since it's limit it moves slowly in the beginning.
He couldn't tell me much because his cell phone is dying, but he's sitting next to Phil Helmuth, which is cool.
Today's event was a $2000 limit Hold'em and it started at 5pm, so they'll be playing pretty late to get down to the money. As of 9:30 Dave has turned his original 4000 chips into about 7000. The average stack is 5000 so he's doing pretty well. There are 380 players left out of 480 who started. Since it's limit it moves slowly in the beginning.
He couldn't tell me much because his cell phone is dying, but he's sitting next to Phil Helmuth, which is cool.
Monday, June 09, 2008
A Quick Update
This is Jen with a quick update from Dave.
He is having trouble with his internet connection so he wanted me to let you know that he skipped Saturday's tournament, is eliminated from today's and will be playing in one tomorrow (Tuesday).
He hopes to give you details on everything soon!
He is having trouble with his internet connection so he wanted me to let you know that he skipped Saturday's tournament, is eliminated from today's and will be playing in one tomorrow (Tuesday).
He hopes to give you details on everything soon!
Friday, June 06, 2008
Event #9 ($1,500 NL Six Handed) Recap
Sorry for the delay in my recap. After I was done playing yesterday I went out for some traditional Vegas style fun with E.B. and didn't make it back to my room until around 5 am. Don't worry I'm not playing any poker today!
Also sorry for any typos in the post I had to put it up quickly before the kick me out of the Rio!
We started with 1,262 players all looking to get their hands on the $370,000+ first place prize and I got off to a great start. In the first half an hour or so I picked up AK, the flop came A high and I managed to get all of the chips of the poor fellow who had A3 and got a little out of line. An early double up is a HUGE advantage. Since everyone else at my table still only around 3,000 chips (which is how much we all started with) and I had close to 6,000 even if I lost a big hand, until someone else managed to accumulate some chips the worst I could end up after even a terrible hand was back where I started.
A few hand later I busted the fellow who came to replace the one who was already out the door. He made a standard raise and I just called with 77. The flop came 8 5 4, he made a big bet and I moved all in. I was figuring that it was unlikely that he hit that flop given that he came in raising in first position and even if he did hit a piece of it I thought it would be tough for him to call all of his chips. He thought for a long time after I put him all in, but he finally called with K8. Luckily the turn was a 6 making me a straight!
I won a few other little pots and was up to about 10,000 chips 90 minutes in, when my next major hand came up. One player just called the 100 chip big blind, I raised to 350 with KK and both the button and the other player just called. The flop came down T 9 5 with two hearts, the first player to act bet 400 and I made it 2,500 to go which was just enough to put him all in. To my dismay the button who had the second most chips on the table moved all in for about 6,000. The first player folded and I had a big decision to make. After about 90 seconds of thought I decided to call and he showed me 99 for three of a kind. The turn put up another 9 and I was back to where I started at around 3,000 chips.
After coming back from break I got very lucky. With the blinds at 100/200 the player on the button just called as did the small blind and with 2,700 in my stack I looked down at 97 suited in the big blind. The two callers were both VERY weak players and I thought to myself "There's no way these guys can call if I move all in." So that's what I did. And the player on the button INSTANTLY called. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! He turned over AK suited which put my at about a 2 to 1 underdog. But the flop came with a 9, no aces or king showed up and I was in business.
On the very next hand a player moved all in for 1,200 with 55, I called him with A8, I flopped and 8 and took him down. Then three or four hand later I got KK again. My buddy who'd made four of a kind the last time I had pocked kings raised, I reraised and he moved all in. This time there was no doubt about what I should do and I instantly called. He turned over two tens and I doubled up again!
I went from 2,700 to 14,000 in just under 10 minutes! That was pretty awesome. The average stack was still less than 5,000 and I was again in great shape.
For the next few hours I waded my way though the tournament with no major memorable pots, but I did make some progress. After about 4 hours of play I got moved to a new table and while I wasn't the big stack at my table any more I was still aggressive. I made a few nice bluffs, won a few small pots, and gradually made it up to 21,000 chips.
Now I was starting to think about making the money. We were down to about 250 players with the top 126 getting paid and I knew that if I could just maintain my stack let alone pick up more chips I'd have 2/3 of average when we made it to the money.
After close to 6 hours of play just before the 90 minute dinner break I had a major hand come up. The blinds were 200/400 and I was first to act. I looked down to see that I had AA! Pocked aces baby! Somebody get crazy! I raised to 1,200 and after some thought the guy to my left moved all in for 10,000!!! This is the kind of stuff you dream about. The thing that's so powerful about AA is NO MATTER WHAT HE HAD he'd be no better than 20% to win.
After everyone else folded I double checked my hand to make sure it wasn't actually A4 and then I called. My opponent let out a big sigh and turned over K9 off suit. King nine? What!? This was a totally insane thing to do, but sometimes people just lose their focus.
The flop came down 9 7 3, the turn was a ten and the river was...a king! AHHHHHHHHHHH! If I'd won that pot I would have had over 35,000 chips and instead I was down to about 12,000. At least I had the whole dinner break to try and forget about that hand.
Jake, Chrissy, and Chrissy's brother James came over from the MGM where they are staying to join me for dinner at Buzio's which is a great seafood restaurant here at the Rio. I had some crab cake and some sea bass and then in was back to business!
When I came back from dinner we were down to 192 players, but I knew I'd needed to make some progress to make it to the top 126. The blinds were 300/600 with a 50 chip ante so if I just sat there every 6 hands would cost me 1,200 and I'd quickly get ground down. But that's just what I did. Again through a series of blind steals and small pots I made it back over 20,000.
Then I started to regress. Getting so close to the money I didn't want to take too many chances and my stack started to slowly erode. By our next break after 8 hours of play and ten and half hours after the first card was dealt I was back down to 12,000. But we were down to 127 players! One short of the money. At that point I knew I had it.
In the hand just before we went on break there was high drama at my table. The player to my right who had about 20,000 chips raised to 2,000 the player to his left (who had 30,000 chips) made it 6,000 to go. The first player counted his chips and thought and then thought some more and then moved all in. The fellow with more chips instantly called and turned over AA. The other guy turned over KK and put his head down on the table in a sign of defeat. The flop brought all small cards, the turn was a blank and the river was...a king! The guy who won screamed "YEEESSSSSSS!" and put his arm up in the air. After the turn card came there was only a 1 in 23 shot of a king coming on the river and instead of being the last one out before the money, that guy made it to day 2.
When we got back from break we lost that last player and I was in the money! Yay! 126th paid about $2,300 but I was hoping to go a little deeper.
I got aggressive and ran my stack back up to 20,000. Then with the blinds at 500/1000 with a 100 chip ante I picked up AK and raised to 3,500. The player two to my left (the guy who'd lost with the AA to KK) moved all in for about 25,000. This was a big decision and if we'd been just short of the money I would have folded. In fact I'd never had my whole stack in the pot since I beat AK with 97 (if you never get your whole stack in there you can never go broke!). I thought it was likely he had a pair like JJ. I was confident that if he'd had AA or KK (which were the only hands I was really worried about) he would have made a smaller reraise and I thought there was some chance he might hand AQ or AJ which would put me at about 70% to win. So I called. He turned over AQ (YES!) and the flop came with a king (double YES!).
All of a sudden I was up to 40,000 and starting to dream big. But I lost back 10,000 on the very next hand with 99 against 33 (he made a straight) and then I went kind of card dead.
5 minutes before the end of Day 1 with about 25,000 left I picked up JJ on the button. I raised, the small blind reraised and I moved all in. He had KK and just like that I was done.
I finished in 76th place and got paid $3,205 which was profit of $1,700. It was a long day (it was about 1 in the morning when I went broke), but a successful one.
Now I'm off to the Bellagio! No tournament today, but I'll be back in the saddle on Saturday. I'll try to put up a preview before the tournament starts.
Also sorry for any typos in the post I had to put it up quickly before the kick me out of the Rio!
We started with 1,262 players all looking to get their hands on the $370,000+ first place prize and I got off to a great start. In the first half an hour or so I picked up AK, the flop came A high and I managed to get all of the chips of the poor fellow who had A3 and got a little out of line. An early double up is a HUGE advantage. Since everyone else at my table still only around 3,000 chips (which is how much we all started with) and I had close to 6,000 even if I lost a big hand, until someone else managed to accumulate some chips the worst I could end up after even a terrible hand was back where I started.
A few hand later I busted the fellow who came to replace the one who was already out the door. He made a standard raise and I just called with 77. The flop came 8 5 4, he made a big bet and I moved all in. I was figuring that it was unlikely that he hit that flop given that he came in raising in first position and even if he did hit a piece of it I thought it would be tough for him to call all of his chips. He thought for a long time after I put him all in, but he finally called with K8. Luckily the turn was a 6 making me a straight!
I won a few other little pots and was up to about 10,000 chips 90 minutes in, when my next major hand came up. One player just called the 100 chip big blind, I raised to 350 with KK and both the button and the other player just called. The flop came down T 9 5 with two hearts, the first player to act bet 400 and I made it 2,500 to go which was just enough to put him all in. To my dismay the button who had the second most chips on the table moved all in for about 6,000. The first player folded and I had a big decision to make. After about 90 seconds of thought I decided to call and he showed me 99 for three of a kind. The turn put up another 9 and I was back to where I started at around 3,000 chips.
After coming back from break I got very lucky. With the blinds at 100/200 the player on the button just called as did the small blind and with 2,700 in my stack I looked down at 97 suited in the big blind. The two callers were both VERY weak players and I thought to myself "There's no way these guys can call if I move all in." So that's what I did. And the player on the button INSTANTLY called. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! He turned over AK suited which put my at about a 2 to 1 underdog. But the flop came with a 9, no aces or king showed up and I was in business.
On the very next hand a player moved all in for 1,200 with 55, I called him with A8, I flopped and 8 and took him down. Then three or four hand later I got KK again. My buddy who'd made four of a kind the last time I had pocked kings raised, I reraised and he moved all in. This time there was no doubt about what I should do and I instantly called. He turned over two tens and I doubled up again!
I went from 2,700 to 14,000 in just under 10 minutes! That was pretty awesome. The average stack was still less than 5,000 and I was again in great shape.
For the next few hours I waded my way though the tournament with no major memorable pots, but I did make some progress. After about 4 hours of play I got moved to a new table and while I wasn't the big stack at my table any more I was still aggressive. I made a few nice bluffs, won a few small pots, and gradually made it up to 21,000 chips.
Now I was starting to think about making the money. We were down to about 250 players with the top 126 getting paid and I knew that if I could just maintain my stack let alone pick up more chips I'd have 2/3 of average when we made it to the money.
After close to 6 hours of play just before the 90 minute dinner break I had a major hand come up. The blinds were 200/400 and I was first to act. I looked down to see that I had AA! Pocked aces baby! Somebody get crazy! I raised to 1,200 and after some thought the guy to my left moved all in for 10,000!!! This is the kind of stuff you dream about. The thing that's so powerful about AA is NO MATTER WHAT HE HAD he'd be no better than 20% to win.
After everyone else folded I double checked my hand to make sure it wasn't actually A4 and then I called. My opponent let out a big sigh and turned over K9 off suit. King nine? What!? This was a totally insane thing to do, but sometimes people just lose their focus.
The flop came down 9 7 3, the turn was a ten and the river was...a king! AHHHHHHHHHHH! If I'd won that pot I would have had over 35,000 chips and instead I was down to about 12,000. At least I had the whole dinner break to try and forget about that hand.
Jake, Chrissy, and Chrissy's brother James came over from the MGM where they are staying to join me for dinner at Buzio's which is a great seafood restaurant here at the Rio. I had some crab cake and some sea bass and then in was back to business!
When I came back from dinner we were down to 192 players, but I knew I'd needed to make some progress to make it to the top 126. The blinds were 300/600 with a 50 chip ante so if I just sat there every 6 hands would cost me 1,200 and I'd quickly get ground down. But that's just what I did. Again through a series of blind steals and small pots I made it back over 20,000.
Then I started to regress. Getting so close to the money I didn't want to take too many chances and my stack started to slowly erode. By our next break after 8 hours of play and ten and half hours after the first card was dealt I was back down to 12,000. But we were down to 127 players! One short of the money. At that point I knew I had it.
In the hand just before we went on break there was high drama at my table. The player to my right who had about 20,000 chips raised to 2,000 the player to his left (who had 30,000 chips) made it 6,000 to go. The first player counted his chips and thought and then thought some more and then moved all in. The fellow with more chips instantly called and turned over AA. The other guy turned over KK and put his head down on the table in a sign of defeat. The flop brought all small cards, the turn was a blank and the river was...a king! The guy who won screamed "YEEESSSSSSS!" and put his arm up in the air. After the turn card came there was only a 1 in 23 shot of a king coming on the river and instead of being the last one out before the money, that guy made it to day 2.
When we got back from break we lost that last player and I was in the money! Yay! 126th paid about $2,300 but I was hoping to go a little deeper.
I got aggressive and ran my stack back up to 20,000. Then with the blinds at 500/1000 with a 100 chip ante I picked up AK and raised to 3,500. The player two to my left (the guy who'd lost with the AA to KK) moved all in for about 25,000. This was a big decision and if we'd been just short of the money I would have folded. In fact I'd never had my whole stack in the pot since I beat AK with 97 (if you never get your whole stack in there you can never go broke!). I thought it was likely he had a pair like JJ. I was confident that if he'd had AA or KK (which were the only hands I was really worried about) he would have made a smaller reraise and I thought there was some chance he might hand AQ or AJ which would put me at about 70% to win. So I called. He turned over AQ (YES!) and the flop came with a king (double YES!).
All of a sudden I was up to 40,000 and starting to dream big. But I lost back 10,000 on the very next hand with 99 against 33 (he made a straight) and then I went kind of card dead.
5 minutes before the end of Day 1 with about 25,000 left I picked up JJ on the button. I raised, the small blind reraised and I moved all in. He had KK and just like that I was done.
I finished in 76th place and got paid $3,205 which was profit of $1,700. It was a long day (it was about 1 in the morning when I went broke), but a successful one.
Now I'm off to the Bellagio! No tournament today, but I'll be back in the saddle on Saturday. I'll try to put up a preview before the tournament starts.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
$340 Tournament Recap
After going broke early in Event #7 I decided to play one of the daily tournaments here at the Rio. The tournament started with 262 entrants and paid 27 places with 27th being $762 gross. First place was a little over $18,000 and I had my eye on 8th place which paid $2,400 or enough to get me even for the day.
After looking back on this post I think it might be a little over the top for those of you who aren't poker savy. But I'd encourage you to read it anyway and let me know what is confusing. All of this stuff it totally second nature to me at this point so it's tough for me to figure out what's easy to understand and what's not. If you'd like you can scroll down to where it says SERIOUS POKER TALK OVER!
My luck picked up right where it left off earlier in the day. We started with 5,000 in chips, 30 minute levels, and blinds of 25/50. Just after the blinds went up to 50/100 I looked down at 88 and after one player raised it to 300 and another called, I made it 900 to go. A total nut job to my left threw in his last 800 and both of the other players folded.
I was shocked when he turned over his cards - he had 24 of diamonds! Deuce four? You called your last chips with deuce four? I knew the competition in this tournament was going to be weak, but this was just plain nuts. I was a 4 to 1 favorite when the money went in and when the flop came down 567 with one diamond I was still 78% to win. But after a diamond on the turn and a diamond on the river my opponent got the pot.
A little over an hour into the action I got moved to a new table and shortly after I arrived I picked up 66 and raised to 600. I got one caller and the flop came down AQ3 all spades (I didn't have a spade). I checked planning on folding to just about any bet, but my opponent check behind me. The turn was an off suit ten and I bet 800 into the 1,500 chip pot. My opponent thought for a few seconds and then called. The river was a non spade K and I decided to fire again. I put him on a small to medium pair (something like 88 or 99) with a spade and certainly if he had a hand like that he'd be forced to fold. In fact I figured he might even fold a hand as strong as a middle two pair. I bet 1,700 into the 3,100 chip pot, my opponent instantly called and turned over JJ with the J of spades.
This is a hand that I'm not sure if I played right. I was VERY surprised to see JJ since 95% of players would reraise before the flop with such a strong hand. I'm guessing he thought that when I checked to flop it meant that I'd really nailed it and was slowplaying. Both his check on the flop and call on the turn were both telling me that he was weak, but part of me wonders if I could have just checked the river and given up. I'd welcome comments from my poker savy readers on this one.
The last hand of this tournament for me was one I am sure that I played correctly. With blinds of 100/200 I was down to 1,700 chips with 200 of those in the big blind. The first player to act just called the big blind as did FOUR other players in front of me. I was planning on moving all in with anything but the very worst of hands and even then I was going to think about it.
The reason why I liked this spot so much was everyone had a chance to raise and if anyone had a strong hand they would have done it already. The only one I was really worried about was that first guy because he could have limped in with a hand like AA or KK hoping to reraise any raisers. I was confident none of the other players had a hand they could call another 1,500 with when they'd already passed on the chance to raise. Furthermore there was already 1,200 in the pot and I only had to risk 1,500 to pick it up in a spot where I figured everyone would fold. And even if I got called I'd still have a chance to win a now even bigger pot.
When I looked down at A7 it was a no brainer all in. The first guy (the one I was worried about) thought for about 5 seconds and then went all in for about 3,000 total. I thought I might be against a hand like 66 or 88, but when he flipped up his cards he had QJs. This is a total novice type play. When you first start playing two suited face cards look like just about the best hand you could find. The problem is you run into so many hands like AJ and AQ that have you dominated that you have no chance in the long run playing those kind of cards against all in bets.
When all the money went in I was 52% to win and I was getting almost 2 to 1 on my investment in the pot. While I would have preferred to win without any chance of going broke even if I was certain he was going to call I still would have made the same move. Like my friend with the 24, he flopped one of his suit and the made a runner, runner flush. I was only about 200 spots from my 8th place goal! In order to do well in the tournaments not only do you have to win one of these hands, you have to win quite a few. And so far I haven't been able to win even the ones where I'm way ahead let alone 50/50.
SERIOUS POKER TALK OVER!!!
For those of you that missed it, I went broke well short of the money in unspectacular fashion. Now I'm tired! Sorry to drag you all the way down here for nothing! Oh I did play some craps with T.J. Cloutier after I went broke. I suppose that's of interest. For those of you who don't know who that is, he has 6 WSOP bracelets and over 9 million dollars in career tournament winnings. He's also a craps junkie and kind of a prick! But he is famous so I thought I'd mention him.
After looking back on this post I think it might be a little over the top for those of you who aren't poker savy. But I'd encourage you to read it anyway and let me know what is confusing. All of this stuff it totally second nature to me at this point so it's tough for me to figure out what's easy to understand and what's not. If you'd like you can scroll down to where it says SERIOUS POKER TALK OVER!
My luck picked up right where it left off earlier in the day. We started with 5,000 in chips, 30 minute levels, and blinds of 25/50. Just after the blinds went up to 50/100 I looked down at 88 and after one player raised it to 300 and another called, I made it 900 to go. A total nut job to my left threw in his last 800 and both of the other players folded.
I was shocked when he turned over his cards - he had 24 of diamonds! Deuce four? You called your last chips with deuce four? I knew the competition in this tournament was going to be weak, but this was just plain nuts. I was a 4 to 1 favorite when the money went in and when the flop came down 567 with one diamond I was still 78% to win. But after a diamond on the turn and a diamond on the river my opponent got the pot.
A little over an hour into the action I got moved to a new table and shortly after I arrived I picked up 66 and raised to 600. I got one caller and the flop came down AQ3 all spades (I didn't have a spade). I checked planning on folding to just about any bet, but my opponent check behind me. The turn was an off suit ten and I bet 800 into the 1,500 chip pot. My opponent thought for a few seconds and then called. The river was a non spade K and I decided to fire again. I put him on a small to medium pair (something like 88 or 99) with a spade and certainly if he had a hand like that he'd be forced to fold. In fact I figured he might even fold a hand as strong as a middle two pair. I bet 1,700 into the 3,100 chip pot, my opponent instantly called and turned over JJ with the J of spades.
This is a hand that I'm not sure if I played right. I was VERY surprised to see JJ since 95% of players would reraise before the flop with such a strong hand. I'm guessing he thought that when I checked to flop it meant that I'd really nailed it and was slowplaying. Both his check on the flop and call on the turn were both telling me that he was weak, but part of me wonders if I could have just checked the river and given up. I'd welcome comments from my poker savy readers on this one.
The last hand of this tournament for me was one I am sure that I played correctly. With blinds of 100/200 I was down to 1,700 chips with 200 of those in the big blind. The first player to act just called the big blind as did FOUR other players in front of me. I was planning on moving all in with anything but the very worst of hands and even then I was going to think about it.
The reason why I liked this spot so much was everyone had a chance to raise and if anyone had a strong hand they would have done it already. The only one I was really worried about was that first guy because he could have limped in with a hand like AA or KK hoping to reraise any raisers. I was confident none of the other players had a hand they could call another 1,500 with when they'd already passed on the chance to raise. Furthermore there was already 1,200 in the pot and I only had to risk 1,500 to pick it up in a spot where I figured everyone would fold. And even if I got called I'd still have a chance to win a now even bigger pot.
When I looked down at A7 it was a no brainer all in. The first guy (the one I was worried about) thought for about 5 seconds and then went all in for about 3,000 total. I thought I might be against a hand like 66 or 88, but when he flipped up his cards he had QJs. This is a total novice type play. When you first start playing two suited face cards look like just about the best hand you could find. The problem is you run into so many hands like AJ and AQ that have you dominated that you have no chance in the long run playing those kind of cards against all in bets.
When all the money went in I was 52% to win and I was getting almost 2 to 1 on my investment in the pot. While I would have preferred to win without any chance of going broke even if I was certain he was going to call I still would have made the same move. Like my friend with the 24, he flopped one of his suit and the made a runner, runner flush. I was only about 200 spots from my 8th place goal! In order to do well in the tournaments not only do you have to win one of these hands, you have to win quite a few. And so far I haven't been able to win even the ones where I'm way ahead let alone 50/50.
SERIOUS POKER TALK OVER!!!
For those of you that missed it, I went broke well short of the money in unspectacular fashion. Now I'm tired! Sorry to drag you all the way down here for nothing! Oh I did play some craps with T.J. Cloutier after I went broke. I suppose that's of interest. For those of you who don't know who that is, he has 6 WSOP bracelets and over 9 million dollars in career tournament winnings. He's also a craps junkie and kind of a prick! But he is famous so I thought I'd mention him.
Event #9 Preview!
My second shot at fortune and glory this year is going to be Event #9 $1,500 Six Handed No Limit Hold 'em. Two years ago I played the $3,000 6 handed event and did pretty well even though I didn't make the money (I had quadrupled my starting stack before losing QQ to AQ in an all in preflop situation). Also all I do these days is play six handed. Granted it's normally limit cash games, but it's got to be worth something!
Like Event #7 this is a three day event starting at noon with the first day being played down to about the top 10% then the next day being played down to the final table and the last day being the final table. We'll be starting with 3,000 chips, 60 minute levels and 25/50 blinds.
Last year this was Event #12, had 1,427 entrants and a prize pool of $1,947,855 which was split amongst the top 126 finishers. Here are the top ten finishers and what they got paid as well as a few other to give you a feel for the potential payouts.
1 Jason Warner (Vancouver, BC, Canada) $481,698
2 David Zeitlin (New York, NY, USA) $269,778
3 Steve Olek (Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA) $186,020
4 David Mitchell - Lolis (Las Vegas, NV, USA) $123,689
5 Matt Brady (Havertown, PA, USA) $92,523
6 Brian Miller (Atlanta, GA, USA) $61,357
7 William Vosti (Arroyo Grande, CA, USA) $46,749
8 Joe Awada (Las Vegas, NV, USA) $46,749
9 Arturo Diaz (San Diego, CA, USA) $31,166
10 Andrew Webking (Seattle, WA, USA) $31,166
20 Harold Cohen (Los Angeles, CA, USA) $11,882
30 Travis Pearson (Las Vegas, NV, USA) $8,960
40 Erik Seidel (Las Vegas, NV, USA) $5,844
50 Miguel Proulx (Québec, QC, Canada) $4,188
75 Andres Bello (Oxnard, CA, USA) $2,824
100 Christopher Lenahan (Portland, OR, USA) $2,435
126 David Robertson (Henderson, NV, USA) $2,143
As you can see it's pretty important to go deep, but right now I'm looking for any type of cash just get off the schnide.
One of the really exciting things about playing these tournaments is I could actually have good luck! I know it seems like I must have spit in the face of a Voodoo priest the way the cards have been treating me. But there's some chance that I could stumble onto a wave a cards so good that there's no way I could screw it up. If I get a 1 in a 1,000 run of cards in any of these tournaments I'm good enough that in the words of many a NFL punt returner "I'm takin' that shit to the house!"
I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. I'll start with just enough luck to win the hands when I'm ahead! If I make it to day 2 then I'll ramp up the day dreaming. A bunch of my best friends arrive in town tomorrow and I don't have anything planned for Friday so I expect to have a full on rip roaring Vegas night if I go broke without making the money. Wish me luck...unless thats what you did before. Try something new this time!
Like Event #7 this is a three day event starting at noon with the first day being played down to about the top 10% then the next day being played down to the final table and the last day being the final table. We'll be starting with 3,000 chips, 60 minute levels and 25/50 blinds.
Last year this was Event #12, had 1,427 entrants and a prize pool of $1,947,855 which was split amongst the top 126 finishers. Here are the top ten finishers and what they got paid as well as a few other to give you a feel for the potential payouts.
1 Jason Warner (Vancouver, BC, Canada) $481,698
2 David Zeitlin (New York, NY, USA) $269,778
3 Steve Olek (Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA) $186,020
4 David Mitchell - Lolis (Las Vegas, NV, USA) $123,689
5 Matt Brady (Havertown, PA, USA) $92,523
6 Brian Miller (Atlanta, GA, USA) $61,357
7 William Vosti (Arroyo Grande, CA, USA) $46,749
8 Joe Awada (Las Vegas, NV, USA) $46,749
9 Arturo Diaz (San Diego, CA, USA) $31,166
10 Andrew Webking (Seattle, WA, USA) $31,166
20 Harold Cohen (Los Angeles, CA, USA) $11,882
30 Travis Pearson (Las Vegas, NV, USA) $8,960
40 Erik Seidel (Las Vegas, NV, USA) $5,844
50 Miguel Proulx (Québec, QC, Canada) $4,188
75 Andres Bello (Oxnard, CA, USA) $2,824
100 Christopher Lenahan (Portland, OR, USA) $2,435
126 David Robertson (Henderson, NV, USA) $2,143
As you can see it's pretty important to go deep, but right now I'm looking for any type of cash just get off the schnide.
One of the really exciting things about playing these tournaments is I could actually have good luck! I know it seems like I must have spit in the face of a Voodoo priest the way the cards have been treating me. But there's some chance that I could stumble onto a wave a cards so good that there's no way I could screw it up. If I get a 1 in a 1,000 run of cards in any of these tournaments I'm good enough that in the words of many a NFL punt returner "I'm takin' that shit to the house!"
I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. I'll start with just enough luck to win the hands when I'm ahead! If I make it to day 2 then I'll ramp up the day dreaming. A bunch of my best friends arrive in town tomorrow and I don't have anything planned for Friday so I expect to have a full on rip roaring Vegas night if I go broke without making the money. Wish me luck...unless thats what you did before. Try something new this time!
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
2008 Event #7 ($2,000 NL Hold'em) Recap
As as walked out of my hotel room today I made sure several times that I had everything I needed. Wallet - check. Tournament entry card - check. Extra money - check. Room key - check. It wasn't until I made it to the tournament area that I realized I'd forgotten something - I forgot to eat! Playing high stakes poker is not something you want to do on an empty stomach! I quickly dashed off to the Starbucks that I knew was close by and scarfed down a muffin and a some other sort of pastry. Not the breakfast of champions, but enough to keep me going.
I looked at my seat card as I walked into the tournament room and saw that I was at table 20, seat 6. So I walked up to table 20, sat down in seat 6 and when I showed the dealer my seat card she looked at me like it was a coupon for a free happy meal. Apparently I was at "Amazon Red" table 20 when in fact I was supposed to be at "Amazon blue" table 20. In past years the tables in the Amazon room were labeled simply 1 to 220. I'm sure they have a good reason for this change, but I have yet to figure it out.
I finally made it to my seat where I found a bottle of "All In" drinking water and a can of "All In" energy drink waiting for me. Right at noon the cards were in the air and my 2008 WSOP was underway.
The tables around me were noticeably lacking stars from the poker world, but there was one minor poker celebrity at my table - Dario Minieri. I actually have played with Dario at least 50 times since until recently he's made a good chunk of his living playing multi table tournaments on pokerstars.com which is my website of choice.
Dario's first claim to fame is he was the first player on pokerstars to exchange his frequent player points (FPPs) for a new Porche which is the most expensive thing you can get with your FPPs. His second claim to fame is he finished about 30th in the main event last year and was featured heavily in ESPN's coverage. If you watched any of that coverage you'll remember him as the young Italian guy with the goofy scarf. In person he is shockingly short and looks like he's about 15.
Now on to the poker action! Here is a phrase I hope to never say again about a WSOP event - the key hand in this tournament for me happened 30 minutes into the first level.
Before the key hand, I'd seen two flops (I folded on the flop both times), stolen the blinds once and folded every other hand. The blinds were 25/50 and I had about 3,500 of my starting stack of 4,000 when I picked up AK in the small blind. Dario raised to 150 one off the button, the player on the button called and I reraised to 600. As soon as my chips were in the pot the big blind moved all in and both of the other players folded.
I stopped to think for about 60 seconds. There was 4,400 in the pot and it would cost me my last 2,900 hundred to call so I was getting about 3 to 2 odds. The only hands I was really worried about were AA and KK since I'd be a big underdog to both. Against any other hand I'd be at worst 45% to win. Interestingly enough in an earlier hand the player in the big blind had raised with AA and then after a call and a reraise he just called. That told me that if he had AA he'd likely just call in a spot like this as well. Furthermore, given that I already had one of the aces and one of the kings the chances of him having AA or KK was greatly reduced. I figured there was about a 10% chance that he had AA or KK, an 80% chance that he had either QQ, JJ or AK and about a 10% chance that he had something else. I'd almost certainly split with another AK and I'd be just under even money to win against QQ or JJ. Since the pot was offering me 3 to 2, I decided to call.
When the cards got turned over my opponent also had AK. He had the A of hearts and the K of spades, while I had the A of clubs and the K of diamonds. The only way we wouldn't split was if the board came with four of a suit. The first four cards off the deck were all spades and I was out. My opponent was not gracious about his victory.
Given the stakes and the likelihood of the given outcome, this might have been the worst bad beat of my entire poker career. There was a 95.65% chance of a split and we each had a 2.17% chance to win.
It really sucks to have all this anticipation and build up and come all this way to lose to someone who had a 2.17% chance of winning the pot. But, the good news is that I actually feel OK about it. Of course I'm disappointed, but I think it speaks to how far I've come as a poker player that I'm not crushed. If I'd lost in a $2,000 tournament in this was a few years ago I wouldn't have been right for a few days. In this case I moped for about an hour. I played some pai gow and had a shot of Grand Mariner and now I feel fine. It helps that I've gone over the hand in my head 100 times now and every time I come to the conclusion that I did the right thing.
Poker is all about making the best decisions with the incomplete information that you have and letting the chips fall where they may. In this case I made a good decision and it just didn't work out. That's poker.
Luckily one of my biggest strengths is putting the past behind me and moving forward! Tonight I'm going to play a $340 buy in tournament here at the Rio. While there is zero prestige involved, there still money to be won and I expect a weak field. I have no idea if I'll be facing 40 players of 400, but I'll put up a short recap along with a preview of my next event either later tonight or tomorrow morning.
Fucking 2.17%! Crazy.
I looked at my seat card as I walked into the tournament room and saw that I was at table 20, seat 6. So I walked up to table 20, sat down in seat 6 and when I showed the dealer my seat card she looked at me like it was a coupon for a free happy meal. Apparently I was at "Amazon Red" table 20 when in fact I was supposed to be at "Amazon blue" table 20. In past years the tables in the Amazon room were labeled simply 1 to 220. I'm sure they have a good reason for this change, but I have yet to figure it out.
I finally made it to my seat where I found a bottle of "All In" drinking water and a can of "All In" energy drink waiting for me. Right at noon the cards were in the air and my 2008 WSOP was underway.
The tables around me were noticeably lacking stars from the poker world, but there was one minor poker celebrity at my table - Dario Minieri. I actually have played with Dario at least 50 times since until recently he's made a good chunk of his living playing multi table tournaments on pokerstars.com which is my website of choice.
Dario's first claim to fame is he was the first player on pokerstars to exchange his frequent player points (FPPs) for a new Porche which is the most expensive thing you can get with your FPPs. His second claim to fame is he finished about 30th in the main event last year and was featured heavily in ESPN's coverage. If you watched any of that coverage you'll remember him as the young Italian guy with the goofy scarf. In person he is shockingly short and looks like he's about 15.
Now on to the poker action! Here is a phrase I hope to never say again about a WSOP event - the key hand in this tournament for me happened 30 minutes into the first level.
Before the key hand, I'd seen two flops (I folded on the flop both times), stolen the blinds once and folded every other hand. The blinds were 25/50 and I had about 3,500 of my starting stack of 4,000 when I picked up AK in the small blind. Dario raised to 150 one off the button, the player on the button called and I reraised to 600. As soon as my chips were in the pot the big blind moved all in and both of the other players folded.
I stopped to think for about 60 seconds. There was 4,400 in the pot and it would cost me my last 2,900 hundred to call so I was getting about 3 to 2 odds. The only hands I was really worried about were AA and KK since I'd be a big underdog to both. Against any other hand I'd be at worst 45% to win. Interestingly enough in an earlier hand the player in the big blind had raised with AA and then after a call and a reraise he just called. That told me that if he had AA he'd likely just call in a spot like this as well. Furthermore, given that I already had one of the aces and one of the kings the chances of him having AA or KK was greatly reduced. I figured there was about a 10% chance that he had AA or KK, an 80% chance that he had either QQ, JJ or AK and about a 10% chance that he had something else. I'd almost certainly split with another AK and I'd be just under even money to win against QQ or JJ. Since the pot was offering me 3 to 2, I decided to call.
When the cards got turned over my opponent also had AK. He had the A of hearts and the K of spades, while I had the A of clubs and the K of diamonds. The only way we wouldn't split was if the board came with four of a suit. The first four cards off the deck were all spades and I was out. My opponent was not gracious about his victory.
Given the stakes and the likelihood of the given outcome, this might have been the worst bad beat of my entire poker career. There was a 95.65% chance of a split and we each had a 2.17% chance to win.
It really sucks to have all this anticipation and build up and come all this way to lose to someone who had a 2.17% chance of winning the pot. But, the good news is that I actually feel OK about it. Of course I'm disappointed, but I think it speaks to how far I've come as a poker player that I'm not crushed. If I'd lost in a $2,000 tournament in this was a few years ago I wouldn't have been right for a few days. In this case I moped for about an hour. I played some pai gow and had a shot of Grand Mariner and now I feel fine. It helps that I've gone over the hand in my head 100 times now and every time I come to the conclusion that I did the right thing.
Poker is all about making the best decisions with the incomplete information that you have and letting the chips fall where they may. In this case I made a good decision and it just didn't work out. That's poker.
Luckily one of my biggest strengths is putting the past behind me and moving forward! Tonight I'm going to play a $340 buy in tournament here at the Rio. While there is zero prestige involved, there still money to be won and I expect a weak field. I have no idea if I'll be facing 40 players of 400, but I'll put up a short recap along with a preview of my next event either later tonight or tomorrow morning.
Fucking 2.17%! Crazy.
In Vegas and Ready for Action!
So far my trip to Vegas has been great. My flight from Oakland to Vegas pulled back from the gate at exactly the scheduled departure time, the flight was less than half full (I didn't have anyone in my row, in front of me or behind me), and arrived ten minutes early. My bag was the second one off at the baggage claim and showed up the very second that I walked up to carrosel number 6 to grab it. There was even a cab waiting to take me to the Rio (for those of you who have never been to Vegas the cab line in often insane and it's not unusual to wait 30-45 minutes for a taxi) and I was in my room 20 minutes after my plane was scheduled to land.
I brought $15,000 with me on this trip and while it's been a long time since I've felt uncomfortable carrying a few grand with me, having enough in your pockets to buy a new car is a different story. While I wasn't exactly nervous, I did check to make sure I still had it an embarrassing number of times. Of course having that kind of cash with you will make you feel like no matter what you forgot at home it won't matter because you'll be able to just buy a new one!
While my plan was always to get to sleep early (I was out cold by 11:30 and slept until 10) and not do much, I did manage to squeeze a little gambling into my first night. I sat down at a $25 minimum Pai Gow table with plans of playing for about an hour and hopes of unwinding and perhaps winning enough for a nice dinner.
Unlike poker, Pai Gow is a game you can't win in the long run. It's a game you play against the house where you and the dealer each get 7 cards. You then split those 7 cards into a 2 card hand and a 5 card hand with the only rule that the 5 card hand has to be better than the 2 card hand. The dealer does the same with the house hand and if you're 5 card hand is better than the dealer's 5 card hand AND your 2 card hand is better than the dealer's 2 card hand, then you win. If you lose both hands you lose, and if you win one and lose one it's a tie. While you can't win in the long run, it's a game with a very low house edge and it's a slow game (speed is your enemy in the casino!) because it takes a while to set all the hands and there are a lot of ties.
I won the first hand and was never behind for the hour or so that I played. After I was at the table for 15 minutes a guy about my age who was on dinner break for $1,000 with rebuys WSOP event sat down at the table next to me. He bought in for $500 and started off betting $25 a hand. After a few hands he kicked it up to $50 and won. The next hand he bet $100 and won. Then he said he was feeling lucky and pulled a $500 chip out of his pocket and slid it into the betting circle. At first I thought he was asking for change! Plenty of people (including me on occasion) will bet $100 a hand, but it's pretty rare to see someone put a purple chip on the line on one hand of Pai Gow.
He left it out there and won the next 4 hands in a row! I don't think I've ever seen someone buy in for $500 and bet $25 a hand a few times and then crank it up to $500 a hand a few minutes later. Also for those of you who are wondering the chances of winning 6 hands in a row with no ties at Pai Gow are around 4,000 to 1.
I ended up winning $275 which was enough to cover my extra night of expenses, pay for a nice dinner (I had a wonderful filet mignon with a baked potato and some mac-n-cheese for dinner) and have a few bucks left over.
I didn't have any trouble signing up for my tournament and when I went to the tournament area I saw that they'd made a few changes. Most notably instead of trying to cram everything into the Amazon room, they've taken over a few other rooms in the convention area as well. Now there is a whole other room devoted to satellite tournaments and a separate room for the cashier and tournament registration. Also they've split the entrances to the Amazon room into player's entrances and spectator's entrances (every year there are more and more people coming to watch and the doorways can get a little clogged).
The Rio and it's parent company Harrah's have been extremely smart about making improvements. They have a player's advisory council made up of about 10 of the biggest names in poker and they really seem to listen to them. This is my 4th year at the WSOP and every year if I've hear something complained about the next year it's fixed.
I'll put up a post late today regarding my results from today's $2,000 no limit tournament. If I'm still alive on the dinner break might come up to my room and make a quick post about my status. Regardless there will be a post up by tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!
I brought $15,000 with me on this trip and while it's been a long time since I've felt uncomfortable carrying a few grand with me, having enough in your pockets to buy a new car is a different story. While I wasn't exactly nervous, I did check to make sure I still had it an embarrassing number of times. Of course having that kind of cash with you will make you feel like no matter what you forgot at home it won't matter because you'll be able to just buy a new one!
While my plan was always to get to sleep early (I was out cold by 11:30 and slept until 10) and not do much, I did manage to squeeze a little gambling into my first night. I sat down at a $25 minimum Pai Gow table with plans of playing for about an hour and hopes of unwinding and perhaps winning enough for a nice dinner.
Unlike poker, Pai Gow is a game you can't win in the long run. It's a game you play against the house where you and the dealer each get 7 cards. You then split those 7 cards into a 2 card hand and a 5 card hand with the only rule that the 5 card hand has to be better than the 2 card hand. The dealer does the same with the house hand and if you're 5 card hand is better than the dealer's 5 card hand AND your 2 card hand is better than the dealer's 2 card hand, then you win. If you lose both hands you lose, and if you win one and lose one it's a tie. While you can't win in the long run, it's a game with a very low house edge and it's a slow game (speed is your enemy in the casino!) because it takes a while to set all the hands and there are a lot of ties.
I won the first hand and was never behind for the hour or so that I played. After I was at the table for 15 minutes a guy about my age who was on dinner break for $1,000 with rebuys WSOP event sat down at the table next to me. He bought in for $500 and started off betting $25 a hand. After a few hands he kicked it up to $50 and won. The next hand he bet $100 and won. Then he said he was feeling lucky and pulled a $500 chip out of his pocket and slid it into the betting circle. At first I thought he was asking for change! Plenty of people (including me on occasion) will bet $100 a hand, but it's pretty rare to see someone put a purple chip on the line on one hand of Pai Gow.
He left it out there and won the next 4 hands in a row! I don't think I've ever seen someone buy in for $500 and bet $25 a hand a few times and then crank it up to $500 a hand a few minutes later. Also for those of you who are wondering the chances of winning 6 hands in a row with no ties at Pai Gow are around 4,000 to 1.
I ended up winning $275 which was enough to cover my extra night of expenses, pay for a nice dinner (I had a wonderful filet mignon with a baked potato and some mac-n-cheese for dinner) and have a few bucks left over.
I didn't have any trouble signing up for my tournament and when I went to the tournament area I saw that they'd made a few changes. Most notably instead of trying to cram everything into the Amazon room, they've taken over a few other rooms in the convention area as well. Now there is a whole other room devoted to satellite tournaments and a separate room for the cashier and tournament registration. Also they've split the entrances to the Amazon room into player's entrances and spectator's entrances (every year there are more and more people coming to watch and the doorways can get a little clogged).
The Rio and it's parent company Harrah's have been extremely smart about making improvements. They have a player's advisory council made up of about 10 of the biggest names in poker and they really seem to listen to them. This is my 4th year at the WSOP and every year if I've hear something complained about the next year it's fixed.
I'll put up a post late today regarding my results from today's $2,000 no limit tournament. If I'm still alive on the dinner break might come up to my room and make a quick post about my status. Regardless there will be a post up by tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!
Monday, June 02, 2008
Minor Change of Plans
I was thinking about my departure for Vegas on Wednesday - specifically the getting up at 6 a.m. part - and I decided that it might not be the best idea to get up early, fly to Vegas and then play a $2,000 poker tournament that could go as late as 3 a.m. After a quick call to the Rio to see what kind of rate I could get for another night ($40 which will probably turn out to be zero once I do a little gambling) and a call to Southwest to change my flight I am now leaving Tuesday night.
While it means another night away from my family it also means I should be well rested, I'll be able to sign up the tournament the night before instead of waiting in line for 30 minutes to an hour the day of, and I'll be in the best mental state I can be in.
While it means another night away from my family it also means I should be well rested, I'll be able to sign up the tournament the night before instead of waiting in line for 30 minutes to an hour the day of, and I'll be in the best mental state I can be in.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Welcome New Readers!
I just sent out a mass e-mail to a bunch of friends and family and in anticipation of a few new readers I thought I'd extend a little welcome. For those of you who know don't know a ton about poker I'd encourage you to read the posts "How Poker and Poker Tournaments Work" and "A little WSOP History" which I wrote before my trip to the 2006 WSOP. You can find them by clicking here and scrolling almost all the way to the bottom. You can also see a picture of me dressed as the ace of spades if you go all the way to the bottom.
I'd also encourage you to point out anything that's confusing or that you'd like to know more about in the comments section. I know I had some readers who gave up because I started writing as if my audience was very poker savvy and I didn't know anyone who wasn't was still reading. Especially during my trip to the WSOP I expect to have plenty of poker rookies reading and I'd like to make sure everyone understands what I'm saying.
I've reposted my 2008 WSOP preview below which is followed by a preview of the first tournament that I'll be playing this year. I hope you enjoy reading and if you get the slightest urge POST A COMMENT!!!
I'd also encourage you to point out anything that's confusing or that you'd like to know more about in the comments section. I know I had some readers who gave up because I started writing as if my audience was very poker savvy and I didn't know anyone who wasn't was still reading. Especially during my trip to the WSOP I expect to have plenty of poker rookies reading and I'd like to make sure everyone understands what I'm saying.
I've reposted my 2008 WSOP preview below which is followed by a preview of the first tournament that I'll be playing this year. I hope you enjoy reading and if you get the slightest urge POST A COMMENT!!!
WSOP 2008 Preview!
There are a record 55 events over the course of 7 weeks at this years WSOP starting on May 31st. My first glance at the schedule made me feel like I wanted to play about 40 of those events. The vast majority have buys ins between $1,000 and $3,000 which is right in the range that I wanted to target this year and of course most of those are some form of hold 'em which is the main area of my poker expertise.
After many hours over the course of several day of staring at the schedule, looking through my casino offers for room deals, calling to check actual rates at a half dozen casinos, and looking at the prices of flights, I finally came up with a plan! The flights and the rooms are booked now and I'll be in Vegas from June 4th to June 11th. I'm staying at the Rio the first two nights, the Bellagio (Yeah Baby!) the next two, and the Paris for the last three.
I'm planning to play in 5 WSOP events this year (#'s 16-20 of my career). Here's my schedule:
June 4th $2,000 NL Hold 'em
June 5th $1,500 NL Hold 'em 6-handed
June 6th Nothing
June 7th $2,500 NL Hold 'em
June 8th Nothing
June 9th $1,500 NL Hold 'em Shootout
June 10th $2,000 Limit Hold 'em
If I get bounced early or if I feel like playing on the 6th or the 8th I'm going to try to catch a few of the other local tournaments that go off every hour around the clock in Vegas. In fact I have my eye on a $1,060 event at the Venetian on the 8th, but I might be ready for a day off by then. I plan on posting daily giving recaps of my tournaments for my fan (Hey Tom) as well as my backers so look for daily updates.
After many hours over the course of several day of staring at the schedule, looking through my casino offers for room deals, calling to check actual rates at a half dozen casinos, and looking at the prices of flights, I finally came up with a plan! The flights and the rooms are booked now and I'll be in Vegas from June 4th to June 11th. I'm staying at the Rio the first two nights, the Bellagio (Yeah Baby!) the next two, and the Paris for the last three.
I'm planning to play in 5 WSOP events this year (#'s 16-20 of my career). Here's my schedule:
June 4th $2,000 NL Hold 'em
June 5th $1,500 NL Hold 'em 6-handed
June 6th Nothing
June 7th $2,500 NL Hold 'em
June 8th Nothing
June 9th $1,500 NL Hold 'em Shootout
June 10th $2,000 Limit Hold 'em
If I get bounced early or if I feel like playing on the 6th or the 8th I'm going to try to catch a few of the other local tournaments that go off every hour around the clock in Vegas. In fact I have my eye on a $1,060 event at the Venetian on the 8th, but I might be ready for a day off by then. I plan on posting daily giving recaps of my tournaments for my fan (Hey Tom) as well as my backers so look for daily updates.
2008 WSOP Event #7 Preview
I'm off to Vegas early Wednesday morning to catch my first WSOP tournament of the year! I have to admit that I'm feeling really excited. Every time I leave Vegas I'm always ready to come home and for the next week or two the idea of going back doesn't seem like much fun. Then as time goes by it starts to seem more and more appealing. It's been about 7 months since I've been and that was just a day trip (I've been going a few times a year ever since I turned 21 so 7 months is actually a longish time for me). When you add in the 5 WSOP tournaments, the fact that my good friend E.B. (who is going to be there along with Jean, Jen, Jake, Chrissy and Matt - they'll all be there for different amounts of time) is turning 40 on June 5th, and I've got a few nights at the Bellagio it makes me want to stop typing, head to the airport and go!
My first tournament this year is going to be Event #7 $2,000 No Limit Hold 'em. Last year this event was event #10, had 1,531 entrants, and a prize pool of $2,782,570 divided amongst the top 153 finishers. Below are a list of the top 10 finishers and what they got paid. It you want to know what every other place paid you can look at the full results here.
1 Will Durkee (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) $566,916
2 Todd Terry (Hoboken, NJ, USA) $353,875
3 Hunter Frey $231,273
4 Justin Bonomo (Sherman Oaks, CA, USA) $156,040
5 Michael Banducci (Traverse City, MI, USA) $105,884
6 Stanley Weiss (Nashville, TN, USA) $78,020
7 Walter Browne (Berkeley, CA, USA) $58,515
8 Gil George (Dallas, TX, USA) $43,190
9 Ronnie Hoffman $32,880
Like almost all tournaments at the WSOP this tournament takes place over three days the first of which starts at noon and goes until about 2 in the morning. There's a 15 minute break every 2 hours and a 75 minute dinner break after 6 hours of play. If you make it past day 1 you're in the top 10% and in the money. Day 2 starts at 2 pm and goes until only 9 players are left. The last nine players will come back on day three to sit at the table with all the cameras and get filmed by ESPN. I've made it to day 2 twice in my 15 career WSOP tournaments and it's one of my major career poker goals to make it to day 3 and be on TV.
In this particular tournament all the players will start with 4,000 chips and blinds of 25/50 with gradual blind increases every 60 minutes. While I could go broke on the first hand, baring an early bad beat I should have plenty of time to get familiar with my opponents and to do some maneuvering.
As a little aside In looking up these results for last years tournament, I was surprised to see Walter Browne in 7th. While I can't call him a friend I can certainly call him an acquittance. He's a prop player at the Oaks Club where I used to work and I've played against him somewhere between 50 and 100 times. He's also a SIX TIME United States chess champion. Obviously he's an extremely smart guy, but his chess game is much better than his poker game. Not to say he's not a good poker player, but despite this final table appearance he's not a world class player. Anyway I was happy to see his name there and I also discovered that he finished 2nd is the $2,500 HORSE tournament at the 2007 WSOP. Maybe he's better than I thought!
My first tournament this year is going to be Event #7 $2,000 No Limit Hold 'em. Last year this event was event #10, had 1,531 entrants, and a prize pool of $2,782,570 divided amongst the top 153 finishers. Below are a list of the top 10 finishers and what they got paid. It you want to know what every other place paid you can look at the full results here.
1 Will Durkee (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) $566,916
2 Todd Terry (Hoboken, NJ, USA) $353,875
3 Hunter Frey $231,273
4 Justin Bonomo (Sherman Oaks, CA, USA) $156,040
5 Michael Banducci (Traverse City, MI, USA) $105,884
6 Stanley Weiss (Nashville, TN, USA) $78,020
7 Walter Browne (Berkeley, CA, USA) $58,515
8 Gil George (Dallas, TX, USA) $43,190
9 Ronnie Hoffman $32,880
Like almost all tournaments at the WSOP this tournament takes place over three days the first of which starts at noon and goes until about 2 in the morning. There's a 15 minute break every 2 hours and a 75 minute dinner break after 6 hours of play. If you make it past day 1 you're in the top 10% and in the money. Day 2 starts at 2 pm and goes until only 9 players are left. The last nine players will come back on day three to sit at the table with all the cameras and get filmed by ESPN. I've made it to day 2 twice in my 15 career WSOP tournaments and it's one of my major career poker goals to make it to day 3 and be on TV.
In this particular tournament all the players will start with 4,000 chips and blinds of 25/50 with gradual blind increases every 60 minutes. While I could go broke on the first hand, baring an early bad beat I should have plenty of time to get familiar with my opponents and to do some maneuvering.
As a little aside In looking up these results for last years tournament, I was surprised to see Walter Browne in 7th. While I can't call him a friend I can certainly call him an acquittance. He's a prop player at the Oaks Club where I used to work and I've played against him somewhere between 50 and 100 times. He's also a SIX TIME United States chess champion. Obviously he's an extremely smart guy, but his chess game is much better than his poker game. Not to say he's not a good poker player, but despite this final table appearance he's not a world class player. Anyway I was happy to see his name there and I also discovered that he finished 2nd is the $2,500 HORSE tournament at the 2007 WSOP. Maybe he's better than I thought!
Monday, May 26, 2008
A Sweet $64
Before I get into my post I want to wish a quick congratulations to one of my best and oldest friends Chris Wilhelmi on his recent engagement. Chris proposed to his girlfriend Sarah over the weekend during a trip to Yosemite and of course she said yes. I want to wish them all the best.
Now on to poker related stuff. For the majority of my day today I got totally stomped. Sometimes you play a session where you are connecting with plenty of flops, but your opponents just keep on getting whatever turn and river cards they need. Today was one of those days. Not only is is much more expensive than just getting shitty cards or having good starting cards miss the flop, but it's also a great deal more frustrating.
Feeling like you've got a hand won and then discovering that the clown you are up against hit a 10 to 1 shot is never fun. When it happens over and over and over again it can make you want to pull your hair our and in the worst cases take you off your game.
I'd been playing a mix of two $15/$30 and two $10/$20 games all day and by the time I was ready to take my lunch break I was down about $2,000. I was feeling like giving up for the day, but I took a long break and after about 90 minutes I was ready to give it another shot. 20 minutes later I was down another $500 and decided to call it a day. I went and shot some hoops, took a shower and played with my son for a few minutes.
Even though I've had plenty of sessions where I've won $2,500 in my career when you're down that much it can feel like you're never going to get it back. Even a big pot at $15/$30 is about $500, usually at least a third of that money was money you put in the pot so it's not all profit, and pots of that size are few and far between. When you're winning much more pedestrian $200 pots (which don't exactly grow on trees) where half of the money in the pot was your's to begin with you can see how it feel like it's going to take forever to pick up $2,500.
Happily, even though I'd decided to call it quits for the day I was once again feeling OK. I opted to play a little more with the thinking that if I dropped another $500 (which would put me at -$3,000 for the day) I'd be done for sure and if I managed to pull back even a few hundred it would leave me feeling a little better about the day.
Well instead of my opponents getting whatever turn and river cards that they wanted, I was the one getting the magic cards. I quickly got back $1,500 and thought about stopping. After all -$1,000 is not a major loss and something I could easily get back tomorrow. But I liked the games I was in and decided to keep on playing. I picked up another $500 and though a little harder about quitting. But I kept on playing.
When I was within $100 of even I said enough is enough and decided to get up after playing to my blinds. Luckily in one of those last few hands I picked up pocket aces, won a nice pot and ended the day with a $64 profit. It was a very sweet $64 win.
Also of note, I played against 2003 World Champion Chris Moneymaker in one of my $15/$30 games for about an hour (during the stretch that I was winning). You might wonder what a former WSOP main event winner is doing playing $15/$30 and I don't have a good answer for you other than he is probably the worst poker player of any world champion ever and he's more of a tournament specialist. I've seen him playing the 6 handed games a few times, but he's usually in the $50/$100 (where I played him once before) or the $100/$200. Anyway I always think it's cool to play against poker celebrities and in this case I certainly got the best of him. Not only did I take him off a few pots with bluffs, but I also snapped off a few of his bluff attempts with weak hands and at the very least held my own in pots where we both had real hands. It felt pretty good.
Now on to poker related stuff. For the majority of my day today I got totally stomped. Sometimes you play a session where you are connecting with plenty of flops, but your opponents just keep on getting whatever turn and river cards they need. Today was one of those days. Not only is is much more expensive than just getting shitty cards or having good starting cards miss the flop, but it's also a great deal more frustrating.
Feeling like you've got a hand won and then discovering that the clown you are up against hit a 10 to 1 shot is never fun. When it happens over and over and over again it can make you want to pull your hair our and in the worst cases take you off your game.
I'd been playing a mix of two $15/$30 and two $10/$20 games all day and by the time I was ready to take my lunch break I was down about $2,000. I was feeling like giving up for the day, but I took a long break and after about 90 minutes I was ready to give it another shot. 20 minutes later I was down another $500 and decided to call it a day. I went and shot some hoops, took a shower and played with my son for a few minutes.
Even though I've had plenty of sessions where I've won $2,500 in my career when you're down that much it can feel like you're never going to get it back. Even a big pot at $15/$30 is about $500, usually at least a third of that money was money you put in the pot so it's not all profit, and pots of that size are few and far between. When you're winning much more pedestrian $200 pots (which don't exactly grow on trees) where half of the money in the pot was your's to begin with you can see how it feel like it's going to take forever to pick up $2,500.
Happily, even though I'd decided to call it quits for the day I was once again feeling OK. I opted to play a little more with the thinking that if I dropped another $500 (which would put me at -$3,000 for the day) I'd be done for sure and if I managed to pull back even a few hundred it would leave me feeling a little better about the day.
Well instead of my opponents getting whatever turn and river cards that they wanted, I was the one getting the magic cards. I quickly got back $1,500 and thought about stopping. After all -$1,000 is not a major loss and something I could easily get back tomorrow. But I liked the games I was in and decided to keep on playing. I picked up another $500 and though a little harder about quitting. But I kept on playing.
When I was within $100 of even I said enough is enough and decided to get up after playing to my blinds. Luckily in one of those last few hands I picked up pocket aces, won a nice pot and ended the day with a $64 profit. It was a very sweet $64 win.
Also of note, I played against 2003 World Champion Chris Moneymaker in one of my $15/$30 games for about an hour (during the stretch that I was winning). You might wonder what a former WSOP main event winner is doing playing $15/$30 and I don't have a good answer for you other than he is probably the worst poker player of any world champion ever and he's more of a tournament specialist. I've seen him playing the 6 handed games a few times, but he's usually in the $50/$100 (where I played him once before) or the $100/$200. Anyway I always think it's cool to play against poker celebrities and in this case I certainly got the best of him. Not only did I take him off a few pots with bluffs, but I also snapped off a few of his bluff attempts with weak hands and at the very least held my own in pots where we both had real hands. It felt pretty good.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Being Stupid
I did something stupid yesterday. I did something that novice and amateur players are constantly doing, but what I and most other pros almost never do. I moved up limits to try to get even.
On Monday I had the $2,300 win I mentioned in my last post. On Tuesday I was ahead $3,000 at one point and ended up booking a $1,500 win which I followed up the next day with an uneventful $600 loss.
When I sat down yesterday I was feeling pretty good and jumped into four $10/$20 games. In no time I was ahead $1,500 and expecting to have a major kick ass day. But then my profits slowly drained away. When I took my lunch break about 2/3 of the way through my working day I was ahead a must less exciting $300.
When I came back from lunch I quickly fell below even and in a matter of a few hundred hands I was down over $1,000. At this point I was not thinking about the fact that $1,000 is not that big a loss for me these days. I was not thinking that if I quit right then I'd still be ahead $3,200 for the past four days. I was thinking about the fact that I'd been ahead $1,500 earlier that day and not only was I not going to book the big win that I wanted, but I was actually going to have a significant loss.
I knew I wasn't in the best state of mind to play and the best thing for me would be to quit. But instead I did the exact opposite. I decided to play some $30/$60. I left all but one of the $10/$20 games I was in and substituted one $15/$30 and one $30/$60.
A short while into the play at the $30/$60 I picked up KK in the big blind. AH HA! Now is my chance to get back some dough! A player who I knew could be raising a wide range of hands (I had a note on him that identified him as a very loose $5/$10 player) raised from the button and I made it $90 to go. He capped the betting at $120 and the flop came down Q T 5. I check raised and he three bet me.
At this point even though I knew my opponent was loose he was still showing massive strength and I thought there was about a 80% chance he had either had AA, QQ or AQ. My hand was way to strong to fold, but I decided my best course of action would be to just call him down. The turn was a blank and the river was another Q. Ack! The only worse river in my mind would have been an A and now I couldn't beat any of the hands I thought my opponent likely to have. But given the fact that there was almost $600 in the pot and it only cost me another $60 to call I had to call his bet on the river. He turned over AQ and took the pot.
So far so bad. I told myself that if I got down $2,000 for the day I'd call it quits. Luckily I managed to make a few hands. In fact I destroyed a guy who I happen to know is a regular $200/$400 player! While I was losing to other players I was beating the pants of that guy in hand after hand.
After an hour or so I was back to about even for the day and jumped ship. The problem is it was still stupid for me to play so big when I knew I wasn't in the best state of mind. Poker is all about focusing on making good decisions not about what the results turn out to be. In the long run good decisions will lead to profits and bad decisions will lead to losses. In this case I made a bad decision and I just got lucky that it didn't cost me.
On Monday I had the $2,300 win I mentioned in my last post. On Tuesday I was ahead $3,000 at one point and ended up booking a $1,500 win which I followed up the next day with an uneventful $600 loss.
When I sat down yesterday I was feeling pretty good and jumped into four $10/$20 games. In no time I was ahead $1,500 and expecting to have a major kick ass day. But then my profits slowly drained away. When I took my lunch break about 2/3 of the way through my working day I was ahead a must less exciting $300.
When I came back from lunch I quickly fell below even and in a matter of a few hundred hands I was down over $1,000. At this point I was not thinking about the fact that $1,000 is not that big a loss for me these days. I was not thinking that if I quit right then I'd still be ahead $3,200 for the past four days. I was thinking about the fact that I'd been ahead $1,500 earlier that day and not only was I not going to book the big win that I wanted, but I was actually going to have a significant loss.
I knew I wasn't in the best state of mind to play and the best thing for me would be to quit. But instead I did the exact opposite. I decided to play some $30/$60. I left all but one of the $10/$20 games I was in and substituted one $15/$30 and one $30/$60.
A short while into the play at the $30/$60 I picked up KK in the big blind. AH HA! Now is my chance to get back some dough! A player who I knew could be raising a wide range of hands (I had a note on him that identified him as a very loose $5/$10 player) raised from the button and I made it $90 to go. He capped the betting at $120 and the flop came down Q T 5. I check raised and he three bet me.
At this point even though I knew my opponent was loose he was still showing massive strength and I thought there was about a 80% chance he had either had AA, QQ or AQ. My hand was way to strong to fold, but I decided my best course of action would be to just call him down. The turn was a blank and the river was another Q. Ack! The only worse river in my mind would have been an A and now I couldn't beat any of the hands I thought my opponent likely to have. But given the fact that there was almost $600 in the pot and it only cost me another $60 to call I had to call his bet on the river. He turned over AQ and took the pot.
So far so bad. I told myself that if I got down $2,000 for the day I'd call it quits. Luckily I managed to make a few hands. In fact I destroyed a guy who I happen to know is a regular $200/$400 player! While I was losing to other players I was beating the pants of that guy in hand after hand.
After an hour or so I was back to about even for the day and jumped ship. The problem is it was still stupid for me to play so big when I knew I wasn't in the best state of mind. Poker is all about focusing on making good decisions not about what the results turn out to be. In the long run good decisions will lead to profits and bad decisions will lead to losses. In this case I made a bad decision and I just got lucky that it didn't cost me.
Monday, May 19, 2008
A Solid Day
I booked a nice win today playing nothing but $10/$20 games. After a string of minescule or moderate wins and losses it felt great to make some real money.
My plan was to play enough to earn 5,000 points today and each of the next 3 days. Of course since I've had precicely zero days so far this year where I've earned that many points I don't know why I thought it would be no problem. I woke up early (about 8 - super early for me) and managed to knock out 2,000 points winning $600 before having a late breakfast around noon. So far so good.
When I came back all hell broke loose. In my first 100 hands I was up $900 more and by the time I hit 250 hands (about a half an hour of play), I'd made $2,300 post breakfast and was up $3,000 for the day! During that stretch I'd won 26 of 31 hands that had gone to the showdown and won 31 pots without showdown. Par for the course is winning about 50%-55% of pots at showdown and one in every ten or so without showdown so I was clearly running really hot.
Then I had a big reversal. I dropped about $1,300 in 150 hands winning only 2 of 15 pots at showdown. I decided to take a short break, make some tea and then get back to business. I made a little progress and ended up taking lunch winning about $1,900.
Around 5:30 I was about 1,000 points short of my 5,000 point goal for the day, but I found myself ahead $2,300 so I decided to quit. I probably should have kept playing, but if I'd given back most or even just a big chunk of that money I wouldn't have been able to sit down tomorrow with the positive attitude that I expect to have.
My goal now is to earn 14,000 points in the next three days. That will put me at 380,000 for the year and since my wife Jen and I are making an overnight trip to Napa on Friday and Saturday, I need to earn some major points. Even with that once I come back I'm going to have to earn 40,000 in 10 days in order to hit my 420,000 goal before I head to Vegas. I don't know why I'm talking to you people I need to get to work!
My plan was to play enough to earn 5,000 points today and each of the next 3 days. Of course since I've had precicely zero days so far this year where I've earned that many points I don't know why I thought it would be no problem. I woke up early (about 8 - super early for me) and managed to knock out 2,000 points winning $600 before having a late breakfast around noon. So far so good.
When I came back all hell broke loose. In my first 100 hands I was up $900 more and by the time I hit 250 hands (about a half an hour of play), I'd made $2,300 post breakfast and was up $3,000 for the day! During that stretch I'd won 26 of 31 hands that had gone to the showdown and won 31 pots without showdown. Par for the course is winning about 50%-55% of pots at showdown and one in every ten or so without showdown so I was clearly running really hot.
Then I had a big reversal. I dropped about $1,300 in 150 hands winning only 2 of 15 pots at showdown. I decided to take a short break, make some tea and then get back to business. I made a little progress and ended up taking lunch winning about $1,900.
Around 5:30 I was about 1,000 points short of my 5,000 point goal for the day, but I found myself ahead $2,300 so I decided to quit. I probably should have kept playing, but if I'd given back most or even just a big chunk of that money I wouldn't have been able to sit down tomorrow with the positive attitude that I expect to have.
My goal now is to earn 14,000 points in the next three days. That will put me at 380,000 for the year and since my wife Jen and I are making an overnight trip to Napa on Friday and Saturday, I need to earn some major points. Even with that once I come back I'm going to have to earn 40,000 in 10 days in order to hit my 420,000 goal before I head to Vegas. I don't know why I'm talking to you people I need to get to work!
Saturday, May 17, 2008
May So Far
May has been an unusual month for me. I was in Maryland where I grew up for my good friend Brian Ridgeway's wedding from the 5th to the 12th so I've fallen a little behind in my point production. While I was there, however I discovered that a good chunk of the Ridgeway clan as well as some of my friends from high school have been reading this blog. I like readers!
Here I was thinking that Tom from the census (Hey Tom), my sister, and sister in law were the only ones reading this blog. But it turns out that there are other people out their neglecting their work duties and/or families to read virtual nonsense about FPPs, massive quantities of complaining about bad luck, and stories about people who may or may not be Ben Affleck. What's wrong with you people?
Anyway in the 5 days since my return from MD I've had some general frustration, but I've also had money flying into my pockets from strange sources. As far as the general frustration goes here's the story. In my five days of play I've been ahead at least $1,000 every day, but haven't had any four digit wins. In fact I've had three roughly break even days, one -$1,500 day and a +$700 day. I feel like someone is slipping kryptonite under my chair every day at noon everyday. I could be worse and I have been racking up the FPPs so it hasn't been a total waste of time.
Now on to the money coming to me in weird ways. Here are two e-mails I got this week from Pokerstars:
PokerStars has become aware of two players who were in violation of
our poker room rules. You were involved in one or more hands with
these players. Based on a rollback of hands in which you may have
been harmed, your account has been credited $70.00.
Due to our privacy policy we are not at liberty identify the specific
games or players in question. After careful review we have
permanently closed the accounts in question. In addition we have
implemented measures to prevent these individuals from playing on the
site using any other account.
Here's the second one:
Hello ACESEDAI,
In recognition of the inconvenience you have suffered with the delay in receiving your eCheck cashout we have credited your account with a bonus of 20% of the requested cashout amount. This amounts to a credit of $400.00 for your $2000.00 eCheck cashout requested on 04-May-08. This credit can be found in your PokerStars Cashier History as "eCheck compensation".
Score! The first e-mail had a subject line of "account credit" and I was hoping that would be more than $70, but the second one was totally out of left field. Pokerstars has the best F-ing customer service in the universe. With any other company you'd hear "we're really sorry" but they'd never do anything to make it up to you. If they'd given me $100 I would have thought it was about $80 more than I deserved so this was a very nice surprise.
Lastly and most significantly on the weird extra money front I won $1,900 from my good friend E.B. I'm sure you're wondering under what circumstances I could have possibly won so much money from him. I don't want to go into the exact details, but let's just say that I bet him that he wouldn't do something stupid and the stupider he got the more he owed me. I feel a little bad about it, but he won $900 from me in a weight loss bet that we made a few years ago and I'm pretty sure he's gotten me for a few hundred in $20 bets over the years so I don't feel too bad about it.
Since I've taken so much time off this month (I've only worked 7 days - Yikes!)and I'm going to be taking a 8 days off to go to Vegas, I have some serious catching up to do. Right now I'm at 361,500 points for the year and I'm hoping to make it to 420,000 (the point at which my $4,000 milestone bonus will actually be availible for me to cashout) before I leave for Vegas on June 4th. 60,000 points in 17 days is going to take a man sized effort, but I think I'm up to the challenge. I'll try to keep you posted.
Here I was thinking that Tom from the census (Hey Tom), my sister, and sister in law were the only ones reading this blog. But it turns out that there are other people out their neglecting their work duties and/or families to read virtual nonsense about FPPs, massive quantities of complaining about bad luck, and stories about people who may or may not be Ben Affleck. What's wrong with you people?
Anyway in the 5 days since my return from MD I've had some general frustration, but I've also had money flying into my pockets from strange sources. As far as the general frustration goes here's the story. In my five days of play I've been ahead at least $1,000 every day, but haven't had any four digit wins. In fact I've had three roughly break even days, one -$1,500 day and a +$700 day. I feel like someone is slipping kryptonite under my chair every day at noon everyday. I could be worse and I have been racking up the FPPs so it hasn't been a total waste of time.
Now on to the money coming to me in weird ways. Here are two e-mails I got this week from Pokerstars:
PokerStars has become aware of two players who were in violation of
our poker room rules. You were involved in one or more hands with
these players. Based on a rollback of hands in which you may have
been harmed, your account has been credited $70.00.
Due to our privacy policy we are not at liberty identify the specific
games or players in question. After careful review we have
permanently closed the accounts in question. In addition we have
implemented measures to prevent these individuals from playing on the
site using any other account.
Here's the second one:
Hello ACESEDAI,
In recognition of the inconvenience you have suffered with the delay in receiving your eCheck cashout we have credited your account with a bonus of 20% of the requested cashout amount. This amounts to a credit of $400.00 for your $2000.00 eCheck cashout requested on 04-May-08. This credit can be found in your PokerStars Cashier History as "eCheck compensation".
Score! The first e-mail had a subject line of "account credit" and I was hoping that would be more than $70, but the second one was totally out of left field. Pokerstars has the best F-ing customer service in the universe. With any other company you'd hear "we're really sorry" but they'd never do anything to make it up to you. If they'd given me $100 I would have thought it was about $80 more than I deserved so this was a very nice surprise.
Lastly and most significantly on the weird extra money front I won $1,900 from my good friend E.B. I'm sure you're wondering under what circumstances I could have possibly won so much money from him. I don't want to go into the exact details, but let's just say that I bet him that he wouldn't do something stupid and the stupider he got the more he owed me. I feel a little bad about it, but he won $900 from me in a weight loss bet that we made a few years ago and I'm pretty sure he's gotten me for a few hundred in $20 bets over the years so I don't feel too bad about it.
Since I've taken so much time off this month (I've only worked 7 days - Yikes!)and I'm going to be taking a 8 days off to go to Vegas, I have some serious catching up to do. Right now I'm at 361,500 points for the year and I'm hoping to make it to 420,000 (the point at which my $4,000 milestone bonus will actually be availible for me to cashout) before I leave for Vegas on June 4th. 60,000 points in 17 days is going to take a man sized effort, but I think I'm up to the challenge. I'll try to keep you posted.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
WSOP 2008 Preview!
There are a record 55 events over the course of 7 weeks at this years WSOP starting on May 31st. My first glance at the schedule made me feel like I wanted to play about 40 of those events. The vast majority have buys ins between $1,000 and $3,000 which is right in the range that I wanted to target this year and of course most of those are some form of hold 'em.
After many hours over the course of several day of staring at the schedule, looking through my casino offers for room deals, calling to check actual rates at a half dozen casinos, and looking at the prices of flights, I finally came up with a plan! The flights and the rooms are booked now and I'll be in Vegas from June 4th to June 11th. I'm staying at the Rio the first two nights, the Bellagio (Yeah Baby!)the next two, and the Paris for the last three. In my opinion the Bellagio is the nicest casino on the strip and I'm fired up to be staying there.
I'm planning to play in 5 WSOP events this year (#'s 16-20 of my career). Here's my schedule:
June 4th $2,000 NL Hold 'em
June 5th $1,500 NL Hold 'em 6-handed
June 6th Nothing
June 7th $2,500 NL Hold 'em
June 8th Nothing
June 9th $1,500 NL Hold 'em Shootout
June 10th $2,000 Limit Hold 'em
If I get bounced early or if I feel like playing on the 6th or the 8th I'm going to try to catch a few of the other local tournaments that go off every hour around the clock in Vegas. In fact I have my eye on a $1,060 event at the Venetian on the 8th, but I might be ready for a day off by then. I plan on posting daily giving recaps of my tournaments for my fan(s) (Hey Tom) as well as my backers so when June rolls around look for daily updates.
In other news I extended my streak of losing days over $1,200 to six before I got things turned around. That sure sucked! I two nice winning sessions to close the month and ended up winning over $10,000 for April which I find amazing since it felt like I got my ass kicked forever. It didn't hurt that I cleared the $3,000 milestone bonus at the end of the month.
In terms of my year end point goals I ended April with 329,000 points which is only 1,600 points (a little less than 3 hours) short of being on pace for the year. At the start of the year I gave myself about a 50% chance of making it to 1,000,000 points by the end of the year. I'd now give it a 98% chance. Nothing short of a major illness is going to stop me.
After many hours over the course of several day of staring at the schedule, looking through my casino offers for room deals, calling to check actual rates at a half dozen casinos, and looking at the prices of flights, I finally came up with a plan! The flights and the rooms are booked now and I'll be in Vegas from June 4th to June 11th. I'm staying at the Rio the first two nights, the Bellagio (Yeah Baby!)the next two, and the Paris for the last three. In my opinion the Bellagio is the nicest casino on the strip and I'm fired up to be staying there.
I'm planning to play in 5 WSOP events this year (#'s 16-20 of my career). Here's my schedule:
June 4th $2,000 NL Hold 'em
June 5th $1,500 NL Hold 'em 6-handed
June 6th Nothing
June 7th $2,500 NL Hold 'em
June 8th Nothing
June 9th $1,500 NL Hold 'em Shootout
June 10th $2,000 Limit Hold 'em
If I get bounced early or if I feel like playing on the 6th or the 8th I'm going to try to catch a few of the other local tournaments that go off every hour around the clock in Vegas. In fact I have my eye on a $1,060 event at the Venetian on the 8th, but I might be ready for a day off by then. I plan on posting daily giving recaps of my tournaments for my fan(s) (Hey Tom) as well as my backers so when June rolls around look for daily updates.
In other news I extended my streak of losing days over $1,200 to six before I got things turned around. That sure sucked! I two nice winning sessions to close the month and ended up winning over $10,000 for April which I find amazing since it felt like I got my ass kicked forever. It didn't hurt that I cleared the $3,000 milestone bonus at the end of the month.
In terms of my year end point goals I ended April with 329,000 points which is only 1,600 points (a little less than 3 hours) short of being on pace for the year. At the start of the year I gave myself about a 50% chance of making it to 1,000,000 points by the end of the year. I'd now give it a 98% chance. Nothing short of a major illness is going to stop me.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Reversal of Fortune
In the past four days I gotten my ass kicked to a spectacular degree. On Tuesday I woke up and lost $5,500 in one hour. Think about that the next time you feel like you're having a bad morning! Having that happen to you makes you wish that you slept in a little longer, had an extra long breakfast, or even had some horrible virus that kept you in bed all day. I got about $900 of that back later in the day, but by a small margin it was still my worst day ever.
The next day I vowed to not play any $30/$60 which was where I lost the vast majority of that money. I stuck with the $10/$20 and $15/$30 games which I've dominated for the past two months and still got my ass kicked. I lost just over $3,000 in about 5 hours of play.
Thursday I decided to take the day off. I watched a few movies. I played with my son. I went out and shot some hoops. All in all it was a very nice day.'
Today I sat down hoping to book any kind of win. I was down $500 in about the first 3 minutes and I stayed stuck all day. I ended up losing about $1,200.
I'm in the midst of one of those stretches where my opponents are just getting whatever it is that they need to beat me. I'm not getting out played and I'm not playing badly, I'm just getting nailed time after time by bad turns and bad rivers. It's part of the game and I can accept it, but losing enough money in four days to pay our rent for four months is no fun.
Amazingly there is good news. I was doing so well before, that I'm still winning $8,000 this month. That's a great month and I'm trying to think long term, but it's not easy when so much money has just evaporated.
I'm planning on playing a little tomorrow (maybe 1,000 hands or so) and I'm hoping I can pick up something like a $500 win just to break my streak of bad days.
The next day I vowed to not play any $30/$60 which was where I lost the vast majority of that money. I stuck with the $10/$20 and $15/$30 games which I've dominated for the past two months and still got my ass kicked. I lost just over $3,000 in about 5 hours of play.
Thursday I decided to take the day off. I watched a few movies. I played with my son. I went out and shot some hoops. All in all it was a very nice day.'
Today I sat down hoping to book any kind of win. I was down $500 in about the first 3 minutes and I stayed stuck all day. I ended up losing about $1,200.
I'm in the midst of one of those stretches where my opponents are just getting whatever it is that they need to beat me. I'm not getting out played and I'm not playing badly, I'm just getting nailed time after time by bad turns and bad rivers. It's part of the game and I can accept it, but losing enough money in four days to pay our rent for four months is no fun.
Amazingly there is good news. I was doing so well before, that I'm still winning $8,000 this month. That's a great month and I'm trying to think long term, but it's not easy when so much money has just evaporated.
I'm planning on playing a little tomorrow (maybe 1,000 hands or so) and I'm hoping I can pick up something like a $500 win just to break my streak of bad days.
Friday, April 11, 2008
The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves!
Lately I have been beating down my competition. The day after my last post I had a very nice result in the supernova freeroll. I had plans to go see some friends for lunch as soon as I was done with the tournament which started at 11:00. The previous week I'd been bounced in the first 15 minutes and without a few good hands I knew I wouldn't make much past 12:30. Try as I might I just couldn't go broke. I wasn't throwing my chips in there with nothing, but if I had any choice at all I was taking the more aggressive riskier option.
Once we got down to about 50 players and I was in 3rd chip position I started to take it seriously. I felt sure that I was going to go broke around 20th place, make something like $150 and be pissed that I'd kept everyone waiting all day for a small win. Instead I made the final table and we ended up splitting the top prizes 4 ways. My share was $4,240!!! I ended up having dinner with my friends instead or lunch and the food tasted quite a bit better than normal with an extra four grand on my balance sheet.
Despite my tournament success, I've pretty much stopped doing anything poker related that's not 6 handed cash games. One reason why is I've been totally dominating. I've had 6 days in April where I've won more than $2,000!
Of course my recent success hasn't been without some major swings. At the point of my last writing I was dipping my toe in the $30/$60 pool. Well I'm now in the pool up to my knees. I've been playing a little every day and getting used to the higher stakes. I've won $1,145 in about 1,600 hands which sounds great, but when you consider that in the six sessions I've played at that limit this month I've had two -$2,000 sessions, a +3,000 session and a +$2,000 session none of which lasted longer than an hour $1,145 doesn't seem like much.
I've also played about 500 hands of $50/$100. To give you an idea of how big that game is if you just call before the flop, call on the flop, call on the turn and call on the river you've put $300 into the pot. If you have just one raise on each betting round (which is probably more common than no raising at all) you've put $600 in the pot on one hand! It's not insane to think that every now and then I will personally end up putting $1,000 into a single pot. Another way to think about it is just stealing the blinds and winning the smallest possible pot is still a $75 profit.
The first time I played $50/$100 (recently - I've actually played as big as $100/$200, but it's been a while and that was in person) I got my ass kicked. I was looking through the higher limit games to see who was playing (I do this all the time to keep a mental list of all the regular big game players are so just in case they decide to drop down a level or two I can avoid them) and I noticed a VERY weak player who I'd been playing with at $15/$30 for much of the day. There was an open seat so I decided to jump in and take my chances.
I bought in for $5,000 which I thought would be more than I'd need, but would make it look like I belonged in a game that size. My initial thinking was if I won or lost $2,000 or decided the game was too tough that I'd get out. It turned out that other than the guy I'd targeted there was another guy who would be a losing player at any limit. Given that I only had 5 opponents and two totally sucked, It was a great game.
I hovered around even for a while and then quickly dropped to my -$2,000 limit. But like many players who move up and find themselves stuck a few grand I convinced myself to keep playing. After all it was a great game. When I only had $1,000 left in front of me I did the smart thing and got up...or not. I actually bought in for another $1,000 vowing (for real this time) that if I dropped my entire initial $5,000 buy in I'd call it quits.
I came pretty close to doing just that. At one point I was in a hand where if I'd lost I would have been down a little over $5,000 in that game. But, I had top set against two smaller sets and I ended up winning a $1,700 pot! That's a big ass pot. With great effort I crawled back to the point where I was only down $2,000 and jumped ship when two of the regular, solid $50/$100 players sat down.
At the same time as all that was happening I was having some difficulty in my other games and I ended up losing about $3,400 that day. Yuck! But guess what...I won $3,800 the very next day! HA!
Today I had some more big swings. I was ahead $1,500 before I had breakfast. Then I gave it all back between breakfast and lunch. Right after lunch my friend Matt came over and I lost about $2,000 while he was here (he had 30% of the action so I actually only lost $1,400 and he lost $600). I was feeling a little pissed that I'd been ahead $1,500 a few hours earlier and now I was down about that much and Matt was out $600.
But I made a very nice comeback. When Matt left I took a short break and when I came back I won $1,700 in the first 50 hands which took a grand total of about 6 minutes! I ended up putting a few more bucks on that win and finished the day with a healthy $1,300 profit.
Points wise I've also been doing well. I've earned 48,000 points so far exactly halfway through April and I'm at 276,000 for the year. I need to be at 333,000 by the end of the month to be on pace for the year. I might come up a little short of that target, but since my point production has gone up as a result of playing bigger games I should be on or ahead of pace sometime in May or June.
Finally, let me say thank you to Tom and Kristen for giving me heat (always through messengers of course) about not posting. It makes me feel like there are people out there enjoying my blog and I like the notion that I have a nice running record of all of the major events in my career.
Once we got down to about 50 players and I was in 3rd chip position I started to take it seriously. I felt sure that I was going to go broke around 20th place, make something like $150 and be pissed that I'd kept everyone waiting all day for a small win. Instead I made the final table and we ended up splitting the top prizes 4 ways. My share was $4,240!!! I ended up having dinner with my friends instead or lunch and the food tasted quite a bit better than normal with an extra four grand on my balance sheet.
Despite my tournament success, I've pretty much stopped doing anything poker related that's not 6 handed cash games. One reason why is I've been totally dominating. I've had 6 days in April where I've won more than $2,000!
Of course my recent success hasn't been without some major swings. At the point of my last writing I was dipping my toe in the $30/$60 pool. Well I'm now in the pool up to my knees. I've been playing a little every day and getting used to the higher stakes. I've won $1,145 in about 1,600 hands which sounds great, but when you consider that in the six sessions I've played at that limit this month I've had two -$2,000 sessions, a +3,000 session and a +$2,000 session none of which lasted longer than an hour $1,145 doesn't seem like much.
I've also played about 500 hands of $50/$100. To give you an idea of how big that game is if you just call before the flop, call on the flop, call on the turn and call on the river you've put $300 into the pot. If you have just one raise on each betting round (which is probably more common than no raising at all) you've put $600 in the pot on one hand! It's not insane to think that every now and then I will personally end up putting $1,000 into a single pot. Another way to think about it is just stealing the blinds and winning the smallest possible pot is still a $75 profit.
The first time I played $50/$100 (recently - I've actually played as big as $100/$200, but it's been a while and that was in person) I got my ass kicked. I was looking through the higher limit games to see who was playing (I do this all the time to keep a mental list of all the regular big game players are so just in case they decide to drop down a level or two I can avoid them) and I noticed a VERY weak player who I'd been playing with at $15/$30 for much of the day. There was an open seat so I decided to jump in and take my chances.
I bought in for $5,000 which I thought would be more than I'd need, but would make it look like I belonged in a game that size. My initial thinking was if I won or lost $2,000 or decided the game was too tough that I'd get out. It turned out that other than the guy I'd targeted there was another guy who would be a losing player at any limit. Given that I only had 5 opponents and two totally sucked, It was a great game.
I hovered around even for a while and then quickly dropped to my -$2,000 limit. But like many players who move up and find themselves stuck a few grand I convinced myself to keep playing. After all it was a great game. When I only had $1,000 left in front of me I did the smart thing and got up...or not. I actually bought in for another $1,000 vowing (for real this time) that if I dropped my entire initial $5,000 buy in I'd call it quits.
I came pretty close to doing just that. At one point I was in a hand where if I'd lost I would have been down a little over $5,000 in that game. But, I had top set against two smaller sets and I ended up winning a $1,700 pot! That's a big ass pot. With great effort I crawled back to the point where I was only down $2,000 and jumped ship when two of the regular, solid $50/$100 players sat down.
At the same time as all that was happening I was having some difficulty in my other games and I ended up losing about $3,400 that day. Yuck! But guess what...I won $3,800 the very next day! HA!
Today I had some more big swings. I was ahead $1,500 before I had breakfast. Then I gave it all back between breakfast and lunch. Right after lunch my friend Matt came over and I lost about $2,000 while he was here (he had 30% of the action so I actually only lost $1,400 and he lost $600). I was feeling a little pissed that I'd been ahead $1,500 a few hours earlier and now I was down about that much and Matt was out $600.
But I made a very nice comeback. When Matt left I took a short break and when I came back I won $1,700 in the first 50 hands which took a grand total of about 6 minutes! I ended up putting a few more bucks on that win and finished the day with a healthy $1,300 profit.
Points wise I've also been doing well. I've earned 48,000 points so far exactly halfway through April and I'm at 276,000 for the year. I need to be at 333,000 by the end of the month to be on pace for the year. I might come up a little short of that target, but since my point production has gone up as a result of playing bigger games I should be on or ahead of pace sometime in May or June.
Finally, let me say thank you to Tom and Kristen for giving me heat (always through messengers of course) about not posting. It makes me feel like there are people out there enjoying my blog and I like the notion that I have a nice running record of all of the major events in my career.
Friday, March 21, 2008
20% of the way there (plus great news!)
Today was day 81 of 366 this year meaning we're 22.13% of the way through the year. So far I've earned 205,242 points of the 1,000,000 I'll need to hit my year end goals which means I'm 20.52% of the way there. So far the year has gone better that I'd hoped it would. Since my last post I've played every day and won 7 of those 8 days with the loss being a very moderate $506 loss (6 of my 7 wins were larger than my one loss).
Also I came across what can only be described and fantastic news. I just crossed the 200,000 point mark this week which entitled me to a $2,000 bonus. I knew I had to jump through a hoop or two to get my bonus and I wanted to check the website for exact details (I have to give them some FPPs and earn 10,000 points within 120 days - no big deal). While browsing through the info about the VIP club I saw that they had changed the milestones required to earn similar bonuses as well and the corresponding rewards.
Last year when a player reached 200,000 points they got $2,000. At 300,000 they picked up another $3,000. At 500,000 points it was another $5,000 and at 750,000 points they got another $7,500. If someone played enough to earn all of those bonuses they'd earn $17,500. Pretty amazing right?
Well recently they changed the milestones to 200,000, 300,000, 400,000, 500,000 600,000 and 800,000 with bonuses of $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 and $8,000!!! This means that if everything goes according to plan (which I'd say there's a 95% chance of now) I'll pick up $28,000 in bonus cash instead of $17,500! SWEET!
Of course there's still the MEGA year end bonus which is my main focus, but finding out I'm going to get paid an extra $10,500 for something I was going to do anyway is pretty amazing.
Also I came across what can only be described and fantastic news. I just crossed the 200,000 point mark this week which entitled me to a $2,000 bonus. I knew I had to jump through a hoop or two to get my bonus and I wanted to check the website for exact details (I have to give them some FPPs and earn 10,000 points within 120 days - no big deal). While browsing through the info about the VIP club I saw that they had changed the milestones required to earn similar bonuses as well and the corresponding rewards.
Last year when a player reached 200,000 points they got $2,000. At 300,000 they picked up another $3,000. At 500,000 points it was another $5,000 and at 750,000 points they got another $7,500. If someone played enough to earn all of those bonuses they'd earn $17,500. Pretty amazing right?
Well recently they changed the milestones to 200,000, 300,000, 400,000, 500,000 600,000 and 800,000 with bonuses of $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 and $8,000!!! This means that if everything goes according to plan (which I'd say there's a 95% chance of now) I'll pick up $28,000 in bonus cash instead of $17,500! SWEET!
Of course there's still the MEGA year end bonus which is my main focus, but finding out I'm going to get paid an extra $10,500 for something I was going to do anyway is pretty amazing.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Progress Update
It's been a few weeks since my last post and during that time I've had some substantial ups and downs including my worst day ever! YUCK!
After my last post I ran off a few small, but not insignificant wins and then had a day where I got totally rocked. I started the day ahead over $1,000 and then fell like a safe thrown from the roof of a skyscraper. In the span of about 6 hours I went from up $1,000 to losing $5,000! That's -$16.67 a minute for 6 hours! Of course that's what can happen playing two $10/$20 games and two $15/$30 games at once. Amazingly I feel like I played just fine, but I just had an insanely bad run of cards.
The bit of good news was I cashed in 100,000 FPPs that day for $1,500 and won close to $1,000 in a $530 multitable to finish it off so while it was still a terrible day it went down in the books as very, very bad instead of an epic disaster.
While you might think that was the worst day ever (it was certainly the worst 6 hours of my professional life) that I alluded to above, you'd be wrong! 9 days later I lost about $4,500 with nothing to cushion the blow. My previous worst was way back in 2006 and came playing four $5/$10 blinds no limit cash games (Those are $1,000 buy in games). During that session I lost THREE pots that had over $2,000 in them in the span of about 15 minutes. I ended up losing just over $4,000 on that day and have been lucky enough to not have any days worse than that since until recently.
So what does this all mean? I must be close to broke right? WRONG! Despite those two awful days I'm still doing really well for the year. In the 62 days that I've played so far this year I've had 41 winning days and 21 losing days. More importantly I've had 17 days where I've won more than $1,000 and only 6 where I've lost more than $1,000. Despite the 6 hours of doom, February was the second best month I've had in the past 24 months and even though I had my worst day ever in March and it's only two weeks into the month I'm still having a solid winning month!
My point production is still behind where I want it to be, but I'm cautiously optimistic about the coming months. So far I've earned about 165,000 of the 1,000,000 points I need for my Mega year end bonus. I expect to be in the 210,000-215,000 range by the end of march and have plans for an insane working month in April which could put me almost back on pace. By the end of April I'll need to be at 333,000 points to be right on track and I think I can make it to about 315,000 which isn't that far off.
After my last post I ran off a few small, but not insignificant wins and then had a day where I got totally rocked. I started the day ahead over $1,000 and then fell like a safe thrown from the roof of a skyscraper. In the span of about 6 hours I went from up $1,000 to losing $5,000! That's -$16.67 a minute for 6 hours! Of course that's what can happen playing two $10/$20 games and two $15/$30 games at once. Amazingly I feel like I played just fine, but I just had an insanely bad run of cards.
The bit of good news was I cashed in 100,000 FPPs that day for $1,500 and won close to $1,000 in a $530 multitable to finish it off so while it was still a terrible day it went down in the books as very, very bad instead of an epic disaster.
While you might think that was the worst day ever (it was certainly the worst 6 hours of my professional life) that I alluded to above, you'd be wrong! 9 days later I lost about $4,500 with nothing to cushion the blow. My previous worst was way back in 2006 and came playing four $5/$10 blinds no limit cash games (Those are $1,000 buy in games). During that session I lost THREE pots that had over $2,000 in them in the span of about 15 minutes. I ended up losing just over $4,000 on that day and have been lucky enough to not have any days worse than that since until recently.
So what does this all mean? I must be close to broke right? WRONG! Despite those two awful days I'm still doing really well for the year. In the 62 days that I've played so far this year I've had 41 winning days and 21 losing days. More importantly I've had 17 days where I've won more than $1,000 and only 6 where I've lost more than $1,000. Despite the 6 hours of doom, February was the second best month I've had in the past 24 months and even though I had my worst day ever in March and it's only two weeks into the month I'm still having a solid winning month!
My point production is still behind where I want it to be, but I'm cautiously optimistic about the coming months. So far I've earned about 165,000 of the 1,000,000 points I need for my Mega year end bonus. I expect to be in the 210,000-215,000 range by the end of march and have plans for an insane working month in April which could put me almost back on pace. By the end of April I'll need to be at 333,000 points to be right on track and I think I can make it to about 315,000 which isn't that far off.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Testing the Waters
Last week was by far my best week of the year. Actually it was my best week since October of 2007 and if you cut that one out, you have to go all the way back to early 2006 to find a better 7 day stretch.
More important than the money I made was the fact that how I made it is very reproducible. I'm not saying that I'm going to run off $2,000 days a few times a week for the rest of the year, but winning day after day speaks more to future potential than having one big tournament win.
One of the nice things for me about playing after going on a nice run is not worrying about taking a significant loss. While I always sit down planning on and expecting to win, it's impossible to not let thoughts and fear of a big loss creep into my head from time to time. But when I've seen my account balance skyrocket in the previous few days I haven't really grown attached to that money yet. I rarely if ever get out of line with the risks I take, but If I get killed one day I can look back at where my balance was a few days earlier and still feel good about where I stand.
With all of that in mind, I've been testing the waters in the bigger 6-handed limit cash games. I've pretty much cut out playing the $5/$10 games and have instead gone to either all $10/$20 games or a mix of $10/$20 and $15/$30 games.
I've even dipped my little toe into the $30/$60 pool (I've played about 150 hands total in the past 3 days). $30/$60 is no joke. The average pot in a $30/$60 game is in the $300-$400 range and $1,000 pots are not completely uncommon.
The past two days I've had really nice results playing $30/$60 in small bursts. While that short of a span tells me next to nothing about what I could expect playing in the long term, it's still nice to win.
Yesterday I started off crazy hot in my normal games and was ahead over $2,000 before noon. Then I went totally down the toilet and found myself losing $1,000 towards the end of my day. Luckily I made a little surge at the end which included a $500 boost from a few made hands in the $30/$60 and ended up winning about $200 for the day.
Today I experienced similar but less drastic swing. I was up about $1,000 early then gave it all back plus some. Once again I made a late inning surge with a $500+ win in less than 20 hands of $30/$60 (I play about 500 hands and hour so 20 hands takes less time than a bathroom break).
The key hand was my second hand at the table (I was in a few other games and only playing one $30/$60). I picked up 44 in the small blind and when the button raised to $60 I reraised to $90. The big blind folded and the flop came down 9 4 2 giving me a set. I bet, my opponent raised and I made it three bets. At this point there was $390 in the pot, the turn came a ten and I bet out $60. My opponent quickly raised to $120, I made it $180, and he called.
Now there was $750 in the pot and while I was 98% sure I had the best hand, my heart was certainly beating a little faster than normal. The the river brought a Q, I bet $60 and got raised. ACK! I was worried that my opponent might have QQ, but I certainly couldn't fold for another $60 with $930 sitting out there in the pot. I called, my opponent showed QT and I took down a very nice pot.
In the coming days I expect to say in the $10/$20 games, but it's fun to push it a little and I can certainly see myself pushing the envelope a little in the near future.
More important than the money I made was the fact that how I made it is very reproducible. I'm not saying that I'm going to run off $2,000 days a few times a week for the rest of the year, but winning day after day speaks more to future potential than having one big tournament win.
One of the nice things for me about playing after going on a nice run is not worrying about taking a significant loss. While I always sit down planning on and expecting to win, it's impossible to not let thoughts and fear of a big loss creep into my head from time to time. But when I've seen my account balance skyrocket in the previous few days I haven't really grown attached to that money yet. I rarely if ever get out of line with the risks I take, but If I get killed one day I can look back at where my balance was a few days earlier and still feel good about where I stand.
With all of that in mind, I've been testing the waters in the bigger 6-handed limit cash games. I've pretty much cut out playing the $5/$10 games and have instead gone to either all $10/$20 games or a mix of $10/$20 and $15/$30 games.
I've even dipped my little toe into the $30/$60 pool (I've played about 150 hands total in the past 3 days). $30/$60 is no joke. The average pot in a $30/$60 game is in the $300-$400 range and $1,000 pots are not completely uncommon.
The past two days I've had really nice results playing $30/$60 in small bursts. While that short of a span tells me next to nothing about what I could expect playing in the long term, it's still nice to win.
Yesterday I started off crazy hot in my normal games and was ahead over $2,000 before noon. Then I went totally down the toilet and found myself losing $1,000 towards the end of my day. Luckily I made a little surge at the end which included a $500 boost from a few made hands in the $30/$60 and ended up winning about $200 for the day.
Today I experienced similar but less drastic swing. I was up about $1,000 early then gave it all back plus some. Once again I made a late inning surge with a $500+ win in less than 20 hands of $30/$60 (I play about 500 hands and hour so 20 hands takes less time than a bathroom break).
The key hand was my second hand at the table (I was in a few other games and only playing one $30/$60). I picked up 44 in the small blind and when the button raised to $60 I reraised to $90. The big blind folded and the flop came down 9 4 2 giving me a set. I bet, my opponent raised and I made it three bets. At this point there was $390 in the pot, the turn came a ten and I bet out $60. My opponent quickly raised to $120, I made it $180, and he called.
Now there was $750 in the pot and while I was 98% sure I had the best hand, my heart was certainly beating a little faster than normal. The the river brought a Q, I bet $60 and got raised. ACK! I was worried that my opponent might have QQ, but I certainly couldn't fold for another $60 with $930 sitting out there in the pot. I called, my opponent showed QT and I took down a very nice pot.
In the coming days I expect to say in the $10/$20 games, but it's fun to push it a little and I can certainly see myself pushing the envelope a little in the near future.
Friday, February 15, 2008
A Week To Remember
The past five days have been amazing. Not only have I not had a losing day, my worst day was an $800 win!!! I have been KILLING the $10/$20 games. This is great news not just because of the money I've been making, but it means I'll be able to earn points at a much faster rate.
Along those lines I've just crossed the 100,000 point mark for the year. This is the point at which you earn regular supernova status for the rest of the year. In 2006 the first year that pokerstars started their current rewards program it took me until the middle of June to earn 100,000 points. In 2007 it took until the middle of April.
Even though I've drastically improved my point generation over previous years I'm still behind pace. In order to be on pace I should have crossed the 100,000 point mark on February 7th and be at 123,000 points today. However, I'm not worried. While I can earn 1.05 points per hand on average playing $5/$10 games, I can earn about 1.4 points per hand playing $10/$20 games. While I haven't switched entirely to the larger games, a mix of two smaller and two larger games has been what's been producing my major success and about 1.25 points per hand on average.
Something interesting happened to me on Wednesday. I found myself up about $1,000 when I stopped for lunch and when I came back I browsed through the big games to see if anyone I knew was taking a shot at the big bucks. I didn't see any of my regular opponents, but in a 6 handed $50/$100 game I did see Money800 who I happen to know is 2003 WSOP main even winner Chris Moneymaker and a guy named AffleckKGB who I thought might be Ben Affleck. I happen to know that Ben Affleck is a very serious poker player, this guy was from Irvine (which is near Hollywood) and I don't know who would want to have a name like AffeckKGB with a picture of Ben Affleck other than Ben Affleck.
Anyway being so far ahead and given the chance to play against a former world Champion and a potential celebrity made it seem like I should sit down. There was one seat so I bought in for $2,000 and waited to get dealt in. On my first hand I was dealt AA in the big blind! "I am a fucking genius!" I thought to myself.
Someone raised and I three bet. The flop came K 2 4. I bet, got raised and three bet it. The turn was a 3, I bet got raised and just called. I was hoping I was up against a hand like KQ, but even though I liked my hand I still felt nervous. On the river (which was a J) I check called and my opponent showed A5 for a wheel. "FUCK! I AM AN IDIOT" I thought. That was a quick $600 out the window.
In full on moron mode now, I decided to play a few more rounds and actually got about half of that $600 back. Even more amazingly I kicked even more ass in my normal games and ended up winning a little more than $2,100 on the day.
If I can manage anything even remotely close to this level of success for anything longer than the short term, life is going to get a lot nicer in the Huff household.
Along those lines I've just crossed the 100,000 point mark for the year. This is the point at which you earn regular supernova status for the rest of the year. In 2006 the first year that pokerstars started their current rewards program it took me until the middle of June to earn 100,000 points. In 2007 it took until the middle of April.
Even though I've drastically improved my point generation over previous years I'm still behind pace. In order to be on pace I should have crossed the 100,000 point mark on February 7th and be at 123,000 points today. However, I'm not worried. While I can earn 1.05 points per hand on average playing $5/$10 games, I can earn about 1.4 points per hand playing $10/$20 games. While I haven't switched entirely to the larger games, a mix of two smaller and two larger games has been what's been producing my major success and about 1.25 points per hand on average.
Something interesting happened to me on Wednesday. I found myself up about $1,000 when I stopped for lunch and when I came back I browsed through the big games to see if anyone I knew was taking a shot at the big bucks. I didn't see any of my regular opponents, but in a 6 handed $50/$100 game I did see Money800 who I happen to know is 2003 WSOP main even winner Chris Moneymaker and a guy named AffleckKGB who I thought might be Ben Affleck. I happen to know that Ben Affleck is a very serious poker player, this guy was from Irvine (which is near Hollywood) and I don't know who would want to have a name like AffeckKGB with a picture of Ben Affleck other than Ben Affleck.
Anyway being so far ahead and given the chance to play against a former world Champion and a potential celebrity made it seem like I should sit down. There was one seat so I bought in for $2,000 and waited to get dealt in. On my first hand I was dealt AA in the big blind! "I am a fucking genius!" I thought to myself.
Someone raised and I three bet. The flop came K 2 4. I bet, got raised and three bet it. The turn was a 3, I bet got raised and just called. I was hoping I was up against a hand like KQ, but even though I liked my hand I still felt nervous. On the river (which was a J) I check called and my opponent showed A5 for a wheel. "FUCK! I AM AN IDIOT" I thought. That was a quick $600 out the window.
In full on moron mode now, I decided to play a few more rounds and actually got about half of that $600 back. Even more amazingly I kicked even more ass in my normal games and ended up winning a little more than $2,100 on the day.
If I can manage anything even remotely close to this level of success for anything longer than the short term, life is going to get a lot nicer in the Huff household.
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