FTOPS XIII Event #11 (1/2 PLO 1/2 PLH) underway

We started this one with 1,310 players each with 5,000 chips. I doubled up early with KK but gave some back in the Omaha when I got it all in with AAJ9 vs a shortish stack. After an hour of play I have 7,725.

The edge of the money is 135th which pays $340 and 1st is $57,640.

FTOPS Update

As you may have infered from my lack of post I didn't make the money in the $109 with rebuys. Got it all in with AQ vs JJ and lost. Eventually I'm going to win some of these races!

In the morning I have $216 half pot limit hold'em, half pot limit Omaha. It should be fun.

FTOPS XIII Event #7 ($109 NLH w rebuys) Underway!

2,316 players to start. I made it through the rebuy period only doing one rebuy and the add-on so I'm in for $309. After winning one big hand early I slowly gave back my profits and find myself with the 5,000 chips I paid for. The edge of the money is 234th which pays $696 and first place is $142,000.

I haven't done shit in a tournament in a long time so (in the words of all great losers) I'm due!

FTOPS Event 4 Recap

I had it up to over 11,000 chips at one point, but then went down the tubes. They say to do well in a tournament you have to win with AK and beat AK. Well on two consecutive hands I lost all ins with 88 to AK and then AK to JJ.

What's the worst play in poker?

Here is the history from a hand I just played playing stud hi-lo.


Transcript for game #31356875870 requested by ACESEDAI (wesdave1279@yahoo.com)

*********** # 1 **************
PokerStars Game #31356875870: 8-Game (7 Card Stud Hi/Lo Limit, $10/$20 USD) - 2009/08/07 15:09:47 ET
Table 'Hagihara V' 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: johnny1430 ($338 in chips)
Seat 2: amosa ($420 in chips)
Seat 3: kanattack ($155 in chips)
Seat 4: Voltron3 ($282 in chips)
Seat 5: Seb86 ($414.50 in chips)
Seat 6: ACESEDAI ($1431.40 in chips)
ACESEDAI: posts the ante $2
johnny1430: posts the ante $2
amosa: posts the ante $2
kanattack: posts the ante $2
Voltron3: posts the ante $2
Seb86: posts the ante $2
*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to johnny1430 [Ts]
Dealt to amosa [5c]
Dealt to kanattack [3s]
Dealt to Voltron3 [Kc]
Dealt to Seb86 [Qd]
Dealt to ACESEDAI [6c 7c As]
kanattack: brings in for $3
Voltron3: calls $3
Seb86: folds
ACESEDAI: raises $7 to $10
johnny1430: folds
amosa: folds
kanattack: folds
Voltron3: calls $7
*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to Voltron3 [Kc] [4s]
Dealt to ACESEDAI [6c 7c As] [4h]
ACESEDAI: bets $10
Voltron3: calls $10
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to Voltron3 [Kc 4s] [Td]
Dealt to ACESEDAI [6c 7c As 4h] [9h]
ACESEDAI: checks
Voltron3: bets $20
ACESEDAI: calls $20
*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to Voltron3 [Kc 4s Td] [2c]
Dealt to ACESEDAI [6c 7c As 4h 9h] [2s]
ACESEDAI: bets $20
Voltron3: calls $20
*** RIVER ***
Dealt to ACESEDAI [6c 7c As 4h 9h 2s] [6s]
ACESEDAI: bets $20
Voltron3: calls $20
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ACESEDAI: shows [6c 7c As 4h 9h 2s 6s] (HI: a pair of Sixes; LO: 7,6,4,2,A)
Voltron3: mucks hand
ACESEDAI collected $86 from pot
ACESEDAI collected $86 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $175 | Rake $3
Seat 1: johnny1430 folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 2: amosa folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 3: kanattack folded on the 3rd Street
Seat 4: Voltron3 mucked [Js 9c Kc 4s Td 2c 5d]
Seat 5: Seb86 (button) folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 6: ACESEDAI showed [6c 7c As 4h 9h 2s 6s] and won ($172) with HI: a pair of Sixes; LO: 7,6,4,2,A


The worst play in poker? Calling a bet on the river when you can't beat your opponents up cards! This guy called me with K high and no low when I had an ace showing!

FTOPS XIII Event #4 ($216 1R+1A NLH) underway!

This was a tournament that was always on my maybe list and with my mother and father in law in town I wasn't sure if I was going to play. But in the end it seemed like a good idea.

This tournament has a $216 buy in that gets you 2,000 chips. If you want to, for another $200 you can buy 2,000 more chips. Then at the end of the 1st hour of play on the first break you can get 2,500 chips for another $200. For anyone who is serious this is a $616 tournament with 6,500 starting chips.

Late registration is still open, but it looks like we'll have about 1,275 players.

FTOPS XIII Event #2 Recap

I finished 3rd at my initial table in today's shootout tournament. I had some bad luck which I'll share with you and then talk a little be about if it was just bad or epically bad luck.

I went from my starting stack of 3,000 chips to zero in two hands. In the first hand I was on the button holding A9 with blinds of 50/100 and made it 300 to go. The big blind called and the flop came down A Q 8. My opponent checked, I bet 500, and he called. The turn was a blank and I bet 900. Again I got called. The river was a jack and my opponent checked.

I had 1,300 left and thought about sending it all in. My opponent was a bit of a goof and he easily could have called my river bet with a worse ace or a queen. But I decided that it would be better to save that last 1,300 and give my self one more bullet to fire at this tournament if I was beat. So I checked and my opponent turned over KT for a straight.

On the very next hand the player on the button raised to 300 and I moved all in for my last 1,300 from the big blind with Q9. Not exactly the nuts, but three handed I knew my opponent would have a very wide opening range so there was some chance I had the best hand, some chance he would fold to my all in, and some chance I'd be behind, but would still win the pot. He instantly called me with KT. The flop was 99Q and I thought "good he's drawing dead, oh wait he has KT of hears and there are two hearts on board so I guess he has one out." The river was that one out, the jack of hearts making him a straight flush! ACK!

This is a perfect example of how losing players convince themselves that they are insanely unlucky. Let's look at how my hands stacked up to my opponents hands. Before the flop A9 is 59% to beat KT, and Q9 off suit is 34% vs KT suited. That means I was about 73% to win at least one of the pots if all the money had gone in preflop on both hands. That's one way to look at it.

Another way to look at it (usually the best way) is what kind of shape was I in when the money went in the pot? Well I was 34% on the second hand when the money went in and in the first hand most of the money when in on the flop and turn. On the flop I was 81% to win and on the turn I was 91%. I was pretty far ahead on the first pot, but when the money went in, but a little behind on the second one. If you look at when the money went in I was more like 90% to win at least one of the pots. Pretty good but not a sure thing.

What some people will do is look at the point at which they were most ahead. In the first pot I was 91% after the turn and in the second one I was 97.7% after the turn. So they'll say "Man! 488 times out of 489 I would win at least one pot! I am so unlucky!"

It's interesting how you can spin things so that with the same two hands you can say you were 1 in 4, 1 in 10, or 1 in 489 to lose both pots.

To sum up, I got screwed, but not horrible so.

I have my wife's family in town for my son's birthday so I may or may not play the FTOPS stuff I have on my schedule for tomorrow. If I play I'll put up a post when the tournament is underway.

FTOPS XIII Event #2 ($322 4X 6-max shootout) underway!

For those of you who don't know how shootouts work let me tell you! In this tournament 1,193 of us were split into 216 tables with either 5 or 6 players at a table. Each table plays without anyone new joining until there is only one player left. That player moves on to the next round where the 216 remaining players will be split into 36 tables of 6 players who will again play until there is one winner at each table. Then 36 players play at 6 tables and those winners play it out at the final table.

In every shootout I've ever seen (until this one) making it past the first round means you are in the money and in order to make more money you have to win your second table. But in this one you have to finish in the top 4 at your second table to make the money which is $572. If you finish 3rd in the second round you get $787 and so on with every place in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th round paying slightly more. 1st place is $62,632.

Luckily I was at one of the tables that started with 5 players and after 30 minutes I'm dead even, and we've lost one player at my table.

3 Quick Comment Responses

I always make an effort to respond to anyone who comments on my blog, because first of all I like to know that people are reading and second of all if someone has a question I'm sure other people are asking the same thing.

Luis wanted to know what I thought about him playing $.50/$1 fixed limit hold 'em. I think everyone should play whatever games they enjoy and there is nothing wrong with playing low stakes games and taking it slow. There is certainly more to poker than no limit hold'em, but that's what the rookies want to play so there is good money to be made there. But that doesn't mean that there aren't other games that are beatable that might suit an individual's personal poker skills a little better. I played NL cash games for two stretches of about 6 months, but I always bought in short because I'm not great at folding big hands which you have to do when you're deep stacked. Also the bonus, rakeback or FPPs come faster at limit. I think the easiest game to learn to play very well (but not expertly) is probably Razz. It's a pretty simple game, but I'm sure the players playing the $1/$2 make a lot of basic mistakes.


As far as stakes go when I started playing I didn't have online poker so my game choices were VERY limited. I played 20 cent/40 cent limit hold'em in a home game for a few months and then after a little $1/$2 and $2/$4 at the Oaks club, I jumped to $3/$6. I played $3/$6 a few times a week for a year without every going bigger. Then I played $6/$12 for a year without ever going bigger. In fact I played for a living for 6 months before I ever played a game bigger than $15/$30. Now I've gone as high a $200/$400, but it's taken me almost 10 years to get to where I am. Everyone has to start somewhere and having the self control to take is slow is critical for long term success.

On to the second comment! The mini FTOPS doesn't start until September! Thanks to the poster who pointed that out. I feel like on previous FTOPS the mini ran at the same time, but I could just be getting confused with the SCOOP.

Lastly I don't expect the goofy FTOPS challenges to affect people's play very much and there won't be anyway to tell if someone is thinking about them. But anytime a player has some outside influence (normally in the form of a big last longer bet)that makes them do something they normally wouldn't do, it means they aren't playing their best. While it's not much of a good thing, it can't be a bad thing!

FTOPS XIII Event #1 Results

I have to say that after my strong start I did not have any luck. I got a slew of what I would describe as marginally playable hands and I played them, but never really connected hard with a flop. I fired out a few bluffs, but ran into real hands (or super dynamite expert re-bluffs) every time.

In the end I got my money in good. In fact you will almost never come across a situation where moving all in preflop is such a clear choice. The blinds were something like 120/240 and a player 2 off the button made it 700 to go. The button called and I was in the big blind with 3,500 chips and AK suited. That is go time if I have ever seen it.

Surprisingly the original raiser moved all in for 10,000 or so (I think) with KQ. He flopped a Q and that was it.

Tomorrow $322, six handed quadruple shootout!

FTOPS XIII Event #1 ($216 NLH) underway

We kicked off FTOPS XIII with 5,712 players fighting it out for a piece of the $1,142,400 prize pool. Of course everyone's eye is on the $195,350 1st place prize, but I know plenty of the entrants would settle for the $343 that 720th place pays.

I got off to a hot start making a set of tens on an A T 2 flop. I'd reraised preflop from the small blind and was thrilled when my continuation bet on the flop got raised. I thought about dropping the all in bomb right there, but decided to let my opponent keep the lead and just called. To my dismay my opponent checked behind me on the turn and folded to my river bet, but it was still a sizeable pot.

Shortly after that I made top pair on a ten high flop with QT. I fired the whole way and got called the whole way by AT. Luckily the river was a Q and I'd just about doubled my starting stack of 5,000 chips.

Unfortunalety that brief glory was followed by a series of miscues. During said miscues I gave back all of my profits plus some and was down to 3,500. Luckily a dude with K3 who flopped a 3 went nuts when I had an overpair so an hour and a half in I have 7,500 chips. We've only lost 1,500 players so there is still a long way to go.

FTOPS XIII (and mini FTOPS)

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series XIII kicks off on August 5th with a slate of 25 tournaments with buy ins ranging from $109 to $2,620.

This will be my 4th FTOPS and I've done very well in the past with the highlight being a second place finish of 1,100 or so entrants in the $256 PLO knockout event in FTOPS X.

Despite my past success I'm going to tone it down a little this time around. Partly because it's not easy getting more than a few thousand dollars into fulltilt and also because the WCOOP is right around the corner in September and I want to make sure I (and my backers) have enough in reserve for the $20,000 in tournaments I want to play in that series.

My plan is to take $3,000 and see what I can do. If I win a few grand early on I'll put that back into play and enter every event on the schedule that works with my real life plans (my son is turning 2 on the 9th so no tournaments that day for me). If I brick early then I'll mis a few tournaments I might otherwise have played at the end.

For now here is my tentative schedule:

9/5 18:00 PT $216 NL hold'em
9/6 11:00 PT $322 NL hold'em 6-max quadruple shootout (that's a mouth full!)
9/7 11:00 PT $216 NL hold'em with 1 rebuy and 1 add on
9/7 18:00 PT $216 7-Card Stud
9/8 13:00 PT $109 NL hold'em with rebuys
9/10 11:00 PT $216 half NL hold'em half pot limit Omaha
9/11 11:00 PT $322 NL hold'em triple shootout
9/11 18:00 PT $535 HORSE (Yeah baby!)
9/12 11:00 PT $256 PLO knockout
9/13 18:00 PT $216 limit hold'em 6-max
9/14 11:00 PT $216 NL hold'em 6-max
9/14 18:00 PT $322 Razz
9/16 11:00 PT $129 NL hold'em knockout
9/16 13:00 PT $535 NL hold'em

If you add it all up (counting projected rebuys) that's $4,094. Now that I look at it and add it up I have to say I'm surprised that there are 14 tournaments on my schedule.

So what is this whole mini FTOPS thing anyway? Well at the same time as the regular FTOPS events fulltilt is running tournaments of 1/10th the buy in. So at the same time as the $535 horse there will also be a $55 HORSE that goes off at the same time. With the exception of the August 9th tournaments I plan to play all of the mini FTOPS tournaments. Here is the full schedule for those of you who are interested. The mini FTOPS could be fun or a colossal waste of time that bores me out of my mind. We'll have to see. At least I know the competition will be super duper, duper weak and if I can win one it will still be a pretty good sized pay day despite the low buy in.

Fulltilt is also offering a few goofy promotions to go along with the FTOPS that I thought were worth mentioning. First and foremost they will give anyone who cashes in at least 17 of the 25 events $1,000,000. No chance of that happening for me or anyone else, but still interesting. Can you imagine making the money in 16 and having one tournament left to go? Pure terror.

There are also leaderboards for the main FTOPS and the mini FTOPS. Every time you finish in the top 72 places (regardless of the number of entrants) you earn leaderboard points. You get 1 point for 72nd and 200 for 1st with everything else in between (10th is 105 points and 30th is 43 points just to give you a better idea). If you win either the main FTOPS or mini FTOPS leaderboard you win free entry into every event in the next FTOPS (worth about $10,000). Based on past results it looks like if you end up with 400 points you have a good shot to win. Of course it's VERY remote that I'd be in contention and the prize money dwarfs the extra $10,000, but still fun. Maybe an over under bet on the number of points that I earn in the mini FTOPS would keep me interested. Matt, E.B., Jake? Any one want to set a line or make me an offer?

Now on to the really goofy promotions! If you double your starting stack in any two FTOPS tournaments you win an entry into a $10,000 prize pool freeroll. Do that 3 times and there is another $10,000 freeroll, plus another one for doing it four times and another for five times. I expect I'll double my starting stack at least 5 times in 14 tournaments so I should get entry into all 4 of those. Whether it will be worth my time to play them remains to be seen. I expect the first one will have so many players that it's almost worthless, but there can't be too many people who double up 5 times so the last one might be worth $20 or $40 or whatever.

Similarly if you survive to level 10 of 2, 3, 4, or 5 tournaments there are another set of $10,000 freerolls. This should mean another 4 freerolls for me.

Then there is the "zero to hero" challenge. Here is what the website says about that:

1.Start by playing in any FTOPS Super Satellite and win a seat in a FTOPS Satellite.
2.Play in that FTOPS Satellite and win your entry to the FTOPS event.
3.Cash in that event and win a $50 bonus.
4.Make the final table in that event and win a $500 bonus
5.Take down the tournament and win a $5,000 bonus on top of your 1st place prize money!

I can say for sure if you make a final table of any of the FTOPS events you aren't going to give a shit about the extra $500! Let's see I won $50,000 for my third place finish and oh yeah I get an extra $500 because I won my way in by playing a $3 satellite to a $30 satellite to this $300 tournament!

Lastly the goofiest of all! Here is what it says about the "Hold'em challenge."

Put your Hold ‘em skills to the test by mastering at least three of the following tasks in a single No-Limit Hold ‘em FTOPS event. Please note that you must accomplish each task when at least five players are dealt into the hand:

1.Win a pot worth at least 20 big blinds with AA or KK at least once.
2.Bluff with Ace high or less on the river and win the pot at least once.
3.Win 30 hands without a showdown.
4.Steal the same player’s big blind three times.
5.Reraise all in preflop with a pocket pair at least once.
The more tasks you accomplish in a single event, the more Freeroll entries you win:

FTOPS Hold ‘em Challenge
Complete three tasks to win a $10K Hold ‘em Challenge Freeroll 1 entry
Complete four tasks to win a $10K Hold ‘em Challenge Freeroll 2 entry
Complete all five tasks to win a $10K Hold ‘em Challenge Freeroll 3 entry


Hopefully people will do some stupid shit trying to accomplish these goals.


I'll keep you posted on my results!

Smashing the 8-game

It's been a while since my last post (didn't proofread this one so sorry about the typos). I've been on sort of an inpromptu vacation. Partly because I've been doing lots of fun stuff, but also because I was credited 100,000 VPPs for "winning" my WSOP main event seat through pokerstars and that counted towards the monthly 50,000 I need to keep my supernova elite status. This has been the first time in a year and half that I haven't been thinking about how many points I need to earn so I've been taking advantage.

Sorry that I left you hanging on the Omaha hand I mentioned in my last post. Thanks to those of you who posted comments. I have especially been keeping in mind the part of the comment left by the anonymous poster who said "no one ever folds in PLO." I repeat that in my head when I want to three barrel bluff like I'm used to doing in other games and instead look for situations where I can make value bets instead.

I'll try to briefly wrap up discussion on that hand before moving on (you might need to look back at the last post for the details of the hand - I know I did).

My friend Bombay Jack responded via phone call not e-mail so I'll have to paraphrase his comments. First of all he said he like reraising preflop, but preferred $90-$100 instead of $130. A double suited connected hand like the one I had is a premium hand and even though it's a "drawing" hand if you do the math it's a favorite over most of the hands in my opponents' range.

He also said that my opponents preflop calls were very thin at best, but once the flop came out the money was bound to go all in. After following Jack's recommendation that I use on odds calculator (like the one on cardplayer.com) to see where I stood in the hand at various points I saw that we were about 50/50 on the flop. Since we were both getting about 2 to 1 on our money given the dollars already in the pot we both did the right thing on the flop.

The good news is I have played a few thousand hands of 8-game since my last post and I have been totally killing my opponents. I've won $3,500 in the past two days playing a mix of $10/$20 and $20/$40 over the span of 1,000 hands and I had similar results over the preceding 1,000 hands which was a little more spread out.

Amazingly most of my profits seem to have come in the PLO! Whatever discomfort I have playing that game is nothing compared to the complete moronitude (who cares if it's not a real word - you know what I mean!) that my opponents have displayed at times.

Here is an example! Yesterday I was playing $20/$40 four handed and go dealt AA94 with the A4 of hearts. With about $1,300 in my stack I was first to act and made it $35 to go. The player to my left raised the pot and made it $120 to go. Since I had AA in my hand, which (with a few very specific exceptions) is a favorite over any hand the doesn't contain AA, I reraised the pot making it $370 to go.

My opponent instantly called and the flop came down 2 3 J with two clubs. All I had was my pair of aces which isn't exactly the nuts in PLO, but there wasn't much going on on that flop and I decided to go for it. I bet the pot which was about $750 and my opponent put in his whole stack which was about $650. ACK!

Now there was $2,000 in the pot and unlike a tournament where the cards get turned over when someone is all in I had no idea what my opponent had while I watched the turn and river come out. I was in a mild state of shock and since there wasn't much that could improve my hand and I couldn't compute all of the ways I could lose this hand I had no idea what I wanted to come on the turn or the river.

After the longest 2 seconds I can remember, the turn and river were out - the 6 and 8 of diamonds - which put three diamonds on board. In the second it took for my opponents hand to turn over I know I thought "If this guy has two diamonds in his hand I am going to fucking freak out!"

Guess what he had? T 9 7 5 with the T7 of clubs! WHAT! This hand is probably in the bottom 15% of PLO hands if not worse. Remember, he reraised me preflop, and then called a pot sized 4 bet! That is pure madness. I hope he thought "how the hell did I just blow off a grand with T 9 7 5?" when the hand was over.

The only downside with the 8-game mix is there is usually only one or two games going at $10/$20 and the $20/$40 is only going about half the time (amazingly the $400/$800 is almost always going sometimes with 3 games), but given my results I think I have to make it a priority.

In other good news pokerstars is running what they are calling "extreme" satellites to the WCOOP. Between August 4th and 16th they are running 28 satellites with buy ins ranging from $7.50 to $215 and are adding a total of $1,000,000 (that's not a typo) combined to the prize pools of these satellites. For example the first one is a $7.50 satellite that gives away $109 seats and pokerstars is adding 100 seats (or $10,900) to the normal prize pool. More significantly there are two where they are adding 50 $1,050 seats to $215 buy in satellites and one where they are adding an astounding 50 $5,200 main event seats (or $260,000) to the normal pool!
Here is a link to the schedule if you want to check out the specifics.

This is all going down in parallel to the FTOPS so since I expect to be working all of those days anyway, I plan on playing every single one of the 28 tournaments. In addition to the added value the fields are going to be packed with players of all skill levels (most of whom will be weak) taking advantage of the overlay. On top of that it means more weak players playing in the actuall WCOOP tournaments. I'm getting fired up!

Other Sites and 8-Game Mixed

Since my last post I've been working a little on my 50,000 hands of $15/$30 and $10/$20, but have only played 10,000 hands. The main reason is I was in Iowa for 5 days for a friends wedding and wasn't playing at all. Also when I have been playing I've been in the mood to branch out and try a few new things. The good news is I'm making about 50 cents a hand for the last 10,000 hands which is an insane amount and not something I expect to be able to keep up.

I've also been investigating a few other sites and their rakeback deals. On absolute poker I can get 30% of my rake (the fees the website takes from the players) back plus some kind of points. There aren't as many games going, but the players seem worse. They also have levels of status like pokertars, and while I can easily figure out the value of the rakeback (which is substatial, but not as good as supernova elite benefits by a wide margin), I need to play a little more and do some more complicated math to figure out the value of their VIP club benefits.

There are also a few microscopic websites that will give you 90%-100% of your rake back if you commit to playing a certain amount per week and always leave a game if it's full. It's essentailly online propping, but you can play whatever games and stakes you want.

The main problem is lack of games. I don't mean good games, I mean any games. The two sites that I've signed up with to do this have about 200 players on at a given time (Pokerstars often has over 200,000) and most of them are playing stuff like 10 cent/ 25 cent no limit hold'em.

It's also a major pain in the ass to get money in there. I have to get a cashier's check and then mail it to Costa Rica (don't worry, it's not a scam - yes I'm sure). But once I jump through the hoops my plan is to just sit down in a $15/$30 game and a $10/$20 game and see if anyone wants to play me. I'll just park it there all day while I'm playing on pokerstars and if someone sits down I'll probably be head and shoulders above them in terms of skill and won't be paying any rake. If a few players join I'll be in buisness.

So on top of many hours of running numbers, creating accounts and working on getting money into other sites I've been playing mixed games cash games on pokerstars. Specifically I've been playing what they call "8-game." It is a mix of 2-7 triple draw, limit hold'em, limit Omaha-8, razz, stud, stud-8, no limit hold 'em and pot limit Omaha. The games is played 6 handed, each game is played for six hands and then you switch to the next game in the order that I've listed them. I've been playing $10/$20 and $20/$40 (the blinds for the NL and PL part of the mix are $2.50/$5 for the $10/$20 and $5/$10 for the $20/$40).

The scariest part of the mix for me is the pot limit Omaha. Even though I won $33,000 for finishing 2nd of 1,100 in a PLO FTOPS tournament I don't have a ton of experience with PLO. It's a game of draws and especailly playing short handed it's very easy to get all of your money in the pot.

I had an interesting hand come up before I left for vacation playing $20/$40 8-game in the PLO. I worte to my friend Bombay Jack who is probably one of the top 20 PLO players in the world to ask him about the hand. Here is what I said:

Hey Jack.

I was playing 8-game mixed games on pokerstars yesterday and I had a hand in the PLO that I wanted to ask you about (I don't know a lot about PLO and you're the only person I know who plays regularly).

We are playing 4 handed and the blinds are $5/$10. I started the hand with about $700 and everyone at the table had me covered. UTG makes it $30 to go and gets called by the button. I have QJ98 with the Q9 of diamonds and the J8 of spades, I raise to $130 and they both call.

Is this a reraising hand in this spot or is a call better? Do you like raising the pot or would $90 or $100 be better?

The flop is Kd Td 8h giving me bottom pair, wrap straight draw and #2 flush draw. I bet the pot which is about $400 and get called by the button. It turns out he has AK55 with the A5 of diamonds.

Do you like his call preflop? Do you like his call on the flop? Should I have played the flop differently?

The turn was the 2 of clubs and I only had $165 left so I bet it and got called. Do you think there is any value in checking and trying to save that 165 if I miss? It seemed clear to me that he was on a draw also and I thought there was some non zero chance the 8 might be good.

The river was the 3 of diamonds and I lost to the nuts.

If you get a chance I'd love to hear a few brief comments about this hand. Thanks in advance.

Before I get into what he said, I'd be interested if anyone else wants to comment on this hand. I know I don't have a ton of readers and most of you are hold'em players, but if anyone in blog land knows anything at all about PLO or even if you are just giving the 2 cents of a hold'em player please feel free to comment.

A Good Day Back in the Saddle

I have a new medium length goal. My plan is to play 50,000 hands of $10/$20 and $15/$30 without playing any higher with the goal of winning $5,000 (not including points).

After 9 years of keeping perfect records of every dollar I won and lost for some reason at the start of this year I totally bailed on keeping strong records. I sitll have a plus minus for every day, but now how it happened. I'd like to see just how much I'm making per hand and while 50,000 hands isn't a huge sample size it should give me a fair idea of what I can expect to make long term.

The problem is I want to play $50/$100 or even higher all day, every day. But even if I can win at that level, I'm not sure it's worth it to face the massive fluctuations. I'd much rather win $2,000 one day and lose $1,000 the next to show $500 a day profit, than win $6,000 one day and lose $5,000 the next. It's much more stressful. Of couse it's also much more exciting, which is why I need to make a concrete goal to keep myself in line.

Before I left for Vegas I played about 25 hands of $200/$400. That is the biggest I have ever played and I realized I'm clearly not ready to mentally handle those stakes. The reason I jumped in was first of all I was WAY up for the month and second of all there was a player in the game who I knew from $30/$60 who is a regular but weak. Along with him and three other sort of regular players there was also a bronze star (who turned out to be a pretty good player). It looked like one of the better games I've seen at those stakes so I figured why not give it a go.

To give you an idea of how big those stakes are let me tell you about a hand I played. I had AK and three bet and early position raiser who just called my reraise. The flop came down K T 3 and my opponent check raised me. I decided to just call and go for a raise on the turn. When the turn came out it was a blank and my opponent bet just like I knew he would. But when I raised he three bet me! ACK! Now I wasn't sure I had the best hand. I called his reraise on the turn and his bet on the river. He showed AK and we split the pot.

No big deal right? Well I put $2,600 into that one pot! That's a months rent, utilities, phone, internet, and cable. In one pot! It wasn't even a huge pot and that's just what I put into it! We split the blinds and I still made $150 on the hand! That's just nuts.

So my plan is to stick to the smaller games for at least a month or so, bang out some steady wins and avoid the massive fluctuations. After the next FTOPS in August and the WCOOP in September if I don't get spanked I'll revist the bigger games.

I got off to a good start today. The exact start I had in mind when I came up with the plan. I played about 2,000 hands and won $950 plus about $250 in FPPs. I didn't run into super weak competion, didn't get expecially great cards, and wasn't exactly making sick reads all day. I feel like I should be able to have results like this almost every day.

48,000 hands left!

Also briefly for Luis and any others who didn't know what I meant when I said I have good "bounce back," I mean that I'm able to put my losses behind me very quickly. Once the money is gone, it's gone and I'm very good about not thinking about those losses once they've happened. If you look at Tiger Woods he gets super pissed when he makes a bad shot or misses a key put. But by the time he needs to hit his next shot you'd never know he was upset a moment before. You should never be happy about losing a pot or a session, but it's important to realize that there is nothing you can do about it and just forget it.

WSOP Main Event Details

The Main Event has much more of an exciting atmosphere than the earlier events. There is large circular room as you enter the convention center in the Rio coming from the casino. Normally this area is deserted. But when I walked through there this time there was loud music with heavy beats, a guy building a huge house of cards (he was on a ladder working on it that's how big it was), tourists taking pictures by huge WSOP signs and (I swear I am not making this up) two go go dancers on platforms! It just felt like something big was going on.

When play was about to get underway U.S. congressman Barney Frank (who is the author of several pro online poker bills) addressed the players. He talked about how the government shouldn't have any right to tell us what we can and can't do with our money. He also asked us all to write our Representatives and tell them that they are a bunch of spineless, turtle humping, shit for brains, weasels if they don't get on board with supporting online poker!

I was a little surprised that once we started playing I wasn't nervous at all! Years ago after I'd started playing poker, but hadn't been to the WSOP, I felt like playing the main event was what I would choose if I had a terminal illness and could choose one thing to do before I died. Now, for the most part it felt like just another tournament.

It makes me sad to realize that. My friend Matt (who is also a poker pro) and I were talking about this recently. When we first started playing, poker was such a rush. If I could relive any ten days of my life the first day I played poker in a casino would easily make that list (the day my son was born, my wedding day, days 2-4 of my honeymoon, Christmas day when I was 8, 9, and 10, and a few days involving unmentionables are some others that would be on there).

I have as good a life as anyone could reasonably hope for. My wife and I have been together for more than 10 years and I still love her to death. My son is all I ever dreamed he would be at this age. I have enough money to buy the things I want, a job that I enjoy, and wonderful friends and family. But I still miss that thrill that I got when I first started playing. It was all I wanted to do and I don't really have anything like that in my life now.

In college I'd sit in class listening to my professors talking about forces or integrals or metal fatigue and I'd be sitting there thinking about hands I'd played the night before. Going over and over them again and again.

On spring break when I was 21, Jen was at her parents house for 5 days. I went to the Oaks club 8 times in those 5 days (I won 7 of the 8 sessions!). Twice I played for however many hours drove home, realized I already wanted to play more and drove right back!

So I wasn't feeling the thrill, but it was still tied for the most important poker tournament I'd ever played and I was focused on playing my best.

I got a tough table draw with 1998 world champ Scotty Ngyuen to my right and Lee Watkinson to his right. The rest of my table was a mix of fair players and only one or two of them seemed really nervous. Since Scotty (who is a great player and usually good for an interesting sound bite) was at my table the ESPN cameras were practically parked there.

We started with 30,000 chips and blinds of 50/100 so there wasn't much drama early on, but I won a few small pots and my stack crept up to 32,000.

Now on to the hand I played like a moron that I mentioned in my text update! Watkinson was playing a lot of hands. If he was the first one in he was raising maybe 50% of the pots. Five or six times the action had been folded around to him on the button (when I was in the big blind) and he'd raised every time. I'd gotten garbage every time and folded every time.

I had a fairly tight table image and I decided I should play back at him. So the 7th time he raised my big blind I called with J8 suited hoping to hit, but planning on going for a bluff otherwise. The flop came down T 6 4 rainbow and I checked. Watkinson bet out 400 and I just called planning on check raising the turn or betting the river if he checked behind me on the turn.

The turn was a 3, I checked he bet 1,000 and after 15 seconds or so I slid three yellow $1,000 chips into the pot. He thought for about ten seconds and called.

The river was a 5 making the board 3 4 5 6 T. I should have given up here. In order for a bluff to be a good one it has to make sense. If I didn't have a straight it was very unlikely that I'd bet here. But there was no way for me to reasonably represent a straight since there are very few hands that I would call preflop that contained a 2 or a 7 and none of them would have been anything worth check raising on the turn. Also since he called the check raise on the turn he had to have something. It turned out that something was AT and he quickly called my $5,000 river bet. ACK!

So now I was down to 23,000 or so. But I made two pair twice and stole a few other pots and got myself all the way back to 30,000.

The hand that really did me in happened about 3 and a half hours into the tournament. The blinds were 100/200 and I had about 28,000 chips. A player in early position made it 600 to go and got called by Watkinson. I was in the small blind with AQ and I made it 2,500 to go. I was expecting to win right there, but to my surprise both players called.

The flop looked great - Q 8 5 with two diamonds (I had the A of diamonds). I bet out 5,000 into the 7,700 chip pot, the original raiser made it 10,000, the other player folded and now it was back to me. Looking back I should have folded rather than put almost all of my chips at risk. My opponent had about 10,000 chips behind so it was unlikely he'd fold and if I'd folded I'd still have 20,000 or so chips left.

More importantly I didn't have a good feel for what he had. It was a possibility that he had AQ, KQ, QJ, AA, KK, JJ, TT, 99, 88 a flush draw, or was on a total bluff. That is a pretty wide range.

At the time I chose to use this line of logic "He knows it's likely I'd bet the flop here with just about any hand and he's probably raising to take me off a hand that missed this flop. I'll move all in and win right here or get called by a strong draw" The line of logic I should have used was "He made the minimum raise. I don't know what he has, but it's got to be good. If he was trying to take me off my hand he'd have moved all in."

When I moved all in he looked like he was about to puke. At that point I felt like he also had AQ. But after 60 seconds or so he called and turned over AA. The turn and river were both bricks and I was down to 4,500.

On the next hand two players limped in, I moved all in with AJ and won a small pot.

On the hand after that a player in early position made it 600 and got two callers. I looked down at 77 and moved all in for 5,000. The last of the callers was Scotty Ngyuen who after some thought called me with T9 suited. A 9 came on the flop and that was it.

I didn't feel that bad at the time. I only had about half my action so I'd only personally lost about $5,000 and also at the time I was feeling like I couldn't have played the hand much differently. I've had a dozen days (maybe even 20) in my career where I've lost that kind of money and I did have a strong hand. But as the minutes and hours rolled by I started to feel worse and worse.

I made the long ten minute loser's walk out of the convention area back to the casino and I still felt ok. I talked to my wife about coming home that night or the next day and for the moment I felt just fine. I made plans to meet Matt (who was still playing) for dinner.

Then I made my way to the Casino tables. And I started drinking. A lot. The mopes at my table were even more mopish than usual. The dealers seemed even more than usual like they just couldn't wait to get out of there. The reality of my spectacular failure in one of the biggest tournaments of my life began to sink in.

Sometimes when you look at Vegas it looks like pure excitement. Beautiful women walking around everywhere, people laughing with drinks flowing and money flying. Other times it looks like total despair. Unhealthy people who look ten years older than they are, smoking constantly, and angrily betting their last dollars with long odds and no hope. It definitely looked like despair to me this time.

I was winning, but it brought me no joy. I sure as hell wasn't going to win $10,000 playing $25 a hand anything, but I'm no where near self destructive enough to try to get that kind of money back playing table games. And since I was still wearing my pokerstars shirt and the Rio was swarmed with poker players everyone kept asking me if I was playing the main event. "Yes God Dammit! I played already and I went broke in three fucking hours! It couldn't have gone any worse! Can't we talk about something else?" I honestly can't remember the last time I was so depressed. It's been years.

I had an enormous BBQ dinner with Matt which sobered me up quite a bit and I started feeling a little better. Matt got eliminated a few hours later and we did a little more gambling. I ended up in my room by midnight, watched a movie and went to sleep.

The next afternoon I flew home and my wife and son Peyton met me at the airport. When Peyton saw me coming down the escalator from a distance he got a really excited look on his face and pointed to me as if to say "Look Mama! There he is!" When I got to the bottom he ran up and wrapped his arms around my legs giving me a big hug. Now that is a moment that was pure joy.

So how do I feel now? I feel just fine. In fact I feel good and hopeful about the future. I've always said that one of my strengths as a poker player is bounce back. Losses don't stick with me. I'm more upset about the end of the $3,000 HORSE tournament (even though I made the money) and a key hand I folded in the 2006 main event (and probably 20 other results) than I am about the 2009 main event!

I have a week before I'm off to Iowa for 5 days for a friend's wedding. I plan on doing my normal cash game thing and playing a few tournaments. I'll let you know if anything interesting happens.

There's always next year!

A Little About Failure

I'm back in California now. This past trip to Vegas was the worst one I can remember. My performance in the main event was abysmal.

One of the characteristics of solid winning players is they talk about their losses. It's only the really marginal ones or losing players that seem to only mention their wins. I'm not afraid to talk about losing and how it makes me feel. It's part of what I do.

So in the next day or two I'll put up a post with more details about what happened in the main event and how I felt about it. But for now I'm just happy to be back home with my family.

Bad News

Disaster! I'm out. AQ vs AA on Q85 flop left me with 5k. Then I went all in with 77 vs 9T. 9 on the flop.

Break #1

At 2:20, during the first break, Dave says:

26k left. Played one hand like a moron and it cost me 9k. Scotty Nguyen is on my right. ESPN cameras parked at my table

WSOP Update

We're about to get underway. I have 30k in chips to start. This place is a zoo!

(This is Jen, I'm going to post the texts Dave sends me as I get them)

In Vegas and a Little Richer

I made my way to Vegas today. The Oakland airport was almost totally empty as was my flight. As per usual we hit some pretty bad turbulence coming over the mountains into Vegas. I don't often get airsick, but I have unloaded into a few airsickness bags on special occasions. This time I managed to keep my breakfast down...barely. Landing was like the classic movie moment when the hero cuts the blue wire with 2 seconds left on the timer and saving the flight crew and passengers on a mostly empty July 4th flight to Vegas from a bomb made of eggs, sausage and pancakes.

Once I got into town my good friend Matt Lessinger who is also here for the main event picked me up from the airport. After a quick stop at the Rio (which was buzzing with poker players) to register for the tournament it was off to the Palms to meet up with the folks from pokerstars.

Part of the deal with the package pokerstars has given me is wearing a pokerstars logo at the table while I'm playing the main event. So I had to go pick up a bag full of pokerstars hats, shirts, a jacket and other swag. Also since they transfered most but not all of the money I have coming to me into my account (they're holding $1,000 hostage until I play) I had to show them my tournament ticket to prove I was actually playing the tournament.

On top of this business there was also a free poker tournament for everyone who got their entry through pokerstars. At six pm today I got to play a 6 handed no limit single table tournament (in person) that paid six spots! That's right it was free money! 6th-3rd place paid $100, 2nd place paid $300 and first was $500 plus an entry into a tournament with an $800,0000 prize pool that will be taking place online in 3 weeks.

The tournament was designed to last about an hour or maybe 90 minutes (with each player getting 2,000 chips the blinds started at 25/50 and doubled every 15 minutes). The players at my table were all pretty weak, but after 30 minutes it was go time. I moved all in with 66 and got called by 99! ACK! But, I flopped a 6 and doubled up to about 4,000 chips.

I took out another player when I got dealt AQ and my opponent moved all in with A9. Now I had a commanding stack with 6,000+ chips. After a little back and forth another player ended up with the other 6,000 chips at the table and we were heads up.

Interestingly enough this guy had on a plain black T-shirt that had four names on it in 2 inch high white letters. Another player asked him what was up with the names and he said they were characters from Gossip Girl. "What the hell is Gossip Girl?" the guy asked as I snickered. Black T-shirt informed him that it was a TV show and he wore the shirt because it often sparked conversation with girls. Clearly he didn't take himself too seriously and we all gave him shit about his shirt like we were old friend for the next half hour. "Maybe I could get pocket aces if I wore a god damn gossip girl shirt! Was your The Hills shirt dirty today?"

After we got down to heads up we played a few hands and my opponent got the better of me. I was under 4,000 chips and he had over 8,000 and I knew I'd need to get lucky to win given the structure. When we started heads up play he said he give me all the money if he could have the online tournament entry. I declined, but now that I was in bad shape I asked him if the offer was still on the table. He thought for a minute and then agreed.

So I got $800 and he got the entry. This might have been a good deal, an OK deal or the worst deal I've ever made. I know the prize pool for the online tournament, but I don't know how many entrants there are going to be. If it's 300 players I screwed myself to some degree. If it's 600 or 700 I made a fair deal and if it's 1,000+ I made a great deal. We'll have to wait and see. The good news is I got $800 that seemed like money falling from the sky. It seemed like this was a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush situation.

After a nice buffet dinner with Matt, his Mom and two of his friends it was off to the Flamingo. Which is where I am now. It ain't the Bellagio, but it's alright.

Tomorrow the action starts at noon. I'll put up a detailed post either tomorrow night or Monday morning and Jen will be putting up the text updates that I'll be sending every 2 hours when I'm on break.

Good Luck, Daddy!

Off to Vegas Tomorrow

The $10,000 buy in main event of the World Series of Poker is already underway and today 1,116 players forked over ten grand for their shot at poker's world championship. Over the next three days somewhere around 5,000 other players (including me) will do the same. We'll be playing in split groups and not playing everyday until the 10th when everyone who is left will be in one absurdly large room.

Some of these players will lose all of their chips and be out of the tournament in a matter of minutes. Their $10,000 gone. One bad hand can derail even the best players. In fact 90% of the players that enter will lose their $10,000. For a fortunate few the tournament will last until July 15th.

Finishing in the top 10% will earn you a $10,000 profit. Finish in the top 1% and you're looking at $100,000+. Of course it only gets better from there. The final 9 players will all earn at least a million dollars for their efforts and (depending on the number of entrants) the winner will win close to ten million dollars and will be this years world champion!

I'd say I'm about 20-25% to make the money, have a 1 in 300 shot of making the final table and a 1 in 3,000 shot of winning. Those might sound like long odds and they are, but they're much better than the average entrant. 1 in 300 is close to the odds of drawing an ace and a king of the same suit (any suit) from a standard deck of cards. 1 in 3,000 is close to the odds of pulling two specific cards from the deck in order (ie pull the ten of clubs and then the 3 of hearts from that deck and we'll give you $10,000,000 - doesn't sound quite as impossible does it!).

I'll be blogging from Vegas with details and recaps and while the tournament is going on I'll be texting updates to my wife Jen who will then post them on this blog. If you want to check out broader covereage of the event check out pokernews.com, pokerpages.com or cardplayer.com.

My next post will be from Vegas. Maybe this is the year something crazy is going to happen!

Plans for the Near Future

After coming back from Vegas I had to work 12 out of the last 13 days of June to earn the points I needed to keep my Supernova Elite status on pokerstars. I won 10 of those 12 days (and won big) so it wasn't too tough to wake up and play everyday.

These first few days of July feel like a period of limbo for me. My latest crusade for points is over, the first leg of the WSOP is a few weeks behind me and the main event is just ahead. I'm leaving for Vegas on Saturday the 4th with the plan of playing my Day 1 of the main event on the 5th.

For those of you who don't know how it works the first day of the WSOP main event actually takes place over four days (Day 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D - Day 1A is tomorrow, July 3rd). They do this because they don't have the space or the staff to handle the 7,000+ players they expect all at one time. In fact there is a hard cap at 3,000 players for each day 1, although it's very unlikely that they'll hit that on any given day.

The players who make it through days 1A and 1B will come back for day 2A which will be on July 7th. Likewise the players who make it through days 1C and 1D will come back for day 2B on July 8th. July 9th is an off day for everyone and when we (hopefully!) come back for "Day 3" (a week after the tournament actually started) on July 10th everyone who is left will be playing at the same time. The players who make it to the end of day 3 should be in the money. Days 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 then take place on consecutive days.

By the end of day 8 there will be 9 players left. These players will all win at least $1,000,000 and won't resume play until November 7th. This is the second year that they've done this major break and they do it so ESPN can show however many weeks of tournament coverage without everyone knowing who the winner is. The final table will play out and then ESPN will air a special program the next day.

You might think since this is a $10,000 event that it would be a very tough field. WRONG! Sure all of the best players in the world will be there, but so will thousands of amateurs. The good players will be totally diluted by the weak ones. Just about every casino in the country and online that offers poker runs at least a few satellite tournaments to the main event. All of these qualifiers will come to Vegas with champagne wishes and caviar dreams and most of them will leave with nothing but a story. I suspect with the possible exceptions of the $1,500 7-card stud event (which was just ridiculous) and the 2006 main event, the 2009 main event will be the softest field I've ever faced at the WSOP.

Since all of my usual hotels are booked solid, I'll be staying at the Flamingo which I found a little depressing the last time I stayed there (I'm spoiled after all my time at Bellagio). But it was free so it's hard to complain too much. I'm booked through the 7th so if I make it past day 1 I'll have to make more hotel plans on the fly. Also there is a $1,500 tournament at Bellagio on the 6th which I might play. If I make it through day 1 I'll have two days to kill before play resumes for me and hopefully the town will be buzzing with soft poker players looking to hit it big.

In other news I saw that the FTOPS XIII schedule came out recently. Fulltiltpoker.com will once again be offering a slate of 25 online tournaments with buy ins ranging from $130 to $1,060 plus one $2,500 event. Action gets underway in the first week of August and with a few minor changes the list of events looks just like that of past FTOPS. I suspect I'll be doing my standard $10,000 bankroll looking to make at least one final table. More on that later.

I might put up one more post before I leave for Vegas, but if not wish me luck!

Today Was One of Those Days

Today was one of those days. One of those days where everything that could possibly go wrong does. Played a bunch of not small tournaments - got killed. Played a few thousand hands in the cash games - got killed. It was one of my top five worst days ever.

I even played in a freeroll where the top two spots won a $5,000 tournament entry and finished 5th of 250+. In that one I lost a 180,000 chip pot 5 handed with 99 vs 77 all in preflop. The other players at the table all had about 50,000 (and weren't exactly studs) so I would have been all but guaranteed to win one of the two seats if I could have just won when I was an 82% favorite!

And I have to work all day for the next two days because I need to earn another 10,000 points this month to keep my supernova elite status.


AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Actually it's not really that bad. Today sucked, but I'm still ahead five figures since I got back from Vegas 11 days ago and my wife Jen said she's making chicken fingers and homemade macaroni and cheese tonight. I'm sure with that and a few big glasses of wine I'll feel just fine in a few hours.

But right now - AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Playing Bigger and Winning Bigger

Since I got back from the WSOP (and to some extent before I left), I've been playing for bigger stakes. My standard game for the past two years has been $10/$20 six handed limit hold'em playing 4 to 6 games at a time. Of course I've taken my shots at the bigger games playing as high as $100/$200. But until recently it's been sporadic and rare that I'd go above $15/$30.

This month is the first extended stretch of time that I've played $30/$60 regularly. Along with a mix smaller stakes games, I've been playing something like 500 hands of $30/$60 and 100 hands of $50/$100 on a daily basis. And I've been winning.

In fact I've been winning so much that today at one point I was losing $6,000 and I wasn't worried about it. I knew the games were in the range of OK to good so I kept playing, made a comeback and only lost about $2,500 on the day. I never thought a day would come where I could lose $2,500 and call it a moral victory.

6 handed $50/$100 is a pretty absurdly sized game. $2,000 pots are not unheard of and losing $5,000 in a session is a possibility every time you get dealt in. Of course I could be the one to drag one or two of those $2,000 pots or get the benefit of someone elses $5,000 (or $10,000) losing session. And that's why I'm playing.

I've discovered recently that one or two of the regulars at that level are not regulars because of their skill level. It's clearly just that they have the money and can afford to lose big. Targeting these players as well as unknown players or the ones who are moving up to take their shots has proven very profitable. Hopefully I can keep it up.

Tomorrow I'm going to mix in a few tournaments. Pokerstars is offering four times the normal points for playing in the "Sunday majors" so in addition to some big cash games I'll be playing some significant tournaments as well. Hopefully I have something interesting to write about after tomorrow!

A Hodge Podge of WSOP Stories

I tend to focus on the results of the tournaments and the actual play of the hands in my posts, but I've had a few requests to give a little more color instead of being so black and white. So here are a few unrelated stories, observations and feelings I had at this years WSOP.

In the $2,500 6 handed no limit tournament I played against a guy who gave a new meaning to not caring about the money. Often people tell stories or say things at the poker table that are clearly total bullshit. Stuff like "yeah my cousin bet $100 on 15 at the roulette table and when it hit he let the whole $3,600 ride and hit 15 again!" I'm almost 100% sure this guy was telling the truth.


We were playing the day after game 2 of the NBA finals. He said he'd been at the game the night before and that one of the casinos got him tickets. Got him tickets and CHARTERED HIM A PRIVATE PLANE! They flew him from Vegas to the game and then back all for free! You might wonder what type of gambling you would have to do to earn comps like that. Well he was talking to one of his friends how he had $220,000 bet on the game (which he won) and $220,000 bet on the number of points scored in the second half (which lost because of a missed 3 point shot at the end of the game!). That would be a wash, but the bets were both $220,000 to win $200,000 (that's how the casinos make their money) so he lost $20,000 on the deal just because of the juice!

He was also talking to Antonio Esfandiari and it came out that this guy had lost $100,000 to Antonio playing backamond. He also wanted to make a $500,000 bet with Antonio on who would last longer in the tournament we were playing, but Antonio wouldn't do it because it was too much money. The guy said he'd come to Vegas intending on being there for two days and he'd been there for 3 weeks!

In other insane gambling news apparently Phil Ivey had a bet where he put up $2,000,000 to win $5,000,000 that he would win one of the 57 WSOP events this year. He won one of the tournaments and the first place prize money (which would be enough to change my life) was a drop in the bucket compared to his side bet. When he won his second event of this year he won another $8,000,000 in side bets! Winning these two tournaments netted him more than the main event championship!

One of the things that is great about poker is it attracts people from all walks of life. There's almost no where else where you'll see a 25 year old Asian guy with a bunch of dragon tattoos bullshitting with a white 60 year old cowboy and an African American middle aged stock broker like they're all old friends.

Of course sometimes you're forced by the circumstances to be around some real ass holes. I was at a table with one guy who's every movement seemed annoying. He was maybe 60ish and was listening to a discman. It seems like half of the players at the WSOP have an ipod these days, but I've never seen anyone with a discman. But the oddity of that was nothing compared to the fact that HE WAS WEARING A CAPE! A black cape that had the word "Prince" in two inch high blue letters written on the back. He was giving all the dealers a hard time which as an ex dealer bothers me a little and he was just loaded with sarcasm. I wanted to be like "Hey! Cape face! Why don't take your 1990's technology, and your 1,390's clothes and take a flight back to Transylvania you vampire looking shit head!"

Another group of players that bothers me is the super smug players who are 21 or 22 and think they are the best poker players who have ever been dealt a hand. They often come in little gaggles and smugly share their results while waiting in line to sign up for the day's tournament. They talk about how bad their opponents play and it always sounds like they've all won enough in the last two weeks to buy Fort Knox. But then it comes out that they are living in a house with 4 other dudes or they work as a waiter or an accountant or they do this or that. Then they smugly sit at the table trying to look like real bad asses with the sunglasses and the hats and the headphones (I'm not against those things since they all have their uses, but some people seem to be doing it just for the look).

This one fellow in particular was exceptional in the attempting to act like a great player, but couldn't play at all. He'd furrow his brow and stare quizzically at the board cards every time he'd get raised. This was in the $1,500 no limit and the other players weren't exactly super stars either. In fact some of them were as clear as glass. I wanted to scream at this kid "quit furrowing your brow and staring at the flop for 4 minutes before you fold your f-ing Q6! The flop is AK6 and some dude who has never bluffed in his life just moved all in on your ass! And take off those damn sunglasses! You could be behind a f-ing brick wall and I'd still know exactly what you have you clown!"

Actually despite the examples I mentioned above, most of the players at the WSOP were very pleasant to be around. Typically the more money you play for the classier your opposition will be. Since I started off 9 years ago playing against toothless dirtbags who were so stupid I wondered how they manged to put gas in their car so they could drive to the casino it's always nice to play against friendly, intelligent people.

I'll make an effort to make my main event experience a little more detailed in terms of the people, sights, smells and sounds as well as the cards.

Back to the Grind...And the Merciless Beat Downs!

For 3 days I've been back to my normal routine of working from 10 am to 7 pm (with a few breaks) playing 6 handed limit cash games and a handful of tournaments.

On Thursday I picked up right where I left off. I was ahead $1,000 before I knew it and was thinking "This is easy!" In fact I was $2,000 to the good at one point, but then I had a bad run playing $30/$60 and gave it all back plus another $1,300.

This is the first time in a few months that I've been super pissed at the end of my work day. To be perfectly honest I went on tilt and started playing bad once things started heading south. I was upset that I'd let myself get out of control and upset that I'd been winning all damn day and in the last hour let a good day get away from me.

But the next day I rectified things in a hurry. I was browsing the various games and found a $50/$100 game that was going four handed with two players who are regular substantial losers. I took the seat just to the left of both of them, made some big hands and won $1,700 in about 20 minutes! That was the complete end of any negative feelings I'd had about the day before and I went on to pick up another $700 over the course of my work day.

That was nice, but today is when I really laid the smack down! The $10/$20 games today were terrible (they were loaded with regulars and pros). I have no doubt it was the worst collection of games at those stakes I've ever seen on a weekend day. But the $15/$30 and $30/$60 games were pretty good. So that's what I played and things went really well.

At one point a game I was in broke and I needed to find a new game to replace it. I saw someone whose name I didn't recognize sitting alone with $1,200 at a 30/60. When I opened the table and saw that he was a silverstar player, I instantly sat down. I got his entire $1,200 stack in 7 minutes!

I won about $3,800 in the cash games today, but that's not all! I also had a nice finish in a 36 player, $215 buy in 8-game mixed tournament (it's the five HORSE games, plus triple draw lowball, no limit hold'em and pot limit Omaha).

When we'd been playing for a few hours I benefited from getting put at a table with a player who had no clue. I don't know what he was thinking playing in this tournament, but clearly he was out of his element. The first hand of razz (7 card stud where the lowest hand wins) he played it as if he thought the highest hand would win. On 4th street he was showing a king and a queen and raising two players who both hand two cards under 6 showing! Eventually he figured out what was going on when a hand with 7 cards below jack won the pot!

He also had some trouble with the triple draw and I was fortunate enough to take a huge pot off him playing that game. In triple draw every player is dealt 5 cards and the goal is to make the worst hand possible. Unlike some other games where a low hand is involved, in triple draw straights and flushes count against you and aces are high. The best possible hand is 2 3 4 5 7 which is why they called it "deuce to seven" triple draw. There are blinds and betting just like in limit hold'em, but instead of a flop, turn and river, there are three draws where you get to throw away cards from your hand and replace them with new ones.

We all started the tournament with 4,000 chips and blinds of 10/20. By the time the hand in question came up the blinds were 80/160 (stakes of 160/320) and we were playing triple draw for the third time having already played all 7 other games twice (the game changes every 6 minutes and the stakes change every 12 minutes). My opponent raised and I three bet him with 2 3 4 5 J. He capped it and we both took one card. I caught an 8 which made me the 5th best possible hand (the only hands better are 76542, 76532, 76432 and 75432). When my opponent bet of course I raised him. When he three bet me I thought maybe he'd made one of those 4 magic hands, but since I knew he was a goof I raised him again.

He called and again took one card. When he drew instead of standing pat that told me I had the best hand (a made 8-low is a huge favorite against any 1 card draw). After the second draw he fired out again, and I raised him, and he reraised me and I capped it. Again he took a card and again he bet out.

No one in their right mind would bet out here with anything but a 7-low. Of course no one in their right mind would go nuts with a draw against a pat hand with one draw left to go either. So after the final draw I raised him and he reraised me! ACK!

I was thinking "if this guy beat me on this last draw I am going to go bananas!" I considered putting in the last bet, but instead just called and my opponent turned over 2 3 4 5 6! He'd made a straight! Maybe he didn't know that's a bad thing in 2-7 lowball!

I'd taken out two people in the pot limit Omaha just before, and that pot put me up to 20,000 chips. The player in second place in the whole tournament only had 9,000.

I never dropped below 20,000 for the rest of the tournament, and for much of it I kept my stack at twice that of the player in second place. The tournament paid 6 places and as we approached the money I kept my foot on the gas and piled up a mountain of chips. My only stumble came when we were playing 3 handed and I ended up falling back to even with my two opponents.

But then we switched to no limit hold'em. In the 6 minutes of no limit playing with 500/1,000 blinds. I went from 50,000 chips to 100,000 chips without ever winning a hand at showdown. I just totally ran over my opposition. I raised almost every hand and when they reraised me I'd put them all in which would lead to three seconds of thinking follwed by a fold. It was great. I finished them off in the pot limit Omaha.

1st place in that tournament was $2,664 and took my days winnings to about $6,500. It's good to be home!

Chronicle Article About Me!

Here is a link to an article that appeared about me in the June 11th San Francisco Chronicle!

Thanks to the author Matt Villano! I thought it turned out to be a great article and I've gotten lots of positive feedback from people who stumbled on to it in the paper or online.

Since the article mentions this blog, in retrospect I probably should have made more of an effort to put up a witty interesting post on June 10th or 11th, but hopefully I'll still have a handful of new readers.

MAJOR WSOP Recap!

Since my last post I played 3 WSOP events: $1,500 HORSE, $2,000 NLH, and $1,500 NLH.

Going into the HORSE I had high hopes. I'd played so well in the $3,000 HORSE against maybe the second toughest field I've ever faced (the toughest was the $5,000 NLH event in 2006 - at one point I was maybe the worst player at my table which is something that had never happened to me before or since) and I was hoping for more of the same.

I started off well, ran my starting stack of 4,500 up to about 14,000, but when the limits got bigger I had a two hour stretch where I didn't win a pot. I went broke sometime in the 7th hour of play.

In the $2,000 no limit I slept in and signed up about a half an hour late (there is no penalty for signing up late and you can do so until 2 hours into the tournament) since this one had a noon start time and I'd played until after one am the night before. I got stuck at a table with a bunch of other people who signed up late and guess what? They could all play! This is not a surprise since the players who are only playing one event or who are sweating the money would never in a million years sign up late and miss the start of the tournament.

This tournament sucked! All day it was tough decision after tough decision. I kept flopping top pair with no kicker and getting raised or finding myself with pocket 8s on a ten high board or whatever. I was also short stacked for seemingly the entire tournament.

I did survive one pot in the 6th hour of play where I was about as far behind as you can be. We started with 6,000 chips, I had about 3,000 left and since we'd lost at least half the field I had about a quarter of average. The blinds were 150/300 with a 25 chip ante and I was in the cutoff. I peaked down at my first card which was an ace and since that was plenty good enough to move all in no matter what my second card was I didn't even look at my other one and pushed all my chips into the pot. Instantly I got called by the player in the small blind and the player in the big blind folded pocket sixes face up. The small blind turned over AJ of spades and I when I flipped over my hand it turned out my other card was a six! ACK!

So now I'm looking for the last six in the deck. When the flop comes out its Q J 7 with two spades! I'm totally dead here right? Well amazingly the turn comes a queen, the river comes an ace and we both make aces and queens with a jack kicker and split the pot!

After the flop I was 1.66% to get half the pot and 0% to get it all. Even after the turn I'm less than 5% to chop.

After that I staged an amazing comeback. I ran my stack all the way up to 20,000 and I was thinking that I'd have such a great story surviving that hand and going on to make the money. It's been long enough now that I've forgotten the exact details of my demise, but I finished about 400th of 1,550.

The next day at noon I played the $1,500 no limit hold'em event and got off to a great start. I was at a table full of very weak players to start and even though I was getting no cards I ran some strong bluffs and won a few nice pots.

In level two with blinds of 50/100 a player in early position raised to 300 and got called by three players. I was in the big blind with T8 and thought it was worth 200 to see a flop with all that money already in the pot. The flop came down KK2, I checked as did everyone else. The turn was a four and I figured I'd try to steal one. Almost no one will cold fire into four opponents like that (fearlessness is a big advantage), but I was all but sure that everyone had missed the flop and the four didn't look like it helped anyone. I bet out 800 and after some hemming and hawing the button called me. The river was another 4. I looked over at my opponents stack and saw that he only had about 1,900 left (we started with 4,500) so I threw two $1,000 yellow chips into the pot.

After about 5 seconds he said "I think my pocket jacks are good and you're just trying to bully me." SHIT! I wasn't sure what he had when he called me on the flop, by jacks was no where close to the range of hands I had him on. I couldn't believe anyone would just call a raise preflop on the button with jacks, but sure enough after a minute or so he folded them face up. Of course instead of showing my T8 I kindly informed him that I had a four and he'd made a good fold. Putting someone to a decision for all of their remaining chips is a powerful tool.

I was up to 9,300 by the first break, and up to 16,000 sometime in the 4th hour. But then I stalled. The five or six weak players at my starting table all went broke and were replaced by much tougher players. I got no cards for what felt like forever and eventually one of my big bluffs got caught. I wasn't able to recover once I was short stacked and went out in about 800th of 2,100.

I played 7 tournaments with buy ins totalling $14,500 and had a net loss of -$8,051. If you look back, you'll notice that I at least tripled my starting chips in 6 of the 7 tournaments I played (I doubled my starting stack in the other). I think that's a sign of how well I played and how I matched up against my competition.

When the blinds got big and the stakes got high I just never got the cards I needed or found myself in good situations to bluff. If you'd told me I'd triple my starting stack in 6 of 7 tournaments I would expect at least 3 cashes so I'm a little disappointed in that regard.

The good news is the main even is right around the corner (Day 1 for me will be either June 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th)! Until I get my last hand of the main event the 2009 WSOP isn't over!

I'll put up another post soon with a few more short stories about the various characters and more general reflections on my time in Vegas.

For now it's back to the online game. I expect to play a mix of tournaments and cash games in the two weeks I have before heading back to Vegas and I'll try to put up at least one or two posts in the near future.

Updates Coming

Hi, Jen here.
Dave wanted me to put up a post apologizing for the lack of updates. He says he'll post soon!

Event #31 Preview

I took yesterday off and today I have $1,500 HORSE at 5 pm. Hopefully I can keep up my HORSE success!

2009 WSOP Event #26 ($1,500 Limit Hold'em) Recap

We started event #26 with 643 players each with 4,500 chips.

I ran crazy hot during the first hour. I got KK three times and won them all, once making four kings against someone elses pokcet aces. I also made a flush, flopped a set and had my pocket aces hold up. I'm sure I was in the top three or four spots, if not in first place in the whole tournament at that point. Of course I was only up to 7,500 chips, so it didn't improve my overall chances as much as you might think.

As the tournament progressed I stayed right in the 7,000 range for a loooong time. After four hours I had 6,500. After 6 hours I had 6,400. In hour 7 I went up to 13,000, but then fell to 2,000, before ending hour 8 with 7,000.

The real drama of this tournament took place in hour 4. I busted the player to my right (he got the brunt of my first hour rush and had some other bad luck too) and he was replaced, not by a new player, but by an unattended stack of chips that had been moved from another table. The more time that went by without the owner of those chips showing up the more sure I was that it was a big name player (since they are the only ones who can afford to neglect their chips in a $1,500 tournament). In fact I said to the table that I bet it was Phil Helmuth since he's famous for showing up very, very late.

About half way through hour three that's exactly who showed up. Phil is the most succesful player in WSOP history. He was the 1989 main event winner (the youngest ever until a 22 year old won last year), he has a record 11 titles, a record 60+ cashes, and the most impressive stat if you ask me is his record 40 final tables! He is also a reknowned terrible loser and always has something to say when he get's eliminated.

On his third hand at the table Phil raised from the cutoff with KK, got called by the big blind who had 95s, and the flop came with two 9's. Phil lost a big pot and then attemted to tell everyone in the room about how someone called his preflop raise with 95 and how he couldn't believe how bad the players at his table were.

A few hands later he raised from middle or early middle position and I looked down at KQ off suit. I three bet and he just called. The flop came down KQ5 giving me top two pair and almost certainly the best hand. I was happy when Phil bet into me. I looked over at his chips and saw he had just enough left to put in two bets on the turn and one on the river so I just called. When he bet the turn as I expected, I raised him.

He stopped for a second looked over at me and said "you got it buddy?" I didn't say anything and after about 20 seconds he called. The river was a total blank, he checked, I bet and he called with his last chips. When I showed my hand he folded his face down and then yelled across the room to someone "they got me with the 95 and the KQ off suit over here! These players are trying to just give me their money!"

He said a little more, but I've forgotten exactly what. I know I played the hand perfectly and I was amused to say the least by the whole situation. It was like poker fantasy camp. "You too can come to Las Vegas, bust Phil Helmuth and get berated for making a very standard play!"

Unfortunately I couldn't come up with the good cards I needed at the right times and finished 185th.

WSOP Event #26 Preview!

Event #26 is $1,500 limit hold'em. This should be a soft field and limit hold'em is my best game so hopefully I can do well.

I'm feeling good after taking a day off today, but I do have to switch hotels moving from the Bellagio to Caeser's in the morning before I play which I always find to be a pain in the ass.

2009 WSOP Event #21 ($3,000 HORSE) Recap

First of all thanks to my wife Jen, for posting some of the little tid bits that I texted. I haven't done much texting and I have an old phone so I pretty much kept it to the bare bones information with none of the flavor.

We started the HORSE event with 452 players, who each had 9,000 chips. Unlike online HORSE tournaments where all the tables play one game for a certain amount of time and then switch, here every table independently plays 8 hands of each of the five games and then switches to the next one in the order: hold'em, Omaha-8, razz, stud, and stud-8.

I got what looked like a tough table draw to start. Two seats to my right was Ivan Demidov the runner up in the main event last year (who also made the final table of the WSOP Europe main event). To my left was "Miami" John Centano who is one of the old guard and has been a pro for a long time and to his left was Robert Misrachi. The rest of the table was a mix of OK or good, but not great players.

The interesting thing about many of the big name pros is they've almost all made their name playing no limit hold'em. That doesn't always mean they are great at the HORSE games which require a different set of skills.

The first few hours felt like warm up. We started out playing 75/150 stakes and it climbed slowly from there to 100/200, 150/300, and 200/400. My stack went down to 7,000, then up to 11,000 and settled back at 9,000. Not too exciting, but it did give me time to get a strong feel for how the other players at my table were playing.

In my second text update I made sure to include "These guys aren't so tough." I backed up that statement a few hours later.

Maybe my favorite hand of the tournament came up when we were playing 7 card stud. The stakes were up to 300/600 and I started with Q66 with one of the 6's up. Demidov raised the bring in to 300 with a jack showing, another player who had a 2 up called and I also called. On 4th street Demidov caught another jack, the other player caught a brick, and I hit a queen giving me two pair. Demidov bet out 600 and we both called. On 5th street Demidovn caught an 8, the other player paired his 2 and I bricked.

Now I was pretty sure I was in bad shape. I thought one or both of my opponents could easily have three of a kind here. It's often the case that if a player plays a hand for a raise that they have a pair and the most likely pair for them to have is a pair of whatever their up card is but I hadn't seen any other 6's or Q's the pot was getting big and I was almost positive if I hit I'd get paid off. 6th street brought another 8 for Demidov, an ace for the other player and a queen for me! BINGO!

Demidov bet again, the other player called, and I raised it to 1,200. Amazingly both players called. On the river Demidov bet out again! The other player just called and even though I knew I was going to raise before I did I peaked down to see what I caught. It was the fourth queen! BOOM! Quads baby!

I raise and Demidov reraised me! Now I thought there was a good chance that he'd made four jacks or four 8's. The other player folded (later he said he folded a small full house) and I made it four bets. Demidov thought for about 60 seconds before saying "I guess you could have sixes full and the pot is too big to fold," and then he called. I showed my hand and took down a massive pot.

By the time hold'em rolled around I finished him off. He was running short on chips and raised with K3 on the button. I three bet with 88, he raised again and I put him all in for his last chips. I dodged the king and sent him packing. A few hands later I took the last of Robert Misrachi's chips too! These guys aren't so tough!

At that point after 6 hours of play I had my 9,000 chip starting stack up to 32,000. We only had 2 more hours to play before calling it a day I was feeling like I'd be happy just cruising for the last two hours and moving on to day 2.

But that wasn't to be. The last two hours went almost as bad as they reasonably could have and I ended day one with only 10,300 chips.

It was 3 am when we called it a day and now I had to go back to my room, pack, and move over to the Bellagio where I'd be spending the next three nights. I'd called ahead that morning and let them know that I'd probably be checking in late, maybe as late as 4 am and I wanted to make sure I still had a room when I got there.

I made it over by around 3:45 went through the normal check in process but when the lady at the front desk handed me my keys she said "Wait here for a minute, the manager is coming down to show you to your room." "OK?" I replied. "I think I can find it on my own?" "No." She said. "You can't."


Of course I was intrigued. I made the logical jump pretty quick that they must be out of normal rooms and were going to be putting me in a special room that was no doubt going the be sweet.

When the manager got there he said "We're going to be putting you into one of our Villa Suites. You'll have to switch rooms tomorrow, but for tonight I hope you'll enjoy it." SCORE!

He led me to an unmarked door behind which was a bank of elevators. When we got out he led me down a long hall way that looked like it belonged in the White House. There were paitings and sculptures and chandeileres and flowers lining the whole hallway and it was at least twice wide as a normal hotel hallway with ceilings that were also twice as high.

We made it to suite 11 and they showed me into the nicest hotel room I've ever stayed in. Again there were paintings, a few sculptures, flowers and a slew of mirrors. There were four TVs: one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and one in each of the bathrooms. That's right there were two bathrooms, one with a huge jacuzzi tub and the other with a shower that had a door so tall that I couldn't reach the top of it (I can touch the ceiling in a normal hotel room). It was pretty cool.

The next day I woke up around noon, switched to a normal room and headed over to the Rio. There was a redraw for seats at the end of day 1, so I was at a new table with 7 new opponents. We started day 2 with 198 of the original 452 players and since I was fairly short stacked I knew I'd need to make some hands early.

Luckily I did. In fact I ran super duper crazy hot during the first two hours and took my stack from 10,000 (less than half of average) to 48,000 (twice average).

The ups and downs continued through hours three and four. I plumeted down to 17,000 and then came back to 35,000. On the last hand of hour four (level 12 of the tournament) I took a terrible bad beat. We were playing Omaha and my opponent raised under the gun with AKQ5. This is kind of a marginal hand to be raising first to act. I was in the big blind with A345 with the A4 of diamonds which is a better hand.

In Omaha hi-lo split the lowest hand (which must be 5 cards 8 and lower - which is why this games is often called Omaha 8 or better of just Omaha-8)and the highest hand split the pot (you have you use exactly two cards from your hand and three cards from the board to make each hand although you are allowed to use different cards from your hand for low and for high). Aces are both the lowest and highest card. With a few exceptions the best starting hands are the ones that have a lot of potential to win the low half of the pot with a little pop for high and not the other way around since it's much easier to make a strong low hand than a high one.

I thought about reraising before the flop, but instead opted to just call since I would be out of position for the entire hand. The flop came down QJ5 with the QJ of diamonds. I check raised my opponent and he three bet me with his two pair (a little thin if you ask me). The turn was the perfect card, the deuce of diamonds! Now I had the nut flush, and the nut low draw. I check raised my opponent again and he just called. Based on his flop action I assumed he had a set and I was thinking "No board pair!" as the river came out. The river came out and it was a 5. AHHHHHHHHH!

I checked, my opponent bet, and even though I was pretty sure I was beat the pot was so big that I had to call. When I saw his hand I realized that there were only three cards (two queens and one five since I had one of the fives) that could come on the river that would allow me to lose that pot.

There were 34,000 chips in that one pot and now instead of having over 50,000 I had less than 20,000 going to dinner.

But once again I managed to stage a comeback. I had it up to 40,000 and we were down to about 80 players when Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (he looks like Jesus) came to our table and sat down right next to me. I'd played for the full 10 levels of day 1 with Chris in 2006 and found him to be a very likeable guy.

Here is a name dropping story for you! So I said to Chris Ferguson "I was talking to Daniel Negranu and heard that you were pretty much playing every event you could this year." He said "That's right" I was about to ask him if he'd made any final tables when he said "I haven't cashed once yet." That made me feel better about my starting for 3 this year and my 1 for 10 showing in 2006. Ferguson is one of the best. He won the main event in 2000, he has at least two if not three other WSOP titles, I don't know how many other final tables and cashes, he's a certified genius, isn't sweating the money at all, and has the toughest possible table image. If he can blank 15+ tournaments in a row then 0 for 3 doesn't seem so bad!

Anyway I scooped a big pot against him in the Omaha. I had about 40,000 chips and we were playing 2,500/5,000 stakes. With around 70 players left I didn't exactly have the kind stack I could cruise into the money with, but it was still more likely that I'd make it than not.

At that time the following hand came up. Ferguson raised from the button and I looked down at AAK2 with the AK of clubs an the K2 of hearts. This is a premium hand. With the AA part of the hand I am ahead against 95%+ of his possible hands for the high half of the pot and the A2 is the best possible starting two cards for the low half. To top it off I have two flush possibilities. This one was a real monster with a ton of potential.

I reraised, he just called and the flop came down Q J 2 with two clubs. I wasn't their yet, but I had the nut flush draw, still had the aces and the nut straight draw. Of course I bet out, and he just called. The turn was the 6 of clubs. BINGO! Now I had the best possible high hand and I bet. He just called and the river came out an 8. This was a bad card for me. Since I'd paired my 2 I could no longer make a hand with 5 cards below 8. But since I was guaranteed to win the high half of the pot I bet. Ferguson reluctently called and showed two pair with no low! SCOOP!

Now I was up to 60K and that's about where I stayed for a long time winning small pots here and there to compensate for the blinds and antes I was losing. When we made the money around 10:30 I had 55K. It felt great to make the money in this event since it was a totally stacked field. On top of the dozens of pros that I recongnized (I won't list them all here) at one point on day 1 I saw Doyle Brunson (10 WSOP titles!) at the table to my left, Phil Ivey (5 WSOP titles and one already this year) at the table to my right, and Barry Greenstien behind me(he's made the final table of the $50,000 HORSE every year they've run it - which is three times in a row - even though there have been 100+ or 150+ entrants each time). These guys are the best players in the world without a doubt and play $4,000/$8,000 HORSE cash game against each other and a few other players. None of them made the money and I did.

My plan and my results after making the money were a microcosim of the tournament as a whole. I started off losing a few substantial pots and fell all the way down to 14,000 (the stakes were 4,000/8,000 at that point). Then I bounced back.

I went on a tear and took my stack all the way up to 140,000! At that point we were down to 32 players, and we only had about 90 minutes of play left before we'd call it a day and go on to day 3. The average stack was about 120,000 at that point and I was starting to think about the final table. But then I made three second best hands. One in the Omaha and two in the Razz and that was enough to do me in.

I finished 28th which paid $6,449! Hopefully I can take at least one more of these tournaments deep.

HORSE Recap under construction

I'm sure some of you are eagerly checking the blog to see what happened in the HORSE. I'll Keep you in suspense a little while longer, but wanted to let you know I'm working on the recap and it should be up soon.

In the money!

In the money!

57 People Left!

Just got this text from Dave:

57 people left average 70k. 58k for me. First time I've been a little nervous this year even thought I'm doing well. Chris Fergusan at my table

Only 9 people to go!

More HORSE Updates

Some more texts from Dave

At 6:40 - 20k left 90ish players left. Last hand before dinner lost 34k pot. Had nuts on turn and lost to 3 outs.

8:00 - Back in black! 50k!

According to pokerpages.com, which has an hourly commentary, there are about 70 players left making the average stack about 58,000.

-Jen

Texts from Dave

Dave's doing great! I got these two texts from him since he started today:

At 2:40 - Major rush, 28k!

At 4:20 - Absurd 1st 2 hours of day 2. Up to 48,000! 128 players left average is 32k. To the stables!

-Jen

Horse Update

Hi, this is Jen. Dave wanted me to put up a quick post saying that he's made it to day 2 of the HORSE tournament!

He is a little short, with 10,300 chips. He's in about 160th place out of 200. Average is about 20,000. 48 spots pay, with 48th being $5277, 8th is $32,647, and 1st is $311,899.

He starts up again today at 2:00 PST

WSOP Event #21 Preview!

Event #21 is $3,000 buy in HORSE. For those of you who might be new to my blog and don't know a lot about poker let me give you a brief explaination of how HORSE works. HORSE is an ackronymn for five different forms of poker (H)old'em, (O)maha, (R)azz, (S)tud, and Stud (E)ight or better. You play each game for a short period of time and then switch to the next game.

I find that most players seem comfortable with either the flop games (Hold'em and Omaha), or Stud and Stud-8 and otherwise good players sometimes have no clue what to do playing Razz (7 card stud where the lowest hand wins). The reason why many players don't know how to play Razz is the only time anyone ever plays it is as part of a mixed games format like HORSE. If you don't play much HORSE you might still play all of the other games, but not Razz. Unlike many of my opponents I play all of the games well and since I play as much HORSE as I can, I play a fair amount of Razz and feel very comfortable with it.

I've played three HORSE tournaments in my life with buy ins over $1,000. I've finished 2nd of 32, 13th of 60 (I was in first with 15 players left, but blew it), and 4th of 444. I have high expectations for this tournament.

I'm moving from the Rio over to the Bellagio tonight which is going to be a small pain in the ass. If I make day 2 of the HORSE (which starts at 5 pm) I'll be playing until 2 or 3 am, heading to the Bellagio to check in, and then I'll need to be back here at the Rio by 2 pm. As a result I might not have time for a detailed blog post, but I'll try to put up something.

Derailed by Dinner?

My Dad recently put a comment on my last post that it seems like I'm doing well until I have dinner and then I'm going broke and maybe what I'm eating is affecting me mentally.

First of all let me say that the main reason I'm going broke after dinner is around that time is when the stakes get high enough that it's much easier to go broke. In the first two tournaments (which were limit tournaments) the stakes were so low in the first few hours compared to the number of chips we had that it's near impossible to go broke. In fact only 1 or 2 players in of the several hundred entrants went broke in the first hour and only a handful in the second hour. But by the time hour 5 or 6 rolls around the stakes are high enough that a few (or even one) bad hands can send you packing.

With that said, my diet has constantly been on my mind while I'm here. I know from past experience how draining it can be to eat restaurant food day after day. From the day that I got here (and even in the days leading up to my departure) I've been trying to make the best food decisions that I can. The biggest problem is the lack of easily available options (no grocery store nearby and no kitchen in my hotel room), but I think I've been doing a good job so far and a third of the way through my trip I still feel good physically and mentally.

Thanks for he comment Dad!

Changing topics for a moment. This is my 500th blog post! When I started this blog it was just a way to avoid making a ton of phone calls to report my results at the 2006 WSOP. But it's turned into so much more. Thanks to everyone who reads!